Father Paul Kalchik and the Spirit of Disobedience and Rebellion

The current crisis du jour in the Catholic blogosphere is the saga of Fr. Paul Kalchik of Chicago. Father Kalchik was pastor at Resurrection Catholic Church in the Chicago archdiocese.  On September 21, Fr. Kalchik was removed by his bishop, Cardinal Cupich, as pastor of the church for disobeying a direct order.

The Catholic blogosphere led by Michael Voris (who else?) is, not surprisingly, rushing to the defense of Fr. Kalchik and demonizing Cardinal Cupich.

So who is right?

It is possible to get a good grasp of Kalchik's frame of mind by going to the Church's website and reading the bulletins HERE.  The September 2 bulletin is a good example.

In this bulletin, Fr. Kalchik gives a meditation on the Gospel from the Book of Mark, in which Jesus is attacked by the Pharisees because his disciples do not follow the traditions of the elders in washing their hands.  Jesus responds by saying, "You disregard God's commandment but cling to human tradition."

Fr. Kalchik discusses the hypocrisy of the Pharisees and then writes:

Blessedly, the old Pharisees disappeared in due time, but lamentably, the twisted psychological Pharisaical dynamic, of putting on a show of being faithful, a pretense of the faith, in order to receive human adulation continues in this fallen world.  And as the events of the last weeks in August played out, the Church itself is going through convulsions in ridding itself of today's Pharisees in the attempt to purify itself.  For myself as a priest and pastor for many years now, these convulsions and this period of purification has been long overdue.

This is a direct slam at Church hierarchy.  He is attacking his superiors in no uncertain terms, accusing them of "putting on a show of being faithful, a pretense of the faith, in order to receive human adulation."

Then he talks about the Church "going through convulsions in ridding itself of today's Pharisees in the attempt to purify itself."  And all this time, I thought it was the Holy Spirit who purifies the Church.  Nope.  Turns out the Church purifies itself.

Fr. Kalchik removes any doubt of whom he is referring to as "today's Pharisees" in his next paragraph, which uses undeniably disrespectful and disdainful language.  I have highlighted some of the more egregious phrases:

Case in point, a couple of years back, the boys that run the show downtown were on my back because one of the catechists, a retired teacher, and at this point in time, an infirm, little but holy lady, had missed on on VIRTUS TRAINING [emphasis original] because she was sick on the day we offered it. This woman was as far removed from being a serial sex abuser as Saint Teresa of Calcutta. Blessedly, at the time the downtown "Enforcers" were throwing their weight around, Cardinal Francis George was still alive and I appealed to him directly to call off the dogs. If you wish to see the letter I received from the Arch office of Protecting All God's Children I will gladly show it to you, to say their tactics were over the top in an understatement. Their focus has been off for a long time. It's reminiscent of the tactics of the TSA who make a show of aggressively patting down a poor grandma in a wheelchair just to prove that nothing is going to get past them. Yea, right.

This paragraph is coming from the pastor of a Catholic Church written to his parishioners in his Church bulletin.  However, it sounds much more like the rantings of an angry and disgruntled employee with an ax to grind.

In this same "reflection", Kalchik actually praises Judas because Judas had the decency to take himself out.  Kalchik feels the "betrayers of Christ" in our time need to do the same:

As our long Church History has shown us, few betrayers of Christ are like Judas, who came to some kind of remorse and exited out of his own accord. Most stick around and wreak havoc for as long as they possibly can. Arrogant narcissists do not give up power easily. And, quoting a very cutting reflection by Anglican priest Rev. Dr. Jules Gomes on the current scandal, "The lust for power and the power of lust, are often intertwined."

This sounds like it could have been written by Michael Voris himself. There is a good reason for that. It comes directly from Voris's website. Kalchik gives the reference to the quote by Gomes: "US Church homosexual scandal is a sequel to the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, Rev. Dr. Jules Gomes, posted on ChurchMilitant.com."

Kalchik also asked his parishioners to fill out a pledge card to fast and pray for a period of 40 days.

It was in this same bulletin that Kalchick made the announcement that he was going to burn the rainbow flag. He made it a PS to his "reflection" on the Gospel:

PS: On Saturday, September 29, the Feast of Saints Michael, Gabriel and Raphael, we will burn, in front of church, the rainbow flag that was unfortunately hanging in our sanctuary during the ceremonial first Mass at Resurrection parish.  We will also burn our pledge cards and prayerfully sing Psalm 141 "Let my prayer arise before you like incense, my hands like an evening offering."

This was reported to Cardinal Cupich, who immediately contacted Kalchik and ordered him not to burn the flag.   Cupich did not break any laws in forbidding the flag burning.  Cupich did not order that it be displayed.  He ordered that it not be publicly destroyed.

The Cardinal was very aware that the burning of this flag would be highly offense to the LGBT community, and there was no reason to offend them.  We, as Christ's Church are to reach out to the world, not condemn them.  Cupich was within his right to forbid the flag burning.  Kalchik was under his promise of obedience not to burn the flag,

Instead, Kalchik's response was to burn the flag on September 14 with parishioners saying a prayer of exorcism over the flag.

With this action, Kalchik blatantly and without remorse broke his promise of obedience made at ordination to his bishop.  He disgraced himself as a priest.  Cardinal Cupich had no choice but to remove him from the parish.

Voris has immediately rushed to Kalchik's defense along with Father Z and a host of other traditional Catholic bloggers.  These people are literally aiding and abetting Kalchik in breaking his promise of obedience made before God and man.  They stand as guilty as he is.

A lot of them use the defense that Kalchik was sexually abused as a child by a neighbor and then later as a young man by a priest.  I am very sorry that he experienced this. But he is now a 56-year old priest, and the abuse he suffered as a child does not excuse disobedience to his bishop.  The abuse, however, may explain his erratic behavior towards Church authority.  If that is the case, he most certainly needs help.

Kalchik also tries to excuse himself by saying he did this burning of the flag "privately."  It is hard to understand how he can call this a "private" flag burning when he gave an interview about it to the Chicago Sun Times, HERE.

Voris and a few others are trying to say it was the parishioners, not Kalchik, who burned the flag. However, the interview with the Sun Times reports very differently:

Kalchik led seven parishioners in a prayer of exorcism Friday, and the flag was burned inside a portable fire pit placed the schoolyard next to the church. The ashes of the flag now rest in a church compost heap.

“That banner and what it stood for doesn’t belong to the Archdiocese or Cardinal Cupich. It belongs to the people of this parish who paid for it,” Kalchik said. “What have we done wrong other than destroy a piece of propaganda that was used to put out a message other than what the church is about?”

. . .

Despite the orders from the archdiocese, Kalchik admits he went ahead and destroyed the flag “in a quiet way” on Friday. 

There is little doubt that Father Paul Kalchik has rejected Church authority.  As is made evident in his church bulletins, he reads and listens to Michael Voris, whose whole mission in life is to destroy the hierarchy of the Catholic Church.  It should be noted that Kalchik even quoted from Archbishop Vigano's testimony in one of his bulletins.  Not hard to guess where Kalchik's sympathies lie.

What we see in Archbishop Vigano, Father Kalchik and all others who have defied their superiors is the spirit of rebellion and disobedience, a spirit which comes directly from the devil himself.

Obedience is the sign of  a true servant of Jesus Christ.  Here is what just a few of the saints have said about obedience:

“Obedience is rightly placed before all other sacrifices, for in offering a victim as sacrifice, one offers a life that is not one’s own; but when one obeys one is immolating one’s own will.”
--St. Gregory the Great

“The Devil doesn’t fear austerity but holy obedience.”
– St. Francis de Sales

”It is better to cherish the humble desire of living according to the rule of the community, and to be diligent in its observance, than to entertain exalted desires of performing imaginary wonders, for such imaginations only tend to swell our hearts with pride, lead us to undervalue our brethren, from an impression that we are better than they.”
--Saint Pacomius

We must put aside all judgment of our own, and keep the mind ever ready and prompt to obey in all things the true Spouse of Christ our Lord, our holy Mother, the hierarchical Church.
--Saint Ignatius of Loyola

IT IS a very great thing to obey, to live under a superior and not to be one's own master, for it is much safer to be subject than it is to command. Many live in obedience more from necessity than from love. Such become discontented and dejected on the slightest pretext; they will never gain peace of mind unless they subject themselves wholeheartedly for the love of God.
Go where you may, you will find no rest except in humble obedience to the rule of authority. Dreams of happiness expected from change and different places have deceived many.
--Imitation of Christ 

”The obedience which we render to a superior is paid to God, Who says, ‘He that hears you hears Me;’ so that whatever he who holds the place of God commands, supposing it is not evidently contrary to God's law, is to be received by us as if it came from God Himself; for it is the same thing to know His Will, either from His Own, from an Angel's, or from a man's mouth.”
--Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, Father and Doctor of the Church

”Saint Paul commands us to obey all superiors, even those who are bad. Our Blessed Saviour, His Virgin Mother, and Saint Joseph have taught us this kind of obedience in the journey they took from Nazareth to Bethlehem, when Caesar published an edict that his subjects should repair to the place of their nativity to be enrolled. They complied with this order with the most affectionate obedience, though the Emperor was a pagan and an idolator, so desirous was Our Lord of showing us that we should never regard the persons of those who command, provided they be invested with sufficient authority.”
--Saint Francis of Sales, Doctor of the Church

”The more we see that any action springs not from the motive of obedience, the more evident is it that it is a temptation of the enemy; for when God sends an inspiration, the very first effect of it is to infuse a spirit of docility.”
--Saint Teresa of Avila, Doctor of the Church

”God is more pleased to behold the lowest degree of obedience, for His sake, than all other good works which you can possibly offer to Him.”
--Saint John of the Cross, Doctor of the Church

”He who follows his own ideas in opposition to the direction of his superiors needs no devil to tempt him, for he is a devil to himself.”
--Saint John Climacus

”See God in your superiors; so shall you learn to revere their will and follow their commands. Be well assured that obedience is the safest guide and most faithful interpreter of the Divine Will. Pour out your hearts to them as freely as water, mindful that they are charged with the direction of your souls. . . . Above all, do not be your own master, relying on your own prudence, contrary to the caution of the wise man.”
--Saint Ignatius, Father of the Church

'Obedience is mission: "I have come into this world to do the will of my Father, who has sent me." Where there is no obedience, there is no virtue; where there is no virtue there is no good; where good is wanting, there is no love, there is no God; where God is not, there is no Heaven.'
--St. Padre Pio

The spirit of disobedience is never from God.  The spirit of rebellion that we see in those who oppose Church hierarchy is the same spirit that tempted Mother Eve in the garden when the serpent told her she could be like God if only she would disobey God and eat of the forbidden fruit.

If you are unsure whom to believe, think of this.  Our Lord established the Catholic Church through St. Peter.  Jesus actually gave St. Peter the Keys to the Kingdom and told Peter that what he did would be echoed in heaven.  Yet, those who rebel against the Church are telling you not to listen to Peter.

Further, Jesus promised that the gates of hell will never prevail against the Church.  Yet all of those who are attacking the Church are saying that the gates of hell have prevailed.  They are telling you that the Church has lost its way and only they know how to restore the true faith.

Who will you believe?  Do you believe Jesus Christ, or do you believe the serpent in the garden, tempting you to disobedience?  Father Paul Kalchik listened to the serpent, and he is in a bad way. Please pray for him, but don't follow him.

As we now know, Kalchik has been listening to and following Michael Voris and others like him.  This is a very dangerous path to take. As I have written, Voris has made it his life's work to destroy Catholic hierarchy, and with it, the Catholic Church.

I will use Voris's own words to explain this.  Voris used the following to once again attack Church hierarchy.  But I would suggest, for the good of his own soul, that Voris look in the mirror when he says this:

Men without love — utterly without love — are doomed to eternal perdition . . . They lie and deceive and distort, they attack the truth, both the concept of truth and Truth Itself — which is the person, Jesus Christ.

God is love, and to attack Love is to be utterly without love.

 . . .

They have given up on divine love and rushed into the arms of the demon. They have become offspring of the serpent, and they do their father's will.

, , ,

Satan is real, and he has human agents that have given themselves to his work. Almighty God Himself declared that the serpent would have offspring, and since that is not possible physically or biologically, He was talking about spiritually.

Can any Catholic of sound mind argue that this massive, massive evil is not demonic in its origin?

. . .

Why has this evil been visited on the Church? Because there is no other path to Heaven other than the Catholic Church. Outside the Church, there is no salvation. So, of course, Satan attacks the Church and the means to salvation within the Church are the sacraments. So how better to lead people into Hell than to work at destroying the ministers of the sacraments — the priesthood?

. . . 

Faithful Catholics must oppose this evil with every fiber of their being — spiritual, physical and intellectual.

The command is, "You shall therefore love the Lord your God with all your mind, heart, soul and strength." The time to stand up and be a saint has arrived. Answer the call; your fight is against Satan himself.