Open Letter to Mr. Corapi

Dear John - (I hate the way that sounds) Sorry to hear of all your troubles....really, its intensely shameful how more silly humans in their own self appointed positions of "Authority" over your daily work are treating you. Yes, you had to resign. Your written response seems humble and pragmatic about the reality of the presumed guilty perceptions by others.

Just to be clear, on public level, I am not a big fan of your work. Its good don't get me wrong, but I prefer Abp. Sheen frankly. Anyway....

Could you have waited and fought this out? Where would that go with your Daily work? Nowhere, like you knew that already. This is a "perception" issue and no one gets beyond that stigma, which I am confident your move out of Priesthood is based on.

Whether or not you committed the behavior in the accusation is really not mine or The Churches to determine. Your teaching on conscience knows the truth. What is revealing here is how the "Church" Bishophood has secularized its response (by restricting you initially) due to media trends and an attempt to control that environment in that the Church Public image is everything. Their response appears to be overkill compared to admitted child abusers. I guess we'll see how this escalates in their camp.

Back to you though John.

Should you publicly deny the accusations, ignore them or admit them in the future is without my interest. The thing of value here is your heart John. Please remember your own words as you were an effective tool for many years in many hearts. Your guilt or innocence has no public value John, its your heart, your truth, your conscience and its value to the good of others.

To anyone else reading this I would suggest considering the following perspective:

Lets wash Johns feet. He deserves it no less than you or I and its how his Master ministered.

God Bless you John.

Commandments Framework II

(Continued from here)

The Commandments, while initially easy to read and intellectualize, can be a deal breaker for some of us in the behavior department.

The accumulated emotional baggage of Life, in this World, attribute to our success or struggle with making conscious effort to habitualize putting others first...let alone loving our enemies. Thousands of mental health professionals make a substantial living on just making us aware of our inside-out reality. We are by culture, forced in a cycle of self absorbed maintenance routines and unless we have a natural, inherent motivation to place others first, the "love our neighbors as ourselves" Commandment requires external propulsion.

I gained my first real sense of Gratitude, and giving my time to others voluntarily by counseling Prison Inmates for some years in the 1980's. A team of 4 of us held weekly meetings in a State Prison where I learned how easily I could have been one of the "boys" in there. The taste of "getting out of myself and giving to others" was tangible, but it was overpowered by my weak ego and the feeling of freedom being able to walk out of there every week, while the inmates could not.

That's a good portion of the reason I became a Catechist. While I have done a couple decades of (secular) voluntary counseling, and it clearly benefited others, my motives weren't entirely pure. Since then, after sincerely practicing a Faith for some years, I have enjoyed a gift of valuing others in a deeper sense and what better way to love my neighbor than to hand them what I found to be the highest truth. It becomes effortless, unconditional and therefore infinitely valuable to me. Still it is only a micron of what depth of sacrifice is contained in Christs example of living in harmony, community and unity.

The path is clear, the Church is ready, the people are thirsty and we have the tools to begin obeyance. The price is zero yet the yield is unmeasurable.

Commandments Framework

I had the privilege to instruct on the First 3 Commandments recently and my research to outline the discussion revealed a different dimension on them than I had expected. So much so that I am still studying the subject a few weeks later now.

Many seekers struggle with finding a connection to God in their journey to discover Christianity. We (yes I will always be a seeker as well) come under the circumstances of our lives and pray for Guidance, or, in other words, seek "His Will" for us. Our Mass is full of Liturgical prayer seeking Gods Will be done as well. While studying for this presentation, I kept being drawn back to Jesus in Matthew 7:21-23 :

"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven, he shall enter into the kingdom of heaven."

If we seek the Will of God we don't have to look very far. God made a series of communications to us in various styles, physical, verbal and written which is shown throughout the OT to reveal his "Will". He demonstrated his Natural-Moral Law through Abraham's obedient Sacrifice of Isaac, through the passover and many other events which all point toward obedience to His Will. God called upon Moses, made a Covenant with Moses, gave Moses a kingdom and judgement power. When Moses tried to argue and debate Gods intention...with God ....God then set him straight with what exactly he wants his children to obey.

Exodus 19:9 :

"The Lord said to him: Lo, now will I come to thee in the darkness of a cloud, that the people may hear me speaking to thee, and may believe thee for ever."

Here is our Father, once again finding even His chosen not getting it right. So in Exodus 20, God writes the 10 Commandments on tablets, with His finger, so we get it right, and he adds the word(s) for ever. This Law is carried over from the OT into the NT, and forever.

Moses doesn't handle it well, Moses later breaks the tablets in utter confusion and frustration and then is given another set, which may or may not be in the Ark. Here we are in only the second book of 73 books of the Word and it was clearly documented what the Will of God is.

Just to be on the safe side, God made another full revelation of His Will. If we couldn't comprehend his teaching from the physical examples (IE. Abraham) or verbal (IE. Orders to Moses) or written (the Tablets), He would just come down and show us how to find and do His Will. He begot Jesus. And Jesus illuminated what it is to obey the Commandments (God's Will). Jesus Christ is the only living human example of complete obedience to all 10 Commandments. Christ also made clear the Law carry-over from the Old Covenant to the New Covenant in Matthew.

Matthew 5:17:

"Do not think I have come to abolish the Law and the Prophets, I have come…to fulfil them."

This is the Natural Law and the Moral Law of His teaching, written in our hearts. It is also known as Forming our Conscience.

While we like to think we can simplify a comprehension of the Commandments, boiling the Ten down into two main concepts ( as Love of God [1-3] and Love of Neighbor[4-10] ), and leave it there, we should not. The first 3 are held as Love of God by literal hermeneutics, the first 3 are also 3 functions of that Love.

• The first Commandment is the Object of our Worship
• The second Commandment is the Manner of our Worship
• The third Commandment is Time for our Worship

Christ expands and amplifies the Commandments with excruciating detail and examples of violation, motive and intent in Matthew 7 and His Sermon on the Mount, its so hyperbolic...its almost embarrassing to read. The fact that he had to spell it out with such detail says so much about how repeatedly foolish and weak we are as children.

What I get from this first level of study, and as a product of obedience is stated by Christ in Matthew 6. We don't need to think that Gods Will is something mysterious and out of our mental reach. Be like Christ, behaviorally, in love and motive, and we have nothing to fear about all other concerns. He will take care of the rest.
(continued here)

There is one thing I loathe more than Plagiarism

...and that is myself wanting to commit Plagiarism.

I'm sure I am in good company saying while I struggle to develop a writing "voice" that is as dramatic, compelling, hilarious and meaningful as the committee that I hear carrying on in my skull, I run into those who scribe exactly how I feel and perceive a given thing so well...I wish their words were my own. Example thus:

Blogger Civitas Occiduus said...(On defending any Clergy Sex scandal in the media):

"The Bishops of the Church must defend their flocks -- even to the point of suffering the attacks of civil society.

But I should think that prudence dictates that on such an emotional issue the Bishops should be less on the offensive in public. Rather than attacking the media, the humble thing to do in light of our collective guilt as Catholics on this issue should be to say, "You're absolutly right. I pledge to work tirelessly with civil authorities to bring predators to justice. No child, no adult, no human being deserves this."

For decades, we have all been sinning when we suspected something and did not report it; when we looked the other way because the white collar held some magic aura. Our Holy Father has indicated the proper attitude and posture: humble acceptance and painful sorrow.

Someone else compared this issue to the Holocaust. While the murders of 6 million over 10 years are not the same as the molestations of hundreds of thousands worldwide over decades, the Church is much like Germany on this one: we should never deny, downplay, or object when people become angry over the sexual abuse scandal. Christ Himself told us to turn the other cheek. We have sinned and we add sin to sin when we grow indignant because Justice exacts its price.

Part of the consequences of this kind of horrendous sin are that the wolves of the world -- the lawyers, the atheists, the selfish -- smell blood. Because when one of us falls, all fall, we must be willing, for the Glory of God & the triumph of His cross, to do penance for these terrible crimes.

Bishop Jenky means well, and I give thanks to God for him, but the sooner we accept that victims of sexual abuse are not the enemy, but that the terrible sin that has been commited by those sad clerics is, the sooner everyone will be able to heal."

February 8, 2009 4:31 PM

Bravo, dangit...Bravo.