Saturday, January 06, 2007

A new Church management consultant group promises a more faithful response to the problems of the Church

From the National Catholic Register

This article features Deal Hudson, former editor of Crisis Magazine, who has just founded the Church Resource Institute to assist Bishops in management. This Institute is meant to counter the National Leadership Roundtable started by Geoffrey Boisi, which some considered to be too liberal. I welcome lay people who are experts in business management, fund raising and finance offering assistance to the Bishops. I don't think Deal Hudson, who left Crisis after being exposed as a sleazebag should be seen as any more faithful to Catholic teaching than the Roundtable's group. I hope both groups can provide help as we all know the Bishops need it. Priests are overwhelmed today trying to run all aspects of parishes and they should not have to be. Rather than be another area of liberal vs. conservative, progressive vs orthodox, dissenters vs. faithful, these groups should both be able to prevent the Church from suffering from mis-management the way She has over the past 40 years.

Wednesday, January 03, 2007

A New Catholic Church in Town! (Lindenhurst)

"The Ukrainian Catholic Church, which is in full communion with the Latin-rite Catholic Church, is one of several Eastern churches that maintain their own form of worship, tradition, and hierarchy while remaining under the pope’s authority."


The Church moved from West Islip as it had outgrown the building there. I hope I can get to a Mass at this Church some day.

Monday, January 01, 2007

A local parish bulletin has a weekly page dedicated to "Adult Faith Formation". There has been a cry for adult faith formation from both sides of the ideological spectrum in the Church for years. This page reprinted the old false tale of the "Twelve Days of Christmas" song being a secret way to teach the faith to Catholics in England during the persecution. This is sad on so many levels. How many more people are now going to believe this? It would only take a little knowledge of history and a little common sense to realize that this is a myth. To have this published in a parish bulletin, under the context of teaching adults, is a sign of just how bad things are. Anyway, to set the record straight:

Snopes Urban Legend Page on the 12 Days of Christmas

Sunday, December 31, 2006

Tommorrow there will be a Mass for the Celebration of the Feast of Mary Mother of God and the Anniversary of the Independence of Haiti. It will be offered at St. Boniface Church in Elmont in the French and Haitian Creole languages. Haiti is a very Catholic country and many Haitians are on Long Island. Haiti was the first country founded via a slave revolt.
In today's Newsday:


Two of the Franciscan Brothers who run St. Anthony's High School in Huntington died within a day of each other.

Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine. Et lux perpetua luceat eis.


Also a story on St. John Antiochian Orthodox Church in Levittown that is home to Christian Palestinians. The story focuses on how the congregation tries to keep their culture alive here and how so many have fled the middle east since the founding of Israel. There is not much about their religious traditions specifically, but still an interesting read.

And finally, Suffolk County has always had terrible public tranportation, and the situation for disabled people is particularly bad. A lawsuit filed on behalf of disabled riders was settled and it looks like there will be some improvement.