With thanks to Barona at Toronto Catholic Witness for these posters.
This is all okay according to the doctors and public health professionals. The same professionals to whom Cardinal Thomas Collins, in a recent webinar to the priests of the Archdiocese of Toronto. referred to as "virtuous."
Virtuous.
Did I write somewhere that the same people that put out these posters about masturbation and glory holes, whom the Cardinal calls "virtuous," banned singing in church without the authority to do so and demanded that the Cardinal ban Holy Communion on the tongue and reluctantly accepted "dropping" the Holy Sacrament in one's hands?
Virtuous.
Oh, and today is the Feast of the St. Andrew the Apostle and while there can't be a Gloria there can be a glory hole and remember, there is ...
9 comments:
Hi Vox,
My hope is that you will not delete this e-mail but read it, as I have read your blog for the last 4 days. This was not easy for me, as I could have easily disregarded it.
We have a Cardinal in Toronto who is basically a good man, faithful to the Church's teaching. We may not always fare this well in future years in this Archdiocese, but I certainly hope we do. Has he made some mistakes in judgment? That's quite possible. Should he be entirely maligned? I don't believe so.
Your ongoing theme of "No Mass for you! - It's just not worth it" in the last 4 days is very unfair. Do you in your heart really believe that Cardinal Collins believes that the Mass is not worth it? That Christ is not worth it? I do not for one moment believe that. If he indeed said those words, I believe in my heart that he was referring to the fact that it would be difficult to try to police the entrance of only 7-8 people and this would likely cause conflict in a lot of local churches. He did not shut down the sacrifice of the Holy Mass, as all priests are required to say Mass every day for the needs of their parish and as you know, the Mass does not require our participation to be valid and worthy of offering to God. Many priests are keeping their churches open, if only for a limited amount of time, for prayer, Confession, and reception of Holy Communion. I can tell you that yesterday, parishioners at my church came at that time.
As to your advice that the Cardinal should defy the law and allow himself to be handcuffed and dragged from the Cathedral during the pandemic, I believe that the Cardinal's place is with the people, if only virtually, as he has thousands of online viewers who virtually attend his daily Masses and listen to his excellent homilies. He knows it is not the best and I'm sure it saddens him and all priests to look out and see an empty church.
Should he have fought harder to prevent the restrictions being reduced to 10? I wish he had, as it is unfair to place greater restrictions on houses of worship than on secular organizations and businesses. Has he been threatened with fines? Perhaps, I'm not sure. If so, that fact should be made known.
I think you yourself understand the fine line of maintaining adequate health precautions and being faithful to the Lord, as you have criticized those who rebelled against restrictions in the Latin Mass churches, causing them to be closed down. You know it is a matter of trying to work with local authorities, hoping and praying for the best result. It does not always turn out that way. The devil is very busy.
Every day I pray for Cardinal Collins as I believe we are very fortunate to have a prayerful man, faithful to the teaching of the Church. I believe that there is tremendous pressure on him now not only because of the Covid issue but also because of the ongoing TCDSB issues. I do not believe he will respond well to comments that will add to this stress, and therefore, urgently ask you to tone it down.
Please consider these words from someone who is basically on the same side as you, but who is very upset by what I have read. Many thanks for reading, and God bless you!
Hello Anonymous,
I thank you for your thoughtful and calm comment. As you can see above, I did publish it and there is no reason why I would not. For the record, the only comments, other than obvious spam, that are not published are those attacking me and worse or those which are grossly off topic and drift into territories that I don’t wish to see on this blog. Other than that, the combox is wide open.
I would like to address some of your points, not to argue with you or debate but to shed some light on why am doing this. Trust me, I take no pleasure. As the next post will state, I am on vacation and have much to do but this needs to be addressed because while I understand your comment, “that he is basically a good man,” I can only judge by his actions.
Allow me to begin (and this may take more than one comment box…)
I take no pleasure in this. I am a faithful son of the Church. Canon law 212 quoted in an earlier post gives me and you the right to take our concerns to our episcopal leaders and to the wider faithful. It calls on us to be truthful and to act with charity. I can be accused (and a priest former spiritual director has written me about that and others have called, they won’t put it in writing to say, “don’t stop, keep it up, you are saying what we cannot.” Have I been uncharitable? I will leave that to others. I write with some dark humour and sarcasm. I take it to the man. I speak truth to power. I did it when 13 and received abuse in return from men in cassocks. It caused me to leave the church for much of my life and with my mind open, I take no more from those in power and I call it out. I can do nothing else. I have seen abuse, I have friends who were raped by priests in this very diocese and given the gift that keeps on giving. I know of much deceit and cover-up and pay offs and bastard children of priests and gay cabals going back decades. We have much for which to hold our episcopal leaders accountable.
cont'd
If you are a fan or a sometime viewer of the old Seinfeld, you would recognise the turn of phrase and the picture of His Eminence as a play on the “Soup Nazi,” a restauranteur with the best soup in New York that ran his shop as a dictator who would raise his finger and say, “No soup for you” if you annoyed him. If you’ve not seen it, you can find it easily on a search. The comment “just not worth it” is not directly from the video which was sent to me by an anonymous source after being first place on the cloud and then uploaded for the world to see, and not be me! The phrase was told to me by more than one priest – that this is the prevailing attitude that it is “just not worth it” to try to coordinate ten persons at Mass. Yet, the priests at the Society of St. Pius X on Aldgate Avenue in Toronto have somehow managed to do it. There is no need to police it. An email could go out to all to register, the Cardinal could say that, he can tell us that and tell them. He could order each priest to say 4 weekday Masses and twice as many on Sunday and declare each weekday to be “Sunday” with the appropriate liturgy (other than today or December 8 for Our Lady’s Immaculate Conception.) He can do that. He can do as I suggested, short homily and no Holy Communion but by appointment to get it all done. After all, what else does the priest do all day?
If you’ve read this blog for a while you will know that I am not an anti-masker. I did chastise those that put this issue before the Mass in Hamilton diocese. I don’t doubt the virus but I condemn our response. We have abandoned our seniors, General-secretary Ford’s iron ring has become rusty chicken wire. It is a disgrace. In November, as CBC reported, 60% of deaths of China Virus have been in long-term care. This is appalling and on this, where is the Church? I will soon do a post on the effect of this on the working poor and their role in spreading the virus – where is the government, nay, where is the Church on this problem?
cont'd
I agree with you, “He did not shut down the sacrifice of the Holy Mass, as all priests are required to say Mass every day for the needs of their parish … the Mass does not require our participation to be valid and worthy of offering to God. Many priests are keeping their churches open, if only for a limited amount of time, for prayer, Confession, and reception of Holy Communion. I can tell you that yesterday; parishioners at my church came at that time.” I agree and I wrote about this in the spring because I reluctantly gave way to “legitimate authority” only because we did not, or we did not seem to know enough about the virus and its spread and effective treatments. I know someone who was treated with the gold-plated Remdisivir and was better in 24 hours. The reality is, there are still about 550 people in hospital in all of Ontario, it is simply absurd that we are killing our economy and our spiritual lives and religious freedom for this.
I am not normally a conspiracy theorist but as someone in the pharmacy said to me on Saturday, “We all know this is not about the virus anymore, it is about something much more sinister.” Remember, Holy Noah was a conspiracy theorist too, for about 90 years, and then it started to rain, and rain, and rain.
I do believe that the Cardinal and his priests should defy these authorities within reason if necessary. Why? Because as a constable said to me at Adamson’s BBQ on Friday, “If 500 restaurants and business do this, it’s over. We can’t be everywhere.” The same goes for churches. I gave my strategy in the posts as you know.
As to your advice that the Cardinal should defy the law and allow himself to be handcuffed and dragged from the Cathedral during the pandemic, I believe that the Cardinal's place is with the people, if only virtually, as he has thousands of online viewers who virtually attend his daily Masses and listen to his excellent homilies. He knows it is not the best and I'm sure it saddens him and all priests to look out and see an empty church.
I do believe that he has been threatened and I do believe he should call their bluff and make it public. This is Canada. This is not North Korea!
Now, here is what I know and why enough, is enough.
As I will also disclose in the next post to go live at 5:00 EST I was the Cantor and Choir Director for the Mass under the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter. Yes, they were here. They were treated with disdain, bounced between rectory and rectory and church to church, deceived about being given a church, embarrassed publicly over it and chastised for not following the Cardinal’s edict when he banned communion on the tongue (only to give it himself) during H1N1. They were sent packing. He has done this before. That action hurt people, really hurt people.
Do you know that when Thomas Rosica (now washing bedpans as chaplain to retire Basilians at Presentation House there was not a call, not an email, not anything said to me or done to that man for his repugnant action. Yet, a prominent Vatican Cardinal at the time reached out through an intermediary and a bishop from an obscure diocese in a former Soviet republic reached out directly. It took direct intervention by a powerful churchman, and I know this specifically, to call Rosica to heal. That churchmen was not Cardinal Collins, I was left hanging out to dry.
I know of so many other things, hard things to keep quiet, but I do. There has been so much bad treatment to others in the church without any justification for which I must remain silent. It can only be called, ruthless.
Cont'd.
The Ford government and all governments have overreacted and they have done little to protect the most vulnerable. It is almost as if they want them to die-off.
There is absolutely no evidence that China Virus has been transmitted in Catholic churches, not at Mass, not at private prayer. And if Ford said we can open to ten, as absurd as this is at the St. Michael’s or St. Paul’s or St. Clare of Assisi, and we are open for prayer, why can’t 8 or 9 of those hear Mass?
It defies logic because it must just not be worth it for that low number.
Yes, pray for him, that his eyes will be opened and that Christ’s Mass will not be robbed from us.
"I do not believe he will respond well to comments that will add to this stress, and therefore, urgently ask you to tone it down."
Unfortunately he has not responded to comments that have come to him under some of the most pleasant, un-stressful, sunny-day circumstances.
I don't personally know him, but I was there at his installment and have had personal conversations with him during group occasions to tell him about things. But those same things have continued to degrade over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again on his watch.
Vox has it right, as do many others. His feet need to be held to the fire and he should be justly criticized for when he does wrong.
If you actually love him, then you would do this. And it is even more justifiable now because we are all being directly and immediately affected by it. Souls are endangered, and government tyranny is afoot with his participation.
We do not respond well to actions that will add to our stress and endangerment of body and soul, and therefore, urgently ask him to rectify it. We've tried asking nicely, and since that hasn't worked it's time to put things bluntly, even if that means he looks the fool.
The Cardinal's 'place' is with Christ and the Truth first, for which he wears red to signify that he will go into suffering and martyrdom if called for. Handcuffs are kids gloves, especially for someone in his position, against unjust laws that have no standing during a non-situation that does not exist except on television statistic charts made by people I wouldn't trust to competently total votes.
There are many options for the Cardinal to take and ways to play this game that don't directly put him in handcuffs, but he has not bothered to take them. You do know what Christ called shepherds who fled from protecting their flocks?
Johnno,
You are 100% correct. Nice letters have not worked. Direct requests have not worked. In fact, they are not even answered. We, he sheep, are ignored, unless it comes to "Families of faith." I have not entered my territorial parish for well over a decade, yet, I was sent a begging letter. Not once, since they had my address, did the pastors ever call or write to see if I was alive or still here or why I have not been to church. That parish, not far from you as south as you can go, is a dead event. They only want us when money comes into it. This is why we are not important now, they are getting millions of our tax dollars.
Cesare now owns them as you will read today.
One is either with bergoglio, or one is against bergoglio. Clergy within the novus bogus church show publicly that they are with bergoglio and pray una cum with him and they act accordingly. What else could one expect? How would St. Pius 10th act under these circumstances?
Peter,
You are always welcome here. May I ask you to remain on topic and to park the sedevacantist argument when it is not relevant to the post.
As for St. Pius X, he would have called Collins over on a boat and stripped him of his red for cancelling public worship.
Thanks,
David
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