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Liturgy
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.

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

National Catholic Reporter
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.

Survivos' Network for those Abused by Priests or Religious
A National Network of self-help support groups for people abused by clergy or religious.

Bishop Accountability
Vital information about the disclosure of sexual abuse and related issues affecting Catholics in the pew and the manner in which Bishops continue to exempt themselves from accountability

Voice of the Faithful
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.”

Still a feudal system

Tuesday May 5, 2009

DONALD COZZENS, Renowned Priest and Author, Speaks in Naples

Submitted by Peg Bisgrove, VOTF, Naples, Florida

The singing of these words from “Hosea” filled St. Peter the Apostle Catholic Church in East Naples, Florida Feb. 28th during Mass. Immediately after, at VOTF of SWFL’s National Speakers’ Forum, Fr. Donald Cozzens told us, “Small treasons are wounding the Body of Christ. We are not quite at home in church. We are feeling exiled=2 0in place; alienated. We have been disillusioned. But that is turning into wisdom”.
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The great treason is the sexual abuse of children. And the small treasons are daily ways the truth gets chipped away along with integrity. Examples are plentiful in the spin that’s put on words along with denial, deflection and exaggerated deference.

How did this mess happen? Father Cozzens said two factors contribute. The first is that people are not in touch with what it means to be church. If we don’t know, groups like Voice of the Faithful will be seen as traitors. The primary reality of church is Christ in the assembly as people of God.

Secondly, we are witnessing the unraveling of the last feudal system in the west; a system based on unquestioned loyalty, with no power and no voice. The system originally thrived largely because the people were uneducated. Vestiges of the feudal system remain today such as kissing rings of hierarchy, and titles of Excellency and Monsignor. Excommunication and censure are still practiced today. Said Cozzens, “Loyalty, obedience and respect are necessary for the life of the church in an ordered structure, but a healthy church is authoritative, not authoritarian.”

What can we do? “Join Voice of the Faithful!,” said Fr. Cozzens. “This is the laity’s moment.” The laity has been called out of exile. Very often their education exceeds that of their priests. The feudal system of superiors and inferiors keeps the church stuck in adolescence. We have an obligation to move away from that system. We need a Consciousness of Discipleship to change the system. This raised consciousness shows in simples ways – like being fully present as a baptized, responsible person who insists on being treated as an adult; like the perception to know when priests and pastors live in truth and integrity. Without living Redemptive Honesty, silence, denial and frustration will thrive.

How can change happen? Fr. Cozzens insists that he does not know the particulars in the local churches, but what he does know is that, “The Holy Spirit is loose in the world!” We need to move closer to Pentecost than to Canon Law. We need people in authority who ring true as having lived experience of God’s love. We need less parenting and more partnership between laity and the ordained. Be brave. Act in love. Know the difference between strategy and tactics. Go to the www.votf.org website and sign the petition demanding constructive action!

Prophets with courage to speak will shake the foundation. If we fail to listen to peoples’ experiences of discipleship, we tend to muzzle the voice of God. In the last fifty years there has been much corruption. The church does not need fixing. It needs a new system that yearns to be invented: a system that will gather her people in partnership to celebrate the homecoming. We’re on the road.
“Long have I waited for your coming home to me and living deeply our new life.”

…………………….
Fr. Donald Cozzens is a priest of the Cleveland Diocese. He is visiting
professor of Religious Studies at John Carroll University and past
President-Rector of St. Mary Seminary. His most recent book is “Sacred
Silence; Denial and the Crisis in the Church”.