December 2009

Collection: Saturday 5:30PM $848; Sunday 8:30AM $522; 10:00AM $173; 11:00AM $313; 12:30PM$867; 8:00PM $424; Week Masses & donations $930; Total 4077 - Thank you.

– I hope you had a nice Christmas. Since this bulletin was written long time ago, it will not contain any feedback about the Christmas celebrations, collections and attendance etc.. I hope I can give you positive verbal reports. Now together we are looking forward to the New Year, 2010, a high sounding, round number.  January the First is the Feast of Mary Mother of God and it is a day of obligation. So we’ll have a vigil Mass on Thursday evening at 5:30pm and then Friday we’ll follow the full Sunday schedule, including 8pm even though not many will participate. I don’t mind. Honoring Mary will be a nice way for me to put the entire New Year under Mary’s protection.

–Looking back on 2009, it’s difficult to imagine a busier year for 82-year-old Pope Benedict XVI. The Year of St. Paul. The Year for Priests. A major social encyclical. A Holy Land pilgrimage. A first meeting with President Obama. Ten new saints. An African trip and an African synod. A Facebook debut. A controversial concession to Catholic traditionalists. An unexpected overture to disaffected Anglicans. And those are just the highlights, of course. Being pope is a day-in, day-out ministry, and over the course of the past year Pope Benedict met with more than 200 dignitaries and groups, held talks with more than 300 bishops and celebrated more than 50 major liturgies. The year brought moments of deep personal satisfaction, as when the German pontiff prayed in silence before Christ’s empty tomb in Jerusalem, or when he arrived on his first African visit to a tumultuous welcome by hundreds of thousands of Cameroon residents. But the pope’s disappointment was also evident in 2009. Especially when in January he  lifted the excommunications of the Society of St. Pius X a move that was criticized by many.

–Three years after excommunicating Zambian Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo, the Vatican has imposed the additional penalty of dismissal from the priesthood. In a statement issued Dec. 17, the Vatican said it was forced to take the step after Archbishop Milingo continued to commit “new crimes against the unity of the holy church,” specifically by ordaining bishops against papal orders. It said the archbishop had also caused “serious upset and scandal among the faithful” by heading groups that call for the abolition of priestly celibacy in the church. Pope Benedict XVI authorized and approved the dismissal.

–It’s hard to imagine a serious conference on the importance of God in the world taking place in many of the West’s capital cities today. If they do take place at all, they usually degenerate into televised spectacles and malicious attacks on the Church.

Yet a three-day conference in Rome last week — titled “God Today: With Him or Without Him, That Changes Everything” — successfully brought together leading theologians, philosophers, artists, politicians and Church leaders to discuss, rationally and calmly, the importance and relevance of God to people’s daily lives. An estimated 2,500 people — many of them young people — filled the auditorium near the Vatican, despite some secularists predicting they would never turn up. Particularly impressive were the short yet heartfelt opening words of Rome’s mayor, Gianni Alemanno. “This conference is a very good provocation against ideological secularism which wants to exclude any public debate on God,” he told the audience. “But it’s also a provocation against that very ‘easygoing’ secularism which is very present in our everyday life and which takes God, and our need for reflection on the very meaning of life and death, away from our daily lives.”

“Without God and without religion,” he added, “there are deeply rooted problems — everything becomes more difficult if we don’t have something in common which goes beyond our daily lives.” But with God, he said, there can be a “new humanism” where “everything is really enhanced and its real value is taken into account.”  Although brief, his words received rapturous applause.

–I received a nice Christmas card from the Archbishop and inside the envelope I also found a Christmas present from him (I am sure he sent it to all priests) in the form of a small book entitled the Eucharist, that gathers all thoughts and utterances by the Holy Father on the Eucharist. I will read it with pleasure.

–Benedict XVI today greeted the 59 newly ordained priests of the Legionaries of Christ, who are expecting the apostolic visitation of their congregation to conclude in March. The Pope exhorted the priests to learn from St. John Vianney. The Legion of Christ today announced on its Web site that the apostolic visitation of the congregation, under way since July, is expected to conclude in March. This news was communicated by the Pope’s secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, to the congregation’s general-director, Father Álvaro Corcuera. Cardinal Bertone also told Father Corcuera that “the five apostolic visitators and other members of the Roman Curia met in early December,” the site reported. “During that meeting, it was agreed that the visitators would finish their work by mid-March of 2010, in order to present their reports to the Holy Father.” The Web site added, “Any further steps and their timing depend on the Holy See.” The apostolic visitation was called by the Holy Father after the congregation confirmed in Feb. that the life of their founder, Maciel, included actions gravely immoral.

– Pope Benedict XVI has declared Pope John Paul II and Pius XII “venerable” so one step closer to beatification. Pope Benedict on Saturday approved a decree attesting to John Paul’s heroic virtues. Benedict still must sign off on a miracle attributed to John Paul’s intercession before the late pope can be beatified. Benedict put the Polish pontiff on the fast track for sainthood just weeks after his April 2, 2005 death, waiving the customary five-year waiting period and allowing the investigation into John Paul’s virtues to begin immediately. Benedict also approved a decree on the heroic virtues of Pope Pius XII, despite opposition from Jews that the Pope  didn’t do enough to stop the Holocaust.

–Blessed Mary MacKillop at Mary MacKillop Place in Sydney, Australia, is a place of pilgrimage. The Melbourne nun who co-founded Australia’s first religious order is set to become the country’s first saint. She had a most interested life. At some stage in her life she was in open disagreement with the hierarchy and even for a short time excommunicated. Now she is being canonized. Isn’t that something? There is hope for all. She founded a lot of schools for poor children and she was a strong forceful woman and wouldn’t give in easily to anyone.

–I am trying to fill the bulletin with good news and I am scanning the Catholic agencies but they have a lot of boring news that make me yawn. There is nothing worth getting excited about. It is a pity that we are doing such a poor job. Lots of articles on the pedophilia troubles in the archdiocese of Dublin. But I am sick of it. I am not belittling the matter. It is atrocious what happened there. Even the Pope was visibly upset. But I don’t want to go there. Let the Vatican and the Church there deal with it. We have had ours here and gotten over it. Now is their turn to pay and heal.

– Is “Avatar” worth it? Not the reported half-billion dollars that was spent to make and market it. Not the 12 years it has taken director James Cameron to bring it to the screen. But is it worth 10 bucks (or $14 if you’re springing for the 3-D Imax version)?

The answer is a qualified yes. As Cameron proved in 1997′s ”Titanic,” he has a penchant for melding spectacle and old-fashioned storytelling. Cameron creates a seamless journey between the realistic and imagined world, taking Jake — and viewers — back and forth from drab “reality” to Pandora’s lush jungles. What’s more, Cameron has managed to get genuine performances from actors who do much of their work using motion-capture animation. Worthington and especially Saldana do a terrific job of imbuing their characters with life and spirit; the movie’s finest moments belong to Sigourney Weaver, as the idealistic scientist who oversees Jake’s virtual travels, in a subtle nod to her work in Cameron’s “Aliens.” Is the dialogue corny? You bet. Does the movie go kerblooey in its final moments, during a ferocious, explosive firefight that will leave your eyeballs bleeding? Uh-huh. But Cameron has delivered what he promised with “Avatar”: an ambitious, fully immersive cinematic experience. One question, though, is whether Cameron’s vision is suitably served by 3-D glasses, which sap so much luminosity and brightness from the image. The only way to know for sure is to see the movie both ways. (from the Internet)

–The Holy See declares its will to protect the figure and personal identity of the Pope from the unauthorized use of his name and/or the papal coat of arms for ends and activities which have little or nothing to do with the Catholic Church. Attempts have been made to attribute credibility and authority to initiatives by using ecclesiastical or papal symbols and logos. Consequently, the use of anything referring directly to the person or office of the Supreme Pontiff (his name, his picture or his coat of arms), and/or the use of the title “Pontifical”, must receive previous and express authorization from the Holy See.”

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