Novena for Fr. Euteneuer

The response has been overwhelmingly positive, so we’re going to do it. Sarting on Tuesday, February 8, we’ll be praying together as a prolife family each night at 9 PM for the restoration of Father Thomas Euteneuer to full emotional and spiritual health, and God willing, to active ministry. We shall pray for the full restoration to emotional and spiritual health for the woman with whom he became involved, and for all who have suffered as a result of this.

Deacon Marcelino Hernandez of the Archdiocese of Chicago has graciously consented to be our spiritual and pastoral leader in prayer.

When, Where, How…

Each night, for nine consecutive nights at 9 PM EST, I’ll post the prayers for the Divine Mercy Novena, along with the focal point for the night that Deacon Hernandez will send to me. Our Protestant brothers and sisters are welcome and encouraged to join us in these prayers, or to pray along with us in the manner that best expresses their prayerful relationship with the Lord. Others and I will also pray the Chaplet of Divine Mercy after the novena prayers.

The necessary corrective measures have been taken by Fr. E and his bishop.

Now we enter the season of prayer and healing for all who have been hurt in this chapter of Fr. E’s life.

Thank you Deacon Hernandez for your prayerful leadership in this season of healing. 

Coming Home

Ht V

Statement of Fr. Thomas Euteneuer: setting the record straight

The following is the complete text of Fr. Euteneuer’s statement:
January 31, 2011

It is with great sadness, but also with a certain measure of relief, that I can now respond to the many inquiries about my departure as president of Human Life International (HLI) at the end of August 2010. It has been painful for me to remain silent in light of the ongoing speculation, particularly when much of it assigned blame to those who were, in fact, blameless.  I am thankful to be able to set the record straight so that speculation can stop and blame can be placed right where it belongs - with me.

The circumstances that led to my departure from HLI were related exclusively to my own decisions and conduct within the ministry of exorcism that I carried out independently from my responsibilities at HLI. The vast majority of my decisions and conduct, both personally and in this ministry, were morally sound and consistent with all standards of pastoral care of persons.  Moreover, they were all motivated exclusively by my desire to give priestly assistance to people in great spiritual distress. I must acknowledge, however, that one particularly complex situation clouded my judgment and led me to imprudent decisions with harmful consequences, the worst of which was violating the boundaries of chastity with an adult female who was under my spiritual care.

I take full responsibility for my own poor judgment, my weakness and my sinful conduct that resulted from it. I offer no excuse for my professional or moral failures, nor do I shift the blame to anyone else. I state without reserve that I am deeply sorry for my actions.  I have personally apologized, where possible, to anyone I have harmed.  I am saddened beyond words for my fall, not only because of the harm done to my priesthood and my family, but also because of the harm done to all others who are affected, to the faith of those who placed so much trust in me and our Church, and to the pro-life movement so populated with heroic, faithful people. I must face and make amends for the disappointment I have caused.  I have, of course, asked for God’s forgiveness and I have confidence in his boundless mercy.  I am now grateful to be able to publicly ask for all of yours as well.

The entire statement is available on LifeSiteNews

The spiritual warfare that he has to endure would crush any one of us. God permits human weakness to bring about greater humility.  Let's all pray a rosary for Fr. Euteneuer today. 

Fr John Hardon: Abortion as pagan sacrifice

Moloch sacrifice

We know what the word “sacrifice” means. It means the surrender of something precious to the god in whom a person believes. Sacrifices have been part of world religions since the dawn of recorded history. Without exception, the deities of all the religions of the ancient world demanded sacrifices in their honor. The Egyptians and Babylonians, the Greeks and Romans, the deities of pre-Christian India and of the continent of Africa required that their adherents offer what we call sacrifices in their name.

What is less well known, however, is that these religions also required the sacrifice of children as an oblation and even as a condition, for obtaining blessings from the gods. We read in the Office of Readings for today’s Divine Office that the Lord spoke through the prophet Jeremiah, charging the Jews of imitating the pagans in their practice of child homicide. Said the Lord, “They have built high places for Baal to immolate their sons in fire as holocausts to Baal: such a thing as I neither commanded nor spoke of, nor did it ever enter my mind.”

As we read statements like foregoing, we ask ourselves: how could human beings be so deluded as to seriously believe that their gods required human sacrifice as a condition for receiving divine favors? The key word is “deluded.” Thirty years of teaching comparative religion has taught me that there is no limit to the irrational, indeed insane, practices that religious mythology will not put into practice as a mandate from the deities in whom they believed. Thus we read in the history of the Aztecs in South America before Columbus that they would kill up to ten thousand children on a major feastday in honor of one of their gods. Although seldom mentioned, infanticide as a religious ritual was practiced in India before its colonization by Great Britain.

We return to the theses that should be explored far beyond the time we can give it in this conference. Abortion as the widespread practice that it has become today is incredibly a religious practice. It is inspired by the evil spirits who, in Christian terms, were and are the malignant deities of paganism. These deities, often goddesses, demanded the sacrifice of children to be propitiated. Unless children were killed and offered to these gods, they would avenge their anger against the people in the most devastating ways.

As believing Catholics, we know that behind the murder of unborn children is the superhuman mind and malevolent will of Satan and his minions. To know this is to also know that only divine power is a match for the demonic power behind abortion. This divine power is the power of the God who became man in order, as He told us, to conquer the devil as master of the world.

How did Christ provide for the conquest of Satan and his agents? He did so by dying on the cross. The one who died on Calvary was man, but this man was the living God. On these premises, Calvary is the divine sacrifice because it was God who assumed a human body and a human soul which could separate in a human death on Good Friday. Except for this divine sacrifice of Jesus Christ there would be no hope for the human race.

However, let us be clear. Christ did die for our salvation. He shed His blood on Calvary. In that sense, He completed the mission given to Him by His Father. But really that was only the beginning. By His sacrifice on Calvary, He won for us the title to the graces we need to reach our eternal destiny. But this same Jesus Christ made sure that these graces would be communicated to mankind until the end of time. The principal channel of these graces is the Sacrifice of the Mass.

The graces which Christ pours out on a sinful world through the daily offering of Mass are the graces which a homicidal world needs to return to its worship of the one true God, and cease committing the crimes of abortion which are really acts of worship of the evil deities who we know are the evil spirits.

The Sacrifice of the Mass, therefore, provides us with the light and strength we need to live sacrificial lives. But we must use these graces and really live lives of sacrifice. If we do, and in the measure that we do, we shall obtain for the agents of death the miraculous graces they need to abandon their idolatry and return to the worship of the one true God.

Our faith tells us that the Sacrifice of the Mass is at once the sacrifice of Christ and our sacrifice, too. Christ has done all that He could by dying on the cross. We must do all that we can to follow in His footsteps and die to ourselves out of love for Him.

The Real Presence  

Fr. Tom Euteneuer is not alone in his opinion. 

Fr Euteneuer "in a serious situation of his own doing"

A source close to Euteneuer, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told me (Tom O' Toole) that "Father Tom is, sad to say, in a serious situation of his own doing and may not be returning to public ministry".

http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/otoole/110114

HT Steve Kuhl

Umm, this is getting creepy!  

Palm Beach Post: Fr. Tom Euteneuer exits public spotlight, mystifying many

By Lona O'Connor Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

This summer, without warning, Euteneuer, 48, left his HLI post, saying he had been called back to the Palm Beach Diocese by Bishop Gerald Barbarito. His book on exorcism disappeared.

The Catholic blogosphere lit up like a Christmas tree, as supporters speculated on where he was, why he left an organization he seemed destined to lead and what his professional future might be.

The person who could answer those questions is Barbarito, Euteneuer's superior. And Barbarito is not talking.

A diocesan spokeswoman said only, "This is a matter dealing with priestly personnel, and we are not going to participate in this story."

Euteneuer did not respond to an interview request.

Euteneuer's supporters are still questioning the reasons for his departure.

"What really happened to exorcist Euteneuer?" wrote Catholic blogger Matt C. Abbott in December on RenewAmerica.com, a Catholic website.

Trained in exorcism ritual

Before he dropped out of public life, Euteneuer was a frequent interviewee on Abbott's blog. Abbott contacted the Diocese of Palm Beach regarding Euteneuer, but received no response.

A small number of modern-day priests, like Euteneuer, are trained in a specific Catholic exorcism ritual, in which the priest orders demons to leave a possessed person or place.

Exorcism has been a part of Catholic Church practice since its earliest days. There are references in the New Testament to Jesus casting out devils.

In a speech he would give titled "An Evening with an Exorcist," Euteneuer attempted to demystify one of the least understood of Catholic rituals. He also recounted his bizarre experiences.

In another interview, Euteneuer said one demon offered to help him with his Latin if he would let him stay put. Asked by the interviewer if that might be an example of demonic humor, Euteneuer retorted that demons have no sense of humor.

He condemned the Harry Potter books and movies, the Twilight vampire books and movies and the television sitcom Sabrina the Teenaged Witch as vehicles for the devil to enter weaker natures. He also advocated that exorcisms be performed outside abortion clinics, which he described as "temples of a demonic religion..."

Whatever happened to Euteneuer, it happened swiftly.

In June, HLI was promoting his new book, Exorcism and the Church Militant. In July, Euteneuer was back in his home diocese, in Jensen Beach, giving his "An Evening with an Exorcist" presentation.

On Aug. 27, Human Life International issued a brief press release saying Euteneuer had "stepped down" at the request of Barbarito.

All references to the exorcism book disappeared from the HLI website.

His scheduled September talk on Catholicism in a Chicago suburb was canceled.

By September, it was nearly impossible to buy a copy of his book, Exorcism and the Church Militant, just published in June. One online bookseller was offering it for $975...

Sancte Pater

HT Steve Kuhl

Fr. Tom Euteneuer recently wrote a fantastic piece in The Latin Mass magazine on the traditional form of the exorcism.  I wonder if that got him in some trouble...