“All too often it is the so-called liberal priests…who personify clericalism…”

October 14, 2013 By Deacon Greg Kandra




Last week, I posted Fr. Michael Duffy’s response to “Lead Us Not Into Clericalism,”by Fr. Dan Horan in the current issue of America.

Now, another reaction comes from Fr. John Trigilio, a familiar face to regular EWTN viewers, but also the president of the Confraternity of Catholic Clergy. He offers a different perspective on the issue, which he posted on his Facebook page, and which I reprint here with his permission:


Father Horan, OFM, is correct that clericalism is a vice, which ought to be repudiated by every pope, bishop, priest, deacon and consecrated religious. Problem is that it is unfair, unjust and inaccurate to portray clericalism as merely an indulgence of conservatives or traditionalists. I have been ordained twenty-five years and spent twelve years in seminary beforehand. Even went to high school seminary (hence, I am called a ‘lifer’). As a pastor of two parishes for more than eleven years and a parochial vicar for fourteen years in several assignments as a diocesan priest (secular clergy) and as president of a national association of 500+ priests and deacons (Confraternity of Catholic Clergy), my experience has been that all too often it is the so-called liberal and progressive priests who behave and act in such a way as to personify clericalism.

Clericalism is a mindset, an attitude, a perspective. It patronizes and denigrates those who disagree and uses ad hominem attacks to belittle. When a priest speaks disrespectfully to an elderly woman and embarrasses her publicly at Mass merely because she exercises her legitimate option (as defined by Rome) to kneel or genuflect at Communion time rather than just stand, that is clericalism. When the faithful are denied their legitimate option to receive Holy Communion on the tongue or confession behind a screen, that is clericalism. When women are ridiculed and scoffed at by priests for wearing chapel veils, which is their option, that is clericalism. When some of the faithful ask the pastor if the Extraordinary Form could be celebrated in their parish and the priest goes ballistic and insults them and calls them fanatical, schismatic rad-trads, that is clericalism. When priests who wear roman vestments and lace albs instead of burlap potato sacks and moo-moo albs are laughed at and slandered by gossip among their brother diocesan clergy, that is clericalism.

Clericalism is also nepotism. Not the kind where relatives are promoted but where ideologues and those who are philosophically and theologically ‘brothers’ take care of one another. When sycophants are rewarded with papal knighthood and are made monsignors for being blindly loyal to their Ordinary, that is clericalism. It is a cheap shot to attack a priest for his personal taste in vestments. What really counts is whether or nor Father preaches and teaches orthodox Catholic doctrine; does he celebrate a reverent Mass; is he living a chaste, honest, and virtuous life on the altar and off? Wearing lace is NON-SEQUITUR. BEHAVING properly is what matters.

During my seminary career, I saw the effects of BAD THEOLOGY combined with BAD LITURGY. Both supported one another like two deadly poisons. The two then produced an even more diabolical by product, BAD MORALITY. Whether a priest likes the Latin Mass or the Vernacular, Ordinary or Extraordinary, lace or plain albs, roman or contemporary chasubles, et al., the crucial question is not does he wear a cassock or does he allow others to call him by his first name (with no title)? DE GUSTIBUS NON DISPUTANDUM EST, St. Thomas Aquinas said so well long ago. Real clericalism is not about attire or language, birettas or baseball caps. It is about sound doctrine, reverent worship and holy, virtuous living. I have seen priests on both sides of the fence (conservative/liberal or traditional/progressive) treat laity with disdain and contempt. It is not an issue rooted in liturgical garb.

I have seen or heard of priests and deacons ignored, ostracized, marginalized, passed over for promotion, humiliated and publicly vilified merely because they were considered ‘too conservative’ or ‘too traditional’ Sometimes they call us “JP2 groupies” or “Benny worshippers” just because we do not disobey papal authority or because we do not fit the mold of Charlie Curran, Hans Kung or Richard McBrien. The faithful want clergy to treat them as adults, not as ignorant children. Yet, often I get emails about pastors who deny infallible doctrines in their homilies but when asked by a parishioner act as if the layperson were in kindergarden. It is clericalism to disguise heterodoxy and irreverence as valid options while simultaneously insulting and disparaging a layperson’s fondness for devotions or forcing parishioners to get GPS in order to find the Tabernacle since they removed them from sanctuaries and now hide them out of view lest any spontaneous latria might occur.

What a priest wears and how he is called is his personal preference, taste and opinion. Options are just that, not meant to be mandatory nor prohibited. Yet, wear purple or worse, black, vestments at a funeral, and some of the CLERGY (not the laity) label you rad-trad, Lefebvre-ite, arch-conservative, et al. What the people want are holy priests, virtuous and moral priests, obedient and loyal priests. They also want priests who respect them and who do not insult their intelligence. If a parishioner is Charismatic, in Cursillo or a member of Opus Dei, my job as parish priest and pastor is to provide them with valid sacraments, reverent worship, orthodox teaching with compassion and mercy. Making fun of someone’s Marian devotion is not catechesis, it is modern clericalism. Chancery workers, ecclesiastical bureaucrats and other middle management types who happen to also be ordained ministers, just treat your brother clergy and the lay faithful with RESPECT. Keep an eye and ear on those clergy who might be breaking their vows and possibly causing further scandal instead of persecuting and demonizing your colleagues who have a legitimate difference of opinion and who demonstrate a different style or taste. Remember, Pope Benedict XVI said it best when he said Catholicism is the religion of BOTH/AND not EITHER/OR. There is room for both Ordinary Form and Extraordinary Form, Latin and Vernacular, ad orientem & versus populum, Roman vestments and modern ones, lace albs and plain albs, etc. Don’t be hung up on externals, the People of God are NOT. No one is bothered by my biretta but if I am not behaving or acting as a priest should and ought to do, then the folks have every right to complain and seek a remedy. Meanwhile, please do not impute motives or agendas onto Pope Francis. His style and preference may not be identical to his immediate predecessor but both B16 and F1 are true shepherds and brothers in more ways than one. Basta cosi.

Fr. John Trigilio, Jr.
President
Confraternity of Catholic Clergy

A footnote: I think this gives more evidence, if any were needed, that clericalism isn’t a matter of personal politics or affectation or taste. It’s more than that. It defies limits or labels. It’s rooted in the ego, and foolish human pride. And it extends beyond the ordained.

Pope Francis once said:


“We priests tend to clericalize the laity. [We] focus on things of the clergy, more specifically, the sanctuary, rather than bringing the Gospel to the world… A Church that limits herself to administering parish work experiences what someone in prison does: physical and mental atrophy.

“We infect lay people with our own disease. And some begin to believe the fundamental service God asks of them is to become greeters, lectors or extraordinary ministers of holy communion at Church. Rather, [the call is] to live and spread the faith in their families, workplaces, schools, neighborhoods and beyond.”

The reform that’s needed is “neither to clericalize nor ask to be clericalized. The layperson is a layperson. He has to live as a layperson… to be a leaven of the love of God in society itself…. [He] is to create and sow hope, to proclaim the faith, not from a pulpit but from his everyday life. And like all of us, the layperson is called to carry his daily cross—the cross of the layperson, not of the priest.”

We are all susceptible, and we all fall prey to the temptation to think we’re more special than everyone else because of how we dress or what we do.

Pope Francis reminds us: that’s not what Being Church is supposed to be about.

Clericalism, finally, gets in the way of evangelization. It has nothing to do with spreading the gospel.

The most powerful witness to that remains a half-naked bleeding man nailed to a piece of wood, yet forgiving the ones who did it to him.

Why Some Older Priests Hate Liturgy

published 14 October 2013

by Jeff Ostrowski

Documents on the Liturgy (1963-1979)

N MONDAY, a father tell his kids that jumping on the trampoline is forbidden. On Tuesday, he allows it under certain circumstances. On Wednesday, he allows it without any restrictions. On Thursday, he forbids it again. On Friday, he says they can jump on the trampoline if necessary. Leave aside for a moment whether jumping on the trampoline is good or bad. What kind of parenting skills are displayed here? What kind of men and women will those children become when they’re grown? I would suggest they’ll turn out pretty confused, with a disdain for “meaningless rules that change on a whim.”

Several seminarians have said to me:
“Don’t try to talk with older priests about Liturgy. They place it in the same category as Canon Law: boring, pointless, and impossible to comprehend.”

For years, I rejected their advice. How could any priest not like liturgy? However, consider what happened a few months ago. A visiting priest came and chose the Sprinkling Rite … without telling the music director! How awkward and uncomfortable it is when the priest walks up and down the aisle sprinkling the congregation accompanied by complete silence. This type of thing happens all the time, yet could easily be avoided with a 9-second conversation. What possible reason could there be for the priest not to let the musicians know in advance he’s going to choose the Sprinkling Rite? So, maybe the seminarians are right.


SHARING THE STORY about the trampoline (above) is my way of emphasizing that liturgical law has been changed far too often. A renowned Canonist, Fr. Georg May, has made this point better than I ever could:

* * Fr. Georg May • “Ecclesiastical Legislation on Liturgy and Church Music”

If you don’t believe me, feast your eyes on the size of the book in the image on the upper right! It’s 1,500 pages long, and that only covers legislation from 1963-1979. And they used to say the Tridentine Rite was complicated … sheesh!

One could go down a whole list of things that have been changed in a confusing way. Obviously, I’m not going to do that right now. But, take just one example. Read what Pope John XXIII wrote about Latin — “We are fully determined to restore Latin to its position of honor” etc. Then, take a look at what Pope Paul VI said about Latin:

* * Pope Paul VI • Address To General Audience About Latin (November 1969)

You will see that Pope Paul VI contradicts his immediate predecessor, yet believes abolishing Latin will lead to a “new and resplendent awakening” of Latin! This crazy logic reminds me of certainpiccoluomini today who label mass apostasy, open heresy, and empty seminaries “renewal.” That, folks, is not true renewal.

(By the way, notice what Paul VI says about the required language for private celebrations in light of the observations made by Fr. Georg May.)

THE SACRED CONGREGATION OF RITES, to a great degree, saw the dangers and excesses of Bugnini’s Reform. Incidentally, Pope Paul VI saw them too late, but when he finally did, he dismissed Bugnini and banished him. Listen to what the Sacred Congregation said on 23 July 1964 (pointing out that the Second Vatican Council never said Latin should be gotten rid of):
These observations [by the Congregation] are dictated by a sincere desire to cooperate, in the best possible manner, for a full, happy, and fruitful application of the Constitution. We wish also to say that the Instruction is undoubtedly the result of much work; this is however a complex subject with many delicate points. Even one incautious word could have unpleasant consequences. Therefore, much caution must be taken, because of the matter in itself, and also to avoid a repetition of the case of bitter, unpleasant controversy, which arose over certain points in the Motu Proprio of January 25, 1964. […] Number 59 oversteps the spirit and letter of the Constitution, which in the mentioned article 63 foresees, in the Sacraments and Sacramentals, not a total change to the vernacular, but rather “amplior locus” given to the vernacular.

Finally, let me once more emphasize that the Pope does have the authority to make the changes he made. Similarly, the father does possess the authority to keep changing the trampoline rules. However, there is no divine guarantee assuring us the Pope will always act prudently regarding disciplinary laws.

As I’ve said before, the answer to all this is found in following the example of the saints. To learn more, read my series called “no salvation from decrees” [1] [2] [3].

Time To Admit It: The Church Has Always Been Right On Birth Control

MICHAEL BRENDAN DOUGHERTY AND PASCAL-EMMANUEL GOBRY

FEB. 8, 2012, 4:39 PM



Sergio Dionisio/Getty

Painting the Catholic Church as "out of touch" is like shooting fish in a barrel, what with the funny hats and gilded churches. And nothing makes it easier than the Church's stance against contraception.



Many people, (including our editor) are wondering why the Catholic Church doesn't just ditch this requirement. They note that most Catholics ignore it, and that most everyone else finds it divisive, or "out-dated." C'mon! It's the 21st century, they say! Don't they SEE that it's STUPID, they scream.

Here's the thing, though: the Catholic Church is the world's biggest and oldest organization. It has buried all of the greatest empires known to man, from the Romans to the Soviets. It has establishments literally all over the world, touching every area of human endeavor. It's given us some of the world's greatest thinkers, from Saint Augustine on down to René Girard. When it does things, it usually has a good reason. Everyone has a right to disagree, but it's not that they're a bunch of crazy old white dudes who are stuck in the Middle Ages.

So, what's going on?

The Church teaches that love, marriage, sex, and procreation are all things that belong together. That's it. But it's pretty important. And though the Church has been teaching this for 2,000 years, it's probably never been as salient as today.

Today's injunctions against birth control were re-affirmed in a 1968 document by Pope Paul VI called Humanae Vitae. He warned of four results if the widespread use of contraceptives was accepted:

• General lowering of moral standards
• A rise in infidelity, and illegitimacy
• The reduction of women to objects used to satisfy men. 
• Government coercion in reproductive matters. 

Does that sound familiar?

Because it sure sounds like what's been happening for the past 40 years.

As George Akerloff wrote in Slate over a decade ago,

By making the birth of the child the physical choice of the mother, the sexual revolution has made marriage and child support a social choice of the father.

Instead of two parents being responsible for the children they conceive, an expectation that was held up by social norms and by the law, we now take it for granted that neither parent is necessarily responsible for their children. Men are now considered to be fulfilling their duties merely by paying court-ordered child-support. That's a pretty dramatic lowering of standards for "fatherhood."




People.com

Today's moral lodestar

How else are we doing since this great sexual revolution? Kim Kardashian's marriage lasted 72 days. Illegitimacy: way up. In 1960, 5.3% of all births in America were to unmarried women. By 2010, it was 40.8% [PDF]. In 1960 married families made up almost three-quarters of all households; but by the census of 2010 they accounted for just 48 percent of them. Cohabitation has increased tenfold since 1960.



And if you don't think women are being reduced to objects to satisfy men, welcome to the internet, how long have you been here? Government coercion: just look to China (or America, where a government rule on contraception coverage is the reason why we're talking about this right now).

Is this all due to the Pill? Of course not. But the idea that widely-available contraception hasn't led to dramatic societal change, or that this change has been exclusively to the good, is a much sillier notion than anything the Catholic Church teaches.

So is the notion that it's just OBVIOUSLY SILLY to get your moral cues from a venerable faith (as opposed to what? Britney Spears?).

But let's turn to another aspect of this. The reason our editor thinks Catholics shouldn't be fruitful and multiply doesn't hold up, either. The world's population, he writes, is on an "unsustainable" growth path.

The Population Bureau of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations sees (PDF, h/t Pax Dickinson) the rate of population growth slowing over the next decades and stabilizing around 9 billion in 2050…and holding there until 2300. (And note that the UN, which promotes birth control and abortions around the world, isn't exactly in the be-fruitful-and-multiply camp.)

More broadly, the Malthusian view of population growth has been resilient despite having been proven wrong time and time again and causing lots of unnecessary human suffering. For example, China is headed for a demographic crunch and social dislocation due to its misguided one-child policy.

Human progress is people. Everything that makes life better, from democracy to the economy to the internet to penicillin was either discovered and built by people. More people means more progress. The inventor of the cure for cancer might be someone's fourth child that they decided not to have.

So, just to sum up:
It's a good idea for people to be fruitful and multiply; and
Regardless of how you feel about the Church's stance on birth control, it's proven pretty prophetic.



DON'T MISS: OBAMA'S WAR ON THE CATHOLIC CHURCH: An Explainer →

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/time-to-admit-it-the-church-has-always-been-right-on-birth-control-2012-2#ixzz2i4IZJ6xO

The Two Churches: Which One Do You Belong To?

published 17 October 2013 

by Dr. Peter Kwasniewski

Editor’s note: The author is using the term 'liberal’ in the old-fashioned sense of liberalism, of one who accepts certain principles such as the primacy of the individual, freedom without restrictions, determining for oneself what is true and what is false, etc. — not in the contemporary American political sense of 'liberal’ vs. 'conservative.’

"The Incarnation" — created c. 1067AD

N LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY, dogmas first lose their concrete incarnational sense, and then their spiritual sense, and finally their moral sense, until only the symbolic, psychological, or postcard/holiday sense remains.

For example, take Christmas or Easter. At first, Christmas is the solemn celebration of the Incarnation of the Word and the beginning of man’s redemption by God. (Fortunately, it has never ceased to be exactly this solemn celebration in the Catholic Church, at least wherever her members have remained faithful to her unchanging and unchangeable teaching and the worship that gives expression to it.)

When this sublime ontological doctrine suffers desuetude or attack, then Christmas comes to mean “an affirmation of the goodness of human life in the eyes of God,” or some such insipid thing. Then, when even this is regarded as too overtly doctrinal, too much of a truth claim, Christmas becomes a maudlin exhortation to “love all men” and “tolerate all differences.” But not even this depraved moral lesson can last; finally, Christmas can be little more than a meaningless occasion for distributing carnal goods accompanied by vague Hallmark sentiments.

The very same progression is observable regarding Easter; and indeed, every single widely known doctrine of the Church has undergone a similar process of devaluation. Protestantism strikes at the dogmatic meaning; rationalism at the spiritual meaning; liberal democracy at the moral meaning. One after another these axe-blows fell, chopping the Creed of Christians into a incoherent menage of gilded platitudes.

IN THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY, we see a broad trend: at first, believers are focused on God, who alone is their hope and salvation; then, on themselves as rational beings who can know the truth; thereafter, on themselves as free agents who can choose their way in life; lastly, on themselves as emotional narcomaniacs. God, reason, will, passion. When each new stage arrives, the former one is jettisoned. It is a descent from the apex mentis, the still point of the soul touching eternity and infinity, to lower and lower levels of the soul—discursive reasoning, freedom of choice, concupiscence.

In keeping with this trend, it is possible to discern the lineaments of the two churches—the true Church of Christ, having its concrete existence in the Catholic Church, and an anti-Church, which represents and does the gruntwork for the anti-Christ, the anti-Word (to use the language of Karol Wojtyla). The profound difference between these two can be gleaned by considering a list of things that are found to be regularly associated with each:

THE CHURCH: a serious view of the sacraments as efficacious actions of Christ; recourse to acts of penance and the sacrament of penance; worship of the most holy Eucharist; emphasis on devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary; obedience to the Pope; an attitude of adoration, quietude, and humility in prayer; monasticism; support of celibacy and the male clergy; large families; natural and teleological view of sexuality and its place in human life, with traditional roles for the sexes; high and rich cultural history (e.g., in music and architecture); liturgical majesty and reverence; vehement hatred of heresy and schism; perception of the deep differences between Catholics and all others who call themselves Christians; willingness to fight for and even die in defense of the truths of the faith (like the peasants of the Vendée); knowledge and support of the whole system of papal bulls, decrees, encyclicals, and Church councils with their clear statements of doctrine to be embraced by every Christian throughout the world; the assumptions behind missionary work and the ultimate fruit sought from this work, viz., the expansion of the one true Church from east to west; the very idea of the necessity of converting to the Catholic faith for salvation; the belief that outside of the Church there is no salvation (extra ecclesiam nulla salus); a holistic understanding of the union of man’s soul and body. Most telling, of course, will be the devout worship of the Eucharist in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass worthily offered.

THE ANTI-CHURCH: here, the community worships the community; penance is downplayed or forgotten; the Eucharist is a “love-feast” that affords an occasion for people to be friendly with one another; sermons are typically on “love and forgiveness,” without any reference to faith or morals; there is widespread ignorance of Church teaching, contempt for or indifference to papal decrees, agitation for radical changes in doctrine and practice; one finds various mutations of feminism, and a tacit approval or vociferous defense of contraception, abortion, and homosexuality; there is the mushy nouveau muzak, a complete severance of present liturgical art from the past, distrust of and even attacks against traditional forms of piety and devotion; the liturgies are “spontaneous” and informal feel-good gatherings; an accomodating attitude is extended towards “separated brethren,” downplaying or even denying the importance of any differences in doctrine or practice between Catholics and other Christians (after all, everyone is trying to do their best, and that’s basically good and pleasing to God); heresy and schism are cruel or intolerant ideas, martyrdom is an emotional aberration or the result of unfortunate nervous excitement (for there could be no reason not to compromise a little bit when the government tells you to do so); religious life and monasticism are irrelevant carryovers from a dark age; premarital sex is not only normal and unobjectionable but de rigeur; the serious purpose of life is not working out our salvation in fear and trembling by penance and recourse to the sacraments and constant prayer, but rather, enjoying all the good things of this world with a clean conscience according to our technologically bolstered appetites. And one could throw an uncritical acceptance of the historical-critical method and its application to the infallible and inerrant Word of God into the mix.

THESE TWO CONSTELLATIONS of ideas, these two churches (to speak truthfully), can never “dialogue” with one another, let alone be reconciled. They are fundamentally opposed in every possible way, as they hold contradictory views of the most basic and significant things. Tell me how there can be common ground here? There is none—not even belief in God or in Christ or in the Church, since the very meaning of these terms (the “doxy”), as well as how this meaning will be unfolded into action (the “praxy”), is fleshed out in radically different ways by the one and the other.

In fact, only for the Catholic Church do orthodoxy and orthopraxy really matter, since the anti-Church denies that there is, at bottom, anything per se heterodox or heteroprax, except perhaps racism, sexism, and anti-Semitism. If the anti-Church is willing to defend homosexuality and fornication, for example, is there any meaningful way in which we can say that it follows the obvious teaching of Sacred Scripture and the immutable tradition of the Church? If the anti-Church so far departs from these sources of true doctrine as to contradict them outright, not only would dialogue be impossible, it should be shunned like the plague.

It is no wonder that the Fathers of the Church continually repeat, with a solemnity we hardly understand anymore, that communication with heretics and schismatics is an abomination, an act loathed by God. When one reads the Fathers, one realizes how much more keenly aware they were of the danger of and the damage caused by disunity, the rupturing of faith, the presumptuous rejection of sacred truth. They hated and execrated heresy and schism; they fought tirelessly against heretics and schismatics, laboring, praying, preaching, doing everything they could to win them or their duped victims back to the Church of Christ.

In contemporary times, particularly after the Second Vatican Council, we have completely lost touch with this central strain in the thought of the Fathers and Doctors. Indeed it can be said, without exaggeration, that one of the most important concerns to all Christians, from the founding of the Church up till the middle of the 20th century, was identifying, fighting, refuting, and pacifying heresy and schism. This has been a definitive element of the Christian faith; take it away and you destroy the very notion of liberating truth, of the Church as Christ’s spotless bride, of a depositum fidei, of a sacred inheritance, of the continuity of doctrine from the Apostles down to the present day.


ABOUT THIS BLOGGER:

A graduate of Thomas Aquinas College (B.A. in Liberal Arts) and The Catholic University of America (M.A. and Ph.D. in Philosophy), Dr. Peter Kwasniewski is currently Professor at Wyoming Catholic College. He is also a published and performed composer, especially of sacred music.

A Guide to Renewing Your Catholic Church

September 16, 2013

Imagine a Catholic parish where lines form for Confession, boys work hard to be altar servers and three different choirs vie for the right to sing at Mass! How about religious instruction which really teaches the Faith in its entirety? And homeschooling groups which foster life-long learning, and deep friendships?

Finally, imagine parishes with First Friday devotions, regular Expositions of the Blessed Sacrament and VOCATIONS!

Impossible?

Not at all.

In fact, this is exactly what is happening in some parishes, all over America.

The experience of the pioneering priests working to bring the true reforms of Vatican II to their parishes bears careful listening to. In this wide-ranging and exclusive Regina Magazine interview series, four American priests speak candidly about their successful parishes offering both the Ordinary (OF) and Extraordinary (EF) Forms of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.  

On the East Coast, in suburban Connecticut, at St. Mary’s, Norwalk, Pastor Greg Markey’s thriving diocesan parish draws Catholics from dozens of nationalities to their reverent Masses (in English, Spanish and Latin). 

On the West Coast, Holy Rosary in Portland for decades has been a magnet for Catholics who drive many miles to this Dominican parish with reverent Novus Ordo Masses and the Dominican Rite.  Pastor Vincent Kelber tells us the story.

In California, Father Jeffrey Keyes shares his journey as he has worked successfully to transform St Edwards parish in Newark, sadly disfigured by decades of liturgical abuse and sloppy catechism.

In St Louis, we see the astonishing good work being done by the Institute of Christ the King in restoring the faded glory of South Saint Louis Cathedral — another magnet for faithful Catholics. Plus, Canon Ueda, a Japanese convert, tells us his personal story.

PLUS, reports from New York City and Connecticut, by priests and lay people deeply involved in the restoration of Catholic culture through the parishes there. Not to mention stories from Palo Alto, California on the Choir that kept sacred chant alive there for 50 years, and a Diary of a Latin Mass Wedding from upstate Connecticut.

 

These are just a few of the INSPIRING, INTELLIGENT, CATHOLIC stories we cover in the Fall issue of Regina Magazine!

Socialist Sweden Becoming Genderless

Gender Equality Run AmokCreated on June 06, 2012 Written by Gary J. Isbell






The politically correct idea of equality seems to know no bounds. Sweden has just introduced a new gender-neutral pronoun — hen. In the Swedish language, he is han and she is hon. Now it seems Sweden’s educational establishment is set upon using the nation’s preschools national curriculum to abolish gender distinction among children. The schools have even gone so far as to employ “gender police” to assist teaching staff in identifying language and behavior patterns in children that might reinforce old stereotypes that need to be “corrected.” Old stereotypes can be understood as those models influenced by Christian civilization.



The word hen was first introduced by Swedish linguists in the mid-60s but was curiously added to the online version of Sweden’s National Encyclopedia on the very gender-specific International Women’s Day on March 8, 2012. At one public preschool called Egalia in Stockholm, staff now avoids using words such as him or her and address students as friends or hens instead of boys and girls.



Another preschool has gone so far as to eliminate recess from its curriculum because, as one teacher put it, when children are free to play “stereotypical gender patterns are born and cemented. In free play there is hierarchy, exclusion and the seed to bullying.”



Every detail of children’s interactions gets micromanaged by “concerned” adults, who end up placing children in a quandary over the development of their sex by how they form friendships, what games they play and the words used in the songs they sing.



This odd behavior was largely inspired by Sweden's first gender-neutral children's book written by Jesper Lundqvist, Kivi and Monsterdog. It seems Lundqvist desired to write a children’s story where characters are not identified with any sex and do not conform to a traditional gender-based story line. He (or perhaps hen) was in fact trying to avoid giving his characters roles that children tend to emulate.



The manner in which they do this is by designating as stereotypes those roles based on nature and Western culture. Most people understand stereotyping as a widely held, but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person. While this conjures a negative connotation of the word, those pushing a liberal agenda like Sweden’s school system are able to obliterate the natural distinctions inherent to each sex all in the name of “gender equality” and avoiding stereotyping.



Conveniently this contorted application of Lundqvist’s strange book fits perfectly into the global homosexual agenda by blurring the necessary and natural distinctions between men and women. Sweden is now advocating androgyny among its youngest citizens. When students play house in school, they are encouraged to include daddy, daddy, child; mommy, mommy, child; or any other modern unnatural combination to refer to family.



Not everyone has embraced this radical equality with enthusiasm however. Many critics affirm that it can be psychologically and socially damaging, especially for children. Columnist and former equality expert Elise Claeson, from the Swedish Confederation of Professions stated “that young children can become confused by the suggestion that there is a third, in-between gender at a time when their brains and bodies are developing. Adults should not interrupt a child’s discovery of their gender and sexuality, argues Claeson.” She is quoted in the Swedish daily, Dagens Nyheter, that “gender ideologues have managed to change the curriculum to establish that schools should actively counter gender roles.” [1]



If Sweden’s school system were really practicing equality, they would put their children on equal footing as themselves and respect the child’s opinion as equal to their own. By teaching them anything at all, they place themselves as superior, and thus, they teach inequality by example. Why would they encourage children to say daddy, daddy, child regarding family if they did not have an ideological agenda? If Sweden’s preschools were consistent with this warped notion of equality, children would be taught to say hen, hen, hen. Perhaps gender equality has simply run amok.

Sweden: A New Hell for Women

Posted on October 14, 2013







Sweden: A New Hell for Women
by Fjordman

The very first essay I ever wrote under the pen name Fjordman, published at my then brand-new blog on February 20, 2005, was entitled “Muslim Rape Epidemic in Sweden and Norway — Authorities Look the Other Way.” I had been active on the Internet and written comments on other people’s websites well before that date, but in many ways this marked the beginning of my more dedicated writing career.

Over the years I have written quite a few essays about Sweden, despite never having lived there myself. One of the reasons for this is because it is by far the most extreme of the Nordic countries when it comes to mass immigration and Multiculturalism. In terms of ideological indoctrination, suppression of dissent and media censorship, I would argue that Sweden is one of the most totalitarian countries in the entire Western world. Outsiders don’t always realize how bad the situation really is.

Recent immigrants from certain repressive cultures have sometimes brought with them a number of unwelcome traditions from home, such as honor killings. These types of problems tend mainly to target women within the immigrant communities, although this does not make them any less regrettable. Yet there are plenty of problems and imported Multicultural tensions that cause suffering among the native population, too.

It’s not entirely coincidental that the first essay I wrote under the pseudonym Fjordman was about rape in Sweden. In no case is there a worse discrepancy between how Sweden likes to present itself to the world and how the country actually is than when it comes to the question of rape. Its carefully cultivated image as a champion of women’s rights runs counter to the real-life fact that Sweden is becoming a hell for many women.

I no longer write about this subject as often as I once did for the simple reason that I’m tired of it. It’s for the same reason that I sometimes write about science and astronomy whenever I’m fed up with Islam: you get tired of digging into darkness sometimes. Sadly, darkness doesn’t always go away just because you don’t want to talk about it.





[Header] Residence permits granted during the year — The number of reported rapes in the years 1980-2008 (Source Migration Board, BRÅ)


[Footer] (grey) Granted residence during the year — (red) Number of reported rapes during the year


Original article (Swedish)



The problem of rapes in Sweden is worse now than when I first wrote about it almost a decade ago. The 6,320 reported rapes officially registered in that country in 2012 almost certainly do not represent the full number of such crimes that actually took place that year. In 2880 of these registered rapes, the victims were minors and children aged between 0-17 years old. A surprising 10% of these victims of child rape in Sweden in 2012 were boys. The male percentage of rape victims is smaller for adults, but still higher than it used to be some time ago.

We know that many rape victims do not report the crime, perhaps partly due to shame and fear. If we assume that 25% of the rapes that are committed are reported to the police authorities, the total number of rapes in Sweden in 2012 would actually be over 25,000 rather than 6320, which was already bad enough. If we assume that just 10% of the committed rapes are actually reported and recorded, an estimate which some researchers operate with, the number of rapes in Sweden in 2012 alone would be a staggering 63,200.

If we use the lower of these two estimates, that amounts to roughly one hundred thousand rape victims in Sweden in just four years. If we use the higher — but still not totally unrealistic — estimate, that would make a quarter of a million Swedish rape victims within a four-year period, and one million in about sixteen years.

By any estimate, we are in all likelihood dealing with hundreds of thousands of rapes per generation, perhaps between half a million and one million. That’s an incredibly large number for a country with just over nine million inhabitants. It resembles war. Tens of thousands of these victims are children.

It is known that some particularly vulnerable victims are raped more than once. We should also recall that of the roughly 4,5 million females in Sweden, some are quite old and therefore statistically unlikely to be targeted by rape. This makes the percentage of young Swedish women being raped all the worse.

A report from 2011 showed a shocking rise in the number of consummated rapes against children under the age of 15. The number rose from a little over 200 in 1995 to about 1400 in 2008. The curve was then still rising. It is conceivable that some of this could be related to a change in the legal definition of rape, but the increase is so staggering that is highly likely to reflect a very real increase in the number of rapes in Swedish society.



The Danish author Morten Uhrskov Jensen looked into the official numbers and found that in the first seven months of 2013, Stockholm County alone registered 300 — three hundred — reported rapes of minors under the age of 15. That’s more than 500 a year, if the trend continues. This figure was for a single region only, not for the entire country.

Minors under the age of 15 are children by virtually any definition. Moreover, as mentioned previously we always have to take into account that not all such cases are reported. We are thus dealing with in all probability thousands of child rapes annually in Sweden, and by extension tens of thousands per decade.

As Morten Uhrskov Jensen stated, these figures are nothing less than horrific for what used to be a peaceful Scandinavian country. These victims are not just faceless numbers in a statistic; they are very real human beings. Many of them have their lives destroyed. In some cases, the victims have become so traumatized that they’ve taken their own lives. The families of the victims will also be affected by the trauma of such crimes.

One should keep in mind here that this comes on top of various types of sexual harassment and abuse that are not technically classified as rape. Besides, we have countless other cases of non-sexual abuse, assault, robberies, harassment and violence targeting people of both sexes on a regular basis. In combination, this generates an atmosphere of violence and fear.

There were rapes in this region before non-European mass immigration, of course, but not nearly as many as now. In addition to sheer numbers, the brutality has gotten worse, sometimes involving sadistic torture. Gang rapes used to be exceedingly rare in Scandinavia, but sadly, this is no longer the case. As we have just seen above, the number of rapes involving minors and children has also shown a shocking increase.

Rape of men, too, used to be uncommon in this part of the world. Not anymore. A 17-year-old boy reported being gang raped by several men in the town of Växjö in southern Sweden. In 2012, 132 men in Sweden reported being raped. Once more, we have to assume that quite a few people don’t file a report at all. The humiliation, shame and stigma attached to being a male rape victim are presumably at least as strong as for female victims.

The Swedish mass media and political elites are very careful not to suggest any connection between these rapes and mass immigration from Third World countries. Yet there is every reason to suspect that such a connection exists. We know from other Western European countries that immigrants from certain regions and cultures, particularly from the Islamic world and Africa, are disproportionately represented as perpetrators in rape cases.

In Britain, especially in English cities, a disturbing number of cases have been revealed in which Muslim men prey on girls, some of them as young as ten years old, drug them and sexually abuse them. Most of their young victims are native white girls, but occasionally they will even prey on non-Muslim girls from other immigrant communities. British authorities have been shamefully slow and hesitant in dealing with these widespread child rapes. Yet at the very least, some British newspapers and magazines will occasionally write about this subject in plain words. In Sweden, the media systematically sweep the ethnic identity of such criminals under the rug.

In 2005, the ethnologist Maria Bäckman in her study “Whiteness and gender” followed a group of ethnic Swedish girls in the suburb of Rinkeby near Stockholm. Natives there are now a minority of the inhabitants due to mass immigration. Several natural blondes stated that they had dyed their hair to avoid unwanted attention and sexual harassment. Being called “whore” is so common for white girls in certain schools that teachers no longer react to this. The problem certainly hasn’t become smaller in the years that have passed since this study.

A report from 2006 detailed how being a Swedish girl or young woman increasingly means feeling unsafe in your own country. They are scared of being raped, a possibility that appears very real to them. Many are planning how to go home at night, how to defend themselves or how to run all the way home if they have to.

“It is not as wrong raping a Swedish girl as raping an Arab girl,” says Hamid, in an interview about a gang rape involving immigrant perps. “The Swedish girl gets a lot of help afterwards, and she had probably f***ed before, anyway. But the Arab girl will get problems with her family. For her, being raped is a source of shame.” He claims that it is “far too easy to get a Swedish whore…… girl, I mean.” Hamid laughed over his own choice of words. “I don’t have too much respect for Swedish girls. I guess you can say they get f***ed to pieces.”

Not only the victims but also the perpetrators get younger and younger. Official statistics in 2013 showed that the number of rapes committed by minors under the age of eighteen was eight — 8 — times higher than in 1998. Young people of unspecified ethnic origins are more and more often suspected of committing serious and violent crimes, according to a compilation of figures from Statistics Sweden and the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention. Compared to the late 1990s, young people are now the suspects in twice as many robberies. The number of drug crimes in which young people are suspects has quintupled. The number of rape cases in which young people are suspects has more than octupled. No proper explanation was given for this increase.

Suggesting that the ongoing rise in violent crime might have something to do with mass immigration of alien and aggressive cultures is quite literally banned by law. In March 2007during a rally supported by SSU, the Social Democratic Youth League, a man carried a sign reading, “While Swedish girls are being gang raped by immigrant gangs the SSU is fighting racism.” He was promptly arrested and later sentenced to a fine. His crime? He had “expressed disrespect for a group of people with reference to their national or ethnic background.” The local court rejected the man’s free speech argument because even free speech has its limits, and he had clearly acted in too provocative a manner.

While the rape numbers are horrific, they make up just one element of the spread of violent crime. Sweden used to be a safe country not so many decades ago. Yet Swedish streets are now plagued by muggings, shootings, robberies, gang rivalries and mafias on a scale previously unknown in modern Scandinavian history.

In late August 2013, after an alleged attack on a veiled Muslim woman, a grassroots movement defending women’s right to wear hijab (veil) was backed by many politicians and celebrities in Sweden. Left-wing politicians were among those who lent their support to the movement, dubbed “The hijab appeal,” by posting pictures of themselves wearing the Islamic headscarf.

It was later claimed that the pregnant woman who was allegedly attacked previously was attacked a second time. She was reportedly assaulted in southern Stockholm by several men who attacked her with punches and told her to withdraw her police report.

If this really is true then this is highly unusual behavior for native Swedes. It is, however, not unusual for people from certain authoritarian immigrant communities to threaten witnesses in such a manner. This raises the question of whether this Muslim woman was actually attacked by men from the immigrant community, possibly even her own relatives.

Yet the biased and totalitarian Swedish mass media would hear none of this. They reacted, based on weak evidence from a strange story, with a campaign against an alleged wave of Islamophobic “hate” in Sweden, one of the most politically correct countries on the surface of this planet.

As the author Bruce Bawer commented at the time in FrontPage Magazine: “Now, if this actually happened, it’s repugnant. But there’s no evidence that it did happen — no eyewitnesses, no surveillance video — and it’s been suggested (although not, of course, in the Swedish media) that the woman’s story could be entirely bogus. In any case, it’s a man-bites-dog tale if there ever was one: Sweden is overrun with Muslim men who rape infidel women, not with infidels who pull headscarves off Muslim women.”

Indeed.

In late August 2013, at the exact same time as prominent non-Muslim Swedish women were donning the veil to show “solidarity” with Muslims, seven Afghan Muslim asylum seekerswere convicted of brutally gang-raping a Swedish woman in the small town of Mariannelund. Another man who masturbated next to the woman’s head while the other seven were raping her for hours was acquitted, though. He received 130,000 kroner in damages for his ordeal. This was sponsored by Swedish taxpayers, presumably including the family of his victim.

Because of such examples, the writer Eva Agnete Selsing in Denmark has come to the conclusion that “Sweden is the Evil Empire.” She was referring to a new kind of totalitarianism and Utopian ideology of open borders.

The phrase “the Evil Empire” was applied to the Communist dictatorship of the Soviet Union in 1983 by the conservative U.S. President Ronald Reagan. Reagan honestly felt that he had no choice but to define the Communist system as evil, due to its repressive nature and the huge amount of human suffering it caused.

Is that comparison to Sweden hyperbole? Maybe, maybe not. Selsing was not arguing that this new form of Multicultural totalitarianism was as militant and violent as some of the earlier totalitarian movements, but that doesn’t mean that it is not harmful or dangerous. In her view, the explosive cocktail of extreme political correctness and rampant mass immigration is creating a “catastrophe” in Swedish society. The ruthless authoritarian suppression of dissent upheld by the ruling elites and the media establishment has transformed Sweden into something approaching a “prison of the mind.”

One of the most horrific examples is the country’s rape statistics, which are the worst in Europe. Parallel to mass immigration from Third World countries, the number of recorded rapes, also of children, has exploded. Eva Agnete Selsing wonders how the “hypocritical” Swedish political and media elites can sleep at night, knowing fully well what kind of nightmare of violence and street crime they are pushing on their own people. Her conclusion is that “If your actions lead to violence, abuse, threats, repression and social control of your fellow citizens (who have never sought the reality that you have put them in), and you refuse to relate to this, then you are an evil person. And the evil empire consists of human beings.”

Perhaps Swedish authorities should worry more about the incredibly large number of rapes in their own country, and less about transsexuals in Serbia or gay adoption rights in Russia.

Is Schism Inevitable in Germany?

OCTOBER 16, 2013

by Marie Meaney

The crisis in the Catholic Church in Germany declared itself 45 years ago with the “Königsteiner Erklärung,” a declaration of the bishops regarding Humanae Vitae in 1968. Therein they toned down the Church’s teaching, leaving it up to the conscience of individuals to decide whether to use contraception or not. The Austrian bishops did the same in the “Mariatroster Erklärung.” In 2008 therefore, Cardinal Schönborn, the head of the Austrian bishops’ conference,spoke about this as the “sin of the European episcopate.” These declarations have set the tone for the decades to come, and the faithful have in consequence become increasingly Protestant and heterodox in spirit.

A few days ago, a document from the archdiocese of Freiburg was leaked. The scandal was even greater than it should have been, since it first sounded like an official pronouncement. However, what came to light is bad enough. Zollitsch, who is head of the German bishops’ conference and archbishop of this diocese, which is the second-largest in Germany, explained that this paper had been issued without his permission, and was an unfinished working-paper for the diocesan pastoral conference, meant to discuss the improvement of the pastoral care for the divorced-remarried. The paper allows Catholics who are divorced and remarried to have access to the sacraments without repentance involving a change of life-style. All they need to do is have a few pastoral conversations, i.e. speak with a priest about the faith and the reasons their marriage broke down, in order to be allowed to receive communion again. The sacraments which are open to them in the list are communion, confession, confirmation, and the sacrament of the sick. Furthermore, they are allowed to be elected into a parish-council, an office from which they had been barred so far. Finally, they are offered a benediction for their second marriage, if they so wish. In order to distinguish it from their first marriage, which is still considered valid in the eyes of the Church, it is given less prominence; the ceremony is therefore not to be held the day of their civil wedding (in Germany, because of the separation of Church and State, the civil wedding has to precede the religious wedding anyway).

Zollitsch tried to smooth the troubled waters by sending out a letter to his fellow-bishops in Germany by explaining that this paper was leaked, but then stated that it nonetheless gives “provisional impulses” and is a “good contribution” to the discussion; he is thereby enforcing an already present nationalizing trend of the Church in Germany diverging from Rome.

One may well wonder how an archbishop of such prominence can propose ways of action (which are also going to be suggested at the episcopal conference) which can in no way be reconciled with the doctrine of the Church. This reveals what German Catholics have known for many years, namely that from the top down there has been a trend moving away from some of the “harder” truths of the faith in order to surrender to the Zeitgeist.

That the divorced remarried are in dire need of better pastoral care is clear. Pope Francis has called for this, and this concern will be addressed during the synod for the pastoral care of the family in Rome in October 2014. This needs to start with a better marriage-preparation, helping the faithful understand the nature of the sacrament and the seriousness of the step which they are undertaking. But how much spiritual help do the divorced and remarried actually get? How many dioceses offer support groups for the divorced to help them live their celibate life following Christ (thus helping them avoid the temptation of a remarriage)? How many offer to speak about their broken marriage and help (reconciliation, or an annulment, if there is a chance of it not having been a valid sacramental marriage, for example)? How many make known John Paul II’s wonderful invitation inFamiliaris Consortio: “I earnestly call upon pastors and the whole community of the faithful to help the divorced, and with solicitous care to make sure that they do not consider themselves as separated from the Church, for as baptized persons they can, and indeed must, share in her life.” How often is it made clear to them that they are very welcome to come to mass, even if they cannot receive communion (and why they cannot receive the Eucharist)? (As a response to the events in Freiburg, the auxiliary bishop of Salzburg, Andreas Laun, clarified the position of the Church, showing why it is no way lacking in mercy.) Are they encouraged to keep that longing for the Eucharist alive which might hopefully give them the strength one day to set things right—be it by leaving their second (invalid) union or by living chastely together while they are raising their children? Some may want to turn back to the church once their spouse has died; but if the relationship with the Church hasn’t been kept alive, then they are less motivated to return.

Why does one hardly ever hear about a celibate life as a real option for the divorced? This is a hard road to tread and a difficult cross to bear; in the eyes of the world it seems impossible. Hence the witness of those who are on this journey is so important. Good pastoral care should include the stories of people who have walked this path, even though it was painful. The strength for this can only be gathered through a life of prayer. Fortunately, there are groups like this in the United Statesand in France, for example. The continuous plea to God for help out of a situation where one foresees much suffering for oneself and others if one leaves a second marriage will not go unheard. The prayer which acknowledges one’s own brokenness touches God’s heart most; it is the way par excellence of St Thérèse of Lisieux. The man in the temple who says “have mercy on me, a poor sinner” prays from his heart, while the Pharisee who thanks God that he is not a sinner is not praying at all. Of course, God wants us to follow His commandments; without this, we cannot enter the kingdom of Heaven. But we can only do so by the grace of God. Hence the help one offers to the divorced and remarried needs to be a spiritual one, expressing itself as well through genuine human warmth and support; simply reiterating the teachings of the Church is not enough, and this is what Pope Francis meant in his statements in his interview with Spadaro, if I understand him correctly. Similarly, the prolife movement grasped many years ago that it was not enough to say that abortion was wrong; women in crisis pregnancy situations needed to be offered concrete help, and thus various elaborate forms of assistance were developed. Similarly, those who are divorced need concrete help, rather than a simple reminder about the teachings of the Church.

It is true that if one looks at the website of the diocese of Freiburg, one can find evidence, here, here, and here, that conferences are offered for those going through a separation or a divorce, or on how to build up a good marriage in the first place. I don’t know what people are told during these conferences or during private counseling in the diocese, but the working-paper does not bode well. Why not offer people a heroic choice? Christ did the same. He did not tell the Samaritan woman to leave her “husband”; instead, he confronted her with the truth which was that she had gone through a string of relationships which had broken down. But he only did so in the context of offering her the spring of life, namely Himself (John 4). Only He can make us bear the loneliness this entails. Only He can give us the grace to make these heroic choices which feel like death, but ultimately give life. My guess is that each one of us is confronted with a heroic choice at some point in our lives. Most of us don’t have to shed blood for our faith, but many have to give up something they would have wanted tremendously, or at least a fake consolation to make up for its absence. Those who’d like to be married, but don’t find a spouse are called to celibacy, as are those in religious life, or those with same-sex-attractions; this is a daily cross they must embrace if they wish to follow Christ. Those married might meet somebody whom they find tremendously attractive, but they cannot give in to that attraction if they want to remain true to their marriage-vows and Christ. Or this heroic choice might be situated in another domain, like refusing to make an unethical choice and therefore never getting the promotion they would have desired; or refusing to try IVF, though this means remaining childless.

Having been raised in Germany, I have heard for years priests in various parishes preach that “the official Church in Rome says this” (“die Amtskirche”), while they say the contrary on matters such as premarital sex, contraception, divorce (and sometimes not even making the distinction between doctrine and their own heterodox beliefs). When John Paul II did not want ecclesial institutions to be involved in the abortion-business (in Germany, every woman wanting an abortion has to have a counseling-session, for which she gets a certificate; this certificate becomes her ticket to an abortion, and the counselors thus become material cooperators, de facto signing the death-warrant for the child), it was a long tug of war between the German bishops and Rome before they agreed. Some members of official voice of the Catholic laity (Zentralkomitee der deutschen Katholiken) founded a counter-group, Donum Vitae, which is still involved in the counseling forbidden by Rome, and theZentralkomitee has generally adopted an agenda contrary to Catholic teaching concerning women’s ordination, divorce and remarriage, and contraception.

Will there be a new schism in the German Church? Some say it has de facto already happened a long time ago without having been openly declared. That it won’t take much to occur is certain, for the German Church is to a great extent already Protestant in doctrine and spirit. Benedict XVI was keenly aware of the direction the German Church was taking, and Pope Francis, we can assume, knows the situation well from his studies there. Let us pray that the worst can be avoided.

Author’s note: To be precise, Zollitsch (pictured above) is since mid-September apostolic administrator of the diocese until a replacement can be found, since he is now officially retired as archbishop of Freiburg.

Tagged as: Archbishop Zollitsch, Cardinal Schonborn, Catholic Church (Germany), divorce, Humane Vitae,Schism
The views expressed by the authors and editorial staff are not necessarily the views of
Sophia Institute, Holy Spirit College, or the Thomas More College of Liberal Arts.




By Marie Meaney


Marie Meaney received her doctorate and an M. Phil. in Modern Languages from the University of Oxford. She also obtained an M. Phil. in philosophy from the International Academy of Philosophy in Liechtenstein and a D.E.U.G. from the Sorbonne in Paris. She is also the author of Simone Weil’s Apologetic Use of Literature: Her Christological Interpretations of Classic Greek Texts (Oxford University Press, 2007). Her booklet Embracing the Cross of Infertility (HLI) has also appeared in Spanish, German, Hungarian and Croatian. Before the birth of her daughter, she was a teaching fellow at Villanova University. She now lives in Rome, Italy.

The Pope Francis effect (or why I’m having a tough time)

Published: Tuesday, October 15, 2013, 5:00 am 

Author: Terry McDermott

I have a confession. I’m having a tough time adjusting to Pope Francis.

I admit that I’m a Pope Benedict XVI fan girl and I’m still getting over Pape Bene’s understandable departure. It’s like when your best friend moves far away and no matter how hard you try, you can’t help but compare all your other friends to him. Or when you’re at an extended family gathering and both your grandads are there and even though you respect both of them, you clearly prefer one over the other.

But it’s not just that. We can all agree that right after Pope Francis says something, articles, YouTube videos, and blog posts immediately appear trying to explain it. He’s like the relative that speaks and we wonder if we heard correctly. We’re all trying to interpret, clarify, justify, or put our own spin on his statements. It can be frustrating trying to make sense of it all. What’s My Line: The Pope Francis Edition is really trendy right now and everyone from the stay-at-home mom blogger to Fr. Z has jumped on the bandwagon.

He is who he is, tempered by life as he knows it, and to give him his due, he is the Holy Father of a church family of 1.2 billion people with diverse ideas, experiences, attitudes, and personalities. Like all extended families, there will always be tension and misunderstandings and he’s steering the barque of Peter through some pretty rough seas while the rest of us quarrel. I wouldn’t want to be in his [not red] shoes. Would you?

A major part of my discomfort is the bickering that his statements cause among the Catholic family. My perception is that of a line drawn between those who are head-over-heels in love with him and those of us who are not as enthusiastic.

I’ve read articles, commentaries, and Facebook posts that maintain a civilized, grown-up tone while debating his latest speeches and interviews. But then there are the less-reasonable comments that seem to be on the attack, whether for or against Pope Francis. The worst ones are the rants and responses that clearly show a lack of basic understanding of Catholic doctrine and teachings. They are the ones that are impossible to discuss. They do the most harm and drive a wedge between family members.

I know I’m rambling but I don’t think I’m alone in my thinking. I love our Catholic family, even when we fail to act charitably towards each other. We’re big and colourful and imperfect but we do a lot of good both inside and outside the family circle. Because there are so many of us, it’s understandable that we won’t always agree but we ought to turn down the volume and at least try to keep an open mind. We ought to learn more about the family history and read up on what older family members have written over the past 2,000 years so that when we have our spirited discussions, we’ll at least know what we’re talking about. Like all family histories, there’s the real one and the made-up one, so we have to be very careful who we read and listen to.

The Catholic Church is my home. I’d like to believe that I would lay down my life to defend Her. And I really want to do the right thing by Her. But what is the right thing?

A wise friend pointed out that no matter what is going on around me, no one can stop me from doing my work and saying my prayers. So that’s what I’m going to do, for the sake of our Catholic family.

My work consists in loving my neighbour (which includes difficult family members and Pope Francis) as myself. I don’t have to treat everyone like they’re my favourite brother or uncle or grandfather, but I have to respect them and recognize when to speak up and when to keep quiet.

And my prayer? I’m begging St. Joseph to look after Holy Mother Church and beseeching St. Michael the Archangel to defend Her. Most importantly, I’m taking the example of our Blessed Mother who teaches us the most valuable lesson in prayer. I’m holding on tight to Mother Mary’s hand, hiding beneath her mantle and quietly, steadfastly, and humbly repeating over and over again: “Thy Will be done.”

Price of freedom is high: Ezra wages new battle for free speech

By Ezra Levant on October 14, 2013 4:34 PM | Permalink 

Help Ezra In His Fight For Free Speech Visit STANDWITHEZRA.CA To Learn How





Syed Soharwardy, a radical Pakistan-born Muslim imam in Calgary, says a lot of offensive things.

He says Canada treats Muslims the way Nazi Germany treated Jews. Funny he mentioned Nazis. Because for many years his own website said “the nation of Jews will be exterminated.” He attended a protest that flew the flag of the terrorist group Hezbollah, right across the street from Calgary’s Jewish community centre.

Yet this bigot had the audacity to file a human rights complaint against me for publishing the Danish cartoons of Mohammed, in a news story in the Western Standard magazine. And 15 government lawyers and bureaucrats prosecuted me for 900 days, for “hate speech.”

Mohamed Elmasry is a radical Egypt-born Muslim in Waterloo. He says offensive things, too. On national TV he said “Everyone in Israel, irrespective of gender, over the age of 18 is a valid target” for terrorism. He says the Jewish Torah is the inspiration for Israel’s campaign of “death, destruction and misery” against Arabs. He calls Hezbollah “legitimate.” And this bigot had the audacity to file three human rights complaints against Maclean’s magazine for publishing an essay by Mark Steyn warning about radical Islam. That led to a five-day trial in B.C.

This is called lawfare. Muslim extremists who enjoy Canada’s free speech for themselves, seek to take it away from their Canadian critics. Using our own laws.

By one measure, Soharwardy and Elmasry failed: Their cases were dismissed. But they actually won. Because for Maclean’s and me, the process was the punishment. I spent about $100,000 in legal bills. Maclean’s spent many times that. And every other media company was sent the message: Don’t you dare talk about radical Islam, or you’ll face a nuisance suit, too.

Khurrum Awan, Elmasry’s “youth president,” later boasted: “We attained our strategic objective — to increase the cost of publishing anti-Islamic material.”

This is outrageous. And for years I campaigned to reform our laws. In 2009, I wrote Shakedown, selected by the Writers’ Trust as the best political book of the last 25 years. Because Canadians were truly shocked to learn about our eroding freedoms.

I led a grassroots campaign to have censorship laws repealed and kangaroo courts reined in. In 2011, Saskatchewan eliminated its human rights tribunal. Alberta’s premier promised she would repeal her province’s “hate speech” law. This summer, Ottawa repealed theirs.

But it’s not over. Today in a Toronto court, Khurrum Awan is suing me for critical comments I wrote at the Maclean’s hearing in 2008. I said nothing that hadn’t been said by many critics across the political spectrum, who universally condemned the nuisance suit. But the rest of the media soon dropped the free speech cause. I turned it into an ongoing campaign. So time to apply the “strategic objective” to me.

Awan’s lawyer is Brian Shiller. Along with his partner, Clayton Ruby, the two are famous in Toronto for filing lawsuits against Mayor Rob Ford. Those suits have all been thrown out. Shiller is the lawyer for four other lawsuits pending against me, too.

I’ll save my comments on the specifics of the lawsuits for the court. But it’s not about specifics. It’s about silencing political opponents.

The lawsuit was filed before I joined QMI Agency. I don’t have a financial benefactor like Awan does. So please visit my website StandWithEzra.ca to learn how you can help me fight for freedom.

This columm was written for Sun News October 14 2013.

St. Ignatius, Chestnut Hill & Jesuit Urban Center, Boston

http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/prs/stign/index.html

	Rev. Robert F. VerEecke, S.J. Pastor
	Rev. Kenneth Loftus, S.J. Associate Pastor
	Rev. John Allan Loftus, S.J. Associate Pastor

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Rev. Robert (Fr. Bob) Ver Eecke, S.J.
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                          Liturgical Dance/Offertory, St. Ignatius August 4, 2011

                                                    Palm Sunday

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Priest Advises a “Brokeback Lent”, Homily Encourages Propaganda Film

The latest example has Father John Allan Loftus, S.J. the Director of the Jesuit Urban Center at the Boston Church of the Immaculate Conception recommending a “Brokeback Lent.” In his homily for Ash Wednesday, March 1, Loftus urged congregants to watch the film. “I suspect many in this community have already seen Brokeback Mountain,” he said. “If not see it; if you have, see it again and reflect on the consequences of not being interiorly free, the consequences of not knowing who you really are and want to become, the tragic consequences and subsequent devastation that comes from only living in a ‘pretend’ world.”

Rev. Loftus proposed, contrary to Catholic teaching, that sexual sin is not real sin, whereas not giving in to one’s desires is sin.“For too many of us, what we think of as ‘our sinfulness,’ our not yet even being the full human beings we are created to become, remains a paltry and cheap catalogue of peccadillos, usually having something to do with sex or not being ‘charitable’ toward each other. Those so-called ‘sins’ are hardly worth setting aside 40 days each year to ponder; those sins of yours or mine are hardly worth mentioning, really.” Loftus continued, “There is something much bigger at stake here than my petty sinfulness, my unkindness, my frustrated sex life, or my infuriating love life. The sin that is before us always is our refusal to grow into the freedom for which we were born.”

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Welcoming Gay Friendly Churches in Massachusetts - MA

St. Ignatius of Loyola Parish Chestnut Hill Roman Catholic

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Back in 1999, Boston Magazine celebrated creation spirituality in its Best of Boston contest, giving the Best Place to Meet a Gay Mate award to

The Jesuit Urban Center, South End. True, many happy couples found their love in the Ralph Lauren paint department of Homo Depot -- er, Home Depot. But Sunday morning Mass at the Jesuit Urban Center spawns more blessed pairings. The Urban Center's liturgy is both classic and contemporary; its mixed congregation is mostly gay; its AIDS and HIV support programs are some of the best in town; and its coffee hour is a great place to get phone numbers. 775 Harrison Avenue, Boston, 617-536-8440.

Today, alas, the Boston Globe brings the sad news that those blessed pairings will need to spawn elsewhere.

The Jesuit Urban Center, a predominantly gay Catholic congregation in Boston's South End, will close at the end of July, and the landmark church in which services are held will be put up for sale, the Jesuit religious order announced yesterday.

Congregants who can afford carfare will still be able to worship at the few remaining churches that don't conduct a Libidinal Orthopathy Screening at the door:

[The Jesuit Provincial superior] said that the Jesuits would continue to welcome gays and lesbians to worship at St. Ignatius of Loyola , the parish they oversee in Chestnut Hill, and that there are two other downtown congregations that have been reaching out to gay Catholics, the Paulist Center on Beacon Hill and St. Anthony Shrine, operated by the Franciscans, near Downtown Crossing. ...

[chop]

"I, and my friends, while not surprised, were saddened," said Dr. Juan Jaime de Zengotita, who has worshiped at the Jesuit Urban Center for four years. "This comes after a few years of rough times for gay Catholics, with Vatican and local Episcopal declarations that have not been so friendly. I don't know what will be the future of gay ministry."

I suppose there's always the Ralph Lauren paint department of Home Depot. After all, anyone interested in cleaving to the Church instead of changing her would walk into the nearest Catholic parish, whatever it happened to be.

Some folks, however, convince themselves they have special needs. For those that demand inscape in their outreach, only The Best will do. Perhaps it's no coincidence that the Jesuit Urban Center's Manhattan counterpart caught the admiring attention of the Village Voice(2001) for its non-judgmental ministry of reconciliation for Thinking Catholics:

Best Place to 'Fess Up -- ST. FRANCIS XAVIER CHURCH: No black box. A priest in a sweater and khakis sits you by a big open window and chats with you about your problems in a nonjudgmental way. Says things like "No matter what you choose, you are loved in the eyes of God." (This was in reference to me telling him I wanted to kiss a girl.) Here, sexuality is as fluid as the blood of Christ. Amen.

Comfort. Being comfortable with who I am. That's the message God became man to communicate to us.

Well, to those better dressed among us.

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Now closed Immaculate Conception Church, Jesuit Urban Center, Boston

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From the Easter Sunday 2008 Bulletin

SALTATE ET JUBILATE (SJ DANCE) - SUNDAYS - 3:00 – 4:00 PM BEGINNING MARCH 30

Using sacred music, the dancer is invited to find the connection between body, soul and spirit.
Capitalizing on his dance and teaching experience from the past 30 years, Fr. Bob VerEecke S.J. has developed a way of dance that helps those who love to dance and want to make a connection with their Spiritual journeys. SJ Dance is rooted in the Jesuit principle of Finding God in All Things. ($10.00 per class)




CATHOLIC GAY AND LESBIAN CONCERNS In
an effort to facilitate conversation for our Gay and
Lesbian parishioners, as well as parents and family
members of Gay and Lesbian Catholics, we are
providing an informal context in which people feel
free to talk about their questions and concerns. Please
call Fr. Bob at the rectory or email frvereec@bc.edu

RECONCILIATION

Saturdays 3:15 - 3:45 PM Upper Church or by arrangement

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From the December 4, 2005 Bulletin



TAIZE PRAYER IN ADVENT – Again, we will gather to pray together on Monday Evenings at 7:15 pm in the Upper Church, beginning November 28th.  All are welcome to these candlelit evenings of sung prayer and quiet meditation. Help is needed to set up and clean up after Taize Prayer. Call Mary Santapaula at the rectory if you are able to help


Dear Parishioners,

December 3, the feast of St. Francis Xavier, marks the opening of the JESUIT JUBILEE YEAR, commemorating the 500th anniversary of the birth of Xavier on April 7, 1506, the 450th anniversary of the death of St. Ignatius on July 31st 1556 and the 500th anniversary of Peter Faber, one of the first Jesuits, on April 13th 1506. We Jesuits believe that this will be a time of grace for our Society and a time to draw many into the response of love that our God invites us to in Jesus Christ. We hope and pray that we will be graced with the generosity of many who desire to serve as Jesuits or share in our mission in other ways. Throughout this year there will be many special opportunities to celebrate this Jubilee Year. One that I would like to mention is the presentation of “For the Greater Glory of God” at the Church of the Immaculate Conception/Jesuit Urban Center on March 4th, 2006 at 7:30 p.m.. This dance/theater performance inspired by the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius will be presented on the first day of the Novena of Grace. There will be other opportunities for prayer during the nine day period which concludes on March 12th.  Fr. Bob



GAY AND LESBIAN CONCERNS – Archbishop Sean O’Malley sent a letter to all parishioners “Concerning the Church and Homosexual Persons”. Copies of the Archbishop’s letter are available at the information table at the back of the church. The following is a “Thank You” from one of the members of our parish group:

“Heartfelt thanks to St. Ignatius Church for their wisdom, compassion and courage. I am referring to making it possible for parents, friends, gays and lesbians to gather together for support of one another. As a parent of gay children, it was a joyful day for me to see that first message in the bulletin. Our gatherings here at St. Ignatius have meant so much to me. I look forward to each and every meeting and am never disappointed. We have an amazing group of caring, thoughtful and positive thinking people. We have stories to tell, experiences to share and learn from, observations to make and most importantly, we are there for one another. Thank you so very much"

ADVENT “GUIDED” CENTERING PRAYER
You are invited to attend a new centering prayer experience offered the Sundays of Advent from 4:30 –5:30 pm in the Lannon Chapel. (12-4, 12-11, 12-18). Dana Moore will offer us this prayer experience based on the guidelines of Fr. Basil Pennington. It begins by preparing our body and mind for prayer through simple yoga breathing exercises (done while seated in chairs). This will be followed by guided meditation, chanting and meditative walking (in the Lower Church) similar to the experience of walking a labyrinth. No registration is required. Please join us for this centering prayer experience.

CHRISTIAN  YOGA, a way of wholeness and  spiritual integration, will be offered by Dana Moore on Thursday evenings from 5:30 – 6:30 pm in the Friary Room. There will be a $5.00 donation per class. Please call the office for more information.

CHRISTMAS PAGEANT – If your child is interested in participating in this year’s Christmas Pageant, which will take place at the Christmas Eve Vigil Mass, we have some important dates for you (please note several changes from the calendar you received at the beginning of the year). The pageant is open to children in grades kindergarten through six.

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