CMR encourages pastors making their bulletins more interesting but this is ridiculous. Fr. Doug Koesel of Blessed Trinity Catholic Church in Cleveland writes his scathing (unhinged?) thoughts under the simple headline “From the Desk of Fr. Doug.”
I would actually love this for its unintentional humor but I do fear that it will serve to confuse many people. You really have to read this to understand how looney this priest has gone over defending the nuns from the Vatican. Check it out:
Many of you have asked me to comment on the recent investigation into the US nuns. Here goes. In short, the Vatican has asked for an investigation into the life of religious women in the United States. There is a concern about orthodoxy,
feminism and pastoral practice. The problem with the Vatican approach is that it places the nuns squarely on the side of Jesus and the Vatican on the side of tired old men, making a last gasp to save a crumbling kingdom lost long ago for a variety of reasons.One might say that this investigation is the direct result of the John Paul II papacy. He was suspicious of the power given to the laity after the Second Vatican Council. He disliked the American Catholic Church. Throughout his papacy he strove to wrest collegial power from episcopal conferences and return it to Rome.
One of the results of the council was that the nuns became more educated, more integrated in the life of the people and more justice-oriented than the bishops and pope. They are doctors, lawyers, university professors, lobbyists, social workers, authors, theologians, etc. Their appeal was that they always went back to what Jesus said and did. Their value lay in the fact that their theology and their practice
were integrated into the real world.The Vatican sounded like the Pharisees of the New Testament;— legalistic, paternalistic and orthodox— while “the good sisters” were the ones who were feeding the hungry,clothing the naked, visiting the sick and imprisoned, educating
the immigrant, and so on. Nuns also learned that Catholics are intuitively smart about their faith. They prefer dialogue over diatribe, freedom of thought over mind control, biblical study over fundamentalism, development of doctrine over isolated mandates.Far from being radical feminists or supporters of far-out ideas, religious women realized that the philosophical underpinnings of Catholic teaching are no longer valid. Women are not subservient to men, the natural law is much broader than once thought, the OT is not as important as the NT, love is more powerful than fear. They realized that you can have a conversation with someone on your campus who
thinks differently than the church without compromising what the church teaches. (For example, I could invite Newt Gingrich here to speak. You’d all still know what the church teaches about divorce in spite of him) Women religious have learned to live without fear (Srs. Dorothy Kazel, Maura Clark, Ita Ford) and with love (Mother Teresa). And the number of popes and bishops and cardinals following in
their footsteps, Jesus’ footsteps, is_____?This is what annoys American Catholics. The Vatican is hypocritical and duplicitous. Their belief is always that someone else needs to clean up their act; the divorced, the gays, the media, the US nuns, the Americans who wereusing the wrong words to pray, the seminaries, etc. It never occurs to the powers that be that the source of the problem is the structure itself. We can say that now with certainty as regards the sex abuse crisis. It was largely the structure of the church itself, the way men were trained and isolated, made loyal to the system at all costs and not to the person, that gave us the scandalous cover-up.
US nuns work side by side with the person on the street. They are involved in their everyday lives. Most cardinals spent less than five years in a parish, were never pastors, are frequently career diplomats.
Religious women in the US refuse to be controlled by abusive authority that seeks to control out of fear. They realize that Jesus taught no doctrines, but that the church, over time, developed what Jesus taught in a systematic way. Nuns have always tried to work within the system.
This time their prophetic voices may take them out of the system. They may take a lot of Catholics and a lot of their hospitals, schools, colleges, orphanages, prison ministries, convents, women’s shelters, food pantries and, of course, the good will they have earned over the centuries with them.
This investigation is not about wayward US nuns. It is the last gasp for control by a dying breed, wrapped in its own self-importance. It is a struggle for the very nature of the church; who we are, how we pray, where we live, who belongs, why we believe. The early church endured a similar struggle. The old order died. The Holy Spirit won. Happy Pentecost Sunday!
P.S. On Wednesday, May 30, there will be a prayer rally
for US nuns at St. Colman on W 65th St. All are invited and
encouraged to attend. The nuns were there for us. Let us be
there for them.
June 6, 2012 at 10:19 pm
My Jaw is on the floor. This priest needs erious retraining.
June 6, 2012 at 10:33 pm
Way to go Father Doug! I applaud him.
June 6, 2012 at 10:39 pm
Excommunicate the whole parish.
June 6, 2012 at 10:41 pm
Whatever God he is following, it isn't Christ. Pray for him.
June 6, 2012 at 10:44 pm
Yes, the Holy Spirit is winning despite the efforts of the last 40-50 years of trying to stifle Him.
June 7, 2012 at 12:42 am
What does that even mean? Are you saying the Trinity is a sort of three way boxing match? I mean this just makes the writer sound insane but not in the good way.
June 6, 2012 at 10:54 pm
My jaw is on the ground also! Somebody needs to inform this priest's Bishop, and quickly. Lord have mercy on him and pity this parish's parishioners.
June 6, 2012 at 11:06 pm
How does someone with no understanding of history or ecclesiology become a pastor? Just wondering.
June 6, 2012 at 11:30 pm
Father needs a time out.
June 6, 2012 at 11:35 pm
I know this priest. He was pastor at a church in Cleveland some years ago that housed and supported "FutureChurch", the dissident "catholic" organization. He left the priesthood for a few years to go to Vegas, but has now returned an made a pastor again (heaven only knows why).
June 6, 2012 at 11:50 pm
Father needs to correct two mistakes. 1) The US nuns are faithful to the Magisterium. WHO are the investigated nuns? Who knows. 2) The Magisterium is the Catholic Church Jesus Christ founded on St. Peter. Father Doug Koesel missed his calling. He ought to have been one of the bishops commissioned to investigate the heresy preaching schismatic women of the LCWR.
June 7, 2012 at 12:02 am
But Fr. Doug, Love covers over a multitude of sins. Remember Jesus loves the men of the Church hierarchy, too! Turn the other cheek, love your enemies! This kind of talk is not very Catholic (tsk, tsk).
Is this the place in the liberal-style commenting on Catholic issues where I would bring up the sex abuse scandal? Oh, no Fr. Doug already did that.
Lots of praise for how the sisters made themselves look good; not to much said on how many souls they saved.
June 7, 2012 at 12:22 am
Damn! He could write for the Fishwrap!
June 7, 2012 at 12:37 am
Fr. Doug: "Their appeal was that they always went back to what Jesus said and did."
Going beyond the gospel of Christ, reducing salvation to repairing transportation infrastructure in inner cities while neglecting the moral infrastructure in the inner heart, and declaring the equal falsehood of all religions is NOT going back to "what Jesus said and did." And this deviation is precisely why LWCR was investigated.
June 7, 2012 at 1:05 am
Did anyone notice that at his parish, they didn't have Holy Mass on the Feast of the Visitation? I thought that was telling.
June 7, 2012 at 1:14 am
Where does one begin? "Remedial Catholic Theology" and "Church History I" would be in order for this priest, I think. Which seminary trained him? Lord, have mercy! — Rosemary
June 7, 2012 at 2:43 am
Just another liberal wacko.He would love the SSND nuns that my aunt and cousin belonged to and taught youngsters for 100 years combined.They have completely gone off the deep end.Pray that we all see the day that Cardinal Burke is elected Pope and receives the tiara.Honey there will be some changes made!lol
June 7, 2012 at 3:31 am
I did a quick search for this parish, interested in how old the priest was, especially after he decried the 'tired old men' in the Vatican.
Shocking: He's not exactly the spitting image of youth.
I love Irony!
June 7, 2012 at 4:21 am
THis priest and his parish are the spiritual fruits of Vatican II.
June 7, 2012 at 11:54 am
Pray for Fr. Koesel and his flock.
June 7, 2012 at 2:01 pm
He doesn't sound like a priest at all, shamefully bad witness.