In a related matter, Diogenes has been spending time on a new English website, in which you can search online records from London's Old Bailey court going back centuries. He's found evidence of court proceedings involving Catholic priests being hauled before the bar for ... being Catholic priests. Here's how a proceeding against Father William Burnet, a "Romish priest," concluded in 1674:
Whereupon after a full hearing, Debating, and weighing of the matter, the Jury brought him in guilty of High Treason upon the last Indictment, and accordingly on Saturday he received sentence, To be Hang'd, Drawn, and Quartered; which he received with a modest Generosity, saying these words, Gloria in Excelsis Deo, &c.
Magnificent. Quite a contrast, I'd say, with the St. Sebastian's Angels (caution: profanity and worse; only go through those links, via Roman Catholic Faithful, if you have a strong stomach), the creepy online gay priests ring that discussed sexual fantasies and conquests, and the enthusiasm at least one (a South African bishop) had for the death of Pope John Paul II and the putative poisoning of then-Cardinal Ratzinger. The Angels' legacy lingers here in Dallas. One of their number was just appointed pastor of a large church in a Dallas suburb.
How can a priest with that kind of thing in his background having been made public rebound to be an effective spiritual leader? I'm not asking this rhetorically; I really want to know. I would be able to forgive him if he repented, but I would never trust his moral and spiritual leadership. Any priest who gets involved in a snake pit like St. Sebastian's Angels has serious, serious problems.
Could you look up to a man like that as a spiritual leader (as distinct from a licit dispenser of sacraments)? And if so, why?
Anyway: more Father Burnets, please.
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Rod, VERY good of you to run this story in the Dallas Morning News about this Fr. Mallinson. If he has NOT explained (and repented of) his involvement with the St. Sebastian's ring, then he has no business in the priesthood. If, however, he has indeed repented of his involvement with this group AND come clean, then that is another matter. Either way, he or someone in the diocese needs to explain the situation.
They don't call the priesthood "Holy Orders" for nothing. It implies that this particular vocation is both holy and ordered.
I am totally convinced that more good and orthodox men would answer the vocation to the priesthood ... if only the Church removed those priests who persisted in violating their vows. A lot of good men stay away because of the perception that this madness (e.g., the St. Sebastian's ring) is being tolerated.
"The truth will set you free." That's true for all of us, including this new pastor appointed in the Diocese of Dallas. If indeed this Fr. Mallinson has not repented of this stuff, then he needs to take a good honest look at his life. Whatever his positive qualities might be, he really should acknowledge his unsuitablity for the priesthood and find something else to do with his life. And make room for a faithful priest to take his place.
As I report above, Mallinson has resigned his parish as a result of the publicity. FYI, he had remained as pastor in his old parish, in a southern suburb called Lancaster, throughout the SSA scandal. Though his SSA confrere Fr. Cliff Garner, who has since left the priesthood, made local news during all that, his name was not mentioned by my newspaper. I wonder why? Perhaps because Garner was quoted on the site as having the hots for a youth minister? I dunno.
I wonder how much the new bishop knew about Mallinson's past before reassigning him to the McKinney parish.
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Now, I am not Catholic, but it seems to me that if one does not believe in the teachings of the Catholic church, and has no intention of the celibate life that is required of taking holy orders, and hates hierarchy and tradition, then perhaps that person should seek another vocation than Roman Catholic priest.
If you honestly cannot live a celibate life--then DON'T BECOME A PRIEST. Remember what the apostle Paul wrote, "It is better to marry than to burn."
It just seems to me that if you cannot accept your church's teaching on something, maybe that is not the place for you to be in ministry.
That is, of course, different from accepting the teaching but not liking it. There are certainly things that are fun to do, but I must accept that they are sinful whether I like it or not.
Jesus never said it was going to be EASY to be a Christian. He said "Take up your cross and follow me." He did NOT say, "Lay down over there and relax, I'll be back in a while. You want me to pick up a porno mag for you while I'm out?"
John,the church you wish for exist already and it is the Anglican church and ordaining women and gays has done nothing good for us,in fact it is killing us. Either one believes the historic teachings of Christianity or they don't. If people don't like what churches teach they should go somewhere else. Trying be incessantly relevant is a false idol and a dead end. It is the exact opposite of what works. The more liberal and revisionist Catholics and the Mainline Protestants get the less relevent they become. Frankly most parents don't want their kids around all this GLBT stuff and they leave once it comes into the church,even liberals. I know liberals who in public give in to that crap and in private still have reservations about it. Those people quietly leave with their kids. Look at the Episcopal church for the last 40 years, your kind of innovations kill the church.
"Trying be incessantly relevant is a false idol and a dead end."
The same can be said "tradition."
If the church is not "relevant" to the world we live in, and simply a haven where the safe and familiar are maintained in perpetuity, then it is certainly not the church of Jesus Christ, who died not only to free us from personal sin, but from power structures that keep us from having abundant life. I'm all for countercultural Christianity, but that means (to me at least) standing up for justice and for the disenfranchised, and not the status quo.
Sorry that you are in pain over the state of your Communion, Anglican. But it is hardly the fault of woman priests and gays. They are left trying to clean up generations of spiritual rot. In fact, these folks have repopulated a shrinking clergy, and have revitalized the church in many places.
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