A Blog for Dallas Area Catholics

Reason #8995 not to give to Catholic Charities June 5, 2013

As if you needed another reason. Aside from the fact that Catholic Charities receives the vast majority of its funding from the federal government (and is constantly lobbying for more), aside from their constant lobbying on behalf of further, unaffordable government growth, and aside from numerous moral problems of a very grave sort with many Catholic Charities programs and personnel, now you have yet another reason not to support Catholic Charities. The keynote speaker for their annual national meeting is a heretical Jesuit who rejects all manner of Church Dogma on the usual sexual issues (I add emphasis and comments):

Catholic Charities USA has courted new scandal with the announcement of the featured speaker at their 2013 annual gathering on September 15.  In a May 17 press release Catholic Charities announced that Father Greg Boyle would keynote the event.

Father Boyle, a very popular figure for his work with the poor, is nonetheless a dissident priest who ridicules Catholic Church teaching on issues touching same-sex ‘marriage’ and women priests.

In an August  5, 2010 video interview with NonprofitNews Jesuit Fr. Boyle was asked about the overturning of the referendum to ban homosexual ‘marriage’ Proposition 8.

Fr. Boyle replied:

These things are actually easier than people make them out to be it seems to me. I think it’s always important to kind of say, ‘how does God see sexual orientation.’ [Well, gee, Fr. Modernist Heretic Jesuit, we have numerous condemnations of homosexual acts and the inclination in Sacred Scripture, and 2000 years of constant belief in Tradition. But I guess that doesn’t mean much to a man too ashamed to wear the Roman collar]  Does God feel like that same-sex marriage could happen? [No. Why did God reveal through inspired and inerrant Scripture that homosexual acts are a sin the cries out to Heaven for vengeance?] I don’t think anybody who has a connection to God and God’s understanding and depth of compassion who’s gonna say no. And this is contrary to the party line.” [So, Fr. Boyle just condemned numerous Saints, Doctors, Apostles, etc., of not understanding God and lacking compassion. I guess the Church is wrong – and this is heresy, he is specifically condemning a Dogma, that a Saint is in Heaven – and St. Peter Damian, among many others, is fryin’ in hell right now.  Of course, Fr. Boyle likely doesn’t believe in such quaint concepts as damnation and hell.  That wouldn’t be modern]

Fr. Boyle returned to the question later in the interview, speaking of opposing same-sex ‘marriage’ as “demonizing people.”  He said, “You cannot demonize people [whom] you know. It obliterates that forever. So, that’s important in all these issues, gay marriage, etc. All you need to know is the gay couple who have kids, and that obliterates forever anybody’s inclination to say this is wrong. “ [This doesn’t even make sense. And what he’s saying is, 2000 years of belief means nothing if you find it uncomfortable to confront people who are living or acting contrary to it.  Give me a break.  And, yes, Fr. Boyle, I know homosexuals, and I have discussed this issue with them, and I did not find it necessary to apostasize to win their favor. Or “tolerance.”]

Fr. Boyle also ridiculed the Catholic Church’s refusal to ordain women to the priesthood.  “You know the Vatican just said that the ordination of women is a grave sin,” he said. “Have you ever met anybody who would agree with that, I mean my 85-year-old mother doesn’t…”[You can see that Fr. Boyle doesn’t get out of his uber-lefty California very much.]

He continued, “It’s shameful to kind of say stuff like that because it’s not honest. … The Church should say I’m frightened that women will be ordained, that’s honest say that. But don’t say it’s a grave sin because that’s nonsense.” [Why is this man even a priest?  How can he still be in holy orders, after such heresy?  Where is the enforcement of discipline? This man is a liberal episcopalian, he’s not even remotely Catholic.  You can see he has absolutely no respect for the Magisterium at all]

Fr. Boyle is also fond of calling God “her.”  Please.  This man likely ceased being Catholic decades ago.  It is a massive scandal for him to even be able to call himself a priest, let alone receive awards and a speaking platform!

But I would further posit that Fr. Boyle’s lifelong focus on a materialist conception of service likely contributed mightily to his standing as wanton heretic. This is a massive problem in the entire Church in the past several decades, a focus on serving people’s material needs so absolute that the greater need, the spiritual need, gets totally forgotten. This wasn’t always the case. There have been many great Saints who served the needs of the poor while remaining completely loyal to, and in love with, the beliefs of the Church.  These Saints tended to focus their mission to the poor within a framework of Catholic orthodoxy, and transmission of the Faith was a vital part of their apostolates.  But most modern social justice types fail to do so.  Perusing Fr. Boyle’s main poverty endeavour, it seems that any Catholic spirituality is purely, totally incidental.

This begs the question: “Why are so many in the social justice side of the Church today heretics or even apostates?”  It’s because they have taken the “spirit of Vatican II” approach to the definition of “church” – essentially, a worldly construct of the “pilgrim people of God” who have an immanentist relation with God through their fellow man.  The only “God” that matters is the “god” present in each one of us – the definition of Teilhardian pantheism/immanentism. Faith isn’t important.  Doctrine certainly isn’t important. All that matters is that liberal feel-good human relationship, not offending others, doing what left-wingers consider good works, and keeping the focus entirely on this life.  While Fr. Boyle’s activities may do much to alleviate material poverty, they seem to do little to alleviate the even more widespread, more profound, more lasting spiritual poverty that pervades our culture (his website is almost totally silent on matters of faith, and such seem to make up no part of his training program). It’s representative of the entire problem in the Church with these massive structures of charities and bureaucracies and all that – they all seem to foster or spread this worldly conception of the Faith that, for many, leads inexorably to heresy and apostasy.  As such, it is little surprise Catholic Charities would invite a man like Fr. Boyle to keynote their annual meeting – the vast majority of the denizens of that charity likely share his worldview and very diminished understanding of the Faith.

No matter what good works Fr. Boyle has done – and they are apparently significant – that work is fatally undermined by the fact that he is feeding people spiritual poison far more destructive than any material poverty could ever be. His heresy obliterates every good thing he’s ever done, and it is a hideous shame and scandal to the entire Church that he is still able to call himself “priest.” 

I agree with what one commenter at LSN had to say: “Ah, another bad apple from the Jesuits pushing the rotten fruit of Vatican II.” Indeed.