Archbishop Cordileone Under Attack - Will Pope Francis Support Him After Letting The LCWR Run Amok?

Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone, prelate of San Francisco, has made heroic efforts to cleanse the progressive rot inside Catholic schools and other structures in his archdiocese that have been allowed to fester for way too long.  The link above documents that, and the opposition that he has had to withstand.  It should be mentioned that some of that opposition has come from local governments, who ignore the real intent of the First Amendment's prohibition against governmental interference with the free exercise of religious beliefs.

Some ignorant and/or disobedient Catholics have taken out an ad to publish an open letter to Pope Francis.  They are petitioning the Pope to remove Cordileone and replace him with a progressive to their own likening.  Their main beef seems to be the archbishop's insistence that teachers in the Catholic schools there conduct themselves in manners that conform with Catholic moral teaching.  Imagine that!  Asking Catholic teachers to behave like - Catholics!  Who-da thunk it?  All they do is display their own desperate need for real Catholic education.

Now think this through!  Can you imagine these same parents lambasting an Islamic school for insisting that its teachers live by Muslim doctrines?  No!  It defies common sense!  But common sense means nothing to those whose consciences cannot bear the truth of God because their own lives are lived in disobedience to God.  I believe this is a key reason why these dissidents are gnashing their teeth at Archbishop Cordileone.  This move to marginalize the archbishop and other faithful Catholics in their own schools and churches is part of a move to relegate us to the status of "niggers of the new age".

According to some reports, many of the signers of this letter are wealthy and influential.  Well, whoop-dee-doo!  In this attack against the Archbishop, these individuals place their own immortal souls in jeopardy, and their so-called "wealth and influence" won't do diddly-squat if they die unrepentant.

Some have opined that this letter is a gesture that won't have any impact on the Pope.  In a saner time I could have joined in that optimism.  However, two events give me "cause for pause".

1. There is the abysmal treatment meted out to Father Marcel Guarnizo three years ago at my own parish when Father withheld Holy Communion to a flagrant lesbian.  Cardinal Wuerl had him thrown under the bus when the gay community started yipping and yapping.  Whether or not the chancery silently agreed with the gays or they simply cowed before them I cannot tell.  The entire chancery failed miserably in behaving like true followers of Jesus Christ.  If the DC chancery wimped out then, might the nuncio wimp out now?
2. There is today's news that the Vatican is ending its review and reform of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious.  The attempt to reform the LCWR was undertaken by Pope Benedict XVI, and long overdue for the LCWR has long been a cesspool of dissent and spiritual poison.  Now we hear that Pope Francis thinks all is well and good and that LCWR business can resume as before!  If that be the case with the LCWR, might there be similar attitudes displayed against the Archdiocese of San Francisco?   Note: Vox Cantoris points out that this travesty was committed on Pope Benedict's birthday.  Did the pope just slap his predecessor in the face?

Please consider signing a petition to support the Archbishop.  This petition is an initiative of LifeSiteNews.   Of course please pray and speak out.  Thank you.

Cdl Muller Administers Much-Needed Truth To LCWR

A few days ago, Cardinal Gerhard Muller of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith administered some much-needed medicine to the Leadership Conference of Women Religious.  He did not sugar-coat it, he did not adulterate it with disgusting "nuance" and "diplomacy".  He served the truth straight up.  The question remains whether or not the LCWR will actually repent and remind themselves that they took religious vows to obey Holy Mother Church.

Here is the address on the CDF site.

A Journey Through The Cosmos Straight To Hell

The Leadership Conference of Women Religious (from whence sprang the Nuts Nuns on the Bus) just had their annual meeting in Orlando Florida.  The keynote address was given by Sister Ilia Delio, a Sister of St. Francis.  She is director of Catholic studies and visiting professor at Georgetown University.   She has doctorates in pharmacology and historical theology.  Methinks the pharmacology and theology may have meshed a little too much in her fertile imagination.  As you read the piece you'll get some insight as to why Georgetown's Catholic identity is such an abysmal mess.  Before you delve into it, why don't you break out your "Hair" albums and have "Age of Aquarius" playing in the background for appropriate mood music?

Her address was in two parts.  The first was entitled, "Religious Life on the Edge of the Universe".   Given the way these gals of LCWR carry on, it might as well have been titled "Religious Life on the Brink of Damnation".  Here are some of the key heresies, uh, points!

• "If we are to rethink in terms of religion, we have to think in terms of cosmology."  Uh, sez who, Sister?  From which of the Church Fathers (dare I use that sexist term?) do you glean this precious pearl of wisdom?  And just what is the idea behind rethink?
• "There is no cosmos without God (arguably true) and no God without cosmos."  Major fail, Sister!  God is eternal.  He was before anything came into being (of course He brought everything, including this "cosmos", into being).  I learned this in first-grade religion.  This is obviously symptomatic when pharmacology overwhelms theology, I suppose.
• "A mixture of Scripture and Greek philosophy helped develop our theory of Jesus Christ - unchanging, static - a mechanical God".  Well yes, God is immutable.  He, being the sum of all perfection, cannot change or become "more perfect".  He also can't be molded into some caricature that the LCWR might find less obnoxious to their own rebellions and silliness.
• "We are on the cusp of an (wait for it!) an evolutionary breakthrough, one that requires our conscious participation as co-creative agents of love, midwives of the new creation".  Just what do these ditzy broads think is so new that it hasn't been seen in the thousands of years of human history?
• "Nothing is more awesome than to give birth to God".  If she were speaking of the singular privilege of the Blessed Mother Mary, that would be true enough.  But in context with the rest of her drivel, she obviously believes that she and her LCWR cronies are going to go into labor very soon.

Before I write this next gem of wisdom, please put away the "Hair" albums and replace them with Woodstock music.  Because (drums and trumpets, please!)

WE ARE STARDUST!

She prefaced that with the word "literally".  And all the aging hippies said, "groovy"!  Well maybe not out loud.  Of course it's no surprise that she is a devotee of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, as she reminded the attendees that the Church is not opposed to evolution (it is opposed to Piltdown hoaxes, but I digress).    Now we know why Georgetown University is going to seed.

On the other hand, a voice of sanity strove to be heard.  Archbishop J. Peter Sartain, appointed by the

Pharmacological studies at Woodstock

Vatican to oversee the LCWR, met with about 800 of them.  The meeting was closed and was held literally under lock and key.  One statement that he made, their role is "to be thinking with the Church and fidelity to the magisterium of the Church" met with predicable disdain.  Please understand that this link is to the Not-At-All Catholic Reporter so you'll need to "read between the lines", as it were.  I'm sure that experience will count towards His Excellency's purgatorial pit-stop after he passes on.

Time to get the dust mop, spray with Endust and clean up the dust and cobwebs.

Nun-Sense From A LCWR Order

They are the Sisters of Charity of Cincinnati, to be precise.  Another blogger, Over the Rhine and Into the Tiber, caught a screen-shot of their webpage that clearly links to Catholics for Choice, who are obviously promoting baby-murder.  Go over and take a look.

Not too surprisingly, the Skewers of Charity pulled down that rather embarrassing link.  One might say they scrubbed their site.  But if that's "scrubbing the site", they did a lousy job because approximately 60% of those links are to some questionable outfit.  Here's a smattering from the "church and political systems" page that had contained the CFC link.

We start off with the American Catholic Council.  One thing I'll say is that they're honest in their disobedience in calling for "women's ordination" while waxing lyrical over "the spirit of Vatican II".  Did I say "honest"?  Maybe not, for while they bray and bleat about their conference in Detroit in 2011, they fail to mention that the Archbishop of Detroit forbade them to use Church property and forbade his priests to have anything to do with that mess.

Moving on, we see Call to Action (evicted from the Diocese of Lincoln by Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz) and Catholic Climate Covenant.  We also see Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, co-founded by Sebelius operative James Salt.

We also see Sojourners, founded by Jim Wallis.  He recently came out in support of the perversion euphemistically called "gay marriage".  Also notice the plethora of "community-organizing" outfits.  Many of these you'll find in the American Life League's report on questionable CCHD grant recipients.  I don't have time or space to delve into each of them; I leave it to your initiative.

Last week it was announced that Pope Francis concurs with the April 2012 assessment of the LCWR by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.  Of course many of the usual gang of suspects are having hissies over it.  No doubt they're surprised to find out that the Pope is, well, the Pope!  Given what we just saw - professed religious promoting baby-slaughter - these people are in desperate need of reform.

"If It Can't Be Reformed, It Doesn't Have A Right To Continue"

Those were Cardinal Burke's words regarding the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (at the 2:00 mark).  He further stated that the Holy See that founded the LCWR and thus has the right to say whether or not the LCWR is fulfilling its mission.

In my humble opinion, it's time to put the LCWR in the ash heap and suggest that the not-so-good sisters spend some time in much needed prayer, reflection and repentance.  Click here if you cannot see embedded video.

Rancid Souposiums

A monthly email from the Archdiocese of Washington's Department of Charity and Justice is promoting something called "Sunday Souposiums" put on by the Franciscan Monastery.  Some further research indicates that the "soup" might contain just a smidgen of rat poison.

The Franciscan Mission Service gives some insight about past "souposiums".  One held in January featured as its main speaker Sister Margaret Mary Kimmins.  She is the board president of  Franciscan Action Network.  Now read that home page for an eyeful of dissent.

A Celebration Of LCWR And Nuns On The Bus

Judging from some comments on my last post, I can tell some of you think I'm being too, too, mean to these dear little ladies!  To those of you whose knickers got knotted over my obvious disdain for these women making wreckage of their own eternal fates, I hope this presentation helps soothe your ruffled feathers!  Click here if you can't see embedded video!



In all seriousness, these ladies and their misguided fans stand in desperate need of our prayers.

LCWR To Be De-Recognized??

Lifesite News reports that Cardinal Levada is proposing this as a viable option should LCWR continue barreling down their rebellious path with the same velocity as their vaunted bus.  Please read for yourselves.

To this I can only add a few things:

• It's high time this happens.
• While I hold to the above bullet, it's no secret that the orders that comprise the LCWR are dying.  Their average age is 74, and they have next to no new vocations.  The orders will die off anyway.
• Replace this bunch with a conference of traditional sisters and nuns, faithful to the Magisterium and their vows and habits.  These orders are growing and vibrant.
• Again I ask - who or what is funding that bus tour?

While we're at it with revamping the names of dissident cabals, I humbly suggest an alternative name for the so-called WATER bunch headed by Mary Hunt and Diane Neu.  How about Dissidents Reveling In Pernicious Sin - that is, DRIPS?

LCWR Dissidents Gallavant Across The Country!

My friends and colleagues, Mary Ann Kreitzer and Stephanie Block, have written a bit about the LCWR's leadership's latest stunt: traipsing across the country on a "Nuns on a bus" tour, ostensibly to fight against poverty, for social justice and so on.  By the way - note Ms Kreitzer's point about that rather luxurious bus on which these "poverty-warriors" ride.  Wouldn't you love to know who's bank-rolling that thing?  I sure would!

Mary E. Hunt, a local feminist dissident (more on her later) wrote a piece called "We Are All Nuns".  Of course she voices full support of the LCWR - and in doing so, ememplifies very well (albeit unwittingly) just why the Vatican had no choice but to take corrective measures.  In her piece, she states quite plainly her regret that Obamacare didn't support baby-murder enough to satisfy her progressive (and rather blood-thirsty) proclivities, to wit: "More progressive feminist Catholics, myself included, rued the fact that the plan did not cover the full spectrum of reproductive health care—including abortion."  A few paragraphs down, she remarks rather humorously that someone asked her "What Bible do they read?"  "They" refers to the Magisterium.  Well, Ms. Hunt, it's quite apparent that the Magisterium reads the correct authentic Bible while you obviously read a cheap parody of the same!


Ms. Block's article features a footnote linking to the St Benedict Guild (another saint's name bastardized) that now sells shirts and tote bags with the "we are all nuns" theme.  Read through that litany very carefully and notice how they camouflage their progressivism with all sorts of "charitable" sounding slogans.   Peppered throughout the "orphanages", "abused children", "feed the hungry", you see the real agenda: planned parenthood, freedom of choice, same-sex marriage, ordination of women.  If nothing else, this shirt is prima facie evidence of their stratagems since the 1960s.

Now back to Mary E. Hunt herself - and why she completely lacks credibility when she speaks of things Catholic.  She is co-founder of something called "Women's Alliance for Theology, Ethics and Ritual" - WATER, for short.  They are headquartered in Silver Spring MD - a few blocks from the Planned Parenthood at which many of us offer Christian witness.  I've long held that Montgomery County MD is basically a liberal loony-bin, and the discovery of WATER's existence strengthens my impression.  As you look on the links you'll see many dissident organizations, including Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice.  Look at her biography and that of the other co-founder, Diane Neu.  Notice how "Jesuit" and "Berkeley" are sprinkled throughout.  You'll also notice that Hunt and Neu are embroiled in a lesbian relationship - a situation inherently mortally sinful.  No Catholic credibility do they have whatsoever.

Pray for Hunt, Neu and their LCWR cronies.  It appears that they're all on a bus that's headed to warm subterranean places.  Pray that they get off that "bus" and into confessionals before that bus arrives at its final station.

LCWR Arrogance Personified

If anyone questions the necessity of the Vatican's intervention with the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, let this interview enlighten you.  Sr Brigid McDonald of the Sisters of St Joseph of Carondelet exemplifies and personifies the errors that the Vatican hopes to correct if religious life among women is to survive.

It's obvious that the reporter is entirely sympathetic to Sister's errors, given her repetition of them.  Of the Holy Father she says, "I think they are overstepping their jurisdiction to expect that nuns are going to think as they tell us to think. To me those issues are not spiritual issues; many of them are political issues and some, of course, are social justice issues. I think that our personal spiritual life, it is another matter and that is our private belief."   No, Sister, it is not just your "private belief".  The Magisterium defines what constitutes the faith and morals of the Catholic Church; it is their jurisdiction, not yours.  If you care to believe at variance with the Magisterium, understand that those beliefs are not Catholic.

I could go on and on, line by line, and pick out errors galore from this, but I don't want to take too much time.  One, however, does stand out and I must quote that word for word, lest you (understandably) not believe it.  Sister says,"Because [before] we were just school teachers and we just had nice little kids in front of us, you know, and we just emptied bed pans in the nursing homes and in the hospitals. But now they are right, we are out there in the different movements. We help with the Occupy movement and the right-to-choice movements. It is giving us more credibility in the public..."  Regrettably, when she says "help with the right-to-choice movement, I suspect she doesn't mean telling pro-aborts that they are engaging in mortal sin. She's saying that she and her fellow renegades are also facilitating in the mortal sin of murdering babies.  Of course that means that she and her fellow faux-sisters are committing mortal sin to the damnation of their immortal souls!

The reporter mentions Sister's age as nearing 80 years and is "not about to stop calling things as she sees them".  Well yes, she is getting up there - with her day of death drawing near.  Perhaps, while she still has some time left, she might consider the Last Four Things: death, judgment, heaven and hell.  The first two we will all experience; the next two are mutually exclusive alternatives and right now it appears that Sister Brigid is careening in the wrong direction.  How many souls has she sent down that primrose path by her rebellion against Jesus Christ and His Church?

This bunch running the LCWR has set itself as its own faux-magisterium, as it were.  I for one think the call for reform by the Vatican is long overdue.  Let the purging begin!!

LCWR - NOT "Sweet Little Nuns"

There is a move afoot to portray the Leadership Conference of Women Religious as hapless little victims being bulled about by the Vatican because of the well-deserved rebuke that the Vatican handed to them.  The Vortex goes into this nicely.  Click here if you cannot see embedded video.

Leadership Conference Of Women Religious To Undergo Desperately Needed Reform

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops today announced that the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has called for reform of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR).  The USCCB press release is here.  That in turn links to the "Doctrinal Assessment of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious".  I urge you to read it and to save that pdf to your own hard drives.

The CDF, in that document, spells out some fundamental anomalies that the LCWR has been exhibiting for some time:

• Dissenting speakers at various conferences
• Embrace of the erroneous concept of women's ordination
• Embrace of "social justice" issues at the expense of life issues

All in all, I think the reform process is off to a solid start.  A key to its ongoing success will be the support that the CDF receives from the US bishops, as there is sure to be some "push back" from the LCWR itself, along with other progressives who have infested the Church hierarchy.

Some of the progressives have begun their apoplectic seizures already.  From the Not-so Catholic Reporter we read that "the Vatican investigation into U.S. women religious, which began in 2009, is bearing its first toxic fruit."  (Emphasis mine).  The author goes on to express his terror at the thought of Seattle Archbishop Peter Sartain leading the reform effort.  And why?  Because Sartain is a "bishop against gay marriage"!  Gasp!  Who'da thunk it??   A Catholic bishop upholding the teachings of Jesus Christ through His Church!   I realize that this is a novel concept for these progressives, but they'd better start getting used to it.  That goes also for the progressives infesting the LCWR.