or ...
Bishop Vicki Gene Robinson
Posted on 06/05/2006 1:38:48 PM PDT by NYer
About 50 people demonstrated outside St. Mary’s Catholic Church and School Saturday afternoon, calling for greater openness and inclusiveness in the Roman Catholic Church.
The event concluded the 10th anniversary conference of Call to Action Nebraska, part of a nationwide organization seeking reforms in the church.
In 1996, Lincoln Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz announced that local Catholics who joined Call to Action would be excommunicated. Lincoln is the only diocese in the country to impose such sanctions, said Rachel Pokora, president of Nebraska CTA.
About half of those participating in Saturday’s “non-violent action” were CTA members from other parts of the country, while the rest were from Nebraska. Many carried placards naming important issues facing the church or reforms the group supports, such as allowing priests to marry, permitting women to be priests and perform other leadership roles in the church, combatting poverty, supporting peace and inclusion of gays and lesbians.
Bruskewitz issued a statement reiterating his opposition to Call to Action, calling it “an anti-Catholic sect composed mainly of aging fallen-away Catholics, including ex-priests and ex-nuns.” Call to Action opposes church teachings “on a variety of issues, such as abortion, homosexuality, abandonment of marital and religious vows, and so on.”
Pokora and other CTA members say they are Catholics who love the church and want to improve it. But Bruskewitz commented, “Although some of them might claim to still be Catholics, nobody except a few media types see them as such.”
Pokora said she wants to show people that “you can be a faithful Catholic and disagree with things that are happening in the church.”
At Saturday’s event Pokora and Jim McShane of Lincoln opened a symbolic window through with participants passed their placards calling for more openness in the church. Said Jean Rempfer of Lincoln, holding a sign saying “Women in Ministry”: “I have many personal reasons” for supporting CTA. She is divorced and a single parent, she said.
Megan Keck, also from Lincoln, said she attended “to give support to people who want to express another view (and) who have a more progressive vision. I think there’s room for both progressives and conservatives in the church.”
In his statement, Bruskewitz claimed that CTA members reject the Second Vatican Council and previous church councils as well as the authority of the pope and bishops. But CTA leaders say their call for dialogue about reforms is in the true spirit of Vatican II, which brought about many changes in the 1960s and since.
A number of current priests and nuns are members of CTA in other states. Helen Marie Burns, a Sister of Mercy from Michigan and a member of the national CTA board, said Call to Action members are faithful Catholics who honor the church’s traditions but want to treat all people with justice and respect.
Ellen McNally, president of CTA Florida, noted that the group is treated quite differently there than in Nebraska. “We are welcomed in the Catholic Church, we meet in a Catholic Church and don’t have opposition,” she said. One of CTA’s big issues in Florida is rights for immigrants, an issue that Catholic clergy support as well. She noted a Florida survey that showed a majority of Catholic clergy believe priests should be allowed to marry.
Patty Hawk of Crete, co-chairperson of National Call to Action, said the 10-year excommunication threat has kept some local Catholics from joining CTA, but brought support from Catholics in the rest of the country. Nationally CTA has about 30,000 members, but only 240 in Nebraska, and many of those do not live in the Lincoln Diocese.
Round of applause and a hearty spit from Vlad to Bishop Bruskewitz. You have to wonder why CtA Nebraska even bothers.
It's true! Just ask Rowan Williams!
I'm for them opening their bibles.
Bishop Lynch probably
Stop the presses!! Caught on tape!! A bishop......actually doing his job!!!
A clear, unequivocal statement, free of platitudes, which leaves no doubt in the minds of uninformed Catholics that this group is a danger to the faith.
So rare is this today that one is momentarily taken aback.
I think that's considered an insensitive reply.
;)
God bless Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz.
Dear Lord, Preserve and protect his vibrant defense of the faith. Make his words a light for all who love You.
Remember Lord those who are despised by the world for your sake. Amen
My old pastor, at St. Michael the Archangel of Cary, NC, was in seminary with Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz. He sounds like a nice guy, ontop of being a great bishop. It also sounded like he'd been conservative from the get-go.
or ...
Pray for the bishop! Then ask our Lord to guide you to a holy priest and a reverent liturgy. He won't let you down.
The usher will be happy to show you to the door, Jean.
| ORDINATIO SACERDOTALIS |
| Pope John Paul II |
| Apostolic Letter On Reserving Priestly Ordination To Men Alone 1. Priestly Ordination, which hands on the office entrusted by Christ to his Apostles of teaching, sanctifying, and governing the faithful, has in the Catholic Church from the beginning always been reserved to men alone. This tradition has also been faithfully maintained by the Oriental Churches. When the question of the ordination of women arose in the Anglican Communion, Pope Paul VI, out of fidelity to his office of safeguarding the Apostolic Tradition, and also with a view to removing a new obstacle placed in the way of Christian unity, reminded Anglicans of the position of the Catholic Church: "She holds that it is not admissible to ordain women to the priesthood, for very fundamental reasons. These reasons include: the example recorded in the Sacred Scriptures of Christ choosing his Apostles only from among men; the constant practice of the Church, which has imitated Christ in choosing only men; and her living teaching authority which has consistently held that the exclusion of women from the priesthood is in accordance with God's plan for his Church."[1] But since the question had also become the subject of debate among theologians and in certain Catholic circles, Paul VI directed the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to set forth and expound the teaching of the Church on this matter. This was done through the Declaration <Inter Insigniores>, which the Supreme Pontiff approved and ordered to be published.[2] 2. The Declaration recalls and explains the fundamental reasons for this teaching, reasons expounded by Paul VI, and concludes that the Church "does not consider herself authorized to admit women to priestly ordination."[3] To these fundamental reasons the document adds other theological reasons which illustrate the appropriateness of the divine provision, and it also shows clearly that Christ's way of acting did not proceed from sociological or cultural motives peculiar to his time. As Paul VI later explained: "The real reason is that, in giving the Church her fundamental constitution, her theological anthropology—thereafter always followed by the Church's Tradition—Christ established things in this way."[4] In the Apostolic Letter <Mulieris Dignitatem>, I myself wrote in this regard: "In calling only men as his Apostles, Christ acted in a completely free and sovereign manner. In doing so, he exercised the same freedom with which, in all his behaviour, he emphasized the dignity and the vocation of women, without conforming to the prevailing customs and to the traditions sanctioned by the legislation of the time."[5] In fact, the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles attest that this call was made in accordance with God's eternal plan: Christ chose those whom he willed (cf. <Mk> 3:13-14; <Jn> 6:70), and he did so in union with the Father, "through the Holy Spirit" (<Acts> 1:2), after having spent the night in prayer (cf. <Lk> 6:12). Therefore, in granting admission to the ministerial priesthood,[6] the Church has always acknowledged as a perennial norm her Lord's way of acting in choosing twelve men whom he made the foundation of his Church (cf. <Rev> 21:14). These men did not in fact receive only a function which could thereafter be exercised by any member of the Church; rather they were specifically and intimately associated in the mission of the Incarnate Word himself (cf. <Mt> 10:1, 7-8; 28:16-20; <Mk> 3:13- 16; 16:14-15). The Apostles did the same when they chose fellow workers[7] who would succeed them in their ministry.[8] Also included in this choice were those who, throughout the time of the Church, would carry on the Apostles' mission of representing Christ the Lord and Redeemer.[9] 3. Furthermore, the fact that the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God and Mother of the Church, received neither the mission proper to the Apostles nor the ministerial priesthood clearly shows that the non-admission of women to priestly ordination cannot mean that women are of lesser dignity, nor can it be construed as discrimination against them. Rather, it is to be seen as the faithful observance of a plan to be ascribed to the wisdom of the Lord of the universe. The presence and the role of women in the life and mission of the Church, although not linked to the ministerial priesthood, remain absolutely necessary and irreplaceable. As the Declaration <Inter Insigniores> points out, "the Church desires that Christian women should become fully aware of the greatness of their mission; today their role is of capital importance both for the renewal and humanization of society and for the rediscovery by believers of the true face of the Church".[10] The New Testament and the whole history of the Church give ample evidence of the presence in the Church of women, true disciples, witnesses to Christ in the family and in society, as well as to total consecration to the service of God and of the Gospel. "By defending the dignity of women and their vocation, the Church has shown honour and gratitude for those women who—faithful to the Gospel—have shared in every age in the apostolic mission of the whole People of God. They are the holy martyrs, virgins, and the mothers of families, who bravely bore witness to their faith and passed on the Church's faith and tradition by bringing up their children in the spirit of the Gospel".[11] Moreover, it is to the holiness of the faithful that the hierarchical structure of the Church is totally ordered. For this reason, the Declaration <Inter Insigniores> recalls: "the only better gift, which can and must be desired, is love (cf. <1 Cor> 12 and 13). The greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven are not the ministers but the saints".[12] 4. Although the teaching that priestly ordination is to be reserved to men alone has been preserved by the constant and universal Tradition of the Church and firmly taught by the Magisterium in its more recent documents, at the present time in some places it is nonetheless considered still open to debate, or the Church's judgment that women are not to be admitted to ordination is considered to have a merely disciplinary force. Wherefore, in order that all doubt may be removed regarding a matter of great importance, a matter which pertains to the Church's divine constitution itself, in virtue of my ministry of confirming the brethren (cf. <Lk> 22:32) I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church's faithful. Invoking an abundance of divine assistance upon you, venerable Brothers, and upon all the faithful, I impart my Apostolic Blessing. From the Vatican, on 22 May, the Solemnity of Pentecost, in the year 1994, the sixteenth of my Pontificate. NOTES 1. Paul VI, <Response to the Letter of His Grace the Most Reverend Dr. F. D. Coggan, Archbishop of Canterbury, concerning the Ordination of Women to the Priesthood> (30 November 1975): <AAS> 68 (1976), 599. 2. Cf. Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Declaration <Inter Insigniores> on the Question of the Admission of Women to the Ministerial Priesthood (15 October 1976): <AAS> 69 (1977), 98-116. 3. <Ibid.>, 100. 4. Paul VI, <Address on the Role of Women in the Plan of Salvation (30 January 1977): <Insegnamenti>, XV (1977), 111. Cf. also John Paul II, Apostolic Exhortation <Christifideles Laici> (30 December 1988), 31: <AAS> 81 (1989), 393-521; <Catechism of the Catholic Church>, No. 1577. 5. Apostolic Letter <Mulieris Dignitatem> (15 August 1988), 26; <AAS> 80 (1988), 1715. 6. Cf. Dogmatic Constitution <Lumen Gentium>, 28; Decree <Presbyterorum Ordinis>, 2b. 7 Cf. <1 Tim> 3:1-13; <2 Tim> 1:6; <Tit> 1:5-9. 8 Cf. <Catechism of the Catholic Church>, No. 1577. 9 Cf. Dogmatic Constitution on the Church <Lumen Gentium>, 20, 21. 10 Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Declaration <Inter Insigniores>, 6: <AAS> 69 (1977), 115-116. 11 Apostolic Letter <Mulieris Dignitatem>, 27: <AAS> 80 (1988), 1719. 12 Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Declaration <Inter Insigniores>, 6: <AAS> 69 (1977), 115. |
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Publicity.
Good point. They can count on the MSM's presenting them as "victims."
You think they'd get a clue.
My goodness!
Well put!
Imagine the outcries if anyone picketed a Jewish synagogue or a Moslem mosque objecting to any tenets of those faiths.
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