Scott Hahn to speak on Long Island

"Scott Hahn, a theologian and author, will speak at a daylong conference at Kellenberg Memorial High School in Uniondale Sept. 12."

Daughters of St. Paul Manhattan Bookstore has moved!

My wife and I drove into NYC today and went to lunch at Simply Pasta. We parked in a garage on 38th right off of 6th Avenue, and when returning to the car I noticed a sign for the Pauline bookstore right next door. The bookstore moved about a month ago, according to the sister behind the counter. The Daughters of St. Paul are so friendly and their bookstore is so good, it was a nice surprise to be able to go there. I bought yet another Joseph Pearce book - small is still beautiful [economics as if families mattered ].


New Location:

PAULINE BOOKS AND MEDIA — MANHATTAN, NY
64 W. 38th St.
New York, NY 10018

Autistic Lindenhurst teen's body found in Catskills lake

The above article from Newsday refers to Ryan Barrett, son of MaryEllen Barrett, blogger at Tales From the Bonny Blue House and columnist for The Long Island Catholic drowned. May he rest in peace, and please pray for the Barrett family.

Voice of the Faithful Milwaukee folds

"The Milwaukee affiliate of Voice of the Faithful, a national Catholic reform group founded in response to the clergy sex abuse scandal, is preparing to fold in September, saying it has been unable to attract new leaders to advance the organization.
The decision comes as the national organization, bolstered in recent days by an emergency infusion of cash, prepares to unveil a blueprint that will place a greater emphasis on political activism."

The most accurate and interesting statement from this article is this (emphasis mine):

"Peter Isely, of the local Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests group, said Voice of the Faithful had lost its focus and centrist roots, alienated conservatives and ultimately came to duplicate efforts of the reform group Call to Action.

"If they would have focused exclusively on the abuse issue . . . including financial issues and matters, where I think they could have been really useful, they might have made it," Isely said in an e-mail to the Journal Sentinel."

New chief meets with diocesan employees

"According to Trunz, the diocese has more than $300 million of nonsalary expenses. “We are going to look at nonsalary expenses, such as telecommunications, utilities, maintenance, supplies ... to look for ways of centralizing expenses and reducing expenses.


It will be good if the Diocese of Rockville Centre can cut expenses without cutting jobs or benefits. I do not believe you need to spend $300 million to provide the sacraments to people, or to assist Christians in their obligation to do works of mercy. I especially believe Bishop Murphy hit the nail on the head in the quote I bolded below:


"Bishop William Murphy, introducing Trunz at the start of the meeting, said that the new COO will “help us focus on all the things the pastoral center does in terms of making this Church work and work right.” “We have a tendency to take on more and more work ourselves and when we do that we kind of get ourselves off balance,” the bishop said."

Pakistani Christians say police failed to act to stop carnage

"Minority Rights Group International, a watchdog organization, ranked Pakistan last year as the world's top country for major increases in threats to minorities from 2007 -- along with Sri Lanka, which was engaged in a civil war. The group lists Pakistan as seventh on the list of 10 most dangerous countries for minorities, after Somalia, Sudan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Myanmar and Congo.
Christians and other minority religious groups in Pakistan are especially vulnerable to discriminatory laws, including an edict against blasphemy that carries the death penalty for derogatory remarks or any other action against Islam, the Quran or the Prophet Muhammad.

Anyone can make an accusation under the law, and it is often used to settle personal scores and rivalries."


The centuries old, and continuing violence and persecution of Christians by Muslims must be publicized as wide as possible.

Sedevacantist "priest" on Long Island charged with sex crime on minor

(From Newsday) -

"A Massapequa man who calls himself a "bishop in the traditional Roman Catholic Church" but has no affiliation with the church has been jailed and accused of performing a sex act on a teenager, Nassau police said Thursday.

The alleged act by Dennis Michael McCormack, 41, who advertises traditional services from an American Legion Hall in Plainview, was caught on tape during the July 14 incident, police said."

McCormack was in the Legionaries of Christ when he was 18 but left (not sure when) and has been running Mary Immaculate Chapel. He considers Pope Benedict to be a heretic.

Office casts a wider net for vocations

"Fathers Fitzgerald, Gerald Cestare and Irinel Racos have been assigned as full-time high school chaplains, with the additional title of associate vocation director. Each will also work with college campus ministry. They join Father Brian Barr, who has served as diocesan vocation director since 2007. Fathers Barr, Fitzgerald and Racos will also reside together to form a “vocations community.”

This is interesting - I wonder if they will live at a school or a parish?

Cablevision Adds Full Time EWTN Channel

This is great news - anyone who has IO Cablevision can now get EWTN full time on channel 135. It will be a pleasure to once again see Bookmark, The World Over, The Journey Home, EWTN Live, etc.. Although Telecare occasionally showed EWTN, mostly at night, it will be great to have this Catholic programming in prime time.

Speaking of EWTN, the blog at on the EWTN site: Joan's Rome, has an interesting post about the cleaning of St. Peter's Square. Check out the before and after pictures of the columns and statues.

Four men eager to serve as priests of Rockville Centre Diocese

Today Bishop Murphy will ordain 3 men to the priesthood for the DRVC (another will be ordained later this month). The Long Island Catholic has profiles of each on their website:

Deacon Michael Bartholomew

Deacon Janusz Mocarski

Deacon Harold Noviello

Deacon Gregory Rannazzisi


Also another Long Islander, Brian Dunkle, will be ordained today for the Jesuits.

God Bless!

Christa House in West Babylon is closing

From Newsday:

"Christa House, the West Babylon hospice founded to give poor AIDS patients shelter and companionship in their final days, is closing down after more than a decade of ministering to the dying and indigent."

Housed on the grounds of Our Lady of Grace Parish, Christa House opened in 1998 and was the first AIDS facility on Catholic Church property on Long Island. Its founders - a small group of nuns and laywomen headed by Sister Patricia Ryan and Long Beach nurse Jean Prochilo - wanted to provide poor AIDS patients with a family environment where they would not die alone or in pain.

The home's mission broadened later to include other terminally ill people, including some with health insurance.

"I can't give you any of the details," Prochilo said of the shutdown. "But 569 people, before they died, they knew they were loved, cherished, that their lives had meaning and [they] were able to die in peace, safety and dignity."

Sean Dolan, a spokesman for the Diocese of Rockville Centre, said he did not know when or why the nonprofit home would close. Christa House is not directly affiliated with the diocese, he said."We're sorry that it's closing its doors, because it has been a very vital ministry," Dolan said. "We are looking to see what can be done to continue the mission of Christa House through some arrangement with Catholic Health Services."


Although the original intent was to provide a hospice for people with AIDS, they began taking in anyone needing hospice service soon after opening. I know there is a real need for hospice around here so people do not have to travel far to visit loved ones so hopefully something can be worked out with Catholic Health Services.

Msgr. DeGrocco and Msgr. McNamara do a tag team on Reverence at Mass in The Long Island Catholic. My comments are in red and emphasis in bold, following the Fr. Z. protocol.



DeGrocco: Coffee cups, water bottles,bathrooms and ritual behavior

"If it seems our liturgical celebrations are lacking a sense of the holy and transcendent, the problem is not with the rite itself; it is with the way we are enacting the rite. [I agree but some traditionalist Catholics disagree - they say some of the changes in the Rite itself are the problem] Of course, there is no excuse for a poorly enacted ritual on the part of the liturgical ministers [seen it], and any one or a combination of a careless presider [seen it], a poor leader of song [heard it] banal or unsingable music [is there any other type of Church music?], ill-trained altar servers [seen it], or a reader’s incomprehensible proclamation of the Word of God [heard it, including mistakes that changed the entire meaning of a sentence which is why I always read the missalette] will have deleterious effects on the sense of reverence and transcendence that should be part of liturgical celebrations. But even when all those aspects of the ritual are done well [generally the case at the parish I now attend], there is still something more required, and that is the proper ritual behavior of the assembly, of each and every person present who makes up the Body of Christ gathered together to enter into mystery."

"Perhaps an inability to “get something out of Mass” results from a lack of proper behavior that would allow us to fully enter into it in the first place. When we bring Starbucks coffee cups and vitamin water bottles into church we make going into Mass the same as going anywhere else. By behaving the same way in church as we do elsewhere in terms of our bodily posture, our conversational volume, and even in the way we dress, are we expressing a subtle message about our fear of letting that time and that space truly be something different where we will encounter the holy? Do we deliberately try to tone down or tame the transcendent because we are afraid of it: because we are afraid we might really be transformed, afraid that a real demand might be made on us in terms of changing our life to live in greater conformity with Christ?" [YES! oh wait, those were rhetorical questions]

Ding, McNamara enters the ring: The proper focus of worship is Jesus Christ

"In a recent article in Time magazine on using Twitter at Sunday worship, the writer said, “If worship is about creating community, Twitter is an undeniably useful tool.”Twitter may be a useful tool, but worship is not about creating community." [This should be stamped on Catholic foreheads, perhaps on Ash Wed.] The creation of community is the result of our worship of God. We have become so preoccupied with ourselves in our culture that we are turned inward in a blinding prison. If we cannot see beyond ourselves, we cannot worship God. If we do not appreciate that our true home is in heaven, we will expect this life to be all there is, and we will be disappointed. One of the most critical obstacles to faith today is our preoccupation with ourselves and our lack of appreciation and anticipation of life with God forever.The irreverent and all too prevalent talking in Church is a further symptom of this, as is the complaint that I don’t get anything out of going to Church.

Here are other snips from this article which is really good so it should be read entirely:

"The proper focus of worship is not community or feeling good. Worship is not entertainment."

"The proper focus of worship for us as Christians is the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Jesus is the center of our community, and Jesus is the center of our worship."

"The centrality of Christ also has implications for the priest at Mass. ..... If he inserts his personality too much into the Mass, he becomes a distraction. This is also true when telling jokes and bantering about baseball scores is a regular shtick. "

Solemn High Mass at St. Matthew's in Dix Hills

Fr. Brian Austin, FSSP, recently ordained, came to Dix Hills to offer a Solemn High Mass yesterdcay. The deacon and sub-deacon were from the FSSP and the pastor of St. Matthews Fr. John McCartney preached the homily. The blog DRVC Catholic has some pictures and video clips are at the blog DRVC Catholic.

Charges: West Babylon woman had sex with student, 14

The headline in Newsday neglects to include the word "teacher". This is the latest of many stories of teachers being caught abusing children. Since 2002, all Catholics should be hyper-sensitive to anyone abusing teens and put as much focus on the schools as was put on the Church.

Jon & Kate Plus 8

My wife and I watched the season premiere of Jon & Kate Plus 8 and it was just painful to watch. The first couple of seasons of the show were really funny, interesting and kind of inspiring and now, it just should end. They need to have a normal life and get on with their parenting and forget the show, the fame and the money. Just end it.

Youth and the Future of the Pro-Life Movement

I completely forgot to blog about the Pro-Life Youth Conference held at Nassau Community College yesterday. Leticia posted the panel topics and speakers at Causa Nostrae Laetitia.

Four arrested in plot to bomb NYC targets

From MSNBC:

"NEW YORK - The FBI arrested four men Wednesday in what authorities called a plot to detonate a bomb outside a Jewish temple and to shoot military planes with guided missiles."

"The men, described as Black Muslims, had planned to detonate a car with plastic explosives outside a temple in the Bronx neighborhood of Riverdale and to shoot military planes at the New York Air National Guard base at Stewart Airport in Newburgh with Stinger surface-to-air guided missiles, authorities said.
The defendants planned to "destroy a synagogue and a Jewish community center with C-4 plastic explosives," Acting U.S. Attorney Lev L. Dassin said. "

"Two years ago, two Muslims pleaded guilty to plotting to attack synagogues in Los Angeles. But officials said that they knew of no connection between those arrests and this latest plot in New York. "

Bishop Murphy ordained 9 men as deacons (permanent) this past weekend.

I sent June Cleaver After a Six-Pack to Andrea to add to the Catholic Blog Directory.