Much has changed in the once-blue-collar neighborhood of Locust Point in South Baltimore. Factories have made way for pricey developments, watering holes have been displaced by upscale eateries.
But the edifice on Fort Avenue, Our Lady of Good Counsel, has stood unaltered, long a pillar for the area’s Catholics. Down the street is the Episcopal Church of the Redemption. A few blocks away is the Christ United Church of Christ, better known as the German Lutheran church.
For more than 100 years, congregants from these three churches have gone to one another’s dinners and carnivals, attended funerals and weddings together, and collaborated on bake sales and bingo nights.
So the news yesterday that the Rev. Ray Martin, pastor of Our Lady of Good Counsel, was forced to resign for offenses that included officiating at a funeral Mass with an Episcopal priest, was met with outrage. Community members of all faiths decried Archbishop Edwin F. O’Brien’s action and vowed to protest, noting how sharply it seemed to break from the emphasis on religious tolerance by his predecessor, Cardinal William H. Keeler.
“Locust Point was ecumenical before it was kosher to be,” said Joyce Bauerle, 65, who attends the Church of the Redemption. “The three churches have always worked together. We do dinners together. We work at their church. They work at our church. Christmas bazaars, Easter bazaars, we always help each other.
“This is just a big slap in the face to this whole community,” she said yesterday. “We’re appalled by this.”
What a fluff piece. I find it odd you included it here, Doctor. [blockquote] Caine stressed that Martin’s other offenses were equally serious and included hiring a maintenance man who had criminal charges on his record. Martin was told to dismiss the employee on Oct. 2, and hadn’t done so by Nov. 2, Caine said. “He failed to follow the hiring and screening policies of the archdiocese.”
Other offenses included allowing his dogs in the sanctuary, not showing up for scheduled events and poor administration, said Caine.[/blockquote]
And then the article ends with some some old biddies offerning some amazingly pedantic and assinine comments on par with “Well at least we don’t kick puppies!”
Who am I to judge whether or not the Bishop was fair or heavy handed, there are still consequences for disobedience.
God bless Archbishop Edwin. A true servant of Christ and his Church.
I think these folks need to learn the difference between ecumenism and sycretism and/or heresy.
If interested in this story, I strongly recommend reading Terry Mattingly’s comments here:
http://tinyurl.com/29mynx
Three cheers for the archbishop. Only Catholic deacons (or in one’s absence, a Catholic priest) are supposed to read the Gospel at a Catholic Mass. And, of course the Baltimore Sun’s article had the usual anti-Catholic leadership spin.
I wonder if that newspaper would keep in its employ someone hired as a science columnist who regularly ignored his editors request that he stay on topic and stop writing sports columns. There is nothing the anti-Catholic secular media wants more than for the anarchy afflicting the Episcopal Church to start tearing apart the Catholic Church.
What? A Catholic priest was expected to follow the faith and cannons of the Catholic Church?
What? A Catholic bishop took action when he did not?
Is outrage! What are things coming to! Next thing you know he will be told that he cannot adlib prayers of the Mass!
[url=http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/bal-te.md.issues13jul13,0,7727631.story]O’Brien brings conservative stance toward gays[/url]
There a new sheriff in town folks and unlike Fr. Martin he’s not here to wonder why canon laws “exist”, he’s here to abide by them and see his priests do likewise. Since Fr Martin was ordained at such a late age they assumed wrongly that he was mature. A nice sabbatical baking bread in a monastery followed by 2 or 3 years under an old time monsignor in a small parish somewhere outside Topeka should straighten him out fine.
To those in Baltimore who think a priest is “ours” I would start making the bake goods for his going away supper. It’s the last chance you will get to talk with him for awhile I would think.
If anybody knows Father Martin and we do, it’s quite clear this is no faithful man of the Roman Church.
[i] Remaining comments against Fr. Martin deleted by elf as unnecessary.[/i]
I like how the detail that he failed to meet with his bishop when ordered is gently tucked away in the article…
When the rest of us working stiffs miss appointments with the boss – or outright refuse to go meet with him when ordered to do so there is a simple word for us: unemployed.