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The Problem of Catholic Pretenders
Crisis Magazine ^ | June 23, 2017 | K. E. COLOMBINI

Posted on 06/23/2017 6:21:23 PM PDT by NYer

Catholics always have been taught that the word “catholic” means “universal,” and arguably one of the hallmarks of the Catholic faith is that it recognizes no borders; while there are many rites, of which the Latin is the predominant one, there is one truth, one set of dogma.

As I consider this from St. Louis, Missouri, where my family and I have lived since 2000, I realize something must be askew with Catholic pretenders who crave independence over universality.

Several years ago, to greatly simplify a convoluted local history, a St. Louis parish operated for the benefit of the local Polish community split off from the archdiocese. Its parishioners, or, rather, a majority of its board of directors, decided that its church property was more important than Catholic unity. After years of wrangling, a settlement with the archdiocese ended the matter finally, with the breakaway Catholics, led by a defrocked and excommunicated priest, retaining control of their buildings.

St. Stanislaus Kostka was, and remains, a pretty church. It’s not grandly and gloriously beautiful like our cathedral, or the oratory at St. Francis de Sales. Rather, it’s what I’d call working-class beautiful, and far better than many of the suburban parishes built west of the city in the 1970s. St. Louis once earned the nickname “Rome of the West” because of the beauty of many of its older churches, an outward symbol of the faith and loyalty of the Catholics who built them.

While the battle over St. Stan’s was originally a property dispute, it evolved into something else. For with this property dispute, a virus was planted in the parish that led the parishioners away from Catholicism. St. Stan’s has become one of those churches that are merely posing to be Catholic, while embracing the wrong side of so many battles the Church is facing, especially those around sex and gender. It’s what one would call, in the euphemism of the day, a welcoming parish, welcoming visiting dissident celebrities and women priests and feeling more than welcome to join the city’s annual gay pride parade.

Oddly, however, despite its size and its stature in the progressive community, St. Stan’s isn’t alone. There’s St. Catherine of Siena, also located in St. Louis, where services are held in a former Lutheran church. It considers itself an “Independent Catholic Church,” but also considers itself part of the “Synodal” Catholic Church.

Not too far north of St. Catherine, on the other side of Forest Park in the city’s Central West End, and also not too far from our cathedral, lies the St. Therese of Divine Peace “Inclusive RC Community.” It has no qualms about claiming to be Roman Catholic; its pastor is a woman affiliated with Roman Catholic Womenpriests. Its offices and chapel space are courtesy the local First Unitarian Church.

Another “Catholic” church, Sts. Clare and Francis, operates in neighboring Webster Groves as part of what’s called the Ecumenical Catholic Communion. Its offices are at Eden Theological Seminary, affiliated with the United Church of Christ. The pastor is a former Catholic priest who left the church in 1990 because he couldn’t accept celibacy, and is now married to another man.

A little further west, in the city of Creve Coeur, Sts. Peter and Paul is part, not of the Ecumenical Catholic Communion, but the “Ecumenical Catholic Church+USA.” It holds its services at an Episcopal parish church, St. Timothy’s. The pastor is both a bishop in the church, and gainfully employed in local law enforcement.

Across the Missouri River further to the west, in St. Charles County, one comes across Christ the King Ministries and Mission Catholic Church, a storefront church which calls itself part of the schismatic “Brazilian Rite” of the Catholic Church.

In a metropolitan area with such a strong Catholic presence, these churches are relatively insignificant outliers. They also are common to other cities. What is remarkable about them, and why should we be at least a little concerned about them?

Consider what they have in common. They all claim Catholic roots, and those who run them are quick to tout ordination under apostolic succession and some sort of tie to the obscure Old Catholic breakaway after Vatican I. They diverge from their Catholic roots on radically similar lines, dealing primarily with the usual sex-and-gender issues, promoting open communion for the divorced and remarries and those living gay lives. They accept female priests, and married priests. Two of the churches, at least, do not use the new translation of the Mass, but the one that preceded it.

When it comes to the sacraments, one of the challenges is that they can pose as being traditionally Catholic, such as in promoting wedding services. Hence, one of the priests operates a business and website, where he acknowledges that “many Catholics—and others—are searching for an inviting, sacramental wedding experience with the richness of the Catholic tradition yet different from that offered by the Roman Catholic Church.”

Reading this website, one comes away with the idea that “the richness of Catholic tradition” that is different from one in a Catholic church means a wedding in a park or on a beach, between two people who probably should not be marrying each other. At the same time the priest promises the richness of Catholic tradition, he throws it out the window: “Whatever your background, we will make sure that your wedding reflects and honors your beliefs.”

Such churches and services can only confuse those who don’t know enough to know better. For a long time, our local newspaper, the Post-Dispatch, ran church advertisements in its paltry Religion section on Saturdays. Under the Catholic category, one would find one or two Catholic churches, but also Sts. Peter and Paul mentioned above, with no differentiation. Likewise, people searching online for Catholic wedding services can easily be confused. Unfortunately, there is little the archdiocese can do about it, since these churches don’t respect canon law.

There are, however, two things the local church should do. First, ensure that Catholic adults have a clear understanding of Catholic teaching around these issues. Address them in an open and positive way—because our message is a fundamentally positive one. Second, call out the pretenders by name. Make clear to Catholics that these churches and services are not Catholic, despite what they advertise, and that they are to be avoided. If there are any ways in particular that these phony Catholic websites are misrepresenting themselves and skirting the truth and painting themselves as something they are not, make that known.

Catholics have an obligation to the truth, and spiritual works of mercy include instructing the ignorant and admonishing the sinful. Both of these may be called for in this situation, and mainstream Catholics, lukewarm as we can be sometimes, deserve to know the truth and need to hear it.



TOPICS: Apologetics; Catholic; Moral Issues; Worship
KEYWORDS: cino; homosexualagenda; religiousleft
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To: NYer
“Pretend”

SMH.

The “leadership” of the LCMS is busy celebrating the reformation by adorning themselves with crucifixes so big they could probably anchor the Titanic - whilst crowing “We’re more Catholic than Catholic”.

Lutheran lay-sheeple don’t dare mention the fact that Luther was an anti-Semitic drunk whose thoughts were so inspirational that men like Julius Streicher testified that Marty would've been right up there with them in the defendant box at Nuremberg, if he were still alive.

Meanwhile, the "beautiful" central banking model of Paraguay's communist farms is observable in all its glory - among the bankster commie-cronies of Colorado's Governor Chickenlooper....

"I do not like the reappearance of the Jesuits....
Shall we not have regular swarms of them here, in as many disguises as only a king
of the gipsies can assume, dressed as printers, publishers, writers and schoolmasters?
If ever there was a body of men who merited damnation on earth and in Hell,
it is this society of Loyola’s.
Nevertheless, we are compelled by our system of religious toleration
to offer them an asylum."

--John Adams to Thomas Jefferson; May, 1816

Adams and Jefferson would probably agree it's hard to keep up with who’s pretending what these days. 

21 posted on 06/24/2017 9:46:52 AM PDT by HLPhat (It takes a Republic TO SECURE THESE RIGHTS - not a populist Tyranny of the Majority)
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To: aMorePerfectUnion

Not at all. The Roman Catholic Church is a specific group with very specific rules which, if you defy, you out yourself. Protestant, on the other hand, is an utterly generic term. Anybody can make a Protestant group because the only requirement is to not be Catholic or Orthodox.


22 posted on 06/24/2017 10:02:56 AM PDT by Wyrd bið ful aræd (Flag burners can go screw -- I'm mighty PROUD of that ragged old flag)
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To: Wyrd bið ful aræd; daniel1212

“The Roman Catholic Church is a specific group with very specific rules which, if you defy, you out yourself. “

So you are saying the entirety of the Catholic Church - all members - have been cast into the outer darkness and are no longer Roman Catholics??

I find that difficult to believe.

If they remain Catholics and meet as a group, then it is a as daniel1212 has posted on numerous occasions.


23 posted on 06/24/2017 10:12:08 AM PDT by aMorePerfectUnion
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To: HLPhat
Lutheran lay-sheeple don’t dare mention the fact that Luther was an anti-Semitic drunk whose thoughts were so inspirational that men like Julius Streicher testified that Marty would've been right up there with them in the defendant box at Nuremberg, if he were still alive.

Excellent, Catholic and Nazi BS in the same post.

24 posted on 06/24/2017 11:23:34 AM PDT by xone
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To: xone

>>Excellent, Catholic and Nazi BS in the same post.

“We’re more Catholic than Catholic”

Things have sure changed since I first attended LCMS schools circa 1972.

In many congregations the LCMS doesn’t ~have~ schools anymore. The focus on Teaching Vs Indoctrination is pretty much gone.

And everybody scratches their heads why the kids in their culture can’t figure out what sex they are...

Gee Wally, how’d that happen!


25 posted on 06/24/2017 11:50:34 AM PDT by HLPhat (It takes a Republic TO SECURE THESE RIGHTS - not a populist Tyranny of the Majority)
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To: aMorePerfectUnion

“Apparently they can and do refer to themselves as catholic.”

Did you miss the word “licitly,” or decide to ignore it? They can call themselves space aliens, but that doesn’t make it so.

“It’s just a new catholic denomination.”

In the same way that Satanism is a new protestant denomination.


26 posted on 06/24/2017 12:06:32 PM PDT by dsc
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To: aMorePerfectUnion

“Except they are Catholics forever, according to FRomans. So they can call themselves Catholics.”

The issue is not whether these heretics are Catholics, as individual people. The issue is whether they are a Roman Catholic church.

There are requirements for forming and operating a Roman Catholic Church. These clowns don’t even begin to meet these requirements, by several country miles.

You should make an effort to argue honestly.


27 posted on 06/24/2017 12:11:58 PM PDT by dsc
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To: xone
Once upon a time the LCMS had a tremendous resource in its network of schools.

Those schools were still flourishing back in 1987 - the year this text was introduced in the Animal Behavior course taught at its College in Seward, NE:

 

Unfortunately that material was met with a knee-jerk rejection by the fallible and uninspired, but tenured and entrenched, edumacators who had assumed dominion in the LCMS' corporate hierarchy.   So, YED doctrine continued to be the standard taught there, and in the schools - where parents (who were increasingly aware of simple facts such as the time it takes light to travel, from a celestial body 13.5 billion miles away, to our eyes on here on Earth) - evidently decided what LCMS schools had to offer was not worth the cost.

I've often wondered if the wave of Transhumanist/Postgenderist LGBT doctrine that has washed over American culture might have been attenuated if simple facts regarding Natural Selection for Binary Sexual reproduction had been at least taught as a model in LCMS' schools.

Too bad for Amerika - but hey - at least the Owl population of Nebraska was well studied from 1988 on -- Hoot Hoot!

28 posted on 06/24/2017 12:22:33 PM PDT by HLPhat (It takes a Republic TO SECURE THESE RIGHTS - not a populist Tyranny of the Majority)
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To: HLPhat
“We’re more Catholic than Catholic”

Got a link for that? Or just some more rambling like #28?

29 posted on 06/24/2017 1:04:53 PM PDT by xone
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To: dsc

“There are requirements for forming and operating a Roman Catholic Church.

Not in Scripture.


30 posted on 06/24/2017 1:15:49 PM PDT by aMorePerfectUnion
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To: xone
>>Got a link for that?

It was on their Facebook page last September-October.

>>Or just some more rambling like #28?

Where were you “rambling” in 1987?

I know where I was, along with other students in from the Concordia Seward Science Dept:

http://collections.si.edu/search/results.htm?q=record_ID:siris_sil_384298

 

Odd how Luther's "Jews and their lies" was never mentioned in the curriculum from Elementary through University. 

What does this mean?


31 posted on 06/24/2017 1:17:00 PM PDT by HLPhat (It takes a Republic TO SECURE THESE RIGHTS - not a populist Tyranny of the Majority)
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To: dsc
"Did you miss the word “licitly,” or decide to ignore it? They can call themselves space aliens, but that doesn’t make it so." Point to the Scripture passage that uses the word "church" - or tells who can be a church. “It’s just a new catholic denomination.” Right on. More rites/denominations. This is very historic, given how far back in history gayness goes back - thousands of years. A huge percentage of members of your sanctioned churches believe the same things.
32 posted on 06/24/2017 1:18:04 PM PDT by aMorePerfectUnion
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To: dsc; Religion Moderator
You should make an effort to argue honestly.

You should follow the Religion Forum rules.

33 posted on 06/24/2017 1:19:20 PM PDT by aMorePerfectUnion
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To: aMorePerfectUnion

And what rule do you imagine I have violated?


34 posted on 06/24/2017 1:34:04 PM PDT by dsc
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To: dsc; Religion Moderator
Glad to help.

First, here are the guidelines for the Religion Forum, as found on Religion Moderator's home page:

http://www.freerepublic.com/~religionmoderator/

Here are some relevant sections to consider from your earlier post:

"The main guideline to posting on the Religion Forum: ”Discuss the issues all you want, but do not make it personal.”

"Whereas posters may argue vigorously for and against beliefs on “open” Religion Forum threads it is never tolerable to use ad hominems in religious debate because they invariably lead to flame wars when the subject is one’s deeply held religious beliefs.

For something to be "making it personal" it must be speaking to another Freeper, personally.

Forms of "making it personal" include mind reading, attributing motive, accusing another Freeper of telling a lie (because it attributes motive, the intent to deceive) - making the thread "about" individual Freeper(s), following a Freeper from thread to thread and badgering a Freeper over-and-again with the same question.

The words "prevarication" "dishonesty" "slander" "deceit" "calumny" and "subterfuge" are synonymous with "lie" because they entail intent.

Words such as "false" "error" "wrong" "inaccurate" "misstatement" do not attribute motive and are not "making it personal."


35 posted on 06/24/2017 1:39:00 PM PDT by aMorePerfectUnion
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To: aMorePerfectUnion

It appears that you interpret that to mean that you are free to be as dishonest and malicious as you wish, and no one can ever comment on it.


36 posted on 06/24/2017 1:43:47 PM PDT by dsc
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To: dsc; Religion Moderator

Sure.

I’ll leave it to you two to sort out.


37 posted on 06/24/2017 1:51:04 PM PDT by aMorePerfectUnion
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To: HLPhat
Odd how Luther's "Jews and their lies" was never mentioned in the curriculum from Elementary through University. What does this mean?

That un-Christian rants have no place in school? That Luther was a man like all and was a sinner? The Lutheran Confessions included none of these either. Why? Because they have no place in the practice of Confessional Lutherans.

It was on their Facebook page last September-October.

Well that's definitive. CTCR weigh in on the issue? Thought not.

Where were you “rambling” in 1987?

USMC.

38 posted on 06/24/2017 2:12:40 PM PDT by xone
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To: xone
>>Well that’s definitive.

It’s a boast they made more than once.

>>That Luther was a man like all and was a sinner?

Which of course is why Luther's likeness is used to “celebrate” the Reformation’s Anniversary instead of something more appropriate - like imagery representing the good news of the risen Christ.

Not surprising, given the leadership's apparent fixation on crucifixes.... with Christ still hanging there defeated.

They having a contest out there in Saint Louis to see who can wear a bigger boat anchor?

>>CTCR weigh in on the issue?

Have they weighed in on the differences between the version of The Jews And Their Lies published by CPH and earlier translations?

>>Thought not.

Yeah - Stupid priesthood of all believers.  Who needs that anyhow.

 


39 posted on 06/24/2017 2:27:46 PM PDT by HLPhat (It takes a Republic TO SECURE THESE RIGHTS - not a populist Tyranny of the Majority)
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To: xone
>>Why? Because they have no place in the practice of Confessional Lutherans.

Uhuh. Evidently “they”, along with discussing the motivational history of Nazi Germany, didn’t have any place in the LCMS’ History curriculum, either.

Stupid History — Why learn from it when it’s so profitable to repeat its “mistakes”!

40 posted on 06/24/2017 2:33:54 PM PDT by HLPhat (It takes a Republic TO SECURE THESE RIGHTS - not a populist Tyranny of the Majority)
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