Is EWTN too Fundamentalist?

[Lermont]

Care to offer any examples? Or are you just interested in ad hominem attacks?

See the original posting.

 

[Lermont]

I guess this can be interpreted as saying the forums allow any post to be made, even “odd, disjointed and illogical” ones and that is the biggest problem. But my initial take on reading it is that you were saying that most posts in these forums are odd, disjointed and illogical.

I said no such thing, but the responses as show in #25 of this thread are all too common. And sadly it harms the Church.

That seems like a blanket dismissal of the forums.

How did you reach that conclusion? It’s not logical based on what I said.

Lermont, as someone who has lurked at CAF for some time, you must have known that many folks here like EWTN. And you would have known that posting a thread critical of that channel would provoke them. Please don’t be so critical of people who are sticking up for something they enjoy. I don’t watch EWTN, but if you don’t like it, why not just watch what you do enjoy?

Just one moment. First I said I like EWTN and that I have benefited from it in my original position. Nevertheless I was attacked by some and you are suggesting I was too critical of their attacks? C’mon…

 

[teadough]

Why are you changing direction on me now after I answered your question?

OK, please go back to my OP and explain to me how it is so negative.

Also please show me where I “put down the entire site” please.

Thanks.

Changing directions? Riiiiight. I find it hard to believe that you are even “new member”. More than likely you got mad at a TV program and decided to use a different screen name to come on here and express your “opinion”. Because at the end of it all it really is just your opinion.

For a brand new member you sure do know your way around the odds and ends of this message board.

 

[grandfather]

Just one moment. First I said I like EWTN and that I have benefited from it in my original position. Nevertheless I was attacked by some and you are suggesting I was too critical of their attacks? C’mon…

This is from memory, which is getting a bit shakey, but I think it is pretty accurate. I followed the Mahoney controversy that was very public.

The Cdl. Mahoney - Mother Angelica flap was interesting for several reasons. Mahoney wrote a controversial piece on the Eucharist. It definitely pushed the limits and could easily be called heresy. He went right to the edge if not crossed over. It is easy to see why many Catholics would object to it. Mother Angelica flipped and publicly criticized it. Mahoney expressed his outrage and demanded of her bishop that she be disciplined for her criticism. It became a personal vendetta. Then in the middle of it some woman prayed over Angelica and she received a miraculous healing of a problem she had from birth. Right after this Mahoney toned down his rhetoric and demands. He got his apology.

Then Mother Angelica had some problems with her bishop. I don’t remember what it was about, but a Vatican representative was called in and he was kind of incredulous over what the Birmingham bishop was doing and called him pazzo, crazy.

So she clashed with a couple of prelates. In the first instance God intervened. In the second the Vatican defended her.

In a time when religious vocations, especially women’s vocations have collapsed, Mother Angelica’s work has succeeded in attracting many young women to contemplative religious life. She built a worldwide Catholic media empire that has defended the faith and educated Catholics about their own faith where catechetics has left a gaping hole.

Cdl Mahoney has built a cathedral that many people don’t like and find offensive for their own reasons. It is his legacy. He has also led his church in a time of what is possibly the greatest scandal and shame in all Catholic history. He has taken money and property donated by the faithful for doing works of charity and paid off lawsuits brought against the church for criminal behavior by a number of his priests, ordained by him, and of whose crimes he was well aware. He supports politicians, some of whom are Catholic who support abortion. Yes, he is very tolerant and EWTN is intolerant and rigid. It is undeniable.

 

[fix]

EWTN often reduces the idea of legitimate positions to one (when there is more than one) and often with their own strange theories.

Please name two strange theories they teach.

I would have less problems with them if they were humbler, gave a variety of possible positions, and let people see and realize it is not so simplistic and hence fundamentalist as they make it out to be. EWTN rarely seems to take a wrong position

Rarely? Ok, name one wrong position.

, but it OFTEN excludes/denigrates other legitimate positions and I find that to be VERY fundamentalist.

Name one.

EWTN seems to be VERY appealing to Catholics who want everything rigidly cut-n-dried and simplistic – much like some of our Fundamentalist Protestant Brethren.

Perhaps it is the reverse and those who see every matter as “gray” are simply unprincipled? Is that possible?

It certainly appealed greatly to me when I knew even less about the faith then I do today. I worry however that many are receiving an intolerant formation from EWTN – particularly in the area of apologetics and that ultimately it’s going to harm the Church.

Intolerant? Give some examples.

 

[Brendan]

Then Mother Angelica had some problems with her bishop. I don’t remember what it was about, but a Vatican representative was called in and he was kind of incredulous over what the Birmingham bishop was doing and called him pazzo, crazy. .

Bishop Foley issued an instruction forbidding the celebration of the Mass ad orientum. Mother Angelica appealed to the Vatican, which instructed +Foley to repeal his instruction, noting that the Vatican allows the Mass to be celebrated either ad orientum or vs populum, and a bishiop may not restrict that further.

Bishop Foley did have the authority to prohibit the televising of an ad orientem Mass from his diocese, which he did. That authority was since replealed with Summiorum Pontificam, which is why EWTN may now show the EF Mass. Bishop Foley also had no authority over the Byzantine Divine Liturgy, so EWTN was able to show that on several occasions.

 

[DJgang]

I really wished that was a joke. How much did the sculptor earn from that mannish statue of Mary?

I don’t even think that would qualify as Sacred Art.

And someone was suggesting in this thread that EWTN has a problem with this?

Looks like they got my vote of confidence!

Amen!

Maybe EWTN didn’t want to promote art that makes Our Blessed Mother look like she’s waiting on a spaceship to jump up to Heaven’s Gate…I wish that it were a joke as well, but it isn’t. Total disrespect of Our Blessed Mother, making her look like a man!

 

[buffalo]

EWTN’s job is to be orthodox. It is their job to present the faith and teach the truth. I often hear good dialogue that does present heterodoxy but shows how the truth negates the position.

 

[po18guy]

Not upset, but I am astounded at the lack of logic and fact used by people to discuss matters on these forums. I am also amazed at the amount of misdirection people try herein.

Most just seem to rely on emotion or personal opinion, or they add comments that add absolutely no value. Very weird.

And, yet another jumps on the “Banned wagon” Please pray for this troubled and struggling heart.

Christ’s peace.

 

[cyberkotic]

Please also pray for those of us who have cable outfits dead set against letting us watch EWTN. Mediacom of the Benton, KY office boasts of serving our southern Illinois “local community.” They have been claiming that they currently lack resources to add EWTN for years. For their “community,” they’ve been able to add infomercial channels along with much more adult video programming though. Looks like Comcast denies that Catholics live in part of Michigan too.

thetimesherald.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080211/OPINION03/802110318/1014/OPINION

 

[Brennan_Doherty]

Maybe it was an act of charity that EWTN didn’t cover the rededication of the Los Angeles Cathedral. After all, perhaps their intro might have sounded like this:

“We’re here at this ugly cathedral with the statue of Mary that looks like a dude…”

 

[Jguerra]

Let EWTN continue its mission of presenting the Catholic faith as it has since the beginning. 25 years from now, the network will continue to propagate the same unchanging Truths.

Dissenters come and go, professing knowledge of the truth, bashing the Church for its ‘wrong’ positions and labeling her (and her defenders) as ‘fundamentalist.’

I cannot help but think that these dissenters simply don’t find the truths of the Catholic faith to their liking.

Joe

 

[Harpazo]

I don’t want anyone to misread what I’m saying at all. I love EWTN, and I think it’s wonderful, but it’s lacking in so much.

I was chrismated into the Roman Church and had no idea that the Catholic Church was a Communion of Churches, just as it was for 1,000 years since it’s inception. After the Great Schism, only two Churches were left in the Communion, the Roman Church and the Maronite Church, respectively.

Later, several Churches broke from the Orthodox (who we believe broke Communion with Rome) returned to Rome such as the Melkites, Syriac Catholics, Greek Catholics, Chaldeans, etc. There are now a total of 23 Churches in the Catholic Church.

However, EWTN rarely ever covers these, and seems to perpetuate this myth that the only kind of Catholics are Roman Catholics. EWTN only covers 1/23 of the Catholic Church! How sad is that? There’s so much beauty in the Eastern Churches, and it’s sad that the Eastern Catholic Churches are America’s best kept secret, which is a shame. It deprives the Eastern Catholics of their traditions being told, simply because they are outnumbered by the Latin Catholics.

There are several Eastern Catholic Churches in Birmingham, at least a Melkite and Maronite parish that I know of. Would it be such a crime to broadcast a Divine Liturgy from one of these Churches at least twice a month? There are of course numerous other Eastern Catholic parishes in the US that I’m sure would be more than happy to have a broadcast of their DL on EWTN. Eastern Catholics are just as much Catholics as Latin Catholics are.

Alaha minokhoun
Andrew

 

[Dale_M]

There are several Eastern Catholic Churches in Birmingham, at least a Melkite and Maronite parish that I know of. Would it be such a crime to broadcast a Divine Liturgy from one of these Churches at least twice a month?

I would tune in for that!

 

[ALLGIRLS]

I don’t want anyone to misread what I’m saying at all. I love EWTN, and I think it’s wonderful, but it’s lacking in so much.

I was chrismated into the Roman Church and had no idea that the Catholic Church was a Communion of Churches, just as it was for 1,000 years since it’s inception. After the Great Schism, only two Churches were left in the Communion, the Roman Church and the Maronite Church, respectively.

Later, several Churches broke from the Orthodox (who we believe broke Communion with Rome) returned to Rome such as the Melkites, Syriac Catholics, Greek Catholics, Chaldeans, etc. There are now a total of 23 Churches in the Catholic Church.

However, EWTN rarely ever covers these, and seems to perpetuate this myth that the only kind of Catholics are Roman Catholics. EWTN only covers 1/23 of the Catholic Church! How sad is that? There’s so much beauty in the Eastern Churches, and it’s sad that the Eastern Catholic Churches are America’s best kept secret, which is a shame. It deprives the Eastern Catholics of their traditions being told, simply because they are outnumbered by the Latin Catholics.

There are several Eastern Catholic Churches in Birmingham, at least a Melkite and Maronite parish that I know of. Would it be such a crime to broadcast a Divine Liturgy from one of these Churches at least twice a month? There are of course numerous other Eastern Catholic parishes in the US that I’m sure would be more than happy to have a broadcast of their DL on EWTN. Eastern Catholics are just as much Catholics as Latin Catholics are.

Alaha minokhoun
Andrew

EWTN had a series awhile back (year or so, maybe?) called “Light of the East” that dealt w/ the Eastern Church, and frankly, I would have never known that JPII said something to the effect of “…the Eastern and Western are the two lungs of the Church, and she needs both to breathe…” if I hadn’t heard it on EWTN. So, I have to disagree w/ your assertion that they “perpetuate the myth” that the only Catholics are Roman. Plus, Fr. Mitch Pacwa is bi-ritual-he has Roman and Maronite faculties, and he discusses it frequently, and a Maronite Liturgy in which he concelebrated was broadcast on EWTN. Maybe you’re just not watching at the right times?

In Christ,

Ellen

 

[Harpazo]

EWTN had a series awhile back (year or so, maybe?) called “Light of the East” that dealt w/ the Eastern Church, and frankly, I would have never known that JPII said something to the effect of “…the Eastern and Western are the two lungs of the Church, and she needs both to breathe…” if I hadn’t heard it on EWTN. So, I have to disagree w/ your assertion that they “perpetuate the myth” that the only Catholics are Roman. Plus, Fr. Mitch Pacwa is bi-ritual-he has Roman and Maronite faculties, and he discusses it frequently, and a Maronite Liturgy in which he concelebrated was broadcast on EWTN. Maybe you’re just not watching at the right times?

In Christ,

Ellen

I know that Fr. Pacwa is bi-ritual and can celebrate liturgies in both Churches. Whenever shows about Eastern Churches have come on, it’s at a time when no one is watching, like 3am. for instance about a show on the Maronite “Rite” (it’s not a “rite” it’s a Church!!).

EWTN rarely has programming on about the Eastern Churches. All the devotions are Latin. Don’t get me wrong, I love Latin devotions and the Roman Mass, but the network is only covering 1/23 of the Church. Would it be a crime for them to have an Eastern Divine Liturgy on once or twice a month instead of the Daily Mass? Not a lot of people know of the Eastern Churches, and EWTN can change that, but they haven’t yet.

Alaha minokhoun
Andrew