Dan Avila Update and an SOS to the Vatican

As everyone following the story knows by now, Dan Avila 'resigned' over his column in the Pilot. After his resignation, I held off a bit because I wanted to know whether the 'resignation' was a polite way to cover up his termination or whether he truly resigned of his own free will. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that whether he was driven out or he fled, Cardinal O'Malley has created a hostile work environment for the advancement of Church teaching and the dynamic of this hostile influence reaches to the USCCB.

Dan's commentary lacked some clarity and syntax on original sin and temptation, but theologically, it was sound. Sexual temptation is the devil's most effective tool. We are not engaged in a war of words. Our goal, above all else, is to deliver from temptation. To lead to the sanctifying grace that produces virtue and chastity.

The reality of the situation is, the media is inciting malice and hostility towards Christendom. Given this, how we craft our message that the Catholic Church is the custodian of the temporal and spiritual tools that lead us to chastity when confronted with temptation, has to be worded carefully.

Perhaps a clarification should have been issued. Dan Avila has been faithfully serving Christ's Church for over 30 years. The fact the Cardinal elected to pursue firing the man or made the environment so toxic he had to flee, while keeping prelates on the payroll with a history of shacking up with their lovers, is actionable. We must take action. It is our baptismal duty to take action.

I was speaking with a colleague the other day and mentioned that Cardinal O'Malley is, sadly, too weak to manage the presbyteral mafia. His reply was: "I don't know that he's weak. He is the one that put them all in there".

We do not know the reasons but the evidence is crystal clear: Cardinal O'Malley is the arbiter of silencing Catholic teaching and is leading souls into temptation. He is the architect of the plan. He has hired the workers and he is executing that plan. It's a tough pill to swallow for all of us.

Our colleagues at Boston Catholic Insider have taken the time to put together another communication campaign to the Vatican.

It is simple and takes a few moments of your time.

Please take those moments now and send off the faxes.

The Elephant Under Cardinal O'Malley's Big Top

Have you seen the latest?

I didn't see the original article. While I'm not fond of the way Avila structured his thoughts in the citations I saw, I'd like to know exactly what Terry Donilon's threats of retaliation are based upon.

What exactly is behind his claim it's 'not the teaching of the Church' that sexual temptation and sin come from the devil?

I'll get to Donilon's threats in a minute, but let's try something out relative to the teachings of the Church on temptation and sin:

In the piece, titled “Some fundamental questions on attraction to another's wife or husband,” Avila wrote that “disruptive imbalances in nature that thwart encoded processes point to supernatural actors who, unlike God, do not have the good of persons at heart.”

He continued, “Whenever natural causes disturb otherwise typical biological development, leading to the personally unchosen beginnings of attraction to the spouse of another, the ultimate responsibility, on a theological level, is and should be imputed to the evil one, not God.”

I don't see anything that contradicts Church teaching there.

Let's give it another whirl:

In the piece, titled “Some fundamental questions on attraction to masturbation,” Avila wrote that “disruptive imbalances in nature that thwart encoded processes point to supernatural actors who, unlike God, do not have the good of persons at heart.”

He continued, “Whenever natural causes disturb otherwise typical biological development, leading to the personally unchosen beginnings of attraction to sex with ourselves, the ultimate responsibility, on a theological level, is and should be imputed to the evil one, not God.”

That works too.

The theology is absolutely Church teaching.

Is Donilon saying the Church doesn't teach attractions to sin are from the devil?

That's how it comes across to me.

Do you think the buffoons from the Obama administration in control of the Boston Chancery would have redacted the article and threatened to retaliate if Avila wrote about attraction to heterosexual adultery, premarital sex or masturbation?

Yes, we are all made in the likeness of God but there's one big motherass difference: God was not born with original sin. There was no disorder in His Nature. Because there was no disorder, He was not attracted to any kind of sin.

Unlike the rest of us.

The rest of us were born with original sin and we are therefore disordered, attracted to sin and the temptations to think about them and act upon them come from... the devil.

All of us. Why would you exclude people attracted to same sex from this paragon?

There's something passive-aggressive going on with their reckless disregard for the salvation of gay Catholics. It comes across to me like they are deliberately withholding Church teaching and salvation from them. It's almost as if they consider them the proverbial swine in front of whom they will not cast their precious pearls.
It is exasperating to any Catholic of good will who cares about the salvation of every soul.

Christ said if you have lust in your heart, you've already committed adultery. Ergo, the thoughts and attractions to sin are (venial) sins, even if you don't act on it. Sins are the work of the tempter who is evil.

What am I missing here?

Duly noted is that Donilon would not specify exactly what he thought contradicts Church teaching. He must know that whatever his claims are, they wouldn't stand up to scrutiny by the Holy See.

And this was an absolute corker:

It posted an apology from Avila saying the column didn't represent the position of the Conference of Catholic Bishops, whose stated purpose is to 'promote the greater good which the Church offers humankind,' and wasn't authorized for publication.

The "USCCB" exists to promote the greater good which the Church offers mankind.

Gives you the goosebumps all over, doesn't it?

At least they had the decency not to describe themselves as promoters of Catholic teaching. What a lovely description of a body of wolves who maul and devour truth.

I think this was my favorite sentence:

“As we absorbed what was in the paper, we said, ‘Whoa, that’s a problem,’ ” Donilon said of the reaction of archdiocesan officials. “That’s not the position of the church or the archdiocese.”

You read that right. There they all are up in the Chancery, reading the paper and reacting to positions that are not consistent with Church teaching. There are conferences about it with the "USCCB" who are beside themselves that a theological error has been published.

This is as good as a Kadashian wedding!


Fr. John Unni can schedule a Sacred Liturgy to culminate celebration of public simulation of sodomy on parade floats and you can't get anyone in the Chancery (let alone the Episcopal Embassy in D.C.) to bat an eyelash. You have to storm the Holy See.

Where are the 'retractions' from the National Catholic Reporter? America Magazine? The hundreds of thousands of whacked out articles in Catholic newspapers all across the country for the last 40 years?

BTW, don't miss the compelling evidence that Cardinal O'Malley and his administration is hostile, threatening, intimidating and retaliatory to those who promote Church teaching:

“It was a problem, and we would have dealt with it if Dan had resisted” writing an apology, Donilon said.

I'll refrain from the long list, but has anyone seen an apology from Unni? Cuenin? Bryan Hehir?

How about the heresies and public conduct of Monsignor Paul Garrity whose relationship with a married woman leaves a scandalous impression he is, at the very least, hijacking intimacy that belongs to her husband?

Dan Avila is not a priest, nor is he even a lay person employed by the Archdiocese. What is it exactly Donilon thinks his options were "if Dan had resisted"?

Assuming Terrance Donilon doesn't mean they would send people out to rough him up, Boston priests and Catholics who have experienced the thugs Cardinal O'Malley hired as he goes on his appointed rounds to the circus, pot luck dinners and frau-frau events 24/7 - we can crack that code:

1. Rake him over the coals in a public character assassination.
2. Hire private investigators to stalk you and find something they can use to
threaten your livelihood and paycheck.

Since Dan worked for the Church, all it took was a couple of phone calls to threaten his income.

Dan Avila worked here in Boston for many years. He is personally loyal to the teachings of Christ's Church and has many accomplishments. But when it became clear Cardinal O'Malley was adverse to Catholic teaching and we had a huge problem on our hands, the most charitable thing I can say is, Dan is a good man but would never be a nominee for Profiles in Courage. When the wolf comes to consume the flock, there is no resistance and he does not swim alone in the rivers of inertia and compromise to the devil.

They really had a winning streak going for an awful lot of years with these tactics. They could even cover up rapes with it.

It is a pity their winning streak has been interrupted by those of us who will tell them to stick their threats where the sun don't shine.

The Humble Capuchin: The Artful Dodger's Adventures and Ad Hominems

I apologize for the light blogging. Most blogs are people who use their talents to comment on theology and politics. While I do that here too, I'm really an activist with a blog which means the bulk of my work is done behind the scenes. You'll see a pattern if you read here. When something scandalous is going down and is posted here, the radio silence that follows means what time I have is being devoted to direct contact with the parties, with other Catholics, and disclosing and communicating what is going on to the Nuncio and the Holy See. Articulating our requests/expectations for intervention, etc.

There is a pervasive pattern of responding to scandal in the hierarchy of the Catholic Church in Chanceries across the USA.

They first try sweetness and flattery. They want you to be their friends. You are so smart, you see, they need you to serve on some committee. Your valuable insights and fidelity will be trumped on every policy because they've stack the committees with people who oppose Church teaching of course, but in the meantime, they've silenced your voice in the public square.

If the complaints are physical or spiritual abuse, they will throw money at you. The money comes piggybacked with a confidentiality agreement to get you to sit down and shut up.

When all tried and true tactics fail, they malign and slander. This is memorialized in the Archdiocese of Boston's public relations campaign in response to complaints of the spiritual abuse of parishioners at St. Cecelia's by Fr. John Unni.

The worst of the statements is here in this Lifesite article:

The spokesman also shot back at criticism of the archdiocese’s handling of the situation from Catholics on the blogosphere.

“I’m not going to let these people attack the Cardinal’s integrity nor his 40 plus years of priesthood,” said Donilon, defending O’Malley’s record defending the unborn and marriage, and calling the attacks “outrageous and disgraceful.”

“This isn’t about defending Catholicism, this is about hurting, defaming, denegrating people, and speaking mistruths, and manipulating words and positions of the cardinal and archdiocese. I think they’re malicious,” said Donilon.

As Judie Brown pointed out here, Catholics who want Church teaching promulgated are quite accustomed to Cardinal O'Malley's character assassinations.

There is no difference between this current situation and the problematic nature of the sale of a string of Catholic hospitals to Cerberus Capital Management with the agreement that the hospitals could easily drop their Catholic credentials with a $25 million payment (payoff) to the archdiocese.

Clarity of Catholic teaching has somehow evaded the Archdiocese of Boston in the wake of its efforts to placate the world and its expectations rather than fostering a spirit of healing to those who are troubled and confused.

The nice, kind, humble, pastoral Capuchin once again uses his media relations to characterize complainants as no good so and so's.

Thank you for writing to me expressing your concerns/prayers. I appreciate them and use them. But I don't want you to ever be concerned that these tactics have (or will) intimidate me. I'm out here as a witness. I'm here to remind them (and you) that my allegiance is to God and the Church He left to serve souls for the benefit of our salvation.

What they say bounces off of me like a flea on a dog that's been treated with frontline.

I have written to Mr. Donilon, the Cardinal, his secretaries, his lawyers, the Nuncio and the CDF and told them, and in no uncertain terms, it is my expectation that they cease and desist from using intimidation tactics by characterizing people this way.

Additionally, I shot a flare across their bow that was quite specific on what kinds of things they are to restrain Fr. Unni vis-a-vis his screwball intimidation and slander tactics. We'll see what happens.


There is an excellent set of ten questions posted at BHE that exposes the fundamentals of the artful dodging the Cardinal is doing to cover up and protect Fr. Unni's long history of spiritual abuse at St. Cecilia's which has been laid out on the internet over the past several weeks.

Rescheduling the timing of a Mass they claim was simply a Mass open to all parishioners is a ridiculous and deceptive ruse. The problem with the Archdiocese is, they have never had the good sense to surrender their lies at the foot of the Cross until they are completely discredited by the truth. The handwriting is on the wall but they are too consumed with their charades to read it and recognize its warning.

There's an art to living a life of lying by omission and the commission of ad hominems when somebody reveals your lies. The Boston Archdiocese is the crown jewel of that kingdom.

We have arrived at this desolate place in Catholic history because priests and prelates deprived a generation of Catholics the deposit of our teachings to avoid conflicts with people offended by them.

Cardinal O'Malley is advancing us from the deprivation to the next stage, overtly misleading the flock with false teaching and maligning, intimidating, slandering Catholics who are publicly exposing the chaos of his misfeasance and malfeasance.

This is an on-going story. Boston bloggers have another story cooking on what the Archdiocese does to people who proclaim Church teaching, so stay tuned.

As promised, here's a spectacular editorial that was published in this week's edition of the Fall River Anchor on the pastor care at St. Cecilia's and the Archdiocese of Boston.

Fr. Landry is a priest who will take any soul on that he feels is derailing. Nevermind the courage to take on a Bishop, *I* have been on his radar more than once in my public ministry. That's what you call valor! His demeanor is forthright. He doesn't just drop a hint, or say what he feels he needs to say as a priest. When you try to defend yourself, he stays in the ring. Goes above and beyond to try to get you to see it. A lover of souls and salvation... and a royal pain when you don't want to hear it. :)

His introductory paragraph summarizes the problem quite well:

The ongoing controversy at St. Cecilia’s Church in Boston over the scheduling, postponing and re-theming of a Mass originally planned to celebrate Boston’s gay “pride month” has brought to the surface issues that extend far beyond the boundaries of one parish or archdiocese. The controversy touches not only on the subject of the pastoral care of the Church toward those with same-sex attractions, but on the much larger matter of the purpose of the Church’s pastoral care to anyone and everyone: Whether the Church, her priests and parishes will faithfully, lovingly and courageously care for people with the fullness of the Gospel; or whether her ministers and ministries — perhaps out of too much fear to give offense, a lack of faith in the teachings of the Church, or a faint-hearted notion of what true love demands — will dilute the Gospel of its saving power by stripping it of the uncomfortable and countercultural teachings that some listeners most need.

Here, he disabuses the artful dodgers of the notion that we can't see what they are doing:

Cardinal O’Malley’s intentions to dissociate the Mass from “gay pride,” however, sadly haven’t succeeded, as many members of the parish and of the media have continued popularly to refer to the Mass as a gay pride Mass. Those who have ceased to draw explicit attention to the connection with gay pride have continued, however, to use coded language — “a welcoming Mass” — to communicate that supporters of the gay agenda do not have to worry about being made to feel uncomfortable at the Mass over the incompatibility of the gay agenda with Church teaching. The expression “welcoming Mass” now being employed to refer to the July 10 liturgy does not mean merely that people will be received with genuine Christian hospitality. Like the expression “welcoming parish” used in various places (such as the 200 “gay friendly” parishes promoted by pro-gay websites), it’s a euphemism that communicates to those who may be living in objective discordance with the teaching of Jesus and the Church —like those engaging in the gay lifestyle, living in irregular marriages, cohabitating, undergoing in-vitro fertilization, or actively supporting the practice of abortion, gay marriage or other practices contrary to the faith — that not only will they never have to hear a peep about any of these unpleasant topics, but very likely neither will they hear anything suggesting the necessity of concrete conversion, confession, and of being in doctrinal, sacramental and moral communion with Christ and his mystical Body the Church in order to receive Jesus worthily in Holy Communion....

Do read this treasure of an editorial in its entirety. Fr. Landry says he'll be writing more on the pastoral conundrum next week which I'll be sure to link here at TTC.

The Cardinal has been given documentation that Fr. Unni has not just been depriving his parishioners of Church teaching to make them feel at ease, he has been leading them to rebel against Church teaching and further, heckle it should it be proclaimed. The Cardinal has clarified that this kind of pastoral care has his 'full confidence' and 'support' and he has referred to Fr. Unni as a great pastor.

Since the Cardinal is not ignorant of Fr. Unni's methods of making people feel comfortable, and since he is aware that every Mass ever said in the history of the Catholic Church in every parish across the planet earth welcomes all parishioners and the wider community, there is no other conclusion to draw but that Cardinal O'Malley is on board making people feel comfortable by not only depriving them, but with training them to rail against Church teaching.

I'll leave you with a beautiful reflection written by St. Gregory of Nyssa to remind you of what is being stolen from our brothers and sisters at St. Cecilia's and other Catholics:

…If you draw from him the thoughts in your mind and the inclinations of your heart, you will show a likeness to Christ, your source and origin, as the gleaming water in a jar resembles the flowing water from which it was obtained.

“For the purity of Christ and the purity that is manifest in our hearts are identical. Christ’s purity, however, is the fountainhead; ours has its source in him and flows out of him. Our life is stamped with the beauty of his thought. The inner and the outer man are harmonized in a kind of music. The mind of Christ is the controlling influence that inspires us to moderation and goodness in our behavior. As I see it, Christian perfection consists in this: sharing the titles which express the meaning of Christ’s name, we bring out this meaning in our minds, our prayers and our way of life.”

Christian Perfection by St. Gregory of Nyssa, Bishop http://divineoffice.org/

Back to the Nightmares at 66 Brooks Drive

I know we had a little fun with politics in the past couple of weeks but the Boston Blogging Community is all plugging away at the nightmares at the Boston Chancery.

There's a short list of the most compelling problems at Boston Catholic Insider.

The top two on my short list are the structural changes made to the Roman Catholic Church that severs Rome from the teaching authority of Boston Catholics and one of the first policies to emerge from the counterfeit operation the 'non-discrimination policy'.  

You will be seeing more of this in the upcoming week (and weeks) that should be pretty shattering to the trust of Boston Catholics.   The 'presbyteral council' which is largely (though not completely) a group of weak priests who are chosen specifically because they are weak and will rubber stamp any policy no matter how scandalous and offensive it is to Christ, His Church or the souls they were ordained to lead to salvation.

The priests who rubber stamp this policy will be the first among the parishes targeted on the campaigns to defund in 2011.     Everything is about the money.  When they start to fail to be able to make their expenses, the Archdiocese pulls them from their posts.        There will be more forthcoming regarding the priests and archdiocescan council who thus far is rubber stamping the dismantling of Catholic identity of our diocese and our schools and communication to the Nuncio and Holy See.

In the meantime, please continue to visit BHE and send out the fed up communications.

One other thing that is critical this week is the Bishops election duly noted in BCI.

 - USCCB President Election: upcoming vote November 15-18 in Baltiimore for the new president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.  Will Cardinal O’Malley, and Bishops Hennessey, Kennedy, Uglietto, Dooher, Edyvean, and Allué vote to elect as national leader a bishop known to have enabled a priest convicted of child sexual abuse who is now defrocked and jailed?

This Bishop's judgment is as bad as it gets and the US Bishops have no business electing him as President.   They're back to their old tricks because the RICO investigation and victims' advocates have been neutralized.

There will be more on this in the next few weeks.

Stay tuned!

The Pope Says We've Sinned! Hooray!

Alllllll Righty.

I think I've had enough of the yahoo'ing around the internet from orthodox Catholics about the Pope's statement that the Vatican's problems stem from sins inside of the Church. 


God knows I love Christ's Church and our Pope.

Christ did not choose a perfect Apostle to build His Church upon in Peter.    For one thing, he was a bit of a coward.

Remember the candid conversation Christ had with Peter about kicking the kind of love He had for Him up a few notches?

Do you love Me?

Christ you know that I love you.

No,no.. do you LOVE Me.  Feed my sheep as they're tying your hands and dragging you off kind of love me.

If Christ chose an imperfect tool as the rock He would build His Church upon, nobody should feel like they're not fit to hold the candle, right?

I don't mean to be disrespectful to our Pope when I say characterizing the dust up as "sins inside of our Church" is just a wee bit too ambiguous and superficial.

Yes, there were "sins" but how 'bout that ineptitude?  Cowardice?  Misfeasance?  Malfeasance?

Can we kick it up a notch or ten?

"Sins of the Church" isn't getting right down to the nitty gritty that we have a Cardinal in Boston who is so inept, he has to hire subcontractors to figure out whether hiring people to kill unborn children is contrary to the teachings of the Church and there is no systems in place to finding him a more suitable ministry?

If he doesn't know whether hiring people to kill children is in keeping with Church teachings, how in the Name of Christ could he ever make a judgment about right or wrong about anything else?

Isn't it clear we have a Cardinal who does not know right from wrong?

If that wasn't problematic in it's own right, this dynamic is compounded by the brazen willingness to cover up corruption:

When a corrupt priest is under scrutiny, this Cardinal calls in a chit from a Pontifical Council to have the corrupt priest honored.   Underneath the 50 pictures of him, he puts up an infomercial about the corrupt priest.

And, it was announced today that the Cardinal has given the 'priest who loves the poor from his residence in one of the most wealthy suburbs in Massachusetts' his own television show  that is, astoundingly being run by the heretical National Leadership Roundtable on Church Management. 

Folks, Cardinal Sean O'Malley is dismantling the Roman Catholic Church in America.  Let's have the courage to say it out loud.


When the Pope said these sins are terrifying, we here in Boston certainly knows exactly what he is talking about.

He is sure as Hell not going to do it under the radar.

(Do keep checking in with the team at Bryan Hehir Exposed. 

Post Obamacare Hospital takeovers, including Catholic ones, are popping like popcorn

The "prolife" abortion contract signing Cardinal, Sean O'Malley, was johnny on the spot selling Caritas employees and patients into the bondage of sin


Not to worry though, they're reportedly "keeping the Catholic identity":

"If [Cerberus’] money is green, and the deal that was negotiated between management and Cerberus is as was represented, I think it’s a very square, fair deal," he said.

Right up Cardinal Sean O'Malley's Alley. You can be sure it will all be as Catholic as the Pope. No doubt they're rounding up the National Catholic Bioethics Center for another dog and pony show as we speak.

By the way, for those of you for whom Greek Mythology is a faint memory, Cerberus is a multi-headed dog that guards the gates of Hades to be sure nobody escapes. He's the centurion of hell. His mother was a half-woman/half serpent.

I am not making this up.

As a last ditch effort to wake up the wizards in the Chancery, Christ has ceased being subtle.

I was going to post on this story early this morning but I couldn't do it without swimming in the river of the multitude of sins.

Martha Coakley, of "Catholics shouldn't be working in emergency rooms" fame is going to bless the deal.

"We have several criteria we look at, including whether this will be in the best interest of the public," Coakley said. "I anticipate it will take several months. It's fairly complicated. There are a lot of individuals involved, even within the Caritas chain, and a lot of money involved.

Cerebus who previously acquired Chrysler and GMAC is positioning themselves, they say, to start buying up hospitals but Boston will remain the hub, no matter how many other hospitals they purchase.

Caritas is inching closer to buying Landmark as we speak.

In fact, post Obamacare, several other hospital takeovers, including Catholic Hospitals, have started popping like popcorn.

It certainly does look like a trend now. In fact, today a Wall Street Journal blogger suggested that this trend may be an immediate, although perhaps unintended result of the health care (insurance) reform legislation that just passed in the US Congress:

Cerberus is planning to turn the Caritas Christi Health Care chain into a for-profit corporation in what it is likely the first sizable M&A bet on the newly minted Obama health-care overhaul law. [seemingly ignoring the Detroit Medical Center/ Vanguard Health/ Blackstone deal - ed]

Hospitals that serve the poor and previously uninsured are expected to benefit from Obama’s plan, which is expected to extend insurance to 32 million previously uninsured Americans. That means such hospitals are likely to have more patients who can actually pay their bills. It is hard not to see how that new cash-flow stream wouldn’t have private equity licking its chops.

That’s funny, I did not think that a major reason to pass the bill was to benefit private equity. Also, somehow the image of private equity honchos licking their chops over cash flow does not seem to fit with the breathless pronouncements above about improving quality, serving poor patients, etc

The gobbling up of hospitals wouldn't come before the big "ta da" of government controlled socialized medicine, would it?

The Catholic Bishops handing the country over to communism makes me all warm and fuzzy.

And, just when you think the Bishops couldn't possibly get any stupider or craven, they prove you wrong.

"We are apprehensive as we look to the future, even as we applaud much of the increased care that will be available," Cardinal Francis E. George of Chicago told Catholic News Service March 23, shortly after U.S. President Barack Obama signed into law the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

"So we will watch basically and try to continue to enter into conversations as a moral voice -- never as a political voice; we've been very careful to insist upon the moral principles that everybody should be cared for and no one should be deliberately killed," he added.

Cardinal George acknowledged in the interview that "the unity of the church has been wounded" in various political actions and conversations surrounding the health reform debate. The USCCB opposed the Senate bill that passed the House March 21, while some Catholic groups and members of Congress supported it.

"We are certainly concerned about division in the church, because bishops have to be the people who are concerned about its unity, about keeping people together around Christ," he said.

"The bishops know that they don't speak for every one of the 61 million Catholics in the country, but what we do is we speak for the Catholic faith itself," he said. "And those who share the faith will gather around."

With the numerous threats to life, liberty and the sovereignty of our nation, Cardinal George is clapping and hoping nobody gets deliberately killed.

Shoot for the stars dude.

You know what I think????

I think the Light is Going to be On for Me next Wednesday.

See you there.