Rev. Walter Cuenin of Our Lady, Help of Christians, a large parish in comfortable Newton, Massachusetts, defends himself in this week's bulletin (page 2): we're not undermining church teaching, we're just welcoming gays who happen to be civilly married, engaged couples who happen to be cohabiting, and divorcees who happen to be remarried without annulments. These practices "may not be the ideal", but these people are in "messy" situations, and we "welcome them and work with them on their journey".
This all seems kind of reasonable on the surface until you read on page 3 that two of the parish's organizations are inviting everyone to attend the Boston "Gay Pride" parade and hear a speech at an interfaith service by an advocate of "same-sex marriage". This goes beyond welcoming individuals with their problems: this is endorsement, this is advocacy.
Will the parish also encourage celebrations of pride in other cases of emotional disorder or objective wrongdoing? Maybe Invalid Marriage Pride Week will include a parade in which liberated upper-middle-class men stroll down the avenue, each with a trophy wife on his arm. Gluttons will ride with pride on floats made of food and eat them all the way down Boylston Street; tax-cheats (now out of the closet) will make a gross public display of paying their employees under the table, and the bacchanals will all be announced in the parish bulletin so that the faithful can participate.
Surely the good father will have kind words for wife-beaters and child-abusers, when those things become fashionable?
And get a load of the notice on page 3: the good Father is hosting a meeting on Wednesday night for 'Catholics who are experiencing anxiety over the recent developments in the Catholic Church...and are having a hard time staying in the church.' This means you Father Walter!!!
Sad, very sad.
In studying for the permanent diaconate 25 years ago at St. John's seminary of the Archdioces of Boston I had a course with Rev. Cuenin who was teaching on the Church-- he assigned us to read Hans Kungs' book "The Church" -- which I had just read. In my opinion--as someone trained in History at 2 colleges--I told him the book stunk, Anyone who writes a history of the Church and can't find even one thing positive to say about the Church--even blasting St. Francis of Asissi- has a real problem. We argued in class. I was kept back a year and presume I was almost tossed out- And all my classmates were certain the "liberal" Rev. Cuenin was behind it.
Shortly thereafter he was dropped as a teacher in the diaconate program and I was ordained--but after much upset and trauma.
I heard later Cuenin took a leave of absence for a while. How he got one of the biggest and richest parishes to pastor baffles me.
However, a recently deceased orthodox Catholic priest friend of mine was warning me of the "effeminate, swishy" priests infecting the Archdiocese of Boston long before the scandals broke in the news here.
There is no vocations crisis in the Church. But there is a crisis involving homosexuals working like termites to destroy the Church.
I think Rev Walter Cuenin out to be praised for his numerous courageous stands. Remember, he was one of the fifty-seven signers of the letter calling for Cardinal "God Bless you Jack Geoghan" Law to resign. If it was not for him and the other profiles in courage (Bob Bullock, Ron Coyne, Steve Josoma,etc). Law and his child-raping buddies would still be around.
I'm not as impressed as Neil is by Fr. Cuenin as a Profile in Courage. A bunch of dissenters piled on when the Cardinal was already the object of massive denunciation: ho hum. But thanks for the comment anyway.