It saddens me that even priests have lost an understanding of the spiritual, sometimes substituting the intellect for the spirit and the world’s view and human reasoning for truth.
I tend to believe that this priest was himself a victim of the sin he defended, which is often the case in such matters. How could he think the Church is right in all things, but not those related to chastity? How could he believe that infidelity applies only when a wife objects to her husband’s extramarital affairs? Do the vows of sacred matrimony no longer have meaning? Is one man and one woman no longer a relevant requirement of marriage?
We know from out own lives that sin dims our spiritual vision so that we can easily see others’ sins, but have great difficulty seeing our own sins. And that’s because we tend to gloss over and justify our own shortcomings.
The world is changing its views on chastity because the world is steeped in impurity-- impurity in dress, impurity in language, impurity in thought, impurity in television, impurity in movies, impurity in books and magazines, impurity in actions. It is only natural that the world begins to see these things as okay for adults, okay for modern man, okay this many years from our Puritan past, okay because nobody gets hurt, the so-called victim-less crime, yadayadayada. But it’s not okay with God’s Word, and it’s not okay with a properly formed conscience, one that has not become inured to sin because of swimming in the ocean of sin that our culture delivers into our lives each day if we let it. Don’t let it.
His Bishop said this was a brilliant priest. Where was this priest when they held the class on the inerrancy of the Church in teaching on matters of faith and morals? He said he was happy to be among the long list of those murdered and burned alive by the Church for heresy. Where was this brilliant man when they discussed the Church’s role in the Holy Roman Empire when heresy was even considered a crime by the civil authorities, and nearly all executions were performed by the civil authorities? Why did this brilliant priest not speak out then, before he took his vows to be obedient to the Church, before he accepted the infallibility of Church teaching as required for all Catholics not alone priests, before he acknowledged the Church’s teaching with regards to sexual morality? What new thing has come to light to require the Church to amend twenty centuries of consistent Church teaching and twelve centuries more of Jewish teaching based on the ten commandments and the proscriptions in Leviticus before it? He may have been brilliant in some sense of the word, but either not brilliant enough to recognize his own heretical beliefs before he accepted ordination, or else he was a liar in taking his vows to uphold the teaching of the Church to which he vowed his obedience.
I am happy the Church was decisive in this matter. I pray that this priest will really show some brilliance by repenting and begging God and the Church for forgiveness. I hope that just such an action as excommunication will serve to sober him up in wise and honest reconsideration of his grave error, and will make others in the Church’s leadership, and those Catholics in world leadership positions, to think carefully before they embrace any doctrine or teaching contrary to Holy Mother Church.
I also pray that none of us will fall into the web of modern thinking. It’s not like the Church is putting any undue or unforeseen burden on us by forbidding same sex sex, or extra-marital sex, as taught by the Bible, by Jesus, by the Apostles, and by the Church down through the ages. Self-denial is at the root of Christianity. Take up your cross and follow me were not idle words.
As this past week’s readings have shown, it is with hardship that we enter the kingdom of God. The modern way of thinking is that God’s kingdom should be available to all without difficulty, hardship, trial, or inconvenience. It is our modern world’s desire for instant gratification. We pick up the phone and we are talking to someone 10,000 miles away. We communicate on this Forum at near the speed of light. We pick up a meal at the grocery store, pop it in the microwave, and enjoy it in minutes. We hop in our car and we’re on the other side of town in a few minutes. What modern man wants is a Christianity that is all resurrection and no cross. But to this, St. Lois de Montfort declared, “Never the cross without Jesus; never Jesus without the cross.”
There is no instant Christianity. We need to work diligently at it. It’s a lifetime conversion process. It’s the one thing in this life that is really, when you stop and think about it, worthwhile putting all our energies into doing. I pray that the world shakes off this inane idea that going with the flow will get us somewhere. We know where the kingdom is, where our safe haven is. We need to set our compass on reaching this destination and just maybe the world, or some in the world, will wake up and follow us, before they shipwreck at sea. These are my thoughts. Peace.
listening to the Vicar of Christ. 
