RULES FOR RADICALS

A few years ago, I asked a personal priest friend of mine why he continually allowed for the distribution of Holy Communion in a manner not in conformity with the liturgical books: he would sit down (though he was not impeded health-wise) and allow the extraordinary ministers only to distribute communion, a clear act of disobedience.

He was very forthright in his answer: "Disobedience is the path to progress", he said. He then gave the examples of communion in the hand and the use of altar girls as practices which first began as violations but were later allowed by Rome, albeit with grave reservations. (See Paul VI's Memoriale Domini.)

He made no pretense of orthodoxy. He believed the church, for which he was ordained a priest, was wrong about certain things and he was going to do things his way (as many of his particular religious order did and still do.) 

His generation was used to effecting change from the outside in. They were the rebels of the 60's, grown old in a church they were still trying to fundamentally transform, still waiting for the revolution to be restored.

I remember another priest friend of the same order, while John Paul II was still alive, proudly telling of how he prayed for the pope's early death. Women's ordination, married clergy, etc., were all just around the corner if only John Paul would die. (He cried upon the election of Cardinal Ratzinger. He's probably more hopeful now though, given one of their own - "ours" as they refer to themselves - now occupies the chair of Peter.) 

And while certainly much revolution has been wrought by that flower-power generation, most believe their utopian aims for the church (women priests, no restrictions on contraception, etc.) would have to wait for a day they will not see in their life times (primarily because John Paul II lived too long). 

About the same time, I sat down with another priest, a member of the Neocatechumenal Way, and I asked pretty much the same question. The conversation went on for a long time. There was no forthright answer. 

There was no getting around the fact that the Neo manner of distribution of Holy Communion was not in conformity with the liturgical books, essentially disobedience. Eventually the reason I was given was: "the Church is broken", (exact words), and that the Neocatechumenal Way would be its restoration. 

I didn't know enough at the time to question further. It didn't sound right to me, but the NCW had been granted a period of experimentation by Rome, and since that period was soon ending, we would see how it all played out. I was asked to be patient, so I was. 

As already noted in a previous post, the Statute of the Neocatechumenal Way, compiled upon the end of the "ad experimentum" period, gave no permission to continue the liturgical practices that I and others had questioned. Yet, the Neocatechumenal Way persisted in these practices. I contacted the same priest and asked why.

The content of that conversation has already been posted here. But the short version is that Kiko had ordered the Neo leaders, despite the instruction from the pope himself and the newly approved Statute, to continue status quo. So they did and still do. 

If like my first priest friend, the second priest had just advised, "we believe the church is wrong and we're going to do it our way until they see it our way," I probably would have just shook my head and smiled and went on being friends (as I did with the first priest). But in the case of the Neocatechumenal Way, not only were we given the pretense of orthodoxy, we were told that Rome had approved their liturgical anomalies. 

At about the same time Barack Obama was looking like he was going to be the next president and I became aware that Obama had been a disciple of the Marxist/Communist, Saul Alinsky. Alinsky's principles of revolution, as codified in his book, Rules for Radicals, a book dedicated to Satan by the way, mock the revolutionary, change from the outside-in tactics of the flower-power generation. 

Alinsky teaches revolution from within. Thus even though he was radically committed to Marxism, he would pose as a conservative and quote the Founders as if he was himself at the constitutional convention. Alinsky knew the importance of posing as an insider to achieve his aims, something he laughed at the 60's radicals for not understanding. 

(Just this one Alinsky insight explains volumes about Barack Obama, whose first job as a community organizer, by the way, was working for the Catholic Church in Chicago under the late Cardinal Bernardin.)

Alinsky's second major value for revolution was to win at any cost: the ends justifies the means. Alinsky disciples learn that disobedience is a virtue given the larger cause. My first priest friend, one of the flower-power people, had wholly adopted this value (though he didn't have to read Alinsky to get it). 

But he didn't understand the first Alinsky value, which is to cloak your goals in terms people will easily buy into and to present yourself as "one of them". He was an in-your-face, come-and-get-me radical who valued Vatican admonitions as status symbols, which, in Alinsky's view, is why he'll probably die without seeing his utopia. 

The Neocatechumenal Way had long made a nest here in Guam before people began to notice something wasn't quite right and a rebellion began to brew. I first contacted the second priest in an effort to quell the rebellion. I was sure there was some document that we didn't know about that allowed for the practices many had begun to question. 

After all, from the outside, the NCW clergy with their commitment to wearing regular clerical attire and apparently orthodox Catholic mores, the NCW seemed to be the epitome of tradition. 

But, as discussed, there was no document. And there is still no document. The best the NCW on this blog can do is ridicule and mock our requests and tell us about the upcoming meeting with Kiko and the pope in February. (Ridicule, by the way is Alinsky principle #5.)

Really? Like the meeting with the pope in January 2012, at which the NCW was soundly lectured by Pope Benedict for its attempt at a curial coup, and at which Benedict firmly said NO - once again - to Kiko's attempt to regularize his liturgical anomalies through back door bishops? (See Inside the Vatican: A Mass that concerns the pope.)

Really? Like the many years both Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI spent assisting you in regularizing your "way" and hammering out a governing Statute which in practice is wholly subject to the Chair of Kiko?

The current pope - being of the same order as the "disobedience is progress" priest - may well grant Kiko his wish. And at that point, at least WE will obey. We will say no more. BUT, because the leadership of the Neocatechumenal Way persisted in disobedience from December 1, 2005 to the present, the ugly scar will always ooze.