The insightful little piece is from Fr. Z's blog. Fr Z is very traditional and very outspoken. The following perfectly demonstrates how this Church is being run over by organized groups of conservatives. This deals with a poll being conducted by the Cincinnati Enquirer which was measuring the amount of Catholic support for the ordination of women priests. The poll was being conducted in lieu of Archbisop Pilarczk's dismissal of Sister Louise Akers over her stance on women's ordination. It took Fr. Z and his followers very little time to completely skew the results of this poll.
On the website of the Cincinnati Enquirer there was an article about the disciplining of a woman religious who works in for the Archdiocese of Cincinnati. She is in favor or, working for, the ordination of women. Archbishop Pilarcyck is telling her to knock it off. (Oh, come now, he did a little more than that.)
The Enquirer posted a POLL for readers to say if they think women should be ordained.
Never mind the fact that this is impossible. A woman can no more be ordained as a priest than an… eggplant, or giraffe. (Nice to know I'm the ordinational equivalent of an egg plant or a giraffe.)
Never mind the fact that this is impossible. A woman can no more be ordained as a priest than an… eggplant, or giraffe. (Nice to know I'm the ordinational equivalent of an egg plant or a giraffe.)
The Church, faithful to Christ, has no authority to ordain women. This is the Church’s infallible teaching. At the time of this writing, the poll is leaning 75% in favor of ordination of women.
I ask you… do you WDTPRSers think that will be a good outcome?
So… do something about this! Read that article and then….
VOTE…NO! VOTE..NO! VOTE..NO!
CLICK HERE NOW!
VOTE…NO! VOTE..NO! VOTE..NO!
CLICK HERE NOW!
Do you have a blog? Post on this. (I am Father. I'm posting on this---except maybe you might not have meant me.)
UPDATE 2223 GMT
This post has been up for about a half hour and the POLL has shifted to 66%!
Should the Church allow women to be ordained as priests? Yes (1256) 66.04% No (576) 30.28% I’m undecided (70) 3.68%
This post has been up for about a half hour and the POLL has shifted to 66%!
Should the Church allow women to be ordained as priests? Yes (1256) 66.04% No (576) 30.28% I’m undecided (70) 3.68%
1902 UPDATE 2258 GMT
Yes (1513) 57.51% <--- Note... the heretical position is getting some support... VOTE! No (1044) 39.68% I’m undecided (74) 2.81% Total Votes: 2631
Yes (1513) 57.51% <--- Note... the heretical position is getting some support... VOTE! No (1044) 39.68% I’m undecided (74) 2.81% Total Votes: 2631
UPDATE 2310 GMT
The enemy position is getting traffic. So, it appears that the struggle has been joined!
The enemy position is getting traffic. So, it appears that the struggle has been joined!
Note the growing number of votes in the (heretical) "Yes" category, while the (correct) "No" is gaining ground much faster. Yes (1561) 55.65% No (1168) 41.64% I’m undecided (76) 2.71%Total Votes: 2805 (Someone is starting to have too much fun!)
UPDATE 2351 GMT
Okay… WDTPRS just shifted the poll. The truth is now winning. Yes (1634) 48.72% No (1640) 48.9% I’m undecided (80) 2.39% Total Votes: 3354
The false position still has support. The true position has more support.
UPDATE 3 Sept 0304 GMT
Keep the pressure on! Yes (2067) 39.73% No (3029) 58.23% I’m undecided (106) 2.04%Total Votes: 5202
UPDATE 0529 GMT
Yes (2166) 37.01% No (3577) 61.11% I’m undecided (110) 1.88%Total Votes: 5853
UPDATE 1417 GMT
And the morning report is….The heretical position gained: 440 The Christian position gained: 1242 Yes (2606) 34.49% No (4819) 63.78% I’m undecided (131) 1.73% Total Votes: 7556
UPDATE 1800 GMT
And the pressure continues. NB: I discovered this poll when there were 75% in favor of the ordination of women.
Look what YOU have done! Yes (3017) 34.14% No (5655) 63.99% I’m undecided (165) 1.87% Total Votes: 8837
UPDATE 2221 GMT
Yes (3287) 32.79% No (6560) 65.44% I’m undecided (178) 1.78% Total Votes: 10025
Note the gains since my last update: YES: 270 NO: 905
UPDATE 4 Sept 1445 GMT
The liberals have regrouped and are trying to take back the poll. Do not let them!
Yes (4876) 34.65% No (9004) 63.98% [Note the drop in the percentage of the lead.] I’m undecided (194) 1.38% Total Votes: 14074
God HERE for the page where you can VOTE NO and take back the poll! Vote "NO!", you do not think the Church should (futilely attempt) to ordain women.
UPDATE 5 Sept 0436 GMT
Yes (5615) 31.7% No (11896) 67.15% I’m undecided (204) 1.15% Total Votes: 17715
Also, CNA picked up the story. (YES THEY DID FR. Z. THEY ARE ONLY 3 DAYS BEHIND THE NCR! THAT'S BECAUSE CNA IS NOT A NEWS ORGANIZATION. IT'S A RIGHT WING POLITICAL FRONT. I CAN HAVE FUN TOO!)
UPDATE 5 Sept 1609 GMT
Note the over night gains. Yes (6044) 28.22% No (14864) 69.41% I’m undecided (506) 2.36% Total Votes: 21414 (Hooray Fr. Z wins---except the heretics weren't really playing. It was more of a forfeit.)
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For those who are wondering, WDTPRS stands for What Does The Prayer Really Say or in this case What Does The Poll Really Say? The answer to that question is it says a lot about the zeal of Fr. Z's followers and the reach of his blog. It also says the poll is worthless and that it will be cited somewhere by some conservative blog as indicative of how out of step the liberals are with the real Church. Fr Z also asked his WDTPRSers to flood Cardinal O'Malley's blog article on Ted Kennedy's funeral Mass. They did, but it was a respectful and polite onslaught. Cardinal O'Malley is a Cardinal after all, and not an egg plant or a giraffe. Now if only Fr Z could get his troops to flood Archbishop Chaput's in box on the Legion investigation. FOLLOW THE MONEY TRAIL is pretty simple to type and it looks good in caps.
For a long time I've been wondering how long the centrists, progressives, and left wing nuts were going to allow the theo cons, traditionalists, and right wing nuts free reign to control the voice of this Church. Our silence or indifference has let one unrepresentative faction of the Church control all the dialogue up to and including the decisions about what is discussed. They have forced a pastoral policy which uses the Eucharist as punishment, and blindly let predatory moneyed interests use Catholicism for their own ends. But things are changing--kind of.
On Tuesday the National Catholic Reporter ran an article by John Allen on a pastoral letter of Kansas Bishops Flinn and Naumann which dealt with health care reform. It was a hard sell job for the Republican tea bag party, and it wasn't even subtle. With in 24 hours it had generated well over 200 comments, 95% of which blasted the bishops for partisan politicking and betrayal of Catholic social justice values.
Many people wanted to know when the voice of the other moderate bishops
would be heard, or where were the bishops who would stand up for the Church's authoritative teaching on the right of people to health care. This is all good. These bishops need to hear they have some kind of support. If this article proved anything, it's that they do have support. But......
By Thursday morning the only way you could access this article was by searching the archives. You couldn't even find it by clicking on John Allen's profile and index of articles. Someone has maybe put a little pressure on the Kansas City based National Catholic Reporter. What's interesting to me is this suddenly closeted article was written by John Allen, not one of the usual suspects such as Sr Joan Chittister, Fr John Dear, or Bishop Gumbleton. I guess John Allen writing it makes it a whole lot more scarier to certain vested interests.
In any event, it was one of the first times I've seen the kind of response from the left that Fr. Z can routinely get from the right. The health care debacle and some of our Republican bishops blatantly political 'pastoral' musings, may just be the straw that broke the silence of the lambs on the left. But something else is happening.....
I have also written, that the moneyed interests which fuel the zeal of the right were getting too blatant, and that very soon some of the most pure hearted of these Catholics lambs were going to see they were getting fleeced. Today I find an expose of Tom Monaghan's little fleecing of the faithful, otherwise known as Ave Maria Town and Ave Maria University, being exposed by the Wanderer. The Wanderer agrees with me on what ole Tom was really up to, and it wasn't traditional Catholicism.
No one would ever confuse the Wanderer with the National Catholic Reporter. Had a reporter from the NCR asked for access to Monaghan and Healey they would have gotten exactly nowhere. The Wanderer's reporter was not just a reporter, but a purchaser of a house in Ave Maria Town. She got access and I don't think Tom is going to like her take on his little venture in Catholic living and Catholic education.
Then there is the Legion investigation in which all sides are appalled and starting to point fingers at John Paul the Great. John Paul's refusal to deal with the Legion, his penchant for surrounding himself with Opus Dei and Legion clerics, and his friendship with Neo Catechumenate leader Kiki Arguello, will make more sense when the money trail is uncovered. It will be uncovered. It will lead to some familiar names and faces. It will let us all know, just who and what really runs Catholicism. It isn't the sheep of either side of the pasture.
Real evil could care less about Latin Masses, women priests, or non negotiables. Real evil cares about power. It appears to me this is a lesson that both sides are starting to learn. The right is learning how they can be used by power, and the left is finally learning how to flex a little power.
Some of the faithful of the Cincinnati Archdiocese (where I live) are unwilling to rock any boats, but it's interesting and promising that many lay Catholic women wrote letters supporting Sister Louise in today's Cincinnati Enquirer. Pilarczyk has had to submit his resignation to Rome as he has reached 75, but I fear his successor, Dennis Schnurr, won't be a significant improvement. That being said, I don't think either man is as odious as Fabian Bruskewitz or the recently departed Joseph Martino.
ReplyDeleteI haven't forgotten that Pilarczyk dragged his feet on accounting for clerical sexual abuse, and at one court hearing, pleaded guilty on behalf of the archdiocese for concealing evidence of these cases. An associate pastor at my church was pulled and later laicized after two of his former students at Elder High School stated the pastor (then Elder's principal) had touched them inappropriately.) One Dayton area priest was arrested after getting caught trying to solicit men in a known cruising area.
I found the Wanderer's article good as far as its criticisms of Monaghan, but I think the author pushed forward her self-image of a devout, orthodox Catholic a little too much. The Wanderer is just too hard to take, it's like listening to one too many interviews with Screamin' Bill Donohue of the Catholic League of Political and Civil Rights.
ReplyDeleteAbout Robert Finn, he is known to be Opus Dei, just like John McCloskey. I do not know if Joseph Naumann is Opus Dei, but he clearly agrees with a lot of their positions.
Colleen,
ReplyDeleteeither you or a commenter on your blog, as I remember, has brought up the connection between Spanish fascism (falangism) and organizations of the Catholic Right Wing active today.
I'd like to suggest that there might be an even stronger connection to French fascism/restorationism. Certainly, the SSPX are a large element, but I've come across information about anti-deGaullists who fled to Argentina. They and their traditionalist chaplains used Thomist theology to justify a terrorist bombing campaign in Algeria, murders of those who spoke in favor of a French withdrawl of Algeria, and most famously, assassination attempts on deGaulle himself.
In Argentina, these French terrorists helped train right-wing paramilitaries to combat, of course, the spectre of communism, the fight against which permitted all kinds of immoral actions>
"In October 1961, Caggiano and the then president of
Argentina, Arturo Frondizi inaugurated the first course
on counter-revolutionary warfare in the Higher
Military College. One of the tasks set in the course was
to explain this quotation from the bishop of Verden,
Dietrick von Nieken in 1411:
“When the existence of the Church is threatened, it is
no longer bound by the commandments of morality.
When unity is the aim, all means are
justified: deceit, treachery, violence,
usury, prison and death. Because
order serves the good of the
community, and the individual has
to be sacrificed for the common
good.” "
Anyways, the article is fascinating and reminds me of something I've been thinking of: The right-wing wants an Empire of Faith (i.e. for them, obedience), not the Kingdom of God. I could expound on that, but I think you probably feel something similar.
link:
http://www.opendemocracy.net/content/articles/PDF/2709.pdf
Just proves that the proceeds from very bad pizza results in very bad faux Catholicism.
ReplyDeleteJim McCrea
I'm just glad he sold my favorite baseball team to the other Detroit pizza baron--who also happens to be Catholic. Except the Illitch's are a different breed of Catholic. Someday I might to a post on the differences--in the pizza too.
ReplyDeleteOrlando, this quote is thought provoking, because it's still the preferred creed:
ReplyDeleteBishop of Verden,Dietrick von Nieken in 1411:
“When the existence of the Church is threatened, it is
no longer bound by the commandments of morality.
When unity is the aim, all means are
justified: deceit, treachery, violence,
usury, prison and death. Because
order serves the good of the
community, and the individual has
to be sacrificed for the common
good.”
When I was writing today's piece on Honduras, this kept going through my mind.
French fascism, at least through Catholicism, has many links with Spanish fascism. Why wouldn't it, all the bishops got together all the time, and I'm sure they exchanged their thoughts on Machiavelli as well as Von Nieken.
Well, it IS good to see that at least some Catholics are starting to awaken & use the brains which God gave them. Rather then merely accepting as 'absolute truth' every but of wind passed by a prelate......
ReplyDeleteFor the record, I am not in favor of women's ordination to the ministerial priesthood. I know that you are - and that is where I will leave it. BUT...I am not in favor of women cleaning toilets in the Apostolic Palace, or as virtual slaves to men in Opus Dei haunts.
There is NO reason why women cannot be lay Cardinals, holding administrative positions - for which many are very capable! Ditto for running the worldly affairs of a Diocese or Parish. There is NO reason why women cannot fulfill the function of a Deacon. Or a Theologian.
Surely there must be a reasonable & fair middle ground to that matter.
As to Opus Dei prelates in the US, the overt/known list would include:
Finn, Meyers, DiMarzio, DiNardo, Burke, Gomez, Rigali, Martino, Bruskewitz, Maida. It is a sure bet that NO Cardinal or metropolitan Archbishop would exist who would either NOT be a member/cooperator, or at the very least 'friendly' to it. Thus the true numbers are muc greater.......
Conversely, it is now a sure bet that NO metropolitan would be appointed who is not a member/collaborator/cooperator. The same would apply to every US diocese now, as they are 'stepping stones', career-wise.
It is also a sure bet that NO prelate would survive if he were overtly opposed to the Opus (i,e, Basil Hume).
Of course this places a man like Bp. Howard Hubbard of Albany, NY in an interesting light - as he has been the Ordinary there since 1977. As that is the capital of the most important state in the US in terms of business & finance, were he not 'approved'....he would not be there. Nor would he be promoting men to the Episcopate......think about that!
As to the Catholic League....'Screamin Bill Donohue' is as Opus Dei as is the chair of their board of directors, Raymond Arroyo:)
There is a term for an attorney who works exclusively for only one client, whom he defends rabidly against all claimants - disregarding truth & genuine morality:
A Mafia Consigliere:p
I didn't know Raymond Arroyo was involved with the Catholic League. My what an incestuous little group of men revolve around EWTN.
ReplyDeleteMother Angelica must be proud of her little group of boys, taking personal adantage of her work and all.
For me it's not an issue of ordaining women priests. I really don't care at this point. It's changing the entire concept of the clerical caste. Until that's done there's no point in adding women or married priests to the equation. The system will co opt them as well.
Wellllll, actually I'd much rather go to confession to a woman rather than most men. I say most men, because most of my confessors have been gay. Confession for me has sort of kind of been a mutual thing. Makes it more meaningful.
Colleen, absolutely phenomenal research and reporting--and analysis.
ReplyDeleteYour conclusion is outstanding. It's not about the Latin Mass or who is buried or gets communion.
It's about bare-faced evil pulling the strings, real evil, with money right at the center of it all. If we could only get access to the information that would show us the money trail, those of us who have been squabbling about the Latin Mass, communion, and so on would find out we've been played.
It's a game of distraction and manipulation designed to keep us from seeing that money is really what the whole thing is about. And it's about powerful religious leaders selling their churches out to big money and letting their churches be used as megaphones for corporate interest groups masquerading as political and religious movements.