Fr. Z's Blog

UPDATE 30 August:

This is a very important update, which, in justice, people should follow up on and read.

Jesuit-run (of course) Amerika has an interview with the Jesuit who was the celebrant of “Bob’s” last Mass, where he seems to have engineered the blessing by children in front of the photographer. He disavows any previous knowledge. He says he didn’t really get what was going on. He states that he has no pastoral role at that parish, other than the occasional Mass. He has had a few tough days since this story broke.

You should go and read that interview as Jesuit-run Amerika and decided for yourselves. HERE

If what he says is true.  Then I feel for the guy.

That said, why choose that parish to go to for Sunday Mass… ever?  Why that parish, when I suspect he could chose others and be welcomed.

UPDATE 30 August:

Since I originally posted on this, pretty early out of the gate for this story, more information came out.  I had one update, inserted below, in which the Seattle Archdiocese stated that the Jesuit priest didn’t know what “Bob” was up to.   The problem is that the internet exists.  A lot of people knew, as it turns out.  He had consulted at the parish.  He had written, online, that the Jesuit approved. By process of elimination, that points to the Jesuit in question.

This whole thing oozes evil like sore on the back of a very sick hyena.

One Mad Mom has a pretty good summation of the situation (emphases mine):

Let me be clear. Trying to compare this to a run of the mill suicide is ridiculous. Bob Fuller’s thoughts were documented to the end. And to allow anyone to pre-schedule their own funeral is simply awful. Maybe, at that point, someone might have least looked into the rest of his problems.

This man was a public, obstinate sinner who showed no remorse, even after counselling from his pastor for his suicide. On his way out the door he chose to marry his homosexual partner hours before, he thought he was a shaman, boasted of his past affairs on Facebook, etc. and very little was done to stop and correct him. He was intent on doing it and his funeral was approved by the archbishop.  Bob at least knew, according to the archdiocese, the Church’s teaching on the dignity of life and still did it. What in THE heck were they all thinking? Scratch that! Was anyone thinking? How many more have been scandalized by this???  How many more think it’s just fine because the Church will simply roll over and give them their lovely funeral as if it means absolutely nothing but a nice goodbye? This is, simply, hideous. At THE very least, the pastor or archbishop should have manned up and been there to hear confession at the end if he was willing but they just signed off on it as “Well, there’s nothing else we can do because he’s determined to do it!” The Church has failed Bob Fuller and those that will follow his example. I hope those that threw up their hand hit the confessional this weekend. Prayers for you Bob. You were failed beyond belief.

One of the reasons why the Church had the seemingly – to modern, and therefore foggy and filmy eyes – harsh law about denying burial to obstinate public sinners and to suicides was for the sake of prevention of scandal.  Holy Church is the greatest expert on humanity that there has ever been.  She knows that there lurks in the back of the minds of some disturbed people the black specter of self-slaughter.  Hence, a stern reminder of the eternal consequences of informed and willed suicide is embedded in what seems to many today to be a cold law.

Yes, yes, we all know the perfectly accurate insights of saints such as St. John Vianney about what might happen in the mind of a suicide between the bridge and the water.  But this compassionate optimism mustn’t make us stupid.    These days suicide is on the rise and states are actively abetting this subcategory of homicide.   The option of suicide is moving forward like a juggernaut.  Will the Church stand in its path or simply cede the moral ground … again?

Each and every case of suicide is its own case and merits individual consideration.  However, there remains great wisdom in the severe stand that our forebears developed over a great deal of time and from oceans and oceans of tears, both of the despairing and of the surviving.   Just as God did not impose the Decalogue in order to ruin what otherwise might have been a good time in this earthly life, so too, the Church did not come up with laws about cemeteries and suicides to be cruel.  In another moral issue, there is a reason why the parishes and dioceses make the decision to terminate the employment in schools of open and active homosexuals.   It is not mere cruelty.  It’s called avoidance of scandal.   Not to terminate would be both more cruel and an abdication of God-given responsibility for souls.

And even to suggest the opposite is mean-spirited and pusillanimous to the enth.

It is a common tactic of those who coddle immorality to launch the word “cruel” at the Church for laws and teachings that have been inspired by God and verified for centuries.  think of a 16 year girl screaming, “I HATE YOU!” at her father who won’t let her leave the house dressed like a whore.

So many today have gone flaccid in the face of evil. Straightening the back and saying, “No!” is not in vogue.  It remains, however, the primary job of a mother, and especially of a father, to say “No” to their children, precisely because they love their children and don’t want them to hurt themselves.  Saying, “No”, is hard-wired into the job of being a parent.

Saying, “No”, and often, is the what Popes, bishops and priests are supposed to do, and for a very good reason: people have a real talent for hurting themselves.

This business with “Bob” is what happens when false compassion snuffs out reason and 2000 years of history and 3000 years of divine revelation and eons of the natural law.

Finally – ceterum –something must be done about Jesuits, in general and in particular.

____

Originally Published on: Aug 27, 2019 @ 16:16

A friend sent this with the single word:

“Vile.”

The story from Associated Press is:

The day he picked to die, he had the party of a lifetime

The story is about a 75 year old man, homosexual, Catholic, with a background of suicidal tendencies, terminally ill with cancer, who made use of the Washington state “Death with Dignity Act” to kill himself, surrounded by helpers, etc. “Aid in dying” is allowed. They had a party, he announced his intention, and injected himself.

[…]

Fuller began returning more often to the Catholic church he had long attended. His spiritual views were hardly orthodox – he considered himself a shaman, and described his impending death as a state of “perpetual meditation” – but Seattle’s St. Therese Parish was known for accommodating a range of beliefs. Fuller was beloved there, and he craved the community. He had sung in the gospel choir and read scriptures from the lectern during services, sometimes delivering insightful or funny remarks off the cuff, said Kent Stevenson, the choir’s director.

Stevenson credited the “tenacity and clarity” of Fuller’s choice.

“It was hard to even cry because he was so forthcoming and so sober about it,” Stevenson said. “He was just so outrageously unique and such a character, this was completely in keeping with who Bob was.”

The Roman Catholic Church opposes aid-in-dying laws, citing the sanctity of life. But Fuller’s decision was widely known and accepted among the parishioners. At the service where he received his last communion on May 5, the Rev. Quentin Dupont brought over a group of white-clad children who were receiving their first communion.

They raised their arms and blessed him.

[…]

There’s a photo of the moment.  UPDATE: The Archdiocese of Seattle issued a statement saying that, at the time of the photo, the “the parish leadership was not aware of Mr. Fuller’s intentions.”  HERE

Something twitched in the back of my mind, so I did a search for “Quentin Dupont”.

SJ

Ahhh…. how to romanticize suicide!

[…]

In the kitchen, two volunteers with the nonprofit End of Life Washington mixed the drugs and Kahlua in a glass measuring cup. They said they considered themselves to be like midwives, helping usher people out of the world instead of into it.

“You know if you do this, if you put this in your system, you’ll go to sleep and you won’t wake up?” one, Stephanie Murray, told him as she delivered the syringes.

“I do,” Fuller answered.

Fuller plunged the syringes.

After a few moments of tense quiet, he led his friends in singing, “I’m so glad we had this time together,” the sign-off from the old Carol Burnett television show.

His eyes closed for longer and longer periods.

“I’m still here,” he said.

And then, he wasn’t.

It’s like something from Lord Of The World.

US HERE – UK HERE