Remember the Lesbian who was denied Holy Communion in the Archdiocese of Washington DC? Check HERE.
While it is possible to discuss whether can. 915 was properly applied, the oddest part of the incident raised the question of why this lesbian would go to the priest, Fr. Marcel Guarnizo, in the sacristy and share with him the fact of her lesbian activity and her intention to go to Communion.
Tom Peters, the young papist, has a good post on the woman in question. It includes a confirmation of the fact that she is also a self-identifying Buddhist. And she is apparently pretty eager to tell people about herself.
All this against the backdrop of legislation for same-sex unnatural unions in the state of Maryland where it all took place.
So, we circle back to the strong possibility that the priest was targeted, set up. So, though it is speculation, it appears that she could well have instrumentalized her dead mother to set a trap, knowing that press would find it all very juicy, in order to push her agenda.
Some might call me overly suspicious.
I wouldn’t put it past the left. I myself was wondering about this. I mean it seems quite suspicious to introduce yourself to the priest, clearly identifying herself as a lesbian, then feign shock when she is denied communion.
In light of her penchant for publicity-seeking, I wonder if her manifest sin would now be considered sufficiently notorious such that Canon 915 could be applied?
Seems more than a little fishy when a BUDDHIST howls about having been denied communion…..
For the sake of all souls involved, I’ll hope her public..exposure..happened mostly by happenstance.
If she was trying to receive Holy Communion for the benefit of her mother, here’s a news flash – she wasn’t there to see you, so it wasn’t necessary. I’m guessing she’s probably got a grudge against a priest from her childhood and now must be out to get the next one that she had problems with.
Well… it was probably a setup… but there really are people who try to be “Buddhist Catholics” and the like. Confused people with vague mishmashes of spirituality are pretty common these days.
I believed this was a ruse from day one. The radical left uses this tactic often and are effective with it. They know that by the time the truth emerges, it`s too late for the victim and the damage is done. The MSM will never revisit this story to make corrections. The saddest thing to me is how quickly the Diocese reacted before fully investigating the charges against this Holy Priest!
First we’ve got this ‘lesbian Buddhist activist’ –
Then we’ve got that ’30 year old Georgetown co-ed’ –
Even Blind Freddy could see the pattern here . . . . these people are agitators, pure and simple, and the Church is their target right now.
Fr. you are not the only one smelling something rotten in the State of Denmark:
http://www.knightsofdivinemercy.com/2012/03/06/on-the-lesbian-presenting-herself-for-communion-get-used-to-this/
On a side note I think this site also has featured an article or two of yours.
This is easy enough to see: if you can “take out” one priest out of ministry for being “unpastoral,” then every collar is fair game, and the majority of priests (or so they hope), will cower, while the braver are exiled to West Boondocks.
Let’s not forget that good Fr. Guarnizo was a very public anti-abortion clergyman who spoke in front of the death mill in Maryland. So he automatically became of target of the anti-life crowd.
Fr. Z, you are dead on with this one. The left will try to humiliate/sue the church into acquiescing to their ridiculous (and evil) agenda.
Father you’d make a good cop. He was targeted in a sting of that I’m quite certain. The radical left, the pro aborts, the pro homosexual “marriage” (not!) crowd all realize that every true and orthodix member of the Holy Roman Catholic Church is a soldier in the army they need to defeat. They battle on all fronts and are bolstered by knowing that the generally spineless, politically correct, afraid of their own shadow “leaders” of the Church will assist them in their endeavor. Want a Priest taken out of the battle? Simple enough. Bring enough heat that the leader (aka Bishop) does your dirty work for you. One of the principles of good leadership is that a real leader backs his people up when they are right. How many recent examples do we have of Bishops not backing Priests who are right? Too many. Spineless, no clue Bishops are aiding and abetting the enemy right before our eyes and in the process are destroying whatever force for good the Church in this country once had……and Obama and his minions (which includes the pro homosexual crowd) both know it and are taking advantage of it.
Entering the Sacristy … before Mass for her own mother … with her partner to say something that brought the Priest out to continue whatever talk she must have begun as she walked away from what she began leaving him in her dust … how could he compromise his life or hers? Not healthy for anyone there in the church and more than suspicious. Our Lord is omniscient and I hope Fr. Guarnizo finds solace in his faith and upholding it before men. No place for platitudes or sacrilege.
And so the evidence comes on in a very predictable way. This was a set up, clearly, but sometimes those “set up” could have avoided it. And every priest is in danger of this kind of set up.
What this should teach every priest is that when they are performing funerals (and even more weddings), that they need to know the family well. They are their parishioners, right? If they do not know them, they need to have a meeting with the family and carefully discuss the meaning of ceremony well ahead of time. If this had happened in this case, the priest could have simply said: sorry, Buddhists don’t go to communion. I will do a commendation of the body and perform the rite of Christian burial. That is all that is needed for a Catholic burial. If you want eulogies, I am sure the funeral director can provide the opportunity. He then might say private Mass for repose of the soul and for the family at his convenience.
The real problem here is that priests are getting sent in by the pastor (or just go in) to pastoral situations where the Faith cannot be assumed. Yes, Father was treated badly, but this should have been avoided well before the ceremony. In short, we priests need to stop being a patsy for anyone who wants to set up a funeral. We already do this for weddings (much of the time), it is time to be sure we do it for all the rites and sacraments.
We can expect our most faithful clergy to be targeted.
This woman was NOT a practicing Catholic and that alone excludes her from Communion. But she knew that. She went to the other line and received anyway in pride and defiance and sacrilege.
@Suburbanbanshee ,
And I, for the record, am a practicing CatholicBuddhistHinduScientologistLesbianMarxistRapper, by Carl E. Olson, at IgnatiusInsightScoop. pkh#hws@2756
Well, this woman’s deceased mother belonged to this priest’s parish, right? I’m assuming so if her obsequies were held there. In that case, I would have to say, no, the priest wasn’t targeted.
Did the lesbian daughter take advantage of the situation to make a stink about Catholicism vs. homosexuality? Yes, that much seems clear.
People aren’t consciously aware of the Real Presence in Holy Communion… These type of people just think it’s “what people do”, and go up to receive, whether they’re worthy or not, as an act of inclusion rather than receiving the Body of Christ.
Three things:
1. If someone does not believe in the true presence of God in the Eucharist, and thinks that it is just somekind of social sentimental act, than that person simply walks up there and takes it, and does not make a big deal about it. I know this, because sadly my cultural catholic family members do the exact thing. If somebody is concerned about the state they are in, they can go to confession, or simply ask the priest, but they keep it quite, and don’t make a big deal about it. This woman used national media, to make her lifestyle public, to make her stance about the Eucharist public, to make her opinion about the Church’s teaching public, and she used her mother’s death to achieve this attention. Why didn’t she turn to the bishop for guidence? Why didn’t she seek out the opinion of another priest? Why didn’t she try to resolve this situation as quiet as possible, to honor her mother’s memory, and not to overshadow it with national media attention about her sexual preferences?
2. Let’s turn the picture around a bit: Let’s not talk about what Ms. Johnson did or did not know about communion, or living in sin. Let’s talk about what Father Guarnizo knows about his duty and responsibility as priest acting in persona Christi. If you think about it, it’s what he thinks about the Eucharist that counts in this matter. He treated our Lord’s Body as how it should be: as God almighty truly present. The Bible testifies it, that if people walk up to the Son of God it’s not 100% shure, they are moved by Grace. The Bible tells about people very often walking up to Him, to test Him, to tempt Him, and to even set a trap for Him. Jesus said a lot of “nasty things” to the pharisees, that have offended their feelings pretty much when they wanted to set a trap for Him, and tested Him. But the Truth had to be told about their ways. He did this, not to intentionally hurt the pharisees, but to show us how to discern Truth from sin, and how to recognise the ways of the devil.
3. About the quick apology sent by the diocese: Too many times, people choose a feminine senitmental strategy, to avoid conflict. Even priests, and in this case bishops chose to put the feelings of a person in the first place, and not our God, who died on the cross in order for us to have him so near. Who is going to protect a God fearing priest, if even his bishop abandons him? Who is going to mend the wounds of the sheep dog, if even the shepherd runs away in fear of the wolf?
The bottom line is this: another faithful priest is becoming a martyr by the hands of his own bishop.
Isn’t it time we reviewed the use of the word ‘pastoral’? In modern parlance it is taken to mean easy-going, non-judgemental, making us feel good about ourselves etc. A priest has a clear pastoral duty, and that is what used to be called “the cure of souls”. Bishops have an important administrative role, but their primary pastoral task is to maintain Church doctrine, lest their flock fall into error.
St John Vianney would not have lasted a week in most Catholic dioceses today – you can just hear the clamour “He’s too confrontational!”
Frankly, what bothered me the most was the letter that the Auxiliary Bishop sent from the chancery in which he seemed to be throwing the priest under the bus. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot!
@Centristian
Good point. Fr. Marcel could not have been targeted specifically due to his pro-life activities if he simply happened to be the pastor at the mother’s parish. Still it was opportunism. I’d like to think it really only crossed the line to opportunism after the fact; if she planned this all before the Mass, I think she would have arranged to have her (non) reception of Communion video-taped. She does not believe, except accidentally, anything the Church teaches, which must in some sense lessen her subjective guilt for the attack on the Church, but it would not explain coldly planning to use her own mother’s funeral as a mere stage for her protest.
By the way, it would be interesting to know about the mother; too bad it’s probably impossible to get an accurate reading on her now. If Fr. Marcel is the great defender of orthodoxy, had he preached against homosexual behavior? If so, how did the mother react? Did the mother approve or disapprove of her daughter’s choices — or did she, like so many, maintain that moral standards simply don’t apply to her family?
Think about it: If those presenting themselves for Holy Communion were required to (a) kneel down at the altar rail and (b) receive Holy Communion only upon the tongue (not in the hand), then we would probably have a lot fewer instances of this sort of thing. Think of it: persons actively dissenting from Church teaching, but wishing to present themselves for Communion anyway are proud spirits: they might be willing to process to the altar and stand before the priest and receive in the hand; I suspect that the last thing they will be willing to do is to kneel down and to receive on the tongue. Not going to happen.
And for those, like me, whose knee problems don’t permit them to put any direct weight on them, or who have other mobility problems, other arrangements might be made; these arrangements would be specifically consistent with the communicants’ physical disabilty, and would most certainly not look like striding forward, pausing at attention, and receiving in the hand.
The defense against this sort of thing includes small, video cameras. Suppose the instant this Buddhist person waded into the Sacristy, a handheld camera and cameraman said, “Smile!”, the subsequent lies would be refutable. This tactic may even be necessary at the altar, posting someone off the the side, watching for miscreants, poseurs and Congresswomen, attempting to profane the Host. Furthermore, it may even be necessary to train Communicants to stand in rank and file, interspersing their bodies between the Host and those more aggressive, who may even charge the rail. When there is no longer any inner voice to prevent it, such assaults will continue, and then these people will lie about what they did. As we know, the best defense is a good offense. Reacting afterwards is not good strategy. As the battle space is become the Sanctuary, those in the Sanctuary must control the battle space, and the initiative.
I don’t know if this particular priest was personally targeted, but I think it was a planned warning shot across the bow: “Hey you orthodox priests out there, this is what you can expect….think twice before you refuse communion to a BuddhistLesbianActivist.” And the Bishop played right into their hands by jumping to apologize in a public forum (with a published letter). So, now priests know that they will be held up to public ridicule and condemnation for doing their duty, and they can’t automatically expect support from chancery, even when they are clearly in the right. I’d say “mission accomplished” for this little episode.
It seems pretty obvious that the woman is an agitprop.
It’s possible that this strategy just occurred to the BuddhistLesbianActivist as a good way to make use of time wasted at her mother’s funeral, but it is in any case going to be a fairly common approach in the future and has been used before. It’s a no-win situation, because the priest is seen to agree with the person’s positions if he gives Communion (as in SF, where two bearded “nuns” in drag and wearing rainbow gear were publicly given communion) or, if he refuses Communion on the spot, he is presented as acting arbitrarily and outside of his authority. It’s all a public relations victory for the left, in either case.
That said, I don’t think the apology, which was mostly an “I’m sorry you were offended and nobody meant to insult your mother” thing, hurt the Church. As long as the priest was not then punished by the diocesan authorities for doing his job, I think the facts that are coming out now definitely make the woman look bad and make it clear that there was malice aforethought in both her actions and her complaint. The question, of course, is whether this will get the same coverage that the initial incident did, and the answer, of course, is no. But we certainly should do everything possible to make sure that any sympathetic media sources get the information out.
I think what we’ve got to do is develop a strategy. What should be the response? Perhaps there should be a standard, non-committal response (“we’re sorry that Ms Wacko was offended, and we’ll ask for further details from those involved”) that would not condemn anybody but would defuse the issue. And then, when we do find out the details, they need to be made public: “Ms Wacko is actually a self-proclaimed Buddhist and told the priest that she was an active lesbian and was told not to present herself for Communion until he had had time to discuss this with her…and she went up and specifically disobeyed this request, being fully aware of it.”
What they are looking for is the “gotcha” moment, and we have to figure out how to deprive them of that.
I admit I have been struggling with the concept that this grieving woman planned in advance to make a scene at her mother’s funeral, but I do suspect an opportunist. I am familiar with the militancy and defiance of this sort of activist who, at any opportunity, will create a situation to embarrass and demonize anyone who doesn’t APPROVE and SUPPORT their unchaste lifestyle.
After 30 years of such choices by this individual and interaction within the unchaste community, she must be familiar with the twisted method of playing victim when she doesn’t get her way. The book, After the Ball, which describes the steps for pushing the unchaste agenda, victimhood is intrinsic.
Being her mother’s parish, I wonder if this woman knew Father G, who is not the pastor, very well or not. If she did, and knew his reputation for backbone, she could have been itching for a fight. Or, if the Pastor up to that point, had been sort of looking the other way all these years, the woman may have really been surprised by the refusal of Communion. So she continued to adamantly disbelieve that Communion wasn’t her ‘right’, especially at her mother’s funeral. Surprise and furious defiance make a very bad combination.
I like Father Augustine’s take above that preparation for weddings and funerals, or any of the rites, can mitigate confusion. Explanations on options for music choices, eulogies, receiving Communion and such can be helpful. Unfortunately, I don’t know many priests who have that kind of time – maybe for marriages, but funerals can happen within such a short span of time, that even the grieving might find it hard to make time to meet with the celebrant for hour. Back in the day, understanding of Catholicism was widespread [Catholics were forbidden to attend non-Catholic funerals!] and meetings and detailed explanations weren’t necessary. Priests forget we are in mission territory now, and the Faith must be explained over and over to the uncatechized.
If this is true, it really questions the decision making ability of this principal. How important can it be to have art when students will lose their faith in the process??? Better to do without.
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Back in the day, a part of the mourning process included the social seclusion of the closest loved ones for those of them who wished it, and also that even those more distant family members, neighbors, friends, and associates of the deceased whom the bereaved communicated a wish not to see or speak to at gatherings, were advised by etiquette to stay away, and were also expected not to take their exclusion amiss, or to complain about it.
The reason was that it was understood that sometimes the closest bereaved experience in their grief, not only feelings of profound sadness, but also that they may become distraught, even seemingly slightly unhinged at the slightest little thing that normally wouldn’t upset them in the least. They are, in a word, beside themselves with grief. Can’t think straight. Can’t act or speak as they normally would. They may seem actually temporarily irrational, what would be called, if not for their grief, a little insane. So, just the sight of a certain person of whom they are normally rather fond, of a certain turn of expression, a certain hymn, certain other reminders can cause overwhelming distress, which would never be the case under normal circumstances.
This is because of the sense of shock, I think, more than the grief itself (having been through it when burying each of my parents, and having acted irrationally myself for some weeks until I recovered.) You feel literally shell-shocked. Like a zombie. And then sometimes, with no warning, you act like a banshee, or collapse in floods of tears. Life makes no sense. You relive your own case of “The Terrible Twos” is perhaps the best way to put it.
Regarding Fr. Marcel: I wasn’t there; I don’t know exactly what happened. I’m sure Father did the right thing in acting as he did. I think it is possible that the grieving daughter may have been far more distraught than she herself or Father may have realized at the time, and that her presenting herself for communion, if we think about what is consistent with grief, may have been along the lines of “automatic pilot” and following along with the rest of the congregation, rather than an intention to commit a sacrilege. And Fr,’s refusal, justifiable as it was under the circumstances, may have elicited a reaction in this daughter that was perhaps more untoward than it might have been on a different day when her mother hadn’t just died.
Not to say that this woman isn’t an activist; she probably is. But even activists have days on which they go “off duty”, or, more to the point, days on which life places them on “non-negotiable administrative leave.” I believe it is more just and more charitable to regard the period surrounding the death of a parent as an “off duty” one even for anti-Catholic activists.
Not to say she should have been given Holy Communion. She shouldn’t. But I don’t think it’s necessarily just or fair to assume that this grieving daughter entered the church with a chip on her shoulder, planning to prove a point or make a point. It’s possible she may have done, but I don’t think it’s fair to assume that, when something else entirely may have been going on.
So now that the facts are coming out and this woman’s motivations becoming clear, will the Chancery Office write another letter? Are they not obligated to defend and explain the faith? Should they not explain to this woman that being from another religion and in a state of mortal sin she is not disposed to receive Holy Communion? If our bishops don’t defend the faith and our orthodox priests, incidents like this will spread like wild fire. Pun intended.
In my comment above (by accident) I addressed info from catholicvote.org regarding her time at a Catholic high school. Time in which she was openly working to convert her students to her lifestyle (the very idea leaves me angry). I am in support for giving people the benefit of the doubt, but in this case she has acted purposely to socially and/or physically drive this priest out to Siberia and no longer has earned that place. I think it is closer to “the gig is up”…
Fr. Augustine is right about correct prep for funerals/ weddings etc. As someone who has sung for both, I can say that people often think that anything goes as far as the ceremony and music. People have seen priests mess with the form of the Mass so often that they think they are also allowed to make the Mass all about them and their preferences. Sometimes there is a person other than the priest who coordinates the details of weddings/funerals, and sometimes it is the priest. As a cantor, I have often been the only one to help people plan the details of the wedding/funeral, and I have had to steer people away from some of the most ridiculous things. Unfortunately, when you’re helping people plan a wedding or funeral, there are a lot of emotions to contend with, and you have to have some tact. Some priests are so afraid of offending people at a funeral that they will allow things that they shoudn’t. In this particular case, Fr. Marcel was NOT the pastor, and it appears that he was walking into this funeral rather unprepared for what was about to occur. I know priests are busy and stretched thin, but administering the sacraments really is the most important job they have, over attending meetings and such. Parishes need to get better about standardizing protocol for weddings/funerals so that an associate priest can walk into a situation knowing what to expect.
Marion Ancilla Mariae, you may be right that this wasn’t premeditated at all. She might have just popped up automatically to take communion (having forgotten he asked her not to).
It occurs to me that a person like Ms. Johnson is probably more than a little rebellious. And perhaps she is used to going through life being applauded and approved for her “choices”. She may have introduced her “lover” to Fr. in the sacristy because that’s just how she goes about life. And then, when he told her not to present herself for communion, perhaps it ignited a spirit of rebellion in her at that moment. That’s another possibility. Regardless, she and her friends raced to the press afterwards to capitalize on the incident.
Continue to be suspicious Father. The progressives search out vulnerabilities to further their agenda. One has to be careful not to be drawn into to the manufactured “crisis”. We will witness this tactic used more and more. Keep your guard up and don’t be silenced by the bully.
Think what a favor we would be doing ourselves if we successfully persuaded our bishops and pastors to put into place more discipline such as methods to lessen opportunities for reception of the Sacrament unworthily! Then this sort of thing would happen less often, and would reduce the the necessity for suspicion – justifiable or not. That’s exactly what discipline and security are intended to do – to impart peace of mind.
This is Fluke at a funeral.
This is my parish and I am still heart sick over the chancery’s decision to “shoot first and ask questions later”.
In the same week that saw self-described Catholic politicians in our state rejoicing over their attempts to re-define marriage, I do not think it is a coincidence that this woman made certain the priest knew her living situation and made certain he could do nothing before the funeral to complete the counseling portion of can 915.
Considering the haste with which this was reported in the media there was bias there as well. The Post is no longer considered a paper or record due to their clear bias and seeming inability to report objectively on so many issues (pro-life, marriage re-definition). They obviously did not do any checking into the woman and her background or agendas, something several bloggers were able to accomplish within a day or so of this becoming public.
I don’t expect to receive a reply, but I am contacting the paper’s ombudsmen and the writer of the article to ask if their infomation regarding this woman, her past/biases and the inaccuracies in her story will receive as prominent a place in the paper as their original article.
When the outcry about the kind of treatment to which Father Guarnizo has been subjected is bigger than the liberal media firestorm for which this incident was concocted, bishops might think twice before cowing to pressure from Lesbian Buddhists and their cohorts.
When a person who is not in a state of grace knowingly presents themselves for Holy Communion, would not a priest who is aware of their state have the same obligation to act as one who observes a deranged person attempting to hide the Sacred Host in a missal? Inaction for the sake of political correctness would result in profanation in either case.
One “positive” about this: the offender allowed her mother to have a funeral Mass. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen a person who never missed Sunday Mass subjected to a “prayer service” at a funeral home because their children had animosity toward the Church.
Ah, Father, you remind me of Giulio Andreotti: A pensar male si fa peccato, ma spesso ci si azzecca” (“You sin in thinking ill of people; but you often guess right”–Wikipedia translation).
If any one would like an example of why I said, more than five years ago, that the interpretation of Canon 1117 that came down in April of 2006, by which the practical possibility of formally defecting from the Church was rendered essentially moot, they need only think of this case: this woman is canonically Catholic, meaning that all the rights owed a Catholic, including those under Canons 214 and 912, are still owed her, meaning that etc, etc, etc.
@ Contramundum
this article/interview refers to her parents’ reaction to her “lifestyle choice”
http://www.metroweekly.com/feature/?ak=1445
Dr. Peter’s comment about Ms. Johnson remaining a Catholic no matter what she might do, even to the point of publicly announcing she is now a practicing non-Christian is very interesting. What I got from the discussion of the relevant canons the last time Dr. Peter’s helped us with this is that there is another canon (forgot the number, sorry – 428?) which affects the the issue of whether 915 can come into play or not. And that canon addresses whether the behavior is notorious and known to all or whether the sin is more or less private. If a person with private sin presents herself for communion, the priest has to serve her, regardless of what he knows (as I understood it).
So, the matter seems to hinge upon the definition of “public” vs “private” sin. A lot of us think her behavior was, mostly because of her own long history of making public statements (newspaper interviews, etc). It appears the bar is set extraordinarily high, and I guess that’s a good thing.
Meant to say that a lot of us here feel her sin was public, not private.
@mwa
That link only makes clear that the parents strongly disapproved in the 1970’s. It does not say whether they maintained their opposition or whether, like so many, they caved at last. Given the perspective of the story, though, perhaps they did not cave. I have a nasty suspicion that this whole frenzy may be an attempt of a bitter Lesbian to “get back at” her dead mother for all those years of disapproval.
Call me overly legalistic, but doesn’t proclaiming to profess to be a Buddhist bar one from Holy Communion under Can. 915 anyway?
Can. 915: “Those who have been excommunicated or interdicted after the imposition or declaration of the penalty and others obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to holy communion.”
Isn’t a person who professes to be a Buddhist tantamount to an excommunicate by cause of apostasy?
Can. 1364: “§1. Without prejudice to the prescript of ? can. 194, §1, n. 2, an apostate from the faith, a heretic, or a schismatic incurs a latae sententiae excommunication; in addition, a cleric can be punished with the penalties mentioned in ? can. 1336, §1, nn. 1, 2, and 3.”
Can. 751: “Heresy is the obstinate denial or obstinate doubt after the reception of baptism of some truth which is to be believed by divine and Catholic faith; apostasy is the total repudiation of the Christian faith; schism is the refusal of submission to the Supreme Pontiff or of communion with the members of the Church subject to him.”
Or is that only after the declaration of the excommunication that Can. 915 comes in?
I just read a news article that says that Fr. Guarnizo has had his faculties as a priest removed and been placed on administrative leave. What a mistake by the archdiocese! Every time we get a priest who stands up for what’s right, he gets removed from the priesthood! We are losing the battle of good vs. evil in this country because we have those in authority who do not have the courage or integrity to stand up for what is right! We are in dire need of prayer, sacrifice, etc., for the Church in this country! We are under a withering attack!