Still Running Off at the Keyboard

YET ANOTHER BOOK

Michelangelo hid a secret code in the frescoes of the Sistine Chapel made up of mystical Jewish symbols and insults aimed at the pope, according to a new book.

The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, which the renaissance artist worked on for four years in the early 16th century, is actually a "bridge" between the Roman Catholic Church and the Jewish faith, according to The Sistine Secrets: Unlocking the Codes in Michelangelo's Defiant Masterpiece.

The book, which is already on the New York Times bestseller list, is the work of Rabbi Benjamin Blech, an associate professor of Talmud at Yeshiva University in New York, and Roy Doliner, a tour guide at the Vatican....

The authors believe the entire Sistine Chapel, which they say is built to the same proportions as the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, is a "lost mystical message of universal love" which was intended to be decoded.

The authors believe Michelangelo picked up his knowledge of Judaism while at the court of Lorenzo de Medici in Florence.

In addition, they say there are several attacks on Pope Julius II, who commissioned the work, embedded in the painting.

Disgusted with papal corruption, they think Michelangelo painted the prophet Zechariah in the pope's likeness.

Behind him, one angel is "making an extremely obscene hand gesture at the back of his head."

Critics of the new book point out that there is no record in Michelangelo's extensive and well-preserved writings of any secret code in the ceiling.

Read all of it...

CLOSING ARGUMENTS WERE HEARD TODAY

in the kickback scheme in the Cleveland Diocese. My sympathies tend to be with the two comments following the article. We need an honest audit. I doubt very much if there is any hope of getting one.

WANT TO SEE A GOOD MOVIE ?

Check "The Great Debaters" out.

CATHOLIC - ORTHODOX UNITY

Constantinople, Jun. 19, 2008 (CWNews.com) - The Orthodox Patriarch of Constantinople has responded favorably to a suggestion by the head of the Ukrainian Catholic Church for a system of "dual unity" in which Byzantine Catholic churches would be in full communion with both Constantinople and Rome.

Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople welcomed the proposal in an interview with the magazine Cyril and Methodius, the RISU news service reports. The acknowledged leader of the Orthodox world suggested that the "dual unity" approach would produce something akin to the situation of the Christian world in the 1st millennium, before the split between Rome and Constantinople.

Cardinal Lubomyr Husar of Kiev, the Major Archbishop of the Ukrainian Catholic Church-- the largest of the Eastern Catholic churches-- had offered the possibility that Byzantine Catholics might seek communion with the Ecumenical Patriarchate, without giving up their communion with the Holy See. Patriarch Bartholomew expressed distinct interest in the idea, saying that "the mother Church in Constantinople holds the doors open for the return of all her former sons and daughters."

Patriarch Bartholomew acknowledged that a restoration of unity would require study, and important differences would have to be overcome. However, he observed that major steps have already been taken to resolve disagreements-- most importantly the revocation of the mutual decrees of excommunication issued by Rome and Constantinople against each other in 1054.

Read it here.

ASSYRIA TIMES vs. CATHOLIC NEWS AGENCY

There is a letter to the editor on the website of the Assyria Times, written by the AssyriaSat Staff, taking Catholic News Agency to task for its reporting on the Assyrian bishop's "journey into communion with the Catholic Church". The staff of the paper believe Bishop Ashur B. Soro was defrocked before this movement took place:

Ex-bishop Bawai Soro, aka, Ashur B. Soro, was defrocked in 2005 for misappropriation of church funds and fraudulent conversion of the titles of the church properties he held in his trust during his employment with the ACOE to his own sole corporation. The ACOE court case against Soro was so strong and solid that the Santa Clara Superior Court judge found it unnecessary to go to a trial and granted ACOE a Summary Judgment in October 2007. Perhaps your investigative reporters could look into this case in dept for future reference.

It really struck us that ex-bishop Soro would be so blatantly shameless about something so incredibly disgraceful in the eyes of law-abiding citizens and anyone with the slightest taste for decent journalism. The way Catholic media have chosen to present a proven thief is troublesome at best. And the fact that he would even appear somewhere near a symbol of Christianity should provide further proof that this man is pure evil. The problem is that Soro is being presented as a religious figure with no factual evidence to back it up. Perhaps if Soro was being radical and revolutionary, he would have attracted many; but being a proven thief, a liar and a conspirator, he attracted very few who share his low values, and unholy track records for that matter.

WASH FOR LIFE

This year the event is scheduled for September 13. The organization is looking for people to get involved in holding an event in their community. An email from Jonathan Tonkowich, Executive Director, indicates the last two have been financially successful:

The first two Wash for Life's have been huge successes, raising $146,905.95 for pregnancy care centers across the country. We have had over 325 car washes involving thousands of young people. I believe that the Wash for Life will grow into an event with thousands of car washes each year raising hundreds of thousands of dollars for pregnancy care centers.

The Wash for Life website indicates the structure is simple. Someone organizes the event in their own community, and donates the proceeds to a local Pregnancy Care Center. There is a link for sign-up at the website and pictures of past events. If you lead a youth group, consider giving this a try.

MORE CHAOS IN ANGLICANISM

The America blog describes a heterosexual Anglican clergyman providing a "blessing ceremony" for two gay Anglican priests, using the words for an Anglican wedding, while claiming, in the face of an investigation, that he can't be put out of his parish.

"You can't sack me because you don't employ me. As the rector of St. Bartholomew the Great, I own the church, I own the freehold--not in the sense that I can sell it, but in the sense that it gives me tenure."

WYD A FINANCIAL BUST ?

Less than a month before Pope Benedict XVI arrives in Sydney for World Youth Day, an unholy row is brewing over the event's costs and its impact on local businesses in Australia's biggest city.

The five-day celebration of Catholic youth has been billed as a major boost to the city's economy, attracting up to 125,000 international visitors and culminating in a Papal mass before 500,000 people on July 20....

World Youth Day's funding has come under scrutiny after the New South Wales government committed almost 110 million dollars (103.5 million US) to staging the event, arguing that it will pump 150 million into the economy....

Rhiannon said concerns raised by Sydney's hoteliers this month showed the predicted economic benefits from WYD did not hold up.

Australian Hotels Association chief executive Sally Fielke said hotels had been forced to reduce their rates because the anticipated flood of pilgrims had not materialised and ordinary tourists were avoiding the city over that period.

Bookings showed occupancy rates -- normally 75 percent -- were down to 30 percent, she said.

Read it here.

ORTHODOX VIEW OF VATICAN INVOLVEMENT IN THE BALKANS

Pravda interviewed Nemani Klaic, a Serbian historian, an outstanding member of the Orthodox community of Croatia, about the role of The Vatican in Balkan wars and about relations between the Orthodox and the Catholic Churches. Given the history of Medjugorje and the impact of this apparition on the war, his remarks are interesting.

Has The Vatican-led policy in Serbia undermined the idea of recreating the single Christian Church?

The first half of the 20th century has left many deep wounds in the history of the Serbian nation and the Serbian Orthodox Church. The Vatican has long striven to weaken Orthodoxy in the Balkans and maybe even to destroy it. It has been trying to do it peacefully, although it often happened that force was widely used to achieve the goal at all possible costs.

The Catholic Church in Croatia was helping The Vatican to execute its goals. It is worthy of note that on June 28 1914 the troops of the Austrian Empire entered Sarajevo to affect religious and national feelings of the Serbs....

What was the price of establishing the new state of the Serbs, the Croatians and the Slovenians?

After the war the Serbian King Alexander wanted to united all Slavic nations – the Serbs, the Croatians and the Slovenians – into one state where everyone would be equal in terms of religion and nationality. However, Rome took certain efforts to make any kind of agreements between Serbia and Croatia impossible.

The Vatican openly disliked Yugoslavia. Italian fascist leader Benito Mussolini had his own views on the Balkans, which coincided with interests of The Vatican in Serbia.

To implement its plans, The Vatican used the combination of religious and national chauvinism in Croatia. It was especially noticeable during the existence of the Independent State of Croatia in 1941-1945. The Roman Catholic Church was virtually collaborating with Croatian thugs.

Read the interview here.

FR. de VALK NEEDS HELP

Karl Keating reports:

You may have heard about the “human rights commissions” in Canada. These are extra-judicial bodies set up to make an end run around judicial niceties. The commissions are staffed by left-wing activists who, unable to win election to provincial legislatures, try to impose their will by coming down hard on people who are not left-wing activists.

The main purpose of the commissions is to squelch free speech. This is done by dragging before the commissions people who speak their minds and whose minds are not in accord with left-wing views.

The commissions have been styled by commentators who are not left-wing activists as “kangaroo courts.” ...

The Canadian human rights commissions are not elected bodies. They do not have established rules of evidence. The government picks up the legal bills for people who prosecute complaints through the commissions, but the accused have to cover their own expenses. Naturally, this is a disincentive for the defense....

But some people and groups without deep pockets choose to fight back. Case in point: Fr. Alphonse de Valk and Catholic Insight magazine.

The Catholic priest, well known for his pro-life activities, wrote in defense of the Church’s teaching on marriage. Specifically, he wrote against “gay marriage,” citing the Bible, the catechism, and the writings of John Paul II. He wrote nothing that you or I would consider inflammatory; he simply restated constant Church teaching: marriage can exist only between one man and one woman.

What Fr. de Valk got for his troubles was a complaint filed by homosexuals who accused him of fostering “extreme hatred and contempt.” So far, the legal expenses for the priest and his magazine have exceeded $20,000. They are sure to rise.

Catholic Insight is a small-circulation, orthodox Catholic magazine. (That is almost tautological. All orthodox Catholic magazines have small circulations.) If its legal bills pile up enough, the magazine will have to fold—which is probably the goal of both the complainants and the activists on the human rights commission.

Fr. de Valk and Catholic Insight deserve our support because they support Catholic teachings. The magazine’s web site (http://www.catholicinsight.com) has an appeal for help in covering the legal bills.

At the Catholic Insight website donation information is provided:

If you are able to help, please send your cheque or money order to Catholic Insight, P.O. Box 625, Adelaide Station, Toronto, Ontario, M5C 2J8. For a credit card donation, you can call us at (416) 204-9601 or e-mail admin@catholicinsight.com. If you have a PayPal account, please click the link below.

GARDASIL VS. CATHOLIC SEXUAL MORALITY


Alberta wants the Catholic schools to distribute the free Gardasil vaccine for girls in pre-sexual encounter age groups. Catholic schools do not want to encourage sexual activity among unmarried girls and propose chastity as the cure for the HPV epidemic that health authorities are citing as the reason the vaccine must be given in schools.

The option to go to the family physician if the parents want the child to have it is countered by claiming it will cost $525 for all three doses, and that is discriminatory. Of course no one seems to be questioning why the vaccine can't be administered free in the physician's office in a nation covered by government sponsored healthcare.

Read the article here.

Meanwhile Gardasil is still not proven absolutely safe:

... there have been serious problems. A 14-year-old girl named Katherine Kimzey experienced debilitating headaches, fainting spells, and arthritis-like stiffness. She became so dizzy she could barely walk, was hospitalized, missed nearly one month of school, and suffered a seizure. Because Katherine’s symptoms began soon after she received her second shot and symptoms seemed to match many of the 5,000 reports filed through a national database that monitors vaccine safety, Katherine’s mother, Michelle, believes the problems stem from Gardasil. “When you read everybody’s stories, they’re too similar not to be related,” Kimzey said.

So it would seem that the Alberta health department is trying to force a vaccination program onto Catholic schools against Catholic religious values in spite of the fact that illness and death is a result of this vaccine in some cases.

But that's not the end of it. Not to discriminate, Gardasil maker Merck & Co. are now considering giving the vaccine to boys as well as girls according to the above article. Do you get a whiff of the odor of money here?

HOW'S THAT AGAIN...?

Wayne Rooney's £5 million wedding to Coleen McLoughlin has no validity in the eyes of the Catholic Church, it has emerged.

The couple, both 22, held a religious ceremony at La Cervara, a converted monastery near Genoa, despite being warned by the local bishop's office against the plan.

The bishop's office told the Rooneys that La Cervara is deconsecrated and not suitable for a wedding. It suggested a different church, five miles away....

Nevertheless, the couple ignored the advice and Father Edward Quinn, their local priest from Croxteth, presided over a ceremony in which rings were exchanged....

Father Mario Ostigoni, the priest in charge of the marriage office, warned: "If the marriage was celebrated at La Cervara, then it is invalid in the eyes of the Church, ipso facto."...

However the couple's spokesman said: "They are definitely married, legally and in the eyes of the church. This was a meticulously planned wedding."

The couple had a civil marriage at Villa Durazzo, a 17th century palace at Santa Margherita Ligure, before the religious ceremony.

Read more.

If the sacrament of marriage is invalid because it wasn't celebrated in a consecrated church, how is it that the sacrament of the Eucharist can be valid even if it is celebrated on the hood of a jeep?

I've never actually understood this. Is marriage the only sacrament that must be celebrated in only certain places, or is ordination also in this category? And if ordinations fall under the same rule, what about ordinations in religiously hostile countries? Must they also be celebrated in consecrated churches?

POLISH MONK PROMOTES MARRIED SEX

It's the sort of story that causes a doubletake:

A CELIBATE Polish monk has established a website offering a guide to good sex for married couples, dubbed the 'Catholic Kama Sutra'.
Father Ksawery Knotz's site gives graphic lovemaking hints and describes sex as a deeply spiritual act in which the couple can experience God.

"In Catholic teaching, the conjugal act is presented as a meeting that occurs not only between a husband and a wife who love each other, but also between the married couple and God," he said.

I know you want to read the rest.

TYING UP LOOSE ENDS ON THE ST. STAN'S CONSECRATIONS

At the risk of boring all of you to death, I want to post a few of the miscellaneous bits and pieces of information that have surfaced while researching the background on the St. Stan's concecration.

Did you know that Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo has launched Vatican III? In an article at Angelqueen.org dated June 5, 2008 you can read:

Ex-communicated Catholic Archbishop, Emmanuel Milingo says the Movement for Married Priests is in the process of establishing the third Vatican Council to shape the future of the renewed Catholic Church.

Archbishop Milingo said the third Vatican Council will be launched in South Korea before the end of this month.

He told ZNBC news shortly before he and his wife Maria Sung left for South Korea that proposals for the foundation have already been made.

Archbishop Milingo also said the movement is preparing for the Universal Peace Federation meeting.

The December 2006 restatement of the celibacy rule was made in response to Milingo according to the website of cult investigator Rick Ross:

Vatican officials have been scandalized by Milingo, trying to privately persuade him to drop his campaign, then openly censuring him when that effort failed.

After the church excommunicated Milingo, Pope Benedict convened a summit last month that the Vatican said examined "the situation created by the disobedience of Msgr. Emmanuel Milingo."

The gathering ended with a reaffirmation of mandatory celibacy for clergy.

Archbishop Peter Paul Brennan, a married priest who was made a bishop by Milingo, acknowledged the tie to Moon would provide more fodder for discrediting Married Priests Now!

Moon's doctrines are considered well beyond the bounds of traditional Christianity.

His followers regard him as "Lord of the Second Advent" who is providing the "physical salvation" Jesus was unable to accomplish because he was executed and didn't marry. Jesus gave only "spiritual salvation," Moon says.

Brennan and others insisted Moon is not directing their movement, which they said remains wholly Catholic.

"He's not involved," Brennan said.

"He shows an interest because of the family aspect."

Asked why Milingo is acknowledging the link now, Brennan said it doesn't harm the movement to work with people "who may be controversial in their faith."

That's quite a display of wishful thinking on the part of Brennan.

I found a "List of Moon Fronts, 1992". The list includes businesses starting with A through I. Registration is required to continue beyond the I's, so I stopped there. The A-I list prints out at eight pages. While I didn't see any blue chip companies there, it is still a long list.

An announcement that Dr. and Mrs. Kim have been chosen as co-chairman of the Unification Church's Universal Peace Federation for North America indicates that Archbishop George Augustus Stallings, Jr. offered congratulatory remarks at the celebration and led the consecration prayer.

Ray Grosswirth, a Rochester, New York married priest ordained by Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo provides three statements in his blog indicating that Married Priests Now! works with CORPUS and with the Unification Church.

CORPUS is an older advocacy group for married and women priests. Their 2008 conference speakers include Matthew Fox, and Priestesses Jane Via, a "Danube River Deacon" "ordained" a priestess in 2006, and Jean Marchant member of Womenpriests, a 2005 "St. Lawrence Seaway ordination".

I'm a doubtful Thomas where the activities of ecumenism and interreligious dialogue are concerned; and so, as I was checking out these websites, it occurred to me that talks would be taking place at some point in the future with these various groups of dissenting Catholics when they form themselves into a single body, which seems to be the direction their activities are taking. That would seem to be the destination of dissent within Roman Catholicism. Today they are excommunicated and "anathema". Tomorrow they become "brothers in the faith". I have to wonder, then, if these dissenters are encouraged to continue in their dissent by the evidence of efforts at reconciliation with all and sundry faiths they see in their landscape? In such a climate, is excommunication viewed as just one more step in the process and no big deal?

NOT IN THIS HOUSE...

The Vatican has banned the makers of a prequel to The Da Vinci Code from filming in its grounds or any church in Rome, describing the work as “an offence against God”.

Angels and Demons, the latest Dan Brown thriller to be turned into a film, includes key episodes that take place in the Vatican and Rome’s churches. Archbishop Velasio De Paolis, the head of the Vatican’s Prefecture for Economic Affairs, said that Brown had “turned the gospels upside down to poison the faith”.

“It would be unacceptable to transform churches into film sets so that his blasphemous novels can be made into films in the name of business,” he said, adding that Brown’s work “wounds common religious feelings”.

Read the rest...

A TRIDENTINE IN EVERY PARISH

Pope Benedict XVI would like every Catholic parish in the world to celebrate a regular Tridentine-rite Mass, a Vatican cardinal has said.

Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos also told a June 14 press conference in London that the Vatican was writing to all seminaries to ask that candidates to the priesthood are trained to celebrate Mass according to the extraordinary form of the Latin rite, also known as the Tridentine Mass, restricted from the 1970s until July 2007 when Pope Benedict lifted some of those limits.

Read the rest...

GIVING A NEW SPIN TO THE WORD "CHIPPIE"

A reader sent in a link to this story:

A Rhode Island school district has announced a pilot program to monitor student movements by means of radio frequency identification (RFID) chips implanted in their schoolbags.

The Middletown School District, in partnership with MAP Information Technology Corp., has launched a pilot program to implant RFID chips into the schoolbags of 80 children at the Aquidneck School. Each chip would be programmed with a student identification number, and would be read by an external device installed in one of two school buses. The buses would also be fitted with global positioning system (GPS) devices.

Parents or school officials could log onto a school web site to see whether and when specific children had entered or exited which bus, and to look up the bus's current location as provided by the GPS device.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has criticized the plan as an invasion of children's privacy and a potential risk to their safety.

Never did I think I would say the words, "I agree with the ACLU!"

An ACLLU spokesman suggested "[This program is] a solution in search of a problem". Sure looks that way to me. As the article states, the school is already supposed to know where the kids are.

Most significant line in the article...

Because the pilot program is being provided to the school district at no cost, it did not require approval from the Rhode Island ethics commission.

Now the very concept of ethics has been tied to cash. Talk about an upsidedown universe!

WILL BOZEK BE THE NEXT BISHOP?

There is speculation at St. Louis Catholic that Bozek will be consecrated.

One of the problems that the independents constantly face is schism in the ranks. They attempt to come together, disagree, and split apart, over and over and over.

One of the reasons might be too many chiefs and not enough Indians?

MORE ON THE WANDERING BISHOPS

George Stallings is not the only member of the joint "consecration" at St. Stan's who has a colorful past. Peter Paul Brennan's various ordinations and consecrations are identified at this website. The website belongs to Thomas J. Boyle, Attorney for the Federal Trade Commission and Georgetown graduate.

According to Boyle, Brennan has been

- ordained a priest for the Old Roman Catholic Church in North America by one of their bishops

- ordained a priest for the African Orthodox Church

- consecrated a bishop for the African Orthodox Church at Our Lady Queen of Heaven Church in Long Island

- consecrated a bishop for the African Orthodox Church at Sacred Heart Chapel in Brooklyn

- consecrated a bishop for the Ecumenical Catholic Diocese of the Americas at Holy Angels Chapel in Glendale, Calif.

- consecrated a bishop for the Iglesia Ortodoxa Catolica Apostolica Mexicana in Los Angeles

All of these ordinations and consecrations took place before the one at St. Stan's.

He has consecrated seven bishops.

--------------

Patrick E. Trujillo, also consecrated by Milingo at St. Stan's, took part in a dialogue at the Clifton Jewish Center with Rabbi Ari Korenblit. The discussion topic was "Intermarried/Interfaith Couples Married to Someone of the Jewish Faith and Their Families".

---------------

Married Priests Now! held a convocation at which Peter Paul Brennan, Archbishop Stallings, and Archbishop Milingo were all on the program. There was another familiar name on the program as well--Dr. Leonard Swidler, founder of the Association for the Rights of Catholics in the Church, among other things.

At this convocation

After lunch, Archbishop Milingo gave a spirited response to the letter of Cardinal Re which threatened him with suspension for continued work with Married Priests Now! Archbishop Milingo said that he is and remains a Roman Catholic archbishop and will always be, but that he will continue to work with married priests because the church has treated them so badly that they need to experience some Christian love and experience. If the institutional church fails to do it, he in good conscience must extend the hand and embrace of love to the married priests.

The Independent Catholic Apostolic Church of Brazil, which claims 5,000 married priests, was represented at the convocation by a former Capuchin priest.

A Eucharistic Celebration of Healing was held to "offer healing from the injuries caused by the institutional brutality of the Church". It was recommended that each priest should keep the blessed sacrament reserved in his family home chapel. Dr. Chang Shik Yang and Rev. Phillip Schanker "told the story of Maria Sung Milingo's encounter with the Vatican."

Archbishop Patrick Trujillo, another of the St. Stan's four, gave a keynote talk.

----------------

A press statement in support of Milingo and Married Priests Now! is signed by the St. Stan's four. There we are given a taste of the opinions expressed by Married Priests Now!

Excommunication is a tool to do evil and to inflict pain. It has no place in civilized society and especially none in the community of the Church of Jesus Christ. An excommunication caused the Great Schism between the East and the West and you still have not learned its perfidious uselessness. You think you are doing the Orthodox a favor by calling them “Our Separated Brethren,” but the words are an oxymoron and ridicule each other. The word “excommunication” ought to be cancelled from ecclesial language. Excommunication shows the weakness of the church and its inability to solve problems. Dear Brothers, put Jesus and his Gospel before canon law and its excommunications.

ROLLING ALONG WITH THE WANDERING BISHOPS

I've been researching the "consecrations" of bishops at St. Stan's in St. Louis by Emmanuel Milingo, hosted by renegade Polish priest Fr. Marek Bozek. Given Milingo's reputation for scandal, I decided to look further at the Moonies, since Milingo has associated himself with them.

Recall that among the four bishops "consecrated" there was George Augustus Stalings, Jr., founder of the Imani Temple African American Catholic Congregation.

Stallings is nothing if not controversial. He is deeply entrenched in the Unification Church. So deeply that his wife was chosen for him by Rev. Sun Myung Moon according to CESNUR, (Center for Studies on New Religions). From the website:

Now, Stallings is creating a stir among his church members over whom he has decided to marry. Stallings, who leads the Imani Temple, is preparing to wed a young Japanese woman handpicked by Unification Church founder Sun Myung Moon.

Turning to Wikipedia I learned that

In 2001 Roman Catholic Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo married Maria Sung, a Korean acupuncturist, in a Blessing ceremony presided over by Rev. and Mrs. Moon. In the same ceremony George Augustus Stallings, founder of the Imani Temple African-American Catholic Congregation, married Sayomi Kamimoto, a Japanese Unification Church member.[4] At the same ceremony was Minister Benjamin Muhammad, the national director of the Million Man March and the Million Family March and a representative of Louis Farrakhan's Nation of Islam.[5] Former Ugandan President Godfrey Binaisa married a young Japanese woman by the Blessing ceremony in 2004. At that time, Godfrey was 84 years old.

Stallings likes to claim he is Catholic. His Imani Temple beliefs, however, paint a different picture.

There is a biography of Stallings at one of the Unification Church websites--one dedicated to "True Parents". There you can read:

Stallings also announced that his unsanctioned African American organization would permit abortion, birth control, divorce, homosexual activity, women in the priesthood, and marriage among priests...

He announced this on the Phil Donohue show according to Time:

Last February, after Stallings proclaimed his total split from Rome on the Phil Donahue show, the archdiocese excommunicated him and all Catholics in his flock. At that time, the priest announced that his organization had abandoned Catholic teachings against abortion, birth control, homosexual activity and remarriage after divorce. His planned consecration as a bishop this week is to be performed by a like-minded prelate from an obscure white denomination, Archbishop Richard Bridges of the Independent Old Catholic Church in Highland, Calif. As a bishop, Stallings will be able to ordain his own schismatic priests.

The consecration at St. Stan's was not the first.

The Time article also gives another hint as to why Stallings may be creating his own religion. After his run-in with Cardinal Hickey:

The archdiocese also received repeated allegations about homosexual activity but was unable to substantiate them.

BishopAccountability.org has posted a Washington Post article that makes a similar claim:

After his days sorting mail at a D.C. law firm, 22-year-old Derek Edwin Brown liked to go dancing in gay clubs. His favorite was Tracks DC, near the Washington Navy Yard. There, one night in April 1987, he met an older man.

"We talked for a while and exchanged numbers," Brown said. "I didn't know anything about him -- just a guy named George."

The guy named George was a Roman Catholic priest, the Rev. George Augustus Stallings Jr.

Brown, now 25, said he and Stallings, 42, were lovers for the next two years, during which time he lived in Augustus Manor, the priest's house in Anacostia. For nine months of that time, Stallings employed Brown as a pastoral assistant at St. Teresa of Avila parish. Brown and other employees said that much of the time he was out of the parish on trips with Stallings.

Brown and Stallings were consenting adults, but Stallings was sworn to celibacy in a church that considers homosexual activity a sin. Brown said Stallings knew parishioners were whispering about their relationship. "It bothered him, but all people could do was insinuate," Brown said. "He didn't think it would catch up with him."

For years, Cardinal James A. Hickey and other officials of the Archdiocese of Washington had heard of parishioners' concerns that their talented priest might be involved in homosexual activity, which Stallings denied, a church official said.

Hickey also had heard something more serious. In 1986, he received a signed letter from a parishioner who alleged that Stallings was having sex with a boy in her family, a church official said. The woman wouldn't provide more information, and Hickey could not confirm her allegation....

In a dramatic confrontation, according to Stallings, Hickey ordered him to seek psychiatric treatment for an "excessive ego" at a church hospital known for treating priests with sexual disorders.

Stallings, calling the order an insult, walked out of Hickey's office. Thirteen days later, he labeled the Roman Catholic Church racist and announced he was forming his own church, the Imani Temple African-American Catholic Congregation.

Wandering Bishops generally fall under the category of Gnostic. Sun Myung Moon and the Unification Church are no exception. An article at CESNUR tells us:

The basic story of the Unification Church’s origins is fairly well known. Founder-leader Sun Myung Moon was born in North Korea. He frequently visited the Korean mountainside, which he found conducive to prayer, and on Easter Sunday 1935 he received a vision of Jesus, who commissioned him to complete his unfinished work. The crucifixion was not part of God’s original plan of salvation, and it prevented Jesus from becoming married and fathering sinless children. If these commonly known facts about the movement’s origins have been found inimical to mainstream Christianity, the less well-known details of the UC’s inception have distanced it further from the Christian churches. Indeed, from the entire movement has been amidst sectarianism, as should be apparent from the fuller account that follows here. ...

After his inaugural vision, Moon continued to pray and study the Bible, and claimed further revelations, not only from Jesus, but also from other religious leaders such as Confucius, Lao Tsu, the Buddha, and even God himself...in brief, they were characterized by an emphasis on prophesying, visions, trances and consultations with spirits, together with a questioning of the traditional Christian doctrine of the second coming: instead of Jesus returning on the clouds of heaven, they looked for a new messiah, a Lord of the Second Coming, to be born on earth ó more specifically in Korea....Moon and his followers established their own organization æ the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity in Seoul, Korea, in 1954. ...

The UC’s initial attempts therefore involved promoting itself as a brand of charismatic and ecumenical Christianity, with a view to being seen as part of the mainstream Christian tradition....

The only organization with which Unificationists had limited success was a small local Spiritualist group, led by the Rev. Louis Lusardi and Julian Levi. Lusardi and Levi came to Unificationist meetings regularly during 1961 and 1962, and Unification members, being amenable to contacting discarnate spirits, attended Lusardi and Levi’s weekly meetings, which took place in rented premises. There appear to have been tensions between the Unificationists and Spiritualists, however: UC members felt that Lusardi and Levi were more concerned to boost attendance at their own meetings than with studying the Principle; Lofland also hints that the pair may have been homosexual partners, and hence unlikely to have fitted in with the Unification Church....

As new religions progress, they occasionally gain acceptance into the mainstream fold, as happened with Seventh-day Adventism, and, even more strikingly, with the Worldwide Church of God. At the turn of the 21st century, however, Unificationism seems no more likely to gain recognition by mainstream Christians. Moon continues to use his own personal shaman,[15] and the movement’s spiritism seems to be given even greater emphasis. Soon Ae Hong - Sun Myung Moon’s late mother-in-law (known to members as Dae Mo Nim, or ‘revered mother’), who died in 1989 - has now become a cult figure and the focus of a sacred shrine at Chung Pyung, Korea, where a medium æ Mrs Hyo Nam Kim æ claims to be spiritually linked with her, and where members have recently been asked to undergo substantial periods of spiritual training...

Jesus and Muhammad allegedly proclaimed Moon as the saviour and messiah

You can't get much more Gnostic than that.

This is what Fr. Marek Bozek brought into a supposedly Roman Catholic Polish church in St. Louis.

Thanks to Susanna for ferreting out these links.

Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us!

FROM THE EMAILBOX:

Spirit & Life®
"The words I spoke to you are spirit and life." (Jn 6:63)

Human Life International e-Newsletter
Volume 03, Number 24 | Friday, June 13, 2008

.................................................................................. www.hli.org

Clergy Pledge of Assent to Humanae Vitae

Dear HLI friends and readers of Spirit and Life®,

I am happy to send you our "Clergy Pledge of Assent" to the papal encyclical Humanae vitae which we are trying to get into the hands of as many priests as possible this summer. I would personally appreciate if you could print out the version of it provided in this email and show it to priests, permanent deacons and seminarians and encourage them to sign it and send it to HLI. Note, first of all, that we have already sent this to our email list of priests who signed up for the "Humanae Vitae Priests" newsletter so there is no need for you to give it to those already on our list. However, you can encourage them to sign it online if that is easier! (See www.humanaevitaepriests.org.)

When I wrote to the clergy I told them that "it is HLI's desire and purpose to tell the world that we will not be silent about this encyclical or its teaching. Nor will we stand by idly when Pope Paul VI's predictions of cultural and spiritual degradation are manifesting themselves around us in broken marriages, devastated families and pernicious immorality." Whereas there was a whole generation of clerical silence and dissent to this most critical of all papal encyclicals, we will be the clerical generation of assent. We believe that the Catholic clergy has a large part to play in turning this situation around, and only a full promotion of the teachings of this encyclical by the clergy will be a force for change in our present culture of death.

We need you to help us get the word out to the clergy and seminarians. We are particularly interested in raising awareness of this campaign in the next month before the actual 40th anniversary of the encyclical (July 25th), but we will be collecting signatures of bishops, priests, deacons and seminarians for the whole year.

Oh, and by the way, be prepared for a Laity version of the Humanae vitae pledge to come your way too! We, the generation of assent to Humanae vitae, will let our voices be heard!

Sincerely Yours in Christ,

Rev. Thomas J. Euteneuer,
President, Human Life International