June-July 2005
The Feminist Threat to the Church
~ Part V ~
PATRICIA PHILLIPS
This is the fifth in a series of occasional articles chronicling the activities of dissenting feminists in general, and the Catholic Women's Network (CWN) in particular(1). Once again, it isn't intended as an exhaustive study (although dealing with the dissenting feminist mindset is exhausting!!) but rather aims to give snapshots of recent developments.
Rebellion sanctioned
Readers familiar with
this problem will not be surprised to learn that despite its
open rebellion against Church teaching, CWN has once
again been permitted in the official Catholic Directory for
2005. With the full approval of the Bishops' Conference, the
listing on page 685 under "Catholic Societies in England
and Wales" reads:
"Catholic Women's Network. A national network of women who believe that the gospel speaks about freedom from oppression and calls women to full participation in all aspects of life and the church as a matter of justice. While acknowledging and accepting the authentic teaching of the Church, Catholic Women's Network aims to: empower women to grow and mature in their spiritual life; encourage and enable women to engage in theology; work towards the participation of women in every aspect of church life; create new ways of worship together. CWN is a member of the National Board of Catholic Women (NBCW)".
It would be more accurate to say that CWN controls the NBCW. But more of that later.
Duplicity and treason
This entry in the Directory
highlights a fundamental dishonesty, since CWN openly
endorses the campaign for the ordination of women. Indeed, it
has made a declaration stating this on page 16 of the Autumn
2001 edition of its journal Network. Yet its entry in
the Catholic Directory avoids any blatant revelation of dissent.
Instead, it hides behind carefully chosen weasel words – phrases
such as "working towards the participation of women
in every aspect of church life". But the fact that
CWN has endorsed the campaign for women's ordination
gives the lie to its claim that it "acknowledges"
and "accepts" the "authentic teaching of the
Church".
Clearly, CWN doesn't agree with or support Church teaching, and its entry in the Directory shows that these women don't even have the courage of their convictions. They continually lambast the "institutional Church" and "patriarchal oppression", but they think nothing of lying and colluding with their supposed oppressors in order to remain "approved" by them.
Not that the bishops actually do oppress these women. Au contraire. The bishops are part of the dissenting feminist problem, as they are fully aware of the true nature of CWN and all its dissenting activities, having been sent reams of hard evidence over the years. They simply choose to go along with the lie and are still pandering to the dissenting feminist agenda.
They, and the rest of us, will pay a heavy price for their treachery.
Interestingly, in the same section of approved Catholic societies, CWN's sister organisation, the dissenting St Joan's International Alliance (SJIA), uses the same old wheeze to remain in the Catholic Directory - claiming to 'acknowledge' and 'accept' the "authentic teaching of the Catholic Church" (p. 689). A quick look at a short history of SJIA on John Wijngaards' Women Priests website(2), however, shows that its entry in the Directory is about as truthful as CWN's.
Profoundly unnatural 'loves'
CWN still continues
to promote dissent in its journal Network and elsewhere.
The most recent issue of Network, dated February 2005 (issue No 82), carries an article attacking Church teaching on homosexuality by Celia Gardiner, who is a member of the Roman Catholic Caucus of the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement (RCC), a dissenting 'gay' outfit which works closely with CWN.
In the article Celia tells us:
"An analysis of what the institutional church actually says about homosexuality is totally chilling: essentially the doctrine is that homosexual people do not actually exist: we are just heterosexuals who engage in unnatural activities (as if our profound loves were the equivalent of biting our nails or some other nasty habit)...".
CWN has also teamed up with RCC to host a visit from the dissenting U.S. nun Sister Jeannine Gramick. A Catholic Herald article of March 11th 2005 had this to say about Sister Jeannine:
"An outspoken American nun banned by the Vatican from working with homosexuals has once again taken up the gay rights cause. Loreto Sister Jeannine Gramick agreed to be a keynote speaker at the Queer Film Festival in the University of Notre Dame, Indiana. She was censured by the Vatican in 1999 and ordered to cease all ministry to homosexuals after it was found that elements of her work were contrary to the teaching of the Church. But in addition to her appearance at the film festival, a 2004 documentary film about Sister Gramick's encounters with the Vatican was shown at the event, even though she has also been told not to write or speak about the Church's disciplining of her. In the film, called In Good Conscience, Sister Gramick contends that homosexuality is an "innate instinct" and that a "be, but don't do" theology is unacceptable. The Catholic Church teaches that homosexual orientation is a disorder but not sinful, but that homosexual acts are always sinful. But Sister Gramick says in the film that "only God is absolute, and everything else can change, that no one has the right to say who may or may not receive the Eucharist; and that a person can reject Church teaching and still remain Catholic". She also argues that a person's conscience is the ultimate authority, that prayer and religion are complicated by rules and rubrics and that the Catholic Church's pronouncements on sexuality were "null and void" ... ".
Sister Jeannine came to London to attend the premier of her film at the London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival on April 12th. CWN was part of an alliance of dissenting groups which co-sponsored an invitation-only reception on April 14th to honour her and the maker of her film, Barbara Rick. Other members of the alliance included: Roman Catholic Caucus of the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement, Called to be One, We Are Church UK, Quest, Catholic Women's Ordination and Catholics for a Changing Church.(3) In other words, all the usual suspects.
If readers can work out how CWN squares the co-sponsoring of a reception in honour of a notorious Vatican-banned dissident, with its new-found "acknowledgement" and "acceptance" of the authentic teaching of the Church," then please drop me a line c/o CO.
Pro-abort
partners
CWN
still promotes the work of the pro-abortion group Catholics
for a Free Choice (CFFC). The latest issue of Network,
issue No 82, contains information about CFFC found in
Euro News, from the dissenting European Network -
Church on the Move. It states:
"CWN, CCC, CWO, We Are Church (UK), St Joan's and Living Word Trust are all members of the European Network (EN), together with groups from 12 other countries and links to USA and international groups. The issue published in November 2004 has some interesting material ... There is a report from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe – Committee on Equal Opportunities for Women and Men, Hearing on Women and Religions. Experts from the five largest religions on the European Continent were invited: Catholicism, Protestantism, Islam, Judaism and Orthodoxy. The delegate from the Holy See declined to attend this important meeting on the grounds of the presence of an NGO, Catholics for a Free Choice (CFFC) which did not represent the views of the Holy See ... Euro-News gives the text of a presentation to the hearing by Elfriede Harth of CFFC on Catholicism and Women. She covered Catholic principles, teachings and traditions on abortion, contraception, condom use in the fight against AIDS, and divorce. In the final paragraph she says: It is important to take note of the words of the current Pope in his encyclical The Splendour of Truth: the authority of the church, when she pronounces on moral questions, in no way undermines the freedom of conscience of Christians… ".
One is always amazed at how these people can subvert the meaning of an entire document - in this case, undermining the entire body of Pope John Paul II's teachings on moral issues - by taking one single quote out of context and fitting it to their own disorders!
Warped
and deadly ideas
But
then clarity regarding moral issues has never been a strong
point for either CFFC or CWN.
Listed CWN member Tina Beattie recently had an article on abortion in the The Tablet (19/3/05), titled "Just another election issue?" This article elicited a furious response, posted by "Diogenes" on the Catholic World News website(4). He stated:
"The most contemptible article in a Catholic publication I've read in quite a while: Tablet contributor Tina Beattie is alarmed by the possibility that the UK might outlaw abortion:
"But the Church's legitimate concern for the unborn child must not be given priority over concern for the millions of women in the world for whom pregnancy and motherhood are far from the romantic ideal that still prevails in the Church's theology of marriage and family life. The number of women who die for every 100,000 live births varies from an average of 27 in developed countries to an average of 479 in less-developed nations. An African woman is 500 times more likely to die of pregnancy-related causes than a woman in Scandinavia. There are an estimated 20 million unsafe abortions each year and more than 70,000 abortion-related deaths, most of them in poor countries ... The full spectrum of beliefs about abortion is represented by MPs in all three political parties. Yet in the cynicism of political debate today, there is a real risk that the parties will chase votes by pandering to the demands of what they perceive as significant minorities, and this includes Catholic voters. It would be to our shame if we colluded in the ongoing degradation of politics by becoming complicit in such strategies."
Pandering to the demands of significant minorities? The degradation of politics? This is Beattie's line: if members of parliament vote to restrict abortion because of the power of the Catholic-instructed electorate, they would in effect be acting as pimps, not simply acknowledging a change in opinion but degrading the dignity of their office, and it would be to the discredit to the Church if she encouraged political attention to her beliefs about the taking of innocent life. Beattie signals her own ethical convictions in her riff about "20 million unsafe abortions" (they're all unsafe for the baby, Tina dear), and the same goes for her hand-wringing over "70,000 abortion-related deaths ...". It's as if Nancy Reagan scored firearm manufacturers for the shoddy quality of revolvers employed in liquor store hold-ups: "Experts estimate handgun users suffered over 450 murder-related eye injuries due to defective chambering." We've rarely seen the progressive Catholic agenda stated so bluntly ... ".
Beattie also expresses the following alarming views in her article, not referred to in "Diogenes" response, above. The full article can be found on The Tablet webs[5]:
"When Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor commends Michael Howard's support for a reduction of the legal time limit for abortions "on the way to a full abandonment of abortion", is he expressing a hope that all abortion will eventually become illegal, or does he believe that at some stage this becomes a question of morality rather than legality? This is important because strictly speaking the Church's absolutist stand against all abortion means that it is inconsistent to enter into a debate about time limits. One would not, for example, agree to a debate in which we discussed whether it was better to kill a five-year-old child or a 10-year-old child. As soon as Catholics do enter into such a debate about abortion, they are tacitly conceding that there is a moral difference between early and late abortion, and we might rediscover some of the wisdom of the Catholic tradition to support that position. In 1869 Pope Pius IX abandoned the distinction between early and late abortion in Catholic moral teaching. Before that, early abortion was seen as a venial sin, while late abortion was seen as a mortal sin, tantamount to murder. To restore this distinction might allow the Church to maintain its moral position that abortion is always objectively wrong, while recognising that in early pregnancy it may be a matter for individual conscience, whereas late abortion becomes a matter of protecting human life by law."
Colluding in the Big Lie
In Australia, dissenting
goddess-worshipper Dr Carol P Christ was recently scheduled
to give a lecture at the Santa Sabina College in Sydney, run
by the Dominican Sisters. The College was contacted by the Auxiliary
Bishop of Sydney, Julian Porteous, who had been asked by Cardinal
George Pell to inquire into the nature of the lecture being
given. A statement released by the Bishop said: "following
an enquiry from myself on behalf of the Archdiocese, the Dominican
Sisters decided it would be inappropriate for a talk promoting
Goddess worship and pagan spiritualities ... to be held in a
Catholic venue."
Although the promotion of Carol P Christ's work clearly presents problems for Church authorities in Australia, our hierarchy appear to have no such problem approving CWN, even though the work of Carol P Christ is regularly featured in its journal Network, most recently in issue 81, November 2004, where her book "She Who Changes: Re-imagining the Divine in the World" was given a largely favourable review.
The same issue of Network also contains a piece by Alexina Murphy. One of the founders of CWN, she commemorates the 20th anniversary of its founding in a piece titled "Dreams and Visions: 1984 to 2004 and beyond":
"From the beginning, we have tried to reach other women. Because it was our experience that had changed us, we wanted other women to reflect on their feelings and relationships, take a fresh look at the events and realities of daily life. Think of our involvement in the National Board of Catholic Women, of reaching out to other women's groups such as the lesbian sisterhood and the victims of sexual abuse by clergy. Think of CWN's support for the Movement for the Ordination of Women in the Anglican Church and now for CWO (Catholic Women's Ordination) in the RC Church ... . After 20 years we are still here with a more or less viable administrative structure. We have Network. We have our liturgies, especially the Easter Week. We have seen the launching of Catholics for Women's Ordination ten years ago already and now a world-wide movement. We have shared in BISFT (Britain and Ireland School of Feminist Theology) which just last month completed its seventh summer school. We have a set of values which have served us well, values of inclusiveness and empowerment, of democracy and consensus. We affirm life and refuse whatever is violent and destructive of our humanity and our environment. We respect relationship rooted in equality and mutuality. We have each other. We can relish the fun we have. We rejoice that She who is compassion and justice, the creator of all that is, is our mother, our sister, our daughter, our friend."
This is the kind of nauseating dissent to which our bishops are giving their official approval – the huge lie in which they are colluding. And in the same edition of Network we also find a scathing critique of the Vatican's "Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Collaboration of Men and Women in the Church and in the World" by dissident feminist 'theologian' Rosemary Radford Ruether.
I think enough has been written to lay CWN's claim of "acknowledging and accepting the authentic teaching of the Church" to rest once and for all.
But perhaps Christian Order readers would like to write to:
Bishop Vincent
Malone
17 West Oakhill Park
Liverpool, L13 4BN
who has been shown firm evidence of CWN's dissent, yet still approved its entry into the Catholic Directory - and enquire how his conscience allows him to be party to such a monumental lie.
Lust for power
We now move on to the
National Board of Catholic Women (NBCW). Although
it is infiltrated and controlled by listed members and known
supporters of CWN, it is usually more guarded in its
expression of dissent.
The NBCW's newspaper, Catholic Omnibus, continues to display a disproportionate input from CWN members and supporters. Legitimate aims, such as tackling poverty, prostitution and homelessness, are carefully blended with dissenting agendas, while the utterly ruthless and relentless mania for grabbing 'leadership positions' – so that dissenting feminists can impose their will upon the faithful with greater efficacy – is ever present.
This unseemly jostling for positions of power was also seen in a Catholic Herald article titled "Call for bishops to give women top posts" (13/8/04). The article contained comments on the aforementioned Vatican "Letter on Collaboration of Men and Women in the Church and in the World", and much lamenting from a known CWN supporter, namely Angela Perkins of the NBCW, over the fact that a recent position for the post of Assistant General Secretary to the Bishops' Conference had been filled by a man. Ms Perkins said it was "a missed opportunity". Never mind that the man appointed may have been more suitable by virtue of his qualifications or a thousand other reasons. No - this was a "missed opportunity" because he wasn't a woman – and more importantly from their point of view, a woman of the CWN / NBCW ilk.
NBCW President and known CWN supporter Dr Mary McHugh was quoted in The Catholic Herald (6/8/04) criticising the same Vatican Letter. While saying that there was "much to be appreciated" in the document, she also said that the NBCW "regretted what it termed 'a misleading interpretation of feminism' and said the Church had misplaced blame in attacking feminism for its tendency to emphasise strongly 'conditions of subordination in order to give rise to antagonism'. She said: 'One wonders why the writers did not take this opportunity to condemn the abuse of power and did not realise that this was an example of the abused being made to take the blame for the consequences of abuse' ".
When feminists talk of an "abuse of power" they are often referring to the legitimate authority exercised by orthodox Catholic clergy who refuse to give into the erroneous views and practices that dissenters may wish to maintain or introduce. Naturally, the contempt of the feminists extends to any laity who support the clergy in the rightful exercise of their ministry. It seems we are all expected to capitulate to the feminists in everything, so they will no longer feel "abused".
The more feminists clamour for control of the Church, the more their overweening pride and self-importance spirals out of control.
Papal collaborator
Issue 33 of the NBCW's
Catholic Omnibus carries a glowing tribute to the previous
Papal Nuncio, Archbishop Pablo Puente. It is peppered with some
of his more dubious quotations, such as the following comment
which he made in a talk given in Glasgow just before the Jubilee
Year: "The coming century will finally be the moment
to finish with old anti-feminist prejudices which are neither
Christian nor human, but the fruit of mental distortions and
of small minds".
One could hardly say it is 'small-minded' or a 'fruit of mental distortion' to challenge the errors which the dissenting feminists of the CWN promote and support, such as goddess worship, abortion, contraception, homosexuality and women priests!
Yet Archbishop Puente was apparently undisturbed by such things. In fact, he often appeared to be most imprudent in his dealings with dissenting feminists. He certainly gave them plenty of ammunition, which they used to their full advantage, so it is hardly surprising that they lamented his leaving.
Catholics wishing to remain faithful to the Magisterium have not been so distressed about his departure from these shores. He is, of course, merely emblematic of the ever more pressing need to clean out the corrupt and corrupting Vatican diplomatic corps; an Augean task yet one which Pope Benedict will neglect at this peril.
Exclusive agenda
The thinly-disguised
lust for power continues unabated in issue 33 of Catholic
Omnibus, which carries an advertisement for an Open Conference
of the NBCW titled "Who Decides Now?".
To be held on 9/10 April 2005 in Coventry, the guest speaker
is Catherine Pepinster, editor of The Tablet, a journal
intellectually frozen in the 60's and now a virtual parody of
its dissenting self.