August 2006

Dear Professor Maguire,

As the bishop of the archdiocese where you reside, I am obliged to reply to your circular form-letter, sent to the bishops of the country on June 19, 2006.

The opinions expressed in the two pamphlets enclosed in that correspondence are totally at odds with clear Church teaching. Sacred Scripture, the Magisterium, and Natural Law are consistent in opposition to abortion and so-called same-sex marriage.

You speak of your duty to dissent. Well, at least call it such. To claim that support for abortion and same-sex "marriage" is consonant with Catholic moral teaching is preposterous and disingenuous.

I, too, have a duty: to teach what the Church clearly believes. Your opinion on these two matters is contrary to the faith and morals of the Church.

Faithfully in Christ,

(Signed)

Most Reverend Timothy M. Dolan
Archbishop of Milwaukee

This was in response to the letters posted here. Professor Maquire response to Archbishop Dolan in part says.

Dear Archbishop,

I have received your letter of July 13. I was pleased that you replied even though your message was not as gracious or as pastoral as that of the one other bishop who replied. Terms like "preposterous" and "disingenuous" (the usual code for mendacious) are not the words of a pastor so much as those of a scold. Some of my colleagues-too cynically I believe-said I should take no offense because the letter was obviously written not so much for me as for those with whom you shared it here and abroad. I don’t believe that…not for a minute. I think that, in your fashion, your intentions were to help me in matters where you feel I am mistaken and that you wanted to do this for the good of the Church. Therefore, I will continue in the hope that even from such a caustic opener, some fruitful dialogue might commence.

It seems the word Pastoral has taken on a meaning that only invokes wimpiness. This view of pastoral is when you see a wolf among the flock to politely say "excuse me that is one of my sheep you are eating." Sometimes a scold is the most pastoral thing to be done. I do wonder who the other bishop who wrote him back in a "pastoral" manner?

He then spouts some gook crouched in ten-dollar words, yet the meaning is not worth a cent and ends with this.

Also, on debated moral issues, such as the two you chose to focus on, how do you value the views of Protestant Christians? Recognizing that Protestant Christians differ with many Catholics on dogmatic issues, the Second Vatican Council said that "ecumenical dialogue could start with discussions concerning the application of the gospel to moral questions." What weight do you give to Protestant views on these two issues? If you are, as you seem, dogmatically certain on these two issues, could you enter into "ecumenical dialogue" on those issues? Would you encourage Catholic theologians to do so or simply to announce to these Protestants they are "totally at odds with clear Church teaching, Sacred Scripture, the Magisterium, and Natural Law," to quote you? That would not be a basis for dialogue.

This is quite a silly argument. You don’t have a dialogue with Protestants the same way you would with Catholics especially one that is a theologian in the Church. You don’t fault a Protestant for not following the Magisterium of a Church they don’t accept as authoritative. It is quite another matter in the case of a Catholic who should not only believe in the Magisterium but to obediently follow it. Though maybe the Professor brings up the Protestant example because in fact he has become a virtual Protestant.

Professor Maguire is of course the same theologian who was on Michael Schiavo’s side and recently tried to pervert St. Antoninus view on abortion.

Bravo to Archbishop Dolan!

[Article via Dad 29]

Gerald posts a story on Sister Prejean who was disinvited as a keynote speaker at the Diocese of Duluth education dinner in October because of an ad that appeared in the New York Times.

Catholic Sister Helen Prejean, author of "Dead Man Walking" and a longtime social activist, has been uninvited as the keynote speaker at the Diocese of Duluth education dinner in October.

In a letter to some diocese residents sent Monday, Duluth Bishop Dennis Schnurr said the decision to cancel the event and Prejean’s address was based on her name appearing on an Aug. 3 New York Times advertisement calling for President Bush to be removed from office.

Schnurr said the ad was brought to his attention by lay people in the diocese.

"Upon reviewing the advertisement, I find that I share their concerns," Schnurr said in the letter. "Therefore we have made the difficult decision to cancel her appearance."

Now on first thoughts an ad calling for the President to be removed from office wouldn’t be an act that would require a disinvite. The ad though is quite wacky.

YOUR GOVERNMENT, on the basis of outrageous lies, is waging a murderous and utterly illegitimate war in Iraq, with other countries in their sights.

YOUR GOVERNMENT is openly torturing people, and justifying it.

YOUR GOVERNMENT puts people in jail on the merest suspicion, refusing them lawyers, and either holding them indefinitely or deporting them in the dead of night.

YOUR GOVERNMENT is moving each day closer to a theocracy, where a narrow and hateful brand of Christian fundamentalism will rule.

YOUR GOVERNMENT suppresses the science that doesn’t fit its religious, political and economic agenda, forcing present and future generations to pay a terrible price.

YOUR GOVERNMENT is moving to deny women here, and all over the world, the right to birth control and abortion.

YOUR GOVERNMENT enforces a culture of greed, bigotry, intolerance and ignorance.

Sister Prejean has made a statement to clarify things.

My stance on abortion is a matter of public record. I stand morally opposed to killing: war, executions, killing of the old and demented, the killing of children, unborn and born. As I have stated publicly many times, I stand squarely within the framework of "the seamless garment" ethic of life. I believe that all of life is sacred and must be protected, especially in the vulnerable stages at the beginning of life and its end.

I signed the ad because as a follower of the way of Jesus and a U.S. citizen, I cannot stand by passively and silently as I witness my government wage such grievous oppression and violence. It has been this same spirit of engaged citizenship that has for the past twenty years led me to speak out against the death penalty while encouraging my fellow citizens and my church to deeper reflection on the issue by the books and articles I have written and numerous public lectures.

So she signed the ad knowing that she didn’t agree with one part of it, and of course she didn’t object to the contraception part of it. Exactly what do critics of the President mean when they say "suppresses the science that doesn’t fit its religious, political and economic agenda"? I believe is an obvious allusion to embryonic stem-cell research, or at least Plan B, and RU-486. These would be the only cases where this charge can be made. So she truly does endorse abortion as long as it is done on the really young, not to mention abortafacient contraceptives. This is the problem with those who hide behind the "seamless garment" in that there is only one small part of the garment that gets their attention and they are really kind of fuzzy on that part that they are not activists for.

Bill Cork discovered that the organization behind the ad is C. Clark Kissinger a devoted Maoist.

Now, Sister, are you really telling us you didn’t bother to find out who was promoting the statement you signed?

And isn’t it funny how the Revolutionary Communist Party can be against war and torture, two of the things Communism has done better than any other ideology? And "putting people in jail on the merest suspicion, refusing them lawyers, and either holding them indefinitely or deporting them in the dead of night"?

Oh, and the bit about "theocracy"–what did Communism give us? Atheistic governments that torture people for their faith.

I do think the sister has donned a tinfoil habit with all the talk about impending theocracies. First Things this month did a roundup of all the Chicken Little books sounding the alarm about theocracy and just how fictional this charge is.

World can’t wait is the typical loony liberal site where Israel is guilty of war crimes, but the actual war crime of firing rockets that can land anywhere is not mentioned. Under Today’s Reason to Drive Out the Bush Regime they list the The Minuteman Project organizing volunteers to patrol the border. This just shows how stupid they are. This project has got zero support from the Bush administration and they would prefer that it just go away. It is also a volunteer project of civilians that has nothing to do with the government, yet since they exist Bush must be driven out. My toast landed butter-side down, another reason to drive out bush.

This group is also a pro-abortion as you can get. Check out this ad on the Casey-Santorum race.

Last but not least, this is how they want to drive out the President.

Let’s drive him out of office ourselves. Instead of depending on Democratic politicians to start impeachment hearings, let’s take to the street in mass, nonviolent protest and shut the whole country down until the entire Bush regime is driven out of office along with their whole program. Let’s demand that the Patriot Act be repealed not reformed. Let’s demand that they shut down the concentration camp at Gitmo. Let’s demand that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Condelezza Rice, Richard Perle, Scooter Libby, and Paul Wolfowitz be led away to The Hague in leg irons. As long as any of these people are free, as long as Christian fundamentalists have access to our tax money, as long as the beginnings of the fascist state Bush as worked so hard to construct over the past 5 years is allowed to stand, nobody in the world is safe, no American can be free, and no Democratic president or congress will mean anything more than changing the furniture in the White House.

A story appeared today on the priest in my diocese who was excommunicated for joining Rent-A-Priest. [Via Dom]

"That’s what I see my ministry as – reaching out to those who have been disenfranchised," Fisher told the Times-Union on Monday.

Fisher had been married and divorced, raised two children, and ran his own insurance agency before his ordination and said he plans to remarry soon.

Fisher said his troubles began in the summer of 2005, when the diocese learned of those plans.

In June of that year it removed him from St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Catholic Church in Palm Coast, where he had been associate pastor for one year.

Previously he had served at Christ the King parish in Jacksonville from 2002 to 2004.

Fisher said the diocese tried to convince him to go through the process of laicization, before his planned marriage. The procedure transforms a Catholic’s status from that of clergy to lay person.

Fisher said he refused.

"I felt it [ordination] was a gift as well as a call and is an integral part of who I am," Fisher said.

Fisher said he joined Rent A Priest in March because he wanted to continue functioning as a priest and needed the fellowship of other priests who had married, he said.

Galeone learned of Fisher’s involvement with the group in April, Bagg-Morgan said, when he received a letter from Rent A Priest’s parent organization, CITI Ministries. The due-process procedure for excommunications began shortly thereafter.

He preached at my parish once soon after being ordained on the Feast of the Assumption. The homily was quite good and orthodox. This is sad that unfortunately this late-vocation priest decided that the priesthood was all about him. Please send some prayers his way.