Calling Out Inconsistency

 As I open this month with the first entry I hadn't planned on writing, I am frustrated.  I am frustrated with a state bureaucracy that will drop a lien on you quickly if you owe a tax bill, but then drags their butts when it comes to your need.  I am frustrated with an equally complacent church bureaucracy that does the same thing. And, now I am on the warpath against both.  I recently wrote a book, and part of that book was what I called "A Sovereign Statement," and it cited philosophical and theological underpinnings that established that the human person is created in God's image and thus is subject to the dignity and rights they should be merited. Problem is, both church and state these days have been infected with the cancer of evolutionary thought, which asserts that only those deemed "worthy" are entitled to basic dignity, and in the case of the Church, it is a violation of the mandate Jesus laid down in the Gospel. The state can at least fall back on the excuse that it has no religious interests, and thus it can function as fully secular and thinks it can do what it wants - there are consequences for that too, but that is for another discussion.  Today, I want to focus on the Church, because in case you haven't witnessed it yourself, it is in a crisis. While a lot of the crisis is due to the last two Popes - both of whom had very anti-Catholic positions on things - and Vatican bureaucrats like the heretical Cardinal Fernandez, it trickles down to the parish level as well.  In the past year, this became glaringly apparent at the parish we did attend here, Saints Philip and James, which is supposed to be administered by Dominican friars. Yet, the inconsistency, coldness, and outright non-Christian attitudes of those friars shattered any hopes for me remaining as part of the Roman Catholic Church - it cemented a decision for me to join instead with my ancestral people, the Armenians, instead.  For those of you who ask what happened, let me tell you the story, as it is in many parts.

The first crack in the foundation came a few months back, when Barbara was having some serious health issues. So, at Mass one Sunday, as we were leaving and the vicar, Fr. Michael, was greeting people on the way out, she mentioned this to him.  Now, had this been Father Grassi, our former priest in Charles Town, he would have stopped right there and prayed for her.  Fr. Grassi is a diocesan priest, and not part of a religious order either - keep that in mind as I progress here.  Father Michael's response to Barbara was not to pray for her, or even care - he just casually said in sanctimonious language, "oh, it's your cross to bear."  That did not sit well with her either, and after thinking about it, I understood why. Father Michael is part of a religious order, the Dominicans, who have historically been identified with the preaching charism. Dominicans were typically evangelistic, and they also exercised in the past a high quality of pastoral care that made them a solid order in the Church. There are many good Dominican friars, to be fair, who still are faithful to that, and this is by no means an attack on their order. On the contrary, it is an observation and criticism of one who took those vows, and then fell short of his calling. The Dominicans at Saints Philip and James don't adequately reflect the charisms of their order - they instead mirror the general apathy and spiritual decay that characterizes a lot of the Baltimore Catholic community.  Father Michael also noted that his spiritual director is a Jesuit priest - I find that a bit odd, as usually a spiritual mentor to a friar generally is someone in their own religious order, so why in hell is Fr. Michael consulting Jesuits for spiritual direction?? Given the state of the Jesuits these days - while there are good Jesuits, the order as a whole has lost its way - I find it odd that a Dominican friar is going to one for spiritual counsel instead of seeking out a wiser, older friar to mentor him in his own order.  It definitely explains a lot about Fr. Michael's response to the suffering of his own parishioners. But, it gets even more interesting, so let's continue.

Fr. Michael comes across as jovial, friendly, and supposedly welcoming - the first impression you get of him is that he is a "caring pastor" of his flock.  That is, until you actually talk to him.  He speaks in generalities for the most part, and despite how "welcoming" he claims to make one feel, he fails to actually get to know his own parishioners on a more personal level.  If you want to be pastoral, know your sheep - I even learned that in Bible college as a young preacher boy with the Foursquare denomination years ago. Even Jesus models that example when he talks about in the Gospels about seeking the lost sheep, even if the 99 others are still there grazing in the meadow - it means God cares for the individual, and his shepherds who are given that Apostolic authority in Holy Orders should model that as well. I perfectly understand that some parishes are big - Saints Philip and James averages about 600 per Mass on a given Sunday - but that doesn't excuse flippant apathy in exercising one's call. After all, a diocesan priest like Fr. Grassi has three times the attendance Saints Philip and James does, but he knows his parishioners - he makes the effort and he doesn't have near the pastoral support that Fr. Michael does. There are five more Dominican friars in residence at Saints Philip and James, and therefore with a larger congregation there should be pastoral support with that many friars being assigned there.  Fr. Grassi does more effective pastoral outreach than do six Dominicans in a significantly smaller parish, yet they fail.  I point back to the general spiritual decay of Baltimore's Catholic Church - the state of it is so appalling that it is a wonder many churches are still open, and indeed a lot of them have closed. Saints Philip and James brags about having 600 people per Mass - what they fail to mention is that they are also now home to three other parishes the Archdiocese closed, and that is why the numbers are more, not because of effective pastoral leadership.  The next aspect of this I want to talk about is Fr. Michael's priorities as a pastor, and they are misplaced.

In the parish bulletins from Saints Philip and James each week, Fr. Michael writes a column, which in itself is normal as the parish priest often has a commentary in the bulletin in most parishes. The fact he writes a column is not the real issue, but rather what he focuses on as priority. A week or two before Fr. Michael flippantly dismissed Barbara with the "cross to bear" comment, he spent an entire commentary in the bulletin talking about Baltimore's pub life, and essentially he was glorifying bar-hopping. Now, I am not against anyone having the occasional social drink - it is fine, even for a priest in a social situation, to have a drink in a proper setting. However, when you start giving a point-by-point review of every pub within a 12-block radius of the parish and you are the pastor, it is not a good look for you.  Shortly after, around the time of the Easter Vigil, he acted more excited about the fact the parish social hall now has a bar and a keg than he did about the miracle of the Resurrection itself, and I found that disturbing as well. When your pastor comes off as a lush, it is not a good look, even if he is truly not and in all fairness he may not actually drink a lot - still, talking about bar-hopping in a parish bulletin sends a message that perhaps your pastor may have a little problem.  Again, he may not actually be guilty of this - it is fair to withhold judgment on that until more empirical data suggests otherwise - but making that the central focus of a weekly bulletin commentary sends a bad message.  Let's assume for instance that maybe an Evangelical Protestant is visiting. As a former Evangelical myself, I can tell you that they have strong convictions about even the rare social drink. While a more informed Catholic may understand the context of what the priest is writing about, all that Evangelical is going to see when they read the bulletin is that the priest is a drunk, and it affirms every anti-Catholic allegation they have been taught for perhaps decades. A potential opportunity for evangelization is shot as a result, and more than likely that Evangelical, who may have actually been open and seeking, is now a lost opportunity.  Fr. Michael, if you are reading this, do you even comprehend the consequences of that?? If so, let me give you a piece of your own advice - that is now your cross to bear, but it also could be another's blood on your hands.  But, lest you think that is the end, then came the very incident that compelled me to finally sever ties with that parish as well as rethinking my own future in the Roman Catholic Church. 

This happened in late July and entailed two distinct things that happened. One, I had applied for a campus minister position at Johns Hopkins that I was more than qualified for.  I submitted the right material and everything else, only to be told by Fr. Michael's henchman, Fr. JoseMaria, in a message that looked AI generated that I was not going to be considered. When I asked why, I was told I was essentially not "pastoral enough," this from a guy who is so aloof in the parish that he barely talks to anyone. That was the first incident. The same week that happened, Fr. Michael decides to launch into another of his polemics in the parish bulletin, this time against the SSPX.  I had already talked about that in detail, and therefore it doesn't bear repetition.  Summarily though, the fact is there is not even an SSPX chapel within 40 miles of Baltimore, so why should he even waste energy on it. I did an email confrontation with Fr. Michael about this, only to be told he would not engage in dialogue or debate about it, and that he was right and everyone who disagreed with him was wrong. It was then and there I decided that it was time to find a new church.  Fr. Michael fell short of his pastoral duties, but never even bothered to take into account that his own parishioners were being told their money was welcome but they were not - screw that! And, a couple of weeks later, I made a decision after visiting an Armenian Badarak in DC that would change the trajectory of my own faith pilgrimage.

But, lest you think Fr. Michael was finished, he wasn't.  A couple of weeks ago, there was a news story about a violent Islamic terrorist that shot up a military base in Texas receiving the death penalty, and at around the same time, the very disordered Pope Leo XIV decided to unleash an encyclical stating that all instances of the death penalty were bad, and therefore it should be forbidden by the Church. This was an incorrect assessment by the Pontiff, as historically capital punishment has always been allowed under specific circumstances by the Church - it was not to be arbitrarily implemented of course, but there are those times when it may be a necessary form of justice, and I would say a demoniac Islamic terrorist killing innocent military personnel on a base would definitely warrant it under any definition of a specific circumstance.  At around the same time, there were 12 Jordanian Christians massacred, followed by the massacre of another 40 in Ethiopia. To give you an idea of where Fr. Michael's priorities lie, he spent an entire commentary in a parish bulletin basically defending a terrorist, while no mention at all was made of the Jordanians and Ethiopians who were gunned down in cold blood.  That made me hot under the collar, and struck at my core convictions as a Templar Knight, and it was time for the Templar to school the Dominican.

Part of the conviction of a Templar is to defend the defenseless, even at the cost of one's own life.  In addition to defending the defenseless, part of our Templar code also means we doggedly defend truth, the truth of Holy Tradition.  If Fr. Michael were truly practicing his own Dominican vows, he would be proclaiming truth rather than denying or diminishing it, and the role of the Templar and the Dominican would be complimentary. By defending a terrorist and ignoring true martyrs, Fr. Michael violated his own vows, making him an enemy of the truth. In Crusader times, not only would he have been excommunicated for that, but a contingent of Templars would have scooped up his sorry butt and threw him (literally) out of God's house for defiling it.  When I was researching my own family history for my new book, I looked into my ancestor, the Rev. Claude Phillipe de Richebourg.  Claude Phillipe was a Huguenot minister who later became an Anglican priest in the colonies, but prior to his conversion, some sources said he was a Dominican friar as well. I don't know the exact reason why Claude Phillipe became a Calvinist minister rather than a Dominican priest, but could it be that even back then (and it was not unheard of) there were some Dominicans who acted more like Fr. Michael and maybe that turned Claude Phillipe off?  This is all of course speculation, but in a way I guess I can admit that perhaps I should be thankful Claude Phillipe did, or I might not be here today. And, looking at his ministry as a Huguenot Anglican vicar, Claude Phillipe I don't believe forgot some of his Dominican principles - reading accounts of him, he was at times a bit confrontational (which I inherited to an extent) but he also seemed to have a conviction to follow the truth as best he understood it. That to me is an integral Dominican quality, because one cannot preach the truth if they don't know the truth. And, that also means that there is no room for falsehood or error either, and it should not be tolerated. I am summoning all that as I make my stand against the "Establishment" in the Church, and if it means going elsewhere and telling Pope Leo to fold it in five corners and stick it where the sun don't shine, then so be it!  Being an authentic Catholic does not require allegiance to a particular Pope, nor does it mean tolerating and accepting error even if it is dressed in "official" garb. The true Catholic needs the freedom to go where they can freely practice their faith, and in looking at Claude Phillipe's example and his Calvinistic errors aside, at the root of who he was there was this Catholic core, and that is why I think it was so easy for him to embrace the Anglican patrimony.  My late Calvinist Anglican ancestor then was probably more Dominican in conviction than Fr. Michael, supposedly a consecrated friar in the order, ever was.  That speaks volumes.

I have probably gone on enough, and I am praying that Fr. Michael, Fr. JoseMaria, and some other wayward clergy who forgot their way will read this, and that it strikes directly at their hearts and the very place that will make them rethink what they are doing.  I don't hate these priests - I can't hate them - but I am disgusted at how they have so blatantly fallen so short of their consecrated callings that it brings scandal to the Church.  There are unfortunately many more like them out there, and it is the reason why soon I believe a Great Schism will take place, and I will always stand on the side of orthodoxy.  See you next time.