The locally projected Diocesan church closings continue to expose the failed leadership from its clerical administrative ranks. The political and financial machinations of Bishops is obviously juxtaposed to the faithful body that is still standing and trying to preserve the good that is left of The Catholic Church, i.e. the faith and its sacred spaces.

The shuttering of generational parishes should and will bring scrutiny to where these Bishops’ financial and political priorities lie. It’s ironic how a a soon to be closed Catholic Church in Fredonia, that has been paid for many times over and over for the last 124 years by her ancestors and current congregants, will likely be acquired by a public entity utilizing public funds, the source of which includes the very parishioners who who paid for the church in the first place. This is a disturbing alliance of State and the Church benefiting at the expense of others, not to mention the sacrilege of trading the sacred for the secular.

Keep in mind as Church doors close, The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has been a party to, and been a continued recipient of up to a billion dollars of USA taxpayer funds since the law-breaking malfeasance of the Biden administration open border policy for illegal immigration resettlement.

Overall, this illegal immigration racket is much more human tragedy and less charity. Statistically, there are half a million unaccompanied minors, and still counting, that have come over the border and are unaccounted for.

The majority of them may never be found and are victims of unimaginable crimes, mostly human trafficking. Sixty percent of the adult females are brutally raped and trafficked by the cartels during or after their entry. All this is a tragedy of unimaginable proportions not to mention the cultural and financial impact on the citizens of the United States.

The incoming administration has made it well known that all NGOs and government officials who financially benefited can be held criminally responsible for participating in the illegal immigration grift. The blanket defense that the Bishops and other NGOs were operating under the auspices of the authority of the U.S. government may not be a defense if the government themselves were breaking the law. Being downwind from a conspiracy to defraud the US does not exonerate you.

Bishops need to get the memo. “If you are closing churches it shows government grift is not the answer to any of your financial woes.”

William Burns is a Fredonia resident.