In the News: Cardinal Sean hits a homer

Jennifer Doyle, president of the Presentation School Foundation speaks at the Oak Square announcement celebration Oct. as Boston mayor Thomas M. Menino and Cardinal Seán P. O’Malley look on. Pilot photo/ Gregory L. Tracy

It's wonderful when archdiocesan officials stop acting like petulant buttheads and start dealing with the laity on equal terms. Dropping the asking price from $2 million to $1 million allowed a citizen's group to use a parochial school building to help children. What a concept! But until Cardinal Sean acted, it was business as usual on Lake Street.

Closed Brighton school to be sold to community group

By Christine Williams

BRIGHTON — In Oak Square the DJ played U2’s “Beautiful Day,” children threw confetti and Allston-Brighton residents cheered the Oct. 19 announcement of the Archdiocese of Boston’s sale of a former school to the Presentation School Foundation (PSF).

The foundation plans to convert the former Our Lady of Presentation School, which closed in June 2005, to a community center. The archdiocese sold the building for $1 million — half the price offered by the PSF.

“It’s about our community. It’s about each one of you. For the past two years you have been here with us in the freezing cold, the sweltering heat and in the pouring rain,” said Jennifer Doyle, president of PSF. “Today there is sun.”

In planning the center, the PSF is working with the Oak Square YMCA and the Boston Public Library. The center will provide affordable pre-school, after-school programs and summer camps for local youth, educational enrichment programs in science, math, reading and writing for children as well as adult educational programs, including English as a second language and civics for immigrants.

As part of the agreement with the archdiocese, the building may not be used as an elementary school.

“This is a moment of common purpose and a moment of commitment to this community,” said Kevin M. Carragee, chair of the PSF. “I welcome Cardinal Seán O’Malley today and I highlight his role in crafting an agreement that serves this community, the city of Boston and this archdiocese.”

Cardinal O’Malley in turn thanked Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino for supporting the initiative. Hard work and cooperation between those who worked on the agreement led to the mutually beneficial solution, he said.

“We all benefit from strong neighborhoods and communities where people can work, learn, play and grow together,” he added.

Cardinal O’Malley also acknowledged the conflict surrounding the closure of Our Lady of Presentation School.

The archdiocese was heavily criticized for abruptly closing the school June 8, 2005, two days before the last scheduled day of classes, to avoid a rumored occupation of the building.

The early closure prevented students from participating in planned graduation ceremonies and spurred protests by parents and community members on Oak Square Common. Parents maintained that while rallies had been scheduled, no sit-in had been planned.

At the time Menino said he was “outraged” by the decision to cancel the graduations and provided Faneuil Hall as an alternate site for the ceremony.

The cardinal addressed both former students and parents directly, saying, “We regret the events of the past. It is our hope and prayer that we can work together to enrich and enliven the Allston-Brighton community for many generations to come. Please know that the Church always welcomes you and values your presence.”

“The past two years have been a challenging time for the Presentation School Foundation, for the Allston-Brighton community and for the archdiocese,” he added. “In addition to the events surrounding the school closings, the clergy abuse crisis has left deep wounds in the Brighton community and we pray that this important accomplishment contributes to the foundation of trust necessary to enable the healing work for survivors, for families and for parishes.”

Menino also praised the community and the cardinal for their collaborative effort.

“When we all work together, we will achieve our goals,” he said. “This is one of the best days I could have as an elected official.”

Sunday Reflection: Blind Man's Bluff

"Thus says the LORD:
Shout with joy for Jacob,
exult at the head of the nations;
proclaim your praise and say:
The LORD has delivered his people,
the remnant of Israel.

[Bartimaeus] threw aside his cloak, sprang up, and came to Jesus.
Jesus said to him in reply, "What do you want me to do for you?"
The blind man replied to him, "Master, I want to see."
Jesus told him, "Go your way; your faith has saved you."
Immediately he received his sight
and followed him on the way.

When will we ever stop seeing these stories as something nice that happened to other people a long time ago? Our Church -- right now -- is in crisis. Churches are closing; teaching is reverting to dogmatism; the faithful are leaving in disgust; the fundamentalist hordes are closing in. Just about everywhere you look, Jesus Christ is on the run, and hatred in His name is rampant.

Parishes are devolving into a fast-food religion, with all the nutrition of MacDonald's and all the charm of a Walmart sub shop. It's all about pumping out the sacraments and calling it healthy faith life. The wacky rightwingers are trying ever so hard to meld their twisted version of Catholicim with with perverted view of American foreign policy. How many so-called traditional Catholics are against the war in Iraq because it fails (miserably) any of the tenets of the Just War policy -- one of the shining jewels of Catholic teaching? How many of these folks (who call me a Cafeteria Catholic because I am pro-birth control) support the enriching of the rich, the execution of criminals, and a literal interpretation of Scripture? It irks me that they are breaking Church Law and they are too blind, stupid, arrogant or power-hungry to see it.

Meanwhile the Church twirls down a drainhole of its own making, spinning into oblivion and irrelevancy.

Which brings me to the readings.

The Wacky Cathlics who think they represent the one true faith think they are the remnant of the Church that will save it. They could not be more wrong. Why? Because they represent only the worst of what Catholicism is. The represent hatred, insularity, nationalism, clericalism and empty ritual. They truly believe that if they were in power, the Church would have no scandals, because it would cast all the scandalous outside the walls. They aren't bright enough to appreciate the irony that in His Day, it was Jesus that was cast outside the walls and left to die. Quelle surprise that it is the Outcast who was resurrected -- not the Caiaphases and Pilates.

The Roman Catholic Church will dwindle. Of that I have no doubt. No organization that goes so far to marginalize, patronize, ignore and emasculate its membership can grow in any meaningful way. But the Lord will return a remnant. Of that Scripture assures us. Whateher it looks anything like the Catholic Church of today is irrelvant. Others can have their little Church of pageantry, patriarchal control and exclusivity. The Church of Jesus Christ -- with its call of love and fellowship to all -- will survive, even it is not called so by name.

Book Review: Dinner with a Perfect Stranger

Is this what Jesus would talk about?

It's a devout Christian's dream: the chance to have a heart-to-heart with Jesus Christ himself. What questions might one ask about oneself, life, the universe? What would Jesus think of us? What would he look like?

"Dinner with a Perfect Stranger" uses the premise of a personal encounter with Jesus and quickly makes much less of it than its divine host would suggest. The protagonist is Nick Cominsky, a fairly successful 30-year-old with a not-so-happy marriage and a job that is worrying him. One day, he gets a dinner invitation that lands him across the table at a local restaurant from a man who says he is Jesus of Nazareth.

The dinner setting is quite threadbare. The action consists of the characters picking up food and wine and moving their arms on and off the table. As such, the plot barely disguises the fact that the book is merely a chance for the writer to put his personal opinions into Jesus's mouth. Unfortunately, the Jesus that we meet spends an inordinate amount of time talking about two things: why other religions are no good and the need for all people to have a personal encounter with himself. This "Jesus" has nothing to say about justice, the poor and oppressed, talking truth to power, redemptive suffering, the eucharist or preaching the gospel. He doesn't break the bread in the gospel sense, but cuts it with a knife! He is basically a figment of the religious fantasies of a certain brand of evangelical Christian. "Jesus" confirms the existence of Hell, though he says people choose to go there. Relying on the discredited "argument from design," he dismisses evolutionary theory in a couple of sentences. The supposedly-skeptical Nick swallows every statement along with his tortellini.

Jesus does makes some nice points. His discussion of the impossibility of earning salvation is memorable. And his simplistic explanation of how sin has wrecked the moral fabric of the universe is neat, though it shares more with St. Anselm's 12th century theory of satisfaction than than of anything more recent or more subtle.

For those who feel that all religion is the same, it's a reminder that some faiths have developed understandings of the life and mission of Jesus Christ that are subtle and challenging, unlike the Jesus we meet in this very short book.

Book Review: Why be Catholic?

Why Be Catholic?: Understanding Our Experience and Tradition by Richard Rohr and Joseph Martos

Last Chance for Catholics?

The Roman Catholic Church has taken so much of a beating lately, mostly self-inflicted, that even lovers of the Church might be forgiven for wondering what might be the point of remaining Catholic.

To answer this desperate question come Richard Rohr and Joseph Martos to remind us of what it is about Catholicism that is still potent and worthy of our attention. Rohr and Martos are quite critical of the "ethnic Catholicism" that has become a hallmark of the religion. The strength of the Irish, Italians, French and others who brought their faith with them as they emigrated is that it was such a strong mark of their identity. The weak part is that this has little to do with the faith that Jesus asked us to exhibit. Similarly, the consumer Catholicism that marks recent American society no longer carries the counter-cultural message of the gospel, but becomes an extension of the national character.

Rohr and Martos highlight the special genius that is Catholicism - among other things, of its embrace (in spite of the male domination of its hierarchy) of the "feminine" spirit of forgiveness, healing and service. Of the martyrs, intellectuals, founders, humanists and eccentrics that have made up the rank and file of its holiest citizens, the saints. Rohr and Martos are hopeful that the Church can rid itself of the malign influences that have come to become synonymous with being a Roman Catholic. They are not afraid to talk of the Church's "shadow" side - its rigidity and dogmatism - while advocating a balance between its masculine and feminine impulses.

The Catholic Church they advocate is one that continually circles back to the Church of Jesus, who eschewed titles and honors and embraced the cross; who reached out to the lowly and forsaken rather than devising canonical penalties against them; who offered salvation the whole world - not only the self-appointed insiders and connected clerical caste. Whether there is still life in Mother Church is a question they would answer in the affirmative; whether the disaffected Catholic reader would agree is another question.

But if you are feeling abandoned by the Church and alienated by those currently in control, Rohr and Martos will remind you that the glories of Catholicism are in its wider view and ultimately in its balance of male and female elements. Bringing that sort of focus on the Church will likely irritate the close-minded but give some hope to those who stubbornly hold onto their place in then Church while the winds of division and exclusion rage on.

In the News: Throwing a bone to the dogs on the right

In what seems to me to be a measure of desperation (or mere stupidity) the pope is waving an olive branch in the face of the rapid pack that thinks the Tridentine Mass is the salvation of the Church. After 40 years of the Paul VI Mass (or Novus Ordo) only the most wigged out seniors or hyper pious young people want to see this petrified relic reanimated.

Here are excerpts from a CNS article with arguments from yours truly interspersed in bold throughout.

Vatican source says pope to expand use of Tridentine Mass

By John Thavis
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI is preparing to expand permission to use the Tridentine Mass, the pre-Vatican II rite favored by traditionalist groups, said an informed Vatican source.

The pope is expected to issue a document "motu proprio," or on his own initiative, which will address the concerns of "various traditionalists," said the source, who asked not to be named.

"Various traditionalists" -- is this code for Mel Gibson and his Dad? Is the Vatican paying off on a bet about how gory Mel could make he Passion of Christ? "Dude!" he told the Pope, "If you blow cookies before the first hour, you have to bring back the Tridentine Mass!!! And wear stupid red shoes."

The Tridentine rite is currently available to groups of Catholics who ask and receive permission for its use from their local bishops. The old rite is celebrated in Latin and follows the Roman Missal of 1962, which was replaced in 1969 with the new Roman Missal.

In other words, you can already get the Old Mass -- you just have to ask -- or is that beyond the feeble powers of the Mass's proponents? Or (scary violins) is the goal to make it available in very parish? The plot thickens

Among those who have strongly pushed for wider use of the Tridentine rite are the followers of the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, who was excommunicated in 1988.

"Lefebvre" is French for "the beans," of which the late Archbishop was full in spades.

Canadian Archbishop James Weisgerber of Winnipeg, Manitoba, told Catholic News Service Oct. 10 that Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos, head of the Congregation for Clergy, had spoken briefly to Canadian bishops about the expected step.

"It sounded to me like it was a sort of concession somebody has made," the archbishop said.

No kidding -- this is definitely a payoff!

Archbishop Weisgerber said the new indult was apparently motivated by a desire to bring comfort to older people who may miss the old rite. But in his archdiocese, he said, the few people asking for it are "young people who never experienced it."

Bring comfort to the older people? You mean the ones who are ticked off at having the parishes closed and their kids raped and their property sold of? The ones who make up most of the membership of Voice of the Faithful and Call to Action?

And which "young people" are we talking about? The fruitcakes who take their cue from American fundamentalists and want to turn the clock back on gays, evolution and biblical scholarship?

Pope Benedict has made new efforts to reconcile with leaders of the Lefebvrite religious order, the Society of St. Pius X. In a meeting last year with the pope, Bishop Bernard Fellay, head of the society, asked for the restoration of the Tridentine rite as a sign of good will.

Bishop Fellay later told CNS that he thought the Vatican should simply declare that the Tridentine rite can be used freely because it was never really abrogated. Bishop Fellay also said wider use of the Tridentine Mass would not solve all the problems the Lefebvrites have with the Second Vatican Council.

Note to B16: this is all about overturning Vatican II and completing the ruin of the Church that VII miraculously averted.

The pope discussed potential reconciliation terms with the Lefebvrites in two meetings earlier this year, one with heads of Vatican curial offices and one with the world's cardinals. In both meetings, sources said, there were mixed views on wider use of the Tridentine Mass.

In 1984, Pope John Paul II first made it possible for groups of the faithful to worship according to the old rite under certain conditions. In 1991, the Vatican established more liberal guidelines, encouraging bishops to grant permission and retaining just one basic condition: that those seeking the old Mass form must also accept the validity of the new rite.

Suckers!!

Pope Benedict has long questioned the wisdom of the liturgical changes made after the Second Vatican Council. As Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, he was sometimes outspoken about what he considered the dismantling of the church's liturgical tradition.

B16 rides again. The man is a champion of the idiots who truly will destroy the Church with heir hatred and anti-Semitism and insularity.

"I was dismayed by the ban on the old missal, since such a development had never been seen in the history of liturgy. The impression was given that this was completely normal," he wrote in a 1997 book.

Is he for real? The council of Trent (which gave us The Tridentine Mass) itself banned all liturgical forms that were not at least 200 years old. B16: fool or liar?

In the same book, he said it was important for the faithful to understand that for liturgy and other areas, Vatican II was not a break but a "developing moment."

In short, B16 is showing himself to be as much of a punk as JPII was a giant. I don't wish his early demise, but please send us a Pope who is not such a bonehead.

And while you’re at it, how about throwing a bone to the dogs on my side of the aisle? We are part of your pretty Church too.

Sunday Reflection (OT28): Filthy lucre!!!!

Jesus looked around and said to his disciples,
"How hard it is for those who have wealth
to enter the kingdom of God!"
The disciples were amazed at his words.

It seems an odd for the diciples to be so hung up on wealth. "Holy Crap!" they appear to be saying. "If rich people can't be saved, then who can?"

If this is an accurate reflection of the cultural values they grew up with, then the freedom that Jesus offered through poverty must have appeared stunningly foolhardy -- just crazy enough to work!!! But remannts of their upbringning clung to them as Jesus blew heir minds with

It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for one who is rich to enter the kingdom of God."

The sense of existential panic on the part of the disciples is almost palpable. Rich people can't get into heaven? We are so screwed!

These sentiments sound rather quaint today, but the reality is all around us. Our national leaders seem rather self-satisfied in the success they have achieved. Rich nations boast of being "the best country in the world" when they do little to alleviate the suffering of the poor and gobble up riches that are the patrimony of all. The rich, the powerful and the beautiful are idolized and attended to because of the clothes they wear, the spouses they accumulate, the cheekbones they chisel and the cut of their hair. We may think we are going to Heaven, but we sure do wish we could be a little sleeker, more elegant, thinner and beautiful when we got there.

But the riches of heaven are not acumulated by excess and consumption, but by emptying oneself. Get rid of the stuff you are convinced defines you and gives you identity. Give it to the poor, and come with me, and I'll teach you something worth hanging onto. Rid yourself of what keeps you in the counting house and out of sight of those who could use the money.

This week, we saw the Nobel Peace prize go to a man who made micro-loans to poor women in Pakistan. The loans could be for as little as $27. But what a difference those few dollars could make. A woman whose experience was bounded by her village walls now has access to phone calls from the world, and makes money and gains influence as a "phone woman". She arranges calls between those inside the village and the entire rest of the world. Her horizons expand; her literacy is put to use; her wisdom is sought after; a community finds itself just a bit less isolated and hopeless, for the generosoty and trust of a single person.

What we do with our possessions is a test of our character. How much can we keep? How much must we store? How much could we give away? In my cellar, I have boxes and boxes of books I have not read in years. This year, I need to donate them to the library or to one of the many programs avaiabsle for those -- like the incarcerated -- who could use them.

The commercil asks, "What's in our wallet?" What's in your closet -- clothes? Old books? Shoes? Machinery? What can you get rid of and put to better use?

Sunday Relfection (OT27): Divorce

A nasty gospel today, and one that has caused more harm than good, at least as implementedf by clergy and "the faithful" in the contemporary world:

"Whoever divorces his wife and marries another
commits adultery against her;
and if she divorces her husband and marries another,
she commits adultery."

There but the grace of God, go I, might say many of us who are still married.

The modern world puts enormous pressures on its citizens. We must not merely survice, we must excel, dominating those around us. We must not only have our daily bread, we must piled possession upon possession until we have nowhere to store it all. And we must not hope only for life's little pleasures, but we must expect every day to be a holiday, every relationshop to be consistently and constantly joyful, fulfilling and satisfying.

And worst of all, we must constantly crave and reach for our individual potential, even at the expense of children, family, community and self.

As human beings, we are notoriously unhappy creatures. We are too cold or too hot, too poor or too bored. It is impossible to make us happy. We are mistaken if we expect others to provide the happiness that is not theirs to give and not in the nature of the world to provide. At least some of the unhappiness in marriage can be laid at the feet of our unrealistic expectation that happiness will comes without struggle and without the need for inner conversion.

Thne gospel today reminds us that God's way is not that of easy dispensing with burdensome relationships. It is not God's way to causally lay aside another human being when we are a little unhappy or a little bored or a little irritated. Marriage, as Jesus understands the Creator's will, is about to people growing together, changing together, striving with (both in the sense of working together and of working against)each other.

Not all marriages are entered into wisely. Individuals and their communities must help couples make wise choices, and then to support them in the inevitable struggles to come. But to the degree that we are seduced by our society's siren call to seek ever greater thrills and ever greater highs of "love," we are foolish and adulterous -- making the human body an object for our selfish pleasure and another human being into a means of our personal advancement.

To this, Jesus firmly says, "No."
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Sunday Reflection: OT26: Who's on first?

Gotta catch up! So, a few quick hits...

Here's the meat:

At that time, John said to Jesus,
"Teacher, we saw someone driving out demons in your name,
and we tried to prevent him because he does not follow us."
Jesus replied, "Do not prevent him.
There is no one who performs a mighty deed in my name
who can at the same time speak ill of me.
For whoever is not against us is for us.

I am not a student of ancient Greek idiom, but I have to wonder whether in the ancient world, the saying in the last line was the same as it is in ours: If you are not with us, you are against us. If it is, then the your circle of allies is rather small, since the number of people you don't know (and whose alliance to you is unknown) is necessarily larger than the circle you do know. The number of people, then, that are not with you not only includes the folks who are known enmeies, but those whose feeelings to you are unknown.

But Jesus turns this around,, stating that this vast sea of unknowns should be counted for you, not against you! Sure -- you will have enemies. But rather than presuming that those neither enemies nor friends is potentially hostile, he asks us to see them as potentially friendly.

Human nature is a two-headed coin. On one hand, we know the worst that humans can do: iolence, disloyalty, fraud, theft, and so on. But on the other hand, Jesus asks us to think well of those who are strangers. He asked his disciples to depend on the kindness of those to whom they preached. The way of Jesus then is not just about trust in the goodness of the Father, but trusting in the potential goodness of all people.

Sure, you will run across those who are hateful and envious and will do you harm. But isn't it true that there are many stangers who will take you in and halp in times of need? Jesus asks us this Sunday to see the good in our neighbor. Maybe then the walls of fear toward them will begin to fall.
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