Blinded by Pride, Dissidents Gather & Promote "Nun" & Film

In the May 22 Bulletin of one of the parishes which was allowed to stay open, we see this little blurb:

In Good Conscience - Sister Jeannine Gramick’s Journey of Faith: A film by Barbara Rick Film Screening, Discussion & Reception - Sunday, June 5, 2005 - 3:30-6:30 p.m. @ Nerinx Hall Academy (530 East Lockwood). Tickets: $15 for movie & reception. Reserve over the phone: 314/721-2977 or email can@catholicactionnetwork.org. See flyer inserted in this week’s bulletin for more info. Sponsored by The Catholic Action Network for Social Justice.

Of course, the "Catholic" Action Network, which is not really Catholic at all, but serves, it seems, to promote all that conflicts with the teaching of the Church. One must wonder, then, why Betty Cuniberti of the Post Dispatch gives this woman such praise for defying the Church which she claims to love? What does the article say?

Censured nun brings her gay ministry to St. Louis

When she was, as she says, "Knee high to a grasshopper, just 7 years old, I felt God was calling me."

A call to repentance and conversion, no doubt.

He was. No matter how difficult it became in the next 55 years, God has never stopped calling Sister Jeannine Gramick.

Yes, He never fails to call us to be humble and obedient, to repentance and conversion, even when we reject Him and His Church.

Not even the man who would become pope, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, could stop Sister Jeannine from answering God's call to minister to lesbian and gay Catholics, who she feels are as deserving of a place in the church as anyone else.

Is this not a distortion of the actual facts? "Sister" Jeannine may "feel" all sorts of things, however, is she truly able to discern God's call for her? I think not.

The 62-year-old nun censured by Ratzinger six years ago and then ordered to be silent is on her way to St. Louis. And she's not coming quietly.

Of course not. Most dissidents rarely have time for those things which require quiet contemplation. Many are too concerned with a prideful self-importance and human respect to be quiet.

On Sunday at Nerinx Hall High School in Webster Groves, Sister Jeannine will talk about her controversial 28-year Catholic ministry after a 3:30 p.m. public showing of the documentary about it, "In Good Conscience," put on by the St. Louis Catholic Action Network.

And promoted, as well in a recent bulletin by St. Cronan's Parish.

Rather than be expelled or comply with the order of silence from the Rome office of the School Sisters of Notre Dame, who sent the gag order a year after Ratzinger's censure, Gramick left that group. Last summer, she joined the Sisters of Loretto, who run Nerinx.

Ahhh...the dying order of the Sisters of Loretto who abandoned the call of the Lord to teach and chose to embark on a mission of self destruction. I can, though, still vividly recall the wonderful Sisters of Loretto who were my teachers in grade school. Then the Lord's work was being accomplished. For whom do they work now?

Explaining to a gay Catholic why she defies the Vatican and remains Catholic, she says in the movie, "When Jesus walked the Earth, there were no bishops or cardinals. They are not the essence of what Christianity is about. You stay
Catholic because the church is the people of God."

Spoken like a true anti-Catholic protestant, yes? And I do not intend this as a slam against protestants as indicated by the lowercase "P"...It is intended as a statement of fact that those who claim to be Catholic yet openly defy the Church also openly "protest" and defy our Lord who established His Church on earth. Perhaps "Sister" Jeannine never understood that it was Jesus Himself who commissioned his Apostles as leaders of His Church?

She also repeats the mantra that the "[C]hurch is the people of God." While true, it must be understood that the "people of God" do not openly reject Him or His commandments, for if they do, they certainly cannot legitimately claim to be members of His Church after having abandoned it.

She believes sexual preference is no more a measure of morality than one's race or gender. There wasn't much silence in our telephone interview last week, either.

Sexual preference is like race or gender???? What is one is into beastiality or some other grossly immoral behavior? Is that to be permitted?
The Church has repeatedly stated that a disordered attraction to members of the same sex may not sinful unless the inclination is acted upon. Those people are to be respected with charity as we are to respect the dignity of every person.

When white smoke rose from St. Peter's last month, someone called her. She ran to the television.

"I watched the cardinal come out, and as soon as he said 'Joseph,' then I
knew," she told me. "There was a long pause, and my heart - really I had this
physical reaction in my body - I felt like my heart dropped down to my shoes."

Yes....and I bet Satan had the same feeling! How unfortunate!

What she calls the Catholic faith's "best-kept secret," primacy of conscience, is what compels her to stay and fight, when others just leave.

Again, a bit a misinformation is spread. We should all be perfectly aware of the responsibilities we have to properly form our consciences. Their is a certain culpability in failing to properly form one's conscience and that culpability can increase by spreading errors caused by a malformed conscience to others.

She was a good little nun, she says in the movie, "until I met a gay man."

A "good little nun"? Sure she was!

She hasn't revealed her own sexual orientation because she is not the issue. And it shouldn't matter. But in the movie, she says she had been in love before she went into the convent right out of high school and again once afterward.

In love or in lust? Can we get a clarification?

She notes that the Bible, in addition to saying man should not lie with man, "says we shouldn't eat shellfish or ordain humpbacked priests. We hold on to that passage (condemning homosexual acts) to justify prejudice."

Spoken like a true Catholic!?! Apparently she wishes to debate God on matters of the natural and moral law...Is this not reminiscent of the serpent telling Eve that she and Adam could be like God, knowing good and evil, if only they would disobey Him?

She told me about her only face-to-face meeting with Ratzinger, which is not in the film. She had failed to be granted an appointment with him in Rome. But years later she ended up on the same flight with him from Rome to Berlin, a year before he would censure her.

She was well aware she was being investigated by Ratzinger, who was head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. When she sat next to him and introduced herself, "He said, 'Oh, I've known you for 20 years,' " she recalled.

He told her he didn't mind that she arranged Masses in the homes of gay Catholics, but going to other dioceses and preaching against the policies of the Vatican are another matter.

As it is for any and all professed Catholics. But then, some are wiser than the the Church and, no doubt, they receive a similar grace of infallibility...Right, Sister?

"He said, 'Do the bishops invite you?' " Sister Jeannine said. "I told him, 'Some do, some don't. I go to colleges and retreat houses.'

"These bishops still act like feudal lords, like you have to have permission of feudal lords to enter their territory."

Again, an indication of open rebellion against lawful ecclesiastical authority. We should always remember, "He who rejects you, rejects Me and the One Who sent Me."

By the way, she did not seek permission from St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke to come here. But she told me his view that Catholics who vote for a pro-choice candidate shouldn't receive Communion "crosses the line."

Moronic statements coming from an apostate should not come as a surprise to faithful Catholics.

Her conversation with Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, "for me," she said, "put a human face on this institution. He was very gracious, very kind and had a sense of humor. I asked if he knew gay Catholics, and he said, 'Oh, yeah. When the pope and I were in Berlin, there were gays demonstrating.' So, that is his experience with gay people - confrontational."

Call me stupid, but I can't follow the logic here. Homosexual activists are demonstrating and the Holy Father's experience with them is "confrontational"...?

She told him gay Catholics she met are filled with faith.

With what kind of faith are they filled?

"They feel persecuted from two sides. The lesbian and gay community mocks them for staying in this church that is so condemnatory. And the leaders of our church condemn them. They have to have great faith to stay in the church."

The Church does not condemn them but their sins - just as she condemns all sin rather than sinners. It is disheartening to see these distortions from one who claims to be an educated Catholic.

Their talk didn't sway Cardinal Ratzinger from censuring her a year later. But she hopes that "maybe it might influence his heart. Maybe one day."

Yes, perhaps he'll bring back a wave of excommunications to deal with the rampant poison of heresy, apostacy, and schism going on today. All in a gentle medicinal way, of course.