Vox Cantoris

Tuesday 17 March 2015

Our sister in Christ, Patricia Jannuzzi, needs us!

To my Voxers and fellow Bloggers,

If you have not heard by now of Patricia Jannuzzi, let me tell you.

She is a Catholic teacher removed from her position teaching at Immaculata High School in Somerville, New Jersey for personal comments made about the sanctity of marriage. She is not at retirement age and has been devastated financially by this. Our good friend Barona, at Witness for Church and Pope in Toronto, wrote about her situation.

Where is her bishop?

Where are the pastors?

Where are the Catholics that did this injustice?

Patricia's friends have taken out a petition to show support for her. It can be found at:

https://www.change.org/p/immaculata-high-school-somerville-nj-support-patti-jannuzzi

Let us show our Catholic sister and mother that we care for her, love her and will pray for her during this difficult time when even Hollywood celebrities are overcome with evil and mock her.

"Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you for my name's sake, for your reward will be great in heaven." May these words of Our Blessed Lord be a great comfort to Patricia and her family.

As someone who was touched by your kindness and generosity of prayers, words and promises of funds recently when threatened with an unjust lawsuit by a prominent media cleric, Holy See consultant and spokesman and adviser to Pope Francis, it behooves me to do this for my sister -- our sister Patricia on this her name sake day of St. Patrick. You offered me funds should they have been necessary. Thankfully they were not. Those funds are necessary now along with your prayers for our Catholic sister.

You know what to do.

http://www.youcaring.com/family-fundraiser/patricia-jannuzzi-catholic-educator-needs-your-help-/322057

And to all you out there whose guilty consciences cause you to continue to flame outrage at this woman and her family by expressing how "appalled" you are in the combox at that fundraising site above, why don't you come here and give a real man a try with your screaming. The combox is open, come on; let's have a go. Or are you afraid to confront a real man rather than a line on a computer. Cowards, all of you.

God bless you.

Vox

After teaching Catholic Theology for 31 years at Immaculata High School, Somerville, NJ, our mother, Patricia Jannuzzi, was removed from teaching for stating on Facebook:

“We need healthy families with a mother and a father for the sake of the children and humanity.”

Our family is about to lose our health benefits. Our mother has recently and successfully battled breast cancer without missing a single day of teaching, except for the day of her operation. Health benefits are important to our family.

In addition, we have home, insurance, automobile and many other family expenses including educational expenses for two teenage sons. (One in college, one in high school.)

Our mother is 57, and hoped to teach until retirement at 65. Due to the overwhelming attacks in the media on her statement of Catholic belief, we do not believe she will be able to find another teaching position. Her salary & benefits total: 75,500 a year. Given her age, we are hoping to raise 7 ½ years of salary & benefits as our goal to protect our family. But for now we are raising 100,000 to cover salary and health benefits moving forward.

I hope you can find it in your heart to help our family. Any contribution is welcome. God Bless! Please forward this!

Links:

http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2015/03/threatened-for-her-zeal-for-the-faith

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/could-pope-francis-teach-here-immaculata/

http://theothermccain.com/2015/03/13/patricia-jannuzzi-is-right/

Cardinal Tagle: Please explain, I'm just a simple guy

You just can't make this stuff up.

The Filipino Cardinal said, “Every situation for those who are divorced and remarried is quite unique. To have a general rule might be counterproductive in the end. My position at the moment is to ask, ‘Can we take every case seriously and is there, in the tradition of the Church, paths towards addressing each case individually?’ This is one issue that I hope people will appreciate is not easy to say ‘no’ or to say ‘yes’ to. We cannot give one formula for all.”

The Cardinal, with all respect, needs to explain himself. At the bottom of this post is the full reprint of the article from the Catholic Herald on his talk; but for the time-being, let me explain.

It is really simple.

Catholics who marry civilly or in a protestant service without the permission of the local Ordinary and witness by the Church's minister - a priest or deacon; are not married and they are living in a continual state of fornication and thus, mortal sin.

Catholics who divorce and remarry civilly or in a protestant service (or Catholic if you live in Aurora, Ontario) without the benefit of a Decree of Nullity are living in a perpetual state of adultery and therefore, mortal sin.

A Catholic who approaches Holy Communion in such a state will commit the sin of sacrilege which is also a mortal sin.

A Catholic who, objectively speaking, dies in a state of mortal sin will go to Hell for all eternity and be cut off from God.

Those four points above make-up my understanding of Catholic teaching in this regard. Because I believe in the Truth as transmitted by Christ through two-thousand years of magisterial teaching, I feel it important to tell you what that teaching actually is; because it seems to me that someone is spinning here and it isn't me.

Am I wrong?

Or is the Cardinal?

As if the statements of Cardinal Tagle at the bottom of this post are not bad enough; another speaker at the conference was Timothy Radcliffe, O.P.

So, who is Timothy Radcliffe, O.P.?

Oh my; this post is going to be a lot longer than I had intended.

Well, Timothy Radcliffe, O.P., was once interviewed by Father Thomas J. Rosica, CSB at Canada's Salt + Light Television, Our Catholic Channel of Hope. You will begin to get the picture on his theology by losing the twenty-two minutes and twenty-two seconds which you'll never get back from watching it.

You can also find out about this wayward Dominican at Protect the Pope wherein you will find that this Dominican is a dissenter on the Church's teaching on a number of areas involving homosexual behaviour. Here we have a report on his appearance at the 2014 Divine Mercy Conference as reported by Protect the Pope and copied below in the event that something mysterious happens with that blog and we maintain the original bolding:

Let's take a little look, shall we?:

* * *

A selection of Fr Radcliffe’s writings expressing dissent from the Church’s teaching:

Fr Radcliffe gave the following contribution to the Church of England ‘s review of homosexuality and gay marriage:

Fr Radcliffe OP expands the meaning of fertility to include gay sex

But not every marriage is fertile in this way. We must avoid having a mechanistic or simplistic understanding of fertility. Jesus speaks a fertile word: This is my body, given for you. He is God’s fertile word. And surely it is in the kind and healing words that we offer each other that we all share in fertility of that most intimate moment. When Jesus met Peter on the shore after Easter, he offers him a word that renews their relationship. Three times he asks him; ‘Do you love me more than these others?’ He allows him to undo his threefold denial. Sexual fertility cannot be separated from the exchange of words that heal, that recreate and set free.

How does all of this bear on the question of gay sexuality? We cannot begin with the question of whether it is permitted or forbidden! We must ask what it means, and how far it is Eucharistic. Certainly it can be generous, vulnerable, tender, mutual and non-violent. So in many ways, I would think that it can be expressive of Christ’s self-gift.

We can also see how it can be expressive of mutual fidelity, a covenantal relationship in which two people bind themselves to each other for ever. But the proposed legislation for ‘gay marriage’ imply that it is not understood to be inherently unitive, a becoming one flesh. [...]

And what about fertility? I have suggested that one should not stick to a crude, mechanistic understanding of fertility. Biological fertility is inseparable from the fertility of our mutual tenderness and compassion. And so that might seem to remove one objection to gay marriage. I am not entirely convinced, since it seems to me that our tradition is incarnational, the word becoming bodily flesh. And some heterosexual relationships may be accidentally infertile in this sense, but homosexual ones are intrinsically so.

Sexual ethics is about what our acts say. And I have the impression that we are not very sure of what gay sexual acts signify. Maybe we need to ask gay Christians who have been living in committed relationships for years. I suspect that sex will turn out to be rather unimportant.’

Fr Radcliffe on Holy Communion for Catholics who are divorced and re-married:

I would conclude with two profound hopes. That a way will be found to welcome divorced and remarried people back to communion. And, most important, that women will be given real authority and voice in the church. The pope expresses his desire that this may happen, but what concrete form can it take? He believes that the ordination of women to the ministerial priesthood is not possible, but decision-making in the church has become ever more closely linked to ordination in recent years. Can that bond be loosened? Let us hope that women may be ordained to the diaconate and so have a place in preaching at the Eucharist. What other ways can authority be shared?’

* * *

The Catholic Herald has a collection of articles about Timothy Radcliffe, O.P. You will have not difficulty finding out more by doing some searching.

The next explanation that His Eminence needs to give is this:

Why Eminence did you appear on the same program with a Preacher who holds and teaches such heterodoxy and;

Did you correct him?

* * *

Cardinal Tagle: There is no "formula for all" on Communion for the divorced or the re-married.

Cardinal Tagle said "every situation for those who are divorced and remarried is quite unique" (CNS)

Cardinal Tagle was speaking at the Flame 2 Youth Congress earlier this month

The Archbishop of Manila has said that there is no all encompassing answer to the question of Communion for the divorced and remarried. Speaking to the Catholic Herald at the Flame 2 Youth Congress earlier this month, Cardinal Luis Tagle, said it was not a question of simply saying ‘yes’ or ‘no’, but that every case should be judged individually.

He said: “Every situation for those who are divorced and remarried is quite unique. To have a general rule might be counterproductive in the end. My position at the moment is to ask, ‘Can we take every case seriously and is there, in the tradition of the Church, paths towards addressing each case individually?’ This is one issue that I hope people will appreciate is not easy to say ‘no’ or to say ‘yes’ to. We cannot give one formula for all.”

Speaking about the upcoming extraordinary synod, Cardinal Tagle said: “The questions asked were an invitation for people to really examine their conscience. For example, in your parish if you are aware that something is happening are you just aware? Or have you already started doing something? There’s the question of the youth, the elderly, and in the case of the Philippines, families that are separated by migration because of jobs. We know what is happening and we know about the negative effects. But what are we doing? Are we just talking about it?

“We must remember that this is an international gathering so people are coming from different contexts. It is the same gospel and the same truth, but you cannot avoid people thinking: ‘How do I present this teaching to my people?’. No single country, diocese or parish can exhaust all possible responses, so it will be a learning moment where the diversity could help all of us.”

Cardinal Tagle spoke of the need to experience Christ for evangelisation: “An evangeliser must first be evangelized. For how can I share the person of Jesus Christ with others if I have not experienced Him myself?”

The Flame 2 Youth Congress attended by approximately 8,000 young Catholics. Surrounded by young people who had gathered for the country’s largest national Catholic youth event at the SSE Wembley Arena, Cardinal Tagle said: “Where there is mercy there is joy. I am only a cardinal and a bishop because of the mercy of God and the kindness of other people.”

The event included prayers incorporating dance and reflection, and ended with exposition and adoration of the Blessed Sacrament led by Cardinal Vincent Nichols of Westminster.

http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2015/03/17/cardinal-tagle-there-is-no-formula-for-all-on-communion-for-the-divorced-and-re-married/

Rome: We have a problem

Da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, "MERCY!"

Having enjoyed that little diversion, let's get on with the matters at hand.

When the Grand Lodge of Italy praises the election of Jorge Bergoglio as Bishop of Rome be very concerned about "mercy."

Now, we have the Italian Communist magazine, "Il Manifesto" with the same Bishop of Rome on its cover, proclaiming that "mercy could be the way out for the difficult path of reform, announced but not yet implemented." According to Il Manifesto, the Pope wants to "combine an unchanged doctrine and structure with an exclusive pastoral through the "magic word" mercy." When a communist magazine praises the Bishop of Rome by very concerned.

Does Il Manifesto know something we don't? Where have we heard this before?

“Will this Pope re-write controversial Church doctrines? No. But that isn't how doctrine changes. Doctrine changes when pastoral contexts shift and new insights emerge such that particularly doctrinal formulations no longer mediate the saving message of God's transforming love. Doctrine changes when the Church has leaders and teachers who are not afraid to take note of new contexts and emerging insights. It changes when the Church has pastors who do what Francis has been insisting: leave the securities of your chanceries, of your rectories, of your safe places, of your episcopal residences go set aside the small-minded rules that often keep you locked up and shielded from the world.” This quote given by Father Thomas J. Rosica, CSB various lectures is documented on LifeSiteNews and YouTube in his own words. If he thinks this way what of others?

I need make no comment on the above paragraphs; you dear reader, are quite well-informed and can draw your own conclusions. Rather, as this same Bishop of Rome lauded by Freemasons and Communists desiring to go "Forward" has called for an "extraordinary year of mercy" to go along with the extraordinary and ordinary synod, let me ask some questions.

Where is the mercy for Father James Haley?

Where is the mercy for the Catholics of Chile with a voyeur, homosexual and pederast appointed as a bishop over them?

Where is the mercy for the victims of Cardinal O'Brien in Scotland or those who now pay for his new retirement home in the country?

Where is the mercy for Asia Bibi still suffering in Pakistan awaiting her execution and who herself has begged for mercy?

Where is the mercy for the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate?

Where is the mercy for those Catholics who gave "spiritual bouquets" of rosaries only to be mocked by the person for whom they were said?

Where is the mercy for Patricia Jannuzzi, threatened, mocked and intimidated for her faith?

Where is the mercy for my friend, and countless other victims raped and sodomised around the world by clergy and given the gift that keeps on giving.

Where is the mercy for me and my legal bill and stress upon my family and friends incurred by an unjust persecution for doing what I am doing right now?

But who am I to judge?

Strike the Shepherd and the sheep scatter.

In our times and in this calamity that has befallen the Church it is not from these Romans that one is going to find mercy.

There is only one true mercy and it is found in Him.

Monday 16 March 2015

Has Pope Francis appointed a Bishop that witnessed abuse to a Chilean Diocese?

The people of Chile and the Catholic faithful of the world deserve an answer.

Holy Father, who put this name before you?

I will give you the benefit of the doubt that you did not know.

Now you know.

We are keen to know Holy Father, what are your intentions?

On the other hand you're right and who am I to judge?

http://thechronicleherald.ca/world/1274966-victim-bishop-tapped-for-higher-post-enjoyed-watching-abuse

http://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2015/03/16/popes-zero-tolerance-for-pedophiles-faces-test-in-chile

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/pope-francis-pedophiles-chile-juan-barros/

The Huffington Post had this on February 20, 2015.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/20/chile-priests-juan-barros-madrid_n_6723562.html

By EVA VERGARA5 hours ago

SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) — Juan Carlos Cruz recalls that he and another teen boy would lie down on the priest's bed, one resting his head at the man's shoulder, another sitting near his feet. The priest would kiss the boys and grope them, he said, all while the Rev. Juan Barros watched.

"Barros was there, and he saw it all," Cruz, now a 51-year-old journalist, told The Associated Press.

Barros has been tapped by Pope Francis to become bishop of a southern Chilean diocese this month, provoking an unprecedented outcry by abuse victims and Catholic faithful who contend he covered up sexual abuse committed by his mentor and superior, the Rev. Fernando Karadima, in the 1980s and '90s. A Vatican investigation found Karadima guilty in 2011 and sentenced the now 84-year-old priest to a cloistered life of "penitence and prayer" for what is Chile's highest-profile case of abuse by a priest.

Barros had long declined to comment publicly on allegations against him. However, in a letter sent Monday to the priests of the diocese he'll be overseeing, he said he did not know about Karadima's abuses when they happened.

"I never had knowledge of, or could have imagined, the serious abuses that this priest committed against the victims," said the letter, a copy of which was obtained by the AP.

Now bishop for Chile's armed forces, he has said he learned of Karadima's abuse through a 2010 news report he saw on television, according to court records.

While not directly accused of abuse, Barros is said by at least three victims to have witnessed the sexual molestation at the Sacred Heart of Jesus church, part of the El Bosque parish that serves an affluent neighborhood of Santiago.

That history has parishioners, clergy and lawmakers in this predominantly Catholic country protesting the pope's decision to appoint Barros, 58, to become spiritual leader over the diocese in Osorno, about 580 miles (930 kilometers) south of Santiago.

More than 1,300 church members in Osorno, along with some 30 priests from the diocese and 51 of Chile's 120 members of Parliament, sent letters to Francis in February urging him to rescind the appointment, which was announced in January and is set to take effect on March 21.

They have not heard back and Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi declined to comment on the matter.

Numerous attempts to reach Barros were not successful; nor has he responded to the victims' accusations or the outcry over his appointment.

The Rev. Peter Kleigel, deputy pastor of the Sacred Heart parish in Osorno, is among those vocally opposing Barros' arrival.

"We're convinced that this appointment is not correct because, following canon law, a bishop must be well-regarded," he told the AP. "We need a bishop who's credible."

Such complaints come even as Francis said this month that a minster needs not only God's blessing, but the blessing of "his people" to do his work.

The controversy is being watched by victims, advocacy groups and others as a test of whether Francis will meet their demands to hold bishops accountable for having ignored or covered up wrongdoing by priests.

Anne Barrett Doyle from BishopAccountability.org, an online resource about abusive priests and complicit bishops, called the appointment "bafflingly inconsistent" with Francis' promise to root out abuse.

"The pope should have suspended and investigated Barros, not given him another diocese to run," Barrett Doyle said in an email to the AP.

Karadima led the parish of El Bosque for nearly six decades before allegations came to light in April 2010, when a news investigation into the abuse was broadcast on state television. Two months later, the archbishop of Santiago, Cardinal Francisco Javier Errazuriz, forwarded the allegations to the Vatican amid an eruption of abuse cases globally.

Victims say allegations against Karadima were reported earlier, but were ignored by the cardinal. Errazuriz, who is one of nine cardinals on Pope Francis' key advisory panel, has acknowledged in court testimony that he failed to act on several abuse allegations because he believed them to be untrue.

Karadima, who lives in isolation at a nun's convent, is barred from having contact with anyone outside of his own family.

Criminal charges against Karadima were dismissed in 2011 by Judge Jessica Gonzalez because the statute of limitations had expired. However, Gonzalez said that based on her interviews of Cruz and other victims during her yearlong investigation, she determined their accusations were truthful and dated "at least as far back as 1962."

Victims say they were between ages 14 and 17 when they first were abused by Karadima.

A letter detailing abuse allegations against Karadima was sent by some victims to Cardinal Francisco Fresno in 1982. But authors of the letter accuse Barros, who then was the cardinal's private secretary, of intercepting it and destroying it.

Francisco Gomez, 52, a publicist who says he was molested by Karadima, told the AP that he signed the letter drafted by two other victims. A friend of his who worked with Fresno, Juan Hoelzzel, told Gomez that Barros ripped it up after reading it — an account that was recorded in testimony during the criminal investigation.

Speaking to the AP, Gomez said he was told by Hoelzzel: "As long as Juan Barros is there, there is no doubt that this will happen again."

During Karadima's criminal trial, Barros confirmed that Hoelzzel, who has since died, had worked in the archbishop's office. Regarding the letter, court documents quote Barros as saying he had "no knowledge" of its existence, adding "I neither deny it nor affirm it."

In his letter on Monday, Barros said: "I never had knowledge of any complaint regarding Father Karadima while secretary to the Cardinal."

Barros is one of four bishops who were mentored by Karadima and defended him from the accusations.

Cruz has said that during the time he was abused, Karadima and Barros behaved intimately with one another in his presence.

"I saw Karadima and Juan Barros kissing and touching each other. The groping generally came from Karadima touching Barros' genitals," Cruz said in a January letter to Monsignor Ivo Scapolo, the papal nuncio in Chile. Cruz provided a copy of the letter to the AP.

Despite Francis' pledge to have no tolerance for abuse by priests, James Hamilton, another victim of Karadima's, said the appointment demonstrates to him that the church "had not changed."

Hamilton, now a 49-year-old doctor, said Barros enjoyed watching Karadima commit the abuse.

"I saw how Barros watched it all," he said.

Since 2004, Barros has been bishop for Chile's military, an appointment made by Pope John Paul II. Previously, he was assistant bishop in the port city of Valparaiso and bishop of the northern city of Iquique.

No representatives of his former dioceses have spoken out in his defense. On Saturday, Chile's papal nuncio published a letter urging parishioners in Osorno to welcome Barros and "prepare, by way of prayer and good works, for the beginning of his pastoral governance."

_________

Associated Press reporter Nicole Winfield in Rome contributed to this report.