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NOVEMBER VOICE
Europe is still safe! I am in Koln as I write for this issue of the Voice. I suspect that you will see the jet lagged traveler before you read this. I have had a wonderful time on vacation. The Deacon Ordination for Kenny St. Hilaire and Lucas Tomson was very moving. 27 fourth year theologians were ordained by Archbishop O’Brien, the head of the Military Archdiocese for the United States. He gave them a great instruction on the role of the deacon to serve the poor and the Church. Kenny and Lucas put on a dinner the night of the ordination. I think that was part of their service of the “poor”. I think there were 40 some people including the people from Spokane and Pasco who had come to the ordination. It was wonderful to think that there can be a very direct relationship between St. Peter’s in Rome and Eastern Washington. After a week in Rome, I spent a week in London. I spent a wonderful Sunday in London visiting the family of a St. Mary’s Parishioner. It was very special to get some insight into how Londoners live. This couple are natives to London and had great insight into their neighborhood and the spirit of London. I spent six days in Germany. On two days I visited the cities of Limburg and Wetzlar. Very interesting small cities with very ancient histories. The curator of the diocesan museum in Limburg reminded me that their city was founded in the ninth century. A beautiful stone bridge was built across the Lahn River. It was an important custom and toll point between Koln and the Byzantium.... Constantinople. Today the 700 year old medieval city has been restored in the beauty of its gothic spirit. If you want to know more about Wetzlar.... ask someone with that name and get him to explain why the Dom in Wetzlar is unique for its ecumenical sharing. Catholics come at 9am and Lutherans at 11am. There must be an interesting parish council. Parish Pictorial Directory The Religious Education Board has spear headed the renewal of the Parish Pictorial Directory. I am very pleased with this effort. New computer technology has tempted us to undertake a “do it yourself” methodology. Rather than engaging a commercial company who make their profit by selling the “settings” that they shoot, we will take our own pictures or use those supplied by families. The only cost will be the production costs for the directory. I have two hopes. First, with no pressure for sales of pictures, I hope that a vast majority of folks will get a picture taken or send us an digital copy of a picture which they want to have placed in the directory. My second hope is that this format will make it possible for the parish to update the directory on a more regular basis. Once the format and base pictures are programmed, the updating and printing of a new edition will be a regular possibility. I am sure it will be more difficult than I dream, but the directory is very important to me. I am so bad with names and the visual link is really helpful. So please, get your picture taken. All you have to do is smile... Christmas Masses The final note for this Voice is about the Christmas Mass schedule. Christmas occurs on Monday this year. After consultation with staff, Liturgy Committee and Parish Pastoral Council, we have set the Mass schedule for Christmas. We will celebrate the Fourth Sunday of Advent on December 23rd and 24th, but the Sunday Mass schedule will be modified. There will be a Saturday night Vigil Mass and Mass at 7:30 and 9:00am. THERE WILL BE NO 11:15AM MASS FOR THE FOURTH SUNDAY OF ADVENT. The cancellation of this Mass will make it possible to complete the Christmas decorations and preparations. The Christmas Mass schedule will follow the pattern of recent years. There will be a Christmas Eve Mass at 3:30 and 6:00pm. The Mass in the middle of the night will be at 10:00pm. So yes it is true, Virginia! What time is Midnight Mass? It will be at 10:00pm. There will be a Mass on Christmas Day at 10:00am.
How many Masses do you have to attend on this crazy weekend? That is a faith question for you and your family. I would really urge families to end their celebration of Advent by attending Mass on Saturday night. Then Sunday evening can be a very wonderful celebration of Christmas eve. It is a special moment now to plan your family Christmas celebration. There are many wonderful options for us to celebrate our faith in the birth of Christ in human flesh.
FALL VOICE - SEPTEMBER 2006 WISDOM OF GOD During the last week I was struck by the news article which spoke of the leader of Hezbulah being contrite about the military action that consumed Lebanon and Israel this Summer. It is hard for me to believe that someone in such a position of leadership could be so naive. He did not think that rockets and mortars would continue to escalate into more violence and destruction? Human violence can be so stupid? As we begin a new activity year, how do we broader our vision to understand that our Catholic community must be a witness against all forms of human violence and destruction. As we move toward a national election this Fall, I would like to suggest three great areas of challenge that call for our wisdom. We must all deepen our commitment to a broader vision about human dignity and human life. The first area of concern is health care. We live in an age that has been blessed with great new advances in health care, but this future calls for wisdom. We need wisdom to use the technoloy with real respect for human persons. This wisdom must be applied in the area of stem cell research, in the use of critical care methods, in the care of the elderly, and in the use of resources for health care. I personally find the issues very complex and very demanding. Wisdom calls for us to live beyond nice narrow easy answers. We must do our best to make choices for the common good about the use of technology, the provision of health care to all citizens, and the choices we make in the difficult times at the end of human life. The second area of concern is immigration. I am the grandson of immigrants. Most of us are only one or two generations removed from people who came to this land of promise with the hope of a better life. The world of the 19th century immigrants has been radically transformed by modern transportation. The globe has been shrunk. The power of borders, language and cultural traditions continues to diminish. God did not draw the border lines. Wisdom calls us to understand that the migration of peoples is a continuing human reality. Wisdom calls us to respect the contributions of immigrants in terms of work and social involvement in our land. You cannot turn the clock back to an era that never existed when everyone stayed in one place. The third area of concern is the interface which we must make with the Muslim world. I do not know about you, but I understand very little about the religious and cultural realities of this part of our civilization. As the world shrinks, we are challenged as a nation to face the reality that the battles of the Crusades have never been resolved. Wisdom would suggest to us that the resolution of these cultural, religious, and historical conflicts is far beyond military and political power. We are called to conversion of heart. Finally, a word about the diocesan bankruptcy. I hope that the continuation of the mediation during September in Reno will bring about a consensual settlement. Anything else will be Armageddon. After participating in the three days of mediation last week, I am hopeful that this will take place. The resolution will not be pleasant. Victims will feel cheated. The Diocesan structure will be completely emptied, and parish communities will be forced to make a monetary commitment which some will feel is unjust. But the evil that has touched our Church must be resolved. The number of true victims is enormous. The resolution must be enormous. Our willingness to move beyond this must be enormous. That is the Wisdom which must prevail.
VOICE APRIL, 2006 Holy Week and Easter were wonderful at St. Mary’s The faith and devotion of all those who shared in the celebrations of our faith again renewed me in the mystery of the power of the Cross to make our lives new. Thank you to all those involved in the planning, the music, and the ministries which enhance and deepen these wonderful faith experiences. Since the first of February we have been involved in seeking your support for the Annual Catholic Appeal for 2006. I had hoped that we would make our goal by Easter Sunday. Not quite! But we are so very close. On Easter the report from the diocese indicated that St. Mary’s had pledged $118,371. That is 93.5% of our goal of $126,600. So at this point we are only $8,229 short of the goal. Some 25.3% of our parish households have participated so for. A 30% participation would be wonderful. If you have not yet responded to this important request to support the ministry of our Bishop and Diocese, I hope that you would prayerfully consider both the need and the importance of the ACA. It is time to offer a very special welcome to St. Mary’s to Father Jim Kuhns who has been assigned to Senior Status at St. Mary’s by Bishop Skylstad effective August 1st. I am very pleased that Father Jim has agreed to come and reside here at St. Mary’s and to provide the presence of another priest to serve the pastoral needs of this community. What does this Senior Status business mean? Fr. Jim is retiring as pastor of Our Lady of Fatima Parish in Spokane on August 1. That is the day after his 71st birthday! He has been pastor of Our Lady of Fatima for the last 12 years. During that time he has led that parish community in a process which culminated in the building of a very beautiful new Church at Our Lady of Fatima. So after 45 years of ministry in our Diocese he has chosen to accept an assignment as Senior Status here at St. Mary’s. That means he will be residing here in the other end of the duplex. He will provide part time assistance in liturgical service to the parish. The best part from my perspective, he will be available to take my place if I take a few more days off in the next couple of years. Senior Status means no responsibility for anything that he does not want to do, no meetings, no meetings and no meetings. Fr. Jim grew up in Peoria, Illinois. He was ordained for our diocese in 1961 after studies at the Josephinum Seminary in Columbus, Ohio. He was a contemporary of Bishop Skylstad at that Seminary. He has served our diocese in a wide variety of assignments including Walla Walla, Pullman, Cheney, Bishop White Seminary and St. Francis Xavier, St. Thomas More, the Cathedral, Our Lady of Fatima, Sacred Heart and St. John Vianney parishes in Spokane. Fr. Jim and I were together at St. John Vianney fifteen years ago. Father Jim will be moving into the Duplex at the end of July. During the month of August he is going to celebrate retirement by going sailing with his brother on the East Coast. So we can look forward to his joining us around the Labor Day. I am very happy about this.
A final word: At the last Parish Pastoral Council meeting we discussed having a general meeting of parishioners to provide an update on the status of the Diocesan bankruptcy and its impact on our parish. That status is in continual flux and the local impact remains fundamentally a matter of conjecture at this point. As soon as there is a significant moment in the process with some clearer information, we will schedule this meeting.
VOICE - MARCH 2006 - Bankruptcy and Settlement update On February 15, the Parish Pastoral Council reviewed this update and made a number of very good suggestions to help clarify this message to all the parish community. I am very grateful to them for their wisdom and concern. After over a year of media, litigation, and lawyering, the Bishop has presented the one group of 75 victims of sexual abuse a proposed settlement offer. The representative committee of this group agreed to accept the offer and present it to the 75 victims. They have until sometime around the end of May to approve the settlement. Our prayer is that this is the first step toward bringing a completion to the litigation and bankruptcy issues. Even though all the steps are interrelated and many challenges remain, this is a hope filled moment. The court set date for the “bar of claims” is March 10th. So until that date passes, there is no complete certainty to the reality of other claims. At the time of this writing, there are at least 20 more additional claims. Little is known about over half of them, some have been known even before the bankruptcy. There remains two other significant claims against the resolution of the diocesan bankruptcy: the deposits of over $3 million dollars belonging to individual parishes and institutions which were in the deposit and loan revolving fund for construction and another $3million dollars which was designated by wills and estates (mainly of priests) to fund the priests retirement. (This is not the contributions to the campaign held 15 years ago for priests’ retirement. That money is held by the Catholic Foundation.) The settlement proposal was for $45.7 million dollars. The presentation of the settlement by the Bishop to the priests of the Diocese included a general expectation of how this and approximately an additional $15-20 Million could be funded over the next four years as is required by the settlement. The commitment as given in the proposal ends up as having the property of the parishes of the diocese as the final guarantee of the remainder after all diocesan assets, insurance, and other contributions by other entities are used. The Association of Parishes is deeply concerned about this aspect of the proposed settlement. The diocese has committed all its assets, about $7-8million to the settlement, but the other commitments are not yet determined. The most significant concern is the amount of money which will come from insurance. In simplest terms, what does not come from insurance will come from the parishes, and their assets. While the legal question regarding the ownership of parish assets remains before the court in appeal of the bankruptcy judges ruling, in the end the moral question for the Bishop, pastors and parish leadership is very simple: Is this Parish willing to give consent to the pledging of its property and assets to guarantee the funding of this resolution? And the second question follows from this pledge, Is our parish capable of meeting a commitment to funding the settlement without grave fear of defaulting on its share with the possibility of losing its property and assets? One of the Association of Parishes’ attorneys asked the question in a simple mathematical formula: If A + B + C + D = total funding, and A is the fixed and limited assets of the Diocese, and B is the fixed amount of an agreement with the six Insurance Carriers involved, and C is a set agreed amount given by other liable and involved entities, D becomes the uncertain and clearly undefined expectation of the 81 parish communities of the Diocese, together and individually. I have presented this evaluation to the Parish Council and will present it in the future to the Parish Finance Council. The Parish Council’s reflection was very helpful. In view of the judges ruling and present legal disposition of the parish properties any unwillingness of the parish to pledge of our assets is secondary to legal determinations now in place and we need to accept that legal fact. Until some of the uncertainties (especially additional claims) and funding (especially insurance) become much clearer, I find it very difficult to evaluate the ability of our community to respond to the question of our capability to raising the dollars needed to fund the settlement costs.
The last word from the Parish Council is most important. The Council is deeply moved by the continuing faith of this community manifested by the great economic support which has continued for parish ministry during this time of trial. We need to pray and to have hope. The Parish Council suggested that the prayer intention of this year’s celebration of the Stations of the Cross and Benediction each Friday night during Lent be the just and complete settlement of the victims claims and the completion of the Chapter 11 reorganization. We come to the Cross with great hope that the sacrifice we are called to embrace will do justice, bring spiritual healing, renew us, and lead us to a healthier and more grace filled life as a Catholic community.
VOICE JANUARY 2006
The beginning of a new year gives us the opportunity to renew our spirit of hope. Sometime we get our world view hammered with so many negative experiences that we tend to dismiss the hopeful elements of life which we experience. I would like to give you three quick pictures of hope.
The first picture has two parts. On December 3rd I was in Leuven, Belgium for the ordination of Alex Zepeda as a deacon for the service of our diocese and on December 21st Bishop Skylstad ordained two priests and another deacon at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Lourdes. Including the two priests ordained on December 21st, our local Church will have nine or ten new priests ordained in the next eighteen months. The men ordained to server our Church will have diverse backgrounds and different educational and formational experiences. But their common commitment is to serve the Church in the Diocese of Spokane. All of them have spent time at Bishop White Seminary here in Spokane. Our local seminary program has been very successful. We should be very glad about that. Much of that success comes from the hard work of Father Darrin Connall, whose own history is linked to St, Mary’s. This is a reason for us to be hope filled.
My second picture is our local care of the poor. So many good things happen. We should be very filled with hope as we consider all the good done by our Catholic community. Here at St. Mary’s there was a wonderful response to the Tree of Sharing in cooperation with the Valley Center. Many of you have helped St. Vincent de Paul in providing basic necessities for the poor in our area. One day before Christmas our parish staff volunteered at the Christmas Bureau. Because of the relationship between Catholic Charities and the Christmas Bureau many of the volunteers and leaders of this yearly response to the poor come from our Catholic community. My experience of being at the Bureau one afternoon was an opportunity to meet many folks from Spokane parishes putting their time and their commitment at the service of needy families. Each family got a food voucher, books and toys for kids and an experience that somebody wanted to share their need. What a hopeful experience!.
My last picture comes from the national news. On December 16 and 17th the United States Congress passed legislation committing funding and research dollars to umbilical stem cell and bone marrow research. After much posturing around embryonic stem cell research, this new legislation moves from an area that is morally questionable and without any real track record of success to an area which has hope for great advances in medical research. The legislation authorizes $265 million in federal funding for research and therapy involving cord blood and bone marrow. Of that total, $79 million would go toward the collection of cord-blood stem cells, with the goal of reaching a genetically diverse inventory of 150,000 units. It also reauthorizes the national bone-marrow transplant system at $186 million over the next five years and combines the cord-blood and bone-marrow programs to provide a single information source for doctors and patients. This legislation was passed almost unanimously by the Congress. If people work together to do what we can do, there is great hope for the future.
I hope we can begin 2006 filled with hope!
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