Sunday, December 04, 2011
I am just not able to keep up with blogging - my wife and I had a baby! It would be hard to keep up with all the positive things going on right now in the Diocese of Rockville Centre even without feeding and diapering, etc.... Here are just a few:
The seminary program for the 3 dioceses of Brooklyn, NYC and Rockville Centre is merging together with the seminarians all training together at St. Joseph's Seminary in Yonkers (called Dunwoodie for the neighborhood). Immaculate Conception seminary in Huntington will remain open for retreats, masters programs, and educating permanent deacons. This move was entirely expected and has mostly to do with practicality. With the number of seminarians in NYC, Brooklyn and Rockville Centre, there is no need for 2 or 3 individual seminaries. Of course, Dunwoodie has always had an orthodox reputation while Huntington did not. Overall, this will be a very positive move for seminarians, who will now study together with much larger groups at Dunwoodie and also in Douglaston, where pre-theology and undergraduate men will study. As reported all over the place, the number of seminarians is up right now so these kinds of moves are part of some very good trends within the Church.
On the topic of Immaculate Seminary in Huntington - Peter Kreeft will be speaking there next Sunday:
"A Refutation of Moral Relativism"Lecture by Peter Kreeft
Sunday December 11, 2011 at 3 PM in the Seminary Auditorium
Pre-Registration is Requested
Please contact Beverly Malone in the Development Office
Phone: 631-423-0483 x102
E-mail: bmalone@icseminary.eduSaturday, October 15, 2011
The above link is to a good article in Newsday on Bishop Murphy but does not include many details on how he will reshape the Diocese. I have said before I think Bishop Murphy has been a great Bishop and his 10 years have pushed or pulled the Diocese of Rockville Centre in the right direction:
- Pushing Telecare to have more Catholic programming
- Starting the Tommorrow's Hope Foundation for Catholic schools
- Insisting parishes balance their budgets
- Being much more generous towards the Traditional Latin Mass
- Reforming the Pastoral Formation Institute
- Encouraging faithful and orthodox programs
- Overseeing some changes in the seminary
- "Murphy said with satisfaction that the number of parishes running deficits is down to 24 from 83 two years ago." I wish the Diocese would publish this info somewhere, I think it is good to know the financial health of the parishes. Murphy was quoted once as saying the Church sometimes takes on too much and I totally agree. We have to be fiscally prudent and that often means cutting back and cutting out many things. We simply do not have the numbers of people and the money that was around in previous decades.
- "The bishop also is weighing a shift at the Seminary of the Immaculate Conception in Huntington. Starting next year, seminarians could be sent to St. Joseph's Seminary, also known as Dunwoodie, in Yonkers, leaving the Huntington facility as a pastoral training center for ordained priests and lay people." While it has been public knowledge for some time that the seminaries would form some sort of collaboration, this is the first time I have seen it mentioned that the seminarians would be sent to Dunwoodie. Overall, I think this is good. Immaculate Conception has never had a great reputation compared to other seminaries as far as orthodoxy was concerned and this might be just what is needed.
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
He will be at the StarFish CoffeeHouse & Kitchen
Join us for a meet & greet
Monday, September 19, 2011
ROCKVILLE CENTRE, N.Y. – September 19, 2011 – Pope Benedict XVI today named the Most Reverend Peter Anthony Libasci, 59, to be the new Bishop of the Diocese of Manchester, New Hampshire. The appointment was announced in Washington, DC today by Rev. Msgr. Jean-Francis Lantheaume, ChargĂ© d’Affaires at the Apostolic Nunciature to the United States. Bishop-designate Libasci will succeed Bishop John Brendan McCormack.
Bishop-designate Libasci will be installed as the tenth bishop of Manchester at Saint Joseph Cathedral on December 8, 2011 at 2:00 p.m. E.S.T.
Since his ordination as bishop on June 1, 2007, Bishop-designate Libasci has served as the Episcopal Vicar for the Eastern Vicariate of the Diocese of Rockville Centre. Bishop-designate Libasci is also bi-ritual and celebrates the Divine Liturgy in the Byzantine Ruthenian Catholic Church.
This is great news for New Hampshire and sad news for Long Island. He is now the second bishop sent out from Rockville Centre in the 10 years Bishop Murphy has been our shepherd, the first being Msgr. Robert Guglielmone who is now Bishop of South Carolina. Which reminds me to congratulate Bishop Murphy on his 10th Anniversary as Bishop of Rockville Centre. He was installed just days before 400 of his flock was murdered and has done a wonderful job leading the Diocese.
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Ten Years After
"I've received a fair amount of email this past week, inquiring about whether I planned to write something on the tenth anniversary of Black Tuesday: September 11, 2001, when Islam openly declared war on the United States. Yes, I said Islam, not "terrorists," "extremists," or "fundamentalists." We have it on the authority of a head of state -- Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey -- that there is no "moderate Islam;" there is only Islam. Any number of imams, mullahs, ayatollahs and so forth have said the same -- and have proceeded to justify the atrocities of Black Tuesday as a response to the "humiliation" Muslims have endured at America's hands.
What humiliation? Daring to rise and progress out of the seventh century. Proclaiming a doctrine of individual rights beyond what their scriptures allow. Treating persons of all races, sexes, and faiths as possessing a perfect right to be as they are and believe as they do. Letting women read, drive, and go about in attractive clothing, unaccompanied by a male chaperone.
We "humiliate" Muslims and Islam by being Americans: believers in freedom, a secular state, and an objective rule of law and justice."
And muslims continue to act like muslims:
4 terror suspects arrested in Sweden
"The head of the Swedish Security Service, Anders Danielsson, warned last week that "Islamic terrorism is still the biggest threat against Sweden."...
"Stockholm was hit by a suicide bombing in December. The attack on the capital, Sweden's first suicide bombing, wounded two people in a district full of Christmas shoppers."
...
After the Stockholm bombing, Swedish Security Police said the country had almost 200 Islamic extremists who advocate violence, but said there was no indication their number is growing."
...
Swedish authorities are investigating involvement in radicalism by Taimour Abdulwahab, the weekend's suicide bomber.
His emails before the bombings said that one reason for the attack was Sweden's tolerance of Lars Vilks' newspaper cartoon of the prophet Mohammed as a dog, authorities said. Abdulwahab, 28 -- who had lived in Iraq, Sweden and the English town of Luton -- also cited the presence of Swedish troops in Afghanistan.
That cartoon of Mohammed, published in 2007, was also cited in the new report as an example "of local events that may fuel radicalism globally."
Tuesday, September 06, 2011
"A New Jersey mom still grieving the death of her beloved teenage daughter says she was ordered by callous bosses to quit discussing the child after co-workers complained -- and was even forced to yank the girl's ballet slippers and photos from her cubicle."
.....
"Two years earlier, Ingraham's daughter, Tatiana, 17, had died of leukemia, and shortly after, the devastated mom began decorating her desk with pictures of the child. She also kept on hand a pair of the girl's ballet slippers as a touching reminder. But Ingraham's co-workers whined that over the next two years, the married, inconsolable mom became an office pest with her tears and depressing attitude and that -- gasp -- it interfered with their work.
Ingraham's boss allegedly told her that he had received complaints about her conduct and her "uncomfortable" interaction with other workers.
One co-worker had even griped: "What else can we say [to her] that we have not said already?"
Monday, September 05, 2011
Solemn High Mass
St Patrick's Roman Catholic Church
On the Feast of the Holy Name of Mary, September 12, 2011, at 7:30 pm, the Canonry of Saint Leopold will offer a Solemn High Mass to honor Our Lady and to commemorate the 328th anniversary of the victory of the Austrian Imperial forces over the Ottomans at the Battle of Vienna on the slopes of the Kahlenberg.
The Kahlenberg (Bald Mountain) and its environs are the home to parishes and vineyards belonging to Stift Klosterneubur...g. During the Siege of Vienna in 1683, two Canons of Klosterneuburg played important roles: a Laybrother (Chorfrater) named Marzellin Ortner rallied the townsfolk to defend the Abbey and the town of Klosterneuburg; a priest, Dom Wilhelm Lebshaft, served as chaplain to the town’s militia. Keeping Klosterneuburg free aided in the Liberation of Vienna, which was made possible to a large extent thanks to the troops of the King of Poland, Jan III Sobieski, hailed by the Pope as the Savior of Christendom in Europe.
The Solemn High Mass will be celebrated in the Extraordinary Form. The Prior, the Very Rev'd Dom Daniel Nash, will serve as priest, the Rev'd Fr. Matthew Kauth, as deacon, and the Very Rev'd Dom Elias Carr, as subdeacon. With appropriate ceremonies and fitting music, the liturgy should offer worthy worship to Holy Trinity.
The new Missal to be used at the beginning of Advent will be an improved translation for the most part. Although I prefer the current version in certain places, i.e. by the power of the Holy Spirit he was born of the Virgin Mary and became man, the 'cut and paste' job done after the Council is in great need of revision. Fr. Z at WDTPRS has hit the nail on the head with his continuing column looking in depth at the prayers of the Mass in their original latin, the literal translation, the current translation and in the new translation. He has shown clearly all that was taken out and all that was dumbed down and how much we are missing in these prayers. Overall, this is a giant leap forward for the 'reform of the reform'. I often think Fr. Z's column should be published in parish bulletins because these prayers are very important but probably very overlooked parts of the Mass.
Chant Cafe has a post: "Five Changes to Expect with the new missal"
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Dissent and the Catholic press
The above column by The Long Island Catholic editor Rick Hinshaw is excellent and reminds me how much I have enjoyed the Diocesan paper over the past year or so. The paper is no longer the milquetoast paper it once was but instead has slowly become more outwardly Catholic and orthodox, even proudly so. Here is a snip from the column:
"TLIC has always made room for letters expressing a wide array of opinions — on social and public policy issues, as well as on internal Church matters and worship — as long as they are not in direct conflict with the fundamental teachings of the Church.
There, it is true that we must make a distinction — because, as a diocesan newspaper, we are, first and foremost, a teaching instrument of the Church. Obviously, we cannot force — and would not want to force — anyone to believe what the Church teaches. But we do have a responsibility to offer our readers — whether they ultimately accept or reject what the Church teaches — a clear understanding of what it is they are accepting or rejecting. "
Monday, January 03, 2011
"Today , the Nassau County Department of Health has notified the Diocese of Rockville Centre that those who received Holy Communion on December 25, 2010 during the 10:30 AM and Noon Masses at Our Lady of Lourdes Roman Catholic Church, 855 Carmen Avenue, Massapequa Park were potentially exposed to the hepatitis A virus."