FAILURE TO COMMUNICATE: Bad Teaching Leads to Unfulfilled Obligations

KENAI, AK - For the second consecutive weekend, Sr. Joyce Ross, RSM conducted a paraliturgical communion service in place of a Mass at a Catholic Church on the Peninsula, this time at Our Lady of the Angels parish on Saturday, May 30th, and Sunday, May 31st.

According to the church bulletin, the previous weekend saw Sr. Joyce "preside at Eucharistic Service" at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic Church in nearby Soldotna.  Fr. Tony Dummer, OMI and Fr. Andy Sensenig, OMI both made personal remarks that Sr. Joyce's presence was necessary because of the absence of Fr. Joe Dowling, OMI, a fact which the bulletin neglects to mention.

While neither conducting nor attending a paraliturgical communion service is proscribed by Canon Law, a communion service does not fulfill the Church's mandate that the faithful should  attend Mass on all Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation as stated in canon 1247:

Cn. 1247 - On Sundays and other holy days of obligation, the faithful are obliged to participate in the Mass.

Canon 1248 does suggests that, in the absence of a priest, the faithful may participate in a paraliturgical service, viz.

Cn. 1248 §2 - If participation in the eucharistic celebration becomes impossible because of the absence of a sacred minister or for another grave cause, it is strongly recommended that the faithful take part in a liturgy of the word if such a liturgy is celebrated in a parish church or other sacred place according to the prescripts of the diocesan bishop...

However - and this is the crux of the argument - this "liturgy of the word" or "Eucharistic Service" are not "options" for fulfilling the Sunday obligation; rather, the obligation is void when it becomes impossible to fulfill.  So the first question one should ask himself when a priest is absent is not "Is it permissible for me to attend this Eucharistic Service at my church?", but "Is it possible for me to attend Mass elsewhere?"  This is, in fact, what the Congregation of Divine Worship stated in 1988:

¶18 - Whenever and wherever Mass cannot be celebrated on Sunday, the first thing to be ascertained is whether the faithful can go to a church in a place nearby to participate there in the eucharistic mystery.

Further on, this same letter warns of the abuse currently taught ex operatio in Kenai and Soldotna:

¶21 - It is imperative that the faithful be taught to see the substitutional character of these celebrations, which should not be regarded as the optimal solution to new difficulties nor as a surrender to mere convenience.

¶22 - Any confusion between this kind of assembly and a eucharistic celebration must be carefully avoided.

Now, in the past some have claimed that when Mass is celebrated in Kenai and not Soldotna, or vice versa, that the extra miles make fulfillment of the Sunday Mass obligation impossible.  However,  the distance between Our Lady of the Angels parish in Kenai and Our Lady of Perpetual Help parish in Soldotna is just over 12 miles one way - a long distance to walk, but a relatively short distance to drive by Alaskan standards.  Below are examples of longer and shorter commutes made by Catholics in the Archdiocese of Anchorage:

South Anchorage to Downtown Anchorage = 9 miles

Sterling to Soldotna = 11 miles

Sutton to Palmer = 13 miles

Eagle River to Downtown Anchorage = 15 miles

Anchor Point to Homer = 15 miles

Moose Pass to Seward = 28 miles

Wasilla/Palmer to Downtown Anchorage = 42 miles

As the table makes explicitly clear, many members of the Archdiocese travel about or more than 12 miles one way on a daily basis.  Thus, to ask these same members to travel an extra 12 miles once a week in order to fulfill their Sunday obligation by participating in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is not only possible, but entirely reasonable.

VERDICT: The People of God on the Kenai Peninsula continue to be malformed regarding the fulfillment of the Sunday obligation to attend Mass as proclaimed by Holy Mother Church in her Canon Law and Congregation for Divine Worship.  In accord with the Second Vatican Council, which exhorted all bishops to promote and safeguard "the unity of the faith and the discipline common to the whole Church", it is the opinion of this blog that Archbishop Schwietz must correct and teach that unity and discipline which Our Lady of the Angels and Our Lady of Perpetual Help currently lack.

Please pray for Archbishop Schwietz, Sr. Joyce, and Frs. Tony, Andy, and Joe.

CATECHISM BREAKTHROUGH: Purgatory is a Doctrine

SOLDOTNA, AK - The Catechism of the Catholic Church, recently published in 1992, has asserted that purgatory is a doctrine.

This contradicts the teaching of Rev. Tony Dummer, O.M.I., the current leader of the Pastoral Team at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Parish in Soldotna.  In the November 2, 2008 issue of the OLPH bulletin, Fr. Tony stated:

Purgatory is not a doctrine ---it is a reasonable explanation of the problems of restitution, rehabilitation, punishment and maybe even "cosmic-congruence".

In contrast, Canon 1031 of the Catechism reads:

 The Church gives the name Purgatory to this final purification of the elect, which is entirely different from the punishment of the damned.  The Church formulated her DOCTRINE OF FAITH ON PURGATORY especially at the Councils of Florence and Trent. (caps my emphasis)

In his Apostolic Constitution Fidei Depositum, the late Pope John Paul II described the Catechism as "...a statement of the Church's faith and of catholic doctrine, attested to or illumined by Sacred Scripture, the Apostolic tradition, and the Church's Magisterium."

Allaying doubts of post-conciliar Catholics, John Paul also reassured that the Catechism is "...a very important contribution to that work of renewing the whole life of the Church, as desired and begun by the Second Vatican Council."

More to follow.

COMING ATTRACTIONS: Anti-Papal Homosexual Advocate at APU

Dr. Vincent Smiles, an open critic of Pope Benedict XVI and the Church's teaching on homosexuality, will give a series of talks at the Midsummer's Light Bible Institute this June, hosted by Alaska Pacific University and sponsored by the Archdiocese of Anchorage.

Currently a professor of theology at the College of St. Benedict and St. John's University in Collegeville, Minnesota, Dr. Smiles has written anti-papal articles on a blog attached to the magazine Commonweal.  An excerpt:

December 23rd, 2008

I find the Pope's stance on homosexuality SCANDALOUS IN THE FULL THEOLOGICAL SENSE OF THE TERM ("stumbling block" to faith)...the Vatican's use of the Bible is embarrassingly simplistic and fundamentalist.  We need to recover the resources of our tradition that enable an alternative view to that of Benedict XVI...The scandal of Benedict's stance is that he speaks as though faith provided a certainty that is simply not available, and in doing so HIS PRONOUNCEMENTS ARE CRUELLY MISLEADING AND UNJUST. (caps my emphases)

Dr. Smiles' unholy rebuke and his generally dissident demeanor contradict the teachings of Vatican II; to wit:

In matters of faith and morals, the bishops speak in the name of Christ and the faithful are to accept their teaching and adhere to it with a religious assent of soul.  This religious submission of will and of mind must be shown in a special way to the authentic teaching authority of the Roman Pontiff, even when he is not speaking ex cathedra.  (Lumen Gentium, ¶25). 

Further, in a pro-homosexual union article written for the St. Cloud Times in 2005 (WARNING: posted here on a gay catholic blog), Dr. Smiles contends that "there is no basis for absolute certainty on this issue".  Again, this flies in the face of the CDF Letter on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons:

Although the particular inclination of the homosexual person is not a sin, it is a more or less strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil; and thus the inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder. (Cardinal Ratzinger, 1986)

Finally, Dr. Smiles is on the record as defending Dan Maguire, a Marquette professor who was publicly corrected by the USCCB in 2007 regarding abortion and homosexuality.  You can read the USCCB's censure here.

As an impious denouncer of the Pope and Church doctrine, Dr. Smiles is wholly unfit to speak and teach the faith at a purportedly Catholic colloquium.  Please keep him in your prayers.

Dr. Smiles comes to Anchorage at the invitation of Dr. Regina Boisclair, the current Cardinal Newman Chair of Catholic Theology at APU.

UPDATE: More on LCWR and Gnosticism

Hat-tip to Amy Welborn's blog, as well as the Kansas City Catholic Key, for bringing the 2007 LCWR keynote address to light.

Given by a Sr. Laurie Brink, O.P., a Sinsinawa Dominican, the latent Gnosticism from the 2008 keynote is much more apparent here.  I've supplied some rebuttal commentary from the Gospel of John in order to highlight the strategic necessity of undermining the Gospel of John that "Post-Christian" theologians employ.

No bulwark stands firmer against Gnosticism than that Gospel written by the man who was illuminated by Christ's refulgence on Mt. Tabor, reclined upon Christ's breast at the Last Supper, slept through Christ's agony in Gethsemane, passed with Christ into the priestly courtyard for trial, walked with Mary along Christ's Via Dolorosa, heard Christ commend him to His mother, saw the blood and water flow from Christ's pierced side, and raced Peter to the empty tomb on the Resurrection morn.

The dynamic option for Religious Life, which I am calling, Sojourning, is much more difficult to discuss, since it involves moving beyond the Church, EVEN BEYOND JESUS. A sojourning congregation is no longer ecclesiastical. It has grown beyond the bounds of institutional religion. Its search for the Holy may have begun rooted in Jesus as the Christ, but deep reflection, study and prayer have opened it up to THE SPIRIT OF THE HOLY IN ALL CREATION. Religious titles, institutional limitations, ecclesiastical authorities no longer fit this congregation, which in most respects is Post-Christian.

This is heresy; cf: "Jesus said to him, 'I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life; no one comes to the Father, but by me'" (Jn 14:6).

When religious communities embraced the spirit of renewal in the 1970s, they took seriously that THE WORLD WAS NO LONGER THE ENEMY, that a sense of ecumenism required encountering the holy “other,” and that the God of Jesus might well be the God of Moses and the God of Mohammed. The works of Thomas Merton encouraged an exploration of the nexus between Eastern and Western religious practices. The emergence of the women’s movement with is concomitant critique of religion invited women everywhere to use a hermeneutical lens of suspicion when reading the androcentric Scriptures and the texts of the Tradition. With a new lens, women also began to see the divine within nature, the value and importance of the cosmos, and that the emerging new cosmology encouraged their spirituality and fed their souls.

The world is no longer the enemy? Cf: "And the world has hated them because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.  I do not pray that thou shouldst take them out of the world, but that thou shouldst keep them from the evil one.  They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world" (Jn 17:14-16).

 As one sister described it, “I was rooted in the story of Jesus, and it remains at my core, but I’ve also moved beyond Jesus.” The Jesus narrative is not the only or the most important narrative for these women.  They still hold up and reverence the values of the Gospel, but they also recognize that these same values are not solely the property of Christianity. Buddhism, Native American spirituality, Judaism, Islam and others hold similar tenets for right behavior within the community, right relationship with the earth and right relationship with the Divine. With these insights come a shattering or freeing realization—depending on where you stand. JESUS IS NOT THE ONLY SON OF GOD. Salvation is not limited to Christians. Wisdom is found in the traditions of the Church as well as beyond it.

'Jesus is not the only Son of God', eh?  Cf: "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father" (Jn 1:14).

 Sojourners have left the religious home of their fathers and mothers and are traveling in a foreign land, mapping their way as they go. They are courageous women among us. And very well may provide a glimpse into the new thing that God is bringing about in our midst. Who’s to say that the movement beyond Christ is not, in reality, a movement into the very heart of God? A movement the ecclesiastical system would not recognize. A wholly new way of being holy that is integrative, non-dominating, and inclusive. But a whole new way that is also not Catholic Religious Life. The Benedictine Women of Madison are the most current example I can name. Their commitment to ecumenism lead them beyond the exclusivity of the Catholic Church into a new inclusivity, where all manner of seeking God is welcomed. They are certainly religious women, but they are no longer women religious as it is defined by the Roman Catholic Church. They choose as a congregation to step outside the Church in order to step into a greater sense of holiness. Theirs was a choice of integrity, insight and courage. 

...and apostasy!  Sanctus Athanasius, ora pro nobis.

UPDATE: Apostolic Visitation of LWCR

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), headed by William Joseph Cardinal Levada, continues to investigate the Leadership Conference of Women's Religious (LCWR) in America for doctrinal heresy.

Three main topics are at stake: women's ordination, salvation outside the Catholic Church, and homosexuality.

In 2001, LCWR was instructed by the CDF - then helmed by the current pope, formerly Cardinal Ratzinger - to report on the promulgation of the above doctrines in their orders and provinces.  No report has been forthcoming, so the CDF has decreed an apostolic visitation as necessary.

How does this apply to Kenai and Alaska at large?

Sr. Joyce Ross, a Sister of Mercy, Sr. Charlotte Davenport, a Sister of St. Joseph of Peace and Chancellor of the Archdiocese, and any number of the Adrian Dominican Sisters who serve the Archdiocese of Anchorage are all members of the 100+ orders that LCWR represents.  As has already been noted on this blog, Sr. Joyce's involvement with liturgical abuse in Kenai demonstrates a prejudice against the Church's teaching on women's ordination; hence, this apostolic visitation may have a direct effect upon the frequency and character of the liturgical abuse described here.

For more on the particular type of theology that LCWR espouses, here are excerpts from the keynote address of their 2008 annual assembly:

Human thought and love, we are learning, are not something injected into the universe from without, but are the flowering, the concentration, in us of deeply cosmic energies. Matter, zesty with energy, evolves to life, then to consciousness, then to spirit.

Folks, claiming that matter evolves into spirit is heresy.  Here's what the catechism has to say on the creation of the soul:

The Church teaches that every spiritual soul is created immediately by God - it is not 'produced' by the parents - and also that it is immortal; it does not perish when it separates from the body at death, and it will be reunited with the body at the final Resurrection (CCC 366).

Please pray for the Pope, Cardinal Levada, and all the members of the LWCR.