Archbishop Nienstedt Resigns

Edit: if he hadn't made the lavender mafia so angry, Pope Francis would have kept him in. Will the enabling Bishop Pates be brought in from Iowa to fill the gap?

ST. PAUL, Monday, June 15, 2015 (ChurchMilitant.com) - Archbishop John Nienstedt announced this morning that Pope Francis has accepted his resignation as archbishop of St. Paul and Minneapolis.

After a string of controversies over his mismanagement of sexual abuse cases, Abp. Nienstedt will be leaving the archdiocese after seven years of service.

In his statement, the archbishop explains that he has a "clear conscience" after spending much of his time the last several years putting into place "solid protocols" that will aim to protect children and the vulnerable from sexual abuse.

http://www.churchmilitant.com/news/article/archbishop-nienstedt-resigns

Archbishop Fires Aberrosexual Choir Director

Edit: hence the reason he's been so frequently attacked in the media. If he were approved by the consensus, he wouldn't have these kinds of problems. He wouldn't have all of these media types, who despite not being Catholic, are experts in theology, talking to fakes like Father Michael Tegeder.

Archbishop John Nienstedt (Pioneer Press: Jean Pieri)
A popular [Really? I'm sure Waiting for Guffman was a popular movie too.] music director at a Catholic church in Victoria has been asked to resign after marrying his longtime same-sex partner.

Jamie Moore was asked to resign by Archbishop John Nienstedt, the Rev. Bob White told his parishioners at St. Victoria Catholic Church.

Moore agreed to the archbishop's request, White said.

In a statement, Nienstedt said that the teachings of the Catholic Church must be upheld. He said public conduct contrary to the teachings and law of the church is a reason for immediate dismissal.

Parishioner Doc Schmieg tells KMSP-TV (http://bit.ly/1r8FTiQ) the Catholic Church has more serious problems with which to be concerned than whether a gay or lesbian person is in the church.

http://www.twincities.com/localnews/ci_26595737/gay-catholic-church-music-director-dismissed-at-archbishop

Minnesota Archbishop Held Viper to His Breast

Edit: as some people know, it's open season on conservative clergy (Just scroll down), in spite of themselves and their best efforts to put baddies in office, they seem to be routinely betrayed by their own employees with alarming frequency.  Father McDonaugh is an Old Liberal we thought had been relegated to some remote and insignificant post at a Monastery scrubbing latrines, but no, he'd been given a sensitive job to monitor the Diocese Sex-Abuse program.  Fox, here's the chicken coop.  Anyway, whatever poor judgments the Archbishop may have made, we don't know, but what we've noticed is that he's being systematically attacked and national attention is being drawn to his work as Archbishop, we think, because said in an address to Catholics that homosexuality is of the devil.  Let's not forget that Cardinal Marx of Munich recently hired a priest who was caught with child pornography on his computer for parish work, and where is the press now?  Nowhere.

No sooner did this appear in the national news, than the old machinery of the press rose up in vengeance against him. Can a Catholic Bishop not teach Catholicism in his own Diocese without being attacked and undermined by his own servants?

Stella Borealis recently posted an article a few days ago where he highlighted some more than glaring associations and indications about what kind of person the "whistle blower" Jennifer Haselburger is.  The article appears in the anti-Church Star and Tribune newspaper as a mounting media storm threatens to unseat a fairly conservative Archbishop and several clergy.  Despite the newspaper's anti-clerical bias, there are details within the article which we feel reveal this woman's intelligence and her Old Liberal allegiances.

First of all, she attended St. Catherine's University as an English Major.  One of her mentors, a Sister Thomasine Sampson was a non-habit wearing nun who exhorted Haseburger to live out her principles.

Sister Thomasine, retired from the habit, on the right.

Literature is a deeply political subject these days and is dominated by Leftists, as is true of the Liberal Arts in general. The tribune article cites a former Army officer's and attorney, Larry Frost, who endorses Haselburger as a devoted Catholic. He describes her as highly intelligent and savvy, in response to critics who say she is simple minded.   Major Frost might have been in Military Intelligence, but this qualifies him as a judge of a committed Catholic?  We doubt that.

Her mentor was an allegedly Catholic feminist professr at the University of St. Catherine's, Anne Maloney, who somehow manages to find the integrity to continue working at that institution which has been Catholic-in-name-only for a very long time.   This feminist instructor at the fake Catholic school has so much integrity, she won't even take her husband's last name.

More interestingly, of course, and consistent with her current behavior, is Hasseburger's apparent disparagement of Father Paul Marx of Human Life International. When the Pro-Life champion came to hold a Mass for Life at the Cathedral, the then Old Liberal Archbishop, Harry Flynn, publicly denounced Father Marx as an anti-Semite, even as groups promoting aberrosexuality gathered outside of the St. Paul Cathedral to disrupt Father Marx's Mass, and perform indecent acts.  This is the Mass in which the Archbishop refused to be the celebrant.  Being a ++Harry Flynn Catholic is a byword for dissidence.

The first inkling she got that Haselberger was a committed Catholic came in the wake of a controversy that involved then-Archbishop Harry Flynn. 

Though she says she has forgotten what it was about, a flurry of news reports from the period say that he had initially agreed to say mass in St. Paul for a meeting of a group opposed to abortion, but backed out after learning that its founder had made what many considered anti-Semitic statements.

Maloney was identified as a Flynn supporter, and Haselberger told her that her grandmother applauded her for supporting him. Shortly after that, Maloney said, Haselberger asked for her counsel in restarting the Students for Life club on campus.

The Archbishop unjustly denounced Father Paul Marx as an anti-Semite and Haseberger supported this.

Some will remember that ++Flynn had to be summoned back to Rome on two separate occasions to discontinue his practice of endorsing sodomy by giving sacrilegious communion to the so-called Rainbow Sash Movement members.

If St. Catherine's weren't bad enough, she also received her licentiate in canon law from the evil University of Leuven.

She went on to obtain a licentiate in canon law from Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium. The "Catholic University of Leuven a few years ago dropped the "Catholic" from their name. American priests had longed ceased to send their seminarians there because the school was rapdidly ceasing to be Catholic, and they could get better educations for their men in Rome.

While rooting around in the Archdiocese's vault, she uncovered an autographed picture of convicted pederast Oscar Wilde which was addressed to the Americanist Archbishop, John Ireland, who has wrought so much destruction in the American Church. She displays the photography of the child molester and sexual predator on her office wall.

The Oscar Wilde Encyclopedia reads:

Queensberry's legal team proposed that the libel was published for the public good, but it was only when the prosecution moved on to sexual matters that Wilde noticeably baulked. He was challenged on the reason given for not kissing a young servant; Wilde had replied, "He was a particularly plain boy--unfortunately ugly--I pitied him for it."[14] The defendant's lawyers pressed him on the point. Wilde hesitated, complaining of Carson's insults and attempts to unnerve him. The prosecution eventually dropped the case, after the defence threatened to bring rent boys to the stand to testify to Wilde's corruption and influence over Queensberry's son, effectively crippling the case.

It was on this foray that she also discovered alleged child pornography as well:

Several years later she made another discovery in a church vault while she was reviewing files on a Mahtomedi priest seeking a new post. That’s when she ran across the alleged pornography that had been copied from one of the priest’s computers in 2004. Haselberger tried to persuade her superiors to report the matter to police, but they said the matter had been investigated before and told her to return the materials to the vault.

Haselberger reported the incident to the Ramsey County Attorney’s office and resigned in April 2012, then spoke publicly about the issue with reporters from Minnesota Public Radio. St. Paul police initially had closed the case without filing charges. But they reopened it last week after the matter became public and new evidence surfaced. Prosecutors in Ramsey and Washington counties say they will consider criminal charges if the investigation warrants them.

“She has either done a very stupid thing [She's not that bright] or a very brave thing, and I’d like to believe it’s the latter,” said Steve Cribari, a law professor at the University of Minnesota who is believed to be the first American lay person to obtain his licentiate in canon law, in 1977. But as a former federal public defender, he cautioned that there are more allegations against priests that are unfounded than one might think.

“We’re in a kind of reverse inquisition, aren’t we, in a lot of this,’’ Cribari said. “If the hierarchy doesn’t demonstrate it is pure, clean and absolutely altruistically motivated, then we all … vilify them. And I’m not sure that’s right,” Cribari said. “This is still the United States and you are still innocent until proven guilty in our courts.”

Photograph of Sister Sampson was stolen from dissident website.

Also, there was no similarly persistent campaign when there were more accusations of sexual abuse and also a large sodomist cabal in Miami, for example.

Decadent Pastor Still Endorses Gomorrist Parade

Edit: in view of the day’s recent news at Lifesite, regarding the spread of HIV, the decadent pastor of a Minneapolis parish endorses moral evil and does so during a rally conceived to adulate the evils of sodomy, while seeking to impose legislation which ultimately punishes those who oppose it in any way.

The individuals associated with this event were particularly exultant, and the highly visible parish where this event takes place wasn’t so much a beacon, as a siren, luring men to destruction. This lavender Basilica has been a problem for ages. It’s also deeply connected to the Modernist Monastery of Collegeville as a collaborator.

One local blogger was good enough to supply the pastor’s endorsement of sodomy in a blog entry two years before:


I am sure the vast majority of us in Basilica on Sunday were waiting to see what the Pastors Homily would be. There was little doubt about the topic; the only unknown was exactly what he’d say.

Basilica is a welcoming and diverse place, and Fr. Bauer made specific reference to the greeting at every Mass: “Whatever brings you here and wherever you are at on your faith journey, you are welcome here.” It is a theme that the Basilica lives. It fits my Parish.

The rest of his brief message spoke gently to the issue that had Lucinda out on the sidewalk: “Parishes are much like families“, he said, alluding again to something he’s said before: that in his own family, members tend to cancel each other out in Presidential elections. He pulled a quotation from, he recalled, James Joyce: “The word ‘Catholic’ means ‘here comes everybody’ “. And then he quoted from an e-mail someone had sent him during the tense few days preceding this Mass: “I stay [in the Church] because I want the Church to be the Church I want the Church to be.”

Of course, the parish continues to be welcome to depravity and unwelcome to Catholics. Nothing appears to have been done by the local Archbishop.

Dissident Priest Continues to Defy Archbishop on Defense of Marriage

Shown at a previous parish in Bloomington, 

the Rev. Mike Tegeder serves [served] in Minneapolis.

Brian Peterson, Star Tribune

Editor: Whether Father Mark Tegeder and his aging and decaying Cabrini Parish are supporting Leftist causes with front-groups like the ACLU to fight against voter id registration or promoting unrestricted immigration with all that entails, he can also be relied upon, without fail, to attack his lawful superiors and the rulebook by which he's expected to live as a Catholic priest.

We were watching Father Mark Tegeder, the 68er Revolutionary who has, unaccountably, been a Catholic priest in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis for a very long time. Despite frequent attempts to keep him in check by repeated warnings, the outspoken advocate for sins which cry out to heaven for vengeance, [Genesis 11: 13] he continues on, unpunished.  Until now it seems.

The article by the anti-Catholic 'Minneapolis Star and Tribune' doesn't talk about how he mismanaged his parish or fundamentally contradicts the teachings of the Church to which he claims to represent.  They're more interested in portraying Tegeder as a brave hero facing an implacable hierarchy.

Tegeder currently "ministers" to two communities,Gichitwaa Kateri [Which typically serves a dozen aging 68ers, claiming to represent American Indian spirituality was the creation of another Leftist destroyer, Father Notebaart, now mercifully retired] and St. Francis Cabrini which are well-known for Liturgical abuses and deviation from Church teaching.

Father Tegeder is asked "if it will last", we certainly hope not:

"I'm a good poker player," [card cheat?] said Tegeder.

"But I don't need to prove anything. If [Nienstedt] wants to throw me out, I'm fine with it."

"The intensity of his determination I think is very praiseworthy," said Flahavan. "He's ratcheting it up. A lot of current priests believe he's on the right track, but some think he may have gone too far. Some say he's difficult to work with, which means he's sometimes out there alone."

Flahavan compared the struggle of priests like Tegeder to that of Sir Thomas More, "weighing the promise to obedience against wondering when to cross the line."

I asked Tegeder if he had a Plan B. At first he said no. But just before he got ready to bike through the cold to his home in Richfield, he pulled out his driver's license.

A reader responds:  "Tegeder is the exact opposite of St. Thomas More.  He defended marriage against a tyrannical Protestant King and Tegeder is trying to destroy it on behalf of something even worse."

Modernist Abbey Still Defies Archbishop Nienstedt

Edit: St. John's Abbey has recently come out in favor of the Marriage Amendment, but not really. Archbishop Nienstedt has been courageously encouraging all Minnesotans to defend Marriage, while some of his own clergy and professed Monks in Collegeville are undercutting his authority and insulting the Catholic Faith. While they insist that they support Marriage, they don't explicitly advocate a vote for "yes" and undercut the message by wingding about how different types of people have different struggles.

Of course, they mean Father Bob Pierson, among others, who was asked to lie low but continues to speak against the Archbishop's witness in defense of marriage. The Abbey refuses to discipline him or any of the others like him who make a mockery of the Church's teachings by their support for sodomy.

We'd written earlier this month about Father Piersn's continuing defiance of the Archbishop's defense of marriage.

Here's the Abbey's passive aggressive non-statement. It's actually worse than if they'd said nothing at all:

Marriage amendment in Minnesota

As a Catholic institution we take the proposed amendment to the Minnesota constitution as an opportunity "to witness to our conviction that marriage is a vital part of the social fabric" that needs support and attention. By doing this we hope to put the marriage amendment into a larger context that acknowledges the challenges that people face in reconciling their faith commitments with a variety of other positions in the culture.

Individual members of the monastic community do have individual opinions regarding this and other political, social and even moral issues under discussion in our society. Individual monks may express their personal views on such issues based on their own freedom of conscience, though in doing so, they do not necessarily represent the opinion or view of the abbey. In this situation, the individual speaks for himself only.

As an institution we strive to ensure that whatever takes place under our auspices be consistent with the integrity of the Church's teaching on marriage. We wish to witness to unity, respect, and peace, even in the midst of challenging emotions and differing ideas on this matter.

TFP Defends Marriage in Minnesota

Edit: The Society for Tradition, Family and Private Property has been campaigning fervently for the truth in Minnesota and has found a lot of support in various places, whether at the State Capital, the Suburbs or in one of the more troubled neighborhoods of St. Paul. They are surely doing good for the Archdiocese and helping the Archbishop get this timely and vital message to the public.

Way to go guys. Here's a video showing their work which is clearly not without its dangers. Be sure you go to their website and offer some support.

Dissident Priest Attacks Archbishop's Defense of Marriage

Edit: we'd reported earlier that Father Mark Tegeder, who is the pastor of a dissident parish in Minneapolis, Minnesota, just couldn't shut up about the Archbishop's work to defend marriage. Despite threats from the Archdiocese he keep his mouth closed, the Civil Rights priest believes he's on a quest.

Archbishop Nienstedt's been taking on the decadent Monastery of St. John's Abbey, demanding that Father Bob Pierson not speak in his Diocese, but what will become of Zen Garden Tegeder?

He says he's "uncomfortable", but apparently he's not uncomfortable enough. Traditionalist Catholic priests have been suspended and sent packing without their benefits, without anything more than unemployment for merely saying things that are Catholic but unpoular.

What will happen when a priest attempts to capture a popular, but morally depraved, movement but utters something uncatholic? Here's the article from "Princeton Eagle"

“Interestingly, though, we have also seen a sharp decline in the amount of politicking in churches (and all places of worship) over the last five years or so, which suggests that clergy have recognized the danger in mixing too much Caesar in place of God,” Campbell said in the email.

Minnesota pastors and religious leaders, while in general not dismissive of the idea that churches can be sullied through political activity, appraise the risks differently.

“I think we’re all uncomfortable,” Pastor Tegeder said.

But churches have always reacted to events in society, he said.

Martin Luther King, the great civil rights leader, came out of the African-American Baptist church.

He witnessed or presided at thousands of marriages, explained Tegeder, and it’s the commitment, not the sexes, that’s sacred.

Archbishop Nienstedt Puts Pressure on Lavender Basilica

Edit: In the past, the Lavender Basilica has been resisting the Archbishop's initiatives, keeping an ambiguous presence at Minneapolis' depraved Gay Pride Festival and fostering an atmosphere of disobedience to the Archbishop and opposition to the Catholic Church's teachings on a variety of issues. On Friday, there was a giant puff piece giving a lot of attention to some of the usual suspects on the subject of the Defense of Marriage Act that is up for a vote in the state of Minnesota in the anti-Catholic 'MinnPost'.   There is some resistance from 17 parishes in the Archdiocese, the most dissident and substantial is the Basilica of St. Mary's, to the Archbishop's initiative, but there is also a loss of nerve.

There is a presence on Facebook of "Catholics" who say "No" , which has a list of parishes resisting the Archbishop, but it only boasts about five hundred souls, many coming from the Lavender Basilica of St. Mary's, which is the Archdiocese's Co-Cathedral.  Yet even at this place, the pressure is increasing and there was a flier included in this week's church bulletin, complained one of the Basilica's parishioners on the Facebook group:

Another dissident is Father Bob Pierson whom the Archbishop doesn't want teaching in the Archdiocese any longer and is keeping his mouth shut for now, except that the Tribune did cite him.

Archbishop Nienstedt is still remaining firm on the issue.  He's getting one of the most dissident parishes to get the message out and others will soon be following in their continued efforts to get the message out.  His statement for the MinnPoste was as follows:

“But the reality is that marriage is not ours to redefine, just as another human life is not ours to take,” the archbishop continues. “God is both the author of life and the author of marriage. It is this most fundamental understanding of the natural order that animates who we are as Catholics. ... It is also why we fight to defend God’s plan for marriage, because his providence is as clear for what marriage is as it is for the dignity of each human life. ...

At present, the Archdiocese has given $1 million to defend marriage, something which should be encouraging to local conservative protestants and conservatives in general who don't want to see society further eroded by such legislation.

There's also no word from the noxious Father Mike Tegeder.  He's not even mentioned in this article.

Add caption

Archbishop Nienstedt Draws Fire from Anti-Catholic NCR

Edit:  more people than ever should admire Archbishop Nienstedt.   As Bishop of New Ulm he denounced his Old Liberal predecessor's errors.

National Catholic Reporter just can't believe that a Bishop could be Catholic in this day and age, standing against the homosexual agenda.

Truly one of the most deceitful publications reporting on the Catholic scene in America had this to say:

The episode was not Nienstedt’s first indelicate act as bishop of New Ulm. He denounced the writings of his predecessor who had recently died. Bishop Raymond Lucker had begun working on a book when illness overtook him and he entrusted the completion of the work to a friend. Lucker, who had served as the bishop of New Ulm for twenty-five years, died in 2001, the same year Nienstedt became bishop of New Ulm. When the book was published in 2003, Nienstedt urged Catholics not to read it, said it did not adequately reflect Church Teaching. Nienstedt wrote that the book “challenges the church’s own understanding of herself as being authoritatively charged under the guidance of the Holy Spirit to teach in the name of Jesus on matters of faith and morals.” Nienstedt referred the text to the USCCB Doctrine Committee. The Committee engaged a theologian to review the book, who concluded that while there were some passages that were “ambiguous” and “lacking nuance,” the book did not contain “grave errors.”

Link to NCR...

Archbishop Nienstedt Takes on the Lavender Mob

Edit: He's trying too hard to placate people who don't really care how he sugar coats it. There are many illegal and dangerous activities you have no right to do and pointing out the destructive consequences of this legislation aimed at the family is what needs to be ingrained in people's minds.

ABERROSEXUAL MARRIAGE

Church defends reality for the common good

Contrary to the Star Tribune's editorial opinion ("On gay marriage, the state is out of step," Oct. 1), the Catholic Church, along with other Bible-based denominations, does not seek to impose its own beliefs on others as it upholds the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), or when it supports a constitutional amendment on marriage as a union between one man and one woman.

The reality we are defending predates any religion or government.

It finds its logic in the complementarity of the human anatomy, as well as the male/female psyche and in the propagation of the human species.

Marriage unites a man and a woman in a unique bond so that they might form the proper context of a family in which children can grow and flourish. Government is called upon to protect that context for the sake of the common good.

Yes, the Bible reveals to believers God's plan that a man and a woman become "one flesh" in holy matrimony, and that makes our understanding of what marriage is meant to be more comprehensible.

But human reason without faith can and, in fact, historically has come to the same conclusion based on the intrinsic complementarity of husband and wife.

Moreover, to say that marriage can be one thing for believers and something else for nonbelievers implies that the truth about the human person can be manipulated at will. That line of thinking is basically flawed.

No, there can only be one truth about the human person, and marriage finds its real meaning in that understanding.

THE REV. JOHN C. NIENSTEDT

h/t: Stella Borealis

Archdiocese plans anti-gay marriage committees in every Minnesota Catholic church

St. Mary's Lavender Basilica

Edit: good luck with that.

By Andy Birkey
Monday, October 17, 2011 at 6:00 am


Archbishop John Nienstedt sent a letter to every priest in the state at the start of October urging them to put every Catholic church in Minnesota tow work passing a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.

“It is imperative that we marshal our resources to educate the faithful about the Church’s teachings on these matters, and to vigorously organize and support a grass roots effort to get out the vote to support the passage of the amendment,” the letter read. It went out on Oct. 4 to every priest in the state.

The archbishop said it wants priests in every parish to identify a “church captain” in order to create an “ad hoc committee” in every church in the state. The “church captain” is a component of the Schubert Flint strategy used in 2008′s divisive Proposition 8 battle in California.


Link to original...

Archbishop Promotes Socialist Wealth-Confiscation Schemes

The Canonization of Marx and Coercive Virtue

Editor: It's a Bella Dodd alert.  Some commentators think it's cute when Archbishops use their moral authority to promote Socialist wealth confiscation schemes and the mistaken idea that people being coerced to support government programs allegedly for poor relief, constitute charity.  Perhaps Archbishop Nienstedt should consult St. Thomas on this issue rather than Karl Marx?  Aquinas says:

It is not always through the perfect goodness of virtue that one obeys the law, but sometimes it is through fear of punishment, and sometimes from the mere dictate of reason, which is a kind of beginning of virtue.⁽⁸⁾

Check out the Dick and Jane help out with the Community Organizing over on the Mark Shay blog by positing imaginary distinctions between different social justices as if painting the name "Catholic" on something changes its substance.  Yet once again, the neo-Conservative Archbishop puts himself behind wealth redistribution and the expansion of the welfare state.

In any event, the Archbishop is lending a red hand  on behalf of those nefarious political interests continuing to degrade the moral tenor of the nation. 

Articulate and just criticisms are forthcoming from Senator David Hahn as they appear here at NPR.

Mark Sashay...

Archbishop Finn Removes Dissident from Parish: Other Bishops, not so Good

Editor: Archbishop John Neinstedt, the neo-Conservative prelate of Minneapolis, removed his problem priest and put him someplace else. Cardinal George removed the problem, got scared, and put it back. Archbishop Finn just removed the problem. Father Tegeder has been a dissident in the Archdiocese, opposing its policies and openly challenging the Archbishop's authority. Apparently, his predecessor, the homosexual enabling Father Tibesar, will be retiring, happily, on the Archdiocesan dime. We'd earlier reported that Father Tegeder was being removed from his parish, that's true, he's also being reassigned somewhere else. Heaven forbid if Father Tegeder were to want to say the Traditional Latin Mass, he might be put on restriction and quarantined from any contact with the laity at all. As it is, "peace and justice" and campaigning for homosexuality in one way or another, will get you reassigned to a new parish more suited to your strangeness. Father Tegeder is being reassigned to a much more liberal parish, where scarcely a Catholic doctrine or discipline is heard or obeyed.

Bishop Robert Finn has removed a priest from his duties as pastor of Christ the King parish in Kansas City and from all other public ministry, the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph announced tonight.

In a statement released at 7:48 p.m., the diocese said that its review board, which is charged with assessing sexual abuse allegations against priests, had received “credible reports alleging sexual misconduct with minors by Father Michael Tierney in the early 1970s and 1980s.”

One person making a complaint recently met with the review board, the diocese said.

http://www.kansascity.com/2011/06/02/2922317/catholic-bishop-removes-priest.html

Rabbi Takes Over Priest's Role at Midwestern Basilica's Good Friday Prayer Service

Lucinda Naylor is the former "artist in residence" who was fired from her position at the Basilica of St. Mary's in Minneapolis  for opposing  Archbishop John Nienstedt's pastoral CD regarding the defense of marriage. For a time, her paintings disappeared from the Basilica's walls where the homosexual painter's works are said to be stations of the Cross. They have since returned, as the Basilica itself plays host to a man who does not hold the Catholic Faith, but is tolerated to preach.

"Painting" of Judas' Betrayal

As a reform rabbi took over the prayer service from the pastor of the parish, Father John Bauer, a wooden cross was passed around over the heads of the crowd like at a rock concert. Doctor van Parys, who's responsible for that spectacle, contrasts his good Friday Liturgy and celebration with those which came before, by saying that before, it was an opportunity for Christians to persecute the Jews,

“Prior to the Second Vatican Coun­cil, Good Friday was seen as a day when Catholics would traditionally persecute the Jewish people, blaming them for the death of Christ. Jews would literally hide from Catholics on that day,” said van Parys. “We thought it would be a jarring yet enlightening experience to invite a rabbi to speak to our congregation during Tenebrae.”[Tenebrae is what they referred to as their Good Friday Service]

The Diocesan newspaper is unconcerned and unmoved by the strange oddities taking place at this prayer service, with rose petals falling from the ceiling and a moment when there is a whimsical and cultic bedlam as the lights are turned down and the laity bang their pews for about five minutes in the darkness, as if to waken things below that would be better left asleep.

Laymen may not preach, may certainly not preach vague humanistic messages having nothing to do with the Gospel.

Is There a Safe Environment for Catholicism in Catholic Schools: Benilde-St. Margaret, Minnesota

Editor: A local story about a poorly written editorial in a school newspaper has gone national.  The whys and the wherefores of the newsworthiness of this piece are an open question, a sort of cognitive disease of the nation, but because someone in the school administration decided that it was unacceptable to continue airing an editorial attacking Archbishop Nienstedt and the Church's teaching about homosexuality,  attacking the leadership of the Catholic Church over a prudential decision to send out an educational DVD known as Preserving Marriage in Minnesota, hence, the "discussion" about "free-speech" and why it's so amazing to so many intelligent commentators that a Catholic Church institution would object to a student newspaper attacking it..  

Many of the editorials and coverage are concerned about "free speech", while at the same time condemning the Archbishop for exercising his own free speech.   One editorial asks if a safe environment is being created for homosexuals in Catholic schools.  A better question to ask is, "is a safe environment being created for Catholicism in Catholic schools?"   Archbishop Nienstedt and the school administration of this allegedly Catholic school seem to think that public opposition in defense for moral depravity on the part of its students to the Church's teachings and a safe environment for Catholicism  are mutually exclusive. 

This event even made the Washington Post:

ST. LOUIS PARK, Minn. -- Editorials in a Catholic prep school's student newspaper about same-sex marriage and gay teenagers are sparking debate about free speech in Minnesota.
Student-written opinion pieces in the newspaper at Benilde-St.
Margaret in suburban St. Louis defended gay teenagers and criticized a DVD by Minnesota's Catholic bishops that denounced same-sex marriage.

The editorials and the nearly 100 comments they generated were deleted from the newspaper's website over the weekend. The principal says they created confusion about church teaching and an intensity that made an unsafe environment for students.  [An unsafe environment for Catholicism]

 Link to Washington Post 

WTOL, Toledo, Ohio

National Public Radio

"There's so many suicides in the news. And I felt very frustrated that my voice couldn't be heard, and that there were all these things that I see as injustices all the time that I didn't feel like anyone else was recognizing," said Simonson.

The essay reads in part:

"You fear looking the wrong way in the locker room and offending someone," he continued. "Politicians are allowed to debate your right to marry the person you love, or your right to be protected from hate crimes under the law. Your faith preaches your exclusion -- or damnation. And no one does anything to stop it."

 Chicago Examiner

Sexuality is one of the most complicated aspects of human life. Let’s not further denigrate it, justifying it by a book written, sorted and edited, by males, in a cultural context worlds from our present cultural context. It’s just not an honest comparison. Who are we to judge?

[ David Thorsen, the author, says celibacy is too hard, all of those things related to sexuality just happen, why try to control it?  Indeed, according to his argument, why bother with prosecuting  any offense listed in the criminal code at all, since they're so common?  Why not just legalize pederasty?]

The Colorado Independent, here

Archbishop Nienstedt Refuses Communion to Dissidents

[St. Paul, Minnesota] At today's Noon Mass, a statement was read over the intercom prior to Communion by the Archdiocese's Communication's Director one Dennis McGrath. This Sunday was Vocation Sunday and the Archdiocese has more students studying for the priesthood than it's had for thirty years, but Archbishop was not present. The Archbishop's statement was to the effect that only baptised Catholics who are disposed to receive Communion and in agreement with the entirety Church's teaching may receive Communion, and specifically, that Rainbow Sashers may not receive Holy Communion, but they were invited to remove their sashes. The approach he's taken to thi situation matches the description of him given by the Star and Tribune as "cool and collected."

Despite the invitation to symbolically demonstrate their concurrence with what the Church has always taught and will always teach, all o f those wearing the sashes attempted to go to Communion but received blessings from the priest instead. One expectant sash wearer stood beside the priest and entreated those coming to communion to give him a Host. He could have been ushered out for disrupting things more than he was, but he was not.

Prior to Mass, there were about a score of protesters standing outside. Their General, Michael Bailey was out and about, talking on the cell phone, directing his army of gray-haired radicals from Linden Hills. If someone had brought a bicycle, we could have said "an army of old men and women on bicycles".

Micheal Bailey Marshals his Forces, his brave Lieutenant already in Rainbow Sash

It seems that Sodomy isn't as popular as it might be. The protesters only managed to summon up a partial crescent to "surround" the Cathedral. They greeted people leaving Mass with a gravelly and half-hearted version of "We Shall Overcome". Most of them were over sixty and some of them understandably angry and insecure; their message is unlikely to outlive them . Perhaps they don't know that there are many other denominations which support their own special predilections and interests? There were about one hundred all-told who came to make their public support of buggery known.












Michael Bailey's Battle Hardened Force

Will Anyone Under Sixty be At the Rainbow Sash Protest "Surrounding" St. Paul Cathedral Tomorrow?

This photo was taken a few years ago and some of the people have aged. Let's see what this year's vital movement to make sexual deviance a priority in the lives of Catholics brings in terms of age distribution and raw numbers, and it's fitting that many are celebrating "Reformation Sunday".

They'll be there at 1130 am in time to disrupt the twelve o'clock Mass.

They are most likely angry about the DVD campaign. It's very possible that no one will show up, but just in case, Archbishop Nienstedt is unlikely to give them Holy Communion since he refused to do so when he was at St. John's Abbey at Collegeville and confronted by the same kinds of people.

It's all related in a sense, because not only is it Halloween, a favored day for satanists and homosexuals, but it's also campaign season:

Pro-Homosexual Artist doesn't have enough DVDs for her "Art"

Pro-Homosexual Activist Suspended

Millionaire Socialist Condemns Anti-Catholic Ad

Pastor of Purple Basilica Put in Charge of Parish Reorganization

Archbishop Nienstedt Refuses Communion to Homosexuals at Modernist Abbey

Everybody knows that St. John's isn't the place to go if you want authentic Monasticism, orthopraxis, orthodoxy, beautiful architecture, or even if you want to get an education in the Catholic Faith. You can't get any of that at St. John's, on Septembeer 26th, Archbishop Nienstedt slammed the door on a school approved Sodomy group by refusing them Holy Communion. Not even St. John's own BLOG had anything to say about it.

This is the first time we've ever seen St. John's so publicly reprimanded. It's been a long time a'comin. How about the heads of the faculty department on pikes in front of the Chancery, your Lordship?

[Minneapolis Star and Tribune] Twin Cities Archbishop John C. Nienstedt, leading a student mass at St. John's Abbey recently, refused to give communion to members of a gay and lesbian college student group who were wearing rainbow buttons in a sign of solidarity.

The conflict between the archbishop and students from the Roman Catholic St. John's University and the College of St. Benedict occurred during Sunday night mass in Collegeville, Minn., on Sept. 26.

The action came as Catholics throughout Minnesota have been sent hundreds of thousands of DVDs from the state's bishops in support of a ban on gay marriage

Link to Star for further reading...

H/t: Spirit Daily

Pro-Homosexual Keillor to Speak at Catholic Education Conference in St. Paul Archdiocese

What's really a reminder about the depressing state of Catholic Education in the United States, and the failure of lay-leadership in general, a suitably inter-faith-like event is about to take place in April, and pro-abortion/pro-homosexual Garrison Keillor is its Keynote Speaker.

Garrison Keillor is the man in Minnesota, and he's the goto guy if you want to host something that demeans Catholicsm and promote smug scandanavian liberal values. The Modernist Benedictine Monastery in Collegeville loves him and trots him out to assuage the anger of the local populace whenever they have PR troubles.

Well, NCEA, an organization founded, suspiciously, around the same time the forerunner of the USCCB was founded, is hosting a convention dealing with "education" this April. There will be talks by David Haas and some heretical Taize music.

"9 am to 1015 am – Keynote address – Garrison Keillor – Convention Center
1015 am to 1045 am – Meet & Greet/Photo Op with Garrison Keillor – Invitation Only"

The real question is whether or not Garrison Keillor will be permitted to speak at a Diocesan event featuring the Catholic Church in Archbishop Nienstedt's Archdiocese, given the speaker policy in place which is selectively enforced, if it is enforced at all, and you'd hope that it would prevent a pro-homosexuality, pro-abortion Garrison Keillor, at least from speaking. After all, other Bishops disinvited pro-homosexual +Gumbleton, why not condemn the NCEA?

In any event, Colleen Perfect has already contacted Archbishop Nienstedt and he has responded with his complaint:

It is scandalous that Garrison Keillor has been invited to be a keynote speaker for the National Catholic Education Convention. It is only right that Mr. Keillor's invitation be rescinded and that he be removed as a speaker from the Convention this April.

We have already contacted Archbishop John Nienstedt. He was very gracious and responded immediately to our concern. He reported that the decision was made at the national level of the NCEA and he was only informed of it afterwards. The Archbishop told us he has contacted the NCEA with his own criticism of their decision to select Garrison Keillor as keynote speaker.

The Archbishop also encouraged us to contact the NCEA and express our opinion. He included the following address:

Dr. Karen M. Ristau, Ed.D.
President, National Catholic Educational Association
1005 North Glebe Road
Arlington, VA 22201

Interestingly, teachers can use title-II funds associated with "No Child Left Behind" to attend the parts of this conference which are secular. It all looks secular, so perhaps it can all be written off?