Former America Magazine Editor Say Bishops Embarrassing To Watch

In November, when the U.S. bishops met for their annual meeting in Baltimore, they did not pick up on the themes that are the signature features of the papacy of Pope Francis: concern for the poor and marginalized, criticism of the capitalism, and the mercy and compassion of God. Rather, they continued to worry about gay marriage and the contraceptive mandate and voted to write a statement on pornography. (Spoiler alert: They are against it.) It was truly embarrassing to watch the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in action in Baltimore, especially for those who remember the glory years when the bishops were prophetic voices with their letters on peace and the economy. It was as if they had missed the Francis memo.

This week, the bishops will have another chance to get on the Francis bandwagon as they meet Wednesday through Friday in New Orleans. Will they miss the bus again?

"Family issues" will again be front and center at the meeting in New Orleans. The bishops will get an update from their Subcommittee for the Promotion and Defense of Marriage, chaired by Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco. This is the committee that fights gay marriage. They will also hear from Archbishop William Lori of Baltimore, who chairs the USCCB's Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty, which is leading the fight against the contraceptive mandate in the Affordable Care Act. 

Link (here) to the Fishwrap to read the full article by Fr. Thomas Reese, S.J.

Fr. Michael Amaladoss, S.J. Was A Student Of Fr. Jacques Dupuis, S.J.

Fr. Jacques Dupuis, S.J.

Francis knows Amaladoss because of his long and distinguished career as a Jesuit, both as a theologian and author of hundreds of books and articles, and also as a longtime assistant at the Jesuit headquarters in Rome. Amaladoss is traveling abroad, Mudavassery said, and the theologian did not respond to emails sent to him at the Institute of Dialogue with Cultures and Religion that he heads in Chennai.

Mudavassery said he did not know of any restrictions placed on Amaladoss. But Amaladoss has pulled all speaking and writing commitments as he tries to address the Vatican’s concerns. Jesuit sources said Amaladoss told his U.S. publisher, Orbis Books, to halt work on a planned collection of his writings; Orbis officials declined to comment on the status of any project with Amaladoss.

The priest also canceled a lecture at Union Theological Seminary in New York, scheduled for April 8, titled “Is Theology in India Really Different Than Theology in the West?” A note on the seminary’s website reads: “The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith of the Vatican has forbidden Dr. Amaladoss from speaking and publishing until a process of examining his thought has been successfully completed.” “Amaladoss has asked us not to comment on the specific reasons for this cancellation, and we respect his wishes,” added Union spokesman Jeff Bridges. Investigations by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith are conducted in secret, and targeted theologians often don’t know that they are under scrutiny until the investigation is well underway. They also typically do not know who lodges complaints or who in the CDF is conducting the investigation. Theologians have long complained that such secrecy and the limited opportunities they have to answer charges in person have led to a coercive system that reflects poorly on the Catholic hierarchy.

During the quarter century that Ratzinger ran the office under Pope John Paul II, Jesuits were often the targets of CDF probes, in part because Jesuits have a missionary focus and seek to translate traditional beliefs for modern believers and to other religious cultures.

The process of engaging cultures is especially advanced in Asia, where Christianity is a minority and where Jesuits have established a beachhead for Catholicism. But that also means that theologians working there often use nontraditional formulations to try to communicate the faith to Hindu or Buddhist audiences who have little understanding of Western views of God and Jesus. Amaladoss’ own teacher, the Belgian Jesuit Jacques Dupuis, faced a long and grueling investigation by the CDF over his views on religious pluralism. The stress of the probe, led by Ratzinger, is said by colleagues to have contributed to Dupuis’ death in 2004.

Link (here) to RNS

Cardinal On Fordham's Sr. Johnson, "Doctrinal Errors In That Theologian’s Writings,”

Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller

The CDF prefect said that the LCWR considered one of “the more contentious aspects” of the mandate to be the need for speakers and presenters at major programs to be cleared by the apostolic delegate overseeing the reform, Archbishop J. Peter Sartain of Seattle. This aspect, he said, was not a “sanction,” but, rather, “a point of dialogue and discernment” designed to avoid speakers using an LCWR forum “to advance positions at odds with the teaching of the Church.” It also was meant to help the LCWR leaders anticipate issues of concern to the Holy See. “It saddens me to learn that you have decided to give the Outstanding Leadership Award during this year’s assembly to a theologian criticized by the bishops of the United States because of the gravity of the doctrinal errors in that theologian’s writings,” Cardinal Müller said, referring to the LCWR 2014 award going to Sister of St. Joseph Elizabeth Johnson. “This is a decision that will be seen as a rather open provocation against the Holy See and the 'Doctrinal Assessment,'” the cardinal continued. “Not only that, but it further alienates the LCWR from the [United States] bishops as well.” Had Archbishop Sartain been involved in the conversation about choosing an honoree, “he would have added an important element to the discernment,” the cardinal said. “The decision taken by the LCWR during the ongoing implementation of the 'Doctrinal Assessment' is indeed regrettable and demonstrates clearly the necessity of the mandate’s provision that speakers and presenters at major programs will be subject to approval by the delegate,” Cardinal Gerhard Müller said.

Link (here) to the National Catholic Register

Polish Jesuit Unhappy With Polish Cardinal

Krzysztof Madal, an influential Jesuit priest, slammed plans to include the ampoule in the altar of a new church saying it was returning the "Catholic Church to the medieval practices of the past". "In medieval days people didn't read and write, and knew little about the world so the Church needed stimuli," he added. "But times have changed and using blood as a relic is not a good idea." The blood was taken by doctors at the Gemelli Clinic in Rome during a tracheotomy operation, carried out shortly before the pope's death. Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, John Paul's former secretary, would like to incorporate the blood into an altar in a new church at Lagiewniki, the town near Krakow that will house a planned John Paul II Centre, dedicated to the work and memory of the late pope. "He would like it placed in a special crystal in the altar so it is clearly visible to the faithful," said Father Jan Kabzinski, who is working on the centre.
Link (here)

A Boston College Commencement Address And Edward Kennedy's Funeral Liturgy Are Canonically Very Different Things

Cardinal O'Malley At Edward Kennedy's Funeral

Michael Coren has a pretty good article over at Catholic World Report on Boston Cdl. Sean O’Malley’s “fundamentally different” from the prelate’s 2009 decision in the Kennedy funeral matter. Well, I deny Coren’s assertion that O’Malley’s decisions stand in contrast to one another and, while the burden is on Coren to demonstrate his assertion, I’ll mention a few points for my readers’ reflection.
decision not to attend Boston College’s commencement in protest against its invitation to Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny (another politician who’s Catholic when it’s convenient but pro-abortion when it counts) to deliver the main address. But Coren contrasts O’Malley’s decision in the Kenny commencement matter as

First, a commencement address and a funeral liturgy are canonically very different things. Anyone wishing to compare them must show first of all how an academic exercise is sufficiently like a sacramental of the Church to support any arguments resting on their alleged comparableness. 

Now, I can point to a boatload of dissertations discussing the canon law of Catholic funerals, but I know of none on the canon law of Catholic commencement exercises; so one draws, therefore, analogies between commencement and funerals at one’s own risk. Second, and more to the point, O’Malley’s decision in the Kennedy funeral case was made, as I argued then and argue today, quite within the bounds of—nay, in compliance with!—the canon law on Catholic funerals.

Link (here) to Dr. Edward Peters full article

A Sign That Things Are About To Change At Boston College

Ireland's prime minister Edna Kenny isn't the first abortion-rights proponent to be honored by the college. In Scott Brown, delivered the commencement address at the Boston College School of Law. In 2007, the law school invited Edward Markey—a Massachusetts Congressman with a 100% abortion rights voting record in Congress—to speak at its commencement. In 2006, Mr. Markey joined 54 other Catholic Democrats in the House in signing a "Catholic Statement of Principles," reserving the right to disagree with the Catholic Church on important issues like abortion. Mr. Markey is now running for John Kerry's vacated Senate seat. There has been an uneasy relationship between the church and the wider Boston College campus community as well. In 2009, when college administrators placed 40 crucifixes on classroom walls throughout the Boston campus, a number of faculty members were furious. In interviews with the Boston Herald and InsideHigherED.com, one professor described the display of crucifixes as offensive, while another found it "insensitive" and "indicative of a bias toward one way of thinking, elevating one set of ideals above others, honoring one group of people in preference to the rest." Complaining about the crucifixes, 

2010, the pro-choice Republican senator from Massachusetts,

Boston College Chemistry professor Amir Hoyveda wrote a letter to the editor of the Boston Herald, saying that he could "hardly imagine a more effective way to denigrate the faculty of an educational institution."

Boston College pro-choice law students have formed BC Law Students for Reproductive Justice. On their website as of May 16, the Boston College pro-choice law students vow to "promote awareness of reproductive issues in order "to ensure that future lawyers will be prepared to successfully defend and expand reproductive rights." 

In a sense the professors and students are continuing the tradition of the longtime proponent of abortion rights, the late Rev. Robert Drinan, who was dean of Boston College Law School for 14 years (1956-70) before serving in the U.S. House of Representatives. While a congressman, Drinan could be counted on to vote for increased access to abortion, just as earlier, while a dean, he had helped counsel Catholic politicians on how to accept and promote abortion with a clear conscience. In 2011, the Boston College Law School held a symposium to honor Drinan.

Yet Cardinal O'Malley's refusal to countenance the college's support for Prime Minister Kenny may be a sign that things are about to change. In April, Pope Francis chose Cardinal O'Malley as one of eight cardinals to advise him on running the church and reforming the Vatican bureaucracy. This honor brings with it a responsibility to ensure that Catholic colleges and universities are faithful to the Catholic mission. The cardinal's Boston College boycott is a good start.

Link (here) to The Wall Street Journal to read Anne Henderdshott's full article.

More On Cardinal Sean O’Malley Denouncing Boston College

Cardinal Sean O’Malley’s public statement denouncing Boston College for honoring Irish prime minister Enda Kenny was a violation of an informal agreement with the Irish government leader and the Jesuit university, according to an Irish columnist. Niall O’Dowd charges that Cardinal O’Malley reneged on an agreement when he engaged in open criticism of the plan by Boston College to award Kenny an honorary degree. O’Dowd writes:

According to my sources O’Malley had indicated agreement with a plan that would see him absent on the day at Boston College but with a plausible reason not directly related to Kenny for not attending.

The columnist says that the agreement would have allowed the Cardinal to register disapproval for the honorary degree without causing a major public controversy. But last week, as pro-life activists announced plans to demonstrate at the Boston College commencement ceremonies, Cardinal O’Malley said that he would not attend the ceremonies. The cardinal’s public statement clearly indicated that his absence was due to the honor for Kenny, who has strongly supported legislation to allow for legal abortion in Ireland. 

Link (here) to Catholic Culture

Cardinal Sean O' Malley, "Abortion A Crime Against Humanity "

Because the Gospel of Life is the centerpiece of the Church’s social doctrine and because we consider abortion a crime against humanity, the Catholic Bishops of the United States have asked that Catholic institutions not honor government officials or politicians who promote abortion with their laws and policies. Recently I learned that the Prime Minister of Ireland, the Hon. Mr. Enda Kenny was slated to receive an honorary degree at Boston College’s graduation this year. I am sure that the invitation was made in good faith, long before it came to the attention of the leadership of Boston College that Mr. Kenny is aggressively promoting abortion legislation.  

 The Irish Bishops have responded to that development by affirming the Church’s teaching that  “the deliberate decision to deprive an innocent human being of life is always morally wrong” and expressed serious concern that the proposed legislation “represents a dramatic and morally unacceptable change to Irish law.” 

Since the university has not withdrawn the invitation and because the Taoiseach has not seen fit to decline, I shall not attend the graduation. It is my ardent hope that Boston College will work to redress the confusion, disappointment and harm caused by not adhering to the Bishops’ directives.  Although I shall not be present to impart the final benediction, I assure the graduates that they are in my prayers on this important day in their lives, and I pray that their studies will prepare them to be heralds of the Church’s Social Gospel and “men and women for others,” especially for the most vulnerable in our midst.

Link (here) to Cardinal Sean O' Malley's Blog

Fr. William Leahy, S.J. Reaffirmation

Bradley Schaeffer, SJ, rector of the Blessed Peter Faber Community; B.C. president William Leahy, SJ; Cardinal Seàn Patrick O'Malley, OFM Cap, Archbishop of Boston; Steven Dillard, SJ, secretary for formation for the US Assistancy; Thomas Smolich, SJ, president of the Jesuit Conference

Boston College has said it will not withdraw its invitation to Taoiseach Enda Kenny to speak at the US university later this month despite protests from pro-life lobbyists. 

Mr Kenny is due to speak at a commencement, or graduation, ceremony at the college on May 20th and will also receive an honorary Doctor of Law degree from college president Rev William Leahy, S.J. 

An online petition has been circulated to anti-abortion groups in the United States urging the Jesuit-run university not to invite Mr Kenny because of the proposals contained in the Protection of Life in Pregnancy Bill. The campaigners claim the Bill facilitates abortion in Ireland for the first time. Phone numbers and email addresses for US Cardinal Sean O’Malley, Rev Leahy, and even to the Pope, who is a Jesuit, were included in the email. The Catholic Action League executive director C J Doyle, an alumnus of Boston College, said of the college’s decision to invite Mr Kenny: “Even for a university whose Catholic identity is as compromised as that of BC, this decision is shameful and dishonorable. “ However, the university’s spokesman Jack Dunn responded: “Boston College invited Prime Minister Kenny to speak at our Commencement in celebration of our Sesquicentennial anniversary and the historically close relationship Boston College has enjoyed with Ireland. We look forward to having him on May 20.”

Link (here) to the Irish Times

Cardinal O'Malley Says No To Boston College And Prime Minister Edna Kenny And Yes To The Unborn

Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley, the archbishop of the Boston Archdiocese, said today he would not attend Boston College’s commencement because the scheduled speaker, Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny, supports controversial abortion-rights legislation in his country. In a statement released this afternoon, O’Malley said the Catholic Bishops of the United States have urged Catholic institutions not to honor government officials whose views on the issue are inconsistent with the teachings of the Catholic church. The Irish legislation would permit abortions if there is a real and substantial threat to the mother’s life, including from suicide.

“Since the university has not withdrawn the invitation and because the Taoiseach [prime minister] has not seen fit to decline, I shall not attend the graduation,’’ O’Malley said in a statement. “It is my ardent hope that Boston College will work to redress the confusion, disappointment and harm caused by not adhering to the Bishops’ directives.’’

He added, “although I shall not be present to impart the final benediction, I assure the graduates that they are in my prayers on this important day in their lives, and I pray that their studies will prepare them to be heralds of the Church’s Social Gospel and ‘men and women for others,’ especially for the most vulnerable in our midst.’’ By tradition, the Boston archbishop delivers the final benediction at BC’s commencement each spring. The college is scheduled to award Kenny an honorary Doctor of Laws degree at the ceremony, which will be held May 20 at Alumni Stadium. 

Link (here) to Boston.com

"I Wasn't Trying To Show Off For The Ladies,"

Former Priest Ray Bourgeois and Janice Sevre-Duszynska

The Rev. Bill Brennan, a longtime peace activist, has been ordered not to celebrate the Eucharist or other sacraments publicly, or to present himself publicly as a priest by the Archdiocese of Milwaukee and his religious order, the Society of Jesus. It comes three weeks after Brennan celebrated Mass with Milwaukee native the Janice Sevre-Duszynska during an annual protest at what was historically known as the School of the Americas at Fort Benning near Columbus, Ga. And it follows the excommunication and defrocking of School of the Americas Watch founder the Rev. Roy Bourgeois, a Maryknoll priest who participated in Sevre-Duszynska's 2008 ordination in Lexington, Ky. (The former School of the Americas is now called the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation.) Brennan, who remains a priest and lives with other retired Jesuits in a Wauwatosa retirement home, said he knew he risked censure when he celebrated the sacrament with a woman priest. "Sometimes in our lives we have to trust our conscience and bring about the consequences," said Brennan, a Wauwatosa native who taught at Marquette University High School beginning in 1968 and spent 17 years working in Latin America. "I wasn't trying to show off for the ladies," he said. Fellow peace and social justice advocates voiced disappointment in the censure. And Sevre-Duszynska called it "outrageous" and Brennan "prophetic." "Bill has exemplified with his life the fruits of the spirit," she said. 

"He has worked for justice with the oppressed and marginalized, and for the liberation that Jesus teaches in the Gospel." 

In the Catholic Church, the local bishop -- in this case Archbishop Jerome Listecki -- confers the "faculties" priests require to serve publicly in a geographic area. Jesuit spokesman Jeremy Langford and Listecki's chief of staff, Jerry Topczewski, said it was a joint decision to withdraw Brennan's faculties for public ministry.

Unlike Bourgeois' sanction, the move does not appear to have prompted a Vatican review, at least for now. Both the Jesuits and the archdiocese said they planned to take no further actions against the elderly priest. Brennan, who was arrested during a protest at Fort Benning in 2011, is one of two Milwaukee-area priests who have been sanctioned, at least in part for their actions there.

 A 75-year-old Franciscan priest and peace activist, the Rev. Jerry Zawada, was suspended by the Franklin-based Franciscan Friars Assumption BVM province after celebrating Mass at Fort Benning with Sevre-Duszynska in 2010 and 2011. His case is pending before the Vatican, said the Franciscan provincial, the Rev. John Puodziunas . Zawada, who served previously in the Tucson, Ariz., diocese, said he's had no assignment since his suspension. The Catholic Church prohibits the ordination of women. Sevre-Duszynska, of Lexington, Wis., is ordained in the Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests, which represents about 124 priests and 10 bishops around the world. The group claims legitimacy, saying the bishop who ordained its first women bishops stood in apostolic succession -- the line of Catholic bishops who stretch back to Jesus' apostles. The Vatican rejects that argument. The ordination of women in the Catholic Church is highly controversial, though a majority of Catholics appear to support it -- 59 percent, according to a 2010 New York Times and CBS News poll. Theologians have long debated the legitimacy of the ban, and advocates for women priests often are dealt with harshly.

In 2008, the Vatican decreed that women who seek ordination and those who ordain them face automatic excommunication from the church. And in 2010 it listed the attempted ordination of women as a grave sin on par with pedophilia and heresy. 

Brennan said his decision to celebrate Mass with Sevre-Duszynska grew not out of some "wild-eyed liberal" protest or heady theological research, but from his deep admiration for his own mother.

Link (here)

Wisconsin Jesuit Celebrates Mass With Woman His Priestly Faculties Suspended

Fr. Bill Brennan, S.J. and Janice Sevre-Duszynska

A Catholic priest who participated in a eucharistic liturgy with a woman priest last month has been ordered to no longer celebrate the Mass or perform any other priestly duties. Jesuit Fr. Bill Brennan, a 92-year-old Milwaukee-area priest, said the superior of his religious community told him of the restrictions Nov. 29, saying they came at the request of Archbishop Jerome Listecki. Brennan, a retired parish priest and former missionary to Belize, participated in a liturgy Nov. 17 with Janice Sevre-Duszynska, a woman ordained in the Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests movement. Brennan said he was hesitant to confirm the news regarding his loss of faculties because he was also ordered not to talk to the press. "I'm risking my existence in the Jesuit order by talking to you," Brennan told NCR. "But if I've committed a serious sin, [the archbishop] is supposed to be responsible for condemning me ... he's supposed to stand up and be responsible for that."

Brennan said the restrictions include:

• Suspension of priestly faculties, prohibiting him from performing any priestly duties in public;
• Refraining from contact with media, "through phone, email, or any other means";
• Not appearing as a Jesuit at any "public gatherings, protests or rallies";
• Not leaving the Milwaukee area "for any reason" without his superior's permission.

Brennan said he hasn't had any formal communication with Listecki. Jeremy Langford, the director of communications for the Jesuits' Chicago-Detroit province, which is merging with the Wisconsin province, said in a statement Monday the order removed Brennan's priestly faculties "after conversation with the Archdiocese of Milwaukee." The Jesuits "did not approve or sanction" the November eucharistic liturgy and "regrets Fr. Brennan's participation in it," read the statement. "The Wisconsin province has no plans to take any further action," 

Langford said in an interview, calling Brennan a "wonderful Jesuit" who has "fought for great causes his whole life."Julie Wolf,  communications director for the Milwaukee archdiocese, said the restrictions on Brennan were a "mutually agreed upon decision" between Listecki and Brennan's Jesuit provincial, Fr. Tom Lawler. 

Brennan likened his support for women's ordination to support for women's suffrage: He remembers that at one time, his mother was not able to vote. "I was born in 1920," Brennan said. "All the while my mother was carrying me and six months after, she could not vote. That's the real initiative in my attitude toward women's ordination." Brennan said he understands arguments that women do not have a right to ordination and said ordination is a "privilege that is granted to men." "Why isn't it granted to both?" the priest asked. "And the fundamental approach that I have is that, after all, women have an eminent role to play in the work of creation of children with men. What about the sanctification process? Don't they have any share in the preaching of the Gospel?"

The Vatican labels the ordination of women in the Catholic church as a grave offense and says participants are excommunicated latae sententiae, or automatically. Pope John Paul II's 1994 letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis effectively forbade discussion of the issue, saying the church's teaching on the matter was to be "definitively held by all the Church's faithful." Before deciding to participate in the November liturgy, Brennan said he discussed the matter with Lawler. 

The invitation to join Sevre-Duszynska at the liturgy was causing him a "real, genuine conscience problem," Brennan said he told Lawler. "I'm not trying to defy the church," Brennan said he told Lawler, adding that he sees women's ordination as a legitimate question. "Why is it that this privilege of celebrating the Mass and preaching, why is that exclusively a male privilege? Where do we get that? Isn't that worth discussing?" Lawler told him not to assist at the liturgy, Brennan said. "At the time, I was still struggling to try to decide what I wanted to do, because obviously I knew I might end up outside the Jesuit order," Brennan said. "But I just felt this was an earthy issue, and you can't cover it over with spiritual or authoritarian dictates."

Link (here) to NCR for the full story.

Justice Et Foi

A Jesuit-founded think-tank in Quebec has accused Canada's bishops of turning away from Catholic social teaching and toward the Government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper. In an open letter to Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB) chairman Archbishop Richard Smith of Edmonton, the Montreal-based Centre Justice et Foi (Justice and Faith Centre) said recent decisions by the bishops reflected "a political conservatism that has nothing to do with the Gospel". "You seem to put the preservation of your ‘good relations' with the conservative Government above all other considerations," Justice et Foi director Elisabeth Garant wrote. She also criticised the CCCB for meeting with Immigration Minister Jason Kenney at a time the Government was tightening rules for immigrants and abolishing its post of chief counsellor for social justice

Link (here) to the extreme left leaning Catholic newspaper, The Tablet

Evolving The Church

Fr.  Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, S.J.

[The nuns] sat in silence for a long stretch, sang songs about truth and mystery accompanied by a guitar and a choir, and heard a keynote address by a futurist who was escorted to the podium by seven liturgical dancers waving diaphanous scarves of pink and tangerine. “Crisis precedes transformation,” the futurist, Barbara Marx Hubbard, told  the LCWR meeting of nuns. “You are the best seedbed that I know for evolving the church and the world in the 21st century. Now, that may be a surprise to the world. But, you see, new things always happen from unexpected places.”

The nuns, most dressed informally in pants or skirts, gave a standing ovation to Ms. Hubbard, a beatific presence with a mantle of white hair who quoted Jesus, Buckminster Fuller, the Jesuit philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and the current pope, Benedict XVI.

But if the nuns submit to the Vatican’s plan to overhaul their organization, it is doubtful that their meetings will feature a keynote speaker like Ms. Hubbard, who grew up a nonreligious Jew in a Scarsdale, N.Y., mansion (her father founded the Marx toy company) and is now acclaimed by New Age luminaries like Deepak Chopra for helping to lead what she calls the “conscious evolution” movement.

Link (here) to the NY Times 
Fr. Mitch Pacwa, S.J. on the subject (here)
Fr. Dwight Longenecker on the subject (here)

Confusion In Omaha

Creighton University Medical Center

Creighton University, located in Omaha, Nebraska, recently embarked on a partnership with the Phoenix hospital to establish a regional campus of Creighton’s School of Medicine. This was disturbing to many because in 2010, Bishop Olmsted stripped St. Joseph’s of its status as a “Catholic” hospital after Mercy Sister Margaret McBride, who served on the hospital’s ethics panel, approved of an abortion because the mother was suffering from severe hypertension. That abortion led to the excommunication of Sr. McBride and the hospital’s loss of its status as a “Catholic” hospital. Because Creighton University is a Catholic institution, the recently announced partnership, Olmsted said, “led to some confusion” which he sought to clarify with this statement:

It has been recently announced that Creighton University has established a medical school in conjunction with St. Joseph’s Hospital. This has led to some confusion since Creighton University is a Catholic institution. Thus, to ensure clarity on the issue, I wish to affirm to all of the faithful that St. Joseph’s Hospital is not a Catholic institution. Secondly, St. Joseph’s Hospital does not faithfully adhere to the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services. Catholics, and all people of good will, are advised that they cannot be guaranteed authentic Catholic health care at St. Joseph’s Hospital.

Bishop Olmsted prohibited the celebration of Mass on the hospital’s campus and had the Blessed Sacrament removed from the hospital’s chapel in 2010. As the bishop of Phoenix, Bishop Olmsted does not have jurisdiction over the university.  Calls to the Archdiocese of Omaha were not returned at the time of publication.

Link (here) to read the full Cardinal Newman Society Report

If Finn Gets

Bishop Robert Finn of the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph in Missouri, will be tried on charges that he failed to report suspicions that one of his priests might be an abuser. If Finn is convicted, he would be the first bishop ever found guilty in the abuse scandal. “If Finn gets convicted, that is certainly going to send a message” to other church officials, said the Rev. Thomas J. Reese, a Jesuit priest and political scientist who is a fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University.

Link (here) to The Washington Post

William Peter Blatty On John J DeGioia

For 21 years now. Georgetown University has refused to comply with Ex corde Ecclesiaie (“From The Heart of the Church”), and, therefore, with canon law. And, it seems as if every month GU gives another scandal to the faithful! The most recent is Georgetown’s obtuse invitation to Secretary Sebelius to be a commencement speaker.

Each of these scandals is proof of Georgetown’s non-compliance with Ex corde Ecclesiae and canon law. They are each inconsistent with a Catholic identity, and we all know it. A university in solidarity with the Church would not do these prideful things that do so much harm to our communion. (You can pen a heartfelt letter to the Cardinal Archbishop of Washington and the Holy Father offering your own experience here.)

In the months to come, The Father King Society will ask Georgetown and the Church for explanations and decisions. In 1991, in an effort led by courageous Georgetown students, my dearly missed classmate, GU Law Center Prof. Richard Alan Gordon, took the awesome step of submitting a canon law petition asking the Church to remove Georgetown’s right to call itself Catholic. 

Then Dean of Students John J. DeGioia had authorized the funding of a pro-abortion student advocacy group. A contemporaneous secret memorandum from the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities to the presidents of all Jesuit institutions showed us that Dr. DeGioia’s decision was part of a larger scheme: GU was to be the dissident leader for others to follow. Dean Gordon’s effort was provocative and drastic, but within months of the filing, Rome required Georgetown to reverse itself, and Georgetown did.

Father Tom King was actively involved and submitted an essay to be used in support of the canon law action. (We post it here.) Soon after the 1991 “GU Choice” funding, a meeting took place on campus that collected the students, teachers, alumni and parents who had reacted to the University’s scandal in diverse ways. Fr. King listened intently, and then the mild-speaking priest told us of a call the night before from his brother, also a priest. His brother had said, “Tom, you have to choose sometimes — either you fish or cut bait.” Father King told us that he had decided to fish. And now, at long last, so have I. I ask you to join us!

Link (here) to The Father King Society

Former Jesuit Complains About Bishop Selection Process

Paul Lakeland

A professor at Fairfield University has criticized the process of choosing a new bishop for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Bridgeport, saying it's geared less to finding a leader committed to the faithful of Fairfield County than to choosing a man who will rise high in the ranks of the Church. "This is not just an ordinary diocese," said (Former Jesuit) Paul Lakeland, the Aloysius P. Kelley S.J. professor of religious studies at the Jesuit university. "You have a diocese that's quite dramatically divided between the wealthy and those in poverty." William E. Lori, who had been bishop since 2000, was elevated to archbishop of Baltimore on May 16. On May 22 it was announced by church officials that Monsignor Jerald A. Doyle will administer the diocese until a new bishop is appointed. Lakeland was quick to point out that the Bridgeport diocese has sent other bishops to high positions; Lawrence Shehan and Edward Egan both were elevated to cardinal. "It's a conduit to high ecclesiastical office, so they're unlikely to send someone here who they don't imagine will have at least a good chance of becoming a major figure in the American church," he said. "But the problem with that is you won't necessarily get some one who's committed to the diocese." 

A month ago, Lakeland hosted a forum in which he invited the Catholic faithful ---- the laity and priests alike ---- to discuss the qualities that would be desirable in the next bishop. But, according to Lakeland, attendance at "Choosing a Bishop: A Forum for the People and Clergy of the Diocese of Bridgeport," was discouraged by Doyle . "Monsignor Doyle informed his clergy that they were not to participate, nor to encourage their parishioners to do so," 

Lakeland said in his May 31 letter to Apostolic Nuncio Carlo Maria Viganò, who is the Vatican's ambassador to the United States. About 65 Catholics attended the meeting, none of them priests. One priest later sent a letter to Lakeland saying that he and other priests didn't attend because they feared disciplinary action.

Link (here) to CTPost.com to read the full article.

Jesuit Connected To Soros

Jesuit priest Thomas J Reese is connected to George Soros funded group. Go (here) than (here)

Avant Garde Statement

Fr. Karl Rahner, S.J

Catholic theologians of note were making statements that went far beyond anything said in the aula of St. Peter’s. Fr. Jean Danielou, S.J., expressed himself as being in favor of the ordination of deaconesses “without delay and therefore before the end of the Council.” Avant garde as his statement may seem, it was not made in a theological vacuum. In 1962 Fr. Haye van der Meer, S.J., with Fr. Karl Rahner as his mentor, completed a doctoral thesis at Innsbruck titled “Theologische Uberlegungen uber die Thesis: subiectum ordinationis solus est mas” (“Theological Reflections on the Thesis: the male alone is fit for ordination”). The author considers the usual arguments for excluding women from ordination — arguments from Scripture and traditional theology — and concludes that there is no valid reason for continuing the exclusion. Moreover, he claims that Canon 968, Section 1, limiting ordination to a vir baptizatus, requires clarification. The canon has ordinarily been interpreted as forbidding the ordination of women, but it seems more likely that what it forbids is the ordination of non-baptizatus. Thus ordination of a femina baptizata was never contemplated by the framers of the canon; so they could scarcely have intended to legislate against it.

At about the same time that Fr. van der Meer was working on his dissertation in Innsbruck another Jesuit, Jose Idigoras, was pursuing a similar investigation at the Catholic University in Lima, Peru. Adapted excerpts from his doctoral thesis, “La Mujer dentro del Orden Sagrado” (“Woman in Relation to Holy Ordination”), were printed in the widely circulated Informations Catholiques Internationales in 1963 and 1965. Idigoras also examines the usual antifeminine arguments and, like van der Meer, concludes that the church not only may but must admit women to orders if it is to be true to the gospel and to St. Paul’s obviously doctrinal statement (opposed to the discriminatory disciplinary statements) that in Christ “there is neither male or female” (Gal. 3:28).

A North American, Fr. Charles R. Meyer of the Mundelein seminary faculty in the Chicago archdiocese, takes up in an article in a recent issue of Chicago Studies (excerpted in the popular Catholic Digest) the problem of whether, as Fr. Idigoras claims, some of St. Paul’s female assistants were genuinely ordained deaconesses — a problem which is crucial, since the Catholic Church regards admission to the diaconate as so related to ordination that women could not be capable of the diaconate unless they were also capable of the priesthood. Fr. Meyer’s study concludes:

We must, I think . . . admit that the theologians and canonists of our time have been . . . guilty of some dishonesty in treating the question of the ordination of women in the early Church. In their treatises on the matter there seems to be a selective presentation of the facts, if indeed any attempt at all is made to do other than merely repeat what their predecessors have said. . . . But the time for complete honesty is at hand . . . now theologians must make a careful and unprejudiced re-examination of the whole question. This is the least they can do.

Other theologians who have discussed this problem publicly are Fr. Hans Kung and Fr. George H. Tavard, who have said that they know of no valid theological objection to the ordination of women.

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