Under Currents at the Synod on Evangelization

John L. Allen Jr. picked up a couple interesting tidbits about clergy vocations from the Synod of Evangelization going on in Rome.

1.      Draining foreign countries of priests to staff priest-empty parishes in the USA is unjust.

2.      A Byzantine Archbishop said he has too many priests and no place to send them – because they’re married. Though that is accepted by Rome for the Byzantine Church, there are stringent restrictions on ministry where celibate priests are the norm.

In Allen’s own text:

(Cardinal) Pengo (of Tanzania) noted that Africa today is dispatching priests to the West, just as Western missionaries once came to them. That's a good thing, Pengo said, but it also carries at least two risks:

§         Priests going abroad may be "seeking in the first place material gain before genuine evangelization, to the detriment of the church on either side."

§         The West may be fueling a damaging brain drain at the expense of the developing world. "The church in Africa is deprived of its best qualified evangelizers, while the materially rich Western church receives evangelizers," Pengo said.

That's a danger especially worth pondering given the realities of priest distribution worldwide. In the States and Europe, the ratio of priests to baptized Catholics is 1-to-1,300, while in Africa it's more than 1-to-5,000. Globally, two-thirds of the Catholic people are in the southern hemisphere, but two-thirds of priests are in the north.

At some stage, Pengo appeared to be suggesting, Western Catholics might have to ask if their growing reliance on imported priests is actually an injustice.
 
Although a synod of bishops is hardly "Evening at the Improv," the priest shortage also occasioned an unintentional moment of comic relief Thursday. It came as Byzantine Archbishop Ján Babjak of Slovakia described the unique circumstances of his church, now experiencing a boom after long decades of repression under Communism.

"We are able to thank God for the abundance of priestly vocations," Babjak said. "In the service of 250,000 faithful we have more than 450 priests and approximately 90 seminarians in the seminary."

In fact, Babjak said, they're actually turning guys away: "We cannot accept any more in the seminary because we have no more places to send them to carry out their priestly service," he said. (In part, that's because Eastern priests are often married, so there are restrictions on where they can serve outside their own tradition.

http://www.ncronline.org/blogs/all-things-catholic/asian-plea-humility-synod-bishops

Archbishop-Elect: DUI

SAN DIEGO — The Roman Catholic archbishop-elect of San Francisco was arrested for investigation of driving under the influence, San Diego police said Monday.

The Rev. Salvatore Cordileone, a vigorous supporter of California's same-sex marriage ban, was taken into custody after being stopped early Saturday at a police checkpoint near the San Diego State University campus, said Detective Gary Hassen, a police spokesman. He declined to comment on whether Cordileone took a sobriety test or reveal his blood-alcohol content.

The stop was made at 12:26 a.m. on the outskirts of the campus, a residential area of modest houses, apartment buildings and restaurants where college students mix with the general population.

Cordileone was booked into San Diego County jail two hours after being stopped and then released at 11:59 a.m. Saturday on $2,500 bond, sheriff's records show. He was ordered to appear in court Oct. 9.

The San Diego city attorney's office, which prosecutes misdemeanor DUI offenses, said it had not received a report on the arrest.

The San Francisco archdiocese did not immediately respond to phone and email messages seeking comment.

Canon law experts said a criminal charge would not automatically prompt a delay in Cordileone's installation as archbishop, which is scheduled to take place at St. Mary's Cathedral on Oct. 4, the feast day of San Francisco's patron saint, St. Francis of Assisi.

Because Catholic bishops are answerable only to the pope, any potential discipline would have to come from the Vatican, said Michael Ritty, a canon lawyer in private practice in upstate New York.
"If there was anything, it would be handled in Rome, most likely by the Congregation for Bishops. Depending on the question or type of criminal charge, it might go directly to the Pope or as directly as you can get," Ritty said.

Cordileone, 56, is a native of San Diego, where he was raised and ordained as a priest in 1982. In July, Pope Benedict XVI selected him to replace Archbishop George Niederauer, who is retiring in October. Cordileone was most recently bishop of Oakland and several years ago, he was an auxiliary bishop in San Diego.

While serving in San Diego four years ago, Cordileone was instrumental in devising an initiative to strip same-sex couples of the right to wed in California and then raising Catholic dollars to qualify it for the ballot. He also was part of a statewide network of clergy that promoted the measure, known as Proposition 8.

Campaign finance records show he personally gave at least $6,000 to back the voter-approved ban.
Since last year, Cordileone has been chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Subcommittee for the Promotion and Defense of Marriage.

In an interview with the National Catholic Register last year, Cordileone said that same-sex marriage is "a very serious social experiment that will have dire consequences."

At a news conference last month, he said he thought the Roman Catholic Church had come a long way in addressing the issue of clergy sex abuse and reiterated his opposition to gay marriage.
"Marriage can only come about through the embrace of a man and a woman coming together," he said. "I don't see how that is discriminatory against anyone."

The archdiocese serves more than 400,000 Catholics in the city and neighboring Marin and San Mateo counties. As archbishop, he will oversee the bishops in Honolulu, Las Vegas, Oakland, Reno, Sacramento, Salt Lake City, San Jose, Santa Rosa, and Stockton.
____
Associated Press writer Lisa Leff contributed to this report from San Francisco.

"An Unholy Mess"

The average Catholic parishioners love God and are looking for a faith community that is caring and supportive. They are looking for meaningful prayer that offers encouragement and spiritual growth. Although it might be considered “good stewardship”, they never really know what happens to the money that goes into the collection basket and to special appeals. They simply trust that Father knows best and the Bishop knows better. What a recent article in the Economist suggests is that across the country, finances in many parishes, dioceses, and church organizations are an “Unholy Mess”. There is little transparent accountability at any level, even the highest.

Any reigning bishop of a diocese can close a parish virtually on a whim and use all funds in a discretionary manner. And it has happened more often than one might think. Bishop Lennon of Cleveland has himself “suppressed” at least a couple dozen parishes and used their assets for other projects, possibly including sexual-abuse payouts.

This photo shows a tip of the hat from the one man who “owns” more property in Manhattan than Donald Trump could ever dream of.    This is because Cardinal Dolan is the “corporate sole” of the New York Diocese.

The full article can be found at http://www.economist.com/node/21560536 

Paternal Correction???

Chicago’s Old St. Patrick’s Church hosts prayer service for women religious

Hundreds of women religious together with their supporters filled Old St. Patrick’s Church outside of Chicago’s Loop the evening of May 10 for a Prayer Service to celebrate and remember all the good works, holiness and kindness of religious sisters past and present. Father Tom Hurley, Old St. Pat’s pastor welcomed the throng with a story of Sr. Carolyn, a Sister of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, who, he said acted as a “bridge” for school kids. By this he meant that Sr. Carolyn actually used her back as a bridge to help students escape from the December 1958 Our Lady of the Angels School fire that killed 92 children and 3 nuns. That metaphor echoed throughout the service––that our religious sisters act as a bridge to God.

“Blessed Are They: A Celebration of Women Religious” was in the planning stages by parish staff for some time, but as Fr. Hurley noted in his opening welcome, an unforeseen event speeded up the timing of the service.

The service took on the tone of a rally with long rounds of applause, whistles, and foot-stomping from the congregation as organizers and other lay people told stories, both humorous and profound, of their experiences and interaction with the sisters in schools, hospitals, soup kitchens and wherever the sisters minister––they often doing the “heavy lifting” for the Church.

The service concluded with a blessing by the congregation of the sisters who were asked to gather in the sanctuary. Finally, the sisters held out their arms to bless the crowd. 

Beware of… Girl Scouts

Not content to be censuring women religious leaders, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops is investigating the Girl Scouts. While the bishops are concerned with any possible affiliations between Girl Scouts and any non-Christian, relativistic, pro-choice groups such as Planned Parenthood, they are probably also suspect of any organization that promotes female leadership.

This inquisition inquiry will be conducted by the bishops' Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family Life and Youth. It will look into the Scouts' "possible problematic relationships with other organizations" and various "problematic" program materials, according to a letter sent by the committee chairman, Bishop Kevin Rhoades of Fort Wayne, Ind., to his fellow bishops. The bishops' conference provided a copy of the letter to The Associated Press, but otherwise declined comment.

http://www.keyc.tv/story/18256187/girl-scouts-under-scrutiny-from-catholic-bishops

Bourgeois: A Prophet Without Honor

In another case of “a prophet is not without honor except among his own household...” (Mark 6:4), Fr Roy Bourgeois will be delivering a commencement address on the southside of Chicago. However, it won’t be at the Catholic Theological Union (CTU), but  about a mile away at the Chicago Theological Seminary (CTS). CTS is an affiliate of the United Church of Christ. Bourgeois was invited for this honor based on his living the gospel values of peace, justice and equality. Ironically, Bourgeois is currently in conflict with the Vatican, and subsequently with his Maryknoll order, for his public support of women’s ordination in the Roman Catholic Church. He was excommunicated latae sententiae for his participation in a women’s ordination ceremony in August 2008.