On Friday November 20th, I attended one (of two) days of the "Lifelong Faith Formation" seminar/workshop/conference/whatever. It was held at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Parish in Absecon. Honestly I had no idea what to expect in terms of particulars, but my expectations were fairly low. (This way I could be pleasantly surprised.) I hoped to come from the day with a few ideas for our parish pertaining to RCIA or adult religious education, and maybe some curricula to flip through. Well, I really didn't get either of these. As it turns out, the seminar was mainly intended to help parishes implement a specific "faith formation" program. It was largely an "insert Tab A into Slot B" type of thing, with some options to make the program suit your own "community," but it was definitely a program. And yes, it was alarming, but I'll talk more about the program generally in the future.

This was originally posted January 31, 2009. We thought it was worth republishing.

Catholic theology and Church teaching are not accidental. Holy Mother Church teaches unchanging, eternal Truths. Moreover, these Truths are all connected and interconnected. Like all systems, each Truth depends upon the other; they are the structures that support the building. We do not, after all, have an atomistic system wherein one truth may stand up as a pillar without the others. Generally speaking, it is not possible, nor is it logical, to accept one teaching of the Catholic Church and dispense with the others, as if one was unrelated to the next. Once we begin to do this, the structure loses its supports and comes tumbling down.

Take, for example, our church buildings and chapels. They are designed for the worship of Christ, the King of the Universe. They are supposed to give us a glimpse of heaven. They are to surround us with examples of how we should live (depictions of the lives of Christ and the saints), who we are and were designed to be (holy sons and daughters of Our Lord), and the physical and spiritual means of getting there.


As Catholics, we believe that Christ is truly and physically present in the Holy Sacrifice of the Altar and that his Eucharistic Presence resides in the Tabernacle. If the King of the Universe resides in the Tabernacle, it only makes sense that that Tabernacle be located in a prominent place, front and center.


If the King of the Universe in the Tabernacle is located front and center in our churches, it only makes sense that we reverently face Him. If the King of the Universe is located in the Tabernacle, front and center, and we are all facing His Majesty, it only makes sense that we be able to kneel before Him in humility and out of love and devotion to Him.


If we truly believe that Jesus Christ, King and Redeemer of our fallen race has come to be with us sacramentally in the Holy Eucharist and that He resides in our Catholic churches, then our souls and minds ought to be elevated, our whole selves reminded of Him while we are in church, whether mass is going on or not. Throughout most of human history, people have not been literate, and even today we need reminders of what it means to live the Christian life. God allows us to use our senses to know Him. To glorify God and for the help of our souls, we are given works of art in the form of paintings, stained glass windows, statues, and other things within our churches.


Consider this. When you have a guest coming to your house, you clean up. You make ready. You prepare. If you were to have an "important" guest come to your house, you would want it to look good. In this case we have an important guest--the most important Guest possible, our Creator--coming to be with us, so great is His love for us. We should want all around us to remind us of His loving and sacrificial Presence.

Says the Catholic Church of England and Wales:

A Church for us is more than a building - it is a Sacred Space, filled with God's presence. Everything within that space - the paintings, the statues, the stained glass - exists for a spiritual purpose.

This is to provide people with a focus for prayer and an insight into God: literally a 'glimpse of heaven'. The word 'Patrimony' describes the Church's cultural inheritance in terms of architecture, art and artefacts. All witness to our Catholic past: a history of persecution, struggle and ultimately, revival. We are just custodians, with a duty to preserve these sacred treasures for the future. Today we also create the Patrimony of tomorrow by commissioning high quality Sacred art.

But now, after roughly two thousand years of Holy Mother Church teaching us

• about the sacredness the church building,
• about how we must be ever vigilant of the possibility of sacrilege not only personally but also in our churches and shrines,
• about how Our Lord would be with us even until the end of time both spiritually and in the Holy Eucharist in our churches and sacred places,
• about Christians sacrificing all they had materially and even their own lives for the sake of their holy churches erection and continuation,
  
• to fall on our knees before God in our beloved churches,

now, in late twentieth and early twenty-first century America we are told to believe that our churches are "just buildings" and we ought not be attached to them. I don't know about you, but my mother taught me when I was just a child that this is one of the most important things that distinguishes us as Catholics from the protestants: our churches are open because we believe that they are holy places, that Our Lord is there, and that they are not just buildings. My mother was no liar.

Places where Our Lord has come to us sacramentally in His unbloody sacrifice, day after day after day, we are now told to believe are buildings like any other. That isn't Catholicism. That is materialism. And that, my friends, is precisely what the devil himself would have us believe. To believe our churches are only buildings would be to deny Our Lord's Eucharistic Presence, our ultimate and eternal destiny, and that for which we were created--the worship of God. In fact, to claim that our churches are just buildings would be to deny our spiritual nature, the indwelling of the Holy Ghost, and even our sacred baptisms and confirmations. To claim that our churches are just buildings is to deny the validity of their consecrations and blessings. To claim that our churches are just buildings is an insidious lie. And a lie is a lie no matter who says it.

By a decree of the Council of Trent (Sess. XXII), Mass should not be celebrated in any place except a consecrated or blessed church. Hence it is the wish of the Church that at least cathedrals and parish churches be solemnly consecrated, and that smaller churches be blessed (Cong. Sac. Rit., 7 Aug., 1875), but any church and public or semi-public oratory may be consecrated (Cong. Sac. Rit., 5 June, 1899). Both by consecration and by blessing a church is dedicated to Divine worship, which forbids its use for common or profane purposes. Consecration is a rite reserved to a bishop, who by the solemn anointing with holy chrism, and in the prescribed form, dedicates a building to the service of God, thereby raising it in perpetuum to a higher order, removing it from the malign influence of Satan, and rendering it a place in which favours are more graciously granted by God (Pontificale Romanum).  (From New Advent, the Catholic Encyclopedia.)

In the past, Catholics and Catholic buildings alike have been the targets of hatred and persecution. I need not list the litany of specific examples, but priests have been tarred and feathered, buildings blown up, altars desecrated, the Sacred Body of Our Lord maligned, churches vandalized. The history of anti-Catholicism in this country is well-documented and is, in fact, alive and well today. Of course in this country Catholics not even permitted to run for public office (and even when they were, there was serious doubt about their "patriotism"). Catholics have experienced horrible persecution in this and other countries, and by extension our houses of worship desecrated in the worst possible ways. Suffice it to say that many of you have likely heard the stories of your own ancestors and what they went through to preserve the faith, or even just to get to mass. I know I grew up hearing these stories of perseverance in the Faith, and my own family sacrificed much and for that I am so proud and so grateful. It is a great privilege to be born into a good Catholic family and to receive the benefits of our patrimony. The fruit of all that sacrifice is made real to us by virtue of worshiping in the places bequeathed to us by our ancestors and by the grace of God.


It is amazing that at this point in American Catholic history, instead of the Catholic Church being the object of hostile attacks from without, our church buildings and even the Church itself is being attacked from within. Sadly, our shepherds are leading their sheep astray, and many souls will be lost. Instead of protecting our churches, our patrimony, they are being closed (and often the contents sold on ebay) and when faithful Catholics hold tight to the timeless teachings of their Faith, they are called all manner of things from "disobedient" to "unchristian" and worse. Sometimes these attacks are leveled, shamefully, by their own priests and bishops. Yes, many of the very bishops who

• harbored child abusers, shuffling them from one parish to the next
• affiliate themselves and do business with the likes of criminals who would steal churches and schools right out from under unsuspecting Catholics
• allow the rampant sexual impropriety of priests in their diocese
• advocate such unorthodox doctrine as married, gay, and "womyn" priests; as well as downplay of the sacrificial nature of the mass and many other things
• repeatedly lie to the faithful in matters ranging from real estate transactions to canon law to theological Truth
  
• justify closing churches by claiming there's a "priest shortage" and then persecuting and sending away priests by the dozen...
  

...yes, some of the very same bishops would be so blind and arrogant as to criticize the faithful Catholics who merely want to worship their Lord and Savior in the manner they always have: in their own churches. This is an outrage, and it should not be tolerated by any thinking Catholic.

Well, I decided to look into that Cardinal Newman quote again, and it seems I hit jackpot! The mysterious quote is actually accurately attributed to him. However, the poor man is oft maligned and the quote completely decontextualized, as I suspected. How annoying is it when people misuse the words of great saints to suit their own warped purposes, like the closing of churches??? Oh, sooooo annoying! The good Cardinal Newman must be rolling in his grave.

Anyway, guess what I found? An article on EWTN written by...Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now our Holy Pontiff. Find the essay here.

In the article, our Holy Father says

It is known how Newman's insight into the ideas of development influenced his way to Catholicism. But it is not just a matter of an unfolding of ideas. In the concept of development, Newman's own life plays a role. That seems to become visible to me in his well-known words: "...to live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often".
Throughout his entire life, Newman was a person converting, a person being transformed, and thus he always remained and became ever more himself.

(Continued:) In the idea of "development" Newman had written his own experience of a never finished conversion and interpreted for us, not only the way of Christian doctrine, but that of the Christian life.

So Cardinal Newman, himself a convert to the Catholic faith from Anglicanism, was referring to one's continual conversion and growth in the Lord. We are all called to conversion of life, as Benedictines know well since it's one of the vows that they take. Cardinal Newman was in no way implying that Truth somehow changes.

Today at a rally outside Holy Family Catholic Church in Sewell, NJ--in which the unholy "merger manual" was handed out and dozens of priests filed inside--a priest barked out to some of us protesters, "To live is to change. To be perfect is to change often." I responded, "Oh, did Christ say that, Father?" To which he responded, "Yes, actually. It was Cardinal Newman." I laughed audibly because I am all too familiar with the decontextualized, stock phrases whipped out of the back pocket of liberals. They like to quote well-regarded saints, etc. to justify their actions. Of course, the devil himself can quote Scripture for his purposes, as we all know. Since I must be running off to work in a few minutes I do not have long to research this phrase, but I did find this, also from Cardinal Newman. You may read the entire section here, but I will share with you one of the most relevant sections for our purposes:

For thirty, forty, fifty years I have resisted to the best of my powers the spirit of Liberalism in religion. Never did Holy Church need champions against it more sorely than now, when, alas! it is an error overspreading, as a snare, the whole earth; and on this great occasion, when it is natural for one who is in my place to look out upon the world, and upon Holy Church as in it, and upon her future, it will not, I hope, be considered out of place, if I renew the protest against it which I have made so often.

Liberalism in religion is the doctrine that there is no positive truth in religion, but that one creed is as good as another, and this is the teaching which is gaining substance and force daily. It is inconsistent with any recognition of any religion, as true. It teaches that all are to be tolerated, for all are matters of opinion. Revealed religion is not a truth, but a sentiment and a taste; not an objective fact, not miraculous; and it is the right of each individual to make it say just what strikes his fancy.

Honestly, does this sound like the kind of may who would advocate the type of liberal and superficial changes that Bishop Galante would implement? Does Cardinal Newman seem like the type of man who would advocate we change, change, change for the sake of change? Surely not. I will continue to research the "change" phrase, but I do find it odd that in fifteen minutes I cannot find it in context or with a date. The only thing I see, by and large, are liberal using this quote and attaching it to Cardinal Newman, which is of course a red flag. More on this to come.

Update 9/11/08: I again looked online for the quote and came up empty. I can find no definitive attribution to Cardinal Newman. I checked CCEL (Christian Classics Ethereal Library, for those of you unfamiliar) and elsewhere. Google gives me only a handful of references to the quote, and none of them are reliable or contextualized sources. Hmmm. I wonder if anyone said this, or if he said something like this once. I'm stumped.

Last weekend, on November 15th, Leah and Julie (me) attended an information session for the shiny, new lay ministry program that Bishop Galante (etc.) is initiating. It was held at Elizabeth Ann Seton parish in Absecon, which happens to be the parish in which I was raised and received the sacraments. The introductory session, led by Roseann Quinn (yet another undercover "sister" who works for the diocese) was rather dry. I was expecting more information on the broader vision for the lay ministry program; you know, how they intend to implement it in the long run. But almost nothing was said about this. (Other than that the requisite, "we want more vibrant and dynamic parishes.") Instead they focused on the various degree and certificate programs affiliated with the College of St. Elizabeth and Georgian Court.

$$$

But no information was given about the programs before discussing money. What we did get, to my surprise, was a commercial advertisement. Literally. Roseann broke down the cost of the courses/program various times, each time emphasizing how cheap it is. I believe she even used the word, "cheap." I felt like I was witnessing one of those infomercials you see on tv late at night. It was a bargain basement sale. Roseann Quinn literally said that the tuition costs were "83% off." But wait! There's more! They even pushed up the application deadline from the one printed in the booklet, you know, in the spirit of "Don't delay, act NOW! This is a limited time offer!" The application date is now December 15th for the diocese (and as I recall December 5th for the graduate program at Georgian Court). Frankly, I was disgusted with the manner of the presentation. These people weren't attending because they were interested in purchasing Ginsu Knives.

While I appreciate the fact that the schools and diocese are going to such great lengths to make these programs affordable, on the other hand I personally would have emphasized the quality of the program and degrees the students would be receiving, the excellent professors and curricula, and the overall vision, with the ultimate affordability making said program a realistic option for those interested. When you initiate an educational program, the number one thing to put out there, to my mind, would not be, "Do this! It's cheap!" Again, I quote,

"If you feel the energy of the spirit working in you, keep up that energy. Don't delay. You'll never get a better bargain."

Two Thoughts

I came away from the information session with two distinct thoughts.

1. I don't think that the Diocese of Camden was being honest in its presentation of the program(s) and their overall intentions of, essentially, replacing priests with "lay ministers." Since I already have a Masters in Religion, the importance of study and knowing one's faith (as well as others) is not something that's lost on me. I do think it's important for all Catholics to better know and understand the Faith. It was interesting and quite telling, though, that Roseann claimed that six points "percolated up from the Speak Up Sessions" that "we as Church developed." The "diocese heard loud and clear that we as laity need to be empowered and educated." Well, what they "heard" is neither here nor there, since they hear what they want to hear. (I'm sure they also heard, "Close my church! Please!") Anyway, she listed these six percolations as:

    1. Liturgy
    2. Lay ministry
    3. Youth/young adult ministry
    4. Priestly vocations
    5. Lifelong formation
    6. Compassionate outreach

She then went on to say that senior ministry was just added, since "it wasn't anywhere except for housing." (Housing. Ha ha, she said it, I didn't...) She also said that consultants were brought in for families, youth, and RE (lifelong faith formation). In other words, Roseann went over every point...except priestly vocations. What, pray tell Roseann, is the diocese planning to do to ENCOURAGE (not DIScourage) priestly vocations??? Is there no fancy, high-paid consultant you can hire to solve that problem? (Or maybe they already have, and the consultant advised them to send priests away, because with every priest you get rid of you get three new ones somehow?) I myself find it remarkable that the laity's outcry for priestly vocations even got onto the actual list, considering the bishop's and his cronies' poor listening skills.

In any case, if you plan on applying for one of these certificate or degree programs, be prepared to be "empowered." Peace, man, power to the people! Be free. Liberate yourselves, dudes. Be assured that this program will "allow more pastoral time for priests." Yeah, a whooollllle lot more pastoral time. It's called retirement.

2. On the face of it, though, the Georgian Court program appears acceptable. I must say that I was impressed with the woman who came from Georgian Court who, after we went to smaller groups, discussed the graduate program. She was very nice and entertained all manner of questions in a professional manner. I have no idea the quality or content or "Catholicity" of the Georgian Court theology program, although I did have a younger relative graduate from that school recently in a different field. I believe she liked the school overall despite some difficulties here and there. However her degree is not in theology.

What's more in question, I think, is what the Diocese of Camden plans on doing with recipients of the degrees and what it does not do to increase religious or priestly vocations.  What we have to fear is how our current bishop and his "administration" plan on changing the Church as we know it.

Remarks Interesting Or Disturbing

First, the more or less disturbing things.

"Prayer"
The day started out with "prayer," although it was no prayer that I would recognize as Catholic. As it turned out, it was not Catholic at all. Roseann had obtained a "prayer" written by well known Biblical scholar Walter Brueggemann, ordained pastor in the liberal United Church of Christ. She made a point of saying what a fan she is of Dr. Brueggemann. Of course there was no Sign of the Cross, and naturally no other "formula" prayers you and I would be familiar with. There was certainly no talk of the saints, angels, or the Blessed Mother of God. Here it is:

An Answering and Refusing

We confess you to be a God who calls,
                                           who wills,
                                           who summons,
                                           who has concrete intentions for your creation,
                                           and addresses human agents who do your will.
We imagine ourselves called by you...
        Yet a strange lot:
                 called but cowardly,
                 obedient but self-indulgent,
                 devoted to you, but otherwise preoccupied.
In our strange mix an answering and refusing,
          We give thanks for your call.
          We pray this day,
                for ourselves, fresh vision;
                for our friends, great courage,
                for theological students
                         in places more dangerous than ours,
                                                 deep freedom.
As we seek to answer your call, may we be haunted by your large purposes,
We pray in the name of the utterly called Jesus. Amen.

Well, I could comment quite a bit on this prayer, my fellow "human agents," but my "fresh vision" and limited space disallows me. Just one thing though: Although I call the Third Person of the Holy Trinity the "Holy Ghost," I never imagined that He "haunted" me. Kind of bizarre. There were also a few moments of ummm...what did she call it...centering prayer? As a closing "prayer," they read the mission statement for the Diocese of Camden. Needless to say I skipped out on that and went to visit Our Lord in the church for a few minutes. I came back toward the end of the mission statement prayer recitation.

That Ol' Time Religion Ain't Our Religion?
Roseann also said that if the last religious education was that which you experienced in the 1950s, you need an update. The implication was decidedly that if your initial religious education and formation as a young Catholic occurred prior to Vatican II, you need a faith update. I personally found this shocking, because the Faith is eternal and, of course, does not change.

And finally, a couple of things I found interesting.

1. The person sitting next to us saw my St. Mary's Malaga shirt under my jacket and asked us how the efforts were going. She seemed depressed about what she saw as the immanent closure of her church, which is currently categorized as a "secondary worship site." Apparently no one at her church believes the nonsense about "worship sites" and is of the mind that their beautiful, historical church will ultimately be closed.

2. Several in the group asked Roseann questions related to the merger situation. One asked about their current pastor letter of recommendation would suffice; one asked whether, once they got the degree, they would be ministering at their current church if it was slated for merger; and one asked if they would actually be put to use in the newly constructed diocese if they went through all the effort of obtaining a degree. In response, Roseann answered, "Priest conveners have no authority until the new parish is actually established, and that will be a ways off." She also said, "If you are recommended by your pastor then you would work in your current ministry....but there is no guarantee."

3. The Diocese of Camden has apparently hired a man named Travis Lawmaster who is originally from the Archdiocese of Newark, which as many of us know is in just fabulous shape. (?!?!) He was at the information session. Travis was hired to do youth and young adult ministry so that we may have "vibrant, faith filled communities," "a seamless garment of formation," and "relational ministry." Though he's probably a nice enough guy, I have no idea what he was talking about, but wish him the best of luck with his garment and relational vibrancy and whatnot.

On the wonderful blog romancatholicblog.com is an entry that is about a year and a half old that truly speaks to our current situation here in the Diocese of Camden. All due credit to the author, whose name isn't given but whose email is "Maximus." We just stumbled upon this entry today.

Click here to read the piece on his blog.

Is It A Sin To Rebuke A Priest?

A reader has suggested that it is sinful to speak ill of a priest or a bishop and that rather than speak out against corruption within the clergy, Catholics should pray and remain silent.

I couldn't disagree more.

Although I would caution Catholics against the sin of rash judgment, and remind people to be mindful of the requirements of the Eighth Commandment, I firmly maintain that Catholics have a duty to rebuke the clergy when they have gone astray and to warn others against such clerics so they will not be confused by the errors wayward priests and/or bishops are observed to be spreading.

There are provisions for rebuking clergy described in Sacred Scripture:

"Do not entertain an accusation against an elder unless it is brought by two or three witnesses. Those who sin are to be rebuked publicly, so that the others may take warning." (1 Timothy 5:19-20)

"If your brother sins, go and show him his fault in private; if he listens to you, you have won your brother. But if he does not listen to you, take one or two more with you, so that by the mouth of two or three witnesses every fact may be confirmed. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector." (Matthew 18:15-17)

There are also examples:

"And when Kephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face because he clearly was wrong.   For, until some people came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles; but when they came, he began to draw back and separated himself, because he was afraid of the circumcised.   And the rest of the Jews (also) acted hypocritically along with him, with the result that even Barnabas was carried away by their hypocrisy.  But when I saw that they were not on the right road in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Kephas in front of all,  'If you, though a Jew, are living like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews ?'" (Galatians 2:11-14)

During the Arian heresy, approximately one third of the bishops in the Church became Arian, along with countless priests and entire dioceses. Yet if we are to believe, as apparently some Catholics do, that priests and bishops may never be corrected, never challenged, and/or never exposed, it was wrong to say that Arian priests and bishops were teaching error.

The same would follow for countless other heretical sects that had their origins in heretical Catholic clergy.

Martin Luther was a Catholic priest. Can he not be criticized?

Saints were often critical of priests and religious:

St. Catherine of Siena made a pilgrimage to Avignon in Southern France to persuade the Pontiff Pope Gregory XI to return from exile to Rome where he belonged. After the death of Gregory XI on March 26, 1378, the Great Schism began when Pope Urban VI was selected as his successor. Several of the dissident French cardinals objected and elected their own at Fondi Robert of Geneva who became the antipope Clement VII and set up his headquarters in Avignon. St. Catherine knew Urban was the true Pope and did all in her power to secure support for him and end the schism. While she was a staunch supporter of his Primacy, she did not hesitate to rebuke him when she saw weakness or knew he was wrong.

St. Catherine was also critical of priests in her Dialogue (the work which was the primary reason she was made a Doctor of the Church):

"Your miseries are not hid from you now, for the worm of conscience sleeps no longer, but is gnawing you, the devils shout and render to you the reward which they are accustomed to give their servants, that is to say, confusion and condemnation; they wish to bring you to despair, so that at the moment of death you may not escape from their hands, and therefore they try to confuse you, so that afterwards when you are with them they may render to you of the part which is theirs. Oh, wretch! the dignity in which I placed you, you now see shining as it really is, and you know to your shame that you have held and used in such guilty darkness the substance of the holy Church, that you see yourself to be a thief, a debtor, who ought to pay his debt to the poor and the holy Church. Then your conscience represents to you that you have spent the money on public harlots, and have brought up your children and enriched your relations, and have thrown it away on gluttony and on many silver vessels and other adornments for your house. Whereas you should have lived in voluntary poverty."

"Your conscience represents to you the divine office which you neglected, by which you fell into the guilt of mortal sin, and how even when you recited it with your mouth your heart was far from Me. Conscience also shows you your subjects, that is to say, the love and hunger which you should have felt towards nourishing them in virtue, giving them the example of your life and striking them with the hand of mercy and the rod of justice, and because you did the contrary your conscience and the horrible likeness of the Devil reproves you."

"And if as a prelate you have given prelacies or any charge of souls unjustly to one of your subjects, that is, that you have not considered to whom and how you were giving it, the Devil puts this also before your conscience, because you ought to have given it, not on account of pleasant words, nor in order to please creatures, nor for the sake of gifts, but solely with regard to virtue, My honor and the salvation of souls. And since you have not done so you are reproved, and for your greater pain and confusion you have before your conscience and the light of your intellect that which you have done and ought not to have done, and that which you ought to have done and have not done."

The reforms of St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross were due to the laxity in their religious order. Both were openly critical of such laxity and met with opposition because of their reforms.

The Norbertine Order was started because of the widespread laxity, and even debauchery among priests in St. Norbert's day. St. Norbert exhorted and even rebuked his fellow priests, and they responded by attempting to assassinate him.

It is ludicrous to think that clerics are beyond correction, as if infallible by virtue of their office. It is disturbing that such a simplistic outlook exists after the egregious wrongdoing (and that is putting things mildly) of so many priests and even bishops was exposed because of the sex abuse scandal that rocked the Church in recent years.

The 1983 Code of Canon Law makes provisions for the laity to address their concerns about priests:

Canon 212:

§1. Conscious of their own responsibility, the Christian faithful are bound to follow with Christian obedience those things which the sacred pastors, inasmuch as they represent Christ, declare as teachers of the faith or establish as rulers of the Church.

§2. The Christian faithful are free to make known to the pastors of the Church their needs, especially spiritual ones, and their desires.

§3. According to the knowledge, competence, and prestige which they possess, they have the right and even at times the duty to manifest to the sacred pastors their opinion on matters which pertain to the good of the Church and to make their opinion known to the rest of the Christian faithful, without prejudice to the integrity of faith and morals, with reverence toward their pastors, and attentive to common advantage and the dignity of persons.

I also include the following for consideration:

"When there is an imminent danger for the Faith, Prelates must be questioned, even publicly, by their subjects." ~ St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica II, II, q. 33, a. 4

"It is better that scandals arise than the truth be suppressed." ~ Pope St. Gregory the Great

"When circumstances make it necessary, it is not prelates alone who have to watch over the integrity of the faith." ~ Pope Leo XIII

"The road to hell is paved with the skulls of erring priests, with bishops as their signposts." ~ St. John Chrysostom (347-407), Doctor of the Church, generally considered the most prominent doctor of the Greek Church and the greatest preacher ever heard in a Christian pulpit.

"The floor of hell is paved with the skulls of bishops." ~ St. Athanasius

"The road to hell is paved with the skulls of bishops." ~ Saint John Eudes

"But how, I ask, does it happen that the saints, who live only for God, resist their ordination through a sense of their unworthiness, and that some run blindly to the priesthood, and rest not until they attain it by lawful or unlawful means? Ah. Unhappy men! Says St. Bernard, to be registered among the priests of God shall be for them the same as to be enrolled on the catalogue of the damned. And why? Because such persons are generally called to the priesthood, not by God, but by relatives, by interest, or ambition. Thus they enter the house of God, not through the motive a priest should have, but through worldly motives. Behold why the faithful are abandoned, the Church dishonored, so many souls perish, and with them such priests are also damned." ~ St. Alphonsus de Liguori (1696-1787), Doctor of the Church (Moral Theology), Founder of the Redemptorist congregation

Saints were even critical of homosexual priests and/or religious:

"Any cleric or monk who seduces young men or boys, or who is apprehended in kissing or in any shameful situation, shall be publicly flogged and shall lose his clerical tonsure. Thus shorn, he shall be disgraced by spitting into his face, bound in iron chains, wasted by six months of close confinement, and for three days each week put on barley bread given him toward evening. Following this period, he shall spend a further six months living in a small segregated courtyard in the custody of a spiritual elder, kept busy with manual labor and prayer, subjected to vigils and prayers, forced to walk at all times in the company of two spiritual brothers, never again allowed to associate with young men for purposes of improper conversation or advice." ~ St. Basil the Great (329-379), Bishop of Caesarea, Father of the Church, and one of the most distinguished Doctors of the Church.

"The befouling cancer of sodomy is, in fact, spreading so through the clergy or rather, like a savage beast, is raging with such shameless abandon through the flock of Christ, that for many of them it would be more salutary to be burdened with service in the world than, under the pretext of religion, to be enslaved so easily under the iron rule of satanic tyranny. It would be better for them to perish alone as laymen that, after having changed their attire but not their disposition, to drag others with them to destruction, as Truth itself testifies when It says, "But if anyone is a cause of stumbling to one of these little ones, it would be better for him to be drowned in the depths of the sea with a great millstone round his neck." Unless immediate effort be exerted by the Apostolic See, there is little that, even if one wished to curb this unbridled evil, he could not check the momentum of its progress."

"Unquestionable, this vice, since it surpasses the enormity of all others, is impossible to compare with any other vice. Without fail it brings death of the body and destruction to the soul. It pollutes the flesh, extinguishes the light of the mind, expels the Holy Spirit from the temple of the human heart and gives entrance to the devil, the stimulator of lust. It leads to error, totally removes truth from the deluded mind, prepares a trap for the traveller and secures the pit and makes it impossible for the victim to escape. It opens up Hell and closes the gates Paradise, changes a citizen of the Heavenly Jerusalem into an heir of infernal Babylon, and turns a Heavenly star into chaff for eternal fire; it cuts off a member of the Church and hurls him into the depths of the devouring flames of Hell." ~ St. Peter Damian (1007 -1072), Doctor of the Church, Cardinal-Bishop of Ostia

It seems to me that the clericalist attitude that priests and bishops are beyond reproach is actually quite dangerous. The idea has a pietistic veneer, and those who hold it may be sincere, but do they realize that attitudes like that contributed to the mentality that allowed the priestly abuse scandals to stay under the radar for so long?

Do they realize that Catholics have an obligation to lead others to the truth and away from error?

Previously we have quoted a bit from the 2002 Michael Rose book entitled, Goodbye, Good Men: How Liberals Brought Corruption into the Catholic Church. This excellent book is well researched and sheds a great deal of light on the controversy, unorthodox doctrine, emphasis on "lay ministry," and seminary/priest formation problems encountered in the Catholic Church in the United States today. Perhaps more than anything else, it explains well how the "priest shortage" crisis is contrived and utterly avoidable.

(As a side note, Bishop Galante and those attempting to make changes to the Church ought to pay attention. Unless we  miscalculate, Rose was 33 when he wrote this book. The younger generations, which the bishop is supposedly trying to attract, are often the ones most disenchanted by the lack of adherence to traditional, orthodox Catholicism.)

Seminary & Priest Formation Problems

From Chapter 5, "The Heterodoxy Downer: How False Teaching Demoralizes and Discourages the Aspiring Priest."

Beyond issues of grave sexual immorality, the seminary environment presents a number of other deterrents to the orthodox seminarian. The most obvious and perhaps the most insidious is heterodoxy, open or subtle dissent from the official teachings of th Church. Many faculty members are averse to teaching what the Church teaches, and some find it onerous even to hide their disdain for Catholicism. The seminarian who arrives on campus expecting to find faculty and staff that love the Catholic faith and teach what the Church teaches can be sadly disappointed.

Continued:

Dr. Louise Leidner, who taught students from the Washington Theological Union in Washington DC...during the 1990s claims that students who expressed orthodox Catholic opinions were "publicly mocked by their WTU peers and by WTU faculty and superiors for taking positions consonant with the Church's teaching." In addition, she says that "Several of her students...were actually kicked out of their religious houses because they expressed orthodox opinions that were 'dangerous and harmful to other people"--even though their positions were supported by the Catechism of the Catholic Church--because they would "negatively infect and unduly influence and contaminate" the other students.

Does it get worse? Apparently. In Chapter Four, Rose mentions several well-known nicknames for seminaries, including a seminary (St. Mary's) to which Bishop Galante, here in the Camden Diocese, has decided to send seminarians. Yikes. (Incidentally, last we heard, this is where our married, former evangelical seminarian/diocesan chaplain employee is currently taking classes.)

According to former seminarians and recently ordained priests...institutions have earned nicknames such as Notre Flame (for Notre Dame Seminary in New Orleans) and Theological Closet (for Theological College at the Catholic University of America in Washington DC). St. Mary's Seminary in Baltimore has earned the nickname, "The Pink Palace."

Meanwhile, St. Charles Borromeo in Philadelphia, a seminary the diocese of Camden has most often sent seminarians to, is "known to be of a much more conservative mentality" (page 165).

The Rise of "Lay Ministries"

Rose also researched a typical "Lay Pastoral Ministries Program" run by the Archdiocese of Cincinnati. (Note that our own bishop is currently implementing one such program here in our diocese, while at the same time, by slow trickle, removing priests by the dozen to forcible retirement, military chaplaincy, removal to other dioceses, and ostensibly to "study" in Rome.) In the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, a man named Glenn Jeviden was interested in serving the Church and was directed to this Lay Ministries program. The screening process began with an interview conducted by what turned out to be a liberal sister who

asked me several times if I understood the Church was changing, and if I thought I was able to be "flexible enough to accept a pluralistic Church."

The interview was friendly enough but Jividen, though conceding that change is a part of life, asked the sister "if she believed that some truths never changed." She did not answer. He was next asked to write an autobiography, in which he discussed his pro-life activities, involvement with Catholics United for the Faith (CUF), and his devotion to the Church, the Holy Father, and the Blessed Mother, etc. He also had to take the Myers-Briggs personality test (a test based on Jungian psychological types) and was seen by a priest psychologist for other "tests."

During a psychologist visit, following the results of the tests, the conversation turned to CUF, and its alleged inflexible attitudes (read: orthodox) and Jividen's explicitly orthodox positions. The psychologist stated that the pope only had to be abided by when he spoke ex cathedra. It went on from there, you get the idea. Finally the priest psychologist suggested that Jividen would

feel uncomfortable with my CUF friends after entering the Lay Pastoral Ministries Program.

Needless to say, Jividen didn't make the cut and was told to "update" his theology. They suggested he develop his "personal spirituality" and that he see one of their spiritual directors, 22 of the 25 of whom were women.

The Agenda, says Rose?

Rose's point in discussing the lay ministries program is that some see the vocations crisis as "presaging a revolution and the demise of the  hierarchical structure of the Church" (quoting Helen Hull Hitchcock, 1999).

This is the contingent that has long been promoting "lay ecclesial ministry," the laicization of the clergy, and the clericalization of the laity. Simply put, they would like to see the laity take over the leadership of the Church at the parish level and beyond, from teaching and preaching to administering the sacraments. This program would effectively entail eliminating the priesthood rather than just "reenvisioning" it.

Indeed in many places, the lack of priestly vocations (or in our case, the forced scarcity thereof) is embraced as a way to promote a new vocation to "lay ecclesial ministry," that is, non-ordained, paid church professionals. Some bishops, priests, and other diocesan and seminary authorities actually seem to rejoice over decreasing priestly vocations as an opportunity for creating a "new model of Church" in which the laity can "take their rightful place" (quoting Roger Cardinal Mahony of Los Angeles).

This philosophy, drawn out by many over the last decade of the 20th century, betrays a peculiar attitude--the priesthood as a barrier to the emergence of the laity in their own dignity and mission (pages 209-211).

The word vibrant, is of course dropped--its use is not new--and the priest shortage is described as a self-fulfilling prophecy. "Where lay ministry is overemphasized, the priesthood becomes devalued" since it is reduced to sacramental ministry, viewed as being on par with "music ministry," "hospitality  ministry," "youth ministry," etc. Priests are mistakenly "defined...by what they do rather than what they are--an alter Christus."

The Vicious Circle

Tell us if this doesn't look familiar to you? The "vicious circle" looks like this:

Catholics in key positions of authority...actively discourage vocations to the priesthood in order to promote lay ministry. Yet at the same time, lay ecclesial ministry  is proposed as the answer to the dearth of priestly vocations, as if this were a permanent and perhaps ideal situation. Parishes run by lay ministers are likely to foster little, if any, interest in vocations to the priesthood. The result is that the number of priests will continue to decline further, necessitating more lay ministers to fill their places (211).

Rose goes on to describe church closures and radical "faith communities" formed in some places:

Priestless "faith communities" over time are likely to become simply congregational communities centered on the reading of the Scriptures, the homily, and on sharing bread and wine--devoid of the act of perfect worship, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass--based on the model of Protestant community.

Continued:

The so-called shortage suits them just fine, precisely because they can use the crisis to justify radical change in the local Church...one run by "lay pastors." This "new model of Church" is not really about solving the priest shortage. It is about advancing their agenda of a politically correct Church.

Potential seminarians will, and do, gravitate toward dioceses and orders "that support the ministry of the priest as defined by the Church." The bishops in such diocese are not "issuing pastoral letters introducing parish 'clusters' or worse. Rose suggests that there are all too many in positions of Church leadership who have a "death with for the male, celibate priesthood."

Nothing New

Friends, what we have going on now in the Camden diocese is nothing new. As we have seen, it has been going on for a couple decades now, it has been perpetrated elsewhere, it has ruined other dioceses, it has discouraged vocations to the priesthood, it has wrought havoc and confusion in the Church. Now this downright un-Catholic plan is being recycled here in South Jersey in order to liberalize the Church by depriving us of the priesthood and even our very churches. Our churches are the places that reflect who we are in God's cosmology, they put us in our rightful place! But Galante, Vollmer, and McGrath would like to replace our churches--and Church--with something altogether different. Make no mistake about it. Bishop Galante even brought along one of the leaders from the Los Angeles Archdiocese--a diocese infamously known as one of the greatest messes with one of the most corrupt bishops in the entire country--"Sister" Marilyn Vollmer, to bring a bit of that mess here. (Of course, they called the program "Gathered and Sent" there, now they're calling it "Gathering God's Gifts" here, so at least they switched up the name a tad.)

Currently we are undergoing a screening process in which the "core groups" at each parish--those who are meant to lead the church mergers--are chosen based on their willingness to close or otherwise undermine their parish and positively participate in the bishop's agenda. Those who don't agree with the closure or status of their church and the direction the Diocese of Camden is headed are quickly weeded out.

Don't fall for the nonsense! Keep the faith. It his a hard thing to keep in a time when church leadership, even some bishops and priests, believe things very different than many of us do, a model of church unlike what we have known and what has been promulgated down the centuries. So continue to pray for Bishop Galante. He needs our prayers. And continue to pray for the holy courage and fortitude of the priests of our diocese and seminarians everywhere.

Over at savestmarys, we do not enjoy having to deal with news pieces like this one, but really they make our job easier. This article profiles St. Joseph's "Catholic" McMegaChurch in Richardson, Texas, a church the bishop would like to replicate here in South Jersey.

About 1,500 miles away, officials at the Diocese of Camden want to promote this type of vibrant parish. As part of a planned diocesan makeover...

Here it is in black and white, guys. This is what we're in store for. A "makeover." Yippee! We, too can look just like that cool Church of the Future down in Texas. Wait'll you see what's in store for us lucky Catholics. New buildings with new ideas and new priorities...

 Ironically, in an effort to assuage the fears of Mr. and Miss Average Catholic In the Pews, the Courier Post has done a really good job of confirming that our worst fears about what Bishop Galante and Friends have up their sleeves are true. The prospect that Bishop Galante would want to replicate mega"churches" with labyrinths and cappuccino bars here in South Jersey is a repulsive thought. Why in the world he believes that by instituting flaky, liberal "spirit-trends," souls will be saved is beyond me. Promoting the culture of the world at a supposedly Catholic church and reveling in what one can only imagine constitutes a frequent lack of reverence is simply appalling. Yet the pastor at St. Joe's, Msgr. Fischer,  says,

When people come here, there's a level of energy. It's like walking into a mall at Christmas.

Huh? Is that supposed to make us want to go to this church? Is he off his nut? I for one would like to know the last time that Msgr. Fischer was actually at a mall at Christmastime. These are places that most sane people avoid like the plague. Unless, of course, he is referring to the buzz that certain CEOs might get around Christmastime at the prospect of people willingly parting with their hard-earned money only to get some useless trinkets and doo-dads to fill stockings and gift bags.

Problematic article? Yeah. (But since no one wants a church like that, he did our work for us!)

Our problem with the article? Well first of all, the article fails in the journalistic integrity department generally because it is a puff piece. It is nothing but a piece of advertising for Bishop Galante and Company, and if I was Jim Walsh I'd be embarrassed by the fact that I'd compromised my professional standards. The article does not attempt to promote a balanced view of the megachurch, dissenting opinions, or even a hint of a critical stance toward the Bishop Galante and his plans. (Wonder what in the world the Courier Post, or should we call it "The Other Catholic Star Herald," could be getting in return for this kind of coverage?)

Of course, plenty of scholarship is available on the pluses and minuses of the megachurch at this point, but not a one was touched by Jim Walsh of the CP. Here are a couple of scholars Mr. Walsh could have contacted. Quote from 2005 ABC piece:

Mega-churches are booming all over the country, not just in the South.

Scott Thumma, a theologian at Hartford Seminary, compares the phenomenon to shopping at a place like Wal-Mart.

"Just as if you go to a Wal-Mart, you can get all of your lists done in one place, it's sort of one-stop shopping for spirituality as well," Thumma said.

Randall Balmer, a theology professor at Barnard College in New York says [of mega-congregations], "It is in many ways consumerism run amok."

In contrast, here's a perfect example of more Courier Post pandering:

One more difference between the regions [South Jersey and Dallas, Texas]: Galante, who often draws angry protests with his controversial plans for parish mergers in the Camden diocese, is recalled with fondness at St. Joseph.

"You tell that bishop we miss him here," barked head usher Chuck Maltese of Wylie, Texas, a retired New York City policeman.

How funny is that? First he says we're "angry" protesters. Now why in the world should we be angry? Guess we're too hormonal again. Oh well! Maybe we should have just handed over the keys and deeds to our churches cuz Bishop asked nice and said he'd give us a latte.  (I like hazelnut, no whipped cream. Although I can't afford those kinds of fancy drinks myself!) Honestly, if barking head usher Chuck Maltese would like Bishop Galante back in Texas, I just know we in the Diocese of Camden would be only too happy to oblige. Heck, we'd pay his one-way fare back and he can bring along Ms. Vollmer and Msgr. McGrath for company, too. On us! First class all the way. (No plastic utensils, and real dishes.)

It's rather odd that the CP would make the claim that Bishop Galante is widely loved and missed in Texas considering we at savestmarys have received more than a few unsolicited emails from disgruntled Texans claiming Galante mangled their diocese in more ways than one. Could you imagine the sordid tales we'd hear if we actually bothered picking up the phone to initiate contact ourselves? We simply haven't gotten around to that yet, but we'd certainly appreciate hearing the stories of the Catholics in Texas who are still picking up the pieces.

Depressing, ain't it?

Aside from the article itself, it's just plain depressing that too many "Catholic" churches are are deviating from the Truth in that they are so susceptible to superficial novelties, and that some pastors and bishops are leading their sheep astray. However Jim Walsh makes finding flaws in this "model church" way too easy, and judging from the comments on the Courier Post website, no one seems to think of this church as something in any way desirable, nor are they buying the ridiculous stats spewed by the Diocese.

In holding up this parish Bishop Galante's true intentions become very clear. It seems he wants to dismiss Catholicism as we've known it and institute something utterly different in its place. Something worldly, something that resembles what's going on in many trendy evangelical protestant churches. Something that embraces aspects of extreme liberalism and new age-iness. Something that dumbs down and dilutes our faith. Something that appeals to no real Catholic.

Keeping up with the culture

From a 2005 ABC News article dealing with the new consumerist megachurches, a parent is quoted:

"You know, the culture is giving our kids a lot of fast-paced media and all different things that are moving along," she said. "Why can't the church keep up and do the same thing for our kids and for us?"

There's an easy answer for that one, actually. As Christians we are to be in the world but not of it. It is not the responsibility of the Church to keep pace with modern American culture. It is the responsibility of the Church to preach and teach the Good News of Jesus Christ, whether or not that conforms to our "lifestyle." How many times did Our Lord tell us that He and His Kingdom were not of this world (John 18:36)? Further in St. Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians (2:12-14):

Now we have received not the spirit of this world, but the Spirit that is of God; that we may know the things that are given us from God. Which things also we speak, not in the learned words of human wisdom; but in the doctrine of the Spirit, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the sensual man perceiveth not these things that are of the Spirit of God; for it is foolishness to him, and he cannot understand, because it is spiritually examined.

How many times must we be exhorted not to conform ourselves to the things of this world, for it is passing, but God is eternal?

And be not conformed to this world; but be reformed in the newness of your mind, that you may prove what is the good, and the acceptable, and the perfect will of God. (Romans 12:2)

Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him. (1John 2:15)

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that includes lattes and biscotti.

A few interesting things about the church


Cremation: Like the parishes in Florida (churches St. John the Evangelist and St. Agnes), St. Joe's seems to advocate the non-traditional practice of cremation, to the point of having something called a "Columbarium Wall" where ashes may be interred in little niches. It's pretty darn ugly. The Columbarium Wall surrounds the labyrinth. (For those of you who aren't aware, cremation is hugely popular among liberal eco-types because it takes up less space.)


Music: The choir has a CD with the predictable David Haas and Marty Hogan emotional tripe, as well as a "Zulu" song. Yay! How multi-cultural of them. At least now all the Zulus in their parish will feel welcome.

Eastern Stuff: You'll be happy to know they also have "Thai Chi Chih" available.

Questionable Curricula: Interestingly, the catechetical materials they've chosen to use over there have been given a "yellow" or caution rating by catholicculture.org, who "recommend[s] that you avoid Why Catholic." Quote:

Philip Blosser provides a perfect summary when he worries that the program is "designed by revisionists whose devious aim is to use their small group approach to refract ecclesial focus, to undermine magisterial authority, to democratize the Catholic message, to continue the AmChurch decentralization of Catholic Church in America, to continue the process of protestantizing and revising the Church and detaching her from the only moorings she has in her own traditions. . . ."

A Response from non-practicing Catholics

Here's where our coverage of this story will take a turn for the odd. Tonight after work I popped over to my younger sister's house to borrow a couple of Disney videos for my kids, to kiss my new baby niece, and to chat for a few minutes. About an hour later, as I was turning to leave, I just happened to mention this piece in the Courier Post about "a mega[Catholic] Church that the bishop seems to want to replicate here in South Jersey, which has a cappuccino bar."

Now keep in mind that my sister, who is 28, and her husband, who is 32, were both raised Catholic. But, not uncommonly, they are both completely non-practicing. My older niece, who has just begun first grade, has never even been baptized. Other than to attend the baptisms of my own children and the occasional funeral, to the best of my knowledge, she hasn't darkened the doorway of a church in at least five years. She has her own reasons, I know, but we don't talk much about them. The point is, we couldn't be more polar opposite on the religion issue, unless maybe she was a rabid atheist or something.

Without so much as the blink of an eye, the two of them--my sister and brother-in-law--went off. They found the prospect of what a church like this could be, could look like, could morph into, etc. absurd and funny. What struck me most about what follows is that the very audience Galante and Company is trying to entice--the lapsed Catholics, the young families,  professionals, etc.--are the very people who see right through all the crap. People like my sister and her husband, who don't like BS. If there was a possibility of ever being religious, they'd prefer their religion to not be mixed up in materialism. So I thought I'd share some of this [admittedly irreverent at times] rapid-fire back-and-forth between my sister and her husband with you, just to give you an idea of how truly ineffectual all this "nonsense" is. Honestly, I was laughing really hard. They definitely "got it," and with zero prompting by me.

The Council of Parishes asked me to attend the USCCB convocation called "Life, Justice & Family: Partners in the New Evangelization" today (Friday). Held at the Crowne Plaza in Cherry Hill, Bishop Galante was a defacto host of the event (along with Cardinal Rigali, who I believe will help close the event on Sunday). Attendance at the conference, in my view anyway, was quite pricey so it was no small wonder that it was not as well-attended as it might have been. Only people whose organizations could help defray the cost (or, perhaps, who are extremely interested in the subject matter) would attend such an event. However, I noticed that there were people from a variety of places in attendance, including Oregon (by way of the Bronx) and Kansas, among other places.

Mass
Friday's portion of the conference began with mass, which was pretty much what one would expect from a typical novus ordo mass, except that it was in a ballroom-type location, with the altar on a stage, etc. Msgr. Frey, pastor of St. Rose of Lima Haddon Heights, co-officiated with Bishop Galante. (I am a fan of Msgr. Frey and it was good to see him, but didn't see him at the presentations afterwards.) As a total estimate, I would guess that the number of people attending mass was about 50, but I did not do a head count or anything.

Given the theme, an unusual thing about a conference like this is that it seems to attract people on either end of the Catholic spectrum. In attendance were both the very orthodox "pro-life" activists as well as the more liberal "peace and justice" types. So on one side of me during mass there were two women kneeling during mass (and myself as well) and on the other side of me were two women standing even during the consecration (I think they may have been sisters in street-clothes).

Mass-wise, there were only a couple of oddities. One was that there was a "worship leader" type person who kept exhorting us to give her an "Amen," an "Alleluia," or a "Praise the Lord,"  particularly before mass began. Although I appreciated the enthusiasm, this is not the type of thing I personally am accustomed to at mass. I'm used to having quiet time to pray before mass. And given the very sterile, controlled, corporate environment of the conference location it seemed even stranger.

The second noticeable oddity were the lyrics to the song that the swaying, clapping choir sang during communion. The song is called "A Communion Hymn" and is attributed to Nolan Williams, Jr. Since the hymn was in our little booklets, I can share them with you. Here are the lyrics I found somewhat startling:

You said: Take this bread and eat of Me
This symbol broken represents My body

You said: Take this cup of sacrifice,
It represents My blood which gives you new life

Attributing a symbolic or representational meaning to the Eucharist is not what I understand to be Catholic, so I found the selection of this hymn surprising. (It reminded me of what I read here--scroll down to the last paragraph before "consecration of a bishop.") Other than these things, the mass itself was not out of the ordinary in any negative way.

Speakers
The first speaker was Bishop Lori of Bridgeport, CT Diocese. Though I know very little about him, I was impressed not only with his talk, which centered on the encyclical Humanae Vitae, but even more so with his answers to the questions posed afterwards. Unfortunately I cannot tell you precisely what was said because, strangely, my notes were taken along with my name tag, but I can mention a few things I liked. For example, he alluded to the very rift in the Church I mention above that sometimes exists among the pro-life and social justice contingents. He said, though, that we "are not an either-or Church, we're a both-and Church." He also discussed the Diocese of Washington (DC) and how they instituted a program called, "The Light is on for You" which promotes all churches in the diocese having confession in coordination. "Promoting the role of priest as confessor" is something he feels is hugely important in bringing people in to the Faith and in to a closer relationship with Our Lord. Bishop Lori also discussed the importance of good catechesis in Catholic high schools and colleges because if parents are paying for a Catholic institution they ought to be sure what they're getting is truly Catholic! He said that Catholic schools are very important and afford a very significant opportunity that must not be passed by--to integrate Catholic religious teaching with all subjects. In addition, Bishop Lori mentioned the importance of teaching NFP and Theology of the Body in marriage preparation courses which will at least cause couples to think about the Church's teachings regarding the marital act. He said so many great things, was clearly extremely intelligent and orthodox, and as a bonus was very accessible and approachable afterwards.

After his talk was a presentation by Marie Smith. (Who, by the way, mentioned that her husband is Congressman Chris Smith, whose very nice website I link to here. I see among other things that he is doing autism awareness too, which I am personally affected by because of my son.) Mrs. Smith's special calling is her work in human rights. She is a true crusader for a topic that has long been close to my heart as I was a human rights campaigner back in high school and college. Going into the presentation I confess I was not expecting much since "human rights" is such a vast topic, I assumed it was way to broad to be covered in any useful way. I was wrong. Her presentation was an overview of the human rights violations in the world today with a special focus on children and women, who are much more likely to have their rights violated in so many ways. Though at times it was hard to listen to the facts she presented, such as her discussion of child soldiering, genderscide, infanticide, stoning of women, etc., her presentation was simply excellent. I'd encourage anyone who has the opportunity to go hear her speak.

By the time of the third talk, my body was getting very stiff from having sat there in that chair so long and I needed a break. Each presenter had been at least 1.5 hours, plus there was breakfast in the same chair and mass before that, so I skipped out on the third speaker who discussed bioethics. Having a philosophy background, I'm interested in this subject, but my brain and body were a little sore. Based upon the quality of the first two speakers, I now wish I had gone.

Protest
In the early morning and late afternoon, rallyers were in attendance with signs protesting Bishop Galante's actions in the diocese. Since Bishop Galante had left the premises in the morning, when he returned in the afternoon he met the protesters at the door. It never ceases to amaze me how the timing always seems to work out that way. The protesters were asked to leave the premises both times since the area they were standing on was private property, but it took them quite awhile to decide to ask them to leave. In the afternoon they were asked to leave about 20 minutes after they arrived and after the bishop had already passed through them. However it was particularly unfavorable looking for the bishop to send someone out to ask a young man with his infant son in arms and an older  woman with a walker (among others) to leave. Frankly, it just makes the bishop look bad and elicits public sympathy. (There were a bunch of people from the conference looking on from a window inside.) As a prime example, since I was inside at the time, I overheard some people say, "Here come the protesters. Well, you really can't blame them. Who wants their church to be closed?" Since the crowd was so geographically diverse, overall they seemed unaware of the whole scandal involving the bishop here in the Diocese of Camden, but that is not a surprise. Nevertheless there is certainly a lot of sympathy for our cause simply because every Catholic can relate to the horror of having their church taken from them. Really there is very little the diocese can do, in my opinion, to make the proposed largest church closure in American Catholic history palatable, particularly now with the shadow of the Follieri scandal hanging over it. The financial motivations seem so very clear now to those following the ordeal.

Emailed to me 5 minutes ago:

"I am worried by the Blessed Virgin's messages to Lucy of Fatima. This persistence of Mary about the dangers which menace the Church is a divine warning against the suicide of altering the Faith, in Her liturgy, Her theology and Her soul. ... I hear all around me innovators who wish to dismantle the Sacred Chapel, destroy the universal flame of the Church, reject Her ornaments and make Her feel remorse for Her historical past.

 
"A day will come when the civilized world will deny its God, when the Church will doubt as Peter doubted. She will be tempted to believe that man has become God. In our churches, Christians will search in vain for the red lamp where God awaits them. Like Mary Magdalene, weeping before the empty tomb, they will ask, 'Where have they taken Him?'"

Pope Pius XII

Notice so many spearheading the movement to save our Faith from immanent destruction are under 50, even under 40. Here's an article that explains why.

Here's a snippet (for more read the entire article below). Catholic leaders are saying that:

"Young people are leaving the Church in droves because of its refusal to conform to the times!" As a young person, I tell you this is rubbish.  It is a smokescreen.  I do not dispute that there are many young, "enlightened" Catholics who have left the Church with these reasons on their lips.  But they are using these reasons as excuses to mask the real problem:  They have either lost their faith or they never really had it.  The need in this case is not for accommodation, but for conversion.  These young Catholics have never been taught that Christianity is not about self-fulfillment, it's about self-denial; it's not about worldly power, it's about humility; it's not about control, it's about obedience; and it's not about some misguided, gender feminist idea of equality, it's about Truth.


I Was Robbed!
by Leila Miller     

I was robbed.

I am a "Generation X" Catholic, raised and catechized in the tumultuous aftermath of Vatican II.  I was a victim of "renewal" and experimentation gone awry, and so were my peers.  With great regret and without exaggeration, I contend that the results have been catastrophic for my generation.  It is my firm belief that the overwhelming majority of young Catholics don't have even an elemental understanding of their Faith.  As a direct result of that ignorance, young Catholics are leaving the Church in a steady stream (or, dare I say, tidal wave?).

It's not entirely accurate to say that I left the Catholic Church (though I considered it), but it's clear to me now that for most of my young adulthood, I was not in the Catholic Church.  Let me give you an overview of my upbringing, which will sound familiar to countless young Catholics.  I was born in the late 1960s into a believing and practicing Catholic family, and my sister and I were taught by our parents to love our Faith.  Barring illness, we attended Sunday Mass and holy days of obligation without exception.  We attended public schools, but we were enrolled in weekly CCD classes at our parish every year.

By the time I began religious education, memorizing the Baltimore Catechism was out, and feeling the "experience of Christ" was in.  My parish priest, I believe, could not have known how the new, more "enlightened" philosophy of catechism would affect the moral development of those in his charge; at the time, he was simply caught up in the so-called "spirit of Vatican II," and was being obedient to what were considered Vatican II "mandates."  Meanwhile, my parents, like the other parents, trusted that religious education classes would teach us the Faith.  Sadly, that never happened.

In general, the volunteer CCD teachers were good-hearted parishioners who probably tried their best with the vacuous material they were given.  Looking back, I can see that a couple of them must have been alarmed at the "new and improved" methods, and wanted to teach us the fundamentals of our Faith; for example, one year a teacher made us memorize the Ten Commandments; another year (9th or 10th grade, I believe) I heard the word transubstantiation for the first and last time.  Aside from these rare moments, I assure you that precious little substantive information was imparted to us youngsters; the countless hours I spent in religious education were missed opportunities.

I can tell you in three phrases the content of a decade of catechesis:  God is good, Jesus loves you, and love your neighbor.  (All very good and true, don't get me wrong, but if you read your Bible you'll see that that's only half the Gospel.  And sometimes half of the truth is more treacherous than an outright lie.)  We were shown a lot of cartoon slide shows depicting Jesus and his parables, and I have nice images of multiplying loaves, the Good Samaritan, and Jesus' empty tomb.  I don't remember anything particularly Catholic about the presentations, aside from a foray into the sacraments when it was time for First Communion or Confirmation.  (But if you'd have asked me to explain what a sacrament was, I couldn't have told you.)

We weren't taught any Catholic prayers, although we all knew the Our Father from Mass attendance, and in my case from nightly prayers.  I learned the Hail Mary along the way, but for many years I knew only the first half.  We never discussed the lives of the saints, or even mentioned their names for that matter.  (Sitting at Mass, I could never figure out who this "Paul" fellow was who wrote so many letters!)

I am thankful at least that I was born before the last vestiges of Catholic tradition could be stamped out, and in the 1970s some of the more pious and beautiful hymns were still often included in the Mass.  Songs like The Church's One Foundation, Immaculate Mary, and At That First Eucharist were powerful to a child, and they have stuck with me to this day.  The dramatic, colorful Bible story books I read at home also presented an unshakable image of a just and mighty God and his glorious and majestic Son.  These haunting melodies and images, combined with my parents' faith and the common themes of my religious education did instill some important truths in my heart:  I never wavered in my belief in God Almighty and in the Incarnation, Death and Resurrection of His Son.  Just who or what the Holy Spirit was or did was anybody's guess, although I did recognize that the Holy Spirit was one of the Persons of the Trinity -- whatever that meant.  (I believe this particular bit of knowledge came from the repetition of another traditional hymn, which spoke of "God in three Persons, Blessed Trinity."  Since traditional hymns are no longer sung on a regular basis, I can only surmise that young Catholics today are learning less than I did!)

I went through my school years believing I was a strong Catholic -- in fact, as I got older I would often identify myself as "devout" -- and after my high school graduation I chose to attend a Jesuit university, in part to increase my chances of meeting and marrying a nice Catholic man and raising children in a strong Catholic home.  I made many Catholic friends during my years at Boston College, many of whom were products of Catholic elementary and high schools and most of whom were, like me, practicing Catholics. Just touching on this subject brings up many difficult emotions in me, but it is hard to overstate the tragedy occurring at most Catholic universities across the country -- namely, the betrayal of  parents entrusting a child to a college that identifies itself as "Catholic" while it allows and even encourages fiercely anti-Catholic beliefs and practices to permeate the campus and poison impressionable minds.  I do not know one Catholic who grew in his or her Faith at B.C.  Indeed, many who entered Boston College as practicing Catholics graduated indifferent or hostile to Catholicism.  I assure you that Satan is having a good time at B.C. and universities like it.  Though modern sensibilities may scoff at this notion, I don't mean it metaphorically.

Anyway, to give you an idea what all of those years of religious training and formation amounted to, allow me to throw out a short list of terms that, for my first 28 years, had no meaning to me:

Sacred Tradition	Mass Cards	Scapular
Sanctifying Grace	Benediction	Pentecost
Magisterium	Act of Contrition	Four Marks of the Church
Sacramentals	The "Glory Be"	Joyful/Sorrowful/Glorious Mysteries
Corporal Works of Mercy	Apostolic Succession	Four Last Things
Indulgences	Perpetual Adoration	Spiritual Works of Mercy

In my experience, most Catholics of my generation are unable to explain or even recognize the above.  And to follow are some terms that may sound familiar to my post-Vatican II peers, but that they don't understand correctly and/or believe for a second:

Purgatory	Communion of Saints	Papal Infallibility
Transubstantiation	Mortal and Venial Sin	Immaculate Conception

The attitudes of my Catholic peers are no mystery.  Confession?  Sure, great sacrament -- I'll get there one of these years (wink, wink).  No pre-marital sex?  No artificial contraception?  Yeah right, get real!  Evangelize?  Are you kidding?  Why?  After all, Buddhism, Islam, New Age, Christianity -- they're all equal paths to God.  Who are Catholics to say they have the truth?  A mature spirituality requires the understanding that everyone can be right!

In general, Generation X Catholics don't feel any obligation to live as the Church teaches, and I promise you that they do not fear the fires of Hell, nor do they believe in Purgatory.  (But really, how could they?  They've gone to Mass faithfully for decades and never heard such topics discussed, much less defended!)

The culture we live in is merciless when it comes into contact with a poorly catechized Catholic.  American society today is designed to destroy one's faith, as objective truth and moral absolutes are rejected concepts.  When modern, "enlightened"
catechesis echoes the messages of the culture, and when those charged with informing the Catholic conscience and transmitting the Faith take an "experiential" rather than informative approach, what can you expect?  You can expect exactly what was taught.You can expect young Catholics who believe "conscience" means "opinion" and you can expect subjective feelings and personal experience to supplant objective truth.  In fact, the prevailing philosophy of my peers is that there is no one "truth" -- truth is whatever we want it to be.  You have your truth, I have mine.  (Kind of puts the lie to Christ's definitive statement, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life" doesn't it?  It also doesn't sound like anything worth dying for -- those silly martyrs!)

We reap what we sow, and when pop-psychology all but replaces sound catechesis the results should not surprise anyone.  The practices and beliefs of my circle of Catholic friends tell a sad story.  Pre-marital sex?  Yes, with a series of different partners.  Contraception?  Of course -- it's a virtue.  Living together, a.k.a. living in sin?  It's a non-issue.  (One Catholic friend did go so far as to find a "compassionate" priest who consented to give her absolution before she moved in with a man!)  Active homosexuality?  A lifestyle choice.  Abortion?  Sad, and we don't like it, but it's a woman's private decision -- too bad her partner didn't use a condom.

Most of my Catholic friends attend Mass sporadically or not at all.  Some get their spiritual guidance from gender feminism (which is a fiercely anti-Catholic movement) and/or New Age philosophies. Overall, the Catholic call to holiness is an unfamiliar concept to them, and I do not for a moment attempt to exempt myself from this scrutiny.  Confession is a sacrament that was never emphasized (I made my first Confession at nine years of age while sitting on a priest's lap), and after my first couple of confessions during grade school, I never went back; I shudder when I think of how often I received Holy Communion unworthily.

So how is it that a Catholic who went to Mass every Sunday and went through all the proper catechism programs at her church could continue on unconcerned while carrying several serious sins on her soul?  I do not offer this as an excuse for doing wrong, but you must understand my actions in the context of what I was taught.  My generation of Catholics grew up with a keen understanding of God's infinite love for us.  We knew that His mercy could not be exhausted, no matter how badly we behaved.  But at the same time, we heard almost nothing about God's justice.  That while God is perfectly merciful, He is also perfectly just.  Somehow, that part was lost, or suppressed.  I guess no one wanted to hurt our feelings with Church teaching; for example, that by persisting in serious, unrepented sins, we could damn ourselves to an eternity in Hell.

Jesus said, "Enter through the narrow gate.  The gate that leads to damnation is wide, the road is clear, and many choose to travel it.  But how narrow is the gate that leads to life, how rough the road, and how few there are who find it!" (Matt 7:13-14)  Jesus mentions Hell over a dozen times in the Gospels, but our teachers and priests only presented us with the Jesus of the Beatitudes, or the Jesus who continuously forgave sinners.  We were never reminded that Jesus forgave repentant sinners, those with contrite hearts and the intention to sin no more.

The God presented to American Catholics today is the Rodney Dangerfield of gods:  He gets no respect.  Today, God hardly needs to be worshipped, since He's our buddy, our pal, our equal.  No need to fear Him or stand in awe, no difficult obligations on our part -- we need only feel the warm fuzzies He showers upon us, until we die and He takes us instantly to Heaven.

Such was the image that my generation got of God our Father.  But what would we say of any other father who asks no obedience, forgives every sin unconditionally and automatically, with no requirement for an apology or recompense?  We would call him a wimp, a pushover, a sap, a fool.  Good and loving parents don't reward bad behavior and disobedience.  They set down boundaries that a child, for his own good, must not cross.  Should that child choose to persist in disobedience and wrong-doing, good parents don't expand the boundaries to encompass his bad behavior, they hold firm and hope for his repentance precisely because they desire his happiness and success.  They do not cease to love him, even as they let him experience the consequences of his poor choices.  Such it is with God and sinful man.  He loves us infinitely, but He cannot force us to love and obey Him against our free will.  None of this was explained to post-Vatican II Catholics.

Although many of my peers will leave the Church and Christianity altogether, many will do as I did.  That is, I never once considered forsaking Christianity, nor did I question Christ's divinity (I felt strongly that to deny Christ would be blasphemous and a sacrilege).  But I was guilty of presumption.  I thought that because of my "deep faith" I could continue in one or another mortal sin and God would forgive me, or make an exception on my behalf.  I just knew he would respect my "conscience!"

I never did disagree with the Church's stand on controversial issues such as abortion or homosexuality.  I had even heard, almost by accident, some of the Church's arguments against artificial contraception, and they made sense to me.  I thought the Church was probably right on this issue (how magnanimous of me!), but of course I could never be expected to actually go along with this teaching!  I did plan to learn Natural Family Planning one day, sure, but certainly not now, in my young married years.  After all, God understands.

Though I presumed on God's mercy, I still believed in moral absolutes, and I never went the way of moral relativism; in fact, another young mother and I spent a year and a half writing an editorial column for our state's largest newspaper in which we rejected moral relativism and defended the concept of objective truth.  This friend, Kim, had spent six years as a gender feminist and New Ager, but motherhood combined with writing our column eventually led her back to Christianity and into a local Bible church.              (Read Kim's story here)

Kim had been a lapsed Episcopalian and I was a waning Catholic, so we had never really had religious discussions until then; but because of my strong belief in an objective right and wrong, I was attracted to what she was telling me about the Bible church.  These evangelicals stood firm on moral issues and were not afraid of offending anyone with Christian moral truths.  I couldn't say as much for the Catholic parish I was sporadically attending, where moral courage was sadly lacking and politically correct sermons and liturgies were the norm.  A Church that sought to blend in with the culture was not the kind of religious community I wanted.  I was raising children in a scary society, and I needed support from others who believed as I did and who would be a refuge from the "pagan world."  In my disgust with what American Catholicism had become, I flirted with the idea of leaving it for the Bible church.

Let me back up here and fill in some details.  Shortly after I graduated college, I became engaged to Dean Miller, a nice agnostic Jewish boy (so much for my attempts to find a Catholic husband!).  My identity as a Catholic was strong enough that I had come to this relationship with certain non-negotiables:  I would never get married outside the Church, and any children of mine would be baptized and raised Catholic.  Dean (who, ironically, attended a Catholic high school) respectfully and unselfishly agreed to my conditions, and we were married a year later in a Catholic church by my childhood priest.

Over the next four years, I gave birth to three beautiful babies.  As you might imagine, this provided me with any number of excuses for not going to Mass on Sundays, and almost never on holy days.  Of course, when one does not understand what takes place during the Mass, it is easy to become lax about attending.  During those years, I lived in two major cities and had done a bit of "church-hopping," trying to find a parish I liked.  I became disillusioned by the seemingly endless (and lame) attempts to make the Mass "hip" and entertaining.  All of the hand-holding, applauding, trite songs and political correctness was a monumental turn-off for me.  I felt no reverence, no awe; there was nothing in these Masses to snap me to attention, to take me out of myself and focus my mind and heart up to God in His Heaven.  I wasn't "getting anything out of it."  (Like so many others, I did not fully comprehend that one doesn't go to Mass to "get something out of it" -- one goes to worship God.)  When I did get myself to church, I felt as if I were "putting in my time," mechanically fulfilling an obligation.  I often ducked out right after Communion.

Because I was raised to never miss Mass, I felt guilty for skipping it so often (as well I should have, considering the gravity of the sin!).  I half-teasingly blamed Dean for my not getting to church, but he wouldn't let me get away with such scapegoating.  He and I knew I had no one but myself to blame.  Though my actions were inexcusable, allow me once again to explain my state of mind during these years.  I had grown up in a culture that had, with amazing rapidity and nonchalance, thrown all of the old value systems out the window.  Nothing was sure and eternal anymore, and it had gradually become unacceptable to believe in a right and wrong.  The idea of sin was deemed positively medieval, and  "morality" became a dirty word.  "Getting one's needs met" was the focus of each individual's personal growth, with the question being,  "What's best for me, and what makes me comfortable?"

Of course, Christ's message to the world is exactly the opposite.  We Christians must die to self, take up our crosses in suffering and sacrifice, and do the will of our Heavenly Father.  The Catholic Church in America seemed to me to have forgotten this message, and was all too eager to fit right in with the culture.  Instead of the Church going forth in courage to influence and change the world, the world was influencing the Church.  Worshipping and glorifying God seemed to take a back seat to worshipping and glorifying ourselves.  I knew enough about Christ's message to recognize that a serious gulf existed between what the Pope and the Bible were saying and what American Catholics were hearing.  At some point, the American Church and the world became almost indistinguishable in my eyes.

Case in point:  The only moral challenges given to the faithful from the pulpit were (and are) calls to help the poor, or admonitions against racism and sexism.  But it was obvious to me that every good atheist, pagan or non-believer out there was saying the same thing.  So why bother being a Christian?  Why get out of bed on Sunday morning and go to Mass when I could turn on any news program or TV series and get the same message?  Young Americans generally are sensitive to social justice issues, since we've been immersed in a culture that never ceases to speak out on such things.  To this day, when I hear yet another social justice homily, I want to yell out:  "We get it!  We get it!  But what we never hear about is the need for personal morality!  For repentance!  For conversion!  For holiness!  What we don't understand is our Faith!  Teach us!  Challenge us!  Help us get to Heaven!"  Have too many leaders of the Catholic Church in America forgotten that their mission is to save souls?

The abuses and trials one must endure at Mass today are legendary among the faithful, and it was just such instances which helped fuel my estrangement from the Church.  For example, I have been at Masses where I have been driven to distraction as I read the words of Sacred Scripture in a missalette while the lector read a distorted "inclusive language" version of the same text.  My intelligence has been insulted as I've witnessed the disappearance of words like "brothers" and "men" from both liturgy and song -- apparently the political correctness police have decided that I as a woman am either too stupid or too fragile to understand that such words include me, too.  I have sat through an Easter Mass where the priest donned a bunny suit for a homily/skit, and balloons were tied to the pews.  And I have sat with my mouth hanging open as I heard one priest use that morning's gospel reading to condone homosexuality.  After a while, it didn't seem worth it anymore; I could no longer see the point to attending Mass.  Looking back, it is clear that I had lost respect for the Catholic Church.

Which brings me back to my flirting with the idea of leaving for a Bible church.  I had listened to my friend Kim tell me about the powerful and courageous sermons she heard week after week at her non-denominational church.  The pastor spoke out against the immorality that surrounded Christians today.  He spoke of right and wrong, and he used Sacred Scripture to show his flock the proper way a Christian should conduct himself.  The evangelicals at this church did not pretend to blend into the culture, they were fighting against it, in a loving, Christ-centered way.  They kept their eyes on God.  And the faithful were actually instructed in Christianity!  Kim was attending Sunday services, weekly Bible study, a doctrine class and a Christian parenting class.  She loved it because her soul was being fed, and for the first time she understood what it meant to be a Christian!  What a contrast to what I was experiencing in my Catholic parish.  No wonder a good portion of her church's congregation consisted of ex-Catholics -- young ex-Catholics like me, who were raising families.

Maybe this is a good place to debunk a myth that desperately needs debunking.  One of the classic lines from liberal, dissenting Catholics is this:  "The Church needs to change its outdated teachings and must ordain women, replace the patriarchal language in the liturgy, allow divorce and remarriage, sanction birth control, masturbation, homosexuality, abortion [and so on, ad nauseum].  Young people are leaving the Church in droves because of its refusal to conform to the times!"

As a young person, I tell you this is rubbish.  It is a smokescreen.  I do not dispute that there are many young, "enlightened" Catholics who have left the Church with these reasons on their lips.  But they are using these reasons as excuses to mask the real problem:  They have either lost their faith or they never really had it.  The need in this case is not for accommodation, but for conversion.  These young Catholics have never been taught that Christianity is not about self-fulfillment, it's about self-denial; it's not about worldly power, it's about humility; it's not about control, it's about obedience; and it's not about some misguided, gender feminist idea of equality, it's about Truth.

But for all of the young Catholics who leave the Church because it is not politically correct enough for them, there are equal numbers (mainly those who have begun families) who are leaving for opposite reasons; namely, they feel the Church has become too liberal, too morally lax, too reflective of the secular culture.  These Catholics are filling the pews of fundamentalist and evangelical churches, whose leaders hold fast to Christian morality, and where the Ten Commandments are still understood to be commands, not suggestions.  These young adults are searching for an anchor in a world gone mad.  They are searching for Christ and a high standard of Christian morality, and they don't believe they can find either in the Catholic Church.  (Ironically, by leaving the Catholic Church, they are actually walking away from the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, and leaving the faith that holds the highest and most difficult moral code of them all!)

I leaned toward a Bible church because of the moral courage I knew I would find there, because of the pride in Christ Jesus that so permeated the place, and because I would receive instruction in my faith, not an apology for it.  Yet if you ask a liberal, dissenting Catholic why Catholics are leaving the Church, they'll tell you it's because we haven't gone far enough in liberalizing the Faith!  It's as if they're saying, "Let's neutralize Christianity completely, ignore our heritage and traditions, throw out the sacraments, deny the existence of Original Sin, disclaim the divinity of Christ, drain the Faith of any truth or meaning, and then the churches will be bursting at the seams!"  It makes you wonder if the people so hell-bent on liberalizing the Catholic Church are acting out of love for the Faith or acting out of a desire to destroy it.

Nevertheless, by February of 1995, I just wanted out.  I was ready to send out a trial balloon to my mom, to see how she would react to my inclination to leave the Church.  I specifically did not approach my dad first, as I knew he would be heartbroken at the thought; but because my mother was raised a Protestant (she came into the Catholic Church when I was three), I thought she would be easier to talk to.  Mom is a very rational and stoic person, and she is known for giving sound advice.  After I popped the question:  "How would you feel if I left the Church for a Bible church?" she gave me the answer that would change not only my life, but the lives of many others as well.  She said, "Before you leave, you should find out what it is that you're leaving."

She then proceeded to give me some of the reasons she had left Protestantism.  For instance, she said it never made sense to her that Protestants place all their belief in the Bible alone.  The question for her became, which Bible?  There were so many different translations, and everyone had a different view on which version was authoritative.  She was also wary of non-denominational churches in general, and she talked about "the cult of the personality," or the tendency in such churches for the congregation to rally around a well-liked, dynamic pastor who usually had a new and "brilliant" interpretation of Scripture.  He would be the reason that they came, and if that particular pastor left, the congregation would leave with him.

Everything she said made sense to me, and that evening my thoughts of leaving Catholicism were at least neutralized.  The big blow came a couple of weeks later when my mom, in her matter-of-fact way, presented me with a book.  It was the kind of book I had never seen before.  The kind of book I never knew existed.  It was a book of Catholic apologetics.  It was Karl Keating's Catholicism and Fundamentalism .

Some people may roll their eyes in disbelief when I say that I never knew such a book existed.  I don't blame them -- even I cannot believe that it never occurred to me that someone out there might find it necessary, useful, even noble to defend the Faith!  It seems so silly to me now.  How could I have been ready to jump ship to a Bible church without even investigating the doctrinal issues involved?  Why did it never even cross my mind that a Church of 2,000 years might be able to present an argument on her behalf?  Maybe it's because in my lifetime as a Catholic, I had never heard anyone defend the Faith.  No one had ever given me any reasons why Catholics were right, why we had the fullest truth.  The only thing approaching an apologetics argument was my parents' statements that ours was the oldest Christian church.  That we Catholics were here first!  During my childhood and adolescence, I remember being quite proud of that fact.  Too bad no one ever elaborated on that point.

But once that glorious book was placed in my hands, it was all over.  I was excited, amazed, impressed that someone had taken the time to spell out the differences between Protestants and Catholics, not mechanically and neutrally, but passionately and full of love for the Catholic Faith!  And Mr. Keating used the Bible itself to illustrate the truth of Catholic doctrine!  It only took reading a few pages of this wonderful book to not only keep me Catholic, but to set me on a path of knowledge that has led my soul to burn for the Faith.  Sound dramatic?  It is!  Thanks to two years of study and the grace of God, I have found treasures that I never dreamed possible in this world, and yet I have come to understand that I have only dipped my little toe into the vast and glorious ocean that is Catholicism.

Over the next several months, my friend Kim and I engaged in a series of friendly, but extremely intense, theological debates. We went back and forth about issues such as Papal authority, the Real Presence, Mary, sanctification of the soul, and the implications of the Inquisition.  We gave special attention to the two doctrines that separate Protestants and Catholics:  sola scriptura (the Reformers' belief that the Bible is a Christian's only authority) and sola fide (the Reformers' belief that we are saved by our faith alone).  At times it was like the blind leading the blind, but I used the best arguments for Catholicism I knew at the time, and Kim got a hold of the best apologetics that Protestantism had to offer.

The phone calls were intense, and they would leave us physically and emotionally drained.  A couple of our conversations lasted seven hours!  After about six months of this mini replay of the Reformation, we hit what we call "the brick wall" and we agreed it was time to stop talking about theology for awhile, as we were frustrated and getting nowhere.

Meanwhile, my husband Dean was being sucked into all this "God talk" whether he wanted to or not (I was so excited about what I was learning that I discussed it with him when he let me).  Together, Kim and I had "discovered" the Old Testament prophesies which so clearly vindicate Jesus as the long-awaited Messiah, and I excitedly pointed out these passages to my dear Jewish husband.  I'll never forget the almost panicked look in Dean's eyes when he reluctantly admitted one night that it appeared Jesus might actually be the Son of God.

In their own journeys to faith, both Dean and Kim had one overriding principle:  They were searching for objective truth.  They didn't make their faith decisions based on their own opinions or what "felt right."  They weren't looking for what was comfortable, they were looking for what was true.  And of course that's what God asks of each of us.  Just as the Savior took up His Cross, we are each expected to take up our own, following in the footsteps of Truth Himself, even if it costs us our comfort, our security, even our very lives.

In Kim's quest for Truth at all costs, she kept praying and studying, even after we hit our "brick wall."  She gave the Catholics one last chance to prove themselves by reading Patrick Madrid's now legendary book, Surprised By Truth , in which eleven converts -- many of them Protestant ministers -- give their reasons for becoming Catholic.  In three nights (she calls them the darkest nights of her life), she was shown the Biblical and historical truth of Catholicism.  Six months later, at great personal cost but with great joy, Kim did what was previously inconceivable to her:  She received the Sacraments of the Church, and is now a devout Catholic.  Within a year, and after an initial reluctance, her husband announced his own intention to convert.  And with great rejoicing and all gratitude to God, I can report my husband Dean's profound conversion as well.  (Yep, I got a Catholic husband after all, and a devout one at that!)

Some other fruits of my "conversion"?  I have returned to confession after more than fifteen years, and I now reap the graces of that wonderful, previously unknown sacrament.  Mass, which I once avoided, is now an other-worldly experience for me.  Contraception?  Gone, with great benefit to my marriage.  I continue to uncover the treasures of Christ's Church, and Kim and I now teach the Faith to others.  I guess you could say that in Catholicism I've found the secret of the universe, and nothing can compare to its majesty.

Which brings me back to a sadness.  How easily I could have lost it all!  How easily my friends and contemporaries have lost or could lose a Faith they never really understood.  Feel-good, inoffensive, nebulous psycho-babble catechesis doesn't provide an even minimal foundation of faith, and a faith built on such a weak and erroneous foundation could not withstand even the smallest challenge.  For proof of this, note that fundamentalist Christians have successfully pulled millions of Catholics out of the Church just by quoting a few Bible verses out of their proper context.  And at the other end of the spectrum, feminists and New Agers lure Generation Xers out of Catholicism simply by loudly and repeatedly applying snide labels to the Church, such as "patriarchal," "oppressive," "reactionary," "judgmental," "irrelevant," etc.  A poorly catechized Catholic is virtually helpless against these tactics.

So, just what did I learn on my own that I never learned in religious ed.?  Almost everything, but here are some of the biggies that shocked me:  I learned that after Christ's ascension into Heaven, He did not leave us floating out here alone on Earth with just a book to try to interpret individually until He comes again (and since the vast majority of humanity was and is illiterate, why would He?).  I learned that the Catholic Church is the one Church explicitly founded by Jesus Christ on the rock of Peter, the first pope, and that the Bible is a product of the Catholic Church (and thus subject to her interpretation).  I learned that as Christ promised, the Holy Spirit has been protecting and guiding the successors to Peter and the Apostles for all these 20 centuries.  I learned that, because of this promised guidance, the teaching authority of the Church cannot err when speaking on issues of faith and morals; the Church does not, has not and will not change such teachings because she cannot!  The deposit of faith has remained pure and intact since public revelation ended with the death of St. John, the last Apostle.  I learned that the Church has always rightly claimed to be the protector of Christ's Truth, with the authority to proclaim, explain and apply that revealed Truth to the world.  I learned that submission to Church teaching is submission to Christ.

I learned that the crown jewel of Christianity, the Eucharist, is clearly evident in the New Testament, and that it was brilliantly prefigured in the Old Testament by many different writers, thousands of years prior to Christ's institution of that sacrament.  It's no wonder, then, that the earliest Christians and all of the Church Fathers were staunch believers in the Real Presence, and were thoroughly Catholic in the rest of their doctrine.  The writings of the Fathers would stun any Protestant, and most Catholics as well!  I learned that the seven sacraments of the Church were explicitly instituted by Christ and are the direct channels of God's grace into our souls, the surest links between Heaven and Earth.  I learned that God did not make it difficult for man to find the Truth, provided that man seek the Truth.

The thing that shocked me most of all?  Everything I mentioned above can be proven biblically, historically, and through an exercise of reason.  Catholicism is not a religion of blind faith.  Kim and I have played devil's advocate for every controversial claim or issue regarding the Church, and the Church has won every time -- in fact, the Church's case gets stronger and more exquisitely beautiful every time it's tested!  Yet young Catholics were never told any of this.

As I said at the beginning:  I was robbed and my peers were robbed.  The loss is incalculable, as how do you count the cost of even a single lost soul?  As for blame, well, there's enough blame to go around, and I am fully aware of my own culpability in all of this.  I could have asked more questions, and I could have sought to do God's will as best I understood it, but in many cases I did not.  I have had long discussions with my parents, and they have willingly accepted their share of the blame as well.  But if I were giving a prize for biggest subverters of the Faith, it would have to go to liberal, dissenting Catholics, especially those in positions of power within the Church, be they theologians, bishops or catechetical directors.  They have witnessed an entire generation raised up in complete ignorance of the Faith as a result of catechetical failure, they see wide-scale rebellion and disdain for Church teaching and authority, and yet they still push to further liberalize the Church, pushing more and more people out of the Light and into darkness.

When I hear of dissident movements such as Call To Action and We Are Church, and when certain bishops, priests and sisters support and even lead these causes, I am indignant.  While these so-called "progressive" Catholics work to undermine the Faith and  fall all over themselves apologizing for the teachings of Holy Mother Church, I just wonder when any of them is going to apologize to me?  Or to my contemporaries?  When will they apologize for putting a  generation of souls in jeopardy?

Maybe they should be reminded of the Second Epistle of St. John, verses 9-11:  "Anyone who is so 'progressive' that he does not remain rooted in the teaching of Christ does not possess God, while anyone who remains rooted in the teaching possesses both the Father and the Son.  If anyone comes to you who does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house; do not even greet him, for whoever greets him shares in the evil he does."

Or how about St. Paul writing to the Galatians (1:8-9):  "For even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel not in accord with the one we delivered to you, let a curse be upon him!  I repeat what I have just said:  If anyone preaches a gospel to you other than the one you received, let a curse be upon him!"

Here are Jesus' words on the subject:  "Whosoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea" (Matt. 18:6)

Catholics -- be they priests, bishops, religious, theologians or laymen -- who do not profess loyalty to the Holy Father and the Magisterium should have the integrity to identify themselves as Protestants, for that is what they are, i.e. they exist in a state of protest against the Roman Catholic Church.  And those influential Catholics who have so obviously lost their faith have no business teaching or influencing the next generation.

I am not so naive or despairing to believe that even wide-scale apostasy among American Catholics at every level will destroy the Church.  We know from Christ Himself  that the gates of Hell shall never prevail against His Bride.  So even though we needn't be concerned with the Church's survival, we should all concern ourselves with the Church's primary mission on earth: the salvation of souls.  Too many souls have been allowed to slip out of the Church due to catechetical neglect, and it's time to stem the tide.

Perhaps the first step in reversing this trend is to throw ourselves at the mercy of God, begging forgiveness for the mess we've made in His Church and His world.  Second, we must pray for the conversion of those within our Church who seek to undermine the very Faith they claim to profess.  Third, each Catholic must take it upon himself to learn the Faith, and then commit himself to a life of proclaiming the Truth to others -- this is the "new evangelization" by the laity advocated by His Holiness Pope John Paul II.

Finally, I humbly propose a Catholics' Bill of Rights, to be handed out to every new Christian along with his baptismal candle.  Maybe it could go something like this:

You have a right to your Catholic heritage.  You have the right to hear the Truth, the whole Truth and nothing but the Truth.  You have the right to have the Faith of the Apostles transmitted to you unfiltered and undefiled.  You have the right to be catechized by an instructor who must first be required to profess his loyalty and obedience to Rome, and who humbly submits to all the teachings of Christ through His Church.  Anything less is not only nonsensical but scandalous, and might lead you away from the truth of the Church.  You have the right to expect Catholic orthodoxy in all Catholic classrooms and institutions, and you have the most blessed and merciful right never to hear radical feminism or pantheism taught as if it had anything remotely to do with Catholicism.  You have the right to remain Catholic.  If you give up that right, it will be your free will choice and not the result of poor or scandalous catechesis.  (In other words, you have the right to know what you're leaving before you leave it.)  And finally, you have the right to be indignant if you look back 28 years from now and realize that most of these rights have been denied you.

Praise God, my joy at having found the Faith is greater than my righteous anger at those who had a hand in keeping it from me for so long.  I know that I cherish my faith so dearly precisely because I almost lost it.  I know that God's ways are not man's ways, and I am forever grateful that He chose this way to lead me back home.  I only pray that He might somehow lead my contemporaries back home as well.


Leila and her husband have five beautiful children.
You may send her email at this address.
Leila@lisaslighthouse.org

Naples, Florida: Golf Capital of the World and Home of Bill and Mary Anne Galante's Ultra-Liberal St. John the Evangelist Church

"More holes per capita than any other community." (From Wikipedia entry on Napes, FL)

I'm referring here to golf links, of course. Naples, Florida is everything you think, and more. Half of the American Fortune 500 CEOs live in Napes, FL. Yes, little ol' Malaga, NJ: You, too, can be as authentic, spiritual, and non-materialistic as Naples, FL. Yay! Guess who lives part of the year in Napes, FL? Bishop Galante's brother and sister-in-law.

Quoting from the Philadelphia Inquirer article, which is quoting Bishop Galante:

And all he [Bishop Galante's brother] talks about is how vibrant the local parish is: the people going to Mass, the wonderful preaching, concerts with sacred music and popular music.

The vitality and community his brother has found in Florida are what he hopes South Jersey Catholics will one day encounter in the 66 parishes that will remain.

The local church his brother and sister-in-law attend, which is the model for what Bishop Galante hopes South Jersey churches will become, looks like this:

Charming, personal, quaint, and inviting, huh? And the pastor, Fr. Glackin (who in is photo doesn't even bother to wear a collar), for Mother's Day/Pentecost Sunday, quoted Erma Bombeck. Cute. Here's a link to that:
Fr. Glackin's Mother's Day Inspiration

You May Laugh, But It's A Little Scary
There are a couple of sort of humorous things on the church's site. On the RCIA website, they claim that confession is "not for the guilty." Of course, it's pretty ridiculous. It of course begs the question, if you're not guilty, then why confess? But I digress. Onto stranger things. You'll notice below (image taken from their website) that they have an image of a skinny, topless, somewhat androgynous-looking woman about to be touched by an outstretched hand. I presume this to be the primordial symbol of conversion. Kinda reminds me of an alien abduction or something, it's sort of unnerving.

 

Compared with the hefty material I will take on below, mentioning anything so minor as the music at St. John the Evangelist seems petty. Nevertheless, since the bishop wants some "vital music" injected into the South Jersey Catholic liturgical scene (read: begone traditional Catholic hymnody). I thought it would be good to include a photo of the music director of St. John the Evangelist parish. Check out his website, if you'd like to listen to some of the "vibrant music" Bishop Galante would have us integrate into our "liturgies." Paul Todd's site Mr. Todd has opened for the Pointer Sisters, Joan Rivers, the Gatlin Brothers, and others. All that and he works on a TeleTubbies-like cartoon for kids.

 

Puts us to shame over at St. May's, what with the teeny little choir loft and simple a cappella singing. The bigger the better, after all.

Pastor Promotes Group that Undermines Church Teaching
On a much more serious note, Father Glackin, pastor of St. John's, is a ringleader of the radical group, "Voice of the Faithful," Link here, which Catholic Culture assigns a "danger warning" for fidelity. Archbishop John Myers of Newark, NJ says that

VOTF...has used the current crisis in the Church as a springboard for presenting an agenda that is anti-Church and, ultimately, anti-Catholic.

(See Naples Daily News, September 19, 2003. Link here.) Glackin keeps trying to bring in speakers from Voice of the Faithful to St. John the Evangelist parish and the bishop of the Diocese of Venice keeps denying him. Instead VOTF brings speakers like the notorious Fr. Curran to a local Greek Orthodox Church. See article here. Voice of the Faithful's real goal, among many, is fairly obvious: it wants to change the character and structure of the church by "promot[ing] turning the Church into a democracy." Furthermore their conferences "feature prominent speakers who are known to support homosexuality, abortion, contraception, female priests and other dissident principles." The gist of their philosophy is to build up the laity and create an atmosphere of equality and interchangeability among the roles of the sexes and even the clergy and laity. (catholicculture.org)

Voice of the Faithful "is tied to dissident, radical, anti-Vatican groups, such as Call to Action and We Are Church, which strongly reject Catholic moral principles," according to the well regarded and orthodox catholicculture.org. Fr. Glackin, pastor of St. John the Evangelist Church in Naples, is lauded by VOTF on its website: Accollades from VOTF for Fr. Glackin. VOTF holds their monthly meetings at the Parish Life Center, so the pastor's connection with this dissident group is hardly hidden. (The meeting location is listed on the VOTF southewest Florida website.)

Parish Promotes Irreverence & Misunderstanding of the Real Presence
St.John the Evangelist Parish, which the bishop holds up as the model for Catholic churches, is a bastion of anti-Catholic and non-Catholic (well, essentially Protestant) thought. On the church website, to put it charitably, there is a very definite mixed message relayed with regard to the Real Presence, among other things. For example, kneeling during the consecration is roundly condemned as something born of fear. They claim that the early Church stood during the consecration, but provide no evidence for this assumption. From the church's RCIA program Q&A about the Eucharist (for entire article click here):

Why do people at St. Johns stand for the consecration, where at some other Catholic churches, people kneel? In the early church, people stood for the consecration as a sign of respect and joyful celebration. As the centuries progressed, people began to kneel, as a sign of sorrow and repentance, and focused so much on the Divinity of Christ that his humanity was almost forgotten. Kneeling was a sign of fear before a king. This practice still continues in some catholic churches today. But with Vatican II, the church recovered the early church's focus on joyful celebration. So, at St. John's we stand in joy rather than kneel in fear.

A little further down, the question is posed, "Who can take communion?" Here is a piece of the answer St. John the Evangelist RCIA provides potential converts:

(The church teaches that it needs to be baptized Catholics...but Christ doesn't check our ID's) Sometimes at weddings and funerals, non-Catholics may be invited to receive communion.

In other words, they come right out and say that the Church teaches one thing, but they teach another. This church actively and unabashedly flouts the teachings of the Catholic faith not only through direct affiliation with groups that undermine the faith, but also by egregiously offending Our Lord in the Holy Eucharist by allowing non-Catholic Christians to partake. They belittle those who would revere His holy presence by kneeling in adoration. It would make sense to cease kneeling if the Real Presence is not understood properly...

Most alarming of all, it is clear by reading the entry on the Eucharist that at St. John's there is a complete misunderstanding of transubstantiation. They say, "The wine is still wine, and the bread is still bread, but somehow it is also more than just bread and wine." Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that was essentially heresy. I quote the Catholic Encyclopedia here (and I'd really encourage you to read the entire entry on the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist here):

That the consequence of Transubstantiation, as a conversion of the total substance, is the transition of the entire substance of the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ, is the express doctrine of the Church (Council of Trent, Sess. XIII, can. ii). Thus were condemned as contrary to faith the antiquated view of Durandus, that only the substantial form (forma substantialis) of the bread underwent conversion, while the primary matter (materia prima) remained, and, especially, Luther's doctrine of Consubstantiation, i.e. the coexistence of the substance of the bread with the true Body of Christ.

As I understand it, the Body and Blood of Our Lord maintain only the appearance of bread and wine. Again from the Catholic Encyclopedia (from this piece on consecration):

It is called transubstantiation, for in the Sacrament of the Eucharist the substance of breadand wine do not remain, but the entire substance of bread is changed into the body of Christ, and the entire substance of wine is changed into His blood, the species or outward semblance of bread and wine alone remaining.

I could go on, since there is an abundance of erronious information so readily available, but I won't. Truly frightening is the prospect that lays before us: that Bishop Galante seeks to model his new-and-improved Catholic McMegachurches after St. John the Evangelist parish, a church that so clearly propogates irreverence and error. Is this what we want the South Jersey Catholic churches to be? I don't. I want to worship God as He is, not as I wish Him to be.

A Model Church for Us Unsophisticated South Jersey Hicks
So anyhow, yes folks, this church of St. John the Evangelist is the model for what Bishop Galante sees as a "vibrant" church. I don't pretend to know what you might think of pastors who promote organizations that undermine the Faith, pop-culture references mixed into your religiosity, Yanni-esque music directors, large and impersonal McChurches, too-cool-for-you RCIA programs, hip self-improvement "confession," and "communities" that boast some of the richest people in the world. And "more holes per capita than any other community" to boot! But I for one prefer that old time religion, the faith of our fathers, "the least of these," and all that stuff. I don't want a big, fancy, modern church with larger than life "contemporary" music. I want a church that reminds me of who I am in the grand scheme of things, not a church that puts me in the center. I want a church that's real, on a human scale, leads me to God, and doesn't remind me of a country club.

The majority of the churches the bishop wants to close are authentic houses of worship with the Real Presence front and center, kneelers, and histories that predate Vatican II. They are traditional. They are characteristically Catholic, replete with the sacramentals that empower us to fight the Enemy. They are the powerhouses of prayer. And yet, according to the Inquirer article, "the scope of the closing appears to be the largest ever for any of the nation's 195 Roman Catholic dioceses." And many of the churches that stand to be closed are ones very much like St. Mary's. Should we make way for a bigger, better sort of church? A one-stop-shop like the evangelical protestants have? Will we accept compromised theology and liturgy? Or are we finally going to acknowledge that what people really want is Truth...simple and straightforward Truth, and that it's Jesus in the Holy Eucharist who offers it?

By the way, in case you want to read it, click for the Inquirer Article here