Category Archives: General interest

General interest

Archbishop Dolan on “Culture of Vocations”

Leave a comment

As part of the celebration of National Vocation Awareness Week, January 9-14, 2012, The Catholic Answer magazine interviewed Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan of New York on how to build a “culture of vocations.”

Before becoming the Archbishop of New York and president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Archbishop Dolan served as rector of the North American College, the seminary for Americans in Rome, from 1994 to 2001.

The entire interview is important reading, but I thought our readers would be especially interested in Archbishop Dolan’s insights as to what a “culture of vocations” looks like:

“What I mean by a culture of vocations is that when our young people grow up in a culture that encourages you to do God’s will and that affirms one in his desire to be a priest, you are going to get priests. I grew up in such a culture. I said to my teachers in grade school, ‘I think I want to be a priest,’ and they beamed and did everything possible to encourage me. My parish priest would. My folks would. My neighbors would. The parish would. I can remember as a kid–I must have been 9 or 10 years old–getting a haircut, and the barber said, ‘Hey shrimp, what do you want to be when you grow up?’ I said, ‘I want to be a priest.’ And he wasn’t even a Catholic, but he said, ‘Hey, isn’t that great?’

“Now that is the culture of vocations that we need in the Church.”

Readers are also invited to check out Archbishop Dolan’s blog, “The Gospel in the Digital Age.”

General interest

Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate Conception

Leave a comment

We wish all the friends and affiliates of the Institute on Religious Life a most blessed solemnity of the Immaculate Conception today.

In a particular way, we send our prayerful best wishes to the Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate Conception, based in Northridge, California.

These Franciscan sisters’ mission is to be in the Church and for the Church. The members live their vocation through a total surrender of themselves to the poor and humble Christ in prayer, sacrifice, and apostolic action, in imitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. They are involved in catechesis, education, health care, and retreat ministry.

The congregation was founded in 1874 in Mexico City by a Franciscan Priest named Fray Refugio Morales and three young women. Guided by the Holy Spirit and, in the midst of religious persecution, they started to teach the Christian life to children and to take care of the elderly in their own homes, encouraging everyone not to be afraid of living their Catholic faith as sons and daughters of God.

For more information on this wonderful community, click here.

General interest

Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Hosts

1 Comment

The Institute on Religious Life is pleased to announce that it will host a regional conference in Southern California on the topic “Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Hosts: The Sacred Liturgy and Consecrated Life.”

The event will take place on Saturday, January 28, 2012 at Sts. Peter and Paul parish in Wilmington, California. Speakers include Fr. Brian Mullady, O.P. and Rt. Rev. Eugene Hayes, O. Praem., abbot of St. Michael’s Abbey in Silverado, California.

As the Church embraces the revised edition of the Roman Missal, it is good to be reminded that “an indispensable means of effectively sustaining communion with Christ is assuredly the Sacred Liturgy” (Bl. John Paul II, Vita Consecrata, no. 95).

This year’s regional meeting will offer reflections on the vital importance of the Sacred Liturgy in the Church’s life and mission, with special emphasis on how Divine Worship relates to the consecrated life in the living out of the evangelical counsels and serving the needs of others.

Everyone—clergy, religious and laity—is welcome to attend this day of spiritual renewal, reflection and affirmation of the consecrated life.

For more information or to register, click here.

General interest

Lessons from a Saint

Leave a comment

Check out this article from Catholic News Agency entitled, “Encounter with Blessed Mother Teresa transforms woman’s life.”

Susan Conroy is a lay woman whose life was forever changed as a result of time spent with Mother Teresa in Calcutta in the 1980s.

More recently, Susan has worked with the Maine Children’s Cancer program, helping dying children. She has helped out  in soup kitchens, homeless shelters and with AIDS patients in the south Bronx. She taught religion to poor children.

Eventually, Susan wrote a book about her time with Mother Teresa and received her blessings on the project. One hundred percent of the proceeds from the book, Mother Teresa’s Lessons of Love and Secrets of Sanctity, go to the Missionaries of Charity’s work in Haiti and to EWTN, the Catholic television station that offers spiritual nourishment to Catholics, especially shut ins.

For the full story, click here.

General interest

Pope’s Intentions for December

Leave a comment

Let’s once again unite our prayers this month with those of Pope Benedict XVI. Here are the Holy Father’s intentions for November 2011, as published by the Apostleship of Prayer:

Peace among All Peoples. That all peoples may grow in harmony and peace through mutual understanding and respect.

Children and Youth. That children and young people may be messengers of the Gospel and that they may be respected and preserved from all violence and exploitation.

Further, as we enter a new liturgical year and head toward Christmas, the Holy Father  invites us to remain “watchful” and “alert” by entering prayerfully into this holy season, so that we may be ready to greet Jesus Christ, who is God with us.

General interest

American Deacons

Leave a comment

The online edition of Catholic World Report published this month an interesting report on the permanent diaconate by Jeff Ziegler, fittingly entitled “Servants of the Lord.”

Vatican II (1962-65) expressed the hope that “the diaconate can in the future be restored as a proper and permanent rank of the hierarchy” in the Latin rites, especially in mission territories.

Ziegler summarizes the subsequent history:

“In 1967, Pope Paul VI issued general norms for the restoration of the permanent diaconate where requested by episcopal conferences. More than four decades later, 46 percent of the Church’s 37,203 permanent deacons serve in the United States, according to figures published in the 2011 Catholic Almanac, while an additional 5 percent serve in other parts of North America. A third of the Church’s deacons minister in Europe, 13 percent in South America, and approximately 1 percent each in Africa, Asia, and Oceania. There are more permanent deacons in the Archdiocese of Chicago than in all of Africa and Asia combined.”

Ziegler then gives interesting statistics on “deacon rich” and “deacon poor” dioceses in the United States. Interesting, one of the “deacon poor” dioceses Ziegler cites in his article is my own Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas. However, the most recent figures Ziegler had at his disposal did not include the 17 deacons ordained in the Archdiocese’s first class six months ago.

Ziegler also notes that the Church’s theological understanding of the diaconate is beginning to deepen in recent decades:

“Catholic teaching on the diaconate, while not as fully developed as magisterial teaching on the episcopate or the priesthood, has not been lacking over the past 50 years. The Second Vatican Council, Pope Paul VI’s 1967 apostolic letter on the restoration of the permanent diaconate, and the Catechism of the Catholic Church all briefly summarize the ministry of the deacon; Blessed John Paul devoted three general audiences to the diaconate in 1993, and Pope Benedict delivered an important address on the diaconate in 2006. In 1998, two Vatican congregations issued documents on the life, ministry, and formation of permanent deacons, and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a national directory devoted to the same topics six years later.”

Most recently, Bishop Alexander Sample published for the Diocese of Marquette, Michigan this past June “The Deacon: Icon of Jesus Christ the Servant,” a 19-page pastoral letter—perhaps the lengthiest and most thoughtful examination of the diaconate by an individual bishop in the deacon-rich United States.

While the information in the article is excellent, it remains for chancery offices around the country to make sound pastoral decisions as to how to best implement the ongoing restoration of the permanent diaconate. Ziegler’s statistics dispel the still-prevalent notion that the promotion of the diaconate somehow undercuts the promotion of vocations to the priesthood.

At the same time, the Church is already benefiting from the advances in diaconate formation that have been put into place in recent years. She will further benefit from an enhanced understanding of the deacon’s three-fold munera of word, liturgy, and charity, which are summed up in the call to serve the people after the manner of Jesus Christ, who came not to be served, but to serve and to give His life for others.

General interest

Don’t Let Uncertainty Stop You

Leave a comment

A fear of not having all the answers is stopping many young women from seeking a beautiful vocation as a religious sister, says a Franciscan sister from Illinois in a new video.

“That’s where the fear is,” explains Sr. Michael, of the Daughters of St. Francis of Assisi. “The person is hesitating to take that next step because they don’t have all the answers. You are not going to have all the answers, until you take that next step. And then the answers will come.”

In a candid, unscripted video interview, Sr. Michael, Vicar Provincial of the congregation, provides fresh insight on overcoming reluctance in pursuing a vocation, as well as the spiritual benefits of living in a community dedicated to following Christ through the life of St. Francis.

“Let me tell you what it’s like to be in a community of sisters,” Sr. Michael explains in a surprisingly popular 10-minute video. “It’s a mystery at first because you realize that there is a spiritual bond with each one of them. . . . We all come from different parts of the world and different parts of the country. Yet we all have that bond, that common bond. . . . That bond follows us into eternity.”

The video also features an interview with the congregation’s bishop, Most Rev. Daniel R. Jenky, Bishop of Peoria, who says, ”I am very happy to say I have great admiration for the zeal of the Daughters of St. Francis of Assisi.”

The Sisters’ provincial motherhouse is in Lacon, Illinois, and the congregation has its general house in Bratislava, Slovak Republic. They have been operating St. Joseph Nursing Home in Lacon since 1964.

General interest

Demographics Is Destiny?

Leave a comment

I recently came across this article in The Baltimore Sun entitled “Catholics look to younger students to stem priest, nun declines.” What struck me was that the profiled fifth-graders “were so unfamiliar with a nun’s habit and veil” that they referred to a nun as “the lady in the blue dress.”

Unfortunately, the author eventually trots out the usual “mainstream” explanations for the shortage of priests and religious, such as the sex scandals, the male-only priesthood, and mandatory celibacy, without going deeper.

This shortcoming was adroitly exposed by Terry Mattingly on his blog:

“One of the major problems these days is that millions of Catholic parents are no longer sure if they want their sons and daughters to surrender their lives to the church.

“This is the factor that the Sun continues to miss in its coverage of stories linked to Catholic statistics–such as struggling parishes, closing schools and, yes, the declining number of priests. A key fact: Birth rates for most white American Catholics now resemble those found in liberal Protestant churches.

“I dug into this a few years ago in a pair of Scripps Howard columns that shipped with this title: ‘Fathers, mothers and Catholic sons.’ The key interview was with the progressive Catholic academic Father Donald B. Cozzens, a former seminary vicar in Ohio and author of the influential 2000 book, The Changing Face of the Priesthood.

“The bottom line: How many Catholic young people will even considering entering religious life if this step is actively opposed by their fathers and mothers?

“In the past, when large families were the norm, it was a matter of pride to have a son enter religious life. But what if most Catholic families contain only one son?

“’When it has become normal to have two children or less, you are not going to find many parents who are encouraging a son–especially an only son–to become a priest,’ said Cozzens. ‘They want him to get married, to have grandchildren and carry on the family name.

“’So there are fewer sons and there are more mothers who are asking hard questions.’

“Grandchildren or no grandchildren? . . .

“Once again, demographics is destiny. I would also note that, especially in Catholic pews, demographics are often shaped by doctrine.”

Read the entire article here.

General interest

In Praise of Our King

Leave a comment

As a gift to God for His goodness, and in response to many requests, the School Sisters of Christ the King have recorded a CD called “In Praise of our King.” The recording contains portions of the liturgy of the hours beautifully chanted by the sisters.

The CD is available, free of charge, upon request. They may be contacted at School Sisters of Christ the King, Villa Regina Motherhouse, 4100 SW 56th Street, Lincoln, NE 18522-9261.

While you’re at it, you might want to include with your request for the CD a tax-deductible gift to the sisters–not only to offset the cost of the CD, but even more to support the sisters and their apostolic works.

This relatively young community already staffs seven Catholic schools in the Diocese of Lincoln, but needs contributions to continue to train young sisters for this work.

General interest

All Saints Sisters of the Poor

Leave a comment

Archbishop Edwin F. O’Brien erected the All Saints Sisters of the Poor, a women’s religious community based in Catonsville, Maryland, as a Catholic diocesan institute last week–fittingly on the Solemnity of All Saints–at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Baltimore.

The Holy See recognized the All Saints Sisters of the Poor as a diocesan institute–a religious community that reports to the local bishop–within the past few weeks.

The sisters were formerly an Episcopal religious community. They were received into the Catholic Church in 2009 along with their chaplain, Fr. Warren Tanghe, after a seven-year discernment. They took private vows when they entered into full communion with the Church, but were able to  profess public vows during last week’s celebration. They are now “official” and can accept new members.

The American branch of a society founded in England, the All Saints Sisters of the Poor came to Baltimore in 1872 and have been at their current location since 1917.

In addition to devoting their lives to a rigorous daily prayer regimen, the sisters offer religious retreats, visit people in hospice care, and design religious cards to inspire others in the faith.