Old St. Pat's Mother's Day Homily

  • Thread starter Thread starter CollegeCTHLC23
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
C

CollegeCTHLC23

Guest

Did anyone else hear the Homily, or I believe they called it a Mother’s Day reflection during the Livestreamed mass yesterday at Old Saint Patrick’s Catholic Church in Chicago? As to my first question, Is this allowed, to have a parishioner give the Homily, or in there case, the Reflection?

Then during the Livestream, the woman (Jill Wrobel) talked about fertility preservation (the freezing of embryos) and surrogacy (planting an embryo in a gestational carrier). Is this allowed in the Catholic Church? I thought I heard that, like with in vitro fertilization, it is against church teaching; which appalled me to hear it during a Livestreamed mass at a large Catholic church! Can anyone provide any insight? Thanks.
 
CollegeCTHLC23 said:
Did anyone else hear the Homily, or I believe they called it a Mother’s Day reflection during the Livestreamed mass yesterday at Old Saint Patrick’s Catholic Church in Chicago? As to my first question, Is this allowed, to have a parishioner give the Homily, or in there case, the Reflection?
Click to expand...
No, laypeople can’t give the homily, but technically she didn’t give a homily (even though the priest referred to her giving the “homily”). A “homily” is defined as an explanation of the Scriptures that were just read. All she did was tell a story about herself.

The priest made about 2 minutes of remarks at the end (Cut off in this video but present in the livestream on the church website) that included some vague statements about “faith” which could have been considered a rudimentary homily. Also, while normally the priest or deacon is required under canon law section 767 to give a homily at a Sunday Mass celebrated with a “congregation”, in this case the church appears to still be closed to the public and therefore he technically has no “congregation” and is not required to give a homily.

So it looks like in this particular case, no rules were broken, technically.
Then during the Livestream, the woman (Jill Wrobel) talked about fertility preservation (the freezing of embryos) and surrogacy (planting an embryo in a gestational carrier). Is this allowed in the Catholic Church?
Click to expand...
No.
I thought I heard that, like with in vitro fertilization, it is against church teaching; which appalled me to hear it during a Livestreamed mass at a large Catholic church! Can anyone provide any insight? Thanks.
Click to expand...
This appears to be one of those city parishes that pushes boundaries. The full livestream has the priest coming out to make opening remarks in a pink baseball cap before starting the Mass, which he then removes upon starting the Mass, and leaves on the altar. (You can see it still sitting there in the homily video). Maybe it’s his mom’s hat (I think I read on the website that his mother had just passed away within the last few weeks?) or maybe it was a tribute to moms but it’s not something you normally see priests doing at Sunday Mass.

Such parishes exist. They aren’t my preference and if it were my parish or my diocese I might complain to the bishop. As it is neither my parish or my diocese I will just file away the knowledge that they do “unusual” stuff at Old St. Pat’s if I ever happen to be in that neighborhood.
 
Last edited:
I did a little more research on this woman who spoke and apparently she is on the board of advisors of the church and has been in the Chicago Tribune several times with her pregnant-cancer-survivor story, which she speaks on publicly at schools and other places. She must be well-connected.
 
Last edited:
So by taking about fertility preservation and surrogacy during a livestreamed reflection where there has been multiple people that have seen it, isn’t that something that should be sent to that diocese since it directly contradicts the churches teaching?
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top