News from Diocese of Saginaw, MI

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MBS1 said:
No one commented about Call to Action (who support women priests and reproductive rights among other things) using one of the Diocese churches for a meeting. They seem to dissent on a lot of what the Catholic Church teaches. Does the Bishop know about this group and what they stand for? If so, how on earth can he allow them to use one of his churches to meet? Curious g minds want to know - I’ve been wondering about this for a while too.
MBS1
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This meeting was advertised in at least two parish bulletins – St. Andrews, where it was held and Ss. Peter and Paul, both in Saginaw. The bulletins can be found at www.Catholicweb.com.
Not only was the meeting held at the St. Andrew parish center, but was ended with Mass. (I wonder how many priestesses were presiding at that Mass.)

I’m sure His Excellency is picking his battles, but we could use Bp. Bruskewitz on this one. In one Diocese the faithful are threatened with excommunication for joining the group; in another we are hosting the group and offering Mass for their cause in one of our parishes. Go figure…
 
frommi said:
Oh here we go again…statements about the authenticity of the ‘poorly’ catechized in Saginaw.

In my experience, it’s generally those who claim that others are poorly catechized that don’t understand church teachings in the first place.
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I guess I’ll jump in here. I don’t go to Mass here because I don’t think that the real Catholic Church is here.

frommi makes the point that only he can judge the truth. There’s too much of that already in Saginaw.

All I know is that I keep finding priests and other leaders who preach or teach opposite to the Catechism and this bishop has not done anything about it.

The flap from the CDF in Rome a couple months ago about the fullness of the faith in the Catholic Church says this: The widespread teaching otherwise shows that there quite a bit afoot in the entire church, and it should be noteworthy that the Pope hasn’t and apparently doesn’t intend to go around swinging an ax at anybody.

But, by the same token, we still have considerable dissension in the Church. I understand Benedict is coming to the US next year, and I can’t wait to hear what he has to say. I found an old Catholic Weekly from like 15 years ago, and Ratzinger had some sharp words for the situation in the U.S. He’ll be here amidst the presidential campaign in full swing, and I’d be surprised if he didn’t jump into that somehow.

I’ve heard of Carlson making some moves here, but I’m not holding my breath. I said before I’d give Carlson at least five years to clean up some things, and I don’t think he can undo all the damage from the preceding 25 years that fast. Some of the nutcase priests will be around for a long time. I don’t think Carlson likes everything he sees, but I think he has trust in God that these loose canons will do some good, no matter how much damage they cause.

Untener’s idea of changing-the-whole-church-starting-in-Saginaw isn’t catching on, as far as I can tell. And, what is the legacy of Untener anyway? only 33% of Catholics attend Mass. real good job, there.
 
frommi said:
I questioned the bishop’s methodology in seemingly taking potential priests from every diocese but his own…and yes, I do question taking in candidates for the priesthood that are rejected by other dioceses.
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out of one side of your mouth, you said that ‘catholic’ was enough, but now you know more than Bishop Carlson. right, again.
 
frommi said:
My issue is not necessairly with their intelligence or spirituality…my issue is with people with no or little tie to the local church community deciding to serve that community solely because of the particular bishop.

I didn’t like it when Ken Untener was the bishop and I don’t like it now.

If one is going to be such a superstar at ‘fostering vocations’…then they should be able to foster them in their own backyard first.
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Yeah, right. The priest in my former parish hasn’t produced one seminarian in the last 7 years – talk about the proverbial fruitless tree that should be cut down and cast into the fire.
 
spanky said:
Yes it was in Tuesday’s paper. I can’t find a link to the article. The only thing i can find is the PDF file of the front page of Tuesday’s, The Saginaw News.

mlive.com/sanews/frontpage/pdfs/A_Tuesday.pdf

The article continues on page two, where his advocacy to the woman priesthood is mentioned.
“Untener became known as a progressive force withing the church, speaking out in 1991 for the ordination of women.” (The Saginaw News, Past leaders come to fore, Tuesday*,* October 2, 2007, Page A2*)*
I know everyone reading and posting on these boards are tired of this topic, but the Saginaw News chose to highlight this. His leadership, as reported by the Saginaw NEws, was basically the following:
  • He sold the Bishops mansion shortly after his ordination and lived in 69 residences during his tenure.
  • He founded a Friday morning community breakfast meeting.
  • He had a prosthetic leg which he wore while playing hockey.
  • He was known as a progressive favoring womens ordination.
    A glowing comment from a Lutheran pastor completed his section of the article, which was the best part: “He wasn’t just a bishop in the church. He was a true Christian in the community.”
I wish the article would’ve focussed more on his leadership in the christian community.
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Yeah, Untener sold the bishop’s residence to buy the previous bishop (Reh) a retirement home in Florida. I know this from a letter Untener sent me. He said it was an “investment.”

Most of this news was basically old news, stuff Untener did before he became bishop. OK, he moved around. What did that prove? I lived in Michigan for the first four and the last four years of him as bishop. I never saw him, until he came to my parish in Illinois, what else?, talking about ordaining women.

So, he had a prosthesis? That accomplished exactly what now?

When the local Mass was still televised, Untener finished the Christmas liturgy so fast, he had to kill time at the end, singing Christmas carols with the kids. And, that proved what, now?

Untener must have stayed up nights with the rule books, canon law, to see how many exceptions he could take, to prove his point that HE was the bishop, like having lay people distribute Communion at his funeral – legal, but the loophole. He turned the whole diocese into religion in the loophole. What did it accomplish except division?

Somebody please tell me what it meant, when that archbishop at Untener’s funeral said that his critics didn’t understand him? I’m the first to admit that I didn’t understand him, but I wonder why he wanted to make so many people not understand him? The point of that was exactly what now?

This is topical to this thread, because we’re talking about our diocese. We’re still trying to pull this diocese out of the loopholes.
 
Folks here talk about the fine liturgy at St. Stanislaus parish in Bay City.

Having been around that parish for decades, what grabs me are the forced changes at the main altar, the flying Jesus statue and the modernized out-of-place tabernacle. The communion rail and the life sized crucifix that used to grace the south side of the santuary are gone, victims of needless modernization and vacuous theological experimentation, not to mention the retirement of statues that had been long paid for.

This is not unlike, but not as radical a desacralization as what happened at St. Mary’s in Bay City, where the former sanctuary is now a devasted “space.” I was there a couple months ago, and I don’t recall even seeing a crucifix, but I could be wrong.

Reminds me of the modernized sanctuary that I saw somewhere in central Florida, where there was a mural of an expanded last supper scene, complete with breast-feeding female figure. I suppose that’s toned–down from a full representation of the scene described in Rev 12 or thereabouts about the woman delivering the baby.

I must update my library on the theology of fertility. That’s probably my problem.
 
lepanto said:
Of whom? (don’t mention names)
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While there has been a lot of progress, there is a lot left to do. As I said in an earlier post, I can only guess, but I would assume the Bishop is carefully choosing his battles as he works to get things back in line. I had dinner with a friend of mine (a priest) about a year ago and asked him how he thought things were going for the Bishop. He said for the most part, several of the priests in the diocese were doing everything possible to give the Bishop a difficult time. That is a crying shame.

But I digress — a couple of examples of whom …

A friend of mine belongs to a Bay City parish that is currently adding on a social hall. He and his wife met with the pastor during the capital campaign and asked if there was going to be enough money to add kneelers to help comply with the Bishop’s directive. The priest point-blank told them he didn’t plan on complying so there was no need of money for the kneelers. It just wasn’t going to happen. There’s one replacement.

On the feast of All Saints I attended Mass at a west-side Saginaw city parish that I haven’t been ito in years. It had been completely renovated since I had last been there, with no hint of it’s former beauty. The celebrant was dazed and confused, lost his place several times, left out the half the prayers as a result. There couldn’t have been 50 people in attendance, but they were short one Extraordinary minister of Holy Communion. The call from the cantor was for anyone who wanted to help to come forward and distribute. Unbelievable. But the one thing the priest could remember was to refer to Jesus as the Yawhew and God as Mother/Father. I thought the priests were told to knock that **** off two years ago. This is an example of a retirement just waiting to happen.

I’d like to end this post as I started it — there are some good thing happening in the diocese and I recognize them. There are also some continued abuses that can only be discribed as in-your-face disobedience by the priests of the diocese. If this were the business world, the dis-obedient would be fired. Too bad it’s not that easy.
 
In view of the insubordination, I think it’s a good management style for the bishop to give people a chance to adjust to him.

I think the time will come when that kind of stuff will not be tolerated. I suspect that Carlson has pretty good insight into what is going on. The things I read in these posts I take at face value. If somebody’s kidding about this stuff, then it is they who are damaging the church.

I sense that there’s fights at the diocesan center, power grabs, that we just won’t hear about here. I think Carlson set himself up by bringing in his own chancellor of the diocese, to pull the plug on setting up the old factions again.

The news about Carlson preceded him, such as the fact that he had a lot of pot luck dinners and served over 6,000 meals in his residence, the last year in SD. Now, we don’t even know where he lives. How times change. I was waiting for my invitation to meet him, but as with Untener, I’m just in the vast crowd of unwashed, bad-breathed people of the outer circle. Like Nickelson’s character in “A few good men” said, we can’t handle the truth.

In one of the Fr. Corapi re-runs the other night, he says that 75-80% of Catholics don’t even attend church.

I don’t see anybody addressing that in the Saginaw Diocese. I get the impression that they don’t really care.
 
It doesn’t surprise me to hear that there are those who are ignoring the Bishop’s directives. Keep in mind, their former boss ignored directives from Rome, so I suppose blowing off a Bishop is no big deal.

And, someone should remind the parish leaders – the Bishop did not say that kneelers had to be installed by Advent 2009 in every parish. He said we will kneel starting in Advent 2009.

And I don’t think he’s backing off on that because some of the parishes won’t consider kneelers.

The night of Bishop Carlson’s installation, I listened in amazement as a priest insisted that he wouldn’t follow new directives (the actual quote was, “If he thinks we’re going to change, he’s got another thing coming!”).

I believe this might be the same man referenced above at the Bay City parish.

Go figure.
 
saggal said:
It doesn’t surprise me to hear that there are those who are ignoring the Bishop’s directives. Keep in mind, their former boss ignored directives from Rome, so I suppose blowing off a Bishop is no big deal.

And, someone should remind the parish leaders – the Bishop did not say that kneelers had to be installed by Advent 2009 in every parish. He said we will kneel starting in Advent 2009.

And I don’t think he’s backing off on that because some of the parishes won’t consider kneelers.

The night of Bishop Carlson’s installation, I listened in amazement as a priest insisted that he wouldn’t follow new directives (the actual quote was, “If he thinks we’re going to change, he’s got another thing coming!”).

I believe this might be the same man referenced above at the Bay City parish.

Go figure.
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I think Advent 2009 is going to be a pivotal point in Saginaw’s transformation because of the kneeling issue. This is going to be very visible and public–unlike other matters such as who purifies the sacred vessels.

I can already forsee many people at Mass refusing to kneel (whether there are kneelers or not), and whether the priest kindly asks them to kneel or not.

Such disobedience is no different than the “Rainbow Sash” or “Call to Action” dissenters who disrupt the sanctity of the Mass to promote their agendas.

Much, however, will depend on individual priests taking the time to educate their people on the proper liturgical gestures/postures and to try to enforce them.
 
MICATH said:
…I attended Mass at a west-side Saginaw city parish that I haven’t been ito in years. It had been completely renovated since I had last been there, with no hint of it’s former beauty…But the one thing the priest could remember was to refer to Jesus as the Yawhew and God as Mother/Father.
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I was awe-struck by the beauty of that church as a child. I too, went there on a holy day (its close to work with mass during lunch hour) with the same observations and reactions as you.

I’d recommend that next time you’re in that area for mass to cross the river and go to Holy Family, the only remaining “old” church in Saginaw that hasn’t been renovated (to my knowledge).
 
spanky said:
I’d recommend that next time you’re in that area for mass to cross the river and go to Holy Family, the only remaining “old” church in Saginaw that hasn’t been renovated (to my knowledge).
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How was Holy Family able to avoid the liturgical vandals?
 
Supposedly, Bishop Reh or Bishop Untener (depending on who’s telling the story) ordered that Holy Family not be touched so that there would be one church in Saginaw that would represent the traditional look of a church.
 
saggal said:
Supposedly, Bishop Reh or Bishop Untener (depending on who’s telling the story) ordered that Holy Family not be touched so that there would be one church in Saginaw that would represent the traditional look of a church.
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Whomever made the call, it was a good one. Maybe Holy Family could be the site of the first celebration of Mass in the Extraordinary Form in the Saginaw Diocese?
 
MICATH said:
Whomever made the call, it was a good one. Maybe Holy Family could be the site of the first celebration of Mass in the Extraordinary Form in the Saginaw Diocese?
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Many dioceses have put out an official statement of some kind regarding the extraordinary form of the Mass.

Has Saginaw said anything about it?
 
MICATH said:
Whomever made the call, it was a good one. Maybe Holy Family could be the site of the first celebration of Mass in the Extraordinary Form in the Saginaw Diocese?
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I was wondering…Did they truly conduct mass ad orientem before the new mass? Seems that Holy Family’s altar is on the west end of the church. Further, unless my sense of direction is flawed, St. Mary’s Cathedral’s altar is on the north end.

So is the mass at Holy Family celebrated both ad orientem and versus populum at the same time? Did the priests position themselves on the side of the altar that faced east at St. Mary’s?
 
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