Catholic Family News 24.6.2010
www.cfnews.org.uk
Dawn Stefanowicz, author and winner of the 2009 Women of Faith Award, emails from Canada : ''This is a terrible atrocity. These godly men are being punished for holding to moral law? What message is this sending to the other priests and leadership in the Church? That you must be culturally relevant and alter your faith and morals to satisfy a tiny minority who have the power and free reign to dictate to the Church what is right and wrong? However, I think the three men who have been kicked out knew far more about the inner goings on and looked outside for assistance... The whole process stinks of injustice.
I am sure it isn't the first time this has happened since some US seminary students have been discharged from their studies for being too conservative. Did not the Holy Father state in his homily at the ordination mass on 20th June: 'The priesthood must never represent a way to achieve security in life or to attain social position. Anyone who aspires to the priesthood in order to increase his personal prestige and power has radically misunderstood the significance of this ministry.
Anyone whose main goal is to realise an ambition of his own, to achieve success, will always be a slave to himself and to public opinion. In order to be noticed he will have to adulate; he must say what people want to hear, he must adapt to changing fashions and opinions. In this way, he will deprive himself of the vital relationship with truth, reducing himself to condemning tomorrow what he praises today.
'A man who organises his life like this', the Holy Father added, 'a priest who sees his ministry in these terms, does not truly love God and neighbour, he loves only himself and, paradoxically, ends up by losing himself.'
In what way then are these priests and soon to be ordained Brother examples of the kind of anti-model of priestly life and ministry the pope describes? |If they are not and known publicly to be so then they must be returned to their home and spiritual community for the good of their souls and that of those to whom they are called by God to minister' [ dawnstefano@sympatico.ca ]
