The following comes from an October 30 Times of San Diego article by Chris Stone:
Saying the Roman Catholic Church should have “no stigmas,” Bishop Robert McElroy reached out to divorced people and gays at the end of the San Diego diocese’s first synod in 40 years.
He said the two-day meeting of 125 parish delegates — priests and lay people — was the first in the nation aimed at translating Pope Francis’ pronouncements about family and marriage issues into action.
Delegates were broken up into five groups to study and develop plans of action for five ideas outlined in Pope Francis’s Apostolic Exhortation on “The Joy of Love.”
McElroy promised to carry forward the group’s 15 proposals, a process that may take one to two years. The top three proposals from each group have priority.
The Very Rev. John Dolan, diocese vicar for clergy, called McElroy “courageous” for creating the local dialogue, instead of just filing away the pope’s proclamations as some have done in the past.
In the spirit of dialogue, “even if we hold up this dogmatic truth, which we still do, it’s how you present that…. We say: OK, here’s an icon, but we’re not going to toss it down your throat,” he said.
Grace Williams of St. Anne in Logan Heights said people have become confused about the teachings of the church, suggesting a lack of clarity exists.
“In regards to the LGBT community, I think the concern is having a false compassion,” she said.
She said she believes that gay people should be loved and welcomed, but the church needs to make clear that their lifestyle shouldn’t be condoned.
While gay people carry the “heavy cross” of being attracted to people of the same sex, they shouldn’t act on that desire, she said.
“If we do something against nature, it’s detrimental to our own happiness,” Williams said.
In contrast, McElroy thinks the church has moved from tolerance and acceptance of the LGBT community to embrace — while not condoning such lifestyles.
“There’s a recognition that we are all sinners. That is the starting point,” McElroy said, speaking of parishioners who have come to him about the difficulties of their lives during his priesthood.
“My job is not to look at the person and say: Where is he or she failing? My job is to support everyone around me in terms of helping them live the best lives that they can.”
McElroy said a second surprise of the synod was the embrace of the role of conscience in making moral decisions. Parishioners felt that others should be educated about this, delegates said.
“Many Catholics tend to think of our moral life as being rule-oriented,” McElroy said. “Rules are important primarily as a check on rationalization. The real core of Catholic teaching is and always was a decision of conscience.”
The Catholic Church long has taught that you must follow your conscience, even if it is contrary to church teachings, McElroy said.
McElroy said: “Our rules are not universalized in that they are meant to be guides in a great majority of circumstances.”
Conscience takes into account a person’s circumstances and their belief that “God is asking me to do the opposite” of church teachings, he said. “It’s in major decisions in our lives that conscience can be helpful.”
The danger in conscience-based decisions is that it’s too easy to rationalize what someone wanted to do from the beginning, McElroy said.
Catholics who divorced and didn’t remarry were always allowed to receive Communion, and those who received annulments were also. Those who didn’t receive annulment but felt in their hearts that their marriage didn’t contain the essential ingredients of a good marriage could use their conscience to decide whether to receive Communion.
What’s new is that the pope said that even those who had a valid marriage and got divorced could through an examination of conscience decide to receive the Eucharist.
But this issue also raises concerns.
Williams said: “There’s absolutely no question that people who have gotten a divorce need to have compassion, need to be welcomed into the community. That’s a no-brainer.
“It’s just the question of causing scandal if we allow the divorced to receive Holy Communion.
“The scandal means that people no longer understand what marriage as a sacrament is. That’s where the concern is from people in my community in particular and myself included.”
Chadwick also was troubled initially.
“We had it explained to us,” he said. “I like when Jesus said something. That’s black and white, but the reality in life is there are areas that are a little more gray than that.”
McElroy said therein lay the controversy.
“What people are concerned about is: Can you change the latter without undermining the first?”
It’s like telling a child not to talk to strangers but later saying it’s OK to seek a stranger’s help when they are in trouble, he said.
“We’re teaching something that has two different dimensions,” McElroy said.
The San Diego bishop is preaching false compassion. He is preaching evil.
Compassion runs through our faith. Who are any of us to declare another’s compassion “false”?
Oh for the days when Catholic teaching was upheld by nearly all bishops and priests. Now, they search for ways we can get around all the “rules” the Church has “imposed” on us. The truth is sin that were sin 2000 years ago are still sins now. We are all called to be holy as Our Lord commanded “Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect.” Matthew 5:48
It is heresy to teach that Our Lord has placed upon us a unbearable burden. Did He not say “My yoke is sweet and my burden light.”? Matthew 11:30 As noted in the article, the faithful are confused because the Pope and the bishops have obfuscated the Church’s doctrine by distancing themselves from what has always been taught and practiced by the Church until…
the last 50+ years.
One should read the encyclicals of great Pontiffs such as St. Pius X, Pope Leo XIII and Pope Pius IX. They faithfully and very clearly proclaimed the timeless teachings of the Church, as they could nothing else but follow what was received by the Apostles from Christ. The modernists/heretics are creating a church in their own image.
So in following conscience, the recommendations of the synod may be for some and not for everyone? It is spiritual anarchy to redefine conscience to follow what you feel or think is right when the church, speaking from Scripture and Tradition, teaches God’s moral truths. This would negate our bishop’s own authority as well. We would be a protestant sect to live this way.
And that’s basically the consensus for at least a couple decades now, that the Catholic mainstream prefers and presents tacit Protestantism. My family and i got rocked left and right by any number of parishes we tried. Through the grace of God, we made it back to the Traditional Latin Mass. Many mainstream parishes have tried to “tighten up” so to speak in recent years with the new GIRM and so forth, but it can only be taken so far. There is no legitimate orthodoxy outside the TLM, which is where orthodoxy comes from. All IMO.
That, of course, is heresy, Ralph.
Where Ralph veers off-track from Perozich is the fallacious assertion that ONLY the TLM is where orthodoxy comes from. That throws negativity against the Ordinary Form, which is a vehicle for God’s grace. Perozich does not at all intimate that the sacrament in the Ordinary Form is at faulty. But Ralph takes on Perozich’s point and veers it to where it touches upon heresy and the denigration of the sacrament. And that is false and wrong. This must be called out. Folks, the current milieu may have lead you to the EF, but in no way can you say that therefore the OF is not orthodox. WRONG!
Jon, doesn’t common courtesy demand that “Perozich” be referred to as Father Perozich? He IS a priest, after all.
Mass facing the people reinforces the self as the center of conscience. This is why countless theologians have written that the NO distorts the faith from God-centered to Man-centered. This integrates perfectly with the heresy of the primacy of conscience, and has a lot to do with the reason the faith has become Protestantized in the way Father Perozich noted. So my comment was in fact directly connected to Father’s observation. Thanks.
roberto vicente: Rather, the most common “courtesy”, especially for Catholics, is NOT to denigrate any of the sacraments of the Church, especially by asserting that God’s grace is ONLY transmitted in one form of it, not any other. This is not even courtesy, but reverence, respect, and worship of the One True God. But your priorities straight. There is nothing wrong with referring to someone by his last name minus a title.
jon—
First, I agree with you about the impropriety of denigrating any of the sacraments (including the Novus Ordo celebration of the Mass). But I have never done so in any post. Why you raise this in addressing me is mystifying.
Second, Father Perozich has earned his title, and has the right to be addressed as such.
Last, I have my priorities straight. Asking for common courtesy in no way detracts from my respect for the Sacraments.
You seem to be absolutely unable to admit any mistake. What a pity. Stand down from your self-constructed perch as authoritative teacher. You neither have the right nor the education to preach to others.
jon,
First, I agree that denigrating any of the…
At best, in any setting calling someone by only a last name pushes the outside envelope of informality. But when you’re talking about a priest, ordained to consecrate the Eucharist, its nothing short of a train wreck of disrespect. Holy priests are better than us. Get a clue. And nobody here said a form of a sacrament did not transmit grace. You’re disingenuous to boot, but it goes with your territory.
On the contrary Ralph and roberto.vicente, my comment upheld Perozich’s point. To uphold his point, without deferring to his title or his position, is an added endorsement of the merits of his case, not to some privilege derived from a title. Look at technical and scientific journals: authors are referred by their last name, thereby showing respect for their POV, not to their person.
Ralph, to say that “There is no legitimate orthodoxy outside the TLM,” casts doubt on the efficacy of the OF to transmit God’s grace. This is the issue. It is not disingenuous to call you out on this.
The important thing is that they had the paraliturgical Enthronement of the Gospel Book at the Synod.
And why is that important to you?
Following your conscience is Step 2.
Step 1 is: Form a correct conscience, and you do that by finding out what the Church teaches.
Exactly!
anathema = “Conscience takes into account a person’s circumstances and their belief that “God is asking me to do the opposite” of church teachings, he said.”
Something that one absolutely and positively cannot stand is anathema. Garlic is anathema to vampires (ditto for stakes and daylight). So is kryptonite to Superman or a silver bullet to a werewolf. Originally the term anathema comes from the Catholic practice of denouncing a particular individual or idea that was antithetical to the Catholic Church. If done to a person, it excommunicated them, meaning they could no longer partake in the church’s sacraments (with presumably pretty poor consequences for the soul.) That’s a lot worse than kryptonite.
https://www.vocabulary…
St Paul to the Galatians Chapter 1: 6-12
6] I wonder that you are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ, unto another gospel. [7] Which is not another, only there are some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ. [8] But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach a gospel to you besides that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema. continued……
continued …St Paul to the Galatians Chapter 1:6-12
[9] As we said before, so now I say again: If any one preach to you a gospel, besides that which you have received, let him be anathema. [10] For do I now persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to please men? If I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ. [11] For I give you to understand, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man. [12] For neither did I receive it of man, nor did I learn it; but by the revelation of Jesus Christ. – Douay-Rheims Catholic Bible
“We’re teaching *something* that has two different *dimensions*,” McElroy said. = IOW Bishop McElroy is attempting to sell a new gospel.
continued….
Bishop McElroy has lost his way. Once again, will we choose to listen to Jesus Christ and the inspired warnings of St. Paul, or will we listen to those who even appear as an angel from heaven? Under the guise of mercy many will unlock the door to unleash a NEW different and dark *dimension* that occludes the revealed truth of Jesus Christ. Instead of following Christ, Bishop McElroy has just unlocked the door, crossed over and entered the trusting sheep into a new gospel or *dimension* of dark shadows known as the Twilight Zone.
https://youtu.be/NzlG28B-R8Y
Catherine – the McElroy family was in my parish and grammar school when I was there way back when. Our Lady of Angels in Burlingame, CA. His sister (who is now a nun, I understand) was in my specific class for years. A lot of “interesting cases” came out of that school at that time period. 1967 was the 8th Grade grad year; not too many years later some of those same kids were casualties at Jonestown.
Wow! Very interesting, indeed Ralph. There are NO accidents or coincidences, ONLY God-incidences!
John Chrysostom surely warned the priests and bishops didn’t he? Jim Jones laced the Kool-Aid…but our priests and bishops who do not follow Christ’s teachings will be judged even more severely for lacing Church doctrine with heretical hemlock.
continued….
Taken from Rorate Caeli
“By their fruits you will know them. The bishops have been successful at something.”
https://twitter.com/phattonez/status/793973370681331712/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc^tfw
Majority in U.S. Still Say Moral Values Getting Worse
June 2, 2015
https://www.gallup.com/poll/183467/majority-say-moral-values-getting-worse.aspx
IF the Bishop actually said the following (we do not know for certain as it is not encapsulated in quotation marks):
* The Catholic Church long has taught that you must follow your conscience, even if it is contrary to church teachings *
…He is a Bishop offering a counter-teaching to the very Church which imposed that teaching authority on him. Shame.
This Bishop McElroy and other clergy, who think like him, must be left over from the Saul Alinsky days. When over 2000 men were excepted into the seminaries after being infiltrated with Alinsk’s teachings (as seen in the EWTN documentary ” A Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing”. Socialists. Not the teachings of Jesus Christ.
“The Catholic Church has long taught that you must follow your conscience, even if it goes against church teachings McElroy said.” With this statement by itself Bishop McElroy is teaching falsely and leading many of his flock to perdition. While it is true that a person must always obey the certain judgement of conscience (1790 CCC) it is equally true that every person must strive to rightly inform their conscience (1783, 1784, 1785 CCC). Let us pray for Bishop McElroy that he teaches in accord with the Magisterium.
McElroy is going to do great damage to the Church down there.
I agree. God help us.
What does B. McElroy mean, with his mealy mouthed statements about “stigmas”? The point, Excellency [Please read this] is that homosexual sex is a mortal sin, each and every time; and fornication is a mortal sin, each and every time; and adultery is a mortal sin, each and every time. You can “dialogue” all you wish, or hold up Amoris Laetitae all you want, but there is no making such sinful actions, not sinful, or “gifts” (except to Lucifer). Sodomy is a vile and reprehensible sin, which calls out to Heaven for vengeance. Good luck on Judgment Day, Excellency.
Fr. RP, take care. With all the evil afoot in SD, it seems to me that faithful priests are going to be subject to “friendly fire” by other clergy.
I’d bet a lot of $$$ that Father Perozich can take care of himself. And in his usual polite and logical way. It is a pleasure to read his posts.
“Going to be?” I’d say Fr Perozich has been picking out shrapnel for years, decades even. What do you bet his Confirmation name is “Kevlar?”
Oh shoot. Looking at the new article in CCD I see that a barrage of chancery artillery fire has descended upon the good priest! Prayers people!