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

Whom shall we take as our model: Our Lady and the Saints or the devils?

Remember Janice Potter?  She is the secretary over at Saint Joseph's Parish in Fitchburg who told me I shouldn't return to the parish because I had a problem with the  liturgical abuses there.  Most notably, the parish was omitting the Creed on Sundays.  See here.  She is still serving at the parish.  See here.

A reader named Stewart informed us that, "Janice Potter is known on Facebook by the alias Jancanman. She has 'liked' a Facebook page titled 'Hope There's Wine In Hell.'

That page may be found here:  https://www.facebook.com/winetimeanytime

Jan has also posed as a devil for a photo which she uses on various internet profiles.

In order to live our lives completely for God, we have to struggle against the principalities and powers of this world.  So many Catholics today refuse to acknowledge this truth.  For such people, belief in evil spirits is a matter of "superstition."  Pope Paul VI, in a general audience on November 15, 1972, refuted this notion saying, "What are the Church's greatest needs at the present time?  Don't be surprised at our answer and don't write it off as simplistic or even superstitious: one of the Church's greatest needs is to be defended against the evil which we call the Devil...Evil is not merely an absence of something but an active force, a living, spiritual being that is perverted and that perverts others....It is a departure from the picture provided by biblical and Church teaching to refuse to acknowledge the Devil's existence...or to explain the Devil as a pseudoreality, a conceptual, fanciful, personification of the unknown causes of our misfortunes...St. Paul calls him the 'god of this world,' and warns us of the struggle we Christians must carry on in the dark, not only against one Devil, but against a frightening multiplicity of them.."

Our spiritual struggle, then, is against a host of evil spirits.  And these evil spirits are extremely cunning.  Although they are fallen angels, they are still far more intelligent than us because of their angelic natures.  Pope Paul VI, during the same audience, stressed that the Devil, "..undermines man's moral equilibrium with his sophistry.  He is the malign, clever seducer who knows how to make his way into us through the senses, the imagination and the libido, through utopian logic, or through disordered social contacts in the give and take of our social activities, so that he can bring in us deviations that are all the more harmful because they seem to conform to our physical or mental make-up, or to our profound, instinctive aspirations....The matter of the Devil and of the influence he can exert on individuals as well as on communities, entire societies or events, is a very important chapter of Catholic doctrine which should be studied again, although it is given little attention today.."

Forty years later, we can still say the same.  Little if any attention is paid to this critical aspect of Catholic doctrine.  Mostly, I think, because we believe (in our arrogance) that we can solve all problems and difficulties ourselves.  We forget Jesus' warning that some spirits can only be driven out through much prayer and fasting.

Jesus gives us power and authority over demonic forces.  The demons were subject to the seventy disciples (Luke 10: 17-20).  They were subject to Saint Paul and the first Christians.  And they are subject to us as present-day followers of the Lord Jesus.  But in order to use this power over the evil spirits, those of us who profess to be Christian must grow and develop in our spiritual lives.  This means that we must strive to "live for God completely" as Archbishop Chaput reminded us.  We must attend Holy Mass faithfully (and reverently), pray daily - the Rosary is a spiritual weapon which Satan fears, and spend time with Sacred Scripture - God's Holy Word.

As Christians, we are MORE THAN CONQUERORS through the shed Blood of Jesus Christ (Romans 8: 37-39).  Let's live our lives accordingly.  This means listening to the Magisterium of the Church with docility and submitting our minds and wills to that teaching authority which has been established by Jesus Himself.  Without such obedience, how can we expect the evil spirits to obey our command - in the name of Jesus - to depart?  Disobedience and sin will not drive out the demons.  Only a life of faith lived in humility, taking the Virgin Mother of God as our model.

What are we waiting for? And whom shall we take as our model: Our Lady and the Saints who lived for God completely or the devils who reject God's saving plan?

The answer to that question will determine whether we re-evangelize our culture or come to resemble the demons whose doctrines we follow.

The gravity of liturgical abuse and the Diocese of Worcester

Many Catholics today, priests and laity as well as consecrated religious, possess a lust for innovation which they use to assault the stability of sacred rites.  Referring to these liturgical terrorists who seek to violently replace divine forms with their own reckless innovations, John Henry Cardinal Newman warned that, "No one can really respect religion and insult its forms.  Granted that forms are not immediately from God, still long use has made them divine to us; for the spirit of religion has so penetrated and quickened them, that to destroy them is, in respect to the multitude of men, to unsettle and dislodge the religious principle itself.  In most minds usage has so identified them with the notion of religion, that one cannot be extirpated without the other.  Their faith will not bear transplanting...Precious doctrines are strung like jewels upon slender threads." (John Henry Cardinal Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. II, Christian Classics Inc, pp. 75-76).

Those who are bent on making their own unauthorized changes to the liturgy often fail to appreciate how such an endeavor can constitute grave sin.  I know this because some have accused me of making a mountain out of a molehill for my opposition to various liturgical abuses.  Dr. Germain Grisez explains: "There are many reasons why it is wrong for priests intentionally to make unauthorized liturgical changes.  Two are especially important.  First, such changes sometimes embody or imply deviations from Catholic faith; even when they do not, they often omit (see here for example) or obscure something of the liturgy's expression of faith.  Thus, the Church teaches: 'The law of prayer is the law of faith: the Church believes as she prays.  Liturgy is a constitutive element of the holy and living Tradition' (cf. DV 8).  For this reason no sacramental rite may be modified or manipulated at the will of the minister or the community.  Even the supreme authority in the Church may not change the liturgy arbitrarily, but only in the obedience of faith and with religious respect for the mystery of the liturgy.' (CCC, 1124-1125).

Dr. Grisez continues, "..in the Eucharist, a priest acts in the person of Christ, who joins humankind to the Father; but in making unauthorized changes, a priest obscures Jesus' action, focuses attention on himself, and becomes an obstacle to the relationship between God and His People that priests are ordained to serve...Priests are agents ordained to deliver God's gifts to His People.  If they deliver some substitute for what Jesus has entrusted to them, they interpose themselves between - and defraud - both God and His People...

There are five additional reasons why unauthorized changes should not be made in the liturgy.  First, the liturgy is the worship of the Church as a body, and those who are ordained act as Church officials in performing liturgical roles.  So, insofar as a priest makes unauthorized changes, he misrepresents as the Church's what is in fact only his or some limited group's.  Even if this misrepresentation deceives no one and is intended for some good end, it is at odds with the reverence necessary for true worship.  Second, this essential irreverence and the obvious arbitrariness of intentional unauthorized changes strongly suggest that the Eucharist is not sacred, and this suggestion tends to undermine not only faith in Jesus' bodily presence in the consecrated elements, but faith that the Eucharist is Jesus' sacrifice made present for the faithful to share in.  Third, a priest who makes intentional, unauthorized changes acts with deplorable clericalism by imposing his personal preferences on the laity and violating the rights of those who quite reasonably wish only to participate in the Church's worship.  Fourth, intentionally making unauthorized changes sets a bad example of serious disobedience to the Church's norms, and this bad example is likely to encourage some people to think and do as they please not only in liturgical and canonical matters, but in matters of faith and morals.  Fifth...unauthorized liturgical changes often become a needless, divisive issue for the faithful, thus impeding the charity that the Eucharist should express and foster."

Still think that liturgical abuse is a small matter of little significance?  If so, this reflects on your own immaturity and not the objective truth that liturgical abuse constitutes grave matter.  How grave?  Again, Dr. Grisez:

"The reasons why priests should not make unauthorized liturgical changes also make it clear..that a priest's intentionally doing so is of itself matter of grave sin.  Of course, many changes are in themselves very minor, and a few perhaps even are real improvements.  But though this kind of sin admits  parvity, such small changes also are scandalous, not only because they give the faithful a bad example of disobedience but because they contribute to a clerical culture in which liturgical abuse is widely tolerated and sometimes even expected, so that some are encouraged to engage in far graver abuses.  Now, even a sin venial in itself becomes grave scandal when one foresees that it is likely to lead others to commit grave sin; thus, the element of scandal makes grave matter of even minor liturgical abuses likely to encourage more serious abuses by other priests.  Due to widespread confusion and negligence of some bishops, many priests undoubtedly lack sufficient reflection regarding this sin."

Serious matter this.  But how many priests within our own Diocese of Worcester routinely make unauthorized liturgical changes and think nothing of it?  Only recently I had to address the fact that several area priests were omitting the Creed from the liturgy.  At one parish where I often attend Holy Mass, a woman who serves as an Office Manager for the parish called me an idiot and indicated that if I don't care for the liturgical abuses, I should stay away.

But is this really the answer?  Insulting Catholics who want to participate in a faithful liturgy? 

Liturgical abuse is most serious.  But thus far, Bishop Robert McManus has not dealt in any meaningful way with this ongoing problem.  Read Michael Poulin's comment at my post dealing with our new Pope Francis.

Two priests of the Worcester Diocese: Fr. Leo-Paul LeBlanc and Fr. Andre Gariepy

On November 5, 1977, in a locution to Father Stefano Gobbi, Our Lady, referring to the purification to come (and which we're beginning to live through now), said, "Do not stop to consider the ever thickening darkness, the sin which has been set up as the norm of human action, the suffering which is mounting to its peak and the chastisement which this humanity is preparing with its own hands."

Father Leo-Paul LeBlanc, the pastor of Immaculate Heart of Mary parish in Winchendon, like many of his contemporaries within the Diocese of Worcester and beyond, disagrees with Our Lady.  In fact, in a homily given during the 9:30 a.m. Mass yesterday, Fr. LeBlanc asserted that it is a "confused theology" which advances the idea that God sends punishments (or chastisements).  God, insisted this proud cleric, "doesn't work that way."

How then does Fr. LeBlanc explain the Flood which destroyed the known world in Noah's time?  How does he explain the five cities of the plain - Sodom and Gomorrah - which were wiped out because of the grave sins [primarily homosexual acts] which were being committed there?  It was the holy angels who told Lot, "We are about to destroy this place, for the outcry reaching the Lord against those in the city is so great that he has sent us to destroy it." (Genesis 19: 13).

Only a foolish man would attempt to "correct" God's Holy Word.  And that Holy Word is most clear, for those who haven't lost their supernatural faith while succumbing to a radical secularism.  We read: "I will punish them for their sin" (Exodus 32: 34); "he does not leave the guilty unpunished" (Exodus 34: 7); "I will punish you for your sins seven times over" (Leviticus 26: 18); "I will choose their punishments" (Isaiah 66: 4); "on the wicked he will rain coals and sulphur" (Psalm 11: 6); "I will punish their sin with the rod" (Psalm 89: 32); "the wicked will not go unpunished" (Proverbs 11: 21); "God knows how to keep the unrighteous under punishment" (2 Peter 2: 9); "the Lord will punish the powers in heaven and the kings on earth" (Isaiah 24: 21); "the Lord is coming to punish the people of the earth for their sins" (Isaiah 26: 21); "the Lord will punish men for all such sins" (1 Thessalonians 4: 6).

God doesn't send punishments?  The Scriptures tells us otherwise.

Father LeBlanc implied in his homily that there is really no difference between mortal and venial sin, asserting that faithful Catholics who view AIDS as a punishment for grave or mortal sin should look at their own sins and not see the disease as resulting from sin.  In doing so, Fr. LeBlanc employed the word "gay" to refer to homosexuals or sodomites, which itself is evidence that he has succumbed - on some level - to radical homosexual agitprop.  To begin with, yes we are all sinners.  But as the Catechism of the Catholic Church makes clear: "Sins are rightly evaluated according to their gravity.  The distinction between mortal and venial sin (which apparently is lost on Fr. LeBlanc), already evident in Scripture, became part of the tradition of the Church.  It is corroborated by human experience...Mortal sin destroys charity in the heart of man by a grave violation of God's law; it turns man away from God, who is his ultimate end and his beatitude, by preferring an inferior good to him.  Venial sin allows charity to subsist, even though it offends or wounds it." (CCC, 1854, 1855).

Some sins are so vile that they cry to heaven for vengeance.  The Catechism lists among these "the sin of the Sodomites" (See CCC, 1867). 

Having succumbed on some level to homosexual ideology, Fr. LeBlanc rejects the idea that AIDS is a punishment for homosexual acts and a culture which has largely embraced homosexuality.  Saint Paul, however, writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, says that those who exchange natural relations for unnatural receive "in their own persons the due penalty for their error." (Romans 1: 27). 

Whether Fr. LeBlanc cares to acknowledge it or not, God does send chastisements.  In fact, Scripture assures us that He chastises the son he favors.  As Father Albert J. Hebert, S.M., has explained, "The chastisement actually involves a complexity of severe trials and tribulations for the human race: natural disasters of all types like floods and tidal waves, storms, quakes, eruptions, economic disasters, famines, plagues, diseases which will include incurable ones, revolutionary activities, indiscriminate terrorist bombings, civil, racial and religious strife; wars, persecutions...Many of these sufferings will be either from nature or from one's own fellowman.  The demons will urge them on in this mutual self-destruction and there will be much destruction by the demons themselves.  A sort of petic justice and retribution!  Man, along with Satan, makes his own hell, even on earth."

And aren't we beginning to see these things take place?

Also yesterday, Fr. Andre Gariepy, a retired priest of the Worcester Diocese who currently resides in Fitchburg, celebrated Mass for Fr. Joseph Jurgelonis at Saint Martin's Parish in Otter River.  It is most unfortunate that this parish should call upon Fr. Gariepy to fill in for Fr. Jurgelonis while he is away.  For Fr. Gariepy has asserted that, "There are no absolutes, the Ten Commandments are only guidelines."

Only guidelines?

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, referring to the Decalogue (The Ten Commandments - see Exodus 20), explains that, "Since they express man's fundamental duties towards God and towards his neighbor, the Ten Commandments reveal, in their primordial content, grave obligations.  They are fundamentally immutable, and they oblige always and everywhere.  No one can dispense from them.  The Ten Commandments are engraved by God in the human heart." (CCC, 2072). 

Fr. Gariepy is opposing the Magisterial teaching of the Church.

Pope John Paul II also emphasizes the immutability of the Ten Commandments while explaining that they are the path to life: "In acknowledging these commandments, Christian hearts and our pastoral charity listen to the call of the One who 'first loved us' (1 Jn 4: 19).  God asks us to be holy as he is holy (cf. Lv 19: 2), to be - in Christ - perfect as he is perfect (cf. Mt 5: 48).  The unwavering demands of that commandment are based upon God's infinitely merciful love (cf. Lk 6: 36), and the purpose of that commandment is to lead us, by the grace of Christ, on the path of that fullness of life proper to the children of God." (Veritatis Splendor, No. 115).

Advocates of the emerging New Age religion, the humanitarian religion of the Antichrist, insist that the Ten Commandments are essentially obsolete (see here) and that Christianity is a barbaric religion which is not fit for modern man.  It must, therefore, be purged of its fundamental dogmas and eventually reinterpreted.  For such people, the religion of the future must be man-centered.  Everything is relative.  Morals are not absolute.  Traditional values are outdated and meaningless and are advanced by ignorant men.  They must be discarded.  A watered-down social gospel (such as that promoted by Deacon Richard Tatro of Saint Martin's parish) is okay, but any serious talk about conversion, heaven and hell is "backward" and "obsolete."

Liberal columnist Bonnie Erbe: the Christian era is crumbling and this will be liberating

In their Pastoral Letter on Freedom of Conscience and Religion, the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, citing Blessed John XXIII's Encyclical Letter Pacem in Terris, No. 14, remind us that, "Every individual has the 'right to be able to worship God in accordance with the right dictates of conscience....Besides being free from external coercion, everyone must be able freely to exercise the right to choose, profess, disseminate, and practice his or her own religion in private and in public.  This includes the freedom for parents to educate their children in their religious convictions and to choose the schools which provide that formation.  Moreover, the State has the obligation to protect this right by means of a legal and administrative framework and to create a suitable environment where it can be enjoyed...Unfortunately, religious freedom is far from being effectively guaranteed everywhere.  Sometimes it is denied for religious or ideological reasons.  At other times, although it may be recognized in law, it is hindered in practice by a legal system or social order which enforces strict control, if not a monopoly, over society....

More subtle threats to religious freedom arise from the cultural predominance of radical secularism and 'a subliminal relativism that penetrates every area of life.  Sometimes this relativism becomes aggressive when it opposes those who say they know where the truth or meaning of life is to be found.' (Pope Benedict XVI, Address to Central Committee for German Catholics, Freiburg in Breisgau, September 24, 2011).

This aggressive and hate-filled secularism which Pope Benedict XVI refers to aims at forcing religious believers - and especially Catholic Christians - to keep their religious convictions to themselves while insisting that atheists, agnostics and the "non-affiliated" should not be held to the same restriction.  The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops rightly declare that such an aim amounts to nothing less than "an expression of religious intolerance."

This intolerance is embraced by liberal columnist Bonnie Erbe.  In a column entitled "Christian leaders losing power, and I'm fine with that," which was carried by the Fitchburg Sentinel & Enterprise, Ms. Erbe argues that America is morphing "from one nation under one Christian god to an amalgam nation under many gods" and that it is "liberating" to know that the non-Christian population is increasing even as the ranks of Church-going Christians decreases.

Ms. Erbe rails against the Catholic Church in particular because the U.S. Bishops have had the audacity to stand up for religious freedom against the Obama administration's contraception mandate which would violate the First Amendment guarantee of religious liberty.  She writes, "Clearly, they and other Christian church leaders still see us as one nation under one god.  But...this is changing.  Another Pew poll released two years ago on the 'millennial' generation and its relationship with faith should be even more troubling to Christian leaders.  It showed the following, quoting from the Pew website: 'Americans ages 18 to 29 are considerably less religious than older Americans.  Fewer young adults belong to any particular faith than older people do today.  They also are less likely to be affiliated than their parents' and grandparents' generations were when they were young.'

For Ms. Erbe, this is all just great news.  She writes joyfully, "One day, Christian leaders will wake up and recognize that their era is crumbling.  If that means they will have decreasing power in the political realm, it will be a blessing for all of us..."

In other words, if the rights and freedoms of Christians are to diminish as their ranks grow smaller, such will represent a blessing to those who oppose the Christian Church.  Having succumbed to the Father of Lies (John 8: 44), Ms. Erbe could not possibly understand that the growing apostasy will not represent a "blessing" for pagans, atheists, agnostics and the "non-affiliated."  On the contrary, the Holy Spirit assures us through Saint Paul that the day of the Lord will not come "unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of perdition" (2 Thessalonians 2: 3) and that, "The coming of the lawless one by the activity of Satan will be with all power and with pretended signs and wonders, and with all wicked deception for those who are to perish, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved." (2 Thessalonians 2: 9-10).

The coming of the lawless one (the Antichrist for the scripturally illiterate) will set off a sequence of events culminating in the complete destruction of those who have "refused to love the truth and so be saved."  Jesus refers to this mystery in John 5: 43.  After this destruction comes, we will have a new heavens and a new earth where nothing unclean shall enter (Revelation 21: 27).

Now that will be a blessing!

Jan, a parishioner at St. Joseph's Parish in Fitchburg: If you don't care for the falsification of Catholic Liturgy, don't come

In my last post, I noted how Saint Joseph's Parish in Fitchburg omitted the Nicene Creed at Holy Mass and that, because I took exception to this, a parishioner left a comment at this Blog calling me an idiot.  Now another parishioner named Jan (who some have indicated is most likely the parish secretary Janice Potter), left a comment here  saying, "What a wonderful church. I love it here. If you have a problem with it, which you obviously do as you seem to slam it every chance you get, then don't come."

In other words, if I believe that the priests who celebrate Mass at Saint Joseph's should not omit the Creed, that's my problem and I am the one who should solve the problem by leaving.

In other words, Jan is implying that that the priest has a right to alter the liturgy at will and to omit the Creed [or anything else he desires] and if I don't like it, I am the problem.

The Instruction Redemptionis Sacramentum stresses that, "Whenever an abuse is committed in the celebration of the sacred Liturgy, it is to be seen as a real falsification of Catholic Liturgy. St Thomas wrote, 'the vice of falsehood is perpetrated by anyone who offers worship to God on behalf of the Church in a manner contrary to that which is established by the Church with divine authority, and to which the Church is accustomed.'" (RS, 169).


The same document tells us that, "In order that a remedy may be applied to such abuses, 'there is a pressing need for the biblical and liturgical formation of the people of God, both pastors and faithful,' so that the Church’s faith and discipline concerning the sacred Liturgy may be accurately presented and understood. Where abuses persist, however, proceedings should be undertaken for safeguarding the spiritual patrimony and rights of the Church in accordance with the law, employing all legitimate means." (RS, 170).

An excellent article over at EWTN tells us that:


"When the justice of obedience to ecclesiastical law is not rendered and thus the proper Order of the Mass is violated, there can be no real unity in the parish and thus no peace. As a result, the Catholic unity of communion with the bishop and with and through the bishop with Peter is disturbed. Hierarchical Communion is one of the three marks of unity to be found in the Church, the others being unity of faith and unity in the discipline of the Sacraments. Liturgical disobedience uniquely disturbs all three! This is not surprising since the Eucharist is the principal source and sign of the unity of the Church. By its very nature, it MUST be either a sign of unity or a sign of disunity.


Of course, many other evils enter in by liturgical disobedience, including the serious injustice of depriving the faithful of licit, and in some cases valid, sacraments, something to which as Catholics they have a right.

Canon 214 The Christian faithful have the right to worship God according to the prescriptions of their own rite approved by the legitimate pastors of the Church, and to follow their own form of spiritual life consonant with the teaching of the Church.

When these evils occur they have the right, and even the responsibility, to make their voices heard.


Canon 212

1. The Christian faithful, conscious of their own responsibility, are bound by Christian obedience to follow what the sacred pastors, as representatives of Christ, declare as teachers of the faith or determine as leaders of the Church.

2. The Christian faithful are free to make known their needs, especially spiritual ones, and their desires to the pastors of the Church.

3. In accord with the knowledge, competence and preeminence which they possess, they have the right and even at times a duty to manifest to the sacred pastors their opinion on matters which pertain to the good of the Church, and they have a right to make their opinion known to the other Christian faithful, with due regard for the integrity of faith and morals and reverence toward their pastors, and with consideration of the common good and dignity of persons.

Bishop Robert McManus needs to look into this situation.  Liturgical abuses are very serious.  The solution is not for faithful Catholics to be told to "move on."  The solution is for the priests at Saint Joseph's Parish to return to fidelity, to cease abusing the liturgy and disrupting the Church's unity.

Parishioner from St. Joseph's Parish in Fitchburg: "You're an idiot."

In a previous post, I noted that the Creed is often omitted during Holy Mass in certain parishes throughout the Worcester Diocese.  One of these parishes where the Creed was recently omitted is Saint Joseph's Parish in Fitchburg, Massachusetts.

Evidently my post struck a nerve.  I received a couple of hateful comments, one of them calling me an idiot and suggesting that the celebrant that day, Father Richard Trainor, simply forgot to include the Creed.  The problem with this theory is that Father Trainor concelebrated the Mass with a visiting La Salette priest that day and there were two deacons also present - Deacon Jim Couture and retired Deacon Bob Leger.  Surely with two priests and two deacons present, somebody could have remembered the Creed.

There is a point when the lying and the excuses have to stop.  We are told in Ephesians that, "Speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into Him who is the head, into Christ....Therefore, putting away falsehood, let everyone speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another." (Eph 4: 15, 25).

The anonymous person who called me an idiot then asserted that I am "unmanly" because I didn't approach Father Trainor with my concerns.  Two things: First, Father Trainor should understand his role in the liturgy without my holding his hand.  Secondly, when I approached the pastoral leaders at Saint Joseph's in the past with suggestions, I was treated with outright hatred and hostility.  I was also excluded from participation in the life of the parish.  I really do not care to subject myself to more of their abuse.

But here's the thing folks.  Sacrosanctum Concilium of the Second Vatican Council states clearly in No. 22 that:

"1. Regulation of the sacred liturgy depends solely on the authority of the Church, that is, on the Apostolic See and, as laws may determine, on the bishop.


2. In virtue of power conceded by the law, the regulation of the liturgy within certain defined limits belongs also to various kinds of competent territorial bodies of bishops legitimately established.

3. Therefore no other person, even if he be a priest, may add, remove, or change anything in the liturgy on his own authority."

Canon 846 of the Code of Canon Law states clearly that:

"The liturgical books, approved by the competent authority, are to be faithfully followed in the celebration of the sacraments.  Accordingly, no one may on a personal initiative add to or omit or alter anything in those books."
And I'm an idiot for expecting the two priests and the two deacons present to abide by the Church's teaching and Canon Law?

What is going on at Saint Joseph's Parish in Fitchburg?

The Sentinel & Enterprise is reporting that, "Residents living near St. Joseph Church on Woodland Street expressed shock Tuesday after hearing that a priest who had served at the parish has been charged with possessing child pornography and stealing from the church.  The Rev. Lowe Dongor received a summons to Fitchburg District Court on Friday and was arraigned Monday on charges of larceny over $250, larceny from a building, and having child pornography in his possession."

The article goes on to explain that Fr. Dongor, age 35, "..was put on leave in July, at which time he was assigned to reside at the Holy Name of Jesus House of Studies in Worcester, which houses college-age men who are thinking about entering the priesthood."  Isn't that nice.  Images depicting young girls, approximately 10 to 11 years of age, in various stages of nudity, were found on Fr. Dongor's computers.  "In addition," the Sentinel & Enterprise reports, "many of the pictures depicted a chest and genitals prominently displayed."

So what does the Diocese do?  It houses Fr. Dongor at a house of studies which serves as the home for young men who are discerning a priestly vocation. 

According to the Sentinel & Enterprise, "Deacon Jim Couture declined to comment on the matter."  This doesn't exactly surprise me.  This is the same deacon who has promoted the work of Father John Powell, S.J. in the past.  See here.

What is going on at St. Joseph's Parish in Fitchburg?

I'm beginning to understand why the "leadership" at St. Joseph's Parish didn't want me around and excluded me from participation in parish ministry.

Fitchburg's Mayor Lisa Wong Only Sees What She Wants To See

Fitchburg's Mayor Lisa Wong, who was so instrumental in bringing Planned Parenthood to Fitchburg, has gone on record in the past as saying that she would like to see more interaction between Planned Parenthood and the public.  Ms. Wong's support for Planned Parenthood is, of course, gravely disturbing.  For, as Bishop Charles V. Grahmann, DD has said, "Anyone who supports, belongs to, or sits on Boards of Directors of Planned Parenthood are promoting the legacy of Margaret Sanger which is the outline for Nazi Germany's 'human weeds and genetically inferior races.'"

As I noted in a previous post, "Planned Parenthood is virulently anti-life and anti-Christian. In one pamphlet, Planned Parenthood says: "In every generation there exists a group of people so filled with bigotry and self-righteousness that they will resort to any means - even violence - to impose their views on society. Today, such fanatics dominate a movement ironically called 'the Right-to-Life,' a movement which threatens the most basic of all human rights."


And, as Dr & Mrs. Willke explain, "Planned Parenthood has promoted a pro-abortion 'comic book,' geared for teenagers, entitled Abortion Eve. On the back cover is a caricature of the 'Assumption of the Blessed Virgin' depicting a pregnant Mary with the idiot face of Mad Magazine's Alfred E. Neumann. The caption says, 'What, me worry?'" (p. 343).

Don Weintraub, Vice President for International Affairs of PPFA, has admitted that, "Planned Parenthood is not just a social or medical service agency. It is part of a cause, a movement.." (March 12, 1985). And what is the driving force behind this movement? Racism, eugenics and the destruction of Christian morality. See here.

Margaret Sanger, the Founder of Planned Parenthood, was a prominent proponent of eugenics and forced sterilization. See here. She approved of Hitler's forced sterilization program. (See "Into the Darkness, Nazi Germany Today," by L. Stoddard, p. 196). Go here to learn more about Margaret Sanger by reading her own words."

Any decent person would therefore view Mayor Wong's promotion of and support for Planned Parenthood as both a disappointment and a failure [to uphold the common good].  And yet, Fitchburg's Mayor is proud of her record [in a city which the television program Chronicle compared to Appalachia because of its serious economic problems].  In an article entitled "Fitchburg mayoral candidates face off in forum," (August 30, 2011 edition of the Sentinel & Enterprise), Mayor Wong, responding to a rumor that she does not live in Fitchburg [she actually does], asserted that this rumor "comes from people who want to criticize her, but can't find anything of substance." (p. 2).

Apparently Mayor Wong only sees what she wants to see.  Presiding over a city in economic turmoil, she has given her endorsement to an organization which is Christianophobic and which dedicates itself to killing the unborn for profit.   It was Pope John Paul II, in a homily given at the Capitol Mall in Washington, D.C., on November 5, 1979, who said that, "All human life - from the moment of conception and through all subsequent stages - is sacred, because human life is created in the image and likeness of God.  Nothing surpasses the greatness or dignity of a human person.  Human life is not just an idea or an abstraction; human life is the concrete reality of a being that lives, that acts, that grows and develops; human life is the concrete reality of a being that is capable of love, and of service to humanity."

Unfortunately Mayor Wong cannot see this concrete reality.  She only sees what she wants to see. 

The Latin Mass in Fitchburg and the wisdom of Gamaliel

Those of you who are regular readers of this Blog know full well that I prefer the Latin Mass and have done much to make the case for it.  A few years ago, I wrote a couple of posts promoting what I thought would be an exciting development for Fitchburg, Massachusetts.  See here for example.  Now Todd Tabbaa, who writes for the Latin Mass Fitchburg Blog (as well as Ecce Agnus Dei), has announced that, "It is with sadness but not without hope for the future that it is announced that Mass in the Extraordinary Form at St. Joseph parish in Fitchburg will terminate on June 5th. The reasons are of simple practicality and a realistic evaluation of the fact that after almost one year of having the Traditional Latin Mass at this parish, the number of attendees has not increased and is not sufficient to maintain basic expenditures. The various considerations which affect growth, including Mass time, location, and proximity to other Traditional Latin Masses in the diocese may all be considered in our decisions for future directions. We will thus meet after our last Mass on June 5th downstairs in the parish hall (at our community potluck) for discussion and planning..."  (See here).

Now the Latin Mass continues to attract young people from every region.  I have said that the Latin Mass movement is largely a youth movement.  One has only to attend the traditional Mass to see this.  What is the problem then?  Why did the Latin Mass fail to take off at Immaculate Conception and later Saint Joseph's Parish in Fitchburg.

I believe there are probably several reasons for this.  But one reason which will probably not be acknowledged by those who were coordinating the effort in Fitchburg is that they had made the decision to associate themselves with the Saint Benedict Center in Richmond, New Hampshire, an organization which has engaged in anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial.  See here and here for example.

I attended the Latin Mass at Immaculate Conception until the subject of Father Leonard Feeney came up.  After explaining my position regarding Father Leonard Feeney and the Saint Benedict Center (again, the one located in Richmond, New Hampshire) to Mr.Todd Tabbaa and his wife, I was shunned from that point on. 

Two thousand years ago, Gamaliel, a Pharisee and celebrated doctor of the Law, exhorted his fellow Israelites to leave the Apostles alone (they were planning to scourge them).  In doing so (read Acts 5: 38, 39), he explained that if an endeavor or activity is of human origin, it will destroy itself.  Another way of saying that "unless the Lord build the house, they labor in vain who build it." (Proverbs 14: 34).

How sad that there are some who insist that the Latin Mass movement has to be associated with the name and ideology of Father Leonard Feeney.  See here.

The Church can unconsciously discriminate against single people: Just ask the folks at St. Joseph's Parish in Fitchburg

"Being single. For some of us it is the way we live our Vocation. For others it is a temporary state. For some it brings much joy. For others sadness and a feeling of incompleteness. Not all single folks are called to a Vocation of priesthood or consecrated life. Single people come in all age ranges, from the 20's through old age. Single people have needs and goals. We don't always fit into the society we live in. Sometimes there is a perception that we cannot be happy or fulfilled while we are single. We can buy into that perception. The Church can be quite helpful to us. Sometimes it can hinder us as well.


It is true that much is said about married life, children, teenagers and other groups within the Church, but not much about single people. The Church can unconsciously discriminate against single people by sponsoring mostly "couples only" events, inviting "families" to bring up the gifts, or seeing singles as the pool from which to draw helpers to complete tasks nobody else wants to do."  - Fr. Pat Umberger.

This weekend's bulletin for Saint Joseph's Parish in Fitchburg includes the following meditation: "Made in the image and likeness of God, all persons are sacred...Ask yourself - Do I recognize the face of Christ reflected in all others around me whatever their race, class, age, or abilities?"

An excellent question.  And one which we must all ask ourselves.  When I attempted to participate in parish life at Saint Joseph's, I was excluded because of my fidelity to the Magisterium of the Church.  I guess the folks over at St. Joe's couldn't see the face of Christ in me.

Meditation: James 2:9.

Good Stewardship? How about priests setting an example?

Several years ago this article by Matt O'Brien appeared in the Fitchburg Sentinel & Enterprise:

BRIDGEWATER -- Convicted sex offender William Lamontagne says he had a romantic relationship with a Fitchburg priest who allegedly funneled stolen money to him.

"He came before everybody in my life," Lamontagne told the Sentinel & Enterprise during an interview inside the Massachusetts Treatment Center for the Sexually Dangerous. "I told my family if they were going to accept me, they'd have to accept him, too. And then he did this."

Investigators have charged the Rev. Donald Ouellette, pastor of the Immaculate Conception Parish in Fitchburg, with stealing more than $250,000 from the church.

He faces 18 counts of larceny over $250 and is free on bail while awaiting trial.

Ouellette, 49, grew up in Leominster and has served in the Worcester Diocese since his 1990 ordination.

"I just hope that people in the Immaculate Conception parish know I know that they're hurting," Lamontagne said. "I really feel sorry for those people. I felt in some way that I was sharing their pain. But on the other side, I was sharing what he did to them."


After years of hearing about sexual abuse scandals and crimes of larceny by Catholic priests such as Fr. Donald Ouellette or this Connecticut priest, many lay people remain concerned about where their money is really going.  Can one blame them? 

Now the Catholic Free Press, a publication which has often strayed from Catholic truth while publishing dissent from Catholic teaching in its pages, is reporting that 230 area Catholics attended a stewardship conference at Our Lady of Mount Carmel-St. Ann Parish Center.  Those in attendance heard a priest ask, "What percent of their income should people give to God?"  To which the speaker replied, "Traditionally it's been 10 percent..but some should give 20 percent, some 50 percent...The Old Testament spoke of 10 percent.  But Jesus said, 'Give it all.'" (Giving it all to God means...", Catholic Free Press, October 22, 2010).

Actually, Jesus never told everyone to "give it all."  In the 19th chapter of Matthew, we are told that when a rich young man who had kept the commandments approached our Lord to ask Him what he must do to be perfect, "Jesus said to him, 'If you wish to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.  Then come, follow me.'" (Mt. 19: 21). 

The laity who live and work in the real world cannot give all of their monies away and still support themselves and their families.  And the Lord Jesus does not expect this from them.  His words are addressed to those who "wish to be perfect," who after giving all away will follow Jesus more closely in the priesthood or religious life.

So the real question is: Will our priests provide us with such an example of good stewardship?  Will those who have responded to the call of Christ to follow Him more perfectly now renounce all of their possessions and lead by example?  Most priests are paid a stipend of more than $1,500 a month.  What an opportunity for our priests to actually walk the walk and not just talk the talk. 

Or is good stewardship only for the laity?

Fitchburg is in need of deliverance prayer!

Several months ago I called upon local clergy to lead the lay faithful in deliverance prayer for Fitchburg, Massachusetts because Planned Parenthood wants to set up an office there. See here. Anyone still capable of seeing things through the eyes of faith will tell you that evil is descending upon this once-great city.

And now that evil has taken the form of a Satanic attack against a Fitchburg church. Fitchburg's Rollstone Congregational Church on Main Street was spray-painted in black with various anti-Christian symbols including the inverted cross, which represents a mockery and rejection of the cross of Christ, an emblem which is worn by many satanists; the number 666, which is, of course, the mark of the beast or the Antichrist (see Revelation 13); and the anarchy symbol, also known as the Circle-A. The letter A represents anarchy, the absence of all law and disobedience to any existing law. This symbol represents the one and only law in Satanism: "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law."

I'll say it again: our pastors need to lead the Christian faithful in deliverance prayer for the city of Fitchburg and for all of Massachusetts. We are involved in a spiritual war. And spiritual remedies are needed, most especially prayer and fasting.

What are we waiting for?

Deacon Jim Couture of Saint Joseph's Parish in Fitchburg promotes Fr. John Powell S.J. at Holy Mass

During the 9 AM Mass at Saint Joseph's Parish in Fitchburg, Deacon Jim Couture spoke approvingly of Father John Powell's book entitled "He Touched Me." Father John Powell, S.J., is well-known in liberal circles and published more than 30 books on the subject of love. He is also an admitted sexual predator who, as this article explains, abused "at least six adults...in the late 60's and 70's." Father Powell is also well-known as a priest-abuser as this article makes clear.

I remember reading a couple of his books in the 1980's when he was being heavily promoted on PBS. I was immediately struck by the fact that Fr. Powell was a liberal priest with some very strange ideas. For example, in one book he mocks the Salve Regina as being something of an exercise in morbid spirituality since it refers to life as a "vale of tears." The Salve Regina (Hail, Holy Queen) dates from the eleventh century. It is attributed to various authors and was added to the Liturgy of the Hours by Pope St. Pius V in the sixteenth century. (See Catechism of the Catholic Church, No. 966).

Why would Deacon Jim Couture want to cite anything from Father Powell's books? With all the Saints and Doctors and Fathers of the Church, he chooses to promote the work of a predator-priest?

Lord Jesus, Maranatha!


Related reading here.

Christianophobia in Fitchburg (and beyond)...

Recently, the Sentinel & Enterprise published a letter to the editor which I wrote in response to comments made by Fitchburg City Councilor Kevin Starr to the effect that pro-life views have "no place" at City Council meetings. Several hateful comments have been left in response to my letter to the editor. One individual wrote:

"You Jesus freaks are outright stupid. This debate has nothing to do with religion, it has to do with whether or not an organization (with state funding) should be allowed to operate in our city. An organization mind you, that will provide free birth control and contraceptives to your $LUT daughters and your horny sons, and keep kids still in high school from having kids that the taxpayers have to pay to support. Planned Parenthood is a great organization who has positively served thousands of cities in the country for years. Go hide behind your crucifix just don't complain when your 14 year old daughter gets knocked up by some PR kid behind Market Basket and expects a handout from uncle sam. Begone hypocrites.

Kevin Starr is right. His comments ensure that both he and the city council stay on issue and dont get swayed by talks of the second coming of jesus and how god wouldn't want the state handing out condoms to kids who are just gonna **** with or without them. That's the truth, deal with it." (See here).

This debate has nothing to do with religion asserts this unhappy individual as he labels opponents of Planned Parenthood "Jesus freaks" while exhorting them to "go hide behind your crucifix."

Hatred for the crucifix is growing as intolerance and discrimination against Christians continues to widen. In Bad Soden, Germany, crosses were removed from hospital walls and thrown into trash bags [much as aborted babies are thrown into trash bags] as patients watched.

Fanaticism, as proven by the items listed above, stems from the will to power and not religion.
The French philosopher Jacques Maritain addresses this fact in his work entitled "On the Use of Philosophy," which is actually a compilation of three essays.

His second essay is entitled "truth and human fellowship." He writes:


"'O liberty, how many crimes are committed in thy name!' Madame Roland said, mounting the scaffold. O Truth, it may be said, how often blind violence and oppression have been let loose in thy name in history! 'Zeal for truth,' as Father Victor White puts it, 'has too often been a cloak for the most evil and revolting of human passions.' As a result, some people think that in order to set human existence free from these evil passions, and make men live in peace and pleasant quiet, the best way is to get rid of any zeal for truth or attachment to truth. Thus it is that after the violence and cruelty of wars of religion, a period of skepticism usually occurs, as at the time of Montaigne and Charron. Here we have only the swing of the pendulum moving from one extreme to the other. Skepticism, moreover, may happen to hold those who are not skeptical to be barbarous, childish, or subhuman, and it may happen to treat them as badly as the zealot treats the unbeliever. Then skepticism proves to be as intolerant as fanaticism - it becomes the fanaticism of doubt. This is a sign that skepticism is not the answer. The answer is humility, together with faith in truth...

The problem of truth and human fellowship is important for democratic societies; it seems to me to be particularly important for this country [United States], where men and women coming from a great diversity of national stocks and religious or philosophical creeds have to live together. If each one of them endeavored to impose his own convictions and the truth in which he believes on all his co-citizens, would not living together become impossible? That is obviously right. Well, it is easy, too easy, to go a step further, and to ask: if each one sticks to his own convictions, will not each one endeavor to impose his own convictions on all others? So that, as a result, living together will become impossible if any citizen whatever sticks to his own convictions and believes in a given truth? Thus it is not unusual to meet people who think that not to believe in any truth, or not to adhere firmly to any assertion as unshakeably true in itself, is a primary condition required of democratic citizens in order to be tolerant of one another. May I say that these people are in fact the most intolerant people, for if perchance they were to believe in something as unshakeably true, they would feel compelled, by the same stroke, to impose by force and coercion their own belief on their co-citizens...

The only remedy they have found to get rid of their abiding tendency to fanaticism is to cut themselves off from truth. That is a suicidal method. It is a suicidal conception of democracy: not only would a democratic society which lived on universal skepticism condemn itself to death by starvation; but it would also enter a process of self-annihilation, from the very fact that no democratic society can live without a common practical belief in those truths which are freedom, justice, law, and the other tenets of democracy; and that any belief in these things as objectively and unshakeably true, as well as in any other kind of truth, would be brought to naught by the preassumed law of universal skepticism....

It is, no doubt, easy to observe that in the history of mankind nothing goes to show that, from primitive times on, religious feeling or religious ideas have been particularly successful in pacifying men; religious differences seem rather to have fed and sharpened their conflicts. On the one hand truth always makes trouble, and those who bear witness to it are always persecuted: 'Do not think that I came to send peace upon earth; I came not to send peace, but the sword.' (Matthew 10:34). On the other hand - and this is the point we must face - those who know or claim to know truth happen sometimes to persecute others. I do not deny the fact; I say that this fact, like all other facts, needs to be understood. It only means that, given the weakness of our nature, the impact of of the highest and most sacred things upon the coarseness of the human heart is liable to make these things, by accident, a prey to its passions, as long as it has not been purified by genuine love. It is nonsense to regard fanaticism as a fruit of religion. Fanaticism is a natural tendency rooted in our basic egotism and will to power. It seizes upon any noble feeling to live on it. The only remedy for religious fanaticism is the Gospel light and the progress of religious consciousness in faith itself and in that fraternal love which is the fruit of the human soul's union with God. For then man realizes the sacred transcendence of truth and of God. The more he grasps truth, through science, philosophy, or faith, the more he feels what immensity remains to be grasped within this very truth. The more he knows God, either by reason or by faith, the more he understands that our concepts attain (through analogy) but do not circumscribe Him, and that His thoughts are not like our thoughts: for 'who hath known the mind of the Lord, or who hath become His counselor.' (Isaias 40:13). The more strong and deep faith becomes, the more man kneels down, not before his own alleged ignorance of truth, but before the inscrutable mystery of divine truth, and before the hidden ways in which God goes to meet those who search Him....

To sum up, the real problem has to do with the human subject, endowed as he is with his rights in relation to his fellow men, and afflicted as he is by the vicious inclinations which derive from his will to power. On the one hand, the error of the absolutists who would like to impose truth by coercion comes from the fact that they shift their right feelings about the object from the object to the subject; and they think that just as error has no rights of its own and should be banished from the mind (through the means of the mind), so man when he is in error has no rights of his own and should be banished from human fellowship (through the means of human power).

On the other hand, the error of the theorists who make relativism, ignorance, and doubt a necessary condition for mutual tolerance comes from the fact that they shift their right feelings about the human subject - who must be respected even if he is in error - from the subject to the object; and thus they deprive man and the human intellect of the very act - adherence to the truth - in which consists man's dignity and reason for living." (Jacques Maritain, On the Use of Philosophy: Three Essays, pp. 16, 17, 21-23).

The repudiation of the sovereignty of God and the denial of the primacy of the spiritual...

"..right is based, not upon men’s opinions, but upon Nature. This fact will immediately be plain if you once get a clear conception of man’s fellowship and union with his fellow-men. For no single thing is so like another, so exactly its counterpart, as all of us are to one another…And so, however we may define man, a single definition will apply to all." [ Cicero, Laws I x 28-30]


Lifesite News is reporting that Planned Parenthood once acknowledged (in an October 1952 pamphlet), that abortion "...kills the life of a baby after it has begun" and that "it is dangerous" to a woman's "life and health." But Mayor Lisa Wong and certain members of the Fitchburg City Council appear determined to welcome Planned Parenthood and its anti-life agenda into the city.
It was the first Bishop of Worcester, John J. Wright, in an address to the Worcester Ministers' Association given on January 15, 1952, who said, "The undermining of God's standard in community affairs has been further hastened by the denial or neglect of the primacy of the spiritual, with a consequent debasing of human personality and degradation of human society. Ours is a technical civilization, a know-how rather than a know-why civilization, and therefore one in which material and mechanical values tend to dominate thought and action. Excessive emphasis on know-how and impatience with know-why have produced the cult of the body, the predominance of the material, the worship of the gadget, an indifference to the spiritual and a repudiation of the moral...In the practical order, from the repudiation of the sovereignty of God and the denial of the primacy of the spiritual, comes the refusal, born, as it were, out of the blend of the two, to acknowledge the necessary relation which must exist between all human positive law worthy of the name and the moral law that God has writ in nature, that He causes to echo in the healthy conscience and that He has clarified through Revelation....

Before the appeal to conscience can recover its ancient power to change men, to renew the very face of the earth, there must be universal all-out witness to the sovereignty of God, the spiritual responsibility of man and the all-inclusive application of His law....Against the idea of God's Law there are a host of rival norms of conduct which plague our generation. Expressions such as my life is my own affair or I may do as I please or who cares? or in politics, anything goes or all's fair in love and war - all betray a gross misunderstanding of the moral order of those interlinking relations among men and nations of which God's standard is the only correct measure. All human rights and duties have their source in God's law*; otherwise they are meaningless.."

* Exodus 20:13

Greater Fitchburg for Life

There is a new Pro-Life Blog covering the ongoing moral crisis which has descended upon the city of Fitchburg. The Blog is called Greater Fitchburg for Life and may be found here. These good people who are fighting for life "feel a need to proclaim it and bear witness to it in all its marvelous newness since it is one with Jesus himself who makes all things new and conquers the 'oldness' which comes from sin and leads to death." (Evangelium Vitae, No. 80, citing St. Irenaeus and St. Aquinas).

This is an ongoing spiritual battle. It would be a grave error to believe that this battle may be won by human action alone (as important as such action is). It will only be won through prayer and fasting. This because some demons are only driven out in this manner.

Won't you offer your prayers - and especially at Holy Mass and while praying the Holy Rosary - for the success of the Pro-Life movement in Fitchburg. Together with the help of God's grace, Fitchburg can (and will) be made new.

Read this and reflect upon the fact that Mayor Lisa Wong wants Planned Parenthood in Fitchburg.

The Sentinel & Enterprise is to be commended....to a point.

"The partisan, when he is engaged in a dispute, cares nothing about the rights of the question, but is anxious only to convince his hearers of his own assertions." - Socrates, Phaedo 85.


In an editorial entitled "Councilor Starr, Old Glory's a symbol of freedom of speech," (Friday, March 12th edition of the newspaper, the Sentinel & Enterprise rightly chides Fitchburg City Councilor Kevin Starr for inappropriately lashing out at pro-life advocates saying, "We couldn't disagree more with Starr's comments. First of all, one of the most important things the American flag stands for is freedom of speech. That means when people, including his constituents, take the time to show up at City Hall to speak out about an issue, they have the absolute right, and we believe responsibility, to tell city councilors how they feel. We think it's exactly the kind of discussion that should be taking place at City Hall and frankly are puzzled with Starr's comments about the issue...as a city councilor, we believe Starr has a responsibility to listen to his constituents' concerns, as long as they are presented in a civil way, even when he disagrees with them."

But then the newspaper drops the ball toward the end of this editorial when it says, "We don't believe that Starr owes anyone an apology, because we believe firmly that Starr, like the pro-life advocates he criticized and like Hughes [Rev. Thomas Hughes, Pastor of New Creation Community Church in Fitchburg], has the solemn right to say what's on his mind."

This misses the point entirely. Mr. Starr doesn't owe anyone an apology for exercising his free speech rights. He owes an apology to the community because, as an elected governmental official, he expressed a desire to restrict expression because of its message or content.

There is a paramount principle in American jurisprudence that "above all else, the First Amendment means that government has no power to restrict expression because of its message, its ideas, its subject matter, or its content." Police Dep't of Chicago v. Mosley, 408 U.S. 92,95, 33 L. Ed. 2d 212, 92 S. Ct. 2286 (1972); see also Consolidated Edison Co. v.Public Serv. Comm'n, 447 U.S. 530, 537, 65 L. Ed. 2d 319, 100 S. Ct. 2326(1980). And that: "For the State to enforce a content-based exclusion it must show that its regulation is necessary to serve a compelling state interest and that it is narrowly drawn to achieve that end." Perry Educational Ass'n v. Perry Local Educators'Ass'n, 460 U.S. 37, 45, 74 L. Ed. 2d 794, 103 S. Ct. 948 (1983). Cannon v. Cityand County of Denver, 998 F.2d at 871-72

Just as Mr. Starr's constituents have a responsibility to present their views to him [and other government officials] "in a civil way," so too Mr. Starr owes his constituents the courtesy of remaining civil while not attempting to restrict expression because he doesn't happen to like the message.

Letter to the Editor: Sentinel & Enterprise

To the Editor:

Ward 4 Councilor Kevin Starr, speaking at a recent City Council meeting about pro-lifers who oppose a Planned Parenthood proposal to open an office in the city, said that he “will not tolerate those morals being pushed on me and these members of the Council” and added that people should “keep their personal beliefs to themselves.” Apparently Mr. Starr doesn’t believe that he should keep his personal beliefs to himself.

Mr. Starr has a distorted notion of tolerance. Tolerance is the willingness to accept actions which we believe are inappropriate or even wrong because it would be worse to take action against them. In other words, tolerance is community oriented. But to tolerate crimes such as rape and murder (and abortion is murder) would be wrong since tolerating them would do greater harm to the community, to the common good, than correcting them would.

I submit that Mr. Starr is not really advocating “tolerance” but relativism, which is profoundly anti-community. Why is relativism anti-community? Because if there are no standards of morality to which we should adhere, tolerance is no better than intolerance. It was C.S. Lewis who reminded us that, “…if truth is objective, if we live in a world we did not create and cannot change merely by thinking, if the world is not really a dream of our own, then the most destructive belief we could possibly believe would be the denial of this primary fact. It would be like closing your eyes while driving, or blissfully ignoring the doctor’s warnings.” (“The Poison of Subjectivism,” in Christian Reflections).

Not long after the City Council meeting, Mr. Starr maintained that some of the pro-life advocates are “narrow-minded.” This was obviously intended as an insult. But Mr. Starr may have inadvertently paid the highest tribute to these pro-lifers. After all, reality is terribly narrow. It was the Christ who warned us to, “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road broad that leads to destruction, and those who enter through it are many. How narrow the gate and constricted the road that leads to life. And those who find it are few.” (Matthew 7: 13, 14).

Perhaps Mr. Starr is too “broad-minded”?

Related reading here.

Fitchburg City Councilor Kevin Starr: "No place" for pro-life views

As reported in the Sentinel & Enterprise, Fitchburg City Councilor Kevin Starr, speaking of pro-life Christians who oppose Planned Parenthood opening an office in the city and who wish to express their views to local government, has said that he "will not tolerate those morals" and that "there's no place for those discussions to take place in here" [City Council meetings]. See here.

The United States Supreme Court, in its Opinion in Lamb's Chapel v. Center Moriches Union Free School District (June 7, 1993), said that, 'The principle that has emerged from our cases is that the First Amendment forbids the government to regulate speech in ways that favor some viewpoints or ideas at the expense of others." And yet, Fitchburg City government appears to be doing just that as Catholic blogger JayG reports here.

Related reading: Mayor Wong wants Planned Parenthood in the city.

Related reading: Mayor Wong and recycling.