ARTICLES
May 2006 ARTICLES
Contents © 2006
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.
Canonically, It's Gobbledygook
Parish Invites Catholics to Leave the Church
BY ROBERT KUMPEL
Since the May 2004 retirement of Father Daniel Johnson as pastor at St. Mary's by the Sea in Huntington Beach (which ended the parish's indult for the Tridentine Mass), parishioners have fought to maintain reverence at St. Mary's. The battle climaxed when a group calling itself Restore the Sacred was "invited" in February to leave the parish by St. Mary's administrator, Father Martin Tran.
So far Restore the Sacred has published 19 flyers that have been handed out and e-mailed to parishioners. After flyer 15 was published on February 19, Father Tran sent 37 families a form letter on February 27 informing them that he "officially" invited them "to leave the parish St. Mary's by the Sea and the diocese of Orange. You will be welcomed back only with your sincere heart-felt repentance/conversion on these issues mentioned above." Father Tran also wrote that he had Bishop Brown's approval for this "invitation."
The issues that offended Father Tran included, "personal attacks and false allegations against Bishop Brown," "false allegations against the American Bishops," "personal attacks and false allegations against Father Martin Tran," "false accusations/condemnations against various ministries of the Diocese of Orange as heresy," and "creating misleading, confusion, division and chaos in the parish by intentional disobedience and opposition to the current liturgical norms of the Diocese (mandated by the Bishop), set by the USNCCB and Bishop Brown, approved by Rome."
Flyer 15 addressed a number of liturgical issues, including the emphasis on the Mass as a "meal" instead of a sacrifice, eroding belief in the Real Presence, and the alleged "need" for extraordinary ministers of communion (to offer the sacrament under both species; but, supposedly, less than ten percent of St, Mary's parishioners ever approach the chalice), as well as the Holy See's authority superseding the bishop's with regard to postures at Mass. The "false allegation" made against Father Tran appears to be the flyer's call to prayer, that Father Tran "align his thinking with that of the Church" with regard to the ordination of women. (In perhaps calling this allegation false in his letter, Father Tran may have denied that he supported women's ordination; yet at least three people interviewed for this article have said that Father Tran has publicly supported the ordination of women. Tran did not respond to this reporter's attempts to contact him.) The flyer cites Vatican documents and canon law codes for every issue it discusses.
The war of words has not been one-sided. Father Tran has used the parish bulletin to rebuke the traditionalists in his parish and warn any sympathizers. In a parish bulletin dated February 19, Father Tran informed parishioners that refusal to obey the new norms for standing rather than kneeling "particularly ... after the 'Lamb of God' and at the 'Final Blessing'" established by Bishop Brown is "totally wrong and a serious matter/sin: intentional disobedience not simply to the local Bishop, but also to Rome, and ultimately to God."
While the Catholic Church may not be a democracy, neither is it a dictatorship, and its members have rights. Seeking to secure those rights, Restore the Sacred has contracted the services of the St. Joseph Foundation, a San Antonio, Texas-based canon law group formed to help lay Catholics vindicate their rights in the Church. Mary Tripoli, one of the parishioners targeted by Father Tran, says that the St. Joseph Foundation has been invaluable in its assistance. "They sent me a printed letter we are sending to Father Tran, that we are 'respectively declining his invitation.' We actually got our letters inviting us to leave the diocese and the parish on Ash Wednesday."
In a diocese where pro-abortion politicians are allowed to speak at Masses and receive Holy Communion (Loretta and Linda Sanchez), Tripoli finds the notion of kneeling at Mass a grave sin laughable. "I know of some good priests who have referred to this usage of the term mortal sin as a 'collector's item.' We never hear the term mortal sin mentioned. Why now?"
Tripoli and her friends are puzzled about why a bishop who places so much emphasis on ideals like "tolerance," "compassion," and "diversity" is so intolerant of traditional Catholics. "Bishop Brown said in an interview that he wrote letters against an anti gay-rights initiative in Idaho because he didn't want to lend to attitudes of intolerance and hostility," she said. "Where is that tolerance for the diversity of reverence?"
For Tripoli and the other traditional parishioners at St. Mary's by the Sea, Bishop Brown may be the bishop, but he's not the pope. "We are people who are prayerfully standing by the magisterium, which gives the faithful permission to kneel," said Tripoli. "I have a copy of a handwritten letter from Cardinal Francis Arinze (prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship), dated February 23, 2005, ... sent to a lady who had written him about the proper postures at Mass. In the letter, he writes, 'after Communion it is good to have common postures, but without taking away the right of a Catholic to kneel down and adore Jesus.'"
Cardinal Arinze has said the same thing, more publicly. Cardinal Francis George, archbishop of Chicago, in 2003 asked the Holy See's Congregation for Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments whether it was the "intention of the Missale Romanum, editio typica tertia, to forbid" the practice of kneeling after communion. On June 5, 2003, Cardinal Arinze responded that kneeling is still permitted after communion and during other parts of the Mass. "The prescription of the Institutio Generalis Missalis Romani, no. 43," he wrote, "is intended, on the one hand, to ensure within broad limits a certain uniformity of posture within the congregation for the various parts of the celebration of Holy Mass, and on the other, to not regulate posture rigidly in such a way that those who wish to kneel or sit would no longer be free."
But it is exactly the right to kneel that Father Tran and Bishop Brown seem determined to deny. Another dis-invited parishioner, Gloria Balaskas, says that Father Tran "has actually lectured the congregation that we should not be kneeling. I suddenly felt that the Church was slowly but surely dying (in Orange). This is the only traditional church left in the diocese, except for St. Michael's Abbey, where the Norbertines are, and Mission San Juan Capistrano. I think they want to destroy us one way or another. There are other abuses in the diocese that they aren't doing anything about, but with us, they are going for the jugular. Once they wipe us out, they can bring in their new theology that the Mass is a meal instead of a sacrifice and that Our Lord is not actually present in the Eucharist. That kind of liberal Catholicism would be more appealing to Protestants."
Balaskas believes that Father Tran is doing what he is told because he wants to keep working in the diocese. "I truly don't want to believe that he believes everything he is preaching to us. At first I really liked him; but I don't know if his theology is askew or if his seminary training was wrong."
Parishioners say that Father Tran's February 27 letter was not his first retaliatory measure against them. Previously, Mary Tripoli was notified by letter of her dismissal from the parish council. "Many of the others were threatened over the phone," she said. "Little old ladies who had been there more than 20 years were told by Father Martin, 'if you want to stay on the council, please stop kneeling.' It brought them to tears. Then he wishes them a 'Blessed Lent' after that!" A February 10, 2006 letter to Bette Barilla, who had sat on the council, read, "you are dismissed (no personal offense please!) from being a member of the parish council.... For you cannot help me to implement the current liturgical norms of the diocese (you chose to kneel at the Final Blessing). Thanks a lot for all your past contribution to the council. God bless!."
The reprisals extend to the altar servers. In a letter dated December 14, 2005, Father Martin dismissed Damian Garcia as altar servers coordinator because "three times you did not follow these norms during Sunday Masses ... you knelt down after the Lamb of God right in front of the people." Father Tran noted, "for our first meeting, I said very clear that you would be the Altar Servers Coordinator with the condition that you should follow the liturgical norms of the diocese. And you promised that. Now, you broke it."
Garcia says that this was the last of three letters he received during Advent. "He wanted me to train altar girls -- I thought it wouldn't be a problem, but my conscience got the better of me, and I decided not to, although I didn't talk about it. He also wanted me to obey the norms of the diocese. When I told him we knelt after the Lamb of God, he said, 'we don't do that here.' I told him, 'we have a precedent here of local custom.' We did dispute that idea, and his interpretation was to conform to the diocese, and my interpretation was that we could follow the custom of the parish. So the First Sunday of Advent he wanted to institute these changes, and I knelt down, and all the altar boys knelt down -- I had been the director of altar boys for about 15 years. He sent a letter later that week, hinting that he did not want me to kneel. The following Sunday I knelt again, and some of the altar boys did too, but not all of them. Again, he warned me not to kneel. On the Third Sunday of Advent, I knelt at the Lamb of God, and later that week, I got the letter dismissing me. I quit attending Mass there after that, but I got the letter inviting me to leave the parish and diocese in March, since I had signed on with the other Restore the Sacred members." Other parishioners have confirmed that altar boys have been dismissed for kneeling at Masses where they were not serving but in the congregation with their parents.
Does Father Tran's February 27 letter of dismissal have any standing in, or connection to canon law? Charles Wilson, founder of the St. Joseph Foundation, told me he doesn't quite know what to make of Father Tran's letter, but he is certain it is "neither an excommunication nor an interdict." Wilson continued, "both of those penalties forbid one from receiving the sacraments. This letter says nothing about receiving the sacraments. Canonically, it's gobbledygook. The only way you can leave a diocese is to move out of it. Is he inviting them to move? Anybody who lives within the boundaries of the parish is ipso facto a member of that parish. There are so many things wrong with [the letter], it's tough to determine where to begin. The bishop didn't sign it, so it isn't an episcopal act. There's not a shred of due process here, and a penalty cannot be imposed or declared without giving the defendant the opportunity for defense."
On March 8, Catholic Answers apologist Jimmy Akin addressed the St. Mary's situation on his website (www.jimmyakin.org). "I've seen the text of the letter in which the priest invites them to leave, but this document only makes summary allegations (e.g., that the parishioners have distributed literature that made false allegations against the diocese and the priest)," wrote Akin. "It doesn't get into the specifics underlying these charges (e.g., what was it specifically that the parishioners said that was false?) ... It is certainly not a decree of excommunication. That's obvious on its face. So the parishioners aren't excommunicated.... Is he suggesting that they formally defect from the Church? If so, then Rome is going to take a very dim view of that. Formal defection from the Church is an intrinsically evil act, and priests should not be in the business of recommending that people commit intrinsically evil acts."
The members of Restore the Sacred are fully prepared for a long, hard fight with the diocese. "We always obey," said Mary Tripoli. "We obey the magisterium, and we obey the teachings of the Church. But St. Thomas Aquinas said that the laity has the right to sound doctrine and sound liturgy, and if they are not doing the right thing, then it is our duty to say that it is wrong. We are not at all disputing the bishop's authority. We just know that the mind of the Church was never to use strong-arm tactics, make little old ladies cry because they want to kneel, and threaten parents when their children want to kneel. This is a huge crisis."