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| Fr. John Coleman, S.J. |
On Saturday, at a reception honoring our retiring pastor, a man spoke to
me to compliment me on my homilies. He then told me he was gay. He said
he came to a Jesuit church because he had no fears in such a setting
that his dignity would be assailed from the pulpit. I was surprised! I
asked him if he had ever experienced such a denigration of his dignity
from homilies in other settings and he assured me the answer was yes.
Again, the issue of gay marriage roils our current political scene. I
read recently the letter of Archbishop John Nienstadt of
Minneapolis-Saint Paul to his priests about his concern to marshal an
attack on gay marriage and support a referendum in Minnesota opposing
it. He told his priests that this is one of the greatest challenges of
our times and that he saw those who supported gay marriage as involving "an attempt to eliminate the need for marriage altogether." He made
clear that he would not brook from his priests any open dissension on
this issue. One of the dangers of Catholic attempts to fight gay marriage ( as we saw in California in 2008 at the time of the divisive
Proposition 8 fight) is that the church runs the risk of allying its
activity with other groups. In Minnesota, the Catholic effort seems to
be allied closely with the Minnesota Family Council on whose web site
one finds truly homophobic remarks which link gay orientation
intrinsically to pedophilia and beastiality!
Link (here) to America Magazine to read the op/ed by Fr. John Coleman, S.J.
6 comments:
Sawyer I agree but reword your statement.
Thanks
Joe
"Unworthy priests are more than a source of scandal to the faithful. They renew the mockery of the Mystical Christ today, even as the Roman soldiers mocked the physical Christ during His Passion on Holy Thursday night.
Those poor soldiers, all they thought was that Jesus was a poor dreamer, a poor seer and perhaps, a half-wit, a poor victim of the mob who was given to them that they might have some fun according to their ideas of fun. As cruel men sometimes cast a poor little rabbit to the hounds after they have caught it, or a poor little mouse to the cat to be played with, they did not know that this was the King of Kings.
But, when I or another priest of God do anything unworthy, I step up to Him and bow my knee in mockery, and make the world laugh. The world who hates Christ and does not believe. They smile and say, "There is your priest for you." I set the crown back hard and deep into the Sacred Seat of Divine Wisdom. Oh, this is a mystery of suffering that is especially continued through time.
How Christ suffers in being mocked in the person of His priest! It is too late for a priest to make a decision, would to God it was not, it is too late for a priest to turn back and be something else. (J-4, p. 38).
But they cannot be anything else. They are ordained forever. And even if they try to forget, the world never forgets. It knows, as by supernatural instinct, what a priest should be and if he shows himself unfaithful, the whole Church suffers by the counterwitness he gives to everyone who enters his life.
It follows, then, that the sins of priests are particularly offensive to God.
There is a passage in the Psalms that applies especially to sin in a priest. The Psalmist says I was wounded in the house of a friend. If ever there is a place that should be the house of a friend, it should be the soul of a priest. It should be a house that is given over as a true friend gives over his home when a friend comes to him; so before all else a priest's soul belongs to Christ. It should be the house of his friend. And there the wounds that He receives by the sins of a priest all represent a special depth of anguish; they have a special poignancy to Our Lord because He loves so much. (D-127).
If we become aware of the infidelities of priests, the ingratitudes of priests, the coldness and sinfulness of priests, we have the privilege of being invited, as it were, into the very depths, the deepest sorrows of the Sacred Heart, the sorrows that He will not reveal to the world."
A Spiritual Biography of Fr. Gerlad M.C.Fitzgerald
A Prophet ofr the Priesthood
Servant of God John A. Hardon SJ
Read the whole column. Coleman's column is an excellent example of someone artfully avoiding explicit statements of heterodoxy while leaving no doubt in the reader's mind that he does not hold orthodox Catholic faith. Gives a new meaning to the term "Jesuitical".
Sawyer: Sadly, it is now a practiced form of high art. He and his Jesuit confreres would do well to reflect on the following:
On Rules for Thinking w/ the Church:
"We must put aside all judgment of our own, and keep the mind ever prompt and ready to obey in all things the true spouse of Christ Our Lord, our holy Mother the hierarchical Church." What he recognized is that if the mind is such a powerful instrument in the apostolate, it will be only as effective as it is humble; and the humility is shown by obedience to the Church's magisterium. The source of all problems in the Society of Jesus is our pride of intellect and the very fact that we are so highly trained. I had thirty-one years of formal education before I began to teach theology. Thirty-one years in anybody's chronology is a long time. But a mind thus developed must remain a humble mind. A proud mind is an instrument of the devil. When I see religious or priests, no matter what other qualities they may have, but I see them proud, if they'd let me, I'd tell them, "In God's name, get some humility!" And if they don't because they won't allow me or because they are not in such contact with me or I with them, then I oppose them. I oppose every proud mind, because a proud mind is an enemy of Christ.
Stupidly we ask for a high IQ, all kinds of natural gifts, and with further stupidity we give these people training, education, spend tens of thousands of dollars on them without a thought that we are shoveling coal into a mind already burning with pride."
John Hardon SJ
Ah, quotes from the protector of sexual predators, Fr. Hardon!
Sawyer,
Excellent!
JMJ
Joe
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