News Release:
The Catholic Action League of Massachusetts today is calling upon Cardinal Sean O'Malley, the Archbishop of Boston, to publicly reaffirm Catholic teaching on the indissolubility of marriage, after a senior member of the Cardinal's own clergy openly derided that teaching as "ludicrous" in the current edition of The Pilot, the official newspaper of the Archdiocese of Boston, whose publisher is the Archbishop.
In a column in the September 11th Pilot entitled "Synod needs your prayers," Monsignor Paul V. Garrity, Pastor of Sacred Heart and Saint Brigid Parishes in Lexington, wrote: "It is ludicrous to assert that divorced couples who have found love and fidelity with new spouses are still recognized by the Church as being married to their former spouses after the passage of many years. It is equally untenable (and disrespectful) to try to convince these happily married couples that, in fact, their relationships are sinful."
Garrity had previously sparked controversy in December, 2013, when he compared same sex couples to the Holy Family in a letter in the bulletin of Saint Catherine of Siena Parish in Norwood.
Roman Catholic teaching on the permanence of the marital bond, which is definitive and irreformable, is founded on Divine and natural law, expressed by the words of Jesus Christ in the Gospel of Saint Matthew: "What therefore God has joined together, let no man put asunder," and in the Gospel of Saint Luke: "Every one who divorces his wife and marries another, commits adultery..."
The Catechism of the Catholic Church, promulgated by Saint John Paul II, states: "Divorce is a grave offense against the natural law...Contracting a new union, even if it is recognized by civil law, adds to the gravity of the rupture: the remarried spouse is then in a situation of public and permanent adultery."
The Catholic Action League called Garrity's column "a shocking disavowal of Catholic morality by a prominent pastor of the Archdiocese of Boston, in the Archbishop's own newspaper."
Catholic Action League Executive Director C. J. Doyle made the following comment: "Garrity's heretical assertions go far beyond the so-called concessions in pastoral practice envisaged by some synod fathers. Garrity unambiguously repudiates, and holds up to public ridicule, the constant, 2,000 year old doctrine of the Catholic Church on the indissolubility of a valid, sacramental marriage. Ordinary Catholics, reading Garrity in a diocesan newspaper published by Cardinal O'Malley, could be led to the erroneous belief that Catholic moral teaching is changeable."
"Although Garrity invokes 'love, forgiveness and mercy', he doesn't practice it. Apparently, for him, the Spiritual Works of Mercy---counseling the doubtful, instructing the ignorant, and admonishing the sinner---are obsolete. Warning the flock of the dangers of mortal sin is intrinsic to the priesthood. For Garrity, such priestly duty is 'disrespectful.'"
"There are three scandals here: that a Catholic pastor would propound such heresy; that an official Catholic newspaper would publish it; and that a Catholic archdiocese, would, by its silence, acquiesce in it. Twice in recent years, lay columnists who wrote opinion pieces in The Pilot critical of homosexuality were forced to clarify their comments. We will see if a different standard applies to a chancery connected cleric who mocks Catholic morality."
Outstanding. As always.
7 comments:
[So does Catholic Culture’s Dr. Jeff]
The Sins of the Fathers: Will Msgr. Paul Garrity be disciplined?
By Dr. Jeff Mirus | Sep 15, 2015
www.catholicculture.org/commentary/the-city-gates.cfm?id=1141
Boston is not known as a hotbed of orthodoxy, but Msgr. Paul Garrity has crossed a line. To write in the diocesan paper that the Church’s teaching on the permanence of marriage is “ridiculous”, “untenable” and “disrespectful” is, in effect, a direct attack on the Catholic faith by the Archdiocese of Boston itself.
I take it as a given that the column in which Msgr. Paul V. Garrity was writing on September 11th (speaking of terrorist attacks) is typically given over to wide-ranging discussion and exchange of opinion. But ridiculing Catholic teaching in a Church newspaper goes far beyond the expression of legitimate opinion and really is reminiscent of the factors which made this date notorious in American history.
We could assume, I suppose, that Msgr. Garrity is actually unaware that his remarks attacked unchangeable Catholic doctrine, that is, the Revelation of Jesus Christ. It is the old knave or fool dilemma. But on the off chance that Garrity is merely a fool, let us consider:
1.Msgr. Garrity: ”It is ludicrous to assert that divorced couples who have found love and fidelity with new spouses are still recognized by the Church as being married to their former spouses after the passage of many years.”
Jesus Christ: “So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder” (Mt 19:6).
2.“It is equally untenable (and disrespectful) to try to convince these happily married couples that, in fact, their relationships are sinful.”
Jesus Christ: “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another, commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery” (Mk 10:11-12).
Is Msgr. Garrity only a fool when he makes these assertions “without absolutizing history or denying the truth of the Gospel” and claims that they are just “common sense”?
It is clear that the words of Christ have been upheld throughout history by His Church and preached to the ends of the earth as Our Lord commanded. One can disagree with these teachings (and cease to hold the Catholic Faith), but for a priest to keep his position in the Church and continue to draw his salary while proclaiming the Faith to be ridiculous, untenable and disrespectful would seem to tilt the needle away from foolishness and toward knavery.
Moreover, as recently as the Synod on the Family in October of last year, the assembled bishops overwhelmingly rejected the proposal Msgr. Garrity yearns to see accepted. (In this the Monsignor is acting suspiciously like a German bishop. But the faith-dead Germans will be definitively buried at this year’s Synod. Remember that you heard it here first.)
There is, as the world knows, a lot of foolishness and knavery in the Church in Boston, but Msgr. Garrity has raised it to a new level by engraving it clearly in the Church’s own newspaper. The question before us now is whether Cardinal O’Malley or any of the auxiliary bishops in Boston will pick up the gauntlet Garrity has derisively thrown at the Church’s feet. Will there be any official correction of Msgr. Garrity? Any ecclesiastical discipline? Any redress of the scandal given?
The laity are already speaking out in the online responses to the article. But what of Boston’s ecclesiastical leadership?
I do know that efforts are being made to alert the diocese, including the Cardinal, to this attack on the Church. But since Cardinal O’Malley is currently out of the country, it may be too easy for Boston’s other ecclesiastical authorities to let the whole thing blow over.
Sadly, if corrective action is not taken, it will be strong evidence that successive generations of leadership in Boston have learned nothing from the dysfunctional history of the past few generations there. Thus are the sins of the fathers visited upon their children
I do not expect action against the heretic.
You know that "The Catholic League" is one self-appointed guy....with a computer, right?
Obama invited transgenders, pro-abortion nun, gay episcopalial bishop to greet the Pope at whitehouse.
Vatican says it insults Pope.
It insults all true Catholics as well.
But the Pope shold NOT meet Obama at all!
Why?
Obama does not own America - the Pope can visit just like any other person.
Actually the Pope should join the rest of America and true Catholics and SHUN the UN.
We the People want the UN to get out!
Obama is a real jackass inviting anti-Catholics to ioin the Pope at whitehouse.
p.s. Carly Fiorina trumped Mr Trump in debate.
Neither do I Sean's on his way to Cuba, too busy for being a Shepherd.
The Catholic Action League is a group of a couple of thousand people who are very well catechized, politically active Eucharistic Catholics. CJ Doyle conveys our positions.
Honestly, I can't blame Obama for this one. The Pope has given the impression he thinks the Church is in error, the truth has been evangelized by adultery activists for two thousand years and he is here to develop a pastoral plan to permanently silence Church teaching.
How is the assembly of the Pope's very own activists inside and outside of the Church, Obama's fault?
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