Listen To A True Shepherd!

 

 

 

Restore DC Catholicism has a beautiful interview with Father Guarnizo concerning the Synod. The .pdf version is available here. Hat tip to reader Susan Abel. 

Many are the points touched by this truly excellent priest; to mention only some, the proper dimension of the synod, its betrayal by some of the bishops, and his tranquility concerning the fact that the Pope will not try to introduce heretical dogmas. 

On the other hand, it seems clear he has not much confidence in the orthodox virtues of the Pope, and his righteous contempt for “Kasper & Co.” is barely concealed. 

I liked the part about perverts, where he states that the real help is giving by talking and helping them to overcome their perversion – often, he says, due to abuse or a traumatic background; he not justifying of exculpating, mind; merely explaining -. This is, I find, the real pastoral attitude; because this here is a true pastor. 

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Father Guarnizo is rapidly becoming, from his cold exile, a Superstar in the orthodox Catholic firmament. I do not remember hearing from him before his persecution by the hand of that most egregious betrayer of Catholic and Fifth Column of Satan, Cardinal Wuerl. I do not know whether he had a degree of regional or national notoriety before, or whether his brave stance gave it to him. I cannot avoid thinking that whilst he was always very strong in his convictions and clear in his exposition of it, the persecution actually helped him to deepen both his resolve and his effectiveness.

What I seem to notice, is that we have here a true saint in the making; a saintly man further steeled by persecution, and shining through it. The stuff of which, in more Christian times, bishops and Popes would be made.

 

God bless Father Guarnizo. With shepherds like him, we will never get scattered.

Mundabor   

Meet The Anti-Kasperites

Quo vadis?

Father Carota has another not one, but two stellar blog posts about two actual and very grave issues: the persecution of orthodox priests, and the matter of sacrilegious communion.

As to the first one, the title says it all. Wisely, Father understands that the likes of Father Guarnizo  (see here or here about this great priest) are going to be persecuted more and more for being good Catholic priests. Father Carota says it with the usual frankness: 

It seems that the sinner gets all the support and the priests who live and preach their Catholic faith get thrown under the bus by the Church authorities.

Quite. The new “age of mercy” will only reinforce the already existing trend. I don’t want to think what will happen after the Synod in October. Already there are rumours that the “pastoral approach” will not spare anything; not only Communion, but also the teaching of the Church concerning homosexuals, concubines, & Co.

And in fact – and as I have already noticed – if we live in times of such astonishing hypocrisy that two concubines can be admitted to communion because they pretend to live like “brother and sister” whilst, actually, not only having sex but even openly admitting that they do, there’s nothing to prevent two homosexuals from living together in a “chaste relationship” which obviously isn’t, and demand the sup[port and solidarity of the “community”; hey, let us not let facts get in the way of our “pastoral work”. Mundabor, who are you to judge? It is obvious that in this way there is no teaching of the Church that cannot be transformed in its parody.

Which leads us nicely to the other intervention of Father Carota. In this other post, Father Carota says very succinctly that for which I needed to waste so many ASCII characters:

All the saints say that receiving Holy Communion in the state of Mortal Sins is one of the worst sacrilegious sins one can commit.

Fifty years of “Springtime”, and the very basics have gone lost by most. How many who call themselves Catholics would identify themselves with the statement above, I shudder to think.

Jesus is not the priority anymore. Salvation isn’t really an issue, either. If salvation isn’t an issue, the new priority is to make everyone happy, and let them feel “included”.

It’s so difficult to say “no”. Let’s say “yes” instead. Very “pastoral”.

How did Jesus say? “Think not that I am come to send a sword on earth: I came not to send a sword, but peace.” Erm…. I mean… more or less… (cough)… what was I saying? Oh yes: it’s a fine day!…

More and more Catholic priests will, in the years to come, find themselves in the situation of the picture above.  Not an easy one, I admit. But hey, that’s why they are priests.

Let us pray for good and courageous priests, with the guts of Father Guarnizo and Father Carota. There will not be very many of them, but they are those who will preserve sanity in a Church now rapidly going from being drunk of Modernism to being openly stoned, and proud of it.

Mundabor

Stellar Father Guarnizo On Communism, Socialism And Christianity

What follows is a contribution of astonishing clarity – almost unknown-of among V II prelates, particularly now that they are fully in the thrall of the “new humbleness” – of Father Guarnizo on Christianity, Socialism and Communism.

I personally think that he overvalues the danger of Communism per se, but there is no doubt in my mind that he is absolutely spot on on the devastating effect Socialism is having not on ly on European societies – and increasingly more on the US American one – but in misleading too many Catholics, which are in turn indoctrinated to the point they can’t even see authentic Christianity anymore.

I also note Father Guarnizo is now in the diocese of Moscow. You will remember Father Guarnizo is the poor chap stigmatised by Cardinal Wuerl for being a Catholic priest; a Cardinal, by the way, whose career is marching on undisturbed.

There is no doubt Wuerl is one who knows what he must do to have a great career and a quiet life.

Father Guarnizo, on the other hand, seems to me one who knows how to go straight to Heaven.

Please, Lord, more like him…

Emphases and parts within square brackets mine.

Mundabor

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On Christianity, Socialism and Communism

By Rev. Marcel Guarnizo

February 5, 2014

There has been much discussion in recent weeks over the debt of Christianity to—and its compatibility with —the ideas and praxis of the socialist revolution, and even of communism. Many, even in the Catholic Church, believe that we share some of the ideals of the socialist revolution because it seems to them that communism, socialism and Christianity are for the poor. In addition to this most unfortunate error, the opposite fallacy has also been made popular in the minds of many, namely that capitalists and advocates of a free market economy, hate the poor.

But the historical record of communism tells an entirely different story.  I have worked with the countries of the former Soviet Union for over 20 years, and I have seen what communism does to populations and nations. The scourge of the socialist revolution around the world gave us 6 million people killed by artificial famines in Ukraine and, as documented by The Black Book of Communism, 20 million victims in the U.S.S.R., 65 million in China, a million in Vietnam, 2 million in North Korea, another 2 million in Cambodia, a million more in the rest of Eastern Europe, 150,000 in Latin America, 1.7 million in Africa, 1.5 million in Afghanistan and through the international Communist movement and related parties about 100,000 more victims in various nations.  This is a body count that reaches to 100 million victims worldwide. Communism completely destroyed the economy, social fabric, and political culture of dozens of nations. It hollowed out the intelligentsia, ruined every economy where the seed of socialism fully “bloomed,” and abrogated fundamental rights and individual freedoms of the nations it subjugated.  Clearly the Judeo-Christian commandment, “Thou shalt not kill,” is not among the doctrinal teachings of communism and the socialist revolution. It is hard to believe that the socialist revolution—unlike Nazism—still finds promoters and defenders in the West.

The compatibility of Christianity and its legitimate concern for the poor owes nothing to the violent and inhuman regimes created by the socialist revolution. No system in human history has produced more poverty and misery than communism.

No greater foe has the Church ever encountered, than the communist revolution. During the 20th century, hundreds of thousands of religious and priests were sent to forced labor camps or simply executed. Five year plans to abolish religion were implemented and no true believer was ever safe in such nations. What social doctrine of the Church was ever derived from such madness? Communism and the socialist revolution are not only the antithesis of Christianity. They are also incompatible with free, just, and democratic societies.

The case against the “wonders” of the socialist revolution can be put to rest by simply reminding people that brick and mortar walls, guarded by armed soldiers, were necessary to keep people from fleeing the manmade paradise of “social equality” created by communists. As Milton Friedman pointed out, the “…strongest proof of the failure of socialism is the fall of the Berlin Wall.”

Neither is a complex apologia required to explain why there is no substantial difference between socialism and communism. Communism, as American writer Whittaker Chambers documented, is nothing more than socialism with claws. Theoretically the two systems share the same ideals and philosophical framework. Communism simply takes socialism to its logical, final consequences.

The difference between the two was captured well by a joke I once read.  Communists will simply shoot you in the head, but the socialists will make you suffer for a lifetime.

To mount a case against the socialist and the communist would seem completely unnecessary given the historical record. But it is necessary, because, as we see, communism’s ideology continues to ensnare the minds of the West and many of its leaders. Perhaps the statement of Whittaker Chambers, when he decided to defect from his service to the Soviet Union, that he had chosen to join, “… the losing side” is not altogether settled. Many think the fall of the Soviet Union proved Chambers wrong, but I submit that Chambers understood, perhaps more clearly than most, the lasting and insidious nature of the socialist revolution in the West. It seems to me, that the West’s great partial victory against the Soviet Union is far from being final. Though the Soviet Empire has fallen, the West remains in an equally powerful cultural battle, which the architects of the socialist revolution themselves anticipated.

Gramsci’s Tactic: Cultural Hegemony

The socialist revolution in the West has been greatly influenced by the tactics of the Italian communist Antonio Gramsci. Writing in the 1930s, Gramsci recognized that the culture of the West, and in particular, the Catholic Church, stood as robust obstacles to a communist economic and political takeover in Europe. Gramsci proposed that a takeover of the cultural institutions—the achievement of cultural hegemony—was the necessary first step to the eventual takeover of the political and economic structures of a free society.

This strategy meant that socialists should tirelessly work on the takeover over of universities and education, media, churches, and other cultural intermediary structures of the free world. He thought that the eroding of the cultural foundations would weaken a free society’s natural defenses and this would open the path for the economic and political aims of the socialist revolution.

I would submit that the “cultural hegemony” of the socialist revolution is increasing in the West and at an alarming pace. The increasing loss of ground in our culture to socialism and its allies is creating a growing threat to the political and economic freedoms of America and Western democracies.

Therefore, it seems to me, the battle between the free world and the socialist revolution is far from settled.  The errors of communism are legion, and the West should not slumber, as the battle is far from over.

The Errors of Communism

1. 1.   The Error Concerning the Nature of Man

Communism starts not with an economic error but an anthropological one. The economic and political effects of the communist system are but a symptom of a previous error, an error about the nature of man.

The French 19th century political economist and writer Frédéric Bastiat clearly makes the point. Socialism, Bastiat argued, sees man as mere raw material, to be disposed of, to be molded by the “all knowing,” state. In his book, The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism, economist Friedrich von Hayek launches a similar attack on the socialists and their “omniscient state.”  Hayek demonstrated the impotence of the socialist to run an economy

Man is just matter: This materialist vision of man is the first and most profound error of the socialist revolution. The materialist vision of man is what justifies the communists’ insistence that they may legitimately do whatever it takes to achieve their utopia. We must be transformed by the state, into its image and likeness.

This materialist view disregards therefore the true dignity of man and the true nature of the human person—his rationality and free will. The artificial social orders engineered by socialists are completely devoid of a proper understanding of man and the kind of being that he is.

Writes Bastiat, they “… start with an idea that society is contrary to nature; devise contrivances to which humanity can be subjected; lose sight of the fact that humanity has its motive force within itself; consider men as base raw materials; propose to impart to them movement and will, feeling, and life; set oneself apart, immeasurably above the human race—these are the common practices of the social planners. The plans differ; the planners are all alike.”

Socialism and communism are fundamentally contrary to Christianity, for no Christian can hold that man is mere matter. Materialism is the exact opposite of the most basic philosophical and theological assertion of Christianity, namely that man is body and spirit.

Whittaker Chambers identified the essence of the radical revolutionary, the communist, the socialist, the radical progressive, in one key word: change. Writes Chambers, “The revolutionary heart of Communism … is a simple statement of Karl Marx… it is necessary to change the world…The tie that binds them across the frontiers of nations, across barriers of language and differences of class and education, in defiance of religion, morality, truth, law, honor, the weakness of the body and the irresolutions of the mind, even unto death, is a simple conviction: It is necessary to change the world.”

1. 2.   The Error Concerning Man’s Relation to the State

The first fundamental error leads to the second fatal error: Socialism perverts the proper relation between man and the state.

If man is just matter that needs to be molded and transformed to the will of the state (the social engineer), then indeed man is entirely subservient to the state. In this view, man is born to serve the state, from cradle to grave. Catholic social doctrine holds to the precisely opposite vision: the state exists to serve man

1. 3.   The Error Concerning Private Property

Communism, even for the amateur reader of its doctrine, considers private property a great evil in society.  Since that is the theory, dispossessing millions of people of their land and putting to death untold millions more, for simply having more than others, has been the common practice of communist regimes.

The Catholic Church has always held private property to be a great good in society and has defended man’s right to private ownership as fundamentally good and compatible with man’s nature, freedom, and dignity. The Church also recognizes private property as a right absolutely necessary for the proper order and functioning of free societies. Respect for one’s neighbor’s private property rights is foundational to the Judeo-Christian doctrine.  The abolition of private property under communism violates the great commandment, “Thou shalt not steal.”

This disregard for private property rights continues in our day. In 2008, the socialist President of Argentina, Cristina Kirchner, seized $29 billion of the private retirement savings of Argentinean workers, to use for what the London Telegraph described as “a funding kitty” for her socialist schemes.  The Wall Street Journal characterized Kirchner’s move as “cracking open the piggybank of the nation’s private pension system.” Thou shall not steal, Kristina.

The culture of envy fostered by class-warfare violates yet another commandment, the 10^th, “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s goods.” To create covetousness and the willingness to dispossess those who have more is fundamentally anti-Christian.

1. 4.   The Error Concerning the Function of Government

Communism and socialism pervert the proper function of government. If man is just an inert piece of matter and is completely subservient to the state, then clearly he is incapable by his own ingenuity, entrepreneurship, abilities, and efforts, with his own failures and successes, to create anything worthwhile in society. Therefore the state, instead of protecting the framework in which man and associations can flourish, must become a social engineer, to change man, and mold him to its utopian ideals. The state proceeds to artificially create the particular conditions and relations required by ideology to achieve the utopian goals of equality and happiness for all. But the proper role of the state is not to make us happy in accordance with its own warped designs.

Since this is not easily accomplished, given that man is free and seeks happiness on his own terms, much coercion is necessary. This includes not only the coercion of the Red Army, but procedural coercion, coercion by penalties and taxation, by the use of governmental powers to force the non-compliant to comply. All of this is completely incompatible with Christianity and a free society.

1. 5.   The Error Concerning the Function of Law

Communism and socialism pervert the function of law. The rule of law under the communists and their fellow travelers is no longer a useful framework in which each man may operate freely to achieve his ends and goals. It is no longer a light to the mind, a work of reason designed to help order political and social life, forbidding the things that war against a free and just society. For the communist, law becomes a mere instrument of coercion to bend and force citizens to comply with the warped vision of society’s rulers.

Bastiat put it this way: “Socialists desire to practice ‘legal’ plunder…they desire to make the law their own weapon.”

1. 6.   The Error Concerning Christian Charity

Communism and socialism war against Christian charity.

The socialist revolution depends on so-called class warfare. This artificial warfare, in its many forms—owners of the means of production vs. the laborers, the rich vs. poor, the landowners vs. workers—is the engine that moves society toward the goals of socialism, toward the perfect egalitarian society. The principle of class warfare is flatly and completely contrary to Christianity.

Class warfare, race warfare, gender warfare, generational warfare—and all the other new rubrics for dividing citizens from one another—are intrinsically contrary to the Christian Gospel. Socialists use them all to erode the foundations of Western civilization. Socialist tactics strive to fan the flames of hatred, discord and resentment in society. They seek to create a “culture of envy” and mistrust. They therefore permanently injure the social fabric and harmony of society. Envy, the socialist “virtue,” is considered a capital sin in the Church’s doctrine. Socialism, with its class warfare, could not be more incompatible with the Church’s teaching that charity and justice are the great binding forces in society.

1. 7.   Errors Concerning the Family and Social Institutions

Communism and socialism are inimical to the family and those organizations which function as intermediary structures between the state and the individual in society. Anyone who has experienced communism need not have such an obvious matter explained. The communists without hesitation separated children from their families, mercilessly indoctrinated them and made their choice of trade or work simply a matter for a communist bureaucrat to decide. They praised and rewarded children who had denounced their parents for deviating from the doctrine and dictates of the party. This is an illegitimate intrusion on the rights of parents. Catholic social doctrine has always held that the parents, not the state, are the primary educators of children.

The Church upholds the principle of subsidiarity, which teaches that intermediary structures between the state and the citizenry must be allowed freedom to carry out their proper functions in society.  These associations are a natural buffer between the state and the individual. The principle of subsidiarity guards associations, the family, and the individual against those who would promote unlimited government and their greed for power.

The current assault of the Obama administration’s Health and Human Services against Catholic healthcare institutions should surprise no one. The socialist state is required to eliminate its strongest competitors to gain greater control. The state, as it is seeking to control the health sector, one-sixth of the U.S. economy, aims to displace the Catholic Church and its mediating institutions. The state is resorting to procedural violence in order to force them to comply or renounce their right to serve the poor and the sick. Comply or get out of the way. So much for caring for the poor.

Required: A United Defense

We see that the communist and socialist state incessantly seeks to attenuate the economic, political, and cultural freedoms of each and every citizen. Therefore, communist errors concerning the nature of man and his relation to the state provide compelling motivation for opposition across the anti-communist political spectrum. All those engaged in the promotion of freedom should seek the common aim of defeating the ever increasing power of the state. Libertarians would be wise to defend the rights of the Catholic Church in its present battle against Obamacare, for in doing so, they fight to keep a safety net over the larger part of society and the individual. The fight here is not about doctrine, but about freedom for all. There is a strategic need for unity among conservatives, libertarians, and classical liberals, at this critical moment when freedom for all is threatened by the state. To continue to loose cultural freedoms is what permits, as Gramsci foresaw, the ever increasing loss in economic and political freedom.

Bastiat, in illustrating the need to defend the social order, urged a fusion of the proper defense of economic freedom and the cultural freedoms in society. The economic, cultural, and social freedoms rise and fall together, and must be defended as one. Social conservatives need to realize that if we lose economic freedom we will lose more political and cultural freedoms and therefore economics really matters. But libertarians and others should see that, by curtailing our cultural freedom, the government is gaining the ability to curtail economic freedom.

Bastiat, in his time, also urged for unity against the common foes of freedom. Speaking of the defenders of the correct conclusions in realm of economics and the defenders of virtue, religion, and ethics in society, he explained, “These two systems of ethics, instead of engaging in mutual recrimination, should be working together to attack evil at each of its poles.”

This nightmare of communism recurs in part because of our failure to theoretically dismantle the lies of the socialist revolution in the West.  If this is not done well, on a fundamentally philosophical basis, we will be repeatedly assaulted by new propagandists, who—while admitting communism’s past failures in practice—once again claim that the theory is sound and therefore that the human experiment of the socialist revolution ought to be tried again.  But human beings are not proper subjects of experimentation for political ideologues. We must therefore teach that the theory is erroneous, and deadly. Morally, we cannot afford more corpses to show its devastating effects in practice.

A philosophically sound and united defense by all defenders of freedom is needed at this time.

Justice for the Poor

At a practical level, the first duty of the Christian, before jumping into the arena of social policy vis-à-vis the poor, is not good intentions or a loving heart for the poor. The first necessary requirement in justice is competence.  Social policy for the poor requires sound economic theory. Bad economic theory leads only to further errors in practice, which hurt the poor.

Good intentions alone do not make one competent in economic or social policy.  Simply having a loving heart for the sick does not grant the doctor moral authorization to perform surgery on them.  The surgeon must be competent before he picks up his scalpel. An easy indictment of capitalism and free-markets is wrong-headed and empirically inaccurate. This sort of incompetence in economic theory has hurt, and is hurting, the poor. [Francis can take that and bring it home…]. 

Believers must also make clear distinctions regarding action. There is a difference between feeding the poor and alleviating poverty per se. The latter requires the creation of economic wealth. Aiding the poor is a corporal work of mercy in the Catholic Church and it is a good to be freely exercised. But feeding the poor is quite different from alleviating poverty. If we feed a poor beggar on the street, he will remain equally poor even as he consumes the bread we have offered. Food aid to the poor does not create economic networks and economic activity capable of alleviating his poverty.

Mother Teresa was in the business of feeding and caring for the poor but she was not in the complicated business of alleviating poverty. The latter takes economic networks, entrepreneurship, creativity of a different kind, and technical know-how concerning the economy, the markets and financial policy.

Unless the poor are incorporated into economic networks, they will always be in need. To create economic networks, society requires entrepreneurship, risk takers, profit and loss, and―most important―employment. Without a job, the poor man will always be poor.

Asking people to seek a job and work has become almost taboo in the present day. Food stamps are so much easier.  It is important to help the poor, but to create systematic dependency for political gain is wicked. The state loves easy handouts, since they do not pay for them and they garner votes.

Furthermore, the easy handouts obfuscate an objective view and evaluation of failed socialist economic policies.  Socialists, as former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher put it, are delaying the inevitable day of reckoning―which is “…running out of other people’s money.”   The façade of benevolence may win votes, but it certainly does not help the poor.

Many fail to understand that the Church has always taught what  entrepreneurs know: There is a great sense of dignity in work. Since every man is a moral agent, men should not be deprived of the responsibility and adventure of forging their own paths.  Caring for the poor is necessary, but intentionally increasing dependence is immoral and contrary to the Gospel teaching. It is an injustice to perpetuate economic arrangements that deprive man from working.

One could mount further arguments against the thesis that the social doctrine of the Catholic Church owes something to communism and its many incarnations.  But I will conclude my arguments with the simple assertion that communism’s utopia, in which all men are equal and poverty would disappear, is a dangerous and inhuman illusion.  Poverty cannot be completely eradicated from the face of the earth.  Our Lord Himself taught, “The poor will always be with you.”  If this profound lesson were internalized, the regimes of lethal utopia would be far less enticing.

To Truly Help the Poor

Christian charity and free market entrepreneurship are not only compatible, but necessary to truly aid the poor.

Christian charity strives for the moral betterment of man, and the advancement of our neighbor out of love.  For believers, these are works of religion, which many men and women of good will willingly and freely undertake.  Forcing people “to do good” is the death of the virtue of charity, as charity must always be freely exercised.

But a second factor is equally needed to alleviate poverty: entrepreneurs and the free-market system.  These offer the possibility of a greater and more lasting solution to the problem of poverty.  Creating jobs and industry is a great good, and to diminish the possibilities for entrepreneurs and the private sector and claim the façade of virtue in doing so, is pure folly. Entrepreneurs and the business class do more in the United States for the Church and for vital issues to society, than anywhere else in the world.

The two great lies of socialists and communists, that they are the champions of the poor and that they are the real “Christians” of our time, are myths that ought to be unmasked by all believers. For no regime has ever visited more poverty, death and suffering upon humanity. Civilization has seen clearly what this revolutionary change looks like and we would all be well advised to remember as  philosopher George Santayana warned—“those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

The West has had enough of revolutionaries and utopians. It is time for them and their supporters to pipe down and own up to their failures and crimes.

Rev. Guarnizo is a Roman Catholic priest of the diocese of Moscow. He is also a member of the Mont Pelerin society, founded by F. A. Hayek.

Now Anglicans Have Their Own Guarnizo

Too divisive for the so-called (Anglican) bishop of Southwark.

In a moment of desperation, you may think only Catholic bishops may be so ill with political correctness as to suspend one of their own because he had the temerity of defending Christian values, as Cardinal Wuerl did with poor Father Guarnizo. Still, a moment of quiet reflection would then rapidly persuade you if the Only Church has such people, the church imitations scattered around will probably not be immune from them.

This is what has now happened with the organisation calling herself “Church of England”. The churchofenglanders apparently have “lay preachers”, and I assume these are people who talk at length to their faithful about Christianity, probably outside of a liturgical setting.

From what I understand, the status of lay preachers must be reviewed and confirmed every year; which makes sense, because if the lay preacher has left his wife to live more uxorio with the fruity coworker, or suddenly start to talk about the holiness of so-called civil partnerships, even the CoErs will probably decide to put an end to his preaching. Up to here, all should be rather logical.

Where things become somewhat surprising is where a chap who has been a lay-preacher for 50 years is suddenly suspended because he dared to defend marriage. The heretical, but rather well-written blog Cranmer informs us a lay preacher for 50 years was suspended just for that. This being the so-called church of England things were, of course, rather slimy, and more than a bit oily.

Let us see the concatenation of events: lay preacher suggests the faithful support the coalition for marriage; some other lay preachers disagree with him (Yes! Yes!! They disagree with him!.. I know!!) and then run to the prof to say how wicked he was. The prof (in this case calling himself archdeacon; but this is irrelevant, as they all have no valid orders anyway) then informs the poor chap he is suspended for two months; no wait, this is the so-called coE, and nothing is made openly and with clear words. The poor preacher is, then, told he is not to preach for two months, but he is not suspended; erm, well, not really, is he now? He just can’t preach, which is different… of course…. I mean…. right?

This “suspension that is a suspension” is ordered so that the controversy may abate, but the unChristian lay preachers are not suspended.

When above mentioned Cranmer (the blogger) points out to the fact, the matter enlarges itself. In the meantime, the poor lay preacher silenced for being Christian and defending marriage (which is the official position of the so-called c of E, so far as they can ever have a position) has recurred to the head master (in the c of E, they call themselves “bishops”; see above) and the headmaster has said the prof hasn’t really suspended the pupil, has he now…. and we only want to give everyone time to reflect… and we shouldn’t quarrel about such secondary things as Christian values… so divisive, you see…. and yes, he can’t speak, but really this is not due to him being a Christian, but is rather to do with…erm…aahh.. other issues….

Really, who does this head master think he is: Cardinal Wuerl?

Mundabor

Feed the Hungry?

Why Father Guarnizo Is Right

R.I.P.

To a simple mind like mine, Father Guarnizo is right because he has done what every good priest, in every age of the Church, would  have done in his place.

Alas, it would seem that just because Canon 915 was written in order to achieve exactly the aim the Church wanted to achieve without Canon 915 for almost two thousand years, it is now allowed or even mandatory to examine whether really, really, really all conditions called for by Canon 915 to refuse communion were present.

I truly wonder. It is as if in front of a canonical text people would say “let us stop thinking for a moment, and let us examine the dispositions of the Canon as if they existed in a purely theoretical  vacuum”. The fact is, they don’t. They exist in the real world, and they exist to express a need that was there before Canon 915 was written, and because of which it was written in the first place. When in presence of a lesbian who openly declares her homosexual relationship to a priest before a ceremony consisting of, among others, a couple of dozen of her relatives there are still doubts whether said priest should protect the Host from desecration, I truly wonder what has become of us. 

 Still, in case you are not satisfied with what the basic common sense and the Christian logic of the last two thousand years should have suggested you, and want to spend some time reading a very detailed, extremely well argued and, most importantly, adherent to common sense and common Catholic feeling explanation of canon 915, you have to do nothing more than to click the following links:

Father Anonymous’ canonical defence of father Guarnizo,

and

The reply of “Fr Anonymous” to the objection to his intervention

Both text are absolutely impressive not only in the rigorous logic and spotless foundation of every steps he takes, but in the exemplary clarity of the language used. Whoever he is, this Fr Anonymous is a cannon.

The arguments used as clarification in the second post are, in my eyes, clear enough already from the reading of the first post, so that you may skip the second post without detriment to the clarity of Fr Anonymous’ argument. For example, in my eyes the idea a woman would live in a lesbian relationship with another woman at the point of bringing her “lover” to her mother’s funeral, but without her lesbian concubinage being known among her siblings and relatives – at the latest at the funerals, and applying basic common sense a long time before – is completely preposterous. Beside the fact we do not exactly have to do with a shy wallflower here, when things have come to such a point of brazenness if you would pretend with me the relatives didn’t know and – even in this absurd case – wouldn’t know at the funeral at the latest I would seriously ask you what’s wrong with you. From the beginning, it seems to me that basic common sense was the first victim of this controversy. 

Still, the two posts give a clear, detailed explanation of why Father Guarnizo acted in conformity of Canon 915 (which is as to say: why Canon 915 does nothing else than translate in a canonical norm elementary Christian rules of behaviour concerning the Most Blessed Sacrament).  You will find the reading extremely interesting not only because so well written, but because so intrinsically sound.

Fr Anonymous raises a second question, the conformity to Canon law of the measures taken against Fr Guarnizo. I have not dealt about it here, but the argument in favour of Father Guarnizo is not less cogent than in the matter of his denying communion to the lesbian female.

Once again, this squabble reminded me of one of Father Corapi’s most lovable quotes (also to be found in my “quotable Catholic”):

 My grandmother, who had only an eighth grade education, knew more than many theologians because she knew the truth.

Mundabor

On Father Guarnizo Again

Repetita Iuvant

Excellent blog post from George Neumayr at the American Spectator (a magazine I link to; there aren’t many).

In the Guarnizo affair, it appears Wuerl was the real engine of Father Guarnizo’s, well, undeserved punishment, and the man on whom the  blame must be apportioned. I wasn’t there, of course, but as I tend to believe (sinner that I am) a priest with a spotless reputation rather than a lesbian wannabe Buddhist activist, and there’s no doubt in my mind Guarnizo did what he had to do, did it as quietly as he could, and is now punished for having acted as a true priest should.

Some of the most interesting passages from this interesting blog post:

Cardinal Wuerl’s silence is deafening. He still hasn’t commented directly on his baldly unjust “administrative leave” order to Fr. Marcel Guarnizo. Nor has he explained to the faithful why Barbara Johnson, the self-described practicing lesbian and Buddhist to whom Fr. Guarnizo properly denied Communion, enjoys a canonical right to the sacred species.

Perversely, Cardinal Wuerl has at once violated the canonical rights of a faithful priest while inventing out of thin air a “policy” that orders his subordinates to distribute the Eucharist to anti-Catholic activists and defiant mortal sinners.

The word “pastoral” should make the faithful groan at this point. It is one of the great weasel words of the “spirit of Vatican II” Church in America. The word “pastoral” invariably dribbles from the lips of bishops like Cardinal Wuerl who regularly expose their flocks to wolves. Jesus Christ said that the “good shepherd” watches the gate. Cardinal Wuerl’s “policy” is to leave it wide open for the Church’s fiercest enemies. This is why the Pelosis and the Barbara Johnsons just keep coming up for Communion. Since Cardinal Wuerl refuses to control the sacrament, they will.

A Church official who has watched Wuerl’s persecution of Fr. Guarnizo with horror commented to me that if Jesus Christ had served in Cardinal Wuerl’s archdiocese “he would be on administrative leave too.” Unlike the Cardinal Wuerls, Christ never felt the need to play patty cake with the enemies of the Church. He liked struggling sinners but not unrepentant ones who seek to defile his temple.

I have no desire to participate in this worldly game of ring-kissing in which the Cardinal Wuerls wallow. They enjoy the trappings of their office without actually exercising it for the good of souls. They demand 13th-century obedience while behaving like 21st-century flakes who play church in costume and staff.

As St. Augustine said, God does not need our “lies.” He needs our truth-telling, even if that truth-telling means wounding the egos of derelict successors to his disciples.

Kudos to Mr Neumayr and the American Spectator. This culture of “sensitivity” has to stop, and be replaced with a culture of Catholicity instead.

What being “sensitive” leads to is under everyone’s eyes.

Mundabor

Father Guarnizo Speaks

Brave Priest, therefore expendable to please the non-Catholic masses: Father Guarnizo.

This man is good, and he clearly lost patience with being both misinterpreted in public, and mistreated from the auxiliary bishop.

The highlights:

On Saturday February 25th I showed up to officiate at a funeral Mass for Mrs. Loetta Johnson. The arrangements for the Mass were also not my own. I wish to clarify that Ms. Barbara Johnson (the woman who has since complained to the press), has never been a parishioner of mine. In fact I had never met her or her family until that morning.

The funeral celebration was to commence at 10:30a.m. From 9:30 to 10:20, I was assigned to hear confessions for the parish and anyone in the funeral party who would have chosen to receive the sacrament.

A few minutes before the Mass began, Ms. Johnson came into the sacristy with another woman whom she announced as her “lover”. Her revelation was completely unsolicited. As I attempted to follow Ms.Johnson, her lover stood in our narrow sacristy physically blocking my pathway to the door. I politely asked her to move and she refused.

The brazenness of the fat, ugly lesbian and her (allegedly, as she can block an entrance with her mere presence) not entirely slender “lover” is beyond contempt. But most importantly, the woman throws her lesbianism in the Father’s face.

Father Guarnizo again:

I understand and agree it is the policy of the Archdiocese to assume good faith when a Catholic presents himself for communion; like most priests I am not at all eager to withhold communion. But the ideal cannot always be achieved in life.

In the past ten days, many Catholics have referenced canon 915 in regard to this specific circumstance. There are other reasons for denying communion which neither meet the threshold of canon 915 or have any explicit connection to the discipline stated in that canon.

If a Quaker, a Lutheran or a Buddhist, desiring communion had introduced himself as such, before Mass, a priest would be obligated to withhold communion. If someone had shown up in my sacristy drunk, or high on drugs, no communion would have been possible either.  If a Catholic, divorced and remarried (without an annulment) would make that known in my sacristy, they too according to Catholic doctrine, would be impeded from receiving communion. This has nothing to do with canon 915. Ms. Johnson’s circumstances are precisely one of those relations which impede her access to communion according to Catholic teaching. Ms. Johnson was a guest in our parish, not the arbiter of how sacraments are dispensed in the Catholic Church.

This man is full of common sense. If you say yourself you can’t receive, then you can’t receive, full stop.In this case, the lady had openly admitted to be in mortal sin, and to give scandal with her openly admitted perverted “relationship”. Truly, either this is the end of the discussion of we must wonder what is wrong with us.

Note Father says confession was open to the lady on the morning. I doubt in case of serious confession and sincere intent to reform her life, Father Guarnizo would have refused communion. But she didn’t, so he did. Good man.

  Under these circumstances, I quietly withheld communion, so quietly that even the Eucharistic Minister standing four feet from me was not aware I had done so.  (In fact Ms. Johnson promptly chose to go to the Eucharistic minister to receive communion and did so.) There was no scandal, no “public reprimand” and no small lecture as some have reported.

If there were more like Father Guarnizo and less like Bishop Knestout,  the Church in the US would be in much better shape.

Mundabor

Politically Incorrect Cartoon

Courtesy of www.thepulp.it and www.catholiccartoonblog.blogspot.com

Lesbian Woman: Father Knestout,Washington Archdiocese, Gives Scandal

Don't show this to children: Johann Hari on steroids; actually a woman called barbara Johnson.

I never thought I’d see the day someone asks for the priest to be fired because he doesn’t give communion to an unrepentant lesbian.

Most tragically, I never thought I’d see the day another priest would scold the lack of “pastoral sensitivity” of the first priest. If you ask me, it is priest number 2 who should be fired.

The New York Daily News has a whining article about a monster looking like Johann Hari on steroids. This circus article had a catholic funeral of her deceased mother, apparently a devout Catholic.

Fine. She had her funeral, though, didn’t she?

The trouble started when the lesbian daughter of the deceased, a lesbian of many years with the relevant “I truly think I am going to hell” look, thought that being at her mother funeral gave her right to receive communion.

Father Guarnizo, who seem to care for his job, refused to do so, even stooping so low as to tell the “woman” why she would not receive communion, something as a Catholci she should know like the Hail Mary. This, the good Father did, methinks, in an extremely, nay perhaps too gentle way.

You can read here the emotional report of the journalist (I have checked: a woman) stating the lesbian was “clearly distraught” (not,mind, at being a pervert looking like a joke; but at being denied Communion….) and describing the prompt reaction of her brother, who “immediately walked over” to assist the poor (one can say it) wretch.

If the story had ended here, there would be nothing much to report: “openly perverted woman is refused communion” shouldn’t even make headlines. The problem his, the circus article complained to the Archdiocese of Washington, probably asserting her “right” to receive communion (which is too absurd to mention) or perhaps meaning that even if the Church doesn’t give communion to openly practising lesbians looking like Johann Hari, she should do so at her mother’s funeral (even more absurd).

And here is where the scandal happened, because some “sensitive”, cowardly priest called Barry Knestout is said to have written a letter with these words:

“I am sorry that what should have been a celebration of your mother’s life, in light of her faith in Jesus Christ, was overshadowed by a lack of pastoral sensitivity,

“I hope that healing and reconciliation with the Church might be possible for you and any others who were affected by this experience. In the meantime, I will offer Mass for the happy repose of your mother’s soul. May God bring you and your family comfort in your grief and hope in the Resurrection.”

Apart from the usually stupid refrain of the “celebration” progressive priests can really not live without, this chap seems to think giving communion is a matter of “sensitivity”. Heavens, when I was a child every child knew if you are in mortal sin you can’t receive communion, but Father Knestout has not been made aware of the circumstance or, more probably, doesn’t care two straws. I can also tell you from experience reported to me by friends, that even today, in XXI century Italy, being a public unrepentant sinner (say: convivence more uxorio; and we are not even talking of perverts here) is considered obviously sufficient for the priest to deny communion, and no one blinks. “Sensitivity” is what Father Knestout cares about, not Christ; neither can he see that if the woman was really “distraught” this might be what saves her from hell, towards which she is most surely directed. There can be no doubt the woman had made her “lifestyle” public, apparently even apprearign at the function with her “lover” and introducing her as such. For Heaven’s sake, if one can’t refuse communion in such cases, when then….

Note also here “healing and reconciliation” doesn’t mean the lesbian repenting and starting to live a halfway decent life; it means Father Knestout hopes the pervert will overcome the shock of being told she cannot receive Communion. In the Archdiocese of Washington, it appears, communion is a right and to refuse it “against church policy”.

Once again, if someone should be kicked out it is the likes of Father Knestout. And please, please let us stop being always so damn  “sensitive” with these tools, shall we? If you are an unrepentant practising lesbian you can’t receive communion, period. 

What is so difficult to understand in this?

Mundabor

EDIT: some changes in this rather shocking story. It appears father Barry Knestout is auxiliary bishop in the Washington diocese. This I got from other sources, and (for what it’s worth) Wikipedia confirms.