S
spangler1982
Guest
Hey all
I live in a diocese that is not known for its orthodoxy, and the Bishop and many (if not the majority) of diocesan officials are into the whole “social justice Gospel” thing. These same folks of course have never studied the social encyclicals, are into a bunch of heterodox theologians, etc. There is a strong “Gay and Lesbian” ministry, but the diocesan leaders refused to start a Courage ministry when I proposed it. Naturally, as a consequence, vocations are VERY low out here, and the priests are spread very thin. It is also very difficult to get the laity to commit to various diocesan and parish programs for any extended length of time.
After living here nearly 5 years, I’ve felt called to start raising my voice more in the importance of teaching sound doctrine, reverent liturgies, true Catholic social teaching on sexuality, etc. One of the things I anticipate is that it will either fall on deaf ears and/or be met with a lot of resistance. I belonged to a Young Adult group, and a couple of years ago, when we met with our moderator to talk about future goals of our group, we mentioned that we’d like to get some more materials on some apologetics media, she quickly replied “the Bishop has decided that apologetics are not a focus of this diocese.” Within the geographic area of the diocese, there resides a very large illegal immigrant population, and there are many great programs in place to assist the corporal needs of many of these people who are living in dire poverty. And I won’t totally discount the notion that many of their spiritual needs are being met by these programs also. I have never lived in that kind of poverty, so I can’t honestly judge.
Anyways, here’s where I could use some help:
Are there any folks out there on the forums who live in orthodox diocese (Lincoln, Arlington, Peoria, Denver, etc.) who can provide me with some concrete data about the proliferation of your respected dioceses’ social ministries? I want to show that the Catholic social programs (and that can be anything from migration and refugee services, to food distribution, etc.) in your dioceses do not suffer in any way and/or have in fact GROWN or BECOME MORE EFFECTIVE as they are conducted in tandem with reverent liturgies, good solid preaching that addresses the tough issues, good seminary formation, etc.
Replies that just rant about this continuing problem aren’t going to help me much; like I said, what I most need is data so I can try to move forward. Maybe someone knows of some online articles or a previous thread which address this issue? When opponents try to reply that bringing back the focus of our diocese to the essentials that I mentioned would end up causing everyone in the diocese to ignore the corporal needs of the poor; I want to be able to reply “no, that’s not true! In X diocese where they embraced this particular Y orthodox action(s), it ended up producing Z results”. Quantitative data would be most helpful, but not essential if that is not available to you.
Thanks a bunch
I live in a diocese that is not known for its orthodoxy, and the Bishop and many (if not the majority) of diocesan officials are into the whole “social justice Gospel” thing. These same folks of course have never studied the social encyclicals, are into a bunch of heterodox theologians, etc. There is a strong “Gay and Lesbian” ministry, but the diocesan leaders refused to start a Courage ministry when I proposed it. Naturally, as a consequence, vocations are VERY low out here, and the priests are spread very thin. It is also very difficult to get the laity to commit to various diocesan and parish programs for any extended length of time.
After living here nearly 5 years, I’ve felt called to start raising my voice more in the importance of teaching sound doctrine, reverent liturgies, true Catholic social teaching on sexuality, etc. One of the things I anticipate is that it will either fall on deaf ears and/or be met with a lot of resistance. I belonged to a Young Adult group, and a couple of years ago, when we met with our moderator to talk about future goals of our group, we mentioned that we’d like to get some more materials on some apologetics media, she quickly replied “the Bishop has decided that apologetics are not a focus of this diocese.” Within the geographic area of the diocese, there resides a very large illegal immigrant population, and there are many great programs in place to assist the corporal needs of many of these people who are living in dire poverty. And I won’t totally discount the notion that many of their spiritual needs are being met by these programs also. I have never lived in that kind of poverty, so I can’t honestly judge.
Anyways, here’s where I could use some help:
Are there any folks out there on the forums who live in orthodox diocese (Lincoln, Arlington, Peoria, Denver, etc.) who can provide me with some concrete data about the proliferation of your respected dioceses’ social ministries? I want to show that the Catholic social programs (and that can be anything from migration and refugee services, to food distribution, etc.) in your dioceses do not suffer in any way and/or have in fact GROWN or BECOME MORE EFFECTIVE as they are conducted in tandem with reverent liturgies, good solid preaching that addresses the tough issues, good seminary formation, etc.
Replies that just rant about this continuing problem aren’t going to help me much; like I said, what I most need is data so I can try to move forward. Maybe someone knows of some online articles or a previous thread which address this issue? When opponents try to reply that bringing back the focus of our diocese to the essentials that I mentioned would end up causing everyone in the diocese to ignore the corporal needs of the poor; I want to be able to reply “no, that’s not true! In X diocese where they embraced this particular Y orthodox action(s), it ended up producing Z results”. Quantitative data would be most helpful, but not essential if that is not available to you.
Thanks a bunch