More Pieces of the Puzzle- Fr. Rosica

Further to the revelations regarding Fr. Thomas Rosica's legal threat to a Catholic Blogger, here are some more details to consider.

I have written and posted this because I believe this is very important. It is important because it reveals a very dangerous agenda in the light of the forthcoming Synod - which is what many people have suspected - namely that what Rosica and his fellow travellers are planning is a change in doctrine and morals (and not "mere pastoral practice"). If that is so, then this needs to go global.

Wikipedia on the Fr Thomas Rosica affair (emphasis mine):

"In the document issued from Folger, Rubinoff LLP, Domet is accused of having made false and defamatory statements about Rosica. David Domet has been critical of the outspoken and progressive positions of Fr. Thomas Rosica on church affairs. If a lawsuit does come to fruition, it would be an unprecedented action for a Vatican official to bring litigious action against a private citizen and member of the church for expressing a critical opinion of the Vatican hierarchy. The document from Folger, Rubinoff LLP, demands that nine statements, made by Domet, be retracted from the blog and a public apology to Rosica must be posted. It also notes that compliance with a retraction and apology will not remove the threat of litigation, but will merely reduce alleged damages."

This paragraph confirms the reality that irrespective of the outcome, this is now a Public Relations disaster. And shockingly, Fr. Rosica's role in the Vatican Press Office is a combination of Information & PR! You would have to wonder what Fr. Rosica was thinking in taking such draconian action, could it be the result of a combination of very poor judgement and anger management issues? I don't know enough about the man to be able to comment, but it is clear that something is not right.

Fr Rosica is a member of the Congregation of St. Basil (CSB), also known as the Basilian Fathers and this leads to a number of questions:

1. Did he get permission from his superiors in the Vatican before engaging lawyers?

2. Did he get permission of his Religious Superiors before engaging lawyers?

3. As a religious priest, he will have taken vows of poverty. So who is paying for the lawyers?

4. How objectively & accurately has he carried out his duties as English language assistant to the Holy See Press Office since he went to the Vatican after 11 February 2013 (when Pope Benedict announced his resignation)?

As I have often repeated on this blog - there's nothing so illiberal as a "liberal".

In another shocking development last night, one of Fr. Rosica's confreres (his congregation's official spokesman no less) made his (the orders?) feelings toward Cardinal Burke crystal clear:

He has since apologised and announced he will be taking a break from Twitter. Good idea Father!

This all feeds a narrative which has to concern us deeply given Fr. Rosica's position in the Vatican. I don't thing any part of this has upset me as much as this YouTube clip which I posted a link to yesterday. At 48:00, Fr. Rosica states:

"Will this Pope re-write controversial Church doctrines? No. But that isn't how doctrine changes. Doctrine changes when pastoral contexts shift and new insights emerge such that particularly doctrinal formulations no longer mediate the saving message of God's transforming love. Doctrine changes when the Church has leaders and teachers who are not afraid to take note of new contexts and emerging insights. It changes when the Church has pastors who do what Francis has been insisting: leave the securities of your chanceries, of your rectories, of your safe places, of your episcopal residences go set aside the small minded rules that often keep you locked up and shielded from the world."

This is disgraceful, but it does go some way to explaining why he so thin-skinned about criticism - if the criticism is indeed justified. As I stated yesterday, in the above Fr. Rosica is patently wrong: doctrine (especially magisterial doctrine, the big stuff ) does not change; and (2) clearly a time-server, like so many who have raised a different (rainbow?) flag under this papacy. He cannot answer the argument so he threatens to sue. Which rather gives the game away: he has no answer so take down anyone who exposes his intellectual vacuity. The Basilians seem to be a congregation in dire need of reform or extinction.

It is worth noting that he is a Scripture Scholar rather than a Theologian. I'm afraid that some Scripture Scholars have been seduced by Liberal Scholarship. And yet he (presumably) has taken the Profession of Faith in accordance with canon 833. If so, it begs the question, has he lied under oath? As a Scripture Scholar, you would think that Fr. Rosica would be familiar with 1 Corinthians 6:1-10:

Lawsuits among Believers

When one of you has a grievance against a brother, does he dare go to law before the unrighteous instead of the saints? Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to try trivial cases? Do you not know that we are to judge angels? How much more, matters pertaining to this life! If then you have such cases, why do you lay them before those who are least esteemed by the church? I say this to your shame. Can it be that there is no man among you wise enough to decide between members of the brotherhood, but brother goes to law against brother, and that before unbelievers?
To have lawsuits at all with one another is defeat for you. Why not rather suffer wrong? Why not rather be defrauded? But you yourselves wrong and defraud, and that even your own brethren.
Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither the immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor robbers will inherit the kingdom of God.

According to stats on the Catholic Hierarchy website there are 215 Basilian priests in the world. So on average one Basilian per country in the world. By comparison there are 12,298 Jesuit priests and 10,524 Salesian priests. As a member of a very small religious order, there is a danger that the superiors (and those in charge of the selection & formation of new members) might be of poor quality.

I have also been directed to this article about Fr. Rosica interview with an excommunicated priest in front of a lay audience discussing the Catholic Church. Fr. Rosica facilitates this interview without actually pointing out to the audience that his interviewee had been excommunicated. Not many people seem aware of this incident.

The ex-priest is one Gregory Baum and in the interview there a lot of things that bear reflection. (The full script is here; a related article is here; and here is a 2005 article on Gregory Baum, who "has done more to help destroy the Church in Canada than any other person". This is a recent LifeSiteNews article on the same interview discussed by Michael Voris in this old episode of The Vortex.

In this episode, Voris explains:

[I] n addition to having an excommunicated priest as his guest without ever informing the audience of that little fact, [Fr. Rosica] publically praises his guest, Gregory Baum, for his love of the Church and Christ…
…From high atop his perch over a rapidly declining and shrinking Church in Canada (think the crow’s nest on the Titanic) Fr. Rosica not only confuses the faithful by praising and lauding a former priest who thinks homosexual marriage is okay, birth control is fine, and the good Lord knows what else, he lashes out at faithful Catholics – the orthodox crowd – as he opens up a line of discussion with his excommunicate buddy…

So not very much digging has demonstrated that Fr. Rosica has interesting past form and clearly requires our prayers urgently. Let us also bear in mind the words of St. Catherine of Sienna, from “Mystical Body of Holy Church,” pages 216-220:

And if you should ask me why I said that this sin of those who persecute holy Church is grave than any other sin, and why it is my will that the sins of the clergy should not lessen your reverence for them, this is how I would answer you: Because the reverence you pay to them is not actually paid to them, but to me, in virtue of the blood I have entrusted to their ministry.

So the reverence belongs not to the ministers, but to me … and just as the reverence is done to me, so also is the irreverence, for I have already told you that you must not reverence them for themselves but for the authority I have entrusted to them.

For this reason, no one has excuse to say, “I am doing no harm, nor am I rebelling against holy Church. I am simply acting against the sins of evil pastors.” Such persons are deluded, blinded as they are by their own selfishness. To me redounds every assault they make on my ministers: derision, slander, disgrace, abuse. Whatever is done to them I count as done to me. For I have said, and I say it again: No one is to touch my christs. It is my right to punish them, and no one else’s.

Therefore, I will tell you, if all the other sins these people have committed were put on one side and the one sin on the other, this one would weigh more in my sight than all the others. I have shown you this so that you would have more reason to grieve that I am offended and these wretched souls damned, so that the bitter sorrow of you and my other servants, by my kind mercy, might dissolve the great darkness that has come over these rotten members who are cut off from the mystic body of holy Church.

O dearest daughter, grieve without measure at the sight of such wretched blindness in those who have been washed in the blood, and have been nourished with this blood at the breast of holy Church! Now like rebels they have pulled away from that breast out of fear and under the pretext of correcting the faults of my ministers -- something I have forbidden them to do, for I do not want my anointed ones touched by them. What terror should come over you and my other servants when you hear any mention of that wretched chain of theirs! Your tongue could never describe how hateful it is to me!

St. Catherine, ora pro nobis!