Next post will appear on 19 June
After that I return to usual posting schedule of Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Comments always welcomed: jwgreenleaf@gmail.com
The Year for Priests: Special Uncensored Photo Celebration
The Year for Priests, called by Pope Benedict XVI, draws to an official conclusion on 19 June 2010.
On the 19 June closing day, St. Peter’s Square will be especially animated by priests, bishops, and the Pontifex Maximus himself: Benedictus XVI. Cameras will be clicking constantly. Images will be sent around the world with cyber speed and accuracy.
The ceremonial dress and ritual will be colorful and memorable, as only we Catholics can do!
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My Personal Contribution to the Celebration
Unfortunately, due to another commitment, I will not be able to attend the events in Rome. I also realize that some priestly images of course will not be sent out during these Roman celebrations. Therefore, as my own small contribution to the Annus Sacerdotalis, I have collected some of my own favorite priestly images – Catholic and ecumenical.
My Year of the Priests Cyber Photo Collection
And so the discussion moves along as does the church……
A memorable year in so many ways.
A Brief Meditation about Vatican Colonialism
The Only Contemporary European Colonial Power?
Colonialism is a process whereby sovereignty over one colony is claimed by the monarch of the “mother” country, who as needs arise, can impose a new government, new linguistic and cultural forms, and new social structures on the colony.
Colonialism establishes and reinforces unequal relationships between the monarch and the colony and between colonists and the indigenous peoples.
Prime reasons for the practice of colonialism:
- To expand the power and prestige of the monarch.
- To convert the indigenous population to the monarch’s religion, often through Christian conversion missions.
- To instill discipline and respect for authority and to control people who are disobediently wayward
In a few weeks, on July 4th, we citizens of the United States will, of course, once again commemorate our own Declaration of Independence from colonial servitude to the King of England.
Colonialism is demeaning and destructive. It stunts normal individual and social human growth. It restricts the development and exercise of mature responsibility and shared decision-making.
When I think about Pope Benedict sending his episcopal emissaries to Ireland for the autumn 2010 Apostolic Visitation, I get a strong sense that the Holy See may very well be the last European colonial power.
The collegiality of Vatican II and the post Vatican II stress on the importance of national conferences of bishops were healthy moves away from ecclesiastical colonialism.
More than forty years ago we Catholics said it was time to move beyond all forms of colonialism.
Colonialism has no place in the Church of Jesus Christ.
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American Catholics Should be Especially Adverse to Colonialism.
We can be proud of Archbishop John Carroll: our first American Catholic Bishop.
(1) Carroll, first bishop of Baltimore, had respect for the Pope, but was keenly alert to the dangers of papal colonialism. He wanted no part of it for the developing Catholic Church in the United States.
(2) Were Archbishop Carroll alive today, no doubt most of his successors in the USCCB would brand him a disloyal and disobedient dissident — if not a first class heretic.
(3) Carroll struggled to avoid “any dependence on foreign jurisdiction.” In 1783 when he heard that the Vatican independent of the American clergy, was about to appoint a superior for the American clergy he was enraged. He wrote to his English friend Charles Plowden:
“This you may be assured of: that no authority derived from the Propaganda will ever be admitted here. The Catholic clergy and laity here know that the only connection they ought to have with Rome is to acknowledge the Pope as the spiritual head of the Church. No congregations existing in his (Papal) States shall be allowed to exercise any share of his spiritual authority here.…If we are to have a bishop, he shall be an ordinary national bishop in whose appointment Rome shall have no share.”
New posts……
In general I will add a new post three times a week: Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
There will be no new posts during the week of 13 to 19 June.
Pope Benedict Appoints Apostolic Inspectors for the Church in Ireland
The visit is part of an investigation aimed at restoring and renewing the quality of Catholic life in Ireland.
An Apostolic Visitation, which was first signaled by Pope Benedict in a pastoral letter to the Catholics of Ireland in March,
will now take place during the Autumn of 2010.
The panel of nine “Apostolic Visitors” includes four archbishops of Irish descent, namely Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, retired Archbishop of Westminster; Cardinal Seán Patrick O’Malley, Archbishop of Boston; Archbishop Timothy Michael Dolan, Archbishop of New York; Archbishop Thomas Christopher Collins, Archbishop of Toronto; and Archbishop Terrence Thoimas Prendergast SJ, Archbishop of Ottawa.
The Visitation will begin in the four Metropolitan Archdioceses of Ireland (Armagh, Dublin, Cashel and Emly, and Tuam) and will then be extended to some other dioceses.
In its desire to promote the process of renewal of houses of formation for the future priests of the Church in Ireland, the Vatican’s Congregation for Catholic Education will coordinate the visitation of all Irish seminaries, including the Pontifical Irish College in Rome.
The Vatican-appointed examiner for the Irish seminaries is New York’s Archbishop Timothy Dolan, former rector of the Pontifical North American College in Rome. Dolan has often bragged that when rector at NAC he rescued the place from the last vestiges of 1970s liberal theology.
Last week, in a lecture at St. Patrick’s College in Maynooth, Ireland, Archbishop Dolan gave a hint of his approach during the autumn visitation/examinations. On the matter of Church teaching he strongly proclaimed in his own very special rhetorical style: “To those who claim the problem is that, as a matter of fact, Church teaching is too holy, too aloof, too distant, too out of touch, I say the problem is hardly Church teaching but lack of fidelity to it.”
Pope Benedict is particularly fond of Archbishop Dolan’s “Let’s get back to the basics” approach, because he is convinced that Dolan (future cardinal archbishop of New York) embodies exactly the type of dynamic orthodoxy that will help revive the Church in the United States.
Others would argue that Dolan, like Benedict, is caught in a 1950s time warp and their episcopal limousines only go in reverse.
What do the Apostolic Visitors hope to accomplish?
We can now piece together some highlights from various announcements and news reports:
(1) Pope Benedict XVI wants his men to clamp down on liberal secular opinion in Ireland and launch an intensive drive to re-impose traditional respect for the Irish clergy. (Frankly I never thought one could impose respect for another. People – and clergy are people – either earn respect by their words and deeds or they don’t. )
(2) The nine-member team led by two cardinals will be instructed by the Vatican to restore a traditional sense of reverence among ordinary Catholics for their priests. (See my note above.)
(3) Irish priests will be told not to question in public the official teaching of the church about birth control and recognizing divorced Catholics, living with new partners, and welcoming them to Eucharist.
(4) Irish theologians will be ordered to teach “traditional doctrine.” No doubt Apostolic Visitor Dolan will help to vigorously implement this policy.
(5) Irish lay people will be strongly encouraged to attend Sunday Eucharist faithfully and go to private confession regularly.
(6) A major thrust of the Vatican investigation will be to counteract “materialistic and secularist attitudes,” which Pope Benedict believes have led many Irish Catholics to ignore church discipline and become lax in following devotional practices such as going on pilgrimages and doing penance.
So there we have it. And it all makes good Vatican sense.
When all is said and (somewhat) done, pedophilia in Ireland is really the fault of Irish Catholics who have become too materialistic, too secular, too lax, and too disobedient to Holy Mother the Church.
When the going gets tough, the Church gets tough…
The Agenda for American Catholics
Catholic and American
The Work We Need to Do
A few months ago I had lunch with a couple bishop friends. We chatted and laughed about all sorts of things — well we are old friends — but then the discussion turned serious. I told my friends that they and their colleagues in the US episcopacy have just about no credibility. That went over hard. We then had a brief discussion about the “important issues” confronting the Catholic Church in the United States. My bishop friends stressed what they saw as the big three. Anyone care to guess?
Yup………. abortion/euthanasia, birth control and same-sex marriage.
I then presented my list. And they looked at me bug-eyed. One friend chuckled and said, “My goodness! You and I sure live in DIFFERENT worlds!” I replied: “It’s the same world. I guess we just wear different glasses….”
In any event, I think this is the work we have to do, if we will have any Catholic credibility in our American society:
As Catholics — lay and ordained, men and women, gay and straight, young and old — we need to explore together how we can resolve major problems connected with:
- Loss of credibility and loss of confidence in our bishops
- Rescuing the American Catholic Church fromVatican domination
- The role and ministry of women in the church
- Institutional fundamentalism and cultism rooted in control, fear, and anti-intellectualism
- Homosexuality
- Divorce and re-marriage and active sacramental life in the church
- Clerical celibacy
- Declining numbers of priests
- Major financial problems which impact all church life
- Ministerial burnout
- Catechetics and religious education with increased Catholic illiteracy
- Spin-off from Pedophilia among priests and religious
- Uncritical American Catholic citizenship
It’s Time to Relativize the Papacy
High on the list of reforms for the contemporary Roman Catholic Church must be a theologically-based reform of the Roman papacy.
Basic Principles for Papal Reform
1. The historic Jesus did not establish the papacy. When imperial Roma collapsed, the imperial papacy took its place.
2. The imperial papacy has flourished because an exaggerated self-serving and self-propagating authoritarianism replaced servant ministry as the key institutional virtue.
3. Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI have consistently pushed and maneuvered to reinforce the imperial papacy:
a. The anti-communist Polish Pope replaced communist authoritarianism with authoritarian Catholicism and appointed Joseph Ratzinger to enforce the party line.
b. The post-Nazi German Pope abolished Vatican II collegiality with Rome-centerd (Pio Nono) nineteenth century papal imperialism.
4. Bishops should not be held accountable to the Pope. They should be held accountable to their people.
Now we need to get the word out and launch the reform.
U.S. Military Archbishop tells Congress: DO NOT repeal ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy
Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio of the U.S. Archdiocese for the Military Services (right in photo below) has urged Congress not to repeal the policy banning gays from openly serving in the military.
In the June 1 statement, the archbishop reiterated church teaching on homosexuality as defined by the Catechism of the Catholic Church. According to the catechism, “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered” but homosexuals must be “accepted with respect, compassion and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided.”
He said a repeal of the law — which prohibits homosexual activity in the military but eliminates sexual orientation as grounds for dismissal — might have “a negative effect on the role of the chaplain not only in the pulpit, but also in the classroom, in the barracks and in the office.”
The archbishop, noting that gays already serve in the military, questioned if the repeal would “authorize these individuals to engage in activities considered immoral not only by the Catholic Church, but also by many other religious groups” and if it would cause changes in living conditions.
The archbishop likened the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy with the ways that alcoholics have benefited from Alcoholics Anonymous. “Like homosexuality, there is rarely a cure,” he said. “There is a control through a process, which is guarded by absolute secrecy.”
The same old episcopal rhetoric…….
Reader Reactions about Straight/Gay Catholic Schizophrenia
Reactions to yesterday’s post have been strong and abundant. Most readers resonate with my concerns about the straight/gay schizophrenia in the Church of Rome. A couple readers in private emails accused me of nasty anti-Catholicism and “disrespect for the successors of the Apostles.”
First of all I am really not anti-Catholic. The church has been my nourishment for nearly seven decades. I greatly value the Catholic tradition because it is so wonderfully incarnational and sacramental.
The Catholic tradition says we experience and commune with the Divine in, with, and through our bodies. All the more reason why we should have a healthy and happy sense of our own sexuality: at all levels in the church.
Am I disrespectful? Can’t imagine why. Healthy criticism is well….healthy and necessary. Jesus was particularly good at it as well. When Peter the Rock (whom many consider the very first Pope!) was particularly troublesome for Jesus, he had no problem calling him “Satan” and told him to get out of the way. I certainly would not call the hierarchy “Satan” but would like to tell some of them where to go.
Official Roman Catholic leadership needs to get with it. I don’t mind helping them.
Now again my main criticism: Our Catholic leadership suffers from a severe case of arrested sexual development. They wrap themselves in purple and crimson late medieval ball gowns and make pronouncements about sex, sexuality, and gender that are ignorant and dangerous.
The Church of Jesus Christ deserves something much better!
John Greenleaf
PS We are ALL successors of the Apostles!
The Great Catholic (Self) Deception: Publicly Straight + Privately Gay
Rome demands straight behavior and gay bishops, priests, and seminarians retreat into queer schizophrenia.
“I am suggesting that the reality of bishops’ sexual orientation/behavior and the need to hide it is a significant element in clerical culture and structure that keeps us from facing basic facts about how that culture operates and affects millions of people”. — Richard Sipe
Vatican regulations:
The push is on once again to purge gays from Roman Catholic seminaries. In 2005, the Vatican issued guidelines that would strictly limit the admission of gay men to Catholic seminaries. The guidelines, which supported existing rules that had been widely ignored, were clear and direct. Men who actively “practice homosexuality” should be barred from priestly formation. Seminary rectors were ordered to reject candidates who “show profoundly deep-rooted homosexual tendencies or support the so-called gay culture.”
The Vatican followed up in 2008 with a clarification. “It is not enough to be sure that he is capable of abstaining from genital activity,” ruled the Vatican’s Congregation for Catholic Education, which issued the initial guidelines. “It is also necessary to evaluate his sexual orientation.”
The hierarchical church just doesn’t’ like gays.
In January, the Catholic bishops of Uganda argued against the death penalty for homosexuals but reminded their people that “Homosexuals have the need of conversion and repentance, “ because “homosexual acts are immoral and are violations of divine and natural law.”
In February, Cardinal Francis George, Archbishop of Chicago and President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, reiterated a condemnation of “New Ways Ministry” with its a gay-positive advocacy for lesbian and gay Catholics.
In April, during his visit to Chile, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Vatican Secretary of State, conflated pedophilia with homosexuality.
In May, in Fatima, Pope Benedict stressed that gay marriage is one of the most “insidious and dangerous” threats facing the world today.
The Pope’s Christmas address to the Roman Curia two years ago was even clearer: “saving humanity from homosexuality,” the Pope told the church’s central governing body, was just as important as saving the rainforest from destruction.
Today, US Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz, Bishop of Lincoln, Nebraska, continues to reiterate that “homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity… intrinsically disordered. They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life…. Under no circumstances can they be approved.”
Nevertheless, the Catholic reality is increasingly gay.
| As Fr. Donald Cozzens has often observed, and several studies have confirmed, about 50% of today’s priests and seminarians are gay. Most recent studies suggest in fact that today’s seminaries, and seminary rectors, are probably closer to 80% gay. |
In some seminaries in fact, I hear, straight students feel so estranged from seminary life that administrators are offering discussion groups to help them understand gay culture.
If current trends continue, the priesthood of the twenty-first century will likely be perceived as a predominately gay profession.
Gay bishops?
If 50% of Catholic priests are gay, I suspect that more than a couple bishops are gay. Bishops of course try to carefully cover their tracks, especially if they want to advance in the hierarchy. Some, on occasion however, are rather reckless.
A couple years ago when on vacation in Europe I ran into a prominent, incognito-traveling, American archbishop who was having a grand time in Paris with his “nephew.” He nearly had cardiac arrest one morning at the hotel breakfast buffet when I greeted him with a loud “Good Morning Archbishop!”
Then there is the strange case of the homophobic US bishop who was appointed as a “apostolic visitor” to look for signs of homosexuality in US seminaries, when they were all scrutinized in 2005. One of my friends was rector of an examined seminary. A week before the examiner bishop arrived to do his scrutiny, the rector got a phone call from his own bishop. “Be careful,” he told the rector. “Keep all young seminarians away from the apostolic visitor because he is fond of young men and well known for his hands-on-approach.”
To be or not to be?
Being gay is not the issue. Being honest is.
Church leadership has much to learn about human sexuality.
First of all, however, church leadership has to learn what it means to be honest.
Another Voice 
