Call To Subterfuge

From the Lincoln Journal-Star, Call To Action gets sneaky:

A group critical of the Lincoln Diocese for being the only one in the nation not to participate in a sex abuse survey said it was turned away Monday when it tried to hand-deliver petitions to bishops from across the country.

The USCCB is a sitting target for all sorts of grief when e're they gather. Call to Action, having been previously rebuffed and embarassed in their quest to shame Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz, are trying to push their 'prophetic' agenda using some fairly underhanded tactics:

The Catholic reformist group Call to Action instead planned to use a person not known as a member of the group to sneak roughly 1,000 petitions into the hotel where the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops was meeting in Baltimore, said a member of the group.

Classy, guys, really classy. Next time, try it without the Groucho Marx disguise. While their battlecry is "Save the Children", Call To Action was excommunicated SIX YEARS before the abuse scandal hit. In reality, they're still hacked off that they got excommunicated, and most people know it:

Monsignor Timothy Thorburn of Lincoln said in statement that Call to Action is “venting its ire” at the bishop for his decision to “not allow the group to operate in the Diocese of Lincoln because of its anti-Catholic doctrines.”

Failing to whip up further scorn from other bishops, Call to Action proceeds to further advertise the root of their misunderstanding of the Church:

“It’s a disappointment ... because Bishop Bruskewitz has just thumbed his nose” at the policies from the bishops’ conference, said Gordon Peterson, Call To Action Member. “The position he takes is he’s only answerable to the pope.”

Well, Gordon, I hate to break it to you, but the bishop is right. The sad part is, Bishop Bruskewitz knows that he answers to the Pope, while too many catholics, like Mr. Peterson, think that they don't.

The model church of Call To Action makes the bishops obedient to the people, and the people obedient only to their 'conscience', however well or ill formed it may be.

Good News

Twenty-three new seminarians in the Diocese of Lincoln, according to the Southern Nebraska Register. Nineteen are locals, four from other parts of the country or farther:

Sean Wilson of Gimli, Manitoba in Canada had originally intended to study for the Diocese of Winnipeg. However, various circumstances led him to enter the seminary for the Diocese of Lincoln instead.

“I ended up reading about the Bishop of Lincoln, and that made me curious,” he said. He came to visit St. Gregory the Great and was impressed with the friendly and faith-filled atmosphere."

Wow, he read about Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz, and came here all the same. He must be an intrepid Catholic, and looking for more than just milquetoast doctrinal dissent taught by nancing poofs. Were in cassock country here, with many sporting the biretta as well. Please check all Call To Action membership cards and National Catholic Reporter subscriptions at the gate.

We are very fortunate to have such men, willing to contemplate taking up the cross of a religious vocation. And to have so many with such interest is special as well.

“We’re very blessed by God,” agreed Father Robert Matya, vocations director.

Yes, Father, indeed we are.

Representing

Nine members of the group Call to Action stood outside the Cathedral of the Risen Christ Friday to call attention to Lincoln Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz’s refusal to participate in an annual sex abuse audit.

But they were upstaged by more than 100 local Catholics who came together on less than an hour’s notice to show support for the bishop

That was from the Lincoln Journal Star's account of CTAN's histrionic bid for some attention. To try and scrape up some ill will against their nemesis, bishop Fabian Bruskewitz, the heretics trot out the bete noire of sexual abuse. Despite that fact that it has been a rare but quickly dealt with problem in Lincoln, some are leary of Lincoln's non-participation in the USCCB's backside-covering sex abuse audits.

Nevertheless, the non-participation raises questions, said John Krejci, a Call to Action member from Lincoln. “We have no guarantee that the children of this diocese are protected,” he said.

I wish that people could be honest in their beefs. Call To Action isn't primarily concerned about sexual abuse, they want the excommunications recinded by Bruskewitz. The sexual abuse audit question is the only thing that they can get any media traction on, in order to try to pressure the bishop. Well, here's the big claim:

Despite the greater numbers on the other side, Pokora said she believes Call to Action represents the majority of Catholics nationwide who want bishops to fully comply with the annual sex abuse study.

“We are the church, and it is important that the voices of the faithful who are concerned about the children of the diocese are heard,” she said.

Well, if CTA represent a majority of Catholics, then why did it take months to get 1000 signatures on their petition. The pro-Bruskewitz petition got 1400 signatures in 31 hours. As for "We are the church", I wasn't aware that the excommunicated had any claim on the Church.

Bruskewitz, as he's always done, called for the dissidents to repent and rejoin the Church. As for the faithful laity of Lincoln, Bruskewitz had the usual request:

He asked them to pray for Call to Action members, that they return to the true Catholic faith.

Yes, let's do.

That All ?

From the Omaha World Herald, Group Targets Actions of Bruskewitz:

More than 1,000 Catholics from all corners of the country have signed a petition protesting Lincoln Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz's actions against members of the Lincoln-based Call to Action Nebraska.

One thousand?! That's the best you can do? Heck, our small parish packs that many in on any given Sunday.

"We are not happy with the way Bishop Bruskewitz has been handling things in the diocese and wanted to draw attention to that," said Rachel Pokora, president of Call to Action Nebraska.

Ms. Pokora thinks herself ill-used, excommunicated by the bishop for belonging to an organization that inherently defies catholic teaching and doctrine.

..the petition criticizes Bruskewitz's refusal to allow girls to serve at the altar and his 1996 excommunication of Call to Action Nebraska members.

Having not gotten any sympathy for their heretical views, Call To Action plays the Abuse card:

The petition also included criticism of his refusal to participate in the annual nationwide audit to determine whether churches are compliant with church policies regarding sex abuse.

"We find this to be very disappointing because we feel the children of Lincoln and the diocese are at risk," said Nicole Sotelo, spokeswoman for the Chicago-based Call to Action U.S.A.

Unlike Call To Action, the USCCB is less hysterical about Lincoln's non-participation in the audits:

A spokeswoman for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops said the Lincoln Diocese's lack of participation in the audit does not mean it isn't adhering to church policies regarding sexual abuse.

"The clergy sexual abuse crisis is a serious issue for all the bishops, and I can't see any bishop not doing all they can to ensure children are safe in their diocese," said Teresa Kettelkamp, executive director of the Office of Child and Youth Protection, which administers the audit.

In a written statement, Bruskewitz affirmed that his diocese is operating in full compliance with all civil and church laws concerning the abuse of minors.

I don't worry much about the children in Lincoln, because the Bishop's policy is clear to the local clergy. I think it's something along the lines of "If you abuse children, I promise I'll visit you in prison."

"The Catholic Church teaches that all homosexual acts and any sexual abuse of minors or others are mortal sins," Bruskewitz said in the statement. "Such sins and heinous crimes should be appropriately punished by the authorities of the church and the state."

He cracks down on heretics as well. It's going to take much more than a pathetic petition to change Bp. Bruskewitz' mind on the Call To Action Nebraska excommunications. Maybe they should try renouncing their heresies and reconciling with the Church. It's been known to work.

Fillet of Carp

Eh, what the heck, I've got a couple minutes.

Fr. Richard McBrien teaches theology at Notre Dame, a Catholic university, and when he's not in the classroom, he's busy loudly chafing at Catholic Theology. If you can guess how he's maintained such an oddly tenouous position for so long, you're wiser than I. My guess would be possession of photos of certain someones with certain someone elses, with or without certain garments. But, to the substance of tonight's installment..

As noted at the Cafeteria is Closed, Fr. McBrien's recent column was tangentially related to bishop Bruskewitz, as it was a ciphered support of Call To Action. Call To Action is a nominally catholic organization which aims to make the Catholic Church less Catholic, and more like the Episcopal Church. Seeing the Episcopal Church in it's doctrine-rending convulsions is a curious motivation to support application of those doctrines to the Catholic Church, which have caused episcopalians so much grief, but I digress. On to Fr. McBrien, and his discussion on religious inflation:

Inflation not only occurs in the economic order; it can also occur in the Church. When claims for religious truth are "enlarged or amplified unduly or improperly," the actual truth loses some of its credibility. The extreme consequence of such inflation is that all religious truths lose their value.

Only if religious truth is like a currency, which can be traded for self-righteousness, intellectual superiority, or rationalization to obscure sins. But, if truth is really Truth, then it is a whole and complementary system which cannot be parsed into convenient parcels for either acceptance or dismissal. Looking for degrees of truth is, in essence, looking for escape routes from obedience.

Fr. McBrien rehashes bishop Bruskewitz' ecommunication of Call to Action members in the Diocese of Lincoln, and finally arrives at the question in his heart:

These claims beg the question: What constitutes "the Catholic faith"?

Gee, Pontius, is that the best you can do? "Quid est veritas"?!? Your wash basin is over there.

Is every official teaching of the Catholic Church, at whatever level, and every disciplinary decree of a Roman congregation a matter of "Catholic faith," or what the traditional Latin manuals of theology called "de fide"?
Is there no doctrinal difference, for example, between the Church's current discipline of obligatory celibacy for priests of the Latin rite and the teachings of the ecumenical councils on the divinity of Jesus Christ? Is the belief in angels on the same doctrinal level as belief in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist?

If you are looking for doctrinal differences, then you are looking for a way to dismiss the authority of the Magisterium of the Church. For authority has been given to the Apostles and to their successors to loosen or bind, on Earth and in Heaven, in all matters, great and small.

The Whinepress of Wrath

Oh no! National Call to Action is going to start bombarding Lincoln, Nebraska Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz with the "Fraternal Correction" suggested by Patricia Ewers. It's like illegal immigrants lecturing a congressman about environmental policy: An attempt to cover one's own illegitimacy by accusing an adversary of an unrelated fault.

They're also going to copy the head of the USCCB, Bishop William "[uncharitable comment edited]" Skylstad on the letters. Might as well CC Santa Claus as well, for all the good that will do, as Bruskewitz gives creedence to the USCCB to the same extent as he might the Tooth Fairy. So, having washed out at the Vatican, are they going to the next higher authority (in their minds) by going to the USCCB?

From CTA's press release:

“Bishop Bruskewitz may try to excommunicate our Nebraska members, but he cannot excommunicate our efforts for justice,” says Rachel Pokora, President of CTA/Nebraska. “We want our daughters to be able to be altar girls and we want to protect the children in our diocese in the wake of the sexual abuse revelations. Every other diocesan bishop in the United States allows altar girls and has complied with the sex abuse-related national Charter for the Protection of Children
and Young People, except Bishop Bruskewitz. The bishop has excommunicated us for simply wanting justice in our diocese.”

Don't be disingenuous, Rachel, those reasons are not why you got excommunicated. The CTA gang was excommunicated 7 years before the abuse scandal even broke out. There's nothing like blatant falsehood to communicate one's innocence. So what does CTA want that got them excommunicated: Birth Control, Abortion, Married Priests, Women Priests, Gay Marriage. Once again they try to clothe the rest of their agenda with the "Protection of Children" issue:

“Does this mean that any Catholic is at risk of excommunication when they disagree with their bishop or Catholic teaching? What about the more than 90% of US Catholics who disagree with the Vatican’s stance on birth control? What about the two-thirds of US Catholics who desire women’s ordination? Does this recent letter from the Vatican mean that any Catholic who advocates for the protection of children in the wake of the sexual abuse crisis could be subject to excommunication?

The devious insinuation of legitimate issues to mask the advance of the illegitimate desires are proof enough that EVERY catholic, in EVERY diocese, should get out of Call To Action, period. Any remaining should be excommunicated.

h/t CWNews/OTR

Bishop's Judgment Upheld

via CWNews:

In March 1996, Bishop Bruskewitz had announced the excommunication of all Catholics in his diocese who were members of Call to Action or several other dissident groups which he described as “totally incompatible with the Catholic faith.”

The Nebraska chapter of Call to Action appealed the bishop’s decision to the Vatican. In his November 24 letter to Bishop Bruskewitz, Cardinal Re reports that Vatican’s finding that the disciplinary action was “properly taken.”

It's interesting that CTA would bother appealing to an entity who's authority they routinely reject. It's like an anarchist in queue for the dole, he only regards the entity inasmuch as it's beneficial to his ends. In this instance, the Vatican wasn't sympathetic to the plaintiff's cause.

The Vatican has determined that “the activities of ‘Call to Action’ in the course of these years are in contrast with the Catholic Faith due to views and positions held which are unacceptable from a doctrinal and disciplinary standpoint,” Cardinal Re writes. He concludes: “Thus to be a member of this Association or to support it, is irreconcilable with a coherent living of the Catholic Faith.”

This appears to be a fairly potent indictment of the Call To Action movement as a whole, and so begs the question voiced by others: If Call To Action is bad for Catholics in Nebraska, isn't it bad for Catholics everywhere else as well?
I wonder if other bishops are paying attention, or if they're ducking in hopes of not being noticed for being conspicuously silent on this issue.

Update 12/08/06:

The Lincoln Journal Star picked up on the story, and got reactions from local CTA members.

Local CTA member Jim McShane, who signed the original appeal of Bruskewitz’s ruling, said the local group has never received any response from Rome or been given the opportunity to state its case to Vatican officials.

“This letter is very unfortunate,” McShane said. “I’m deeply distressed by it. There’s every evidence that Rome is acting on misinformation.”

Rather than getting correct information about the beliefs and purposes of Call to Action from members of the organization itself, Vatican leaders have received incorrect information from Bruskewitz, McShane said.

Bishop Bruskewitz had advice for the sanctioned group:

Bruskewitz said Re’s letter makes clear the Vatican’s opposition to Call to Action and other groups considered incompatible with the faith.

“My prayer will always be that when people understand they have taken a wrong turn, they will stop and take the right turn,” he said.

The bishop urged local Catholics to “repudiate their membership in these groups” and then seek the Sacrament of Reconciliation in order to be reinstated with the church.

He's giving them every opportunity to repent and reconcile. Why are these people so stubborn?

Rachel Pokora, president of Call to Action-Nebraska, said she plans to continue attending church in the Lincoln Diocese and taking communion, as she has in the past.

“It will be interesting to see what the implications (of Re’s letter) are,” she said. “Will other dioceses take stronger actions against Call to Action?” So far, Bruskewitz is the only bishop to issue an excommunication ruling.

Obstinate, aren't we? But then, it's to be expected that CTA folks won't listen to a Bishop that they didn't vote for. My advice? Either repent and reconcile with the Church, or go join the Episcopalians. If you're going to join the TEC, though, you'd better hurry. They're about to throw themselves over a cliff, and may end up being Unitarians.

Bishop Bruskewitz Speaks

From an address to the Catholic Citizens of Illinois, h/t Cafeteria Is Closed:

" I have chosen for the title of my talk Facing the Crisis: Some reflections on the Current Crisis in the Church. It is important, I believe, to place a background against which my reflections will reflect. This has to be, of course, my conviction and I am sure yours, that the Catholic Church is very large with more than 1 billion 500 million of our fellow inhabitants of this planet, all across the globe, being our brothers and sisters in a common faith. We must also never forget that the Church is ever ancient and ever new, and has journeyed through more than two thousand years of human history, facing innumerable trials and difficulties, as well as triumphs and joys, carrying on her garments the dust of the journey, and sometimes on the feet of her members the mud of the trip. The Catholic Church, which is the bride of Jesus Christ, is holy and sinless, although she is composed entirely of sinful human beings, and all her members are required to pray that they be forgiven for their trespasses as they forgive others. [click 'read more' link for the rest of the address]

As she journeys through history and into our time and place, the Catholic Church carries deep within her the assurance of Jesus Christ that she will last until the end of time, and they he will be with her until He comes again in glory on the clouds of heaven. As His Mystical Body, she has God Himself, the Holy Spirit, as her informing soul, and as the one who protects and guides her despite the obstacles placed in her way, sometimes by her own disloyal and betraying children, as well as by those who, wittingly or unwittingly, at the source of the gates of hell's projected attempts to prevail against her. These thoughts might enable us to adopt an historical perspective as we consider the present problems and crises that the Church is encountering in this time and place, and will give us the necessary buoyancy to confront these crises which we should perhaps look at as the chastening rod of God, but not allow ourselves to be overcome with pessimism. It is said that the Chinese word for crisis is the same as the word for challenge or opportunity, and perhaps that understanding of the crises that we face will enable us always to be Easter people with Alleluia as our song.

That being said, we should however, realize that the Catholic Church in the United States, and to a large extent throughout the Western World, is facing a very formidable series of crises. Although the Catholic population of the United States is consistently growing, and now exceeds 67 million out of our total American population of 300 million, we have to remember that almost all of the growth has taken place by way of immigration, and almost none or less than none, by natural demographic increase. It should also be pointed out that the number of conversions to the Catholic faith in our country has fallen precipitously in the last forty years. As a matter of fact, it is an aphorism that probably can be statistically verified that the largest religious group in the United States is the Catholic Church, but the second largest is fallen-away Catholics, lapsed, non-practicing, those who have abandoned the Catholic faith. This leakage from the Catholic faith in the United States, which is undeniable, can be attributed to many factors, at least as far as can by observed. Thousands and thousands of Catholics have become Protestants and many thousands more have given up the practice of religion altogether. Except for the total number of Catholics in our country, every other category of Catholic statistics is in decline. There is and continues to be a very steep decline in vocations, a very steep decline in the number of priests, an extremely steep decline in the number of religious, especially women religious. There has been the closing of hundreds of Catholic schools throughout the United States. Many seminaries are closed or have such infinitesimally small enrollments that they ought to be closed. There are many Catholic colleges and universities, some of which are trying to maintain a Catholic identity, but many of which are Catholic in name only. There is a breakdown of authority in the Church, constant and open dissent by people who call themselves theologians; great doctrinal and moral confusion, and Catholics who while professing to belong to the Church are, perhaps, within her pale but outside of her orthodoxy. Catholics in many parts of the United States are confronted by banal, shallow, and irreverent liturgies that have no or only a most remote connection with the holy sacrifice of the Mass. In 1965, all the statistical studies showed that at least 85% or perhaps more of the Catholics in the United States attended mass each Sunday. The present statistical studies show that this has gone to 27% of the Catholics in the United States attending mass on Sundays. This is still in excess of certain countries in Europe such as Belgium and France, but there are some countries in Europe that have a higher Mass attendance than the United States, such as Poland and Italy. Unfortunately, Mass attendance in Ireland is descending rapidly to the tragic American level. Recent studies show, for example, that in the Archdioceses of Newark, in New Jersey, and Boston in Massachusetts, only 17% of those who say that are Catholic go to Mass at all. At the State university of Nebraska, located in Lincoln where I live, and where most of the Catholics who attend that university are not from the Lincoln Diocese, only 25% of the Catholic student body ever attend mass on Sunday, and after freshman year, more than half of the Catholics who attend that State university have lost their faith. In nearby Chicago, here, I believe that the census taken each October by the Archdiocese shows that only 22% of those who claim to be Catholic regularly attend Mass.

I need not point out to a wonderful group such as yours, that some of the leading proponents of such horrors as abortion, including partial birth abortion, are Catholic senators or senators who claim to be Catholic, and their names are quite familiar to you and I am certain that they are also very dedicated to such monstrous practices such as human cloning for therapeutic purposes, and embryonic human cell research. The picture, when one steps back and looks at it from some distance, can be quite bleak, and in many ways a source of anxiety and perhaps, desperate despondency. On the other hand, it can also be an opportunity to re-determine and reinvigorate our own faith, so that we can answer the question in the affirmative, that Jesus left unanswered in Sacred Scripture. "When the Son of Man comes again, will he find any faith on earth?"

Unless there is a strong realization among practicing Catholics that there is a crisis, and that this crisis deserves our resolute determination to confront it and overcome it, we will not get very far, except to descend further into the bleakness of this sad kind of winter. Unless the patient realizes he is sick, he will not expose his wounds to the necessary healing medicine that would provide a cure for his problems.

There are, of course, many causes for these ecclesiastical crises in which we are involved. There are many causes outside of the Church. We live, for example, in a culture that is dominated by materialism and hedonism, invisibly and imperceptibly the values of those things creep in the lives and attitudes of all, including Catholics. Even the healthiest fish cannot swim along in polluted waters. In our country, especially, a serious misunderstanding of freedom has turned freedom into license, and we live in a pan-sexual and irresponsible age, in which pleasure, comfort, and material possessions appear to be the goals of human existence. Lacking solid catechetical teaching, it is very easy for people, especially young people to be lured into that kind of attitude and condition their entire life-style by such an attitude.

As Archbishop Fulton Sheen used to say, "Most poisons are quite sweet to the lips. It is only when they are ingested that they destroy one."

However, we would certainly be blind to reality if we did not also realize that there are many causes of the current crises within the church herself, and the children of the Church who are in large measure betraying her, being one of the principal causes. First of all, the creed is absolutely the basis of what we are and what we do. When heretical and erroneous teachings are allowed to run rampant, it is a very short time before total disaster engulfs the entire ecclesiastical enterprise in any one area. We should remember that there was a time when North Africa was almost entirely Christian, almost entirely Catholic. Today, one can journey across North Africa from Morocco, Tunisia, Libya, Algeria, and Egypt and find very little, if any, Catholic presence in most locations on that shore of the Mediterranean Sea. We should not think this cannot happen here. Although we are promised that the Church will endure until the end of time, we have no promise that it will be enduring in North America.

A great amount of dissent and turmoil has come about because of a very serious misunderstanding of the Second Vatican Council. The documents of the Second Vatican Council are excellent. All of the documents deserve careful study and careful consideration in all their implications and all their nuances. The intentions of the Popes of the Council, Blessed John XXIII and Pope Paul VI are also quite clear in their writings and speeches and in all the things they saw as derivative from the Council. The Council in itself we consider a great act of the Holy Spirit. However, what happened was (and I speak from first-hand experience because I was in Rome at the conclusion of the Council) that a great number of personages and causes gathered around the Council as a kind of para-Council, which gave, because of their domination of the media, an incredibly wrong impression which persist even to this day, about what the Council was and what it was intended to achieve. For example, one hears very little about the continuity of historic tradition which is inherent in the very actions of the Council and in its documents, that it always understood itself as in organic unity with the previous Councils of the Church, including both the Council of Trent and the First Vatican Council which is explicitly affirmed and intended to incorporate in its outlook. This para-Council of advisors, experts and non-Catholic observers bestowed on the media incredibly distorted and even totally inaccurate impressions of the Council, giving to many Catholics even today, expectations for changes that were unrealistic and completely unintended. There was, in a certain sense the rigidities of the past and perhaps some faulty catechetics about issues in the past that made it possible for Catholics to be severely mistaken in what the Council intended and what would be within the capacities of the church to accomplish. The turbulent times of the 1960's especially in North America and Western Europe - with problems of racial justice, war and peace, and similar matters - got mixed up in the minds and hearts of many people and some Catholics were completely led astray, that Pope John's opening the windows to let fresh air into the church was an act they didn't see, which Pope John actually did see, the need for screens on the windows to keep foreign bodies from entering into the Church. Thus, we heard a few years later, Pope Paul VI saying that the very smoke from the fires of hell had crept into and under the window sashes and doors of the Church.

There was also a mistaken notion, even among some people who should have known better, that by removing or changing accidental matters, sometimes considered accretions in ecclesiastical life, it would not affect the substance of that life. I think there was misunderstanding of the Thomistic view of accidents and substances. Sometimes pulling out accidents which inhere in substances disturbs the substances themselves. Among the mistaken notions and distortions that derive from the Council was that of liturgical chaos. We also had a completely mistaken idea of the relationships of non-Catholics, individually and in groups, to the Catholic Church. The decree on ecumenism and the declaration on non-Christian religious, Unitatis Redintegratio and Nostra Aetate became the launching points of what later became, according to our present Holy Father, the dictatorship of relativism; namely, that there is no religious truth, or that religious truth is good for this person, but not necessarily true or good for that person, or while emphasizing that there are oftentimes, positive and truthful elements in other churches and other religious, and other denominations, and other religious experiences, and trying to be positive about that, may have misled a lot of people into thinking that religious truth is simply not contained in its fullness, in all its integrity and beauty only in the Catholic faith, but might also be contained similarly in others.

In Nebraska, where I come from, at this time of the year, harvest time, there are a lot of rodents who try to intrude themselves in, feasting on the corn, soybeans, and other products of the fields. This requires the farmers to put out appropriate amounts of rat poison to prevent this from happening. The rat poison that is put out is always 95% healthy, good, wholesome, nourishing food. It is only the 5% in the poison that does the killing. I think that this has been overlooked in the ecumenical and inter-religious dialogues sometimes, that inserted into things which might have elements of truth, are also very serious elements of error that place in jeopardy one's eternal salvation.

On hundred and fifty years ago, Cardinal John Henry Newman confronted the same situation in large extent that we are presently facing. He said, "Liberalism in religion is the doctrine that there is no truth in religion, but that one creed is as good as another. It is inconsistent with any recognition of any religion as true. It teaches that all are to be tolerated for all are matters of opinion. Revealed religion is not a truth, but a sentiment and taste, not an objective fact, not miraculous, and it the right of each individual to make it say just what strikes his fancy. Devotion is not founded on faith. Men may go to Protestant church or to Catholic, may get good from both, or belong to neither and may fraternize together in spiritual thought and feelings without having any views at all of doctrine in common or seeing any need of them."

It does not take much inquiry or insight to see how this kind of liberalism in religion affects many people of our time. Newman said this liberalism "is the view that the Governor of the world does not intend that we should gain the truth, that we are not more acceptable to God by believing this rather than believing that, that no one is answerable for his opinions, that it is enough that we simply hold what we profess, and that we should follow what seems to us to be true without any fear lest it should not be true, and that we may safely trust to ourselves in matters of faith, and need no other guide."

Newman then says that "the Catholic faith opposes this idea of liberalism in religious. It asserts very emphatically that there is a truth, then, that there is one truth, that religious error is of itself an immoral nature, that its maintainers, unless involuntarily such, are guilty in maintaining it, that the mind is below truth and not above it, and is bound, not to descant upon it, but to venerate it, that truth and falsehood are set before us for the trial of our hearts, that our choice is an awful giving forth of lots on which salvation or its rejection is inscribed, and that before all things it is necessary to hold the Catholic faith, and that he who would be saved must think thus and not otherwise."

What then should be the method by which we face the rises in the Church at this time? There must be, I think, a supreme effort to recapture our Catholic faith in all its orthodox splendor, and to take a stand for Christ as in the olden days. The Church has ever been counter-cultural. She has always and ever been that which stands against the age because she is the custodian of the Deposit of Faith, inherently and intrinsically conservative, as Pope Paul VI observed, because she to maintain the integrity of that faith without distortion or mutilation down through the centuries. It is important that we see the truths of our Catholic faith as liberating realities, and not as some kind of constraint, and that true freedom is linked with truth, and that truth trumps freedom and that unless one is in possession of the truth, one is not actually free. The words of Jesus are always appropriate to every age, "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."

It is also important in this regard to reinvigorate in ourselves and in all with whom we have any connection, the spirit of obedience. Saint Paul, in his epistle to the Romans speaks about the obedience of faith which we must give to God Who reveals Himself in Christ Jesus. Jesus Himself redeemed us by obedience; not just that He died, but that He was obedient unto death. Obedience means submitting our will to the will of God. The medieval Doctors of the Church always encouraged those who listened to their teaching and preaching to sentire cum ecclesia, that is, to think with and be with the Church.

And so, the question arises, "Where is this church?" It is certainly not situated in Andrew Greeley or Richard McBrien, or Sister Chittester, or in the myriads of other personages and voices whose faces and words appear to dominate the media when it come to Catholic expression. No, Saint Ambrose, long ago, told us where we would find the Church, where she is always situated. He said in Latin, Ubi Petrus, ibi ecclesia, et ubi ecclesia vita eterna. Where Peter is, there is the church and where the Church is, there is everlasting life. It is especially through apostolic succession, and most particularly in the apostolic succession of the See of Rome, that we are able to reach back through history, and touch, not only the bodies and souls of the apostles, but the One Who sent the apostles forth, that is the Divine Founder of our Catholic religion of the Catholic Church, the Divine Source of all faith, as well as the Object of that faith, Jesus Christ. The great martyrs who preceded us in our Catholic faith were willing to see Jesus as the Person to die for, and we certainly, to be worthy of their memory, must see Him as the Divine Person to live for.

The clash of culture represented by the Muslim demography and onslaught in our time, which reflects the Islamic expansionism of times past, cannot be successfully confronted by an easy-going pluralistic tolerance. It can only be confronted by a reinvigorated Christianity, a reinvigorated Catholic faith. The dynamism, the Tielhardism, the Communism, the Marxism, the Socialism, and countless other isms of the last centuries will never be successfully confronted either, apart from a reinvigorated and grace-filled Catholic faith. This duty to profess again, not just with mouth and words, but with heart and soul, the Catholic faith, the profession of faith, is incumbent, not simply upon priests, religious, and bishops, preoccupied as they are and assailed as they are by abominable scandals in their number and confusion in their thoughts, but also by a laity that takes again very seriously what Chesterton observed. "There are an infinity of angles at which one can fall, but only one at which one can stand." Once the Catholic faith is flaming alive in the hearts of a dedicated laity, they will be able to carry out the function that the Second Vatican Council places upon them, to bring Christ and the truth of his faith and the truth of the faith He founded into the market place, into the work place, into the home and family, into the realm of politics, business, industry, commerce, the professions, arts and culture.

In summary, a laity that will be the salt, the leaven and the light that will penetrate our world. Initially, there were only twelve apostles, largely shabby fishermen from Galilee, who were able, with the grace of God and under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, to bring the light of Christ to 2000 and more years of human history. Why should we think we are any less capable, provided that we are people of prayer, dedication and devotion, of doing something similar in our time and place. Let it be our prayer that God will give us here and now, the ability to dare to be different, and to stand for Christ whatever the cost, and to convince our world that our Catholic faith is so beautiful that all people would wish it to be true, and then to inform our world in the most certain terms that it is true. Thank you very much.

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God is good, and gives us the shepherds we need, if we are willing to be led. I'm grateful to be in the Diocese of Lincoln.

Canadian Sniper Identified, Still At large

Rev. Ronald Trojcak is a Roman Catholic priest in London, Ontario, but was compelled to publicly condemn the actions of a fellow Catholic, Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz of Lincoln, Nebraska. April 25th, In a comment on the online version of the Lincoln Journal Star's coverage of Bruskewitz, Trojcak left this remark:

"I suggest that this bishop's stance, not only on this matter, but on several, provides plausible justification for abandoning the Roman church, in which I have been an active priest in the 43 years since my ordination."

A request for a clarification from Rev. Trojcak has so far been unanswered. So, the next best thing would be to take other public musings from Rev. Trojcak to find the source of his discontent. Maybe he's a Rad Trad, and is unhappy with Bruskewitz' latae sententiae excommunication of SSPXers.

On his personal website, Rev Trojcak has links to several National Catholic Reporter stories, The Tablet's online edition, and (drum roll, please)
"Voice of the Faithful (VOTF). Indicate Your Support by Sharing your Email".

Under his "Great Books" banner, Rev. Trojcak has these gems:

Sacred Silence: Denial and Crisis in the Church by Donald B. Cozzens
The Changing Face of the Priesthood: A Reflections on the Priest's Crisis of Soul by Donald B. Cozzens
She Who Is:The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse. by Elizabeth A. Johnson

Okay, I guess that since the 1964 Missal is not on his list, he's not an SSPX booster. From the pages of the Purple Pew (just guess), Rev. Trojcak can be found commenting on this article:

“By virtue of being intrinsically disordered, homosexuality is not a human act, but is a depravity and an abomination as Sacred Scripture, the Church and the Catechism all state so clearly,” Rev. Jeffrey T. Robideau of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Lansing, Mich.

Trojcak's respose to the article:

"I am a Roman Catholic priest, engaged in university teaching for 35 years, and in university chaplaincy for 28 years. I am appalled by the inept, uninformed, and anything but Christian remarks of this priest. I have been teaching the Jewish-Christian scriptures, and unhappily, it seems that the priest has not read recent scholarship on the Bible and homosexuality. Unhappily, he seems also to have missed the all-inclusive ministry of Jesus.
Comment by Rev. Ronald Trojcak, Ph.D. — November 2, 2005 @ 9:34 pm"

I'm sensing a pattern here, and am perceiving Rev. Trojcak's objections to Bruskewitz's strident orthodoxy. But what gives a priest permission to snipe at a bishop in another country?

In a review on Amazon.com for Cozzen's Sacred Silence: Denial and the Crisis in the Church, Trojcak goes on so:

I am a Roman Catholic priest, ordained 40 years, and I am more grateful than I can say, for Donald Cozzen's latest book. It is the most plain-spoken, insightful, exhaustive, profound, and above all, honest book on the Church and its current parlous state, than any of the many I've read. I hesitate to call it courageous, though it surely is that. For this book followed his earlier book on the priesthood, and he was pilloried by many for that. But, fatuously, I'm afraid, I would like to think that anyone, cleric or lay, would have been, if not able, at least willing to say what Cozzens has said here. Unhappily, this is far from the truth. Now, if a bishop would be willing.......

So, Rev. Ron find Cozzens inspirational and Bruskewitz abhorrent. Let's see what Trojcak thinks about the late pope, JP II. In a Google cached page of PressEtc, a post was written called "Pope to saint: Seven sins of John Paul II" and listed these accusations (mostly pertaining to upholding Catholic Doctrine):
Sin 1: HIV/AIDS epidemic in Africa
Sin 2: Genocide in Rwanda
Sin 3: Beatification of Mother Teresa
Sin 4: Over population and poverty
(And continued onto a non-cached page)
To which this reply is appended:

rev. ronald trojcak, ph.d. (a roman cat
Written by Guest on 2005-06-05 21:06:55
I appreciate this statement about the late pope.

Ahh, things are coming into a sharper focus...let's see what else we can find. In a review of John Cornwell's book A Pontiff in Winter, Trojcak concurs with his subject:

I say all this in order to provide the basis for Cornwell's central assessment of John Paul's papacy: namely its intolerance for pluralism. Here, pluralism extends to almost every element of the church: the authority of local bishops; the integrity of episcopal synods; the liturgy and liturgical texts, and perhaps most consequentially, theological diversity. Recall John Paul's treatment of a number of prominent theologians: Charles Curran, Leonardo Boff, Jacques Dupuis, and Hans Kung, among many others.

But strictures on diversity ignore the massive historical developments in the church's life and thought which have constituted the church. Such developments have been the hallmark of the history of the church from its very beginning. Moreover, much intolerance enforces a stultifying uniformity in a world whose cultural diversity we know now more clearly than ever before.

I believe that the greatest merit of Cornwell's book is its implicit demystification of the papacy.

By this time, it's clear to see why Rev. Trojcak felt compelled to assail Bruskewitz as he did: Bruskewitz is against those practices that really get people to leave the Catholic Church. And make no mistake, Rev. Trojcak, just because they may warm a pew on Sunday doesn't mean they're Catholic, and physically taking the Eucharist isn't a guarantee of Communion with the Church.

Bishop Bruskewitz, and his orthodox example, has given "plausible justification" for men and women to take Holy Orders, not "abandoning the Roman Church", as Trojcak suggests.

Fabian's Local Paper Finally Catches Up with The Story

The Lincoln Journal Star, hometown rag for the Diocese of Lincoln, has finally caught the story about Bishop Bruskewitz's dismissal of the National Review Board.

What took so long, you ask? Maybe it took a while to get Call to Action, too busy with the national press, to return the Journal Star's calls:

Linda Pieczynski, media spokesperson for national Call to Action, said Bruskewitz “has defiantly refused even to self-report for the audit process with no consequences at all.” Ewers’ urging fraternal correction against Bruskewitz, she said, was “an absolutely useless gesture. It is time to ask whether the Charter for the protection of Children and Youth is living up to its promises in the real world, and not just in a report.”

Or maybe it took considerable time to find some local Call to Action people:

“It is unsettling to see a Christian bishop claim that he and his diocese is above correction because he is in keeping with the letter of the civil and ecclesiastical law,” said Jim McShane, a local member of Call to Action.

McShane agreed that the National Review Board and bishops have “no canonical authority to compel anything,” but they do have moral authority. The bishops set up the review board to restore confidence in their care for young people after the sex abuse scandal, he said. For Bruskewitz to reject the process “can only undermine further the confidence the bishops are so anxious to restore,” McShane said.

Getting Call to Action's comments on this story is like polling Iranians on U.S. immigration policy: certainly hostile, and almost entirely irrelevant.

The delay in publishing the story, most likely, was caused by the Bishop's general reluctance to speak with the press. But, nonetheless, Fabian get's his $ 0.02 in:

In response to a question by the Journal Star, Bruskewitz explained the policies and procedures in the Lincoln Diocese to protect children and respond to any allegations of abuse by clergy, teachers, other staff or volunteers.

“The Diocese of Lincoln has in place a very strong program of instruction and training for all priests, religious and lay people in the diocese who are in any way, directly or indirectly, connected with children and youth. There are very careful and thorough background checks done for all people who are employed by the diocese, or by institutions, parishes or agencies which have any connection whatever with the diocese. All people, including all children and youth, are regularly instructed to report any incidents of abuse immediately to law enforcement authorities.”

In addition, any credible allegations of abuse will be presented to the diocese’s own lay review board “and then appropriately acted upon in accordance with the canon law of the Catholic Church,” he said.

Whatever the reason, the story got out. On the on-line edition, a solitary comment was appended to the story:

Viewer Comments:
Rev. Ronald Trojcak, Ph. D. wrote on April 25, 2006 7:54 PM:"I suggest that this bishop's stance, not only on this matter, but on several, provides plausible justification for abandoning the Roman church, in which I have been an active priest in the 43 years since my ordination."

Of course, one cannot add any more comments to the thread, thus leaving the errant priest's comments as the last word on the story. I'm attempting to follow up with Rev. Trojcak for an explanation.

Miserere nobis