When ministering to the poor becomes robbing them

http://www.typicallyspanish.com/news/publish/article_13502.shtml

The Cardinal Archbishop of Madrid has allowed the church to continue operation after visiting the three priests there last SundayThe Cardinal Archbishop of Madrid, Antonio Rouco Varela, has announced an about turn and has said that the San Carlos Borromeo [a few words missing here in the English translation].

The church in the Entrevías area of Madrid is known as the ‘los exculidos’ as it has been working for years with ex prisoners, drug addicts and immigrants. One of the three priests there, Enrique de Castro, is known as the ‘Red Priest’ because of his politics.

Last Sunday the Cardinal Archbishop visited the Church for the first time since ordering its closure in April this year, something which the priests have since then refused to accept.

Now the three priests, Javier Baeza, Enrique de Castro and Pepe Díaz can continue with their work in what the Archbishop has called a ‘pastoral centre’.

Javier Baeza commented that the change in name made no difference to them. What was important was they could carry on with their work.

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I read the background articles that explain this church accepts all parishioners, so anyone who wants to attend does so, including Muslims. Apparently doughnuts have been served as the Holy Eucharist on occasion. The priests wear civilian clothes and pretty much run a free for all, which is why this was to be closed and turned over to Caritas as a Catholic mainstream pastoral center.

OK, here's my take on this. I understand the radical mind set of these three priests because they (like many of the liberation theology belief) feel that anything to reach out to the poor and disenfranchised is the most important thing. So, to use an expression used in civil rights here in America, these priests feel they are "getting down with the people for the struggle." The priests start to view their faith as a pretentious structure that is "above the poor" and so they strip away their vestments, their liturgy, their role in preparing the faithful to receive the sacraments, and ultimately they strip away the sanctity of what they are doing. They are not stripping away the WORTHINESS of what they are doing (outreach) but they are stripping away the sanctity.

Here's the hypocrisy that they and others like them do not recognize. They think they are bringing Jesus and justice "to" the people. The unspoken assumption is that the poor and disenfranchised do not deserve sanctified service from the Church. So actually there is a reverse snobbery here. These types of liberation theologians feel that any crumb from the table is fine for the poor and disenfranchised. Why bother to help the poor and the disenfranchised to receive the actual fullness of grace, formation of faith and sacraments when you can give them glad rags and donuts? The unspoken snobbery is that the poor and disenfranchised are lucky to have priests who get down with them, rather than give them the same thing that others receive.

There was no one poorer, more tormented or disenfranchised than those who suffered in Nazi Germany's concentration camps. Yet the priests and religious faithful who paid with their lives strove in secret Masses and communion to provide the liturgy, the words, the reverent crumbs of bread in the fullness of the faith as best as they could within the hell on earth in which they were trapped. If they had any clothes at ALL to wear, they would have worn their vestments even as they ministered to the nude skeletons of imprisoned Christians who shared the fate of the Jews and other "rejects" in the camps. The great heritage of Catholicism is exactly that EVERYONE DESERVES THE FULLNESS OF THE FAITH. I have no patience for priest who cannot bother to garb and comport the liturgy in a way that gives even the poorest of the poor the fullness of the faith. I fully understand the mental process by which they got there, but they are wrong.

I agree to keep it open with the priests grooving and "doing their thing" because while the priests dismiss the renaming it is not insignificant. It is truth in advertising that the poor and the disenfranchised that they administer to are not receiving the fullness of service of the faith that Jesus did indeed intend for all to receive. The priests are basically saying that those they serve do not deserve the first class meal at the table of the Lord. So the Cardinal Archbishop is basically giving in to the people's desire for the second class meal, the lack of faith formation, and being "stooped down to" rather than lifted. And if this comforts those who receive their service and this is their spiritual home, I say that's fine, so long as people realize this is the Jesus Clubhouse and Social Center and not the Mass. So the name change says it all. But if I were the folks who are being served in this pastoral center, I'd wonder why what is good enough for everyone else in the Church, rich or poor, is not good enough for them.

Can you imagine the Bible or Qur'an with an alternative edition that leaves half of of the text out (let's say to make it easy they omit all words of three syllables, foreign phrases, and numbers) because priests or Imams thought the poor were lucky to get even partial holy text, since the poor are too simple or desperate to merit help in receiving the whole thing? Enough said.