Category: Out Of Touch

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Father Bob: tradition v modern life

COMMENTARY

The death throes of the latest Australian Catholic cause célèbre are being played out over the next few days.

Yesterday was Father Bob Maguire’s last Sunday Mass at his beloved St Peter and Paul’s Church in South Melbourne. The place was packed to the gunnels as usual. On Wednesday, he will be made to retire and be relocated, much against his will and the will of his parish, which fought the dismissal with a Jesuitical doggedness. The parish community, led by the local council’s deputy mayor, Frank O’Connor, still failed to move the stony heart of Archbishop Denis Hart.

Father Bob is one of three priests sacked in recent years. While he has passed the retirement age for priests, hence his removal, Bishop William Morris of Toowoomba was made to leave last year for merely raising the issue of the ordination of women. And before that, Father Peter Kennedy got the chop from St Mary’s of South Brisbane for breaching church rules.

These beautiful men are the sacrificial lambs as an ancient faith battles to accommodate modernity. Social change has been a post-war challenge for many institutions and Catholicism, through Vatican II, the Papal encyclical Humanae Vitae, the sex abuse scandal and now the banishment of Father Bob, lurches one step forward and two back into this third millennium.

What is the import of this dispute? Will Father Bob become a forgotten man in a tiny local battle in a small corner of the world or will he become a powerful metaphor that helps the Church grapple with change? Will this parochial stoush become a global touchpaper? Only time will tell.

Father Bob is 77. He is not just a national media figure with a show on ABC radio station Triple J, 55,000 followers on Twitter, appearances on SBS television guru, but he is also famous for his welfare work with the Open Family Foundation. He is the most celebrated Catholic in the country and yet he is being forced from office. That is because he is also a constant challenge to the leadership in a faith where the notion of obedience is enshrined in the idea of the apostolic succession. Obedience is at the heart of his organisation and his vows.

The core of this debate was alluded to in November when Father Bob argued that this act of retrenchment was vengeance against a ‘‘Cafeteria Catholic’’ by Cardinal George Pell. The idea of the ‘‘Cafeteria Catholic’’ was first raised in America the 1970s and is a pejorative term that decries those Catholics who dissent from orthodoxy, by implying they choose their views as one chooses a meal in a cafeteria. There are Catholics now who, rather than follow the line from Rome on the controversial issues, desire the freedom to choose.

The Australian version of ‘‘Cafeteria Catholicism’’ was recently spelled out by Cardinal Pell when he travelled to Cork, Ireland in August last year.
His Eminence divided the Catholic world into two – ‘‘authentic’’ and ‘‘cafeteria’’ Catholics. This dichotomy is to be found in all organisations for there are always conservatives and reformers in every assembly. ‘‘Cafeteria Catholics’’ is a delightful jab at one’s foes. Somehow food is the perfect put down. One only has to think of Chardonnay Socialists, Latte Lefties and now Cafeteria Catholics.

However, cafeterias are also places where people engage in life. They are not posh. They are not sinful. They are vibrant hubs where humans congregate and thrive. That His Eminence would view the word ‘‘cafeteria’’ as a put down indicates a willingness to take his faith to the margins of Australian society rather than sacrifice his religious purity.

So it is a shame to see the promotion of change resistance when change so obviously beckons. The ‘‘Cafeteria Catholics’’ like Father Bob are derided as liberal Christians who ‘‘give to priority to the contemporary understandings’’. The Pell Doctrine appears to favour a religiously pure Church even if that means smaller numbers and getting rid of Father Bob.
So this is not just a local battle on the age of a retiring priest. It is a fundamental and globally significant difference of the view of change and modernity in the largest denomination in the world.

Despite this significance, lest we forget that it also is an act of cruelty to evict an elderly man and his beloved dog, Franklin, from their home.
What is your view?

Should the godless care about how slowly venerable faiths take to modernity?
Is the failure of churches to embrace change a cause of sadness or an opportunity for atheism?

Are Cardinal Pell and Archbishop Dennis Hart the best things that ever happened to Australian atheism?

Is the tale of the Bobster an irrelevant local issue or a metaphor of historic significance?
Over to you . . .

Complete Article HERE!

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Diocese Of Portland To Offer Support Group For Same-Sex Attraction

The Catholic Pray the gay away program…except they don’t call it gay. They’re so clever!

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland is setting up a ministry to support people with same-sex attraction.

The spiritual support group Courage refers to itself as a “pro-chastity” ministry on its website, www.courageRC.org. It has more than 100 worldwide chapters and more than 1,500 participants, said Sue Bernard, communications director for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland.

“Courage offers hope and encouragement to men and woman who desire to live in accordance with the church’s teaching on homosexuality — specifically that the dignity and identity of every person is not determined by their sexual attractions, but by their relationship with the Lord and their striving to live the virtues of faith, hope and charity,” she said.

The Catholic Church emphasizes sex within the context of marriage and the importance of chaste living, Bernard said.

“If you’re married, chaste living is being faithful to your spouse,” she said.

An informal support group had been meeting before the first referendum about same-sex marriage in 2009. Bernard did not have an estimate of the number of people who participated.

After representatives spoke to Bishop Richard Malone and wanted the church’s assistance, the group received formal recognition. It has a chaplain, Fr. Kevin Martin. Martin serves as parochial vicar in the Augusta area, Bernard said.

The Courage website has a section called “The 12 Steps of Courage,” based on the 12 steps from Alcoholics Anonymous. Step one says, “We admitted that we were powerless over homosexuality and our lives had become unmanageable.”
The support group has a policy of anonymity and confidentiality, Bernard said. Locations will be disclosed to people who plan to participate in it.

Complete Article HERE!

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Catholic Church Is Biggest Funder Of MN Anti-Gay Marriage Amendment

If you put money in the collection plate at a Catholic church in Minnesota you’re helping to fund a campaign against gay marriage in Minnesota. The Catholic Archdiocese of Minneapolis & St. Paul and the Catholic Dioceses of New Ulm contributed $700,000 last year to support an anti-gay Minnesota constitutional amendment.

The constitutional amendment defining marriage between one man and one woman, effectively banning gay or lesbian marriage, is scheduled to be on this November’s general election ballot. Half of that money, $350,000 has been donated to Minnesota For Marriage which is spearheading the push to get the constitutional amendment approved.

Minnesota For Marriage has also received $226,000 from it’s closely related Minnesota Family Council and $250,000 from the National Organization For Marriage fund. Minnesota for Marriage’s report only list seven individuals who donated for a total of $2,119.

The opposition, Minnesotans United For All Families has raised more than $1.2 million, but lists many more individual donors.

Fundraising reports for groups on both sides of the amendment battle were released by the Minnesota Campaign Finance Board today
Minnesotans United For All Families Report
Minnesota For Marriage Report

All reports for ballot initiatives

Complete Article HERE!

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SNAP Accuses Archbishop of Sweeping Abuse Case “Under The Rug”

Local clergy abuse victims are accusing St. Louis’ Archbishop of sitting on the sidelines Colorado police investigate a sex abuse allegation levied there against a priest who used to work here.

Father Charles Manning, who used to work at parishes in Bridgeton, Glencoe and Imperial was suspended from his St. Gabriel the Archangel parish in Colorado Springs last weekend, while police investigate an allegation that he sexually abused a minor. Even though no charges have been filed and there are no allegations against him in St. Louis, Survivors Network for those Abused by Priests Director David Clohessy believes Archbishop Robert Carlson should be pro-active, “Anytime a priest is suspended because of child sex abuse allegations, but especially when there’s a pending police investigation, Catholic officials have a civic duty, plus a moral duty, to aggressively seek out any other victims, witnesses, whistleblowers.”

Clohessy was asked if he knows if the Archbishop is helping police in their investigation, behind the scenes, “We’ve seen no evidence that he has and the easiest way, of course, to help is to simply use church bulletins, church websites, church pulpits to let parishioners know that Fr. Manning has been accused and suspended and let them know there is, in fact, a pending criminal investigation.

Clohessy also questions why Manning, who was ordained in St. Louis, was transferred to Colorado in 2007. He also wants to know why Manning was not listed in the Official Catholic Directory in 2002.

The Archdiocese has issued the following release:

The Archdiocese of St. Louis has been made aware of a complaint of sexual abuse of a minor involving Fr. Robert Manning, a priest of the Archdiocese who was, at the time of the alleged incident, serving as a priest in the Diocese of Colorado Springs. This is the only allegation of abuse involving Fr. Manning during his years of service as a priest, the last five of which have been in the Diocese of Colorado Springs. While the police are investigating this allegation, Fr. Manning has been placed on administrative leave. He is residing in a monitored environment and will not be permitted to exercise any form of public ministry.

Complete Article HERE!

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Inquisition’s heavy hand remains ready to strike

COMMENTARY

The treatment of former Toowoomba Catholic bishop Bill Morris, sacked last May by the Pope, shows that the Inquisition is alive and well in the Catholic Church – only the rack is missing.

The secret denunciations by a tiny minority of self-appointed orthodoxy police in Toowoomba, the secret Vatican investigation, the secret judgment – with the accused never even knowing who the accusers are or what they have charged, let alone getting a chance to defend himself – the absence of any appeal, the denial of natural justice and the flouting of canon (church) law are all classical Inquisition tactics.

The unfairness and cruelty were driven home by two recent independent reports into the removal of Morris – one by an eminent jurist, Queensland Supreme Court judge W.J. Carter, and one by a leading canon lawyer, Melbourne’s Father Ian Waters.

They concluded that Morris was denied procedural fairness and natural justice. Carter wrote that the treatment of Morris was “offensive” to the requirements of both civil and canon law, while Father Waters found that the Pope had breached canon law and exceeded his authority in removing Morris without finding him guilty of apostasy, heresy or schism (which alone justify such action) and without following the judicial procedures canon law requires.

Carter found that an unsigned document from the Vatican to Morris in 2007 requiring his resignation showed “an appalling lack of evidence and particularity”, “demonstrable errors of fact” and decisions “by high-ranking church officials more likely based on gossip and hearsay” than evidence.
“One could not imagine a more striking case of a denial of natural justice,” he said.

Morris’s real offence was to suggest the church might consider discussing whether it might ordain married men or women, given the critical and worsening shortage of priests. Even a statement as tentative and careful as this had to be crushed, it seems.

This heavy-handed manoeuvring is a long way from what the church purports to stand for: love, mercy, truth and justice. All that seems to matter to the hierarchs, whether at StPeter’s in Rome or St Mary’s in Sydney, is obedience and loyalty.

The church’s leaders know it is losing a generation in the West. They seem not to care how much the ordinary, faithful Catholics in the pews and pulpits, doing the church’s works of mercy, are discouraged and distressed, or how cynical it makes those watching.

The fact that a bishop wears a red hat (cardinals) or red shoes (the Pope) is no guarantee that he is not a bully, blinkered or Byzantine.
Historian Paul Collins says not only is the Inquisition alive and well – after all, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, headed by Morris co-executioner William Levada, was once known as the Holy Inquisition – but that it is worse than the original Roman Inquisition, founded in 1542 by Pope Paul III to counter Protestantism in Italy. That, at least, had very clear procedures and was considered a model of jurisprudence in the Europe of the time.

What of Australia’s 42 Catholic bishops, who promised to represent Toowoomba’s Catholics when they visited Rome for their five-yearly ad limina visit last October? One or two helped engineer Morris’s removal, others may have supported it but most – well aware of what a travesty it was – were cravenly supine (as Collins put it).

They promised to raise the subject during their visit to the Vatican. They did so, meeting the cardinals and among themselves. Back in Australia, they put out a statement saying they accepted the removal and would extend fraternal care to Morris.

What could the bishops have done? Early and strong public statements of support for Morris would have made the Vatican act far more carefully.
But, according to progressive Catholics, the damage was done 13 years earlier, when Australia’s bishops were excoriated about the state of the church in Australia during their 1998 ad limina visit to Rome. That was the time to stand up and repudiate the criticisms; the pattern is set now.

Meanwhile, in Rome, the leaders of the church who demand trust are callous in destroying it. Their medieval attitudes to authority seem very distant from the biblical teachings of Christ and much closer to the Pharisees, whom Jesus accused of laying heavy burdens on people’s shoulders without lifting a finger themselves (Matthew 23:4). If the church leaders want the faithful to trust them, they should show themselves to be trustworthy.

Complete Article HERE!