The Good News About Mgr John McSweeney

A priest from Charlotte, NC has plans.

...At 75, Monsignor John McSweeney will soon leave affluent Ballantyne – where this parish named for the patron saint of bankers was built – and move to Jamaica or Haiti, where he hopes to spend his retirement years living with and ministering to the poorest of the poor....

That's good news for two groups of people:  the poorest of the poor who will receive a lot of graces (and perhaps some food and clothing) from this man's work, and for the parishioners he is leaving, who will now have the opportunity to hear about Catholicism pure, rather than this fellow's ....ummnnhhh....twisted..... take.

...he’d like the church and the diocese to be more about hospitality and less about judgment. That means, he said, being more welcoming: Of divorced-and-remarried Catholics, of LGBTQ persons, and of others who have long felt excluded by the church....

We all know that he does not mean "welcoming of the sinners"; he means "welcoming their sins, too."

...McSweeney said he’d also support the church re-opening the door to married priests by making celibacy optional – as it was the first 1,000 years of Roman Catholicism....

No, it was not.  Or--more accurately--yes, there were married priests.  They simply had to live as brother-and-sister with their wives.  And yes, later there was a brief time during which men could receive both Orders and Matrimony, but it was quashed NOT in the year 1000, but around 350-400 AD.

...McSweeney said he’s also “very concerned” that many of the priests graduating from seminaries these days are too conservative and could spur a revolt by Catholics in the pews against the priests’ efforts to stifle the reforms of the Second Vatican Council. Also known as Vatican II, this council in the 1960s embraced church reform, including expanding the role for lay Catholics and celebrating the Mass in the local language more so than in Latin.

“The population that is the worshiping Catholic community have no understanding or history of pre-Vatican II,” he said. “They weren’t born (yet). The same with these young priests.”...

"...stifle the reforms of VatII...such as....local language more so than in Latin..."?  Really?  There's more than a little irony in this man's yapping about "history" when it is clear that he has not read--nor understood--Sacrosanctum Consilium, which was VatII's blueprint on the liturgy.  He doesn't have to read too far into it, either.  Just through #36.  Or #54. 

I always laugh out loud when someone his age (only a few years past mine) flaps disapproving jaw about 'the olden days.'  I was there, then, Father.  And modern times are just as awful as 'the olden days' ever were, mostly due to yutzes like you.

...Lay people, particularly women, are not being permitted, for example, to dispense Communion as Eucharistic ministers. Altar boys are allowed, but not altar girls....

Neither of which has ANYTHING to do with "Vatican II".  And both of which are serious counter-signals to the Church's 'alter Christus' teaching; that is, that as Christ was a man, so His priests are men, as are all the altar-ministers.  Consider the charge Christ gave Peter and the Apostles:  "Feed My lambs....feed My sheep."  He did not say that to His mother, nor to Magdalen, did He?  That wasn't an oversight, nor a mistake, on His part--no matter what the Monsignor may think.

Not too surprisingly:

...McSweeney does favor letting women become deacons, which would give them the authority to preach at Mass, baptize and perform weddings....

Thanks, Father, for proving my point immediately above.  Next thing you know, he'll be serving up The Pill to those faux-deaconettes so they can continue 'ministry' rather than be encumbered with diapers.

...the monsignor said about 95 percent of his 63 staffers at St. Matthew are women, including the church’s chief financial officer, its chief of facilities and most of its clinical counselors....

To which we say:  So what?

(Wanna take a hard look at his compensation schedule??  Hmmmm??  Would the father of a family of, say, 8, secure a 'living wage' from Fr. McSweeney's parish?  Hmmmmmm???  Oh, nevermind.  That stuff is so pre-Vatican II, ya'know.  All those children?  "Living wage?"  Neanderthal-grade Deplorable.)

Thank you, Father, for taking your retirement midst the poor.  The good news for you?  They won't really give a fig about your imaginative theories of 'justice.'  They'll be happy with sandwiches.