A Curious Kind of Catholic: A look inside Kerry's preferred place of worship, the Paulist Center.

The Weekly Standard ^ | July 25, 2004 | Jonathan V. Last

[quidnunc]

It's where people who hate the Church go to church.

Catholics are used to having people protest outside their churches. Because Catholics are one of the last socially acceptable objects of bigotry, it seems as though activist groups are always showing up at their churches. Gay and women's rights groups make up the usual crowd, although these days it's common to find hecklers there to beat up on Catholics for the priest sex-abuse scandals. However, today may mark the first time a Catholic church has been picketed by anti-abortion protestors.

Dozens of such protestors were gathered on Park Street in front of the Paulist Center an hour before Sunday's 10:00 a.m. Mass. They strummed guitars, sang hymns, drew slogans on the sidewalk in chalk, and carried placards saying "Stop Killing My Generation" and "You CAN'T be Catholic & Pro-Abortion." Some of the protestors hailed from Operation Rescue, other were from the American Life League. All of them were respectful and cheery as they stood in the morning sunshine, down the block from the Massachusetts statehouse.

The reason for their protest is that the Paulist Center is John Kerry's home church.

-snip-

[Arthur McGowan]

The continued existence of places like this just proves that for all their pious talk, even the "good" bishops like O'Malley don't have a drop of testosterone coursing through their veins. And this problem exists from the Pope on down. The next Pope should be a streetfighter. We don't need any more encyclicals; we don't need a Pope who can speak 120 languages. We need a Pope who is willing to BUST bishops back to private--send the worst of the heretics out to drive a cab. Send the weaklings like O'Malley to be chaplain in a convent for crippled nuns. Send sodomite, baby-killer priests like Ardis out to get a real job.

[votelife]

bttt

[maryz]

From the Paulist Center website:

The Paulist Center is a worship community of Christians in the Roman Catholic tradition in Boston, Massachusetts.

"In the Roman Catholic tradition", indeed!

[maryz]

D you have any concrete suggestions as to what O'Malley might do about the Paulists, short of raising a private army and taking them on to the death? I think that's illegal in this country, First Amendment protection of religion notwithstanding.

The Paulists do not answer to him, except for asking permission to celebrate Mass (if what they are doing actually counts as Mass) in his diocese. Should he withdraw permission, do you think they would stop? Personally, I think they'd drool at the prospect of standing up to the mean ol' Church (first calling a press conference, of course).

[mewzilla]

I don't know that it does. I was thinking that the Catholic Church doesn't want to tick off its parishoners and risk its wallet. That's why I'm thinking it doesn't do a lot of things.

[Mr. Thorne]

Good lord.

So basically, they're arbitrarily removing one third of the Holy Trinity?

That's rediculous. And frankly, it sounds like a bit of heresy, if you ask me.

Which nobody did, so it's just MHO.

[Unam Sanctam]

If you had any sense of perspective, it is doctrinal dissidents like this church that you would be going after, not the Holy Father.

[maryz]

And frankly, it sounds like a bit of heresy, if you ask me.

LOL! A "bit" of heresy? You have a truly British gift of understatement!

I wonder if Balestrieri (that canon lawyer who has filed a Complaint for Heresy against Kerry in the Boston Archdiocese) can file an Amended Complaint joining the Paulist Center and expanding on the heresy counts . . .

[Mr. Thorne]

I'm just at a loss as to these people.

If you are one of these people, my big question is, "Why BOTHER?" Why do you want to be associated with a Church that you (obviously) disagree with at the ROOT?!

You don't agree on marriage, on the culture of life, probably disagree with a male only priesthood, not to mention innumerable other parts of Church Law.

I mean, for Heaven's sake, if you take Christ out of the Creed, what is the POINT?

Become a bloody Unitarian, or whatever. Just don't call yourselves Catholic.

[William Martel]

I think that perhaps he could remove official permission in the very least. I also don't quite understand why exactly he needs to be "tolerant" of this group either.

Part of what bothers me about the Church in this day and age is that, whenever anyone suggests the necessity of taking drastic action, we as Catholics have a tendency of wringing our hands and worry about pushing people away from us. We worry about giving the liberal activist groups within our midst the grounds for "standing up" against us. We act and believe as if they have a chance to win, often forgetting Who it is we have on our side in every conflict. The Church has been far frailer in times past than it is now, yet even in those times it did not gain its influence by "being tolerant". Throughout history, the Church has always come out stronger when it worked up the courage to face evil face-to-face, especially at times when that evil came from within its own ranks.

Now, more than ever, we most certainly need another Gregory the Great or Hildebrand. It is those who act with strong leadership and an even stronger faith in God's holy providence that will lead us to prevail, not those who sanction the merchants of sin for fear that the weak in spirit will leave us.

[narses]

EternalHope says:
Good article. Worth reading the whole thing.

But it raises an important question: Why does the Catholic Church allow this church to call itself Catholic?

Does anyone have a rational answer?

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

The subtext here--with talk of liberating voices and welcoming those alienated from those other mean Catholic churches--is that the Paulist Center is Catholic, but not really: more Episcopal lite; or orthodox Unitarian. The practical consequence of this attitude is that if John Kerry isn't the least bit conflicted about stumping for abortion and taking communion, the people at the Paulist Center are even less conflicted about giving him the Host.

Towards the end of Mass on Sunday, Father John Ardis (who will be giving the consecration at the Democratic convention on Thursday) made an announcement about the anti-abortion protestors on his front steps. Defiantly, he read the Center's Mission Statement. The parishioners burst into applause. Which explains why John Kerry feels so comfortable at the Paulist Center. His fellow parishioners aren't gritting their teeth and looking away while he fights for abortion and defies the Catholic Church. They're cheering him on.

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

Does anyone have a rational answer?

Having spent enough time observing American ecclesiastical circles of similar stripe, I can venture a guess. This would fall in the "prudential judgment" category. The community in question would probably just reappear elsewhere. Martyred to liberals, direct action would only give them more publicity. Those involved are viewed esssentially as dysfunctional charity cases. Pathetic victims of their own neurotic anxieties and fantasies. It would be a little like pushing for a crackdown on homeless schizophrenics and urine-drenched street winos.

That's my guess on the kind of thinking which may have revolved around this. But the chancery office in question has not exactly been a model of sound orthodox administration. If they had no problem tolerating the pretense that Ted Kennedy & Co. were "Catholic" all these years, it seems unlikely they would get the urge to stand up for orthodoxy in a case like this.

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

In other words, Frances Kissling and Maureen Fiedler territory. People who turn private neurotic dysfunctions and personal sexual problems into public spectacle events.

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

Same type of principle as maintaining secrecy and anonymity of the victim in an active ongoing diabolical possession/exorcism case.

[NYer]

They strummed guitars, sang hymns, drew slogans on the sidewalk in chalk, and carried placards saying "Stop Killing My Generation"

The Catholic Church is the last bastion from which the pro-life message emanates. 40 million babies have been aborted!!

It is my personal contention that the generation of youth, whose peers were 'legally' aborted, will one day rise up in their adulthood and proclaim to those in 'my' generation who legalized abortion, that they are dispensible. With 40 million fewer tax payers to fund the bank roll necessary to support us in our retirement, they will use the court system to legalize euthanasia. "What you did to us is what you will now suffer", will be their slogan. And, under the auspices of such a system, they will be justified in their declaration, regardless of how anyone of us voted on Roe v Wade.

May God have mercy on our souls!

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[Ax]

In the liturgy at my wife's Anglican Church in Delray Beach, the Nicene Creed has "...one Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church." I feel just as comfortable at the Anglican Church as I do at St. Thomas More.

BTW, my 93-year old aunt is a retired IHM nun in Monroe, MI. Her screen name, if she had one, would be "maryz."

[ultima ratio]

"it is doctrinal dissidents like this church that you would be going after, not the Holy Father."

Your perspective is warped. I shouldn't have to "go after" anybody. That used to be the pope's job.

[Smartass]

"40 million babies have been aborted!!"

OVER 40 MILLION POOR LOST SOULS!
Planned Murder-hood did a better job than Adolf Hitler!
How can these people look at themselves in the mirror?

[Mr. Silverback]

Heh-heh! Pro-lifers have been freeping Kerry's church!

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