Sunday, January 30, 2011

Update on Fr. Euteneuer's Mysterious Exodus

When Fr. Tom vanished, I presumed his exodus from the public spotlight was predicated upon the spiritual phobias of the feng shui Bishops and priests.

Talking about the devil and acknowledging his influence has been politically incorrect since Peter Paul and Mary convinced the Woodstock generation that all the answers to life's questions were blowing in the wind of their weed.

The vacuum has left people with the belief that if they don't display symptoms of possession, the devil isn't influencing them. But 99.9% of the devil's influence actually takes place outside of a possession of a soul. He can sneak his counsel into the most innocuous statements, as he did when he used Peter's gripping fear and emotions to ask Christ to reject His impending Crucifixion.

Unrepentant sin turns your soul into a magnet for diabolical spirits. The Rosary, the Crucifix and a state of grace is the repellent.

Spiritual people can always see the devil's treachery with priests when a situation like Fr. Euteneuer's crops up.

Still, old habits die hard, and I grow suspicious when the stink of secrecy starts to permeate with Church officials. It would be consistent for Church bureaucrats to yank somebody who is describing abortion as being 'raped by the devil'. Definitely hysterical, but consistent. There was something troubling about their going to the bother of repossessing every copy of Fr. Euteneuer's book.

I heard the speculation about a woman/women but dismissed it as the fruit of speculation. Yesterday, I read Mary Ann Kreitzer's stop the speculation and agreed wholeheartedly with its premise - to quietly pray and ponder these things in our hearts.

I'm struggling with that today after reading THIS and THIS.

It goes without saying that this situation is in need of intense prayer for everyone involved in the matter. But if the allegation that the Sacrament and Exorcism was used to initiate a sexual relationship with hurting and vulnerable women, the situation calls for more than paying the women off and suggesting we sweep what happened under the carpet of unsubstantiated rumors and pray.

That's not good enough for me with these kinds of allegations out there.

In hindsight, we wouldn't say the same thing about Maciel, would we?

These allegations are explosive and Church bureaucrats are never going to tell us unless we demand answers. We don't have to know the details of somebody's personal sin, if that is all it was, but we certainly need to know whether the situation was abusive, what they knew and when they knew it and whether there is a woman holed up in his parents house where a situation is possibly ongoing.

I'm not up for dismissing these allegations. The red flag for me is Matt Abbott's column. Matt is not one to make premature judgments and his faith in Christ's Institution is not weak.

The bureaucrats have to be forced to either confirm or deny whether the context of 'abortion is rape by the devil' was baiting women who had abortions into contacting Fr. Euteneuer as the cure and numerous women were emotionally and sexually exploited.

If this is untrue, Fr. Euteneuer has the canonical right to clear his reputation.

Ordering silence and promoting the culture of silence from the pews when something this explosive gets on our radar is inexcusable. HLI and the Diocese of Palm Beach have to answer our questions - and we have to ask them.

UPDATE - A blogger who says that Fr. Euteneuer was Godfather to three of her children has blog posts up HERE and HERE that indicates she was told the story by an HLI Board member and she had a troubling experience (though not sexual) with him herself.

I am uncomfortable with the nuance and anonymity behind these allegations but my intuition about this is not good and the woman seems to be a faithful practicing Catholic. In December, Matt Abbott reports that he contacted the Palm Beach diocese and asked the simple question as to whether Fr. E was a priest in good standing and they would not respond.

Please also see comments in this post.

Matt C. Abbott said...
The reaction of those who are attacking the victims in this situation echo those who defended the late disgraced Marcial Maciel for so long.

Blaming the victim(s). Sickening.

Saturday, January 29, 2011 12:12:00 PM



Tom O'Toole said...
Peter -- There's a difference between "off the record" and "don't use my name." The article had to be written now (remember Watergate?) because while Fr. T gets due process, he is free to have sexual contact with disturbed women ... and by all accounts is.

I cannot let that go by without speaking up either as a journalist, a blogger, a Catholic, or just as a man.

God's grace & Mary's prayers,
Tom

Saturday, January 29, 2011 9:49:00 PM



The situation appears to be grave and ongoing.

What are your thoughts about a campaign upon the Palm Beach diocese?

Saturday, January 29, 2011

Basa Loco I Sole Tace





Have you been watching the Charlie Sheen story? He finally entered a rehab. Five prostitutes and a suitcase full of blow later, they finally stop lying about his addiction and shut down production of his show.

I wonder if the individual in the video ever got her blue Bentley. Sounds like the price got to high for her.


A sad example of how your life's story can wind up surrounded by people enabling your self-destruction. You walk away from the people who care about you because you don't want to hear what they have to say. The vultures spot your wounded carcass and circle to land and feed on the supply.

I'm not a good enabler.

I think it goes back when Sister Mary Hillarian told us the story of the Crucifixion in the first grade. I had seen the Crucifix many times in my short life but I never really stopped to ask what happened to Christ. I didn't put the pieces together. The Crucifix was above the clock at St. Mark's school. I remember that moment. Looking at Christ hanging there. Tasting his abandonment and feeling my heart and soul overflowing with compassion.

I think I may have lingered a little too long at the foot of the Cross. It's fair to say I go over the line when people I care about are basa loco I sole tace... in a deep place where the sun is silent. When most people have walked away to avoid getting dragged down, I remain standing. Saying what needs to be said until the person decides hearing what needs to be said is too high a price for the relationship, and they walk away.

The problem with this course is that the the person gets combative before they walk away. Looking over the battlefield afterward, I try to pinpoint where I probably should have stopped and been the one to walk away. At the end, I'd much rather be left without second guessing whether I'll have something to account for on my day of reckoning in the crisis.


Some people go through their life thinking they are living in peace and promoters of peace when they remain complacent about suffering, injustice and evil. It's been on my mind this week after conversations with people over the gruesome discovery at Gosnell's clinic.

Among some of the excuses I've heard is that there's no difference in electing proabortion politicians who will create laws to legally kill infants, and politicians who will create laws to protect life. Seriously?

I was told women are going to have abortions no matter what you do, they need clean and decent facilities to do it, they don't want to be baited into 'hot button issues' and the like.

All of these people claimed they knew abortion was killing a human being, a soul with a destiny from the Creator of Life.

I don't understand it. I understand how the uncatechized come to believe abortion isn't murder. But I'm aghast when Catholics tell me they know its murder but they think it's just to create antiseptic facilities to exterminate babies who are unwanted. The cruelty of saying such a thing staggers me.

But if this is truly how they feel, why don't they believe the prohibitions on killing should be lifted across the board? People will always find ways to kill other people so why not create a sterile and serene environment to do it?

What about child abuse? People will always find ways to abuse children, why don't they believe this country should elect people who believe pedophiles have the civil right to abuse children on clean sheets in clean hotel rooms?

You've got to get up pretty early in the morning to fool me.

Do you remember Dante's description of the eternal resting place of people who don't take a stand?

Dante passes through the gate of Hell, which bears an inscription, the ninth (and final) line of which is the famous phrase "Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate", or "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here"[4] Before entering Hell completely, Dante and his guide see the Uncommitted, souls of people who in life did nothing, neither for good nor evil (among these Dante recognizes either Pope Celestine V or Pontius Pilate; the text is ambiguous). Mixed with them are outcasts who took no side in the Rebellion of Angels. These souls are neither in Hell nor out of it, but reside on the shores of the Acheron, their punishment to eternally pursue a banner (i.e. self interest) while pursued by wasps and hornets that continually sting them while maggots and other such insects drink their blood and tears.


Sort of a spiritual description of Charlie Sheen's situation or anyone else drowning in the quicksand of sin.

It isn't love for humanity or love for God to be uncommitted in the battle of good vs. evil. The serenity of complacency in the face of evil is really about self-interest and your eternity will be rewarded accordingly. Neither here, nor there, God will spit you out of His mouth.

Lots of luck with it.

Friday, January 28, 2011

Time Lapse 2011 March for Life

This is awesome!



ht/badger catholic

Happy Feast of St. Thomas Aquinas

For the last month or so, St. Thomas has been very present in my life since the day a colleague gave me the relic. It seems everything I stumble across has something he has written in it. My inbox always has a picture or a story that references him in some way. The other day, I was channel surfing and saw Penny Lord saying their show was going to feature something very exciting and special. I thought to myself, if this is St. Thomas, I somethings up with this guy in my life. He is helicoptering like a father with his newborn daughter. My television is never off of the movie channels. Sure enough, it was St Thomas.

Maybe, he has always been there quietly and has just decided to emerge from the cavern. In hindsight, I suspect he has.

Thank you St. Thomas for your presence in my life, for your intercession and protection. I am always late to the party. Mea maxima culpa.

Thursday, January 27, 2011

Live and Let Die




I was out spending some time with a friend at a Chinese restaurant a few weeks back and got this message in my fortune cookie: "Not just live and let live...but live and HELP live." It wound up on the table in front of my couch so it was staring me in the face as I've kept up with the commentary on the human baby butcher in Philadelphia.

Did you know the proabortion lobbyists are trying to say that the findings at Gosnell's clinic have nothing to do with abortion?

Terry Nelson has some good thoughts about it HERE.

There really isn't a dime's worth of difference between what was found at Gosnell's clinic and what happens every day inside of an abortuary. Killing children by slitting their necks was legal up until 2003 and no legal prohibition is in place against tearing them apart, burning them or crushing their skulls unto death.

I keep asking myself... how could we have let this go on so long?

I want to talk about what is happening... and in no uncertain terms.

I want the Catholics who have been lobbying for proabortion politicians to come face to face with the raw truth...and drive the tripe underground.

Some poor woman interjected herself into a facebook conversation I had up about Obama's state of the union. Defending him, she wanted to know what our gripe was. When I told her, out came the straw man arguments we've all heard a million times.

Pro-lifers are insensitive to taking care of the needs of people after they're born, the death penalty, all life is sanctified...ad nauseum.

Isn't it common sense that when you believe in killing people who are disadvantaged your commitment to taking care of needs of people after they're born isn't all it's cracked up to be?

How did the proabortion lobby get to characterize themselves as the arbiters of caring for disadvantaged children after they are born when they believe it's compassionate for our country to license people to kill them?

It is truly ludicrous.

Have you ever heard that Jesus condemned organized religion? This is what she told me. That's a new one on me. What a pitiful waste of an Incarnation, 33 years of suffering and an execution to leave us a Paraclete and the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.

The curiosity is killing me. Do these people know what they're saying when they say the Creed and "Amen" at the Holy Sacrifice? Or. does their brain check out in the Narthax?

Why bother claiming you're a member of a religion when you reject its credo? If that's the case, you can be a Catholic a wiccan, a Jew, a Buddist and a Muslim, all at the same time.

I apologized for my impatience with her opinions and told her it was painful to see that she had been so deluded. But... I was not apologetic or craven in responding to the tactics of diversion:



The man in the white house lobbies for butchering children and you and those
who support him believe this is a price that has to be paid for getting a ride
on a fast train, supercomputers and whatever other pagan widgets he is offering
dripping with the blood of our children. You support him. That's what this
conversation is about. It isn't about the death penalty, which even the Pope
acquiesces can be carried out. It isn't about your false notion that pro-lifers
are cheapskates who don't care about life after people are born. It's about the
butchery of our children and the support of people like you who elect
politicians that have legislated the right to kill children.



We've have to stop this kind of punditry in its tracks. Let the Gosnell clinic put an end to the 40 years of inviting people to form their consciences with their feelings and opinions. A person's conscience is guided by truth and that truth has been squelched for 40 years because we didn't want to hurt people's feelings. Better to hurt people's feelings than sitting silent as they lobby people to be complacent about 52 million dead babies to get a faster ride on the choo choo.

We are not a country of liberty when we have licensed the right to kill other human beings. All God's people shall be free. One way or the other. They don't have to believe us, just check out the stories of what happens after exhausting sending His messengers to beg the king for freedom.

I loved this piece from Zmirak today. "The Catholic religion is at once both repugnant and offensive. It offends me all the time with the outrageous demands it makes on my fallen nature and the sheer weirdness of It's claims..." Rich in wisdom - it's a must read.

If you want to follow in the footsteps of our fearless leader, your vocation is martyrdom. For most of us, thankfully, the martyrdom is bloodless.

It was also encouraging this week to read the Pope's words on St. Joan as a model for leadership. God in His wisdom always seems to send the exact words we need to hear. The Pope said that her judges were theologians who lacked the charity and humility to see God acting in St. Joan's personal engagement in the liberation of her compatriots.

This is a woman who literally led a brutal war. That's something people always trying to claim Christ is a gentle whisperer or leaders of war are out of good favor with the Pope will never acknowledge. Their claim that they are the voices of charity and humility only adds to the irony.

Living to let live and let die is the of charity and humility of a yellowbelly.

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Get the hook

Listening to Barack Hussein's state of the Union, one hardly recognizes the country he says we're living in. Wall Street is bustling and the economy has turned around.



Got that?



Our future looks even brighter - biomedical research and clean technology, initiatives to protect our planet, supercomputers and electronic vehicles, clean coal and natural gas, better internet access to 98% of all Americans, better railroads, new train stations and offramps, "all paid for", he said.



That's what he said, it will be all paid for. "By you" was what he didn't say.



He said he's getting ready for the day when 80% of Americans will be riding a high-speed rail. Think about that. Where the heck are we all going?



Oh yeah, and free education and IT jobs for illegals.



He does big things this guy. Big things. And, he says he's going to do it without accruing any debt. The 3.5 trillion dollars later he said all the money to pay for it is going to come from cutting domestic spending. He might have tipped his hand. Said he is going to "merge and consolidate government". Everyone clapped. We're all going to sacrifice and struggle to meet the demands of the new age he said.



And good luck to the gays, he says he's going to proactively recruit them into ROTC programs, just as he's finding creative ways to defund our military. The Joint Chiefs of Staff didn't stand up or clap. That was the highlight of the evening for me.

Was it me or was McCain a little too giddy?

Sunday, January 23, 2011

The farce that the Obamas are Christian

I somehow missed this story that the Obamas had a non-religious Christmas and intended to ban the creche last year.

According to the story:

“When former social secretaries gave a luncheon to welcome Ms. Rogers earlier this year, one participant said, she surprised them by suggesting the Obamas were planning a ‘non-religious Christmas’ — hardly a surprising idea for an administration making a special effort to reach out to other faiths.

“The lunch conversation inevitably turned to whether the White House would display its crèche, customarily placed in a prominent spot in the East Room. Ms. Rogers, this participant said, replied that the Obamas did not intend to put the manger scene on display — a remark that drew an audible gasp from the tight-knit social secretary sisterhood. (A White House official confirmed that there had been internal discussions about making Christmas more inclusive and whether to display the crèche.)”


Thus, putting an end to the farce the Barack Hussein is Christian.

Bono at Shriver Funeral

Matt Archbold at the CMR put the video up yesterday of Bono signing the prayer of St. Francis at Shriver's funeral. As painful as it is, try to watch it until the end.

Aside from the painful pitch problem, I can't figure out why the words 'in dying we are born to eternal life' are changed to 'in dying we are born again'. I don't get it. Like in reincarnation?


Saturday, January 22, 2011

God's 38th Anniversary Present to Roe v Wade

The hour has struck - the battle, the most widespread, bitter and ferocious the world has ever known, has been joined. It must be fought to the finish. - Pius XII


It took me several days to get my spirituality tucked in enough to read the sinister descriptions of Gosnell's infant extermination facility. The Grand Jury report, with photos of the macabre crimes against women and children is HERE. It's worse than I expected. Hundreds of children were delivered alive and then murdered. Their bodies and parts were strewn about in the blood and filth.

There's a picture of a 30 week old baby with a gaping hole in his neck where the scissors was inserted to sever his spinal cord. Though SCOTUS upheld the partial birth abortion ban in 2007, there are various ways of killing an unborn child in this country. And the findings at the Gosnell abortion clinic is proof positive that the partial birth abortion ban is as good as the morals and ethics of doctors who make a living out of killing children.

It's as effective as the law against stealing in a room filled with thieves.

I get upset when I think of the chicanery of the people in this country who legally define doing this to an innocent child as a constitutional freedom. Barack Hussein opposes a ban on this procedure. There are late-term abortion bans (not to be confused with the federal partial-birth abortion ban) in 36 states but the wiggle room for exceptions which includes emotional distress make those bans effectively worthless.

I had to see what the people looked like. Mugshots and charges of Gosnell and his accomplices are posted here. They looked exactly as I expected. The madness of killing infants has consumed them. Still, I was struck by the chaos of people with no experience or medical licenses providing services including anesthesia.

The Family Research Council highlights information in the Grand Jury report that Gosnell was also being funded to be a provider of children's vaccines.
Wednesday, the city's District Attorney released 261 pages of documentation about the human butcher and his "Family Medical Society," which, deep inside its padlocked doors, hid the bodies of hundreds of aborted children. One of the more shocking pieces of information is that Gosnell, using the Society's name, "purported to be a provider of children's vaccines under a program administered by the Philadelphia Health Department's Division of Disease Control" (page 199). A program that, under the umbrella of Medicaid, is funded with taxpayer dollars. The grand-jury report explains that "[e]mails going back to August 2001 reveal that he was suspended from the program repeatedly for failing to maintain logs and for storing vaccines in filthy, unsuitable refrigerators, and at improper temperatures... Chicken pox vaccines were stored in an ice tray above the containers of bloody fetuses... When [the inspector] asked who in the practice treated children, [one of Gosnell's employees] replied: 'They don't come in.'" The inspector told the grand jury that the clinic was "improperly trying to count abortion patients as vaccination patients" (page 202).
Despite her report, Pennsylvania officials looked the other way.
Killing infants is legal. You can vacuum them apart, burn them or crush their skulls with forceps until they are dead, you can inject them with something lethal and then deliver them. There are an awful lot of people looking the other way.

What I worry about most are the consequences of our priests and Bishops who have been looking the other way. I worry about the Catholic multitude who followed Ted Kennedy's career fighting for the right to kill children and watched the spectacle of a funeral put on for him courtesy of the Archbishop of Boston. How many of them now think an unrepentant advocate of killing living children in these ways can earn you the funeral given to a saint?

I worry about the silence from the pulpit that cooperation in an abortion severs you from God and salvation. I worry about the generation who has come and gone and never once heard how to fix that rupture, never been shepherded into repentance and the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

I worry about the skulls of these giddy Bishops and priests lining the floor of hell.

There are over 50 million dead babies marking the 38th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. I'm praying for a wake-up call for Catholics. Praying for the end of using our voting power to get out the vote for any politician who supports Roe v. Wade.

We've got to do all we can to put a stop to it.

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

The Democratic Party Platform on Life

I'm a social justice Catholic at heart.

I believe our poor should be financially supported but not enabled. Socioeconomically, intellectually and spiritually nurtured, but simultaneously lifted out of the spiral.

Of course, the Sacrifice Christ made to give us the Truth as our guiding light to salvation is above all else. That's what made it impossible for me to continue supporting the Democrats. But when I left the Democratic party, I left with a heavy heart.

As a woman and a humanitarian, I just couldn't take the maniacal platform of brainwashing poor, immigrant and uncatechized women to be promiscuous with emotionally unavailable and irresponsible men as some kind of victory of sister suffragettes.

I believe in teaching our poor they can have class. They can learn how to recognize the characteristics of responsible, healthy and decent men who will respect and provide for their family. We can give them the tools that will nourish their self-respect, teach them to aspire, to study and work hard and soar like an eagle out of poverty.

Looking back, I remember where the trajectory of the democratic party lost me. It was the 'our bodies ourselves' treatise that predated Roe v. Wade. Brainwashing women into believing the body they are vacuuming apart unto death or letting a madman with a medical license kill with a pair of scissors, is "their" body. I really thought it was an outlandish anomaly of a woman's intellect to swallow this nonsense. It's so painfully obvious, even in a first trimester abortion, that the feet, arms, hands, head and heart vacuumed out of a mother belong to a separate person.


If you're walking out of the clinic on your own two feet, the ones you left in the specimen jar belong to somebody else. It isn't rocket science. It isn't your body. I didn't understand spiritual delusion back then but as a feminist who was still grounded in the Catholic faith, I was shocked this movement had legs.


No matter how hard the democrats work to dig the poor out of a hole, they're shoveling sand against the tide when they give homicidal maniacs like this one license to kill by lobbying it as a legal "right". God will not be mocked.


“It is very important to remember that Dr. Gosnell is presumed innocent,” a lawyer for Dr. Gosnell, William J. Brennan, said. “I would hope there is not a rush to judgment and that he has an opportunity to review this very lengthy charging document.”

When labor was induced and a baby was born, Dr. Gosnell would kill it by cutting into its neck and severing its spinal cord in a process he referred to as “snipping.” In one case involving a 17-year-old who was 30 weeks pregnant, prosecutors said, Dr. Gosnell induced labor, severed the fetus’s spine and put the body in a shoe box. “The doctor joked that the baby was so big, ‘he could walk me to the bus stop,’ ” the document said.



People killing other people are rights incorporated into the platform of the democratic party. How can anyone tolerate the injustices off it all?

They want Americans to run to spoonfeed starving people but when it comes to ethnic cleansing, torture and brutal slaughtering, they want us to mind our own business. The people of Haiti will get help for an earthquake but if a dictator shows up to enslave them or kill their children, they want to wine and dine him. How do you respond to one type of suffering and ignore another?

I hate to say it, but there is something shallow and self-serving about this kind of servitude.

The description of what they found at this clinic is pathological.

Making sure a baby's feet are not out of the birth canal when you stab him or her with scissors and cut the spinal cord vs. killing a child after he or she has been born is really just semantics.

Catholics have got to bail.

Obama's Swanky Event for Human Rights Terrorists


My mother grew up in Boston's hub for Irish when they immigrated from Ireland - Roxbury where anyone who is anyone went to St. Patrick's.   The Irish community migrated to Southie and Dorchester around the 1950s or  so.  Growing up in Boston, the nobility, class and faithfulness of our Irish Catholic heritage was reflected in everything we said, we did, we were. I missed that terribly when I moved to the suburbs.  I don't actually know if it exists anywhere.  We seemed to scatter.

For as long as I can remember, my mother would tell me that when the nuns at St. Pats would teach about the Book of Revelation, they would tell the students that Catholics and America would be in terrible danger when the red dragon rose into power.    When she told me, she would get very serious and tell me as though she were passing me something prophetic from very wise and holy women who warned her, something I needed to remember.

I've thought about it from time to time as our economy and failing banks have increasingly been bailed out and financed by the Communist Chinese and as more of our goods had "made in China" stamped on the bottom.

As I watched the Obamas bowing to Hu, I was thinking today that it seems like a lifetime ago when we lived in a country that sanctioned dictators who treated their countrymen with ferocious inhumanity. 

Look at this picture - is it me or the communist flag taking a place of honor in front of our White House and beside our American flag. 

Can you believe this terrorist is being treated with royalty and a swanky event on behalf of the American people? 

Harry Reid was the only person to have the backbone to state the reasons why he declined to attend the event in disgust?

“He is a dictator,” Reid told a Las Vegas television station yesterday. “He can do a lot of things through the form of government they have. Maybe I shouldn’t have said ‘dictator,’ but they have a different type of government than we have, and that is an understatement.”

Several US Reps did not mince words:

Republican Representative Dana Rohrabacher of California, a longtime critic of China’s human-rights record, called Hu an “oppressor” and a “murderer,” questioning why Obama was giving a respectful welcome to “a monstrous regime.”

Democratic Representative Albio Sires of New Jersey said China was seeking “world domination.” New Jersey Republican Representative Chris Smith suggested that Hu should be brought before an international criminal tribunal instead of feted at the White House.

The remarks were in contrast to the scene today at the executive mansion, where Obama and first lady Michelle Obama welcomed Hu with an arrival ceremony on the South Lawn.
Obama said the U.S. and China “have an enormous stake in each other’s success.” Hu said, “Our cooperation as partners should be based on mutual respect.”

Enormous stake in each other's success?  Partners based on mutual respect?

Do you think for a moment Obama would invite the South African Aparthied and say such a spineless and insensitive thing?

This is what cowardice and heartless arrogance looks like when it veils itself as civility and charity.




EWTN's New Baby

The National Catholic Register

Is this not spectacular?

People who blog have a lot of different gigs.  This will not come as a surprise to long-time readers, but I fall into the category of activists who use their blog as a tool, rather than a journalist.   Like any activist, I've periodically cc'd Catholic journalists, bloggers, newspaper - a) because they should know what's going on and b) knowing the controversy is newsworthy, you hope to get the information out there so that scandals against Christ's Church, souls, children, Sacraments - so worthy of having their sanctity protected - will benefit from having the light shine on it.

I really have been a defender of the Legion, not Maciel, but the innocent order of priests who are (or want to be) faithful to Christ that were sucked into the vacuum.   For so many years faithful candidates to the priesthood were denied admission to seminaries because, after all, if you're going to be hopping into bed with your brother seminarians, the last thing you want around are people who are there to purify themselves, learn the authentic faith and be trained in the discipline of celibacy.    For the last...God only knows how long...to this day, faithful priests have to fly under the radar to keep their assignments, remain a pastor, avoid being labeled as mentally disturbed when you complain about the sex, drinking, drugs, stealing and spiritual abuse of the flock.    The Legion was a refuge from this diocesan  skullduggery and I defended, hoped and prayed for reform post-Maciel.

That all ended a few years back when I could no longer avoid the reality that the Legion was using their newspaper to give shelter and cover up the corruption of Bishops.  I don't mean to implicate any of the fine journalists all of whom I deeply respect - or even Fr. Owen as these decisions I'm sure took place far above his head.  I'm just saying that my respect for the order was scandalized when I realized that even if a Bishop literally got involved in the abortion mill business the Legion would use their newspaper to provide the Bishop a place to write FAQs that avoided the substance of allegations and covered up the trail of scandal with smoke and mirrors. 

You've got to go a long way to lose my respect.   I'm usually the last one standing in the room giving you the benefit of the doubt.  There is something seriously wrong with the Legion. 

I'm delighted the Register is going to be under EWTN.  Wow - what great news for the journalists.  What great news for all of us.

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Not a good day to drive college students back to school...

I spent the day driving April back to school and all I can say is wow, heck of a day to drive.    I think my hands are permanently in a steering-wheel grip.    Passed dozens of cars that went off the road into the ditches.

Thank you Jesus for getting us there and home safely.

Unwinding.....

Healthcare Bill Repeal On the Radar in Washington

How much clout does Nancy Pelosi have left?

We're about to find out.

On top of the taxes in your paycheck and the taxes on your home and the taxes on the goods and services you purchase, were you aware that starting in 2013, the Democrats added a 3.8% tax when you sell your house to pay for this disaster?

Add this to your prayer list today kiddies.

Permanent Deacons and Sex

Ed Peters is kicking up a controversy about whether or not permanent deacons can be sexually intimate with their wives.


Most Church teaching is straight-forward in the Catechism.   Sometimes, Church teaching and discipline is a puzzle that is pieced together by the fullness of Scripture explained by the Catechism, Canon Law and the encyclicals of our Popes.

You can follow the conversation on Ed's blog where he is responding to, as you can imagine, the say WHATs?! all over blogosphere.

Monday, January 17, 2011

Prayers for Fr. Eutenheuer

I haven't followed Fr. E's situation since he ducked out of HLI on the request of his Bishop.  It seems something funky is going down.    Please keep him in your prayers.

http://badgercatholic.blogspot.com/2011/01/fr-euteneuer-in-serious-situation-of.html

http://badgercatholic.blogspot.com/2011/01/fr-euteneuer-in-serious-situation-of.html

Sunday, January 16, 2011

The Caritas Christi Kerfuffle Gets an Extreme Makeover in the Pilot

Several readers and colleagues brought to my attention the Pilot article written by Scot Landry responding to criticism over the Caritas sale and the Cardinal's lack of concern about Catholic identity.


Scot has brought a great deal of faithful teaching in Boston to Catholic adults (including priests) who are starving for it. Among the things he's done is running a solid and inspirational Women's and Men's Conference with phenomenal speakers.  (Some of you may know Scot's brother Fr. Roger Landry who is a serious physician of souls dedicated to bringing God's people to salvation.)  I respect Scot.


So, what do I think about Scot's article?


Why now is the diocese addressing this and why Scot?  Seems strange after all this time.   Is it the damage done by Phil Lawler's article - Terms of the Agreement?


In any event, I think Scot makes some valid points about the financial mess Caritas was in. But he doesn't convince me, for a lot of reasons.


The Democratic party has long had plans to take over the healthcare system in the United States.    Jack Connors as we like to say here in Boston "coincidentally" is a very big player in the Democratic party.  Connors, in fact, co-chaired the 2004 convention, the convention where Barack Obama made his political debut.  (For non-Boston readers, Connors is playing a co-Cardinal role which he shares with Bryan Hehir)

Caritas President Ralph de la Torre wanted to be a player in the plan.  Here's his introduction:   Open letter to Obama written on January 23, 2009.

Mr. de la Torre, made contributions and lined up others to make contributions to Martha Coakley  (among others) presumably to shore up the plans with political power.  ( Last year, de la Torre raised a million dollars for the Democratic party and  Obama made a personal visit to de la Torre in his home in West Newton.  I wonder if he got a pen!)

Everyone here following the minutia of these shady dealings (and this is purely educated political conjecture) thinks there will be a big "TA DA" when de la Torre is finished building this network of national hospitals: Jack Connors Partner's Health Care will gobble up the empire in an acquisition that will be working to accomplish Obamacare's objective of nationalized medicine.

When the plan is finished, the rights of Catholics to conscientiously object to withholding  treatment or killing a life the government has determined is worthless will have more far-reaching national consequences to Catholics.


By the way -- this is very simple.  We have a man here - de la Torre - with narcissistic ambition who sees the plan of Obama and he's decided he's going to be sitting pretty to make Obama an offer he can't refuse.  There is no 'conspiracy' here.   This is how political and social ambition come together in any mission.    As the government inches along, at some point they are going to need a network of hospitals to give cheap healthcare to the masses. "Guess who" will be sitting with the network.  This guy is very, very smart.     We have smart people on the side of the sanctity of life too, but sadly very few of them are at our Chanceries.  Smart people have the tendency to point out where mistakes are being made and things are going to go haywire.   We all know what happens when you try to tell Chancery folks that their ideas are unsound and dangerous to children.   Smart people get shunned and maligned and up goes a fortress of willful ignorance.


There's a Hitler or Goebbels quote that goes something like masses of people are more likely to fall victim to a big lie than a small one because they won't realize what's happening to them.  Of course what happened here, with all of these democratic players, is momentum in the trajectory of Obama's Obamacare and nationalized medicine. 


As it stands now, we had to promise that when women come into our primary care physicians and want an abortion Catholics will give out information that is neutral and send the child in her womb in a taxi cab to be executed.   The Cardinal agreed to let members of the Commonwealth go into examination rooms "if necessary" to make sure we are compliant with this contractual obligation.  The Cardinal signed off on this. He is not a stupid man and knows Catholics are now forced into doing something that condemns to death a living human being. It is sinful - possibly to the point of excommunication - I don't know - but it is a very serious thing he has forced us into.   I am not up for excusing his behavior with ignorance.    He has abdicated and it is about time we all start saying it out loud.  

You can't say that the Cardinal takes Catholic identity seriously when the man he has delegated (Bryan Hehir) has put the fox in the henhouse.  If the Cardinal took Catholic identity seriously, or Catholic doctrine or Canon Law - he'd be putting people in place that took it seriously.   Hehir has been working to extinguish the rights of Catholics to recuse themselves from doing something immoral to a sick and unhealthy patient.   Last year, Hehir even had the gall to sit on a panel beside an MGH doctor who does second trimester abortions and is working for the right to give the unborn a lethal injection before he decapitates them. Hehir's contribution essentially, was to say it isn't fair for Catholics to have conscience protections because it impacts the rights of patients to receive these medical services.  Conscience protections threatens social justice.   He calls his theory on Catholic conscience protections "Fair Adjudication".    I don't know how fair it is to the victims for a Catholic priest to sit on a panel affirming the services of the doctor who decapitates them, but there you have it. 

Maybe the Cardinal is ignorant of this too - but it isn't for lack of people trying to tell him that he's ignorant of all these facts, that's for sure.  More on that in a minute.


Scot's financial assertions seem reasonable.  But saying Caritas Christi was insolvent doesn't fly with me because Mr. de la Torre was and is quite capable of drumming up investors and making hospitals solvent.    Recently, de la torre's abilities to build a successful network of hospitals and make them succesful was highlighted in this article HERE.

Steward Health Care System chief executive Ralph de la Torre, making his debut at the annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, told investors this morning that he plans to take his company's Massachusetts cluster of community hospitals national.

"Our national model is really about replicating our regional model and keeping a very small centralized structure," he said.

De la Torre said Steward is building a model of lower-cost, high-volume patient care that is much different from larger hospital organizations such as Massachusetts General Hospital, Cleveland Clinic, and Mayo Clinic.

Cheap healthcare for high volumes of people.  Sound familiar? 

Catholics educated on more details than the average Pilot reader have a difficult time swallowing that on the one hand, de la Torre's claims he was incapable of building a model of lower-cost,high-volume patient care, keeping a very centralized structure with the six hospitals at Caritas Christi because on the other hand, he is out in the public square, now as the CEO of Caritas' parent company, saying he knows just how to do it. And, he says he is so successful, he is taking his Caritas model national.

Does he know how to do it or doesn't he? If he knows how to do it, then he was perfectly capable of doing it when the hospitals were Catholic and owned by the diocese.    That was his job.  Caritas was in fact making a profit by the time the Cardinal 'sold' them.  

This profit even allowed them to come up with the money to purchase two more (non-Catholic) failing hospitals. A  miraculous infusion of cash from wallets they were trying to claim were empty, isn't it?


You'll also note the claim in Scot's article that the Cardinal was ignorant of his contractual performance obligations to carry out abortions in the arrangement with Commonwealth Care.  According to the article, he was also ignorant of the related business arrangements and contracts that carried out the agreement of the diocese to provide abortions with Centene.  Additionally, he was ignorant about the acquisition of Landmark.   This is all believable up to a point, but it isn't excusable.


It appears from the article that if it weren't for newspapers, the Cardinal wouldn't know a thing about what's going on in his own diocese.     Isn't this how pedophiles got away with that they got away with for years?


This is just an observation here - but a puff piece on how ignorant the Cardinal was on very serious things going down in his diocese is kinda sorta enabling isn't it?   It's going in the opposite direction of the solution to all the people running amok with authority that belongs to the role of a Cardinal while he runs around planet earth being the Charles Kuralt of the Episcopal Conference.


So let's think this through...


The Cardinal appointed Bryan Hehir to represent him on the Board of Directors at Caritas.    Since Bryan Hehir is required to sign resolutions approving such transactions as a member of the board it is not possible for him to claim ignorance.  Assuming Scot's explanation is true, Hehir kept the Cardinal in the dark, even when Catholics stepped forward to communicate the information to him.


Here's where that starts to fall apart for me.   It's been a while since I read the by-laws and structure of Caritas - but I'm pretty sure the signature of the Cardinal was required on the contracts. But let's use the lowest common denominator and assume Bryan Hehir gave the Cardinal's permission for the diocese to take the major stockholder position in a partnership that is going to performing abortions on women and then kept him in the dark about it.


Quite scandalous, wouldn't you say?


Once Catholics stepped forward to tell the Cardinal, because Hehir keeps him in the dark, the Cardinal thinks and then characterizes them on his blog as liars and people doing a disservice to the Church.


And once the Cardinal finds out about all this he didn't fire Hehir?


This begs the question - what other kinds of dishonesty and deception is the Cardinal coddling up there at Chancery?  


If I remember correctly, the Cardinal claimed he didn't know how to figure out whether the diocese could provide abortions to women for the Commonwealth by registering a business who made contracts with abortionists and send the women to abortion clinic in a taxi cab if necessary was in keeping with Catholic ethics.  He thought about it and thought about and he just didn't see anything wrong with it.   After a lot of noise from lay Catholics, he outsourced his conscience to the National Catholic Bioethics Center who eventually unraveled the deal with Centene.   The diocese became a provider of physican services for Centene.  The new arrangment upheld the promise on the contractual obligations they made to the Commonwealth to send the women for abortions in a taxi to the abortionists Centene contracted with.    This might not have saved any children, it didn't protect the Catholics from being forced into providing neutral information on abortion and sending them in a cab - but it did stop the diocese from making the money they would make as a shareholder.


For about a year during this dust up, people called the Cardinal, faxed him, sent him emails, approached him physically at meetings and after Mass to speak to him about the abortion contracts.  We gave the information to the Nuncio, the Holy See, other Bishops, other high-ranking lay Catholics and asked them to intercede.  Reports came back that the Cardinal was completely silent in the face of these communications.  Others got letters confirming that any source saying the diocese was involved in abortion contracts was not giving out accurate information.   Others said they were ordered to be silent by the Cardinal.  The Cardinal did not retract his slanderous remarks about Catholic pro-lifers.    Meanwhile numerous glowing entries praising Bryan Hehir appear on the Cardinal's blog on a frequent basis.


Here's one that is particularly offensive:


We are pleased to announce that Father J. Bryan Hehir, Cabinet Secretary for Social Services and Health Care, has been invited to participate in a symposium hosted by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace at the Vatican this coming October. The topic for the symposium is “Caritas in veritate and the United States” and is the result of a joint collaboration with the Pontifical Council and the Institute for Advanced Catholic Studies at the University of Southern California. The Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace is a ministry of the Holy See dedicated to promoting justice, peace and human rights throughout the world. Pope Benedict XVI, in his latest encyclical, Caritas in veritate, speaks to the issues of “integral human development” and what justice means in today’s global economy.


Father Hehir is an international expert in the area of ethics and foreign policy and the role of religion across the global landscape and in American society. His work has encompassed a broad range of challenges that he has met with distinction, including taking leadership of Catholic Charities USA two days prior to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. He very carefully and capably guided that agency through some of our nation’s most difficult hours, ensuring that Charities’ essential services continued to be provided during the crisis. He also served on the staff of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, addressing issues of both foreign and domestic policy for the Church in the United States.
I am very grateful to Father Hehir for his continued service to the Archdiocese of Boston as priest, cabinet secretary, strategic advisor and professor and for his long standing commitment to pastoral ministry in the prisons, our parishes and with Pro-Life ministries.




A likening to Hehir's career as 'charity in truth' was particularly offensive to Boston Catholics who, unlike the Cardinal, are educated and informed on Hehir's demolition of Catholic identity in Catholic Charities, Catholic healthcare, Catholic education, Catholic governance and doing everything they can to inform the Cardinal around the fortress set up to protect the blissful and willful ignorance.  


Here's the centuries old game in the Catholic Church of willful ignorance:  The Cardinal has an agenda makes plans, hires people to carry out those plans, surrounds himself with a cabal who will threaten, slander and demoralize people of good will who try to report to the Cardinal the theological, spiritual moral and sometimes criminal disorder swirling around the execution of his plans.


My thoughts are, I don't really think the article is helpful towards believing the Cardinal's trajectory is one of honor and truth.


Of recent vintage, the Cardinal misused a quote from the Pope claiming it was his license for his policy dismantling the Catholic identity of our Catholic schools.


“No child should be denied his or her right to an education in faith, which in turn nurtures the soul of a nation.”   (Address of His Holiness Benedict XVI to Catholic Educators in Washington DC, April 17, 2008.)"


Assuming he was ignorant of context of this quote, numerous people informed him that the context was about ensuring Catholic children who could not afford a Catholic education and wanted one, would receive the financial help they need.    Families who oppose Catholic teaching don't have the 'right' to Catholic education.  Decisions to deny them admission are made by people who realize that making classrooms donnybrooks actually denies the Catholic children the right to their education in the faith and the nurturing of their souls.    


Call it what you will - but the Cardinal was informed it was a dishonest use of the quote and he approved using it so I'm just going to say how it is perceived - deliberate dishonesty used to execute Bryan Hehir's decades old agenda of divesting Catholic education of moral theology and reducing it to social justice.


Boston bloggers will have more on this - but if you're interested in getting ahead on the trajectory of Catholic education under Bryan Hehir's regime - check out the youtube of Hehir's explanation embedded in Cardinal Sean's blog.  (I'll give you a hint on one little tidbit - the identity of Catholic education can be explained in the second collection at Mass - supporting The Catholic Campaign for Human Development.)  


Scot is trying to make an honest tapestry out of a web of lies to salvage the Cardinal's reputation as a forthright and honorable man interested in preserving Catholic identity for future generations in his role as a Catholic Cardinal here in Boston.  I understand the reasons why. Scot is a unifer, a peacemaker.  But the credibility and trustworthiness of the Cardinal has been deeply wounded.  Taking the pulse of informed hands-on committed and educated grassroots Catholics I would say irreparably.


There are too many instances where dishonest PR campaigns were mounted to publicly rebuke and undermine people who were trying to inform him of what he claims he did not know.  What he was accountable to know.   What people who informed him know he knows.   There is no honest pursuit of truth. The trust is gone and puff pieces are only going to pour gasoline on the flames.


Those are my thoughts on the article.  I don't mean to pick on Scot, but we've got to stop protecting the fortress of willful ignorance and publicly admit that the Cardinal has abdicated, things are going haywire here and we need official help from the Vatican.

Saturday, January 15, 2011

Excellent daily round-up of Catholic News by Tito Edwards

http://thepulp.it/

I've added it to the blogroll.

(By the way, there's a few excellent Catholic sources that are .com that the blogroll won't let me add.  I'm still trying to figure out how! So, If I've said I'm going to add you and you are a .com, this is where it's at.... )

NECN "makeover" - The Dumbing Down of America

A Saturday morning gripe.

I keep wondering why I'm paying so much per month to watch television when I only watch the movie channels, Fox (the national one) and EWTN, but this week during the storm, I put on NECN.

 They're apparently in the midst of a 'major makeover'?


Wow and wowee.   The dumbing down of America.  

Absolutely jaw dropping.


I can't figure out whether the two personalities who are front and center are intelligent people taking their verbiage down to the moronic level because that is who they think their audience is, or whether they themselves are not the sharpest tools in the shed.

They incessantly repeat some theme song where some dame butchers the English language, saying things like 'I'm wey-in foyer, wey-in foyer'  which in context I presumed to be "waiting for you".

You know that genre of music they're drilling into American children?   Keeping children in the ghetto in the mindset of sounding illiterate (geared towards black children especially) where they say 'whiff' for 'with' and 'teef' for 'teeth', etc.   (Ever hear that song?  Some poor intellectually and morally challenged woman sings  "brushin my teef wiff a bottle of jack, i ain't coming back',  after she's  parked her booty in some irresponsible man's sack for the night.  Every time it's on and my own kids are in the car, I say, "Really lady???  The guy didn't even have toothpaste??   Get a tutor,  a moral compass and head for the nearest AA meeting.  You're a mess!"   (I'm not one for conspiracy theories... but I swear it is an exploitation of not too sharp in the head people by big money bigots.  It couldn't possibly be done in good faith.....could it??!)

What they're doing to people who watch television is absolutely brutal!

What have we learned in 2,066 years





                       
        "The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, 
        public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be 
        tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should 
        be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to 
        work, instead of living on public assistance." 
       
                                                               -  Cicero   55 BC 
     
        Evidently nothing.....


h/t to frjf!

Friday, January 14, 2011

Boston Archdiocese is Again Highlighted in the Vortex



My initial thoughts are here. An update has been posted at Bryan Hehir Exposed that you don't want to miss. MaryAnn Kreitzer has a post HERE. Janet Baker posts here thoughts HERE.

I'll have my update some time before the weekend is over!

Dynamite

Highlights from Catholicism Series coming in September.  This looks absolutely spectacular.   Give yourself a gift and watch the entire thing.

What a day today was, eh?  Our beloved John Paul beatified on Divine Mercy Sunday.   Would it be imprudent as a Catholic to buy a few scratch tickets in the hopes of being there??   LOL.   Come on Lord, a week off of the Isle of Crete!  Give me a break!   :P


Pope Names Fr. Chris Coyne Auxiliary Bishop in Indianapolis

Wow...He got out of Dodge!

Good for him!

Fr. Chris Coyne (not to be confused with Ron) is a very familiar character to Boston Catholics.  He was communications director during Cardinal Law's tenure and he has some kind of show on BCTV - I've never tuned into BCTV -- I'm more of an EWTN kind of gal - but I think it's about religious architecture?  I believe he also teaches at seminary.

Several years back, when Walter Cuenin was removed for pilfering and stealing (the only priest in Boston who, instead of being arrested, was given the opportunity to 'pay back' the money that didn't belong to him and was given an assignment (which, in effect, sexually demoralizes young Catholic students at a local Boston College), Fr. Chris Coyne was given the assignment at Our Lady Help of Christians.   Parish "Voice of the Faithful" thugs tormented and tortured Fr. Coyne and after a terrible time there, he resigned.

I don't think we see eye-to-eye on some things but I very much liked him.  He is an honorable and ethical man who really loves our Lord and His Church.   He's got a ferocious sense of humor (one of the few Catholics in town who may be more sarcastic than I am!).   He's compassionate, bright, pastoral in the true sense of the word.    I'm glad for him.  God Bless him.

UPDATE

Excellent round up on this and the (ad nauseum) inaccuracies from the Boston Globe from my colleagues at Boston Catholic Insider

Adiós Michael Steele

As head of the RNC, Steele had one of two lead political strategist positions in the country.   As such, he was responsible for picking out the tome for who would be recruited and funded in the 2008 election.   He was too out of touch with the grassroots to know that the days of doing magical "prolife' makeovers to try to use the prolife vote to elect their proabort fiscal conservatives are over. Gone.  Finished.  He ran a hell of a campaign, literally.  

He stepped aside today (after realizing he was about to lose the election) saying he thinks Americans are ready for something different.

RNC chairman Michael Steele removed himself from the race for his job today after steadily losing ground to his opponents in each round of balloting. "I will step aside," he said before the fifth ballot began, "because I think the party is ready for something different [and not because I am obviously going to lose]."

Maybe, just maybe, the RNC realizes exactly what that "something different" actually is.

I'm still skeptical and I want to see how this affects recruiting a pool of presidential candidates, but this has the potential to be really, really great news for the pro-life movement.    

If only the DNC would do the same.  (Miracles can happen.)

Took My Pulse...

Still too hot to talk about the Cardinal's 'non-discrimination' policy wiping out the remote chance that the few authentic Catholic teachers they hired would actually teach Catholic teaching on sexual morality in the classrooms.  (It really wasn't very charitable of me to call them screwballs...or was it sleazeballs?) I'll be posting on it over the weekend sometime though.

I note in the Boston Globe article that lesbian Mary Ann Duddy spoke for lesbian movement and "women priestesses" (of which she is one) who gave Cardinal O'Malley the thumbs up.  

While I'm cooling down ask yourself when, do you suppose, the last time the following Boston priests told the suckers they suck into their pews the teachings of the Church sexual morality?: Austin Fleming, Ron Coyne, Bryan Hehir, Bob Bowers (is he still on the payroll?), Stephen Josoma, Walter Cuenin, Timothy Kelleher, Paul Kilroy, William MacKenzie, St. Cecelia's, St. Anthony's Shrine, the Paulist Center, St. Ignatius - to name a few?

Let's have the decency to be honest that these priests priests and parishes who actively recruit homosexual families withhold moral teachings to the Catholics while they're picking their wallets.   This kind of spiritual abuse is infuriating really, to this Catholic.     Why are homosexuals and lesbians kept in the dark week after week?  At least the rest of us have a chance to hear what our attractions are doing to our salvation.

This Archbishop can kid some people, but he can't kid people in a state of grace.

There I go again...I'm going to stop talking about this for today before I say something else I regret saying.

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Fulton Sheen and the Hound of Heaven

Mary Ann Kreitzer reminds us of a spectacular book by Bishop Fulton Sheen - Lift up Your Hearts.

BTW -- I can't comment on the buffoonery at the Chancery until I cool my jets, least I find myself suffering from every one of those seven pallbearers.

Oprah

Hello Gluttony.

Boston Chancery [Redacted :O)] Use Poweroutages to Release Policy Dismantling Catholic Identity of Catholic Schools

I called it last week when I guessed the wizards at the Chancery didn't have the honor or spinal fortitude to dismantle the Catholic identity of Catholic schools face-to-face in the education convocation.  "They'll do by email", I said, and I tried to figure out what was coming up in the next few weeks that would have people distracted enough for them to plan it out as their timing.

They went for the blizzard and power outages to quickly get it out.

Catholic schools are now formally gone.

This is the last time I want to hear anyone of good will characterize this Cardinal as an honest man who acts in good faith.   Dismantling Catholic identity is his game plan.  He has ownership of it and has been present and accounted for when the plans are made, always giving his input.   The use of deception and chicanery has been part of his strategy in mitigating opposition. His formal schism of the Catholic Church led by Bryan Hehir and Obama's high-salaried cronies who now have complete control of the Boston Chancery is complete.

The priests who have sat on presbyteral councils and archdiocesan councils stroking the Cardinal's ego and making excuses for him are partially to blame.   The amount of damage to the Catholic Church in Boston they let happen on their watch is despicable.    There is nothing left.  They have given away the heritage of our children, smiling and nodding and getting their ego stroked.   Giddy just to be there, they are castrated.

You've got to love the introduction.  They explain all about their process.   They pull weak and wimpy people together on a team in an effort to reach "consensus".     It's never their intention to actually reach consensus and everything anyone of good will who testifies to the truth is never part of the final product but they're thanked for their 'thoughtful and caring input'.    It's all a dog and pony show to quash opposition and truth.  Weak people are picked out to be on the team and they are played like fiddles.  

The policy says it may be in keeping with the policy to let Catholics have priority.  It might not, depending on who else applies.   Everyone has a right to a Catholic education, according to the Holy Father, they say.


Don't miss the last paragraph, which is the corker. They absolutely respect subsidiary.  Everyone can develop their own policy - so long as it matches this one.  Boston Bloggers will have more to say about this in the next few days -- and a campaign in the coming weeks and months and in fact throughout the year to defund them.

What a piece of theological and canonical trash.

Here's a letter sent out by Catholic pro-life Mom Marily Lopresti - you might want to reach out to the parties yourself if you have a moment.  More will be coming so stay tuned.

From: Marilyn Lapresti
To: nuntiususa@nuntiususa.org; cdf@cfaith.va; educatt@ccatheduc.va; vati133@ccatheduc.va; univ@ccatheduc.va
Cc: ArchbishopSean_O'Malley@rcab.org; bostoncatholicinsider@gmail.com; Reverend_Richard_Erikson@rcab.org; archbishopsean@rcab.org; oneill_m@rcab.org; saintjohns@comcast.net; frmarc7482@yahoo.com; michael.boughton@bc.edu; Fr.Walter@Carreiro.com; rectory@stagathaparish.org; parish@sfab.org; frconole@parishmail.com; ReverendDavid_Couturier@rcab.org; stgregoryparish@gmail.com; frevans@stjulia.org; ReverendThomas_Foley@rcab.org; frpeter@staugustineparish.org; hfinfo@holyfamilycapeann.org; cjh413@juno.com; saintritalowell01854@yahoo.com; parishsec@stcofg.com; fr.huynguyen@gmail.com; jfrafferty@yahoo.com; dsheehan@ourladys.com; stceciliaparish@gmail.com; iceverett@comcast.net; stjulia@stjulia.org; parishoffice1130@verizon.net; fatherjoer@gmail.com; sttim@sttim.net; ReverendMark_Oconnell@rcab.org; stbernadetteparish@comcast.net; frmakos@hfamesbury.com; bishopdooher@rcab.org; MostReverendWalter_Edyvean@rcab.org; rev.arthur.kennedy@sjs.edu; vicar_general@rcab.org; info@stceciliaboston.org; stlukebelmont@verizon.net; bmanning@stmarysfranklin.org; saint.agnes@st-agnes-reading.org; info@atgweymouth.org; fatheralonso@stmaryoftheannunciation.com; stanthony.camb@verizon.net; p.heart@comcast.net; stwilliamsrectory@comcast.net; info@stanthonyshrine.org; sttarcis@aol.com; bryanhehirexposed@gmail.com; 


To Apostolic Nuncio Archbishop Pietro Sambi
cc: Cardinal Sean O'Malley and members of the Boston Presbyteral Council

I would like to ask for the immediate intervention by the Apostolic Nuncio, Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith,  prevent a crisis in the Boston archdiocese from spreading across the country.  As you can see below, a policy has just been promulgated for the purpose of forcing pastors to admit children of homosexual parents.

1) The policy is rooted in deception from the first line!  Selected words of the Holy Father originally used in one context are repurposed to justify the policy. Cardinal O'Malley, and anyone who approved this policy with these words knowing they were used out of context should be asked to resign. That the Cardinal Archbishop of Boston would knowingly misuse the words of the Holy Father and deceive his entire archdiocese destroys any trust between the ordinary and priests and laity and creates a climate where his governance and words can no longer be believed.

2) The policy tramples the principle of subsidiarity by taking decision-making away from the pastor and making him beholden to the archdiocesan policy. See this blog post for details.

http://bostoncatholicinsider.wordpress.com/2010/11/10/diocesan-deception-in-catholic-schools-admission-policy/

3) Input by many of the people consulted, including members of the Presbyteral and Archdiocesan Pastoral Council was completely ignored.

4) These two blog posts explain everything else that is wrong with the policy, from the lack of mention about the need to partner with parents in Catholic school education, to the consequence that the policy will force the Catholic church into giving explicit recognition to gay unions and marriages, in direct contradiction to the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church.

http://bryanhehirexposed.wordpress.com/2011/01/05/archdiocese-of-boston-to-announce-catholic-school-admission-policy-for-children-of-gay-parents/
http://bryanhehirexposed.wordpress.com/2010/12/22/catholic-school-admission-policy-apc-member-feedback/

I urge you to take whatever actions are necessary to stop this policy effort immediately before other dioceses follow suit.

Sincerely in Christ,

Mary Lapresti, Boston

(Can you tell we're fuming?)


To:       Pastors, Principals and Heads of Schools
 
From:   Catholic Schools Office
 
Date:   January 12, 2011
 
Over the past many months, at the direction of Cardinal Seán, the Catholic Schools Office has worked to develop an admission policy for our schools.  Our goal has been to provide clarity and guidance for pastors, school principals, administrators and the wider school community.
 
During an extensive review process we consulted with the Presbyteral Council, Archdiocesan Pastoral Council, Pastors, Principals and a number of lay and academic leaders.  We sought a process that would allow us to reach consensus on a policy that would be appropriate in a Catholic school environment while understanding the diverse population of students we are entrusted with educating. 
 
I want to thank everyone who participated in the review for their thoughtful and caring input.  The future of Catholic education is bright in the Archdiocese because of many good and talented people such as our pastors, principals, teachers, staff and students.  By working together we are creating an environment for our students that offers them opportunity and a future filled with promise.  
 
Catholic education is one of the most important ministries in the Church.  Parents choose to send their children to a Catholic School because of our commitment to strong moral values inspired by Gospel teachings, a track record of academic excellence, and safe learning environments, among other reasons.  They also choose Catholic education with the knowledge that the child always comes first.  With the adoption of this admission policy we hope to clarify our overall commitment to serve families who are accepting of our approach to the academic and moral development of our students.  
 
If you have any questions about the admission policy, please do not hesitate to contact us.
 
Following is the policy approved by the Cardinal.  


Archdiocese of Boston ~ Catholic Schools Admission PolicyIntroduction
In creating the Catholic Schools Admission Policy, we are guided by the words of the Holy Father, by Canon Law and by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops:
 
“No child should be denied his or her right to an education in faith, which in turn nurtures the soul of a nation.”   (Address of His Holiness Benedict XVI to Catholic Educators in Washington DC, April 17, 2008.)
 
 “As important as a sound Catholic school education is for the new immigrant and the poor, it continues to be of prime importance to those children and grandchildren of the generations who earlier came to our shores. Our Catholic schools have produced countless numbers of well-educated and moral citizens who are leaders in our civic and ecclesial communities. We must work with all parents so they have the choice of an education that no other school can supply—excellent academics imparted in the context of Catholic teaching and practice.”  (“Introduction,” Renewing Our Commitment to Catholic Elementary and Secondary Schools in the Third Millennium, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Inc., 2005.)
 
"The Church has in a special way the duty and the right of educating, for it has a divine mission of helping all to arrive at the fullness of Christian life.  Pastors of souls have the duty of making all possible arrangements so that all the faithful may avail themselves of a Catholic education.  Education must pay regard to the formation of the whole person, so that all may attain their eternal destiny and at the same time promote the common good of society. Children and young persons are therefore to be cared for in such a way that their physical, moral and intellectual talents may develop in a harmonious manner, so that they may attain a greater sense of responsibility and a right use of freedom, and be formed to take an active part in social life." (Code of Canon Law, Title III, Catholic Education, Canon 794-795.)
 
“Young people of the third millennium must be a source of energy and leadership in our Church and our nation. Therefore, we must provide young people with an academically rigorous and doctrinally sound program of education and faith formation designed to strengthen their union with Christ and his Church.”  (“Why We Value Our Catholic Elementary and Secondary Schools,” Renewing Our Commitment to Catholic Elementary and Secondary Schools in the Third Millennium, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Inc., 2005.)
 
“While we look with pride to the many successes and achievements of our Catholic elementary and secondary schools, the entire Catholic community must now focus on the future and the many challenges we face...We must then move forward with faith, courage, and enthusiasm because Catholic schools are so important to our future…In addition, Catholic schools should be available to students who are not Catholic and who wish to attend them. This has been a proud part of the history of Catholic schools in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. We must continue this outreach in the new millennium.”  (“The Challenges of the Future”, Renewing Our Commitment to Catholic Elementary and Secondary Schools in the Third Millennium, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Inc., 2005.)
 
The Policy
 
The goal of our Catholic Schools is to present Catholic faith and Catholic teaching to our students in a rigorous academic, spiritual and moral education program.   Catholic school students strive for high academic achievement, are taught to love and worship God, and live the Gospel teachings.  Catholic school students work together, build community and give service to others.  
 
Our schools welcome and do not discriminate against or exclude any categories of students.  Admission is dependent both on academic qualifications and the desire to promote what is in the best interest of the student.  Students are considered “academically qualified” if they meet a school’s written academic criteria for admission.  Academically qualified Catholic students may be given priority for admission to Catholic Schools.
  
Parent(s)/guardian(s) of students in Catholic schools must accept and understand that the teachings of the Catholic Church are an essential and required part of the curriculum. 
 
Guidelines for Policy Implementation
Pastors and principals should consult the Catholic Schools Office with any questions pertaining to admissions or the policy. 
 
School admission policies must be written, included in the school handbook, consider the welfare and best interests of the child and be disseminated to prospective students and their parents prior to registration.
 
In accord with the principle of subsidiarity, pastors, principals, advisory and/or governing boards may develop specific admission policies for their school provided they are in conformity with the Archdiocesan Catholic Schools Admission Policy.
 
Each school should implement a recruitment and marketing program to maximize its enrollment consistent with its capacity and location.