Am I a heretic?

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socialcath101

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I work for a Catholic social service agency as a community organizer. My typical job duties include helping low income people apply for social services and other assistance programs, referring pregnant women to Catholic adoption agencies and crisis pregnancy centers away from abortion, helping ex-convicts find housing, social services, and job assistance, and helping disabled adults and teenagers etc.

The diocese usually provides us with a secular priest who serves as a liaison of sorts between our organization and the Church.

Usually we get a Jesuit who is always very helpful and supportive of our work and mission. However recently events have begun to trouble me and even threaten my job. We have a new auxiliary Bishop who is something of a traditionalist.

He sent us a priest with the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter. Well I have to interact with this priest on a daily basis. He dug up my masters thesis from 30 years ago on liberation theology. He’s now saying I’m no longer fit to work for this agency because I did my thesis in support of liberation theology.

I keep admitting to him that I don’t support it anymore and it was something I did when I was young and idealistic. But he won’t hear it.

He also reinforces his position with the fact working with the poor and disadvantaged is my life. I’m at a loss. Any advice would be very helpful. 😦
 
No, you’re not a heretic, but how exactly did he get your thesis?

From my experience, FSSP priests have been nothing short of fantastic usually. Perhaps he is in a job he doesn’t want to be in. FSSP priests usually work in parishes that support the Extraordinary Form of mass, and so he might be a little, I don’t know, let down, by not being in such a position.
 
Somehow I sense yet another traditionalist bashing thread in the making.
 
Mike30 said:
Somehow I sense yet another traditionalist bashing thread in the making.
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I’m not trying to bash traditionalists… 😦

I’m looking for advice… I happen to like the Latin Mass if it helps 🙂
YoungTradCath said:
No, you’re not a heretic, but how exactly did he get your thesis?

From my experience, FSSP priests have been nothing short of fantastic usually. Perhaps he is in a job he doesn’t want to be in. FSSP priests usually work in parishes that support the Extraordinary Form of mass, and so he might be a little, I don’t know, let down, by not being in such a position.
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Apparently he was at the college’s seminary for his PhD at the time I was studying… And he “happened” upon it recently on…
 
socialcath101 said:
Apparently he was at the college’s seminary for his PhD at the time I was studying… And he “happened” upon it recently on…
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How unfortunately coincidental. There are different kinds of priests. Maybe he is one of the theology-loving, intellectual types, one who doesn’t particularly love liberation theology. People like that can get quite inflamed over matters such as these.

Is he actively trying to destroy you? Is he making your work life a living hell? Or is this just confined between you two?
 
socialcath101 said:
I work for a Catholic social service agency as a community organizer. My typical job duties include helping low income people apply for social services and other assistance programs, referring pregnant women to Catholic adoption agencies and crisis pregnancy centers away from abortion, helping ex-convicts find housing, social services, and job assistance, and helping disabled adults and teenagers etc.

The diocese usually provides us with a secular priest who serves as a liaison of sorts between our organization and the Church.

Usually we get a Jesuit who is always very helpful and supportive of our work and mission. However recently events have begun to trouble me and even threaten my job. We have a new auxiliary Bishop who is something of a traditionalist.

He sent us a priest with the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter. Well I have to interact with this priest on a daily basis. He dug up my masters thesis from 30 years ago on liberation theology. He’s now saying I’m no longer fit to work for this agency because I did my thesis in support of liberation theology.

I keep admitting to him that I don’t support it anymore and it was something I did when I was young and idealistic. But he won’t hear it.

He also reinforces his position with the fact working with the poor and disadvantaged is my life. I’m at a loss. Any advice would be very helpful. 😦
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Similarly to the student who graduates from med school still being called “Doctor,” just because he is a priest doesn’t mean much more than that he is ordained. He is personally not the Church, and not your judge. And you are not a heritic. Dear God!
 
From what you have said here, it seems as if this priest is being totally unreasonable. You are working in a pastoral, not a teaching position, so your view on liberation theology from 30 years ago is irrelevant. You should not even have to be defending that thesis, or apologising for it.

If I were in your position, I probably would have not even gone as far as you have in explaining that my views had changed. I believe that inappropriate questions are best answered with “Why are you asking that?”, rather than conceding any ground.

Does he have anything to back up his concerns? I assume that your agency has charters describing it’s obligations to the Church, and also the government. It will also have charters about employee standards. He will not have the authority to counsel, caution or remove you on his own. Point him to the charters, and ask him where your masters thesis, or life of service to the underprivileged, is in conflct with that.

If anyone has a complaint to take to higher authorities, its more like to be you than him!

Are you aware of the Church’s official response to liberation theology? It has never condemned it as a heresy. The response, while negative, was issued piecemeal by Cardinal Ratzinger, as head of the CDF, during the 90’s (see Wikipedia), more than 10 years after your thesis was written. Many good Catholics have had some sympathy with liberation theology, while accepting the Church’s verdict.
 
Wow… I don’t think you are a heretic. You just grew up…? They say… Young people that are not liberal have no heart. Older people that are liberal have no mind. :p:D
 
Is it possible the priest objects to liberation, as well as liberation theology?
 
YoungTradCath said:
How unfortunately coincidental. There are different kinds of priests. Maybe he is one of the theology-loving, intellectual types, one who doesn’t particularly love liberation theology. People like that can get quite inflamed over matters such as these.

Is he actively trying to destroy you? Is he making your work life a living hell? Or is this just confined between you two?
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I’m one of those philosophy- and theology-loving, (overly) intellectual (and traditionalist, as I myself continue to think about the FSSP in my own discernment) types (yes, my actual “faith” could stand for some improvement that’s not based on an arsenal of Aristotelian arguments for God and the historical evidences of Christianity; Heb 11:1-3), and even I see some correctness, or righteousness or justice, just poorly espoused and applied, within a framework of falsity, taken too far in all ways, away from the Church and even in the secular sphere, in the liberation theology that I’ve read. One can recognize that even heretics and infidels may have some truth, to overuse my favorite out-of-context phrase, “seen as in a mirror, darkly”, without rejecting it completely because it contains much falsity, or “throwing the baby out with the bathwater” as Americans say.

As I now see an above poster has stated, I am a Catholic who has “some sympathy with liberation theology”.

And, on topic: according to no definition I know of, are you now a heretic, although you may have held heterodox ideals and defended heterodox doctrines in the distant past; you are in full communion with the Church, and, as far as I can tell, you never were a heretic. If you have any lingering doubts, speak to another priest, or better, a canonist, or better, an ordained canonist.
 
YoungTradCath said:
No, you’re not a heretic, but how exactly did he get your thesis?

From my experience, FSSP priests have been nothing short of fantastic usually. Perhaps he is in a job he doesn’t want to be in. FSSP priests usually work in parishes that support the Extraordinary Form of mass, and so he might be a little, I don’t know, let down, by not being in such a position.
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Yeah, I would trust the F.S.S.P. priest. They are absolutely excellent.
 
Tridentinum said:
Yeah, I would trust the F.S.S.P. priest. They are absolutely excellent.
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I wouldn’t, in the circumstances described here. If it were me, I would tell him that my thesis on liberation theology from 30 years ago is none of his business, unless he can show me how it is relevant to my work at the agency, in accordance with its charter.

In the meantime, I would be considering lodging a complaint about him, for the questions he has already asked, and for digging out my old files.
 
Edmundus1581 said:
I wouldn’t, in the circumstances described here. If it were me, I would tell him that my thesis on liberation theology from 30 years ago is none of his business, unless he can show me how it is relevant to my work at the agency, in accordance with its charter.

In the meantime, I would be considering lodging a complaint about him, for the questions he has already asked.
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We only know one side of the story. I would organize an appointment and discuss it with him, rather than launch a complaint behind his back.
 
I can see why your previous work would raise a big red flag with the priest, and FSSP priests are absolutely uncompromising when it comes to the Catholic Faith, but I’ve never yet met an one who was unreasonable as well.

So I think you should sit down with the priest and talk about things. If you can explain how you know that your earlier work was wrong and how you now fully accept everything the Church teaches, then I don’t see why there would be a problem.

Another idea would be to ask the priest to give you some instruction in the Faith – not because you don’t know it (although you might learn something new), but so that the priest could be satisfied that he knows where you stand.
 
socialcath101 said:
I work for a Catholic social service agency as a community organizer. My typical job duties include helping low income people apply for social services and other assistance programs, referring pregnant women to Catholic adoption agencies and crisis pregnancy centers away from abortion, helping ex-convicts find housing, social services, and job assistance, and helping disabled adults and teenagers etc.

The diocese usually provides us with a secular priest who serves as a liaison of sorts between our organization and the Church.

Usually we get a Jesuit who is always very helpful and supportive of our work and mission. However recently events have begun to trouble me and even threaten my job. We have a new auxiliary Bishop who is something of a traditionalist.

He sent us a priest with the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter. Well I have to interact with this priest on a daily basis. He dug up my masters thesis from 30 years ago on liberation theology. He’s now saying I’m no longer fit to work for this agency because I did my thesis in support of liberation theology.

I keep admitting to him that I don’t support it anymore and it was something I did when I was young and idealistic. But he won’t hear it.

He also reinforces his position with the fact working with the poor and disadvantaged is my life. I’m at a loss. Any advice would be very helpful. 😦
Click to expand...
The Vatican admonished liberation theology in the 84/86 CDF. But it was specific! It only admonished certain strains that had marxist tones and focused on social versus individual sins. Even the Ratzinger’s writings in 2004 referred to just the Liberation Theology that had Marxist tones and was speaking about organized groups not individual thought.

Further, in order to meet the definition of the that theology that was admonished you’d have to show political involvement and cross denominational efforts at universal brotherhood separate from the church but within a geo-political group.

Of course you devout your life to the poor! As do many priests, and lay persons. Find a saint and you’ll probably find a person who helped the poor, the weak, and the lost.
 
The fact he is with the FSSP has no bearing in this matter. He could be a secular priest, consecrated religious, a layman, anything.

You recanted your previous position several times, a position held when you were a young lad. We have several apologists (some who work for this site, even) who are in similar positions. We have several Saints who held heretical beliefs at some point in their lives before coming to know the Truth. In this case, you can’t be held responsible for the beliefs you held. You can’t change the past, but but you have changed so that the present and future will be different. At this point, that is what matters,

As an aside, I wonder what the reaction would be if the roles were reversed here and it was the Jesuit who obtained, and objected to, the old thesis.
 
couponfit said:
The Vatican admonished liberation theology in the 84/86 CDF. But it was specific! It only admonished certain strains that had marxist tones and focused on social versus individual sins. Even the Ratzinger’s writings in 2004 referred to just the Liberation Theology that had Marxist tones and was speaking about organized groups not individual thought.

Further, in order to meet the definition of the that theology that was admonished you’d have to show political involvement and cross denominational efforts at universal brotherhood separate from the church but within a geo-political group.

Of course you devout your life to the poor! As do many priests, and lay persons. Find a saint and you’ll probably find a person who helped the poor, the weak, and the lost.
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I wanted to add, I just don’t know what this priest wants! I mean does he want you to stop helping the poor? Or does he want you to recant your paper written before the 84/86 admonishment? How can you recant that which was written before it was admonished? I guess you should ask him! How should it be done? At least then you would know what he wants, and to be honest I don’t even know if he knows what he wants so it would force him to consider you as a child of God?

Since you may not have confessed your sin of writing a paper before it was deemed sinful you could ask how to ask for forgiveness for that which was to come?
 
I am surprised no one suggested contacting the HR department where the OP works and the HR department for the diocese. And maybe get some legal advice.
 
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