Tuesday, December 2, 2014

If Cardinal O’Malley Founded a Church…

by Luiz Sérgio Solimeo


A story has it that when Napoleon Bonaparte was at the height of his glory, a courtier proposed that he founded a church. The Emperor of the French is said to have answered, with a lot of common sense: “After Jesus Christ, in order to found a Church you need to carry a cross and die crucified on it, otherwise no one will take you seriously.”

True or not, this anecdote came to mind when I read an interview by Sean Cardinal O'Malley on CBS’s “60 Minutes” on November 16. [1]

In one of his answers to interviewer Norah O'Donnell, he said that, were he to found a church, it would admit the ordination of women priests.

Leaving aside for now the Cardinal’s surprising statement, it is of interest to note how nicely the liberal media treat churchmen friendly to it while continuing to attack the Church’s traditional doctrine and especially Her morals, thus taking full advantage of everything that can destroy the Church’s image in public opinion.
Indeed, according to today's liberal standards the Archbishop of Boston could not have been introduced in a more prestigious way:

“[A] shy Franciscan friar,” “[s]oft-spoken and unassuming”, “dressed in the brown habit of his Capuchin Franciscan order and not in a Cardinal's red robes,” “more inclined to conversation than condemnation,” “open, non-judgmental, given to simple living,” “a modest man,” “reluctant to put himself forward,” “humble, a true Franciscan,” “would rather be addressed as ‘Cardinal Seán,’ than ‘your Eminence.’” “[He sold] the palatial archbishop's residence and the 28 sprawling acres it sat on,” and “moved into the modest cathedral rectory.”

After lavishing such praise on the Cardinal, the CBS reporter – an alumna of Georgetown University – showed she is far from being a traditional Catholic.

As far as she is concerned, the Church is an old institution that has to be remade:

“At the heart of Pope Francis' revolution in the Catholic Church,” she says, “is a shy Franciscan friar, the pope's closest American advisor, Cardinal Sean O'Malley.” He is the one that “help[s] Francis remake an ancient institution.”

In what sense does the Church need to be “remade?”

Among other things, along the egalitarian line of the Voice of the Faithful movement (which had its moment in the sun in Boston years ago), she is indignant at the Church’s refusal to ordain women priests.

Referring to women, she says, “they can't preach,” “[t]hey can't administer the sacraments.” “[S]ome women feel like they're second-class Catholics,” and asks, “does the exclusion of women seem at all immoral?”

Non-ordination of women is supposedly unjust because it is not egalitarian:

“The sense of equality,” she says, “the sense of sort of the fairness of it” should allow the ordination of women.

And she adds:

“You wouldn't exclude someone based on race. But yet you do exclude people based on gender.”

It was facing this feminist onslaught that the Cardinal joshingly spoke about founding a church which, unlike the one founded by Jesus Christ, would ordain women priests.

First he sought to defend Church tradition by explaining that “the priesthood reflects the incarnation of Christ, who in his humanity is a man.” But facing the insistence of his interviewer, he formulated this sentence which is causing much scandal:

“[I]f I were founding a church, you know, I'd love to have women priests. But Christ founded it and what he has given us is something different.”

Though uttered jokingly, his statement is being interpreted by the media and by liberal Catholics in the sense that he personally disagrees with the way Our Lord instituted the priesthood in the Church.

Imprudence in this matter is to be lamented, above all when one bears in mind the infallible statements contained in the Apostolic Letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis of May 22, 1994:

“Although the teaching that priestly ordination is to be reserved to men alone has been preserved by the constant and universal Tradition of the Church and firmly taught by the Magisterium in its more recent documents, at the present time in some places it is nonetheless considered still open to debate, or the Church's judgment that women are not to be admitted to ordination is considered to have a merely disciplinary force.

Wherefore, in order that all doubt may be removed regarding a matter of great importance, a matter which pertains to the Church's divine constitution itself, in virtue of my ministry of confirming the brethren (cf. Lk 22:32) I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church's faithful.”[2]

Norah O'Donnell believes the opposite as she comments on the words of the Archbishop of Boston:

“But God is not afraid of change, as Pope Francis has told his bishops. And Cardinal O'Malley is thrilled with his old friend,” she says.

Yet, despite the liberal media and complacent ecclesiastics, the Church cannot change Her doctrine or the way She was instituted by Her Founder, Our Lord Jesus Christ.
______________________

1 http://www.cbsnews.com/news/cardinal-sean-omalley-works-with-pope-francis-to-reform-catholic-church/. Emphasis added throughout.
2 http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_letters/1994/documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_19940522_ordinatio-sacerdotalis_en.html. Emphasis added.

1 comment:

  1. All of God's Ways are based on Love, helping beings to love and to become more Loving. All people are called to lovingly and respectfully evangelize the message of Jesus Christ, so without being priests women can still do so much good work for God - there's enough to do without pushing for this change when other more pressing changes are desperately needed in our world. "The same thing that caused the first of God's creatures to rebel against Him continues to hold men and women in rebellion against Him today - PRIDE." When God created lucifer and he failed to love, then God created humanity lower than the angels but with the potential to become One with God - to learn to Love. Humanity still obviously needs to learn to be much more loving. Women who are pushing for female ordination in my opinion are failing to fully appreciate and embrace their role as Mother and nurturer of children and they just "want it all" - they are seeking power instead of humility and Love, without regard to how it will affect men, children or society as a whole - they're just being selfish and clearly falling short of the Love of God and the Love of women. Maybe when humanity and 'womanity' is able to truly embrace with love all pre-born babies coming into our world without allowing the 'no-holds-barred for all nine months without even pain relief in many cases up to 9 months' abortion of millions of God-sent precious purely loving babies per year, then maybe God would be willing to consider some changes to the Rules of the Catholic Church but until then there's nothing more important to do than to make the world a more loving place by being obedient to God and doing our best to be loving in whatever role we are given. If people are shocked by violence in the world today like the recent beheadings and other horrors seen via media coverage of conflicts in the middle east - it might be helpful to point out to them that they shouldn't be shocked because even worse things are being done legally to our preborn brothers and sisters in the womb during abortion. Every day in Canada there are on average 273 precious preborn babies being mercilessly killed and dismembered alive in utero - that is approximately 100,000 abortions annually - and there is no protection in Canada for a preborn baby for all 9 months - and there are millions of abortions annually in the US and around the world.
    If people want to stop violence in the world then it must be stopped in the womb first. When all pre-born children - ALL - are welcomed with open and loving arms as our only hope for the future - then we can start to create peace on earth and not a moment sooner.
    Every child starts at the moment of fertilization and is a precious, unique person - a gift of love from God that provides Mom, families and 'us' with an invaluable opportunity to Love. When pregnant there's nothing - simply nothing more important to do than to love and nurture the baby and give birth - nothing better in existence!!! No career matters more - everything else pales in comparison to the miracle of that baby, that precious human being sent by God with Divine Love and perfect timing exactly when that love is most needed to save our hearts/souls/lives. When our world becomes much more Loving, then we will all have much more fun and be fulfilled, including women who are now wanting to become priests!!!

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