What Does The Prayer Really Say?
W D T P R S

Here is an interesting story from the ultra-lefty National Catholic Reporter.

My emphases and comments.

St. Louis Archdiocese videoed women’s ordination rite

By Tom Fox, NCR Staff
Published:
July 9, 2008

Rabbi Susan [I still don’t understand the whole female rabbi thing.]Talve, spiritual leader of Central Reform Congregation in St. Louis, welcomes worshipers for the ordination of two women last November.   (Photo by Karen Elshout)

The archdiocese of St. Louis authorized the video recording of a Catholic women’s ordination ceremony that took place in a synagogue last November. It then used the video, along with photographs apparently taken from the video, as evidence to punish [No… not evidence to punish, but rather evidence in the case of the necessity of any questions that might result.  In this case, questions were raised, a canonical process resulted, and someone was censured.] a Catholic nun who attended the liturgy, according to several people familiar with the case.

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Update: Rabbi would have denied permission to record ordination
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Sister of Charity Louise Lears was forced out of all church ministerial roles and banned from receiving sacraments within the archdiocese by an edict of St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke announced June 26.  [It’s called "interdict".]

The next day the archdiocese announced that Burke had been reassigned to a position at the Vatican as prefect of the church’s highest canonical court, the Apostolic Signatura.  [A fact which is entirely irrelevant to the case.]

Lears, 58, has been a member of the pastoral team at St. Cronan Parish in South St. Louis for the past three years, and a coordinator of religious education in the archdiocese.

She refused to be interviewed for this article. She is not speaking to the media.

However, several people familiar with the documents, prepared by the archdiocese that made up the case against her, strongly criticized what they called the “surveillance” video-taping.

One of the confidential archdiocesan documents, according to knowledgeable sources, was an affidavit giving permission to an individual to attend the ceremony in order to record it. The record of the ceremony is contained on two electronic discs in Lears’ file.

Rose Marie Dunn Hudson, on left, sings along with fellow womenpriest Bridget Mary Meehan of Pittsburgh, Pa. , center, during Hudson’s ordination at the Central Reform Congregattion last November. (Photo by Karen Elshout)  The file also contains close-up photographs of a name tag Lears was wearing during the ceremony. Her attendance at the November 2007 ordination held at the Central Reform Congregation, headed by Rabbi Susan Talve, was never a secret, according to Lears’ associates.

The ceremony drew some 600 people, among them several dozen women religious, according to people who attended the liturgy. Only Lears, however, was singled out by Burke.  [Perhaps she was the only one who was an employee of an Archdiocesan organization.]

“It was a surveillance video. That’s exactly what it was,” said Sean Collins, a co-pastoral associate of Lears at St. Cronan Parish until he resigned July 2nd, in part, he said, to speak about what he says has been a grave injustice taken against Lears.  [It sounds like there was a canonical process.  So, justice was served.]

“What disturbs me even more is that the video taping was premeditated,” [How else?] he said, referring to the affidavit authorizing it by the archdiocese. Collins did not see the document firsthand, but referred to others who had seen it.

“They clearly selected Louise from a congregation of some 600 people and of those 40 or 50 of them offered blessings,” [Offered blessings?   Waht does that mean, I wonder?] he said. “Of all of those who offered blessings only Louise has been singled out.”

NCR made several unsuccessful attempts to reach [Archbishop] Burke for comment through the archdiocese and the Apostolic Signatura in Rome, but he was unavailable. There is no evidence that Burke knew about or ordered the taping. However, Catholics familiar with the workings of the archdiocese say it would be unlikely it could have happened without his authorization.

John Terranova, executive director of the synagogue where the ceremony took place, said he did not recall the archdiocese asking permission to video the liturgy. “I cannot say we were aware that they were taping. If they chose to do that it was their choice.”

News of the planned ceremony at the time prompted outrage from archdiocesan officials—outrage that was directed both at the women aspiring to the Catholic priesthood and toward the woman rabbi who agreed to host the event.

Before the ceremony Burke wrote to Susan Talve, senior rabbi at the synagogue, urging her to revoke her offer of hospitality. Talve is the founding rabbi of Central Reform Congregation, a former president of the St. Louis Rabbinical Association and herself active in interfaith affairs.

Days before the liturgy Burke, in the archdiocesan newspaper, the St. Louis Review, also wrote a column reiterating the Catholic church’s official position that women cannot be ordained to the priesthood and that participation in any such liturgy would be a gravely sinful act. “Any Catholic,” he wrote, “who knowingly and deliberately assists… risks the eternal salvation of their souls.”

That threat is the apparent reason an archdiocesan affidavit was required to permit someone to attend and video the liturgy.

If Lears were to appeal her punishments through church channels her case could end up at the court that Burke now heads. However, he has said he would recuse himself from cases before the court in which he is involved.

The two Catholic women ordained in the synagogue were part of the Womenpriests movement, efforts by Roman Catholic [?] women to gain equality [NO!  This would be an injustice to them to propose that they can be ordained!  It is not an act of charity to lie.] of ministry within the Catholic church. They were Elsie Hainz McGrath, a retired writer and editor for a Catholic publishing house, and Rose Marie Dunn Hudson, a former teacher.

In March, Burke excommunicated the women.

Many people have speculated why Lears was singled out. Several said the reason might have been because she worked in an archdiocesan parish. Others said that McGrath and Hudson had been members of the St. Cronan Parish.

Tom Fox can be reached at tfox@ncronline.org

A friend just phoned to tell me about a discussion on a "trad" forum. 

I went there and read for a while.

In this discussion some people were publicly bad mouthing priests who have been celebrating the TLM and denigrating their ministry.

They claim these priests not Catholic enough, not fully or really Catholic.  Not Catholic like they are.

Thus, they who have no authority in the Church, laymen who have no jurisdiction, no credentials other than that they are hobbyists of the older form of the Roman Rite (sincere as their devotion may be), they who have read some encyclicals of popes of yesteryear, some books by authors zealous for Tradition, they who have no authority other than their conviction that no one else can be right or as Catholic as they are, turn with a snarl and bite the consecrated hand that feeds them Christ’s Body and forgives their sins. 

And this about some priests who have probably already forgotten more about liturgy and theology than they will ever know.  Priests who have suffered a great deal in their years of ministry at the hands even of Church officials because of their traditional convictions.

I am at an annual gathering of priests right now.  We have among other things discussed what it is like to minister to people who then turn on you.  How to work with that, with them.

Most of the time we are willing to have you keep bashing us, try to ruin our reputations, running us down.

But it does take its toll.

I say, if you chose to stay on this path, woe to you who raise your hands against the Lord’s anointed.

In taking this negative approach with and about your priests, you will not obtain your objectives.

Don’t expect them to be all warm and open to your suggestions when you do nothing but get in their faces and run them down behind their backs.

Mark my words, folks. 

If any of you have imbibed of this attitude, what I am describing above… mark my words, you are on a spiritually perilous course. 

You are putting your souls in danger of hell and causing scandal to others. 

You could also wind up ruining everything for others who also have your aspirations, but not your lack of prudence. 

I have been have a few quite days away from the Sabine Farm at a retreat center with quite a few priest friends.  It isn’t really a retreat, however.  It is more like an informal conference.

Each year we get together somewhere for four days, have a guest speaker (or one of us gives a talk). 

This year I gave a presentation on what Pope Benedict was really driving at in his address to the Curia in 2005 in which he used the phrases "hermeneutic of discontinuity and rupture" and "hermeneutic of reform".  Pope Benedict is carrying on a bit of a polemic with a particular group of theologians.

Then we had some presentations on an aspect of the Catechism of the Catholic Church: there question/response dynamic built into the texts which, once recognized, helps us to explain the material and make it relevant.

Also, a couple days ago, Francis Card. Arinze joined us.  He’ll be speaking today on his experience of priesthood.

So, our mornings are busy, but in the afternoons and evening some of the guys will find a golf course or simply hang out talking.  

Tonight we are having a big cookout: steaks.

It is a great annual event, and though it isn’t a retreat, it is refreshing.