What happens when you go wrong:
From the pen of Roy Bourgeois, M.M.
Rev. Edward Dougherty, M.M., Superior General
Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers
P.O. Box 303 Maryknoll, NY 10545April 8, 2011
Dear Father Dougherty and General Council,
Maryknoll has been my community, my family, for 44 years, so it is with great sadness that I received your letter of March 18, 2011 stating I must recant my belief and public statements that support the ordination of women, or I will be dismissed from Maryknoll.
When I was a young man in the military, [Doesn’t he impress you?] I felt God was calling me to be a priest. I later entered Maryknoll and was ordained. I am grateful for finding the happiness, meaning and hope I was seeking in life. [Read: I will be sad if I must obey.]
For the past 20 years I have been speaking out and organizing against the injustice of the School of the Americas and U.S. foreign policy in Latin America. [People can disagree about this issue.] Over these years I discovered an injustice much closer to home – an injustice in my Church. [He is attempting to set up a moral equivalence between the Church’s defined teaching on ordination and the US government School of the Americas. See anything wrong with that?]
Devout [So?] women in our Church believe [So?] God is calling them to be priests, [He isn’t.] but they are rejected [That is the wrong word.] because the Church teaches that only baptized men can become priests. [Yes. It does.] As a Catholic priest for 38 years, I believe our Church’s teaching that excludes women from the priesthood defies both faith and reason and cannot stand up to scrutiny for the following reasons: [He is a heretic.]
(1) As Catholics, we believe that we were created in the image and likeness of God and that men and women are equal before God. Excluding women from the priesthood implies that men are superior to women. [Does that logically follow? All it implies is that they are different.]
(2) Catholic priests say that the call to be a priest is a gift and comes fromGod. How can we, as men, say: “Our call from God is authentic, but your call, as women, is not”? [Because Holy Church does not have the authority from God to ordain women.] Who are we to reject God’s call of women to the priesthood? [Ummm… “faithful Catholics”?] I believe our Creator who is the Source of life and called forth the sun and stars is certainly capable of calling women to be priests. [No one doubts that! Of course He can. He did not. ]
[Make some popcorn.] (3) We are told that women cannot be priests because Jesus chose only men as apostles. As we know, Jesus did not ordain anyone. Jesus also chose a woman, Mary Magdalene, to be the first witness to His resurrection, which is at the core of our faith. Mary Magdalene became known as “the apostle to the apostles.” [Okay. I’m convinced.]
(4) A 1976 report by the Pontifical Biblical Commission, the Vatican’s top Scripture scholars, [He may have been a priest for a long time, but that did not make him very intelligent. “The Vaticans” top Scripture scholars? Is that what the members of the Biblical Commission are?] concluded that there is no valid case to be made against the ordination of women from the Scriptures. [And when are we a “Scripture alone” Church?] In the Episcopal, Methodist, Lutheran, United Church of Christ, Presbyterian and other Christian churches, [Schismatics and heretics. And the ordination of women has worked wonders for their groups.] God’s call of women to the priesthood is affirmed and women are ordained. Why not in the Catholic church? [He doesn’t see any difference between those groups and the Catholic Church? Be clear: this isn’t about whether women are competent. This is about who the Catholic Church is.]
(5) The Holy Scriptures remind us in Galatians 3:28, “There is neither male nor female. In Christ Jesus you are one.” [1 Corinthians 14:34-35] Furthermore, the Second Vatican Council’s Pastoral Constitution on The Church in the Modern World states: “Every type of discrimination … based on sex. .. is to be overcome and eradicated as contrary to God’s intent.” [Human discrimination. And “discrimination” doesn’t imply, in this matter, inequality. At the heart of the word is the root word concerning the ability to recognize differences.]
After much reflection and many conversations with fellow priests and women, I believe sexism is at the root of excluding women from the priesthood. Sexism, like racism, is a sin. [Again, he is trying to create a moral equivalence.] And no matter how hard we may try to justify discrimination against women, in the end, it is not the way of God. [Gratis asseritur, gratis negatur. It IS the way of God. Holy Church has said so.] Sexism is about power. [And so we get to the essence of the bid for the ordination of wyemenn and the wymenmales who support them.] In the culture of clericalism many Catholic priests see the ordination of women as a threat to their power. [blah blah]
Our Church is in a crisis today because of the sexual abuse scandal and the closing of hundreds of churches because of a shortage of priests. [Slime.] When I entered Maryknoll we had over 300 seminarians. Today we have ten. [Why does the SSPX and FSSP and solid bishops have so many?] For years we have been praying for more vocations to the priesthood. [Roy. Your community doesn’t have vocations is because of… men like you.] Our prayers have been answered. God is sending us women priests. Half the population are women. If we are to have a vibrant and healthy Church, we need the wisdom, experience and voices of women in the priesthood.
[The rest of this is just B as in B and S as in S. I’ll leave it, however. Read and weep.]
As Catholics, we believe in the primacy and sacredness of conscience. Our conscience is sacred because it gives us a sense of right and wrong and urges us to do the right thing. Conscience is what compelled Franz Jagerstatter, a humble Austrian farmer, husband and father of four young children, to refuse to join Hitler’s army, which led to his execution. Conscience is what compelled Rosa Parks to say she could no longer sit in the back of the bus. Conscience is what compels women in our Church to say they cannot be silent and deny their call from God to the priesthood. And it is my conscience that compels me to say publicly that the exclusion of women from the priesthood is a grave injustice against women, against our Church and against our God who calls both men and women to the priesthood.
In his 1968 commentary on the Second Vatican Council’s document, Gaudium et Spes, Archbishop Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, said: “Over the pope … there still stands one’s own conscience, which must be obeyed before all else, if necessary, even against the requirement of ecclesiastical authority.”
What you are requiring of me is not possible without betraying my conscience. In essence, you are telling me to lie and say I do not believe that God calls both men and women to the priesthood. This I cannot do, therefore I will not recant.
Like the abolition of slavery, the civil rights movement and the right of women to vote, the ordination of women is inevitable because it is rooted in justice. Wherever there is an injustice, silence is the voice of consent. I respectfully ask that my fellow priests, bishops, Church leaders in the Vatican and Catholics in the pews speak out and affirm God’s call of women to the priesthood.
Your Brother in Christ,
Roy Bourgeois, M.M.
P.O. Box 3330
Columbus, GA 31903
Rev. Edward Dougherty, M.M., Superior General
Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers
P.O. Box 303 Maryknoll, NY 10545
April 8, 2011
Dear Father Dougherty and General Council,
Maryknoll has been my community, my family, for 44 years, so it is with great sadness that I received your letter of March 18, 2011 stating I must recant my belief and public statements that support the ordination of women, or I will be dismissed from Maryknoll.
When I was a young man in the military, I felt God was calling me to be a priest. I later entered Maryknoll and was ordained. I am grateful for finding the happiness, meaning and hope I was seeking in life.
For the past 20 years I have been speaking out and organizing against the injustice of the School of the Americas and U.S. foreign policy in Latin America. Over these years I discovered an injustice much closer to home – an injustice in my Church.
Devout women in our Church believe God is calling them to be priests, but they are rejected because the Church teaches that only baptized men can become priests. As a Catholic priest for 38 years, I believe our Church’s teaching that excludes women from the priesthood defies both faith and reason and cannot stand up to scrutiny for the following reasons:
(1) As Catholics, we believe that we were created in the image and likeness of God and that men and women are equal before God. Excluding women from the priesthood implies that men are superior to women.
(2) Catholic priests say that the call to be a priest is a gift and comes fromGod. How can we, as men, say: “Our call from God is authentic, but your call, as women, is not”? Who are we to reject God’s call of women to the priesthood? I believe our Creator who is the Source of life and called forth the sun and stars is certainly capable of calling women to be priests.
(3) We are told that women cannot be priests because Jesus chose only men as apostles. As we know, Jesus did not ordain anyone. Jesus also chose a woman, Mary Magdalene, to be the first witness to His resurrection, which is at the core of our faith. Mary Magdalene became known as “the apostle to the apostles.”
(4) A 1976 report by the Pontifical Biblical Commission, the Vatican’s top Scripture scholars, concluded that there is no valid case to be made against the ordination of women from the Scriptures. In the Episcopal, Methodist, Lutheran, United Church of Christ, Presbyterian and other Christian churches, God’s call of women to the priesthood is affirmed and women are ordained. Why not in the Catholic church?
(5) The Holy Scriptures remind us in Galatians 3:28, “There is neither male nor female. In Christ Jesus you are one.” Furthermore, the Second Vatican Council’s Pastoral Constitution on The Church in the Modern World states: “Every type of discrimination … based on sex. .. is to be overcome and eradicated as contrary to God’s intent.”
After much reflection and many conversations with fellow priests and women, I believe sexism is at the root of excluding women from the priesthood. Sexism, like racism, is a sin. And no matter how hard we may try to justify discrimination against women, in the end, it is not the way of God. Sexism is about power. In the culture of clericalism many Catholic priests see the ordination of women as a threat to their power.
Our Church is in a crisis today because of the sexual abuse scandal and the closing of hundreds of churches because of a shortage of priests. When I entered Maryknoll we had over 300 seminarians. Today we have ten. For years we have been praying for more vocations to the priesthood. Our prayers have been answered. God is sending us women priests. Half the population are women. If we are to have a vibrant and healthy Church, we need the wisdom, experience and voices of women in the priesthood.
As Catholics, we believe in the primacy and sacredness of conscience. Our conscience is sacred because it gives us a sense of right and wrong and urges us to do the right thing. Conscience is what compelled Franz Jagerstatter, a humble Austrian farmer, husband and father of four young children, to refuse to join Hitler’s army, which led to his execution. Conscience is what compelled Rosa Parks to say she could no longer sit in the back of the bus. Conscience is what compels women in our Church to say they cannot be silent and deny their call from God to the priesthood. And it is my conscience that compels me to say publicly that the exclusion of women from the priesthood is a grave injustice against women, against our Church and against our God who calls both men and women to the priesthood.
In his 1968 commentary on the Second Vatican Council’s document, Gaudium et Spes, Archbishop Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, said: “Over the pope … there still stands one’s own conscience, which must be obeyed before all else, if necessary, even against the requirement of ecclesiastical authority.”
What you are requiring of me is not possible without betraying my conscience. In essence, you are telling me to lie and say I do not believe that God calls both men and women to the priesthood. This I cannot do, therefore I will not recant.
Like the abolition of slavery, the civil rights movement and the right of women to vote, the ordination of women is inevitable because it is rooted in justice. Wherever there is an injustice, silence is the voice of consent. I respectfully ask that my fellow priests, bishops, Church leaders in the Vatican and Catholics in the pews speak out and affirm God’s call of women to the priesthood.
Your Brother in Christ,
Roy Bourgeois, M.M.
P.O. Box 3330
Columbus, GA 31903
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See Ya , would`nt want to be ya………….
God Bless our Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI
With all the reading Father Bourgeois has claimed to have done, has he not read Inter Insigniores?
Is Father Bourgeois really saying that all women are in favor of womyn becoming priests? From my own discussions and perusals the opposite is true of Catholic women. Most of them don’t believe it is possible or want it. So that leaves those who for whatever reason think God is calling them to the priesthood. The few, the few, and the few.
Well, he’s convinced me. In fact, I’m going to go the extra mile and start a campaign urging the Catholic Church to allow men to get pregnant and give birth. It’s pure discrimination on the Church’s part that only women can be mothers biologically. Equal rights for men!
JoAnna – that totally put me in mind of this clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFBOQzSk14c
Thanks for the laugh. :)
Catholic priests see the ordination of women as a threat to their power.
Unbridled egalitarianism is a threat to everyone. The devil abhors diversity because it manifests God’s power. Can you imagine how boring and uninteresting the world would be if everything were a monotonous uniformity; if there were no kings and servants, men and women, Easterners and Westerners? All people are made in God’s image, but all people are not identical clones. As St. Thomas wrote, “the inequality of things is from God.”
I wonder if that dear lady, Norma Jean Coon, would have the time to speak with this poor soul. I myself will pray for him.
He stopped believing, from all appearances, a long time ago.
While praying for his soul, of whom only God knows the condition, if exterior actions reflect an interior reality…he’s quaffed so deeply from society’s agenda that the indelible mark that was gifted to him at his ordination has been sullied, like pearls cast before swine, to the point that I can’t even feel sorry for him. The thing is, he believes the lies, revels in the lies, and, tries to ‘nuance’ his position so finely…he probably is beyond hope.
Place it in the hand of the Almighty. The good Father really needs a ‘St. Paul’ moment.
AAARRRRRGH! As a mom who chose St Mary Magdalene as a patron for one of my daughters, it PEEVES me to NO END that people use her to argue for a womyn priesthood- yes- we Byzantine types call her ‘equal to the apostles’ but she was NOT an apostle.
Priests- be servants as Christ was a servant- womym who want to be ‘priests’ are attracted to the power but not the servant-aspect of the priesthood.
How about some logic? Jesus DID shatter sex-based cultural limitations by encouraging women to learn from Him at his feet (“she has chosen the better part”)- but no woman was an apostle.
I feel like satan is really using the feelings of (some sincere) women to try to destroy the Church
I would like to give a little history of my struggles with the idea of “women priests”. After 25 years of Atheism I came back to the Catholic Church in 2005. I did not understand everything that the Church taught and was advised by a very devout Priest to study reliable Catholic books especially the Catechism of the Catholic Church. The Catechism and daily Mass helped tremendously and I grew in my love for the Church. However I could not find anything that, for me, would adequately explain the Churches teaching against women becoming Priests. Then in 2007 I came across Peter Kreeft’s talk Women and the Priesthood.(http://www.peterkreeft.com/audio/09_priestesses.htm)
This 64 min talk answered all my questions and I recommend it to anyone still looking for answers. By the way Fr. Z, your blog was one of the key information sources in my coming back to the Church. I want to thank you and all the faithful Catholics who post on this blog for helping me in my return to the Catholic Church.
Bruce
Halifax, NS, Canada
Poor Father Roy. It is admirable that he seems soft-hearted, but it’s just too bad that his arguments are so soft-headed. This is very typical of liberals, unfortunately. I’ll keep praying for Father Roy.
If I understand Father Roy correctly, we have Sacred Scripture, Sacred Revelation, Sacred Tradition AND now…ta da…. Sacred conscience? Will modernism ever go away?
hhhmmm… Maybe he haven’t heard Peter Kreeft’s ‘Why Only Boys Can Be the Daddies’
http://www.peterkreeft.com/audio/09_priestesses.htm
Or read C. S. Lewis’ ‘Priestesses in the Church?’
Oremus
This is just sad. Very sad. I will pray that he realizes that his conscience is poorly formed, and that the Lord moves him to repent. No one is beyond His mercy.
It doesn’t matter WHAT Fr. Bourgeois says. The Pope is the Pope whether he is Karol Wotijya or Joseph Ratzinger. It doesn’t really matter. If you are Catholic and the Pope says you are wrong, If you don’t agree, then get out and go away. Peddle your ice somewhere else because the Catholic Church does not, cannot, and will not care what you think! Bye, bye!
When I read something like this, I wonder about his formation. What was he taught on the way to being ordained? Where were his brethren and his superiors who had some duty to keep him on the straight and narrow? It is so terribly sad to see a priest go bad.
I can remember when the Maryknoll Fathers were a great order, with Bishop Walsh being held in a Red China Communist prison for over 50 years for the crime of spreading the Catholic Faith.
How the great orders have fallen. One typical thread of these Modernist clerics thinking, or more properly feeling, is they always seem to rely on subjective feeling. The Catholic Faith is a revealed faith that comes from above, not from the wishes or the private interpretation of the individual. The Holy Father ruled definitively a few years back that only men can be priests.
By the way, does anyone know what number “Sexism” comes in in the Decalogue. I can’t seem to find it.
The problem with depending on conscience is that conscience needs right formation. Without it, the conscience may tell you which way to turn, but reliance upon it will be chancy, at best. A priest can, as we have seen in recent history, be ordained without proper formation of conscience. We can but pray for his conversion, and for the contrition which must follow.
Jesus didn’t ordain anyone? Since when? He gave them the Holy Spirit, the power to forgive sins and confect the Eucharist, etc. — wasn’t that ordination?
It’s all about a quest for power.
Would these women really want it on their consciences if priests (of either sex in their world) under their authority abused children? Just ask SNAP about the LCWR (the liberal women religious umbrella group).
I often wonder whether Fr. Bourgeois, a lefty probably marxist, despises his last name.
I pray for his soul.
“We are told that women cannot be priests because Jesus chose only men as apostles.”
At the consecration the priest says ” This is my body” He doesn’t say this is Jesus’ body.
That is why I was told is another reason the church cannot ordain women.
“in person Christi” has to be male.
How dare this priest speak about faithful , devout catholic women when he has heretical views. He does not speak for me, he never will. Christ’s priests are men because Christ is a man. Not Martha nor Mary fought the apostles for power and privilege. Women are gifted and privileged in different ways. Men and women ARE different yet equal. What feminists/heretics/schismatics need most is to go to the cross, unclench the fist, and bend the knee.Our Lady is the Queen of the apostles ,Queen of Martyrs,Queen of Confessors,Queen of all Saints, is that too simple for the feminists to see who they should model their life on?
“As Catholics, we believe that we were created in the image and likeness of God and that men and women are equal before God. Excluding women from the priesthood implies that men are superior to women”
This would only follow if priests as such are superior to lay people as such. I’m surprised to see Fr. Roy so nakedly express the insidious clericalism behind the so-called womenpriest movement.
Fr. Bourgeois just needs to read better books:
Women in the Priesthood?
A Systematic Analysis in the Light of the Order of Creation and Redemption
In Stock
ISBN: 9780898701654
Author: Manfred Hauke
Length: 500 pages
Edition: Paperback
Code: WITP-P
Retail Price: $24.95
Sale Price: $21.21
This book should become the standard reference in the debate about women’s ordination. The author cites copiously from American as well as European sources and presents the feminist position in the words and categories of the leading feminist authors. But, for the first time, the whole question is placed in the comprehensive context of anthropology, biology, psychology, philosophy, and theology. You will find a balanced presentation of the profound consistency of the Catholic Church’s teaching and the practice concerning the role of women in the Church and in society. Written in a scholarly, yet very readable manner.
“The work was accompanied by an ecumenical concern from the very start, to which I am indebted insofar as I have tried to take due account of the international debate on my topic, including the part played by non-Catholic Christian communities. I have, therefore, placed special value on the biblical foundations of the larger structure of the Catholic Faith, and have proceeded from there in connection with Tradition.
I am very glad that an English edition will now be published in the United States, for here the topic of “women in the Church” is discussed with special fervor. On quite a number of pages, the reader will find references to the American situation and citations from American literature.”
— Manfred Hauke
“Undoubtedly the definitive work available on this important topic.”
— Hans Urs von Balthasar
Manfred Hauke, Ph.D., is a German priest who teaches dogmatic theology at the University of Augsburg. He is very conversant with the leading literature on the topic of women priests and has written numerous articles on this and other theological topics.
This is indeed very sad. But if Fr Bourgeois really believes that women should be priests, and if he also knows that the Church will not (can not) change her teaching in this regard, he must follow his conscience and do the honourable thing – leave! I pray that he will realise his error. It must be quite frightening, the thought of making his own way after all these years.
20 years ago I met a couple teenagers who attended a Maryknoll school in Hawaii. They had never heard, until we happened to mention it to them, that Jesus is God!
Father, I completely agree on all of your points relating to women’s ordination, but I’m wondering why the dig at protesting the School of the Americas? I’m an American, and I’m proud of it, but I don’t have any problem admitting that some of our foreign policy has not been ethical, and the School of Americas seems like a prime example. Surely protesting the School of the Americas is not a sign of heterodoxy; wanting to ordain women is.
Good ole Ray states that all the Christian denoinations have done what he espouses. Funny, neither the Roman Catholic nor the Eastern Orthodox Church recognizes a valid priesthood exists in any of them. So go become a Protestant minister and conclude by saying: here I stand; I can do no other. God help me. Amen.
Yes so very sad. As Catholics our conscience must be submitted to the authority of revealed truth. If we sincerely believe other than what God has revealed to us in the deposit of faith then we are truly not Catholic. If this be the case then the eternal weight of this consquence is beyond sad.
Lucerna corporis tui est oculus tuus. Si oculus tuus fuerit simplex, totum corpus tuum lucidum erit. Si autem oculus tuus fuerit nequam, totum corpus tuum tenebrosum erit. Si ergo lumen, quod in te est, tenebræ sunt : ipsæ tenebræ quantæ erunt?
Fr. DeCoste
As he was excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church in 2008, is Fr. Bourgeois even still a Priest holding the title of ‘Father’? How can an excommunicated Priest still even be a member of an order?
I used to think that being in ignorance was the worst thing but it seems that being in ignorance and refusing or incapable of accepting correction is far worse. Will pray for him and all he is influencing.
I never see the argument that I USE TO use to argue that women can be priests. Jesus didn’t appoint any wome,n and if He were to do so, it would’ve been His Mother. Right? Well, I use to say that the reason Jesus didn’t appoint His Mother was because she was already a priest, ordained by His Father and the Holy Spirit. After all, Mary was the first to say THIS IS MY BODY; THIS IS MY BLOOD, and she did it incarnately. So the first priest before anyone else was female.
However, I gradually came to see that if Jesus wasn’t able to ordain His Mother, then neither can His Church.
“After much reflection and many conversations with fellow priests and women, I believe sexism is at the root of excluding women from the priesthood. Sexism, like racism, is a sin.”
This is where the biggest problem with the ordination of women lies. If not ordaining women is sexist and if sexism is sin, we have a bigger problem than we realize. Jesus did not ordain women (choose them to be apostles) therefore Jesus was sexist and since sexism is sin, Jesus was also a sinner. In which case he was not who he said he was and we are not redeemed – at least not by him. Arguing that Jesus was merely following the customs and mores of the time doesn’t solve the problem either since “going along to get along” when it involves committing an injustice is still sin. Besides, “going along to get along” wasn’t really the kind of thing Jesus did – thus his crucifixion. I am afraid Jesus’ not ordaining women leaves us exactly where we are now. Either the Jesus and the Church are right or they are wrong. If they are wrong then Jesus was a sinner and Christianity itself is false. There are no other options.
Did I mistake something or did the quote from Fr Ratzinger (or was he a Cardinal by then?) have an “…” in it? Sadly, this wouldn’t be the first I’d ever seen someone misuse such tools to fail to print critical material. Heck, the media buzz regarding Pope Benedict’s comments about condoms sometimes quoted him word for word, and they STILL got it wrong!
No wonder my classmates and I came out of high school so..bewildered.
Sorry, Fr Bourgeois, the rule of the Church is the same since 20 centuries: Obey or leave.
A huge number have obeyed since the beginning and a few disobeyed. The Church still stands with those who obeyed. Where are the others?
And recently we could watch the comeback to the RCCC of thousands of anglican faithfuls for that very reason that they couldn’t withstand seeing women priests ordinated.
Then Fr Bourgeois, you can found your own church but don’t expect it to stand for a long time.
When I was a young man in the military, I was a complete idiot and a terrible soldier. I recant of my past beliefs and idiocy.
Why is the conscience crowd always forget the “well formed” qualifier? This guys is really, really sad. May God have mercy on his soul.
rtjl,
Nice catch on that. As with most heretics, they are always in the end attacking Christ himself and usually his divinity.
Okay, I see him as a “nut” with very faulty logic and reasoning on multiple levels. To me he makes no sense at all. And his examples, more of immature view points swayed by a persuasive speaker/leader than the actions of someone that has studied various viewpoints and exercised discernment.
Has me wondering, does he really have a call to the vocation of priest, or was it just a good sounding idea he could mostly support?
We have no reason to believe he didn’t have a vocation (and he still does, even though he’s spitting on it). At a certain point, you can’t blame everything on bad initial formation. This is a man who never got out of the Seventies and has been trying every wind of doctrine ever since. Of course he’s forgotten what he used to know.
You know, according to the arguments in this letter, my conscience tells me that I can eat chocolate all day without committing the sin of gluttony. 1) All food is for us to eat, according to Peter’s dream. 2) How can anyone say that the call from God to eat food is authentic, but
the call of my tummy for chocolate is not? 3) God created the tree of life and saved us by hanging on a tree. Cocoa grows on trees. 4) Wiccans have a rite of chocolate, and so did the Aztecs. Okay, it’s a joke, but still — why not in the Catholic Church? 4) There’s a Vatican document that says “the provision of food… always represents a natural means for preserving life… Its use should therefore be considered ordinary and proportionate”. If that applies to feeding sick people, it should apply to me feeding my face.
I’ve discussed this with my refrigerator. Chocolate comes from Mexico, and it was sacred there. So if you tell me not to gorge myself on chocolate, you are obviously racist against Hispanics and Native Americans. Also, you hate the goodness of Creation.
I would not be so quick to say that Fr. Bourgeois just needs to read the right documents or the right books. He does not seem to be above twisting Scripture to fit his argument (for example, he quotes Galatians 3:28 but not 1 Timothy 2:12 or 1 Corinthians 14:34); and if he will not take heed of Holy Scripture then it’s unlikely to would listen to Peter Kreeft, or C.S. Lewis, or our Holy Father John Paul II.
1 Timothy 2:12: “But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to use authority over the man: but to be in silence.”
1 Corinthians 14:34: “Let women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted them to speak, but to be subject, as also the law saith.”
Roy Bourgeois, M.M., says: “Jesus also chose a woman, Mary Magdalene, to be the first witness to His resurrection, which is at the core of our faith.” But he didn’t say it’s also core that Mary is the Mother of the Church. The “womyn” priesthood movement overlooks the historic (and stereotypical) concern of Jewish motherhood — helping your SONS grow up and accomplish something significant. It accords with the plan of Our Lady that the training she invested in her Son led to His calling men to the priesthood. And therefore, in a deep ontological sense, to believe women can be priests is actually anti-woman. Bourgeois and pro-woman priest protesters — please stop betraying the woman who said: “Do what he tells you.”
The two founders of Maryknoll, who suffered so much at the hands of the Chinese Communists, must be shaking their heads over this wayward ‘son’ of theirs.
The sooner he’s out, the better-so stop pussyfooting around, superiors at Maryknoll!
‘Bourgeois and pro-woman priest protesters-please stop betraying the woman who said, ‘Do what He [sic] tells you’-that’s a good one, swissmiss!
Maryknoll finally grew a puny little pair of cajones. Now, whether they were forced to or not, is another question. But maybe that doesn’t matter as long as they do.
Also is a very vivid example of someone who has been so totally overwhelmed by the secularist, consumerist informed anti-Catholic bigotry, that he in effect “eats his young”…Vibrant families and the power of the Eucharist are public enemy number one in the eyes of the dogma which he embraces. To disrupt this process and to take up the position to interfere with others’ human rights to practice their religion as they see fit, to willingly take part in this, it shows the level of deception that the culture of death has embraced and stooped to in its fight to perpetuate a genocide at all costs. Would it be acceptable to say to the Tibetan people that they are sexist and as a result it must be determined that the next Lama must be female? Or what if a Buddhist woman says that she is called to be a monk, will live with the monks, not a nun. Yet it is acceptable, most likely through powerful media backing from folks who despise the Church, to say that Catholics are not free to practice their faith as they are sexist and sinful sexists at that…BTW have met young Buddhist nuns who seem most fulfilled in their vocations. Just like this is a swipe at women who live out their vocations in the Church, this insults women of other faiths who feel grateful and blessed to be called as women to roles in their faiths.
“In the Episcopal, Methodist, Lutheran, United Church of Christ, Presbyterian and other Christian churches, God’s call of women to the priesthood is affirmed and women are ordained. Why not in the Catholic church?”
Uh–none of these churches have a priesthood, and–with the exception of some high-church Episcopals–all would emphatically reject the idea that their ministers are priests.
Sad indeed, the depth of ignorance exhibited.
Oh, boy, the Conscience God rears its ugly head. I don’t know about everyone else, but my conscience has lead me astray more than once. In the Episcopal Church, I’ve had the pleasure of knowing a couple of women priests who I thought were very good shepherdesses, but ultimately this is about changing one thing as a precedent for changing many other things. Yeah, you have to hold the line, or you end up with seminaries filled to the brim with “activists” of every sort who glide past the word of God with a breezy, “Oh, that’s so old-fashioned!” Fitness for the priesthood comes down to “diversity,” youth (doesn’t pay to ordain anyone too close to retirement age) and whether your ideas about sex are sufficiently progressive. An acquaintance of mine was surprised to find in her discernment process that the people working with her were very disturbed that she declined to state her orientation because it was her intention to remain celibate. They wanted an Hispanic female, you see, but they didn’t want one who would advocate celibacy in stark contrast with the attitudes and views of the gay agenda.
There are so many ways to lose sight of God.
Bye, bye, Fr. Roy. While this is indeed very, very sad, perhaps it needs to start happening more often, not only to dissenting priests, but also to the “magisterium of nuns” as well. This is all ultimately about obedience. If Fr. Roy and every other priest or religious who dissents from Church teachings as well as their diocesan bishops and/or rules of their respective religious orders can no longer keep their vows or promises, then it’s time for them to go.
9 Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.
16 So let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.
43 You have heard that it has been said, You shall love your neighbour, and hate your enemy. 44 But I say to you, Love your enemies: do good to them that hate you: and pray for them that persecute and calumniate you:
If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I have become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. 2 And if I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I should have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. 3 And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profits me nothing.
13 And now there remain faith, hope, and charity, these three: but the greatest of these is charity.
I do not agree with Roy but that does not give me license to call him names and then say but I’ll pray for him to justify my actions; if I disobey The Word of GOD to defend His Church what or whose purpose will that serve?
When I write somebody off as being a religious nutjob, as I occasionally do, the #1 reason is politics.
Look, if religion was supposed to be about politics, Christ would have seen to it he was the Caesar of Rome, but he didn’t did he? In fact, he was tempted in the desert and turned all of it down.
BTW, the #2 reason is stupidity. Plain, pure stupidity, as in park your brain at the door and look at everyone like a goldfish after feeding time. There is a difference between humility and limpness. It’s a wonder some people can stand up.
And yet in charity is it best to give credence to those faulty ideas which are engineered and organized, and totally empowered by opinion makers and money? And is it doing good to Father Roy when the Maryknoll organization itself chooses to impose sanctions? For my part I’d rather protect His little ones than put on the millstone.
benedetta, in reply:
“And yet in charity is it best to give credence to those faulty ideas which are engineered and organized, and totally empowered by opinion makers and money?”
I have no idea what that sentence means. I went on retreat once where we were urged to pray for the oppressor. Is it like that?
“And is it doing good to Father Roy when the Maryknoll organization itself chooses to impose sanctions?” ABSOLUTELY YES. But it’s overdue by about a decade and a half.
“For my part I’d rather protect His little ones than put on the millstone.” Who might be His little ones, exactly, from your point of view? And why?
It angers me when lefties talk about US involvement in South America and totally ignore the historic role of communist expansionism on that continent.
I shocked my college professor recently when I pointed out to him that, for all the murderous barbarism of the Third Reich, it is a well-established historic fact that the Soviet Union murdered more people than even Hitler did.
Bizarrely communism is still seen as less evil than fascism.
Oops, sorry not the Soviet Union in particular, rather Communist regimes collectively (see ‘The Black Book of Communism’).
No Shane, you’re correct. Stalin murdered about twice as many people as Hitler and ruled longer. But Mao Tse-Tung beat them all by a country mile.
catholicmidwest, I always enjoy a discussion about whether it is uncharitable to openly discuss and counter ideas on the blogosfero, and indeed here not just that but one is described as “disobeying God’s Word”, because that endless loop also involves a detraction when one commenter tells the other that for her beliefs she or he is being uncharitable…
With respect to the “little ones” it means simply that. It is so obvious it seems it hardly need be pointed out that what is regarded as “cool” and therefore must be imitated by the innocent just trying to grow up and come to grips, whether one has an opportunity to form one’s conscience or not, has so much backing in wealth and power in this country that to say it is an “industrial complex” is an understatement. And there are even littler innocents not even permitted to see the light of day by this doctrine which reigns supreme over our land.
What about what Fr. Roy says about people “being called by God” and that in answer to Maryknollers’ prayers for vocations that they are being “sent women” to be ordained priests, by God. This smacks of what the Church would call “private revelation” does it not. I am not bound to agree that God is indeed calling as claimed, and indeed if what the one being called is persuaded to do is not in conformity with the faith then perhaps it is not in fact God that the person has made contact with. ?
catholicmidwest, thanks for that. Maoists played a leading role in the 1968 student riots in France (and the ‘revolutionary left’ of the 60s is the establishment of today).
Stalinism does have a bit of a stigma attached to it (though nowhere near as much as Nazism) but Trotskyism is still quite fashionable in academic circles, at least here in Europe. It’s viewed as an ‘acceptable’ and ‘humane’ form of communism.
I’ve read Trotsky and while he’s an interesting thinker his criticisms of the USSR are very sectarian and pedantic. Of course for him the USSR was a mere ‘deformed workers state’ rather than an irredemably evil totalitarianism, which he himself played a leading part in creating.
Lenin and Trotsky were every bit as bloodthirsty and hate-filled as Stalin, perhaps even more so.
Roy’s letter is an excellent study in Modernism. He has actually done us a favor in that those who find it hard to understand what Modernism is need only read his letter to Maryknoll.
1) Roy understands Revelation not as an unchanging deposit given once for all through Christ and the Apostles, but as evolving truth which culture and history allows us to change. There is no “development of doctrine” but the evolving of doctrine from one truth into a totally different truth.
2) Along with evolving doctrine, Roy also sees Jesus as not knowing about His messianic identity and the plan to found the Church as His pillar and foundation of truth. As the Modernist and heretic Loisy used to say, “Jesus preached the Kingdom of God and the Church happened instead.” For the Modernist, the Catholic Church is the miscarriage or abortion of the Kingdom of God, something that came out messed up, not what God intended or wanted for the world.
3) With the Modernist Jesus so unhinged from a divine, Messianic role, there is not really Revelation as objective truth, but instead, God’s light which comes from “interior experience” and many sources. These sources, according to the Modernists, can be my gut feelings, or other sources outside the Bible, and must be used to correct the Church and save her from her errors.
4) Franz Jagerstatter or Rosa Parks have as much to say about woman’s ordination as the Pope or bishops. They are even more authoritative, for the Modernist, because they are not repeating doctrines but following their conscience which we all know has the true answer because Roy says so.
5) Roy’s priest friends and woman friends have affirmed his experience and interior light of conscience. With the Modernist Jesus not knowing who He was, and His Church not being divine but being an accident of history with concerns for power and control, it is no wonder that Roy cannot budge. He is in another religion, and it is not the religion of St. Pius X and Pascendi, but Tyrell, Loisy, and those who St. Pius X had to drive from the Church in order to protect her from the “synthesis of all heresies.”
In other words, don’t let the door hit you where the good Lord split ya.
Matthew 26:20
When it was evening, he sat at table with the twelve disciples…
Luke 22:19
And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”
Our Lord instituted the Sacrament of Holy Orders at the same time He instituted the Sacrament of Holy Eucharist. The twelve apostles at table with Him were men. No women. God Himself chose to ordain an all-male priesthood. Who are we to question His reasons?
Job 38, 39, 40, 41
Luke 1:38
And Mary said, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.”
If God had desired women priests, He would have ordained the one woman in human history who was obedient to His will at every moment of her life, who loves Him completely and eternally.
Since the LORD did not choose to ordain His own Blessed Mother to priesthood, WHY ON EARTH would He now be calling any Sister to be a woman priest? What these women believe is a “calling” from God is really a figment of self-will.
There but for the grace of God go I.
This is not a matter of “conscience” but one of disobedience. Sins of pride are insidious and deadly. It could be that those who have held their mistaken beliefs for so many years, who have been brainwashed by secular culture, are no longer able to discern the truth. They may no longer have knowledge and consent. This habitual sin of pride and selfishness is too familiar to me. I do not judge them, but pray that their hearts may be converted. Nothing is impossible for God. We will not go wrong if we ask the intercession of our Mother Mary and follow her example of humility.
One more thing. As a Catholic woman, I am very much offended by the erroneous assertion by Roy Bourgeois that women are somehow being mistreated by the Church. His misrepresentation is most certainly Not Appreciated and I will thank him not to speak for me.
Jesus, meek and humble of heart, make my heart like unto Thine
Sadly, Catholics For Female Ordination not only exists, it is encouraged by certain pop culture clergy like the Colbert Report’s in-house Jesuit. His Facebook page is a pool of dissent. We need to pray for them as the eternal pool of fire is a distinct possibility.
And if witnesses are to be believed that fb page proclaims that the so-called popular book that the USCCB this week described as conflicting with the faith is used in coursework for laity receiving degrees in theology in the diocese of Alb — not at all surprising but interesting to confirm the sources of error that are then in turn foisted on unsuspecting minds without ability to read up, question or debate…
The Church is mistreating the women, the homosexuals, the lesbians, the transgenders, the paedophiles, the communists, the maoists, the prots, the anglicans, the orthodoxs, the buddhists, the sunnite muslims, the shiite muslims, the atheists, the agnostics, the satanists, the voodooists, the adventists, the Jehovah witnesses, the Jupiter worshippers, even my dog is complaining about a priest whi kicked him in the ass.
The Churc
Did I forget anyone?
The self-delusional self-aggrandizing tone starts right at the very beginning (before the self-pitying clicks in) : “From the pen of Roy Bourgeouis”. Honestly…
But what’s truly sad is the unswerving – and misguided – self-righteousness of the tone. Not that, as an Irishman, I’d be much into quoting Oliver Cromwell but his exasperated shout to his opponents comes to mind: “Will you ever, in the bowels of Christ, consider that you may be wrong?” Or his exhortation to the corrupt Parliament:”In the name of God, GO!” Most appropriate in this case.
Does Fr. Bourgeois even mention Our Lady? Mary is the very essence of what women are called to be; we as female, have our own charisms and beauties to bring to our church. It IS because of priests like him that the Maryknolls are in deep trouble. Maybe what we are witnessing here is the beginnings of a cleansing instituted by Christ to save His church from those, on the inside, who are so determined to destroy it!
It’s interesting to see this discussion move towards discussion of conscience, what it is and what it’s limits are. I strongly encourage everyone to read Bl. John Henry Newman’s famous treatment of that subject, Letter to the Duke of Norfolk. It’s very readable, and funny in places (the famous quip about toasting to conscience, then the Pope, is from this).:
http://www.newmanreader.org/works/anglicans/volume2/gladstone/index.html
David Homoney makes an excellent observation when he says that the “conscience crowd always forget the ‘well formed’ qualifier.” I’m sure it’s one that Bl. JHN would also have made – he argued that the “insufficiency of the natural light [i.e. conscience]” is the cause of “the Church, the Pope, the Hierarchy [being], in the Divine purpose, the supply of an urgent demand.”
Nonetheless, Newman maintains, with the Fourth Lateran Council, that: “He who acts against his conscience loses his soul.” [‘Quidquid fit contra conscientiam, ædificat ad gehennam.’]. If Fr. Bourgeois truly believes in his (I dare say ‘mangled’) conscience that God is calling women to be priests, and that the Church is sexist and to be resisted on this account, and cannot bring himself round to the Church’s way of thinking after serious effort (which may be unknowable to us observers), then “in that case it is his duty to follow his own private conscience, and patiently to bear it, if the [Church] punishes him.” Think about it – he’s already got the sins of leading people astray, and (possibly) pride, in placing his own opinion so high above the Church’s teaching. I wouldn’t want him to add “disobeyed my conscience” to the list – he’s got enough problems.
That’s interesting, Chatto. And a great blog you’ve got going too. Really liked your reflection on the icon at your parish and the that way sacred art encourages us.
Chatto,
It’s correct that we have a moral obligation to follow our consciences. But a man with a conscience formed by vincible ignorance is morally culpable.
albizzi: Did I forget anyone?
Yes!
“The Magisterium of Nuns”!
@ Chatto: “David Homoney makes an excellent observation when he says that the ‘conscience crowd always forget the “well formed” qualifier.'”
Not always … but when they do remember it, they automatically assume that their conscience is well-formed (well, how could it not, since they’ve come to such wonderful, loving and tolerant conclusions?), or they have it confused with “well-informed”.
E.g.: Kate Childs Graham declared as her final argument for being pro-choice, “… my Catholic faith tells me I can be. The Catechism [of the Catholic Church] reads, ‘[Conscience] is man’s most secret core and his sanctuary. There he is alone with God whose voice echoes in his depths’ [1776]. Even St. Thomas Aquinas said it would be better to be excommunicated than to neglect your individual conscience. So really, I am just following his lead. After years of research, discernment and prayer, my conscience has been well informed. Being a prochoice Catholic does not contradict my faith; rather, in following my well-informed conscience, I am adhering to the central tenet of Catholic teaching—the primacy of conscience.” (“I am a pro-choice Catholic”, “Young Voices”, NCFw, 2/26/09)
Talk about special pleading!
Reading this didn’t make me angry. It just made me sad. Very very sad.
Fr. Roy is wrong. But he has a soft heart, and he feels he stands for justice. But what he is written is offensive.
It is offensive to equate the “fight” for women’s ordination with the civil rights movement, or the fight to abolish slavery. Only a white person who is somewhat racist in his core could make this analogy.
Women aren’t being denied freedom. They aren’t being beaten. They aren’t being lynched for looking at a white man wrong. They aren’t being thrown into chains. They aren’t being sprayed with fire hoses for peacefully assembling or trying to eat at a restaurant.
For people to use the suffering of African Americans to support their every pet project is very very very wrong. Please stop it Fr. Roy.
While I pray for this man and all who are sick and in need of the Divine Physician- I find his separation from Mary Knoll late; his disregard for having been automatically excommunicated obnoxious and find his particular “ministry to the Church” expendable to say the least.
Why do people join the Church with the desire to change the Church? If it’s not to acknowledge the Church’s inherent value? Yet- irradicate the Church of Her immemorial teaching and what have you? Protestantism – the man can go be episcopal / since this is the club whose rules he follows.
Dear Fr. Bourgeois,
The devil convinces people that they are doing the right thing, all the time. That is why we have to chasten ourselves against these lies and learn to embrace the teaching of the Church, whose Wisdom is not only with greater renown then our own, but has at its center, a supernatural font which can never be covered over.
It really is amazing how duped some of these, initially, well-intentioned priests and religious are. We all want to save the world, but not all of us are called to be priests. I dare say that Fr. Bourgeois would benefit from a reading of Alphonsus Liguori’s “Dignity and Duties of the Priest”.
There are a great many decrepit religious orders that no longer have any reason to exist since they’ve defaulted on their obligations and no longer teach Catholic doctrine. But the problem is that the remains of the temporal structures still exist–old people who still belong to the order and don’t have anywhere else to go, buildings which have been rented out for various purposes, boards of directors and paperwork still in force. Some of these religious orders still rely on donations to augment the legacy incomes from their former works in hospitals, universities and so on, along with rents from various social agencies on vacated property. BTW, generally, none of this property and infrastructure belongs to dioceses, but rather to the orders themselves, which will fall out of existence when the last religious dies. It’s a biological thing at this point.
Here locally we have a religious order that owns a large tract of land and some very impressive, very large buildings that they continue to hang onto because they have a retirement home onsite (in which they do not work), a state welfare agency in another office, a hospital next door from which they still draw some income (also at which they do not work), and a questionable “retreat” house which supplies them with rent monies. This supports the remaining religious onsite, most of whom are quite old. They also have an eco-farm which they use for their weird activities (solstice ceremonies et al), interject into their “retreat” activities on occasion, and use as a money-maker for what remains of the order. They have rented to a surprisingly diverse group of people at the “retreat” facilities, some of whom are not in any way Catholic.
This is pretty typical, I gather. There are a few dissidents on the well-established progressive speaking circuit that frequent these places and are rather popular with the progressive crowd. Fr. Roy is one of these. And yes, the fact that he’s excommunicated doesn’t hurt his notoriety amongst this weird crowd. He comes off as a martyr of some sort to some of them. That’s how screwed up they are. Luckily, there’s far fewer of them then their influence in the church might suggest, although they have had the ears of bishops for far too long.
The other thing that goes on with these old decrepit orders nowdays is that they don’t get vocations. And also that they are in a period of consolidation. The order described above recently merged with another similar order in order to conserve property and maintain a corporate structure, and also to have someone to bequeath all this property to when the time comes. They are a rather powerful order because they have their hands in a lot of places and are very much entrenched in the status quo, which for womens’ religious orders is far left, ala the Leadership Conference of Women Religious.
Any starry-eyed ideas that people might get about reforming this mess, one young postulant at a time, or somehow obtaining the real estate for the local diocese are completely misplaced. Not gonna happen. They have too much clout and are too well hooked up, all the way to the grave.
Mmm, ok-bye!
Remaining in the Catholic Church gave this man (as well as many others) a bully pulpit. Now he is irrelevant. Two years from now, he will be Roy Who?
Men like this priest display a discernible homosexual mentality. Why do I say that? I say that because there is this constant “oppressive society” paradigm with which they color the world when their absurd demands are not meet. The reason they make absurd demands is because they insist ultimately that there is no God and there is no metaphysical benevolence and no natural law. The only reason the ordination of woman can not be done, the only reason that same sex marriage is not possible is because there is an oligarchy of men on top (in the case of same sex marriage, men and women) who act out of an over sized ego diseased with bigotry. In the end, this malevolent oligarchy doesn’t have a reason. Every single reason that is given is dismissed by people like Roy Bourgeois (and homosexual/atheists) and authority itself is ridiculed as baseless. Men like Fr. Roy share the same disposition as teenagers who feel their parents are ogres because they are prohibited by their parents from staying out all night or hanging around with those friends doing drugs.
I’ll pray for Fr. Bourgeois. Women do have and have had a profound impact on the Church throughout Her history, all without being ordained. To say that woman have been discriminated against or diminished in their role is to ignore this impact and minimizes their contributions. Would Mother Theresa have been more effective as a priest than as a nun? What of St Catherine of Siena, would her contribution have been greater if she had been more than a lay sister?
Whenever I am told that I am “discriminated against my own Church” I have to laugh! It’s not a question of power or “equality”. It’s a question of what is God’s will for me? Right? I get so frusterated when I am expected to be something I am simply not. I am woman! Allow me to be that! Allow me to play the role by my nature I am made to play!
Pax
-chrryblssmprncss
Concerning how many years of faithful service Fr. Bourgeois has under his belt, Cardinal Levada was ordained in December of 1961, nearly 50 years ago. Surely the Cardinal has a good deal more experience in the area of discerning who does and does not have a vocation. Besides, they’ve both been around the block enough times to know that age and experience are not immunization against error. If years of service mattered to him, Fr. Bourgeois would be forced to defer to the Pope.
These advocates of the ordination of women somehow got the idea that someone with a mature vocation does not have to be obedient to the discernment of those who have the office to decide who is to be ordained. It is not as if women can currently present themselves to a convent and force themselves into a religious community because “God called me, so you have to take me.” The Holy Spirit doesn’t work that way, He never has, and He never could. At any rate, if Roman Catholic Womenpriests continues to pretend to wield a spiritual authority that does not need to foster an obedience that makes demands that supercede individual self-will, if they think their brand of righteousness is that uniquely compelling, then the fate of their own “benevolent” leadership is sealed.
In addition, the authentic Catholic concept of conscience seems foreign to them. The duty we have to conscience is first of all a duty to inform our consciences correctly. Adam and Eve followed what seemed right to them at the time. Judas followed what seemed right to him at the time. The people who nailed the Lord to the Cross were following their consciences, doing what they thought God wanted them to do. Saul thought he was serving God. Doing what takes guts or what fits your own person opinions about God’s will does not make one into a person of rightly-formed conscience.
Finally, if these fellow Catholics truly think that the priesthood is one caste and the laity an inferior caste, I fail to see how ordination of a few women would change that. The ordained women would get the power they thirst for, and the hundreds of millions of the rest of us still in the laity would still be left slumming it.