Are you intentionally misrepresenting things or are you just not paying attention to what’s been discussed and written?
It’s hard to take you seriously when you create these strawmen.
1. Catechumens absolutely have a spiritual guide and confessor. Sometimes the priest is both the catechist and the confessor, sometimes they just guide them spiritually and confess them before baptism and have someone else conduct catechism. Catechumens participate the life of the Church in every way except participation in the Mysteries, which presupposes, of course, initiation.
(Surely you agree that the non-orthodox are not participating in the Mysteries, right?)
2. Ben does not have a “ministry“. He is not a “teacher“. He is not purporting to be a “teacher of the orthodox faith.” He is conducting interviews, sharing news and takes on non-Orthodox events and ideas. That does not make him a “teacher“ of the Church. Moreover, he was doing this before he became a catechumen, he already had a channel and he’s continuing with the blessing of his spiritual guide. What do you see as problematic here? Is that not up to the spiritual guide to decide if he should continue in *this* or not?
Father Peter Heers believes that a catechumen, if he is blessed by his “Spiritual Father”, can lead ministries.
First of all, as one would hope Father Peter knows, catechumens don’t have spiritual fathers. Secondly, a catechumen is never blessed to perform any ministry.
The whole point of the catechumenate is that they are learning the faith, not teaching it!
Why does an Old Calendarist have to explain this to him?