It was a quiet evening at the spirituality retreat offered at Our Lady of Grace in properous Edina, Minnesota, and Fr. Burke SJ, the homosexuality promoting speaker, welcomed and endorsed by Archbishop Nienstedt, came and went without too much of a fuss. Just from looking at that American colonial town hall, you wouldn't think anything insidious was going on, you'd think the Archdiocese was on a solid course. But there were books left behind, as if a GLBT Santa had left them in stockings on Epiphany, revealing a familiar agenda, given by some familiar authors whose homosexual advocacy of heresy often conflicts with their stated ministry as Catholic priests and religious. We know that homosexuals are not supposed to be ordained, but somehow, a few slipped thorugh, a few wrote some books too, books and ideas that are actually hostile to Catholicism but promote homosexuality. This is Father Bob Schwartz's reading list:
Father Richard Rohr OFM
Father Richard Rohr is the author of many best-selling self-help books, like Adam's Return, which is the book Fr. Bob has asked his flock to read. Fr. Rohr is a noted speaker and author who is beyond belief, beyond "good and bad". He says, incitefully, "belief systems ask nothing of you and hasn't led to praxis". This is simply heresy, but no one is asking us.
He appears at homosesxual events, eager to help out down in New Mexico at a Gay Spirituality retreat, but that's no reason why he can't be featured prominently in Fr. Bob's spirituality retreat as a suggested reading.
Blasphemous Cover Art
"Adam's Return"
Here are some citations from Father Richard Rohr's book:
"I believe that the truth is more likely to be found at the bottom and the edges of things than at the top or the center. The top or center always has too much to provea nd too much to protect. I learnd this by connecting the dots of Judeo-Christian Scriptures, from my Franciscan background -- the pedagogy of the oppressed and the continued testimony of the saints and mystics -- and from the first tep of Alchholics Anonymous. Final authority in the spiritual world does not tend to come from any agenda of success but from some form of suffering that always feels like the bottom. Insecurity and impermanence are the best spiritual teachers, as Alan Watts and so many others demonstrate. The good news is clearly not a winner's script, although the ego and even churches continually try to make it so.
Finally, I believe that our images and words for God matter deeply in the way we live our practical lives because we all become the God we worship. This has been a central breakthrough in awareness in recent decades, thanks largely to feminist theologians. I believe that God is the ultimate combination of whatever it means to be male and whatever it means to be female. [(She who i: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse(New York : Crossroad, 1993), and Elizabeth Schuessler Forienza, In Memory of Her (New York: Crossroad, 1984) These two fine theolgians give feminism a very good name and give God a new chance.] [u]God is fully sexual in the deepest meaning of the term.[/u]
"... we must... find public ways to recovinize honor, and name the feminine nature of God, since we have overly limited our metaphors for God for centuries." (xiii)
Now we need enlightened and transformed magicians, lovers of life and beauty, and strong nonviolent warriors to produce truly big-picture men -- or kings. (P. 124)
The only religion that chews on the flesh of God has a very sensuous, sexual symbol for the transformation of the lover; we call it the Eucharist. Christianity says that God is Love but does not appear to really enjoy the lover. Despite all the BAch Masses, Baroque churches, incense, vestments, and luxriant art, we still made our religion into a moralistic matter instead of a mystical joy. .... the hot sins ofor the Baptists and Catholics are always associated with the body. This is no religion of incarnation. [!] (P. 130)
I will not eliminate or disallow all those wonderful sexually charged words for God -- such as Mother, Father, Son, Daughter, Bride, Bridegroom, friend, Guest Loveer, Jealous Lover, or even Seducer. Even more, I am not willing to eliminate the ntion of God, a relationship with God, or the very word "God" (even though I know that every name for God, including the word in itself, will always be a very limited metaphor and will carry a lot of baggage. (xiv)
In that sense God does save us, precisely by giving himself/herself to us and drawing us into the greater story. (xiv)
If there were any homophobic or emotionally wheitheld types among the twelve, I cannot imagine what they made of John with his head on the breast of Jesus during a proper reoligious ceremony. (P. 148)
Jesus was a layman (P. 149)
This was held on to for a long time with the Mass of the Catechumens, and people had to leave at a certain point because they were not ready to reeive the full gift yet. Now Eucharist has to do with achieving moral worthiness and passing ritual requirements instead of stirring holy desire. This unfortunately leaves most church rituals outside the realm of radical grace except fo rhose who have done their inner journey and personally experienced it elsewhere. (P. 175)
Father James Martin SJ,
Is the Jesuit editor of America, another author of the books which Fr. Bob recomends. He writes a troubling Op-ed piece for the New York Times in which he uses his homosexual friend's meeting with the Pope to highlight how homosexuals don't feel welcomed in the church. What with the predominence of homosexuals in the ministry, it's rather hard to come to that conclusion. Fr. Bob's selected Jesuit author here is problematic for a least three reasons:
1)He's not really pro-life: http://insightscoop.typepad.com/2004/2009/05/father-james-martin-sj-responds.html
2) Promotes Centering Prayer which Mitch Pacwa SJ warns against, and is heretical http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?id=6337&CFID=25108504&CFTOKEN=27120249
3) Teaches the Bible is in error, this is heresy: "There are some major continuity problems in the Gospels" in the his book, My Life with the Saints.
Father Ronald Rolheister OMI
Bio from his website: Ronald Rolheiser, a Roman Catholic priest and member of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, is president of the Oblate School of Theology in San Antonio, Texas.
He is a community-builder, lecturer and writer. His books are popular throughout the English-speaking world and his weekly column is carried by more than ninety newspapers worldwide.
His book is Forgotten Among the Lilies,
The Catholicism I was raised in had, a fault, and it did, it was precisely that it did not allow for mistakes. It demanded that you get it right the first time. there was supposed to be no need for a second chance. If you made a mistake, you lived with it and, like the rich young man, were doomed to be sad, at least for the rest of your life. A seerious mistake was a permanent stigmaticzation, a markt hat you wore like Cain.
I have seen that mark in all kinds of people: divorcees, ex-priests, ex-religious, people who have had abortions, married people who have had affairs, people who have had children outside marriage, parents who have made serious mistake with their children, and countless others who have made serious mistakes
There was too little around to help them. We need a theology of brokenness." [so gay]( p 145)
On Women's Ordination
When you love someone, unless they actively reject that love, the are bound -- bound to the body of Christ, sustained in salvation." p 167"Superficially, one might conclude that their pain is most acute at Eucharist because a male presides there. This however, I submit, is a secondary explanation. Their pain touches on something deeper, that must send a signal to the whole church. Irerespective of the fact that it is mixed with other pains, they are experiencing the pain of the prophet. (P. 241)
Mentioned in Heresy Hunter: http://heresy-hunter.blogspot.com/2009/11/ron-rolheiser-borderline-dweller.html
Sister Joan Chittester:
Her recomended book was, The Gift of Years.
She has long been a very controversial and most heterodox speaker and author for the Benedictine order. We're sure that she has no business teaching at a Catholic faculty, but what rationale could Father Bob have for recomending her?
We would not recommend reading her book because it doesn't really deal with the spirtual problems of growing old and dying, something which we all must do, and preparing for death by ensuring that our souls are in a state of Sanctifying Grace. The disappointments of life are momentary, but the punishments and rewards for life are eternal.
Her own words:
Talking about Thomas Reese SJ who was forced to resign from America Magazine, she wrote, "He published articles in America that looked at both sides of the communion-for-politicians issue, at both sides of the gay marriage issue, at both sides of the role of Congregation of the Faith, at both sides of the church as institution and religion. " http://www.nationalcatholicreporter.org/fwis/fw051205.htm
Attacks Church teaching on Homosexuality: "I am completely commited to the achievement of full civil rights for gay and lesbian people. To deny these people rights in the name of morality is immoral. The Church is a human institution and it grows slowly." http://www.podcastdirectory.com/podshows/1007257
No comments:
Post a Comment