All posts by Father David Nix

Podcasts, Sermons, Talks

Salvation Podcast 2

Pace Pelagius, what are the three things that the Catechism of Pope St. Pius X says that we need to get to heaven? Can natural good works get us to the supernatural goal of heaven? Why did Pelagius deny Original Sin? Why is grace needed in the wake of Original Sin? When should babies be baptized? Can any sin be forgiven in confession? Can suicides be saved? Can non-Catholics go to heaven? Can a good-hearted non-practicing Catholic be saved? Do most Catholics go to heaven? Is it hard to be saved? Must we die in sanctifying grace or is ignorance of the Gospel enough to be saved? What about death-bed conversions? What about making extra reparation for sins after confession? Can Ben Shapiro get to heaven by simply following his conscience?

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Podcasts, Sermons, Talks

Salvation Podcast 1

Who was Pelagius and what is Pelagianism? How did Pelgianism in the 5th century lead to ecumenism in the 20th century? Has ecumenism led the Vatican to begin an approach to the UN’s Agenda 2030? What is “one world religion”? Is salvation a free-gift or must we work hard for it? What is that 18th century heresy of Quietism? How does free-will come into salvation? What importance does faith, grace and works make in our lives?

“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”—Eph 2:8-10

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Theology

The Simple Gospel

Our Patristics professor in seminary said something that I will never forget. He said: “Don’t read the Scriptures with a higher IQ than who it was written for.” I’m going to keep coming back to this line, “Don’t read the Scriptures with a higher IQ than who it was written for,” so I need to explain first what it does not mean.

My professor was a very intellectual man, so he was not saying that the Gospel of Jesus Christ was created to trick peasant-doofuses into becoming Christians or later that Catholicism would become the opium of the illiterate-masses. Nor did he mean that the Deposit of the Faith was transmitted by Christ to a group of shallow fishermen who went forward to find the most deceivable people to baptize. 

While re-reading Acts of the Apostles, I recently discovered that the Apostles were actually not sloppy in their original observance of Judaism (despite how Protestant movies often portray them as saccharine-sweet modern used car-salesmen.) The opposite is true, in fact, as is found in Acts of the Apostles. Despite his impetuosity and fast tongue to Our Lord (even after Christ’s Resurrection!) consider below how St. Peter has an insistence on how he has always adhered to Mosaic law:

The next day, as they were on their journey and approaching the city, Peter went up on the housetop about the sixth hour to pray. And he became hungry and wanted something to eat, but while they were preparing it, he fell into a trance and saw the heavens opened and something like a great sheet descending, being let down by its four corners upon the earth. In it were all kinds of animals and reptiles and birds of the air. And there came a voice to him: “Rise, Peter; kill and eat.” But Peter said, “By no means, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean.” And the voice came to him again a second time, “What God has made clean, do not call common.” This happened three times, and the thing was taken up at once to heaven.—Acts 10:9-16

The idea of Don’t read the Scriptures with a higher IQ than who it was written for also does not also does not mean that the infinite orthodox interpretations of the Sacred Scriptures are immediately obvious to even the greatest of theologians. Both scientists and theologians define simple as “nothing lacking and nothing superfluous.” Thus, God Himself is simple, nothing lacking but nothing superfluous.  But God is not simplistic. So also, the Sacred Scriptures. It has been said that the Gospel of John is easy enough for a child to play in but deep enough for a theologian to drown in.  So, my prof’s line Don’t read the Scriptures with a higher IQ than who it was written for does not mean we don’t need theologians who will go deep into typology.  

Indeed, we need holy theologians, but not legalistic scribes.

I believe that if Satan tricked the religious leaders of the first century towards a religious attitude so legalistic to the right that they would not recognize the first coming of Christ, it would equally be the perfect trick of Satan to trick the religious leaders before the second coming of Christ to adopt a religious attitude so legalistic to the left that they would not recognize the time of Christ’ second return.

Indeed, theologians today are more legalistic than they have ever been in the history of the Church since the first century scribes. Here’s a few examples:

  1. Many young men have been told by priests that (based on a seriously ambiguous line in the new Catechism) that if they have the habit of masturbation, that very habit reduces culpability and it is thus not a mortal sin. Those guys go on sinning into their own marriages and thus endanger their marriages and salvation.  I hope someone will come and tell them that loopholes don’t save; only Jesus Christ saves.  This is the Simple Gospel. But if they listen to that modern confessor…. Loophole theologian: 1. Soul won for Jesus: 0.
  2. Almost every tribunal in the USA doles out endless declarations of nullity (annulments) based on a Canon in the Code of Canon Law that says if a couple had “lack of due discretion” in their time of engagement, that marriage might not be valid.  Well, guess what:  That is every vocation, including my priesthood.  Did I have “due discretion” of the priesthood before I ended up in this mess?  No, but I’m still a priest. Now, I have no problem with “lack of form” annulments, but the “lack of due discretion” thing is for new Pharisees and scribes to manipulate without any end.  I often tease families with five or ten kids that I could get them an annulment under “lack of due discretion” despite having 7 kids!  The couple then laughs nervously at me when I say this. But I mean it: Through this legal loophole, tens of thousands of American marriages (which God has put together) have been sundered apart by modern day legalistic scribes who essentially say: “Better to declare it null through ‘lack of due discretion’ so as to get them ‘out of sin’ as they’re already in bed with their new squeezes.” Satan via gentle scribes: 1. Marriage: 0.
  3. Under the clause “Those who through no fault of their own do not know the Catholic Faith can still be saved,” we have actually created an entire effeminate army of theologians, priests and bishops who essentially teach that everyone is saved, barring major malice in their hearts to God at the very last breath of their lives. If you try to argue with such theologians, they (much like first century Pharisees) will have a loophole (usually quoting Lumen Gentium) as to why every non-Catholic will be saved as long as they didn’t know about the Catholic Church—and even then—could anyone really reject Jesus if they saw His loving face? I mean: Could anyone really commit a mortal sin with full knowledge and full consent of the will if they knew God? Of course not! Therefore, everyone is saved. Satan via liberal legalism: 1. International missionary congregations: 0.

Yes, I realize that it is ironic that a Traditional Latin Mass priest is saying most modern theologians and tribunal officers are mostly Pharisees and scribes.  But I believe in a Simple Gospel with no loopholes. It’s not because I’m mean or less merciful, but precisely because I believe the Cross of Jesus Christ does not need any loopholes to have power! I explained many of these modern legalistic errors more in-depth in this podcast, the same talk as found in this Sensus Fidelium video:

Do you see how modern day Catholic scribes (found literally everywhere in the West!) have used historically-untried but currently-universally-accepted theology to totally empty the Cross of Jesus Christ of all its power? The Gospel is very simple, and it was made for the average person to understand.  

Here is the basics of the Simple Gospel found in Scripture and Catholicism:

Jesus Christ is God who died a horrible death as a man for you and me. Christ had to be a man, so as to offer a human body for our sins done in the body. Christ had to be God for this sacrifice to be boundless and blameless. This sacrifice is perpetuated forever in the Holy Mass.  The merits of Jesus’ infinite love is transmitted by baptism and it is a totally free gift that saves us (1 Pt 3:21) but we will be judged on our actions (Mt 25:31-46.)

No loophole will save you from this:   Not a priest telling you that your mortal sin is not a sin or a Tribunal telling you that you’re not married.  Indeed, salvation only comes from Jesus Christ, “and there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”—Acts 4:12.

All through seminary, I said that Pope John Paull II was the Pope for the blue-collar man but that the old Popes like Pope St. Pius X were the over-intellectuals. The more I read these two Popes, the more I now realize that the opposite is true. Although Pope John Paul II comes to orthodox conclusions, it is only through an endless philosophical sea of anthropocentric phenomenology. Pope St. Pius X, however, simply said the faith in a way that could be understood by, say, a plumber in Chicago in the 1940s.  The great thing about perennial Catholicism is that if a plumber in Chicago in 1940 committed a mortal sin on a Friday night, he went to confession on Saturday afternoon before he went to receive Holy Communion on Sunday morning.

People might retort to my above example, “Oh, but that plumber didn’t have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ!”

My response:  Really? How do you know that? I am not so sure about that. When I was with the FSSP for six months, I will never forget an older woman who once said to me, “When I was in Catholic school, there wasn’t a tweet every time a Pope burped. The Pope was just a picture on the wall at my Catholic grade-school. We had a relationship with Jesus and Mary.” Think about that: We had a relationship with Jesus and Mary. Yes, she was referring to the 1940s. In fact, she and I weren’t even talking about having a relationship with Christ when she said that…which is why I know it came out as truth. The more and more I talk to old people, the more I don’t buy the garbage that no Catholic had a relationship with Jesus Christ before Vatican II.

Nowadays we have many Catholic celebrities who tell us to have a relationship with Jesus Christ in large stadiums with great emotions. Now, unlike most priests who offer exclusively the Traditional Latin Mass, I actually like these Catholic celebrities. I mean it. Many people on the Steubenville speaking circuit actually bring lots of young people to Jesus Christ, and sometimes there is even doctrinal content to their call to surrender.  I’m not being sarcastic. I believe the Holy Spirit very much works at these conferences. But such conferences and Catholic celebrities are only necessary because we have trashed the simple Gospel of pre-Vatican II dogma and liturgy. Yes, I actually believe that the Acts of the Apostles is the same faith that drove immigrants to build Churches like St. Francis De Sales in St. Louis (the shot at the very top of this blog post that I snapped one night while visiting there last year.)  Yes, the same Simple Gospel drove Acts of the Apostles and Polish immigrants, even if our Churches in the West happened to be bigger and more ornate than the underground Church.

Modern youth conferences (not WYD Masses, to be sure, where I have seen people committing sacrilege by making-out at Holy Mass) but the good youth conferences and mens’ conferences and women’s conferences are essentially collateral circulation.  Collateral circulation is what happens when the body creates a concessionary artery when the main artery is clogged.  In my analogy, of course, the original artery is a simple and Holy Priesthood, where the most simple priest (like St. John Vianney) could show up in any country and bring an Apostolic dogma and liturgy to a simple people.   Concessionary circulation is Steubenville conferences.  It’s fine, for a time, in this current Church crisis…but we must return to what Catholicism has always been.

What has it always been?  It has been a Simple Gospel of heaven and hell, redemption and sin.  You did not need a PhD in loopholes, I mean Canon Law, to get people to heaven.  Priests of every century would simply teach their peasants and geniuses alike the Creed, the Our Father, the 10 Commandments and the sacraments. I blogged about how easy it was to transmit traditional Catholicism to everyone (not just the elite) in The Over-Intellectualization of the Catholic Faith. Such peasants could have an IQ of 80 or 180 and still start to establish the reign of Christ the King in both their hearts and society.

For example, a simple Spanish Franciscan showing up as a missionary to pagan Mexico in the 16th century did not need any laser beams, nearly-invisible megaChurch microphones around his face or cool intro-songs with dry-ice fog to announce his entrance. That is because it was the same convicting beautiful faith that the soldiers of World War II found at Holy Mass, a catechesis in and of itself that led to not only love of God but fear of God:

Chaplain Dennis Murphy celebrates mass for the men of 65th AAA Bn., at Bolo Point, Okinawa. July 19, 1951. Nelse Einwaechter. (Army) NARA FILE # 111-SC-378561 WAR & CONFLICT BOOK #: 1464

Catholic Church history has no pendulum between conservative and liberal like we were told in High Schoo.l Catholicism is Catholicism that has simply endured four major Church crises, the worst of which we are in right now. The Catholic Faith of the Desert Fathers in the 3rd century was the same as the Catholic Faith of the 13th century Franciscans and Dominicans and the same Faith as the great Doctors of the Church and international missionaries of the 16th century. There were no scribes and loopholes who emptied the power of the cross, as we sadly see today. Even the early Christians (even with all of their beautiful speaking in tongues, which I believe is a real gift) were closer to traditional Catholics today than Pentecostals.

No one can argue the facts: Traditional Catholicism made one billion Catholics, where US Catholicism has bled one million Catholics every year since the year 2000. Why should a basic blue-collar man take the faith seriously if it can be argued away by loophole-loving scribes?

So, what do you do about this in your family? The best I can do is to tell you to purchase the Catechism of Pius X. It sounds daunting and scary, but it is actually easier to read than even the Baltimore Catechism for children! The Catechism of Pope St. Pius X has no errors in it like: “Muslims…together with us…adore the one, merciful God.” While the new CCC was written for bishops to distill further down into their own pastoral needs, and whereas the Catechism of the Council of Trent was actually written for priests, the Catechism of Pius X was made for the layman:

It was recently translated into English by Aeterna Press. And while I would encourage Aeterna Press to fix up the punctuation typos (found on nearly every single page of their production) it my still my absolute go-to, gold-standard for all teaching and evangelization. I encourage anyone who reads this blog post to purchase many copies. It is only $7 on Prime and it explains the entire Catholic faith in what can be read in less than two hours. It is a total treasure of the faith in only 150 pages (with huge spaces between lines.)

Such is the simple faith of the deposit Jesus Christ handed down to the Apostles. Like the Bible, in this Catechism, you will find no loopholes, only that Jesus Christ and the Catholic Church can bring you to see the fullness of Our Father’s face in heaven. Such is the Simple Gospel found in none of the duplicitous tongues of our modern liberal scribes Pharisees, found teaching and annulling the power of the Gospel over the Western-Hemisphere.

Theology

The Amazon Synod and Married Priests

Crux reports “When the Synod of Bishops on the Amazon rolls around in October, the long-debated possibility of ordaining mature, married men to the priesthood in areas where there are priest shortages will be brought to the table.”

Ever notice that when he who St. Ignatius of Loyola calls “the enemy of human nature” floats propositions to men, that proposition always begins under the guise of “safe, rare and legal”? This is not only in matters of human life, but even in liturgical matters. Fr. Heilman shows here in Truth About Communion in the Hand While Standing that Holy Communion in the Hand only started in 1969 by “bestowing an indult – an exception to the law – under certain conditions.” Notice how eerily similar this idea of a rare “indult” is to the deadly phrase of what the US government once declared would be “safe, rare and legal.”

I speak Portuguese and I’ve been to Brazil three times, including a mission on the Amazon of Brazil. As Fr. Taborda SJ alludes to in the above Crux link, I too saw that many communities get confession and Holy Mass only once a year. This was usually done by a priest headed up a boat on one of the thousand tributaries of that sea-river to bring Christ to the indigenous people of Brazil.

Here is me on an Amazon tributary.
1

So, what about all those poor people without the sacraments? Yes, the Amazon synod will probably decide that for the good “end” of the dissemination of the sacraments, and for the good “end” of the poor receiving the Eucharist (which I both admit are good!) we must begin the “means” of married priests. In fact, this is also the perfect time for this to get passed, politically speaking. This is because the Synod of Bishops in the Amazon will happen in October 2019, which is the same year (albeit months later) that we just finished the sex-summit in Rome.

I can already hear the MSM: Wouldn’t marriage be a better pressure-release valve for sick priests than abusing each other or seminarians or children? Again, the end justifies the means: Married priests. Soon, the “safe, rare and legal” option becomes the norm, and when the exception becomes the norm, then the tradition becomes the rigorious exception requiring an indult (as found in the very term, “extraordinary form” of the Mass.) Yes, I am actually predicting that at this rate we will need an indult to stay celibate, were I not equally confident that the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary will arrive before the internal enemies of the Church have this much advance.

A quick cascade down to atheism

You may notice that every time evil wants its way in the Church in the 20th or 21st century, it attempts one of these two theological tricks:

1) The end justifies the means.
2 It is permitted to invert the First and Great Commandments for pastoral reasons.

For example, many priests have led married couples under “conscience” and “pastoral reasons” to use contraception, often due to medical reasons. But such priests still lead married couples to hell, despite odd modern protests by them that God would somehow honor broken human conscience more than His own Divine Law and Divine Revelation.

The Amazon Synod won’t be a pan-global mandate for seminaries to recruit married men. Indeed, as the article said, the Synod will first open the door for older married men to apply for Holy Orders. Thus, the notion of married western priests will be protected from alarmist outrage under pious pretexts like this: “Married priests will happen in rare cases of rural environments where the sacraments are greatly needed” or “This will only happen with viri probati.” Satan is a legalist who tells us that we would rather have the sacraments in sin, rather than holiness in the Church and holiness in the priesthood.

I’m not comparing married Byzantine Catholic priests or even Russian Orthodox priests to Satan or Roe v. Wade, for I fully realize that celibacy and the priesthood are parallel events that intertwine in the West. But this intertwining also has Apostolic roots of celibacy requested of Our Lord to His priests from the very beginning, and this virginity for the kingdom is exactly the last vestige of priestly holiness that I predict to be sunk quietly in the Amazon river in a manner “safe, rare and legal.”

Jesus Christ said:
“For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let the one who is able to receive this receive it.”—Mt 19:12
Fifteen verses later:
“Then Peter said in reply, ‘See, we have left everything and followed you.”—v. 27

  1. I slept in a hammock all night and asked the Captain in the morning if we were going East or West. He said “North.” I said that wasn’t possible because the Amazon runs East-West. He insisted on north, explaining to me that it took seven hours to transverse the width (not the length!) of the river that night! ↩

Life

True Catholic Social Justice

The most important thing in the Catholic Church is the glory of God. Secondly, the salvation of souls. The term “social justice” has been commandeered by SJWs, but let’s admit that real social justice is still on the top-ten list of important things in Catholicism.

About five years ago, I ran into a North American priest in Rio De Janeiro. We traveled around the city a bit, and I explained to him why my two great passions were ending abortion and ending child sex-slavery. After my long explanation, he simply said, “So abortion kills children’s bodies and child-trafficking kills their souls?” He got it perfectly. In fact, as I look back, he gave the most succinct description for everything I want to give my life for. (The only passion now greater in my life the restoration of the Church, for I have realized: If we don’t have a functioning vehicle of salvation of souls, why save bodies on earth?)

But abortion and trafficking aren’t pet projects of mine. Proof is this:  Can anyone name anything worse than killing children’s bodies or souls? Of course not. There are no other issues of social justice today, or even in history, that matter so much. Most of you know global and domestic abortion statistics, but did you know there are 6,000,000 child slaves (updated since the video below) in the world? Tim Ballard of Operation Undergound Railroad claims that there are 300,000 child sex-slaves are here in the USA alone.  Yes, the are 300k child sex-slaves are here in the USA, not just during Super Bowl time (when every Catholic feels the need to put something on social media, as if these children who are raped 15-30 times a day are somehow wheeled back to a storage unit until the next Super Bowl.)

So, every Catholic should be doing something weekly for the end of abortion and child-trafficking, even if only a little penance amidst your busy family schedules. As that priest summarized, “Abortion kills children’s bodies. Child-trafficking kills their souls.” Nothing in history has ever been so evil. This is happening under my watch and yours, even in the USA, so let’s stop expecting religious leaders and presidents of governments to do something. For example, one former spiritual directee of mine was so moved by the plight of these children that she did something herself. She founded Children of the Immaculate Heart, a home in San Diego for the recovery and restoration of girls who have been rescued from sex-slavery in California. Her organization is a 501c3 and a worth target of your financial and spiritual sacrifices.

Yes, conservative Christians and traditional Catholics, we really need to reclaim the term “social justice” and fight harder for these two issues more than anything (except God’s glory and the salvation of souls, into which the two above issues of children’s social justice are actually deeply interwoven.)

Proof that these are not separate issues is this:  It is our generous response to these two social justice issues of today that will truly determine which of the following two sentences each of us will hear from Jesus Christ (perhaps verbatim!) just a few minutes after we hit cardiac arrest:

EITHER:
“Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.”—Mt 25:34-36

OR

“Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.”—Mt 25:41-43

Life

Blackmail and Gaslighting in the Archdiocese of Denver

As I said in My Response to Archbishop Aquila, I never agreed to bury the reports of misconduct. In this 21 June 2018 letter, Bishop Rodriguez seems to imply that at some point, I considered the issues of misconduct to be a closed case. I never did. Nor did I agree to live at my parents’ home past my 4 June meeting on my future assignment. Rather, the Archdiocese in this letter is essentially telling me that I was to live at my parents’ home until I could say that the reports of child misconduct were a closed case. I never did.

This is called blackmail, as pious the language may seem to be:

They never answered me or gave me a residence. Is this because I never agreed to their claims that the issues of misconduct were to be considered a closed case?  1

As far as the claim that there is blackmail in my initial letters to the Archdiocese weighing my future assignment against children’ safety, as Archbishop Aquila claimed here in his public libel statement against me, then I challenge Archbishop Aquila to print my blackmail in full without redactions of names, instead of questioning my sanity.  2

Questioning the sanity of someone standing up for victims’ rights and protection of the Eucharist is called gaslighting even when done in a manner that can only be described as pseudo-fatherly.

  1. “House arrest at a priest’s parents’ home” is not a canonical term, and thus not one that must be obeyed.  St. Alphonsus Liguori teaches that the worst thing for the vocation of a priest is an extremely extended stay at his parents’ place.  This is further reason that canon law must be obeyed by the diocese, namely, that a priest may never be left “destitute.” ↩

  2. Yes, I have my shortcomings in patience.  But I have not been sent back to Denver by all these dioceses as the Archbishop claimed against me. That is a complete lie.  In fact, the only assignment I was kicked out of from another diocese was my assignment in Virginia with the FSSP, for which I was booted for an issue of anger.  I am sorry to the FSSP for this, and I take responsibility for it. ↩

Life

My Response to Archbishop Aquila

In response to my blog post Homeless After Whistleblowing, Archbishop Aquila wrote all the priests of Northern Colorado about me and then published it on the website belonging to the Archdiocese of Denver.

I’d like to highlight a few sentences that Archbishop Aquila wrote about me: “Since Fr. Nix was asked to leave his most recent assignment at the end of March, we have not given up, but his behavior has made it difficult to even establish a dialogue with him…Fr. Nix’s statement that he has been forced to be homeless and has been ignored by the Archdiocese is just another sad chapter in this long saga…We have tried to speak with Fr. Nix, but he fails to show up for scheduled meetings, is hard to get ahold of, and even just yesterday he rebuked Bishop Rodriguez. We will continue to try to help Fr. Nix, if he will let us.”

The truth is that I actually chose to leave my last assignment in Florida via a meeting on 26 March 2018 with Bishop Felipe Estevez.  I left Florida to take care of an injured family member in Denver, which I did faithfully for two months.

While living at my parents’ in Denver, I asked Archbishop Aquila to meet about my future. I did indeed have this meeting on 4 June 2018 with Archbishop Aquila and Fr. Capucci (his judicial vicar.)  They let me speak for a long time about my desire to be a diocesan hermit, but ultimately, they wanted me to assure them that what I had relayed regarding news of priestly and seminarian misconduct with children would be considered a completely “closed case.” I did not agree to that. Archbishop Aquila then told me not to contact him again. He told me that his vicar for clergy, the auxiliary Bishop Rodriguez, would contact me regarding my request to be a diocesan hermit.

Every month since June (meaning we are now at four months out from my last meeting with Archbishop and a full six months out from my March request of being a diocesan hermit to both bishops) I have been obedient to emailing Bishop Rodriguez (exclusively) regarding my future.  Every single month, Bishop Rodriguez emails me back, saying that Archbishop Aquila has not got back to him.

I wish to again highlight that Archbishop Aquila publicly said of me on social media that I “fail to show up for scheduled meetings” and that I am “hard to get a hold of” and that I am being “paid the full salary due to him.”

How could any of these accusations be true with the battery of emails that I sent to Bishop Rodriguez like the one below?  I sent this one one 29 August 2018:

But I sent many emails like that and never received any guidance or meetings or help.

No residence was ever granted me in response to the above email or prior ones. No assignment was ever granted me since my March requests to be a diocesan hermit. No “help” was ever given me for groceries, even as they knew I was “homeless” as stated in the above email.

Archbishop Aquila writes of me “We will continue to try to help Fr. Nix, if he will let us.” That has the ring of fatherly compassion!  However,  I suspect the type of “help” I need is exactly what Fr. Z blogged about last week.

My lawsuit for unlawful discharge after reporting misconduct with children continues against Archbishop Aquila.

Life

Homeless after Whistleblowing

I am a priest of eight years in good standing of the Archdiocese of Denver. About three weeks before the McCarrick scandal broke, I relayed reports of misconduct with children to Archbishop Aquila, and since then, I have been homeless and ignored by his chancery. After months of reaching out to them, I am now forced to go public with these scandals.

After seeking legal counsel, I wrote an email to Archbishop Aquila dated 24 May 2018 that I had heard third-hand that a high-power priest in the 1980s used to share a bed with a boy. That boy is now an adult, and he is a friend of a very good friend. That priest is now an extremely important person in the Archdiocese of Denver. I fear that if one boy was involved with slumber parties with this man, then many others may have had slumber parties, too. I tried to get the victim to talk to me, but he would not. Should the Archbishop retaliate with lies about me for this blog post, I will consider bringing this name to Denver’s 9News.

In that same email dated 24 May 2018 to Archbishop Aquila, I expressed concerns that about five years ago, a seminarian web-cammed or spy-cammed two 12 year old boys in their shower at a private residence. Although the seminary reported this to police, and although the seminarian fled the country, the seminary never apologized officially (except for one holy priest at the seminary who did so on his own.) I expressed my concern at the lack of transparency from the seminary to the family that I know so well.

The day after my report of scandals, the Archdiocese of Denver put $2583.82 into my bank account as seen in this picture.

Notice the date of 25 May 2018. “AoD management corp” stands for “Archdiocese of Denver management corporation.” I believe that $2583.82 is the back pay that would have been owed to me while I was taking care of an injured family member that spring, beginning 24 March 2018.  They had not paid me a single dollar for months prior!

The very next day, 26 May 2018, the threats from the chancery began. Archbishop Aquila wrote me on 26 May: “To be direct, the way you have expressed yourself raises serious civil and canonical implications.” Fr. Capucci, the judicial vicar wrote me: “Please identify your civil lawyer so the Archdiocese’s long-time counsel, Scott Browning of the law firm Lewis Roca Rothgerber Christie, can be in touch with these lawyers first thing tomorrow.”

These threats did not stop me from reporting what I had heard. I brought the above potential cases of misconduct with children to the Denver District Attorney.  I met with Beth McCann on 31 May 2018 at 10am.  Ms. McCann and her team were ready for me on the 8th floor of 201 W. Colfax in downtown Denver.  I reported everything that I had heard. Similarly, I had a 42 minute conversation on the phone on 10 Sept 2018 with the Colorado Attorney General, Cynthia Coffman.   Both women were very helpful to me.

As far as my ministry this past summer, I then tried to apply to a religious order in Kentucky. Archbishop Aquila’s team assured me that I was in good standing, and gave me permission for this one week of ministry as seen in this July pdf. It is the last correspondence that I have heard from his office. In fact, one reason I left the religious order in Kentucky to pursue the life of being a diocesan hermit is that I had no proof that the Archdiocese of Denver ever handed over my paperwork of good standing for anything more than one week.  (The other reason is that I have been asking Archbishop Aquila to be a diocesan hermit since 26 March 2018, but had no answer.)  For months after reporting misconduct I have been writing emails to the chancery, asking for a residence or permission to be a diocesan hermit or permission join a religious order.  I was never given any residence or paperwork to go elsewhere since my reporting on misconduct.  Nevertheless, this important pdf from the Archbishop’s office that shows I have never lost my faculties as a priest:

Since reporting scandals, Archbishop Aquila has iced me and I have been homeless and living out of my car.  Here is what my “dresser” now looks like:

Archbishop Aquila recently created a “solemn promise” website  where he said: “I take very seriously all reported incidents of misconduct by members of the clergy or other Church workers, and we will investigate even non-criminal misconduct with great diligence.”

Above, Archbishop Aquila also promises us priests that he would “ensure your physical, spiritual, and psychological well-being.” Here is me sleeping in my car after my having relayed reports of a priest and a seminarian having a past of potential misconduct with children:

These are very saddening promises, considering that my Archbishop recently built himself a multi-million dollar home as CNN reported here.

Sometimes I stay in my car. Sometimes I stay in a motel (I have gotten bedbugs at least once.) Sometimes I stay with friends.  In defense of the Archdiocese of Denver, I do receive $600 every two months, which is the salary of a retired priest.  However, that is not enough for a motel and groceries every night.

Many of my readers might remember that I have written many times how I had five Novus Ordo parishes in five years under Archbishop Aquila. Wasn’t I in trouble long before the Spring of 2018? Yes, but I can say in good conscience that I was ousted from the Archdiocese of Denver and forced to farm myself out to other dioceses because of how many whistles I had blown on Eucharistic abuses in Denver. To protect the Archbishop’s reputation, I never published all of the Eucharistic abuse that I reported to him, but under Canon 220, I now believe I have a right to a good name, so I have written this new blog post of the letters of Eucharistic abuse that I wrote to Archbishop Aquila in my last two parish assignments that led to my removal from ministry in the Archdiocese of Denver in 2014.

Here is my unpublished (until now) blog post called Unanswered Eucharistic Abuses I reported to Archbishop Aquila to explain why I have had to farm myself out for years with the Traditional Latin Mass to other dioceses.

However, I never lost my faculties as a priest in good standing to hear confessions or offer public Mass. From 2014 to 2018 I have been on loan to other dioceses with all my letters of suitability. Because this on-loan status has stopped after my reporting misconduct, I am now beginning a cause of action of wrongful discharge and violation of public policy against Archbishop Aquila for leaving me without an assignment after reporting misconduct with children. If anyone knows of an employment law firm in Denver that would do this on contingency, or if you are willing to provide the financial retainer to me for this lawsuit, please email me at an email that I opened up for this cause at broen.finn@gmail.com

(Please don’t write me with advice or support. I may begin a Go Fund Me soon enough. At this point, please only write me if you can help with an employment law firm willing to do this on contingency or if you have the money to donate to a retainer for me.  I realize that 1 Cor 6 says believes should not sue believers, but canon law and reasonable discussions have failed me.)

Thus, if this blog post leads to my suspension as a priest under the pretext of anything else in my past, the proof is in the pdf that I again publish below that I remain a priest in good standing. I fully expect Archbishop Aquila to find a “different reason” far in the past to suspend me,  so I again publish again here my proof of being in good standing, sent even after my last time of visiting Colorado, but before having any permanent home:

I have been living out of a car for months. I am not looking for pity among my readers, but I must admit that all these explanations of my vagabond nature are now becoming embarrassing. Anything embarrassing requires me to go public under the Code of Canon Law 220, especially after I have been ignored by my bishop for so many months. Canon 220 reads: “No one is permitted to harm illegitimately the good reputation which a person possesses nor to injure the right of any person to protect his or her own privacy.” And yet my reputation is harmed every time I have to explain to a family why I look like a criminal priest on the road.

After months of being ignored by Archbishop Aquila, I now must go public, for the Code of Canon Law also states in Can. 212 §2: “The Christian faithful are free to make known to the pastors of the Church their needs, especially spiritual ones, and their desires.”

I am being treated as a criminal priest, when there is at least one (and probably several) criminal priests active in Denver.

Denver is the city where I was baptized, confirmed, worked for the City Paramedic Division, and was finally ordained by Archbishop Chaput to the Holy Priesthood of Jesus Christ. I thought of giving up, but I decided I need to fight for this since it is not my priesthood, but Christ’s.

Aware that lying will land me in hell, I sign off with these words from the book of the Apocalypse:

But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, they shall have their portion in the pool burning with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.—Apocalypse 21:8

In Christ,
Fr. David Nix
Roman Catholic priest of the Archdiocese of Denver

Events

Unanswered Eucharistic Abuses I reported to Archbishop Aquila

1

This is a new blog post of my old letters to Archbishop Aquila reporting my last parish assignments in Colorado in reference to the Eucharistic abuse that I found there. During my last two parish assignments in Fort Collins, Colorado (2012 to 2014)  I reported Eucharistic dangers directly to Archbishop Aquila. I have no record of his response to me on any account, except my removal from ministry in Colorado, found in the last paragraph of this blog post.

Before my most recent whistle blowing on my concerns regarding misconduct with children, Archbishop Aquila had allowed me to do the Traditional Latin Mass in other dioceses, on loan, from 2014 to 2018.  That is the point of this blog post here.

However, the auxiliary blog post is only about the Eucharistic issues that made me have to shop for other dioceses. Except the hierarchy, the names below are the names redacted.

Dear Archbishop Aquila,                            15 Oct 2012, St. Teresa of Jesus

Glory to Jesus Christ.

I feel it is my duty as an extension of your priesthood to inform you of what happened this weekend, specifically at the 10:30am Mass at X-parish in Ft. Collins on 14 October, 2012.

In concert with Redemptionis Sacramentum #84, I made an announcement on worthy communion and non-Catholics refraining from communion. Despite this announcement, three things happened in the next ten minutes that are noteworthy:

1. A 20-something year old man with his girlfriend came to receive communion from me. He was clearly confused. I asked him “Are you Catholic?” He said “No” so I gave him a blessing. When I saw him go try to receive the Precious Blood, I went quickly to the chalice to tell him not to.
2. An older man walked away with the Eucharist shortly after this. I had to chase him down. In his hand I found the Eucharist. I told him several times he has to receive it, and each time he said “I did” with it in his hand. Finally, he got mad at me and threw the Eucharist in his mouth. His wife is a long-time Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion. She was very near us with the precious blood when this happened. One other Eucharistic Minister told me after Mass that he may have been on his way to his wife for intinction.
3. The most grave of all the Eucharistic matters from this Mass is as follows: A female-altar-server saw a man put the Eucharistic in his pocket from the hands of an Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion (EMHC) who did not see the incident. The man who took the Eucharist left Church immediately. X, our sacristan, chased the man outside the Church, but Greg would not cross the street after him to recover the stolen host. I was only informed about this after Mass.

Of course, the people of our parish probably found all of this running around to be madness. I also find it to be madness, but for different reasons. Did this host of Our Lord’s body end up in a Satanic ritual last night? These were most-likely preventable abuses through training that my pastor and I disagree on: “However, special care should be taken to ensure that the host is consumed by the communicant in the presence of the minister, so that no one goes away carrying the Eucharistic species in his hand. If there is a risk of profanation, then Holy Communion should not be given in the hand to the faithful.”—Redemptionis Sacramentum #92. In fact, Fr. X’s main concern was that these things never happen at his Masses, only mine. He never once addressed the stolen Eucharistic host.

Fr. X and I are long past mediation, as I brought the following to Msgr. Bernie Schmitz last month. Only the final one is worth reading to understand my conclusions that follow:

1. ca. 8/5: Eucharistic Ministry training is moved from the hands of Fr. David, in favor of Fr. X’s training for the EMoHC of the deanery or diocese.
2. 8/5: Bob, a Eucharistic minister tells me of a dropped host and how he did his best to clean the ground. I tell him it’s not his fault. We agree that we need pattens. Redemptionis Sacramentum 93 requires pattens or communion plates for the faithful. My request for these communion plates to prevent dropped hosts was dismissed nearly a month back.
3. 8/6: I get a text from one of the faithful about spilled Precious Blood, asking what to do with that on clothes. (Although this may have been at another parish, this man in Ft. Collins told me that he believes that few Eucharistic ministers notice these things that happen all the time, simply because few care to watch.)
4. 8/9: Our paid employee, the “Liturgy coordinator,” questions my announcement on worthy communion at Mass (cf. Redemptionis Sacramentum 83-84.) This was the concern she brought to me after repeatedly referring to Our Lord’s body and blood as “bread” and “wine” in that very conversation. At the Vigil of the Annunciation, she stopped my use of incense and publically disagreed with me on the number of chalices I chose, promoting an excessive amount of EMHCs, probably against Redemptionis Sacrametum 151.
5. 8/10: A woman tells me about certain EMHCs at X-parish who despise the Church and her teachings, including those teachings on abortion and confession. I explain that she needs to talk to the pastor.
6. 8/11: During Daily Mass, I make an EMHC refrain from serving, for she came to distribute the Eucharist in shorts and a sleeveless shirt.
7. 8/11: The Eucharist breaks in my hand and about a 1/16th of the host falls to the ground from my hand, while distributing to an elderly man. It takes me several minutes to stop the communion line. Not unlike my earlier incident, he keeps shuffling around the ground near where the host fell. Finally, my altar server comes over and is able to find the piece of Our Lord’s body on the ground. This too would have been easily prevented with a patten.
8. 8/11: I have to ask a female altar server to stop eating a mint or candy 15 minutes before Mass in the sacristy.
9. 8/12: “L,” an EMHC at the 12:30pm Mass fished out some of the consecrated host out of the cup with her purificator. Our Lord’s sacred body stuck to the purificator, but she continued distributing the precious blood with that same purificator the rest of the time, losing the host by the time she returned to the altar. By the time she got to me, she tried to find the piece of Our Lord’s body on the purificator. She could not. Apparently, the host is lost on the ground somewhere. Although not ill-willed by this particular EHMC, this is preventable Eucharistic sacrilege via very basic obedience to Redemptionis Sacramentum (#102 especially, which states that “Holy Communion under both kinds…is to be completely excluded where even a small danger exists of the sacred species being profaned.”) My promise of obedience two years ago was to faithfully celebrate the Eucharist worthily according to the Roman Rite, not according to parish-custom.

Although I could name more, those are the incidents of only one week! I brought all of these to Msgr. Bernie, but I received no news of any changes in our parish. My out-of-state canon lawyer has assured me that these are not matters of scrupulosity. Some of the above issues stem from a most serious sacrilegious negligence, which I believe is happening all over the diocese. Fr. X said he never finds such abuses, and he even went so far (between two and five times over the past three months) to state that he believes that my discovery of these abuses is because I and my Masses are under “diabolical oppression.” Msgr. Bernie, he claimed, said that “Fr. David lives in his own reality.”

This may be true: As long as I am under a pastor, he should know I will not depart from Divine Law from Redemptionis Sacramentum regarding pattens (#93), Eucharistic catechesis on true-worthiness (#84), vigilance on watching the receiver of communion (#92), and pruning on excessive and untrained EHMCs (#151). This I will hold to, especially on weekends, which will be presumably very painful for almost any pastor in the Archdiocese (with a few exceptions like Fr. Y.)

To this point, I’d ask you to make me a chaplain somewhere, if you find me unfit to be a pastor. My conscience will no longer allow me to offer the Novus Ordo on weekends until the minimum of Redemptionis Sacramentum is met by both the pastor and parochial vicar at a parish. I understand that Redemptionis Sacramentum is not the maximum of Eucharistic pageantry, but the minimum of the Church’s standards to ensure the integrity of Divine Worship in the Novus Ordo.

Although the above paragraph may seem to be disobedient at first pale, the reason I cannot compromise on these Eucharistic matters is because the Vatican places Eucharistic matters at the level not of ecclesial law, but Divine Law: “Bearing in mind the nature of the above-cited norm (cfr. n. 1), no ecclesiastical authority may dispense the minister of Holy Communion from this obligation in any case, nor may he emanate directives that contradict it.”—http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/ pontifical_councils/ intrptxt/documents/ rc_pc_intrptxt_doc_20000706_declaration_en.html [Yes, I really linked it like this in my email to the Archbishop.]

I do not know what you are going to do with me, but this is my vote of no-confidence in Fr. X on Eucharistic protection, due especially to his responses to the above Eucharistic abuses and even the loss of two hosts from my EHMCs. I think my pastor and I would agree that we are at the point of irreconcilable differences on the Most Holy Eucharist, and I would rather sustain a leave of absence from the clerical state than risk such sacrilege in being joined to a pastor who does not welcome the aforementioned vigilance.

In Jesus and Mary, I remain your obedient son in Christ’s One Priesthood,

Fr. David Nix

Dear Archbishop,                                                       16 September 2014

After prayerful consideration, I have come to the conviction that I need to present to you the following topics. They are:

1) My many assignments in four years of priesthood.
2) My most recent removal from Y-parish.

As to the first, I have attached the letters that I have written to you (and Bishop Conley) from previous assignments, most of which address my concerns regarding the negligence (and possible abuse) of the Holy Eucharist which I encountered at so many parishes. Bishop Conley met with me. As for the later assignments, I must ask: Have you been informed about the complaints of Eucharistic mishandling? I am attaching several letters from each parish, including a letter I addressed you from X-parish containing reports of two lost Eucharistic hosts. I do not have record of your reply. Please note, also, that I requested the move myself from X-parish explicitly and from Q-parish implicitly, both because of how Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion treated the Eucharist.

As to my most recent move from Y-parish, I have also attached the e-mail that I sent to Your Excellency on January 23rd, 2014. In it, I describe an unsafe work environment, using words like “outbursts and harassment” which has “forced me to inform R [and his wife J] that I would seek a restraining order with the police.” In that email to you, I made it clear that I was in an unsafe work environment. Again, I never heard any response from any authority of the Archdiocese.

This culminated with the employee from Y-pairsh, J (named above), having five verbally violent outbursts against me, all because I would not answer her theological question about suicide in the way she wanted. False accusations against me began in public on January 23rd, 2014. Nevertheless, I peacefully tried to avoid her during all of these confrontations, and I informed my pastor, Fr. Y. In her third to last outburst against me, July 30th, 2014, I was the only priest at the parish and I decided from my training as an EMT and paramedic that she was in danger of moving from being verbally violent to becoming physically violent. I asked her to leave peacefully, but she would not. I subsequently called the police for her removal.

All of my concern for Eucharistic abuse was answered in a five page letter from Archbishop Aquila to me, explaining that I can not get along with pastors. The center of his letter was this:

“In light of these concerns, I want to assure you that you will continue to have faculties for celebrating Mass and for hearing Confessions. However, due to these concerns, I do not believe that you can be assigned to parish ministry or serve in a parish.”—16 Sept 2014, Archbishop Aquila to me, Fr. Nix.

  1. The last time I placed a luna in a monstrance in a parish in the Archdiocese of Denver was for this picture that became quite famous on the internet for those who search “adoration.” I did not take the picture, but it is indeed my last Novus Ordo parish that is featured above. The name of the parish is St. John XXIII, and the second letter below includes my concerns that had me removed from that parish, and ministry altogether in the Archdiocese of Denver. ↩

Theology

On Schism

Johannesburg, South Africa used to be the gunshot wound (GSW) capitol of the world. Several years ago, I was reading about how a Joburg paramedic was treating a conscious GSW patient. After a body sweep to find the exact number of GSWs, the paramedic found an exit wound in addition to the single entrance wound. Finding the exit wound made the medic exclaim, “This means you’re going to live! This means you’re going to live!” (Keep in mind that GSW patients frequently survive. Other victims may die hours later in the Operating Room, unlike the movies where the victim always dies on-scene.)

I’ve been very curious about that story for about a decade, so this week I did some research to see if an exit wound truly increased survival for GSW patients. All I could find in Western medical studies online was that entrance/exit wounds are frequently misdiagnosed about 50% of the time in American Emergency Departments. (In other words, trauma docs often think that the entrance wound is the exit wound and the exit wound is the entrance wound!)

But I have met a few grizzled, old street paramedics who can both identify and even diagnose things that ED physicians can not without their CT and ultrasound toys. So, perhaps this is one of those cases where the Joburg street medics simply know something important from experience: Single-GSW patients have a better chance of living if they also find an exit wound in addition to the entrance wound. (This may be true based on sheer fact that hollow tip bullets do more damage to body systems instead of exiting immediately.)

In this Joburg street medicine we can also find an analogy for our current Church crisis. I keep hearing many Western Catholics bemoaning: “I hope the Church doesn’t schism! I hope we doesn’t schism!” Well…there already is an internal schism. Just look around. Just go to Sunday Mass. Just look on social media. Just look at the Vatican news services: We already have a schism of beliefs. We are not unified.

An external schism will only increase the chances of survival. At least, it will help us Catholics admit we’re at the point where we’re at.

Of course, we already know that the Church will survive by Christ’s promise, but we have no guarantee that the good guys will keep the buildings and the schools and the money. St. Athanasius admitted the good guys did not get the buildings in the Arian heresy. More recently, Venerable Archbishop Fulton Sheen called those who live off the Church but do not contribute to her growth “parasites on the mystical body of Christ.” Yes, an external schism will let those parasites depart, even if they leave with the Church buildings and school and money.

But this schism is not divided exclusively into those people who go to the Latin Mass versus those who go to Mass in the vernacular. The schism we now see is a group of Catholics who believe in the Gospel of Jesus Christ and another group who essentially believe on salvation what Universalist Unitarians believe, namely, that everyone who follows their conscience is saved. Of course, I put “traditionalists” in the former category of those who believe in the Gospel, but I’m thrilled to see so many other non-Latin-Mass Catholics coming out of the wood-works to side with the Truth instead of relativism, to side with the Apostles over the heresy of modernism, who side with sexual-purity over the destructive synods in Dublin and Rome, who essentially side with a God-centered religion instead of a man-centered religion as we see that so many chanceries are built on man, under the pretext of simply being “pastoral.”

Maybe we should start praying for this external schism to manifest itself for survival of the Church on top of the already-existing internal schism that has already bubbled to the top in every parish in the West, on every Catholic’s social media. I don’t propose schism as Martin Luther meant it. In fact, I know we need the Pope and the Cardinals to surivive as Catholics in an Apostolic Church. But perhaps this external schism’s pressure release valve would be an imperfect council held by only a few Cardinals to determine an honest future in the Catholic Church. That is above my pay-grade in the Catholic Church to determine how to slough-off the bad and get on with the good in a small but broken Church. 1

All I know at this point is that an exit wound would increase survival more than a single entrance wound, with all these damaging bullets bouncing around in the soft-tissue of the mystical body of Christ like so many parasites. Yes, this current internal schism may find relief in the outlet of a full external schism. I, for one, am praying for this, because it would be honest to admit that two religions are now occupying the same space, “Catholic.” An external schism will only increase the chances of supernatural survival of the Catholic Church in our lifetimes, so let’s pray that we all admit what has arrived internally becomes formally recognized so we can get on with that single, unchanging Faith in Jesus Christ that Catholics have clung to everywhere and at all times.

  1. By “schism” I of course mean that orthodox Catholics would remain under the title “Catholic” and that the heretics would remain under the title of “modernists.” The reason I am not more clear about that in this blog post is because the bad guys are not going to distance themselves from the term “Catholic” so easily. In fact, Fr. James Martin SJ recently tweeted that the Catholics that oppose him not only oppose the “Vatican” but appear to not be “orthodox.”

    I wish the bad guys would leave us with the title “Catholic” even if they insisted on taking our beautiful Churches. But the bad guys might not relinquish the title “Catholic” to the good guys so easily as seen in the above tweet on Fr. Martin that LSN reported on here.

    That is why I propose in this blog post that the first step is simply to publicly admit “schism” in the manner that “schism” means tear in Greek. I propose we do this first without naming who is obviously Catholic. Furthermore, it may not be initially clear who has the majority of the piece of fabric that has been torn. I fear that the orthodox Catholics will be in the minority (population wise) while the modernist heretics (at least in the USA and Europe) would be in the majority of the Catholic population with most of the clergy.

    However, those gay priests will not reproduce vocations because they are not inspiring. Similarly, the contracepting modernist families will not produce many children. Thus, in one generation or two, the good-guys in the Catholic Church would outnumber the bad-guy modernists. But, as it is becoming clear that the latter has no intention of converting, I say that the good guys split ways with the bad guys so that the good guys can reproduce physically and spiritually without the negative influence, and then in 100 years the good-guys will be the only Catholics left and the modernist heretics would have died out by their own lack of reproduction, even if they initially held on to the title “orthodox.” ↩