GOOD GRIEF AND THEY CALL THE SSPX SCHISMATIC!

I coping the following from the Deacon's Bench and the comments at the end of it are not mine but his.

How could a parish like this get away with what they were doing for so long? Can you imagine how hard it would be for a priest who is Catholic to go into a schismatic parish like this. Just who was the previous pastor and how did things get out of hand like this?

At the same time, a priest going into such a parish needs to work a bit more slowly. But let me tell you, I would celebrate the Mass as it is written from minute one and I would wear my own vestments if the parish vestments are crazy and I would make sure the altar looks like an altar, cloths and all. So some things would change right away.

I had a parishioner tell me after Sunday Mass that their family had visited Immaculate Conception Church in downtown Atlanta the previous Sunday. This parish, next to the capitol, is very progressive, LGBTQ friendly and more than likely similar to the parish in the story below. My parishioner said that priest bragged about how much better they are than any other parish in the archdiocese because they are so open, so friendly and so welcoming of so many kinds of people. They, unlike the unwashed masses of other Catholic parishes, do it right. Such arrogance and such pride, the deadly sin of pride.

Please look at the age of the parishioners in the video, my age and older, baby boomers who never grew up, 1960's social activists still beating that same drum. Very sad indeed and such a caricature:

Revolt: parishioners protest changes at parish in Portland, Oregon

 AUGUST 11, 2019 BY DEACON GREG KANDRA

Evidently, one pastor’s efforts to restore a sense of orthodoxy to a progressive parish met with fierce resistance— even prompting protests during Mass.

See the video below. A longer story follows.

From the front page of The Oregonian on Sunday:

The new priest took charge of St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church more than a year ago. Week after week, parishioners said, George Kuforiji changed their church in ways they didn’t think he ever could.

…St. Francis is one of the oldest churches in Portland. It has long been known as a bastion of progressive Catholic faith.

Parishioners have marched in the Portland Pride parade, fed and given shelter to people experiencing homelessness and worked to make the traditionally patriarchal institution more inclusive of women. For several years, a banner hung above the church steps that read “Immigrants & refugees welcome.

Now, the banner is missing. Vestments and one of several treasured photographs of the homeless community that had lined the walls of their parish had been piled in a trailer headed for the dump.

Many felt the new priest aimed to better align St. Francis with the archdiocese, who some feel is out of step with Catholics in Portland.

An archdiocese spokesman turned down multiple requests to interview Sample or Kuforiji.

So what happened?

Parishioners said the changes he made were almost immediate.

For years, St. Francis used inclusive language in its scripture readings. With references to God, for instance, they avoided using “he,” “lord” or “king” and instead used simply “God” or “creator.”

Kuforiji switched readings to traditional scripture, no longer allowing the new wording.

St. Francis outlined their values in a community commitment that parishioners would read after the Nicene or Apostles’ Creed. Kuforiji replaced the pamphlet and cut out the community commitment.

Parishioners brought their own copies and still said the words.

The parish’s handwoven altar cloth was a gift from a village in Guatemala the parish had helped. Parishioners showed up to Mass one Sunday last summer to find that Kuforiji replaced it with a plain white cloth.

Parishioners also had cherished vestments worn by the priest — some they’d made by hand. When two parishioners found the vestments, along with banners and other valued items in a trailer headed for the dump, tensions boiled over.

Dianna Shaffer and Melody Ghormley went to St. Francis June 27 to prepare for a parish clean-up scheduled for the next day. When Shaffer arrived, she saw Ghormley talking with Kuforiji and Deacon Kevin Welch in the sanctuary.

Shaffer and Ghormley noticed the vestments were missing, along with the large “Immigrants & refugees welcome” banner. Black and white photographs of homeless people served by the church were stripped from the walls. Both said Kuforiji told them he didn’t know what happened.

Read it all. 

It seems to me someone, somehow, needs to negotiate a truce here — and that effective, meaningful catechesis is sorely needed. I’d like to hear from the archdiocese and the pastor to get their side of the story.

At the very least, the archdiocese should never have let things get this bad.

When a parish starts rewriting liturgical texts to remove God’s gender, and inserting its mission statement into Mass, that’s a serious problem. And publicly tossing vestments into the trash? Really? Was that a good idea?