Prayer Breakfast report

Just got back from the Illinois Catholic Prayer Breakfast.
Mass was celebrated bright and early by Bishop Thomas Paprocki, the newly-appointed bishop of Springfield. He announced that he had chosen the date of his installation to coincide with the feast of the English martyrs John Fisher (bishop) and Thomas More (patron of politicians and lawyers). Bishop Paprocki is a lawyer himself, both in civil law (he established legal clinics here in Chicago for the poor) and in Canon Law. He figured that the example of the two martyrs would speak volumes at a time like this!
At the breakfast itself, the "Simply Catholic" award was given to Rep. Dan Lipinski, especially for his defense of human life in saying "I'm not in" when pressured to vote in favor of the Senate health reform bill. The keynote speaker was the bishop of Oakland, CA, Bishop Salvatore Cordileone. He spoke about his experience with California's "Proposition 8" (upholding the definition of marriage) and on the ecumenical action behind the vote.
Among other things, the bishop commented that "we Catholics do not fit conveniently into any political pigeonhole. This is what it means to be 'simply Catholic'." (The expression "simply Catholic" comes from Cardinal George's book, "The Difference God Makes.") The bishop commented about how much he learned, and how inspired he was, by the Evangelicals' practice of fasting: the entire initiative upholding Proposition 8 was spiritual, with a commitment to extended fasting and prayer (40 days without let up, sustained only on an evening dish of soup). "This is a new ecumenical moment": Catholics, Evangelicals and Latter Day Saints were united in the effort, recognizing that "this is an issue that defines civilization." Even though it is, Cordileone said, "not our role as bishops to play a part in the political process, we do have to support our lay people," and sometimes that means helping to educate them, and "make them aware of what is at stake." (I think that many times Catholics who do not "accept all that the Church teaches" do not realize that they are probably pretty uncritical in accepting all that the wider culture teaches, so that their Catholic identity is more cultural/emotional than adult. Why do they think it is mature to reject "what the Church teaches" when they do not question what they see around them?)
Among young adults (who demographically are more likely to be ambivalent about the definition of marriage, and who may believe that restricting marriage to one man and one woman is "discrimination"), the realization that "children need a father and a mother" is the most effective way to put forward the foundational notion of marriage.
"There will be a price to pay. People will be punished" for their efforts on behalf of marriage and the sanctity of life, the bishop said, giving examples of people who suffered retaliation for their support of Proposition 8: jobs lost, death threats, assaults, blatant religious bigotry (especially against the Mormons).
"These two ideas of marriage are incompatible... It's not 'live and let live'...only one definition can be left standing." Just as labor was the "burning issue" in the time of Pope Leo XIII, marriage and the family is the critical issue of our time.
The bishop's talk was projected on big screens for those of us on the outer edges of the room; perhaps it was also video-taped. I hope so!

Windy City!

I thought I would take a walk this afternoon, to enjoy the sunshine and the warm temps, and then get back to work, putting the finishing touches on my talk for the First Saturday Retreat at the Cathedral in St. Paul, MN (anybody coming?). The wind had other ideas. It had already smashed row after row of tulip to the ground in the flowerbeds in front of the Prudential tower, and from an apartment building garden, mulch was skittering down Michigan Avenue like urban tumbleweed. Along with the traffic came two full sheets of the Chicago Tribune, threatening to plaster the legs of some unwary pedestrian. It was all anyone could do to place one foot firmly in front of the other anyway!
I crossed the street, dropped an envelope into the mailbox (a little something on Chicago's bird migration status for my ten-year-old niece) and gave up my plans for a walk.
There's a turkey in the oven, to welcome our Korean visitors with something representative. And I have an experimental kind of multi-grain stuffing going: brown rice, croutons that were ground almost to dust, and quinoa. You know how they say not to try something new when you have company? Don't. Now I'm soaking some craisins in orange juice to make cranberry sauce, just to help the stuffing along.
Tomorrow we head out early (early!) to the Illinois Catholic Prayer Breakfast (thankfully, it is only a block away this year!). This was the event that was supposed to have Bart Stupak as a keynote speaker. Until he, you know. Anyway, things rev up at 6:15 with the recitation of the Rosary. We have a little book and media display to set up, and Sr. Helena (who just got back from MN) hopes to play our Father Alberione movie trailer in a loop for all to see. After the event, I have an hour or two to get my things together and hop the Orange Line to Midway; hopefully I'll be in MN before the predicted severe storms arrive in Chi-town. (I wonder...where are the severe storms coming from?)

Preparing a welcome

We're dusting one of our tiny rooms upstairs, getting ready to welcome a new sister to Chicago. I'll introduce her to you as soon as I've met her myself. So far, all I know is that her name is Sr Julia (not this Sr Julia) and that she is from Korea, coming here to polish up her English skills at the language school near us. Sr Julia will be about the sixth or seventh Korean Daughter of St. Paul to stay with us in Chicago for an extended period of time (we don't know how long her stay is projected to be). I am looking forward to introducing her to the marvels of this quintessential American city and its unceasing sequence of summer festivals.
Sr Julia arrives Thursday with longtime missionary, Sr. Gemma, as part of our Korean province's annual visit to the diaspora: Korean Catholic communities scattered across America.

Coming Around

I was never really a big devotee of St. Anthony. Lost items? For me, it was never, "Tony, Tony, please come 'round; something's lost and must be found!" I usually turned to my Guardian Angel, to whom I have assigned the familiar and comforting name of...Guardian Angel. But lately I have been coming around to St. Anthony.
Today I was preparing a set of documents for mailing, and realized with a start that one of them was missing from the batch. I remember when this document came to me; I remember being very careful with it. I could not remember where in God's green earth it was if it wasn't in the batch with the others. I took the documents out, page by page. No. Went to my room, where I had opened the mail the day the missing document came in. Checked the trash can in my room. No. Checked the trash can in my office. No. Went down to my mail slot and through a bin of odds and ends I keep handy in the refectory (dining room). No and No. But the dining room jaunt brought something else to my attention, so I went upstairs to deposit it (in a safe place). Back in my office, I looked around again, picking up piles of paper that are waiting to be filed or acted on, checking the glass table of the flatbed scanner...
Finally, I turned to St. Anthony. "Anthony, this is a really important document. Please help me find it."
The spiritual equivalent of a friendly tap on the shoulder prompted me to look by my keyboard, under my appointment calendar.

I'm a believer!

Good Shepherd Sunday

It's the World Day of Prayer for Vocations, which usually means prayer for "more" vocations (or more correspondence, might be more like it). But my prayer this year is tending toward the people we in religious life refer to with the most unfortunate title, "formator." This would mean anyone in a role like seminary spiritual teacher, director or rector, or (in religious communities) postulant or novice director, and guides for members in temporary vows, and for those preparing for final vows.
What a delicate role they have! They are entrusted with introducing new members to a community, guiding them in the spirituality of the congregation, in the way of living consecrated life, the mission, and helping them, through it all, to fully discern God's call, so that people who do not actually have a vocation to consecrated life (or to that particular charism) are not allowed to go ahead year after year, struggling to conform to something that just doesn't "match." And how much people (and congregations, and the Church) suffer when the formators themselves are unwise or unbalanced--something that has certainly happened more than once or twice in the history of the Church!
So on this Good Shepherd Sunday, my prayers go, yes, for "more" vocations: more in number, more fervent, more surrendered to God, but also for those who are expected, and counted on, to be their principal points of reference along the way of giving themselves to God and the People of God.

Into the deep

Chatting with my niece last week as we played with her toddler, I heard a touching story from the toddler play school. Leah, my great-niece, is 18 months old.  Last week it was Daddy's day off, so he brought her to play school where she practices concepts like "up" "down" and "around" with other tiny kids. Suddenly, a little boy ran to Ronnie and clung to him like nobody's business. The boy's mother came over, a little embarrassed. "He thinks you're his daddy." Turns out the little boy's daddy wears his sunglasses "down" and sports a two-day beard like my niece's husband. God bless Ronnie, he held the boy and played with him the whole session. It was heartbreaking for him to hear the child wail when the time came for him to be buckled into his car seat. "Daddy works on an oil rig," she explained. "We only see him every couple of months."
I couldn't help pray for that young family, and that tiny boy, when I heard the story last week. Oilmen's families know the risks, but they're glad to have a job that pays well. But every time daddy goes to work, I'm sure the mommies say an extra prayer that they'll be safe. And now, with eleven rig workers missing somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico, I am praying even more for them and for the other families who are in the worst limbo this life has to offer. With the rig itself now sunk, and oil everywhere, how long will it be before they have some solid news?
I e-mailed my brother (his legal specialization is insurance involving oil rigs) for his take on the event; he's out of the office. No surprise there.

Easter Readings

Last week my brother brought his two little girls (6 and 4) to Mom's. Doing duty as a swing-pusher in the backyard, I chatted with the six-year-old, and said something about Easter lasting 50 days. Kate turned and looked at me with a skeptical eye. "Is that true?" she said. "Is what true?" "That Easter lasts 50 days."
"Sure is."
And so it is in the readings for this season. The weekday lectionary takes us, on the one hand, to the first days of the post-Pentecost Church, and on the other, to the early days of Jesus' preaching ministry. In the one, the Church's missionary experiences and growing pains, in the other, the promise of the Bread of Life that will keep the Church alive through it all. And in today's passages, both Acts and John refer back to the prophets, telling us that this was all prepared well in advance. Nothing we face today, nothing, falls outside of God's saving providence.
Easter lasts...even more than 50 days!

I spent all day yesterday traveling back to Chicago (and then recovering from the travel experience)...
Monday evening, the family members who could dropped by for supper. Mom and I left them with the dishes so we could attend a talk at Loyola. I had really been looking forward to it, hoping to gain some new insights and perspectives on evangelization and the renewal of the Church. After all, the title was “A More Evangelical Catholicism.” Just what we need, I thought to myself, a really Gospel-centered, Gospel-inspired renewal of the Church in America! Unfortunately, that is not what the speaker had in mind at all.
I found the overall presentation unimaginative and uninspiring. I don't know whether the speaker was playing to the house or what, but his attempts at humor were lame and unoriginal, and he really offered no positive, concrete suggestions as to how to bring about a more evangelical Catholicism as an answer to the dire statistics he had recited. The “evangelical” he was referring to wasn't Gospel-centeredness in itself, either; he meant it as referring to the American Evangelical Protestant experience of a powerful, personal relationship with Jesus coming from a pivotal moment of encounter. (He acknowledged that the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius were intended to provide just such an encounter.) Over and over he made the point that “this is the hour for the laity” to “take control of the Church”; for the Church to recognize lay charisms; the risk of a new clericalism and the disadvantages of importing foreign-born priests to provide the sacraments to a community which currently has one priest for every 5,000 Catholics. Well, yes. But he left unspoken what that would mean.
The audience proposed the “obvious” solution of ordaining women and married men. As one elderly priest commented (to the clear delight of many), “When is the Pope going to get off his duff and ordain women?”  Clearly, this is a “no-brainer” solution to the numbers question; the only question is how a Pope who is universally recognized as a “stratospheric intellect” can't grasp it.
Regarding the ordination of married men, the speaker claimed that priestly celibacy was virtually invented and imposed in the Middle Ages. Helpfully, a priest in the audience gave the date as the First Lateran Council (1127), skipping over the Councils of Elvira (for Spain) in 306 and Nicea in 325, both of which enjoined the strictest continence even on married clergy. Never mind the Council of Carthage (about 400) which called this a tradition “taught by the apostles and observed from antiquity.”  The speaker then jumped to the amazing conclusion that until the First Lateran Council, we had a married priesthood--as if the understanding of what that meant was identical with our contemporary vision, so influenced by the practice of the Reformation communities. (This strikes me as intellectually lazy or even dishonest.)
And why this focus on ordination? If “this is the hour of the laity,” why is the solution to ordain more priests? And if it is vital that the Church recognize lay charisms, shouldn't the academics recognize the charisms that have already borne fruit on an international scale in recent decades? I brought this up myself; it seemed odd that such vital movements as Focolare and Communion and Liberation should be passed over in silence, especially given their lay nature, officially recognized status, and great influence. The presenter admitted that these movements are characterized by a strong personal experience of Jesus that sets members on fire. Too bad their numbers are so small, he indicated,  as to make them basically negligible. (Is it a numbers game, then?)

Busy on Vacation!

So if you noticed the neglect here... Friday evening I brought Mom and my godmother to the French Quarter for a fabulous concert at the Historic New Orleans Collection: the Preservation Hall Hot 4 played for almost two hours in one of those lovely old courtyards (video coming!). My brother and his wife met us there and took us out to dinner afterwards at one of the Brennan family's many restaurants. (Yes, it was wonderful; you can't have a bad meal in New Orleans!) Tonight, I am taking Mom and my godmother to Loyola for a lecture by Fordham Prof Fr. Mark Mossa, SJ (one of TWO Jesuit Father Mark Mossas!) on the topic "A More Evangelical Catholicism: What the American Catholic Community Needs Now." From the title alone, I find myself in wholehearted agreement! Will let you know (tomorrow? Maybe not; I'll be traveling back to Chicago). And here on the table I have a photo (you'll see it eventually) snapped by my godmother of New Orleans hero Drew Brees with his wife as the King and Queen of the Bacchus parade. My godmother keeps a dozen or so copies at a time in her purse and invites people to donate $1 to her favorite missionary (an elderly Swiss Jesuit in India).
I think I'll write about him soon, too!

A bracing call

The Holy Father made some spontaneous comments today alluding to the current abuse crisis; the setting was rather unlikely (a Mass with the exegetes of the Pontifical Biblical Commission), but the remarks were quite on point, and really bring us back to the very first words of the Gospel: Repent and believe!

“We Christians, even in recent times, have often avoided the word 'penance,' which seemed too harsh to us. Now, under the attacks of the world that speaks to us of our sins, we see that being able to do penance is a grace.”

The Pope's words are a recall to a source of spiritual vigor: a bracing sense of penance. Imagine if this had been active in, if not the sick perpetrators of abuse, at least in their immediate superiors, who might then have had the courage, based on virtue, to deal vigorously with the evil in their midst?

Predictably, where the Holy Father is addressing the spiritual roots of the crisis, those who expect him (in spontaneous remarks?) to enact and enforce firm legislative and punitive measures are quick to express dissatisfaction.

It strikes me as very odd indeed that our culture, which exalts autonomy, insists that every form of authority be subject to the approval of the majority, and decries any hint of judgmentalism, seems to be equally insistent that the Pope act personally, harshly, universally, and autocratically. And if he seems to fail in this (by standards set by those who call the Pope to task, not necessarily according to Canon Law or the Petrine ministry!), he is judged dismissively. And not simply by those who were victims of abuse, who bear the quite reasonable need to be reassured that their sufferings will not be inflicted on others.

I was struck this morning at how fitting today's first Psalm from the Liturgy of the Hours is; I used it as my morning meditation, and now in the evening, I am still praying with it:

O shepherd of Israel, hear us,

you who lead Joseph's (!) flock,

shine forth from your cherubim throne....

Lord God of hosts, how long will you frown on your people's plea?

You have fed them with tears for their bread,

an abundance of tears for their drink.

You have made us the taunt of our neighbors,

our enemies laugh us to scorn.

God of hosts, bring us back!

Let your face shine on us and we shall be saved....

May your hand be on the man you have chosen,

the man you have given your strength.

And we shall never forsake you again.

I'm still in New Orleans, visiting Mom and my extended family. Spent a good part of the afternoon with my niece, who lives across the lake. Today was her day off, so my sister (who also took the day off) and I took the opportunity to spend some time with her (and her 18-month-old...). But first, I wanted to find a noon Mass. There are several in the downtown area, and I have been going most days to St. Joseph's, but Our Lady of Guadalupe has one, too, and since I had never been there, I wanted to see what the church and its little noon Mass community were like.
First I had to get through the construction traffic. (There went the extra 15 minutes I had allotted for prayer.) And then I had to find a place to park.
Around the block I went, until finally I spotted room for Mom's little car. I slid in  and found some quarters. The meter was jammed.
I am not one of those people who blithely take chances. But the Mass was surely about to begin (if it hadn't already), the neighborhood was not exactly the business district, and nobody was really around except a tour group coming across Basin St. from St. Louis Cemetery #1. So I took a chance and hurried past the tourists to get into Church. During the first reading.
Within two minutes, a car horn started blaring from...Basin St. Great.
Needless to say, Sister I-Don't-Blithely-Take-Chances was intensely distracted for the length of the liturgy. I could hardly appreciate the homespun fervor of the priest's homily, or the eclectic assembly (I recognized Eliot Willard and his wife at the sign of peace; Willard was the President of St. Aug's High decades ago, and a friend of my Dad's). At Communion, I tried to focus on the Lord, assuring him that he would be worth a $100 towing ticket!
I'm going to have to go back to that sweet little Church another time to greet the community and enjoy the ambient. Because the car was fine.

Soaring hopes

It's been quite a while since we've seen any new "soaring Gothic churches" built, but this is the sketch of the proposed new church for the biggest parish in the Archdiocese of New Orleans, Our Lady of the Lake in Mandeville.
Time was, the little church (seats 450) was just fine for the country parish, but now there are 5,000 families, most of whom end up at Sunday Mass in the all-purpose hall and not in the church building.
Predictably, though, there are objections to building a "soaring Gothic church." And, predictably, chief among them is the fact that, yes, the money could be spent on services to the poor. (Although creating jobs at a time like this is also a laudable contribution!)
I am told that Our Lady of the Lake parish is very generous in supporting social services; that's extremely important as a testimony to the "wholeness" of the faith of the people. But social services are not the purpose of a parish. Worship is. And Our Lady of the Lake seems to be offering such abundant worship that they need the bigger church: as it is, the parish maintains a 24/7 perpetual Eucharistic adoration chapel!
Not to mention also that there just might be...people in that very parish who do not have many grand and lovely things to call their own (cf. today's first reading!), but who are equal members, co-heirs, as it were, in the Church with the owners of those lakefront mansions you see as you come to Mandeville from New Orleans. Funny how people speak as if that "the church" (read "the diocese") is the sole user of things like soaring Gothic buildings. The beauty of this building is for all parishioners, no matter how much or little they are able to contribute financially to its construction or upkeep.
I have seen that in Church history, some people come to God through people, and some are led to people through God. Dorothy Day came to God through people; Thomas Merton, in a sense, came to people through God (remember his experience on the street corner in Louisville?). This new (if it sees the light of day) soaring Gothic church could very well inspire new and creative forms of service to God's people, as it brings people, rich and poor, together in prayer.
The One who accepted the extravagant outpouring of perfume (valued at a year's wages) still accepts extravagant signs of reverence. And then sends his people out to recognize him, and to be equally extravagant in serving him, in the vulnerable.

Still at it

Still reading calls in the media for the resignation of the Pope over his alleged negligence in handling abuse cases while he was a Cardinal. The anger behind these calls is understandable enough in the case of the victims and their immediate families (in whom that anger is understandable as a human, emotional response to pain), but sometimes it seems to just express what one of my teachers defined as the sin of wrath: "The desire to remove obstacles not legitimately removable." Today's Responsorial Psalm (echoed also in the first reading) is eerily prescient: "Why did the nations rage and the peoples utter folly? They arise, the rulers of the earth...against the Lord and his anointed."
When journalists and lawyers (don't forget the lawyers) present and interpret documents from the Vatican, they are counting on the general readership not to have any direct experience of Vatican correspondence, much less any experience of dealing with Vatican personnel. How inconvenient when someone shows up who actually does have first-hand experience. Someone like, say, Timothy Radcliffe, OP, former Master General of the Dominicans: "Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger lamented to me that the staff was simply too small for the job." How big was the staff? 45 people. Including the Cardinal. Radcliffe testifies: " I am morally certain that he bears no blame here." 
People expounding upon the Pope's responsibility, especially if they are not themselves directly touched by abuse, should probably keep silence for a few minutes and ask themselves just how "righteous" their indignation against him is. Where is it really coming from? Is it a sign of misplaced anger (with the Pope in Rome being a safer target than the real object of anger, who may be uncomfortably close), or, just maybe,  a sign of ignorance? 

The mystery of doubt

There is a line in today's Gospel that has always unnerved me a little. Mark is giving a kind of recap of the appearances of the Risen Christ: first to Mary Magdalen, then to the two disciples on the road, and finally to the Eleven (significantly enough, "while they were at table"). And the first thing he does is scold them for not accepting the testimony of the earlier witnesses! "He reproved them for their hardness of heart, not believing those who had seen him." And no sooner does he reproach them, then he entrusts them with a mission to the whole world!
It is very close to Matthew's telling, in which Jesus appears "on the mountain" (that unnamed "mountain of the Lord" that has a role in so many passages of Matthew), and when they saw him "they worshiped, but they doubted." And Jesus told those worshipful doubters, "Go into the whole world and make disciples of all nations..."
It would almost seem as if their doubt, lack of faith and hard-heartedness were almost necessary if they were going to be effective in presenting the message! We can see an extreme example of this in St. Paul, who pointed to his own unbelief as evidence of God's abounding grace.
As I've heard it said in other contexts, "God doesn't choose the qualified; he qualifies the chosen!"

It's the Pope's fault!

Today's Gospel gives Peter all the prominence we Catholics usually do ascribe to that apostle. Even though it was "the beloved disciple" who recognized the Lord, Peter listened to him and acted on his insight, jumping into the sea to swim to Jesus. When Jesus told "them" to bring the fish they had just (miraculously) caught, it was Peter who went authoritatively to the boat and hauled the net ashore.
Peter's boat is tossing in pretty rough waters these days, to be sure. Maybe that is why my ears perked up the other day when at Mass the priest added an invocation at the prayer of the faithful concerning the Year for Priests and St. John Vianney. "Of course!" I said to myself, "It's the Pope's fault....for making this the Year for Priests. He should have known that the powers of hell would do all they could to discredit and discourage every priest in the Church." (Far be it from the enemy of mankind to seek to bring down only those within easy reach, who have already surrendered in some way to his twisted suggestions.)
All the more reason to spend these last just under three months of the Year for Priests in intense prayer for priests--and for priestly vocations.

Is Celibacy Impossible?

A comment on one of my earlier posts characterized popular opinion on the abuse crisis, starting with one basic and mind-boggling statement: Lifelong celibacy is impossible.
It's true that this pretty much sums up our culture's belief. It's just taken for granted, despite 2,000 years' worth of evidence to the contrary, and the present witness of tens of thousands who are right in the midst of doing the impossible. When you think about it, that blithe, almost dismissive (can you just see the shrug that goes with it?) statement is an insult to those faithful many. It is as if to say, "You don't count. We don't even see you."
Nor, evidently, do they remember some of the giants of history, or even of our own era, who lived this vow faithfully and even heroically. John Paul II, for one: athletic, vigorous, manly in every way. What about the example of Cardinal Bernardin? I remember how remarkable the timing was when CNN broke "the story" of accusations against the Cardinal: it just happened to coincide with the network's own "special report" about scandals in the priesthood. (This was in 1993.) "By the grace of God, I have always lived a chaste and celibate life," he said calmly at the press conference.
There are so many examples of life-long and life-giving celibacy that it boggles the mind that people could claim that it is impossible.
And yet, they are right. Jesus himself (another famous celibate!) admitted it: "With men it is impossible, but not for God. With God all things are possible" (Mk. 10:27). Ask any faithful celibate of past or present, and he (or she would tell you that it did not and does not happen automatically. It is, as Cardinal Bernardin said, "by the grace of God" and human cooperation in discipline and effort.
Is that the real problem?

En route

Time to visit Mom in dear old New Orleans. I'll miss this Gospel-in-dance fundraiser that a friend recommended, but maybe you'll be able to take it in:

Mercy in Motion

April 18

First Presbyterian Church of Evanston

$15 advance tickets ($20 at door)
To benefit the work of Emmaus Ministries; tickets at www.mercyinmotion.net

While I'm on the theme of the performing arts, I was able (with great difficulty and numerous attempts) to put online an interview I did with Clarence Gilyard when he was here almost three years ago (that long?) doing a stage play. So I'll try to embed it here (here's a link in case the embed doesn't work).

Tidbits

Sr Kathryn was interviewed by the Witchita Catholic paper on our new iPhone apps apostolate: http://cdowk.org/advanceonline/2010/03/18/religious-order-releases-imissal-app/

In case you didn't notice it in the sidebar, our Marian chant album was released for the Feast of the Annunciation. Click on the album cover for info. You can order a CD or download the whole thing--or your favorite songs--on iTunes; this is the first time we released an album for download and for "hard copy" at the same time. No matter how you get it, be sure to add your review to the iTunes listing! This is one of the albums we recorded last August; during that time, fans joined our Facebook page by the hundreds every day. As of this weekend, there are more than 4,000!

The Vatican released hundreds of old documents on line this weekend (all in pdf format).
Vatican bulletins from 1865 to 1908
Vatican bulletins from 1909-2007 (Imagine: from Pius X to Benedict XVI!)
World War II bulletins (11 volumes worth)


It's the Easter Season, so it's time to replace the Angelus with the Regina Coeli (same times, morning,  noon and evening). Get in the habit of observing the Catholic "Call to Prayer"! It can change the world!

Plus, a question:
What's your favorite Easter Gospel?

Easter Sunday: What She Said

He is Risen!

Bearing the shame...

The Chicago Tribune featured my guest post about the abuse issue and Holy Week. It's a kind of refined version of my earlier post (you'll recognize some of the phrasing!). Your comments on the Tribune site will be most welcome, especially because this issue tends to inspire people to trot out some pretty lame arguments that really do not bear at all on the situation, its causes and the means to resolve it.

Another post (from the Tribune staff) raises the question, "Should the Vatican repent?" There have already been numerous expressions of regret, shame and, yes, apology, coming from the Pope himself. How else can the "Vatican" repent, if not to enact specific reforms? What do people mean when they continue to ask for "repentance" or "apology"?

Blessed Holy Saturday.

Good Friday: What He Said

"Into your hands I commend my spirit."

Holy Thursday: What He Said

"This is My Body, which will be given up for you."