All who are distressed & unsettled by the Fr. Corapi situation should ponder these words …
July 5, 2011 by Patrick Madrid
Filed under Patrick's Blog
Let nothing disturb you.
Let nothing dismay you.
All thing are passing.
God never changes.
Patience attains all that it strives for.
He who has God finds he lacks nothing.
God alone suffices.
— St. Teresa of Avila
I too am glad they punished him.. the stuff that’s gone permitted in the Chruch has done great and deep untold damage to our Church allover the world. I was in the seminary in the 80’s.. my heart burnt inside every second of the day to be a priest, from age 7 til now. But I knew something was very very wrong,, you couldn’t be Catholic, faithful, virtuous, zealous, prayeful,,, I checked it out everywhere.. I was molested by a superior, saw sex in the seminary,, no one wanted to deal with it.. vocations were being lost by the thousands,, we were told to ‘grow up’.. I could say much more, and prove it all.. I m fed up…. just deeply sad and worried for our Church.. [people need the Church!!! we need pastors of souls, not ‘nice guys… now, Fr.Corapi,, shocking, but still he has to be punished, not flogged, but yes punished. LEt us all move on to the New Evangelization and not been enablers to those who keep us from loving and serving the Lord,, indeed we are entering a New Era.. it looks great. God love you , Patrick and friend, Paul from Toronto
Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.
I feel for Fr. Corapi sin can get it’s hooks into you. Even Paul said he could be cast away. I think the man needs to repent. Be
Peter not Judas. It may mean a loss in Celebrity but he will feel better in the End.
John Corapi and people will always disappoint us and fail us. To the degree that we are upset is the degree that we placed too much confidence and trust in a person. Christ alone is our hope and our trust. Thank you, Patrick, for posting St. Teresa of Avila’s “bookmark” on Who to place our confidence in. “In the world we will have tribulations (eg., scandals, upsets, disappointments) but rejoice, for I have overcome the World.” – Jesus.
If nothing else, this whole corapi mess has taught a lot of us to head what scripture says to “keep your eyes fixed on Jesus.”
Dear Ben,
How do you know Fr. Corapi sinned? He may not have; just a thought.
Many luxurious cars, fancy boats, big houses…. Is this a religious priest who vowed for obedience, chastity, and poverty should be? Go figure.
Also, the darker and darker beards until they are black along with the suntans, Harley Davidson jackets, etc. Why is he promoting Harley Davidson instead of Jesus?
John Corapi now has a choice. He can be like Judas whose pride didn’t allow him to seek forgiveness or Peter,tradition has it, cried so hard that he had deep crevis’ in his face from the tears.
The devil tempted Corapi and got a foothold. Will the devil get a foothold in our lives? Will we be like Peter or Judas? Corapi who did so much for us now needs us as much as we needed him. Cry the tears of Peter that Corapi will repent and tell Jesus how much he loves Him. (John 21:17)
We must pray for Johnny (the name Mary calls John Corapi. We must join together in this struggle and pray for Johnny (Romans 15:30)
Well said, Father Corapi needs our prayers and I appreciate his role in building up my faith and allowing the Holy Spirit to use him as a powerful tool. I also want to pray for Patrick Madrid and others who teach the faith, that they will be protected and stay close to Christ and his Mother.
God Bless
Is Fr. Corapi the proverbial prodigal son? He would have to repent. Only God knows, we just know that we are not to partake of the things that he is accused of doing.
Teresa of Avila early on encountered a priest in the confessional who was known to have a concubine. He ended up confessing to her and perhaps because of her amended his life. There have been scandals through the ages as the devil has tried to use people to assault the church but the church lives on and as Jesus promised the gates of hell will not prevail against it!
Gordon,
I think you are mistaken. Just because someone under investigation interferes with witnesses doesn’t mean the investigation becaomes invalid and it certainly doesn’t mean the investigation should cease. It also doesn’t mean that there wasn’t evidence or due process to be had. Based on this blog entry, it sounds to me like they did their due diligence. They put an experienced and trusted team in place and based their findings on “Fr. Corapi’s e-mails, various witnesses, and public sources”. For the moment that’s good enough for me.
I also agree with their stated reasons for releasing this statement. It was Father Corapi that took the fight into the court of public opinion. I think it’s fair for them to respond there as well.
My only concern is that this is one more scandal the Church doesn’t need, but I’m grateful to see SOLT dealing with this head on and not trying to sweep it under the rug. We should pray for Father Corapi, SOLT, and our Church at large for healing.
Frankly, I’m glad he got caught, and glad his superior is being up front about it. I’m so sick of these scandals. We don’t need “priests” like him, charismatic con men mugging people of cash so he can have his million-dollar lifestyle and mistress and everything else, paying people six-figures to keep silent and suing them when they don’t, while posing around in the religious robes of a good order like SOLT. He’s shamed all the good men there, and no one should be standing up for him. Let him go live a life of silence and penance – or turn him out into the world to be forgotten, so he might actually have a real conversion. We don’t need him, we need Jesus, and the sacraments, because Jesus is the only sinless man in existence, and only the sacraments can free us of sin.
Beautiful words. When faith is based on Truth, on God, nothing will change it for it is not changeable.
I don’t have trouble distinguishing between someone’s follies and sins and the infallibility of the Church and it’s teachings. The latter isn’t strictly contingent on the former. So I’m not hesitant to still listen to Fr. Corapi’s stuff (though I’m not sure about the profiteering). I just think the Church has had a clarion voice lessened. It’s a profoundly emptying situation. But the Holy Spirit will provide.
I am disturbed by the actions of the order: they “investigated” the claims although they admit that they found access to necessary facts and evidence denied them. Never-the-less, they “investigate”, deliberate and render a decision without the evidence required nor any due process, canonical or civil afforded to the party involved. They announce their verdict, sans evidence through the press rather than directing it through the appropriate Church authorities. The announcement is made the day before the orders two week retreat and therefore no one will be available to make comment on the process nor the decision to release it in this manner.
No wonder Fr. Corapi didn’t trust the process of investigation. Guilty or innocent, no one should be subjected to such a shoddy, unprofessional and unjust “administration” of justice. The actions of his order do nothing other than highlight the problem with ecclesial justice. If the Church is to act in a manner consistent with its teachings, proper justice needs to be done, and be seen to be done, for the accused as well as the accuser.
Denial of justice is a scandal, and so is the Church’s readiness to approve of such conduct. The perversion this implies is a far greater, because structural, evil than the sins & crimes of a single priest. It will not come to an end when the Corapi affair is a distant memory, unless the Church changes its ways, for the better. Injustice of this kind tars all Catholics with the same brush, because this is supposed to be an official process of the Church acting according to its own principles.
AMEN !
Maybe we can begin to love our priests enough to be involved in their lives and dare to hold them accountable.
Amen!