Wednesday, March 15, 2006
MINNEAPOLIS - ST. PAUL CONFRONTATIONS
Dom has been reporting on this story this week. Spirit Daily has it linked today. It looks like a story to watch:
MINNEAPOLIS, March 9, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - It seems like all hell is breaking loose in the archdiocese of St. Paul - Minneapolis. In recent weeks 27 priests signed a petition against Archbishop Harry Flynn's backing for a measure to protect the traditional definition of marriage (http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2006/mar/06031006.html ). The diocese is refusing to release those names and it has not publicly ordered the priests to be silent about their heterodox views, but it has, at the same time, silenced a faithful priest who objected to the graphic sex-ed program advocated by the archdiocese (http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2006/mar/06030602.html ).
Like many dioceses in North America, the archdiocese has been plagued by the scandal of priestly sexual abuse. The diocese is unique however, in that a movement of faithful Catholic lay men has chosen to publicly confront the scandal, not by demanding - as do most such groups - that the Catholic Church become more liberal and abandon priestly celibacy, but by direct confrontation and demands for faithfulness.
The group's website explains, "For an atheistic culture, celibacy is incomprehensible - and unnatural. But for Catholics, we know our nature is fulfilled by love for God our Father. Our purity codes could not match the splendor of our message if they were easy. Celibacy is difficult, but it marks the priesthood with a spiritual focus, pursued in imitation and anticipation of Christ. Our priests take on a difficult discipline, but it allows them to lead the laity in other difficult disciplines that the world says can't be done - daily prayer, communal fasting and worship, faithful marriage and teenage virginity."
The Dan O'Connell society, named after a father allegedly killed by a priest with homosexual tendencies who had reportedly sexually abused boys, is an organization of men, of fathers, says founder Dr. David Pence. The organization has compiled evidence, not only on abusive priests but also, on the men in the hierarchy of the Catholic Church most responsible for allowing and even facilitating such abuse.
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