Weee! Live at LA Religious Congress 3!

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scylla

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This is my 3rd year of making a thread on LA Religious Congress and as the previous years I will make a report on what is going on, what I see, etc.

I arrived last night, a little late since I had to work but I am sure to hit all three workshops today, talk to everyone I can and gather as much information as possible.

(I go because, I need to be honest about what this sort of thing and there are sometimes some good things here, there are always faithful Catholics invited to speak and listen)
Unfortunately error is often mixed in with truth and many are mislead, but I hold out hope and everyone here needs your prayers to be led closer to Christ and faithfulness to Him.

If anyone else is here feel free to post and I will try and update as possible on the LA Congress.

Some people objected to this thread last time or the time before, why am I giving publicity to this?
If the Congress is faithful and teaching good then publicity is good, yes?
If the Congress has strayed from it’s original intention and there is dissent, shouldn’t that be publicized also?

I will be as fair and objective as possible, and I will give an honest assessment of what I see. I hope I see nothing wrong and everything is faithful.

In Christ
Scylla
 
Mine are
10:00 Sabbath Moments, To see God in all,
T Hershey. (he is a non-catholic minister)

I talked with him a couple years ago and we talked a bit, and I told him I enjoyed his talk, then I invited him to look into being Catholic, he laughed at me and walked away.

Managing Conflict: A core
L Levo

I do not know anything about this talk, my wife picked it and it is good for me to check out new things.

Dont Be Stupid! Simplified
Fr T Ricard

Father Tony is a pretty entertaining and expressive Priest. I have found him to be faithful in his teaching each time I have heard him, though some might be turned off by his flair.

My wife is going to another talk in the morning next door from me called
Prophetic Witness : Womens
C Griffith

I don’t know anything about this but hopefully my wife can record it for me to listen to and give you an update.

God Bless
Scylla
 
Just went to the first workshop of the day, Sat morning.

I switched tickets with my wife and she went to the talk with T Hershey. I went to the one I mentioned last in the list of my last post.
Unfortunately it was one of the worst things I have ever heard in my life. A total rejection of God replaced with a self centered belief in feminist theology with conscience raised as the authority.

My wife told me the Terry Hershey talk wasn’t so against the Church, as just a session of jokes and poor theology. I will give more details later on tonight.

I will give more details when I have time. I have to go to the next workshop. If anyone else is on the net who is here feel free to chime in. I am sure I am not the only one with a laptop, but how many faithful CA posters really subject themselves to this like I do?

God Bless
Scylla

God Bless
Scylla
 
scylla said:
Dont Be Stupid! Simplified
Fr T Ricard

Father Tony is a pretty entertaining and expressive Priest. I have found him to be faithful in his teaching each time I have heard him, though some might be turned off by his flair.
Click to expand...
I saw him last year…selling bobblehead dolls of his own image :rolleyes:
 
scylla said:
Just went to the first workshop of the day, Sat morning.

I switched tickets with my wife and she went to the talk with T Hershey. I went to the one I mentioned last in the list of my last post.
Unfortunately it was one of the worst things I have ever heard in my life. A total rejection of God replaced with a self centered belief in feminist theology with conscience raised as the authority.

My wife told me the Terry Hershey talk wasn’t so against the Church, as just a session of jokes and poor theology. I will give more details later on tonight.

I will give more details when I have time. I have to go to the next workshop. If anyone else is on the net who is here feel free to chime in. I am sure I am not the only one with a laptop, but how many faithful CA posters really subject themselves to this like I do?

God Bless
Scylla

God Bless
Scylla
Click to expand...
Having been to a number of the L.A. conferences over the years I can tell you these sort of workshops are far from unusual and in some years have dominated the entire event.

The concluding Mass, is usually, well, flamboyant and a tad different, to say the least.

Lets just leave it at that.
 
Back at my room and here is the synopsis of how the day was.

I went to the first talk which was
Prophetic Witness: Catholic Womens Strategies
Colleen Griffith

This talk outlined different strategies for Catholic women on how to reform the Church.
First she invited everyone to speak up on things they want, like a wish list… (she didn’t say it herself but allowed some to speak up)
So the usual things came up from the pantsuit sisters in the audience, Women Priests, Inclusive Language, acceptance of Homosexuals, Why are there no women during Papal Elections?, Then one spoke up and said we needed Women Deacons before we move to Women Priests. It was all pretty depressing as they were so angry, and there were several disparing comments about men spouted out.
There were about 4 guys and about 60-70 women mostly older.
Dr Griffith first outlined how much women contribute but implied how disempowered they were and they needed to reform the Church.
The strategies she said were.
  1. Fierce insistance upon inclusion, empower and promote
  2. Encourage dialogue as this seeks to change minds and explore exceptions in rules.
  3. Justice with spirit which means touch peoples heart with beauty to change minds.
  4. Use stories, and empower inner authority to seek a new authority.
  5. Use an active flexing of imagination to reimage our faith.
Vatican 3 was mentioned and someone said that Mary acted as the first Priest by creating Jesus, Body and Blood. Poor theology but hey whatever helps the cause. Also Galations 3 was mentioned as important to be familiar with, not verse 1 🙂 but verse 28. I almost raised my hand and mentioned that was about salvation and not about hierarchy. But I am sure it would have just been responded to in a comedic rant of emotion and would just cause trouble.

That was the first session, it was quite hellish. I will post about the other sessions later but that was the most interesting\horrible.
 
2nd Talk at the Congress, was on conflict.
By a Sr Levo
This wasn’t so bad, there were no obvious attacks on the Church except for one statement to the effect that Hierarchy has failed we need to work on dialogue.

Which is exactly one of the strategies the progressives are using to promote their agenda as stated in the last talk.
Replace the authority of Christ and replace it with our collective opinion.

The good thing about this talk was it was so darn boring and long half the people were nodding off and not paying attention. Maybe because the talk was related to our faith in about 2% of it’s content and sounded like a social communications class.
Not too much harm to the faith done and most people would just learn to communicate better from this class.

The last presentation was by Fr Tony Ricard.
This was impressive as this was the most faithful talk I have ever heard at Congress and from Fr Tony. It was excellent. He actually mentioned Sin, Hell, Reconciliation, and related it all to our faith in an orthodox and entertaining manner.
It was well presented and clearly espoused the Catholic faith.

All the evil of the last 2 talks were overshadowed by the light he shined. He did well and I did look up the Bobblehead thing, it is an eccentricity that I will overlook. Hey the Pope did hand goggles and I thought that is just a personal expression of character.

One thing to be noted is that every workshop now expressly prohibits audio and video recording. Even though last year they allowed it. But they sell most the talks recorded… Hmm, maybe this is so that no one will see anything wrong when they prohibit it during the liturgies, so that they don’t end up on YouTube.

They did enact other anti-protestor measures by having greeters in the public area and some musical entertainment. The protesters were there giving out the newspapers which outlined the dissident speakers and the problematic issues in the past.

I am off to my last workshop on Sunday, then I will give a report on that later, so those of you who have not attended will know what goes on at the La Congress.

God Bless
Scylla
 
One more thing, I didn’t go to the Mass Saturday night and I will not go to the Sunday Mass, as I cannot stomach the utter hatred for our Catholic tradition and disrespect for the Sacrifice of Jesus that is expressed there at the Mass.
It is probably valid as they use valid words of consecration which makes the saying “but it is a valid Mass”, such a horrible thing.

Jesus is God, that doesn’t make it ok to enjoy watching the soldiers mock Him.

In the same way, even though it might be a valid Mass I cannot stomach the disrespect they pay to Jesus all in the name of trying to entertain the crowd with silly songs, dances and childish expressions of “participation”. Are we participating only when we are doing something?

Anyways, that is why I have no review of the Mass, or the liturgies which it even looks like they have a woman minister presiding over. Hmm, the LA Diocese must really be lacking Priests. (the plan of the women priest movement is working beautifully here)

Scylla
 
Thanks for the journalistic coverage 🙂

Yikes, sounds like a disasterous event, but kudos to you for enduring it.
 
So I went to one last workshop and my wife gave me the rundown on the Terry Hershey talk she went to, when we switched tickets.

The Terry Hershey Workshop from Saturday morning in the Arena,
He started with a sleeping mask on, his point being, we should pause in our lives to listen to God. Then he made a joke implying that the mask could also be used as a mini brassier.

He then spent time between jokes and stressing that if we listen we can hear God.

He did offend my wife as it seemed as the jokes were just appealing to the crowd base humor.
Here is an example, people know that my son likes a certain type of car, so people who know this have been giving him gifts such as parts for those cars. My wife noticed so she told me to let everyone know that we like diamonds also.
Another joke was how he had a nightmare, he dreamt on being in heaven but it was a nightmare as his ex-wife was there.

So that was the extent of the content in that talk.

What is sad is that everyone else in my parish was praising the talk since it was so funny. (we have a bit of a progressive parish)

The last talk we went to (together) on Sunday.
It was very good and I will write about it later.

I went to go to confession today and in the Sacred Space area there were no Priests. There were people but not one Priest available for reconciliation. It was a shame, and now I will put my teeth into this, because this is not merely a mistake. It is a betrayal of the faith.
I went before the Blessed Sacrament and asked for forgiveness for all our disrespect for Him and left after looking for a Priest and not finding one. Hmm… the largest Catholic gathering in Southern California and at 9AM, no Priests waiting for those who want to confess. It is shameful, this put on by the LA Diocese and an insult to our Holy Faith when we see so much open betrayal of the faith. I am proud to call myself Catholic and hold my head up high as a servant and brother of Christ, I am ashamed that there is this gathering and it is called Catholic, as it is an insult to the Holy Faith instituted by Our Lord.
Shame on those who put this on and those who call it good when we as Catholics can do better than this.
I will take a break and come back with a review of the last talk which was faithful and I will praise the brave and faithful Priest who I witnessed.

God Bless
Scylla
 
i wonder if this is the event one of the priests from my church attended and why he was not at mass over the weekend.

is this for catholics only or all christian religions?
 
it sounds like a waste of time and money to me. was this the 3rd year of this congress meeting and has it always been in anaheim?

what exactly is supposed to be accomplished by this congress?
 
The Congress is old and well attended, this is my personal 3rd year but it has been around for many years, about 30 years or so.

It is something that our parish attends and as a catechist I am encouraged to attend. Some have claimed that my objection to the event is based on lies or an improper understanding. If I do not participate with an open mind and heart I cannot be trusted in my assessment of the event, especially by those of the progressive vein who populate my parish. They know something is wrong but do not want to say anything.
I am pretty open minded and seek flexibility in the faith as much as possible, but if our faith means anything it first comes from a love of Christ. Everything must flow from a love of God and obedience to Him. Or else it is just humanism, or pantheism if we put someone else or something else first.
I find most dissent comes from a rejection of starting with God.

It is not quite a waste of money if I try to represent truth as much as possible. There are many faithful people who attend and there are some faithful speakers there… You don’t abandon your friends, so I will keep going unless someone convinces me otherwise, I am open for discussion.

In Christ
Scylla
 
i guess i am a little hesitant as i just left the episcopal church for the catholic church and when i read about the progressives i can’t help but have traumatic flashbacks of what i went through with the episcopal church. i pray that the catholic church will not be led astray by those with the same views of religion as those that took over the episcopal church.
 
7 Sorrows,

I know your fear. I was Episcopalian too and have had the same trauma. But remember, we have the Catechism as a solid statement of our faith, and we have a strong Holy Father, and we have the promise of Jesus Christ. Be not afraid!
 
The OP must really like torture. I guess my question is this: why do you go? Are you under some kind of contractual obligation to attend these things? Why doesn’t anyone write to the Holy See about what is giong on during the conferences?
 
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