Christopher Johnson, a non-Catholic who has taken up the cudgels for the Church so frequently that I have named him Defender of the Faith, has a warning for us:
Most people figured out a long time ago that the ultimate goal of the secular and Christian left in general and the Catholic left in particular is the Episcopalianization of the Roman Catholic Church. Hence the wild leftist enthusiasm for anything Pope Francis says that sounds like a signal that Rome might be backing away from some of its more objectionable (to the left) doctrines.
Toward that end, the National Catholic [HAW, HAW, HAW, HEE, HEE, HEE, OH MY GOD, STOP IT, MAN, I’M BEGGING YOU, YOU’RE KILLING ME HERE, HAW, HAW, HAW, HEE, HEE, HEE!!] Reporter lets a retired Episcopal minister named Warner White write a bunch of really stupid crap:
It was a slippery slope. Once I began to refer to the Holy Spirit in the feminine in my sermons and in the creed, certain results followed — slowly at first, but inevitably.
Why in the world did you start doing that, Warner? Because PATRIARCHY!!
“We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life.” I didn’t notice right away, but after a while, it sunk in. I was calling the Holy Spirit “Lord.” The Holy Spirit, I was saying, not only gives life and proceeds from the Father and the Son, she is “the Lord.” I was co-opting the word “Lord.” In my vocabulary — and that of anyone else who called her “Lord” — this previously masculine word was now including the feminine.
Okey-dokey.
Not too long after I began this new practice, I also retired as an Episcopal parish priest.
Warner, my man, and please pardon the use of the masculine there, you “retired” as a priest LONG before that.
I became a parishioner. I sat in pews. And I noticed how little difference in the patriarchal nature of our worship this change was making, even when we had a woman priest at the altar. The language and imagery remained overwhelmingly masculine.
Told you it was the PATRIARCHY!! Those bastards.
I also noticed that the priest and a lot of people around me were making “inclusive” language substitutions. When we gave thanks to the Lord our God we didn’t give “him” thanks anymore, we gave “our” thanks. Many people were now substituting “God’s kingdom” for “his kingdom,” and “God’s holy name” for “his holy name.”
Warner has two words of advice for people who do that. Sack up.
Ugh. I see this as timidity, evasion, a minuscule half-measure. Why evade the issue? Why not just use the feminine? I have been saying, “give her thanks,” “her kingdom,” “her holy name,” and the like. Whenever a reference is being made to God and it is not clearly a reference to the Father or the Son, I am using the feminine.
If Warner gets his way, that Father/Son stuff is on the way out.
I have slipped a long way down the slope. A feminine God is not only Lord, she is also King. And not only do I speak of the Spirit in the feminine, I now speak of God in the feminine about as often as in the masculine.
I have never read a better illustration of Episcopalian air-headedness than Warner provides here.
But as a priest, the daily office immerses me in the PATRIARCHY!! of the psalms. We can’t change the PATRIARCHY!! of our heritage. That’s how God has revealed herself to us over the centuries.
So God’s kind of a screw-up then?
So in reading Scripture, in seeking its meaning, I do not feel free to make changes in the text. But in my worship, I do feel free to do so. When I pray the psalms, it seems to me that I am free to make changes that express my heart.
Son of a…aw, skip it. You have to give Double W this much. Dude’s all-in.
So I have gone through the Prayer Book psalms and substituted feminine pronouns for masculine wherever the reference is not clearly to a specific male, such as David and Moses and Joseph.
Any male human being reading this can sit Christianity out since any manifestation of masculinity whatsoever gives Warner the vapors.
I call these committed psalms.
Because anybody stupid enough to read them ought to be?
They go the path of commission rather than the path of omission. Further, they require a commitment on the part of those who use them. We commit ourselves to a path of reparation, of repairing the relation of female and male in our life and worship. Similarly, this is committed language in contrast to inclusive language. This language is not inclusive; it overdoes the feminine on purpose. It is matriarchal language instead of patriarchal.
So basically, it’s totally dishonest. An absolute frickin’ lie. Yeah, great Christian witness there, Warner.
Catholics? Never EVER let down your guard.
Go here to read the comments. Leftism is a cancer wherever it takes hold. It perverts and destroys its host. In religion it transforms Christianity into dying shattered husks of denominations. Make no mistake: most Leftist Catholics know precisely what they are doing. For them the destruction of traditional Catholicism through embracing their ludicrous politics and economic superstitions is a feature not a bug.
There is a zany priest at St Pius X in Towson MD who substitutes for male pronouns in the Liturgy. He will not say “Through Him, With Him and in Him” and etcetera. It is already corrupting Catholic liturgy and the bishops do nothing.
“Leftism is a cancer whenever it takes hold.”
Divine Physician come!
Eradicate this disease now!
It is already corrupting Catholic liturgy and the bishops do nothing.
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It’s important that laity learn to accept parish mergers if they want better behavior from priests. Lax discipline is in part a function of manpower problems. There would be fewer such problems if there were not such a neuralgic response to closures. The problem you have is that the active laity are more attached to the building than to the liturgy.
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I was associated with one parish where about 30% of the laity dispersed to other parishes when their pastor was transferred elsewhere. The rule in that diocese is that pastors are appointed for six year terms, renewable once, though this is qualified if a pastor is over 70 upon the completion of his term as it is also policy not to transfer pastors over 70. Their 50-somthing pastor reached the end of his second term and was transferred to a more populous parish about 30 miles north. The parish was then added to the ambo of the administrator of a neighboring parish, who, per canon law, could say Mass only once or twice on a Sunday. This sort of thing happens when you have 4 or 5 priests retiring every year and only 1 or 2 newly ordained. It also happens when 80% of all baptized Catholics in a parish are anywhere but at Mass on Sunday. You could point out to the complainers that no other parish in the diocese gets a permanent pastor and that a parish with 200 attending in a typical week and a full-time pastor is staffed at twice the level of an ordinary parish, but people in that situation are commonly invested in not getting basic arithmetic.
Years ago, visiting Father Liberal Goofballus added untoward stuff to the Nicene Creed. I (loudly enough) said, “Where in Hell did he get that stuff?” The Warden was mortified.
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A sufficient number reported the abuses to the pastor and Father G never came back again.
I ran into that kind of nonsense when visiting my relatives in a diocese in Michigan. My aunt patiently explained to me that God is not male or female and that on the Cross Our Lord did not call out to His Father but said, “My parent, My parent”. You see? And especially the liberated ‘nuns’ would never use a male pronoun if they could help it.
But I thought all that dissenting garbage went away over the past few years and under Pope Benedict????
@Magdalene.
Before there was nuns on the bus, there was it’s prequel. “Snakes on a Plane.”
Obidence is a four letter word (x 2) for those nun’s that ARE above their vows. Habits? Never!
“… in seeking its meaning, I do not feel free to make changes in the text. But in my worship, I do …”
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Unbelievable.
The Katholyck Church in Amerika is already “Episcopalianized”. Priest give milk toast homilies that say nothing. Bishops ingratiate themselves with liberal politicians. So-called apologists excuse every liberal rant from that Peronist Pontiff, and embrace the ideology of social justice, the common good and peace at any price to the exclusion of the Gospel of Conversion and Repentence, death, judgment, heaven and hell. Real issues like sodomite marriage and murder of the pre-born and fornication and adultery and envy of the wealth that one’s neighbor has earned for himself are avoided as anathema. Frankly, the Katholyck Church and the Soviet Socialist Republik of Amerika disgust me.
I do notice though that there seems to be a swing toward more reverence at Mass. Yay! We have noticed the numbers of people dressed nicely for mass are increasing. The numbers of people receiving on the tongue are up! Today we sang “Holy God We Praise Thy Name” ! Father’s sermons are more and more thoughtful. We Catholics may have reached the point where we have seen enough of lemmings going over the cliff.
Don’t get mad at W. W., pray for him. He needs all the help he can get.
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Just like the rest of us.
As a lay person I have familiarized myself with our Liturgical Norms especially for the Mass. If a priest deviates from them I approach him and ask why. Then I call the Bishop and if that doesn’t get results I send an email/snail mail to Rome and ask for a response. I usually get one.
A priest does not have ‘leeway’ with these norms. They are there for very specific reasons and are a strong identifier for Catholics.
I was taught that the Blessed Mother is the Spouse of the H oly Spirit. Has that changed, too?
I agree with Paul Primavera. As Modernism crept into the Church faith in Jesus as the Son of God crept out. Instead of looking toward heaven and finding the means to get there, a large sector of the Church focused on the earth and how to make it a heavenly. Thus the Church became in large measure a Socialist Political organization with multiple Social Justice programs oftentimes paid for by the government. This has the effect of quieting any criticism the Church might have for actions taken that are repellent to those few Catholics who still take what Jesus said seriously. Now with Pope Francis it would appear that the Universalist Socialist Catholic Church is about to became official.
In 1886, a book called “Liberalism is a Sin” was written by Fr. Felix Sarda Salvany. My dad gave it to me many years ago, and I still haven’t read it. I can’t even imagine what was going on back then! I’m sure that priest is rolling in his grave now. I’m on Day 3 of a 54 Day Rosary Novena for the intentions of the sanctity of human life, marriage & the family. Hopefully, it will combat whatever negatives come out of the Synod on the Family in October. You can join in and keep track on romancatholicman.com
Pay close attention. Whenever in Scripture there is a story of a bad man or an evil man, the pronouns are NOT changed. Not to worry: think back over history to all the despots and all the regimes that tried to change human nature by simply saying eg white is not black or if you call a dog’s tail a leg it is then a leg. Think about all of AB Bern Cupich’s predecessors and mentors. Not to worry: they lose, Truth [yes cap “T”} wins as do all of us who have put on the full armor of God and faithfully wielded the sword of the spirit-the Word. The Soviet Union is no more-along with its attempted remake of human nature. The Berlin Wall is down. The City Of God will be the only City left standing. Hang in there like JC did for all of us. Guy McClung, San Antonio
Our pastor TRIED some of this left wing nonsense. Needless to say, I wrote him a two page letter, told him no more money for the “building fund” or the collection basket, called our bishop, went to a neighboring parish for weekday Mass (in case I needed a priest – ha!) talked to other parishioners, sat in the FRONT pew on Sunday, and told him I was praying for him. He has made some improvements.
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Sad that they’re discovering the pope is actually catholic…. My comment focuses on the “popes” making commentary here… Y’all appear to be happy about pointing out priests difficulties (and I’m no fan of changing the rubrics), but I ask: how many are supporting those priests who celebrate a good, holy mass & preach Christ & His Church.
HAHAHA. The anti-Catholic Church born during the Second Vatican Council is more atheistic than any of the other of the “churches” in human history. This man-centered, anti-Christ church of Baal is infected with the synthesis of heresies, Modernism, which is more potent and more damaging to souls than any of the historical heresies that man has devised, elevating himself above God. (Simply read the Modernist, anti-Catholic “pope” Francis encyclical on earth worship). There has never been such an widespread apostacy against the true religion, Catholicism, in the history of the Church.
There has never been in Church history more people worshipping the Devil than there are today, including the “popes” of the Modernist church who sold their souls to Satan and are Judases of the most profound degree.
The problem with “Catholics” in America is they have bought into the lie of Satan which is the very essence and ideology of the “modern church” where Satan rules with its diabolic and false “religious liberty”, Masonic/Protestant “ecumenism”, “the Catholic Church subsist’s in the Church of Christ”, the “seamless garment” where morality is relegated to individual conscience, as Christ is subservient to the “will of the people”.
Wake up. You have been deceived and are now tools of Satan.
Do you find that any of that rant Lanie makes converts to your position?
Anzylene: A ” swing for more reverence towards the Mass”? You mean the abomination of the New Order Mass? A Protestant/Masonic “mass” of elevating man to more importance than God? A “mass” that is nothing more than the capitulation of the Church to the heresies of Crammer/Luther? How can the Novus Ordo Mass, nothing more than the Protestantization of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass into nothing more than a meal, a supper of heretics reflect the truth of Christ?
Hi Lanie
We both know God’s ways are above our ways! Tho it may have been the intention of some to protestantize the Holy Mass, God’s intentions are not thwarted. (His Word does not return to Him void). His promises have not been negated and His sheep are still offered True Food.
The indoctrination of the Catholic into Americanism, or the rejection of the one, true religion of Catholicism, is one of the most insidious and relevant issues of all times.
Catholics in America have resolved to abandon the one, true faith in order to “get along” with the enemies of Christ, and have succeeded in abandoned God in the process. Most are more interested in serving the enemies of Christ than in serving the one, true God, and have become the enemies of Christ through their fideility to the enemies of Christ who hold the positions of leadership within what most assume to be the leadership of the Catholic Church in the U.S.. These apostates and anti-God prelates are subservient to the Satan. They have no faith, no fidelity to Christ, and are tools of Satan to deceive you and destroy your faith,
The USCCB is a tool of Satan. It funds Satanic and anti-Christ organizations. It has never supported the truths of Catholicism-the truths of God-and is a diabolical and faith-destroying organization that has Saul Alinskly, an atheistic, Communist as its “god.”
Oh the “rant”. The abomination of desolation. ‘God’s ways are above our ways” according to Anzylene. The destruction of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is not important to the Modernist, who somehow, has more knowledge, more grace, more insight, more “reverence”, more faith, more truth than the Apostles, the Doctors of the Church, the Fathers of the Church, the Saints, and the holy and orthodox popes of the past.
Anzylene, if you are so certain in your belief that a Protestantized Mass makes no difference to the truth which is the Catholic religion, simply read the online book: http:/www.catholicinfo.com/TheGreat Sacrilege.CI.pdf
Mr. McCleary: Whether or not my “rants” make converts to the position of the truth of Catholicism makes no difference. The truth is what it is. Those who reject the truth will always find themselves as outsiders and eventually, recipients of the the judgement of Christ.
Goodness! I am Not saying the new mass has not made a difference. I am saying that the Sacrament is valid.
“makes no difference.”
Of course it makes a difference. Your rant makes you look like a nut and lessens the chances of anyone, other than the people who already agree with you, taking you seriously. Saint Paul did not preach in such a way, the greatest evangelist of the Church, and he started a process which has converted a third of humanity to Christ. You simply are wasting your time while making Catholicism appear repulsive and crazy. Go about your business in venues other than this blog.
Isaiah 55:8 – 13
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there until they have watered the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and succeed in the thing for which I sent it. For you shall go out in joy, and be led back in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall burst into song, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress; instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle; and it shall be to the Lord for a memorial, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.
‘So I have gone through the Prayer Book psalms and substituted feminine pronouns for masculine wherever the reference is not clearly to a specific male, such as David and Moses and Joseph.
“Any male human being reading this can sit Christianity out since any manifestation of masculinity whatsoever gives Warner the vapors.”
I call these committed psalms. ‘
The comedy from 1977, “High Anxiety”, which satirizes the field of psychology, more its practitioners, could be rewritten for this subject matter. Inspiration and creativity these days produce remakes of originals. There is a host of material for a tragicomic production.
Mr. McClarey: I apologize for my crazy rants because unlike St. Paul, who had the advantage of speaking to people who actually wanted to hear the truth, today people can’t stand to hear it.
I am crazy. Crazy about my Lord and my God. Crazy about defending His Truth. Crazy sad that the deceits of Satan have crept into His Church and they are defended by the sheep being led by false prophets.
Go lanie go. I was just reading that St. Augustine said that anger and courage are part of the virtue of hope. It is OK to be angry about what is happening in the Church today and for the last 50 years in particular. I guess it’s a matter of prudence when and how you show your anger as well as your courage. Let us all pray for guidance in this regard.
“I am crazy.”
You should have stopped there Lanie.
I too have noticed that along with their unwillingness to refer to Satan and her devils as “she”. Those people aren’t opponents of sexism, they simply want to impose their own idiosyncratic, ungodly sexism.
Wonder why he hasn’t followed St. Paul’s fervent wish re certain opponents and neutered himself. Is it not true that, if a male exists, that for that person to exist, there was at a certain point, a female involved, and vice-versa? So, you can’t have a patriarch, without a matriarch. Moreover, re ‘sexist’ language, is not “man” used in the sense of all humanity, an elision or slurring over of the initial syllable of “human”? Golly, I’m genius for figgering out that!
BTW, foregoing comments in ref to original post re sexist language, not ongoing exchange.
BTW, who is the Civil War worthy you used as an icon?
Rosecrans
Oh, thought it was Guildenstern. But he’s dead.
He caught a ball at Stones River.
“He caught a ball at Stones River.”
I assume that was a cannonball and not a fly ball. 😛
In England the Anglican church answers to the British P.M. and then to the Queen. The Bishop of Canterbury has no authority and has to answer to the Government and the Queen who is the Supreme Governor of the Church. This has been the law of the land since Elizabeth I became Queen.. Henry VIII made himself supreme ruler which did not go over well with the Catholic England and they refused to convert but when Elizabeth changed the wording which implies she has less authority they joined the church of England. Also if they refused they were drawn and quartered. A former Anglican Bishop who is now a devout Catholic spilled the beans on the protocol of the Anglican church. The Bishop of Canterbury cannot do nothing unless it is approved by British Parliament. That is why they caved in the ordination of women and women bishops. And why they caved when they were told to allow openly gay men in the priesthood marry their same sex partner. Many Anglicans are leaving and joining the Catholic church over this and now the two female bishops are really pushing for change in the wording of the Book of Common Prayer to include God as a feminine God and not a male God. Instead of the Our Father to Our Mother who are art in Heaven. They also want to change the sign of the Cross to more exclusive language. This is the worse heresy perpetuated on a religion and many people are falling for it.
This is straight up diabolic. My prayer is that God will clean house and send these anti-Christs packing.
Why get so angry. I used to be so upset every time I went to mass because I never knew what I was going to get. Maybe a priest that was changing the words of consecration and making the mass invalid or maybe one making jokes from the altar and calling Gad she. I was fed up so I decided not be angry anymore and went to another parish the first one established by Saint John Paul II to receive the Anglican clergy that wanted to become Catholic and be priests. Praise be to God! I found this parish. I came home to a wonderful Liturgy full of reverence and beautiful prayers. No girls in the Sanctuary only boys acolytes and beautiful organ music. We kneel for communion. Father hears confession not just one hour a week but every Saturday morning until everyone has gone to confession. The place: Our Lady of the Atonement in San Antonio, TX. So beautiful it is that the nuns from Mother Angelica have established a Daughter convent attached to our parish.
So now I do not worry about who is going to say mass and what are they going to do or say. Our priest has been here since 1983. We have a beautiful school and many vocations have come out of it.
I tell you that the laity has more power that we think. If you are not satisfied of see irregularities in your parish and the bishop has no responded to your requests contact and organization that deals with this issues. I think that is called St Joseph something, I can’t remember. Maybe someone knows. They are cannon lawyers that help parishes and parishioners with this kind of problems. If you want to see our beautiful Liturgy go to Atonementonline.com.