The Pope's mixed signals

[JReducation]

Catholics were never an insignificant minority in the US. The problem is, going to Church and actually living like Catholics has decreased as more and more Catholics, for a number of reasons, are Catholic in name only.

I don’t think saying most Catholics are middle class is true. At one time, there were many middle class Catholics, but, especially recently, the middle class has shrunk. Immigrants from other countries like Mexico have shored up Catholic numbers in the United States.

My parents were immigrants with little education, but both found work, bought a house and raised a family.

God bless,
Ed

Ed, you’re right about the immigrant Catholic population. I stand corrected that score.

I was thinking more of the older Catholic population of Germans, Irish and Italians. But you are very correct in reminding me of the Latin American Catholics who now live in the USA.

As to your first point regarding practicing Catholics, the same phenomenon is true of almost all ecclesial communities in the USA. Jews are a very large number, but few are practicing. The Reformation communities are going through the same process.

The Pentecostal communities and the Catholics seem to be the ones that have the larger numbers of people attending services.

In my parish we have seven masses every weekend and they are full. We have confessions every Saturday and they go for an hour or more. We have something happening in our religious ed centre every night and in our chapel too.

We have a very ecclectic community. The age range is from 7 - 100. The language groups include: English, Spanish and Creole. Plus we have a very large number of senior citizens. Now we have a larger number of people with disabilities because two of our friars have disabilities. One is in a wheel chair and the other walks with canes. What is most interesting is that those of us who belong to the parish no longer notice the disabilities. When you first arrive you do, but then everything blends in. It’s beautiful. I believe this is what people with disabilities find attractive about the parish, besides the fact that the buildings are very accessible to all kinds of disabilities. We even have talking elevators for the visually impaired.

To me this is a living church.

JR

 

[sojo]

Respectfully, I don’t think President Bush seemed all that uncomfortable. Just a tad. The public dining has been clarified to mean not dining with Heads of State. Clearly, Pope John Paul the Great favored dining with large groups of people, and was not a solo diner – he invited all sorts of people and old friends from his childhood on up to sup at a large table where much boisterous conversation and laughter was said to occur.

I had to giggle about staining his white cassock, but indeed he wore regular swim trunks, and when he snuck out to go skiing and hiking, he wore ordinary clothes.

And on EWTN it was said that the President meeting the Pope on the tarmack is protocal for the White House. What made this a little special was it was the first time for President Bush at Andrews Air Force Base?

I do think Pres. Bush was a bit uncomfortable standing in the presence of a great and holy spiritual leader. It is not an uncommon reaction! And the President is aware that the Pope feels the Iraq war is an immoral war, and I’m sure he has strong opinions about the use of waterboarding and other torture in interogating prisoners of war.

I’d like to think I’d be able to have a nice little chat with our Holy Father were I ever to get the chance, but I’m sure I’d do like so many others and just stutter out a bumbled “Holy Father…” and try to hold my water. So all in all, I think President Bush did very well.

Sorry if I’m dragging up an old thread, but I really enjoyed the heck out of the Holy Father’s visit!

sojo