Editor’s Note: Part 4 of this series chronicled the honoring of pro-abortion and pro-homosexualist politicians by the California Catholic Conference and the softening of pro-life and pro-family messages to public officials. This week’s story tells what happens when the bishops’ conference is confronted with lay men and women who try to enlist the Church’s help in changing public policy.
Full disclosure: the president of the non-profit California Catholic Daily, Jim Holman, was one of the pro-life donors and volunteers who worked on the five attempts to pass parental notification initiatives.
In 1987 the California legislature passed a law requiring parental consent for an abortion to be performed on a minor. Governor George Deukmejian, a Republican, signed it into law. But it was never enforced. After lengthy court battles, the law was overturned by the California Supreme Court in 1997.
In the fall of 2001, Assemblyman Bill Campbell from Orange County led an effort to put a state initiative on the 2002 ballot requiring parental notification for a minor’s abortion. The California Catholic Conference assisted Campbell with the effort. David Pollard, associate director for public policy for the conference, coordinated signature gathering at the parishes.
The Los Angeles archdiocese was a gaping hole in those parish efforts – reports showed no petitions were circulated in LA. By January 2002 it was obvious that the effort had fallen far short of the total signatures required. (Pollard was fired by his boss Ned Dolejsi in February 2003, allegedly because of cutbacks caused by the pedophilia crisis.)
Throughout 2003 California pro-life leaders talked among themselves about re-starting the effort of putting parental notification on the ballot. At least three major donors were recruited to help fund the paid signature segment. (In California, the high number of signatures required means that it is virtually impossible to gather enough signatures only from volunteers.)
Unfortunately the donor charged with vetting the initiative language made a crucial error – his legal advisors had cobbled together language for a constitutional amendment but included text from the consent law that made the amendment null and void. The nation’s constitutional expert on parental notification, Teresa Collett, warned against going forward. The donor tried to mollify other pro-lifers, saying that “the courts would sort it out.”
The California Catholic Conference joined the effort with the disputed text and urged signature gathering at the parishes throughout early 2004. Philanthropist Howard Ahmanson Jr. provided the $150,000 that was spent on paid signatures. Very few petitions were circulated at parishes, and the effort failed.
With the help of Teresa Collett and Catherine Short of California’s Life Legal Defense Foundation, a constitutional amendment was filed with the secretary of state in mid-2004 and signatures were gathered in late 2004 and early 2005.
But the California Catholic Conference was cool to the effort. On February 12, 2005, Carol Hogan, Dolejsi’s assistant at the CCC, issued a memo regarding the Parental Notification Initiative. “…due to the abnormally high number of initiatives seeking to qualify for November, which makes the cost of paid signature-gathering prohibitive, and the anticipated high hurdle of an expensive public education campaign to pass the PNI into law, the Conference had decided to refrain at this time from issuing a public letter of support,” Hogan wrote in the memo.
On January 10, 2005, Hogan wrote to Robert Sassone, author in 1997 of Handbook on Population. “Unless they [parental notification initiative sponsors] have $20 million to get it passed – it will fail at the ballot – and set back the cause a decade,” wrote Hogan. “I don’t think they have $20 million. It is not enough to get the signatures. Planned Parenthood et al will spend $50 million to defeat it – and if they can cast it as a curb on abortion rights they (PP) will win.”
With no cooperation from the Catholic Conference, private donors and volunteers were still able to get the required number of signatures for the special election called by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger for November 2005. In spite of being outspent 5 to 1, parental notification, known as Proposition 73, got 47.2% Yes votes to 52.8% No votes. As it turned out, all of the eight initiatives in the special election went down to defeat. Prop 73 had the least financial support, but got the highest number of Yes votes.
Pro-life donors and volunteers made another effort in 2006. Led by the Catholic Conference, bishops strongly discouraged signature gathering at the parishes. Heavily outspent by opponents, Prop 85, as the 2006 proposition was labeled, received 45.8% Yes votes to 54.2% No votes.
A 2008 effort to put parental notification on the ballot ran into even stiffer resistance from the Catholic Conference.
In a February 2008 memo to pastors and others, Monterey Bishop Richard Garcia noted that the “CCC is not endorsing the gathering signatures for Sarah’s Law.”(Sarah’s Law, or Proposition 4, was the 2008 parental notification initiative.)
On March 10, 2008, Monsignor Royale Vadakin, the LA archdiocese’s vicar general, sent out a memo to all pastors saying: “the Conference (CCC-Ned Dolejsi) does not have the human or financial resources to actively participate in the ballot qualification effort. Thus, it is the policy of the bishops to formally endorse initiatives only after they are qualified for the ballot. Consistent with that policy, our archdiocese is not organizing signature gathering campaigns.”
According to an April 24 article published in the San Francisco Faith, Dolejsi made this policy explicit: “Until an initiative qualifies, said Dolejsi, “it is an idea of an individual or a group of individuals,” not “officially part of the public debate.” When an initiative, following qualification, becomes part of that debate, the conference must consider its “moral significance.” But there are “other important assessments,” such as an initiative’s “political viability,” said Dolejsi.
Some initiative proposals are “good causes and have organized appropriately to be successful,” said Dolejsi. “Unfortunately, some others may be under funded, poorly organized and/or politically untenable.”
When “an issue is publicly before the people or the legislature for public debate, the bishops’ conference assumes the responsibility to offer guidance directly to Catholics about the moral importance of the issue and to present the Church’s wisdom,” said Dolejsi. “The bishops have consistently done this on every significant proposal in the last decade.”
Undaunted, donors and volunteers got the signatures needed to put parental notification on the November 2008 ballot. Though outspent by Planned Parenthood and its allies 15 to 1, Proposition 4, as the measure was called that year, came the closest ever to winning — 48% Yes votes to 53% No.
After this near-win (and because of the victory of the Prop 8 protect marriage initiative on the same ballot), pro-lifers approached the newly appointed archbishop of Los Angeles, Jose Gomez, in August, 2010.
Archbishop Gomez, in a series of meetings in 2010 and early 2011, agreed to support parental notification and encourage signature gathering at the parishes – inside and outside the churches. At one meeting on March 25, 2011, he told pro-lifers, “I will get the other bishops on board.” As the meetings progressed throughout 2011, however, Archbishop Gomez seemed to adopt the earlier language of Dolejsi and the California Conference, saying the bishops would need to be assured that there was financial support, a wide coalition, and a professional campaign consultant hired before he and other bishops would help out.
One noteworthy incident occurred in one of the final meetings of 2011. Archbishop Gomez asked the lay people pushing the parental notification initiative to produce a Power Point presentation, which he could use at an upcoming bishops meeting in November 2011. The pro-lifers used the existing research, hired professional artists and Power Point experts, and sent a polished Power Point presentation to the archbishop and to Dolejsi.
After the bishops met, Dolejsi shared a version of the Power Point presentation he had edited for the bishops. The strong arguments in favor of the proposed initiative had been weakened, and the case against going forward strengthened. In fact, the page showing a “vulnerable” Planned Parenthood had been changed to show Planned Parenthood with assets of close to a trillion dollars, the amount of a small nation’s assets.
In August 2010, a parental notification initiative passed in Alaska with open-hearted and explicit help from Anchorage Archbishop Roger Schwietz. A portion of the PowerPoint presentation prepared by backers of the California initiative told the story of this 2010 success. But it was deleted from the version the Catholic Conference showed at the November bishops’ meeting.
In late January 2012, two months after the five-month window for collecting signatures had opened, there was an announcement by the Catholic Conference that they would be supporting the ACLU-backed Death Penalty and the lay-sponsored Parental Notification initiatives. Several bishops issued letters to the faithful in their dioceses encouraging signature collection in parishes.
But the bishops’ encouragement was stymied by those who were supposed to work for them. In February 2012, Dolejsi worked with California Conference attorney James Sweeney to develop “Do” and “Don’t Do” rules for gathering signatures. Pastors were warned that they might be criminally prosecuted for any election law violations associated with signature gathering. Volunteers were warned not to pass out petitions to parishioners and by no means was any parish employee to be involved in gathering signatures. It was also strongly recommended that parishes spend no money on the effort, and, if they did, meticulous records had to be kept.
By the deadline in May 2012, it was clear that the bishops’ support had been so weakened by California Catholic Conference staff that it meant little in the end. The number of volunteer signatures gathered (200,000 out of the 1.2 million necessary) with support from the California bishops was the same as the number of volunteer signatures gathered in 2008 with open opposition from the bishops.
Just as important, as early as November 2011, potential donors to the parental notification initiative began to express misgivings, saying they got the feeling that the promised support from the bishops was not forthcoming. Donations dried up.
Next week: Part 6: the costs
To read previous parts of this series, click below:
Part 1: the years before
Part 2: the gay agenda, euthanasia, abortion
Part 3: a layman takes over
Part 4: blurred vision
But sure they can afford to pay a hefty amount of money for Crystal Cathedral…but not to help pass parental notification.
Jim Holman spend a lot of his own money…he was even in the news and Planned Parenthood tried to bash him in one of their reports with the news.
That shed some light on things. Thanks abeca.
How shameful the bishops have let the Lord and His Church down. Sadly, too many clergy and laity do not deserve to be called Catholic.
But yet, when the Son of man cometh, shall he find, think you, faith on earth? Luke 18:8
He’s already come here, been here for two millenia, and where is the faith on earth today that He is finding?
The California Bishops California Catholic Conference should be disbanded – as well as all other States Bishops’ conferences and the USCCB. These turn the Church into a political organization – which can easily be ignored by all.
Bishops’ Conferences were were promoted in the USA by the Bernardin/Weakland/early Mahony followers. In addition when does money $ $ $ $ $ (financial support) determine right and wrong or the teachings of the Church as indicated by the California Bishops’ Conference ? ? ?
The Laity are FORCED into finacially supporting these conferences (which cost millions to support) through assessments on their donations to their own Parish.
Jesus did not involve himself in tyring to drive government actions, but by teaching the rest of us right from wrong to Save Souls. Then the Laity using a well informed conscience gets involved in politics.
Bishops should follow the example of Jesus; teach the Laity using the “BIBLE” and the “CATECHISM of the Catholic Church, second edition”; and stop public SCANDAL in their own Diocese by Catholics by enforcing CANON 915, Canon 1399, and 1 Cor 5:11-13.
Each Bishop is fully responsible for everything “CATHOLIC” within his own Diocese.
Bishops do your own job.
On the other hand, per the Code of Canon Law 212 #3 – it is the obligation/duty of the Laity to report all ABUSES of the teaching of the Church – as stated in the Catechism, GIRM (General Instruction of the Roman Missal), and Code of Canon Law. to the appropriate Diocese Bishop, and/or the US Papal Nuncio if necessary.
If your Bishop does not do his teaching job completely or accurately – – – see verificable links to Magisterium teaching which Catholics are all required to adhere to on the internet: “What Catholics REALLY Believe SOURCE”.
Laity do your own job.
MAC,
Now that Biden, Pelosi, Sanchez etc., etc., ad nauseam have been permitted to publicly violate Canon 915 at the Papal Mass, we can just hear the cowardly American Hierarchy (not all mind you) yelling, hey the Pope allowed it, so why come to us with your complaints. I venture to state that the new Pope will hear plenty about this public scandal and soon.
Without knowing more, I would venture to say that we are in for more insane ecumenism, not less. I pray I am wrong!
God bless, yours in Their Hearts,
Kenneth M. Fisher
Mr. Fisher, didn’t you listen to what our new Pope Francis I had to say? He is a humble man and is welcoming to all it seems. I think he has better things to do than to snub people that you dislike. And yes, there were many people that were not Catholic at that Mass but in attending they showed respect for our new Holy Father and the Catholic faith. It would do you well to follow the humble example of our Holy Father.
Mark from PA, Pelosi and Biden commit Sacrilege against the Real Presence. Do you know what that means?
Mr. Fisher – the Pope did not give Holy Communion to Pelosi or Biden. He only gave Communion to Priests and selected persons. Biden and Pelosi recieved from one of the 500 Priests, who probably did not even speak English, yet alone know the evil that they support – abortion, same-sex marriage, etc. (There was no photo-op for Pelosi and Biden receiving Communion.)
MAC, do you know these people personally? Do you know if they go to confession? You have no way of knowing they are committing any sacrilege unless you have divine qualities of discernment.
So PA when dissident catholics openly propose and support laws that violate catholic teaching they should be welcomed?????
The conference seems to want to back a winner – only. The thing they need to back is the same as what they should always preach, teach and live – the Truth ! I for one cannot fathom any refusal on their part to back anti-abortion proposals. The CCB is a disgrace.
The “winner” that they chose to support with enormous effort, was the SAFE California initiative to abolish the death penalty. Parental Notification was given only token attention, and that only because it would have looked bad for the Bishops (sic) to have tried to save convicted murderers but not make a stab at saving thosands of young girls under 18 and their babies. Run by the enemy of the Catholic Church, the ACLU, the SAFE California campaign worked hand in glove with the Bishops’ minions, even in Catholic Churches, but they lost. So, the “babies” were thrown out with the bathwater and Parental Notification got shot down again, never even getting on the ballot.
Bishops, are you happy with your California Catholic Conference which strategizes how you bishops can defeat pro-life legislation?
You neglected to mention how enthusiastic the CCC was in regard to the ACLU’s initiative against the death penalty.
The ACLU and their harpies have always been the hardline abortion champions, the revolutionaries for the culture of Death.
Shame on the bishops and the CCC for collaborating with the enemy of life.
That is right JOHN how could we forget…..
I suspect the bishops are afraid of the death penalty. Wonder why? Could it have anything to do with their sense of the eternal?
The bishops are pro-life.
BUT some of their actions make that hard to believe! It’s no different than the politicians that say they are Catholic but they are the biggest promoters that are destroying family values! WAKE UP!
All of the bishops are pro-life, whether you find it hard to believe or not. And part of why you may find it hard to believe is because people who don’t know what they are talking about say they voted for Obama. It is a secret ballot. No one knows who anybody voted for. One person speculation is not fact. Do you know that in a survey of why people left the Catholic Church the primary reason given was the sex abuse scandal. The second most frequent reason given was the bishop’s support of the REPUBLICAN agenda. The Bishops are a group that people love to hate. There is a lot of gossip and other sinful talk about the Bishops on the Intenet. It is a sign of rebellion. Some people are Catholic but they don’t like the Catholic Church for various reasons and they want the Church to change. You seem like a nice lady who doesn’t know who to listen to. God expects you to obey the bishops. Don’t let disgruntled Catholics mislead you.
Excellent expose’.
The bishops would be wise to disband their awful lobby. Nothing but failure and dysfunctional representation. Very few church going Catholics even know that their pew money is going through the bishop to the CCC for mediocre and often Leftist action.
This has been an excellent series on the CCC! My protest against funding this group, as well as many groups antithetical to Church teaching, has been the refusal to contribute any money to the AAA or CCHD.
A percentage of each Sunday’s collection in every Parish is sent to the Diocese for all Diocese operations.
Each Diocese financially supports the Bishops’ Conference through an assessment on the Diocese.
We would have to stop giving to our own Parish.
When not giving to something for a reason, it does no good unless you drop a note in the collection plate stating why you are NOT donating.
Maybe it’s time to try “No Dogma – No Dollars” again. Print this notice on green paper and drop dollar size “bills” into the collection basket.
Wouldn’t work for me, Marie, because the priests I know preach and teach dogma. What about those who have weak or bad priests, seek out strong and holy ones, and simply let their bad ones die on the vine?
So, what about donating to the priest apart from the collection at Mass? That would not be obligated to reach the bishop.
That is what got that priest in trouble in Texas.
Selective silence is never “anonymous” with God.
By and large, the bishops make dupes of Catholics who are still faithful to the Magisterium, especially pro-life Catholics. We lend them “political cover” at the Vatican, but it’s mostly a sham, as our California Catholic Conference amply demonstrates. Most of our bishops are modern-day Pharisees, and just as the Pharisees of old persecuted Jesus, they persecute us. Beware of them and their initiatives.
I’ve never heard of any bishop that persecuted pro-life Catholics, but I’ve seen a lot of pro-life Catholics who persecute the bishops.
Anonymous, how did you miss the persecution of Fr Frank Pavone by one of the also ran bishops last year? Again, you are constantly displaying your incredible ignorance? You must get some sort of thrill out of playing dumb.
How was he persecuted? Being forced to obey his ordinary? C’mon, Skai. You are not that naive.
“thrill out of playing dumb”….rotflol!
Please strive to be civil.
Congratulations on a clever reply, which, ironically, illustrates my point. When faithful, pro-life Catholics criticize the bishops, they are persecuted by the bishops and their (sometimes anonymous) agents. Unlike the dissenters’ criticism, our criticism is holy. The bishops need to stop rationalizing their moral cowardice in the name of “prudential judgment” and start doing their job.
I was a donor to Priests for Life and when Fr. Pavone was called back to Texas due to unanswered questions about the financial aspects of his ministry, I finally looked at how donors money was spent. I no longer donate to them. I support Fr. Pavone in his priesthood and his pro-life mission. People who know him speak very well of him. Your criticism is not holy. Your last sentence is sinful. It is grandiose to think you are being persecuted by the bishops or their agents for being pro-life. I am not associated with any diocese.
Anonymous, the Pope Emeritus disagrees with you. Of course, his disagreement is not magisterial; yet, he has said that the Church is inundated with “filth”, meaning abortion slavering clergy and sodomite soliciting clergy as well as laity.
Meaning the priests who abused kids.
“Prudential” and “bishops” seems to beg the question of vast distance.
Anonymous, you have certainly never met any actively pro-life priests. The hassle they receive from their liberal bishops and the chancery rats is something fairly well-known.
Fr Michael, every priest I have ever met has been pro-life; what you mean by actively pro-life, I don’t know. I will submit to you that I do not personally know what goes on between any bishop and any priest (or the chancery employees) and I have never heard of anything.
Well Fr. Michael is a priest…he must know first hand….he is considered a valid resource because he is a priest and is around other priests too. So why try to discredit him. Geeze..you people are too much!
Anonymous, while I can’t speak for Fr. Michael, to me a priest who is “actively pro-life” would mean a priest who not only frequently preaches on the issue, he may also go out to pray in front of abortuarys, not withstanding other pro-life activities. Simply holding the position that abortion is wrong and doing little or nothing beyond that, would be very cold or lukewarm at best and we know what Jesus warned about this.
Yes, they usually stick prolife priests off in the boonies.
Tracy, I think most priests would like to do those things but they have to leave it to the laity because of the need to fulfill their duties as priests. I know some people think priests only work on Sunday morning but really it is a 24/7 job.
Twohundred USA bishops persecuted prolife Catholics by voting for Obama, the Obortion King of all History.
You don’t know who they voted for, Skai.
We DO know that the teachings have not been vigorously upheld or defended. This is the reason why so many people call themselves Catholic and voted for a baby butcher for President. We DO know how they voted on this one and this is why our country is in the darkened abyss.
Published Feb. 27, 2012 by CCD.
n 1968, something terrible happened in the Church
Cardinal reflects on how dissenters to Humane Vitae tore the Church apart – and how rift left scars that remain to this day.
(Editor’s Note: We first ran this in summer of 2008 but wanted to re-run in the midst of the current contraception talk. This article was made available to us courtesy of Catholic News Agency, and is a piece written by Cardinal James Stafford at the request of the Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano.)
Humanae Vitae
The Year of the Peirasmòs — 1968
By Cardinal James Francis Stafford
“Lead us not into temptation” is the sixth petition of the Our Father. Peirasmòs, the Greek word used in this passage for ‘temptation,’ means a trial or test. Disciples petition God to be protected against the supreme test of ungodly powers. The trial is related to Jesus’s cup in Gethsemane, the same cup which his disciples would also taste (Mk 10: 35-45). The dark side of the interior of the cup is an abyss. It reveals the awful consequences of God’s judgment upon sinful humanity. In August 1968, the weight of the evangelical Peirasmòs fell on many priests, including myself.
It was the year of the bad war, of complex innocence that sanctified the shedding of blood. English historian Paul Johnson dubs 1968 as the year of “America’s Suicide Attempt.” It included the Tet offensive in Vietnam with its tsunami-like effects in American life and politics, the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis, Tennessee; the tumult in American cities on Palm Sunday weekend; and the June assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy in Southern California. It was also the year in which Pope Paul VI issued his encyclical letter on transmitting human life, Humanae Vitae (HV). He met immediate, premeditated, and unprecedented opposition from some American theologians and pastors. By any measure, 1968 was a bitter cup.
On the fortieth anniversary of Humanae Vitae, I have been asked to reflect on one event of that year, the doctrinal dissent among some priests and theologians in an American archdiocese on the occasion of its publication. It is not an easy or welcome task. But since it may help some followers of Jesus to live what Pope Paul VI called a more “disciplined” life (HV 21), I will explore that event.
Some priests and theologians dissented in 1968 and that proves that 45 years later 200 bishops voted for Obama in the presidential election? What?
I’m prolife, but I don’t get this rhetoric. First off, how do you know whether 200 USA bishops voted for Obama? Second, what does persecution mean, if merely voting for someone for a thousand different reasons, happens to differ with you on the one area you disagree? Are you really saying that to disagree with someone is to persecute them?
Collins defines “persecute” thus: “to oppress, harass, or maltreat, especially because of race, religion, etc.” When, for example, so many bishops disobey Canon 915, they subvert our pro-life work. In this and other ways, they mistreat and make dupes of us. Orthodoxy now almost always meets with opposition from the Church herself. Saints have criticized bishops for the good of the Church. Why shouldn’t we?
1) The persecution is that they don’t enforce canon 915? That oppresses, harasses or maltreats you? Quite frankly, whether your neighbor receives communion or not is none of your business.
2) When you say that it subverts your pro-life work and makes dupes of you, you are saying that you want to use the Eucharist for political power. The only reason someone is denied the Eucharist is as a remedy for their soul and to prevent them from further sin like sacrilege.
3)There was a man who commented on another website who asked Archbishop Chaput at a pro-life gathering why the bishops did not excommunicate the politicians and he said that Archbishop Chaput became very upset with him and said that those who call for excommunication do not understand the complexities of the issue.
4) Orthodoxy does not meet with opposition by the Church.
5) You should not criticize the bishops because people of weaker faith than you will turn to evil that they might have been protected from if you had not criticized the bishops. You should not criticize the bishop because gossip (and Satan) will turn your criticism into something more than you intended. You should not criticize the bishops because it is unlikely that you have the full knowledge of any situation that a bishop has made a decision about. You should not criticize the bishops because it harms the Body of Christ and offends the Heart of Jesus. There may be times when a bishop should be corrected. That should be done in person or by a letter, not by harping on the Internet.
Rebuttal: 1) Disobedience to Canon 915 is only one of several examples cited in these comments. It is persecution because this thwarts pro-life Catholics, which is to treat them badly. 2) People are also denied the Eucharist to avoid having them lead others into sin (scandal). To condemn this as “political punishment” is a rationalization. 3) Blaming “complexities” for disobedience to Canon 915 is another rationalization. To ban someone from receiving Communion per Canon 915 is less severe than Excommunication anyway. 4) Attempts at orthodoxy do meet with opposition from within the Church herself, to which many here have attested. 5) Bishops, too, can harm the Body of Christ and offend the Heart of Jesus. Canon 212 affirms the right to manifest to the sacred Pastors our views and to make our views known to others of Christ’s faithful (such as on the Internet).
Being frustrated is not being persecuted. To say that you are being persecuted by someone else not being denied communion is silly. To say that the bishops persecute pro-life Catholics is a gross distortion and could lead someone else astray. I am sorry if you feel persecuted, neglected, forgotton, undermined. You need to be accurate when you are accusing someone of something seriously wrong.
Paul Joseph, others might make dupes of us, but the Lord Jesus does not. He sees all. Keep on doing what you know to be right and ask His guidance.. Perhaps it is a time of testing to see if we will remain faithful in spite of it all as Blessed Mother Teresa said. She went through many a dark night of the soul. Ask for her prayers.
I can easily picture Mahony and other California “bishops” hobknobbing with Biden, Pelosi, Sanchez, etc. etc. ad nauseam at the Papal Mass! May God have mercy on their compromised souls.
God bless, yours in Their Hearts,
Kenneth M. Fisher
I know that your comment is heartfelt, but as someone who has abandoned the Catholic church for another denomination, I wonder if you are the best person to complain on this site? Just asking.
Ol’Bob One, bearing false witness against Kenneth by claiming he is not Catholic. But what can you expect from a proponent of the “filth” that Pope Emeritus said infiltrates the Church? Not, of course, that Bob One is that “filth”, but that he constantly stumps for it.
Kenneth told us on this site that he attends a non-Catholic church on Sundays. I believe it is a church that says mass in Latin and hold to pre-Vatican II traditions and ways of operating. By the way, I don’t support “filth” in the Church. You too should choose your words more carefully.
Kenneth, sorry if I was mis-informed or was hurtful in any way.
Bob One, I don’t think it is a “non-Catholic” church. It is an “independent” Catholic church that does not consider itself under the authority of the local bishop. It appears that the congregation considers itself under the authority of the pastor, not the bishop. So the pastor pretty much acts as bishop. Also the church doesn’t follow the same calendar as the other churches in the diocese.
Our Lady, Help of Christians in Orange County CA is not a Catholic Church. It is a independent parish in the Catholic tradition. It was started by a Jesuit who refused to give communion in the hand and was dismissed by the Diocese of Orange. It serves those who desire the Mass of Pius V and uses that calendar. The Mass is valid but not licit. The priests believe that the Catholic Church is in the wrong since Vatican II and that they are upholding the True Catholic Faith. The pastor has stated that Pope Emeritis Benedict XVI must recant the modernist heresies in his writings from before he was Pope. Until then, he can’t be considered traditional.
Anonymous, thanks for the information. To me it sounds like that pastor of Our Lady, Help of Christians is on a big ego trip. Who is he to say that Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI must recant from his heresies? Is he more Catholic than the Pope? If Benedict XVI wrote anything heretical he would never have been elected Pope.
This is the “filth” that the Church needs to expunge…these people are so steeped in ignominy…they stink out loud!
It all starts at the top. This Conference is totally useless and needs to be disbanded and defunded. They sound like a bunch of spineless cowards.
I am most dissapointed about Archbishop Gomez. Really? He could be so powerful in changing California. He and Archbishop Cordileone hold the keys to turning this ship around.
If they became agressive about Arbortion, marriege and parental notification, other Bishops around them would feel emboldened to help.
They need to disengage themselves from the intimidation by powerful, greedy and corrupt organizations. Otherwise they are mere tools in the hands of evil.
No one can intimidate a Bishop. Nobody. A Bishop is a Monarch within his diocese, the only person he answers to is Christ and his Vicar on earth.
Every single thing that goes on in the diocese goes on because ultimately the Bishop lets it happen.
Bishops can get removed if they do wrong.
Google Bishop Jacques Gaillot.
Look up Bishop Jean-Claude Makaya Loembe.
Archbishop Róbert Bezák.
Bishop William M. Morris.
All of these Ordinaries (i.e., the head bishop of a diocese) were removed by the Vatican…in Europe…Africa…Australia…etc.
Even “monarchs,” Mbûkû, are not absolute in the Catholic Church.
Bishops are no better than they dare to be, and that requires what is known as “leap of faith”.
It sure seems to me that through a combination of fear, human weakness, timidity re the efficacy of the outcome, perhaps spiritual intimidation by mysterious forces, whatever, the CCC insures that ANY measures they undertake to try to shore up pro-life actions, will bear unsuccessful fruit. Where are the forces of spiritual confidence and competence that seemed so much in play leading up to the smashing success of the passage of PROP. 8? Is it the fall-out from the very weird “AGE OF OBAMA” we appear to be living through? “The center will not hold, things FALL APART,” lines I believe, from Wm. Butler Yeat’s great poem “SLOUCHING TOWARDS GOMORRAH” (I think I have the title right.) I’m at a loss of words to finish. GOD BLESS ALL, MARKRITE
I BELIEVE THE NAME OF THE POEM I’M QUOTING IS EITHER “THE SECOND COMING” OR “SLOUCHING TOWARDS BETHLEHEM” BY WM. BUTLER YEATS; ANYONE OUT THERE KNOW FOR SURE? THANX, MARKRITE
“The Second Coming (Slouching towards Bethlehem)” by W.B.Yeats
This poem by Yeats is an “imagination tweeker”, and can be interpreted in a variety of ways … just like liberal bishopspeek. Yeats was not Catholic, and his poetry reflects identity confusion.
Markrite,
Isn’t that the title of the late Judge Robert Bork’s book. The Catholic convert who was borked by that “solid Catholic”, Ted Chapaquidick Kennedy? The same Kennedy, “Cardinal” O’Malley gave a Saint’s funeral to?
God bless, yours in Their Hearts,
Kenneth M. Fisher
“Slouching Toward Gomorrah” was written by Robert Bork. I do not know about the others.
Google “St. Josemaria’s 17 Signs of a Lack of Humility”. Print. Post (on the fridge-not the blog.) Thank you!
As a volunteer who spent thousands of hours (at the sacrifice of my family with young children) on all three initiatives gathering signatures, processing the state’s volunteer signatures in our home, as well as debating PP in the public forum and being the media spokesperson I am sickened to see this expose that tracks all that we knew was happening to undermine our efforts. At the CCC, the tail is wagging the dog. I told Mr. Dolesjsi in a conference call from then Aux Bishop Cordileone’s office as he told us all the reasons going after Prop 8 would fail, ” Mother Teresa said, God does not call us to be successful He calls us to be faithful”. Enough said.
There is nothing worse than a sheep coordinating with a wolf on how to advance the wolf’s agenda.
These Catholics think they are doing good. But in the end their blindness to the evil one’s manipulation and their lack of trust in God to make all things possible even when they seem lost is very telling.
Our Bishops are personally holy men for the most part, what bothers me is their naivety and failure to recognize evil.
Its primarily their love of V II that causes this blindness. V II for most of them is a super dogma.
The bishops’ bureaucrats mistake the Peter Principle for the St Peter Principle. They make work that is not only unnessesary but hostile to God simply in order to provide a job and income for themselves. They hire more people so as to elevate their management positions, and end up managing evil instead of good. These people bite the apple big time, and millions of souls are aborted and perverted because of them.
It puzzles me how people can be so pro-life in many ways, but so blood-thirsty in the death penalty issue.
Pope Francis against ABORTION and the DEATH PENALTY:
He once called abortion a “death sentence” for unborn children, during a 2007 speech and likening opposition to abortion to opposition to the death penalty.
In an October 2, 2007 speech Bergoglio said that “we aren’t in agreement with the death penalty,” but “in Argentina we have the death penalty. A child conceived by the rape of a mentally ill or retarded woman can be condemned to death.”