Boston’s Channel 7 estimated that VOTF’s protest Mass on Sunday attracted about 1,000 people. Their spokesman claimed it was more. Either way, there’s no doubting what the photo tells: it’s an old crowd.
The organization’s mentality couldn’t be better displayed than in two lines from the article. First:
The two-hour, Voice of the Faithful-organized Mass, which was neither authorized nor condemned by archdiocesan officials, was meant, organizers said, to offer a show of strength by parishioners at some of the 82 parishes slated for closure this year by Archbishop Sean P. O’Malley.
That is, they used the Sacrifice of Calvary as a means to an end — and a political end at that.
And a dissenting priest-celebrant treated the virtues of obedience, generosity, and devotion as sins to be repented:
the Rev. Stephen S. Josoma of St. Susanna in Dedham … asked forgiveness “for the times we have paid, prayed, and obeyed.”
The TV coverage showed a row of signs planted along a walkway, each bearing the name of a parish to be closed. One was my parish in Boston: “Holy Trinity, South End”. They’ve got some flaming nerve using the name of the Tridentine Mass parish to promote their organization at a Mass with dissenting priests and “dancers”. But if they’ll use our Lord Jesus Himself as a means to an end, they’ll certainly do the same with the rest of us.
That priest must have been thinking, “That’s a great line!” and when the theological warning bells went off, if at all, he just said, “That’s a great line!”
Interesting too – the title of the article,
“With one voice,” which, in Latin would be:
Una Voce. Somehow I see a disconnect between what the Una Voce organization stands for and what VOTF stands for, but it’s ironic that they can both use the same descriptive phrase.
JS, I think you’re giving the priest a lot of credit to think that he might even possibly have theological warning bells…
You are probably right! His theological warning bells probably got thrown out with the sanctuary bells!
VOTF’s past statements make clear that the organization itself is not to be trusted on theological matters. However, with only the data of Paulson’s article, it’s not clear to me what is wrong with this particular event.
Holding an outdoor daily Mass is of itself canonically legitimate, as far as I know. The article doesn’t say anything about dancers or theological dissent (have any of the named prists publicly voiced dissent in the past?) so it’s not fair to assume those things are going on. Did you have another source, RC?
The article gives the impression that the crowd consists of older people who are unhappy that parishes they’ve belonged to all their lives are going to be closed. I for one can’t blame them for that. Yes, O’Malley probably doesn’t have any choice. With one $85 million bill for Law and Medieros’ homosex predator priest coverup already handed down, and more undoubtedly on the way, O’Malley has no choice. That’s not an easy thing for these folks to understand.
Regarding “repentance for pray, pay, and obey,” I don’t think the priest is at all referring to virtue. Without knowing the rest of what he said, it still seems to me there’s good reason to repent for that. The court papers have shown in many cases that sex-abuse victims and their families stayed quiet when they should have raised hell with the police the media. That might have increased the chance that a future archbishop wouldn’t have to close parishes to pay for coverup settlements.
Finally, regarding “using” the Mass, the point of this particular Mass seems not to be theological dissent. We pro-lifers “use” the Mass every January 22, to show solidarity with the unborn. These folks, if the article is correct, are in their view showing solidarity with their parishes.
I’m not saying that the bishop doesn’t have the proper authority to close parishes. It’s just tough for older people to understand, and given the real theological evils in the church these days, it seems to me excessive to lump them in with the McBriens and Weaklands of the world.
Again, VOTF’s past statements indicate that the organization itself is not to be trusted on theological matters. But these parishoners are rightly angry that their parishes are being sold to pay for the criminially negligent conduct of past archbishops who delibrately and knowingly assigned men who had repeatedly molested children.
Actually, my understanding is that you need permission from the Ordinary to celebrate Mass outside of a parish.
Hi, Beregond.
I saw the dancing girls in the news coverage on Channel 7.
I’m sorry to hear that…dancing girls of course are not licit. And if an outdoor Mass requires permission from the bishop’s office and they didn’t get it, that would make the Mass canonically illicit, right?
That’s a shame…if VOTF wants to call attention to the suffering caused by parish closings, that’s fair, but they don’t help their argument by doing bad things in the process. What a mess.
I’ve always had a very bad feeling about Voice of the Faithful, and they never cease to confirm my suspicions.
VotF popped up like a mushroom overnight. And they sprang from the dung pile of heresy.
I was suspicious of how fast this grass-roots org suddenly booked the Hynes and hosted a convention.
I got a copy of their program from that meeting back in July of 2001 (?) at the Hynes center. They are a mixture of the “usual suspects” of heresy, nutty theology, and apostasy.
I did the research myself. They are bad news and should be condemned as strongly as Polycarp rebuked Marcion when he called him “the first-born of Satan”.
It’s a smoke-screen for division and destruction. They should be run into the sea.
It is amazing that the TV news chooses to cover a Mass that had only 1000 or so attending but not the Proud2BCatholic event that had many more than that, and with a much younger average age.
oh, and there were confessions being said the the event, also – right up to the time Mass was getting ready to start! I wonder if VOTF even considered setting up confessionals as part of their schtick?
I have no doubt that parishes that are a net financial contributor to diocesan finances are all still open and even those who might reasonably recover to get back in the black are staying open. The parishes that are closing are most likely charity cases that have been subsidized for sentimental reasons for years. Well, the diocese cannot continue in that subsidization mode due to its legal bills so now they are getting the chop.
The cure was, is, and ever will be evangelization and parishoner growth. All the priests and active laity who have shirked in their duties to grow their parish are at fault for the situation. The priests who did not make clear to the laity their parish’s financial state and the risks involved in chronic charity dependence are especially at fault.
This is not as severe a crisis as the pedophilia scandal but it is a separate crisis. The laity needs to be told that evangelization is a universal duty. The priests need to have a plan for growing the parish, and when there is no room for the faithful in the current building, to build a new church and create a new parish.
All this internal subsidization comes at the cost of not being able to help the desperately poor, the horribly sick, those hundreds of millions of people out there who suffer horribly from all sorts of tragedy. Where we can regularize finances and get parishes off the charity list, we have a duty to try our very best to do just that.