The Vatican, Polish press, and MSNBC are all reporting on the resignation of Abp. Stanisław Wielgus. He was to take possession of the Metropolitan See of Warsaw at 11am today (local time).
From the BBC: Warsaw archbishop ‘right to quit’
The Polish media has been having a field day with the scandal caused by the revelation that the soon to be Archbishop of Warsaw, Stanisław Wielgus, was a communist secret police informant.
Rather than call him Arcybiskup (the Archbishop), they have taken to calling him Arcykapuś (the arch-informer) See the Wiadomości news rundown (in Polish).
…or news of the bad. I think these things do not bode very well.
- Vatican embraces Wilde as ‘dazzling’ Catholic icon (he was dazzling in sequins and a boa).
- Embezzlement Is Found in Many Catholic Dioceses (let’s see, lots of money and you’re on your own… even the best would be tempted).
- Slovak Jews, Gypsies criticize [Roman] Catholic archbishop’s praise of pro-Nazi wartime regime (“Archbishop Jan Sokol said in a TV interview Tuesday that Tiso’s rule was a “time of well-being.”” unless of course you were a Jew or Roma).
Where is that Tridentine Rite by the way?
The Rev. Richard P. McBrien takes on the R.C. Bishop of Lincoln in What is Catholic Faith?
Seeing as Father McBrien is not everyones favorite theologian (or heretic as the case may be), lets see how fast this dissolves into R.C. internecine warfare.
I think he could have developed his thought and reasoning a little better, rather than resorting to populism, but he does make a point.
I never liked lustration, the process of outing former collaborators in formerly communist countries. I actually much prefer the South African truth and reconciliation process. This gets to the heart of the matter and if handled according to Christian ethics, is the best choice for moving forward. As a matter of fact, in some sense the Bush administration is going to have to backtrack on its de-Baathification process and get to truth and reconciliation in Iraq.
In Poland not a small number of clergy cooperated with the U.B. and S.B. (Communist secret police) To a certain extent the outing of their personal sins was perceived to be worse than cooperating with the communist devils. Men entering seminaries were often presented with dossiers on their ‘activities’. Afraid of embarrassment? Do as we say.
What sins? Sexual relationships with women or other men. Priests having ‘secret’ wives and children is quite rampant in Polish society. It is a frequent source of gossip and salon talk. While there were certainly homosexuals among the clergy, heterosexual scandal was the order of the day, going back 1,000 years. As to homosexuality, there hasn’t been much of a homosexual subculture in Polish seminaries until quite recently. The trend in Poland, according to my sources, has been the appointment of homosexual rectors in seminaries. This trend, and the results it produces, will probably save the Church from having to support women who have been, for all intents and purposes, victimized, and from supporting their children. There will be other problems of course.
The recent scandal involving Bishop Wielgus, soon to be installed Archbishop of Warsaw (and that which flows from it, the red hat, the title of Primate of Poland) is a case in point (see the NY Times article Ties to Secret Police Snare Polish Bishop).
Are we to believe that the communist secret police were able to turn him, all for the ‘advantage’ of studying in Germany? The Jagellonian University or KUL (Catholic University of Lublin) have excellent faculties. No need to go to Germany to study. What could have forced a Hobson’s choice on the young priest? I have friends who refused to turn when threatened with rape and death.
The problem is twofold.
The Church imposes a standard that many men cannot endure. The resulting personal and public scandal that results from breaking your ‘commitment’ and choosing God plus God in a personal relationship is too much for some men to bear. This is of course for those who accept personal responsibility. For some, their girlfriend is no more than a convenience and a prospective source for scandal, they are no more than users. I give a ton of credit to priests who seek out the PNCC because they want to lead honest and open lives, with their wives and children. The stories of women and children, victimized and scandalized by absentee priest-fathers and priest-husbands (common law) are many fold.
The other problem is that the deals made with the secret police will be a generational defect. Is revenge and punishment worth the cost to society? I can’t imagine it is. There are those who will bear ill will toward their victimizers forever. We should pray for their healing. Above that, I would hope that a society, with a concordat, that is supposed to be 98% Roman Catholic, get its perspective on repentance and forgiveness in proper order.
The title for this post is lead us not into temptation. The bureaucracy of the R.C. Church and the weakness of men, as well as of those seeking vengeance, are sources of temptation. The best thing to do is to find God’s way in accordance with the Catholic faith once practiced and believed by all. Set aside vengeance and live honestly and justly.
LifeSite News reports: Apostate Catholic Turned Muslim is “Acting Chair” of Religious Studies at Catholic University
Is same woman invited to address Canadian Catholic Women’s League convention last year
LifeSiteNews.com has learned that Dr. Alexandra Bain, the formerly Catholic turned-Muslim who mocked the doctrine of the Trinity at a Catholic Women’s League convention last year, is a professor and acting chairman of the Religious Studies department at Fredericton’s St. Thomas University.
LifeSiteNews.com was tipped by a leader of the CWL that Dr. Bain, even though she was an apostate Catholic, was the keynote speaker at a Catholic Women’s League Ontario convention. Asked why she left the Catholic faith, Bain told Catholic Women’s League members at their 2006 Provincial Convention on July 11, that simple arithmetic had told her the doctrine of the Trinity, the central tenet of Christianity, was nonsense.
St. Thomas University still bills itself as a Catholic liberal arts school, —whose roots are in the faith and tradition of the Roman Catholic Church…—
I guess she won’t be getting a mandatum…
According to Canon Law 812, university theologians are required to receive mandatum from the competent ecclesiastical authority, indicating that they will “teach in communion with the Catholic Church.”
Remembering the song from the Jazz Singer. We’re coming to America… Today!
Kind of makes you think of those immigrants coming to the golden shores of America… the land of ideals.
I have a feeling that regaining that status among the world’s poor and disaffected will take a very very long time.
FBI documents reveal details of abuse at Guantanamo
WASHINGTON, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) — A number of newly released FBI files give detailed accounts of abuses at the U.S. detention facilities for suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, CNN reported Wednesday.
The documents showed that at least 26 FBI employees witnessed aggressive mistreatment of prisoners and harsh interrogation techniques by other government agencies or outside contractors at the prison, according to the report.
“On several occasions witnesses saw detainees in interrogation rooms chained hand and foot in fetal position to floor with no chair/food/water; most urinated or defecated on selves and were left there 18, 24 hours or more,” according to one FBI account.
Today!
One FBI witness saw a detainee “shaking with cold,” while another said a detainee in a sweltering unventilated room was “almost unconscious on a floor with a pile of hair next to him (he had apparently been pulling it out through the night).”
Today!
Another witness saw a detainee “with a full beard whose head was wrapped in duct tape.”
Today!
One file said that an interrogator squatted over the Quran and that a German shepherd dog was ordered to “growl, bark and show his teeth to the prisoner.”
Today!
The documents also said the detainees told FBI agents that they had been beaten and one detainee complained that a female guard had rubbed up against him, fondled him and wiped menstrual blood on his head.
Today!
Agents reported seeing detainees with facial injuries, such as black eyes and cuts, and broken fingers.
Today!
The temperature of detention rooms was also kept either extremely hot or cold and loud music was played to deprive detainees of sleep.
Today!
A few agents said they had seen prisoners wrapped with Israeli flags.
Today!
The FBI said none of its agents were involved in the mistreatment, which it said was carried out by civilian security contractors or military personnel.
You have to ask yourself – does this represent me?
Not sure if anyone has been following the controversy over a Microsoft marketing ploy but here’s the short story. Microsoft sent certain bloggers an Acer Ferrari laptop (worth about $3k) with Windows Vista – absolutely free, some with, some without strings.
The blogsphere is all abuzz over the move. Media and some bloggers have blasted the bloggers who received the laptops as unethical PR people or journalists – because they got a marketing gimic with the Ferrari name pasted on it.
Brian Solis, principal of FutureWorks PR has a wrap-up in Microsoft PR Sparks a Blogstorm of Support and Outrage. Check it out.
Anyway, in my opinion, this dust-up is really nothing of concern. Top end bloggers have little need for free stuff. Free stuff is a nice perq, but has very little influence over anything. If a person can be bought for $3,000 then that propensity would have shown a lot sooner (along with their crack habit).
Bloggers range is style and in professionalism. Bloggers covering the daily antics of their cat(s) don’t really fancy themselves as journalists, but some of the high end serious bloggers do. Blogging has to do with defining yourself. While a $3,000 laptop might buy the admiration of your local cat blogger (or crack addict) – it really doesn’t do much for anyone who could drop that change on a new laptop anytime.
Microsoft got what it wanted, exposure and controversy. The rest of us can yawn and go back to sleep, Mac OS X Leopard will be out in the spring.
Oh, and pay no attention to that man with the Ferrari in the corner.
From Bloomberg: Manner of Hussein’s Execution Draws U.S., UN Concern
Jan. 3 (Bloomberg) — The U.S. would have carried out the execution of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein “differently” and didn’t play a role in the proceedings, a military spokesman said as two United Nations officials criticized his hanging.
Major General William Caldwell said at a news conference televised from Baghdad that the way Hussein was put to death was “a government of Iraq decision.”
A U.S. military team only transported Hussein to the site of his execution, and the Iraqi government maintained custody of the former leader throughout, Caldwell said. After delivering Hussein to the Iraqi Ministry of Justice’s As-Buratha prison, U.S. personnel “withdrew from the building, back from the whole location,” he added.
The grainy video of Hussein being taunted by chants from those present while about to be executed and the former leader falling to his death on the gallows in mid-prayer has sparked days of demonstrations by fellow Sunni Muslims in Iraq and further inflamed sectarian tensions.
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters in Washington today the U.S. raised “questions” with the Iraqi government “related to procedure and timing” of the execution…
I’m getting the feeling that we think we would have handled it so much more professionally, such that the execution wouldn’t have ended up bitter in President Bush’s mouth (as I said it would). I wonder how the general would have done it – firing squad, lethal injection, electric chair… Anything, as long as it wasn’t filmed and we could spin it the way we wanted.
All I could think of was that this general must be truly stupid – hey look everyone, we can kill much more cleanly, especially when we’re dealing with a prisoner.
No, you handed him over to an end that had already been determined. The general is simply playing Pilate – washing his hands of this man and his guilt and doing so on behalf of his Commander in Chief.
Fr. Jim Tucker points to the story of a soldier who actually used his brain and soul in What If They Threw a War and No One Showed Up?. First Lt. Ehren Watada took the time to discern what going along meant, before he went along. He’ll be severely punished for sure, but that’s the price he’s willing to pay for Christian witness.
On the other hand our ‘Christian-in-Chief,’ President Bush (at least according to him) can’t even muster the courage to criticize the brutality of it all:
The Bush administration sent conflicting signals Wednesday about the taunting and baiting that accompanied the execution, with the White House declining to join criticism of the procedure…
I’m sure they are very proud, especially of the outcome – which regardless of the methodology employed is equally deadly. And, yes Mr. Bush, we all agree that Saddam was an evil man and should have been punished for crimes against humanity, including the ones your and your predecessors helped him commit. But that story will die with the additional executions that will take place in the next 24 hours.
Regular readers Rafal and Adam have commented on my original LiŁ«dnas post.
Rafal in particular notes:
Does anyone keep statistics about how many RC churches have been closed in the United States in the past 20 years or so? I many areas that do not have a fresh supply of Catholics (immigrants) there seems to be a big number of them closed. How does that compare with number of PNCC parishes that have been closed/merged?
Rather than bury a long reply in the comments, I’m posting my reply here.
After some digging I found some information that speaks to Rafal’s question at Future Church. Future Church cites the source of the data as a study conducted by Georgetown University’s Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate. The study was primarily concerned with the declining number of R.C. priests and religious.
Just about every R.C. website and commentator with an agenda has used this data to make their case. For R.C. traditionalists these numbers are indicative of the damaged caused by Vatican II. For liberals and quasi-liberals like Call to Action, Voice of the Faithful, and Future Church the numbers indicate that the R.C. Church needs to foster further change.
Regardless of the agenda, the numbers do have a story to tell. Here are some highlights for the period between 1965 and 2003:
| Diocesan priests | -18.4830% |
| Religious priests | -36.8080% |
| Total priests | -25.5799% |
| Priestly ordinations | -55.6338% |
| Parishes | 8.1873% |
| Parishes w/o a resident priest | 453.7341% |
| Roman Catholic population | 39.0351% |
At first glance I see a declining number of priests, fewer vocations, more parishes, and more R.C. faithful. The combination of those factors plays out in huge increase in the number of parishes without a resident priest.
But lets scratch the surface a little.
There have always been unmanned parishes. In the 1960’s and prior they were the small rural parish, two or three nearby parishes in hamlets served by the same circuit-riding priest/pastor. The larger village or hamlet had the resident pastor and the smaller outlying town had a chapel. Sometimes these were seasonal parishes, serving an influx of vacationers in the summer. The 1965 count is probably a baseline for these types of parishes. This is not bad in and of itself.
The decrease in available priests, and the general aging of priests (see Latest Statistics on Priests) coupled with the increase in the number of Roman Catholics results in more parishes (+8%) and more understaffed parishes (+453%). That’s pretty obvious.
But you say, why more parishes? I hear about parish closings all the time.
I would say that the increase is the result of two things. First, the suburban build-out. There hasn’t been much discussion of Roman Catholic megachurches, but they do exist, right in your suburban community. The Hartford Institute for Religion Research gives a nod in this direction in The Definition of a Megachurch. I have two right near me. Christ the King and St. Madeline Sophie are within 8 miles of each other and probably pull in 2,000 to 4,000 people per parish per weekend. Our parish is often visited by people who need respite from the massive crowds. They feel they have lost the intimacy of their faith. Couple suburban build-out with the build-up of new R.C. parishes serving retirees in the Sunbelt and you can pretty quickly see the reason for the increase. Secondly, the effort to close R.C. parishes has been slow and painful. Closures have not overtaken building.
That will end. The 3,000 to 4,000 parishes without a resident priest will disappear. Dioceses such as Buffalo, Albany, Boston, Detroit, and New York have all undertaken multi-year restructuring reviews. They’ve taken a more-or-less business approach to the problems cited. From a business perspective they need to dump under performing assets and convert those assets into ready cash. In poor Rustbelt inner cities they will roll the parish properties to unsuspecting not-for-profits, preservationists, and inner city Evangelical or Muslim missions. In larger cities those parishes represent a dead asset sitting on property valued in the millions (see the case of Our Lady of Vilnius in New York City for an example – a Lithuanian immigrant landmark).
These closings, which are expected to be sweeping, will wipe out the growth trend and indicate where R.C. Church really is. I would expect a 4 to 5% net decrease in parishes in comparison to the 1965 baseline. The remaining parishes will be predominantly middle-class and suburban. Those folks will contribute to “Catholic Charities” to help their inner city neighbors, raising the drawbridge in the process. They might even contribute to the ‘missions’ in Africa and Asia, but will miss the missionary opportunity right in their own back yard.
Now there have certainly been PNCC closures and consolidations. The vast difference is that those closures and consolidations are bottom-up. The people of the parish decide and approach the Church with a plan, the hierarchy does not impose (or even suggest) a plan. That was Bishop Hodur’s vision – parishes that were self managing and accountable to the people in terms of their worldly possessions. You pay for it, you take care of it – to be a little crass.
What surprises me about organizations like Call to Action, Voice of the Faithful, and Future Church is that the PNCC offers them a ready made solution that meets 80 to 90% of their needs. If they seek accountability, input, a voice and a vote, and a married clergy, the PNCC offers it. If they want to manage their parish, have at it. Of course, they would have to agree with basic Catholic doctrine and teaching, and no, there won’t be women as priests and deacons or same-sex marriages or blessings, but if they desire Catholicism and democracy, the PNCC is the place.
To Rafal’s next point:
You should send letters to all the former parishioners of that parish inviting them to BVMC. I bet quite a few would come.
I would – but I really doubt that the Albany Diocese or the pastor over at St. John the Evangelist would give me the names and addresses.
I hurt for these people. I know that my childhood parish, the beautiful St. Casimir’s in Buffalo will probably close (three parishes within three miles of each other – St. Casimir’s being the oldest and hardest to maintain financially), as my father’s and grandfather’s did.
I imagine Ms. Richmere standing there next to the Lithuanian flag and the nativity scene all decked out in her Suvalkija costume saying —there’s nothing we can do about it.— At the age of 80 pray, pay, and obey was the mantra she learned. Change is difficult, and I find that people like her just stop going to church. Her children or relatives will bury her, perhaps without a church service, and she’ll be gone. I’ll remember her though – and all those disaffected and put out who said —there’s nothing we can do about it.— The sin is not their’s.
To Adam’s point:
…the PNCC would be more than able to take these people in or open the doors to a new parish. Sadly, Rome has probably scared them into submission.
Yes we would, but it takes a leap of faith. After 40, 50, 60, 70, or 80 years of following the Pope and R.C. teaching, it is easier to gripe and complain, but remain comfortably inside, than to change. I don’t think that they are scared into submission. How many R.C. Church members do you know who are scared of their pastor, bishop, or the Pope? That baby went out with the bath water around 1969. Rather they are just comfortable and complacent. It’s not where any person of faith should be.
This blog is a means to get the word out, and the seekers have come, have written to me, and do care about the Catholic faith. Our door is open and you are always welcome – Sveiki atvykę.