Only
8 attend VOTF meeting at St Michael ,N. Andover, MA
VOTF calls on another anti-Catholic priest for advice.
A
film on Father Richard McBrien speaking at a meeting of the VOTF Portland,
Maine
The
following is a review of the meeting held at St. Michael's last night that I
thought might interest you.
Marianne
VOTF
Meeting held at St. Michael's Parish, North Andover (covering St. Augustine
& St. Bellomine's Parishes of Andover as well as St. Michaels) at 7 p.m. on
December 9th, 2003.
There
were a total of 8 VOTF people who attended the meeting. It started with a
prayer and then a film on Father Richard McBrien of Notre Dame University speaking
at a meeting of the VOTF Portland, Maine was shown. The film was about l l/2
hours long.
The
film showed a Fr. McBrien very glib and very full of himself. He pointed at one
of the main causes of the sexual abuse in the Catholic Church is the rule of
celibacy. He stated how many Catholics there were of the 3 other Catholic
denominations that are not Roman Catholic who allow their priests to marry and
who do not have sexual abuse in their churches. He mentioned Bishop of
Milwaukee who got a petition of 163 priests wanting to address the issue of
celibacy but that even though the bishop is a good guy did not want to change
the celibacy rule.
He
did not feel that homosexuals could not be good priests and that anyways there
was no way to test a person to see if they are gay. He felt heterosexuals and
homosexuals were okay for the priesthood but it was the person who wasn't sure
what he was, that was not right for the priesthood. They had a lot of maturing
to do so it would not be a good idea to become a priest. He felt that the
sexual problem was that no courses were taught in the seminary on human
sexuality so priests didn't know how to face problems of a sexual nature. He
said he didn't believe those priests who said that being celibate didn't bother
them, that they felt fulfilled.
Fr.
McBrien said there were too many gays in the priesthood because of the celibacy
reason as well. They were able to go into the priesthood and not be questioned
why they were not married and also earn a degree of respect. At the seminary,
some heterosexuals left due to the fact of a gay culture that they found there.
If
priests could marry or even if women could become priests that would clear up
that problem.
He went on to say that women comprise
about 80% of the ministries of the church and why should they not be named to
the priesthood.
He said in 1976, Pope Paul VI asked the
Pontifical Biblical Commission to see if there was any biblical scriptural
passage that stated that women could not be made priests. They came back with
the finding that they could find none.
He
said he could understand reasons like the fact that if we did ordain women
right now that the chance of us uniting with the Orthodox faith would be over
and that also in other countries where women are not treated on the level as
they are in this country, it would cause more to leave.
He
could understand reasons such as this but not spiritual reasons as the roles of
Mary and Christ figured in the male and female.
Fr.
McBrien spoke much about "All of us are the church". That includes
the hierarchy, priests, laity - everyone. He spoke of Vatican II and the
placement of the chapter on the laity and how its placement was changed and put
before the chapter on the hierarchy and the revisions that were done on the
chapter which was called the People of God. He spoke much of Kungar(?) who is
some theologian on the limiting of the role of the laity?
Fr.
McBrien said even though the Pope has done many good things, his main concern
was always to appoint hierarchal believers and to protect the church from
scandal. He said the bureaucracy of the church is way out of control and many
priests and bishops totally resent that part of his pontificate. He said this
Pope is in the twilight of his pontificate and that he thought it was
disgusting how they dragged him around in public as a display.
He
said he would not even do this to his father but put him away so as not to be
seen by the public.
He
said the Pope should have made a resounding statement to the church and retired
5 years ago when he was still lucid. Other popes have retired and he could have
too. He said that what he understands of Parkinson Disease is that it continues
to destroy you until you can no longer even communicate and that he hopes that
he dies a happy death rather than be in a coma or such where other people in
power are running the church which considering his physical health is a real
possibility . There is no provision for what to do if a pope becomes
incapacitated physically or mentally and he has really put us in a bad position
by refusing to retire. He thought it looked bad for the Catholic Church using
the Pope in his present condition. "Would you buy stock in a company if
their CEO looked like that?"
Father
McBrien called himself a centrist. He called those outside of groups like VOTF
the "Simple Faithful" as they don't want to be educated but want to
be simple minded.
Father
McBrien said not to bother working on your bishops. He said what you should do
it work on your parish priests especially those of "integrity". You
can see what happens by just looking at Bishop Bernard Law. When people were
attacking him, he wasn't budging but when 58(?) of his own priests signed a
petition for him to resign, a week later he did so because he had lost a good
portion of his own priests under him and he realized that he had lost his base.
Therefore, this is the way to go about getting the changes you want in the
church. He said to talk to your priests and have them talk to the Bishops and
if they disagree with what they want then to have them go public regarding
whatever the issue is.
Father
McBrien tries to be funny and has very sarcastic humor. If he has all the
answers now, how did he not see this problem years ago. When asked about the
issue of not allowing girl altar servers, he said how could they ever even come
up with such a stupid idea especially in view of the scandal now. If anything
they should say only allow girl altar servers, no more boys! Doesn't this show
that he thinks and knows that the issue of the sexual scandal has a direct tie
to homosexuality?
John
Cronin came in during about the last half hour of the film. One VOTF member had
to leave part way through the film. After the film, John and I spoke with the
members of VOTF on what problems we had with the organization of VOTF and about
Father McBrien and some of the points he made in the film.
A
couple of the women left. Not sure if it was just because it was getting late
or they didn't want to have a discussion. Of the 4 VOTF members left, 3 were
very into changing the structure of the church and the 4th had some
reservations and did not like McBrien’s comments about the pope either.
We
left at about 8:45 p.m. and I think some good was accomplished as number one, there
were very few who attended the meeting and none of the priests or other members
of the staff at St. Michaels were there.
Also,
for at least one of the attendees, another view was shown to her for her to
think about.
From:
Marianne@FaithfulVoice.com