Russell Shaw is a creep and has been for a long time. He's an Opus Dei supernumerary. He promoted sex-ed programs for the USCCB, such as Coleen Mast's "Love and Life" and Benziger Family Life (see Mothers' Watch for more info). In other words, Shaw has been an agent for undermining traditional morals for quite awhile.
Bernardin started the fall of the Church in America, those who praise him are of the "American Catholic Church" Bernardin, president of the United States National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB), initiated two unsuccessful attempts to introduce Communion in the hand in 1975 and 1976. In the spring of 1977, the bishops’ vote again fell short of the required two-thirds majority. At this NCCB meeting, Bishop Romeo Blanchette of Joliet, Illinois rose and objected that the bishops at this meeting were not following the procedure established by the Holy See for episcopal conferences when they were discussing the issue of Communion in the hand. Furthermore, Cardinal John Krol stated that he thought a parliamentary device had been used to get rid of a valid motion at this bishops' meeting. This motion would have allowed the bishops to discern if Communion in the hand was even a prevailing practice at all in the United States (which, at this time, it was not). The Vatican stipulated that it was necessary to prove that Communion in the hand was the prevailing (though disobedient) practice in the United States for the issue to go any further. If it was determined that it was not the prevailing practice, the issue would be dead in the water. The "parliamentary device" objected to by Cardinal John Krol went around this requirement (to establish if Communion in the hand was the prevailing practice) in order to go to the next step, a vote. What was required at the voting stage was a 2/3 majority of bishops favoring Communion in the hand. The vote was made, and the 2/3 majority did not materialize. To get around this next obstacle, for the first time ever bishops in absentia were polled by mail after the conference meeting; subsequently the necessary votes "materialized" and the measure was declared passed. Several canon lawyers have stated categorically that this procedure was illegal. An interview with Bishop Blanchette in the National Catholic Register (June 12, 1977) confirms that Communion in the hand was unlawfully introduced into the United States. In this article, Bishop Blanchette was interviewed concerning this movement to allow Communion in the hand. Bishop Blanchette responded: "What bothers me is that in the minds of many it will seem that disobedience is being rewarded. And that troubles me because if people persist in being disobedient--and that is used as a reason for changing the discipline--then we're very close to chaos or what I would call selective obedience, which is no obedience at all." Fr. John Hardon, S.J. likewise affirmed the fact that retired and dying bishops were polled to make sure the measure for Communion in the hand would be passed: "To get enough votes to give Communion in the hand, bishops who were retired, bishops who were dying, were solicited to make sure that the vote would be affirmative in favor of Communion in the hand. Whatever you can do to stop Communion in the hand will be blessed by God." (Fr. John Hardon, S.J., Detroit Call to Holiness Conference, November 1, 1997) Fr. Alfred Kunz, a canon lawyer, was interviewed in August 1996 on the topic of the American bishops' meeting. He stated that Communion in the hand was passed by counting bishops by proxy who weren't even there. Fr. Kunz affirmed that this fact alone would invalidate the petition for Communion in the hand and it would have no status. He concluded by emphasizing that Communion in the hand could not be done because permission was gained by deceit at the bishops' meeting. The American hierarchy at this 1977 meeting were deluded into following Bernardin's illegal promotion of Communion in the hand throughout the United States. The laity, too, followed the direction of their deluded leaders and the irreverent practice of Communion in the hand spread throughout the United States.
I am not sure that is a fair judgement on poor Jerry. I am not the least bit happy about the irresponsible safe sex statement and the clarifications that are equally irresponsible.
I know they were taken out of context but the examples were at best confusing and may lead many women married to prommiscuous men to their deaths because now, they do not have abstinence backing of the Church.
Cardinal Bernardin: an angel of light? Former President Bill Clinton bestowed upon Cardinal Bernardin the Medal of Freedom, the highest honor available to American civilians. Clinton also praised Bernardin as a "voice of moderation" in the Church. According to the November 1997 Washington Blade, a homosexual newspaper, the Cardinal himself had arranged for the "Windy City Gay Chorus" to sing at his wake at Holy Name Cathedral in Chicago (it did so behind a sign prominently displaying its name). The Masons, also, honored the cardinal after his death. Bernardin was a friend of Call To Action (CTA) and allowed them to operate on Church property. He even went so far as to speak out against Bishop Bruskewitz (of Lincoln, Nebraska) for excommunicating CTA members in his own diocese. In retrospect, it is apparent that Cardinal Bernardin sympathized or actively promoted the liberal/dissenting side on virtually every Church issue.
PART 1 The Vatican newspaper has betrayed the Pope Phil Lawler November 22, 2010
Pope Benedict has not changed the Church’s teachings, or even intimated that they might be subject to change. The Holy Father has not called for a new debate on the morality of contraception. He has not suggested that condom use might sometimes be morally justifiable. Yet today millions of people around the world believe that the Pontiff has changed Church teaching, has opened the question of contraception for debate, and has justified condom use in some circumstances. How did that happen? Yet again, Pope Benedict has been badly served by his public-relations staff. In this case, the Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano bears most of the blame for a truly disastrous gaffe. An exciting book project subverted The stories that are dominating media coverage of the Vatican this week can be traced to an interview in which Pope Benedict XVI responded to questions from the German journalist Peter Seewald. That interview was the basis for an exciting new book, Light of the World, which is due for publication this week. The book is the 3rd such collaborative effort between the Pope and Seewald. But it is the first since Benedict XVI assumed the Chair of Peter, and the notion that a reigning Pontiff would submit to a book-length interview is a sensation in itself. Readers who expect something very special from such a book will not be disappointed. Light of the World is indeed sensational. As an interviewer Seewald does his job well. He respectfully but persistently pressed the Pope to explain his thinking on a host of issues, many of them controversial. Pope Benedict, for his part, is candid and lucid, presenting his thoughts with that simple clarity that makes him such a great natural teacher. In Light of the World the reader will find the Pontiff’s honest thoughts on topics such as: • the nature of papal infallibility and Petrine authority; • the real reason for lifting excommunications on the traditionalist bishops of the Society of St. Pius X; • the limits of dialogue with Islam; • the possibility of a papal resignation; • the message of Fatima; • the day-to-day life of the apostolic palace; • the true causes of the sex-abuse scandal and the prospects for reform.
PART 2 On every one of these topics, this reader found the Pope’s remarks refreshingly honest and thought-provoking. The Holy Father offers a number of fascinating revelations, along with an enormous amount of profound theological reflection. The book is, again, sensational. Those of us who received advance copies of Light of the World were told that the text was under a very strict embargo. We were forbidden to quote from it, cite it, or even make any specific revelations about its content until the formal launch of the book this week. Such embargos are not unusual in the world of publishing (although the publishers were unusually stern about it in this case), and professional journalists routinely honor them. Then, incredibly, the Vatican’s own newspaper violated the embargo. Betraying the publishers and breaking trust with all the other journalists who were fulfilling their promises, L’Osservatore Romano reproduced a passage from the Pope’s interview. And not just any passage. The Vatican newspaper reproduced—without explanation or comment—a passage in which Pope Benedict reflected on the possibility that in some extreme cases, the impulse to use a condom might show a flickering of unselfishness in a seriously corrupted conscience. Moreover, L’Osservatore broke the embargo, and published the excerpt, during a weekend when the Vatican was happily distracted by a consistory. At a time when Church leaders should have been celebrating a joyous occasion—the elevation of 24 members to the College of Cardinals—top Vatican officials were scrambling to explain the Pope’s words, which had been published prematurely and outside of their proper context. The launch of Light of the World should have been another joyful occasion. With appropriate planning, the publisher was poised to introduce the Pope’s book with a major publicity campaign. Now that publicity—which might have offered an accurate and favorable portrayal of the Pope’s book—will be nearly lost in the deluge of misinformation currently sweeping across the world. What the Pope said—and did not say Of all the passages that might have been culled out of the book, L’Osservatore Romano chose some speculative remarks by the Pontiff on the subject of condom use. Any capable journalist should have realized in advance that these remarks would be misinterpreted—especially when they were presented out of context. In the passage that L’Osservatore published, Pope Benedict was not backing away from earlier statements, in which he had said that the distribution of condoms is not the proper way to fight the spread of AIDS. On the contrary, the Pope was defending that stand! Far from retracting his previous words, the Holy Father was explaining and elaborating on them.
Poor Phil Lawler. Spin it as hard as you can Phil, but the damage is done. "Safe sin" has been unleashed. And this is Pope Benedict's fault. It's his book and his apostate dingbats. He is now the Pope of the Condom.
Jerry, I know a lot of people in Opus Dei and every one of them are faithful to doctrine. I've never heard a single thing that was scandalous. Go easy on them!
In pouring over the Bryan Hehir days at the USCCB, I have found Russ Shaw's name as organizer on some pretty scandalous stuff. It is very disappointing.
It's not just opinion, but my personal experience with the group. It's a mind-control operation like the Maciel cult. If one goes along, it appears perfectly normal. I bucked the head priest 17 years ago by going to the Latin Mass, and received a browbeating I'll never forget. Intimidation and verbal abuse are trademarks of mind control operations.
Because of their image problems, the Da Vinci Code nonsense and more, they've softened their appearance, even becoming more favorable to the Latin Mass. But rest assured that they're new church, new theology, all the way. Just look at Shaw. Why hasn't OD ever reigned him in? Because Shaw is OK with them.
We are on day three now and with each passing day, the PR on this gets nuttier, even from the Vatican spokespeople. If I was running the zoo, tomorrow there would be a different spokesperson and the Vatican Newspaper would have a new editor, instead of continuing to scandalize our faith and our children.
We spent 30 years teaching the moral thing to do when infected with HIV is to abstain from sex so as not to risk anyone else with a condom that fails 50% of the time. The Pope and the Holy See should not be dispensing safe sex advice. It is out of their bailiwick. There are significant scandals to souls and lives with these imprudent and irresponsible statements and clarifications that are making matters worse.
They are a personal prelature which it seems to me wants to just offer you the temporal goods but not get involved at any level in any towing or reigning of anything. I'm sure there are whackadoos just like there are whackadoos in every parish. I think for the most part, they are sane people who are just trying to get what the parishes stopped offering decades ago - authentic Catholic teaching. Sounds like you may have hit a bad patch.
Yep, a "bad patch." It was the top-dog Holy Cross priest in Boston, Fr. Sal (God have mercy). Kinda like the "bad patch" bishop who just let the latex cat out of the bag.
Here's crazier for you. Archbishop Tim Dolan, president of the USCCCP, was on Fox news talking about Thanksgiving. It may have been a bit much for him to mention Our Lord Jesus, so he took the centrist tack:
"We're grateful to God. We're conscious that somebody, some -- call him or her or whatever you want -- somebody beyond us is in charge ..."
Maybe Dolan knew John Lennon. (Listen at about 4:20 into the interview.)
17 comments:
Russell Shaw is a creep and has been for a long time. He's an Opus Dei supernumerary. He promoted sex-ed programs for the USCCB, such as Coleen Mast's "Love and Life" and Benziger Family Life (see Mothers' Watch for more info). In other words, Shaw has been an agent for undermining traditional morals for quite awhile.
Bernardin started the fall of the Church in America, those who praise him are of the "American Catholic Church"
Bernardin, president of the United States National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB), initiated two unsuccessful attempts to introduce Communion in the hand in 1975 and 1976. In the spring of 1977, the bishops’ vote again fell short of the required two-thirds majority. At this NCCB meeting, Bishop Romeo Blanchette of Joliet, Illinois rose and objected that the bishops at this meeting were not following the procedure established by the Holy See for episcopal conferences when they were discussing the issue of Communion in the hand.
Furthermore, Cardinal John Krol stated that he thought a parliamentary device had been used to get rid of a valid motion at this bishops' meeting. This motion would have allowed the bishops to discern if Communion in the hand was even a prevailing practice at all in the United States (which, at this time, it was not).
The Vatican stipulated that it was necessary to prove that Communion in the hand was the prevailing (though disobedient) practice in the United States for the issue to go any further. If it was determined that it was not the prevailing practice, the issue would be dead in the water. The "parliamentary device" objected to by Cardinal John Krol went around this requirement (to establish if Communion in the hand was the prevailing practice) in order to go to the next step, a vote.
What was required at the voting stage was a 2/3 majority of bishops favoring Communion in the hand. The vote was made, and the 2/3 majority did not materialize. To get around this next obstacle, for the first time ever bishops in absentia were polled by mail after the conference meeting; subsequently the necessary votes "materialized" and the measure was declared passed. Several canon lawyers have stated categorically that this procedure was illegal. An interview with Bishop Blanchette in the National Catholic Register (June 12, 1977) confirms that Communion in the hand was unlawfully introduced into the United States. In this article, Bishop Blanchette was interviewed concerning this movement to allow Communion in the hand. Bishop Blanchette responded:
"What bothers me is that in the minds of many it will seem that disobedience is being rewarded. And that troubles me because if people persist in being disobedient--and that is used as a reason for changing the discipline--then we're very close to chaos or what I would call selective obedience, which is no obedience at all."
Fr. John Hardon, S.J. likewise affirmed the fact that retired and dying bishops were polled to make sure the measure for Communion in the hand would be passed:
"To get enough votes to give Communion in the hand, bishops who were retired, bishops who were dying, were solicited to make sure that the vote would be affirmative in favor of Communion in the hand. Whatever you can do to stop Communion in the hand will be blessed by God." (Fr. John Hardon, S.J., Detroit Call to Holiness Conference, November 1, 1997)
Fr. Alfred Kunz, a canon lawyer, was interviewed in August 1996 on the topic of the American bishops' meeting. He stated that Communion in the hand was passed by counting bishops by proxy who weren't even there. Fr. Kunz affirmed that this fact alone would invalidate the petition for Communion in the hand and it would have no status. He concluded by emphasizing that Communion in the hand could not be done because permission was gained by deceit at the bishops' meeting.
The American hierarchy at this 1977 meeting were deluded into following Bernardin's illegal promotion of Communion in the hand throughout the United States. The laity, too, followed the direction of their deluded leaders and the irreverent practice of Communion in the hand spread throughout the United States.
Apparently, no one is Catholic enough for Jerry. I wonder if even the Holy Father is Catholic enough.
Hi Carol,
You'll have to excuse my fan club. They're supposed to make sure you get more praise than I do on your blog.
...and whom was doing strategic planning work at that time at USCCB? See EBH.
Ouch.
I am not sure that is a fair judgement on poor Jerry. I am not the least bit happy about the irresponsible safe sex statement and the clarifications that are equally irresponsible.
I know they were taken out of context but the examples were at best confusing and may lead many women married to prommiscuous men to their deaths because now, they do not have abstinence backing of the Church.
Cardinal Bernardin: an angel of light?
Former President Bill Clinton bestowed upon Cardinal Bernardin the Medal of Freedom, the highest honor available to American civilians. Clinton also praised Bernardin as a "voice of moderation" in the Church. According to the November 1997 Washington Blade, a homosexual newspaper, the Cardinal himself had arranged for the "Windy City Gay Chorus" to sing at his wake at Holy Name Cathedral in Chicago (it did so behind a sign prominently displaying its name). The Masons, also, honored the cardinal after his death. Bernardin was a friend of Call To Action (CTA) and allowed them to operate on Church property. He even went so far as to speak out against Bishop Bruskewitz (of Lincoln, Nebraska) for excommunicating CTA members in his own diocese. In retrospect, it is apparent that Cardinal Bernardin sympathized or actively promoted the liberal/dissenting side on virtually every Church issue.
PART 1
The Vatican newspaper has betrayed the Pope
Phil Lawler November 22, 2010
Pope Benedict has not changed the Church’s teachings, or even intimated that they might be subject to change. The Holy Father has not called for a new debate on the morality of contraception. He has not suggested that condom use might sometimes be morally justifiable.
Yet today millions of people around the world believe that the Pontiff has changed Church teaching, has opened the question of contraception for debate, and has justified condom use in some circumstances. How did that happen?
Yet again, Pope Benedict has been badly served by his public-relations staff. In this case, the Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano bears most of the blame for a truly disastrous gaffe.
An exciting book project subverted
The stories that are dominating media coverage of the Vatican this week can be traced to an interview in which Pope Benedict XVI responded to questions from the German journalist Peter Seewald. That interview was the basis for an exciting new book, Light of the World, which is due for publication this week.
The book is the 3rd such collaborative effort between the Pope and Seewald. But it is the first since Benedict XVI assumed the Chair of Peter, and the notion that a reigning Pontiff would submit to a book-length interview is a sensation in itself. Readers who expect something very special from such a book will not be disappointed. Light of the World is indeed sensational.
As an interviewer Seewald does his job well. He respectfully but persistently pressed the Pope to explain his thinking on a host of issues, many of them controversial. Pope Benedict, for his part, is candid and lucid, presenting his thoughts with that simple clarity that makes him such a great natural teacher. In Light of the World the reader will find the Pontiff’s honest thoughts on topics such as:
• the nature of papal infallibility and Petrine authority;
• the real reason for lifting excommunications on the traditionalist bishops of the Society of St. Pius X;
• the limits of dialogue with Islam;
• the possibility of a papal resignation;
• the message of Fatima;
• the day-to-day life of the apostolic palace;
• the true causes of the sex-abuse scandal and the prospects for reform.
PART 2
On every one of these topics, this reader found the Pope’s remarks refreshingly honest and thought-provoking. The Holy Father offers a number of fascinating revelations, along with an enormous amount of profound theological reflection. The book is, again, sensational.
Those of us who received advance copies of Light of the World were told that the text was under a very strict embargo. We were forbidden to quote from it, cite it, or even make any specific revelations about its content until the formal launch of the book this week. Such embargos are not unusual in the world of publishing (although the publishers were unusually stern about it in this case), and professional journalists routinely honor them.
Then, incredibly, the Vatican’s own newspaper violated the embargo. Betraying the publishers and breaking trust with all the other journalists who were fulfilling their promises, L’Osservatore Romano reproduced a passage from the Pope’s interview. And not just any passage. The Vatican newspaper reproduced—without explanation or comment—a passage in which Pope Benedict reflected on the possibility that in some extreme cases, the impulse to use a condom might show a flickering of unselfishness in a seriously corrupted conscience.
Moreover, L’Osservatore broke the embargo, and published the excerpt, during a weekend when the Vatican was happily distracted by a consistory. At a time when Church leaders should have been celebrating a joyous occasion—the elevation of 24 members to the College of Cardinals—top Vatican officials were scrambling to explain the Pope’s words, which had been published prematurely and outside of their proper context.
The launch of Light of the World should have been another joyful occasion. With appropriate planning, the publisher was poised to introduce the Pope’s book with a major publicity campaign. Now that publicity—which might have offered an accurate and favorable portrayal of the Pope’s book—will be nearly lost in the deluge of misinformation currently sweeping across the world.
What the Pope said—and did not say
Of all the passages that might have been culled out of the book, L’Osservatore Romano chose some speculative remarks by the Pontiff on the subject of condom use. Any capable journalist should have realized in advance that these remarks would be misinterpreted—especially when they were presented out of context.
In the passage that L’Osservatore published, Pope Benedict was not backing away from earlier statements, in which he had said that the distribution of condoms is not the proper way to fight the spread of AIDS. On the contrary, the Pope was defending that stand! Far from retracting his previous words, the Holy Father was explaining and elaborating on them.
Poor Phil Lawler. Spin it as hard as you can Phil, but the damage is done. "Safe sin" has been unleashed. And this is Pope Benedict's fault. It's his book and his apostate dingbats. He is now the Pope of the Condom.
Back to Shaw -- actually to his cult: Opus Dei Definitely Advocates Condom Use.
Jerry, I know a lot of people in Opus Dei and every one of them are faithful to doctrine. I've never heard a single thing that was scandalous. Go easy on them!
In pouring over the Bryan Hehir days at the USCCB, I have found Russ Shaw's name as organizer on some pretty scandalous stuff. It is very disappointing.
Hi Carol,
It's not just opinion, but my personal experience with the group. It's a mind-control operation like the Maciel cult. If one goes along, it appears perfectly normal. I bucked the head priest 17 years ago by going to the Latin Mass, and received a browbeating I'll never forget. Intimidation and verbal abuse are trademarks of mind control operations.
Because of their image problems, the Da Vinci Code nonsense and more, they've softened their appearance, even becoming more favorable to the Latin Mass. But rest assured that they're new church, new theology, all the way. Just look at Shaw. Why hasn't OD ever reigned him in? Because Shaw is OK with them.
We are on day three now and with each passing day, the PR on this gets nuttier, even from the Vatican spokespeople. If I was running the zoo, tomorrow there would be a different spokesperson and the Vatican Newspaper would have a new editor, instead of continuing to scandalize our faith and our children.
We spent 30 years teaching the moral thing to do when infected with HIV is to abstain from sex so as not to risk anyone else with a condom that fails 50% of the time. The Pope and the Holy See should not be dispensing safe sex advice. It is out of their bailiwick. There are significant scandals to souls and lives with these imprudent and irresponsible statements and clarifications that are making matters worse.
They are a personal prelature which it seems to me wants to just offer you the temporal goods but not get involved at any level in any towing or reigning of anything. I'm sure there are whackadoos just like there are whackadoos in every parish. I think for the most part, they are sane people who are just trying to get what the parishes stopped offering decades ago - authentic Catholic teaching. Sounds like you may have hit a bad patch.
Yep, a "bad patch." It was the top-dog Holy Cross priest in Boston, Fr. Sal (God have mercy). Kinda like the "bad patch" bishop who just let the latex cat out of the bag.
Here's crazier for you. Archbishop Tim Dolan, president of the USCCCP, was on Fox news talking about Thanksgiving. It may have been a bit much for him to mention Our Lord Jesus, so he took the centrist tack:
"We're grateful to God. We're conscious that somebody, some -- call him or her or whatever you want -- somebody beyond us is in charge ..."
Maybe Dolan knew John Lennon. (Listen at about 4:20 into the interview.)
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