When anti-Catholic atrocities take place, Catholic bishops should act.
I read in the Kansas City Star (a McClatchy paper), that some “Lutherans” are going to host a sacrilegious, fake catholic “ordination” of a woman by the usual wymyn suspects. HERE It is to take place at an ELCA associated Lutheran church on 3 January, 2015 at 2 pm.
It is hard to get worked up about what these disturbed wymym are doing, if considered in and of itself. They are so far beyond the fringe that Hubble has a hard time seeing them.
What is far more bothersome is that this ecumenical atrocity is to take place in a church that calls itself “Lutheran”. From the website of St. Mark Hope and Peace Church near downtown KC, we learn about the “pastor”… “pastrix”….
Pastor Donna Simon is a Midwesterner by birth (and temperament), though she has spent much of her life on the West Coast. She is a graduate of San Francisco State University (English Literature) and Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary in Berkeley, California.
Pastor Donna was called into the ministry from a volunteer position as church youth director at Messiah Lutheran Church, Redwood City, California. While attending seminary, she came out as a lesbian. Because the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America did not allow the ordination of openly gay and lesbian candidates, she joined the roster of Lutheran Lesbian and Gay Ministries, now known as Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries.
In 2000, Abiding Peace Lutheran Church extended a call to Simon. She was ordained on October 28, 2000. The ELCA changed its policy in 2009, and Pastor Donna joined the ELCA roster on October 28, 2010.
We know that the ELCA won’t take any responsibility for anything that anyone does. However, they are still associated with this KC church and that “pastor”.
They don’t get a pass. This is something that should make faithful Catholics see red.
It all works one way, right? Protestants think they can tell Catholics what to do or think about our sacraments?
On the eve of the Octave for Prayer for Christian Unity, they stick their “F-YOU” finger in our faces, by hosting this farce and sacrilege.
Here’s the bottom line. Antics like this should have consequences for ecumenical dialogue.
The women’s ordination thing is silliness. It is a circus.
A Protestant church is going to host the circus. By doing so , the will give the Catholic Church the finger.
There should be consequences.
We either take ecumenism seriously or we don’t. If we do – and I believe we must – we have to react strongly when ecumenical ideals are so grossly violated by Protestants who invite or permit these “women priest” ceremonies in their churches.
Soon-to-be-excommunicated Georgia Walker (standing)
The most sacred rites of the Catholic Church are Holy Mass and ordination to Holy Orders.
They intend to trample the rites that we Catholics hold as sacred.
These silly Catholic women-priest supporters are committing sacrilege in simulating Mass and Orders. That’s a given. But they are so bizarre that they make little difference.
What does make a difference, however, is that the Protestants who host them intentionally assist in a mockery of our Holy Mass and a mockery of our priesthood.
For a long time progressivist Catholics were staging Jewish sedar meals in their churches. Some Jews were angered by this. We got the message from the Jews and stopped doing what was offensive to them, even though we meant no offense by doing so.
By allowing this group of fakers into their churches, Protestants accept the premise that what those women play at is actually a Catholic ordination and a Mass.
How dare PROTESTANTS decide what a Catholic Mass is?
They might speciously respond, “Gee, we mean no disrespect. We are just giving space to this group”. NO. We do not accept that. What they are doing is aiding a protest against the Catholic Church.
There is no way around this.
But “Pastor Donna” at the church is committed to the “F-YOU” Finger approach. In the Star article we read:
Donna Simon, pastor at St. Mark, has no patience for the view that women cannot be priests.
“The logic for male (only) ordination is spurious,” she said. “Nowhere in the Bible does it say you may not ordain women. But because Jesus only called men, the church has leaned into this tradition that you can only call men. It hasn’t leaned into a tradition that you can only call Jewish men because all the men that Jesus called were Jewish. They just picked that one thing.”
Protestants who give these fakers aid are either on their side, and thus support their claim that what they are doing really is an ordination and Mass, or in claiming not to be taking sides they are still giving support to an anti-Catholic protest.
Bishops have to take action when offensive, anti-Catholic things like this take place.
Upon hearing the news that this ceremony is going to take place (or has taken place), the local Catholic bishop must call the pastor of that Protestant parish and say, “I’m the Catholic Bishop. Do not allow this sacrilege to be committed in your church. You wouldn’t do this for a group of dissident Jews wanting to ordain rabbis, but we are Catholics so you don’t care what offense you give us. Until an apology is issued, don’t look for us to dialogue with you again.”
Then that Catholic bishop should call the head of the denomination and convey the same message.
Then that Catholic Bishop should send an informative note to the USCCB’s ecumenical office and to the CDF and to the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity to let them know the facts of the sacrileges that took place and who helped them.
Then that Catholic bishop should call the press and give them his view about the offense the Protestants gave and the damage they inflicted on ecumenical dialogue. Of course, in the case of the Kansas City Star, which has the knives out for Bp. Finn, I suppose he won’t get too far.
True ecumenism does not consist in lying down and letting some other church ecclesial communion kick you and define what Mass is for you, or say who can be ordained, or stick their “F-You” finger in your face by hosting these sacrilegious fakers.
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I understand why you are upset, though I don’t know why you seemed so shocked by this particular move. After all the man who calls himself the archbishop of Canterbury decided to ordain wymyn ‘bishops’ earlier this year. [So what? Anglicans don’t have valid orders. They can do whatever they want in their churches for themselves. That is not what this is about. ] And do you think that a Catholic bishop (many of whom in their heart of hearts, judging by what one sees going on at parishes in their dioceses, would LOVE the Catholic Church to ordaian women) is really going to make a big deal about this?
They can’t get the pope to approve wymyn priests but the usual fare at so many Catholic parishes in so many dioceses these days is a feminized altar. To have one male priest surrounded by a bunch of female lectors and lay female ‘extraordinary’ ministers of Holy Communion, not to mention all of the altar girls. So why would they care? [You need to review the post, above, and figure out what the issue is.]
The picture looks like a Weight Watcher conference.
Fr Z. said: There should be consequences.
FR Z. said: when ecumenical ideals are so grossly violated by Protestants
Fr Z. said: What does make a difference, however, is that the Protestants who host them intentionally assist in a mockery of our Holy Mass and a mockery of our priesthood.
Forgive me Father, I am confused. I understand that you were raised Lutheran and I mean no lack of respect. [That is completely irrelevant.] Do not the Lutherans and other of our protestant, separated brethren make a mockery of our holy mass by simulation? Do not many of them also make a mockery of our other sacraments of Confirmation and Holy Orders by simulation? [Not really. We don’t really care what they do in their own churches, using their own books. They can do what they want among themselves. The fact that they don’t have valid orders, etc., is not relevant to this issue. They are hosting a group of Catholics who are doing something sacrilegious for Catholic and, thereby, helping them perform a sacrilegious and offensive anti-Catholic event.]
This goes on every day for them. I am missing the distinction.
I do not understand why these ‘roman catholic wymen priests’ are not just other separated brethren… no pun intended. [They are excommunicated, but they are Catholics.]
Are not ecumenical ideals only useful when they bring our separated brethren to the one true faith. I for one do not believe that I could be saved with out the fullness of the faith particularly confession.
I know that there will be consequences. On the last day.
Sorry to be so obtuse,
fxr2
I just sent the good pastor-ess an email voicing my objection to this outrage.
pastor@stmarkhopeandpeace.org
The ladies of “Roman Catholic Womenpriests” could at least make it clear they are leaving the Church and becoming Anglican or Lutheran. There they would be at liberty to become “priests”, or even “bishops”, and minister to their hearts content — if they can persuade their vocations department that they are suitable candidates. But they would not be catholic. They would be Anglican or Lutheran (or various shades of Old or Liberal Catholic) protestants. But they would be able to do as they please in their own communions.
I think Fr. Zed’s point is that Pastor Simon, representing her church, is facilitating the pretended “ordination” of a woman who chooses to identify herself as Roman Catholic, not Lutheran. At the very least, that would be to bring her church into disrepute. If ECLA places any value on its ecumenical relationship with other churches, especially those in the one holy catholic and apostolic church, then it should ask itself whether Ms. Simon and others are “helping”. Put it another way, Ms. Simon on behalf of her church is participating in the excommunication of Ms. Walker.
The Diocese of Kansas City – St. Joseph should at least publicly protest this intrusion into its jurisdiction and ask ECLA if they are “helping” ecumenical relations.
This is some of the worst of protestantism, emphasizing the aspect of protestantism as an anti-Catholic attack on means of Grace instituted by Jesus, separating people from valid Sacraments and the unity of Jesus’ Church, and sowing confusion, with worldly ideology and motivations.
Fr Z is right, protestant Christian groups set their own practices for their community, but it is fundamentally and entirely anti-ecumenical to involve themselves as the arbiters of Catholic beliefs and practices over and against the Catholic Church, to the point of facilitating fake “ordinations” that claim to be Catholic. Actual ecumenism cannot accept this.
This report has another aspect. The Ecumenial Movement got sidetracked in the Liberal Catholic switchyard. Liberal Catholics only wanted to “dialogue” with Liberal Protestants: the ECLA, TEC, PC(USA), The United Church of Christ, Moravians, The American Baptist Church, the Unitarians, etc. It would have been wiser to “dialogue” with churches in this order:
1st, the Eastern Orthodox Churches
2nd, the Oriental Churches
3rd, Evangelical Protestants, including Pentecostals and Dispensationalists
4th, The United Methodist Church, which is in the process of slowly abandoning Liberalism.
— and just forget about Liberal Protestants.
I’ll grant that “dialogue” with Missouri Synod Lutherans, Orangemen, and neo-Calvinists would be tough. Yet we have more in common with them — and even observant Orthodox Jews and Conservative Jews — than we do with Liberal Protestants.
I also think the offer of an Ordinariate to Lutherans would be wise.
Sid Cundiff in NC says: I also think the offer of an Ordinariate to Lutherans would be wise.
Have Lutherans asked for an ordinate?
The “inclusive, welcoming’ Episcopal ‘church’ next to our planned parenthood abortuary (where the staff are welcome to park) has a lesbian pastor. She permitted some of the catholics who went into schism to hold ‘services’ there for a time.
Consequences? How about celebrating 500 years of ‘reform’ Lutheran style in 2017? That seems to be the way things are going. But there can be no true ecumenism by compromising on the truth. Luther was a man who broke his vows and caused not only schism but civil war. 500 years of lament should be the only consequence of so many deprived of sacraments and so many under delusion now.
Oh, with the 3 priests at our rectory gone, we had a retired priest who I call Fr. “Ad-lib”. He told us today, on the Feast of the Deacon Stephen, that the early Church had women deacons and –paraphrasing–under Francis we may see this again. Yes, now with the synod and a renewal of the Church under Francis, we are not looking to rules he said.
To add to their misunderstanding of the entire thing:
“But because Jesus only called men, the church has leaned into this tradition that you can only call men.”
In fact, it is God that is doing the calling. Such a simple thing.
An Ordinariate for Lutherans would be an excellent response to the upcoming 500th anniversary. Then the remainder of the Lutheran body(ies) can take pride in unrestricted reformation…. again, and again, and again, and again…. always trying to keep up with the demands of the world.
Who knows if even the Anglican Communion will finally admit that they’re Protestants and Lutherans after all, and take Porvoo to a logical conclusion. If that means they get “Romanorum Coetibus” through committee, we’ll be able to do a prisoner swap.
I don’t know how much I like this prayer for “Christian unity.” It does not really seem to be much about uniting with other Christians, but it seems more about uniting with those who really don’t like Christ’s church that is the mystical body of Christ. The ones I am praying to be “united with”, really don’t like me or my beliefs, and I tend to think many of them are a bunch disgruntled meanies. Why is it that whenever you hear about this prayer for Christian unity, the Eastern Orthodox are never included, its always those with a sour face complaining about something.
Patty Day: some Lutherans are more ecumenically minded than others. Rumour has it that Pope Benedict’s provision for an Anglican Ordinariate has encouraged them to seek a similar arrangement with their tradition. Today’s Lutherans are not responsible for Luther’s actions half a millennium ago.
When I read E.P. Sanders Paul and Palestinian Judaism, the beginning document of the New Perspective(s) on Paul, 30 years ago, I thought that the Biblical foundation of Lutheranism was pulverized. Ditto the work of N.T. Wright on Paul. If Lutheranism wishes to remain sola scriptura, it must abandoned Luther’s view of Justification, and take seriously St. Paul on justification by works, Romans 2:5-10. Lutheranism then would have only two options: (1) become Liberal, or (2) become Ordinariate Catholics.
Patti day, see Fr. Z on Lutheran Ordinariate: https://wdtprs.com/2013/01/lutheran-ordinariate-coming/ , and talk to Cardinal Müller.
iPadre says:
The picture looks like a Weight Watcher conference.
I go to Weight Watchers meetings. The women attending WW meetings tend to be much younger, as well as healthier.
The pseudo-ordinand is 67 years old. As the old hippies reach retirement age, there will be a last gasp
of paleo-feminism. These women-of-a-certain-age would not be content to join the LCWR — regardless of how badly their Sisters need them.
Granted I’m recovering from the flu (avoid it if at all possible), but I will never understand why someone outside the group has the “right” to opine on what a group should be. Protestants wouldn’t dare tell an Orthodox Jewish congregation to install a rabbi they find objectionable (although to be fair, the rabbi doesn’t fill the exact same role and responsibility) and they would bitterly scream if a Jewish organization hosted an event designed to undermine how they chose their clergy. So, why do they think it’s acceptable, reasonable, or appropriate to participate in or even nominally support the undermining of another Religious group?
Furthermore, the idea of dialogue with people who don’t fundamentally respect you seems naive at best and destructive at worse
Sorry to beat the dead horse……
“For a long time progressivist Catholics were staging Jewish sedar meals in their churches.”
I am a little confused by this remark. I seem to recall having attended some form of seder supper on Maundy Thursday during Holy Week as a teen. I thought Catholic parishes did so as a means of fully celebrating Christ’s Passion. We would also attend appropriate Good Friday services.
Does this refer to something different?
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Perhaps the time has come to not only disband these jokes called “Ecumenical dialogues” – with no goal, standard, or result set in mind.. dialogue for the sake of dialogue is better called ‘yammer’ – but also to invite the various Lutheran communities over for a reenactment of the ‘Response of Erasmus to Luther’ and ‘The Correspondence between the Ecumenical Patriarch Jeremias II and Philip Melchanthon’ at the nearest Catholic and Orthodox parish halls every time they pull these shenanigans.
The fact is, the Lutheran barge is getting weighed down by liberal barnicles.. jumping into a yet smaller boat isn’t going to sustain anyone long term. If one is lucky, they will die before that small boat gets sunk; or they’ll get rescued by the great megaship the USS Catholic Church or its slightly thinner sister the USS Orthodox Church. One can only swim so long before the sharks smell dinner.
Merry Christmas, Fr. Z.
Actually, this kind of thing does make faithful Catholics see red, but more often than not we are punished for it.
There is are some parishioners in our parish who bill themselves as a “prayer group”. Our pastor, whom I have always admired and respected and prayed for daily, featured them prominently in our bulletin before and during Lent, to the point of giving them considerable space to describe their thoughts and activities. No other group on the parish was recognized to such an extent.
The Saturday after Easter of this year, one of the members of the group, a former priest who had been assigned to our parish immediately before leaving the priesthood to marry a parishioner (30 years ago), put out a blanket e-mail to many parishioners who were not necessarily members of the group. He and his wife were organizing picketing of the diocesan ordination which was to take place in mid-May, about 3 weeks away. Apparently this is an ongoing, yearly activity of theirs, because they included photos from previous years. They had photos of themselves and other parishioners holding signs calling for women’s ordination and married priests. Our pastor was included on this e-mail.
I had been on parish council previously, and a very distressed parishioner forwarded it to me. She is Hispanic, and wanted to talk to Father about it but did not know how to do it while maintaining his dignity. So she asked me what to do since I had dealt with Father on council in past.
Because it was a Saturday night and I knew Father would not be near the office phone, I sent him a carefully worded, respectful e-mail, asking him if it was perhaps inappropriate for the parish to be sponsoring this group in view of their agenda. I heard nothing from him – he never replied. I looked for him the following day at Mass, but another priest prayed the Mass.
Knowing the ordination was imminent, I sent a reply to the original e-mail from the former priest, and included all the addresees (including our pastor), and urged them to please not to picket the ordination nor disrupt the Mass, pointing out that nothing is more important than the sacrifice of the Mass or the sacrament of Holy Orders, no matter how heartfelt the issue. I also explained that I and others in the parish found this behavior scandalous and mean-spirited, in view of the fact that these new priests were giving their lives to the Church on our behalf, and that it was the most holy, joyful day of their lives. I asked them how they would feel if someone picketed their weddings.
I received several responses, ranging from hateful to cordial, and none in agreement with me. Still no response from Father.
My husband then sent an e-mail to Father, requesting permission to address parish council on the appropriateness of the parish sponsoring such a group. Father gave us the following conditions before he would consider letting us speak to council: we must submit any documentation we had regarding our misgivings about the group to him, and we must personally approach someone from the group and discuss this with them.
We did as he requested immediately. As a matter of fact, the man we approached from the group was considerate and cordial, and we agreed to disagree. My husband, the man from the group, and I approached Father at coffee hour after Sunday Mass (the day before parish council meeting) to let him know we had complied with his conditions.
Father sat us all down. He would not permit me or my husband to speak. He spent a good five minutes praising the gentleman from the group for being a good parishioner, etc. To his credit, the gentleman recognized what was going on, and in fairness to us, explained to Father that we were not requesting that he disband the group, but that we had a problem with the parish sponsoring the group. He then admitted he was a dissident, and fully supported women’s ordination and married priests. Father shook his hand and thanked him, and the gentleman walked away.
Then Father asked us if we had anything to say. I opened my mouth to speak, but he began venting. He told me I was doing this to draw attention to myself, that he did not believe anything I said, and that the Bishop said he was doing a good job and that the Diocese supported everything he did. When he stopped for air, I quietly told him this was not a personal attack on him and that my husband and I like him very much. This only angered him further, and he told us if we had a problem with the way he was running the parish to talk to the Bishop, and he repeated that His Excellency knows he is doing a good job.
He then told us it was time for us to look for another parish.
I contacted someone I knew in the Chancery the following day. I received a response within 45 minutes. She was the head of the Office of Worship, and she told me she immediately contacted the police department to let them know there was a protest planned on Ordination Day, and she asked them to provide appropriate police coverage. She also told me she would advise the Bishop of what was going on, and told me to forward all the documentation we submitted to Father to her so she could look into things on her end.
A few days later, she phoned me. She had met with the Bishop and the Vicar of Clergy Personnel and discussed this with them. She told me they could not stop the protest if it took place on the sidewalk since it is public property, unfortunately. However, she told me that the Bishop and the Vicar told her to tell me that I had done nothing wrong, and that they felt we had acted honestly and charitably. They also told me that Father had behaved in a “less than pastoral manner” and that they were praying for me.
In view of the fact that I was verbally abused and asked to leave the parish I had belonged to for all my life, I am not so sure it is a good idea for parishioners to make themselves heard when something happens that is not in line with Church teaching.
I approached a pastor from a neighboring parish, and told him what happened (naming no names). I asked him for dual membership at his parish since I could no longer trust my pastor to respond when I need help, but that I did not want to leave my parish. I told him my husband was remaining at the parish in order to keep our membership. He told me I was welcome at his parish, that he would come in an emergency, but that I would not have to monetarily support his parish since my husband and I were already supporting our parish. We are grateful. It is not an ideal solution, but it is the best we can hope for.
So you see, Father, it is not always a problem of parishioners being reticent or not caring. Sometimes it seems we are punished harshly if we take an interest.
Sorry to take up so much space, and Christmas blessings to you.
Hear, hear!
“What they are doing is aiding a protest against the Catholic Church.”
Um, isn’t that just what Lutherans do?
Your point is well taken. These other churches think they are being nice by offering space, but in fact they are insulting the Catholic church. [I don’t think they are trying to be “nice”. I think they are playing a political game. They disagree with the Catholic Church’s teaching and this is a chance to stick it to the Church. It’s a protest.]
The side-bar could, however, accommodate a discussion about who can be ordained a Priest. As I understand it, however, we are not allowed to discuss that issue. Perhaps, Father, you could write about that issue and the married Priest issue at the same time. The Eastern Rite of the Roman Catholic Church allows married Priests. The Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic Church allows married Priest who are converts from the Anglican Tradition. So the “twelve Apostles” argument goes down in flames. And, why not women? These are, as I’m sure you will point out in your article, simply man-made rules that can be changed without a hint at changing dogma.
chuck,
“So the “twelve Apostles” argument goes down in flames.”
Why? It may be that the Anglicans allow married priests, but the operative term there is “allow”. For my understanding they don’t precisely encourage more men to be married priests, nor do they allow married priests to be bishops. I think the same circumstance may apply to Eastern Orthodox. Neither of these rites will be the silver bullet to end the discipline of priestly celibacy that many seem to insist.
“These are, as I’m sure you will point out in your article, simply man-made rules that can be changed without a hint at changing dogma.”
I understand priestly celibacy to be a man-made rule for the good of all, including the priest. I believe John Paul II even cast the discipline as a gift given by the Holy Spirit to ordained men. As to women being ordained priests, I believe the Church has declared on several occasions that women’s ordination is not theologically possible. Not sure if any pope has formally declared it dogmatically or not, but the question of ordaining women is not a matter of a man-made rule, regardless of what various Protestant denominations or progressive-minded Catholics might wish to insist.
We’d have a better chance getting Pope Francis to wash her feet than we would enforcing our so-called privileges on the Ecumenical bandwagon. Don’t you all realize that everyone on the Ecumenical-ship is in the first class cabin, while the Catholics are bunk-bedding near the coal-furnace? Those in charge of ecumenism strike me as being closet-Lutherans anyway…
“Priestess”… sounds kind of PAGAN, doesn’t it?
I think the term is a great fit, and should be the “term of choice.”
Father Z said “bishops have to take action”..oh please God when? How long do we wait on this and a host of other issues.
Its funny, really. Here I sit on the other side of the fence (an ELCA-type Lutheran) and have been saying that this sort of thing both hinders true ecumenism and makes Christ and our confession of Him secondary to socio-political “inclusivity” doctrine for some time. Alas, I am seldom taken seriously by those in my denomination.