Last week, local newspapers reported, and I blogged about a schismatic Traditionalist group was going to rent a closed Catholic church from the company that bought it from the Archdiocese of Boston, creating a situation which looks like it is confusing former parishioners who might end up being taken in by this group. But I’ve since found that this group also goes by another name that may be fooling some people in the archdiocese to trust them.
The Archdiocese of Boston released a statement that clearly said that the group, the Willing Shepherds of Jesus Christ, are not “a Roman Catholic organization.”
The Willing Shepherds of Jesus Christ organization is in no way associated with The Roman Catholic Church, The Catholic Order of Preachers (the Dominicans) and the Roman Catholic Third Order of Saint Dominic. The Willing Shepherds of Jesus Christ organization has no ecclesial sanction from the Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, or from the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Boston, Cardinal Seán P. O’Malley, OFM Cap.
The Roman Catholic faithful should know that participation in religious services or catechetical activities organized by the Willing Shepherds of Jesus Christ is not recognized or authorized by the Roman Catholic Church.
And then the group released its own statement in reply, which goes on and on, but clearly says they are sedevacantists who believe there is not a validly elected Pope, and the usual blather about Vatican II and modernism and heresy and rejecting the validity of the Novus Ordo Mass.
What is ironic is that, I have learned, the Willing Shepherds of Jesus Christ is just another name for the Community of Hope, a group of young adult men and women, many of whom live in community, which has conducted Confirmation retreats throughout the Archdiocese of Boston. If you look at the domain name registration information both web sites, you will find that same person and same business address. Upon further inquiries, I’ve learned from people close to the group that they are indeed the same.
I hope that the archdiocese will follow up on its statement that the Willing Shepherds are not a Roman Catholic organization by instructing all pastors and religious education directors and youth ministers not to allow this group to have access to the children.
Error should be rejected, whether it’s modernist heterodox nonsense or schismatic retrograde nonsense. And by that I don’t mean that all Traditionalists are schismatic or full of nonsense, only sedevacantists and their ilk who reject the Church’s teachings and the authority of the Pope and the bishops in union with him.
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There are as many problems on the right as there are on the left. Catholics cannot assume that just because a group appears to represent a return to orthodoxy, that they in fact do so. The present state of confusion in the Church is diabolical.
Interesting. My wife has been making Rosaries and sending them to the Community of Hope for some time.
Dom, is there hard evidence that the CoH in indeed the WSJC? We currently have them scheduled for a Confirmation retreat next month.
Apart from the domain name information? Yes, there is. Email me directly if you want more info.
Compare these two pages:
http://www.communityofhopeinc.org/prayerline.html
http://willingshepherds.com/Catholicism 101.htm
Someone appears to be cozy with someone!
Joe, why don’t you or your pastor call CoH to check?
The group’s reinvention as a “Dominican fraternity” suggests that they’re aligned with the Thuc-line sedevacantist bishop Robert McKenna, O.P.; that would explain the rad-trad ideology which has been influencing them for the past couple of years.