Archdiocese of Boston
Phil Lawler on why the Pope not coming to Boston was a good thing
Phil Lawler, my former boss and author of the new book “The Faithful Departed”, comments on the interesting spate of outrage among angry Catholics and media pundits in Boston that Pope Benedict didn’t put the city on his itinerary. I know we sometimes call it the “Hub of the Universe,” but I think some people are taking it too seriously.
First, people are angry that the Holy Father isn’t coming to Boston. Not just disappointed: outraged! They feel that he should have come to Boston, because he could… he could… he could…
Well, what could he have done to calm this anger? I can’t think of anything that he could say or do that would ease the sense of betrayal, frustration, and disillusion that so many people feel. One more apology? One more acknowledgment that Bad Things happened? That wouldn’t heal the wounds; that would only confirm what we already know too well.
Incidentally, Phil has set up this new blog to continue the conversation about topics brought up in his book as well as in various media appearances.
Eucharistic Congress in Boston
The Archdiocese of Boston’s Office for Vocations is sponsoring a Eucharistic Congress for College Students and Young Adults on Friday, March 28, and Saturday, March 29. In addition to some excellent speakers and, of course, prayer and adoration and the sacraments, they’ve also planned service projects in the city—putting faith into action— as well as a dinner on Saturday night in the North End, catered by some of the finest Italian restaurants.
And for those who volunteer to help with Congress or participate in the service projects the dinner is free. Adoration of the Lord and a free meal? How can you beat it?
The speakers include Father Matt Williams, Director of the Office for the New Evangelization of Youth and Young Adults for the Archdiocese of Boston, on the topic of “Eucharist and Confession, Reconciliation, conversion and change in our lives”; Father Peter Cameron O.P., Editor-in-Chief of Magnificat Magazine; Paul George, Co-Founder of Adore Ministries on the Topic of “Eucharist and Evangelization and Vocation”; Kerri Marmol, a member of the Community of Sant’Egidio, an international lay association, and founder of the School of Peace in Jamaica Plain, a Saturday program to help students with their schoolwork, and the School of the Gospel in Allston, a Bible discussion for adults; and, of course, Cardinal Sean O’Malley.
Go to the web site for a schedule, locations, registration, tickets, and more information. Sounds like a great time and an awesome way to kick off the Easter season.
Rest in Peace: Father Ed McDonough, CSSR
This is primarily of interest to those of you in the Boston area, but Father Edward McDonough, CSSR, (Redemptorist), known as “the healing priest,” has died. He had served at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Basilica in Boston, also known as Mission Church.
There will be a wake on Friday at the basilica from 2pm to 8pm followed by a prayer service and the funeral will be on Saturday at 10am.
Fr. McDonough had been known far and wide for the gifts granted to him through which the Holy Spirit used him to effect miraculous spiritual and physical healings.
The second and third photos on this page are from one of Fr. McDonough’s Masses at my parish, Immaculate Conception Church in Salem, Mass., in recent years.
Father was no faith-healing huckster. He was always very clear with people that the more important healing was the healing of your relationship with God broken through sin and that no one should count on a miraculous physical healing. Sometimes it is God’s will that you should bear that cross. He always saw the Eucharist and the Sacrament of the Sick as working hand in hand as well.
Father McDonough was 86 years old.
Boston Catholics: Get tickets to see the Pope in New York!
If you’re a Catholic living in the Archdiocese of Boston and you want to attend the papal Mass in Yankee Stadium on April 20, you’re in luck. The Archdiocese has been allocated 3,000 tickets and you can put your name in the lottery by going to the Archdiocese’s Bicentennial web site and signing up.
Demand is expected to outstrip supply so make sure to get your name in. Tickets are free, but non-transferable (you won’t see them on eBay) and there is fee for transportation as well.
It looks like all the bicentennial dioceses are being allocated some tickets. Obviously Baltimore will get tickets to events in Washington, DC, but Boston, Philadelphia, and Lousville, Kentucky, will get tickets for New York.
This is a very big deal and a nice gesture since this will likely be the only chance we’ll get to see Pope Benedict in the US.
I doubt Melanie and I will be going. It’s a long day on a bus and in stadium seats and we’ll have six-week-old baby then. But I hope lots of you get a chance to go.
We lost one of our own
We had some sad news in the Archdiocese of Boston yesterday. One of our young priests, a man who’s been ordained only about half a year, died suddenly over the weekend. Fr. Dan Kennedy was a priest at St. John the Evangelist parish in Winthrop, a young man by priestly standards these days, a marathoner too, but the Lord decided his time is now.
It’s a tragedy for his family and his parish and for our whole archdiocese. We don’t have so many priests that losing one of these men just starting out in his vocation isn’t a great blow. The one consolation is that at least he was able to realize his vocation and spend these months as a priest.
Last July, Cardinal Sean O’Malley had Fr. Kennedy guest post on his blog his “reflections of a newly ordained priest”. There you can see photos of his ordination, his first Mass at his home parish, St. Joseph in Needham, surrounded by family and friends, and his welcome to St. John’s in Winthrop. What comes through is his love for God and His people.
Celebrating Mass everyday is about as humbling an experience as I have had in my life. Truth be told, a great deal of energy is spent ensuring that I am celebrating the Mass properly. I have been told to loosen up a little bit. I think I know what that means, but it may take a while. I was reminded of a prayer to be said before Mass and I have found it particularly meaningful. “Lord may I celebrate this Eucharist in union with you, as though it were my first Eucharist, my only Eucharist, my last Eucharist.” It is my hope that I will never lose sight of the privilege it is to bring Christ, truly present in the Eucharist, to the good people of God.
May the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.
His funeral Mass will be celebrated on Friday, February 1, at 11 am at St. Joseph’s in Needham. He will lie in state the evening before in the same church from 3 pm to 8 pm.
New book: “Faithful Departed” by Phil Lawler
My good friend and former boss, Phil Lawler, editor of Catholic World News, offers up a sneak peek of the first chapter of his new book on the Catholic Church in Boston, “The Faithful Departed: The Collapse of Boston’s Catholic Culture”.
In the book, Phil charts the rise of Catholicism in Boston out of the pits of bigotry and repression to become the single most dominant force in the life of the average citizen, only to see it fall so far out of influence in public life that even the most prominent Catholic public figures flout her principles with nary a thought. The pinnacle came in the middle of the 20th century:
Among those Catholics, about 80% attended Mass every week, and heard the doctrine of the Church proclaimed in sermons regularly. Many attended parochial schools, where their attitudes toward the world were shaped by the Sisters of St. Joseph and other religious orders. When the Holy Name Society organized a parade, 10,000 men marched through the streets of downtown Boston. A growing number attended Catholic colleges; Boston College and Holy Cross were attracting some of the brightest young men from the families of Irish and Italian immigrants. Lay Catholics joined the Knights of Columbus, the Women’s Sodality and the Altar Guild. They met their future spouses at CYO dances and Newman Club social hours. They identified themselves readily as Catholics, and on religious matters they identified Cardinal O’Connell as their leader.
How times have changed.
Obviously, as an employee of the Archdiocese it would be inappropriate for me to offer an endorsement of the book, but I am interested in reading Phil’s perspective. I don’t think we’ve had anyone weigh in on the situation in Boston from this particular point of view and it should be a valuable contribution.
The Eucharist is to die for
I encourage you to read Cardinal Sean O’Malley’s homily for the beginning of Boston’s bicentennial year and the First Sunday of Advent on his blog. Here are some great excerpts:
The first 200 years of the Church here in Boston have not been easy, but they have been good. They have been good because, despite our sufferings, despite our sins, despite our failings, despite our humiliations, the grace and love of God has always been with us. The faith and the prayers of countless people, living their baptismal commitment to Christ and to his body, the Church, has never been absent. Many hidden, anonymous, but there, like the elderly, the Simeon’s and the Anna’s of today, braving the cold and the darkness of the winter to be at daily Mass. The sick and the homebound, who pray the rosary with BCTV and offer their pain and loneliness as a sacrifice of atonement for our sins and as a vote of sacrifice for our young Catholics, their grandchildren. How many St. Monica’s pray for the return of a family member who has drifted away or stormed off to a self-imposed spiritual exile. Yes, it is not going to be easy. But it will be good. We are journeying together with Christ, Emmanuel, God with us.
[…]
For the Irish, the most powerful Christmas symbol has been the candle, placed in the window. It was lit by the youngest member of the family and could be extinguished only by someone named Mary. I don’t have to tell you that there’s no shortage of Irish girls named Mary. The candle in the window in an Irish home had two meanings. It was a sign of welcome to the Holy Family, of Mary and Joseph looking for a place in the Inn. It was also an invitation during the times of persecution, to a priest to come and celebrate a clandestine Christmas Mass for the family. It was worth risking everything to be able to have the Eucharist.
[…]
The stakes are high; it is a matter of life and death. The branches need the vine. We need to be nourished by Christ’s words and by his sacrament. And we need to be nourished by the presence of the brothers and sisters of the household of the faith, the body of Christ, the Church. My brothers and sisters, as we journey together in Christ, let us put a candle in the window. A candle that says, “Welcome, welcome, welcome.” A candle that says, “The Eucharist is to die for.”
Of course, you should read the rest or even listen to the homily along with a photo slideshow.
No Benedict in Boston
Pope Benedict won’t be coming to Boston in the spring, according to the official announcement from the Vatican today. That’s a bummer.
New York and DC only.
On Veteran’s Day
Fr. Richard Erickson, vicar general of the Archdiocese of Boston and chaplain in the US Air Force with the rank of colonel, gave an interview with the a local TV station on the occasion of Veteran’s Day, reflecting on his service in Iraq, whether he would go back, and comparing it to serving in Boston.
And I would like to add a thank you to all Veterans. It is your sacrifices that teach us the cost of peace and freedom because they so often imitate the sacrifice of Christ, especially those who gave their lives in service.
Calling all creative Catholics: show us the One Faith
Boston’s Catholic television station, CatholicTV, has a new program they’re promoting called “One Faith.” (Here’s a PDF you can download that describes it.)
The short form is that they’re looking for user-submitted videos of 3 to 5 minutes in length that tell “creatively tells the true story of the Faith of an individual, couple, family, group or parish.” They have complete guidelines in the PDF and the deadline is December 21.
Be creative: “The video could be of various styles including fiction, non-fiction, documentary, exposé, comedy or YouTubesque.” The possibilities are limitless.
This would be great for youth groups or college Newman Societies to do as a project, but anyone can do it. I would love to see this take off, so spread the word.
N.B. You don’t have to be in the Boston archdiocese to participate.
The “Boss” at Theology on Tap
Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston spoke at a Theology on Tap at Bad Abbot’s in Quincy, Mass., on October 10. I hear it was standing-room only.
Golf Tournament for St. john’s Seminary
I’ve been asked to pass on the following information:
St. John’s Seminary (Archdiocese of Boston) is hosting a Golf Tournament on Monday, October 1st, to benefit our seminary and seminarians. There will be a dinner and silent auction afterwards to provide an opportunity for people to see the seminary, meet our seminarians, and to welcome the new Rector, Rev. Arthur L. Kennedy.
Information regarding the day, registration materials, and sponsorship opportunities may be found at
http://www.rcab.org/News/Events/071001Golf-2.pdf.Please contact Mary Brown for more information or to register at Mary.brown@sjs.edu.
St. Edmund’s Retreat Center
Cardinal O’Malley of Boston in this week’s blog entry mentions that he was on retreat with his fellow bishops of the New England province at St. Edmund’s Retreat Center on Ender’s Island in Mystic, Connecticut.
I agree with him that it is a beautiful place. I’ve been on retreats there, twice, I think (or was it three times) including the most recent time in 2004 right after Melanie and I started dating. It was our first public event together with our crowd of friends. I have a photogallery of our trip up here.
Incidentally, the chapel has a wonderful Stations of the Cross. All of the stations incorporate locations around the small island that is the retreat center as well as local flora and fauna and of course the traditional Christian imagery, culminating in an additional station showing Christ the King, Resurrected, and St. Edmund on New Year's Day.
They are quite beautiful. I’ve had them on my computer for a while and only just now uploaded them to a set on Flickr.com.
If you ever get a chance to go to Ender’s Island, leap at it.
Two seminaries?
Contrary to Rocco's assertion in his exuberance regarding the latest appointment of an American bishop, Baltimore is not the only American see with two seminaries. Boston has two seminaries: Blessed John XXIII National Seminary and St. John Seminary. Both are under the leadership of the archbishop of Boston. There may be others as well.Cardinal O’Malley invites Pope to Boston
Cardinal Sean O’Malley has invited Pope Benedict to visit Boston next year when the pope is expected to visit the United Nations and when Boston—and several other dioceses—are celebrating their bicentennial.
“Given everything Boston has been through, having the Holy Father come, I think, would be a great joy and a sense of affirmation to us as we celebrate the 200th anniversary of our church,” O’Malley, the Roman Catholic archbishop of Boston, said in response to a question from the Globe. “I’ve invited him, and I’m hoping that he will come to Boston.”
The last and only time a pope has visited Boston was in 1979 when Pope John Paul II kicked off his US tour with a rain-soaked Mass on Boston Common with 400,000 Catholics. My pastor has the full-color (which was a big deal back then) front-page of the Boston Globe from that day hanging framed in his office. (Fr. Murphy tells me that was the day he was informed he was to be made a pastor, the first pastor of his class, 1962 I believe.)
While the pope will likely get all kinds of invitations from the Western Hemisphere for his trip, I doubt he would make a lot of stops. He’s not the globe-trotter that Pope John Paul was. But Boston is just a hop and skip away from New York, on the way back to Rome really.
John Allen thinks while a papal visit would a sign of support for an archdiocese rising out of the ashes of the Scandal, he thinks that there will be some bishops here and in Rome who would be concerned about the potential for stirring up the hornet’s nest again. Frankly, any stop in an American diocese is going to stir the hornet’s nest. While the eruption in 2002 started in Boston, there’s hardly been a place in the US immune from the damage.
Cardinal O’Malley is understandably cautious about the prospects for the visit:
“A lot will depend, I think, on his own health and strength,” O’Malley said. “He seems to have withstood the trip to Brazil very well. He still has a trip to Australia [for World Youth Day in July 2008] ahead of him, and he’s a man 80 years old. But we would love to have him to Boston. I’ve expressed that to him, and I think the fact that he’s accepted an invitation to the UN is a hopeful sign.”
Meanwhile, if the Holy Father does accept the invitation, Kelly Clark has just the place for him to stay.
