From First Things.

Plus some of the craziest comments in history.

As “Making all Things New” continues its course, one decisive fact has emerged. The New York Times (of course) first highlighted it. It has been long known to every Catholic here remotely in touch with reality. Now Cardinal Dolan restates it in his inimitable way:

However, a perceptive journalist laser-beamed the real shortage: “Seems like you have a shortage of people!” Bingo!

She was right! Simply put, our people aren’t coming anymore. True, some of the shortage in older parishes is due to the fact that our folks have moved. The people that do come are as committed as ever. But, we still have to admit our numbers of committed, consistent churchgoers are down…. Still, though, we have to admit, our people aren’t coming anymore. On any given Sunday, the stats tell us that only somewhere between 15 and 28% of our folks show up!1)

That indeed is the problem. If only 15% of the Catholics regularly practice their religion, the financial resources contributed to the Archdiocese will shrink: everything from the Cardinal’s Appeal to the Sunday collection to two dollars in the box for a votive light. The number of vocations to the priesthood will correspondingly suffer. As time goes on, parishes will see fewer weddings, baptisms and funerals as well. And this decline has been going on for decades.

The Cardinal now concedes that the New York Archdiocese, taken as whole, has NOT suffered a crisis of “demographic change” – at least in the normal sense of that term. New York is no Buffalo or even Boston. The number of Catholics in the Archdiocese has even risen over the years. New York City remains the economic center of the country, even of the world. The crisis of the Archdiocese is not the result of impersonal forces over which the clergy could not be expected to have any control. Indeed, the Cardinal asks:

So, now our sacred responsibility is to win our people back! That’s what Pope Saint John Paul II called the new evangelization! That means asking why they no longer come, how we can attract them back, and what we’ve done wrong, a strategy Pope Francis is encouraging.
As one savvy priest remarked, “Let’s stop closing parishes and start filling them up!” 1)

Regrettably, this candid diagnosis does not appear to raise any questions in the Cardinal’s mind concerning the current policies of the Archdiocese. So, the Cardinal explains that 220 Parochial schools were reduced to 160 because 70% of Catholic parents “chose not to send their children to our excellent schools.” Were these parents asked their views of the “excellent” schools? A parish scheduled to be closed  under Making All Things New (probably Our Lady of Peace) had a petition signed by 3,000 supporting keeping the parish open, yet only 500 people attended mass each Sunday. If 1,500 had attended, according to the Cardinal, the decision to close “would not have been foreseen“ (=taken?). Thus, the decision to close appears as a punishment for the failure of the parishioners to participate. And, at the end of the day, the Cardinal offers once again only the existing, materialistic solution of downsizing:

“fewer, but now stronger, fuller, more vibrant parishes, better served by more available priests, in new communities no longer straitjacketed by demands of maintenance of huge, half-empty, in-need-of-repairs buildings….” 2)

For a second view of the situation, we have Father George Rutler, Pastor of two churches originally scheduled for closure that have survived the cut (for now). He identifies much more frankly and precisely the nature of the problems:

I think there’s a great deal of dishonesty and denial on the part of some people who engaged in the fantasy that we were entering a new springtime of the faith. The aggiornamento of Vatican II was supposed to bring in tons more people; it did just the opposite. So long as people refuse to admit there were mistakes made a generation ago — in catechesis, liturgy, addressing the real problems of secularism — they’re never going to make any real reform.

The primary fact is that most Catholics aren’t practicing the faith. Mass attendance in New York is about 12%. You’ve had about a 50% drop since the Second Vatican Council. Nobody will address that. They’ll acknowledge the fact, but they will not address the fact that there were some serious mistakes made in the last generation.

And solutions?

The first thing is to be realistic, to address the real problems in our society, secularity, instead of trying to be everything to everyone. It’s a great danger just to want to be friendly and liked instead of challenging in a prophetic way the errors of society and caving into them. St. Paul said to Timothy, “Do not be a man-pleaser.” This doesn’t mean going around and hitting people over the heads with bibles, but it does mean being Catholic, right across the board…. We’ve had a secularization of religious life. Women’s religious orders are collapsing, have collapsed. Nothing was done a generation ago to discipline the orders, and to truly reform them. The ones that are growing are the ones who are faithful to their founders’ charisms.

And a primary evangelical tool of the Church is the liturgy, and wherever the liturgy is banal, you will not have vocations. In many places it’s not a problem of heresy, it’s just a matter of sloth. People are just stuck in the 1970s. Young people don’t want to go to a church where there’s a septuagenarian playing very bad Jesuit hymns from the 1960s. 3)

I hesitate to criticize a priest who has made such unique contributions to Catholic life here over the last  decades, but I cannot follow Fr. Rutler’s further observations:

I think there’s a real problem of reaction from evangelization, a real problem of nostalgia rather than tradition on the part of many people as far as the Extraordinary Form is concerned…

The priest facing the people (in the ordinary Form – SC) becomes a kind of circular community lacking in transcendence. But a lot of people who embrace the Extraordinary Form run that risk too. They become ghettoized. It’s rather significant that in so many cases — I can’t cite numbers — but usually it’s been my experience that where the Extraordinary Form is, usually you have a static group of people, and you don’t have outreach for bringing others in.

So just using the Extraordinary Form is not the solution.4)

I would agree that JUST using the Extraordinary Form is not the solution. But clearly, given the average age of the current EF congregations, how can there be nowadays any question of “nostalgia?” Furthermore, it does seem a little peculiar for Fr. Rutler to talk about a lack of “outreach for bringing others in” when a Traditionalist community under his administration (Holy Innocents) just concluded a highly successful world-wide “outreach” campaign. A community, I should add, that has only been in existence since the end of 2007 as a predominately lay apostolate.

So the critical fact of Catholicism in this region – that only some 15% of Catholics regularly practice their faith – is finally being admitted. Both our writers agree that some questions may legitimately be asked of the current practices of the Archdiocese. We certainly welcome that! And Fr. Rutler identifies that a critical review of the policies and program of “Vatican II” must play a role in any real revival of Catholicism. Yet even he hesitates at the “Traditionalist” component of the solution. It seems it will take more patient work – or “outreach,” to use that term of Catholicspeak – on the part of Traditionalists before their indispensable contribution to the recovery can be more widely acknowledged even by those who should be our allies.

1) Cardinal Timothy Dolan, The Best Is Yet to Come (November 11, 2014) http://cardinaldolan.org/index.php/the-best-is-yet-to-come/
2) http://cardinaldolan.org/index.php/the-best-is-yet-to-come/
3) Burger, John; Beyond the New York Church Closings, Alateia (November 3, 2014) http://www.aleteia.org/en/religion/article/behind-the-new-york-church-closings-5852002303082496?page=1
4) http://www.aleteia.org/en/religion/article/behind-the-new-york-church-closings-5852002303082496?page=2

Report: Fr.Leonard Villa assigned there!

Confirmed!

From First Things. Wherein we hear where the founder has gone… and some of the costs of the enterprise.

Source #1

Source #2

The Church of the Holy Innocents in Manhattan held a Forty Hour Devotion from Friday Nov. 7 to Sunday Nov. 9. Arrys Ortanez has sent us these beautiful photos of the 3-day event.

Organizer Eddy Toribo has written:

“This was the second year we have had it at Holy Innocents and, now that the parish has been left open, we expect to have many more.

We thank all those who helped and made sacrifices in order to spend time with Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament (in addition to attending the Masses) most particularly during the night hours. These days, it is difficult (compared to the past) to find people to commit to be part of the Forty Hours Prayer (Devotion), especially in the traditional context given that many people who attend the traditional Mass at Holy Innocents come from all over. Thank God, we were able to get a few faithful souls who made sacrifices and arrangements to spend the night in prayer, particularly on Saturday. We can be assured God will know how to reward that time spend in church as part of Forty Hours.”

Thanks to Eddy and Arrys for providing this report.

Yesterday evening, in the church of St. Agnes a beautiful solemn Requiem mass was celebrated. The music included chant, and the Missa pro defunctis (Requiem a 8) of Duarte Lobo.

Acknowledgments and special thanks are owed to many:
The Reverend Myles P. Murphy, S.T.L., Pastor of the Church of Saint Agnes
The Reverend Richard Cipolla, Celebrant and Homilist
The Reverend Daniel Champoli, Deacon
The Reverend Matthew MacDonald, Subdeacon
Mr. Steven Pack, Master of Ceremonies
The Schola Cantorum of Saint Agnes
Mr. James D. Wetzel, Choirmaster
Mr. Donald Cherry – vestments and poster
Mr. James Morlino – sound recording
And, last but not least, the funding for the music was made possible by the generosity of the Catholic Artists Society, the New York Purgatorial Society, The Roman Forum – and our own Society of Saint Hugh of Cluny.

The St. Cecilia Society of St. Mary Church, Norwalk
is pleased to present its annual benefit concert in honor of St. Cecilia
& in celebration of the Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica

The St. Mary’s Schola Cantorum
David J. Hughes, Director

Sunday, 9 November 2014, 4:00 P.M.
$25 general admission | $15 students & seniors

All proceeds go to support the work of the St. Cecilia Society throughout the year.
A festive wine & cheese reception will follow the concert.

Sung Mass for the Dead on Tuesday, November 18th at 7:30 in the evening
Saint Mary Church
Greenwich Avenue
Greenwich, Connecticut

Mass Mobs: From the New York Times

“Elizabeth Davis, 47, of Harmony, Pa., decided to start a Mass mob in Pittsburgh after hearing about the group in Buffalo. Her first effort, organized via Meetup.com, drew 25 people and the second about 50. Now, by reaching out through a Catholic women’s organization and youth programs, as well as to members of a historic preservation group, she hopes to hit 150 later this month.

“These beautiful old churches were built by our grandfathers and great-grandfathers, and to see them close is really sad,” said Ms. Davis, who is also raising six children and finishing a college degree. “We have 2,000 years of tradition, and it’s time we get excited about it.”

(As the article notes, there is a “Mass mob” movement in Fairfield County!)

Paulson, Michael, “At Forlorn Urban Churches, Mass gets crowded in a Flash” (The New York Times, 10/11/14)

Another Article from Maureen Mullarkey at First Things.

Meanwhile, the formal dedication of the Sheen Center has taken place. In a “powerful address” Cardinal Dolan explained that:

“(Archbishop Sheen) demonstrated “once and for all that American society had nothing to fear from Catholics, and in fact could count on the Church to be a real partner in fostering democracy, justice and freedom.”

(Sheen) was attempting to “move Catholics from an outsider to an insider status within American culture.”

Whatever their relevance to Sheen’s mission, these comments very accurately describe the objectives of the “American Catholic Church” of the last 50 years.

From the description of the article, the initial clients of the Center have been entirely secular: companies associated with NYU, Pace University etc.

See: Woods, John; “Archbishop Sheen Center Dedication Points to Man It’s Named For” (Catholic New York 9/17/14)