Excerpts from the following story come from the National "Catholic" Reporter. Further fallout from the Extra-Judicial Decree of Archbishop Burke comes as Sean Collins, one-third of the "pastoral team" at St. Cronan parish, has resigned.
Sr. Louise Lears was already barred from mission in the Archdiocese by His Grace's decree; now the parish is left with a Catholic priest as Pastor, as it should be.
Beleaguered St. Louis parish hit again
By Tom Fox, NCR Staff
Published: July 7, 2008
Published: July 7, 2008
The above photo of Sean Collins by Jim Tobin and appeared in the NCRonline story
Beleaguered St. Cronan parish in St. Louis, Mo., from which Sister of Charity Louise Lears was banished last month as a pastoral associate for her support of women’s ordination, has been hit again by the resignation of its pastoral associate, Sean Collins.
Collins announced his decision to end his parish work in a letter dated July 2nd to the St. Cronan parish council.
“I believe in the days ahead my calling is to continue our common work of praying for peace and trying to make real in the city of St. Louis the Reign of God,” Collins wrote. “I have come to the conclusion that I will be hampered in that calling, personally, if I remain an employee of a parish in the archdiocese.”
The tumultuous events at St. Cronan, an inner city Saint Louis parish, began June 26 when then St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke issued punishing decree against Lears for having actively supported women’s ordination efforts in the archdiocese.
[...]
St. Cronan has now lost both its pastoral associates in one week’s time.
Collins told NCR that leaving his official post will allow him to speak freely about Lears’ case and wider conduct of life in the archdiocese.
“I need to be able to talk freely about Archbishop Burke's treatment of our sister Louise and our faith community,” he said.
[...]
Collins has had leadership roles in the parish for the past six years.
Until last week the St. Cronan leadership team included Father Gerry Kleba, the pastor, as well as Lears and Collins, the co-pastoral associates. Parish members say they referred to all three as “co-pastors.”
[...]
Collins says his plans now are to join with a group of people -- some former Cronan parishioners and others -- to investigate what “being church” might mean in the months ahead. “What form that takes, I'm not sure,” he said. “But I am sure excited to find out.”
___________________________
Mr. Collins makes a number of statements that beg to be addressed. First, he states that he will be hampered in his calling to make real the Reign of God in St. Louis if he is employed by the parish. I don't think he faults the parish, so his insinuation is that the Archdiocesan connection is the problem. He attaches a need to be off the payroll to the desire to "speak freely" about the "treatment" Sr. Lears received. A new level of circumspection at the parish about this sort of thing may be the first fruit of the decree concerning Sr. Lears.
A parish that calls a priest and two laypeople, one of whom is a woman, "co-pastors" has fundamental problems in recognizing and following the Catholic faith.
Finally, it will be most interesting to see where Mr. Collins and his supporters' investigation into "being Church" leads them. I am excited to find out, too. Let's just hope it doesn't lead to St. Stan's or to Elsie and Ree's Sunday hangout.
Tip to AMDG for spotting the NCR story.
Posts
14 comments:
Off topic, admitted, but this is the second time I've seen St. Cronan referred to as an "inner-city parish." Am I missing something? I live closer to the city center than the folks at St. Cronan, and even my neighborhood isn't called "inner-city."
Mr. Collins once had the bile to refer to His Grace as an hippopotomus. Well, Mr. Collins and his partisans have now found that the hippopotomus has trampled through their sandbox and his successor may do no less.
And so he's resigning. One must applaud Mr. Collins a little. He has finally encountered reality.
Sure he's resigning. He must. It's part of St.Cronan's desperate survival strategy.
Mr. COllins is an outspoken defender of the proposition that buggery has religious, moral and sacramental value. The Roman Catholic CHurch does not agree. His outspoken, dissenting views are even more untenable than Sr. Lears. It's only a matter of time before he will be subjected to an interdict containing the same conditions as were put on Sr. Lears. Sean Collins is resigning before he gets fired. Classic.
I agree that the most humorous comment of Mr. COllins is his wanting to investigate how to be Church. That is just too rich.
They don't want to be in the Catholic Church. But now they realize too late that they don't want to be thrown out of it.
That is a dilemma. How shall they "be Church" indeed if they want (like children) to have their cake and eat it too.
This is to much! Indeed laughable.
You can't "be Church" without being in the Church. This is whats wrong with these people. They "think" they can "be Church" without the Church.ie. Pope, Bishop, Priest..
I'm so glad His Grace, started this, because Chancery offices all accross this country are FULL of people from the 1970s who believe this crap. It's sad...and very sinful!
And someone called us mental for trying to be faithful to the Church and her teachings?
Mr. Collins has it right...Sir it's time you leave. Your "hippy" days are over...Thank you and good-bye!
Is it easier to leave Christ than to repent and be faithful to Him?
Now thats MENTAL!
It's easier to leave Christ if you remain obstinate in your sin and follow your own will. What takes strength is to have the humility to admit your faults and ask for forgiveness. So in a sense he's taking the easy way out.
Praise God that the Holy Spirit is protecting the Church!!
First, the Holy Spirit guided Archbishop Burke and now He has forced God's Grace to permeate Pharaoh's...er, Mr. Collin's heart to realize that he is not Catholic.
That is how you be Church... you must be ONE, HOLY, CATHOLIC and APOSTOLIC... and hey, in case St. Cronan's missed it, that means being faithful and obedient.
"Mr. Collins once had the bile to refer to His Grace as an hippopotomus...." - stguyfawkes
Please direct me to the source and context of your allegation that Mr. Collins referred to the Archbishop as a hippotomus.
And again, so that I may read it firsthand, I would like to know the source of this allegation that...
"Mr. COllins is an outspoken defender of the proposition that buggery has religious, moral and sacramental value...." -stguyfawkes
"Sure he's resigning. He must. It's part of St.Cronan's desperate survival strategy." -stguyfawkes
As one who considers the community and it's pastors anathema, how is it that you privy to the 'strategies' of St. Cronan parish? Do you attend St. Cronan?
For the Anon who asked for my sources, StGuyfawkes here at your service!
Please take notes:
In the Pastor's Peace Column of the St. Cronan's Bulletin dated Sunday May 4, 2008 we find the "Pastor" concluding a parable about an African friend of the parish who fears hippos interrupting his Masses back home.
The St. Cronan's "pastor" concludes "here we are wary of a different kind of hippo stomp that is equally perilous."
Readers of the St. Cronan's bulletin and followers of the parish's liturgical controversies know well that the Parish spokespeople like to express themselves symbolically. (The Cronan's webpage has contained for a week a poem by e.e. cummings whose first line clearly equates St. Cronan's to "a little church". THe poem does so to the detriment of a "large cathedral".)
No reader of the Cronan's website could fail to see that as a swipe at the CHancery Office.
And no follower of the Cronan's bulletins could fail to mistake the perilous stomp of the hippo to anything but a swipe at ARchbishop Burke intrusion upon women's liturgies at Cronan's.
But then again St. Cronan's folks said that last December 12th's vespers service in the rain wasn't a demonstration against Burke. No. And the hippo is just a hippo. No symbolism. Just an hippo. Just praying in the rain. Puhleeeze!
The Archbishop was called an hippo in the Gnostic language of St. Cronanese.
Now on one point I must apologize. Anon, you've got me on one point. I must admit that in my previous post I suffered a lapse in memory.
That particular hippo stomping "Pastor's Peace" article was unsigned. Usually they are initialled. Perhaps Sean Collins did not write it.
But it doesn't matter.
Given that the Cronan's "Pastoral Team" sees themselves as a kind of Trinity I presumed the piece came from the hand of Sean COllins.
I was wrong. Perhaps Fr. Kleba or Sr. Lears wrote it. In anycase it was deplorable. I presume that it was approved by all three members of the trium-virate, or trium-feminate, or trium-vir-feminate. (Or however they think of the Trinity.)
The point is the same. The parish of which he is one third of the "Pastoral Team" approved the insult.
Now, as to Mr. COllin's belief that gay sex is sacramental I refer you to the scrapbook on the "Holy Family Website" where is posted his letter to the Archbishop. It can be found at
http://www.catholicactionnetwork.org/HF/HolyFamilies-Scrapbook5e.htm
Mr. Collins writes "I am quite certain that sexual expression of love is a divine gift for all people."
I extend my apologies to Mr. COllins if by "sexual expression" he only meant chaste kisses and holding hands. I took him to mean what most gay men (of my acquaintance) mean by sexual expression: buggery, oral or anal.
As to your last question, no I am not a member of St. Cronan's parish. I do admit they are a lively bunch. As to how I know their strategy I am infering it from forty some years of studying organizations in crisis as they lurch into "damage control", which I opine, is what they are doing now.
I said opine! It is common in English polemical discourse to put aside the subjunctive and say "George Bush is hiding the Truth" rather than "George Bush might be hiding the truth" or "I should think Bush would be lying given the facts."
One is allowed to simply declare inferences as fact in the indicative mood. Most readers understand that.
Now please do look up the bon mots and piquant witticisms of St. Cronan's charmed circle. The whole series of Bulletins and websites ought to be preserved for posterity as an example of elegant literary heresy. A librarian could stack the anthology next to the writings of the Bloomsbury group.
When your suspect consistently refuses to use the definite article in front of "Church," you should have a pretty good idea what's going to be on the menu.
And I don't think I'm hungry.
I love this blog!
stguyfawkes- you rock!
We NEED this blog! We need a clear faith of the Church.
Stand firm! Tell the truth! Don't give in. The Church in the US is polluted with junk.
It's kinda funny when "they" get angry.
Why don't they just leave, and quit calling themselves Catholic when in fact they are not?
That is a lie! a lie, I said..mortal sin...yep..
Faithful Catholics- its time to rise! This little light of mine, I'm gunna let it shine!
Thanks guys!
Speaking of Mr. Collins...check this article hot off the NCR Website:
http://ncronline3.org/drupal/?q=node/1397
I wonder of the "spy" for the Archdiocese who videoed the "ordination" last November is one of the regulars here!
Anon above,
Oh me, oh my, oh horrors!!! The Archdiocese actually gathered evidence in a juridical proceeding.
What the hell is Sean Collin's gripe? Does the Archbishop need "probable cause" to investigate a publicized, well advertised act of blasphemy?
Everybody who is shocked that a video was taken needs to grow up.
Tell me. How does the Archbishop NOT have the right to tape a religious ceremony made by Catholics claiming to be performing a Roman Catholic rite? They call themselves Roman Catholic Womenpriests for gosh sakes! How the heck can they complain if the local ordinary wants to be in the loop?
The man has perfect juristiction to see what's going on. It's not spying. Its called evidence.
The point has been made in this thread repeatedly. These Cronan-magnons want it both ways! If they say they are Cathlolic then anybody should be able to tape their ceremonies. IF they admit to being a cult then they have a right to complain.
The only way they can cry "foul" is if they are part of another denomination whose boundaries have been crossed.
Sue Talve might complain that Burke's did not ask permission to tape, perhaps. (But then Sue Talve did not ask Burke permission to do Vesper services either so boundaries are moot with that particular wandering Sue).
This taping is NOT spying!!!
I would like to see it on YOUTUBE however. I'm sure it is very funny.
Seriously, what would be spying?
Going in and finding out what goes on in St. Cronan's weekly GLBT scripture studies: that would be spying.
Anon above. If you're suggesting STGUYFAWKES is a spy you're wrong. I stopped that after I found blowing up the protestant Parliament just made things worse.
(Although sometimes a poor Papist does have such strange thoughts he must find a confessor.)
Mr. stguyfawkes-
Thank you for the references I requested. I would agree that calling the Archbishop a hippopotamus would be considered an insult. But upon reading the entire text, I don’t see the insult. What I see is the phrase ‘hippo stomp’ used to rather vividly (and accurately) describe an action that Archbishop Burke has since performed on Sister Lears and the St. Cronan community! Frankly, I find the sentence to be a rather appropriate (witty, even!) tie-in to Father Thomas’ communication to the St. Cronan community. Even YOU must admit that that Archbishop Burke put the canonical qabash to Sister Lears and the St. Cronan community - big time. I would think that you and your friends here at SaintLouisCatholic would applaud the A-B’s ‘hippo stomp’ on those heretics!
As for the e.e. cummings poem: St. Cronan is a and a small church in a small parish. The poem speaks to faith, to spirituality and grace even in the small things. Your comment is enlightening. It speaks more about your antipathy towards the people at St. Cronan, people who strive to live the Word to follow Christ’s teaching, than any ‘symbolic political subversion’ that you might read into the poem.
It’s a beautiful piece. Sometimes a poem is simply - a poem.
And while you’re ‘on a roll’, Mr.stguyfawkes, perhaps you could comment on the heresies committed by the “trium-virate, or trium-feminate, or trium-vir-feminate” for publishing a picture of Our Lady Queen of Peace next to the poem. A subversive commentary on the ordination of women priests, perhaps? After all, everything those Gnostics do is a conspiracy – right?
As for the Vesper Service December last: While I did not attend that service, I do know that Rabbi Talve was one of a number of religious from different faiths asked to participate at Tuesday vesper services throughout the Advent season. The day before the Vesper service Archbishop Burke did not request, he demanded (through a minion) that Rabbi Talve be barred from entering the Church. The community bowed to the A-B’s command. The service was held off Church property, as commanded.
Was that an act of rebellion against the Archbishop? Well, what started as a worship service certainly turned out to be a demonstration thanks to Archbishop Burke’s intransigeance and hostility towards Rabbi Talve.
So much for “Peace on Earth, good will towards men” (or should I have used the “Gnostic Cronanese”, humankind ?)
On second thought, maybe you are right; the ‘demonstration’ was held on the day of the Feast of the Virgin Guadeloupe. That clinches it. It was a conspiracy.
Mr. Collin’s letter to the Archbishop:
“Mr. Collins writes ‘I am quite certain that sexual expression of love is a divine gift for all people’… I took him to mean what most gay men (of my acquaintance) mean by sexual expression: buggery, oral or anal.” – stguyfawkes
I agree. That statement is truly radical, especially when stated in a letter to the Archbishop of St. Louis. The idea of sex being an expression of love between two human beings is anathema to a True Catholic. If I remember my RCIA, sex is reserved for the act of procreation by a man and a woman married within the auspices of the One True Church. Anything else is a sin. So, when you look at it through the teachings of the Church all carnal acts, no matter what sum the sexual mathematics, are pretty nasty, aren’t they?
What is more disgusting to me, though, is the cover-up by the Church hierarchy of those priests that engaged in the ‘buggering” (to use YOUR term, Mr. stguyawkes) of little children by certain members of the Catholic clergy. I do believe that trumps your ‘buggering’ between consenting adults.
Or is pedophilia by clergy not considered a mortal sin but an ‘indiscretion’? How do the canon lawbooks describe it?
Oh, and do be careful, Mr.stguyfawkes; some of your compatriots here may misunderstand your ’acquaintance’ with gay men.
“As to how I know their strategy I am infering (sic) it from forty some years of studying organizations in crisis …which I opine, is what they are doing now.
“I said opine! It is common in English polemical discourse to put aside the subjunctive..” - stguyfawkes
I am most certainly glad you clarified your relationship to the St. Cronan community. And I applaud your expertise (and those of your blogsite colleagues) at reading and unmasking all those Gnostic conspiracies found in the St. Cronan bulletins without once talking person-to-person with a “Cronanite”. In THAT respect, you follow the lead of Archbishop Burke.
“The whole series of Bulletins and websites ought to be preserved for posterity as an example of elegant literary heresy. A librarian could stack the anthology next to the writings of the Bloomsbury group.” – stguyfawkes
If your reference to the Bloomsbury Group is that of the cartoon series – then St. Cronan’s “elegant literary heresy” is in excellent literary company. Better to be placed on the shelf next to “Bloomsbury” than next the “canonical law” text.
I will give you this; when it comes to bile, you certainly know of what you speak.
And a good evening to you Mr. stguyfawkes
Dear Anon above,
I'll respond to your points one by one and stand aside to let you have the last word. StGuyFawkes thinks his bloodpressure (and yours)is getting much too high.
1.) The Hippo Stomp: We both agree on at least one thing: the trope refers to Archbishop Burke.
I just want to point out that however accurate you may feel the metaphor is, in retrospect, it still represents an insult to the local ordinary and an offense to his authortity which dissolves Chruch Unity.
That's what this is all about, the problem of Unity.
Whatever one thinks of Archbishop Burke no Roman Catholic can go round publically calling his Bishop a hippo without offending the Unity of the Catholic Church.
By the way, this isn't the worst offense. Fr. Kleba slyly referred to the Archbishop as Bull Connor recently in his "Pastor's PEace".
Frankly, the hippo trope would better fit parish supression. Archbishop Burke chose the foot stomp of Bambi by comparison with what he could have mustered had he not been so kind.
2.) The Poem: The e.e. cummings poem is a graceful and beautiful expression of the Cronan's view of "being Church". Unfortunately it also expresses quiet clearly that the Cronan view is that their parish should be allowed to operate (by virtue of their attunement to the seasons and sadnesses of life) free of any Archdiocean governance.
That won't do for reasons of Church Unity explained above.
3.) Talve and the Vespers in the Rain: The Archbishop asked that Susan Talve not be invited to the Vespers service. MOving the service outside was a childish dodge. They knew what he meant. Saying that by putting it outdoors they were obeying him makes me ask: "Who's being narrowly legalistic now?"
4.) Gay Sex: I'm not sure I understood your comments about procreation, Church teaching and sex. From what I can tell you mean since almost all sex but married sex is wrong then that leaves out too much sex so the Church is wrong. Or something like that. Then you changed the argument to the issue of pedophile priests. Your argument seems to be that since priests commit great sins we should be able to commit smaller ones like fornication and sodomy.
Here's my argument in a nutshell. Just because Renaissance popes had bastards doesn't mean I can masturbate. That's just what the Church teaches: two wrongs don't make a right.
5.) Misunderstandings: I said I didn't belong to St. Cronan's. I didn't say that I don't know anyone down there, I do. And I've ties to the Pastoral Team I won't go into now. When you say I've never talked to a single member of St. Cronan's you are wrong.
Let me end by saying that I have often found the company of homosexuals to be rewarding. As a whole they tend to be warm, charming and generous people. However their night time depredations are abominations and sinfully destuctive.
Sometimes nice people do bad things. The Church has been teaching this for years.
Anon, sorry for the bile. Now you pile on and I'll let you have the last word.
St. Guy
While I appreciate the vigor and sincerity of this exchange, please keep the language clean.
God bless.
Post a Comment