Chicago. St. John Cantius is there, as well as the Shrine of Christ the King, which is the “mother church” of the ICKSP/ICRSS in the USA.
I agree with this. Beautiful churches in the Chicago area, and lots of opportunities for families to work and play.
I also recommend moving to nearby Rockford, IL, where there is a small but thriving traditional community and a TLM that has been around for almost 20 years now. The TLM is offered daily, and twice on Sundays.
Rockford also has a traditional Catholic school (ages kindergarten through high school). The students attend the TLM, and learn Latin, chant, etc. The school is quite young and very tenuous in its finances. But it continues to grow–this year, the number of students doubled. The tuition is very reasonable.
There are also a LOT of homeschooled students in Rockford, including many Catholic homeschooled children, and several thriving homeschool co-ops. So if you choose to homeschool, you will have a lot of company!
There are problems with Rockford–the unemployment is the highest in the state, and so is the crime. But it depends on what you do for a living, and also where you live in the city. A lot of people live in one of the small towns around Rockford–they’re not that far to drive to the downtown TLM oratory.
I think that GloriaMaria raises some good points and her post is well worth pondering. But for the most part, I support moving a family for the sake of practicing religion. I’ve suggested it several times here on CAF, when families long for the traditional Masses but are in an area of the country where all the parishes are very contemporary and there seems to be no possibility of change in the near future.
Children grow up fast. I think there is a lot of value in trying to “bloom where you are planted”, as GloriaMaria says. But when you have children, you really have to consider the effect that working to bring about change will have on them throughout their growing-up years. Yes, it can have a great outcome–the children see the value of persevering, hard work, determination, strategy, debate, preparation, study, etc.–all of these things will be a part of family life for those who are working to bring about a change.
But the children will also be forced to be involved with various meetings, many of which will be tense, as adults become emotional and freely express themselves about the situation that they are trying to change. These meetings take time away from family activities.
There are also phone calls and emails, and these also take time. And the study and preparation takes time. Time is one of the greatest needs that children have, and if Mom and Dad are always busy working on trying to get the TLM established, the children are generally left out. Yes, I know that some children get involved, too, but honestly now, how involved can a four-year old get, really? And is this really the best way for a four-year-old to spend their innocent years?
Also, it can be very discouraging for a child to be raised in a household where there is always an “issue” hanging over everyone’s heads; in this case, trying to bring about the establishment of the EF Mass, and then the issue is never resolved and the child graduates from high school and becomes an adult and there is STILL no EF Mass in their area. This creates a household in which peace is hard to establish, as everyone is always busy, busy, busy with “the issue.”
My two daughters grew up in a household in which we were constantly involved with various conflicts with our local figure skating club. There were some very real problems in our club, and I’m proud to say that many of them are now resolved as a result of all the work that I and other moms and dads did back in the 1990s. BUT…it was very disruptive to our family life, and I regret getting so involved in the conflicts and spending so much time working on the issues rather than spending that time with my daughters.
OTOH, I feel good when I look at the young skaters today in our city and see that they don’t have to put up with some of the junk that my kids had to experience while they were growing up. So I hope that I accomplished a greater good. And yes, my daughters still skate and are very involved in figure skating in their cities (they are 26 and 29). And my husband skates, too! And I’m STILL on the Board of the figure skating club–quite the fossil now! So we’re not bitter or war-weary!
Anyway, I think you need to mull over my post and others in this thread and consider what would be best for YOUR family. Godspeed to you!
