Apr 3, 2006, Cafeteria Catholicism 101

Vic Biorseth, http://www.Thinking-Catholic-Strategic-Center.com

As I have said in several WebPages within the Thinking Catholic Strategic Center Website, there is a serious on-going problem with proper Catholic catechesis in America, thanks to what appears to be a predominance of American bishops who are, to put it as mildly as possible, wimpy and mushy in their Catholic doctrine. For proof of that statement, all you have to do is take a close look at the issue of artificial contraception; how it's viewed, accepted or rejected by the American Catholic laity, and how America's bishops seem to be responding - or, not responding - to the widespread practices of the laity. Millions of "practicing" American Catholics could not be "choosing" to practice artificial contraception and continue coming forward to the Communion rail without the ineptitude if not outright collusion of thousands of priests, and hundreds of bishops.

The subject of the peculiarly Catholic contraception problem was initially fed by the outright, open challenging of Pope Paul VI's Humanae Vitae in 1968, by some American bishops, and it continues today largely due to the inaction and ho hum attitude of most of our bishops on the matter. Now, quite a few American bishops will jump up and point out that they, personally, have preached and/or editorialized and otherwise publicized their personal direct opposition to artificial contraception, in no uncertain terms. But, I submit, that is not good enough. Take a close look at what is taught on the subject in official catholic teaching institutions in the diocese of the anti-contraception bishop.

I don't particularly give a damn what some bishop says about it in his newsletter, or what he might preach about it from the pulpit of his cathedral. Whatever is taught in any Catholic teaching institution within his diocese is taught in his name, and it is taught by his authority, and is a teaching that is, very strictly, his responsibility. If he is allowing any Catholic faculty member to so much as grant equal time to dissident voices within his Catholic teaching institutions, then that teaching of dissent is, very strictly, his fault. Proper Catholic catechesis within any Particular Church, meaning any particular diocese or archdiocese, is the sole responsibility of the diocesan or archdiocesan bishop. Period.

Regarding the general public acceptance of contraceptive practices in America, that has been and continues to be fed by the false notion of the existence of a human population problem. As the link shows, there ain't no such thing. Nevertheless, the scientistic community, our predominant pseudo-intelligentsia and celebreality push the notion on the public, even as a crisis, in the complete absence of solid empirical evidence supporting the position. The existence of a serious human population problem is seen today to be axiomatic, and just accepted as a given. Much of the seeming uncritical acceptance of notions like this is explained in the Thinking Catholic WebPage, describing the movement of the education establishment away from critical thinking, and into - well, un-critical thinking.

My own personal experience in receiving official Catholic catechesis in the archdiocese of Cincinnati may be instructive. I attended the Athenaeum of Ohio Lay Pastoral Ministry Program, through to the end, and I cannot say that it was a positive experience. Nor can I say that the training I received was orthodox. Indeed, much of it was so heterodox as to raise questions as to whether it was even Catholic. To be fair, most of the classes were only mildly heterodox, and I did indeed learn something in them. You can see a rough overview of the whole program at the Cafeteria Catholic 1 WebPage.

I particularly enjoyed the Old Testament and the New Testament Scripture classes. The only thing I could complain about in them involved two things: the general un-critical acceptance of the so-called historical-critical method of Scripture analysis and study, which involves the practice of scientism and the pseudo-scientific approach; and, a couple of questionable study guides. Great Themes Of Scripture; Old Testament; Richard Rohr and Joseph Martos; and Great Themes Of Scripture; New Testament; Richard Rohr and Joseph Martos. These guys, who are, of course, adherents to the historical-critical school, seemingly never met a miracle they couldn't question. Their pseudo-scientism showed through consistently, obviously prevailing over their faith.

The only really negative thing I could say about the Annulment class was that the things that I thought were bad, or not good, were taught as being good, and preferred. For instance, the rising, even rocketing, numbers of Catholic annulments in relatively recent history, in lots of dioceses. I see that as a softening of doctrine and evidence of the almost unspoken scandal of the phenomenon known as Catholic divorce. Yet, the teacher saw it as a sign of the Church "growing" into the more modern cultural situation. Hmmm.

You can see some general comments on the program, and specific ones on the Doctrine class, in the Cafeteria Catholic 2 WebPage. This class was simply not a serious class. I learned nothing in this class about Catholic Doctrine that I didn't already know. But the worst thing about it was the absolute mushiness of the doctrine that was presented.

In the Cafeteria Catholic 3 WebPage you will see some of the depths of depravity taught in the name of Archbishop Pilarczyk in his personally highly prized teaching institution. We're talking a pro-sodomy, pro-priestess ordination, anti-magisterium, - I might as well just say, anti-Catholic official teaching.

Look at the Cafeteria Catholic 4 WebPage to see how the Christian Ethics class was officially taught in the archdiocese of Cincinnati. This was a real Biggee, relating to the question of officially giving equal time, in official, formal, Catholic teaching, to clear dissidents to that Catholic teaching.

Now why on Earth would any real Catholic want to knowingly do that?

And, of course, there is the Cafeteria Catholic 5 WebPage, where we look at a Christology course, Cincinnati style. This is where we learn of the Christ Who didn't know Who He was, didn't know His real purpose here, and Who just might not have been Resurrected from the dead, but Who taught very valuable lessons, all the same, see?

All of this was reported to Archbishop Pilarczyk, by me, and so far as I know, he did nothing whatsoever about any of it. To me, that makes it his teaching. If I had gone instead to something like Billy-Bob's Bible College and Transmission Repair Shop, I might have at least been taught by someone who devoutly believed in what he was teaching.

So, have you looked around lately? How's Catholicism being officially taught in your neighborhood? We don't have to put up with this crap. Let's talk about it.

By the way, the Catholic Prayer Webpage is finally finished. Let me know what you think about it.

God bless,

Vic

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Date: Fri Dec 18 22:33:57 2009
From: William Van Duzen
Email: vanduzenw@comcast.net
Location: Burlington, Iowa
Comment:

I went through the diocese of Davenports Ministry formation program. It was all about feminism, woman priests, and deacons. They even have five Diocese approved woman lay preachers to fill in for the shortage of priests. I was asked to join the deacon formation program but I have no use for this diocese. Apparently most men don't for they only have one seminarian. I love the Latin Mass and I travel far for it when I can. I go to Quincy IL, St. John Cantius in Chicago, when I can. The Diocese of Davenport is "garbage".

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