VOTF Writes Open Letter To Holy Father

Did I say letter? I meant "heretic manifesto".

Voice of the Faithless from "Chicagoland" - sounds like an amusement park or a medical facility for the deranged, but it's just an Illinois chapter - gathered up a dozen chimpanzees and typewriters, locked them in a room, fed them caffeine-laced bananas, and three months later, came up with an open letter to the Holy Father.

It's long and it's wrong. Let's take a look at some of it, shall we? The full text is available here (WARNING - link takes you to National Catholic Distorter!)

Voice of the Faithful, Chicagoland Northeast
An Open Letter to Pope Benedict XVI: A Cry for Reform July 31, 2010

Dear Holy Father -- Joseph, our brother in Christ,

"Holy Father -- Joseph..."?? See, right from the start they're confused as to who is being addressed. Are they writing to the Holy Father, or is their particular case worker named Joseph? Or maybe Joseph is the name of the guy who gave the chimps their bananas. Very confusing...

We share with you deep pain and grief over the corruption that is coming to light throughout the worldwide Roman Catholic Church. We believe that Jesus is with us, weeping over his church as he once wept over Jerusalem. With every new revelation of clerical sex abuse and cover-up---and we have only seen the tip of the iceberg---we have become aware of a deadly cancer at the heart of the institutional church that is threatening to cripple its ability to nurture the faith of its members and to proclaim with any shred of credibility the good news of God’s Kingdom in Christ.

So Jesus is weeping with the VOTF, but not with the Holy Father? Or the entire Church? Is that what they're saying? One reason Christ is weeping is because of dissident groups like VOTF - because they are working against the unity that Jesus desires. Groups like VOTF are part of "a deadly cancer at the heart of the institutional church" - Fr Z. calls it a parallel magisterium. Sin is the deadliest of cancers - personal sin when you come right down to it - something that VOTF and similar groups have long since stopped believing in.

This cancer is the clerical culture. It sprang up, as we all know, in the Rome of Theodosius, when Christian leaders began to develop a cultic priesthood modeled on that of pagan Rome. This gave newly recognized Christian priests a privileged status in society and the requirement of abstinence from sexual activity the night before officiating at the public ritual. Over the centuries, the clerical caste took on more and more of the feudal structures and trappings of power. Today the Roman Catholic Church looks like a large, wealthy, highly organized multinational corporation, curiously dressed in the pompous trappings of an ancient feudal monarchy. Its princely bishops and priestly vassals encircle their papal monarch pledging unconditional loyalty and obedience, while many of the faithful serfs continue to pay, pray and obey their exalted leaders.

It was this point that I stopped taking the letter seriously. Veiled insults and smarmy insinuations about "princely bishops and priestly vassals" are counterproductive, and fail to strengthen their argument - they display zero humility or respect. Their prideful comments undermine their cause, and their points of view, built on the false premise of the cause of problems in today's Church collapses under the weight of bad theology.

So let's skip the next six paragraphs and get to the seven points they highlight - see if any of them are familiar boilerplate.

1. Resolve the sex-abuse scandal with unflinching courage and transparent honesty.
2. Restore the authority granted by Vatican II to the Episcopal Conferences.
3. Restore the election of bishops to the local churches.
4. Revoke the policy of mandatory clerical celibacy.
5. Ordain women. Open all sacraments and ministries in the church to all the baptized without regard to gender or sexual orientation.
6. Replace the obsolete College of Cardinals with a representative College of Bishops elected by the Episcopal Conferences throughout the world.
7. Recall the Vatican produced English translation of the Roman Missal and restore the ICEL translation.

Yawn - same ol' same o'. And a total of 20 mind-numbing paragraphs describe those 7 points to boot. I will spare you the bulk of the illogic employed by those poor over-caffeinated chimpanzees, except for one of the most ridiculous, theologically absurd statements I have ever come across. It comes from point 5 - "ordain women". It's a doozy.

The metaphor argument, that the priest should be male because he represents Jesus, the male priest, is simply fallacious. The priest does not represent Christ, but serves as leader of the community of men and women worshiping God in communion with Christ. Further, since the Risen Christ is neither male nor female, any gender based symbolism ascribed to the presider is meaningless.

I have to admit, that's a new one. No one ever taught me that after the Resurrection, Jesus was sexless. More proof of my being poorly catechized, I guess. For those forty days prior to the Ascension, Jesus never had to relieve Himself? (well, it's not talked about in the New Testament, so how are we to know) So Jesus isn't really the Son of God anymore - he's just some sort of genderless bearded lady thing. And on the last day, on the Day of Resurrection, there will be no more male and female? We'll be...neither? Both? I'm sorry, but on the last day, I want to share in the divine life, not live Divine's life. Know what I mean?

Apparently, these folks take St Thomas the Apostle's declaration a bit further than he had ever considered. All he wanted to do was probe the nailmarks with his finger, and put his hand in Jesus' side, and then he would believe. I get the impression that the VOTF Chicagoland group - and quite possibly many others like them - would only be convinced of Jesus' gender should they lift His toga. And even then they wouldn't believe their own eyes.

VOTF claims that they want to "keep the faith and change the Church". With claims like this, it's apparent they no longer have faith worth keeping, and desire to do more than merely change the Church - they want to run it.

Should Pope Benedict read this - or maybe even this Holy Father Joseph person - I wonder if he'll shake his head, maybe share it with Cardinal George over lunch and laugh at the funny bits over an Orange Fanta. More likely, he'd recognize that there's still a lot of hard work to do in leading Christ's flock to heavenly pastures. Including those sheep who think they know a better way.

Here's the disingenuous closing paragraph:

Dear Holy Father, Joseph, we are counting on your intelligence and theological expertise, along with your openness to the Holy Spirit and common sense, to lead the church boldly through long-overdue reforms into a new era of Christian discipleship and ministry. Please don’t let fear and the deeply rooted scotoma of the clerical culture blind you to the current crisis and seduce you to feebly tweak at reform. Take the bold leap across the chasm. Our world is hungry for the good news of the Risen Christ, the news that a worldwide community of truth and justice, of love and peaceful collaboration is possible. This is the Kingdom of God that Jesus proclaimed and that the church is called on to model and strive to achieve in the world, working alongside all people of goodwill.

These folks want to push Pope Benedict into the chasm, not have him leap across it. The world is hungry for the good news of Jesus - starving, in fact - and groups such as Voice of the Faithless offer scorpions instead of eggs, stones rather than bread. Their version of the truth is dangerous and unfulfilling, leaving people's souls, as well as their heads, empty and lost.

Fortunately, their influence is waning. Unfortunately, they still hold some sway, and are leading many souls astray. We must pray and make reparation for the pain they inflict on the Sacred Heart of Jesus and Immaculate Heart of Mary.

p.s. I wish to apologize for the chimpanzee comments - I didn't mean to insult the chimpanzees.