It's time for the CDF to investigate the Worcester Diocese

In an article for The American Catholic which may be found here, The Motley Monk writes:


"It’s pretty easy to tell that the folks over at the National Catholic Reporter (NCR) aren’t happy campers these days. Some of their heroes fighting on the front lines for women’s ordination are being “disciplined.”
According to a recent NCR article:

A longtime peace and human rights activist arrested countless times, Franciscan Fr. Jerry Zawada has been removed from public ministry for concelebrating Mass with a woman priest in 2011.

Poor Fr. Zawada! After all he’s done over the decades to promote the cause of social justice. He’s been jailed numerous times and now at the age of 76, one would think the Vatican would overlook Fr. Zawada’s minor infelicity for merely concelebrating “Mass” with the Roman Catholic “WomanPriest,” the Rev. Ms. Janice Sevre-Duszynska.

The enemy in the NCR’s narrative is the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), which reviewed documentation related to the November 22, 2011 “Mass.” NCR obtained a copy of the CDF’s private letter which stated:

Having carefully examined the acts of the case, and the vota of the former Minister General and the Rev. Zawada’s Provincial Superior, this Dicastery has decided to impose on Rev. Jerome Zawada, OFM, a life of prayer and penance to be lived within the Queen of Peace Friary in Burlington, Wisconsin.

The letter also forbids Fr. Zawada from presenting himself in public as a priest or celebrating the sacraments publicly. However, Fr. Zawada is allowed to concelebrate Mass with other friars at the friary and in private.

Zawada isn’t too pleased. He told the NCR:

I don’t mind the prayer part, but when they called, when they say that I need to be spending time in penance, well, I’m not going to do penance for my convictions and the convictions of so many others, too.

Apparently, CDF isn’t going to wink and ignore any priest who concelebrates “Mass” with so-called “WomenPriests.”

• Strike #1 involved the former Maryknoll priest, Ray Bourgeois, who was excommunicated in November 2012 for doing so.
• Strike #2 involved the Jesuit priest, Bill Brennen, who was relieved of his priestly ministry in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee for concelebrating “Mass” with a “WomanPriest” one month later.
• Strike #3 is Fr. Zawada.

And that’s only the cases that the priests involved have made public.
“You’re out!” the umpire yells after a batter takes three strikes.
And, by the way, the baseball season opens today.
Perhaps those priests who support the cause for the ordination of women should place their money on the Chicago Cubs winning the World Series this year. Both have about an equal chance of happening anytime soon."


To read the NCR article, click on the following link:
http://ncronline.org/news/peace-justice/longtime-peace-activist-removed-ministry-after-concelebrating-mass-woman-priest

- See more at: http://the-american-catholic.com/2014/03/31/womenpriests-and-their-supporters-strike-three-and-youre-out/#sthash.bxKgcPW8.dpuf

For years I have fought dissent within the Worcester Diocese.  And part of that dissent has been the push for women's ordination.  Although my articles and letters to the editor of The "Catholic" Free Press have been regularly censored, Stacy Trasancos has been given space in that publication for a regular column.  This most likely because she has advanced the idea that women's ordination might be a possibility.  A while back I exposed how Trasancos had written: "We know that by the end of the first century the Roman Catholic Church was established and there can be little doubt that the cultural influences of that time and place affected the doctrine [that only men are called to the ministerial priesthood].  We do also know that the Church has evolved over time and that part of theology's goal is to communicate faith to changing cultures.  For these reasons, maybe the question of women in the priesthood will remain unsettled.  There isn't any hard logic to support the idea that the concrete forms of the ecclesiastical offices cannot be changed....Whether women should or will someday be priests, isn't for this single writer to say."

See here for my response.

Of course, because I have stood against such nonsense, I have been ostracized from this diocese.  But not dissidents such as Mary Donovan of the Worcester "Commission for Women."  Writing for The Catholic Free Press back in 1992, Ms. Donovan implied that women are not "active participants in the worship of God" and that women should be able to "dispute interpretation" of Church doctrine. In an article entitled "Save the women for the Church," she wrote: "Most of us on the Commission are diehards, women who decided long ago that women should have a place in the Church and that the Church needed women...What we want is simple.  We want to be considered active participants in the worship of God.  We want to move from the passive role where men study the Word of God, interpret it and relay the message to us.  We want to share the study, to discuss, refine, enlarge, enhance, dispute interpretation if necessary, and deliver the good news with equal stature and credibility.  We know that structure that exists today has no stairway for women that go to the top floor.  We know what problems exist in renovating..." (May 22, 1992 edition of The Catholic Free Press).

It's not renovation that Ms. Donovan stood for but wreckovation.  Her ideology was rooted in pride and falsehood.

In another article published in the diocesan newspaper, Ms. Donovan insisted that there are, "..women who sense the same gifts within themselves as men who feel called to the service of God." (Women walk a Tightrope, January 29, 1992 edition of The Catholic Free Press).

While Mary Donovan and her cohorts were demanding women's ordination and the right to "dispute interpretation" of the Church's teaching, the Second Vatican Council had already taught authoritatively that, "...the task of authentically interpreting the Word of God, whether written or handed on, has been entrusted exclusively to the living teaching office of the Church, whose authority is exercised in the name of Jesus Christ." (Dei Verbum, No. 10).
Mary Donovan and other sophomoric souls throughout the Worcester Diocese have openly rejected the teaching of Vatican II and the perennial teaching of the Catholic Church, as exemplified in the post conciliar document entitled "The Ministerial Priesthood in the Light of the Mystery of Christ" that, "..we can never ignore the fact that Christ is a man.  Therefore, unless one is to disregard the importance of this symbolism for the economy of Revelation, it must be admitted that, in actions which demand the character of ordination and in which Christ Himself, the Author of the Covenant, the Bridegroom and Head of the Church, is represented, exercising His ministry of salvation - which is in the highest degree the case of the Eucharist - His role must be taken by a man."
But those who shout Non Serviam along with Lucifer will not be silent.  No amount of truth will produce the slightest crack in their wall of conviction.  The time has come to discipline them.  If necessary, with excommunication.

Such an anathema would amount to an expression of supreme charity.


Related reading here and here.

The Catholic Free Press and Eco-Feminist Sister Kathy Sherman, CSJ

Donna Steichen, the author of Ungodly Rage, explains the identifying characteristics of Eco-feminism.  She writes, "Religion is the heart of the Catholic school curriculum. But in today's Catholic schools, it may not be the Catholic religion. Feminist spirituality-the religion of WomenChurch-is pushing Catholicism out of the heart of the parochial curriculum in many places. Its identifying characteristics are the gradual displacement of traditional Catholic doctrine, culture and practices with a subtle but relentless infusion of feminist theology, steady but stealthy movement toward the worship of a female deity in feminist rituals, inappropriate if not obsessive focus on sex education, and fanatic environmentalism..."  (See here).

Writing in this week's edition of the dissent-friendly diocesan newspaper The Catholic Free Press [Diocese of Worcester, Massachusetts], Mary Donovan, a member of the Worcester Commission for Women, an organization which promotes New Age relativism with the blessing of the diocese, promotes yet another speaker who will be appearing at the Commission for Women's "Gather Us In" conference to be held this November.  Writing about Kathy Sherman, CSJ, she says, "She has a strong commitment to earth issues, to saving and healing planet Earth.  She works to help others understand that the universe is an interconnected whole that is sacred and in need of our protection..." (See here).

Actually, Sister Sherman does more than that.  She promotes the Eco-feminism described by Donna Steichen above.  And, as this article explains, "Eco-feminism is basically the same as the earth-centered and feminist centered belief of Wicca (witchcraft).  Note how Mary Donovan capitalizes the word "earth" even though it comes at the end of the sentence.  For the Eco-feminist, the Wiccan, worships the earth.  Eco-feminism embraces not only a fanatic environmentalism but relativism.  As Pope Benedict XVI has warned, "There is..a consciously antirationalist response to the experience that 'everything is relative,' a complex reality that is lumped together under the title of New Age. The way out of the dilemma of relativism is now sought, not in a new encounter of the 'I' with the 'Thou' or the 'We,' but in overcoming subjective consciousness, in a re-entry into the dance of the cosmos through ecstasy. As in the case of Gnosis in the ancient world, this way believes itself to be fully in tune with all the teachings and the claims of science, making use of scientific knowledge of every kind (biology, psychology, sociology, physics). At the same time, however, it offers against this background a a completely antirationalist pattern of religion, a modern 'mysticism': the absolute is, not something to be believed in, but something to be experienced. God is not a person distinct from the world; rather, he is the spiritual energy that is at work throughout the universe. Religion means bringing my self into tune with the cosmic whole, the transcending of all divisions...Objectifying reason, New Age thinking tells us, closes our way to the mystery of reality; existing as the self shuts us out from the fullness of cosmic reality; it destroys the harmony of the whole and is the real reason for our being unredeemed. Redemption lies in breaking down the limits of the self, in plunging into the fullness of life and all that is living, in going back home to the universe....The gods are returning. They have become more credible than God. Aboriginal rites must be renewed in which the self is initiated into the mysteries of the universe and freed from its own self. There are many reasons for the renewal of pre-Christian religions and cults that is being widely undertaken today. If there is no truth shared by everyone, a truth that is valid simply because it is true, then Christianity is merely a foreign import, a form of spiritual imperialism, which needs to be shaken off just as much as political imperialism. If what takes place in the sacraments is not the encounter with the one living God of all men, then they are empty rituals that mean nothing and give us nothing and, at best, allow us to sense the numinous element that is actively present in all religions. It then seems to make better sense to seek after what was originally our own than to permit alien and antiquated things to be imposed on us. But above all, if the 'rational intoxication' of the Christian mystery cannot make us intoxicated with God, then we just have to conjure up the real, concrete intoxication of effective ecstasies, the passionate power of which catches us up and turns us, at least for a moment, into gods..." (Truth and Tolerance, pp. 126-128).

Related reading here.