Some Benedictine Monks [still!] recruiting Gay men

[Dignity Discussions] email loop/ www.benedictinecommunity.org | 9/17/03 | [Dignity Discussions] email loop

[Polycarp]

-----Original Message-----
From: BenedictineCommunity
Sent: Tuesday, September 16, 2003 7:38 PM
Subject: [Dignity Discussions] The Call to serve Christ

Dear Brothers in Christ:

Have you ever had the desire to serve Christ and His Church in a religious Community? Have you ever felt that because of your sexual orientation that perhaps this desire was not possible within the Roman Church? I am asking you to reconsider this thought. Our Community of Benedictine Monks are searching for religious vocations throughout many sources and , "DIGNITY" certainly has it place in our hearts to search first for those who would like to discover their call to serve Christ and The Church.

If you are between the ages of 21 and 60 and have always felt the desire to be a religious, to live a life deciated to the Gospel with those who are of like minds and hearts and to truly live out the inner call to serve Jesus, then we ask you to visit our main web page at: www.benedictinecommunity.org

Look at our site, come within the song and pictures it presents to you, listen with your hearts, soul and spirtual desire to be a part of a loving community of monks who have one goal and desire, thats is to live the Gospel Message. We then would like to hear from you. Search your hearts and deepest message of the call of Christ over the years. We then invite you to, COME, FOLLOW JESUS WITH US !

Bro Gerald, OSB
Director of Religious
The Community of St Benedict

-----Original Message-----
From: Community of St. Benedict [mailto:benedictinecommunity@yahoo.com]
Sent: Wednesday, September 17, 2003 1:50 PM
To: dignity-l@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Dignity Discussions] A Heart Felt Message

Dear Members of Dignity:

I have been reading the responses to our Community's invitation to visit our website and to also send a very clear message of welcome ,especially to those who might feel the call of Christ to serve.

Let me first say this is not a message of pretense. Those who have visited our website have found that yes we are perhaps under the banner of Rome, but that does not mean we have to follow the directives handed down to religious communities in their accepting of candidates into religious life. We have a very open door policy to Gay men who have shown an interst in religious life. There are also other communities who also have a very liberal outlook on members who come into community and their sexual orientation.Gay men in particular have many gifts that they bring with them into our religious houses. You all know as well as myself that when God chooses someone to follow in His footsteps He does not ask sexual orientation. What is asked by the Gospel is that we have a firm and true commitment to leave all and pick up our cross and come follow Him.

Twenty five years ago I was a member myself of A Dignity Chapter that was closed by the local bishop who thaught he had a real sense that Dignity was not going to exist. Thanks be to God that the group was strong enough to overcome the challenge of this terrible injustice. I must say for me that was a turnning point in my faith and decided that one day if it became possible , That if I were in a religious community the doors of that community would be opened to be inclusive of a Gay man and his orientation. Heaven has not shut its doors on anyone who has decided to follow Christ. Christ is the simple answer to any doubt in your hearts. Yes, a simple response made even more simple. COME FOLLOW JESUS WITH US!

Thank you all for your time.

Visit us at: ww.benedictinecommunity.org

Brother Gerald, OSB
Director of Vocations
The Community of Saint Benedict

[Romulus]

ping.

[Hermann the Cherusker]

Anyone with an itching to become a Benedictine should go to Still River or La Barroux or Randol or Fontgombault.

[Polycarp]

I did not intend to give the impression that the entire order is pack of poufters. I suspect you know that quite well, but I apologize if you got the impression you note.

It is not a mentality that I comprehend

Then you must not comprehend the necessity of Catholic activism, so eloquently retold recently by JPII. My posts are not about dwelling on the negative but motivating the faithful to DO something positive! The motto of the Catholic Family Association of America, of which I am Vice President, is "Truth Before Unity, Charity in Truth: Translating Catholic Sorrow and Outrage into Catholic Truth."

"The only thing worse than being patronized is being piously patronized." --FReeper Polycarp

[Polycarp]

I just went through the Mount Angel Abbey and Seminary website and saw nothing like what you have posted above. I guess we can be thankful here.

Comments from the investigative reporter that forwarded this to me: "It's for real. It came from a Dignity Yahoo e-mail discussion group. You won't find it on Dignity's or the monks' website. You can get information from the discussion lists that you will never get from these groups' websites or official press releases."

[Polycarp]

The Church Needs Catholic Action, Says John Paul II
Encourages Renewal of Lay Institution

CASTEL GANDOLFO, Italy, SEPT. 15, 2003 (Zenit.org).- Catholic Action must be renewed since it is a charism given by God to help the baptized serve "the cause of the Gospel," says John Paul II.

"The Church cannot do without Catholic Action," the Pope said in a message sent to the extraordinary assembly of Italian Catholic Action, which ended Sunday. The Rome event drew 800 delegates, representing 370,000 members and 200 diocesan associations.

The purpose of the meeting was to update the 1969 statutes of the largest Catholic lay institution in Italy.

"The Church needs you, it needs lay people who find a school of holiness in Catholic Action, in which they learn to live the radical nature of the Gospel" in daily life, the Holy Father explained.

For the Pontiff, Catholic Action is "a place where one grows as disciples of the Lord, in the school of the Word, at the table of the Eucharist."

In this institution, the baptized must find "a gymnasium where they are trained to live in love and forgiveness, in order to learn to defeat evil with good, to knit with patience and tenacity a network of fraternity that embraces everyone, especially the poorest," he added.

The fundamental criterion in writing the new statutes to renew the association, the Pope said, is that "each one of its members rediscover the baptismal promises, choosing with full awareness and willingness Christian holiness as the elevated measure of ordinary Christian life, in the daily conditions of life."

In this way, Catholic Action will form lay people capable of "looking at the world with the look of God," of "applying the Gospel to life," but also of "effectively influencing civil society."

Catholic Action traces its origin to 19th-century Italy, at a time when the Papal States had disappeared and Catholics voluntarily remained outside the political life in Rome.

In time, the "Catholic movement" relinquished its political character and took on a more spiritual character. Thus, the Italian Catholic Youth movement was born in 1868 followed in 1886 by the Association Catholique de la Jeunesse Française, which later gave rise to Catholic Action.

Following the distinctions made by Pius X in the lay apostolate, Pius XI (1922-1939) institutionalized Catholic Action as the highest form of "the laity's participation in the hierarchical apostolate of the Church."

The scheme of Italian Catholic Action later spread throughout the world. Today it operates in parishes but has a centralized national organization, divided into male, female, youth and adult branches.

In his letter, the Holy Father pointed to the example of men and women of Italian Catholic Action whom he himself has beatified, such as, PierGiorgio Frassati, Gianna Berretta-Molla and spouses Luigi and Maria Beltrame-Quattrocchi.
ZE03091502

[Polycarp]

I daresay if a significant fraction of the FR Catholics who seemingly delight in sitting on tacks were to get off their behinds and make a positive effort in improving

I daresay you're being sinfully presumptuous in assuming FReepers sit on tacks and do nothing. "The only thing worse than being patronized is being piously patronized." --FReeper Polycarp

One of the victim's I'm helping was molested by multiple Benedictine priests at the St Vincent's Benedictine Archabbey here in Latrobe PA (where Weakland is now in residence.)

They are some really good, holy, and very orthodox Benedictine priests. Fr. Jacque from EWTN is also from this archabbey, and he does masses for our homeschoolers along with several of the young newly ordained Benedictine priests there.

But there is good and bad in all areas today.

[Romulus]

Neocon can speak for himself -- very well too -- but I suspect one thing that troubled him was the thread title which seems to implicate all Benedictines for the sins of a few. Polycarp, I do not think you'd have thought well of a thread title reading "Catholic Priests still recruiting Gay Men". Well, the title actually used is no less unfair, uncharitable, misleading, and needlessly scandalous.

[Polycarp]

Fair enough, my apologies.

Admin moderator or sidebar moderator: Could you please change the title of this thread to "Some Connecticut Benedictine Monks [still!] recruiting Gay men"

[Polycarp]

In my opinion, this author's points here apply to Free Republic's Catholic Caucus and their activism too:

On This and That....

By Stephen Hand, TCR editor

I was corresponding with a fellow Catholic activist recently who loves our wounded Church, and the exchange reminded me of those who ask why I prefer the Internet to print publications. The answer has always been simple: I know that some writers, being, I think, hopelessly retro, prefer print forums for their articles, even though people end up wrapping fish with most of the essays they read in newspapers and magazines, and forget bylines as quickly as they appear, while the internet can make articles instantly global and last as long as the editor wishes, accessible for a day or "forever".

Activists and writers are not necessarily the same thing.

If the Internet were to suddenly go dead, if Ashcroft or some other Big Brother were to pull the plug, I'd reluctantly begin writing for some paper or magazine. But it would seem a return to the days of far less impact, immediacy, and especially collaboration with so many. For an activist anyway.

We want action. Concert-ed action. Action that can keep on rippling all over the globe. This is why TCR has always sought to help and amplify some of the best writers and thinkers (as opposed to the ones we always agree with, or their publications, which are usually a very mixed "bag," as we used to say) and paid no attention whether they were, say, politically "left" or "right," since truth, like the Church, transcends such categories.

Lousy, limping, writers always prefer to be associated with power. Such writers are egoists. They dream of cruise ships and fame. Activists write to create action. And the internet---though filled with a zillion bloated kooky egos, and "Catholic" blogs, Lord have mercy, which masquerade as thought----is a place to act. It is, instant, immediate, and it keeps on keeping on, even when the sun, having gone down on this side of the world is rising on the other side.

The best Catholic writers are not predictably left or right in the usual sense. They are radicals...like JPII ('radical' comes from the latin radix which means going to the radix or "root" of things). They pluck truth here and yonder as they would pluck flowers strolling through a field... `

[John Beresford Tipton]

"Just be sure to seal the pot with an inverted funel followed by about eight feet of copper tubing. ?;^)"

Do I have to drink it out of a Mason jar also?

[Polycarp]

Admin moderator or sidebar moderator: Could you please change the title of this thread to "Some Connecticut Benedictine Monks [still!] recruiting Gay men"

[Polycarp]

Do I have to drink it out of a Mason jar also?

Couldn't hurt. Just don't let your pinky hang up in the air while you do.

[Tantumergo]

"Gay men in particular have many gifts that they bring with them into our religious houses."

OKayyyyyyyyyyy......maybe Henry VIII did have a point with some of the monasteries!!!

It sounds as though they may even prefer "gay" vocations at this hell-hole. What particularly gay gifts are they looking for? Gifts like herpes, AIDS, incontinence, paedophilic tendencies etc.?

[ThomasMore]

A sad testament is that this is virtually all over the place. My friends son was in seminary down at Mount St. Mary's in Emmitsburg, Maryland. There was enough homosexuality there to choke a horse. He was chastised for talking to one of his friends at the college (who happened to be a girl) while shower games are totlally overlooked.

In my prison ministry, I counseled one young homosexual in his late twenties who was a drop out from this seminary -- in the ACI for ephebophilia. Our seminaries are far from void of the sodomites. This is a very serious issue that the bishops are just not paying enough attention to it nor are they intervening in it. Complacency is the word.

[Polycarp]

I figured out a bit of the deception going on here Re: the so-called Community of St.Benedict, Glastonbury, Ct., and I must apologize to all as it appears we have been deceived.

Looking at their websites, I figured out a bit of the deception going on here. The "Independant" homo "benedictines" are deceiving folks by the fact that there is indeed a real canonically recognized Benedictine Abbey in Glastonbury, Ct. From the real Abbey website, http://www.glastonburyabbey.org/

The Abbey of Our Lady of Glastonbury
Glastonbury Abbey
16 Hull Street
Hingham, Massachusetts 02043
he Abbey of Our Lady of Glastonbury, was founded on September 14, 1954, by the Abbey of Saint Benedict, Benet Lake, Wisconsin. It became an independent priory on August 25, 1962. The monastery was raised to the status of an Abbey on January 8, 1973 by the Holy See.

---

On the other hand, the "Benedictines" writing on the Dignity yahoo email group are not canonically recognized and openly call themselves "Independant." From their website, http://www.benedictinecommunity.org/ :

Br Gerald W. Pelletier, OSB, Superior
The Community of St. Benedict
Glastonbury, Connectict

Independent Benedictine Community
P.O. Box 23
Enfield, CT 06083
Phone: 860-473-5467
The Community of Saint Benedict was founded in 1988. Our goal as a monastic community is not only centered around our work and prayer life, (The Liturgy of The Hours), but the monks also assist in small parishes in our area. The needs of each parish may vary. Among the parish programs we help facilitate in are, CCD and RCIA classes. We are Lectors, and Eucharistic Ministers. Bringing Jesus to elderly care facilities and hospitals. Other charisms: the homeless, street poor, those who feel disenfranchised or marginalized by society.

Being present to those who need both spiritual as well as material goods. This is where Jesus suffers the most. Being able to see the face of Christ in all those, whom we come into contact with or who may knock on our door, is one of the prime rules and vows of a Benedictine Monk. This is called, “Hospitality”. Sharing and giving with others in all their needs as Christ would present himself, “For I was hungry and you gave me food to eat.” Thus following Jesus, calls us to many facets of community life. Retreat programs, prayer groups and to those in particular need of short-term lodging.

---

Notice the Independant" homo "benedictines" might be deceiving folks by claiming to be in Glastonbury, Ct. when in fact their mailing address is Enfield, CT. Maybe this is normal for the local post office designations, but it sounds like they are preying on folks who think they are looking into the real Benedictine Abbey in Glastonbury, Ct.

[Polycarp]

Admin moderator or sidebar moderator: Could you please change the title of this thread to "Some Connecticut Benedictine Monks [still!] recruiting Gay men"

[Canticle_of_Deborah]

It's hard to say. All Benedictine monasteries are independent in a way. The Order is structured differently than others. New monasteries are started as offshoots from mother houses. It could be that the second monastery branched off from the Glastonbury house. Regardless, the second monastery claims to be quite active in parish life and CCD. That's disturbing, particularly if these monks are not maintaining a celibate lifestyle.

[Space Ghost]

Just another reason why i love the Jesuits and St. Ignatius Loyola is my Confirmation Saint

[Desdemona]

Just another reason why i love the Jesuits and St. Ignatius Loyola is my Confirmation Saint

St. Ignatius aside, the Jesuits are a shadow of their former selves. Milquetoast and quite a few that I know are not shall we say manly men.

[ninenot]

Weakland was indeed a Benedictine--started off at Latrobe.

Got to be the Big Benedictine, located in Rome. Had some friends there--Martini, Bugger Bugnini. VERY involved with the Revolution in liturgy.

RUMOR has it that the Benedictines, backchannel, petitioned PaulVI to get Rembert out of his position as Superior General because they couldn't take any more of him--thus, he was assigned to Milwaukee.

RUMOR also has it that there were other circumstances which caused PaulVI to send him to Milwaukee.

I'd sure like to know what PaulVI had against Milwaukee.

When he retired, he asked Latrobe for a room so that he could stay there, out of the limelight; RUMOR has it that Latrobe told him they couldn't find a space for him.

So he's kind of a house-prisoner in his elaborate apartment, custom-built for him at the priests' retirement complex in Milwaukee--build with Archdiocesan money, of course.

He's the Wizard behind the screen--with the petitions about optional celibacy and priests' "unions."

Dolan has a heavy cross to bear.