Replies

On your comments about the laity in the Catholic Church.

We have many lay parishoners who serve as "lay ministers" in our church parish and others nearby. In our local parish communion is always distributed jointly after the pastor consecrates the host. Even though I will say that I am not uncomfortable with a lay minister distributing the host, I always choose a seat in the church in which I know I will be served by the pastor. And if I can add this comment, I really discovered what I truly do think about the lay ministry -- by which I mean how "limited" a view I have of their role -- about three years ago when my father lay dying in our local hospital and we were visited by a local minister, who was an excellent person who I admired, but I found that I would not settle for anything less than God's representative on earth and I insisted that a priest be found -- my father had already received the last rites a few hours earlier -- to pray with our assembled family. Sometimes you just don't realize what you truly believe until you're pushed.

As to what you wrote about local parishoners taking control of a parish and perhaps "not being willing to give it back" after they become comfortable in their role, I can only say that if being Catholic means anything it is that you respond to the "call to order" when the Church hierarchy determines which priest is placed where. I can still remember my advanced studies in the Roman Catholic Catechism when I was in high school -- "all contradictions are resolved in the Church," a doctrine that specifically applies to a willingness to submit differences of rational opinion to discussion within the Church, but ultimately one's faith as a Roman Catholic requires obedience.

Based on what I have read about your comments on the liberal bent of many Roman Catholics in New York, I can understand your anxieties over increasing the role of the laity within it in the future. I do have those same concerns myself, but I can envision that a lay movement to call down the hierarchy for its deviation from Church teachings would be much more legitimate than one seeking to "modernize" Church doctrine to accommodate changing views of morality. The laity has a role to play in the preservation of the teachings of the Church, but not in the development of that doctrine. That is how you draw the line. In other words, in practice, those of us in the laity have the right to appeal over the heads of the American Catholic hierarchy to Rome for stricter enforcement of Catholic doctrine when it is ignored or changed without its approval. And there is some precedent for this in the fight over Liberation Theology in Latin America in the 1970's and 80's, when many Latin American Catholics appealed to Pope John Paul II himself for action, which they received. We have every reason to consider appealing directly to Pope Benedict himself to set the ship of doctrine aright here in America.

I can envision that a lay movement to call down the hierarchy for its deviation from Church teachings would be much more legitimate than one seeking to "modernize" Church doctrine to accommodate changing views of morality.

Yes ... we are out there and doing our best to accomplish this task. Again, speaking on behalf of what I have witnessed in this diocese, this bishop has run the diocese fo 30+ years. That equates to at least 2 generations of catholics who have been catechized according to his 'modernistic' views. A select group of organized catholics has battled back. They were able to get information to Paul Likoudis who wrote a 10 part series of articles that appeared in 1994, in The Wanderer.

Last year, a local area priest returned from retreat to find a message on his answering machine, advising him to come immediately to the Chancery. After meeting with the diocesan chancellor Fr. Kenneth Doyle, the priest returned home and made several phone calls to confidantes. The following day, he was found dead. The coroner's office was slow to release its findings and, under pressure, eventually ruled the death a suicide. This priest was very orthodox and, according to those who spoke with him following the meeting, conveyed no impression of being suicidal.

Bishops are very powerful. While I can't speak for what is happening anywhere else in the country, I can assure you that up here, churches are being closed, schools are shutting down and 'orthodox' catholics have gone underground. Meanwhile, the number of lay ecclesial ministers is growing. You can read more about this story here: cruxnews

I can still remember my advanced studies in the Roman Catholic Catechism when I was in high school -- "all contradictions are resolved in the Church," a doctrine that specifically applies to a willingness to submit differences of rational opinion to discussion within the Church, but ultimately one's faith as a Roman Catholic requires obedience.

You were blessed to have such an education. "Trivial" doesn't even begin to describe my public school indoctrination.