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Fed-Ex, Amazon, USPS, and the other delivery services make frequent stops at the Café, and the books get piled on my desk while the drivers stop for coffee. As the house reviewer, I generally read all of them, though there is often a lag before I can post a review/discussion on the Café site, and sometimes on Amazon’s review site. I read peer reviews of books before I order a new one, and generally that works out well. But it does happen that occasionally I read a book I don’t fully understand, or I find difficulty in conveying it accurately and attractively to Café readers.
It took me a while to get the drift of The End of Theological Education [2023] by Ted A. Smith, a Presbyterian minister and highly respected professor, author, and academic dean, now Charles Howard Candler Professor of Divinity [Emory University in Atlanta.]. The light finally clicked when I realized that Dr. Smith was attempting to address for his Protestant tradition what Roman Catholic thinkers/academics have been anguishing over ours—what ever happened to our churches since World War II or Vatican II, and what can we do about our mass exodus [no pun intended.] It later dawned on me that earlier this year I had written an Amazon review of the Catholic theologian Massimo Fagioli’s work on the decline of Catholic education in the U.S. [See review here.] Smith’s title to his work here, The End of Theological Education, can be taken in two ways. Is he addressing the purpose or ends of theological study, or is he preparing us for the funeral of the sacred sciences in their traditional form? If the latter, this would be a massive loss to all Christianity, including the Catholic community. Mainstream Protestantism has a long history in the United States and Europe of pastoral ministry and theological excellence. We forget that almost a century ago Pope Pius XII in his encyclical Divino Afflante Spiritu [1943] allowed Catholic scholars to use the methods of Biblical research that Protestant scholars had developed as early as 1900. I myself begin my personal biblical thinking and study using the “form and redaction critical methods” developed by Protestant scholars, particularly Germans, in the first half of the twentieth century and taught in my Catholic seminary in the late 1960’s and beyond. Smith, a devout Presbyterian, employs what one might call a “sociological overview” of Protestantism in America, e.g., how did Presbyterians, Methodists, and other churches organize themselves in this country, maintain healthy congregations, and establish strong roots through theological colleges and seminaries. A major factor was timing. Protestantism arrived on our eastern shores of the thirteen colonies long before Roman Catholicism, and it arrived energized by John Wesley and the Methodist revival. While the new American Constitution established separation of church and state, this separation applied only at the federal level; post-colonial state governments still permitted established religions in individual states. Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island were three states where the state paid for the upkeep and salary of the [Protestant] pastors. But when the public University of Virginia was established in 1819, Thomas Jefferson threatened to withdraw his sponsorship/endowment because the state planned to charter the school as a religious institution. By the 1820’s, however, the principle of separation of church and state carried the day even at the local level. Through the first half of the nineteenth century the influx of settlers to America was primarily European and Protestant. Minnesota, for example, was a favorite settlement of Lutherans. Mission country extended from east of the Mississippi to the Rocky Mountains. New Protestant seminaries turned out pastors to establish congregations even in small towns. The local churches, in turn, nurtured themselves through numerous parish societies, an excellent model that met civil needs of order and religious needs of catechesis and common Bible study and prayer. Roman Catholic immigrants, for the most part, came later, at a time when large cities were well established: New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. There the need was cheap labor. Immigrants were advised to immediately see the pastor for aid and the ward boss for a job. It is not hard to see that the need for Protestant pastors would serve as the impetus for the development of seminaries and religion establishment universities. Increase Mather, Cotton Mather’s brother, was the first recipient of the Doctor of Divinity Degree from Harvard University—in 1692! St. Mary’s Catholic Seminary in Baltimore, the first U.S. Catholic seminary, opened its doors in 1792, and it owned slaves. Smith emphasizes that Protestant seminaries succeeded in large part because of the religious tradition’s then broad understanding of ministry. Protestant seminaries for mission work formed what we would call today social workers and case managers as well as preachers to serve the needs of their congregations and the broader needs of the towns in which they were settled. Thus, across many denominations the “Social Gospel” movement stepped forward to help the poor and kept alive the long tradition of community service; Lyndon Johnson, according to one biographer, was religiously influenced in his youth toward social justice, and of course is famous today for Head Start and Medicare in the 1960’s. Demographics through World War II reflected the U.S. as a predominantly Protestant country; the election of Catholic John Kennedy to the American Presidency in 1960 was not without considerable controversy. However, after World War II the GI Bill allowed millions of blue-collar Catholic veterans to seek admission to Catholic colleges and others across the country. My father, who mustered out of the service to manage a small country movie house, went to business school in Buffalo on the GI Bill and ultimately became a hospital administrator in 1961. Stories like these are too numerous to count. Regarding church life, while it is true that “all ships rise at high tide,” some were rising ahead of the tide and others were taking on water. Smith devotes considerable time and space to the decline of postwar Protestantism [and religion in general] to “individualization.” It is hard to precisely define the word, though Smith treats it at length [pp. 65-93]. Merriam-Webster’s dictionary example uses the word in a positive sense: “Teachers should individualize their lessons to address differences in their students.” But many observers of religion, not just our author, saw a profound shift from organized churches centered upon God, family, and community, to a dangerous extreme of individualism. For congregations, whose social underpinnings rested upon unified social faith and works, the post-World War II drift toward self-determination of faith would obviously present a major blow to a long tradition of practice. “I am a spiritual person; I just don’t believe in religions” did not become a slogan in the 2020’s; it probably summarized the thinking of Renaissance and Enlightened men of letters, Thomas Jefferson being a good example. But particularly after the two world wars and the Holocaust, no Western Christian religion could be the Biblical “city on the hill” of virtue, and it is hard to criticize any sincere person from despairing of organized religion in the post-war twentieth century. Denominations bound by familial groups and strong bonds would suffer significantly. Smith expresses concern that the post-war Protestant seminaries were not facing the crisis of shrinking denominations. For one thing, divinity school faculties still maintained the unspoken but real principle of “publish or parish,” i.e., academic tenure and reputation still reigned supreme in twentieth century institutions which still awarded professional certifications [degrees] with the same pride as medical and law school. Protestant seminaries were producing future academic cleric-preachers when the cry on the streets called for more soup kitchen clerics. Ironically, Roman Catholics, in its postwar mea culpa, convoked a universal rethinking of its mission in the world, the Ecumenical Council Vatican II [1962-1965]. Having spent centuries developing theology and pastoral practice centered around saving one’s soul in the solitary confines of the confessional, the world’s bishops threw open the windows for fresh air, or in Pope John XXIII’s famous call, “aggiornamento!” The thrust of the postconciliar decades was a more tangible community experience, from worship to social outreach. For years now I have heard Catholics disgruntled with the Vatican II reforms complain that “we’re turning into Protestants.” There is truth to that. When the first English Masses were convoked in the mid-1960’s, we turned to the Lutherans for “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God” and other hymns with manageable arrangements that even men can sing. We drank from the cup at communion time; we elected parish councils; our bishops began meeting in synods twice annually. We even celebrated Penance in groups outside the confessional, at least for a while. And yet, no one can say that 2025 is a halcyon year for Catholics generally. Vatican II concluded 60 years ago. Have our reforms made us “better,” however one chooses to define that word? American Catholicism is more divided now than at any time in my lifetime, except that now we are publicly enmeshed in ugly partisan secular politics. Ted Smith does not have magic answers for the turmoil of the times, but his book does remind those of us in other Christian communities that renewal is hard. Hopefully, the seminaries in his faith tradition are teaching the true cost of discipleship, as I hope the seminaries in my faith community are doing likewise.
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Hidden Valley Road [2020] came to my attention through my wife’s book club. Margaret was engrossed by this non-fiction narrative of a large Catholic family beset with a cruel disease, side-by-side with actual medical hypotheses and studies, and as I am a psychotherapist, she would share her layperson's observations. So of course I purchased my own copy, and I have to say that rarely have I seen the suffering of mental illness in real time coupled with the agonizing and pressured research of scientists to find the cause of a specific and dangerous syndrome. I wish I could say this narrative was unique, but it is not…because mental illness impacts our church communities, including our priests, as this story reveals. The author is the award-winning New York Times’ Robert Kolker.
THE FAMILY NARRATIVE: First off, I need to assure you that all the family narrative is based on the best available evidence, including self-reporting and releasing of family medical records. The family names are pseudonyms to protect privacy. The story begins with the marriage of Don and Mimi Galvin. Don was a strict Catholic from birth; Mimi converted to Catholicism at some point in the marriage. They were married during World War II. Don’s exact position with his military superiors is never exactly defined in the book. Don is inclined to exaggerate his importance at times to his family, referring to himself as an intimate advisor to President Eisenhauer, for example. But he and Mimi were frequently invited to military high society functions. In their gravy years with the military the Galvins made close friends with a millionaire couple who play a continuing role in the Galvin story, though different Galvin children remember them as positive and negative influences. Also, a factor, Don Galvin’s income was considerably lower than that of his associates. The author notes that Don Galvin’s Catholicism was lived out in the couple’s having twelve children between 1945 and 1965, though Kolker, an author with the eye of a therapist, comes to believe that the later children may have been conceived for Mimi’s needs, even more than Don’s. The first ten were boys, the last two, girls. As their firstborn son, Donald, passed into adolescence, he began to manifest an angry, physical, aggressive behavior, particularly toward the next oldest sibling, who responded in kind. As the years progressed, six of the boys demonstrated this angry, aggressive behavior; four did not. Donald was the first—but certainly not the last--in his family to encounter the world of psychiatric treatment, and several self-destructive episodes led to the first entry in his chart, “possible schizophrenic reaction.” Schizophrenia. [p. 63] A CROSS NO ONE SHOULD BEAR: Kolker does an excellent interplay in whisking the reader between the growing drama of six sons presenting schizophrenic symptoms, on the one hand, and the development of treatment modalities over the many years of the family affliction. The Galvins’ children grew up during a time of considerable disagreement and animosity in the mental health community. On the one hand were the “talking cure” practitioners, descendants of Freudian psychoanalysis, who believed that all psychotic behavior was a product of inner conflicts which could be resolved by talking out and identifying the heart of the conflict. But on the other side were practitioners and researchers who believed that the disease was organic, most likely in one or more regions of the brain, and that the best treatments were medical—hospitalization, medication, and electroshock, if necessary. The six Galvin boys ran the gamut of such treatments and institutionalizations throughout their lives, but they [and the rest of their family] became the object of intense medical research across the country. Multiple cases of schizophrenia in a family are highly unusual; the odds against six identified subjects in a nuclear family are in the trillions. In the quest to study the genesis of the disease, all the members of the family were studied and tested to detect a genetic marker peculiar to or absent from the six afflicted boys, and the other way around, a process that went on for decades. The symptoms of schizophrenia, defined here by the Mayo Clinic, explain how hard it is for a patient to exist in a “normal setting” such as a home or apartment. This disease falls into the category of “personality disorder,” or disorder of thought, which one of my professors described as bad wiring in the brain. Schizophrenia and other personality disorders are worlds apart, treatment wise, from ‘disorders of mood” such as depression, anxiety, panic attacks, etc. Therapy assists depressed patients because the patients’ thought processes, although often mistaken, are intact enough to implement changes of circumstances and behavior with traditional therapy and modest medication. Medications for mood disorders are far more benign, although the risk of suicide increases with depressed mood. There is more known to science about mood disorder, though not enough. I myself have taken antidepressants since 1990—but it took seven different meds and ten years to find the right one. My drug, nefazodone, is an SNRI or “selective norepinephrine reception inhibitor” in the brain, a cousin to the SSRI Prozac/fluoxetine family, which inhibits serotonin reuptake. However, when I go for my refills, the pharmacy instructions always begin with “the full operation of this medication is still not entirely understood.” A fair statement for much of what we do in psychiatry and mental health practice. LIFE IN THE GALVIN HOUSEHOLD. Mimi strove to keep her family together. In practice this meant providing room and board for her six afflicted sons as they spent their adulthood cycling through hospitalizations, prisons, flop-house arrangements, and extended periods of wandering the countryside. Compliance with prescribed medications was hard to enforce. [See the side effects of thorazine.]Money was tight, particularly after Don’s retirement from the military. Often the family could not afford topflight mental health facilities and was forced to institutionalize sons in lower budget state facilities for months at a time. During their time at home at Hidden Valley Road, Mimi did her best to police some kind of order—regular meals, hygiene, etc.—but at best the atmosphere was chaotic, and at times dangerous. Personality disorders are marked by inability to feel for others. And while schizophrenia creates numerous impairments, sexual drive is often not impaired. As the Galvin family grew up, with multiple unhealthy men coming into the prime of adulthood and sexual drive, the situation of the two youngest girls [offspring #11 and #12] just coming into puberty created a seriously unsafe environment. At this juncture Mimi accepted an offer from an affluent couple in her circle to allow the oldest girl to live with this other family for some years, in a high society environment with the best schools. This was a cruel blow to the younger sister who for years afterward wondered why she had been left behind. I myself puzzled over the intentions of Mimi and the generous couple; if the latter took the older girl to save her, so to speak, why leave the younger and more vulnerable one behind? Don would eventually die of cancer, and the deaths of most of the afflicted sons would open a new psychological episode for the family: processing the questions and angers of the six who were not physically afflicted by schizophrenia. In the final chapters of this work, Kolker interviews the two youngest daughters at some length to explore the lot of the survivors, so to speak. Three of the four unafflicted brothers maintained relationships with Mimi and the homestead, though they wisely kept their children [and themselves] at a safe distance. The daughters likewise married, though they were wary of reassurances of researchers that their offspring were not at higher risk for inheriting schizophrenia. In fact, an autopsy of Don’s brain found no abnormalities, a point that Mimi did not acknowledge to herself. As Kolker observes, “Mimi knew what she knew.” In reading the family postmortem, so to speak, what appears to have troubled Mimi’s surviving children was their mother’s perfection and autocratic ways, specifically her determination to care for her sick boys above everything else. Mimi never totally accepted a medical cause for her sons’ illnesses—in her older years she blamed her husband’s family despite the absence of medical proof available at the time. But in her declining years in the 1990’s she learned of a stunning betrayal of her trust years earlier that, in her mind but probably wrongly, became the lynchpin of her interpretation of the family’s troubles in her final reckonings before her death. The two sisters, Margaret and Mary/Lindsay, “had issues” between them—as in why one got cut loose and the other left behind in the mayhem. However, they came to realize that they would be the final chroniclers of this long and tragic epic, as well as the glue that held the surviving family together, and both became valuable sources as Kolker rounds out his narrative. LOOKING AT THIS NARRATIVE FROM THE VANTAGE POINT OF CATHOLIC LIFE: The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops lists the “corporal works of mercy,” and it says this about the sick: “Offer to assist caregivers of chronically sick family members on a one-time or periodic basis. Give caregivers time off from their caregiving responsibilities so they can rest, complete personal chores, or enjoy a relaxing break.” This is excellent counsel, to be sure, although some forms of illness present with dangerous symptoms—infectious conditions, for example, or schizophrenic chaos. If a parish is considering a ministry to the sick and to caregivers, it would be wise to seek professional input in staff planning and recruiting volunteers as well as periodic continuing education for those working with the sick. It is a common feature of personality disordered individuals to deny they are ill or different in any way…and hence, can be highly resistant to prescribed drugs, or even suggestions meant to help. I learned this the hard way in the confessional. I had a penitent who was caught up in a situation which caused serious anxiety and guilt. After some weeks I became confident that the penitent might be suffering from obsessive compulsive disorder as the root cause. So, I said, “You know, the next time you see your doc, ask if a tricyclic antidepressant might help you regain control.” The penitent roared back: “I don’t come in here for headshrinker bull----. I come for absolution.” So much for my good intentions. But it is true that some forms of disease require unusual and extraordinary methods of comforting access. And to paraphrase Jesus, some issues are addressed only by prayer and fasting. The same is true with family members of the sick. Mimi, for example, had her way of caring for family business. An astute parish minister visiting her house might take considerable issue with the makeup and management of the home, but still need to find the prayer, the interaction, and the practical assistance to lift the spiritual and possibly even the physical burden of the caregiver for a time. If you are an extraordinary minister of the Eucharist, you should probably discuss the condition of your patient[s] and their settings with your pastor in reference to their symptoms and behaviors as well as the possibility to administer the sacrament in a meaningful and devout fashion. [When I ran this sentence past my wife, who had read the book before me, she said “you mean, a minister might feel awkward giving communion with adult Donald walking stark naked through the house,” as was his wont.] The story detailed in Hidden Valley Road covers nearly a half century. Although the author is able to identify some progress of science over that time including the extraordinary sacrifices of individual scientists, a definition of schizophrenia, let alone a cure, remains far into the future. The treatment and containment of patients today is basically the same as that employed in the care of the Garvin boys. We have a long way to go to ameliorate, let alone cure, many diseases that cripple individuals and disrupt families and marriages. While Catholic teachings in recent years such as Fratelli Tutti have exhorted us to become more engaged in thinking and acting as a community in the care of the planet, health care in our country and the world is a demanding issue crying for help. It is also an issue that involves individuals of all faiths and cultures. Catholic Americans can be rightly proud of our history of the care of the sick. Historians of both the Confederate and Union Armies of the Civil War highlight the extraordinary interventions of Catholic sisters in treating wounded soldiers across the entire landscape of that war. Today, health care is a business, and everyone is a player—and a present or potential client as well. Each of us is also a taxpayer, hopefully an informed one. The past years and months have not been kind to honest medicine. Massive federal and state cuts have impacted the health services currently available, Medicare and Medicaid, among others. Monies for research are harder to come by. Each year during “Medicare reset time” either I or the people close to me relate how our long-time providers are no longer “in-network” and our copays, naturally, are increased. Kolker is eminently fair in his narrative, but he does observe that Big Pharma has not been motivated to aggressively pursue new formularies for schizophrenic disorder. In our sermon last night [Saturday, September 27], our celebrant developed a magnificent theme about Lazarus the poor man. Lazarus was not just poor; he was also “covered with sores,” as St. Luke describes him. “The dogs came and licked his sores.” Lazarus was shut out from sustenance and health care by the gate at the rich man’s residence. And, more chilling, the day is coming when the circumstances will be reversed, and Lazarus will recline in health and rest in Abraham’s bosom while the rich man was consumed in the fires of judgment. That day is coming for us, too. Let it be said that we opened our mouths and cried for a national compassion and a just system of healing. God expects that none of his children will be locked out of humanity and left to be licked by dogs. Martin Luther did not single-handedly redefine western Christianity. His friends and confidants, and later agents of “civil” governments, promulgated and expounded the central keys of Luther’s theology in a variety of ways and for multiple purposes and interpretations, such that baptism no longer meant the same things across individual and communal consciences by the time of his death. By the same token, his opponents and enemies chose to interpret his body of work in the narrowest of constraints as devoid of any relevance to the pastoral condition of the Catholic Church, in a monumental effort to protect and preserve the historical structure of belief and practice.
Whether one admires Luther or not, he did enjoy exquisite timing. In his excellent history of the medieval era, the historian Kevin Madigan [Medieval Christianity, 2015] concludes by summarizing the mood of Catholics on the eve of Luther as torn between frantic efforts to be saved [e.g., indulgences], and massive depression and despair of the very possibility of salvation. Luther, if I remember all the details of this work, never resorted to the rush to efficacious relics for salvific guarantees, even if his protector, Frederick the Wise, owned over 19,000 of them. Luther’s desperation was the “perfect sacramental confession,” which sometimes stretched to six hours. Scrupulosity was his idol in his early years, but Luther at least came to gradual insight to know he was living a sick variant of a religious life. This unbearable tension on the question of salvation played out in the flesh and bones of Martin Luther. Eric Metaxas understands his subject, Luther, and his times equally well. But the author stays thoroughly with Luther throughout his work. To be sure, there are engaging figures passing through the German landscape in the religious upheavals of the times. The anguish of the tormented Augustinian monk, his scrupulosity and fear of damnation, summarizes the catch-22 of thoughtful Christians throughout the medieval era. Luther’s unique position in history is his eventual understanding that the malaise of religion was not simply a matter of reforming it. Wycliff and Hus had trod that road before, to their peril, and even Francis of Assisi and Innocent III did not dare pose a redefinition of the road to salvation; until Luther, the stock solution toward reform was repaving the road, not dismantling it. Luther came to understand that the psycho-religious crisis of his time required a new hermeneutic or interpretive key: a turn to the Bible and an interpretation of the Word in which God’s mercy, manifested in the crucifixion of Jesus, became a highly personal encounter. Luther does for religion what Rene Descartes would do for philosophy a century later with the Frenchman’s “I think, therefore I am.” For Luther, it was belief in the God within him by which the Christian can state, “I am.” Metaxas carries forth the narrative of Luther’s insight and conversion with precision and detail, in a way that the reader can sense the psychological peace that Luther found in his discovery of God’s personal affection and the very real possibility of divine communion, heart to heart. Luther was not an intentional iconoclast, though it might seem so from the distance of time. His theological reflections led him to disengage his followers from traditional church practices that, in his view, interfered or obstructed the believer’s access to a personal communion with the Word of God. For example, his reduction of Church sacraments from seven to two is based not just on the premise that Christ, in his view, never explicitly instituted five of the sacraments, but also on his reservations whether all the sacraments do what they are purported to do. Consider Holy Orders. Luther was a priest himself, and he certainly witnessed other priests of weak faith and immoral conduct. In the theology of the time, and even today in Roman Catholic practice, the integrity of the rite superseded the disposition of the priest. A “bad priest” can bring saving grace, so to speak, a premise Luther found erroneous. [Of course, the reader is free to respond with the question of whether any priest is truly holy enough to affect the consecration of the bread and wine or other miracles of God contained in the sacraments.] At the same time, the author does not whitewash the sufferings of an aging man who is of sound enough mind to realize, as his influence spread, that his theology of the Bible and personal salvation was as divisive as it was freeing. At some point, community was necessary to set boundaries of behavior and belief, one reason being the very integrity of the Scriptures themselves. Luther and his friend Erasmus, among others, realized that the official Church translation, St. Jerome’s fifth century Latin Bible, the Vulgate, was plagued with translational errors. Luther devoted enormous amounts of time to a German translation of the Bible, corrected and accessible to all members of the church in his region. As Metaxas points out, Luther came to realize that reformed churches needed structure. But he was not pleased with many of the new forms of church bodies erupting throughout Europe—which seemed eager to police congregations. By the time of his death the Calvinist movement and the anabaptists were energetic and attainable, depending upon where one lived. As he grew older, married, and raised a family, Luther was no longer the directing prophet of change in this religious era of reinvention. As a husband he was bachelor-like, and his wife complained that he was too wrapped up in his work. He seemed, however, to enjoy the atmosphere of familial living. This work is a splendid introduction to Luther and his special position in religious history. It occurs to me that in 2025, when one of the largest denominations is “Nones,” we may be seeing a resurgence of the religious divide that Luther faced: the frantic on one hand, and the depressed on the other who have given up religious hope. I am doing something I have never done before—review a book after reading just the first half. But I am preparing to leave in a few days for a month in Europe, visiting Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, Fatima, Notre Dame, Avignon, the White Cliffs of Dover, and the Eiffel Tower, among other sites. The Catechist Café will publish frequently, hopefully daily] from overseas for the next four weeks. I’m flying red eye from Orlando to Amsterdam, and I promise I’ll finish reading this book on the plane…unless there are good movies.
I can see it now…most bishops, pastors, and laity would need smelling salts after reading section one of Gone for Good: Negotiating the Coming Wave of Church Property Transitions [2024, Eerdmans] by Editor Mark Elsdon and contributing partners. While circumstances differ from diocese to diocese in the United States, and from region to region, it is true that many Catholic parishes have closed their doors for good, with the congregations summarily dispatched to neighboring parishes, in many cases against their will. That sort of ordeal has never occurred in my present diocese, Orlando, nor have I heard of such a thing in present-day Florida, where the Census Bureau reports that 1,218 people per day emigrate to the “Sunshine State,” a sizable number of them Catholic. But clusters of parish and school closures have been announced in dioceses including New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, St. Louis, New Orleans, and Chicago, to name just some. With that in mind, I turn our attention to the author, Mark Elsdon. If you Google his name, you will get descriptions such as “cofounder of RootedGood, which supports catalytic and innovative church leaders working on property development, money and mission alignment, and social enterprise. He is also executive director at Pres House, the Presbyterian campus ministry at the University of Wisconsin’s Madison campus, and of Pres House Apartments.” From the portions of his book I have read to date, he strikes me as a highly energetic individual with several agendas sacred to him: expanding the healthy potential influence of Christian churches rather than closing them; assisting pastors and congregations to re-imagine the use[s] of their property, establishing congregations as closer partners within their neighborhoods in meeting standards for a higher quality of life in their neighborhoods, and developing the charitable outreach of all communities bearing the birthright of Christian baptism. I knew I would enjoy this book from the start when he introduced the “halo effect of local churches.” Bottom line: churches, in their mission and planning, do not consider their influence in anchoring the adjoining physical community’s identity. Churches in fact are particularly important to their physical surroundings, hence Elsdon’s term the “halo effect.” Elsdon’s surveys cover all Christian denominations, so it is impossible to extrapolate Catholic parish numbers for the most part. But in most cases, Catholic parishes, in my recollection, used to be “community connected.” Part of this was due to ethnic community identity. In one major study, a count was done on the number of people who set foot on a church’s property in each week, and then the attendance at church in the same week. Nationally, of the folks who visited the property, only 9% of them attended Sunday service [or in our case, Mass]. It sounds crazy until you expand your thought horizon a bit. Who are these 91%? In our case, every child and parent in a Catholic school who does not attend weekly Eucharist. Or the men’s club which plays basketball every week in the school gym but miss Mass. Or any kid who plays any sport on parish grounds. Or weekly AA, NA, or grief groups, using church facilities. Or those seeking counseling, those who receive food subsidies [which in my parish can attract several hundred cars periodically], those seeking social services through the St. Vincent de Paul Society or other established outreach, customers of the parish book store, visiting school athletic teams with families in tow, rentals of the church’s social hall for wedding receptions at rates exponentially lower than Disney Destination wedding rates, etc. A church near my house has been a voting site for all civil elections for years. Some readers may highlight the Catholics among the 91% who, by this survey, don’t worship at weekly Eucharist. Elsdon makes the case that the church is an important external mover and shaker in the broader community, and probably more so in economically depressed areas. He would encourage pastors and church ministers to become “civil figures” in addressing community needs, in league with neighboring pastors of other traditions, city officials, and private charities and foundations. He believes that community involvement builds the pride and evangelical mood of lethargic congregations, ultimately reinforcing a church’s sense of mission. At my last pastorate, the principal of the parish school became the first woman member of the city’s Rotary Club, and she invited the city mayor to serve on the parish school board. [Ten years later, she became my wife, too, but that is a story for another post.] Both Catholic and other churches can be “narrow thinkers” where the use of land and buildings is concerned. The author describes a dying church of another tradition whose surviving membership instinctively opted to remodel the worship space as a way of increasing the membership. But a faith-based consulting firm put the church on to the idea of using the money to construct a small but multifaceted market center on land it owned, for a variety of services not available in the economic “desert” that inner cities have become—a barber shop, for example, or a fresh food shop. [Interestingly, there are public and private funds available to participate in varying amounts to those who know where to look.] The congregation was deeply divided on the plans--I imagine mine would be, too—but the mayor of the city is quoted in the book as grateful for what has proved to be a small but successful regeneration of a stagnant part of his city. As a child growing up, my parish in East Buffalo was a neighborhood “hangout” for kids with six basketball courts and a deli across the street. But the pastors of my youth had no sense of interracial cooperation with community leaders or politicians as Buffalo went through a hard “white flight” process and my parish closed in the late 1970’s. The church and property were sold to a Baptist Church which remodeled the worship structure and appears to be healthy and thriving. See the drone video of how my old church dominates my childhood neighborhood today. I notice, too, that several aging structures have been demolished to increase parking spaces, so the church must be full on Sundays; the website notes multiple community ministries. Drones can point out the importance of Catholic churches in our neighborhoods, but the technology is far ahead of our thinking on the identity and mission of our parishes’ existence. When I get back home, I will expand on several other aspects of Elsdon’s ideas, points we will want to take into the future of American Catholicism. SOURCE: The New Commentary on the Code of Canon Law [2000]
Canon 985. The director and assistant director of novices, and the rector of a seminary or of any other institute of education, are not to hear the sacramental confessions of their students resident in the same house, unless in individual instances the students of their own accord request it. Canon 240 §1. In addition to ordinary confessors, other confessors are to come regularly to the seminary. Without prejudice to the discipline of the seminary, students are always free to approach any confessor, whether in the seminary or outside it. §2. When decisions are made about admitting students to orders or dismissing them from the seminary, the opinion of the spiritual director and confessors can never be sought. It does happen in Canon Law that certain laws repeat themselves because they apply under several different headings in the Code. In this case Canon 240 appears in the section under “The Formation of Clerics.” Canon 985, almost identical to Code 240, appears in a later section covering “Ministers of the Sacrament of Penance.” Both deal with the Sacrament of Penance, but here with subtle shades of meaning. The main concern of the Law here is the integrity of the Sacrament of Penance, and specifically the “seal of confession,” the one facet of the sacrament that is known to any man on the street. The State of Washington passed legislation this year that priests hearing confession are “mandated reporters” of child abuse, and face prison if they do not report said information to authority. See Bishop Robert Barron’s commentary here. Both Canons 985 and 240 address the issue of seminarians preparing for ordination, and presumably young men preparing for solemn vows or promises as brothers in religious orders or fraternities where the rector/superior and others on the staff are priests available for confessions. Religious orders and communities of women do not have the precise problems outlined in 985 and 240—although my guess is that the conflict of privacy and spiritual direction in both men’s and women’s houses of formation is always a concern. The conflict, to be precise, is votation. In seminaries and houses of formation the faculty and administrators must vote periodically on the progress or regression of candidates to vows and orders. Canon 240-2 states “the opinion of the spiritual director and confessors can never be sought.” I worked summers for a former seminary rector who told me of a case where a seminarian/cleric had systematically confessed to every voting member of the seminary board, and thus there was nobody who could say a bad word about him at votation. [The situation was referred to Rome; I guess that ploy had been tried before.] Canon 240-1 states that outside confessors “are to come regularly to the seminary,” to give a seminarian a full range of choices when frequenting the Sacrament of Penance. On the other hand, 985 offers the choice to the student to confess to his director/rector, giving the candidate the freedom in conscience to seek insight and counsel from someone he trusts. My novitiate class in 1968-69 was visited every Tuesday by two friars from a neighboring parish to hear our confessions, but they told my Novice Master that “nobody was going.” Those were the 60’s, all right. In scanning related material in the New Commentary, candidates for orders and solemn vows/promises go through a considerable screening which includes a psychiatric component and competent references outside the Sacrament of Penance. At the same time, the final decision to be ordained is also a moral one on the part of the cleric that, in the best of circumstances, is made with a trusted and knowledgeable confessor and an experienced spiritual director. DO THESE CANONS APPLY ELSEWHERE? The Irish monks, as early as the 400’s A.D., were developing the format for the Sacrament of Penance as we know it today: sorrow for sin, oral confession of specific misdeeds, absolution, and a post-confession act or deed to make reparation. For most of our history, then, confession has embraced a “defensive posture,” i.e., deliverance from the devil and evil that we might enter the Kingdom of God. As I get on in years, the Sacrament of Penance looks less to me like an insurance policy, and more like a challenge to recognize the wondrous God who created me from a love I will never fully understand. The “offensive posture” of rushing to meet God’s love sounds foreign to us in a confession discussion, where we so often confess in anonymous code that the “seal of confession” is almost redundant: I was uncharitable/I missed Mass/I lied/I drank too much/I used the pill/I was impure. Good priests know by grace, study, and experience that their ministry in the confessional is far greater than stamping passports to Purgatory. Unfortunately, we don’t talk much about the confessor as a spiritual director who, with the penitent’s openness, kindly probes for the core of our spiritual hunger and emptiness. [Clock time, of course, is a major factor, but for something so important, we can figure something out.] In the confessional the priest is as much an alter Christus, “another Christ,” as he is when he consecrates the bread and wine at Mass. In the Sacrament of Penance, it stands to reason that we encounter Christ with the same intensity as receiving communion, but here we take the role of Zacchaeus. The conversion of Zacchaeus as it appears in Luke Chapter 19 seems very quick and dramatic, and it may be that standing face to face with Jesus had something to do with that. Luke was, after all, a literary artist. Based upon years as a confessor, a psychotherapist, and a struggling Catholic though, I would venture to say that, practically speaking, for most of us conversion is a history, a lifelong journey through the desert to the Promised Land on poor sandals. We don’t talk about confession that way—it is usually described as a clean start, an erasure of the past. In fact, I sat through a sermon a few months ago where the homilist was talking about confession, and he kept repeating in a mantra, “God forgets.” Once confessed, forever gone. That didn’t seem right. Comforting to some, maybe. But it is not a true way to catechize the Sacrament of Penance. Our life with God is a whole. Like the AA Big Book says, alcoholics like myself do the Fourth Step—the moral inventory—repeatedly till we die, in the comfort that our Higher Power forgives us. As we age, we look back. Confession is a place for that. I confess twice a year—to a Trappist and a Franciscan—and I take out my spiritual GPS and describe to them my walk through the desert, where I’ve been and where I need to go in the years I have left. I am not Luther; I believe in the sacraments’ forgiving of my life’s sins, but I still regret many things over my life and even more that I left undone. My confessors seem to understand that and reframe the narrative, often using my past as an interpretative guide to the future. I might add here that I take the Penitential Rite of the Mass very seriously--our venial sins are forgiven by the words of Absolution at the beginning of Mass if we are sorry. [Some celebrants whiz through the Penitential Rite like Jesse Owens.] Canons 985 and 240 boil down to giving seminarians a wide freedom of selection in choosing a confessor and a spiritual director within the formation structure for vows and orders. As a pastor, there was another population I thought about where penance and spiritual direction was concerned: my employees and advisors. I tried from time to time to bring neighboring priests into the parish during Advent and Lent to give my staff [and the whole parish, really] the opportunity to confess or seek counsel from someone other than their pastor. I wouldn’t say there was a stampede, but I still believe in the principle. THE HARD NUMBERS
Chapter Three of Maureen K. Day’s et.al. new publication, Catholicism at a Crossroads: The Present and Future of America’s Largest Church [2025] is devoted to both a detailed numerical summary of Catholic cultural demographics across the country and interviews on the question of parochial inculturation. The numbers don’t lie; the authors report how much we have changed in the past four decades. In 1987, of all Catholics polled that year, 86% identified themselves as white. In 2017 that number dropped to 56%, meaning that we are rapidly approaching a day when a white Anglo-Saxon Catholic is a minority in his or her diocese in the United States, at least in many locations. [pp. 103-104] The largest increase, ethnically speaking, in this study is Hispanic respondents [10% in 1987 to 35% in 2017]. Black/non-Hispanic Catholics reported in at 3%, and others, including Asian Catholics, at 6%. The authors cite the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 as a factor in the present-day diversity of Catholics, and certainly of the U.S. population. Prior to 1965 U.S. immigration policy favored northern and western Europe, the old “quota system.” The post-1965 wave of immigrants came “from Catholic-dense countries and regions such as Mexico, Central and South America, and parts of Africa and South Asia.” [p. 104] Some other takeaways in the raw numbers: while Hispanic Catholics are more likely than either White or Black Catholics to take the Church’s ban on artificial birth control seriously, it is not a radical difference; Hispanics answered affirmatively on obedience to this teaching at 25%; White Catholics 12% and Black Catholics 5% respectively. On the need for personal confession to a priest: Hispanic 42%, White 28%, Other 27%, Black 25%. Black Catholic respondents scored highest in the obligation to extend charity to the poor at 58%. In this chapter of Catholicism at a Crossroads, the authors wisely recognized that the numbers, per se, are not the whole story. If anything, the raw numbers indicate a need for evangelization and faith formation in all quadrants in many ways and degrees. But there are two key issues that defy quantification. First, all the populations polled in the surveys have long histories with and against each other. Second, the American Church must address itself to unity in sacramental/communal life, however difficult that may be. THE LONG HISTORY It probably depends upon where in the U.S. you live or grew up in, but certainly east of the Mississippi the strained relationship of race—Anglo-Saxon to African American—continues to this day. Some portions of this history we learned in school, though some states—including my own state, Florida—have attempted to sugarcoat their textbooks when dealing with a painful truth, that the first people from Africa arrived on North American soil for purchase and involuntary servitude to sustain the American economy. It is a particularly sad chapter of American Catholicism. If you are a student of history, you probably are aware that professional historians are examining Catholic involvement in the slave trade and the Church’s purchase and use of slave labor. To its credit, Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., has owned up to the Jesuit ownership of the “GU272,” or 272 slaves [about half minors] sold by the university/order for the retirement of debts. See this current link, Collaborative on Global Children's Issues, for the full story and Georgetown’s efforts to make amends. The post-Civil War era of relations between the races is so complex that I cannot summarize it here, and in fact I doubt if anyone could. Many of us white Catholics grew up in predominantly white urban parishes where, after World War II, middle class whites moved to the suburbs or the countryside as African Americans moved into our neighborhoods, a phenomenon referred to as white flight. The belief among whites was that an influx of persons of color lowered housing values…a belief later undermined by the process of gentrification, whereby the old neighborhoods were refurbished and restored to luxurious standards and placed on the open market at massive profits to the developers and investors. One thing that is clear: Black Catholics themselves seemed to have embraced the energy of Vatican II; the Council itself [1962-1965] was held during a time of massive civil rights battles in the U.S., in government and on the streets. Black Catholics across the country engaged in two decisive strategies to enhance their pastoral care. First, they petitioned Rome for the appointment of black bishops. Second, they actively embraced the development of their cultural style within the reform of the Mass, particularly in music. The Vatican responded by appointing auxiliary bishops in New Orleans and elsewhere in the 1960’s; in 1991 James Lyke was appointed Archbishop of Atlanta [1991-1992], and Wilton Gregory has served as the Archbishop of Washington, D.C. until his retirement last year. The book’s commentators make an interesting point—in long established Black parishes in the United States, contemporary immigrants from various African nations such as Nigeria experience degrees of stress in the process of inculturation with Black American Catholics. [p. 116] Looking West, Spanish Catholics settled in what is now the United States long before the thirteen colonies got themselves organized. The past generation has seen significant academic research into the introduction of Catholicism to the Indigenous populations of the Pacific Coast, Central and South America. Again, the history of this process is too long to treat of in detail, and there continues to be heated discussion of the intentions of the European Spanish missionaries and the establishment of the mission-Church. Were the missionaries saviors of souls, importers of European culture, or task masters? Mexico in the 1800’s was a Catholic country; the Battle of the Alamo pitted Catholic Santa Anna versus Davy Crockett [though the church habits of both men are uncertain.] After the U.S.-Mexican War [1846-48], the United States acquired from Mexico the future states of New Mexico, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, California, Texas, and western Colorado. Much of this acquired territory was already divided into Catholic dioceses; Mexican bishops were replaced by primarily Irish bishops, unfamiliar with the culture of the landscape. THE QUESTIONS ABOUND The two preceding examples of ethnic-pastoral history have been presented here in response to the authors’ concern for the dignity of all people and the principle of unity in the Church. We know from St. John’s Gospel that Jesus prayed “that all may be one” and from Tradition that all sacramental celebration is communal. This being the case, several questions need to be addressed. They are open ended; I have no concrete answers but rather “table questions” for every Catholic gathering. Must, or can, we apologize? I am writing as a white male, so take that into account. I start with the thorny question of reparations. There is sentiment that the no-brainer in this consideration is the Native American: whites stole the land, livelihoods, and ultimately the children. In both the Canadian and the U.S. West, there were structured programs—government and religious—running into the twentieth century whose purpose seemed to be deprogramming Native American children from their culture and recreating them to be absorbed into predominantly while society. If you are a sports fan, there is a very recent [2022] biography of the Olympic athlete Jim Thorpe [1887-1953] by David Maraniss which describes in detail the travails of Native Americans. Thorpe, incidentally, was raised Catholic. If one is looking for a “legal and binding” sort of reparation, I have significant reservations. It is too big a challenge for paper and pencil; the specifics alone—as in who gets what and how much—would add to lingering estrangement for decades. A better approach is truth. Florida is a state rich in Native American culture. Given my state government’s sudden interest in history, I wonder whether Native American culture receives respectful attention in public and Catholic schools. I do believe in public apologies. Pope Francis in 2022 issued strongly worded remarks about the [Canadian] system which extended into the 1990’s, describing the schools as a form of “cultural genocide.” Again, one cannot undo either the ignorance or the arrogance, but we can listen to the memories, engage in the cultural beauty, and visit the lands sacred to Native Americans to this day. The sufferings of a few—or even one—are my sufferings, too. In 2021 Margaret and I visited the site of the Wounded Knee Massacre of 1890 in South Dakota, near Badlands National Park. I felt disturbed by the paucity of symbols and care of this memorial. Can we worship together? Last year I attended an Easter Mass in the Athens, Greece, cathedral, celebrated in a Philippine tongue for residents of that ancestry. In Belgium we attended a Mass in the local tongue in a church claiming to have a vial of Christ’s Good Friday blood, which was processed through the church to its sacred enclave in the structure. Even in Ireland, where we spent three months last year, the brogue can be so thick that conversation is nigh impossible. Every time a new pope is elected, here in the United States many outlets of Catholic media immediately look for clues as to whether the new pontiff will allow/encourage/command the celebration of the Mass in the Latin Rite of Pope Pius V and the Council of Trent [1545-1563], the Mass we old timers remember. Every now and then I do wonder if the struggle for Church unity might be strengthened by the unity of Mass in Latin. However, I quickly come to my senses. The claims by some [certainly not a majority] that the Tridentine Latin formula is the only valid form of the Mass is absurd. I belong—as you probably do—to the Latin Rite of the Catholic Mass, which is one of about two dozen rites in communion with Rome. For two millennia we have been a Church which accepted a variety of forms and languages. To mandate a universal Latin Mass format for the entire world would be yet another dismantling of culture. Beyond that, I just pray that Pope Leo XIV will lead us in an enlightenment of our hearts and a love of the Eucharist that will spill out in warmth to anyone with whom we worship, at home or on the road. Language is not our only means of engagement. Is there anyone who does not understand the language of hot coffee and donuts, for starters, after church? Or baklava in Budapest? Here's a priest for any culture! My hero! Bending Toward Justice [2025] "When the bishop and the realtors come sniffing around your church.""5/13/2025 In 1986 I was a pastor in Florida when I received an invitation from former parishioners of the church where I was born and raised in East Buffalo, St. Mary Magdalene on Filmore Avenue, to offer a Mass at a reunion. I say “former parishioners” because St. Mary Magdalene was formally closed by the Diocese of Buffalo in 1978 and the property was purchased by the Antioch Baptist Church. The reunion event was held at a fire hall picnic pavilion in Bowmansville, N.Y., and I said Mass under a large tent. The organizers had asked to buy space for a public invitation in the Buffalo Catholic paper, but the chancery wouldn’t give them the time of day, hoping to keep all publicity and details of the closing and sale hush-hush. I guess my Aunt Margie did not want to get a local priest in trouble with the bishop, and I was happy to fly up, see my family, and form some impressions.
I grew up half a block from St. Mary Magdalene and witnessed firsthand what was called at the time “white flight.” More families of color moved into my neighborhood, and eventually most white households moved to the suburbs. Eventually St. Mary Magdalene, its 1900 elementary school long demolished, served a miniscule congregation. At sunrise on the morning of the 1986 reunion, I drove to the old church several hours before the Antioch Sunday Worship to visit the site where I was born into Catholicism, which I had not seen since 1962. As the church was still locked, I went to the old rectory—now an administration building—and found the pastor at his desk painting his nails. So, I sat down across his desk and talked for quite a while. Noting the size of the former parish plant--the church itself and two large residences converted to other uses--I inquired about the price the Diocese of Buffalo had asked for. He replied, “We got everything for $40,000.” Later in the afternoon at the reunion I was sitting with some elderly relatives next to the Genesee Beer tap recalling my morning visit, and they asked me what the selling price was. I said, “$40,000.” There was a pause. Then one of them exclaimed, “I knew if we could get the right white man in there, he could get some [N-word] to tell us the truth.” As I flew home to Orlando, it occurred to me that the author Thomas C. Wolfe was right: “You can never go home again.” [And Antioch Baptist Church has been magnificently restored in recent years.] I began with this elongated episode to illustrate that the closing of parishes is not a “new thing” in the American Catholic Church. What the tipping point for my childhood parish was, I can only speculate that many white Catholics embraced suburbia and the countryside and/or felt constrained by the changing culture to move elsewhere. The new residents were Baptists or Evangelicals if the success of Antioch Baptist is any indication. [If any Buffalo readers can fill me in, please do so in the comments section below or contact me privately.] From where I sit right now, it would seem the parish simply dissolved. In some dioceses, bishops might convert the style and human services of a parish like SMM into a sacramental-Catholic Charities inner city outreach, but to my knowledge no such project was considered for St. Mary Magdalene. St. Mary Magdalene’s story in Buffalo was hardly unique, at least in the Northeast U.S. and the Rust Belt. Other parts of the country were doing well. Two years after that Buffalo reunion, I built a church in an Orlando, Florida suburb in 1987 for $4,222,698.06 in 2025 dollars, and in this diocese several more new churches would follow into the next century. Florida has for years served as a destination for people relocating from other states and countries. However, this flow into the state has decreased significantly; earlier this year Newsweek reported: “The net migration of people moving to Florida from other American states has fallen sharply from 317,923 in 2022, to just 63,346 in December 2024, according to a Vintage population estimate released by the United States Census Bureau.” On a separate track, we have the national statistical decline of Catholic membership, which is well documented by many sources, plus the Covid disruption of much of Catholic life. Thus, even in sections of the country like Florida, where Catholic parishes are thriving or at least holding their own, Catholics cannot become complacent. Financial stress—even to the point of closing parishes and or institutions—may someday overwhelm the present-day Church in Florida or the state where you live. In 1980, would you have thought that New York City, Boston, Cleveland, St. Louis, and Philadelphia, to name a few, would all have wholesale programs of parish mergers and closings in 2025? We talk about the “shortage of priests” but in fact the United States has rarely produced enough homegrown vocations. As I understand it, the years 1940-1960 were the only ones where we can say the American Church enjoyed self-sufficiency in terms of ordained priests. The evidence of a shrinking clerical pool was evident already from statistics in the 1960’s. It is fair to say that few ecclesiastical leaders addressed the problem, believing that “things would get better.” Instead, things got much worse. The sexual abuse of minors by Church clergy led to defections from Catholic parishes by outraged or saddened laity, as many as 10%, though studies vary. Whereas parishes in the past sometimes simply dissolved due to pastoral absence of need, today 25% of U.S. dioceses have declared bankruptcy resulting from lawsuits in civil courts, lawyers’ fees, therapeutic services to victims, etc. How much money are we talking about? It is impossible to put a price on human suffering, but in dollars the costs [so far] range from $6-10 billion dollars. The Diocese of Buffalo is burdened with a $150,000,000 settlement; neighboring Syracuse at $100,000,000; Los Angeles $1,500,000,000. [You read that right.] What has resulted is a new and exceptionally large class of aggrieved victims: faithful Catholics served by fewer priests whose parishes are being closed and sold on the open market to developers to meet the staggering costs of settlements. Of particular pain was the failure of many dioceses to consult individual parishes in open meetings and/or formalized consultations, and the suppression of information. But, as we all learned in Catholic schools or CCD programs, bishops have unlimited powers in such matters. Or do they? Go fill your coffee cups and come back for the story of a Catholic nun, one of few women Canon [Church] lawyers in the U.S., whose doggedness and genius with the fine print of the 1983 Code of Canon Law saved the futures of dozens of parishes across the United States. [Imagine intermission music.] Our book is Bending Toward Justice: Sister Kate Kuenstler and the Struggle for Parish Rights [2025] by Sister Christine Schenk, CSJ. Mary Kathleen Kuenstler, born in 1949, was raised in Wendelin, Illinois, and adopted by a Catholic couple when she was four months old. “Kate’s” parents were parish leaders, and the local convent was staffed by the Congregation of the Poor Handmaids of Jesus Christ [PHJC]. As a teenager Kate was on the fast track toward becoming a farmer, but she entered a local high school/junior college for potential candidates to the PHJC community. She followed through and professed final vows in 1976. Kate’s religious career is intriguing: several years of classroom teaching, troubleshooting, and earning a master’s degree in theology. She established a catechists’ certification program for the Diocese of Belleville, Illinois, and later for other regions of Illinois. It was not until 1988, when Kate was 39, that her community asked her to study Canon Law. As is well documented, the Vatican under Pope John Paul II was uncomfortable with the direction of women religious in the United States. Did the PHJC community foresee a need for “in-house counsel” in dealing with the John Paul and Benedict XVI papacies? My guess is quite possibly, but the book does not address this in detail. After a period of internship in the South Bend, Indiana Tribunal, where she learned to process annulments, she left to study in Rome. According to the author, Kate graciously turned down an offer from Fort Wayne Bishop John D’Arcy to pay for her studies in exchange for ten years’ service to the Fort Wayne-South Bend diocese. Rather, her religious community funded her Roman studies. [Privately she joked that “I’m no cheap date.”] The author subtly brings to the fore the maxim that “he who pays the piper calls the tune.” Women religious are lay persons, not clerics; Kate herself seems to have developed a theological appreciation of the rights of all baptized persons and did not desire a future as a diocesan house lawyer, so to speak, representing individual bishops in church business--a true turning point in her career. Chapter Three, “Canon Law Studies in Rome,” is captivating. Kate elected to pursue her canonical doctorate at the University of St. Thomas Aquinas, also known as “The Angelicum.” A top-flight school for canonists? This is the Canon Law-Italian equivalent of Stanford or Yale civil law schools in the U.S. One of its graduates was an Augustinian priest named Robert Prevost…whose doctoral dissertation was “The Role of the local prior [superior] in the Order of Saint Augustine.” I’m guessing you’ve heard of him, if not his dissertation... But for Kate, the Roman years were hard. The Angelicum conducted its lectures and examinations—including the grueling oral comprehensives—in the Italian tongue. The language, the living situations, the unreliability of Roman public transportation, and the absence of her religious community were formidable obstacles, and they are best described in the book itself. But it is worth noting Kate’s areas of academic concentration: annulments, international law, and sacraments. Of the latter, Kate would say that Canon Law addressed sacramental life but “never in a theological way. It’s always in a procedural way.” She also studied “temporal goods” in the 1983 Code of Canon Law—matters of finance and property management of a diocese. She was, in fact, preparing herself to become something of a pioneer in American Catholicism, a defender of lay rights where parish entities were involved, based on the theological principle that Baptism confers rights upon all members of the Church. Her dissertation was her first exercise of muscle, an account of a conflict between the Carmelite Order of women religious—then renewing its constitution and structure--and Pope John Paul II’s Curia or administrative bureaucracy. Evidently no career-minded soul in Catholic academia rushed to assume the cause of the Carmelites in a public forum until England’s Cardinal Basil Hume personally asked Kate to write a frank history of the affair. [A sixteen-page summary of her dissertation, “The Fractured Face of Carmel,” is posted on-line for free.] Before delving into the specifics of Sister Kate’s work, it is important to say a few words about Canon Law itself, which governs every aspect of Catholic life. I studied Law under the 1917 Code then in force. I was ten years ordained when the new 1983 Code was released; our Orlando bishop, Thomas J. Grady, brought in a team of nationally known Canon lawyers for a week’s workshop for all the priests of our diocese to familiarize us with the changes from the 1917 legislation. It was one of the finest educational programs I have ever attended. Florida was in full growth mode—there was little or no discussion of legislation on closing parishes. Most of us were looking for new legal guidelines on such matters as annulments and marriage laws. I am embarrassed to say that I do not own a copy of the 1983 Code—it got lost in a move--but fortunately the Law in its entirely is available free on-line and in English. Of particular interest for us in this post are two provisions which play a significant role in Sister Kate’s work: Can. 1222 §1. If a church cannot be used in any way for divine worship and there is no possibility of repairing it, the diocesan bishop can relegate it to profane but not sordid use. §2. Where other grave causes suggest that a church no longer be used for divine worship, the diocesan bishop, after having heard the presbyteral council, can relegate it to profane but not sordid use, with the consent of those who legitimately claim rights for themselves in the church and provided that the good of souls suffers no detriment thereby. It is the “grave causes” wording that created serious difficulties in many dioceses and disheartened many Catholics. The local bishop alone makes the final decision on what constitutes “grave causes;” the presbyteral council must be “heard” but it is not legislative, i.e., it cannot override the bishop. [I was president of Orlando’s Priest Council for two terms; the limitations of Canon Law I know.] In everyday language, Canon 1222 would seem to say that closing parishes and all the attendant implications are solely matters for the bishop, with a cautionary reminder to respect the sensitivities of Catholic parishioners regarding the future use of the church and parish facilities. You wouldn’t want your parish church sold to a gambling establishment for “business purposes.” The ‘post-abuse” era created a new dilemma, i.e., the closing of healthy, vibrant, solvent parishes in dioceses with heavy debts, penalties, and bankruptcies. Does the evangelical spirit and identities of such parish communities count for nothing in a bishop’s decision to close the facilities and disperse the faithful to other parish communities? Again. Canon 1222 does not consider this question. Generally, bishops interpreted the “grave causes” phrase exclusively to financial circumstances and shortages of priests—a dangerous road because the law thus interpreted implies that a parish is buildings and assets, nothing more. The Baptismal community of its members—its sacramental identity—had no bearing on the final destiny of a parish. These would be the kinds of parishes likely to seek the services of an independent Canon Lawyer such as Sister Kate, though she took up this ministry at a time when lay Catholics were painfully learning that demonstrations, church occupations, and media blitzes had little to no impact on local bishops, let alone on Vatican appeals courts. And as the author documents, the Catholic Church closings themselves were bittersweet, even cruel. In one diocese the bishop personally celebrated the final Mass of every closing parish in his territory and then padlocked the doors behind him. Kate’s gift to the Church in this crisis was a gallant attempt to bring the Biblical-theological sense of parish as a Spirit-filled communion of faith into the nuts and bolts of canonical-legal considerations. In short, Faith must count for something in the deliberations of the Church. She was asking the Church Court system in Rome—and American bishops in their administrative behavior—to bring to law the teaching of Vatican II that parish communities are grace-filled creations exclusive of their temporal assets. I would be remiss if I neglected to comment on how plowing new ground brings together a true variety of souls. In 2010, during Roman litigation of parish closings in the Diocese of Camden, New Jersey, Kate engaged in fascinating correspondence with Cardinal Raymond Burke of the Apostolic Signatura [akin to our Supreme Court]. Burke is known to many Catholics as the ultra-conservative defender of the Tridentine Mass, an advocate for the right of Catholics to worship in the Latin Rite of the Council of Trent [1545-1563] and a fighter for the rights of Tridentine Catholic Churches. The heart of the book is a detailed account of several dioceses where Sister Kate was retained as an independent Church canonist to defend parish communities against arbitrary dismantling of their membership, closure and/or sale of their church buildings, and dispersion to other Catholic churches. These include parishes in the dioceses of Syracuse, Camden, Cleveland, and New York City. While the problems of each diocese are similar, each one cited here had/has unique personalities, issues, and timelines; you would not be reading the same plotline multiple times. The author notes that for every hour of “lawyering,” Kate spent multiple hours of counseling broken, angry Catholics from across the country. Frankly, there was true pastoral need for the care of this new cohort of victims. One could call the heart of this book “Bishops Behaving Badly.” My little sister’s parish—St. Bernadette’s Parish in Orchard Park, New York—was decreed closed last November, effective May 1, 2025, just a few days ago. My understanding is that her parish has retained counsel for a Vatican appeal. If you’ve never seen a diocesan “Dear John” letter, here is St. Bernadette’s. I commend the parish for making this correspondence public, and I offer prayers for the resolute priests in Buffalo, Chicago, Cincinnati, and around the country who are ministering solicitously under very troubling conditions. I know that my family is grateful. Obviously, one issue I have not tackled is the outcome of cases. Even when Sister Kate and other canonists were able to win reprieves or reverses in Roman court, there was and is still the issue of enormous indebtedness. If you read the St. Bernadette letter, you saw that the pastor-administrator was told to clean out all accounts and to alert parishioners that major fund drives in all parishes would be held to retire a $150,000,000 indebtedness. Frankly, I think that is impossible for Buffalo, and I will do a follow-up posting as developments warrant. Please feel free to let me know what is happening in your parish/diocese. The intensity of Kate’s work came to an end when she died of cancer in 2019. I was reading my notes and writing this review when Cardinal Prevost was elected to the papacy last Thursday. It is hard for me to imagine that the scenarios played out in Bending Toward Justice will repeat themselves with a practicing Canon Lawyer, Pope Leo XIV, at the helm. Better interpretations of the Code and clearer understandings of baptismal rights are to be hoped for. And on top of that, the pope’s childhood church in Chicago, St. Mary of the Assumption, was closed and converted into a community center. [See photo on Cafe online sites, courtesy of the Cardinal Newman Society.] He has skin in the game, as they say. In a few weeks I will return to revisit this discussion with an emphasis upon Church debt –a real thing, as we saw the numbers above—and a perceived shortage of parish leadership. I promised to continue reflections on Catholicism at a Crossroads [2025], the results of polling and analyzing thousands of Catholic responses from across America, and I began in the previous entry on the Book Stream for March 23, 2025, posted below [scroll down]. I learned today that Crossroads is now in the top 3% of Amazon new book sales, so the subject is attracting attention. Again, if you missed the opening post, a cluster of professional sociologists takes an exhaustive read of U.S. Catholics on multiple subjects, with an instrument called “The American Catholic Laity Survey.” This inventory is undertaken every seven years, beginning back in 1987. Having the raw data in hand, the authors then summarize their findings in an eminently readable volume in a way that assists our own understanding and practice of the Faith and the administrative authority and leadership of the national and diocesan churches. The fact that there are successive polls dating back in this case to 1987 allows for a longitudinal view of Church trends.
Picking up with Chapter 2 of Crossroads, “Authority,” there is considerable discussion of the relationship of Catholics to American bishops as teachers and shepherds of the Faith, and whether the bishops stand higher or lower in the estimation of the faithful in the present day. The question of whether Church teachings are taken seriously in everyday life management is obviously a global one, not restricted to the U.S. On the other hand, each country, culture, or region sees Catholicism through a different lens where social justice and human life priorities are concerned; in the U.S., that is often a regional/political lens. Boston is not Lincoln, Nebraska. Illinois is not Idaho. Since the Roe vs. Wade decision of 1973, the USCCB has opted [1] to convince Catholics to undo the legal abortion ruling of the 1973 Supreme Court decision by voting for anti-abortion national and statewide candidates, and thus logically [2] to form an allegiance with the Republican Party on the matter of abortion, as the GOP has historically included some form of this position in its party platform. [Note that tax free non-profits, including churches, cannot blatantly endorse specific candidates.] The drift of the American hierarchy to the Republican right has precedent in American history. In 1960, running for the presidency as a Roman Catholic and Democrat, John Fitzgerald Kennedy took pains to distinguish papal and episcopal authority from a U.S. president’s civil authority. [History does require that I include here John F. Kennedy’s remark to the press during the 1960 presidential campaign: “Everybody knows that all bishops are Republicans, and all nuns are Democrats.”] Whether as cause or effect, an issue that raises its head throughout this book is an observed tendency of American Catholics to think and act by political party affiliation rather than Gospel teachings or, more specifically, the leadership of their bishops, when engaged in everyday life, including civil participation such as voting. During every presidential election season the USCCB issues a Catholic voters’ guide, “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship” and distributes it in parish churches. [2023 edition highlighted] Frankly, I had never read a bishops’ voter guide until preparing this post, and I was pleasantly surprised at the wholesale inclusion of the emphases upon the poor and suffering, clearly reflecting the teaching of Pope Francis [and the previous popes of the Vatican II era.] That said, it is also clear from the USCCB document that the bishops have a hierarchy of public morality. See, for example, this excerpt from the 2023 C guide: [Para. 22] There are some things we must never do, as individuals or as a society, because they are always incompatible with love of God and neighbor. Such actions are so deeply flawed that they are always opposed to the authentic good of persons. These are called “intrinsically evil” actions. They must always be rejected and opposed and must never be supported or condoned. A prime example is the intentional taking of innocent human life, as in abortion and euthanasia. In our nation, “abortion and euthanasia have become preeminent threats to human dignity because they directly attack life itself, the most fundamental human good and the condition for all others.” It is a mistake with grave moral consequences to treat the destruction of innocent human life merely as a matter of individual choice. A legal system that violates the basic right to life on the grounds of choice is fundamentally flawed. Going back to Crossroads, the authors [and other polling services] attempted to determine how many Catholics believe they are free to vote their consciences on matters of abortion and/or euthanasia if such votes run counter to Church teaching. Chapter Five of Crossroads, “Love,” focuses on the wider sweep of family life and specific sexual and gender issues. Chapter Two, today’s subject, examines general respect for the teaching and administrative authority of the Catholic Church, bishops. Thus, it is not surprising that Chapter 2 opens with a narrative of an actual clerical sex abuse case dating to the 1980’s and its subsequent mishandling by an American diocese. The “Spotlight” crisis—national news coverage of the issue of Church personnel and child abuse—pressed the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops [or USCCB] in June 2002 to adopt a series of protective and preventative policies known as the Dallas Charter. The first surveys after the Boston Globe’s “Spotlight” expose, basis for the 2015 movie, showed laity concern about the bishops’ management of their dioceses vis-à-vis child abuse committed by clerics. An early outlier, an April 2002 poll from Quinnipiac reported that 64% of Catholics favored the resignations of bishops who did not report child abuse to local law enforcement agencies. Later, the CARA-Georgetown Catholic surveyors ran several polls which found a critical stance against bishops which grew progressively worse as more and more malfeasance was discovered. “Favorable” sentiments toward bishops fell from 34% to 22%, meaning that three quarters of the Catholic public--including priests--had major doubts about the apostolic leaders of their dioceses. What is statistically and pastorally troubling today in 2025 is the consistency of the strained relationship between priests and bishops. I think there is a direct relationship between the implementation and fine-tuning of the Dallas Charter that, hard to imagine, is making priests more tense and discouraged. I have seen this quote dozens of times in print in recent years, uttered by a diocesan priest: “My bishop no longer regards me as a spiritual son; he looks upon me as a legal liability.” The unanswered question, though, is whether the recent negative polling regarding American bishops is showing up for the same reasons as it was in 2002+. Times may have changed, and not for the better. I tend to look at the abuse scandal in three phases: [1] the revelation of youthful abuse and the scope of the problem; [2] the discovery of episcopal conspiracy; and [3] the money phase. The third phase might last the longest and send more people out the doors. I was typing and researching yesterday when a news story broke that the Diocese of Albany, N.Y., was divesting one-third of its diocesan holdings to survive. If my math is correct, about 25% of American dioceses have opted for bankruptcy and/or other radical strategies to meet the therapeutic and legal obligations resulting from generations of episcopal neglect. Earlier we talked about the authors’ observations that many Catholics experience Catholicism no further than their parishes, and only the 30% who attend weekly or monthly, by multiple surveys, would know much about such things as the Dallas Charter. [CARA found that in 2003, for example, 50% of Catholics were unaware of the Charter.] Consequently, if your parish did not have a scandal, there may have been an understandable relief that you had somehow “dodged the bullet,” with sympathy for parishes laboring under grief and anger due to the suffering of its vulnerable members there. But given the twenty or more years of media coverage, courtroom testimony, and processing of victims’ claims, settlements, attorneys’ fees, etc., the time has finally come to settle accounts. Given that the bishop of a diocese owns all funds and properties--churches, schools, everything—by virtue of the legal principle of corporation sole, all diocesan entities bear responsible for financial obligations of the diocese. [France, by contrast, does not have this arrangement; churches, including Notre Dame in Paris, are owned by the state.] I think you can see where we are headed here. No one knows precisely how much the American Church has spent and how much it owes, Our Sunday Visitor reported earlier this year: “The Archdiocese of Los Angeles’ $880 million abuse claims settlement, announced Oct. 16, brings the total payouts of U.S. Catholic dioceses for abuse claims since 2004 [italics mine] to more than $5 billion — and possibly more than $6 billion.” Remember, too, that these numbers represent only public settlements. When intense coverage of the crisis began in 2002, investigators learned of previous settlement or compensations dating back forty years or more. If you told me the number was closer to $10 billion, I could believe that. I have been following several dioceses closely, especially those I have particular affection for, such as my home diocese of Buffalo. The crosses of Buffalo priests and laity have been long and bitter, and the shortages of clergy and funding [Buffalo is on the hook for $100,000,000] has led to a wide range of parish closings and sales, including the projected dismantling of my family’s parish, St. Bernadette, in Orchard Park, N.Y. On Christmas Eve last year WKBW-TV interviewed three St. Bernadette parishioners about their predicament, i.e., that their parish sits on desirable real estate if sold. _______________________ [1] Why are we paying for their sins? That’s my first question. It’s their sins, why would you destroy a family of faith? It’s just an ongoing faith-filled community that we built. [2] I have never been part of a community that is more loving and spiritual than St. Bernadette…Honestly, I wish I could move elsewhere, so that I could be in a diocese that would listen and will respond when we have concerns. [3] We feel very strongly that St. Bernadette is a strong, vibrant parish. [The Diocese] wants the land it’s plain and simple. ___________________________________ I can understand that for professional researchers it would be very difficult to create a question or sequence of questions to tease out the resentment of Catholics about perceived and real consequences to their parishes and schools over the misdeeds of priests they never knew or bishops who were woefully slow to protect their dioceses. Crossroads goes on in Chapter 2 to assess the level of trust in the Church and bishops on a wide range of questions regarding moral teachings and authority, including abortion. But I fear that the office of episcopal teachings has been battered in the United States to the degree that it may take fifty years to repair. It will be up to the authors of Crossroads to research and then deliver this message over the next 6-7 years before we can take the elementary steps to restore trust in the office of the successor of the Apostles. We will take time to discuss issues raised by Chapter 3, "Race," in about three weeks. I started reading Catholics at a Crossroads this past weekend, and I can see already that this may be one of the most intriguing and colorful analyses of Mother Church to come down the pike in a while. Released by New York University Press earlier this year [2025], Crossroads was written by five noted analysts of Catholicism who examined several major polls of Catholics taken since 2017, analyzed their questionnaires and proceeded to interview Catholics across the country. They then used the results to project strategies for the “New Evangelization” for future generations: how to become Christ to the world without tripping over your own two feet. Call them philosopher-pollsters if you like.
A few points to bear in mind here. Crossroads was published by New York University Press, which is not conjoined to a Catholic institution of higher learning as opposed to, say, Catholic University Press to Catholic University. Second, polling and listening to the Catholic faithful is a dicey business; you never know quite what you are going to hear. My impression is that polling and research into American Catholicism is moving more to the public sector—i.e., universities and research centers unaffiliated to Catholic authority and financially not dependent upon fiscal support of the hierarchy. Bishops do not like to hear bad news, which is also the reason that many American dioceses and/or parishes provided very minimal or no support of Pope Francis’ call to Synodality, where laity would have had opportunities to meet and offer insight, criticism, and possibly roadmaps for the holiness and mission of the Church, to be forwarded to Rome. And finally, poll research is not an exact science, as Crossroads readily admits. You probably have heard of two recent examples of “embarrassing research” still talked about [even anguished about] today. In 2018 the Catholic “Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate” [or CARA, as it is known], teamed up with a Catholic publisher, St. Mary’s Press, to produce “Going, Going, Gone: The Dynamics of Disaffiliation in Young People.” [2018]. This study, with a target population of young adults aged 15-25, discovered that youth make the decision to disengage from Catholicism as early as age ten, and 18% report making such a decision between the ages of 5 to 9. I know one child in the 5-9 cohort who is refusing to make First Communion this spring. I cannot recall an episcopal-institutional response to the St. Mary’s—CARA study aside from the usual sidebar tut-tutting on social media about deficiencies in parenting. One thing I am enjoying about Crossroads is its commentaries on other related studies, including the St. Mary’s findings, to clarify the strategies and interpretations of other pollsters. Crossroads interviews a wide range of church officials and laity and its efforts to seek the views of other professionals in the Church with a critical eye. The executive director of the National Black Sisters’ Conference offered this: “Children really are just incredibly bored with Mass and liturgy and just don’t understand the rituals that go along with it.” [p. 36] In my parish church—and most others—if you are a seven-year-old kid standing further back than row three or four, you spend much of the Mass looking straight into the posterior of the adult in front of you. And let’s face it: we adults are rarely set on fire by the rites, either. Crossroads pairs the childhood affiliation question with statistics on adults who attend Sunday Mass infrequently due to work conflicts and “busyness,” judging correctly, I believe, that church worship is impacted by the pace of family life in society. Tired parents are not going to fight the attendance battle. Nothing was done by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishop in response to the St. Mary’s Press/CARA study. However, another study riled American Bishops to a hurried and extensive/expensive response because it addressed a core doctrinal belief of Catholicism: The Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. In 2019, PEW Research, ironically, an independent firm unrelated to any religious tradition, reported its findings that only one-third of Catholics believe in Transubstantiation, the doctrine that defines holy communion as the reception of the real Body and Blood of Christ. Many Catholics, per PEW, believe the Eucharist is a symbolic Catholic fellowship of bread and wine only, by a ratio of 70%-30%. The study was not targeted at Catholicism per se. The PEW study reviewed the knowledge and practice status of Americans in general by drawing up four “flagship beliefs” of each religion. [Another question in the survey revealed that many Catholics believe in Purgatory.] The best Catholic news summary of the study’s release I could find comes from the Brooklyn Tablet/Crux news services, whose editors did not sound overly surprised. The U.S. Bishops, however, were stunned. I spent much of this week wading through diocesan lamentations on-line from the time of the PEW release. At its next scheduled meeting, the USCCB budgeted for a three-year Celebration of Eucharistic Devotion, culminating in a national Eucharistic Congress and solemn Mass at the Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis. The projected cost was announced at $28 million, but the actual outlay and promotion are described here. CARA, meanwhile, sprung into action with its own study of the Eucharistic question with deeper analysis that examined PEW’s methodology and conclusions, but CARA’s findings and analyses of such profound questions would take a long time, and the bishops felt they could not wait several years for a public reaction and renewed mission in regard to the Eucharist. CARA’s conclusion was a correlation between weekly Mass participants and positive outcomes of faith on doctrinal questions such as Transubstantiation. In its commentary on this episode in recent American history, Crossroads draws several conclusions about the structure of the Church in the U.S. Practically speaking, the recent Eucharistic Congress was probably a helpful rejuvenation for the deeply committed, but its publicity and events would have been know only to “church regulars.” Inactive Catholics and the unchurched were untouched by the Eucharistic Congress. This, the authors point out, is a critical issue for the American Catholic Church; we are myopic and local, and our gestalt of the faith is our local “support system.” What happens in Rome, or one’s home diocese, rarely crosses the radar at the basic affective level where we live. Another point of analysis is the value of “difference” in social structures. A good case in point: those who denied or did not know the doctrine of Transubstantiation did not reject the idea or the importance of a common sharing of a meal based upon the unity of Christ around the table. As an evangelizer, I look at this population as siblings in faith, waiting for embrace. No one’s belief in Real Presence is perfect. When I receive communion, I pray: “I believe, Lord. Help my unbelief.” Having had years of Catholic education, I know enough to realize that Eucharistic bread and wine is the touchpoint of the Incarnation—God entering the human dimension. Full understanding of this mystery is not possible in this human life. The doubters among us keep us honest, steering us clear of a religious “knowledge” akin to the Pythagorean Theorem. Faith is not mathematics. Two other points in Chapter One examine the issues of preaching and what the authors refer to as the relationship of the structured Church to the “loosely tethered.” [pp. 53-56] Regarding the latter, “poor first dates” are a major roadblock to our witnessing of Christ’s love and welcoming the “loosely tethered.” I cannot put a number on the people who approached the Church for help or a request and were treated, frankly, with suspicion, bureaucracy, personal questions about their moral lives, sacramental history, or my favorite word here, “hoops.” Crossroads does not, in any sense, denigrate the need for divinely inspired order in the Catholic Church. But it notes that there is an appropriate time and an order for everything approaching the Church, and that pastors need an exquisite skill in discerning the best order of interventions in assisting an individual into the full community of faith, or in keeping a struggling believer in the family. Questions on the use of church envelopes is not the first step to “welcome to the family.” We will pick up this book review/analysis in two weeks. Chapter 2 deals with bishops and their relationships to their people, particularly after the child abuse scandals and the various dimensions of its impact upon the Church There are many things to say about how to celebrate the Lenten-Easter commemoration, and your parishes or church communities are probably publicizing times for extra Confessions, Stations of the Cross, and the ever-popular Friday parish fish fries. And if you are lucky, your parish is in the process of mailing daily devotional booklets to your home, a practice in my parish for some years now. The rapidly approaching observance of Ash Wednesday [March 5] and the seasons of Lent and Easter are as good a time as any to talk about another aspect of Catholic life, reading: prayer books, spirituality books, the Bible and biblical commentaries, theology books, even select novels—you name it—that great variety of literature that sanctifies our lives. I know that most of us grew up with a somewhat spartan approach to Lent—the fasting, the doing without—but in truth we should be more like the catechumens: falling in love with the rich treasury of God’s Word, the logos.
Rather than reinvent the entire wheel of Lenten observance, I thought this might be a good time to focus on the world of religious reading and the people and publishers who make it possible. So how do you access this multi-millennia library of the Church’s riches? And why? THE WHY. Bottom line, very little of the Catholic Tradition is taught to us in typical parochial life, and when it is offered, it is too simplified. Moreover, our pastoral/catechetical practice is build upon an egregious error, that by age seven or age twelve a Catholic’s theological fuel tank is full and he or she is good to go for life. These young folks have tasted few, if any, of the struggles of life where the wisdom of the Logos may guide and correct them. And worse, we never taught our youth where and how to access God’s wisdom, and there are no adult vehicles in parishes to embrace the Church’s wisdom. In our hearts we know our present system is wrong, but American Catholic leaders—for a variety of reasons—are hesitant, maybe even resistant—to make a major priority of continuous adult-level faith formation about the moral challenges of Christian living and the “two-edged sword” of the Scripture, as a Catholic scholar put it decades ago. Consequently, we Catholics live like ancient stargazers before Galileo discovered the telescope; we grope around the skies with just our eyes with no idea of the depth and beauty of creation that the Webb telescope captures routinely today. What is the most read Catholic publication in the United States? The weekly parish bulletin. While its intent is good, it gives little or no hint of the written wealth of the evangelists, the saints, the councils of the Church, or the sacred scholarship that continues around the world as we speak. And, as a true metaphor of the Church itself: most bulletins can be seen in the pews after Mass after people have left. THE LOGOS MUST FIND ITS PLACE It is no accident that St. John’s Gospel begins “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” [John 1:1] “Word” here is the translation of the original Greek word, Logos, which has passed into the English language itself. Merriam-Webster defines “logos” as “the divine wisdom manifest in the creation, government, and redemption of the world and often identified with the second person of the Trinity.” When we speak of the Word of God, we are not speaking metaphorically. When I was a full-time psychotherapist, I used to ask many patients what they liked to read. The vast majority said that their lives were so full that they did not read at all. Others admitted that they scoured the internet to research the symptoms that ultimately brought them to me. I did not proselytize in my encounters—most patients were Catholic anyway since my third-party health insurance carriers had listed my specialties [at my request] as Christian counseling, marriage counseling, and mood disorders like depression. Following my own experiences, with some patients I recommended a daily routine reading period, preferably with a cup of coffee or tea, in a quiet corner of the house, phone turned off, and in a comfortable chair. [“In verdant pastures he gives me repose.”] I like my Lazi-boy for two reasons. First, I am not distracted by arthritic pain and I experience warmth and rest. But more to the point, I have a spiritual thing about sitting and resting postures in prayer. I feel God’s hospitality and pleasure, as if I were his guest, in a restful and engaging mode. God feels very close to me at times—or his wisdom captivates me in silence-- and I feel I can express myself from the heart. The peace, rest, and sacred discoveries are something I look forward to, and thus I am more likely at 5 PM to put the Café computer to sleep and come down from the loft to my “sacred space.” [Note that this is one man’s experience. I am presently being guided through a six-week experience in the Ignatian Spirituality tradition, i.e., the Jesuit model, which puts much emphasis upon merging the Gospel texts with my imagination and emotions in my encounter with Jesus. The key to personal prayer and reading, in the Ignatian mind, is discovering through trial and error the personal rubric by which you can open your heart to the Logos, God’s Word, God’s Son, who longs to nurture your best inner self. You may be lucky enough to live in a diocese where approved lay spiritual guides are available, or religious societies are established around spiritual outlooks, such as those of the Franciscans, the Carmelites, etc. which teach folks how to pray and read the sacred writings. In my neck of the woods lay Catholics have formed their own cells or little communities which can enrich the personal prayer life. SO, WHERE TO LOCATE THE LOGOS? Catholic reading is a skill, and after a lifetime I am still discovering rich avenues of religious creativity. Like cooking, gardening, or taking up with a local bookie, there are things to know as you “move beyond the church bulletin,” so to speak. Over the past few decades, the walk-in retail trade for printed books in general has declined, probably because of the soaring price of retail rental space and the rising cost of the products themselves. I always enjoy Barnes and Noble, which in some locations has a coffee and pastry bar and upholstered easy chairs for the customers to sit and review $35+ books before tapping the plastic on the credit gizmo. B&N and other “secular” book dealers generally do offer religious texts from all traditions, as they do “self-help” books, but to the best of my knowledge the scope of their offerings is determined by customer demand, trade journals, and foot traffic. I interviewed the owner of a very impressive bookstore in a small Irish village last fall, who admitted to me that soon the “religion section” of the store would disappear in favor of novels and a large Irish culture selection. “Sally Rooney novels,” I quipped. St. Teresa’s Church [the Carmelites] near Grafton Street in downtown Dublin closed its book and café operations on a main street since I was there in 2015. I asked the pastor about it last September, and he laughed. “You’re the second tourist today to ask me that.” U.S. Catholic retail bookstores are few and far between. Orlando, Florida, had “The Abbey” in the 1980’s but the costs even then to operate a street front bookstore with a respectable inventory was prohibitive for the lay Catholics who operated it. Back in the 1960’s and 1970’s those of us studying philosophy and theology in Washington held a warm place in our hearts for the Newman Bookstore, an old house almost in the shadow of Catholic University. Newman had many Catholic books of substance, piled on the floors in many cases—so much so I feared that we customers and the books would collapse into the ground. I went back in 2011, and Newman’s was gone. There are today larger parishes with bookstores, though over the years the parochial “bookstore” has stretched its umbrella of goods to cover a multitude of needs not easily met in local secular markets. [The bookstore photo is from my parish’s website.] Rosaries, medals, household sacramentals [like a holy water font] and greeting cards for sacramental rites of passage, etc. As is evident from the attached photo, the space for actual printed texts is limited but it is a good selection of the very basic needs of Catholics: daily and Sunday missals and various Bible translations. I have always maintained that holding a quality bound prayer book--The Roman Missal, the Liturgy of the Hours, the Bible—is a sacramental moment in itself, whatever the text we are focused upon. In truth, it would be impossible for a single parish to expand the traditional parish bookstore model into a Catholic version of Barnes and Noble or Books-a-Million, and the financial picture of the Catholic Church right now is hardly blue chip for expansions, or for paid supervision, for that matter. The U.S. Bishops do not have the time or the staff to review every book that comes down the pike calling itself Catholic. So where would you start your adult quest for the written Logos? Maybe on your phone. THE INTERNET There are people quick to say that the Internet is the devil incarnate, or more specifically to our purposes here, that the internet has quashed love of the printed word. Sorry, but nothing opens more doors of opportunity than the internet. Back in the mid-1990’s I ordered my first book from Amazon, which was so new that the president, Jeff Bezos, sent me a coffee mug for the next year or two. In 2000 I wrote my first book review for Amazon, and gradually I came to see the value of on-line merchandising display and the tools to connect Catholics to the Logos of God. In 2014 I founded “The Catechist Café” and over the years have expanded the Café format to primarily reviews and discussions of Catholic literature of all sorts, including Catholic novelists such as Graham Greene, J.F. Powers, Jon Hassler, Louise Erdrich, and Flannery O’Connor, to name a few. Essentially, every other post on the Café is and will be an analysis of an important contribution to the treasury of Catholic life and faith. On the humorous side, it takes longer to write posts these days because, well, you have to read the book before you can discuss it. The good news here is that you don’t have to wait for me to wade through a new book with my old trifocals. The internet has permitted our best and venerable Catholic publishers, some dating to the 1920’s, to provide links to both the classics and the cutting-edge Catholic literature. In addition, many publishers will happily send you—free of charge—notices of new books and resources as they become available. Most, if not all, of the sites discussed here are operated by religious orders in good standing with the Church; but there are sites outside the Catholic ambit that have published remarkable works by and for Catholics. WHERE TO LOOK: Paulist Press [1866, Paulist Fathers] Paulist would be my first choice to acquaint myself with the Catholic publishing world. I find their catalog and search engines very useful Liturgical Press [1926, Benedictine Order] You could spend a day exploring the nooks and crannies of Liturgical Press’s on-line purchase offerings. Founded in 1926, LP is the publishing house of Saint John’s Abbey, a Benedictine community in Collegeville, Minnesota. I am familiar primarily with LP’s Bible commentaries. I see on Facebook considerable praise for LP’s “Little Rock Scripture Study” for use by parishes or individuals. Ave Maria Press [1865, Holy Cross Fathers] Ave Maria began as a Catholic magazine in the 1860’s devoted to the Virgin Mary. Due to declining subscriptions, the Holy Cross Order turned to full time publishing of books and pamphlets in 1970 and its current offerings on spirituality are available for your review. Loyola Press [Jesuit] The first word that comes to my mind here is colorful. But beyond that, LP integrates its publishing with Christian community building. Take note, too, of its extensive e-book catalogue. Notre Dame Press [Holy Cross Fathers] You’re in the big league at this site. ND Press is the largest Catholic university press in the world, and it looks every bit as tough as its football team. And yet, ND Press has an intriguing blog site you can subscribe to for free, which highlights Catholic life and history we rarely hear about—like the 150 Catholic priests who served as chaplains in the Civil War. Twenty-Third Publications and Bayard, Inc. [Augustinians of the Assumption] Twenty-Third is primarily a publisher of books which fosters spirituality and renewal. [Think Pope John XXIII; hence the name] But the mother company, Bayard, is international in its missionary and renewal outreach. Orbis Books [Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers] Orbis has distinguished itself over the years for its outstanding output of books on the Church's teachings on social justice and the people who minister where there is no hope. Orbis has made enemies in the Church, too, but so has Pope Francis. You get the picture. Eerdman [non-denomination; wide agenda] Its "about us" page describes Eerdman's as "an independent publisher of religious books, from academic books and scholarly works in theology, biblical studies, and religious history to popular titles in spirituality, ministry, and cultural criticism. I subscribe for its frequent new releases and have plucked some remarkably good Catholic and general works from its offering. Excellent blog page, too. COST AND TIPS It is true that for “big name” Catholic authors the price of a new text can run high. I haven’t seen much difference in price between the Catholic publishers themselves and the online outlets, particularly Amazon. But Amazon has ways for you to save money. There are many independent used book shops who sell their books through Amazon's system. When you visit a particular book’s site on Amazon, be sure to look to the right of the page for purchase options, particularly “used editions.” If I don’t need a book in a hurry, I’ll pay the [generally] lower rate, and it will arrive in the regular mail. Of course, if you are a Prime member, you qualify for overnight delivery for most texts. Amazon has a feature on its larger book pages where you can read portions of the book for free before you commit to purchase. Another service I use is the Amazon wish list. You can create that list yourself without purchasing anything. When you hear about or see a book you might like to own but you aren’t sure, put it on your wish list, as Amazon is set up to do that instantly for you--where it can sit for years. If you decide to buy later, just click the book over to the checkout page. I have had books on my wish list for nineteen years—you can catch a glimpse of my wish list here. [Nobody ever bought me one, though, LOL.] I turn 77 next week; will I read everything on my wish list? Probably not, but it's fun and exciting to know all those books are out there waiting for me. And finally, many religious books are available on Kindle, on the lightweight Kindle pad or other devices. I will use Kindle for novels on vacation, but for my home working library I buy printed texts only. I mark them up and retain them for future use. But, you do what works for you. Feel free to contact me from the bottom of the Café home page if you need help navigating the Sea of Ink and Wisdom. I'll share my raft. |
For Folks Who Can't Read Everything
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