Posted on 09/10/2001 1:34:08 PM PDT by electron1
Father Pavone Asked to Leave Priests for Life
New York -- Fr. Frank Pavone, National Director of Priests for Life for the past eight years, has been asked by Cardinal Edward Egan to resume full-time work within the Archdiocese of New York and leave his present position with Priests for Life. The reason for the decision is the need for parish priests in New York, and is consistent with similar decisions of the Cardinal to call back many other New York priests who are on special assignment.
Anthony DeStefano, Executive Director of Priests for Life, made the following statement:
"We are shocked at what has happened and frankly can't make heads or tails of it. Neither can other pro-life leaders worldwide. I know that Fr. Frank has committed his entire life to ending the tragedy of abortion. He has told me that he is preparing an important public statement to be made in the near future. He is continuing to negotiate with the Cardinal through all the proper channels and in accordance with the demands of Canon Law.
"In the meantime, in order to avoid any wrong impression that Priests for Life would operate without the blessing of the Church, Fr. Pavone has officially transferred the leadership of the organization to me and his other close associates, until such time that a new priests director is chosen. He and the organization have a long track record of fidelity to the Church and the bishops, and Fr. Frank does not want the organization which he built and which he loves so much to suffer because of a decision to transfer him."
DeStefano also said that Priests for Life would continue on the course Fr. Pavone has set for the organization.
"We have detailed plans that were formulated by Fr. Pavone which we will follow to the letter. Nothing is going to stop this organization from doing the things that have made us so effective in the past eight years. I am confident that all our friends and benefactors in the pro-life movement will continue to work harder than ever with us to make this happen."
Fr. Pavone is one of the leading voices in the pro-life movement. Cardinal John O'Connor appointed him to Priests for Life in 1993. Since that time, Fr. Pavone has transformed the fledgling group into an international organization with a multi-million dollar budget, a staff of almost 40 full-time employees, four full-time priests, and a global media outreach.
He was given the diocese of Rochester, NY. Nearly ran it into the ground financially, and finally asked to be relieved after four years.
A bishop has to be a CEO and not every priest or bishop is cut out for that grind.
Smart bishops bring in financially astute vicar generals.
That's not a fair question. By that ethic, all priests would neglect their diocese to affect a larger audience. This would be wrong.
I'm not saying I know what God wants Fr. Pavone to do. I'm just saying being a pastor is a high calling. Not a demotion.
[Quite similar to the language used re: Slavs, Italians, Eastern Euros during retooling of immigrant quotas and introduction of the "IQ" exam in the very early 20th century. See, Scientific RacismPuerto Rico, The Great Experiment
Population control came to Puerto Rico in the early 1900s largely through the efforts of Protestant denominations and evangelical sects who wished to refashion Puerto Rican society and Catholic culture along more White-Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) lines. The Neo-Malthusian program was openly eugenic--to improve, what the WASPs perceived as "inferior human stock" (principally through direct sterilizations). (11) This island served as the United States' first experimental model for "the intelligent and scientific control of population," the key element of which was the "education of the people and overcoming the prejudices of the Catholic Church." (12)
The rationale for the Neo-Malthusian campaign in Puerto Rico was candidly expressed by Dr. Cornelius Rhoads, a physician at San Juan's Presbyterian Hospital, operated under the auspices of the Rockefeller Foundation:
The Porto (Puerto) Ricans ... are beyond doubt the dirtiest, laziest, most degenerate and thievish race of men ever inhabiting this sphere .... What the island needs is not public health work but a tidal wave or something to totally exterminate the population. I have done my best to further the process of extermination by killing off eight and transplanting cancer into several more .... (13)
President Roosevelt made his contribution to the on-going dialogue concerning Puerto Rico's "population problem" by jokingly telling Charles Taussig, his advisor on Caribbean affairs, "I guess the only solution is to use the methods which Hitler used effectively." It is all very simple and painless Roosevelt said--"you have people pass through a narrow passage and then there is the brrrr of an electrical apparatus. They stay there for twenty seconds and from then on they are sterile." (14)
The bishops of Puerto Rico obviously did not share Roosevelt's coarse, anti-Catholic humor concerning the new colonialist policies imported from the mainland--policies which involved grave moral issues of the fundamental transgression of the Natural Law with danger-ous implications for the spiritual welfare of their flock as well for the common good.
Earlier, during the Hoover presidency (1929-1933), the Puerto Rican hierarchy had been able to persuade the administration to redirect funds earmarked for birth control projects to programs of economic development, industrialization and migration and health care. This withholding of official recognition and government subsidies also dampened the efforts of the privately- funded anti-baby groups on the island such as the Puerto Rican Birth Control League. (15)
But when President Roosevelt appointed population control zealot Dr. Ernest Gruening to the Puerto Rican Reconstruction Administration, the Puerto Rican bishops were forced to go on the warpath! With help from the American bishops and the U.S. National Catholic Welfare Council (NCWC), the Democratic Administration was persuaded that it was in its own best interests to enforce the Comstock Law in Puerto Rico.
Undeterred by legal restraints, Gruening successfully negotiated a back-room deal with a member of the Puerto Rican hierarchy to "look the other way," if he (Gruening) agreed not to publicize the creation of a network of birth control clinics for the island. Unfortunately for Gruening, his old nemesis, Patrick Joseph Cardinal Hayes of New York, a master of "punishment politics" (so abhorred by Bishop McHugh), got wind of the deal, killed it, and then forced Roosevelt to shut down Gruening and Company or face the loss of the Catholic vote in the upcoming presidential election. On September 15, 1936, the "Grand Experiment" was put on hold! (16)
Tide Turns In Favor of the Sangerites
However by the 1950s, the Neo-Malthusian tide once again threatened to engulf the island commonwealth. With the repeal of the Comstock Law, and the massive influx of millions of U.S. dollars from the American-based Gamble, Rockefeller, McCormick, and Ford Foundations, together with the dollar-hungry pharmaceutical industry, the Church in Puerto Rico braced itself for a major anti-life assault. (17)
The Puerto Rican bishops also had to contend with the loss of the traditional legal and political support they had come to expect from the American hierarchy!
Plus XII (Eugenio Pacelli) had appointed his intimate friend and consummate politician, Frances Cardinal Spellman, to fill the vacancy in the Archdiocese of New York left by the loss of the indomitable Cardinal Hayes who died on September 4, 1938. Unlike Hayes, who fought the Anti-Life Establishment tooth and nail, Spellman was known to be willing to "compromise:' behind the scenes, on the question of government birth control programs.
One example of this was Cardinal Spellman's failure, as the Holy See's Military Vicar of the U.S. Armed Forces, to challenge the Roosevelt Adrninistration's new World War II policy of requiring post exchanges to stock condoms ("of approved quality") and requiring quartermasters (including Catholic officers) to distribute prophylactics. (18)
The growing tendency among the American hierarchy was to view government-sponsored population control programs primarily through a political rather than a moral lens. This view was shared by many powerful American prelates including Richard Cardinal Cushing of Boston, who feared that the Puerto Rican birth control affair might hurt John F. Kennedy in his bid for the Presidency.
Spellman Undercuts Puerto Rican Resistance Movement
In 1960, the Puerto Rican hierarchy led by Bishop James P. Davis of San Juan and Bishop James E. McManus of Ponce, entered into what was to be their final confrontation against the use of population control as a matter of public policy. Having made a decision to risk a show-down on government-funded birth prevention programs, Bishops Davis and McManus played an active role in establishing a new national political party--the Christian Action party (CAP) composed primarily of Catholic laymen. The platform of CAP included opposition to existing permissive legislation on birth control and sterilization. (19)
When increasing numbers of CAP flags began to fly from the rooftops of Puerto Rico's Catholic homes, leaders of the opposition parties became increasing concerned for their own political futures. (20) They desperately needed help and it arrived in the person of His Eminence Francis Cardinal Spellman.
Spellman's visit to Puerto Rico, one month before the hotly contested national election (to preside over two formal Church functions) became a political hot potato when the Cardinal agreed to meet with the CAPs major political rival, Governor Luis Munoz Marin, leader of the Popular Democratic Party (PDP) and a supporter of government-sponsored birth control programs. In an interview following this meeting, Spellman, who was notorious for the numerous political errands he ran for FDR, said that politics laid outside his purview!!! His statement was correctly interpreted as an indictment of the partisan politics of this island's hierarchy. (21)
Later, when he returned to the States, the Cardinal expressed his opposition to the recent directives of the Puerto Rican bishops prohibiting Catholics from voting for Munoz and his PDP cohorts. Catholic voters in Puerto Rico should vote their conscience without the threat of Church penalties, Spellman said. (22) Boston's Cardinal Cushing, John R Kennedy's "political godfather" joined Spellman in expressing "feigned horror" at the thought of ecclesiastical authority attempting to dictate political voting. "This has never been a part of our history, and I pray God that it will never be!" he said. (23)
It is almost too painful to write about the final chapter of this sorry affair.
The national election was a political disaster for CAP. The PDP won by a landslide. Bishop Davis was forced to end the tragic state of confusion among the Catholic laity by declaring that no penalties would be imposed on those who voted for the PDP. (24)
Two years later, with the knowledge and approval of American hierarchy and the Holy See, the Puerto Rican hierarchy signed a secret concordat of "non-interference" in government-sponsored birth control programs (a sop being that they would now include instruction in "rhythm"). While insisting on their right to hold and express legitimate opposition to such programs, they promised they would "never impose their own moral doctrines upon individuals who do not accept the Catholic teaching." (25) This sorry excuse for inaction in matters of life and death (for individuals and well as for nations) which was sanctioned by the Vatican, would soon become one of the famous theme songs of the American hierarchy and their Washington D.C. bureaucracy on the matter of government life-prevention (and destruction) programs.
Neo-Malthusianism Comes to the U.S. Mainland
Perhaps it is a form of poetic justice, that while the ink on this concordat was still wet, the American bishops found themselves facing the identical anti-life forces the Puerto Rican bishops had faced for nearly fifty years, but on a vastly greater scale. How would the American hierarchy respond to the multi-billion dollar federally- funded Neo-Malthuslan program that was about to engulf their own shoreline?
Would they follow in the footsteps of one of their predecessors, Archbishop John Gregory Murray of St. Paul, Minnesota, who, in 1935, likened the Sangerites to the Dillinger mob, "Both groups were organized to commit murder!"? (26) Would diocesan papers alert Catholics to the dangers of the Planned Parenthood philosophy in words like these: "The corruption and perversion of human nature implied in this doctrine which Caryle would call 'pig philosophy' make it necessary to give special attention to this question."? (27)
The last official statement of the American bishops on the matter of government sponsored population control programs was released by the old National Catholic Welfare Council (NCWC) on November 14,1966:
We call upon all, and especially Catholics, to oppose, vigorously and by every democratic means, those campaigns already underway in some states and at the national level toward the active promotion, by tax-supported agencies, of birth prevention as a public policy, above all in connection with welfare benefit programs.History has shown that as a people lose respect for any life and a positive and generous attitude toward new life, they move fatally to inhuman infanticide, abortion, sterilization, and euthanasia; we fear that history is, in fact, repeating itself on this point within our own land at the moment...
Let our political leaders be on guard that the common good suffers no evil from public policies which tamper with the instincts of love and the sources of life. (28)
Tragically, the Great Debate over the moral, civil and constitutional issues of population control (euphemistically referred to as "family planning" programs) which this declaration should have ignited, never materialized.
Instead, as the brilliant constitutional lawyer and legal counsel to the Pennsylvania Catholic Conference, William B. Ball, observed one year later:
The public, and the specially exhorted Catholic public, having been called "to oppose vigorously and by every democratic means" state and federal promotion of birth control - were left with nothing but the dying echo of the trumpet call. (29)Far from being provided with any sort of detailed information on the issues by the statement's authors who had raised them, or guidelines to the action sought, the Catholic laity of the United States never heard another word about the whole subject. (30) ... [T]he default of the Catholic Church (or of Church staff officials whose duty it is to carry forward policy) on the subject of government birth control programming may prove to have been of historic moment because the Catholic Church alone, among all bodies in the American society, probably possessed the means to bring government birth control into public question and to cause its proponents to attempt to make their case for it....
As matters stand now, it will be seen that what began as a plea by pro-government-birth-control forces simply to "make available" (through government help) birth control services "to those who need them but can't afford to pay for them" may result in something far different and with little dreamt of social consequences." (31)
By 1967, when the National Catholic Welfare Conference (NCCV;) was replaced by a larger and more bureaucratic structure, the National Conference of Catholic Bishops/United States Catholic Conference, the bitter heretical fruits of "Americanism" (prophetically enunciated by Pope Leo XIII in his letter of January 22, 1899, Testem Benenevolentiae) had combined with the so-called "Spirit" of Vatican II to produce the so-called "American Church." In the decades to follow, multi-leveled conspiracies between the "American Church" and the International Population Control Machine would abound.
This is not to suggest that all had been perfectly well with the old NCWC. It had not! By the mid-1960s a moral rot had begun to creep into the old structure's Family Life Bureau. For example, "Murder, Inc." (i.e., Planned Parenthood-World Population) was in official attendance at National Catholic Welfare Conference (NCWC) Family Life functions, while representatives of the Family Life Bureau were busy negotiating the ins and outs of population control with the New World Order via the Council on Foreign Relations.
In anticipation of a reversal of the Roman Catholic Church's magisterial teaching on the intinsic evil of contraception, influential members of the American hierarchy, including Cardinals Spellman of New York, Cushing of Boston, Meyer of Chicago, Dearden of Detroit and Krol of Philadelphia made their own private arrangements" to accommodate State-sponsored birth control programs. These back-door affairs often followed a well staged and heavily publicized show of opposition to government population control programs for the "benefit" of Catholics in the pews.
The American bishops were heavily influenced in their views on the issue of birth prevention as public policy by John Courtney Murray, S.J., principle architect of Church-State affairs for the NCWC and Cardinal Spellman's personal peritus at Vatican II.
Father Murray had little stomach for anything resembling the Comstock Law which he viciously attacked. Such laws, Murray insisted, made "a public crime out of a private sin," confused "morality with legality," and were "unenforceable without a police invasion of the bedroom." (32) Tragically, it would be his mythical "police-state" theory on alleged dangers of anti-birth control legislation that would lead to the equally mythical "constitutional right to privacy"' in the Supreme Court birth control case Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) and later in Roe v Wade (1973). (33)
Additional pressure on the American hierarchy to accept massive government subsidized birth prevention programs was applied by several Church-related institutions of higher learning including the University of Notre Dame, Catholic University of America and Georgetown University. These Catholic universities had received very large financial grants and gifts from the Rockefeller, Ford and Carnegie foundations. Entrance into the foundation interlock guaranteed them power, money and status. In return, they sold what was left of their Catholic souls and did the bidding of the powerful foundation combine in promoting government-funded anti-baby and anti-life policies and programs at home and abroad. (34)
Nor was the influence of these powerful foundations limited to U.S.-based religious institutions and universities. They also extended to many European dioceses and the Vatican as well.
For example, the University of Louvain in Brussels, rebuilt after the Second World War through the "generosity" of the Rockefeller Foundation, became a major center of population control operations and intrigue. Leo Josef Suenens, Cardinal-Archbishop of Malines-Brussels, a close ally of Father McHugh, was identified in 1962 by the International Planned Parenthood Federation as being a potential agent provocateur in the area of population control. Suenens did not disappoint the IPPR Nor, in fact~ did McHugh!
Any footnotes not provided in the original posts, I'm happy to dig up upon request.
"Here" as in "AmChurch", you mean?
Because religious are not allowed freedom of speech in the name of "separation" as perversely interpreted these days to undercut Truth at every opportunity?
But the man is educated and well spoken when necessary. Was it not he who delivered that beautiful sermon at Cardinal O'Connor's funeral? I always thought that a part of being called to God's service was the ability to convey the message. While Egan is more gifted at being an administrator, he still has the ability to be the voice of the Church in NYC. And isn't that an integral portion of his role as Archbishop?
O'Connor apparently let the NY archdiocese get deeply in debt; Egan's been closing parishes.
Yes, I have heard about the closing of churches and schools. But was that as much a function of poor management or a changing dynamic within NYC? I don't know if anyone could have forseen the drastic changes within the city during O'Connor's tenure. And I don't think someone who came from O'Connor's military background would have ignored the obvious. Perhaps a situation of too much, too fast without being able to compensate in a timely manner?
I've seen both kinds of bishops. It's often the administrator who has to come in and clean up behind the charismatic exemplar.
Yes, O'Connor is a very hard act to follow. As far as cleaning up . . . I think, in NYC, it's more about keeping up with the changes in your parishes. But Egan, although a talented administrator, is also a gifted speaker.
We are talking about the Archdiocese of NY. The most important Catholic Diocese in the country. Administration is important. But this is the only Archdiocese in the Country that merits such media scrutiny. To continuously avoid the opportunity to speak out on basic issues of faith seems to be such a waste.
I trust the facts will clear up this misapprehension on your part.
Mano ... can we get word from Fr. Baker?
But on another score, Egan has removed the priest at St. Agnes who conducting traditional services there and brought him to St. Patrick's. Meanwhile, the priest whose job this man took at St. Patrick's has gone to take over St. Agnes. (Something the management books tell you not to do!) He knew nothing of celebrating traditional mass and apparently was not informed about it by anyone, so I believe he removed the big crucifix from the front of the altar area and tried to distribute communion in front of the altar rail, which had people kneeling down on the floor---they didn't know what to do.At first the bringing of the traditionalist priest to the cathedral seemed like a good sign, and I think I have noticed a tad more Latin at St. Patrick's, but put it together with the Pavone business and what does it mean?
You may be right. I have a vague rememberance of something like this . . . but I honestly can't pinpoint it right now.
But on another score, Egan has removed the priest at St. Agnes who conducting traditional services there and brought him to St. Patrick's. Meanwhile, the priest whose job this man took at St. Patrick's has gone to take over St. Agnes. (Something the management books tell you not to do!) He knew nothing of celebrating traditional mass and apparently was not informed about it by anyone, so I believe he removed the big crucifix from the front of the altar area and tried to distribute communion in front of the altar rail, which had people kneeling down on the floor---they didn't know what to do.
At first the bringing of the traditionalist priest to the cathedral seemed like a good sign, and I think I have noticed a tad more Latin at St. Patrick's,but put it together with the Pavone business and what does it mean? It seems that priests who stand out from the mainstream and have a strong following are being placed elsewhere. Just a thought.
Interesting. Because it's a threat or because some parishes need that stong leadership? From the gist of your post, it's the threat back towards the traditional hard line that seems to be the issue. I hope, in the case of Fr. Pavone, it is nothing more than his strong voice is needed elsewhere.
In my county, we have one Latin Mass that I am aware of. It's packed every Sunday afternoon. I could see the need to expand in a year at the rate it's going (and it recently moved to a larger church). Seems to me that we are dealing with an issue of pre vs. post Vatican II heirarchy coupled with a congregation that is increasingly interested in returning to the traditional rites.
Not a bad thing. And I certainly would travel into NYC if St. Pat's offered a Latin Mass on Sunday. I couldn't imagine a better place for it. (OK, maybe Notre Dame.) :-)
I tend to lurk on the religious threads, not post on them. (And darn it, my response time is slow!)
Sad, I wish I could believe Fr. Pavone is being removed because he is needed elsewhere. But my gut tells me what many of you have already stated . . . he is too strong and effective a voice. :-(
Night all . . .
MEXICAN BISHOPS TELL FAITHFUL NOT TO VOTE FOR PRO-ABORTION POLITICIANS
CHIAPAS, Mexico, September 10, 2001 (LSN.ca) - Three Roman Catholic bishops from the Mexican state of Chiapas issued a statement Friday telling the faithful not to vote for pro-abortion politicians in the upcoming elections. Bishops Felipe Arizmendi, from the San Cristobal diocese, Jose Luis Chavez, from the provincial capital Tuxtla Gutierrez, and Rogelio Cabrera, from Tapachula, issued a statement regarding the Oct. 7 vote saying "You should not vote for someone who leads an immoral life, for someone who is corrupt, who defends abortion or who makes promises but doesn't keep them."
The bishops also encouraged "prayer and fasting," before the elections in order "to counteract the demons of lies, hate, injustice, corruption and war." Urging the faithful to exercise their right to vote the bishops wrote, "failing to vote because of laziness and irresponsibility" is "allowing yourself to be manipulated."
See the http://library.northernlight.com/FD20010907290000033.html?cb=0&dx=1006&sc=0# doc
And the large crucifix is integral to the recently restored interior decor, which -- as you may know -- was made possible ONLY by the generous contributions of current parishioners. It's one thing to trash a church that was built by millions of small donations from anonymous peasants in the nineteenth century, but quite another to spit in the face of the current (known, living, prosperous) donors. The SSPX is still waiting in the wings to pounce on that bit of market share.
The idea that a traditionalist priest would be transferred to St. Patrick's Cathedral is intriguing. The so-called Tridentine Mass has been celebrated there at least twice since the original de facto prohibition. The last time was, I think, about four years ago. If memory serves, the celebrant was Alfons Cardinal Stickler. As usual with these things, it was SRO. It made the front page of the Local News section in the NYT.
My knowledge of the (in my opinion, unnecessary) Indult is rather limited. If it is granted to the priest himself, rather than to the parish, then the priest in question would bring his Indult with him to his Cathedral posting. Logically, therefore, I do not think it would be legally possible to forbid him from celebrating the "Tridentine" Mass at his new church. Perhaps some day it will no longer be newsworthy that a traditional Catholic Mass is being celebrated at St. Patrick's.
Does the conversation here on Egan sound familiar? Care to comment?Sure. There seems to be a great deal of excitement over this. The sky is falling and all that, but, though I don’t frequently side with him on these internecine Catholic battles, sinkspur has the Cardinal’s motivations right. I am very disappointed by this, but he is acting like the administrator that he is, he was hired to be, and probably always will be. He needs priests, and has been calling them back:
consistent with similar decisions of the Cardinal to call back many other New York priests who are on special assignment.That is his right, they are his employees. I have to admit, I am a little shocked both by Cardinal Egan’s decision and by some of the reactions here. Insinuating Cardinal Egan is a member of the AmChurch or suggesting he is recalling Fr. Pavone due to a dislike of his results in the pro-life movement is uncalled for. We do not have any evidence this is why he is doing this, and in fact all the evidence indicates the other way. He says he needs priests, he as called other priests back, and he has always acted in a very pro-life manner, without exception so far as I know.
An orthodox Catholic, in addition to caring a great deal about the pro-life movement, knows full well that a cleric is entitled to the benefit of the doubt, and should not be rashly accused absent reliable evidence. This is true for a priest and for a Bishop. Even though we live in trying times we do not have the luxury of criticizing a Bishop on no more then speculation. I agree with those who are very disappointed by the decision. It seems overwhelmingly short sighted to me. But Father Pavone does not have some sort of entitlement to this position, and Cardinal Egan may have very good reasons for doing this. We just don’t know.
Dominus Vobiscum
patent +AMDG
Clearly you never read the first draft of Always Our children.
Trinity Communications: Show Research Record
| Author: | Bishop Fabian W. Bruskewitz |
| Title: | Bruskewitz on Always Our Children |
| Larger Work: | Voices |
| Pages: | 12 & 22 |
| Publisher & Date: | Women for Faith and Family, Winter-Spring 1998 |
| Includes: | Identical text with no graphics. |
| Description: | Statement of Bishop Bruskewitz of Diocese of Lincoln, NE on the controversial document published by the Committee on Marriage & the Family, the US Bishops' Conference. |
| Submitted by: | Jennifer Gregory Miller ( jennifer.miller@trincomm.org ) |
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On Always Our Children by Bishop Fabian W. Bruskewitz Last October 1st, a document entitled Always Our Children: A Pastoral Message to Parents of Homosexual Children was published by the Committee on Marriage and the Family of the US. bishops' conference. Although this document was evidently "approved" by the Administrative Committee of that conference, and it would seem the correct procedures outlined in conference rules were followed, it should be made clear that the document was composed without any input from the majority of the American Catholic bishops, who were given no opportunity whatever to comment on its pastoral usefulness or on its contents. As almost always happens when such procedures are used by committees of the conference, the illusion is given, perhaps deliberately, and carried forth by the media, to the effect that this is something the U.S. bishops have published, rather than the correct information being conveyed to the public; namely, that most bishops had nothing to do with this undertaking. I believe one would be justified in asserting that in this case, flawed and defective procedures, badly in need of correction and reform, resulted in a very flawed and defective document. The majority of America's Catholic bishops were allowed nothing to say about this document. Still less were they permitted any suggestions or comments about the "advisers" and consultants used by the committee, who, by their own boasting and the ordinary "rumor mill," have been detected to be people whose qualifications in this area of moral conduct are highly questionable. The document, in a view which is shared by many, is founded on bad advice, mistaken theology, erroneous science and skewed sociology. It is pastorally helpful in no perceptible way. Does this committee intend to issue documents to parents of drug addicts, promiscuous teenagers, adult children involved in canonically invalid marriages, and the like? These are far more numerous than parents of homosexuals. The occasion and the motivation for this document's birth remain hidden in the murky arrangements which brought it forth. Not only does this document fail to take into account the latest revision in the authentic Latin version of The Catechism of the Catholic Church regarding homosexuality, but it juxtaposes several quotes from the Catechism in order to pretend falsely and preposterously that the Catechism says homosexuality is a gift from God and should be accepted as a fixed and permanent identity. Of course, the document, in order to support the incorrect views it contains, totally neglects to cite the Catholic doctrine set forth by the Holy See which teaches that the homosexual orientation is "objectively disordered." Also, the document's definition of the virtue and practice of chastity is inadequate and distorted. The character of this document is such that it would require a book of many pages to point out all its bad features, which sometimes cross the border from poor advice to evil advice. For instance, I believe it is wicked to counsel parents not to intervene, but rather to adopt a "wait and see" attitude when they find their adolescent children "experimenting" with homosexual acts. Parents have a grave moral duty to prevent their children from committing mortal sins when they can. It is certainly and seriously wrong to counsel parents to "accept" their children's homosexual friends. In my view, parents should be vigilant about the friends and companions of their children. Of course, the document deliberately avoids distinguishing minor children from adult children in its advice to parents and seems to delight in this ambiguity, just as it confuses the acceptance of a person who does immoral acts with the acceptance of such a person's immoral behavior. Sinners are always the object of Christ's love and so they must also be the object of ours. Loving sinners while hating their sins must mark the followers of Christ even when dealing with homosexual people. However, true love is never served by obfuscating the truth as this document appears to do. Homosexual acts, insofar as they are deliberately and freely done, are mortal sins which place a person who does them in the gravest danger of eternal damnation. The document says to parents, "Do not blame yourselves for a homosexual orientation in your child." Many scientists and psychologists say that the orientation is likely and often due to certain parental defects, which are usually unconsciously present, and proper therapy requires that these matters be confronted. The document claims that something is "the common opinion of experts" when in fact it is no such thing. One critique of this document says that it is really an exercise in homosexual ("gay and lesbian") advocacy. It is difficult not to see it as such. "Calamity and frightening disaster" are terms which are not too excessive to describe this document. It is my view that this document carries no weight or authority for Catholics, whom I would advise to ignore or oppose it. Bishop Bruskewitz is the ordinary of the Diocese of Lincoln, Nebraska This editorial appeared in the March/ April, 1998 issue of Social Justice Review, and is reprinted with permission. © VOICES, published by Women for Faith & Family, P.O. Box 8326, St. Louis, MO 63132, 314-863-8385.
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I'd assume the option of concentrating forces on dwindling priests or (at a moment like this) on issues of human life would be a call one makes either on the basis of personal authority over one's jurisdiction or so as to conform with the wishes of the hierarchy.
Bishops, even, exercise a lot of personal jurisdiction.
But because they've got that sort of authority over 'their own' doesn't mean priests work for the Bishops any more than the Bishops work for Rome or the Pope is the CEO of the Church. It's still all for Christ and the individual members of His family of man ... their hierarchy's particular charges being Catholics who've chosen to be part of the mystical body that is the Church.
I think that's what stuns folks in a situation like this where the recalling of Pavone (barring whatever may come to light in the way of circumstances about which we know nothing as yet) seems a move weighted toward sending a message rather than a substantive action for the greatest good. Perhaps it comes on the heels of several such reassignments from diocesan to parish slots, cutting short of sabbaticals, prolonging of retirements. We don't know.
On it's face -- as a purely corporate move certain to generate public comment and require explanation -- it's just a strange parceling and restructuring of one's personnel. (Just as the recalling of priests from a "peacekeeper" military seems to come at just the time our military needs Just War guidance. I found that odd as well.)
If this were contemporaneous with some admission of the American clergy's own hand in decimating orders and laying waste to vocations, I might understand. But it's not. In fact, they seem more bent than ever -- 10 MILLION to "fight poverty" via the IAF and Interfaith? -- on nourishing exactly the elements that politicized and organized parishes into oblivion in the first place.
So, I'm wary and I did go off on Spellman (who seems a rat) but I'm the first to agree we don't have much information as yet.
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