We can see all around us today the fruits of a corrupt clergy that has rejected the teachings of the Catholic Church. This corruption is being manifest in a number of ways, including financial embezzlement, sexual abuse, liturgical abuse, heterodoxy and heresy. Case in point: Life Site News reports on a homosexual couple that gave a public testimony regarding the baptism of their son before Sunday Mass at St. Joan of Arc Catholic Church in Minneapolis Minnesota on the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord, January 12, 2019. Fr. Z writes that St. Joan of Arc has had a long history of weird and sacrilegious offences, especially liturgical, against the Faith, citing examples he has mentioned on his blog HERE (2009), HERE (2008) and HERE (2006).
So what’s wrong with this picture? Let us count the ways:
- Techniques that entail the dissociation of husband and wife, by the intrusion of a person other than the couple (donation of sperm or ovum, surrogate uterus), are gravely immoral. These techniques (heterologous artificial insemination and fertilization) infringe the child’s right to be born of a father and mother known to him and bound to each other by marriage. They betray the spouses’ “right to become a father and a mother only through each other (CCC 2376)
- Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex. It has taken a great variety of forms through the centuries and in different cultures. Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained. Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity,141 tradition has always declared that “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.”142 They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved. (CCC 2357)
- “The matrimonial covenant, by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life, is by its nature ordered toward the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring; this covenant between baptized persons has been raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a sacrament.” (CCC 1601)
- Scandal takes on a particular gravity by reason of the authority of those who cause it or the weakness of those who are scandalized. It prompted our Lord to utter this curse: “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened round his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.” Scandal is grave when given by those who by nature or office are obliged to teach and educate others. Jesus reproaches the scribes and Pharisees on this account: he likens them to wolves in sheep’s clothing. (CCC 2285)
- For an infant to be baptized licitly: there must be a founded hope that the infant will be brought up in the Catholic religion; if such hope is altogether lacking, the baptism is to be delayed according to the prescripts of particular law after the parents have been advised about the reason. (Canon 868 §1.2)
- A person who uses a public show or speech, published writings, or other media of social communication to blaspheme, seriously damage good morals, express wrongs against religion or against the Church or stir up hatred or contempt against religion or the Church is to be punished with a just penalty. (Canon 1369)
- Delicts against the faith as well as graviora delicta committed in the celebration of the Eucharist and the other Sacraments are to be referred without delay to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which “examines [them] and, if necessary, proceeds to the declaration or imposition of canonical sanctions according to the norm of common or proper law”. (Redemptionis Sacramentum paragraph 179)
Concerned lay persons are encouraged to contact the Archbishop of St. Paul/Minneapolis as well as the parish pastor to respectfully offer their opinions:
- Archbishop Bernard Hebda
Office of The Archbishop
777 Forest Street Saint Paul MN 55106
Phone: 651.291.4400
Email: archbishop@archspm.org - Fr. Jim DeBruycker
Pastor of St. Joan of Arc
Email: jdebruycker@stjoan.com
Ph: 612.823.8205 Ext. 224
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