Fr. Z's Blog

UPDATE 2 Dec 2019:

This story has now thudded into a hardly surprising new phase. HERE She went to a Methodist “inclusion” gathering and tool their “communion”.

I like the bit in the video where she says, “It’s not about me.”

ROFL!

You can tell a lot about what this woman understands about the Faith she said she belonged it. In fact, she belongs to another religion altogether. And note the video of her taking Methodist “communion”.

Also interesting is the choice of this news station to keep milking the story for every last drop of anti-Catholicism.

As the manual theologian Prümmer points out, Catholics must not take part in a non-Catholic ritual action (which is what she did) with the intention of worshiping God (if she was there for that and not just to get on the news – and it could be both) in the manner of non-Catholics because such an act is tantamount to denial of the Catholic Faith.   You can, for example, attend the non-Catholic wedding or a funeral of a relative or friend, but you cannot receive their “communion”.

UPDATE:

The Diocese of Grand Rapids is backing up the priest, Fr. Nolan!

This is good news.

Statement regarding St. Stephen parish

I am pleased that the Diocese is backing the priest in this matter.  It’s an important signal to priests and laity alike.  We must pray for our priests and our bishops as The Present Crisis™ ramps up.

How long will it be before Jesuits complain?

Three… Two… One…

___Originally Published on: Nov 26, 2019 at 22:49

From WOOD TV in Grand Rapids, MI.  Note how spectacularly biased and poorly written.

EGR priest denies Communion to gay judge
GRAND RAPIDS
by: Barton Deiters

EAST GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — Judge Sara Smolenski, chief judge of the Kent County District Court, has been denied Communion at the church where she has been a parishioner for more than six decades because she is married to a woman.  [Length of registration or, probably, imagining that you are a parishioner, is irrelevant.]

It is a move that for many was the final straw in a pattern of behavior that has them calling for the removal of a priest — a priest who came to St. Stephen Catholic Church about three years ago.  [The antecedent suggests that the married lesbians are the “them”.]

In 1966, under the leadership of Rev. Msgr. Edward N. Alt, St. Stephen Catholic School became the first integrated Catholic school in Metro Grand Rapids and had a student body that was nearly 40 percent non-Catholic.  [More irrelevant padding.  So what?]

This tradition of inclusion and acceptance would be the essence of the school and the church for 50 years.  [Except that what is not being included is tradition.  And 50 years means nothing.]

But now, some here say that is changing.  [Some.]

“I’ve been a member of St. Stephen’s Catholic Parish for 62 years, basically,” Smolenski said.  [Some.. and we are back to the lesbian.]

Smolenski who has been on the bench for nearly 30 years, [30 years on the bench… so she ought to know better about law.  How does such an antinomian sleep?]comes from a family of prominent community members, including her father who was also a district court judge, and her brother, a state appeals court judge.  [So what?  All these family relations are irrelevant.]

“I was baptized there, my parents were married there, every one of my nine siblings went to school (from) first through eighth grade. We buried my parents out of that school,” Smolenski said. “This is a church that is a part of who I am. This is a church who helped form my faith.”  [Quidquid recipitur…]

News 8 featured Smolenski in March of 2016, when she became the first Kent County elected official to marry someone of the same sex.

But it was just last Saturday that Smolenski got a call from the parish priest, Father Scott Nolan.  [So… the parish priest reached out.  I wonder if she reached out to the priest before civilly marrying a woman (a public act).]

“The way he said it was ‘because you’re married to Linda in the state of Michigan, you cannot accept communion,’ that’s how he said it,” Smolenski explained. [What was he supposed to say? Beat around the bush with a woman who supposedly has said a lot blunter things in her courtroom?] “I try to be a good and faithful servant to our Lord Jesus Christ. My faith is a huge part of who I am, but it is the church that made that faith, the very church where he is taking a stance and saying ho-ho, not you.” [Something is missing here.  She seems to think that she is only a member of that parish and not the larger Church.]

It was a devastating revelation for the lifelong Catholic who months earlier gave $7,000 to the parish building fund.  [She gave $7000!!!  Well, she should get Communion for that!]

“Oh my gosh, I’m not going to get Jesus at the church I have devoted my life to,” Smolenski said, fighting back tears. “I thought of my mom and dad who devoted their whole life to raising us Catholic, spending all that money at the Catholic education.”  [It is entirely possible that her mom and dad would get why an open lesbian shouldn’t be receiving Communion.]

Smolenski was not the first person to be denied, according to a dozen people News 8 talked to Tuesday, including one same-sex couple who was denied the Eucharist during their child’s communion service.  [So, she wasn’t being singled out.  The priest isn’t knuckling under just because she’s a judge or she gave $7000.]

“The public shunning — everything about it was offensive,” Smolenski said of the denial months before her own.

[…]

There’s more of this rubbish.

This is the bottom line: Force the Church to conform to you. If the priest doesn’t comply with your demands, don’t for a moment consider that he also has a job to do with laws and doctrines, attack and intimidate.

The article goes on to cite Francis.

The UK’s Catholic Herald has a recent issue with the cover: Communion Wars.

If there are Communion Wars, I suggest that they are rising partly because a certain person is forcing priests more and more to examine their vocations and make hard choices.

Also, every one of these episodes is an opportunity to bear witness to the truth about the Eucharist and our Catholic identity, especially in our liturgical rites.

We are our rites.