The group of nearly two dozen priests from parishes in Chicago and the suburbs sent a scathing “open letter” to church officials Friday. In it, the pastors blasted recent church pronouncements regarding gays as “divisive and exclusionary” and “increasingly violent and abusive.”
What courage, to send an open letter. See, if they had just sent regular letters, they would have been silent martyrs, punished for their heresy in private, without recourse to public drama. Instead, the open letter format allows them to writhe and dab their eyes in public, waiting for all the public support they know they’ll get.
It’s all a lot of baloney anyway. Did all these pastors, who couldn’t have been ordained yesterday, not know the Church’s teachings on homosexuality all these years? It’s not like any of this is new. The fact is that for decades, there was a network of gay priests in Chicago under Cardinal Bernardin who felt no fear to publicly undermine the Church’s teachings because they knew there would be no repercussions from their bishop. (I had a friend years ago who was from Chicago and was a recovered homosexual who knew a lot of these guys personally.)
But with Cardinal George not kowtowing to them like Bernardin once did and these new documents from the Vatican showing that tolerance in Rome for their heresy is fading, they are getting scared that the noose is tightening. I only wish that it were and that we really would not tolerate heresy and blasphemy. Unhappily, their fears may be unfounded. It all depends on what Cardinal George does next. At the minimum, these two dozen priests should be removed from their ministries until such time as they recant their anti-Catholic public stances. We shall see.
[Thanks to Patrick Sweeney for the link.]
Here is a link to the letter along with names and parishes.
I’m curious, Sock, what is a communal abstinence service? Everybody sitting around saying, No thanks?
Of course, I know you mean communal penance service, but the image your malapropism provided was too funny.
Still investigating the rumor that these, um, priests are active—and proud of it, by goddess!— in Chicago’s Bailiwick Repertory Theatre.
However, in other news, Chicago’s Bailiwick Repertory Theatre along with the “Chicago 23 Priests-or-are-We-Sisters-or-What!” have come out—yes come out!—against Sock’s Communal Abstinence Program. In an exclusive interview, both the Sister Priests and the Bailiwick Theatre folks had this to say about terms such as “abstinence:”
“Such language is inappropriate. ”
Looking at this as a institutional issue or a matter of fidelity to the Catholic faith, the solution is simple: suspend these guys. The Catholic faith believes, professes, and teaches one thing and you teach another.
Looking at this as a political issue (“we, the rank and file, disagree with the leadership”), it becomes more nuanced:
“Chose sides now. You are either with us or with the Cardinal.” or worse, it’s a call to anarchy and disobedience. It’s a classic “let’s force the issue now” ploy.