By John Bingham, Religious Affairs Editor
(The Telegraph) A group of parishes is preparing
what could be the first step towards a formal split in the Church of
England over issues such as homosexuality, with the creation of a new
“shadow synod” vowing to uphold traditional teaching.
Representatives of almost a dozen congregations in the Home Counties
are due to gather in a church hall in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, later this
week for the first session of what they say could eventually develop
into an alternative Anglican church in England.
Organisers, drawn from the conservative evangelical wing of
Anglicanism, say they have no immediate plans to break away - but are
setting up the “embryonic” structures that could be used to do so if the
established church moves further in what they see as a liberal
direction.
The new alliance will be viewed as a “church within a church” but founders have not ruled out full separation if, for example, the Church of England offers blessing-style services for same-sex unions - a move expected to be considered by bishops in the next few months... (continued)
Link:
Showing posts with label liberals. Show all posts
Showing posts with label liberals. Show all posts
Sunday, August 28, 2016
Monday, November 17, 2014
Millennials Prefer a Classic Sanctuary, Turned Off by Trendy Church Buildings, Study Shows
By Stephanie Samuel, Christian Post Reporter
Millennials gravitate toward classic, quiet church spaces that feel authentic and provide a break from the busyness of a fast-paced, technological world, revealed a study commissioned by church architectural firms.
Online surveys administered to 843 young adults ages 18 to 29 by Christian research firm Barna Group and Cornerstone Knowledge Network, the market research organization created by church design firms Aspen Group and Cogun, found 67 percent chose the word "classic" to describe their ideal church. By contrast, 33 percent prefer a trendy church as their ideal.
"They don't want something created artificially for them; they don't want a bait and switch. What they want is something deeper and more authentic," Aspen Group AIA Architect Derek Degroot said of the survey results.
That search for authenticity translates into the look and sound Millennials prefer for their ideal church.
When asked to choose their preference between a church sanctuary and a church auditorium, 77 percent chose sanctuary. When shown four different kinds of church windows ranging from modern and least "churchy" to traditionally ornate, over a third of all respondents chose the most ornate stain glass window common to chapels. When shown four styles of church altars, the study showed that a majority of respondents chose altars that "are unambiguously Christian and are more traditional."
"Millennials are a very visual group," explained Barna Vice President of Publishing Roxanne Stone. "If they go into your church and they don't know where to go or it's ambiguous or they don't understand what something is for, they will move on."
Additionally, 78 percent of millennial respondents selected a quiet church as the ideal over a loud church.
The results seem to buck against the trends of the typical megachurch where the sanctuary is a vast space broken into several seating sections, congregants are treated to concert-like worship services, and the pastor preaches from a stage...(continued)
Link:
Millennials gravitate toward classic, quiet church spaces that feel authentic and provide a break from the busyness of a fast-paced, technological world, revealed a study commissioned by church architectural firms.
Online surveys administered to 843 young adults ages 18 to 29 by Christian research firm Barna Group and Cornerstone Knowledge Network, the market research organization created by church design firms Aspen Group and Cogun, found 67 percent chose the word "classic" to describe their ideal church. By contrast, 33 percent prefer a trendy church as their ideal.
"They don't want something created artificially for them; they don't want a bait and switch. What they want is something deeper and more authentic," Aspen Group AIA Architect Derek Degroot said of the survey results.
That search for authenticity translates into the look and sound Millennials prefer for their ideal church.
When asked to choose their preference between a church sanctuary and a church auditorium, 77 percent chose sanctuary. When shown four different kinds of church windows ranging from modern and least "churchy" to traditionally ornate, over a third of all respondents chose the most ornate stain glass window common to chapels. When shown four styles of church altars, the study showed that a majority of respondents chose altars that "are unambiguously Christian and are more traditional."
"Millennials are a very visual group," explained Barna Vice President of Publishing Roxanne Stone. "If they go into your church and they don't know where to go or it's ambiguous or they don't understand what something is for, they will move on."
Additionally, 78 percent of millennial respondents selected a quiet church as the ideal over a loud church.
The results seem to buck against the trends of the typical megachurch where the sanctuary is a vast space broken into several seating sections, congregants are treated to concert-like worship services, and the pastor preaches from a stage...(continued)
Link:
Thursday, October 16, 2014
Pope Francis revealing his take on Synod controversies in his private homilies?
By John-Henry Westen / LifeSiteNews.com
While Pope Francis has been silent about
many of the controversial matters being debated at the Synod, both in
the lead-up to the Synod and in the Synod Hall, veteran Vatican watchers
say he has been obliquely making his views known through other avenues,
including through some of his close advisors, as well his homilies at
his private morning masses.
When it comes to advisors, none have sparked more speculation than Cardinal Walter Kasper, with debate swirling for months about whether Pope Francis himself personally supports Cardinal Kasper’s controversial proposal to allow divorced and remarried Catholics to receive communion in some circumstances.
While the cardinal himself has repeatedly claimed the pope’s support, and Francis has repeatedly praised the cardinal on a personal level and his writing in general, no explicit confirmation of the pope’s position on the specific issue has been forthcoming. But in an explosive interview yesterday Kasper was arguably more explicit than ever before, bluntly telling Edward Pentin of Zenit that the pontiff “wants” the change. "Of course, the pope wants it and the world needs it," he said.
If so, it is hard to interpret a homily from Pope Francis on the morning of October 13, 2014, the day the controversial “mid-term” report was released, creating a firestorm inside and outside the Synod, as anything other than the pope strongly hinting at his views on this, and possibly other controversies at the ongoing Synod.
Indeed, even consummate Vatican journalist John Allen of the Boston Globe agreed, writing: “In his usual impromptu homily at morning Mass (Monday), Pope Francis seemed to prepare the ground for the (interim report), and the conflicting reactions it was destined to stir, by delivering a strong rebuke to rigid legalists of all stripes.”
During the homily, Pope Francis spoke of the “Doctors of the Law” who were “unable to understand the signs of the times.” They were, he said, “closed within their system, they had perfectly systemized the law, it was a masterpiece.
“Every Jew knew what they could do and what they could not do, how far they could go. It was all systemized. And they were safe there."
The pope noted that the Doctors of the Law "did not like” Jesus, he “was dangerous; doctrine was in danger, the doctrine of the law” which the theologians had formulated over the centuries. Pope Francis said that while the theologians had "done this out of love, to be faithful to God," they had become “closed", they had "simply forgotten history. They had forgotten that God is the God of the Law, but He is also the God of surprises."
Seeming to address one of the major sub themes of the Synod, that doctrine will never change, but pastoral practice should, Pope Francis said: "They did not understand that God is the God of surprises, that God is always new; He never denies himself, never says that what He said was wrong, never, but He always surprises us. They did not understand this and they closed themselves within that system that was created with the best of intentions.”
But while the pope seemed to frame the controversies of the Synod as a dispute between legalists and those who are open to God’s “surprises,” leading Synod Fathers who are concerned about attempts to change long-standing Church practice and teaching, have been arguing that the controversy is ultimately about whether or not the Church will conform “to the mentality of today’s world.”
Numerous Vatican Synod Fathers have voiced grave concerns both within and without the Synod hall over the last few days that the Synod mid-term report has indeed endangered assurance of doctrinal security, and with potentially grave consequences.
Most recently, Australian Cardinal George Pell said: "In seeking to be merciful, some want to open up Catholic teaching on marriage, divorce, civil unions, homosexuality in a radically liberalising direction, whose fruits we see in other Christian traditions.” He urged, “the task now is to reassure good practising Catholics that doctrinal changes are not possible; to urge people to take a deep breath, pause and to work to prevent deeper divisions and radicalising of factions.”
His remarks echo the even more blunt words of Cardinal Raymond Burke, who himself directly addressed Pope Francis in his criticisms of the Synod’s mid-term report, saying that a statement from the pope strongly re-affirming Church teaching is “long overdue.”
“The faithful and their good shepherds are looking to the Vicar of Christ for the confirmation of the Catholic faith and practice regarding marriage which is the first cell of the life of the Church,” he added.
The mid-term report, he said, proposes views that many Synod fathers “cannot accept,” and that they “as faithful shepherds of the flock cannot accept.”
The push to radically alter so-called “pastoral practice” without simultaneously affecting doctrine is not possible. One African bishop who was appraised of the situation at the Synod reportedly wept at the proposals on the table. “Oh my God, what are they doing? The people will soon get hold of declarations like these and they'll prefer to become evangelicals or even Muslims than remain Catholic! What are they doing in Rome? Oh my God, oh my God!,” he declared.
It’s not the first time the pope has seemed to address tensions of the Synod in his morning homilies. Before the official launch of the Synod, while various polarized positions were being laid out in the media via book releases and such, Pope Francis sounded a remarkably similar tone to Monday’s homily.
“It’s the ruling class which closes the door to God’s way of salvation,” Pope Francis said, referring to Church leaders, in the homily at his private Mass on October 4. “This attitude is quite different from that of the people of God, who understand and accept salvation brought to them through Jesus,” he added. “Their leaders, on the other hand, reduce salvation to the fulfilment of the 613 commandments they have created through their intellectual and theological fervour.”
“These leaders,” the pope said, “don’t believe in mercy and forgiveness but simply in sacrifices.” He urged asking ourselves: “How do I want to be saved? On my own? Through a spirituality which is good, but fixed and clear so that there are no risks? Or following the footsteps of Jesus who always surprises us, opening doors to that mystery of God’s mercy and pardon?”
That homily too was interpreted by veteran Vatican watchers as Pope Francis staking out a position on the matters of the Synod. “The Pope has hinted in homilies, addresses and interviews,” said the Telegraph’s Vatican correspondent Nick Squires, “that he is in favour of adopting a more ‘merciful’ approach towards remarried divorcees who want to receive the Sacrament.”
Link:
Related:
When it comes to advisors, none have sparked more speculation than Cardinal Walter Kasper, with debate swirling for months about whether Pope Francis himself personally supports Cardinal Kasper’s controversial proposal to allow divorced and remarried Catholics to receive communion in some circumstances.
While the cardinal himself has repeatedly claimed the pope’s support, and Francis has repeatedly praised the cardinal on a personal level and his writing in general, no explicit confirmation of the pope’s position on the specific issue has been forthcoming. But in an explosive interview yesterday Kasper was arguably more explicit than ever before, bluntly telling Edward Pentin of Zenit that the pontiff “wants” the change. "Of course, the pope wants it and the world needs it," he said.
If so, it is hard to interpret a homily from Pope Francis on the morning of October 13, 2014, the day the controversial “mid-term” report was released, creating a firestorm inside and outside the Synod, as anything other than the pope strongly hinting at his views on this, and possibly other controversies at the ongoing Synod.
Indeed, even consummate Vatican journalist John Allen of the Boston Globe agreed, writing: “In his usual impromptu homily at morning Mass (Monday), Pope Francis seemed to prepare the ground for the (interim report), and the conflicting reactions it was destined to stir, by delivering a strong rebuke to rigid legalists of all stripes.”
During the homily, Pope Francis spoke of the “Doctors of the Law” who were “unable to understand the signs of the times.” They were, he said, “closed within their system, they had perfectly systemized the law, it was a masterpiece.
“Every Jew knew what they could do and what they could not do, how far they could go. It was all systemized. And they were safe there."
The pope noted that the Doctors of the Law "did not like” Jesus, he “was dangerous; doctrine was in danger, the doctrine of the law” which the theologians had formulated over the centuries. Pope Francis said that while the theologians had "done this out of love, to be faithful to God," they had become “closed", they had "simply forgotten history. They had forgotten that God is the God of the Law, but He is also the God of surprises."
Seeming to address one of the major sub themes of the Synod, that doctrine will never change, but pastoral practice should, Pope Francis said: "They did not understand that God is the God of surprises, that God is always new; He never denies himself, never says that what He said was wrong, never, but He always surprises us. They did not understand this and they closed themselves within that system that was created with the best of intentions.”
But while the pope seemed to frame the controversies of the Synod as a dispute between legalists and those who are open to God’s “surprises,” leading Synod Fathers who are concerned about attempts to change long-standing Church practice and teaching, have been arguing that the controversy is ultimately about whether or not the Church will conform “to the mentality of today’s world.”
Numerous Vatican Synod Fathers have voiced grave concerns both within and without the Synod hall over the last few days that the Synod mid-term report has indeed endangered assurance of doctrinal security, and with potentially grave consequences.
Most recently, Australian Cardinal George Pell said: "In seeking to be merciful, some want to open up Catholic teaching on marriage, divorce, civil unions, homosexuality in a radically liberalising direction, whose fruits we see in other Christian traditions.” He urged, “the task now is to reassure good practising Catholics that doctrinal changes are not possible; to urge people to take a deep breath, pause and to work to prevent deeper divisions and radicalising of factions.”
His remarks echo the even more blunt words of Cardinal Raymond Burke, who himself directly addressed Pope Francis in his criticisms of the Synod’s mid-term report, saying that a statement from the pope strongly re-affirming Church teaching is “long overdue.”
“The faithful and their good shepherds are looking to the Vicar of Christ for the confirmation of the Catholic faith and practice regarding marriage which is the first cell of the life of the Church,” he added.
The mid-term report, he said, proposes views that many Synod fathers “cannot accept,” and that they “as faithful shepherds of the flock cannot accept.”
The push to radically alter so-called “pastoral practice” without simultaneously affecting doctrine is not possible. One African bishop who was appraised of the situation at the Synod reportedly wept at the proposals on the table. “Oh my God, what are they doing? The people will soon get hold of declarations like these and they'll prefer to become evangelicals or even Muslims than remain Catholic! What are they doing in Rome? Oh my God, oh my God!,” he declared.
It’s not the first time the pope has seemed to address tensions of the Synod in his morning homilies. Before the official launch of the Synod, while various polarized positions were being laid out in the media via book releases and such, Pope Francis sounded a remarkably similar tone to Monday’s homily.
“It’s the ruling class which closes the door to God’s way of salvation,” Pope Francis said, referring to Church leaders, in the homily at his private Mass on October 4. “This attitude is quite different from that of the people of God, who understand and accept salvation brought to them through Jesus,” he added. “Their leaders, on the other hand, reduce salvation to the fulfilment of the 613 commandments they have created through their intellectual and theological fervour.”
“These leaders,” the pope said, “don’t believe in mercy and forgiveness but simply in sacrifices.” He urged asking ourselves: “How do I want to be saved? On my own? Through a spirituality which is good, but fixed and clear so that there are no risks? Or following the footsteps of Jesus who always surprises us, opening doors to that mystery of God’s mercy and pardon?”
That homily too was interpreted by veteran Vatican watchers as Pope Francis staking out a position on the matters of the Synod. “The Pope has hinted in homilies, addresses and interviews,” said the Telegraph’s Vatican correspondent Nick Squires, “that he is in favour of adopting a more ‘merciful’ approach towards remarried divorcees who want to receive the Sacrament.”
Link:
Related:
- ¡Hagan lío! Synod Bishops revolt against leadership and get their way – UPDATE!
- Document-gate
- DAILY ROME REPORT
- Statement on Cardinal Kasper Interview
- Reports of Circuli Minores now available on Vatican website
- What’s the liberals next move?
- The Robber Synod!
- ¡Hagan lío! Synod Bishops revolt against leadership and get their way – UPDATE!
- Burke Blasts Back
- Blindsided: Press received document before synod fathers
- Did no one know that when the MSM got hold of the ‘Relatio’, people were going to go bananas?
- Revolution on the Way - Synod Coverage
- “The truly bizarre document that the Vatican released Monday”
- Cardinal Burke says statement from Pope Francis defending Catholic teaching is ‘long overdue’
- Cardinal Burke: Synod's mid-term report "lacks a solid foundation in the Sacred Scriptures and the Magisterium"
- Confused, Contradictory Chaos in Rome
- Magister: Pitched Battle on a Mad Monday at the Synod, Our conclusion: Bruno Forte made up homosexuality paragraphs by himself
- Press Grill Vatican on Divorce, Remarriage, and Homosexuality
- VIDEO: Card. Burke’s clear, articulate, blunt answers about divorce, remarriage, Card. Kasper
Synod Bishops revolt against leadership and get their way – UPDATE!
From Father Z:
Apparently the bishops at the Synod are tired of being manipulated.
They created a little lío of their own.
In full view of the Pope, they rose up pretty much as a body and rebelled against the way Card.
Baldisseri, who seems to be the chief architect of what may have been a pre-determined agenda, has been handling them.
I am reading Marco Tosatti’s piece at La Stampa.
My translation:
Link:
Related:
They created a little lío of their own.
In full view of the Pope, they rose up pretty much as a body and rebelled against the way Card.
Baldisseri, who seems to be the chief architect of what may have been a pre-determined agenda, has been handling them.
I am reading Marco Tosatti’s piece at La Stampa.
My translation:
Synod, more censorship, protests
The General Secretary of the Synod [Card. Balidsseri] announced the decision not to publish the reports of the Circuli Minores [subcommittees by language groups, tasked with contributing elements to the final report]. The announcement provoked the protest of Card. Erdo [the president or chairman for this Synod], and numerous other Synodal Fathers. The Pope, silent and very serious. At last, Fr. Lombardi announced that the reports of the commissions would be made public.
[...]
Erdo took the floor, implicitly distancing himself from the report that bore his name, and saying that if that “disceptatio” had been made public, then the others of the Circulo Minores ought to be made public.
His speech was followed by an avalanche from many others along the same line, underscored by thunderous applause.
The Secretary of the Synod, Card. Balidisseri, was watching the Pope, as if in search of advice and lights, and the Pope remained silent and very serious.
Silent also were the Under-secretaries of the Synod, Fabene, Forte, Schoenborn and Maradiaga. [What a list.]
Kasper wasn’t there.
Finally, Fr. Lombardi announced that the reports of the Commission would be made public.This is a big deal because the bishops didn’t simply roll over and let the appointees running the Synod run them over.... (continued)
Link:
Related:
- Document-gate
- DAILY ROME REPORT
- Statement on Cardinal Kasper Interview
- Reports of Circuli Minores now available on Vatican website
- What’s the liberals next move?
- The Robber Synod!
- ¡Hagan lío! Synod Bishops revolt against leadership and get their way – UPDATE!
- Burke Blasts Back
- Blindsided: Press received document before synod fathers
- Did no one know that when the MSM got hold of the ‘Relatio’, people were going to go bananas?
- Revolution on the Way - Synod Coverage
- “The truly bizarre document that the Vatican released Monday”
- Cardinal Burke says statement from Pope Francis defending Catholic teaching is ‘long overdue’
- Cardinal Burke: Synod's mid-term report "lacks a solid foundation in the Sacred Scriptures and the Magisterium"
- Confused, Contradictory Chaos in Rome
- Magister: Pitched Battle on a Mad Monday at the Synod, Our conclusion: Bruno Forte made up homosexuality paragraphs by himself
- Press Grill Vatican on Divorce, Remarriage, and Homosexuality
- VIDEO: Card. Burke’s clear, articulate, blunt answers about divorce, remarriage, Card. Kasper
DAILY ROME REPORT
Related:
- Document-gate
- Reports of Circuli Minores now available on Vatican website
- What’s the liberals next move?
- The Robber Synod!
- ¡Hagan lío! Synod Bishops revolt against leadership and get their way – UPDATE!
- Burke Blasts Back
- Blindsided: Press received document before synod fathers
- Did no one know that when the MSM got hold of the ‘Relatio’, people were going to go bananas?
- Revolution on the Way - Synod Coverage
- “The truly bizarre document that the Vatican released Monday”
- Cardinal Burke says statement from Pope Francis defending Catholic teaching is ‘long overdue’
- Cardinal Burke: Synod's mid-term report "lacks a solid foundation in the Sacred Scriptures and the Magisterium"
- Confused, Contradictory Chaos in Rome
- Magister: Pitched Battle on a Mad Monday at the Synod, Our conclusion: Bruno Forte made up homosexuality paragraphs by himself
- Press Grill Vatican on Divorce, Remarriage, and Homosexuality
- VIDEO: Card. Burke’s clear, articulate, blunt answers about divorce, remarriage, Card. Kasper
Document-gate
Related:
- Reports of Circuli Minores now available on Vatican website
- What’s the liberals next move?
- The Robber Synod!
- ¡Hagan lío! Synod Bishops revolt against leadership and get their way – UPDATE!
- Burke Blasts Back
- Blindsided: Press received document before synod fathers
- Did no one know that when the MSM got hold of the ‘Relatio’, people were going to go bananas?
- Revolution on the Way - Synod Coverage
- “The truly bizarre document that the Vatican released Monday”
- Cardinal Burke says statement from Pope Francis defending Catholic teaching is ‘long overdue’
- Cardinal Burke: Synod's mid-term report "lacks a solid foundation in the Sacred Scriptures and the Magisterium"
- Confused, Contradictory Chaos in Rome
- Magister: Pitched Battle on a Mad Monday at the Synod, Our conclusion: Bruno Forte made up homosexuality paragraphs by himself
- Press Grill Vatican on Divorce, Remarriage, and Homosexuality
- VIDEO: Card. Burke’s clear, articulate, blunt answers about divorce, remarriage, Card. Kasper
Wednesday, October 15, 2014
Burke Blasts Back
Link:
Related:
- Blindsided: Press received document before synod fathers
- Did no one know that when the MSM got hold of the ‘Relatio’, people were going to go bananas?
- Revolution on the Way - Synod Coverage
- “The truly bizarre document that the Vatican released Monday”
- Cardinal Burke says statement from Pope Francis defending Catholic teaching is ‘long overdue’
- Cardinal Burke: Synod's mid-term report "lacks a solid foundation in the Sacred Scriptures and the Magisterium"
- Confused, Contradictory Chaos in Rome
- Magister: Pitched Battle on a Mad Monday at the Synod, Our conclusion: Bruno Forte made up homosexuality paragraphs by himself
- Press Grill Vatican on Divorce, Remarriage, and Homosexuality
- VIDEO: Card. Burke’s clear, articulate, blunt answers about divorce, remarriage, Card. Kasper
Tuesday, October 14, 2014
Blindsided: Press received document before synod fathers
Related:
- Did no one know that when the MSM got hold of the ‘Relatio’, people were going to go bananas?
- Revolution on the Way - Synod Coverage
- “The truly bizarre document that the Vatican released Monday”
- Cardinal Burke says statement from Pope Francis defending Catholic teaching is ‘long overdue’
- Cardinal Burke: Synod's mid-term report "lacks a solid foundation in the Sacred Scriptures and the Magisterium"
- Confused, Contradictory Chaos in Rome
- Magister: Pitched Battle on a Mad Monday at the Synod, Our conclusion: Bruno Forte made up homosexuality paragraphs by himself
- Press Grill Vatican on Divorce, Remarriage, and Homosexuality
- VIDEO: Card. Burke’s clear, articulate, blunt answers about divorce, remarriage, Card. Kasper
Thursday, September 4, 2014
Wednesday, August 20, 2014
Wisconsin priest punished for celebrating Mass with woman (priest impersonator) dies
By Mary Wisniewski
(Reuters) - A Wisconsin Jesuit who was punished by Catholic Church authorities for celebrating Mass with a woman non-priest in violation of Church rules has died at the age of 94, his nephew said on Wednesday.
Rev. Bill Brennan, a Milwaukee-area peace activist who had done missionary work in Central America, died of natural causes earlier this month, according to his nephew Timothy Brennan. A funeral was held this week.
Bill Brennan celebrated Mass in late 2012 with Janice Sevre-Duszynska of the Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests. Though Brennan remained Jesuit and could hear confessions with other Jesuits, he was no longer able to celebrate Mass or other sacraments publicly under his Church sanction.
Women are forbidden by the Church to become priests, but some have been ordained and celebrate Mass outside of the official Church. Catholic clergy who support the women can face punishment.
Timothy Brennan said his uncle didn't complain about the restrictions imposed on him.
"He wanted there to be equal rights for women, across the board ... ," Brennan said of his uncle. "He recognized them as the backbone of the Church."
When asked about the possibility of women priests, Pope Francis has said "that door is closed."
Brennan's body has been donated for scientific research.
(Reporting by Mary Wisniewski in Chicago; Editing by Eric Beech)
Link:
Related:
(Reuters) - A Wisconsin Jesuit who was punished by Catholic Church authorities for celebrating Mass with a woman non-priest in violation of Church rules has died at the age of 94, his nephew said on Wednesday.
Rev. Bill Brennan, a Milwaukee-area peace activist who had done missionary work in Central America, died of natural causes earlier this month, according to his nephew Timothy Brennan. A funeral was held this week.
Bill Brennan celebrated Mass in late 2012 with Janice Sevre-Duszynska of the Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests. Though Brennan remained Jesuit and could hear confessions with other Jesuits, he was no longer able to celebrate Mass or other sacraments publicly under his Church sanction.
Women are forbidden by the Church to become priests, but some have been ordained and celebrate Mass outside of the official Church. Catholic clergy who support the women can face punishment.
Timothy Brennan said his uncle didn't complain about the restrictions imposed on him.
"He wanted there to be equal rights for women, across the board ... ," Brennan said of his uncle. "He recognized them as the backbone of the Church."
When asked about the possibility of women priests, Pope Francis has said "that door is closed."
Brennan's body has been donated for scientific research.
(Reporting by Mary Wisniewski in Chicago; Editing by Eric Beech)
Link:
Related:
- Priest stripped of duties for celebrating Mass with woman priest
- Lady Tambourine Priest
- Former Nun in Kentucky Simulates Ordination to the Priesthood
- Catholic Priest Faces Dismissal for Support of Women's Ordination
- Female
priestspush Catholic boundaries - Women Priests? No. An explanation.
- Event explores topic of women as ordained Catholic priests
- 'Being a woman priest is what I feel I am called to do'
- (Excommunicated) Priest takes church to task for not ordaining women
- Women "Priests" Become Catholics
Monday, January 20, 2014
Top pope ally Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga urges Vatican doctrine chief Archbishop Gerhard Mueller to loosen up
By Tom Heneghan, Religion Editor
PARIS (Reuters) - An influential aide to Pope Francis criticized the Vatican's doctrinal watchdog on Monday and urged the conservative prelate to be more flexible about reforms being discussed in the Roman Catholic Church.
Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga, the head of a "kitchen cabinet" the pope created to draw up reform proposals, said that Archbishop Gerhard Mueller - who has opposed any loosening of Church rules on divorce - was a classic German theology professor who thought too much in rigid black-and-white terms.
"The world isn't like that, my brother," Rodriguez said in a German newspaper interview, rhetorically addressing Mueller in a rare public criticism among senior Church figures.
"You should be a bit flexible when you hear other voices, so you don't just listen and say, 'here is the wall'," Rodriguez said in an interview with the daily Koelner Stadt-Anzeiger.
Rodriguez, archbishop of the Honduran capital Tegucigalpa, did not cite any possible reforms in particular but said the pope's critics, such as those upset by his attacks on capitalism, were "people who don't understand reality."
Former Pope Benedict picked Mueller in 2012 to head the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), the successor office to the Inquisition. Benedict ran that office as a powerful and feared guardian of Church orthodoxy for 24 years as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, until he was elected pope in 2005.
But its influence has waned under Francis, who soon after his March 2013 election was reported as telling visiting South American priests and nuns not to worry if the CDF wrote to them criticizing what they were doing.
NO TO CHANGING DIVORCE RULE
In an article in the Vatican daily last October, Mueller firmly rejected growing demands for divorced and remarried Catholics to be reinstated as full members of the Church.
Catholics who divorce and remarry in a civil ceremony are excluded from communion because the Church teaches that Jesus declared marriage an indissoluble bond.
With divorce on the rise, more Catholics are asking Rome to show mercy for them. German bishops have been in the forefront of reform thinking and one archdiocese even published guidelines on how to readmit them, which prompted Mueller's article.
The Vatican is due to consider reforming its rules on divorce at a worldwide synod of bishops next October.
Mueller has also strongly defended Bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst, who reaped stiff criticism from German Catholics and the title "luxury bishop" in the media after it was revealed he spent at least 30 million euros ($40.69 million) on a new residence complex.
Tebartz-van Elst's grand plans were so far from the modest approach favoured by the Argentine-born pontiff that Rome sent an envoy to inspect his diocese and later sent him off to a monastery for a leave of absence pending a final decision.
Rodriguez did not think Tebartz-van Elst would return to Limburg and said Latin Americans like himself and the pope found it hard to understand spending so much money for opulent features such as a 15,000-euro free-standing bath tub.
"For most people, a shower and a toilet are enough," he said. "They're enough for the pope in his three-room apartment too." ($1 = 0.7373 euros)
Link:
PARIS (Reuters) - An influential aide to Pope Francis criticized the Vatican's doctrinal watchdog on Monday and urged the conservative prelate to be more flexible about reforms being discussed in the Roman Catholic Church.
Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga, the head of a "kitchen cabinet" the pope created to draw up reform proposals, said that Archbishop Gerhard Mueller - who has opposed any loosening of Church rules on divorce - was a classic German theology professor who thought too much in rigid black-and-white terms.
"The world isn't like that, my brother," Rodriguez said in a German newspaper interview, rhetorically addressing Mueller in a rare public criticism among senior Church figures.
"You should be a bit flexible when you hear other voices, so you don't just listen and say, 'here is the wall'," Rodriguez said in an interview with the daily Koelner Stadt-Anzeiger.
Rodriguez, archbishop of the Honduran capital Tegucigalpa, did not cite any possible reforms in particular but said the pope's critics, such as those upset by his attacks on capitalism, were "people who don't understand reality."
Former Pope Benedict picked Mueller in 2012 to head the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), the successor office to the Inquisition. Benedict ran that office as a powerful and feared guardian of Church orthodoxy for 24 years as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, until he was elected pope in 2005.
But its influence has waned under Francis, who soon after his March 2013 election was reported as telling visiting South American priests and nuns not to worry if the CDF wrote to them criticizing what they were doing.
NO TO CHANGING DIVORCE RULE
In an article in the Vatican daily last October, Mueller firmly rejected growing demands for divorced and remarried Catholics to be reinstated as full members of the Church.
Catholics who divorce and remarry in a civil ceremony are excluded from communion because the Church teaches that Jesus declared marriage an indissoluble bond.
With divorce on the rise, more Catholics are asking Rome to show mercy for them. German bishops have been in the forefront of reform thinking and one archdiocese even published guidelines on how to readmit them, which prompted Mueller's article.
The Vatican is due to consider reforming its rules on divorce at a worldwide synod of bishops next October.
Mueller has also strongly defended Bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst, who reaped stiff criticism from German Catholics and the title "luxury bishop" in the media after it was revealed he spent at least 30 million euros ($40.69 million) on a new residence complex.
Tebartz-van Elst's grand plans were so far from the modest approach favoured by the Argentine-born pontiff that Rome sent an envoy to inspect his diocese and later sent him off to a monastery for a leave of absence pending a final decision.
Rodriguez did not think Tebartz-van Elst would return to Limburg and said Latin Americans like himself and the pope found it hard to understand spending so much money for opulent features such as a 15,000-euro free-standing bath tub.
"For most people, a shower and a toilet are enough," he said. "They're enough for the pope in his three-room apartment too." ($1 = 0.7373 euros)
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Saturday, April 27, 2013
Former Nun in Kentucky Simulates Ordination to the Priesthood
Rosemarie Smead, a 70-year-old Kentucky woman, sings with the audience before [not] being ordained a Roman Catholic priest, during a Celebration of Ordination at St. Andrew's United Church of Christ in Louisville, Kentucky April 27, 2013. Smead was [not] ordained as part of a dissident group operating outside official Roman Catholic Church authority. REUTERS/John Sommers II
By Mary Wisniewski
LOUISVILLE, Kentucky | Sat Apr 27, 2013 9:00pm EDT
(Reuters) - In an emotional ceremony filled with tears and applause, a 70-year-old Kentucky woman was [not] ordained a priest on Saturday as part of a dissident group operating outside of official Roman Catholic Church authority.
Rosemarie Smead is one of about 150 women around the world who have decided not to wait for the Roman Catholic Church to lift its ban on women priests, but to be ordained and start their own congregations.
In an interview before the ceremony, Smead said she is not worried about being excommunicated from the Church - the fate of other women ordained outside of Vatican law.
"It has no sting for me," said Smead, a petite, gray-haired former Carmelite nun with a ready hug for strangers. "It is a Medieval bullying stick the bishops used to keep control over people and to keep the voices of women silent. I am way beyond letting octogenarian men tell us how to live our lives."
The ordination of women as priests, along with the issues of married priests and birth control, represents one of the big divides between U.S. Catholics and the Vatican hierarchy. Seventy percent of U.S. Catholics believe that women should be allowed to be priests, according to a New York Times/CBS News poll earlier this year.
The former pope, Benedict XVI, reaffirmed the Catholic Church's ban on women priests and warned that he would not tolerate disobedience by clerics on fundamental teachings. Male priests have been stripped of their holy orders for participating in ordination ceremonies for women.
In a statement last week, Louisville Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz called the planned ceremony by the Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests a "simulated ordination" in opposition to Catholic teaching.
"The simulation of a sacrament carries very serious penal sanctions in Church law, and Catholics should not support or participate in Saturday's event," Kurtz said.
The Catholic Church teaches that it has no authority to allow women to be priests because Jesus Christ chose only men as his apostles. Proponents of a female priesthood said Jesus was acting only according to the customs of his time.
They also note that he chose women, like Mary Magdalene, as disciples, [wrong:] and that the early Church had women priests, deacons and bishops [/wrong].
The ceremony, held at St. Andrew United Church of Christ in Louisville, was attended by about 200 men and women. Many identified themselves to a Reuters reporter as Catholics, but some declined to give their names or their churches.
'NEW ERA OF INCLUSIVITY'
The modern woman priest movement started in Austria in 2002, when seven women were ordained by the Danube River by an independent Catholic bishop. Other women were later ordained as bishops, who went on to ordain more women priests and deacons.
"As a woman priest, Rosemarie is leading, not leaving the Catholic Church, into a new era of inclusivity," said Bishop Bridget Mary Meehan during her sermon Saturday. "As the Irish writer James Joyce reminded us, the word 'Catholic' means 'Here comes everybody!'"
Smead had to leave the rigorous Carmelite life due to health reasons, and earned a bachelor's degree in theology and a doctorate in counseling psychology. She taught at Indiana University for 26 years, and works as a couples and family therapist.
During the ordination ceremony, Smead wept openly as nearly everyone in the audience came up and laid their hands on her head in blessing. Some whispered, "Thanks for doing this for us."
During the communion service, Smead and other woman priests lifted the plates and cups containing the sacramental bread and wine to bless them.
A woman in the audience murmured, "Girl, lift those plates. I've been waiting a long time for this."
One of those attending the service was Stewart Pawley, 32, of Louisville, who said he was raised Catholic and now only attends on Christmas and Easter. But he said he would attend services with Smead when she starts to offer them in Louisville.
"People like me know it's something the Catholic Church will have to do," said Pawley.
(Editing by Tim Gaynor and Mohammad Zargham)
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Saturday, March 9, 2013
The National Catholic Reporter draws rebuke from Bishop Robert Finn
Associated Press/Orlin Wagner - In this Wednesday, March 6, 2013 photo,
editor Toni Ortiz works in a conference room at the National Catholic
Reporter in Kansas City, Mo. The National Catholic Reporter, a newspaper
By MARIA SUDEKUM
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — A newspaper known for unflinching coverage of the Catholic church scandal was rebuked by a bishop in its own backyard after calling for his ouster in a battle that illustrates tensions between U.S. bishops and groups that call themselves Catholic but aren't sanctioned by the church.
The National Catholic Reporter, an independent Kansas City, Mo.-based weekly, called for Bishop Robert Finn's removal or resignation in September, after he was convicted of failing to report suspected child abuse.
Finn, leader of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, later wrote in an editorial in his own diocesan newspaper that parishioner anger is growing over the NCR's challenges to Catholic orthodoxy on topics ranging from the ordination of women to contraception.
In the last several years, church leaders have been trying to shore up the religious identity and mission of organizations that call themselves Catholic, including trying to bar groups from saying they have ties with the church if bishops believe the organizations stray from church teaching. Conflict over the issue intensified in the 2008 presidential election, when some Catholic advocacy groups backed Barack Obama despite his support for abortion rights.
Finn, who declined to be interviewed by The Associated Press, wrote in his editorial that a local bishop first asked the paper to remove Catholic from its name in 1968 — "to no avail."
"In light of the number of recent expressions of concern, I have a responsibility as the local bishop to instruct the Faithful about the problematic nature of this media source which bears the name 'Catholic,'" Finn wrote in The Catholic Key. "While I remain open to substantive and respectful discussion with the legitimate representatives of NCR, I find that my ability to influence the National Catholic Reporter toward fidelity to the Church seems limited to the supernatural level."
Thomas Groome, professor of religious education at Boston College, said he was surprised Finn was "picking such a public fight." Finn is the highest-ranking U.S. church official convicted of a crime related to the sex abuse scandal. The misdemeanor charge stemmed from the case of an area priest who pleaded guilty in August to producing child pornography. Finn and other church officials knew about photos on the priest's computer six months before they turned him in.
Groome said the Catholic Church benefits from publications such as the National Catholic Reporter.
"There are all kinds of ways the church's position has evolved, and if that's to happen you need publications like the NCR that raises critical issues, controversial issues, and I think it does that respectfully with a sense of faithfulness to the church's core teaching," he said.
NCR, founded in Kansas City in 1964, has been widely lauded for its coverage of the church and garnered widespread recognition for its reporting on child sex abuse in the 1980s. The newspaper, which has a circulation of about 35,000 and is available online, has won several awards from the Catholic Press Association, including for general excellence for 13 straight years. The CPA, while independent, works closely with church hierarchy, according to Timothy Walter, CPA's executive director.
"We don't present official teaching, and we don't pretend to," said the newspaper's editor, Dennis Coday. "What we do is report on what's happening in the church. And part of what's happening is dissent and questioning, and that's what we report about. And that's why we remain Catholic and continue to call ourselves Catholic."
Coday said the question for the paper is: "Are we upholding the deepest values set out in the Gospel, the message Jesus preached?"
Finn is not alone in complaining about NCR, which has also called for the church to reverse its teaching on women's ordination and supported re-examining the church's approaches to contraception and sexuality.
Canon lawyer Edward Peters, the Vatican's expert witness in U.S. sex abuse lawsuits and an adviser to the Vatican's highest court, said in a recent blog post that Finn was "too kind" in his remarks about NCR and noted that other groups have stopped using "Catholic" in their names.
Peters said the newspaper has carried on "a steady tirade against ecclesiastical authority in general, and against numerous Church teachings in particular, for several decades."
"But the last few years have seen a shrillness that should discomfort even its dwindling number of friends," Peters wrote.
The tension between NCR and Finn likely won't resolve easily because it's tied to an ongoing battle over authority in the church, said the Rev. Thomas Reese, senior fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University.
"The vision of the Vatican and the hierarchy is that the Catholic media should support and ... promote the positions taken by the hierarchy," said Reese, who was removed from his position as editor of the Jesuit magazine America in 2005 after it published stories on topics including gay marriage.
"But you know," Reese said, "many people in the Catholic media think that they should also criticize those positions or be a forum where there can be discussion and argument and dialogue on issues facing the church."
Link:
Friday, September 7, 2012
Time To Put Our House In Order (The Bitter Pill)
From Mac McLernon at Mulier Fortis:
Link:"Before the Catholic blogosphere took off, the only sources of information for ordinary Catholics were papers such as The Pill. Unfortunately, The Pill has, for quite some time, been giving rather a lot of publishing space to individuals who are actually opposed to Church teaching. One such individual is Prof. Tina Beattie, who, as director of the Digby Stuart Research Centre for Catholic Studies at the University of Roehampton, certainly should not be writing against the Church's position on subjects such as abortion and same-sex "marriage."
If The Pill wishes to campaign against the teachings of the Church, then it should not be sold as a Catholic publication, and definitely not be made available for sale in Catholic parishes and cathedrals."
Monday, April 30, 2012
Fr. Ray Blake: Shooting and Breaking the Legs of Sheep and Heretics
From Father Ray Blake:
..So what do we do with sheep who run off from the flock and teach others
to do the same?
In the past we might have called them heretics, now we call them
dissidents, redolent of the political prisoners of the Soviet Gulags.
The problem is that they remain to teach others to leap the fence,
indeed, their role as "dissident" seems to give them importance in the
secular world, and the "Liberal Catholic" establishment to comment on
the Church and to condemn it.
The Church has moved on from Pope Zachary's (741-52) Rite of Anathema and by doing so seems to have broken from Tradition and scripture 1 Timothy 1:20; 1 Corinthians 5:5... (continued)
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The Church has moved on from Pope Zachary's (741-52) Rite of Anathema and by doing so seems to have broken from Tradition and scripture 1 Timothy 1:20; 1 Corinthians 5:5... (continued)
Link:
Related:
Sunday, April 15, 2012
Monday, May 16, 2011
Sunday, May 17, 2009
How Notre Dame Drifted Away from the Catholic Church
By Paul Shlichta
Today, to the disgust and apparent surprise of many Catholic bishops and laity, the University of Notre Dame, once the pride of Catholic intellectual life in America, will behave in a very un-Catholic way by honoring, as commencement speaker and honorary degree recipient, POTUS Barack Obama, one of America's most extreme advocates of abortion.
This surprise is hard to understand. The old Latin proverb nemo repente turpissimus can be translated as "nobody becomes very evil overnight." Even Judas served a lengthy apprenticeship as an embezzler before moving on to greater betrayals. In a similar manner, I contend that the invitation to Obama was merely a milestone of a drift away from the Catholic Church that Notre Dame started decades ago.
The process started a century ago, when the Catholic Church was attacked by a group of internal heresies that Pope Pius X collectively defined as "modernism"....
*snip*
Simultaneously, liberal seminary officials began discouraging "rigid" conservative aspirants to the priesthood and favoring more "flexible" liberally minded candidates. This weeding out process, described in detail in Michael Rose's Goodbye Good Men produced an overall shortage of priests and tended to bias the crop of future priests toward liberalism [3]. Thus, in imitation of the replication mechanism of viruses, liberal theologians used traditional Catholic institutions to reproduce their own kind and disseminate them throughout the Church...
Today, to the disgust and apparent surprise of many Catholic bishops and laity, the University of Notre Dame, once the pride of Catholic intellectual life in America, will behave in a very un-Catholic way by honoring, as commencement speaker and honorary degree recipient, POTUS Barack Obama, one of America's most extreme advocates of abortion.
This surprise is hard to understand. The old Latin proverb nemo repente turpissimus can be translated as "nobody becomes very evil overnight." Even Judas served a lengthy apprenticeship as an embezzler before moving on to greater betrayals. In a similar manner, I contend that the invitation to Obama was merely a milestone of a drift away from the Catholic Church that Notre Dame started decades ago.
How it Happened
One might imagine such a process taking place by external erosion, by a determinedly Catholic faculty being gradually forced to yield to the secular pressures of a materialistic world. On the contrary, I suspect that Notre Dame's decline and fall were caused by internal decay, rather like what Fr. Daniel A. Lord (a famous Catholic pamphleteer of the last century) called "spiritual termites". There is even evidence that the source of this decay was Notre Dame's own Department of Theology.
The process started a century ago, when the Catholic Church was attacked by a group of internal heresies that Pope Pius X collectively defined as "modernism"....
*snip*
Simultaneously, liberal seminary officials began discouraging "rigid" conservative aspirants to the priesthood and favoring more "flexible" liberally minded candidates. This weeding out process, described in detail in Michael Rose's Goodbye Good Men produced an overall shortage of priests and tended to bias the crop of future priests toward liberalism [3]. Thus, in imitation of the replication mechanism of viruses, liberal theologians used traditional Catholic institutions to reproduce their own kind and disseminate them throughout the Church...
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Rabbi: left-wing is destroying the Catholic Church
"A friend alerted me to this great article from LifeSite!
I ask bloggers, please, to consider posting this on your own sites.
My emphases and comments.
Left Wing of the Catholic Church Destroying the Faith Says Orthodox RabbiOh, what a great article.
By Hilary White, Rome correspondent
Wednesday February 11, 2009
ROME, February 11, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The dissident, leftist movement in the Catholic Church over the last forty years has severely undermined the teaching of the Catholic Church on the moral teachings on life and family, [fantastic!] a prominent US Orthodox rabbi told LifeSiteNews.com. Rabbi Yehuda Levin, the head of a group of 800 Orthodox rabbis in the US and Canada, also dismissed the accusations that the Holy See had not sufficiently distanced itself from the comments made by Bishop Richard Williamson of the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) on the Holocaust.
"I support this move" to reconcile the traditionalist faction in the Church, he said, "because I understand the big picture, which is that the Catholic Church has a problem. There is a strong left wing of the Church that is doing immeasurable harm to the faith." [Peter was Jewish. Can Rabbi Levin be Pope after Pope Benedict? Maybe 20 years from now?]
Rabbi Levin said that he understands "perfectly" why the reconciliation is vital to the fight against abortion and the homosexualist movement. [The man-centered view of the left detaches morals from reality.]
"I understand that it is very important to fill the pews of the Catholic Church not with cultural Catholics and left-wingers who are helping to destroy the Catholic Church and corrupt the values of the Catholic Church." This corruption, he said, "has a trickle-down effect to every single religious community in the world." [What an admission!]
"What’s the Pope doing? He’s trying to bring the traditionalists back in because they have a lot of very important things to contribute the commonweal of Catholicism. [YES YES YES!]
"Now, if in the process, he inadvertently includes someone who is prominent in the traditionalist movement who happens to say very strange things about the Holocaust, is that a reason to throw out the baby with the bathwater and start to condemn Pope Benedict? Absolutely not."
During a visit to Rome at the end of January, Rabbi Levin told LifeSiteNews.com that he believes the media furore over the lifting of the excommunications of the four bishops of the Society of Saint Pius X is a red herring. He called "ridiculous" the accusations that in doing so Pope Benedict VXI or the Catholic Church are anti-Semitic and described as "very strong" the statements distancing the Holy See and the Pope from Williamson’s comments.
Rabbi Levin was in Rome holding meetings with high level Vatican officials to propose what he called a "new stream of thinking" for the Church’s inter-religious dialogue, one based on commonly held moral teachings, particularly on the right to life and the sanctity of natural marriage.
"The most important issue," he said, is the work the Church is doing "to save babies from abortion, and save children’s minds, and young people’s minds, helping them to know right and wrong on the life and family issues."
"That’s where ecumenism and inter-religious dialogue has to go."
Although numbers are difficult to determine, it is estimated that the Society of St. Pius X has over a million followers worldwide. The traditionalist movement in the Catholic Church is noted for doctrinal orthodoxy and enthusiasm not only for old-fashioned devotional practices, but for the Church’s moral teachings and opposition to post-modern secularist sexual mores. [And this is why progressivists will fight their reintegration in the mainstream Church.] Liberals in the Church, particularly in Europe, have bitterly opposed all overtures to the SSPX and other traditionalists, particularly the Pope’s recent permission to revive the traditional Latin Mass. [The TLM is the monster under their bed.]
The Vatican announced in early January that, as part of ongoing efforts to reconcile the breakaway group, the 1988 decree of excommunication against the Society had been rescinded. Later that month, a Swedish television station aired an interview, recorded in November 2008, in which Bishop Richard Williamson, one of the four leaders of the Society, said that he did not believe that six million Jews were killed in the Nazi death camps during World War II.
At that time, the media erupted with protests and accusations that the Catholic Church, and especially Pope Benedict XVI, are anti-Semitic.
Rabbi Levin particularly defended Pope Benedict, saying he is the genius behind the moves of the late Pope John Paul II to reconcile the Church with the Jewish community. [HO HO! The libs aren’t going to like that suggestion! They will attack the Rabbi especially on this point, suggesting that it was all JP II and had nothing to do with Card. Ratzinger… who is German, btw.]
"Anyone who understands and follows Vatican history knows that in the last three decades, one of the moral and intellectual underpinnings of the papacy of Pope John Paul II, was Cardinal Ratzinger.
"And therefore, a lot of the things that Pope John Paul did vis-à-vis the Holocaust, he [Benedict] might have done himself, whether it was visiting Auschwitz or visiting and speaking in the synagogues or asking forgiveness. A lot of this had direct input from Cardinal Ratzinger. Whoever doesn’t understand this doesn’t realise that this man, Pope Benedict XVI, has a decades-long track record of anti-Nazism and sympathy for the Jews."
Share this one around, folks! E-mail it. Bloggers! Highlight it!"
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Texas Bishops Face Protests from Pro-Abortion Catholics
By Deal W. Hudson
10/16/2008
10/16/2008
Inside Catholic (www.insidecatholic.com)
The protests began on Sunday when the Bishops statement was read from the pulpit by Rev. Tony Ruiz, Pastor of Holy Trinity Catholic Church in downtown Dallas.
Some Catholics who support the "right" to abort children now openly disagree with the clarity of the Bishops teaching as revealed in this summary:"there are no 'truly grave moral' or 'proportionate' reasons, singularly or combined, that could outweigh the millions of innocent human lives that are directly killed by legal abortion each year."
The protests began on Sunday when the statement was read from the pulpit by Rev. Tony Ruiz, pastor of Holy Trinity Catholic Church in downtown Dallas. Some two-dozen parishioners walked out and went to the local media to lodge their complaints about "political endorsements." The next day, the Dallas Morning News carried the story on the front page of its Metro section. "The silver lining was that the article contained a link to the bishops' statement," said Karen Garnett, executive director of the Catholic Pro-Life Committee, Respect Life Ministry of the Diocese of Dallas.
Garnett told me that the subsequent protest on Wednesday afternoon in front of the diocesan chancery attracted the same number of people who had walked out of the Mass at Holy Trinity. Bishop Farrell, who was out of town on Wednesday, has offered to meet with the protesters.
"Too many parishes do seminars on 'Faithful Citizenship' that don't put the life issues first. We've been dealing with that problem for 35 years," added Garnett.Olivia Franklin, a member of Holy Trinity for 15 years, heard Father Ruiz read the statement. "I'm thrilled that he read it, and I hurried out the door to tell him thank you. This is the truth, and we need to hear the truth."
Franklin had recently attended four seminars at Holy Trinity on "Faithful Citizenship." At these sessions she was told "one could in fact vote for a pro-abortion candidate if one was not voting for them for that reason." She raised objections to what was being taught, only to be told it was just her opinion.
There have been over 40 statements to date issued by bishops this election season. Some responded to comments made by Sen. Barack Obama's running mate, Sen. Joe Biden, about the beginning of human life. Others responded to Speaker Nancy Pelosi's appearance on Meet the Press when she, too, misrepresented the Church's teaching on abortion.
But the biggest problem of this election for Catholics has been the bishops' own document, "Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship." In an otherwise admirable document, there is one section (Sec. 34-37) that has provided an open door for pro-abortion Catholics to drive through and proclaim their support for Obama, a proponent of abortion-on-demand. (I have already written about the effort to use "Faithful Citizenship" to help Obama.)
One of the problematic passages in "Faithful Citizenship" presently being spun by Obama's Catholic supporters is the following:"35. There may be times when a Catholic who rejects a candidate's unacceptableposition may decide to vote for that candidate for other morally grave reasons.Voting in this way would be permissible only for truly grave moral reasons, not to advance narrow interests or partisan preferences or to ignore a fundamentalmoral evil."
Bishops Vann and Farrell demolish the arguments of leading Obama Catholic surrogate Doug Kmiec and others, that "Faithful Citizenship" can be interpreted to support Obama in the present election.Bishops Vann and Farrell explain that voting for a candidate who supports an intrinsic evil like abortion is possible only if 1) "both candidates running for office support abortion or 'abortion rights,'" or if 2) "another intrinsic evil outweighs the evil of abortion."
Obama's Catholic apologists argue such a situation exists with Sen. John McCain, citing his support for the Iraq War. Bishops Vann and Farrell reject this line of reasoning in advance, saying "there are no 'truly grave moral' or 'proportionate' reasons, singularly or combined, that could outweigh the millions of innocent human lives that are directly killed by legal abortion each year."
Olivia Franklin believes God is using the bishops' statement and the controversy at Holy Trinity. "For too long authentic Catholic social teaching has been co-opted by the 'social justice' crowd, who rail about the death penalty while conveniently ignoring the real death penalty presently being carried out -- the 4,000 babies executed daily by abortionists."
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Deal W. Hudson is the director of InsideCatholic.com and the author of Onward, Christian Soldiers: The Growing Political Power of Catholics and Evangelicals in the United States (Simon and Schuster).
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