PITTSBURGH – It was a year ago that an outspoken Roman Catholic priest broke away from the church to form his own.
Now, the Rev. William Hausen’s Christ Hope Ecumenical Catholic Church has 300 members. The church is still meeting weekly at a hotel.
Hausen left the Roman Catholic church because he favors marriage for priests, the ordination of women and debate on birth control. He was excommunicated, and the Pittsburgh diocese said anyone following Hausen also would be excommunicated.
Anna Villella, a medical receptionist and mother of two, said she supported Hausen for being outspoken about the church sex-abuse scandal.
" I just decided to walk this journey with him," she told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. "I do not feel that I am excommunicated, and still feel as if I am a Catholic." [Source]
Oh that is a sure sign when you feel you are not excommunicated. I just wonder how does it feel to be excommunicated? Does anybody ever ask their spouse how are they feeling and they reply "You know I am feeling a little excommunicated today" or "I feel just a bit schismatic."
You just know an article like this has to end with the following:
Jennifer Blewitt, a 19-year-old Duquesne University student, said she likes Hausen’s church because everyone is welcome there.
"It’s the way Jesus was," Blewitt said.
Sometimes I wonder If I happen to have a different Bible version than others. It is always mentioned that Jesus eat with tax collectors and other outcasts, but they never pair it with the fact that these people were also seeking the truth and were repenting of their sins. He was not very welcoming to those scribes and pharisees who wanted to brandish their own version of the truth. Last I knew "You brood of vipers" was not a very welcoming statement. Jesus was not very welcoming to the goats in the parable of the sheep and goats. Again "Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels" does not a first blush sound very welcoming to me. The truth is that Jesus is welcoming, but it is a conditional welcome in our exercise of free will working in grace through the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity. “But nothing unclean shall enter it [Heaven].” The Gospel is not preached so that we might find a church that we are comfortable with and reflects what we want, but to help heal us as the sinners we are and to “Strive for peace with all men, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.”
Jesus also said "He who hears you hears me, and he who rejects you rejects me, and he who rejects me rejects him who sent me." This is the problem with those in schism is that they become deaf to part of the truth that is in Christ’s Church. By rejecting the Church they have at least partially rejected the truth that Christ has given us through Sacred Scripture and Apostolic Tradition.
I had posted before about the Rev. Hausen when he originally went into schism. That post included the following:
It will be a church that will "act on our own informed conscience" and "profess no dogmas," Hausen said. The church will "reject absolute statements and decrees. Absolute utterances are the weakest form of argument," he said.
His first decree is that there are no decrees. The first dogma is that there are no dogmas. Absolute utterances are not allowed unless they are about a female priesthood.
Update: Classic comment by Catholic writer Jeff Childers in my comment box.
What a mess! Good thing I do don’t have to worry about it, though, cause I feeling canonized today.
25 comments
:o!
I have the same last name as one of those people! Luckily, I do NOT know of any relation. That’s probably a good thing, ’cause I’d be a little more forceful than just a good talkin’ to…
Leave it to such as these to base the state of one’s soul on “feelings.” Jeff, you could have a great deal more fun with this one!
Hausen’s Cathechism of His Church of the Open Doors reminds me somehow of more than a few homilies that I have heard where not so covert disagreements with the Catholic Church are voiced by the priest delivering them. And of occasional columns in church bulletins that seem to imply that, if not for the Vatican dogmatists, we might all be happy Unitarians.
Hausen, at least, has been kicked off the team for not knowing which way to run the bases. The others still are out there dropping pop-ups in left field and batting in double digits.
Amen! I have been dealing far too long with the “I just can’t see anything wrong with doing what feels right for me, and if you think that I’m wrong, well, I just feel sorry for you!” crowd. I think this would be the breath of fresh air that John XXIII had in mind when he started up Vatican II, not heresies like Hausen. A serious reading of “Lumen Gentium” (and subsequent comparison to “Unam Sanctum”) needs to be done by those who keep whining about “the spirit of Vatican II”.
What a mess! Good thing I do don’t have to worry about it, though, cause I feeling canonized today.
To quote noted troubadour David Lee Roth:
“I don’t feel tardy.”
: It will be a church that will “act on our own
: informed conscience” and “profess no dogmas,”
: Hausen said. The church will “reject absolute
: statements and decrees. Absolute utterances are
: the weakest form of argument,” he said.
My big questions is: “Informed by *what*?” Cosmopolitan? Playboy? Satan? Jack Chick?
You seem to have a better idea of what’s going on in my diocese than I do. 😉
Schismatic
Check out Curt Jesters post about a schismatic group in PA here.
This group professes as the only dogma that there are no dogmas. (contradiction?) One of the members says she likes this new church brcause it is as welcoming as Jesus was and adds tha…
Jester, you forgot one good quote (or is it a “soundbite”?) from Our Lord: “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.” (Mt 10.34) So there, peaceniks!
A church lead by an excommunicated religious? I know the answer to this one… It’s Protestant!
Right on as always, Jeff.
Let them be covered with utter shame and confusion until tehy repent.
Calling people “whitewashed tombs” and “sons of the devil” does not sound too welcoming to me.
Of course, in order to remain consistent, the good reverend ought to have said that “Absolute utterances are the weakest form of argument, except when they aren’t.” Somebody ought to warn him about his flirtation with dogmatism there. He speaks as if he believes what he says is absolutely true.
Unlike Jesus, who as I recall qualified everything with, “That is, you know, if you’re into that kind of thing. It’s really your call.”
I like the Gospel according to Sage! Like, it doesn’t cramp my style, man. And then, if you jump to the Gospel according to Me you’ll find companion text where Jesus says… “eh, feggedaboutit!”
You should buy any basic intro to the Bible. It is obvious, is it not, that talk of everlasting fire, for example, represents a highly-developed eschatology that cannot be the work of a first-century author. To say nothing of the fact that it is clearly contrary to the pure message of brotherly love preached by Jesus, as we see it in the authentic sayings that have been preserved in the gospels by their redactors.
The Holy Bible is a nice book with some cool suggestions by this guy Jesus, and some other really neat old guys. It’s a coffee table book I find fun to pick up from time to time with my chamomile tea. I really like the part about this guy named Moses who got some suggestions from a so called burining bush? (You know, just by writing this I feel either really blonde, or incredibly stupid) I really dislike those priests who offer a homily that is so completely lacking in substance, You know, like airy loaf of french bread. Looks good, but full of holes and no bread. I do how ever know people who only have a bible as a reference book for their crossword puzzles. And the Ten Commandments? are for simple minded people who have no self discipline.(sheesh)
Ha ha, berenike!! I’ve been waiting for “The Holy Bible – The Redacted Version” for a while now. Would give a new meaning to “red-letter edition”.
Obviously you have also been taking Little Rock scripture studies. ;^) The scripture study itself can be helpful, but many of the notes in their materials (“the Collegville stuff” my father calls it) are downright awful – my parents taught this for years and ended up bringing their own notes from, e.g., the old Jerome Bible Commentary and whatnot. And the questions can be so touchy-feely – “How do you feel about Jesus saying, unless a man leave father and mother, etc. etc.” – “Well, why was Jesus so tough there? Couldn’t he have been a little softer about it? That’s what I feel.” “Hey, that verse isn’t in my Redacted Version!”
This all gets back to what Jeff said – I also often feel that I have a very different book from “theirs” in an identical cover marked “Bible”.
Teresa! You too!!! Oh my gosh, I went through it all, and you’re right, the guitar Masses were everything huh?! The cool kids that had guitar lessons, played in the group, and the girl with the tamborine had it all. ( I could have done the tamborine better ) But alas you are right. It was all about the music and little on the Eucharist. Also priest’s acted like late night talk show hosts coming out into the congregation and rapp’in with us during the homily. And heaven forbid the boys get up to communion before the girls. There was never any consecrated wine left. And banners!!? man did we have banners.
Lucy and I secretly went to the same Catholic school together : o
Since nuns habits were changing over to a more stream-lined “Stayin’ Alive” polyester blend (and you got to see hair!), they permitted we girls to have the option of wearing the plaid jumper, OR, the lovely matching plaid pants (YIKES!!). Yes, Lucy and I were treated to similar homilies where the priest would come down off the pulpit and “work the crowd.” I recall one who blew bubbles and talked about the Holy Spirit being like a bubble (sings of the Holy Spirit: water, fire… and dish soap!). I can still hear the Lillies of the Valley Amen ala tambourine. A-a-A-a-MEN! (all together now)!
oops… I meant “dove,” fire and dish soap for signs of the H.S.
(poor 70’s catechesis!)
Yeah sister Teresa you be talk’in the talk girl friend!!! You were there too. I was feel’in it. I always loved it back in the day, when Father would open mass with the words “Shalom, Shalom Welcome my brothers and sisiter”( what the heck was that?) :o)
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