Cardinal Wuerl, although technically no longer archbishop of Washington owing to his complicity in covering for the now-disgraced pederast bishop McCarrick, still carries on like he did nothing amiss. To the disgust of faithful Catholics, he was the main celebrant at Christmas Mass at the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. He is now slated to take center stage at the Youth Rally and Mass that usually occurs before the March for Life in January. A petition is afoot to ask the archdiocese of Washington to rescind the invitation to the cardinal for that event. Truth be told, I don't know how that can fly for Wuerl is still the administrator for the Archdiocese of Washington.
Some important comments about the "youth rally". These have been going on ever since the archdiocese began to support the March for Life (yes, there was a time when the archdiocese ignored the march - surprise!). When I first became involved in pro-life work, I attended those things (at the time, held at DAR Constitution Hall). I soon stopped attending them.
- They occurred during the same time that the main rally was happening on the Ellipse. That prevented the Catholics at DAR from being included in the Park Police's crowd size estimate.
- When I pointed that out to diocesan pro-life officials, it was admitted to me that the bishops didn't want Catholics to listen to some of the speakers that Nellie Gray and others had invited. He specified that the now-deceased Jesse Helms was one such speaker.
- For many of the clergy, including the prelates, the rally was the only time during the year that they uttered one peep about abortion - nothing for the rest of the year. In other words, they could use the rally as their token "pro-life activism" when we would chide them for their silence during the rest of the year.
- The rally and the Mass took an incredible amount of work and expense to throw together. The pro-life office was staffed with good people, but they were ordered to waste many months on what was essentially a dog-and-pony show. That time could have been better spent in providing leadership, goals, etc for parish pro-life groups that literally foundered and atrophied for lack of guidance.
Therefore, my advice is to eschew that extravaganza at the Verizon Center. One can find a Mass at a local parish and be at the general rally - the entire rally.
Enough of that sad history - back to the present. Cardinal Wuerl is going to strut through that rally as though nothing is amiss and pretend that he prioritizes pro-life matters. Catholics are rightly outraged.
A priest of the Companions of the Cross, Father Mark Goring, put up a very fine video expressing what many of us believe, and urging us to take action. Well, lo and behold, he was forced to take it down. I regret that I did not get to it soon enough, for I would have downloaded it to prevent it from fading; I hope that other faithful Catholics were able to do so. Church Militant has an account of his video, and some snippets of Father's address are quoted therein. Father put up another video explaining why he removed that video, and I did archive that. Listen very closely; I'll offer comments below that.
Notice how he said - repeatedly - that he removed the video out of obedience to superiors. As a priest and religious, he is vowed to obey his superiors, provided that the ordered action is not inherently immoral. Never did he say that he agrees with their reasoning.
Now what else is going on this week? YES! The bishops are holed up in a seminary, supposedly on retreat to focus on how badly they botched up with their own sexual misbehviors! Father Goring is director of the Catholic Charismatic Center in Houston TX (Wanna bet how long that will last? But I digress!) That is DiNardo's diocese. We all know how he got railroaded at the USCCB meeting last month. Either he contacted the superiors of the Companions of the Cross, Cupich and/or Wuerl beat on DiNardo to do that, or the two contacted the CC superiors themselves. Father Goring repeated said the order came from his superiors; he mentioned no bishop.
Father Goring's facebook page is quite revealing. It appears that he has issued several videos that detail the sad and sordid truth of episcopal scandals within the Church, all the way up to Pope Francis. Scroll down the page and notice how many of those videos have been removed. They've been removed at the behest of his superiors.
While Father Going is indeed vowed to obedience and had no choice but to assume silence, we the laity are under no such constraint. Indeed, silence for us is NOT a morally valid option. We must speak out, we must write, we must picket. In short, we must make errant clergy squirm with discomfort on account of them dragging Holy Mother Church through the mud and scandalizing poor souls into hell.
To protest the treatment of Father Goring and the suppression of truth, contact:
Enough of that sad history - back to the present. Cardinal Wuerl is going to strut through that rally as though nothing is amiss and pretend that he prioritizes pro-life matters. Catholics are rightly outraged.
A priest of the Companions of the Cross, Father Mark Goring, put up a very fine video expressing what many of us believe, and urging us to take action. Well, lo and behold, he was forced to take it down. I regret that I did not get to it soon enough, for I would have downloaded it to prevent it from fading; I hope that other faithful Catholics were able to do so. Church Militant has an account of his video, and some snippets of Father's address are quoted therein. Father put up another video explaining why he removed that video, and I did archive that. Listen very closely; I'll offer comments below that.
Notice how he said - repeatedly - that he removed the video out of obedience to superiors. As a priest and religious, he is vowed to obey his superiors, provided that the ordered action is not inherently immoral. Never did he say that he agrees with their reasoning.
Now what else is going on this week? YES! The bishops are holed up in a seminary, supposedly on retreat to focus on how badly they botched up with their own sexual misbehviors! Father Goring is director of the Catholic Charismatic Center in Houston TX (Wanna bet how long that will last? But I digress!) That is DiNardo's diocese. We all know how he got railroaded at the USCCB meeting last month. Either he contacted the superiors of the Companions of the Cross, Cupich and/or Wuerl beat on DiNardo to do that, or the two contacted the CC superiors themselves. Father Goring repeated said the order came from his superiors; he mentioned no bishop.
Father Goring's facebook page is quite revealing. It appears that he has issued several videos that detail the sad and sordid truth of episcopal scandals within the Church, all the way up to Pope Francis. Scroll down the page and notice how many of those videos have been removed. They've been removed at the behest of his superiors.
While Father Going is indeed vowed to obedience and had no choice but to assume silence, we the laity are under no such constraint. Indeed, silence for us is NOT a morally valid option. We must speak out, we must write, we must picket. In short, we must make errant clergy squirm with discomfort on account of them dragging Holy Mother Church through the mud and scandalizing poor souls into hell.
To protest the treatment of Father Goring and the suppression of truth, contact:
- Cardinal Daniel DiNardo at 1-713-659-5461 (Bishop of Galveston-Houston)
- Very Reverend Allan MacDonald CC, General Superior of the Companions of the Cross, 1-613-728-3175
- Archbishop Christophe Pierre, Apostolic Nuncio to the US, 1-202-333-7121
UPDATE: None too surprisingly, the video is gone - but only from Father Goring's page, that is. I have a copy. Once something is posted on the internet, it never really goes away. I will explore ways to promulgate it myself. The truth will NOT be suppressed.
UPDATE AS OF 1-13: Indeed the truth is not suppressed, as I found the video elsewhere.
UPDATE AS OF 1-13: Indeed the truth is not suppressed, as I found the video elsewhere.
The depths to which these evil men will sink is horrifying! Pray for holy priests like Fr. Goring.
ReplyDeleteI remember the investigation of Women Religious, under Archbishop Sartain at the behest of Pope Benedict XVI (Apr 2012). Back then, orthodoxy appeared to be struggling for footing, but ascendant. The Women Religious were in the minority, and their crackpot heresies an easy, obvious target for cleanup for the sake of renewed health in our Catholic heart.
ReplyDeleteI was quite optimistic in those days. Orthodoxy up. Heresy on the run. Then Feb 28, 2013 happened. What I thought was true in the Church was all wrong. The floodgates opened.
Before I converted, I had numerous discernment events at war against my painful conversion from Protestant faith: A Faith Formation Director who defended abortion on demand; who conducted a class exercise in which we were told to become an animal and speak to the full moon outside in that animal's language (I was not there for that one ... my poor wife became a wolf and howled at the moon). A brief conversation with one of these Women Religious who very confidently assured me in response to my list of questions that miracles were mere allegories; Jesus was not "the only way", but merely a very good way to salvation, one way among many; that the Bible could not be taken literally, there was no flood, no Adam and Eve, no parting of the Red Sea, Jesus did not walk on water ... etc, etc, blah, blah blah. And so many other strange people trying to "form" us. As a "Bible Believing Christian", I was ready to walk away from such an insane faith (which I did not yet know) saved from that fate by a very, very faithful Faith Formation Director, my wife found on the internet, (lonely man in a sea of heterodoxy) who provided answers and perspective. These strange people were from the past (he said); orthodoxy was on the rise; Pope Benedict was bringing back Traditional liturgy; an investigation of heretical LCWR was begun. "Ok. We're in".
Then.
Pope BXVI partially resigned, Pope Francis of sorrowful memory was invalidly elected to give him a hand at the top with the "active", two Popes in the Vatican ; first time ever, and the Women Religious heretics had a nice meeting with the new Bishop of Rome who smilingly approved of all their work.
And the focus turned very aggressively the other way, toward orthodoxy. Successful orthodoxy, crushed mercilessly, wherever it can be found.
Fr. Goring, take a seat please. Join the crowd.
I converted too... but my experience here in Honolulu was that the Our Lady of Peace Cathedral is less Catholic than the Episcopal Church was at the time I was raised in it. I am probably older than you are. Therefore, though this was my second approach to conversion-like yourself I didn't follow through on converting earlier in my life, before 'RCIA' when I was instructed by an individual priest in the faith up until the very point of conversion at Easter. So! I am not assisting at mass at OLPC - high altar abandoned; table smack in the middle of the nave; female servers; presiders' chairs, etc. Instead, after several years of study, I will be relocating to the mainland. There is no Latin mass here in this very liberal state. I am going for the sacraments. I have strong doubts about the changes made by Paul VI in the rites of ordination and consecration. Yes, the Church is stronger than this, it could be argued, but words have consequences. It appears that the priesthood was directly attacked, and priests in effect castrated. No more sacrifice but a meal instead.
DeleteI go for the traditional calendar the old versions of the Missal/Breviary, the whole nine yards. I've had a sensus Catholicus (sp.?) I guess, all along. I am/was the granddaughter of a Lutheran minister/seminary professor now deceased. I adore praying. I don't pray the Divine Mercy prayer though, pictured at this site at the top. Though I read the entire book by St Faustina and sent it to a cousin... I later came to doubt the picture and other details. Picture is new agey. I prefer the traditional Sacred Heart devotion by far.
So many people like you and me, who will sell everything and give everything for the Truth. But, dang, it is hard to find the way isn't it?
DeleteThe RCIA Director I mentioned, above? I failed to mention he was canned shortly after we came into the Church. No one knew why. The most Catholic man I knew, disappeared. His replacement? Like all the rest. Immediate change to the other. Yeah, we left there too.
The Catholic Church is a desert. They see some little "flower" like Fr. Goring blooming in the parched sand, some Priest insisting on the purity of the Sacraments perhaps, and they dig it out to 3' to make sure that not just the flower is destroyed but all the roots with it.
They won't get me.
For many years, Hickey never attended the March for Life until an entire 8th-grade class at a Catholic school shamed him into it. But he gave the benediction at a huge pro-abortion march in 1983, the 20th anniversary of MLK's march on Washington.
ReplyDeleteBaum, Hickey, McCarrick, and Wuerl were all devoted to sacrilegious Communion for pro-aborts. McCarrick and Wuerl are fanatically devoted to desecrating the Blessed Sacrament.
I tried to contact Father Goring about this whole affair. See: http://www.jesus-eucharistie.org/corr/goring_mark.htm
ReplyDeleteIn complete submission Father Goring now publicly grovels before his earthly masters and states emphatically, "O my Jesus, it cannot be helped, but I give priority to the voice of the Church over the voice with which You speak to me."
ReplyDeleteThat's a direct quote. Do you understand what he is saying? The voice of the church, that is, the voice of his superiors, supercedes the very words of Christ Himself in the mind of this priest.
He also justifies his obedience on the false belief that the devil is never obedient, which is why he must be obedient. Never mind that the Bible tells us that at the end of Christ's 40 days in the wilderness He said,
“Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’ Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him.
At the end of the day, this is a priest who listens to and obeys the men he has sworn obedience to, not Christ. This is the kind of man that a church based on supreme papal authority produces. The church has become god to these men.
We live in a day when it is easier for a priest to break his vow of celibacy with a young boy than it is for him to break his vow of obedience in response to an immoral order coming from evil men.
God help us, and may God help him.
No, he is doing God's will be his obedience to his superiors as long as it is not sinful. St. Louise Marie DeMontfort took years to build a Stations of the Cross outdoors. This was no small task to say the least. When he was finished constructing the last Station, (not sure if it was all 14) his superior ordered him to take it down. He obeyed.
DeleteTwosunrun, are you Catholic? You appear not to understand that when a cleric vows obedience to a superior, he is vowing obedience to authority established by Christ Himself through His Church. Only if he is commanded to commit sin may he disregard the sinful command. Father had no positive duty to speak against Wuerl so the order to pull down the video was not sinful for him to obey. I understand you're saddened and frustrated. I hope you used that frustration as impetus to contact the various Church authorities that I suggested in the post. It is they, not Father Goring, who are deserving of rebuke.
Delete