Posted on 05/13/2005 9:57:43 PM PDT by Canticle_of_Deborah
Fr. Eugene Heidt and Archbishop Levada
Excerpted from “Priest Where Is Thy Mass, Mass Where Is Thy Priest.”
Q: So obedience is not really an objection against saying the traditional Mass, when you consider that it’s not forbidden by the Church?
Fr. H: Correct. There is no question of disobedience involved here, no way.
Q: How did your convictions about the old Mass sit with the Chancery?
Fr. H: Things just got worse. A couple of years before, I had written a letter about what they called the “Stewardship Council.” That was a program that they used to raise money for the operation of the Archdiocese. I told the people in the parish that we couldn’t contribute to that. I black-balled the “Stewardship Council”!
Q: Why did you black-ball it?
Fr. H: Because of the immoral causes that they were promoting. I named some of them in the letter I wrote. But I have to go back a little bit to explain some of this. It all came to a head with this question of the money for the “Stewardship Council” – that’s what really got Archbishop Levada going. I remember coming home from meeting with him on one of those occasions. I said, “You know, that man isn’t Catholic. The Archbishop is not Catholic!” I was telling the whole parish this. No wonder he got so angry with me, in the end of it all!
When Archbishop Levada had first come to the Archdiocese, I was the first one to have an appointment with him after he was installed. I went in there for an hour and a half, and I poured out my heart to him, because I was told he was a good, traditional, orthodox bishop, and that he was going to straighten this Archdiocese out. So I really churned my heart out to him, and he just sat there. He was like an episcopal vacuum cleaner, sucking all this stuff up and listening to it. I told him about the homosexuality in the Church, and I said “I can name six or seven homosexual priests in the diocese. They call themselves the ‘altar society.’” He said, “You’ve come in here with a bunch of rumors, and I’m not going to listen to that.” I said, “Well, one day, somebody is going to have to pay!” But he wouldn’t listen.
Every time I went to see him, I’d go in and argue with him. I think there is only one pastoral letter he wrote, supposedly on the Mass and the Eucharist. I read the thing and I took it to his office, and I said, “Did you write this? Is this supposed to be a complete treatise on the Eucharist and the Mass? How did you manage to get through this whole thing without once mentioning Transubstantiation?” “Well, that’s such a long and difficult term anyway,” he said, “and we don’t use that term anymore.”
I said, “I don’t think that’s the correct estimate of that word. When I was in the first grade and our good little Benedictine Sister was preparing us for First Holy Communion, I can remember her putting that up on the board. She put ‘trans,’ and then she put a line. Then she put ‘substantiation,’ and then she went through and explained what each of those things meant. She was able to put it in terms we could understand, so that we knew that the Bread and the Wine are substantially different from what they were before the Consecration.” He just repeated “That’s such a confusing term!” So, I said, “Let’s go on to the next item.”
The “next item” was his having gone to Our Lady of Atonement Parish – that’s what they called a “Catholic-Lutheran joint parish,” where they have a priest on one end of the altar and a Lutheran minister on the other, and they go back and forth. I asked, “What did you do over there?” and he answered, “We concelebrated liturgy.” “What does that mean?” I asked, “Did you and the Lutheran minister say Mass together? What did you do?” He just wouldn’t discuss it any more.
And then, one night during all this “Stewardship” business, the Archbishop really got angry. He called me up, it was after hours, 5:05 pm! He was supposed to be on his way home, but he stopped and called me. He was SO livid, he could hardly talk on the phone. He said, “You be in my office at ten o’clock tomorrow morning before the diocesan consulters and the other bishops of the diocese. Plead your case there!” I said, “Well, all right, I will be glad to come in and do that, but I haven’t got any time to document all this.” He said, “That’s okay, just come on in and tell us what’s on your mind.”
So, I was in there probably an hour altogether, and those priests were lined up in a big horseshoe, you know, and I was at the table on the end by myself. I had my tape recorder, which I set up beside me, and, as I was trying to plug it in, I heard a voice up at the other end: “Hey, you can’t use a recorder in here!” I turned around, and it was the archbishop. I asked, “Why not?” He said, “We don’t record this kind of meeting.” And I said, “Oh, all right, but I’ll plug it in while I’m talking and unplug it while you’re talking, how’s that?” Then I set up a chair beside me, and one of the bishops, who used to be a very good friend of mine, asked what the chair was for. They were waiting for an attorney to come in, I suppose. I said “Well, that’s for my Guardian Angel.” And these priests looked at me like I was kind of crazy, you know.
At the end of my little speech, the Archbishop said, “Okay, I agree with you on everything except for the question of homosexuality in the Seminary. We took care of that a couple of weeks ago. Of course, you wouldn’t know about that meeting, but it’s already been taken care of.” But he sided with me on the rest of the other complaints that I had.
Afterwards, he got on my case, and he finally told me to take a sabbatical. He said, “You can take you sabbatical if you want, and you are free to write up a proposal of what you want to do.” I agreed, and I took a month to get my plan together and brought it back to him.
I told him that I wanted to spend five months or so studying the Council of Trent, Vatican I, Vatican II, and all of the papal encyclicals from the last two hundred years. But he said, “No, No, That’s non-productive. You will go to the University and take their ‘Credo’ course” (which was an updating in theology). But I said “No, No.” I said, like the boys said when it was time to go to Vietnam: “Hell no, I won’t go! No thanks.” So he said, “Then I’ll send you to a monastery for your sabbatical, and I will draw up a course of studies for you. You will have a private mentor.” I said, “No, I do not need a guru.” Finally, he told me to go ahead and do what I wanted.
I said then that I wanted to spend the last couple of weeks of my sabbatical in Fatima, to talk all this stuff over with our Blessed Lady, and then I would come back. And he agreed. Well, I never got to Fatima, but in the meantime this place came up for sale, and I knew I had been had by that time. When I went back to see him, after the sabbatical was over, he told me that, because I had said the Latin Mass in “excommunicated” chapels, mainly Portland and Veneta [Oregon], he could no longer use my services. So I said, “Okay. You do what you have to do. But you’re going to have to tie me up in chains to stop me from offering the Latin Mass.” He threatened to suspend me if I didn’t stop.
A month or so went by, and I got a letter from him telling me to get an attorney so that we could have a hearing in Portland. I thought it was over, and I decided that, no matter who I got, the result would be the same. In conscience, no Novus Ordo priest could defend me, and, if I got one of the Society of St. Pius X priests, they wouldn’t listen to him. So I wrote back to him and asked him to appoint an attorney for me. I sent this priest the whole case, and he read it and sent it back to me. He said to go back to the Archbishop and tell him that I was sorry and then submit and obey the Archbishop. And then, at the end of the letter, he said, “Besides, the traditional Latin Mass is a thing of the past, and within ten years it will be nothing more than a footnote in the history of the Church.” And so I get nowhere with that. The next thing I knew, the Archbishop sent me a letter of suspension. I never did have a hearing.
I moved up here in 1988, the very weekend that Archbishop Lefebvre ordained the four Bishops. Then, I asked Fr. Laisney if I could help him out in the chapels in Portland and Venata, and he said, “Welcome aboard!” And I have been doing it ever since.
Q: So you’re a renegade because you won’t give up the traditional idea of the priesthood and the Mass. How would you describe the new idea of the priest? What do they think the priest is, in those theological updating courses, for instance?
Fr. H: I don’t know because I never went.
Q: You never went to a seminar?
Fr. H: No, I stopped that right in the beginning. They used to have three-day seminars, once a year. I went to the first one, and I stayed the first morning. At mid-morning, we met with the Archbishop, and we could ask him any kind of questions that we wanted. Well, the Archbishop started out with one of the directives that came from Rome, and he said that the Masses of priests who use anything other than unleavened bread and sacramental wine are to be questioned. But the Archbishop himself was pooh-poohing the idea. So these priest go the idea that they could go ahead and use pita bread, cookie dough, whatever. You could go down to Safeway and get a jug of wine or even grape juice! It didn’t seem to make too much difference to him.
I poked the priest sitting to one side of me and said, “Hey did you hear what he just said?” He said yes. I poked the one on the other side (he was a classmate of mine), and I said, “Did you hear what he just said?” He said yes. I said, “Well, in my book that’s unacceptable!” and I got up and walked out the door and went home. And that’s the last one I attended. I don’t know what they say anymore about the priesthood, the sacraments, or whatever. I just don’t pay any attention to them.
A classic holier than thou phrase. Thanks. I'll add it to the watchlist.
You make me think of a kinda cute story about my from-the-old-country Polish great-grandmother (God rest her soul).
My mother remembers her, back around 1940-ish, always saying in her broken English , when talking about the reformation ...
"That g** d*** Luther!"
She had a pretty good clue as to what was going on, and from what I understand (I never got to meet her) she let everyone know it, lol.
It gets better (or worse actually).
--
Archbishop William Levada. Dialogue and Dogmatism by Mary Adamski, published in the Honolulu-Star Bulletin, Saturday July 31, 2004 includes quotes from San Francisco Archbishop William Levada:
"Many of us as bishops are newly committed to seeking a path of dialogue in these areas," said Archbishop William Levada of San Francisco. "You don't start that path of dialogue by telling people you are going to refuse them Communion."
Perhaps you are more spiritually advanced than I am and you have been given the gift of discernment that may elude me. I say this honestly, it is something I will pray about tonight.
Except his failure to heed the words of St. Paul and Rome (was it Cardinal Arinze?) which instruct priests to deny Communion to pro-aborts.
Politicians like Barbara Boxer and Nancy Pelosi who campaign for the right to stick a fork in a baby's skull and remove its brains are obstinate sinners Dominick. There is no "dialogue" with sin.
I think I liked when the world wasn't so politically correct. :-)
I know nothing about the state of your soul. Likewise, you know nothing about mine. I would appreciate you and your friends on this thread stop the name calling and accusations you direct my way while claiming you are all "non-judgmental humble people."
You shouldn't think the worst of people you know.
Ah, yes, the hatred for John Paul II that is always simmering below the surface among some of the posters here. I think the late pontiff is enjoying the beatific vision right now, after first having been embraced by the Mother whom he loved so well and to whom he dedicated the entirety of his priestly service to Christ's Church.
Quick word on this 'cause I think I understand it better.
When the example of St. Paul was used as some sort of parallel for this priest's actions, what crossed my mind shortly after was that this priest was no St. Paul in terms of postion, expertise and all the other.
And I see now that Pope St. Pius X pretty much spells out what my first instincts latched on to.
Was it Luther who said 'everyone has a pope in their belly?' Probably accounts for his near terminal constipation.
Caught a talk of Fr. Corapi today on Faith. It was really good. First talk of his I ever heard was on humility. I don't think that early on this trek back to my Faith I understood what it means to be humble. I see more clearly now what it consists of, and I think Faith and humility are intimately linked.
I want to see P B-16 succeed beyond his wildest hopes and desires, and I think he's the type of man who can blot out the millions of popes in millions of bellies. I wish him only the best, and I'm not about to start second-guessing he who the Holy Spirit appointed. I've made up my mind, I'm not following any ragsheets on him. I can find out what I need to know via other sources. I'm not going to countenance propaganda.
Thanks for the ping.
So glad you asked...
For those of you from Rio Linda a small sampling of HERESIES!!!
What Catholics disagreed on, and did a damm good job without the media:
Arianism
Oh, boy, plenty of "holy" bishops on board for this one!!!! Arius, Bishop of Nicomedia, who the heresy is named after
Monothelitism and Monothelites
Another great "Holy" Bishop; Cornelius Jansen, Bishop of Ypres
Jansenius and Jansenism
etc,etc,etc,etc..... Are there Bishops that are disenters in the RCC? OH YEAH!!! Will there be more, you bet....
So glad you asked...
For those of you from Rio Linda a small sampling of HERESIES!!!
What Catholics disagreed on, and did a damm good job without the media:
Arianism
Oh, boy, plenty of "holy" bishops on board for this one!!!! Arius, Bishop of Nicomedia, who the heresy is named after
Monothelitism and Monothelites
Another great "Holy" Bishop; Cornelius Jansen, Bishop of Ypres
Jansenius and Jansenism
etc,etc,etc,etc..... Are there Bishops that are disenters in the RCC? OH YEAH!!! Will there be more, you bet....
What the now dying Fr. Heidt did was simply point out the objective actions of his bishop.
St. Pius X admitted after that encyclical that there were enemies in the ranks of the priesthood itself. Many of those priests became bishops. And their pupils have continued in the Church to this day. Now as Paul VI said, the smoke of Satan has entered the Church and is in the HIGHEST levels of the heirarchy.
During the course of his pontificate Pius X came to know that many of the safeguards that were tried and true were no longer reliable. He felt in 1907 that the bishops were trustworthy. There is no way on earth or in Heaven above that he would have endorsed of been happy with the modernist push at Vatican II that led to the disaster of the contemporary Church. Fr. Heidt is the one who is loyal to the religion that Pius X was safeguarding. Fr. Heidt certainly was not inventing doctrines or engaging in bizarre rituals with Lutherans in some kind of Frankenstein experiment "Mass". Had Pius X been Pope, bishop Levada would be picking figs at a monastery.
Just read the first two paragraph of Pascendi and you'll see what I'm talking about.
1. One of the primary obligations assigned by Christ to the office divinely committed to Us of feeding the Lord's flock is that of guarding with the greatest vigilance the deposit of the faith delivered to the saints, rejecting the profane novelties of words and the gainsaying of knowledge falsely so called. There has never been a time when this watchfulness of the supreme pastor was not necessary to the Catholic body, for owing to the efforts of the enemy of the human race, there have never been lacking "men speaking perverse things,"[1] "vain talkers and seducers,"[2] "erring and driving into error."[3] It must, however, be confessed that these latter days have witnessed a notable increase in the number of the enemies of the Cross of Christ, who, by arts entirely new and full of deceit, are striving to destroy the vital energy of the Church, and, as far as in them lies, utterly to subvert the very Kingdom of Christ. Wherefore We may no longer keep silence, lest We should seem to fail in Our most sacred duty, and lest the kindness that, in the hope of wiser counsels, We have hitherto shown them, should be set down to lack of diligence in the discharge of Our office.
2. That We should act without delay in this matter is made imperative especially by the fact that the partisans of error are to be sought not only among the Church's open enemies; but, what is to be most dreaded and deplored, in her very bosom, and are the more mischievous the less they keep in the open. We allude, Venerable Brethren, to many who belong to the Catholic laity, and, what is much more sad, to the ranks of the priesthood itself, who, animated by a false zeal for the Church, lacking the solid safeguards of philosophy and theology, nay more, thoroughly imbued with the poisonous doctrines taught by the enemies of the Church, and lost to all sense of modesty, put themselves forward as reformers of the Church; and, forming more boldly into line of attack, assail all that is most sacred in the work of Christ, not sparing even the Person of the Divine Redeemer, whom, with sacrilegious audacity, they degrade to the condition of a simple and ordinary mall.
And referring to the imprimatur:
Nor are you to be deterred by the fact that a book has obtained elsewhere the permission which is commonly called the Imprimatur, both because this may be merely simulated, and because it may have been granted through carelessness or too much indulgence or excessive trust placed in the author, which last has perhaps sometimes happened in the religious orders.
Ah, the days when it is what it was, and no one was afraid to say it.
I hear ya there!
"I imagine you are not Catholic so this simply is a pointless discussion."
I am not Catholic Lite for sure. All for the sake of an artificial unity, we are asked to prop up questionable prelates who fiddle with and fudge doctrine to appease encroaching secularism .... and who come down heavily on hard-working priests with the courage to reject such dilution of faith. In these circumstances. any priest has a duty to disobey.
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