TWILIGHT ZONE
***Do Bishops Practice what they Preach? The USCCB has painted anyone who disagrees with their immigration policy (essentially open borders and universal amnesty) as a greedy, racist anti-Christian in conflict with the Gospel of social justice. But a priest friend of Les Femmes sent us a comment on the bishops’ policy calling for consistency on their part. “I notice that the USCCB's statement on immigration reform strongly downplays our right and need to have secure borders. According to their logic, the Gospel also demands that [dioceses] should both keep all the church buildings unlocked (in case some homeless people need a place to stay) and the church collections unsecured (in case some hungry people need some of the collection to buy food). God save us from the stupidity of those who voted to continue to move us ‘forward’ from being a nation of resilient patriots to one of resentful parasites.”
As an addendum we offer a challenge to the bishops. Stop locking the doors of your mansions and chanceries and “welcome the stranger” any time to help himself to what’s on your tables and in your fridges and wine cellars. Oh…and get rid of that guard at the front desk at the USCCB building in D.C. Why should the homeless have to drink Ripple out of a paper bag out in the cold on the sidewalk when you have quality vintages and fine crystal? Hey, they’d like a good Merlot served in Waterford for a change! Besides, you can afford to bear the burden of illegals who are overwhelming the system more than many middle class families struggling to make ends meet. Just take up a special collection for “the bishop’s needs”!
By the way, in case you haven’t heard, the bishops put your money where their liberal agenda is. Since 2012, the bishops’ funded “immigration reform” through CCHD (Catholic Campaign for Human Development) to the tune of $3.5 million dollars sending it to community organizers. One, PICO, has a history of abortion advocacy and referrals to Planned Parenthood. Their specialty is infiltrating the schools. The CCHD collection is taken up in most dioceses the Sunday before Thanksgiving. If you care about life issues, boycott the collection. Thirty to fifty percent of your money finds its way into radical leftist community organizing groups that are undermining the Catholic faith! When your bishop says they’re no problem, don’t listen. He’s either clueless or malicious. ***Of Heretics and Disgusting Stink Bugs! Or is that disgusting heretics and stink bugs? At any rate the critters are everywhere: on the bus, in the pews, in the parish hall, in Congress, at the USCCB, etc. One stink bug at Georgetown [huge infestation!], Anthony Tambasco, invades the Diocese of Arlington regularly. The Catholic Herald listed him in the calendar for Sept. 16 & 30 and Oct. 14 & 21 for a series of lectures at St. Ann’s in Arlington on Vatican II. It’s called Shifting Emphases that Remain Today. The clear implication is that Vatican II
changed the direction of the Church which is nothing but modernist spin. A protest from Les Femmes [Who ya gonna call?] got nary a reply from the chancery, until we followed up with a second letter copied to the apostolic nuncio and the CDF (Congregation for the Defense of the Faith). Interestingly, the ads in the Herald disappeared after our letter, but St. Ann’s continues to advertise the endless Tambasco show stretching now into November. Also, we finally got a letter from the chancery saying Tambasco was approved under diocesan guidelines [Yikes!] “to speak on the subject of the Second Vatican Council.” We were invited to share any personal knowledge “of anything that he has said in the course of this particular lecture series that contradicts the Church’s teaching in matters of faith and morals.” ***So Let’s Get the Diocesan Policy Right As long as a heretic doesn’t say anything heretical at a particular event, he is welcome to speak with the blessing of the diocese? Interesting….under that rationale, Henry VIII could hold a reading from his book, Defence of the Seven Sacraments as long as he left Ann Boleyn at home and didn’t criticize the pope. Martin Luther could discuss the catechism’s teaching on simony. Arius could speak about anything as long as he avoided questioning the divinity of Jesus. All those “particular” lectures would be fine. Oh, but we’re forgetting. Those heretics were excommunicated. The difference today is heretics can say anything at all (and do) and still claim to be in good standing because they are almost NEVER disciplined. Is it any wonder that today the shepherd must leave the one sheep still in the pew [oops…pen] to go in search of the 99 who ran away? Thanks, Bishop Loverde, for giving wolves access to the sheep. ***Just to make it clear…let’s run down several of Tambasco’s heresies [Again…sigh!] The evangelists made up the gospels which do not report factual events. They also fabricated Jesus’ miracles which never happened. Jesus did not know who He was even at the crucifixion which was unnecessary for our salvation. Jesus did not establish a Church and Peter never acknowledged Christ as the Son of God. The Church invented the idea that the Old Testament prophecies pointed to Christ. The Resurrection was probably NOT a literal event and it needn’t be. A question for the chancery: How can Tambasco who doesn’t believe Jesus founded a Church say anything meaningful about a council of the Church that Jesus didn’t found? ***One last point in case you missed it: The diocesan policy apparently requires that heretics be allowed to speak first before the diocese can determine whether they’re permitted to speak. Silly us…we thought the diocese evaluated publications and statements of speakers in order to keep the stink bugs out! ***Speaking of Stink Bugs from G’town one famous grad, William Peter Blatty, a bug buster of The Exorcist fame, recently submitted a petition to the Vatican about Georgetown scandals. Blatty spent the past few years building a case against his alma mater and his petition asks the Vatican to enforce implementation of Ex Corde Ecclesiae. Blatty’s lawyer and fellow alumnus Manuel Miranda said the Archdiocese of Washington has given its “blessing and green light” to the effort. Miranda described the petition which “is more than 200 pages and contains more than 480 footnotes, 99 appendices, 124 witness statement, and a commissioned 120-page audit of Georgetown. We have documented 23 years of scandal and dissidence and more than 100 scandals in the most recent years alone.” [That Georgetown stink bug colony is legion!] For more see www.cardinalnewmansociety.org/. ***CNS’s Liberal Slant in The Herald Faithful Catholics in Arlington have complained for years about numerous CNS (Catholic News Service) articles infesting the pages of the Arlington Catholic Herald. CNS regularly distorts the faith, publishes scandalous movie reviews, and reports all things from a Democrat liberal slant. A case in point? Catholic Leaders Decry Shutdown published in the Oct. 3-9 issue. The article regurgitates the position of a group of progressive Christian leaders (including dissenting Catholics) at a September 30th press conference promoting their letter to Congress. The article quotes Lutheran pastor, Dr. David Beckmann of Bread for the World who claims they weren’t taking sides and then immediately takes sides. Beckmann blames Republicans for the shutdown saying “in fact, the tea party caucus is mainly responsible for our political dysfunction.” Except for the Catholic groups (and the Lutheran pastor), CNS failed to identify the members of the progressive coalition which was a who’s who of pro-abortion, pro-gay, George Soros funded leftwing radicals including Sojourners and Interfaith Alliance as well as liberal Catholic groups Pax Christi, the Leadership Conference of Catholic Women, and the radical nuns’ lobby, NETWORK. Even the headline was a distortion. Are these Catholic dissenters really “Catholic leaders?”
CNS could have presented a more balanced article instead of basically running the liberal left’s biased press release for them. After all, there is another side to the story. But CNS adopted their typical slant saying, “The House has sought to defund or delay the Affordable Care Act as a condition for letting the government continue to operate.” CNS could have presented the other side’s position and written, “The Senate refuses to accept any compromise in imposing the unpopular bill on all Americans (except Congressman and their staffs who will receive special subsidies and other privileged groups given waivers by the Obama administration). But CNS is a liberal shill for the Democrats. That the bishops allow it is disgraceful, but many of them are dyed in the wool Democrats.
***Laicizing Clerics & Clericalizing Laity The goofiest bulletin cover in the diocese is at the Church of the Nativity where, under a photo of the pastor greeting the people one reads: “The Ministers of Our Parish are the Entire Congregation.” Uh…no they aren’t! Who’s wearing a chasuble in the photo, Father Martin? Joe and Jane sitting in the back pew have no power to speak the words of consecration that transform ordinary bread and wine into the Precious Body and Blood of our Savior. They can’t witness weddings, hear confessions or anoint the sick. Reducing the role of the priest to a layman and clericalizing the laity as “ministers” is just plain wrong.
In his 2002 Ad Limina address to the bishops of the Antilles, Pope John Paul II emphasized the complimentary nature of clerical and lay roles and the danger inherent in mixing them up. It is the priest who, as an ordained minister and in the name of Christ, presides over the Christian community in the sphere of her liturgical and pastoral activity. The laity assist him in many ways in this work. The primary place for the exercise of the lay vocation is the economic, social, political and cultural world....The involvement of lay people is politicized when the laity become absorbed by the exercise of "authority" within the Church. This happens when the Church is no longer seen in terms of a "mystery" of grace…but in sociological or political terms, often on the basis of a misunderstanding of the notion of "People of God"…. When it is not service but power that shapes every form of government in the Church, whether exercised by the clergy or by the laity, opposing interests begin to make themselves felt. Clericalism for priests is the kind of governance that comes more from the use of power than from the spirit of service; it always gives rise to all sorts of antagonism between priests and people. Such clericalism is found in forms of lay leadership that do not reasonably respect the transcendental and sacramental nature of the Church and of her role in the world.
In 2011 Pope Francis, as Archbishop of Buenos Aires, said this “We priests tend to clericalize the laity. We do not realize it, but it is as if we infect them with our own disease. And the laity — not all, but many — ask us on their knees to clericalize them, because it is more comfortable to be an altar server than the protagonist of a lay path. We cannot fall into that trap — it is a sinful complicity.” So please, Fr. Martin, take that silly headline off the bulletin and stop mixing up your people. The laity’s role is to spread the truths of the faith in the marketplace, not to be faux priests in the sanctuary.