Why Saint Mary's Church in Orange, Massachusetts is not attracting young people

Bishop Joseph F. Maguire, former Bishop of the Springfield Massachusetts Diocese, was known to be part of the cover-up of sexual abuse within the Diocese.  See here.

Saint Mary's Church in Orange, Massachusetts, the same Church that welcomed prayers for Keith Sullivan, a Youth Minister accused of sexual abuse - see here - (while offering no such prayers for the alleged victim) is now advertising a Memorial Mass for the now deceased Bishop Maguire.

This comes as no surprise as the Church, under Father Shaun O'Connor, has promoted the views of Father Jonathan Morris, a priest who distorted the Church's teaching regarding homosexuality, while banning me from its Facebook page for defending the Magisterial teaching of the Church.

And while Keith Sullivan, arrested by the Nashua Police Department for sexual abuse and kidnapping was welcome at Saint Mary's, apparently Catholics faithful to orthodoxy are not.  This explains why the Church is disintegrating.  One lay person, involved in parish ministry, was overheard saying (to a friend just prior to Mass), that there aren't many kids at CCD and that "young people aren't going to Mass."

Should this really come as a surprise?

Father Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen, O.C.D., in his classic work devoted to the interior life entitled Divine Intimacy, explains that, "Devotion to Our Lady of Mount Carmel indicates a strong call to the interior life, which, in a very special way, is Mary's life.  The Blessed Virgin wants us to resemble her in heart and mind much more than in externals.  If we penetrate into Mary's soul, we see that grace produced in her a very rich interior life: a life of recollection, prayer, uninterrupted giving of herself to God, and of constant contact and intimate union with Him.  Mary's soul is a sanctuary reserved for God alone where no creature has ever left an imprint; here reign love and zeal for the glory of God and the salvation of men.  Those who wish to live truly devoted to Our Lady of Mount Carmel, must follow Mary into the depths of the interior life...Every interior soul, even if living amid the tumult of the world, must strive to reach this peace, this interior silence, which alone makes continual contact with God possible.  It is our passions and attachments that make noise within us, that disturb our peace of mind and interrupt our intimate converse with God.  Only the soul that is wholly detached and in complete control of its passions can, like Mary, be a solitary, silent 'garden' where God will find His delights.  This is the grace we ask of Our Lady today when we choose her to be the Queen and mistress of our interior life." (Divine Intimacy, pp. 1147-1148).

When a soul is occupied with inordinate attachments to self or creatures or the vain and passing things of this world, it is unable to love God with all its strength and finds itself divided between God and self, between God and creatures, between God and the transitory things of this dying world.  But we are commanded, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with all thy strength and with all thy mind." (Luke 10: 27).

It is these inordinate attachments to self or creatures which lead to dissent and ultimately polarization within the Church.  The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in its Instruction on the Ecclesial Vocation of the Theologian, tells us that, "The Church 'is like a sacrament, a sign and instrument, that is, of communion with God and of unity among all men' (Lumen Gentium, 1).  Consequently, to pursue concord and communion is to enhance the force of her witness and credibility.  To succumb to the temptation of dissent, on the other hand, is to allow the 'leaven of infidelity to the Holy Spirit' to start to work." (No. 40).

This leaven of infidelity has, for many years now, crippled many within the Church.  The dissent which has been embraced within the Church has led to polarization.  Why?  Because faithful Catholics who do not [and indeed cannot] accept the dissenting view are duty bound to resist it for the sake of the Church's authentic peace, a peace which Pope John XXIII said, "is not completely untroubled and serene; it is active, not calm and motionless.  In short, this is a peace that is ever at war.  It wars with every sort of error, including that which falsely wears the face of truth; it struggles against the enticements of vice, against those enemies of the soul, of whatever description, who can weaken, blemish, or destroy our innocence or Catholic faith." (Ad Petri cathedram).

There has been much dissent and subsequent polarization within the Diocese of Springfield (as in others) because the leadership (and here we are being most generous in our terms) of the local Church has failed to inspire the faithful (and its own priests first and foremost) to strip themselves of all that is not of God.  While St. John of the Cross assures us that, "The soul has only one will, and if it occupies itself or encumbers itself with anything, it will not remain free, solitary, and pure, as is required for divine transformation," the Springfield Diocese has encouraged an atmosphere of self-will, self-assertion, self-affirmation and self-promotion.  Forgotten is the warning of the Holy Spirit that "God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble." (James 4: 6).

We (all of us) must become more Mary-like in heart and mind and not just in externals.  "In every deliberate sin," as Dr. Germain Grisez reminds us, such as dissent from Church teaching or deliberate non-assent, "freedom of self-determination is exercised contrary to what is known to be truly right and good.  In sinning, sinners tend to regard moral truths legalistically, as if they were mere rules blocking them from doing as they please.  Thus, deliberate sin seems to be self-affirming.  Affirming the self and rejecting the limits which deny some forbidden fruit, sinners try to be autonomous, as only God really can be."

Faith demands the renunciation of the sinful self which authentic devotion to Mary necessarily involves.  Pride must give way to humility.  Only then can one find the truth which sets one free (John 8: 32). 

Francis, your legalism is showing...

My last Facebook post:

Dr. Germain Grisez, in a talk entitled "Legalism, Moral Truth and Pastoral Practice" given at a 1990 symposium held in Philadelphia, had this to say:

"Theologians and pastors [pay attention here Francis] who dissent from received Catholic teaching think they are rejecting legalism because they set aside what they think are mere rules in favor of what they feel are more reasonable standards. Their views are thoroughly imbued with legalism, however. For dissenters think of valid moral norms as rules formulated to protect relevant values. Some even make their legalism explicit by denying that there is any necessary connection between moral goodness (which they restrict to the transcendental level of a love with no specific content) and right action (which they isolate at the categorical level of inner-worldly behavior). But whether their legalism is explicit or not, all the dissenters hold that specific moral norms admit exceptions whenever, all things considered, making an exception seems the best - or least bad - thing to do. Most dissenters also think that specific moral norms that were valid in times past can be inappropriate today, and so they regard the Church's contested moral teachings as outdated rules that the Church should change."


Dr. Grisez reminded his listeners at the Philadelphia symposium that, "During the twentieth century, pastoral treatment of repetitious sins through weakness - especially masturbation, homosexual behavior, premarital sex play and contraception within marriage - grew increasingly mild. Pastors correctly recognized that weakness and immaturity can lessen such sins’ malice. Thinking legalistically, they did not pay enough attention to the sins’ inherent badness and harmfulness, and they developed the idea that people can freely choose to do something that they regard as a grave matter without committing a mortal sin. This idea presupposes that in making choices people are not responsible precisely for choosing what they choose. That presupposition makes sense within a legalistic framework, because lawgivers can take into account mitigating factors and limit legal culpability. But it makes no sense for morality correctly understood, because moral responsibility in itself is not something attached to moral acts but simply is moral agents’ self-determination in making free choices. Repetitious sinners through weakness also were handicapped by their own legalism. Not seeing the inherent badness of their sins, they felt that they were only violating inscrutable rules. When temptation grew strong, they had little motive to resist, especially because they could easily go to confession and have the violation fixed. Beginning on Saturday they were holy; by Friday they were again sinners. This cyclic sanctity robbed many people’s lives of Christian dynamism and contributed to the dry rot in the Church that became manifest in the 1960s, when the waves of sexual permissiveness battered her."

Dr. Grisez then went on to explain that, "Pastors free of legalism will teach the faithful how sin makes moral requirements seem to be alien impositions, help them see through this illusion, and encourage them to look forward to and experience the freedom of God’s children, who rejoice in the fruit of the Spirit and no longer experience the constraint of law.."

Father Thomas Rosica and the leaven of infidelity

In an interview with Professor Gregory Baum for "Salt and Light TV," Father Thomas Rosica told the notorious dissident, “I’ve certainly admired very much your theology, your writings but also your love of the Church, your love of Christ, and you helped to keep alive not only the spirit of the Second Vatican council, but also the authentic teaching of the Council … you remain a faithful, deeply devoted Catholic, love Jesus, the Church, the Eucharist.”

Lifesite News has reported, "Liberal Catholic press-people have recently touted a man some call Canada’s leading dissenter since the 1960s - former Catholic priest Gregory Baum - because of his role as an expert, or peritus, to the Canadian bishops at Vatican II.  Baum, an advocate of homosexual ‘marriage’ and sex outside of marriage and contraception, was lauded by Fr. Thomas Rosica of Salt and Light TV, Michael Swan of the Catholic Register and also given free reign in the pages of the Scarboro Foreign Missions magazine.

Had he merely publicly rejected Catholicism, Baum would not have been as grave a danger to the Church and especially its moral teachings.

Despite the automatic excommunication he incurred for marrying an ex-nun while still a priest, Baum continued to speak lovingly of Jesus and the Gospels as he repudiated many of the principles of faith and morals revealed by Christ and in Sacred Scripture.  One of the tools of repudiation was the dissenting Catholic New Times newspaper co-founded by Baum and other dissenters in 1976 and eventually prohibited from one diocese after another.

Such two-facedness led one of Baum’s contemporaries, canon lawyer Monsignor Vincent Foy, to consider Baum as having “done more than any person to harm the Church in Canada…"

This is the disturbed soul which Father Thomas Rosica has publically lauded.  What would that suggest about Dr. Rosica?

Vatican II, in its' Decree on the Ministry and Life of Priests (Presbyterorum Ordinis) No. 4, tells us that: "The People of God are joined together primarily by the word of the living God. And rightfully they expect this from their priests. Since no one can be saved who does not first believe, priests, as co-workers with their bishops, have the primary duty of proclaiming the Gospel of God to all. In this way they fulfill the command of the Lord: "Going therefore into the whole world preach the Gospel to every creature" (Mk 16:15), and they establish and build up the People of God. Through the saving word the spark of faith is lit in the hearts of unbelievers, and fed in the hearts of the faithful. This is the way that the congregation of faithful is started and grows, just as the Apostle describes: "Faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ" (Rom 10:17).


To all men, therefore, priests are debtors that the truth of the Gospel which they have may be given to others. And so, whether by entering into profitable dialogue they bring people to the worship of God, whether by openly preaching they proclaim the mystery of Christ, or whether in the light of Christ they treat contemporary problems, they are relying not on their own wisdom for it is the word of Christ they teach, and it is to conversion and holiness that they exhort all men."

According to the Council, the task of priests is "not to teach their own wisdom but God's Word." And this task is of no less importance for the priest than his offering of the Eucharistic Sacrifice. Both of these are inseperably linked to each other: "The ministerial priesthood has the task not only of representing Christ - Head of the Church - before the assembly of the faithful, but also of acting in the name of the whole Church when presenting to God the prayer of the Church, and above all when offering the Eucharistic sacrifice." (Catechism of the Catholic Church, No. 1552).

For this reason, priests have the very serious obligation to teach the faithful under their care that it is never licit to have sexual relations outside of marriage; that a Catholic cannot (having been validly married in the Church) after divorce, marry another or otherwise pretend that sexual relations with another individual are somehow "marital"; that "formal cooperation in an abortion constitutes a grave offense" and that '"the Church attaches the canonical penalty of excommunication to this crime against human life" (CCC, 2272); and that "every action which, whether in anticipation of the conjugal act, or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible, is intrinsically evil.." (CCC, No. 2370, citing Humanae Vitae, No. 14).

The Church proposes these (and other teachings) as true and it does so in the name of Christ. The priest is not to question them. He is not to ignore them or neglect them out of a false sense of "compassion" or "charity." It was Pope Paul VI who said that, "To diminish in no way the saving teaching of Christ constitutes an eminent form of charity for souls." (Humanae Vitae, No. 29).

Pope John Paul II reiterated these words in Familiaris Consortio, No. 33. We are reminded in Lumen Gentium 14 of the Second Vatican Council that: "He is not saved, however, who, though part of the body of the Church, does not persevere in charity. He remains indeed in the bosom of the Church, but, as it were, only in a "bodily" manner and not "in his heart." All the Church's children should remember that their exalted status is to be attributed not to their own merits but to the special grace of Christ. If they fail moreover to respond to that grace in thought, word and deed, not only shall they not be saved but they will be the more severely judged."

When a priest ignores or neglects his duty, his task, of serving the Word of God with fidelity, he fails to persevere in that charity described by Popes Paul VI and John Paul II as a charity which diminishes in no way the saving teaching of Christ. And he will be the more severely judged (Luke 12:48).

But so many priests have neglected their duty to proclaim the Gospel to all.  And the Church is now reaping the fruit of this infidelity.  Even though Canon Law states quite clearly that, "The Christian faithful have the right to receive assistance from the sacred pastors out of the spiritual goods of the Church, especially the word of God and the sacraments" (Canon 213), there has been a dearth of sound catechesis.  The People of God have not been formed by sound instruction based on Church doctrine and Church Tradition.  When was the last time (if ever) you heard a homily in your local parish citing the Catechism of the Catholic Church or papal documents?  Were it not for EWTN, you might never hear such authentic preaching.

And this is nothing short of shameful.  For such a foundation is vital.  Where it is absent, people will assume that they have the right to form their conscience according to their own opinions, their own whims.  The Catechism teaches us that, "Conscience must be informed and moral judgment enlightened.  A well-formed conscience is upright and truthful.  It formulates its judgments according to reason, in conformity with the true good willed by the wisdom of the Creator.  The education of conscience is indispensable for human beings who are subjected to negative influences and tempted by sin to prefer their own judgment and to reject authoritative teachings." (1783).

Those priests who remain silent while their people crave truth and direction are betraying their vocation.  And they will be (as Lumen Gentium 14 reminds us), the more severely judged.  As will every Catholic who knowingly rejects the authoritative teachings of Christ's Church.  Truly the words of Hosea apply to our own time:

"Sons of Israel, listen to the word of Yahweh, for Yahweh indicts the inhabitants of the country; there is no fidelity, no tenderness, no knowledge of God in the country, only perjury and lies, slaughter, theft, adultery and violence, murder after murder.  This is why the country is in mourning, and all who live in it pineaway, even the wild animals and the birds of heaven; the fish of the sea themselves are perishing."

And to the priests:

"But let no man denounce, no man rebuke; it is you, priest that I denounce.  Day and night you stumble along, the prophet stumbling with you, and you are the ruin of your people.  My people perish for want of knowledge.  As you have rejected knowledge so do I reject you from my priesthood; you have forgotten the teaching of your God, I in my turn will forget your children.  Many as they are, all of them have sinned against me, they have bartered their glory for shame.  They feed on the sin of my people, they are all greedy for their iniquity.  But as with the people, so let it be with the priest: I will make them for their conduct, I will pay them out for their deeds.  They will eat but never be satisfied, they will play the whore but still be sterile, because they have deserted Yahweh to give themselves up to whoring." (Hosea 4: 1-11).

The Church is in crisis because priests like Father Thomas Rosica continue to genuflect before the world in their zeal to serve the Prince of this world.

Pray for these confused clerics.

Saint Joseph's Parish in Cleghorn and the Cleghorn Neighborhood Center: Partners in evil

In the past I have warned about demonic activity and doctrinal dissent at Saint Joseph's Parish in Cleghorn; things ranging from a priest viewing child pornography to a parish secretary who is photographed in a state of undress and sporting devil's horns to a Deacon who promotes the writings of an admitted sexual predator to a priest who would omit the Creed.

This same parish has been intimately connected with the Cleghorn Neighborhood Center in Fitchburg.  See here.

The problem? As the Lepanto Institute reports:

For Fiscal Year 2014-2015, the Catholic Campaign for Human Development provided a $35,000 grant to the United Neighbors of Fitchburg, formerly known as the Cleghorn Neighborhood Center (CNC).  In 2012, Reform CCHD Now reported serious problems with CNC, including the fact that CNC was listed as a “community partner” with the Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts.

Summary of Problems

CNC is listed as a “community partner” with Planned Parenthood.

CNC’s Youth Development Supervisor created a presentation on teen pregnancy which promotes Planned Parenthood.

CNC co-sponsored TeenAIDS events, which promote condom use.

Is a member of a coalition that supports same-sex marriage.

Small wonder that the parish didn't want me around and refused to let me participate in parish ministry.  My reputation for "telling it like it is" would have been disastrous for them.

The parish has become a haunt of demons.  This is not the same parish which my father's cousin, Father Louis Gould, served as Pastor.  Now infidelity has spread like a cancer.

The culture of evil and deceit continues.

Paul
cleghornboy@juno.com

The leaven of infidelity to the Holy Spirit rises in the Boston Archdiocese

“Dissent, in the form of carefully orchestrated protests and polemics carried on in the media, is opposed to ecclesial communion and to a correct understanding of the hierarchical constitution of the People of God.” (Pope John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Veritatis Splendor, No. 113).


It should come as no surprise that dissent within the Church leads to polarization and undermines truth which is the principle of the Church’s communion. In its Instruction on the Ecclesial Vocation of the Theologian, No. 40, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith said that, “The Church ‘is like a sacrament, a sign and instrument, that is, of communion with God and of unity among all men’ (LG, 1). Consequently, to pursue concord and communion is to enhance the force of her witness and credibility. To succumb to the temptation of dissent, on the other hand, is to allow the ‘leaven of infidelity to the Holy Spirit’ to start to work.”

We are now witnessing such polarization within the Archdiocese of Boston where a false pluralism has been advanced; a pro-abortion, pro same-sex politician has been honored; and a high-ranking priest has issued praise for those who promoted Obamacare (which includes federal-funding of abortion).

The warning of Pope Paul VI, given during his Homily at Holy Thursday Mass on April 3, 1969, has been largely ignored:


"There is talk of renewal in the doctrine and in the conscience of the Church of God; but how can the living and true Church be authentic and persistent if the complex structure that forms it and defines it a spiritual and social 'mystical body', is today so often and so gravely corroded by dissent and challenge and by forgetfulness of its hierarchical structure, and is countered in its divine and indispensable constituent charism, its pastoral authority? How can it claim to be a Church, that is a united people, even though locally broken up and historically and legitimately diversified, when a practically schismatic ferment is dividing it, subdividing it and breaking it into groups which are more than anything else zealous for arbitrary and fundamentally egoistical autonomy, masked by Christian pluralism or liberty of conscience?"

Indeed. And that is the question in Boston.

Pray for the Archdiocese of Boston. Pray for its leaders. That they may all come to understand that dissent leads to polarization and harms the Church's credibility and her witness. What must change? The structure of the Church or that of the human heart?


Related reading here. And here.

The "new religion" must destroy the Church

Already, so many Christians have been seduced by the religious deception which is presented as the "new religion," the religion of the Age of Aquarius. Those who wish to destroy the Church and to prepare the way for the Man of Sin know full well that external persecution only strengthens the Church. Therefore, they strive to bring down the Church through internal betrayal and infidelity.

As I said here, "The new humanitarian religion, which is anti-supernatural, must absorb Christianity as it prepares for the entrance of the Man of Sin. Catholics who maintain a devotion to the Holy Eucharist and Our Lady [and authentic devotion to Our Lady presupposes total obedience to the Church's Magisterium] must first be ostracized and later eliminated as incompatible with the New Order."

"Erit enim tempus, cum sanam doctrinam non sustinebunt, sed ad sua desideria coacervabunt sibi magistros, prurientes auribus. Et a veritate quidem auditum avertent, ad fabulas autem convertentur." (2 Timothy 4: 3-4).

And that time is now. New Age philosophies are spreading throughout the Church. Homosexuality and lesbianism are celebrated. Even in a Catholic parish. Intoxicated with their own knowledge and learning, those who have succumbed to friendship with the world tell us that we must leave behind the "old complexes" and reject "backward thinking" so that we may evolve into more "civilized" beings who may then build an earthly paradise. These misguided souls are not interested in knowledge for the sake of truth, but for power and possession.

It was Dr. Dietrich von Hildebrand who warned that,"..a much worse consequence of the idol of learning is the killing of common sense, which is being undertaken on a widespread scale in grammar schools, high schools, and colleges. One forgets the great source of wisdom which lies in our immediate contact with being, and how pernicious it is to replace the resulting world view, with instruction which draws its nourishment from doubtful psychological and sociological theories, and false, flat philosophies. Every immediate, true experience in which the voice of being speaks to a person, is much more interesting than the questionable theories he has adopted concerning the world and life. Thus it is that a simple, unlettered man, when he speaks about the world and his life, is much wiser, much truer, and more genuine than all the half-educated people who simply repeat the stupid theories expounded by their professors. The statement of a simple person may be clumsily expressed; it may be incomplete, and even contain errors. But it will always have a kernel of truth, always the freshness of a genuine contact with reality, and be free from the arrogant presumption of establishing a valid theory in the sense of looking 'behind the scenes' of reality, and being able to 'explain' everything. The dangerous error of the cult of teaching and learning reaches its climax in the ambition to improve, modify, or even replace natural, immediate, organic contact with the world and life, by an artificial contact based on so-called 'scientific' theories." (The Devastated Vineyard, pp. 85-86).

We are commanded, "Do not love the world or the things of the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, sensual lust, enticement for the eyes, and a pretentious life, is not from the Father but is from the world. Yet the world and its enticement are passing away. But whoever does the will of God remains forever." (2 Timothy 2: 15-17).

Who will be able to resist the Antichrist when he reveals himself? - which could be at any time now. As I mentioned in a previous post, Romano Guardini has provided us with the answer:

"One day the Antichrist will come: a human being who introduces an order of things in which rebellion against God will attain its ultimate power. He will be filled with enlightenment and strength. The ultimate aim of all aims will be to prove that existence witout Christ is possible - nay rather, that Christ is the enemy of existence, which can be fully realized only when all Christian values have been destroyed. His arguments will be so impressive, supported by means of such tremendous power - violent and diplomatic, material and intellectual - that to reject them will result in almost insurmountable scandal, and everyone whose eyes are not opened by grace will be lost. Then it will be clear what the Christian essence really is: that which stems not from the world, but from the heart of God; victory of grace over the world; redemption of the world, for her true essence is not to be found in herself, but in God, from whom she has received it. When God becomes all in all, the world will finally burst into flower."

Those who believe in their own intellectual prowess will succumb to the lie. They will be seduced by the Antichrist. Already we see the spirit of Antichrist seducing so many as they scramble to find teachers who will tickle their ears and tell them what they want to hear. But their end is destruction.

"Before Christ's second coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers. The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth will unveil the "mystery of iniquity" in the form of a religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth. The supreme religious deception is that of the Antichrist, a pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself in place of God and of his Messiah come in the flesh." (Catechism of the Catholic Church, No. 675).