I've had complaints that my posts are too wordy, but pointing out the planners' values isn't easy. This post, though, won't require much typing. This screenshot shows a search of "Conference for Pastoral Planning and Council Development" on the FutureChurch website. It makes my point for me.
Friday, March 9, 2012
Letting a Screenshot Speak for Me
I've had complaints that my posts are too wordy, but pointing out the planners' values isn't easy. This post, though, won't require much typing. This screenshot shows a search of "Conference for Pastoral Planning and Council Development" on the FutureChurch website. It makes my point for me.
More from St. John Neumann
One of the saint's biographers, Father W. Frean, C.SS.R., noted
that the “results which attended Neumann’s efforts were not attained without
stiff opposition from some quarters. For example, the pastor of St. Michael’s
refused to build a school, saying that the undertaking was an impossible one in the circumstances in which he found himself. The bishop
who was always very mild, but equally firm when God’s honor and the salvation
of souls demanded it, quietly informed the parish priest that if he did not do
this work, then he would find somebody else to do it for him.” Blessed John Neumann: The Helper of the
Afflicted, pp. 154-155 (Majellan Press 1963).
Things are different now. If a pastor says that it
is possible to keep a school open, his opinion is disregarded in favor of the conclusions of the lay bureaucrats. A priest’s career would be furthered by closing a school, not
by opening one. And the “salvation of souls” is a subject that is not addressed
by employees of the archdiocese.
Friday, March 2, 2012
Denouncing "New Doctrine" in the Inquirer
Now that the crisis is over for most schools I was
hoping that some reporting and commentary would appear in the papers that would
let people know what had happened and why, but there's been very little. Few reporters seem interested in doing more than printing whatever public
spokesmen happen to say.
Some reporters have brought out some interesting
facts, and I’ll try to highlight them in some future posts, but in the field of
commentary there’s only been one thing written that’s at all insightful, and it
appeared in the Inquirer of all places. I think the editors may have perceived it to be somehow
useful against the Church because they took its tone to be strident and maybe a little revolutionary.
A.J. Thomson, from Fishtown, was well-positioned to
learn something from this fight, and he did. He was instrumental in
the successful appeal of the plan to “merge” St. Laurentius with St. Peter the
Apostle, and have the regional school at St. Peter’s. I think that one may have
been important to the planners. I think they would have loved to have made the
Catholic school at the shrine of St. John Neumann into a regional rather than a
parish school. It certainly seems that their plan to close St Laurentius was
unnecessary, even under their criteria, since they were unable to come up with a basis for rejecting the
appeal.
His column appeared in the Inquirer on February 26.
Here’s an example of a sentence that I'm not quite sure about. “And like any
struggle for one’s identity, it made us better.” Well, I certainly agree that
it was an inspiring struggle. I also agree that it made us better. It got lots
of people together in a good way. Those who won accomplished something very
much worth doing. Those on our side who did not save their schools were also fighting for the right. But for
their “identity?” That strikes me as the kind of psychobabbly word that the
planners use. Maybe, though, he used it to mean “heritage.”
I very much liked this paragraph, which shows he’s
paying attention.
The archdiocesan officials who delivered the news of
the reprieves looked as if they were in the receiving line at their own
funerals. Their morose expressions underscored the vast distance between those
who want Catholic education and those who have concocted a Byzantine system for
telling us we can't have it.
The archbishop was happy. The rich guys were happy.
The politicians were happy. The planners and their minions weren’t. They didn’t
start this process to get lots of money at the last minute and save schools.
They started it to close schools. They don’t like the high schools being saved,
and they don’t like all those grade schools’ appeals being granted, showing how
shoddy and unsupported their “work” was. Mr. Thomson knows that the people he and
his friends fought against to keep St. Laurentius open were not trying to lose. They
were trying to win. Maybe the archbishop noticed and learned something from the way his employees acted when they were announcing the saved grade schools.
Mr. Thomson also has
spotted the most important issue. He knows that the excuse for the mass closing
of grade schools makes no sense.
The new doctrine
suggesting that a parish shouldn't support a school seems to come from a
mail-order business-school curriculum, not the tradition of Catholicism as we
know it in Philadelphia. The paramount aim of our church should be to educate
and instill our faith in as many of its young people as possible. For
centuries, it has been. Only now is the principle being questioned by a few.
Grade schools don't get money from the archdiocese. They used to be supported by the parishes. If Catholicism is a
religion, there’s no reason why parishes can’t support schools. St. John
Neumann’s whole idea was that parishes would support schools. The planners
never explain why parishes shouldn’t support schools, they just assert it.
I’ve got no business
quibbling with Mr. Thomson. He said, in the pages of the Inquirer, no less, in
the face of the violent disagreement of the entire archdiocesan bureaucracy,
save only the guy at the very top: “The paramount aim of our church should be
to educate and instill our faith in as many of its young people as possible.”
The planners have many, many goals that come before that one. I’m going to go
through with the quibble, though. This “new doctrine” comes from the Conference
for Pastoral Planning and Council Development and the Archdiocese of Philadelphia's
Office for Research and Planning. They don't preach this new doctrine for
business reasons. No business would deliberately damage its main source of new
customers. They preach their new doctrine because they want to be in an
entirely different business. This is an effective plan for getting the Church where they want it to be.
One more quibble. Mr.
Thomson compares the fight to the Civil War and Lincoln’s problem in getting
his generals to fight. He says that “it is time to ditch the McClellans―the
generals who shrink from a challenge,” and: “We should be asking the archbishop
to promote the Grants and Shermans.” Certainly the leaders in the fight to save
schools did the right thing. Leaping into the breach on very short notice and
putting up a good fight deserves praise. But what does Mr. Thomson want to be promoted
to? It may be this request that got his column into the Inquirer. They may have
thought he is fighting to reorganize the Church along the lines of Congregationalism,
or something. And some of the heroes in this battle were
not lay people. Father Olson of Bonner and Prendie certainly distinguished
himself in the fight.
More importantly, our
problem is not that we have too many McClellans. I wish the planners were more
timid. They faced the challenge of a new archbishop who might take away their control
of the diocese. They decided to meet that challenge as Michael Corleone would. They put together a plan to “settle all family business” on one day before the
new archbishop knew his new diocese.
Anyway, Mr. Thomson did
a great job. He saved his school, and he learned enough in the process to write
the most perceptive article on the school closings that I’ve seen published
anywhere, and he got it published in the Inquirer. I hope he heeds his own call to continue to fight for Catholic schools.
Mission Statement
The planners are quite dogmatic that a
mission statement is a requirement for every undertaking, so I’ve added one to
the sidebar.
Update: It’s been pointed
out to me that the planners now say you also need a “vision.” A mission
statement is without vitality nowadays if it doesn’t have a vision to go
along with it. So I have a committee going through a five stage series of
meetings to come up with one. There’s a lot of disagreement on the topic right
now. Some members of the committee are fighting hard for: “The paramount aim of our church should be to educate
and instill our faith in as many of its young people as possible.” Others are
pushing: “The employees of the archdiocese do
not believe that they are failing at running a Catholic school system. They
think they are succeeding in achieving goals of their own.”
Thursday, March 1, 2012
Tale of the Tweets
Am I right when I
say that the planners want to turn parishes into centers for the delivery of
social services? When I say they want to promote “lay ministry” over
Catholic schools? Well here’s what the planners have sent out on Twitter since
February 1.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
22%
of all Philly Catholic parishes provide nursing and health ministry at the
parish serving over 11,000 people last year.
23
Philly Catholic parishes provided literacy programs serving 1,254 people last
year.
Parishes
employ 146 Directors of the Rite for Christian Initiation of Adults who are
volunteers; 47 are employed either full or part time.
92%
of Philly sponsor Stations of the Cross during Lent. It is the most popular
form of religious devotion in Philly. bit.ly/hTalDh
The
Archdiocese consists of Episcopal Regions, Deaneries, Pastoral Planning Areas
and Parishes. (see map) archphila.org/pastplan/MAPS/…
10,957
infants, 1,768 children age 1-7 and 621 children age 7-17 were baptized in
Philly Catholic parishes last year. bit.ly/pxRusb
50%
of Philly Catholic parishes provide extended care (CARES) programs that serve
5,858 children
There
are 142 full time and 91 part time directors coordinators or administrators of
Religious education in Philly parishes
Senior
High school age parish religious education enrollment up15% in 5 years. archphila.org/pastplan/Rtp1/…
82%
of Philly parishes have Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. This is 3rd most
popular devotion in Philly. bit.ly/dpMto
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ten tweets.
Six on social services and lay ministry (CARES (?), literacy, health
ministry, PREP, DRE, RCIA), one on the planners’ obsession (maps and extra
layers of organization), three on Catholic stuff (benediction, baptisms,
stations) and none on Catholic schools.
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