New Mexico: Family Sues Minister For H--- Of A Prediction

BBC On Line ^ | July 17, 2003 | staff writer

[yankeedame]

Last Updated: Thursday, 17 July, 2003, 11:34 GMT 12:34 UK

Church sued for 'hell prediction'

The priest allegedly said Martinez was "living in sin"

A New Mexico family is suing its local Catholic church over a funeral Mass at which the priest allegedly said their relative was going straight to hell. The family of Ben Martinez, 80, allege that Reverend Scott Mansfield said he was "living in sin," "lukewarm in his faith" and that "the Lord vomited people like Ben out of his mouth to hell".

Around 200 people attended the funeral of Mr Martinez - a local town councillor - at St Patrick's Parish in Chama, north of Santa Fe, last month.

Nine members of the Martinez family are seeking punitive and compensatory damages for severe emotional and physical suffering.

If you are Catholic and a representative of your church says your father is going to hell, that's perhaps the most devastating thing someone can say to you

Kathleen Kentish-Lucero Family's lawyer They say Mr Martinez had been a practising Catholic all his life, but was too ill to attend church in his last year.

"These people are profoundly hurt," said lawyer Kathleen Kentish-Lucero, representing the Martinez family.

"If you are Catholic and a representative of your church says your father is going to hell, that's perhaps the most devastating thing someone can say to you."

One of the plaintiffs allegedly said people in the town "are staring at her, thinking her father is in hell."

The complaint also said that as Father Mansfield walked to the grave, he laced his comments about Mr Martinez with profanities.

Church denial

Lawyers did not say how much the family was seeking in damages.

But church officials have denied the family's claims.

"We deny the allegations and Father Mansfield denies the plaintiff's allegations," said Celine Baca Radigan, director of communications for the Archdiocese of Santa Fe.

She said that Father Mansfield has been moved to another parish on a routine transfer.

Lawyers for the Martinez family said they had filed a lawsuit against the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Santa Fe and one of its priests.

[wideawake]

Under Roman theology

You've mischaracterized Catholic theology quite a bit here. This is the equivalent of a Catholic saying: "Those Bible-only Christians, they think they can compel God, whether he likes it or not, to honor their proclamations and take them into heaven just by proclaiming that Jesus is Lord." Your characterization of Catholic theology is equally fallacious.

And no Catholic believes that any prelate, no matter what his authority, can save or damn a man by anything that prelate says or does.

But a pastor can certainly offer his opinion of the quality of someone's witness - and it sounds like this priest did.

[wideawake]

On the other hand the "church" considers Ted Chapaquidick Kennedy a saintly person! Go figure.

That is a shameless and malicious lie.

Produce proof of this ridiculous statement.

[George W. Bush]

And no Catholic believes that any prelate, no matter what his authority, can save or damn a man by anything that prelate says or does.

And what about all the times I've read here the claims that the Petrine succession compels God to honor what the Roman church binds or looses here on earth? Not by you but by many others.

Here's a well-written example. Excerpt:

Finally, Jesus says, "Whatever you declare bound on earth shall be bound in heaven; whatever you declare loosed on earth shall be loosed in heaven." This is rabbinic terminology. A rabbi could bind, declaring an act forbidden or excommunicating a person for serious sin; or a rabbi could loose, declaring an act permissible or reconciling an excommunicated sinner to the community.

Are you somehow suggesting that excommunicating a Roman believer does not cut them off from heaven? That ignoring or avoiding the sacraments of the Roman church is unimportant? The Rome's sacraments are meaningless to your eternal fate?

You can't have it both ways. Pick one or the other. Either your priests, via your pope and the laying on of hands to authorize bishops who then authorize priests, have the power to bind or to loose (and them alone) or the power of the priest in confession and eucharist are a fraud. And if they have the powers generally claimed, then to withhold them does in fact curse a sinner into hell.

[Unassuaged]

Not baiting, just wondering, as people often say a loved one is 'looking down from heaven', but I have been taught that we are not judged until the end--as your quote would suggest. My thought was that this may be a nice thing to say, if inaccurate.

[wideawake]

I notice that you completely ignored the self-contradictory nature of your own claims.

But on the point to which you did respond, I think you've misunderstood exactly what the sacraments and excommunication from them means.

The sacraments are the ordinary means of grace - the way that Christ ordained for his Church to share the merits of His blood with believers.

If a person does something to incur excommunication, then they have denied themselves the sacraments: the ordinary means of grace.

But there are also extraordinary means of grace - one salient Scriptural example is Christ's appearance to Saul on the road to Damascus: a special grace of salvation being shared with an unbeliever who was actively persecuting the Church.

Excommunication does not mean the automatic and irreversible death of the soul: it is a warning to someone who is in peril.

The final arbiter of a soul's destiny, as He is of everything else, is God. The Church is God's vicegerent and servant.

[George W. Bush]

If a person does something to incur excommunication, then they have denied themselves the sacraments: the ordinary means of grace.

Good grief. They have not "denied themselves". Their church denied it to them. Stop being cagy. No sound Prot or Baptist has any criticism of Rome on this account. It's a matter of necessary church discipline for all of us. Most SBC churches, for instance, prohibit membership to any owner of a liquor store or bar. It's no more arbitrary in terms of church authority and discipline than anything Rome does.

The final arbiter of a soul's destiny, as He is of everything else, is God. The Church is God's vicegerent and servant.

I see. Then you are saying that Rome's sacraments and the special powers of her priests have absolutely no effect on the eternal fate of any soul? That, in effect, Rome is unnecessary? I don't think my bishop, Bruskewitz, would agree. Bernardin's liberal meddling with Fabian's excommunication of liberal pro-gay/pro-abort RCs is a good example. Bernardin got away with meddling in another bishop's diocese where he held no authority to do so. I still can't believe that Bruskewitz's archbishop let this happen.

[af_vet_1981]

What an incredibly stupid and insensitive thing to say at a funeral! I'd have stood up and gotten in this twit's face, challenged him to PROVE what he was saying!

If you don't want to hear a priest/prophet's message, why ask the priest/prophet to bury your dead ?

• Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness.
• Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.
• Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous,
• And say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.
• Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets.
• Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers.
• Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?

[soundbits]

If it is a 501(c)3 corporation, then the "church" may only say what the FedGov god permits.

[sinkspur]

If you don't want to hear a priest/prophet's message, why ask the priest/prophet to bury your dead ?

I want them to bury my dead, not act as if they can see inside another person's soul. They can't, and shouldn't act as if they can.

[af_vet_1981]

I want them to bury my dead, not act as if they can see inside another person's soul.

Hire a mortician and a politician. They will tell you what you desire to hear for a price.

They can't, and shouldn't act as if they can.

Abraham saith unto him, They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.

[George W. Bush]

The final arbiter of a soul's destiny, as He is of everything else, is God. The Church is God's vicegerent and servant.

Let's examine your claims more closely according to canon law and the official traditions and infallible teachings of Rome.

“It is called the sacrament of confession, since the disclosure or confession of sins to a priest is an essential element of this sacrament…It is called the sacrament of forgiveness, since by the priest’s sacramental absolution God grants the penitent ‘pardon and peace.’” (Catechism of the Catholic Church (Liguori, MO: Liguori Publications, 1994), Para. 1424.)

“There is no offense, however serious, that the Church cannot forgive. “There is no one, however wicked and guilty, who may not confidently hope for forgiveness, provided his repentance is honest.” (Catechism, Para. 982)

“Priests have received from God a power that he has given neither to angels nor to archangels...God above confirms what priests do here below. Were there no forgiveness of sins in the Church, there would be no hope of life to come or eternal liberation. Let us thank God who has given his Church such a gift.” (Catechism, Para. 983)

“‘On the evening of that day, the first day of the week,’ Jesus showed himself to his apostles. ‘He breathed on them, and said to them: ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.’ (John 20:19, 22-23).” (Catechism, Para. 1485)

“However, although the absolution of the priest is the dispensation of the benefaction of another, yet it is not a bare ministry only, either of an announcing the Gospel or declaring the forgiveness of sins, but it is equivalent to a judicial act, by which sentence is pronounced by him as a judge [can 9, Council of Trent].”

“Only God forgives sins. Since he is the Son of God, Jesus says of himself, ‘The Son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins’ and exercises this divine power: ‘Your sins are forgiven.’ Further, by virtue of his divine authority he gives this power to men to exercise in his name.” (Catechism, Para. 1441)

“All priests share with bishops the one identical priesthood and ministry of Christ. Consequently the very unity of their consecration and mission requires their hierarchical union with the order of bishops.” (Vatican Council II: The Conciliar and Post Conciliar Documents, No. 63, Presbyterorum Ordinis, 7 December 1965, Austin Flannery, O.P., Editor [Northport, NY: Costello Publ. Co., 1975] Vol. I, Sec. 7, p. 875.)

“Now the minister, by reason of the sacerdotal consecration which he has received, is truly made like to the high priest and possesses the authority to act in the power and place of the person of Christ himself (virtute ac persona ipsuis Christi). Christ is the source of all priesthood: the priest of the old law was a figure of Christ, and the priest of the new law acts in the person of Christ.” (Catechism, Para. 1548)

Now, having gone through your catechism, are you still going to tell me that your priest is supposed to be powerless? Is your official approved catechism teaching a lie?

Let's look particularly at this: “‘On the evening of that day, the first day of the week,’ Jesus showed himself to his apostles. ‘He breathed on them, and said to them: ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.’ (John 20:19, 22-23).”

How precisely do you explain this power of the priest to 'retain' the sins of others? Is this a meaningless authority or is it eternally binding? Please explain in light of the other teachings above.

[George W. Bush]

I want them to bury my dead, not act as if they can see inside another person's soul. They can't, and shouldn't act as if they can.

Then hire a mortician.

Perhaps you'd care to have a little encounter with your own Catechism and other infallible teachings in my #51.

I'm beginning to think FR has a number of uncatechized RCs on it. Since you claim to be an educated deacon, this can hardly be the case with you.

[Blzbba]

"IMHO, the family shouldn't sue,"

Agreed. I forgot to add that their actions concerning this are wrong too, IMO.

[Marysecretary]

My brother-in-law once told another sister-in-law that her young son went to hell because he drowned in his 20's and hadn't accepted the Lord. Now, it may well be true, but I couldn't get over how cruel it was to say that to them. It turned them to the Jehovah's Witnesses! This priest was also very cruel to say something like that at a funeral for heaven's sake.

[wideawake]

They have not "denied themselves".

They certainly have.

For example: if a person directly procures an abortion they have committed an offense which automatically excommunicates them.

Say such a person receives the Eucharist from an unwitting priest. He does not receive any grace from it. As the Apostle says, he is rather "eating and drinking damnation unto [himself]" by profaning the Eucharist.

Now say the priest overhears this person bragging about how he encouraged and paid for his wife's abortion. The next time he comes up to the altar, the priest refuses him the Eucharist.

Has the priest withheld grace from him? If the priest had communicated him would he have received the grace of the Eucharist?

By no means. He cut himself off from grace by his evil actions. The priest is merely formally acknowledging something that is already an accomplished fact. This formal acknowledgment, as you say, is part of necessary Church discipline in order to warn other believers of the gravity of falling into such a sin.

Then you are saying that Rome's sacraments and the special powers of her priests have absolutely no effect on the eternal fate of any soul?

Far from it.

The sacraments, among which are included the sacramental ministry of the priesthood, are the greatest helps we have to the grace of salvation. Rejecting them is turning away from the greatest gift God has ever given to man: the Body and Blood of Christ.

[George W. Bush]

Has the priest withheld grace from him? If the priest had communicated him would he have received the grace of the Eucharist?

Yes, to any sane person, the priest has in fact withheld the grace of the sacrament.

The sacraments, among which are included the sacramental ministry of the priesthood, are the greatest helps we have to the grace of salvation.

You'll have to forgive me but I doubt that this is the official theology of Rome on her sacraments. They are not considered to be mere "helps". Not according to my readins of your doctrine. Much stronger claims on their necessity are routinely issued.

[wideawake]

Yes, to any sane person, the priest has in fact withheld the grace of the sacrament.

Thanks for the implication that I'm insane.

The answer to the question I asked, namely: "If the priest had communicated him would he have received the grace of the Eucharist?" is clearly no.

He would have, in the words of the Apostle, been "eating and drinking damnation" to himself.

The priest has not withheld any grace from him - he is incapable of receiving that grace due to his sin.

They are not considered to be mere "helps".

There's nothing mere about the help I'm talking about.

St. Rogatien of ancient Gaul was never baptized, never received the Eucharist, was never confirmed, never went to confession. But he became a saint when the Christians of Nantes were being persecuted and he was so inspired by their bravery in the face of slaughter that he immediately declared his belief in Christ and was slain as well. He became a martyr for Christ as is considered a saint.

His act of supreme sacrifice was an extraordinary means of gaining salvation. Most of us only have access to ordinary means and those are the sacraments.

[George W. Bush]

Thanks for the implication that I'm insane.

You just said that "Now say the priest overhears this person bragging about how he encouraged and paid for his wife's abortion. The next time he comes up to the altar, the priest refuses him the Eucharist."

Now to me, that says the priest refused to give him the Eucharist. And I think anyone else would say the same thing.

The priest did in fact withold the grace of the sacrament by witholding the eucharist from the unrepentant sinner! How else can you parse your own handwritten example?

St. Rogatien of ancient Gaul was never baptized, never received the Eucharist, was never confirmed, never went to confession.

But this is not the practice or expectation of Rome in modern times. And I think that Rogatien could not have confessed because he lived prior to the institution of auricular confession which was, according to a leading German RC historian, Ignaz von Dollinger, unknown in the West for 1100 years and was never known to exist in the East at all. I am not suggesting that Rogatien is not necessarily in heaven however. No Prot or Baptist would. Any witness to the death for Christ is well-received by our Father.

[George W. Bush]

The answer to the question I asked, namely: "If the priest had communicated him would he have received the grace of the Eucharist?" is clearly no. He would have, in the words of the Apostle, been "eating and drinking damnation" to himself.

Let's examine it a bit more.

If the priest absolved him of the mortal sin, being let's say a sympathetic and very liberal priest, even if the sinner only confessed his sin but was unrepentant, then would the priest have the power to absolve the unrepentant sinner if he so wished?

On the flip side, what if the priest decided not to absolve him of the mortal sin, relying upon his own authority to 'retain' the man in his sins, having perhaps judged his confession insincere. This sinner, being unrepentant in his heart and his priest not having absolved him, then takes the eucharist. Has he then eaten and drunk irrevocable damnation?

Let's go a step further. Let's say the unrepentant sinner goes to a defrocked priest but one which still holds the priesthood since Rome holds that any conferral of priestly power is irrevocable even by Rome. So the corrupt, drunken pedophile ex-priest hears the insincere confession and absolves the still insincerely repentant sinner. Has this loosed the sinner from mortal sin and damnation?

One last more extreme example. Let's say the priest, a good priest, simply hates the man's sin so much and knows he's a worthless pig who has forced women into abortion repeatedly and shows up each time afterward for an obviously insincere confession after which he always gets absolved and then is given communion as a member in good standing. Let's say this good priest knows the man is in mortal sin and knows that he has not made a confession. But the man comes for communion and the priest, knowing full well this unrepented mortal sin against the sinner, gives him the Eucharist deliberately and thereby give him damnation to eat and drink. Is that unworthy and damning communion in a state of mortal sin irrevocable? Has the priest, in effect, sent that sinner directly to hell by letting him take communion unworthily? Can the sinner ever repent again? (BTW, I would say that the Roman priest could repent by confession and be absolved after the deed because the Bible shows no specific penalties for such things.)

[wideawake]

The priest did in fact withold the grace of the sacrament by witholding the eucharist from the unrepentant sinner!

He withheld the sacrament - not the grace of the sacrament. The grace of the sacrament was inaccessible to the sinner whether he received the Eucharist or was denied it.

a leading German RC historian, Ignaz von Dollinger

(1) Dollinger is not a Roman Catholic historian. He was an apostate historian.

(2) Dollinger's work was done over a century ago. Many documents have been found and much research has been done since his day to show that his conclusions are often incorrect.

(3) As an apostate he is a biased witness. A strong opponent of auricular confession is not likely to produce historical evidence in support of it.

(4) There is a difference between private auricular confession between a penitent and a priest and the truly sacramental aspect: that is, absolution. Public rites of penance for sin and pronunciations of formal absolution are attested by the earliest Church Fathers in both the East and West. Even today in the Catholic Church public rites of absolution may take the place of private confession in certain circumstances.

(5) Auricular confession as it is practiced often today (i.e. - anonymously, often in a darkened booth to shade the face of the penitent) is older than Dollinger ever suspected. It is attested in 8th century Ireland, for example - and Ireland on the outskirts of the Empire was rarely the first in anything related to sacramental ritual.

(6) Auricular, but not anonymous, confession has been practiced for centuries in the East - the Eastern Churches formally recognized it as a sacrament centuries before Dollinger was born.