“It’s troubling for me as a Catholic to be at odds with the church,” he began, before dissolving into a wry laugh. “Having said that, it seems that my entire political life, the tension with the church has come up again and again.”
Just as his father seized a social issue and established himself in opposition to the church with his Notre Dame speech on abortion, now the son has seized a social issue and established himself in opposition to the church with gay marriage.
“What is unusual about Roe is that the liberty involved is accorded … a protection more stringent, I think it is fair to say, than that the present Court accords the freedom of the press explicitly guaranteed by the First Amendment.
What is frightening about Roe is that this super-protected right is not inferable from the language of the Constitution, the framers’ thinking respecting the specific problem in issue, any general value derivable from the provisions they included, or the nation’s governmental structure. Nor is it explainable in terms of the unusual political impotence of the group judicially protected vis-a-vis the interests that legislatively prevailed over it. And that, I believe … is a charge that can responsibly be leveled at no other decision of the past twenty years.
At times the inferences the Court has drawn from the values the Constitution marks for special protection have been controversial, even shaky, but never before has its sense of an obligation to draw one been so obviously lacking.”
Guéranger’s principles of the Anti-Liturgical Heresy is presented here as means and method to recognize the subversive tactics employed by the 20th Century Liturgical Movement, a heretical movement that has succeeded in deforming the Church’s liturgy and obscuring the right teachings of the Catholic Church among mainstream Catholics.
The ensuing crisis has been devastating, but authentic Catholicism survives and even flourishes in traditional Catholic enclaves where the Traditional Latin Mass and its commensurate spirituality are lived and cherished. However, traditional Catholics must always remain vigilant in their fight against the Anti-Liturgical Heresy that is eating away like a cancer at the visible institutions of Christ’s Church.
As it turns out, Pope Benedict XVI, in the motu propio, Summorum Pontificum, declared, in agreement with the traditionalists, that the liturgical books of 1962 had never been abrogated when the novus ordo was promulgated! What’s more, traditional Catholics had a right to the old Mass!
However, to my knowledge Vere and Madrid didn’t even bother to correct their book, which still contains these errors along with a few other doozies. Nor were apologies forthcoming when the excommunications of the bishops of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Pius X were lifted by the Holy Father.
Now that prominent churchmen and theologians are taking seriously the traditionalist critique of the 20th century changes in the Church, as first formulated by thinkers such as Romano Amerio, it is becoming crystal clear that a place is being carved out for traditional Catholics in an emerging Church, just now starting on a reform in continuity with Tradition of the post-Vatican II errors.
That place had been denied to traditional Catholics, not just by the liberals of the “hermeneutic of rupture”, but also by the mainstream, novus ordo conservatives such as Vere, Madrid, and, our friend, Mr. Mark Shea.
So the present situation that these novus ordo conservatives find themselves in after Summorum Pontificum is a rather uncomfortable one.
They were so sure that the old liturgical books had been abrogated. Wrong!
They were so sure that the novus ordo was the Traditional Latin Mass for the very reason that the old books had been abrogated. Wrong again!
Because the old liturgical books were not abrogated, and because there are now two forms of the Roman Rite, the novus ordo is certainly distinct from the Traditional Latin Mass.
They were so sure that there was no room in the Church for those disaffected traditionalists that were attached to the Traditional Latin Mass. Wrong again!
We are to be welcomed and all generosity is to be shown to those who are attached to the Traditional Latin Mass.
They were so sure that all those criticisms of Vatican II and the 20th Century changes were disobedience. Wrong again!
The debate has been welcomed, and, according to the secretary of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, the criticisms “make sense”!
The Rev. John Corapi, who served as the director of Catholic Faith Formation in Sacramento in the 1990s, filed a lawsuit in the 11th Judicial District Court of Montana, where he now lives. He alleges that his accuser committed libel and that a letter she wrote to his religious superiors contained “numerous false, malicious and unprivileged statements” about the priest. He is suing for punitive and unspecified compensatory damages.
Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests on Wednesday publicized Corapi’s lawsuit, which was filed in April.
“I think it is reprehensible that he would sue her,” said David Clohessy, national director of the victims rights group. “Clearly, he is trying to intimidate her.” He said a priest suing his accuser is unusual.
She’ll answer your Catholic questions
right here, every Thursday.
Email responses will also be provided, as time permits.
Tom Asks: Is there anywhere in the Bible that state’s specifically that the soul is immortal and will never die? I have Jehovah Witnesses come to the house. They say the soul dies with the body. i would like to rebut that claim with my own Catholic Bible.
Alice Answers: Yes, Jehovah’s Witnesses are very persistent in their rhetoric. However, we Catholics maintain a firm belief in our souls’ immortality based on numerous Scripture passages, many spoken by Our Lord himself.
Upon hearing that His dear friend, Lazarus, died, Jesus said,
“I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in Me, though he should die, will come to life; and whoever is alive and believes in me will never die.” (John 11:25-26)
Before he died, Jesus told his apostles, “Let not your heart be troubled. Have faith in God and faith in me. In my Father’s house there are many mansions…I am indeed going to prepare a place for you…..I will come again and receive you to myself; that where I am, there you may be also.” (John 14:1-3)
From John, the evangelist we read, “I write all these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.” (1John 5:13-14)
Then there’s the often quoted (John 3:16) which states,
“God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him may not die but may have eternal life.”
The promise of eternal life can be found in the Old Testament,
as well. “Your dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise.” (Isaiah 26:19)
Rather than feeling defeated, I’m glad you’re seeking some strong Catholic apologetics, i.e., a defense and proof of our Catholic faith. Please keep these Bible verses handy, so you’ll be prepared the next time a zealous Jehovah’s Witness rings your doorbell!
*****
Doug Lawrence Adds: The Catholic Church’s teachings about the nature of the human soul are based on the Old Testament and on the teachings of Jesus and the apostles. They were further developed and refined by some of the world’s greatest saints, philosophers and scholars, over the last 2000 years.
Like the word “Trinity”, which is not found anywhere in scripture, much of what we understand about the soul, by faith and reason, never made it into the scriptures, either.
This shouldn’t be surprising though, since the Bible was never intended to be a catechism, and it is the Catholic Church … not the Bible … which was given power and authority by Jesus Christ. In fact, in his Great Commission, Jesus never specifically mentioned the written word, at all.
JW’s have no direct connection with the Christian Church, other than their rather unique, seriously flawed, self-serving “New World” translation of the Bible.
To paraphrase Virgil, the writer of the ancient (19 b.c.) Aeneid, “Beware of JW’s bearing Greek!”
Rather than attempting to trade Bible verses with people who believe that Jesus Christ is not the only begotten Son of God … is not divine … but merely Michael the Archangel … I suggest you ask the JW’s to first show you where in the scriptures their little group received ANY power and authority … any mandate from God … to do what they do.
If they manage to cobble together something, then ask them why their founder(s) and the secretive “Boys from Brooklyn” have been so wrong on so many of their predictions and claims, for so long … and based on that … why you should believe anything they say … since their teachings are relatively new, based on the opinions of only a few, whose fatally flawed understanding of the true nature and identity of Jesus Christ completely separates them from authentic Christianity … and whose teachings have been proved wrong, time and time again … by other JW’s … by history … and by the vast consensus of authentic Christian theological scholarship.
Finally Tom, there is absolutely no need for you to refute negative, spurious, unsupported claims by these people, or anyone.
I suggest that instead, when next they visit, you jointly attempt to determine precisely how many angels might be able to dance on the head of a pin!
This link to the Catholic Answers Forum should be useful.
Let’s consider a short text from Proverbs to illustrate the grave and mysterious problem of “anomia,” of being lawless, of being stubbornly impenitent and persisting in disregard and even contempt of God’s Law:
He who is often reproved, yet stiffens his neck, will suddenly be broken beyond healing. (Prov 29:1)
Consider this text in three stages (with acknowledgment to Rev. Adrian Rogers who preached a sermon on this I’ve never forgotten. The alliterated structure here is his, the content is mine):
1. Spiritual Direction– Note how the text describes us as being often reproved. God sends us endless messages always urging us to repentance, to, to turn toward Him, to call on Him, to learn obedience, and to rejoice in the salvation he offers. He whispers, he urges, and he calls. No one who ever went to Hell, went there without being “often reproved.” The Hebrew word is תּוֹכֵחָה (towkechah) means chastisement, correction, refutation, proof, argument, reasoning, rebuke, or reproof. Well, you get the idea, God is pleading with us to come to him, to accept his Kingdom and the Kingdom values that underlie it. He does this in many ways…
American Jews are probably amongst the most devout abortion supporters in America. Those Jews who vote on the abortion-ticket like to point to a very old rabbinic tradition holding that, if a woman is dying during labor, it is acceptable to kill the child, provided that the child has not yet seen the light of day. Later rabbinic thought expanded this holding to place the child’s life over the mother’s at all times.
These were always narrow exceptions, though. Pragmatic considerations had to be balanced against God’s injunction to “choose life” and to “be fruitful and multiply.” Also, in pre-modern times, abortion was both unpopular and risky, and medicine limited a physician’s ability even to assess the risks a pregnant woman was facing. The early Jewish philosophers were dealing with anomalies that justified abortion, not with Planned Parenthood clinics in every neighborhood.
Although the rabbis wouldn’t recognize abortion today, modern Jews rely on ancient and narrow rabbinical strictures to embrace an ideology that allows abortion, not only in life and death situations, but at all points in time during the pregnancy, and for all reasons. I grew up, therefore, in a very abortion-friendly milieu.
I also grew up in a Holocaust milieu. Without exception, all of the older Jewish people whom I knew when I was growing up had a connection to the Holocaust, whether they’d escaped it or lost people to it. The Holocaust was a defining backdrop to my childhood.
VATICAN CITY – Pope Benedict XVI sent his first tweet Tuesday, typing it himself on an iPad.
The Vatican had confirmed the pope’s inaugural tweet, announcing the launch of news.va, a Vatican news and information site.
He added, “Praised be our Lord Jesus Christ! With my prayers and blessings, Benedictus XVI.”
“Gov. Cuomo, when he was running, said if I get elected, I will push for gay marriage. But pastors and brothers and sisters campaigned for him and voted for him. So we cannot fully blame Cuomo,” said Diaz.
“Pastors and religious leaders are supposed to remember that we are supposed to be Christians before being Democrats or being Republicans. Our responsibility is with Jesus and not with Democratic Party or Republican Party.”
He added that party affiliation is always secondary to one’s Christian faith in political decisions. Regardless of whether a political candidate is Republican or Democrat, Christians should support and vote for whomever shares their values.
The Catholic Church has been largely missing in action since the death of Cardinal O’Connor. In the fight over Bill 371, there was one priest who showed to give testimony to the New York City Council, Father Peter Pilsner. No religious brothers or sisters. At a rally in Harlem over the bill, there were a few priests who turned out, and that was it. There was no mention of the bill by any bishops in Brooklyn, New York, or Rockville Centre, in the five months of fighting, until a joint statement by Bishop DiMarzio of Brooklyn, and Archbishop Dolan the night before the City Council vote.
To their credit, those missing in action over Bill 371 turned out to fight the gay marriage proposal. However, it was to little, too late. Catholic clergy have been loathe to engage these issues from the pulpit. “Too political,” is the mantra. It wasn’t too political for the Holy Spirit and His partner, Blessed John Paul II, who gave us all the tools we need to reclaim an authentic Christian civilization. Yet, I have never heard a priest discuss any of JP II’s teaching in any substantive manner from the pulpit, or in any adult education program. The disconnect has been breathtaking.
Nobody was more acutely aware of the anti-papal forces within the Vatican than Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who watched his fellow cardinals quietly assail and undermine his beloved friend Pope John Paul II. So it was Cardinal Ratzinger who ratcheted up the battle when he became Pope Benedict XVI.
(DICI) – These are the words from the Secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith: “But you know, it’s the priests, it’s the bishops, it’s the Catholic universities: they are full of heresies!”
That’s what the the Secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith told us in June 2009!
CORAPI AND COMMUNITY LIFE
The bigger focus for many now, surrounds his life within the Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity. There were changes to the constitution in 1994 and they wanted him back in community. In the first interview you will hear Joan Frawley Desmond, who interviewed Corapi’s superior explain that in the beginning, when the founder permitted him to live in solitude and to preach, the arrangement was not for him to live in his own home. I am not entirely clear on how long SOLT has been trying to get him to live back in community, so if someone catches that, please drop it into the combox, and cite the source. Watch that interview to hear it explained by Desmond. This move to live in a home was a later development that he apparently took on himself, and may not necessarily have been what his community desired.
In the end, we learn that attempts to bring him back into community life did not get anywhere. This would not have meant giving up preaching as seems to be the assumption in some writings online. We see members of other communities like the Fathers of Mercy traveling all the time to speak, as well as members of the Dominicans, among others. What it would have meant was giving up the assets: the money, the ranch, the sports car, the business, personal possessions, and perhaps the most difficult of all, the power to do what he wanted, when he wanted, and how he wanted. I suspect media produced would have been more in line with what we see out of other religious orders.
This goes directly to the vow of obedience and I offer this most especially for those who are discerning a vocation. If a founder or religious superior makes a promise to a member, a future superior is not bound to honor that agreement. Rather, it is the other way around.
In 1972, Pope Paul VI observed,
“From some fissure,
the smoke of Satan
has entered the Temple of God.”
The purpose of this weekly column is to help wake
the bulk of the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics
from their self-imposed slumber
and powerfully remind them of who they are,
and what they are called by God, to be.
This week’s story:
It is alleged that in April 2011, as a result of his earlier report to auditors for the Diocese of Peoria that abortion drugs were being used and prescribed by Provena Hospital, a Catholic hospital organization, Fr. John Ugobueze was subsequently fired from his position as Director of Pastoral Care at Provena Hospital and President of Pastoral Care for the Provena Health Care System (both in Danville, IL).
The facts of the matter, according to two emails in our possession:
Recently, a Catholic pharmacist at the hospital brought his concerns about the use of abortion causing drugs (methotrexate and cytotec) at the hospital, to the Catholic priest who is the Director of Pastoral Care at the hospital and who is also the one responsible to the Catholic Diocese of Peoria for ensuring that Catholic “Ethical and Religious Directives” are followed.
Fr. John Ugobueze, brought this information to the Monsignor in the Diocese that he reports to during an annual audit from the Diocesan Offices.
Following that, Fr. John was terminated by the hospital, under the guise of “HIPPA violation” because of the fact that the pharmacist used the computer in Father John’s office to show him the basis of his conscience concerns and printed this information on the attached computer.
After their discussion the patient records were then shredded. No patient confidentiality was violated at any time. But of course, it was never about HIPPA at all. That was just the reason given. What it really was is a case of clear religious persecution as the anti-catholic, ‘pro-Obama healthcare’ hospital administration was at risk of being “found out” and they could not risk that. So they terminate both the Catholic pharmacist and the priest who is the Director of Pastoral Care, under the disguise of “HIPPA violation”.
This is sort of like like saying that if a friend asks to borrow your car and then is accused of using it to rob a bank, that you should be arrested too, because he used your car.
The case was appealed by the priest to the Hospital Corporate Offices for the whole Provena system, and another non-catholic who heard the appeal and understood very little of what a priest does, denied the appeal and upheld the termination.
This is wrong and can not be swept under the rug. Both of these people were acting in accordance with their responsibilities to uphold the Ethical and Religious Directives of the Church.
*****
Fr. John Ugobueze, Director of Pastoral Care of Provena Hospital and President of the Pastoral Care of Provena Health Care System, has been terminated from his positions because of reporting the use of abortion drugs by the hospital to the auditors of the Diocese of Peoria.
The bishop of Peoria, Most Rev Jenky, does not want to involve the diocese in this matter nor does he want the diocese to be involved in a lawsuit if Fr. John goes this direction. Instead, has offered Fr. John a position at a hospital in the city of Peoria.
Why will the bishop not fight for Fr. John, who he himself placed in the hospital to make sure Catholic Moral Ethics are followed. Why won’t he defend him? More than once have I seen bishops hide in corners when corruption is discovered. I pray that this is not the case with Bishop Jenky, whom I have admired.
I have been fighting abortion issues for 22 years, especially with threats of abortion entering our military facilities. I know you are a fighter against abortion and I walk with you. But who is willing to help and defend Fr. John when his own bishop appears he will not? (The bishop is willing to give Fr. John a position at another hospital. This time in Peoria … not Danville.)
Fr. John has done nothing wrong. In fact, he did everything correctly by gathering the evidence and reporting it to the diocese of Peoria, without breaking or violating HIPPA.
The CEO of the Provena Hospital is a Protestant, as are most of the administrative personnel. The sisters are few in number and have hired these Protestant administrators at Provena Hospital to operate and bring in the money.
The sisters have become clueless what is happening to their hospital. They are old and do not involve themselves with the hospital itself anymore. At one time, the hospital administration was trying to remove the Blessed Sacrament/ Tabernacle out of the Catholic Chapel because it was not ecumenical. What a joke! But I guess the joke is on the Catholics. And the bishop is not helping matters.
Fr. John is a fine priest. He is also a friend. I stand by my friends and especially priests who are being persecuted for the true faith.
Please consider helping Fr. John and his cause. I myself am trying to do all I can to help him.
*****
Action needed:
Do you know any of the people involved in this case?
Do you have any first-hand knowledge of these events?
Do you know of any similar incidents?
Do you have any personal contacts at Provena Health Care System or at the Diocese of Peoria?
Are you an attorney (or do you know an attorney) who might be willing to help?
Do you have any practical ideas on how to help resolve this case?
*****
If we begin to step up in faith, God will certainly lead us forward. If not, this mess in which we we presently find ourselves will likely continue to worsen … and we will all deservedly
suffer the consequences!
This is a time for heroes, for straight talk, for prayer, and for inspired, creative thinking. This is a time for good people
of action (and substantial intestinal fortitude) to step up,
realize their true vocation, and become saints.
Any ideas or suggestions? Anything that’s working well
in your parish? How about things that are NOT working,
but should be? Let us know about it!
Your comments and suggestions are very welcome.
Thank you!
When a good priest’s good name is under siege these days, the situation he faces is best summed up in a combination of two terms from classic literature used in my title. What Father John Corapi and other accused priests face is an all-too-familiar “Kafkaesque Catch-22.”
“Kafkaesque” refers to an oppressive, nightmarish situation from which there seems no escape. It’s a reference to the fictional worlds created by Czech writer Franz Kafka (1883-1924) who wrote in German. “Kafkaesque” is today used to describe a scenario like that in Kafka’s most famous novel, The Trial (1925). It’s the story of an innocent man accused and facing trial, but subtly prevented from offering any defense because the tools for doing so elude him at every turn while prosecutors lurk in the shadows with agendas and motives that are never clear.
A “Catch-22″ is also a situation with no hope of resolution because two mutually incompatible conditions are imposed, each countering and contradicting the other. The term comes from the title of a famous American novel, Catch-22 by Joseph Heller (Simon and Shuster, 1955). In Catch-22, a World War II U.S. Air Force pilot desperately wants to avoid combat duty. The only way to do so is to be judged insane. But wanting to avoid combat duty is itself seen as evidence of his sanity. So in the end, a claim of insanity to avoid combat ends up proving his sanity and fitness for combat.
Editor’s note: This article was written by a priest who is presently serving out a jail term, and who claims innocence. The article contains a number of related links that are both interesting and informative.
Briefly… in the hope that I might post more thoughtfully on the subject:
The Jewish community is deeply concerned about the effects of an article published and syndicated last week about a Jewish crisis pregnancy group called In Shifra’s Arms—actually, it’s a website that offers a variety of services to dissuade Jewish women from having an abortion. This group is an anomaly – the only known Jewish service of its kind – yet the article suggests it reflects a standard view in Judaism. Speaking from the perspective of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, we need to speak out lest this article contribute to the further erosion of the reproductive rights of all of us.
The Jewish moral imperative of pikuach nefesh – saving a life – makes safeguarding reproductive rights a vital Jewish moral value.
Editor’s note: I can’t help wondering precisely to which Jewish community this writer is referring. That said, the now fashionable Jewish penchant for aborting babies has, in light of the history, always been totally illogical and based on the flimsiest of precedent … derived not from the Old Testament of the Bible … but from the seriously flawed and far from settled opinions of various Rabbis … some dead … some still alive.
When the victims of Hitler’s Holocaust openly support the wanton destruction of millions and millions of innocent babies … many of them Jewish … we can be sure that diabolical disorientation is already hard at work.
Dr. Mila Means was raised in a family that considered abortion an accepted, reasonable idea. Her schoolteacher parents, social activists in the 1960s, instilled that attitude early in her life.
“I was in the ninth grade when my father told me
if I were pregnant before I was 18,
I would have an abortion,” Means said.
Means calls herself one of the least financially secure family physicians around.
“I’m not good at making business decisions for financial reasons,” she said….
Her private life is unconventional.
Means, who has no children, is married to a gay man, but doesn’t live with him. She lives with a boyfriend, and her husband lives with another gay man….
Apparently breaking with a taboo among critics of the Catholic Church and of Pope Pius XII – who reigned during the Second World War and the Holocaust – Israel’s ambassador to the Vatican has recognized that the pontiff did actually save thousands of Jews during the years of Nazi predation.
Ambassador Mordechai Lewy affirmed on June 23 that “as of the raid of 16 October 1943 and the days following in the ghetto of Rome, the monasteries and orphanages of the religious orders opened their doors to Jews, and we have reason to believe that this occurred under the supervision of the highest authorities of the Vatican, who were aware of these measures.” The diplomat spoke at a ceremony in which a Catholic priest, Gaetano Piccinini of the order founded by Don Orione, was post-humously awarded a medal honoring him as numbering among righteous Gentiles.
Doug Lawrence's Catholic Site 