Useful Quotes For Father Corapi’s Use

From my little collection of sayings under “the Quotable Catholic”, some intelligent quotes that would, I think, be very useful for Father Corapi.

Here they are.

When you crash against the rock, you will not damage the rock but you will hurt yourself.
Fr Corapi

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

Our arms are too short to box with God.
Fr Corapi

The definition of heresy is, ‘pick and choose’.
Fr Corapi

It is easy to praise the Lord when everything is going alright. Just let us stub our toe and see if the praise still continues.
Fr Corapi

If He went through torture and crucifixion, then how could we not put up with criticism.
Fr Corapi

Don’t mess with a strong man’s bride.
Fr Corapi

Mundabor

Father Corapi’s Entertainment Value Is On The Rise

Sheep Dog. Positively un-creepy.

I must say that I like Father Corapi’s voice. Warm, masculine, self-assured, he is the contrary of the effeminate half-men you hear all too often in Catholic churches.

I must also say, though, that after his latest audio message (aptly called “unleashed”: this tells you already what is happening to him) this might soon remain the only thing I like in him.
He needs our prayers, true. But it is also certain that he needs to stop spitting on the Church, playing the victim, and talking of vague conspiracies.

The audio message released today is aimed at the following objectives:

1) minimise the “change”. Hey, he has been a preacher most of the time, so what if he abandons his clerical garb. Hey, holy orders are a sacrament, and the sacrament remains even if he reneges on it. In short, we are asked to believe that almost nothing changes, he is merely going to give communion never again instead of very rarely. Sorry to say that, but I never thought I’d see the day when a Catholic priest says such sacrilegious tosh. Besides, as far as I know a priest must celebrate Mass every day, even if no one is there. I might be wrong, but I don’t think I am.

2) Shooting at the Church. This is getting weirder and weirder now as he first makes some very easy, but very childish accusations (basically, the usual “conspiracy” from non better identified people in power who want him dead, destroyed, annihilated; some very heavy adjectives are used here) and secondly he throws a lot of toys out of the pram by claiming that he has never been helped from the Church in the past: on one occasion when a woman accused him of sexual impropriety in Milwaukee (chap earns a lot of money through his publishing activity, but he wants the church to foot the bill of the legal controversies arising from such activity), and then we are informed that he ran medical bills of $ 100,000 in three years (when, I did not gather) for which a wealthy man also expects the Church to foot the bill. Help me here, because I am lost.

3) Explaining his lawsuit. He goes into the question of the proceeding against the woman accusing him and here things get more and more strange. On the one hand, he says that the woman and her husband are certifiable alcoholics, who have already attacked the staff of his publishing company; that they have basically blackmailed him and after he didn’t want to pay have fired their cannons at him. In short, he claims that they are not credible in the least. But he fails to explain how such obviously weak accusers should then manage to cause to him any serious damage, let alone destroy him. Oh yeah, I forgot: there’s a conspiracy, remember?

I am truly sorry that sincere Catholics are more and more pushed into a position of antagonism toward the Church by a man now clearly bent on a route of self-sufficiency and – possibly, let’s hope not – self-destruction. He is clearly showing that he will continue to attack the Church – by at the same time asking people to love her; funny, that – and to accuse her for all the inexcusable stuff with which he is entertaining us.

God knows I liked the man. But he has clearly lost his head. I would ignore him, but I can’t see why when some atheist throws mud at the Church we are supposed to react, and when a former successful preacher does exactly the same we should stay put. As long as Corapi will be able to mobilise public feelings we will have to make clear that what he is doing is very wrong. When the world has forgotten him there will be no reason to comment on his strange persecution manias anymore.

I have criticised the absurdity of the present church system many times in the past months; but frankly, if the man thinks that he can behave the way he is behaving I am not sure that his accusers are the only ones who drink too much. The devil is doing a fine job, for sure, but it doesn’t seem to me that he is posing much resistance.

My rosary of this evening belongs to him. Creepy dog or no creepy dog.

Mundabor

 

Bishop Emeritus Of Corpus Christi On The Corapi Affair

This is the text to be found on Father Corapi’s website. it comes from the former Bishop of Corpus Christi, Rene’ Gracida.

The text deserves to be read in its entirety:

The public controversy over the announcement of the accusations against Father John Corapi, SOLT, and his suspension from exercising his priestly ministry offers an opportunity to reflect on the flawed procedure apparently being followed in too many dioceses of the United States these days in the case of a priest accused of sexual misconduct not involving minors. The procedure is flawed because it inflicts grave injustice on the priest and serves as a deterrent to young men thinking of offering themselves as candidates for the priesthood.

The procedure operates something like this. A person accuses a priest of sexual misconduct (again, not involving a minor). The priest is immediately suspended from active exercise of his priestly ministry while an investigation is launched into the truth or falsity of the accusations.

There is no need for a public announcement to be made that gives the name of the priest and the fact of the accusation and the suspension, and yet, all to often such a public announcement is made. Such public announcement by a diocese almost always results in media exploitation of the news in a sensational manner to the detriment of the Catholic Church and its priesthood. It seems that rarely, if ever, is mention is made in the announcement of the name of the accuser.

The investigation may take days or months or years to complete. In the meantime the priest’s reputation is effectively destroyed and perhaps he is ‘thrown out on the street’ with no means of support. The accuser, on the other hand, enjoys anonymity and suffers no loss of reputation or negative material consequences and in the case of an accusation later proven to have been false the injustice to priest is great.

In cases where the priest is accused of having used force (rape or some other form of involuntary abuse) there is some justification for not publishing the name of the accuser. But, where there is reason to believe that the alleged sexual misconduct was effected through mutual consent there is no justification for not publishing the name of the accuser. Under the present procedure it is too easy for a person to allege sexual misconduct (again not involving minors) for a variety of possible unworthy motives: revenge, hope for monetary gain, hostility to the Catholic Faith, etc. Such is reported to have been the case of the accusation against Father Corapi. The only safe way to guard against damaging the reputation of individual priests and the Catholic priesthood in general is to not publish the name of an accused priest until an investigation has proved beyond doubt the guilt of the priest.

The Bishop does not intervene to say that Corapi is innocent, and rightly so. He points out, though, to the absurdity of the current praxis: priest exposed, accused protected in his anonimity (we still don’t know the name of the lady; but we all know that Father Corapi is suspended), great danger of permanent reputation damage and all this, in a case where minors are not involved.

It is refreshing to see a former Bishop intervene in favour of common sense. Bishop Gracida goes so far as to suggest that even the fact that an investigation has taken place should only be divulged after (and if) the priest in question has been found guilty. We are not talking of matters involving the police or the criminal courts here anyway.

Yup, makes sense to me.

Mundabor

On The Father Corapi Affair.

I have already written about Father Corapi. I truly like the man. I think he is one of the finest preachers around. In my “The Quotable Catholic” section he is rather well represented, though probably much less than he deserves.

Father Corapi has now been put on administrative leave. At this point (and this is what makes it rather difficult to write about it) we don’t know much about the exact circumstances. What we know, though, from Father Corapi himself is that a former employee has written a letter to several bishops accusing him of misconduct on a vast series of accounts (drugs and women seem to be prominent, though) and that as a result he has been suspended pending investigation.

Just for the record, please note that:

1) No misconduct on minor is involved in any way and 2) no criminal offences are involved in any way (which sound strange to me, considering that drug use from the former drug addict Corapi would seem to be part of the accusations).

I would like to point out, here, a very important concept that, it seems to me, is too often lost when such events are discussed. A man is a good Catholic preacher when he succeeds in properly communicating the Catholic Truth and thus helps others on their way to God. Whether he is a saint or a sinner (better said: in what degree he is a sinner, as we all are) is something which will impact his own soul at the moment of death, but certainly does not impact the Truth he goes around preaching, nor the good he spreads around by doing it.

I don’t need to believe that a person is a saint to feel encouraged to do as he says. If he is able to encourage and motivate me, this is enough. If he is also a saint, good for him, but this doesn’t make the truths he says any more true.

Corapi is – as a preacher – a fine pearl of Catholicism. Besides his life being a beautiful witness of Catholic courage (a fact that, as I have said, is not in the first line here), his way of explaining the Catholic teaching is what makes him so rare and such an effective help to Catholic evangelisation.

We must always separate the Truths a preacher talks about, from the degree in which he is able to adhere to them. First of all no one will ever be able to completely adhere to them, and secondly the truths would become not one iota less true even if the preacher should, say, turn out to be a homosexual child rapist who earned a second income in a brothel whilst selling crack to fund his alcoholism.

If your excellent history teacher at school turned out to be an alcoholic, this didn’t make him any less good at teaching history, nor history any less true because he drank.

Having said that, we don’t know and pending an investigation, I think that even Father Corapi wouldn’t be angry at us for saying “I like you a lot but as I don’t know you personally, I can’t start screaming your innocence right now”.

Others have made a comparison with Maciel, but as I like Corapi a lot I prefer to make a comparison with Padre Pio, more or less horribly slandered (and certainly seriously damaged in his reputation) not for days or months, but for years. A famous episode concerned his being accused of profiting of his role as confessor to get sexual favours from a certain woman; it turned out that the accusation had been motivated by the jealousy of another lady, who subsequently confessed her grievous sin.

Frankly, I do see some parallels here, but again: I wasn’t there.

Corapi might be more Padre Pio or more Maciel (come on, we know the first hypothesis is by far the more probable and he is innocent until proven guilty anyway). Still, my admiration for Corapi (whose sincere inspiration I do not doubt for an instant, however little or however big his faults and private sins may be) as a fine preacher is undiminished whatever the outcome of this affair.

I didn’t want to write about Father Corapi as I don’t like to use this blog to speculate about things I don’t know, but I have read things whose general tone (and possibly general spirit) I didn’t like and thought it fitting to express my admiration for the man’s sincerity and ability once again.

Here is wishing him all the best; he is in my prayers and, I do hope, in yours.

I hope to see him roaring from the pulpit again very soon.

Mundabor