The Latest From The Archdiocese Of Sodom & Gomorrah
St. Francis, pray for us

Does it ever end at this ecclesiastical freak show? Who needs Westboro Baptist Church to tell the Pope to go to hell, when you have the good folks at the Archdiocese of San Francisco?

Here's some of the rather disturbing article from The California Catholic; (Emphasis mine) Wiccans, Druids and Catholics
San Francisco archdiocese and USF offer facilities for meeting of North American Interfaith Network

The North American Interfaith Network will hold its NAINConnect 2008 conference in San Francisco next week. The July 24-28 conference, which will celebrate NAIN’s 20th anniversary, will feature a banquet hosted by the San Francisco Interfaith Council at St. Mary’s Cathedral in San Francisco on July 27. Workshops will be held at Fromm Center at the University of San Francisco, a Jesuit institution.

Two presenters, Susan Cook and Peter Laurence, will lead the workshop, “How do we talk theologically about the big issues we face?” -- a question Cook and Laurence will address from their perspective as members of the Urantia Fellowship. The Fellowship promotes The Urantia Book, which, according to the Fellowship’s web site, “revitalizes the archetypes of Judeo-Christian religion by providing extensive accounts of the stories of Adam and Eve, the rebellion of Lucifer, the evolution of Judeo-Christian monotheism, and a spiritually compelling account of the life and teachings of Jesus.“ (Remember, the "Catholic" Archdiocese of San Francisco is partaking in this.)

The Urantia Book offers a different twist to the Incarnation. Because God is infinite, says the Urantia Book, he “shuts him[self] off from all direct personal communication with finite material beings and other lowly created intelligences.” To make contact with his creatures, God uses intermediaries, such as the “Paradise Sons of God,” who can partake of the “very flesh and blood of the planetary races, becoming one of you and one with you; thus, as it were, God becomes man, as occurred in the bestowal of Michael, who was called interchangeably the Son of God and the Son of Man.” This “Michael” is “the God-man of Nebadon, Jesus of Nazareth and Michael of Salvington,” the sovereign of the universe to which Urantia belongs. (Shades of Jehovah's Witnesses heretical belief that Christ and the Archangel St Michael are the same person. Remember, the "Catholic" Archdiocese of San Francisco is partaking in this.)

Another workshop presenter will be William Swing, who, since his retirement as Episcopal bishop of California, has been directing the United Religions Initiative. The URI’s purpose, according to its charter, is "to promote enduring, daily interfaith cooperation" and to "end religiously motivated violence."

In the past, the Archdiocese of San Francisco has participated in URI events, and Fr. Gerry O’Rourke, the archdiocesan director of ecumenical and interreligious affairs under Archbishop William Levada, served on URI’s board of directors. URI has included Wiccans and Druids among its membership. (Remember, the "Catholic" Archdiocese of San Francisco is partaking this.)

In April 2003, Swing used the occasion of a pilgrimage taken with Levada and San Francisco’s Greek Orthodox Metropolitan to Canterbury, Rome, and Constantinople to promote not only URI but women’s ordination. According to his diary of the trip, Swing noted that he mentioned to the Orthodox Patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew, "that I have ordained more women than any other bishop in the history of the Church and would be glad to talk about my experience.” To which, His All Holiness replied, “I don't want to know your experience.”

“That was that," wrote Swing.Pope Benedict has stated that he's "a worker in the vineyard of The Lord". Rightly so... I just wish he's start cutting away some of the diseased plants.