Bishop Strickland Becomes a Victim for the Church He Loves, by Kevin Wells

By Kevin Wells, Crisis Magazine, Nov. 13, 2023

Kevin Wells is a former Major League Baseball writer, Catholic speaker, and author of Priest and Beggar: The Heroic Life of Venerable Aloysius Schwartz (Ignatius Press). His best-selling book The Priests We Need to Save the Church was published by Sophia Institute Press in 2019.

The removal of Bishop Joseph Strickland is the culmination of a process that began on a cold morning in Baltimore five years ago today.

I remember the evening my childhood died. It was cold and just before Christmas; the lights were strung up on storefronts. Far across the parking lot, I could hear the ding-dings from a Salvation Army bell in front of the K-Mart. A pay phone rang, and I reached for the receiver. Thereafter, the lights all around began to bleed.

My father used to take our growing family to Pappy’s Pizzeria for its two-for-one Tuesday-night pizza special. Pappy’s had a piano that played by itself and a large glass window that kids pressed their faces up against to admire the pizza-tossers. …

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