Curmudgeon presumes to instruct Holy Mother Church on how to recruit more priests: Part IV of a series

For Part I of the series, click here. Click here for Part II, and here for Part III.

The accompanying church photo here was not randomly selected.

It is the Most Holy Trinity Catholic Chapel at West Point, on the grounds of the United States Military Academy.

And it is West Point that provides the template for my plan for the Catholic Church to eliminate the priest shortage in America.

In Part I of this series, discussing the principle of Apostolic Succession, I mentioned that a priest, good or bad, remains a priest unless or until he is laicized -- which I likened to being "kicked out." And that's true -- laicization is the way by which the Church can rid itself of problematic priests.

But that's incomplete: A priest can ask to be released from his vows -- laicized -- for any number of reasons. We had a couple in the parish, some years ago; he had been a priest; she had been a nun; they met and fell in love. They decided that their ultimate vocation was matrimonial, not clerical, and both sought, and received, release from their vows. They remained Catholics in good standing. They wed, had children, and lived long and exemplary lives. It happens. It happened a lot in the turmoil following Vatican II, but it still happens even today.

The committment to the priesthood is expected to be lifelong, and it usually is. In that sense, the priesthood is a lot like marriage: It's expected to be a lifelong committment, but, just as you don't stand at the altar reciting your vows envisioning your spouse 50 years older, you don't prostrate yourself at the feet of the bishop imagining yourself entering the old priests' home. No: Marriage is about committment today and tomorrow: This is the person I want to build a life with today, and, feeling as I do, I can't imagine that I would change my mind tomorrow. And, if you're lucky, and healthy, you wind up stacking up so many todays and tomorrows that your spouse -- and you yourself -- are 50 years older. But sometimes things don't work out... and even though Jesus was clear that marriage is for life, the church recognizes that, in some circumstances, the marriage has failed. The Church can annul a marriage.

While Jesus expressly said that marriage was for life, He did not say that ordination was for life, although, obviously, I won't argue that this has long been the expectation. But Jesus gave his Apostles the express power to bind and loose and to transmit the powers He gave to others. So I would not expect or want anyone to enter into the priesthood with the idea of merely doing a term of years and then getting out -- but the Church has recognized there are times when a priest should be returned to lay status. It may be because of scandal or fault, but it may be because the priest has recognized his true vocation lies elsewhere.

Which brings us back to West Point.

West Point graduates somewhere around 1,000 to 1,100 new second lieutenants every year. All are obliged to serve for five years. Somehwere around 50 to 60% of these will remain in the Army after the five year committment is up. But more will drop out along the way -- many at the 20-year mark -- so that only 10 to 15% of a typical cadet class will remain in the Army for 30 years or more.

The Army is happy with this arrangement, of course: It needs lots of second lieutenants -- but not so many colonels or generals.

Now, consider how this might work for the Church: Suppose the Church undertook to pay for a college education for persons interested in the priesthood. Men would take a degree in a normal academic subject, just as they typically do now (Pope Leo's undergraduate degree, for example, was in math), and spend summers and perhaps a fifth year in formation for the priesthood. After ordination, all priests would be expected to serve a minimum of five years in the priesthood.

Surely young men would line up in droves for this opportunity: The cost of higher education is astonishingly high, and going up every year, always outpacing inflation. So the Church should have the opportunity to attract as many new priests as it wants, or can handle.

This would have to be honorable service. A West Point cadet who runs seriously afoul of the Honor Code, or who refuses commission following graduation, or who refuses to honor his or her five-year service committment, is legally required to repay the government for tuition and benefits. It would be the same for men studying for the priesthood: No girls. Certainly no boys. No hanky panky of any kind. Any violation would be met with expulsion... and a very large reimbursement bill. Whatever sins of omission or commission that led to the expulsion might, potentially, be forgiven, but the bill would have to be paid.

At the end of his first five years of service, a man could ask to be returned to lay status. He'd be light years ahead of many of his peers: No student debt. Real job experience. Such men might be looked to as the mainstays of their parishes -- the likely pillars of the parish school boards or finance councils or Holy Name societies. Meanwhile, the Church would flourish with three or four priests in each parish -- mostly vigorous young men -- who could get up early enough for 6:30 daily Masses and still make parish calls and hospital visits, and sit in on committee meetings, and help plan the fundraisers, and pray with the Pro Life Committee at the abortion clinic, or coach or teach (or at least substitute teach) at the parish school. Some men would find, after stacking up five years of todays and tomorrows, that they have a call to continue in this work; others would find that their futures would lie away from the Rectory. But the priests who remain would potentially have classmates -- friends -- in any assignment, wherever they are sent.

Of course, some will get nervous about bringing lots of young men into the priesthood: What about the danger of child sexual abuse?

The truth is that, as long as there are children, there will be persons who will try and exploit them. This is a problem not just for the Church, but for our society as a whole. But there would be a number of deterrents with the Church's West Point plan. One would be structural: The molester, if found out before fulfilling his service committment, would be on the hook for full tuition and costs -- in addition, of course, to civil and criminal liability. But there is also safety in numbers: Multiple men in the Rectory -- many priests -- will allow for two or more priests to be present at any event with children. And the Church has learned a lot in the last quarter century, since the Dallas Charter. But the lesson can be summarized very succinctly: Nobody should want to be alone with a child who is not that person's own -- and any person who does want to be alone with someone else's child should never be left alone with a child.

I am sure there would be issues of canon law that would have to be addressed to make this happen. I am not a canonist, but Pope Leo is. He knows first hand the issues -- and the evils -- that arise from a shortage of priests. Even assuming the good faith of all concerned, we are too often putting men who should never be pastors into administrative roles for which they are ill-equipped. They may have other talents that could make them good priests, but these never come to the fore where they are shoved into jobs they can't handle. Deepening the talent pool will allow these men to flourish according to their gifts and strengthen the Church as a whole.

Now I know some of you started in on this essay with the question, why not just ordain women? That would double the available pool of priests without any West Point plan. Actually, if you are one of these persons, and you've read this far, I thank you. In real life, when I have proposed this plan in conversations with friends, many turn off instantly: Women must be ordained first before you do try anything else, they say.

I will tell you now what I have told people in real life: I don't know why the Church refuses to consider women's ordination. I'm just a dumb guy in the pews. The first witness to Jesus' Resurrection was a woman. Surely many of the Church's greatest saints are women. Many were martyred for spreading the Faith. And you don't have Constantine (and the Council of Nicea in 325) without St. Helena; you don't have St. Augustine without St. Monica. But I know implacable opposition when I see and hear it, and that's what I see and hear from the Church on the question of women's ordination. Maybe someday I will understand why the Church takes this position, but right now it is enough that I know what the position is, and that there's no getting around it any time soon.

And... in the meantime... we must have more priests. This, I am sure, would help.

Curmudgeon presumes to instruct Holy Mother Church on Catholic schools: Part III of a series

For Part I, click here; for Part II, click here

The Catholic Church will survive all her current challenges, certainly.

We know this because we know that the Holy Spirit guides the Church... it's just that foolish humans seem determined to undermine the Holy Spirit at every turn.

Case in point: The Daily Herald's Eric Peterson reported yesterday that the Vatican's Dicastery for Culture and Education has rejected the last-ditch appeal from parents seeking to prevent the closure of St. Hubert's School in northwest suburban Hoffman Estates, Illinois.

Enrollment had dipped at St. Hubert's and the school's finances were precarious at best. Peterson's article noted that the pastor of the parish into which St. Hubert's was recently merged, Holy Archangels Parish, and the new parish finance council actually requested the closure, and Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich obliged. A coalition of school parents, opposed to the closure, hired a canon lawyer and appealed to the Vatican, looking to "present evidence documenting mismanagement of finances and poor decision-making by parish administrators leading to the closure request." They also hired a consultant, who came up with a plan to put the school back on a sound financial footing; according to Todd Fuerer's September 1 article on the CBS News website, the parents even came up with $282,000 to "help with operating expenses."

No, I don't know what happened to the money either.

Catholic grammar schools and high schools have been merging or closing, sometimes merging and then closing in the Chicago area, throughout my adult life. The unusual feature of the St. Hubert's case was the appeal to the Holy See. Usually, at least in my experience, Catholic school closure decisions are accepted, sometimes with sadness, sometimes with anger. When St. Thecla's School was closed (in conjunction with the merger of the parish church into two others), there was initially some hope that my own nearby parish school might gain a lot of former Thecla students. And we did get a few. But only a few. For the most part, from what I heard, most of the parents of St. Thecla's School students vowed to send their kids anywhere but another Catholic school. And I'll bet you that most of them are not contributing to the support of their merged parish church either.

St. Thecla's was not in financial distress. Though enrollment was borderline, the school was operating in the black. In that case it was the Archdiocese that coveted the prime real estate on which the school and church sat... and apparently continues to sit: Although the church building seems to have been sold (or at least rented out) to a Church-of-What's-Happening-Now sort of denomination, the school building... which was rumored to be sold to the Chicago Public Schools... seems to still be on the Cardinal's hands.

Not every school closing case is the same.

But the common element in all cases is money.

Even if there is no financial hanky panky, and even if the school does not sit on prime real estate, it costs a lot to run a Catholic school.

When I served on my parish school board, more than 30 years ago, salaries and benefits were 90% or more of our entire budget. Well, even way back when, we'd just about run out of nuns. Nuns weren't free labor, of course, but they were a lot less expensive than lay teachers. Even though lay teachers in the Chicago Catholic schools don't make nearly as much as their Chicago Public School counterparts. Long Suffering Spouse -- who began teaching at our parish school after I left the school board -- still doesn't make as much as a newly graduated CPS teacher. I am certain that salaries and benefits are easily 90% of a Catholic school's budget, even today.

When I started on the school board, the parish provided a subsidy to the parish school, to help keep tuition more manageable. One year the subsidy was on the order of $250,000. But the Archdiocese of Chicago put the kibosh on that practice. I suppose it would be uncharitable of me to suggest that the Archdiocese wanted more of that money Downtown... for itself... but, though I have labored mightily, I haven't been able to come up with a better explanation.

It also seems that the Archdiocese is -- if not actually determined to shut down Catholic schools entirely -- at best barely tolerant of their continued existence.

Where -- I sometimes wonder -- do they think the Catholics of tomorrow will come from?

Now, I suppose that the vast numbers of Muslim immigrants, in gratitude for the support and services provided by local Catholic charities, may choose to abandon Islam en masse and convert to Catholicism. A lot of the money that Catholic groups are putting into immigrant services comes from the American taxpayer, not from Catholics specifically, so that would be a total win-win for the Church: They could possibly gain huge numbers of converts while only spending OPM (Other People's Money). I suppose that could happen... but I sure wouldn't bet on it.

The Church needs Catholic schools.

I would add, as a patriot, that America needs Catholic schools: Catholic schools do a better job of educating kids than public schools -- if this isn't true everywhere in the nation, it is certainly true in our big cities. And America needs better educated citizens. Desperately.

So... my advice to the bishops is this: Recommit yourselves to Catholic education. Support it. Nuture it. Find ways not to close schools.

Also -- and I don't know if this is just a Chicago problem, or if this is nationwide -- but, in Chicago at least, stop looking at the public schools as a model to be emulated. I don't mean to be blunt about this, but (with the exception of a few selective enrollment schools) CPS sucks. We do more, with less, than public schools, and we could do better if we didn't try and ape the trends they follow. CPS should be studying our Catholic schools and trying to imitate our best practices. And, please, don't be embarrassed about teaching religion: Your future collections depend on the kids in your schools now. If you want them in the pews of your churches when they are grown, you better educate them in the Faith.

Finally, to the disappointed parents of St. Hubert's: Start your own school. The heck with the Cardinal. You obviously have resources. Use them for yourselves and your children, and I'll bet you have people lining up around the block to join you. Be unashamedly Catholic. Teach real history. Teach patriotism. Demand excellence... and maybe even a smattering of Latin and Greek. You've got a canonist on call; let the canonist guide you toward establishing an independent Catholic institution that will make you and your children proud... and which the Cardinal can't reach. Good luck.

Curmudgeon presumes to instruct Holy Mother Church on immigration: Part II of a series

For Part I, click here.

The painting is Giotto's The Flight Into Egypt.

The flight of the Holy Family to Egypt, in response to an angel's warning, saving the infant Jesus from King Herod's slaughter of all boys two-years of age or younger and born in Bethlehem, is told in the Gospel of Matthew. The story is frequently cited as an example of how Christians should respond to migrants in their midst, whether illegal immigrants, or foreigners let in by elites who claim to believe in open borders: We should be welcoming to all; after all, Jesus was Himself a (pick one or more) refugee, illegal immigrant, migrant....

Actually, the Holy Family going from Judea to Egypt would not be that much different from a modern family journeying from, say, Illinois to Iowa. Both Judea and Egypt were part of the greater Roman Empire. Judea still had some nominal independence when Jesus was born -- Herod was allowed to keep his client kingdom after Actium, even though he'd initially sided with Antony over Octavian; Herod was a pretty canny politician, but there was no question as to who was really in charge. At most, you could liken the Holy Family's journey to a jaunt from Detroit to Windsor: Until a few years ago, no passport was required, and persons could come and go across the national border freely, and as often as they wished -- like crossing from the Minnesota side of Sault Ste. Marie to the Ontario side, or going from the American to the Canadian side of Niagara Falls. Moreover, the Holy Family was not moving to Egypt; they were just visiting... until Herod's murderous purge was completed. So Mary, Joseph, and the infant Jesus were not illegal immigrants or migrants.

And, besides, elites don't really believe in open borders: They are fine with foreigners busing tables at fancy restaurants, or cutting the elites' lawns or trimming their hedges, or picking their vegetables, or cleaning the hotel rooms when the elites choose to come out of their gated compounds and travel. But, if elites believe national borders to be fluid, they are typically much less tolerant about foreigners actually living with them. Maybe as a nanny... but never as a neighbor.

There are some who would call this hypocritical. But not me. This is not hypocrisy, it is simply cheapness on their part. Proponents of open borders are cheap. They don't want to pay minimum wages to Americans, so they support the import of immigrants who will work for less... and never complain... lest someone call ICE. Big corporations like open borders, too, and for the same reasons: The presence of illegal immigrant labor holds down wages. Bernie Sanders used to complain about this all the time... though, obviously, not any more.

There are, undoubtedly, prominent Catholic clerics who believe in open borders. There are Catholic religious orders devoted to assisting immigrants. There will always be immigrants... and travelers... and refugees and it is not wrong for the Church to want to assist people in need. It may be problematic for Catholic Charities to get huge sums from the government for tending to immigrants let in without screening, without vetting, without consideration for what large numbers of immigrants will do to the costs of housing and other basic services for preexisting Americans... but the Church is responding pastorally to a problem. The problem may be caused by dubious government policies... but the wisdom or stupidity of the policies that lead to the influx of immigrants is not for the Church to judge, nor should it prevent the Church from responding in charity to the plight of the immigrants.

But does that mean that the Church, institutionally, is in favor of open borders? I understand why some might see it that way....

The Church's response to mass immigration is further complicated by the presence of so many Muslims among the immigrants admitted. It may be worse in Europe, but the exponential increase in the American Muslim population in recent years cannot be denied. Dearborn, Michigan is often cited as a leading example of this phenomenon, and areas surrounding Dallas and Fort Worth, Texas, but Muslims are becoming predominant in southwest Cook County suburbs from Bridgeview to Oak Lawn at least, and in Oak Brook and surrounding towns in the western suburbs, and in Morton Grove in the northern suburbs. I see women in hajibs daily on my walks in northwest Chicago; I see women in chadors and even niqabs in my local Costco.

On X (the website formerly known as Twitter) you will see any number of posts suggesting that today's Muslims are attempting to accomplish, through migration and demographics, the conquest of Christendom that the Arabs and, later, the Turks could not achieve by force of arms. I do not here stake out my position; you, Dear Reader, must decide for yourself if this is just a paranoid conspiracy theory or if there might be something to it.

But, seek some data from your children or your grandchildren before you arrive at your own opinion: Which of them, if any, have heard of Charles Martel and the Battle of Tours in 732? Which of them can explain the Reconquista? Can any of them tell you about how Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent was turned back from the gates of Vienna in 1529... or how, on September 12, 1683, Polish King John III Sobieski led his Winged Hussars to lift the second siege of Vienna brought by the Ottoman Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa Pasha and 90,000 to 300,000 (depending on your source) of his best friends?

If you, Dear Reader, are a Millennial or Zoomer, did you know about any of this stuff? Our educational system has been in decline for decades.

Even when I was a boy -- and that was a long time ago now -- schools did not emphasize the fact that the Crusades in the Holy Land were launched with the intention of restoring Christian rule to those areas of Asia where Christianity first took root. Granted, there were other motives for the Crusades as well... wealth and fame and fortune and a handy way of pruning the family trees of noble families who might otherwise terrorize the peasants in their own hometowns... but those were just happy side effects, not the entire raison d'être. And now...? Who is even allowed to say anything positive about the Crusades? Sports teams have had to change their names, etc.

I would not be surprised if a great many priests and bishops, and a great many laypeople who work for Holy Mother Church, especially in the area of migrant resettlement, are just as ignorant of history as most people today. I suppose that's how you can get a Muslim prayer room in the Vatican and 25 or 30 mosques in Rome. By the way, don't try looking for a church in Mecca -- there isn't one.

But the Church itself remembers the Muslim threat. There is an institutional memory that may, one day, save Christianity.

Pope Leo XIV has held a number of titles in the course of his career, both in the Augustinian order, and in the episcopacy. His first assignment as bishop was as Apostolic Administrator of the Peruvian Diocese of Chiclayo. This was in 2014. Because of an agreement between the Vatican and Peru, the future pope could not become the actual Bishop of Chiclayo until he became a Peruvian citizen, which he promptly did. In the meantime, however, Robert Prevost, as he was then known, could not function as a bishop without being given a "titular see" over which (in theory... and only in theory) he would preside. This was the Diocese of Sufar, a North African diocese overrun by Arab invaders.

Bishop Robert Barron, who may be well known to Americans because of his media presence and service on the Trump Administration's Religious Liberty Commission, is now the Bishop of Winona-Rochester in Minnesota. However, Barron began his episcopal career as an auxilliary bishop in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. That meant he had to be appointed to his own titular see, in his case, Macriana in Mauretania, another north African diocese abandoned to the onrushing Arab invaders.

We could go on... but, hopefully, you see the point already. There are more than 2,000 titular sees recognized by the Catholic Church, and nearly every bishop winds up being assigned to a titular see at some point in his life. The loss of these dioceses, mostly in Asia, including Asia Minor (or we know it today, Turkey), and North Africa, is a scar on the body of the Church. The Church knows the injuries it has suffered. Whatever soothing words its leaders may use in addressing migration generally and Muslim migration in particular, the Church cannot be blind to the institutional threat posed by uncontrolled Muslim migration.

I, Curmudgeon, just a dummy in the pews, implore my betters among the Church hierarchy: Listen to the institutional memory of the Church. Learn your history. And be guided accordingly.

You know, the other Bible story that some people throw out when people voice even the most modest reservations about Muslim population growth, is the story of the Good Samaritan. The Jews of Jesus' day despised Samaritans, but the parable leads even the most mutton-headed Pharisees to realize that the Good Samritan was a better neighbor to the wounded Jew by the side of the road than the other Jews who (for reasons 1st Century audiences would have understood as pretty sound) passed the poor man by.

The Samaritan interrupted his journey, and, from his own pocket, made arrangements to have the wounded man cared for. He promised to stop on his return journey to see if he needed to do more.

But you know what the Samritan did not do? He did not condition aid on the Jew's conversion. He accommodated to the customs of the country through which he traveled, rather than impose his customs on his neighbors. He assimilated.

Before you throw that story in someone's face who expresses concern with Muslim immigration, think about that. Please.

We are most certainly called to be good to our neighbors. But who is our neighbor? The one who wants to help, to get along, to accommodate, to assimilate? Or the one who would forcibly convert us, demand we observe their laws and customs, and abandon our own? Even the most mutton-headed Pharisee should be able to answer this one, too.

Starting a new series: Curmudgeon presumes to instruct Holy Mother Church on the proper form of the Mass

I'm not the Pope, although Pope Leo XIV is a kid from the Chicago area about my age. And a White Sox fan, just like me. We both completed our undergraduate degrees in 1977... but the similarities end there.... The Pope completed his math degree... I foundered on the shores of probability and statistics. The Pope didn't get kicked out of Altar Boys; I did. One reason -- almost certainly the primary reason -- was that I was no way going to get up for a week of 6:00 a.m. Masses... or 6:30... whatever. But, also, we both were supposed to learn some prayers in Latin in those days. No one told me that I could mumble my way through it. From what I've read, the future Leo XIV didn't need to mumble; he learned the Latin.

Anyway, bringing up Latin here is not random. It's actually foreshadowing. But, first, I have to get a couple of things out of the way for any non-Catholics who may stumble upon this page.

The picture here is Leonardo Da Vinci's The Last Supper. That's where Jesus broke bread and gave it to his disciples, telling them, "This is my body." When supper was ended, He took a cup of wine -- a chalice, we say -- and gave that to his disciples also, saying, "This is my blood." He also said, "Do this" -- reenact this distribution of bread and wine -- "in remembrance of me."

Catholics believe that, when the priest consecrates the bread and wine at Mass, reenacting that Last Supper, Jesus is actually present in the bread and wine: It is His body. It is His blood. Smart people call this the Real Presence. I don't pretend to know how this works, and I can't prove to you by logic or argument that this truly happens, but I accept it. I acknowledge it. I don't have to understand it in order to believe it.

So that's one thing. The other thing you have to understand about Catholics is Apostolic Succession. We believe Jesus gave his Apostles the power to transform ordinary bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Jesus; moreover, we believe that Jesus gave his Apostles the ability to confer this transformative power on others. Every priest ever ordained in the Catholic Church has received this miraculous ability because the bishop who ordained him received that ability from a bishop who obtained that ability from a bishop who obtained that ability... over and over again... down the centuries... but ultimately from one of the Apostles themselves.

Note that the priest's ability to perform this miracle does not depend on him being a good person. Or on the good character of the bishop who ordained him. No one -- not even my contemporary, the Pope -- will dispute that there have been some awful priests. And bishops. And a few popes, too. See, e.g., the Borgias. But, if we have to know the content of a man's heart, or the cleanliness of his conscience, before we can determine if the sacraments he performed were valid, we'd have chaos. You'd never know whether you'd been properly baptized. Was the priest even properly baptized? And, if the bishop who ordained him was a stinker, was the ordination valid? The whole chain of Apostolic Succession would collapse, irrevocably and irretrievably broken.

No, a priest who skims the collection, or takes a mistress, or even one who diddles with children, is still a priest (unless and until he is laicized -- kicked out of the priesthood). Ordination does not make a man better. If he was a jerk before ordination, he will likely still be a jerk after -- he may change after ordination -- I hope we can all improve as long as we are living -- but the improvement is probably not caused by ordination. Maybe it helped -- but there's no guarantee. Did you know that, in the Byzantine Empire, a general defeated in battle might not only lose his job, he might be ordained a priest and banished to a monastery? The sacraments this ex-general might administer, following this not-entirely-voluntary ordination, would be just as valid as those adminstered by a priest who (like our current Pope Leo) felt the call to service from a very young age.

So any priest -- every priest -- in the Apostolic Succession can transform ordinary bread and wine into the actual Body and Blood of Jesus. He can bring about the Real Presence.

That, in turn, means that the lowliest priest in the poorest church in the most poverty-stricken diocese can summon the Real Presence of Jesus to the altar. Jesus is there just the same as he is in the bread and wine consecrated by the Pope, assisted by a gaggle of cardinals, in the splendor of St. Peter's in Rome. If you accept the Real Presence, then you must also accept that Jesus is not more present in a Mass at the Vatican than He is in a Mass offered in a country church in the middle of nowhere.

Now... and I think I am on very solid ground to this point... from here I presume to instruct the Church on a matter of seemingly never-ending controversy: The form of the Mass.

The Church has, down the centuries, approved many different forms of Mass -- all of them legitimate then -- sufficient to permit the priest officiating at that Mass to transform bread and wine into the Real Presence. If the form of Mass was legitimate then, even though the Church promotes and prescribes a different form now, it is legitimate still. If it is no longer legitimate, then it never was. However, the Mass in the vernacular, which the Church has made the norm since the mid-1960s, following Vatican II, is legitimate, too. How can we be sure? Because the authorities, who are authorities because of and through the Apostolic Succession, say it is legitimate.

The overwhelming consensus among the Catholic hierarchy is that the modern Mass -- the Novus Ordo -- is the form of Mass that all the Catholic faithful should attend. Some religious authorities go so far as to want to suppress the once-familiar Latin Mass -- the Traditional Latin Mass, or TLM -- despite the fact that the TLM is increasingly popular among younger Catholics. Pope Francis was clearly in sympathy with these views. A prominent Jesuit recently wrote that he "hates" the TLM.

I say this is all irrelevant and immaterial. It doesn't matter if the priest faces the congregation or the high altar only. It does not matter if the priest speaks in the language of the congregation or in Latin. The minor differences in the structure of the TLM and Novus Ordo are of no moment. Nor does it matter if the congregation sings. (Personally, I think congregational singing is a relatively harmless, but obviously Lutheran, innovation: Pope Leo, having grown up in the Chicago Archdiocese at the same time I did, can surely recall that most of the hymns in the missalettes, when these started to be published in the 1960s, were indeed written by Martin Luther. Of course, Luther was an Augustinian before he broke from the Church... but I digress.)

High-ranking clerics have a preference for a the modern form of Mass. Some Catholics prefer a different form. It is still a matter of preference -- and, if the Pope feels closer to God when the Novus Ordo is said, that's great. Others among the faithful feel God speaks to them more clearly in the TLM. It's all window dressing -- and arguing over it detracts from the miracle that is at the core of any legitimate Mass. So my advice to Holy Mother Church, offered sincerely, is simply this: Let the faithful find God in any form of the Mass that they can. But always teach this: It is the miracle of the Eucharist that is important, not the orientation of the priest, his language, or the singing in the pews, or the incense, or any of the other myriad of details which you should stop fighting about. Immediately. Let both forms of Mass be offered freely.

Curmudgeon grapples with depression, death, and dying

Really fertile ground for an alleged humorist, doncha think?

But these less-than-cheery subjects are much on my mind of late.

Winter weather in Chicago can account for a serious mood indigo all by itself. We set something of a record recently for consecutive days of one sort of precipitation or another. It's been gray, it's been gloomy, it's been wet, it's been cold. We have less sunlight in an ordinary February, I believe, than in any other month -- and we're running well below average this month.

Of course, the Sun is out this morning, just to make me look like a liar.

But the weather alone does not account for my current funk.

I mentioned yesterday that I closed my downtown office and am now 'working' from home.

I didn't do this because I had paying clients climbing over each other to shower me with money. I did it because I didn't make one thin dime from the practice of law last year.

I'll let you chew on that for a moment. I did pay the rent, or at least my portion of the rent and electric and Internet. I paid a King's ransom for my Lexis research service. I paid my membership dues in all the various bar groups to which I belong. I paid medical expenses through the firm -- I operate as a C corporation expressly for this reason. But never, not once, during the entire year, was I able to squeeze out so much as a penny of salary. In fact, I had to lend my firm money to keep it going -- doing strange magic with credit card advances -- and the chickens are about to come home to roost on that venture.

All the years that I've been whining about my impecunious stature here on this blog -- in all those years but 2018 I was still able to pay myself something. Thus, last year was awful, even by my low standards.

My lease was up at the end of January. Rent was an expense I could cut, so I did. With efiling it really is almost possible to work from anywhere and still practice law.

I wish I still wanted to.

Now there's a problem.

I do have some work to do. Some of it may eventually realize income. Emphasis on eventually.

But what I've noticed lately is a complete disconnect between effort and results. I do good work on something -- what I think is good work, anyway -- and I get shot down by this judge or that one. I did actually "win" a case recently -- and, from a cynical lawyer's perspective I should be rejoicing because I not only won, my opponent filed an immediate appeal. And this on one of my only paying cases.

However... I should have won that case two years ago. I have been beating my head against the wall -- figuratively, so far at least -- filing motion on motion, raising argument on argument, laying out an airtight case -- and until the learned trial judge who had been handling the matter suddenly retired, I was losing. The other side would -- and I am not exaggerating -- make stuff up -- sometimes inventing some ridiculous claim in open court -- and the judge lapped it up. When I did win, the new judge based the ruling on something that, in all candor, was pretty much irrelevant, at least insofar as I was concerned.

I settled a case last year -- pursuant to client instructions, of course, but for far less than I thought the case was worth -- as it happened, the client's conduct had undermined the value of his claim, but let's leave that to one side -- and the insurance carrier immediately reported the settlement to Medicare. Which meant that I had to deal with Medicare's "Super Lien."

And the carrier should never have done this: My client had slipped past his 65th birthday during the pendency of the claim -- but he was not a Medicare recipient when the accident happened, nor was he a Medicare beneficiary during the entire time he treated for the injuries sustained in that accident. The carrier, in a move apparently calculated to add injury to its insulting settlement offer, made the bogus Medicare referral so that it could try and delay payment on the claim. This is illegal under Illinois law, as long as I made the undertakings required by §2-2301 of our Code of Civil Procedure, which I promptly did -- but I still had to complain to the Illinois Department of Insurance to get my check -- which I had to keep in my client funds account for the inordinate amount of time it took me to convince Medicare that it really didn't have a lien.

I could go on.

I don't have many cases these days but each and every one of them has some obnoxious, nonsensical twist that squeezes any satisfaction from the case that might otherwise exist. And/or the client doesn't pay. Usually and.

Long Suffering Spouse has noticed my depression, and she tries to encourage me to get back in the traces and work my way through all this.

Which, certainly, is the right thing for me to do.

But Long Suffering Spouse's situation also distresses me.

She is a teacher, of course, and, as indicated above, pretty much the sole breadwinner in the Curmudgeon household at the moment. And, because she teaches in the Catholic schools, she makes a fraction of what her colleagues do in public schools -- and she has no pension besides. (Actually, that's not entirely true -- the Archdiocese of Chicago did not discontinue its pension plan until shortly after my wife began teaching full-time. It lasted long enough for my wife to partially vest in the plan. I believe that, when our golden years arrive, we may look forward to $17 a month from that plan. Or maybe it was $17 a year. Whoopee!)

Basically, my wife works so that we have health insurance. (The Cardinal has not yet -- thank God -- discontinued that benefit.)

And, brother, does she work.

As the school's Spanish teacher, she sees every student in the building at some point during the year. She sees the middle school scholars three days a week, the fourth and fifth graders two days a week, and everyone else, from preschool on, one day a week for 'enrichment' during one trimester a year. Many days she has no break at all. Many days, she can't even go to the bathroom even once during the school day.

This has predictable consequences.

And because she has students during virtually every period of the school day -- when she does have 'breaks' she often has students in her room anyway -- she has no time for grading, or posting grades, or doing lesson plans, or doing any of the other tasks she has been assigned by an ungrateful and unsupportive administration. She's in charge of the honor society, for example. (And, for the record, I like her principal -- I'm just telling it like it is.) So, consequently, when my wife does get home (and after she makes a bathroom stop) she continues to work here. She falls asleep every night -- no exaggeration -- every single night -- grading, or posting grades, or doing lesson plans, or responding to anxious or angry parent emails.

Ah, yes. Parents.

Our school parents pay enormous sums of money to send their children to our parish school. For these prices, they expect miracles. In fact, they demand miracles.

And the teacher is always wrong.

I attended Catholic schools when I was a boy. We had nuns then. That's why the tuition was so much lower; the nuns were really paid next to nothing. Yes, even though modern lay teachers make a pittance compared to their public school counterparts, their salaries and benefits are still 90% or more of our school budget. Divide that up among the number of students in the school, and voila!, you have a princely sum per student.

When my older kids were still in school, the parish was allowed to subsidize the cost of operating the school -- and did -- some years kicking in as much as $250,000. The Archdiocese demanded an end to this before my youngest kids graduated. There is no way Long Suffering Spouse and I could have sent our children to Catholic schools the way things are now.

(And still the bishops wonder why Catholics are falling away!)

So it's understandable why the parents have such inflated expectations about what our school can do for their kids.

The problem is, of course, that the kids don't know any better; they don't appreciate the sacrifices their parents are making to send them to the parish school. So some of them behave as some kids have always behaved -- indifferent, even hostile, to attempts to teach them anything.

My wife's students hate her. She makes them work. She holds them to standards. She will threaten to actually fail those who will not toe the line. She doesn't always succeed at this because the parents of these miscreants scream bloody murder -- and the administration almost always intervenes on the side of those who pay the bills. The teacher is always wrong.

The funny thing is, those same kids will eventually, despite their best efforts, wind up in high school. Where they will retake Spanish I -- and, usually, get A's. The good students, who also hate my wife because, you know, they are kids and don't want to work (and we do?) will place out of Spanish I or place into an honors class and also get A's. Many of these kids, even some of those who were the most hostile and disruptive in junior high, will come back and express gratitude for the preparation they received from my wife. Some of their parents will seek Long Suffering Spouse out and praise her to the heavens -- these same persons who just a year or two ago were sending angry emails to my wife's principal -- and some will even have the good grace to admit that they were wrong back in the day.

There's some satisfaction in that.

But it doesn't stop the next crop of angry, demanding helicopter parents who, despite having access to their darlings' grades all trimester long, wait until the last week of the grading period to insist on extra 'help' or demand 'extra credit.'

I've tried to explain to my kids that there is a great deal of difference between "want to" and "have to." The psychic satisfaction from the many kids who come back and thank Long Suffering Spouse for their success would be so much greater if she didn't have to keep working to keep us afloat.

And Long Suffering Spouse carries the extra burden these days of worry about her mother.

Abuela is 85 now and is on what, if memory serves, is her third round of cancer treatment. Maybe fourth. The day after Grandchild No. 8 was born, Abuela went into surgery to have radioactive "seeds" planted in her liver. This is the second time this procedure has been done; the first did not keep the cancer at bay for even six months. (This was originally a colon cancer. I've had colon cancer.^* Mine did not escape the colon. Abuela's did, moving to the liver -- thus the seeds.)

My mother-in-law is not the world's most compliant patient. She's not eating or drinking as directed and, although her initial "numbers" following this most recent procedure are very encouraging, she is convinced that she will not recover this time.

Of course, Abuela says this every time -- but one of these days she must, of necessity, be correct.

And Long Suffering Spouse has become persuaded that this time really may be it. She is having definite forebodings -- and I have been with her too long to dismiss these out of hand.

I have long held the belief that Abuela was destined to outlast me. If she really is going, this time, I'm getting even more nervous than usual.

But I have whined too long today. I do have things I should be doing... and while there's more on these unhappy subjects I'd like to talk about, I'll have to come back to it later.

Perhaps. When I can better articulate what else I want to say.

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^* If you are interested, you can read about my somewhat cockeyed experiences here, here, here, here, here, and here.

The Devil hosts a celebratory banquet

It was quite a gathering in one of the lower circles of Hell last weekend, a sumptuous-looking banquet (though it tasted like shit, because it was made of shit) in an ornate ballroom from which the damned are usually barred.

The Prince of Darkness himself presided. As imps and other minor demons cleared away the gold plates, still reeking of horse manure, Satan poured himself another generous goblet of blood and strode to the dais, looking out at the many guests of dishonor.

Below the head table the entire room was filled with the shades of Catholic clergy -- priests and brothers and even a few nuns. Every one of these had stolen the innocence of boys and girls in their care -- parishioners, students, orphans, relatives. A great many priests, in fact, who'd carefully cultivated seminarians or altar servers. Teachers who had groomed students. So many who'd been 'treated' and returned to different churches or schools -- rested, refreshed, and more than ready to renew their pursuit of innocent children.

But none of these were at the head table.

No, as the Devil gripped the podium with one claw, and hoisted the goblet in the other, he looked right and left at the bishops and abbots and provincials, all garbed in their best ecclesiastical finery. Not by their choice. No, this was at the Devil's own insistence.

And he smiled.

It was a terrifying sight to behold, and those beholding it shuddered and shriveled.

Which only made the Evil One smile more.

"I drink to you, reverend fathers, brothers, and sisters," the Devil began, nodding gravely. "I could not have done it without you -- and I am grateful."

There was a buzz in the assemblage, despite themselves. Gratitude was not something ordinarily expressed by the Prince of Darkness. Anger, fury, hatred -- sure -- but gratitude? This was unexpected, and quite unsettling. None wanted to get back to their specific torments, you understand, but the Devil's gratitude stung more, at that moment, than their usual hot pokers.

The Devil paused. He knew that no one in the room followed events back on Earth; an eternity of torment leaves no time for such things. So they didn't know what they'd done to merit his thanks.

That made the coming revelation even more delicious, he decided. He chuckled.

Knees buckled.

"Without your betrayals of your vows, without your abuses of authority, the Irish would never have done what they did this week -- but I am especially grateful to your superiors, to the bishops, and abbots, and provincials here assembled" -- and here the Evil One gestured to include those at the head table. "Not all of them shared your interest in little boys or little girls," the Devil said in a confidential tone, "but they squandered the moral authority of the Church by protecting you instead of the children you defiled.

"And it's not just the lives of those that you ruined, or the many members of their families who renounced their faith when your depredations were finally revealed, so many of whom eventually came to me--" he paused again, savoring the thought -- "no, now the Irish -- the Catholic Irish of all people -- have voted to legalize abortion! And all because of you....

"Who will listen to a Catholic Church that protected the likes of you?" The Devil actually laughed. "So, thank you, thank you, thank you!" He lifted the goblet a final time, then drained it. "Now get the Hell out."

Fr. Timothy X. Warnn misunderstands Christmas

Timothy X. Warnn is the fictional name I've bestowed on the new pastor of our parish. Well, 'new' as in he's been there two years already, and it seems like forever. We can talk about why I'm still going there some other time. For now, though, let's talk about the poor man's confusion over Christmas.

Fr. Warnn (don't ever call him Fr. Tim!) is one of the more negative people ever to survive to adulthood. And I say this as a registered Curmudgeon, and therefore not exactly a sunny optimist myself. My good wife, who tries to find something to like in everyone, says he's not really evil, or out to deliberately destroy our parish; it's just that there is no way he should ever have been appointed to lead any sort of congregation. He also seems kind to his dog, she adds.

A week ago Sunday, on the Feast of St. Nicholas, Fr. Warnn was preaching that Catholics need to reject modern culture; if we're not counter-cultural, we're doing something wrong. (In Fr. Warnn's world, we're always doing something wrong.)

Did you know, he asked rhetorically, that in Japan they have a Christmas parade? He sneered, "Japan is not even a Christian nation!" -- I guess he thinks the United States is a Christian nation? -- but the Japanese Christmas parade only had Santa Claus and reindeer and elves and toys (no religious content at all, in other words), and this, apparently, is all wrong.

Except, of course, that it's Fr. Warnn who is all wrong.

We -- all of us, Catholics, non-Catholics, non-Christians, even non-believers -- can all participate in this kind of Currier & Ives, just-hear-those-sleighbells-jingling Christmas. A Jew, Irving Berlin, wrote "White Christmas." Santa Claus and Frosty the Snowman are non-denominational. Christmas trees and Christmas lights are not religious icons. The message of "Peace on Earth" is a universal one -- and one we all need to heed -- whether we are Christian, Jew, Muslim, Hindu or atheist.

There's nothing wrong with celebrating that sort of Christmas.

That's what Fr. Warnn should have said. And then he should have added that we -- Christians generally and Catholics in particular -- have a Christmas that is all of that and more.

We Christians know where the message of "Peace on Earth" comes from. We know that this message is part of the glad tidings proclaimed by the angels to the shepherds guarding their flocks in the fields by night, the angels telling the shepherds -- and all of us, down through the centuries -- that unto us, in the City of David, a Child had been born, a Child destined to save the world. Fr. Warnn should have said that the Star of Bethlehem is still shining overhead for all of us, waiting to direct us to the Manger, if we are willing to open our eyes, and our hearts, and follow.

And he should have encouraged us to share this kind of Christmas, too -- we should want to share this Christmas, too -- but we should also realize that not everyone is ready, or willing, to accept this full meaning of the holiday. That's OK. We will share our Christmas joy with our neighbors on any terms that our neighbors can handle -- we don't have to reject Santa Claus to welcome the Christ Child. We know there's more to Christmas than Rudolph's red nose or Buddy the Elf, or even the change of heart experienced by Ebeneezer Scrooge or the Grinch, but believers can enjoy the secular as well as the sacred. The world has something wonderful in the secular Christmas, Fr. Warnn could have concluded, but we Christians have all that and so much more besides.

Of course, Fr. Warnn isn't the only one who misunderstands Christmas. He has equally dense counterparts in the secular world. There are those who bristle at Santa Claus and reindeer and elves as if they were Biblical patriarchs. Who get mad if you let "Merry Christmas" slip instead of "Happy Holidays." These poor creatures think that, because "Christ" is contained within the word "Christmas," the entire holiday is an attack on the First Amendment. They imagine a slippery slope running straight down from "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer" to "Adeste Fidelis." Idiots. Wednesday is derived from Woden's Day (after the Norse god Odin), Thursday is Thor's Day, and Friday is Frigg's Day (for Odin's wife) -- but no one claims that these homages to the gods of Asgard undermine our Constitution.

And don't even get me started on the allegedly religious dopes who got mad this year at Starbuck's for not putting Christmas trees or other secular symbols of the holiday on their plain red seasonal cups. As if this 'omission' constituted an attack on the deeper, religious meaning of Christmas. Who storm out of stores where clerks say "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas." Golly, weren't we once concerned about the effects of "commercialism" on our understanding of the holiday? Good heavens.

There are aspects of modern culture that Catholics need to reject, but we do not need to reject what is good and wholesome in our common culture in order to enjoy what is special in our religious heritage.

Merry Christmas to all.

Chicago's new Archbishop says he wants to listen -- Curmudgeon would like to talk

Incoming Chicago Archbishop Blase Cupich (Reuters photo).

Archbishop Cupich, welcome to Chicago. May your time here be a blessing for the Church as a whole, and for the Archdiocese and yourself both in particular.

You have stated several times now that you intend to start your term as Chicago's ninth Archbishop by listening, which is nice.

But to whom will you listen?

There are millions of people in Cook and Lake Counties, many of whom are (or were) professed Catholics. You can't hear from us all or you'll never do anything except go cold stone deaf. If you don't starve first.

Some of the folks who will surround you in these early days will be toadies and sycophants. I envy you the sport you may have in exposing them, watching their heads nod enthusiastically up and down as you say increasingly outrageous things, then watching them wheel and pivot like a flock of starlings when you pull back. ("On second thought," you'll say, withdrawing some silly suggestion, and enjoy the fun as the bobbleheads slam on the brakes in their haste to retreat with you....)

Some of the folks you'll hear from in your early days will have nothing good to say about your predecessor, Cardinal George. I suppose that approach curries favor in some circles; I've seen evidence that it sometimes works, even among churchmen. Anyway, these naysayers will counsel you to undo anything they think that Cardinal George did, to pull the plug on that, to ban this, to revoke faculties to this group or that one. Perhaps some of these nattering nabobs of negativism (Wikipedia credits William Safire with that one, but you probably remember it, as I do, being uttered by Spiro Agnew) will be balanced, somewhat, in your inner circle, by those encouraging you to blaze your own trail (clever pun, no?) but trying to steer you away from changing anything they may consider as a favorite project or cause of Cardinal George.

I respect Cardinal George's intellect, though I've not always agreed with him.

He spoke once at a Chicago Bar Association luncheon that I attended. This was several years ago. His subject was getting public funds for private schools -- but his manner was so professorial and his talk so well organized that I lapsed into a critical listening gear that I have been able to find only occasionally since college. I disagreed with almost everything he had to say -- I am a great supporter of Catholic schools, but to remain Catholic, I believe our schools must remain free of the corrosive influence of public funding -- but the Cardinal made a reasoned, reasonable case. If this is how he speaks at luncheons, I can only imagine the force of his intellect when he really buckles down. (The second speaker that day was also impressed. And he'd been paying attention, too: This speaker came up to the podium and said how pleased he was not to be the most controversial speaker on the program. I'm sure you'll meet this individual soon as well, particularly when the TV cameras are on. The second speaker that day was the Rev. Jesse Jackson.)

I also respect Cardinal George for the graceful way he has carried the cross of his own ill-health. Like another of your predecessors, Cardinal Bernardin, Cardinal George has given us a healthy model of how to cope with life-threatening illness.

Of course, I'm still mad at Cardinal George for saddling us with a bad pastor this past year.

You don't have to agree or disagree with me, Archbishop, about whether my new pastor (of whom I've written here, here, and here) is good or bad. I hope, however, that you will come around to my point of view as soon as possible -- but, in the meantime, I think you can agree that the local parish priests are the most important clerics in the lives of most Catholics. The world is in love with Pope Francis because he is perceived as a good pastor, and being interested in being a good pastor. Your appointment is seen as proof that Pope Francis is trying to make his bishops and cardinals pastors first; you enjoy a reputation of being a good pastor. You now will have the responsibility -- the heavy burden -- of appointing men as pastors from a pool that is... limited. But good pastors will spur a rise in vocations over time. Keep in mind, Archbishop, that the Church grows by example, not by dogma or discipline or even good preaching.

God bless you, Archbishop Cupich -- and God bless all of us who today become your flock. If you'd like to talk some more, there's an email link in the Sidebar... and even if you don't, I may try and offer some additional suggestions at a later date....

Arrogant or tone deaf? Regardless, the new pastor is brave

We begin this morning's exercise by giving a name to our new pastor. In his case, for reasons that will shortly become apparent, we will have to give him a first and last name.

As always, this is not the pastor's actual name. Nobody that appears in these essays is called by his or her actual name.

I do this to protect my own anonymity -- and, more importantly, my family's. In this particular case, the need for anonymity takes on a special relevance because my wife teaches in the parish grade school. Her job provides our health insurance benefits; there have been months where hers is the only income we've had. Too many months, lately. So -- while I'm not saying retaliation would be likely were I unmasked -- I live in fear. My last tenuous toehold on the middle class could be lost, at least for awhile, if I make my identity, or the new pastor's identity, too obvious.

In providing a name, I have searched the Internet, confirming (as best as I am able) that there is no person named Fr. Timothy X. Warnn. That said, I hereby dub the new pastor, Fr. Timothy X. Warnn. I apologize to anyone named Timothy X. Warnn, living or dead, and assure you that I'm not talking about you personally.

Heck, I even apologize to our new pastor. I know I'm not being nice. I much prefer to be nice. But I think I'm being fair. You, dear readers, will not be able to judge whether I am being fair, because you only know my side of the story. You can only decide if you like the stories.

And, so, without further ado, today's stories....

Attendance at Saturday's 8:30 a.m. Mass was larger than usual because the school football players were in attendance, along with at least some of their parents.

It is a tradition in our parish to have the junior varsity and varsity teams attend Mass on game days, when possible.

In the old days (when Oldest Son was playing) this was easy: All the games were on Sunday, and the teams attended 9:00 a.m. Mass, with all the boys in uniform, and the widgets (what we called the JVs then) in their jerseys and pads because their game was played first and they would go directly from church to pregame in the school gym or (if it was a road trip) possibly to the park where the game would be played. The kids all sat together in the front pews, on either side of the center aisle, the widgets on one side and the varsity on the other. Coach Gallagher and all the assistants would be in attendance, too.

Over time, this became complicated. Coach Gallagher had children of his own. As each new little one came along (Coach's oldest is a year older than Youngest Son), the logistics got harder and harder and, eventually, the 9:00 a.m. Sunday Game Day tradition had to be scrapped.

But it all worked out. Conference alignments changed and games were sometimes played on Saturdays instead of Sundays. One memorable weekend, when we had a Sunday game, we had a special anticipatory Mass on Saturday afternoon in the Monastery next door to the church. It was a very nice, intimate service... until one of the kids, who'd been battling a flu bug but didn't want to tell anyone lest he not be allowed to play, suddenly -- and dramatically -- lost the battle.

The real virtue of the kids coming to a regularly scheduled Mass, however, was that the parish could see the boys and feel a tie to the parish school (which the parishioners have so generously supported over the years). It never hurts to renew and reinforce those ties.

So it was on Saturday that the teams were in church for the regular 8:30 a.m. daily Mass, sitting down in front (just where, you'd think, the new pastor would want them) with their coaches. Yes, they were wearing their game jerseys.

Fr. Timothy X. Warnn, the new pastor, presided at this Mass and, to no one's surprise, he mentioned the boys sitting down front in his Homily.

What surprised, and angered, the kids' parents was how he mentioned them.

I never liked football, Fr. Warnn told the congregation. It's just one group of thugs beating on another group of thugs.

Oh, my.

There have been priests before in our parish who were not great football fans. They were easy enough to spot. But they had enough sense to offer a few words of encouragement for sportsmanlike behavior, cooperative teamwork, determined effort -- all the positives that football -- or any organized team sport -- can provide. At the very least they offered a prayer for the safety of the boys and for their opponents.

When we heard the story, we asked our informant about any qualifications (as above) that might have been offered by the new pastor. Nope, we were told, none whatsoever.

"How arrogant!" I fumed. "Well," said my wife, "maybe he's just a little tone-deaf." (Blessed are the peacemakers.)

But there was no making peace with the next person we ran across who mentioned Fr. Timothy X. Warnn.

She is, shall we say, a lady of a certain age. And she knows her own mind. Sometimes rather forcefully.

I think this is characteristic of many women of a certain age. Take my mother-in-law the other day. She was livid that someone had had the temerity to tell her what she should, or should not do (it was in regards to a social matter). "I will not be told what to do," she fulminated. "I'm 80 years old and I can do what I please."

And you'd better let her, that's all I can say.

Anyway, this other woman of a certain age said she'd come up to Fr. Timothy X. Warnn after Mass to ask him about something or other.

She addressed him as "Fr. Tim." In our parish we have traditionally addressed our priests as Fr. [First Name]. You've read here about our last pastor, Fr. Ed, for example. (Having a touch of the anti-clerical about me, I will often address a priest by his first name alone, dropping reference to his occupation. After all, I am not generally referred to as Lawyer Curmudgeon.)

But this lady of a certain age called the new pastor "Fr. Tim."

The Sun went behind the clouds. The temperature dropped 20 degrees. The pastor actually bristled. "You will call me 'Fr. Warnn,'" he said.

The lady of a certain age told us all this and asked if we knew yet of any petition drives to get rid of this new pastor. "I'll sign," she said.

Well.

Our new pastor may be un-American. He certainly is a control freak. And he may be either arrogant or tone-deaf -- but no one can deny that he is b-r-a-v-e.

Deliberately ticking off the ladies of a certain age? The core constituency of any parish ever? He must be brave.

The new pastor preaches an un-American sermon

Despite my best intentions, I've developed a deep and abiding dislike of our new pastor.

When my mother-in-law declared that she couldn't stand the new man, I defended him. Well, that was only his first week on the job. First impressions are hard to undo... but you have to give someone more of a chance than that, especially when it isn't going to be easy to get rid of him.

Because I wanted to keep an open mind, and form my own opinions, I wanted to hear the new pastor himself. I wanted to hear him preach; I wanted to take his measure from his own words, not from disgruntled parking lot rumors.

This turned out to be more difficult that you might think: My wife and I go to the early Mass on Sunday; the new pastor has offered that Mass exactly twice since he started in July. (Gosh, I wonder if my 7:00 a.m. Mass might be on the chopping block? Eh?)

But when he was there, I was prepared to listen.

The first time was inoffensive. Indeed, although he didn't cite his source, the first Homily I heard the man preach drew heavily on Book VIII of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics (on friendship). Ah, I thought to myself, here is an educated man, one who has had some exposure to -- and is influenced by -- the Classics. That, I thought, counted in his favor.

But then came last Sunday.

I suppose I should have taken notes, but I'm not in the habit of bringing a pen to Mass. And I had no idea, coming in, what I was in for.

Sunday's Gospel reading was from Luke, the Parable of the Dishonest Steward. And, again, the pastor started out innocently enough -- and with a take on the tale I'd not considered before: When the shifty steward called in his master's debtors and allowed them to write down their notes (in the hopes that he'd be welcomed in their houses after his pending dismissal), the pastor said, he was probably doing no more than writing off his own commission. Well, I thought, that would explain the master's almost bemused take on discovering his steward's actions on his way out the door ("the master commended that dishonest steward for acting prudently").

I won't pretend to remember exactly how we got from that to the statement that sent me through the roof. But, somehow, he got from this interpretation to this flat statement, "For a Catholic, there is no separation of Church and State."

What?!?

Of course there is -- that is a bedrock principle of the United States of America, one of the things -- and I'd argue it's the single most important thing -- that has kept us from importing the world's religious wars even as we've imported citizens from every corner of our sorry globe. It is one of the things that makes -- and keeps -- America an exceptional nation (sorry, Mr. Putin, but it is so).

Now, if you want to say that a person should operate in the public sphere according to the morals and values he has learned from his church, I will agree. A person who pretends to profess one set of values at church and who jettisons them on exiting the parking lot of said house of worship is, at best, a hypocrite. That has always been my problem with the "Born Again" crowd of some other Christian sects -- "accepting Jesus Christ" can't be a free pass to Heaven, especially if one proceeds, despite being "saved," to lie, cheat and steal thereafter.

In fact, as I have argued before, it is how we live our lives, not what we preach, and certainly not what our priests and bishops preach, that attracts converts.

I listened carefully to see if the pastor would walk that statement back -- as I have just tried to do -- but he did not.

A priest who doesn't understand that church and state are separate is an Osama bin Laden wannabe. The late, unlamented Osama and the various "Islamist" sects are also contemptuous of the concept of separation of church and state. Religion (according to their own twisted lights) is the ultimate authority. Persons are not free to act in the public sphere according to their consciences which have been formed by their religious beliefs, but, rather, must act according to the dictates of their religious leaders.

That may not be as dangerous as it sounds for most Muslims because Sunni Muslims, the largest sect of that faith, do not have a rigidly structured clerical hierarchy -- although adherents of any number of 'schools' can do (and have done) terrible things, allegedly in the name of their religion, spurred on by the leaders of those 'schools.' But Shiites have imams and ayatollahs that parallel, in many ways, bishops and cardinals in the Roman Church. Thus, with no separation of church and state, the person acting in the public sphere must be guided in all things, not by his conscience, but by the current whim of the Ayatollah -- or of the Cardinal. Or of the pastor?

Actually, Jesus Himself provided a basis for the separation of church and state when He wriggled out of a trap that the Pharisees had set for Him. Matthew and Luke both tell the story: The Pharisees and Herodians (in Matthew's account) asked Jesus if it was lawful to pay taxes to the Roman state. The Roman occupation was not popular (the Jews frequently rebelled, ultimately resulting in Rome's decision to destroy Jerusalem, and the Jewish Temple, in A.D. 70). If Jesus said that paying Caesar's tax was not lawful he was preaching rebellion against Rome -- and could be dealt with as a political enemy. On the other hand, the Pharisees and Herodians, who collaborated with the Romans, at least when it suited their purposes, calculated that Jesus's popular support would instantly vanish if he said that paying taxes was lawful. You remember how it all worked out: Jesus asked for a coin and, when one was provided asked whose image is on this coin? That is an image of Caesar, came the response. And Jesus said, well, "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's and unto God the things that are God's." (The Catholic Bible uses "repay to" instead of "render unto," but however faithful that translation may be to the original text, "render unto" just sounds so much better in English, at least to my ears.)

Anyway, careful listening to the new pastor's sermon merely drove up my blood pressure. And it occurred to me: The wholly wrongheaded idea that church and state are not separate, and all the picayune, entirely unnecessary changes he's imposing on the distribution of Communion, or at the Sign of Peace, and the meat cleaver he will shortly take to the Mass schedule (despite the pretense of publicly welcoming 'input') -- it all fits together. This man is an Authoritarian-on-Steroids, drunk on his own Authority.

He can either sober up -- or go away -- or watch his large parish become small overnight.

More tomorrow.

Pope Francis gets it; new pastor doesn't

Back in March, when we were awaiting the election of a new Pope, I said that it was all rather exciting, but not particularly important.

Far more important, in my opinion, was the sort of new pastor we'd get at my home parish in Chicago. We've just become an Archdiocesan parish; the order of priests that served our parish for over a century has abandoned us because of the increasing age and infirmity of its dwindling membership.

Although I'm a Curmudgeon, I was not reflexively predisposed to dislike the new man; there would be changes, I knew, but I was ready to welcome the new priest. I wanted him to succeed. I was worried not just about him, but for him, too, when the rumor circulated that he would be the only priest assigned to our large parish, a parish that had been served by three priests until just a few years ago. Then we went to two priests. Last year, with the departure of the religious order imminent, we had our long-time pastor, Fr. Ed, and an octogenarian who volunteered to help out as much as he could. Even so, between them, we had our three weekday Masses almost all the time (four on Holy Days) and six weekend Masses, including an increasingly popular 6:00 p.m. Sunday Mass that brought people in from around the area.

Well, the rumor was that the new man would want to cut back on the Mass schedule. And, much as most of the parishioners thought that would be a shame, there was, I think, an understanding that one man alone could not keep up that schedule and do all the other things that the pastor of a modern Catholic parish must do.

Then came the good news! We'd get a curate -- a younger man, fresh out of Mundelein, newly ordained.

Things were looking up.

But the new pastor is still looking to cut back the Mass schedule, even though the cumulative age of the new man and his newer assistant probably don't add up to the age of the senior citizen priest who helped Fr. Ed maintain the supposedly 'grueling' schedule this past year.

The parish bulletin has been running some self-serving gibberish about why we need to cancel Masses. Some examples (rather freely translated):

• It's all the Cardinal's fault (the new guy manages to blame both Cardinal George and the late Cardinal Bernadin -- unless the church is 50% full, the Mass should be axed);
• Fewer Masses = better, even 'inspired' homilies (actually, if a priest would prepare a sermon just once it could be repeated two or three times that same day -- it's not as if the readings have changed);
• People sit too far apart -- they should gather 'round the altar (but have you ever seen how people 'fill in' seats on buses, trains, anywhere, really, where people gather? -- they leave as much space as possible) -- and, besides, wasn't it the Pharisees who crowded down front, beating their breasts, while the truly devout widow stayed in the shadows? God could see her, too.
• They should all sing (that sounds suspiciously Lutheran, but I'm willing to let that one slide since my wife likes to sing in church).

Now that the new pastor has had his say in the Bulletin our feedback will allegedly be appreciated -- but the word on the street is the new schedule, which is already set, goes into effect on the First Sunday of Advent regardless.

We have a big church -- not too big on Christmas or Easter, of course, when the joint is filled to overflowing -- but, according to the new pastor's statistics, there is no normal weekend Mass that even comes close to meeting the 50% "requirement" he has repurposed for his own selfish ends.

He can cut the weekend Masses down to one or two -- and he still won't fill the church. Most of the parish (yes, the ones who come out on Christmas and Easter) won't notice anything until Christmas anyway. That's when they'll show up and find the doors locked. Then they won't come back at all.

In the movies, Fr. O'Malley sang,
"I hope you're going my way, too."
In my parish, the new pastor
has quite a different approach.

The only thing our new pastor is going to accomplish by this wrong-headed scheme is to drive his regular parishioners away. My wife and I are already looking around.

But isn't that the exact opposite of what the Church says it wants to do?

Pope Francis, God bless him, has likened the Church to a field hospital, treating the spiritually wounded. He gets it; our new pastor doesn't. Do we close hospital ERs because the Chief Resident would like to get a couple hours more sleep on Saturday nights?

Fr. Robert Barron, now the Rector of the Archdiocesan seminary at Mundelein, is launching a new video series on evangelization this month. What would Fr. Barron say about our new pastor?

Evangelization involves filling empty seats, not cutting back on the opportunities to fill the seats. And how do we fill up the seats?

One thing we should do is welcome people -- and provide as many opportunities as we can for that purpose.

Frankly, the offering of the Mass, while it is something that only a priest can do, is among the less demanding tasks that a Catholic pastor is called upon to perform.

When the new guy sends up clear signals that he is hell-bent (and I use the term advisedly) on messing up the easy part, how can we expect anything but disaster from him on the tough stuff?

Our new pastor is a control freak that makes me -- a lawyer, and therefore a control freak myself, by definition -- look tame.

He's decided people reach too far with their Sign of Peace (a greeting ritual, usually a handshake, during the Liturgy of the Eucharist). The new pastor decrees that this should be only be given to the person immediately next to, or in front of, or behind. Don't wave at someone across the aisle, or nod across the church (you should be sitting next to each other anyway!) and, whatever you do, don't stretch across a pew to shake hands with someone. Oh, and those Eucharistic Ministers, the ones who help distribute Communion? Don't come up to the altar until the priest has concluded leading the prayer immediately before Communion ("Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof...) and, for God's sake, don't greet your fellow ministers! And no more Eucharistic Ministers may be dispatched to the back of the church (we have a central aisle which my church architect son-in-law may or may not consider a modern transept), even if Mass is crowded. (You don't want those people coming back anyway! We only want people who want to sit down in front.)

I could go on, but I think I've conveyed the gist: Rules, Rules and more Rules! Bing Crosby's fictional Fr. Charles O'Malley asked if we were going his way; our new pastor says 'Go My Way or Hit the Highway.' Compare this attitude to the one conveyed by Fr. Barron in the video below.

Which Church would you rather belong to?

And it's all the same Church!

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Readers will have to indulge me for one more post about this new pastor, which I'll hopefully get out of my system tomorrow. I told you that I wanted to give this guy the benefit of the doubt -- so I really wanted to listen to his Homily last Sunday. What he said outraged me, as a Catholic, yes, but also as an American. But that's tomorrow, real world permitting.

Fr. Robert Barron on evangelization

This video has been out since February 2012 but it strikes me as particularly applicable to the situation in my home parish these days -- a parish in transition, as some readers may recall. I'm working on a post about it -- hopefully even general readers may find it amusing, even if it is quite serious to me.

But this nine minute (or so) video by Fr. Robert Barron stakes out the position I'd like to advance. Even as I try to be humorous.

Fr. Houdini vanishes

The religious order that has staffed our parish church for more than a century recently pulled up stakes and left town. They sold off the monastery next door and informed the parish that, starting this summer, our spiritual needs would be tended by priests assigned by the Chicago Archdiocese.

It's a sad commentary on the state of vocations in this country that religious orders are no longer able to maintain parish churches, but it's the truth. And it's not as if the Archdiocese is teeming with priests that can fill the void. So it's a very unsettling time for all of us in the parish.

It's a particularly unhappy time for us in the Curmudgeon home because we've become very fond, over the years, of Fr. Ed, the departing pastor. I served with him on the parish school board many years ago and my wife and I worked with him on other parish projects; he married Younger Daughter and Olaf and he provided pre cana counseling for Oldest Son and Abby and Hank and Older Daughter, too. He's a prickly, stubborn German and he's always rubbed some people in the parish the wrong way but he's been here, as pastor, twice as acting pastor, or as associate pastor for close to 20 years. He's probably pushing 80 -- but, if he's taken to fibbing about his age, he truly does have the energy of a much younger man. And, like a much younger man, our pastor has not been wild about being put out to pasture.

There's been talk he'd be allowed to stay on as pastor emeritus but he seems to have pushed his superiors in his own religious order once too often for this to be graciously allowed. I hear he's looking for a job.

Meanwhile, we had a grand farewell luncheon a couple of weeks ago at a local banquet hall. Many of the priests who've served our parish came back for the Noon Mass on June 30. The principal celebrant was the local provincial of the order that's pulling out. Our local bishop showed up to thank the departing order for its service and to reassure us that we'd still like our parish next Sunday, too. Fr. Ed was there, of course, but he and the admitted octogenarian who's been helping out this past year were consigned to the opposite ends of the long line of priests who gathered on the altar for the Consecration. Fr. Ed was a little late getting in line; he was helping an older priest in a walker get up the altar stairs.

I noted, at the end of the Mass, as the priests processed out, Fr. Ed lingered on the altar, tidying up. I wondered if there weren't some purpose in his dawdling; perhaps he was showing one and all that he was determined to stay on?

Long Suffering Spouse and I went to that final Mass and to the luncheon as well. We wanted to talk to Fr. Ed -- maybe even ask about some of the rumors about whether he would, or would not, be able to stay around. But there were thousands of people and we were not pushy. We'd find out something eventually; in the meantime, did it really matter whether we wished him well in person?

This past weekend was the official beginning of our parish's full integration into the Archdiocese. My mother-in-law attended the anticipatory Mass on Saturday evening and called Long Suffering Spouse with a full -- and highly critical -- report about the new pastor. "He didn't know what he was doing," she said -- repeatedly -- "and everything was different."

Note to non-Catholics: You probably don't see why that's funny. Well, the truth is, there is very little room for variance in the Order of the Mass. On any given Sunday, the prayers are the same, the readings are the same, the responses are the same in our church and in every church the world over. Only the language in which the Mass is offered changes. Some priests fudge the Eucharistic Prayer, I'm told, probably more because, even with glasses, they can't read while looking down at the Missal on the altar (it changes somewhat Mass to Mass) than from any intentional departure from orthodoxy. Fr. Pfleger, down at St. Sabina's on Chicago's South Side, somehow manages to make his Masses into spectacles lasting several hours, but I assume all the stuff he adds, including all the speakers we see on the Sunday night news shows, are placed after Communion when it is customary to make [much shorter] announcements (I don't know this for a fact, though someday I'd be interested in seeing for myself). But the bottom line is that there's not room for a lot of variety, and things couldn't have been too different, despite my mother-in-law's high dudgeon Saturday night. ("We skipped the Creed," Abuela fumed also, but lots of priests will skip that depending on how long, or overlong, their sermon went. And there was apparently some confusion about returning the unused Hosts to the Tabernacle after Communion. "I don't know if I can continue going there if things are going to be so different," my mother-in-law said.)

Long Suffering Spouse did her best to reassure her mother that things would be better, but Abuela was in no mood to be comforted. Eventually, she tired of repeating how different things were, however, so my wife could terminate the phone call and we could resume watching the White Sox lose. Again.

I told you yesterday how I began my Sunday morning. But, despite that, Long Suffering Spouse and I were only about 10 minutes late for 7:00 a.m. Mass (which, for us, is not terrible). We were interested in seeing how the First-Sunday-Mass-of-the-Post-Fr.-Ed Era might be handled, especially after Abuela's preview. We walked in the back of the church and discovered that the First-Sunday-Mass-of-the-Post-Fr.-Ed Era was being presided over by... Fr. Ed.

"Perhaps this morning we can talk to him," I whispered to my wife as we took our accustomed pew. She nodded.

The early Sunday Mass is the least formal of the Sunday Masses -- the organist isn't even there yet -- but Fr. Ed likes to sing. And unlike the octogenarian who'd been assisting him this year, he always liked to process down the center aisle after Mass, out into the vestibule, and to the parking lot entrance, there to greet parishioners. The altar servers, of course, always hope for a 'side out' -- a short walk into the Sacristy, where they could peel out of their gowns and race home to breakfast that much faster. At the end of Mass the altar servers stood on either side of Fr. Ed as he faced the Tabernacle, singing the final hymn a capella, waiting for the final bow that would signal their release. Without missing a note, Fr. Ed tried to signal that they should lead the procession down the center aisle, but they hightailed it for the Sacristy without a backward glance. Undeterred, Fr. Ed, still singing, headed down the center aisle and toward the vestibule.

It is considered good form to wait, in these circumstances, until the priest actually passes you before leaving your pew -- anything else would be leaving early. Since we always arrive late, we try never to leave early. Still, we left as soon as propriety allowed, intending to follow Fr. Ed out and chat him up a bit.

We hit the vestibule at a good trot -- and couldn't see him. Instead, inside the door to the parking lot, stood the new curate, offering to shake hands with any who would pause. We both stopped to take the new man's hand and offer words of welcome. But I was looking over his shoulder for Fr. Ed, and darned if I couldn't see him.

Confused now, Long Suffering Spouse and I stepped out of the church and into the parking lot, only to see the new pastor, also shaking hands with anyone who would pause. We paused. He noted Long Suffering Spouse's White Sox hat. "I'm glad to see that there are Sox fans up here," he said (our parish being firmly on the Cubs side of town). "There aren't that many of us, Father," said Long Suffering Spouse. I was still looking for Fr. Ed. I even had on my glasses.

"He's Houdini," I told my wife as we got back in the car. "He simply vanished."

"I'm sorry we didn't get to see him," Long Suffering Spouse agreed, "but I'm sure this was planned. The new guys were waiting while Fr. Ed ducked out."

"But where?" I wondered.

Our best guess was that he dove into the Ushers' Room -- it doubles as the Bride's Room, when occasion demands. It would have been on his flight path. Still, it was a pretty good vanishing act -- and a pretty good way to *ahem* usher in The-Post-Fr.-Ed Era. Meanwhile I suppose we'll catch up to Fr. Ed... eventually.

One footnote: Youngest Son, of course, did not join us for 7:00 a.m. Mass. But he did make it to the 6:00 p.m. "Last Chance" Mass. Youngest Son reported that the 6:00 Mass was presided over by the new curate. It didn't strike him as all that "different"....