Stephen Kent, in an essay entitled “A need for pro-active ethics,” writes, “Ethics are based on values. Values arise from foundational beliefs, the primary ones being the dignity of the human person and the sanctity of life as God’s creation. What advances this ideal is good, what hinders it is wrong.”


Which is why it is most unfortunate that the Worcester Diocese [Massachusetts] continues to raise monies for the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, an umbrella organization which funnels monies to various groups promoting abortion, contraception and even sodomy and same-sex “marriage.” Any diocese which claims to be committed toward defending the sanctity of human life while raising monies for CCHD is not being honest.

Writing for The Recorder, Father Robert Markovitch of the Ukrainian Catholic Church of the Holy Spirit in South Deerfield, Massachusetts notes that liberalism is a religion with two sacraments: sex and death. And the over-arching belief system of this religion is evolution. Fr. Writes, “This belief system has consequences. They are: that the most intimate moment of a man and a woman becomes, as a norm, a place for two people to use each other as things; that deep in a woman is a womb, a chamber where death may be dealt; that the best sport for most is sex; that the heart is wasted sentiment worthy of no attention; where the full openness to the sex act closes off human friendships; that all pain can be avoided by substances and higher volume stimulation; and last, but not least, when the existence sport sacrament is exhausted, the answer is gift of a hundred pills from a government-imposed affordable ‘health care’ plan - the final sacrament and solution.”

And there are many within the Church who secretly yearn for such a religion. This should not really surprise us. One of the most important signs of the latter days is the great number of Catholics who will abandon the true faith. Numerous seers have indicated that along with the general indifference toward religion which will prevail just prior to the arrival of Antichrist, there will be a complete degeneration of morals, a degeneration which will resemble that of the pagans before the dawn of Christianity. Reverend Gerald Culleton explains that, “After the birth of Antichrist...the false doctrines were to multiply and spread to such an extent that even Catholics would doubt many of the articles of faith, resulting in their perversion, this to apply not only to the laity but even to many priests and some of the hierarchy. The zeal of these latter will be greatly affected by this lack of faith. There will be dissentions among the clergy. Many will be proud, selfish, unjust, covetous, and even forgetful of vows made at ordination regarding chastity. Many will even offer Mass and confer the sacraments sacrilegiously. When the zeal of the clergy fails they will see the faithful leaving the churches and turning to the world....Because of these defections Catholics will be severely punished, for only by chastisements can God bring back to the minds of His people a realization of their dependence upon Him. As a consequence, widespread persecution of priests and people will come upon the Church in order that faith and love of God may be revived, for as surely as night follows day, so will civilization crumble and the world become steeped in the darkness of ignorance, hatred, misery and vice when God, who is the Light of the World, will no longer rule in the hearts of His people.”

Fr. Culleton notes that, “..many people will seem to honor God but this will be chiefly lip service and not based on real faith and love.” Such people will be unwilling to recognize evil because they will have succumbed to the love of pleasure. Truth will be deserted and replaced with false doctrines (what Saint Paul refers to as “Doctrines of Demons”) which the multitudes will fully embrace.

And that time is now. Today, more than in any other period of human history, people actually want to be deluded. And this satanic delusion is leading us toward open - and very soon even physically violent - persecution. Which is why Fr. Markovitch asserts, in the essay referred to above, that: “We have a changing situation in America, where people who once had freedom of religion and association must now pay for contraception for everyone as if it were a right, even when consciences are violated. Priests and Religious Brothers and Sisters must now use their financial means to fund something condemned by the 2,000-year-old Catholic faith. This is a state of oppression worthy of a socialist dictator.”

And I might add: a Universal Dictator. One the Sacred Scriptures refer to as the Man of Sin. He who is about to reveal himself to the world.

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The Worcester Diocese should have held onto this faithful priest

Some years ago, a faithful and dedicated priest decided to leave the Diocese of Worcester and become a Chaplain for the United States Army.  During a conversation back in 2000, this priest-friend told me that he had had enough of the nonsense within the diocese.  This was after he presided over a graveside service for my father.

This same faithful priest has a letter in this week's "Catholic" [when they feel like it] Free Press.  As usual, it is an excellent letter.  But then, this priest reads the life of Jesus Christ.  The letter is entitled  "Choose life and love, not moral decay."  Fr. Anthony Kazarnowicz writes:


"According to a survey (CFP, June 1), 83% of Catholics consider it 'morally acceptable' to use contraceptives to prevent pregnancy, 'despite church teachings to the contrary.'  The Church teaches that God designed sex for bonding between a husband and wife and for procreation.  In deciding for ourselves that it is 'morally acceptable' to unnaturally close sex to life, we have made ourselves (not God, or those whom Jesus placed in authority over us) the final arbiters of what is good and evil.  It's Satan's temptation to Adam and Eve all over again.

Next, we judged it 'morally acceptable' to separate sex from marriage.  So now, we have rampant sexual promiscuity, cohabitation before marriage and women treated as sex objects.  A pleasure-seeking 'Me Generation' was born.  Dads had live-in girlfriends; moms, live-in boyfriends.

With this denial of moral wrongdoing came the corresponding denial of sin and even a loss of a sense of sin.  Sacramental confessions dwindled.  However, divorces rose to 50% for first marriages, 65% for second marriages and higher for third marriages.

According to the survey, 53% of Catholics favor same-sex 'marriage.'  Heterosexuals who have lifeless sex are not likely to condemn lifeless homosexual sex.  Though homosexual sex is indeed unnatural, there is something even more unnatural - mothers killing their own babies by abortion - 'morally acceptable' to 35% of Catholics.

Before contraception, families were large.  But, children knew right from wrong, were disciplined, respected authority and learned sacrifice.  Families prayed together.  Confessions thrived; divorces were rare.  Most couples waited until marriage before having sex.  Parents accepted children as God's gift. Womanhood and motherhood were cherished.  Vocations to the priesthood and religious life flourished.

Contrasted are a culture of moral decay after contraception and a culture of life and love before contraception.  I pray all Catholics choose life and love."

Sadly, the Worcester Diocese has not always opted for a culture of life and love.  Back in March, I examined an article published in the dissent-friendly diocesan newspaper and written by Father John Catoir, a cleric who also has difficulty telling the truth.  This article was entitled "Birth Control Revisited."  And it was Father Catoir's assertion, while promoting a subjectivist conscience, that the Church's teaching regarding artificial contraception is "beyond the strength" of many Catholics. 

So much for the Worcester Diocese choosing a culture of life and love.

In a talk entitled "Legalism, Moral Truth and Pastoral Practice" given at a 1990 symposium in Philadelphia, Dr. Germain Grisez explained to those present that, "Theologians and pastors who dissent from received Catholic teaching think they are rejecting legalism because they set aside what they think are mere rules in favor of what they feel are more reasonable standards. Their views are thoroughly imbued with legalism, however. For dissenters think of valid moral norms as rules formulated to protect relevant values. Some even make their legalism explicit by denying that there is any necessary connection between moral goodness (which they restrict to the transcendental level of a love with no specific content) and right action (which they isolate at the categorical level of inner-worldly behavior). But whether their legalism is explicit or not, all the dissenters hold that specific moral norms admit exceptions whenever, all things considered, making an exception seems the best - or least bad - thing to do. Most dissenters also think that specific moral norms that were valid in times past can be inappropriate today, and so they regard the Church’s contested moral teachings as outdated rules that the Church should change."


Dr. Grisez reminded his listeners at the Philadelphia symposium, "During the twentieth century, pastoral treatment of repetitious sins through weakness - especially masturbation, homosexual behavior, premarital sex play and contraception within marriage - grew increasingly mild. Pastors correctly recognized that weakness and immaturity can lessen such sins’ malice. Thinking legalistically, they did not pay enough attention to the sins’ inherent badness and harmfulness, and they developed the idea that people can freely choose to do something that they regard as a grave matter without committing a mortal sin. This idea presupposes that in making choices people are not responsible precisely for choosing what they choose. That presupposition makes sense within a legalistic framework, because lawgivers can take into account mitigating factors and limit legal culpability. But it makes no sense for morality correctly understood, because moral responsibility in itself is not something attached to moral acts but simply is moral agents’ self-determination in making free choices.

Repetitious sinners through weakness also were handicapped by their own legalism. Not seeing the inherent badness of their sins, they felt that they were only violating inscrutable rules. When temptation grew strong, they had little motive to resist, especially because they could easily go to confession and have the violation fixed. Beginning on Saturday they were holy; by Friday they were again sinners. This cyclic sanctity robbed many people’s lives of Christian dynamism and contributed to the dry rot in the Church that became manifest in the 1960s, when the waves of sexual permissiveness battered her."


Dr. Grisez went on to explain that, "Pastors free of legalism will teach the faithful how sin makes moral requirements seem to be alien impositions, help them see through this illusion, and encourage them to look forward to and experience the freedom of God’s children, who rejoice in the fruit of the Spirit and no longer experience the constraint of law..They will explain that while one sometimes must choose contrary to positive laws and cannot always meet their requirements, one always can choose in truth and abide in love. They will acknowledge the paradox of freedom - that we seem unable to resist freely choosing to sin - the paradox that Saint Paul neatly formulates: ‘I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate’ (Romans 7:15). But they also will proclaim the liberating power of grace, and help the faithful learn by experience that when one comes to understand the inherent evil of sin and intrinsic beauty of goodness, enjoys the support of a community of faith whose members bear one another’s burdens, begs God for His help, and confidently expects it, then the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead raises him from his sins, and he discovers that with the Spirit’s grace one can consistently resist sin and choose life."

We would have more vocations to the priesthood in the Worcester Diocese if young men witnessed fidelity to the magisterial teaching of the Church from pastors [not to mention the diocesan newspaper] and if orthodox candidates were not excluded because of their commitment to the Church's authentic teaching, especially in the area of sexual morality.

I should know.  I'm one of the excluded.

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You don't have a vocation in the Worcester Diocese unless you place community above truth?

Dr. Dietrich von Hildebrand reminds us, in his essay entitled "Is Unity among the Faithful the Highest Value?," that, "There is another great danger which goes together with the distortion of love of neighbor: the danger of putting community above truth, and of implicitly making peace the highest value.  Unfortunately this tendency to regard community as more important than truth is very widespread in the holy Church today.

The first great error which we find here is the separation of community from truth.  All genuine community among men presupposes that they encounter one another in a certain realm of goods.  The solidarity which comes from worshipping the same idol and working for it, or from working together for something false or evil, does not deserve the name of community.  Such a pseudo-community is a definite evil, and possesses a disvalue.  The value which community possesses as such is here poisoned by the disvalue of that which brings people together, of that in whose name they are united.  Surely unity, community has a value of its own.  The unity of man is something of value not only because it the opposite of strife and struggle; it also has a value which is absent as long as individual men are indeed at peace, but not united in community...Community based upon error or something evil not only has no value, it has a definite disvalue.  A pseudo-community built on some evil idol is something much worse than many individual, unrelated men who are in error or do evil.  It is not only that it is worse for many to fall into error or heresy than for one to do so; it is not a question merely of a quantitative increase.  No, it is the very unity of those who encounter one another in untruth and evil which gives birth to a pure disvalue and heightens the evil.

The value of true community, the concordia,  becomes in a pseudo-community a definite disvalue.  Thus it is utterly impossible to separate community from truth, and to make community the most important thing.  Community is dependent in both its nature and value on the truth on which it is built....The value of the truth and of the true Faith is thus undeniably greater than that of community...Indeed, the value of standing in the truth, and confessing the true God, is even greater than that of the marvelous community of the mystical body of Christ.  For it is in the true Faith and in real love of God that community with Him is constituted, and this is clearly the most important thing, and that from which all other community is dependent in its nature and value...overemphasis on community, on unity among men, this tendency to put unity above the truth and orthodoxy, is a consequence of the disastrous this-worldliness which is analogous to emphasizing love of neighbor at the expense of love of God.."

It would certainly appear that the Worcester Diocese has succumbed over the years to this tragic tendency to place unity above the truth.  The company man who is willing to "go along" with sin and error "for the sake of friendship" is most welcome in this distorted notion of "community."  But the man who puts the truth first is pushed to the margins and ostracized.  For example, I stand fully with the Church's magisterial teaching.  I defend the same.  On numerous occasions I have expressed my desire to pursue a vocation to the priesthood.  But my queries have been ignored.  But Mr. Jonathan Joseph Slavinskas has been welcomed with open arms.  The difference?  Deacon Slavinskas has had praise for the late Bishop Timothy J. Harrington (who was dissent-friendly) and for Fr. Joseph Coonan, a priest who was mired in scandal and who was placed on leave in 2002 when accusations were made against him.  Specifically, Fr. Coonan was accused of physically abusing as many as fifteen men as well as his own mother and sister.

Regarding Bishop Timothy J. Harrington, Catholic apologist Richard Blanchard wrote him an open letter in his "Just the Facts" newsletter some years ago.  In this open letter, Richard Blanchard wrote (in part):

"When the Holy Father's legate, Archbishop Pio Laghi, handed you the crosier he confirmed your three-fold ministry as head shepherd of the Worcester diocese.  You became the officially authorized Prophet, Priest, and King to the people of God....These are powers of God's making that you freely accepted to serve the people of God.  To exercise these duties in all their integrity you must be one with the Chief Shepherd, the Holy Father.  You have sworn allegiance to the Holy Father in a formal way before Bishop Flanagan and the appropriate documents were sent to Rome...

We are now in the seventh year of shepherding.  How does your sworn oath of allegiance stand?  Over the years dissenters have been allowed access to the diocesan newspaper of which you are the publisher.  Dissenters have free play in the Office of Vicar of Religious, the Diocesan Commission for Women, and the Department of Religious Education.  Dissenters have spread their lies about abortion, contraception, women priests, and the legitimacy to dissent against the Supreme Authority in the Church, the Holy Father....The Holy Father has asked that all bishops give proof of their pastoral ability and leadership by withholding all support from individuals or groups who, in the name of progress, justice, or compassion, or for any other reason, promote the ordination of women to the priesthood.  Yet you fully support your own Diocesan Commission for Women that has constantly promoted the cause for women's ordination.....You were given the names of arch-dissidents who freely go about their work of undermining the Faith in your diocese.  The list included Sister Anna Marie Kane, S.S.J., who is pro-choice and pro-women's ordination, Dr. Vincent Ford, Dr. Alice affey, Dr. Bernard Cooke, Dr. David O'Brien, all professors at Holy Cross, who dissent against Church teaching.  How does your sworn allegiance stand up to this?"

Because I have been asking the same questions since the early 1990s, because I too oppose such dissent, I am not welcome.  You see, I refuse to place community above truth.  I refuse to march in lockstep with those who oppose the mind of Christ.  I refuse to condone the sexual abuse of children or homosexual behavior or to portray such evils as "harmless fun and sex games."

The Third Reich placed unity over truth.  The Communists did the same.  So too did Jim Jones' "People's Temple" which soon enough became the People's Tomb.

Related reading here.

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