Rorate Caeli

Albenga-Imperia: Bp. Oliveri responds to Italian media
-Plus: Oliveri-hatred by liberals comes from 1980

Several different Italian (and non-Italian) papers have reported on an upcoming intervention that would impair the governance of Bp. Mario Oliveri, of Albenga-Imperia, generally considered a conservative and friend of Traditional practices.

Fr. Federico Lombardi confirmed to The Tablet today that the Vatican's new one-edged sword (it only cuts to the right) will get into action in Albenga-Imperia soon:

Vatican says Italian diocese facing investigation over alleged misbehaviour of priests

24 October 2014 14:35 by Hannah Roberts in Rome

Pope Francis has ordered an inquiry into an Italian bishop over the alleged behaviour of some of its priests.

The apostolic visitor will assess the capability of Bishop Mario Oliveri, who has been in charge of the diocese for 25 years.

Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi told The Tablet that the diocese “may be expecting an apostolic visitator,” but would not disclose any further details.


The poor bishop made a statement (possibly before this confirmation by Lombardi), saying the following:

No "commissioning" procedure is in place concerning the Diocese of Albenga-Imperia by the Holy See, and no nomination of possible episcopal figures.
...


I will strive with all my strength to live my Christian life and my apostolic ministry, in thanksgiving, ordering and guiding all things so that God be recognized and glorified by all and in all things. With the help of God, I will commit myself so that my life will not be different from the teaching I will propose - in the name of Christ, the only Teacher - in communion of mind and heart with the successor of Peter and all the Church. I will have constantly in mind that I will have the title of being called Father and Master only insofar as I will represent truly the merciful love of the only Father who is in Heaven, and the only Truth that God has revealed in Christ Jesus. [Source, in Italian]
***

From another edition of The Tablet, published on November 20, 1999, we have a report on an event well-known by British Catholics at the time -- a scandal happening right before John Paul II's own glorious Synod on the Family, that would lead to his majestic Familiaris Consortio, that merely repeated the unchangeable doctrine and discipline of the Church on marriage and family, and is now the object of Kasper's and Forte's derision and hatred.

Mario Oliveri, a diplomat at the nunciature in Great Britain at the time, did something that would put the heterodox against him forever:

Hume's mission impossible

CLIFFORD LONGLEY

In 1980 there was a congress in Liverpool and a synod of bishops in Rome. The latter destroyed the hopes raised by the former, and forced Cardinal Hume and Archbishop Worlock to take a more conservative line.

CARDINAL Basil Hume and Archbishop Derek Worlock agreed to allow a public debate on contraception at the National Pastoral Congress in Liverpool in 1980, 12 years after Pope Paul VI's encyclical Humanae Vitae had reaffirmed the traditional ban. The congress was well aware that the international synod of bishops on the family, due to be held in Rome later that year, would be discussing the whole issue of sex and marriage. The congress was conducted against the background of a plethora of right-wing denunciations (technically known as delations) to Rome of the entire proceedings, on the grounds that it was an unrepresentative liberal conspiracy to overthrow the Church's established teaching on contraception.

Archbishop Bruno Heim, the Pope's representative in Great Britain, had been present in person and generally supportive. But his deputy at the Apostolic Delegation in Wimbledon, Mgr Mario Oliveri, was deeply suspicious. While Heim was away ill, he allowed himself to become a channel through which some extremely conservative Catholics could denounce the congress to the Vatican. One paper he forwarded was headed "REASONS WHY THE NATIONAL PASTORAL CONGRESS OUGHT TO BE STOPPED", and another complained that the congress delegates "appeared to be drawn, on the whole, from either those holding progressive views or from amongst those who know little or nothing about the nature of the Church". It went on to appeal to the Pope to visit England in person, to "help English Catholics to defend the Faith of their Fathers, for the sake of their children".

Worlock complained that these papers had gone to Rome without the bishops being given a chance to comment on them. Oliveri replied that the bishops had to take seriously the complaints of the people who had written to him.

Well, now we know why the heterodox want his blood so much: they have wanted his head for 35 years!