Why Is Jesus Not Enough?

As a convert to the Catholic Church from the Jehovah’s Witnesses (JW) and Protestantism and someone who has moved to the Archdiocese of Milwaukee and other places, it amazes me that many of my Catholic brothers and sisters here seem to be looking for more than just Jesus when they go to Mass.

As a JW, our “worship” consisted of classes on how to convert others (mainly Catholics) to the JW faith. We attended five meetings a week at the Kingdom Hall and the extent of our worship was the prayers and songs before and after each meeting. It really was rather empty from a worship standpoint.

My first experience with Liturgical worship came from my time in the Lutheran tradition. The music at the Lutheran Churches I attended was beautiful and the organ was used at these services. We even knelt when we received communion!!!!! And at one Lutheran Parish I attended the Pastor celebrated the communion service facing away from the congregation and no one made any complaints about it. By the way, the altar at that Lutheran parish was beautiful!!

Upon becoming Catholic, I realized that there was something missing in the Lutheran tradition and JW tradition and that is the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. I realize now that when I go to a Catholic Mass that Jesus is there, not just in the words that are being preached, but He is there Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity in the Eucharist which we, as Catholics, receive. What an amazing gift!!!!!!!

However, I have come to realize that for many Catholics this is not enough. For some Catholics, including many Bishops and Priests, the Mass is a “dinner party” that focuses on the community and not on our Lord who comes to us in the Eucharist. I think the recent article written by Bishop Sklba in the current issue of Herald of Hope demonstrates this. The entire focus of the article is on how Native American culture has been added to the Masses that are celebrated at the Congregation of the Great Spirit. Bishop Sklba gives examples of how Native American Culture has influenced the worship at this parish by giving us a sort of blow by blow description of what happened at a Mass in celebration of the Winter Solstice at this parish. The parts that were added to the Mass included the following:

“At the Advent Winter Solstice Eucharist last month, the community of the Great Spirit began with a “smudging” ritual. Smoke was gently sent by the waving of eagle feathers in the direction of the assembly and inhaled deeply by each participant as a symbol for the inner personal purification needed prior to celebrating the Eucharist. This same ritual was similarly used in some of the Native liturgies by the Holy Father.”

“Prior to the three Scripture readings of the Sunday, a special tale was read, describing the benefits and blessings of welcoming “Grandmother Winter.”"

“At the General Intercessions each individual came forward to place a bit of shredded tobacco, or perhaps sweet grass or cedar, on the charcoals as a silent personal prayer was offered. Watching the faces of youth and elders at prayer was very inspiring.”

“At the time of Communion the consecrated hosts were first brought to the elders scattered throughout the congregation before the general assembly was invited forward. That deep respect, so characteristic of their culture, was almost instinctive and automatic in its gesture.”

While many of these actions, particularly that of offering the Eucharist to the elders of the community first as a sign of respect, seem good and inspiring, it just seems to me that in all of these actions the focus is on the community and not on God. It just seems the focus is on how I can come together as a community and make Jesus relevant to me instead of the other way around which is that I encounter Jesus at the Mass and must make my life and my actions relevant to Jesus. It just seems backwards to me.

Furthermore, I just have to wonder why a Catholic parish feels the need to celebrate the winter solstice when we have Christmas, Easter, and all of the feasts of the Saints to celebrate? Why does this parish need to welcome “Grandmother Winter” during the time we are supposed to be getting ready to welcome our King Jesus Christ?

In short, I have to wonder, Why is Jesus, the Almighty Creator and Redeemer, not enough?

Catholic Knights Presents a Living Irony

In Episode 8 of Catholic Knights Presents “Living Our Faith with Archbishop Dolan”, the good Archbishop interviewed Father Bryan Massingale on what “we can continue to learn from the teaching and writings of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.”

I just have to wonder if anyone else sees the irony of this……..Here we have the Archbishop doing all he can to resurrect the Church in Southeastern Wisconsin by starting this TV series and a major fundraising campaign interviewing a priest who believes his role in the Church is to help it to die.

What was interesting about the interview was that just as they started talking about the differences between the Catholic view of a just war and Dr King’s view of war, the Archbishop stopped the conversation and asked Father Massingale if he would be willing to come back once his book on Martin Luther King is published. I was told by someone at the Archdiocese that the interview was very insightful. I really was not all that impressed with the interview as most of it covered what it seems to me any well-educated American would already know.

A more interesting discussion would have been if the Archbishop and Father Massingale had addressed the following views that Father Massingale goes around the country spreading. See the following:

“Massingale’s views appeared to be based on the assumptions that: 1) Jesus and his Church are imperfect and not authoritative, and 2) the Church and the Bible are of purely human origin. Criticizing the Church as unjust, Massingale said this is to be expected, since the Church’s founder was not enlightened himself. Illustrating his point about Jesus being unjust: “Jesus said, ‘Slaves, obey your masters.’” When an audience member pointed out that St. Paul had made that particular statement, Massingale replied that Paul said many other inappropriate things as well, unjust to women and others.”

One wonders if this type of discussion will ever occur………my guess is that it will not but that the dissent that continues to exist among members of the Milwaukee presbyterate will continue to be the very large elephant in the room that is ignored. And one has to wonder if the Archbishop’s efforts to breathe life into the Church in Milwaukee will ever be successful until this issue is addressed appropriately.

Interesting Article on Why the Pope Has Allowed Greater Access to Tridentine Mass

Archbishop Ranjith who is the Secretary for the Congregation For Divine Worship and the Sacraments was interviewed in L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, as saying that one of the reasons that the Holy Father decided to give greater access to the Tridentine Mass was because of the lack of respect among Bishops and Priests in following the Liturgical Norms. It will be interesting over the next few years to see how this all plays out.

Thank You Archbishop O’Brien

The new Archbishop of Baltimore takes action against dissident priest. Thank you for being a true spiritual father.

Bravo to Archbishop Burke!

Leave it to Archbishop Burke of St. Louis to make it very clear what the Church teaches on matters dealing with the Ordination of women. Evidently two women will be “ordained” priests at a Jewish Synagogue in St. Louis on Sunday. After ordination they will celebrate liturgies at a Unitarian Church across the street from the Synagogue where their ordination ceremony will take place this Sunday. Archbishop Burke has warned the ladies that their actions will lead to being excommunicated from the Church. Thanks again Archbishop Burke for taking a clear stand in this matter.

Catechesis on Proper Stewardship: Raising $105 Million Dollars for the Archdiocese of Milwaukee

In this week’s Catholic Herald, Archbishop Dolan announces that the “Faith In Our Future Capital Campaign” to raise $105 Million dollars primarily for Catholic Education and Faith Formation is beginning this weekend. Evidently the plan is that local parishes of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee will keep roughly $63 Million dollars of the $105 Million dollars that they plan to raise over the next three years and that much of this money will go toward the faith formation programs developed by the local parishes.

Archbishop Dolan says that this Capital Campaign is a way for him to teach us about the importance of Catholic Stewardship. He gives us three “towering reasons” for starting this campaign.

1. Getting serious about stewardship. Where stewardship is NOT paying God a bribe but giving back to God what is His through our time, talent and money.

2. Uniting Catholics in this Archdiocese to make an act of faith in the future of our church. The Archbishop says that for the last five years he has heard from people that we need a cause around which to unite to show that we love the Church, need the Church, and to show faith that the Lord meant it when he said he would be with the Church till the end of time.

3. The Archdiocese needs the money. The Archbishop says that teaching the Catholic faith to people is expensive.

I have to say that I would love to give money to this Capital Campaign if I was confident that the authentic Catholic faith would actually be taught in the parishes in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee. However, I am of the opinion that if I were to give money to this campaign that I would be enabling disobedient priests to continue to promote heresy in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee rather than supporting the promotion of authentically Catholic faith formation.

For example, what is being taught in my own parish at this time through the way in which the Liturgy is celebrated is NOT authentically Catholic. The Priest that Archbishop Dolan sent us does not believe it is appropriate to call God Father and changes the words of the Eucharistic Prayers to reflect these beliefs. Complaints to him and the Archdiocese about this have resulted in nothing except that our priest is more determined than ever to continue to promote this heresy in our community.

Since this is the case, I would never, ever want to give this priest (or the Archdiocese that tolerates his antics) any more money than he already has to promote his heresy in my parish community. For me and others whose have been sent priests by Archbishop Dolan who dissent from Church teaching, it is faithful stewardship NOT to give to this campaign until Archbishop Dolan and Bishop Sklba start fulfilling their role as our spiritual fathers and finally send us priests who truly believe in what it is the Church teaches and who faithfully instruct us in those teachings that are authentically Catholic as found in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

I also think the fact that we need to have a fund raising campaign to unite us Catholics here in Milwaukee is truly sad. Think about it: Catholics have the Eucharist! The very body, blood, soul and divinity of Christ! I wonder if it even occurred to our Archbishop that perhaps if he lead us to greater faith in the Eucharist by demanding that his priests celebrate the Mass faithfully and demanding that his priests teach us authentic Catholic doctrine as found in the Catechism of the Catholic Church that perhaps then we would not need something so trivial as raising money to unite us.

(Oh, and I suspect that the bank account of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee would no longer be in the red either. See Matthew 6:33)

Are the Masses Performed at St. John in Kohler, WI licit? And the Silence is Deafening!

Many parishioners in Kohler, WI are upset. Why? Well, some because they think that we are personally attacking Father Bob Lotz the new pastor at St. John Evangelist in Kohler. However, nothing could be further from the truth. Those of us who have attempted to dialog with Father Lotz about the Liturgical Abuses are really concerned for his immortal soul and we really do want to help him in his vocation as a priest.

What created this big problem was that Father Lotz was caught pouring the Precious Blood down the Sacrarium after Mass one Sunday. You see, at that time Father Lotz was consecrating the Precious Blood in the glass cruet and pouring the Precious Blood into two Chalices for distribution. When confronted with this, he said to me that he had consecrated so much of the Precious Blood that Sunday that he could not consume all of it so he decided to pour the excess Precious Blood that he could not consume into the Sacrarium. Father Lotz seemed to think that it was perfectly okay to pour the left over Precious Blood into the Sacrarium and indicated to me that this is a common practice among the priests in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee. He said to me that that is what the Sacrarium is for. Now, the document Redemptionis Sacramentum has this to say:

“[107.] In accordance with what is laid down by the canons, “one who throws away the consecrated species or takes them away or keeps them for a sacrilegious purpose, incurs a latae sententiae excommunication reserved to the Apostolic See; a cleric, moreover, may be punished by another penalty, not excluding dismissal from the clerical state”.[194] To be regarded as pertaining to this case is any action that is voluntarily and gravely disrespectful of the sacred species. Anyone, therefore, who acts contrary to these norms, for example casting the sacred species into the sacrarium or in an unworthy place or on the ground, incurs the penalties laid down.[195]“

Now prior to speaking with Father Lotz about this incident of pouring the Precious Blood down the Sacrarium, I contacted Dean Daniels at the Archdiocesean Office of Prayer and Worship. He told me via email that the Precious Blood is to never been poured down the Sacrarium but must be completely consumed at the point of distribution. Eventually, due to other Liturgical Abuses it was necessary to contact the Archbishop who directed me to Father Curt Frederick the Vicar of Clergy. I was assured by Father Frederick that he would speak with Father Lotz about the abuses.

Well, the last time I attended Mass at St. John Evangelist in Kohler, I discovered that Father Lotz is still consecrating the Precious Blood in the Glass Cruet but is now pouring the Precious Blood into Four Chalices for distribution and not two. I assume that he started doing this after speaking with Father Frederick. One has to wonder if Father Lotz is now consecrating twice as much Precious Blood and if this will lead to even more instances where he might be tempted to pour the Precious Blood down the Sacrarium.

Also, given that the penalty for pouring the Precious Blood down the Sacrarium is a latae sententiae excommunication reserved to the Apostolic See, does this mean that the Liturgies at St. John Evangelist Parish are being lead by a Priest who is no longer in communion with Rome? I have asked this question of the Archbishop in a letter hand delivered to him but have yet to receive a reply. In other words, the silence is deafening……

Of course, maybe the Archbishop would be more inclined to respond if enough of us called the Archdiocese or wrote the appropriate authorities telling them that we are not sure if the Liturgies in the Archdiocese are licit. Here are some places to write if you are so inclined:

His Excellency Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan
Archdiocese of Milwaukee
PO Box 070912
Milwaukee, WI 53207-0912

His Excellency Archbishop Pietro Sambi
Apostolic Nuncio to the United States of America
3339 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W
Washington, DC, USA

His Eminence Francis Cardinal Arinze
Prefect for the Congregation of Divine Worship and Sacraments
Palazzo delle Congregazioni
00193 Roma, Piazza Pio XII, 10

His Eminence Giovanni Baptista Cardinal Re
Prefect for the Congregation of Bishops
Palazzo della Congregazioni
00193 Roma, Piazza Pio XII, 10

His Eminence Claudio Cardinal Hummes
Prefect for the Congregation of Clergy
Palazzo delle Congregazioni
00193 Roma, Piazza Pio XII, 3

His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI
The Apostolic Palace
00120 Vatican City, Europe

I have to say as a convert to the Catholic Church I am really scandalized at the way in which many of our priests and bishops behave when it comes to the way they treat the Eucharist and their insistence in being disobedient to legitimate Church authority.

Searching for Spiritual Fatherhood Among The Episcopacy

Thanks for the Apology……but will you take the next step? 

I applaud the Archbishop of San Francisco, His Excellency George Niederauer, for apologizing for giving communion to two homosexual men dressed in mock religious garb.  However, will he do what it takes to make Most Holy Redeemer parish a truly Catholic presence in the homosexual community of San Francisco?  I hope so.  Read more about it here.

Thank you for standing up for Truth

I want to say thank you to His Excellency, Bishop Robert J. McManus, Bishop of the Diocese of Worchester, MA, for his excellent leadership and expression of Spiritual Fatherhood for speaking out against the Planned Parenthood and NARAL workshops being promoted at a supposedly “Catholic” college known as The College of the Holy Cross.  Read the Bishops Statement here.

Another thank you goes out to the Archbishop of Sydney, Cardinal George Pell, who has written a book combating what he calls ”The Donald Duck Heresy”……We need more Spiritual Fathers like him.

Thanks to His Excellency, Michael Sheridan, Bishop of Colorado Springs for speaking out against the use of Plan B in Catholic Hospitals…….Maybe he should call his brother Bishops in CT and give them some catechesis……oh wait, I think they actually call that “fraternal correction”…..

And, of course, thank you to His Excellency Archbishop Raymond Burke of St. Louis who as usual is standing up to the culture of death and defending the Catholic faith.  It seems we have a true Spiritual Father in the Episcopacy with him….

Energizing More Confusion: Here Come the LEMs

In the August 16th issue of The Catholic Herald we are introduced with much fanfare to the planning document “Energizing Our Vibrancy” authored by Father James Connell. Others have said that a better title to this planning document would be “Where is Everybody?” and I wholeheartedly agree with this assessment.

However, I think another good title to this document is Energizing More Confusion. I believe that this document clearly adds to the confusion that we have in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee in regards to the role of the laity and the role of the ordained priesthood in the Church.

In this document, Father Connell talks about how Catholics experience their prayer and worship through a parish in a diocese and that the “pastoral care” of the Parish is assigned by the Diocesan Bishop to the Pastor of the Parish. However, Father Connell defines the Pastor of the Parish as including not only the “sacramental priest” but parish administrators and parish directors as well.

It has been my experience in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee that Parish Administrators and Parish Directors tend to be lay persons. I suspect that these individuals would fall into the new semi-lay, semi-clerical religious order known as Lay Ecclesial Ministers (LEMs). For more information on Lay Ecclesial Ministry, I would refer people to the same issue of The Catholic Herald where Bishop Sklba praises the new St. Clare Center for Ministry Formation at Cardinal Strich University which will be taking the lead in training LEMs for the Archdiocese of Milwaukee. In this article Bishop Sklba says the following about the role of LEMs in the Church:

“The spiritual wellbeing of a parish community may well also profit on occasion from the ministry of personal witness and proclamation exercised by trained lay ministers, he said. To take advantage of the presence of the larger numbers who gather for the Sunday Eucharist would be a practical occasion for the exercise of that ministry,” he said, adding that current liturgical law regarding the Eucharist, however, restricts that task to the ordained. Thus, the second compelling question for our day is the challenge to find a way of including our lay ecclesial ministers into the ministry of preaching in a way that respects the integrity of the Eucharist, the needs of our people and the gifts which these individuals can bring to the life of the church.

Evidently there is a belief that if we take away the administrative tasks of the priests in the parishes and give these jobs to the laity and, I guess, the LEMs in particular, then this would encourage more young men to consider the ordained priesthood. However, as shown in the very same issue of the Catholic Herald, Bishop Sklba does not talk of training LEMs in order to assist in lightening the load of the parish administrative tasks of the priests but said that the second most compelling question in regard to the role of LEMs in the Church is to figure out a way to get LEMs to preach at Mass which is currently a job reserved to the ordained. It seems that the Bishop must also think that having priests do less preaching at Mass is a way to increase the number of young men considering the priesthood.

In reality though, I really do believe the following comments by Bishop Sklba quoted from this same article on the role of LEMs whom he describes as Co-workers says it all:

“My first compelling question, then, is how can we make sure that the notion of ‘co-workers’ at every level of church structure remains part of our most cherished biblical heritage and never becomes viewed as a stopgap measure in an age of fewer numbers of ordained?,” asked the bishop.

In other words, the LEMs are here to stay and this is not merely a stopgap measure until we get more priests in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee at least.

The irony of all this is that the Church is spending all of this time and money training lay people to do the things that really the ordained can and should be doing. However, the Catechism of the Catholic Church talks about a real ecclesial order in the Church that most lay people already belong to but judging from the long lines at the marriage tribunals in the Dioceses of the USA they are not very well prepared for:

Marriage introduces one into an ecclesial order, and creates rights and duties in the Church between the spouses and towards their children; Catechism of the Catholic Church paragraph 1631

Furthermore, it is the parents who are the chief catechists of their children in the faith so if lay people ought to be preaching anywhere it should primarily be in their families through the way they live their lives and teach their children. Perhaps if lay people were trained and encouraged by our Priests to fulfill their authentic role in the Church then we could re-title Sacramental Priest Connell’s document “Here Comes Everybody” but it appears that before a major re-write of this document could ever possibly happen that a major conversion of faith among our spiritual leaders here in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee will be needed. So, I believe an important role for the faithful is prayer for these “Sacramental Priests” that someday they will embrace their role as our Spiritual Fathers and actually begin to fill this role that God has called them to in the Church.

In addition, it is the parents that are to be assisting their children in discovering the vocation to which God is calling them and they are to be especially attentive to their children who have been called by God to Spiritual Fatherhood:

“In our own time, in a world often alien and even hostile to faith, believing families are of primary importance as centers of living, radiant faith. For this reason the Second Vatican Council, using an ancient expression, calls the family the Ecclesia domestica. It is in the bosom of the family that parents are “by word and example . . . the first heralds of the faith with regard to their children. They should encourage them in the vocation which is proper to each child, fostering with special care any religious vocation.” Cathechism of the Catholic Church paragraph 1656

It is truly unfortunate that our Spiritual Fathers (or should I use the term Sacramental Priests?) in this Archdiocese have really lost their way. Instead of spending their time and money in the Church training us lay people to become good husbands, wives, fathers, and mothers which is a true ecclesial order in the Church that is definitely lacking in formation, they prefer to train us lay people to essentially take more and more of their jobs away from them. And, then they sit back and wonder………….why don’t any of these young men become priests???????

Bishops Give up Fight: Plan B to be Used in Catholic Hospitals in Connecticut

In a move that just continues to demonstrate the lack of pastoral leadership among bishops in the Catholic Church in the USA it seems that the Bishops of Connecticut have just given into the culture of death.

Note the following quote from the ABC News Article:

“But Catholic Bishops of Connecticut and leaders of the Catholic hospitals said in a joint statement Thursday that “since the teaching authority of the church has not definitively resolved this matter and since there is serious doubt about how Plan B pills work,” the hospitals will be allowed to provide Plan B to rape victims without first requiring ovulation tests.”

By the way, the makers of Plan B tell us how they think their product works:

Plan B^® works like a regular birth control pill. It prevents pregnancy mainly by stopping the release of an egg from the ovary, and may also prevent the fertilization of an egg (the uniting of sperm with the egg). Plan B^® may also work by preventing it from attaching to the uterus (womb). It is important to know that Plan B^® will not affect a fertilized egg already attached to the uterus; it will not affect an existing pregnancy.

And the Pontifical Academy For Life has spoken on these issues.

One wonders just what the excuse will be when this scandal comes home to roost just like the more recent child abuse scandals…..maybe we will hear the same thing, ‘Do not blame us for our lack of leadership and courage. We were just following the advice of the experts.’