Fr. Corapi's Change of Life

Well, it appears Fr. Corapi has left the priesthood.

For what it's worth, I've known people in similar situations and Fr. Corapi does accurately describe the process:

1. The identity of the accuser is not revealed. You can guess, but you don’t actually know. Nor are the exact allegations made known to you. Hence, you have an interesting situation of having to respond to an unknown accuser making unknown accusations (unknown to the accused and his counsel).

2. The persons chosen to investigate the allegations normally have no qualifications to do so. They certainly didn’t graduate from the FBI academy, nor do they have any other background to qualify them to interrogate or otherwise interview witnesses.

3. There are no set rules of evidence or norms of procedure.

4. You are for all practical purposes assumed guilty until you can prove you are innocent. This one is truly baffling. No civilized society operates that way. If you are accused of something you are considered innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

5. The accused and his counsel have no right to obtain and review any of the evidence against him.

6. The accused and his counsel are not provided the names of witnesses, nor are they permitted to cross-examine them.

What Fr. Corapi describes is the standard inquisitional process (i.e. the court process) used by the Church for at least 1000 years. Every one of those six points accurately describes how every Catholic inquisition has always been run, except he's supposed to have the opportunity to list his enemies, so that their testimony can be discounted. Apart from that, he's pretty accurately describing his situation.

The only people who are shocked by his description are those who don't know how the Inquisition works. Fr. Corapi is, or rather was, apparently one of those people. He isn't anymore, of course, but the process by which his illusions were stripped away was clearly unpleasant.

Ignorant people who claim Fr. Corapi is sliming his opponents simply don't understand how the process works. They mistake facts for caricatures.

Similarly, mean-spirited people claim Fr. Corapi shows a "snarling tone" towards bishops. Sorry, but I don't see that he does. Again, he simply and accurately describes the facts: the bishop has made up his mind. The bishop's time is valuable. So is yours. Arguing with, or complaining, to the bishop isn't going to change anything. These are irrefutable facts.

His solution is rather extreme, and I don't know that I would do the same thing in his position, but I certainly can understand why he chose this solution.

He's not leaving the Catholic Church, he's just leaving an absolutely untenable situation.
When Padre Pio was faced with a similar situation of baseless accusations, he simply accepted it: suspension for ten years.

Ten years of no public Mass, no hearing confession, no public preaching.

Until he was eventually exonerated when his accusers admitted they had lied.

Fr. Corapi is obviously not Padre Pio.

On the other hand, his solution does not indicate guilt.

It does indicate frustration - extreme frustration.

From an American perspective, understandable frustration.

Pray for all those in the situation.

UPDATE:

Some people have asked me whether this post constitutes support for Fr. Corapi.

No, it isn't meant to be support, exactly.

Fr. Corapi has long had financial dealings that I find distasteful. But, heck, I find the financial dealings of most of the well-known people involved in Catholic ministry distasteful: Pat Madrid, Mark Shea, Amy Welborn, Scott Hahn, Alan Napleton, Chris West, Fr. Corapi, etc., are all cut from basically the same cloth as Maciel when it comes to money.

They want it.

The Catholic Faith pays their mortgages.

Some are more sharks than others, but the differences between them are differences of degree, not really of kind.

Is Fr. Corapi going to lead a large number of Catholics away from the Faith?

Maybe... insofar as ANY public Catholic treats a situation badly, that Catholic is likely to lead people away from the Faith.

If you want the Faith pure, without this mess to deal with, read Catholics who are dead and whose writings are approved: the Fathers, Doctors and saints of the Church.

If you are going to dabble with the work of the living, then at some point, you'll face the dilemma Fr. Corapi poses.

To his credit, Corapi is not like Chris West, who is clearly teaching heresy, or Scott Hahn, who has clearly taught problematic things (the Holy Spirit is the feminine). He's more like Mark Shea or Amy Welborn or Matt Pinto or Alan Napleton - always looking to turn a buck.

I don't have a good answer as to whether he's right or wrong, good or bad, true or deceptive.

Wish I could be more help, but there you go.

All I can say is Fr. Corapi has not taken the course that saints before him have taken.

That is a legitimate cause for concern to any Catholic.

Insatiable

Have you ever suddenly noticed that you're always hearing the same words, no matter what the subject is?

It's kind of spooky.

And vaguely... unsatisfying....

Fri Apr-18-08

There are people in this country that have their minds made up regarding Obama. Not rational people. The people that want to bring up Jeremiah Write (sic), or "bittergate" or flag pins. They will never be satisfied with anything Obama has to say.

08-27-09 05:12 AM

Gibbs: Obama Will Never Satisfy The 'Birthers'

"Nothing will assuage them," the press secretary added. "But there are 10,000 more important issues for people in this country to discuss."

"Like violations of the constitution," longtime White House correspondent Helen Thomas interjected. Gibbs ignored her.

July 24, 2010

Can Barack Obama Ever Be Enough to Satisfy Us?

From the time that Barack Obama campaigned for the Democratic Nomination for President to a year and a half into his Presidency, he has been hammered by the GOP, the media, big corporations, the Tea Party and even some Democrats for not being enough. Every day there is an attack on Obama for never being enough of something. Can we ever be satisfied?

January 07, 2011

MARK LEIBOVICH: Gibbs has been not as combative as he was during the campaign. There were a few memorable things. I mean, there was an episode when he told Sam Youngman of The Hill that the White House was frustrated with what Gibbs called the “professional left,” the liberals in the Democratic Party who were never satisfied by any Obama administration agenda.

March 28, 2011

Libya intervention: Obama's speech won't quiet the critics

May 11, 2011

EL PASO, Texas (AP) -- President Barack Obama yesterday stood at the U.S.-Mexico border and declared it more secure than ever. He mocked Republicans for blocking immigration over border security alone, saying they won't be happy until they get a moat with alligators along the border. "They'll never be satisfied," he said. Obama wants Congress to pass legislation providing a pathway to citizenship for 11 million illegal immigrants.

May 23 2011

Will American Jews Abandon Obama Over Israel?

But Zionists are never satisfied until a president warps the Israeli flag of occupation around his neck. Obama has not done that...yet, but give it time, the election is alone around the corner.

27 April 2011

Sure, I agree that the "debate" over this "issue" has taken much of the media focus off of legitimate issues like the federal budget. But caving into the demands of the birthers seems, to me, to be a big sign of weakness.

The ridiculousness of this action aside, I submit to you that the birthers will not be satisfied.

How's That Workin' For Ya?

You know, Jews have a reputation for being very smart people.
And they are very smart people.

Per capita, men and women of Jewish heritage have won more Nobel prizes than all other groups put together. Their culture prizes study, honors learned persons, and is in all ways a culture that is intellectual and refined.

They understand the world and how to advance in it.

And that is why the Jews will never be able to solve the problem Israel poses.

The problem is summed up very nicely in this exchange:

“What about the Palestinians here?” I said. “You say Jews should be able to live in Judea, but most people who live here are Arabs.”

“There have a right to live here, as well,” she said. “I think they can gain a lot more from living in peace with us than they can by waging war against us. I hope that one day they understand that because we’re not going anywhere. I want to live in a world where Arabs don’t want to kill me, not because they love Jews but because it doesn’t advance their own interests. I want to live in a world where they think about what’s good for them rather than what’s bad for me.”

Did you see it?
If you did, you're doing well.
The reporter in the conversation missed it entirely.

It's the dog that doesn't bark - it's the perspective which an intellectual, a cultured, a successful person would never express because it never occurs to them to hold it.

What if "Arabs" - and notice, the woman even said "Arabs", although that's clearly NOT what she meant - are confident that the death of the Jews is good for them?

Now, why would they think that?

Well, let's go back to her little faux pas: the "Arabs."
That's an absurdity.
This woman isn't afraid of "Arabs" nor are "Arabs" trying to kill her.

People from Indonesia want her just as dead.
So do people from India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Jordan, Syria, Egypt, and, for that matter, America.

What do all these people have in common?
Hint: it isn't their "Arab-ness".

Christian Arabs, Hindu Arabs, Buddhist Arabs, Jewish Arabs, atheist Arabs, none of these people want to kill Jews.

So what is the common denominator?
Dare we say it?
Yes, we dare.

It is the Muslims who want the Jews dead and Israel destroyed.

Not all Arabs are Muslim.
Not all Muslims are Arab.

It is the Muslim point of view that is deadly to her, not the Arab point of view.
From the Muslim point of view, Muslims gain eternal salvation by killing Jews and wiping Israel off the face of the map.

But cultured, refined, successful, intellectuals (read "atheists") never even conceive the possibility that there are people in their conversation who really, really DO hold a different worldview than they do. They think that, ultimately, everyone really thinks like them, and all that has to happen is you joggle them around until they admit it.

All right-thinking people think like them, and wrong-thinking people are only prevented from thinking like them by unhappy circumstance.

They can prove it.
They can point to Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and Freud and Darwin, genetics studies, computer simulations, game theory, psychology, sociology, smooth histories written by buttery scholars who prove without question that mankind has always been driven essentially by economics or biology or a bit of rancid butter they had for lunch.

Everyone knows that real politicians, serious politicians, the kind of rulers who fisticuff their way into power, these people don't buy into any of this God stuff, this religious clap-trap, this airy-fairy salvation nonsense.

And this failure to understand the importance of salvation in the Muslim mindset resides precisely in the fact that even Orthodox Jews, even religious Jews, even really serious Jews, don't really spend a lot of time thinking about the afterlife.

As Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz points out, Jewish scholars agree on two things: (1) that Sodom and Gomorrha was wiped out due to lack of hospitality towards each other and (2) all the Jews in Sodom and Gomorrha attained heaven, where they dwell with the rest of the Chosen People. If the Jews don't worry about salvation, why would anyone else?

They literally can't conceive what the problem might be. We're nice to you, if you'll just be nice to us, everything will work out fine.

"I want to live in a world where Arabs don’t want to kill me, not because they love Jews but because it doesn’t advance their own interests. I want to live in a world where they think about what’s good for them rather than what’s bad for me.”

Honey, you should be happy.

That's exactly what you've lived since 1948.
That's exactly where you live right now.

How's that workin' for ya'?