Cleansing Fire

Defending Truth and Tradition in the Roman Catholic Church

Author Archive

The Splendor of a Catholic Education

February 7th, 2011, Promulgated by Mike

Fr. Tom Wheeland, pastor of Holy Cross Parish, and Ms. Kathleen Dougherty, current principal at the Cathedral School at Holy Rosary and future principal at the soon-to-be-reopened Holy Cross School, published an Op-Ed piece in yesterday’s Democrat and Chronicle in which they offered their answers to the questions, “Why ‘Catholic’ schools? Why now?”

The short answer is that a Catholic faith-based education continues to meet important needs.

For Catholic families, school is a natural extension of a church community joined together to live the message of God’s love as taught by His Son Jesus. Catholic schools integrate important spiritual and moral components with the New York state curriculum, which is a great attraction for non-Catholic families as well. From preschool classes through college, lessons are lived that model how to be a responsible, contributing member of society.

This spiritual element also enhances the learning experience. While the best teachers everywhere teach with a sense of mission, what makes Catholic schools different is what anchors our mission — Christ’s teachings. Our teachers accept traditionally lower compensation levels for equal professional qualifications because of their willingness to assume the role of Jesus’ present-day disciples.

What this means is that even as Catholic faculties challenge students to achieve their full academic excellence, we lift them up with God’s love made visible by their teachers’ caring for the individual and passion for teaching.

This combination of spiritual and secular energy makes an attractive package.

While there is nothing wrong with these answers there are those who would say they just do not go deep enough. One of these would be Fr. Phillip De Vous, pastor at St. Joseph Parish in Crescent Springs, KY (Diocese of Covington).

Fr. De Vous sees Catholic schools as part of the answer to a society steeped in the Kool-Aid of secularism.

As we celebrate Catholic Schools’ Week in the Diocese of Covington, and here at St. Joseph’s, during the first week of February, we are mindful of what is the splendor of a Catholic education. The splendor of a Catholic education shows itself all the more shining and necessary in a culture where the secularist elites in law, government education, mass media, academia, advertising, and others — who act as self-appointed gatekeepers in order to control the official definitions of reality — want put our Catholic Faith and the demands of the Catholic way of life in a box. Our Catholic schools exist to teach our children to think, act, and live in an authentically, evangelically Catholic way so they can be formed as whole persons in Jesus Christ, who is “The Way, The Truth, and The Life.”

The witness and work of Catholic education is all the more important when we recognize the diabolical power and persuasion of the culture of death — aptly described by Blessed John Paul II — which suffocates the souls and suffuses the lives of so many, leaving in its wake a great spiritual, moral, psychological and personal poverty. The idea that fuels the hateful, anti-human and atheistic worldview is that of secularism.

Secularism has become the regnant ideology in our time. Secularism, both as a philosophical idea and an uncritical ideology, artificially separates truth into two domains. The image of a two-story house is instructive to understanding the secularist worldview: The first “floor” of the house is the realm of “facts,” generally narrowly defined in an empiricist and totally materialist way. So only the truths of science, as secularists define and understand them, are admitted to the first floor. It is only on this “floor” that “facts” are to be known and where “real truths” about the world — truths that are objective and verifiable — are found. Note the narrowness of this view and how far from actual human experience and reality it is.

Secularists confine “values” such as statements about beauty, morality, and God, to the second “floor” of the house. These are considered by secularists to be expressions of mere personal preference only, which have no basis in objective reality and thus are unverifiable. And since they have no foundation in objective reality and are unverifiable, according to secularist renderings, they cannot form the basis for public discussion or actions, personal or communal. So religion, which is the lived-life of the Faith, is treated like an eccentric aunt shut up in the attic.

The practical conclusion that one reaches if they buy or breathe in this worldview is that the Christian life, which the Faith gives us and forms in us and among us, is not really true and, if it happens to be true, then it doesn’t really matter. Given the low rates of Mass attendance and participation in the whole life of the parish by those who have received and are in the midst of receiving a Catholic education, it is clear this pernicious and humanly-unfulfilling idea has been breathed in and bought by many in our day.

Catholic education in our time is a witness to a fuller, authentically human, and true way of life. In this our Faith forms the foundation, the first “floor” and second “floor” of the “house,” as well as providing all the furnishings, as the human spirit is lifted to God on the twin wings of faith and reason. Authentic Catholic education stands over and against the materialist and secularist worldview that would define us as nothing more than the sum total of our possessions and earning power. The work of Catholic education in our Catholic schools is about teaching the next generation of Christ’s disciples how to be men and women in full, not “folks full of stuff.” In that regard our schools seek to educate the whole person, not just in the technical skills of living in the world, but in the truths that are indispensable in reaching their eternal destiny: life in the Kingdom of Heaven.

The challenges of carrying out the work of Catholic education are faced by every generation who would apply themselves to this holy and necessary vocation. And it is often the case that at precisely the moment when something becomes the most challenging and difficult to accomplish is when the work is most necessary and urgent. I believe that to be the situation as it pertains to the work of Catholic schools. Catholic schools are more necessary, and their survival more urgent, than ever, especially as we recognize the debilitating and toxic moral, spiritual, intellectual, and spiritual environment our children and their families are exposed to on a daily basis.

It is a fact that the challenges involved and the sacrifices required in achieving and maintaining a Catholic school that provides an authentically Catholic education are formidable. The consequences, however, of not meeting those challenges and making those sacrifices in order to succeed in keeping the holy and necessary work of Catholic schools alive in our parishes and in the world are even more daunting and devastating, given the alienation and toxicity of contemporary lifestyles.

Catholic schools are islands of moral, spiritual, intellectual, and spiritual sanity in world that has been turned upside down. Catholic schools, and the work of Catholic education, provide the witness to hope and truth that our world needs to see in action, to which we all need to contribute, and that our children must receive. As our Bishop, the Most Reverend Roger J. Foys, D.D., has taught us on many occasions, “[W]hen it comes to Catholic education, there are many alternatives, but no substitute.”

Blessed John Paul II was fond of saying that “Jesus Christ is the answer to the question that is every human person.” Catholic schools, in carrying out the work of Catholic education, are foundational and necessary in helping our children answer that question for their own sake and for the life of the world, now, and that yet to come — but already in our midst in the gift and mystery of the Church. All the sacrifices it takes to accomplish the work of St. Joseph School are nothing compared to the blessings we shall reap for our fidelity to this Godly task. That is the splendor of a Catholic education!

As I read through Fr. De Vous’ essay I could not help but think of the now 19 year-old U.S. Supreme Court case, Planned Parenthood v. Casey, in which the court reaffirmed the constitutional right to abortion it set forth in 1973 in Roe v. Wade.

A part of this reaffirmation was this stunning example of secular-individualism-run-rampant penned for the majority by Justices O’Connor, Kennedy and Souter:

At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.

Should anyone still question the need for authentic Catholic education I invite them to prayfully ponder the full ramifications of  this one sentence, now enshrined in the law of our land.

H/T: Matt C. Abbott

A real keypad

January 29th, 2011, Promulgated by Mike

When Verizon first released its version of the Blackberry Storm in December 2008 I had to have one.

Bad decision.

The touch screen keypad required overly precise finger taps to produce the intended letter.  If, for instance, I tapped the ‘r’ ever so slightly left of center the thing would think I wanted an ‘e’ and give me that instead.  This was a gizmo definitely not ready for prime time.  To be fair, subsequent software upgrades have improved the keypad’s accuracy but it will still occasionally produce the wrong character.  My next phone will definitely have a keypad with real keys.

Now, thanks to a tip from His Hermeneuticalness relayed by Fr. Z., I think I may have found that phone:

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Webinar: Pastoral Planning As a Way of Being Church

January 28th, 2011, Promulgated by Mike

Dr. Bill Pickett, DOR’s Director of Pastoral Planning from the inception of the program in 1997 through his retirement in 2006, will be presenting a free webinar at 3:00 pm on Tuesday, February 8.

The webinar, which is entitled Pastoral Planning As a Way of Being Church, is being hosted by Ave Maria Press …

In partnership with the National Conference for Catechetical Leadership and the National Association for Lay Ministry, Ave Maria Press is pleased to present this free, live webinar with William Pickett, PhD!

Pastoral planning is more than a way of dealing with a set of practical problems faced by dioceses and parishes: imbalances between human, financial, and facility resources and the membership of faith communities. While these issues of growth or decline are important to the health of dioceses, pastoral planning must focus on ways to create and sustain vital faith communities, no matter the circumstances in which they exist. This webinar will focus on pastoral planning as a way of being Church rather than a set of tools and techniques for planning.

Ave Maria Press also has this to say about its presenter …

William L. Pickett served as the Director of Pastoral Planning for the Diocese of Rochester for nine years from 1997 to 2006. That role strengthened his spiritual life and led him to a deeper understanding of what it means to be a church. He has thirty years of experience in higher education administration and served as the president of St. John Fisher College in Rochester for ten years.

Pickett, who holds a Ph.D. in higher education from the University of Denver, is currently pursuing an M.A. in theological studies from St. Bernard’s School of Theology and Ministry. He remains an active presenter and consultant in the field of organizational planning with particular expertise in pastoral planning. Pickett lives in Rochester with his wife Marilyn. [A Concise Guide to Pastoral Planning] is his first book.

Those wishing to attend the webinar will need to sign up here.

On a personal note, I was intimately involved with DOR’s Pastoral Planning For the New Millennium (PPNM) program for several years and served as Steering Committee Chairman of the Eastern Greece/Charlotte (EG/C) Planning Group from 2000 through 2007.  While I witnessed many new and worthwhile areas of cooperation among parishes during that time – both in EG/C and other planning groups – I cannot say that I ever once saw PPNM “create and sustain” a “vital faith community.”  Yes, I saw parishes merged and church buildings closed at the end of long, arduous processes but, in my experience, to term what arose from those ashes “vital faith communities” is to raise happy talk to a whole new level.  Just take a look at the recent fiasco in Irondequoit if you need an example.

When it comes time to close parishes Pastoral Planning has frequently led to unnecessarily hurt feelings, charges of backroom dealing and substantial numbers of Catholics leaving the faith.  That’s a way of “being Church” that only Satan could appreciate.

Bishop calls for a new “Syllabus of Errors”

January 22nd, 2011, Promulgated by Mike

His Excellency Athanasius Schneider, O.R.C., Auxiliary Bishop of  Karaganda (Kazakhstan), Titular Bishop of Celerina (Numidia) and noted Patristics scholar, recently delivered an address that has been drawing considerable attention from victims of the ‘spirit’ of Vatican II.

The occasion was The Second Vatican Ecumenical Council: A Pastoral Council – Historical, Philosophical and Theological Analysis, a conference sponsored by the Franciscans of the Immaculate and held in Rome on December 17.  Bishop Schneider’s talk was entitled “Proposals for a correct reading of the Second Vatican Council.”

After a lengthy introduction Bishop Schneider addressed what Pope Benedict has termed “the hermeneutic of rupture” …

The characteristic of rupture in the interpretation of the conciliar texts is shown in the most stereotypical and widespread way in the thesis of an anthropocentric, secularizing, or naturalistic shift by the Second Vatican Council in regard to the preceding ecclesial tradition. One of the most well-known manifestations of such a confused interpretation was, e.g., the so-called Theology of Liberation and the subsequent devastating pastoral practice.

An interpretation of rupture of doctrinally lesser weight is shown in the pastoral-liturgical field. One can cite under this topic the loss of the sacred and sublime character of the liturgy and the introduction of more anthropocentric gestural elements. This phenomenon makes itself evident in three liturgical practices well known and widespread in nearly all the parishes of the Catholic world: the nearly total disappearance of the use of the Latin language, the reception of the Eucharistic Body of Christ directly on the hand and standing, and the celebration of the Eucharistic Sacrifice in the modality of a closed circle in which priest and people continually look each other in the face.

His Excellency then went on to suggest that His Holiness issue a new “Syllabus of Errors.” This syllabus would not only identify the interpretive errors that have taken place since the close of the Council but it would also put forth the correct interpretations, all with the full force of the Papal Magisterium behind it …

In the decades past there have existed, and exist to this day, groupings within the Church that commit an enormous abuse of the pastoral character of the Council and of its texts, written according to that pastoral intention, since the Council did not wish to present its own definitive or irreformable teachings. From the pastoral nature of the Council’s texts it is evident that its texts are, on principle, open to further completion and to greater doctrinal clarification. Taking account of the experience of several decades since then, of interpretations doctrinally and pastorally confused, and contrary to the continuity, over two millennia, of doctrine and prayer of the faith, the necessity and the urgency rise for a specific and authoritative intervention by the pontifical Magisterium for an authentic interpretation of the conciliar texts with completions and doctrinal clarifications: a type of “Syllabus errorum circa interpretationem Concilii Vaticani II”. There is need for a new Syllabus, this time directed not so much against errors coming from outside the Church, but against errors spread within the Church on the part of those who maintain a thesis of discontinuity and rupture with its doctrinal, liturgical, and pastoral application. Such a Syllabus would consist of two parts: a part marking errors and a positive part with propositions of doctrinal clarification, completion, and precision.

….

Thus there truly is the need for a conciliar Syllabus with doctrinal value, and moreover there is need to increase the number of holy, courageous pastors, profoundly rooted in the tradition of the Church, free from any type of mentality of rupture whether in the field of doctrine or of liturgy. In fact, these two elements constitute the indispensable condition so that doctrinal, liturgical, and pastoral confusion may diminish notably and the pastoral work of the Second Vatican Council may bear many and lasting fruits in the spirit of tradition, which joins us with the spirit that reigns at all times, everywhere, and in all true children of the Catholic Church, which is the one and the true Church of God on the earth.

A complete translation of His Excellency’s remarks may be found here.

UPDATE: Fr. Z. has the above translation available as a podcast.

Cardinal Burke on free will, conscience and more

January 19th, 2011, Promulgated by Mike

Cardinal Raymond Burke recently visited St. Louis to celebrate the occasion of his elevation to the Sacred College of Cardinals and to be present for the Ordination Mass of the new Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of St. Louis, Bishop Edward Rice.

While there His Eminence sat down for an 18 minute on-camera interview with the St. Louis Review.  The video of the interview is available on their site and, as they do not allow embedding, you will need to go there to watch it.  An edited transcript is also available.

The video is available here.

Here is a snippet from the interview …

In summary, what does the Church teach on the subject of free will?

God made us in His own image and likeness. And that means that He made us to both know the truth and to live the truth in love. With our mind we come to know the truth; with our will, we love the truth and live the truth. Free will for us is never a question of license, namely doing whatever I please, because that really doesn’t make us free. And all of us have had the experience when we’ve just done what we please. Indeed, we don’t enjoy freedom. In fact, we become enslaved to one or another creature, or enslaved to a habit of sin.

Free will is developed in us through a discipline of our thoughts and our affections, and our words and our actions, so that they more and more are conformed to the mind and heart of Jesus Christ. And as we attain that conformity with the mind and heart of Jesus Christ, we experience a great freedom. We discover that freedom is not meant for my selfish enjoyment, but that true freedom is for the good of my brothers and sisters and the good of those who are around me. We discover that our greatest joy comes from being selfless and being generous and sacrificing ourselves, even when it hurts us very much, in order to love.

… and another one …

Do you think individuals take for granted this awesome responsibility and gift of free will? What kind of advice would you give to someone to help that person to remember that God gives us free will, but yet also keep in mind His will for us?

I do think that there’s a tendency in society today, especially through a lack of a deep education of the children and young people, and also from a lack of study and reflection on the part of us who are adults … to lose sight of the central reality of free will and of conscience in our lives. And that’s how we end up with so many tragic situations in the world. … I would urge, especially in the home, that parents devote themselves to forming the conscience of their children, even as they seek to keep their own consciences well informed through the study of the Catholic faith — especially through participation in Sunday Mass and the other means that are given to deepen the Catholic faith. … Our institutions of Catholic education should be very much directed to helping the students to develop a well-formed conscience.

Found while surfing: The spirit letter of Vatican II

January 18th, 2011, Promulgated by Mike

From Optatam Totius, Vatican II’s Decree on Priestly Training (emphasis added) …

13. Before beginning specifically ecclesiastical subjects, seminarians should be equipped with that humanistic and scientific training which young men in their own countries are wont to have as a foundation for higher studies. Moreover they are to acquire a knowledge of Latin which will enable them to understand and make use of the sources of so many sciences and of the documents of the Church. The study of the liturgical language proper to each rite should be considered necessary; a suitable knowledge of the languages of the Bible and of Tradition should be greatly encouraged.

When this was written the “liturgical language proper” to the Roman rite was Latin.  If, as many progressive Catholics claim, the Fathers of Vatican II had meant for the Latin Mass to disappear, it would be difficult to understand why this paragraph reads as it does.

As something of a non sequitur, I once had a conversation with a DOR priest who had been in formation in Rome.  He did, to his credit, study Latin.  He went on to report that some of his classes involved accompanying the professor on a walking tour of the city during which the students translated the inscriptions they found on monuments, crypts and manhole covers.  (I don’t, however, recall him saying all that much about Caesar, Cicero or Virgil.)

H/T:  Jeffrey Pinyan

Sisters in decline

January 16th, 2011, Promulgated by Mike

On January 1, the Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, Sister Anita Kurowski made her first profession of vows as a member of the Sisters of St. Joseph.  The ceremony, which marked the completion of the novitiate phase of Sister Anita’s  formation, took place at Our Holy Family Chapel in Rochester.  More details may be found here and here.

It struck me that the welcoming of novices or the profession of vows are infrequent events, not only for the Sisters of St. Joseph but also for DOR’s other larger order of religious women, the Sisters of Mercy, and this got me wondering how well the membership of these two groups is holding up.

Below is a graph showing the “Total in Community” (TiC) for each order, as reported by the Official Catholic Directory for the years 1997 through 2010.

There are two sets of data for the Sisters of Mercy (the red and yellow lines), due to a consolidation undergone by that order in 2008.  The bottom (yellow) line shows the TiC data for the Sisters of Mercy in Rochester from 1997 through 2007.  Starting in 2008 the Rochester community was consolidated into a larger group along communities located in Buffalo, Erie and Pittsburgh. (The Buffalo community also includes a community located in the Philippines.) Therefore the top (red) line shows the sums of the TiC numbers for those four congregations from 1997 through 2007, along with the TiC numbers for the consolidated congregation from 2008 through 2010.

The data shows that the membership of the Rochester Sisters of St. Joseph has been declining by about 3.5% per year over the 13 year period, while the Rochester contingent of the Sisters of Mercy was showing a 2.1% annual decline through 2007 and the consolidated New York, Pennsylvania, Pacific and West R.S.M. congregation has been losing members at the rate of 3.2% per year over the entire period.

These trends definitely do not bode well for the long term future of either organization.

Grandeur

January 2nd, 2011, Promulgated by Mike

Earlier today a group from Cleansing Fire had an opportunity to tour the old Sts. Peter and Paul Church in the Bull’s Head area of West Main St.

The building is now owned by a Coptic Christian community and, as is evident from the photos below, they are taking good care of it.

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Rich Leonardi has some more information on this church. See here.

CARA’s 2010 rerospective

December 30th, 2010, Promulgated by Mike

The days between Christmas and New Years seem to be the prime time for retrospectives with many secular news outlets airing year-in-review pieces featuring what they see as the significant events of the preceding 12 months. (This one from Brian Williams of NBC Nightly News struck me as especially poignant, as nearly all of the 57 recently deceased personalities mentioned were more like household names than historical figures to me.)

CARA’s Mark Gray has also taken a look at the year almost finished and has come up with some “statistical nuggets” that have recently come to light.  A few of the more interesting ones follow.

  • The U.S. Catholic population continues to grow and is projected to exceed 100 million by 2050.
  • At the same time, the number of infant baptisms and marriages in the U.S. Catholic Church has declined in number each year since 2001. In 2009, there were 12.7 infant baptisms and 2.7 marriages in the Church per 1,000 Catholics. [The 2001 numbers were 15.4 and 3.9, respectively. -Mike] Although nearly all Catholic parents continue to baptize their children in the Church (as the birthrate declines) many Catholics are choosing to get married in non-Catholic houses of worship or secular settings.
  • Yet even as the recent trend in infant baptisms is down slightly, there are still more than enough people joining the Catholic Church each year to sustain population growth. In 2009, The Official Catholic Directory reported 857,410 infant baptisms, 43,279 adult baptisms, and 75,724 receptions into full communion in U.S. dioceses. This totals 976,413 in one year. To put that in context, the number of new Catholics in 2009 would make this one-year cohort of new Catholics approximately the 26th largest membership Christian church in the United States.
  • On the institutional side, if the current trend in parish closures were to continue and current priest projections bear out, there will likely be only 12,520 active diocesan priests and 14,825 parishes in the United States by 2035 (also in OSV).
  • There has been no measurable decline or increase in Mass attendance percentages nationally in the last decade. Just under one in four Catholics attends Mass every week. About a third of Catholics attend in any given week and more than two-thirds attend Mass at Christmas, Easter, and on Ash Wednesday. More than four in ten self-identified adult Catholics attend Mass at least once a month.
  • The average tuition for the first child of Catholic parents attending a parish Catholic primary school for 2008-2009 was $3,383. For that same child the per-pupil cost of education for 2008-2009 was $5,436. This means that only 63% of this child’s per-pupil cost was covered by their tuition.
  • A majority of U.S. Protestants express a belief in the Real Presence and those who believe the Bible is to be taken literally word for word are most likely to do so.
  • 22% of Nones in America (those without any religious affiliation) were raised Catholic.

There is more here, including a glimpse at what CARA is working on for 2011 and Gray’s apologia against charges that he and/or CARA “spin” the data to put the Church in a more favorable light than it deserves.  He concludes by making this point:

There are measurable doses of “unreality” in Church discourse these days. Much of it fashioned around anecdotes and agendas. My promise now and in the year ahead to readers of this blog is that you’ll find none of this unreality here.

Merry Christmas

December 25th, 2010, Promulgated by Mike

A holy and merry Christmas to all!

– From Mike and great-grandson David.

New “Catholicism” trailer

December 22nd, 2010, Promulgated by Mike

Fr. Robert Barron and Word On Fire have just released a new, 9-minute trailer for the Catholicism project.

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The release date is now scheduled for September 2011.  I can hardly wait.

More info here.

A different slice of the pie

December 16th, 2010, Promulgated by Mike

I recently called your attention to an article by CARA’s Mark Gray on the interpretation of statistics related to the U.S. Catholic population and Mass attendance. It began with this intriguing line,

Are you Catholic and in need of something to be thankful for this year? The Catholic Church in America is growing and may be primed to grow significantly in the next few decades.

Msgr. Charles Pope of the Archdiocese of Washington has also read that article and has come up with his own take on the numbers.  For instance,

In the early 1950s there were about 35 million Catholics in the US. Today there are are over 75 million. This number however does not distinguish between practicing and non practicing Catholics. It is estimated that just over 80% of Catholics attended Mass each Sunday in the 1950s. Today it is estimated that about 25% of Catholics go each Sunday. That means that in the early 1950s about 28 million Catholics were in Church each Sunday. Today that number, even with a growing Catholic population, has dropped to 19.2 million. In other words, almost 9 million fewer Catholics are in Church now as compared to the 1950s.

Msgr. Pope’s conclusions are worth pondering – and praying over.

In the end, I find looking at the CARA analysis helpful in distinguishing the true problem. The overall number of Catholics is, in fact rising. However the critical factor seems to be that Mass attendance has dropped dramatically since the 1950s, from over 80% to around 20-25% now. This indicates a very critical condition indeed. Tell me any organization in which 80% of its members were inactive that you would call healthy. Our condition is critical. It is helpful to know that we seem to have stabilized at this number. That is, we haven’t gone lower in over ten years. However I am concerned that the 25% number is soft and wonder if it will be stable for long. Rampant secularism, the moral malaise of many, a hostile culture etc. all stand to likely erode that number even further…

In the end, the greatest tragedy is not the numbers per se but the fact that almost 80% of our Catholic brothers and sisters are away from the sacraments, away from the medicine they need, and not having the gospel preached to them. These 80% live in a poisonous culture wherein their mind will increasingly darken without the help of the Sacraments and the Word of God. This is tragic and if we have any real love for them we will not rest until they are restored to God’s house. God asked Cain one day, “Where’s your brother?” And God still asks this of us. We may protest that we have murdered no one. And yet, many of them will die spiritually if we remain indifferent. “Where is your brother?…Where?”

Msgr. Pope’s full article is here.

‘Catholics Come Home’ to launch in Peach State

December 9th, 2010, Promulgated by Mike

The entire state of Georgia is about to become the latest focal point of the Catholics Come Home program.  The Archdiocese of Atlanta has teamed up with the Diocese of Savannah to sponsor this statewide outreach to inactive and/or alienated Catholics, with thousands of TV spots scheduled to begin airing December 17 and running through January 23.

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By Lent of next year the Catholics Come Home program will have been sponsored by well over two dozen dioceses and archdioceses.

Results thus far have been impressive, with Mass attendance up an average of 10% several months after the TV spots stopped airing. Specific results include

Corpus Christi, up 17.7%,
Phoenix, up 12%,
Chicago, up 8.1%, and
Green Bay, up 7.4%.

BTW, the lowest uptick (2%) appears to have occurred in the Diocese of Lincoln, where Mass attendance is now running at 62%. (Yes, 62% – it’s not a typo).

By way of contrast, Spirit Alive!, DOR’s multi-year program of spiritual renewal, has had no discernible effect on our ongoing 3.5 to 4.0% annual decline in Mass attendance.  Given this failure one would think that the powers-that-be at Buffalo Rd. might want to take a look at a program with a track record of success.  If so, I’ll make it easy for them:

Click here.

(Sources for the above data are here, here, here, here, and here.)

What’s a Modernist?

December 9th, 2010, Promulgated by Mike

A hilarious clip from “The Bishop’s Gambit” episode of Yes, Prime Minister.  While this episode originally aired on the BBC almost a quarter century ago, it remains amazingly relevant today.

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BTW, Cleansing Fire posted a much shorter version of this clip here some 16 months ago.

H/T: choirloft

Gaudete Sunday comes early for Holy Cross

December 4th, 2010, Promulgated by Mike

The third Sunday of Advent is traditionally known as Gaudete Sunday.  This name derives from the first word of that Sunday’s Introit in the Extraordinary Form of the Mass:

Gaudete in Domino semper: iterum dico gaudete. (Rejoice in the Lord always: again I say, rejoice.)

The mid-week decision to allow Holy Cross School to reopen as a parish school led to a last-minute rewrite of the parish bulletin, with the page dedicated to the news of the reopening beginning with  the words,

We rejoice in the announcement that Holy Cross Elementary School will be opened as a parish school in September 2011.

In a very real sense Gaudete Sunday has come a week early for Holy Cross.

Bishop Clark: “… there has been no attempt to shorten Mr. Harvey’s life.”

December 3rd, 2010, Promulgated by Mike

Some of you might recall that last spring I wrote about the sad case of brain-damaged Gary Harvey, his wife’s efforts to prevent St. Joseph’s Hospital in Elmira from withdrawing his feeding and hydration tube, and Bishop Matthew Clark’s determination that the Catholic hospital had, in effect, done nothing wrong.

Sara Harvey has now informed me that Bobby Schindler (Terri Schiavo‘s brother) has become interested in Gary’s case and has recently published “The Truth About Death Panels” in Celebrate Life Magazine.

A large part of that article details Gary’s story (my emphasis)…

The Gary Harvey case

We have been involved in hundreds of cases, many of which concerned decisions made by these ethics committees. Nothing underscores how they threaten innocent lives more than the case of Gary and Sara Harvey of Horseheads, New York.

In January 2006, Gary fell down his basement steps and was left with profound cognitive disabilities. He had no advance directive and had only his wife, Sara, to protect him. Gary was admitted to the Che-mung County Nursing Facility in May 2006. Sara soon found herself in conflict with the facility over his care, which she describes as seriously negligent.

In February 2007, Chemung County stripped Sara of her rights as guardian of her husband, and Gary has remained a ward of the County ever since. In May 2009, he was transferred to St. Joseph’s Hospital in Elmira, where he remains. About two weeks later, the hospital’s ethics committee recommended the removal of Gary’s nutrition and hydration tube, and the issuance of a do-not-resuscitate order. This was done without the direction of Gary’s family and would have ensured his death.

In June 2009, Chemung County asked the state supreme court to authorize the removal of Gary’s feeding tube, but fortunately, Justice Judith O’Shea denied the request. Inexplicably, however, the DNR is still in effect and he remains under the control of Chemung County, despite the fact that it tried to end his life.

What is even worse is that these events have occurred at a Catholic health care facility. And Bishop Matthew Clark, of the Rochester diocese, has basically turned his back on the situation. Sara told me, “No bishop would help or the Catholic Church.” Sadly, this occurs more often than one would think.

According to WorldNetDaily (May 17), the National Association to Stop Guardian Abuse wrote to Bishop Clark in January, asking him to find out why “St. Joseph’s Hospital’s Ethics Committee chose to participate in what would have been Gary Harvey’s execution rather than prevent it.” His response, sent about a month later, according to NASGA: “I am convinced that St. Joseph Hospital complies with the Ethical Directives for Catholic Health Care Services, that the hospital is complying with the order of the court, and that there has been no attempt to shorten Mr. Harvey’s life.”

Pernicious scenarios similar to the Harveys’ ordeal take place often, but usually so silently that most people are simply unaware of the dangers.

Sara’s fight goes on.  There is a court hearing scheduled for December 10 during which she will attempt to gain custody of her husband.

Prayers would be appreciated.

Holy Cross School to re-open!

December 1st, 2010, Promulgated by Mike

WHAM Channel 13 is reporting the following:

Rochester, N.Y. – The Rochester Catholic Diocese announced Wednesday the Mother of Sorrows school and the Cathedral School at Holy Rosary will close.

Those two schools will be consolidated into the the Holy Cross School in Rochester will which re-open as a parish-operated preK-6th grade Catholic School in the fall of 2011.

The Diocese says the need for the relocation for the Cathedral School had been announced previously to parents due to the sale of the now-closed church property for the construction of senior housing.

Catholic Schools Superintendent Anne Willkens Leach says, “We believe that this consolidation of two schools into a larger facility at Holy Cross with far more amenities for students – including a bigger campus, larger classrooms, a gymnasium and hot lunch program – not only will benefit our students but also help us find the efficiencies we need to continue to operate with a balanced budget.”

Both Mother of Sorrows and the Cathedral School have suffered signficant enrollment declines in recent years and are operating at below capacity.

Church bureaucracy: “Spent and tired” – and dissident

November 30th, 2010, Promulgated by Mike

Fr. Raymond de Souza drew a connection last week between Pope Benedict’s comments at the recent consistory and a passage in Light of the World.

At the recent consistory of cardinals, Pope Benedict XVI spoke to his red-robed brethren about the “logic of the Cross” which should animate their leadership in the Church…

It is to be reminded that the Church is divine in her Master and very human in His servants. The logic of the Cross was difficult for the first apostles to hear directly from the Lord Jesus, and it remains a call to purification and conversion for their successors today.

In that context, the appearance of Pope Benedict’s book-length interview, Light of the World, this week was timely.

“The bureaucracy is spent and tired,” Benedict says about the institutions of governance, especially in the older Christian countries. “It is sad that there are what you might call professional Catholics who make a living on their Catholicism, but in whom the spring of faith flows only faintly, in a few scattered drops.”

It is easy enough to point to the managerial bishop or the administrative pastor and lament the lack of fervour for the faith and the absence of evangelical criteria in decision-making. But could not the same be said of any diocesan office in Canada, the staff room of any Catholic school, the executive officers of any Catholic social welfare agency or the bureaucrats that administer the vast panoply of Catholic organizations? Is it not the case that so many regard their position as membership in a club or as an officer of an enterprise, but not primarily as disciples or missionaries? The great sadness of which the Holy Father speaks is that over several generations now so many lay Catholics — “professional Catholics” — are marked by a deep adopted clericalism themselves, comporting themselves as members of a privileged caste.

While Fr. De Souza was focusing on clericalism in his native Canada, John-Henry Westen took the connection one step further (my emphasis).

Wow. It reminds me of a quote a friend on the inside once told me while reflecting on the fact that many vibrant, young, and faithful Catholics who would love to offer their all to the Church are left to find work in the secular world. “Why are all the professional jobs in the Church held by dissidents?”

To be sure there are signs of hope. Many dioceses in North America have begun to employ fervent and authentic Catholics. However the old guard remains firmly entrenched in many many places.

And one of those “many many places” is the Diocese of Rochester.

Random acts of (Christian) culture

November 27th, 2010, Promulgated by Mike

On Saturday, October 30, 2010, the Opera Company of Philadelphia brought together over 650 choristers from 28 participating organizations to perform a Random Act of Culture at Macy’s in Center City Philadelphia.

Accompanied by the Wanamaker Organ – the world’s largest pipe organ – the OCP Chorus and throngs of singers from the community infiltrated the store as shoppers, and burst into a pop-up rendition of the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel’s “Messiah” at 12 noon, to the delight of surprised shoppers.

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Two weeks later unsuspecting shoppers at the Welland Seaway Mall (near Niagara Falls, Ontario)  got a big surprise while enjoying their lunch. Over 100 participants joined in this awesome Christmas Flash Mob.

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The high cost of Psychobabble

November 27th, 2010, Promulgated by Mike

A non-Catholic has taken on the psychobabble industry in the current issue of The New Oxford Review.

Cal Samra is a former Associated Press and newspaper reporter who served for five years as the lay executive director and newsletter editor of a psychiatric-research foundation. He is currently the editor and publisher of The Joyful Noiseletter, an award-winning Christian humor newsletter.

Samra’s opening paragraphs follow, with my emphasis

The secular press has been in full hue and cry over the clerical sex-abuse scandal in the U.S. and Europe. Many of their criticisms of the Catholic hierarchy’s mismanagement of the situation — transferring pederast and pedophile priests from parish to parish and covering up their crimes — are valid. But, to my knowledge, not a single journalist in either the secular or religious press has had the courage or the objectivity to question and investigate the high-priced psychiatrists and mental-health “experts” who supposedly screened these priests before seminary and before ordination, and who treated them after their crimes and acted as counselors to the bishops who shuffled them around. These so-called experts were the sophisticated folks who devised psychological tests to screen seminary candidates and candidates for ordination — tests that obviously failed. They were the experts who treated pederast and pedophile priests at great cost, pronounced them “cured,” and recommended to the bishops that they be reassigned to another church, where, it was discovered, they were in fact not cured. The psychiatrists simply failed the bishops and took a lot of money but none of the blame. The biggest mistake the bishops made was allowing themselves to be duped by the culture of psychobabble fostered by the news media and Hollywood — which have given uncritical support of psychiatry for decades — and believing the myth that psychiatry is a science.

It’s not as if the Catholic bishops were not forewarned. Many eminent Catholic and Protestant writers, including G.K. Chesterton, C.S. Lewis, Malcolm Muggeridge, and Aleksander Solzhenitsyn, have challenged and criticized the essentially secular psychiatric establishment for decades. Furthermore, writers of all religious persuasions have expressed concerns about how psychiatry and psychopharmacology were used by Nazis and communists as instruments of state control.

It’s high time someone confronted the “experts” who screened and treated pederast and pedophile priests and asked them some hard questions, such as: What is your view of sexuality? Do you believe that pederasty is sinful? What is your view of religion? Are you a practicing believer, and do you believe that faith has an important role in the healing process?

Much more here.