Posted on 04/06/2015 6:29:36 PM PDT by ebb tide
Bishop Paul G. Bootkoski, head of the Catholic diocese of Metuchen, N.J., would not say whether he agrees with the fundamental teachings of the Catholic Church pertaining to homosexuality and marriage as quoted directly from the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
Instead, a diocesan spokeswoman directed CNSNews.com to a statement on the diocesan website where the bishop writes, “We have never wavered from our traditional Catholic teachings.”
In a March 30 e-mail to Bishop Bootkoski and his office of communications, CNSNews.com asked the following three questions:
1) Do you, Bishop Bootkoski, agree with the Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 2357, which says, “Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that ‘homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.’ They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved”?
2) Do you agree with the Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 2359, which says, “Homosexual persons are called to chastity”?
3) Do you agree with the Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 1605, which quotes Jesus Christ Himself on the issue of marriage, saying, “’Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh.’ The Lord himself shows that this signifies an unbreakable union of their two lives by recalling what the plan of the Creator had been ‘in the beginning’: ‘So they are no longer two, but one flesh’”?
The Catechism of the Catholic Church is the depository of Catholic teaching on theological issues and basic moral questions; it is the book that explains Catholicism from A to Z.
Despite two e-mails, Bishop Bootkoski did not respond and a spokeswoman from his office, by telephone, referred CNSNews.com to the March 20, 2015 statement: “Bishop’s statement on status of teacher at Immaculata High School, Somerville.”
It notes that, "Pope Francis reminds us that we are to accept all of our brethren. We must ensure that our educators steer away from harsh and judgmental statements that can alienate and divide us."
In explaining the establishment and role of a bishop in the church, the Catechism states (1558), “’Episcopal consecration confers, together with the office of sanctifying, also the offices of teaching and ruling.... In fact ... by the imposition of hands and through the words of the consecration, the grace of the Holy Spirit is given, and a sacred character is impressed in such wise that bishops, in an eminent and visible manner, take the place of Christ himself, teacher, shepherd, and priest, and act as his representative (in Eius persona agant).’ ‘By virtue, therefore, of the Holy Spirit who has been given to them, bishops have been constituted true and authentic teachers of the faith and have been made pontiffs and pastors.’”
According to the 2013-14 annual report for the Diocese of Methuchen, it serves 636,280 Catholics in 90 parishes (churches), with 233 priests. The diocese operates 25 elementary schools and 5 high schools, with a combined enrollment of 10,568 students. It also runs one hospital, 4 health care clinics, and 9 social service centers. Paul Gregory Bootkoski was appointed bishop of the diocese in 2002.
Thanks for the link. I learned there that the teacher has been reinstated after firing, according to a highlighted byline there. Pressure was sorely brought against the Bishop over that colossal error of a bright idea to come down hard against her.
What to do about bishops like this? They are all over the country and there is no support whatsoever in Rome for redress of grievance right now for the people.
We are clinging to the Eucharist alone. The Church is no longer stand alone counter cultural and it is disturbing. The Mass nearly everywhere has gone practically nondenominational in tone, the homilies are at the second grade level and the abuses throughout are a major distraction. God help us in the American Catholic Church.
Speaking of second grad level homilies, here’s an en excerpted letter I wrote to the pastor of our parish following a vapid Easter Sunday homily, the type you’d hear in a nearby foursquare church Protestant “clubhouse.”
Catholics must stop griping and writing and taking action.
___________________________________________________________________.
Dear____ (Name of Parish Priest)
The Church talks a great deal about Evangelization. The singular fact as we all know that differentiates Catholicism from all other no-Catholic Christian Churches is the Holy Eucharist and the Sacrifice of the Mass.
We learn that Easter is where we now make that personal encounter with the Risen Christ in the Holy Eucharist where He is present Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity, in the consecrated species of bread and wine.
Not only was there not a single word mentioned on this subject, the entire homily was a story of how little boy and his family grew and harvested potatoes from seedlings and how these potatoes grew to be large as way of an example of how by engaging in little acts of kindness we can bring love, harmony, and peace to the world.
All this is fine. But please, this is not a class for kindergartners. Nor was there any profound lesson to be drawn from such mundane stories. Nor was there need for a story to impart this lesson. Indeed, we think that all pastors should be forbidden from telling stories as a part of a homily. It is usually the first sign of a weak intellect and a lazy mind.
Perhaps, like all other institutions, there is a precipitous decline in the standards of theological education in our seminaries. But in today’s world of the web there is no excuse for such shallow and pedestrian stuff. Not all the congregants are in the caricature model of middle-aged housewives coming to service to be enlightened by some “story” more appropriate for middle-school kids.
At a time when a shocking 40% of Catholics only believe in the true presence of the Christ in the Eucharist what was missed here was a golden opportunity to explain why we Catholics so believe in the real presence based on the words of Christ Himself and the practice of the early disciples.
And it would have been edifying to explain to the congregants why the books in the Bible did not fall from the skies and self-assemble themselves in the order in which we find them but rather was based on the interpretive and infallible authority of the Church in the Synod of Rome in AD 382 and that infallibility to teach and interpret did not evaporate eleven centuries later with the Reformation in 1517.
Seriously, how do you expect Catholics to evangelize if the overwhelming majority of them have no clue on the basic apostolic mission of the Church and its teachings as the ONE true Church?
What we had this Easter Sunday was a colossal missed opportunity to evangelize newcomers and Catholics themselves.
To make matters worse we now have Catholic services punctuated with all manner of greetings, quips, and jokes. PLEASE, do not try to be cute by telling congregants lined up on the aisles that there are $100 front row seats available to cause a strained ripple of laughter in the Church. This detracts from the seriousness of the sacrifice we have come to reverently observe.
There is of course a place and time for humor, but not during Mass. This emphatically is not a “Protestant” service from which many families are running away as if from a plague of inanities.
I have with humility, attached two documents taken from the internet and there are many more especially from the brilliant homilies of Pope Benedict XVI that pastors could reference. But please spare Catholics any more “potato” stories or any other kind of tales that disintegrates into lessons in joining hands, clapping, and just plain old feel-good stuff. Leave that to the Protestants.
cc.
Most Reverend José H. Gomez
Office of the Archbishop of Los Angeles
3424 Wilshire Boulevard, 5th Floor
Los Angeles, CA 90010-2241
_____________________________________________________________________
As I read this here was his response:
Instead, a diocesan spokeswoman directed CNSNews.com to a statement on the diocesan website where the bishop writes, “We have never wavered from our traditional Catholic teachings.”
So I guess he could read from the Catechism or Romans but it seems sufficient to me to refer the questioner to the sources.
Nice.
How about:
This detracts from the seriousness of the sacrifice we have come to reverently observe.
This is sacreligious toward the sacrifice we reverently observe.
But I am inspired to write to my own tone deaf celebrant, the note I composed while sitting at Easter Mass
We are Catholics, we don’t believe in the evil and heresies of Protestantism.
Thankfully pre-eminent Protestant theologians have decamped and converted to Catholicism. May be you should try telling some of your nonsensical shallow rot about Protestant beliefs to a few of these below:
1. Ulf Ekman, the founder of Scandinavia’s biggest Bible school, with a congregation of some 4000 individuals, converted to Catholicism because his theological inquiry confirmed for him the indispensability of the Catholic sacraments.
2. Francis J. Beckwith, a “born-again” evangelical, a tenured professor at Baptist-affiliated Baylor University in Waco, Tex, was the president of the Evangelical Theological Society, an association of 4,300 Protestant theologians resigned and joined the Catholic Church. One blogger likened it to Hulk Hogan’s defection from the World Wrestling Federation to the rival World Championship Wrestling league.
3. Rev. Richard John Neuhaus, was a pre-eminent Lutheran theologian in America. He knew his Bible-text and history like no other Protestant. When he converted to Catholicism he said, “I have long believed that the Roman Catholic Church is the fullest expression of the church of Christ through time.”
Granted shallow Bible Christians are incapable of going beyond the shallow end of the theological pool but you may try this, although reading theological history is taking you to the deep end where drowning is a distinct possibility.
St. Irenaeus of Lyons
Early Church Father and Doctor of the Church.
The real presence of the body and blood of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist (transubstantiation), also known as Mass or the Lord’s Supper, was taken for granted in the early Church.
Written by St. Irenaeus about 185 AD, this excerpt makes clear the Church’s realistic interpretation of the Eucharist as the risen body of Christ which serves as the medicine of immortality, the pledge of our own future resurrection.
This excerpt from St. Irenaeus’ monumental work, Against Heresies (Lib. 5,2, 2-3: SC 153, 30-38) is used in the Roman Catholic Office of Readings for Thursday of the third week of Easter with the accompanying biblical reading of Revelation 9:13-21.
“If our flesh is not saved, then the Lord has not redeemed us with his blood, the Eucharistic chalice does not make us sharers in his blood, and the bread we break does not make us sharers in his body. There can be no blood without veins, flesh and the rest of the human substance, and this the Word of God actually became: it was with his own blood that he redeemed us. As the Apostle says: In him, through his blood, we have been redeemed, our sins have been forgiven.
We are his members and we are nourished by creatures, which is his gift to us, for it is he who causes the sun to rise and the rain to fall. He declared that the chalice, which comes from his creation, was his blood, and he makes it the nourishment of our blood. He affirmed that the bread, which comes from his creation, was his body, and he makes it the nourishment of our body. When the chalice we mix and the bread we bake receive the word of God, the Eucharistic elements become the body and blood of Christ, by which our bodies live and grow. How then can it be said that flesh belonging to the Lord’s own body and nourished by his body and blood is incapable of receiving God’s gift of eternal life? Saint Paul says in his letter to the Ephesians that we are members of his body, of his flesh and bones. He is not speaking of some spiritual and incorporeal kind of man, for spirits do not have flesh and bones. He is speaking of a real human body composed of flesh, sinews and bones, nourished by the chalice of Christ’s blood and receiving growth from the bread which is his body.
The slip of a vine planted in the ground bears fruit at the proper time. The grain of wheat falls into the ground and decays only to be raised up again and multiplied by the Spirit of God who sustains all things. The Wisdom of God places these things at the service of man and when they receive God’s word they become the Eucharist, which is the body and blood of Christ. In the same way our bodies, which have been nourished by the Eucharist, will be buried in the earth and will decay, but they will rise again at the appointed time, for the Word of God will raise them up to the glory of God the Father. Then the Father will clothe our mortal nature in immortality and freely endow our corruptible nature with incorruptibility, for God’s power is shown most perfectly in weakness.”
We are Catholics, we don’t believe in the evil and heresies of Protestantism.
Thankfully pre-eminent Protestant theologians have decamped and converted to Catholicism. May be you should try telling some of your nonsensical shallow rot about Protestant beliefs to a few of these below:
1. Ulf Ekman, the founder of Scandinavia’s biggest Bible school, with a congregation of some 4000 individuals, converted to Catholicism because his theological inquiry confirmed for him the indispensability of the Catholic sacraments.
2. Francis J. Beckwith, a “born-again” evangelical, a tenured professor at Baptist-affiliated Baylor University in Waco, Tex, was the president of the Evangelical Theological Society, an association of 4,300 Protestant theologians resigned and joined the Catholic Church. One blogger likened it to Hulk Hogan’s defection from the World Wrestling Federation to the rival World Championship Wrestling league.
3. Rev. Richard John Neuhaus, was a pre-eminent Lutheran theologian in America. He knew his Bible-text and history like no other Protestant. When he converted to Catholicism he said, “I have long believed that the Roman Catholic Church is the fullest expression of the church of Christ through time.”
Granted shallow Bible Christians are incapable of going beyond the shallow end of the theological pool but you may try this, although reading theological history is taking you to the deep end where drowning is a distinct possibility.
St. Irenaeus of Lyons
Early Church Father and Doctor of the Church.
The real presence of the body and blood of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist (transubstantiation), also known as Mass or the Lord’s Supper, was taken for granted in the early Church.
Written by St. Irenaeus about 185 AD, this excerpt makes clear the Church’s realistic interpretation of the Eucharist as the risen body of Christ which serves as the medicine of immortality, the pledge of our own future resurrection.
This excerpt from St. Irenaeus’ monumental work, Against Heresies (Lib. 5,2, 2-3: SC 153, 30-38) is used in the Roman Catholic Office of Readings for Thursday of the third week of Easter with the accompanying biblical reading of Revelation 9:13-21.
“If our flesh is not saved, then the Lord has not redeemed us with his blood, the Eucharistic chalice does not make us sharers in his blood, and the bread we break does not make us sharers in his body. There can be no blood without veins, flesh and the rest of the human substance, and this the Word of God actually became: it was with his own blood that he redeemed us. As the Apostle says: In him, through his blood, we have been redeemed, our sins have been forgiven.
We are his members and we are nourished by creatures, which is his gift to us, for it is he who causes the sun to rise and the rain to fall. He declared that the chalice, which comes from his creation, was his blood, and he makes it the nourishment of our blood. He affirmed that the bread, which comes from his creation, was his body, and he makes it the nourishment of our body. When the chalice we mix and the bread we bake receive the word of God, the Eucharistic elements become the body and blood of Christ, by which our bodies live and grow. How then can it be said that flesh belonging to the Lord’s own body and nourished by his body and blood is incapable of receiving God’s gift of eternal life? Saint Paul says in his letter to the Ephesians that we are members of his body, of his flesh and bones. He is not speaking of some spiritual and incorporeal kind of man, for spirits do not have flesh and bones. He is speaking of a real human body composed of flesh, sinews and bones, nourished by the chalice of Christ’s blood and receiving growth from the bread which is his body.
The slip of a vine planted in the ground bears fruit at the proper time. The grain of wheat falls into the ground and decays only to be raised up again and multiplied by the Spirit of God who sustains all things. The Wisdom of God places these things at the service of man and when they receive God’s word they become the Eucharist, which is the body and blood of Christ. In the same way our bodies, which have been nourished by the Eucharist, will be buried in the earth and will decay, but they will rise again at the appointed time, for the Word of God will raise them up to the glory of God the Father. Then the Father will clothe our mortal nature in immortality and freely endow our corruptible nature with incorruptibility, for God’s power is shown most perfectly in weakness.”
You WROTE that?!! My heart sings! You have inspired me!
The grumbling out there is epidemic and my devout friends agree but are so much more “humble” than I that I am told essentially that I should say something, or try to do as they do and understand that, “the people of God are being humbled and purified and challenged for the faith”, that “we are being prepared for a great chastisement that will be far worse”, and that “we are so blessed to even have the Eucharist, given the plight of so many Catholics around the world who are being martyred”.
I believe all of the above but do not have their quiet spirit to persevere and say nothing. It is affecting me and making the Holy Mass often miserable for me.
Not wanting to cause a scene or be feared I have changed parishes three times in 14 years. It is pointless to hope for a pious mass. Parishes are large and I don’t know the priest. I know the bishop as well as my priest and the social justice agenda and immigration agenda is at work there, standing out from teaching orthodoxy, imho.
I would expect no changes whatsoever with either a letter or a face meeting.
I am very proud of your boldness, and you are so correct that we must speak up. No one rests with such dissatisfaction with their priest’s abdication of their teaching faculty and allowing women clacking in high heels, short hemlines and plunging necklines to offer communion.
Let me say, I am working on my nerve. Thanks so much for sharing that letter!! Rita
BRAVO, Kenny! I needed the laugh! :)
We are Catholic. I have no interest in what you recognize as shallow rot.
My dispute is with watering down the Mass, the procession at Eucharist, the insertion of gut wrenching music, the politically charged homily frought, not with pro Humanae Vitae, Catechismal teachings, but with pro-immigrant spew, eschewing the catechism and the Constitution at once and on a military base in the chapel and people glad handing during the watered down communion, kids texting during communion
.
It certainly would have in St. Paul's day.
I know you already know this - I HOPE you do, anyway - but the "Church" is YOU, the people, the believers and followers of Christ. It's NOT the hierarchy or the bigwigs in Rome - though I would hope some at least are part of it. How your assembly acts, the things they stand for, is up to each person that claims membership within it. Without you they can do nothing. My advice is take it back. Give a voice to your heartache and concerns that is so loud "they" can't ignore it.
They are your overseers, yes, and you should obey them that have to answer to God for your spiritual health, but that doesn't mean you have no recourse for addressing the very real concerns you have. You can wring your hands or you can bombard heaven AND Rome with your petitions and grievances. Maybe if enough stand up, it WILL make a difference. I'll pray for the strength and perseverance you will need. It's YOUR church! Defend it.
If I was a parishoner in his Diocese... not one dime would go to the Church until that teacher got her job back or he lost his.
OK, my apologies. I misunderstood you. I thought you were making “fun” of the Eucharist.
And your religion doesn't...Please don't lie and tell anyone your religion doesn't accept queer priests, bishops, cardinals and popes as long as they don't act on their queerdom...
HaHaHa...I’ll bet clergy cringe when you walk thru the doors...
Let's not leave out ... heretical.
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