As a faithful shepherd Fr. Goring immediately obeyed, as he must. God bless him for it. He gives us an example of how to behave when Holy Mother Church exhorts us to obey clear doctrines articulated by the pope and the magisterium in union with him. I wish more Catholic laity would obey Humanae Vitae, a clear, authentic teaching rather than the ear-tickling imprudent nonsense about global warming and immigration.
But now we, the laity, must take the battle in hand. Clergy and religious take a vow of obedience. Priests put their hands between the bishop and make a sacred promise to obey him (obviously in all things, but sin).
The laity do not take such a vow to either their pastor or their bishop.
We do have an obligation to practice obedience. Children are required to obey their parents, although once they become adults, parents' authority does not cover all areas of life. St. Clare ran away from her parents to become a cloistered nun. Her parents did not have the authority at that point to demand her obedience about the choice of her state in life.
The laity must obey God and we must obey Holy Mother Church in her doctrines and sacred traditions. We must obey Church laws. A wife owes obedience to her husband, although, once again she is not obligated to become a doormat or obey him when he urges her to sin. (Consider a husband pressuring his wife to abort their child.)
The laity also do NOT owe obedience to their pastors or bishops except when they are articulating Church doctrine authentically! I said this to a canon lawyer many years ago and he did not disagree.
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| St. Jacinta pray for us, especially for "poor sinners" in danger of eternal fire. |
May God give us all prudence and perseverance, but above all charity in the battle. It is all about saving souls, especially those who are in the gravest danger of hell which, sadly, includes many of those in the hierarchy. It wasn't for nothing that so many saints said the floor of hell is littered with bishops' skulls or miters. But just think of the power for good those converted bishops can become if they repent!
St. Jacinta, little apostle of love for souls on the brink of the abyss, pray for us. and help us imitate you in sacrificing for poor sinners.
Obedience, yes. But one must not obey anyone, not even a pope, who commands one to do something against the law of God. If one is commanded to do evil or to cooperate in doing evil, one must refuse.
ReplyDeleteThis is true. None of us is obliged to obey those in power who lead us astray.
DeleteWhat had Fr. Goring said about Wuerl?
ReplyDeleteHe was urging people to call and write to those organizing the youth Mass at the March for Life to ask that Cardinal Wuerl not be involved. He pointed out how the cardinal had lied and had a history of covering up for pederast priests. Some people were calling the archdiocese of Washington and it appears he made enough waves and stirred up enough noise to elicit the clampdown from his superiors who have the authority to do it. As Mary P. said we can never obey a superior if he orders us to sin, but that is not what Fr Goring's superiors did. I imagine he can still counsel lay warriors about how to fight in a way that is moral and pleasing to God. I hope many will be asking for his advice.
ReplyDeleteThanks so much, Mary Ann. It will be interesting to see if Cdl. Wuerl is involved. I'd forgotten that he is still a cardinal.
ReplyDeleteIt looks like Fr. Goring got his wings clipped. This is why good priests are reluctant to speak up. Under the guise of "obedience" any opposition to the lavender mafia gets shut down. However, these evil doers can't use the same strategy to shut down the reawakened laity and that is going to be their undoing!
ReplyDeleteNot only is he still a cardinal, Susan, but he is the administrator in D.C. until a new bishop is named. He also remains on the Congregation for Clergy so he is still influential in selecting new bishops. This is an atrocity and an insult to the faithful especially the victims of clergy sex abuse. That Pope Francis would continue to make him an important "player" says a lot about this pope. And now they are trying to downplay McCarrick's abuse because the minor was 16 and went to serve Mass. Like he was a stalker of the poor innocent McCarrick. I am sick to death of these corrupt men in red hats!
ReplyDeleteThe McCarrick revelations opened the windows and doors for law enforcement and the FBI.
ReplyDeleteThis is a very informative interview.
https://reginamag.com/the-dark-road-ahead/
We simply cannot rely on any priest to help us the laity.
ReplyDeleteWe will go to them for mass and the sacraments (where they haven't
been desecrated). But for the rest we must box on alone
while they are trapped by the New World Order -
unless they act like the few Jews who got out of Hitler's Germany.
Father Goring's superiors--and I am only trying out a thought here, which you (obviously) don't have to post or agree with--commanded him to sin by omission, so he should not have done as they directed.
ReplyDeleteIf in your example above a husband should pressure his wife to abort, she must not do as he says, and this would not constitute any sort of rebellion against the Scriptural injunction, "Wives, obey your husbands."
What if that same husband ordered his wife to "Cease and Desist" from caring for their born children as well? What if he wanted them locked in dark closets and effectively starved to death?
Such cases, in this vale of tears, are not unknown. Could/should she obey him then? Would Sister Faustina want her to?
Father Goring has been feeding the sheep and tending Christ's flock, and now he has been ordered to stop. Perhaps his pious and praiseworthy expression of readiness to obey needed to be accompanied with a request for some explanation (for "Cease and Desist" is secular legal terminology after all, and stands in stark contrast to the language of the family of Him who came not to be served, but to serve) and with a request for some direction as to how he could advance his worthy apostolate in a more acceptable form.
No one can legitimately force anyone, much less a priest, to cease and desist from doing the work of Our Lord.
No need to apologize Fr. Mark, you did nothing wrong. You said what needed to be said. Also, don't question your motives. Your messages have focused on the truth. Our culture today has reduced "love" to nothing more than sentimentality. A big problem in the Church today is that Catholic men (both lay and clergy) have been emasculated.
ReplyDeleteJustina, I thought about what you write here and felt ambivalent.
ReplyDeleteFr. Goring has NOT apparently been ordered to cease and desist his YouTube posts since he says he is going to continue. What his superiors actually said, we can only surmise from his video. They obviously asked him to stop promoting the St. Joseph Battalion. I'm not convinced that telling him to stop a particular activity is asking him to commit a sin of omission.
He is still an active priest able to promote the fight against corruption by, for example, serving as an advisor to a lay group that picked up the battle plan. I hope that happens.
Fr. John Hardon, S.J., one of my heroes who died in 2000, inspired the creation of all kind of lay groups to both teach and defend the faith. I spoke to him twice about Les Femmes and he encouraged me at a time when I was not only getting a lot of criticism, but being told by a few friends that I was committing a serious sin. Fr. Hardon confirmed my belief that I was doing God's will.
The main duty of Fr. Goring as a pastor is to teach the faith to his people and encourage them to be a voice of Catholic truth in the marketplace. It doesn't appear that he's being prevented from continuing that. Let us pray and fast for him and for lay leaders to rise up and fight the corruption.
The priest who witnessed my marriage was an amateur historian. He pointed out that the laity, historically, always are the impetus to bring the Church back on the right path. Of course, there are saints like Athanasius, Francis, Dominic, and Catherine of Siena who inspire the laity of their times. Let's pray for Fr. Goring to be one of the prophetic voices of our age.
Our Lady, Seat of Wisdom, pray for us.
I hope with Fr Goring being forced out of the battle won't cause ST Joseph's Battalion to disband..The need for such a band of warriors is too great & Fr Mark worked so hard to get us up & running & ready for the good fight..Speaking only for myself ,I'll forever regard Fr Mark as our Founder and ongoing Spiritual Advisor BUT on a tactical basis day to day I'll place myself under the leadership of Michael Voris who's been fighting this battle for years and leads the formidable army at CHURCH MILITANT TV under the banner of ST MICHAEL ..The resources on the CMTV site to make one a better-stronger Catholic are incredible They'll never run out of ammo !.I hope many will join me as I honor our Founder ,Fr Goring,fighting for his objectives at CHURCH MILITANT TV..VIVA CHRISTO REY !...Andrew Citsay...acitsay@comcast.net
ReplyDeleteThe first person to bring the Church back on course was St. Paul speaking to St. Peter. Clergy have a role in keeping the Church on the right path and the men and women in it pure and holy.
ReplyDeleteWe aren't called the Church Militant for nothing. Fr. Goring in his You Tube post said his superiors were afraid he would incite violence and that isn't what we should do. I doubt one single person who signed up for his Battalion ever thought for a second of doing anything violent. We are faithful Catholics not some godless mob.
All Fr. Goring has said is that we should pray for guidance and be prepared to resist evil. Asking him to stop his campaign with willing members of the faith to use our voices to clean out the filth is asking him to stand by and watch it happen.
You are an excellent shepherd Father! I heard what you had to say.
ReplyDeleteNOW A MESSAGE TO YOUR BISHOP:
LISTEN TO ME NOW. IT IS TOO LATE. WE HAVE HEARD WHAT FR GORING HAD TO SAY. INDEED MANY OF US KNEW WHAT HE HAD TO SAY BEFORE HE SAID IT.
WE LISTEN DESPERATELY TO HEAR YOUR VOICE, BISHOP! WE HEAR NOTHING!
Grow a spine.
Get on your knees and pray for mercy.
Pray for strength and pray that you do not get sent to hell for abandoning your sheep.
Pray. GO TO CONFESSION.
I agree with Chriss.
ReplyDeleteLet's consider another analogy, because I feel rather ambivalent about tne whole thing as well.
It's 1941, and a young priest in Germany feels compelled in conscience to speak out against the heinous deportation of many of his innocent and helpless neighbors.
But his religious superiors tell him not to rock the boat, for reasons too obvious to rehearse here.
The young priest isn't restricted in every way, of course. He can go on saying Mass, visiting the sick, helping the poor, and so forth--but as far as the central question of his day is concerned, he must cease and desist.
Would you consider someone's silence in that historical context to be a sin of omission? I would. So let us ask: what, specifically, counts as a sin of omission in ours?
Mary Ann, the fact that Father Goring's superiors are only calling on him to halt this one specific aspect of his outreach makes things worse, not better. It highlights the fact that their directive constitutes a "stand down" order, not an order to stand up for Our Lord in the persons of the vulnerable and abused. Obedience is critical; so critical as to be considered essential, as any saint will tell us. But can a doctor follow an order to put his patients to death? Can a police officer follow an order to look on immobilized, while an active shooter takes out innocent students? And can a priest . . . well, you can see where I am going with this.
Father Goring says his Youtube videos will now focus on "spirituality sola," but spirituality of what sort? Distorted beyond all Catholic recognition by the encroachment of Amoris Chapter 8? He has already been told what he can and cannot say, not according to the dictates of the Holy Gospel but according to the parameters of the Bergoglian "Paradigm Shift."
I sure wish Father Hardon was here among us still. What I wouldn't give, to know what he would have to say! (And thank you very much for your excellent blog and for the chance to comment here.) God bless.
I appreciate everyone's point of view. I'm curious as to whether the "superior" was the Bishop of Houston or Father's superiors in his religious order.
ReplyDeleteAnyone who speaks the truth in FrancisChurch will be knee-capped. Count on it. It's too far gone and not fixable. The sodomites have it in a choke hold. Time for faithful Catholics and clergy to leave the heretics behind.
ReplyDeleteThank you for posting about this. I was following Father Mark’s videos each day, and even sent emails to the archdiocese in DC, opposing Wuerl presiding over the March for life events. It really saddened and confused me that Fr. Mark was ordered to stop, and then deleted all of his videos related to it. His cease and desist video scared me a little bit, because he seemed nervous, and his comments were aimed to appease his superiors, rather than a heartfelt message to his followers. If you remember, one of his videos focused on why other priests are not vocally fighting the corruption, like he was. He never mentioned obedience to their superiors. His cease and decist was abrupt, and I understand his vow of obedience, but it is hard to justify it when his obedience is to ignore the corruption, instead of doing something about it. I’ve watched his latest video a few times, and what strikes me the most is how he went from being so passionate about leading this war against corruption… To the immediate cease-and-desist and wrap-up with “I wish I had put more love into it” , and a “OK, Moving on” kind of ending. Someone so passionate about something does not so quickly leave it behind. I’m praying heavily for him.
ReplyDeleteI am very disillusioned about the people running our Catholic church… It is so much worse than I thought, and I’m not sure what to do about it.
I remember when Fr Julian, an elderly Cistercian monk, told us at daily Mass in the monastery's Fatima Chapel ( under the authority of the Cistercian Superior in Italy) that his pastor( under the authority of the Bishop of Trenton Diocese)was ordered NOT to preach against abortion at the Sunday masses in the main Church on the property.
ReplyDeleteHe said the Bishop's reasoning was that ,"It offends too many people."
I guess too many in the Hierarchy would be offended by Fr Goring's efforts ?
Although I do wish he would stop quoting Ralph Martin in his videos. Having known a couple who were the first arranged marriage in one of the cult charismatic towns Martin helped to start......
https://www.nytimes.com/1986/05/04/nyregion/sect-causes-split-in-jersey-parish.html
I am with Justina, Chris and others that this is a mixed bag with Fr. Goring. Very obviously Satan is silencing our good shepherds so that the sheep are left helpless and vulnerable. According to how Fr. apologized to his superiors for 'causing them trouble' says a lot. Disgraced or not Cdl. Wuerl is still very powerful which has everything to do with the 'why' of giving Fr. the gag order. Cdl. Wuerl is being protected and even promoted by this Pope, and he is still running the show in his diocese and even in the country for that matter. Susan said: "I forgot he was still a Cardinal".....of which he really shouldn't be with all the cover up and pay outs he was involved with. I had to chuckle when Fr. said his superiors were afraid he would incite violence, and the first thing that came to mind was that violence would NEVER come from the sheep, but maybe they were talking about violence coming from somewhere else. After all, there are priests (Kalchik in Chicago) and archbishops (Vigano) in hiding for fear of their lives for speaking and promoting truth of the corruption inside the Church. They are not called the 'Lavender MAFIA' for nothing.
ReplyDeleteSaturday, I was at a conference held by Roman Catholic Faithful (RCF.org), which was located one mile from where the bishops (USCCB) silent retreat was being held. Stephen Brady, president of RCF, moderated the conference https://www.churchmilitant.com/video/episode/intv-stephen-brady The speakers (including Elizabeth Yore, among others) https://m.youtube.com/results?search_query=elizabeth+Yore were riveting. That conference was recorded, monitor RCF website for a DVD copy. Speakers and attendees reminded me of courageous present-day Crusaders. Incredible! Heaven help us. Pass along info to others.
ReplyDeleteI have contacted the archdiocese of Washington as well regarding wuerl, also contacted EWTN whom we contribute to monthly asking them not to broadcast any mass that wuerl is a part of- Does anyone know how we can contact Fr Goring’s superiors?
ReplyDeleteDoes anyone know why Fr. Goring isn't posting anything at all now? Even TVFoodforLife is showing only his reruns. I have called his Church and didn't receive any response. Honestly I'm a little worried about him.
ReplyDeleteFr. Goring is a Canadian priest whose order is Community of the Cross. He would be on loan to the Diocese of Galveston and Houston. I fear that he has been sent back to Canada or in some type of re-education program. His position in Houston was the Charasmatic Church. I believe there is only one location in Houston.
ReplyDeleteI pray for Father Mark, that all is well. I, also, pray that, we the laity realize that priests' take vows of obedience to their congregation and Holy Mother Church. I am not saying that everything is prefect with this situation, but rules must exist. Pray...all things are possible. The Holy Spirit, can dissolve situations to nothing, in a blink of an eye.
ReplyDeleteThe evil in vatican is what sister lucy was disclosing in her 3rd secret of fatima....fr. Mark & fr. John corapi speak the Truth which is God himself....in the end forever heaven or hell period words spoken by fr. Corapi before he was silenced...
ReplyDelete