Mersey Leven Catholic Parish
Parish Priest: Fr Mike Delaney
Mob: 0417 279 437
mike.delaney@aohtas.org.au
Assistant Priest: Fr Paschal Okpon
Mob: 0438 562 731
paschalokpon@yahoo.com
Priest in Residence: Fr Phil McCormack
Mob: 0437 521 257
pmccormack43@bigpond.com
Postal Address: PO Box 362, Devonport 7310
Parish Office: 90 Stewart Street, Devonport 7310
(Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday 10am - 3pm)
Office Phone: 6424 2783 Fax: 6423 5160
Email: merseyleven@aohtas.org.au
Secretary: Annie Davies
Finance Officer: Anne Fisher
Pastoral Council Chair: Felicity Sly
Mob: 0418 301 573
fsly@internode.on.net
Mob: 0417 279 437
mike.delaney@aohtas.org.au
Assistant Priest: Fr Paschal Okpon
Mob: 0438 562 731
paschalokpon@yahoo.com
Priest in Residence: Fr Phil McCormack
Mob: 0437 521 257
pmccormack43@bigpond.com
Postal Address: PO Box 362, Devonport 7310
Parish Office: 90 Stewart Street, Devonport 7310
(Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday 10am - 3pm)
Office Phone: 6424 2783 Fax: 6423 5160
Email: merseyleven@aohtas.org.au
Secretary: Annie Davies
Finance Officer: Anne Fisher
Pastoral Council Chair: Felicity Sly
Mob: 0418 301 573
fsly@internode.on.net
Parish Mass times for the Month: mlcpmasstimes.blogspot.com.au
Weekly Homily Podcast: mikedelaney.podomatic.com
Archdiocesan Website: www.hobart.catholic.org.au for news, information and details of other Parishes.
Parish Office re-opens Tuesday 28th January, 2020
PLENARY COUNCIL PRAYER
Come, Holy Spirit of Pentecost.
Come, Holy Spirit of the great South Land.
O God, bless and unite all your people in Australia
and guide us on the pilgrim way of the Plenary Council.
Give us the grace to see your face in one another
and to recognise Jesus, our companion on the road.
Give us the courage to tell our stories and to speak boldly of your truth.
Give us ears to listen humbly to each other
and a discerning heart to hear what you are saying.
Lead your Church into a hope-filled future,
that we may live the joy of the Gospel.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord, bread for the journey from age to age.
Amen.
Our Lady Help of Christians, pray for us.
St Mary MacKillop, pray for us.
Come, Holy Spirit of the great South Land.
O God, bless and unite all your people in Australia
and guide us on the pilgrim way of the Plenary Council.
Give us the grace to see your face in one another
and to recognise Jesus, our companion on the road.
Give us the courage to tell our stories and to speak boldly of your truth.
Give us ears to listen humbly to each other
and a discerning heart to hear what you are saying.
Lead your Church into a hope-filled future,
that we may live the joy of the Gospel.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord, bread for the journey from age to age.
Amen.
Our Lady Help of Christians, pray for us.
St Mary MacKillop, pray for us.
Parish Prayer
Heavenly Father,
and calling us to serve as your disciples.
as we use our gifts to serve you.
as we strive to bear witness
to the Gospel and build an amazing parish.
Amen.
Our Parish Sacramental Life
Eucharistic Adoration - Devonport: Every Friday 10am - 12noon, concluding with Stations of the Cross and Angelus - in recess until 7th February
Benediction with Adoration Devonport: First Friday each month - commences at 10am and concludes with Mass - in recess until 7th February
Legion of Mary: Wednesdays 11am Sacred Heart Church Community Room, Ulverstone
Prayer Group: Charismatic Renewal – Recommences this Mon 13th January. For information: Michael Gaffney 0447 018 068
and calling us to serve as your disciples.
as we use our gifts to serve you.
as we strive to bear witness
Amen.
Our Parish Sacramental Life
Baptism: Arrangements are made by contacting Parish Office. Parents attend a Baptismal Preparation Session organised with a Priest.
Reconciliation, Confirmation and Eucharist: Are received following a Family–centred, Parish-based, School-supported Preparation Program.
Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults: prepares adults for reception into the Catholic community.
Marriage: arrangements are made by contacting one of our priests - couples attend a Pre-marriage Program
Anointing of the Sick: please contact one of our priests
Reconciliation: Ulverstone - Fridays (10am - 10:30am), Devonport - Saturday (5:15pm– 5.45pm)
Eucharistic Adoration - Devonport: Every Friday 10am - 12noon, concluding with Stations of the Cross and Angelus - in recess until 7th February
Benediction with Adoration Devonport: First Friday each month - commences at 10am and concludes with Mass - in recess until 7th February
Benediction with Adoration Devonport: First Friday each month - commences at 10am and concludes with Mass - in recess until 7th February
Legion of Mary: Wednesdays 11am Sacred Heart Church Community Room, Ulverstone
Prayer Group: Charismatic Renewal – Recommences this Mon 13th January. For information: Michael Gaffney 0447 018 068
Weekday Masses 27th - 31st January 2020
Monday: 9:00am Devonport
Tuesday: 9:30am Penguin
Wednesday: 9:30am Latrobe
Thursday 12noon Devonport
Tuesday: 9:30am Penguin
Wednesday: 9:30am Latrobe
Thursday 12noon Devonport
Friday: 9:30am Ulverstone
Next Weekend 1st - 2nd February 2020
Saturday: 9:30am Ulverstone
Saturday Vigil: 6:00pm Devonport
6:00pm Penguin
Sunday Mass: 8:30am Port Sorell
9:00am Ulverstone
10:30am Devonport
11:00am Sheffield
5:00pm Latrobe
Saturday Vigil: 6:00pm Devonport
6:00pm Penguin
Sunday Mass: 8:30am Port Sorell
9:00am Ulverstone
10:30am Devonport
11:00am Sheffield
5:00pm Latrobe
- Normal Newsletter will return next weekend.
- Parish Office opens on Tuesday.
- Next Session on Plenary 2020 Themes will be held on Wednesday, 5th Feb at 7pm at Parish House
Devonport Friday Adoration: Recommences next Friday 7th February, 2020
Devonport: Benediction (1st Friday of the Month) - Recommences 7th February, 2020
Parish Office re-open this Tuesday 28th January, 2020
OLOL Piety Shop will be closed for month of January.
Your prayers are asked for
the sick: Pat Barker, Paul Richardson, Elke Cavichiolo, Chris Fielding,
Margaret Becker, Erin Kyriazis, Philip Smith, & …
These lines are from Canto the Fourth in Lord Byron's long narrative poem, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage.
The great English poet wrote them sometime around 1817 after visiting the Eternal City.
Actually, they are a translation of words written in Latin by another famous Englishman from 8th century – Saint Bede the Venerable.
This Roman amphitheater is actually spelled Colosseum and scholars believe Bede was not describing it, but a large bronze statue (Colossus) of Nero, instead.
You can ignore these small discrepancies, but you cannot ignore the principle. It remains.
Namely, there are some institutions that are so sturdy, so ancient and so symbolic that, should they fall, the ramifications would be devastating and far-reaching.
When the Vatican falls
No doubt many Catholics see the Roman Church and the Vatican similarly to the way Lord Byron used Bede's words to describe the Colosseum.
In their view, if the massive apparatus that has become the Vatican and the papacy were to fall, it would be a disaster not only for Catholicism, but for all of Christianity.
Some of us have noted for a number of years now, that the scenario is not that far-fetched. The Roman Church is in a state of implosion. It has been for a very long time.
Catholics in northern Europe or parts of the Americas where the Church was planted centuries ago know this. They have continuously warned the hierarchs in Rome, who, in turn, have only plugged their ears and shut their eyes.
After all, Rome – indeed, all of Italy – has remained a bastion of Catholic Christianity. Forever. The signs and symbols of the Church and the papacy permeate all of society.
The men of the cloth (and perhaps visitors who do not live here) have always believed the Eternal City – and by extension all of Italy – to be a sprawling, one-industry town. And that industry is Catholicism.
At least that is what people have always pretended. But they can't pretend anymore.
The implosion is being felt in Italy
A well-regarded priest-journalist is predicting that we've just stepped into a new decade "that will see, fatally, the implosion of Catholicism in Italy."
Filippo Di Giacomo, a 68-year-old diocesan priest, says the Italian Church is on the verge of collapse – "its hierarchy, its structures, its territorial presence and, one hopes, its often annoying intrusion" into the country's civic institution and societal life.
He spelled it out in a fascinating article that appeared on Jan. 17 in Venerdì,the weekly magazine published by La Repubblica, Italy's second-best selling daily.
The only thing the Catholic Church is capable of at this point, he says, is adding "mediocrity to mediocrity."
The first thing Di Giacomo notes is that the election of Pope Francis in 2013 marked the end of the monarchical papacy, "an entirely Italian invention from the 11th century, constructed to defend the Church's freedom against interference of the Germanic emperors."
He says this "formidable and efficient machine… has now reached the point of total consumption."
But he adds that the Church in Italy – and by that he means the hierarchy – is "unable to face reality."
No doubt this willful blindness is not limited to Italy's bishops. Prelates from various parts of the world who are currently throwing up obstacles to Pope Francis' efforts to reform the Church are also closing their eyes to reality. But when Rome falls…
No longer the most Catholic country in the world
Di Giacomo observes the clerical world in Italy continues to boast that the Church in Rome and Italy is top of the class universally. But he says the reality is quite different.
For example, Italy was once considered the world's most Catholic country and guarantor of the Church's health and vibrancy. But it now ranks fifth among countries with the most Catholics.
Brazil, Mexico, the Philippines and the United State have all outpaced the Bel Paese. And over the next ten years, Italy will slide further down the list as Catholicism continues to expand rapidly in a number of countries on the African continent.
"Born and raised in the shadow of the monarchical papacy, (the Italian Church) has accumulated structures spread out over 16 ecclesiastical regions. It includes the Apostolic See, a patriarchal see (Venice), 40 metropolitan archdioceses, 20 other non-metropolitan archdioceses, 155 dioceses, 2 territorial prelatures, 6 territorial abbeys and one military ordinariate," Di Giacomo writes.
But that is illusory.
"If you look closer, it appears to be a bunch of empty boxes, or on the way to being gutted, because if the pope is no longer 'begotten not made' by the Italian Church, this Church must take stock of what it really is," the author warns.
Lies, damned lies and statistics
It's enough to look at the numbers. The statistics don't lie, although Di Giacomo suggests the Italian bishops do. In the very least they are not being completely truthful.
Part of the problem is that it appears that most dioceses and other Catholic entities have not updated their figures in the past ten years. Di Giacomo says you have to look at the "independent research" to find out the real state of affairs.
And it's not pretty.
There are currently 25,610 parishes Italy, plus several thousand more that are non-parochial churches. Di Giacomo estimates that somewhere between 34,000-36,000 are still open, certainly fewer than 40,000.
The problem is there are only 43,523 priests. An estimated 30,000 are from the diocesan clergy, while the rest are members of religious orders.
That is an alarmingly low number when you consider that most – yes, most – of these priests will soon be dead or retired. Fewer and fewer will be replaced.
The most up-to-date study shows that the average age of priests in Italy is 60, and it's as high as 64 in some areas. But here's the thing. Those statistics are from 2009. Di Giacomo claims that in the eleven years since then, the medium age of priests has already risen to eighty. Yes, eight-zero!
"The most cynical among the researchers maintain that in order to bring the Italian Church back to the levels of the 1960s and 70s, seminary enrollment would have to increase by 77 percent and, in some regions, by 200 percent," he claims.
And that, he says dryly, "is a miracle no one seems willing to perform."
Di Giacomo's conclusion is that within ten years the Church in Italy will merely be "a Church of abandoned parishes and shrines."
This is not a pretty scenario, especially in the eyes of Catholics who don't like the current pope. Because most of them are clinging nostalgically to the various ideological and outdated accessories of this imploding Church, the very bits and pieces the pope says are not essential.
Francis does not seem at all alarmed by this collapse. He knows it must happen so that the Church can be re-born. It must walk the journey of dying and rising.
Going back to our earlier image of the Colosseum and using it once more as a metaphor for the Roman Church in its present state, we can ponder the words of Charles Dickens:
"It is the most impressive, the most stately, the most solemn, grand majestic, mournful, sight, conceivable. Never, in its bloodiest prime, can the sight of the gigantic Colosseum, full and running over with the lustiest life, have moved one heart, as it must move all who look upon it now, a ruin. God be thanked: a ruin!"
Readings This Week: Third Sunday in
Ordinary Time Year A
First Reading: Isaiah 8: 23 – 9:3
Second Reading: 1 Corinthians 1: 10-13, 17
Gospel: Matthew 4: 12-23
PREGO REFLECTION ON THE GOSPEL:
Having allowed myself space to slow down and settle, I read
the Gospel slowly.
I let images form in my mind and try to picture or sense
what the villages of ancient Galilee would have been like.
I read the Gospel
again, and imagine seeing Jesus setting off to preach on his own, after hearing
of John’s arrest.
What do I hear him say and what do I see him do?
How do I
respond?
I then watch Jesus walking alone along the shore of the lake.
I hear
him calling out to Peter and Andrew.
What is their response? What do I notice?
Using my imagination, I see Jesus approaching me today as I go about my life.
I
hear him say ‘[my name], follow me’.
What is my response to his call?
I share
with Jesus the deepest longings of my heart.
I finish my prayer by making a
reverent sign of the cross.
Readings Next Week:
The Presentation of the Lord
First Reading: Malachi 3: 1-4
Second Reading: Hebrews 2: 14-18
Gospel: Luke
2: 22-40
Your prayers are asked for
the sick: Pat Barker, Paul Richardson, Elke Cavichiolo, Chris Fielding,
Margaret Becker, Erin Kyriazis, Philip Smith, & …
Let us pray for those who have died recently:
Gwen Conn, Fr
Ray Brain, Michael Nasiukiewicz, Pat Wells, Dennis Kelly, David
McManamy, Ray Emmerton, Susan Scharvi, Pat Sainsbury, Marjorie Frampton, Ray
Khan, Carmel Leonard, Lope
Zenarosa, Marjorie Frampton, David Handyside, Austin Fagan & …
Let us pray
for those whose anniversary occurs about this time: 23rd – 29th
January
Joan
Garnsey, Len Gaffney, John Bilyk, Danielle Natoli, Bruce Peters, Bettye Cox,
Lorraine Horsman, Robert
Hatton, Carole Walker, Thomas Naylor, Noreen Sheehan, John Ryan, Thomas Kelly,
Elizabeth Mazey, Sheila
Poole, Trevor Delaney, Sheila Bourke, John Dunn, David Wyett
May they Rest in Peace
Weekly Ramblings
Sometimes
things seem to come together without us being able to know how or why it all
happens. This week a couple of those things have happened.
The
booklets for the Lenten Program from the Archdiocese of Brisbane arrived and
there is a great introduction letter from Archbishop Coleridge titled ‘Seeing
Differently’ - I received permission to print the letter - see below. Those of you who heard my homily last weekend (the theme will
continue for the few weeks) will know that it is titled 20/20 Vision and is
inviting us to look at things with new eyes.
This
weekend, 3rd Sunday of Ordinary Time, has been established by Pope
Francis as a day to celebrate the Word of God with Pope Francis asking us to
‘develop a closer relationship with Sacred Scripture; otherwise our hearts will
remain cold and our eyes shut’. You can find a link to the Pope’s Apostolic
Letter (Aperuit Illis') below - http://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/motu_proprio/documents/papa-francesco-motu-proprio-20190930_aperuit-illis.html
This Sunday we also celebrate Australia Day, a day when we have an
opportunity to celebrate all that our nation is today. I would like to hope
that as we grow as a multicultural country we might become better at
acknowledging our past but building towards a better future because we are
looking at who we are through a new lens.
This weekend the
Australian Catholic Bishops Conference have asked that all Parishes have a
National Collection for the Bushfire Appeal. Here in our Parish this will be a
Leaving Collection – all monies will go through the St VdeP National Bushfire
Appeal Office.
Take care on the roads and in your homes,
Letter From Archbishop Coleridge
This letter is the introduction to the 2020 Lenten Program (Be Opened) from the Archdiocese of Brisbane. However, there are some wonderful reflections on the theme proposed by Pope Francis for this Sunday - The Sunday of the Word - that I approached the Office of Evangelisation in Brisbane seeking permission to reprint the Letter here.
Dear sisters and brothers,
The Bible challenges us to
see, to think, to imagine, to believe and to feel differently. And it also
enables us to do that.
In his Apostolic Letter
establishing the third Sunday of Ordinary Time as a day to celebrate the Word of
God, Pope Francis points out that ‘we need to develop a closer relationship
with Sacred Scripture; otherwise our hearts will remain cold and our eyes shut,
struck as we are by so many forms of blindness …. If we hear his voice and open
the doors of our minds and hearts, then he (Christ) will enter our lives and
remain ever with us' (par. 8)
In the Book of Genesis, we
read that after Eve and Adam ate the fruit, ‘the eyes of both were opened, and
they realised that they were naked’ (3:7). In the disciples’ encounter on the
road to Emmaus, Jesus ‘opened their minds to understand the Scriptures’ and
‘their eyes were opened’ in the breaking of the bread (Luke 24:30-31). Until
then, they had seen him without really seeing him. That is true of many others
in the Gospels.
Because there is no faith, they see him without seeing him.
They are blind. Herod is a classic case: he wants to see Jesus but, when he
does, he doesn’t see at all (Luke 23:6-11). The unbelieving eye is blind.
Throughout the Gospels,
Jesus summons us – with some urgency – to a new way of believing and seeing.
The Scriptures as a whole unveil God at work in the world, the divine plan
unfolding as human plans collapse. In the words of the poet William Blake, they
‘cleanse the doors of perception’. They enable the believer today to say to
unbelievers: I see what you see but I see more. To see with the eye of faith is
to perceive a God who turns the world on its head, who says that the last will
be first and the meek will inherit the earth.
Our journey with Jesus this
Lent is a journey into vision. He opens our eyes and leads us to a new way of
seeing. We go with him into the wilderness of sin and temptation; on to the
mountain to see his glory revealed; to the well of salvation with the Samaritan
woman; into the Jerusalem temple with the blind man; to the tomb of Lazarus
raised from the dead; to the cross of Calvary and finally into the garden of
resurrection where all is clear in the morning light.
This will be part of our
Plenary Council journey where the Holy Spirit is disrupting old ways of seeing
in order to open our eyes to the new thing God is doing among us – summoning us
to be a more missionary and evangelising Church; more inclusive, participatory
and synodal; more prayerful and Eucharistic; a humble healing and merciful
Church; a joyful, hope-filled and servant Church; a Church open to renewal, conversion
and reform. The Plenary Council is a journey into the kind of vision that leads
to action.
Together through these days
of Lent we allow the Scripture to unveil for us ‘what eye has not seen and ear
has not heard, and what has not entered the human heart, what God has prepared
for those who love him’ (1 Corinthians 2:9).
Renewal of Marriage Vows
Masses for the Renewal of Marriage Vows will be celebrated by Archbishop Julian Porteous on Sunday 16th February, 2020 at St Mary’s Cathedral, Hobart at 10.30am and on Sunday 23rd February, 2020 at Church of the Apostles, Launceston at 10.30am.
Couples celebrating Marriage milestones including couples in the early years of marriage (1st, 5th and 10th anniversaries) are invited to RSVP to the Office of Life, Marriage and Family by emailing ben.smith@aohtas.org.au or on 6208 6036. Catholic married couples will receive a special acknowledgement from Archbishop Julian on the day.
SILENT RETREAT - SPIRITUAL EXERCISES OF ST IGNATIUS OF LOYOLA
We invite you to experience 5 days of silent retreat to go in a deeper encounter with Jesus within you from 2nd - 7th March 2020.
During these days will be offered Latin Mass, Rosary, Adoration, Conferences in the Spiritual Exercises, Spiritual Direction, Confession and Way of the Cross. Please contact the Palavra Viva Community at the Emmanuel Centre, Newstead 0418 183 511 or palavravivatasmania@gmail.com
Letter From Rome
When Rome Falls ...
When Rome Falls ...
More signs that there's no stopping the Catholic Church's long, slow implosion by Robert Mickens, Rome. January 23, 2020
This article is from the La-Croix International website - you can access the site here but complete access is via paid subscription
"While stands the Coliseum, Rome shall stand;
When falls the Coliseum, Rome shall fall;
And when Rome falls – the World."
These lines are from Canto the Fourth in Lord Byron's long narrative poem, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage.
The great English poet wrote them sometime around 1817 after visiting the Eternal City.
Actually, they are a translation of words written in Latin by another famous Englishman from 8th century – Saint Bede the Venerable.
Quandiu stabit colisaeus, stabit et Roma;
Quando cadit colisaeus, cadet et Roma
Quando cadet Roma, cadet et mundus.
This Roman amphitheater is actually spelled Colosseum and scholars believe Bede was not describing it, but a large bronze statue (Colossus) of Nero, instead.
You can ignore these small discrepancies, but you cannot ignore the principle. It remains.
Namely, there are some institutions that are so sturdy, so ancient and so symbolic that, should they fall, the ramifications would be devastating and far-reaching.
When the Vatican falls
No doubt many Catholics see the Roman Church and the Vatican similarly to the way Lord Byron used Bede's words to describe the Colosseum.
In their view, if the massive apparatus that has become the Vatican and the papacy were to fall, it would be a disaster not only for Catholicism, but for all of Christianity.
Some of us have noted for a number of years now, that the scenario is not that far-fetched. The Roman Church is in a state of implosion. It has been for a very long time.
Catholics in northern Europe or parts of the Americas where the Church was planted centuries ago know this. They have continuously warned the hierarchs in Rome, who, in turn, have only plugged their ears and shut their eyes.
After all, Rome – indeed, all of Italy – has remained a bastion of Catholic Christianity. Forever. The signs and symbols of the Church and the papacy permeate all of society.
The men of the cloth (and perhaps visitors who do not live here) have always believed the Eternal City – and by extension all of Italy – to be a sprawling, one-industry town. And that industry is Catholicism.
At least that is what people have always pretended. But they can't pretend anymore.
The implosion is being felt in Italy
A well-regarded priest-journalist is predicting that we've just stepped into a new decade "that will see, fatally, the implosion of Catholicism in Italy."
Filippo Di Giacomo, a 68-year-old diocesan priest, says the Italian Church is on the verge of collapse – "its hierarchy, its structures, its territorial presence and, one hopes, its often annoying intrusion" into the country's civic institution and societal life.
He spelled it out in a fascinating article that appeared on Jan. 17 in Venerdì,the weekly magazine published by La Repubblica, Italy's second-best selling daily.
The only thing the Catholic Church is capable of at this point, he says, is adding "mediocrity to mediocrity."
The first thing Di Giacomo notes is that the election of Pope Francis in 2013 marked the end of the monarchical papacy, "an entirely Italian invention from the 11th century, constructed to defend the Church's freedom against interference of the Germanic emperors."
He says this "formidable and efficient machine… has now reached the point of total consumption."
But he adds that the Church in Italy – and by that he means the hierarchy – is "unable to face reality."
No doubt this willful blindness is not limited to Italy's bishops. Prelates from various parts of the world who are currently throwing up obstacles to Pope Francis' efforts to reform the Church are also closing their eyes to reality. But when Rome falls…
No longer the most Catholic country in the world
Di Giacomo observes the clerical world in Italy continues to boast that the Church in Rome and Italy is top of the class universally. But he says the reality is quite different.
For example, Italy was once considered the world's most Catholic country and guarantor of the Church's health and vibrancy. But it now ranks fifth among countries with the most Catholics.
Brazil, Mexico, the Philippines and the United State have all outpaced the Bel Paese. And over the next ten years, Italy will slide further down the list as Catholicism continues to expand rapidly in a number of countries on the African continent.
"Born and raised in the shadow of the monarchical papacy, (the Italian Church) has accumulated structures spread out over 16 ecclesiastical regions. It includes the Apostolic See, a patriarchal see (Venice), 40 metropolitan archdioceses, 20 other non-metropolitan archdioceses, 155 dioceses, 2 territorial prelatures, 6 territorial abbeys and one military ordinariate," Di Giacomo writes.
But that is illusory.
"If you look closer, it appears to be a bunch of empty boxes, or on the way to being gutted, because if the pope is no longer 'begotten not made' by the Italian Church, this Church must take stock of what it really is," the author warns.
Lies, damned lies and statistics
It's enough to look at the numbers. The statistics don't lie, although Di Giacomo suggests the Italian bishops do. In the very least they are not being completely truthful.
Part of the problem is that it appears that most dioceses and other Catholic entities have not updated their figures in the past ten years. Di Giacomo says you have to look at the "independent research" to find out the real state of affairs.
And it's not pretty.
There are currently 25,610 parishes Italy, plus several thousand more that are non-parochial churches. Di Giacomo estimates that somewhere between 34,000-36,000 are still open, certainly fewer than 40,000.
The problem is there are only 43,523 priests. An estimated 30,000 are from the diocesan clergy, while the rest are members of religious orders.
That is an alarmingly low number when you consider that most – yes, most – of these priests will soon be dead or retired. Fewer and fewer will be replaced.
The most up-to-date study shows that the average age of priests in Italy is 60, and it's as high as 64 in some areas. But here's the thing. Those statistics are from 2009. Di Giacomo claims that in the eleven years since then, the medium age of priests has already risen to eighty. Yes, eight-zero!
"The most cynical among the researchers maintain that in order to bring the Italian Church back to the levels of the 1960s and 70s, seminary enrollment would have to increase by 77 percent and, in some regions, by 200 percent," he claims.
And that, he says dryly, "is a miracle no one seems willing to perform."
Di Giacomo's conclusion is that within ten years the Church in Italy will merely be "a Church of abandoned parishes and shrines."
This is not a pretty scenario, especially in the eyes of Catholics who don't like the current pope. Because most of them are clinging nostalgically to the various ideological and outdated accessories of this imploding Church, the very bits and pieces the pope says are not essential.
Francis does not seem at all alarmed by this collapse. He knows it must happen so that the Church can be re-born. It must walk the journey of dying and rising.
Going back to our earlier image of the Colosseum and using it once more as a metaphor for the Roman Church in its present state, we can ponder the words of Charles Dickens:
"It is the most impressive, the most stately, the most solemn, grand majestic, mournful, sight, conceivable. Never, in its bloodiest prime, can the sight of the gigantic Colosseum, full and running over with the lustiest life, have moved one heart, as it must move all who look upon it now, a ruin. God be thanked: a ruin!"
Our Foundational Commitment
This article is taken from the Daily Email sent by Fr Richard Rohr OFM from the Center for Action and Contemplation. You can subscribe to receive the email by clicking here
The most important word in our Center’s name is not Action
nor is it Contemplation; it’s the word and. We need both compassionate
action and contemplative practice for the spiritual journey. Without action,
our spirituality becomes lifeless and bears no authentic fruit. Without
contemplation, all our doing comes from ego, even if it looks selfless, and it
can cause more harm than good. External behavior must be connected to and
supported by spiritual guidance. It doesn’t matter which comes first; action
may lead you to contemplation, and contemplation may lead you to action. But
finally, they need and feed each other as components of a healthy dynamic
relationship with Reality. In fact, this relationship between Action and
Contemplation is so important that it will be the underlying theme of my Daily
Meditations for 2020, as I look at it from many angles.
I used to think that most of us begin with contemplation or
a unitive encounter with God and are then led through that experience to
awareness of the suffering of the world and to solidarity with that suffering
in some form of action. I do think that’s true for many people, but as I read
the biblical prophets and observe Jesus’ life, I think it also happens in
reverse: first action, then needed contemplation.
No life is immune from suffering. When we are in solidarity
with the suffering caused by pain, injustice, war, oppression, colonization—the
list goes on and on—we face immense pressure to despair, to become angry or
dismissive. When reality is split dualistically between absolute good and bad,
total right and wrong, we are torn apart. Yet when we are broken, we are most
open to contemplative consciousness or nondual thinking. We are desperate to
resolve our own terror, anger, and disillusionment, so we finally allow
ourselves to be led into the silence that holds everything together in
wholeness.
The contemplative, nondual mind is not saying, “Everything
is beautiful” when it’s not. However, we do come to “Everything
is still beautiful” by contemplatively facing the conflicts between how reality
is and how we wish it could be. In other words, we have to begin with the
dilemma of a seemingly totally dualistic problem. We’ve first got to name good
and evil with some clarity and differentiate between right and wrong. We can’t
be naive about evil. But if we remain focused on this duality, we’ll become
unlovable, judgmental, dismissive people. I’ve witnessed this pattern in
myself. We must eventually find a bigger field, a wider frame, which many call
nondual thinking or “contemplation.”
Jesus does not hesitate to dualistically name good and evil
and to show that evil is a serious matter. However, he does not stop there. He
often speaks in dualistic images, especially in regard to issues of wealth and
power: “You cannot serve God and mammon” (Matthew 6:24). He draws a stark line
between the sheep and the goats, the compassionate and the indifferent (Matthew
25:31-46). Yet Jesus goes on to overcome these dualisms by the contemplative,
nondual mind. We can and should be honest about evil, even at the risk of
making some people uncomfortable; but we must not become hateful nor do we need
to punish the “goats” in our life. We keep going deeper until we can also love
them and seek their healing and transformation.
Prayer for Our Community:
O Great Love, thank you for living and loving in us and
through us. May all that we do flow from our deep connection with you and all
beings. Help us become a community that vulnerably shares each other’s burdens
and the weight of glory. Listen to our hearts’ longings for the healing of our
world. [Please add your own intentions.] . . . Knowing you are hearing us
better than we are speaking, we offer these prayers in all the holy names of
God, amen.
Adapted from an exclusive video teaching by Richard Rohr
within the Living School program.
Inadequacy, Hurt and Reconciliation
This article is taken from the archive of Fr Ron Rolheiser OMI. You can find this article and many others by clicking here
Even with the best intentions, even with no malice inside us, even when we are faithful, we sometimes cannot not hurt each other. Our human situation is simply too complex at times for us not to wound each other.
Here’s an example: Soren Kierkegaard, who spent his whole life trying to be scrupulously faithful to what God was calling him to, once hurt a woman very deeply. As a young man, he had fallen in love with a woman, Regine, who, in return, loved him deeply. But as their marriage date approached, Kierkegaard was beset with an internal crisis, one both psychological and moral, within which he discerned that their marriage would, long range, be the cause for deep unhappiness for both of them and he called off the engagement. That decision hurt Regine, deeply and permanently. She never forgave him and he, for his part, was haunted for the rest of his life by the fact that he had hurt her so badly. Initially, he wrote her a number of letters trying to explain his decision and apologizing for hurting her, hoping for her understanding and forgiveness. Eventually, he gave up, even as he wrote page after page in his private journals second-guessing himself, castigating himself, and then, conversely, trying to justify himself again and again in his decision not to marry her.
Nearly ten years after that fateful decision, with Regine now married to someone else, he spent weeks trying to draft the right letter to her – asking for forgiveness, offering new explanations for his actions, and begging for another chance to talk with her. He struggled to find the right words, something that might bring about an understanding. He finally settled on this letter:
Cruel I was, that is true. Why? Indeed, you do not know that.
Silent I have been, that is certain. Only God knows what I have suffered – may God grant that I do not, even now, speak too soon after all!
Marry I could not. Even if you were still free, I could not.
However, you have loved me, as I have you. I owe you much – and now you are married. All right, I offer you for the second time what I can and dare and ought to offer you: reconciliation.
I do this in writing in order not to surprise or overwhelm you. Perhaps my personality did once have too strong an effect; that must not happen again. But for the sake of God in heaven, please give serious consideration to whether you dare become involved in this, and if so, whether you prefer to speak with me at once or would rather exchange some letters first.
If the answer is ‘No’ – would you then please remember for the sake of a better world that I took this step as well.
In any case, as in the beginning
so until now, sincerely and completely
devotedly, your S.K.
(Clare Carlisle, The Heart of a Philosopher, Penguin Book, c2019, p. 215)
Well, the answer was “no”. He had enclosed his letter in another letter which he sent to her husband, asking him to decide whether or not to give it to his wife. It was returned unopened, accompanied by an angry note, his offer of reconciliation was bitterly rejected.
What’s the moral here? Simply this: We hurt each other; sometimes through selfishness, sometimes through carelessness, sometimes through infidelity, sometimes through cruel intention, but sometimes too when there is no selfishness, no carelessness, no betrayal, no cruelty of intention – but only the cruelty of circumstance, inadequacy, and human limit. We sometimes hurt each other as deeply through being faithful as through being unfaithful, albeit in a different way. But irrespective of whether there’s moral fault, betrayal, or an intended cruelty, there’s still deep hurt, sometimes so deep that, this side of eternity, no healing will take place.
Would that it be otherwise. Would that Kierkegaard could have explained himself so fully that Regine would have understood and forgiven him, would that each of us could explain ourselves so fully that we would be always understood and forgiven, and would that all of our lives could end like a warm-hearted movie where, before the closing credits, everything is understood and reconciled.
But that’s not the way it always ends; indeed, that’s not even the way it ended for Jesus. He died being looked at as a criminal, as a religious blasphemer, as someone who had done wrong. His offer of reconciliation was also returned unopened, accompanied by a bitter note.
I once visited a young man in who was dying of cancer at age 56. Already bedridden and in hospice care, but with his mind still clear, he shared this: “I am dying with this consolation: If I have an enemy in this world, I don’t know who it is. I can’t think of a single person that I need to be reconciled with.”
Few of us are that lucky. Most of us are still looking at some envelopes that have been returned unopened.
Mary Ward, Then and Now
Gemma Simmonds CJ looks at the life and writings of Mary Ward, a woman of ‘heroic virtue’ who wanted to secure a better role for women in the Church and in society, and at how this struggle continues today. Why is Mary’s vision for women, yet to be fully realised, still a vital goal to strive for? Dr Gemma Simmonds is a member of the Congregation of Jesus and lectures in Pastoral Theology and Spirituality at Heythrop College, University of London.
This article is taken from the ThinkingFaith.org website where you can find a wide range of articles by clicking here
In December 2009 Pope Benedict XVI formally promulgated a Decree recognising the ‘heroic virtue’ demonstrated by Mary Ward, conferring on her the title ‘Venerable’ and setting in motion her cause for canonisation. This judgement reverses that of Pope Urban VIII who condemned her as a ‘heretic, schismatic and rebel to Holy Church’ and her sisters as ‘poisonous growths in the Church of God [which] must be torn up from the roots lest they spread themselves further’.
Born in 1585, Mary Ward belonged to an underground Catholic network, working collaboratively with itinerant priests to maintain the persecuted faith. In the absence of clergy she and many recusant women exercised spiritual and practical authority within their communities. Despite the Council of Trent’s ruling that all female religious should be enclosed, she led a group of young women to Flanders in 1609 to begin a consecrated life on the Jesuit model.
Their educational and pastoral ministries across Europe were characterised by Jesuit mobility and missionary focus, attracting admirers and enemies in equal measure. A Jesuit remarked that, while Mary Ward’s ‘English Ladies’ were remarkable for their fervour, ‘when all is done, they are but women’, so they were bound to fail. Mary insisted instead that ‘there is no such difference between men and women, that women may not do great things’. After Mary’s death in 1645 her surviving sisters held fast to her vision. In the nineteenth century, Irishwoman Teresa Ball made further pioneering foundations which spread worldwide as the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary or Loreto Sisters. Formal vindication came only in 1877, when Mary Ward’s congregation was recognised by the Church and in 1909, when she was allowed to be named as foundress.
Today she is honoured and studied as an English woman writer, a pioneering educator and above all as an apostolic woman who loved the Church but challenged it to think and act beyond its own theological categories. But as celebrations of the 400th anniversary of Mary Ward’s foundation of a religious order continue, with a solemn Mass in Westminster Cathedral this weekend to be attended by thousands, including the Archbishop of Canterbury, questions remain regarding the position of women in Church and society.
Women in society
There is, of course, no single recognisable generic category of ‘women’, as such. Neither Mary Ward in her time nor we in ours can speak in globalising terms of women and women’s experience. But the 2008 UNIFEM report on The Progress of the World’s Women reminds us of the situation in which many women find themselves four hundred years on from Mary Ward’s founding vision.[1] The Millennium Development Goals agreed to by the United Nations in 2000 contain a commitment to achieving gender equality and women’s empowerment. In many countries, women’s disadvantage is based on their subordinate status in relation to men as decision-makers and power-holders. Their voices and choices are silenced by the assumption that male needs and preferences are the norm, so that the way women experience the world, their desires and choices are ignored, their ability to assert or exercise their rights restricted. Women may be denied educational opportunities, access to public services, political representation, financial independence and rights in work and in law.
Gender biases and the exclusion of women in public affairs often follow unconscious cultural patterns within secular legislation and within the Church itself. When silent women find their voice, it not only makes for greater social equality, but for a richer experience of human society. Mary Ward’s understanding that investing in the care and education of women is an investment in the future of an entire nation is part of her legacy to the Church and to the world. She pioneered a form of religious life for women in the Church which became the blueprint for many subsequent congregations. These groups of women often spearheaded social and educational movements which enabled women to take a fuller and more equal part in public and private life. The global net enrolment rate of females in education has increased worldwide by almost 10% in the last decade, but much remains to be done to ensure that girls finish primary and secondary school, and to bring more non-enrolled girls into the educational system. Where women are educated, their rights are more respected and their voice becomes a power for challenge and change.
In the field of health, women’s position remains precarious. Globally, over half a million women every year die during pregnancy or childbirth. We are witnessing the feminisation of the HIV/AIDS pandemic: three out of every five adults living with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa are women. It is a tragedy that a massive impasse has developed between the Church’s teaching on sexual ethics and secular campaigns for women’s rights. In their insistence on women’s ‘reproductive rights’ it has become virtually impossible for most secular agencies to hear with an open mind the Church’s insistence on the sacredness of human life from conception to death. On the other hand it has become increasingly difficult for Catholic theologians and providers of health services to represent the real experience and urgent needs of women, or to enter into respectful dialogue on these questions, without being reprimanded for perceived infidelity to the Magisterium. Pope Benedict XVI’s recent encyclical, Caritas in Veritate, reminds us of the necessary ‘link between life ethics and social ethics’, pointing to the inherent contradiction in societies where, on the one hand, the dignity of the person is upheld while ‘ways in which human life is devalued and violated’ are tolerated (CiV 15). The life of women and girls continues to be devalued and violated worldwide, however, and many of them perceive the Church as being unwilling or unable to offer a realistic answer to their difficulties.
Mary Ward questioned the very basis of definitions that considered women mentally, physically and morally inferior, contesting them even when they apparently legitimised by theology and ecclesial authority,
…Wherein are we so inferior to other creatures, that they should term us but women […] as if we were in all things inferior to some other creature which I suppose to be man, which I dare be bold to say is a lie, and with respect […] may say it is an error’.[2]
She refused to accept a situation in which reality was defined and described through the dominance of male experience and perceptions. Then and now, such an approach not only excludes the concerns specific to women, but also fails to take seriously their experience as a category for interpreting reality itself. This silencing of women and women’s experience continues to be a form of disempowerment with which women struggle in many contexts. Mary’s conviction that women are called to ‘do great things’ for God, to be educators and educated, apostles and communicators of faith, was a revolution not just in terms of the Church but in terms of an entire culture. She understood that the exclusion of women’s voices and women’s experience from public discourse lay at the heart of their oppression within society, and was contrary to the mind of God.
The Glory Vision
While living in London after two failed attempts to live the monastic life, Mary experienced her famous ‘Glory Vision’. She was seeking God’s will, knowing only that she and ‘women in time to come’ were called to some other thing, as yet unknown and untried. The answer came while looking in a mirror, when she heard the words ‘Glory, glory, glory’ ringing in her ears.[3] The glory of God, says St. Irenaeus, is a human being fully alive. As she looked at her own reflection in the mirror, Mary saw what she also heard – the glory of God, shining through her human weakness. It is the glory given by God to women of the future who will fulfil what God created them capable of being, overcoming all the human, social and spiritual impoverishment imposed on them by the forces of patriarchy. This vision holds up before the women of the world the mirror of God in which they can see their own reflection, made beautiful and glorious by the grace of creation given to each one.
Love, fear and freedom
In Mary’s writings we find frequent reference to the effects on the female psyche of love, fear and freedom. She prays that her readers might be blessed with a spirit of truth, enabling them to ‘discern things as they are in themselves, the difference between trifles and matters of importance’.[4] Much of the male polemic in history against women and women’s judgment refers to the alleged female tendency to act and judge while dominated by unreliable feelings. This has the effect, for many women, of undermining their respect for their own context, their experience and their perceptions. While fully aware of the possibility of self-deception, Mary learned to value her own experience as a category to be taken seriously when making judgments.[5] She called this capacity for discernment a ‘happy begun freedom, the beginning of all my good, and more worth to me […] than the whole world besides’.[6]
In her instructions to her sisters she claims that the ‘will to do well’ is not a matter of gender or natural aptitude, ‘there is no such difference between men and women’.[7] For her the enemy of fervour is not gender but the pervasive human attraction to idolatry and false goods. Even education and knowledge themselves can become idols, if sought for their own sake rather than for the end of all knowledge, which is God.[8] This perception is echoed by Caritas in Veritate, ‘Truth, and the love which it reveals, cannot be produced: they can only be received as a gift. Their ultimate source is not, and cannot be, mankind, but only God, who is himself Truth and Love.’ (2).
In contradiction to a belief of her time that God was principally to be found in extraordinary graces and experiences, Mary valued the ordinary and the domestic as a proper context for growth in holiness and human fulfilment.[9] Brazilian theologian Ivone Gebara speaks of the way in which the daily domestic life of many women has been dismissed and disregarded, as if it could never be the context for spiritual reflection.[10] Fear and a lack of confidence engendered by the trivialisation of women’s perspective and experience leads many to consider that they count for little. The 400-year-old Mary Ward heritage contributes to the empowerment of women by eradicating both pointless fear and misplaced love.
This is not about the replacement of male chauvinism by the female version. The empowerment of women has incalculable effects on the wellbeing of men. Sexism and patriarchy can heap intolerable burdens on many men, forcing them into oppressive relationships in which they also, ironically, become victims. A more balanced and mutually respectful and responsible relationship between the genders ultimately benefits men as much as women. It has the potential to create domestic and social solidarity and prosperity and to liberate both genders from roles that are toxic and demeaning.
The Vision of the Just Soul
In 1615 Mary received a vision of a ‘Just Soul’, characterised by a ‘singular freedom’ from the idolatries and addictions of this world. This freedom renders us apt for ‘all good works’, so that we do not limit encounter with God to some special and ‘holy’ sphere, but experience God precisely in the ordinariness of our human existence. The just soul is characterised by a confidence and transparency which makes it possible for us to ‘be such as we appear, and appear such as we are’, without fear or disguise. Mary saw this state as a return to humanity’s original justice, sincerity and innocence.
Mary Ward’s is an integrated and holistic vision which speaks powerfully to many women who are, by reason of the role they play in society, particularly close to nature itself. The empowerment of women has close connections with a respectful attitude towards the environment, living in harmony with the rest of the God-given, natural world. The impact of environmental degradation and climate change is falling increasingly heavily on poor women, as the unsustainable lifestyles of the affluent undermine the supply and quality of natural resources. The vision of the Just Soul suggests an answer to this drama of our times.
Caritas in Veritate states that, ‘the book of nature is one and indivisible: it takes in not only the environment but also life, sexuality, marriage, the family, social relations: in a word, integral human development’. (51-52). A past pupil of a Mary Ward school, Benedict XVI has contrasted her feminism with a feminism he considers destructive of human solidarity. There is a danger in attempting to hijack her in favour of various contemporary agendas. But if her prophetic stance eventually brought about important changes, there remains much to be done within both Church and society. Despite the Church’s discourse of equality in Christ, the fact remains that decision-making and power-holding remain largely tied to ministerial priesthood. An ecclesial reality defined and described through the dominance of male perceptions, however benign, can adversely affect the concerns specific to women and fail to take seriously their experience and aspirations.
Mary Ward’s Glory Vision reminds us that God’s glory is found in human beings, male and female, fully alive and open to service in new and untried ways. Her Vision of the Just Soul describes the harmony between humanity and nature in which each of us is called to a life of justice, transparency and right relationship. Finally her writings on love, fear and freedom remind us of the need to let go of all that is addictive, including the structures of power and dominance. As a resource for society and for the Church, after 400 years she still has a lot to offer.
[1] http://www.unifem.org/progress/2008/publication.html referred to passim within this article.
[2] See Ursula Dirmeier, Mary Ward und ihre Gründung: die Quellentexte bis 1645, 1, (Münster, Aschendorff, 2007), pp.364-5 [spelling modernised]
[3] No. 21 of a series of 50 paintings of Mary Ward’s life and spiritual journey, executed in and shortly after her lifetime, shows the scene. See http://www.loretonh.nsw.edu.au/faith/ourheritage/paintedlife.html
[4] Dirmeier, 1, p.12 (spelling and text modernised).
[5] Ibid, p. 23.
[6] Gillian Orchard, Till God Will: Mary Ward through her Writings, (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1985), p.9.
[7] Dirmeier 1, p. 364.
[8] Ibid, pp. 363-4
[9] Ibid, p. 359.
[10] Ivone Gebara, ‘Women and Spirituality: a Latin American Perspective’ in The Way, 38, 1988, pp. 240-251.
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