Free Republic

Commentary:  Opinion Where heresy and dissent abound We have arrived at the point where good is stamped out as something evil, and evil is permitted to flourish as a good.  Wednesday, May 31, 2006 by Elizabeth Schwab Pope John Paul II expressed grave concern for the future of the Catholic Church in America, and rightly so. He knew of the dangers lurking in the dark that insidiously threaten to undermine the Catholic faith. Today we look around with dismay at the state of affairs in the Archdiocese of St. Paul-Minneapolis and realize that a more striking dichotomy could hardly exist....

 ST. PAUL, Minn. — On Ash Wednesday, March 1, St. Paul-Minneapolis Archbishop Harry Flynn asked a popular St. Paul priest, Fr. Robert Altier, an assistant pastor at St. Agnes Church, to remove his homilies from a web site run by parishioners. The “silencing” has reverberated across the cyber universe, provoking nearly unanimous exasperation because Altier’s only “offense” — in the view of many — was his support for parents who object to the archdiocese’s “safe environment” programs for children. Over the past several months, Fr. Altier, a spiritual adviser to Catholic Parents Online, which is leading the parents’ movement in...

MINNEAPOLIS, March 9, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - It seems like all hell is breaking loose in the archdiocese of St. Paul - Minneapolis.  In recent weeks 27 priests signed a petition against Archbishop Harry Flynn's backing for a measure to protect the traditional definition of marriage (http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2006/mar/06031006.html ).  The diocese is refusing to release those names and it has not publicly ordered the priests to be silent about their heterodox views, but it has, at the same time, silenced a faithful priest who objected to the graphic sex-ed program advocated by the archdiocese (http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2006/mar/06030602.html ).  Like many dioceses in North America,...

Archbishop Harry J. Flynn has silenced Fr. Altier, a well-known and loved priest of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, Minnesota.Fr. Altier is the assistant pastor of the Church of St. Agnes in St. Paul, Minnesota, a parish famous the world over for itÂ’s sacred music programs, fidelity to the Christian Faith, sublime liturgical sense and architectural splendor. Fr. Altier has many credentials but the most important of them are his fidelity, humility, and holiness - an exceedingly rare combination in the Church today.The homepage of Fr. AltierÂ’s web site, DesertVoice.org, states the following: In obedient compliance with the...

Responding to a directive from the Vatican, Archbishop Harry Flynn has advised all parishes in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis to deny communion to anyone wearing a rainbow-colored sash. For the past four years, supporters of the Rainbow Sash Alliance USA -- a group of Catholics who are active in the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered community -- have worn the sashes to receive communion at the St. Paul Cathedral on Pentecost Sunday, the anniversary date of the group's founding in 1998. Last year the service was disrupted when a group of 40 laymen protested the activists receiving...

out again in again flynn againThis past Wednesday Archbishop Harry Flynn issued a statement "to clarify remarks he made in an interview with Catholic News Service in December." CNS reports on the clarification: In a Jan. 26 statement, Archbishop Flynn said he met in mid-December with Cardinal Francis Arinze, head of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments, to discuss "the difficult pastoral situation" of Rainbow Sash. Cardinal Arinze "did not in fact suggest an immediate change to the policy in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis," Archbishop Flynn said in his statement. "However, he did clearly...