The new pastor at St. Elizabeth of Hungary, Steven O'Hala, was (and still is) a professor at a seminary before being assigned to this parish as its priest. As I understand it, this is his first job at a parish. He is doing a conscientious job and undertook a parish survey to assess the needs and moods of the congregation. The results shed light on the difficulties of trying to build a parish when there are so many cultural and linguistic differences.
One major issue is holiday masses on Christmas, Easter and Maundy Thursday. It is logistically impossible to schedule separate masses for each language group in one church. There can only be one midnight mass on Christmas Eve. As a result, holy day masses are often tri-lingual, a solution that satisfies virtually no one. For me as an English speaker, this means that Christmas mass, whose music and liturgy I love, loses two-thirds of its meaning, because it is conducted in languages I don't understand. I have resolved this problem for myself by attending these services at another church. No doubt other church members are quietly doing the same thing.
The language difficulty is a good argument for a return to the Latin mass. Of course, no one understands it any more, if they ever did, but that problem could be solved through proper education.
Mass scheduling is the visible tip of what seems to be a much larger iceberg. One of the major differences between Catholics and Protestants is that Catholics place a higher value on community. A language barrier and its attendant divisions are more painful to faithful Catholics than it would be to Protestants. Because I was raised Protestant, I didn't notice any sense of division at all and, on an emotional level, have a hard time understanding the strong reactions many people have to this issue. Cradle Catholics, on the other hand, are very aware of this issue. Those people most active in the church are the ones most distressed by it.
Other concerns include an increase in vandalism and thefts of small items from the parish kitchen that are blamed on some members of the Haitian community. I hasten to add that I have taught hundreds of Haitian students and have found most to be scrupulously honest.
Most distressing to me was Father O'Hala's statement that some of the comments on the survey were so hostile they had to be "sanitized." O'Hala expressed shock that these unloving remarks would be made in a Christian community. This people in the church are generally accepting of cultural differences and willing to give money to help people of different races. If this church has problems with multiculturalism, there is even less hope for te rest of America, which may not share the general ethos of love of neighbor and the view of charity as an ethical requirement.
As an aside, the pastoral team we have now is the best it has been since Father Gabriel Vigues left. He went to the church that used to be pastored by the priest who was photographed snuggling on the beach with a woman. After him, we had an administrator who was, unbeknownst to us, going through the laicization process. His loss of interest in the priesthood showed in his attitude and we had a strained relationship. Now however, the church has the leadership it should have. In spite of the difficulties, this church is a much better place than it was and will continue to improve under Father O'Hala and Father Bellonce.
Monday, November 21, 2011
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Sex Scandals, Again
Last night, I came across a some posts about sex scandals in the Archdiocese of Miami. I am not going to link to it because I don't want to further smear the name of a priest who doesn't deserve it. The general idea is that while this priest was a seminarian, the openly gay head of the seminary made him "his boy," and would spend hours gawking at him and photographing him as he worked out in the weight room.
There is no evidence that the seminarian, now a pastor, has ever molested a child, sexually harassed anyone, or misappropriated church funds. He did not deserve to be "outed" as a gay man, if in fact he is. In fact, it may be that he was being sexually harassed. However, the tone of the article implies the former.
His name became known as part of an investigation conducted by a group calling itself Christifidelis. If what they report is correct, they acted properly in investigating and unearthing corruption at the top levels of the Archdiocese. Many of the people named were apparently guilty of flagrant wrongdoing, including sexually harassing seminarians and channeling church funds to lovers.
However, the priest I am referring to did not deserve to have his name made public. If indeed he is at fault in some way, this should have been handled privately with his spiritual director and his confessor. There is a fine line between an investigation and a witchhunt, and naming this man crossed that line. I believe James in his epistle exhorts us to confront people with their faults privately and with due humility because we too are fallible and liable to temptation. In their zeal to defend one tenet of Catholic teaching, it seems to me that this group violated another, more important one.
On the other hand, there is much about their report that addresses issues that should be made public. Apparently, the culture of seminaries in South Florida is so openly gay that straight men find the environment uncomfortable, if not hostile. Apparently, more conservative dioceses stopped sending their seminarians here for that reason. It is hard enough for a young man to embrace celibacy without being in the company of people who openly flout the requirement.
The members of Christifidelis should remember that many gay priests are rendering compassionate, sensitive pastoral care to their parishioners and Catholic life in Florida would be poorer without them. I don't believe that in the decade since my conversion that I have ever met an American-born man who entered the priesthood as a young adult and that was trained in this diocese who was straight. To the best of my knowledge, they have all been gay. (The exceptions are men who were born abroad, men who entered the priesthood later in life, and men who were trained in other parts of the country.) The diocese could not run without its gay priests. Chasing gay men out of the priesthood would result in the closure of churches and the denial of sacraments to the faithful.
There is no evidence that the seminarian, now a pastor, has ever molested a child, sexually harassed anyone, or misappropriated church funds. He did not deserve to be "outed" as a gay man, if in fact he is. In fact, it may be that he was being sexually harassed. However, the tone of the article implies the former.
His name became known as part of an investigation conducted by a group calling itself Christifidelis. If what they report is correct, they acted properly in investigating and unearthing corruption at the top levels of the Archdiocese. Many of the people named were apparently guilty of flagrant wrongdoing, including sexually harassing seminarians and channeling church funds to lovers.
However, the priest I am referring to did not deserve to have his name made public. If indeed he is at fault in some way, this should have been handled privately with his spiritual director and his confessor. There is a fine line between an investigation and a witchhunt, and naming this man crossed that line. I believe James in his epistle exhorts us to confront people with their faults privately and with due humility because we too are fallible and liable to temptation. In their zeal to defend one tenet of Catholic teaching, it seems to me that this group violated another, more important one.
On the other hand, there is much about their report that addresses issues that should be made public. Apparently, the culture of seminaries in South Florida is so openly gay that straight men find the environment uncomfortable, if not hostile. Apparently, more conservative dioceses stopped sending their seminarians here for that reason. It is hard enough for a young man to embrace celibacy without being in the company of people who openly flout the requirement.
The members of Christifidelis should remember that many gay priests are rendering compassionate, sensitive pastoral care to their parishioners and Catholic life in Florida would be poorer without them. I don't believe that in the decade since my conversion that I have ever met an American-born man who entered the priesthood as a young adult and that was trained in this diocese who was straight. To the best of my knowledge, they have all been gay. (The exceptions are men who were born abroad, men who entered the priesthood later in life, and men who were trained in other parts of the country.) The diocese could not run without its gay priests. Chasing gay men out of the priesthood would result in the closure of churches and the denial of sacraments to the faithful.
Monday, November 14, 2011
Pedophilia Again
This time, not in the church but at Penn State. But a similar story. Abuse covered up from a combination of ignorance about the irreparable damage caused by sexual abuse and a desire to protect the football program.
For what it's worth, I think people are coming down too hard on Paterno. He had no first-hand evidence, only hearsay, which is legally worthless. The eyewitness, McQueary, was the person who should have contacted the police. And why should a 28-year-old college graduate need his head coach to tell him to call the police when a child was being raped? Could he not think of that himself?
My guess is another part of the reason no one called the police is that the U.S. prison system is brutal and it is one thing to see anonymous criminals go through it and another to see someone you know and like do the same. Perhaps that explains by O.J., Robert Blake, and Michael Jackson were all acquitted of murder or sexual abuse. The jurors felt they knew them and couldn't bear to lock them up for life.
A friend of mine at the church says "We are all driving broken machines." I think that comes from C.S. Lewis. Jerry Sandusky is one such person. While it is fashionable to heap opprobrium on pedophiles, I ca't help but wonder why he had this urge. Abuse in his own childhood? Some bizarre epileptic disorder? I also can't help but wonder if our hatred of him is a way of taking attention off of our own often-flawed sexuality.
The man should never be on the streets again, but the rest of his life will be hell and I don't feel good about that.
This is also a lesson to be wary of do-gooders.
Years ago, I met a priest I half-suspect of pedophilia. I don't have any evidence of any kind and his parishioners loved him. I just have a sense that he is a gay man who pays too much attention to women and that he is using them as a "beard," so to speak, in order to cover up something more troubling. He was one of those professional do-gooders too.
For what it's worth, I think people are coming down too hard on Paterno. He had no first-hand evidence, only hearsay, which is legally worthless. The eyewitness, McQueary, was the person who should have contacted the police. And why should a 28-year-old college graduate need his head coach to tell him to call the police when a child was being raped? Could he not think of that himself?
My guess is another part of the reason no one called the police is that the U.S. prison system is brutal and it is one thing to see anonymous criminals go through it and another to see someone you know and like do the same. Perhaps that explains by O.J., Robert Blake, and Michael Jackson were all acquitted of murder or sexual abuse. The jurors felt they knew them and couldn't bear to lock them up for life.
A friend of mine at the church says "We are all driving broken machines." I think that comes from C.S. Lewis. Jerry Sandusky is one such person. While it is fashionable to heap opprobrium on pedophiles, I ca't help but wonder why he had this urge. Abuse in his own childhood? Some bizarre epileptic disorder? I also can't help but wonder if our hatred of him is a way of taking attention off of our own often-flawed sexuality.
The man should never be on the streets again, but the rest of his life will be hell and I don't feel good about that.
This is also a lesson to be wary of do-gooders.
Years ago, I met a priest I half-suspect of pedophilia. I don't have any evidence of any kind and his parishioners loved him. I just have a sense that he is a gay man who pays too much attention to women and that he is using them as a "beard," so to speak, in order to cover up something more troubling. He was one of those professional do-gooders too.
Emmaus Retreat
During the first weekend of November, I (finally) attended the Emmaus retreat for women. The women who ran the retreat put so much love, thought, and effort into it that it was impossible not to be touched. It is impossible to describe the details because of the firm rule that what goes on in Emmaus stays in Emmaus. Also, I wouldn't want to spoil the surprise for anyone taking it at a later time. Anyone going should approach it without preconceptions in order to appreciate it fully.
I keep hoping that Jesus will suddenly reveal himself to me and that I will believe wholeheartedly, but that didn't happen. However, I did get a deeper understanding of what Christianity at its best could be when I remembered a passage from the Colossians about all things being in Christ and Christ working to reconcile all things unto himself. A friend, a rabbi, defined mysticism as the belief that there are no separate experiences and I guess I had a mystical experience because I felt and longed for that unity in Christ and perhaps experienced it for a flickering minute. However, after returning to normal life, it is hard to hang on to that insight. But for that moment, I felt that everything I had done wrong and everything wrong that had been done to me would somehow be reconciled in Jesus.
I keep hoping that Jesus will suddenly reveal himself to me and that I will believe wholeheartedly, but that didn't happen. However, I did get a deeper understanding of what Christianity at its best could be when I remembered a passage from the Colossians about all things being in Christ and Christ working to reconcile all things unto himself. A friend, a rabbi, defined mysticism as the belief that there are no separate experiences and I guess I had a mystical experience because I felt and longed for that unity in Christ and perhaps experienced it for a flickering minute. However, after returning to normal life, it is hard to hang on to that insight. But for that moment, I felt that everything I had done wrong and everything wrong that had been done to me would somehow be reconciled in Jesus.
Saturday, November 12, 2011
A Christmas Poem
Since the Christmas season is approaching, I thought I would post this poem about the first Christmas.
An Untimely Birth
Moved with pity for her frail humanity,
He took her, on the day of the other nuptials,
Its virgin bride and her wedding party clothed
In linen finery, her face chastely veiled,
While his covered her belly with the coarse jalabiya
She had fashioned herself on the drop spindle.
The joyful klililililili in the streets
Echoed in the silence of his house.
Four parents ate together wordlessly
Before hers departed, leaving her to her new fate.
Mornings, when she drew water from the well,
Villagers—all two hundred of them—
Averted their heads while pointing at her with their eyes.
Then, a respite. Her cousin, twice removed—
And a hundred miles removed in space—
Received them in a place where no one knew
Their wedding date. She was simply
Another bride of another itinerant and jobless artisan
In an occupied land seeking the succor of kin.
During the barley harvest, they moved on yet again,
First to Jerusalem and then to Bethlehem,
Returning to ancestral lands to glean enough
To discharge their debt to temple and state and,
If the expected offspring were male,
To redeem her firstborn from the priests.
There, in the stinking stable on her childbed of shame,
She longed for the redemption promised
By Daniel after the seventy sevens had elapsed,
Daring to hope this child,
In whom David and Aaron were met,
Would reconcile her, and this.
She stirred awake when Shepherds' sun-coarsened hands
Reached out to hold Bethlehem's newest son
Until, quietly, they arose and left.
Returning home, they told their wives,
For the next thing the mother in the stable heard
Was village women’s joyful ululating: klililililili.
An Untimely Birth
Moved with pity for her frail humanity,
He took her, on the day of the other nuptials,
Its virgin bride and her wedding party clothed
In linen finery, her face chastely veiled,
While his covered her belly with the coarse jalabiya
She had fashioned herself on the drop spindle.
The joyful klililililili in the streets
Echoed in the silence of his house.
Four parents ate together wordlessly
Before hers departed, leaving her to her new fate.
Mornings, when she drew water from the well,
Villagers—all two hundred of them—
Averted their heads while pointing at her with their eyes.
Then, a respite. Her cousin, twice removed—
And a hundred miles removed in space—
Received them in a place where no one knew
Their wedding date. She was simply
Another bride of another itinerant and jobless artisan
In an occupied land seeking the succor of kin.
During the barley harvest, they moved on yet again,
First to Jerusalem and then to Bethlehem,
Returning to ancestral lands to glean enough
To discharge their debt to temple and state and,
If the expected offspring were male,
To redeem her firstborn from the priests.
There, in the stinking stable on her childbed of shame,
She longed for the redemption promised
By Daniel after the seventy sevens had elapsed,
Daring to hope this child,
In whom David and Aaron were met,
Would reconcile her, and this.
She stirred awake when Shepherds' sun-coarsened hands
Reached out to hold Bethlehem's newest son
Until, quietly, they arose and left.
Returning home, they told their wives,
For the next thing the mother in the stable heard
Was village women’s joyful ululating: klililililili.
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Link to Post on Troubled Priest
A number of months ago, I wrote a post on a troubled priest whose parishioners forced him out of his church. Recently, I met a woman who attends the church and she told me she sometimes felt like God was punishing the congregation for the shabby way it treated the former priest. The new priest is a hard man, inflexible and opinionated. Many people are unhappy. The deacon, a good one, left in part because of difficulties with this priest, although there were other reasons as well. Several people have left as they no longer feel comfortable there. I stopped going after the first month he was there because he had a habit of joking about the physical appearance of women. These were not compliments, but jokes. Trust me, women do not like jokes about their physical appearance.
We should have been happy with the priest we had.
A number of months ago, I wrote a post on a troubled priest whose parishioners forced him out of his church. Recently, I met a woman who attends the church and she told me she sometimes felt like God was punishing the congregation for the shabby way it treated the former priest. The new priest is a hard man, inflexible and opinionated. Many people are unhappy. The deacon, a good one, left in part because of difficulties with this priest, although there were other reasons as well. Several people have left as they no longer feel comfortable there. I stopped going after the first month he was there because he had a habit of joking about the physical appearance of women. These were not compliments, but jokes. Trust me, women do not like jokes about their physical appearance.
We should have been happy with the priest we had.
Women's Emmaus Retreat
If there is an Emmaus retreat for women in your area, you may want to consider going. The care and concern of the women who put on the retreat was a reflection of Christianity at its best.
It is impossible to describe the event for two reasons:
1. To protect the confidentiality of women who opened their hearts and shared intimate details of their lives, retreatants are asked to never disclose what was spoken about.
2. To describe the programming would be to ruin the experience for future retreatants, who will enjoy it more if it is a surprise, and if they approach the experience without preconceptions.
I went because I wanted to be closer to Jesus, who is a hard figure for me. One of the reasons he is a hard figure is that so many non-Christians have suffered so much at the hands of Christians. I don't blame Jesus personally, but this history has made me reluctant to embrace his religion.
During the retreat, I suddenly remembered a line from T.S. Eliot's quartet "Burnt Norton" about the boars and boarhounds, natural enemies, becoming reconciled in the stars. From there, I remembered the verse in Colossians, 1: 20, I believe, about Jesus reconciling all things in himself through his death on the cross.
This was a passage that spoke to my sense of remorse about the many sins and failures of my life and gave me hope that God, in his mercy, will reconcile all of this in some way I don't understand.
The other part of the retreat I liked was that I discussed my doubts about Jesus and, quite randomly, received a verse about receiving whatever I pray for if I have faith. I have a big dream for a way of helping troubled young people and need major funding. This has given me enough encouragement to seek this type of assistance
It is impossible to describe the event for two reasons:
1. To protect the confidentiality of women who opened their hearts and shared intimate details of their lives, retreatants are asked to never disclose what was spoken about.
2. To describe the programming would be to ruin the experience for future retreatants, who will enjoy it more if it is a surprise, and if they approach the experience without preconceptions.
I went because I wanted to be closer to Jesus, who is a hard figure for me. One of the reasons he is a hard figure is that so many non-Christians have suffered so much at the hands of Christians. I don't blame Jesus personally, but this history has made me reluctant to embrace his religion.
During the retreat, I suddenly remembered a line from T.S. Eliot's quartet "Burnt Norton" about the boars and boarhounds, natural enemies, becoming reconciled in the stars. From there, I remembered the verse in Colossians, 1: 20, I believe, about Jesus reconciling all things in himself through his death on the cross.
This was a passage that spoke to my sense of remorse about the many sins and failures of my life and gave me hope that God, in his mercy, will reconcile all of this in some way I don't understand.
The other part of the retreat I liked was that I discussed my doubts about Jesus and, quite randomly, received a verse about receiving whatever I pray for if I have faith. I have a big dream for a way of helping troubled young people and need major funding. This has given me enough encouragement to seek this type of assistance
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