A well-known Chicago priest has been asked to step aside from ministry during an investigation into an allegation of sexual abuse against a minor.
Father Michael Pfleger, senior pastor at St. Sabina parish and a well-known social activist, will live away from his parish while the allegation — which he denies — is investigated. The alleged abuse occurred more than 30 years ago, the archdiocese says.
In an Oct. 15 letter, Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago said Pfleger has “agreed to cooperate fully” with the request to step aside from ministry following the allegation made to the Office for Child Abuse Investigations and Review.
As is required by archdiocesan child protection policies, the allegation was reported to the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services and law enforcement, Cupich wrote. The archdiocese has begun its investigation and “we will do our best to keep you informed,” the cardinal pledged.
“The person making the allegation has been offered the services of our Victim Assistance Ministry and the archdiocese has begun its investigation and we will do our best to keep you informed,” Cupich wrote.
St. Sabina pastor Father Thulani Magwaza will serve as parish administrator in Pfleger’s stead, Cupich wrote, and noted that until Magwaza returns from a visit with family in early November, Father David Jones will serve as temporary administrator.
This marks the second allegation of sexual abuse leveled against Pfleger in the past two years; after three men brought forward allegations in early 2021, Pfleger was reinstated that June after a Chicago archdiocese investigation concluded there was “insufficient reason” to suspect he was guilty of the allegations, which he had denied.
In an Oct. 15 statement of his own, Pfleger complained that “the process of the Archdiocese today is that a priest is presumed guilty until proven innocent.” He said his status as a “high-profile,” “outspoken” and “controversial” person has engendered “jealousy, attacks, and hate.”
“Let me be clear — I am completely innocent of this accusation,” he wrote. “It seems like most of my ministry I have spent fighting to stay a priest and to continue the work of justice, and to serve the good people of St. Sabina’s and our community. I cannot express how difficult, disruptive, and painful this process is to me and those who are close to me.”
A Chicago native, Pfleger has spoken out against the epidemic of gun violence in the city’s South Side that has afflicted his parishioners at St. Sabina’s, a predominantly African-American parish community. Pfleger adopted an 8-year-old boy in 1981 and another son in 1992. In 1997 he became the foster father of another city youth who was killed in a gang shootout in 1998.
The priest’s actions have put him at the center of controversy for years. The late Cardinal Francis George of Chicago suspended Pfleger in 2011 after the priest threatened to leave the priesthood if George reassigned him. The cardinal later accepted Pfleger’s apology and reinstated him as St. Sabina’s pastor. In 2019, Cupich publicly denounced Pfleger’s decision to invite controversial Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan to speak at St. Sabina.
Pfleger has voiced support for the ordination of women as Catholic priests, a position that the Church has held to be incompatible with the Catholic understanding of the priesthood.
Pfleger also attracted attention and criticism for a Dec. 2021 Christmas Eve Mass that featured jazz musicians, choreographed dances around the altar, and theatrical lighting effects. Many of those upset by the Mass said it crossed the line from worship to entertainment.
Contacted by CNA at the time, Pfleger declined to answer questions about the Christmas Eve liturgy.
“These are some of the same people that attack Pope Francis and Cardinal Cupich and have ignored the gift and value of Black Catholicism in the Catholic Church, so I am not responding to their attacks,” Pfleger said in an email.
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Pope Benedict XVI announced his intention to resign the papacy during a meeting of cardinals Feb. 11, 2013. The surprise announcement, which he made in Latin, took place in the Hall of the Consistory in the Vatican’s apostolic palace. / Vatican Media
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jan 2, 2023 / 06:00 am (CNA).
On Feb. 11, 2013, before a gathering of cardinals who had come to the Vatican expecting to hear the announcement of upcoming canonizations, Pope Benedict XVI dropped a bombshell.
After a few announcements about Church business at the conclusion of the meeting, the pope took out two sheets of paper and read a prepared statement in Latin.
“I have convoked you to this Consistory, not only for the three canonizations, but also to communicate to you a decision of great importance for the life of the Church. After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry,” the then 85-year-old pontiff told the gathering of the Catholic Church’s highest-ranking clergymen.
Because he spoke in Latin, the language used for official Vatican proclamations, reporters present did not at first realize that the pope had just stepped down.
‘Total surprise, total shock’
The assembled cardinals, on the other hand, who knew their Latin, reacted with stunned silence.
American Cardinal James Stafford later told CNA that the pope’s statement was received with “total surprise, total shock.”
“A cardinal who was sitting next to me said, ‘Did he resign?’ I said, ‘Yes, that’s what he did. He resigned.’ And we just all stood at our places.”
Nigeria’s Cardinal Francis Arinze, who was present that morning, said the announcement was a “surprise, like thunder that gives no notice that it’s coming,” reported The Catholic Telegraph.
In renouncing the papacy, Benedict became only the second pope in almost 600 years to voluntarily step down. In 1294, Pietro da Morrone, an elderly hermit, was crowned Pope Celestine V, but finding the demands of the job too much for him, he resigned after only five months.
In 1415, Pope Gregory XII also resigned, but under very different circumstances — he stepped down in order to end a crisis within the Church known as the Great Western Schism.
Title, white clothes, and papal coat of arms
What happened next with Benedict XVI was no less surprising to those who expected him to live as a retired cardinal.
In his last official statement as pope, before a general audience on Feb. 27, 2013, Pope Benedict assured the tens of thousands of people gathered to hear him speak as pope for the last time that even though he was stepping back from official duties, he would remain, in essence, pope.
“The ‘always’ is also a ‘forever’ — there can no longer be a return to the private sphere. My decision to resign the active exercise of the ministry does not revoke this,” Benedict said.
“I do not return to private life, to a life of travel, meetings, receptions, conferences, and so on. I am not abandoning the cross, but remaining in a new way at the side of the crucified Lord,” he told the crowd.
A day earlier, on Feb. 26, 2013, the director of the Vatican Press Office, Father Federico Lombardi, had silenced speculation over what Benedict would be called and what he would wear. He would, Lombardi said, retain the trappings of the papacy — most significantly, his title and dress.
“He will still be called His Holiness Benedict XVI,” Lombardi said. “But he will also be called Pope Emeritus or Roman Pontiff Emeritus.”
Lombardi said Benedict would continue to wear a white cassock but without the mozzetta, the short cape that covers the shoulders. The pope’s fisherman’s ring would be replaced by a ring from his time as cardinal. The red shoes would go as well, Lombardi said, and be replaced by a pair of brown ones.
“The city of León is known for beautiful shoes, and very comfortable shoes. And when the pope was asked what he wanted to wear he said, ‘I want the shoes from León in Mexico,’” Lombardi said at the press conference.
On May 2, the cardinal who designed Benedict’s coat of arms in 2005 told CNA that he had written the pope emeritus suggesting that his coat of arms would need to be redesigned to reflect his new status. Cardinal Andrea Cordero Lanza di Montezemolo proposed making the keys of St. Peter smaller and less prominent.
“That shows that he had a historic possession but not a current jurisdiction,” said the cardinal at the time.
Benedict, however, it seems, politely declined a new coat of arms. La Stampa reported the following year that the Vatican Publishing House’s manual of ecclesiastical heraldry in the Catholic Church contained the following note:
“Expressing deep appreciation and heartfelt gratitude to the author for the interesting study sent to him, [Benedict] made it known that he prefers not to adopt an expressive heraldic emblem of the new situation created with his renouncing of the Petrine Ministry.”
By his decision to continue to dress in white like the pope, retain the title of pope, and keep the coat of arms of his papacy, Benedict revealed that in giving up the “active exercise of the ministry,” he was not forsaking the role of pope altogether.
An expanded Petrine ministry
In his 2013 announcement, Benedict clearly expressed his intention to step aside, even determining the date and time of his official departure. Nonetheless, his decision to keep the title of pope and maintain the ceremonial protocol that goes along with the papacy led some to speculate whether there were not actually “two popes.”
Benedict’s personal secretary and closest confidante, Archbishop Georg Gänswein, sought to clear up any confusion in 2016.
In a speech at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome on May 20, 2016, Gänswein said that Pope Francis and Benedict are not two popes “in competition” with one another but represent one “expanded” Petrine office with “an active member” and a “contemplative.”
Parsing Benedict’s speech, Gänswein explained that in stepping down, Benedict was not giving up his ministry.
“The key word in that statement is ‘munus petrinum,’ translated — as happens most of the time — with ‘Petrine ministry.’ And yet, ‘munus,’ in Latin, has a multiplicity of meanings: It can mean service, duty, guide, or gift, even prodigy. Before and after his resignation, Benedict understood and understands his task as participation in such a ‘Petrine ministry [munus],’” Gänswein said.
“He left the papal throne and yet, with the step he took on Feb. 11, 2013, he has not abandoned this ministry,” Gänswein explained, saying the latter scenario was something “quite impossible after his irrevocable acceptance of the office in April 2005.”
Benedict himself later made clear in an interview with his biographer Peter Seewald that he saw himself as continuing in his ministry. He said that a pope who steps down is like a father whose role changes, but always remains a father.
“Of course a father does not stop being father, but he is relieved of concrete responsibility. He remains a father in a deep, inward sense, in a particular relationship which has responsibility, but not with day-to-day tasks as such. It was also this way for bishops,” Benedict said.
“I think it is also clear that the pope is no superman and his mere existence is not sufficient to conduct his role, rather he likewise exercises a function.
“If he steps down, he remains in an inner sense within the responsibility he took on, but not in the function. In this respect one comes to understand that the office of the pope has lost none of its greatness, even if the humanity of the office is perhaps becoming more clearly evident,” Benedict said.
Benedict’s decision “not to abandon his ministry” inspired a cottage industry of conspiracy theories, with some questioning whether the pope emeritus truly stepped down because of his age and frailty.
George Weigel, author of the definitive biography of St. John Paul II, “Witness to Hope,” dismissed such speculation in an interview with CNA.
“I have no reason to think that there was anything more to Pope Benedict’s resignation than what he said was its cause: his conviction that he no longer had the strength, physical and intellectual, to give the Church what it needed from a pope,” he said.
“Everything else written about this is sheer speculation. Let’s take Benedict at his word,” Weigel said.
A life of prayer
In retiring to live in the Mater Ecclesiae Monastery in the Vatican Gardens, Benedict did not completely withdraw from the world. He attended public events in his new capacity as pope emeritus, received visitors, and pursued a life of fruitful study, writing, and prayer.
Matthew Bunson, Catholic historian, author, and executive editor of EWTN News, told CNA that Benedict was determined not to exercise authority in his new role.
“He really embraced what it means to be pope emeritus, and refrained from making public comments, to instead live a life of prayer and reflection,” Bunson said.
“Benedict really was on retreat, and in prayer,” he said, “and that means we have his prayer for us as a Church.”
While becoming increasingly frail, Benedict continued to celebrate Mass daily with the other residents of the monastery and was known to enjoy spending time in the Vatican Gardens praying his daily rosary.
In the fall of 2021, more than eight years after Benedict stepped down, his private secretary, Gänswein, told Domradio in Cologne, Germany, that Benedict was “stable in his frailty.”
He described the pope emeritus as very weak physically but still clear in mind. Gänswein said he had not lost his “typical Bavarian humor.”
The meaning of Benedict’s renunciation for future popes
In 2013, after Benedict announced that he would step down as pope, Father Gianfranco Ghirlanda, a Jesuit theologian and canonist chosen by Pope Francis to be a cardinal, wrote an essay on what should happen when a pope steps down.
In the article, published in Civiltà Cattolica, Ghirlanda suggested the retiring Benedict take the title bishop emeritus of Rome.
“It is evident that the pope who has resigned is no longer pope; therefore he no longer has any power in the Church and cannot interfere in any government affair. One may wonder what title Benedict XVI will retain. We think that he should be given the title of bishop emeritus of Rome, like any other diocesan bishop who ceases,” he said.
In December 2021, at a congress on papal resignations, Ghirlanda took up the theme again.
“Having two people with the title of ‘pope,’ even if one added ’emeritus,’ it cannot be said that this might not generate confusion in public opinion,” he said.
To make clear that the pope who resigns is no longer pope, he said, he should perhaps be called “former Roman pontiff” or “former supreme pontiff.”
Pope Francis in July 2022 told reporters that if he were to retire from the papacy he would do things differently from his predecessor.
“The first experience went very well,” Pope Francis said, because Benedict XVI “is a holy and discreet man.”
In the future, however, “it would be better to define things or explain them better,” the pontiff added.
“I am the bishop of Rome. In that case I would be the bishop emeritus of Rome,” he said, and then suggested he would live in St. John Lateran Palace rather than at the Vatican.
Denver Newsroom, Feb 5, 2021 / 12:10 pm (CNA).- A Feb. 4 investigative story from the Associated Press inaccurately portrays “the Roman Catholic Church” as a “giant corporate monolith” that raked in federal aid while sitting on billions of dollars that they could have used to pay employees, a canon and civil law expert told CNA.
In reality, “the Roman Catholic Church” in the US is made up of tens of thousands of separate nonprofits, most of which did not have legal access to liquid cash necessary to pay their employees when the pandemic took hold last year.
The CARES Act, passed in March 2020, initially authorized some $350 billion in loans to small businesses, known as the Paycheck Protection Program, which was intended to allow them to continue to pay their employees.
The loans, given by the Small Business Administration, were approved on a first come, first served basis. According to reports, an estimated 12,000-13,000 of the 17,000 Catholic parishes in the U.S. applied, and most were encouraged to do so by their dioceses.
According to the AP’s analysis, “dioceses” and “other Catholic institutions” collectively received about $3 billion from the PPP program, leading the authors to conclude that “the Roman Catholic Church” was perhaps “the biggest beneficiary of the paycheck program.”
Father Pius Pietrzyk, OP, a canon and civil lawyer and a professor at St. Patrick Seminary in Menlo Park, California, told CNA that in conflating the finances of dioceses with those of individual parishes and other Catholic entities, the article gives the impression that “this is all one budget with fungible dollars”— a “gross misrepresentation” that belies a “fundamental ignorance” of Church finances in the US.
The article goes on to claim that the total assets for all Catholic entities in the US, including dioceses, parishes, and charities, totals more than $10 billion and in some cases increased slightly over the course of the pandemic.
Importantly, to reach the $10 billion figure, the AP “also included funding that dioceses had opted to designate for special projects instead of general expenses; excess cash that parishes and their affiliates deposit with their diocese’s savings and loan; and lines of credit dioceses typically have with outside banks.”
The AP story does not assert that dioceses or other Catholic entities committed fraud or broke the law by applying for and receiving PPP loans, but a strong theme in the article is that “the Roman Catholic Church” did not need the loans, and could have afforded to continue to pay its employees with the assets “the Church” had on hand.
The January AP story is similar to a story the AP published during July 2020, which criticized the “US Roman Catholic Church” for accepting what appeared at the time to be $1.4-3.5 billion worth of PPP loans.
But there is, both legally and financially, no single entity that is the “US Roman Catholic Church.” Nearly each of the nation’s 17,000 parishes operates as its own nonprofit, and weekly donations help to employ the priest, along with the employees who maintain the parish and its ministries.
The distinction in civil law is important, but the distinction in canon law— the law governing the Church— is also crucial to understand, and applies to every diocese in the world.
“Juridic persons” are defined in canon law as either aggregates of persons, or aggregates of things, i.e. goods. Canon law protects the financial independence of each juridic person, such as a parish. A “parish” is defined in canon law as “a portion of the people of God.”
Under canon law, the assets of a parish are managed by the pastor and are not “owned” by the bishop, although he does exercise a certain degree of governance over them, Pietrzyk explained.
Some— but only a minority— of US dioceses are incorporated in civil law as a “corporation sole”, whereby all Church assets within the diocese are owned by the bishop. The Vatican has discouraged this form of corporate organization because of its incongruency with canon law.
The canonical structure of the Church is, in some ways, similar to the federal system in the US, Pietrzyk said. The federal government exercises governance in individual states, but it does not “own” individual states, and thus cannot take funds away from one state budget and give them to another state.
Catholic schools are, like parishes, separate legal entities and their employees work for the school, not for the diocese.
This does not mean that there is no free flow of money between dioceses and parishes. All parishes are taxed by their dioceses.
In addition, many dioceses operate “savings and loans,” whereby parishes send excess money to a reserve fund managed by the diocese which functions like a bank; deposits can then be withdrawn at any time for any reason.
Importantly, dioceses do not— as the AP asserts— have the power to use the deposited money, which belongs to the parishes, as they see fit.
“The bishop has no authority in canon law to simply swoop in and clean out the bank account of a parish, nor does he have that ability in civil law if they are separately established,” Pietrzyk pointed out.
The AP story also does not adequately portray Catholic endowments or foundations, many of which are required by law to respect the intentions of donors and be used for specific purposes, Pietrzyk said.
The foundations, too, are also separate civil and canonical entities from the dioceses, and are not subject to the bishop’s whims, he noted.
For example, the AP reports that the Archdiocese of Chicago “had more than $1 billion in cash and investments in its headquarters and cemetery division as of May [2020],” while at the same time “Chicago’s parishes, schools and ministries accumulated at least $77 million in paycheck protection funds.”
The story implies that a fund specifically earmarked for cemeteries could somehow be repurposed to pay for salaries— a legal and practical impossibility, Pietrzyk said.
“You can’t, either in civil or canon law, simply move those funds around contrary to the wishes of the donor,” he said.
“The diocese can’t simply scoop out the cemetery fund to start paying salaries for schoolteachers. That would be fraud…they could be liable for prosecution for something like that.”
The AP story includes quotes from an anonymous pastor in “a Western state” as well as Fr. James Connell, former vice chancellor of the Milwaukee archdiocese, who asserted that “Catholic entities did not need government aid” and should have instead, out of love of neighbor, left the funds for small businesses to use.
Part of the reason for their assertions was the fact that many dioceses did not experience the catastrophic downturn in assets that many expected in 2020, thanks in part to a healthy rebounding of the stock market.
The investments made by many Catholic entities turned out to be safer than they could have been, Pietrzyk said, with the stock market largely recovering since the start of the pandemic. But “nobody knew that in June.”
“To say that the Church should not have taken that money in June because things are really rosy [next] January is absurd,” he asserted.
Catholic financial experts have recommended to CNA in the past that parishes and dioceses especially well-prepared for a crisis ought to consider calling up struggling parishes or dioceses voluntarily to offer to share resources.
That being said, the AP story displays “incredible 20/20 hindsight,” Pietrzyk noted, and seems to gloss over the uncertainty of the period in which the PPP program first launched.
“There was a nationwide sense of panic within the Church at the time these funds were available. No vaccine in sight, didn’t know how long the pandemic would go on, everything was being shut down. Initial numbers from dioceses were that donations were way down, as people themselves were uncertain about their future.”
At that time, a massive reorganization of Church assets was not possible, legally and practically. Without another immediate source of income, especially for small parishes without much reserves, large-scale firings of church employees could have taken place, Pietrzyk said.
By the AP’s own admission, dioceses reported that their hardest-hit churches saw income drop by 40% or more before donations began to rebound months later, and schools took hits when fundraisers were canceled and families had trouble paying tuition.
Even with PPP money, some dioceses, such as San Francisco’s, still had to cut salaries— but, as the PPP intended, did not have to resort to mass firings.
The AP does not cite any evidence that “Catholic entities” unjustly took money away from more deserving candidates. Catholic entities, taken as a whole, appear to have received, at most, about 0.6% of the funds so far disbursed from the PPP program.
Guidance from the SBA on eligibility for the loans stated that “no otherwise eligible organization will be disqualified from receiving a loan because of the religious nature, religious identity, or religious speech of the organization.”
PPP funds are still available for businesses that need them, albeit with more restrictions than in previous rounds. All told, with Congress adding $284 billion to the program in December, the PPP program is expected to eventually disburse nearly $1 trillion in loans.
Another implication from the AP story worth refuting, Pietrzyk said, is that nonprofit, tax-exempt entities are somehow less deserving of government largess.
It makes sense to allow nonprofits access to PPP funds, he said, because PPP was intended to cover worker’s salaries— workers who pay income tax.
The PPP loans did not directly enrich the nonprofit entities that received them, but rather went straight to the employees. Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York noted this fact in a letter he released following the AP’s July 2020 story. The archdiocese, as well as many of the archdioceses’ parishes, had received PPP loans.
“Make no mistake, the money that the Archdiocese of New York received was used solely for the purposes outlined in the law, that is to continue to pay employees their salaries and benefits. Not one penny of that money was used in any way to settle lawsuits or pay victim-survivors of abuse.
“We have none of this money left. It has all be [sic] distributed to our workers, and the government is carefully auditing it.”
Archbishop Paul Coakley of Oklahoma City, chair of the US bishops’ committee on domestic justice, also wrote a response to the July AP story, defending the use of the PPP by Catholic parishes, hospitals, schools, dioceses, and social service agencies.
“The Paycheck Protection Program was designed to protect the jobs of Americans from all walks of life, regardless of whether they work for for-profit or non-profit employers, faith-based or secular,” Archbishop Coakley wrote.
“The Catholic Church is the largest non-governmental supplier of social services in the United States. Each year, our parishes, schools and ministries serve millions of people in need, regardless of race, ethnicity or religion. The novel coronavirus only intensified the needs of the people we serve and the demand for our ministries. The loans we applied for enabled our essential ministries to continue to function in a time of national emergency.”
“In addition, shutdown orders and economic fallout associated with the virus have affected everyone, including the thousands of Catholic ministries — churches, schools, healthcare and social services — that employ about 1 million people in the United States,” Coakley added.
“These loans have been an essential lifeline to keep hundreds of thousands of employees on payroll, ensure families maintain their health insurance, and enable lay workers to continue serving their brothers and sisters during this crisis.”
It is high time that Canon Law for the universal Church forbids any cleric in celibacy to legally adopt a child. Anyone with half an ounce of brains would know that this is extraordinarily imprudent. And, besides, a good pastor would certainly be able to find a Catholic married couple (and of course that can only be one man and one woman) in his parish who would make exemplary parents to a child needing adoption. Let’s remember that adoption, just like raising any child, is to satisfy the needs of the child and never a child there to satisfy the parents’ needs.
Thank you Lord for continuing to expose yet another flaw in the Catholic church.
The Catholic concept of the priesthood is unscriptural and didn’t even originate until the 3rd century. Furthermore, there is no reference to such titles as archbishop, cardinal, or pope, and the requirement of the celibacy of the priesthood is an idea condemned by the Apostle Paul (1 Timothy 4:1-3). In fact, when Paul listed the qualifications for bishops (elders), he stated that they must “not have been married more than once” (1 Timothy 3:2; see also Titus 1:6).
Christ was a priest, was he not? If Christ is not in the Bible, well, I’ll be damned!
Good Catholic priests model their ministries and their lives on the life of Christ. This is the ideal, the reason, the model which the Catholic Church holds as the ideal and the practice.
Thank you for your interest and your displaced love against/for the Catholic Church. Your flaws are brilliantly misinformed but definitely very scriptural. Christ warned his followers against ideas like yours.
Christ fulfilled the roles of prophet, priest and king. If you read the New Testament (Book of Hebrews for sure), you will notice these are no longer in Christ’s church. He has and always will be the focus to Christians, unlike Catholics who worship and pray to numerous creatures.
Your mistaken beliefs beg correction. The good Catholic worships no one other than God. The poor Christian may persist in ignorance, however.
It is true that Christ brought to perfection the role of prophet, priest, or king. Only a rebellious and contentious spirit would thereby claim that Christ’s disciples should not aspire to imitate Christ’s perfections. Just as Christ required that his disciples carry their crosses, He also commanded that they aspire to the Father’s perfection. Perhaps you missed those words of the Christ in your version of Scripture.
Perhaps you could benefit from a good Catholic Catechism class.
I assume you are not a Catholic. The Church has been self destructive enough in last sixty or so years. We need neither advice nor the tiresome scriptural point/counterpoint from protestantism. Either you believe in a Sacramental Faith or you don’t. As for a celibate or contemplative life; it looks more attractive and enduring than ever in this sex-drenched culture.
Of course suspensions, let alone stronger disciplining measures, never occur when priests are outspoken supporters of crushing the skulls of the unborn.
Not a Pfleger fan, but I can’t help but imagine that after the nth or so false accusation people are hoping to get some settlement cash from an easy target.
Yes, those were my thoughts as well. I don’t agree with or support him in any way, but how do you defend yourself against an accusation of something that might have happened 30 years ago. Sounds questionable at the very least.
I get no joy from this. I’d much rather have read that Fr. has renounced all his heterodox views. I’ll bet that he consistently votes for candidates from the party of death (dem) and fails to see how they are responsible for the violence that permeates Chicago. Fr. Pfleger share in the culpability for those gun deaths in Chicago.
Cardinal Cupich is quick to destroy and punish any TLM supporters in his Archdiocese, but an elderly hippie heretic guilty of profaning the Mass every single Sunday is above reproach and untouchable, even for accusations of sexual abuse, unless they become too public to ignore.
It is high time that Canon Law for the universal Church forbids any cleric in celibacy to legally adopt a child. Anyone with half an ounce of brains would know that this is extraordinarily imprudent. And, besides, a good pastor would certainly be able to find a Catholic married couple (and of course that can only be one man and one woman) in his parish who would make exemplary parents to a child needing adoption. Let’s remember that adoption, just like raising any child, is to satisfy the needs of the child and never a child there to satisfy the parents’ needs.
Right on Right on… I agree with all that you posted.
Thank you Lord for continuing to expose yet another flaw in the Catholic church.
The Catholic concept of the priesthood is unscriptural and didn’t even originate until the 3rd century. Furthermore, there is no reference to such titles as archbishop, cardinal, or pope, and the requirement of the celibacy of the priesthood is an idea condemned by the Apostle Paul (1 Timothy 4:1-3). In fact, when Paul listed the qualifications for bishops (elders), he stated that they must “not have been married more than once” (1 Timothy 3:2; see also Titus 1:6).
Christ was a priest, was he not? If Christ is not in the Bible, well, I’ll be damned!
Good Catholic priests model their ministries and their lives on the life of Christ. This is the ideal, the reason, the model which the Catholic Church holds as the ideal and the practice.
Thank you for your interest and your displaced love against/for the Catholic Church. Your flaws are brilliantly misinformed but definitely very scriptural. Christ warned his followers against ideas like yours.
Christ fulfilled the roles of prophet, priest and king. If you read the New Testament (Book of Hebrews for sure), you will notice these are no longer in Christ’s church. He has and always will be the focus to Christians, unlike Catholics who worship and pray to numerous creatures.
Your mistaken beliefs beg correction. The good Catholic worships no one other than God. The poor Christian may persist in ignorance, however.
It is true that Christ brought to perfection the role of prophet, priest, or king. Only a rebellious and contentious spirit would thereby claim that Christ’s disciples should not aspire to imitate Christ’s perfections. Just as Christ required that his disciples carry their crosses, He also commanded that they aspire to the Father’s perfection. Perhaps you missed those words of the Christ in your version of Scripture.
Perhaps you could benefit from a good Catholic Catechism class.
Why a St. LOUIS Mo dateline on this story. Is CNA based in St.Louis?
I assume you are not a Catholic. The Church has been self destructive enough in last sixty or so years. We need neither advice nor the tiresome scriptural point/counterpoint from protestantism. Either you believe in a Sacramental Faith or you don’t. As for a celibate or contemplative life; it looks more attractive and enduring than ever in this sex-drenched culture.
We’re not hearing so much from Cdl. Cupich these days so maybe this is good news.
Of course suspensions, let alone stronger disciplining measures, never occur when priests are outspoken supporters of crushing the skulls of the unborn.
Not a Pfleger fan, but I can’t help but imagine that after the nth or so false accusation people are hoping to get some settlement cash from an easy target.
Yes, those were my thoughts as well. I don’t agree with or support him in any way, but how do you defend yourself against an accusation of something that might have happened 30 years ago. Sounds questionable at the very least.
I get no joy from this. I’d much rather have read that Fr. has renounced all his heterodox views. I’ll bet that he consistently votes for candidates from the party of death (dem) and fails to see how they are responsible for the violence that permeates Chicago. Fr. Pfleger share in the culpability for those gun deaths in Chicago.
Cardinal Cupich is quick to destroy and punish any TLM supporters in his Archdiocese, but an elderly hippie heretic guilty of profaning the Mass every single Sunday is above reproach and untouchable, even for accusations of sexual abuse, unless they become too public to ignore.
Amen, Johann!
Hypothetically speaking, if similiar accusations begin to be made about James Martin, SCH, will he also be removed from the ministry?
Louis Farrakhan… jazz band… what?