Posted on 10/01/2005 7:08:09 PM PDT by milford421
Talk about a major GAG alert! I knew even before I was Catholic that Pax Christi was a major looney-bin of kumbaya chucklheaded carpetbaggers, but this [bleep] takes the cake; making kissy-face huggy-bear with IslamoFascist heathens.............reminds me of McCarrick's recent gaff during the Jordanian king's recent visit and he prayed in the name of the demon allah.
Memo from Virginia to Pax Christi: allahu fubar you heathens!
This kind of garbage has been around since the 70s. At my obligatory pre-Cana love-in, when I enraged the coordinating priest so much that he walked out of the whole pre-Cana prematurely (and apparently suffered a nervous breakdown two weeks later), they substituted normal Christian prayers with readings from Kahlil Gibran the pseudo-Christian Sufist.
OK, we're all breathlessly waiting for the full story on this one...
I suspect there are many people have wished their Pre-Cana (or RCIA) "leaders" would get so mad they'd pick up their marbles and go home. But getting them to have a nervous breakdown two weeks later is truly spectactular!
It's one thing to dialogue and discuss issues of mutual concern in a spirit of brotherhood but one cannot simply compose syncretic prayers and imagine that this substitutes for true unity.
Trying to please everybody usually ends up pleasing nobody.
Good points.
The priest in question behaved quite strangely before I confronted him, so I doubt I did anything other than hasten, at most, his institutionalization.
Basically, the pre-Cana was the usual garbage you would expect. Some hippy couple leading a dippy freeform prayer, separation into small groups to discuss "values and goals", making posters as if we were third graders, and "scenarios" and some older couples sharing anecdotes.
Then a meal and a "talk" by the priest in question.
The priest was absent for the preliminaries, conveniently showed up for the meal that was subsidized by our pre-Cana checks and immediately began conversing with several of the couples at the meal in the risque "I'm a totally cool, hep, happenin' priest - can you cats dig?" mode of discourse.
Painful to listen to.
His talk, which was conducted from the sanctuary, was basically a tirade about the "bad old days before Vatican 2", an instruction to ignore Humanae Vitae, a part that suggested that "open marriage" was in the realm of moral possibility for Catholics, and a statement that going to confession was optional for Catholics now and was really outmoded and useless. Throw in a few obscenities spoken from in front of the altar and that was it.
In the "discussion" that followed I asked some pointed questions but was ignored, so I confronted him a bit later and demanded to know why he was giving bad information to people who had come to the pre-Cana in good faith.
He wanted to know why I was so upset, that everything he said was "from Vatican II." I asked him where Vatican II rejected Humanae Vitae, since it was written 3 years after the council closed. He assured me it was "all in the documents" and that I should read them sometime, in his most patronizing tone of voice. I then informed him that I'd read the documents in English and Latin and that nothing he said was true and that as a priest he shouldn't intentionally lie to people.
He became shrill at that point and told me if "people like me" had their way then "we would still have Mass in Latin." I then informed him that I attended the traditional Mass regularly.
He then smirked and informed me that it was "against the rules" to do so and that I was a bad Catholic after all. I informed him about the indult and that his own ordinary had approved the Mass I attended. At that point he began yelling about "fascist attitudes" blah blah blah. I told him - I think I'm remembering it exactly as I said it: "Father, if I did my job as well as you do yours I'd be fired for incompetence."
He lost it, and stormed out of the pre-Cana.
I wrote up a letter of complaint, sent it off to the ordinary, and then I heard from a friend that he had flipped out about a week later during some church-related meeting or function and then wound up taking of leave of absence at a hospital.
What a great picture! Where did you get it?
As a renegade Piskie, this is my personal favorite:
Wideawake,
This "priest" and the pre-Cana "group" you described could have been taken from any typical episcopagan or liberal mainline protestant group you care to name. Same format, same agenda, same "sharing", talking of "values and goals", making "posters", the whole bloody silly nine yards. Some of this stuff was going on in the Baptist church I grew up in when I was a teenager in the late 60s and early 70s. We all thought it was a big joke then, and used to mock the "leaders" behind their backs outside the "gatherings." Nothing but a bunch of hippy-dippy New Agey feely sixties leftover encounter group relativist schlock. If this stuff hadn't poisoned so much of the Catholic Church, as well as so much of mainline protestantism, it would actually be kind of funny in a way. These apostates take their "faith" so seriously and get way out of joint if anyone questions them. They regard all real Christians of any stripe as "fascists". Oh, and I almost forgot, the constant "lets gather together and hold hands and 'pray'" - GAG! Did they do that at your pre-Cana?
Wow! I'm glad you confronted him. One of the things that really gets me about these guys is something else you pointed out, their horridly patronizing attitude.
Granted, this one might have been somewhat unstable in general, but it's appalling that people like that should even get within ten feet of a pulpit, much less an altar.
It's an essential part of the strategy. If you don't join hands and become part of the happy-clappy, you're looked upon as a jerk who's such a stick-in-the-mud that he can't even go along with the harmless silliness.
Even though 90% of the participants think that's it's stupid, pointless crap, they go along with it in order not to hurt the facilitator's feelings.
So everyone winds up validating and reinforcing this garbage because they don't want to be seen as "not playing well with others."
Once you've joined in, you've compromised yourself and the slow rationalization into syncretism and modernism has begun.
What's really annoying about it is that they cultivate this image of "I'm a maverick who doesn't play by the rules, but I'm in touch with the parishioners, dude - I'm their friend, not some grim, aloof tightass like those conservative priests, man."
But, in reality, they are the ones who look down at their parishioners as poor, benighted peons whom they are supposed to uplift from the morass of traditional Catholic culture.
Exactly! This description, and your previous ones could have been taken from the "retreats" me and my peers endured at my old Baptist church during junior high and senior high. Kumbaya fubar!
Maverick, hah, hah. That's like "transgressive." They're actually probably reflective of the majority of clerical opinion, just as the scatological "transgressive" artist is busy cranking out "transgressive" art just like the guy in the next studio over. The left loves to view itself as unique, bold, individual, but it's actually a herd of braying timid souls who find comfort in all braying together.
And yes, they do look down on the parishioners. And I'm suer they even make fun of the Eucharettes ("extraordinary Eucharistic ministers," generally elderly ladies) and Sister Snowflake behind their backs.
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