Many religious orders are dying because they have ceased to be Catholic. Let them die, and the sooner the better.
Franciscans Who Know Not Francis
Donald R. McClarey
Cradle Catholic. Active in the pro-life movement since 1973. Father of three, one in Heaven, and happily married for 41 years. Small town lawyer and amateur historian. Former president of the board of directors of the local crisis pregnancy center for a decade.
I wonder whether the one Franciscan Order includes the Franciscans of the Renewal, the order founded by Fr. Groeschel. If so, I’m sure he would be apalled.
Dr K, this also raises the same concern regarding the MFVA order founded by Mother Angelica.
There are only two ways that all may become one.
All must assent to the Truth that is the Word of God, or all must agree to have an evolving truth continually “renewed and refreshed.”
So if it is true, what is the need for change? Thus the lie, and its father, are exposed.
Founded in October 2023, the Province of Our Lady of Guadalupe was formed from friars coming together from six legacy provinces, which are part of the long history of the Order of Friars Minor in the United States: Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Holy Name, Our Lady of Guadalupe, Sacred Heart, St. Barbara and St. John the Baptist.
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I believe these are all Conventual provinces. I don’t believe this new province includes all of the Conventual provinces in the country.
Fr. Groschel’s is a Capuchin order.
Actually, the former six US provinces are the major order OFM, not the Conventuals or Capuchins.
St Barbara Province, for example, founded in the West with HQ’s [formerly] at Santa Barbara Mission, was founded in 1915 when it was split off from the older Mexican Zacateca Province (whose person religious have been exiled from Mexico after the rebellion against Emperor Maximilian).
The other OFM provinces have a similar US history.
Many here at TAC know the free-fall of the major order OFM Franciscans in the US, of course, goes back to right after Vatican 2 (based on an interpretation of N. 12 Perfectae Caritatis, calling for “psychological and emotional maturity”)when they invited Carl Rogers and his associates to conduct sensitivity sessions among all their personnel.
As a longtime supporter of the Western Franciscan Saint Barbara province, I was appalled when their provincial Fr. David Gaa, OFM, in June, 2020 during the “Summer of Love,” blamed “white privilege”for the problems in the US and the Church— this, although the Saint Barbara province has a very significant number of us members who are Latino or Asian.
https://casafranciscanaoutreach.org/our-role-in-injustice/
I think it is clear that they are the Catholic church religious order version of Anheuser Busch.
Painful reading for any sentient Catholic.
A Franciscan bulletin from May of this year:
“For the 6 provinces in the United States that will merge in October of 2023, there are 6 postulants, 4 novices, and 13 temporary professed.”
Only 4 novices, mind you— obviously postulants are not a firm commitment.
And this is from a US religious order in the 1960s that had annual novitiate classes ranging from 12 to 20, most of whom, a now-deceased Franciscan friend told me, stayed, because like a military regiment, they also had a firm fraternal commitment to each other —and which each province regularly ordained an average of 10 or more priests per year.
But will they examine seriously their astonishing record of failure and decline?
Ha.
Carl Rogers emptied 80% of Catholic Convents and seminaries. The Catholics needs good priests.
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I am a Third Order Franciscan (TOF) as opposed to a Secular Franciscan (OFS). We are under the authority and guidance of the Immaculate Conception Province of the OFM, which is the only US Province which objected to consolidating all provinces of the OFM.
My fraternity and two others in our part of NE Ohio left the OFS because it was becoming too political and leftist. They supported an organization which was in defiance of Church teaching and used the money from our annual dues to do so. We did this with the approval of our Spiritual Director, who is a member of the Immaculate Conception Province of the OFM.
Instead of being under lay leadership, we are under faithful OFM leadership, and we couldn’t be happier.
My good St. Francis loved all Creation, but ecology and secular politics ran a very distant second in his life. He was the most loyal, faithful, and obedient son of the Church, and lived his life for the Glory of God and His Church. He risked his life to walk with a Franciscan brother, unarmed, into a war zone in order to convert the Muslim sultan and his forces and thus bring peace to the Middle East. He did not succeed, but the sultan was so impressed with his great faith in Jesus that, to this day, Franciscans are the custodians of the Christian holy sites in the Holy Land.