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Amen bishop!! |
Posted on 10/11/2002 9:32:31 PM PDT by Coleus
Edited on 07/06/2004 6:37:59 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
With a sharply worded rebuke, Newark Archbishop John J. Myers has barred from church property the New Jersey chapter of a national lay reform group that started in Boston following the clergy sexual abuse scandals and now includes members across the country.
(Excerpt) Read more at nj.com ...
My prayerful support for Archbishop Myers.
I'm simply amazed. Someone in the AmChurch hierachy does get it after all.
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Amen bishop!! |
Can anyone provide me with some information about this organization, Voice of the Faithful, and what they do and what their real motives are? Thanks.Avoid them like the plague. From various articles:
Voice of the Faithful and Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation
The only information I had about this "conservative Catholics" group was that a member of VOTF's steering committee was working closely with the homosexual spin group Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD).
On June 15 at the Dallas bishops meeting, homosexual activist Cathy Renna, writing for GLAAD's Web site, said that during a victory get-together, she met with "a number of familiar media faces" and Anne Barrett Doyle of the Coalition of Concerned Catholics, who is a member of the steering committee for the lay reform movement Voice of the Faithful.
According to Renna, "Anne was one of the first people I spoke with back in March when we were cultivating resources and contacts to offer media outlets. ... Seeing Anne at the cathedral brought to mind how far we've come in the past months."
Voice of the Faithful and the Liberal Richard P. McBrien
However, Father Richard P. McBrien, a professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame, put his support for the organization into an article in the Tiding on July 19 called "Listening to the 'Voice of the Faithful.' " As all mainstream and conservative Catholics know, McBrien is one of the most liberal Catholic theologians in the U.S.
McBrien has shown that he is 100 percent opposed to the official teachings of the Catholic Church when it counters the gay and lesbian movement's agenda.
The official Catechism of the Catholic Church states in section 2357 that "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered ... under no circumstances can they be approved."
Also, the Sacred Congregation for Religious in Rome in 1961 stated: "Those affected by the perverse inclination to homosexuality or pederasty should be excluded from religious vows and ordination." Roman Catholic Faithful President Stephen Brady said, "The Church directive has never been rescinded and is still officially in force."
But McBrien, on a April 5 Tiding piece, disagreed with those who hold the official teachings of the Church, calling them "homophobes who look upon gays as disreputable souls held in the grip of the worst sort of moral perversion."
He then went on to attack Pope John Paul II's spokesman Dr. Joaquin Navarro-Valls for wanting to get "rid of gay priests."
The Vatican spokesman said homosexual ordination might be invalid in the same way a marriage can be annulled on the grounds that it was invalid from the start. For example, a woman who marries a homosexual can get her marriage annulled on those grounds.
McBrien, in his anger at Pope John Paul II's spokesman, revealed how widespread the homosexual problem is in the U.S.
He wrote: "A few priests have privately observed that, if this [homosexual ordination annulment] were actually to happen, the Roman Catholic Church might lose two-thirds of its priests under the age of 45 and some bishops as well. At the same time, many of its seminaries could be emptied of all but a handful of students."
On March 21, according to the Miami Herald, Groome said homosexuality is rampant in the nation's seminaries. The Herald quoted the lay theologian as saying, ''A well-balanced gay person can make a fine priest. ''Having been 'inside,' I knew lots of gays and philanderers. I've known hundreds of priests and never known a pedophile. They hide themselves well,'' said Groome.
According to the Boston Diocese Sacred Heart Bulletin, in June Groome gave his lay participation talk on "Doing Theology Ourselves" at St. Eulalia's Parish (Manion Hall) on Ridge Street, Winchester, which is a major chapter of VOTF in the diocese.
The Rev. Victor LaVoie, a Strong Supporter of Voice of the Faithful
The Boston Globe said St. Eulalia parishioners praised pastor Rev. Victor LaVoie as "a strong supporter of the Voice of the Faithful."
One must consider the Rev. LaVoie to be unfaithful to the teachings of the Catholic Church on homosexuality if he has ex-priest (and McBrien clone) Groome – now turned lay spokesman – speaking at his parish.
On July 26, LaVoie became "the17th priest the archdiocese [of Boston] has removed over allegations of sexual abuse since January," according to the Globe.
The parishioners who supported VOTF also support their pastor. The Globe said, "Hundreds of parishioners attended a prayer meeting at St. Eulalia's last night to discuss LaVoie's suspension and to pray for him."
While VOTF has been operating largely on a volunteer basis up to this point, many of those associated with its leadership are involved with other dissenting groups, like Call to Action (www.cta-usa.org), CORPUS, and We Are the Church (www.we-are-church.org). Jan Leary, a member of VOTF's steering committee, serves as the contact for Save Our Sacrament/Annulment Reform, and Andrea Johnson, another steering committee member, is the contact for the Women's Ordination Conference in Virginia.
But this barely scratches the surface. Many of the people invited to speak at VOTF's national convention on July 20 espouse other radical views that are not in line with Church teaching. The following people were all invited to speak at the Boston conference:
** Leonard Swidler, professor of Catholic thought at Temple University. Well-known for his work in the formation of a "global ethic" with dissenting theologian Hans Kung, Swidler is also the founder of the Association for the Rights of Catholics in the Church (www.arcc-catholic-rights.org). As the chair of the association's constitution international drafting committee, he's responsible for drawing up a constitution for a more "democratic" church which includes the proposal for elected leaders; term limits for those leaders; a legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government; and opening up leadership positions to all people, including "women and minorities."
** James Carroll, columnist for the Boston Globe. Carroll, a self-proclaimed Catholic, was ordained a priest in 1969 but left the priesthood in 1974 and married before his laicization, effectively excommunicating himself. His columns in the Globe confirm that he believes in contraception, abortion, and women's ordination. Additionally, he rejects numerous fundamental Church teachings, such as the divinity of Jesus Christ. In a July 16 column, Carroll stated that at the VOTF convention, "deeper questions must be confronted as well -- the role of the laity in church governance, assumptions of sexual morality, the place of women, the pathologies of clericallism, the 'creeping infallibility' that corrupts church teaching."
** Debra Haffner, a member and former president of the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS). SIECUS promotes guidelines for sex education for children grades K-12, guidelines which approve of children ages 5-8 being taught that masturbation and homosexuality are acceptable practices. Not only that, they also urge that 12- to 15-year-olds be taught how to obtain and use contraceptives.
Haffner is also the cofounder of the Religious Institute on Sexual Morality, Justice, and Healing (www.religionproject.org). The institute's "Religious Declaration on Sexual Morality, Justice, and Healing" calls for "theological reflection that integrates the wisdom of excluded, often silenced peoples, and insights about sexuality from medicine, social science, the arts and humanities; full inclusion of women and sexual minorities in congregational life, including their ordination and the blessing of same sex unions...[and] support for those who challenge sexual oppression and who work for justice within their congregations and denomination." Haffner has also been quoted as saying, "No matter what gender orientation you have -- bisexual, transgender -- no matter what sex you are, no matter what age you are, no matter what marital status you are, no matter what sexual orientation you are, you have a right to sex."
** Tom Groome, professor of theology at Boston College. Groome gave an interview to BBC 4 World Forum on the sex-abuse scandal in which he commented on the Church: "Catholic Christians are...distinguishing between their faith in the tradition and their faith in the institution.... The Church is terribly important to us, but we won't exaggerate the importance, as it were, of the institution." On priestly celibacy and women's ordination: "I think that [priestly celibacy] has to be revisited, likewise the exclusion of women from ministry has to be rethought. But that's not a liberal position...." On ecclesial hierarchy: "I would love to see an overhaul in how our bishops are chosen because right now they're chosen by a kind of subterfuge -- a kind of backroom politics." And finally, on the pope: "I do think that the problem of an enfeebled pope becomes fairly trransparent, especially when the Church faces such a tragedy in a crisis time as we are in at the moment."
** Michele Dillon, professor of sociology at the University of New Hampshire. Dillon has published several books, including Debating Divorce: Moral Conflict in Ireland; Gay and Lesbian Catholics; and Catholic Identity: Balancing Reason, Faith, and Power, a work focusing on why "pro-change" Catholics (such as those who support abortion, women's ordination, and homosexuality) remain in the Church. If you claim VOTF’s liberal stripes aren’t already more than clear, you are either sticking your head in the sand intentionally, or you are being disingenuous.
patent +AMDG
I'm not sure how a Bishop would formally punish Catholics who attend such a meeting.
I doubt he would though, he's counting too much on the 1.8 million dollars to build his new suites in the convent he kicked the old nuns out of.
How the heathen did rage!
On the other question of opulent digs for your bishop: Leaving aside entirely the question of whether it would be appropriate for him to pressure the nuns out of their convent to make way for him, I rather admired the approach of the late Archbishop John Whealon of Hartford, Connecticut, who, upon arrival in Hartford in the late 1960s or early 1970s, announced that he had no intention of occupying the lavish Archbishop's residence in Hartford (near but far superior to the governor's mansion). He sold it to the LaSalette Order as a residence for its priests and seminarians and moved into two modest rooms at a nursing home for nuns where he said that he would have the opportunity to live modestly and the additional opportunity to function as chaplain for the sisters, saying their masses, hearing their confessions and demonstrating how much their efforts were appreciated. He also limited himself to two clerical suits (one new for formal occasions, one threadbare for everyday use) and was a terrific and saintly archdiocesan ordinary. He is missed.
If Bishop Murphy would adopt the same modesty as a way of life, the need for $1,8 million would not exist for such purposes. He won't be able to take the residence with him when he goes but he will take his track record. Fortunately for him, part of that track record will be his leadership in banning the VOTF heretics from Catholic facilities. If any doubt that they are heretics, what is James Carroll, radical ex-priest and pro-abort columnist in the Boston Globe doing as a leader?
This new fancy Bishop they sent us however, is doing nothing to ingratiate himself to the people of this Diocese.
Too bad his Holiness did not think this Diocese deserved someone like Archbishop Whealen.
BTTT!
The bishop’s name was Leo T. Maher. I lived in San Diego at the time and was very active in the right-to-life movement. Bishop Maher had the courage to stand up to the NOW crowd then and later denied Communion to a pro-abort state senator. Not one of his fellow bishops publicly supported him.
In the first instance, we got up a petition backing him. We collected some 40,000 signatures in a few days. If we had more Mahers then, perhaps abortion would be illegal now.
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