Dutch bishop removes priest after ‘anti-gay’ homily upholding Church teaching

Jeanne Smits, Paris correspondent

Analysis

May 10, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) — Father Marc Massaer will be leaving his present parish in the diocese of ’s-Hertogenbosch, Netherlands, by the 1st of July. His removal is seen by many as a consequence of a strongly worded sermon he gave last December 26, speaking out against gender ideology and same-sex unions. Fr Massaer has published the news of his departure himself on his parish website on May 7, explaining that he has accepted Bishop de Korte’s suggestion that he leave Sint-Christoffel in West Maas en Waal on short notice. His new destination is as yet unknown.

While the priest himself has not underscored the link between his removal and his “controversial” homily (from the Dutch mainstream point of view), it is certain that he has gone through a period of confrontation with his parishioners, the Catholic members of eight former parishes he has led alone for the last eight years when a “super-parish” was formed, due to a dearth of priests and faithful in the formerly heavily Catholic south half of the Netherlands.

Hostilities were opened following the “Second Day of Christmas,” as it is called in Holland: a public holiday when many nominal Catholics who seldom go to church are wont to join Mass. Fr Massaer was celebrating  in one of “his” eight parish churches, in Walen.

In this case, the daughter of a local choir member had come back to her home town for Christmas and joined Mass on the 26th. Ceciel Kalkers was shocked to hear the priest condemning “the indoctrination of gender ideology.” He said it “is radically opposed to the order of creation, and it promotes that what is not Catholic.” “This is a boomerang that will head back towards humanity,” he said, with all its “negative consequences,” she wrote two weeks later in an open letter to the local newspaper, De Maas en Waler.

She added another quote from the sermon from memory: “Only ‘holy families’ (man-woman-child) could bring peace and harmony.”

Her letter went on to speak of her “sadness,” thinking about “two good homo friends, a homo-couple with a newborn child.” “I hardly know anyone nicer.  Weren’t these people welcome?” she said. And so her text went on, deploring the priest’s tone, his “condemnations,” his lack of “inclusion.”

Kalkers tried to speak to Massaer in the sacristy, but he had already left. The following day, she called him over the telephone, and was again shocked to hear that he was standing by his words. “People should start thinking, because they have fallen asleep,” he said, according to Kalkers.

Challenged about the “hurt” such words could cause to homosexuals, she said Fr Massaer added: “A man with a man is no lifestyle. We can’t make wrong things right just by talking. As a Church, we have a right to say what is right and what is wrong. Every human being stands before a choice, and I want them to think about that.”

“So orientation is a choice, according to Fr Massaer,” angrily wrote Ceciel Kalkers. She was even more indignant when she heard him add: “You’re really going against the order of creation and then you’re just sinning. Sins don’t fit with the Christian lifestyle. I condemn what is wrong.”

Shortly after this letter was published, the governing board of the parish of St. Christopher reached out to the diocese of ’s-Hertogenbosch (Den Bosch), whose bishop, Gerard de Korte, is known for his openness to the “LGBT community,” having even accepted to open his cathedral for the local “Pink pride” a few years back before being forced to back down.

According to the regional press, the board’s move was dictated by anger at the “gay-unfriendly” sermon of Marc Massaer, although the no details were given. Its vice president did tell De Gelderlander that the board was “not happy with the impact of the homily.”

The newspaper compared Massaer’s words with the Nashville statement condemning homosexual acts. At the time in the Netherlands, the statement was being picked up and signed by local evangelicals, amid furious media reaction. Some of them even received death threats at the time.

De Gelderlander wrote on May 7 that Massaer’s sermon had triggered “a storm of outrage, also among parishioners and volunteers.” Now Massaer is being moved to other pastures.

Talks took place between the parish governing board and the diocese, according to the newspaper: “It is not clear whether Massaer’s departure is a result of those talks. No one at the diocese or in the parish is prepared to answer requests for comment.”

Even if his new nomination was on the cards, reactions to his sermon are sufficient to show how difficult it is in a deeply paganized country such as the Netherlands to proclaim the full Catholic truth.

Local media noted that Massaer “keeps himself strictly to church rules.” “Last summer he banned a nonreligious choir from singing at the funeral of a parishioner,” noted De Gelderlander. But even that liberal daily was obliged to acknowledge that under Massaer’s guidance, not one of the eight churches of the joint parish of West Maas en Waal has been shut down.

Facebook comments called the priest an “Inquisitor” and a “freak.”

That is how upholders of traditional Church teaching are now seen in secularized Holland.

https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/dutch-bishop-removes-priest-after-anti-gay-homily-upholding-church-teaching

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Mother of Good Counsel

In the quaint medieval town of Genazzano, about 30 miles from Rome, on a side altar of the Church of Our Lady of Good Counsel, there is a small image of the Blessed Virgin holding her infant Son. The Child, in His turn, lovingly encircles Mary's neck with His arm, inclining her head towards Himself in a gentle and intimate embrace.
This small fresco has a marvelous history.

In the fifteenth century there lived in the town an elderly widow, by name Petruccia, who had invested the entirety of the small fortune left to her by her husband in a needed side chapel for her church. Her money running out when the walls were only a few feet high, the townsfolk openly mocked and ridiculed her for her foolishness. Undaunted, Petruccia assured them that in spite of the apparent failure of her own endeavors, the Mother of God and St. Augustine, whose spiritual sons were caretakers of the church, would finish the work she had begun.

On April 25, 1467 as the inhabitants of Genazzano celebrated the feast of their patron St. Mark, marvelous music was heard approaching, its source seemingly from above. Looking upwards, the astounded citizens saw a brilliant cloud descending towards them. The bell of the church, and then others throughout the town, began to peel of their own accord. The cloud came to rest on Petruccia’s unfinished chapel wall and gradually dissipated, revealing the extraordinary image of the Madonna and Child. The widow's supernatural confidence being so wonderfully rewarded before the astonished gaze of all, the construction of the chapel was not long in its completion.

Shortly after these remarkable events, two foreigners in strange attire arrived in Genazzano claiming to be Albanians. Their names were Giorgio and DeSclavis and on seeing the icon, they cried out with joy and then told a wonderful tale.
After the death of Albania's king, George Castriota, known as Scanderberg, their nation had finally been conquered by the invading Turks. Early in 1467, while they prayed before the miraculous fresco, the image suddenly became illuminated, and detaching itself from the wall, it began to move through the air. Entranced, the two former soldiers followed the painting, first over land and, then, across the Adriatic Sea, which solidified under their feet.

In the Eternal City they lost sight of it, until hearing reports of a great miracle in a nearby town, they surmised where their Madonna had come to rest. Both decided to remain near their treasure, and married and raised families in Genazzano.

A plaque left at the shrine by visiting Albanians begs their Madonna to return to them, but there she is to this day. It is a continuous miracle: a fresco painted on eggshell plaster suspended in the air for five and a half centuries, but how much greater is the miracle of that tender embrace between Mother and Child, that union of soul into which each one is invited and warmly received.

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Vasectomy, not God’s Plan

https://rcspirituality.org/ask_a_priest/ask-a-priest-was-my-husbands-vasectomy-ok/

“Ask a Priest: Was My Husband’s Vasectomy OK?”

View all Ask a Priest February 1, 2019

Q: My husband had a vasectomy two years ago. He decided that because, despite having a healthy daughter, I was not able to give birth to a second child. I would get pregnant and everything would look fine until the babies suddenly die inside of me. Since the babies were already big every time that happened, I had to go through a C-section surgery. We went through a lot of emotional pain, including our daughter, every time. No medical explanation. The last time the doctor said it was dangerous for me to go through it again and recommended a definitive method. My husband didn’t want me to go through that again, and he decided to get a vasectomy. I didn’t agree at first, but I didn’t stop him either because it was too much pain to see my children die and my daughter suffering. I asked God to stop him if we were offending him. My question is, given the circumstances, is this a sin? He says he doesn’t regret it because that’s what God wanted, based on everything we went through. What do we need to do to be in peace with God and our faith? – K.

Answered by Fr. Edward McIlmail, LC

A: I am sorry to hear about the medical problems you have had, and the babies you lost. Our Lord has allowed a heavy cross in the life of your family.

Ideally you should have resorted to natural family planning, which is highly effective for the avoidance of pregnancy.

NFP does no damage to the integrity of the marriage and is often an opportunity for the love of spouses to deepen. It requires discipline, yes, but it also helps couples to grow in unity since husbands have to be especially attentive to their wives’ bodily cycles.

Certainly it sounds as though your husband is very dedicated to you.

Nonetheless, a vasectomy is a form of mutilation that is motivated by the intention to contracept. As such, it is not morally permissible, whatever the reasons.

A basic norm of moral theology is that we cannot do evil in order to achieve a good ends. If that were the case, anything could be justified.

But what is done is done. Perhaps there is a need for a good confession to be made. The Holy Spirit wouldn’t have sanctioned the vasectomy while at the same time inspiring the Church to teach something different. God simply doesn’t work that way.

Perhaps now the best way forward is to recognize that the procedure wasn’t sanctioned by God. But the task of helping your family get to heaven remains ahead of you. With lots of prayer and sacrifices and recourse to the sacraments and the grace of God, all this is possible. And wouldn’t it be nice to be reunited with your lost babies someday?

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Our Bodies Long to Be in Heaven

STEPHEN BEALE https://catholicexchange.com/our-bodies-long-to-be-in-heaven

What does our body crave?

Most people might say food, air, warmth, sleep, and sexual pleasure. 

But there is something more, an even deeper longing.

Our bodies crave eternity.

Here is how Henri Nouwen puts it in his book, The Inner Voice of Love: A Journey Through Anguish to Freedom: 

Your body needs to be held and hold, to be touched and to touch. None of these needs is to be despised, denied, or repressed. But you have to keep searching for your body’s deeper need, the need for genuine love. … Every human body has been given a new hope, of belonging eternally to the God who created it. Thanks to the Incarnation, you can bring your body home. 

That the body wants to be in heaven is a fundamental truth of Christianity. We proclaim it every Sunday when we affirm the resurrection of the body in the creed. But it’s easy to think of the body as just being along for the ride, lifted up with the soul, much like our bodies themselves wear garments. 

Nouwen, on the other hand, phrases this desire as active, as deeply embedded in our bodies. 

The truth of his approach is can be appreciated by first remembering that man is a soul and body. If we are called to seek heaven, then it is with our souls and bodies that we must pursue this end. As Christ Himself says in the gospel, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself” (Luke 10:27). 

But is our body really part of who we are? St. Thomas Aquinas answers with a resounding yes. In the Summa Contra Gentiles, he explains that the body is related to certain powers of understanding of the soul: 

The fact however that the very act of understanding in the human soul needs certain powers that work through bodily organs, namely, phantasy and sense, is a clear proof that the said soul is naturally united to the body to make up the human species.

According to Aquinas, our bodies aid in our process of knowing, which involves a certain trial and error. This is consistent with the character of our wills, which, unlike those of the angels, are changeable. 

Modern science has confirmed the connection between the body and cognition. As one writer for the Association for Psychological Science reports,

[E]merging evidence suggests that how our bodies engage with the environment around them has significant influence on how we see, feel, learn, and communicate.

‘Embodied cognition’ is even its own field of study in psychology. It has been used to explain everything from how a baseball outfielder is able to catch a fly ball to how teachers’ hand gestures help their students learn math. The body’s influence on the mind is evident by the very vocabulary we use to explain our perception of the world around us. As Scientific American explains,  

This is why we say that something is ‘over our heads’ to express the idea that we do not understand; we are drawing upon the physical inability to not see something over our heads and the mental feeling of uncertainty. Or why we understand warmth with affection; as infants and children the subjective judgment of affection almost always corresponded with the sensation of warmth, thus giving way to metaphors such as ‘I’m warming up to her.’

When we talk about our mind, its capacity for understanding, or our personal need for affection we cannot exclude the body from these realities. We speak about how our minds our drawn up to God, how our faith seeks a deeper understanding of Him, and how our longing for affection ultimately can only be satisfied by His love. Aquinas’ theology of the body and modern science both say these realities must extend to the body. 

Put another way, our longing for God is rooted in our bodies. As the prophet Jeremiah says, 

If I say, ‘I will not mention him, or speak any more in his name,’ there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot (Jeremiah 20:9). 

Further confirmation of this truth comes from Pope St. John Paul II’s theology of the body. Here is what he says about the role of the body in heavenly affairs: 

The sacrament, as a visible sign, is constituted with man, as a body, by means of his visible masculinity and femininity. The body, and it alone, is capable of making visible what is invisible: the spiritual and the divine. It was created to transfer into the visible reality of the world the mystery hidden since time immemorial in God, and thus be a sign of it.

John Paul II, following St. Paul’s lead, teaches that the nuptial union teaches us about the relationship between Christ and His Church. It is heaven’s language, God’s own way of speaking to us about our deepest calling and final destiny. 

One could argue that the body is just the messenger to the soul, meant to stir within ourselves a longing for the divine that it itself does not experience. But our bodies could not communicate to us a desire that they themselves do not experience. Truly the body that aches for the love of a spouse is ultimately crying out for the joy of heaven. 

But even here on earth the body both seeks and finds God. This is evident from St. Paul’s teaching that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19). Traditionally, the Holy Spirit is called the dulcis Hospes animae—the sweet guest of the soul. This theology of the hospitality of the body presupposes that our bodies, properly purified and disposed, want to host the Holy Spirit. God, as the Church teaches, does not force Himself upon us. He knocks at the door of our souls and bodies, asking to be let in. 

The paramount example of this reception of the Holy Spirit, of course, is Mary herself. The Church recognizes Mary as being espoused to the Holy Spirit. Her encounter and longing for God involved her whole being. Only through the total surrender of herself—soul and body—was the Incarnation possible. 

In a way, thanks to her Yes to God, all of creation now shares in her longing. As St. Paul writes in Romans,

We know that all creation is groaning in labor pains even until now; and not only that, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, we also groan within ourselves as we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies (Romans 8:22-23). 

When man experienced the fall, our bodies, along with our souls, suffered horribly. So also, our bodies, just like our souls, long for salvation. Which is another way of saying they too groan for God.

Mary appears in Egypt 1968

This Marian apparition in Egypt was witnessed by at least 250,000 people

The Vatican, the Coptic Church and even the government of Egypt were unified in their approval of the apparition.

Philip Kosloski https://aleteia.org/2019/05/05/this-marian-apparition-in-egypt-was-witnessed-by-at-least-250000-people/

On April 2, 1968, a Muslim bus mechanic saw something strange hovering over St. Mary’s Coptic Church in Zeitoun. He thought someone was going to commit suicide, but after closer examination, he saw it was a silhouette of light that resembled a woman.

The apparition attracted a large crowd, but only lasted a few minutes.

The following week it happened again, and continued 2 or 3 times a week for a total of three years, ending in 1971. Many believed the apparition was the Virgin Mary, clothed with light. The phenomenon occurred on top of a church that is traditionally held to be a location where the Holy Family stayed during their sojourn in Egypt.

The apparition was witnessed by people of every faith, including both Muslims and Christians. The head of the Coptic Church made an investigation of the apparitions and he declared them miraculous and an authentic appearance of the Virgin Mary.

Also located in the city was a Roman Catholic religious order who sent a report to the Vatican, detailing the extraordinary phenomenon. While Pope Paul VI deferred to the leader of the Coptic Church to make a public decision, a Vatican envoy arrived in Cairo and made their own report. They witnessed the apparition of light and wrote the following details in a formal statement.

The apparitions occurred on many different nights and are continuing in different forms. The Holy Virgin Saint Mary appeared sometimes in full form and sometimes in a bust, surrounded with a halo of shining light. She was seen at times on the openings of the domes on the roof of the church, and at other times outside the domes, moving and walking on the roof of the church and over the domes. When She knelt in reverence in front of the cross, the cross shone with bright light. Waving Her blessed hands and nodding Her holy head, She blessed the people who gathered to observe the miracle. She appeared sometimes in the form of a body like a very bright cloud, and sometimes as a figure of light preceded with heavenly bodies shaped like doves moving at high speeds. The apparitions continued for long periods, up to 2 hours and 15 minutes as in the dawn of Tuesday April 30, 1968 (the 22nd of Barmouda, 1684 A.M.), when She appeared continuously from 2:45 am till 5:00 am.

Thousands of people from different denominations and religions, Egyptians and foreign visitors, clergy and scientists, from different classes and professions, all observed the apparitions. The description of each apparition as of the time, location and configuration was identically witnessed by all people, which makes this apparition unique and sublime.

They also related how the apparition was causing a miraculous revival of the Christian faith, with many conversions taking place in the city. Also, various healings were recorded that occurred near the apparition site.

Furthermore, even the Egyptian government investigated the apparition. President Gamal Abdel Nasse witnessed the apparition and the Egyptian police could not find any natural way to explain the phenomenon. Everyone was universally stunned by what they saw and no one could offer a scientific explanation.

There was no particular message associated with the Marian apparition, but it came at a time when the Middle East was in turmoil and after Egypt was defeated in the Arab-Israeli war. It gave people hope in a time of darkness and strengthened the faith of many.

https://catholicexchange.com/mary-is-the-walking-equal-sign?mc_cid=d6e3616299&mc_eid=4984a8e283

Mary Is the Walking Equal Sign

“She is the world’s first love.” Fulton Sheen’s masterpiece on the Blessed Mother reveals the deepest meanings of who Mary of Nazareth was, along with the blueprint for the call of every human soul. Sheen has an impeccable gift for combining great storytelling with vibrant analogies. The result is a read that will capture the imagination and emotions of the one whose eyes are drawn to his pages. 

Love is a dream. Behind every creation of God and beneath every action of the human being there is an idea, a plan, a blueprint. When God creates a flower he has an idea of what a flower should be and that manifestation of gentleness, color and beauty is what appears in reality. 

The cosmos have an ordained order that the Father placed within it at the foundation of the world because his divine genius crafted it that way. When a painter sits down with her canvas and brush she has in her mind what she wants to create and it is only from there that her work of art can come to life. 

In a sense, these archetypes or prerequisite ideals are like dreams in the mind of the one who sets out to create. Love is similar. 

“Every person carries within his heart a blueprint for the one he loves. What seems to be ‘love at first sight’ is actually the fulfillment of a desire, the realization of a dream.”

Ven. Fulton J. Sheen, The World’s First Love

Love is the highest capacity of the human person and in each love we are captivated by someone or something that is desiring to fulfill a void within our hearts. In every occasion of love we are chasing after the Love of the universe. No matter how beautiful and intimate of an encounter we have with our beloved, we always look towards the next moment and we crave to have more. This is not wrong and it doesn’t mean we are misconstruing the essence of love. It simply highlights the fact that the human soul is designed for a love that is beyond the temporal. We were created for an eternal flame of love that quenches the hearts desperate craving for the true, the good and the beautiful. 

We are destined for the depths of this infinite love. As the divine architect, God is able to perfectly create in reality what he has in his mind. However, because human beings are endowed with freedom, we are placed in a precarious situation. For us, God has two images that stand before him: who we are in reality and who we ought to be. He has the blueprint and he has the building that presently exists. He has the sheet of music that was written and the melody we actually play. “God has to have these two images because in each and every one of us there is some disproportion and want of conformity between the original plan and the way we have worked it out.”

This is true of every human person who has ever walked this earth, except for Mary. The Blessed Mother is the only case when the ideal, the blueprint matched the reality. Unlike the rest of us she fulfills the Creator’s plan perfectly. 

“Most of us are a minus sign, in the sense that we do not fulfill the high hopes the Heavenly Father has for us. But Mary is the equal sign. The Ideal that God had for her, that she is, and in the flesh. The model and the copy are perfect…the melody of her life is played just as it was written. Mary was thought, conceived, and planned as the equal sign between ideal and history, thought and reality, hope and realization.” 

Sheen, ibid. 

In her freedom, Mary chose to give life rather than to act out of selfishness. In her choices, she placed God and others before herself. Through love, she shines as a bright light in a darkening world. The entire life of Mary shouts out to the world that we were created for something greater, that there is more.

This is why she personifies the highest peak of human living. The Blessed Mother is so often called the model of discipleship, but she is so much more. “She is the one whom every man loves when he loves a woman — whether he knows it or not. She is what every woman wants to be when she looks at herself.” 

In these days, we look to the Virgin Mary and we beg for her prayers. In these days, let us look at her with the eyes of her Son. Let us be moved by her tremendous love and her uncompromising beauty. More than anything though, let us live just a little closer to the blueprint God crafted for us. 

Slowly, let us flip our minus sign to equal the grandeur that awaits us. The promise of that eternal love is constantly being offered to us, let us freely choose to embrace it this year and become less of who we are and more of who we are meant to be.

The Robber who Stole Heaven

The Robber Who Stole Heaven

In the mountainous region of Trent in Germany, there lived a notorious robber who made his living by bringing misfortune on others. His occupation being what it was, he would only increase his property by decreasing that of his victims.

One day, he was admonished by a local religious to change his course of life and thereby insure his eternal salvation. The only answer the robber gave was that for him there was no remedy.

"Do not say so," said the religious, "do what I tell you. Fast on each Saturday in honor of the Virgin Mary, and on that day of the week do no harm to anyone. She will obtain for you the grace of not dying in God’s displeasure.”

The robber thought to himself, “This is a small price to pay to insure my salvation; I will do as this holy man has prescribed.” He then obediently followed the religious’ advice, and made a vow to continue to do so. That he might not break it, from that time on he traveled unarmed on Saturdays.

Many years later, our robber was apprehended on a given Saturday by the officers of justice, and that he might not break his oath, he allowed himself to be taken without resistance. The judge, seeing that he was now a gray-haired old man, wished to pardon him.

Then the truly miraculous occurred. Rather than jump for joy thanking the judge for his leniency, the old robber, said that he wished to die in punishment of his sins. He then made a public confession of all the sins of his life in that same judgment hall, weeping so bitterly that all present wept with him.

He was beheaded, a death reserved for the nobility, rather than hanged. Then his body was buried with little ceremony, in a grave dug nearby.

Very soon afterwards, the mother of God came down from Heaven with four holy virgins by her side. They took the robber’s dead body from that place, wrapped it in a rich cloth embroidered with gold, and bore it themselves to the gate of the city.
There the Blessed Virgin said to the guards: "Tell the bishop from me, to give an honorable burial, in such a church to this dead person, for he was my faithful servant." And thus it was done.

All the people in the village thronged to the spot where they found the corpse with the rich pall, and the bier on which it was placed. And from that moment on, says Caesarius of Heisterbach, all persons in that region began to fast on Saturdays in honor of she who was so kind to even a notorious robber.
From the Glories of Mary, by St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori.