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This link will keep 'parishioners-at-large' in touch with current creative liturgy sources and resources that respect a variety of 'traditions' within the Church.

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A 'lay' Catholic weekly publication with an accent on an intelligent analysis and commentary on curent issues, trends and concerns of interest to Catholics.

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A national Catholic lay newspaper covering events not usually covered or presented with a clerical bias in the local diocesan press or but of concern and interest to Catholics.

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A National Network of self-help support groups for people abused by clergy or religious.

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A 'movement' of lay Catholics 'inspired' by the abuse scandal calling for greater accountability of bishops to 'Catholics in the Pew.'

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Daily Scripture

+ Fourth Week of Lent

I am in the heart of God.

Readings: Jeremiah 11:18, 12:19-20 Psalm 7:2-3, 9-12 John 7:40-53

Let us destroy the tree in its vigor; let us cut him off from the land of the living so that his name will be spoken no more. [Jeremiah 12:19]

So the guards went to the chief priests and Pharisees who asked them, “Why did you not bring him in?” The guards answered, ”Never before has anyone spoken like this man.” [John 7:45-46]

Could it be that we don’t get answers because we don’t ask the right questions? I think we spend a great deal of time, perhaps a great portion of our lives in denial about who we are and who we are to become.

I may not ask the right questions because I’m afraid of the answers. I fear the darkness but hide in the darkness in order to avoid the light. Denial becomes a way of life but in reality it is the path to death.

This is a paradox, however, because unless we willingly succumb to the dark night of the soul, we cannot find the light of God’s truth.

Jesus was not exempt from this process that peaked in the Garden of Gethsemane on the night before he died.

True spiritual freedom is not something that we pursue but something to which we succumb by letting go and letting God. Those who were truly liberated in Christ were not those who simply understood his words but those who were absorbed into his life so that with Paul they could say, “I live no longer I, but Christ lives in me.” Or to put it another way, “Say not that God is in my heart but that I am in the heart of God.”

Of Interest...

Thursday December 6, 2007

December 4, 2007—A new coloring book being distributed by the Archdiocese of New York teaches children to protect themselves from adults – including, apparently, priests – who cannot stay within the lines.

Although priests are never explicitly the villains of “Being Friends, Being Safe, Being Catholic,” the female guardian angel who narrates the morality tale warns on one page that an altar boy should never remain alone in a room with any adult unless the door is open.

“If a child and an adult happen to be alone, someone should know where they are, and the door should be open or have a big window in it,” the smiling angel says in the panel as she floats above an altar boy donning his church smock, apparently in a church sacristy, as a man who seems to be a priest looks at him.

The coloring books have been distributed to 300 schools and 400 religious groups.

Edward Mechmann, director of the archdiocese’s Safe Environment program, which commissioned the books, said church officials were wary of targeting priests directly.
“We are in the business of dealing with kids, and we don’t want to rob them of their innocence,” he said. “We wanted to be fair to the priests so we weren’t stigmatizing them.”

But advocates of those who have been abused by priests complain that the church must more clearly point the finger at the most likely perpetrators preying on children.

“Too much is made of the creepy stranger, when predators are actually most often the adults we have taught kids are trustworthy,” said David Clohessy, national director of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP). “It does seem as though church officials are still reluctant to admit that, in fact, their own clergy can be – and are – predators.”
In the book, after a series of dire warnings about strangers bearing gifts and online predators wishing to meet children, priests are finally mentioned – but as part of a word search for a list of adults that can be trusted.

Even a comic book aimed at older kids avoids a clear indictment of a member of the clergy. In that story, a parent at the school preys on female students.

Advocates said they were not questioning the motives of the archdiocese, headed by Edward Cardinal Egan, but said that church officials were so careful, they missed the heart of the matter.

“No matter how you try to teach children about child sex abuse, if you don’t point out that it is the priest, the teacher, the Boy Scout leader, who have a position of real power and trust over children, you have missed the point,” said Michael Dowd, a lawyer who has represented hundreds of victims of child sexual abuse.

The coloring book was first reported in Newsweek magazine.
jeremy.olshan@nypost.com