Strickland made the comments in response to a post on X (formerly Twitter) by Crisis Editor-in-Chief Eric Sammons.
“I wish our bishops knew the spiritual blessings that would be unleashed on the Church by a simple and sincere public apology for shutting down public Masses during COVID,” Sammons wrote on Saturday.
“Eric, I offer my apology as you have requested, I was duped by the media hype and should have been stronger,” the bishop emeritus of Tyler, Texas, wrote on X. “[Let] us pray for all shepherds to have stronger supernatural faith as we face more challenges in the future. May Christ be our Light in whatever darkness we face.”
Eric, I offer my apology as you have requested. I was duped by the media hype and should have been stronger. Let’s us pray for all shepherds to have stronger supernatural faith as we face more challenges in the future.
May Christ be our Light in whatever darkness we face. https://t.co/RqwGQ1FK0d
— Bishop J. Strickland (@BishStrickland) September 7, 2024
“Thank you, Your Excellency. This means more than you can imagine to so many of us,” Sammons wrote in response. “Be assured of my continued prayers for your fruitful apostolic ministry.”
Strickland has been an outspoken opponent of other coercive COVID restrictions, such as mandatory COVID jabs.
“The limits of temporal power ends at freedom of conscience,” he said in January 2022. “We’re obligated to seek to have a well-formed conscience, to know the truth. And it’s hard to have a well-formed conscience when you can’t get the truth … and it’s all politicized and propagandized.”