Hollow sentiments

Rich Leonardi has a post up with his take on Bishop Clark's current Along the Way column.

One of his readers posted the following open letter in response.

Dear Bishop Clark,

Let's be frank. I have actively practiced all those things you proposed in your New Year's treatise for many years now. I have said yes to just about everything asked of me by my pastor over the past 15 years. My family has gone to Mass every Sunday and supported our parish financially every week. I started a rosary group. My kids are altar servers. I studied the candidates and voted for those with pro-life records. It was the right thing to do. Still, what has this gotten for me?

You closed my school, my mother's school, and my kids' school, all in one fell swoop, so that you could balance your budget. You are crippling our parish with your unfunded mandates. The loss of the school has thrown our parish's CYO program into disarray -- what is winter without CYO basketball!? We are struggling to maintain an empty school building in a down economy. Then you and your staff imposed a $12,000 increase in our parish CMA "tax" the very next year.

I would like to see the leadership of our diocese practice the resolutions it preaches; not give lip service to some lofty virtues. It would help if there was some positive direction that the diocese was headed, rather than the death spiral we are currently in. Forgive my cynicism, but the hurt imposed by these painful changes runs deep. I and many others feel abandoned by our local church. While these resolutions sound nice, the sentiment behind them seems hollow.

- HCMom