“Pillar-ying” Bishop Strickland, by Janet Smith

By Janet Smith, Crisis Magazine, Feb. 12, 2021

Janet E. Smith, Ph.D., is a retired professor of moral theology.

Now that the growing tyranny of our government and the media have developed a “cancel culture,” the title of a recent article from The Pillar criticizing Bishop Joseph Strickland for his views on the COVID-19 vaccines is remarkably tone deaf: “Will the Vatican address vaccine confusion, and the bishop at its center?” The Pillar—a new Catholic media outlet founded by former Catholic News Agency journalists JD Flynn (the author of this piece) and Ed Condon—is calling on the Holy Father basically to “cancel” a bishop. But not a bishop engaged in sexual or financial misconduct, or a bishop espousing heresy, but a bishop willing to take an unpopular stand against vaccines—vaccines that are problematic for several reasons.

It is hard to read this article without concluding that Flynn has some kind of odd vendetta against Strickland. He begins by resurrecting an old charge against Strickland for supposedly misunderstanding what the U.S. bishops were voting on in respect to the language regarding abortion and the election as a “preeminent priority.”  …