Here we go again

• A non-Catholic, far left, pro-contraception speaker who’s said we don’t need to ban aborting babies and who’s advised U.S. senators and representatives on how to get believers to vote for pro-gay, pro-abortion Democrats
• A laicized priest who dissents from “a wide range of Church teachings” and wants women priests and women bishops
• A nun who called Catholic doctrine against non-marital sex “a fixation.”
• A Catholic priest who told the 2005 REC that “we” need “public models” of “healthy gay priests for Catholics to reflect on.”

source

So where are these dissidents speaking?

1. Call To Action Conference
2. Voice of the Faithful Meeting
3. Generic conference of gray haired dissenters nostalgic for the sixties
4. LA Archdiocese’s 2010 Religious Education Congress

Well all of the above would probably be an acceptable write-in answer, but if you selected #4 you are correct. With Cardinal Mahony recently passing his 74th birthday we can hope and pray that any such conference in the future will not be the dissident fest they tend to be.

To be fair though there is usually some token Catholics actually faithful to the Magisterium that speak there or are involved with the conference.  The attendees range across the spectrum as do the exhibitors.

I must admit though that it is often fun looking at the list of workshops and playing spot the heretic.  I pretty much always hit pay dirt when doing so.  This time the very first person I looked up giving a workshop is Barbar Fiand, SND de N.  Her writings are rather odd to say the least.  For example her view of the Eucharist is that it is the “event of the Community”  and “presensing” and downplays transubstantiations as being introduced late and influenced by Aristotalian philosophy.  She even says the prefers the view of the Eucharist as “spiritual refreshment” as opposed to the Eucharist being the very Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus.

Her reflections in response to the USCCB document on the Reiki which called this new age practice as “unscientific and inappropriate for Catholic institutions” is unintentionally hilarious.  She says the Bishop’s view is the result of the Hellenic perspective of reality and goes on.

The distinctions of matter and mind, so important to the dualism of the past 2000 years, disappear in the universe of today’s physics which we might best describe as a sea of vibrations under-girded and informed by what scientists today identify in various ways, most commonly: the pure vacuum – the non-visible, pure emptiness of the “zero point field.” The “implicate order” (David Bohm – physicist), the “unified field of pure consciousness” (John Hagelin – physicist), the morphogenetic field (Rupert Sheldrake – biologist), space-time foam, empty fullness, fecund nothingness (Brian Swimme) are other references to the same.

I guess the USCCB forget to remember that Quantum foam and subatomic spacetime turbulence of the order of Planck length when addressing the subject of Reiki. How could they have overlooked the works of John Hagelin who led the Transcendental Meditation movement which charged fees for instructions and sold professional mantras.  I do love the phrase “fecund nothingness”  as a sort of response to ex nihilo.  In fact fecund nothingness is the perfect metaphor for so much progressive theology. Plus there is her defense of shamanism.  So with her background who else would you have picked for a workshop on “Christian Vision.”

For the workshop on how Catholics should vote they have Richard R. Gaillardetz, PhD who who apparently supports homosexual acts, women’s ordination,  has a quite flawed view of the structure of the early Church and a narrow view on papal infallibility and the magisterium.  His book on marriage supports following your conscience on contraception.  His book also mentions  how he ran into a former classmate who was brilliant in college and now she was married with kids and he couldn’t help but feel sorry that she “sold out” and stopped using her God given mind.”  The title of one of his workshops in Rochester was “Getting Beyond Dominating Hierarchy.”

Plus of couse what Religious Education conference would be complete with out famous dissident Ronald Rolheiser, OMI who has written of St Therese being tormented on her “celibate cot.”

Or how about Father Bryan Massingale, STD who wrote an essay against voting for a marriage amendment defining marriage. Another one of the Marquette moral theologians. Or maybe Dr. Megan McKenna Call To Action speaker who calls abortion “individual freedom of choice” and the current abortion law “in favor of individual rights and responsibilities.” Then there is Fr. Richard Rohr a return favorite of the religious conferencef, another Call to Action speakers, supporter of the Enneagram, defender of homosexual acts, attacker of the hierarchy and those who actually hold to Church dogma and doctrine. Add in a heap of syncretism and practically Pagan male spirituality and you have another fine workshop teacher.

And that is just taking a quick look at day one of the conference.  Funny out of the dozen or so Catholic nuns speaking that first day they couldn’t even find one that wore a habit.  Oh well that is just the nostalgic male in me wanting to impose clothing restrictions on women religious or something.

There are some speakers there I would certainly like to see such as Fr. Tad. Pacholczyk, Lisa Hendley, John Allen Jr., and no doubt some others I am not familiar with. Plus I wouldn’t mind seeing the two-man acoustic, humor, rock group Popple again – who really make me laugh.

The problem of course is the extent of the infection of workshops by people who have no business trying to impart the Catholic faith to anybody – until they learn it themselves.  That might seem a bit harsh, but allowing people who teach heresy and the promotion of intrinsic evils at a convention aimed at religious education is beyond the pale.  Certainly this conference reflects Cardinal Mahony, but many other diocese have long sent people there to attend this event.  It is like outsourcing your shepherds to wolves.  I have not even addressed the liturgies that go on there which don’t exactly reflect the Pope’s view on liturgy and often does not even follow liturgical documents.

Well here is hoping that this is the last year that I write about this travesty that has lead way to many astray by giving dissidents a diocesan seal of approval.