Please, Please, PLEASE!! Didn't Mommy And Daddy Ask You!!?? Do You Want To Go To Time-Out? PLEASE LISTEN TO US!!
Ineffective parenting, Catholic style

Gutlessness marches on!!

I remember many years ago hearing a priest of the SSPX using the phrase "dictatorship of the child". Why does that phrase come to mind when I read the following news story?

Here's some of it from The California Catholic Daily; (Emphasis mine)
“Very disappointed”
Archbishop-elect of Detroit expresses dismay over Obama’s abortion views, but won’t say whether he will deny Communion to anti-life politicians

Oakland, Jan. 22, 2009 / (CNA) – Detroit Archbishop-elect Allen Vigneron has expressed disappointment with President Barack Obama’s position on abortion and has called for forceful opposition and coalition-building to counter it. (Please sweetie. Both mommy and daddy have been asking you over and over. So to show you that we really mean it... we'll ask again.)

Bishop Vigneron, who will continue to head the Diocese of Oakland until his installation as Archbishop of Detroit on Jan. 28, made his observations in a telephone interview from Oakland with the Detroit News. He said he shares other bishops’ concerns that the Obama administration has given indications that the president is going to rescind some protections for the unborn. (Please sweetheart. You know that mommy and daddy have asked you over and over to stop stabbing your baby brother with the scissors. Will you please stop doing that? Mommy and daddy are asking you nicely, sweetie!)

The bishop declined to answer whether he would deny Holy Communion to Catholic politicians who support abortion rights, calling it a “hypothetical question.” (If you choose to do that again, mommy and daddy will... will... will...)

“I simply want to affirm that part of being a Catholic is having a conviction that on these moral matters, the church speaks the mind of Christ,” he told the News. “And I want to help Catholics, especially Catholics in responsible positions, to maintain the integrity of their professions.” (Didn't mommy and daddy already ask you not to do that? Please listen to mommy and daddy!)

Note To Self --- Ignore This
From the USCCB's to-do list

Someone notify the incoming Archbishop of Detroit. In case anyone wasn't aware, less than two weeks ago, Detroit Archbishop-elect Allen Vigneron declined to answer whether he would deny Holy Communion to Catholic politicians who support abortion rights, calling it a “hypothetical question.”

I haven't seen leadership this strong since Neville Chamberlain. Well, maybe Jimmy Carter.

Anyhow, here's the entire article from LifeSiteNews.com; (Emphasis mine)
Vatican Official: Bishops Have no Choice But to Refuse Communion to Pro-Abort Politicians

By Hilary White

ROME, January 30, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Archbishop Raymond Burke, in an exclusive interview last week, told LifeSiteNews.com that the issue of pro-abortion politicians continuing to receive Holy Communion is still one of major concern and that it is the duty of bishops to ensure that they are refused.

He told LifeSiteNews.com, "I don't understand the continual debate that goes on about it. There's not a question that a Catholic who publicly, and after admonition, supports pro-abortion legislation is not to receive Holy Communion and is not to be given Holy Communion."

"The Church's law is very clear," said Archbishop Burke, who was appointed last year by Pope Benedict XVI as the head of the Church's highest court, the Apostolic Signatura. "The person who persists publicly in grave sin is to be denied Holy Communion, and it [Canon Law] doesn't say that the bishop shall decide this. It's an absolute."

Among the US bishops directly to address the issue, Archbishop Burke was one of around a dozen who vigorously supported a directive of the Vatican that said pro-abortion Catholic politicians "must be refused" Holy Communion if they attempt to receive at Mass. Others have refused to abide by the Vatican instruction and the Church's own Code of Canon Law, saying they would rather focus on "education" of such politicians.

Archbishop Burke called "nonsense" the accusation, regularly made by some bishops, that refusing Holy Communion "makes the Communion rail a [political] battle ground". In fact, he said, the precise opposite is true. The politician who insists on being seen receiving Holy Communion, despite his opposition to the Church's central teachings, is using that reception for political leverage.

In 2004, when self-proclaimed Catholic and candidate for the Democrat party, Sen. John Kerry, was frequently photographed receiving Holy Communion despite his vigorous support of abortion, the US Bishops Conference issued a document which said only that it is up to individual bishops whether to implement the Church's code of Canon Law and refuse Communion. The issue has remained prominent with the appointment of Joe Biden, another pro-abortion Catholic politician, as Vice President of the United States of America.

Archbishop Burke recalled previous experiences with Kerry, pointing to the several occasions when the senator was pictured in Time magazine receiving Communion from Papal representatives at various public events. Burke said that it is clear that Kerry was using his reception of Holy Communion to send a message.

"He wants to not only receive Holy Communion from a bishop but from the papal representative. I think that's what his point was. Get it in Time magazine, so people read it and say to themselves, 'He must be in good standing'." "What are they doing? They're using the Eucharist as a political tool."

In refusing, far from politicising the Eucharist, the Church is returning the matter to its religious reality. The most important reasons to refuse, he said, are pastoral and religious in nature.

"The Holy Eucharist, the most sacred reality of our life in the Church, has to be protected against sacrilege. At the same time, individuals have to be protected for the sake of their own salvation from committing one of the gravest sins, namely to receive Holy Communion unworthily."

Archbishop Burke also dismissed the commonly proffered excuse that such politicians need more "education". Speaking from his own direct experience, he said that Catholic politicians who are informed by their pastors or bishops that their positions in support of pro-abortion legislation makes it impossible for them to receive Holy Communion, "I've always found that they don't come forward."

"When you talk to these people, they know," he said. "They know what they're doing is very wrong. They have to answer to God for that, but why through our pastoral negligence add on to that, that they have to answer to God for who knows how many unworthy receptions of Holy Communion?"

Archbishop Burke said that the issue had been debated enough. He rejected the idea that the matter should be left to the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, saying the Conference has no authority in the matter. "This is a law of the universal Church and it should be applied."

"I think this argument too is being used by people who don't want to confront the issue, this whole 'wait 'til the Conference decides'...well the Conference has been discussing this since at least 2004. And nothing happens."

When asked what the solution was, he responded, "Individual bishops and priests simply have to do their duty. They have to confront politicians, Catholic politicians, who are sinning gravely and publicly in this regard. And that's their duty.

"And if they carry it out, not only can they not be reproached for that, but they should be praised for confronting this situation."To Archbishop Burke, I'll tell you exactly why such a sizable percentage of priests and bishops in this country have no problem whatsoever in giving Holy Communion to pro-abortion politicians... because they either don't believe in The Real Presence, or they don't believe in the existence of sin.

Or both.

Rearranging The Deck Chairs On The Titanic
This doesn't say a whole helluva lot about the former bishop

Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.

I've already posted what a Tower of Jello the incoming Ordinary for Detroit is. Talk about toothless dogs. Anyhow, it looks like it's time for everyone to dance to the Windbag Shuffle.

Here's some of the article from The California Catholic Daily; (emphasis mine) “A few months or as much as a year”
Interim administrator for Oakland diocese once allowed homosexual marriages, built church with no crucifix or tabernacle

Now that former Oakland Bishop Allen Vigneron has been installed as Archbishop of Detroit, Fr. Dan Danielson, a priest who once allowed homosexual marriages at his parish and was instrumental in the construction of a new church in Pleasanton with no tabernacle and no crucifix, has been elected to run the diocese until a new bishop is named by the pope.

News of Fr. Danielson’s election was announced in the Feb. 3 diocesan “Administrative Weekly,” which said, “The Diocesan Consulters today announced the election of Fr. Dan Danielson to fill the role of Diocesan Administrator. The administrator leads the day-to-day activities of the Diocese until a new bishop is appointed. Fr. Danielson retired in 2007 as the pastor of the Catholic Community of Pleasanton.”

The Catholic Community of Pleasanton is comprised of St. Augustine Church and St. Elizabeth Seton Church. In 1998, then-Bishop John Cummins expressed displeasure with Fr. Danielson and ordered him to stop talking to the press after it became public knowledge that Fr. Danielson was allowing homosexual marriages at St. Elizabeth Seton. An attempted lesbian wedding on May 9, 1998 was called off when 50 Catholics came out to the partially built church in a protest that was reported in the San Francisco Chronicle and on San Francisco's Channel 7 News. At the time, Fr. Danielson bragged he would continue blessing gay unions outside of the church building.

Two years later, when St. Elizabeth Seton parish completed a 15-year-long, $5 million project to construct a new church, Fr. Danielson again came under fire. The new St. Elizabeth Seton church had no tabernacle (the tabernacle was housed in a separate building), no crucifix, no stations of the cross, and no kneelers. In addition, there were no stained glass windows or statues. Chairs were arranged in an oval, looking down on a simple wooden table that was used as the altar. The 8-foot-long, waist-deep, full immersion, baptismal bath came complete with bright blue tiles and Jacuzzi jets.

More recently, in November 2007, Fr. Danielson defended the selection of Fr. Padraig Greene to replace him as pastor at the Catholic Community of Pleasanton. Fr. Greene was arrested in 1999 for lewd behavior in a public restroom. In the online bulletin of the two-parish community, under the heading “Notes from the pastor for this week,” Fr. Danielson said that public protests outside the parish required him to reveal what Greene did in 1999. “I would not do this ordinarily any more than I would ‘out’ the sins of anyone else who had a position of leadership in this community,” said Danielson. At 2 p.m. on March 2, 1999, police arrested Greene “at a restroom next to a highway for indecent exposure,” continued Danielson. “There is a baseball field nearby. There were no children or minors involved, nor were there any nearby at the time. Only the police officer who observed this behavior and subsequently arrested him was present.” The court dismissed charges against Greene when he completed therapy. “As you can imagine,” wrote Danielson, “Fr. Padraig was and is filled with shame and great remorse over this incident.”

Fr. Greene continues to serve as “parochial administrator” of the parish.