Why does the Archdiocese of Detroit weekly paper allow ...?

[setter]

I’ve known people who spent alot of effort, time, and money trying to get the shepherds to change course which in hindsight would have been more effectively spent just reaching out directly to the flocks (many of whom don’t read the paper to begin with).

I’m not saying “do nothing”.

I’m not saying “it’s no big deal”

I AM saying “if you want to do something effective to change the status quo, then here’s how to go about changing hearts and minds…” and it doesn’t primarily pass through public websites… at least initially.

I’ll start a new thread to show you what I’m talking about and invite you and anyone else to contribute to an effective solution. If you want to contact me you know at least where to start looking. THEN we can actually effect a positive change.

Why all this preoccupation with “effectiveness” in approach, presentation and technique? Last time I checked my faith pulse, God was simply asking for faithfulness and willingness to speak and stand for the truth.

“I do not pray for success, I ask for faithfulness.” ~ Mother Teresa

 

[frommi]

Why all this preoccupation with “effectiveness” in approach, presentation and technique? Last time I checked my faith pulse, God was simply asking for faithfulness and willingness to speak and stand for the truth.

“I do not pray for success, I ask for faithfulness.” ~ Mother Teresa

Interesting…that’s exactly the approach the late bishop took to his ministry.

 

[setter]

Interesting…that’s exactly the approach the late bishop took to his ministry.

If this is true as you claim, then help me understand how “faithfulness” to Church teaching is evident in this bishop’s writings as I exampled in post #11.

 

[Joe_Stong]

Define “taking a stand” for us please.

 

[Joe_Stong]

Oh and by the way, Our Lord DID command us in the Gospel to use EFFECTIVE means to evangelize.

He told us to not put our light under bushel baskets but to put them on lamp stands so we’d illuminate the whole house (and not just the inside of the basket!)

He told us to be salt and leaven - just a little bit makes all the difference.

He warned us to not throw our pearls to the swine, to shake the dust off our sandals if some town does not accept us and move on - to others who WILL…

But while our means were to be effective, the fruit is always in God’s hands and that’s where our faithfulness comes in… we can control for the boat, and the nets (effective means of catching 150+ fish) but the Lord still controls the fruit of each cast and our free will in obedience will decide whether we cast the nets to the starboard or port of the boat.

As my mother once wrote “if a man has something to sell, and goes and whispers in a well, he’s not as likely to get the dollars as he who climbs a tree and hollars”.

And if our call is to evangelize the world but we go and start cursing the darkness, or butting heads with bureaucracies, or arguing with people who didn’t argue themselves into the beliefs they have to begin with, we’ll be doing ALOT but not getting as much done as we could if we change tactics.

St Paul, when he needed to survive a plot of assassination didn’t hesitate to use the most effective means available to him to get to safety: he invoked his Roman citizenship and got a cohort of Romans to escort him to safety.

The Apostles assembled in Jerusalem to settle the early crisis of Antioch Christians didn’t settle with merely having a council and issuing a letter to the concerned parties. They also sent the letter along with two representatives to make sure the two parties put their teaching into practice!

(And lo and behold, that has since been the most effective way for local Churches to implement councils - to have personal legates from the council responsible for the correct implementation of the council rather than hope for the best and let the two warring factions interpret the letter of the law to further their own aims!)

Our Lord told us to be effective in his parables of the talents, and in the fruit bearing 30, 60, and 100 fold fruit.

So we shouldn’t just do anything and feel smugly satisfied, given the huge harvest and shortage of workers, we ought to do what we can to be as effective as we can but let the Lord bring in the fruit.

 

[guanophore]

Jesus dissented against Himself? Is Christ not the authority behind the Church?

He dissented against the widely held Jewish teachings of the day. He was hated by the scribes and pharisees because he dissented against their ways of shepherding the people, and constantly criticised them in the temple, and in the countryside. Although He was a Jew, and salvation is of the Jews, they did not recognize him because their practices had blinded them to the light of God.

 

[fix]

He dissented against the widely held Jewish teachings of the day. He was hated by the scribes and pharisees because he dissented against their ways of shepherding the people, and constantly criticised them in the temple, and in the countryside. Although He was a Jew, and salvation is of the Jews, they did not recognize him because their practices had blinded them to the light of God.

As A Catholic I understand the Pope is a living authority. When the Church teaches on a matter of faith or morals we understand that is Christ speaking to us and we are not “free” to dissent from Christ. If we do dissent from Christ where are we going?

 

[Joe_Stong]

And sadly, what the “dissent is cool” faction of people do is both intellectually dishonest - in that they don’t just come out and reject Papal teaching but ignore it - it’s also false advertising in that they claim to be “Catholic” but don’t teach authentic, ‘official’ Catholicism but rather their own novel theological spin.

And it’s also contradictory in their own behavior…if ‘dissent’ from higher authority is so cool and so “in the spirit” then why pray tell are dissenters so prone to spontaneously combust when fellow lay people DISSENT from their dissent?

If their opinion is theologically and philosophically sound, why the heated animosity to lay people who believe that it’s our duty to the deposit of faith to hold to the traditions of the fathers? If you’re right, give us the argument, the reasons, the syllogisms.

Mind you it wouldn’t be “so bad” if the differences they were involved with were spiritualities or ‘ways’ of living the Catholic faith. But dissent is not about spiritualities, it’s about DOCTRINE.

Catholicism is open to a plethora of spiritualities and approaches to living a Christ centered life. You have Benedictine, Dominican, Franciscan, Jesuit, Salesian, Legionary, Missionaries of Charity, Carmelite, Trappist, and other types of spiritual styles…

But while they differ from one another, none of the them teach that obedience is no big deal or that poverty is no big deal or that chastity need not be lived.

A doctrinal difference would be to espouse “Liberation Theology” wherein one posits class warfare as a good thing - in complete countervention of more than 100 YEARS of modern Church teaching to say nothing of the tradition that we are all members on One Body; being rich doesn’t automatically make one less a member anymore than being poor does.

Another Doctrinal dissent comes into play when certain religious or lay women decide they’re going to be de facto priestesses if they can’t be so de juris… in other words, they’re going to do what they want because they want to regardless of the tradition and explicit magisterium of the Church which they take as “merely” another opinion on equal par with their own.

Well say what you want about the Catholic Church but one cannot look at the history from the start to the present and arrive at an honest assessment of ecclesiology that presents this type of “everyone’s opinion is as valid as another’s” idea.

The Pope’s magisterium is simply more weighty than what a local DRE or woman religious’ might happen to opine about something.

And finally as mentioned above, if one’s dissent is valid - i.e. is really 'AUTHENTIC Catholicism being defended against corrupt bishops or even Popes (ala St Catherine of Sienna) then lets see the reasoning… the quotes of scripture and tradition, past Popes and past councils… the testimony of the Christian saints throughout the ages with which one agrees, and not say, quotes from Master Eckart or Teilhard de C.

To dissent is merely to disagree - it’s no honor or virtue unless the thing you believe is true and the thing ‘disagreed’ with is wrong. Now, is Catholic sexual ethics wrong? No. Is Catholic ecclesiology wrong? No. Is the Pope’s magisterial pronouncements on moral or doctrinal points wrong? No.

What’s the BEST arguments most dissenters bring to the table?

 

[Joe_Stong]

My point is that I don’t think most dissenters (ESPECIALLY THE THEOLOGICAL ONES) have argued themselves into the positions they hold. I believe they’ve acted themselves into their positions… i.e. their lifestyles and emotional/psychological experiences have predisposed them to conclude certain things to be so.

So you stand more chance in saving them by friendship and charity than by confrontation and arguing - even though the latter is easier to do and less challenging.

For example, Martin Luther didn’t arrive at his theology by logical argumentation from the best of Catholic theology and scriptural exegesis, but because his scrupulosity, ingrained sinful habits, mental and psychological exhaustion made Lutheranism almost the only hope he had.

Given his condition, to arrive at a doctrine of sola fidae was truly euphoric! It made him feel immediately REALLY GOOD.
And looking back on Catholic theology after that experience of euphoria would be like looking back at slavery. Obviously no one would be able to argue him back to what he didn’t really argue himself out of to begin with.

Henry VIII too didn’t argue himself out of Catholicism. He slept his way out. When your lifestyle paints you into a corner such that one could a) assume power as head of the Church and thus excuse one’s chief vice as OK, or b) give up one’s chief vice and eat humble pie and do serious penance, it’s not at all hard to see why so many choose the former.

It’s only after the fact that both Luther and Henry had to come up with more sophisticated excuses for their theological positions.

Many Catholics wanted to live like their Protestant or Post-Christian peers in the 1960’s - to be “ACCEPTED” outside the ghetto… and so, it being supremely easy to be politically correct, many started living the PC lifestyle long before dissent to Humanae Vitae got going.

But you simply can’t read Vatican II and all subsequent Papal documents and arrive at the types of positions most “dissenters” come to hold as dogma.

Not “women priests”, or priests marrying post ordination, or liberation theology, or neo-pagan sexual ethics is OK, or clown/dance/unitarian type liturgies. Nowhere did Council or Pope tell religious orders to re-think their charisms by starting from scratch! Nowhere did Council or Pope claim all the popular pieties were suppressed.

That’s not how dissenters got to those ideas to begin with. Their theologians and psychologists and non-Catholic philosophical pals wrote copious works on what Catholicism OUGHT to be like and how wonderful a utopian future could be “if only” “old” things were jettisoned… and cherry picked a couple vague lines from Vatican II.

No where did they present a full on, full courts press exposition of Vatican II proving their thesis to be the logical conclusion of the Council…which is why today they’ll argue against the letter of the Council in pursuit of some vague “spirit” of their own making which coincidentally matches their own lifestyles and feelings.

So when dealing with such folk, argumentation is not likely to succeed. You’d have better chance baking them some chocolate chip cookies and befriending them on a civil and human level to sequentially and regularly introduce them to the joy of true Catholicism as lived as opposed to as argued for.

This is why Benedict XVI’s first encyclical, On Love, is so vital to the healing of the rift in the Church… people who disagree with one another can come to love one another if both love Christ. Much of the worries and ‘issues’ of dissent will simply die out in the next twenty years. But unless we befriend and love those dissenters - not because they’re dissenters but because they’re people who are lost, they may die in their dissent and that would compound the tragedy their dissent has caused in the Church and world.

 

[setter]

Oh and by the way, Our Lord DID command us in the Gospel to use EFFECTIVE means to evangelize.

I see that you continue to attempt to shift the thread topic focus from correcting dissident clergy to spreading the gospel to the culture at hand.

And if our call is to evangelize the world but we go and start cursing the darkness, or butting heads with bureaucracies, or arguing with people who didn’t argue themselves into the beliefs they have to begin with, we’ll be doing ALOT but not getting as much done as we could if we change tactics.

Thanks, but I will take my direction from Jesus and the John the Baptist in how they corrected the self-righteous and evil spreading religious of their day.

“But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sad’ducees coming for baptism, he said to them, "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” Matthew 3: 7

“You brood of vipers! how can you speak good, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.” Matthew 12: 34

“You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell?” **Matthew 23: 33 **

 

[setter]

And sadly, what the “dissent is cool” faction of people do is both intellectually dishonest - in that they don’t just come out and reject Papal teaching but ignore it - it’s also false advertising in that they claim to be “Catholic” but don’t teach authentic, ‘official’ Catholicism but rather their own novel theological spin.

And it’s also contradictory in their own behavior…

If their opinion is theologically and philosophically sound, why the …

Mind you it wouldn’t be “so bad” if the differences they were involved with were …

Catholicism is open to a plethora of spiritualities and approaches to …

But while they differ from one another, none of the them teach that obedience is no big deal or that …

A doctrinal difference would be to espouse …

Another Doctrinal dissent comes into play when certain religious or lay women decide they’re going …

Well say what you want about the Catholic Church but one …

The Pope’s magisterium is simply more weighty than what a …

And finally as mentioned above, if one’s dissent is valid - i.e. is …

To dissent is merely to disagree - it’s no honor or virtue unless the thing you believe is true and the thing ‘disagreed’ with is wrong. Now, is Catholic sexual ethics wrong? No. Is Catholic ecclesiology wrong? No. Is the Pope’s magisterial pronouncements on moral or doctrinal points wrong? No.

What’s the BEST arguments most dissenters bring to the table?

Your point?

 

[setter]

Define “taking a stand” for us please.

I would hope that this would be self-evident …to stand with the legitimate teaching authority of the magisterium, i.e., the truth.

 

[setter]

My point is that I don’t think most dissenters (ESPECIALLY THE THEOLOGICAL ONES) have argued themselves into the positions they hold. I believe they’ve acted themselves into their positions… i.e. their lifestyles and emotional/psychological experiences have predisposed them to conclude certain things to be so.

So you stand more chance in saving them by friendship and charity than by confrontation and arguing - even though the latter is easier to do and less challenging.

So when dealing with such folk, argumentation is not likely to succeed. You’d have better chance baking them some chocolate chip cookies and befriending them on a civil and human level to sequentially and regularly introduce them to the joy of true Catholicism as lived as opposed to as argued for.

This is why Benedict XVI’s first encyclical, On Love, is so vital to the healing of the rift in the Church… people who disagree with one another can come to love one another if both love Christ. Much of the worries and ‘issues’ of dissent will simply die out in the next twenty years. But unless we befriend and love those dissenters - not because they’re dissenters but because they’re people who are lost, they may die in their dissent and that would compound the tragedy their dissent has caused in the Church and world.

I am talking about containing the error being spread by those in positions of influence through official channels of communication. Like disobedient and rebellious teenagers, you keep loving and talking to them while exerting behavioral consequences for their poor behavior patterns.

 

[Joe_Stong]

Oh boy.

So now the Newspaper is a disobedient teenager and you’re the parent?

That’s the sort of analogy that might work if you were also the Bishop or Editor in chief of the paper and not a lay woman posting things on a chat board.

I’m supposedly wrong because I insist on doing something effective - like ignoring a dissent ridden bureaucracy and preaching to those in need of the truth, and you are conflating your admittedly INEFFECTIVE tactics with Jesus PERSONALLY and PUBLICALLY standing up to Pharisees?

Well, if you have that kind of public access whereby your ‘standing up to them’ will be seen by the target audience you want to help, then I’d say go for it - as that would indeed be an effective means of communication to make friends and influence people.

But if instead your method of bearing witness and chiding the sinful or misguided is to continue to complain about them on this board which they probably don’t visit anyway, and which your target audience may or may not visit either… how is this helpful to the problem and NOT you just talking to the general culture as you accuse me to be ‘for’?

Now - you can once again make this about me and you, or you can focus on changing the newspaper, or reaching the Catholic population it serves (80% of whom I guarantee to you don’t read that Paper at all).

 

[Joe_Stong]

Let’s see if this is a good analysis of the problem shall we?

Problem
A major Catholic archdiocesan newspaper filled half a page with a positive bookreview (vague as all get out) of a known dead dissenting bishops’ life work.

Impact
Let’s suppose every parish in the archdiocese gets the paper and another 10,000 copies go to various diocesan and local suscribers (heavily subsidized by parishes).
But of the 1 million Catholics in the area, seriously only 0.01% of the youth read the paper and less than 10% of the laity do.

So the only people truly impacted by the story are ‘professional’ Catholics for whom an article in the paper is a big deal.

Solutions proposed by setter:

Post opinions on catholic forums read by the general public and hope for the best. After all, we are to not seek effective solutions while at the same time be Christ like in calling heretics broods of vipers as though they were petulant teenagers.

Solutions proposed by Joe Stong

a) form ad hoc committee of concerned local Catholics and write letter to editor rebuting late Bishop’s work as heretical and asking for a retraction or apology from the Paper in the next available issue.

Goal: to get Paper to run that letter so as to counter-balance effect (on professional staff of Archdioceses) of previous article so no one makes a good faith mistake of endorsing the late bishop’s works.

b) effort of said ad hoc committee of concern lay Catholics to meet with editor privately to see about ‘balance’ issues at Paper to see if this wasn’t just a big misunderstanding that slipped through the cracks.

Goal: to effect institutional change in paper such that not only does this not happen again, editor is disposed to run more positive orthodox book reviews in future, thus helping intellectual formation of professional cadres in Archdioceses.

c) creation of study group committee to systematically study and ‘deconstruct’ late bishops’ teaching in light of authentic Catholic orthodoxy.

Goal: to create a book “Summa Contra Heresies” and have the ammo with which to role out media PR interviews, etc on local and regional Catholic radio, TV, and print media thus reaching entire Catholic population in the state of Michigan.

Knowing that the late bishop “empowered” a couple dozen professionals working in various official capacities in Church bureaucracies who will continue his work, the ad hoc committee’s research and PR campaign would form a viable and enduring nucleus of orthodox Catholic locals involved with counter-acting these professionals with the aim of eventually replacing them as they retire.

Let’s see… hmmm which one of these solutions do you think stands a better chance of saving souls?

 

[frommi]

I would hope that this would be self-evident …to stand with the legitimate teaching authority of the magisterium, i.e., the truth.

Interesting that apparently the deceased bishop did not ‘stand with the magisterium’…when in theory and practice, a bishop is part of the magisterium.

 

[fix]

Interesting that apparently the deceased bishop did not ‘stand with the magisterium’…when in theory and practice, a bishop is part of the magisterium.

Is it not possible for any particular bishop to dissent from an authentic teaching? Simply being a bishop does not mean one always teaches in accord with the magisterium, right?

 

[Joe_Stong]

Not so! Merely being ordained a bishop doesn’t make someone “the magisterium” of the Church! It’s not the office but its use that matters!

A bishop’s role is to teach, but the moment he opens his mouth or puts pen to paper the criteria of whether or not his teaching is “Catholic” is NOT the fact that he’s a bishop!

The criteria is whether or not that teaching is in union with the Bishop of Rome and authentic Church tradition as seen in the creeds, councils, and catechisms.

Otherwise, each bishop would be his own pope of an autonomous church answerable to no one (which is probably what the dissenting bishops wished they were). There would be no way for local Catholics to independently determine whether they believe what Catholics elsewhere believed…

As it stands, as all confirmed Catholics ought to know, we are responsible - each according to our state in life - for the deposit of the faith come to us from the Apostles… I’m not “magisterium” when I merely quote the Holy Father, but I sure as heaven can spot heresy from the truth when I hear it and like in the military, no one is obligated to obey an unlawful order. But the criteria is not our own, but the Pope’s.

Needless to say, Catholics are baptised into the Catholic Church not the dioceses - we’re not "Michigan Catholics or American Catholics; we’re Catholics who happen to be in this parish under this pastor, in this diocese under this bishop, in this state, in this Country…but we’re all - pastor, bishop and cardinal Catholic insofar as we hold to the faith that comes to us from the Apostles as led by the successor of Peter.

Local DREs, parish administrators, parish priests, chancery monsignors, Bishops and even Cardinals have been known to be wrong about matters of faith and morals. They don’t automatically get moral authority (though they do have jurisdictional authority) and they certainly don’t have the charism of infallibility.

In times of persecution - whether it was the Arian heresy where virtually all local bishops went over to the Arians, or in modern times such as in Mexico in the 1920’s or China today with the state approved Patriotic Catholic Church not in union with Rome, the mere fact that a prelate says “do this” or “this is right” doesn’t make it so if the Pope and Catechism says otherwise.

 

[setter]

Oh boy.

So now the Newspaper is a disobedient teenager and you’re the parent?

 

[Joe_Stong]

So you DO AGREE WITH ME ABOUT EFFECTIVENESS?

If so, then are you going to follow plan a) or plan b)? Letter or personal contact with the paper…or direct action vs. the late bishop’s parallel magisterium?

Because if what you want to do - if what you feel called to do is stand up for truth against error and for orthodoxy vs. heresy, then there’s only a few ways you can go about doing this to the people directly involved and it doesn’t involve venting here but picking up the phone and calling or sending private correspondence via email or snail mail to the parties directly involved.

OR forming a committee to approach the entire board of the paper, etc.

I have a feeling you just don’t understand me.

You think I’m telling you to do nothing when I’ve practically given you the step by step how to do something that stands a chance of actually working.

I’m not personally antagonistic towards you. I WANT YOU TO BE EFFECTIVE in your resolve to evangelize these people and through their offices to reach more besides…

But as I keep pointing out, there are more than one way to skin cats, more than one way to win battles - some are easier and more cost effective than others.

All things being equal and there being only so many hours in the day, it’s better to focus on the bottom line of what you’re trying to accomplish and not merely on one comfortable tactic that just so happens to stand zero chance at accomplishing anything other than venting.

For example, haranguing someone about the wrongness of their ways only works if they’re already open to the serious possibility that they’re wrong and thus ready to apologize. It doesn’t work when they’re pretty sure they’re right and you’re wrong. (For example our very back and forth here…! )

But it sure feeeeeeeeeeeeels good to just unload on someone!

But what did Jesus specifically tell us to do with brothers (not sons, brothers) who stray? Take them aside IN PRIVATE first. If they don’t listen, take along another peer (ad hoc committee time), if they still don’t listen, bring them to the Church (full court spread, official rebutal of dissent in serious point by point dissertation, etc). If they don’t listen ‘even to the Church’ then treat them as a gentile.

Now how do we treat gentiles? WE EVANGELIZE THEM!