A brief All Souls thought

The Catholic church urges us to pray for those who have died; and urges us to look forward with hope and expectation to meeting God face to face.

I do the former, although probably not as often as I should.  As for the latter: I'm not there yet.  I love many things about my current life, and I'm not ready to let go of it yet.  

And I dread death; I suspect, if I were put to the test, e.g. by standing up to someone in a dangerous situation, for the sake of another or the sake of a principle, I'd be anything but heroic.

And the death of a loved one leaves me bereft.  Even the death of a stranger, if it confronts me (as when I'm assisting at a funeral) can leave me emotionally wrung out.  I often remark that I don't know if I could be in a funeral ministry, because I'd be an emotional wreck after two weeks.

And too many people who have loomed large in my life, once they die, are mostly forgotten by me after a brief period of time.

I get, intellectually, what the church teaches about death and what comes after.  But my heart hasn't caught up yet with my brain.  So today I pray: Lord, please change my heart to accept what you teach us about death.

Peace in the liturgy wars?

The Associated Press reports that one of the more conservative members of the College of Cardinals recently celebrated a pre-Vatican II Latin Mass in St. Peter's Basilica, with Pope Leo's permission:

A few thousand pilgrims, many of them young families with multiple children and the women covering their heads with lace veils, packed the altar area of the basilica to standing room-only capacity.

Cardinal Raymond Burke, the conservative American figurehead, presided over the 2 1/2-hour liturgy, which was rich in hymn, incense and priests bowing to the altar, their backs to the faithful in the pews.

For many traditionalists, the moment was a tangible sign that Leo might be more sympathetic to their plight, after they felt rejected by Francis and his 2021 crackdown on the old liturgy.

Prevost in Peru: Institutional Context

 Excellent NCR article on the institutional context of Prevost's ministry in Peru/

Prevost's Perun: Vatican II Laboratory of Church Renewal

The pastoral framework Prevost immersed himself in Chulucanas was up and running by the time he got there as a young Augustinian in 1985, but its roots can be clearly traced back to the 1962-65 Second Vatican Council and the Latin American bishops' assemblies that followed it.

In 1962, Pope John XXIII called on the church in the United States to send 10% of its clergy on mission to Latin America.

Though that figure was never realized, several religious congregations took that message in stride. The Midwest Province of the Augustinians was one of them; in 1963 the first U.S. Augustinians arrived in Peru and the prelature of Chulucanas was formed the following year. 

In 1968, Latin American bishops met in Medellín, Colombia, to discuss implementing Vatican II, which had concluded three years prior. A key outcome of this meeting was the recommendation to promote the formation of ecclesial base communities — small, locally led Christian communities — as the "first and fundamental nucleus" of the church. The meeting said the formation of leaders for these communities, which could be clerics, religious or laypeople, should be a "priority concern for parish priests and bishops."

Nine years after the Medellín meeting, McNabb attended another assembly of Latin American bishops in Puebla, Mexico, which was opened by Pope John Paul II. McNabb recounts in his memoir how the pope referred to the ecclesial base communities that were being developed throughout the continent as "a special source of hope for the church in Latin America."

"To see a priest in jeans, in a polo shirt, with a cap on, that he would walk with and meet with the young people, it was very striking," he said. "He had a spirit of great openness toward young people."

Victor Chiroque, another parishioner, said that Prevost, like the other Augustinians in the prelature, was committed to the pastoral plan implemented by McNabb.

"All of the priests were very involved in the pastoral plan, and he was one of them," Chiroque said. "He was young, so he would go out — not just here in Chulucanas, but to all of the villages to visit, which at that time was not easy."

As pope, Leo said in his biography that McNabb "was in many ways a very prophetic bishop" for instituting a pastoral plan that envisioned a parish as "the experience of the church at the local level and the building of an authentic community where people get to know each other, help each other, and support each other."

"All the things we are hearing today with the talk about synodality, we were already doing in Chulucanas in the 1980s, moving forward, so it was all very natural for me," he said, referring to the term for creating a more listening and participatory church coined by Pope Francis.

Saturday's No Kings rallies

Photo courtesy of Facebook

The No Kings series of events, or movement, or whatever it is or will become, is getting to be a big deal.

Army's cancellation of religious support contracts harms Catholics

 Archbishop Broglio: Army's cancellation of religious support contracts harms Catholics

Archbishop Timothy Broglio of the U.S. Archdiocese for the Military Services said Oct. 17 the U.S. Army has cancelled all religious support contracts for Army chapels, "including those for religious educators, administrators, and musicians." He said this has placed on Catholics "an insurmountable restriction on the free exercise of religion."

"For those who attend Mass, visit chapel offices, or participate in faith formation on a U.S. Army installation, you likely noticed, that beginning on Sunday, 5 October 2025, contract services and contractor offices were dark and music was absent during Mass," the archbishop said in a letter addressed to members of the military archdiocese, which he said will also be sent to all members of Congress.

A memorandum issued in March of this year by U.S. Army Installation Management Command which directed the cancellation of all chapel contracts for Coordinators of Religious Education (CRE), Catholic Pastoral Life Coordinators (CPLC), and musician contracts, across the U.S. Army."

The Simplicity of a Woman's Gesture: ON LOVE OF THE POOR

The following on my LAKE COUNTY OHIO WEAL site is the first of a series of posts on the latest papal exhortation.  

 Why the Waste? ON LOVE OF THE POOR

Papal exhortations rank lower than Papal encyclicals. However, in many ways Joy of the Gospel, an exhortation, was the most important document of Pope Francis since it set out the direction of his pontificate.

Pundits will spend much time analyzing how much of this document is Francis and how much is Leo since it was begun under Francis and finished by Leo. It's theme LOVE OF THE POOR both looks back and also continues Francis's emphasis upon the Church as a poor church for the poor. 

However, the length and style of this document are much simpler than we usually see in such papal documents.  Francis was spontaneous, and often memorable, but it was not always clear what he was saying, e.g. what does "the smell of the sheep" really mean? Leo will unlikely be as colorful as Francis, but a short, clear and simple writing style may win him a hearing.  Whereas Francis often seemed to let his aids elaborate his ideas in ways that often did not clarify them, Leo seems to have pared down the draft to its essentials while still making it his own.

In addition to a commentary on paragraph #4 of the exhortation that is only slightly longer than the text itself, I have provided two scriptural contexts.

The story is unusual because it occurs in all four gospels although in different editorial contexts. These texts contain almost all the uses of the Greek word for ointment in the NT. 

Twenty-five years

So yesterday the parish had a celebration honoring my husband's 25th anniversary of ordination to the permanent diaconate.  The actual anniversary was October 1.  I was kind of dreading it, since I'm not any good at big deals. But I didn't have to do anything, and Kelly really enjoyed it. It's scary how fast 25 years can go by.

It was very nice. They served burgers and brats after the 11:00 Mass. And cake. You can't have a party without cake, and this one was very good. I think the school kids probably got the rest of it for dessert in the cafeteria today. 

A lot of people came, including some deacons from other towns. Since the year 2000 when Kelly was ordained, the formation program has changed about four times. When we went through it there was a lot of peer involvement, and a sense of the ones already ordained walking with the ones in formation. Later it changed to a much more academic program, with papers and grades. For a while a college degree was required. They backed off of that a bit, but an associate degree may still be required. It is perhaps less academic now? I don't know, since I haven't kept up with the process.  At first there was a rural and an urban program, and also a Spanish language one.  Now it is all one. Which is probably a good thing. But the deacons and wives who came to the party were the rural ones who knew us; that group has stuck together. We're all getting a little long in the tooth. The ones starting out now are younger than we were. They have to be at least 35 by ordination, but most of us were in our 50s when we started formation. The process used to be three years, now it is four. 

One difference now is that the wives are encouraged to attend the classes. When we started out, the wives were required to attend, and it was a deal breaker if they didn't. I would much rather be encouraged than required! It is still the case that the wives have to be on board with their husbands entering the diaconate in order for it to happen.

Our sons were able to come out for the celebration, and it was good to see them. They good naturedly put up with the old ladies from the parish telling them how much they looked like their dad. (The boys are 47 and 51 years old, respectively). People said some nice things. All in all it was a good day.