Asking all priests: Why not talk about the hard issues at Mass?

[Patagonia1]

If you’re in a mass where the average age in the pews is 70 yo

I’m not. Where I go to Mass there are folks of all ages, young and old.

They go to mass to participate in the Eucharist and enjoy themselves

If one goes to Mass to enjoy themselves, they are going to Mass for the wrong reasons

A good priest will focus on a feeling of peace and communion during the homily

I disagree, a good priest will focus on saving souls

 

[QwertyGirl]

I’m not so sure that a kindergartener should be knowing these things. At least until middle school would be more appropriate when they have some sort of self awareness and maturity.

Oh my. You do realize they are going to hear all sorts of crazy versions from the other 5 and 6 year olds, right?

 

[VanitasVanitatum]

I never had problems like that. I’m sure it’s not a big deal at that point in time if they know the truth or not.

 

[QwertyGirl]

But Catholics are all about the truth, aren’t they?

What is so inappropriate about teaching children where babies come from?

 

[Patagonia1]

What is so inappropriate about teaching children where babies come from?

I agree. One need not get into details with a child, but a child should know that babies come from “husband and wife” at the very least. I understood this by age 4 as I recall

 

[VanitasVanitatum]

It’s not necessary to tell them. There’s also a reason that these sorts of things aren’t talked about in public.

 

[VanitasVanitatum]

“husband and wife”

If that’s what she’s talking about then that sounds fine.

 

[adgloriam]

adgloriam:

If you’re in a mass where the average age in the pews is 70 yo

I’m not. Where I go to Mass there are folks of all ages, young and old.

They go to mass to participate in the Eucharist and enjoy themselves

If one goes to Mass to enjoy themselves, they are going to Mass for the wrong reasons

A good priest will focus on a feeling of peace and communion during the homily

I disagree, a good priest will focus on saving souls

Then you didn’t understand a single thing of what I said. Be my guest.

 

[Dovekin]

Luckily, someone has already tracked it to 26 January 1947. He cast it as a “prophetic” talk, but it sure sounds like Sheen was speaking in the present tense.

Did Fulton Sheen Prophesy About These Times?| National Catholic Register

 

[IsaiahSpirit]

http://w2.vatican.va/content/pius-xi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_11121925_quas-primas.html
" QUAS PRIMAS
ENCYCLICAL OF POPE PIUS XI
ON THE FEAST OF CHRIST THE KING"
Under John Paul ii, John Cardinal O’Conner there was a Holy Spirit inspired direction to exhort the grave moral concerns of our day. Including the gravity of using other social issues to wrongly justify giving consent to the continuation of the mass murder of helpless tiny human beings; along side the increased forced seductive teaching of children in school against The Laws of Nature; and attacks on freedom of conscience & religious liberty.
Jesus Christ always taught concern for the weakest along side the immense importance of growing in virtue & avoiding sin. Jesus Christ always addressed the ruling classes just as The Church always did. Yes, we are constrained from campaigning for politicians under the tax code; but not against the particular climate of our day. One faction, with immense bias in education, media, and other venues use social issues, flipping on moral issues against the very Creeds of our Land, exacerbate & distort other issues, flipping from reasoned approaches to radical one; where real people on in situations over decades to form an emotionally charged response to blame opponents. All kinds of distorted propaganda to accuse opponents and paint them in a bad light. This faction chooses to build a society on the bodies of thousands upon thousands of helpless children, elderly, and sick.
The ambiguity that has arisen, is clearly not the desire of The Holy Spirit. There is nothing new under the sun; those who use clever playing at heart strings rhetoric justifying mass crimes against humanity, keeping the air of acceptability by ‘legal’ human laws, educating the young & other impressionable to accept these things for some kind of class warfare or other social concerns has happened in recent history, over and over.
Thank God for the Dietrich von Hildebrand types raising awareness, because many of good will need clarity since real human concerns are used to form an ambiguous response from the populace for this faction opposing The Laws of Nature to obtain/keep/expand influence and power. And, by the way, they have extremely rich people & a huge portion of corporations helping them.
~
Peace.

 

[IsaiahSpirit]

History repeats. Those who justify legal atrocity have formed a type of ‘oligarchical’ group and get good press in main stream media.
"Sheen urged all to pray. “The forces of evil are united; the forces of good are divided. We may not be able to meet in the same pew — would to God we did — but we can meet on our knees.” Bishop Sheen from the article you sited.
~
Yes, the good are divided; and a big reason for that is the other social issues used to play at heart strings for an emotionally charged response form those in the pews, and the populace in general. Jesus Christ would not cooperate with grave moral evil by ambiguous exhortations for the perception of maintaining funding for programs. It’s extremely similar to when Jesus Christ was here as Suffering Servant whereby the prevailing attitude was to cooperate with the Roman Empire, whereby money changers got rich by selling shekels & copper coins worth of Temple offerings for Roman coins with images on them at an extremely uneven exchange rate. Now a days, ‘bread’ and/or ‘circuses’ and bland ambiguous exhortations keep the practical ‘oligarchical’ group in positions of influence & power, including the money changers largely in support of atrocity. Looking at this metaphorically, we have a very similar situation.
~
It took up until past 300 a.d. of concerted efforts and bloody martyrdom to conquer the Roman Empire. Then for 200 years The Church warned the nations in The Roman Republic that if they didn’t repent bad things would happen. Thus the collapse around 500. We’ve been warned for a very long time regarding the secular humanist philosophies/ideologies/agendas - all promising a better world; but basically hold to that God - even painting Jesus Christ this way (many times secretly) — that God and morality are mere human constructs, and after the ‘enlightenment’ we will have a better and better human reasoned coexisting moral relativistic world. This is diametrically oppose to the Laws of Nature/Nature’s God/Creator and self evident truths referenced in the Declaration of Independence. Complacency and ambiguous exhortations on which grave morals to support have developed tracing back to the consent of ‘We The People,’ not only ‘legalized’ mass crimes against humanity, but seductive education of more and more youth, with freedom of moral conscience & religious observance more and more oppressed.
Peace.

 

[JoeShlabotnik]

Amazon plans to eventually put all retail stores out of work. That is a lot of people who will lose their jobs in this country.
Yet none of the politicians seem to be focused on this issue.

 

[AgejevDominik]

How can a religious institution be apolitical?

 

[fide]

but it is the lesser evil for them to have this knowledge.

I agree with the sense and sentiment of your post - but please hear me out on a point that may sound trivial, but I believe it is very important. Lovers of the good and the true ought never - never - to choose an evil, whether it is the lesser or not.

I believe this to be an important point in the education of children - and of adults - that we are always to choose for the good. We are always to choose the best of the goods that are possible.

In a real situation where there are two choices, and neither seems completely good, we are to choose the one that is the better of the two - that is more in line with the perfect truth - the one that most advances the way to the Kingdom. Not, in other words, the “lesser of the evils”, but the better of the possibilities. The choice must be for the good, not for the lesser evil. It is for the “lessening” of evil, yes, but it is not for the “lesser evil.”

We do not want our children, I suggest, to ever choose for evil! Not even the “lesser” evil. Never, never ought we choose for an evil. To choose for an evil is to prepare the way, mentally and spiritually, for the moral error of believing that “the end justifies the means” - that a “good end” justifies any means or way to get to that end. No, this is false. A good end does not justify an evil path, an evil “means” to get there.

The evil one wants us to “get used to” choosing evil! He tempts us to “choose the lesser evil” - then he advances his agenda. He has succeeded in getting us to choose evil.

Catechism:
1759 “An evil action cannot be justified by reference to a good intention” (cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Dec. praec. 6). The end does not justify the means.
1760 A morally good act requires the goodness of its object, of its end [or “intention”], and of its circumstances together.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

1. The homily at Mass is supposed to be explaining the readings for that day, not just whatever moral issue a priest wants to talk about.
2. Having said that, if you simply find a traditionalist parish (FSSP, or conservative religious order), this stuff will at least be mentioned from the pulpit from time to time. You cannot however expect every parish to preach constantly on whatever you think is important, whether that’s abortion or refugees.
3. I’ve already heard pretty constantly throughout my life that the Church is against premarital sex (Hearing it over and over did not stop me from sinning in this way when I was young) and against abortion. There are many other moral issues out there and many other aspects of the Scriptures that homilies also can and should explore.

 

[Dovekin]

History repeats.

I agree. That is why I support a disoassionate look at the signs of the times. It does not hurt to know that Fulton Sheen was describing the world of 1947, when Europe was recovering from the devastation of WW2 and entering a rebuilding phase.

It also helps to know what others thought, like St John XXIII at the opening of Vatican II:

It often happens, as we have learned in the daily exercise of the apostolic ministry, that, not without offense to Our ears, the voices of people are brought to Us who, although burning with religious fervor, nevertheless do not think things through with enough discretion and prudence of judgement. These people see only ruin and calamity in the present conditions of human society. They keep repeating that our times, if compared to past centuries, have been getting worse. And they act as if they have nothing to learn from history, which is the teacher of life, and as if at the time of past Councils everything went favorably and correctly with respect to Christian doctrine, morality, and the Church’s proper freedom. We believe We must quite disagree with these prophets of doom who are always forecasting disaster, as if the end of the world were at hand.
In the present course of human events, by which human society seems to be entering a new order of things, we should see instead the mysterious plans of divine Providence which through the passage of time and the efforts of men, and often beyond their expectation, are achieving their purpose and wisely disposing of all things, even contrary human events, for the good of the Church.
John XXIII, Opening Speech to the Council

 

[DisorientingSneeze]

My priests and deacons do discuss difficult topics from the pulpit, but they rightly spend most of their time giving quality homilies on the scriptures. Sometimes this involves the types of topics you mention and sometimes not. Sometimes our priest chooses to write a letter in the bulletin instead of adressing something in the homily. There are tons of opportunities outside of mass for addressing tough topics as well.

If we so badly want to hear certain things that we accuse a priest of being afraid, we are crossing a line and need to ask ourselves why we want it so bad. Is it for the good of our souls or for validation on a topic?

 

[IsaiahSpirit]

well, here is part of a comment I made elsewhere that is apropos.

---

Bishop Fulton J. Sheen received Bella Dodd into the Church, and right on “Life is Worth Living” reported her testimony of upwards of 1000 men trained to pretend to be devout in the 1920s and 1930s enter into seminaries and become priests. By the 1950s some of these reached positions of authority in The Church.
Bishop Fulton J. Sheen would never sully the reputation of The Church by reporting something false. Bella Dodd wrote a book called, ‘School of Darkness,’ which gives simple language on how the Communists infected institutions of an open society; then with subterfuge, tenacity, and cleverness into protected institutions like The Catholic Church.
“and promote clergymen who are not necessarily dedicated Communists, but who were of a progressive and liberal mentality, and whose influence could be counted on to foster a new philosophy and theology within the ranks of the clergy.”
“Once the clergy were infected they would pass this infection to the laity. The whole idea was to destroy, not the institution of the Church, but rather the Faith of the people …through the promotion of a pseudo-religion: something that resembled Catholicism but was not the real thing.”
“there would be a guilt complex introduced into the Church . . . to label the “Church of the past” as being oppressive, authoritarian, full of prejudices, arrogant in claiming to be the sole possessor of truth, and responsible for the divisions of religious bodies throughout the centuries. This would be necessary in order to shame Church leaders into an “openness to the world” and to a more flexible attitude toward all other religions and philosophies. The Communists would then exploit this openness in order to undermine the Church.”
There, also was a man named Dr. Richard Day, who predicted in the 1960s that, "homosexuals would be given permission to act out.”

Interesting how all these things have come to pass.
Peace.

 

[Dovekin]

Bishop Fulton J. Sheen received Bella Dodd into the Church, and right on “Life is Worth Living” reported her testimony of upwards of 1000 men trained to pretend to be devout in the 1920s and 1930s enter into seminaries and become priests. By the 1950s some of these reached positions of authority in The Church.
Bishop Fulton J. Sheen would never sully the reputation of The Church by reporting something false.

You say Sheen reported that some poeple in positions of authority in the Church “pretend[ed] to be devout.”

Am I correct that you do not think that sullies the reputation of the Church? I am just trying to understand the logic of your words. Do you think the Church’s reputation is “unsullied” despite this infiltration by unbelievers? Or is it that Sheen “sullied” the Church with the truth?

 

[fide]

A true story: My wife and I participated in a Mass years ago, in which the Gospel reading was from Mt. 23 - a strong word of judgment on the “scribes and pharisees, hypocrites”. Before Mass, my wife and I, reading and praying over the Gospel reading in preparation for the Mass, commented to one another that we had never heard a priest/homilist bring the obvious into the homily from this reading! None had ever observed the painful relevance of this passage for our time, and the painful presence in the “clergy” of this passage (the “scribes and pharisees, hypocrites”) of today’s clergy - with today’s clericalism, empty pomp, hypocrisy, acting the religious part, carnal ambition, etc. in the priesthood. Priests had, in our decades upon decades of experience hearing homilies, never had made the obvious application, especially in that chapter of Matthew, to the same hypocrisy in our day.

Until that day! That priest - a visiting priest - a retired priest - an old, ill and suffering priest who died not long after, as we were to learn - that priest laid it all out in scarlet. He was magnificent. He was not raging in anger or condescension over the “others”; he plainly stated the obvious: Mt 23 is not a lesson of ancient history, it is revealed truth for humanity, until Jesus comes again, especially for priests. We were later to learn how common this problem is. Many lay Catholics are enablers of this travesty, refusing to see it, defending all priests even in cases when such defense is not warranted, and this is not good for the Church nor for the offending priest himself! Jesus did not defend them! Jesus spoke the truth: they were “hypocrites” - actors, playing a part, living a role that satisfied carnal ambitions, confusing and causing stumbling among the people of God.

My point is this: perhaps the nearness of death helped this priest see the need for truth in this homily, on this passage, for the Church in this time. But he did speak the truth that most do not. I can see now more clearly the horrors that have come upon the Church, because of shallow homilies and superficial pretenses at “adult formation” for the laity. We are very weak, very vulnerable, and the enemy of souls is probably giggling to himself that victory is near. But he is a liar and he lies even to himself. God is working. It has always been true that the way is narrow that leads to life, and few find it. But God knows what He is doing, and He is doing.