Gerald posts some excerpts from hotly anticipated online chat with Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles. Some of the questions were predictably gushing, although he did take some of the “hard” questions (although certainly not the hardest. Here’s one (including Gerald’s editorial interpolations):
Joe: Hello Cardinal. With the growing interest in traditional worship of the Catholic Church are we going to see a more generous use of the Traditional Latin Mass?
CardinalMahony: It is not correct to say “traditional worship” in our Church. For a small slice of Church history (a SMALL slice ???), Latin was the language of Mass. But the Council moved us beyond that to a new Roman Missal (that is a very misleading answer. The Council said that vernacular MAY be used, not MUST be used). We must continue forward with the Church. However, it is important to bring with us our Latin hymns and other treasures from the past ages.
He also said that the bishop can give permission for the use of glass and ceramic for sacred vessels, although Redemptionis Sacramentum leaves no such loophole. On liturgical dance, he said it must be tasteful and lead to deeper prayer and reflection, not to applause. Apart from the fact that liturgical dance has also be forbidden by the Vatican, there’s not much worry about it being tasteful or leading to applause.
He equates immigration reform with debates over abortion and euthanasia, in clear contradiction to Popes John Paul and Benedict, both of whom said that these issues rise above all other life issues in importance. (Pope Benedict reiterated this just in the past week.) By the way, can anyone recall Mahony making a clear anti-abortion statement without watering it down or equating it with other issues?
If you can stomach it, the whole chat is available.
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Actually, the whole religious education congress web site is not responding.
This man exemplifies the heterodoxy in the US hierarchy. He is an embarrassment to the present Holy Father as he was to Pope JP2.
A Catholic with any sense of orthodoxy of himself realizes that this man is a disgrace to the Holy Roman Church. The litany of Mohony’s failures would be too long to list. Some of which would of course include his legal maneuvers to save his skin in the question of the priests sexual abuse scandals; not to mention, his failure to have more than one to five ordinations per year in an archdiocese of its size. Nor should we forget his support of pro-abortion politicians. How about his “hosting of Call to Action Conferences?
It absolutely baffles me why any Vicar of Christ would keep this man in the position that he holds.