Churches Go Secular and Meet the Wrecking Ball

There is flurry of media stories about the closing of Catholic schools in America.  I don't know if that is meant to trumpet the secular tendencies to cry " We believe in Science and Reason!  We are Evolved and on the Right Side of History and, by Zeus, Bill Moyers thinks well of us!"   That's nice.

Perhaps, it is a an actual call to action.

I go to church. Catholics call it Celebrating the Eucharist.  It seems to me that in congregations where the priest is central to the worship, as Christ's consecrated celebrant, the pews are packed.  In others, where the Rev. Mr. Clergy holds the congregation captive, if not captivated with his stunning personal charisma and NPR homiletic stylings, there is plenty of seating and more than a few husbands pulling the Judas shuffle* after communion. Where the sacred and the traditional hold, the devout can be found.

Catholic schools are traditionally appendages of the parish church, when the parish empties so too the schools. Catholics feel an obligation to provide faith-rooted services to all and the economic realities are of that sensibility are becoming all too real. especially in the inner-city. 

In my years of service to Leo High School in the Auburn Gresham community, I have witnessed the closings of the following parish schools - St. Leo, St. Justin Martyr, St. Dennis, St. Killian, St. Ethelda, St. Thomas More . . .to name but a few as well as Academy of Our Lady ( Longwood) and St. Martin Porres High Schools.  Most of these closing had been the result of racial change and the infeasibility of continued operation due to enrollment and family by-in - paying tuition.

Alone of the above mentioned parishes, St. Thomas More continues as a church and attracts parishioners from far beyond its territorial boundaries.  Father Tony Brankin and his successor maintained the traditional Catholic worship and eschewed the rather sad attempt of some pastors to morph into a non-descript Christian place of worship.  St. Sabina Parish alone, by dint of its pastor's political savvy and personal magnetism thrives as a definitively Black Church. Father Brankin filled the pews without aid of the Chicago media, or celebrity guests. He did so, as does his successor, by maintaining the sacred in the Catholic liturgy -in the vernacular and in Latin.

Father Brankin has managed to do the same for St. Odilo's parish in Berwyn, where it is very tough to find a seat at every Mass. Schools that are rooted in the Catholic traditions do well. However, funding most be provided.  Here at Leo High School, black and white alumni pour funding back to the school that prepared them.  The bulk of the Alumni giving comes from the aging white graduates and much work is going to be needed to find ways of shoring up the loss in contributions from dying patrons.

Leo High School has provided a quality college preparatory education for the sons of Chicago families since 1926.  From 1926 until 1990, the majority of students at Leo were Roman Catholic. From 1991- 2011 less than 9% of the African American student body claimed to be Catholic.  In 2011, 12% of the students are now Catholic.  Here's where it gets tough - 87% of these students receive financial assistance provided by the school or the Big Shoulders Fund. Leo High School struggles to boost its enrollment and attract more families who can or are willing to meet the cost of a Catholic education.

To my surprise, the closing of churches also greatly affect the Protestant churches and it seems for much of the same reasons. Jeffrey Walton offers a solid study. 

Regardless of if they are traditionalist or revisionist, these older churches are leasing their church buildings to pre-schools and other non-church groups and feature graying congregations.

With this backdrop from my local community in mind, Associated Baptist Press caught my attention this week with a story about a church in Decatur, Georgia which is about to be shuttered, demolished, and re-developed into a shopping center. Once drawing 500 persons on a Sunday, Scott Boulevard Baptist Church is now down to less than 50 members, most of which are rapidly aging.To be clear, the congregation, affiliated with the moderate-liberal Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, isn’t dissolving. Having secured a lease agreement with a nearby church, Scott Boulevard will continue on without their facility of 60 years. But the article establishes the downward trajectory of the church.
“Congregational aging, if unplanned for, can be gut-wrenching,” the article reads. “And it’s likely in store for more congregations who fail to track the intersecting trends of giving and aging that eventually forced Scott Boulevard from its property.” . . . 

Scott Boulevard’s story reminded me of two Baptist congregations in my town. One was never large and failed to cultivate children’s programs, by default directing any new families who arrived at the church to another (thriving) Baptist congregation a few blocks north. The small congregation dissolved, sold its building to another church, and placed the revenue from the sale in the hands of a Baptist mission organization. It was a God-honoring exit, but not what they had probably hoped for.

The other church, housed in a large building, once attracted over 1,500 persons on a Sunday. In the 1970s they failed to adapt to changing demographics – namely, an influx of northerners and immigrants – and the congregation is now down to about 50 persons. I am told that every young church plant in Arlington has hopefully inquired about moving into the church building. . . . we note that many fading congregations proclaim liberal theologies that are not in accord with traditional church teachings. But while theological traditionalism is almost always a prerequisite for a large, vibrant congregation, it is not the only element. (emphases my own) 

There must be attention to core values and also attention mission strategies and tactics.  Religion has enough wolves licking their chops in anticipation of a slowed gait; the secular world has replaced faith with science.  That is foolish in itself.  Science (theoretical) is merely a tool to somehow understand the world and practical science a means to tweak problems.  Wisdom begins with fear (respect) for God and that respect is merely means of sorting the tools.

* (Catholicism) The act of leaving Mass early, typically between receiving communion and the concluding rite, without a justifiable reason for doing so. The Judas shuffle is named after Judas Iscariot, who left the Last Supper (the first Mass/Divine Liturgy) early in order to summon the guards to arrest Jesus. This is also known as pulling a Murphy.

Purim - Catholics and Jews in the Same Boat Against the Tide of Progressive Aggression

I am working on an article for Irish American News with a deadline of March 15th. The article will appear in the April edition of Cliff Carlson's Irish American News (IAN -On-Line: http://www.irishamericannews.com/ and the topic is the war on faith resulting from secularism as the new government Church opposed to any religious belief, Catholic in particular.

I will talk about the English anti-Catholic laws of the 17th Century and how Catholic gentry, desiring to maintain their economic and political status, abandoned the faith.

In discussing the current conflict, I will parallel the Catholic politician, largely Democrat, who needs votes, money and muscle to maintain his/her political power. Last Fall, the pot in Illinois boiled over, when Governor Quinn who signed the Religious Liberty and Civil Unions Bill into law also stood with Illinois Personal PAC - Planned Parenthood's political treasury which supports not only the move to universal government funded abortion and contraception, but also re-constructs marriage.

Governor Quinn, like Senator Durbin and many other GOP and Democratic elected officials, took the vague tag of Christian, when confronted by Illinois Catholic Bishops led by Francis Cardinal George, Archbishop of Chicago.

Like the 17th Centry Squire Quinn of BallyQuinn Ireland, Governor Pat Quinn maintained his place as a Progressive Democrat. Faith is such a antiquated thing to so many of the evolved affluent, educated professionals free of the ghetto walls of faith. Many such Catholic spawned folks shed the skin of doctrine and catechetical rigors for situational ethics and know that they know better than the Wafer Catholics.

In my article I will feature chats with three very well-educated, sophisticated, articulate, yet to the Progressive very unevolved Catholic leaders. They are churchmen - Father Anthony Brankin, a musician, sculptor and Irish traditionalist priests, Francis Cardinal George of Chicago who has taken more punches from the secular evolved media, academics, and elected officials than Billy Conn in his loss to Joe Louis, and finally an exclusive interview with Timothy Cardinal Dolan of New York, President of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

As part of the protocol, I requested the interview through the Archdiocese NYC Office of Communications and was graced with a call from the Office of Delegate for Health Care - Karl P. Adler M.D. I spoke with Dr. Adler's delightful secretary yesterday afternoon, Ms. Sandy. Ms. Sandy is of Scots-Irish descent and married to Welshman from South Carolina.

Talk about diversity.

Ms. Sandy sent me an article following our chat about the HHS Contraception Mandate by the Obama White House. Her boss, Dr. Karl Adler, has been at Cardinal Dolan's side all through this defense of religious liberty. We talked about faith. I'm a Catholic, by birth and, in my much battered post-middle age, by choice.

Our coreligionists, the Jews, managed to thrive during two thousand years of persecution at the hands of Protestants, Catholics, Muslims, Pagans and,since Hegel, Nietzsche and John Dewey The Progressives. The Progressive Soviets and Nazis fell far short of exterminating God's Chosen People with the blood and hearts of Protestants, Catholics and more than few atheists. The consistent ethic of Judeo Christian culture is and has been genuine love, charity, courage, conviction, and common sense.

From the Jews we Catholics should learn more about conviction, holding onto faith, in order to survive as human beings and especially now as a Church.

Yesterday was the start of the religious Feast of Purim. Ms. Sandy sent this to me.



Office of Delegate for Health Care
Archdiocese of New York
1011 First Avenue
New York, NY 10022


Pat,

Tomorrow is Purim*, well actually after sundown this evening. NYC is a very Catholic town, it is also very Jewish. I read this article and thought of the Jewishness of Catholics the HHS mandate and how Jews came to be called Jews

The Holiday When We Became Jewish

By Naftali Silberberg

What is the significance of the name "Jew"? Where does the word come from and what does it mean?

The word Jew (Yehudi in the Hebrew) is a derivative of the name Judah (Yehudah),Jacob's fourth son; hence calling someone by this name would seemingly imply that the person is a descendant of that particular tribe. However, as is well known, Jacob had twelve sons, progenitors of the Twelve Tribes of Israel, all of whom comprise our great nation. Why, then, is the entire Israelite nation known as "Jews"?

(The conventional answer to this question is that the majority of Jews today are descendant from the tribes of Judah and Benjamin-—the two tribes which comprised the "Kingdom of Judea." The other ten tribes, the members of the "Northern Kingdom," were exiled to unknown lands. There must, however, be a deeper reason for the fact that the Chosen Nation has been called by this name for close to 2500 years!)

Perhaps this question can be cleared up by analyzing the very first individual to be dubbed "Jew." The first instance of this word appears in the biblical Book of Esther, which chronicles the story of Purim: "There was a Jewish man in Shushan the capital, whose name was Mordechai the son of Yair... a Benjaminite" (Esther 2:5).

That's right: the first "Jew" was actually from the tribe of Benjamin!

An objective study of the Purim story reveals that the whole frightening episode was plainly avoidableAn objective study of the Purim story reveals that the whole frightening episode was plainly avoidable. The entire incident was a result of Mordechai's obstinate adherence to a code of behavior which was clearly outdated and inappropriate for the times. Mordechai was an elderly rabbi who yet recalled days – more than half a century beforehand – when the Holy Temple stood in Jerusalem and Torah Law was supreme. His snubbing of Haman might have been condign during that generation. But things had changed dramatically. The people of Israel were in exile. How did Mordechai dare put his entire nation in danger of extinction by slighting the king's favorite minister? Apparently someone neglected to inform this sage that the ability to conform is the key to survival...

Mordechai, however, thought otherwise; and he had a famous precedent supporting his "foolish" actions. Many years earlier, a powerful Egyptian ruler wished to take his ancestor, Benjamin, as a slave. Benjamin's brother Judah wouldn't hear of such a possibility. In what would be his proudest and most defining moment, Judah completely ignored all royal protocol, angrily approached the powerful ruler – who, unbeknownst to him, was actually their brother Joseph – and threateningly demanded Benjamin's release.Judah is the embodiment of the exiled Israelite who must walk a thin line: While he must live at peace with his neighbors, follow the laws and customs of the land, and "pray for the peace of the regime," he has the courage of his convictions to stand up against all the powers that be in order to defend his ideals. In the words of Rabbi Sholom DovBer of Lubavitch, "Only our bodies were sent into exile; not our souls!"

Mordechai "the Jew" was a proud student of his great-uncle Judah. He knew that Torah law forbids a Jew from bowing to Haman (and the statuette which dangled from a chain around his neck), and for him that was the final word. Indeed, Judah's and Mordechai's actions were vindicated as events unfolded--no harm came to either of them as a result of their brave conduct.

Judah is the embodiment of the exiled Israelite who must walk a thin line. Leading by example, Mordechai succeeded in implanting this sense of pride in the hearts of the masses. When Haman issued his decree of annihilation, not one Israelite even considered abandoning his religion in order to be spared death. At that moment, we all became "Jews." Accordingly, the Book of Esther is the first place where our nation as a whole is referred to as Jews.

The name stuck. Because the next 2,500 years would repeatedly test our "Jewishness." Under countless regimes – both friendly and, as was usually the case, hostile – we struggled against friends and enemies who wished to impose their will upon us at the expense of our relationship with G‑d. Again and again we proved ourselves true to G‑d, earning the name Jew through oceans of blood and tears.

The grand story of history concludes in similar fashion as the Purim story: we are here to tell the tale and our enemies aren't... The joy of Purim is greater than any other holiday because it tells the story of the nation who never allowed its soul to be shackled--the story of the Jew.

(empasis my own)

Judah completely ignored all royal protocol, angrily approached the powerful ruler – who, unbeknownst to him, was actually their brother Joseph – and threateningly demanded Benjamin's release - Cardinals George and Dolan and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops have determined to no longer 'go-along-to-get-along. Survival means coniction. This Purim, this Lent, we should try and meditate on what it means submit to royal mandates. In order to live one must be will to object and if needs be take punishment and perhaps death.

Catholics - be like Jews. They don't survive; they live.

The Irish celebrated the outlawed Eucharist on rocks in the wilderness with outlawed priests. Squire Quinn of Bally-Quinn kept his houses, lands, titles, horses and dogs. Call that living?


*The festival of Purim is celebrated every year on the 14th of the Hebrew month of Adar (late winter/early spring). It commemorates the salvation of the Jewish people in ancient Persia from Haman’s plot “to destroy, kill and annihilate all the Jews, young and old, infants and women, in a single day.”

A Church the World Hates Welcomes All- Father Tony Brankin

If I were not a Catholic, and were looking for the true Church in the world today, I would look for the one Church which did not get along well with the world; in other words, I would look for the Church which the world hates.

Bishop Fulton J. Sheen

The priest from El Paso . . .Illinois, who studied for Holy Orders at the old St. Viator's College ( Olivet University) in Bourbonnais, Illinois, and became the Bishop of Rochester, NY, as well as a television celebrity in the 1950's was a good one. Fulton J. Sheen, like the magnificent athlete/priest/bishop Bernard Sheil of Chicago is pretty much banished from popular imagination. Who they?

Well, they were no Bill Maher, or Simon Cowell, nor were they self-proclaimed community activists. Neither was Jesus. He was an apprentice Jewish carpenter and the Son of God.

Shiel and Sheen were energetic servants.

The world is beautiful. It is people who want to advertise for profit who throw up the hideously intrusive billboards along life's highway.

The TGIF Obama Presidency is the Mandate America Administration. Last Friday, always trot out bad news on Friday, mandates that "private insurance provide contraception and the abortion pill for ‘free’, which means insurance rates will go up and that all Americans will end up paying for it, no matter how disgusted you are by abortion."

Our popular culture comes not from building cathedrals as community, developing a synthesis of great thought from the ancients on of the Gospels, or Scripture. Rather, popular culture happens to be what is on an editorial page crafted by group think artisans, or what is available on cable. Oprah is Aquinas and Bill Maher is Chaucer.

Students are walked away from Western Civilization and begin the study of history at the end of the 19th Century. Truth is "a proposition is a plan of action and that it is only judged true when that plan of action has proven successful when put into action." Truth is a moveable feast.

Truth is tougher, it seems to me.

Last week in the Parish bulletin of St. Odilo's in Berwyn, IL, Father Tony Brankin, a Chicago Catholic priest, musician* and sculptor, offered this:

The people in charge of the culture—the newspapers and television—even the modern professors in the universities and seminaries—anyone who owned a microphone or stood in a pulpit or sat at a desk in a classroom told us that the
Catholic Church was no longer to be considered the One True Church. They told us that the Catholic Church did not have a special position in the mind of God nor in the hearts of the people. They persuaded us to believe that the Catholic Church—even though historically we knew that it was the one that Jesus Himself had founded—had no more authority than any other group or club or organization. They told us that every teacher—every speaker—everyone—all groups—all opinions—all teachings were equally capable of being right or wrong.

Oh, and it worked. We have all been damaged by this campaign against the uniqueness and authority of the Catholic Church. As moderns we have been made to think that possibly all religions are equal. How many times do we hear them say on television or in some movie or in some discussion on the radio that all faiths are paths to heaven—and that none is better than another? The problem is that if we hear this enough—we begin to believe it. We think that maybe they are right. It sounds so gentle and simple to say all religions will take us to God —Blah blah blah.

In fact, we have been brain-washed into thinking that we cannot even discover the Truth—either about God—or about His will for us—or about anything for that matter. The movers and shakers of our world, you know, the celebrities and politicians, as well as the ones who write the commercials and the scripts of all the shows we watch—the ones who teach us and our children what is important and what is not important—they want us to believe that we cannot find any kind of truth—because truth—they would say—does not even exist.

You say something long enough and loud enough and with enough of a crowd behind you and it becomes Truth, in the Dewey mold: Gay Marriage is same as Marriage, Choice is Woman's Reproductive Health, Promiscuity as no consequences, only treatments, and 1% is way too many.

Catholics are not homophobic, do not hate women, nor are they slaves to a Roman Master, of German parents, who wears a funny hat.

Father Brankin is not a priest that the media invites to share opinions on WLS, WTTW, or with the columnists and editorial boards of our surviving newspapers. Truth is a hard and answers are easy. You need an Progressively cached activist priest or nun, who fights for gay marriage, better and more abortions, and the ordination of women for easy answers to Dewey's agreeably verifiable conclusions to inquiry.

Father Brankin, like Bishops Sheil and Sheen, takes the tough road and beauty of living outshines the billboards, slogans and memes and he concludes with an invitation to all, not a mandate, a welcome to unity -

There are elements of truth in many faiths. If someone who is not Catholic believes that Jesus Christ is God and Man and the savior who died on the cross and rose from the dead—well, of course, that is correct, and that will help that person get to heaven. But if someone who is not Catholic denies things that Catholics believe, well, that might make it more difficult for that person to get to heaven. If, for example, a Muslim believes that God wants us to destroy our enemies and that a person
will go to heaven if he commits suicide and kills many people along with himself—how is that the same as saying that it is God’s will to love our enemies? In other words how does suicide and ritual murder help us get to heaven in the same way that loving our enemies gets us to heaven?

Again, suppose someone says that they don’t believe what the Catholic Church teaches about life and love. They believe, for example, that there is nothing wrong with artificial birth control. Well, they will have a very difficult time explaining to their children (or even to themselves) why pre-marital intimacy is wrong or why extra-marital intimacy is wrong—or even why abortion is wrong or why gay marriage is wrong. And if they do not believe what the Catholic Church teaches about life and love—basically that love is very much about having babies—then they will be forced by the logic of their unbelief to accept every other kind of immoral behavior—
unfaithfulness and promiscuity and a life of sin, homosexual behavior, pederasty, incest.

Not believing in Catholic truths necessarily makes it more difficult for non-believers to save their souls. I am talking about all this today because Wednesday we begin “Church Unity Octave week”. This is eight days in which
we are asked by the Church to pray as fervently as possible that those who are outside the Catholic Church may—to put it simply—become Catholic.

We pray that atheists may come to believe in God—that Pagans may learn of the true God. We hope that Jews will accept Jesus, and that Protestants (the so called “Christians”) would begin to understand the fullness of Revelation as
it is found in the One True Church, the Catholic Church. Most of the time—because of modern influences—we think that Catholics must relate to other religions by simply
celebrating our differences. But that is really not enough—nor is it honest.
People need to know—for their own sake— that there is such a thing as Truth—and that there is a true God and a true religion—and all of it will be found in the Catholic Church. If we love our brothers and sisters——then we should want them to get to heaven by belonging to the faith that will help them get to heaven.

We must do everything possible—prayer, example, and willingness to witness to the Truth of our religion—in order to bring them to the fullness of truth—in the One True Catholic faith. Because in that Oneness is Truth and in that Truth is salvation .

Life is beautiful without the billboards obscuring the view.

* edited update thanks to Leo Man Bob Hylard:
pat ..as you know fr.brankin is also a devotee of irish music as well his sculptoring..i'm happy to say my daughter lynn has one of his handmade irish harps.[ a beauty ]..my mother-in-law lived in st.thomas more and was totally dedicated to the man ..fr.brankin would sometimes borrow the harp to duplicate its' style for another would be harpo marx..lynn is quite good at the harp but it's too heavy to carry downtown for street music...


http://www.prolife.com/BIRTHCNT.html

A Real Priest Tunes Up Planned Parenthood's Gov. Patsy Quinn

Illinois Governor (for now) Pat Quinn turned the keys over to Boss Terry Cosgrove. Boss Terry Cosgrove is the President of Personal PAC of Planned Parenthood. He is not the labor governor, that he campaigned as, but the pawn of Planned Parenthood and the Progressive Machine of Illinois - Cadillac Commie lawyers making millions in Pan-wrongful lawsuits ( Torture, brutality, racism and just being mean), Gay Rainbows, Public Salary PACS, Green Rangers, Dr. Quentin Young and Abner Mikva.

Pat Quinn immediately found cover when he was challenged by the Catholic Bishops of Illinois and sanctimoniously whined that he is a Christian and allowed Boss Cosgrove to control the narrative for him - The Bishops were anti-rape victim. Really? The news media said so, when Boss Cosgrove made the phone calls and terrifying Twitters.

Now, the Catholic Bishops want a sit down with Governor Christian. Let's see, $ 500,000 from Personal PAC and Boss Cosgrove's good will, or living up to the Baptism. Confirmation, and all that other hocus pocus, from the Abusers of Children . . .now, which way do you think Quinn will flop? Quinn flipped on all of the skilled trades unions, doing the Christian budget of Illinois.

The Bishops should do something better with their time - devising strategies on how not to allow the in-the-tank media to play them for saps again.

Instead, have a real priest visit Governor Christian. I suggest Father Tony Brankin of St. Odilo's Shrine of Lost Souls in Berwyn.

Father Brankin is a real priest and there are damn few of them.

Click my post title, scroll down to page 2 and read in full the parish bulletin from St. Odilo's and the musings of Father Tony Brankin with regard to the Quinn tap dances for abortion.

Quinn can't hide behind Planned Parenthood's skirts when there is real priest in the room.

A Lesson on American Catholicism by Archbishop Chaput: Listen Up, McNally.

Some Catholics are confused, because they have loopy priests who believe that they are Phil Donahue, or Louis Farrakhan. The poor folks at Ascension Parish in Oak Park are ministered by a fatuous goof, who wants to be somebody by proving that he does not believe in the religion that he was ordained to support. Father McNally of Ascension Parish is calling for the ordination of women -trendy, edgy, almost . . .dare I say it . . .Unitarian. Tres Hip!

This goof needs a trip to the Cardinal's woodshed, but he'll get a pass.

Ascension parishioners are crowding the pews at Father Tony Brankin's St. Odilo's in Berwyn.

Goofballs in stiff collars need to be schooled or shown the door. Imagine a teacher of English foregoing the text of Shakespeare's Othello for a graphic novel (Comic book)? Oh, that's right! Evanston Schools approved the further dumbing down of our kids.

Well, at least Denver's Bishop Chaput is in the game -read this history lesson about Catholics in America from Lair of the Catholic Caveman:

The archbishop noted the influences of the United States’ Protestant and Enlightenment roots. Catholics were largely absent from the American founding and have “always been strangers in a strange land.”

He also recalled the influence of the Roman Empire on early American colonists, saying that despite Rome’s flaws the Roman virtues of piety, austerity, courage, justice and self-mastery were “revered” by the American Founders.

“As with Rome, the fruits of American power now surround us,” he said. “But success has always its cost in personal and national illusions. As a people, we seem to become more foreign to our origins every year.”

A healthy civic life depends on “permanent virtues” rooted in God and not self-developed “values,” he continued.

Citing St. Augustine, C.S. Lewis and the political philosophers Leszek Kolakowski and J.L. Talmon, Archbishop Chaput warned that the self-evident truths spoken of in the Declaration of Independence are “not at all self-evident to the modern intellectual world.” Democracy, too, can become totalitarian.

“Unbelief – whether deliberate and ideological, or lazy and pragmatic – is the state religion of the modern world,” he commented. “The fruit of that orthodoxy is a compression and destruction of the human spirit, and a society without higher purpose. This is the logic of the choices that America is already making. But they can be unmade. And they can be redeemed.”

Well done Bishop! Click my post title for more.