Free Republic

"It's not an ecclesiastical conspiracy; it's an ecclesiastical policy, Father Deacon. And, from a practical point of view, a good one because it has Plan A (preferred) and Plan B (spare tire)."

kosta, if I had your degree of faith in the Vatican's ability to come up with such a thought-through strategy, I would probably make a good Catholic one day! ;)

"I believe this is what's known as a "window" into the degree of homosexual infiltration in this particular diocese."

I am rather concerned that this "80%" figure seems to have cropped up again:

a) first we learnt that 80% of abuse cases were against adolescent males

b) then we were told by the bishops that homosexuals were no more prone to abusing juveniles than heterosexuals

c) now we learn that 80% of this diocese's clergy would not support the petition against gay marriage

Am I putting 2 + 2 together to make 5, or is 80% the possible extent of the problem viz homosexual penetration (no pun intended) of Amchurch's priesthood?

If the latter then no wonder the recent Vatican instruction on admitting "special people" to seminaries received such a lukewarm welcome!!!

I sincerely hope that gcbdoj's rationale for the low support is the right one, but.....

"Ethnophyletism. One would have thought I'd have seen that one staring me in the face, considering Greeks pretty much invented it in the modern era! :)"

LOL!

Happy New Year to you too, Kolo.

""If you consider the consequences of Husar's "Patriarchate," it becomes obvious that in your scenario the RCC is shooting herself in the foot; in mine, I see a state using Husar as a "stick." Which one is more realistic and transparant -- and likely?"

Kosta, it goes without saying that Rome shoots itself in the foot vis a vis reunion with Orthodoxy if Lubomyr creates a "Patriarchate" and Rome remains in communion with him, unless, as I said, the real goal is the advancement of Uniatism."

I think the answers to these questions will turn out to be much more prosaic than you imagine. The motivations for the developments in Ukraine are as much about Ukrainian nationalism and the price of Gazprom's gas exports as they are about any grand ecclesiastical conspiracy. It is the final exorcism of soviet communist oppression which is at the heart of +Lubomyr's manoeuvrings.

Unfortunately, Rome is about to be faced with a dilemma not of its own making and the Pope will require the wisdom of Solomon to extricate her from it.

Thank you for your vote of confidence! ;)

However deacons such as myself are happy to serve the Lord as His deacons and support the celibate (non-homosexual) priesthood.

I have grave suspicions about all these married men and women who feel "called" to the priesthood. The genuine "call" when it comes, comes from God and the Church. I do not believe that God would waste His time "calling" people to a putative vocation which is not possible to fulfil within the terms with which He has established His Church.

This "call" which many "feel" can only lead to frustration, disillusionment and distraction from the true task at hand. There is only one being who can possibly benefit from people being distracted by this false call, and I strongly suspect that he is the origin of it.

"also there is a potential problem is many Catholic men who want to be married priests, such as certain "deacons" may switch rites and be ordained priests, and would be used as a backdoor method to ordain married latin rite men as priests."

They could do this now of course if those who felt so-inclined were prepared to learn an Arabic or Slavic language and spend a few years living in one of these countries.

I just guess that their "call" to the priesthood isn't quite that strong! ;)

Thanks for the ping.

It's about time these heretics were brought into line - JPII indulged them far too much.

I hope that a confession of faith in the Real Presence is also extracted from the leaders of "the Way" as part of bringing them back into communion with the Catholic Church.

"Archbishop Hepworth, a former Catholic priest ... what's with that?"

That is what jumped out at me from the article as well. This is the first time I have heard he was a former Catholic priest.

I wonder if anybody out there would know what his situation is from the canonical p.o.v. if the TAC did reconcile with Rome? Does anyone know if he has married since becoming an Anglican? Would it be likely that he would be able to retain his position if they were in communion with the Catholic Church?

"I believe the position is going to be agree-to-disagree about Mary

If that's the case then The Traditional Anglican Communion won't be coming home to the Roman Catholic Church. You either accept all of the teachings and publicly profess belief in said teachings of the Church or you won't be confirmed. The Church isn't a smorgasbord."

If the TAC holds the traditional "Anglo-Catholic" beliefs about Mary, then they follow Rome's lead on this already and they will probably be more orthodox on this issue than most in the N.O. Church.

In fact, apart from them not being in communion in Rome, they are probably more orthodox than most home-grown Catholics in most areas of doctrine. It is the convert former-Anglican clergy who seem to be having a harder time with the liberalization of the faith in these parts than do the cradle-Catholic clergy.

Here's praying for a very happy and blessed Christmas for you, your family and all the freepers on that side of the pond.

(It seems that one of the few advantages left to living in Blighty is that Christmas comes a few hours earlier here!;) We are just getting ready for the carols and readings before Midnight Mass - please pray for the memsahib's nerves as she tries to herd the hyped-up munchkins!!!)

"He has never been baptized."

Have you ever asked him why he has chosen not to get baptized so far?

Even for those who believe in "Baptism of Desire", it is a bit of a stretch to claim that a man with a lifetime of opportunity and surrounded by a family of believers, but who still does not come to the Sacrament, has any good hope of salvation if he does not repent, believe and be baptized.

"*Cool. What, in the area of homosexuality, did he accomplish that gained him his "world class" status?"

LOL! If that is what was meant in the original statement, I'm sure we don't want to see the answer posted here, thank you!

The doctor makes some very interesting observations about the pathology of homosexuality, however. Their loathing for normal masculine men would explain lots of problems that we currently see in the Church.

It is also interesting to note that he treats men to overcome their effeminate behaviour. He must have plenty of patients in the priesthood and seminaries.

It does seem to be a huge project and burden to try and get these "men" to a point where they are in a "suitable" condition to train as priests, though. It would be far more cost effective and edifying for the Church to never even consider fags in the first place. If the bishops would just believe the teaching of the Church on this and only ordain normal men, we wouldn't have this millstone of fag's baggage dragging us into the gutter all the time.

However, it is with the bishops that the problem starts and it will never be cured until we get the fags and fag-lovers out of the episcopate. This last appointment to SF will not help one iota.

"The message, an open letter in which the priests said they felt like the church's "unloved and unwanted children," "

You are are the weakest links! Goodbye!!!

"Seriously, I'd be interested in seeing what is being referred to here from Meyendorff about economia. The Paris school, from which M. came, is very big on economia and on cutting theological corners (by Orthodox standards.)"

My bad!!! A misquote! It wasn't Meyendorff I was thinking of, it was an essay written by John H Erickson in St Vladimir's Theological Quarterly 29 (1985). It was entitled "The Problem of Sacramental "Economy""

"It appears to me that +Kasper is trying to use an Orthodox theological and ecclesiological concept and practice for purposes other than what it was designed for."

Exactly. He views it precisely as some kind of carte blanche to ride roughshod over the canons, divine revelation, and the natural law. The modernists in our church use the term "being pastoral", but we all know what they mean!!!

Kasper:

"A large portion of our people, including priests, could not understand the reason behind the regulations coming from the center; they tended, therefore, to ignore them. This happened concerning ethical issues, sacramental discipline and ecumenical practices. The adamant refusal of Communion to all divorced and remarried persons and the highly restrictive rules for eucharistic hospitality are good examples."


Kasper is quite open about the background to this spurious autonomy he seeks. It is not autonomy from Rome so much as autonomy from God's Law. If his priests are giving Holy Communion to adulterers living in sinful relationships, and all kinds of common or garden heretics, then he as their bishop has the responsibility to teach the truth of the Faith and uphold the law of the Church. He should have disciplined his priests rather than whining about changing the Law to accomodate their sin and the sin of those desiring to make sacreligious communions.

His main problem is that he has lost the Catholic Faith himself so he is quite incapable of teaching or shepherding anyone else. You can't give what you haven't got.

His whole argument has nothing really to do with the issue of ecclesiology - it all boils down to how to accomodate infidelity.

"Has not the Second Vatican Council enjoined every bishop to listen to the faithful, especially to the clergy?"

No, you plonker! It enjoined you to teach the Catholic Faith!

"If the bishop attempts to enforce the general norms ruthlessly?as his Roman superiors sometimes expect?his effort is likely to be useless, even counterproductive."

What has Rome got to do with it? You're not an altar boy, you're supposed to be a Catholic bishop. Christ appointed YOU to teach and uphold the truth, you don't need to hide behind Rome's skirts all the time.

"Yet there is a solution: the bishop must be granted enough vital space to make responsible decisions in the matter of implementing universal laws."

You already have it - you just don't have any right whatsoever to disregard morality, faith and the law in the name of an infidel pastoral infantilism.

"Beyond the immutable articles of faith and morals, however, there is the broad field of ecclesiastical discipline, which is essentially changeable, even when the norms were created to support, closely or loosely, some doctrinal position."

Bollocks, you sauerkraut nutmunch! You can't change the 10 commandments. All you need to remember in this case is :

Thou shalt not commit adultery

and

If anyone brings you a different gospel from the one you have received, let him be anathema.

If you can't handle these basic articles of the faith - resign now!

"Our people are well aware of the flexibility of laws and regulations; they have experienced a great deal of it over the past decades. They lived through changes that no one anticipated or even thought possible."

Nutz! They know you are a compromiser, Jesus never said anything about "Blessed are the compromisers."

"The Eastern church developed the doctrine and practice of oikonomia, ?economy?: a superior wisdom that guides bishops and allows them to resolve problems that the laws cannot handle."

Read Meyendorff on the subject - not all the Easterners believe it was a good idea.

"The local church is neither a province nor a department of the universal church; it is the church at a given place."

That's why it has the same laws and doctrines as the rest of the local churches. What you want is a schismatic church with its own doctrines, its own laws, and the ability to enshrine sin and call it good.

"The local bishop is not the delegate of the pope but is one sent by Jesus Christ. He is given personal responsibility by Christ. He receives the fullness of power through his sacramental consecration?the power that he needs to govern his diocese. This is the teaching of the Second Vatican Council.

This understanding of the bishop’s office should have led to decentralization in the church’s government. The opposite happened: the trend toward centralization returned after the council."

That's because so many local churches were put into the apostate hands of modernists like you. Once we get Catholic bishops again, there won't be any need for centralization.

"Less desirably, the local churches themselves can promote centralization whenever they abdicate their responsibility and turn to Rome for a decision?a ruse to evade their duty and find cover behind a superior order."

Its a symptom of non-Catholics needing to find a Catholic to take the blame for the Catholic Faith.

"The right balance between the universal church and the particular churches has been destroyed. This is not only my own perception; it is the experience and complaint of many bishops from all over the world. [In a note Cardinal Kasper refers to a talk given at Oxford by Archishop John Quinn, archbishop emeritus of San Francisco, and to reported statements by Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, archbishop of Milan, and Cardinal Franz Koenig, archbishop emeritus of Vienna.]"

And there you have it - Quinn, Martini, Koenig and Kasper - not a Catholic bone in their bodies. Of course they have/had problems with Rome - Rome still thinks its Catholic.

"Here's to hoping they can accept VII "in light of tradition""

Here's to hoping that Rome will first remember Tradition so that there is something to interpret VII in the light of!

The first one is here:

Gen 3,14 "And the Lord God said to the serpent: Because thou hast done this thing, thou art cursed among all cattle, and beasts of the earth: upon thy breast shalt thou go, and earth shalt thou eat all the days of thy life. 15 I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed: he/she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for his/her heel."

Being referred to by God as the "seed (spermatos) of the woman" foretold that the Messiah would be born of a virgin (parthenos).

Despite the fact that the author is as ignorant of Catholic theology as perhaps Hahn is of Orthodox theology, he nevertheless makes some good points.

His following paragraph is an argument I have often used when talking to Protestants and potential converts about the faith, but replacing the word "Orthodox" with "Catholic":

"At this point, allow me to reiterate that Orthodoxy is in no way based on the Bible. Nor is it based or derived from a set of oral teachings running parallel to the Bible. The Orthodox Church is the living Body of Christ - the living experience in history of the union of mankind with God in the divine-human Person of the Only-Begotten. The Word of God is not a book, but a Person. The Prophets, both those of the Old Covenant and those of the New, are those who have seen and heard and touched the Word of Life.24 The Divine Scriptures and the writings of the Saints are the written witness to this experience, but they are not the source of this experience."

This is ultimately why he is hoist by his own petard when he gets his knickers in a twist over doctrines like the Immaculate Conception, Purgatory and the Papal Primacy. The Church has not defined these doctrines primarily because they are clearly enunciated in Scripture - it doesn't matter whether they are spelt out in Scripture or not. The Church has defined these doctrines because they are true and they conform to what Catholics have always and everywhere believed since we received the Faith from the Apostles. It is precisely because the Catholic Church is the living Body of Christ, animated by the Holy Spirit who leads us into all things revealed by Christ, that her faithful can recognize in these doctrines the same authoritative truth that Jesus bestowed on the apostolic Church who first committed the Faith to writing.

Having said that, with the benefit of the gift of supernatural faith, it is readily apparent that understanding Scripture in its typological, allegorical and anagogical senses, all these doctrines are supported by the Word of God. But that is of more relevance when one must defend these doctrines against those who lack faith and who believe that Christianity is a religion that one can invent from a book.

"Regardless of varying views on homosexuality, every BC student wants their BC diploma to mean more 20 years down the line as BC becomes an even more respected university."

Stuff morality and the teaching of the Church...we just want to make more money!!!

Proof, if any were needed, that no man can serve two masters. For these people, if money, status, and reputation in the eyes of the world are at stake, then they lose all sense of principle and morality - if they ever had any in the first place.

If this person were really concerned about the future of humanity, he would be advocating the cure of these poor sick creatures, not celebrating their depravity and perversions.