Bishop Clark to celebrate Mass at Mason's farm?

According to the Wayne County Star, Bishop Clark will be celebrating Mass in Savannah this weekend:

Bishop Matthew Clark will lead a noon Mass at Bruce and Barbara Waterman’s farm on Route 89 during the St. John - St. Michael - St. Patrick cluster picnic Sept. 27.

The Mass, which will be held in the Watermans’ barn about four miles north of the hamlet of Savannah, is open to the public. Those wishing to stay for the picnic afterward need to purchase a ticket from the parish office ...

I wonder if His Excellency is aware that an online Masonic newsletter lists a Bruce G. Waterman as Past Master of Savannah Masonic Lodge No. 764 and a Bruce M. Waterman as current Master of the same lodge.

Awash in narcissism

One of my Google Alerts took me to Anecdotal Evidence, a blog which bills itself as being "about the intersection of books and life." 

In a recent post blogger Patrick Krup shares this letter from a friend:

I'd been pondering the general topic [of tradition] since I sat near a group of women in a Starbucks one day a couple of weeks ago and was forced to listen to them discuss why the Catholic church was moronic for not ordaining women.

Not being Catholic myself, I didn't have much stake in the argument but I was astonished by their blithe assumption that the tradition of the Church was utterly without value and further, that their own opinions deserved equal weight with those of, say, Augustine of Hippo or Aquinas.

I wish I could have recorded it, so I could play it back for anyone who doubts that we're awash in narcissism. It was jaw-dropping. Maybe this is what comes of too much democracy.

Patrick's unnamed (and non-Catholic!) friend had managed to put his or her finger on the reason I feel so irritated by priestess wannabes and their supporters:  they totally deny the importance and value of Tradition in the Catholic Church.  The only things that matter to them are their desires and their feelings.  What the Church has done for 2,000 years - and why she has done it - they dismiss as utterly irrelevant.

"Awash in narcissism" is a perfect description of these people.

DOR drops CMA Parish-by-Parish feature from its website

For the last few years DOR has posted Parish-by-Parish results for its Catholic Ministries Appeal on its website. These results were updated periodically and allowed people to track their parish's progress throughout the 8+ months of the campaign.

That feature now appears to be a thing of the past. Dor.org currently has many links related to the 2009-10 CMA but none of them lead to a parish-by-parish accounting.

Could it be that someone at Buffalo Rd. got tired of seeing images like these?

This post writes itself

I was reading through some of the comments on Channel 10's story on the launching of this year's Catholic Ministries Appeal and was struck by how many people connected years of Catholic school closings with the fact that we now see so few young people in church.

Read them for yourself:

Gus R wrote,

This year's campaign targets young people. The bishop says that's a missing group in the church. I wonder why? The Bishop has closed half the schools. That means many have left with the kids and do not donate anymore and will not be back ...

The Bishop is now loosing a whole new generation for good. Go see the Fathers house in Chili. Many are from the Catholic church and are fed up. All young with young kids. The young are not being fed Bishop. You are in another world. They are leaving and will never be back. Why? Because you did not feed them ...

The only ones left are the old folks and they are dying off. The Catholic church in Rochester will die with the old folks as well. The Bishop has just about destroyed the church in Rochester. They young have suffered the most because many have lost half their money and have lost jobs. They need support from the church not a leach.

amerks55 added,

Our school was among the first wave of closings in 1992, We fought the bishop with every resource we had, and still lost. The deck was stacked and no matter what solution we offered, he had his mind made up. So what happens? 17 years later, our church is closing.

Why? We lost two generations of kids- the lifeblood of the parish! Without the kids to bring us all together, we floundered. Without the kids, there was no continuity- no new young adults to become members of the parish. Instead, folks scattered, looked for new schools, and supported that parish.

Clark doesn't GET IT. He is killing the diocese. Soon it won't be a matter of closing another school or church. Instead he will have to shut down the diocese. Nice going! Nice legacy, Matty!

And Simon chimed in with,

The bishop said our youth are not involved in the faith today. DUH, he closed the lifeline to almost all catholic parishes.

Yes, catholic schools were that lifeline. There were self-supporting parishes that He would not save.

I think the bishop and his advisors should donate their salaries for a year.

I guess I'm not the only one who believes that a diocese that refuses to find a way to keep its Catholic schools open is a diocese that has decided to commit suicide.

DOR "loses" 36,000 Catholics in just one year.

The 2009-2010 Catholic Ministries Appeal has been officially launched, according to a story on the Catholic Courier website.

Bishop Matthew H. Clark launched the Diocese of Rochester's 2009-10 Catholic Ministries Appeal Sept. 21, asking parishioners to pull together to help meet the campaign's $5.49 million goal, thus keeping the spirit of faith and service alive in the diocese.

"Keeping the Spirit Alive" is the theme of this year's annual campaign, which funds ministries touching the lives of more than 314,000 Catholics in the 12-county diocese. (emphasis mine)

However, last year's CMA kickoff letter cited a significantly higher number of Catholics.

Calling on Catholics to help bolster the Church’s ministries and ensure a strong Diocese for future generations, Bishop Matthew Clark today officially launched the 2008-09 Catholic Ministries Appeal (CMA).

The CMA funds ministries for more than 350,000 Catholics in 12 counties. The campaign goal is $5.39 million. (again, my emphasis)

Hmmm, let's see here ... "More than 350,000" minus "more than 314,000" equals just about 36,000 Catholics who have simply disappeared in just one year.

One would think that over 10% of our Catholics vanishing in 12 months would rate some kind of acknowledgement from DOR.

Apparently not.

Radical feminists killing health reform?

Saturday's D&C contained a Guest Essay by Carol Crossed, President of the Susan B. Anthony Birthplace Museum.

Headlined Feminists could kill health reform, the essay recounts how radical feminists' insistence that the Equal Rights Amendment not contain language specifically excluding abortion as a "right" helped torpedo that legislation.

Ms. Crossed then goes on to predict that a similar stance by today's radical feminists might also kill health reform.

Read the essay here.

Asperges me ...

Another video found on The Deacon's Bench ...