Monday, November 20, 2006
FR. MERIWETHER IS BACK
and Holy Redeemer Parish is celebrating his return with a pancake breakfast according to their website and the report at LifeSite.
Sadly, Dom turns out to be correct in his prediction that Fr. Meriwether's "leave" was nothing more than damage control. Once again the bishop and the Church disappoints faithful Catholics who had hoped there would be a change. It's business as usual with our hierarchy.
Randy Engel offers an analysis of the situation at Spero. In an article titled "Gay agenda sways Catholic bishops" she writes:
Parish life and parish resources at MHR are centered on AIDS and the spiritual, social and political needs and interests of its predominantly “gay” congregation.
The parish resource web-page provides links to the Vatican and the Liturgy of the Hours Apostolate, but as one scrolls down the links take on a different complexion – the Gay Catholic Forum, Dignity/San Francisco, the Conference for Catholic Lesbians, Voice of the Faithful, Pax Christi, USA, etc.
Among the pro-homosexual guest speakers, lecturers, and preachers to be invited to MHR are “gay” Dominican Fr. James Alisson, Richard Hardy author of Loving Men, Gay Partners and a popular speaker on St. John of the Cross, and Charlene Tschirhard from the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies.
MHR is a parish of “ministries” of all kinds – almost. There is the MGM “ministry” serving Midlife Gay Men support group, a New Leaf “ministry” for counseling of homosexuals, bi-sexuals and transgendered people. There are AIDS “ministries” of all kinds including a special African fund for AIDS victims.
Social justice looms big at MHR, but that justice does not extend to unborn babies. Of the more than 20 bulletins selected at random from 2002 to 2006, the A-word was never mentioned. The bulletin for January 22, 2006 contains not a single reference to the annual pro-life events marking the 1973 Roe Vs Wade Supreme Court decision. MHR does support World AIDS Day, and Fair Trade Awareness Month to insure that parishioners buy the politically correct brand of coffee beans. There are occasional traditional and ethnic celebrations at MHR.
In 1991, Archbishop John R. Quinn Mass held a Forty Hours Devotion for relief from the AIDS epidemic. MHR maintains close relations to outside homosexual organizations. In July 2006, the homosexual Metropolitan Community Church of San Francisco, an affiliate of the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Churches, began holding its Wednesday evening Taize services in the sanctuary of the church. An MCC-HIV support group also meets at MHR.
The article includes some details on parish life at Most Holy Redeemer Catholic Church that are unique to a gay parish, and notes the sexual abuse scandal that took place there. It's an interesting read given Engel's background as a journalist and her ten-year study of homosexuality in the Church.
She also reports on the location of Fr. Meriwether's leave:
Father Meriwether was out of town for the event[Sept. 2006 "Revival Bingo" at the church - ct] He had checked himself into a rehabilitation facility in Rochester, MN for depression and alcoholism on August 6 and did not return officially to MHR until his release on October 24, just in time for the second go-around scheduled for All Souls Day, Thursday, November 2. During Meriwether's absence, Archbishop Niederauer had appointed Chancery official Rev. Harry G. Schlitt as a temporary administrator for MHR. Rev. Schlitt however was away in Washington, D.C. when the first bingo took place on September 7.
So even the "leave" implied to have been a reprimand for Fr. Meriwether's approval of a lease to the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence for their Revival Bingo games turns out to have had nothing to do with this gross misrepresentation of what it means to be Catholic, and appears to have been self-imposed by Fr. Meriwether, himself.
Nothing is going to change in the Church in America with this kind of travesty being permitted. What every Catholic must ultimately address is whether remaining a member of the Church is the equivalent of guilt by association.
An article in NOR this month by Agnes M. Penny addresses Catholic parental concerns about having children vaccinated given that some vaccinations were developed via fetal stem cells from aborted babies. Penny takes very seriously the guilt by association that a parent incurs when making use of these vaccines. Yet that parental guilt is much further removed from the source of sin than is the everyday Catholic who continues to place money in the collection basket and attend the services at a Catholic church when homosexuality is rampant in that Church, is practiced by its leaders, and has been the cause of child sexual abuse in outrageous numbers.
"Passive material co-operation in evil" is also addressed in a letter to the editor of NOR by Charles O. Coudert, Sherborn, Massachusetts, in the current issue. He writes:
Abortion is kept hush-hush at the hospital, and some of the employees and many of the hospital clients may even be unaware of it. For those who do know what is going on, it seems to me that they have an obligation, in some way, to oppose it. If they fail to do so, I believe that, theologically speaking, they would be guilty of passive, material co-operation in evil.
Coudert gives an example of a sandwich truck driver who "plies his trade at lunchtime in front of a factory that makes weapons for the U.S. military. Assuming the war in Iraq is morally unjust, is the sandwich-truck owner complicit in supporting this evil and, if so, to what extent?" He suggests that "to avoid co-operating in evil, he could stop plying his trade at the weapons factory and find some other way to earn a living. Or, according to a less drastic scenario...he could continue to sell his sandwiches to the factory workers, but with the understanding that he would be obligated to take some other action opposing the war."
Fellow Catholics, if we can condemn our soul by selling sandwiches, how much more do we condemn our own soul by remaining Roman Catholic in the face of evidence that business as usual will be the policy for the forseeable future in the Roman Catholic Church? It is hypocritical to agonize over these incidents of material cooperation while ignoring the elephant of homosexuality and child sexual abuse in the livingroom of the Roman Catholic Church.
Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us!
