Bishops
Coadjutor Bishop Jaime Soto, who will become the ordinary of Sacramento, California, at the end of November, was invited to speak to the conference of the National Association of Diocesan Lesbian and Gay Ministries. These are people who work directly for bishops.
Bishop Soto simply repeated the Church’s teachings.
“Sexual relations between people of the same sex can be alluring for homosexuals, but it deviates from the true meaning of the act and distracts them from the true nature of love to which God has called us all,” Bishop Soto said. “For this reason, it is sinful. Married love is a beautiful, heroic expression of faithful, life-giving, life-creating love. It should not be accommodated and manipulated for those who would believe that they can and have a right to mimic its unique expression.”
At least five audience members walked out during his remarks and afterward he endured a group of audience members who berated him for what he said. A board member of the organization was overheard telling one of the tables in the room: “On behalf of the board, I apologize. We had no idea Bishop Soto was going to say what he said.”
The FBI has arrested Raffaello Follieri and accused him of fraud for claiming Vatican connections in a scheme allegedly to buy mothballed properties from US Catholic dioceses and re-develop them. (Follieri was allegedly making false claims of close ties to then-Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Angelo Sodano, right.)
According to the FBI, Follieri claimed the Vatican had formally appointed him to manage its financial affairs and that he had met with the pope in person in Rome.
He is accused of keeping various ceremonial robes, including the robes of senior clergymen, in his Manhattan office, and of hiring two monsignors to accompany him during his business dealings.
Once, according to the complaint, he even asked a monsignor to change out of his robes and put on the robe of a more senior clergyman to create the false impression that Follieri had close ties to the Vatican.
Follieri, Follieri, why does that sound so familiar? Oh yeah! Because I wrote this back in January 2005:
This has at least the appearance of improriety. If [they’re] smart, they’ll keep the Follieri Group at arm’s length, and other dioceses should too.
And this in 2006:
Interesting. I just got an email this morning from a high-end private investigation firm looking for more information on the Follieri Group for a client. I wonder who’s doing the asking and why.
I wonder if it was really a private eye or if it was the FBI. If it was really a private eye, maybe they were representing “supermarket billionaire Ron Burkle’s Yucaipa Cos.” who sued Follieri after accusing him of misappropriating more than $1 million.
Wow, it’s funny to be caught up in the middle of all this, especially since I really don’t know anything about it.
Photo of Cardinal Angelo Sodano is in the public domain via Wikimedia Commons.
Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston spoke at a Theology on Tap at Bad Abbot’s in Quincy, Mass., on October 10. I hear it was standing-room only.
The Holy Father appointed Archbishop Edwin Frederick O’Brien, military ordinary for the U.S.A., as metropolitan archbishop of Baltimore (area 12,430, population 3,055,477, Catholics 517,679, priests 545, permanent deacons 178, religious 1,380), U.S.A. He succeeds Cardinal William Henry Keeler, whose resignation from the pastoral care of the same archdiocese the Holy Father accepted, upon having reached the age limit.
The Archdiocese of Chicago has responded to the outrageous comments by Fr. Michael Plfeger in which he said a gun shop owner and some legislators should be “snuffed”. Now, we all know that the jargon of the street says that “snuffed” means killed, but the context of how he used is clear that he meant something like “removed from public influence” or “had their livelihood stripped away.” That doesn’t mitigate the senselessness and irresponsibility of the words, especially since they could be misconstrued by an unbalanced individual, nor does it mitigate Plfeger’s consorting with hatemongers and racists like Jesse Jackson and Louis Farrakhan.
In any case here is the archdiocese’s relatively mild statement:
On Saturday, May 26, 2007, during an anti-gun rally at a Riverdale gun shop, Fr. Michael Pfleger, pastor of St. Sabina parish, reportedly made aggressive and inappropriate statements threatening the store’s owner.
If the comments reported are accurate, and a threat was made, it is up to the civil authorities to investigate the matter and determine what if any action should be taken against Fr. Pfleger.
Francis Cardinal George, O.M.I., Archbishop of Chicago, stated, “publicly delivering a threat against anyone’s life betrays the civil order and is morally outrageous, especially if this threat came from a priest. It is first of all up to the civil authorities to determine what threat might have been contained in the remarks attributed to Fr. Michael Pfleger. With that determination, the sponsors of the anti-gun rally and the Archdiocese can better decide how to respond.”
I’m not sure why the archdiocese needs to wait for the civil authorities to investigate before it can take action. Pfleger is a Catholic priest. His words are clearly documented. His previous heterodox and syncretist and publicly disobedient actions give clear cause for the cardinal to act. But as someone pointed out in an email to me, given the state the Church in Chicago is in—with the amount of heterodoxy among the clergy—that any kind of public statement from the archdiocese that is willing to acknowledge that a priest has crossed the line is a big step.
Technorati Tags: Catholic | Chicago | bishop | priest | Pfleger |
