WITNESS: Rosica and Baum: Salt and Light TV is in Crisis
This blog will be our Witness for the Faith. We see a need for good, traditional, Catholic fellowship. Witness will strive to be imbued with charity. Love of neighbor - and yes, love of enemy. We should be a "witness" for our Faith.
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Rosica and Baum: Salt and Light TV is in Crisis
“Therefore, putting away falsehood, speak the truth, each one to his neighbor, for we are members one of another" St. Paul
A crisis has many nuances of definition, but the nexus is that a turning point has been struck upon which requires resolution. I write this entry after much thought. It is not an easy thing to criticize a priest. Further, it is a difficult thing to do after seeing so much good done by this same priest. However, the recent Salt and Light "Witness" television interview conducted by S + L CEO Fr. Thomas Rosica with the arch-dissenter Gregory Baum strikes a most serious note of crisis at S + L, and S + L's identity, reliability and need for absolute lack of ambiguity in the task of evangelization through communications media (c.f. The Rapid Development, Pope John Paul II). I would call this interview the "Winnipeg Statement moment" for S + L.
The confusion, the ambiguity this interview has created must be resolved. It is only heightened by the various excellent programming on S + L. Monsignor Vincent Foy closed his critique of Baum by asking the key question: why should a priest highly praise in an interview this "arch heretic"? This is the question, the only question.
Fr. Rosica's response to the criticism of his interview with Baum presently focuses irrelevantly on a Michael Voris video rather than Msgr. Foy's question. Fr. Rosica defended his approach to Baum by writing: "Let those who have eyes and ears to see and hear view the entire interview and not base judgments on others’ interpretation and distortion of my WITNESS interview with Professor Baum". Fine, I agree. Fr. Rosica addressing Baum in the interview said: "you helped to keep alive not only the spirit of the Second Vatican council, but also the authentic teaching of the Council". If this is so, then has the traditionalist critique of the Council been right all along? No interpretation or distortion here. It is this defense that is even more worrying, more disconcerting than the interview. The defense of error reveals even greater confusion, greater recalcitrance than the error itself.
This leads me to consider the future prospects for S + L following this scandal. The issue is the Catholic Faith, not celebrity priests who come and go. Catholic media is to propagate the Faith, to aid in evangelization. How must the young, fine employees and volunteers at S + L feel when the CEO lavishes praise without any distinction on Baum? What of the Board of Directors, the bishops, and the corporate and charitable donors? How can S + L evangelize with her CEO highly praising an arch-heretic? It is one thing to love a person, but it is another to create the impression that one loves his or her teachings without any clarity on the given person's teachings that have been identified as manifestly evil (e.g. dissent on contraception, abortion, women priests, Baum's dissent against Dominus Jesus etc.). Our Lord loved sinners, but he hated their sin. Perhaps, in the presence of his old friend, Fr. Rosica was caught in human weakness. Yet, his defense of the interview (sadly) would seem to reject this hypothesis.
The contradictions, the ambiguity, the confusion must be resolved. It is only heightened by Fr. Rosica's professed love for Pius XII, Bl John XXIII, and Bl. John Paul II. Would those holy Popes consider Baum a man who has kept alive "the authentic teaching of the Council"? Why would a priest claim that Baum has, when it is manifestly obvious that he has not? Salt and Light is tainted: with ambiguity, with contradiction, with confusion. It is time for Fr. Rosica to do the right thing: to apologize and to resign from Salt and Light.
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