What follows should make EVERY CATHOLIC angry. There is no left or right or anything else in this. If you are Catholic, this should make you angry. If you read Patheos, or Rorate, or Aletheia you should be angry and, frankly, alarmed.
A few years ago, this would have been dismissed as science fiction. Now it is real.
As decentralization continues, could this come to a diocese near you?
This distressing item was in my email this morning. From Belgium, via “la Revue de presse succincte de l’archevêché de Malines-Bruxelles” bad news: HERE (my fast translation):
In “De Gazet van Antwerpen” (6/10, p. 8)
Monsignor Bonny, Bishop of Antwerp, wants a ritual for gays and cohabiting in a telling passage from the book “”Puis-je? Merci. Désolé”” (Can I? Thank you. Sorry.) a free dialogue about relationships, marriage and family published by Lannoo and to come out this October 11th. The bishop of Antwerp expresses himself, thinking aloud about new religious rituals. Bonny wrote the book with Roger Burggraeve and Ilse Van Halst. “The question is whether we should include everything in a single model,” says Bonny. [That’s code for changing the definition of matrimony.] “Should we not develop into a diversity of rituals in which we can recognize the relationship between homosexuals from a believing and ecclesial perspective?” [To bless sodomy?] Similarly, the attitude towards divorced persons engaged in a new relationship would necessitate a different approach. Bonny believes that the Church, in some cases, could bless a second relationship. “For a long time, the Orthodox Church practices the confirmation of a new relationship for reasons of mercy, [“Say the magic word, win a hundred dollars!”] which enables you as a new couple to rediscover a place in the community. Nevertheless, this new blessing is not repeating or substitute sacramental first marriage. Which was and remains unique. [Safe to say. What else could any relationship between two people be?]
This is sly.
Granted that this is only a blurb about a book, but you can see in the blurb what is going on.
Consider a couple in which at least one Catholic partner is civilly divorced and remarried without a declaration of nullity. There are good enough reasons for them to cohabit (e.g., raising children… you know the drill by now). They say they will commit themselves to live in continence as brother and sister, best of friends, etc. The Church works with them, as the Church always works with every soul who desires holiness and heaven. The buzz word is now “accompany”. It may happen that, being in proximity, a near occasion of sin, they slip and have relations, but they repent, go to confession, and try again.
What the bishop does is blend in with that scenario, the case of a homosexual couple. Another way of seeing long-term, “committed” homosexual relationships which involve sexual activity is friendship gone terribly astray. It’s a gross distortion of friendship. The fact of their same-sex attraction make their cohabitation an occasion of sin. However, maybe there are reasons for them to live together. So, they commit themselves to live in continence, as if they were brothers, the best of friends, etc. The Church works with them, as the Church always works with every soul who desires holiness and heaven. The buzz word is now “accompany”. It may happen that, being in proximity, a near occasion of sin, they slip and have relations, but they repent, go to confession, and try again.
This seems to me that what that bishop is proposing is full, cringing capitulation to the world and baser appetites. The Church should inspire and help people to move from sin to grace, to conversion, and to support them in the suffering that conversion entails as they do. The cobbling up of rites which in any way resemble a blessing of an adulterous or actively homosexual relationship is a mockery of matrimony as intended by God. Such blessings or rites would surely erode the understanding that Catholics have of marriage and would send crossed, confused signals to the world watching the Church, which is in effect the last bastion of moral teaching in a degenerate age.
This takes the Kasperite solution to the next, logical step.
We must be on guard to remain the Catholic Church, and not become the Precious Snowflake Church.
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Surely if the Holy Father fails to act on this, it must be viewed as tacit approval?
[He may act but through channels that are not public. He may not act. I would, but I am not yet Pope.]
We can only go so far couching the current movement in language like “mercy”, “accompaniment”, and “having an open heart”. Hopefully such proposals as this book will shake some higher-ups in the Church into realizing how far Satan will go in taking advantage of the current confusion surrounding the norms for Communion for the divorced and remarried.
Is it me, or when I read missives such as the Bishops, I smell the briefest whiffs of sulfur…
Presumption is not the same as ‘mercy’. And for those prelates that approve, condone, accompany sinful situations, is it not as if they themselves were guilty of the sin? Isn’t that what some saints have told us?
In other news, Bishop Bonny is one of those sent out yesterday by the Holy Father acting together with Justin Welby, who in their joint declaration said, “Today we rejoice to commission them and send them forth in pairs as the Lord sent out the seventy-two disciples. Let their ecumenical mission to those on the margins of society be a witness to all of us, and let the message go out from this holy place, as the Good News was sent out so many centuries ago, that Catholics and Anglicans will work together to give voice to our common faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, to bring relief to the suffering, to bring peace where there is conflict, to bring dignity where it is denied and trampled upon.”
The Holy Father has acted on this, with Pathfinder Synods 1 & 2, then Amoris Laetitia , but of course the orthodox pretence perhaps suits so many now innured to the grand plan, it will get much much worse, and the subtle acceleration of destruction continues apace. European civilisation is crumbling, but so many over here and across the pond are blindly Chamberlainesque.
I think this Bishop Bonny needs to move to Canada and become an Episcopalian, where the Episcopalian Conference of Bishops in Canada agreed this summer to support so called same sex marriage.
I was glad to see that some Canadian Episcopalian Bishops were in opposition, but in my humble opinion i I would like to have seen more.
The last priest in charge at the Catholic parish close to my office was a former Episcopalian who came home to Rome in 1995. The life issues were a huge part in his crossing the Tiber.
The Old Catholics have been in the vanguard of the approach that seems in evidence, here, as far as I’ve seen (e.g., Joris Vercammen ten years ago on recognizing unions of baptized homosexuals as a contribution to the “mission of the Church”) – but perhaps Dr. Tighe can illuminate this context better than most.
This has already been happening for some time now, albeit without fanfare. It will accelerate and come out in the open. The majority of Catholics (most of whom don’t believe in Catholicism anyway) will accept it, including a huge number of clergy.
Who in his/her right mind would believe that the uncle/priest mentioned in the article below did not give “the couple” his blessing, even though he may not have officially presided over “the wedding”?
Detroit Free Press, December 15, 2015.
Because their Catholic faith is against same-sex marriage, Bryan Victor and Thomas Molina-Duarte made their wedding vows this summer before a Protestant minister in a Detroit Episcopal church.
Those in attendance included many family members, including Victor’s uncle, who is a Catholic priest and Macomb County pastor. The Rev. Ronald Victor did not officiate but was there because, he told his nephew, the Catholic Church “needs more examples of gay holiness.”
At the men’s wedding ceremony, family was in force. “They are two very holy guys,” Catholic priest Ronald (Ron) Victor said of his nephew and nephew-in-law. “I do see their union as being sacred and sacramental, in the sense that it reflects God’s love.”
http://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/detroit/2015/12/14/how-married-gay-catholic-couple-lives-their-faith/76989746/
[He should be suspended until he makes a public retraction.]
Follow up to the last post. Another quote from Detroit Free Press article.
“Ron Victor” is Father Ronald Victor, pastor of St. Isidore Catholic Parish in Macomb, Michigan, in the Archdiocese of Detroit. The article quotes the archbishop as having no comment.
“It’s been one of those things when somebody you know and love a lot comes out, it kind of changes your perspective,” said Ron Victor.
Ron Victor said he was moved by the wedding ceremony, and at the same time, “a little angry and a little disappointed that we couldn’t do it in a church where I could have officiated.”
He said he believes many priests would be open to blessing same-sex unions, although “they can’t be real public with that.”
[Allow me to be public: NEVER.]
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The Netherlands and Flemish Belgium are the only places in the world where the sex abuse stuff was actually institutionalised all the way “up” to the hierarchy.
The Netherlands scandal was so grotesquely evil that not even the anti-catholic liberal press could stomach reporting it honestly to the general public ; and the Flemish Dioceses in Belgium were contaminated by those demonic practices to a significant degree.
It is very distressing but also sadly unsurprising to see such evil doctrines being proposed by the false priests of that region.
Vices are incapable of being blessed, and those who pretend to do so are simply trail-blazing a pathway to Hell.
So what’s next? Are priests going to “accompany” serial killers, mafiosi, embezzlers, car thieves, and so forth, until they “rediscover a place in the community”? Oh joy! Oh, amoris laetitia!
Meet your new cardinal. Not the same as your old cardinal.
Cdl Daaneels is from Belgium, just like this evil Bishop Bonny. Daaneels bragged that he helped run the St. Galens Mafia that worked to undermine JP2 and B16…and worked to elect Cdl Bergoglio as pontiff.
Daaneels – before he retired – was exposed in Belgian media on audio recording covering up homo-sexual incest by a fellow Belgian Bishop who abused his own nephew. The nephew’s family provided the recording – made when they met with Church authorities to ask for justice for their abused son.
Despite this, when Cdl Bergoglio was elected Pope, he took Daaneels out of retirement and placed him in power at the “Family Synod.” So that is what “family” is all about in the current pontificate.
So it is no surprise that Cardinals and Bishops and Popes who condone covering up homo-sexual predation by clergy and Bishops would produce a fellow Bishop calling for blessings for homosexual “unions” and re-married “unions.”
I am reminded of what was said some years ago about the Church in Northern Europe: They think everything changes but the bread and the wine.
NB: Bishop Bonny was named a bishop in 2008 by BXVI.
I would love to see the return and use of the anathema maranatha solely for hierarchs who speak so openly about changing what has always been taught. Nine-one-five isn’t enough of a censure for this kind of… eugh.
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The larger culture always influences members of the Church. When certain social, financial, political or artistic revolutions are not recognized as coming from the Enemy, we always go down a dark road. Opening the lid to Pandora’s Box has consequences. Unfortunately the consequences on earth are often felt by those who inherit the “mess”. We, the little people, look to our priests and bishops to lead the way. One priest has enormous influence every day. Thank God for priests. But we forget that we, the little people, have a mighty weapon, our faith. If all of us took to our knees more often and prayed the Rosary respect for God would return in this country. There are Rosary Rallies all over the country this Saturday dedicated to a conversion of our country and sinners. I realize I’m simple minded, no theologian or philosopher, but I believe what Mary said over and over to us. An exorcism of this country would be a grand thing though!
Should this bishop even be considered Catholic? I think not. Should he be excommunicated? I think so. He can become a Lutheran or Anglican!
JohnW,
as I noted above, it has pleased the Holy Father (together with Justin Welby) to send him out “as the Lord sent out the seventy-two disciples”, that his “ecumenical mission to those on the margins of society be a witness to all of us,” showing “that Catholics and Anglicans will work together […] to bring dignity where it is denied and trampled upon.” I wonder how that “dignity” is conceived of, and what is meant by its being “denied and trampled upon”? (Does this included another raft of “code for changing the definition of matrimony”?) And I wonder what Robert Innes thinks of (in the words of the Diocese in Europe website) being “paired with the Roman Catholic Bishop of Antwerp, Johan Bonny”? I suspect a lot of what might be called ‘Lumen gentium 15’ Lutherans and Anglicans would not welcome such ‘pairing’, much less the transition you suggest!
“Should we not develop into a diversity of rituals in which we can recognize the relationship between homosexuals from a believing and ecclesial perspective?”
Ahm,….No you should not.
You should show mercy to those choosing to operate outside of God’s law by being honest with them about the peril in which they place their immortal soul.