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Monday, August 5, 2013

IS THE AUTHOR OF THE MACON TELEGRAPH'S SUNDAY COMMENTARY PELAGIAN, GNOSTIC, HETERODOX OR POST-CHRISTIAN? YOU READ, YOU REPORT!


DR. CUMMINGS: Who am I to judge?
(Dr. Bill Cummings - Special to The [Macon] Telegraph)


Bill Cummings is a Catholic who some have told me was either a seminarian who studied in Rome and left the seminary, or was ordained a priest and left the priesthood. I do not know. But I will let you judge, and, yes Virginia, we can judge what people believe and do, although we cannot judge their salvation or that they are not created in the image and likeness of God and have no hope whatsoever of conversion or "reversion" and turning to the actual truth of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church:

I tend to think his commentary in Sunday's Macon Telegraph's editorial section is actually the new heresy which evolves from the Enlightenment which can be called "POST CHRISTIAN" or "POST CATHOLIC" and thus falls into the category of Gnosticism as Pope Francis would use the term. And it is this way of thinking that is a greater threat to our Catholics than the so-called restorationism of the "TRAD CATHOLICS":

HERE'S HIS SUNDAY COMMENTARY! ENJOY!

Last week, Pope Francis I, walked to the back of his Papal Airplane on his way back from dancing on the beach in Brazil and surprised all the reporters with his statements about gay priests. “If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?”

What?

Surely, Francis was joking. The pope of the Holy Roman Catholic Church always judges; that’s his job. For 2,000 years, the man who wears the papal tiara has always been the supreme judge of good and evil, and surely he knows that all these “gay priests” are evil. Why, his predecessor Pope Benedict XVI, called homosexuality “an intrinsic moral evil” and the Church has always made gay men and women feel like outsiders. Catholic bishops have even confused homosexuality with pedophilia and condemned both as if they were the same. No, the judgment has been made, believe me. And yet here we have Francis saying: “Who am I to judge?”

I feel like I’m standing on top of a snow-capped mountain in Colorado, breathing in the fresh cool air of a new day. Pope Francis has brought new life to a stagnant church; new thinking to a smug infallible theology; new hope for millions. I know all you Baptists can’t appreciate the significance of this event, but let me give you an example. It’s like Dr. Kirby Godsey when he was the President of Mercer, publishing a book entitled: “When we talk about God, let’s be honest.” Or his recent one: “Is God a Christian?” Francis and Gosey would be great friends; both of them are absolutely fearless.

Of course, the Vatican newspapers launched an immediate “explanation” of the pope’s words: “Well, he didn’t really veer away from the Church’s teaching on homosexuality, he just struck a more compassionate tone.” And the Italian daily La Repubblica said: “Francis would probably agree with Benedict’s writings on homosexuality -- but they really don’t interest him.” I doubt that Francis would agree with Benedict, but I do agree that those old shaggy ideas do not interest him in the least.

What does interest Francis is something that will shock many of the men who are walking around in black cassocks. Francis is interested in helping people to live in “the light of God.” It reminds me of the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., quote: Let’s judge each other by the “content of our character,” not by the color of our skin or our sexual preferences.

Francis also told those reporters on the plane that while Pope John Paul II had closed the door to female priests, he, Francis, sought a “theology of women” and a greater role for them in Catholic life. This “feminine theology” has nowhere to go if it doesn’t open up that John Paul door. If Francis is not going to “judge against” gay priests, he certainly is not going to “judge against” women priests.

I’m sure many critics will jump on Francis and wave a copy of the Bible in his face. “Look at Leviticus 20:13” they will scream, “God judges gays.” And sure enough, it says: “If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They are to be put to death.” It’s the death penalty for homosexuality. But let’s not skip verse 10: “If a man commits adultery with another man’s wife -- both the adulterer and the adulteress are to be put to death.” Whoops! Let’s not get carried away with all this Old Testament stuff; remember: Let he who is without sin, cast the first stone.

I think there is too much “stone-casting.” We judge -- as bad -- everyone who does not look like us. Race, religion and politics. We are a divided country and a divided community. The Russian Communists taught us during the Cold War in the ’50s and ’60s that this was quickest way to kill the enemy. They spent millions infiltrating our universities and our government trying to generate distrust and hatred of the “other guy.” They preached: “Judge that guy!”

Francis preaches: “Who am I to judge? Search for the Lord and have good will.” This could just be a change “in tone” as some are saying, but I have a strong feeling that before long, this tone will become substance, and --like the Brazilians at Copacabana last Sunday -- Catholics aLl over the world will be dancing on the beach.

Dr. Bill Cummings is the CEO of Cummings Consolidated Corporation and Cummings Management Consultants. His website is digitallydrc.com.

MY WARNING: Please judge and critique what Bill Cummings writes, not Bill Cummings himself. Denigrating comments of the person will not be printed. Commenters get off track and derail blog comments when they judge the person and not the content of what is written.

I'LL COMMENT FIRST: Poor Bill, he intentionally sets us a straw man and thus critiques and judges not Catholics but many Protestants in Macon who read the Telegraph and are of the evangelical ilk who take the Holy Bible literally. The straw man is the punishment of death due to those who commit adultery. Of course Jesus' and the New Dispensation does away with many Old Testament laws concerning criminal justice. The Catholic Church has always understood this to be true, not only concerning the death penalty of adulterers, but also the strict dietary laws and other Jewish practices, such as circumcision.

Jesus does not change though that adultery and any other illicit sexual practices are immoral, sinful and could earn a person everlasting punishment in the fires of hell. And yes, God can make that judgement and if anyone is in hell, it is not a mistake made by God, they deserve their punishment. Jesus does not do away with God's judgement or retribution but opens the door to that punishment or retribution to be carried by Jesus and His person on the tree of the Cross. But if we don't receive the gift of salvation by knowingly rejecting Jesus with full consent of the will, well, eternal damnation awaits and it is God who makes the determination, not man.

If someone has same sex attractions, or lusts after men or women, or children for that matter, but does not act upon those attractions and lust and strives to live an exemplary life by God's grace and not in a Pelagian way, who are we to judge these persons? But if they act on their impulses or orientation and give into lust and perversion and harm people, their marriages and their children, hell, yes, we can judge those persons and depending on the crime, civil society, not the Church, can condemn them to prison or the death penalty! In some societies, they get a part of their body cut off, either physically or through medication, what some call chemical castration!

Finally, Bill Cummings is disingenuous, because as a Catholic or a priest or a former of both, he knows that the Catholic Church does not base her moral teachings and judgments simply on the Bible. She does so on the Sacred Scriptures, Sacred Tradition and Natural Law. And where new moral dilemmas develop in society that elude Scripture and Tradition, natural law is sufficient in determining the morality and the judging of a wide expanse of modern practices, not the least of which have to do with medical ethics.

40 comments:

ND said...

When I saw "Pope Francis I" at the beginning...instead of "Pope Francis"...I knew things would get very "interesting" very quickly...

Marc said...

The underlying ideas are heresy (this is the proper weird if the writer was, in fact, Catholic at some point). The are based in an ultramontane understanding of the papacy that wrongly assumes the Pope can change tradition at his whim.

His ideas are rooted in modernism and have no basis in Catholic teaching.

Unfortunately, I think most people who claim to be Catholic would probably agree with him.

I would like to take a more exhaustive approach to showing his errors, but I'm writing this on a phone...

qwikness said...

Apparently he is a former Redemptorist Priest and wrote a book.
OPEN THE WINDOWS, I CAN'T BREATHE
How a Priest/Monk scrambled through the jungle that was the Catholic Church, and came out alive!
http://www.amazon.com/Open-Windows-I-Cant-Breathe/dp/1479376981

ytc said...

lol redemptorists aren't monks

Fr. Allan J. McDonald said...

Marc, the modernism of Bill and others like him in the spirit of VII, is the Gnosticism that Pope Francis describes and specifically has it roots in the Enlightenment from which the Heresey of Modernism in the Catholic Church evolved and was condemned by Pius X. In other word Pope Francis upholds its condemnation in continuity with a distant predecessor of the Chair of Peter. But do you see the progressives in the Church reacting to Francis calling them Gnostics as Trads are for him calling them Pelagians?

Marc said...

The difference, Father, is that traditionalists aren't Pelagian. And modernists aren't gnostic per se, they are immanentists, which appears like Gnosticism in practice. And the modernism of people like Bill does not result from Vatican II, it caused what happened at Vatican II.

Anyway, Traditionalists should respond to calumnious remarks made against them, whether those remarks come from the Pope or anyone else.

That said, I'm not entirely certain why you've directed this comment at me...

Van said...

Articles like Cummings' will be the fruit of "the spirit of Pope Francis". The "spirit of Vatican II" crowd now have a new "spirit" to guide them and they will run wild with it, creating "messes" and "stirring the pot", over the next several years to advance their agenda, from women priests to reinstating the 1970s ICEL translation of the Mass. While the Traditionalists will sit idly by, doing nothing to fight back, except post long complaints on the internet and become sympathetic to the SSPX.

Art Donovan said...

I honestly don't know what Pope Francis meant by his "off the cuff" remarks about homosexual priests, but Mr. Cummings has given us a textbook example of WHY this pope had better learn to weigh his words carefully and cease having these "off the cuff" press conferences. Just like a Vatican II document, the pope spoke in imprecise, vague terms that could be taken any possible way and the Institute of Perpetual Dissent has taken the worst possible interpretation and is having a field day with it.

I keep hearing "Just wait until the pope comes down on the side of orthodoxy and you'll see the liberal media turn on him." I haven't seen either. I won't say Francis is a bad pope. But I must say that so far, his pontificate has been rather disappointing. At least Pope Benedict had the good sense to keep his cuff links buttoned.

Hammer of Fascists said...

Cummings seems very much to be judging those who don't feel as if we are on a snow-capped mountain breathing the fresh air of a new day (or whatever).

Gene said...

Dang, Anon 5, you make me want to break out into strains of, 'Age of Aquariums...or Aquarious, whatever...

Gene said...

Im sorry...Aquarius...I mercifully forgot all those songs.

Anonymous said...

FrMcD....a good spot for a "Gene" limerick??

Gene said...

Well, I wrote a limerick, which I thought was pretty tame, but Fr. did not post it. He must be friends with the newspaper guy...(cough, cough...hack...hack...)excuse me.)

Gene said...

Let's see if this makes the cut:

Some news boys who pick up a pen,
Should consider again and again
If what they might say
Will in any way
Make them a laughing stock then.

digitallydrc said...

I don't think I'm Pelagian, Gnostic, Heterodox or even Post-Christian. I hate titles, actually.
I was ordained a Redemptorist Priest in 1957, received my STL in Theology from Cath. U. in Washington and my SSL from the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome during Pope John XXIII's reign, and taught Scripture for 10 years in Catholic Universities until the Bishop of Oakland condemned me for heresy.
So I guess I'm a heretic! ...oh and Redemptorists ARE monks, believe me.
"Quikness" is correct: I did write a book about it.
Bill Cummings

Fr. Allan J. McDonald said...

That's all fine and good, but the best title for Catholic is practicing Catholic, meaning Sunday Mass, regular confession and a Catholic life that supports the Catholic Church. Are you any of these????? Or are you still stuck in 1960?

digitallydrc said...

Dear Father Allen,

In 1960, I was all of those things; not just Sunday Mass but Daily Mass as a Priest; not just going to confession, but hearing confessions every week-end.
But I am not stuck back there today.
My Catholic Life (which you will never understand) no longer supports the hierarchical church with its restrictive covenants, but embraces all people everywhere. I know --that's not what Catholic means to you (I remember)You and I will never agree, but I still love and respect you.
Bill Cummings.

Fr. Allan J. McDonald said...

Dear Dr. Bill, you have free will and freedom of conscience but no right to redefine Catholicism. After 64 years if pretending isn 't it time to be honest with yourself and others and just say you have moved on from Catholicism and even historic Protestant Christianity to a post-Christian secularized religion. Honesty goes a long way. I love you too, let's do lunch. On vacation until August 1st.

digitallydrc said...

Dear Father Allen,

I understand your feelings, but I don't feel I am being dishonest. I am not dishonest to myself and my conscience; I haven't been pretending all these years, either. But you're right: I am not the Catholic I was; not the Catholic you are. You say I cannot define Catholicism but every Catholic who practices birth control defines it; every Catholic who divorces and remarries defines it; you define it. Why can't I?
Let's have lunch!
Bill

Unknown said...

I met and heard Dr Bill for the first time today and thoroughly enjoyed it. As far his views, had not Martin Luther questioned the Catholic Church most of us would be in confession weekly. Can't wait to dive into your book tonight.

Fr. Allan J. McDonald said...

And going to confession every week presents a problem for you? Interesting. Those who I know who go weekly are quite joyful. I think Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta went daily. How horrible! Poor Dr. Bill and Bill.

digitallydrc said...

Poor Father McDonald! Bill Loyd's comment was focused on "questioning the Catholic Church" --not confession. Have you ever done that?

Bill Cummings (your loving heretic)

Fr. Allan J. McDonald said...

Poor Bill Cummings I don't question defined dogma or doctrine, but I sure as hell question you and your silly 1960's ideologies and backward ideas of reform. I hope you question it too!

digitallydrc said...

Allen, I have been questioning all of my silly ideologies and theological underpinnings since the days of Pope XXIII. What have you ever questioned? ...Birth Control? Married Priests? Gay marriage? And don't tell me these things are de fide. Oh...you can if you want, and then you'll never have to question them. That makes it easy.
Poor Allen.

Bill Cummings

Fr. Allan J. McDonald said...

Bill bill I went to a radical seminary in the 70's! Did what you still do then as well as rebelled against my father! But at 62 I have grown up by the grace of God!

digitallydrc said...

Allen, Allen, at 84 I too, have grown up by the grace of God; could it be the same God?

Fr. Allan J. McDonald said...

Bill, Bill, you then realize that the greatest crisis in the Church today is my generation of priests and religious, but more so yours, the rebels of the 1960's who haven't come to terms with the fact the Church including popes, bishops, clergy, religious and laity of a younger generation aren't fighting still the battles of the 1960's drug induced euphoria of a more rigid institution becoming less so.

Not that anyone your age, and realistically on borrowed time, is still stuck in their youthful 1960's euphoric rebellion. There are two schools your age who are in a battle, the Kung generation and the Ratzinger generation, both though on borrowed time and there is a last gasp occurring today with that generation--but they are finished as is the nature of life.

digitallydrc said...

Again--
Dear Allen,
Your comments are sincere and well received. I am a Hans Kung man (always have been) and I fought with our legalistic Ratzinger when we were both in Rome together, and you're right -we have one foot in the grave.
But I have two questions:
1. What are the "Catholic Millennials" voicing as their faith and beliefs?
2. Why do you feel that your generation of priests and religious form the "greatest crisis" for the Church today?
Bill

Fr. Allan J. McDonald said...

With Catholic Millennials, there are as with any group and any age all the way up to 100, those who assent to the Faith, those who don't know the faith and so can assent or dissent other than from what others say to them especially in the digital world.

Practicing Catholics who are well catechized and go the Mass every Sunday, Confessions regularly, pray daily and continue their faith formation from authentic sources are solid as a rock and what clarity and light in today's confused and darkened world.

Others are superficial and like reeds swaying in the wind constantly asking questions but refusing answers--always in flux and disengaged.

The Kung Crowd is gone and people just a bit younger than me don't know who the hell he is or what fights he fought and for what reason. He's as good a dead and gone.

The Ratizinger crowd is different; they are young and vibrant. They know him not only as Pope Benedict but as Cardinal Ratzinger and even before. His legacy will live long after he is gone!

My generation, but more so yours cause great strike in the Church through confusion and loss of Catholic identity. Many your age cease to even attend Mass let alone be a defender of the faith. Like each and every liberal Protestant denomination, especially the Episcopalians and like each and every liberal religious order in the Church, they are almost out of business with dwindling numbers--but remain in denial that they made any major mistakes and refuse to even question the premises they still hold that are death dealing. The LCWR a case in point--they are irrelevant now but they don't know it.

First Baptist Church downtown is a case in point. It is an old shrinking congregation. The larger thriving Baptist congregations are far from liberal. The same is true of the more traditional, solid religious orders, such as Sister For Life and the Nashville Dominicans.

digitallydrc said...

Thank you, Allen,

I understand you better now. People who disagree with you are irrelevant and dying off.
By the way, I give talks (don't call them sermons any more) quite often at that "shrinking" First Baptist Church, and it certainly doesn't seem to be shrinking to me. Would you say that St. Joe's is a vibrant, growing congregation? Have you grown or shrunk over the past few years?

Fr. Allan J. McDonald said...

Bill, you miss my point. I am well trained by Sulpicians at Roland Park in Baltimore in the late 70's. The ideology of that period I accepted during my questioning early 20's. However u later question so much of that as I question and challenge you. I am sorry you don't like being questioned or challenged. But Ratzinger was right and Kung wrong, dead wrong. I reject it completely. We both have our pride though don't we!

Fr. Allan J. McDonald said...

We have 1300 households, however Macon's migration of white flight and no new industries has seen the white population decrease by 10,000 over the last 10 years. Houston county is where the growth is. 10 years ago there were 1600 families.

Fr. Allan J. McDonald said...

We have had 500 funerals in the last 11 years.

digitallydrc said...

Dear Allan,
3 things:
1. I love being questioned and challenged - always have. My favorite seminarians were those who forced me to the wall when I was their professor.
2. The reasons for your decline in attendance and membership at St. Joe's can't be the 500 funerals (where are the hundreds of kids and grandkids from those 500?) nor the white flight (how about the Blacks at St. Peter Claver?). I'll grant you the decline in industry, so you should have remained stable - not declined.
Are you sure there's no other reason?
3. Kung was right and Ratzinger was wrong; dead wrong!!

Fr. Allan J. McDonald said...

Saint Peter Claver is booming with Hispanics, mostly Mexicans and have a packed to the rafters Spanish Mass there at 1:30pm. The African American component may fee neglected there and is not growing. I don't know completely.

When I came here in 2004 Sacred Heart in Warner Robins was having Sunday Mass in their Gym and only about 70 families in Perry. Since that time Sacred Heart has a huge new Church and Perry's Church is in Kathleen and has 600 families.

We had about 500 Warner Robins parishioners at that time (not in our parish boundaries, but willing to drive here Sundays to avoid a gym or to go to Perry. That number from Houston County, the booming country in our area has dropped as it should have. We have no claim on that county here.

Then there are the disengaged or "nones" from across the spectrum who have become so secularized due to lack of authentic Christian formation and the poor witness of Churches to the authenticity of their tenets, especially the liberal Protestants but also liberal minded secularized Catholics, like yourself, that they cease to practice the authentic faith preferring a bogus or inverted form of individualism which you seem to prefer. Of course I have no sociological data here in Macon to back up the loss of Catholics to the "nones."

digitallydrc said...

Well, Allan,
We really don't need much sociological or demographic data on Macon itself; the loss of Catholics to the "nones" is growing exponentially all over America. For every 1 who becomes a Catholic, 6 leave!
I guess if I didn't know you (and your reputation) better, I would be offended that you claim I have left the "authentic faith" for a "bogus form of individualism." But now I realize that you don't care if you offend people who disagree with you; and you certainly don't care if your church membership dwindles to zero; you're right and they're wrong!

Fr. Allan J. McDonald said...

The "nones" are across the board and are affecting liberal Protestantism the most but also liberal Catholics. That is where your blind spot is and no matter how liberal the institution becomes the liberalism won't stop the exodus of this liberal secularist who are highly individualistic secularists. The Episcopal Church is the poster child for the failure of institutionalized liberalism which did not stop the bleeding to the nones but accelerated it. 4 million Episcopalians in the USA in the 60's only about a million today. They have your Kung's vision of Chirch and are showing the disaster it is for them. Ratzinger was dead right! You are index by a faux 1960's euphoria. The faithful remnant is our hope because Jesus is already victorious over the dead wrong stuff you have taken hook line and diner.

Fr. Allan J. McDonald said...

Index should be influence and diner sinker above. Auto spell change!

Fr. Allan J. McDonald said...

Bill you are projecting on me your own editorial policy. As I reread the original post with your editorial from the Telegraphy, it is you who are constantly being offensive to Christians who actually believe what the Bible teaches (as Protestants understand it) and what the Catholic Church actually teaches. Your whole article is contrived and even uses Pope Francis in a most untruthful way with a small hint of truth. So let's get real about who doesn't care about offending and who doesn't care about the Church its Catholic or Protestant branches.

digitallydrc said...

Well, if the shoe fits ...