changobeer

the horror, the horror...

2009-08-18T23:46:00.013-04:00

With a more convoluted storyline than the most sordid Mexican telenovela, the cataclysmic unraveling of the Legion of Christ can only be described as a descent into lunacy.

The kind of madness that led Van Gogh to sever his ear while stalking Gauguin…

The detatchment from reality that allowed Munch to paint his hallucinatory ‘Scream’…

The denial and insanity that brought Colonel Kurtz to summarize his existence as “The horror, the horror”…

While investigators and journalists reveal new dimensions to Fr. Maciel’s long career as fraud and sexual predator daily, Vatican visitators try to discern fact from fiction in the Legion and the Legion’s leadership becomes ever more strident in its insistence that all is well and nothing should change.

The Secretary General is on a whirlwind tour of LC centers spinning the yarn that there is a basis to the Legion that was not invented by the disgraced Founder and was never contaminated by his web of secrecy and falsehood. The word ‘mystique’ – not charism or constitution – has become the new shibboleth in the hasty reinvention of the Legion. La mística is what makes the Legion what it is… that vague, undefinable air that sets us apart… that prototypical seal somehow impressed on the collective consciousness of the Legionaries that preserves our identity and defines our cause…

Because of its ‘mystique’, the Legion can and should remain untouched by the scandal of its Founder’s life, the glaring questions about its internal structure and operations as a religious congregation and the lethal virus of doubt and distrust spreading silently through the ranks of its members.

This latest discourse is as puzzling as it is disingenuous. A desperate effort in the eleventh hour to preserve the status quo, business as usual, “aquí no pasa nada”.

At the same time, a book recently distributed internally, ‘Cristo al Centro’, offers an anthology of Fr. Maciel’s writings and sayings – unindexed and sometimes slightly retouched – mixed with quotations from other, less dubious sources as a thinly disguised attempt to revindicate the Founder’s contribution to LC spirituality. Now we can quote the Founder without mentioning his name, read some of the things he said and wrote without that direct and oh-so-uncomfortable reference to his person. They’re already talking about revisiting the writings of Fr. Maciel some years down the road when all this ‘persecution’ has blown over…

The Superior General has just sent an eighteen page letter meant, apparently, to motivate and strengthen the LCs in these difficult times. The meandering missive never even names the problems that are rocking the congregation to its core and basically offers three bits of advice to its confused, anguished and frustrated priests: pray, don’t read the newspapers and trust the superiors.

Trust the superiors? Like we all trusted Fr. Maciel, our Superior General, for nearly 70 years?

If their end game is to retain power and conserve the organization founded to camouflage the double life of its disgraced Founder… perhaps our trust would be better invested elsewhere. Just a thought.

Some of the commentaries swirling around these days express the fear that the Vatican may not take the visitation to its ultimate consequences. That the Legion with its flagship seminaries, huge ordination groups and impressive works of apostolate must be preserved at all costs for the good of the Church. And that perhaps there is not the resolve to overturn stones that would reveal knowledge, complicity or benefits received by high ranking Church personalities as part of Fr. Maciel’s web of influence peddling and manipulation…

We can only hope and pray that the truth – full and unadulterated – will win the day in the end. The Legion is a shipwreck with many victims. Full disclosure, absolute transparency, a change in leadership, a General Chapter with strict Vatican oversight, a reformed constitution, the definitive eradication of all vestiges of Fr. Maciel’s personal imprint, and a heartfelt effort to help all those who have been hurt and betrayed are the lifeboat that will keep this surreal episode in the Church’s history from turning into an irredeemable tragedy.

Until then, the madness will continue and the Legion will persist in its denial and arrogance, turning into the exact opposite of what it claims to be.

Peace.

who stole my primerissima?

2009-07-15T23:37:00.014-04:00

.

Today should be a primerissima.

You know, Misa con motetes… banderas… fusion entre comunidades… merienda cena.

But it’s quiet today at our centers. Nothing out of the ordinary. Business as usual: saving the world one lider at a time.

If the Pope were blessing a stone, we’d be hearing about it.

If the Mayor of Podunk were visiting an apostolic school, there’d be ‘chi-qui-ti bun-ba-di bin-bun-ba’ till the cows come home.

If Cardinal Doofratzit were having dinner with the community, the estudiantina would play Viva Espana! and La Malaguena into the wee hours of the morn.

Today is one of the most significant dates in the history of the Legion and… (crickets).

.......

If anything, the orchestrated ignorance of the LCs, 3GF and RC members regarding the apostolic visitation of the congregation provides an eerie backlighting for the event itself. The members of the movement, clergy and laity, have been scarcely informed and left unprepared. A strategy of ingenuous smiles and simulated serenity is firmly in place. As if the Vatican appointed visitators will be so overwhelmed by the choreography that they’ll overlook the dark recesses of the plot and the hidden horrors of the screenplay.

The LC would almost certainly prefer to be left alone to work out its own solutions. The visitation is an embarassment and an undesired intromission into its private laboratory where truth and lies can be arbitrarily fabricated or erased through the alchemy of spin and secrecy.

But the LC is wretchedly incapable of curing itself.

Case in point: how can the LC continue at this present moment to ordain deacons and priests? How can it promote to religious profession the young novices that obliviously inch toward their vows? How can the Legion now so aggressively recruit new candidates to fill its vaunted houses of formation?

This is a point that Fr. Berg made in his recent interview and that many of us have marvelled at in private conversations.

Is not full knowledge a requisite for full and free consent? Could anyone validly commit their lives to serve as priest and religious in an institution about which they really know quite little because the truth has been systematically obfuscated and discarded?

Shouldn’t the LC at least wait until the visitation publishes its results – and we should all pray for an independent publication, free from LC filters and delays, if we hope to ever know the real findings and results – before herding more idealistic young men into its ranks?

The retort that present generations are less affected by the scandalous life and legacy of Fr. Maciel and so should progress unfettered by useless hindrances like ‘truth’ and ‘full disclosure’ is disingenuous at best. Every new candidate to the LC should know up front that he is entering the only existing religious order in the Catholic Church whose Founder was a sexual predator and a pathological liar who lived a double life during the sixty whatever years of the foundation. The parents of every new recruit should be carefully informed that their son or daughter is about to put their life and conscience in the hands of an institution that has had to disown its Founder because of accusations of sexual abuse (“more than 20, less than 100”), toss out all the writings and teachings that sustain his warped spirituality and now awaits with uncertainty a judgment on its future existence. They should also know that the men presently running the organization that will exercise full and unmitigated authority over their son or daughter were hand-picked by Fr. Maciel and swore personal allegiance to him at the last General Chapter.

Hey, folks, wake up!!! I mean this ain’t the Jesuits, the Dominicans or the Salesians you’re joining… we’re the LC!!!

If there were real transparency and full disclosure, who in their right mind would risk getting involved with the Legion of Christ right now?

I will take this a step further – and believe me, it has been a long, dark and painful journey to this point – and say: who among us, Legionaries of 20, 30, 40 years or more – being of sound mind and discerning conscience – would have endured even one minute of the teaching, preaching, discipline, spirituality, methodology, spiritual direction, ‘questions’, conferences or writings of Fr. Maciel had we known that at the very time he was hypnotizing us with his lies he was sexually abusing seminarians, fathering children, running around on the congregation’s dime, duping popes, cardinals, bishops and benefactors…

It was our ignorance that held the Legion together. The LC is founded, not on the supposed sanctity and inspiration and charism of its Founder, but on the gullible and impressionable idealism of his hapless followers.

We should be the first to decry the smoke and mirrors. We should be the most outraged by the falsehood and programmed ignorance that keep the LCs and 3GF subject to an illusory vocation. We should be the voices that the visitation hears and that make the hard changes possible.

And we definitely should have had a primerissima today…

Chi-qui-ti bun-ba-di bin-bun-ba.
.

Leave the bathwater. Take the cannoli.

2009-07-09T23:37:00.007-04:00

An old friend popped in unexpectedly today. I dropped what I was doing and we went to lunch at a deli in the section of town they used to call ‘Little Italy’. Everyone says the city is not what it used to be, but you can still get good cannoli and sfogliatelle on Franklin Ave. if you know where to look.

We have mutual ties to the LC and this guy recently visited one of our large houses of formation in Europe. He asked the superior – also an old friend – how he was holding up, given all the pressure and uncertainty.

I held up my hand and said, “Wait, let me guess. He replied: Mucha paz y tranquilidad, gracias a Dios. Aquí y en toda la Legión se respira un gran aire de familia.“

My buddy smiled and shrugged. “Almost verbatim. How did you know?”

“Just a hunch.” I said as the waitress came with our drinks and sandwiches.

.......

He asked me if I thought it possible to save the writings of Fr. Maciel. Many of them, he said, contain instruction and reflections that are, in and of themselves, good and useful. Many are simply his expression of elements of spirituality and religious life common to the universal Church. Why not keep what is good in his writings even if we must disown and distance ourselves from his person?

Why throw out the baby with the bathwater?

I answered with two analogies.

Adolph Hitler was a painter. Paintings of his have survived and even been auctioned off to collectors and historians in recent times. He painted landscapes. He painted the Blessed Virgin with the Christ Child. He fancied himself quite the accomplished artist.

Hitler is not remembered for his art. He is forever engraved upon the collective memory of humankind as arguably the least human, most deranged and criminal mass murderer of modern times. That is who he was.

To say, ‘let’s forget who he was and hang his paintings in the rectory’ would be disingenuous, offensive and repugnant to even the most lenient of critics.

One cannot separate the art from the artist. BECAUSE OF WHO HE WAS, Hitler’s Madonna and Child becomes a particularly blasphemous mockery of the Virgin, Christ and all the sacred artwork that has tried to represent the Holy Mother and her Son throughout time.

Analogy number two: in the Gospel narration of the temptations of Jesus, Satan quotes Sacred Scripture in the hopes of inducing the Savior to sin.

By itself, Scripture is a holy and valuable guide. On the lips of the Adversary it becomes a singularly vile and devious hex, a sacrilegious manipulation that reeks of evil and desperation.

Fr. Maciel was neither Satan nor Hitler and analogies take us only so far.

But while Fr. Maciel masqueraded as the saintly founder, the admirable priest, apostle and ‘suffering servant of Yahweh’ that all the LCs sought to emulate in their own vocation, his writings were veritable treasures that we meditated and quoted, memorized and preached.

Once we found out who he truly was, those same writings have turned into the cruelest of jokes, a most unholy parody of true spirituality and religious tradition, a sacrilegious satire that should make us all ashamed of having once proudly called ourselves ‘co-founders’.

The bathwater dissolved whatever baby there was long, long ago.
So throw it out with no regrets.

Peace.

the Baptist, the Curè

2009-06-24T22:55:00.007-04:00

The Nativity of John the Baptist caught one of our more perspicacious early Mass-goers by surprise this morning. She is training to become an extraordinary minister of communion and has, as a side effect, grown entranced by our liturgical calendar.

As I locked the aged maple doors of the church, she turned back and asked me why we celebrate the birth of John the Baptist when, to the best of her observation, other saints are celebrated on their death... or, as I prefer, exit to reality.

John’s importance as a sign of messianic fulfillment and his role as the Precursor, last prophet of the Old Covenant, has traditionally been recognized as equal or greater than his importance as saint and martyr. His birth and his death prefigure the Christ who enters the stage of humanity barely a step behind him.

John the Baptist is not your garden variety holy man.

Pope Benedict chose the birth date of another John, also unique in his sainthood, to initiate what he is calling ‘a year for priests’.

The letter he wrote, outlining his purpose for this timely and urgent celebration of the priesthood, is a fitting point of departure for what will be a year’s worth of meditation on our identity and mission as priests.

I read the letter slowly and could not help but recall, as one who flips through the pages of a scrap book, the different episodes of my own journey that have been as dramatic and, at times, as commonplace as anyone blessed with this unusual vocation.

The past eight months have been particularly trying – in ways unpredicted – because of the unraveling of the Legion of Christ and the increased demands of my ministry: the administration of four struggling city parishes, the latest of which, is barely awaking from a long and dark hibernation...

Never have I felt so surpassed by my circumstances, so utterly befuddled by the twists and turns of fate, so acutely aware that a priest is one who relinquishes the reins of his life to Another...

Both Johns have something to teach me this year.

Peace.

more than words

2009-06-16T01:25:00.005-04:00

There was a time when it was severely frowned upon to refer to writers other than the Founder in our preaching, spiritual exercises and private reading. We were instructed to quote him often, to dedicate certain meditations to his person, virtue and vocation. We were to read his letters during adoration and as part of the liturgy of the hours. We were to engage in studies of our own spirituality much like Jesuits have studied Ignatius and Salesians have studied Don Bosco.

Now? Not so much.

For those of us who have lived through it, it is nothing less than mind-boggling.

Recalling the years and years of our lives as LCs during which EVERYTHING was centered on the person of Fr. Maciel now feels like trying to remember the hallucinations of a distant psychotic episode.

Every word, every gesture, every commentary, every scrap of paper scribbled on by ‘the Boss’ was a treasure, an unforgettable connection between the inspired, saintly Founder and his intrepid, although still imperfect, co-founders.

For a long time the most piercing motivation the superiors could give us to live with greater fidelity the infinite rules and regulations of the order was: “Think of how Nuestro Padre suffers with even the slightest infidelity of his co-founders!”

He was our ideal... the true “legionario tipo” that we all so ardently aspired to imitate.

I cringe to think of it now.

Those same green books that I so dutifully worked my way through, volume after volume, taking time to memorize favorite passages and copy special phrases into my own spiritual journal... now make me physically nauseous when I try to read their pages.

A letter from the early 80’s encouraging a LC priest to be ‘authentic’, to open himself entirely to the Legion through his superiors, to never wear ‘masks’ and always be transparent...

This from the master mask maker himself!

Line after line on the subject of chastity, on maintaining priestly dignity and decency when dealing with women, on offering the sacrifice of ourselves with a pure heart to Christ...

When did he think this stuff up? While he was lying in bed, enjoying a post-coital cigarette next to some young concubine, dreaming of the army of holy priests he would someday offer the Church?

Or how about those fabulous letters warning us of the dangers of ‘particular friendships’, those devilish ‘maría–remedios' waiting to seduce us at every turn, importuning us to have confidence only in our superiors (i.e. report everything you see, no matter how innocuous, to Big Brother)...

Yet behind it all he camouflaged his own turbid proclivities and allowed his unrestrained deviance to ruin so many young lives!

How sick does it get, man?

All those heavy one-liners of Nuestro Padre that were constantly repeated as a litany of motivation to eager and gullible ‘co-founders’ now sound hopelessly vapid and cynical:

“fiel hasta morir en la raya” Yeah, right. Just like NP.

“de una sola pieza, al pié del cañón” Spare me the irony.

“amor et dolor vita mea” You put lipstick on a pig, it’s still a pig.

“el Legionario se es o se despide” Finally, some candid advice...

“nunca he dicho ‘no’ a mi Señor Jesucristo” If that’s the case, who has?

“soy por la Legión que Dios me quiere” Syntax is no longer the main problem with this one...

“mi vida por Cristo” Whatever.

All of this is not just the venting of a guy who, like many others, was deceived and betrayed about the core truth of his vocation.

It is vitally important as a point to be considered by the visitation.

The spirituality of the LC, such as it is, is embedded in the writings of the Founder. His thoughts and his words are conserved in endless books, pamphlets, recordings and videos. In the LC we have often prided ourselves on how completely EVERY aspect of our lives has been defined and detailed by the Founder.

The double life of Fr. Maciel as inspired spiritual guide/fraud and sexual predator has totally negated his credibility. Nothing he has said or written to the LCs or the RC members can be believed or taken seriously. Who he was taints all he wrote. There is no separating the teachings from the life of the teacher when it comes to the all-consuming, conscience-binding religious vocation.

The writings – all of them, from the Constitutions to the Salterio – are as fraudulent as the life that produced them.

From now on, there will be an 800 pound gorilla in the room every time his letters are read during meals in spiritual exercises, every time the Constitutions are read and commented on in community, every time the wishes and words of the Founder are half-heartedly tossed around as motivations.

In essence, the visitation has to expunge every last vestige of the Founder from the Legion’s spirituality.

But would a ‘Legion’ devoid of Fr. Maciel’s thought and teaching still be the Legion of Christ?

Therein lies the challenge: to remake a religious congregation into something totally removed from its Founder, while at the same time salvaging the vocations, apostolates, houses of formation and charitable works associated with it.

Peace.

a triple challenge

2009-06-07T18:58:00.005-04:00

And I thought Pentecost was a bust...

Preaching on these theologically supersized liturgical solemnities is definitely a challenge. It feels like there’s no middle ground between trivializing the content into Paris Hilton/Jonathan Morris approved sound bytes and turning the homily into an arid ethereal classroom à la Gregoriana...

Regardless, my experience is that if you speak passionately and with enough personal conviction about anything, you can get them to listen.

For a little while.

This is where I went, in under twelve minutes, today, Solemnity of the Holy Trinity:

• all religions look for ways to speak about the Ultimate Reality
• all religions coincide, to some degree, in what they say about God
• but the truth about God can only be revealed by God Himself

• Christianity has a unique, somewhat difficult, way of expressing its knowledge of God... such as it is
• Christianity believes that Jesus Christ IS God and, therefore, is God revealing Himself in a way that we can comprehend... at least a little
• Jesus of Nazareth found no better words in the human vocabulary to speak about God than: Father, Son and Spirit (Consoler, Advocate...)
• Jesus differentiates between the three persons but radically adheres to the affirmation of a single God
• the ‘three’ of the ‘Trinity’ is not, strictly speaking, a number; it is an expression of plenitude, of a relationship that is complete and perfect

• far from being a theoretical dogma (read: entirely useless as far as my ‘real life’ is concerned), our faith in the Trinity is our answer to the ultimate and ever-present WHY?
• we affirm that relationship (love) - not matter, blind energy or the cosmic lottery – is the source, the underpinning, the reason, the cause, the finality and the meaning of all there is
• the universe, with us in it, is the result of the Father’s love for the Son... a love that had to overflow outside itself, expand beyond its own divinity, as it were
• the universe, our universe, is the necessary scenario – the ultimate possibility – for the Son to love the Father totally, as He Himself is loved... our imperfect world gives the Son the platform to embrace and become what He is not (suffering, sin, death, condemnation), exhausting all possibilities of love understood as losing oneself for the beloved...
• the Spirit is the vibrant, dramatic, subtle and explosive relationship between Father and Son that fills the universe, gives being where only nothingness would survive, and permeates with its beauty all that is

• after Mass, we shall all go running off to Walmart, or to twittering and text messaging our friends, or to fire up the grill in the backyard or to plop down in front of the flatscreen to watch the Yankees or the Sox... but the tremendous truth of what we affirm today as a community in this holy place will ever and always be the rock we stand on and the hope we live by

Peace.

liar, liar

2009-06-06T01:26:00.004-04:00

A couple of weeks ago I had a visit from a friend, a priest in another religious congregation.

The Somascan Fathers (CRS), founded around the beginning of the 16th century, have a relatively small operation in the USA, but can be found serving in parishes with high levels of poverty or large numbers of recently arrived immigrants.

This priest told me the troubling story of their last superior general, which I related to immediately. By all accounts a saintly man, a kind and gentle pastor of souls with a deep spiritual life, something cracked inside. After a number of years serving as superior he unexpectedly called a press conference and stated that he would be resigning his post. He asked the Vatican to appoint someone better fitted to assume the grave responsibilities of his office. Although he made no further disclosures at the time, it appears that something arose in his private circumstances that was serious enough to merit his immediate retirement.

Think what you will, this man was honest enough to know that the turmoil and challenges of his personal life were radically incompatible with his religious commitment and obstreperously contradictory to his role as superior general of the congregation.

There was pain on all sides: his, in leaving; his brethren’s, in ‘losing’ a friend and spiritual guide; the faithful’s, in wondering what inner crisis would cause a beloved priest to abandon them...

And yet, he drew a line of basic decency in the sand and rejected the leading of a double life. He made a choice. He now lives with it. But he refused to hurt, insult and betray those around him with disdain and duplicity.

I guess you can see where I’m going with this.

A Legionary priest, working in a women’s center of RC in South America, recently responded to the anguished questions of the Movement’s members about the fraudulent life of Fr. Maciel by saying, in short, that “as a man he had his shortcomings, we should not be judgmental and we should look to the good that has come from the Legion in its works”.

His ‘shortcomings’?

That’s like saying that Caligula had his ‘quirks’... or that Amy Winehouse has her occasional ‘bad hair day’.

If we are to believe that Fr. Maciel was somehow a ‘flawed saint’ or simply ‘an imperfect instrument of God’, how do we defend the fact that he perpetuated the lie of his double life and drew so many ingenuous, enthusiastic followers into a spider’s web of wanton deception that lasted till his death?

Why didn’t he go to the Holy Father at some stage, reveal his ‘failings’ and ask for a replacement to guide the Legion? Did he never perceive the monstrosity of the warped and pestilent theater of the absurd that his life had become? Was he so far beyond the concept of good and evil that he feared no judgment, no retribution?

He chose to lie and he slaved tirelessly to inflate an image of sanctity, of inspiration, of leadership and of relevance for the Church throughout his entire despicable career. He diligently hid his secret life from the acting LC superiors over the years so that the realistic appearance of the illusion he was spinning would be flawless.

It is the lie that kills me.

I know he was a sexual predator. I know he was morally corrupt. I know he duped, popes, bishops, authorities both civil and ecclesiastic.

But the lie that he seduced me with and with which he held me compliantly captive for thirty years smolders in my gut, invades my dreams and sullies my experience as a priest.

His was a masterful and heartless betrayal of that which was noblest in us. We are all damned fools and the sorry, hapless remnant of a vicious fairy tale. He has made cynics of us all.

Peace.

gift of tongues

2009-06-01T00:09:00.005-04:00

Year after year, my preaching on Pentecost Sunday is the equivalent of a blow out loss for an otherwise respectable, over .500 ballclub. I flounder. I misspeak. I pitch around the heavy hitters like a wuss. I say as little as I dare as quickly as possible just to be done and gone before the congregation bursts into deprecating giggles.

The chronology is a mess, for starters.

Luke has the disciples all huddled together fifty days after the discovery of the empty tomb. John describes the advent of the Holy Spirit as the apparition of the Risen Lord on the first day of the week following His Passion. Sacred Scripture points to the Spirit living and active in creation, manifesting Himself in different capacities throughout the entire narration of salvation history.

The community is enlightened, emboldened. The universal presence of the very singular Savior is established in a mysterious covenant with human freedom that will flourish throughout this final phase of history.

It is as if the veil is lifted on all that is good, true and beautiful to show its primal source... its original author.

The Holy Spirit appears as the one unbreakable strand that holds humanity back from the edge of the disaster we teeter on so precariously. The Spirit renews all things and assures us that God’s loving providence will, ultimately, win the day.

See? On Pentecost Sunday I babble like that for a few minutes and swiftly get on with the celebration of Mass.

The pending canonical visitation may be a Pentecost of sorts for the LC. A promising wind is blowing and I can only pray that it will shake the whole house to the foundations. Hopefully the cowering disciples will shake off their fear and indifference and give into the mighty impulse of truth and transparency.

The PTB will smile bravely and offer the usual platitudes about what a blessing the Vatican intervention is and how willingly the institution will collaborate...

But it is up to the rank and file to seize this opportunity, this open forum that the Spirit has initiated, and speak from the heart. The legitimacy of the continued existence of our religious family is on the line. The future of our congregation and its works of apostolate, the credibility of our vocation as LCs depend on what we do now.

Do not wait to be called. Demand to be heard.

Do not waste time with pet peeves or petty grievances. Don’t be intimidated or confused by the official talking points. Do not hesitate out of a false sense of loyalty: the betrayal that was committed was not ours.

Go to the essence of our experience as Legionaries. Speak openly and without reservation about formation, methodology, charism, ecclesiology, freedom of conscience, mechanisms of control, priorities, relationships inside and outside the LC, transparency, communication, trust and credibility. Don’t hide the outrage and hurt of the past few years seeing the myth collapse and the bubble burst. Don’t pretend that nothing has happened. Don’t forget that we have received tremendous gifts in spite of the lies and duplicity that darken the history of our congregation.

If it is a clichè, it is because we have made it so. But Jesus meant it when he said it: “The truth will set you free.”

Recently the Superior General wrote us a long, sentimental letter about his trip to the Holy Land as part of the entourage of Pope Benedict on his historic visit. Instead of waxing poetic on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, perhaps a straight forward, no-spin letter about something that actually matters to the members of the congregation might be in order. I suggest a letter about the tremendous historical event we are about to experience: the visitation.

What is a visitation? Why is the LC being submitted to this extraordinary canonical process now? What precise finality does the visitation seek? How can we prepare for it? How can we all participate in it? Who can we write to? Who can we speak to?

Some of our guys actually think that the primary task of the visitation is to delve into the dalliances of Fr. Maciel.

Perhaps new victims will turn up, maybe yet untold horrors will be unearthed. Certainly the shredders on Via Aurelia have been churning fast and furious since the ball of twine began to unravel, making new revelations more unlikely.

But, as far as the future of the LC is concerned, does it really matter whether he fathered four children or ten children? If the abused seminarians of his egregious career are “more than twenty and less than one hundred”, does an exact number effect the survival of the order?

The visitation is about us, the LC and its inner workings... everything from silly norms of urbanity to finances, from the competence of its superiors to the freedom of conscience of its members...

If this is the moment of truth, it is also the moment of grace.

Let the Holy Spirit move where He will...
Peace.

If the salt loses its taste...

2009-03-15T02:46:00.003-04:00

Busy. Far too busy for my liking. It’s the bad busy, the task oriented, get this or that done, hamster wheel kind of busy. It’s the busy that comes with four inner-city parishes, too few resources and too many insoluble problems.

‘Just a little bit longer’, I keep telling myself...

Meanwhile, the PTB are gathering on Via Aurelia again for another damage control pow-wow. Normally, time is on their side and they know it. So policy in handling unpleasantries that have attracted the public eye usually favors the ‘let-it-languish, let-it-drag-on’ mode until the mass of detractors loses interest and the LC can continue with business as usual.

This time, who knows?

This time the sweet, sickening smell of decay is so strong, the shock that has struck the foundation so catastrophic, the cracks and leaks are so visible... they just may have to take serious action. Or it may be imposed by the Holy See.

Whatever the final outcome, the PTB should know something, because it will ultimately decide whether anything can be salvaged of our congregation at this point or not. It is simple enough, it is certainly evident enough... but I get the feeling you might not have noticed yet, so here goes:

No one believes you.

No one believes a word you say, a sentence you write or a promise you make.

No one believes either, that the present leadership of the LC can reform or save the congregation because you are (we are!) what we will always be: hijos fieles del P.Maciel...

What will ultimately make the LC crumble, what has caused the insufferable state of inner tension and foreboding in her rank and file is, quite frankly, the lack of credibility of its leadership.

The seeds of duplicity, deceit, distrust and intrigue were sown from the congregation’s beginnings. The Founder led a double life all the while submitting us - his willing, enthusiastic followers - to a regimen of poverty, chastity, obedience and uncritical submission of conscience. The idea that the LC is God’s work and must be ‘defended’ at all cost and by any means was his only moral compass. Popes, cardinals, bishops and Vatican officials could be fooled and manipulated as long as it benefited the LC. Its own members are kept on a need-to-know basis, always suspect, always scrutinized for those telltale signs of ‘lack of integration’...

The leadership of the Legion has inherited from Fr. Maciel the mentality and modus operandi that makes them fundamentally untrustworthy. Only now, there is no private vow to hide behind and the discontent is growing.

The tragic comedy of the past few months, with superiors running around telling and not telling, promising transparency but only deepening the murkiness that engulfs the LC, has made their lack of credibility evident to even the most gullible among us. I rank highly on that scale.

And now, no one believes you.

It doesn’t mean that there aren’t LCs who have other motives for toeing the line or flying beneath the radar and making their peace with a system they’ve figured out how to survive in (and some quite nicely).

It doesn’t mean that the LC will run out of yes-men who unctuously cater to authority and offer the same safe old cliches and pre-approved commentaries as they nervously munch their Maria cookies at merienda-cena...

It means that they do not believe you.
And if they don’t believe you, they certainly don’t trust you.

This should not be overlooked or underestimated as you meet in Rome these next few days. Your lack of credibility – not Fr. Maciel’s past sins – will eventually buckle and break the Legion.

Please, PTB, do the right thing.
Peace.

requiem for a dream

2009-01-30T01:11:00.000-05:00

One year ago today the Founder of the Legion of Christ, our Founder – Nuestro Padre – passed away. Instead of recalling with pride and nostalgia my thirty year participation in the foundation in privileged close company of the Founder, I find myself nearly disconsolate. Outrage, grief, a deep unutterable feeling of betrayal and deception have been growing in my soul for nearly six months as bits and pieces of the truth have painfully been made known to me.

Up until very recently I defended Fr. Maciel in public and private, knowing that the very essence of my identity as a Legionary priest depended on it. Now there is nothing to defend. It has all collapsed, and with it, a lifetime of enthusiastic commitment and high idealism.

I sit here humbled and heartsick with one earnest plea for the present leadership of the Legion: please, do the right thing. For the love of God and in honor of the hundreds of men, like yourselves, that have given their lives to the Congregation, bearing the burden of a fidelity that our Founder demanded of us but was unable himself to deliver: do what is right.

Put the truth first. You owe it to us all. Tell us the whole story, tell us what our options are now and set about the reform of the Legion.

The Legion must go forward, purged of the toxins released into its bloodstream by years of machiavellian duplicity, and recreate itself solely on the merits of its works.

No more spin, no more platitudes, no more intimidation to keep the Legion’s men from thinking, questioning, seeking the truth. Step aside if need be and allow others – with clear motives and fresh eyes – to save all that is good in the Congregation and dissipate once and for all the inner culture of deceit and control. A canonical visitation conducted in rigorous transparency might yet save the Legion of Christ.

I am amazed and grateful to God that so much good has and continues to be done by a religious order that has venerated and nourished its spirit from a Founder now discovered to be the antithesis of the very spirituality and discipline he imparted to us while so brazenly and artfully occulting his other life from us.

So please, do not pretend that this is not devastating to all of us. Do not act like nothing has happened and that nothing should change. Have the basic decency to come clean with your own men and trust them enough to help you take the Legion to where it must go from here. Full disclosure is the only option. You’ve tried everything else, now, finally now, give truth a chance. You may be pleasantly surprised by the strength, resiliency and commitment of us all.

May God continue to guide us, in spite of ourselves.
Peace.

finding it... again

2008-11-06T23:13:00.000-05:00

“But when the Son of man comes, will he find faith on earth?” (Lk 18:8)

Our Lord’s ominous question recorded in Luke’s Gospel would be emphatically misunderstood were it taken solely as rhetorical.

Faith as a life decision that redeems and informs all one’s plans and aspirations is in visibly short supply in a world that sets merely passing goals for us... money, fame, comfort and that scam of scams: ‘security’.

But there are places where faith is cultivated as an all-consuming lifestyle, where the noise, the distraction, the sham and the shamelessly destructive glitter is sealed out hermitically to the benefit of all those strong and wise enough to go beyond the false promises and permanent dissatisfactions.

I was fortunate enough to spend a week in such a place at the end of October.

Spencer Abbey of the Cistercian Order of Strict Observance (Trappist) is one of those singular oases where silence, prayer, work and study permit faith to flourish unsullied and the discovery of its very particular joy.

The history of the Spencer monks is adventurous and colorful. The nearly 2400 acres of solitary retreat in the rolling hills of central Massachusetts is the stage for sainthood, personal redemption, solace and healing for everyone who lives or visits there.

For me it meant no trains shaking the house, no sirens filling the night air, no phones, meetings, e-mails or complaints about the many tasks left unperformed by so many people left unsatisfied by my performance.

The retreat was loosely formatted: an open invitation to chant the liturgy of the hours seven times a day with the monks, concelebrated Mass at 6am and a guided meditation once a day by one of the priests of the abbey. (Only one in three of the monks go on to receive Holy Orders. The others live as choir monks and lay brothers their entire lives in the monastery.)

Fr. Matthew, our retreat guide – there were five other priests that week on retreat – reflected on the topic of universal salvation as found in the writings and teachings of Pope Benedict. The theological thought behind his comments, from Origen and Julian of Norwich to Von Balthasar and Ratzinger himself, was a refreshing variation from the irritating and often senseless blather that a temporary administrator of inner city parishes deals with 24/7.

It was also a change from what I had previously experienced as ‘spiritual exercises’ – very busy, regimented and maddeningly micro-managed.

It was like a cool, invigorating dip in a secluded lake in the middle of a dry, hot summer.

Now it’s back to the grind with the challenge of keeping the inner oasis fresh and vibrant until my circumstances permit me another escape to Spencer...

Peace.

"Wait Master, it might be dangerous... you go first."

2008-10-25T23:55:00.005-04:00

I told my niece that I would visit her once a month. In that regard, at least, I have proven to be a very serious piece of uncle.

She does not look like a college student to me, still so diminutive and child-like in many ways. She’s into fashion and I don’t get it, as I readily admit, but apparently I’m in the minority. Manhattan is a loud, mind-numbing chaos to me and imagining her day after day traipsing obliviously from dorm to classes (I mean, I’m assuming there are actually ‘classes’ of some sort involved in this fashion nonsense, right? ...RIGHT?!?!) and wherever else she may wander kind of freaks me out.

Words like ‘frailty’, ‘vulnerability’, ‘susceptibility’ - oh yes, and ‘WHAT THE HELL WERE WE THINKING LETTING THIS DITZY LITTLE GIRL MOVE TO NEW YORK BY HERSELF????’ - gently insinuate themselves into my unspoken monologues whenever she pops into my mind.

She pops often into my mind because my knee-jerk reaction to the trauma of actually watching (helping... I actually helped her move... gasp) was to get her a cell phone. In retrospect, not a mistake, but certainly not the ticket to tranquility that I convinced myself it would be.

I don’t mind the text messages at 2am... but then I find myself wondering, “Why in God’s name is this child even awake at 2am? ...in Manhattan ...in a college dorm somewhere alone... I mean she MUST have classes tomorrow, right? ...does this fashion bs require classes? ...what could they possibly teach in these classes? ...’Buttons 101’? ‘From Camel Skin to Cashmere: The Evolution of the Sweater Shrug’? ‘The Logic of Layering’?”

For my October visit she says she wants to celebrate Halloween in some way. Before she could even suggest anything to do with Halloween in the Village or Chelsea or anywhere else I told her I’d plan the evening.

We ended up having a burger together at the Hard Rock Cafe, mine real, hers veggie (please don’t ask) and seeing Young Frankenstein at the Hilton. I loved it as a movie when I was in high school, thankfully she loved it now, 34 years later, in its Broadway musical version. I laughed anticipating the famous old gags of the movie: “That’s Fronkensteen/That’s Eye-gor”, “Walk this way!”. “What hump?”, “Werewolf/there wolf”, “Abby Normal”, Harold the Hermit, the tap dance, etc.

Anyway, we had a good time doing something we both enjoyed. If Young Frankenstein is the scariest thing she encounters during her stay in the city, it will have gone very well for both of us indeed.

Peace.

kindling passion

2008-10-09T01:53:00.001-04:00

I consider reading to be one of the finer pleasures of life.

I put it right up there with smoky, small batch bourbon, earthy Cuban cigars and sunny fall afternoons on shimmering New England lakes.

As with all earthly pleasures, the risk of abuse and addiction is concomitant, but so are the endless excuses I find to justify it as the right thing to do at practically any given moment.

My tastes are eclectic and I often have two or three books on the menu at once. I rarely walk out of a movie I’ve paid for, I infrequently leave food on my plate and I almost never leave a book unfinished even when it turns out to be less than I expected. In recent memory (about eight years ago) I put down the one installment of the Harry Potter series that was given me by a nephew after only forty pages or so because it began to taste like Ovaltine. I swore off Ovaltine when I was eight.

I read a lot of theology – Von Balthasar, De Lubac, Ratzinger, De Chardin, Kasper and Congar are staple favorites. I can’t resist the controversial when it arises, recently, for example, Haight’s Jesus Symbol of God or Dupuis’ Christianity and the Religions. Among Protestant writers Barth and Bultmann are always worthwhile.

The somewhat loosely classified ‘existentialists’ are my normal philosophical fare: Kierkegaard, Neitzsche, Heidegger, Chekhov, Ionesco and their ilk.

I am quite fond of Greek tragedy (Sophocles and Euripides) and their classical English counterpart, Bill Shakespeare.

But a good read certainly does not have to imply heavy lifting. I gobble up Cormac McCarthy, Ian McEwan, Michael Ondaatje, Chuck Palahniuk, Philip Roth, John Irving, Jose Saramago, Gunter Grass and others like a kid who’s allowed to skip the veggies and go right to dessert.

To the dismay of some of my brethren in the ministry, I also find dubious delight in horror, both classic and contemporary. I am the Exorcist, after all.

I will do late nighters in my lonely, creaky rectory overhanging the railroad tracks with anyone from Edgar Allen Poe and Robert Louis Stevenson to Ray Bradbury, Jack Ketchum and Bentley Little. I even confess to the occasional Stephen King indulgence.

What?
As if the connoisseur of fillet mignon couldn’t cave into the surreptitious craving for a Big Mac once in a while?

Anyway, all of this is but a preamble to what I was really going to mention on this post. Although I fully consider myself a child of our post-modern age, I am usually less than enthusiastic about the shiny electronic baubles and gewgaws that our technology enamored world shamelessly peddles as the latest have-to-have keys to hipness.

However, a few days ago my love of a good book got the better of me and overrode my distrust of flashy gadgetry. After prolonged inner debate I got myself a Kindle.

This little gizmo is the real deal.

Books, newspapers, magazines and blogs in a paperback sized contrivance that satiates even the most depraved biblophile’s inner nerd. Instant gratification. Isn’t that what life is all about?

I doubt that anything will ever replace the thrill of leisurely searching through used book stores. And no device will substitute the satisfying snap of a hardcover being bent back for the first time or the intoxicating smell of the printed page. But, believe me, the Kindle has already given new meaning to long lines, travel, solitary lunches, boring finance committee meetings, spaces between appointments and down time in general.

And so, I hereby boldly state to all the world that the Kindle will ultimately do for Chaucer what the IPod has done for Rachmaninov.

What?

the last resort

2008-10-05T07:17:00.008-04:00

.
.
These first days of fall, with their crisp mornings, luminous and fleeting sunshine, cool afternoon breezes that rustle the crisping, colorful foliage take me back to harvest time in Chile. The grape harvest from late February to early April in fairytale places like the Colchagua Valley and Casablanca is an earthy, deeply human event that brings out the best in man and nature.

I would slip away from the everyday demands of ministry in the city to bless the fruits of the season, commend the workers to God’s providence and ask the Lord of the harvest to hold back the rains of winter until the grapes could be safely reaped and stored. Everything about those days is beautiful and subtly sacred and it became clear to me why the vineyard is one of the preferred images in both Old and New Testaments to teach us about the Creator and his relationship with all the created.

Even now, in Chile, most of the vineyards are family owned enterprises. I was always enthralled by the unique relationship between the owner, the workers, the winemakers and the vineyard itself – land, vines and climate – for its oneness of purpose and single-minded devotion.

Our last three Sundays of ordinary time have dealt us Gospel parables set against the backdrop of the vineyard. Timely and engrossing, they speak to us today even as they did in Jesus’ moment of the divine drama playing out in human history, as rich and complex as the wines that are the vineyards ultimate vindication.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus paraphrases Isaiah’s ‘song of the vineyard’ for the religious leaders of his audience with an added twist: the owner’s lament is now directed not at the miserable fruits of the harvest, but at those who have been charged with reaping and delivering the fruit in its due time.

All Jesus’ parables are ultimately self-revealing, but this one seems to intimate painfully more than we might wish to comprehend.

When all the emissaries have been dispatched to recover the fruits of the vineyard, when all have met the mean fate that the tenants have prepared for them, Jesus says, “Finally he sent his son to them.”

Mark’s retelling of the tale drives the point home with starker, more desperate phrasing: “He had but one left to send, a beloved son. He sent him to them last of all thinking, ‘They will respect my son’.”

I am reminded of one of the unanswerable questions that theologians ponder and students of theology, like me, are required to work through and read about in theoretical terms at some point in their studies...

Does God suffer? Can the immutable, ever same, impassive Divinity experience what we call pain... loss... emptiness? Pain implies change, movement, imperfection: realities we can hardly attribute to the unchanging Foundation of all there is.

Yet Jesus insinuates just that. The owner of the vineyard relinquishes ‘the only one he has left’. He puts at risk and ultimately accepts the loss of ‘the last one’, all he had left, all that was truly his.

Paul’s reflections on kenosis, on God’s emptying of self – notably expressed in his letter to the Philippians which, coincidently, is the second reading during these weeks of ordinary time – are restricted to the Son... almost as if the incarnation, the Son’s full identification with human state and circumstance, were the necessary condition for emptiness and suffering.

But Jesus puts the origin of drastic self-surrender in the Father. It is the predisposition of the Father to lose the Son that enables the Son to be lost. The parable of the vineyard posits the pain and loss of the Father. Does that not also appear to be the dramatic core of ‘the prodigal son’?

The revelation – that only the Son can make – of a quality in the Father best expressed by an analogy with human pain and loss, better yet, with human capacity for radical self-sacrifice is the least ‘theoretical’ of all revealed truths.

It means that reckless abandonment of self, giving regardless of the cost, surrender that finds no kinship with defeat... are the very fiber of this world’s reality which reflects in all its mysterious nuances the heart of its Creator.

This alone sustains our hope in a world that never tires of beating it down and smothering it... in a futile attempt to wrest the inheritance from the Son.

These are my thoughts as I head down for the first of today’s three Eucharistic celebrations. I can only appeal to the benevolence of my parishioners...

Peace.

weltschmertz

2008-09-30T23:41:00.004-04:00

This doesn’t feel right.

At any other point of my life I would be thoroughly enjoying the shameful collapse of New York baseball. That particularly visceral loathing reserved only for the Yankees and their close cousins, the common cockroach, by now would have turned into profound satisfaction. Joba - the messiah - burning out, Hank’s constant blathering, A-Dud getting booed at the Stadium, Jeter still pretending he cares about anything... even the pathetic, boring, typically overrated ceremony that shut down the Stadium... it all should make me giddy as we enter the post season Yankee-less for the first time in 14 years.

The implosion at Shea was like a fine digestivo – a silky grappa or a pungent fernet - after sticking a fork in the Evil Empire. For the second straight season the Mets barely managed to whisk defeat from the jaws of victory and go down in a graceless heap. Being even bigger doofuses than their Bronx rivals, they celebrated the closing of the stadium after losing their last game. Now, that was one exciting send-off.

And yet, all of this is barely a blip on my radar. I may watch a few innings of the Sox-Angels series. I will probably check to see if Pedroia won MVP, just out of curiosity. I might even stay up late if it goes to a fifth game in Anaheim.

But, I confess, my heart’s not in it. I’m as likely to doze off before they call in Papelbon as I am to forget to even turn on the game.

The loss of Fr. Dave still lingering? The perpetually unresolved issues of the parishes gaining weight? The uncertainty of what the immediate future may bring? The nostalgia and yearning of autumn playing in the background?

Chi lo sa...
Where are you in life when even the sure-fire distractions fail to distract?
Peace.

30 years already?

2008-09-28T22:58:00.006-04:00

Pope John Paul I

17 October 1912 - 28 September 1978

Ordained July 7, 1935

gone too soon

You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church" (Mt 16:18) are the weighty, great and solemn words that Jesus speaks to Simon, son of John, after his profession of faith. This profession of faith was not the product of the Bethsaida fisherman's human logic or the expression of any special insight of his or the effect of some psychological impulse; it was rather the mysterious and singular result of a real revelation of the Father in heaven. Jesus changes Simon's name to Peter, thus signifying the conferring of a special mission. He promises to build on him his Church, which will not be overthrown by the forces of evil or death. He grants him the keys of the kingdom of God, thus appointing him the highest official of his Church, and gives him the power to interpret authentically the law of God. In view of these privileges, or rather these superhuman tasks entrusted to Peter, Saint Augustine points out to us: "Peter was by nature simply a man, by grace a Christian, by still more abundant grace one of the Apostles and at the same time the first of the Apostles". (Pope John Paul I, September 3 1978)

dead, not forgotten

2008-09-26T23:06:00.003-04:00

We buried Fr. Dave a week ago today. Just a few family members, two other priests, a deacon and his wife and I walked through the crisp sunshine in the cemetery. All in all, he got a very dignified and honorable send off to eternity. At the wake on Thursday many people who knew or knew of this admirable and friendly priest passed through the cathedral to say a quick prayer or sit in the welcome silence and meditate with pause. The parish Mass followed the wake, for Dave’s childhood parish was also the city cathedral of St. Joseph. I was asked to preach and tried to keep it simple, from the heart.

The Archbishop celebrated the funeral Mass on Friday morning. About 80 priests concelebrated, the gospel choir of St. Michael parish sang and there were easily 400 or more people in attendance. A childhood friend and classmate in the seminary preached, recalling highlights of Dave’s journey as a priest of 53 years and their friendship. It was all very family-like, very much the heartfelt tribute to a fine and holy man who had definitely run the good race.

I was distracted, however, at one point in the funeral Mass when a verse was cited from a psalm that Fr. Maciel was fond of quoting to us: “Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act.” (Psalm 37)

The memory and sadness of Fr. Maciel’s death that went without the recognition, the thanks and the heartfelt farewells came back to me. He received no acknowledgement from the Church he served, there was no celebration of his work or achievements, his funeral was hastily and perfunctorily carried out in the backwater of Cotija, attended only by those fortunate enough to be called in by the higher powers. The entire affair was shrouded by a furtive and clandestine fog.

Other Founders of our time (J.M.Escribá!, Mother Theresa!, Chiara Lubic!) were celebrated by their Church and the obvious affection of the many people whose lives they touched. Fr. Maciel himself never imagined the final chapter of his life being written in such ignominious shorthand. There was to be a crypt in Rome, a pilgrimage of LC and RC members, unabashed signs of gratitude and admiration...

It has been a hard pill for us to swallow. It was an event we should have been allowed to experience as a congregation and a movement and it was callously taken off the agenda at the last minute. And the leadership of the LC has opted to leave each of us with our own doubts, questions and frustrations as it has all gone down.

When Fr. JME died – has it been three years already? – I could not attend the funeral, much to my deep regret. He was a friend and a mentor, a sage and a humble brother. He was kind to a fault, had a razor sharp wit and could be piercingly critical. I quote him frequently to this day. He was an LC that gave hope to many other LCs and RCs because he would go beyond the packaged advice and tired clichés that, unfortunately, often pass for spiritual direction in our system and he would speak from the heart, with real compassion for others, with depth and thoughtfulness...

Anyway, I missed the funeral because in Chile there is no practice of embalming, no routine of funeral homes that give family and friends a few days to arrive. Folks are normally buried within 24 hours of their passing. That’s no one’s fault. I simply couldn’t get there on time.

In retrospect, it was probably better for me that I be absent. There was no sincere tribute paid him at his funeral and again the LC was incapable of truly celebrating the life and legacy of one of its great men. The local superior at the time - a self-absorbed, politically astute homunculus who had little use or admiration for Fr. JME in his lifetime – was hopelessly off the mark when he delivered a generic homily that only served to reconfirm his blatant detachment from all that is real or important to the rank-and-file of the LC and RC. It was the same homily that he rattled off at two other funerals of deceased LCs.

And they think we don’t notice.
Good grief.

Fr. Dave’s passing has left that same void that Fr. Maciel and Fr. JME left with their departures. I walk around in a haze for a few weeks, go through the motions and wait for the internal elements to straighten themselves out again.

But this time at least, I felt that the good-byes were well said, heartfelt and worthy of the life they celebrated.

Peace.

requiescat

2008-09-16T16:22:00.005-04:00

We lost a holy priest, a tireless advocate, a wise mentor and a dear friend this morning at 4am. Rest in peace, Dave, you will be sorely missed.

Fr. David McDonald
September 8, 1929 - September 16, 2008
Ordained: May 19, 1955

in memoriam

2008-09-11T05:59:00.000-04:00

.

For all the fallen and their families, remembrance and a prayer.

It happened seven years ago and I was 5125 miles away... but there's no forgetting.

Not today, not ever.

Peace.

hardly convincing

2008-09-06T23:33:00.002-04:00

Recently, a Jesuit friend (yup, imagine that...) invited me to a screening of Jason Berry’s film Vows of Silence scheduled for screening at Fairfield University in a few weeks. I told him that I had seen it once already, on DVD. If the screening is part of a forum on the broader issues of the clergy abuse scandal and reform in the Church, I am definitely interested. If it’s solely centered on this specific bit of filmmaking... not so much. The Exorcist’s opinion, for whatever it’s worth, includes some of the following thoughts.

The DVD summarizes the basic content covered in more detail in Berry’s book by the same name. There are small historical imprecisions that neither help nor hurt the central thesis of the author. A generous portion of the footage is taken from the LC promotional videos of the ‘90s. There is no novelty, no surprise in the documentary-like program for anyone familiar with the controversy that ensued between Fr. Maciel and his ex-LC accusers some years ago after reporting by the Hartford Courant and lasted up to the Vatican’s statement on the case and the Founder’s death.

The program’s insistence that Fr. Maciel was somehow inspired by the likes of Adolph Hitler, Francisco Franco or Augusto Pinochet to found the LC is misguided at best. The images of goose-stepping foot soldiers and flat-handed, straight-armed salutes mixed with uniformed LCs from the 50s and 60s probably made for some excitement in the editing room, but have little to do with the reality of the LC. It is this type of overkill that raises credibility issues in the minds of even the more critically inclined among us.

But the fundamental and lasting complaint to be lodged with the fairness police about this film is also the oldest and the least politically correct.

Why should I believe Fr. Maciel’s accusers in the first place?

Why give instant and unquestioned credibility to persons whose stories might just merit a more critical look? Case in point, there’s a new face among the accusers that appears toward the end of the program. A young man, ex-LC priest, recounts that Fr. Maciel squeezed his arm and told him how strong he was while they were driving in a car with other passengers from Germany to Belgium back in the ‘90s.

That’s it. Fr. Maciel squeezed his arm.

This guy tearfully tells how later, as a midlevel Vatican official, he read the Courant articles on the web and – recalling the arm squeeze – suddenly realized that it was all horribly, scandalously true. The Founder he had once revered and respected was actually a monster in disguise.

Is it so coldly insensitive to those who have cloaked themselves in the mantle of victimhood to ask if that’s all there is to the story? Who is this guy that a squeeze on the arm, a pat on the back, a fist bump or a high-five reveals to him the hidden immorality of his religious superior? Are we to assume, as the program insinuates, that this accuser abandoned his job in the Vatican, his vocation to the LC and his priesthood because of what he read in the Hartford Courant? Is that really it? Might there not be some factor - other than an arm squeeze and a newspaper article - that induces this young man to reflect on his LC past with hindsight tinged by bitterness or disdain or shame or sadness or whatever?

I’ve said it before. When faced with the choice between my own experience of nearly thirty years in close contact with the Founder and the testimony of others, blurred by unanswered questions... I can only honestly be expected to hold on to what I know to be true. Jason Berry’s film has simply reinforced that conviction.

Peace.

dead man standing

2008-09-05T23:51:00.000-04:00

I wonder if the antics of the living mortify the dead.

The dead are commonly well behaved. They wait patiently for the wake to begin. They silently bear the excesses of their loved ones. They seldom disrupt the exequial Mass celebrated on their behalf. They proceed relaxed and composed (as opposed to decomposed) to the burial site. And they surrender themselves discreetly to the finality of it all as they are lowered into their ultimate resting place.

The living are another can of worms altogether.

I have seen first hand:

- friends and family snapping photos on their cell phones as the deceased lies in state
- other family members squeezing in cheek-to-cadaverous-cheek to be in the photo with the deceased
- the photo of the deceased emblazoned on T-shirts that are worn the following day at the funeral Mass
- one friend hold the hand of the deceased out of the casket to allow the other friends walk by and reverently fist bump their dead homey
- mothers, grandmothers, wives and girl friends (recognized and suddenly revealed) throw themselves on the open casket and attempt to wrest the defunct object of their affection from a prone position, as if forcing him back to the land of the living
- sons and nephews pour cans of Tecate on papi’s casket as it is being lowered into the ground
- a live pet schnauzer resting on his ex-master’s legs as the mourners file by
- abuela being covered in sea shells before her coffin is closed because she always loved the beach
- junior clothed in pinstripes, fitted with a cap, adorned with a first baseman’s glove and wrapped in a Yankees blanket as he lays motionless
- a squirrel running into a wake in progress and scampering up onto the open casket of the departed
- el tío laid to rest in a fiberglass coffin fashioned into a pink Dodge pick-up
- friends dancing cumbia around the gravesite as mami waits to be inhumed
- fainting, screaming, vomiting, thrashing, laughing, cursing, crying and clapping... all by the living

But this takes the cake:

What ever happened to "rest in peace"?

The indignity of death is only surpassed by the insanity of the living.

smell the coffee

2008-08-30T23:41:00.003-04:00

Raul is a pain in the ass.

I imply no moral judgment here. It is a fact, pure and simple.

Raul likes to ring the rectory doorbell at 5:45am on Saturdays. Saturday is the one day of the week that I do not have to be up early for Mass at any of the three parishes I celebrate at on Sundays and during the week.

I doubt that Raul knows this. If he did I would have begun this post with, “Raul is a malicious pain in the ass.” That would most definitely have been a moral judgment.

Raul rings the bell adamantly and shouts, “Padrecito!! Padrecito!!”. I can only assume, even in my sleep smeared semi-consciousness, that Raul is trying to get my attention.

Groggy and alarmed, I stumbled downstairs and opened the door the first five or six times that Raul roused me, half expecting to find someone bleeding profusely from gang inflicted shotgun wounds on the doorstep. I would not have minded getting up at 5:45 for that. Not as much, anyway.

But no, no comatose victim gasping for breath, no hugely pregnant woman on the verge of childbirth, no family of transient workers seeking refuge from immigration raids... just Raul.

Raul wants coffee.

It is amazing that I actually ran this drill five or six times before realizing that my Saturday wake-up call was summoning me, not to some life or death situation, but to Raul’s mistaking the parish for Starbucks. I must not be too intelligent.

I will not speculate on Raul’s intelligence.

The first time I responded to his beckoning, I could hardly believe my ears. I said something like, “Raul, I can hardly believe my ears!”. I told him that there would be no coffee at the rectory until 7am at the earliest. In fact, to be on the safe side, try back sometime after 10.

Raul looked at me as if he couldn’t believe his ears, and shuffled away.

In the meantime, a lot went down between 5:45 and 10am that particular Saturday and, sorry to say, I kind of forgot about Raul. Returning from hospital visits at around 10:50am, I stopped by the local Dunkin Donuts and ordered a double shot Turbo with three Splendas. This was to be my breakfast.

I got out of the car and, lost in thought, turned the corner to the rectory where I nearly stepped on Raul, who was patiently sitting on the steps.

Raul’s eyes welled up and he drew his tattered sleeve across his grimy, moist nose. “I knew it, Padrecito! I knew you did not abandon me!”

Ever the hero, I surrendered my steaming cup to this Jesus-in-disguise. Raul removed the cover and stared at its contents. “Padrecito, next time I like a little bit milk in my café.”

Weeks have passed and Raul and I have grown in our relationship. I have convinced him that Thursdays – food pantry days – are the best days for prompt and friendly service at the parish. Raul, on his part, has confided to me that he never really knows what day it is anyway so any further counseling I may wish to offer him on the issue is probably moot.

I was sorely tempted to disconnect the rectory doorbell on Saturdays, but, with my luck, the day I do one of this miserable city’s victims will actually show up at my door. I don’t even want to think about that.

So, I had the parish spring for a Braun with an automatic timer. Coffee is served from 5:45 on. There is milk in the refrigerator. All are welcome. Raul loves company.

Peace.

a prayer for the brokenhearted

2008-08-29T22:46:00.007-04:00

I was celebrating a funeral Mass at 5pm this afternoon at St. Michael when my cell phone began buzzing wildly in my pocket. When Mass was over I learned that 9 young girls of our flagship school in Santiago had perished in a horrific bus accident in Putre, northern Chile.

I know some of the families of the deceased and injured and can barely imagine the pain and heart sickness of their families and the entire community that I was so deeply involved with for 10 years of my priestly ministry.

My thoughts and prayers for you all.
Peace.

withdrawl

2008-07-25T23:04:00.009-04:00

From this:

and this:

to this:

and this:

I pine.

baba ganoush

2008-06-14T01:01:00.002-04:00

Raisa is the archetypal mulier fortis of the vulgate septuagint.

She is a force of nature. She is Gaia. Mother Earth with an apron and an Oster Salon Pro.

I stumbled onto her unisex salon... no, no, I was led there by fate and destiny and the Oracle, one cold February Wednesday.

As she beckoned me with the curl of her sibyllic finger, I was captivated by an aroma uncommon to barber shops. Not oil, not sprays or gels or dyes. Something spicy and Mediterranean. Something the matriarchs of yesterfar would simmer and stir in terracotta pottery while dreaming of seeing their menfolk return from battle. An odor that took sole possession of the olfactory epithelium, the medulla oblongata and the loins.

A sculptor peers at a block of marble and sees Laocoon. Raisa appraises even the least promising of scalps and envisions art. She hovers over me, impatiently taps my temples to one side or the other, snorts and hyperventilates, changes clipper heads with a vengeance and in an apocalyptic flurry whips out her flat blade and slashes my neck hairs into submission.

The last time I saw Raisa she said, “Next time we try all hair, one length. Look good on head like you.”

A Greek goddess? An Armenian wonder wench? A Transylvanian she-revenant? I could only guess. But that smell...

Last Friday I went to the festival at St. George Cathedral. An ecumenical gesture and a much needed break from the rectory. As I wandered the grounds, it slowly subverted my senses... the unmistakable perfume wafting up from the depths of the fairgrounds.

Raisa! Or her progeny? I followed my nose to the food booths off to the left of the parking lot.

“This is the cradle of life!”, I told the ruddy faced woman behind the hot plate. “This is the primal puddle from which Gaia herself has sprung!”, I cried.

“No. This baba ganoush. Good for you. Eat.”

As I dipped my pita flatbread in the steaming melitzano salata and pondered the oneness of all aromas, a light breeze stirred the branches of the poplar trees behind me.

“All is one”, the zephyr whispered, “search no more.”

Peace.

know thyself

2008-06-13T01:13:00.005-04:00

“When I was a child, I used to talk as a child, think as a child, reason as a child; when I became a man I put aside childish things. At present we see indistinctly, as in a mirror, but then face to face. At present I know partially; then I shall know fully as I am fully known.” (1Cor 13: 11-12)

Only the final Light will reveal us for all that we truly are. If an adult achieves only shadowy, blurry knowledge of self – as Paul admits – what introspection, what self-criticism could a child have?

In these many months since the whole LC ball of yarn began unraveling, I have engaged in a peculiar form of self torture: I try to imagine what i capi talk about behind closed doors. Especially now, without Fr. Maciel’s all defining presence setting the agenda...

Is it all just damage control? Is it business as usual, keep the rank-and-file marching to the same beat and act like nothing has happened? Is it calling in favors to stop the bleeding? Is it putting the spin machine on overdrive to keep the bubble from bursting from within? Is it denial and hope that the storm blows over?

Or is it an openness to grace, a sincere reckoning, a fearless self-questioning, an honest and transparent desire to seek and embrace the truth of who we are and what the Church needs us to be?

Archbishop O’Brien’s demanding letter and his painfully candid interview will either be dealt with begrudgingly, as another splinter of persecution from our already heavy cross, or it will be embraced and reflected upon as a call to conscience for the LC, like the others that have been issued over the past three years.

Baltimore’s Archbishop sounds ticked-off and skeptical. He fears that the LC’s institutional lack of transparency may be beyond cure. He makes it clear that only a few timely phone calls from the Curia staved off a much harsher reaction, à la Columbus, OH or St.Paul-Minneapolis.

Still, the Exorcist remains hopeful.

When I was a child, I reacted like a child... as a man I leave childish things behind.

Maybe these are the LC’s growing pains. Maybe upon denial comes acceptance and self-analysis. Maybe the LC can yet learn to trust its own and not fear transparency and change. Maybe the best is yet to come...

Peace.

charism V*

2008-04-26T01:37:00.001-04:00

Two thoughts recurred to me over and over as I watched and listened to Pope Benedict’s US visit.

1. Jonathan Morris has become the perfect bobble-head accoutrement for the Stepford blondes of Fox News Channel.

2. Pope Benedict is clearly the right man at the right time.

In response to the first thought, I simply changed over to EWTN when the muddled Morris morass became too irritating.

In response to the second, I reread his words, hone my preaching to include his message, reflect on the powerful presence of this rather diminutive man in our scared and belligerent world...

At the gathering with seminarians and young people at Dunwoody Seminary in Yonkers on April 19, Pope Benedict had this to say about one of my preferred topics:

“Today, I wish to draw your attention to the positive spiritual renewal which congregations are undertaking in relation to their charism. The word charism means a gift freely and graciously given. Charisms are bestowed by the Holy Spirit, who inspires founders and foundresses, and shapes congregations with a subsequent spiritual heritage. The wondrous array of charisms proper to each religious institute is an extraordinary spiritual treasury... Through the discovery of charisms, which yield such a breadth of spiritual wisdom, I am sure that some of you young people will be drawn to a life of apostolic or contemplative service. Do not be shy to speak with religious brothers, sisters or priests about the charism and spirituality of their congregation. No perfect community exists, but it is fidelity to a founding charism, not to particular individuals, that the Lord calls you to discern. Have courage!”

The renewal of religious congregations is undertaken, that is, consciously and willingly brought about, in relation to their charism.

Hmmm. Funny how this specific topic should come up on the Pope’s visit. That deja vu thing all over again.

It is remarkable to see the varied perspectives that religious institutes have on their own charism. For some it’s a single, black-and-white virtue that can be succinctly stated. For others it’s like the night sky that contains the same stars, but can be looked at again and again from different angles, with a view to plumbing its depths ever more diligently.

I consider the most outstanding element of the LC’s charism to be the radical Christ-centeredness of its spirituality. Everything begins and ends for the LC priest, during the long years of his formation and forever after during the exercise of his ministry, with the person of Jesus Christ. Our studies, our preaching, our apostolates, our interaction with the world at large have Him at the center of it all.

To be totally, obsessively centered on the person of Christ in these times when doubt concerning His historical reality, theological confusion often disguised as tolerance and interreligious dialogue, vague neo-gnostic spiritualities that distort His singular and mysterious identity, fundamentalist and apocalyptic ranting that enslave and diminish His truth, indifference and skepticism that portray Him as a cartoon or worse...

This is the renovating quality – charism – given the Church and the priesthood through the Legion. The right gift at precisely the right moment...

A second undeniable element of LC charism follows immediately from the first: a bold and unfettered rediscovery of priestly identity.

In the LC, the priest is not a manager or an administrator, a psychologist or an ecologist, a political wonk or a social engineer. He is, as Fr. Maciel relentlessly insisted to all of us, Alter Christus. The world has the right and the reason to expect it of us. HE is all we need to be.

A third, unmistakable element of our charism is our steadfast and enthusiastic allegiance to the Chair of Peter. This aspect of our spirit needs to be freed from the embarrassing hubris we’ve been known to indulge in at times... the vacuous cheerleading, the self-marketing that draws dangerously close to a manipulation of the hierarchy, the lobbying and the influence peddling, the peculiarly myopic ecclesiology that seems to ignore or disdain the many forms of fidelity and service that do not reflect our penchant for double-breasted suits, shiny black shoes and pressed French cuffs...

Our adhesion to Peter is best expressed in our ability to help the faithful in far away places appreciate the universality of the Church, feel the closeness of Rome, make accessible the teaching of the Popes and the Councils, know the pride of being part of the living Tradition that stems from Christ and His apostles. Our commitment to being ever and always at the Holy Father’s disposal is a staple of our Founder’s inspiration.

Another facet of our charism is harder for me to express. For now, I’ll call it “apostolic versatility”. The name may not catch on, but I consider it one of the LC’s most surprising qualities. It is experienced as a conviction and a drive. A conviction that no place, no situation, no realm of human experience is to be excluded a priori from our evangelizing mission. It is a drive to plunge headlong into all sorts of initiatives, attempt all types of projects, get involved – opportune et importune – in every field of activity imaginable in order to spread the Word.

We really believe we can bring the presence of Christ to education, politics, science, economics, entertainment, art and literature, city and country anywhere in the world. This inevitably means that we fail and succeed, we change course and move on without much notice, we make fools of ourselves just to get a foot in the door (i.e. J.Morris!) and we try things that even the most believing of LCs may have their doubts about.

It is a gift of the Spirit no to be afraid, not to be stuck to one form of apostolate, one type of ministry... to feel the urgency – collectively, as a congregation – to be involved and active in all the ventures and circumstances of our times. We have to resist the temptation to measure our results purely in numbers, we have to avoid strangling ourselves with our own methodology and we must teach ourselves to avoid the spotlight. If we can learn to sincerely prefer anonymity and collaboration to domination and control, there is no telling to what distant reaches our “apostolic versatility” may take us.

When I ask myself about our charism, these elements are the most deeply etched on my soul in thirty years as an LC. I have spoken and continue to converse at length with many brothers about these things and am heartened by our strong consensus. And I think we barely scratch the surface, which bodes well for us...

Peace.

* Haters might do well to skip this post. All that is true and right about the LC is for them either propaganda or duplicity. This modest commentary on some of the finer aspects of LC charism will not be to their liking.
Bitterness and spite, alas, are demons the Exorcist cannot drive out.

hosanna

2008-03-30T23:52:00.001-04:00

At the 12 noon Mass on Sundays, the youth choir sings a rousing version of the Sanctus.
Güiro. Bongos. Cowbell. Conga line. Ritmo, muchachos, ritmo.

Nothing you’d find in the Liber Usualis.

The Hosanna chorus is the apex of the song’s enthusiasm. The stained-glass windows rattle. Folks clap and sway. Even Doña Clorinda in the front row by the sagrario gets momentarily distracted from her end-of-days rosary marathon.

One little guy, maybe four years old, wears eyeglasses, who’s always there with his mom actually anticipates the moment with a dance-like motion in his pew. He knows it’s coming. He stays with me through the Preface, arms extended like mine, his head trying to stay focused but his body slowly getting the better of him. He virtually explodes with holy power as the guitars and keyboard lead into the first “Santo, Santo, Santo!”

It is a weekly display of unfettered delight and religious innocence that I do not tire of watching. I muse nostalgically that the Almighty must revel in this shorty’s ecstasy as He did when David danced before the Ark of the Covenant.

Today, however, I discovered that our tiny dancer’s fervor is slightly misplaced.

He gets stuck on Hosanna, so it’s not unusual to hear him during communion or as we exit at the end of Mass, waving and smiling... and shouting the favorite word of his favorite song.

His mom says to me in the door of the church as they leave, “You know, Padre, Nico gets up early every Sunday and wakes me up with the same question.”

“Really, what’s that?”

“Mami, are we going to see Hosanna today?”

“To sing Hosanna?”, I ventured hopefully.

“No, No. To SEE Hosanna. You’re Hosanna and every Sunday we go to a fiesta at your house...”

.................

A note to the mothers of our parish:

Speak to your children. Tell them who Jesus is. Convince them that God exists.
Explain to them the Holy Mass. Set them on the road of orthodoxy and warn them to look neither to their right nor their left lest they stray.

And in the meantime, just call me Hosanna...

sight unseen

2008-03-29T22:22:00.003-04:00

I have four Masses tomorrow. One in English. So that’s two homilies to prepare. It’s got little to do with the words, really. The same Gospel on the same Sunday is simply not preached the same way to the different communities.

I imagine that it would seem obvious, but I also know how long it took me to figure it out.

I’m an exorcist, not a Rhodes Scholar.

The liturgy of Easter season opens a photo album of the early Christian community. The snapshots reveal restlessness, eagerness, anticipation. Who among them suspected that the time of creation’s travail would go on for at least another two millennia? Acts, Peter and Paul all exude and aire of expectancy, of imminence. The dumbfounding truth about our destiny and the transformation of all reality that exploded from the tomb on the third day made waiting for His return nearly an insufferable task...

Peter was there when Christ said it to Thomas. Peter repeats it in his letter to the early community: “...your faith (is) more precious than gold... although you have not seen him, you love him; even though you do not see him now yet believe in him.”

To think that it was always His intention that the incalculable majority of believers would become so having not seen... that the unending chorus of martyrs would surrender their lives for a love unconfirmed by their senses... is finally to understand the importance of testimony. Our faith is born from the testimony of those who go before us for we, too, believe without having seen.

Thomas doubted, but he knew what sign to ask for.

The nail marks, the wounds, the scars. “When you have lifted up the Son of man then you will know that I am He.”

Would that in our hour of doubt we ask for so unequivocal a sign...

charism (IV)

2008-03-29T01:27:00.000-04:00

If you ask an LC, especially a fresh, out-of-the-can LC, what the charism of the Legion is he will say, “Charity!”

This is a conditioned response. Not necessarily a bad one, but one that requires a harder look. My response to the question would be different. I might easily be wrong, but I have certainly had plenty of time to think about it.

The first problem with the programmed answer is that no religious order can describe its charism in a one word sound byte. All religious are committed to charity... heroic charity, of the type Christ taught us. Charity, understood as selfless love of neighbor, will be present wherever the Spirit has truly bestowed any of His gifts upon us.

The more specific problem with the typical LC buzzword in my mind is that the practice of charity as a virtue within the LC has been legislated to pieces... pieces that often leave it unrecognizable and confused. The practice of charity outside the walls of the LC house, in our apostolic work, is heavily conditioned by our methodology and its quantifiable goals. That, too, at times sullies and coerces the virtue and the gift.

The vast majority of LCs are extremely decent, charitable and compassionate. I have often been put to shame by the unthinking goodness of my brothers in the Legion and the guilelessness with which they live this most basic of Christian traits. And as far as our spiritual formation is concerned there is no lack of discourse on the ‘queen of virtues’.

But what I’m saying is different: as charism, as the living, breathing heart and soul of the Congregation, charity loses its freedom, its force and its unbridled creativity – whether we’re aware of it or not – because of some of the institutional baggage we carry... elements of a system perhaps not at all essential to our true charism.

On the inside, human relationships – the scenario in which all charity is exercised – can become so minutely regulated by rules and norms that deference to the superiors, topics of conversation, the way we think and express ourselves, the way we work together, the way we enjoy ourselves and relax together make one wonder if it is all really charity or just self-preservation in an setting where uniformity is by far the safest option. By the same token, true friendship, open dialogue, candor and caring for the guy in the cassock next to you are suspect. At times, no matter how many smiling faces surround you, a Legionary community can be an extremely lonely place, indeed.

On the outside, the LCs are primed to cultivate leaders, recruit people for specific works or needs of the Congregation, implement a methodology regardless of the reality they confront, put efficiency above all else and pile up numbers.

There is inarguable merit to our intensity, our focus, our organizational prowess, our method, our work ethic and our insistence on fruitful results. I do not advocate a less demanding apostolate. But, again, charity is often the unnoticed casualty of the campaign.

Who among us has never overlooked souls placed in our path because we were too intent upon catching the ‘bigger fish’? Are the works we ostensibly dedicate to helping the poor ends in themselves or means to other goals? Have none of us ever observed the stampede of LCs that want to be present at the ‘important’ wedding, funeral, baptism or whatever... while finding time for confessions or spiritual direction or hospital visits to the ‘less notable’ is a real chore? Do we worry as much about the people (the people!) we serve through our apostolates as we do about the work itself or the image we project? Do we stick our necks out for our people, take the necessary risks for them... or drop them like hot tamales as soon as we perceive some inconvenience or shadow of disfavor? Is charity always the unadulterated finality of our pastoral efforts or are we out there trying to impress the superiors, hold on to our place or our job, make a name for ourselves because that is what the system expects of us...?

OK. Enough. But I insist that I be correctly understood: the LCs do and have done incalculable good to thousands upon thousands of people. The spirit of outreach, enthusiasm and sacrifice that characterizes our Congregation has been an injection of life and hope for the Church wherever the LC is present.

What I’m saying specifically regards the definition of our charism. I would not glibly and bluntly respond “Charity!” to the question I began this post with. There is pressure exerted by institutional aspects of LC life on the virtue of charity that merits reflection and analysis. We should not fear this task. The Holy See has already given us a push in this direction. In the end, charity will and must be the most vivid and lasting expression of all we are as priests and not simply a shiny veneer held in place by rules and norms.

(to be continued...)

charism (III)

2008-03-27T19:20:00.003-04:00

I wrote to Pope Benedict last September in an attempt to get some answers to the many vital questions that have haunted LC consciences since Fr. Maciel’s obliged retirement. I asked the Holy Father about the changes that have been made (private vow, etc.) and the ones that are still to be revealed.

With gratitude I can say that the letter I received in reply, from the desk of the Prefect of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life was thoughtful, clear and helpful toward sorting things out a bit better in my own head. Other LCs have written Pope Benedict and also received responses. I can only encourage the rest of my brothers who have grappled long and hard with these issues that touch the very heart of who we are to do the same. Light and truth are always good things for the soul, even when you have to go the extra mile to get them.

Regarding the suspension of the first private vow and the other changes that are generally known about, Cardinal Rode said something that – obvious as it may seem to an outsider – truly struck me:

“... For peace of soul, both for you and your confreres united in the disturbance caused by the events of this particular moment in the Institute’s (LC) history, it is necessary to point out that the charism of the Legionaries of Christ has not been touched by the suppression of certain articles by the Holy See...”

I had an epiphany, of sorts.

To think that a vital part of our lives as LCs, obsessed over and insisted upon with singular emphasis by the Founder, matter for confession and litmus test for true ‘integration’... something that our Founder considered one of the outstanding graces given by God to the Legion... something that no LC superior or General Chapter would ever consider tampering with, even when the Founder was no longer among us... would eventually prove to be something other than an intrinsically necessary part of our charism... something non-essential for an LC... something that would disappear with less of a roar than a whimper...

Nothing less than an LC mind-blower, folks.
I confess that I had to break out the Knob Creek and read that over quite a few times.

Certainly, I refer here to one specific aspect of LC life. But the broader point could hardly be missed by any of us: that something held so dear to the Founder’s heart and so explicitly mandated in his writings and even the Constitution of the Congregation need to be distinguished from the true charism of the Legion.

In what, then, does our charism truly consist?

The Legion, like other orders and movements in the Church, is the living incarnation of a particular charism inspired by God through its Founder as a gift and a promise at a specific point in salvation history.

Like all gifts of the Spirit, charism is complex, multi-faceted, made up of intangibles, ultimately inscrutable, perhaps... and yet it can be grasped, lived, made manifest in us, purified and passed on from one generation to the next.

This, then, is the urgent task. To allow the Spirit to illuminate His gift through the Legion in this new stage of our history. To honestly, transparently and confidently seek an ever clearer knowledge of who we are and what we have received... because that – and nothing else - is what we are expected to give. To undertake without fear the potentially painful task of purifying the Legion’s charism from that which obscures it... to not be afraid to distinguish, with the help of the Spirit, between that which is essential and that which is purely accidental or ornamental.

I think the Holy See, whether we like it or not, has given us the first invaluable nudge toward the lengthy task of purifying our charism. Think about all that has happened: the person of the Founder forced to the background, the toning down of the shriller aspects of our self-promotion, the intervention that quietly removed structural elements that seemed (unthinkably, to us!) to threaten freedom of conscience and true charity within the Congregation...

We just may look back some day and discover that these trying times were indeed providential for the Legion.

(to be continued...)

Easter

2008-03-26T05:35:00.000-04:00

Holy Week has come and gone, unleashing its drama and intensity on the communities I minister to and, hopefully, making their lives a little less fearful, a bit more intense, slightly more capable of experiencing the routine shattering brilliance of it all...

“It is the turning, the transition, the Pasch... The crucified One, as this turning, is the Word which the Father addresses to the world. At this moment, the Word cannot hear itself. It collapses into its scream for the lost God. And it will really be an interpretation of his heavenly meaning, as it were, of the voice of the Father and the Spirit in the Son when the evangelists write the words, ‘Forgive them...’, ‘Today you will be with me in paradise...’ ‘It is finished.’ We should receive such words as spoken to us by the Father through the Spirit in the suffering of the Son...”

Hans. Who else?

To accentuate our meditation during the Triduum, I put a full color print of Grunewald’s Crucifixion on the parish bulletin.

Sometimes subtlety is not an option.

I am kind of on my own pastorally with the three parishes right now. The priest assigned to the Haitian community is a good man, but he’s pretty limited in what he can do to help with the Hispanic, Afro-American and Caribbean communities that constitute the greater part of the church in the North End. The deacons are excellent, but work their own jobs and look after their families during the week.

One VERY positive development of late has been the hiring of a lay financial manager for the churches. He has taken on the cluster’s challenges with uncommon zeal and I have gone back to being a priest. My new mantra: Talk to Jim ... instead of having to deal directly with the banks, the insurance guys, the vendors, technicians, exterminators, creditors, pay-roll people, snowplow dude, etc...

Easter season has begun with listening, basically. Listening in spiritual direction, listening while they scream, while they cry, while they stutter, listening at the hospital, listening at the jail, listening on the phone and in the confessional. Listening, mostly. Speaking, some.

Praying... well, it’s never enough now, is it.

Peace.

charism (II)

2008-03-04T01:21:00.003-05:00

I really hate those blogs that simply run endless quotations from books and poems and song lyrics. But the following quote from my idol in the world of theology, Hans Urs von Balthasar, is key to my reflections following Fr. Maciel’s death. Please bear with me.

“The most important thing about great saints is their mission, a new charism bestowed on the Church by the Holy Spirit. The person who possesses it and bears it, is only the servant of the Spirit, a servant who is weak and unprofitable even to the point of the most sublime achievements in whom the luminous quality is not the person, but the testimony, the task, the office: ‘He himself was not the Light, but he came into the world only to bear witness to the Light.’

All saints, especially they, realize the deficiency in their service to the mission, and one should believe them in what they say so urgently. The chief thing about them is not the heroic personal achievement, but the resolute obedience with which they have given themselves over to being slaves to a mission and understand their entire existence only as a function of and protective covering for this mission.

One should place in the limelight what they themselves want and have to put in the limelight: their mission, their interpretation of Christ and of the Holy Scripture. One should leave in the dark what they themselves want to and must leave in the dark: their paltry personalties. One should attempt, therefore, through their saintly existence, to read and to understand the mission of God to the church. One should try, just as far as one can, to distinguish the salutary and wholesome mission from its deficient realizations. Not in the sense of a separation, since this mission is indeed incarnated precisely in the life, in the deeds and sufferings of the saints, as well as in their persons, history and psychology, and in all the little anecdotes and circumstances which accompany and surround the life of a saint.

Hence, we must distinguish the mission not in an abstraction from what is living, in a conceptualization of what is concrete, in a depersonalization of the uniquely personal, but rather, after the pattern of the phenomenological method which studies the essence, the gestalt, the intelligibile in sensibili, as far as this is humanly attainable. Only here the intelligibile is something supernatural, and its envisioning presupposes a faith, yes, a sharing in the life of holiness.”

(from Sisters in Spirit: Theresa de Lisieux and Elizabeth von Dijon, 1970, pp. 20-23)

The Legion of Christ must now, in the opinion of one humble exorcist, thoughtfully and intentionally deepen its own understanding of the charism it has received. The Founder has passed on, but what we were given through him remains. This is not a rejection of the figure of the Founder. It is the ultimate realization of what he himself would have wanted... even when it would have been largely impossible while he lived and breathed among us.

(To be continued...)

charism (1)

2008-02-10T00:28:00.000-05:00

At a time when I am as busy as I have been since coming to this city to work, the death of Fr. Maciel has quietly burdened my soul.

We are seriously understaffed in this archdiocese and nowhere is it more acutely felt than in the three impoverished inner-city parishes that now lay siege to my every waking hour. These ethnically dense and financially crippled communities have gotten the short end of what was never a very long stick to begin with.

And while the challenges of an administrative role I have temporarily assumed and am ill-prepared for should be more than enough to keep me occupied fulltime, my mind constantly slips away and goes to that familiar place...

In hindsight, I am honestly astounded by the degree to which the man – priest, founder and unquestionably charismatic leader of souls – absorbed and dominated my mind and my will for so many years of my life. I was totally, and still am to an extent – although more consciously, more critically – under the spell of his story, his writings, his personality and his spirit like the collector who loses himself in the search and justifies all his quirks and eccentricities by the one rare object of his fascination.

The true visionaries of the Church – prophets, theological luminaries, founders of movements and religious orders, etc. – hardly ever scale the rungs of ecclesiastic hierarchy. Their role at any given moment of the Church’s history is ordained by their charism. And charism, as St. Paul adverts us, is a very tricky thing.

Charism is untamed obsession, indefinable grace, spiritual overflow. It is other-worldliness that provokes the ire and suspicion of this world and its finely tuned reasonableness. It is inconformity of the least politically correct kind. It is the grating irritant that produces – often after a very long time – the unexpected pearl.

Often charism comes laced with the contradiction inherent in the human mold. It can be hard to detect and even harder to accept. If charism clashes with authority or rattles institution usually only time and the Spirit will lend discernment...

The one word descriptions of Fr. Maciel, from either side of the aisle (‘saint’ or ‘fiend’) do him no justice.

The NCR’s story on the Founder’s death talks about ‘legacy’ and reverts predictably to the debate surrounding the accusations that mounted against him in the later years of his life. The gist of it is roughly that the moral turpitude of the man (apparently unquestionable in Berry’s mind) leaves a permanent blemish on his life’s work... the ‘flawed legacy’.

But for so many of us who lived in close proximity with Fr. Maciel and never saw, heard or caught the vaguest whiff of immorality the true issue that now confronts us is quite different. The serious and vexing topic of the accusations and the ambiguous response of the Vatican to them cannot be ignored or shrugged off. Yet at the end of the day, after nearly thirty years of direct personal contact with Fr. Maciel, I must trust the evidence of my senses and the conclusions of my own reflections and memories.

For those of us who believe that it is entirely possible, if not certain, that God called this unusual and enigmatic man to serve the Church and to found a new religious order peculiarly adapted to the reality of our times the question that arises with his passing is not about ‘legacy’. It is about charism.

(To be continued... )

requiescat

2008-01-31T23:58:00.001-05:00

Fr. Marcial Maciel, LC

March 10,1920 - January 30, 2008

"There is no denying that the cross is surrounded by glory. It is, at the same time a sign of utter defeat and indomitable hope. The defeat and the hope must be ever held together, the hope is not finally hopeful unless it has taken into account everything that contradicts hope."

- from Death on a Friday Afternoon, by Richard John Neuhaus

Speak well of the dead

2008-01-19T23:13:00.000-05:00

Baptisms in the parish still outpace funerals by a spacious margin on a year-to-year basis, but we certainly get our share of requiem Masses. On a long enough timeline, everyone’s chances of survival are zero.

Often enough, I have little direct knowledge of the deceased. I try to read an obituary, quiz the funeral home boys, find out if he was young or old, sick or healthy, had family or not... if he was a he or a she...

The preaching on these occasions tends to be a smidge generic. I can’t offer personal anecdotes so I hold fast to two inviolable rules: stick to the Gospel and speak well of the dead.

That’s what I did today. Actually, that’s what I overdid today.

Lots of people at the wake last night. Memorial T-shirts were passed out, four women collapsed on emotional overload, everyone agreed he had died much too soon... 36 years old.

At the Mass I practically canonized the guy, about whom I had been told simply that his family loved him and he had a great sense of humor. So I commented on the Gospel (“Now my soul is troubled, but what shall I say: ‘Father, save me from this hour?’ But it is for this hour that I have come into the world...”).

I pointed out that Jesus transformed His death into the ultimate and defining act of free will. And finally, invigorated,I went on a roll about how much everyone was going to miss fulano, what a great guy he was, how much good he did for others, how his life was not in vain, etc...

I knew I nailed it when friends and family of the defunct told me at the cemetery that I spoke as if I had known him in life, that my description of him was uncanny.

However after reading today’s paper I have come to the conclusion that, notwithstanding the fortuitous accolades, my research should probably be more thorough in the future.

Live and learn.

60 Minutes

2008-01-10T14:29:00.000-05:00

Did you see 60 Minutes Sunday night?

Three engrossing interviews.

Pervez Musharraf made the flabbergasting statement that Benazir Bhutto’s assassination was nobody’s fault but her own. Certainly, many circumstances contributed to the ex-Prime Minister’s untimely death, not least among them her own ‘recklessness’ ignoring more stringent security measures. But to suggest that the blame for her murder fall on anyone other than the murderers is morally repugnant. Musharraf made it sound almost as if Bhutto were deserving of her fate... there are strange places in this world.

John Martorano, a gangland hitman turned state’s witness, left me gaping incredulous at the TV screen. On my mother’s side I have family named Martorano... mostly low level mafia types that we would see at funerals and baptisms when I was a kid. Dark fedoras, long overcoats, four day’s worth of stubble and a lingering aura of cheap cigars. You know the type.

But the bad hombre Steve Kroft interviewed on 60 Minutes appeared to be the real deal. With chilling matter-of-factness he answered the questions that were to originally have been posed by Ed Bradley, to whom Martorano had promised the exclusive interview before he passed. They were friends and teammates on their high school football team.

The Exorcist found two moments of the conversation particularly revealing.

Martorano insists that there is nothing more despicable in this world than a snitch, a rat, an informant. Kroft raises an eyebrow and suggests that a rat is precisely what Martorano has become. “I ain’t no rat. I’m State’s witness.” The distinction, apparently, lies in the forthrightness of the witness – showing his face, baring his identity – as opposed to the furtiveness and secrecy of the rat. There may be no honor among thieves, but hitmen, it would seem, have a different code of ethics.

Later in the interview, Kroft asks him, “Are you a Catholic?” “Sure”, he answers.

Evidently versed in the finer subtleties of Catholic moral teaching, Kroft observes that murder is generally not condoned in Catholicism. He insinuates that the hitman’s eternity might be at risk: “I mean, you can burn in hell for killing one person, you know.”

Martorano replies with a hitman’s version of the Baltimore catechism:

"I don't believe that," Martorano says. "At one point, maybe a couple years ago, I sent for a priest and gave him a confession. It was maybe 30 years since my last confession. But I went through the whole scenario with him, and went through my whole life with him, and confessed. And at the end of it, he says, 'Well, what do you think I should give you for penance?' I says, 'Father, you can justifiably crucify me.' He laughed and says, 'Nope. Ten Hail Marys, ten Our Fathers, and don't do it again.' So I listened to him."

You gotta love it.

Finally, Mike Wallace throws a few softball pitches to the Rocket. This whole steroid thang is a media fueled story. I am a lifelong baseball fan who has asked other lifelong baseball fans and the verdict is in: no one cares.

Baseball is entertainment, not theology. If a baseball player sticks a needle in his butt to hit the ball farther or pitch the ball faster, why is that any concern of mine? It may not be fair – although the performance enhancing drugs they use seem to be universally available – it may not be good for the players’ health long-term... but pro sports is grossly unethical and overpaid entertainment.

I’m going to lose sleep over that?
Fuggetaboutit.

all the earth shall see

2008-01-06T22:15:00.000-05:00

There are few Bible stories, in the New Testament, especially, that warm the heart and incite the imagination of the faithful like the story of the wise men from the east who venture out in search of the new-born King of the Jews.

We had great fun at the parish this weekend with the celebration of ‘The Three Kings’. We filled the parish hall twice, Saturday and Sunday, with kids of all ages. There were gifts, lots of good food, music and general carrying-on till the wee hours.

It doesn’t take much to get a party started on the Hispanic side of town, granted, but Matthew did a great service to the Church in general by including his dramatic and mysterious account of the Epiphany of our Lord in his infancy narrative.

From a purely historical standpoint, I suppose there’s not a whole lot to say. We know Herod was ‘king’ of Judah and that his temper and antics would have landed him on the Jerry Springer Show for sure in our day. We know that ‘magi’ of all sorts roamed the Middle East. We know that celestial events were frequently interpreted as harbingers of earthly happenings. We know that Israel and, in a more diffused way, the entire world awaited the Peace Maker...

But our focus is on the meaning of the Gospel passage. Our curiosity may never be satisfied, but what does it all mean?

First, what our liturgy most evidently offers for our reflection today: the Messiah – born a son of Israel, kin of David – came not only to fulfill the hopes and dreams of the Chosen People. The ‘good news’ is precisely that (as the reading from Ephesians proclaims today): even the gentiles, even the lost and indifferent, even those who have made sin an art form in our times... are included in the promise of salvation.

That is good news, indeed.

Second, Matthew gives us a stirring summary of what the Christian vocation is in a nutshell. The sign given by a God who wants to be known and loved by man, yet inexplicably hides himself from our science and our logic. The awakening of that latent hope that resides in everyone’s heart. The search: essence of human existence. The loss of direction, the confusion, the nearly fatal brush with evil and then, again, the reappearance of the star. And finally, the encounter. Not with empty hands, but with gifts... the best we have to offer.

The very fact that we long for and seek a God that does not see our gifts as ridiculous is, somehow, truly consoling.

I have a few paltry, poorly wrapped gifts that I would like to present to the One who comes to save. Hopefully this year will be a year of adventurous encounter with Him.

Peace.

"the wise man brings from his treasure both the new and the old"

2008-01-04T02:54:00.000-05:00

“La transformación es la ley de la vida espiritual.”

That’s one of our Founder’s sayings that most LCs know by heart after a few years in the congregation. It rings true especially when life’s mischief or one’s own failings bring the soul down a notch or two.

Greater perspective, deeper knowledge of self, more realistic goals, truer freedom of spirit....

Change is risky. We prevaricate, procrastinate, hesitate... But often much is to be gained.

A friend who collaborates with LC projects in the US told me that at recent meetings the idea that the Legion should respond to the needs of the dioceses and parishes where it is present and not attempt, overtly or surreptitiously, to impose its own agenda has been expressed and embraced by clergy and laity alike.

This is a good thing. Everyone agrees that it is a good thing. It also represents a new and improved way for the Legion to focus its apostolic zeal and share its particular gifts with the Church.

What perplexes my friend is that the local LC priest cringes and objects quite strenuously whenever anyone suggests that this apparent change in attitude is new.

Padre applauds and embraces it, but he adamantly reprimands anyone who insinuates that it constitutes a change, even a subtle change, in the LC’s modus operandi. As if change, novelty, would cause the LC to come crashing down... as if the LC were a finished product, deposited in the world with no human intervention and no historical perspective... as if we had nothing to learn, nothing to improve and, therefore, nothing to hope for...

“But, Father,” my friend insists, “we weren’t thinking, we weren’t talking and we certainly weren’t operating with this clear and defined purpose before. It is new and we should be happy to say so.”

My friend’s inclusion at future meetings may be in jeopardy if he persists in making his unpalatable point...

The blogosphere is ripe with speculation about the internal changes – yes, changes – that are slowly surfacing in the LC. Michael Humphrey wrote about it for the NCR, La Jornada ran a typically imprecise piece on it and bloggers like Damian Thompson of the UK Telegraph, Rorate Caeli, American Papist and others have added their speculation on the topic.

I receive mail almost daily from LC, RC and the merely curious asking me about our secret vows, covert promises, clandestine oaths and whatnot.

The derogation of one of our two private vows, the redefining of certain aspects of the superiors’ role and the modification of other internal practices by the Holy See was communicated to the LC shortly after Mons. Scicluna’s investigation was closed in the early summer of 2005. Scicluna’s probe began with the accusations made against Fr. Maciel, but ultimately branched out to examine other complaints regarding structural and disciplinary issues inside the Legion.

Predictably, what most concerns someone like your friendly neighborhood exorcist is how these portentous changes have been interpreted and received behind the walls of Via Aurelia.

Make no mistake, although they hardly raise a ripple on the serene facade of the LC, these few changes that have been made known – only after the prudential grace period for enacting them had come and gone – are nothing short of monumental. In and of themselves they mark a before and an after in the history of our congregation. And none of us know yet what else may be revealed as things progress.

However, the perfunctory announcement made to our communities and the brief commentary that deflected the true import and meaning of what has happened - before silence concerning it became protocol - have only served to dishearten and dampen the spirit of many of us who expect better of the congregation we love and serve.

To portray these changes as something almost ‘external’ to the LC, to offer only partial and fleeting references instead of trusting and courageous disclosure to the men who have surrendered their very lives to the LC (with trust and courage!), to pretend that nothing has happened of any significance and exhort us to adopt a mindless ‘business as usual’ attitude... is unworthy of the LC leadership and profoundly disrespectful of her rank-and-file.

We should be happy to acknowledge and embrace the changes, the newness that enriches the spirit and life of our congregation. This, too, should be seen as a ‘great blessing’ and ‘the will of God’. We who pride ourselves on advancing “al paso de la Iglesia” will continue to grow and serve the Church as long as we strive to accept our designated role within it. We have to trust the Church, not fear the truth or the inner freedom that comes with it... and confidently believe that the best years of the LC are still to come if we remain faithful to her.

And that’s all I have to say about that.
Peace.

Primerísima

2008-01-03T23:57:00.000-05:00

Misa con motetes. Juego intercomunitario. Merienda cena.
Chi-qui-ti bun-ba-di bin-bun-ba...

January 3 always brings back a flood of memories, perhaps not as distant as they now feel. The LC was founded 67 years ago and we remember, either in community or in solitude. Even with all the rewriting, intertwined myth and midrash and the chapters that will remain forever unknown, it’s a remarkable history. One that none of us should be ashamed to be part of.

But today especially I remember Pope John Paul II who became successor of Peter at the same time I began my journey toward the priesthood. His words, his spirit and his selfless dedication to the Church have been my foundation and inspiration.

Not long ago – November 25, Solemnity of Christ the King – I was finally able to make a dedication in honor of this great Pope to whom I have always felt closely linked. A very fine image of John Paul II was blessed and installed in a space we prepared for this purpose at the parish. He stands firm, in green chasuble grasping his processional crucifix, right hand extended in salute to the faithful who rallied to his deep voice: “Non abbiate paura! Spalancate le porte a Cristo!”

Too soon? Not yet a saint, you say?

We’re just ahead of the curve, that’s all. The liturgical calendar will catch up soon enough.

17 years ago today I was ordained by Pope John Paul II.

To all my brothers in Christ, ordained on that day at St. Peter’s in Rome, my congratulations and prayers.

the new in new year

2008-01-01T01:02:00.000-05:00

“And a loud voice cried out,

‘Look! God’s dwelling is with mankind! He will dwell with them. They will be His people and He shall be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes and there shall be no more death or mourning, weeping or pain, for the old order has passed away.’

Then the One who sat on the throne said,

‘Behold, I make all things new!’...” (Rev. 21, 3-5)

That’s the text I put on the parish Christmas cards this year. It pretty much summarizes the leitmotif of the preaching that folks heard around here during Advent and Christmas.

One of the most stirring visions in the Old Testament is the sight of the aged Isaiah looking out over the desolate waste that the House of David has become and proclaiming: “Remember not the things of the past!
See, I make everything anew! Even now it springs forth, can you not perceive it?” (Is 43,19)

That there could ever be anything authentically new in this weary, skeptical, repetitive world is the hard core of Christian hope. That this newness spring eternally and under our very noses is the undying message of Advent and Christmas.

“I have learnt to love you late, Beauty at once so ancient and so new!”

Augustine. Timely as always.
Happy New Year, y’all.

christmas comes early to NY

2007-11-15T23:26:00.000-05:00

It couldn't happen to a nicer club.

going postal

2007-11-14T23:14:00.000-05:00

As a rule, I consciously limit my visits to the post office as the holiday season approaches.

My Dad, Keeper-of-the-Box, used to relish his trips to the hive-like hallway lined with shiney metal doors. He would always find some reason to wait in line at the mailing counter on which dust accumulated at quadruple the speed with which customers were attended.

Me? I want zombies, I go to Netflix.

Anyway, yesterday I stopped at this huge post office on my way back to the rectory from the cemetery. I did OK at the burial and figured that the level of human activity on display there would be good immediate preparation for the pulse-slowing pace of the USPS.

But you know how sometimes you walk into a place and feel in every fiber of your body that something just isn't right?

Only one person in line and three (out of a possible seven) postal workers in attendance at the counter.

I first suspected that tear in the fabric of the universe that we've been waiting for, then I thought it might be something even more sinister... they're hiding? it's a trap? the hills have eyes?

It was the one person in line who snapped me back to awareness.

"Ohmygosh, Father, I can't believe you're here! This is totally incredible!"

The young African American woman was not a zombie. I know zombies.
I didn't know her.

"Maybe I am missing something?", I offered.

"Ohmygosh, I was just standing here, alone in line, and I could feel a panic attack coming on and it was going to be a bad, bad one. And I'm praying, 'Dear Lord, don't let me go to pieces in here, not in here, please'... And the next thing I know, here you are standing beside me in line and everything comes back into focus. This is incredible."

She smiled with that glistening hint of tears in her dark eyes and dropped a rib-crushing hug on a very bewildered padre.

It is now deemed 'incredible' when people don't go postal in the post office.
Fiction doesn't come close.

divine carefreeness

2007-11-12T01:11:00.000-05:00

Verbiage.

You would not believe the verbiage.

And it's not like they've never done this before. Every year for the last century and a half the Puerto Rican Catholic community has celebrated Our Lady of Divine Providence with novenas, parades, vigils and the like. This parish community - boricua in its majority - has done so for at least 45 years.

You'd think they'd be getting the hang of it by now.

Endless meetings. Every detail discussed as if for the first time. Then discussed again.

And when all is said and done, there's as much confusion as if we had improvised it from the get-go. These are the complexities of life in a small, Hispanic inner-city parish.

I look at the image that is at the center of our celebration and I grow deeply envious of that Child... Blissfully asleep, sublimely oblivious to all the fuss being made around him, confident enough in the wiles and ways of his young mother to abandon himself care-less-ly to her defenses...

I suspect that the celebration of Our Lady of Divine Providence is as much about our ultimately trusting Him as it is about His recklessly trusting us.

I could get used to this...

2007-10-28T23:55:00.000-04:00

Just can't get enough of it.
A sickness, perhaps?
Or a longing fulfilled...

meaninglist

2007-10-20T11:09:00.000-04:00

Lists seem to have replaced more sophisticated forms of writing in a way similar to electronically generated pulses replacing real music in our day. Another effect of the myspace brainshrinking pathogen, maybe.

It's hard, though, not to fall prey.
I apologize in advance for what follows.

Things that have surprised me recently, but probably shouldn't have

1. Neither the Archbishop nor any official Catholic spokesperson has condemned the burlesque and insulting invasion of the Mass by protesters in drag who call themselves the "Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence". That is scandalous, although not shocking.

2. The LC sicced its high-paid lawyers on ReGain (pitiful, self-obsessed, insignificant ReGain) in the hopes of ...what? Recovering 'private' writings that are all over the web? Fulfilling its adamantly affirmed policy of suffering calumny silently and turning the other cheek? Scaring off other potential or actual critics with scientology-like tactics? Smells like pay-back to me. This, too, is scandalous. The only thing surprising about it is how oblivious those responsable apparently are to the degree of scandal given to thoughtful and honest LC and RC members. Very painful.

3. The Yankees can spend $28 mil for Roger Clemens to pitch 12 games and still not get past the first round of the ALDS. Must be Torre's fault. They should fire that guy.

4. Derek Jeter is now expected to pay for his hookers' parking. What is the world coming to? New York definitely has to take better care of their role models...

5. The eastern access to the Panama Canal is actually further west than the Pacific coast access of the canal. I got to see it all very close up. Spectacular.

6. The Lipitor I've been taking for the last three years was never meant to be a suppository.

Oh, well. Live and learn.

sweet 16

2007-01-03T22:39:00.000-05:00

It's not the flu. Couldn't be.
I got my vaccine at the end of October. And a tetanus shot. And went to Panama.
Medical science says I can't get the flu and science is never, ever wrong.

It's not spinal meningitis. At least I hope not.
That's what little Guzmán has. He's from Chiautla, Puebla. 'Swampy place'.
Little Guzmán was baptized on Holy Innocents in a squeaky-sterile setting.

But I was sick before meeting Guzmán so I think I can safely rule out a bacterial infection of my membranes.

My guess is that this lingering illness of mine - which I am sadly getting used to - has something to do with moose poop.

Because that's what I feel like. Moose poop.
And feelings are never, ever wrong.

Anyway, sick or not, I've been silently celebrating today.
Sixteen years ago, under the soaring dome of St. Peter's, I was made a priest by Pope John Paul II. Sixteen years of largely unnoticed but - I like to think - not unfruitful ministry.

Unnoticed is good. Fruitful is even better.
I want to thank everyone who has been there along the way.
I ask forgiveness from anyone who got hurt or got less than they hoped for from me.
The future looms full of unexpectedness.

Of course, that's just a hunch.
But hunches are never, ever wrong.

9/11

2006-09-11T05:25:00.000-04:00

Grant us peace.

requiescat

2006-09-05T10:44:00.000-04:00

Another old friend passed away this weekend.

Fr.Javier Tena, long time pastor of the parish of Our Lady of Guadalupe on Via Aurelia in Rome and later assistant of Santa Maria de Betania in the Almagro barrio of Buenos Aires. A simple, kind and soft spoken priest who suffered through constant illness during the last years of his life.

He was a history buff and loved journals, photos and historical accounts of our congregation's past. He will be remembered for his kindness and his patience toward all who happened to knock on the church door.

Requiescat in pace.

anything for Allah

2006-09-03T00:21:00.000-04:00

Quite a bit of discussion has been generated in the blogosphere about the forced conversion to Islam of the Fox News reporters, Steve Centanni and Olaf Wiig, during their kidnapping in Gaza. All kinds of opinions out there: from disgust at the lack of backbone and conviction that a gunpoint conversion suggests, to applause and pride at the eloquent lesson of peaceful dialogue and religious openness given by the reporters.

I'm still waiting for Fox's resident theologian and pastoral guru, J.Morris, to illuminate us with a commentary on this incident involving his newsroom companions. I wonder how this topic escaped his notice...

Some of the blogs and message boards pass judgement on these two guys. Someone suggested to me that if the situation had been reversed - two Muslims held captive by Christians urging conversion - the result would have been deceased Muslims and not Christian converts.

A subjective judgement on the reporters' actions is neither possible, nor is it the point. Who really knows what their religious convictions - if they have any - are? Who knows how their thoughts on truth, meaning, freedom and life itself are defined or related to their behaviour as kidnapped hostages in Gaza?

A question all of us can ask goes beyond what happened inside these two guys. Is there anything (anyone?) worth dying for? Is this life, as we know it, worth holding on to at any cost? Can a person find something bigger and better than self which gives meaning to life and, without which, life would no longer be worth living?

Answering those questions could be important for all of us... even before there's a gun at our heads.

the great ones

2006-08-28T23:40:00.000-04:00

The Exorcist must admit that, his general disenchantment with all-things-media-driven notwithstanding, there are certain events and personalities that still hold his interest.

Tiger continues to amaze, bringing excitement and diversity to a sport that the Exorcist long thought was only for retired white guys.

Andre says farewell on center stage and manages to turn a first round match against an aging opponent into a nail-biter. His grand finale carries over at least to the second round. Good for him.

It's only entertainment and has little or nothing to do with real life, but it doesn't mean we can't enjoy excellence when we see it.

fired

2006-08-24T19:06:00.000-04:00

I know it's barely been 24 hours, but I miss Pluto already. The solar system just isn't the same without him.

Paramount dumped one of the few stars sans engrams in all of Hollywierd. Tom was clear. He was enlightened. And just like that, he was erased.

And finally, to cap a week of emotional struggles,
Mel Gibson is no longer our idol.
Not even Jonathan Morris, assuring us that his bosom buddy, his brother-from-another-mother really is deserving of our fawning adulation could keep Mel on the LC's constantly shifting hero list.

Sic transit gloria mundi.

hunger

2006-08-20T20:34:00.000-04:00

I began today's homily by describing Steven Carter's 1994 Pulitzer Prize winning photo. Few images have engraved themselves as permanently in my memory. I was sure lots of the folks at church would remember it too. Some didn't know, however, that Carter took his own life a few months after receiving the prestigious award for his photo.

A Sudanese child slowly making her way to a UN relief camp at the height of the famine. The girl, skin and bones, is being stalked by a vulture, patiently pursuing its next meal. No one knows what became of the child. The picture would suggest that her fate was not a dignified one...

My one fleeting experience with hunger - medically induced at that - was in Guerrero, Mexico about an hour south of Chilpancingo. I was on missions among indigenous communities during the summer and the water was bad. I got typhoid and was VERY sick. Wasn't allowed to eat anything for nearly a week and by the time it was over I could have bitten the arm of the nurse that was looking after me.

I consider that experience an 'artificial hunger' because there was food available, I just couldn't eat it. Nonetheless, it was enough of a hint to help me imagine what millions of people around the world suffer daily, with no permanent relief in sight.

That piercing, obsessive, all-consuming need to eat, to drink, to satisfy the most basic premise of human existence...

It's hard for us to even envision. We throw away more food in one day than lots of folks eat in a week. Yet the human experience of hunger and the capacity of bread to satisfy it serve our Lord as a point of departure in his 'bread of life' discourse which the Sunday liturgy has been doling out to us recently.

"You seek me out not because you have seen the signs, but because you ate the loaves and had your hunger satisfied."

All Christ's words are self-revelatory. His parables, his preaching, his admonitions are meant to tell us who he really is. He speaks of hunger, thirst, bread and drink so that, by analogy, we may see what he conceives his relationship with us to be. He fully considers himself the fundamental condition and source of life itself. What physical hunger and thirst can turn into for people - overwhelming, burning need - is but a premonition of what Christ esteems our relation to him to be.

All human need, therefore, in Christ's mind is a reflection of man's true origin and nature. The need for rest when we are tired, the need for medicine when we are sick, the need for friendship when we are lonely, the need for freedom when we are constrained, the need for food and drink when we are hungry and thirsty... all our deepest needs have their origin and their raison d'etre in our radical dependence on the source of our being.

From there to sacramental theology is but a small step.
And that brings us to next week's homily...

copla del día

2006-08-16T05:36:00.000-04:00

Recuerde el alma dormida,
avive el seso e despierte
contemplando cómo se passa la vida,
cómo se viene la muerte tan callando;
cuán presto se va el plazer,
cómo, después de acordado, da dolor;
cómo, a nuestro parescer,
cualquiere tiempo passado fue mejor.

- Jorge Manrique

Ain't it the truth?
Hardly seems like it's been four years already...

once

2006-08-15T06:28:00.000-04:00

A point is made in Dominus Iesus, the CDF document that stirred up such a fuss exactly six years ago, that the Exorcist has pondered long and hard. One of the principal obstacles to belief in our times - not belief in this or that doctrine, but the very act of belief itself - is the refusal to accept the possibility that something could happen only once in the course of human history.

Everything we know is fruit of repetition. If it happens again and again, if we observe it multiple times we can analyze it, study it, wrap our scientific minds around it and intellectually own it. The universe is full of sameness and whatever 'novelty' we encounter is evolved novelty: a series of small changes, a recognizable chain of events, known causes, forseeable effects.

What Dominus Iesus(4) says, exactly is,

"The roots of (the problem) are to be found in certain presuppositions of both a philosophical and theological nature, which hinder the understanding and acceptance of the revealed truth... (Among other things) the difficulty in understanding and accepting the presence of definitive and eschatological events in history..."

Christian belief is predicated on the premise that something truly new happened. 'New' meaning absolutely without precedent, unforseen and unforseeable, radically and permanently surprising. No external point of reference. Unrepeatable and, therefore, outside the scope of our science.

Jesus Christ is the event by which all other events are to be measured and understood. A one time happening whose uniqueness gives it a trancendence and a revelance claimed by no other day in history.

The marian dogmas of the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption are a proclamation of the unbridled novelty of the Christian event. The dogma seeks to conserve the mystery of it all in the shameless face of science and skepticism. The dogma guarantees that, as long as one true believer still walks the earth, newness will be within reach.

This is where the Exorcist plans to go in tonight's homily.
Wish me luck.

deaf ears

2006-08-14T05:14:00.000-04:00

Since the new outbreak of hostilities between Israelis and Hezbollah fighters, Pope Benedict has called for an immediate and universal ceasefire. He has taken a lot of heat in the national press because of it. One side is outraged because the Pope doesn't call Hezbollah a terrorist organization and blame it for the renewed violence. The other side is enraged because the Pope hasn't explicitly condemned Israel for the disproportionate use of force in attacking its foes in Lebanon.

Fox News, O'Reilly in particular, has taken issue with Pope Benedict because he demands that no more blood be shed, but offers no specific solution for the problem.

It would seem that even the media people that refer to themselves as Catholics have a hard time understanding - or remembering - what message (whose message!) the Holy Father is called to proclaim to the world.

A passage from Luke's gospel comes to mind.

Someone in the crowd said to him, "Teacher, tell my brother to share the inheritance with me." He replied to him, "Friend, who appointed me as your judge and arbitrator?" Then he said to the crowd, "Take care to guard against all greed, for though one may be rich, one's life does not consist of possessions." (12, 13-15)

When asked to take sides, when pressed to negotiate a settlement between people at odds with each other, Jesus refuses. He instead enunciates a moral principle, he enlightens man's conscience with revealed truth and leaves the task of its practical application to the parties involved.

The Pope's role on the world stage is to speak for Christ. He cannot take sides, he cannot broker political compromises for international grievances. He is right to condemn the violence, to decry the killing and to urge for peace. As Vicar of Christ he can do no less.

The Pope is to be as a lighthouse on history's turbulent seas: illuminate, show the way to safe harbor. But the rowing, steering and maneuvering is left to each ship on the horizon.

That said, those called upon to explain the Church's stance or the Pope's statements in the media should refer constantly to the fundamental mission: to speak the truth of Christ even when it falls on deaf ears.

The Exorcist gets royally peeved when Catholic media folks are fuzzy or downright contradictory. One favorite example: Fr. Jonathan Morris, who reports and writes for Fox News, is presumably on board to enounce and clarify the Catholic message. It's bad enough that on most subjects his fatuous, feelgood approach barely skims the surface of true Catholic thought. But on issues such as the present conflict in Lebanon he prefers to adopt the network's agenda over the position laid out by the Pope and other Church leaders. He seems to enjoy playing TV reporter so much that he abandons the far more challenging role of intelligently and eloquently giving voice to the Catholic mind, to Christ's teaching. His embarrassing attempt at an interview with Muslims gathered outside a London mosque a few days ago is a glaring example.

The Exorcist won't deny the soothing therapeutic effect occasional Morris-bashing has on his psyche, but it goes beyond that.

"He who hears you, hears me."

We, of all people, cannot remain silent. But we must ensure that the message is His and not something of our own fabrication.

requiescat

2006-08-12T06:59:00.000-04:00

I heard the homilies of the Masses celebrated for him in Chile. I wasn't overly impressed. Our finely honed skills for rewriting history, understating the essential and overstating the trivial, seem to have kicked in far before the occasion to preach actually presented itself.

Some congratulate themselves for a spin well spun and perceive, perhaps, the unspoken relief of having one less pebble in their shoe. Others, MANY others, I know remember and miss this great man and exemplar priest for who he really was and what he taught us all.

Fr. Jose Maria Escribano V. A sage and a friend, he had time for everyone who needed it and never failed to put any soul back on the path to eternity. Unencumbered by the sham and the noise, his words centered, calmed and oriented. Folks felt they NEEDED to hear him.

I miss his deadpan rejoinders, his laser-sharp wit and his keen eye for the absurd - which found constant subject matter in the institution we both belong to. I'd like to think something of Fr. Jose Maria rubbed off on me in the nearly ten years we lived together, seven in our own unlikely extension of paradise. He was a mentor and a guide. He saved me from myself more times than I care to remember.

Requiescat in pace.

scream

2006-08-05T08:42:00.000-04:00

The story goes that as the artist was walking with friends late one afternoon down Oslo's chilly streets, he suddenly stopped, halfway across a bridge, unable to take another step. His companions hardly noticed him lagging behind.

Munch describes what happened next.

"I was walking along a path with two friends – the sun was setting – suddenly the sky turned blood red – I paused, feeling exhausted, and leaned on the fence – there was blood and tongues of fire above the blue-black fjord and the city – my friends walked on, and I stood there trembling with anxiety – and I sensed an infinite scream passing through nature."

Historians claim that his panic attack/epiphany took place in 1883. The skies were a lurid blood red because of the volumes of volcanic ash launched into the stratosphere by Krakatoa. Ten years later, Munch depicted this and other expressions of the anxiety that filled his life on canvas.

Some of his other paintings - Anxiety, Despair, portrait of Nietzsche - also have the bridge as the location for his subject. The man on the bridge: caught between the past and the future, his beginning and his end. Suspended between the sky above and the depths below.

You gotta love it. A fabulous gift idea for that special someone. Emphasis on 'special'.

Have you heard the scream? Has anyone not heard it? It is especially piercing and sustained in our troubled times. Perhaps that's why this work is so universally appealing.

That, and the artist's cool last name.

E. Munch is definitely up there with the other greats. Tedy Bruschi. Coco Crisp. Kevin Mench.

But I digress.

there's no there there

2006-07-12T09:30:00.000-04:00

My great-grandmother would talk to - proselytize, actually - the fish in the aquarium at the nursing home near our house where she spent her last days. Damn fish just wouldn't listen to reason, either. Infuriating as it was, Nana's kidneys gave out before her missionary zeal did. She used her last breath trying to convert the insolent little boogers.

My grandmother would wear a pair of dead foxes, joined at the hip, on her shoulders in the dog days of summer. On special occasions. She also learned to swear colorfully from the mah-jongg crowd she ran with for so many years. She spent the twilight of her life praying the rosary, cursing in Sicilian and Yiddish and out-guessing the contestants on The Price is Right.

My mother, well, where to start? The cats... the benign spiritism... the stuff in the freezer.
Don't make me go there.

This background information is merely to highlight my qualifications in dealing with unusual old ladies. I am not without experience in this highly specialized and gratifying field. I have the skillz. I have the credentialz.

So when la señora Nélida dropped in on me at the rectory yesterday I handled it quite professionally.

"I was going to throw it all in the river. But then I thought, the padre he is a man of God. So I bring it to you."

Both garbage bags were full, although the weight was unevenly distributed. Her eyes sparkled victoriously.

What is this stuff?

"Orange. It must be removed. Maybe for someone else to use."

Clothes, toys, jello molds. Crayons, a plastic lamp cover. A bath mat that honestly could have passed for yellow, but one learns early on not to haggle over trifles with a woman on a misson.

You're sure this is all of it. Nothing orange remains in the house?

She hesitated nervously. Her eyes fluttered and her mouth twitched. The man of God, he is testing me maybe? Has he seen?

"This is everything. I am sure. When I was in Cuba I saw many things. I ask myself, 'Where does the sun go when it sets?' It rises in the oriente and then disappears in darkness. So I quickly take the orange things out of my house. You will help me, no?"

Not a problem, Nelly.
Leave your troubles here, whatever color they are.

usted es la culpable...

2006-07-10T09:46:00.000-04:00

I probably should have sensed there was going to be a problem going into this. The Exorcist just tends naturally to give folks the benefit of the doubt, that's all.

Never did I imagine that ol' number 1127 would be my undoing.
That's 1127, article 3. Specifically.

I don't blame her, this young latino woman from the parish, for not understanding the why and where-for-all of it. But I did explain it to her to the best of my ability and told her that, regardless, I was as beholden to the rules as she was. The deceptive ease with which she acquiesced to my check-list of conditions should have given me an inkling...

It was a summer Sunday much like any other. The stifling heat of our old, unairconditioned churches turned the morning Mass stretch into a baptism by immersion. The kids were holding a car wash so they were soaked, too. I left at three for the country mansion that was to host the wedding at four. Beautiful place but, man, was it hot. Luckily seats for everyone except the officiant were strategically located in the shade of a cluster of tall oaks. So that worked out pretty well.

Anyway, I get there twenty minutes early to set up. I ask one of the girls moving the floral arrangements if she thought we'd be ready to go at four. She says, "Hopefully. But the first service was over an hour late in starting."

First service? Why, whatever do you mean?

Then I saw it. An ornate gazebo - scarlet, orange yellow and gold - with two stone elephants flanking a long red carpet strewn with flower petals.

"Yessir. That Buddhist ceremony took forever to get rolling. They just barely finished in time for lunch. But I'm hopeful they'll come out soon to get this over with. It's been a long day."

Hindu.

"Huh?"

Hindu. Lahar is Hindu. Not Buddhist.

"Oh, yeah. Whatever."

I knew this was to be a wedding between a Catholic and a non-Christian. I signed and sent to the bishop the dispensation form. Maria Carmen was adamant that she wanted to receive the sacrament of marriage, within the Mass, and agreed to everything - even to getting confirmed well in advance of her wedding.

Another thing she agreed to was number 1127, 3. Of Canon Law.

§3. It is forbidden to have another religious celebration of the same marriage to give or renew matrimonial consent before or after the canonical celebration according to the norm of §1. Likewise, there is not to be a religious celebration in which the Catholic who is assisting and a non-Catholic minister together, using their own rites, ask for the consent of the parties.

This is a sticky point, often, in arranging 'mixed marriages'. I know this because Tyler knows this. It all has to do with the very particular perspective of Catholic sacramental theology and the specifically Catholic understanding of matrimony. I tried to elucidate all this to Maria Carmen. I offered her the option of forgoing the observance of canonical form and getting a dispensation for a civil ceremony. She insisted. She accepted. She appeared beautifully dressed in white at 4pm.

Benefit of the doubt, right?

I wonder what happened. Did she never really understand what I laid out for her? Did she think it was unimportant, a formality... or worse, a quirk of the nutty priest she asked to perform her marriage? Was she pressured into the Hindu ceremony by his family and opted not to say anything to me?

Now I lie awake nights with debates about validity and licitness raging in my mind's empty caverns.

Y todo por tu culpa.

say it with flowers

2006-07-05T22:34:00.000-04:00

Not all is quiet in the North End of the city.

All the shooting and fighting that's going on makes a fellow choose the route for his evening walk a bit more carefully. There's distrust between the folks and the police. A new police chief has his hands full. It's a job no one wants.

I hate to admit it, but we've grown perceptibly more cautious at the parish dealing with the people who come to the door looking for help. It's not like we have a new policy or anything, it's just that the environment has grown that tense...

Happily, not everything is violence. The North End still has time for wierd, too.

I opened the church doors at around 7:15 am and found a bundle of flowers carefully placed on the doorstep. Charming... other than the fact that they were taken from the flower beds of the parish's front lawn. In the middle of each of the eight steps descending from the church doors, both sides, was a violet in a small mound of soil. The violets had previously been in large pots on the corners of the church entrance.

But the icing on the cake, the proverbial cherry on the sundae, was the tiny bird - wings, head and feet extended to form a 't' - in the center of the stone bannister that encloses the landing at the top of the church stairs.

The 8am Mass-goers recalled our Valentine's Day beheaded rooster incident. They asked me earnestly, with grave concern, "Padre, what does it all mean?"

It means, my friends, that we need more flowers...

my achilles heel

2006-06-25T07:26:00.000-04:00

There lies before me a Pandora's box secured by a Gordian knot that will only be loosed, in the end, by ths sword of Damocles...

haurietis aquas

2006-06-23T06:06:00.000-04:00

A friend of mine from high school was in semi-confessional mode last week - not an abnormal reaction to a fourth pint of Guinness - and claimed that one of the things that most turned him off to the Catholic faith as a boy (leading to his total disenfranchisement as an adult) was the abundance of garish images scattered about his grandmother's house. How any of that scary stuff could motivate one to devotion and Christian charity still puzzles him. Apparently, St.Agnes' fluttering eyelids, slashed throat and lamb-in-arms are, to this day, the principal deterrant to his return to the Church.

If you have an Italian or a Mexican woman in your family tree, you know the artwork.

St.Sebastian tied to a pillar with countless arrows obliquely piercing his body as he stares heavenward.
St.Christopher gasping for breath as a deceptively heavy Christ child robed in white, placidly perched on the drowning saint's shoulder raises his tiny hand in regal gesture.
St.George, a paleo-christian Lone Ranger mounted on a white stallion, skewers the fiery dragon, the hellish serpent, the infernal worm, the inflammable winged maggot.
St.Lawrence, patron of cooks, kneeling beside the pit of smouldering embers, dressed in his red dalmatic, palm sprig clenched to his chest yearning eyes cast beyond this world...

You get the idea.

Is it any wonder Hollywood has always found abundant material in Catholic tradition for its supernatural spook flicks? Just add a little more gore, contort that angelical visage a smidge and fill that gloomy church with candles, incense and otherworldly whispers and... wallah! A playroom worthy of Damien, Carrie and Emily Rose.

Imagery is key to Catholicism. We do not just profess our faith. We see it, we touch it, we hear it, we smell it, we taste it. We dress up and dramatize it on Christmas Eve and Good Friday. We make statues of our saints and use water, wine, bread and oil in our sacraments. We lay our hands on the sick, we wear roman collars and colorful vestments at Mass and one Wednesday a year we smear ashes on our forehead.

Can it go too far? Hmmm... As if 'too far' were still possible nowadays.

But yeah, it can. My mother has a plastic St.Philomena night-light that has creeped me out on more than one occasion. And that apparition-on-toast of the Virgin Mary? You tell me who the real loon is: the Ebay seller or the Ebay buyer.

But even the tacky, publicity-driven excesses drive home my point. Imagery is key.

Catholicism has always understood that body is the image, the expression of spirit. That the natural world is the chosen language of the spiritual world. That the reality we see is no less than a very elaborate invitation to the reality that escapes our senses.

Catholicism - and Christianity in general - originates from the Incarnation of the Word. The eternal, unfathomable knowledge that God has of Himself, the bottomless Truth that is the beginning and end of all we call real, the invisible Being that creates and sustains all being found, in the human form, the best way to make Himself known to the human world.

The choice of human imagery was His and all that is human finds new meaning therein.

Anyway, today - liturgical feast of the Sacred Heart - I was trying to work my way around the painting, framed in maroon velvet, that haunts my childhood recollections. A sallow, almost phantasmagoric Jesus with eyes that would make even a hardened hunter of baby seals feel pangs of compunction. He holds in his bony hand a heart, presumably his, crowned with thorns and a flame. It hurts and it burns.

I never really liked that painting, which was my grandmother's and surely her grandmother's before her. I am still not sure that I like it. But I am sure that my preaching on this day, in a parish named for the Sacred Heart, will not be better served by avoiding the imagery.

Like it or not, the image truly says it all.

heed the omen

2006-06-07T23:04:00.000-04:00

It was difficult to fit it in and nearly didn't happen at all, but the devil herself couldn't dissuade a determined Exorcist. I finally finished everything, the scheduled and the unscheduled, exited the parish council meeting at 8:50 and slunk away for the 9pm showing.

6.6.06
My namesake has returned.

I must preamble this by noting that there was a minor rush to the confessional on Monday (6.5.06) evening. Yes, four high school girls constitutes a 'rush' around here. And no, they weren't exactly sure what was supposed to go down on Tuesday. But they knew it was going to be bad. Beside, who am I to turn away eager clients?

The daily Mass crowd (hey, if four is a 'rush', eleven is so totally a 'crowd'...) expressed wonder that in Tuesday's mini-homily I stuck to the liturgy and didn't issue eschatological warnings.

Nope. While expectant mothers were either inducing or postponing labor to avoid the date and talkshows were queueing up the more loquacious elements of the Christian fringe, the Exorcist celebrated this fateful day in a mundane way. He treated himself to a movie.

The Omen (1976) was one of those movies that left a lasting impression on the Exorcist's fragile adolescent psyche. The remake was released on Tuesday, 6.6.06.

The Omen (2006) is very literally a remake of the original film. The plot, the dialogue, the insane supernatural silliness and the devilish mishaps triggered by the tyke with the blank stare are all faithful to their origin.

Mia Farrow out-creeps even Damien as the loony, spooky Mrs. Baylock. She is quite convincing in the role but, of course, she has dealt with problem children before.

The clergy in the movie is Catholic, naturally. I mean who else are you going to call with the anti-christ stirring things up? A Jehovah's Witness? The best you'll get out of him is a big "I told you so!!!".

Nuh-uh. No way. When there are apocalyptic threats afoot, homicidal nannies and rottweillers prowling around the cemetery you definitely want a Catholic priest.

This is, after all, what we do.

The portrayal of the clergy, in true Hollywood fashion, oscillates between ludicrous and horrific. It's the whacky satanic priests who switch kids to begin with, the pope is in bed with rosary beads and a glass of wine when he is told that the anti-christ survived the plot against his life (the Holy Father does not take the news well... he spills his wine), and the Grim Reaper could offer cosmetic tips to the monk found convalescing at the island monastery in Subiaco. Fr. Brennan is played by Pete Postlethwaite, a combination of Marty Feldman and Savonarola, and, hard as he tries to take Damien out, the rugrat from hell holds his own.

Now for what I didn't like about the movie.

I miss Gregory Peck.

Rachel Weisz was originally casted for the role of Katherine Thorn and would have offered mortal dread and subtle hysteria in place of Julia Stiles' anemic helplessness. Unfortunately, R.Weisz declined the role at the time because she was... expecting. Fate, it would seem, is not without a sense of irony.

The Exorcist would like to thank Damien, Mrs.Baylock, their snarling rottweilers and the dysfunctional clergy of Hollywood for an appropriately creepy 6.6.06.

pentecost

2006-06-05T10:00:00.000-04:00

The gathering of the Catholic movements with the Pope this past weekend to celebrate Pentecost was quite impressive. Around here it didn't get much press coverage - the guy eaten by the lions in Kiev actually got more print in some quarters - but EWTN transmitted the length and breadth of the ceremonies in St.Peter's live bot Saturday and Sunday.

Nearly half a million people by some estimates, most of them young, representing all the movements in the broad spectrum from Opus Dei to Sant'Edigio converged on Rome this year. Pope Benedict addressed the difficulties that accompany the growth and expansion of the movements that, in their diversity, have become a formidable evangelizing force for the Church. On the one hand, he asked bishops and parish priests to be open to the movements and allow them to work with and for the local church. On the other, he called on the movements to truly see themselves as part of the greater reality of the Church and to resist setting themselves up as a 'parallel magisterium' that tends to divide more than to unify.

At one stage in the coverage of Sunday's outdoor Mass, the commentator from Vatican radio who was doing the audio for the EWTN transmission pointed out a large yellow banner in the crowd that read "Regnum Christi movement with Pope Benedict XVI". She went on to say that the Regnum Christi is an interesting phenomenon because it is actually "a movement within a movement". She described it as a subset of the broader Opus Dei movement that is better known throughout the world.

Hmmm... A freudian slip, perhaps? Or maybe one of the lasting effects of the Da Vinci Code frenzy: even Vatican radio has come to suspect that the Opus secretly hides behind the least likely fronts?

a day in the life

2006-05-30T18:11:00.000-04:00

Memorial Day is a good thing, if that's what it's used for: remembering. If you don't remember, you don't live. You exist. And in our world, that's certainly not a big deal. All kinds of junk exists. But memory... ah, memory means life.

A theology profesor at the Greg once told us that the Holy Spirit is god's memory.
He was a Bulgarian Jesuit, so he may well have had that Massimo Confessore/Origene thang going on in his head. But it IS an interesting thought.

I heard on local am radio today that there have been 16 shootings within the last 50 hours in this city. Of those, roughly half happened within walking distance of this miserable little parish. The mayor has asked for the State Police to be deployed. Till when, I wonder.

The AIDS epidemic is out of control, not only in sub-Saharan Africa... Since Holy Week I have been called to visit terminally ill family members or friends of parishoners at least once a week, sometimes two and three times. This wretched disease has whacked the hispanic community almost as hard as the black Carribean community (Haitian, Sta.Lucian, Jamaican, etc.) and shows no sign of letting up. The last guy I saw - Friday, at a convalescent home - was 42, weighed about 60 pounds and was the most God-awful shade of yellow I've ever seen. He couldn't even uncurl his fingers to receive the annointing of the sick. A breathing skeleton.

An ex-inmate from Osborn came to see me today. Said I spent some time listening to him when he was inside... confession and the like. I can't recall, but this guy was grateful. Said he's working now - the laundry at the hospital - and has visiting rights with his kids. Wants to be confirmed, fix up his marriage...

In this part of town you have to take it as it comes, the good and the bad.
Fix what you can, sure... but something's got to be left to God. Right?

a story too seldom told...

2006-05-26T09:30:00.000-04:00

The NCR runs a good story in the current issue, not on the front page, where the Exorcist would have put it, but at least it is there.

Far too little justice has been sought for the many priests that have been wrongly implicated in the sex abuse scandal that has shaken the Church, especially in this lawyer-happy country. Let the guilty be tried, but let not the innocent be brought down beside them or smeared by association.

The words 'sex abuse' have become a shibboleth for critics of the Catholic clergy. Like an evil spell that guarantees results, once applied it makes its target guilty and no degree of favorable testimony or even recanting by the accusers ever undoes its fatal poison. Other types of complaints or grudges that don't attract similar sympathy and outrage can be hidden in this all-encompassing curse before which there is little hope of defense.

Again, we should not deny or explain away the confirmed wrongdoing and horrible offenses that have come to light in these past years of intense scrutiny. But there are many innocent priests who have been discredited and discarded in the stampede - I know a good few of them - and they should not be considered mere collateral damage.

ascendit in caelum

2006-05-25T10:57:00.000-04:00

The kids in this parish pay attention in Mass at the worst moments.

The valiant, lone altar-server of today's early morning Mass actually listened to the Gospel reading. She grilled me afterwards in the sacristy.

"Why did Jesus tell them to pick up snakes and drink poison?"

He didn't actually tell them to, he said that if they did they would not be harmed.

"But why would anyone pick up snakes or drink poison?"

Well, I guess Jesus had figured out by then that his apostles weren't the sharpest knives in the drawer and he wanted to take precautions.

<blink, blink>

Just playing. What I really think is that he was reasserting the radical nature of the change brought about in the human condition because of his resurrection: the primacy of life over death, spirit over matter, hope over despair, good over evil...

<blink, blink>

Aren't you supposed to be in school by now?

my brain hurts...

2006-05-22T11:56:00.000-04:00

On Friday, May 19, the press office of the Holy See issued a very brief statement making public the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith's decision regarding Fr. Marcial Maciel.

This statement either means something or it does not.

If it does not, we can pretend it never happened and go about our lives enthusiastically and optimistically as before, unworried that an essential part of all that we are and have been part of for many years - in my case, 2/3 of an existence - may have been tainted and discredited.

If it does, the question that haunts us now is: what does it mean?

Those who have had it in for Fr.Maciel from the beginning seem to have little doubt about the meaning of the Holy See's statement. It means that all the accusations, public and private, made against him were found to be true beyond a reasonable doubt. It means that his accusers are the brave and righteous victims and Fr.Maciel is the deceitful architect of an evil empire masquerading as a religious congregation and apostolic movement. This final indictment has finally and definitively pulled the mask off it all. It means he has been 'stripped of his priesthood' by a Pope who was unable to deny the solid and damning evidence of a case so airtight that we can only shake our heads in wonder that it took so long for judgment to be passed...

The ReGAIN mob, SNAP, Berry, Renner, the NCR and others have it all figured out. They know exactly what the Vatican statement means.

The Exorcist is not so sure.

In all truth, those of us who are convinced of Fr.Maciel's innocence regarding the charges of sexual abuse and violation of the sacrament of reconciliation have tougher issues to grapple with when we try to understand what the statement really means. Perhaps that is why the LC has limited itself to a very succinct official response, saying basically that Fr.Maciel accepts and will comply with the conditions dictated by the Holy See.

The only ones that can afford the luxury of an easy answer are those who were convinced of his guilt to begin with. For them, the intentionally guarded Vatican statement has become the umbrella endorsement of their catalogue of crimes and grievances.

For the rest of us, there's way too much at stake to go the easy route.

To begin with, the issue of Fr.Maciel's guilt or innocence is circumvented both by the wording of the statement and the elimination of the possibility of a canonical process. Nothing is said about the allegations themselves: whether or not any of them were found to be more or less credible, whether the decision of the CDF was ultimately even related to the stories of the 9 ex-LC, etc.

Obviously, the Vatican statement is neither the resounding exoneration nor the ringing endorsement of Fr.Maciel that many of us would have preferred to hear. It is disapproving in tone and discplinary in content and that is extremely concerning.

But the unspecific reference to the accusations at least leaves the window open for admitting a certain complexity in the motives that prompted this decision of the Holy See. It is not a question of splitting hairs. It is the need to understand what the statement really says. And I would venture that things are not as cut and dry as Fr.Maciel's adversaries would have us believe.

The recognition of Fr.Maciel's denial of the publicized accusations and the nod to the merits of the LC and the RC attenuate the tone of the statement. The invitation to refrain from exercising public ministry can be read either as a prudential measure or as lenient a penalty as could be found. The specific affirmation that the Pope has signed on to the decision tells both sides that this thing is over.

But, like I said above, those of us convinced of Fr. Maciel's innocence can hardly turn this into a positive. The media's interest in this business will be short lived. As soon as Britney Spears drops her baby in the toilet or Paris Hilton buys a new poodle this apparently anti-climactic bit of ecclesiastic arcana will pass. But the internal grasp of what has happened and what it means down the road for us LC/RC folks is the real, lingering drama to unfold.

Simply stated, two fundamental tenets of LC/RC life and spirit have been assailed: papal approval and the person of our founder. The questions that arise have confounded the Exorcist. To wit:

1. Why was any statement issued at all? I think pretty much everyone, accusers and believers alike, was resigned to this whole thing going to the grave someday with Fr.Maciel. If this statement is 'proof' that the CDF and the Pope deem him guilty because of 'overwhelming evidence', why not say it clearly and hammer him with the full force of Canon Law? If the CDF statement was brought about by the allegations of things that supposedly happened 50 years ago, how were they suddenly verified? The complaints of those 9 ex-LC have been out there forever. Were there issues unrelated to the old accusations? Is a message, entirely different from the one most assume to be evident, being sent to the LC?

2. How do we, who have always put such high stock in even the most insignificant signs of papal affection or approval - his greeting at an audience, a picture taken with him in Paul VI Hall, a postcard from some papal visit - deal with this low key but undeniable sign of disapproval? The only way we can claim that Fr. Maciel is being persecuted or unjustly treated is to tread the slippery slope of saying that the Pope was pressured into doing something he didn't personally agree with. Even suggesting that Fr.Maciel accepted the CDF's reproval to spare the LC or the church some greater damage is like juggling swords.

Are we to think that the many signs of approval given the LC/RC in public and private by Peter's successors - especially John Paul II - were false or have somehow now been overturned?

How are we supposed to deal with this? Some have suggested that we look to the future when, with history's hindsight, Fr.Maciel's name will be cleared and he will be officially recognized as the great man many of us truly believe he is. That, they say, has been the case with many saints who were vilified in life, but vindicated after death.

I suppose we could sit around and pray for the prompt election of Pope Norbert I and at some stage campaign to turn this thing around, but that does little to help us right now. Perhaps our best - and only - option is to hang our heads, take it on the chin and work twice as hard in our apostolates and service to the church. Our perseverance and dedication are, in the long run, the only way to erase the negative effects of this ordeal and turn it into a plus for the LC/RC.

3. What about the internal image of Fr. Maciel as founder and inspiration of the LC/RC and its spirituality? One can argue, as the CDF statement so painfully observes, that the congregation and the lay movement can be considered and even revered independently of the person of their founder. Anyone who belongs to the LC/RC knows that this kind of mental separation is not only impossible, but flies in the face of everything we've lived and been taught in the Movement since the beginning.

I, personally, feel a great debt of gratitude to Fr.Maciel - not because someone's brainwashed me, but simply because I have received so much. He is venerated in the LC/RC and often allegiance and fidelity to one's vocation are confused with personal loyalty to him. His story is told and retold; the LC/RC history with him at its core has been written and rewritten; he becomes, for all our members, a figure that is larger than life. Critics call it a personality cult. I prefer to think of it as a mix of institutional exuberance, cultural folklore and youthful hype...

For all of this and many other ways in which the person of our founder is inextricably enmeshed in the very fiber of LC/RC life, the CDF statement is an industrial-sized fly in the ointment. What are we supposed to do now? Pretend it doesn't matter? Tell the story up to May 17 2006, then close the book quickly and say "...and they all lived happily ever after"?

Or perhaps we're being challenged to make the act of consumate honesty: to say with our hearts, our words and our continued service to the church that the LC/RC never really was about Fr.Maciel (even in the throes of our over-enthusiasm!). That the congregation and the movement really are 'of Christ' as their names imply. That even the blemishes or eventual failings of everyone from the founder right down to the newest member don't undermine what HE does and will continue to do through us...

Does it mean we have to disown Fr.Maciel as if he had been convicted of some crime?

Hardly.

It means we have to be totally, starkly truthful with ourselves and with everyone else. Things are what they are. And if our congregation and lay movement are truly instruments of evangelization, with us or in spite of us they will continue to grow, to mature in spirit and to do Christ's work.

These are some of the things that have been going through the Exorcist's head of late.
I'm not alone. Not by a long shot. I have been speaking, often into the wee hours, with our people in Italy, Mexico, the US and South America. Most of them have kept their thoughts to themselves, but it doesn't mean they're not thinking, not asking themselves the same questions. I would expect no less of them.

Peace.

coming up blank

2006-05-22T11:15:00.000-04:00

More often than not, the Exorcist has an answer.
At least he thinks he does.

But the Exorcist has spent the greater part of this long rainy weekend searching for an answer that he has not yet found. Not one that satisfies all the questions, at any rate.

No one has given me an answer and, I admit, I have been fretfully inarticulate in my stuttering replies to the many people who have directed their questions to me.

One friend suggested that the easy solution would be to stop questioning. But avoiding the question is neither easy nor a solution.

In my case, 28 years of life invested in an all-consuming institution founded as the living extention of the mission and inspiration of one man, make it morally indefensible to push aside the need for understanding... and meaning... and truth. Not asking ourselves the necessary question should make us a whole lot more uncomfortable than asking it honestly.

In my next post, the Exorcist will outline his attempt to come up with an answer.
Prepare to be dissatisfied.
I am.

downtime

2006-05-18T09:14:00.000-04:00

It's been very quiet around here since I returned from Chile.

Lent and, especially, Holy Week were busy times. I can't imagine how the Triduum could have been any fuller. Folks seemed to want to be in a holy place... if only for those three days of the year.
This is a tiny parish, maybe 300-325 families, so I was happy to see everyone engaged in some way. Lots of people recently arrived from Latin American countries got the word that there was a very latino Holy Week programmed at the parish - procesión de ramos, lavatorio de los pies, 'las siete palabras', el Vía Crucis viviente, rosario de luto, Misa de Gloria - and we received numerous newcomers from different places.

The Monday after Easter I left for Chile. Ten days that passed in a heartbeat. I went to perform the marriage of a young lady who I met years ago and has been a close friend since then. I baptized some babies, blessed wedding rings and celebrated one or two pre-arranged Masses. Got to see some old friends, didn't get to see a lot more.

My visit helped me to define my strategery. I will take one more shot at finishing my doctorate, this time it's between Yale and Fordham. If I am accepted I will go the distance. If not, I will complete my three year period as promised to the Archbishop of this fine archdiocese and I will head south.

Of course, I could be hit by a bus crossing the street to get the mail this afternoon, too.

That would certainly simplify things.

sift through the words

2006-05-16T09:46:00.000-04:00

It is not easy to get a balanced view of Church affairs in the US. On the one hand, as is often said, anti-Catholicism is the one politically correct prejudice still allowed in America. On the other hand, reporting by those who could conceivably give an accurate reading of events and credible analysis is often so skewed one way or the other it's almost impossible to get a grip on the issues.

Network and cable special reports routinely call in Elaine Pagels, J.D.Crossan, Richard McBrien, etc. to speak about topics related to faith, scripture and church that cannot be adequately dealt with in sound bytes. Unedited, their peculiar intellectual proclivities make them somewhat suspect. Reduced to one-liners, they become damn near unintelligible.

On the other end of the spectrum, Fox News brings in Jonathan Morris who, shiny and eager, glibly simplifies the topics he's asked to comment on. Like a greenhouse plant suddenly relocated to the outside world, his reporting on church issues wilts and disappoints under the heat of live broadcast. Although the endearing simper on his youthful face never fades, he appears at times not to listen to the questions he is asked by the anchors and often responds off the mark. But lack of acumen does not discourage him from talking happily on the air about everything from papal encyclicals to exotic dancers. I found his recent pieces on church and society in Venezuela, labor unrest in France and US immigration issues especially egregious examples of his craft.

Fr. Morris ends a three part series on The Da Vinci Code last week with this line: "A little knowledge is dangerous... for religion and for life. But a lot of knowledge (and a little humility) makes wise men." Remarkable. From the mouths of babes...

The printed word, while arguably more informative and responsible than the evening news, fails to resolve the basic confusion that seems to cloud most Church reporting in the US. I flip between the two NCRs on a weekly basis in the hopes of discerning the middle ground for myself. Neither the Register nor the Reporter goes to great lengths to camouflage its very particular ecclesiology, which, I suppose, is helpful in a way. I read both, aware that the omissions are usually more telling than the inclusions, and am attentive to the bits of information and wisdom that always surface regardless...

As an example: the May 12 issue of the Reporter was, almost in its entirety, a tiresome rant against Bishop Robert Finn and the changes being made in the diocese of Kansas City. Not that there aren't issues and legitimate questions, but the endless feature article seems to reproach the bishop for everything short of hiring an albino monk to do his dirty work.

That said, there are always insights that ring true. The editorial on the back page, No rationale for upheaval in Kansas City, ends with words of wisdom:

"...people can't be made to become a faithful community by controlling them. The qualities of true leadership and authority accrue to those who have a deep empathy for the people they serve... and who understand that relationships, not rules or rubrics or even revered devotions, are the essential thread of the fabric of a community living out the Gospel."

I'm not sure to what extent these lines apply to the situation in Kansas City, but I can certainly think of some folks in other contexts who might be illuminated by them.

Sift through the words, hold on to what is true.
A friendly recommendation from the Exorcist.

reality is worse... way worse

2006-05-15T18:43:00.000-04:00

Of the two latest commentaries on the imminent release of The Da Vinci Code in USA Today, one impressed me as unusually cogent. Only a society as clueless as our own could permit such a fatuous debate to distract us from the substantial issues of our busy lives... like who will be the finalists of American Idol or whether the jocks of the Duke lacrosse team are truly the baleful degenerates they so aspire to be.

I find it hard to believe that the Opus has actually entered the fray with interviews, complaints and the request for a disclaimer. An organization that deems it necessary to publicly deny that it harbors masochistic albino assassin monks has only whetted my curiosity as to what they're really up to.

Anyway, all the goofball fiction and ludicrous plot weaving of Dan Brown barely hold a candle to reality. The murder of Sister Margaret Ann Pahl and the devilish exploits of Father Gerald Robinson are scarier by far.

Instead of protesting, perhaps we should thank the Da Vinci Code for helping us focus on the inane.

good one

2006-05-12T17:56:00.000-04:00

We had our yearly confirmations on Monday. 61 confirmands from 4 parishes here in the north end of the city. 29 from our little place by the railroad tracks.

I would estimate that there were 7 or 8 nationalities represented at the Mass, which was celebrated in English and Spanish. We had US gringos, African Americans, Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, St.Lucians, Haitians, those folks from Trinidad y Tobago (Trinitarians and Toboggans?) and one or two other Central American people mixed in for good measure.

The music was provided by a black/hispanic Gospel choir from the host parish and was exuberant. After every song a little kid somewhere in the church would clap his hands and shout, "That was a good one!"

God's people is quite a mix. That way we can make up for each other's shortcomings. Our confirmation ceremony was a sampling. Now THAT is a good one.
Peace.

the dark side

2006-03-14T10:19:00.000-05:00

I put a little more time into preparing homilies during Lent. Right now I should be working on next Sunday's, but I'm still hung up on the last one. The Exorcist may have gone a bit overboard.

See, I receive all these homiletic helper type leaflets and booklets and e-mails that are supposed to give me ideas for preaching. Sometimes they're helpful. Sometimes I don't look at them. Sometimes they make me wonder if what I see in the Sunday liturgy is even there at all...

Take last Sunday, 2nd of Lent. All the homiletical suggestions that came my way were hoplessly upbeat. The Genesis story of Abraham's near sacrifice of Isaac should be read as the triumph of faith and God's leniency. The reading from Romans is reduced to 'God being with us and no one being against us'. And the one line we're supposed to remember from Mark's narration of the Transfiguration is Peter's "How good it is for us to be here".

Either homily helper missed the point or the Exorcist did. Maybe it's just my patented knee-jerk reaction against everything 'feel-good'...

I think the timing of Sunday's readings and their mutual connection is to be found elsewhere.

Abraham was at a total loss. The very son that was the fulfillment of God's multiple promises was to be eliminated. Not in the sad way a child can be lost to illness or accident. God's request is premeditated and intentionally twisted: "Take the son you so love and sacrifice him..." The God of life and promise blurs his personality with the pagan idols placated by human sacrifice.

Would Abraham, coming down the mountainside, be rejoicing because God spared his son at the last minute or would he be internally crushed by dread asking himself what kind of God would request the violent murder of his only son?

You already know what the Exorcist thinks...

The bottom line of the Gospel story is similar. The Apostles come down the mountain with Jesus, having been told that whatever they think they saw in their terrified stupor was to be kept to themselves. Yet Mark does not describe them as rejoicing or astonished because Jesus gave them a glimpse of his divinity, but rather worried and consternated by his talk of 'rising from the dead'.

There's the rub. The relentless contradiction between their understanding and budding hope in the Christ and his unforgiving insistence on suffering and failure. How can violence, injustice, abandonment, desperation and defeat be an essential component of God's supposed love for mankind?

Neither Genesis nor Mark give the answer in Sunday's readings. They simply leave the question hanging, like a dark thundercloud, over the Lenten horizon.

Paul ventures an answer of sorts, but his reasoning is far from feel-good territory.

"If God is with us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but handed him over for us all, how will he not also give us everything else along with him?"

The Exorcist ventures that the Lenten liturgy explicitly invites us to enter into God's 'dark side'. Not to do so would be to miss the point. Not to do so would be to lose an essential clue to the truth that underpins all reality.

Yup. Lucky you. You belong to some other parish.

brain damage

2006-03-09T16:50:00.000-05:00

One year.
One year ago today I left South America and came here.

What was I thinking?

Oh, well. There's always happy hour.

disposable babies

2006-03-09T15:15:00.000-05:00

That piece in the Times yesterday was on my mind. And this morning, as I was weaving through city traffic on my way back to the parish from the barber shop, the police medic named in the story, Tim Jaccard was interviewed on one of those talk radio programs.

He found his first baby in a toilet in the ladies' room at the Nassau County Courthouse back in 1997, while over 400 people milled around the courthouse interior. Others were found in recycling bins, another dug up by a dog in someone's backyard, others discarded in the ingenious nooks and crannies of urban squalor. Last week's was by far the most horrifying: wrapped in plastic and left in the street, the baby had been run over at least twice by the time a man walking his dog took a look and saw her two legs.

Jaccard started a foundation, Children of Hope, and got a bill passed: the Infant Abandonment Protection Act. A woman can give up her baby within five days of birth at a police station, church, hospital, etc. - no questions asked. The adoption rate of babies given up this way is apparently quite high.

On a later segment of this talk show, a rep from Planned Parenthood lavishly extolled Jaccard's work and concluded, "This is why protecting women's abortion rights is of such vital importance. Without the abortion option, many women will feel forced to take the lives of their own babies in the horrible ways we've been hearing of."

Hmmm.... I seem to have missed something here.
Only in America.

ashes to ashes

2006-03-01T10:48:00.000-05:00

I told folks today that they didn't have to leave the ashes on their foreheads all day.
They were asking.

A lady wanted some ashes for her pets.
I wonder what she thinks Ash Wednesday ashes do, anyway.
I decided to err on the side of caution.

A few years ago - this is true, by the way - Fr. Kelly told me that a women left an urn with the remains of her husband in the chapel at his catechetical center without telling anyone. Apparently, Juanita wanted Guillermo to rest in quiet, dignified surroundings while his burial place was being readied.

Fr. Kelly returned from an out-of-town retreat just as Lent was starting and celebrated Mass that Wednesday morning for the teachers and students at the center. He assumed that the fancy container with ashes on the offerings table in the chapel had been put there for his use. Although, he remarked later, it did seem like a lot of ashes for the 40 or 50 people who attended Ash Wednesday Mass there.

Those good folks went home with Guillermo on their minds.

That story has stayed with me. On Monday - this is also true, I have witnesses - we were cleaning the sacristy in this small urban church, thousands of miles from where Fr.Kelly made his unfortunate assumptions years ago, and we found two small earthenware urns stashed away on the bottom shelf of one of the closets. They were filled with grey powdery dust and hard dirty white fragments.

Taking no chances, I carefully labeled the urns "Juanita" and "Guillermo" and buried them behind the rectory.

I then burned last year's palm strands. Those ashes were under constant surveillance until today.

Is everyone's world as bizarre as the Exorcist's?

bye, barney

2006-02-25T20:15:00.000-05:00

Today, the longest Saturday in recent history (my recent history), happy hour is convened in honor of Jesse Donald Knotts (1924 - 2006).

He had me laughing out loud before I was 6 or 7 years old.
To your fond memory I lift this glass of Maker's Mark.

Rest in peace, Deputy Fife.

lent and golf

2006-02-24T09:38:00.000-05:00

Yesterday the Chancery office sent us two items in the same envelope: guidelines for Lent and Holy Week and promotion of the golf tournament coming up in May for the benefit of the KofC vocations fund.

Lent and golf.
The sublime and the mundane.
Incense filled sanctuaries and sunlit putting greens.

Hmmm...

Anyway, among the guidelines there were a few truly small details that caught the Exorcist's eye.

In April of 2002 the Holy See reallowed the veiling of images in church, but only from the fourth Sunday of Lent till Holy Saturday.

No exposition of the Eucharist is permitted from before evening Mass on Holy Thursday until after the Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday. This applies even to parishes and religious communities authorized for perpetual adoration. The Blessed Sacrament is taken to an altar of repose after the Mass of the Lord's Supper where it is reposed only in a closed tabernacle or pyx, but not a monstrance. Adoration may be held, but only until the stroke of midnight on Holy Thursday. I wonder how that will fly in the LC centers...

Parish priest have the faculty to confirm at the Paschal Vigil unless the candidate is a baptized, uncatechized Catholic. In that case, specific permission must be requested from the Archbishop.

It may seem strange, but that exception actually says a lot about how the Catholic Church perceives itself. On Holy Saturday, without consulting the bishop, I could confirm an unbaptized adult (after baptizing him, of course), someone baptized in a non-Catholic church, a baptized Catholic who - by no fault of his own - was brought up in a non-Catholic community and therefore, never confirmed and an apostate who has returned to full communion with the Church.

It is only in the case of the negligent, lax or indifferent Catholics (or Catholics brought up by negligent, lax or indifferent parents) that the bishop's specific permission must be sought.

Get it?

OK. Now let's go play golf!

omens

2006-02-24T04:57:00.000-05:00

My interest in decapitated chickens is waning.

Haitian vodun, Caribbean santeria and Brazilian macumba all allow for the sacrifice of small animals in their rituals. There are certainly Haitians, Caribbean hispanos and Brazilians on this side of the city, but the Exorcist can not recall pissing any of them off.

I have a short attention span. My feathered horror is fading, fading, fading...

Besides, there have been other, less creative omens around the parish lately.
The rear side window of our mini-van has been smashed. Twice in ten days. Once on the street, once in the parking garage.

The genius who did it made off with roughly $3.47 in change and left us replacing a $650 piece of tinted glass. Twice in ten days.

Hey, hater! If you're reading this, next time try ringing the doorbell! We give out food, clothes, AND money to help folks all the time!!!

fowl play

2006-02-18T08:56:00.000-05:00

Last night, as the wind howled through the church steeple, I watched The Birds. Alfred Hichcock's dramatization of Daphne Du Maurier's story casts our commonplace feathered friends in their most sinister light: winged terrorists with an anti-human agenda.

I now believe there is something terribly prescient in Hichcock's horror.

As the avian flu scare swells in many regions of the world, it is believed by some to be a harbinger of even greater evils hovering on the horizon of humanity's future.

A fowl's head was found inside a can of pinto beans in DeKalb, IL. As if that weren't scary enough, the lot number of the recalled cans is 5348 MF. Unreal.

Our Vice President was recently implicated in a threat to homeland security when an Al Quaeda cell, cleverly infiltrated in a flock of quail, duped him into shooting an attorney. Several of the quail were shipped off to Gitmo for interrogation, but this thing is far from over.

And now the birds have appeared on the Exorcist's doorstep. Literally.

On February 15, I opened the curtains in my bedroom and saw, by the door of the rectory two large roosters. One white, one red, both headless. They were laid out on either side of the steps with a border of pennies carefully arranged around them in the snow. No blood. No other message.

Very wierd.

On February 16 I left the church in the early morning hours for a meeting downtown and later had a funeral and a burial. When I returned to the rectory at around 1 pm I found the head of the white rooster at the base of the gate that opens from the street to the front lawn. I did not see it earlier and I am sure it wasn't there the day before.

Scary.

On February 17, fully expecting the red rooster's head to be nailed to the church door, I discovered instead, a meticulously placed row of red candy hearts on the bottom step of the rectory front porch.

What does all this portend for the Exorcist and his parish?
The birds know...

postmortem

2006-02-14T09:49:00.000-05:00

The Exorcist finds vague solace in the occasional media piece that casts the Catholic priest in a favorable light.

Two such articles caught my attention over the past few days.

1. The story of Father Andrea Santoro, a 60 year old priest of the Diocese of Rome serving as a missionary in Turkey. He had recently been transferred from the town of Urfa, on the border with Syria, where there is no Christian population, to Trabzon on the Black Sea where he ministered to a Catholic community of 15 people.

Kneeling in prayer in St. Mary's church, the Capuchin parish that was entrusted to his care, he was shot twice in the back at point blank range by a 16 year old Muslim youth apparently distraught over the Mohammad cartoon controversy.

Many testimonies have surfaced, by Christians and Muslims alike, recognizing the stature and healing presence of Fr. Santoro. This is the type of man on whom the salvation of humanity ultimately depends.

2. The same day that Fr. Santoro was murdered, the Boston Globe ran a story about a local miracle worker, Father Patrick J. Power. An orphan at four years of age, he was sent to Massachusetts from Ireland to live with an older brother. He entered the seminary at Laval University in Quebec and was ordained a priest in Boston in 1867. At his first parish assignment, in Chicopee, Fr. Power contracted pneumonia and died, a little over a year after his ordination.

He is buried at Holy Cross Cemetery in Malden. By 1929 over one million pilgrims and miracle seekers had visited his grave. To this day there is an endless stream of visitors who leave letters of thanks, petitions, photos and other symbols of their personal world on the site of the good Father's resting place. He was young, joyful, caring and holy and people still flock to him.

See that? All the complaints about the media bias against Catholic priests is pure nonsense.
If you're a good priest, you can still make the papers.
As long as you're dead.

The Exorcist has found something to look forward to.

innocent voices

2006-02-14T00:35:00.000-05:00

It seems that heavy snowfall gives us cause to cancel activities - meetings and the like - even when the storm is well over and travel, strictly speaking, is possible. For reasons less than obvious to me, this weekend's snow was someone's excuse for cancelling on me this evening.

I decided to celebrate by seeing a movie that a Mexican friend had recommended to me some months ago. I was not disappointed.

See Voces Inocentes, staring the beautiful Chilean actress Leonor Varela and a cast of children actors that draw even the most detatched viewer into the story.

The movie tells the story of Oscar Torres, a young boy growing up in a small town in El Salvador in the 80's, as his country languishes in the throes of the conflict between the US supported Salvadorean army and the equally ruthless Farabundo Marti guerrilla. The indiscriminate and unforgiving effects of the violent civil war are vividly reflected through the lives of Chava (Oscar), his friends and his family.

Although the story and setting are very different, in a way Voces Inocentes reminded me of Fernando Mierelles' City of God.

Both movies seem to transmit a basic truth about our world: if you want to know the reality of the world we've made and what we've become, look through the eyes of the children.

it's the economy, Cupid!

2006-02-13T15:26:00.000-05:00

Hardline hindus have gone on a bloody rampage to protest the celebration of Valentine's Day in India as "shameless and totally contrary to Indian culture".

Great. All this from the folks who brought us tantric yoga and the kama sutra.

Once again, the Exorcist is baffled.

two foxes, three bats and dying

2006-02-11T10:13:00.000-05:00

This is a sample of things that happened this week.
Nothing special.
Life just has lots of different colors, that's all.

1. I had stopped on the side of the street to answer my cell phone when a little kid with a backpack and a box of juice opened the door of the van and got in. We stared at each other for what seemed like decades until he uttered words of profound truth: "You're not my mom." "Nor are you my son", I observed.

Damn mini-vans all look alike.

He quickly exited and I decided to move on before the local authorities asked me what I was doing outside the school to begin with.

2. I got home Tuesday at 4pm. As soon as I opened the door and shut off the alarm, I knew something was terribly wrong. My four brain damaged parakeets were absolutely silent. I climbed the stairs to the second floor hallway and saw them huddled together in the cage, under their wooden house, trembling with fear.

The reason? Three bats were flapping about, helter-skelter, throughout the upper floor of the rectory. This is February, people. The dead of winter in New England. Aren't bats marsupials or herbivores or crustaceans or whatever? You know, the type of critter that HIBERNATES in the winter?

It's got to be global warming. Even the bats are confused.

3. Old lady #1: I was sitting where I always like to sit at the cinema, the last row of floor seats before the stairs, watching the trailers. An old man, himself none too steady on his own feet, was steering a wheelchair with a rather large woman in my direction. He stopped by the aisle seat and, with difficulty, maneuvered the chair according to his wife's instructions. She then tried to unload herself from the wheelchair to the theatre seat with her husband's help.

In fact, she plopped unceremoniously to the floor.

She glared up at her hapless mate and accused him publicly: "See that? You done it again! Look at me here on my butt in front of everybody. Ain't that a fine sight?"

It was, indeed, a fine sight.

So fine, that I got up and offered a hand at the same time her chastised husband was trying to lift her considerable butt off the carpet. She said to me, "Thank you, young man. I'm sorry to be of bother." And she pushed her husband away nearly shouting, "Don't you grab me, you ol' fool! You want to end up on the floor with me?" He did not. I could tell.

4. On Thursday evening I went to unlock the rectory door because folks were showing up for the parish council meeting. There, outside the door on the frozen lawn were two grayish-red foxes. They startled, stared and then scampered down the embankment toward the railroad tracks. There appears to be an urban fox population now in our vecinity. Who knew?

5. Old lady #2 and #3: The woman I went to visit at the nursing home yesterday was quite ill and quite old. I sat at her bedside for a few minutes after giving her the annointing of the sick. The door opened, a head leaned in and said, "Padre, Catalina's mother is here and wants to see you." And I thought Catalina looked old...

Catalina's mother told me that she had thirteen children and Catalina was the third she watched die. She also said that children should bury their parents, not the other way around. But I guess that's just one of the risks of living to be 98 years old. You may outlive your children.

And that's the Exorcist's post for today.

looking for comedy in the muslim world

2006-02-04T14:32:00.000-05:00

Have you seen the blasphemous cartoons of the Danish infidels?
Hardly the stuff intifadas are unleashed for.

My muslim brothers have yet to learn that in this smug, secularized world you either learn to deal with ridicule and insult philosophically, taking the high road, or you expose yourself to even greater derision.

It's amazing what folks are willing to get upset about these days.

Ain't that right, Kanye?

spazzz

2006-02-03T09:44:00.000-05:00

One of the items on my to-do list upon returning to the US was "getting in touch with the gang". There has been enough progress in that area to move the item from 'to-do' to 'getting-done'.

This is the gang. Well, some of it.

We were always a mess of adopted, foster and family-born kids as we grew up. I left home in 1978 and, as predictably as unfortunately, lost contact with a lot of the guys. It's been almost thirty years and at this stage I still don't even know where some of them are. That bugs me.

But, like I said, I'm working on it.

I touched base with another member of the gang last Sunday. Jamie is such an incredible guy that I figured he deserved a mention on the blog. Born with cerebral palsy and put up for adoption, he's had more obstacles to surmount in 35 years than lots of us will see in a lifetime. Now he's got his own apartment, his high school diploma, a job (something to do with paperclips) and is going to community college.

As a kid he always had a very contagious laugh. His whole body would tense up and his arms and legs would jerk around as he cracked up, totally out of control. We would come up with all kinds of really dumb stuff just to get Jamie to "spaz out". I like to think that he enjoyed it as much as we did...

Anyway, Sunday night, I just couldn't resist. Yeah, it's been a long time and I probably should have tried to catch up on stuff with him.

Yet I deliberately went for the spaz-out.
Hilarious.

Now that we've hooked up there'll be plenty of time to talk about stuff. But nothing beats a little spazzle-dazzle. Right, Jameser?

glutton for punishment

2006-01-31T15:58:00.000-05:00

Couldn't believe the video they ran the other day of James Hanley, an ex-priest in NJ, who confronted the people he abused nearly 30 years ago. They found out where he was living and gathered outside his residence. Hanley took them on in the street. It was one of the most bizarre and pathetic scenes imaginable.

Why would he go back to live in the very same place that it all occurred? Why would he expose himself like that to his accusers after the $5 million settlement had been paid? What kind of retort is: "Your brother Jimmy I abused, but you I never touched!"

A glance at the sex offender registry, state by state, shows how widespread the madness is. And the nearly 500,000 members of this elite club are only those who have been prosecuted and registered. This guy Hanley was never criminally prosecuted because the statute of limitations ran out and is therefore not a registered sex offender. But folks are scared of him all the same.

40 year old Joseph Druce was convicted last week of first degree murder for strangling John Geoghan in a MA prison. Druce said he had been 'chosen' to bring retribution to the pedophile ex-priest and would accept the consequences of his calling.

Another, totally different story is that of Alfredo Vargas. I originally read about it in the NYTimes in greater detail, but that article is now on the pay site. You can get the gist of it here. The story of the prosecution and eventual exoneration of Vargas, a Nicaraguan immigrant, contains many elements that reveal just how unverifiable and haphazard the judgement of these cases often is.

Vargas' condemnation was based almost entirely on the roundabout, contradictory and inconclusive account of the confused little four year old he allegedly abused. The prosecution was fueled by the parents of the girl, both lawyers, both obsessed with sexual abuse: on multiple occasions they have claimed that their other children were abused by other predators at the same synagogue...

Vargas never wavered in his insistence of innocence, to the point of rejecting a bargain that would have freed him with a guilty plea. The young girl, on the other hand, never told the same story twice. She changed key details of the supposed episode. When asked to indicate who had touched her, she pointed to two different male jurors.

All the same, Vargas served five years before concerned members of the synagogue where he was caretaker managed to reopen the case and get the verdict changed. Ironically, he is not yet a free man because he faces deportation due to immigration issues.

Our society produces an abundance of violent, deranged people who prey on children. This is obvious to anyone who can the stomach the evening news on a regular basis. But the justice system often appears to be egregiously inconsistent in its judgement of sexual abuse cases.

A judge in Vermont gives a six month sentence to a felon who admits to raping a handicapped girl during a four year period. In Florida, multiple offenders get reduced sentences and are released having served only a fragment of their time. Across America, dioceses are expected to dish out endless streams of money to folks accusing priests of deeds that occurred 30 and 40 years ago. Few of the cases are adequately investigated (that is as much the Church's fault as anyone else's) and, even if there were the will to do so, many of the accused are dead or incapable of defending themselves.

The members of a synagogue rallied to the cause of their caretaker. I wonder in how many parishes in which false accusations have been tendered the parishoners have gone the extra mile for their priest... Or should we just accept the fact that it's "guilty until proven innocent" for a certain class of people?

Is it any wonder the Exorcist is so confused?

exodus

2006-01-29T19:00:00.000-05:00

Came across a thought from Josef Ratzinger in a 2000 interview he gave German journalist Peter Seewald at Montecassino.

"When it comes down to it, everyone has to undergo his own Exodus. He not only has to leave the place that nutured him and become independent, but has to come out of his own reserved self. He must leave himself behind, transcend his own limits; only then will he reach the Promised Land..."

So true.
So revealingly true.

get out and vote

2006-01-27T08:57:00.000-05:00

I was watching one of those 'year in review' programs recently. Is it just me or was there an unusual number of political elections, real and ersatz, in the year gone by? Voting goes on almost everywhere, all the time, for all kinds of things. Kind of like the American Idol model applied to the world political scene...

Lots of noise over the Palestinian elections. The press banters about words like 'stunning' and 'shocking' to describe the Hamas leap in power, but I, like others, am not so sure how surprising it is. Did anyone really think that the Palestinians, so steeped in poverty and fear, so easily frenzied by radical religious and political discourse, would choose the path of moderation?

Back in July of 2005 the Iranians 'elected' the truculent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, one of six mullah appointed candidates to the presidency, as a clear sign of where their leadership wants to go.

Free elections may not be the panacea for the Islamic world that the US is looking for.

The electorate in Iraq chose a majority of Shiite leaders who pledge to rule by religious law, albeit tempered by internal political opposition and the nervous influence of the US. For some, the nightmare of the rebirth of a 'greater Persia', Islamic world power is just starting.

Viktor Yushchenko was sworn in as Ukraine's president on January 23 after a bizarre campaign and three failed election attempts.

George W. Bush began his second term on January 20.

The Saudis held municipal elections for the very first time ever in Riyadh. Interesting, though not exactly a major victory for the proleteriat: only a third of those eligible voted and women were excluded. When King Fahd bin Abdel Aziz al-Saud (82) died in August he was succeded by the younger, more reckless Prince Abdullah (81).

The Egyptian parliment said it might start thinking about thinking about having some sort of very controlled if not all together symbolic election of someone to some honorific post sometime in the undetermined and improbable future. That encouraging announcement was made in February.

Actually, Mubarak allowed elections when seeking his 'fifth term' later in the year. He shocked all the pundits by taking 98% of the vote.

After the assassination of Rafik Hariri, the Lebanese government was disolved to free itself from the pro-Syria faction widely believed to have killed the ex-prime minister. The incumbent prime minister, Omar Karami, was reelected and, unable to form a new government, resigned a few weeks later.

Kyrgyzstan had fraudulent elections. Zimbabwe held fake elections. Afghanistan had dangerous elections. And it seemed that everytime the news went on during 2005 the Iraquis were voting for one thing or another.

Liberia elected Harvard-educated economist Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf over former soccer star George Weah. How being elected to anything in Liberia could be considered 'winning' is beyond me.

Tony Blair won a third term, the Italians dissolved and reformed government at the usual rhythm and zee Germans elected Angela Merkel as their first female chancellor.

Check out Latin America: Tabare Vazquez in Uruguay (first time socialist rule); Evo Morales in Bolivia (Viva la nacion aimara!); Michelle Bachelet in Chile (mas de lo mismo)... all of whom can snuggle with Hugo in Caracas and Fidel in La Habana to make the southern hemisphere a worrisome place for Uncle Sam. And when the PRD candidate Lopez Obrador wins in Mexico on July 2, the fiesta can really begin.

The Equatorians threw out President Lucio Gutierrez and VP Alfredo Palacios assumed power. I believe the government of Equador remains basically pro-USA, so W can breathe easier...

Of course, Pope Benedict XVI was elected to succede John Paul II. Not a 'popular' election nor one born of democratic process in the strict sense of the term. Very newsworthy, nonetheless.

You know, now that I think of it, I don't believe I've ever voted in any election. I had better get with the program. This could be my year...

thou shalt not smell

2006-01-23T19:10:00.000-05:00

In these times of waning interest in the sacrament of reconciliation among the faithful, we administrators of the sacraments should go the extra mile to make confession as available and inviting as possible.

As Demagistris admonished us constantly back in the day: "Non fare oneroso il sacramento!!!"

A youngster's first confession is often a make-it-or-break-it experience. Years down the road the penitent may not remember what he or she confessed that day, but the impression and feelings of the moment will linger for a long time.

I heard first confessions this weekend at St.Michael's, an African American parish in the heart of this city's war zone. If, along with grace and forgiveness, the kids left the church with a smile and a desire to come back some time, I'd say I did my job.

The Exorcist humbly offers a few tips to brother confessors that may help make repeat offenders repeat penitents.

1. Do not smell. More folks have abandoned the confessional because of the padre's doggy breath or fermenting socks than were 'reeducated' during the Inquisition. For most kids, the reconciliation room is as close up as they've ever been to that guy who stands behind the altar in the flowing robes. They simply will not get past a bad odor. Brush your teeth. Use mouthwash. Shower. Shave. Soap and deoderant are real crowd pleasers. Wear clean clothes. Don't gross the folks out.

2. Assuming you've gotten #1 down, SMILE. A sincere, friendly smile tells the penitent that he'll probably come out all right. It seems to imply that the priest has pretty much heard it all and will not get all medieval on him. It definitely means that the padre is not in a hurry, not bored, not wishing he were somewhere else or with someone else.

3. Be serious. Not mean, not harsh, not threatening. Listen and guide, but don't belittle or make light of anything you hear in the confessional. If it meant enough to the penitent to bring it to the confessional, it is to be taken seriously.

4. Restrain yourself from asking unnecessary questions. A good confessor knows how to glean what the penitent means from what he has actually said. If you get it, move on. There is such a thing as a confession that is TOO detailed.

5. Give a penance that means something. The ol' "three Our Fathers and three Hail Marys" isn't terribly pedagogical, whereas "say a personal prayer of thanksgiving for all the good things God has done for you", "go out of your way to be charitable to someone you dislike", "sacrifice some of your free time to help out around the house", "read and meditate on the parable of the good samaritan"... and the like work a lot better.

6. Be there. After a couple of years without set confession times in the parish, I began sitting in the confessional from day one for half an hour before each Mass. It is never a waste of time.

conscientious objector

2006-01-21T06:43:00.000-05:00

Today is National Hugging Day.

In this deranged country you can be slammed with a sexual harassment suit for telling the receptionist her hair looks nice.

How good an idea is this hugging business?

Call me unpatriotic, but I'll pass on today's festivities.

Famous Last Hug

everybody hurts

2006-01-19T10:52:00.000-05:00

In times of momentous challenges and threats that hover over entire populations it is the private, personal tragedies that continue to rivet our attention.

A cursory look at the headlines of the last few days show us what news hits home.

1. A handicapped six year old girl is so badly beaten by her mother's boyfriend that her left arm has to be amputated. The girl's mother not only refused to give her daughter immediate medical attention, she invented a series of lies to protect her daughter's assailant. To date no one has been charged.

2. A seven year old girl is tortured in cold water and beaten by her step-father. She is left alone in their apartment by her mother, moaning and pleading for help, only to lapse into unconsciousness and die in the hours before her mother's return. Nixzmary's funeral was held on Tuesday.

3. MA courts ruled that an eleven year old girl could legally be taken off the life support that has kept her alive since a beating at the hands of her adoptive parents last September that left her on death's doorstep. The day after the court's decision (yesterday) Haleigh's doctors reported a change in her condition. She can now breath on her own.

4. Another arrest was made in the case of the homeless folks attacked and beaten by Florida teenagers over the weekend. One man was killed, two others were hospitalized. The teens' families brought in lawyers to negotiate the surrender of the young men in a way that would be sensitive and respectful of their rights. Having seen the security video of the beatings time and time again on the evening news all week, I can understand how sensitivity is a big issue with these kids.

Iran and North Korea pursue nuclear programs. OBL makes more threats over Al Jazeera. Volcanoes erupt in Alaska...

But the really scary shit happens next door. Down the block.
You don't have to go far to realize that what we do best is hurt each other.

anthony the abbot

2006-01-17T09:22:00.000-05:00

An interesting article by an Opus Dei priest is making the rounds out there.

Perhaps the trademark of Catholic faith (in the sense of 'personal belief', not the collection of dogma) is seeing opportunity and grace in what has been experienced as disgrace and defeat.

"...diligentibus Deum omnia cooperantur in bonum." Right?

According to Fr. McCloskey the 'long lent' of the Church in the USA is over and we can optimistically look forward to a true revival of Catholicism in the near future.

The Exorcist is by no means the most upbeat guy on the block (you don't get this job by peddling chicken soup for the soul), but there's enough truth and food for thought in the article to make it worth reading.

Of interest:

the relation between immigration issues and the health of the Catholic Church in this country
"The US alone has more priests than the top three Catholic countries combined (41,000 in the US to 37,000 in Brazil, Mexico and the Philippines combined). This makes talk of a "priest shortage" in the US almost laughable, at least in comparison with many countries struggling to care for much larger Catholic populations."
the aging of the priesthood in the US and the drastic fall off of vocations
the state of Catholic education: "Almost half the Catholic schools open in 1965 have closed; 4.5 million students attended Catholic schools in the mid-1960s, while today there are about half that many students."
the signs of a revival of Catholic colleges
the ambiguous stats of Catholics' adherence to the Church's moral teaching

It's a pretty mixed bag. Maybe in a couple of centuries they'll look back on these times as truly monumentous in the history of the Church. Or maybe they will be hardly noticed as a ripple in the ebb and flow of human events.

But neither of those future possibilities diminishes our responsibility for the present.

The Exorcist has spoken.

mlk

2006-01-16T18:29:00.000-05:00

The Archbishop celebrated Mass today at the cathedral in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. and in memory of his protagonism and sacrifice for the cause of social equality in this country.

This evening, fittingly enough, the deacons of the archdiocese held a prayer vigil to ask for peace in this violent city. There have been six murders and numerous cases of assault - mostly drug and gang related - since the new years.

2006 is only fifteen days old and it already feels hard and tired.

behind bars

2006-01-10T23:50:00.000-05:00

I finally went to jail.

It must have been back in June when I was approached by a very distraught women after Saturday vigil Mass. Her son had been arrested for reasons beyond her comprehension and was incarcerated at the state correctional institute here in the city. She wanted me to see him, speak to him, help him.

Shortly after that, a lady appears one weekday, very stressed out, and says she needs me to perform her matrimony. Immediately. Her fiance, Nicaraguan by birth, is currently doing time at Northern CI, level 5, maximum security. The wedding must be now, but they're willing to postpone the honeymoon a bit until they can be somewhere together other than the inmate visiting room.

Later, Raul asks me if I can go over to Osborn CI and see his father... and his uncle... and his brother-in-law. The family that steals together, appeals together.

The list continued to grow and it dawned on me that the relationship between many of the undocumented, unemployed members of the parish and the state correctional system is far from casual.

I also discovered that getting approved for prison ministry is no easy task. Ministry from prison to prison in this land of laws is processed separately. It's not like you're approved for one and, therefore, you're approved for all.

Anyway, after a drawn out process, Osborn CI today finally told me I can go to jail.

book of daniel

2006-01-07T09:52:00.000-05:00

Help me decide which was more pathetic: the attempt to drum up controversy and stimulate ratings or the show itself.

My decision: NBC's Book of Daniel has been found equally pathetic on both counts.

No doubt Americans could relate to the detatched, braindead Jesus of Daniel. And I found myself feeling grateful, at least, that the protagonist of the show was an Episcopelian priest... until it is revealed that his Catholic counterpart is a fifth rate Mafioso.

But, in the end, everyone can relax - or doze off, as was my case. Book of Daniel is bland, vapid, Housewives style programming of the kind America has made itself comfortable with.

Certainly not the stuff of controversies. Not even for us.

instant annoyance

2006-01-05T23:15:00.000-05:00

Why can't I see or read the news without getting annoyed almost instantly?
Has the Exorcist really grown that ornery during his mid-life crisis?

Two items that immediately bugged me:

1. The tragic report of the West Virginian miners that died in an accident a couple of days ago was instantly eclipsed by the false rumor of their survival that spread the night of the rescue mission. Imperceptibly, in a nano-second, the story was not about the death of the miners, but rather about how their friends and families felt upon hearing the news. Immediately the media began looking for someone to blame for the rumor, asking the miners' kin how angry they were about the false hope they were fed, suggesting they sue someone in outrage, not for the accident that took the miners' lives, but for allowing their feelings to go from elation to despair during the ordeal.

Before our eyes the dead miners were pushed aside and the reaction of those who somehow felt tricked or abused (concerning a situation that was tragically hopeless to begin with) took center stage.

Why does the media do that? Why does it make us think it's always about us?

Twelve miners lie dead, but I feel outrage, hurt... I have a microphone in front of me and a lawyer waiting in the wings so I become the news item.

2. Both the NYTimes and the Boston Globe have published reports this week about the second wave of settlements that is about to hit the Archdiocese of Boston in reference to the clergy abuse scandal that has literally decimated the Church.

In a nutshell, both report on the outrage felt by the new, belated wave of claimants and their pricey lawyers because the Archdiocese has modified its terms for ths new settlement. This time, there will be an average payout of $75G (down from $153G the first time) and - gasp - the Church reserves the right to cross examine with its own lawyers any or all of the claimants that have hopped on the settlement bandwagon this time.

Why the outrage?

First, because the money available is significantly less due to the near bankruptcy of the Church in Boston. The claimant's lawyers are quick to insist that the money never interested their clients, that it is only the deep yearning for justice and closure that impels them.

OK. The money doesn't interest us, we're just pissed off because there's not more of it.

Second, because the Archdiocese has not waived its right to question, examine, investigate the nature and the credibility of the claims made this time around. The claimant's lawyers deem this new attitude a grotesque sign of the Church's insensitivity toward the victims. In their view, the courage it takes to sign on to the claimant's list should be more than enough guarantee of the credibility of their complaint.

If this were a class action suit against the government or a major pharmaceutical company, no one in their right mind would question its prerogative to cross examine the claims.

During the first round of settlements, the Church waived its right to cross examine and paid huge quantities to the victims of its priests' misdeeds. Now it is compelled to scrutinize the claims more closely. Is this injust? If the claimants and their lawyers truly burn with the desire for the truth to come out, how could a new, direct line of questioning be harmful? The Church has already agreed to pay a second round of settlements. Why the outrage?

I do not easily buy into the sorry dirges about anti-Catholic bias or conspiracies to destroy the Church. I am appalled and ashamed by the crimes committed by priests and the suffering of their innocent victims. I think the Church does well to offer generous compensation and reach out to them, knowing that the scars will never really heal.

Yet the litigious animus of our secularized society knows no bounds. Is it so cruelly preposterous to consider the possibility that not all the claims against Boston's clergy - many stemming from incidents that supposedly occurred 30 or 40 years ago and many made against priests who are long since deceased - may, in fact, be equally credible?

Many criticized the Church in the past for paying out private settlements to abuse victims to avoid having cases go to court. Lawyers and advocates were rabid over the Church's unwillingness to surrender private records and files to public scrutiny when they were eager to make their case against the abusers.

Now that the Church considers asking questions of the accusers and not blindly paying out settlement sums there is outrage.

This is the stuff that annoys the Exorcist.

two monsters

2006-01-04T05:02:00.000-05:00

There are, in fact, two monsters.
The one that devours us.
The one we become.

The one outside.
The one inside.
Do the math.

Is life short enough to outrun either one of them?
It seems that our only chance is a quick sprint. A short burst of speed might put us beyond their grasp for an instant.

On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
I know this because Tyler knows this.