A 17-year-old Is Denied Confirmation Because Of A Post On Facebook

[Roamin Catholic]

[quote]
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BARNESVILLE, Minn. – If you want to be a Catholic, you have to be 100 percent Catholic.[/font][/color][color=#000000][font=sans-serif]
That’s the lesson one family here learned after their 17-year-old son was denied confirmation after the priest at the Assumption Church here found a pro same-sex marriage post on the teen’s Facebook.[/font][/color][color=#000000][font=sans-serif]
The decision by the Rev. Gary LaMoine to deny the religious rite of passage for Lennon Cihak in mid-October shocked his mother, who said her son has gone to church every week and volunteered around the community in preparation for his confirmation this year.[/font][/color][color=#000000][font=sans-serif]
“You kind of know the Catholic beliefs, but I never thought they would deny somebody confirmation because you weren’t 100 percent. I guess that’s what shocks me,” Shana Cihak said.[/font][/color][color=#000000][font=sans-serif]
The Facebook post in question was a photo of Lennon in front of an altered political sign. Originally reading “Vote Yes” on the Minnesota Marriage Amendment, which would have changed the state’s constitution to define marriage as between one man and one woman, Lennon scribbled out the “yes” and replaced it with “NO!”[/font][/color][color=#000000][font=sans-serif]
Shana, who said she was confirmed at the same church, was called into a private conversation with the priest soon after the photo was discovered and was told her son wouldn’t be allowed to complete confirmation.[/font][/color][color=#000000][font=sans-serif]
A man who answered the door at the rectory adjacent the church at 307 Front St. N. here just after 9 p.m. on Wednesday said he had no comment. Shana said La-Moine lives at the rectory by himself.[/font][/color][color=#000000][font=sans-serif]
Lennon said fellow students in his confirmation class “liked” the photo on Facebook, but they were still allowed to be confirmed.[/font][/color][color=#000000][font=sans-serif]
“I just thought it was wrong to single him out,” Shana said.[/font][/color][color=#000000][font=sans-serif]
Her husband, Doug Cihak, agreed.[/font][/color][color=#000000][font=sans-serif]
“(LaMoine) was talking about ‘God doesn’t believe in this.’ Well, God created Lennon,” said Doug, adding that he was baptized and raised in the same church.[/font][/color][color=#000000][font=sans-serif]
But now the family is not allowed to participate in Communion there, Doug said, and he’s worried as to how far the sanctions will go, expressing concern about being able to be buried alongside his parents.[/font][/color][color=#000000][font=sans-serif]
Still, Doug insists he’s not mad at LaMoine, calling him just a “messenger” of the church. The same could not be said for his wife, who said she doesn’t plan on returning to the church ever again, her son nodding in agreement.[/font][/color][color=#000000][font=sans-serif]
“You should be able to go to a church for support, help,” Lennon said. “He pushed me away.”[/font][/color][color=#000000][font=sans-serif]
Shana said she contacted Bishop Michael Hoeppner of the Catholic Diocese in Crookston to see what her options were to appeal, but Hoeppner said not much could be done. A more formal appeal could still be filed, she said.[/font][/color][color=#000000][font=sans-serif]
A St. Joseph’s Catholic School teacher in Moorhead was also let go earlier this year after she expressed concern about Hoeppner preaching to children about the marriage amendment.[/font][/color][color=#000000][font=sans-serif]
Calls to a phone number listed for Hoeppner on Wednesday evening resulted in a message saying the phone was temporarily not accepting calls.[/font][/color][color=#000000][font=sans-serif]
But through it all, Lennon said his faith hasn’t faltered.[/font][/color][color=#000000][font=sans-serif]
“I don’t want the church to be put down. I don’t want the Catholic religion to be put down,” he said. “It’s just the way the priest has things running. He’s so strict. He won’t loosen up about things.”[/font][/color]


[/quote]



[url="http://www.inforum.com/event/article/id/380452/"]http://www.inforum.com/event/article/id/380452/[/url]

[homeschoolmom]

Interesting... especially since a "no" vote doesn't necessarily mean support of gay-marriage at all. Some people voted no because they didn't want that amendment in the constitution.

Regardless, it's wrong, imho, to withhold the Sacraments like that.

[Nihil Obstat]

Thank goodness Dr. Peters wrote about it. Otherwise I would not know what I was allowed to think.


[url="http://canonlawblog.wordpress.com/2012/11/16/confirmation-and-advocacy-of-gay-marriage/"]http://canonlawblog.wordpress.com/2012/11/16/confirmation-and-advocacy-of-gay-marriage/[/url]


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[size=4]Those trying to figure out exactly what happened to a teenage Catholic scheduled for Confirmation consequent to his posting a pro ‘gay marriage’ photo of himself on Facebook will not, I fear, find [url="http://www.inforum.com/event/article/id/380452/"]in secular press reports[/url] (amid their hyperboles and irrelevancies) much useful information about the incident, but it seems like something along those lines happened in Minnesota. So let’s set out some points.[/size][/size][size=1]
[size=4]Catholics have a basic right to access the sacraments (Canon 213). The burden is on ministers to justify withholding sacraments from Catholics who seek them “at appropriate times, properly disposed, and not prohibited by law from receiving them” (Canon 843). Hmm . . . “properly disposed.” Canon 889 § 2 states that to receive Confirmation licitly one must, among other things, be “properly disposed” for the sacrament. Hmm.[/size][/size][size=1]
[size=4]Well, what about this “proper disposition” requirement?[/size][/size][size=1]
[size=4]Generally “proper disposition” is not a question of [i]internal[/i] disposition (such as interior faith, fervor, or grace) but rather of [i]external[/i] disposition (public demeanor, dress, and conduct). The state of a would-be recipient’s soul is not determinable, of course, but his or her attitudes and conduct [i]are[/i] observable (we’re talking Facebook, no?), and potentially actionable. If a pastor, charged with the custody and celebration of the sacraments left to the Church by Christ, has solid reason to doubt the liceity of his conferral of a sacrament on a given individual, he is within his authority to delay, or even to deny, that sacrament for so long as that sad situation lasts. His decision is, of course, reviewable by ecclesiastical authority (not by the media) and such authority (with access to all the facts) might reach a different conclusion. But one starts any review with the above canons clearly in mind.[/size][/size][size=1]
[size=4]In another context I wrote about the risk of invalid (not just illicit) Confirmation on rebellious teenagers. See my “Invalid confirmation due to contrary intention of the recipient”, [i]2007 CLSA Advisory Opinions[/i] at 68-70. Such concerns should be assessed here as well.[/size][/size][font='Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif][size=3]
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[HisChildForever]

[quote][color=#000000][font=sans-serif][size=3][background=rgb(227, 227, 227)]Shana, who said she was confirmed at the same church, was called into a private conversation with the priest soon after the photo was discovered and was told her son wouldn’t be allowed to complete confirmation.[/quote][/background][/size][/font][/color]

Why not talk to the young man himself about his Facebook photo?

Edited November 17, 2012 by HisChildForever

[MissScripture]

[quote name='HisChildForever' timestamp='1353131075' post='2511689']
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Why not talk to the young man himself about his Facebook photo?
[/quote]
We don't know he didn't. The mom is merely saying that she was told that he would not be receiving confirmation.

[MissScripture]

[quote name='homeschoolmom' timestamp='1353130932' post='2511686']
Interesting... especially since a "no" vote doesn't necessarily mean support of gay-marriage at all. Some people voted no because they didn't want that amendment in the constitution.

Regardless, it's wrong, imho, to withhold the Sacraments like that.
[/quote]
If you follow the link, it shows a pic, and it was more than just changing the"yes" to "no" as the article states. He also changed it to say "equal marriage rights." So it was more than merely not wanting it in the constitution.

[Norseman82]

[quote name='HisChildForever' timestamp='1353131075' post='2511689']
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Why not talk to the young man himself about his Facebook photo?
[/quote]

Because at 17 he is still a minor and therfore with such a momentous decision it is necessary to get the parents involved, similar to telling the parents that a son/daughter would have to repeat a grade.

Besides, what kind of name is "Lennon"? Is there an obscure St. Lennon, or did the parents name him after John Lennon? If the latter, I guess that shows how the parents "wear their faith".

Edited November 17, 2012 by Norseman82

[truthfinder]

There's a report on Lifesitenews that he was indeed asked about the post - and the priest had misgivings with him being confirmed in the first place.

[Aloysius]

if only they'd have just confirmed him as a baby along with baptism and first communion, maybe he'd have had the grace to avoid this whole mess!

... I kid, I kid, but I do like the emphasis on grace in the sacrament of confirmation and less of an emphasis on it as a rite of passage or a graduation as it's become in the Latin Church... this whole incident is kind of symptomatic of that particularly Latin view of the sacrament, and also symptomatic of the poisonous political culture that we live in.

of course, if you look at the picture he crossed out yes and put No but then he also wrote Marriage Equality or something so it basically said vote no on Marriage Equality lol. but of course that wasn't his intention. poor kid got caught up in a faulty ideology, I hope he can find a way to resolve it with the priest and the Church. It was impressive that he was saying he didn't want people to get upset at the Church over this, though the cynical side of me thinks of that as him being smart about his comments knowing that that's the best way to come out looking good. I suppose they'll be appealing to the Bishop, but it probably won't go anywhere. it's sad that the kid is cutting himself off from the graces of the sacrament over this, I understand that the priest has said he would have to repudiate his views to be confirmed.. unlikely a prideful 17 year old without the graces of confirmation would humble himself in that way so it probably ends badly at that point. sad situation produced by a poisonous political culture.

[Nihil Obstat]

[quote name='Aloysius' timestamp='1353135996' post='2511738']
... I kid, I kid, but I do like the emphasis on grace in the sacrament of confirmation and [b]less of an emphasis on it as a rite of passage or a graduation as it's become in the Latin Church[/b]... this whole incident is kind of symptomatic of that particularly Latin view of the sacrament, and also symptomatic of the poisonous political culture that we live in.
[/quote]
A million times this. I cannot even count how many times I was taught that Confirmation is the time where you "finally choose for yourself" whether or not you want to be Catholic. Lord preserve us.

[Nihil Obstat]

[url="http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/parents-claim-minnesota-priest-denied-son-confirmation-over-gay-marriage-vi"]Life Site News[/url]:


The following day Fr. LaMoine’s secretary, who is Facebook friends with Lennon, chanced upon the controversial post and alerted the priest to it.
The priest says that he then telephoned Lennon, and in the course of that conversation the boy said he had chosen not to go forward with Confirmation.

Lennon’s post came days before Minnesotans were slated to go to the polls to vote on an amendment to define marriage as between a man and a woman. It showed him holding a pro-marriage sign that he had defaced to express his support for “equal marriage rights.”
The priest admits, however, that once he knew that Lennon supported same-sex marriage, and was unwilling to retract his views, that he would not have been able to confirm him.
“You can’t have people out there saying things that are so contrary to the central teaching and doctrine of the Catholic faith, and going through Confirmation,” he said. “After he put it out in the public, we would have looked like a bunch of hypocrites in confirming him.”
[...]

The priest decried the tone of the media coverage. “This is coming out as if I just kicked [Lennon] out in anger,” he says. “I don’t function that way as a pastor. I called him up and talked to him. And I’m not angry at him.”
In a statement which Fr. LaMoine plans to read to his congregation on Sunday, the priest says he is dismayed “that what should have been kept an internal Church matter has now become a public controversy.”
“To place this controversy into the public forum was the decision of the young man and his family,” he said. “It was not my intention or the intention of Bishop Hoeppner who was informed about the situation shortly after the young man withdrew from candidacy.”

[Apotheoun]

I believe that it was perfectly reasonable and correct to withhold the sacrament of confirmation from the young man. In Eastern Christianity there is no notion that a person has a "right" to the holy mysteries. Grace is not a matter of rights; instead, it is a gift, a gift which flows out from a living faith, and an assent to all that God has revealed in Christ. If a man dissents from the teaching of Christ he is not prepared to receive that gift, and repentance (metanoia) is the proper response.

Edited November 17, 2012 by Apotheoun

[Ash Wednesday]

[quote]"[color=#000000][font=sans-serif][size=3][background=rgb(227, 227, 227)]You kind of know the Catholic beliefs"[/background][/size][/font][/color][/quote]

Well, that doesn't help matters any.

I remember a priest from back home denying a guy confirmation and entry into the church -- he was a young teenager dating a Catholic girl, and neither yet even 18. At the time the priest wasn't sure about his intentions and felt that he wasn't making a mature or well thought out decision on the matter, his parents weren't really comfortable with it, either. Of course people treated the priest like he was being a cruel stick in the mud denying a poverty-ridden kid his first-ever birthday party at McDonald's.

The church isn't a conveyer belt in a sacrament factory, and confirmation isn't "graduation" -- I can understand why the priests did what they did, in both cases. The Minnesota boy was making a very public statement and stand on what he believes, it was right for the priest to address the matter and respond accordingly.

[Apotheoun]

I found the following comment in the article shocking: “'You kind of know the Catholic beliefs, but I never thought they would deny somebody confirmation because you weren’t 100 percent,' she said. 'I guess that’s what shocks me.'”

This woman needs a reality check.

[CatherineM]

One of the girls in my confirmation class was denied the sacrament for flagrantly denying a church teaching. It didn't cause a controversy or church exit. At the time, 1976 when we were both 14, the consensus was that she wasn't Catholic enough or not mature enough in her faith to receive the sacrament. Her parents agreed.