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.
We can "despair" of the elevation of Levada because of possible temporal evils that may result from his elevation, but that does not necessarily mean we are mortally sinnning, despairing of eternal salvation.
On the other hand it helps to recall that God is in charge and brings good out of evil, and that He provides temporal Providence.
(Latin desperare, to be hopeless.)
Despair, ethically regarded, is the voluntary and complete abandonment of all hope of saving one's soul and of having the means required for that end. It is not a passive state of mind: on the contrary it involves a positive act of the will by which a person deliberately gives over any expectation of ever reaching eternal life. There is presupposed an intervention of the intellect in virtue of which one comes to decide definitely that salvation is impossible. This last is motived by the persuasion either that the individual's sins are too great to be forgiven or that it is too hard for human nature to cooperate with the grace of God or that Almighty God is unwilling to aid the weakness or pardon the offenses of his creatures, etc.
It is obvious that a mere anxiety, no matter how acute, as to the hereafter is not to be identified with despair. This excessive fear is usually a negative condition of soul and adequately discernible from the positive elements which clearly mark the vice which we call despair. The pusillanimous person has not so much relinquished trust in God as he is unduly terrified at the spectacle of his own shortcomings of incapacity.
The sin of despair may sometimes, although not necessarily, contain the added malice of heresy in so far as it implies an assent to a proposition which is against faith, e.g. that God has no mind to supply us with what is needful for salvation.
Despair as such and as distinguished from a certain difference, sinking of the heart, or overweening dread is always a mortal sin. The reason is that it contravenes with a special directness certain attributes of Almighty God, such as His goodness, mercy, and faith-keeping. To be sure despair is not the worst sin conceivable: that evil primacy is held by the direct and explicit hatred of God; neither is it as great as sins against faith like formal heresy or apostasy. Still its power for working harm in the human soul is fundamentally far greater than other sins inasmuch as it cuts off the way of escape and those who fall under its spell are frequently, as a matter of fact, found to surrender themselves unreservedly to all sorts of sinful indulgence.
I wouldn't trust any Priest who did what this guy did.
I live and worship in one of the most liberal diocese in the Country. Rome had to act before our Bishop could find the stones to banish a local Priest who tried to ordain women. He's got lots of women in 'pastoral leadership' roles, whatever the hell that means! He's as big a flaming liberal as you're ever going to encounter.
That being said my Priest, who has had myriad differences with the good Bishop, so much so that he was nearly thrown out on his ear because he dared to upbraid those who were manifestly guilty of Liturgical abuses.
He invited all of his congregation to do the same to any superior who they believe is concocting some Liturgical mishap.
But he would never stoop to such a level as to malign the Bishop to his Parishoners.
Levada may be a problematic appointment, but this piece isn't going to be the one to convince me of that.
Does anybody have a problem with this priest? I will grant you that he is well-meaning, but he certainly lacks obedience and deference. No matter what you think of a bishop, he does have the fullest of holy orders and is thus deserving of more respect than I see this priest giving him.
While this information may be disquieting, I am appalled at the way this priest badmouthed the Archbisop to his congregation, and it leads me to question the complete accuracy of this account.
God bless,
I wouldn't trust any Priest who did what this guy did.
But...what if its true?!? Did Jesus hesitate to call the leaders of his time to account?
When the leaders are wolves revaging the flocks, must we be "nice" in confronting them? Was Jesus "nice" to the Jewish hypocrites who led His Father's church at that time?
The truth will not be stopped or suppressed.
To conduct yourself like this guy conducted himself is unacceptable to me. The Bishop even if he is the worst Bishop to come down the pike in 2,000 years, even if he is the biggest nitwit to ever wear a Mitre, should not be spoken about in that manner to the congregation.
I used the example of my own Priest to illustrate how a gentleman and a scholar conducts himself, all the while taking an errant and rather mediocre (yet powerful) Bishop to task. He suffered for that, but didn't reduce himself to such a mean level. And still he instructs the Faithful, and still the Faithful love and appreciate him.
So, where did I say he had to be "nice"? I merely advocate that he treat his bishop with respect. Lack of obedience is the problem, whether it comes from those who disobey liturgical norms or those who set themselves above their priests and bishops.
We can disagree or teach without disdain, and accomplish far more, IMHO.
God bless,
You're so restrained! ;-)
I'm afraid I think this priest sounds like someone you hope won't sit next to you on the bus!
The announcement of this appointment was made yesterday, the Feast of Our Lady of Fatima. It was also the 24th anniversary of the attempt on John Paul II's life. He freely admitted that Our Lady saved his life as he bent down to touch a medal of her.
This is the Gospel of yesterday:
Gospel
Jn 21:15-19
After Jesus had revealed himself to his disciples and eaten breakfast with them, he said to Simon Peter,"Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?"
Simon Peter answered him, "Yes, Lord, you know that I love you."
Jesus said to him, "Feed my lambs."
He then said to Simon Peter a second time, "Simon, son of John, do you love me?"
Simon Peter answered him, "Yes, Lord, you know that I love you."
He said to him, "Tend my sheep."
He said to him the third time, "Simon, son of John, do you love me?"
Peter was distressed that he had said to him a third time, "Do you love me?" and he said to him, "Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you."
Jesus said to him, "Feed my sheep.
Amen, amen, I say to you, when you were younger, you used to dress yourself and go where you wanted; but when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go."
He said this signifying by what kind of death he would glorify God.
And when he had said this, he said to him, "Follow me."
St. Johann, I will follow this Pope who is following Christ. This was no accident. B-16 chose Levada knowing that his mission is to "feed HIS sheep." We had antipated this announcement all week and it came yesterday. I see the hand of God in that. You may not. I will follow him in obedience.
Frank
Not to repeat myself (but I want to!), I have no respect for a Priest who conducts himself like this.
I love this Scripture. Doesn't it also imply that tough choices lie ahead?
---He said this signifying by what kind of death he would glorify God.---
Following God's will had a cost for Peter and all the Apostles save John. Yes, tough choices lie ahead. Benedict, above all, would know that. His choice is his choice. If choosing the Apostles had been a reality series, how quickly would it have taken for Peter to be voted off the ship?
;-0)
Frank
+Peter: You are the weakest link! Goodbye! Just kidding, don't mean any disrespect to our Cephas.
I've always found the contrast between +Peter and +Paul to be interesting. What quality did this Fisherman have that the Lord picked him above all others as the Rock on which he would build his Church? Why didn't the Lord hurl +Paul from his Horse long before he did and build His Church on Him?
Peter had a brother, Andrew, and owned a boat. It did allow Christ to embark His Church with two oars in the water!
Seriously, I think Peter was simple, the foundation, a powerful man physically. Paul was a scholar of the law and largely made the vital intellectual connections between the old law and new law.
One interesting thing to note about the descriptions in the Gospels, especially after the Last Supper in the Gospel of John, is how much time was spent preparing these men for ministry. That is often overlooked. Jesus knew that He was leaving behing an edifice and trained these men well. Eleven were martyrs.
http://www.ewtn.com/library/THEOLOGY/SPIRCATH.HTM#06
Thanks for the link, appreciate it.
Mission - Mission of the Atonement
Lutheran and Catholic congregation
7400 SW Scholls Ferry Rd., Beaverton, OR 97008
503-646-1344
I must confess I have never heard of a Lutheran-Catholic Congregation before.
Peter was also chosen for his weaknesses. Unfortunately for his pride, God utilized all of his failings in order to publicly teach us a great lesson about the office he built for Peter.
Peter made foolish mistakes as in Antioch. Christ showed us that his Popes will be merely men and not changed after elevation.
Paul's blistering rebuke of Peter indicates that subordinates must sometimes rebuke their superiors. This is a lesson for Popes as well as everyone else. Popes need to exhibit the humility of Peter is accepting rebuke when it is a true rebuke.
In some ways, I can identify with St. Peter especially. Big of heart, wanting to be there, aching with immense sorrow when he just couldn't follow up...flawed, but the love in his heart for Jesus even when he stumbled, filled with fear, was a flame that still warms us today.
He felt that call, experienced the living fire, lived with fear and doubt and love and desire all rolled into one.
But the important thing is his failures didn't stop him. He stood up, came back and trudged on because of love.
Perhaps this is a quality Jesus wanted us to see...we don't have to be perfect. We can fail. He will still love us, still wait for us to stand up and follow him. He can take flawed people and build the most wonderful edifice, a temple made up of the church, fit to be his bride.
This gives me a lot of comfort. Me, my intentions are always bigger than my follow through. I keep having to pick myself up out of the dust, but I get up and keep walking. I can be meditating on the need to be patient with those who grieve us, and then have my teenager to something that blows me into a rage. I have learned well the taste of the dust, and the grace of His outstretched hand there to help me back up.
Paul was such a focused bulldog in some ways. Once he was converted, he was an unquenchable flame, an intensity that most of us cannot match. Perhaps this is why he chose Peter. It's easier for us to see his clay feet.
I have tremendous respect for a lowly priest who rebukes an apostate bishop. St. Paul publicly rebuked St.Peter for much less.
Fr. Heidt is known and loved by many as a holy man.
It was new to me also.
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