Dear Brothers and Sisters of Our Lady of Mount Carmel,
For the past couple of weeks, I have not had much to say. We tried a few ‘change of pace’ items and received a bit of favorable feedback. This week there is no shortage of things that need to be said.
Our entire U.S. Catholic Church is reeling under the revelations of clerical sexual abuse of children in Pennsylvania over the past sixty years. God forgive us yet again for the hurt done to more than one thousand children, their families, and the entire community of believers in our country. The outcry has been loud and justified.
Fr. Emmett and I both tried to say something on this massive sin in our homilies this past Sunday. As I read editorial after editorial, and letters to the editor as well, plus some strong feedback from our own parish, I wish to add to my statements of August 19.
This latest outrage strikes to the very core of our Catholic hierarchical structure. And, it seems to me, displays for all the world to see the flaws in the clerical culture upon which our system of parish life is based.
I repeat what I tried to say Sunday. We need lay people, not priests, not bishops, to lead us through this latest morass. We need women at every level to speak truth to the Church, in the fervent hope that we can reform and rebuild Holy Mother, the Church. Of course, we also need the guidance of God’s Spirit and the mercy of God’s love at every step of the penitential journey that we need to undertake.
This major issue of Catholic life is most on my mind, but there are other things as well that need to be mentioned. For example, the ministry of our church to teens and young people is frequently mentioned as insufficient. The evidence for that statement is the fact that many do not come.
Last year, we made major efforts to revitalize our Confirmation program. Thanks to the efforts of Elliot, his team, and the support of Confirmation parents, we did have a program that was generally well received and very well evaluated by the participants. So, we will be doing the same this year.
And, we are adding an additional step. We have been invited to join with the teens of St. Anastasia Church in Teaneck to join them in a summer work project in 2019. Teens and chaperones go to a different site in this country, join in the work of the project, and live and pray together with other teens from around the country for a week. I like the sound of this program. It actually sounds similar to things that emanated from OLMC successfully over the past ten years. Therefore, I ask those interested to see the flyer from Robin Bado, youth minister at St. A’s, that can be found on page 9 of this week’s bulletin. Please consider this invitation favorably and help us correct the frequent complaint that we are not doing enough for our teens.
Sincerely yours in Christ and Our Lady of Mount Carmel,
fr. Dan
doneill@nullcarmelnet.org