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Day: September 26, 2008

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Christian Witness, Current Events, PNCC, ,

From IWJ – Immigration through the Lens of Faith

From IWJ:

I would like to invite you to participate in IWJ’s “Immigration Through the Lens of Faith” training, which will take place November 9-11 in Chicago. This training is designed for staff and leaders of IWJ affiliates, religious or community outreach staff of unions, community services representatives, and organizing staff of faith-based organizations.

In the training, participants will learn how to:

  • deepen outreach to the religious and labor communities
  • provide a closer look at the intersection of worker justice and immigrant worker rights
  • implement examples of best practices around issues that effect immigrant workers and how to implement them
  • tackle the problem of wage theft and join IWJ’s national campaign to prevent it

To register contact Renaye Manley at 773-728-8400 x15 or visit the registration website. There are a limited number of spaces available.

Christian Witness, Perspective, Poland - Polish - Polonia, Political

An officer of the court?

George Weigel posits a question in a column from The Pilot: CAMPAIGN 2008: Marriage, civility, persecution

Will the Catholic Church have to get out of the civil marriage business (i.e., priests no longer serving as officers of the court for purposes of validating a marriage)? Will Catholic marriages in the United States eventually resemble marriages in, say, communist-era Poland: a sad joke of a civil ceremony, followed by the liturgical ceremony?

At least in Poland people were honest enough to stop at the civil step if that was all they wanted.

Frankly I hope that such a turn of events does occur. Clergy should not be “officers of the court” for any purpose. We do not represent earthly government, nor should we align ourselves, or encumber ourselves, with the requirements governments put upon us. We should use great care in not equating the sacrament of marriage with a legal contract between two people (which is all a civil marriage is)Should we require that every civil contract between Catholics be blessed in a church. Can you imagine the fees from the lawyers and consultants… They’d be lined up for miles..

Such a move, getting the government out of the Church’s sacrament and the Church out of the government’s business of contract oversight, would only serve to bring a greater level of honesty to the whole process. The Church and couples should be free from the hypocrisy of it all — freedom from the notion that the Church is only a way point for marriage, later for the baby naming ceremony, later for the funeral.

I have seen faith filled couples come to church because that’s where they want to be. I have also seen people go through the motions, lying to themselves and to the Church for months, just for the pretty ceremony — the one grandma wants. Tens of thousands of dollars for lies and shame. Money that could be saved if only they had stopped by the local court, put down $10, and signed a contract. That was all they really wanted. If the word ‘sacrament’ passed through their minds for more than a millisecond I’d be surprised.

Let’s not make churches “officers of the court” as part of an elaborate faí§ade – filled with pretense and business opportunities for wedding consultants. Let’s not make the Church a party to corruption. Let those who come to Church come freely. When they come they will find the doors open to them, doors that open to a lifetime of faith.

As an aside, no Mr. Weigel, you don’t need a government ‘ceremony.’ It can be as simple as putting pen to paper, signing off on a legal agreement as it were. Why play make believe?

Frankly I think Mr. Weigel is full of beans. He cannot see beyond John Paul/Poland shrine he has built to the stuff John Paul really believed in. God’s Kingdom and His Church are greater than human folly.

Christian Witness, Current Events, Perspective,

Awaiting the immanent collapse

The word from the NY Times: Talks Implode During Day of Chaos; Fate of Bailout Plan Remains Unresolved

The meeting opened with Mr. Paulson, the chief architect of the bailout plan, —giving a status report on the condition of the market,— Tony Fratto, Mr. Bush’s deputy press secretary, said. Mr. Fratto said Mr. Paulson warned in particular of the tightening of credit markets overnight, adding, —that is something very much on his mind.—

Matched against today’s word from the Word:

Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water, that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers. — Psalm 1:1-3 (RSV)

So let us meditate on and delight in the Lord – then shall we prosper.

Perspective, PNCC, Poland - Polish - Polonia, , ,

Light on history, heavy on propoganda

This article: Diocese’s recommended consolidations reflect move away from ethnic parishes, which appeared in The Citizens Voice was such a propaganda piece that I just had to comment.

The article attempts to give a history of Roman Catholic parishes in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania:

More than a century ago, a congregation of people of German heritage decided to start St. Boniface Parish in Wilkes-Barre. Parishioners previously had to travel down to the German parish, St. Nicholas on Washington Street, or go to one of the territorial parishes for Mass and school.

—Children had to cross railroad tracks to get to school; it was dangerous,— Brother DePorres Stilp said. —So they tried to make a new church here in the neighborhood.—

Stilp’s grandfather was one of the founding members, and for years the parish, which celebrated Mass in German and EnglishMore likely in Latin only – but he wouldn’t know that., was a center for the German Catholic community in the area.

Many of the national parishes in Luzerne County that are historically attended by people and practice traditions from one ethnic background grew up in this manner, according to the Rev. Hugh McGroarty, senior priest at St. John the Evangelist Parish in Pittston.

Fair enough. Then the article goes on to say:

The first immigrants to the area were mostly Irish, and they built Catholic parishes. However, when immigrants from other areas of Europe came, many lived in the same communities and wanted to worship with people who spoke their languages and shared their culture…

Are they saying that Irish = Catholic? That sets the tone for this:

So the Catholic Church gave many of these groups of immigrants national parishes, and made the parishes built by the Irish territorial so anyone in the area could attend.

—There’s no Irish church,— McGroarty said. —There was one church in the area, and so the Polish made their own. And the Slovaks came in, and so on. The other church, which they called Irish, was for everyone.—

The problem of course was that the area church was Irish – right Fr. McGroarty. You had to fit in or get out. They didn’t want the Poles, or Slovaks, or Ukrainians, or Italians. You wore green, spoke English, and worshiped St. Patrick like a good “Catholic” or you got out.

I like the way he implies that these other nationalities were “given” parishes while the Irish parish was the Catholic one. Does that mean that the Poles, etc. had a slightly less than Catholic parish, and the the only truly Catholic parish was the Irish one? Is that because Irish = universal?

What a bad retelling of history. These industrial and mining towns didn’t have homogeneous R.C. parishes. You either fit with the crowd in the Irish parish or you did not. The Poles wouldn’t give in, and wouldn’t turn their assets over the the local [Irish] R.C. bishop as demanded of them (no one was “given” a church) thus in part the genesis for the PNCC.

Later in the article Fr. McGroarty says:

Many parishes held on to their roots, but, McGroarty said, there aren’t nearly as many traditions and ethnic bonds as in the past.

—There isn’t that much,— he said. —The tradition is with the old people.—

I guess you ought to cancel the St. Patrick’s Day parade Father, and dump the corn beef and cabbage down the Susquehanna — it’s only for the old folks anyway. Tradition is only for the old? Kind of like the all that funny old Catholic stuff like devotions, the Traditional form of the Holy Mass, etc.? Sorry Father but those are all things the PNCC hasn’t had to rediscover (í  la Benedict XVI) because we retained them – because we listened to the people. The Church’s Tradition is universal, consistent, and is for all people.

Fathers, PNCC

September 26 – St. Gregory of Nyssa from the Great Catechism

A patient, to be healed, must be touched; and humanity had to be touched by Christ. It was not in “heaven”; so only through the Incarnation could it be healed. —” It was, besides, no more inconsistent with His Divinity to assume a human than a “heavenly” body; all created beings are on a level beneath Deity. Even “abundant honor” is due to the instruments of human birth. — Chapters XXVII., XXVIII.

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