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.
So you're saying the pope cannot resist the Holy Ghost? I didn't really see that you answered that question.
The Holy Spirit prevents anyone from succeeding in leveling the Church.
Vatican I states that no decision of the Pope can lawfully be overturned (eg. by a council) That is not what this discussion is about.
Schism requires someone to deny the authority of a Pope. Not to resist or disobey unjust or sinful commands.
Are you implying that the Holy Spirit is responsible for every action of the Pope? That every action of the Pope is guided by and is the direct will of the Holy Spirit? Please clarify.
The governance of the Church is the sole perogative of the Pope. Not every action of the day. Those related to the CHurch. Read Vatican I as I have linked.
So you are saying a Pope can't refuse to speak Ex-Cathedra?
So you are saying he can't refuse to use the full power granted him?
So you are saying that if a man holds the office, he can't use his free will to abuse his authority on matters outside his infallibility?
Interesting you actually believe the Pope has no free will.
I don't believe or disbelieve either this priest or Levada, based on this article alone.
However, there are some stellar conservative Catholic figures, in no way associated with trads or trad thinking, who are openly questioning the prudence of this decision.
I'm not going to worry over it. I'm in my place a refuge, a Byzantine parish that time forgot, and I'm happy. The storms in the Church generally don't reach us there.
Let me re phrase the question again. Are you implying that the Holy Spirit is responsible for every action of Church governance by the Pope? That every action of Church governance by the Pope is guided by and is the direct will of the Holy Spirit? Please clarify.
And did you just say:
So the Pope can resist the Holy Spirit? No.
It should be obvious...
Another one with the "it should be obvious", I know what link says, I want to know what you think it means.
Yet.
It would be foolhardy to think there are any places in the Church that would never be affected by the storms blowing right now, but we can still search for places of shelter, right?
You betcha.
Vincent Gasser, at the First Vatican Council,
Relator for the Deputation de FideNote well. It is asked in what sense the infallibility of the Roman Pontiff is "absolute." I reply and openly admit: in no sense is pontifical infallibility absolute, because absolute infallibility belongs to God alone, who is the first and essential truth and who is never able to deceive or be deceived. All other infallibility, as communicated for a specific purpose, has its limits and its conditions under which it is considered to be present. The same is valid in reference to the infallibility of the Roman Pontiff. For this infallibility is bound by certain limits and conditions. What those conditions may be should be deduced not "a priori" but from the very promise or manifestation of the will of Christ. Now what follows from the promise of Christ, made to Peter and his successors, as far as these conditions are concerned? He promised Peter the gift of inerrancy in Peter's relation to the Universal Church: "You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it ..." (Mt. 16:18). "Feed my lambs, feed my sheep" (Jn. 21:13-17). Peter, placed outside this relation to the universal Church, does not enjoy in his successors this charism of truth which comes from that certain promise of Christ. Therefore, in reality, the infallibility of the Roman Pontiff is restricted by reason "of the subject," that is when the Pope, constituted in the chair of Peter, the center of the Church, speaks as universal teacher and supreme judge: it is restricted by reason of the "object," i.e., when treating of matters of faith and morals; and by reason of the "act" itself, i.e., when the Pope defines what must be believed or rejected by all the faithful.
The archbishop described himself as a lifelong friend of Ziemann's and said he joined "friends throughout California and beyond in thanking him for the energy and gifts he has shared far and wide.
Reality check. How many straight men do you know who enjoy close friendships with promiscuous homosexual men? Ziemann's "gifts" included diocesan bankruptcy, homosexual affairs, protection of sexual abusers and spiritual and emotional devastation. What kind of person calls those things gifts?
Levada, Mahony and Steinbock were all classmates at St. John's seminary in Camarillo which is known as the "homosexual bathhouse." Any one who doesn't join in the fun is expelled or runs away on their own. Levada went on to teach at the seminary. All three of the above mentioned have sheltered, protected, associated with and entertained promiscuous homosexuals.
Thinking people can do the math.
"I also am sure he (Pius X) is very displeased with the schismatic organization who usurped his name to start a Jansenist organization of Cafeteria Catholics."
Hardly a displeasure toward a society formed to pursue his great anti-modernist cause with vigour. More likely his displeasure would be shown to his successors after Pius XII who are knee-deep in modernism. So easy for JPII to rely on church law when he could not get his head around one of the bigest crises in church history; a crisis which will not go away.
"I also am sure he (Pius X) is very displeased with the schismatic organization who usurped his name to start a Jansenist organization of Cafeteria Catholics."
Hardly a displeasure toward a society formed to pursue his great anti-modernist cause with vigour. More likely his displeasure would be shown to his successors after Pius XII who are knee-deep in modernism. So easy for JPII to rely on church law when he could not get his head around one of the bigest crises in church history; a crisis which will not go away.
"I'm not going to worry over it. I'm in my place a refuge, a Byzantine parish that time forgot, and I'm happy. The storms in the Church generally don't reach us there."
Be careful; you are displaying schismatic tendencies. Why are you not loudly and openly embracing all the wonderful reforms lavished on Catholics during the last few decades? Where is this spirit of Vatican II?
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