The Bishop's Response
Dear Mr. Chambers,
This email is in response
to your latest communication in which you ask me to take action
against the members of One Simple Voice.
May I first request that
you discontinue your condemnation of One Simple Voice and their work.
Since you have not met with any of the members or attended any of
the retreats, it seems inappropriate to judge not only their words,
but also their moral character and their canonical status.
Upon assurance that you
will discontinue such efforts to publicly discredit those involved
with One Simple Voice, I would invite you to visit with them in
person to voice your concerns and enter into a dialogue with them.
Bishop Hanifen informs me
that he discontinued efforts to dialogue, but would take part in this
effort, should you choose to accept the invitation.
I will await you response
in the hope that this meeting can take place.
In Christ,
Bishop Michael Sheridan
My Rebuttal
Your Excellency,
First and foremost, you have never
given any indication that you have read nor understood my research.
Do you not recognize her worldview from what she has written and
taught publicly in seminars and interviews which I have documented
for you? Do you deny the clear demonstration of it? How could you, a
bishop, supposedly learned in theology possibly fail to see the
reason and force of argument through clear and thorough
documentation? I would be willing to write to you individually if you
are interested in actually engaging my letter to you line by line.
Second, with all due respect, I can not and
will not in good conscience discontinue my condemnation of the
teachings of Frannie Rose, for my conscience is bound first and
foremost to the scriptures and to the tradition of our Church without
alteration or adulteration.
I have definitively proven through
documentation that her teachings are rooted in her earlier religious
experiences which she has not publicly rejected but rather speaks as
if there is a continuity between all of what she teaches. I have
demonstrated from her own words and writings in a manner that is
incontrovertible, and any claim to the contrary is incompatible with
reason. No attempt at clarification or defense has been presented
that has satisfied our concerns.
Third, it is the role of theologians to
constantly examine the writings and teachings of others and it has
never been inappropriate to scrutinize writings and to examine
teachings in a person's own words without knowing the person
firsthand, otherwise we could not practically examine the
propositions of others whether in history or in our day. This is the
academic process and does not require knowing Frannie Rose or Richard
Hanifen personally, for neither has it ever been required of scholars
to personally know any figure in history, nor for a professor to
critique and write rebuttals against a book from one of his
contemporaries. You are gravely mistaken to think otherwise.
Teachings are propositions which contain statements which are
properly defined and either contain truth or falsehood, and if her
teachings are but propositions that contain falsity as I have proven
beyond all doubt, then there only remains for her to recant.
Fourth, my letter to you is and remains
available to the public as will your responses to me concerning it,
or lack of response. I have made previous and public efforts to seek
clarification from Frannie Rose herself but Hanifen decided that he
did not want to engage me in conversation on the curious basis that
since we think differently concerning Frannie Rose then we would not
be able to benefit from further dialogue. Has Hanifen admitted that
this premise to avoid conversation is mistaken? He is more than free
to engage in my writings which he has never done. At this point, the
force of documentation can not be overturned by rhetoric nor
dismissed for any reason. My work remains as the definitive proof of
her worldview which you have yet to take as seriously as you should.
This is a matter that is not easily
solved by attempts to get along or a simple matter of getting to know
the feelings of individuals involved. There is nothing to be gained
at this point beyond Frannie's public admission that she has taught
heresy, and if she has now changed what she believes or teaches
differently than she has then she should make this very plain to all
of us that she recants what she has taught in the lectures and
interviews we have seen, and rejects her own book the Invitation
which contains many errors and teaches contrariety to the Catholic
faith.
Fifth, I am very, very sorry if you have been
taken in by this latest deception contained on the One Simple Voice
website, attempts to try and couch her heresies within language that
sounds more Catholic. If she is a Catholic now, as she claims to be,
she must admit her previous errors, speak of God as distinct and
infinitely so, that we are not part of him in any sense of the word,
that our hearts of sinful and that Christ's sacrifice was about the
cleansing of sin by his blood, etc. All she has done in her latest
writings on her website is to choose her words more wisely and couch
them in a few more words that are distinctively Catholic while all
along imbuing them with a sense that is not Catholic, but is rather
consistent with her New Age beliefs.
Could it be true that others around her who are liberals and dissenters are feeding her poor affirmations to the point that she truly believes that her new age teaching is compatible with the Christian revelation? Even if this was the case, we have proven the distinction and therefore she can not possibly be ignorant in this matter
Sixth, Richard Hanifen only wants an audience
with me, John Morrison, or any one else simply to try and convince us
that Frannie's New Age teaches are orthodox and we continue to be
unconvinced by the rhetoric nor interested in attempts to justify her
heresies to us. All dialogue in this matter is best served by an
academic process that is thorough and is detail oriented, while
documenting our sources, as we have done on countless occasions.
Corey Chambers
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