Fr. Roy Bourgeois Keeping Busy...

Fr. Roy Bourgeois, who the Vatican excommunicated recently because of his involvement at the ordination of a woman, is keeping busy. There is a video on youtube that documents a talk that he gave recently to a group of faithful Catholics to hear about the calling of women to the priesthood in the Catholic Church.

The video is broken up into about two 9-minute segments:

Part 1 Part 2

As Fr. Roy states, "There will never be justice in our Catholic Church until women can be ordained." To paraphrase Fr. Roy, at present, women are sitting at the back of the Catholic bus. I thank Fr. Roy for his witness and his sacrifice in standing up for the rights of God. God has a right to call certain women to the priesthood. Who are we to deny God? And while I am sure that Fr. Roy will be all right in the end, his excommunication is taking him out of a world of security that exists for priests. That sacrifice is very admirable and appreciated. Once again, thank you Fr. Roy.

A Faithful Catholic

The Good and the Bad in the Jodi O'Brien Scandal at Marquette

I think that it is about time that I add my two cents about the Jodi O'Brien scandal at Marquette University. The obvious bad about the whole thing is that another lesbian is being publicly disgraced by a Catholic institution. This is made worse by Marquette lying about the whole thing. Anyone on the inside will tell you that Marquette (and Fr. Wild) were completely aware of her scholarly works on the issue of marriage before they offered her the job as dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. It was only after pressure from Archbishop Listecki (who has been amazingly silent in the public realm regarding this issue and letting Fr. Wild take all the heat for it) and a few big donors that Fr. Wild changed his mind and rescinded the job offer.

The good... Marquette's lies illustrate it's own belief that if they were completely honest about her lesbian attribute being the reason that they rescinded the offer, they would lose public credibility. I wonder in retrospect if Fr. Wild would have rescinded the offer if he knew that there was going to be this type of student uproar and public scrutiny of him and Marquette. If you are not aware, the New York Times even picked up on this story early on. In any case, he wants to position himself as someone who would have no problem hiring an openly gay/lesbian person if they did not write about it in regard to Church teachings.

More good... a large contingent of students at Marquette, many of whom are Catholic, are standing up for the belief that a lesbian can be the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, which includes the theology department. It's reminiscent of the Young Catholics for Choice. It demonstrates that there is still a large contingent of young Catholics who are willing to engage in dialogue with the Catholic hierarchy, even when the hierarchy now wishes they would go back to pray, pay, and obey.

More good? I'm not sure how to interpret Listecki's silence. Is he afraid that if he speaks on this issue, all the pressure would go to him? Why is he content to let Marquette flail on its own? Why hasn't Fr. Wild thrown him under the bus with himself? Is Listecki worried he might get student protesters outside his home? It will be interesting to see if and when Listecki has anything to stay on this issue.

A Faithful Catholic