In this weekend’s Church of the Good Shepherd bulletin, pastoral administrator, Nancy DeRycke, publishes a letter from a visitor from Maine that literally “gushes” over how wonderful Good Shepherd is. Here is that letter:
“Dear Nancy and everyone else at Church of the Good Shepherd:
This is a long overdue thank you for the inspiration and love we felt at your church. We’ve been twice — first when we brought our daughter to RIT and Fr. Chumo was getting ready to visit his family; and the second time is when Fr. Chumo was just returning on Columbus Day Weekend (we thought this quite a coincidence).
Both times we came away awed by such feelings that come out of your service. The diversity of your parish, the music, the overall feeling — tremendous!
We have told a number of people of our experience. Each time, retelling it brings those feelings right back. We live in rural Maine where most of our parishioners are over 60 and white.
With some people going through struggles, my prayer is the love we felt from your community will infect them. You have a wonderful parish! Thank you!
Love, Ann Parrett”
Wow… After reading this letter I can only come to two possible explanations for the ridiculous amount of enamorment over this parish: There letter writer is insane, or the letter is fake. I will now dissect this letter, providing my own experiences of Good Shepherd, along with commentary.
-“This is a long overdue thank you for the inspiration and love we felt at your church.”
The only inspiration I received from my visit to Good Shepherd was the inspiration to head to Our Lady of Victory downtown and to never go back to that parish again. The only “love” present at that parish is for those who agree with Nancy’s policies and do not raise concerns about them. I have heard from more than one person that there is indeed little love when one brings up the fact that certain activities there (lay homilies, liturgical dance, etc.) are liturgical abuses and should be stopped.
-“We’ve been twice — first when we brought our daughter to RIT and Fr. Chumo was getting ready to visit his family; and the second time is when Fr. Chumo was just returning on Columbus Day Weekend (we thought this quite a coincidence).”
That’s really trying too hard to come up with significance pertaining to the timing of their visits.
-“Both times we came away awed by such feelings that come out of your service.”
The letter writer got one thing right in this statement, the Masses at Good Shepherd are more like a “service” than a Roman Catholic Mass.
-“The diversity of your parish, the music, the overall feeling — tremendous!”
Diversity of the parish? You don’t get more diverse than a predominantly white community, which Good Shepherd is. Where did this idea come from that Good Shepherd is “diverse” and why is that even such a big deal to this person? “Oh gosh golly daughter, look at that, people who aren’t white! I’ve never seen such a thing… Can you imagine that?” Just because the parish leadership boasts about its diversity in the parish bulletin, or from the pulpit, or strolling around in front of the sanctuary in an illegal lay homily, does not mean that the parish is truly diverse! Those who often boast and celebrate diversity are the least diverse parishes of all. And the fact that they indeed feel the need to comment on their diversity speaks volumes about their character, and not in a good way. Mass is not a celebration of diversity. Stop bragging about diversity.
Next, the music… The music is obnoxious. Do they not have guitars and terrible contemporary folk music in this person’s native parish? You’ll find this kind of lousy music almost anywhere, I don’t understand what is so spectacular about the music at Good Shepherd.
Finally, the overall feeling… I don’t know about other people, but I personally do not go to Mass just to get good feelings. I go to honor and worship my God and to receive Him in the Eucharist. Any good feelings I might get come purely from that, and not from the diversity of a parish or the awful music one might hear there.
-“We have told a number of people of our experience. Each time, retelling it brings those feelings right back.”
What exactly does this person tell this “number of people”? Does she mention the alb wearing laywoman dominating the liturgy? Does she mention how the priest takes a back role and hands off the homily after a couple of minutes to another laywoman? Does she mention the liturgical dancing or other items that make the Mass there a spectacle? Does she mention the noise and chatter before and after Mass that destroys reverence and quiet worship? I’m curious how people react to these experiences as described by the letter writer.
-“We live in rural Maine where most of our parishioners are over 60 and white.”
Oh, isn’t that just awful? Now we’re starting to see how superficial these progressive Catholics are; that the composition of the congregation is so significant to them that it has an effect upon their Mass experience. Whether the person next to us in the pew is young or old, black or white, heavy or thin should not matter. And for the record, there are quite a few elderly persons at Good Shepherd, perhaps she attended during one of the children/teen Masses?
-“With some people going through struggles, my prayer is the love we felt from your community will infect them. You have a wonderful parish! Thank you!”
I’d use the word “infect” with regard to Good Shepherd, but not in the manner she did. More like the bland progressive theology preached there infects the mind of the people turning their minds to mush. The homilies at Good Shepherd, if one wishes to call a layperson preaching a homily, do little to challenge the person to live a better Catholic life. There is little to no mention of sin or what may come should we die in a state of sin. It’s all love one another, which though good, only does so much if sin, repentance, and the life to come are not addressed.
Tags: Nancy, Progressive Drivel
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The Church needs more astute bloggers like you, good sir, to help curtail heresy and educate the laity.
The number of orthodox Catholic bloggers continues to grow, as our blog roll ("The Faithful Among Us") over to the right indicates.
~Dr. K
You people want a real diverse parish, go to Our Lady of Victory on Sunday morning. Sure, most of the people are white. But a good share of Orientals, Filipinos, some blacks, some Puerto Ricans and Mexicans, street people, retirees, students, crying babies, large Catholic families coming to Mass. Many of the sung parts are in Latin. Everybody is respectful and quiet before Mass starts. Same at the Tridentine Mass at St. Stan's. OLV comes by its diversity honestly.
I have a friend who sings in the choir at Good Shepherd and he told "they keep telling us how diverse we are, so after awhile we believe it."
It is very common to do that here in Rochester–the U of R talks about its diversity to the point that most people actually believe it. Of course, my classmates all seem to be rich, local, white kids or rich, long island, white kids who are nominally jewish.
So true, Matt. You say something long enough and hard enough and after awhile you will begin to believe it is true. Stop by the Tridentine Mass this Sunday at 1:30, Matt..we have a few UofR students who go. It's at St. Stanislaus at the corner of Hudson Ave. and Norton St. Security, handicapped access and restrooms available.
Bob Lonsberry's column on November 13 deals with diversity. Read it, if you dare. http://www.lonsberry.com
I have written to Ms. DeRycke about the abuses in the parish. She wrote back with sarcasm and actually had the audacity to accuse me of saying something that I did not say pertaining to her Halloween Mass. Good Shepherd parish is the modern day Corpus Christi, and requires our constant vigilance before something really bad happens. We need to get through these remaining 2 and a half years, so that Nancy and Joan and all these clowns can be tossed to the curb and kept away from the sanctuaries of our churches.
Soon we can expect to see Santa in a manger scene.
Dr. K,
Isn't there some formal way that we can lobby for Rome to intervene, rather than having to wait almost 3 years for the bishop to retire?
RochChaCha.
Indeed it is soooo frustrating! I email Pope Benedict on a very regular basis. Subject is always 911 Rochester ny USA. I do wish he would surprise me with an answer. I would like to know if he really knows how bad it is here in the DOR and to who hands our cry for help go to.
benedictxvi@vatican.va
Why not write to Archbishop Burke. He is on the Congregation of Bishops to select Bishop Clark's successor.
Archbishop Raymond Burke
Congregation for Bishops
Palazzo della Congregazioni
00193 Roma, Piazza Pio XII, 10
Matt,
Sounds like the U of R hasn't changed in the 20+ years since I was there. While I did have friends and classmates from Ethiopia, Vietnam, Japan, India and other cool, exotic places, most were rich or smart white kids from the 'burbs. I remember seeing posters about "Black Ethiopian Jews" hanging up in the dining center (why escapes me) and we'd joke that there was the extent of U of R's diversity all wrapped up in one small group…
Someone remind me, please; why is diversity so important?
Diversity is the old "divide and conquer" scheme. Don't ever consider why were are the same; but ALWAYS focus on why were are different. This breeds envy and when social chaos ensues, the government can take over and restore order (read socialist agenda).