Miami bans Legionaries of Christ & Regnum Christi

Another archdiocese driven to solitary action. Archbishop Favalora of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Miami has banned Legionaries of Christ (LC) and Regnum Christi (RC).

Thomas Peters reports:

Sources close to the situation tell me that this decision took place on Wednesday of this week, and that it was prompted largely by the letters of parents concerned that their children were being approached by members of Regnum Christi without parental consent and knowledge. These episodes, it was claimed, had mostly taken place in an affluent Archdiocese of Miami parish and school.

The notice on the Archdiocese of Miami Web site said:

Disclaimer

The Legionaries of Christ are prohibited from functioning in the Archdiocese of Miami. Furthermore, Regnum Christi – a group of lay Catholics related to the Legionaries of Christ – is not and has never been approved by Archbishop Favalora to work in any parish, school or other Archdiocesan entity.

Unauthorized attempts to recruit young people are a continuation of the cult-like behavior which is the hallmark of LC/DC. Related behaviors have led one U.S. archdiocese after another to ban or restrict LC and/or DC.

John Allen of the National Catholic Review and Peters of American Papist together suggest that nine of the U.S. 32 Roman Catholic archdioceses have either banned or restricted LC and/or RC.

They are:

• Baltimore, MD.
• Baton Rouge,LA.
• Columbus, OH.
• Fort Wayne-South Bend, IN.
• Los Angeles, CA.
• Miami, FL.
• Richmond, VA.
• Seattle, WA.
• St. Paul and Minneapolis, MINN.

Provinces and dioceses of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States

LC is the subject of an investigation, called an “apostolic visitation,” is being conducted by Basque Bishop Ricardo Blazquez in Spain and by Archbishop of Denver Charles Chaput in the United States. The order was founded by Marcial Maciel, who fathered several children, and it is clear that Legion of Christ superiors knew about the children at least 15 years ago. He also abused young seminarians over whom he had authority.

Vatican intervention was belated and reluctant although certainly appropriate. It is, however, so slow to action that archbishops are being driven, one-by-one, to individual measures. None of which will substitute, of course, for an overarching solution, like dissolution or refounding of LC/RC.

U.S. Catholic/Episcopal reunification rush?

Cardinal Francis E. George of Chicago, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops says the American Church “stands ready to collaborate” with the Vatican in implementing a historic new provision to receive Anglicans into the Catholic Church.

Collaborate?

In theory there could be a lot to do.

There are over two million Episcopalians in the U.S.

But even among the most conservative, as we noted earlier, reactions to this British-led initiative have thus far been, well, cool.

Meanwhile, some of the Catholic bishops, like their sex-scandal distracted Irish peers, have sexual predation bankruptcies and like legal and other clerical predation entanglements to attend to, as U.S. Episcopalians look on, from a distance. As they have been for the quarter of a century since the scandal erupted into public view [H/T Get Religion].

Ordination as an Episcopal bishop of openly gay, non-celibate Gene Robinson, acceptance of women as priests, acceptance of same-sex unions and other issues seem unlikely to be enough to push a great many into the Roman Catholic fold.

No reunification rush in prospect.

Bishop Williamson/SSPX conflagration may roar back to life [Addendum]

“The Vatican was warned about the Holocaust-denying views of SSPX Bishop Richard Willamson before it lifted his excommunication,” wrote Damian Thompson today. And the world is going to hear all about it. Wednesday night Sveriges Television AB will broadcast “an attack on the Holy Father” which covers what the Vatican knew about Williamson prior to the move toward rapprochement with Society of St. Pius X.

According to Carlos Antonio Palad, the promotion for the almost inevitably explosive program says:

Last winter the Catholic Church was shaken by the interview made by Uppdrag granskning with Bishop Richard Williamson. The Pope and the cardinals in charge assured the world that they had not known about the interview, but this is not true.

Swedish Bishop Arborelius: “From our side we passed the information on. That is so to say the usual way of doing it, the local church passes important news about the Church on to the papal representation.”

What did the Vatican know about the Holocaust-denying bishop?

None of this is going to leave the until recently somewhat reassured international Jewish community or not altogether mollified U.S. Bishops awash with good cheer. Nor will it smooth launch of the first round of discussions between the representatives of the Holy See and SSPX.

Exercising his gift for wry understatement, Thompson writes:

Anyway, now that Rorate Caeli has drawn attention to the documentary, you can rest assured that the Pope’s enemies and critics will get to work again. I’ll be interested to see what The Times [of London] makes of it. One request: this time, could the Vatican press office get its act together?

Answer [not from the Vatican]: Probably not.

Addendum: SSPX/Vatican talks set for mid-October

Vatican Spokesman Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi said recently that the Holy See will hold talks with the Society of St. Pius X during the last two weeks of October.

He also said that “the SSPX will be told very clearly what is not negotiable for the Holy See. This includes such fundamental conclusions of the Second Vatican Council as its positions on Judaism, other non-Christian religions, other Christian churches and on religious freedom as a basic human right.”

Those “fundamental conclusions” are of central public importance, for as you may recall, the furor which ensued in March after Pope Benedict XVI lifted the excommunications of four Lefebvrite bishops, drove Vatican-Jewish relations almost to the breaking point.

Legionaries to be dissolved or refounded

Sources in Spain say Rome’s investigation into the Legionaries of Christ will result in either the dissolution or the re-founding of the order. There is apparently a disagreement between the Americans and the Spaniards over which course to take and whether to keep any of the order’s current leaders.

Roman Catholic journalist Austen Ivereigh writes for the Jesuit magazine America:

According to a former Legionary quoted by the Spanish religious journalist Jose Vidal, the ordinary priests and members of Regnum Christi, want a root-and-branch reform –if necessary, by means of a dissolution — in order to give a new institute a fighting chance. But the order’s leaders are fighting a defensive rearguard action, arguing that they knew nothing of the double life led by Maciel, and were therefore neither accomplices in his abuses nor did they attempt to cover them up.

The investigation, called an “apostolic visitation,” is being conduded by Basque Bishop Ricardo Blazquez in Spain and by Archbishop of Denver Charles Chaput in the United States.

Current leadership is in apparent denial about the full scope of Marcial Maciel’s offenses, is “aware that no order has ever survived the repudiation of its founder” and with actions like a recent letter to the Legionaries lay organization Regnum Christi is fighting to stay in power.

The denialist strain still evident in their actions affirms that “the current Mexican leadership of the Legionaries is not up to the challenge of dissociating the organisation from the sexual and financial wrongdoings of the founder.”

‘Subtle racism’ deters black Catholic leadership

Bishop J. Terry Steib

Catholic blogger Rocco Palmo greeted the remarks more favorably than many did former President Jimmy Carter’s declaration that President Barack Obama is besieged by racism. Note that other Catholic disagreement we found was civil in this important, widely overlooked moment in our long national debate over “racism” and its effects.

Black Catholic Bishop J. Terry Steib of the Diocese of Memphis reflected Saturday on the “subtle racism” which had resulted in “a relative dearth of black Catholic leadership” in 1984, when Black Catholic bishops issued their own pastoral letter: What We Have Seen and Heard [.pdf].

Keynote speaker at a symposium marking the silver jubilee of the landmark 1984 letter, he also said that despite a quarter of a century’s progress, that same racism recently caused a furor in Catholic circles over Notre Dame University’s award of an honorary degree to President Barack Obama. He told the audience at Philadelphia’s St. Raymond Church that other presidents have had disagreements with the positions of the Catholic Church in in war policies and capital punishment and the like, but have received honorary degrees without similar objection. That racism, he said, is doing the church ongoing harm.

Lou Baldwin of the Catholic Standard Times wrote:

It is the subtle racism that still exists which contributes to the lack of priestly vocations among young black men because “it leads to a mistrust of the Church among young black men and women,” he said. “Let’s acknowledge that.”
On the other hand, the African-American community “has contributed to some of the difficulties they are facing,” Bishop Steib said, quoting Obama on the collapse of the two-parent family in the black community and the failure of many black men to live up to responsibilities to their children.

The pastoral letter being celebrated dealt less with the effects of Catholic racism than with the special gifts, culture, and values shared African American Catholics bring to their church and their path in the faith.

Yet there was no possibility of omitting racism from the discussion while also being honest for racism an overarching characteristic of American life, not of denomination.

Speaking into the gale of uproar of Obama’s school speech black Southern Baptist pastor Dwight McKissic did not flinch from it either. Bob Allen of the Associated Baptist Press summarized McKissic’s view:

“Whenever a black man ascends to prominence and power, the political establishment tries to demonize that person,” McKissic said. He quoted the late Jerry Falwell, who in 1961 questioned “left-wing associations” of Martin Luther King. “They were accusing him of being a communist and a socialist like they accuse Barack Obama of being a communist and socialist.” … McKissic said many white preachers want God to judge America for abortion and gay marriage. McKissic said he feels strongly on both of those issues but believes that racism is also a sin, and God must judge America for that sin as well.

Obama settled the health-care/abortion issue (you may have missed it)

An unfazed President Barack Obama laid down the law on the role of abortion in health-care reform, immediately after S.C. Rep. Joe Wilson’s factually wrong and possibly censurable “lie” outburst.

There will be no federal funding of abortions or abolition of conscience laws.

From the transcript of Obama’s presentation:

THE PRESIDENT: … There are also those who claim that our reform efforts would insure illegal immigrants. This, too, is false. The reforms — the reforms I’m proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: You lie! (Boos.)

THE PRESIDENT: It’s not true. And one more misunderstanding I want to clear up — under our plan, no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions, and federal conscience laws will remain in place.
(Applause.)

Convoluted struggle over the issue will continue, as pro-life blogger Jill Stanek demonstrated today with her argument that Obama is merely attempting to create a myth. That view isn’t taking hold. Two big Catholic health care organizations were persuaded by Obama’s speech, as was the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Judging from the CNN poll and the Democracy Corps dial testing, so were Americans in general.

Addendum:

It is rare indeed for GetReligion to err, but they drifted away from the dock when suggesting President Obama said or implied that pro-life/anti-abortion advocates were spreading lies. Obama’s entire statement on that subject is excerpted above. He spoke of “misunderstanding.”

Saving African children from witchcraft

Pope Benedict XVI’s stand in Angola against witchcraft promises life to imperiled children on a content where belief that it is real and demonic frequently results in the torture of children.

The National Catholic Reporter said:

In Angola, children suffering from diseases such as malaria and AIDS, or street children, are sometimes accused of practicing witchcraft and subjected to abuse. In 2006, a three-year-old HIV-positive child was suspected of placing a curse on his parents, so neighbors abandoned the child in a coop, where chickens pecked out one of his eyes. Between 2001 and 2005, 423 children accused of witchcraft sought refuge at the Santa Child Centre run by the Catholic Church in M’banza Congo, the capital of Zaire Province, on the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The problem is pervasive, well-documented and horrific, as the New York Times reported:

In parts of Angola, Congo and the Congo Republic, thousands of children are accused of witchcraft and are cast out of their homes, blinded or killed . . . The latest human rights report for Angola by the United States State Department says that children accused of witchcraft suffer abuses such as “the denial of food and water, or ritualistic cuttings and the placing of various caustic oils or peppers on their eyes or ears.”

Speaking to 1,500 Angolan clergy and laypeople at Luanda’s Sao Paulo church, Pope Benedict XVI placed the Catholic Church in peaceful but implacable opposition to the blight, urging all to “offer the message of Christ to the many who live in the fear of spirits, of evil powers.”

If somewhat besieged for other reasons, the Pope struck exactly the right note on this one.

.

Pope admits mistakes regarding Holocaust-denier, maps path forward

Pope Benedict XVI in a letter to be released Thursday admits mistakes in handling lifting of excommunication from four Society of St Pius X bishops, among them holocaust-denier Richard Williamson.

The Vatican’s path forward includes paying more attention to how news spreads over the internet. After all, there had long been ample information on the Web documenting Williamson’s incendiary holocaust-denying stands.

From a full translation of the letter by Chris Gillibrand at Cathcon we read:

Several groups, however, accused the pope of wanting to return to the time before the Council and an avalanche of protests began to move, which made bitter injuries visible and this could be seen immediately. So I am under an obligation to you, dear brethren, to provide a clarifying word, which should help to understand the intentions, which I and the competent organs of the Holy See have been following with this step. I hope in this way to promote peace in the church.

One for me unpredictable mishap was that the lifting of the excommunication was overtaken by the Williamson case. The quiet gesture of mercy to four validly but not legally consecrated bishops appeared suddenly as something quite different: as a rejection of Christian-Jewish reconciliation and the withdrawal of what the Council in this matter has declared as the way of the Church.

An invitation to reconciliation with a separated Church grouping became the reverse: an apparent return from all the steps forward in the reconciliation of Christians and Jews, which had gone on since the Council and whose achievement had been from the start a goal of my theological work.

Thursday, when the full text of the Pope’s letter is issued, he is to resume a Jewish/Catholic dialogue suspended by the Israeli side because of Williamson. He is receiving a delegation of Israeli rabbis.

In some regards, timing is everything, even for the Pope.

Re-Excommunicate Holocaust-denying Bishop Williamson?

When Cardinal Roger M. Mahony of Los Angeles banned the Holocaust-denying Bishop Richard Williamson from Archdiocese of Los Angeles churches, he went a step beyond the Vatican. A long step. He said:

Holocaust deniers like Williamson will find no sympathetic ear or place of refuge in the Catholic Church, of which he is not — and may never become — a member.

Mark Silk at SpiritualPolitics observes:

Without criticizing the pope, [Mahony has] seized on Williamson’s Holocaust foot-dragging to take the next step and send him back into outer darkness. It will be interesting to see if any of his peers follow his lead.

Most importantly, what plans does the Pope Benedict XVI have now?

‘Muscular Christianity’ takedown

Critical reservations about our positive reviews of Muscular Christianity came to us by way of this Saturday Night Live Hans & Franz lampoon.