Fr. Z's Blog

Remember distinctions of ad intra and ad extra when it comes to matters that concern the Church?

Remember my posts about the “Magisterium of Nuns”?

Remember how the “Catholic” Health Association gave cover against the local bishop to a “Catholic” hospital in Phoenix which performed a direct abortion?

The Cardinal Archbishop of Washington DC has some strong words about New Ways Ministry, founded by Sr. Jeannine Gramick, SSND, and Fr. Robert Nugent.

New Ways Ministry dissents from Catholic teaching, defends unnatural sex, objectively sinful behavior, between members of the same sex.

Card. Wuerl has made it clear that New Ways Ministries is not Catholic, the stuff they peddle isn’t Catholic, and that they shouldn’t use the word Catholic for what they do.

CNA has a write up about this.

US bishops emphasize booklet on ‘marriage equality’ is not Catholic

Washington D.C., Mar 16, 2011 / 02:46 am (CNA).- The U.S. bishops have said that a new booklet advocating “marriage equality” for same-sex couples by a self-identified Catholic group strongly contradicts Church teaching.

In “no manner is this organization authorized to speak on behalf of the Catholic Church,” Cardinal Donald Wuerl of Washington, D.C. said March 11, The cardinal was specifically referring to a new pamphlet released by the controversial New Ways Ministry – an organization that claims Catholic support for homosexual “marriage.”

The booklet titled “Marriage Equality: a positive Catholic approach” [Therein lies a problem: this approach is not Catholic.] was authored and released this month by New Ways Ministry’s executive director Francis DeBernardo.

DeBernardo argued that the “full” Catholic position on same-sex “marriage” is not represented solely by bishops within the Church. [Therein lies another problem.  I hope the US bishops are getting what is going on here, the bigger arc.]

“When dealing with lesbian and gay issues, a relatively new area of Church discussion on which there is so much debate,” DeBernardo wrote, “the bishops may not yet be able to discern what the Catholic community believes.” [And so they align themselves with the Magisterium of Nuns.  They are working not just to justify deviancy, but also to supplant the bishops as the Church’s teachers.]

The booklet also claimed that “Catholic tradition” allows for laity and theologians within the Church – some of whom support allowing marriage for same-sex couples – to have equal say and authority on the issue. [New Ways Ministry LIED.]

Cardinal Wuerl, who heads the Committee on Doctrine for the U.S bishops’ conference, reacted to the pamphlet by stating that New Ways Ministry is not “in conformity” with Catholic teaching and that the group should refrain from even identifying itself as Catholic.

Cardinal Wuerl also reiterated his support for the position of the previous U.S. bishops’ conference president Cardinal Francis George, who stated in February of 2010 that the organization is not Catholic and does not speak for the Church.

New Ways Ministry, based in Mount Rainier, Maryland, describes itself as a “gay-positive ministry of advocacy and justice.” Cardinal George noted in his Feb. 12 statement last year that since its founding in 1977, “serious questions” have been raised about the group’s adherence to Catholic teaching on homosexuality.

In 1984, New Way’s founders – Sr. Jeannine Gramick, SSND, and Fr. Robert Nugent – were barred from continuing their activities in the Archdiocese of Washington.  [There are a lot of problems these days in the Church.  There are groups such as New Ways Ministry trying to subvert the authority of the bishops on a lot of fronts.  I submit that the last thing prelates of Holy Catholic Church need to worry about are groups which desire to make use of the provisions of Summorum Pontificum.  As a matter of fact, these groups would go to the wall in support of, defense of Card. Wuerl and other residential bishops everywhere, were they embraced rather than shoved to the margins.]

That same year, their superiors ordered them to separate themselves from the organization. The two resigned from leadership posts but continued their involvement until 1999, when the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith said that because of “errors and ambiguities” in their approach, Sr. Gramick and Fr. Nugent are permanently prohibited from any pastoral work involving homosexual individuals. [But their legacy lives on.]

Cardinal George said New Ways Ministry’s “lack of adherence” to Church teaching on the morality of homosexual acts was the “central issue” in the censure of its founders and continues to be its “crucial defect.”

Tom Peters has a good write up on the situation entitled: “Who is funding the coordinated attempt to subvert the Church’s teaching on homosexuality and marriage?”  Be sure to check it out.  T. Peters points to the role of the anti-Catholic pro-homosexual Arcus Foundation:

New Ways Ministry received almost $100,000 from the Arcus Foundation in 2009. (Anyone who works for a small non-profit will appreciate how far $100k goes.) The Arcus foundation was founded by Jon Stryker, a friend of Tim Gill, a gay billionaire from Colorado who has promised to spend the entirety of his vast fortune on redefining marriage in the United States.

Arcus Foundation is funding anti-Catholic pro-homosexual groups within the sphere of the Church.  By the way, arcus in Latin for “rainbow”.

Consider the triangulation that is taking place.  There are dissident groups within the Church.  Some of them are puppets and ridiculous, though they muddy the waters.  Others are pernicious and they want to take power away from the Church’s true pastors.  There are bad groups outside the Church which desire to destroy the authority of the Church’s pastors.

I think that, as time passes, our bishops will figure out who their friends are.