Archbishop Wilton

17 comments

• Since it’s Advent and Christmas is just over two weeks away, I’d like to make a suggestion.  Obviously, we all know all the things that are wrong with “the church”.  Many of us are in a position to communicate both with the hierarchy and with the people in the pews.  I’d be interested in hearing what folks think are the positives.  What’s GOOD about the church that Jesus established two millenia ago and what can be done to make it better? 

  Perhaps, if we put our heads together, we can harness the power of the Internet to effect something positive.  At the same time, some pleasant discussion about good things will help us get ready for the feast of our Lord’s birth.

  You know, Peace on earth, good will toward men?

• Yes, Dom. It appears fairly clear to me that, despite everything from the past three years, the bishops have won. They’ve survived. The system has held. There was no general uprising among the faithful, no impetus from Rome for serious reform, no nothing.

  They’ve won. But they are going to continue to be told who they are, and what they are doing to the Church and her people.

• “Help is not on the way, at least not any time soon.”

  I think the theological term for this is sedevacationism, isn’t it?

• Deacon Mike, Rod, & Dom,
  What great opportunities OUR LORD is providing for each of us in these moments!  We are being given great blessings and moments to proclaim HIS TRUTHS!  NOT OUR OWN!  This is awesome.  We get to speak with each other through this technology—and inform each other of the harm being done against HIS BODY.  GOD has called up HIS followers to work for him in this battle.  It’s really not about just the scandal and the hiearchy.  We Catholics have been letting these people “run” the Church for years—“assuming” “they” were taking care of us.  We were being fed exactly what they wanted us to have—not HIS TRUTHS. 

  I was born 1960—and am a product of Cath. elem./parish school and Cath. H.S.-in the South-(considered missionary state)-I was not strongly catechized but was able to over the past 10-15 yrs. to learn on my own about my faith.  So now I can raise my children with stronger confidence that they have had a stronger foundation in order to withstand the “secular culture waves” that crash against them daily.  These are the positives that have taken place!  My children have watched me defend the faith with protestants and “cradle catholics” that were poorly cathechized. (I thank GOD & prots. for this as these moments honed my thoughts, my faith, and my confidence in speaking) This again is another positive.  Living here in a 3% Catholic area of the state it helps you to either figure “it out” or get “stepped on”!  I’m also a fruit of Mother A’s work here in B’ham!!  I can’t begin to tell you of her “fruits”—just locally.  These are the positives.  Again these are such EXCITING TIMES!  Even my husband a “FORMER Baptist”—lower South Alabama native(not Mobile either)—is a convert to the faith 4 1/2 yrs ago—and HE’S AWESOME!  His views about what has taken place in the church over the past few years is quite informative.  Again another positive.  And yes “the church” is growing here!  Our numbers are rising and there are many cradle Catholics finally waking up and responding to HIS CALL! 

  So go ahead and send Bishop Gregory down to Atlanta—-don’t forget it’s a red state too and yes -Dom it is quite conservative.  Let everybody think that we are just a bunch of ignorant weak Catholics—-that’s a good offense—catch all off guard!  Fake ‘em off!  That’s a good thing because if “the plan” was to come down here and “fix” things—make it liberal—well they’ll figure out that we southerners don’t take to well to YANKEES COMING DOWN HERE TO run us out!  The “SOUTH SHALL RISE AGAIN”—BY GOD’S WILL!  Another positive—put em straight into the fire so that we can be made stronger. 

  I hope this was the positive that you were asking—Deacon Mike.
  God Bless and may we all remain HOPE-FILLED over the coming of OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST!  (btw—birthing a baby has a BUNCH OF NEG. MOMENTS TOO! Good comes from this moment too!  = )

• A legitimate, even a holy pope, can misgovern the Church. The charism of infallibility extends only to doctrine, not to administrative decisons. The bishops whom the Pope has appointed have seriously misgovernmend the Church in the United States, and I see no signs of any change that is not made under pressure from the courts and the media.

• Deacon Mike, the Church is absolutely wonderful and lovely.

  What can be done for her (you ask)?

  I think defending her when she’s in danger is a wonderful act.  The article by the BC student clearly demonstrates the heresies that prevail in the American church and flourish particularly in Catholic (so called) academia.

  Pretending that all is well when cancer is eating your leg off is, at best, _____(can’t chastise you too much :>).

  We need to pray for our Mother, the church, but we also need to speak up, loudly, and defend her lovely truths. The salvation of many are at stake.

  Thank you Dom and Rod. Silence is complicity.

• I still hold onto hope. No matter what they do in Washington, they cannot silence anyone, especially when it comes to the Truth. The Burke’s, Bruskewitz’s and Chaput’s are not going to be silenced. Also, Cardinal George is waiting in the wings… We all would like a home run type of guy, but we should not abandon good base hitters.

• KAP is right. She makes me ashamed to be a Northerner by birth, and yet proud to be a Southerner by choice.

  Every reform movement began with the laity. I’m still waiting. My own quarrel lies, not only with groups like VOTF who have such a juvenile approach to any solution, but with faithful Catholics who think a bunch of country-club types here in Washington are going to lead the charge. So any bishop with a skeleton in his closet (even if it’s left by the last guy) is going to be afraid to stand up to VOTF, for fear of being exposed by a bunch of ninnies.

  There are exceptions, but they are either overwhelmed with the mess left by the last guy (or have you wondered why Chicago hasn’t been rehabilitated overnight?), or too far out in the hinterlands to be noticed on a national scale (unless they move the US capital to, say, Nebraska!).

  Who will be there to outflank the infidels? A bunch of bloggers? We’ve been yakkin’ about this for over two years now. Have we made a dent? Is there anyone, or anything, that can beat the pseudo-intellectual twits running VOTF at their own game?

  At this point, I’d buy front-row tickets to see the South rise again. Gimme a rebel yell! Where’s my banjo?

  (I really do play banjo, no kidding.)

• “Deacon Mike, the Church is absolutely wonderful and lovely.”

  Yes, it is.  There is nothing wrong with the Church.  There are problems with some of the people in the church, clergy and lay alike.  However, the Church, as established by Jesus Christ, has survived 2,000+ plus years of people who were as bad, and even worse.  Men failed, but the Church continued on.  As He said, even the gates of hell can’t prevail against it.  This is just my opinion, but I imagine the hottest part of hell is reserved for unrepentant sinners in Roman collars.

  What Jesus promised, eternal life for His friends, is just as real today as it was the day He promised it.  He left us His Body and Blood in the Eucharist, and that’s real regardless of the condition of the priest’s soul, because He said it was.

  And, let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater.  Here in Missouri, Catholic Charities is the largest non-government provider of services to the poor.  We’re not alone, but we Catholics are the primary voice speaking out in defense of all human life.  There are so many things that we do RIGHT, Dom would have to buy another server if we were to try to list them all here.  We are the church, every one of us who is reading this thread, along with millions of others. 

  Christ never said it would be easy.  He never said their wouldn’t be scoundrels in our midst, including some of our leaders.  My wife spoke to someone yesterday whose daughter was raped over the weekend.  The family is devoutly Catholic.  The mother is naturally very upset, but she said she knows that something good will come of all this, she just doesn’t know what it is yet.

  That, folks, is the kind of faith that I wish I had.  That’s the faith that many of our brothers and sisters have in the Church.  If that’s not positive, then I don’t know what is.

• There is a problem with the Church when the Pontiff promotes those who do nothing but harm the Church. 

• I am a member of the Archdiocese of Atlanta.

  Even though I am not excited about having Mgr. Gregory as my Archbishop, I certainly am will to give him a chance to prove himself the liberal that he most likely is.

  I believe that Archbishop Gregory’s response and direction of Perpetual Adoration, which is prevelant in this archdiocese, will be the indicator of the tenor of his governance.

  His soon to be cathedral has Perpetual Adoration and his predecessor has held ten Eucharist Congresses here.  Will they continue….will any of it continue?

  Will the some what admirable pool of priestly vocations continue here?

  Will the young and “conservative” priests maintain or will the old “liberal hacks” that Mgr. Donoghue surpressed, but never got rid of, resurect and retake their previously influential places in the Roman Catholic Church of Atlanta?  Time will tell.

• I pity the people of Atlanta in so many ways, not the least of which will be their inability to escape his incessant droning on about nothing in particular, while ignoring everything in general.

  I, too, wonder about who’s calling shots, Domenico.  This is not exactly evidence that the Holy See is trying to clean up or reform anything, scandals notwithstanding.  Business-as-usual.

  PEE-YOO.  This is yet another hold-your-nose appointment, I think.

• David,

  I think you’d be surprised to see how much difference laypeople yelling can make—and I don’t mean that in the VOTF sense.

  EWTN and all the people that subscribe to it, like me and maybe you, are a force to be reckoned with. 

  Scott Hahn and other laypeople at the faithful Catholic universities like Franciscan U. have made a huge difference.

  All the newly founded orders and their patrons—largely laypeople—have made a huge difference. 

  And yes, I think bloggers are in there too.  We do wield some power, simply because we’re impossible for them to control.  We can speak out for truth and the faith when we are lied to.

  I think some people cuss at us like Dan Rather does. 

• I didn’t realize how bad the Trautman election was until that newspaper piece made it plain that he not only gets to be chairman, but gets to choose the rest of the committee:  that’s appalling.

• Yup, go directly to jail.  Do not pass Go.  Do not collect $200. 

  Stinks. 

  This will continue until laypeople simply, but faithfully, won’t put up with it anymore.  Won’t pay for it anymore.  Won’t listen to it anymore.  Will drive past it and go as far as they need to go to get to a faith-feeding liturgy and practice.  Until life goes on and we learn to do what we have to do to live out our faith as Catholics,  no matter what idiotic nonsense the NCCB is up to.

  And when they run out of money, because we quit giving it to them, they will be just shocked.  And when they are arrested when they violate laws, they will be just shocked.  And when they treat us like dirt and we don’t accept it, they will be doubly shocked. 

  Then, and only then, will they settle down and do what they were meant to do in the first place, that is, the ones who are ever going to do it at all.

• This letter just about sums it up:

  TO: Cardinal William H. Keeler
    Bishop Arthur J. Seratelli (Paterson NJ)
    Bishop John J. Nevins (Venice FL)
    Bishop Gerald Walsh (New York)
    Bishop John Nienstedt (New Ulm)
    All bishops of the USCCB

  FROM: The Roman Catholic Faithful, Inc.

  <excerpt>

  When we consider your words, we must reflect upon all that you have given the laity during the past several decades; to wit:
  
  You have destroyed our precious liturgy and replaced it with a quasi-heretical and saccharine floor show.
  You have corrupted our children with poisonous sex ed programs.
  You have allowed our children to be raped by perverted monsters in the clergy and have done everything in your power to cover up these crimes.
  You have destroyed our beautiful churches and Cathedrals and replaced them with ugly “churches” that resemble aircraft hangars or cement factories.
  You have squandered billions of dollars on useless or harmful “ministries” that are little more than glorified havens for left wing activists.
  You have persecuted holy and orthodox priests and nuns.
  You have denied priests their right to celebrate the Traditional Latin Mass, a right which no bishop or pastor of the Church can ever take away.
  You have destroyed the faith of millions by promoting false catechesis.
  You have turned away worthy candidates for the priesthood because they accepted the perennial teachings of the Church or because they opposed homosexuality.

  The collective evil committed by the American Bishops dwarfs any harm committed in the Enron scandal, yet none of you have been sent to jail.

  And now, when a man like Mel Gibson comes along and tries to glorify Our Lord with a movie, when he risks his personal fortune and reputation because Our Lord is despised by the World, you miserable serpents not only do not support him, but join with those who condemn his courageous and beautiful effort. Well, to you bishops, and to all the bishops of the USCCB, the Roman Catholic Faithful responds:

  The movie The Passion of the Christ has done more to uplift the human heart, to bring souls to Christ, to increase holiness, and to glorify Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, than all the USCCB committees, subcommittees, documents, pastorals, letters, faxes and speeches put together.

  James Bendell
  Roman Catholic Faithful

• ” you miserable serpents”

  Merry Christmas