“We Are Church” Movement Leader Is “Shocked” by Her Excommunication

http://www.patheos.com ^ | May 22, 2014 | Kathy Schiffer

[NKP_Vet]

Martha Holzer, a senior leader in the dissident Catholic group We Are Church, is “shocked” that Pope Francis has taken the extraordinary step of excommunicating her and her husband Gert.

Pope Francis took this action after the pair “simulated the Mass”–that is, they regularly took part in “private Eucharistic celebrations” at her home with no priest present. The Church considers the simulation of the Mass a delictum gravius, or “grave delict”.

We Are Church, which has members in more than 20 countries, is notorious for its disregard for the priesthood–insisting, as they do, that all participate in the “priesthood of all believers” and that both men and women should be ordained to the ministerial priesthood.

Here in the United States, We Are Church’s member organizations are a Who’s Who of dissident groups including the American Catholic Council, Call To Action, Catholics Speak Out, Corpus, DignityUSA, FutureChurch, PaxChristi/Maine, the Women’s Ordination Conference, and others.

[Berlin_Freeper]

I didn’t take your flippant response as much of a question.

[cuban leaf]

But Scripture doesn’t go into detail on the topic so it helps to also consult other reliable Christian writings...

---

I've said many times that man-made religions are “letter of the law” affairs while Christianity is a “spirit of the law” affair. If it doesn't go into detial, it is permitting me to make my own choice, avoiding breaking the details/rules it does go into.

Any other contemporaneous writings are simply the opinion of another man like me. I may accept or reject them without fear of my choice being a “sin”.

[Berlin_Freeper]

What 1268 means to me most of all is that I have the authority to go forth and bring people to the Catholic Church. Which I have done with at least three people that I know for sure (sorry if that makes someone sad).

BTW the webpage is about Baptism. If everyone were really made a priest don’t you think that would get its own webpage rather than a few sentences in Baptism? LoL!

[Greetings_Puny_Humans]

Are there any Protestants that deny Holy Orders but yet believe in the Real Presence? That laymen can confect the Sacrament?

What you mean is transubstantiation, which is what we do not hold to. Presbyterians and Lutherans believe in the "Real Presence," and that there is a real communion with Christ and His people in the sacrament. This is not memorialism.

[oh8eleven]

physcobabble

[oh8eleven]

including having my life saved from danger miraculously more than once.
Soooooo, He thinks more of you than the 50 million who died in WWII? Oy.

[Greetings_Puny_Humans]

How so?

[Berlin_Freeper]

LoL!

Let's go on and on about Baptism but limit everyone made a priest to three sentences...

[piusv]

winner winner, chicken dinner.

[Boogieman]

Well, you get what you pay for. Make a flippant reply, get a flippant question in return.

[Mrs. Don-o]

I just skimmed Mrs. Priestess' statement quickly, but she actually doesn't specify whether she thinks that, in union with the priesthood of Christ, she is actually causing the transubstantiation of the Eucharistic elements, or not.

It's not a violation of Canon Law to bless bread per se, of course. We bless bread (and mac-n-cheese, and greenbeans and burgers, etc.) every time we say a meal prayer.

Maybe she just does a little hocus-pocus with rice cakes and almond milk, or potato chips and lager. While intoning readings from The Velveteen Rabbit. For all we know, she didn't even convincingly "simulate" the Sacred Liturgy at all, except maybe on a kindergarten level.

There once a lady whose mania
Was litugical extemporanea.
She thinks she's a priest,
At the (humph) very least,
And I am the Queen of Romania.

[CTrent1564]

steve86:

OK!!!. To borrow from Captain from Cool hand Luke, “what we have here is a full blown Sedevacantist”

[Berlin_Freeper]

My initial response simply quoted your own answer to your own question and even courteously thanked you.

Btw, thank you once again - this time for admitting you are Trolling by being flippant.

[steve86]

No, I said “not necessarily” not “not”.

[piusv]

Don’t ever say “not” here. You’ll be more hated than the prots. ;-)

[Mrs. Don-o]

Noogieman, the Catholic Church believes in three different types of priests:

• the priesthood of all believers (1 Peter 2:5–9);
• the ordained priesthood (Acts 14:23, Romans 15:16, Titus 1:5); and
• the high priesthood of Jesus (Hebrews 3:1) -- the Infinite Priesthood from which the other two are derived, simply because we are "one in Christ."

In the Morning Offering, the individual Catholic offers his "prayers, works, joys and sufferings" of each day, to Almighty God, "in union with" the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass throughout the world." This is a kind of "concelebration" inasmuch as the lay Catholic's "sphere of influence" is the whole world: all temporal things.

In the "Chaplet of Divine Mercy," the individual Catholic prays,"Eternal Father, I offer you the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity, of your dearly beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, in atonement for our sins..." This is another level of "concelebration," in that we are uniting ourselves to Christ to offer His Own Body and Blood to the Father, since we are one with Him, members of His Mystical Body.

This is all very Scriptural, since St. Paul says (Romans 12:2): “offer your bodies as a living sacrifice holy and acceptable to God, your spiritual worship.” As the Lord Jesus offered himself totally for our sake, we are called to lay down our lives for Him and for one another.

In fact during the Sunday Eucharist, as the bread and wine are carried up to the altar, we are called to consciously place ourselves and all sacrifices of the past week on the altar with the gifts to be united with Christ’s perfect sacrifice to the Father.

That's what we lay priests consecrate. We are like God's secret agents,in places where ordained ministerial priests may never go --- our homes, our workplaces, our schools, professions, places of amusement, families, police stations, farms, commercial enterprises, and on the road to and from: elevating, purifying, sanctifying, blessing every temporal thing.

I don't think you can call that "not much of anything."

[Bulwyf]

What’s so bad about it?

[Mrs. Don-o]

I don’t know what “1268” is, and I did not refer to a web page. What this meant for somebody else?

[Mrs. Don-o]

I meant “Boogieman,” not “Noogieman.” Sorry for that most unfortunate typo!

[GeronL]

tough noogies...man ... lol