Fr. Z's Blog

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 RINDGE

A 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.