Sr Stella, Worthy Woman

I saw this CNS piece on Benedictine sister Stella Matutina, victim of a nighttime raid by the Philippine military a few years ago:

Along with three companions, including one novice from her congregation, she had gone to (Taytayan) at the invitation of community leaders to lead a discussion about local environmental concerns. The four were sleeping in the municipal office when the soldiers, wearing ski masks and missing the nametags on their uniforms, burst into the building in the middle of the night.

The army picked up some backlash, but mewled its excuse that since she was not in a habit, they didn’t know she was a religious sister.

Sr Stella:

I don’t know any congregations where the sisters sleep in the habit and veil.

The local priest and the bishop claimed to be upset they didn’t know about the visit, but Sr Stella claimed that not only did she inform the priest about it, but …

 (W)e have a pontifical right as Benedictine missionaries to go where we want. We are not under the bishop. We are free. Environmental issues know no boundaries. He should be happy that a sister traveled that far on a bad road to reach that isolated place.

Indeed. Isn’t this what the previous pope spoke of in casting our nets into the deep? In a not-so-faint echo of the Worthy Women series:

In the wake of the incident, Sister Stella said the bishop pressured her to not press charges against the military officials involved. She said she reluctantly agreed, afraid the bishop might expel the congregation from his diocese.

Recently, though, she went through legal channels to achieve redress for the slander (if not danger) of being “red-tagged” as a member of the New People’s Army. (For US Republicans, that’s worse than being a socialist. Those dudes are c********s.)

Sr Stella gets the penultimate word:

If people are dying by the thousands, it’s high time to go out from our chapels and do something. But my community is afraid I will be killed. The other sisters are proud of what I’ve been doing, but they’re afraid for me. They want me to live life happily. But why worry about my life if people are afraid, and ordinary people are killed every day?

Last word is yours.

 

BBC on Iowa State Fair

Hmm. BBC features the Iowa State Fair in a travel feature from the end of last week. Check out that butter cow!

 

Sporting KC

Three weeks later, I’m still slightly abuzz with fond memories from my MLS outing with the young miss. We’ve been following Euro 2012–actually, it’s been more her, with me getting text updates at work after every goal.

As a fan venue, Livestrong Sporting Park is amazing. I’ve been to NFL games in a few different cities. Baseball in a lot more. College football. I can’t ever remember such an exquisite and chilling experience as I had in Kansas City. As a cynic about professional sports, I’m amazed I’m writing that.

Part of it is the sharing of a special experience with my daughter–the day before her 16th birthday. There are really no words that capture the whole thing. Not even my clumsy panorama of the stadium:

 

Dissatisfaction with Investigations, Episode 2

The American women religious weren’t too impressed the the CDF investigation of LCWR. How did they put it?

(T)he assessment was based on unsubstantiated accusations and the result of a flawed process that lacked transparency.

CNS reported today that four of Cardinal Dolan’s episcopal brothers across the Atlantic weren’t too impressed with his investigation of Irish seminaries:

(A preliminary report) contained some serious errors of fact, including named individuals. Attentive to the importance of applying due process, and respecting the rights of those named in this initial report, the trustees made a detailed and considered response to the Holy See.

The Irish Times piece quoted the bishops as refering to the errors not as “serious”, but “significant.” More from that report:

A disturbingly significant number of seminarians gave a negative assessment of the atmosphere of the house.

(Staff were) critical about any emphasis on Rome, tradition, the magisterium, piety or assertive orthodoxy, while the students are enthusiastic about these features.

“A change in the staff was recommended,” cites the article. Well of course it was. Seminarians trend to being more conservative than their teachers. That seems to be a source of discontentment. The suggested solution is interesting, in that it would seem to minimize truth-telling. If indeed we accept the role of bishops and theologians as knowing better than students.

Elsewhere the report said: “The apostolic visitor noted, and heard from students, an ‘anti-ecclesial bias’ in theological formation.”

Cardinal Dolan did comment:

While obviously others do not consider themselves bound by the promised confidentiality — so necessary and understandable to assure a fair and honest gathering of information (and) requested by the Apostolic See — I certainly do.

Apparently all those discussions on having a USCCB spokesperson have gotten to the Jovial One. Is that a bit of snark directed toward some brother bishops?

I wasn’t privy to the details of this report. So I don’t have an oar in this river. Do you suppose the Irish bishops’ protest will be heard with more consideration than that of the Tuesday delegation to Cardinal Levada? Stay tuned.

 

Lessons In Freedom

Have you caught Joseph Sorrentino’s Commonweal piece on Padre Alejandro Solalinde? From the priest who ministers to migrants from Central America through Mexico, and sometimes to the States:

I see them as sheep without a pastor. Nobody helps them, they’re assaulted, many things are done to them and no one is concerned about them. I said I have to concern myself about them. If other priests are dedicated to religious service, then at least I have to dedicate myself to helping them.

Apparently Padre Solalinde does enough to threaten the powers that be:

 We are always receiving threats. Not just me. There are more than fifty shelters for migrants…. We are like a collective and are damaging the interests of drug dealers, corrupt politicians, and corrupt corporations.

I was going to comment on dotCommonweal till I saw Bill Mazzella’s:

This is the disconnect. A fortnight for freedom for well heeled monarchs who have people serving their every need while the true captives have no advocates.

Indeed. Cardinal George muses about his successors dying in prison or at the hands of a mob. He doesn’t need to travel in time to find the Church persecuted; he only needs to hop one international border. There was a time when the red of a cardinal’s robes meant something.

 

Rock Musician At The Keyboard

Indie rock musician finds himself in a church gig in Australia. I was thinking about that scene in The Commitments when a little Procol Harum breaks out at practice. The folks at St Kevin’s, Bangalow have that covered:

Shortly after taking up residence in the church refectory, a residential space for artists, parishioners asked if he would consider playing the organ as the church had been without an organist for some time.

After agreeing to the gig, he was told to always remember he was playing to a congregation and not an audience and with this in mind the experience has been both humbling and illuminating.

James Cruickshank:

The first time I was terrified.

I can relate

But when everyone is getting into it…I have had some beautiful musical moments.

I’ll take that assessment as a positive sign and expression. Church musicians, when they truly put themselves into a posture of service, can and do know moments of beauty and ”inexplicable lightness.”

In my first parish assignment, the pastor introduced me to the inactive Catholic husband of a catechumen. He had been a gigging rock guitarist for over a decade in the Chicago area. But he played the piano quite well and settled in quickly to his new role in a different kind of band. I respected my friend Manny as a musician, a family man, and as a seeker. Getting ready for his first Mass, it was eleven pieces of music to learn. Mass number two switched out six of those. He said his band might have thirty songs down pat. I told him our active repertoire was at least four times that: about a hundred songs, twenty psalms, and three or four Mass settings. But he was up for it every week for well over a year.

My respect for Manny increased when he announced he was taking a leave from the group for several weeks. A few things, as I remember. Sitting with his kids at Mass (his wife now sang in our group). But he found his perfectionism and desire for good performance was overshadowing the real reason he went to Mass. After a few months off, he came back refreshed musically and spiritually.

Parishes can do very well receiving gigging secular musicians into their music ministries. The best singers and musicians are eminently adaptable, and I’ve enjoyed so many good experiences over the years: getting to know some fine people, seeing them get drawn closer to Christ. And making fine music.

 

Following Up: Stations of King’s Cross

Two  months ago, I blogged on Stations of the King’s Cross, reproductions of paper cuttings depicting the Via Dolorosa for London train travelers. The artist has been in touch and sends this word:

On Saturday 26^th May an exhibition of the original artworks will open at St Mary’s, Eversholt Street (near King’s Cross Station.) Rather neatly, this is the eve of Pentecost, which marks the end of the Easter Season. The exhibition will open with an evening prayer at 7pm, followed by refreshments, and an opportunity to view the artworks accompanied by live piano music. The well known Catholic poet Sarah de Nordwall (one of the Catholic Voices) will be performing some poetry, and free booklets will be available for people to take as they please. Everyone is welcome to the event.

The paper-cuts have been professionally framed and will be sold by silent auction: bids can be submitted at St. Mary’s, or online at www.stationsofthekingscross.com. Details of the leading bids will be updated every day throughout the exhibition.

All proceeds will be donated to the following charities:

• Mary’s Meals (who provide one daily meal in a place of education to attract chronically poor children into a classroom where they receive an education that can, in the future, be their ladder out of poverty.)
• St Vincent de Paul Society (who tackle poverty in all its forms through the provision of practical assistance to those in need.)
• The Bard School (an open community supporting faith-based artists.)

The exhibition will be open 9am – 8pm daily up to and including Monday 4th June.

Booklets illustrating the papercuts were available on the Circle Line and can also be acquired for free from the artist’s web site. A sample:

Some audio from Britain featuring an interview with the hosting pastor, Fr John Caster: Stations of King’s Cross-bbc-radio

 

Christ Ascends

Depending on your diocese or nation, you have already celebrated the Ascension or you will wait till Sunday. A reader sent me this link with a video of a statue of Christ rising to and through a ceiling hole in Sts Peter and Paul Church in Mittenwald, Germany.

In my younger days, I probably would have thought an attempt at reenactment with a statue a little cheesy. Today, I wonder about the tradition: how it began, how it gets maintained, and how a shifting of pastors affects that. It reminds me a little of the Baby Jesus figure rappelling down a wire from the choir loft on Christmas Eve. Still, we are spared smoke, mirrors, and special effects.

 

Not (Just) Employer

Jimmy Mac sent me this link to The Tablet with a legal defense for a British diocese:

The diocese of Portsmouth this week insisted that a priest accused of abusing a child was employed “in the service” of God, not by the diocese.

…

As it was a preliminary hearing on the case, the court was not tasked with judging the truth of the woman’s allegations, but ruled instead on the question of whether the relationship between a priest and bishop was akin to that between an employer and an employee.

I wonder how often the prosecutors bring up the Church’s own teaching. Christus Dominus 16 is sure to be an eye-opener for the legal world, not to mention a few bishops:

Let (bishops) be true fathers who excel in the spirit of love and solicitude for all and to whose divinely conferred authority all gratefully submit themselves. Let them so gather and mold the whole family of their flock that everyone, conscious of his own duties, may live and work in the communion of love.

…

Bishops should always embrace priests with a special love since the latter to the best of their ability assume the bishops’ anxieties and carry them on day by day so zealously. They should regard the priests as sons and friends (Cf. John 15:15) and be ready to listen to them. Through their trusting familiarity with their priests they should strive to promote the whole pastoral work of the entire diocese.

They should be solicitous for the spiritual, intellectual and material welfare of the priests so that the latter can live holy and pious lives and fulfill their ministry faithfully and fruitfully.

…

With active mercy bishops should pursue priests who are involved in any danger or who have failed in certain respects.

Here’s what I see in the bishop:

• They are tasked with being “fathers” in a “family” of members that “live and work in (a) communion.”
• Their relationship with priests is described as a mutuality not only in ministry, but of cares, of listening, and of respect.
• They share with the clergy “the whole pastoral work of the entire diocese.”
• Their concern is wide-ranging and goes beyond the work their priests do.
• A troubled priest is a target of “active” concern–even pursuit.

Is a bishop responsible? Darn right he is. It goes with the job, and it certainly is intimiately entangled with the nature of the episcopal ministry as the Catholic church teaches and understands it. Is the bishop an employer? That and much, much more. Bishop Hollis should know this.

 

RNS Features Cleveland Parishioner

It’s too bad the headline speaks of a fight and a win, but if a contest between a bishop and a lay person must be spoken of as a conflict, it might be better for the lay person to come out a winner, since it seems to happen with depressing infrequency.

Religion News Service has a nice feature up today on Patricia Schulte-Singleton who pushed back against her parish’s forced closure, and got much of what she wanted: an independent inquiry by another bishop, and ultimately, a decree to reopen. Two aspects of this story struck me.

Saint Patrick Parish had 1,100 registered households when it was closed? That amazes me. Parishes smaller than that have thriving schools in my diocese. In Iowa, the threshhold for considering a closure is about one-eighth the number of parishioners. No wonder the Vatican was quick to reverse Bishop Lennon on these closures.

And a key to evangelization: orthopraxis trumps just about everything else when making an impression on people:

Schulte-Singleton started attending St. Patrick parish in 1990. Initially, she was not involved in parish activities, but an accident — one of her daughters lost two fingers from an exploding firecracker — changed that.

Schulte-Singleton said she was surprised by the outpouring of support from parishioners who brought food to her home and baby-sat her two other kids while she and her husband attended to their daughter in a hospital.

“That really showed what St. Pat’s was all about,” she said. “The parish became part of my family. And then I became really involved with the parish.”

 

Cut The Crucifixions

… say the Filipino bishops. Conference president Jose Palma, Archbishop of Cebu suggests renewal of faith rather than imitating Good Friday:

While we are trying to discourage these practices we cannot also judge their intention, especially those who have made it as their vow.

I knew people here and there allowed themselves to be crucified. No idea it was a tourist draw too. I think I’d rather not watch tPotC and stick to the Scriptures or the Passion proclamations.

 

Stations of the King’s Cross

Clever. Artistic. Not a Harry Potter thing at all. Read up on the Herald feature here. Then visit the anonymous artist’s site to explore Stations of the King’s Cross a bit further. From the artist:

It would be great if the wonder of the human imagination was acknowledged and encouraged more within the Church. Read the letter of His Holiness Pope John Paul II to Artists [1999]. He has such clear ideas about the importance of art to human society. [As he says] “The human craftsman mirrors the image of God as Creator.”

In the pamphlet, the pictures are called

… just a little idea for those Circle Line passengers who believe that pondering on the enormous mystery of Christ’s death [and mysterious enormity of His love] could be a good thing.

 

On My Bookshelf: The Roof at the Bottom of the World

My wife thought I was crazy bringing this book to bed on a cold winter’s night. But tucked in under the covers, I enjoyed last week’s read from Arizona State’s professor of exploration (that title is so cool) Edmund Stump.

I’ve read a lot on Antarctica, but this book benefits from a unique perspective. The Transantarctic Mountains form the spine of that frozen continent. They were a barrier and a curiosity to early explorers striving for the pole. They form the foundation of this coffee table-sized volume.

This book balances the heroic adventures of the Antarctic explorers with Dr Stump’s personal experiences of science in the field. The author has an artist’s eye, and his photography really enhances this read. Maps old and new. Traveling routes superimposed over pretty pictures. A good bit of the geology of the continent. And always with those remote mountains close at hand.

Great book. It covers those expeditions leading up to and including the 1911 marches to the pole of Amundsen and Scott. The Admiral Byrd era of the 30′s. The establishment of the permanent American presence in the IGY. Even if you want to skip over the science and exploration narratives, you could spend a nice afternoon gazing at and reflecting on the breathtaking scenery.

 

Atheists Swamp Nativity

I don’t know how far Santa Monica is from the La Brea tar pits, but it sure looks like the non-believers scored a slam-dunk into the sticky black for the War On Christmas this year.

Atheists 18, Christians 2, Jews 1.

Here’s to the nine-point-five percent for Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. Have public Christmas displays been sunk with the mastodons into the mists of history?

Church spokeman Hunter Jameson:

Our belief is that these new applicants have been working together to displace and push out the nativity scenes from the park, rather than erecting a full display of their own.

Rick Perry keeps wanting to tell me there’s a war on religion. But I don’t see the problem with churches displaying the nativity on their own property. The problem with bringing religion into the public sphere, such as in schools and into parks, is that you never know what you might get.

When I worked in rural Iowa, athletes led their own prayers before games. I asked one of my parishioners what the reaction might be if he led the rosary instead of a run-on evangelical-type prayer. I got a blank stare. I thought that would be the case. I’m not so sure these school-prayer types really want their kids getting offerings from Catholics, Muslims, LDS, pagans, and other religions.

The Christians were outmaneuvered in Santa Monica this time around. Maybe they should be thankful they’ve still got Augustine’s mama as a namesake. Or perhaps they should start acting sly (like snakes) instead of extinct (like saber-tooth cats) and start lining up for next year’s lottery.

 

The Fab Five’s Irish Adventure

Jimmy Mac sent me the link to this piece from the Irish Independent. What a title: “Vatican’s finest can’t bridge deep schism.” A promising ecclesiastical dream team, no doubt. But it brings to mind another famous five that enjoyed a lot of fame and hype, but never tasted championship as a group or individually as professional players.

One Irish Catholic isn’t pleased:

What was the point in bringing more men in frocks over here to investigate?

Maybe some women religious could be convinced to investigate the Irish bishops.

Finest???? Oh God spare us.

They do not live here and have little knowledge of life in Ireland.

The dispatching of high-profile bishops does sound a little curious once you really think about it. What are they? White big-city bishops with Irish-sounding last names who have mostly (but not entirely) kept themselves above the scandals on their own shores.

Is the Jovial One out of his element?

But there was disquiet about Archbishop Dolan’s approach to dealing with seminaries and institutes of theology and the working document used by the five prelates.

Lecturers in moral theology were asked to provide copies of their lecture notes. An article in the influential ‘Tablet’ magazine highlighted the lecturers’ concerns.

“The working document refers repeatedly to the need for an awareness of child abuse and protection issues. It also refers to homosexuality and asks how faculty members watch out for signs of ‘particular friendships’.”

The ‘Tablet’ article continued: “One could ask whether this implies that there is some link between homosexuality and child abuse, a view that would be largely disparaged as intellectually flawed.”

The Church might consider the Belgian situation is better. There’s still a one-sided dialogue in that country. What happens when Catholics just walk away? Nobody talking to nobody: that implies something a bit deeper than course outlines from moral theology professors.

The first commenter on the link:

What bitter irony! The Catholic Church itself may well succeed in doing in the 21st century what Oliver Cromwell failed to do in the 17th: destroy Catholicism in Ireland.

This is millstone + ocean territory for the institutional church. Alas, I don’t think they realize it.