I normally don't see anything in the newspaper of my diocese that I would blog about but today there is an article on a parish that has had 5 people recently enter religious life. The 3 sisters and 2 future priests all came from St.Patrick's Church in Smithtown which apparently does a good job of encouraging vocations.

"Most vocation research focuses on the individuals, not communities…insufficient attention has been given to the role of parish life in shaping vocations,” reads a CARA study entitled “Findings from a National Survey of Pastors and Recently Ordained Diocesan Priests. According to the CARA study, there are often similar characteristics in parishes
which produce multiple priestly vocations. These characteristics are very similar to descriptions of St. Patrick’s parish.

A parish which has yielded multiple vocations is more likely to possess the following:

• a community environment inclusive of young people.
• multiple priests at the parish who are approachable, dedicated, and have lived a fulfilled life. The parish priests openly invite young people to consider vocations.
• a parish school. (St. Patrick’s has a pre-Kindergarten to eighth-grade school attached to the church.)
• a strong parish prayer life including devotions and adoration."

Dietrich Von Hildebrand was able to escape from the Nazis who hunted him for his anti-Nazi teachings. In The Charitable Anathema he writes:

“The professional avant-gardistes in the Church today never tire of telling us of ‘the Christian faith in the postconciliar epoch’-of the changes called for by the ‘postconciliar spirit.” These vague slogans conceal a tendency to replace the infallible magisterium and unchanging faith of the Church with something else, something ‘new’. I am reminded of the famous program of the German National Socialist Party, which in Paragraph 17 declared that it accepted Christianity insofar as it corresponded to the ‘Nordic ethos.” In that case, too, the divinely-revealed doctrine of the Church was supposed to subordinate itself to an extremely vague and, moreover, purely natural norm."

MORE THAN A DOZEN TO BE ORDAINED TO THE PERMANENT DIACONATE

Our parish had two deacons but one recently died and the other had surgery and can only do "modified duty" so to speak. Deacons can be a great help, depending on their orthodoxy of course. I read somewhere that Pope Paul VI's original idea for the restoration of the diaconate was geared toward mission work and that this never happened. Seems like the whole deacon restoration thing is still finding its way, and that we will feel the real impact in a couple of decades. I have also read that a diocese (Seattle?) refused to have permanent deacons until recently. As of 2002, there were 13,764 deacons in the U.S. Here are some more statistics on Deacons worldwide. Here is some official info on deacons from the U.S. Catholic Bishops office.

Wow! The Diocese Report links to a Remnant article by Dr. Thomas Droleskey that lays the smackdown on my diocese. I have heard Dr. Droleskey speak a couple of times and think he is brilliant and a refreshingly honest Catholic. His article gives some more details about Bishop McGann to add to the ones I already knew. I finally found out about what happened to Fr. Robert Mason of Our Lady of Lourdes. I had heard a couple of times about persecution of him but never the details. The article also mentions the priest who recently told seminarians here that he "can't wait for Mother Angelica to die". McGann was truly a horrible bishop and I am so sorry Bishop Murphy named a high school after him. I don't entirely agree that Bishop Murphy has not addressed problems here however. I know of a few good things that have happened and have blogged about them. Dr. Droleskey has taught a college course at the high school I am always pushing on this blog, and I hope this is not the "prominent high school" with the sad teaching that he describes. McGann's damage is still with us, but I have seen several younger priests who give me hope that the tide is turning.

At each weekend there were small groups of guys, ranging from 5 to about 10. It has been awhile but I would say that most seemed sure of religious calling but were trying to find the right community. The weekends were good overall, but there was little follow through. The Benedictine monastery I visited seemed to be the most able to attract vocations. I don’t recall any real dissenting type stuff, but I really did not know much back then. I remember hearing the phrase “Novus Ordo” for the first time on one weekend retreat. The thing that probably turned away the most vocations was the general attitude of negativity, lack of enthusiasm, and lack of community in some of these groups. I think some of the priests and brothers were afraid to push or to be too aggressive which is probably correct. But, the guys I met on these weekends were looking for guidance and probably would have benefited from a more aggressive approach.

Most of these Vocation Discernment Weekends were ok, none of the above stories made me run from the community screaming. The absolute best weekend, for overall quality, was run by the Society of St. Paul on Staten Island. This group is involved in communications and run Alba House Publishers. The weekend was very busy and we heard presentations from priests, nuns, and lay people. This was not done in any other weekend I went to and I think it should be. The nuns, the Daughters of St. Paul, run Pauline Books and Media and they were fantastic. I almost wished I could have joined their community. They were energetic, funny, positive, evangelical and really seemed to love religious life. I thought it was great to see the male and female communities work together on this weekend, something I never saw anywhere else.

Years ago, before drifting away and then returning to the faith, I felt called to religious life and attended several vocation discernment retreat weekends. Overall, these were very good experiences and I don’t have any horror stories that could make the next Michael S. Rose book. The closest was at a retreat at a Franciscan community, where a man on the retreat spent the whole time talking as if he were some enlightened person who knows better than the Church and would single handedly bring the Church into the next century. The retreat house had a Brady Bunch setup – 2 adjoining rooms had a bathroom in between them so the 2 people in those rooms shared the one bathroom. The enlightened guy was my neighbor and knocked on the door and came into my room in his underwear and proceeded to talk about his friend who was gay and going into the seminary. I talked with him for a short time, kind of yessing him to death, which is my way of ignoring someone, and then went to bed with the door locked. Later the vocation director sent me all kinds of literature explaining work against land mines, human rights in Eastern Europe, etc.. All good and worthy stuff but I could get involved with that as a layman.

Another experience also included another Franciscan community-I liked Franciscan spirituality but learned my vocation was not franciscan. I don’t like animals and I don’t enjoy the idea of complete poverty, I think a community should have money just not the individual. Anyway, this community included a brother who proceeded to get drunk and moan about the good old days. I felt sorry for him, he was a good man but obviously when he joined a community he wanted to live in community. Once the 70’s came, each brother went off to do their own thing, so they did not even get together for Easter. I felt so sorry for him because I knew he was right, community means community. A couple of the brothers lived by themselves and did their own apostolate which does not make sense for Franciscans, who should be big on community.

One vocation director in a non-Franciscan order seemed to have an attitude that said: It’s good that we lose most guys during the formation process, cause most of them are nuts. Even if this was true, why tell a group of prospective candidates this?

More thoughts on religious life/communities:

There are diocesan priests and religious order priests, so why not have this for nuns too? Some nuns might be called to religious life but not necessarily to community life. There should be diocesan nuns who work for and report to the bishop. Like Diocesan priests, these nuns would have more freedom, and work in more individual apostolates. This is already the situation-many nuns do not live or work in community anyway. Of course this would not mean everyone would turn orthodox overnight, but it would make an already existing situation official and perhaps open the door for women who are called to certain apostolates but not religious community.

My positive experience in high school was due to the great community of brothers and priests that ran the school. It seems that they understood some aspects that are important to making a religious community work. They were a real community, one that lived together, worked together, played together, and prayed together. They were truly devoted to Christ and His Church. They put their spiritual study into actual use. The community all focused on education, at the time running 1 high school, by my senior year they started another. When a group of people focus their energy on one thing, the whole is often more than the sum of the parts. They also had a very strong work ethic, combining lots of manual labor with praying, teaching, and socializing. They were just as likely to be seen building a desk or installing carpet as they were tutoring a student in math. Not every community runs schools and teaches but I think the aspects of this community that form its strength are applicable to any other religious community. I see some of the same qualities in the Daughters of St. Paul in their communications apostolate. To the contrary, some of the religious communities in the Church have fallen apart because they lack these same aspects.

Aspects of good religious communities:
Real Community
Real Faith and Devotion
Combine all talents and energy into common work
Mix of manual labor/spiritual life/intellectual and social activities
Joy

Six Degrees of St. Blog’s Part II

In the April 2003 issue of homiletic & pastoral review (which is spelled with no caps), Oswald Sobrino of Catholic Analysis has an article entitled “The fornication culture”. Also, Pete Vere of Envoy Encore co-writes an article on “The Canonical rights of God’s special children”. There is an ad for Will Catholics Be "Left Behind"? , a book authored by Carl Olson of Envoy Encore. And finally, there is a book review of An Exorcist: More Stories by Gabriele Amorth. Now he does not have a blog as far as I know, but I bet if he did, it would be mighty interesting.

Just after my posting the VOTF thing, I saw that the Long Island Voice of the Faithful has invited , yes, Fr. Richard McBrien to speak to them. Funny how a group that claims to not want to change Church doctrine would invite a man who has made a career out of teaching people to change Church doctrine. Funny also how a group that claims to want to change the situation in the Church would invite a man that was a favorite of Bishop McGann, the bishop in charge for 20 + years and the one at the center of the pedophile priest scandal in this diocese. One would think that anyone interested in changing the way things were in this diocese would go as far away from Bishop McGann as possible. But then again, this same group supports a priest, Fr. Papa, who was found with child porn site cookies on his computer. VOTF = Voice of the Full of it.

Voice of the Faithful Donation Rejected by Catholic Charities

A $750 donation from Voice of the Faithful was rejected by Catholic Charities. The VOTF made donations to 4 charities totaling a less than whopping $3250 as part of their effort to bypass the Bishop's Annual Appeal. I have never given a dime to the diocese because I realized, way before VOTF was around, that much of the money was not well spent. But, I notice the VOTF (here and elsewhere) always give to politically correct charities and never to some of the necessary but boring causes. Why not donate to the Tribunal? Why not give to a religious education program? Why not donate to a fund that pays for Catholic school teacher's salaries? Can you imagine VOTF giving to Catholics United for the Faith or the Catholic League? It would make sense for them to donate to Roman Catholic Faithful since this group has actually had success in forcing corrupt priests and bishops out. VOTF are claiming to be faithful Catholics but I think if they were able to decide how money is spent and what the Church's priorities would be, we would be left with no Church but plenty of social services. This group sounds like the others such as Call to Action and FutureChurch, a bunch of old, ignorant secular humanists posing as Catholics.

Pope Canonizes Five New Spanish Saints Before Crowd of 1 Million

For a firsthand account of the Pope's Youth Rally yesterday go to the ibidem blog by Jesus Gil

I just received a package of books I ordered from Roman Catholic Books. This is a company that publishes “Catholic Classics” and I have been receiving their catalog for awhile and finally decided to try them. They seem to use the same distribution center as Ignatius Press and I received an Ignatius Press catalog with the books so they must have some connection. Roman Catholic Books is more traditionally oriented. The books I have are:

The Nazarene by Eugenio Zolli----Zolli was the chief rabbi of Rome who converted in 1945 and took the name Eugenio in honor of Pope Pius XII. This book looks like a scholarly treatment of the Bible, when thumbing through it I saw lots of strange looking phrases and words in Greek, Aramaic, and Hebrew.

The Charitable Anathema by Dietrich Von Hildebrand----This is going to be the most fun and interesting to read. It is a collection of lectures and essays from the man Pope Pius XII called a “20th Century doctor of the Church”. These writings cover 1966-1976 so they cover the beginnings of the problems we are dealing with today. I already read one essay and probably will finish this book quickly.

Return to Tradition by Francis Thornton---- a reproduction of a massive anthology that was first published in 1948. I was looking through the Roman Catholic Books catalog because I wanted to get some real traditional Catholic stuff, and this book was on sale so I knew I had to get it. It contains selections of Catholic authors from 1800-1948 and shows the great Catholic revival of that time. The sections of the book are The English Revival, The French Influence, The Irish Revival, The American Revival, and The Liturgical Revival.

Any Friend of God’s is a Friend of Mine (A biblical and historical explanation of the Catholic doctrine of the Communion of Saints) by Patrick Madrid----This book was on sale for $3.99 LOL. I have bought a few apologetic books like this because, as a cradle Catholic with 16 years of Catholic school education, I need to learn the basics in easy to understand language. I envy the converts (and reverts like Madrid) and appreciate those who write and teach because this stuff went in one ear and out the other in Catholic school. As a movie character once said, “Don’t talk to me about God, I go to Catholic school, God is like our homework.” For cradle Catholics like me, reading apologetics is like finding brand new stuff in your attic, stuff you always had but either never knew it or forgot all about it.

Six Degrees of St. Blogs

The May 2003 issue of Crisis Magazine (not yet online) features an article on seminaries by Rev. Robert Johansen of the Thrown Back blog. This article quotes Todd Reitmeyer of the Musings of a Catholic Seminarian blog. The same issue contains a guest column written by Rev. Bryce Sibley of the A Saintly Salmagundi blog and a letter to the editor praising the previous issue's article on the prison system written by Eve Tushnet of the Eve Tushnet blog.

When I started this blog I wanted it to be a totally positive place to write about Catholicism. My experience in the Church has personally been nothing but positive. But things are so bad that I have occasionally used this blog to complain or write about the corruption. Here is an article I found from St. Catherine’s Review written by the great Michael S. Rose in 1998. It is interesting to read this article about Mother Angelica and see what has happened since the article was written. Some excerpts followed by my updates:

“For the past few months Mother has been bitterly criticized by members of the Catholic press, bishops, and priests for her public criticism of Cardinal Roger Mahony’s pastoral letter on the liturgy, "Gather Faithfully Together: A Guide for Sunday Mass" (September 4, 1997)”

*Update: Cardinal Mahony has proven to have covered up child molesting priests within his diocese and has lost most of the credibility he may have had. The pedophilia crisis has been exposed in his diocese and his influence is greatly diminished. Thanks be to God for that!

“Bishop Tobin wondered what drives Mother Angelica and others to be so critical of bishops and cardinals of the Church. "Could it be that some members of the Church have become so outspoken, even defiant," he suggested, "because their legitimate complaints about abuses in the Church have not been taken seriously by Church leaders? Their concern about fuzzy teaching or liturgical aberrations have too often been neglected, sometimes even belittled… Church leaders need to address well-founded complaints seriously, or we will continue to see the marginalization of many good people who just care about the spiritual well-being of the Church."

*Update: Church leaders continued to ignore the legitimate complaints about abuses in the Church and the marginalization has exploded. Some of the worst bishops were forced to resign and others have lost all credibility. Thanks be to God for that!

“In 1994, Archbishop Rembert Weakland led the Catholic crusade to rid Milwaukee airwaves of Mother Angelica. Likewise Emil Wcela, auxiliary bishop of Rockville Center led a similar campaign on Long Island, New York. (Weakland’s diocesan newspaper even rejected running a photograph of Mother in an EWTN ad because she was clothed in a traditional habit)”

*Update: Weakland has been exposed as a fraud. He has retired after the public became aware that while trying to silence Mother Angelica and EWTN, Weakland stole $400,000 from the people of his diocese and gave it to his homosexual lover. The lover wanted to make “Christological dramas” with the money. Weakland was replaced by Timothy Dolan and his installation Mass was carried live on EWTN. On Long Island, thousands rallied in support of EWTN and the diocese tv station still carries EWTN but significantly cut down the hours it is shown. The coverup of priestly pedophilia on Long Island by bishops including Bishop Wcela, has been publicly exposed by the Suffolk County Grand Jury Report. Bishop Wcela, a biblical scholar who denies that Jesus actually performed some miracles described in the Bible, was former Bishop McGann’s hand picked successor. Thankfully, McGann’s plan failed and our diocese has been given more faithful bishops from outside the diocese. Thanks be to God for that!

“In January, for instance, Los Angeles Lay Catholic Mission reported on a letter sent to Mother Angelica from Bishop Robert Lynch of St. Petersburg, Florida. Bishop Lynch, former secretary for the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, wrote in his November 19, 1997 letter: "I pray that you will cease these personal and vicious attacks on those whom the Successor of Peter has chosen to lead the Church at this time." The bishop added, "you and your network are not helping me in my office as Shepherd, Pastor and Leader”

*Update: Bishop Lynch has since been accused of sexual harassment by a man who worked closely with him. He also has banned perpetual adoration in the St. Petersberg diocese. The Bishop was right though, when he said Mother Angelica and her network were not helping him. Thanks be to God for that!

“In a 1994 interview with Thomas Droleskey of The Wanderer, Mother Angelica "went to great lengths to explain that she loves and prays for the bishops; what angers her is that some of Christ’s shepherds are not faithful to the Holy Father.”

*Update: Dr. Drolesky has since left the Wanderer and is now a traditionalist Catholic who attends the traditional latin mass. He had complained about his parish priest, Msgr. Bud Ribaudo years ago because of the priest’s liturgical abuses and questionable theology. Ribaudo was recently accused of sexual abuse by several men and has been forced out of the active priesthood. Thanks be to God for that!

“Mother Angelica does not attribute her network’s great success to her own talents and persistence—although many others would; she gives all the glory to God, the prayers of her community, and perpetual adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at her monastery in Irondale, Alabama. Indeed the two pillars of EWTN’s efforts are profound Eucharistic piety and a great devotion to the Mother of God. Mother’s sisters, brothers and priests are first and foremost contemplatives. Their vocation is to the religious life. Their mission is to bring true Church teaching to the common people through the media.” –Michael S. Rose

*Update: Mother Angelica has since built a brand new monastery for her growing order of nuns. Her order of brothers and priests continue to grow as well. EWTN has continued to grow, both in reach and in influence, and many attribute this fact to the network’s independence. Michael S. Rose has since written a couple of books that exposed more of the corruption in the Church, including one that became a best seller. Thanks be to God for that!

Conclusion--Mother Angelica never covered up child molestation. Michael S. Rose never covered up child molestation. Both have worked hard for the Church and have done great work. The same cannot be said of Weakland, Mahoney and Wcela. That is why I will continue to focus on the Angelicas and Roses of the Church rather than the corrupt figures.

"The Crisis in the Catholic Church: The Anatomy of a Scandal" a lecture/panel discussion with audience participation.
Main speaker: Father Richard J. Neuhaus, Editor, First Things
Primary Discussants: James Kelly, Professor of Sociology at Fordham University and David Gregory, Professor of Law at St. John's University

When: Friday, May 9th at 9:30 A.M. to about noon

Where: Nassau Community College, Garden City, New York, 11530, the Multipurpose Room of the College Center Building (CCB)(next to the Tower)
Note: free of any charge, all are welcome; light breakfast items to be available at 9 A.M.

Homiletic and Pastoral Review magazine had a good letter from someone making fun of rationalists who try to explain away the miracles of the Bible. Since the magazine does not have a website, I may post the letter here when I have the time to type it all. Fr. Groeschel tells a good story of a Baptist minister with a teenage son reading the story of Moses parting the Red Sea. The know-it-all son tells the father that really what happened was a natural drying up of the Sea, a special extra low tide, and that there was only 6 inches of water so the Jews could cross. The minister shouts out “What a miracle! Praise the Lord!”. The son is incredulous “What miracle? This was a rare but natural occurrence perfectly explained by science”. The minister shouts “The whole Egyptian army drown in 6 inches of water! Praise the Lord for this miracle!”.

More good news from the local Church-
1) I just found out a former priest of our parish, who was assigned to us after graduating from the seminary 6 years ago, has just been assigned to teach moral theology at the seminary. I wasn’t reverted when he was at our parish but from what I remember he is a pretty good priest, like most younger priests, he seems orthodox. He will replace the awful priest that spoke on human sexuality at our parish recently. Maybe they won’t have to shut that place down after all.
2) Bishop Murphy has released a pastoral letter that sounds very good. He talks about the need for everyone to celebrate Liturgy according to the rubrics. I have never heard this type of talk from a Bishop in this diocese in my life! He also points out how Sundays have become like any other day and how we should start to make the Sabbath holy again. This is an important message and a good start for this Bishop.

Now for something completely different

The blog Catholic And Loving It! is a fun read. The blogger is a Catholic student in the UK which is another name for Great Britain which is another name for England. It's an old country so they have a lot of names. Fortunately, due to years of watching PBS Britcoms such as Are You Being Served?, Keeping Up Appearances and Monty Python, I am able to understand the exotic language on this blog. For example, "apologise" would mean apologize in American. Also "mum" would equal "mom" here. "Queue" would mean a line, or to line up. They should just use line because it is easier to spell. And "pub" means "bar". The "Super Monkey Ball 2" referred to is not familiar to me but I imagine it is like cricket, but with monkeys. With these translating skills of mine, perhaps I should be at the UN or ICEL.