Milwaukee Archdiocese says it is going broke...What if diocesan workers had no health insurance? What if parishes had no community rooms? What if there were no paid Religious Ed people? No paid custodians or grounds keepers? What if there were no paid office workers? What if there was no heat in churches? What if they couldn't even afford wi-fi? What if? What if the Church went broke? What if Mass had to be celebrated in the biggest house of the richest parishioner, or in the community room of a condominium complex? What if parish outreach meant actual evangelization rather than planning committees and fundraiser dinner-theatrics and walk-a-thons?
The Archdiocese of Milwaukee is hemorrhaging money on legal and professional fees as a result of its bankruptcy and will be unable to pay its monthly operating expenses beginning in April unless the judge suspends those payments, it says in court documents filed Thursday.
The archdiocese filed a motion asking U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Susan V. Kelley to allow it to suspend all payments to attorneys and consultants, except $125,000 for work on its plan of reorganization. And it would continue to pay its own attorneys to challenge sex-abuse claims with proceeds from its insurance carriers.
"Without it, we will be unable to continue operating. We've used all the money we had from savings, reserves, investment earnings and money budgeted for litigation," archdiocese spokesman Jerry Topczewski said. - Source
"Even among the sincere there is often such arrogance, such a desire to play a role, to be the leader, a subtle form of pride among the refined." - Elizabeth Leseur
Authentic conversion always comes from realizing we have been 'persecuting' Christ.I think Heather King may be one of the most important spiritual writers of our day. Visit her blog here.
Christ never cuts us down with a gun or a sword. He looks at us with love. He looks us in the eye with love and says, 'Why are you persecuting me?'
How often I've been harsh, rageful, importunate, intolerant, unfaithful, unkind, and just plain wrong.
When that happens I'm struck blind for a few hours or days or even months. Often a long time passes before I see that, once again, I've been persecuting Christ. - Heather King
"Ultimately, however, if our efforts to share the Gospel bring forth good fruit, it is always because of the power of the word of God itself to touch hearts, prior to any of our own efforts. Trust in the power of God’s work must always be greater than any confidence we place in human means. In the digital environment, too, where it is easy for heated and divisive voices to be raised and where sensationalism can at times prevail, we are called to attentive discernment.
Let us recall in this regard that Elijah recognized the voice of God not in the great and strong wind, not in the earthquake or the fire, but in 'a still, small voice'. We need to trust in the fact that the basic human desire to love and to be loved, and to find meaning and truth – a desire which God himself has placed in the heart of every man and woman – keeps our contemporaries ever open to what Blessed Cardinal Newman called the 'kindly light' of faith.
An authentic and interactive engagement with the questions and the doubts of those who are distant from the faith should make us feel the need to nourish, by prayer and reflection, our faith in the presence of God as well as our practical charity: 'If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal'. -BXVI
"I would like to offer you some reflections on an increasingly important reality regarding the way in which people today communicate among themselves. I wish to consider the development of digital social networks which are helping to create a new 'agora'*, an open public square in which people share ideas, information, and opinions, and in which new relationships and forms of community can come into being.Actually, Instead of reproducing it here, just read the entire document - it is worth it. I want to add a couple of personal impressions.
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The culture of social networks and the changes in the means and styles of communication pose demanding challenges to those who want to speak about truth and values. Often, as is also the case with other means of social communication, the significance and effectiveness of the various forms of expression appear to be determined more by their popularity than by their intrinsic importance and value. Popularity, for its part, is often linked to celebrity or to strategies of persuasion rather than to the logic of argumentation. At times the gentle voice of reason can be overwhelmed by the din of excessive information and it fails to attract attention, which is given instead to those who express themselves in a more persuasive manner. The social media thus need the commitment of all who are conscious of the value of dialogue, reasoned debate and logical argumentation; of people who strive to cultivate forms of discourse and expression that appeal to the noblest aspirations of those engaged in the communication process. Dialogue and debate can also flourish and grow when we converse with and take seriously people whose ideas are different from our own. 'Given the reality of cultural diversity, people need not only to accept the existence of the culture of others, but also to aspire to be enriched by it and to offer to it whatever they possess that is good, true and beautiful'.
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The challenge facing social networks is how to be truly inclusive: thus they will benefit from the full participation of believers who desire to share the message of Jesus and the values of human dignity which His teaching promotes. Believers are increasingly aware that, unless the Good News is made known also in the digital world, it may be absent in the experience of many people for whom this existential space is important. The digital environment is not a parallel or purely virtual world, but is part of the daily experience of many people, especially the young. Social networks are the result of human interaction, but for their part they also reshape the dynamics of communication which builds relationships: a considered understanding of this environment is therefore the prerequisite for a significant presence there. - Vatican Information Service
"Believers are increasingly aware that, unless the Good News is made known also in the digital world, it may be absent in the experience of many people for whom this existential space is important. The digital environment is not a parallel or purely virtual world, but is part of the daily experience of many people, especially the young." - BXVI
"Heretics are heretics and bear the name, because out of the articles of faith they choose at their taste and pleasure those which it seems good to them to believe, rejecting and denying the others. And Catholics are Catholics, because without any choice or election they embrace, with an equal assurance and without exception, all the faith of the Church." - St. Francis de Sales
Where were you when the Supreme Court handed down the decision in Roe v. Wade?I was a young priest working with Hispanic immigrants in Washington, D.C. Later on, after the ruling, I heard that Nellie Gray wanted to start the March for Life, and I contacted her and worked with her.She was a real prophet: The Church was stunned, and people didn’t know how to react. But she knew immediately that we needed to mobilize and use the anniversary of that terrible decision as a way to rally people.I was determined to get people from my Hispanic parish to the first march [in 1974] and gave impassioned sermons on the pro-life issue, reminding them that the anniversary was coming soon, and they promised to come.The morning of the march, there was a line of rented buses at the church, but no people. In my naive youthfulness, I did not realize that "Si, padre" did not mean "Yes." The following week, I told the people how disappointed I was.After Mass, they told me, "You know we are undocumented. And in our own countries, whenever there is a demonstration, the army comes out and arrests and shoots people. We are here to send money home to our families who live in Nicaragua and El Salvador, where civil wars are raging. We cannot afford to do this."I told them that the army would not shoot at them and that the march would be a peaceful demonstration. That is what we do in a democracy where we need to witness to certain values. - NCRegister
Japan's new government is barely a month old, and already one of its most senior members has insulted tens of millions of voters by suggesting that the elderly are an unnecessary drain on the country's finances.Those who can't wait for other people to die off will simply have to wait their turn.
Taro Aso, the finance minister, said on Monday that the elderly should be allowed to "hurry up and die" to relieve pressure on the state to pay for their medical care.
"Heaven forbid if you are forced to live on when you want to die. I would wake up feeling increasingly bad knowing that [treatment] was all being paid for by the government," he said during a meeting of the national council on social security reforms. "The problem won't be solved unless you let them hurry up and die." - Source
"To the prayer for unity among Christians," the pontiff concluded, "I would like to add once more, a prayer for peace so that in, all the various ongoing conflicts, the slaughter of unarmed civilians might stop, that there may be an end to all violence, and that the value of dialogue and negotiation may be found."
“Pray for those in authority: This is good and pleasing to God.” - 1 Timothy 2:1-7
The Medjugorje seers are only a means to communicate a message, and so they are no more important than the pilgrims who basically have the same role, says visionary Mirjana Dragicevic-Soldo. The privileged people are the priests, adds the seer who says the key is in opening the heart. - SourceGood advice. Mirjana has always been my favorite.
A saying of St. Basil, Bishop of Caesrea, is recorded: 'I have never known a woman, yet I am not a virgin.' By this he means that purity of the flesh does not lie merely in abstinence from women, but in singleness of heart, which is the perpetual guardian of unsullied holiness of the body, either through fear of God, or love of chastity. - Cassian, The Monastic InstitutesYou see, it is all about sanctification... doing God's will. It's very simple.
This is the will of God and your sanctification. - I Thess. 4:3
