Archbishop Cordileone Makes Priests

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Bishop

Bishop

San Francisco’s Archbishop Cordileone is not resilient because he’s clever.  He’s a good pastor because he’s loving.  In other words he’s a bishop of the Church.

One Mad Mom reports on his recent talk to new seminarians about priesthood.

On temptations to shirk:

Of course, there is a valuable lesson of life here, especially for your future ministry as priests, God willing. Sometimes doing the right thing will be emotionally difficult. The temptation will be not to take decisive action in order not to create conflict and to keep relationships harmonious. Yes, often things can be worked out in less disruptive ways, and that is the course of action to take whenever possible. But other times you just have to bite the bullet, man up, and do the right thing regardless of how you feel about it.

On being ideological or lazy…

The ideologue simply imposes his own ideas on everyone else, regardless of how it will be received and without trying to understand the people who have been entrusted to his pastoral care.  The lazy priest, on the other hand, simply lets people do and believe what they want; he avoids conflict at all cost, and builds everything around his personal life, his ministry included.

On the hard work of being pastoral…

This is being pastoral: encountering the other, establishing a relationship with them, being lovingly present to them. A priest cannot possibly hope to help his people grow in holiness if he is not present to them. His loving, pastoral presence to them at those most critical moments of life – the loss of a loved one, the birth of a child, marriage, times of crisis – all of this prepares the ground for him to, when necessary, challenge them for their own ongoing conversion. So make no mistake: truly doing the “pastoral thing” will always be harder, it will always place demands on you, sometimes inconvenient and uncomfortable demands; it will require you to work hard.

On the liturgy and the sacraments….

Now, some people might say that this is all fine and dandy, but it’s irrelevant because it’s not what’s happening in our parishes. Well, if you see a discrepancy between what is in the pages of the Church’s documents and what is going on in our parishes’ liturgies, it’s not because the documents are wrong!

This is where the three approaches can be so easily illustrated. The ideologue will simply start mandating changes without talking to people, seeking to understand them, and, most importantly, teaching them. He’s in charge, so he does what he wants, and even if what he wants is what the Church says we should be doing, he alienates people. The lazy priest simply lets things drift off on their own, and get further and further away from what the Church teaches about how we are to worship. This, too, will inevitably begin to affect how and what his people believe, and so weaken their faith. But the pastoral priest will educate his people about what the Church teaches, what the Council really had in mind for authentic liturgical reform; he will begin to introduce changes gradually, probably targeting one principal Sunday Mass to build it up as the one with special solemnity. He also will not take anything away from his people; he will keep the contemporary music at the other Masses, and teach the musicians how to do it well. In this way, he will facilitate liturgical renewal organically. And it can be done. I’ve seen it done. I know pastors who inherited a parish in shambles (in one of them, the kids’ swing set was in the pastor’s back yard!), and, by approaching it precisely this way, they have completely transformed their parishes: the Masses are full, there are long lines for confessions, the full spectrum of ministries abound – even including the teaching of Natural Family Planning – and people are on fire for their faith.

This won’t happen with the ideologue or the slouch. When the ideologue discovers that the high school kid is having a great time banging away at the drums at Mass, he’ll tell him to take a hike. Never mind that this was his one connection to the Church, and maybe even hope for keeping out of trouble. Of course, the slouch will just let it continue, maybe even encourage it, and pretend as if it’s enjoyable. The true pastor will befriend the young man, guide him as to how he can use his instrument in a way that supports the singing rather than drown it out, and begin to sensitize the musicians to their proper role. When the young man graduates and leaves for college, there is an opportunity to make a subtle change of direction.

Finally from OMM to the Archbishop:

We cannot thank you enough, Archbishop Cordileone!   We know you’ve taken the harder road so many before you have failed to do.  Despite the media spin and the efforts of the “100 Prominent Catholics,” your love for the people in your care shines through!  You are the true shepherd that we need for our local area as well as for the whole country. May your efforts be blessed!

 

 

Liturgical Music Chief Bails On Pope Francis Visit

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Not everyone dances to that Pope Francis tune

Not everyone dances that Pope Francis tune

RNS’s David Gibson reveals:

The head of liturgical music for the Philadelphia archdiocese, who was also to play a key role orchestrating the huge outdoor Mass concluding Pope Francis’ trip to the U.S. in September, is resigning his post over long-standing differences with Archbishop Charles Chaput.

John Romeri, who has headed the archdiocesan liturgical music office for five years, said he will resign effective June 30 because “there are simply irreconcilable differences” with Chaput over the role and style of music at Mass.

Romeri did not respond to requests for comment, and it was unclear whether he would still play a role in preparations for the papal visit.

A spokesman for Chaput, Kenneth Gavin, said in an email that he could not comment on personnel matters and “there are no additional updates.” But he said that the archdiocese “will be prepared for the visit of the Holy Father on all fronts, including music for the Mass on the Parkway.”

That is the third time this week the Philadelphia archdiocese has had to reassure people everything will be OK with the Pope’s upcoming visit and the World Meeting of Families.  First the head of the Pontifical Council behind the big money event is revealed to be key to a fraud investigation.  Next a key player in the WMOF event turns out to be a lesbian activist.  (The archdiocese said it was just ill-informed blogging.)

Now this.

In his resignation announcement, which he buried in a list of liturgy news last month, Romeri indicated that he and Chaput had clashed almost from the time Chaput was appointed to Philadelphia in 2011, a year after Romeri arrived.

Romeri wrote that these “several years of discontent” on Chaput’s part culminated with the music Romeri arranged this April for Holy Week and Easter. The approach, he said, “was not well received by the archbishop.”

So Archbishop Chaput was the unhappy one.  Perhaps the Pope’s upcoming visit was just too much for him to endure.  Maybe this is part of that transforming effect Chaput says Pope Francis will have on Philadelphia.

Why does he keep saying there’s going to be so much joy though?

Gibson writes:

A clash over liturgy so close to such a major papal event, and one in which the liturgy plays such a central role, could complicate what is already a huge undertaking for the Philadelphia archdiocese and the Vatican. But such hurdles are hardly unprecedented.

Papal visits are tremendously complex, stressful and expensive projects for the dioceses hosting the pope. There is intense jockeying among bishops to try to host the pope and much maneuvering within a host diocese over where the pope will visit and who will get to meet him — and how each papal event will be organized.

Then everything must be run through a committee and approved by the Vatican. The process almost guarantees arguments, especially over liturgies, which are often flashpoints for internal church battles.

Outdoor papal Masses also tend to be huge events that must communicate a sacred rite in broad strokes to a diverse assemblage. So the music and design often have a popular, modern style that can irk liturgical traditionalists.

Is it possible that Mr. Romeri felt some moral compunction about facilitating the kind of un-Catholic abomination we’ve already witnessed in Rio and Manila?  Perhaps he fears bad weather?

Many speculated that this difference in liturgical tastes might have contributed to the falling out between Chaput and his music director.

Romeri is said to have more of a “high church” sensibility in liturgy than Chaput, who has expressed a preference for the newer Mass in English and simpler styles of worship.

While Chaput is often described as a doctrinal and cultural conservative, in the Catholic church, that does not necessarily equate with liturgical traditionalism, which is its own distinct — and proud — brand

That’s what shrill liberals call subtlety.

 

 

 

 

 

Philippine Church Too Disaster-Ridden to Pray

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tagle10

Profaning chapels due to insufficient government relief

UCA News reports:

The social action arm of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines urged bishops and priests in disaster areas to offer chapels to be used as temporary classrooms as some 25 million primary and secondary level pupils around the country return to school this week.

You may have noticed that more and more parish buildings are dwarfing the actual churches.  Can you imagine the size of the community center next to Notre Dame Cathedral if it were proportional to the huge boxes we find adjacent our churches here?  Now whatever small consecrated space remains is becoming pointless.

If you read continuous reports from the Philippine Church you’d think the whole country was a constant emergency. Once they start making chapels classrooms in disaster areas, kids will have to go to China to be near Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.

“I think the Lord would even be glad if His house will be used in helping others,” said Fr Edu Gariguez, executive secretary of the National Secretariat for Social Action and Caritas-Philippines.

Oh look, there’s that word, ‘Caritas.’  It means love.

Second-guessing the Lord is stock and trade for these faux-Catholic functionaries.  In the minds of our social justice champions, chapels are no help whatsoever.  They confuse the inmates at their indoctrination camps.

“The Lord is always about mercy and compassion,” he said in an interview, admitting that using the chapels as classrooms is a “band-aid solution” to a problem that should have been resolved by the government.

There’s that FrancisMercy again.  Perhaps God will also blame the government for profaning his chapels and depriving His children of the Faith?  Don’t bank on it.

Someday, please God, the Lord will also be about justice; just enough justice to free us from these weasels.