Posted on 02/14/2010 6:24:52 AM PST by NYer
TORONTO, Ontario, February 12, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The National Catholic Broadcasting Council (NCBC), which airs the daily Mass on Vision TV, has announced that they will be hosting a religious sister on their annual televised Lenten mission. But the nun in question, Sr. Joan Chittister, is renowned for promoting positions contrary to Christian teaching, including on the issues of abortion, contraception and women's “ordination.”
Sr. Joan Chittister will address this year's mission, which is set for March 29-30 on Vision TV with the theme “A God for All Seasons.” Sr. Chittister told LifeSiteNews.com (LSN) that her talk focuses on the “spirituality of aging,” but, she said, she is “more inclined to call it a lifestyle for the 21st century.”
Sr. Chittister also admitted to LSN that she holds positions diverging from Catholic teaching. “It's not an opposition position,” she explained. “It is a position of query, of theological and scriptural commitment and search.”
For example, she said, “I felt that the question of the role and place of women in the Church was a necessary discussion, and that it stood on strong theological concerns.”
“We argue that [women] are not – not only are they not fit matter to be ordained, as if Jesus came to earth to be male instead of flesh, but we don't even see women as fit matter to have their feet washed in a church on Holy Thursday,” she offered as one example of the Church's 'sexism'. “Now, we have a double standard, and we have had it for a long long time. It needs to be reviewed.”
In addition to her advocacy of women's ordination, Sr. Chittister has also taken positions contrary to Church teaching on life and family issues, such as those regarding abortion, contraception, and homosexuality.
In her interview with LSN, she insisted that she opposes abortion “as a birth control method of choice.”
However, “my problem lies in the fact that we make it an absolute,” she added. “We say that we can never, under any circumstances whatsoever, allow abortion, and yet we allow death.
“Men, men can kill for a number of reasons,” she continued. “Men can kill to defend themselves, men can kill to defend the country, men can kill to punish the people that they believe should be killed. And we never call those deaths absolute. ... But in abortion, we allow no discussion whatsoever of possible times when it would not be a matter.”
Several bishops have taken action to prevent the dissemination of Sr. Chittister's views in the past.
In 2007, Bishop Barry Jones of Christchurch, New Zealand, decried her speaking engagement in his diocese, making it clear that she was neither welcome nor authorized to speak. "The point is that silence generates the misunderstanding that this is all approved, when it's not. I have made my position clear to the priests," Bishop Jones said. "I don't see how I, as a bishop, can advance the teachings of the Catholic Church by appearing to condone other views."
In 2001, the dioceses of Pittsburgh and Peoria opted out of the National Catholic Education Association convocation, citing Sr. Chittister's presence there as a speaker.
The National Catholic Broadcasting Council (NCBC) has come under scrutiny in the past because of its relationship with Vision TV, which has manifested a strong and enduring anti-Catholic bias, and has even given abortionist Henry Morgentaler a platform. LSN reported in 2005 that NCBC was paying Vision TV over $700,000 per year to air its programming.
LSN spoke with the National Catholic Broadcasting Council on Thursday and was told a spokesperson would return the call. After that, repeated calls over two days were not returned.
The Archdiocese of Toronto, where NCBC is based and which lists NCBC as a “media partner” on its website, did not wish to comment.
Contact Information:
National Catholic Broadcasting Council
21 Dunlop Street
Richmond Hill, Ontario, L4C 2M6
Toll Free: 1-888-383-6277
Local: 905-884-6899
Fax: 905-884-5164
E-mail: b-mcmanus@rogers.com
Archbishop Thomas Collins
Archdiocese of Toronto Catholic Pastoral Centre
1155 Yonge Street
Toronto, Ontario, M4T 1W2
Telephone: (416) 934-0606, ext. 609
Fax: (416) 934-3452
E-mail: archbishop@archtoronto.org
See related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
New Zealand Bishop Speaks Out Against Visit of Pro-Abortion Nun
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/jul/07070302.html
DIOCESES REJECT NATIONAL CATHOLIC EDUCATION CONVENTION DUE TO DISSIDENT SPEAKER
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2001/feb/01020702.html
Catholic-Supported Canadian TV Station Attacking Church Yet Again
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/feb/06020203.html
Vision TV Moving toward More Openly Anti-Catholic Bias
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/jan/06010905.html
Over $700,000 Catholic Church Funds to Canadian Anti-Catholic TV Network Questioned
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/oct/05102402.html
Catholic ping!
Of possible interest to you.
of possible interest to the Canada list?
Why would they give her a platform, unless they agree with her? In that case the Church should replace the management.
“But in abortion, we allow no discussion whatsoever of possible times when it would not be a matter.”
Uh, Sister Joan that’s because babies are always innocent. Always.
But in abortion, we allow no discussion whatsoever of possible times when it would not be a matter.”
The intrinsically disordered Chittister is wrong, yet again.
Charter For Health Care Workers
142. Ethical delegitimization applies to all forms of direct abortion, since it is an intrinsically blameworthy act. The use of substances or means which impede the implantation of the fertilized embryo or which cause its premature detachment is also an act of abortion. A doctor who would knowingly prescribe or apply such substances or means would cooperate in the abortion.
If the abortion follows as a foreseen but nor intended or willed but merely tolerated consequence of a therapeutic act essential for the mother's health, this is morally legitimate. The abortion in this case is the indirect result of an act which is not in itself abortive.273
273 CF Pius XII To "Face of the Family" and the "Associations of Large Families," Nov. 27, 1951, in AAS 43 (1951) p. 859.
“Sr. Chittister has also taken positions contrary to Church teaching on life and family issues, such as those regarding abortion, contraception, and homosexuality.”
The money quote here. Good tree, good fruit, bad tree bad fruit. Why is it that the apparently sexist Church believes that killing little girls is wrong?
Why dont these so-called “Nuns” just leave the Church ?
In effect they have left it anyway.
The Church does not exist to give anyone who doesnt agree with one of it’s rules the chance to have that rule changed.
If you dont like the rules GTF out. Start your own religion.
L. Ron Hubbard did it. Find yourself a Martian to adore and get on with it. The Church has no room for a feminist movement.
If and when it does subscribe to Feminist and Homosexual Priests I will follow my own advice and Get Out.
Chittister has been casting the moral condemnation of abortion as discrimation against women, in exactly the terms described above, for 40 years. She has been corrected many times on this. I have done it myself, directly, and to her face.
Knowing that she has repeatedly had the elemntary moral distinctions explained to her in a manner than any person of adequate intelligence could understand, I don't know how to explain her continued obfuscations except in terms of bad faith.
Not a permanent judgment, but a plausible hypothesis.
We must pray for her.
You wrote:
“Why dont these so-called “Nuns” just leave the Church?”
In Donna Steichen’s Ungodly Rage, she shows how these “nuns” are staying in the church so they can subvert it from within. They don’t want the Church to be healthy (as we would see it) so they stay in it to twist it to their sick vision. http://books.google.com/books?id=8i92QoLJvuUC&pg=PA160&lpg=PA160&dq=donna+steichen+leave+the+church&source=bl&ots=OQ9eqe2AfV&sig=ctlRYzUM_F-q4XUXxeudBSk8YWo&hl=en&ei=9iZ4S7_OA4ewsgPkm7S8Cw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CBgQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=reform&f=false
Sr. Chittister has been casting the moral condemnation of abortion as discrimation against women, in exactly the terms described above, for 40 years. She has been corrected many times on this. I have done it myself, directly, both in privarte correspondance and in person.
Knowing that she has repeatedly had the elemntary moral distinctions explained to her in a manner than any person of adequate intelligence could understand, I don't know how to explain her continued rebarbative errors.
I sincerely wish her well. We must pray for her.But we must not give her a platform, or honors, or an increased capacity to mislead and to scandalize.
Sincerely,
[signed]
Chittister is absolutely horrible. How can they even CONSIDER her to do this???
God Bless you.
Have you noticed that all these dissident nuns now have GRAY HAIR? They don’t have any new postulants, because young women don’t want to join their Religious Orders, since they have obviously lost their faith.
It may not work, but we could give it a try.
Most Reverend Joseph V. Adamec
Diocese of Erie, PA
Fax 814-695-8894
I think he's a fairly new bishop (new appointment, replacing Bishop Trautman.) So he might actually be open to the idea.
Bishop Trautman is younger than Bishop Adamec, so I don't think that Bishop Trautman has resigned (he is under the age of 75).
On the other hand, Bishop Adamec will turn 75 on August 13, 2010.
We need to be sure before contacting the diocese...
(I just double-checked it, and I see the error was mine alone. It was a Fax list ordered by Area Code, and I assumed 814 was only for Erie. Now I see Altoona has an 814 Area Code, too.)
Here's the Diocese of Erie Fax, and yes, as far as I know that's Bishop Trautman:
(814) 824-1124
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