St. Joan of Arc Catholic Church, MN

[briand]

Catholic_Girl 9:

Does anyone know what is going on at St. Joan of Arc Catholic Church of Minneapolis MN? They seem to be catering to feminist, homosexuals, and hippies. Why doesn’t the Bishop blow their parish up?

stjoan.com/default2.htm

They had this link on their website: mtn.org/cpcsm/

Would that solve anything do you think? Would blowing up their church make Jesus happy? I often wonder are the souls of “Feminists, Homosexuals, hippies” worth less?

 

[LuigiColetta]

briand:

Would that solve anything do you think? Would blowing up their church make Jesus happy? I often wonder are the souls of “Feminists, Homosexuals, hippies” worth less?

Catholic_Girl may defend herself, but if she hadn’t used her strong words, would her negative reaction not be justified? I think it would. It isn’t a question about having a church that Feminists, Homosexuals, hippies are present, but weather God’s truth about their action are being dealt with.

 

[briand]

LuigiColetta:

Catholic_Girl may defend herself, but if she hadn’t used her strong words, would her negative reaction not be justified? I think it would. It isn’t a question about having a church that Feminists, Homosexuals, hippies are present, but weather God’s truth about their action are being dealt with.

Thats fine, She is most likely a very Godly women and I wish her and you the very best. But I have no idea at all as to what God’s Truth is. Actually I hope she does not see any need to defend herself. As for strong words, I know people personally who have been brutally abused by certain members of a certain church. I would not wish even those people blown up. Corrected, convicted, yes. I do wish you the best.

 

[briand]

briand:

Thats fine, She is most likely a very Godly women and I wish her and you the very best. But I have no idea at all as to what God’s Truth is. Actually I hope she does not see any need to defend herself. As for strong words, I know people personally who have been brutally abused by certain members of a certain church. I would not wish even those people blown up. Corrected, convicted, yes. I do wish you the best.

I tried to edit this, but it was to late. This is poorly worded, I had a long correction, but I can see it would just be more confusing. My questions were not meant at all to offend, I apologize if they did.

 

[LuigiColetta]

briand, don’t worry, you worry too much. I worry too much too, I tried to write you a response and wrote it twice, I then decided to not send it because I felt that God didn’t call me to respond.

May our Lord Jesus Christ keep you,
Luigi

 

[JCPhoenix]

The problem with parishes like this are that they are peopled with lost sheep and led by a lost shepherd. If things havent’ changed by now, it seems he has become a forgotten shepherd…and what of his flock?

This is really very difficult. But I’m sure many of the parishoners are really trying to live a good life in Christ, but their sin (in some cases) has blinded them and they have been led by the Evil One that situational ethics are the truth they are seeking.

It doesn’t help when their leadership is not strong enough to stand up to the heresy.

And it doesn’t help that there are other places for these dissenters to go…meaning that lack of leadership is a very real problem in the church.

Tomorrow when I go to church, I am going to add our diocese to the prayer list, and if I can, I may spend time in the chapel myself praying for strong leadership for our archdioses.

If the rest of you can pray for us also or add intentions somehow to your specific area, then others will be united in prayer over the same things…and that is power.

Don’t let these churches be forgotten or condemned…let them be renewed along with the people in them.

 

[Catholic29]

Before I get started, I must say that St. Joan of Arc parish is in a very sad situation and we all must be praying for them. I am from upstate Minnesota(in another diocese), but word of what is happening at St. Joans has reached here too. And I have been thinking and praying over this for quite a while now.

I have to believe that Archbishop Flynn is caught in a very big dilemma over this, thus his apparent innaction. You have to understand that closing St. Joan’s is no answer, and neither is assigning a very orthodox pastor there to clean house. Either decision would result in alot of angry people and probably many ex-Catholics. This may not be popular here, but I believe the most diplomatic decision the Archbishop could make(though not painless) is to let St. Joan’s keep doing what it is doing, but to formally sever communion with that parish. No longer making it a Catholic parish in union with Rome or the Archdiocese.

It is clear to me that St. Joan of Arc Church in Minneapolis MN has divorced itself as a whole from doctrinal unity with Rome, and their positions are for the most part irreconcilable with Scripture and Church teaching. So it should in my humble opinion be allowed to go on its merry way with the Lutherans, Episcopalians, the Methodists and all the rest. It would be the right decision, though not painless by any stretch of the immagination.

 

[Sherlock]

I agree that the Archbishop is between a rock and a hard place, afraid that many “Catholics” might leave if an orthodox priest was assigned to that parish. However, would that be such a bad thing? They have already left the Church, in spirit if not in name, and continuing to tolerate them confuses the already confused and poorly-catechized Catholics around them (which describes most Catholics, I’m afraid). I also think that the toleration of parishes such as this one leads to schism in the form of SSPXers and the like, who are at best less likely to come back to the fold when this dissent goes unchecked, and at worst more successful in attracting to their groups Catholics who can’t stand to see this sort of thing going on.

However, a previous poster was correct: some of this is going to be solved by the mere passage of time, as the younger, and generally more orthodox, priests come onto the scene. I say “some of this”—St. Joan of Arc has gone beyond this approach, and I suspect more drastic measures would have to be taken. I think that the Archbishop wants to be nice and does not want bad publicity—the local newspapers would just love to point to an example of the draconian Church, stepping and crushing the valiant and peace-loving spiritualists…bad Church, bad bad!

I wish more bishops would be more concerned about objective truth than with their image as nice guys…

 

[Catholic_Girl_9]

I checked out a letter by Bishop Flynn(archspm.org/racism/Racism%20Eng.pdf) about racism. While I’m not saying that racism is not a problem, but I believe there are more pressing issues in his diocese right now. I heard Fr. Pacwa talk about the crisis in the church following VII. He chalked some of it up to the civil rights movement coinciding with the sexual revolution and an over all skepticism of tradition (this is not doing justice to everything he covered and is over simplified) If you check out st. joan of ark’s website stjoan.com/default2.htm and look at their staff, you’ll notice that they are completely white and mostly middle-aged, as I’m sure most of their congregation is. I think they’re a product of the 60’s sexual revolution.

What I find interesting is that middle aged white people are generally the ones who are the most liberal in this country. They are the kind of people who minimize the importance of personal holiness by an over emphasize social justice. I believe they do this because they have to convince themselves that they are good regardless of how many sins they’ve committed. They want it to be easy to be Catholic. As a result they are extreme pacifist and are opposed to anything that requires humility and sacrifice or self-denial. They probably blame the church and the west for all problems in the world.

Considering that 11 of the apostles died for the faith, I don’t think you should give Bishop Flynn too much credit. As a shepherd, he’s expected to lay down his life for the flock. I think any bad press he would get for addressing this problem is pretty minor. Like I said earlier, he’s a whimp and is a typical product of the civil rights/sexual revolution generation.

 

[retina_md]

Catholic_Girl 9:

Considering that 11 of the apostles died for the faith, I don’t think you should give Bishop Flynn too much credit. As a shepherd, he’s expected to lay down his life for the flock. I think any bad press he would get for addressing this problem is pretty minor. Like I said earlier, he’s a whimp and is a typical product of the civil rights/sexual revolution generation.

Catholic_Girl9, do not be disheartened to the point of despair. The Church as gone through a lot of rough spots in 2000+ years. There have been a lot of really bad priests, bishop and (a few) popes. On each occasion when things have looked really bad for the Church, God has raised one or more very potent people to restore the lost lambs. We have Jesus’s promise that the gates of hell will not prevail against the Church, but He never said it would be easy or that the Church would not have desperate periods.

 

[Calvin]

Atheist2Theist:

The author is Gary Wills and he is a known progressive and dissenter. He can be safely ignored. Infallibility is not something peripheral the the Church but the very guarantee that it is not teaching error in the areas of faith and morals.

This is precisely my point.

A Catholic who cherry-picks doctrines to believe is *implicitly *denying infallibility. If the Magisterium is infallible, then the entire cannon of doctrine should be believed (or submitted to) unless the Magisterium itself has declared room for diversity on certain matters. A person (like Willis) who states, apart from a binding opinion from the proper Church authroities, that certain doctrines are “peripheral” is setting himself up as his own magisterium. He is a protestant no less than I am. I’m just honest about it!

-C

 

[mattyp]

Living in the Minneapolis area, I know about this church’s “issues”. I do believe that Archbishop Flynn has a duty to weed out the bad in churches like these, but unfortunately he doesn’t. Someone earlier said it best that he’d be a good politician…sounds about right.

As for him being better off dead? I wouldn’t ever go that far, but I would request that we all pray for him to go back to following what he was ordained to follow so many years ago. He is very “whimpy”, and that’s too bad. This area of the country needs some strong leadership.

3 years ago I was unfortunate enough to live about an hour north of the Twin Cities and had to attend church in that area a few times (ended up driving to St. Paul every week afterwards, though). The churches up there don’t bother with kneelers or the liturgy for that matter. They are more concerned with society than with God. So I wrote Archbishop Flynn a letter asking him to do something about it.

“Don’t worry about it. There are many ways to worship” was the explaination I got. WHAT???

---

Now, if you want to see the arch-enemy ( ) of St. Joan of Arc church, check out St. Agnes in St. Paul, MN. I go there every once in awhile when I need a good shot of hardcore Catholicism. 69.26.131.134/church/Main.do

They don’t stand for any garbage. You have to kneel at the alter rail to receive communion. They push confession like it’s the air you breathe. They don’t have anyone but a priest or deacon distribute the eucharist. No alter girls. They have a latin high mass, too. And a FANTASTIC choir (lots of gregorian chant).

 

[SeanG]

JC Phoenix,

Have you received a response to the e-mail that you sent to Fr. Wertin? If so, please share with us that which you feel would be appropriate for an open audience.

 

[JCPhoenix]

SeanG:

JC Phoenix,

Have you received a response to the e-mail that you sent to Fr. Wertin? If so, please share with us that which you feel would be appropriate for an open audience.

I just checked and I have not recieved a response. Honestly, I would be surprised if he had.

I will be sure to post if there is any kind of reply to my e-mail.

 

[SeanG]

JCPhoenix:

I just checked and I have not recieved a response. Honestly, I would be surprised if he had.

I will be sure to post if there is any kind of reply to my e-mail.

I’m not surprised that you suspected no response. I am saddened by it, however. If a dialogue of some sort were to result from any correspondence between yourself and him, it would not be easy. But it is through such dialogue that the grace of God can work on souls who have turned away from him.

 

[DianJo]

Is there no one in that parish that will stand up for what is true? Is this just a parish made up of homosexuals? If not, why does everyone else allow this kind of heresy to be taught to their children and others? Why do they allow it to continue?

I’ve read through some of their “parish council” (I use that term loosely) meeting minutes and it seems that the only thing they are concerned with is making sure everyone is included. One topic of discussion in one of their meetings was “sexual and racial equality”! God help us!!!

I have nothing against homosexuals attending Mass and being close to God - but - that seems rather quite impossible if they are living the active lifestyle of a homosexual. That’s contrary to God’s law. I have nothing against a catholic church encouraging homosexuals as long as they are not promoting the lifestyle - which this parish is clearly doing! The pastor needs to be counseling these people about their lifestyle and stop encouraging them. It seems this parish is all about “feeling good”. It’s a shame that the pastor doesn’t tell them the truth. I feel for them and the pastor - their souls are in danger. We will all pray for them and hope someone in the parish / diocese stands up and straightens things out up there.

 

[Catholic29]

Ok, I am reviving this thread. The heresy at St. Joan of Arch parish has been gradually developing since it opened its doors after Vatican II, when change was the order of the day in the Church. And in that shuffle I strongly suspect the fullness of the faith was never taught there from day one, at least not to the majority of its parishioners. Bits and pieces perhaps, but not enough to make a cohesive picture of the faith, or to instill in them an authentically Catholic identity.

At St. Joan’s there may have been some faithful orthodox Catholics at one time, but not enough of them to stop the tide into heterodoxy. And sadly they were first invaded by inclusive liberalism, and then feminism, then later by the homosexual agenda. Its like the frog in the slow boiling pot, throw it into boiling water and it jumps out; gently bring it to the boil, and the frog, never noticing the incremental increases in heat, allows itself to be cooked.

If there are any faithful at St. Joan’s left, they are very few and quite voicless as it apparently seems. Practically all of the whistle blowing and calling out of this parish has been done by lay people from other parishes in the Archdiocese, covertly supported by a few orthodox and faithful Priests. With the reason being that the Archbishop has done nothing to crack down on the situation, though many written and have called on him many times to do so.
His mind has obviously been made up, and until he ever decides to change it, he will do nothing, at the peril of many souls and especially his own.

Here is a letter to Archbishop Flynn from a faithful Catholic in Minnesota catholicparents.org/letters/openletterarchbishop.html and the Archbishop’s response catholicparents.org/letters/Archresponse.html

And here is St. Joan of Arc’s mission statement stjoan.com/msfr.htm . Is it in any way compatible with the Nicene or Apostles Creed we profess???

 

[Delgadoajj]

I just visited this parishe’s web site and I was very disturbed by it. This is extreme liberalism and inclusiveness, at the expense of the Truth. I’m very sad.

Jorge.

 

[JohnCarroll]

Delgadoajj:

I just visited this parishe’s web site and I was very disturbed by it. This is extreme liberalism and inclusiveness, at the expense of the Truth. I’m very sad.

Jorge.

I didn’t know the name of the parish but when my wife and I attended the now Infamous Episcopal convention in Minneapolis , I was in a booth next to a couple selling " icons" . They said they were Catholic and went to a Very Liberal Parish in Minneapolis. In their booth you could by an Icon of Saint Harvey Milk, and Saint Gandhi, I think there was also a Saint Buddha

 

[Delgadoajj]

I took opportunity and called the Archdiocese of Minneapolis yesterday. I expressed my displeasure and disbelief with the information I obtained about St. Joan of Arc Parish. The lady who I talked to was very nice and appreciated my call. She said that the archdiocese has been in “talks” with the pastor of the parish, and that since the problem did not occur overnight, it would probably take a long time for it to be fixed. I pray this is resolved quickly. The longer it takes, the more sould will be misled.

Jorge.