Rebel Priest to Address Rebel "Catholics"

What a treat.

Marek Bozek, native of Poland, will be in Brookfield to spread a bit of poison--claiming, of course, that he is impelled to do so by 'speaking truth to power'.

Where have we heard that before??

Bozek, 33, the pastor of St. Stanislaus Kostka Church, will reflect on that in a talk titled “The Odyssey of Joseph the Dreamer: A Reflection on Those Who Care to Dream” at a Voice of the Faithful reform group meeting open to the public at 7 p.m. Wednesday at Calvary Lutheran Church, 1750 N. Calhoun Road, Brookfield.

Co-incidentally, that church is very close to St John Vianney Catholic church, which had scheduled, then UN-scheduled, a talk endorsing "gay marriage" by a Milwaukee priest, Fr B Massingale.

Bozek is excommunicated, and Benedict XVI is now considering laicizing him--that is, he could be reduced to layman status.

Fortunately for the Church in St. Louis, Abp. Burke ex-communicated the guy and his congregation--and that action was confirmed by the Vatican, to no one's surprise.

At any rate, he'll deliver the usual "rusty cutting-edge of the 1960's" song and dance.

The reflection is directed to the people who have been disappointed with the direction of the Roman Catholic Church today, especially to the people who remember the zeal and the joy of the Vatican II council... The question was, should I follow my conscience or should I be obedient to the authority who demands of me something contrary to my conscience, contrary to all the reasons why I became a priest... When people reject many parts of Catholic discipline — like contraception, or the issue of divorce, or of married priests, or of women priests, or of gay or lesbian couples — more Catholics become underground Catholics. They do not recognize the regime, but they still identify themselves as Catholics

Oh, yah. Vatican II was supposed to ...what? Make artificial contraception, serial marriage, poncho-ladies, and gay "marriage" licit? Damn. I can't find one single word in the documents which says that.

Given what we know about "Voice of the Faithful," it's no surprise that they invited Bozek.

From Deal Hudson, in Crisis magazine:

Voice of the Faithful is simply another group of dissenters, plain and simple. It parades under the false guise of being centrist, apolitical, and faithful to the Magisterium. Even readers of CRISIS have been drawn to its message. And why not? It seems harmless enough on the surface, and a lot of well-intentioned people are joining up. But make no mistake; VOTF is a wolf in sheep's clothing. And it's using this tragedy in our Church to advance its own political and theological agenda

...many of those associated with its leadership are involved with other dissenting groups, like Call to Action (www.cta-usa.org), CORPUS, and We Are the Church (http://www.we-are-church.org/).

...Nowhere are problems with VOTF clearer than in its document on change, titled "Discerning the Spirit: A Guide for Renewing and Restructuring the Catholic Church." The guide refers to our Church's "clerical culture" that is noted for its "power and secrecy...isolation from the laity...ignorance of the human body and sex, a mindset that degrades women and marriage, [and] a spiritually distorted, psychologically troubled view of celibacy." Here, the argument quickly devolves from a real problem seen in the current scandal -- clericalism -- to a misinterpretation of Church teaching on women, marriage, and celibacy. These are then lumped together so that if a person accepts the first claim, he must automatically accept the second. A typical bait-and-switch technique

And they harp about Vatican II, choosing VERY carefully which parts of the documents they will cite.

The [Voice of the Faithful] guide also relies heavily on the Vatican II document Lumen Gentium to support VOTF's push for a more "democratic" Catholic Church. It quotes the following passage in support of greater lay governance in the Church: "Thus every layman, by virtue of the very gifts bestowed upon him, is at the same time a witness and a living instrument of the mission of the Church herself" (LG §33). However, lay involvement is quite a different thing from the kind of "democratic" Church that VOTF so desperately wants. The establishment of a democratic Church was not the intent of Vatican II, as a later passage in Lumen Gentium explains: "The laity should promptly accept in Christian obedience what is decided by the pastors who, as teachers and rulers of the Church, represent Christ" (LG §37).

Hudson sums it up:

There have always been dissenting groups in the Church, and VOTF isn't saying anything new. The real problem is its patent dishonesty: It claims to be faithful to the Magisterium while rejecting the teachings of the Catholic Church. Claiming that it's "faithful" doesn't make it so. Nor can Voice of the Faithful be considered in any way the voice of the one true Church

Yah, well. No surprise that the meeting will be held in a Lutheran facility.