{"id":2189,"date":"2009-01-15T08:17:00","date_gmt":"2009-01-15T08:17:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2009\/01\/the-battle-within\/"},"modified":"2009-01-15T08:17:00","modified_gmt":"2009-01-15T08:17:00","slug":"the-battle-within","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2009\/01\/the-battle-within.html","title":{"rendered":"The Battle Within"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I know Michael Rose\u2019s book has been out for about five years now, but I\u2019ve only got around to reading it this week. If you\u2019re not familiar with it, Goodbye Good Men <\/em>chronicles the corruption, spiritual abuse, heresy and persecution of orthodox seminarians within Catholic seminaries over the last twenty-thirty years.<\/div>\n
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Much of Rose\u2019s research is anecdotal and one sided. He doesn\u2019t spend much time telling us anything good at all about American seminaries, but then I guess he would argue that he wasn\u2019t writing a balanced report on American seminaries, but an expose of the abuses. Fair enough. If you know what a book is aiming for you know how to judge it best.<\/div>\n
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I wish I could dismiss Rose as an angry traditionalist with an axe to grind, and that he\u2019s biased and it all ain\u2019t true. But I\u2019m afraid my own experiences with the Catholic Church in England only echoes what Rose writes about the situation in the USA. I know at least three Dioceses in England where the unspoken policy was not to accept any former Anglican priests (either married or celibate) for ordination. The guys were not even interviewed. They didn\u2019t even get their letters answered by the bishop. It was assumed that they were all dangerous conservatives, and therefore unworthy.<\/div>\n
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Thankfully, many former Anglicans did make it through to Catholic ordination. In fact the majority did. But the ones who were rejected for no good reason are the ones we\u2019re talking about, and they were rejected because of a deliberate and conscious liberal bias and \u2018progressive\u2019 agenda.<\/div>\n
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I worked for seven years with a Catholic charity and every Saturday night I was in a different presbytery. I shared meals with parish priests, bishops, vicar generals, area deans, archbishops, cathedral deans\u2026.all of them. I heard them say with pride that they planned for their dioceses to have fewer priests, not more. They planned to have a few priests living together to provide the sacraments for a whole deanery while the parishes were run by \u2018lay administrators\u2019. I heard them speak with admiration of the Church in Peru\u2013where they have one priest for an area the size of Delaware (or some such) and how wonderful it was that all the parishes were run by the laity as little \u2018faith communities\u2019 led by their lay catechist (who was often a woman).<\/div>\n
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From the orthodox young men I would meet at places like Youth2000 and Catholic Charismatic Conferences and Faith Conferences and the other new movements I heard how the seminaries were practically empty, and how liberals dominated the faculty with the usual mish mash of New Age spirituality, feminism, sex therapy, psycho babble and modernism of all stripes. They too spoke of the homosexual subculture, the suspicion of those who were orthodox for being \u2018rigid\u2019 and the dismissal of traditional devotions such as the rosary and Eucharistic Adoration.<\/div>\n
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I think the problem with Rose\u2019s book is that, if we\u2019re not careful, we\u2019ll assume that the bad news is the only news. It\u2019s not. There are good people out there and good seminaries and good bishops and good faithful Catholics right through the whole church, but what Rose\u2019s book should do, and what my own experience in the Church reminds me, is that within the Catholic Church there are actually two churches.<\/div>\n
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One follows the Pope and the Magisterium. It seeks to be changed by the Church, not to change the Church. It considers the Church to be divinely established through the once for all sacrifice of Christ for the salvation of the world. The other \u2018church\u2019 dissents from the Pope and the magisterium whenever posible. It seeks to change the Church, not be changed by her. It considers the church to be a human construct and the result of historical accidents. They believe the Church is there to change the world, but not necessarily to save the world.<\/div>\n
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This is the reality, and it is all well and good pretending that we can all work together and that unity is all that matters and that we mustn\u2019t be \u2018divisive\u2019. However, that is lily livered talk. The fact is, these two \u2018churches\u2019 are diametrically opposed. Their philosophical and theological foundations are so radically different as to be irreconcilable. As one traditional bishop said after an attempt at dialog with a progressive, \u201cIt was like trying to play tennis on two adjacent courts.\u201d<\/div>\n
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Let\u2019s be honest. Progressives have, for a long time, been absolutely clear that faithful Catholics are the enemy. They\u2019ve been very transparent in their contempt for us, and have been proactive in their persecution. While still striving to retain charity and the spirit of reconciliation, we must also see clearly who the enemy is, and willingly engage in the conflict.<\/div>\n
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It\u2019s hard to fight. It\u2019s especially hard when the enemy is a fifth column within your own community. But when the enemy is within, that\u2019s when the battle becomes most important.<\/div>\n
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If we must fight, then we must never do so with bitterness, dirty tricks, cynicism or hatred. Instead we battle with the prayerful, cheerful, buoyance of the cavalier. We must don our armor, sharpen our sword and, like Cyrano deBergerac, step into battle with wit, intelligence and confidence. Like the mouse Reepicheep we do so with honor, valour and not a little awareness of our own ridiculousness.<\/div>\n
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UPDATE: <\/span>Here is an item <\/span><\/a>on the report on the most recent visitation to American seminaries. There is still much work to be done.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I know Michael Rose\u2019s book has been out for about five years now, but I\u2019ve only got around to reading it this week. If you\u2019re not familiar with it, Goodbye Good Men chronicles the corruption, spiritual abuse, heresy and persecution of orthodox seminarians within Catholic seminaries over the last twenty-thirty years. Much of Rose\u2019s research […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":557,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Battle Within<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I know Michael Rose's book has been out for about five years now, but I've only got around to reading it this week. 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