Take Back the Church? (dissenting catholic organizations)

Catholic Exchange ^ | August 21, 2006 | Brian Saint-Paul

[NYer]

I've come to a conclusion about dissenting Catholics and how they compare to their more faithful counterparts. Here it is: Faithful Catholics start families. Dissenting Catholics start organizations.

If you need proof for the second point, I give you Take Back Our Church, the newest dissident group on the block. Started four months ago by former Jesuit and Newsweek contributing editor Robert Blair Kaiser and California businessman Robert Miller, the group joins an already crowded gaggle of dissenting organizations.

So, what differentiates Take Back Our Church from Call to Action, or FutureChurch, or Voice of the Faithful, or The Association for the Rights of Catholics in the Church, or any other similar group?

Good question.

Take Back Our Church's Web site is stuffed with the same nonsense you've read before: the Catholic Church is authoritarian; current Church leaders have turned their backs on Vatican II; the faithful need to reclaim their Church, and reshape it to match their needs.

And so on.

None of this is terribly surprising, given Kaiser's involvement in the project. He came out with a book earlier this year entitled, A Church in Search of Itself: Benedict XVI and the Battle for the Future.

If you don't have time to read it, let me give you a quick synopsis: The Fathers of Vatican II ushered in a golden age of openness, tolerance, and progressive action. Unfortunately, the dark forces of John Paul II and his diabolical collaborator, Josef Cardinal Ratzinger, clamped down on this movement of the Spirit, dragging the Church back to the Dark Ages. In light of this, thinking Catholics need to reclaim their Church — and maybe even start an American Catholic Church of their own (more on this in a moment).

Sound familiar? This is the same tired song we've heard from all the other grey-haired dissidents of Kaiser's generation. Of course, there's an added note of desperation in this latest entry. The years are starting to thin the ranks of Kaiser's allies, and even liberal commentators acknowledge that younger Catholics are noticeably more orthodox than their elders.

So if you're Robert Blair Kaiser, now is the time to act, before the dissident generation is no more.

And here's where it gets really interesting.

You see, Kaiser's organization is calling for more than just reform; they want an autochthonous American Catholic Church. An autochthonous Church isn't the same as an autonomous Church, as Kaiser is quick to point out on the Web site. Rather, an autochthonous Church is a native Church, an ecclesial body organized and run by people in that specific country.

In the autochthonous Church of Kaiser's dreams, the faithful would elect their own bishops. But that's not all:

We will write a Declaration of Autochthony, one that will challenge our priest-people and our people-people to work out a constitution for the American Church that carefully puts aside the Rome-based secretive, half-vast, culturally-conditioned legalisms codified in canon law in return for the kind of servant Church envisioned at Vatican II.

So a democratic Church with elected bishops and a national ecclesial constitution. If all of that sounds more political than spiritual, it's no coincidence. According to Take Back Our Church's July 4 email to supporters,

This will be a political battle in a Church that has gotten us used to the idea that there's something shady, maybe even something sinful, in trying to overturn the old pyramidal structure. We plead "not guilty" to that charge. But we do plead guilty in our wish to overturn — at least in the United States — what the last pope called "the divinely instituted hierarchical constitution of the Church.”

At least they're honest. They don't want a hierarchical Church that disagrees with them, so they need to overthrow it.

Easier said than done. While Take Back Our Church may be long on ambitions, they're falling short on methodology. Indeed, right now, their principle concern appears to be finding members. As of July 4, they had a total of 580 people on their roll. Not terribly impressive. But don't worry, they do have a strategy for growth:

Right now, we'd like each of you, 580 of you, to scour your e-mail address books and urge your twenty closest friends to go to our website and sign in. Do it now.

Okay, so maybe they need to work on their growth strategy as well.

[VidMihi]

Just for your information I am opposed to the ordination of women, (but am not opposed to a discussion about it - it just is not my interest ) and I do think the homosexuality of the clergy has been destructive to the Church in many ways. Let me offer an example of Catholics behaving like obedient little children and not taking responsibility.
Catholics in parishes for over 25 years have been aware that more and more of their new priests were gay, there was an obvious problem developing, but they said nothing. Most guilty, it seems to me were the Knights of Columbus, and the women who thought the gay priests were "just wonderful". The knights hobnobed with the bishops with their swords but never really sat down with him to discuss what was going on. We all know the results, and now because most straight men were turned off by what was going on in the seminaries, we now have very few Americans being ordained and our priests speak Polish or whatever - and is the answer lets seriously face this issue and try to solve it as adults - no most likely we are asked to "pray" and I am sure some will think I am against prayer. Oh well - I still think adult discussion and action, not giving in to the crazies
who want to change everything is the answer. If you don't think there are problems ask your own relatives and friends about birth control and annulments. Being willing to discuss these issue does not mean one favors abortion or some other crazy idea.
And furthermore attacking the Episcopalians who admittedly are in a mess,does not excuse us from being honest with ourselves. The Church is a divine institution but it is a very human organization and we are the "grown up" humans who are responsible or should be. One liners or pointing to single issue extremes do not help solve our very real problems but honest give and take discussion could be a start.
Check out the numbers attending Mass on Sunday in comparison to years ago. Talk to your Protestant friends and discover that up to one third of their church membership are fallen away Catholics. and check the reductions of the number of Catholics in South America and Africa. Some would say - good - Let them all go to hell - but would those be the words of Jesus. I say again, though some may not like it - lets all "Grow up".

[Barnacle]

If someone is going to take back our church, I hope it includes taking it back from those who condone illegal immigration, or more accurately - foreign invasion.

[tmbrrr]

If by "grow up" you mean take responsibility for holding members of the Church accountable when they teach error or create scandal, I wholeheartedly agree. The Church in America is truly in crisis and individual lay people and those in Catholic fraternal organizations need to take proactive steps to prevent the further erosion of our faith. However, you ask how Jesus would respond about those who leave the Church. Well, He did respond. He told the disciples to go and preach the Gospel, but if the people of a town refuse to listen, they were to brush off the dust from their feet and move on. It is far more important to expel those who would subvert the Church than to fill the pews. Pope Benedict has expressed this sentiment. The Roman Catholic Church requires fidelity to its fundamental teachings. A Catholic, by definition, is one who not only follows the Magisterium, but BELIEVES it! So, to "grow up" is to learn the Faith, practice it, and then pass it on.

[Unam Sanctam]

In the Vatican II documents, the role of the laity is to bring the Gospel message to the greater society. It is not to determine by majority vote the teachings of the deposit of faith, which constitute divine revelation through Scripture and Tradition and are expounded and interpreted by the authentic magisterium founded by Christ, i.e., the successor of Peter and the apostolic college of bishops in communion with him. If one wishes to rewrite the teachings of the faith, in a free society like ours, one should join or create another religion, and I think the modern American Episcopal Church might just fit the bill for these dissenters.

[ichabod1]

There IS an American Catholic Church. It's diabolical. That's why when you read that "75% of American Catholics favor abortion" or whatever, you have to be sure of who they're talking about.