Dear Friends of the Kolbe Center,
Pax Christi!
I am writing to you from Albuquerque, New Mexico, where Dr. Kevin Mark, Dr. Thomas Seiler (via Skype) and I gave a seminar on the campus of the University of Mexico yesterday. Prior to yesterday's seminar, biologist Miss Pamela Acker, Mr. Edward Bagonza from Uganda, and I had given presentations in St. Mary's, Kansas, before Edward and I dropped Pamela at the airport and gave presentations in Kansas City, Missouri, and Littleton, Colorado, before driving from Littleton, Colorado, to Albuquerque, New Mexico, to pick up Dr. Kevin Mark, the head of the Kolbe Center in Canada. From there we drove to Mora, New Mexico, for a two-day seminar at the parish of St. Gertrude the Great, led by two wonderful priests of the Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity, before finally arriving in Albuquerque for yesterday's seminar.
Our seminar on the UNM campus was poorly attended, but Our Lord has shown us over and over again that He is not interested in crowds, but in souls. In this instance, we were blessed by the presence of Fr. Stephen Imbarrato, of Red Rose Rescue fame, who offered opening and closing prayers and attended most of the seminar. Fr. Imbarrato has become an enthusiastic champion of the traditional Catholic doctrine of creation, and he now promotes the work of the Kolbe Center whenever he can. Deo gratias! I encourage readers of this newsletter to read his testimony at this link.
The last talk at yesterday's seminar was entitled "Clergy Abuse: Cause and Cure," in which we made the argument laid out in the article of the same name published in the Journal of the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars in Canada that clergy sexual abuse had its roots in theological abuse of future bishops and priests. Indeed, this theological abuse began in the 20's and 30's, and accelerated in the 40's and 50's, as generations of seminarians were taught that Genesis 1-11 was a myth, that the Church had been wrong in her teaching on creation, that the Bible was not inerrant except in matters of faith and morals, and that human science had "enlightened" Church leaders so that they could finally interpret Genesis correctly and understand how God actually brought the first human beings into existence.
This false teaching inverted the right order of knowledge, elevating fallible human science above the Church's teaching on faith and morals as it had been handed down from the Apostles. Once this theological abuse of future priests and bishops had been accomplished, it was easy for the devil to dupe many of those charged with the direction and formation of future priests into embracing the evolution-based pseudo-science of Freud, Kinsey, and their disciples, thus creating a "scientific" rationale for giving into the temptations against chastity that the devil and his minions have always used to attack priests, religious, and seminarians.
During the question and answer session at the end of the seminar, a distraught gentleman said that he felt cheated because I hadn't given the "cure" for clergy abuse. I told him that I had revealed the cause and the cure for clergy sexual abuse, and that when the Church leadership restored the traditional doctrine of creation and the sacred history of Genesis as the foundation of the Faith, future bishops, priests, and lay faithful would once again acquire that "fear of the Lord" that is "the beginning of wisdom" and the grace to resist the temptations that evolution-based modernism makes appear so harmless and reasonable. The distraught gentleman insisted that we were not being faithful to Genesis because God had created "one man for one woman for life from the beginning" and that this showed that the "solution" to clergy sexual abuse was to allow priests to marry. Fr. Imbarrato intervened at this point and helped the distraught gentleman to understand that the Church has never allowed priests to marry and that what he must be advocating was that married men should be allowed to be ordained priests. When I attempted to explain that the Church had always exalted consecrated virginity in priests and religious above the holiness of the married state, even in those times and places where She has allowed married men to be ordained to the priesthood, he walked out, insisting that we were not being faithful to Genesis, because God had created "one man for one woman for life from the beginning of Creation."
If only the gentleman had stayed on, by God's grace we might have helped him to see that "one man for one woman for life" could only have been the rule for everyone if the Original Sin had never taken place, but that we live in a fallen world in which the vocation to the celibate priesthood or religious life is the highest vocation and the one most conducive to the highest sanctity. Indeed, in his magnificent essay on "The Perfection of Our First Parents According to St. Thomas Aquinas," Fr. Thomas Crean, O.P., explains the teaching of the Angelic Doctor on this topic:
Part of the perfection of the human species, of course, is that it should exist both as male and female. So the angelic doctor writes: "Just as the diverse grades of things pertain to the perfection of the universe, so the diversity of sex pertains to the perfection of human nature." Similarly he argues that an equal number of male and female children would have been born if mankind had remained unfallen, so that all those unfallen human beings would have exercised their power to procreate, monogamy of course being assumed.
Please join me in praying a Memorare that our distraught friend will not - in the words of some dear priest-friends - allow those who have committed spiritual murder to drive him to commit spiritual suicide. Indeed, the presentation on "Clergy Abuse: Cause and Cure" underscored the often-neglected truth, that the first Victim of sexual abuse is always Our Lord Jesus Christ, since He suffers with and for the victimizer and the victim in every act of abuse, going so far as to give Himself into the hands of His priests on the altar, even when they have polluted them with the most heinous crimes against the most vulnerable of His children. Let us pray that our distraught friend and those who share in his frantic disorientation, will realize that Our Lord Jesus Christ will never leave His Church, no matter how sinful His representatives may be, and that to abandon His Church is not only to commit spiritual suicide but to inflict yet another wound on the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
With gratitude for all of your prayers and support, I am
Yours in Christ through the Immaculata,
Hugh Owen
P.S. We are formulating a plan for a dramatic outreach to the public near the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., on Sunday afternoon, May 19, to expose the evolution fraud and to proclaim the truth of Creation and of Our Lord's Life-giving Passion, Death and Resurrection. If any of our readers would be willing and able to come to Washington, D.C. for a day or two in May to participate in this project, please send me an email at howen@shentel.net If you live too far away to commute to the venue but would like to participate, we can find you a place to stay at our home in Virginia or with another family closer to Washington, D.C. We will need at least a dozen volunteers to justify obtaining the necessary permit from the Department of the Interior so that we can carry out our plan successfully.
P.P.S. Our sixth annual leadership retreat will take place at St. Anne Retreat Center in Melbourne, Kentucky, from June 16 to June 22. The retreat is open to all Catholics (and their families) who are committed to advancing the mission of the Kolbe Center in their spheres of influence. If you would like more information about the schedule, facilities, and suggested donations for the retreat, please email me as soon as possible at howen@shentel.net.
