Ping
The Church is neither the pope nor the bishops, though they are a part of the whole, the Church actually being the entire body of faithful, living and dead. This needs to be remembered. So too should we recall that ecclesiastical power in the hands of corrupt prelates leads to abuses which the faithful have an inherent right to resist.
The reshaping will continue until the Catholic Church is no longer recognizable.
Bishop Arthur J. Seratelli (Paterson NJ)
Bishop John J. Nevins (Venice FL)
Bishop Gerald Walsh (New York)
Bishop John Nienstedt (New Ulm)
All bishops of the USCCB
FROM: The Roman Catholic Faithful, Inc
. Recently, at the conclusion of one of your endless series of committee meetings (The Challenge of Mixed Marriage in American Life is Major Topic of U.S. Catholic-Jewish Consultation Committee), you issued the following statement:
The Consultation also discussed the state of Jewish-Catholic relations in the wake of the film, "The Passion of the Christ," which caused such deep and understandable concern within Jewish community world-wide. The film, it was noted, was in reality a modern version of the notorious medieval Passion Plays which so often over the centuries have triggered riots against the Jews of Europe. Happily, however, the film precipitated no such anti-Jewish violence. Rather, in many places it sparked discussions in which Catholics learned why Jews feared such dramatic depictions of the death of Jesus, and Jews learned that many Catholics today have taken to heart the teaching of the Second Vatican Council that the Jews collectively cannot be held responsible "then or now" for Jesus' death. It was noted as well that continuing work needs to be done among those who have not yet absorbed these official teachings of the Church.
Generally, we in the laity read your prodigious output of wordy, useless position statements and constant “pastoral” bloviating with a mixture of boredom and mild irritation. Occasionally, however, the U.S. Bishops come out with something that is so outrageous, so offensive, so truly malignant, that the laity cannot remain mute. And so it is with this, your latest piece of ecclesiastical drivel.
When we consider your words, we must reflect upon all that you have given the laity during the past several decades; to wit:
* You have destroyed our precious liturgy and replaced it with a quasi-heretical and saccharine floor show.
* You have corrupted our children with poisonous sex ed programs.
* You have allowed our children to be raped by perverted monsters in the clergy and have done everything in your power to cover up these crimes.
* You have destroyed our beautiful churches and Cathedrals and replaced them with ugly “churches” that resemble aircraft hangars or cement factories.
* You have squandered billions of dollars on useless or harmful “ministries” that are little more than glorified havens for left wing activists.
* You have persecuted holy and orthodox priests and nuns.
* You have denied priests their right to celebrate the Traditional Latin Mass, a right which no bishop or pastor of the Church can ever take away.
* You have destroyed the faith of millions by promoting false catechesis.
* You have turned away worthy candidates for the priesthood because they accepted the perennial teachings of the Church or because they opposed homosexuality.
The collective evil committed by the American Bishops dwarfs any harm committed in the Enron scandal, yet none of you have been sent to jail.
And now, when a man like Mel Gibson comes along and tries to glorify Our Lord with a movie, when he risks his personal fortune and reputation because Our Lord is despised by the World, you miserable serpents not only do not support him, but join with those who condemn his courageous and beautiful effort. Well, to you bishops, and to all the bishops of the USCCB, the Roman Catholic Faithful responds:
The movie The Passion of the Christ has done more to uplift the human heart, to bring souls to Christ, to increase holiness, and to glorify Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, than all the USCCB committees, subcommittees, documents, pastorals, letters, faxes and speeches put together.
James Bendell
Roman Catholic Faithful
The church is also imaged as a mystery ...Lumen Gentium asserts that the church’s organization and its charter is of divine origin. Collegiality, as used in Lumen Gentium, refers exclusively to that unique institution of the successors of the apostles, the bishops in union with the pope; they form the college, the collegium. One can reasonably say that just as Peter relates to his fellow apostles in the apostolic college as brothers and not as a sovereign to his subjects, and just as Jesus himself says that all will know you as my disciples because you do not lord it over each other as the gentiles do, that such is the norm in episcopal college, successor to the apostolic college. But to try to the notion of collegiality into a juridical hammer, a parliament of bishops, and then try to say that the parliamentary principle is the norm for every gathering and assembly in the Catholic Church is theologically false. It is a total misinterpretation of Lumen Gentium to to think that collegiality has to do with some populist notion of democracy.
What seems to be overlooked is that Chapter 2 of Lumen Gentium deals with the laity, Chapter 3 deals with the hierarchical church, but Chapter 1 deals with the mystery of the Church. In other words, the first defining description of the Church in Lumen Gentium, which is indisputedly the most important document of the council, is not the hierarchy, not the people of God, but the mystery of the Church as a communion of the whole: Christ Jesus, the pope, the bishops, the priests, the religious, the laity — all one mysterious Body of Christ.
"Denominations can join in common celebrations"
Is this not the non-judgemental non-denominational religion of the new world order?
"The number of lay people formally preparing for full time ministry has more than doubled in the past nine years, he said. As a result, the church’s ministerial culture is becoming quite different, he said."
I agree with him on this one.
Some years ago the lay "pastoral associate" with her theology degree from Seattle University, taught by his own Jesuit order, appeared in lieu of the pastor the night of my father-in-law's pre-funeral rosary.
To make a long story short, she didn't know how to say a rosary. Didn't know the mysteries, the words of all the prayers, or the sequence in which they are to be said.
It is my understanding that the Seattle diocese has recently replaced the pre-funeral rosary with a bible reading ceremony of some sort.
I can understand why.