Monday, March 16, 2009

"You Will Be Catholic!": Bp. Morlino

One good thing about Albatross--when they criticize Bp. Morlino (Madison), you know he did something good.

The issue was the firing last week of Ruth Kolpack from her job as pastoral associate of St. Thomas the Apostle Church in Beloit.

The firing came in a meeting with Bishop Robert Morlino. Kolpack said Morlino asked her to renounce her master’s thesis, make a profession of faith and take a loyalty oath

These next grafs are the meat of the matter.

Kolpack said her thesis discussed the evil that can come of blind obedience. She said she can understand how that could be a red flag for the bishop.

“But if he would’ve read the whole paper, he would’ve understood it... he didn’t give it a chance,” she said.

The thesis also criticizes the church’s language of worship, which refers to God with words such as “he” or “Father.”

Kolpack said that’s harmful.

Ms. Kolpack buried that little "non-masculine" heresy by mentioning "blind obedience," which is not exactly a nuanced, Master's-Thesis kinda term, is it? Perhaps Ms. Kolpack is pandering a bit?

Here's a clue for Ms Kolpack:

When asked about inclusive language, diocese spokesman Brent King said no one has the right to change the words of the liturgy

Unless you were educated at Guess-Where:

Kolpack said she came to these beliefs as she studied feminist and liberation theology at St. Francis Seminary, where she earned her master’s degree in divinity in 2003. She said that 2003 thesis was never a problem, until now

That's just wonderful news for us in Milwaukee, ain'a?

The REAL wonder is that it took Bp. Morlino this long to attend to business.

3 comments:

Amy said...

Referring to God as "He" and "Father" is only harmful to people who 1) don't understand why we refer to God that way, 2) have too much time on their hands, and 3) are extremely thin skinned.

Anonymous said...

Kolpack...another disciple from the church of Weakland. It's going to awhile before those wounds heal. The whole "alabtoss" article is a must read. Every comment is crazier than the last. Thanks for the link Dad29.

Anonymous said...

Appoint Morlino to Milwaukee. He can then spend about the first five years of his episcopate here cleaning the stables. We have many Kolpacks here. Some were educated at the seminary, some at Stritch. The seminary seems to have cleaned up its act; now it's time to do a major Orkin job at Stritch, since all the disease-carrying pests have moved there.