More "Catholics" Embrace Schism

In Boston, married "priests" to fill Catholics' Easter void

In a challenge to the authority of Archbishop Sean P. O'Malley, former parishioners of closed Catholic churches in Natick and Quincy have asked married priests to celebrate Easter Sunday Masses for them.

The Masses are scheduled to take place in non-Catholic settings -- one in a Protestant church and one in a city park -- and will be said by priests who have been suspended by the church because they married despite promises of celibacy.

So rather than go to Easter Mass at a Catholic parish, they choose a Protestant church or a park, with a "priest" without faculties? Maybe it'll rain Sunday?

But then, what is going on in Boston isn't much different that what is going on here with the defiant group at St. Stanislaus.

"...it's definitely another step toward the schism that a lot of people have been fearing," said the Rev. William A. Clark, who has been following the parish closings as an assistant professor of religious studies at the College of the Holy Cross. "They're not giving up on their faith, but on the leadership, and that has big implications ecclesiologically. It's the way the Protestant Reformation began."

Do you hear the chant in the background???? "We are a highly educated group of people...We're intelligent enough to make those decisions...We are following our consciences"...and on, and on, and on.....the same lamentable droning.

The one thing we do not hear, though, is an admission of pride. All of this dissension stems from pride - a profound lack of the virtue of humility. And without humility, there can not be obedience.

As we should understand from in Tuesday's Gospel commentary, if we are to follow Christ, we must also follow His example of obedience.

...it is glorification of the Father, because Christ, by voluntarily accepting death out of love, as a supreme act of obedience to the Will of God, performs the greatest sacrifice man can offer for the glorification of God.

And we can see, especially in today's Gospel, just how we are to model our lives after our Lord in a spirit of humility:

Aware that He is the Son of God, Jesus voluntarily humbles Himself to the point of performing a service appropriate to household servants.

In this scene (the washing of the Apostles' feet), He teaches us the same thing, through specific example, thereby exhorting us to serve each other in all humility and simplicity (cf. Galatians 6:2; Philippians 2:3)

"I have given you an example of humility. I have become a slave, so that you too may learn to serve all men with a meek and humble heart" ([St] J. Escriva, "Friends of God", 103).

Jesus, the God-Man, humbled Himself in such a profound way, that He, being God, was obedient, not only to the Father but also to His human parents - what a marvelous example that should be for us.

The Boston article is here