Posted on 05/18/2014 6:34:44 PM PDT by Morgana
Kansas City, MO, May 16, 2014 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Coordinator of Social Ministries at the Jesuit-run St. Francis Xavier Catholic Parish in the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph has been removed from her duties after she revealed publicly in an interview with a local magazine that she had “married” her lesbian lover.
Colleen Simon – a lapsed Catholic and divorced mother of two adult children who now embraces the faith of her same-sex partner, Lutheran pastor Donna Simon – was asked to resign last week after 816 Magazine ran a profile of local community leaders which stated Colleen and Donna had been legally “married” in Iowa in 2012. That is a clear violation of Catholic moral teaching, which says marriage is a sacred union between one man and one woman.
Colleen refused to resign, telling diocesan officials that they would have to fire her if they wanted her to leave. She told the Kansas City Star it was not a principled stand – she merely wanted to ensure she would receive unemployment benefits upon her separation from the diocese.
The diocese opted to go ahead and fire her – a decision Colleen told the Kansas City Star she believes was made directly by Bishop Robert Finn. She said she was not surprised by the decision. “I knew this was a losing engagement,” she said. “I was just hoping for a longer engagement.”
Colleen claims the previous pastor at St. Francis Xavier knew she was in a same-sex “marriage” when he hired her last year (he has since been replaced). She said she spoke openly about her “spouse” and her “beloved,” but tried to avoid referring to Donna – who flies a rainbow flag outside her St. Mark Hope and Peace Lutheran Church – as her “wife.”
Still, the pair appear to have been very “out” in their local community. Multiple posts on Donna’s public Facebook page openly refer to Colleen as “my beautiful wife” – including a photo caption from the Easter Vigil in which she described her partner as “totes adorbs” – and on the day the diocese first contacted Colleen about the consequences of the article, Donna wrote on Facebook that she was “angry” and called the Catholic Church a “homophobic institution.” She also said, “It wasn't a secret that Colleen is married to me. She was honest with the parish and its leaders.”
Colleen herself hinted publicly at the nature of their relationship in print back in April, in an article for the Ecclesio blog entitled, “You Must Be A Pontiff.” In her bio for the blog, she described herself as living “with three dogs, three cats, and one Lutheran pastor, to whom she is legally married, at least in Iowa.”
St. Francis Xavier had been Colleen’s fourth job in the Catholic Church since leaving her former career as a pharmaceutical representative. Previously, she worked in the Virginia’s Diocese of Richmond as the associate director of the Office of Justice and Peace and the diocesan director for the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD). Prior to that, she worked for Commonwealth Catholic Charities as a regional coordinator for Justice and Peace. Both of those jobs were held under her previous married name, Colleen Barranger.
After her “marriage” to Donna Simon, however, she changed her name, relocated to Kansas City and took a job as a secretary at St. James Catholic Church before finally moving on to St. Francis Xavier.
LifeSiteNews contacted the Kansas City-St. Joseph diocese to request comment regarding Simon’s hiring and eventual termination. However, diocesan spokesman Jack Smith said the diocese was unable to comment on personnel matters.
He reported. The issue was the allegation that it was not in timely manner. “Timely” being defined by the prosecution. That way they can pack away anyone they don’t like.
Wikipedia is no longer a free-for-all it once was; the edits without proper sourcing are quickly removed and the user who abuses it get banned. Beside, if Salvavida is so sure of her opinion, she can go and edit and see for herself how long her unsubstantiated comment survives.
On the subject matter, all New Testaments prior to Luther contained the Deuterocanon, and of course contain it to this day in authentic Christian churches. There was an opinion shared by many that perhaps they should not be canonized as inspired, but the opposing view prevailed in the Church. Opinions are just that, opinions. The Councils of Carthage and Hippo (late 4th-early 5th Century) were the first to list the canonical New Testament books, the Deuterocanon is among them:
The catalogues of Hippo and Carthage are identical with the Catholic Canon of the present
Since that time, there was no controversy in the Church, and prior to that there was no settled canon in general. At issue in the African Councils was the Epistle to the Hebrews, not the Deuterocanon.
No Lutheran or Catholic in the “marriage” — their religion is “we are homerseksual”
be that as it may be — we have lots of threads where Catholics, Lutherans, etc. bash each other on the head. This is not the thread for that.
It was reported after the Archdiocese tried to sweep it under the rug by shuffling Ratigan off to another position. It was only 18 months later when they found Ratigan was still collecting child porn that they turned him in.
Last December, crotch-shot pictures of young girls, fully clothed, were found on Fr. Ratigan’s computer; there was one photo of a naked girl. The very next day, the Diocese contacted a police officer and described the naked picture; a Diocesan attorney was shown it. Because the photo was not sexual in nature, it was determined that it did not constitute child pornography. This explains why the Independent Review Board was not contacted—there was no specific allegation of child abuse.When Fr. Ratigan discovered that the Diocese had learned of his fetish, he attempted suicide. When he recovered, he was immediately sent for psychiatric evaluation. It is important to note that Bishop Finn, who never saw any of the photos, did this precisely because he was considering the possibility of removing Fr. Ratigan from ministry. After evaluation (the priest was diagnosed as suffering from depression, but was not judged to be a pedophile), Fr. Ratigan was placed in a spot away from children and subjected to various restrictions. After he violated them, the Diocese called the cops. That’s when more disturbing photos were found. At the same time, Bishop Finn contacted an attorney to do an independent investigation into this matter.
Fair-minded persons may question whether the Diocese was too lenient, but unless there is reason to believe that a crime has been committed, there is no cause for contacting the authorities. Yet the Diocese—unlike the officials of other organizations faced with the same situation—contacted a police officer and a lawyer immediately. [Note: in 2007, a huge investigation by the Associated Press of teacher sexual misconduct revealed that Missouri school districts were guilty of “backroom deals” that allowed molesting teachers to “quietly move on.” So where is the dust-up about this? Where are the calls for grand jury probes?] Why, then, the attempt to get Bishop Finn?
What’s driving the anti-Finn campaign is politics. The major players are the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) and attorneys Rebecca Randles and Jeffrey Anderson. Their goal is not justice. Nor is it child welfare. Their goal is to sabotage the Catholic Church.
I did not “bash” anybody “over the head”. Ignorant and unsubstantiated statements about the well-known history of the Reformation were inserted into the thread, and I provided substantiation for the facts.
And you, can stow your condescending tone elsewhere. We are not going to convince each other. I merely responded that it is totally inaccurate to state that Luther removed any portion of Scripture. He did not. Athanasius' Easter letter in 367 recognized what the church was universally using. The Council of Carthage in 397 confirmed the list.
Third, your source from an Episcopal bishop is rejected. The only work that is used in most theological universities today, coming from the Episcopalians, come from John Stott. I know of no other. After all, we are talking about a denomination that replaced the Bible with the Book of Common Prayer from the double-minded Thomas Cranmar in 1549. I have some insight on this, as my uncle is a Bishop of a major US city: and he doesn't know anything about the Bible. It is indeed painful to watch him fumble though it. This is the same so-called church that debates sexuality without using the Bible. Hence, you get homosexual bishops. But if you want to use a reference and avoid primary sources, rock on. I can tell you this: You will get an "F" in college while doing so. Never ignore the primary sources. You wouldn't do it when investigating anything else. It's illogical.
I won't get into the internal and historical evidence, because it is obvious you have not spent one hour in Bible college (you can look up the reasons why the apocrypha was rejected); but a Catholic church ruling in 1584 on a 2nd canon, is folly in itself. Do you know what canon means? Once you look that up, try fitting that into a logical proposition. God changed His mind, and added a second standard? Which isn't another standard at all because: (1) no apostle or NT author quotes from it, (2) it adds zero to doctrine, (3) it was already rejected for centuries prior to 1549, (the Holy Spirit was asleep for centuries for that to be believed), (4) you can't squeeze it into OT canon because the Jews never accepted it, and Jesus didn't authenticate it (I'll let you look up the verse where Jesus authenticates the entire OT), and (4) it is of such poor quality when compared to other books/letters in terms of doctrine, edification, and overall usefulness. No self respecting theologian hangs out in Wikipedia. Rather, the argumentation whether or not to accept the apocrypha as Scripture, is well documented in such places as libraries. If you are too lazy to research, I don't feel that is my problem. I already know the Catholic arguments. They don't make sense to me, and I really don't spend much time with a church that chose to use the issue of salvation to hold over the heads of the poor, in order to raised money (here's looking at you Johann Tetzel); Listen to the voices of your dear dead relatives and friends, beseeching you and saying, 'Pity us, pity us. We are in dire torment from which you can redeem us for a pittance.' Do you not wish to?
Nor will I willingly follow a church that murdered legitimate followers of Christ just because they memorized Scripture, or otherwise, chose to follow the Christian religion that was purely based plain language in the Bible-- and not hidden in a veil of Latin, outside of the people's language: So that they could come into direct relationship with God, instead of being put under subjugation and told what to believe via rote religiosity.
If you want to take a stand on that position and state that all other churches are not the authentic church. Rock on. You have liberty. And then you meet Christ face to face, and answer to Him.
That's the end of this conversation. Good day, sir.
Because you don't have any, and I gave you plenty.
What "reasons" the Protestants have to reject one part of the Holy Scripture or another does not concern me. The fact is, there was no Bible since 4 century on that did not include the Deuterocanon, except when the so-called "reformers" started printing their own.
You find my tone condescending, don't post anything that I can read and have a right to respond to.
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