Fr. Joseph Wilson has an article about the case of Fr. Paul Weinberger, the Dallas pastor who is being removed from his parish under questionable pretenses. (Here is the earlier blog on the matter.)
Fr. Wilson gives more of the background and more details of Fr. Weinberger’s dealings with the diocese. It’s a weird situation and smells of something. I hope his canonical action bears fruit. The use of Latin in the Novus Ordo Latin rite is a right guaranteed by the Church, not something a bishop can deny.
The proof of VOTF’s heresy has been provided many times. You just refuse to accept it. And who conceded that Grahmann is a Tridentine refugee? He’s the exact opposite, one of those bishops who lives in the “spirit of Vatican II” rather than by what it actually said. And a pro-Tridentine bishop wouldn’t be suppressing a Latin Mass.
Todd,
Just as a head’s up:
You’re not going to make “Voice of the Faithful” folks very happy by suggesting they affiliate itself with a parish that embraces liturgy such as Father Weinberger’s parish celebrates. The whole whole point, regarding VOTF “liturgy,” is to make it up as they go along (or as “The Spirit moves,” depending on whom you’re talking to).
Man this is a great blog!
Friends, What seems to be missing in this case is the love that is necessary to be obedient; the love of Christ and the desire to be like Him. The obedience to this love is a call to Christ for the grace to serve him for the salvation of souls and this must be the first motivation of every priest. A bishop who does not see himself as obedient to the will of Christ, i.e., having an overt Love of his fellow bishops AND the pope, precisely for the salvation of souls truly creates turmoil in the Church because there is injustice. People in the parish have a right to peace and order. By denying the peace that these parishoners have found through Christ-centered development and the order rightly establish by the legitimate governance of the Body of Christ the Church, is to create injustice which can so easily be avoided and to persist in this is inconsistent with one’s mission as bishop.
The given situation, when I was a child, was that the priests shared the bishop’s mission and there was a bond of Love between them and the same went for the bishops and the Pope. The sensus fidelium can “sense” that things are amiss when good is called bad and bad good. Just a thought…
God forbid a bishop be more faithful to the Truths of Christ in the teachings of the Church than he is to the fashions among the people in the pews. What awful careerism.
I would say that Love is the cause of fidelity and obedience. Fidelity and obedience are signs of love; signs that the branches are still connected to the vine and not cut and stacked for burning. But how does one know what is or is not an injustice? In the same vein as I said before with the “sensus fidelium”, the faithful can see that when a bishop teaches in the name of the Church which is the Body of Christ and yet at the same time disregards what he himself teaches… something is wrong.
Todd, you say “Love can allow people to find grace in unjust circumstances. But it does not abrogate a person of conscience from speaking out against injustice when she or he sees it.” I agree with this statement but it seems to me that the point of import is not finding grace in those unjust circumstances, it is calling the bishop to be faithful to Christ and to tend and feed His sheep as Christ requested of Peter Jn 21:15-17; then and only then will the injustices stop and the shepherd will truly tend his sheep and unite the faithful of the diocese as they were united in the parish in question.
Let’s pray for the Bishop too, after all, there is a disagreement; he is not to be considered an inimicus!
What does “MaChurch” stand for please?
Now that you mentioned what you did there johnb, I have a huge problem with heterodoxy. Pride is no small sin. Sin destroys others… that’s a given. I’ll give you an example of something that really pissed me off. Me being really far from home, my brother having faith in the parish priest, sought the permission from the priest, at the behest of a VERY IMPATIENT WIFE who converted just for the hell of it shortly prior to marriage, sought permission from the priest to have in-vitro fertilization when she was in her mid 20’s and didn’t want to WAIT till she got pregnant again naturally. When I heard about this I wanted to catch a plane, fly home and strangle the priest! SIX months after the twins were born she left all three kids. This was definitely a result of what transpired. This is heterodoxy in action, the hell with Grace. That priest told EVERYONE in the Church, the Holy Spirit is absent, MY ideas are better than the Church’s teachings. Pride is a sin and that is what I see with heterodoxy AND calling good evil and evil good. Heterodoxy is blind to the reality of the Universal Church. When things are shoved down the throats of the Orthodox which are against Church teaching, is that justice, loving, intellectual, reasonable, theologically sound and the list goes on?
Don’t get me wrong Toddly, I aint mad at you! ; ^) Amen!
P.S., Thanks for the definition! It could have been “ma” for my in French. But then in French it would have been “mong them that their sins are forgiven in general absolution. In my opinion this is a mortal sin. Even in the case of a soldier going into battle and who receives general absolution with his fellow soldiers, he must still confess to a priest at the first opportunity. There is no coherence in heterodoxy. The violence done to this person/soul is he is separated from approaching Christ in the Sacrament of Reconciliation/Penance. People should be encouraged to take the road less travelled and not the easy way out. I have seen cases where people drive for over a hundred miles to attend GA services in order to avoid confessing and to still have a clean conscience. Not only that but this type of behavior is disruptive to the parish community and scandalous because if one persuades others to start attending GA services, this person as well suffers the consequences. This is violence to the faithful pure and simple, black and white. Sacraments are not magical powers for priests to do as they will and the desire of the Church is that sacramental confession be an intimate encounter between the penitent and the priest in persona Christi. Ciao, Giulio
Just to make it clear, I do believe that sins are forgiven in GA but the necessity of confessing afterwards exists and it is the pretention that the GA sevice suffices is where we disagree. Just thought I’d clear that one up right off the bat.