SO WILL HE BLESS THE CAMPAIGN HEADQUARTERS OF ALL THE CANDIDATES?

 

By Tim Rohr

In "Do's and Don'ts Guidelines During Election Season" published by the U.S. Council of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), the bishops set out a couple of provisions of interest relative to the above action by Archbishop Jimenez:

• Do not endorse or oppose candidates, political parties, or groups of candidates, or take any action that reasonably could be construed as endorsement or opposition.

• Do not make available the use of church facilities, assets, or members for partisan political purposes.

Jimenez violates both. 

First, unless, Jimenez plans to not only bless every candidate's headquarters, but also join each of them in a Marine Corps Drive wave, then Jimenez' action - as demonstrated in the above video - can certainly "be construed as endorsement" of this particular gubernatorial team. 

For now though, since there is no mention by Jimenez of his plan to act similarly with each of the candidate teams, Jimenez' blessing of the Josh & Tina headquarters, not to mention Jimenez "walking the sidewalk during the wave," is not just "construed" as his support for Josh and Tina, but is in fact a blatant statement of support. Certainly, Frank Arriola's letter positions it as such. 

Second, while Jimenez' action did not "use church facilities," it did use assets and members (himself and his Vicar General, Fr. Joseph Anore) for clear "partisan political purposes."

Jimenez may argue that he is not subject to the USCCB, and he would be correct. Guam is not a member of the USCCB and is, rather, a member of CEPAC, the bishops conference of Oceania. However, such a reasoning, if he uses it, is a head fake. Jimenez, like Apuron, adopts the USCCB guidelines when it is convenient and ignores them when it's not. 

There is also the argument that no bishop is subject to a regional or national council. And that's true. In fact, a bishop isn't subject to anyone, not even the pope, except in very grave matters - which we saw with Apuron. 

So, yah. Jimenez can do whatever he wants. And that's what he's doing: whatever he wants...just like Apuron. 

Someone asked me why Jimenez thought it was okay to do this. I answered that Jimenez leaves us only two choices: he's stupid or he's compromised. The reply was: "he's not stupid."