Posted on 03/11/2011 7:54:49 PM PST by topher
Editorial: Fr. Rosica, civility, and Fr. Gravel’s lawsuit
by The Editors
Fri Mar 11 6:55 PM EST
March 10, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Fr. Thomas Rosica wants desperately for the Catholic blogosphere to be more civil.
LifeSiteNews.com (LSN) readers will remember Fr. Rosica as the priest who, back in 2009, criticized LSN during an appearance on a Catholic radio program as “not credible,” “not ethical,” “not honest,” “bombastic,” “derisive,” and who said that, insofar as it is “divisive,” LSN is doing “the work of Satan.”
Since then the head of Canada’s Salt & Light Catholic television network, who is now also a consultor to the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, has led an ongoing campaign against what he sees as an overly angry, harsh, and condemnatory pro-life movement and “Taliban Catholicism,” as he puts it. He has, however, recently remained silent, at least in the media, on the subject of LSN specifically – until now.
It was Fr. Raymond Gravel’s lawsuit against LifeSiteNews that provoked Fr. Rosica to once again condemn this news service with his comments in an article about the lawsuit written by Montreal correspondent Graeme Hamilton in last Saturday’s National Post.
“At best,” he is quoted as saying, “the activity of LifeSite is a form of unthinking activism akin to a shooting gallery. Now and then they hit a target. More often, however, they leave a vast trail of collateral damage, character assassination and destruction of reputations of good people…”
Unfortunately, the irony of promoting civility, while using such an uncivil flurry of hurtful language seems to be lost on him, as it was in 2009.
But what has probably been lost in all of this is just how strongly we agree with Fr. Rosica on the need for civility. LSN shares the concern, which was expressed well by Archbishop Chaput in a 2009 interview with the Pew Forum, that many, including some on the religious right, too often express their opinions in overly harsh and counterproductive language, especially using the “instant” medium of the internet. In fact, when we realized a few years ago that some of our readers were not being as careful in their word choices as they might be, we even wrote up a document explaining how best to go about communicating one’s views respectfully, especially to religious leaders. We frequently refer to that document at the end of our news reports.
However, we also believe that civility - or more properly, charity – is always answerable to the demands of truth: that is, charity requires not only affirming the good, but also in some cases exposing lies and falsehood, especially when they try to present themselves in the guise of truth.
LifeSiteNews is driven by the conviction that in this battle between the culture of life and the culture of death, the stakes are nothing less than the lives, and the souls, of the most vulnerable. That is why LSN has, and will continue to report, boldly, clearly, and charitably, allowing the facts to speak for themselves, when public figures promote anti-life and anti-family values. It would, in fact, be uncharitable and negligent not to do so.
But in his comments to the National Post, Fr. Rosica paints LSN and Fr. Gravel as two “extremes” in the Catholic Church, setting himself up as a “middle” ground.
However, the question arises, what exactly is this ‘middle’ that Fr. Rosica is referring to between the Fr. Gravels of the world and LSN? When LSN reports on Catholic-related issues, we have always emphasized the crucial importance of Catholics being 100% faithful to their Church’s teachings on life and family. If that is “extreme” in today’s liberal culture, then perhaps indeed we are “extreme”.
But what becomes increasingly obvious as the article progresses, is that Fr. Rosica clearly believes that one of his “extremes” is rather more extreme than the other. While he carefully distances himself from Fr. Gravel’s more unorthodox positions, he urges us to remember that Fr. Gravel “remains a human being, and a Roman Catholic priest who has helped many people with their personal difficulties and crises,” and says that Gravel has “brought people to Christ” and even discouraged some women from obtaining abortions.
It is in good keeping with Christian charity to seek out and to emphasize the legitimate good that others, including our opponents, may have performed. But how strange it is that the Salt & Light CEO reserves no such kind words for LSN. Surely it is a curious form of “civility” that would rather take the side of one of Canada’s most prominent self-professed “pro-choice” priests in a potentially crippling lawsuit against a pro-life, pro-family news service that has done nothing but report what that priest has said and done during his highly public career.
The open secret is that much of the talk about “civility” we hear nowadays is too often only a ploy to silence, dismiss, and ultimately condemn those with whom one happens to disagree. We saw this clearly in 2009, when Fr. Rosica chastised many pro-life and Catholic leaders for the position they took on the grandiose Catholic funeral given to Senator Ted Kennedy.
There was, of course, plenty of room for legitimate disagreement on the issue. However, in almost the same breath that Fr. Rosica lamented the loss of “civility, charity, mercy and politeness,” he labeled those who had criticized the public funeral for the late pro-abortion senator as “not agents of life, but of division, destruction, hatred, vitriol, judgment and violence,” and described them “as little children bullying one another around in schoolyards - casting stones, calling names, and wreaking havoc in the Church.”
Vatican Archbishop, now Cardinal, Raymond Burke had an opposite view to that of Fr. Rosica towards those who sincerely saw that there was scandal in the way the Kennedy funeral was conducted. Archbishop Burke went so far as to say, “One sees the hand of the Father of Lies at work in the disregard for the situation of scandal or in the ridicule and even censure of those who experience scandal.”
In 2009, many were quite reasonably left scratching their heads at the disturbing contradiction between Fr. Rosica’s simultaneous call for civility, and the use of such severe epithets against many who have devoted their whole lives to protecting the unborn. His latest public, and unprovoked, condemnations of LSN, leave us with that same feeling of puzzlement.
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Yet he is a consultant to the Vatican!
“unthinking?” let him speak for himself on that. I’ve had an issue with life site news but “Taliban Catholicism?” “The work of Satan?” Sounds like a bit if a loose cannon. Sounds like he’s off his meds.
I wonder about Father Thomas Rosica being a consultant to the Vatican, and I wonder how Catholic his Salt and Light Television is (in terms of following Church teaching).
His TV Network is probably more of a Social Justice type organization -- something that is a major headache for Bishops these days.
Any one have any opinions on this TV network by comparing it to EWTN?
Is Salt and Light sort of a Call to Action type group that is rebelling against the Vatican?
I wonder if the Vatican will come down on both Father Thomas Rosica as well as de-frocking Father Raymond Gravel.
It does not sound good for Father Gravel if this lawsuit is the talk of the Vatican these days.
Pope Benedict and Cardinal Raymond Burke might weigh in on this matter. And if they do, it sounds like it will be very, very bad for Father Raymond Gravel. It might also be bad for Father Thomas Roscia, as well.
They have always seemed to be a champion of pro-family and pro-life values. [That is important to me.]
You may have a different opinion.
They were a news organization that publicized how many Bishops/Cardinals and Archbishops spoke out against Notre Dame University and the honoring of pro-abortion president Obama (the Big Zero).
Any opinion on Canada’s Salt and Light TV Network (”Catholic?”)
Any opinion on Canada’s Salt and Light TV Network (”Catholic?”)
It's only remotely possible that the Pope would "defrock" Gravel, since the Church is ordinarily dependent on the judgment of the local Bishop
Problem is, (Fr?) Gravel's bishop, Gilles Lussier, is evidently very much in cahoots with him: a protector and enabler of pastoral malpractice along the lines of Rembert Weakland.
That being said, after (Fr?) Gravel was was elected to Canadian Parliament despite canon law which forbids clerics to hold either elected or appointed secular political office, he was (after long dithering) suspended from his priestly duties in 2008, and later lost his post as chief (!) catechist (!) of the diocese of Joliette in 2010, both of which reportedly resulted from the Vatican leaning hard on Bishop Lussier.
Thus it is possible that the Vatican already has quite a dossier on Gravel, and might be moved to apply another Curial spur to Lussier, no matter how much he would prefer to continue slouching along in his chancery corruption.
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