Fr. McBrien in The Tidings:
Religious communities of women have been responsible for many of the good things that the Catholic Church in the United States has achieved, both before and after the Second Vatican Council.
It is all the more distressing, therefore, that two Vatican agencies — the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) — have targeted these communities and their principal leadership organization for a “visitation” and “doctrinal assessment” respectively.
One of the most disturbing aspects of the “visitation” is the requirement that each of the visitors will be required to make a public profession of faith and an oath of fidelity to the Apostolic See.
This requirement will discourage a number of potential visitors from volunteering their services in this study, and thereby skew the visitation teams in a particular ideological direction.
Matthew at Creative Minority Report responds:
Did you get that? An oath of fidelity to the Apostolic See skews you in a particular ideological direction, ie conservative.
Fr. McBrien, it’s called being faithful. It’s not ideological.
But using logic would lead one to an inescapable conclusion. If being a conservative Catholic is defined as being faithful to the Apostolic See, then how must a liberal Catholic be defined?
Tsk Tsk Fr. McBrien. The first rule of Heresy club is you don’t talk about Heresy club. And you never ever say what you really mean.
Yes having an religious order actually taking an oath to the Apostolic See is too much. What to they think they are authentically Catholic or something? Actually the whole refusal of taking the oath of fidelity seems a hard one to understand. I remember when Bishop Baker when he was installed as Bishop had everybody working for the Diocese take it and there was some anger about this. Seems a good idea to me for a new Bishop to find the tares among the wheat. Every time I started a new enlistment in the Navy I had to take an oath. An oath is a serious thing and their is a good reason for the military to have one. The same goes for religious orders which comes under the control of the Holy See. I appreciate the honesty of those who refuse such an oath, but those that do should not be in a Catholic religious order.
8 comments
Time for Fr. McBrien to take an oath of loyalty, too.
Religious communities of women have been responsible for many of the good things … It is all the more distressing, therefore, that two Vatican agencies…
Non sequitir. If religious orders are so great, we should have more people in them, but their numbers aren’t dwindling because of oppressive visits.
I read some time ago that many of these communities have become nothing more than “groups of social workers who don’t date”
The Holy Father is politely asking for the wiccans, Freemason sypathizers, and the heretics to please identify themselves.
I would hope the intent would be discreetly implied that the Holy Father wants homosexuals and lesbians to know their ‘lifestyle’ is not being faithful to the Holy See.
It is a great start of what could eventually be a cleansing of the Freemason control of local Dioceses, like the one in the city where I live.
Deo gracias.
Pray for the Holy Father
Seems to me that the opportunity to take such an oath of fidelity should be welcomed by the sisters. There’s freedom in that thar oath…Not only that, but it would improve vocations to the religious life if a prospective religious had some assurance that she/he would be in a “safe” community. It must be terribly distressing to commit your life to Jesus through a community/order and discover later on that your commitment is supporting all manner of New Age nonsense, not to mention outright sin disguised as adherence to the Gospel.
The visitation is a wise move. May it bear abundant fruit!
Totally agree with you chief.
But one aside: surely it is “tares among the wheat” rather than “tares among the weeds”.
Tares look a bit like wheat, but are not so fruitful and cause nausea if eaten.
It isn’t the Sisters who are being asked to take an oath of loyalty to the Apostolic See, it is the “Visitors” who are going to investigate and report on the religious orders, who have to take the oath.
Not that it would be a bad idea, but this is a much more modest requirement; that people who are going to report on whether a community is orthodox, be orthodox themselves.
Susan Peterson
Susan:
The Apostles of the Sacred Heart of Jesus may wear habits that are more “modern” than those of 60 years ago, but they are faithful the the Catholic Church. This isn’t like one of Obama’s “Catholics” who are Catholic in name only.