Barbara Marx Hubbard Inspired By The Jesuit de Chardin And Grateful To Cardinal Gerhard Müller

Laura Fox and Barbara Marx Hubbard

I Barbara Marx Hubbard am grateful to Cardinal Gerhard Müller for raising concerns about conscious evolution and its relationship to Catholic teaching. I hope his focus on this issue will stimulate many, both within the Catholic church and outside it, to deepen human understanding of conscious evolution and how we might advance our own evolutionary action for the good of the whole of Earth life. 

I am not a Catholic nor a theologian, yet I have been deeply inspired to help develop the meaning of conscious evolution through my studies of Fr. Teilhard de Chardin, S.J. Ilia Delio, John Haught, Beatrice Bruteau, Fr. Thomas Berry, David Richo, Diarmuid O’Murchu, and others. And of course, from the New Testament itself.

Now, meeting with so many women religious through LCWR, I see conscious evolution in action. They have been evolving the church and the world for hundreds of years through deep gospel living, a mystical presencing, faithfulness in serving unmet needs, solidarity with Earth, building community as “whole-makers,” risk-taking for the sake of the mission, genius for cooperative self-governance and decision making, and above all bringing love and hope for the future into the lives of millions. 

Link (here) to Fr. Z

The Success Of William Peter Blatty

Archbishop Angelo Vincenzo Zani

Last September, William Peter Blatty, the author of The Exorcist and an alumnus of Georgetown University, sent a canonical petition to the Vatican, requesting that the Church “require that Georgetown implement Ex Corde Ecclesiae, a papal constitution governing Catholic colleges.” If that effort proved fruitless, his petition called for “the removal or suspension of top-ranked Georgetown’s right to call itself Catholic and Jesuit in any of its representations.” Many months later, Blatty and the 2,000 other men and women who signed his petition have received a response from the Congregation for Catholic Education, sparking cautious hope that the Holy See will press the Society of Jesus to address festering problems on the Washington campus.

In an April 4 letter, Archbishop Angelo Vincenzo Zani, the secretary of the Congregation for Catholic Education, stated that technical impediments prevented the department from granting the petitioners’ request for “hierarchic recourse.” But Archbishop Zani offered hope that the Vatican would pursue the matter further.

“Your communications to this dicastery in the matter of Georgetown University … constitute a well-founded complaint,” wrote Archbishop Zani. “Our congregation is taking the issue seriously and is cooperating with the Society of Jesus in this regard.” Archbishop Zani’s response fell short of Blatty’s request for a formal assessment of Georgetown’s adherence to Ex Corde Ecclesiae (Catholic Universities), St. John Paul II’s apostolic constitution that directs Catholic universities to adhere to Catholic teaching and advance the mission of the Church in their institutional culture, faculty hiring and retention, curricula and student affairs. However, Blatty remains optimistic that his ultimate goal — the revival and strengthening of Georgetown’s Catholic identity — will gain traction as the Holy See’s talks with the Society of Jesus move forward. "I am deeply gratified that the prayers of my 2,000 fellow petitioners have been answered,” Blatty told the Register.

Link (here) to the National Catholic Register

"Mission Critical" At Loyola Marymount University

Loyola Marymount University

Loyola Marymount University is currently interviewing two ‘finalist’ candidates for the position of Dean of the Bellarmine College of Liberal Arts. However, it is amazing that both of these candidates have worked for Planned Parenthood, the largest abortion provider in the United States. And one of the candidates has also endorsed legal efforts to redefine marriage. To see why these candidates are unsuitable for this ‘mission critical‘ position go to these pages:
Robbin Crabtree    Ramón A. Gutiérrez

The Dean of the Bellarmine College of Liberal Arts should have a solid record of support for the mission and identity of a Catholic university.

Link (here) to RenewLMU

On Her Three Jesuit Abusers, “The Point Wasn’t Money; It Was To Bring The Issue To The Public. I Feel Like I Got Justice, And I Got The Word Out And Hopefully That Will Prevent Something Like This From Going On In The Future.”

Fr. Poole, S.J.in 1978, is named one of Alaska's hippest DJs by People magazine.

Two lawsuits brought against the Catholic Diocese of Yakima for alleged sexual abuse by clergy members are in the process of being settled.

A settlement agreement has been signed in the case of Michelle Duerre, who said she was sexually abused by three Jesuit priests during the 1970s.

The diocese has agreed to pay her $40,000. She alleged that the Revs. Frank Duffy, John Morse and James Poole abused her when she was between the ages of 8 and 12 and a student at St. Joseph/Marquette Catholic School. Duerre said that Morse and Duffy abused her at the school and in the church rectory and that Poole abused her at the St. Peter the Apostle retreat house in Cowiche. She filed the suit in Yakima County Superior Court last March. Now 45, Duerre lives in King County and asked that her name be made public in her suit against the diocese. Reached by telephone Wednesday, Duerre said she decided not to go to trial because “the point wasn’t money; it was to bring the issue to the public. I feel like I got justice, and I got the word out and hopefully that will prevent something like this from going on in the future.” Now deceased, Duffy served at St. Joseph Catholic Church from 1971 to 1979 and in other parishes in the diocese until 1989. Morse worked at St. Joseph’s from 1963 to 1966, 1973 to 1979 and again in 1994. Poole was never assigned here, but may have been a visiting priest.

Duffy was the subject of a lawsuit brought by a plaintiff identified as M.P. in Superior Court in 2010. The plaintiff claimed she was molested in 1977 while a student at St. Joseph/Marquette. The case was settled in 2012 for $205,000.

Morse had not been named previously in a lawsuit against the diocese, but he was part of a $166 million settlement in 2011 the Jesuit Oregon Province agreed to pay to more than 100 victims who said they were abused in schools in the Pacific Northwest decades ago by Jesuits. Morse has denied those allegations. Newsweek magazine reported in 2008 that Poole had been accused of sexual abuse in Alaska. Both Morse and Poole live in a retirement facility in Spokane.

Link (here) to The Yakima Herald

1887

Gonzaga University celebrates the value of diversity. When it comes to one of GU’s most important lecture“the Flannery Lecture is intended to further excellence in theological study and teaching at GU. The lecture is delivered each year by an outstanding Catholic theologian and is prepared and presented to benefit as wide an audience as possible.” This important lecture series might well reach the hoped-for wider audience if the invited speakers represented something other than what one professor I spoke with called “a celebration of radical ‘Catholicism.’ ”  As the years have rolled by, the Flannery Lecture series has offered a steady parade of theological liberals who, in many cases, oppose Church teaching on important matters. In fact, judging by the records of past speakers, the Flannery Lectures over the last 10 years have been a decidedly one-sided affair.

series, however, viewpoint diversity has been lacking for at least a decade, and orthodoxy has been hard to find. According to a GU news release,

As the GU professor mentioned above put it when asked about the Flannery Lectures, “It is something that I have tended to avoid like the plague. I have gone to a couple of them, but for the most part all they are is a celebration of radical ‘Catholicism.’ ”

This week, in an article published at 1887Trust.org, background on each of the Flannery Lecturers since 2003 is provided and sourced. One finds lecturers who have supported pro-abortion political candidates, and others who are associated with groups that support same-sex marriage. The list includes a professor suspended from teaching theology because of dissent from Church teaching, and a lecturer whose work has drawn scrutiny from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops for what they called “statements that, unless properly clarified, are not in accord with Catholic teaching.” One past Flannery Lecture presenter, according to First Things Editor R.R. Reno, “presumes that the Church’s current teaching on sexual morality is unworkable, and in some cases unjust.” The list of past lecturers includes a professor refused a platform by an Illinois bishop because the professor “called into question the authentic teachings of the magisterium of the Catholic Church.”

Link (here) to The Gonzaga Bulletin to read the full article

Exclusively For Students Of The Jesuit University

The event was created in 2010 after a high school student was not allowed to attend a prom with a same-sex date. The Santa Clara Community Action Program website describes it as “the hottest, freshest, most inclusive party of the year!” “This year's theme is weddings! Say I do to Marriage Equality,” the group states. “Put on your fancy pants, your dancing shoes, ask that special someone to be your date, and maybe you'll be the one to catch the bouquet! ” The event is exclusively for students of the Jesuit University. Santa Clara’s Activities Programming Board (APB) advertised a “speed dating” event on Tuesday night on its Facebook site by urging students to use the event to “find yourself a date for Rainbow Prom or for Valentine's Day!”

Link (here) to Lifesite

FR. Z, "I'll Get You A Popsicle It Was A Jesuit"

"I would have expected any Catholic to have a better grasp on such a basic topic, let alone a priest who is a member of an order famous for its academic achievements. [I'll get you a popsicle it was a Jesuit.] Makes me very glad that the efficacy of the sacrament is independent of the lunacy of the minister of the sacrament. [Good call.]"

I suspect that that priest is infected, willingly or not, with the deeply harmful errors of the likes of Richard McCormick SJ and Charles Curran. Many priests of a certain age are. Many of certain religious orders are.

First, let’s clarify what the Church teaches.

For a sin to be a mortal sin, it must meet three conditions. It must be:

• of grave matter

• committed with full knowledge of the sinner
• committed with deliberate consent of the sinner

Check out CCC 1857.

The third condition is NOT: “desire to completely destroy your relationship with God” – FAIL. That could be a result, but the desire to do so is not a condition.

The third condition (deliberate consent) means that you must not only know that what you are going to do is a sin, you also will to do it. If your will is not engaged, you are not guilty of a mortal sin. If you are being forced, you are under duress, you are impaired in some way, etc., your will is not wholly involved. Mortal sins are not accidents. Mind you, objectively the act itself might be serious enough to be grave matter, but subjectively you are not guilty of a mortal sin if your will isn’t wholly involved. Again, you have to know it is a mortal sin and then you commit that sin anyway, willingly. This means that mortal sins are intended by the sinner. They are a willing rejection of God’s law and love. That does NOT mean that you want thereby “completely to destroy your relationship with God”. Example: “I am going to do X. I know X is wrong. I am going to do it anyway. I want to do X in order completely to destroy my relationship with God.” NO. That is not how 99.99999% of sinners wind up committing mortal sins. As a matter of fact, that would be something so rare as to be unfathomable: that someone sets out to deliberately to do exactly that. There is a difference between knowing that you are harming your relationship with God by sinning and “desiring to completely destroy your relationship with God”.

Link (here) to the lengthy post by Fr. Z

2357

Paragraph 2357 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church says that while people with same-sex attraction Scripture clearly “presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity.” “[T]radition has always declared that ‘homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered’. They are contrary to the natural law,” it adds. “They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.” This teaching is not mentioned in any of the three videos of the series. The first video in the series starts with an interview with Fr. James Martin, S.J., a prominent US media personality and Jesuit priest in New York, who has made advocating for the normalisation of homosexuality in the Catholic Church a prominent feature of his career.
“must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity,”

Martin says that “many LGBT people” “have very deep spiritual lives and are Christians.” He also denies a conflict between the Catholic Church and the homosexual movement, saying, “It’s not as if you have atheist gays on one side, and religious or spiritual straight people on the other.”

Martin also praises the movement in the Catholic Church in the US and elsewhere that is a feature of many parishes that encourages homosexuals to believe they can be actively “gay” and faithful as Catholics, without contradiction. “The idea that someone could come out and be honest and transparent and open about the way that God created them, I think is terrific. I think it’s something that the Catholic Church can support,” he says. Martin adds, “If a music minister is gay, it doesn’t matter [to other parishioners] if they’re homosexual…it matters that they did a great job at the [liturgy of the] Easter Vigil. “If a spiritual director is gay, it doesn’t matter that they’re homosexual. It matters that they’ve brought people to God through prayer.” 

Link (here) to Lifesite News

Former Provincial

“Therefore, Fr. John Whitney, S.J. commits a heresy when he writes that it is a sin to deny that homosexual orientation is unavoidably rooted in our human nature. And he doesn’t stop there. He goes on in his article to proudly talk about how grand it was for St. Joseph Church to march in the gay pride parade in 2012. He easily dismisses the fact that there were sinful acts being committed during the parade. He offers another circus trick when he makes the comparison with homosexuals to the unclean animals that Peter saw in his vision. Then, finally, he completely uncloaks himself as a wolf when he encourages his flock to join him again this year Seattle’s gay pride parade.”

Link (here) to read a much larger story at DAVIDLGRAY.INFO
Link (here) to read the Public Statement of the Oregon Province of the Society of Jesus V. Rev. John D. Whitney, S.J. Provincial Superior

“Therefore, Fr. John commits a heresy when he writes that it is a sin to deny that homosexual orientation is unavoidably rooted in our human nature. And he doesn’t stop there. He goes on in his article to proudly talk about how grand it was for St. Joseph Church to march in the gay pride parade in 2012. He easily dismisses the fact that there were sinful acts being committed during the parade. He offers another circus trick when he makes the comparison with homosexuals to the unclean animals that Peter saw in his vision. Then, finally, he completely uncloaks himself as a wolf when he encourages his flock to join him again this year Seattle’s gay pride parade.”

Read more at: http://www.davidlgray.info/blog/2014/01/father-john-whitney/ | DavidLGray.INFO

“Therefore, Fr. John commits a heresy when he writes that it is a sin to deny that homosexual orientation is unavoidably rooted in our human nature. And he doesn’t stop there. He goes on in his article to proudly talk about how grand it was for St. Joseph Church to march in the gay pride parade in 2012. He easily dismisses the fact that there were sinful acts being committed during the parade. He offers another circus trick when he makes the comparison with homosexuals to the unclean animals that Peter saw in his vision. Then, finally, he completely uncloaks himself as a wolf when he encourages his flock to join him again this year Seattle’s gay pride parade.”

Read more at: http://www.davidlgray.info/blog/2014/01/father-john-whitney/ | DavidLGray.INFO

“Therefore, Fr. John commits a heresy when he writes that it is a sin to deny that homosexual orientation is unavoidably rooted in our human nature. And he doesn’t stop there. He goes on in his article to proudly talk about how grand it was for St. Joseph Church to march in the gay pride parade in 2012. He easily dismisses the fact that there were sinful acts being committed during the parade. He offers another circus trick when he makes the comparison with homosexuals to the unclean animals that Peter saw in his vision. Then, finally, he completely uncloaks himself as a wolf when he encourages his flock to join him again this year Seattle’s gay pride parade.”

Read more at: http://www.davidlgray.info/blog/2014/01/father-john-whitney/ | DavidLGray.INFO

Santa Clara Hosts Bourgeois

Then a Maryknoll, Roy Bourgeois

A talk by Roy Bourgeois, laicized Catholic priest and founder, School of the Americas Watch. Bourgeois has been a prominent voice of conscience within Catholicism for decades. He was profoundly affected by the Vietnam War. In 1972, he was ordained a Maryknoll priest. He then worked among the poor of Bolivia until he was kicked out of the country by its then dictator. Bourgeois was instrumental in founding the School of Americas Watch, an organization dedicated to shutting down the United States Army's School of the Americas because of the school's alleged training in techniques of repression of many officers of foreign military services. In 2012, he was dismissed by the Vatican from the Maryknoll order because of his support for the ordination of women as priests in the Roman Catholic Church.

Link (here) to Santa Clara University's website

More on the excommunication of Roy Bourgeois (here)

The University of Santa Clara’s Markkula Center for Applied Ethics is scheduled to host laicized priest Roy Bourgeois later this month, according to the Jesuit university’s website.
Former Maryknoll priest Roy Bourgeois was expelled from the Maryknoll order by a decree from the Vatican in 2012.  Bourgeois had been active in the movement to get the Church to change her age-old doctrine on a male-only priesthood.  That activity culminated in August 2008, when he participated in a ceremony to “ordain” a woman as a Catholic priest. He continued to express public support for this position after the “ordination,” and was repeatedly warned of the consequences of doing so.  He was excommunicated in November of that same year, and laicized and expelled from the order on October 4, 2012.
- See more at: http://www.cardinalnewmansociety.org/CatholicEducationDaily/DetailsPage/tabid/102/ArticleID/2871/Santa-Clara-Univ-Presents-Laicized-Priest-Who-Helped-Ordain-Woman.aspx#sthash.6rw67Q7O.dpuf

Featuring Performances By

USF's War Memorial Gym

Celebration of Sin at USF/Pepperdine Game

On Saturday, January 4 the men’s basketball team of the (Jesuit) University of San Francisco faced off against the Pepperdine Waves at USF’s War Memorial gym. The game was also billed as an “LGBTQ Community Celebration.” The “Upcoming Events” page on the USF Dons website read “Featuring Performances by the SF Gay Men’s Chorus and Cheer SF. LGBTQ community leaders will be recognized. For $10 tickets use promo code EQUALITY at checkout.” Since the “LGBTQ Community” defines itself by fornication with persons of the same-sex, an “LGBTQ Community Celebration” is by definition a celebration of sin.

Link (here) to A Shepard's Voice

"Former Jesuits Now Outnumber Active Jesuits In The United States."

Were Ignatius of Loyola alive today, the Jesuit order he founded wouldn't ordain him. His once-formidable order is in the throes of a collapse as historically significant as its suppression in 1773. This disintegration, known to traditional Catholics for years (and to bishops too cowardly to stifle its corruption), is now even admitted by liberal pundits. Garry Wills' article about the book "Passionate Uncertainty: Inside the American Jesuits" appears in the New York Review of Books under the title, "Jesuits in Disarray." Jonathan Kirsch, a Los Angeles Times reviewer of the same book, notes that the order is in demographic free fall: "former Jesuits now outnumber active Jesuits in the United States."

society is now a corrupt club for

Meanwhile, traditional Jesuits who stay and seek to recover the order's original spark find themselves in exile. The office for the Jesuit Province in California confirmed to TAP that Joseph Fessio, the prolific San Francisco Jesuit publisher of orthodox books and publications, has been ordered to leave San Francisco for a new assignment, effective in May, at an obscure Catholic hospital in Duarte, California. Fessio's banishment coincides with his recent announcement to start a traditional Catholic school called Campion College next door to the openly dissenting Jesuit University of San Francisco, a school which in recent years has advertised such pagan oddities as a "Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Student Alliance."

Duarte, California, is becoming the Devil's Island for Jesuits who don't conform to the order's liberal regime. Father Cornelius Buckley, a longtime Jesuit history professor at the University of San Francisco deemed insufficiently liberal for the school, was reassigned to Duarte, California, in the late 1990s. The order called him "divisive."  The crack-up of the liberals in the order will likely accelerate in the wake of their panicky persecution of traditional Jesuits like Fessio. Such desperate actions are in proportion to their fear of exposure and accountability. In a typical liberal irony, the dissenters in the order who rose to power through disobedience to papal authority now use their power to repress "disobedient" traditional Jesuits, lest their revolution inside the Catholic Church grind to a halt.

The Vatican cannot ignore their outrages forever, especially as costly sex abuse lawsuits (the Jesuits settled in 2000 with a seminarian who accused over a dozen Jesuit superiors of sending him pornographic cards and asking him to perform sex acts on them)and lay backlash reveal the modern Jesuits as a chief source of degeneracy and dissent in the Church.

Perhaps it is time for a Second Suppression, not to kill the order, but to save it. Unless the Father Robert Drinans are soon suppressed and replaced with Father Fessios at the head of the order, its days are numbered. The cancer of corruption is rapidly devouring it. If the bishops won't take this fact seriously from the traditional Catholics they take for granted, perhaps they will listen to the liberal cultural commentators who acknowledge it as well. "Entering the Jesuits used to take one into a stable world; but that is far from the experience of recent times," writes Garry Wills. "A thirty-five-year-old still studying theology says: 'My novice master left to marry, my formation director left for a relationship with another man, et cetera. One cannot help but get the sense that we of this generation of Jesuits may be the last of the Shakers.'"

Link (here) to the full article at The American Spectator

Boston College's Fr. James Keenan, S.J. At Center Of Controversy

Linda Hogan

It’s worth noting that the only source cited for these reports is Fr. James Keenan, SJ, who posted Facebook his personal suggestions for a woman cardinal; he included Hogan prominently on his list of contenders, along with Sister Teresa Okure, a theology professor at the Catholic Institute of West Africa in Nigeria, and Maryanne Loughry, associate director of the Jesuit Refugee Service in Australia. Google around, and you’ll find multiple reports today on the Linda Hogan rumor from a variety of news outlets; virtually every one goes back to the Keenan Facebook post as the source for Hogan’s name. There’s no one from the Vatican. No one in a position to know is quoted. This amounts to little more than wishful thinking and an educated guess. Could Linda Hogan soon be Cardinal Hogan? If the pope wants to rewrite Canon Law, sure. Anything is possible. But really: I’ll believe it when I see it. Right now, the only one who has elevated her to the rank of cardinal is a Jesuit with a Facebook page.
on

UPDATE: Then there’s this, from the Vatican: 

The Holy See yesterday dismissed as “nonsense” weekend Irish media reports that Pope Francis might nominate two Irish women as cardinals. Responding to reports in Irish and Irish-American media that Pope Francis might name both TCD ecumenics Prof Linda Hogan and former president Mary McAleese as cardinals at a future conclave, senior Vatican spokesman Fr Federico Lombardi said: “This is just nonsense . . . It is simply not a realistic possibility that Pope Francis will name women cardinals for the February consistory. “Theologically and theoretically, it is possible,” he added. “Being a cardinal is one of those roles in the church for which, theoretically, you do not have to be ordained but to move from there to suggesting the pope will name women cardinals for the next consistory is not remotely realistic.”

Link (here) to the full post by  Deacon Greg Kandra

William Peter Blatty, "Georgetown Takes Pride In Insulting The Church And Offending The Faithful,"

William Peter Blatty

Concluding that his alma mater "takes pride in insulting the Church and offending the faithful," William Peter Blatty, author of the best-selling book The Exorcist, filed a Canon Law petition with the Vatican this summer asking that Georgetown University be denied the right to call itself Catholic. Calling Georgetown a "Potemkin village," Blatty complained that at "alumni dinners, a Jesuit would be placed at every table like a flower centerpiece." For Blatty, Georgetown is "merely the leader of a pack" of schools that are failing to live up to their Catholic identity.

Mr. Blatty's 200-page papal petition contains more than 480 footnotes, 99 appendices, 124 witness statements. It also includes a commissioned 120-page institutional audit of Georgetown. According to Manuel A. Miranda, who serves as Mr. Blatty's counsel, "We have documented 23 years of Scandals and dissidence, over 100 Scandals in the most recent years alone."

The petition -- with the signatures of more than 2,000 Catholics -- asks Pope Francis to require that Georgetown implement Ex Corde Ecclesiae, the 1990 papal document requiring all Catholic colleges to teach "in communion" with the Church. The goal of Blatty's petition is to revoke Georgetown's right to call itself Catholic -- unless it complies with Church teachings. Since 1967, when Catholic college leaders gathered in Land O' Lakes, Wisconsin, to create a manifesto that declared their "true autonomy and academic freedom in the face of authority of whatever kind, lay or clerical," most Catholic college presidents have ignored any attempts by their presiding bishops to bring the Catholic colleges and universities into communion with the Church. 

Link (here) to The Huffington Post

The Excommunication Was Ordered By Pope Francis

Former Catholic Greg Reynolds

Victorian Catholic priest who spoke out against the church's positions on gay marriage and women becoming "I'm a bit annoyed, if not angry, at the process or lack of process," Mr Reynolds told AAP on Saturday. A spokesman for the Melbourne Archdiocese said the excommunication was ordered by Pope Francis. The spokesman said the excommunication was ordered because of Mr Reynolds' public teaching about women being ordained, as well as holding communion when he was not authorised to act as a priest. Mr Reynolds said he plans to continue his work with Inclusive Catholics, but was undecided about whether he will fight to have the excommunication overturned. priests has been defrocked and excommunicated. Former Western Port parish priest Greg Reynolds was this week presented with a letter from the Vatican, informing him that he had been removed from the priesthood and excommunicated from the church. Mr Reynolds said he first fell out of favour three years ago when he voiced his support for women being allowed to become priests, contrary to the church's official stance. He resigned from his parish in 2011, and started a group called Inclusive Catholics, which holds regular meetings in Melbourne. Mr Reynolds has also spoken out in favour of gay marriage. He said he had expected to be removed from the priesthood, but had not expected to be excommunicated.

Link (here)

Seattle University To Host Angela Davis

A Catholic university in Washington has invited communist and abortion supporter Angela Davis to speak on campus, raising concerns among those who say her views are anathema to Catholic teaching. Davis will give a lecture on October 17th at Seattle University, a Jesuit institution. Her talk is sponsored by the Center for the Study of Justice in Society, and will ostensibly be about prison reform.

Davis is a controversial choice for a Catholic university, however. She is a former leader of the U.S. Communist Party, and ran for vice president twice in the 1980s on the Communist ticket. She holds socially liberal views at odds with Catholic teaching, including the view that abortion rights are a “fundamental prerequisite for the emancipation of women.”

These views should disqualify her from a speaking slot at a Catholic university, wrote James Bascom of TFP Student Action, a conservative education group. “It would be difficult to find a speaker who contradicts the teaching of the Catholic Church on more levels than Angela Davis,” he wrote in a blog post for TFP Action. “Stalin maybe?” Catholic institutions should recognize the death and destruction wrought by communism in the 20th century and decline to honor one of the ideology’s devotees with a guest lecture, wrote The College Fix. Seattle University did not respond to a request for comment.

Link (here) to The Daily Caller

Cardinal Avery Dulles, S.J. "Little Or No Encouragement From Catholic Clergy"

Asked whether spreading the faith was a high priority of their parishes,75 percent of conservative Protestant congregations and 57 percent of African American congregations responded affirmatively, whereas only 6 percent of Catholic parishes did the same. Asked whether they sponsored local evangelistic activities, 39 percent of conservative Protestant congregations and 16 percent of African American congregations responded positively as compared with only 3 percent of Catholic parishes. Converts to Catholicism often report that on their spiritual journey they received little or no encouragement from Catholic clergy whom they consulted.

Link (here) to Ralph Martin's disturbing look at Catholic de-Sacramentalization. In this essay you will find Cardinal Dulles' quote.

Bert Thelen 80 Year Old Jesuit Leaves The Society Of Jesus, "It Is Time For The Church To Turn Her Attention From Saving Face To Saving The Earth, From Saving Souls To Saving The Planet."

May the Grace of Jesus Christ, the Love of God, and the Peace of the Holy Spirit be with you! I am writing to tell you about what may be the most important decision of my life since entering the Jesuits. With God's help, at the behest of my religious superiors and the patient support and wise encouragement of my CLC group and closest friends, I have decided to leave ordained Jesuit ministry and return to the lay state, the priesthood of the faithful bestowed on me by my Baptism nearly 80 years ago. I do this with confidence and humility, clarity and wonder, gratitude and hope, joy and sorrow. No bitterness, no recrimination, no guilt, no regrets.

Bert Thelen former Jesuit

It has been a wonderful journey, a surprising adventure, an exploration into the God Who dwells mysteriously in all of our hearts. I will always be deeply grateful to the Society of Jesus for the formation, education, companionship, and ministry it has provided, and to my family for their constant support. I can never thank God enough for the loving and loyal presence in my life of each and every one of you.

 Why am I doing this? How did I reach this decision? I will try to tell you now. That is the purpose of this letter.

For about 15 years now, as many of you have noticed, I have had a "Lover's Quarrel" with the Catholic Church. I am a cradle Catholic and grew up as Catholic as anyone can, with Priests and even Bishops in our household, and 17 years of Catholic education at St. Monica's Grade School, Milwaukee Messmer High School, and Marquette University.

I took First Vows at Oshkosh in the Society of Jesus at age 25 and was ordained at Gesu Church to the priesthood ten years later in 1968. I have served the Church as a Jesuit priest in Milwaukee, Omaha, and Pine Ridge for 45 years, including 18 years on the Province Staff culminating in my being the Wisconsin Provincial for six years and attending the 34th General Congregation in Rome. My last 14 years at Creighton and St. John's have been the best years of my life. I have truly enjoyed and flourished serving as pastor of St. John's. I cannot even put into words how graced and loved and supported I have been by the parishioners, parish staff, campus ministry, Ignatian Associates, and CLC members! It is you who have freed, inspired, and encouraged me to the New Life to which I am now saying a strong and joyful "Yes." You have done this by challenging me to be my best self as a disciple of Jesus, to proclaim boldly His Gospel of Love, and to widen the horizons of my heart to embrace the One New World we are called to serve in partnership with each other and our Triune God. It is the Risen Christ Who beckons me now toward a more universal connection with the Cosmos, the infinitely large eco-system we are all part of, the abundance and vastness of what Jesus called "the Reign of God."

Why does this "YES" to embrace the call of our cosmic inter-connectedness mean saying "NO" to ordained ministry? My answer is simple but true. All mystical traditions, as well as modern science, teach us that we humans cannot be fully ourselves without being in communion with all that exists. Lasting justice for Earth and all her inhabitants is only possible within this sacred communion of being. We need conversion – conversion from the prevailing consciousness that views reality in terms of separateness, dualism, and even hierarchy, to a new awareness of ourselves as inter-dependent partners , sharing in one Earth-Human community. In plainer words, we need to end the world view that structures reality into higher and lower, superior and inferior, dominant and subordinate, which puts God over Humanity, humans over the rest of the world, men over women, the ordained over the laity.

As Jesus commanded so succinctly, "Don't Lord it over anyone … serve one another in love." As an institution, the Church is not even close to that idea; its leadership works through domination, control, and punishment. So, following my call to serve this One World requires me to stop benefiting from the privilege, security, and prestige ordination has given me. I am doing this primarily out of the necessity and consequence of my new call, but, secondarily, as a protest against the social injustices and sinful exclusions perpetrated by a patriarchal church that refuses to consider ordination for women and marriage for same- sex couples.

I have become convinced that the Catholic Church will never give up its clerical privilege until and unless we priests (and bishops) willingly step down from our pedestals. Doing this would also put me in solidarity with my friend, Roy Bourgeois, my fellow Jesuit, Fr. Bill Brennan, the late Bernard Cooke, and many other men who have been "de-frocked" by the reigning hierarchy. It will also support the religious and lay women, former Catholics, and gay and lesbian couples marginalized by our church. I want to stand with and for them. I am, if you will, choosing to de-frock myself in order to serve God more faithfully, truly, and universally.

But why leave the Jesuits? Make no mistake about it: the Society of Jesus shares in and benefits from this patriarchal and clerical way of proceeding. We still regard ourselves as the shepherds and those to whom and with whom we minister as sheep. I discovered this painfully when the Society of Jesus decided against having Associate members. We are not prepared for co-membership or even, it seems at times, for collaboration, though we pay lip service to it. "Father knows best" remains the hallmark of our way of proceeding. I can no longer, in conscience, do that. But I still honor and love my fellow Jesuits who work from that model of power over. It is still where we all are as a company, a Society, a community of vowed religious in the Roman Catholic church. Leaving behind that companionship is not easy for me, but it is the right thing for me to do at this time in my life. When I went through a formal discernment process with my CLC group, one member whose brilliance and integrity I have always admired and whose love and loyalty to the Jesuits is beyond question, said of my decision, "You cannot NOT do this!" He had recognized God's call in me.

 A few other considerations may help clarify my path. The Church is in transition – actually in exile. In the Biblical tradition, the Egyptian, Assyrian and Babylonian captivities led to great religious reforms and the creation of renewed covenants. Think of Moses, Jeremiah, and Isaiah. I think a similar reform is happening in our Catholic faith (as well as other traditions).

We have come through far-reaching, earth-shaking evolutionary changes, and a new (Universal) Church as well as a new (One) World is emerging. My decision is a baby step in that Great Emergence, a step God is asking me to take.

Consider this. Being a Lay Catholic has sometimes been caricatured as "Pray, pay, and obey." Of course, that is a caricature, an exaggeration, a jibe. But it does point to a real problem. Recently, the hierarchical church mandated the so-called revision of the Roman Missal without consulting the People of God. It was both a foolish and a self-serving effort to increase the authority of Ordained men, damaging and even in some ways taking away the "Pray" part of "Pray, pay, and obey." No wonder more and more Catholics are worshipping elsewhere, and some enlightened priests feel compromised in their roles. I, for one, feel that this so-called renewal , though licit, is not valid. It is not pleasing to God, and I feel compromised in trying to do it.

Now, consider this. All of this liturgical, ecclesial, and religious change is located in and strongly influenced by what both science and spirituality have revealed as happening to our world, our planet, our universe.

The very earth we are rooted and grounded in, as well as the air we breathe and the water we drink, are being damaged and destroyed even beyond (some say) our capacity to survive. And, as Fr. John Surette, S.J., has so wisely observed, "Injustice for the human and destruction of Earth's ecosystem are not two separate injustices. They are one." Biocide is even more devastating than genocide, because it also kills future inhabitants of our precious Earth.

It is time. It is time to abandon our refusal to see that our very environment is central to the survival and well being of ALL earthlings. It is time for the Church to turn her attention from saving face to saving the earth, from saving souls to saving the planet. It is time to focus on the sacred bond that exists between us and the earth. It is time to join the Cosmic Christ in the Great Work of mending, repairing, nurturing, and protecting our evolving creation. It is time for a new vision of a universal Church whose all-inclusive justice and unconditional love, an expression of Christ consciousness and the work of the Holy Spirit, empowers ALL and can lead to a future that preserves the true right to life of all of God's creatures. This includes future generations who will bless us for allowing them to live, evolve, and flourish. Can't you hear them crying out, "I want to live, I want to grow, I want to be, I want to know?"

In light of all this, how can I not respond to the call both Isaiah and Jesus heard, the call of our Baptism? "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me and sent me to bring Good News to the oppressed." All creation will be freed, and all people will know the freedom and glory of the Children of God. Yes, Lord, I will go. Please send me.

And that is why I am leaving Jesuit priesthood. Since first vows I have always thought and hoped and prayed that I would live and die in this least Society of Jesus. But now, something unexpected! A real surprise! I HAVE lived and died in the Society of Jesus, but, now, nearly 80, I have been raised to new life. I am born again – into a much larger world, a much newer creation. I have greatly benefited from the spiritual freedom given in and by the Society of Jesus. I feel no longer chained, limited, bound, by the shackles of a judicial, institutional, clerical, hierarchical system. As St. Paul once reminded the early Christians, "It is for freedom that you have been set free." And as St. Peter, the first Pope, learned when he said to Jesus, "You know that I love you," love is all about surrender and servanthood.

Thank you for your attention to this self presentation. I am grateful that you have followed me in the journey described here, and I am sorry for whatever sadness, disappointment, or hurt this may have caused you. But what I have written here is my truth, and I can't not do it! If you want to discuss this with me, ask questions, or give me feedback, I welcome your response, either by letter, e-mail or phone. Please pray for me, as I do for all of you, the beloved of my heart and soul.

Yours in the Risen Christ, Bert Thelen

Link (here)

Defrocked Jesuit Priest Jesus Aguirre y Ortiz de Zarate,

In 1978 the Duchess of Alba, Spain’s richest and most titled woman, her full name is Maria del Rosario Cayetana Alfonsa Victoria Eugenia Francisca Fitz-James Stuart y de Silva and she is a duchess seven times over. scandalized the nation by marrying defrocked Jesuit priest Jesus Aguirre y Ortiz de Zarate, her former confessor. Aguirre administered the Alba estate until his death in 2001. 

Link (here) to The Telegraph

Ex Jesuit Says He Is Married To Another Man

Former Jesuit James Nickoloff

A Barry University professor who told students he was “married” to another man was one of two theologians from Catholic colleges who spoke at a dissident homosexual conference last week. DignityUSA rejects Catholic teaching that homosexuality is “disordered” and actively affirms and promotes the homosexual lifestyle. The theme of its conference this year was "Let Justice Roll Like a River." Among the speakers was James Nickoloff, a former Jesuit who teaches theology at Barry University in Florida, a Catholic institution founded by the Adrian Dominican Sisters. According to his faculty profile, Nickoloff has taught at Boston College, the College of the Holy Cross, the Weston Jesuit School of Theology and Santa Clara University. It was at Santa Clara where Nickoloff taught a course called “The Church and Homosexuality.” According to the syllabus, required readings included Catholic teaching and a book by Richard Cleaver, Know My Name: A Gay Liberation Theology. Nickoloff shared his marital status with students in an introductory letter for a 2009 online class at Santa Clara University titled “The Church in the World.” 

Link (here) to Creative Minority Report