Monday, July 10, 2006
"BUILDING WITH LIVING STONES" ON THE FOUNDATION OF THE VILATTE SUCCESSION
Last week we were treated to the spectacle of Benedictine nuns who withdrew from Christ's Church in order to avoid offending their friends.
This week I have found some Franciscans who have no membership in Christ's Church to withdraw from. Take a look at the Apostolic Society of Franciscan Communities.
According to their home page they are
Welcoming...Affirming...Healing...
The Apostolic Society of Franciscan Communities is "inclusive and affirming" while they remain "canonically independent Catholic Frnciscan communities dedicatd to the charismatic renewal of the Church in a meaningful, post-modern way."
They have the audacity to claim to be "rebuilding the Church that is crumbling," as though that "crumbling" has nothing to do with them. They think they can rebuild the Church without the "bricks of dogma and literalism" and instead use "fresh new mortar and living stones."
To do this they are calling "men and women, both single and partnered, celibate and non-celibate"--the "marginalised and abused by the Institutional Church...without regard to gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, economic status, physical disability or age."
In order to do this rebuilding they propose to "rediscover the richness of a faith often buried beneath layers of discrimination, dogma, politics and misinterpretation." Combine that claim with the claim to be "charismatic" and you get Catholic Pentecostalism. Nevertheless, they claim to be "authentically Catholic" and "canonically independent of the bishop of Rome" while having sacraments that are "recognised under Roman Catholic canon law and by the Orthodox and Old Catholic Churches as valid".
The Apostolic Society of Franciscan Communities of The Servant Franciscans of the Immaculata are “Servants of Our Mother's Immaculate Heart” an organization founded in Florida in 1983 by four Secular Franciscans. They began their community as caregivers for gay men suffering from AIDS. Today they also minister to the poor, cancer sufferers, the hungry and the marginalized. Once again they use the phrases "living stones" and "charismatic" on this page in their website.
They are part of the "Emergent Catholic Movement" which they call "A future Church, with an ancient Faith", and compare their "evolutionary emergence" with a critical medical situation that requires "emergent care". (Maybe they can't afford a dictionary.) Here again on this page in the website they refer to themselves as "a Church of Living Stones...An Emergent Catholic Church" that is "based on the emergent mystical expression of Christianity" and "Spirit directed." A nice way of saying they are homosexuals who intend to continue to practice their homosexuality?
Well, yes, apparently.
On December 10th, the faithful and consecrated religious from several canonically independent North American Catholic faith communities took a bold step forward to advance the unity and progress of the Emerging Church. Inspired by the Holy Spirit and called forth by the people of their local faith communities, the Very Reverend Roger LaRade and the Right Reverend Mother Jean Michelina Cortopassi, FCJM were consecrated as bishops within the Emergent Catholic Church International – an inclusive and affirming, canonically independent Catholic Communion, based in Washington, D.C.
It’s founder, theologian and respected GLBT/AIDS activist and writer, (Archbishop) Servant-Father Francis-Maria Salvato, SFI, explains the reason the ECCI was founded:
“Inspired by the groundbreaking efforts of people like Brian McLaren and John Dominic Crossan to reveal what it means to follow Jesus in a postmodern context, as well as by small communities of GenX’ers who were emerging as leaders in this ‘rebirth’ of the Church, it became clear to me that we were being called to an entirely different kind of conversion this time... Called to become a ‘future church with an ancient faith’... in the story of Jesus, we have glimpsed God's future and know that ‘this could change everything.’
They are composed of "Catholic, Episcopalian and Lutheran jurisdictions [who] do not give up their autonomy by joining the ECCI." Their Bishop-Abbess was a Roman Catholic for 35 years.
Pictures of the Very Reverend Roger LaRade and the Right Reverend Mother Jean Michelina Cortopassi, FCJM can be seen in that webpage. Roger LaRade is also a bishop in the Eucharistic Catholic Church/Eglise Catholique Eucharistique in Canada. That denomination has another familiar name listed in the Apostolic Succession--Archbishop Joseph Rene Vilatte, whom I've written about several times, and who is featured on the Episcopal Diocese of Fond du Lac's website since his major base of operation was what is now the Fond du Lac Diocese. If you scroll all the way down to the bottom of the website you can also see that a man I wrote about last week is listed as a Primate: Most Rev. George Augustine Hyde, the formerly Catholic founder of the first gay church.
For a look at the tangled web of confusion that is the Vilatte Succession, take a look at this webpage in the P. R. Koenig website. While you're there, take a moment to look at that flashing image of a dove--the Holy Spirit image, I presume, since Gnosis is said to come from the Holy Spirit. If you want more on Vilatte and Gnosis and sex magick, check out this website. If you still need more convincing of exactly what we are looking at, take a look at this OTO website [and don't blame me if the image there offends].
While you are thinking about this, give some thought to what ecumenism could mean in this context, especially when, as it has been claimed, our priests are 70% homosexual.
Our Lady of Fatima, ever virgin, pray for us!
