A Canadian archbishop has agreed to accept an award from a
dissident U.S. Catholic group tonight for his work in promoting female
deacons within the Catholic Church during the 2015 Family Synod in Rome.
Archbishop
Paul-André Durocher of the Gatineau diocese in Quebec will receive the
award from FutureChurch for what the group called his “visionary
proposal during the 2015 Family Synod in Rome calling on bishops to
discuss women deacons and expand leadership for women in the Church
including greater opportunities for preaching."
"Archbishop
Durocher's leadership deserves recognition because he calls the Church
to fully recognize and engage women's gifts, ministries and leadership, a
key component of FutureChurch’s mission," stated FutureChurch executive
director Deborah Rose-Milavec in a press release.
The
Archbishop is set to join the FutureChurch ceremony via Skype to accept
the “Father Louis J. Trivison Award” and to share with the group his
ongoing efforts to make his synod proposals a reality.
Durocher confirmed to the dissident National Catholic Reporter (NCR) yesterday that he will be accepting the award.
"I
know that I am being given this award because of my intervention at the
Synod last October inviting my brother bishops to study the question of
women being ordained to the permanent diaconate," Durocher told the NCR
yesterday.
"This
was one of a few proposals I made to recognize the gifts that women can
bring to leadership and teaching functions within the Church. The heart
of my intervention considered the ongoing violence perpetrated by men
against their spouses in a conjugal relationship,” he added.
FutureChurch,
founded in Ohio in the early 1990s, aims to “reinvent” the Church from
the ground up by “re-convert[ing]” people to what the group’s vision for
the “future of the Catholic Church.”
FutureChurch and its leaders have
advanced views that contradict basic teachings of the Catholic Church on
various issues:
- The consecrated bread and wine are not the body and blood of Jesus Christ, but the “real presence” is the people themselves.
- Civilly divorced and remarried Catholics living in adultery should be able to receive Holy Communion.
- The Church should open the priesthood to women as well as married men.
- Christ did not give magisterial authority to Peter or any pope, but to all the baptized.
- Sacred Scripture contains moral and theological errors that need to be purged, such as the Old and New Testament condemnations of homosexuality.
- The conscience must be given primacy in “deciding issues of sexual morality…and in all moral decision making.”
- Homosexuality, same-sex “marriage,” contraception should be allowed.
- Mixes elements of New Age occultism into religious services.
LifeSiteNews
called and e-mailed Archbishop Durocher to ask why he thinks it
important to be honored by a group at odds with Church teaching, but did
not receive a response.
Following
the Archbishop’s reception of the award, the event will feature a
keynote address by Father Charles Curran, who famously joined a revolt
among U.S. theologians against Humanae Vitae in 1968.
Curran has been investigated by the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith
for his public condemnations of the Church’s teachings on matters such
as abortion, contraception, and homosexuality.
This month Fr. Curran signed his name to a statement demanding that the Church reverse its teaching against contraception found in Humanae Vitae.
The conference promotional materials say Curran will reflect on Amoris Laetitia and the role of conscience for Catholics today.