Deformed reform

I just love headlines like "Catholic hierarchy taken to task"

HANOVER — Members of reform Catholic groups on Saturday called for a restructuring of the Roman Catholic Church, accusing the church hierarchy of being out of touch with the people they are supposed to represent.

That’s funny, especially since most members of VOTF are out of touch with what the Church teaches.

Among the proposed changes: a more open and inclusive church, including acceptance of women’s ordination and the elimination of clergy’s vows of celibacy and greater laity involvement.

And wanting women’s ordination proves my point. You mostly see these groups hawk married priests as a solution to shortage of priests, but never see them promoting prayer for vocations. Finally they always include the nebulous statement about laity involvement, but never what type of involvement they are talking about. I am aware of nothing as a layman stopping me from praying, getting involved with my parish or my diocese, helping the poor and doing works of mercy. It is a good thing St. Catherine of Siena wasn’t aware that the hierarchy was preventing lay involvement. What they really mean is that they want to be able to control what the Church teaches and influence it theologically. Every heresy in the Church was started by someone with Holy Orders. Groups like VOTF want to change that and allow the laity to start heresies also.

The Saturday morning meeting at Birchwood Manor in Whippany attracted nearly 150 people, members of organizations under the umbrella of the Catholic Organizations for Renewal, a coalition of Roman Catholic groups inspired by Vatican II.

It is obvious that these groups didn’t quite make under the umbrella of Vatican II since their theology is all wet.

While Vatican II formally closed in December 1965 and bishops professed to follow the council’s decrees, Catholic reformists said not enough, if anything, had been done.

"Vatican II is the most authentic teaching of the church as of today," said Theresa Padovano, of the Northern New Jersey Chapter of Voice of the Faithful, a Catholic lay group originally founded in response to the priest sexual abuse in the Archdiocese of Boston.

The decrees of the Vatican II Council "called the church for (a) collegiate (structure), openness, and inclusiveness. Are we seeing this happen?"Padovano asked.

"We have to organize," said Leonard Swidler, representing the Association for the Rights of Catholics in the Church, an organization established in 1979 to foster greater community involvement in the decision-making process of the church.

Besides VOTF the meeting was attended by Call to Action and FutureChurch.

"We offer seven sacraments to men; six sacraments to women. How come?" asked Russ Ditzel of CORPUS, the National Association for an Inclusive Priesthood.

Oh no foiled by the argument for numeric comparison of the sacraments. Just too overwhelming of an argument to counter. Hey why can’t everybody be an ordained priest in the ministerial priesthood. Otherwise we are robbed of the max number of sacraments and of course we must also demand to get sick and be given the Sacrament of Healing. Plus all single people need to immediately get married in order to max out sacramental points.

Moreover, he said, there are some 25,000 married priests in the U.S. more than 100,000 worldwide who are willing but unable to serve due to their marital status. Meanwhile, 25 percent of U.S. parishes and nearly 50 percent worldwide do not have a resident priest.

Wow this is great news. I didn’t know that in the 25 years since the Pastoral Provision was approved that we had 25,000 former Episcopalian and other married Protestant clergy come into the Church. That is a thousand a year. There are only roughly 46,000 priests in the United States and I just had no idea that over half of them were married.

Well actually this number that Mary Ann McCarthy of FutureChuch quoted or just plain made up is silly beyond belief (kind of like FutureChurch). There is actually much less than a 100 married priests currently serving in the United States. She of course mentioned specifically married priests unable to serve but even if you count those that have been laicized and subsequently married this number is just nonsense.

"It’s about time that our church owes up to the fact that a significant part of our clergy are gay and (sexually) active," Ditzel said.

Well we are working on that problem – not giving in to it.

"We are going to have to change the structures of the church," Swidler said. "Otherwise, they won’t find it a home and they won’t be there anymore. And this is happening. Look at France. Look at Germany."

They even make their own counter-arguments for themselves. Pointing to the more progressive oriented Catholic Church in Germany and then complaining about no one going there only makes the case against these reform groups. Heterodoxy is a theological mule that doesnt’t engender offspring.