On the heels of my post about Church Militant’s work exposing the “gay mafia” in the New York Archdiocese, I offer you this bit of bright light in the darkness. Retired Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz of Lincoln, Nebraska, has never been known for being quiet about his opinions. During his time, he was seen by “conservative” Catholics (not traditionalists, per se) as the best hope for American Catholicism.
Bishop Bruskewitz took time for a sit down with LifeSiteNews‘ John-Henry Westen, and tackled the larger issue of what the homosexual agenda is doing to the Church. It’s refreshing to hear a bishop, retired or not, speak about evil in no uncertain terms:
Bishop Bruskewitz, considered by many as a hero in defense of Catholic orthodoxy amidst the upheavals in the Church in recent decades, called the push for the acceptance of homosexuality in the U.S. “devastating.”
“I can’t believe that a tiny minority of the human race would perpetuate and try to, not just seek tolerance, but actually seek acquiescence and support for a perversion that is repulsive to normal human beings,” he said.
The Catholic Church teaches that homosexual acts are always wrong because they are “contrary to the natural law” and therefore “intrinsically disordered.” The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that such acts “close the sexual act to the gift of life” and they “do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity.” Numerous Christians hold that they are loving homosexuals when they warn them about the dangers to both body and spirit that accompanies homosexual behaviors.
Bishop Bruskewitz called it “preposterous” that folks are buying the argument that the relationship of two men or two women who put organs into the wrong orifice should be made into a matter of “human rights or racial justice” and be equated with a sexual relationship between a man and woman that produces children.
“But how can [this] link in the minds of manipulatable human beings? Well, that’s the case. And, if you dare to speak out, you are a bigot,” he said.
He said that the persecution against Christians will especially come swiftly to government-run institutions such as the military, where the government will more easily be able to enforce its sexual ideology.
“There are military chaplains, those who administer the ordinariate of the military in our country, who are fearful about what is going to happen if two lesbians, who claim to be Catholic, come in and insist that they be married by the Catholic chaplain. If he refuses, it is entirely possible that he will be court-martialed and have to spend 40 or 50 years in Leavenworth penitentiary.”
“So these persecutions are in the offing. And I think that they’re not going to go away. And the minute that one tries to protest, they are denounced as a bigot, and as a racist, and God knows what else sort of things are heaped upon you. So that’s the danger of the persecution. So I think it’s probably coming,” he said.
Particularly endearing him to my heart is his willingness to confront the disastrous comments of Archbishop Cupich:
The bishop suggested that the attacks are not only coming from without the Church, but also from within. He mentioned Chicago Archbishop Blase Cupich by name as someone who he said publicly holds “mistaken” views on Church teaching that are leading Catholics into error. The archbishop had put forward arguments last year that divorced and remarried Catholics, as well as homosexuals (here and here), should be able to decide for themselves according to their own consciences if they want to receive Holy Communion.
“I think Archbishop Cupich is mistaken in giving that kind of sovereignty to conscience. Conscience is the supreme subjective criteria for morality. But, there is an objective criteria for morality, as well. And, it’s the duty of those who inform consciences — including those who form their own consciences — to conform their consciences to the objective norm of morality, which is God’s natural law written into the human heart – the laws which God has revealed in Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition, the laws of the Church.”
“The law is the measure of objective morality. And there is such a thing as objective morality, otherwise, we fall into complete relativism and the nonsense that Pope Benedict XVI spoke against when he talked about the despotism and tyranny of relativism.”
“No, conscience does not have that kind of solipsism, or narcissism — if you want to call it that — that would allow one to say, ‘I follow my conscience and I can do whatever I want.’ That is not correct any more than saying, ‘2 and 2 are 5 because that is what I think it should be,’” he said.
He also believes that the laity must confront error in the Church:
“I think laypeople perhaps have more of a role to play then they might expect in this catastrophic degeneration of our culture and our civilization in this 21st-century,”
There’s a video and a more to this fantastic interview, including his thoughts on communion being given to unrepentant sinners. You can see the whole thing here.
