Friday, November 2, 2012

Priest and Ex-Priest Confuse Catholics: Vortex

Fr. Thomas Rosica
In today's (Nov. 2) episode of the Vortex (embedded below), Michael Voris explains just how far astray a Canadian priest, Fr. Thomas Rosica, has gone in interviewing defrocked ex-priest Gregory Baum on his TV show. In the process, he says a lot of things that bear repeating, or contemplating.  (The full script is here; a related article is here; and here is a 2005 article on Gregory Baum, who "has done more to help destroy the Church in Canada than any other person"; and here’s a recent LifeSiteNews article on the same interview Voris discusses here.)

Voris explains:

[I] n addition to having an excommunicated priest as his guest without ever informing the audience of that little fact, [Fr. Rosica] publically praises his guest, Gregory Baum, for his love of the Church and Christ…

…From high atop his perch over a rapidly declining and shrinking Church in Canada (think the crow’s nest on the Titanic) Fr. Rosica not only confuses the faithful by praising and lauding a former priest who thinks homosexual marriage is okay, birth control is fine, and the good Lord knows what else, he lashes out at faithful Catholics – the orthodox crowd – as he opens up a line of discussion with his excommunicate buddy…

Here is inserted a clip of the show, wherein Fr. Rosica says,

In the midst of great theological search [of Vatican II], was a deep and profound joy…and John XXIII invited that. And it’s interesting that many of those who are on the front lines, the crusaders, of the orthodoxy today – I would call it a pseudo orthodoxy – are among the most unhappy and sad and angry that I’ve ever met.

Voris responds:

Well, Fr. Rosica, first of all, we may not be all jolly and kumbaya at the destruction that you and your ilk have helped promote, but whatever may be said of the orthodox crowd, you cannot say that we are excommunicated – like that former priest sitting across from you in the interview. Better to be grumpy and upset with grace, than blissfully promoting evil and be excommunicated.

And by the way, in case it has never occurred to you, the reason one finds such anger – and it’s righteous anger – among so many faithful Catholics, is in REACTION to the damage that has been done to their loved ones in this life and quite possibly for eternity in the next, precisely because of the writings and lack of faithfulness on the part of men you are praising.

My sentiments exactly! I’ve been called “bitter” and “angry”, too. Well…yeah! There is some weakness to that – a failure to trust God completely that His Church will prevail, for instance, and a failure to remember to rejoice at all times in our salvation  – but there’s also, as Voris says, some righteous anger. Jesus did, after all, turn over the tables of the moneychangers in the temple!

Gregory Baum
It’s hard not to be angry when one stops to think about what has happened to our Catholic identity in the half-century since Vatican II commenced. And it’s hard not to be a bit disillusioned when one comes to find out that there was an intentionality to some of those detrimental changes, and that the intentions were fulfilled in what we see happening in the Church today. The fact that a priest like Gregory Baum could be praised by another priest who is ostensibly in “good standing” with the Church is ludicrous, but it is precisely an outcome of some of the wishy-washy language in and intentional misinterpretation of part of the documents of Vatican II.

Michael Voris concludes:

At this very moment, Gregory Baum is outside the community of the Church, unable to faithfully receive the sacraments – most especially the Body and Blood of Our Blessed Lord. Shouldn’t Fr. Rosica’s first and only concern be for the soul of this nearly 90 year man? Shouldn’t he be assisting him in coming back into the faith not taking a stroll down memory lane of his time at the Second Vatican Council? His time at the Second Vatican Council won’t mean a thing if he loses salvation.

And see, here is the difference, at the end of the day, between Orthodox Catholics and all the rest: Orthodox Catholics take Jesus and the Apostles at their word when they say there is a Hell and you can go there. All the non-Orthodox Catholics seem to want to dent, sidestep, downplay or ignore that.

What on earth do they think the role of the Church is in the first place? So keep calling us names and poking fun and accusing us of lacking joy as we look over the devastated vineyard…and we’ll just keep on keeping on.

Here’s the Vortex episode:

3 comments:

  1. Once again Michael Voris FIRES UP and speaks the TRUTH ....and doesn't just pierce your heart that Father R would sit down with a excommunicated priest and just have a heart filled and joy filled conversation! PRAY, PRAY, PRAY ...it is going to get much darker before THE LIGHT returns! That's my take on all this !

    ReplyDelete
  2. We have to be careful not to give in to constant criticism of our Priests. Not one word anywhere here about praying for Fr. Rosica. We need to PRAY FOR OUR PRIESTS, ALL OF THEM. Below is from the writings of St. Catherine of Siena “Mystical Body of Holy Church,” pages 216-220.

    And if you should ask me why I said that this sin of those who persecute holy Church is grave than any other sin, and why it is my will that the sins of the clergy should not lessen your reverence for them, this is how I would answer you: Because the reverence you pay to them is not actually paid to them, but to me, in virtue of the blood I have entrusted to their ministry.

    So the reverence belongs not to the ministers, but to me … and just as the reverence is done to me, so also is the irreverence, for I have already told you that you must not reverence them for themselves but for the authority I have entrusted to them.

    For this reason, no one has excuse to say, “I am doing no harm, nor am I rebelling against holy Church. I am simply acting against the sins of evil pastors.” Such persons are deluded, blinded as they are by their own selfishness. To me redounds every assault they make on my ministers: derision, slander, disgrace, abuse. Whatever is done to them I count as done to me. For I have said, and I say it again: No one is to touch my christs. It is my right to punish them, and no one else’s.

    Therefore, I will tell you, if all the other sins these people have committed were put on one side and the one sin on the other, this one would weigh more in my sight than all the others. I have shown you this so that you would have more reason to grieve that I am offended and these wretched souls damned, so that the bitter sorrow of you and my other servants, by my kind mercy, might dissolve the great darkness that has come over these rotten members who are cut off from the mystic body of holy Church.

    O dearest daughter, grieve without measure at the sight of such wretched blindness in those who have been washed in the blood, and have been nourished with this blood at the breast of holy Church! Now like rebels they have pulled away from that breast out of fear and under the pretext of correcting the faults of my ministers -- something I have forbidden them to do, for I do not want my anointed ones touched by them. What terror should come over you and my other servants when you hear any mention of that wretched chain of theirs! Your tongue could never describe how hateful it is to me!

    ReplyDelete
  3. I certainly agree that we need to pray for all priests, good, bad, or indifferent. Bishops, too. And I do so. I will try to remember to include that reminder when reporting on these types of stories. I do think it is important to "call out" the priests who are doing outrageous things, because it often seems that their bishops won't, and damage is done to the souls of the laity.

    ReplyDelete

Please be courteous and concise.