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Contents © 2000
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.
LETTERS
JANUARY 2000
CLING TO THE CHURCH, NOT OLD BUILDINGS
I am a retired priest of the diocese of Boise, Idaho, now living in Sacramento, California. I was present during the two-year vitality study of the diocese of Boise and its future priest shortage and means to implement the study, and participated in the study at its many diocesan, deanery and local sessions for two years. I admire Bishop Tod Brown for implementing the recommendations of the study, which were to consolidate parishes, twin them, or suppress some smaller parishes or missions, of which we had over the years developed many. In 2005, due to retirement and deaths, etc., and lacking new ordained priests, perhaps only 40 priests will be present actively to minister to about 70 plus parishes. This is a worst case scenario, but probable. While many of the laity as well as pastors and associates were very concerned, most of the priests and people I talked to over the two year study and subsequent implementation supported the study results and implementation.
I am sure some people disagreed with the study and its implementation, especially smaller parishes which were suppressed or consolidated into local larger ones, as well as many missions which were closed or reduced in services. Yet the reality is and was that 54 priests could only do so much, and new priests were not forthcoming in sufficient numbers to staff what parishes we had.
Adding to the complexity of the consolidation were the distances in Idaho (which is a large state) the age of the present clergy, and the lack of financial resources for development. In addition a large influx of Hispanics in southern Idaho required priests and associates who could speak Spanish to minister to them. During all of the study, Bishop Todd Brown listened to advisors, right and left, consulted clergy officially in the Priests' Senate and in deanery meetings, and heard laity in meetings of all the parishes in weekend visitations through the two years or more of the study. I don't understand, since I was present for many of these consultations and meetings over the two years or more, where all the dissatisfied were? I didn't hear them speak out, but I did hear many speak of the agony, the frustration, and the need to take seriously the future of the Catholic Church in Idaho and provide in the best way possible for the greatest number of Catholics in the most populated areas, while providing priests for the out-missions and smaller rural areas. I supported Bishop Todd Brown then, openly said so in meetings and consults, and do now.
If the people of St. Isidore's mission in Los Alamitos [see "Evicted," November 1999 Mission] support their bishop's urging to become part of the life of St. Hedwig's parish, a short distance away, they will be expressing the Church's constant teaching -- where the bishop is, there is the Church. My brother and his wife are members of St. Hedwig's; it is large enough to include the people of St. Isidore's and give them space to grow and evangelize. This is the Church, not holding on to old buildings which have outlived their usefulness or capability of repair, but moving boldly into an unknown future with faith in Jesus and His constant presence in the Church.
I am sorry to be so long-winded, but people at St. Isidore's do need to mourn their loss of a small building which doesn't fit them any more, and think of the real Church which is not found in buildings but in hearts of the faithful enlivened by Christ.
Father Bill Dohman, JCL
Sacramento
WHERE'S THE POSITIVE REVIEW?
What does it take for Catholics, including Catholic publications such as the Mission, to support their own musicians? A case in point is the already passé "Jars of Clay" referenced in the article, "Idiot Creativity," November 1999. Where is a corresponding positive review of a Catholic music group?
Life Teen, advertised in the Calendar section of the same issue, a youth-based program, designed to encourage youth in their practice of Catholicism, often incorporates music written by non-Catholics into both Catholic liturgical and devotional practice. Yet there are composers writing for Life Teen who are committed Catholics. Where is a corresponding positive review of their music?
Given the wealth of talent within the Catholic community, music which uplifts the spirit can and is being written -- music of a myriad of styles, languages, genres, which offer Catholics a glimpse of the divine, and strengthens their faith walk.
Good music is being written for Catholics, by Catholics. Will the Mission make and take the space to report this good news?
Teri Seipel,
KUCR 88.3 FM
University of California, Riverside
RATZINGER AND KRISHNAMURTI
Your November 1999 article on music, "Idiot Creativity," quotes Cardinal Ratzinger as saying that rock music liberates man "from the burden of consciousness." It made me think of what J. Krishnamurti wrote in Commentaries on Living, First Series:
"Does not music offer us, in a very subtle way, a happy release from what is? Good music takes us away from ourselves, from our daily sorrows, pettiness and anxieties, it makes us forget; or it gives us strength to face life, it inspires, invigorates and pacifies us. It becomes a necessity in either case, whether as a means of forgetting ourselves or as a source of inspiration. Dependence on beauty and avoidance of the ugly is an escape which becomes a torturing issue when our escape is cut off. When beauty becomes necessary to our well-being, then experiencing ceases and sensation begins. The moment of experiencing is totally different from the pursuit of sensation. In experiencing there is now awareness of the experiencer and his sensations. When experiencing comes to an end, then begin the sensations of the experiencer; and it is these sensations that the experiencer demands and pursues. When sensations become a necessity, then music, the river, the painting, are only a means to further sensation. Sensations become all-dominant, and not experiencing. The longing to repeat an experience is the demand for sensation; and while sensations can be repeated, experiencing cannot.
"It the desire for sensation that makes us cling to music, possess beauty. Dependence on outward line and form only indicates the emptiness of our own being, which we fill with music, with art, with deliberate silence. It is because this unvarying emptiness is filled or covered over with sensations that there is the everlasting fear of what is, of what we are. Sensations have a beginning and an end, they can be repeated and expanded; but experiencing is not within the limits of time. What is essential is experiencing, which is denied in the pursuit of sensation. Sensations are limited, personal, they cause conflict and misery; but experiencing, which is wholly different from the repetition of an experience, is without continuity. Only in experiencing is there renewal, transformation."
Joe O'Brien
MIGHTY THUNDER CLAPS
Allow me to congratulate you on a very fine issue (December) of the Mission. The article by Charles Coulombe ["Not 'No' But 'Hell No'", December] and the advertisement carried in the same issue from Concerned Roman Catholics of America ("20 Disturbing Reasons Why You Should Pray for Roger Cardinal Mahony") were mighty thunderclaps in the cause of truth. Cardinal Mahony is probably the most powerful -- and certainly the most wealthy -- cardinal in the American church, and perhaps the world. For that reason, his "low profile" contradiction of the magisterium and the Holy Father must be exposed for what it is. His words still profess loyalty to Rome, but (as the expression goes) "he doesn't walk how he talks." Thus, he is doing tremendous harm to the Church. I thank God that someone is boldly printing the truth about this Prince of the Church who (perhaps unwittingly) is advancing the cause of the Prince of this World.
Larry A. Carstens
(received via e-mail)