By Michelle Boorstein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, June 2, 2008; Page A01, original HERE...
ROME -- Evidence overflows from hundreds of boxes stacked to the ceiling in room after room at the Catholic Diocese of Rome -- photographs, drawings, letters and other items that church officials are scouring for the answer to a question: Is Pope John Paul II a saint?
The task here at the Office of the Postulator of the Cause for Beatification and Canonization is to judge souls, a complex job even when the soul in question doesn't belong to a spiritual superhero such as John Paul, who died in 2005 as one of the most popular pontiffs in history.
Located down a towering marble hallway, through a locked glass door, the office is tasked with determining whether John Paul meets the Roman Catholic Church's two broad standards of sainthood: His life deserves to be imitated, and he has demonstrated a postmortem power to help people who pray to him, proving he is in heaven with God.
So far, investigators are coming down in his favor. Their leader told reporters recently that beatification, or elevation to the status of "blessed," often an intermediate step toward sainthood, could take place next spring.
The office has received a handful of arguments against sainthood for John Paul, whom church reformers, particularly in Europe and Latin America, have long lambasted. Letters circulating point to the clergy sex abuse scandal, the treatment of women in the church and the repression of dissident theologians.
But what is found here overwhelmingly supports the late pope's "cause," often in the most affectionate terms -- a stuffed animal from a couple who credit him with an end to their infertility, a wedding dress from someone who had longed for a partner. Countless letters include those from a prostitute who got her faith back and a singer who was able to forgive her daughter's killer. There are also historians' studies of his long papacy, and John Paul's own writings, including verse that refers humbly to his "fallible thoughts."
Blesseds and saints aren't metaphors in Catholic doctrine. They are held up as real examples of people who successfully imitated Jesus in their lives (or deaths, in the case of martyrs), and are well known among Catholics for their holiness.
From the start, this has not been a typical investigation. On the day of John Paul's funeral in 2005, Catholics in St. Peter's Square shouted out "Santo subito!" -- "Sainthood now!" In the face of strong public enthusiasm, his successor, Benedict XVI, waived the usual five-year wait before formal considerations could begin. Since then, the advocacy has only stepped up to get John Paul quickly through a process that can take centuries.
Taking part in the investigation is a small army of consultants, archivists, translators of John Paul's writings, and oncologists and psychologists who examine the medical evidence for reported miracles.
There are also journalists who put out a monthly magazine -- Totus Tuus, or Totally Yours -- devoted completely to the status of John Paul's case. Translated into seven languages, the publication has 8,000 subscribers. "We can't even count the documents we get; there are too many," Aleksandra Zapotoczny, who writes for the magazine and translates letters and testimonies from Polish speakers, said with a grin.
The lead investigator, Monsignor Slawomir Oder of Poland, announced earlier this year that a 2,000-page report about John Paul's life and virtues had been completed by officials at the Rome Diocese (the first phase of such a study is handled by the diocese where the potential saint died) and sent to the Vatican's 34-member Congregation for the Causes of Saints.
The report makes a case for John Paul to be beatified. This requires proof of one miracle (usually of the medical kind) after the candidate's death. Church officials say privately that Oder has attributed the 2005 healing of a French nun who had Parkinson's disease to prayers she addressed to John Paul's soul.
Though John Paul II is the most high-profile candidate for sainthood in modern times, church officials say they are treating his case with the seriousness and skepticism befitting a process that birthed the term "devil's advocate" -- a former church post whose holder was tasked with making sure that the full facts against a sainthood came to light.
"No one has the right to be canonized, not even Pope John Paul," Monsignor Robert Sarno, a Brooklyn-born priest who works for the Congregation, said during a recent interview at his Rome apartment.
That means putting aside reported miracles that can never be proved, and stringent physiological and psychological testing for cases that look possibly real.
Two levels of the Congregation will review Oder's documents and make recommendations to Benedict, who has the final say on beatification. If that takes place, proceedings would begin toward canonization, or sainthood, which requires verification of a second miracle taking place after beatification.
John Paul, who canonized more people than any pope in history -- 482 -- has entered the system just as it is slowing. In February, the Vatican issued a document calling for the consideration process to be followed more stringently, apparently responding to worries that perhaps John Paul's numbers were too high.
Some critics point to cases like that of Padre Pio, whom John Paul canonized in 2002 even though previous popes and Vatican doctors had called the Italian monk and his stigmata, or wounds of the cross, a fraud. Padre Pio is Italy's most popular saint; his body is on display this year, and hundreds of thousands of people have made reservations to see it.
In his three years as pope, Benedict has canonized just 14. Although he has said he favors John Paul being named a saint, he has not exercised his right to make it happen immediately.
Many popes are never recognized as saints or blesseds. When Pope Pius X was canonized in 1954, he was the first in centuries. While the Vatican is moving toward beatification for Pope Pius XII, his case has been dogged by some scholars who accuse him of not doing enough to help Jews during the Holocaust.
Among the people opposing John Paul's sainthood are José Maria Castillo, a Jesuit from Spain, and Italian theologian Giovanni Franzoni.
About 400 people are currently in the system for beatification or canonization along with the late pontiff, including Mother Teresa. Most are not well known, such as an Italian couple beatified through the Rome Diocese who "were very good-hearted, very faithful," and had at least two children who went into the clergy, said Monsignor Marco Fibbi, who handles communications for Oder and the diocese.
Church officials say they want the process to be strict -- even for John Paul -- because they say it is important for modern-day Catholics to see that God works in tangible ways. It's especially important, they say, to examine the reported healings with objectivity.
"If anyone is scientific in this process, it's the church," said Christopher Gaffrey, an American Franciscan friar helping the John Paul office with translation. "Because if they're going to hold this up as a miracle, they're not going to hold up something that could be easily criticized."
To church officials, however, skepticism has a limit. "The church starts with the premise that God exists and that He can and does get involved in our lives," Sarno said. "We don't even take into consideration that that isn't possible."
And will it be difficult to impartially judge the soul and intercessory power of John Paul, particularly in an office surrounded with poster-size photos of him, and boxes upon boxes of letters praising him?
"Faithful people understand," said Fibbi, his hands crossed and a slight smile on his lips, "that the church has 2,000 years of experience at this. It knows what it is doing."
NOTE:
Knowing that Pope John Paul II made extensive changes to the pre-Conciliar process of beatification and canonization for sainthood, that these changes were all in the direction of making the criteria less stringent and in light of the fact that he named more new saints during his pontificate than all his predecessors combined, to what extent is it reasonable for the Church to be extremely careful in considering his case? Is it not at least possible that making him a saint without extreme care in the process of consideration will succeed in legitimizing the revolutionary changes which have occurred subsequent to Vatican II rather than attest to his own Holiness?
Monday, June 2, 2008
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
New Mass-A Revolution akin to the Protestant Reformation?
Marian Horvat asserts that the Novus Ordo (New Mass) promulgated in the wake of Vatican II represents the equivalent of a Catholic Reformation really a Catholic revolution and complete break with Tradition--that brought to a final end the Catholic Counter-Reformation--begun by the Council of Trent called in response to the errors of the Protestant Reformation. In other words, Vatican II accomplished a revolutionary alteration in the Roman Catholic Church; a virtual complete rupture with Sacred Tradition. MORE...
NOTE:
What Horvat is stressing it seems to me is that Martin Luther claimed the Mass was not a re-presentation of the atoning death of Christ on the Cross of Calvary but rather a memorial of the Last Supper. In Luther's theology the Mass becomes primarily a communion service of believers and a way of giving thanks to God.
The Catholic doctrine of Transubstantiation was rejected by Luther and interestingly enough the uniquely Catholic term all but ignored by Vatican II further evidence that the second Vatican Council moved in the direction of Luther. In multiple ways the Novus Ordo Mass is without doubt much closer to Luther's view of the Mass than of the pre-Vatican II Mass of Pope Pius V--the so-called Tridentine Rite.
Interestingly, Luther made the inherently ridiculous claim that Christ's sacrificial death on the Cross "covered" all of the believer's sins such that one could sin with impunity as long as one believed through faith even more--an obvious afront to the Holiness of God and a clear contradiction of the words of Christ--"if you love me, obey my commandments" (Jn. 14:15).
The perennial Catholic doctrine in contradistinction is that Christ's propitiatory sacrifice is applied only to those who are truly sorry for their sins which are offensive to God and who repent (turn away) of their sinful transgression and amend their lives in such a way as to become truly transformed by grace in Christ. The hollowness of the Lutheran view is readily apparent in that it allows the sinner to persist in their sinful habits without a fundamental transformation. Luther ignores so much of the Gospel it is difficult to believe that anyone would have accepted his teaching.
NOTE:
What Horvat is stressing it seems to me is that Martin Luther claimed the Mass was not a re-presentation of the atoning death of Christ on the Cross of Calvary but rather a memorial of the Last Supper. In Luther's theology the Mass becomes primarily a communion service of believers and a way of giving thanks to God.
The Catholic doctrine of Transubstantiation was rejected by Luther and interestingly enough the uniquely Catholic term all but ignored by Vatican II further evidence that the second Vatican Council moved in the direction of Luther. In multiple ways the Novus Ordo Mass is without doubt much closer to Luther's view of the Mass than of the pre-Vatican II Mass of Pope Pius V--the so-called Tridentine Rite.
Interestingly, Luther made the inherently ridiculous claim that Christ's sacrificial death on the Cross "covered" all of the believer's sins such that one could sin with impunity as long as one believed through faith even more--an obvious afront to the Holiness of God and a clear contradiction of the words of Christ--"if you love me, obey my commandments" (Jn. 14:15).
The perennial Catholic doctrine in contradistinction is that Christ's propitiatory sacrifice is applied only to those who are truly sorry for their sins which are offensive to God and who repent (turn away) of their sinful transgression and amend their lives in such a way as to become truly transformed by grace in Christ. The hollowness of the Lutheran view is readily apparent in that it allows the sinner to persist in their sinful habits without a fundamental transformation. Luther ignores so much of the Gospel it is difficult to believe that anyone would have accepted his teaching.
Friday, May 23, 2008
Suggestions on How to Correct Vatican II: What Can Be Saved / Restored Via A New Council or Papal Acts
By: Stephen Hand
Reaffirm and Realign Church Teaching in accordance with the whole of sacred tradition, the unequivocal teachings of pre-Vatican II popes, especially the Council of Trent and Vatican I. Express sadness that ambiguity or carelessness at best blurred or erased such teachings and gave rise to false impressions across many lines. MORE HERE...Scroll down page.
Reaffirm and Realign Church Teaching in accordance with the whole of sacred tradition, the unequivocal teachings of pre-Vatican II popes, especially the Council of Trent and Vatican I. Express sadness that ambiguity or carelessness at best blurred or erased such teachings and gave rise to false impressions across many lines. MORE HERE...Scroll down page.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
What of Non-Traditional Marriage"
Over the past several years marked interest has grown in what must for the sake of intellectual honesty be termed non-traditional “marriage.” By this is usually meant civil unions or arrangements in which same-sex couples formalize their relationship and in so doing derive the benefits usually reserved for married heterosexual couples. To date, little organized interest has been expressed for other kinds of non-traditional “marriages” such as polygamous ones or those involving animals and humans (bestiality). In any case it has now become necessary to flesh-out the philosophical implications of marriage including the nature of what it means to be a human person and what is meant by “tradition.”
MORE...
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Monday, May 19, 2008
A Response to Fr. McCloskey on The Church in Transition
12/28/2005 5:33:00 PM original HERE...
by Fr. CJ McCloskey - McCloskey's Perspectives
I have always been very impressed with Fr. McCloskey in the past. He has seemed to me to be a very faithful and effective Catholic Priest one who I presume to be orthodox in theological orientation. I have posted his piece here for several reasons; first, as a way of highlighting important data which demonstrate what the "fruits" of Vatican II have been. Second, to pose some questions in response to certain of his claims. My comments are in bold italics. JPH
The Catholic Church in the United States is in a state of profound transition. Fifty years after the close of the Second Vatican Council, a priest or layman transported through time travel from 1965 to 2005 would be astonished and most likely disconcerted by the evident changes that had taken place in those forty years. Of course, the hierarchical and sacramental nature of the Church remains unchanged.
It is certainly true that a pre-Vatican II Catholic priest or layman should be absolutely astonished--better yet appalled by the changes which have occurred subsequent to the Second Vatican Council. By and large many have been anti-Catholic as that word was understood for almost 2 millennia. Fr. McCloskey's view that "the hierarchical and sacramental nature of the Church remain unchanged" does not seem accurate in light of the documents of Vatican II which address Collegiality, the Sacred Liturgy and the evolutionary character of the Counciliar Church--as the progressivists who prevailed during the Council freely admit.
What, however clearly has changed and which we will examine in this article, are the numbers, status, and in many case, the understanding of the roles of laity and, religious, and clergy in the mystical Body of Christ.
Vatican II replaced the Roman Catholic understanding which regarded the Church as the "mystical body of Christ" with a much more potentially broad and vague formulation "the people of God." This potentially allows even non-Christian theists, possibly even agnostics or atheists to be counted among those for whom Christ's atoning work on the Cross has salvific character. It is not clear to what extent Fr. McCloskey actually means "the mystical body of Christ" as understood in the Traditional sense prior to 1965. Obviously Christ's atoning work on the Cross is capable of saving the entire human race in potency but according to Christ's own teaching not in act since only those who believe in Christ, submit their lives to his Lordship ("If you love me obey my commandments") and persevere to the end will be saved.
I am writing this article in the aftermath of what the well know convert Fr. Richard John Neuhaus referred to as " The long Lent" that the Church in America has undergone. This was the painful unraveling of the revelation and cover-up of thousands of accusations, some well founded; others not, against Catholic clergy of sexual abuse of young people. Although brutally disillusioning to many of lay faithful, nonetheless those accused formed less than 2% of Catholic clergy during this time period. Some of the cases dated back to even to the pre-Vatican II era. This has resulted in part to the dismissal from the clerical state of hundreds of Catholic priests and the resultant scandal to the lay faithful.
I find that Fr. McCloskey has too easily accepted the Vatican explanation--also trumpeted by many of the clerical rank in the US—that since some 98% of the Catholic clergy were not guilty of perpetrating sexual abuse against minors especially since “some of the cases dated back to even the pre-Vatican II era” (as if that is any consolation) and that while “brutally disillusioning to many of the faithful” (what an understatement that) “the dismissal from the clerical state of hundreds of Catholic priests” (as if somehow that alone is adequate reparation) “and the resultant scandal to the lay faithful” (to refer to what happened as simply a scandal is an extreme, understatement) that somehow the terrible life changing reality for the victims--and the distrust of the Church itself--of what happened is not really so bad.
Fr. McCloskey’s treatment of the sexual abuse crisis in such a cursory fashion lacking almost completely in empathy and compassion for the victims yet missing no opportunity to defend the clergy who are not guilty of these heinous crimes is extremely disappointing. This is standard Vatican misdirection (spin or sophistry) in my view and represents an obvious attempt at mitigating the severity of what happened. The Holy See is guilty of a total lack of discipline with respect to its duty to insure that the Catholic clergy remains--in word and deed--committed to the very highest ideals of Catholic faith and practice. After the close of the Second Vatican Council in 1965, all disciplinary action designed to insure orthodoxy functionally ceased. There is simply no excuse for the flock to have been subjected to the wolves who for decades have been allowed to ravage them without limitation.
Where was the justifiable outrage from Fr. McCloskey, who could easily have taken this opportunity to reiterate the Traditional Catholic teaching that; homosexual activity of any kind is gravely sinful? Where does he state clearly that clerics must never utilize their power and sacred trust to intimidate children and adolescents into sexually or otherwise compromising situations which are not compatible with their ultimate salvation? Sacred Scripture is abundantly clear in multiple Old and New Testament passages that the abuse of one’s sexuality especially in a homosexual capacity is an abomination and left unrepented is grounds for eternal damnation. Even worse is Christ’s own concise statement that it would be better for a cleric to have a stone tied about his neck and be cast into the sea than to harm one of the “little ones” who come to him. Think of the harm that has been irrevocably caused without any response by the Vatican to formally defrock and excommunicate the offenders.
Nevertheless, contrary to the dire predictions of prognosticators both within and without the Church, the scandal has not seemed to lessen the sacramental or even financial contributions to the 195 dioceses that compose the Church in America. Indeed, as we will see, it appears that according to the statistics, the situation in many areas of the Church is bottoming out and that it may well be on cusp of a more vibrant, faith Church firmly rooted in the authentic teachings of the Second Vatican Council as mediated through the magisterium of Pope John Paul (who visited the US seven times during his pontificate) and his able successor and close collaborator, Pope Benedict XVI, respectively a Father and peritus of Vatican II. If the Church in the US is entering, as I firmly believe, a many decades march into the New Evangelization, given its status as the world's only world power, it can have a tremendous effect both in the United States which finds itself deeply divided on issues that are largely moral based, witness; the well known division between the so-called blue and red states in the last several national elections.
I fear that Fr. McCloskey evinces here a belief in Neoconservative politics in his use of words which seem overly enamored with the notion of American exceptionalism i.e, "the world's only world power." There is a certain contingent of American Catholics who seem to have embraced the neocon political agenda in such a way as to make it fit with their view of Roman Catholicism or vice-versa, a view which is certainly not Traditional and in many respects not even orthodox.
Moreover, many of the beliefs which Fr. McCloskey seems to hold most fervantly have either been completely ignored or severely attenuated e.g. the twin evils of procurred abortion and artificial contraception in the wake of Vatican II where clear majorities of Roman Catholics openly reject Church teaching. This is temporally related to one event--Vatican II. It seems that someone with Fr. McCloskey's obvious theological sophistication would easily recognize that his committment to orthodoxy was not shared by the Vatican II Council Father's or those who promulgated it thereafter. Why the lack of candor and his praise for and endorsement of Vatican II writ-large?
The purpose of this article is not to compare and contrast with other continents but is quite clear that in many areas, the Church in the US compares very favorably, as we will see, with the imploding and apostatizing situation in Europe and the chaotic situation inLatin America. Of course, Africa, and Asia are another case as they are in full evangelical bloom of an enculturation that may take centuries to complete not unlike the Christianizing of the barbarians in the latter part of the first millennium. Their growth rates have been off the charts in the last century . This clearly presages that the demographic center of the Church will continue moving East and South in the centuries to come thus fulfilling Christ's commandment that the Gospel be preached to all the nations.
There are presently approximately 67 million Catholics in the US representing 6 percent of the global Catholic population of 1.1 billion. Interestingly enough, the percentage of Catholic in the American population has remained rather steady in the last forty years hovering around a quarter of the population. This actually is rather encouraging given that gradual disintegration of traditional mainstream Protestantism and the growth of the larger number of people who practice no religion in any real sense. The actual number may be many millions more given the high level of illegal immigration of Hispanics from Latin America, the majority being Mexican. The enculturation and evangelization of both the legal and immigrants from Latin America will be crucial to the health of the Church in America as this trend may continue and the Hispanics generally have a considerably a higher birth rate than the " Anglo", Black, or Asian American Catholics. Happily many seminaries are increasing requiring or at least encouraging Spanish classes as a pre-requisite for education as increasingly the Catholic Church in America is bi-lingual.
If it were not for the massive immigration of Hispanic Catholics into the US, the total number of Catholics would clearly be signficantly reduced over the period in question.
The growth of the Church in the US both in its origins and throughout its history until the 1930's was an immigrant Church. Yet no immigration by any ethnic group, not even the Irish has been so rapid and overwhelming as the deluge from South of the Border. Indeed that continuing immigration has been so massive that some people refer to our large most westward state as "Mexifornia" one of the big questions affecting both the U.S. as a country and the Catholic Church in it, is to what extent the Hispanics will assimilate by learning English as other immigrants historically have or may well form almost a separate region in side of the United States, almost a " Balkanization" of America.
On the handling of the Hispanic question rests the real future of the Church in the U.S. Even though the Church in the US is large it still trails Brazil (144 million), Mexico (126 million), and the Philippines 70 million) in number of believers. Even though the boundaries between the US and Mexico as commented upon a moment ago are increasingly blurred.
Obviously none of the above-mentioned countries, all of which could be placed in the category of "developing" match the United States, for the time being, in wealth or power or cultural influence . This is also reflected, not surprisingly in ecclesiastical "politics," if you will, The US has 13 cardinals, as contrasted to Brazil with 8 cardinals, Mexico with 5 cardinals, and the Philippines with 2 cardinals. Those three countries represent a block of 340 million Catholics, more than 30% of the global total). American votes in the recent conclave outnumbered all of Africa.
The above is a testament to the hypocrisy of the current hierarchy steeped in political concerns it would seem than a statement of support for the effectiveness of the Catholic Church in the US. Of all the nations with a large Catholic population, the US has had the most dismal and outwardly visible problems post-Vatican II.
Naturally the universal Church and its particular churches in countries cannot be measured only in statistics but certainly the stature of the Church in the US plays a very significant if not predominant role in the universal Church. For example, Catholics in the US have six percent of the population but 12 percent of the bishops in the Church and 14 percent of the priests. The US has more priests by itself than the top three Catholic countries combined (41,00 in the US to 37,00 in Brazil, Mexico and the Philippines combined.) This makes the notion of a " priest shortage" in the US almost laughable at least in comparison with these countries with a much larger total Catholic population.
There is no joke involved with the current situation in the US. A very unfortunate choice of words were utilized there.
Now we can move on to the state of the priesthood, always a key sign when looking at the state of the Church. Before starting, I will add that statistics mirror in many ways the statistics from Europe, whether it is a result of the post World War II secular hedonism in Western Europe or the effects of Soviet communism in the East. In any case, the primary cause of the quasi- collapse in the levels of practicing Catholics, whether in America or Europe was the post-conciliar malaise and utter confusion. But that is another article.
Here, he is at least partially correct. Why not go all the way and indict the Council itself for the confusion and malaise since it is the ambiguity and outright incompatibility of the documents themselves with Sacred Tradition which is the real problem.
Let's look at the numbers first in the US first. In 1965, at the end of the Council there were 58,00 priests. Now there are 41,000 .By 2020 if present trends continue (and there is no sign of a dramatic upsurge in vocations) there will be only 31, 000, and half will be over 70. To give an example, I was ordained in 1981 at the age of 27. Today at the age of 52, I can still attend priest's meeting and be one of the younger priests there. In 1965, 1575 new priests were ordained, In 2005, the number 454, less than a third and remember that the Catholic population in the US increased from 45.6 million in 1965 to the 64.8 million of 2005, almost a 50% increase. The Venerable John Henry Newman said, " Growth is the only evidence of life." By his definition, the Church in the United States has been and continues to be in sharp decline. Now, quite clearly, there has been a sharp decline in the number of seminarians over this time period. Between 1965 and 2005, the number of seminarians fell from 50,000 (some 42000 high school and college seminarians, and 8000 or so graduate seminarians) to today's approximate 5000, a drop of ninety percent. The increasingly affluence and integration of the American Catholic into society was responsible for part of this drop, as entry into the priesthood became only one of more options into professional priesthood. Also the average size of the American family due to both to, again, affluence, and to the increased availability of contraception means simply there were fewer men being procreated from fewer generous families that might be open to total dedication to the celibate priesthood. This trend had already begun as early as the 1940's when the number of priests per Catholic layperson began to decline, well before the Second Vatican Council. While there certainly has been a modest increase in seminarians and an up tick in ordinations, there is unlikely to be large upsurge in priestly vocations in the US, at least in comparison to its apex in 1965. I will touch on this again later but there is greater hope as more and more bishops come on board who were ordained during the pontificate off John Paul II take a more aggressive and positive recruitment of young men to the priesthood. There has been considerable success in more than a several dioceses with this approach.
My understanding is that only in those dioceses which adhere to very orthodox Catholic teaching reminiscent of pre-Vatican II theology is there an increase in vocations of any appreciable degree.
At the same time, as I write there has begun a Vatican mandated countrywide investigation of American seminaries. This investigation was mandated over three years ago as a result of the explosion priestly abuse scandals of the years 2001 -2003. It is quite clear that this crisis was brought about in part by the presence of active homosexuals in the seminary and in the priesthood.
At least we have here an admission that homosexuality in the Catholic Priesthood is a huge problem. However, he does not go nearly far enough.
With this the conclusions and recommendations of this investigation and the issuing of a recent document forbidding the entrance into the seminary of homosexuals, it can be anticipated that seminaries will once again be strongly faithful to the Churches in its teaching and that the moral atmosphere at the seminaries themselves will be much improved. This alone will make a big difference in attracting virile, pious young men and also in families encouraging their sons to contemplate a priestly vocation.
The recent document "Concerning..." referred to previously on this site HERE...is extremely ambiguous and it is not at all clear that there will be a reduction in the number of homosexuals admitted to the seminary. Quite the contrary, since the seminary directors who are homosexual themselves or are sympathetic to homosexuality have not been removed, it is logical to presume nothing will change. There exists a virulent homosexual subculture at many US seminaries and among the US Catholic clergy which is growing not decreasing.
Also certainly the priestly example of recently canonized men like, St. Maximilian Kolbe, St. Pio of Pieltracina and St. Josemaria Escriva along with the long pontificate and recent death of the exemplary in every way priesthood Pope John Paul II surely will attract many young men to the priesthood.
This statement at least with regard to Pope John Paul II is demonstrably false no matter how much Fr. McCloskey may admire the late Pope John Paul II. He was a simply awful disciplinarian and allowed the “wolves” to ravage his flock. He failed in his primary duty to protect them from doctrinal error and malevolent clerics whose actions threatened their very salvation. How one wishes that it were not so. Intellectual honesty forces us to admit the truth.
Mention should also be made of the gradual appearance in the US of the various new ecclesial realities so favored by Popes John Paul land Benedict are already providing vocations to the diocesan priesthood. the Neo-Catechumenate being the most notable in this regard.
The religious men and women (those taking vows) have even more precipitously declined in the US over this time period. In 1965, there were 22,707 priests; today there are 14,137 with a much high percentage of them well over the age of 65. . Religious brothers have gone from 12,271 to 5,451, and woman religious from the astounding number of 179,954 in 1965 to 68, 634 in 2005. I should mention here that the attrition in these number, as well as that of diocesan is not only due to deaths and a dearth of priestly or religious vocations but also a massive defection whether a sanctioned or not by the Church. Again we do not have time to analyze the multiple causes that caused this precipitous decline in belief and practice, the doubting into questions of faith and morals that was widely spread in the post-conciliar Church after the Council also led many priests and religious to abandon ship in to lay married life. Naturally this also has a depressing effect on the recruitment of response to a vocation by young men and women who had seen this exodus in full play. Quite clearly the abandonment or radical changes on the part of many religious congregations of their historical rules, community life, and clothing also had a deleterious effect both on perseverance and recruitment in vocations. There are many more women religious over the age of ninety than under the age of 30 in the US. The number of Catholic nuns, 180,000 in 1965, has fallen by 60%. Their average age is now 68. The number of teaching nuns has fallen 94% from the close of the Council. The number of young men studying to become members of the two principal teaching orders: the Jesuits and Christian Brothers have fallen by 90 percent and 99%, respectively. There is little sign of growth in this part of the Church in the US. However there are some signs of hope with the arrival of some new religious congregations and revival of others.
All of the above are further evidence of the general "rot" which occured post-Vatican II.
The only religious congregations showing signs of life and getting vocations are strongly faith evangelizing men's congregations like the Friars of the Renewal and the Legionaries of Christ. Among the women it is the same. those who wear full habit and have a strong prayer and community life are drawing many vocations; the Nashville Dominicans, and Mother Angelica's Poor Clares being outstanding examples. The traditional Carmels continue to draw a steady stream of young vocations.
We can now examine the state of what was in many ways, the pride and joy of the pre-Vatican Catholic Church in America: the educational system that extended from grammar school through hundreds (yes, hundreds) of Catholic colleges and universities. It is accurate to say that there had never been such an extensive, and at least in appearance, such a fundamentally sound, education system, in any place or at any time in the history of the Church. Elementary education was basically taken care of by the parish following the pioneering work of St. John Neumann. . The parish also directed many highs schools but there were also many directed by the armies of men and women religious. Virtually all of the high schools were single-sex while some were co-institutional i.e. boys and girls in the same building but educated separately. Naturally the combination of a stable marriages, relatively, large families, and strong catechesis produced not only vocations but also well formed men and women who lived their Fifth in a coherent way in there professional work, including politics and marital life. . That is all virtually gone now.
Almost half the Catholic schools open in 1965 have closed. There were 4.5 million students in Catholic schools in the mid-1960. Today there is about half that number. What is even more troubling is that those children still attending Catholic schools (grammar and high) are taught by lay poorly formed Generation X Catholics who often themselves have serious difficulties with aspects of Catholic doctrinal and moral life. Only 10 percent of lay religious teachers accept church teaching on contraception, 53 percent believed a Catholic woman could get an abortion and remain a good Catholic, 65 percent said Catholics have a right to divorce and remarry, and in a New York Times poll, 70 percent of Catholics ages 18-54 said they believed the Holy Eucharist was but a " symbolic reminder" of Jesus.
What more is required to demonstrate the complete failure in belief and practice of Catholic education and catechesis post-Vatican II? The majority of professing Catholics do not even believe what the Church teaches subsequent to the Council let alone the much more strict pre-Vatican II doctrinal corpus.
There are 224 existing Catholic colleges and universities formally recognized by the US Bishops as Catholic. Two of them, Georgetown and Notre Dame University are generally included among the top 25 universities in the US. . However the world " Catholic" tends to be very loosely applied with in many cases only the name and the statuary remaining to signify the Catholic origins of the universities. At least, if one judges the most important part of any catholic university to be the faithfulness of its theology departments, only some fifteen of the 224, less than 10% of the theology faculties as a whole have received the Mandatum" from the competent ecclesiastical authority as required by the Congregation of Catholic Education according the Apostolic Constitution on Higher Education (1990), Ex Corde Ecclesiae. "
One could ask why has the Vatican not insisted that "Catholic" colleges and universities insure full compliance with the Mandatum requirement in their departments of theology? This suggests that the Holy See is not serious about orthdoxy. Those which fail to achieve full compliance should no longer be allowed to use the "Catholic" moniker at all.
Nonetheless, there are signs of hope. Over the last thirty years or so, there have been a dozen or so Catholic colleges founded, in part, in reaction to the increasing secularization of the nominal Catholic institutions. Generally, they are flourishing even though still not large in the quantity of students attending. Franciscan University of Steubenville, The University of Dallas, and the newly founded Ave Maria University stand out among the larger faithful institutions, while Thomas Aquinas College and Christendom College stand out among the smaller schools. All of them have a required core curriculum for the liberal arts with theology and philosophy required. Another sign of hope among the larger universities is what appears to be a gradual return to Catholicity of Notre Dame University spurred in part by a new President and by generally better catechized student body and also by alumni demand for a return to faithfulness to the Church's teaching. Some other good signs are that bishops are in some case now informing colleges that they can no longer refer to themselves as Catholic and that there are at least six new Catholic colleges and universities under development.
These are all very favorable developments. They implicitly are based however upon a return to pre-Vatican II teaching if not explicitly so. Orthodoxy of belief and practice are core to their success albeit without a candid admission that the Vatican II (New Theology) is incompatible with Sacred Tradition.
However, none of these "positive" changes have been associated with any real criticism of those parts of the Second Vatican Council which conflict with Sacred Tradition. For the most part, even the more orthodox educational facilities tow the line in upholding the Council as a positive ecclesiological development. This suggests that there is a hollowness or shallowness to their appreciation of Traditional Catholicism in its splendor and entirety.
As we come to an end, we now can look at some of the quantitative participation of lay Catholics in the sacramental life. Before the Second Vatican Council, approximate 75% of Catholics attended Mass on Sundays. As of 2004 approximately 32% of American Catholic attend Mass every Sunday. On any given Sunday as many as 40% of American Catholics may be attending Mass even though some of them do not attend Mass regularly. Thus there are only more or less half as many Catholics attending Mass now as before the Council.
These statistics should tell us all we need to know about the contemporary Catholic Church. How could one not conclude that a very serious problem exists when over 50% of the Catholic population has abandoned regular Catholic worship many having abandoned a belief in God altogether?
This may also suggest that there really is no priest shortage at all although there clearly is a surplus of Church buildings since the practicing congregations are nowhere as near as large. This accounts for the multiples closing of parishes, particularly in the large metropolitan areas, over the last fifteen years.
Fr. McCloskey engages in some very spurious logic above.The reason why there may not actually be a priest shortage is that in the wake of Vatican II over 50% of Catholics have either abandoned the Church in favor of some other religion entirely or have effectively become secularists/atheists.
However, what is even more distressing is the American custom of virtually every layperson that attends Mass on Sundays also receives Holy Communion. Given the dramatic fall-off in the in the reception of the Sacrament of Penance and the drop in belief in the divine presence in the Eucharist, it is clear there are many objectively sacrilegious communions. Much work of catechesis is to be done.
This is all very true. Unfortunately, it is beyond reasonable doubt the direct effect of Vatican II ecclesiology which Fr. McCloskey seems to support overwhelmingly at least in theory but not in practice. The Conciliar documents and the post-Conciliar promulgation of same have all but removed the “Holy Sacrifice of the Mass” as a foundational principle meaning that the Mass is no longer presented as a propitiatory sacrifice that is, a re-presentation in an extra space/time dimensional way of the salvific work that Christ performed on the Cross of Calvary as recompense to HIS father for the sins of the world.
Rather the Mass is most often referred to as a celebratory meal in which the "table" aspect has become the primary focus in almost complete contrast to the stressing of the “alter of sacrifice” which was intrinsic to the pre-Vatican II Mass. The latter development was purposeful as can be appreciated by noting that Protestant ministers were involved in altering the Sacred Liturgy in such a way as to make it more amenable to Protestant sensibilities, their main objection to the Mass being its sacrificial nature which they saw as barbaric even idolatrous. Why the Council Fathers who should have known better would have been willing to alter something so central to Catholic doctrine remains debatable. The best answer would appear to be that the Modernism which Pope St. Pius X opposed was able to rear its ugly head again in the form of the Neo-modernist Periti (now known as Progressivists) who ultimately prevailed over the theological conservatives at Vatican II.
Moreover, part and parcel of the New (post-Conciliary) Theology is the virtual disappearance of personal sin, the individual responsibility for same and the need to confess it to a Priest. Precious little discussion of Hell is found in the Conciliar documents and no anathemas were forthcoming from the Council which while presented as “Pastoral” contained much that was clearly Dogmatic/Doctrinal.
Also of interest from a cultural viewpoint are the voting patterns of American Catholics over the last forty years, there has been a clear shift towards the Republican party away from the Democratic party among Catholic voters. When the polls differentiate between church going and non-Church going Catholics, the Republican dominate by a wider margin among the Church going, and Democrats among the non-Church going. I would extrapolate the more orthodox in belief and regular in Church attendance the Catholic person, the more he votes for Republicans whose national platform particularly upon non-opinionable teachings, are clearly more in synch with the Church's teachings particularly on non-negotiable matters such as abortion, homosexuality, marriage, and embryonic experimentation.
This is only partly true. As outlined above, while the Catholic Church pays some lip service to the grave sinfulness of homosexual activity, the clergy virtually ignores the issue in the pulpit and in catechesis. Moreover, the post-Vatican II statements on homosexuality tend to legitimize the view that homosexual inclinations/tendencies are not in themselves morally wrong as if they do not represent the near occassion of sin. The idea that one could avoid acting on such inclinations--particularly if they are regarded as uncontrollable or somehow part of the individual's personna or outward affect--is simply naive in the extreme.
The Roman Catholic clergy and heirarchy leave the impression that homosexuality is simply normal for some people yet it represents an aberation which affects only 2% of the population when not encouraged or normalized. Similar statistics could be sited for other sexually related abberent behavior such as blatent promiscuity, heterosexual sodomy--which is now apparently engaged in to an even greater extent than that of the homosexual variety--due in large part to the widespread viewing of pornography in the developed West. These images depict multiple partners of both sexes engaging in both vaginal and anal intercourse often simultaneously in "3-some's." Such sexually aberrant behaviors are not yet considered entirely normal or legitimate among secularists yet some individuals are strongly motivated to engage in them. Bestiality has even become fashionable in some quarters yet to date it has not yet become "normalized." It seems that the Roman Catholic Church has accepted the homosexual personna but not that of those individuals who are driven to engage in other impure sexual practices which violate the natural law. Is such a distinction not hypocritical? It would seem to be contrary to right reason and must be corrected in such a way as to make it clear that sexual activity in order to be morally licit must be compatible with Sacred Scripture, Sacred Tradition and the Natural Law.
Moreover, now that the Republican Party has become the predominate "war party" through its blatent "war mongering" and acceptance of preventive wars of aggression, the fact that regular church going Catholics are more likely to vote Republican is as morally deficient as those Catholics who vote Democratic knowing that the party supports unrestricted access to abortion, in-vitro fertilization and destructive embryo research on human beings. All of these are immoral practices according to Catholic teaching. Neither political party can righfully claim that its policy positions are compatible with Catholic teaching.
As regards the living out by American Catholic of the moral aspects of marriage and family, life the statistics available are somewhat less exact. Catholics are 30 percent less likely to divorce than the rest of the population. Active Catholics are 50% less likely to divorce than unaffiliated-secular Americans. About 20% of all Catholic marriage ends in divorce where at least one spouse attends Mass weekly.
If true, these statistics are encouraging. Yet, overall, Catholics have the same rates of divorce and abortion as the general population in most sociological studies. It would be nice if Fr. McCloskey provided some documentation for the assertions above. Unmarried Catholic women are known to contracept at the same rate as the general population and this is well-known on simply anecdotal grounds.
Unfortunately but not surprisingly Catholics tend to contracept the same as rest of the world Hence the number of children per family is not significantly different from non-Catholics. Catholics tend to have less abortions that the rest of the population but not by a large percentage. The key always is how to define Catholic. On these moral issues, there is a huge difference between the Catholic who worships weekly and the one who goes a few times a year. I would suggest that one of the major issues for the Church in the decades ahead would be clarity as to who is considered Catholic and who is not.
It would be more appropriate to clearly define what is Catholic and what is not in the realms of doctrine/dogma and praxis. This would no doubt include significant corrections to the Vatican II documents themselves where they are incompatible with Sacred Tradition or an outright rejection of same through a subsequent Vatican III corrective council.
This may result in a smaller but much more fervent and evangelizing Church. They will carry out the New Evangelization in the United States that can bear so much fruit in the 25 years ahead with the resulting positive impact throughout the globe.
Fr. McCloskey seems to have drawn the wrong conclusions from his own assembled data. In my opinion he is much too forgiving of the mess that is the post-Vatican II Catholic Church in failing to recognize the doctrinal incompatibilities with much of what was written in the documents there. The new view of the "Church of Christ" being broader than the Roman Catholic Church is but one example. Someone of his obvious intellect and gifts would be expected to derive a more realistic set of conclusions from the current almost completely negative fruits which have been forthcoming from the Second Vatican Council. Obviously, it is not easy to deal with the realization that something has gone terribly wrong with Roman Catholicism in the wake of the Second Vatican Council. Maybe this is his attempt at putting the best interpretation he can muster on it. However, I believe his confidence is misplaced.
This article was originally published in the January 2006 issue of Palabra
(Madrid, Spain).
by Fr. CJ McCloskey - McCloskey's Perspectives
I have always been very impressed with Fr. McCloskey in the past. He has seemed to me to be a very faithful and effective Catholic Priest one who I presume to be orthodox in theological orientation. I have posted his piece here for several reasons; first, as a way of highlighting important data which demonstrate what the "fruits" of Vatican II have been. Second, to pose some questions in response to certain of his claims. My comments are in bold italics. JPH
The Catholic Church in the United States is in a state of profound transition. Fifty years after the close of the Second Vatican Council, a priest or layman transported through time travel from 1965 to 2005 would be astonished and most likely disconcerted by the evident changes that had taken place in those forty years. Of course, the hierarchical and sacramental nature of the Church remains unchanged.
It is certainly true that a pre-Vatican II Catholic priest or layman should be absolutely astonished--better yet appalled by the changes which have occurred subsequent to the Second Vatican Council. By and large many have been anti-Catholic as that word was understood for almost 2 millennia. Fr. McCloskey's view that "the hierarchical and sacramental nature of the Church remain unchanged" does not seem accurate in light of the documents of Vatican II which address Collegiality, the Sacred Liturgy and the evolutionary character of the Counciliar Church--as the progressivists who prevailed during the Council freely admit.
What, however clearly has changed and which we will examine in this article, are the numbers, status, and in many case, the understanding of the roles of laity and, religious, and clergy in the mystical Body of Christ.
Vatican II replaced the Roman Catholic understanding which regarded the Church as the "mystical body of Christ" with a much more potentially broad and vague formulation "the people of God." This potentially allows even non-Christian theists, possibly even agnostics or atheists to be counted among those for whom Christ's atoning work on the Cross has salvific character. It is not clear to what extent Fr. McCloskey actually means "the mystical body of Christ" as understood in the Traditional sense prior to 1965. Obviously Christ's atoning work on the Cross is capable of saving the entire human race in potency but according to Christ's own teaching not in act since only those who believe in Christ, submit their lives to his Lordship ("If you love me obey my commandments") and persevere to the end will be saved.
I am writing this article in the aftermath of what the well know convert Fr. Richard John Neuhaus referred to as " The long Lent" that the Church in America has undergone. This was the painful unraveling of the revelation and cover-up of thousands of accusations, some well founded; others not, against Catholic clergy of sexual abuse of young people. Although brutally disillusioning to many of lay faithful, nonetheless those accused formed less than 2% of Catholic clergy during this time period. Some of the cases dated back to even to the pre-Vatican II era. This has resulted in part to the dismissal from the clerical state of hundreds of Catholic priests and the resultant scandal to the lay faithful.
I find that Fr. McCloskey has too easily accepted the Vatican explanation--also trumpeted by many of the clerical rank in the US—that since some 98% of the Catholic clergy were not guilty of perpetrating sexual abuse against minors especially since “some of the cases dated back to even the pre-Vatican II era” (as if that is any consolation) and that while “brutally disillusioning to many of the faithful” (what an understatement that) “the dismissal from the clerical state of hundreds of Catholic priests” (as if somehow that alone is adequate reparation) “and the resultant scandal to the lay faithful” (to refer to what happened as simply a scandal is an extreme, understatement) that somehow the terrible life changing reality for the victims--and the distrust of the Church itself--of what happened is not really so bad.
Fr. McCloskey’s treatment of the sexual abuse crisis in such a cursory fashion lacking almost completely in empathy and compassion for the victims yet missing no opportunity to defend the clergy who are not guilty of these heinous crimes is extremely disappointing. This is standard Vatican misdirection (spin or sophistry) in my view and represents an obvious attempt at mitigating the severity of what happened. The Holy See is guilty of a total lack of discipline with respect to its duty to insure that the Catholic clergy remains--in word and deed--committed to the very highest ideals of Catholic faith and practice. After the close of the Second Vatican Council in 1965, all disciplinary action designed to insure orthodoxy functionally ceased. There is simply no excuse for the flock to have been subjected to the wolves who for decades have been allowed to ravage them without limitation.
Where was the justifiable outrage from Fr. McCloskey, who could easily have taken this opportunity to reiterate the Traditional Catholic teaching that; homosexual activity of any kind is gravely sinful? Where does he state clearly that clerics must never utilize their power and sacred trust to intimidate children and adolescents into sexually or otherwise compromising situations which are not compatible with their ultimate salvation? Sacred Scripture is abundantly clear in multiple Old and New Testament passages that the abuse of one’s sexuality especially in a homosexual capacity is an abomination and left unrepented is grounds for eternal damnation. Even worse is Christ’s own concise statement that it would be better for a cleric to have a stone tied about his neck and be cast into the sea than to harm one of the “little ones” who come to him. Think of the harm that has been irrevocably caused without any response by the Vatican to formally defrock and excommunicate the offenders.
Nevertheless, contrary to the dire predictions of prognosticators both within and without the Church, the scandal has not seemed to lessen the sacramental or even financial contributions to the 195 dioceses that compose the Church in America. Indeed, as we will see, it appears that according to the statistics, the situation in many areas of the Church is bottoming out and that it may well be on cusp of a more vibrant, faith Church firmly rooted in the authentic teachings of the Second Vatican Council as mediated through the magisterium of Pope John Paul (who visited the US seven times during his pontificate) and his able successor and close collaborator, Pope Benedict XVI, respectively a Father and peritus of Vatican II. If the Church in the US is entering, as I firmly believe, a many decades march into the New Evangelization, given its status as the world's only world power, it can have a tremendous effect both in the United States which finds itself deeply divided on issues that are largely moral based, witness; the well known division between the so-called blue and red states in the last several national elections.
I fear that Fr. McCloskey evinces here a belief in Neoconservative politics in his use of words which seem overly enamored with the notion of American exceptionalism i.e, "the world's only world power." There is a certain contingent of American Catholics who seem to have embraced the neocon political agenda in such a way as to make it fit with their view of Roman Catholicism or vice-versa, a view which is certainly not Traditional and in many respects not even orthodox.
Moreover, many of the beliefs which Fr. McCloskey seems to hold most fervantly have either been completely ignored or severely attenuated e.g. the twin evils of procurred abortion and artificial contraception in the wake of Vatican II where clear majorities of Roman Catholics openly reject Church teaching. This is temporally related to one event--Vatican II. It seems that someone with Fr. McCloskey's obvious theological sophistication would easily recognize that his committment to orthodoxy was not shared by the Vatican II Council Father's or those who promulgated it thereafter. Why the lack of candor and his praise for and endorsement of Vatican II writ-large?
The purpose of this article is not to compare and contrast with other continents but is quite clear that in many areas, the Church in the US compares very favorably, as we will see, with the imploding and apostatizing situation in Europe and the chaotic situation inLatin America. Of course, Africa, and Asia are another case as they are in full evangelical bloom of an enculturation that may take centuries to complete not unlike the Christianizing of the barbarians in the latter part of the first millennium. Their growth rates have been off the charts in the last century . This clearly presages that the demographic center of the Church will continue moving East and South in the centuries to come thus fulfilling Christ's commandment that the Gospel be preached to all the nations.
There are presently approximately 67 million Catholics in the US representing 6 percent of the global Catholic population of 1.1 billion. Interestingly enough, the percentage of Catholic in the American population has remained rather steady in the last forty years hovering around a quarter of the population. This actually is rather encouraging given that gradual disintegration of traditional mainstream Protestantism and the growth of the larger number of people who practice no religion in any real sense. The actual number may be many millions more given the high level of illegal immigration of Hispanics from Latin America, the majority being Mexican. The enculturation and evangelization of both the legal and immigrants from Latin America will be crucial to the health of the Church in America as this trend may continue and the Hispanics generally have a considerably a higher birth rate than the " Anglo", Black, or Asian American Catholics. Happily many seminaries are increasing requiring or at least encouraging Spanish classes as a pre-requisite for education as increasingly the Catholic Church in America is bi-lingual.
If it were not for the massive immigration of Hispanic Catholics into the US, the total number of Catholics would clearly be signficantly reduced over the period in question.
The growth of the Church in the US both in its origins and throughout its history until the 1930's was an immigrant Church. Yet no immigration by any ethnic group, not even the Irish has been so rapid and overwhelming as the deluge from South of the Border. Indeed that continuing immigration has been so massive that some people refer to our large most westward state as "Mexifornia" one of the big questions affecting both the U.S. as a country and the Catholic Church in it, is to what extent the Hispanics will assimilate by learning English as other immigrants historically have or may well form almost a separate region in side of the United States, almost a " Balkanization" of America.
On the handling of the Hispanic question rests the real future of the Church in the U.S. Even though the Church in the US is large it still trails Brazil (144 million), Mexico (126 million), and the Philippines 70 million) in number of believers. Even though the boundaries between the US and Mexico as commented upon a moment ago are increasingly blurred.
Obviously none of the above-mentioned countries, all of which could be placed in the category of "developing" match the United States, for the time being, in wealth or power or cultural influence . This is also reflected, not surprisingly in ecclesiastical "politics," if you will, The US has 13 cardinals, as contrasted to Brazil with 8 cardinals, Mexico with 5 cardinals, and the Philippines with 2 cardinals. Those three countries represent a block of 340 million Catholics, more than 30% of the global total). American votes in the recent conclave outnumbered all of Africa.
The above is a testament to the hypocrisy of the current hierarchy steeped in political concerns it would seem than a statement of support for the effectiveness of the Catholic Church in the US. Of all the nations with a large Catholic population, the US has had the most dismal and outwardly visible problems post-Vatican II.
Naturally the universal Church and its particular churches in countries cannot be measured only in statistics but certainly the stature of the Church in the US plays a very significant if not predominant role in the universal Church. For example, Catholics in the US have six percent of the population but 12 percent of the bishops in the Church and 14 percent of the priests. The US has more priests by itself than the top three Catholic countries combined (41,00 in the US to 37,00 in Brazil, Mexico and the Philippines combined.) This makes the notion of a " priest shortage" in the US almost laughable at least in comparison with these countries with a much larger total Catholic population.
There is no joke involved with the current situation in the US. A very unfortunate choice of words were utilized there.
Now we can move on to the state of the priesthood, always a key sign when looking at the state of the Church. Before starting, I will add that statistics mirror in many ways the statistics from Europe, whether it is a result of the post World War II secular hedonism in Western Europe or the effects of Soviet communism in the East. In any case, the primary cause of the quasi- collapse in the levels of practicing Catholics, whether in America or Europe was the post-conciliar malaise and utter confusion. But that is another article.
Here, he is at least partially correct. Why not go all the way and indict the Council itself for the confusion and malaise since it is the ambiguity and outright incompatibility of the documents themselves with Sacred Tradition which is the real problem.
Let's look at the numbers first in the US first. In 1965, at the end of the Council there were 58,00 priests. Now there are 41,000 .By 2020 if present trends continue (and there is no sign of a dramatic upsurge in vocations) there will be only 31, 000, and half will be over 70. To give an example, I was ordained in 1981 at the age of 27. Today at the age of 52, I can still attend priest's meeting and be one of the younger priests there. In 1965, 1575 new priests were ordained, In 2005, the number 454, less than a third and remember that the Catholic population in the US increased from 45.6 million in 1965 to the 64.8 million of 2005, almost a 50% increase. The Venerable John Henry Newman said, " Growth is the only evidence of life." By his definition, the Church in the United States has been and continues to be in sharp decline. Now, quite clearly, there has been a sharp decline in the number of seminarians over this time period. Between 1965 and 2005, the number of seminarians fell from 50,000 (some 42000 high school and college seminarians, and 8000 or so graduate seminarians) to today's approximate 5000, a drop of ninety percent. The increasingly affluence and integration of the American Catholic into society was responsible for part of this drop, as entry into the priesthood became only one of more options into professional priesthood. Also the average size of the American family due to both to, again, affluence, and to the increased availability of contraception means simply there were fewer men being procreated from fewer generous families that might be open to total dedication to the celibate priesthood. This trend had already begun as early as the 1940's when the number of priests per Catholic layperson began to decline, well before the Second Vatican Council. While there certainly has been a modest increase in seminarians and an up tick in ordinations, there is unlikely to be large upsurge in priestly vocations in the US, at least in comparison to its apex in 1965. I will touch on this again later but there is greater hope as more and more bishops come on board who were ordained during the pontificate off John Paul II take a more aggressive and positive recruitment of young men to the priesthood. There has been considerable success in more than a several dioceses with this approach.
My understanding is that only in those dioceses which adhere to very orthodox Catholic teaching reminiscent of pre-Vatican II theology is there an increase in vocations of any appreciable degree.
At the same time, as I write there has begun a Vatican mandated countrywide investigation of American seminaries. This investigation was mandated over three years ago as a result of the explosion priestly abuse scandals of the years 2001 -2003. It is quite clear that this crisis was brought about in part by the presence of active homosexuals in the seminary and in the priesthood.
At least we have here an admission that homosexuality in the Catholic Priesthood is a huge problem. However, he does not go nearly far enough.
With this the conclusions and recommendations of this investigation and the issuing of a recent document forbidding the entrance into the seminary of homosexuals, it can be anticipated that seminaries will once again be strongly faithful to the Churches in its teaching and that the moral atmosphere at the seminaries themselves will be much improved. This alone will make a big difference in attracting virile, pious young men and also in families encouraging their sons to contemplate a priestly vocation.
The recent document "Concerning..." referred to previously on this site HERE...is extremely ambiguous and it is not at all clear that there will be a reduction in the number of homosexuals admitted to the seminary. Quite the contrary, since the seminary directors who are homosexual themselves or are sympathetic to homosexuality have not been removed, it is logical to presume nothing will change. There exists a virulent homosexual subculture at many US seminaries and among the US Catholic clergy which is growing not decreasing.
Also certainly the priestly example of recently canonized men like, St. Maximilian Kolbe, St. Pio of Pieltracina and St. Josemaria Escriva along with the long pontificate and recent death of the exemplary in every way priesthood Pope John Paul II surely will attract many young men to the priesthood.
This statement at least with regard to Pope John Paul II is demonstrably false no matter how much Fr. McCloskey may admire the late Pope John Paul II. He was a simply awful disciplinarian and allowed the “wolves” to ravage his flock. He failed in his primary duty to protect them from doctrinal error and malevolent clerics whose actions threatened their very salvation. How one wishes that it were not so. Intellectual honesty forces us to admit the truth.
Mention should also be made of the gradual appearance in the US of the various new ecclesial realities so favored by Popes John Paul land Benedict are already providing vocations to the diocesan priesthood. the Neo-Catechumenate being the most notable in this regard.
The religious men and women (those taking vows) have even more precipitously declined in the US over this time period. In 1965, there were 22,707 priests; today there are 14,137 with a much high percentage of them well over the age of 65. . Religious brothers have gone from 12,271 to 5,451, and woman religious from the astounding number of 179,954 in 1965 to 68, 634 in 2005. I should mention here that the attrition in these number, as well as that of diocesan is not only due to deaths and a dearth of priestly or religious vocations but also a massive defection whether a sanctioned or not by the Church. Again we do not have time to analyze the multiple causes that caused this precipitous decline in belief and practice, the doubting into questions of faith and morals that was widely spread in the post-conciliar Church after the Council also led many priests and religious to abandon ship in to lay married life. Naturally this also has a depressing effect on the recruitment of response to a vocation by young men and women who had seen this exodus in full play. Quite clearly the abandonment or radical changes on the part of many religious congregations of their historical rules, community life, and clothing also had a deleterious effect both on perseverance and recruitment in vocations. There are many more women religious over the age of ninety than under the age of 30 in the US. The number of Catholic nuns, 180,000 in 1965, has fallen by 60%. Their average age is now 68. The number of teaching nuns has fallen 94% from the close of the Council. The number of young men studying to become members of the two principal teaching orders: the Jesuits and Christian Brothers have fallen by 90 percent and 99%, respectively. There is little sign of growth in this part of the Church in the US. However there are some signs of hope with the arrival of some new religious congregations and revival of others.
All of the above are further evidence of the general "rot" which occured post-Vatican II.
The only religious congregations showing signs of life and getting vocations are strongly faith evangelizing men's congregations like the Friars of the Renewal and the Legionaries of Christ. Among the women it is the same. those who wear full habit and have a strong prayer and community life are drawing many vocations; the Nashville Dominicans, and Mother Angelica's Poor Clares being outstanding examples. The traditional Carmels continue to draw a steady stream of young vocations.
We can now examine the state of what was in many ways, the pride and joy of the pre-Vatican Catholic Church in America: the educational system that extended from grammar school through hundreds (yes, hundreds) of Catholic colleges and universities. It is accurate to say that there had never been such an extensive, and at least in appearance, such a fundamentally sound, education system, in any place or at any time in the history of the Church. Elementary education was basically taken care of by the parish following the pioneering work of St. John Neumann. . The parish also directed many highs schools but there were also many directed by the armies of men and women religious. Virtually all of the high schools were single-sex while some were co-institutional i.e. boys and girls in the same building but educated separately. Naturally the combination of a stable marriages, relatively, large families, and strong catechesis produced not only vocations but also well formed men and women who lived their Fifth in a coherent way in there professional work, including politics and marital life. . That is all virtually gone now.
Almost half the Catholic schools open in 1965 have closed. There were 4.5 million students in Catholic schools in the mid-1960. Today there is about half that number. What is even more troubling is that those children still attending Catholic schools (grammar and high) are taught by lay poorly formed Generation X Catholics who often themselves have serious difficulties with aspects of Catholic doctrinal and moral life. Only 10 percent of lay religious teachers accept church teaching on contraception, 53 percent believed a Catholic woman could get an abortion and remain a good Catholic, 65 percent said Catholics have a right to divorce and remarry, and in a New York Times poll, 70 percent of Catholics ages 18-54 said they believed the Holy Eucharist was but a " symbolic reminder" of Jesus.
What more is required to demonstrate the complete failure in belief and practice of Catholic education and catechesis post-Vatican II? The majority of professing Catholics do not even believe what the Church teaches subsequent to the Council let alone the much more strict pre-Vatican II doctrinal corpus.
There are 224 existing Catholic colleges and universities formally recognized by the US Bishops as Catholic. Two of them, Georgetown and Notre Dame University are generally included among the top 25 universities in the US. . However the world " Catholic" tends to be very loosely applied with in many cases only the name and the statuary remaining to signify the Catholic origins of the universities. At least, if one judges the most important part of any catholic university to be the faithfulness of its theology departments, only some fifteen of the 224, less than 10% of the theology faculties as a whole have received the Mandatum" from the competent ecclesiastical authority as required by the Congregation of Catholic Education according the Apostolic Constitution on Higher Education (1990), Ex Corde Ecclesiae. "
One could ask why has the Vatican not insisted that "Catholic" colleges and universities insure full compliance with the Mandatum requirement in their departments of theology? This suggests that the Holy See is not serious about orthdoxy. Those which fail to achieve full compliance should no longer be allowed to use the "Catholic" moniker at all.
Nonetheless, there are signs of hope. Over the last thirty years or so, there have been a dozen or so Catholic colleges founded, in part, in reaction to the increasing secularization of the nominal Catholic institutions. Generally, they are flourishing even though still not large in the quantity of students attending. Franciscan University of Steubenville, The University of Dallas, and the newly founded Ave Maria University stand out among the larger faithful institutions, while Thomas Aquinas College and Christendom College stand out among the smaller schools. All of them have a required core curriculum for the liberal arts with theology and philosophy required. Another sign of hope among the larger universities is what appears to be a gradual return to Catholicity of Notre Dame University spurred in part by a new President and by generally better catechized student body and also by alumni demand for a return to faithfulness to the Church's teaching. Some other good signs are that bishops are in some case now informing colleges that they can no longer refer to themselves as Catholic and that there are at least six new Catholic colleges and universities under development.
These are all very favorable developments. They implicitly are based however upon a return to pre-Vatican II teaching if not explicitly so. Orthodoxy of belief and practice are core to their success albeit without a candid admission that the Vatican II (New Theology) is incompatible with Sacred Tradition.
However, none of these "positive" changes have been associated with any real criticism of those parts of the Second Vatican Council which conflict with Sacred Tradition. For the most part, even the more orthodox educational facilities tow the line in upholding the Council as a positive ecclesiological development. This suggests that there is a hollowness or shallowness to their appreciation of Traditional Catholicism in its splendor and entirety.
As we come to an end, we now can look at some of the quantitative participation of lay Catholics in the sacramental life. Before the Second Vatican Council, approximate 75% of Catholics attended Mass on Sundays. As of 2004 approximately 32% of American Catholic attend Mass every Sunday. On any given Sunday as many as 40% of American Catholics may be attending Mass even though some of them do not attend Mass regularly. Thus there are only more or less half as many Catholics attending Mass now as before the Council.
These statistics should tell us all we need to know about the contemporary Catholic Church. How could one not conclude that a very serious problem exists when over 50% of the Catholic population has abandoned regular Catholic worship many having abandoned a belief in God altogether?
This may also suggest that there really is no priest shortage at all although there clearly is a surplus of Church buildings since the practicing congregations are nowhere as near as large. This accounts for the multiples closing of parishes, particularly in the large metropolitan areas, over the last fifteen years.
Fr. McCloskey engages in some very spurious logic above.The reason why there may not actually be a priest shortage is that in the wake of Vatican II over 50% of Catholics have either abandoned the Church in favor of some other religion entirely or have effectively become secularists/atheists.
However, what is even more distressing is the American custom of virtually every layperson that attends Mass on Sundays also receives Holy Communion. Given the dramatic fall-off in the in the reception of the Sacrament of Penance and the drop in belief in the divine presence in the Eucharist, it is clear there are many objectively sacrilegious communions. Much work of catechesis is to be done.
This is all very true. Unfortunately, it is beyond reasonable doubt the direct effect of Vatican II ecclesiology which Fr. McCloskey seems to support overwhelmingly at least in theory but not in practice. The Conciliar documents and the post-Conciliar promulgation of same have all but removed the “Holy Sacrifice of the Mass” as a foundational principle meaning that the Mass is no longer presented as a propitiatory sacrifice that is, a re-presentation in an extra space/time dimensional way of the salvific work that Christ performed on the Cross of Calvary as recompense to HIS father for the sins of the world.
Rather the Mass is most often referred to as a celebratory meal in which the "table" aspect has become the primary focus in almost complete contrast to the stressing of the “alter of sacrifice” which was intrinsic to the pre-Vatican II Mass. The latter development was purposeful as can be appreciated by noting that Protestant ministers were involved in altering the Sacred Liturgy in such a way as to make it more amenable to Protestant sensibilities, their main objection to the Mass being its sacrificial nature which they saw as barbaric even idolatrous. Why the Council Fathers who should have known better would have been willing to alter something so central to Catholic doctrine remains debatable. The best answer would appear to be that the Modernism which Pope St. Pius X opposed was able to rear its ugly head again in the form of the Neo-modernist Periti (now known as Progressivists) who ultimately prevailed over the theological conservatives at Vatican II.
Moreover, part and parcel of the New (post-Conciliary) Theology is the virtual disappearance of personal sin, the individual responsibility for same and the need to confess it to a Priest. Precious little discussion of Hell is found in the Conciliar documents and no anathemas were forthcoming from the Council which while presented as “Pastoral” contained much that was clearly Dogmatic/Doctrinal.
Also of interest from a cultural viewpoint are the voting patterns of American Catholics over the last forty years, there has been a clear shift towards the Republican party away from the Democratic party among Catholic voters. When the polls differentiate between church going and non-Church going Catholics, the Republican dominate by a wider margin among the Church going, and Democrats among the non-Church going. I would extrapolate the more orthodox in belief and regular in Church attendance the Catholic person, the more he votes for Republicans whose national platform particularly upon non-opinionable teachings, are clearly more in synch with the Church's teachings particularly on non-negotiable matters such as abortion, homosexuality, marriage, and embryonic experimentation.
This is only partly true. As outlined above, while the Catholic Church pays some lip service to the grave sinfulness of homosexual activity, the clergy virtually ignores the issue in the pulpit and in catechesis. Moreover, the post-Vatican II statements on homosexuality tend to legitimize the view that homosexual inclinations/tendencies are not in themselves morally wrong as if they do not represent the near occassion of sin. The idea that one could avoid acting on such inclinations--particularly if they are regarded as uncontrollable or somehow part of the individual's personna or outward affect--is simply naive in the extreme.
The Roman Catholic clergy and heirarchy leave the impression that homosexuality is simply normal for some people yet it represents an aberation which affects only 2% of the population when not encouraged or normalized. Similar statistics could be sited for other sexually related abberent behavior such as blatent promiscuity, heterosexual sodomy--which is now apparently engaged in to an even greater extent than that of the homosexual variety--due in large part to the widespread viewing of pornography in the developed West. These images depict multiple partners of both sexes engaging in both vaginal and anal intercourse often simultaneously in "3-some's." Such sexually aberrant behaviors are not yet considered entirely normal or legitimate among secularists yet some individuals are strongly motivated to engage in them. Bestiality has even become fashionable in some quarters yet to date it has not yet become "normalized." It seems that the Roman Catholic Church has accepted the homosexual personna but not that of those individuals who are driven to engage in other impure sexual practices which violate the natural law. Is such a distinction not hypocritical? It would seem to be contrary to right reason and must be corrected in such a way as to make it clear that sexual activity in order to be morally licit must be compatible with Sacred Scripture, Sacred Tradition and the Natural Law.
Moreover, now that the Republican Party has become the predominate "war party" through its blatent "war mongering" and acceptance of preventive wars of aggression, the fact that regular church going Catholics are more likely to vote Republican is as morally deficient as those Catholics who vote Democratic knowing that the party supports unrestricted access to abortion, in-vitro fertilization and destructive embryo research on human beings. All of these are immoral practices according to Catholic teaching. Neither political party can righfully claim that its policy positions are compatible with Catholic teaching.
As regards the living out by American Catholic of the moral aspects of marriage and family, life the statistics available are somewhat less exact. Catholics are 30 percent less likely to divorce than the rest of the population. Active Catholics are 50% less likely to divorce than unaffiliated-secular Americans. About 20% of all Catholic marriage ends in divorce where at least one spouse attends Mass weekly.
If true, these statistics are encouraging. Yet, overall, Catholics have the same rates of divorce and abortion as the general population in most sociological studies. It would be nice if Fr. McCloskey provided some documentation for the assertions above. Unmarried Catholic women are known to contracept at the same rate as the general population and this is well-known on simply anecdotal grounds.
Unfortunately but not surprisingly Catholics tend to contracept the same as rest of the world Hence the number of children per family is not significantly different from non-Catholics. Catholics tend to have less abortions that the rest of the population but not by a large percentage. The key always is how to define Catholic. On these moral issues, there is a huge difference between the Catholic who worships weekly and the one who goes a few times a year. I would suggest that one of the major issues for the Church in the decades ahead would be clarity as to who is considered Catholic and who is not.
It would be more appropriate to clearly define what is Catholic and what is not in the realms of doctrine/dogma and praxis. This would no doubt include significant corrections to the Vatican II documents themselves where they are incompatible with Sacred Tradition or an outright rejection of same through a subsequent Vatican III corrective council.
This may result in a smaller but much more fervent and evangelizing Church. They will carry out the New Evangelization in the United States that can bear so much fruit in the 25 years ahead with the resulting positive impact throughout the globe.
Fr. McCloskey seems to have drawn the wrong conclusions from his own assembled data. In my opinion he is much too forgiving of the mess that is the post-Vatican II Catholic Church in failing to recognize the doctrinal incompatibilities with much of what was written in the documents there. The new view of the "Church of Christ" being broader than the Roman Catholic Church is but one example. Someone of his obvious intellect and gifts would be expected to derive a more realistic set of conclusions from the current almost completely negative fruits which have been forthcoming from the Second Vatican Council. Obviously, it is not easy to deal with the realization that something has gone terribly wrong with Roman Catholicism in the wake of the Second Vatican Council. Maybe this is his attempt at putting the best interpretation he can muster on it. However, I believe his confidence is misplaced.
This article was originally published in the January 2006 issue of Palabra
(Madrid, Spain).
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Teilhard de Chardin: Trojoan Horse of Vatican II/Heretic Extraordinaire
...Some of the blame for our current predicament can be laid at the feet of Fr. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a Jesuit Priest who attempted to institute a “New Religion” by combining Darwinian evolution with his unorthodox view of Theism.
As Wolfgang Smith has written, Teilhard de Chardin intended to start a New Religion.[1] He made it quite clear on several occasions. In a letter to Leontine Zanta he wrote:
“As you already know, what dominates my interest and my preoccupations is the effort to establish in myself and to spread around a new religion (you may call it a better Christianity) in which the personal God ceases to be the great Neolithic proprietor of former times, in order to become the soul of the world; our religious and cultural stage calls for this.”[2]
Dietrich von Hildebrand and Wolfgang Smith trace much of the heterodoxy of the second Vatican Conciliar process to the circulation of Teilhardian conceptions of science[3] (especially with respect to biological evolution) and derivatively, Teilhard’s view of religion. Teilhard seems to have made the transformism[4] of biological evolution palatable to certain Catholic Theologians who wished to embrace what they perceived as modern evolutionary science. Traditionally, the entire notion had been thought heretical particularly as concerned the biological evolution of human beings.
MORE...
ENDNOTES:
[1] Wolfgang Smith. Teilhardism and the New Religion: A Thorough Analysis of the Teachings of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. (Rockford, Ill., Tan Books and Publisher’s Inc., 1988), pp. 209-210.
[2] Lettres a Leontine Zanta (Paris: Desclee de Brouwer, 1965), p. 127; quoted by von Hildebrand in Trojan Horse in the City of God (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1967), p. 239.
[3] Which was steeped in Baconian conceptions of science and which fully accepted the Bifurcationism of Descartes.
[4] Also referred to as “Macroevolution” in which major animal body plans are alleged to have developed slowly and incrementally over eons of time from entirely different ones, e.g. amphibians from fish, birds from reptiles etc. In evolutionary biology this is referred to as “common descent” with modification. There is no persuasive evidence that this has occurred above the level of genus or species if dispassionately considered. Recall also that Fr. Stanley Jaki has argued that “Origins” questions by their very nature are not scientific but philosophical meaning that the question of so-called Macro-evolution is non-scientific from the start since the origin and development of terrestrial life is scientifically unrepeatable. The most one could do is make inferences from established facts.
As Wolfgang Smith has written, Teilhard de Chardin intended to start a New Religion.[1] He made it quite clear on several occasions. In a letter to Leontine Zanta he wrote:
“As you already know, what dominates my interest and my preoccupations is the effort to establish in myself and to spread around a new religion (you may call it a better Christianity) in which the personal God ceases to be the great Neolithic proprietor of former times, in order to become the soul of the world; our religious and cultural stage calls for this.”[2]
Dietrich von Hildebrand and Wolfgang Smith trace much of the heterodoxy of the second Vatican Conciliar process to the circulation of Teilhardian conceptions of science[3] (especially with respect to biological evolution) and derivatively, Teilhard’s view of religion. Teilhard seems to have made the transformism[4] of biological evolution palatable to certain Catholic Theologians who wished to embrace what they perceived as modern evolutionary science. Traditionally, the entire notion had been thought heretical particularly as concerned the biological evolution of human beings.
MORE...
ENDNOTES:
[1] Wolfgang Smith. Teilhardism and the New Religion: A Thorough Analysis of the Teachings of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. (Rockford, Ill., Tan Books and Publisher’s Inc., 1988), pp. 209-210.
[2] Lettres a Leontine Zanta (Paris: Desclee de Brouwer, 1965), p. 127; quoted by von Hildebrand in Trojan Horse in the City of God (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1967), p. 239.
[3] Which was steeped in Baconian conceptions of science and which fully accepted the Bifurcationism of Descartes.
[4] Also referred to as “Macroevolution” in which major animal body plans are alleged to have developed slowly and incrementally over eons of time from entirely different ones, e.g. amphibians from fish, birds from reptiles etc. In evolutionary biology this is referred to as “common descent” with modification. There is no persuasive evidence that this has occurred above the level of genus or species if dispassionately considered. Recall also that Fr. Stanley Jaki has argued that “Origins” questions by their very nature are not scientific but philosophical meaning that the question of so-called Macro-evolution is non-scientific from the start since the origin and development of terrestrial life is scientifically unrepeatable. The most one could do is make inferences from established facts.
Friday, May 16, 2008
Roman Catholic Priesthood: A Gay Profession?
Multiple sociological studies and a great deal of anecdotal data indicate that in the wake of the Second Vatican Council the Roman Catholic Priesthood has become increasingly dominated by homosexual men. This can be seen in multiple ways including:
1. The abrupt change in language regarding homosexuality emanating from the Holy See as documented by Marian Horvatt in the prior piece and excerpted here.
He (Pope Benedict)clearly states that in his opinion, homosexuality and pedophilia are two different things, not to be compared or confused. Here he supports the progressivist contention that has spread to prevent public furor against pedophilia from striking at homosexuality. Certainly there is a difference between the two crimes when studied by scholars and punished by the courts, but regarding pedophile priests in the clergy, it so happens that the two vices are intimately related. Benedict ignores this fact.
He affirms categorically there is no place for pedophiles in the Catholic priesthood, but what about homosexuals? He says nothing against the homosexual subculture that has established itself in the American Catholic Church since Vatican II.
His actions since assuming the papal office confirm his soft stance on homosexuality in the priesthood. To replace him as head of the CDF, he chose his friend Archbishop William Levada, known for complacent handling of pedophile priests when he was Bishop of Portland, and for his friendly approach to homosexuals when he became Archbishop of San Francisco. Then he appointed as Archbishop of San Francisco George Niederauer, who openly supports “tolerance’ for homosexuals and opposes a constitutional ban on same-sex “marriage.”
In 2006, Pope Ratzinger signed an unmistakably “soft” document setting out new guidelines regarding homosexuals entering the seminary.(7) Instead of condemning the sin against nature and firmly barring those who practice it or have tendencies toward it from the sacred priesthood, the document takes a more tolerant view. Only those with “deep-seated tendencies” toward homosexuality are barred from priesthood; those with “transitory problems” or “chaste” homosexuals can be accepted. New Oxford Review editor Dale Vree rightly noted that “the priesthood will continue to be or become a ‘gay’ profession, thanks to this document.”
Then there is this from Dale Vree:
original HERE...
We've been waiting nine long years for this document on homosexuals in the seminary. It has a long-winded title: "Instruction Concerning the Criteria for the Discernment of Vocations With Regard to Persons With Homosexual Tendencies in View of Their Admission to the Seminary and to Holy Orders" (hereafter "Concerning").
The document was obviously written by a committee - or many committees - and it intended to satisfy as many people as possible. But we are not satisfied, not in the least.
Bear in mind that this document is about "discipline" (or shall we say ill-discipline).
The most egregious sentence is that those "who practice homosexuality" (italics added) are "profoundly respected." So we should have profound respect for those who commit homosexual acts, which are mortal sins. By that logic, we should have profound respect for fornicators, adulterers, and child molesters.
On February 2, 1961, the Holy See promulgated a document called "Careful Selection and Training of Candidates for the States of Perfection and Sacred Orders," signed by Pope John XXIII. The relevant section had one sentence on homosexuality: "Advancement to religious vows and ordination should be barred to those who are afflicted with the evil tendencies to homosexuality or pederasty, since for them the common life and the priestly ministry would constitute serious danger" (#30; italics added). That's all that the new document, "Concerning," needed to say.
So how do we go from "evil tendencies" (i.e., orientation only) to having "profound respect" for homosexual acts in "Concerning"? Up until "Concerning," the 1961 document was never abrogated and was still in force. Indeed, on May 16, 2002, the Vatican Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments reiterated the policy: "Ordination to the diaconate and the priesthood of homosexual men or men with homosexual tendencies is absolutely inadvisable and imprudent and, from the pastoral point of view, very risky. A homosexual person, or one with a homosexual tendency is not, therefore, fit to receive the sacrament of Holy Orders." It was published in the November-December issue of Notitiae, which means it is the position of the Holy See. Of course, this policy had been and continued to be violated by many bishops, major superiors, seminary rectors, and vocations directors.
Earlier in 1997 the Congregation for Divine Worship issued a letter to the world's bishops giving guidelines for candidates for the seminary. One stipulation was "sufficient affective maturity and a clearly masculine sexual identity." In the recently released document, "Concerning," the candidate "must reach affective maturity," but there is no mention of having a clearly masculine sexual identity.
By signing Concerning... Pope Benedict loses his conservative credentials.
And "Concerning" does repeal the previous policy. "Concerning" refers to "deep-seated homosexual tendencies" that supposedly would bar one from the seminary. Much consternation has been expressed about what "deep-seated" homosexual tendencies are. But "Concerning" does offer a contrast to deep-seated homosexual tendencies; it is "homosexual tendencies that were only the expression of a transitory problem - for example, that of an adolescence not yet superseded" (italics added). In these cases, a homosexual whose homosexuality is "not yet superseded" can be admitted to the seminary. The contrast between "deep-seated homosexual tendencies" and "a transitory problem...not yet superseded" is pretty murky.
The Catechism (#2357-2359) makes a clear distinction between homosexual "acts" and "deep-seated homosexual tendencies" (also referred to as an "inclination" or a "condition," which in the U.S. is often called an "orientation"). But the Catechism does not speak of a "transitory problem." So, what is a "transitory problem"?
It turns out that a "transitory problem" includes homosexual acts. Zenon Cardinal Grocholewski, Prefect of the Congregation for Catholic Education, which issued "Concerning" and is responsible for its implementation, gave an interview to Vatican Radio on November 29, 2005. Speaking of "transitory problems," he said: "For example, an uncompleted adolescence, some kind of curiosity; or perhaps accidental circumstances, a drunken state, maybe particular circumstances like a person who was imprisoned for many years. In these cases, homosexual acts do not come from a [deeply] rooted tendency.... These acts are done because one wants to obtain some sort of advantage.... These acts...do not constitute an obstacle to seminary admission or to holy orders" (italics added; translation from the Italian provided by Rocco Palmo).
The National Catholic Register had an interview with Cardinal Grocholewski (Dec. 11-17, 2005), where he explained what "transitory problems" are. He said basically the same things he said in the Vatican Radio interview, but added: "It may have been about pleasing a superior or someone he knows, or to earn money." And in a Register news story (same issue), transitory problems might involve "experiences that occurred under the influence of alcohol, drugs or coercion, Cardinal Grochelewski [sic] said" (italics added). The neocon Register registered no objection to any of this, not even in its Editorial in the same issue.
This certainly opens up a can of worms. So you can be in jail for "many years" and commit homosexual acts, and still you can be admitted to the seminary. You can commit homosexual acts in a "drunken state" or under the influence of illegal "drugs," and that's O.K. You can commit homosexual acts "to obtain some sort of advantage," and that's O.K. You can "please" a superior or someone else, and that's O.K. You can commit homosexual acts to earn money -- which would include being a "gay" male prostitute -- and that's O.K. Good golly, Miss Molly, it's a free-for-all!
Never mind homosexual acts; do we want priests who have been "imprisoned for many years," who are druggies, who sell their bodies (and their souls) for money? This is hideous in and of itself.
Moreover, any candidate for the seminary could say his problem with homosexuality is not "deep-seated" and is only a "transitory problem." Nothing will change with regard to admitting homosexuals into the seminary.
Even if a seminarian's homosexuality isn't "deep-seated," it will likely become deep-seated when he is placed in an all-male environment for five to eight years, and sleeping in bedrooms with men. Putting homosexuals in an all-male environment is what's called "an occasion of sin," that is, it leads to deep-seated temptations. You might as well put heterosexual men in the convent or a nunnery for five to eight years, and let them sleep in bedrooms with girls and women, and see how long they remain chaste.
Even homosexual tendencies (without committing the act) are considered by the Church to be "objectively disordered" (Catechism, #2358). What is objectively disordered inclines one to commit an intrinsic moral evil, in the case of homosexuality, a mortal sin. Just one lapse by a seminarian or priest, and he's blackmailable forever. Just as many bishops and cardinals are now, which goes a long way to explain why we have this ridiculous document, "Concerning." At least nine bishops have had to retire because of homosexual acts, and it wasn't because their brother bishops exposed them.
Under a "transitory problem," the new document, "Concerning," says the problem "must be clearly overcome at least three years before ordination to the diaconate [which precedes being a priest by about one year]." And Cardinal Grocholewski reiterated this. So how does a seminary make sure about that? Put seminarians under house arrest - and in solitary confinement - for three years? Of course not. This three-year rule would be so easy to fake.
The 1961 document was signed by the "liberal" Pope John XXIII. "Concerning" was signed by Pope Benedict XVI, supposedly a "conservative." With his new policy, Benedict has forfeited his conservative credentials. Benedict has given away the store.
Moreover, "Concerning" says, "The call to orders is the personal responsibility of the Bishop or the major superior." It is obvious that nothing will change, for many bishops and many major superiors (along with their rectors and vocations directors) are the problem in the first place. They are the ones who have been admitting homosexuals into the seminary. Homosexuals represent about two percent of the male population and it is estimated that 25-50 percent of seminarians are homosexual, and in certain pink-palace seminaries the percentage is well beyond that.
In response to "Concerning," numerous bishops (including Bishop George Niederauer - more about him later) and numerous major superiors and seminary rectors have stated that they will continue to do what they've been doing - i.e., admitting homosexuals. And who can blame them? For "Concerning" has no teeth. As Mao said, it's a "paper tiger."
According to a news story in The New York Times (Sept. 15, 2005), Fr. Thomas Reese, S.J., the former Editor-in-Chief of America, said that "with the shortage of priests, the church can hardly afford to dismiss gay seminarians." And that is exactly what happened. Fr. Donald Cozzens, a former seminary rector, said in The Changing Face of the Priesthood that "the priesthood is or is becoming a gay profession." And it will continue to be or become a "gay" profession, thanks to "Concerning."
The Vatican forgot - or maybe it didn't care - that with so many homosexual seminarians (even in some conservative orders), many heterosexual, manly men will not apply for the seminary. And those who do enter often drop out, or, if they don't keep quiet about the "gay" culture in the seminary, they are kicked out.
Moreover, a celibate and chaste heterosexual priest gives up marriage and family, which is a huge sacrifice, while a celibate and chaste homosexual priest gives up what is "objectively disordered," which inclines one to commit a mortal sin.
Then there is the question of pedophilia. According to the John Jay Report, 81 percent of priest sex-abuse victims were boys. As of June 2005, the known settlements for pedophilia (the large majority of cases being pederasty) total $1.06 billion. Church property has been sold to pay the settlements. Dioceses have declared bankruptcy. And victims have committed suicide and otherwise have had their lives ruined.
Brian W. Clowes and David L. Sonnier did a comprehensive study called "Child Molestation by Homosexuals and Heterosexuals" (Homiletic & Pastoral Review, May 2005). Among other things, they report that: (1) "Homosexual activists Karla Jay and Allen Young revealed in their 1979 Gay Report [Simon and Schuster] that 73% of all homosexuals...preyed on adolescent or younger boys," and (2) while homosexuals represent about two percent of the male population, according to the Archives of Sexual Behavior (vol. 29, no. 5, 2000), "around 25-40% of men [who are] attracted to children prefer boys." If you want pedophilia, notably pederasty, to continue in the priesthood, keep ordaining homosexuals.
According to the Washington Post (Nov. 23, 2005), neocon Brian Saint-Paul, the new Editor of Crisis, greeted the new document, "Concerning," with "satisfaction." The Post quoted him: "The Vatican has made a wise decision to come down in the middle of the road on this dispute." Really now?
William Donohue of the Catholic League, also a neocon, greeted "Concerning" with satisfaction. According to John L. Allen Jr.'s online "The Word From Rome" (Nov. 25, 2005), Donohue "welcomed the document's nuance." Said Donohue: "The Vatican is prudent not to have an absolute ban on admission of homosexuals to the priesthood...." (This is not unexpected, for Donohue appears to be soft on homosexuality. See the articles by Michael S. Rose in our Dec. 2005 issue and by Maria Briggs in our May 2005 issue. Donohue has also defended Fr. Marcial Maciel of the Legionaries of Christ from charges of pederasty.)
This document, "Concerning," is Pope Benedict's defining moment, and he flubbed it. Likewise, his appointment of William Levada to be Prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith was the most important appointment Benedict would make, and he flubbed that too. Then there was Benedict's cordial, high-profile, four-hour-long meeting with dissident theologian Hans Küng. Editorials in the National Catholic Reporter (Oct. 14, 2005) hailed this meeting as "refreshing indeed," "the importance of [this] symbol can't be far from anyone's imagination," and it "sets a positive example about how leaders can emphasize things that unite us...." An Editorial in Our Sunday Visitor (Nov. 20, 2005) chimed in saying: "Pope Benedict has shown himself to be a uniter rather than a divider." But how do you reconcile the irreconcilable? We prefer what Jesus said: "Do you suppose that I came to give peace on earth? I tell you, not at all, but rather division" (Lk. 12:51)...
...The latest outrage is Benedict's appointment of Bishop George Niederauer to be Archbishop of San Francisco. Niederauer is clearly "gay"-friendlyHe pastored a parish in West Hollywood with a large "gay" congregation, where he said that homosexuals are "wonderful." As Bishop of Salt Lake City, he opposed a constitutional ban on same-sex "marriage." He denies that there is a link between homosexual priests and the molestation and rape of boys. He helped found the Coalition of Concerned Religious Leaders in Utah, which supports "tolerance" for homosexuals.(my emphasis throughout). Topping it off, he has been praised by Sam Sinnett, head of Dignity-USA, and Francis DeBernardo, head of New Ways Ministry - both groups being comprised of proud "gay" and lesbian Catholics.
At this rate, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith's investigation of Fr. Maciel for multiple acts of pederasty on his seminarians will likely vanish into thin air. With "cover-up" Levada at the helm of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and with Benedict failing to uphold the 1961 document and basically endorsing the status quo regarding homosexuals in the priesthood, we cannot expect that the Vatican will do anything about the Maciel case...
...When Ratzinger became Pope, we orthodox Catholics were ecstatic. But it's likely that Benedict's papacy will be very unpleasant - even bitter, since we had such high hopes.
2. Lack of punishment of Bishops complicit in the Sexual Abuse Scandal
Dale Vree continues...In Karl Keating's E-Letter (March 8, 2005), he noted that for 26 years of the John Paul papacy, of which Ratzinger was the doctrinal watchdog for 24 years, only 24 people were disciplined. Keating comments: "That is fewer than one per year!... The Catholic Church boasts 1.1 billion members. This means that, on average, over the last quarter century, the Vatican has disciplined only one out of a billion members per year. This is about as close to zero as you can get. Is there any social, commercial, or governmental organization that disciplines such a small percentage of its people?... If the Church had the kind of inquisitorial bureaucracy that its critics imagine, the Vatican would be disciplining 24 people each week.... However you look at it, 24 cases in 26 years is...laughable." It appears that Ratzinger (now Benedict) is not the Panzerkardinal after all, not God's Rottweiler.
Ostensibly, if the current Pontiff believed that a homosexual Roman Catholic clergy was detrimental to the Church he is surely in a position to do something about it as was Pope John Paul II who clearly did not. Pope Paul VI did nothing to blunt the increase in number of Vatican clerics who were known to engage in homosexual behavior or were sympathetic to it. In fact, Guimares argues in his book In the Murky Waters of Vatican II, that Pope Paul VI actually assisted many homosexuals in finding positions throughout the Vatican hierarchy. It appears that the Holy See has tried to shield those at the Bishop level or higher who either were involved in the sexual abuse crisis or are otherwise known to engage in homosexual behavior albeit only with other adult men.
3. Virtual Lack of Preaching againt Homosexuality in the Catholic Church in the US
With the number of Catholic priests in the developed West in free-fall, it is more than peculiar that one never hears Old or New Testament scriptural references to homosexuality or even masturbation for that matter during the liturgical readings or in homilies througout the US. This cannot be accidental. In fact, my experience is that matters involving human sexuality are avoided like the plague by homilists.
4. Refusal to consider a married clergy option in the Latin Church
Since the maintenance of a chaste and celibate Roman Catholic clergy is a matter of discipline rather than docrtine or dogma, it theoretically can be changed. This would be one way to end the predominance of the homosexual contingent which is currently in control of Catholic seminaries in the US. Rectors and professors could be carefully screened eliminating those who have a history of admitting or favoring homosexual candidates.
If the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church as presently constituted including many of the seminary directors are either actively homosexual or at least sympathetic to homosexuality this would explain why nothing has been or is being done to rectify what clearly is a growing problem of monumental proportions and that is a predominately "gay" Roman Catholic clergy where the default position/mindset is one of homosexuality rather than heterosexuality. The negative fruits which have been forthcoming as the Catholic clergy became more and more "gay" could not be more obvious. Regrettably, it would be in the interest of an increasingly homosexual Roman Catholic clergy to resist attempts at eliminating them from the priesthood.
JPH
1. The abrupt change in language regarding homosexuality emanating from the Holy See as documented by Marian Horvatt in the prior piece and excerpted here.
He (Pope Benedict)clearly states that in his opinion, homosexuality and pedophilia are two different things, not to be compared or confused. Here he supports the progressivist contention that has spread to prevent public furor against pedophilia from striking at homosexuality. Certainly there is a difference between the two crimes when studied by scholars and punished by the courts, but regarding pedophile priests in the clergy, it so happens that the two vices are intimately related. Benedict ignores this fact.
He affirms categorically there is no place for pedophiles in the Catholic priesthood, but what about homosexuals? He says nothing against the homosexual subculture that has established itself in the American Catholic Church since Vatican II.
His actions since assuming the papal office confirm his soft stance on homosexuality in the priesthood. To replace him as head of the CDF, he chose his friend Archbishop William Levada, known for complacent handling of pedophile priests when he was Bishop of Portland, and for his friendly approach to homosexuals when he became Archbishop of San Francisco. Then he appointed as Archbishop of San Francisco George Niederauer, who openly supports “tolerance’ for homosexuals and opposes a constitutional ban on same-sex “marriage.”
In 2006, Pope Ratzinger signed an unmistakably “soft” document setting out new guidelines regarding homosexuals entering the seminary.(7) Instead of condemning the sin against nature and firmly barring those who practice it or have tendencies toward it from the sacred priesthood, the document takes a more tolerant view. Only those with “deep-seated tendencies” toward homosexuality are barred from priesthood; those with “transitory problems” or “chaste” homosexuals can be accepted. New Oxford Review editor Dale Vree rightly noted that “the priesthood will continue to be or become a ‘gay’ profession, thanks to this document.”
Then there is this from Dale Vree:
original HERE...
We've been waiting nine long years for this document on homosexuals in the seminary. It has a long-winded title: "Instruction Concerning the Criteria for the Discernment of Vocations With Regard to Persons With Homosexual Tendencies in View of Their Admission to the Seminary and to Holy Orders" (hereafter "Concerning").
The document was obviously written by a committee - or many committees - and it intended to satisfy as many people as possible. But we are not satisfied, not in the least.
Bear in mind that this document is about "discipline" (or shall we say ill-discipline).
The most egregious sentence is that those "who practice homosexuality" (italics added) are "profoundly respected." So we should have profound respect for those who commit homosexual acts, which are mortal sins. By that logic, we should have profound respect for fornicators, adulterers, and child molesters.
On February 2, 1961, the Holy See promulgated a document called "Careful Selection and Training of Candidates for the States of Perfection and Sacred Orders," signed by Pope John XXIII. The relevant section had one sentence on homosexuality: "Advancement to religious vows and ordination should be barred to those who are afflicted with the evil tendencies to homosexuality or pederasty, since for them the common life and the priestly ministry would constitute serious danger" (#30; italics added). That's all that the new document, "Concerning," needed to say.
So how do we go from "evil tendencies" (i.e., orientation only) to having "profound respect" for homosexual acts in "Concerning"? Up until "Concerning," the 1961 document was never abrogated and was still in force. Indeed, on May 16, 2002, the Vatican Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments reiterated the policy: "Ordination to the diaconate and the priesthood of homosexual men or men with homosexual tendencies is absolutely inadvisable and imprudent and, from the pastoral point of view, very risky. A homosexual person, or one with a homosexual tendency is not, therefore, fit to receive the sacrament of Holy Orders." It was published in the November-December issue of Notitiae, which means it is the position of the Holy See. Of course, this policy had been and continued to be violated by many bishops, major superiors, seminary rectors, and vocations directors.
Earlier in 1997 the Congregation for Divine Worship issued a letter to the world's bishops giving guidelines for candidates for the seminary. One stipulation was "sufficient affective maturity and a clearly masculine sexual identity." In the recently released document, "Concerning," the candidate "must reach affective maturity," but there is no mention of having a clearly masculine sexual identity.
By signing Concerning... Pope Benedict loses his conservative credentials.
And "Concerning" does repeal the previous policy. "Concerning" refers to "deep-seated homosexual tendencies" that supposedly would bar one from the seminary. Much consternation has been expressed about what "deep-seated" homosexual tendencies are. But "Concerning" does offer a contrast to deep-seated homosexual tendencies; it is "homosexual tendencies that were only the expression of a transitory problem - for example, that of an adolescence not yet superseded" (italics added). In these cases, a homosexual whose homosexuality is "not yet superseded" can be admitted to the seminary. The contrast between "deep-seated homosexual tendencies" and "a transitory problem...not yet superseded" is pretty murky.
The Catechism (#2357-2359) makes a clear distinction between homosexual "acts" and "deep-seated homosexual tendencies" (also referred to as an "inclination" or a "condition," which in the U.S. is often called an "orientation"). But the Catechism does not speak of a "transitory problem." So, what is a "transitory problem"?
It turns out that a "transitory problem" includes homosexual acts. Zenon Cardinal Grocholewski, Prefect of the Congregation for Catholic Education, which issued "Concerning" and is responsible for its implementation, gave an interview to Vatican Radio on November 29, 2005. Speaking of "transitory problems," he said: "For example, an uncompleted adolescence, some kind of curiosity; or perhaps accidental circumstances, a drunken state, maybe particular circumstances like a person who was imprisoned for many years. In these cases, homosexual acts do not come from a [deeply] rooted tendency.... These acts are done because one wants to obtain some sort of advantage.... These acts...do not constitute an obstacle to seminary admission or to holy orders" (italics added; translation from the Italian provided by Rocco Palmo).
The National Catholic Register had an interview with Cardinal Grocholewski (Dec. 11-17, 2005), where he explained what "transitory problems" are. He said basically the same things he said in the Vatican Radio interview, but added: "It may have been about pleasing a superior or someone he knows, or to earn money." And in a Register news story (same issue), transitory problems might involve "experiences that occurred under the influence of alcohol, drugs or coercion, Cardinal Grochelewski [sic] said" (italics added). The neocon Register registered no objection to any of this, not even in its Editorial in the same issue.
This certainly opens up a can of worms. So you can be in jail for "many years" and commit homosexual acts, and still you can be admitted to the seminary. You can commit homosexual acts in a "drunken state" or under the influence of illegal "drugs," and that's O.K. You can commit homosexual acts "to obtain some sort of advantage," and that's O.K. You can "please" a superior or someone else, and that's O.K. You can commit homosexual acts to earn money -- which would include being a "gay" male prostitute -- and that's O.K. Good golly, Miss Molly, it's a free-for-all!
Never mind homosexual acts; do we want priests who have been "imprisoned for many years," who are druggies, who sell their bodies (and their souls) for money? This is hideous in and of itself.
Moreover, any candidate for the seminary could say his problem with homosexuality is not "deep-seated" and is only a "transitory problem." Nothing will change with regard to admitting homosexuals into the seminary.
Even if a seminarian's homosexuality isn't "deep-seated," it will likely become deep-seated when he is placed in an all-male environment for five to eight years, and sleeping in bedrooms with men. Putting homosexuals in an all-male environment is what's called "an occasion of sin," that is, it leads to deep-seated temptations. You might as well put heterosexual men in the convent or a nunnery for five to eight years, and let them sleep in bedrooms with girls and women, and see how long they remain chaste.
Even homosexual tendencies (without committing the act) are considered by the Church to be "objectively disordered" (Catechism, #2358). What is objectively disordered inclines one to commit an intrinsic moral evil, in the case of homosexuality, a mortal sin. Just one lapse by a seminarian or priest, and he's blackmailable forever. Just as many bishops and cardinals are now, which goes a long way to explain why we have this ridiculous document, "Concerning." At least nine bishops have had to retire because of homosexual acts, and it wasn't because their brother bishops exposed them.
Under a "transitory problem," the new document, "Concerning," says the problem "must be clearly overcome at least three years before ordination to the diaconate [which precedes being a priest by about one year]." And Cardinal Grocholewski reiterated this. So how does a seminary make sure about that? Put seminarians under house arrest - and in solitary confinement - for three years? Of course not. This three-year rule would be so easy to fake.
The 1961 document was signed by the "liberal" Pope John XXIII. "Concerning" was signed by Pope Benedict XVI, supposedly a "conservative." With his new policy, Benedict has forfeited his conservative credentials. Benedict has given away the store.
Moreover, "Concerning" says, "The call to orders is the personal responsibility of the Bishop or the major superior." It is obvious that nothing will change, for many bishops and many major superiors (along with their rectors and vocations directors) are the problem in the first place. They are the ones who have been admitting homosexuals into the seminary. Homosexuals represent about two percent of the male population and it is estimated that 25-50 percent of seminarians are homosexual, and in certain pink-palace seminaries the percentage is well beyond that.
In response to "Concerning," numerous bishops (including Bishop George Niederauer - more about him later) and numerous major superiors and seminary rectors have stated that they will continue to do what they've been doing - i.e., admitting homosexuals. And who can blame them? For "Concerning" has no teeth. As Mao said, it's a "paper tiger."
According to a news story in The New York Times (Sept. 15, 2005), Fr. Thomas Reese, S.J., the former Editor-in-Chief of America, said that "with the shortage of priests, the church can hardly afford to dismiss gay seminarians." And that is exactly what happened. Fr. Donald Cozzens, a former seminary rector, said in The Changing Face of the Priesthood that "the priesthood is or is becoming a gay profession." And it will continue to be or become a "gay" profession, thanks to "Concerning."
The Vatican forgot - or maybe it didn't care - that with so many homosexual seminarians (even in some conservative orders), many heterosexual, manly men will not apply for the seminary. And those who do enter often drop out, or, if they don't keep quiet about the "gay" culture in the seminary, they are kicked out.
Moreover, a celibate and chaste heterosexual priest gives up marriage and family, which is a huge sacrifice, while a celibate and chaste homosexual priest gives up what is "objectively disordered," which inclines one to commit a mortal sin.
Then there is the question of pedophilia. According to the John Jay Report, 81 percent of priest sex-abuse victims were boys. As of June 2005, the known settlements for pedophilia (the large majority of cases being pederasty) total $1.06 billion. Church property has been sold to pay the settlements. Dioceses have declared bankruptcy. And victims have committed suicide and otherwise have had their lives ruined.
Brian W. Clowes and David L. Sonnier did a comprehensive study called "Child Molestation by Homosexuals and Heterosexuals" (Homiletic & Pastoral Review, May 2005). Among other things, they report that: (1) "Homosexual activists Karla Jay and Allen Young revealed in their 1979 Gay Report [Simon and Schuster] that 73% of all homosexuals...preyed on adolescent or younger boys," and (2) while homosexuals represent about two percent of the male population, according to the Archives of Sexual Behavior (vol. 29, no. 5, 2000), "around 25-40% of men [who are] attracted to children prefer boys." If you want pedophilia, notably pederasty, to continue in the priesthood, keep ordaining homosexuals.
According to the Washington Post (Nov. 23, 2005), neocon Brian Saint-Paul, the new Editor of Crisis, greeted the new document, "Concerning," with "satisfaction." The Post quoted him: "The Vatican has made a wise decision to come down in the middle of the road on this dispute." Really now?
William Donohue of the Catholic League, also a neocon, greeted "Concerning" with satisfaction. According to John L. Allen Jr.'s online "The Word From Rome" (Nov. 25, 2005), Donohue "welcomed the document's nuance." Said Donohue: "The Vatican is prudent not to have an absolute ban on admission of homosexuals to the priesthood...." (This is not unexpected, for Donohue appears to be soft on homosexuality. See the articles by Michael S. Rose in our Dec. 2005 issue and by Maria Briggs in our May 2005 issue. Donohue has also defended Fr. Marcial Maciel of the Legionaries of Christ from charges of pederasty.)
This document, "Concerning," is Pope Benedict's defining moment, and he flubbed it. Likewise, his appointment of William Levada to be Prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith was the most important appointment Benedict would make, and he flubbed that too. Then there was Benedict's cordial, high-profile, four-hour-long meeting with dissident theologian Hans Küng. Editorials in the National Catholic Reporter (Oct. 14, 2005) hailed this meeting as "refreshing indeed," "the importance of [this] symbol can't be far from anyone's imagination," and it "sets a positive example about how leaders can emphasize things that unite us...." An Editorial in Our Sunday Visitor (Nov. 20, 2005) chimed in saying: "Pope Benedict has shown himself to be a uniter rather than a divider." But how do you reconcile the irreconcilable? We prefer what Jesus said: "Do you suppose that I came to give peace on earth? I tell you, not at all, but rather division" (Lk. 12:51)...
...The latest outrage is Benedict's appointment of Bishop George Niederauer to be Archbishop of San Francisco. Niederauer is clearly "gay"-friendlyHe pastored a parish in West Hollywood with a large "gay" congregation, where he said that homosexuals are "wonderful." As Bishop of Salt Lake City, he opposed a constitutional ban on same-sex "marriage." He denies that there is a link between homosexual priests and the molestation and rape of boys. He helped found the Coalition of Concerned Religious Leaders in Utah, which supports "tolerance" for homosexuals.(my emphasis throughout). Topping it off, he has been praised by Sam Sinnett, head of Dignity-USA, and Francis DeBernardo, head of New Ways Ministry - both groups being comprised of proud "gay" and lesbian Catholics.
At this rate, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith's investigation of Fr. Maciel for multiple acts of pederasty on his seminarians will likely vanish into thin air. With "cover-up" Levada at the helm of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and with Benedict failing to uphold the 1961 document and basically endorsing the status quo regarding homosexuals in the priesthood, we cannot expect that the Vatican will do anything about the Maciel case...
...When Ratzinger became Pope, we orthodox Catholics were ecstatic. But it's likely that Benedict's papacy will be very unpleasant - even bitter, since we had such high hopes.
2. Lack of punishment of Bishops complicit in the Sexual Abuse Scandal
Dale Vree continues...In Karl Keating's E-Letter (March 8, 2005), he noted that for 26 years of the John Paul papacy, of which Ratzinger was the doctrinal watchdog for 24 years, only 24 people were disciplined. Keating comments: "That is fewer than one per year!... The Catholic Church boasts 1.1 billion members. This means that, on average, over the last quarter century, the Vatican has disciplined only one out of a billion members per year. This is about as close to zero as you can get. Is there any social, commercial, or governmental organization that disciplines such a small percentage of its people?... If the Church had the kind of inquisitorial bureaucracy that its critics imagine, the Vatican would be disciplining 24 people each week.... However you look at it, 24 cases in 26 years is...laughable." It appears that Ratzinger (now Benedict) is not the Panzerkardinal after all, not God's Rottweiler.
Ostensibly, if the current Pontiff believed that a homosexual Roman Catholic clergy was detrimental to the Church he is surely in a position to do something about it as was Pope John Paul II who clearly did not. Pope Paul VI did nothing to blunt the increase in number of Vatican clerics who were known to engage in homosexual behavior or were sympathetic to it. In fact, Guimares argues in his book In the Murky Waters of Vatican II, that Pope Paul VI actually assisted many homosexuals in finding positions throughout the Vatican hierarchy. It appears that the Holy See has tried to shield those at the Bishop level or higher who either were involved in the sexual abuse crisis or are otherwise known to engage in homosexual behavior albeit only with other adult men.
3. Virtual Lack of Preaching againt Homosexuality in the Catholic Church in the US
With the number of Catholic priests in the developed West in free-fall, it is more than peculiar that one never hears Old or New Testament scriptural references to homosexuality or even masturbation for that matter during the liturgical readings or in homilies througout the US. This cannot be accidental. In fact, my experience is that matters involving human sexuality are avoided like the plague by homilists.
4. Refusal to consider a married clergy option in the Latin Church
Since the maintenance of a chaste and celibate Roman Catholic clergy is a matter of discipline rather than docrtine or dogma, it theoretically can be changed. This would be one way to end the predominance of the homosexual contingent which is currently in control of Catholic seminaries in the US. Rectors and professors could be carefully screened eliminating those who have a history of admitting or favoring homosexual candidates.
If the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church as presently constituted including many of the seminary directors are either actively homosexual or at least sympathetic to homosexuality this would explain why nothing has been or is being done to rectify what clearly is a growing problem of monumental proportions and that is a predominately "gay" Roman Catholic clergy where the default position/mindset is one of homosexuality rather than heterosexuality. The negative fruits which have been forthcoming as the Catholic clergy became more and more "gay" could not be more obvious. Regrettably, it would be in the interest of an increasingly homosexual Roman Catholic clergy to resist attempts at eliminating them from the priesthood.
JPH
Thursday, May 15, 2008
On the Sex Scandal:
Ratzinger Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow
Marian T. Horvat, Ph.D.
Tradition in Action
May 2, 2008, original HERE...
I waited a week before talking with my friend Jan about Benedict XVI’s visit to the U.S. By then, some of the euphoria had subsided, and she was ready to concede that the trip was more appearance than substance. These are some of the points my good friend told me she doesn’t understand:
For years she has opposed the UN as a Masonic tool to establish the One World Order. Now she asks: Why are the post-Conciliar Popes praising it and propping it up with their support?
She can’t understand how the representative of Christ on earth can enter a synagogue and praise the Jewish religion.
She realizes that the interfaith meetings held by Benedict in Washington and New York contradict past teaching of the Church and spread a message of religious relativism.
Suddenly, however, in our conversation, she had a strong psychological reaction and stopped analyzing the 5-day visit. Jan didn’t want to think about “negative” things any longer.
Did he protect the children as head of the CDF?
“Aren’t you tired of feeling bad about the Church?” she asked. “It was just wonderful for a week to feel good for a change.” Then she pointed to the “indisputable triumph” of Benedict, the times he addressed the Church’s ongoing sex-abuse scandal and his emotional 20-minute encounter with five victims.
For most Catholics the Pope’s addressing the clerical sex abuse crisis defines this trip. On four occasions, including to the press corps on his trip to Washington, he expressed his pain, compassion and concern. At his meeting with the U.S. Bishops in Washington, he even admitted the sexual abuse crisis had been “badly handled at times” by the Bishops. But immediately afterward he praised the work they were doing now to restore trust.
So we have it: some words of compassion and grief for the victims and one small acknowledgment of the obvious complicity of the Bishops that could hardly be called a censure.
“But what else could he do?” my friend Jan countered. “After all, he really can’t be blamed for anything.”
Beautiful words, but no disciplinary action
On that point, I – along with many commentators on the objective facts – have to differ. What he has delivered so far are clever words, no impartial censures, no disciplinary measures to contain an ongoing crisis.
Cardinal Law at St. Mary Major Basilica
One thing he could do is to punish complicit Bishops – so far a total of 19 American Bishops have been named either as directly involved in sexual abuse cases or in the resultant cover-up.(1) Not one has been penalized by Rome.
Even Cardinal Bernard Law wasn’t fired. He resigned of his own accord, only to go to Rome to be rewarded with very prestigious positions, among them Archpriest of St. Mary Major, the third more important basilica in Rome, after St. Peter Basilica and St John Lateran.
David Clohessy, director of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests justly observes:, “Thousands of predator priests have been suspended by Bishops, but no Bishops have been suspended by the Pope. Until he does, he essentially condones risk.”(2)
Whatever happened, it happened under his watch
Benedict’s non-culpability was the second part of Jan’s reaction. Regarding this, it seems clear to me he played a large role in the earlier cover-up of the pedophile priests and Bishops. Then, in the more recent past he has often taken a clear position supporting the priests and Bishops, affirming that the public reaction against clergy sexual abuse was chiefly media-produced.
On his U.S. visit, however, he “condemned” the actions of the guilty clergy. This sudden shift of position can raise the suspicion whether he assumed this new stance from a sincere movement of heart or for some other political reason. At any rate, until he assumes a line of action consistent with those fine words, they have a hollow ring.
“If I read the stories of these victims,” Benedict told reporters on the first day of his visit, “it is difficult for me to understand how it was possible that priests betrayed in this way their mission to give healing, to give love of God to these children.”(3)
At the Immaculate Conception National Shrine: Just a quick mention of the Bishops' guilt
There was no question of any “if” in reading the stories of victims. Joseph Ratzinger, as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), had certainly been reading those files for many, many years. The diocesan reports of pedophile and homosexual priests, the heart-wrenching letters of victims and families addressed to the Vatican as a last recourse effort for justice – all ended on his desk. As the one responsible for overseeing the Church’s internal judicial process resulting from accusations of sexual abuse against a minor, he had to be aware of all the case files.
For 24 years, Cardinal Ratzinger responded to the abuse accusations by referring Bishops to the rules of Crimen Sollicitationis, in force since 1962. The instruction calls for secrecy – specifically in cases where priests are accused of abusing the Sacrament of Confession to sexually proposition penitents, and in extension, to clerics accused of homosexuality, child sexual abuse and bestiality. In effect, he used that document to insure secrecy and cover up sexual abuse by priests and Bishops. There is no doubt that Ratzinger was aware of the details of those scandals for a long, long time.
Then, in 2001, a year before the crisis came to public attention in the Boston press, Card. Ratzinger and his Secretary, then Archbishop Bertone, signed a letter of instruction sent to all Bishops titled De Delictis Gravioribus. It specified that cases of sexual abuse by clerics be referred directly to the CDF and be subject “to the pontifical secret.”
A prestigious greeting for Cardinal Mahony of Los Angeles, who recently paid $660 million to 508 victims
Journalist Ron Fraser gives details: “In his letter of May 18, 2001, sent to the Bishops, Ratzinger pointed to the Vatican’s firm instruction, issued from Rome in 1962, that regarding any accusation brought against a priest involving solicitation, ‘those same matter should be pursued in a most secretive way … They are to be restrained by a perpetual silence. Each and everyone pertaining to the tribunal in any way … is to observe the strictest secret, which is commonly regarded as a secret of the Holy Office’ (Vatican Press, Instruction on the Manner of Proceeding in Cases of Solitication, 1962).”(4)
Card. Ratzinger also endorsed the key clause Item 13, under the Preliminaries section of the 1962 Instruction, which states: “The oath of keeping the secret must be given in these cases also by the accusers or those denouncing [the priest] and the witnesses.”(5) In effect, this enabled Bishops to use their authority to silence the victims of priestly abuse by swearing them to secrecy under pain of excommunication.
These instructions were also broadly interpreted to mean that Bishops dealing with complaints against priests could cover them up and not report them to the police.
Smiles for Archbishop Pilarczyk (Cincinnati), who admitted lying and covering up clergy sexual abuse
An editorial in the April 26, 2008 The Tablet, aptly explained the veil of secrecy placed by Ratzinger over sexual abuse cases: He chose to give “greater weight to the prevention of scandal than to the protection of vulnerable minors.”
Therefore, we face a sad contradiction in the papal visit. When speaking to the United Nations in New York, Benedict emphasized the “responsibility to protect, which is not only a right but above all a responsibility.” Nonetheless, under his direction, the CDF counseled silence and secrecy to protect the Catholic authorities rather than the most vulnerable members of the flock, the children.
Did Pope Ratzinger have a change of heart or was he just saying beautiful words to please the American audience?
Pedophile and homosexual priests are closely linked
There is a final statement worthy of attention in Benedict’s response to reporters en route to the US. He assured Catholics that he would do everything possible to see that “this” [the sexual abuse crisis] would not happen in the future by keeping pedophiles out of the seminaries: “I will not speak in this moment about homosexuality, but pedophilia, [which] is another thing. We will absolutely exclude pedophiles from the sacred ministry, this is absolutely incompatible.”(6)
A warm embrace for Card. George, who recently covered for a pedophile priest
He clearly states that in his opinion, homosexuality and pedophilia are two different things, not to be compared or confused. Here he supports the progressivist contention that has spread to prevent public furor against pedophilia from striking at homosexuality. Certainly there is a difference between the two crimes when studied by scholars and punished by the courts, but regarding pedophile priests in the clergy, it so happens that the two vices are intimately related. Benedict ignores this fact.
He affirms categorically there is no place for pedophiles in the Catholic priesthood, but what about homosexuals? He says nothing against the homosexual subculture that has established itself in the American Catholic Church since Vatican II.
His actions since assuming the papal office confirm his soft stance on homosexuality in the priesthood. To replace him as head of the CDF, he chose his friend Archbishop William Levada, known for complacent handling of pedophile priests when he was Bishop of Portland, and for his friendly approach to homosexuals when he became Archbishop of San Francisco. Then he appointed as Archbishop of San Francisco George Niederauer, who openly supports “tolerance’ for homosexuals and opposes a constitutional ban on same-sex “marriage.”
In 2006, Pope Ratzinger signed an unmistakably “soft” document setting out new guidelines regarding homosexuals entering the seminary.(7) Instead of condemning the sin against nature and firmly barring those who practice it or have tendencies toward it from the sacred priesthood, the document takes a more tolerant view. Only those with “deep-seated tendencies” toward homosexuality are barred from priesthood; those with “transitory problems” or “chaste” homosexuals can be accepted. New Oxford Review editor Dale Vree rightly noted that “the priesthood will continue to be or become a ‘gay’ profession, thanks to this document.”(8)
No, dear friend Jan, I do not believe that Benedict’s comforting words to the masses on the pedophilia crisis are enough for justice to be done and the Church morally healed. Nothing will change unless the Church addresses the root of the moral crisis, the toleration and favoring of both pedophilia and homosexuality in the clergy.
As Atila Guimaraes states in his work Vatican II, Homosexuality & Pedophilia, “Even if homosexual acts are not practiced, homosexuality per se is an aberration both in its tendency, the attraction of a man to another man, and in its end, the sin of sodomy. It cannot be tolerated in any degree or in any place, most especially in a place destined to form the future directors of Catholic souls and members of the Hierarchy.” [my emphasis](9)
1. Ron Fraser, “Benedict XVI and Vatican Justice,” The Trumpet online, April 27, 2008
2. “Benedict XVI in the United States,” The Tablet, April 26, 2008
3. Benedict begins historic visit,” Washington Post online, April 16, 2008
4. “Benedict XVI and Vatican Justice,” The Trumpet online, April 27, 2008
5. Ibid.
6. John Allen, “Transcript from Papal Plane,” National Catholic Reporter online, April 15, 2008
7. “Instruction Concerning the Criteria for the Discernment of Vocations With Regard to Persons With Homosexual Tendencies in View of Their Admission to the Seminary and to Holy Orders"; for more on this document, see the article by Dale Vree, Why the Priesthood Will Continue To Become a "Gay" Profession
8. Ibid.
9. Los Angeles, Tradition in Action, 2004, p. 3
Marian T. Horvat, Ph.D.
Tradition in Action
May 2, 2008, original HERE...
I waited a week before talking with my friend Jan about Benedict XVI’s visit to the U.S. By then, some of the euphoria had subsided, and she was ready to concede that the trip was more appearance than substance. These are some of the points my good friend told me she doesn’t understand:
For years she has opposed the UN as a Masonic tool to establish the One World Order. Now she asks: Why are the post-Conciliar Popes praising it and propping it up with their support?
She can’t understand how the representative of Christ on earth can enter a synagogue and praise the Jewish religion.
She realizes that the interfaith meetings held by Benedict in Washington and New York contradict past teaching of the Church and spread a message of religious relativism.
Suddenly, however, in our conversation, she had a strong psychological reaction and stopped analyzing the 5-day visit. Jan didn’t want to think about “negative” things any longer.
Did he protect the children as head of the CDF?
“Aren’t you tired of feeling bad about the Church?” she asked. “It was just wonderful for a week to feel good for a change.” Then she pointed to the “indisputable triumph” of Benedict, the times he addressed the Church’s ongoing sex-abuse scandal and his emotional 20-minute encounter with five victims.
For most Catholics the Pope’s addressing the clerical sex abuse crisis defines this trip. On four occasions, including to the press corps on his trip to Washington, he expressed his pain, compassion and concern. At his meeting with the U.S. Bishops in Washington, he even admitted the sexual abuse crisis had been “badly handled at times” by the Bishops. But immediately afterward he praised the work they were doing now to restore trust.
So we have it: some words of compassion and grief for the victims and one small acknowledgment of the obvious complicity of the Bishops that could hardly be called a censure.
“But what else could he do?” my friend Jan countered. “After all, he really can’t be blamed for anything.”
Beautiful words, but no disciplinary action
On that point, I – along with many commentators on the objective facts – have to differ. What he has delivered so far are clever words, no impartial censures, no disciplinary measures to contain an ongoing crisis.
Cardinal Law at St. Mary Major Basilica
One thing he could do is to punish complicit Bishops – so far a total of 19 American Bishops have been named either as directly involved in sexual abuse cases or in the resultant cover-up.(1) Not one has been penalized by Rome.
Even Cardinal Bernard Law wasn’t fired. He resigned of his own accord, only to go to Rome to be rewarded with very prestigious positions, among them Archpriest of St. Mary Major, the third more important basilica in Rome, after St. Peter Basilica and St John Lateran.
David Clohessy, director of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests justly observes:, “Thousands of predator priests have been suspended by Bishops, but no Bishops have been suspended by the Pope. Until he does, he essentially condones risk.”(2)
Whatever happened, it happened under his watch
Benedict’s non-culpability was the second part of Jan’s reaction. Regarding this, it seems clear to me he played a large role in the earlier cover-up of the pedophile priests and Bishops. Then, in the more recent past he has often taken a clear position supporting the priests and Bishops, affirming that the public reaction against clergy sexual abuse was chiefly media-produced.
On his U.S. visit, however, he “condemned” the actions of the guilty clergy. This sudden shift of position can raise the suspicion whether he assumed this new stance from a sincere movement of heart or for some other political reason. At any rate, until he assumes a line of action consistent with those fine words, they have a hollow ring.
“If I read the stories of these victims,” Benedict told reporters on the first day of his visit, “it is difficult for me to understand how it was possible that priests betrayed in this way their mission to give healing, to give love of God to these children.”(3)
At the Immaculate Conception National Shrine: Just a quick mention of the Bishops' guilt
There was no question of any “if” in reading the stories of victims. Joseph Ratzinger, as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), had certainly been reading those files for many, many years. The diocesan reports of pedophile and homosexual priests, the heart-wrenching letters of victims and families addressed to the Vatican as a last recourse effort for justice – all ended on his desk. As the one responsible for overseeing the Church’s internal judicial process resulting from accusations of sexual abuse against a minor, he had to be aware of all the case files.
For 24 years, Cardinal Ratzinger responded to the abuse accusations by referring Bishops to the rules of Crimen Sollicitationis, in force since 1962. The instruction calls for secrecy – specifically in cases where priests are accused of abusing the Sacrament of Confession to sexually proposition penitents, and in extension, to clerics accused of homosexuality, child sexual abuse and bestiality. In effect, he used that document to insure secrecy and cover up sexual abuse by priests and Bishops. There is no doubt that Ratzinger was aware of the details of those scandals for a long, long time.
Then, in 2001, a year before the crisis came to public attention in the Boston press, Card. Ratzinger and his Secretary, then Archbishop Bertone, signed a letter of instruction sent to all Bishops titled De Delictis Gravioribus. It specified that cases of sexual abuse by clerics be referred directly to the CDF and be subject “to the pontifical secret.”
A prestigious greeting for Cardinal Mahony of Los Angeles, who recently paid $660 million to 508 victims
Journalist Ron Fraser gives details: “In his letter of May 18, 2001, sent to the Bishops, Ratzinger pointed to the Vatican’s firm instruction, issued from Rome in 1962, that regarding any accusation brought against a priest involving solicitation, ‘those same matter should be pursued in a most secretive way … They are to be restrained by a perpetual silence. Each and everyone pertaining to the tribunal in any way … is to observe the strictest secret, which is commonly regarded as a secret of the Holy Office’ (Vatican Press, Instruction on the Manner of Proceeding in Cases of Solitication, 1962).”(4)
Card. Ratzinger also endorsed the key clause Item 13, under the Preliminaries section of the 1962 Instruction, which states: “The oath of keeping the secret must be given in these cases also by the accusers or those denouncing [the priest] and the witnesses.”(5) In effect, this enabled Bishops to use their authority to silence the victims of priestly abuse by swearing them to secrecy under pain of excommunication.
These instructions were also broadly interpreted to mean that Bishops dealing with complaints against priests could cover them up and not report them to the police.
Smiles for Archbishop Pilarczyk (Cincinnati), who admitted lying and covering up clergy sexual abuse
An editorial in the April 26, 2008 The Tablet, aptly explained the veil of secrecy placed by Ratzinger over sexual abuse cases: He chose to give “greater weight to the prevention of scandal than to the protection of vulnerable minors.”
Therefore, we face a sad contradiction in the papal visit. When speaking to the United Nations in New York, Benedict emphasized the “responsibility to protect, which is not only a right but above all a responsibility.” Nonetheless, under his direction, the CDF counseled silence and secrecy to protect the Catholic authorities rather than the most vulnerable members of the flock, the children.
Did Pope Ratzinger have a change of heart or was he just saying beautiful words to please the American audience?
Pedophile and homosexual priests are closely linked
There is a final statement worthy of attention in Benedict’s response to reporters en route to the US. He assured Catholics that he would do everything possible to see that “this” [the sexual abuse crisis] would not happen in the future by keeping pedophiles out of the seminaries: “I will not speak in this moment about homosexuality, but pedophilia, [which] is another thing. We will absolutely exclude pedophiles from the sacred ministry, this is absolutely incompatible.”(6)
A warm embrace for Card. George, who recently covered for a pedophile priest
He clearly states that in his opinion, homosexuality and pedophilia are two different things, not to be compared or confused. Here he supports the progressivist contention that has spread to prevent public furor against pedophilia from striking at homosexuality. Certainly there is a difference between the two crimes when studied by scholars and punished by the courts, but regarding pedophile priests in the clergy, it so happens that the two vices are intimately related. Benedict ignores this fact.
He affirms categorically there is no place for pedophiles in the Catholic priesthood, but what about homosexuals? He says nothing against the homosexual subculture that has established itself in the American Catholic Church since Vatican II.
His actions since assuming the papal office confirm his soft stance on homosexuality in the priesthood. To replace him as head of the CDF, he chose his friend Archbishop William Levada, known for complacent handling of pedophile priests when he was Bishop of Portland, and for his friendly approach to homosexuals when he became Archbishop of San Francisco. Then he appointed as Archbishop of San Francisco George Niederauer, who openly supports “tolerance’ for homosexuals and opposes a constitutional ban on same-sex “marriage.”
In 2006, Pope Ratzinger signed an unmistakably “soft” document setting out new guidelines regarding homosexuals entering the seminary.(7) Instead of condemning the sin against nature and firmly barring those who practice it or have tendencies toward it from the sacred priesthood, the document takes a more tolerant view. Only those with “deep-seated tendencies” toward homosexuality are barred from priesthood; those with “transitory problems” or “chaste” homosexuals can be accepted. New Oxford Review editor Dale Vree rightly noted that “the priesthood will continue to be or become a ‘gay’ profession, thanks to this document.”(8)
No, dear friend Jan, I do not believe that Benedict’s comforting words to the masses on the pedophilia crisis are enough for justice to be done and the Church morally healed. Nothing will change unless the Church addresses the root of the moral crisis, the toleration and favoring of both pedophilia and homosexuality in the clergy.
As Atila Guimaraes states in his work Vatican II, Homosexuality & Pedophilia, “Even if homosexual acts are not practiced, homosexuality per se is an aberration both in its tendency, the attraction of a man to another man, and in its end, the sin of sodomy. It cannot be tolerated in any degree or in any place, most especially in a place destined to form the future directors of Catholic souls and members of the Hierarchy.” [my emphasis](9)
1. Ron Fraser, “Benedict XVI and Vatican Justice,” The Trumpet online, April 27, 2008
2. “Benedict XVI in the United States,” The Tablet, April 26, 2008
3. Benedict begins historic visit,” Washington Post online, April 16, 2008
4. “Benedict XVI and Vatican Justice,” The Trumpet online, April 27, 2008
5. Ibid.
6. John Allen, “Transcript from Papal Plane,” National Catholic Reporter online, April 15, 2008
7. “Instruction Concerning the Criteria for the Discernment of Vocations With Regard to Persons With Homosexual Tendencies in View of Their Admission to the Seminary and to Holy Orders"; for more on this document, see the article by Dale Vree, Why the Priesthood Will Continue To Become a "Gay" Profession
8. Ibid.
9. Los Angeles, Tradition in Action, 2004, p. 3
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Historicism: License for the New Theology of Vatican II?
Historicism has apparently been proposed by the progressivists (neo-modernists) who prevailed at Vatican II as the overarching principal by which the perennial truths of Sacred Tradition are now to be considered.
Reduced to its lowest common denominator Historicism appears to refer to the new ecclesiology by which those doctrinal truths which prior to Vatican II were always and everywhere believed by Roman Catholics vis a vis the Vincentian Canon-- have been rendered subject to change on the assumption/declaration that all such apparently immutable pronouncements apply only to the time in which they were formulated. Thus, other times and circumstances may demand that they be either altered or completely eliminated. In one fell swoop the entire notion of immutability of key doctrines/dogmas has ostensibly been done away with and for that matter one leg (Sacred Tradition) of the "3" legged stool which historically stabilized the Catholic faith.
Thus the Church of Christ which for almost 2000 years was identical to the Roman Catholic Church has now become something which only "includes" the Roman Catholic Church among other Churches, sects etc. (albeit to a greater extent than the rest according to Vatican II). It is now possible to belong to the Church of Christ to greater or lesser degrees. Presumably, this does away with the troubling problem of violating the law of non-contradiction. What appears to be a hopeless incompatibility/contradiction is overcome by declaring that Truth is relative to time and place. This undermines the very meaning of absolute (timeless) truth--if words are to have any meaning. Under the New Theology it is never possible to know for sure if a given doctrine/dogma/belief or practice is foundational/stable.
For example, at one time it was necessary to prohibit Roman Catholics--on pain of mortal sin--from participating in the religious services of non-Catholics. During another period e.g. the one in which we now find ourselves, ecumenical inter-religious services are even encouraged and participated in to varying degrees by the Holy See. The Pope has even been seen distributing communion to notorious non-Catholics--a practice which at one time would have been unthinkable.
Moreover, at one time in the history of the Church it may have seemed necessary to hold that the Roman Catholic Church was identical with-- in fact was the only Church of Christ. At another, it is apparently propitious to claim that she is only one among many other sects/organizations which themselves are to some degree members of the Church of Christ. What was once an all or none phenomenon has now become a kind of "sliding scale."
With Historicism as a new foundational principle, one wonders to what extent it is even reasonable to believe that the new pronouncements are correct even now. What assurance is there that in 50 years the current beliefs and practices will still be valid--and if not--given the evolutionary nature of the Catholic Church vis a vis Historicism, why not allow each person to determine what personally seems valid to them--ala the principle of "private interpretation" much as so-called "cafeteria Catholics" do now? The Vatican at least implicitly accepts private interpratation given that the new view of the Church of Christ includes those Protestant churches who still adhere to Sola Scriptura as a dogma. On what basis are Roman catholics to be denied a belief in private interpratation for that matter even on such contentious topics as artificial contraception and procurred abortion? Why should any professing Catholic be disciplined (such as in withholding of the Eucharist) for failing to accept Roman Catholic Church teaching on these or any other issues which currently confront contemporary Christians--e.g., a pro-choice abortion position, divorce and re-marriage, destructive embryo research, euthanasia etc.?
What if one's personal degree of "theological evolutionary* progress" outstrips the contemporary view of the Vatican on belief or practice? Who is to say then that such a belief seriously held, is unacceptable--the current, the past or the future Magisterium? These are all questions which I find difficult to answer given the new Historicism of the post-Conciliar church.
JPH
*Guimaraes, Smith and others maintain that evolution of belief was a foundational principle which unifies Vatican II ecclesiology. The progressivists who prevailed at Vatican II apparently admit as much in their own words and statements.
Reduced to its lowest common denominator Historicism appears to refer to the new ecclesiology by which those doctrinal truths which prior to Vatican II were always and everywhere believed by Roman Catholics vis a vis the Vincentian Canon-- have been rendered subject to change on the assumption/declaration that all such apparently immutable pronouncements apply only to the time in which they were formulated. Thus, other times and circumstances may demand that they be either altered or completely eliminated. In one fell swoop the entire notion of immutability of key doctrines/dogmas has ostensibly been done away with and for that matter one leg (Sacred Tradition) of the "3" legged stool which historically stabilized the Catholic faith.
Thus the Church of Christ which for almost 2000 years was identical to the Roman Catholic Church has now become something which only "includes" the Roman Catholic Church among other Churches, sects etc. (albeit to a greater extent than the rest according to Vatican II). It is now possible to belong to the Church of Christ to greater or lesser degrees. Presumably, this does away with the troubling problem of violating the law of non-contradiction. What appears to be a hopeless incompatibility/contradiction is overcome by declaring that Truth is relative to time and place. This undermines the very meaning of absolute (timeless) truth--if words are to have any meaning. Under the New Theology it is never possible to know for sure if a given doctrine/dogma/belief or practice is foundational/stable.
For example, at one time it was necessary to prohibit Roman Catholics--on pain of mortal sin--from participating in the religious services of non-Catholics. During another period e.g. the one in which we now find ourselves, ecumenical inter-religious services are even encouraged and participated in to varying degrees by the Holy See. The Pope has even been seen distributing communion to notorious non-Catholics--a practice which at one time would have been unthinkable.
Moreover, at one time in the history of the Church it may have seemed necessary to hold that the Roman Catholic Church was identical with-- in fact was the only Church of Christ. At another, it is apparently propitious to claim that she is only one among many other sects/organizations which themselves are to some degree members of the Church of Christ. What was once an all or none phenomenon has now become a kind of "sliding scale."
With Historicism as a new foundational principle, one wonders to what extent it is even reasonable to believe that the new pronouncements are correct even now. What assurance is there that in 50 years the current beliefs and practices will still be valid--and if not--given the evolutionary nature of the Catholic Church vis a vis Historicism, why not allow each person to determine what personally seems valid to them--ala the principle of "private interpretation" much as so-called "cafeteria Catholics" do now? The Vatican at least implicitly accepts private interpratation given that the new view of the Church of Christ includes those Protestant churches who still adhere to Sola Scriptura as a dogma. On what basis are Roman catholics to be denied a belief in private interpratation for that matter even on such contentious topics as artificial contraception and procurred abortion? Why should any professing Catholic be disciplined (such as in withholding of the Eucharist) for failing to accept Roman Catholic Church teaching on these or any other issues which currently confront contemporary Christians--e.g., a pro-choice abortion position, divorce and re-marriage, destructive embryo research, euthanasia etc.?
What if one's personal degree of "theological evolutionary* progress" outstrips the contemporary view of the Vatican on belief or practice? Who is to say then that such a belief seriously held, is unacceptable--the current, the past or the future Magisterium? These are all questions which I find difficult to answer given the new Historicism of the post-Conciliar church.
JPH
*Guimaraes, Smith and others maintain that evolution of belief was a foundational principle which unifies Vatican II ecclesiology. The progressivists who prevailed at Vatican II apparently admit as much in their own words and statements.
Monday, May 12, 2008
Is this Matthew 24: 5-14?
The Eschatological Discourse
Signs of the End of the Age
1 Jesus left the temple and was walking away when his disciples came up to him to call his attention to its buildings.
2 "Do you see all these things?" he asked. "I tell you the truth, not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down."
3 As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately. "Tell us," they said, "when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?"
4 Jesus answered: "Watch out that no one deceives you.
5 For many will come in my name, claiming, 'I am the Christ, [a] ' and will deceive many.
6 You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come.
7 Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places.
8 All these are the beginning of birth pains.
9 "Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me.
10 At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other,
11 and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people.
12 Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold,
13 but he who stands firm to the end will be saved.
14 And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.
15 "So when you see standing in the holy place 'the abomination that causes desolation,'[b] spoken of through the prophet Daniel—let the reader understand—
16 then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.
17 Let no one on the roof of his house go down to take anything out of the house.
18 Let no one in the field go back to get his cloak.
19 How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers!
20 Pray that your flight will not take place in winter or on the Sabbath.
21 For then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now—and never to be equaled again.
22 If those days had not been cut short, no one would survive, but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened.
23 At that time if anyone says to you, 'Look, here is the Christ!' or, 'There he is!' do not believe it.
24 For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and miracles to deceive even the elect—if that were possible.
25 See, I have told you ahead of time.
26 "So if anyone tells you, 'There he is, out in the desert,' do not go out; or, 'Here he is, in the inner rooms,' do not believe it.
27 For as lightning that comes from the east is visible even in the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.
28 Wherever there is a carcass, there the vultures will gather.
29 "Immediately after the distress of those days"
'the sun will be darkened,
and the moon will not give its light;
the stars will fall from the sky,
and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.'[c]
30 "At that time the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and all the nations of the earth will mourn. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory.
31 And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.
32 "Now learn this lesson from the fig tree: As soon as its twigs get tender and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near.
33 Even so, when you see all these things, you know that it[d]is near, right at the door.
34 I tell you the truth, this generation[e] will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.
35 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.
The Day and Hour Unknown
36 "No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son,[f] but only the Father.
37 As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.
38 For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark;
39 and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.
40 Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left.
41 Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left.
42 "Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come.
43 But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into.
44 So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.
45 "Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom the master has put in charge of the servants in his household to give them their food at the proper time?
46 It will be good for that servant whose master finds him doing so when he returns.
47 I tell you the truth, he will put him in charge of all his possessions.
48 But suppose that servant is wicked and says to himself, 'My master is staying away a long time,'
49 and he then begins to beat his fellow servants and to eat and drink with drunkards.
50 The master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he is not aware of.
51 He will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the hypocrites, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
(My emphasis throughout, JPH)
Footnotes:
a. Matthew 24:5 Or Messiah; also in verse 23
b. Matthew 24:15 Daniel 9:27; 11:31; 12:11
c. Matthew 24:29 Isaiah 13:10; 34:4
d. Matthew 24:33 Or he
e. Matthew 24:34 Or race
f. Matthew 24:36 Some manuscripts do not have nor the Son.
NOTE:
Today, an earthquake occured in China which measured 7.8 on the Richter scale, reputed already to have killed several thousand people. Roughtly 10 days ago a cyclone hit Burma which to date has been responible for the deaths of over 100 thousand people. Severe tornadoes have destroyed a large swath of property in the southern states of the US resulting in deaths over the past 24 hours--this in the wake of severe flooding in the Ohio and Mississippi river valleys. It is being widely reported that more and more people are experiencing starvation around the world at least in part due to rising energy prices.
Their are myriads of wars, disputes and the like throughout the world and it is now widely rumored that the US will strike Iran before the end of the Bush administration. Scientific data have estalished that there has been a significant increase in virulent bacteria some of which are resistant to all known antiiotics. As everyone knows, some viruses formerly seen only in animals have managed to cross the animal/human barrier. With books, newspapers, TV, radio, satellites and the internet, it is at least arguable that the Gospel of Christ has now been preached to the whole world. One could go on and on.
It is hard not to think that Matthew 24: 5-14 is currently underway. Obviously, no one can know for certain. However, Christ provided clues such that his faithful would be aware of the signs and seasons. Prudence would seem to demand that one at least entertain the possibility that God is currently unfolding the kind of warning which Matt. 24: 5-14 provides. See also II Thessalonians 2: 1-12.
The Navarre Biblical Commentaries on Matthew have been useful to me in separating the parts of chapter 24 which refer to Israel including the sack of Jerusalem and those which pertain specifically to the return of Christ and the period which will precede it--what Christ called the "birth pangs." I recommend the Navarre Series to those with an interest in eschatology especially those trying to make sense of current world developments.
JPH
Signs of the End of the Age
1 Jesus left the temple and was walking away when his disciples came up to him to call his attention to its buildings.
2 "Do you see all these things?" he asked. "I tell you the truth, not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down."
3 As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately. "Tell us," they said, "when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?"
4 Jesus answered: "Watch out that no one deceives you.
5 For many will come in my name, claiming, 'I am the Christ, [a] ' and will deceive many.
6 You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come.
7 Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places.
8 All these are the beginning of birth pains.
9 "Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me.
10 At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other,
11 and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people.
12 Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold,
13 but he who stands firm to the end will be saved.
14 And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.
15 "So when you see standing in the holy place 'the abomination that causes desolation,'[b] spoken of through the prophet Daniel—let the reader understand—
16 then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.
17 Let no one on the roof of his house go down to take anything out of the house.
18 Let no one in the field go back to get his cloak.
19 How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers!
20 Pray that your flight will not take place in winter or on the Sabbath.
21 For then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now—and never to be equaled again.
22 If those days had not been cut short, no one would survive, but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened.
23 At that time if anyone says to you, 'Look, here is the Christ!' or, 'There he is!' do not believe it.
24 For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and miracles to deceive even the elect—if that were possible.
25 See, I have told you ahead of time.
26 "So if anyone tells you, 'There he is, out in the desert,' do not go out; or, 'Here he is, in the inner rooms,' do not believe it.
27 For as lightning that comes from the east is visible even in the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.
28 Wherever there is a carcass, there the vultures will gather.
29 "Immediately after the distress of those days"
'the sun will be darkened,
and the moon will not give its light;
the stars will fall from the sky,
and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.'[c]
30 "At that time the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and all the nations of the earth will mourn. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory.
31 And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.
32 "Now learn this lesson from the fig tree: As soon as its twigs get tender and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near.
33 Even so, when you see all these things, you know that it[d]is near, right at the door.
34 I tell you the truth, this generation[e] will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.
35 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.
The Day and Hour Unknown
36 "No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son,[f] but only the Father.
37 As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.
38 For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark;
39 and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.
40 Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left.
41 Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left.
42 "Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come.
43 But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into.
44 So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.
45 "Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom the master has put in charge of the servants in his household to give them their food at the proper time?
46 It will be good for that servant whose master finds him doing so when he returns.
47 I tell you the truth, he will put him in charge of all his possessions.
48 But suppose that servant is wicked and says to himself, 'My master is staying away a long time,'
49 and he then begins to beat his fellow servants and to eat and drink with drunkards.
50 The master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he is not aware of.
51 He will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the hypocrites, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
(My emphasis throughout, JPH)
Footnotes:
a. Matthew 24:5 Or Messiah; also in verse 23
b. Matthew 24:15 Daniel 9:27; 11:31; 12:11
c. Matthew 24:29 Isaiah 13:10; 34:4
d. Matthew 24:33 Or he
e. Matthew 24:34 Or race
f. Matthew 24:36 Some manuscripts do not have nor the Son.
NOTE:
Today, an earthquake occured in China which measured 7.8 on the Richter scale, reputed already to have killed several thousand people. Roughtly 10 days ago a cyclone hit Burma which to date has been responible for the deaths of over 100 thousand people. Severe tornadoes have destroyed a large swath of property in the southern states of the US resulting in deaths over the past 24 hours--this in the wake of severe flooding in the Ohio and Mississippi river valleys. It is being widely reported that more and more people are experiencing starvation around the world at least in part due to rising energy prices.
Their are myriads of wars, disputes and the like throughout the world and it is now widely rumored that the US will strike Iran before the end of the Bush administration. Scientific data have estalished that there has been a significant increase in virulent bacteria some of which are resistant to all known antiiotics. As everyone knows, some viruses formerly seen only in animals have managed to cross the animal/human barrier. With books, newspapers, TV, radio, satellites and the internet, it is at least arguable that the Gospel of Christ has now been preached to the whole world. One could go on and on.
It is hard not to think that Matthew 24: 5-14 is currently underway. Obviously, no one can know for certain. However, Christ provided clues such that his faithful would be aware of the signs and seasons. Prudence would seem to demand that one at least entertain the possibility that God is currently unfolding the kind of warning which Matt. 24: 5-14 provides. See also II Thessalonians 2: 1-12.
The Navarre Biblical Commentaries on Matthew have been useful to me in separating the parts of chapter 24 which refer to Israel including the sack of Jerusalem and those which pertain specifically to the return of Christ and the period which will precede it--what Christ called the "birth pangs." I recommend the Navarre Series to those with an interest in eschatology especially those trying to make sense of current world developments.
JPH
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What/Where is the Roman Catholic Church?
In light of Traditional Catholic dogma/doctrine, how should the Second Vatican Council be viewed ? Is it consistent with Sacred Scripture, Sacred Tradition and prior Magisterial teaching?What explains the tremendous amount of "bad fruit" which has been forthcoming since the close of the Council in 1965? “By their fruits you shall know them” (Matt. 7:16)
This site explores these questions and more in an attempt to place the Second Vatican Council in proper perspective.