As previously mentioned, James F. David (one of the staff members of the Evensong retreat facility where Jean Marchant and her husband will be conducting a retreat next April), belongs to CORPUS. At its website, CORPUS has this statement: "For the past thirty-one years, CORPUS has been a primary voice for inclusivity in the priesthood...The universal call to follow Jesus and to be ministers of the Gospel must be recognized, minus blanket ordination bariers that are based on marital status, gender or sexual orientation."
The dissent group asks the following question at its site: "Are you a non-celibate person called to ordination as a Roman Catholic priest? CORPUS wants to hear from you." Source: http://www.corpus.org/page.cfm?Web_ID=588
A universal call to be ordained ministers? Hardly. The following is from the La Salette Journey archives:
Before entering into any state of life, a divine vocation is necessary. This because without such a vocation, it is difficult if not impossible to fulfil the obligations which pertain to that state and to obtain salvation. This is particularly true for the ministerial priesthood or any other ecclesiastical state. After all, it was Our Lord Who said: "He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up another way, the same is a thief and a robber" (John 10:1).
Consequently, the man who takes holy orders without a call from God is convicted of theft in taking by force a dignity which God has not called him to and does not desire to bestow upon him. This is the teaching of Saint Paul:
"Neither doth any man take the honor to himself, but he that is called by God, as Aaron was. So Christ also did not glorify Himself that He might be made a high priest; but he that said unto Him: Thou art My Son; this day I have begotten Thee." (Hebrews 5:4,5).
It matters not then how learned or prudent or holy a man may be. No man may place himself into the holy sanctuary unless he is first called and introduced to the same by Almighty God. Jesus Our Lord was certainly the most learned and holy among all men, full of grace and truth (John 1:14), the Son of Man in Whom were (and are) hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (Colossians 2:3). And yet, Jesus required a divine call to assume the dignity of the priesthood.
This is the teaching of the Council of Trent. That the Church regards the man who assumes the priesthood without a vocation not as a minister but as a robber:
"Decernit sancta Synodus eos qui ea (ministeria) propria temeritate sibi sumunt, omnes, non Ecclesiae ministros, sed fures et latrones per ostium non ingressos habendos esse" (Session 23, cap. 4).
Those who seize the priesthood without a vocation may labor and toil exhaustively. But their labors will profit them very little before God. In fact, the very works which would be considered of much merit when performed by others will deserve chastisement for such souls. Because such men are not in conformity with the divine will, not having a vocation to the state of life which they have usurped, the Lord Jesus will not accept their toils:
"I have no pleasure in you, saith the Lord of hosts, and I will not receive a gift of your hand" (Malachi 1:10).
Not only will God refuse the gifts of their hand, He will punish the works of the minister who has entered the sanctuary without being called; without a vocation:
"What stranger soever cometh to it (the Tabernacle) shall be slain." (Numbers 1:51).
In his Apostolic Letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, Pope John Paul II said that, "in order that all doubt may be removed regarding a matter of great importance, a matter which pertains to the Church's divine constitution itself, in virtue of my ministry of confirming the brethren (cf. Lk 22:32) I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church's faithful." (No. 4).
This teaching is to be definitively held by all the Church's faithful. Therefore, no one may reject this definitive teaching and remain in communion with the Church. And yet, many who profess to be Catholic do. A priest who belongs to the La Salette community in Enfield, New Hampshire was heard to say that he believes there is "wiggle room" on this subject.
That's not fidelity to Magisterial teaching people. That's a rejection of what Pope John Paul II so clearly taught. Pray for this priest and all those who reject the Church's definitive teaching.
Paul
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