Jeannine Gramick and associate adhere to an erroneous interpretation of the sensus fidelium

In an article for The Washington Post entitled "A Catholic case for same-sex marriage," Jeannine Gramick and Francis DeBernardo write, "As Catholics who are involved in lesbian and gay ministry and outreach, we are aware that many people, some of them Catholics, believe that Catholics cannot faithfully disobey the public policies of the church’s hierarchy. But this is not the case. The Catholic Church is not a democracy, but neither is it a dictatorship. Ideally, our bishops should strive to proclaim the sensus fidelium , the faith as it is understood by the whole church. At the moment, however, the bishops and the majority of the church are at odds. A survey published in September by the Public Religion Research Institute found that 52 percent of Catholics support marriage equality and 69 percent support civil unions..." (See full article here).

As Wikipedia relates, "After a review of her [Jeannine Gramick's] public activities on behalf of the Church that concluded in a finding of grave doctrinal error, the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) declared in 1999 that she should no longer be engaged in pastoral work with lesbian and gay persons. In 2000, her congregation, in an attempt to thwart further conflict with the Vatican, commanded her not to speak publicly about homosexuality. She responded by saying, "I choose not to collaborate in my own oppression by restricting a basic human right [to speak]. To me this is a matter of conscience."

So intelligent Catholics will take anything Gramick has to say cum grano salis.  What is most interesting is that Gramick, who could never be accused of being a scholar, first acknowledges that, "The Catholic Church is not a democracy" and then proceeds to assure us that, "a survey published..by the Public Religion Research Institute found that 52 percent of Catholics support marriage equality and 69 percent support civil unions."

What difference do these statistics make if the Catholic Church is not a democracy [and it is not]?  Gramick wants us to believe that the "sensus fidelium," "the faith as it is understood by the whole church," is calling for acceptance of homosexual unions.  But Gramick's understanding of the sensus fidelium is about as cogent as her understanding of Catholic moral teaching.

What does the Church mean by the sensus fidelium? We [those of us who are still sane] find an excellent explanation from the pen of Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J. In The Catholic Catechism - A Contemporary Catechism of the Teachings of the Catholic Church. Fr. Hardon explains that: "Those who believe, and insofar as they believe, are one community not only or mainly because they subjectively believe but because what they believe is objectively true, indeed is the Truth that became man and dwelled among us. Against this background, it is easier to see what universal agreement among the faithful must mean. They are faithful insofar as they are agreed on the truth, where the source of their agreement is not a semantic use of the name 'Christian' or 'Catholic,' but the deeply interior adherence to what God has revealed.

Consequently, whether they realize it or not, all who agree on the revealed truth, under the guidance of the sacred magisterium, belong to the faithful. Their agreement on the truth and allegiance to the magisterium gives them universality, i.e., spiritual unity. The truth interiorly possessed gives them consensus, and not the other way around, as though their consensus on some doctrine made it true." (pp. 226-227).

There are those within the Church, like the imbecilic Gramick, who would appeal to the sensus fidelium in an attempt to justify dissent. Their argument is that if a significant portion of those who identify themselves as Catholics hold or adhere to a dissenting opinion, the Holy Father and Bishops should submit their minds and wills to that group's opinion. In other words, such people would have us believe that the sensus fidelium is something independent of the Magisterium.  This is simply a back-door approach toward making the Church a democracy.

Such an attitude is in direct opposition to the teaching of Vatican II:

"The entire body of the faithful, anointed as they are by the Holy One (cf. Jn 2:20, 27), cannot err in matters of belief. They manifest this special property by means of the whole people's supernatural discernment in matters of faith when 'from the bishops down to the last of the lay faithful' they show universal agreement in matters of faith and morals. That discernment in matters of faith is aroused and sustained by the Spirit of truth. It is exercised under the guidance of the sacred teaching authority, in faithful and respectful obedience to which the People of God accepts that which is not just the word of men but truly the Word of God (cf. 1 Thes. 2:13). Through it, the People of God adheres unwaveringly to the faith given once and for all to the saints (cf. Jude 3), penetrates it more deeply with right thinking, and applies it more fully in its life." (Lumen Gentium, No. 12; citing St. Augustine, De Praed. Sanct. 14, 27:PL 44, 980).

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in its Instruction on the Ecclesial Vocation of the Theologian, had this to say: "Although theological faith as such then cannot err, the believer can still have erroneous opinions since all his thoughts do not spring from faith. Not all the ideas which circulate among the People of God are compatible with the faith. This is all the more so given that people can be swayed by a public opinion influenced by modern communications media" (No. 35).

Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria for 45 years, opposed emperors and a world in love with heresy by patiently presenting and defending the truth of Christ's divinity.  Such was his fortitude in opposing the multitudes who preached heresy that he was exiled five times and suffered intense persecution.  But because he remained faithful to Revelation, against what Jeannine Gramick would incorrectly term the "sensus fidelium," history has crowned him Athanasius Victor contra mundum: Athanasius Conqueror of the world of heretics.

No, Jeannine Gramick and associate fail to make a Catholic case for same-sex "marriage."  But they do make a strong case for the idea that some Catholics should be fitted for a straight-jacket.

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Diocese of Worcester: Catholic Church in Northeast is not dead or dying..many of its members have moved to the suburbs.

On June 11, 1988, Our Lady told Father Gobbi, "Satan, my Adversary, with snares and by means of his subtle seduction, has succeeded in spreading errors everywhere, under the form of new and more updated interpretations of the truth, and he has led many to choose with full knowledge - and to live in - sin, in the deceiving conviction that this is no longer an evil, and even that it is a value and a good. The times of the general confusion and of the greatest agitation of spirits has come. Confusion has entered into the souls and the lives of many of my children. This great apostasy is spreading more and more, even through the interior of the Catholic Church. Errors are being taught and spread about, while the fundamental truths of the faith, which the authentic Magisterium of the Church has always taught and energetically defended against any heretical deviation whatsoever, are being denied with impunity....In these times, in the Catholic Church, there will remain a little remnant who will be faithful to Christ, to the Gospel, and to its entire truth. The little remnant will form a little flock, all guarded in the depths of my Immaculate Heart. This little flock will be made up of those bishops, priests, religious and faithful who will remain strongly united to the Pope, all gathered together in the cenacle of my Immaculate Heart, in an act of unceasing prayer, of continual immolation, of total offering to prepare the painful way for the second and glorious coming of my Son Jesus..."

The Sons of Hell, the Children of Belial as St. Louis de Montfort refers to them, are spreading their errors everywhere. The confusion of our own time has become general. And this too was prophesied by the great Jesuit priest Father Nectou, who said that before the triumph of the Church, "The confusion will be so general that mankind will not be able to aright, as if God had entirely withheld His providence from mankind, and during the worst crisis the best thing that can be done will be to remain where God has placed us, and persevere in fervent prayer."

It was Fr. Vincent Miceli who warned that: "The West has divinized Security and Technocracy; the East, Science and Revolution. But in both camps atheistic humanism has become the State religion. And both of these systems of secular humanism eclipse the person, eliminate his freedom, deny his human-divine value and subject him to the tyranny of technological impersonalism. The alarming signs of the times testify to a fierce spirit of evil advancing everywhere. It is the spirit of rebellion against God and man. Hitherto the powers of government in each country, as yet relying on God and reason, were firm and vigorous eough to restrain this rebellion. But today many agnostic countries can barely contain that lawless spirit, while many others have actually legalized the principle of lawlessness itself, the principle of license masquerading as liberty.

We are reminded of St. Paul's warning to the Thessalonians. In the last days there will be an aweful, unparalleled outbreak of evil everywhere. This will be called the Great Apostasy. In the midst of this general falling away a certain Man of Sin, having the image of Satan and breathing hatred toward God and man, will appear. He will exercise frightening preternatural powers of destruction against the just. This Child of Perdition will be so special and singular an enemy of Christ that he will be called Antichrist. For just as types of Christ went before Jesus, heralding his coming, so shadows of Antichrist have already preceded him...."

Many Catholics, such as Father Robert Bruso, fail to read the signs of the times.  Father is concerned that some Catholics - such as this writer - believe we are in the times of the final battle between good and evil, between Gospel and anti-Gospel, between the forces of the Mystical Body of Christ and the Mystical Body of Antichrist.  He takes exception to those who believe we are in "..a battle between the forces of goodness and truth versus the forces of evil and darkness."  See here.

While Fr. Bruso apparently cannot appreciate the signs of the times and the dire condition of the Catholic Church in many regions throughout the world, Pat Buchanan notes that: "Northern New England has passed the Pacific Northwest as the region with the highest percentage of those unaffiliated with a church.  The Vermont of socialist senator Bernie Sanders leads the nation, with 34 percent professing no religion.  Unsurprisingly, it is in New England that same-sex marriage has been most warmly received.  As the ranks of the unaffiliated grow in New England, the ranks of those attached to traditional churches decline.  'Thanks to immigration and the natural increase among Latinos, California now has a higher proportion of Catholics than New England,' says Barry Kosmin, of the American Religious Identification survey. 'The decline of Catholicism in the Northeast is nothing short of stunning.'"

Back in 2007, after interviewing 35,000 people for its U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, the Pew Forum reported that since Vatican II, the Catholic Church in the United States has undergone a massive decline comparable to what happened in some northern European countries during the Reformation.  By 2007, 1 in 3 Catholics reared in the faith had left the Church; 1 in 10 adults was a fallen-away Catholic.  Father Joseph Sirba describes these losses as "staggering" and adds: "...the Catholic Church has lost to other religions or to no religion at all 35.4 percent - or more than one-third - of the 64,131,750 of its native-born members."

But hey, all is well.  Father Bruso assures us that we are not living in apocalyptic times. So too the diocesan newspaper The Catholic Free Press.  Back in 2008, in a May 23rd editorial entitled "New Life, New Vitality," the publication assured us that, "The Catholic Church is not dead or dying, but many of its members have moved to the suburbs." See here.  But the Catholic Church is in crisis in the Northeast.  Its members haven't just "moved to the suburbs."  They have moved toward other religious affiliation or toward no religion at all.

And many of those who do remain in the Church are not nearly as firm in the faith (fortes in fide) as their parents were.  For example, whereas a 1958 Gallup poll showed that 3 out of every 4 Catholics attended Mass on Sundays, a recent study conducted by the University of Notre Dame found that only 1 in 4 Catholics attend Mass on Sunday.

Even as half the parishes in Fr. Bruso's city of Fitchburg, Massachusetts were closed recently, the priest, whose own fidelity to Church teaching is in question, like those who produce the diocesan newspaper, seems determined to live in denial.

New life and new vitality for the Diocese of Worcester?  Or a mad descent into apostasy?

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"..true patriotism rejects all forms of immorality, for it is sin and escalating crime that render a nation miserable."

Father Vincent P. Miceli, in his essay entitled "The Virtue of Patriotism," explains that, "..the virtue which renders citizens loyal to the God-given institution of the state and courageous in working for its goal of the common good is the virtue of patriotism.  This special virtue arises from the virtue known as pietas or piety.  Piety pays homage and duty to God as the supreme source and sustainer of one's being; it pays homage and duty to one's parents as the source of one's individual being and nourishment; it also pays loving homage to a person's fatherland with all his fellow citizens as the source and sustainer of man's civic and social perfection.  In public, political life, the virtue of piety becomes the virtue of patriotism.  For patriotism is the love and devotion to one's country, to one's countrymen as members of the same social and political family.  Patriotism, in the sense of man's love for his civic community, is also a duty flowing from an intelligent recognition and moral acceptance of the very form of man's creation.  Having created Adam as a solitary individual, God immediately announced the fact of man's incompleteness in himself: 'It is not good for man to be alone.'  Then in creating Eve, God confirmed the truth that the human family, the civic family must become the social source and necessary community milieu from which each person may attain both individual and social maturity...

Thus patriotism is a special form of love of one's fatherland, a preferential love arising from man's first supreme love for God the omnipotent author and finisher of his being and personhood.  Patriotism, therefore, can be defined descriptively as the reverent, grateful acknowledgement of one's fatherland as it is expressed in history; it is a response of loyal love to one's fellow citizens and the land in which one's countrymen live and work together for a common good founded on justice and fraternal brotherhood.  It is a special form of piety binding citizens to their historical and cultural sources.  But patriotism must arise from and function on a profoundly moral basis.  'It is never lawful, or even wise, to disassociate morality from the affairs of practical life.'  In the last analysis, then, patriotism, which is founded on zealous, reverential love of God and countrymen, functions on justice, a justice inflamed with a love that exalts a nation.  Consequently, true patriotism rejects all forms of immorality, for it is sin and escalating crime that render a nation miserable."

This truth is ratified in Proverbs 14:34: "Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people."

Samuel Johnson called patriotism the last refuge of a scoundrel.  Pat Buchanan has said that "It is also the first refuge of many without faith."  But authentic patriotism, which is the proper response to value, is a response of loyal love to one's countrymen which is expressed in the desire to work together for the common good.

In an address given to the Catholic Conference on Industrial Relations in Portland, Oregon on October 5, 1954, the first Bishop of the Worcester Diocese, John J. Wright, explained to those present that, "..the common good is all the heritage from the past and all the hope for the future which good men share under God. Common to many, it is therefore public; perfective of the individual, it remains somehow personal. It calls the individual out of himself to share things with the general community, but it puts the resources of the general community at the service of the things closest to the personality of the individual. That is what Cicero meant when he defined the common good, the res publica, in terms of a nation's altars and hearths, of the spiritual and domestic values which center about these and which serve personality: 'in aris et focis est res publica.' It was out of this concept of the common good that our forefathers derived their notion of the great object of the State's existence.

Hence their fine phrase the common weal, a phrase perpetuated in the name by which they designated this civil community, not by the cold collective name so dear to the totalitarian, The State, nor with any name of special interest or partisan emphasis as The Duchy or The Realm, but The Commonwealth, The Commonwealth of Massachusetts. It is the concept behind warm words like mutual in the preambles of our national and state Constitutions, as that of my own state which provides 'that all shall be governed by certain laws for the common good.'...

The common good: it is the mutual bond of all who love the good, the true, and the beautiful; who seek good things, not evil; who seek the private good of persons and the collective good of the State, but the good of both in and under and through the Supreme Good, which is God. It is the good which God gives us all in order to keep us together, as opposed to the good that He gives us each to keep to ourselves. It is the good before which, on due occasion, both individual and State are obliged to bow: the common good...


Such an appreciation of the common good which unites, as against - or, rather, as above all particular or factional or partisan goods which divide - would make possible the Vital Center for which certain political philosophers are pleading; a Vital Center which can exist only when honorable moderates of Right and Left prefer working with each other in behalf of the common good to working with extremists of their own respective camps, extremists who seek only the particular good after which their side aspires..."

Our nation is so divided and fragmenting more and more with each passing day because it has opted for sin.  We have forgotten that the Common Good, the good which God gives us all in order to keep us together, is, as defined by the Catechism of the Catholic Church,  "the sum total of social conditions which allow people, either as groups or as individuals, to reach their fulfillment more fully and more easily."  And we can only find this fulfillment in and under God.

Because so many have now opted for sin and have a special and unnatural hatred of God as the Author of their being, our nation's fabric is coming apart.  As Fr. Miceli explains, "All apostates, all heretics betray their religious families.  They introduce disunity, disorder, disaster among the brethren.  They create divided communities, houses that cannot stand, that hasten towards a fall and utter collapse."  The same is true of social and political communities, where political rogues run towards wicked deeds and are intent only on pursuing their own selfish interests as opposed to working for the common good.

If America is to be great again, it must return to God.  It must renounce sin.  At the moment, there is much hostility in this country towards faith.  Pope Benedict XVI, on Good Friday 2009, deplored the secularization of the West, saying that, "Everything in public life risks being desacralized: persons, places, pledges, prayers, practices, words, sacred writings, religious formulae, symbols, ceremonies.."

The glue which held our nation together, faith in God, is being eroded.  At the beginning of my Senior year in High School, the decision was made to drop the Pledge of Allegiance.  But seven students out of a student body of 2,000 (and I was one of them) would still stand up every morning, place our hands over our hearts, and recite the Pledge:

 I pledge allegiance to the Flag
 of the United States of America,
 and to the Republic for which it stands:
 one Nation under God, indivisible,
 With Liberty and Justice for all.

I still recite the Pledge daily.  Some will accuse me of being "corny."  Of engaging in mere sentimentality.  But I will continue to defend faith and morality and an authentic patriotism which is rooted in love of God and one's fatherland and which expresses itself in zeal for the common good.

Related posts: Respect for the flag and military families as second-class citizens.

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The slow whining death of Johann Hari's credibility...and that of attorney/theologian Daniel Shea

Catholic News Service is reporting that, "A high-profile federal lawsuit accusing Pope Benedict XVI of covering up sexual abuse has been withdrawn.


Lawyers for the plaintiff in John Doe 16 v. Holy See filed a notice of voluntary dismissal Feb. 10, bringing the case effectively to an end.

The lawsuit was filed in April 2010 in the U.S. District Court in Milwaukee by an unnamed Illinois man who claimed he had been molested by Father Lawrence Murphy during the latter's time on the staff of Milwaukee's St. John's School for the Deaf.

The lawsuit claimed that the Vatican "has known about the widespread problem of childhood sexual abuse committed by its clergy for centuries, but has covered up that abuse and thereby perpetuated the abuse."

The lawsuit also sought to prove that the Vatican is a global business empire, engaging in "commercial activity" in Wisconsin and across the United States, and holding "unqualified power" over each diocese, parish and follower.

Jeffrey S. Lena, an American attorney for the Holy See, welcomed the withdrawal of "fallacious allegations of Holy See responsibility and liability for John Doe 16's abuse."

"A case like this one against the Holy See, which was held together by no more than a mendacious web of allegations of international conspiracy, amounted to a misuse of judicial process and a waste of judicial resources," Lena said in a statement..." (Full article here).

A couple of years ago I challenged homosexual journalist and mental midget Johann Hari to back up his assertion that, "There is now overwhelming evidence that Joseph Ratzinger, the Pope, was involved for over twenty years in an international criminal conspiracy to cover up the rape of children by priests in his Church." See here for full article.

Mr. Hari never did provide us with his "overwhelming evidence."  Back in 2005, I challenged attorney Daniel Shea when he said essentially the same thing. Mr. Shea asserted that "Ratzinger and company" were engaged in an "international conspiracy to obstruct justice." And after seven years, attorney Shea, who has been described by one publication as a theologian, still hasn't produced the slightest shred of evidence to corroborate his reckless and irresponsible claims.  I still have an email written by this "theologian" falsely asserting that the Vatican's website doesn't even carry the documents of the Second Vatican Council.  Actually it does.  And when I replied to his email and told him where to find them he never responded.  It took me all of 30 seconds to look them up.

Facts are inconvenient to some.  Especially anti-Catholic conspiracy theorists.  But don't expect an apology from Johann Hari or attorney/theologian Daniel Shea.  One thing is certain.  We are witnessing the slow, whining death of their credibility.

Related reading here.

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Catholic Free Press columnist Stacy Trasancos: Faithful to the Magisterium?

In a previous post, I noted how Catholic Free Press columnist Stacy Trasancos implied in a Blog post that the faithful can challenge the Church's Magisterial teaching.  Mrs. Trasancos became very angry and left a comment here in which she said, "My attitude toward the Magisterial teaching of the Church is one of complete assent."  I was prepared to take her at her word even though her post seemed to imply that the faithful can indeed challenge the Magisterium.

Now I really have my doubts about Stacy Trasancos' fidelity to the Church's teaching.  In a Blog post on the subject of women's ordination, Mrs. Trasancos writes, "We know that by the end of the first century the Roman Catholic Church was established and there can be little doubt that the cultural influences of that time and place affected the doctrine [that only men are called to the ministerial priesthood].  We do also know that the Church has evolved over time and that part of theology's goal is to communicate faith to changing cultures.  For these reasons, maybe the question of women in the priesthood will remain unsettled.  There isn't any hard logic to support the idea that the concrete forms of the ecclesiastical offices cannot be changed....Whether women should or will someday be priests, isn't for this single writer to say." (See here).

The Church's doctrine was affected by cultural influences?  Really?  The Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in its Declaration on the Question of the Admission of Women to the Ministerial Priesthood (Inter Insigniores), which was approved for publication by Pope Paul VI on October 15, 1976, refutes this asinine thesis: "Jesus Christ did not call any woman to become part of the Twelve. If he acted in this way, it was not in order to conform to the customs of his time, for his attitude towards women was quite different from that of his milieu, and he deliberately and courageously broke with it.


For example, to the great astonishment of his own disciples, Jesus converses publicly with the Samaritan woman (cf. Jn 4:27); he takes no notice of the state of legal impurity of the woman who had suffered from hemorrhages (cf. Mt 9:20-22), he allows a sinful woman to approach him in the house of Simon the Pharisee (cf. Lk 7:37 ff); and by pardoning the woman taken in adultery, he means to show that one must not be more severe towards the fault of a woman than that of a man (cf. Jn 8:11). He does not hesitate to depart from the Mosaic Law in order to affirm the equality of the rights and duties of men and women with regard to the marriage bond (cf. Mk 10:2-11; Mt 19:3-9).

In his itinerant ministry Jesus was accompanied not only by the Twelve but also by a group of women: "Mary, surnamed the Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, Joanna the wife of Herod's steward Chuza, Susanna and several others who provided for them out of their own resources" (Lk 8:2-3). Contrary to the Jewish mentality, which did not accord great value to the testimony of women, as Jewish law attests, it was nevertheless women who were the first to have the privilege of seeing the Risen Lord and it was they who were charged by Jesus to take the first paschal message to the Apostles themselves (cf. Mt 28:7-10; Lk 24:9-10; Jn 20:11-18), in order to prepare the latter to become the official witnesses to the Resurrection.

It is true that these facts do not make the matter immediately obvious. This is no surprise, for the questions that the Word of God brings before us go beyond the obvious. In order to reach the ultimate meaning of the mission of Jesus and the ultimate meaning of Scripture, a purely historical exegesis of the texts cannot suffice. But it must be recognized that we have here a number or convergent indications that make all the more remarkable the fact that Jesus did not entrust the apostolic charge to women. Even his Mother, who was so closely associated with the mystery of her Son, and whose incomparable role is emphasized by the Gospels of Luke and John, was not invested with the apostolic ministry. This fact was to lead the Fathers to present her as the example or Christ's will in this domain; as Pope Innocent III repeated later, at the beginning of the 13th century, "Although the Blessed Virgin Mary surpassed in dignity and in excellence all the Apostles, nevertheless it was not to her but to them that the Lord entrusted the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven."

III - THE PRACTICE OF THE APOSTLES

The apostolic community remained faithful to the attitude of Jesus towards women. Although Mary occupied a privileged place in the little circle of those gathered in the Upper Room after the Lord's Ascension (cf. Acts 1:14), it was not she who was called to enter the College of the Twelve at the time of the election that resulted in the choice of Matthias: those who were put forward were two disciples whom the Gospels do not even mention.

On the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit filled them all, men and women (cf. Acts 2:1; 1-14), yet the proclamation of the fulfillment of the prophecies in Jesus was made only by "Peter and the Eleven" (Acts 2:14).

When they and Paul went beyond the confines of the Jewish world, the preaching of the Gospel and the Christian life in the Greco-Roman civilization impelled them to break with Mosaic practices, sometimes regretfully. They could therefore have envisaged conferring ordination on women, if they had not been convinced that their duty of fidelity to the Lord on this point. In the Hellenistic world, the cult of a number of pagan divinities was entrusted to priestesses. In fact, the Greeks did not share the ideas of the Jews: although their philosophers taught the inferiority of women, historians nevertheless emphasize the existence of a certain movement for the advancement of women during the Imperial period. In fact, we know from the book of the Acts and from the Letters of Saint Paul that certain women worked with the Apostles for the Gospel (cf. Rom 16:3-12; Phil 4:3). Saint Paul lists their names with gratitude in the final salutations of the Letters. Some of them often exercised an important influence on conversions: Priscilla, Lydia and others; especially Priscilla, who took it on herself to complete the instruction of Apollos (cf. Acts 18:26); Phoebe, in the service of the Church of Cenchreae (cf. Rom 16:1). All these facts manifest within the apostolic Church a considerable evolution vis-a-vis the customs of Judaism. Nevertheless, at no time was there a question of conferring ordination on these women.

In the Pauline Letters, exegetes of authority have noted a difference between two formulas used by the Apostle: he writes indiscriminately "my fellow workers" (Rom 16:3; Phil 4:2-3) when referring to men and women helping him in his apostolate in one way or another; but he reserves the title "God's fellow workers" (1 Cor 3:9; cf. 1 Thes 3:1) to Apollos, Timothy and himself, thus designated because they are directly set apart for the apostolic ministry and the preaching of the Word of God. In spite of the so important role played by women on the day of the Resurrection, their collaboration was not extended by Saint Paul to the official and public proclamation of the message, since this proclamation belongs exclusively to the apostolic mission."

The Church is viewed by the egalitarians as archaic because it will not go against the Lord Jesus and ordain women to the ministerial priesthood. Nothing could be further from the truth. It was Pope Pius XII who recalled that, "The Church has no power over the substance of the sacraments, that is to say, over what Christ the Lord, as the sources of Revelation bear witness, determined should be maintained in the sacramental sign." (Apostolic Constitution Sacramentum Ordinis).


This is the teaching of the Council of Trent: "In the Church there has always existed this power, that in the administration of the sacraments, provided that their substance remains unaltered, she can lay down or modify what she considers more fitting either for the benefit of those who receive them or for respect towards those same sacraments, according to varying circumstances, times or places." (Council of Trent, Session 21, chap. 2: Denziger-Schonmetzer, Enchiridion Symbolorum 1728).

The practice of not ordaining women to the ministerial priesthood has a normative character. This norm is based upon the example of the Lord Jesus and has an unbroken tradition throughout the history of the Church. Which is why Pope John Paul II, in his Apostolic Letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, nos. 2-4, wrote: "In the Apostolic Letter Mulieris Dignitatem, I myself wrote in this regard: 'In calling only men as his Apostles, Christ acted in a completely free and sovereign manner. In doing so, he exercised the same freedom with which, in all his behavior, he emphasized the dignity and the vocation of women, without conforming to the prevailing customs and to the traditions sanctioned by the legislation of the time.'


In fact the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles attest that this call was made in accordance with God's eternal plan; Christ chose those whom he willed (cf. Mk 3:13-14; Jn 6:70), and he did so in union with the Father, "through the Holy Spirit" (Acts 1:2), after having spent the night in prayer (cf. Lk 6:12). Therefore, in granting admission to the ministerial priesthood, the Church has always acknowledged as a perennial norm her Lord's way of acting in choosing the twelve men whom he made the foundation of his Church (cf. Rv 21:14). These men did not in fact receive only a function which could thereafter be exercised by any member of the Church; rather they were specifically and intimately associated in the mission of the Incarnate Word himself (cf. Mt 10:1, 7-8; 28:16-20; Mk 3:13-16; 16:14-15). The Apostles did the same when they chose fellow workers who would succeed them in their ministry. Also included in this choice were those who, throughout the time of the Church, would carry on the Apostles' mission of representing Christ the Lord and Redeemer.

Furthermore, the fact that the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God and Mother of the Church, received neither the mission proper to the Apostles nor the ministerial priesthood clearly shows that the non-admission of women to priestly ordination cannot mean that women are of lesser dignity, nor can it be construed as discrimination against them. Rather, it is to be seen as the faithful observance of a plan to be ascribed to the wisdom of the Lord of the universe.

The presence and the role of women in the life and mission of the Church, although not linked to the ministerial priesthood, remain absolutely necessary and irreplaceable. As the Declaration Inter Insigniores points out, 'the Church desires that Christian women should become fully aware of the greatness of their mission: today their role is of capital importance both for the renewal and humanization of society and for the rediscovery by believers of the true face of the Church.'

The New Testament and the whole history of the Church give ample evidence of the presence in the Church of women, true disciples, witnesses to Christ in the family and in society, as well as in total consecration to the service of God and of the Gospel. 'By defending the dignity of women and their vocation, the Church has shown honor and gratitude for those women who-faithful to the Gospel-have shared in every age in the apostolic mission of the whole People of God. They are the holy martyrs, virgins and mothers of families, who bravely bore witness to their faith and passed on the Church's faith and tradition by bringing up their children in the spirit of the Gospel.'

Moreover, it is to the holiness of the faithful that the hierarchical structure of the Church is totally ordered. For this reason, the Declaration Inter Insigniores recalls: 'the only better gift, which can and must be desired, is love (cf. 1 Cor 12 and 13). The greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven are not the ministers but the saints.'

Although the teaching that priestly ordination is to be reserved to men alone has been preserved by the constant and universal Tradition of the Church and firmly taught by the Magisterium in its more recent documents, at the present time in some places it is nonetheless considered still open to debate, or the Church's judgment that women are not to be admitted to ordination is considered to have a merely disciplinary force.

Wherefore, in order that all doubt may be removed regarding a matter of great importance, a matter which pertains to the Church's divine constitution itself, in virtue of my ministry of confirming the brethren (cf. Lk 22:32) I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church's faithful."

Got that?  The Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and this judgment is to be definitively held by all of the Church's faithful.  But Stacy Trasancos believes otherwise.  She insists that "maybe the question of women in the ministerial priesthood will remain unsettled."  Mrs. Trasancos believes she knows better than Christ's Vicar and treats women's ordination as something which might still be possible.  For her, there is no "hard logic" to support the idea that women cannot be ordained.

Not even the Holy Father's definitive judgment, made in virtue of his supreme teaching ministry is enough for her.

This is fidelity to the Magisterium?  God preserve us from such nonsense.  Small wonder the Catholic Free Press gave her a weekly column.  Small wonder my views are censored.  I fully adhere to, defend and propagate the teaching of the Magisterium. 

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Does Clark University celebrate lesbian rape?

As this Blog has noted, Clark University's Dean of Students, Denise Darrigrand, places the definition of heterosexism alongside other terms such as rape, sexual assault and stalking.  See here.  Heterosexism is defined as: "..the systematic, day-to-day, institutional mistreatment of gay, lesbian, transsexual and bisexual people by a heterosexually dominated culture. At its core, heterosexism assumes that heterosexual relationships represent the norm and are, therefore, implicitly superior to gay, lesbian, transsexual or bisexual relationships. Out of heterosexism stems homophobia which is the fear and/or hatred of gays, lesbians, transsexuals and bisexuals because of their sexual orientations."

Translation, if you believe that heterosexual relationships are the norm, you are not only discriminatory, but you may be a danger toward homosexuals and lesbians.  One Clark student left a comment at this Blog which serves to illustrate the logic at work here.  The student wrote, "..knowing that 'corrective rape' or the practice of a man raping a lesbian to 'cure her' exists leads me to believe that there is a link between heterosexism, homophobia, and rape or sexual assault."

But Clark University isn't concerned with all rape apparently.  In fact, the university, which has become a hotbed of radical homosexual agitprop and Christianophobic propaganda, supports Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues, a play which celebrates lesbian rape.  In one scene, a twenty-four-year-old woman gets a thirteen-year-old girl drunk and rapes her.  This is presented as a good thing.  The victim later says, "If it was rape, it was a good rape.  I'll never need to rely on a man."

At their website, Women for Faith and Family explain their concerns over the Vagina Monologues: "It is extremely difficult to know how one might address such a matter as 'V-Day' in the most productive way - not least because to even name this performance involves our using the very language that the perpetrators intend to desensitize us to. Thus, ironically, we are forced to participate, at some level, in the very degradation and violence against the human person to which we object. I believe this is part of the plan. It considerably compounds the difficulty of criticizing it.


"That is by no means the only irony - or contradiction - involved in the V-Day movement (of which performance of the V-Monologues is the keystone). As you doubtless know, V-Day projects claim to be fighting abuse of women. But the verbally pornographic 'monologues' are themselves abusive of women - they attack the concept of womanhood itself, and destroy the integrity of the human person. Thus it actually contributes to violence against women, while claiming to be fighting it".

"1. Reducing women essentially to one body part is hardly pro-woman. It distorts sexuality, objectifies women and, ironically, promotes attitudes towards women and sexuality precisely like those that lead to sexual violence against women.

"2. This performance does not even represent real 'voices of women', as it claims in order to give it a ring of authenticity. The author, Eve Ensler, says she based her contemptible creation on her personal interviews with 200 women - indeed, the V-Monologues are usually represented as the authentic voices of women 'telling their own stories' (e.g., Father Timothy Clancy, SJ's editorial enclosed).

"But Ensler herself acknowledges that she freely interpreted her 'data'.

"3. The stated goal of V-Day is to stop all violence against women, and the income from the plays allegedly is given to agencies that help stop 'violence' (the "V" in "V-Day" also stands for violence) against women. But this, too, is a sham. Ensler employs a full time staff of ten to manage her "V-Day" movement; and donations are often given to dubious (or worse) groups (a set-up similar to Catholics for a Free Choice).

a. Planned Parenthood groups have produced the play (e.g. Planned Parenthood, Eureka, California: the web-site notice is enclosed).

b. In at least one instance a battered women's shelter that had been selected to receive a donation from the V- Monologues refused to accept it after learning what the performance was about. (Reported in Texas A&M's News Source - Feb. 12, 2002: 'V-Day stirs controversy'.)

c. The liberation of Afghan women is one of Ensler's causes. However, as we have seen recently, the 'aid' to Afghan women has included provision of abortion services. While we were not able to establish that Ensler's 'V-Day' has actually given any aid at all to Afghan women, it is clear that not all 'aid' is beneficial.

"4. The V-Monologues promote particular sexual pathologies: lesbianism and pedophilia. One 'voice' - that of a 13-year-old girl - vividly describes how she was seduced by a 24-year-old woman. She says, 'if it was a rape, it was a good rape'. This section reportedly led to objections even by feminists sympathetic to the production, leading one reporter to wonder whether this scene might be expurgated from the version being performed on more than 543 college campuses this year. Whether or not the producers do self-censor this scene (as may be likely especially in the context of recent pedophila scandals), it is entirely consistent with the rest of the production.

"Vagina Monologues is destructive, pornographic, deforming agit-prop deliberately and cynically aimed at young women - in particular at young Catholic women - a form of victimization that it is perilous to ignore. It contradicts at the deepest level the truth of creation; it is profoundly anti-Catholic, anti-God; and a contemptible assault on the very nature of the human person".

Why would Clark University promote such a play?

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Denise Darrigrand, Clark University's Dean of Students: Is she Christianophobic?

In the March 8, 1955 edition of Look magazine, Rev. Carl M. Chorowsky, minister of the first Unitarian Church of Fairfield, Connecticut, explained the basic tenets of Unitarian theology. Dr. Chorowsky said that, "In general, a Unitarian is a religious person whose ethic derives primarily from that of Jesus, who believed in One God, not the Trinity...Unitarians hold that the orthodox Christian world has forsaken the real, human Jesus of the Gospel, and has substituted a Christ of dogmatism, metaphysics and pagan philosophy. Because Unitarians refuse to acknowledge Jesus as their Lord and God, they are excluded from the National Council of the Churches of Christ."

Dr. Chorowsky further explained the Unitarian attitude toward Jesus Christ in this edition of Look magazine when he said that, "Unitarians repudiate the doctrine and dogma of the Virgin Birth...Unitarians do not believe that Jesus is the Messiah, either of Jewish hope or of Christian fantasy. They do not believe He is 'God Incarnate,' or the Second Person of the Trinity, as the final arbitrator at the end of time, who shall come to judge the quick and the dead."

What is this but the spirit of Antichrist? We are warned in 1 John 4: 1-3, "Beloved, do not trust every spirit but test the spirits to see whether they belong to God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. This is how you can know the Spirit of God: every spirit that acknowledges Jesus Christ come in the flesh belongs to God, and every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus does not belong to God. This is the spirit of the Antichrist that, as you heard, is to come, but in fact is already in the world."

Unitarian Universalists have a radical and militant homosexual agenda and have ridiculed the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and Catholic Teaching on homosexuality, referring to it as "archaic" while dismissing a statement from the CDF as representing "astonishing arrogance."  See here.  Does the Dean of Students at Clark University, Denise Darrigrand, share this view?  When a reader of this Blog wrote Ms. Darrigrand an email asking, "Does Clark University approve of students organizations which engage in public ridicule of Catholics?",  Ms. Darrigrand responded, "...I've been following this for about a week now.  A lot of our students are upset about it but it doesn't seem like there's much we can do.  We're just going to ride it out."

Would Dean Darrigrand take this attitude if African-Americans were the subject of public ridicule by students at Clark University?  Homosexual persons?  Jews? or any other group?  We're just going to ride it out?  This is the response to Catholic-bashing from the Dean of Students at Clark University?  Could it be that Ms. Darrigrand has chosen to just look the other way because she identifies with the Unitarian Universalists and the radical homosexual agenda?

Dean Darrigrand's Facebook page (which I have copied should it happen to suddenly disappear or change), mentions that her interests include the Unitarian Universalist Church of Worcester and Lgbtqi Spirit of Central Massachusetts, a homosexual activism organization.  Lgbtqi stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, and intersex.

Is this why it is "open season" on Catholics and Catholic opposition toward homosexuality and same-sex "marriage" at Clark University?

Should Clark University be permitted to receive federal funding when this sort of anti-Catholic animus is just shrugged off?

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