- Status
C
CinciMom
Guest
Closing 32 Catholic Schools in one area does not help attendance at Mass.
N
nymid
Guest
Wise words.
M
mlund
Guest
I think that the term “president of the nation’s Roman Catholic bishops” is misleading. He is president of the USCCB, which is not a governing organization. No bishop is obligated to participate in the council and the council has no authority over any Bishop or See. It goes from the individual Bishop to Rome. In some particular matters an Archbishop might be a middle-man, but the President of the USCCB has no place in the Church’s hierarchy.
- Marty Lund
R
Ray_Ramirez
Guest
A couple of thoughts:
First on the thought of the catholic schools closing. I can tell you in my area (central IL) our teachers actively counter the very essence of our Catholic Christianity. We had an 8th grade teacher tell her class the Eucharist is only a Symbol of Jesus. When the Deacon candidate (in training - in 4th of 5 yr of training) in our parish told the students the teacher was wrong, the students went back and told her that.
The teacher and Deacon candidate were summoned to our pastor’s office.
The Deacon candidate was demanded to apologize to the teacher for making her look foolish.
And we wonder why our students, and adults (in the poll which the Archbishop refers, a majority of catholic adults) do not believe in the real presence.
I believe the voices and understanding of the ‘genius of Catholicism’ that Matthew Kelly is sharing (dynamic catholic.com), the Theology of the Body understanding of why men can only be priests, birth control, celibacy - as shared by many, but popularized so well by Christopher West can begin to share an understanding of the truth.
But we as loyal Catholics have to think of this like the sports fanatics are loyal to their team. I know folks who follow their ‘favorite’’ baseball team. They hate the current owner of the team, they don’t like the current manager. They don’t like most of the starters on the team.
So when I ask ‘why are you still a fan’ -
They answer “Because I love them”
Even though the priests did a grave sin, the priesthood is still a holy vocation.
But we misunderstand holy - Holy means set apart for a special purpose. It does not mean perfect. There was only one perfect human, and after 3 years of listening to Him, they decided to kill him.
And even though a few Bishops have abused their duties, does not mean they do not have those duties and responsibilities. Here in Illinois we understand this in the secular world. Our governor was Under suspicion of committing a terrible felony to sell the former US senate seat held by now President Obama.
Once indicted, he did not resign as governor. In fact, he appointed the successor - Rolan Burris. And many tried to say he could not do so because of the wrongdoing the individual did.
Yet because he held the office, he had the duty and responsibility to appoint someone.
And he did.
I tried to get this on the NYtimes site, but they cut off comments.
First on the thought of the catholic schools closing. I can tell you in my area (central IL) our teachers actively counter the very essence of our Catholic Christianity. We had an 8th grade teacher tell her class the Eucharist is only a Symbol of Jesus. When the Deacon candidate (in training - in 4th of 5 yr of training) in our parish told the students the teacher was wrong, the students went back and told her that.
The teacher and Deacon candidate were summoned to our pastor’s office.
The Deacon candidate was demanded to apologize to the teacher for making her look foolish.
And we wonder why our students, and adults (in the poll which the Archbishop refers, a majority of catholic adults) do not believe in the real presence.
I believe the voices and understanding of the ‘genius of Catholicism’ that Matthew Kelly is sharing (dynamic catholic.com), the Theology of the Body understanding of why men can only be priests, birth control, celibacy - as shared by many, but popularized so well by Christopher West can begin to share an understanding of the truth.
But we as loyal Catholics have to think of this like the sports fanatics are loyal to their team. I know folks who follow their ‘favorite’’ baseball team. They hate the current owner of the team, they don’t like the current manager. They don’t like most of the starters on the team.
So when I ask ‘why are you still a fan’ -
They answer “Because I love them”
Even though the priests did a grave sin, the priesthood is still a holy vocation.
But we misunderstand holy - Holy means set apart for a special purpose. It does not mean perfect. There was only one perfect human, and after 3 years of listening to Him, they decided to kill him.
And even though a few Bishops have abused their duties, does not mean they do not have those duties and responsibilities. Here in Illinois we understand this in the secular world. Our governor was Under suspicion of committing a terrible felony to sell the former US senate seat held by now President Obama.
Once indicted, he did not resign as governor. In fact, he appointed the successor - Rolan Burris. And many tried to say he could not do so because of the wrongdoing the individual did.
Yet because he held the office, he had the duty and responsibility to appoint someone.
And he did.
I tried to get this on the NYtimes site, but they cut off comments.
B
BobCatholic
Guest
If those people were attending mass and sending their kids to catholic school they wouldn’t need to close 32 schools.
G
gurneyhalleck1
Guest
The numbers (one third) of U.S. Catholic leaving the Church goes against what I hear in CAF so often—that droves of people are coming home to the Church and that the Church is on an attendance renaissance. Secular humanism and the agnostic to atheist bent that our culture is caving into that stands for nothing and tells one to do what feels good is triumphing over Protestants AND Catholics. I also think the priestly scandals with the tons of gays and pedophiles that have been exposed within the ranks of clergy haven’t helped any. Add to that the fact that Benedict doesn’t have the style, the warmth, and the natural ability to reach out to the world with such personal charisma, the numbers have dropped. I hear a lot of inflated numbers and wishful thinking in CAF at times with regards to Catholic converts. I also hear a lot of inflated and wishful thinking about Anglican ordinariate converts which doesn’t look to be the mass exodus and boon that many thought it would be. It’s sobering and sad but a fact that Christianity is under heavy assault in all denominations by secular humanism and moral relativist selfishness. I’m honestly surprised this article in on here.
G
gurneyhalleck1
Guest
True
W
Windfish
Guest
How does that figure compare to previous years, though? I think that would be the only way we could judge if there really is a “huge exodus” or if this is the normal “retention rate.” It is still an alarming number, but wherever Catholic apologetics and evangelization are being taught, there is no denying that there has been an increase in conversions and enthusiasm.
If you are concerned, I would edify and educate yourself so that you can share your faith others, going door to door might require a lot of nerve, and you will be blown off a lot of times, but letting your intentions known might plant a seed that the Holy Spirit can tend. In other words, get involved!
G
gurneyhalleck1
Guest
I never said I was concerned or wanted to get involved? I was just making an analysis of the situation. No need for admonitions but thanks for the advice. 
W
Windfish
Guest
I wasn’t admonishing you so much as begging you! Get together with a few other Catholics on fire for the faith and see if you can’t get things bustling over at your parish.I never said I was concerned or wanted to get involved? I was just making an analysis of the situation. No need for admonitions but thanks for the advice.
G
gurneyhalleck1
Guest
I’m currently at an Anglican parish, considering Catholicism again with plenty of reservations and concerns. I went to a Catholic Mass last week, didn’t take communion of course, but am just not “there” yet and might never be. I’m not convinced yet. Indulgences, purgatory, and several other issues play into things but also imputation vs. infusion, cult of saints, and papal claims are on my list of concerns. Only time will tell, jury’s out. I have respect and affection for Catholics, no ill will whatsoever, and I try to remain intellectually honest about theology and Catholicism. But at this point, I’m not there with being Catholic. So organizing anyone going door to door wouldn’t be a good assignment for yours truly, currently an Anglican! 
May God bless you in your vocation!
gurney
May God bless you in your vocation!gurney
I wasn’t admonishing you so much as begging you! Get together with a few other Catholics on fire for the faith and see if you can’t get things bustling over at your parish.
P
PbloPicasso
Guest
I can assure you that a huge percentage of Catholics have flown the coup for Mega feel good churches. Catholic education was heartfully disappointing in the area of academics and charity towards our children. Having been fed that half of Catholics attending Catholic schools compared to a fourth in public schools tells a lot to me. Something’s wrong inside the Church and needs to be cleansed. Maybe the Catholic school closings is an opportunity for the Church to purge itself from the corruption. No telling how long this actually has gone on from my perspective.
I think building up parish CCD programs in contrast to Protestant Bible Classes would probably boost attendants provided teachers actually include classes for the adults at the same time. Include a combo of scripture and CCC presented by certified teachers. Protestants are quick to teach but the lack of orthodoxy causes split after split. Coming from a man raised Protestant, the Church hierarchy should call some sort of meeting inviting former Protestants to help educate the laity so that it can help decrease the massive draw to immorality and lazy Christianity…I can worship God from my recliner.
My wife and I would love to get involved, but just last week we were reduced to rubble by the DRE that made up lies to make us look bad to the parish priest. It’s disheartening to almost lose your Protestant family to “come home” to this, hateful backstabbing deciet that I read makes up the overwhelming majority of diocese employees. God help us all.
I think building up parish CCD programs in contrast to Protestant Bible Classes would probably boost attendants provided teachers actually include classes for the adults at the same time. Include a combo of scripture and CCC presented by certified teachers. Protestants are quick to teach but the lack of orthodoxy causes split after split. Coming from a man raised Protestant, the Church hierarchy should call some sort of meeting inviting former Protestants to help educate the laity so that it can help decrease the massive draw to immorality and lazy Christianity…I can worship God from my recliner.
My wife and I would love to get involved, but just last week we were reduced to rubble by the DRE that made up lies to make us look bad to the parish priest. It’s disheartening to almost lose your Protestant family to “come home” to this, hateful backstabbing deciet that I read makes up the overwhelming majority of diocese employees. God help us all.
G
gurneyhalleck1
Guest
Not all Catholics who left go to “feel good” mega churches. My Anglican parish is more liturgically-conservative and more Catholic than the local Catholic churches! More reverent and pious as well. And as far as mega, they only have about 500 parishoners compared to the Catholic parish having around 7,000 families alone!
I think a lot of Catholics have gone Protestant or agnostic or just flat out lazy. But I concur with your assessment of Catholic CCD and education. The Catholic schools in my area are abysmal. They are academically well behind our public schools. That’s a fact. And the Anglican, Lutheran, and Assembly of God schools blow them away academically. They aren’t known for their warmth or kid-friendly pesonas either! My son goes to a Lutheran school, and we love it.
Anyway, I think the religious ed programs in the CC here are lousy. They make the kids go two years and memorize 77 prayers to get their first communion. The education about the bible is thin as a stick, just mostly church history or church teachings. That’s not so hot either. Then they make teenagers go THREE years for their confirmation PLUS they have to do something like 50 hours of community service. What community service has to do with confirmation I’ll never know…
And then also there’s the bar code nonsense. Any kid in the first communion OR confirmation classes has to attend Mass every single week. They can only miss twice in the entire time frame. They check the parents’ and kids’ attendance by scanning their bar code on their Sunday Mass donation envelopes (envelopes have a bar code) and if you miss, you’re dropped. If you attend Mass out of town you have to bring their bulletin from the outside parish as evidence. It’s so legalistic and goofy. The teachers hate the director, too. She’s really standoffish and micromanaging.
When my wife and I were considering the Catholic school, they refused to give us a tour. They also refused to give us curriculum information saying they don’t have any!
As a teacher myself, I was appauled. The secretaries there are rude as can be and they expect parents to do fifty hours of volunteer work per year. With my schedule and my wife’s as a student in the nursing program, she and I can’t do that…
I’m not impressed with the state of Catholic ed in my county but I can’t speak to it nationwide. I’m sure it’s exceptional in some parts. In mine? Lousy.
I think a lot of Catholics have gone Protestant or agnostic or just flat out lazy. But I concur with your assessment of Catholic CCD and education. The Catholic schools in my area are abysmal. They are academically well behind our public schools. That’s a fact. And the Anglican, Lutheran, and Assembly of God schools blow them away academically. They aren’t known for their warmth or kid-friendly pesonas either! My son goes to a Lutheran school, and we love it.
Anyway, I think the religious ed programs in the CC here are lousy. They make the kids go two years and memorize 77 prayers to get their first communion. The education about the bible is thin as a stick, just mostly church history or church teachings. That’s not so hot either. Then they make teenagers go THREE years for their confirmation PLUS they have to do something like 50 hours of community service. What community service has to do with confirmation I’ll never know…
And then also there’s the bar code nonsense. Any kid in the first communion OR confirmation classes has to attend Mass every single week. They can only miss twice in the entire time frame. They check the parents’ and kids’ attendance by scanning their bar code on their Sunday Mass donation envelopes (envelopes have a bar code) and if you miss, you’re dropped. If you attend Mass out of town you have to bring their bulletin from the outside parish as evidence. It’s so legalistic and goofy. The teachers hate the director, too. She’s really standoffish and micromanaging.When my wife and I were considering the Catholic school, they refused to give us a tour. They also refused to give us curriculum information saying they don’t have any!
As a teacher myself, I was appauled. The secretaries there are rude as can be and they expect parents to do fifty hours of volunteer work per year. With my schedule and my wife’s as a student in the nursing program, she and I can’t do that…I’m not impressed with the state of Catholic ed in my county but I can’t speak to it nationwide. I’m sure it’s exceptional in some parts. In mine? Lousy.
W
Windfish
Guest
Wait, what? What is the DRE? That is unacceptable!
Do what you have to do, don’t give up!
P
PbloPicasso
Guest
Director of Religious Education. That’s what my priest friend told us. I was accused of being a bully. All I tried to do was pop in on my teenage son’s CCD class because he told me that his teachers taught him that the crusades were evil. I was described as being confrontational. Well, if I were confrontational after being told parents are not allowed in the CCD classes or in the building I questioned it and the prudence of such a policy and said I’d ask about it later. Three or four weeks later, after finishing midterms, I asked and the DRE kept putting us off, then pulled up partial emails where I snapped at him for being so rude to a request I asked of him. All he had to do was decline politely, not “I don’t have time” etc., etc. I saw the guy chastize a mentally challenged woman and that was the downfall of him in my eyes. I haven’t trusted him ever since, which proved to be a good assumption afterwards. This was just the last of a series of issues dealing with him. I tried like crazy to be nice to him but he keeps making bads choices. We pulled our children from CCD and teach them at home instead until I feel we can return. My wife and I are getting certified to teach CCD as well as have become teachers to build up our credentials so that people will stop treating us like we don’t know what we’re talking about. My wife alone taught bible classes since she was 12, for real. I’ve always taught. Together we have many decades of teaching bible class. Both of us went well beyond RCIA to learn the Catholic faith as it is mostly misrepresented my most Catholics we encounter. It’s disheartening and only gives both of our huge evangelical families fuel from which to draw objections. If you’d like to help, please pray for us not to either get angry or become prideful.Wait, what? What is the DRE? That is unacceptable!
A
Alan55
Guest
I think that the Catholic Church in the U.S. has serious problems that stem from the top-down structure of the Church.
Protestant congregations generally hire and fire their pastors, and they place a great deal of importance on high-quality sermons, music, and programs for both adults and youth. Because they assume that a congregation grows not only by retaining the children of members but also, and perhaps primarily, by attracting members from other churches, they emphasize friendliness and a welcoming, user-friendly atmosphere. As a result, there is an emphasis on hospitality and new-member programs, and the results are apparent to even the most casual observer. Mega-churches get that way because people want to attend these churches, even if they preach a very demanding gospel – and they often put Catholic churches to shame with their insistence on attendance, giving, morality, service, and personal devotion (bible reading and study, prayer, self-discipline, etc.).
By contrast, many Catholic churches I’ve attended are pretty unfriendly places. The weekend services have poor music, poor preaching, and a generally slap-dash approach, whether the pastors and congregation are liberal or traditionalist. Education for children is poor and ineffective and for adults is almost non-existent. It is assumed that you were born a Catholic and have no option but to attend a Catholic Church, no matter how much abuse or neglect you endure.
I love the Church. I love the liturgy, the theological tradition, the whole nine yards. I believe that the Catholic Church is the one true Church. I’m loyal to a fault. I’ve encouraged many people to attend Catholic services and have been active in liturgy, adult religious ed, and parish leadership. But I think there are good reasons why the Church had difficult retaining life-long Catholics and attracting newcomers. And I don’t expect the solutions to come from Rome or from the Bishops. For the most part, what I’ve heard from the Pope and from the most vigorous, activist bishops is to roll back the reforms of Vatican II, weed out dissenters, and return to the authoritarian “Father knows best” approach of the 1950s and 1960s – an McCarthy-tinged authoritarian purge. I think that’s exactly the wrong answer. The authorities don’t seem to have a clue how to preach the message of Christ in our day.
Protestant congregations generally hire and fire their pastors, and they place a great deal of importance on high-quality sermons, music, and programs for both adults and youth. Because they assume that a congregation grows not only by retaining the children of members but also, and perhaps primarily, by attracting members from other churches, they emphasize friendliness and a welcoming, user-friendly atmosphere. As a result, there is an emphasis on hospitality and new-member programs, and the results are apparent to even the most casual observer. Mega-churches get that way because people want to attend these churches, even if they preach a very demanding gospel – and they often put Catholic churches to shame with their insistence on attendance, giving, morality, service, and personal devotion (bible reading and study, prayer, self-discipline, etc.).
By contrast, many Catholic churches I’ve attended are pretty unfriendly places. The weekend services have poor music, poor preaching, and a generally slap-dash approach, whether the pastors and congregation are liberal or traditionalist. Education for children is poor and ineffective and for adults is almost non-existent. It is assumed that you were born a Catholic and have no option but to attend a Catholic Church, no matter how much abuse or neglect you endure.
I love the Church. I love the liturgy, the theological tradition, the whole nine yards. I believe that the Catholic Church is the one true Church. I’m loyal to a fault. I’ve encouraged many people to attend Catholic services and have been active in liturgy, adult religious ed, and parish leadership. But I think there are good reasons why the Church had difficult retaining life-long Catholics and attracting newcomers. And I don’t expect the solutions to come from Rome or from the Bishops. For the most part, what I’ve heard from the Pope and from the most vigorous, activist bishops is to roll back the reforms of Vatican II, weed out dissenters, and return to the authoritarian “Father knows best” approach of the 1950s and 1960s – an McCarthy-tinged authoritarian purge. I think that’s exactly the wrong answer. The authorities don’t seem to have a clue how to preach the message of Christ in our day.
G
gurneyhalleck1
Guest
Kudos. A fair, intelligent, honest assessment of the Church in America without the knee-jerk apologetics rhetoric that seeks to make everything seem hunky-dory. I see things much the same way. My experience with the coldness, the stoic nature, and unfriendly environment plus lousy education and a thin sense of church family is what I’ve encountered as a Catholic in this area since I was a kid. No joy, just palid going through the motions. The Anglican and Lutheran small parishes here are exactly the opposite—inviting, friendly, warm, excited parishoners, lots of fellowship, and just plain NICE people who seem to have encountered Christ. It’s sad to see the Catholic parishes here populated with pompous, unfriendly, unavailable (trust me, unavailable is the word!), and ethnic-pandering priests and odd congregants. There’s a LOT of room for improvement!
A
Adeodatus
Guest
McCarthyism is so the right answer it’s not even funny!
How do you deal with Reds? Harshly.
G
gurneyhalleck1
Guest
Hysteria and McCarthyism has its own problem—innocent, well-meaning, good people get caught up in the same net as the “badguys”
McCarthy defamed and ruined a lot of people who got blacklisted, especially in Hollywood, etc.
McCarthy defamed and ruined a lot of people who got blacklisted, especially in Hollywood, etc.- Status