There's news circulating about a priest in Chicago being disciplined by his archbishop.
When a priest publicly disobeys his archbishop, that priest can be censured, disciplined or suspended. A priest promises obedience and respect to his bishop at ordination. It is on par with the promise of celibate chastity.
There are two sides to every story. But when Catholics start disrespecting the office of bishop, priest and deacon because they despise the person who holds it, this betrays the coloring book catholicism that they so much despise.
An archbishop who will not allow a priest to disrespect his promises of celibate chastity and respect and obedience for his bishop is to be praised not vilified.
Let's not allow the enemy, the devil, to tempt us to do the devil's work by denigrating the offices of Holy Orders or even those who hold them who we might despise.
Let us go to confession and ask God to help us to love those we hate and to repent of any hatred and rage we have. That take humility folks and there are too many neo-traditionalists who seem to have bought into haughty Catholicism when it comes to those they want to hate.
The Holy Spirit will take care of the rest.
22 comments:
we're in this mess precisely because bishop DO allow their priests to disregard their vows of celibate chastity. They don't much care if their brother bishops violate their vows of celibate chastity, as long as the violation is an "embrace of diversity" as New Advent put it when two Chicago priests were caught in the backseat of a car in Miami.
I was hoping that you would discover this. Unfortunately it’s gone beyond the rumor stage... But do not make the mistake of only reading the Tribune article, or the CBS affiliate report. Research the whole history of this problem, the beleaguered parish and priest before judging. It’s a truly disheartening tale, beginning in the time of a predecessor of Cdl. Cupich. I started following the story a week ago, and didn’t sleep at all last night praying and hoping for God’s Will and greater good to come of this and all the wrong-doing going on right now in our beloved Church. I hope Bee and/ some other Chicago-savvy follower will post a response here.
Again I say, we are at war...pray, pray, pray!
Father, while everything you have written here is true, I think you owe it to your readers to tell us the REST OF THE STORY (thanks Paul Harvey).
You have not told us just WHAT this act of disobedience was.
FACT: The priest burned a rainbow "gay" flag in a ceremony that included some sort of exorcism prayers.
FACT: The flag hung proudly in the sanctuary, right near, practically above the altar where the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is offered.
FACT: The flag was there when the current pastor took over.
FACT: The original plan was to publicly burn the flag in front of the Church. When ordered NOT to, the priest complied and burned it in another place in a private ceremony.
FACT: Many, if not most parishioners wante the flag gone.
The priest in question correctly stated that the presence of this flag, because of what it represents, was a sacrilege.
Father McDonald, you as well as many prominent and respected bishops from around the world have affirmed that the current Church crisis is a crisis of homosexuality in the ranks of the clergy and bishops.
The archbishop's plan to have the priest forced into a psychiatric facility is right out of the Communist Party playbook. Solzhenitsyn wrote exhaustively on such techniques. The LGBT crowd in Chicago is rabid about punishing this priest and the archbishop is giving every appearance of obeying their cry for vengeance. THAT is the disgrace.
So Father, this begs the question: Just how far does this vow of obedience reach? Does it require priests to obey their bishops at the cost of disobeying God and His Church? Are priests to obey disobedience?
If your bishop ordered you to call out gay couples at the end of Mass and congratulate them on their "anniversaries" or fake marriages, would you do so?
If your bishop ordered you to bless homosexual marriages, would you do so because of your vow of obedience?
I am not trying to be a smart aleck. These are serious questions that probably have very difficult answers. But until someone convinces me otherwise with a rational argument, I am not so sure that this priest has done anything wrong. And we SHOULD pray for Cardinal Cupich. What say you?
Is an archbishop who demands obedience to his endorsement of a sin that cries out to God for vengeance to be praised?
Should we honestly praise an archbishop for punishing someone for disobeying his demand to enshrine the very sin that is destroying the priesthood and reputation of bishops?
I just hope that someone from the Archdiocese tries to put a new rainbow or rainbow/cross flag. Then the fake Vatican II charlatans who run the archdiocese will truly get a taste of "lay empowerment".
The legacy of Cardinal Bernardin continues to punish true Catholics.
"But Peter and the apostles answering, said: We ought to obey God, rather than men."
Yet, "Father" Plegher, a major league hater, who violates federal tax exemption law by politicking for the Abortion Party at St. Sabina's is still pastor there. Mr.Cupich shows us what PF's "Mercy and accompanying" is all about. I am done with the Archdiocese, no $0 from me.
Father McDonald,
Surely you can see that this priest is being persecuted for no other reason than because he opposes the sexual culture of Sodom and Gomorrah.
I will always remain Catholic because my faith will not allow otherwise. And because there are good priests out there like you, Father, and like Fr. Martin Fox, and like this one: https://dwightlongenecker.com/the-curious-case-of-fr-kalchik/.
The bottom line is the flag in question had been removed for a few years maybe since 2007. Why did the priest feel he needed a banner burning? It could have quietly torn to shreds and placed in a dumpster and no one would have known and thus complained.
Heck, I have Thomas out my share of burlap and felt banners with rainbows 🌈 on them over the years and in fact most recently two went traveling to the garbage in the last week from my current parish.
If my bishop discovered that I was publicly provoking my neighbors by throwing 1960's banners into the trash in the most public and denigrating way and using exorcism prayers to do it and then asked me not to do it, I would obey, put the banners in trash bags, travel over state lines with the cover of night and place the bands of banners in a public dumpster in another diocese.
Thrown out, not Thomas out, what is it with auto correct!!!!!
Anonymous at 4:04,
Of course, we will remain Catholic and outlive PF and his evil cabal and the elder clergy that enable them.
Deus Vult!
FAIR ENOUGH FATHER. That is a reasonable answer.
But I think most of us can surmise that Cupich would only demand this kind of concession to satisfy the LGBT community. And the ceremony was done privately, not publicly. Do you think he would punish a priest who had offended, say, the Traditional Latin Mass community? You know as well as the rest of us he would probably promote him into the chancery!
What about YOU father? Would you bless same sex marriages if your bishop ordered you to?
DO PRIESTS HAVE TO OBEY DISOBEDIENCE?
Those burlap banners from the Sixties (and even later, sadly), are aesthetically offensive. A homosexual banner, on the other hand, is offensive to (a.) natural law, (b.) the Law of Moses and (c.) the Gospel of Christ.
Speaking of Moses: "and laying hold of the calf which they had made, he burnt it, and beat it to powder, which he strowed into water, and gave thereof to the children of Israel to drink".
My crystal ball tells me that Cupich will be whispering into the ear of Francis. I would not be surprised to see that banner remade 10 times its size and hanging from the facade of St. Peter’s in Rome.
Bee here:
Well, TJM, it happened. Fr. Paul burned the banner anyway, even after being told not to, and he was removed as pastor.
I know I mentioned that this parish, the former St. Francis Xavier Parish, was where I was baptized, received my First Holy Communion, and received the sacrament of Confirmation. I went to the grade school there, taught by the School Sisters of St. Francis. After going through several iterations (the Sisters were long gone) the school was taken over by a charter school company in 1998.
I am very shaken by these events at the parish, even though I do not attend Mass there. I live only blocks from this church and know people who attend there. My mother and father were both buried out of this parish. They had been parishioners since 1950 until their deaths. I know Fr. Paul by having met him while arranging my mother's funeral. (My dad died the year before Fr. Paul came there.) I had all the Masses given by those who came to my mom's wake said at this parish, and I attended all of them. Fr. Paul said most of the Masses, and I can attest to his orthodoxy. He seems like a mild, kind person to me, not at all an angry or rigid person, and he ran that parish on meager donations without an assistant pastor. There are two other priests in residence who live on the premises but have other ministries (I don't know what they call that arrangement) and these priests sometimes fill in on Sunday or daily Masses, but usually not for any other sacraments.
I don't know what motivated Fr. Paul to take this action of disobeying the Cardinal. It seems senseless to me. It was reported he said he had previously burned rainbow vestments and other items he found when he first arrived, and that this banner was not found until lately. The other items were burned at his family farm in Michigan many years ago. So why he would not take this banner out one afternoon and burn it privately without fanfare (I think he did it in one of those backyard portable firepits), I don't know.
The alderman of the ward is gay woman who is "married" to her partner. This alderman caught wind of the planned burning, and led a small group (about a dozen people) to demonstrate in front of the church last week, calling for the Cardinal to stop the planned burning, calling it a hate crime. Of course, the news media picked this story up as if it were earth shattering news, and the Cardinal had the vicar of priests call to tell Fr. Paul not to burn the banner.
I honestly thought Fr. Paul would be punished by making him stay at this backwater parish for the rest of his life. Now I can see that since the national news media picked up the story the Cardinal didn't have much choice but to remove Fr. Paul. The manner removal does seem rather draconian, but Fr. Paul should have expected as much I guess. I mean, he must have heard how the Archdiocese does these things, escorting the offender out like a criminal (just like corporate America...gee). The local news reported his removal as the lead story last night. The lead story!!! I was a little offended by a statement made by the Archdiocese that Fr. Paul would receive "counseling," as if he had a mental breakdown.
(Why do they do this? Talk about degrading..)
I am worried now about this parish. I wonder if they will just close the church. I wonder if my beloved St. Francis Xavier will be demolished. (That brings tears to my eyes.) I wonder if a gay priest will be installed as pastor, and the parish become another mecca for the LGTBQ crowd. (Believe me, there are already several in the Archdiocese.)
The whole thing seems bizarre to me. I honestly cannot defend what Fr. Paul did. I don't know why he threw down the gauntlet as he did. I think his planned public burning of this flag was a provocation and uncalled for.
Please pray for the Archdiocese of Chicago. If things continue on this track, I'm afraid we're in for some pretty vulgar and awful stuff...
God bless.
Bee
Why is it that certain people no longer accept by faith and belief what we as Catholics true to our Faith accept by faith and belief, which is that Christ is truly present at every Mass, and outside of Mass, that He is reposed in the tabernacle? Or that he is present in the Adoration chapel? Faith and belief are gifted to us by the grace of God, but each can with weaken and atrophy if not attended to. If one is given a plant but does not regularly water it, then it will wither and eventually die.
Is it not accepted by most that to attain anything worthwhile, such as earning a degree or becoming physically fit, requires unwavering dedication and discipline? Is it any different when it comes to spiritual development and the life of the soul?
We simply cannot allow anything, whether inside the Church or outside of her, to affect our relationship with God. One cannot abandon the Church as if she is just another human institution and not God's Holy and Divine established institution on earth whose precepts and teachings are His Divinely revealed Truth. She is the God-ordained and Divine gift, the Instrument of Salvation established and instituted by Christ as the means for our Eternal Salvation. The Holy Catholic Church is the pre-eminent and perfect means in all that it contains for us to avail ourselves of the Treasury of Divine Grace, that Holy Repository which was filled by merits of Christ's redeeming Sacrifice, His Suffering and Death. Indeed, anyone who is saved comes to salvation in some way or another from the graces which flow from all the salvific means the Church possesses. This is what any Catholic loyal the True Faith accepts and professes to believe and understands that it is not about "feelings" or sensory stimulation or a better social experience.
One coming from another faith denomination can find and discover within the Catholic Church, God's supersubstantial presence and the fullness of His truth. It is not possible to leave the Church and find what we have anywhere else. Anyone who searches outside the Church for what it contains searches in vain and such a person is in need of our prayers.
Father,
As much as I dislike Cdl Cupich I agree with you on this issue. The bottom line is that he was publicly disobedient. I am having an argument with some friends about this tonight and I will be forwarding your article to them.
Fr. McDonald, didn't you praise Cupich to the heavens once, recalling that he had considered you for a seminary administration job?
There's goodness in every creature created in the image and likeness of God. And yes he requested of my bishop in the late 80's that I be released from the diocese to take a position at the Pontifical College Josephinenum. When my file is investigated, that letter should be there!
Actually a priests promises obedience to his bishop AND his successors (key point)---otherwise the author of this blog would not be obliged to obey his current bishop. And of course we have to use common sense---a priest would not be bound to obey his bishop if the latter demanded he swim in gator-infested swamps of south Georgia, drink Pepsi instead of Coke, cheer for Tech over Georgia or drink Pepsi instead of Coke! Certainly we are talking about obedience in spiritual matters....
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