A really important post by Fr. Z

Fr. Z had a great rant over the weekend on the subject of protestant churches that are frequently used as locations for illicit, invalid, sacrilegious, and blasphemous pseudo-“ordinations” or women.  Fr. Z asks……if we and the protestants are so on board with “ecumenism,” why do protestant churches keep spitting in our collective Catholic eyes by allowing – and even encouraging – these travesties to occur?  I rip off Fr. Z by adding emphasis and comments.

Look. We either take ecumenism seriously or we don’t. If we do – and I believe we must – [as a former protestant, I believe ecumenism in that direction is pointless and dangerous] we have to react strongly when ecumenical ideals are so grossly violated by Protesants who invite or permit these “women priest” ceremonies in their churches.

The most sacred rites of the Catholic Church are Holy Mass and ordination to Holy Orders. These are sine quibus non for our Catholic identity and the continuance of Holy Church Herself.  They are of divine origin.  They are for us most sacred.  To treat sacred things with lack of due respect or reverence is the sin of sacrilege.

From our point of view as Catholics, these women-priest supporters are committing sacrilege in simulating Mass and Orders. [As well as blaspheming the Holy Spirit]

The Protestants who host them are also, objectively speaking, committing a sacrilege.  They are permitting or inviting a mockery of our Holy Mass and a mockery of the priesthood.

When Protestants allow dissident Catholics to commit sacrileges in their churches, they effectively wave their middle-digit directly in the face of the Catholic Church. [Exactly.  This is not unintentional.]

There is no confusion in the religious world about what the Catholic Church teaches about Mass and ordination, about who may celebrate Mass and who may be ordained.  There is NO confusion about what the Church teaches!  Nevertheless, Protestants invite what the Catholic Church teaches is sacrilege to be committed in their churches. [Again, this is not an accident]

Furthermore, in allowing this group of fakers into their churches, the Protestants are accepting the premise that what the women are doing in there actually is a Catholic ordination and Mass.

How dare PROTESTANTS decide what a Catholic Mass is?

And if they respond, “Gee, we mean no disrespect. We are just giving space to this group”, then what they are doing is aiding a protest against the Catholic Church.

This is a huge point.  I agree with Fr. Z’s recommendations that the local Church break off all relations with a protestant sect that hosts one of these travesties.  While I think ecumenism is ok when properly understood (conversion back to the Catholic Faith), what passes for ecumenism these days (either meaningless, endless dialogue or, worse, indifferentism) is not worth the cost it has imposed.

I think we need to understand something here.  For the protestant sects that would host this kind of blatantly offensive disasters, the Faith as you and I understand it is a secondary or tertiary thing.  If it matters at all.  What matters to the left wing unitarian church that hosts this, or the Lutheran one, or the really far out Episcopal church with the lesbian rector, etc, is advancing their temporal agenda.  They only care about ecumenism with the “right” kind of Catholics, that is Catholics who share their politicized view of the Faith.  So, I don’t think just cutting off relations – if there are any – with Rev. Moonbeam’s First Indifferentist Church is going to have much impact.

If bishops want to stop this kind of thing, they’re going to have to make known their displeasure to their counterparts in the episcopal or lutheran or whatever church it is that hosts one of these.  Even then, there’s a better than even chance that the protestant bishop or equivalent won’t care, either.  National level efforts (we’re cutting off all talks with the episcopals so long as travesties like this occur) would probably work best.  But I seriously doubt there is sufficient will among the episcopate to take that kind of action, seeing as how “ecumenism” is one of the golden unicorns of the current Church leadership.

I don’t mean that we just totally ignore protestants, but the faiths are so totally different it’s almost pointless to dialogue!  If you want to engage in meaningful dialogue, spend time with the Russian or Armenian or Greek Orthodox, or the Copts!