Sunday, November 25, 2012

My annual visit to the National Catholic Reporter - A 911 call to the Vatican Jackass Whisperer


 Ordinarily, I am not one for experiments and risk-taking.  I don't go to restaurants unless somebody whose taste buds and cleanliness habits I trust has made a recommendation.  I try to keep away from dark alleys and things that smell.  I stay away from fad diets and processed foods.  I try not to read things that I know will drive me to fire off a nastygram to the Chancery.

I don't know what got into me this week.

First, I went to Job Lot (for the first time in ten years) to buy, of all things, Christmas lights.  You know exactly what happened when I tried to rig them up around my front door.

I also went to Building 19 to pick up extension cords and came across what I thought was a roll of red velvet ribbon.   When I arrived home and opened it, it turns out it wasn't velvet after all.  It's plastic.  I'm going to drop it off at the police station.  Maybe it will come in handy for a crime scene.

I didn't snap out of it until I finished off the trilogy by taking my annual pilgrimage to the National Catholic Reporter.

This week was a Maryknoll shake-up panties-in-a-twist edition.

Apparently Maryknoll is a bigger trainwreck than the Jesuits.   The Vatican took the extraordinary action of dismissing and laicizing 45 year member (formerly Fr.) Ray Bourgeois.

Fr. Bourgeois was excommunicated in 2008 for attending a service simulating the Sacrament of Ordination with a group of women who are so busy being envious of other people's lives they can't see the magnificence of their own.

Here's a picture of the commotion.  I think that's Fr. Bourgeois in the middle wearing the scarf and carrying the drum.  (Is it a drum or is that their consecrated u-charist?)

Same old cast of characters circling the wagons.  Fr. Tom Doyle is acting as his canon lawyer.

Joan Chittister is on edge about the future of the Church.   It's all so intimidating.

Can't a gal publish propaganda painting Christ's Mystical Body as a misogynists who obfuscate the Holy Spirit so they can infect other women with their misery?

The editor, Tom Roberts, was my fav:  "They finally got him".

But worst of all, he began speaking to women and he allowed himself to be convinced.

By the women in the picture?  I wouldn't follow that group out of a burning building.

It is duly noted that Ray Bourgeois didn't 'begin speaking to women' who are zealous and in love with their role as a woman, a wife, a mother, advocate and intercessor for the spiritual and physical needs of their family, friends and people in the community.

When one wishes to allow oneself to be convinced it's good to smoke a crack pipe, one knows exactly who to speak to and who to avoid.

Tom Roberts retaliates against the Church he loathes by digging up the skeletons of priests who couldn't remain celibate and proposing the Church should stop the practice of celibacy.

I am always suspicious of men who caricature their gender as people who always need a port available to pull into or they will become rapists.  After all, where would they get THAT idea if it were not from personal thoughts and struggles?

Celibacy in the priesthood is a very misunderstood practice.  It is a powerful form of fasting that is used as an accessory to prayerful intercession.   As Christ taught, there are some demons that can only be driven out by fasting.  As laity, we beef up our own prayer with fasting.   We spend 40 days fasting from things during Lent and the abstinence brings us closer to Christ.  

Celibacy is the kryptonite of the practice of fasting.

I have a low tolerance for priests who whine about the burden of celibacy.  Do they think that Catholics who choose the vocation of marriage and parenting are free from fasting from sex with eye candy when the going gets tough in a marriage?

Parents spend their lives giving up things they'd love to have, so their children can have the things they need or want - from the first moments they stand by the cradle to their graves.

Celibacy is not the problem.  The problem is selfish sissies and crybabies.

Yeah, 'they' finally 'got' Ray.

Allelluia.  

What I wouldn't give to see them 'get' the National Catholic Reporter folks next.

5 comments:

Restore-DC-Catholicism said...

I think the former head is Father Sivalon. However, he himself might be a former "father" if he continues to carry on as he is.

TTC said...

I see. I saw that Sivalon was a former head but thought they must have had two duds in a row. Ray was just an ordained priest then?

I didn't realize the Maryknolls went to the dogs.

Supertradmum said...

Sigh, some of us with keen Marxism attenae saw Maryknoll go off in the 1980s. As to celibacy, every new seminarian I have talked to say it is the greatest idea ever. How can one run a parish of 8,000 people all by one's lonesome with six kids and wife? Plus, it gives power to the person by concentrating them on the Love of God. Go girl, nice post.

Catechist Kev said...


How soon some forget about the persecution the Orthodox faced at the height of communism in Russia (to give but one example).

There is documented evidence that when Russian Orthodox priests preached about the evils of communism they soon had party knocking on the door.

The message?

"Stop preaching about communism or some of your children and your wife will be sent to Siberia."

Guess what they did?

CK

breathnach said...

Back in the 80s Tip O'Neil, late Speaker of the House, justified his support of Marxist revolutionaries in El Salvador and Nicaragua, because of all the propaganda he received from a Maryknoll relative. They've been mesmerized by ideology for many years.