A while back there was a dippy filmette about wymynprysts “Pink Smoke Over the Vatican” inspired by an equally dippy column in the Bakersfield Californian by one Valerie Schultz, a board member of CSUB’s Institute for Religion, Education, and Public Policy (IREPP) and a columnist for the Bakersfield Californian. I had seen Schultz’s original column, but considered it too loopy for your time and my effort.
However, a permanent deacon in Bakersfield has responded in the paper. His column can give you some pointers about how to respond to this fantasy that the Church can change her “policy” about the impossibility of the ordination of women.
ANOTHER VIEW: Schultz blowing pink smoke in describing female ordination
By DANIEL RINDGEA presentation by the Institute for Religion, Education, and Public Policy at Cal State Bakersfield of the film, “Pink Smoke Over the Vatican,” inspired Valerie Schultz’s May 19 column, “Film documents battle for women to be priests.” [Which, we know, is a pointless battle, just as it is a pointless battle for a screaming bratty little girl to resist her father’s hands when he pulls her away from the table saw.] This headline is misleading because the matter of women’s ordination has long been settled within the Roman Catholic Church — priestly ordination is reserved to men alone. As has occurred throughout its history, the church continues to clarify its teachings when contemporary circumstances dictate. Because of dissenting voices within the church in our own time, Pope John Paul II felt it necessary to state, yet again, [Good. His document wasn’t exactly stating something novel.] the church’s teaching in regard to priestly ordination in his apostolic letter “Ordinatio Sacerdotalis,” issued May 22, 1994.
What is so disheartening about Schultz’s article [Other than how badly written it was…] is the context in which it was written. She is writing as a board member of CSUB’s Institute for Religion, Education, and Public Policy (IREPP), an organization with the self-described mission to “advance knowledge and understanding of the varied roles religious movements, institutions, and ideas play in the contemporary world; explore challenges posed by religious pluralism and tensions between religious and secular values; and examine the influence of religion on politics, civic culture, family life, gender roles, and other issues locally, nationally, and globally.” However, her column indicates she and the IREPP are instead using CSUB’s resources to disparage and condemn a key aspect of Catholic theology.
Schultz’s comments about the “patriarchal wind that has long blown from Rome” [I think she meant “chilling patriarch wind”.] or Pope Benedict XVI’s use of the “global pulpit” [Imagine the gall of that Pope! Using his global pulpit to teach what the Church teaches…. sheesh. Shameless.] reveals her personal disdain for innate aspects of Catholicism itself. She quotes Galatians 3:28 as a scriptural support of her position regarding ordination, yet that piece of Scripture speaks not to ordination but to the universal salvation of all — irrespective of all human divisions. [So, she is also either dumb or a little dodgy.] She fails to understand why Father Bourgeois, a priest interviewed in the film, was excommunicated and dismissed from his order due to “his refusal to recant his public support of women priests.” [I just want to be sure… did that actually happen? Is that resolved now?]
One has to question the credentials of any IREPP board member who fails to understand why a Catholic priest should be dismissed when he leads others away from the faith he had vowed to profess. Moreover, Schultz’s journalistic integrity is called into question when she presents Juanita Cordero as “an ordained Roman Catholic woman priest” who was “ordained in 2007.” This is factually false and a misrepresentation of Roman Catholic ordinations. [Exactly. The press nearly always just takes the bait and calls these gals “priests” and says that they were “ordained”.] Rather than clarify why Cordero considers herself “ordained,” Schultz presents this as a fact to readers of The Californian.
As a CSUB alumnus and Bakersfield resident, it frustrates me to see such a forum supported by my university. As a deacon ordained in the Roman Catholic Church, it saddens me to see the Catholic expression of Christianity misrepresented in the name of “higher education” by a fellow Catholic who continues to publicly denounce essential tenets of the faith in The Californian. This IREPP event did not foster an understanding of Catholicism and how its practice influences society. Instead, it sowed confusion within the general public’s understanding of this particular tenet of the Catholic faith. [Which seems to be at odds with the mission of that organization as well as a news source.]
The smoke in Schultz’s article may be pink, but it is still just part of the smoke and mirrors used to deceive the uninformed. [Let’s put this another way. Paul VI said in 1972 that the “smoke of Satan” has entered the Church through some crack. That pinkish smoke is header out of the Church.]
Deacon Daniel Rindge of Christ the King Catholic Church in Oildale received his Bachelor of Public Administration from Cal State Bakersfield, graduating magna cum laude. Another View presents a critical response to a previous editorial, column or news story.
WDTPRS kudos to Rev. Mr. Rindge.
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I think that the Church is America is at a crossroads regarding the “enemies within”, and perhaps, the situation is the same here in Great Britain. For some reason, these dissenters have been tolerated by academic institutions, with local bishops remaining mute in most areas regarding the dissent. Only in a few dioceses have the so-called women priests and their supporters been publicly excommunicated or censured. Believe it or not, the Diocese of Davenport faced this a few years ago and the bishop did make a statement regarding the fact that the so-called women priests were not ordained etc.
I believe that the heart, the soul of the Church in America and here in England is facing a crisis. This is a crisis of leadership. The good deacon in the article above is correct in being upset that his alma mater supports such heresy. I know how he feels as I am a Notre Dame alum. However, the problem is the silence and lack of leadership. The fact that Schultz refers to the Pope shows us that the Pope is doing his job well from his Chair, his universal pulpit. Thank God for his strong and clear leadership and for that of his predecessor. However, unless the local bishops get involved, this type of sheer nonsense will go on and on, splitting the Church. We are on the edge of a major split here in England, as the lack of leadership is allowing the flock to wander here and there without guidance. America is such a big country, with so many Catholics and dioceses, I doubt whether the needed unity will ever happen. The rot is too deep.
This is just the tip of the trash heap which make up the rantings of Valerie Shultz. At one time, not long ago, Mrs. Shultz was the Director of Religious Education at St. Malachy’s Church in Tehachapi, Ca., Diocese of Fresno. Shultz often writes about the Churches lack of care to gays etc, due to her daughters open homosexuality. In one article she rambled how her daughter could not have a “Church” wedding. As educated as she pretendes to be, Shultz should know there is no union or wedding between those of the same sex, but I digress. Her articles are typical of those found in the Bakersfield California, aka the Bakersfield Fishwrap, just another dying local fishwrap looking for a shock story. There were follow up letters to the editor in yesterdays fishwrap including one by local pro-life pro-catholic Rachel Kennedy, who, like Deacon Rindge performed an appropriate slap down, I mean catchesis for Mrs Shultz and her ilk.
…sad to see that Valerie Shultz is given the use of the CSUB pulpit and the Bakersfield Californian pulpit…
The Vicar of Christ speaks as the Vicar of Christ, and these people complain? GET REAL!
I can confirm the Bourgeois matter. It happened in the city where I was living at the time and made news all over the state. He conducted a faux “catholic” ordination of a woman in the local Universalist Unitarian … church? hogan? multi-purpose room? … not sure what they call it. He was excommunicated and kicked out of his order, (the Maryknolls), and he’s been a big hero in the women’s ordination movement ever since.
Aren’t members of trhe CSUB recommended by the local ordinary? Defintely a leadership problem
when you see all these ‘catholics’ in positions where they define catholic.
I wonder if supporters of women’s “ordination” see the irony in their longing for the Church’s approval of their dissent.
Why pine away for an approving nod from the very institution that you claim is oppressing you?
When I worked in an adolescent psych hospital, we called this sort of behavior “attention-seeking.”
Fr. Philip Neri, OP
It’s funny. Several weeks ago I logged onto the Fishwrap’s website and was promptly greeted by a video of Fr. Bourgeois imploring me to donate to the NCR fundraising campaign. He described himself as a Maryknoll priest. Has he been expelled from Maryknoll? Last I heard, they refused to do that.
BaedaBenedictus: In 7/2011 he was told he had 15 days to recant his support of women’s ordination or be dismissed. He never recanted, and disputed the legitimacy of the dismissal. There may still be some kind of appeal going on.
I just thought of something. The “Honorable” and “eminent theologian” Dr Nancy Pelosi would fit right in with this group. In fact, she could be a Cardinaless, or whatever, with her knowledge of what the Church teaches. (You know that’s sarcasm)
Here is a review I did of “Pink Smoke Over the Vatican” for Ignatius Insight. It was exactly what you would expect, pure schlock and made-up claims, and the idea that a university would show it at all — much less as some sort of educational event — is a sad commentary on what passes for scholarship in “advocacy” programs. http://www.ignatiusinsight.com/features2011/gfinke_pinksmoke_july2011.asp
“Why pine away for an approving nod from the very institution that you claim is oppressing you?
When I worked in an adolescent psych hospital, we called this sort of behavior “attention-seeking.”
This above comment of Fr. Neri nails it. If the Church is what it claims to be, then the case is closed, does not matter what anyone else thinks, the Pope has definitively answered this, woman can not be priests. If the Church is “wrong” than obviously it can not be what it claims to be and why would anyone want to be a priest in it anyway? To the folks like Valerie Schultz, I can not help but wonder wouldn’t it be a lot simpler, more mature and more consistent with your views if you simply just joined the Episcopal Church?
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I was a Religious Studies major at CSUB. I remember one long-haired professor in particular (who I think had once been a seminarian), who enjoyed shocking us all with salacious & scandalous tales of the Church. It took 5 years for the effect of his class to wear off & the voice of the Holy Spirit to lead me to a willingness to do my own research & finally become Catholic.
These women–oops!–wymyn are dying out just like the LCWR. The average age of the typical convent today is about 75–with exceptions only in those communities which have retained the habit, traditional religious life, etc. These poor souls just don’t get it. It is no joke to say that they have indeed lost the Faith. “Pride goeth before the fall” indeed! These dubious folks (men and women alike) are as far from reality in saying that women can become priests as I would say I wanted to become a turnip. It just can’t happen. Even if they could coerce some goofy priest or bishop to confer “ordination”, it would not happen because it just can’t. Again, it would be like a bishop turning me into a turnip—and about as sensible, too.
God Bless you, DANIEL RINDGE! Excellent rebuttal to that particular piece of nonsense. (Gee… I wish I could write like that). So precise and concise.
Re. SisterTheresePeter’s comment at 7:35 p.m.: Well said! It very much reflects what Joanne Bogle wrote in her article “Women Priests — No Chance,” particularly the part where she says “just as bread and wine are the essential ‘matter’ of the Eucharist, so are men the ‘matter’ of the priesthood.” (http://catholiceducation.org/articles/apologetics/ap0001.html)
I guess that means I’ll never realize my dream of becoming a 9-foot-tall, walking, talking cucumber.