AmP Poll: Did your parish talk about health care reform?

Last week, the US bishops undertook an unprecedented effort to inform Catholics in 19,000 parishes about the problems in the current health care reform bill.

Their effort also aims at mobilizing Catholics to contact their elected representatives requesting that they vote down the current health care bill unless critical aspects of it are fixed (pro-life, etc).

The health care bill will probably be voted on this week, which means last weekend was the best chance to contact Sunday Mass-attending Catholics.

So .... did your parish heed the call of their bishop? Let's find out!

(please note the options proceed in descending order from most supportive to least support of the bishops' message. I've even included an option that your parish is contradicting the clear message of the bishops that the current health care reform bill ought to be strongly opposed.)

Please help me get the word out about this poll. As always, I'd like to get as large a sampling as possible. Fr. Z is running a very similar poll on his blog. You are welcome to vote in his poll as well.

It is not yet too late to ensure the US bishops' materials get into the hands of American Catholics.
You can help make that happen!

Update: More proof we need to de-fund the CCHD

Last week I wrote at length about why I believe it is time to de-fund the Catholic Campaign for Human Development. I recommended that Catholics not contribute to their annual second collection at Sunday Masses which is coming up near Thanksgiving.

A week and a half later, I still think this is the best prudential move, as more evidence surfaces.

A report by LifeSiteNews:

The Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD), the U.S. bishops' domestic social justice arm, says it has taken "decisive action" on a new report that reveals they have been funding groups that support abortion, contraception, same-sex "marriage," and legalized prostitution.

The organization's funding practices have been the subject of growing scrutiny in the last several years, especially after it was revealed that CCHD had funded the scandal-plagued ACORN organization to the tune of millions of dollars.

The report about CCHD's problematic funding practices was prepared by the new Bellarmine Veritas Ministry (BVM), which has launched a national campaign aimed at addressing the problems with the organization. The group's founder, Rob Gasper, said he is "pleased" with the CCHD's response, but insisted that the organization is in need of further reform before the problems can be said to have been dealt with.

... The report lists four groups from the 2009-2010 grantee list that actively support policies or practices contrary to Church teaching. In total, these groups have been allocated $125,000 this year. The report also lists seven groups that have pushed for the current version of Obama's health care reform.

The Catholic Media Coalition (an organization I cannot personally vouch for) has a whole page on the CCHD, and wrote an open letter to the US bishops (PDF) about a year ago asking that they de-fund the CCHD. The actions they suggest the US bishops take, I find myself in agreement with:

• That the CCHD grant process be frozen and 2008 grants be suspended until a complete review and overhaul of the campaign can be conducted
• That all donations be placed in safe interest‐bearing accounts during the process
• That the grant application process be thoroughly studied and new policies developed that ensure only organizations that follow Catholic moral principles, i.e., pro-life, pro-family, pro-marriage, and pro-biblical morality be eligible for grants
• That the principle of subsidiarity be honored in the grant process
• That ACORN, the Industrial Areas Foundation and other Alinsky-style community organizations that follow immoral principles of action be permanently banned from receiving grants {this has already happened in the case of ACORN}
• That groups networking and interfacing with groups that advance pro-abortion, pro-homosexual policies be permanently banned from funding
• That whenever possible Catholic organizations be given preference over secular groups

That seems reasonable to me.

Important: Side-by-side changes to the Mass in English

Deo gratias!

The US Bishops have released a super-useful side-by-side comparison of the current (imperfect) translation of the Mass in English with the new (perfected) version of the Mass in English. They include a PDF version that you can print out. 

It would be good to begin discussing the changes now with your friends and parishioners to prepare for the transition! Maybe host an evening where people can read through the new version together and discuss the significance of the changes. Remember: all that's happened, fundamentally, is that the English translation now accurately reflects the Latin original of the Mass texts.

A taste:

Priest: "The Lord be with you."
People: "And with Your Spirit."

Ah, now that's the kind of change I like.

Video: Excellent Corpus Christi Procession

I know, I know: this is *so* last week ... but it's also excellent and worth the watch:

Explained by AmP reader Andrew:

"I'd like to draw your attention to a video that was made of a Corpus Christi procession which I participated in here in Bremerton, WA at Our Lady Star of the Sea. This was a first for this parish, walking 1.25 miles throughout the neighborhoods adjacent to the parish, stopping at several houses with altars for Benediction. Well, this is such a phenomenally rare thing for those of us in the Pacific Northwest to be a part of, so much that you can see the graces working through our Catholic community as a result."

Photo: "Pint-sized server a surprise at morning Mass"

This story is precious, especially so because I actually know the "pint-sized server" in question, or knew him back when he was a "holy terror in diapers", as I believe his mother (affectionately) used to called him:

"He was barely big enough to see over the altar as he assisted at morning Mass in the chapel at San Marco Church on Tuesday, but the smile on James "Jimmy" Gates, 8, was as tall as truth.

According to his mom, Kim, that smile's been a long time coming.

"He's been wanting to serve and wanting to serve," she said. "Yesterday, he asked Fr. Andrew (Malarz) and he told him he could.

That's all he's been talking about," Gates' mom explained through a beaming smile. "When we arrived this morning, we told Father David and next thing, Jimmy was putting on his alb."

From that point on, it was all quite, well, miraculous. Drawing on the scriptural passages — Paul's Letter to the Corinthians (8:1-9) and Matthew's Gospel (5:43-48) — the Rev. David Foley incorporated the theme of generosity and service while "the littlest angel" listened attentively from his perch on the altar." (Marco Island Florida)

...Do you know a little boy who wants to serve? If he's old enough and mature enough - let him! If not, use it as an incentive for him to be more attentive in Mass, and allow serving to become his reward for good behavior.

Plenty of vocations start this way, and plenty more lifetimes of attentiveness at Mass do as well.

Open thread: Is the recession coming soon to a diocese near you?

The Church is not exempt from the financial strain of the times, as the Diocese of Madison shows us:

"Closing the [Catholic Multicultural center in Madison, WI] is just one result of a drop in investment income due to the recession, [diocesan spokesman William] Yallaly said. As he spoke, several of his colleagues at the diocese’s headquarters were being told their jobs were eliminated, he said.

Yallaly did not know how many of the staff of about 60 would be laid off. Those who remain will take pay and benefits cuts.

In a letter to staff, Bishop Robert Morlino called the cuts “terribly difficult, but increasingly necessary.” Morlino was in Washington, D.C., Thursday at a Catholic symposium.

In March, the diocese made a direct, voluntary pitch to parishioners to step up their annual giving to the diocese from $3.2 million to $5.9 million, an 84 percent increase...

Yallaly said the diocese will disclose the appeal’s outcome in early summer. Parishioners have been “extremely generous,” he said. Yet “we knew we couldn’t expect an incredible outpouring. People just don’t have the money.”

Closing the center was “the very last thing anyone in the diocese would want to do,” said Yallaly, adding that the diocese will try to find other ways to help the center’s clients." (Wisconsin State Journal)

Has your diocese or parish been effected by the recession?

When times are tough and we are forced to re-evaluate our spending, let's try to deny ourselves some things first before we deny the Church and our fellow Catholics. Those who give out of their want (not their surplus), give twice. If not much more.

Swine Flu means no precious blood in the Diocese of Austin

A fully-appropriate pastoral decision, and I loved Marcel's comments:

"Good decision and not unexpected. Remember that we receive the full presence of Christ with either species.

Also, "species" speaks of the Body of Christ and the Bread of Christ - not different kinds of animals. One of our employees mis-read and thought someone was making a joke about not giving Communion to humans & pigs."

But kidding aside, this is serious and we should be prayerful and vigilant about this developing situation.

On confessing other people's sins

It's amazing how often I've heard priests say that people do this. Amanda Shaw agrees:

I’ve heard priests remark about the disconcerting tendency of penitents to confess other people’s sins. “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. My spouse got angry because I misplaced the car keys . . . ” Then, there’s our curious compulsion to confess offenses that are long past–the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, Columbus and Cortez. It’s a way of acknowledging the sins of our heritage, atoning for the atrocities of our unenlightened ancestors.

And yet, like the words of the finger-pointing penitent, there’s something decidedly imperfect about these comfortably distanced acts of contrition. “False Apology Syndrome,” Theodore Dalrymple calls it in the Templeton Foundation’s In Character journal. Under the guise of assuming the guilt of the past, it sets the righteous present apart in self-congratulatory humility ...

I think what broke me of this common tendency was a little philosophy class where I learned that guilt must include volition, and well, we aren't in charge of what other people have done - we have enough to worry about ourselves.

Your local priest's blog

I often receive kind notes from parish priests who are doing yeoman's labor through keeping an active blog.

In addition to their many duties at the parish, they post their sermons online, keep in touch with parishioners, undertake evangelization, and provide a window into their own prayer life and devotions open for the people they serve.

Fr. Anythony Ho in the Archdiocese of Vancouver is just one example of this phenomenon.

Let's take a quick moment today to pray for all our courageous priests! Do you have a favorite priest blog? Especially one that is aimed primarily to the members of his parish? Drop it in the comment box!

Report: Pope prefers Communion on the tongue

Hey cool. So do I:

In interview published in the Wednesday edition of L'Osservatore Romano, Pope Benedict’s new Master of Pontifical Liturgical Celebrations, Monsignor Guido Marini, says he believes that people receiving Communion kneeling and on the tongue will become common practice at the Vatican.

..."it is necessary not to forget the fact that the distribution of Communion on the hand remains, up to now, from the juridical standpoint, an exception (indult) to the universal law, conceded by the Holy See to those bishops' conferences who requested it,” the liturgical master of ceremonies reminded.

..."It could also be noted that the (Pope's) preference for such form of distribution which, without taking anything away from the other one, better highlights the truth of the real presence in the Eucharist, helps the devotion of the faithful, and introduces more easily to the sense of mystery. Aspects which, in our times, pastorally speaking, it is urgent to highlight and recover." (CNA)

Really, why not receive on the tongue?

In a related discussion, my father opines:

I have just published a short article proposing that the Communion fast (1983 CIC 919) be calculated from the start of Mass (instead of from the reception of Communion) and that the fast be extended to three hours (instead of the current one hour). See Edward Peters, "The Communion Fast: a Reconsideration", Antiphon 11 (2007) 234-244 (PDF). Briefly, my reasons are [read them here.]

Also good.

The Beatitudes, according to the Gospel of the Sierra Club

Since when did mention by the Sierra Club become the measure of charitable activity for Catholics?

Stories like this one ("Sierra Club book recognizes Catholics doing their part on environment"), especially perplex me.

The opening lines:

Don Conklin and Ellen Buelow are in good company -- and lots of it. The two New Mexico Catholics are, like Catholics everywhere, doing their part to help the environment and to make others aware of potential ecological dangers that arise from wasteful habits.

Catholics, in fact, are prominently featured in nine chapters of a new Sierra Club book, "Faith in Action," which highlights faith-led environmental action in each of the 50 states plus Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia.

Conklin and Buelow, members of Holy Rosary Parish in Albuquerque, N.M., helped engineer a light-bulb swap -- incandescent bulbs for energy-saving compact fluorescent bulbs, in March. Before the swap was over, 3,000 bulbs changed hands."

We did this as a Lenten project," said Conklin, a pastoral associate at the 2,700-household parish.

Energy saving replacing alms-giving. Wonderful. Conklin happily reports that the project "didn't cost us a thing." Hello, that's normally a sign that your activity of choice isn't really a penance. Buelow, meanwhile, is the parish's social justice coordinator. When the social justice coordinator is collaborating with the local electric company, something tells me this isn't distinctively Catholic or faith-based social justice. So why describe it as such?

I won't get into the other examples, but for most of them the same observation applies: one can make the case that these are good things to do, but I simply don't see how they are an integral part of what a parish should be doing per se, especially if these activities compete with or supplement things such as, say, celebration of the sacraments, adoration, care of the poor and sick, etc.

AmP Exclusive: Loyal Papists in Chicago show their (papal) colors

Seeing my recent post which included the Archdiocese of Chicago's welcome message to the Holy Father (scroll down), one of the Canons Regular of St. John Cantius Catholic Church in Chicago sent me this:

"In light of the upcoming visit of Pope Benedict, here a a couple of photos taken at a spontaneous rally for Pope Benedict in which St. John Cantius Parish marched to Holy Name Cathedral to show support for the newly elected Pope three years ago."

For their proud papist pageantry, they get an AmP Shout-Out!

These are the same kids, by the way, who I ran across during this year's march for life:

What a fantastic idea it would be to have your parish host a papal rally! If you do, drop me a line.