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.
It's a rough day for an SSPXer if he or she can't identify some piece of scandal or malfeasance, stretch out his or her arm, point a finger and scream "apostate!!!"
The idea of not rushing to judgement and actually waiting to see how he performs this job, would be too much to ask, I guess. He will be under Pope Benedict, who knows him well and personally and I'm praying that away from the morass that is AmChurch, he may actually blossom. It's happened before. Jesus chose a man who denied him not once but three times. Maybe, just maybe, the Holy Father sees something in this man that you and others don't. Hard to believe, I know, but quite possible.
I think by now, we've all gottten the message that most of the Catholic hierarchy are not good enough for you guys. The "woe, woe, thrice woe" schtick is familiar to most of us, I believe. Some of us, however, genuinely want what's best for the Church, rather than to see it crash and burn in order that we can say "I told you so".
I'm afraid you haven't gotten the news. As reported elsewhere on this thread, Cardinal Ratzinger actually had breakfast with Cardinal Mahony and some Third World cardinals on the day he was elected Beendict XVI. Can't you see--they had BREAKFAST! Everyone knows that breakfast is the most important meal of the day for conspiracies. The fix is in: Benedict is a Mahony stooge.
*APPLAUSE* You just knocked that argument out of the ball park!
LMAO
You might want to descend from the grassy knoll. There are no black helicopters circling overhead either.
Well, as Jim Garrison would say, it's all starting to come together: elsewhere on this thread learn the shocking news that Levada went to the same seminary as Mahony and that he disciplined a priest for saying Mass at a chapel operated by a group that has been excommunicated. When you add this to the fact that Ratzinger had BREAKFAST with Mahony on the very morning he was elected Pope, the logical mind can only come to one conclusion: we are all doomed.
Many many thanks for the 'behind the scenes' in Rome. A week had not yet gone by and our new Pope was dining with his 'chosen ones'. Fr. Heidt, God bless him didn't have enough of red in his clerical attire. The next ambitious author can have a ball with the plot that will surely develop in Rome. Make "The Da Vinci Code" pale in comparison. Not to worry...."the XVI" is in His Chair and it's business as usual.
ROTFLMAO! You rock!
He is one who fought long and hard to remain a Faithful priest ,if anyone hears more on his condition ect please let me know.
Ignorance is bliss, right marshie?
You might want to wake up. Your mortal soul is in danger.
This Papacy already reeks with Karl Rovian dirty tricks and shennanigans what with all the breakfasts and whatnot.
I'm breaking my copy The Who's "We won't be fooled again" over a bust of Nostradamus.
Why don't you and your fellow Levada supporters address the issues on this thread instead of changing the subject by starting personal attacks?
Your theory is proven correct again on this thread.
I haven't made any personal attacks and I have addressed the "substance" on this thread, such as it is: all the "proof" on this thread amounts to is that Levada disagreed with and then disciplined a priest who said Mass at a chapel operated by a group that has been excommunicated and that he went to the same seminary as Mahony and may have played a part in the spiritual supervision of a bishop who committed immoral sexual acts. This is hardly proof of "apostasy."
There also was something about Levada allowing a mainland Chinese priest to operate in some manner in his Archdiocese. Levada said that this was done in accordance in Vatican directives, and I have seen nothing showing that this was incorrect.
Joseph Ratzinger has a long and distinguished record of service to the Church. He is now the Successor of Peter and the Vicar of Christ. He has long known Archbishop Levada, and he personally selected Levada to be the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Barring truly compelling evidence to the contrary, I will presume that Our Holy Father knows what he is doing and has made an appointment that will benefit the whole Church.
Simply put, I trust the Pope.
More on your man Levada. Do you use this prayer?
---
http://www.lesfemmes-thetruth.org/e_let_1_14_05.htm
January 13, 2005
New Age Prayer Altered on Archdiocese's Website
When orthodox Catholics begin work together they can make things
happen. On January 13 I received three alerts from different Catholic
groups about a scandalous prayer on Archbishop William Levada's San
Francisco website. Called Blessing Our Oneness, the prayer evoked the
"spirits" of the north, south, east, and west as well as the spirit of
mother earth. (Read the original prayer below.)
It was about 3:00 p.m. Pacific Time and I immediately wrote and faxed
a letter to the Archbishop from the Catholic Media Coalition (CMC)
asking that it be removed from the site as a scandal and sin against
the first commandment. I then sent an alert to the members of CMC to
join in the opposition.
One of our members who accessed the archdiocese's site about five
hours after my original post found that the "prayer" had been altered.
(Read the revised prayer below.) In view of the original context, it
is now unclear to whom the prayer is addressed, but the explicit
reference to pagan spirits have been removed.
I am faxing another letter to the bishop requesting that, in view of
the obviously pagan orientation of the original prayer, it is
necessary to make it completely clear that the prayer is addressed to
the one true God. This can be done easily by adding two words at the
beginning - Heavenly Father or Lord Jesus. On the other hand, in view
of the original context of this "prayer," it may be more prudent to
delete it altogether. How pleased can the Lord be with a prayer that
was originally written to false gods?
Please pray for the bishops of the United States and for the lay
faithful that we will become allies in defending the faith from the
assault of new age "Catholic" feminists and dissenters, many of whom
have influential jobs in diocesan chanceries.
Mary Ann Kreitzer
Les Femmes
www.lesfemmes-thetruth.org
"The first law of history is not to dare to utter falsehood; the
second, not to fear to speak the truth."
Pope Leo XIII
ORIGINAL PRAYER:
We greet you Spirit of the North.
Teach us to plant our feet securely on the earth and to see things as
they really are, that the coming of your Spirit may find us standing
firm in integrity. Teach us, Spirit of the North, in the solitude of
winter, to wait in darkness with the sleeping earth, believing that
we, like the earth, already hold within ourselves the seeds of new
life.
ALL: May the deep peace of mercy be on us forgiving us, beckoning us,
encouraging us; and may our readiness to forgive calm the fears.
We greet you, O Spirit of the East.
Awaken in us with each day, new hopes, new dreams of colors, loves and
joys never before imagined. Fill our bodies with your breath,
invigorate us. Carry us to the farthest mountains and beyond.
In-spirit us that we might reach out to you boldly to grasp the
miracles that are given birth with each new dawn.
ALL: May the deep peace of compassion be on us holding us close when
we are weary, hurt and alone; and may we be the warm hands and warm
eyes of compassion when people reach out to us in need.
We greet you Spirit of the South.
You bring the winds of summer and breathe on us the warmth of the sun
to sooth and heal our bodies and our spirits. Quicken us, draw us by
the urgings of your warm breath to break through the soil of our own
barrenness and fear. Teach us to hold sacred the memory of the spring
rains that we might have the strength to withstand the heat of the
day, and not become parched and narrow in our love. Lead us to accept
fatigue with resignation, knowing that life is not to be rushed, that
there is no flower of the field that grows from seed to blossom in a
single day.
All: May the deep peace of gentleness be on us caressing us with
sunlight, rain and wind; may tenderness shine through us to warm all
who are hurt and lonely.
We greet you Spirit of the West; cool our hot and tired bodies,
refresh and bring laughter to our hearts. It is you who usher in the
setting sun. Guide our steps at the end of day; keep us safe from
evil. Fill us with your peace as you enfold us with your great mystery
of night that we might rest securely In your arms until morning call
us forth again.
ALL: May the deep blessing of peace be on us stilling our hearts that
have fear and doubt and confusion within them; and may peace cover us
and all those who are troubled and anxious. May we be peacemakers.
We greet you, Great Spirit of the Earth.
It was from you we came as from a Mother; you nourish us still and
give us shelter.
Teach us to walk softly on your lands, to use with care your gifts, to
love with tenderness all our brothers and sisters who have been born
of your goodness. And when the day comes when you call us back to
yourself, help us to return to you as a friend, to find ourselves
embraced, encircled and enfolded in your arms.
ALL: May the deep peace of community arise from within us, drawing us
ever nearer, speaking to us of unity, true community where
distinctions of persons is also oneness in being.
REVISED PRAYER
Teach us to plant our feet securely on the earth and to see things as
they really are, that the coming of your Spirit may find us standing
firm in integrity. Teach us, in the solitude of winter, to wait in
darkness with the sleeping earth, believing that we, like the earth,
already hold within ourselves the seeds of new life.
ALL: May the deep peace of mercy be on us forgiving us, beckoning us,
encouraging us; and may our readiness to forgive calm the fears.
Awaken in us with each day, new hopes, new dreams of colors, loves and
joys never before imagined. Fill our bodies with your breath,
invigorate us. Carry us to the farthest mountains and beyond.
In-spirit us that we might reach out to you boldly to grasp the
miracles that are given birth with each new dawn.
ALL: May the deep peace of compassion be on us holding us close when
we are weary, hurt and alone; and may we be the warm hands and warm
eyes of compassion when people reach out to us in need.
You bring the winds of summer and breathe on us the warmth of the sun
to sooth and heal our bodies and our spirits. Quicken us, draw us by
the urgings of your warm breath to break through the soil of our own
barrenness and fear. Teach us to hold the memory of the spring rains
that we might have the strength to withstand the heat of the day, and
not become parched and narrow in our love. Lead us to accept fatigue
with resignation, knowing that life is not to be rushed, that there is
no flower of the field that grows from seed to blossom in a single
day.
All: May the deep peace of gentleness be on us caressing us with
sunlight, rain and wind; may tenderness shine through us to warm all
who are hurt and lonely.
Cool our hot and tired bodies, refresh and bring laughter to our
hearts. It is you who usher in the setting sun. Guide our steps at the
end of day; keep us safe from evil. Fill us with your peace as you
enfold us with your great mystery of night that we might rest securely
In your arms until morning call us forth again.
ALL: May the deep blessing of peace be on us stilling our hearts that
have fear and doubt and confusion within them; and may peace cover us
and all those who are troubled and anxious. May we be peacemakers.
It was from you we came; you nourish us still and give us shelter.
Teach us to walk softly on your lands, to use with care your gifts, to
love with tenderness all our brothers and sisters who have been born
of your goodness. And when the day comes when you call us back to
yourself, help us to return to you as a friend, to find ourselves
embraced, encircled and enfolded in your arms.
ALL: May the deep peace of community arise from within us, drawing us
ever nearer, speaking to us of unity, true community where
distinctions of persons is also oneness in being.
------
Simply put, you seem ready to believe the worst about Archbishop Levada and Benedict XVI without waiting to hear what their side of any controversy might be: you give absolute weight to anything a critic says and zero weight to what they say.
I also find it interesting that, after I point out how flimsy the anti-Levada material you have already posted really was, you no longer mention that material but bring up a new line of attack. Your goal seems to be to discredit the new Prefect and the Pope who appointed him without waiting to see what they do in their jobs, and any stick you find is good enough to beat them with.
What would you said if this had come from Abp. Levada, I wonder?
Consequently, since in our days (which we endure with sorrow) the sower of cockle, the ancient enemy of the human race, has dared to scatter and multiply in the Lord's field some extremely pernicious errors, which have always been rejected by the faithful, especially on the nature of the rational soul, with the claim that it is mortal, or only one among all human beings, and since some, playing the philosopher without due care, assert that this proposition is true at least according to philosophy, it is our desire to apply suitable remedies against this infection and, with the approval of the sacred council, we condemn and reject all those who insist that the intellectual soul is mortal, or that it is only one among all human beings, and those who suggest doubts on this topic. (Pope Leo X, Fifth Lateran Council, Session VIII, 19 December 1513)
As I said, a shepherd in combat boots is pretty much unassailable from my point of view. But I have to differ w/you here.
Would St. Thomas approve of a priest yammering to the Congregation that the Bishop isn't Catholic? I'm sorry, I don't believe that for a minute. Oppose the Bishop to his face? I have no problem with that, I do have a big problem with how he handled himself with his parishoners in this regard.
The quote regarding this makes it seem like he's proud of the fact that he denounced the Bishop to his parishoners. I have no use for such a man.
When St. Paul opposed St. Peter 'to his face', he did it as a Man.
Finally, there's nothing in this piece that any fair person can hang their hat on. P B-16 hasn't even been Pope a month, and already from each side he's attacked. I'm not going to judge, let alone condemn a Bishop based on the talk of a Priest who had a problem with him.
I'm not going to align myself with such irrational forces.
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