Yesterday was the last Mass in Charlestown for Fr. Bob Bowers of the closing St. Catherine of Siena parish. The article lauds him as a departing hero, retiring from the battlefield, a warrior for inclusion and all kinds of schmaltz. But the real question is what kind of faith Fr. Bowers handed on to the people, whether it was the Catholic faith or not.
Among the worshipers were Latin American immigrants from nearby housing projects and young executives from Charlestown’s waterfront, lifelong residents of the city, and a gay state senator at whose wedding Bowers spoke.
Way to be a witness for the Church’s teachings and help the gay senator and his ... whatever you call it now ... understand the gravity of their sin and the break from the divine life they’ve made.
Bowers was an outspoken critic of church leaders whom he considered out of touch with the laity. He was also active in Voice of the Faithful, the Catholic lay group formed out of the clergy sexual abuse scandal, and learned Spanish as one of his first orders of business at St. Catherine. Church leaders said Bowers’s stances on controversial issues had no impact on his departure.
The reports are that Bowers offered a prayer at the so-called “gay wedding” or at the reception thereafter. To have done so would be to have caused grave scandal to the faithful, considering the Truth about the Commonwealth’s fraudulent perversion of the Sacrament of Matrimony.
But even more salient, I would think, is the “friendship” Bowers enjoyed with the former state senator. Does anyone really believe now that there aren’t a whole bunch of lavender priests out there?
I hope his sabbatical is fruitful and he rediscovers the Catholic faith
Although we are obliged to hope, conversions for men of his type and age who have already studied the faith (and rejected it) are rare. He not only rejects the faith, but has worked to undermine it amongst the laity.
Pope St. Pius X said that there is nothing more dangerous then a man of the cloth who rejects the faith. He said that all such men should be defrocked.
How many other “Father Bobs” are out there, who have systematically worked against the faith? Action is long overdue.
Well, here’s to more priests (insert raising rosary here) like Fr. Cleary and fewer priests like Fr. Bower in the future of the Archdiocese of Boston.