PN'S CATHOLIC DIOCESE: ''A LEAKY BOAT' DRIFTING TOWARDS AN EVIL PORT

To comment please open your gmail account. Thank you.

SIX MEN IN A LEAKY BOAT

DAVID MULLINS

Diocese of Palmerston North 

A CRITIQUE

I guess it’s because David Mullins is employed by the Catholic Church that in this opinion piece posted on the PN Diocese website he prevaricates just a little bit.

Mullins refers tactfully to “sexual abuse among priests”, but not to homosexuality, and not among bishops.  “Cover-ups", he says, "allowed this behaviour to continue”. Cover-ups, that is, by bishops and cardinals.

“Lay people in NZ,” he says, “don’t know what to think”.

That’s because we don’t know what to believe. We haven't been formed in the faith,so we're deprived of that personal relationship with Jesus Christ which rightly informs thought and belief.

“Proud to be Catholic?”  asks Mullins.  

No, I’m not ‘proud’ to be Catholic. I’m profoundly grateful to be Catholic.

Mullins laments a “failure of personal integrity, hierarchy, governance”, which in reality is a failure to pray and consequently failure to love.

He advises that “the way forward is a radical reshaping of Church governance.” 

The way forward is the same as ever: the way Christ tells us is strait and narrow: the radical (back to the roots) way of the Gospel, Tradition and the Magisterium.

“The bishops and clergy (who) hold the major governance strings” have evidently forgotten – if they ever knew – how to pray contemplatively. If they were contemplatives they'd be equipped to listen and relate to the young people at the forthcoming Youth Synod (who, incidentally, will be addressed by the homosexualist Jesuit Fr James Martin) and be competent to address their issues. But because clergy don’t know how to pray and preach, young people have by and large deserted the Church. Young people who are mainly unchurched, but who get drafted for Synods and World Youth Days for a bit of OE, are in no position to make decisions influencing the future of the Church.

If the clergy were faithful to the Gospel, to Tradition and the Magisterium, young people would automatically be represented in 'governance', as priests - as we see in vocations to traditional Orders like the FSSP.

“Should the Synods of Bishops be reframed as Synods of the Church?’ Mullins suggests  moving the chairs on the deck.

‘A diverse range of people acting in a range of positions in real governance’ would certainly make a difference - a disastrous difference. What faith formation would be expected of this ‘diverse range of people’ before they’re given ‘real canonical clout’?

‘Ordination is ordination for service’, yes. It’s also ordination to nourish the Church with the word and grace of God in the name of Christ (CCC). That’s exactly what hasn’t been done. That’s why the ‘Church is dying’ (to quote my parish priest, Fr Paul Kerridge, in a recent Sunday ‘homily’). The Church is dying of starvation because the clergy have failed to nourish her with the word and grace of God.

So “the Australian Royal Commission in institutional child sexual abuse” says that the Australian Catholic Bishops should conduct a review of its governance and management structures including ‘issues of accountability, transparency, consultation and the participation of lay men and women' - and the Australian Conference of Bishops and Religious rolled over and accepted that recommendation.

Ahem. The Australian Royal Commission, no matter how highly powered and highly paid, could fairly be described as worldly people, devoid of the Spirit, causing divisions (Jude 19). The Catholic Church doesn’t need the Australian Royal Commission to tell us how to run the affairs of the Spirit: the Church needs Christ. She needs the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

And don’t get me started on Fr Thomas Rosica. Father Rosica is a creep. His hero is the arch-heretic ex-priest Fr Gregory Baum RIP (we may hope and pray). Rosica, a homosexualist just like Fr Martin (who was on the playlist at the last NZ Bishops’ Conference), told the Synod on the Family in 2015 that there is a sexual nature to the Eucharist. 

And then  this heretic gets appointed to run a week long retreat for parish priests. No wonder the American Church has gone rotten. In aftertimes there should be false teachers, scoffing and ridiculing all revealed truths, abandoning themselves to their passions and lusts, who separate themselves from the Catholic community by heresies and schisms (Douay Rheims).

Mullin quotes Rosica as saying: “Diabolical works are about monologue. The works of the Spirit are about dialogue.”

Que? Really? “The whole work of our sanctification may be reduced to a question of DOCILITY TO THE DIVINE PARACLETE. Before all else, WE MUST BE VERY ATTENTIVE AND DOCILE TO HIS INVITATIONS: If today you would hear His voice, harden not your hearts (Ps 94,8)” – Divine Intimacy, Fr Gabriel of St Mary Magdalen OCD.

We don’t 'dialogue' with the Holy Spirit, we listen. And for that we need silence, interior as well as exterior.

Mullins’ gives a “model of governance” for the Church. He gets it right at the beginning (“discern the will of God”) and the end (“salvation of souls”) but it falls over in the middle. 

Who in the ‘communio’ (NB: new buzz word) is going to attempt Ignatian discernment? In our parish of Holy Trinity CHB we don’t have a liturgy group even. ‘Parish Team’ meetings, once a month maybe, take one hour. Only a handful of diehards still go to weekday Mass. That’s how much time and thought the much-vaunted 'spirit of Vatican II' has bequeathed us for discerning the will of God and the salvation of souls.

Mullins’ “crucial questions” are certainly begging to be asked. But ‘Six Men in a Leaky Boat’ is, to mix metaphors, from beginning to end a classic example of the tail wagging the dog. An awful lot of persiflage is employed on 'governance' while totally neglecting the imperative need for prayer and sacrifice. The Catholic Church is funded only by love of God and union with God. Only God can make it fruitful. There’s only one motive for saving souls, and that is love for God - or to give it the right name, charity.

People entrusted with “policy, direction, decision making and governance” must be people of spiritual maturity - which means people who spend a significant amount of time every day both in ‘communio’ in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, and in personal, contemplative prayer. And don’t tell me people don’t have time. If they make the effort, God will in the most inventive and amazing ways, give them all the time they need.

Mullins recognises that “any view I hold or idea I propose will need refining through discussion and dialogue with others who can influence”.

Er, excuse me, but the One ‘who can influence’ par excellence is the Holy Spirit – who has been effectively banished from any and all ‘dialogue’ in the Diocese of Palmerston North, by diocesan denial of the existence of the last of His seven gifts: fear of the Lord. 

The consequences of that denial are painfully obvious in this diocesan mouthpiece. The only mention of God is one Cardinal Williams (so, outdated) quote and the only reference to the Spirit is from the dubious Fr Rosica, who thinks ‘the works of the Spirit are about dialogue’. 

This would be incomprehensible to my good Protestant friends in Voice for Life. Let’s stop right there and reflect on the fact that the pro-life movement in NZ was once almost exclusively Catholic. Now in Central Hawke's Bay, for example, I'm the only Catholic on a committee of earnest Protestants. The pro-life movement in NZ is another witness to lack of fruits in the 'Church of Nice' which the Catholic Church in New Zealand has become.

No one comes to God except through Jesus, and no one comes to Jesus except through his Mother, but Mullin makes no mention whatsoever of the Blessed Virgin Mary Mother of God, Mediatrix of all Graces.

If our clergy had been taught how to pray – but I have it on good authority that contemplative prayer isn’t taught in our seminaries - they would never have talked down devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary. When did you last see a priest on his knees praying the Rosary? The only time the Rosary gets a trot in my parish is at vigils before Requiems, and then it’s hideously truncated.

And when did you last see a priest on his knees before the Blessed Sacrament for longer than it takes to enunciate The Divine Praises? The Eucharist comes to us through Mary and from both flow authentic evangelisation and vocations to the priesthood and the religious life.

Six Men in a Leaky Boat is utterly predictable, given that for as long as I can remember – for as long as I’ve been a sentient Catholic – the Leaky Boat of the Catholic Church in New Zealand has been rowed mostly by weak and/or ambitious bishops.

So now it’s shipping water. In the global storm now howling around the Church, the lay faithful must awake, man the pumps, keep watch and pray that this Leaky Boat doesn’t drift into an evil port.