Posted on August 11, 2019 View all news
Laudetur Jesus Christus! Gelobt sei Jesus Christus!
Sia lodato Gesù Cristo! Praised be Jesus Christ!
There has been more unfortunate news this past week, with the recent blunders at the Archdiocese regarding protecting our children. I wish to state that as unfortunate that this news was, as far as we know, nothing illegal was hidden. The priest’s behavior was not acceptable, and he should not have been placed in a parish with a school. The Archbishop apologizes for this. He has already made many changes this week to ensure that this does not happen again and that he has all the information he needs to make the best assignments. Pray that the Church will be willing to confront the awful reality of what is going on, and recognize this for what it is.
Please note that while the Oratory serves in the Archdiocese, we are not priests of the Archdiocese. As superior, as I have promised in the past, I will not tolerate any imprudent or sinful behavior within the Oratory. I will exercise all that the law provides to me to ensure that souls are safe and justice carried out. We are very careful in who we accept into our ‘family’ and who we will allow to minister in our parishes. We all must reflect upon Our Lord’s words: “He that shall scandalize one of these little ones that believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone should be hanged about his neck, and that he should be drowned in the depth of the sea.”
Please find our second part of Bl. John Henry Newman’s speech on Liberalism in Religion. Have a blessed week!
“For thirty, forty, fifty years I have resisted to the best of my powers the spirit of liberalism in religion. Never did Holy Church need champions against it more sorely than now, when, alas! it is an error overspreading, as a snare, the whole earth; and on this great occasion, when it is natural for one who is in my place to look out upon the world, and upon Holy Church as in it, and upon her future, it will not, I hope, be considered out of place, if I renew the protest against it which I have made so often.
Liberalism in religion is the doctrine that there is no positive truth in religion, but that one creed is as good as another, and this is the teaching which is gaining substance and force daily. It is inconsistent with any recognition of any religion, as true. It teaches that all are to be tolerated, for all are matters of opinion. Revealed religion is not a truth, but a sentiment and a taste; not an objective fact, not miraculous; and it is the right of each individual to make it say just what strikes his fancy. Devotion is not necessarily founded on faith. Men may go to Protestant Churches and to Catholic, may get good from both and belong to neither. They may fraternise together in spiritual thoughts and feelings, without having any views at all of doctrine in common, or seeing the need of them. Since, then, religion is so personal a peculiarity and so private a possession, we must of necessity ignore it in the intercourse of man with man. If a man puts on a new religion every morning, what is that to you? It is as impertinent to think about a man’s religion as about his sources of income or his management of his family. Religion is in no sense the bond of society.” – Bl. John Henry Newman