Nine Faithful Persecuted Priests Tell What They've Experienced

It's no secret that good faithful priests are being actively persecuted by their corrupt, compromised bishops.  Why?  Because the fidelity of these priests exposes to the world the lack of faith of their prelates for all the world to behold.

Michael Voris of Church Militant recently brought together nine priests whose plights were put in the public eye.  In this interview, one gets a first-hand glimpse into the evil machinations that occur in quite a few chanceries, including that of my home diocese.  I urge one and all to watch the entire thing and to spread this far and wide.  Not only will such promulgation be educational, but it just might help protect these men.  If prelates understand that the future of these priests is in the public eye, they might - just might - be careful about exacting vengeance on them.  Cockroaches hate the light.

Good Priests And Their Lord At Calvary

Michael Sean Winters of the Not-So Catholic Reporter offered two articles yesterday that I think are supposed to have Good-Friday-related themes.  The first is entitled Wuerl's Cross.  On the Cardinal's behalf, he whines and snivels about the well-deserved reactions that the Cardinal has received owing to his despicable treatment of Father Marcel Guarnizo.  I remind one and all (even some canon lawyers) that Father Guarnizo acted correctly when he tried to prevent Barbara Johnson from incurring the guilt of the mortal sin of sacrilegious Holy Communion.  Winters calls that "Taliban Catholicism".  Faithful Catholics call that Catholicism - plain and simple.

His strange conception of the Cross is even more evident from another post of his from yesterday entitled Good Friday.  In it he states that "HIV/AIDS was the Calvary of the gay community", as he describes how AIDS decimated the work force of a Dupont Circle cafe (word to the wise - don't dine in Dupont Circle).  I'll be the last to doubt that AIDS is a horrific disease wrecking havoc upon its victims and their grieving families.  However, it is NOT analogous to the Passion and Death of Our Lord.  Let's be real - the bulk of AIDS cases come about through gay sexual relationships - always sinful.  If an alcoholic were to die from cirrhosis of the liver, would anyone have trouble linking that disease to his/her drinking?  Of course not - so let's drop the politically-correct blinders when it comes to gay folks falling prey to AIDS, who are reaping a tragic but very preventable consequence of sinful behavior.  What we commemorated yesterday was the sinless Son of God offering Himself as a sacrifice for our sins (including gay behavior).

It is when one suffers unjustly for doing good that we liken that suffering to that which Jesus endured (and even that suffering pales to the Crucifixion).  Such is the case with Father Guarnizo (yes George Neumayer and the rest of us "Taliban Catholics" have it right).  It is also the case with Father Michael Rodriguez, Father Gerhard Swierzek and many others who've been punished precisely because they are faithful.

For those who either:

• Think that a post during Triduum should be more "spiritual" or
• Think that I should stop bringing up Father Guarnizo's situation

There are other blogs offering excellent meditations on Easter; I'd suggest you read them.  However, there is a danger in letting our consciousness about Father Guarnizo's situation just fade - a danger to us as well as to him.  To my fellow St John Neumann parishioners, will we allow ourselves to be so shallow, will we allow our memories to be so little, that we won't recall the harm, the injustice that occurred in front of our faces just last month?  If so, what kind of people are we?  Will we be the ten disciples who cowed, or will we be the Marys, the Johns, the Magdalenes who at least stood by His Cross?  Of course we can and must continue to raise our voices as well as our prayers for him and for all unjustly-treated priests.

Gay Lifestyle Coddled By Some Bishops??

Michael Voris has been devoting his Vortex series to the question of why gays are being allowed to promote their lifestyle in Church-owned venues.  I'll post his latest video at the end, but let me say that I think that Voris might be understating the problem.  Not only are gays being given a free pass in too many churches, but we have received word that two priests who have had the God-given courage to proclaim the truth of that destructive lifestyle have been thrown under the bus by their respective bishops.

The case that was all over the Catholic pro-life news services last week involved Father Michael Rodreguez,  former pastor of San Juan Bautista Catholic Church in the Diocese of El Paso, Texas.  He published a four-part series in the El Paso Times that correctly set forth the Church's teaching regarding homosexualty.  This LifeSite News article links to each of the four columns.  Please note that these links are to pictures of the actual newspaper columns.  I read them and suggest you do so as well.  Notice that Father took great pains to distinguish between the person and the sin; he did so several times.  By the way - I said "former pastor" because the bishop reassigned him to another church.  The newspaper article doesn't name the church - how odd!  And this is not the first time that Bishop Ochoa has thrown Father Rodriguez under the bus - recall this incident!

Harsh though that is, the treatment meted out to an elderly Canadian priest who preached the truth is outright draconian.  Again from LifeSite News we read of the plight of Father Donat Gionet of the Diocese of Bathurst in New Brunswick.  This priest spoke truth about the gay lifestyle, abortion and cohabitation in a homily last month.  While the local chancery admitted that Father proclaimed the truth, they claimed he lacked "the proper pastoral sensitivity".  So in their own display of sensitivity, they suspended the faculties of this 85-year old priest who has spent all his life in priestly service to God and the Church!  An important aside - when you hear some cowardly bishop or chancery blather on about being "pastoral" and/or "sensitive", understand that those are thinly-disguised code-words for cowardice and/or boot-licking for money/favors, etc.

These two incidents, coupled with what happened to Father Pavone, sure makes me think that an ominous pattern of behavior is being made manifest in some chanceries.  Where will it strike next?

Now here's the Vortex clip.  Click here if you can't see embedded video.