Saturday, May 25

Go read Tim Blair on the story of Nancy Crick, the Australian woman whose desire for suicide in the face of illness became a celebrated cause among euthenasia - philes. And read through to the end of the post.
More thoughts on Goodbye Good Men from a St. Blog's seminarian.
Disgraces: A Parable by Archbishop Rembert Weakland.

Read and enjoy. Or be puzzled.


A Statement from Bishop Sklba, acting bishop of Milwaukee:

Make your own judgments. Here's the Archdiocesan website.



Sometimes families have moments of enormous joy, and sometimes they experience terrible numbing heartaches beyond description. The times of happiness become the most cherished and treasured of memories. Special weddings and anniversaries and great personal accomplishments, for example, or splendid new beginnings continue to shine like luminous gems in the minds of family members. Their mere recollection can reunite later generations in laughter or pride year after year. Like valuable heirlooms, these joys are passed on across the years and in the process become beautifully polished treasures. We have known all those realities in recent months as we celebrated the remarkable accomplishments of the Archbishop, and we dare not forget them if we are a people of genuine gratitude.



Seasons of sadness also come to every family at some time in their journey together through life. Tragic deaths, profound disappointments, losses and sorrows of all kinds are likewise part of human existence. The recent and sudden report has occasioned a deep sense of personal grief for the Archbishop as well as for ourselves. Experience teaches us to be wary of first impressions or quick conclusions and suggests that we leave ample space for the care and the benefit of the doubt we instinctively feel for someone we have come to know and love so deeply.


To be a family is to pull together with deep respect for the inherent dignity of each person and mutual care for the wounded weaknesses we all bear. This may be especially important when we are disappointed by the actions of those we love.


To be a family of faith is to recognize that God alone is the true source of all unity and that God's healing mercy and truth are always with us.



We know from our own experience of family heartaches that sad and difficult times can also become opportunities for coming together in mutual care and common support. People unite in their search for renewed strength and reclaimed purpose. They become one in their rediscovery of the power of God in their midst.



We make our own the joys and sorrows of those we love. We are never alone in our pilgrimage through life because others help carry our burdens and walk with us in our triumphs. Husbands and wives, parents and children, brothers and sisters all share each other's successes and failures. Over the years both are woven together into a single fabric of human existence. Both are at the core of every family and every bond of friendship, and central to both success and failure is the presence of a loving God who alone and ultimately makes all things right.



Moreover, the God of Holy Week's painful confusion is also the God of Easter's victory over sin and death, and likewise the God of all the lavish gifts of Pentecost. Still, no one enters heaven without their scars and wounds. The longer we live, the more obvious is that truth. Those wounds don't go away, but rather they become occasions for God's healing grace at the very core of everything that makes us a family of faith. The shining golden nails in the corpus of the Cathedral's new central masterpiece is a stunning reminder of that perennial truth.


We are a people of faith, for we know without the faintest shadow of doubt that our healing God is with us all, sustaining us especially in our wounded weakness and holding our hands as we cross dangerous paths.


We are also a people of hope, for our God is not only with us during our journeys, but eventually welcomes us home with open arms and festivity whenever we arrive.



The one thing we absolutely owe each other is the charity (Rom 13:8) that lifts up the truth without sacrificing either compassion or kindness. As Paul said so clearly to his friends in Corinth, especially when singing the praises of true charity (I Cor 13:13), "Faith, hope, love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love."



Therefore we enter this new moment "living the truth in love" (Eph 4:15) and remembering Archbishop Weakland with the respect and love he has earned from his dedicated public service in our midst for the past quarter of a century.



Um...maybe Cardinal George should have a chat with this guy.

Archdiocese of Miami buys $582,000 house for a pastor.

Loyal parishioners at St. Richard Catholic Church in Palmetto Bay have stumbled upon a rattling truth between the lines of the Sunday homilies, in the familiar, hand-to-hand rituals of tithing and togetherness, in the sometimes startling words uttered outside the confessionals.


They found out the Archdiocese of Miami, which oversees their parish, has purchased a $582,000 home for their pastor. And, understandably, many are outraged at the idea. In a Herald story last week, they pointed out the boggling ironies:


• The priest who will live in this house is the same priest who suspended tutoring sessions for foster children to keep the electric bill down -- it's too expensive to run the A/C for the kids.



• He is the penny-pinching pastor who skimps on church repairs and claims there are no funds to fix the old, broken sprinklers.



And yet this pastor, the Rev. Stephen Hilley, has come into some fine new digs. The archdiocese bought him a 3,935-square-foot house in the walled-in community of Pine Bay Estates South. That's more than three square feet per family -- Father Hilley presides over more than 1,300 families. He'll have four bedrooms, 3 ½ baths, and a pool.

What an outrage. I think someone misunderstood the Gospel down there in Miami. It's "In my Father's house there are many rooms" not " Father's house should have many rooms," okay?

The difficulties faced in doing something about a suspicious priest
Top fundraising priest in NY suspended:

As vicar for development, Monsignor Kavanagh is one of the archdiocese's most powerful clerics. He was involved in the planning for the annual Alfred E. Smith Memorial Dinner, a prestigious gala that has drawn politicians up to and including campaigning presidential candidates, several archdiocese officials said. He also oversees the annual Cardinal's Appeal fund-raising drive, which is currently under way, and has worked closely with Cardinal Edward M. Egan. At the same time, he has presided over St. Raymond's, which has a school noted nationwide for its basketball program.


The charge that led to the suspension was made by a man who said he had a relationship with Monsignor Kavanagh as a student at Cathedral Preparatory Seminary, once the archdiocese's main high school for young men headed for the priesthood, said the archdiocese's spokesman, Joseph Zwilling. Monsignor Kavanagh, who turns 65 on Monday, was rector of the seminary from 1977 to 1985. He was assigned to St. Raymond's in 1988 and was named vicar for development in 1994

On one of the cable news networks this evening, a story about the FBI agent who issued a memo critiquing the agency's handling of the Moussaoui case identified her, right off the bat, as a "mother of four."

Huh? When's the last time you ever heard a male professional involved in a news story as a "father of four" or two or one or seven?