Synergistic solutions for a damaged Church

Several good Bishops have a bad problem- generations of abuse and homosexuality in the seminaries have devastated the population of priests.  There is hope for the future- these Bishops who are willing to embrace transparency and action on abuse cases are rewarded with an increase (sometimes a miraculous increase)  in vocations; however, the demographic hole still exists.

Due to this, many rural populations find themselves with either a closed parish or a circuit riding priest, there not being enough priests left to provide pastors for every situation.

At the same time, bad bishops, in a misguided attempt to stem the tide of ridiculously large scandals, are turning to punishing whistleblowers who dare to preach against sexuality in the priesthood (after all, only 80% of the problem is homosexuality, the rest are heterosexuals with "Secret Families"), and if they do, they are quickly removed from being pastors and either have to run for their lives or get sentenced to lives of prayer and penance in the church's equivalent of insane asylums.

Since rural populations are often far more conservative than urban populations, I suggest that an obvious solution exists.  Good Bishops on the west side of the Rockies and in the North, should accept, with some investigation, priests that cannot, for whatever reason, obtain a letter of credentials from their former bishops.  These priests should be given parishes in remote small communities, where they are likely to not only find support from parishioners, but are given a real chance at service.

Four articles on the third letter of Vigano

These are hard to read.  I have real spiritual issues with these abusers.  But for the sake of history, four links:
Vigano's 3rd letter
The Republican Catholic Political Response
The Democratic Catholic Political Response
The Orthodox Catholic PREDICTION (Written before the third letter, but wow, does this guy have the gift of prophecy or what)

This is not a job interview

I wish I could embed this.  Perhaps someday I'll find a youtube link to it.  But when defending a conservative, CNN video is a pretty good link,

This is what has gone wrong with America.

From Daniel

Thank you so much for your prayers and good wishes. Your prayers have been answered. My mother's growth has turned out to be benign. Thanks so much! 

Rules to go over with my son

Rules for my son:
1.  Do not drink away from where you have a safe bed for the night.  That means home, buddy.
2.  Do not go to parties that are not chaperoned.
3.  Do not go on dates unchaperoned.
4.  While I've encouraged you to be heterosexual, in this day and age you can't touch a girl without a written and notarized agreement first detailing the relationship.  Sheldon Cooper is right.  You need a relationship agreement.

It's the only way to be safe thanks to the so-called sexual revolution.

The most Zealous man I know, is so shaken in his faith he wonders how he can stay Catholic

John Hathaway is a man with challenges.  Marfan Syndrome, Asperger's, stuck in a wheelchair.  Yet he's also a father and a very faithful Catholic.

Until today.

The rumor that Pope Francis turned away the American Bishops and are not going to let them even investigate the cardinal sins of homosexuality in the seminaries, has broken my heart and his.

The Year of Mercy is over.  Judgement Day has arrived.  Are your sins in order?

Are sanctuary laws inherently racist?

An interesting thought occurs.

Since central Europeans speaking good English are rarely if ever in contact with police, and State of Oregon officials are forbidden from inquiring into immigration status, is the sanctuary law in Oregon inherently racist?

Kill the messenger is not an adequate defense

Robert Royal has an excellent article on this today on his experiences over the weekend, go and read it.

This weekend my family was on a retreat for special needs families.  Every year, we send the kids to "respite care" - playtime with volunteers- while we care giving parents get a much needed break and a chance to talk.  This session is led by a priest.

This year, Fr. Raul told us a couple of things we really didn't want to hear.  The first was that this would be the last year he was able to come to this retreat, as he's been named as the priest for the deaf community in Portland (and yes, it was a joy to watch him say mass, as he's picked up the habit of adding American Sign Language to the mass- the closest thing I've ever seen to actual honest-to-goodness holy liturgical dance in accordance with the General Instruction- quite beautiful).  And yes, I did make the suggestion that next year, we add the deaf community to the English weekend for the Journey Together in Hope Retreat- I think they would add much to the rest of our disabled community.

The other thing we didn't want to hear, but which needed to be said, was that every good priest he knows- including himself- are burning up the ears of their spiritual advisers and father confessors.  He himself has gone from monthly to weekly confession, and same with sessions with his spiritual adviser.

This was on Saturday, before the last bomb dropped, and we found out the Pope himself had encouraged this cabal's resurgence in the past 5 years.

That bomb was received by many with what has now become the standard modus operandi for armchair apologists.  It is a game called "kill the messenger" or "discredit the messenger".  Archbishop Vigano gave us such a damaging report, that the first instinct is to slander him, rather than believe such awful things about Pope Francis.

But a pattern of this has emerged, for the same thing has happened repeatedly.  In Ireland, Italy, France, Chile, Spain, Mexico, Argentina, Honduras, the Philippines, the story is always the same:  believe the clerics, discredit the abused.

It is time to stop this.  It is time to declare that killing the Messenger is not an adequate defense for what was done. 

There's something wrong with consent itself

The latest round of the priest abuse cases, which is about younger-but-adult people being abused, shows a crack in the very philosophy behind the Sexual Revolution.

Not every act can be consented to.

At least not validly.

Yes does not mean yes when coercion of any sort is involved.

Yes does not mean yes when selfishness replaces love.

Yes does not mean yes when damage and pain is involved.

Yes does not mean yes when sex is perverted away from conception.

Yes does not mean yes when sex is over in a single night.

Basically, sex is supposed to be a part of something larger- a lifelong relationship that brings new life into existence and raises that new life to be a functional part of society.

Sexual revolution consent fails at the primary purpose of sex completely.

Where there was one, now there are two

I've written often about my confusion at the Jesuit proposal of a "doctrine of reception", which enables cafeteria catholicism by explaining sin away as merely being "a teaching not received", as if the real problem isn't enough learning rather than the effects of Original Sin in our lives.

Today, in an article written by Fr. Thomas Rosica, CSB on the Salt and Light blog  we see a new doctrine proposed.  I'd call it, for lack of a better name, the Anti-Pharisee doctrine.  Apparently under this new doctrine, while it is nice to follow scripture and tradition, both are

considered to be "disordered attachments" at times at the discernment of the Pope.  This leads to a rather confused teaching- for everything is now based on the Pope as Dictator, rather than on continuity with the historical magisterium.

On Zenit where this first appeared, the article has been rescinded, but it is a fascinating look into the mind of some people in the church.

I have gotten very busy with work, but these demands are worth mirroring

Everybody knows that Silicon Valley corporations struggle when it comes to how they deal with conservatives.  Here are four very practical suggestions on what big tech social media firms can do to rectify the situation.

1) Provide Transparency: We need detailed information so everyone can see if liberal groups and users are being treated the same as those on the right. Social media companies operate in a black-box environment, only releasing anecdotes about reports on content and users when they think it necessary. This needs to change. The companies need to design open systems so that they can be held accountable, while giving weight to privacy concerns.

2) Provide Clarity on ‘Hate Speech’: “Hate speech” is a common concern among social media companies, but no two firms define it the same way. Their definitions are vague and open to interpretation, and their interpretation often looks like an opportunity to silence thought. Today, hate speech means anything liberals don’t like. Silencing those you disagree with is dangerous. If companies can’t tell users clearly what it is, then they shouldn’t try to regulate it.

3) Provide Equal Footing for Conservatives: Top social media firms, such as Google and YouTube, have chosen to work with dishonest groups that are actively opposed to the conservative movement, including the Southern Poverty Law Center. Those companies need to make equal room for conservative groups as advisers to offset this bias. That same attitude should be applied to employment diversity efforts. Tech companies need to embrace viewpoint diversity.

4) Mirror the First Amendment: Tech giants should afford their users nothing less than the free speech and free exercise of religion embodied in the First Amendment as interpreted by the U.S. Supreme Court. That standard, the result of centuries of American jurisprudence, would enable the rightful blocking of content that threatens violence or spews obscenity, without trampling on free speech liberties that have long made the United States a beacon for freedom.

The difference between abortion and miscarriage

I found this personal account to be quite profound indeed.

If you are looking for a new post in the Papal Economics Series

I am snowed under with work and do not have time to read the new document from the Catholic CDF right now.  This is a reminder to myself to go and read it sometime.

Evidence for nutural homosexuality

No, that isn't a spelling error in the title.

Homosexuality is nurture, not nature

What a journey 50 years makes

When this mysterious document came out, dissent set in to Bishops and Priests all over America.  Today, for the 50th Anniversary, the USCCB is actively selling it!

ODOT violates Freedom of Speech?

Found in Capitol Chatter today:

• Location, location, location: The Oregon Department of Transportation reminds candidates and their supporters: "Political signs may not be posted on any Oregon state highway right of way, and there are restrictions for signs placed on private property visible from state highways."

How is this even slightly legal?

Please, Holy Father, know that you have missed the mark

Once again, Pope Francis has given us an Exhortation.  As you can see by the word cloud above, the real message hiding in Gaudete et exultate is "Saint Can Love Life, Jesus Lord, God, Others with Good Will"

Not as eloquent as the last word cloud, and perhaps can be rearranged.  Any takers in the comments?

Once again though, nice idea, telling us to embrace holiness, but the problems are in the details.

I find it problematic that in Gaudete et exsultate, a quick word search for "repentance", "penance" and "confession" are not mentioned as a path to holiness, "conversion" is mentioned only once as one possible path to holiness, and the Eucharist and Reconciliation and devotions are only mentioned as a path to sanctification "we are familiar with" and thus, apparently, don't need to be mentioned in depth (Paragraph 110).  In a world where 5/6 Catholics reject weekly Mass, I think that is a horrible assumption that we are currently familiar with the sacraments.

Paragraphs 35-62 inclusive are extremely problematic, given that he then engages in this very error himself in paragraphs 158-175 when he invokes the Jesuit semi-pelagian disciplines of discernment and subjective conscience against Church Teaching!  Paragraphs 168 and 173 are especially painful, given the change that this Pope claims is from the spirit, yet wounds so much the victims of pederasty and divorce.

This form of holiness, that hates contemplation and prayer (right up front in paragraph 26 he claims that contemplatives, hermits, and anchorites are in fact "unhealthy"), is rather strange to me, though at one time I followed that path of only the corporal works of mercy and never the spiritual works myself. But when I followed that path of only the active life, I did not find holiness, I did not find joy, but merely escape from my sin. To find forgiveness for my sin required repentance, and in repentance, lies true holiness.

And finally, pro-lifers, the correct response to the pulled out of context quote from Paragraph 101 "Equally sacred, however, are the lives of the poor, those already born, the destitute, the abandoned and the underprivileged, the vulnerable infirm and elderly exposed to covert euthanasia, the victims of human trafficking, new forms of slavery, and every form of rejection." is found in the very sentence before "Our defence of the innocent unborn, for example, needs to be clear, firm and passionate, for at stake is the dignity of a human life, which is always sacred and demands love for each person, regardless of his or her stage of development." (clearly, whomever translated this is from England!)

Please, Holy Father, know that we, your abused children, have adopted rigidity for our very survival. That we are rigid not out of gnostic and pelagian selfishness, but out of actual harm done to our families and ourselves by the embrace of sexual revolutionary ideas by the clergy and the consecrated. We are rigid because we have to be- to protect our sons and our daughters from pornographers and sex traffickers that are not only common in society, but have even infested the clergy of the church. We have a need to protect intact marriages from the abuse of divorce. 

We are the wounded. Why has the church abandoned us?

A bit sour on the idea of progress

Progressivism and Catholicism are incompatible.

I have no hope left for progress. Every time somebody uses the word progress, hidden in it is "how can I hurt my neighbor today".

It is just as bad within the Church. Every time I turn around, people are using "prudence", "Pastoral", "discernment" and "conscience" in very thinly disguised excuses for abuse. I do not think we should be fooled by such claims.

Of course, part of my impression MIGHT be because I live in a state where "progress" is defined as kill the unborn and the old human beings to save the salmon and fund windmills. And that whenever I argue against the genocide of the unwanted at church, I'm sure to run across some "Jesuit trained" person who thinks homosexual rape of boys builds character and that abortion and contraception are necessary to keep those awful poor people from breeding too much.The latest expansion on the Death With Dignity act seems very undignified to me. If you have no use of your arms, the attendants can now choose to just stop feeding you. Was signed into law last week. Thus we now have two forms of euthanasia in Oregon- voluntarily chocking down 9 grams of barbiturates ground into your applesauce, or involuntarily starving to death.

Next up according to the man who wrote the latest bill: Removal of the six month terminal illness limit and requirement for depression testing for dementia patients.
Next up according to the man who wrote the latest bill: Removal of the six month terminal illness limit and requirement for depression testing for dementia patients.
So forgive me if I'm a bit sour, on the whole idea of "progress"