Listen and get involved

I forget now what I wanted to tell you! How often do we find ourselves in this position? It can be very frustrating as we lose a thought that we felt a moment ago was significant enough to share it with another. To make it worse we were probably interrupted by someone sharing a valuable insight into the dog's need to take a walk! Why do people always interrupt me on those rare occasions when I'm thinking? These rare thoughts are such precious gems of wisdom so thoughtlessly squandered.

And we then waste so much time trying to regain that momentary, fleeting vision, so fleeting that we did not have time to put it in words. I can drive all the way to Orlando trying to recall it without success, unless I'm distracted ny my wife's screaming: "Billie, the light is red". Now I'll never have the opportunity to share with Mario Rubio how to solve the country's economic problems.

It's a sad fact that brilliant minds cannot get a hearing when boring blow-hards grab the floor and

laicization & bishops

We’ve talked about “laicization” and the dismissal of priests from the active ministry, but it might be interesting to dig a little deeper into what the implications are. Back in grade school I learned that three sacraments cannot be repeated, they are conferred permanently. As I recall the image was that they put an “indelible mark or stain” upon our soul, somewhat “like indelible ink”. These sacraments were Baptism, Confirmation and Holy Orders. Their effects were irreversible. I’m not a Graham Greene fan and I’m not suggesting that he is an expert on the details of Catholic sacramental theology, but I seem to remember that this was a basic element in his depiction of the “whiskey priest”. This was a distinction between “ex opere operato” and “ex opera operantis” in traditional theology, a distinction between the work done and the one who did the work.

So it seems that laicization does not deprive the priest of his priestly powers, specifically the power to preside at the celebration of the Eucharist, it merely forbids him to do so. Given that the penalty is usually imposed as a consequence of the priest’s disobedience to an order from a superior, bishop or pope, such a prohibition is unlikely to prevent him from doing what his conscience tells him is

Canonizing John Paul II

Apart from the fact that we are all called to be saints and that canonization merely recognizes officially that the subject has heroically fulfilled his responsibilities in the role to which God has called him, the process of canonization is primarily intended to present the subject as one worthy of emulation by the faithful. The Vatican has announced that Pope John Paul II will be beatified (the first step to canonization) in the near future, probably on May 1st.

Several questions arise about the whole process which has been fast-tracked by dispensing with the traditional delay of several years before beginning the investigation of the candidate’s life and

Church leakage : personal & institutional failures

A recent report by the Pew Foundation says that one in three Catholic school graduates have left the Church and that 10% of the members of Protestant churches are former Catholics. Somehow I doubt that 10% of Catholics are former Protestants. The leakage figures are alarming and exceed my own experience in Florida, but they may be true nationally. If 30% of a school’s enrolment each year dropped out before graduation we would demand a shake-up in the school’s staffing. But that is what these figures tell us about the Church. Either the staff or the system is at fault  (or  both)..

The Pew report on “:Leaving Catholicism” shows that half of those who left the Catholic Church joined other churches. Of these “ 71% said that they left the Church because their spiritual needs were not being met.” Richard Gaillardetz, professor of theology at Toledo University, explains this as “because the quality of Church life is poor and church leadership is inattentive to their real pastoral concerns.” By “quality” he seems to refer to

Laicization of a priest.

This week Fr. Roy Bourgeois, a Maryknoll priest, a Vietnam veteran and a well-known peace activist, was notified by his superiors in the Maryknoll order that he must withdraw his views on the ordination of women as priests and cease all involvement in, support of this cause. If not he would be reduced to the lay state and excommunicated from the Church. He would cease to be a priest and no longer  allowed to celebrate the Eucharist. This was an order that had come down from Rome.

 Without mentioning that Pope Benedict XVI has written that man's conscience is the final arbitrer of the morality of his action, superior even to directives from the Pope, and that one is bound to obey it, this was the order. When he was ordained

Little Details in the Liturgy

I have commented before on how the Liturgy has lost the joy and spontaneity of the celebration of God’s love that prevailed in the post-Vatican II era. Everything seems to be structured, restricted, mandated, every action choreographed. We seem to be returning to a meticulously rehearsed play where the congregation is once again an audience rather than participants.

A couple of details in recent weeks have occasioned my unease. It started some weeks ago when our pastor suggested that we sing parts of the Mass in Latin, the Kyrie (actually Greek), the Gloria, the Sanctus and the Agnus Dei. I’m not sure why we changed. Since we have many Hispanic Catholics, singing some parts of the mass in Spanish would make sense, but other than the priests and a few octogenarians, no one knows Latin. Of course it might encourage the

What you can do if no one will listen…..

We have all been frustrated at times by injustice that we feel incapable of correcting. Not merely do we feel powerless to challenge the system ourselves but we have no idea how to get anyone to listen to us.

I ran into this system with our local city authorities recently. The city refused to return s deposit I had made to get my utilities hooked up in spite of an admitted agreement to return the deposit after a specified period of prompt payment of my bill. When the time came the city manager was very pleasant, admitted that we had a contract but said the city council had decided not to live up to its