The Congregation of Cacophony at America Magazine sees the writing on the wall. They are not happy campers In All Things.
Consoling themselves by LCRW's announcement that they plan to take their time responding to the CDF's takeover, dissident cleric James Martin, SJ, tweeted for the sisters this summary of their contribution to his state of his soul:
"Catholic sisters teach me what it means to persevere without the benefit of institutional power.”
The dear sisters taught him how to separate himself from the Mystical Body of Christ. Is this supposed to be a compliment?
He goes on to tell several stories that are completely devoid of sanctifying grace. When he thanks sisters, they thank him - and so on. He strokes their ego and they stroke his. Then he invited others to join the cocadoodle do.
Is the reader supposed to conclude that so long as we leverage leading souls away from the Body of Christ and into perdition with saying please and thank you, we are not in need of reformation and conversion?
The passive-aggressive stuff is really creepy.
The good news is, Fr. Martin just can't be a man. He can't say what he'd like to say. Shocked he is, that his tweets were misunderstood as dissent. He was just trying to be nice. That's all.
Claiming America Magazine is leading people to dissent from the Catholic religion is preposterous. Preposterous I tell you. Just ask Raymond Schroth, SJ.:
Would the condemnation of the nuns and the unfortunate sermon in Peoria have happened if these men blessed with authority believed that the Spirit works in the whole church, not just in Rome or chanceries, and had listened? Really listened.
But, they were listened to. For 40 years. The Vatican let a generation of Catholics listen to logic that contradicts Holy Spirit, without intervention. They now see the rotten fruit. They are changing their course. What we all hope now is that the Jesuits are next on the chopping block.
My favorite story was under the heading 'sign of the times' where they express their opinion about another intervention by the CDF on a dissident priest from Ireland: “individual focus on Father Flannery and inevitably, by implication, on the members of the association, is an extremely ill-advised intervention in the present pastoral context in Ireland.” In the past, Father Flannery has called for reconsideration of the church’s teachings on a variety of issues, including the ordination of women, the ban on artificial birth control and mandatory priestly celibacy.
Be sure to read the comments section on this one. They cite another bastion of orthodoxy the National Catholic Reporter as reporting the priest has be gagged: According to national catholic Reporter, he has now been silenced... "the words of the prophets are written on the subway walls..." comes to mind...It is a long winter and getting darker....
We don't mind if their prophets write on subway walls. Knock yourselves out. Potties are another good place. Just keep it out of earshot of Catholics who want to learn their religion.
Hope your Christmas day was filled with joy, laughter, love and the presence of our newborn King. We had a great day here at Camp McKinley. I don't know about you, but I'm not psyched up for this 'blizzard'. I don't know how to operate my snowblower. :O) Guess today's the day I'm going to learn!
Meanwhile, here's something to warm the cockles of your heart...
In a nutshell, they do a convoluted jig around the 'moral analysis' relied upon to perform the abortion. The teaching of the Church is that it is never permissible to perform an abortion no matter what the circumstances, even when the abortion would improve the health of the mother. If a pregnant woman is in a health crisis, medications, operations, procedures that will improve her health are permissible, even if those procedures risk the life of her unborn child, but never an abortion.
It's a tough teaching in the circumstances these individuals were in, but it is the teaching. The administrator of the Catholic Hospital was there to uphold the teaching. You tell her we'll do what we can to stabilize the situation until the baby can survive outside of the womb, give her the best medical care available, get the prayers and novena's going. If the pregnant mother of four made the choice to pursue an abortion, we don't chain people to their hospital beds and she has the option of arranging a transfer to a non-Catholic hospital.
This is why you see a dance around calling the procedure an abortion in their 'moral analysis', as in this Condomweal piece here.
““The procedure performed at St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center on November 5, 2009, cannot properly be described as an abortion. The act, per its moral object, must accurately be described as saving the life of the mother. The death of the fetus was, at maximum, nondirect andpraeter intentionem. More likely, the fetus was already dying due to the pathological situation prior to the intervention; as such, it is inaccurate to understand the death of the fetus as an accessory consequence to the intervention.”
There are numerous flaws in this analysis. The procedure was an abortion with the direct intention of killing the child. The child in utero was not dying and saying 'more likely' that it was is 100% conjecture. But the most compelling observance of their moral poverty was their description of the 'death of the fetus as an accessory consequence to the intervention".
When dilating the woman's cervix, inserting the vacuum to the living child within her womb and tearing the child into small enough pieces to go through the tubes and into the jar, they approached the procedure with the intention of permitting the child to live. In the course of this medical intervention, the dead child was an unintended accessory consequence and therefore, it is 'bogus' (as Korzen calls it) to describe the procedure as an abortion.
The hospital has the support of the Catholic Health Association, the U.S. Catholic community foremost healthcare authority, Catholics United says. Gotta love that. (They also have the support of the reliable contradictors of Catholic teaching . The crew at the National Catholic Reporter. James Martin conveniently gathers the links of the people adrift from One Holy Catholic Apostolic Church at Condomweal here. Vox Nova here.)
Taking a quick glimpse at other press releases at "Catholics United", it's quite a peculiar focus for a Catholic group. In fact, I couldn't find anything that actually defended Catholic teaching. When they "unite", they "unite" behind people people who procure and legislate abortion or pour ants over the Catholic Crucifix to blame Catholic teaching for the HIV caused by irresponsible sex.
I doubt they were edified with Bishop Olmsted's response --
The Phoenix Diocese issued the following statement: "Unfortunately, St. Joseph's hospital and 'Catholic's United are not in union with Bishop Olmsted and have no claim to being considered authentically Catholic, nor do they speak for the church in any way."
Why don't they just use the take away the right of "Catholics United", the "National Catholic Reporter" and the "Catholic Health Association" to use the name "Catholic" to set up an alternate 'magisterium'?
It is comprehensive in addressing every inanity by theorists proposing this was the green light for people having irresponsible sex. The focus of Christendom, society and the State is liberating people chained to immoral and sinful practices.
The response of the entire Christian tradition – and indeed not only of the Christian tradition – to the practice of prostitution can be summed up in the words of St. Paul: "Flee from fornication" (1 Cor 6:18).
The statement also affirmed that the Pope was not separating the unitive and procreative meaning of human sexuality.
My favorite part was addressed to the luminaries who were frantically asserting the teaching of abstinence was now trumped with the 'pastoral approach' of the "the lesser of two evils":
S
ome commentators have interpreted the words of Benedict XVI according to the so-called theory of the "lesser evil". This theory is, however, susceptible to proportionalistic misinterpretation (cf. John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Veritatis splendor, n. 75-77).
An action which is objectively evil, even if a lesser evil, can never be licitly willed...
In conclusion, in the battle against AIDS, the Catholic faithful and the agencies of the Catholic Church should be close to those affected, should care for the sick and should encourage all people to live abstinence before and fidelity within marriage.
I'm very relieved the Holy See responded to the pandemonium so thoroughly.
In this post, Michael Sean Winters tries to get people to believe if Domino's delivers pizza to Planned Parenthood, this is akin to the Catholic Conference of Bishops giving money to fund groups promoting abortions.
I see what he's saying.
Sorta like waitress at Bickfords who served the Taliban before they hoped on the plane and crashed into the twin towers is the same level of cooperation with evil as the people funding them.
Maybe he's onto something.
Could the war on terror could be won peacefully if Homeland Security would only shut down the restaurants in airports?
The wisdom of Winters little story, the morals of which seem to escape me, are supposed to be the antithesis to Catholics outraged over the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' funding groups who lobby for abortion.
What doesn't Winters get about the distinctions between Catholic Bishops funding groups lobbying rights to kill other people and the guy delivering a pizza to Planned Parenthood?
The sole purpose of the Catholic Bishops is the Apostolic duty to uphold the teachings of the Church and guide the discernment of the Catholic population in the public square. The Church has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions, training each Bishop in theology, philosophy, science, history and natural law.
The Church got the money to train these men from the Catholic consumers in the pews who expect a return on their money.
The money the Bishops are giving to groups who fund abortion has been given to the Bishops for the sole purpose of upholding the teachings of the Church so that their children and grandchildren, relatives, friends, neighbors and the faithful at large have the guidance they need to get into Heaven.
People making pizza, delivering pizza, eating pizza and disposing the remnants of our food into the dumps and incinerators aren't the institutions and people dedicated to uphold the teachings of the Church. Catholics in the pews aren't donating their money to the pizza store owner for the sole purpose of upholding the teachings of the Church.
I discovered that a guy I went to seminary with more than twenty years ago had turned into a kind of quixotic shill for the Catholic Church's opposition to DC Gay marriage. Michael Sean Winters was a very flamboyant gay man in the seminary. There is literally no other way to describe him. I always liked him in those days, and was always pleased that there did not seem to be any erotic energy between us. I liked hearing all his liberal postulations and glosses. I shared many of his views. But by nature I am more reserved about letting people know what I am thinking, even though gregariousness is a part of my nature. When I trust someone then it is a different story. Michael Winters was not someone you would trust, because he was really all over the place. It saddened me to hear other seminarians constantly make cruel fun of him for his psychological difficulties and his labyrinthine liberalism. I recall sitting in the refectory with him being entertained by his analysis of certain Church trends as "fascism". Being given personally to trying to understand systems of thought qua systems, I marveled that Michael did not seem to grasp in the inherently inhospitable nature of Catholic polity towards his logic, such as it was. Further, I remember humorously that Greg Rohde, who I think went on to be a Assistant Secretary of Commerce, was sitting there amazed by Michael's scattershot discussion, especially when he digressed into one of his favorite topics -- what a big girl our rector Larry Terrien was. (It really is amazing how far "big girls" go in the Roman Church. I remember seeing Terrien after I left the seminary in a famous gay restaurant in Dupont Circle).
This inability to understand the context of ideas still afflicts poor Michael Winters. Or Michael Sean Winters as he uses for his blogging. What can you say about a guy with such vaunted conceptual ambitions who spent many, many years as hostess with the mostess at Kramerbooks in Dupont. The chicken sandwich on focaccia was always good, and still is. It was always fun to run into him and hear about his perpetual search to get that doctorate in Church History. Fun and sad. Michael seemed more and more conceptually bereft as the years went on, ad the florid confidence of youth, settled into the bizarre juxtapositions of middle aged addled attempts at comprehensivess. Gossip replaced thought. It became too much to even listen to that at some point. It made me reflect on how hard it is to be a gay man in some ways. It brings psychological stresses for all of us. And the gay community has in some ways taken on that nasty fun-making cruelty I saw in those conservative seminarians. So I don't judge Michael. But I will not sit by while his mental confusion is used by right-wing nuts in the Catholic church to create a subtle conceptual space for their essential bigoted positions.
I'm not really tapped into the details of the characters posting Catholic dissent and so the fact that Winters is a gay man who was once in the seminary completely escaped me.
Interesting post here too. (Occasionally, my friends or colleagues will say to me - what world are you living in! "I don't know", I'll say, "one that is gone 12 hours a day for work and then taking care of a house, family and friends? I don't think we are reading the same blogs? "
There is a lot to digest and discuss in this post, including the personal and spiritual impact of realizing the Church considers us "lost sheep" when our flesh and early desires leads us to reject Church teaching. At one point or another in our lives, we have all been there on one Church teaching or another. The alienation brings on a plethora of emotions that are very hard to set aside to get the motivation going to take a stab at understanding the the wisdom of the Church. Personally, I see promiscuity outside of Sacramental marriage, any promiscuity,pre-marital, extramarital, etc., as the same level of inequity in sin (apart from rape of course which piles theft on top of the sin of promiscuity).
Too much to discuss for this post, but a few observations about how Michael Sean Winters is conducting his apostolate are worth noting.
When Winters is discussing sins of promiscuity and abortion at America Magazine and the National Catholic Reporter, the twists and turns of his logic are always baiting people into malice for the teachings of the Church. He characterizes the people who have surrendered their will to the teachings of the Church,out in the public square teaching the tenets of the Catholic religion to others, as the enemy.
His posts give his readers the notion that the Church hates, which further alienates them from perhaps ever setting their emotions aside to conduct due diligence on the actual teachings of the Church. He's holding people hostage, away from the unconditional love of Christ and the Sacraments of His Church. I cannot imagine a worse offense against God.
I've spoken many times before about my own history (past history, thankfully) of railing against the teachings and disciplines of the Church - mostly about contraception and priestly celibacy vs. married priests. I was away from the Church and the Sacraments of the Church for several years. Fools they were in my eyes back then.
Like most mothers raised in the Catholic faith, there was enough seeds planted in my own conscience to want my own children to be raised Catholic and so I returned. When they were old enough for CCD, I went to the priest, told him I wanted to volunteer but spoke candidly about my feelings about the teachings of contraception. I made it clear to him that I would never pass on my own internal conflict to children and that I would study the wisdom of the Church and then teach it and keep my own doubts to myself. He agreed (to my surprise) to let me teach (which I did for ten years on the high school level).
Of course, teenagers have a way of posing questions that are actually quite deep. Because I was sincere in my own pursuit to not infect them with any scandal that they may take with them their whole life, I would often tell them their question was a good one that I would have to think about it, and do some research and get back to them on it. Off I'd go to do the research on how the Church answered their particular misgivings - really without the intention of learning it myself but crafting their answer so they would walk away with the fullness of the reasoning of the Church, while holding onto my own reservations.
It didn't take long before I realized they weren't the fools, I was! And, the next thing you know, I was teaching with conviction, zeal and fire.
Similar to life when friends come to us with troubles over a colleague at work, family, friends and we find ourselves giving them giving advice that we have been overlooking in a situation in our own lives. God in His mysterious ways sets things up so that we are imparting wisdom to others, He's killing two birds with one stone.
Personally, it's always a blow to me when the light goes on for me in those kinds of situations. Often, I've been struggling in dealing with a situation that I think I've been managing well but without real results. Realizing the divine intervention always catches me off guard. If you can't laugh at yourself, you're pretty much screwed in this life.
The picture in this post is another from my favorite artist William Bouguereau, a soul on it's way to Heaven.
Feeding and fueling resentment and animosity over the tenets of the Catholic religion is causally related to the anguish and false sense of rejection of so many souls. Can't they see what they're doing?
Many times over at America Magazine, people have tried to post factual information about Church teaching. They deliberately remove it or bar it. What is going on there is more than confusion, it is a deliberate indoctrination into false teaching and fueling internal rage against Christ's Church.
If you've got your own problems with the teachings of the Church, it's wiser to keep it to yourself.
Holding people hostage to your own animosity so that they're distracted from finding the wisdom of the Church? Good luck with that in the hereafter.
“This day the LORD, your God,
commands you to observe these statutes and decrees.
Be careful, then,
to observe them with all your heart and with all your soul.
Today you are making this agreement with the LORD:
he is to be your God and you are to walk in his ways
and observe his statutes, commandments and decrees,
and to hearken to his voice.
After forty years of liturgical innovations that have included clowns, dancing in leotards, guns and garbage (actually happened here in Massachusetts), invalid matter, invalid prayer, invalid Mass, upcoming revisions to the Roman Missal are causing the chickens to come home to roost: America Magazine and the National Catholic Reporter Launch "Please Don't Change the Liturgy"
"Almost all of them are angry; none gave the revised version unqualified support. One correspondent, in a passage excised from the published version, went as far as writing: 'I hate you, hierarchy.' Feelings are running deep indeed," the newspaper said in an editorial.
"The anger of the people in the pews and many priests (and some bishops) seems to be rooted not so much in what they feel are anachronistic and clumsy translations -- vexing though they appear to be to many -- but in what they see as an arbitrary imposition of liturgical values that are foreign to them by faceless bureaucrats in distant Rome," the editorial said.
Oh what about all the Catholics in 1969 who were appalled at the changes in the liturgy that were forced on them.Did many priests then say.."oh Wait" Paybacks a real bitch for Catholic liberals aint it hahahahaha....
Let's see, 17,000 out of 1.6 billion...what's the percentage there? I don't have my calculator.
I just can't see why the Vatican permits the Jesuits to bait and trap souls into sin with this tabloid piece of trash. They post in such a way as to set faithful Catholics up to be heckled by the readers they've brainwashed.
