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Friday, April 19, 2013

Pope Francis and Fr. Roy Bourgeois



I see that Fr. Roy Bourgeois is going to ask Pope Francis to reconsider laicizing him ... Ousted priest appeals Pope Benedict’s decision. There's also a post at NCR about Fr. Bourgeois and Pope Francis.

And Fr. Bourgeois has an op-ed in the NYT - My Prayer: Let Women Be Priests. Here's some of it ...

[...] I am 74 years old. I first felt God calling me to be a priest when I was serving in the Navy in Vietnam. I was accepted into the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers in New York and was ordained in 1972. After working with the poor of Bolivia for five years, I returned to the United States. In my years of ministry, I met many devout Catholic women who told me about their calling to the priesthood.

Their eagerness to serve God began to keep me awake at night. As Catholics, we are taught that men and women are created equal: “There is neither male nor female. In Christ you are one” (Galatians 3:28).

While Christ did not ordain any priests himself, as the Catholic scholar Garry Wills has pointed out in a controversial new book, the last two popes, John Paul II and Benedict XVI, stressed that the all-male priesthood is “our tradition” and that men and women are equal, but have different roles.

Their reasons for barring women from ordination bring back memories of my childhood in Louisiana. For 12 years I attended segregated schools and worshiped in a Catholic church that reserved the last five pews for blacks. We justified our prejudice by saying this was “our tradition” and that we were “separate but equal.” During all those years, I cannot remember one white person — not a teacher, parent, priest or student (myself included) — who dared to say, “There is a problem here, and it’s called racism.”

Where there is injustice, silence is complicity. What I have witnessed is a grave injustice against women, my church and our God, who called both men and women to be priests. I could not be silent. Sexism, like racism, is a sin. And no matter how hard we may try to justify discrimination against others, in the end, it is not the way of a loving God who created everyone of equal worth and dignity ....

I have but one simple request for our new pope. I respectfully ask that he announce to the 1.2 billion Catholics around the world: “For many years we have been praying for God to send us more vocations to the priesthood. Our prayers have been answered. Our loving God, who created us equal, is calling women to be priests in our Church. Let us welcome them and give thanks to God.”


I hope Francis will allow Fr. Bourgeois to remain a Martknoll priest in good standing. If Francis continues to allow guys like Bernard Law to remain in office but shows no mercy in the case of an exemplary priest like Fr. Bourgeois, I'm going to be bitterly disappointed in him.

2 Comments:

Anonymous Richard said...

Yes, we'll pray for that. Nice digs for your little spider :)

6:18 PM  
Anonymous Victor said...

Dear Crystal,

Long story short, my spiritual, reality hillbilly bone cells have read much of this and are anxious to put in their Canadian two cells in but "I've" con vinced, "I" mean convinced Victor that we better wait until we receive The Body and Blood of Christ before we try to discern any of this cause we don't want to con science, I mean we must give Victor's 98% cells a chance to talk to his conscience firt! Right now?

In the mean time and as we all know "Time" can be awful mean on occasion so let's at least see “how long is a piece of string?” NOWadays|

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIdUxlFGvYk

Go Figure brothers and sisters in Christ! :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGoiiwxTWeE

Peace

6:29 AM  

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