Posted on 09/26/2007 4:03:14 PM PDT by Stoat
The Rev. J. Gaston Hebert, Little Rock diocese administrator, speaks during a news conference Wednesday, Sept. 26, 2007, in Little Rock, Ark. Hebert announced Wednesday that six Arkansas nuns have been excommunicated from the Catholic Church for heresy. (AP Photo/Mike Wintroath)
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - Six Catholic nuns have been excommunicated for heresy after refusing to give up membership in a Canadian sect whose founder claims to be the reincarnation of the Virgin Mary, the Diocese of Little Rock announced Wednesday.
The Rev. J. Gaston Hebert, the diocese administrator, said he notified the nuns of the decision Tuesday night after they refused to recant the teachings of the Community of the Lady of All Nations, also known as the Army of Mary.
The Vatican has declared all members of the Army of Mary excommunicated. Hebert said the excommunication was the first in the diocese's 165-year history.
"It is a painfully historic moment for this church," Hebert said.
The six nuns are associated with the Good Shepherd Monastery of Our Lady of Charity and Refuge in Hot Springs. Sister Mary Theresa Dionne, one of the nuns excommunicated, said the nuns will still live at the convent property, which they own.
"We are at peace and we know that for us we are doing the right thing," the 82-year-old nun said. "We pray that the church will open their eyes before it is too late. This is God's work through Mary, the blessed mother, and we're doing what we're asked to do."
At a news conference, Hebert said the nuns "became entranced and deluded with a doctrine that is heretical." He said church officials removed the sacraments from the monastery on Tuesday night.
Hebert said the sect's members believe that its founder, Marie Paule Giguere, is the reincarnation of the Virgin Mary and that God speaks directly through her.
Excommunication bars the nuns from participating in the church liturgy and receiving communion or other sacraments.
The diocese said the action was taken after the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a declaration that the Army of Mary's teachings were heretical and automatically excommunicated any who embraced the doctrine.
Hebert said the diocese had known for years that the nuns were following the sect and said church officials in the past had encouraged them to come back into the fold.
According to the Catholic News Service, the Army of Mary was founded in Quebec in 1971 by Giguere, who said she was receiving visions from God.
Dionne said she does not know if Giguere is the reincarnation of the Virgin Mary, but said she believes God communicates through the sect's founder.
"She is doing only what God and Mary tells her to do," Dionne said.
Calls made to a spokesman for the Army of Mary in Quebec were answered by a fax machine tone.
Some people use the same line for both, to save money. I used to.
True and succinct. I like succinct.
The one that knows rape of children is wrong. If my pastor touched a child his butt would be in prison, not moved to another church.
When you toss out all of the sinners, there is no church!
That’s not what this is about.
Just the one.
So is Luther's novel teaching of "the Bible Alone."
Why is his extra-Biblical teaching acceptable, while the teaching of Christ's Church is not?
Besides, the Bible doesn't reject extra-scriptural Apostolic teaching, the Bible commends it.
2 Thessalonians 2:15So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the teachings we passed on to you, whether by word of mouth or by letter.
Finally, the Bible itself indicates the fact that Mary enjoys an exalted position in heaven.
Revelation 12:1A great and wondrous sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head. She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth. Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on his heads. His tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth. The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that he might devour her child the moment it was born. She gave birth to a son, a male child, who will rule all the nations with an iron scepter.
Pedophile Priest: The Crimes of Father Geoghan
"..Child molesters are the lowest of the low on the inmate hierarchy. But, as reported by Newsweek in a September 2003 article called ''Preying on the Predator,'' Geoghan's chief tormentors at Concord were not other prisoners but the outraged guards. Correction officers are believed to have regularly spat in his food. They called him ''Satan'' and ''Lucifer'' and insisted that the former priest – who was still a Catholic since he had been defrocked but not excommunicated – answer to those names. On one occasion, Geoghan is supposed to have discovered that a guard had defecated in his bed..."
This one was one of the worst.
How many popes are there in Rome?
The can more than afford to toss those guys.
It took them SIX YEARS? Can anyone say, with a straight face, that this remotely resembles the New Testament model of church discipline?
sw
My thoughts exactly. How can people who should have such solid rooting be led astray so completely?
Then you're disobeying one of Jesus' teachings. That's important, if you consider yourself a Christian.
"If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector." --Jesus
The reporter really isn't too well informed.
First, the Catholic Church does not "defrock" and there is no such thing as a "former priest" - there are priests whom the Church grants faculties (the ability to celebrate Mass, hear confessions, counsel parishioners, etc.) to and there are priests whose faculties are suspended, either temporarily or permanently.
Geoghan's faculties were permanently suspended.
The person who suspends your faculties is your bishop, who is also the same person who places or removes bans of excommunication in his diocese.
One of the grounds for excommunication is flagrant moral turpitude, and when a priest's bishop permanently suspends his faculties for flagrant moral turpitude the bishop is generally excommunicating him as well.
Of course, as soon as someone begs forgiveness for their sins, they can be recommunicated.
Show me something by link that says Geoghan was excommunicated.
There is no link to a live video of Geoghan's meeting with Cardinal Law.
My thought exactly. Well said.
Thank you for your post......you put it beautifully.
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