WRITE THE RIGHT STUFF

It is going to become more challenging to be Catholic I believe.  BUT I also think it is going to be a lot more fun - at least as long as you keep in mind that the Holy Spirit will do what needs to be done as long as we cooperate and don't think we will do it with our own clever selves.

There have been a couple of things lately.  One was the Gillette commercial and another was an article in the Akron Beacon Journal recently concerning the "Problem with Christian Schools" that on first blush seem to make some modicum of sense but something leaves the viewer/reader unsettled. If you feel that way, don't shake it off - delve into it.  Really find out what is nagging at the back of your mind.  Most often it is a subtle but vital bit of ill-logic.  It may not pop out at you at first.  But a bit of digging and prayer will help make it pop.  

Once that makes its presence known to you - write down as if trying to assist someone else to understand.  Then be prepared to use it (with friends over coffee, on your blog, in a letter to an editor . . . )

The article in the ABJ, for example, sighted what the Associated Press writer described as intolerance, Christian schools teaching things that are not tolerant of other people's ideas.  A person who began a hashtag movement thinks that because of this, Christians schools might need to be censored in some way (my words, not his.)  The oddity of this is that he wants to be intolerant of people he deems intolerant (not to mention he singles out Christian schools as the problem, not schools of other faiths - Jewish, Muslim & so forth, not private schools, not home schools, etc. . .) which gives the appearance that there is more going on here than just a discussion about tolerance.

So I wrote a terrible letter to the editor of the ABJ, let it sit for a while, went back and wrote a better one and sent it in and they were kind enough to print it.  Thank you ABJ.  Here is the letter:

Dear Editor,

Sunday’s article, “Hashtag stirs debate over Christian schools” brought up a very important point.  The author is concerned about those who would, “breed intolerance toward people with a different outlook.”  Oddly enough the solution seems to be to do away with those who have a different point of view than he.  There also seems to be a particular bias against Christian schools as there was no mention of other faith based schools or even the difficulties occurring in our public schools.  Does this not go against the very tolerance the author desires?

Perhaps it is that there are certain aspects of non-governmental schools over which he would like ever more government control.  This is a fine thing as long as you have a benevolent, efficient and intelligent government that happens to agree with you.  But what about when that ruling body turns against you and what you believe?  Then where do you turn?

Thank goodness we have a variety of educational institutions in these United States from public schools, to private schools, religious schools, to home schooling.  They keep us diverse and allow us to tackle problems creatively from multiple paradigms.  Though there are troubles with each of these ways of learning from time to time, doing away with one or the other of them or forcing them to bend to the will of a government is not the answer in a free nation.   We should celebrate tolerance and diversity.  We do not accept lack of choice for our political candidates, in our news sources or for a brand of aspirin.  We should not accept it in our educational choices either.

The Rev. John A. Valencheck

pastor

St. Sebastian Parish, Akron

WHAT IS EVERYTHING FOR WHICH YOU ARE LOOKING FOR YOUR CHILD?

I am on a (painfully slow moving) think tank for the future of Catholic schools.  Doing some research online for the effectiveness of Catholic schools I came across a bushel basket of articles commenting on a study about the effectiveness of private schools vs Catholic schools.  It is interesting to note that, depending on what you want the research to say, you can make the study sound as though it backs you up.

For example, many articles sited that, correcting for other variables such as socioeconomical backgrounds, there is no difference between private and public schools.  Time magazine would argue differently; that the study shows that it does make a difference.

But let us set that argument aside for a moment - even say that public and private schools would give the same student the same education for their background.  Is reading, typing and arithmetic all that there is to education?  What about forming the human person?  Is this exactly the same in both instances?

One of the reasons parents choose private education is to avoid what they see as indoctrination of their children into a cultural outlook with which they do not agree - stewing them in the latest political correctness rather than a longer standing understanding of what it is to be a good citizen of the world.  What some parents are looking for is more local control and flavor in a school rather than a system subject to policies that must be followed in all schools from rural to urban, from New York City to Wellington.  

At a Catholic school it is possible to do things that are illegal in public schools.  Pray.  Go to Mass and confession.  Learn about religious history.  Celebrate religious art and music.  Discuss topics such as virtue and sin.  Hold students to a higher standard according to the path followed by saints who were scientists, artist, leaders, servants, rich and poor.  A place where we don’t have to pretend that it is not Christmas or Easter.  

I would like to say that any one of these things were the primary reason people choose our school, but it is not.  In our school surveys, what turns out to be one of the greatest reasons people choose Catholic schools is safety.  They feel more secure with their child in a private school.  

Maybe it is because there is more freedom to curb behaviors in a private school and an ideal toward which we are always pointing our students.  Maybe it is because the constant reinforcement (I hope) of duty, responsibility and charity rather than just rights and freedoms.  Maybe, just maybe this is why since the 1920s there has only been one shooting in a Catholic school, in the 1970s at Gonzaga University where 4 people were injured.  Maybe.

Is it just about grades?  If it is, go to public school and save yourself a bundle.  The cost of Catholic education is becoming untenable in many places because of everything they are expected to do (and it is NOT because the teachers are paid enough.)  But if you value something else and that aligns with what is being exemplified in your local Catholic school, that education is priceless.

LAWS AND GUARDS ARE NOT ENOUGH

We should get all guns out of the hands of American Citizens.

I was saddened to see signs in the student walk out that said (numerous places - who got that word around?) “Thoughts and prayers are not enough.”  They are right.  Thoughts and prayers are what maintained our Western Cultural society with its respect of life, marriage, women, the pre-born, and the taboos on such things as pornography, etc.  But the wholesale dumping of these things leave little to maintain in prayer.  

Unfortunately, for most people it seems, this leaves only the governmental mandated removal of guns from its citizens so that only those who work for the government have guns. The thought being (I suppose) is that the government will keep us safe and well fed so we don’t have to do it ourselves.  It doesn’t mean coming together as a community and calling each other to something higher, it means the norm becoming metal detectors, searches, guards, laws, increasing punishments, and the worse part being that it is not a governmentally mandated action such as in the Orwell book “1984” but that we as a nation are begging for it.

One other solutions is to support our Catholic schools and other like minded institutions that are not aligning themselves with this cultural trend.  Organizations that see that the only sane way out of the quagmire that we are in is the slow rebuilding of a respect for life, a respect for proper authority, a respect for what has been handed on to us culturally, and a respect for those who will come after us.  This is not something that can be mandated by a law, enforced by a government official, punished into you and regulated.  That is a return to the Old Testament law, enforced outward conformity.  What is needed is a change of heart, mind, and soul.  Not just a regulation of actions, but forming a well formed conscience so that we don’t have to be monitored at every moment of our lives.  If this is what you want, find, join, and support organizations and communities that support you.

Here is a link to a video I hope you are able to watch:  HERE.  Thanks D. S.

GUARDS AND METAL DECTECTORS VS PRIESTS AND CONFESSIONALS

“Outrage is an appropriate response to the carnage in Parkland, but it’s not an answer.”  This was written by Steve Chapman of the Chicago Tribune as reprinted in the Akron Beacon Journal on February 18th.  “Those demanding dramatic action accuse those who disagree of enabling murder.  But it’s no sin to reject false remedies.”  

The “cure” for which so many people are looking is various forms of gun control.  Unfortunately, at least according to this article which sited various studies including “a 2013 study of the 1994 law for the National Institute of Justice” which said, “We cannot clearly credit the ban with any of the nation’s recent drop in gun violence” and that any such ban, “is likely to be small at best and perhaps too small for reliable measurement.”

But we want this so badly because it seems like an obvious and effective action item.  It seems to make sense.  We can all rally behind this and DO SOMETHING that will help rid us of these atrocious situations and sooner rather than later.

One thing we are sure we CANNOT do is hold a prayer service in the school for the various “good” reasons that such things are banned (although crosses and candles did make an appearance but I am sure that will be overlooked.)  If there is one thing that might bring comfort at all to a horrific situation like this is the idea that these kids have souls that are taken care of, that they live onion some way, and that there is hope.  But instead the will receive metal detectors, guards, safe spaces, counseling, assemblies on how to spot potential threats among their peers, and have active shooter drills.

This will possibly keep them alive longer.  But it is not the one thing that will give them hope forever; the one thing that gives them hope even in the very teeth of death.  It is the knowledge that there is hope even in death.  It is this hope that give a person the power to be stronger than their fears.  Bravery gives way to courage.  Courage allows us to crawl out from behind our walls and out of our safe spaces and reach out in charity.  And charity alone will bring about the healing we need to bring about the long term, peaceful solutions we need to foster sanity in our culture.  Granted, it may only bring healing to the individual at first.  Then maybe to those around him.  If they are lucky, they will bring healing to their small community. It may take most of their lives to accomplish this but better to take a long time than waste our time doing things that only work marginally at best.  And kept up, it could eventually change the very culture in which we live, which historically we see can happen.

Have you ever noticed that none of these shootings take place at a Catholic school?  There has been one Catholic school campus shooting since at least the 1920s and that was in 1979 when a 21 year old man shot and wounded 4 people at Gonzaga University.  That is not to say that it could not happen.  Every pastor who has a school prays daily that this will not happen at his school.  But even if there 20 in the next month, it would not remotely come close to the number of schools that have had them.  

There are a lot of factors to give reason for this, but not the least of which is we are allowed to say from a Divine standpoint that killing is wrong, bullying is wrong, shutting out the world is wrong, not caring for others is wrong, and not forgiving and being forgiven is wrong.

A guard and a metal detector or a priest and confessional box?  If you had to take a wild guess, which of these would you say might bring about a longer lasting, more positive change to our nation’s problems?a

FRIDAY POTPOURRI: PARISH HISTORY: 1930: COMPETITIVE MARKET

Much of the first two paragraphs were taken from the Our Lady of the Elms website.

OUR LADY OF THE ELMS

Our Lady of the Elms was founded by the Akron Dominicans in 1923, five years before the founding of St. Sebastian Parish, having their first day of school on October 15, 1923. To get to this momentous day, a score of Sisters of St. Dominic from the Dominican Province of Caldwell, New Jersey, led by Mother General Avelline Quinn, OP, purchased Elm Court, the beautiful mansion, grounds and buildings on West Market Street.

They saw beyond its beauty as a piece of property. They envisioned it as their center of operations in Akron, Ohio. Here there would be a Dominican Novitiate to form young women into Sisters of St. Dominic who would join their ranks and share in their work. They also opened a new school for young women where the Dominican vocation of teaching the young could be accomplished through the particular charism of Dominican education. A little band of Sisters of St. Dominic led by Mother Beda, newly-appointed leader of the new Cleveland Diocese Dominican Motherhouse, in just a few months in 1923, transformed Elm Court into Our Lady of the Elms, a convent and a day school. Classes for the first thirteen students were held in the convent building. 

The school clearly proceeded the opening of the St. Sebastian Primary school and as such competed for students.  From the outset, there was tension between the two institutions.  Numerous letter were written back and forth to the bishop asking him to intervene between them.    In a letter to the Right Reverend Monsignor McFadden dated March 14, 1931, Mother Beda O. P. writes, in obvious response to accusations made by Father Zwisler:

“He insists that Sister Jeanette, the principal, has frequently proclaimed the priority rights that would seem to indicate that he had no right to establish a parish school.

“In November, having heard rumors of Father’s public attacks on private select schools, Sister Jeannette and I went over to his rectory to visit him.  When we asked him what was the trouble, he answered that there was no trouble but we had believed women’s gossip, etc.  However, during the course of the conversation, Father maintained that private grade schools should not exist anywhere in the country where the nation is dotted with parochial schools.

“We answered that this property had been purchased, with the permission of the Rt. Rev. Bishop, to open a novitiate to supply teachers for this diocese.  In order to support this novitiate, since we are only a teaching community, we had to open a school.  Then Sister Jeannette, turning, remarked, so we have priority of existence.  Evidently Father Zwisler has interpolated her remark, as Sister neither insinuated nor said that ‘he had no right to establish a parish school.’”

But that is not to say that the relationship was entirely competitive.  According to the same letter, when Father Zwisler first came to Akron the children of the Elms put on a program for him to celebrate the tenth anniversary of Armistice Day.  Father and especially his parochial vicar said Masses, instructed children, heard confessions, and even had entire classes spend a week at St. Sebastian School when preparing for First Communion, a forerunner of our current “Jesus Day.”

FRIDAY POTPOURRI: PARISH HISTORY: 1929 - HOPE AND WORRY

The parish school was established for the 1929-1930 school year.  Obviously without the school building finished yet, some accommodation had to be made.  The Knights of Columbus building at 272 West Market Street was put to use.  The hall of the building which is now the Teamsters Union Hall, was divided into makeshift classrooms for 220 students.  Holy Humility of Mary Sister were the first teachers of the parish.

Then on November 1^st, 1929, the new school building was ready to welcome its first students.  Not that the building was yet finished.  It would not be until Thanksgiving that the it would be dedicated and the first Mass not celebrated until four weeks after the school had taken up residence.

It is interesting to note that over the doors of the new building are the words, “Pro Deo” and “Pro Patria.”  This is translated as, “For God” and “For Country.”  Anti-Catholic sentiment was strong in the United States and many questioned if a Catholic could be a true and patriotic citizen while maintaining allegiance to the Pope in Rome.  Of course, patriotism to legitimate authority is a strong Catholic tenant and so these words in Latin were placed on this new building to show that not only were Sebastianites Catholic, they were also true citizens of the United States.

That Thanksgiving was said to be one of the nicest weather wise in years.  In the middle of once abandoned farm land stood a brand new church, school (main floor), office, convent (for twelve nuns on the top floor) and hall (in the basement) combination building of a modified Spanish architecture, decorated with red, white and blue swags, ready to begin servicing the people of the parish of St. Sebastian.  It was a building “of the modern school of stone and light brick with Romanesque detail.”

The happy day did not come without its downside.  Such a monumental building came with a huge price for such a young parish and it was straddled with a huge debt just as the country plunged into what is now recognized as one of the worst economic downturns in American history.

Though the combination building served many purposes, it did not serve as a rectory and a place for the priests to live was needed.  A house was rented at 454 Roslyn and would serve as the rectory until 1937.

IF YOU'VE GOT LEMONS MAKE LEMONADE. IF YOU DON'T HAVE LEMONS, PLANT A TREE

The other day I received a letter in the mail from a company that said it has helped other Catholic Parishes in my diocese to sell their empty buildings.  Those in my office had a hardy laugh at that as we are in desperate need of more space.  My office is supposed to be our living room and our new headmaster of the Academy has his office in an old storage room (another thing we are desperately short on.)  We are beyond being imaginative for space.  We are out.

In Florida and in other parts of the country they have to have a shoehorn ministry.  Even with large buildings and large schools there isn’t enough room for everybody to fit.  The Catholic population is growing too quickly.  In the magic triangle (Chicago, Washington D. C., Boston) we have the opposite problem.  As our parishioners are moving out, we are left with too many large, empty buildings.

Traditionally, in our diocese (Cleveland,) the emphasis has been sacraments and education.  So generally there is a church and attached to it a rectory, convent, and school.  With a downturn in the student demographic many of the schools (public, parochial, and private) are finding themselves with too few students to stay viable.  Hence the number of empty buildings.

OPPORTUNITY

Many people wring their hands and think that there is nothing here but gloom and doom.  If all you want is a traditional Cleveland parish with a church and school; it is.  They will still exist into the future but will become rarer.  

TWO POSSIBILITIES

There are two directions in which one might go.  The first is the viable position that as Catholic parishes we are trying to do too much.  In some cases we are running small city states providing often redundant programs already made available by the state.  In many people’s opinion, we should scale back to what a parish is supposed to be doing: sacraments, education, evangelization, social action.  Shedding the burden of buildings and their maintenance would free us to focus on being disciples for the world.  So let the school go down, sell (or rent) the building, ramp up your CCD program.

OR

Prepare for a different future.  While your school and parish is still strong, start imagining new programs that could take up space if and when the school starts to shrink is size.  This cries for extreme imagination, risk taking, and the idea that it is Okay to fail.  

When imagining such things, take stock of what is going on in your neighborhood and city.  What is needed?  What institutions can you partner up with?  What would bring life and notoriety (helpful when evangelizing) to the parish?  What can bring some income?  What is your demographic?  What skills do your parishioners have?

Once a building is empty, it deadly difficult to start up anything like a school again.  You may have been grandfathered on a whole bunch of new regulations that may kick in for you if you try to open back up.  It is vital to keep a smooth transition from one type of ministry to another.

At St. Sebastian we have three programs simmering that could easily take up much of our space if it ever came to that.  (Fortunately, it does not seem to!)  For the foreseeable future, we should never have a dark room (and, in fact, if I could, I would build.)  It can be as scary as missionary work - going into unknown territory and not knowing what exactly to expect.  But where would we be today if we didn’t have missionaries willing to fail in our past?

CATHOLIC SCHOOLS WEEK

Here is what I was able to pray with 350 children this morning:

“Set our hearts aflame, O Lord,

with the Spirit of your charity, we pray,

that we may always think thoughts

worthy and pleasing to your majesty

and love you sincerely in our brothers and sisters.”

IMHO those three seconds alone are what makes Catholic education invaluable to our nation.  That is not to say that public and secular schools cannot instill character (the public school down the street claims to do just that) but it is a lot more difficult if you don’t have a community agreed upon (and legal) moral system that you can teach.

Our public schools are not atheistic (nor are they in some sort of neutral state - that is impossible) but I think about the atheistic mindset and atheistic apostles.  An atheist can state what I said above about living charity and finding dignity and worth in his fellow man but in the end, it will only be a “good” because the speaker says so and that he was the power to enforce it.  (The school board and the Supreme Court says that I can say this!)

WARNING: This is coming out of the mind of a committed Catholic so there is a biased slant here.  But I think about what, if atheists got together every Sunday for an hour (or Friday, or Wednesday) what would they talk about as a replacement for worship of God?  If there is no God, which, by definition means there is no purpose or meaning for us or the universe, if everything is just chance and once we die there is no more life, no reward, no punishment, then every word that comes out of my mouth is completely useless unless it brings me comfort.  (Even helping someone else in the end is because it benefits or pleases me.)  If you are going to challenge this, please give the basis for your universal moral system that is employed other than in a might makes right scenario.  I would greatly appreciate it!

The only grounding for any moral system would only be the will of the majority or the powerful who have the backing to enforce the moral right.  Anyone who would get up in the “pulpit” would have one of two jobs: reminding all their duty to follow the will of the powerful or to convince everybody to change to their idea of the good to what they want.  But in the end, none of it will matter except to please the speaker.  The great consolation will be, in the last second of life as you realize that you are heading off into oblivion for all of eternity, that at least you were right in believing life is meaningless.

Champagne anyone?

A PARISH SCHOOL AT DISCOUNT PRICES

People bring me bulletins from other parishes.  I enjoy looking at what other places do for their publications.  One of the first things at which I look is their reporting of their collection.  Last week a bulletin was brought to me from St. John the Baptist Church in North Burlington, VT.  Apparently it is a very quaint and small parish.  The collection reported in the issue I received was $4,000.  I would have a heart attack and immediately try to sell off property if we only had a collection of that amount.  About 8 years ago it was estimated that this parish costs about $8,000 a day to keep rolling.  That $4,000 collection would have gotten us a little past lunch on Monday.

 

We are very fortunate to have a pre-school through 8^th grade parish school.  I am VERY glad for it.  But let me be clear: MOST Catholic parish elementary schools lose money.  Our school loses quite a bit of money.  These loses are made up from the collection basket and parishes do it willingly because we believe in Catholic education.  The Diocese of Cleveland sets soft guidelines that the parish subsidy of the school should not exceed 20% of the Sunday collection and many cross that line.  (We are under.)

 

Most families understand this.  But there are always a few (EVERY pastor talks about this) who volunteer no time, do not come to Mass at the parish, nor give anything extra but justify it by saying, “I give TONS of money to the parish through my tuition.”  The simple fact is that for most Catholic elementary schools, your tuition does not cover what it is costing the parish to educate your child.  The thousands you may be paying is a partial payment to the parish in what the actual costs are.  In many cases we are asking the least amount we can and still be able to keep the doors open.

 

Then there is the interesting situation in which persons send their child to one school but attend Mass at another parish.  It is a great thing that they are attending Mass, but they miss sight of the idea that it is the parish community of their child’s school that is helping pay to educate their child.  At least occasionally they should go to Mass and pray with the community that cares about their child so much that they are willing to donate extra funds toward his education. 

 

It is a great topic for pastors.  Nobody has the silver bullet to solve it.  How do you get people to Mass (which is the reason we have a school), how do you get people involved?  Unfortunately the ones who really listen are the ones who already pay their bills, give to the parish, volunteer, and worship with the community.  Especially in a struggling parish, if everyone did their part, tuition for everyone would stay lower.  That is the theory.

 

What would you do?

HOW MUCH IS ENOUGH?

There are 6.6 million Catholics in the United States.  There are approximately 38,000 priests.  Some of that number of priests includes those who are retired, sick, or in special ministry.  Of the lay people, even if they are retired or sick, they still need a priest.

 

Hopefully you are in an area where you have ready access to the sacraments.  But what we miss out on having “spare” priest around is the one who has time to go on a field trip with the school or teach in the classroom, goes to lay meetings, knocks on doors and sits down with someone for a cup of coffee.  Although the tide seems to be turning (very slowly) on the vocation crisis, the numbers simply will not be there for some time.  Even if one million men entered the seminary today, it would be six to ten years before they hit the street and retirements now are coming quickly.

 

We miss the nuns also.  The advantage with nuns at a parish today would not be one of cost.  Gone are the days when the nuns would work for almost nothing.  With smaller numbers they have needs too.  But here is the interesting thing: when the nuns went to the convent after school, they prayed together and ate dinner together in community.  You can bet that they talked about the school, about certain children that needed attention, asked for advice, all the topics that made for a stronger school. 

 

We are still blessed in Catholic schools with our lay teachers.  They are Catholic, most likely from the community and possibly even from the parish, and they believe in the mission of the school because believe me, they would not be there simply because the pay is so generous.  They have skin in the game more than just a paycheck. 

 

So there are some great areas of concern for prayer.  Beg the Master of Harvest to send more workers for the harvest: send more good priests, increase our nuns, make strong (and Catholic) our schools.

MONDAY DIARY: ALMOST EXCRUCIATINGLY TRUE STORIES: OUT OF THE MOUTHS OF BABES

It is always interesting to hear what you tell kids and what comes back out.

A Mom came up to me at Mass this past weekend and told me the story about her son.  At St. Sebastian Parish School we require the boys to wear ties for Mass day.  Usually Mass is on Thursday mornings but occasionally for various reasons it is on another day.  Such a day was a couple of weeks ago.  And this took place:

So she asked him to find out why he had to wear his tie that day.  Apparently somebody didn't read my bulletin article.  (If you are reading this - I'm just kidding.) 

 

The reason we had Mass that day was because we were on the last day of our 40 Hours (Eucharistic Devotions.)  Also at that Mass we introduced the new parochial vicar at St. Sebastian.  I'll let him introduce himself here.

Yes, he's one of those.

Anyway, Fr. K will be with us for the next 10 months (well, just slightly over 9 now) and he was introduced to the school that day.  The following was the result.

Actually, with this pope, it seems feasible. 

EVEN THOUGH THEY SAID NOT TO, I ALWAYS FEARED THAT I WOULD LOOK AT THE FLASH

Do you remember fire drills?  Do you remember tornado drills?  Do you remember nuclear bomb drills?  Welcome now to the age of deranged shooter drills.  Statistically, none of these things will happen to your school or the schools around you, but it happens often enough that it is wise to be prepared.  Statistics are not really 10%, 20%, or even 70%.  For you, it is either 0% or 100%.

I remember seeing this movie in gradeschool.  Somehow I never believed my desk would protect me from a bomb.

 

I hate that we have to practice lock downs and evacuations.  But what I do like is what a Catholic parish school can bring to the mix that nobody else can.  It is the same balm that is of aid for those going to help with the Ebola virus, the wars we are continually gearing up for, and freaky things like the school bus driver who died yesterday saving a 9 year old from the path of a runaway bus.  It is the sacrament of confession.

 

If you are part of the 100% statistic instead of the 0%, some may see it as simply tragic.  But we believe in everlasting life and being prepared for it whenever it should come.  This sacrament makes us always prepared.  Our goal is not to be here forever.  We are waiting in the airport terminal.  Granted, it is a great airport and is meant to be enjoyed.  But it is an airport, not our destination.  In this crazy age when planes are cancelled, rescheduled, or change locations, we must be prepared.  It doesn’t matter when the plane leaves, the point is to be on the plane when it does.  That means being vigilant; making sure the bases are covered; and having soul and body ready to go when the time comes.

THE SOUND OF SILENCE

In less than 15 years this parish will be celebrating its 100^th anniversary.  It isn’t too soon to start planning.  One of the things on the wish list is a restoration of the church building.  (N.B. restoration, not renovation)  There is one thing, however, that I would like to change though I do not know if it is possible and perhaps you might be able to help.  (No, not by sending in money – although if you want to it would not be refused!)

 

A few years ago while somewhere in Europe I came across a church (the only place I have ever seen it) where the kneelers were counterweighted so that when you stood up they slowly went up on their own and rested in an out-of-the-way upright position.  Normally this would involve people bending over to grab or kicking up with their feet the kneeler accompanied by great banging usually while trying to start the Pater Noster.  Like cell phones, totally distracting and annoying during the Mass.  The only problem is, after great searching on the internet, I have failed to find anything.

 

Here’s where you come in . . . have you seen such beasts?  Do you know who makes them?  If you do, would you kindly let me know???

 

IN OTHER NEWS:

 

NEW PET PEEVE:

There was a sign in my home town the other day that pleaded, “School is in.  Please drive slow.” 

 

Apparently we really need school to be in.  “Please drive slowLY.  Drive SLOWLY.  Cars are slow.  People are slow.  But one drives SLOWLY.  We goed to skool in order to be teached that their.

 

( I know.  Get over it.  My grammer is not perfect either.)

NOTHING NEW?

Perhaps you have heard the brouhaha over the new teacher’s contracts in the Diocese of Cleveland.  I do understand the angst about them.  Essentially there is nothing different about them per se, but on the other hand there is something very different about them.

 

What is not different about them is that there is no new information in them.  What was implied before is now spelled out.  A public life lived in accord with the faith was expected before and is expected now.

 

What is different is now it is spelled out on more controversial topics.  Living in invalid marriages, publically supporting abortion rights, and a host of other points have been spelled out more explicitly.  This is partly in response to the new healthcare mandates, partly to help stave off litigation, and partly to reestablish a stronger Catholic identity in our schools.

 

Is it a good idea?  Not being a lawyer or a politician I am not sold either way.  But there is an aspect of this whole dust storm that is coming to light that illuminates a profound misunderstanding about what we are (supposed to be) doing as Catholic schools.  A reading of some Letters to the Editor as of late give example.

 

One of these letters read something like this: “It is a shame that the Catholic Church is forcing the issue on what constitutes a good Catholic.  By limiting the pool of teachers, we will be missing out on great educators, which can only harm our schools and our students.  We want our kids to have the best teachers.”

 

Such a statement betrays a deep confusion of the nature of Catholic schools.  A Catholic school is not a public school, it is not even a private school, it is a parochial school.  Unlike public schools which are becoming more and more limited in passing on culture, discipline, ideas of right and wrong, good and evil, or even God, and unlike private schools who are there to simply provide a superior education (hopefully), a Catholic school is also about the formation of the human person, imbuing ideas of the good with very clear ideas of what that is.  She passes on truth, concepts of what is holy, beautiful, and how one should live embracing the respect of life, family, the dignity of the human person, and all that entails with the 2,000 year understanding of the revealed truths of the faith.

 

It is culture that we are passing on, not simply knowledge.  If it were not for the faith and the culture we would close our schools or make them profitable private schools as has happened to so many of our colleges and high schools. 

 

So let’s say there is a police officer that comes to your child’s school to teach about staying off of drugs.  He is very effective.  The kids love him.  He is popular with the parents.  But he also has a website promoting illegal drug use and the kids know it.  He admitted to the kids that he regularly uses drugs though they should stay off of them.  He was quoted in the newspaper as saying that drugs should be made legal and available.  No matter how good he is in the classroom and while in the school building, do you really want him teaching your kids about drugs?

 

Our faith is a culture, not a set of facts in a book.  It cannot be taught like math.  It is caught, not taught.  No one can “teach Catholicism” while living a life contrary to it for then it becomes a dead message.