A former professor of liturgy at Chicago's Catholic Theological Union, Sister Hughes is the newly-elected Provincial of the Religious Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the author of several books, including Silent Voices, Sacred Lives of which I feel impelled to remark that if these ladies only could be silenced, the whole Church would be better off.  http://www.docstoc.com/docs/23726149/The-Madeleva-Lectures-in-Spirituality"  Note:  other feminist theologians that signed this decree were Sr. Joan Chittister and Sr. Monica Hellwig.  Google them using “dissent” “heterodox” or “liberal” and you will come up with many hits.

  Former Sr. Maria Harris (deceased) husband- former Brother Gabriel Moran

The Madeleva Manifesto "    http://www.cta-usa.org/reprint07-00/theologians.html"

   http://www.docstoc.com/docs/23726149/The-Madeleva-Lectures-in-Spirituality

Ms. Harris was a member of “Call to Action”  as is her husband.

*Note:  other feminist theologians that signed this decree were Sr. Joan Chittister and Sr. Monica Hellwig.  Google them using “dissent” “heterodox” or “liberal”  or “feminist theology” and you will come up with several pages hits.

Unitarian Universalists of America:     http://www.uua.org/documents/recc/reader_curriculum_guide.pdf"

Unitarian Universalists of America:      http://online.sksm.edu/Syllabi/IntroToLiberalRE.FinalSyllab011410.Spr10.pdf

Read the entire article--       http://www.uuroanoke.org/sermon/050710Source2.htm

Iimplicit theology and null theology        http://liberalfaith.blogspot.com/2005/12/implicit-and-explicit-theologies-part.html"

This article is excellent--names the promoters of the liberal religious education /whole community catechesis/shared praxis movement.  Note paragraph three: " http://www.losangelesmission.com/ed/articles/2006/0606ds.htm"

From Amy Welborn’s Blog: (Zhou’s Comments)

“Young Catholics languish in ignorance because no one ever taught them the content of the faith. Many of those who are old enough to have been catechized in pre-conciliar times are now uncertain whether the Church still holds as true the tenets they learned in their youth, because they have heard those beliefs mentioned so seldome--if ever--during the past 30 years. Hispanic Americans, unsatisfied by what they are taught in Catholic parishes, are streaming out to hear Jesus preached in evangelical churches. As measured by public behaviors and attitudes, Catholic sexual morality is no better than that of any other group, and worse than some.  Can this wasteland be restored? If reform is possible, the first step must be to understand our present predicament.

The catechetical collapse of the past 35 years has not been an isolated phenomenon. One of the most prominent partisans in the campaign that produced the "new catechetics," Father Berard Marthaler, cheerfully concedes that it "has had a symbiotic relationship with biblical scholarship, the liturgical movement, and the 'new theology.'"

The "new catechetics" movement, already established in Europe and taking root in the United States, seemed before the Second Vatican Council to be a generally benign attempt to teach the faith in a more vital way. What--or who--turned it into a catechetical revolution? Why did the Catholic religious and academics who embraced it first stop teaching Catholic doctrine, and then (with courageous exceptions) begin to ridicule the very notion of teaching it, and even to denigrate those who objected? Candidates for the title of chief culprit are abundant.

Most of those involved in this movement seem to have been acquainted each other, often through encounters at academic centers, especially the Catholic University of America (CUA). Their influence seems to have been more a function of their positions and their efficient collaboration than of the intellectual force of their ideas, which tend to sound naive today.

It may be impossible to name one person as most responsible for the current state of religious instruction in the United States. But no one has a stronger claim than Father Gerard Sloyan who, in 17 years in CUA's Religious Education department--ten as chairman--reorganized the entire curriculum, and thus changed the religious attitudes of a key cohort of religion teachers. It was he who first hired dissenter Charles Curran, in 1964. His 1967 book, Speaking of Catholic Education--by its praise for Dutch Catechism, its clear distaste for the term "transubstantiation," its displacement of personal sin by a "fundamental option" for or against God, and its call to defer First Confession until after First Communion--proves that the toxic ideas of the revolution were fully formed by the mid-1960s.

Children, Father Sloyan declared, cannot learn doctrine; they can only experience religious emotions. Let them participate in the liturgy, treat them with respect and kindness, and their religious emotions will develop. He implied that rote memorization of theological propositions was the sum and substance of traditional catechesis, when in fact it was only one valuable element in a living culture that was also built on sacramental practice, liturgical and devotional prayer, stories of saints, Bible stories, and frequent reference to the social obligations imposed by membership in Christ's Mystical Body.

In 1967, Sloyan left CUA to teach at Temple University, remaining there for 25 years. Later he returned as a "distinguished lecturer," but the move seems not to have sweetened his temper. "Is Agape Any Match for Fear and Loathing in the Religious Psyche?" Sloyan's contribution to The Echo Within, a 1997 collection of essays published to honor Berard Marthaler on his academic retirement, is a fuming denunciation of orthodox Catholics. Characterizing them as ignorant, rigid, repressed, ideologically infected, infantile, censorious, malicious, and uncharitable, he says he offers these diagnoses, "in the friendliest possible spirit."

Given the views of his mentor, it seems small wonder that Sloyan's protégé, former Christian Brother Gabriel Moran (Maria Harris’ husband) , strayed from orthodoxy. Many observers, admirers and critics alike, propose Moran as the most influential man in the catechetical revolution. Michael Warren, editor of Source Book for Modern Catechetics, says, "Few persons in the United States have made a contribution to the catechetical scene as complex and difficult to assess as Gabriel Moran."

Moran's work influenced many in the catechetical movement to reject divine revelation--the Church's deposit of faith--in favor of "on-going revelation"--in effect, the interpretation of one's own experiences as private revelation. This meant not simply that catechists should enliven the students' understanding of the Gospel by connecting it to their life experiences, but that the students could find revelation only in their own experience. A student "would have to reject any document from the past pretending to divine revelation," Moran wrote. As Msgr. Michael Wrenn has observed, that category includes the Gospel.

Moran was not alone in his opinion. Piet Schoonenberg, SJ, a Dutch theologian linked to the Dutch Catechism, was making the same point In the same era. In 1970, Schoonenberg wrote:

“From a mere approach to the message, experience has become the theme itself of catechesis. Catechesis has become the interpretation of experience. It has to clarify experience, that is, it has to articulate and enlighten the experience of those for whom the message is intended.”

The most phenomenal thing about this thesis was its reception. To an astonishing extent, Catholic educators and publishers proved willing to jettison Christian belief and substitute a radically individualistic "noble savage" romanticism straight out of Jean Jacques Rousseau. According to a 1997 essay in The Echo Within, Moran was then unaware of its antecedents, but he has not changed his mind over the ensuing 30 years. "In adopting 'revelation' as central, Christianity prepared for its own undoing," he writes.

"Christian writers cannot get anywhere by assuming the existence of or investigating an object named 'Christian revelation,'" Moran argues, declaring the theory of revelation to be "a modern invention and a disastrous one." God continues to speak today, he says, but speaking does not mean revelation, a term that implies "assertions of truth." Speaking, he explains, could mean compassion, care, love, or forgiveness. As to truth, he says "much contemporary thought" holds that "the first thing to ask of a statement is not whether it is true but whether it is interesting." At most, "God's speaking" can only provide human understanding with "a glimpse of the truth."

Finally, Moran tells us that Christians must stop equating "'Jesus Christ' with 'God and man,'" because that "has the effect of creating the great middleman, who is then neither divine nor human. 'Jesus Christ' becomes the name of a storehouse of truths, the revelation of God."

After leaving the Christian Brothers, Moran became a professor of (non-denominational) religious education at New York University. His wife, Maria Harris, a former Sister of St Joseph of Brentwood, also represents herself as a religious educator, and has taught women's studies at several institutions. Most notably, she combined those genres in a post-Christian guide to feminist self worship, Dance of the Spirit: The Seven Steps of Women's Spirituality.

I think that really the Catholic Church in the US experienced a "revolution" no less damaging that the Cultural Revolution in China or what went on in Cambodia. It is the job of those who come after to clean up the damage of the craziness of their elders.

†Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam† website:

“At the end of the 20th century, individuals are probably no wiser than they ever have been about their sexual lives, but the human race undeniably has a different understanding of sexuality from what it had in the past. Studies subsequent to the two Kinsey Reports have confirmed the fact that the human race has an imaginative diversity of sexual expression. Sexual intimacy between consenting partners of the same sex seems to be nothing less and nothing more than part of that wonderful range of expression.

What would (Saint) Paul make of today's sexual scene? It really is not possible to lift people out of one place in history and situate them in another. Presumably they could learn the language of a new era if given time to adjust. ….

A Christian today might even think that (Saint) Paul would see homosexuality as part of God's creation, sanctified by the Incarnation. The world of our bodily senses is not a veil that obscures divinity. The material world, whatever its groans and travails, is the expression of divine goodness. The best impulses of that world – the genuine struggles for the fulfillment of bodily existence – cannot be dismissed...People's sexual expressions have to be seen within that context.”

James  D. Davidson

Writes for “America”, “National Catholic Reporter”,”Commonweal” and “Ligourian”: all liberal Catholic publications.  Google for many articles to read.  It is worth noting that he does not write for more orthodox Catholic publications such as ‘First Things’.

Jane Redmont (“ Acts of Hope “)

  http://www.natcath.org/%3Cspan%20style=

 Most people loved the Chittister book, and while I like a lot of her other work, this one didn't float my boat, at least in the past year.”  

"I understand the body of Christ in a way I had not before..." wrote contributor Jane Redmont, who also participated in the event as a member of its planning committee. "This is my body, I say, touching a woman's arm and shoulder. This is my blood, I say, touching another woman, of a different age and race from my own. You are my flesh and blood, we are saying, and Christ's flesh and blood. We know this in the breaking of the bread and the sharing of the cup; we know this in touching each other's bodies."

Redmont continued, "We have disagreed over terminology and theology, we have varying relationships to Jesus and to the local church. Some of us are more attached than others to biblical and historical sources and authorities....Some choose to stay but not to have their names listed anywhere: fear of losing church-related or Catholic academic jobs."

A week after Redmond's story, the National Catholic Reporter editorialized that the Oakland event is "too critical to shrug off" because "women are not going to disappear." "One doesn't have to endorse the liturgy--and certainly there are liturgists and Catholic feminists who would take issue with the event in Oakland--to recognize the importance of taking it seriously," read the editorial.

" http://books.google.com/books?id=mwvqvYv7N5kC&lpg=PA171&ots=Xq-fs9Sl8d&dq=%22Jane%20Redmont" ( In ‘contents” read: Engine of Lay Ministry which details the powerful role of Call To Action in the promotion of clericalizing the laity.)

Msgr. William  Shannon

    http://richleonardi.blogspot.com/2005_10_09_archive.html The parish bulletin indicates that one “Fr. William H. Shannon” will be sharing a “Catholic perspective on death and dying” at a nearby chapel. Given that Shannon’s      http://www.americancatholic.org/Newsletters/CU/ac0400.asp" heterodox ruminations on the “Resurrection of Faith”

 are largely what inspired my recent     " http://www.catholicexchange.com/vm/index.asp?art_id=29722" critique of the Catholic Update publications, I can only imagine how he’ll set forth about, say, Terri Schiavo.

   http://www.catholiccitizens.org/press/contentreview.asp?c=11468

Consider Fr. William H. Shannon’s “The Resurrection: How We Know It’s True.” Here is an excerpt from the section called “The Resurrection: An experience of faith”:

The point which I am trying to lead up to is the realization that seeing the risen Jesus was not an experience of empirical data; it was an experience of faith. For the very best that empirical experience might have achieved was an experience of resuscitation, not resurrection. Think of Lazarus in John's Gospel (Jn 11:1-45). He was mortal and he died. He was resuscitated and therefore was living again, but even after his resuscitation he was still mortal. Hence people could see him before and after because in both cases he was mortal. Lazarus was as much a subject of empirical data after his resuscitation as before his death.  The mortal Jesus — the Jesus before His death — could, like the mortal Lazarus, have been experienced as a fact of empirical data; the risen Jesus, however, could only be experienced by faith. For resurrection is not returning from the dead. It is a leap beyond death to an entirely different kind of existence. Such a leap cannot be empirically verified. Father Shannon’s speculations run counter to Pope John Paul II’s orthodox description of the Resurrection: Christ's Resurrection is the strength, the secret of Christianity. It is not a question of mythology or of mere symbolism, but of a concrete event. It is confirmed by sure and convincing proofs. The acceptance of this truth, although the fruit of the Holy Spirit's grace, rests at the same time on a solid historical base. (From remarks given before praying the Regina Caeli on Sunday, April 21, 1996) Thus, it simply isn’t consistent with Catholic teaching for Father Shannon to state that the Resurrection “was not an experience of empirical data” and that the risen Jesus “could only be experienced by faith.” Instead, in the pope’s words, it was a public, “concrete event” backed by “convincing proofs” and resting on “a solid historical base.” No later than 15 years after Christ’s earthly ministry, St. Paul wrote in his first letter to the Corinthians that 500 “brethren” saw the risen Jesus “at one time.” He did not write, as Shannon would have it, that they just sensed Him spiritually. As the Vatican wrote just last winter, “the appearances of the Risen Lord and the empty tomb are the foundation of the faith of the disciples in the Resurrection of Christ, and not vice versa."

Am I making too much of a fuss about this? I don’t think so. Let’s remember who reads these Catholic Updates — RCIA candidates, participants in adult faith formation groups, perhaps someone shaky in his faith who wants to be certain of what the Church teaches. That they should be handed something like Father Shannon's wrong musings on the Resurrection is a shame. That his musings bear the imprimatur of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati is, well, something worse.

Gabriel Moran  (there are 10 pages of ‘hits’ when I googled the word dissent)

Christian Brother Gabriel Moran: many observers, admirers and critics alike, propose Moran as the most influential man in the catechetical revolution. Michael Warren, editor of Source Book for Modern Catechetics, says, "Few persons in the United States have made a contribution to the catechetical scene as complex and difficult to assess as Gabriel Moran."

Moran's work influenced many in the catechetical movement to reject divine revelation--the Church's deposit of faith--in favor of "on-going revelation"--in effect, the interpretation of one's own experiences as private revelation. This meant not simply that catechists should enliven the students' understanding of the Gospel by connecting it to their life experiences, but that the students could find revelation only in their own experience. A student "would have to reject any document from the past pretending to divine revelation," Moran wrote. As Msgr. Michael Wrenn has observed, that category includes the Gospel.

William D. Antonio

“...Karol Wojtyla has shaped a hierarchy that is intolerant of dissent, unaccountable to its members, secretive in the extreme and willfully clueless about how people live.  Probably no institution run by a fraternity of aging celibates was going to reconcile easily with a movement that embraced the equality of women, abortion on demand and gay rights. It is possible, though, to imagine a leadership that would have given it a try. In fact, Pope Paul VI indicated some interest in adopting a more lenient view of birth control, and he handpicked a committee of prominent Catholics who endorsed the idea almost by acclamation. The pope agonized, and then astonished Catholics by reaffirming the old ban. "If you want to look for where credibility on human sexuality got lost, it got lost there," said the Catholic University sociologist William D'Antonio.”

Thomas Groome

 http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?id=6516"

Bill Huebsch

Report on Los Angeles Religious Education Congress:“When God came, He didn’t come as a catechism. God did not come as a moral code or a doctrinal system or theology school. He came as a person. God is love....This love is messy – not an easy love. Following the law – law has boundaries that are very clear. Who’s in, who’s out? Who’s allowed to come to communion, who’s not? Who’s a practicing Catholic, who’s not? Love is not....When you love someone, you don’t ask, ‘are you a good Catholic?’ Love transcends that. Theology is precise, love is is not. Love is ragged around the edges. Doctrine can be collected in a book, love cannot. Love is beyond the boundaries of that. Love transcends it all. When we give a dinner party at our home, we don’t ask, ‘are you in a valid marriage?’” – Catechist Bill Huebsch

Conclusions

Based on the research done on the Generations of Faith catechetical approach, and its contributors who demonstrate their dissent from authentic Catholic teaching (demonstrated by the articles and links I have attached), I fear that not only our youth, but also poorly catechized parishioners could be harmed by heterodox teachings imbedded in the materials provided by The Center for Ministry Development, which publishes and promotes GOF.  Those of us who have been given the grace to seek out and learn all we can about our faith, must do our part in protecting God’s faithful from error.

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