Posted on 01/04/2005 2:34:33 PM PST by churchillbuff
ROMAN CATHOLIC DIOCESE OF SCRANTON TO RECEIVE FIRST ECUSA PRIEST
By David W. Virtue
SCRANTON, PA (1/4/2005)--For the first time in the 137-year history of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Scranton, Bishop Joseph F. Martino will receive a married former Scranton Episcopal priest and father into the priesthood from the Episcopal Diocese of Bethlehem.
The Rev. Eric Bergman, an Anglo-Catholic priest at Good Shepherd Episcopal Church in Scranton's Green Ridge section in the liberal ECUSA diocese, renounced his orders effective December 31st and left the Episcopal Church over the church's acceptance of homosexuality and the consecration of an avowed homoerotic bishop to the episcopacy in the person of V. Gene Robinson.
In a phone call to VirtueOnline Fr. Bergman, 34, and the father of three children said, "I think that the ordination of Robinson is the logical conclusion of the contraceptive mentality. When Lambeth approved contraception for married couples in 1930 they set the stage for the Robinson consecration in 2003. You remove the marital act from its purpose and we bless sterile intercourse. It is not a big jump to bless then sterile homosexual intercourse."
Some 60 parishioners at Good Shepherd will follow the priest and become Roman Catholics. About 275 will remain in the Episcopal parish. The group leaving the Episcopal parish also includes a small group from St. Stephen's parish in Whitehall, the former parish of Fr. William Ilgenfritz, who recently left that parish for a parish in the Diocese of Pittsburgh.
In an open letter to the congregation Fr. Bergman wrote, "The events that have unfolded within the Episcopal Church USA and across the worldwide Anglican Communion can certainly be understood to be a catalyst that precipitated action on my part. That is, the election of an unmarried and unchaste man to the office of bishop demands a response from the faithful, particularly when the institutional response on the part of the Anglican Communion to this innovation has been so feeble. Nevertheless, I now view the incidents of General Convention 2003 as the logical outcome of a flawed orientation that betrays the Anglican Communion’s ability to proclaim the Good News, especially that truth that life comes to us through sacrifice. It is this orientation, ensconced in the teachings of the Anglican Communion for the past 74 years that finally led me to renounce my orders."
Episcopal Bishop Paul Marshall knew I was going to Rome and asked me to write this letter to the congregation on why I was leaving and renouncing my orders, Bergman told VirtueOnline.
Fr. Bergman, a Bethlehem native, will be received into the Roman Catholic Church through a process known as the "Pastoral Provision Decision," and will result in the conversion, priestly formation and potential ordination of Mr. Eric Bergman, a former priest of the Episcopal Diocese of Bethlehem, as a member of the clergy of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Scranton, said a press statement from the Roman Catholic diocese. Bergman and his wife, Kristina, are the parents of three children, Clara, Eric and Julia, all of whom who will become Catholic.
The Pastoral Provision Decision, rendered in 1980 by the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, came in response to a request from the North American Province of the Society of the Holy Cross, a secular institute of Anglican priests, whose married members wished to offer themselves for priestly ministry in the Roman Catholic Church, as well as lay Episcopalians who wished to enter the Catholic Church with a common spiritual and liturgical identity.
In its acceptance of former married Episcopalian clergy as clergy of the Roman Catholic Church, the Pastoral Provision Decision grants a special exception to the Roman Catholic Church's rule of mandatory priestly celibacy. However, the Decision stressed that this particular exclusion "should not be understood as implying any change in the Church's conviction of the value of priestly celibacy, which will remain the rule for future candidates for the priesthood from this group."
"I warmly welcome Mr. Bergman, his family and members of his former lay community on their new faith journey to become Roman Catholic," said Bishop Martino. "We assure them all of our prayers and complete cooperation as they take the initial steps toward full communion with the Roman Catholic Church in the Diocese of Scranton," the bishop stated.
Bishop Martino said that the Diocese of Scranton and Mr. Bergman have taken initial steps to begin the conversion/ordination process established through the Pastoral Provision Decision. The steps include preparation and submission of a dossier, or report, containing required documents which will accompany Mr. Bergman's petition to the Holy See for priesthood and incardination, or service to the Diocese of Scranton.
Fr. Bergman told VirtueOnline that his new congregation will use the Book of Divine Worship published in 2003 in which elements of the Book of Common Prayer are revised and adapted according to the Roman Rite for use by Roman Catholics coming from the Anglican tradition.
On January 2, Bishop Martino announced that Mr. Bergman will become Executive Director of the newly-formed St. Thomas More Society of St. Clare's Church in the Green Ridge section of Scranton. Members of the St. Thomas More Society of St. Clare's Church will provide for the temporal needs of Mr. Bergman and study with him in preparation to enter the Catholic Church. Mr. Bergman said that membership in the St. Thomas More Society is open to all former Anglicans or Episcopalians.
To date, the Holy See has permitted the ordination of a number of former Anglican or Episcopal priests who have become Catholic in the U.S., Canada and Great Britain.
Episcopal Bishop Paul Marshall was in Africa and could not be reached for comment.
Hmmm. . .well we know that Peter was married, because scripture speaks of his mother in law. Are you saying that at some point, Peter stopped fulfilling his husbandly duties? That would be against scripture as well.
No, because that has been a constant tradition in those rites.
But those advocating the overthrow of a tradition that has served the Latin Rite well for centuries often are. Many of the proponents of this change also agitate for changing Church doctrine on contraception and the ordination of women, see nothing terribly wrong in sexual sins such as fornication and sodomy (as opposed to the made up sin of "sexism"), and are offended by celibacy precisely because it suggests that sex is not the summum bonum of human existence.
Celibacy is also trotted out to as an explanation for declining vocations. However, as I pointed out yesterday, the reason for declining vocations is liberalism, not celibacy.
Do you understand the difference between a moral teaching and Church discipline? I contest none of those moral teachings.
Within the last 30 years, the Church has made EXCEPTIONS to celibacy for the Anglican Dispensation and the Permanent Diaconate. You may not know this, but the Church has accepted back into the priesthood men who left to marry, then later divorced. Since they did not receive laicization, they could just skate right back into the ministry. However, Catholic men who left, sought laicization, married, and whose wives die, are refused re-entry because they sought laicization. IOW, men who violated the promise of celibacy are re-admitted, while men who did not violate celibacy, and sought relief through proper Church procedures, are not. This is rather strange, don't you think?
The Latin Rite of the Catholic Church is struggling to maintain a practice that limits candidates to men who will declare that they will never marry. That leaves out an entire group of married men who would make good priests, (as the Anglican converts do), but are stopped by a discipline that is not essential to the priesthood in any way.
I think you're sorely mistaken if you believe we would not have more Catholic men applying for the priesthood if we admitted married men. I don't know if the numbers would be huge, but they would be larger than we have today.
Thanks for the quote. I don't mean to start an argument, we are both entrenched in our positions and probably will never agree. My understanding of celibacy has more to do with the role and function of a priest--something I already disagree about. It's about Christ anyway--that I'm sure we agree about.
I understand the difference and am glad that you do not contest any of the Church's moral teachings. The same cannot be said, however, for many of the others calling for an end to priestly celibacy.
>>>>>>> IOW, men who violated the promise of celibacy are re-admitted, while men who did not violate celibacy, and sought relief through proper Church procedures, are not. This is rather strange, don't you think?<<<<<<
Yes, I think that is strange.
>>>>>>>The Latin Rite of the Catholic Church is struggling to maintain a practice that limits candidates to men who will declare that they will never marry<<<<<<<
There is no doubt that the condition of the priesthood and the seminaries in America is not optimal. I suspect we agree on that. The solution, though, is not to abandon a tradition that has worked well for centuries, but to address the root cause of the problem: liberalism.
Men will embrace celibacy for a cause larger than themselves, such as the fighting faith the Church embodied for centuries and still embodies in many places today. They will not embrace it for a tepid faith that is largely indistinguishable from that professed by the dying mainstream Protestant churches.
Your implication seems to be that American Catholic men are selfish, and that the "liberal" way is to settle for marriage rather than commit to celibacy and the priesthood. The permanent diaconate disproves that contention; there are plenty of men who would serve the Church if given the chance.
There are myriad reasons why men do not consider the priesthood. Among them is a general decline in the prestige of the religious vocation and its stature in society, putting off making lifetime decisions (Catholics are, in keeping with the general trends in society, marrying later as well), and a view that the priesthood is a haven for homosexuals (I've heard this objection a couple of times from young men in my parish). I'm continually told that the FSSP seminary is busting at the seams. However, the FSSP administers less than 1% of parishes in the United States and limits itself to the Tridentine sacramental rites, so the FSSP is not going to be much help in the rest of the Church.
Perhaps, initially, the Church limits the married men who might enter the priesthood to men over 40 or 50, men who may not have as many family obligations. Or, these men could serve "part time" (as some retired priests do today) and serve some of the outlying parishes in danger of closing.
At the very least, all of this should be discussed. Right now, the Church hierarchy seems to be afraid that, if the issue of mandatory celibacy is even broached, the rationale for it might fall apart.
Why isn't a serious discussion encouraged between clergy and young men to try to find out why they are not interested in the priesthood? I don't get the impression that most priests or bishops today much care about encouraging men to consider the priesthood, or why men have no interest in following them.
If IBM had trouble attracting candidates for employment, you can bet your life that the top priority of IBM executives would be to find out why nobody wanted to work for them, and how to resolve the problem.
But, the Catholic Church thinks corny stuff like sending clay chalices home with families whose kids are all grown and in other professions, who are then told to pray for more priests and deacons, will work.
It works for deacons: we have five men in our parish in line to join the next training class. But we have only one man in the seminary.
Why is the diaconate ordaining 750 men per year in the US, but only 400 priests are ordained?
The Church hierarchy has no answer to these questions, and they should.
Yes, you are exactly right, this is a serious problem. It is almost as if many bishops and priests have an institutional death wish. (Which isn't surprising, if they are liberals: as James Burnham pointed out, liberalism is the ideology of Western suicide)
>>>>>>>>Why is the diaconate ordaining 750 men per year in the US, but only 400 priests are ordained? The Church hierarchy has no answer to these questions, and they should.<<<<<<<<<<<
Agreed, again. I will reiterate the example I gave yesterday, of an approach that works. My sister's pastor is an energetic, charismatic young priest from Eastern Europe, who doesn't allow altar girls, strongly encourages every boy in the parish to be an altar boy precisely so that they may be exposed to the priesthood, and then provides the boys with an inspiring role model. The result: six young men from the parish are now in the diocesan seminary, whereas many vastly larger and more affluent suburban parishes never produce a vocation.
You're right about priests needing to take a personal interest in young men who might be attracted to the priesthood. Ask and challenge a man to think about it, as a vocation! I know I originally entered a seminary way back in 1969 because a monsignor had taken an interest in me and encouraged me to consider the priesthood.
bump
Yes, far, far too little of this goes on these days. In the waning days of JP II's pontificate, we seem to be finally getting some decent bishops in the US. I hope they will be able to turn this situation around, at least in their dioceses.
It was probably a nervous laugh. It's not the first time I've quoted him and heard that kind of reply. The laughing is always hollow. Mozart laughed at Muzio Clementi prior to a musical competitioin between them, it did him no good and Mozart got his tail kicked in. You could learn a lot from Malachi Martin, about life and particularly about the Catholic faith. From your posts, you've indicated that you are sadly lacking in understanding what the Catholic Faith actually means.
The man was relieved of his vows as a Jesuit so he could become a professional gadfly and write doom-and-gloom fictions about the Church. He passed himself off as a Vatican insider who related stories about satanic rituals in the Vatican and peddled all kinds of conspiracies (among them that JPI was murdered).
The man asked, and was granted to be relieved of his vows to the Jesuits because the liberal disaster in the post conciliar era was about to blow up. He was a Vatican Insider, that is indisputable. It's clear that you know nothing about Fr. Martin except the lies and exaggerations that you've been told to believe by weak minded stooges like Keating. (who in my opinion is a charlatan, a lousy apologist and a dishonest businessman) I have first editions of his books from the early 70's he made plenty of predictions in them. He was correct then, He was correct in the 80's and he was correct in the 90's. He was the only person in the entire world who in print predicted the election of John Paul I. Only a German newspaper printed it. The Americans didn't want to take a chance on writing about an unknown like Luciani.
When asked if he thought JPI was assassinated he said it was reasonable to suppose it, but it was useless to try and prove it because of the attitude in Rome about such issues. Considering how many assassinations and attempts were made in the 5 year span before and after JPI it is quite reasonable.
Nobody is disputing the value of celibacy for those who are called to it and embrace it. The issue is whether the Church should continue to impose mandatory celibacy on every Catholic man who presents himself for the priesthood.
You're disputing the value of celibacy for the preisthood. Here's another example where Man is the big cheese and God is left with the scraps from the table. God CALLS men to the priesthood. They don't present themselves, "I want to be a priest, but I want sex, I want to smoke pot, and I want to believe and preach what I want to believe and preach." That's called Protestantism.
My own view is that, were it put to a vote among the world's bishops, the discipline would be changed.
I'm sure if we put the truth of 2+2=4 to a vote among the world's bishops, the answer would be changed. Here's a bit of information the world's bishops are in general, intellectually confused, theologically ignorant, morally bankrupt, politically naive and have reduced the Church organization to something that reeks of evil, stupidity and ignores God and worships Man instead.
Another point to make; The Eastern priests being married is an abuse that has been tolerated by the Holy See for much too long. There is a reason that they are rather ghettoed rites in the Church. Their priests are handicapped by marriages from utilizing the full effects of the marriage of the priest to the Church.
That is clearly the dumbest thing you've ever written, and the competition is fierce. You guys insist on tradition, except when it's a tradition you don't like.
Malachi Martin got nuttier and nuttier as he got older, to the point where he was making appearances on Art Bell's conspiracy radio show. Radio hosts doing shows when most people are awake refused to have him on.
God CALLS men to the priesthood. They don't present themselves, "
But it is the Church that determines who God is calling. The Church decided that God was calling married men to the diaconate. The Church determined that God was calling married Episcopalian and Lutheran ministers who convert to the priesthood.
Since the Church determines who God is calling, the Church can also determine that God is calling married Catholic men to the priesthood.
Where do you get such strange, slanderous ideas about Protestantism?
Do you guys smoke pot? Catholics just drink, all kinds of stuff. And we have sex with our clothes on.
True, but that is obfuscation of the real issue. Priestly celibacy, whatever its pros and cons, was a decision made by the church at a certain time, and (the church admits), they could do away with it any time without breaking Divine law. There's no inherent theological barrier to married priests.
However, the doctrines of all-male church leadership, the hostility toward homosexuality, fornication and divorce, etc, are biblically based, God-ordained doctrines that no church has the authority to revoke, ever. It's false to connect married priests with these other issues. Especially when the Catholic church recognizes the validity of certain married priests (eg, converts from Anglicanism, some Eastern rite priests, etc).
I never touched drugs, I drink in moderation, and I have marital relations naked (usually). Since you asked.
The Western priests being sodomites is an abuse that has been tolerated by the Holy See for much too long. And sodomy is a non-negotiable, eternal wrong -- whereas (the Holy See admits), it's not impossible for a married man to hold a valid priesthood (eg, the Anglican converts.)
Pick your battles. Get rid of the queers even if you have to sacrifice priestly celibacy to do it.
And take down that damned medal in the Vatican celebrating the murder of the Huguenots, while you're at it.
The Church can remove the discipline of mandatory celibacy for priests in the Latin Rite, but there is absolutely no reason to do so. That discipline has served the Church well for centuries, and there is no reason it cannot serve it well for centuries to come.
Oh this is rich, you are using Karl Keating as some sort of Imprimatur for your slander, when I'm sure you probably agree with little else Karl Keating says. But you are hoping that other Catholics reading this will say to themselves, "Oh Karl Keating says so therefore it must be true."
I looked at that web page, it appears Karl Keating is using a secondary source to slander Fr. Martin as well as adding his own insults by blaming Fr. Martin for Protestants who speak badly of the Church.
The slander has been retracted, by the former Vicar General of the Jesuits Father Vincent O'Keefe, S.J.
..."William H. Kennedy's announcement of a release from Fr. Tom Widmer, S.J. at U.S. Jesuit Headquarters in Washington, D.C. announcing that former Vicar General of the Jesuits Father Vincent O'Keefe, S.J. has finally admitted that Fr. Malachi Brendan Martin was indeed granted a full and legal dispensation from his Jesuit vows except for chastity and given a perpetual celebret to celebrate the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass in private. Nearly five years after his death, his reputation, so maligned by vicious rumors, innuendos and slander, has been restored.
So after two posts of spreading slander against a deceased priest, perhaps now you may actually respond to what he was quoted to say about the celibate priesthood in post #174.
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