MUFFINS GALORE !

I. In the first of this two-part series - Muffins! - sketches were provided of some reputed "womenpriests" in Canada, members of the Roman Catholic WomenPriests (RCWP) movement. Basically, a fringe assemblage of excommunicant muffins coming in assorted shapes, flavours and colours. Now, as we all know - and let's be honest here, muffins are delicious. Accordingly, it is virtually impossible to resist that urge to cuddle with them upon face-to-face encounters. TH2 confesses that it would be wonderful to have his very own cute little womenpriest. It is what I always wanted. I would name her George and would hug her and pet her and squeeze her. For their own good, however, it is necessary that any muffins reading this post be made aware of the dangers associated with mistaken identity when pretending to be something they are not. Perchance the following instructional video will be of assistance in this realization...

Still, we must be careful here. Remember: a muffin may be adorable and snugly on the outside, but on the inside a heretical mindset is operative. Also on the inside - within Canadian church structures, that is, there are various groups, organizations, academics, publishers, newspapers, magazines, websites facilitating a positive stance on women's ordination. This is mainly done in an indirect, unobtrusive manner. Tantamount covertly, some would argue. Ultimately, the muffins - outsiders with no official connection to the Catholic Church whatsoever - are an external manifestation of subversives inside the Church. More precisely, those feminists and, yes, men with feminist sympathies whom, for lack of a better phrase, can be characterized as "primordial muffins". Although not formally advocating for the female priesthood, select members of the establishment church, these so-called "primordial muffins", nevertheless afford avenues of dissemination and other opportunities to those more outspoken exponents of collared femmes. This intrigue commonly plays out amongst internal affairs, at board meetings, inside committees, in obscure reports and newsletters, at workshops and seminar presentations, during gabfests at establishment galas etc., where non-Professional Catholics are uninvolved and, if orthodox, certainly unwanted.

II. Sometimes these subversives will retain a proxy to state publicly that which they secretly accede, therefore relieving them of any direct responsibility from propagating heresy, a kind of "plausible deniability" situation. For instance, out west at the Prairie Messenger editor Peter Novecosky published an article in late 2010, wherein we have a positive take on Roy Bourgeois, an excommunicated Maryknoll priest (in 2008) with a defiant stance for women's ordination. The piece ends thusly: "the issue of women's equality in the Roman Catholic Church will not be cooling down any time soon".[1] Such statements work only to perpetuate the falsehood that petitioning for female priesthood is a legitimate endeavour, a subject open to debate, whereas in actuality the Church has for a long time pronounced an absolute interdiction on it. Revealingly, that PM article was penned by Jocelyn Rait, member of the Catholic Network for Women's Equality, a prominent group in Canada pushing for women's ordination since the early 1980s (more on CNWE later). So, then, why would Novecosky print the article? Easy: pre-existent ideational assent, to speak philosophically. The publication of such articles, of course, only causes confusion in readers, especially if uninformed or poorly catechized, a condition regnant with the Catholic population in the post-Conciliar era. Here, the fault goes not so much to Ms. Rait as to Abbot Pete, the latter effectively presenting her as a loyal Catholic when, in fact, she's just your run-of-the-mill feminist-fixated heretic with a hate-on for the pope. Rait working as a CNWE agent is a problem. Novecosky, a religious, publishing her tract goes beyond problematic. It's devious, insidious. Especially so when you consider that PM is the "official Catholic newspaper for western Canada", having regular contributions from the Winnipeg Archdiocese chancery where, incidentally, our old friend Abp. Weisgerber is head honcho. Don't expect +Weisgerber to enforce any corrective measures on the notoriously cunning Novecosky. They're buddies, apparently.

III. This blogger was astonished to read John Bentley Mays express his frustration with the muffins in a Catholic Register column from about four years back:

I'm fed up with Roman Catholic Womenpriests (RCWP) and their collaborators inside and outside the Catholic Church. And while I'm on the subject - I'm also not very happy with the namby-pamby way some representatives of Catholic officialdom are dealing with what RCWP is up to.[2]

Ah, yes, the officialdom. Good comment, Mr. Mays (can't believe I just agreed with him). Yet the crux of the issue relates not so much with the ineffectual way it is currently dealing with the problem, if at all. More so, it is the officialdom as such, specifically the Canadian Catholic Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB), which was primarily responsible for actuating, constantly enabling, quietly affirming, the women's ordination movement in Canada... "Oh oh, there goes that outrageous TH2, again, with his CCCB conspiracy mongering", the reader may think. Let me challenge that thought with a plethora of evidence, to be submitted progressively as the reader proceeds through the analysis below.

IV. Beforehand, the crucial thing to understand here is there is no way this side of Hades that the CCCB and its allies are going to forthrightly call for women's ordination, even in the post-Vatican II period. Only when the time or conditions are right. They may be subversives, but they're not stupid. The trick here is, and has been, to introduce feminist ideas underhandedly, via dissenting Catholic religious/theologians, often habitless nuns or just ex-nuns. Feminism is made to appear ameliorative at first sight, even innocuous. On report titles or in bullet points or on home pages, they will wield pliable phraseologies like "the role of women in the Church", "active participation", "leadership roles", which therefore can be interpreted in multiform ways. These are jumping off points, sort of like cloaking devices, all predisposed to an actualization of women's ordination, an ultimate aim discovered after digging into the details. Add a dash of historical revisionism, a dab of dilettante lesbians, a drop of manipulative psychology, a smidgen of Wicca, a smattering of New Ageism, pinches of bishop approval and liberalist favourtism, a large gob of episcopal silence, then a heaping spoonful of Modernism, and you got a recipe for a time bomb armed to detonate at a future date of your choosing. And it was with the CCCB's publication of its infamous "Green Kit" in 1985 that, via Avenue Féministe, set an atmosphere conducive to the acceptance of, if not just deference to, women's ordination throughout Catholic Canada. Now the suggestion of a bishop/feminist complicity may seem unlikely to readers, impossible, especially if all your Catholic news and info comes from diocesan broadsheets or other outlets under the purview of the Magic Circle. Really, it isn't. It's already happened and is happening. All the data exist out there in the public domain. Just pay attention. Collect, collate, then connect the dots. It's quite simple. No rocket science is involved.

V. Before setting course for 1985, we first have to go back even further in time to 1971 and briefly look at some precursor events. Remember, that was only five or so years after the Second Vatican Council closed, when matters were getting super crazy as the hippies assumed control. Moreover, 1971 was just less than three years after the Canadian bishops retaliated against Pope Paul VI's encyclical Humane vitae with their issuance of the Winnipeg Statement, licensing any Canadian Catholic to contracept if it "seems right to him", that he "does so in good conscience" (para. 26). In April 1971, just prior to the opening of the bishop's annual plenary session, 70 women from Edmonton (other sources say from throughout Canada) presented a number of recommendations to the bishops concerning "Women in the Church" and "Women in Society". The meeting was done under the auspices of Archbishop Anthony Jordan of the Edmonton Archdiocese. One recommendation was for the formation of "family planning" clinics (code for contraception), when already at that early stage we see consequences of the Winnipeg Statement. A second was for so-called inclusive language. Another was for female ordination, which seems to be the first time this heresy was deemed acceptable by a fair number of Canadian bishops. Otherwise, it wouldn't have been given formal (albeit "insider") consideration, via +Jordan. Following this meeting Cardinal George Bernard Flahiff (Winnipeg Archdiocese) - in all likelihood still spellbound by what the ladies proffered - flew across the pond to make an "intervention" at a Synod in Rome. He argued that the Church must remain in tune with the "signs of the times", urging "to undertake a study of the present situation and future possibilities" on the role of women in the Church, "despite a tradition of several centuries against women's ministries".[3]

VI. Now do a quantum leap forward some ten years to 1981. According to the 2000 CCCB publication With Respect to Women (cute and witty title, yet still politically correct), in January 1981, as part of an annual process to create committees to address women's role in the Church, "a questionnaire is sent to some seventy women across Canada who participated in former surveys and projects".[4] Déjà vu? Does the number 70 ring a bell? Look up at the preceding paragraph. So, then, were they the same 70 women? Kathleen Toth so deduced, who recounted this affair in a Catholic Insight article.[5] Then in March 1982 eight from the group of seventy women formed a committee, again with more recommendations "for action" presented to the bishops. The Bishop's Conference, acquiescing, then formed an Ad Hoc committee, chaired by ex-nun Élizabeth Lacelle (latterly professor at the University of Ottawa). Membership included two bishops, two staffers, and five women, two of whom were "theologians", one of those being ex-nun Mary Malone, a significant voice on the committee (more on Malone below). Toth relates what occurred a year later:

Until the Ad Hoc committee issued a news release in March 1983, most Canadian Catholic women were unaware that someone was speaking on their behalf to the Catholic Bishops without their knowledge or consent. The insulation surrounding the decade-long dialogue was finally penetrated when we realized that demands were being made of the Church with which many of us disagreed.[6]

Clandestine, alright. After another year, in March 1984, the aforementioned ex-nun Lacelle spoke at the "Women and Roman Catholic New Visions" conference in Ottawa. If women are disallowed ordination, then, she said, "they are excluded from making decisions on the whole life of the Church".[7] Note the absolutist decisiveness in that quotation. The bishop's plenary meeting took place six months later in October 1984. Twelve recommendations from the Ad Hoc committee were submitted for consideration. No. 9 was "The Green Study Kit on women in the Church". It was approved by the bishops for distribution throughout Canada.

VII. Published in 1985, the Green Kit is formally entitled Women in the Church, Discussion Papers[8]. What were these papers? Essentially, a set of feminist blueprints to undermine the Catholic Church in Canada. What is revealing is that the "discussion papers" are given in abridged form, sort of like a series of talking point memos. They are, then, jumpstarts for "discussion". Researcher Cornelia Ferreira observed that "the discussion papers are so abbreviated that this [sic] source material is needed for one to determine the philosophy underlying each session".[9] Thus we come to the devil-in-the-details with the sources, i.e. those referents to which the "discussion papers" point. The bibliography in the Green Kit lists the following: Womanspirit Rising: A Feminist Reader in Religion (1979), Women of Spirit: Female Leadership in the Jewish and Christian Traditions (1979), which are essay compilations. Three noteworthy names, all with books published in the same year: Rosemary Radford Ruether, Sexism and God-Talk: Toward a Feminist Theology (1983), Patricia Wilson-Kastner, Faith, Feminism, and the Christ (1983), and Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins (1983). There was even an article by this magnificent creature...

That axe-brandishing berserker was none other than Mary Daly (d. 2010), a radical's radical, who in her later years provided unassailable proof of that descent into abject irrationalism common among aging feminists:

If life is to survive on this planet, there must be a decontamination of the Earth. I think this will be accompanied by an evolutionary process that will result in a drastic reduction of the population of males.[10]

How charming. Watch out men, gird your loins. Unfortunately, it didn't seem like anyone was watching out for the anti-Catholic madness espoused in those aforelisted texts, plus others. A sampling: the Bible needs to be "demythologized" (even re-written); the need for a "Women-Church"; women have been "oppressed" by the Church; evils of "hierarchalism"; "liberation from patriarchy", therefore needing to retain "power" through "social action", must create "solidarity"; history becomes "herstory"; "transformed liturgies" with dancing, pro-abortion, pro-contraception, lesbianism; the occult, witchcraft, paganism, nature worship, goddesses, female demons, Jungian psychology; and, of course, a redefinition of the priesthood. To be sure, a cornucopia of feminist delights with Gnosticism forming the philosophical backdrop.

VIII. In 1983, before the Green Kit went to print, Rev. Louis-Albert Vachon (1912-2006), amongst other bishops, transited across the Atlantic to again "intervene" in Rome (at a Synod) of behalf of the women and their "recommendations". His speech was prepared in "collaboration" with the members of the Ad Hoc committee. The gist of it was later printed in the appendices of the Green Kit. An extraction:

In Canada, an ever increasing number of women are speaking out and revealing their thoughts and feelings. The dualist vision of flesh-and-spirit and the sexist prejudices resulting from it, have strongly marked their past and continue to mark their present, identifying them with "the occasion of sin". They have experienced and continue to experience alienation, marginalization and exclusion in many forms... Experience has already shown, here and there, the rich resources available in an egalitarian partnership between men and women... for the growth of humanity. In our society and in our Church, man has come to think of himself as the sole possessor of rationality, authority and active initiative, relegating women to the private sector and dependent tasks. Our recognition... of our own cultural deformation will allow us to overcome the archaic concepts of womanhood which have been inculcated in us for centuries.

After reading this girly man tripe you do have to wonder how the heck Vachon became Primate of Canada, then a Cardinal. Ah, forgot, it was the 80s - big hair, men with make-up, feminized rock stars and all that. There's so much emasculation going on here that it's having a dire effect on me. To recuperate, think I'll watch The Terminator tonight. Gosh, even Arnie has the cerebral perspicacity to understand that the negative connotation given in Vachon's "dualist vision of flesh-and-spirit" is venturing into Manichean territory, i.e.  dualism deemed as irreconcilable antagonistic forces, instead of in its proper Catholic mode, a tensile balance in unity yet still distinct. His "egalitarian partnership between men and women" is politically-charged claptrap denying objective differences between men and women, in myriad ways. His "archaic concepts of womanhood which have been inculcated in us for centuries" is an insult to Church history and tradition. Seems he disregarded the Church's immense honour and dignity bestowed upon the Blessed Virgin, who is "after her Son, exalted by divine grace above all angels and men". No highlighting of the great women saints, let alone their influences on the popes. Nor did he make a distinction from Catholic civilization by mentioning the debased treatment and status of women in heathen/non-Christian societies throughout all history. Vachon the Frenchman, theology professor and Rector at Laval University, might have learned much had he the wherewithal to consider the works of a contemporary, Frenchwoman Régine Pernoud (1909-1998), eminent medieval historian and prolific writer. He would have discovered that, during the Medieval era, the first treatise on education was written by a woman (in the seventh century). Some were doctors, they voted in parish councils and urban assemblies, had political functions, others copyists, and so forth.[11] Who ran and managed orders, charities, hospitals and schools? Surely not any primordial feminists.

IX. Another bishop at the time facilitating the feminist/female ordination cause was one Remi J. De Roo. He's been in the news lately regarding his recently published memoirs, distributed by - here it comes... Novalis.[12] These days he's either teaching the Ennegram or bloviating at conferences with his excommunicated male companion Gregory Baum at St. Paul University or "presiding" over puppet "masses", with liturgical dancers in tow. You need not dig too deep into his dossier to understand that this former Bishop of Victoria, BC was a multi-decadal menace, an archenemy of the Catholic Church. He was Canada's longest serving bishop, from 1962 to 1999, i.e. nearly four decades of torment against those poor West Coasters of orthodox mindset. It's not for nothing that Victoria Diocese was "known as the most radical and avant garde in Canada".[13] A major player in the Winnipeg Statement, New Age aficionado, liberation theology backer, social justice maven, advocate of the married priesthood. The progressivist/independent Island Catholic News, Victoria-based, lavishes praise on De Roo, of which he said "was founded and served as a vehicle to educate people about the Council". ICN seems quite pleased with the "celebration" of "the ordination of Victoria (Vikki) Marie as a Roman Catholic Womanpriest" last July in Vancouver.[14] Most famously, De Roo is known for bankrupting his diocese by blowing millions of dollars on a failed real estate deal involving Arabian horses.[15] As reported in the mainstream media, Mr. Ed reacted to the scandal thusly...

 

...neeeiigghh, nicker nicker. Let it also be known that Race Horse Remi's thought has been influenced by the aforementioned Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza and Mary Daly, including the most scrumptious muffin ever to have walked the face of this Earth...

Namely, heresiarchess Sr. Joan Chittister (fr. L. Polyesteris maximus). Isn't she just delicious?!

X. Thus, again, we go back to the decade of Pac Man and Pretty in Pink to evidence De Roo's role in enabling the womanpriest movement in Canada. There was one pivotal event, a talk he gave at first "Women in the Church" conference held at Washington, DC in October 1986. In her classic book Ungodly Rage, Donna Steichen noted this symposium to be "a conscious-raising session for Church revolutionaries with feminism as the unifying theme".[16] It was also only one year after publication of the Green Kit, so one of the purposes of his address was to convey the Canadian bishops' support for feminism to a wider audience. Whereas the male contingent at the conference were open yet still slightly guarded about the impending feminist onslaught, De Roo was exuberant as a giggling girl at a pajama party. Steichen recounted:

Bishop De Roo's address carried deference to excess. He said was humbled by the invitation to appear among this "galaxy of talent", that he was deeply indebted for his growth over the previous twenty-five years to both "futurists" and "feminist scholars", who had shown him the need for new "values and priorities", but especially to the feminists, who had "awakened" him to his "personal need" to "balance the left-brain characteristics commonly associated with male attitudes".[17]

Sounds like primordial metrosexualism to me. Certainly appeasing the female contingent, he also proposed "a rethinking of the very nature of ministry" of the priesthood, as "lay dependent". The laity's "responsibility for... sacramental celebration", "mutual empowerment", which is effectively in force at many parishes today. Of the Green Kit: it was "quite a success" with an "overwhelmingly positive" response.[18] The respondents, it can be reasonably surmised, didn't include many orthodox Catholic women (cf. Kathleen Toth's quote above, note 6).
 

XI. Attempting to neutralize the contagion triggered by the Green Kit, a "Blue Kit" was compiled by the group Women for Life, Faith and Family.[19] No feminism or gnosticism in its bibliography. Sources included the Code of Canon Law and The Ratzinger Report. The bishops gave permission for it to be circulated to women in parishes, although they didn't confer it formal recognition and the WLFF had to distribute it with funds from its own pocket. Nice. The Green Kit, however, had full support of the bishops. It was to be circulated to Catholic women throughout Canada - and, unholy smoke!, did it spread rapidly. One example was in the Archdiocese of Regina, Saskatchewan. In March 1986 its "Social Action Commission" mentions a "Statement on the role of women in the Church, denouncing current sexism and promoting CCCB study kit 'Women in the Church'".[20] Elsewhere - and more disturbingly, amongst the adopted resolutions by the Catholic Women's League of Canada in 1985 was No. 2: "1985.02 > Women in the Church Kit - Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB) Discussion Papers". Specifically, this was adopted by the standing committee on "Spiritual Development". The chairwoman of this particular committee is to "encourage members to watch for and read new books which explore women in scriptures".[21] The "new books" (at the time) listed in the Green Kit's bibliography surely must have sparked some interesting "discussion". There are approximately 100,000 members of the CWL nationally (with considerable local parish involvement), so the number of Canadian Catholic women directly and indirectly duped by the feminism-imbibed Green Kit cannot be insubstantial.

XII. All this stuff went down decades ago, in the 1970s and 1980s. Hence, some people might argue that a long time has already passed and, given the drifting return to Catholic orthodoxy as seen in Benedict's XVI's pontificate (since 2005), a hopeful outlook for the future should arise. Meaning, it must be concluded that feminism in the Canadian Church (spawned in no small part by the Green Kit), including its correlate of the "womenpriest", was merely a transient fad endorsed by a few hippie heretics, today devoid of any extensive sway or inspiration on/for Catholic women. This, for the very reason that these hippies have been geriatricized into insignificance. Don't want to be a killjoy, but little weight can be placed on that position given Canadian incidences over the last 10+ years. Furthermore, the energizing potentialities of Geritol must never be underestimated. There are also the insights of Donna Steichen, a journalist having extensive on-the-ground experience with the feminist movement. What makes Catholic feminists...

...important is the influence with which they continue to be endowed by Catholic media and Catholic bishops, who thus prolong the existence of a pathological movement, ultimately doomed but capable of wreaking enormous havoc during its death convulsions. Most bishops ignore even the grossest revolutionary deviations... It would be an error of optimism to suppose... a diminished feminist presence in the North American Church. While they fume and rage about a supposed persecution by the Vatican, Catholic feminists are not resigned to defeat. Instead, they have become increasingly bitter and aggressive toward the hierarchy.[22]

Let's bolster the standpoint in this paragraph with evidence in the next.

XIII. Bringing the CWL back into the ring, in 2000 its members (excepting the good ladies from the Hamilton, Ontario chapter) participated World March of Women. Its program included campaigning for abortion rights and lesbianism. At a related event, Our Lady Queen of the Universe Cathedral in Montreal was desecrated on March 9th of that year. Anarchists, declaring they were paying tribute to International Women's Day, bellowed anti-Catholic slurs, tossed sanitary napkins and condoms at parishioners, then spray-painted graffiti on the altar. The Canadian bishops, "brave" shepherds they are, issued no statement of condemnation. Why would they? Plenty of the boys were on board with the babes. For it was also discovered that the Canadian bishops bequeathed $110,000 in support of WMW, which was not a "march" per se so much as a series information sessions/events. When all these apostatic shenanigans were coming to public attention through various reports (mainly by pro-lifers), darlings of the establishment church started to expose their fangs. Even bishops spoke derogatorily against pro-lifers. Bishop Fred Henry (Calgary, AB): "the rudest people". Bishop John Michael Sherlock (London, ON): "If the pro-life people had their way, we would all be living in a ghetto".[23] These two disagreeable characters, of course, conveniently ignored the obvious anti-Catholicism endemic to the WMW agenda. Indeed, so submissive and muffinized were they, bishops proclaimed their wholehearted support for WMW:

+Sherlock, defiant and contradictorily: "The Holy See has not explicitly supported the March of Women... our objectives in supporting the March are reflections of positions powerfully promoted by the Church".

+Henry, frolicking and freewheeling: "wonderful celebration... our work is to believe, sing and dance, yes, even to march".

+Marcel Gervais (Ottawa), offensively used Our Lady for justification: the plight of poor women and those subjected to violence "oblige us" to participate in the march with "Mary, our mother" as "our model".[24]

Endorsement for WMW also came from Msgr. Peter Schonenbach, then CCCB General Secretary, including two high-ranking women: habitless nun Sr. Gloria Keylor, SP, then Canadian Religious Conference president, and Sheilah Pellerin, then CWL president. Yet that scandal is just one instance evidencing a continuing, close-knit alliance between feminists and bishops, giving further substance to what Kathleen Toth remarked in her aforementioned CI article (written in 2001): "the recommendations of the bishops' Ad Hoc committee [in 1984] continue to be supported by the bishops and by Catholic women who serve on international delegations and attend United Nations conferences".[25]

XIV. Other examples can be provided of feminism's long-lasting, inimical effects to the present day. Go to the website of the Loretto Sisters (IBVM, Canadian Province, Toronto) and see a 2010 report by Sr. Anne Kelly, "IBVM NGO Representative at the United Nations", wherein you read about a UN Conference on Global Health with her implicit approval of the goal to "achieve universal access to reproductive health" (i.e. contraception, abortion). Go to the Prairie Messenger and read all about Sr. Judy Schachtel, SMS as she does the lecture circuit from coast to coast.  Mark a presentation[26] she gave at Saskatoon, SK in May 2010, entitled Earth Story, A Sacred Story, whereat she probes the epistemological depths: "The dualistic thinking of the western mind, which looked on spirit and matter as two separate entities... drove a further wedge between humanity and nature". Earth to Cardinal Vachon, you there? (see his Green Kit quote above). The audience was further provided with some viewing entertainment, a video named "The Universe Drama... narrated by Rosemary Radford Ruether" (see Green Kit bibliography). Not only this, earlier that month leisurely outfitted Sr. Judy was at Swift Current, SK giving a talk to the Regina CWL chapter. Attending ladies were enlightened with the wisdom of Duwamish Indian Chief Seattle: "We belong to the earth; the earth does not belong to us".[27] Three cheers for immanentist animism! and to hell with the Divine Injunction in Genesis 1 to "subdue the earth". Let's now head back east to London, Ontario, home of the Sisters of St. Joseph. Last year a blog post at the CSJ site advertised a talk entitled "Women in the Catholic Church: Exploring Women's Ordination", given by Therese Koturbash, International Coordinator of womenpriests.org. The post also made sure to emphasize that Ms. Koturbash is "a faithful Catholic". Really? Evidence otherwise is afforded with Koturbash's appearance in a televised BBC debate in 2010.

XV. We could go on and on with countless examples demonstrating this Canada-wide muffinization. Accordingly, the questions now are: Having divinely-appointed authority, why don't the bishops reign down on them? Why doesn't ++Thomas Collins (Toronto Archdiocese) issue a press release against the IBVM for its support of the UN's stance on "reproductive health"? He was pretty speedy with issuing one during the H1N1 health scare fiasco. Why didn't +Donald Bolen (Saskatoon Diocese) prohibit Sr. Schachtel from preaching paganism to the CWL Regina chapter? Why isn't +Ronald Fabbro (London Diocese) reproving the CSJ for supporting the "womenpriest" cause? He sure was quick to pose for a photograph with his proportionalist friend Fr. Prieur in the National Post to give support when that controversy went down at St. Joseph's Hospital. Utter silence. It's improbable that Tom, Don and Ron are oblivious of these situations. Again, all the information is in plain sight, easily accessible, in the public domain for everyone to behold. Something sometimes coined the "World Wide Web" can be of investigative assistance, too. Logically, then, there are three explanations for this persistent silence. First, they don't care, apathy. Dealing with manifest heresy hardly warrants prioritization in the latest "pastoral plan". Or, second, they don't possess the Faith-inspiriting strength and endurance to make waves, to slam their fists down, to confront the prevailing Modernists, be it in the chancery office or elsewhere. Fear, cowardice or worry over implications seem to be the coefficients in this equation. Or, third, they regard the emergence of Catholic feminism, including its "womanpriest" concomitant, as a viable or valid development in Church doctrine. What are the other reasons? What's the problem? Imparting their rightful authority over the flock in the matter of manifest heresy is an uncomplicated task. Neither does it always necessitate the nuanced linguistic gymnastics afforded by a canonist advisor. Just do it... Disrespectful remarks on my part, you say? Doesn't matter. Because in the meantime... in the meantime, in the years and decades that elapse, scores of souls are being led astray, potentially lost permanently, as a result of bishop inaction. This is a cold, hard fact and any blowback against what was just said does not negate the actuality.

XVI. The aim of the Green Kit was to make women question their roles in the Church, to the point of rebelliousness. A seldom discussed approach used to achieve this aim was, by manipulation, to irremediably instill senses of discontent, frustration and rage. Now the historical revisionism and dilettante theologizing helped to make Catholic women suppose they had received degraded treatment from the Church for two millennia. Sure, they can read the books listed in the Green Kit and "understand" the theories in an educational context, that is, on a purely conceptual level. But was that enough? How do you actually infuse defiance? How do you make the notional really "sink in" and turn it into action? Answer: you screw with their heads. Fr. Alphonse de Valk explained:

It is only with programs such as the Green Kit, the women's discussion materials approved by the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB) on advice of an Ad Hoc Women's Committee, that they sometimes allow themselves to be drawn into story-telling sessions. These self-revelation sessions serve the same function and appear to have the same outcome as the self-examination, group therapy sessions of the period immediately following the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), namely the inducement of anger. These gatherings led a number of priests and nuns to abandon their vocations, presumably after discovering that the institutions to which they belonged were restrictive of their personalities.[28]

Father's mention of "group therapy sessions" after V2 is a reference to psychological experimentation conducted on religious communities in the late 1960s, fostered by the humanist psychotherapist Carl Rogers (1902-1987). He's primarily responsible for establishing the Cult of Feelings, so pervasive in modern culture. In case any readers don't know, Rogers was the inventor of such ideas as "human potential", the "inner child" and, yes, even "group hugs", including the "encounter group", popularly called "sensitivity training" today, common in workplaces where Political Correctness and Multiculturalism inform Human Resources personnel. This psychocrapology also largely explains the Oprah phenomenon and, perhaps, the sizeable readership of Ron Rolheiser's books and columns, let alone his influence at the parish level. The foundational technique Rogers and his cohorts wielded went by a number of names: "nondirective therapy", "therapy for normals", "values clarification", "client-centered therapy". Basically, it was a means of personality modification. Rogers described (notice the focus on the "self"):

The central hypothesis of this approach... is that the individual has within himself or herself vast resources of self-understanding, for altering his or her self-concept, attitudes and self-directed behavior - and that these resources can be tapped if only a definable climate of facilitative psychological attitudes can be provided.[29]

Tapped to what end? For it was the end results of Rogers' therapeutic technique that proved it to be a complete farce. One devastating example of its application involved 615 nuns of the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (IHM) in Los Angeles. With copious funding at his disposal, Rogers dispatched 60 "facilitators" to IHM, each nun being a "client". Sessions were set up into "encounter groups". Typically, no devotional/religious discussion was permitted. Instead, the nuns had "to be real", to focus on "the self". This, then, allowed for "openness", really meaning unrestricted and non-directed expressions of distress, loneliness and anger - minus any purposeful context for these emotional states (whatever the causation), as in sacrifices endured by Brides of Christ. "For constructive personality change to occur", Rogers wrote elsewhere, one prerequisite was that "the client" remain "in a state of incongruence, being vulnerable or anxious".[30] Indeed, it's pedestrian to psychologically manipulate someone if she be confused and thus susceptible. The "change" Rogers had in mind, however, was hardly "constructive" in a Catholic sense. In actuality, it was downright wicked. Nuns were freed from Church dogma, or any kind of rule or restraint. They were told that nothing is certain, no truths. These had to be "overcome". But, obviously, the Catholic Church is not a democracy and Jesus Christ is the Truth, so it can be confidently concluded that, in essence, Roger's therapy is opposed to Catholicism as such. There were also "touching exercises", which went against the near occasion of sin, custody of the eyes, chastity, and so forth. After one year of workshops/sessions, over half of the 615 IHM nuns requested Rome to leave their vows. Eventually 90% hit the road, even without petitioning for declaustration. Most of them became lesbians.

XVII. Other communities whereof Rogers and his "change agents" inflicted tremendous damage included the Sisters of Charity, Sisters of Providence (Seattle, WA), more in California like the Mercy Sisters of Burlingame, Dominicans of San Raphael, and Madames of the Sacred Heart in San Francisco. Male orders were not excluded either, like the Jesuits. In Santa Barbara, Rogers did his dirty deeds - certainly not for dirt cheap prices - at a Franciscan seminary, "leaving in his wake America's largest Catholic pedophilia scandal until the recent one".[31] Tallying up, thousands of religious from 35 countries, including Canada, came under the under the influence Roger's perverted form of psychology. So distraught over its after-effects, Rogers' former disciple William Coulson eventually fathomed the nefariousness inherent with Rogers' system and recanted. Thankfully - and to his credit, he's been writing and speaking in recent times, denouncing, rebutting, working to mend the harm.[32] Nonetheless, widespread psychological damage was wrought, not just within religious communities. Indeed, shades of Rogers' therapeutics are even in detected in modern Enneagram programs with their foolhearted attempts to analyze personality. The Gestalt psychiatrist Claudio Naranjo, popularizer of the Enneagram during the early 1970s and presently an emissary of the "Human Potential Movement", was so impactful that his ideas were embraced by some Jesuits.

XVIII. Let's now look at a Canadian example that shows the degree to which this trend of feelings-based, self-focussing psychologizing has had in making Catholic women believe they've suffered sexism and oppression by the Church for centuries. While preparing this post, this blogger came across a book by Maria Vlaemynck, called Pilgrim Woman, Pilgrim Church: The Journey of a Woman Becoming Free. The title itself is a giveaway in terms of its aspectual "consciousness-raising" and "storytelling", as encouraged by, for example, the Green Kit. That the publisher is Sheed & Ward, owned by The National Catholic Reporter Publishing Company, is another giveaway in terms of leftist leanings. Nonetheless, I skimmed through parts of the book with an open mind. Vlaemynck recounts her life as a child in Belgium, coming to Canada as an immigrant, her marriage, relationship with her husband, work experiences, the emotional ups and downs, retelling of her graduate studies at the Toronto School of Theology at St. Michael's College, including bursts of poetry. Not to infer there is anything untoward or strange about such autobiographies per se. Still, in the context of feminism it is a classic articulation of a "herstory" in that the entirety of traditional Catholicism is cast in a negative light, based chiefly on the extrapolation of a personal/singular life experience onto society as a whole - an exercise in self-projection, if you will. Publisher corroboration: the liner notes on the book's back cover reads "Her story is the church's story". Even though Vlaemynck writes buoyantly about for what she thinks feminism is achieving in the Church, the background tone nonetheless reams with disgruntlement.

XIX. My eyebrows raised upon discovering Vlaemynck attended the aforementioned 1986 "Women in the Church" conference in Washington, DC. So excited to be present, she shouted to a friend: "This reminds me of the 16th-century Reformation!" Get this, she was present at the address by Remi De Roo, a "certified Enneagram teacher", coincidentally. "What he [De Roo] did say was that once they [the Canadian bishops] had learned to listen to the anger, the pain, and the frustration of Canadian women they could no longer, in all fairness, ignore it". The defiance surfaces in a chapter entitled "Pushing Back the Boundaries":

Why should a Catholic woman not empathize with a reformer? Why should she not contest those who claim to speak for the whole of the Christian tradition when all and any one person or group can possibly contain at one time is a tiny bit of it? Why should she not be in accord with a revolutionary who was revolutionary only because he went back to his Christian roots? Luther, my love, where have you been all my life?... it was my immersion in the Reformation culture that taught me the value of a healthy suspicion and a critical stance toward authority... I strongly felt that the patriarchal system had not taken seriously the authority of women.[33]

Notice: she "strongly felt", not thought. Vlaemynck, at the time of publication (1991), was a member of the Catholic Network for Women's Equality.
                       
                         Muffin: TH2, why are you staring at me? Stop it. It's making feel uncomfortable.
                         TH2: Sorry, m'darlin. Can't help it. You're just so darn cute, so... so muffinlicious.

XX. Not going to go into too much historical detail on the Toronto-based CNWE here. The main thing to log into your memory is that its aim has always been "to work towards the full inclusion of women in all aspects of the daily life and structure of the church... including ordained ministries", as stated in its Constitution. When incepted in 1981, its (original) name was "Canadian Catholic's for Women's Ordination". The name changed to a less-specific, nebulous-sounding "Catholic Network for Women's Equality" in 1988, plausibly for reasons involving stealth (cf. para. IV). But don't be deceived by the acrobatics in nomenclature. These are hardcore feminists working to further destabilize an already weakened Church in Canada. That CNWE has been around for 30+ years demonstrates these dames got durability. There's even a kind of Faustian joie de vivre in the manner to which these hussies holler Non servium. As in, for example, a talk delivered for a conference at St. Thomas University in Fredericton, NB in 2007. Cathy Holtmann, Lecturer in the Department of Education and Religious Studies and Atlantic media contact for CNWE, entitled her address "Resistance is Beautiful: The growth of the CNWE in New Brunswick". It's no surprise that Ms. Holtmann is also a member of Development and Peace, the social justice arm of the CCCB. Speaking of the subversives at 2500 Don Reid Drive, Ms. Holtmann spoke approvingly: "The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB) had been at the forefront among the global Catholic hierarchy in calling the institution to transform itself in terms of gender equality from the early 1970s to the 1980s".[34] Which, I guess, is a fancy way of saying the bishops were browbeaten into submission by a bunch of lesbian feminists with a disinclination to shave their armpits.

XXI. An extremely important thing to know about CNWE, as an Enemy of the Faith in Canada, is its "go-between" function between muffins on the outside and muffins on the inside. CNWE is aligned with so-called "women's equality" movements globally, exhibiting its broad reach. Yet it also has a special sneakiness in that over the years it has managed to balance the fine line delineating external muffins from internal muffins. CNWE is a borderline dweller, acting as quasi-legitimatized intermediary, not "official" yet neither really "unofficial", which makes this organization all the more pernicious. To illustrate: it is common knowledge that left/progressive Catholics either ignore or promote abortion. So, that CNWE teams up with the pro-aborts at Catholic for Choice Canada,[35] a group of "mostly women", is really no shock. Like C4CC, Roman Catholic WomenPriests (RCWP) Canada is a fringe, radical, outsider group with no formal Catholic recognition. From my first post on the Muffins!, you might recall that RCWP member Michele Birch-Conery, along with others, was "ordained" a "womanpriest" on a boat in the St. Lawrence River in July 2005. That event immediately followed, and was directly associated with, the second international conference of Women's Ordination Worldwide (WOW), held just up the road in Ottawa. Incidentally, Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza and Rosemary Radford Ruether were keynote speakers. Who hosted the conference? The Catholic Network for Women's Equality. If you head on over to the RCWP Canada Facebook page you will read of its close association with CNWE: "We also invite supporters to join the Catholic Network for Women's Equality (CNWE), a Canadian network devoted to working for equality for women in all aspects of church and society". Nota bene: RCWP "womenpriests", including those that confer them "ordination", incur excommunication latae sententiae. This is serious matter, a delictum gravius, pronounced the Holy See - let alone CNWE's pro-abortion stance. Yet CNWE is still able to cooperate with RCWP without condemnation by bishops whatsoever. A search on my part turned up nothing of the sort. The silence continues and thus CNWE effectively becomes a "legitimate" Catholic body as it is able to interact with excommunicant muffins on the outside without hindrance. This "legitimacy" manifests in another mode because...

XXII. CNWE has ties with, and support from, muffins on the inside. That is, within the officialdom, or the Magic Circle more generally. Some evidentiary examples from over the years - Recall the outset: Editor at  the Prairie Messenger, "official Catholic newspaper for western Canada", published a pro-woman's ordination article by CNWE member Jocelyn Rait. Recall again: CNWE member Cathy Holtmann is permitted to be a lecturer at the supposedly Catholic University of St. Thomas in Fredericton, NB despite her feminist-inspired stance on women's ordination, being a member of a pro-abortion organization, plus making statements betraying an antagonism to culturally critical pro-life/moral issues: "Opposition to same-sex marriage, reproductive choice and stem cell research have come to dominate the Canadian bishops' agenda while the reality of women facing deepening poverty, dating and domestic violence, and trafficking are largely ignored".[36] This is disinformation as the exact opposite eventuated. Just go and peruse the roster of topics covered in press releases, communiqués, "pastoral letters" and reports issued by the CCCB over the past four decades and the trend will become apparent. In 1997 CNWE held its annual conference at Brescia College in London, Ontario. Brescia is run by the Ursuline Sisters and under the auspices of the London Diocese. Activities included a "sacred dance circle", New Age music, pagan worship rituals, "circle liturgy", "blindfolding to lose our inhibitions", "walking the labyrinth". A talk given by a certain Saundra Glynn criticized "Eucharistic euphoria" in the Church. "Keep up the good work, Saundra, you're pissing on all the right people", said an attending priest, evidently enthralled with the goings on.[37] 

XXIII. CNWE casts its net widely and has friends everywhere inside the Church. There are subtle hints of this even if you visit its website. Links to the New Catholic Times, the CCCB's agency Development and Peace, including  Citizens for Public Justice, headed by Joe Gunn, columnist for the Western Catholic Reporter, contributor to the Missal by Novalis Publishers, CCCB report writer. Again, the Magic Circle. One of the more disquieting things I discovered was that the prestigious St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto hosted CNWE's annual conference in 2010, even furnishing video teleconferencing for those muffins across the country unable to attend. A selection of post-retreat commentary: "we talked about reproductive choice", "we were disappointed more time wasn't devoted to the articles... by Joan Chittister", "the wonderful retreat liturgy provided words, music, movement and interactions",[38] as visualized in the below-embedded photographs taken at the "retreat"...

           Action... I got so much to give.
           I want to give it. I want to get some too.
           Ohhh I... I love the nightlife,
           I got to boogie... on the disco 'round, oh yea.
           Oh, I love the night life,
           I got to boogie... on the disco 'round, oh yea.
 

Now why would St. Michael's, "a Catholic teaching and research hospital", allow for a muffinfest on its premises? You would reasonably assume that, being Catholic, it would uphold Catholic values, like the preservation/protection of life in the womb. Yet it tolerated pro-abort CNWE feminists discussing "reproductive choice" and bastardizing sacred liturgy, however hilarious and illicit it was. Did St. Mike's do a background check? What this episode does indicate is the extent of ruin in Canadian Catholic institutions as a whole. Beyond my comprehension why the "retreat" was allowed. Perhaps indifference, hospital politics. Though I will dare to imagine that St. Mike's founding Sisters of St. Joseph (in 1892) are gazing down from beyond with unsmiling faces.

XXIV. As has been the case in modern times, the origination, dissemination, then popularization of insurrectionist ideas follow a regular pattern. It starts with the intellectuals - lecturing in the classrooms or in committees or at conferences or at small public gatherings - whose theories are then gathered and packaged by book publishers, soonafter embraced by the mainstream media, wherefrom editors, opinion columnists or just straightforward, unbiased (supposedly) reporting filter and simplify these theories for wider public consumption, via easily digestible catchphrases. Or even with a single graphical image whose signification encapsulates the theory in totality (called "memes" on the internet). More recently, television, radio and now the internet play their roles too and must be factored into this equation. Eventually, there comes a point when a culture fully assimilates whatever insurrectionist theory, actualizing it, enacting it, living it, proclaiming it, celebrating it, flaunting it, without even being cognizant of its malevolent origins. This is the story of Catholic feminism in Canada. Accordingly, it is now time to look at two examples of the interplay between Catholic universities, publishers and media.
 

XXV. Leaving aside the academe féministe in Quebec, in English-speaking Canada two hotbeds of feminist activity undoubtedly are St. Jerome's College (University of Waterloo, ON) and the Toronto School of Theology (St. Michael's/Regis Colleges). Today, a notable feminist Catholic voice is Cristina Vanin, at St. Jerome's. Her research interests revolve around "ecofeminist theology". An article called "Attaining Harmony with the Earth" pretty much yells cosmological pantheism. A sort of ontological-egalitarian equalizing of Nature, Man and God is intimated in the title of a talk she gave for the Lonergan Research Institute Seminar (at Regis College): "Polar Bears, My Children, and God: What I am Doing When I am Loving Them". Good grief. Two others: "Critical Feminist Theologies in Canada: Creating Our Own Arpilleras" and "Canadian Women's Religious Communities: Models of Contextual Ecological Justice" are essays included in two book compilations published by - here it comes again... Novalis. Of the second book, Feminist Theology with a Canadian Accent, a reviewer remarked: "If concepts such as neo-imperialism, neo-liberalism or phallocentricism are not part of your worldview this book will often prove alienating".[39] Vanin is also a columnist for New Catholic Times, and a graduate of St. Jerome's and St. Michael's College. As such, it's possible her feminist outlook came under the overarching influence of...

XXVI. Mary T. Malone, ex-nun and - the reader might recall - member of the CCCB Ad Hoc committee that prompted publication and distribution of the Green Kit. Malone had a stellar 30-year long career in writing and teaching "feminist theology" at St. Jerome's and the Toronto School of Theology, including seminaries! You will read all kinds of delightful things about her from the usual unreliable sources, like colleagues referring to her as "an internationally recognized theologian and historian". Then there was the reporting by omission. In May 2007, Art Babych, former chief reporter for the Canadian Catholic News (CCN) and past editor at the Prairie Messenger, provided detailed coverage of her feminist vision without mentioning her dissenting past, noteworthy one would think.[40] At the time Malone was promoting her book Praying with the Women Mystics (includes "prayer-poems", one entitled "Body Talk"). She's more so known for her three-volume series on Women and Christianity. These books distributed by - this is getting boring... Novalis. So, then, Malone is exalted by Magic Circle dwellers. But thank the good God we got the valiant Fr. Alphonse de Valk for sticking it to the establishment church. He cut to the chase:

...this feminist agitator had a fifteen-year-long career of attacking the Catholic Church. Finally, in 1995, she publicly [formally] apostatized from the Catholic faith [while in Ireland] and from Christian theism. She continued to teach at St. Jerome until this apostasy became known after the publication of a news item about her in Britain reached Canadian papers.[41]

At the time, she said: "I can no longer worship or pray because of the language, and because it seemed so essential as the core of the tradition that God be male".[42] Can't help but think that much of the basis for all her destructiveness was simply the result of feeling neglected by men. Anyway, public apostasy incurs excommunication (Canon 1364). Malone returned to Wexford, Ireland in 1998. She's gone. Devastation done. Bye bye. But that certainly doesn't mean there aren't any post-apostatic reverberations. Again, Novalis - Catholic "Canada's premier publisher of religious books, resources and periodicals" - is to this day disseminating Malone's dissent. Again, she returned to Canada, twice. In 2002, then in 2007. These, upon invitation from St. Paul University in Ottawa, likely instigated by cosmological eco-feminist extraordinaire Heather Eaton, whose writings are published by - rats!... Novalis. It was on International Women's Day, March 9, 2007, when Malone delivered an address to an approximate audience of 500 enchanted luvvies, at a Catholic/Pontifical university, worshipping at an altar presided over by an excommunicated, formally-declared apostate. Who says the Devil doesn't exist? Canadian Catholic feminism remains entrenched.

XXVII. We have just come full circle with Muffin Malone. So, let's hop back in the DeLorean, check the flux capacitor, and head back to 1984. That is, the time of her involvement with the CCCB Ad Hoc committee and the Green Kit. On record there is a revealing conversation at the time between Malone and Rosemary Radford Ruether, an American. The latter warned Malone: "Don't make the same mistake we did". Reportedly, Radford Ruether and company were only able to convince six or seven U.S. bishops to get with the feminist gig. "Work from the bottom up", she cautioned. Malone exploited that advice as member of the Ad Hoc committee and, late in 1984, the CCCB granted that the Green Kit be circulated "for the re-education of Catholic women in every parish but also formally endorsed a package of twelve feminist policy resolutions"...

Among other things, it calls for revision of Church teaching on marriage and sexuality "in light of recent cultural developments"; elimination of "sexist" ecclesial language; diocesan scholarship funds for laywoman training for Church "ministries"; diocesan committees to study "ministries of women"; affirmative action appointments of women to Church committees at every level, including a permanent member on the CCCB Pastoral Team.[43]

Explains a lot, eh? Donna Steichen again:

The North American bishops have shown in other circumstances that they are capable of brusqueness. However they justify it in their own consciences, during the past generation they have not only tolerated but enforced discrimination against the non-feminist majority of Catholic women, often poorly instructed but meaning to be faithful, trying to live their vocations against the stream of mounting feminist influence... Orthodox laywomen, disturbed about aberrant liturgical practices, spiritual direction, catechetics and sex education, have been either ignored or reproved for divisiveness. Meanwhile, women involved in the most egregiously offensive Catholic feminist activities have been given approval, a respectful ear if they want one and promotion in the religious bureaucracy.[44]

Tellingly, the Green Kit, like the Winnipeg Statement, is unlisted and unavailable for purchase on the publications department page at the CCCB website.


NOTES / REFERENCES

1. J. Rait, "An issue that won't cool down in autumn", Prairie Messenger, September 15, 2010. Bourgeois' laicization has recently been announced. See D. Sadowski, "Maryknoller dismissed from priesthood for supporting women's ordination", Catholic News Service, November 19, 2012.

2. J.B. Mays, "Enough already with women's ordination", Catholic Register, August 26, 2008.

3. Quoted/translated from É.J. Lacelle, "La théologie des signes des temps: du Concile à aujourd'hui", Culture et Foi, Round Table for the 50th anniversary of the convocation of Vatican II by John XXIII, Saint Paul University, March 16, 2009.

4. Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, With Respect to Women: A History of CCCB Initiatives Concerning Women in the Church and Society 1971-2000 (Ottawa: CCCB Publications, 2000), p. 17.

5. K. Toth, Book Review: "With Respect to Women: A History of CCCB Initiatives Concerning Women in the Church and Society 1971-2000", Catholic Insight, March 2001, vol. 9, no. 2.

6. Ibid. Cf. É.J. Lacelle, "Women in the Catholic Church of Canada," The Ecumenist, vol. 23, no. 4, May/June, 1985, pp. 49-54. Excommunicated ex-priest Gregory Baum founded The Ecumenist, a periodical published by Novalis.

7. Quoted in A. de Valk, "The sexual revolution, feminism and the churches: Part VIII", The Interim, July 1, 1987.

8. Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, Women in the Church,  Discussion Papers (Ottawa: CCCB Publishing Service, 1985).

9. C. Ferreira, The Feminist Agenda within the Catholic Church (Toronto: Life Ethics Centre, 1987). Available online.

10. Quoted from a interview with S. Bridle, "No Man's Land", EnlightenNext Magazine, Fall-Winter 1999, Issue 16.

11. See, for example, R. Pernoud, Those Terrible Middle Ages, Debunking the Myths (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2000), passim. Originally published in French in 1977.

12. P.B. Craine, "Disgraced Canadian prelate recounts heated exchanges with two popes", LifeSite News, November 8, 2012.

13. D. Todd, "A tale of two dioceses", The Vancouver Sun, August 2, 1997.

14. "Excerpt from Remi De Roo's New Book" and S. Bjorknas, "Vancouver Celebrates a New Priest and a New Vision of Being 'Church'", Island Catholic News, September 18, 2012, vol. 26, Issue 7, 8 & 9.

15. Cf. L. Dickson, "Debt-plagued diocese pays back faithful", Victoria Times-Colonist, November 15, 2006.

16. D. Steichen, Ungodly Rage: The Hidden Face of Catholic Feminism (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1991), p. 124.

17. Ibid., p. 135.

18. Ibid., pp. 136-137

19. Cf. S. McLuhan "Women for life, faith and family", The Interim, April 7, 1985.

20. Quoted in D.S. Szollosy, Stay With the One Crucified: Theology and Ecclesiology Represented in the Statements of Canadian Diocesan Social Justice Commissions (Master's Thesis, Faculty of Theology, University of St. Michael's College, Toronto, 2000), Appendix 3, p. 71.

21. CWL, Executive Handbook (Winnipeg, MB: The Catholic Women's League of Canada), March 2012, p. SD-28.
 
22. D. Steichen, op. cit., p. 359.

23. See D.A. Murray, "O Canada!", Adoremus Bulletin, September/October 2000, vol. VI, no. 6-7.

24. Quoted in "March of Women 2000 Makes For Strange Bedfellows", LifeSite News, October 19, 2000.

25. K. Toth, op. cit.

26. V. Scissons, "Earth's story is a sacred story", Prairie Messenger, May 19, 2010.

27. F. Flagel, "Regina CWL hears plea for stewardship of the earth", Prairie Messenger, May 5, 2010.

28. A. de Valk, op. cit.

29. C.R. Rogers, "A Client-Centered/Person-Centered Approach to Therapy" in eds. H. Kirschenbaum and V.L. Henderson, The Carl Rogers Reader (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1989), p. 135.

30. C.R. Rogers, "The necessary and sufficient conditions of therapeutic personality change", Journal of Consulting Psychology, April 1957, vol. 21, no. 2, pp. 95-103.

31. C. Caldwell, "Still Crazy After All These Years", Wall Street Journal, July 3, 2002.

32. See A. Carey, Sisters in Crisis: The Tragic Unraveling of Women's Religious Communities (Huntington, IN: Our Sunday Visitor Publication Division, 1997), pp. 126-129.

33. M. Vlaemynck, Pilgrim Woman, Pilgrim Church: The Journey of a Woman Becoming Free (Kansas City, MO: Sheed & Ward, 1991), pp. 165, 162, 157.

34.  C. Holtmann, "Resistance is Beautiful: The growth of the CNWE in New Brunswick", Town and Country: Exploring Urban and Rural Issues in New Brunswick, New Brunswick and Atlantic Studies Research Centre Conference, St. Thomas University, Fredericton, NB, June 2007, p. 2.

35. "Phony 'Catholic' Pro-Abortion Groups Support UNICEF Halloween Drive", LifeSite News, October 30, 2002.

36. C. Holtmann, "Exploring the Role and Influence of Catholic Feminism on the Liberal Arts Campus", International Conference on the Liberal Arts, St. Thomas University, Fredericton, NB, September/October 2010, p. 21.

37. L. Hennessy, "Strange Doings in London: Handful of Feminists Beat the Ritual Drum", Catholic Insight, October 1997, vol. V, no. 9.

38. "CNWE National Retreat and AGM Videoconference 2010", The Seed Keepers, Fall 2010, vol. 22, no. 1, pp. 4-7. A newsletter of CNWE.

39. S. Morris, "Dialogue is One Way", Catholic Register, August 26, 2008.

40. A. de Valk, "Mary Malone, again", Catholic Insight, May 2007, vol. XIV, no. 5.

41. A. de Valk, "Mary Malone (News in Brief)", Catholic Insight, September 2002, vol. IX, no. 8, p. 36.

42. Quoted in "Church needs to give women 'a public voice' or face collapse", Ottawa Citizen, March 9, 2007.

43. Quoted in D. Steichen, op. cit., pp. 359-360.

44. Ibid., p. 372.

MUFFINS GALORE !