Your whole post can be summed up by the above line, which is spot on, IMO.
What will St. Larry do?
- Thread starter mullin17
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Cueing RockSoup in 3, 2, 1 . . . . . .
Honestly, I am now conflicted with the location issue. In the past, I've agreed with your second paragraph concerning Cascia. 246 students taking this year's entrance exam is an impressive number compared to year's past. So, to me, there is hope that if people worked extremely hard, this number can even be bigger.
There is still a part of me that believes if SR and CPS Agriculture switched properties, SR's testing numbers would increase even more and be in 8A consistently for years to come.
But, back to reality, let's accept all students who can qualify under some fair standards.
Is Rita really in "a bad area"? I keep hearing that pop up from time to time from different posters but I have never been there to see for myself. I might take a drive out there one of these days when nothing's going on.
You rang?!?! Wit, with the make up test date numbers, the final tally is 260. Everyone that was supposed to test on the make up date did even after the 135 fall out.
St. Rita is located in an area that experiences changing demographics as a result of the surrounding economic climate which the South Side as a whole has experienced the last 5 decades.
Beverly Country Club is a mile south and the neighborhood typically referred to as Beverly is two to four miles south. St. Rita is located at the northeast end of the Southwest Highway corridor with BR 5 miles Southwest of the same corridor.
The campus sits on 33 acres next to a Chicago business/industrial zone with 2 entrances or exits. Students come from many areas including Englewood, Near North Side, Bridgeport, South Holland, Beverly, Mt. Greenwood, and even from suburbs that are 5 minutes from Providence Catholic in New Lenox leading to a rich, diverse, unique educational setting. Brother Rice, Mt. Carmel, St. Laurence and Marist offer the same opportunities for students on the South Side landscape.
See you next fall Voodoo. I'll save you a seat on the 50 on a beautiful South Side fall night.
Sounds great!!
Are there Good Eats nearby? Always looking for the great local eating spots in every area that are under the radar.
I am certainly not the right person to ask since my stomach is not very discerning. If you are coming in from 294, stop at The Pit off Roberts Road for excellent Ribs but that is still 7 miles west of St. Rita with plenty of 79th street streetlights to get through so plan accordingly.
Southwest Highway and Cicero-ish and you can have a Fox or Palermos Pizza experience.
57 or 94 entry can take you to Beverly's establishments but you would have to ask an expert like DOS for the best parts off Western Ave and south of 101st
Hope that helps
I have been hitting Horse Thief. Even have an MC themed IPA
The Church has treated its nuns like cra@ and in general views women as second tier. Many of us guys may not believe this but look at the number of women ages 40-65 who do not attend mass anymore. These were the women who made sure their kids were there every Sunday. The Church is reaping what it sowed. They should first allow priests (AND nuns) to marry and even if they don't allow women to be priests they should be able to be deacons.
This is a good post and I agree on many thoughts here. Now...you can pick yourself up off the floor since I agreed with you on something and read on.
There is no question the sexual abuse and subsequent cover-up in the Catholic church hurt it more than any one thing, probably ever. For me personally, that was a turning point. I am catholic, my wife is catholic. We were both raised in catholic homes and we took our kids to church. My wife and I rarely go to church anymore. We liked the priest who married us in the church. But he is old now and never says masses anymore. I think he is around 90 years old.
I always felt like any church was as good as its pastor. If I liked the pastor or whoever was saying that mass, I would return. Everyone's definition of a good pastor may differ. Absolutely no question attendance is way way down. I remember our church had four masses on Sundays and if you didn't get to any of them 15-20 minutes ahead of time you might not get a seat. Now, it's down to two and I doubt either are full. But, they do still have a Saturday mass that is full.
I don't know if I am ready to say priests should be allowed to marry. But if it comes to that I will accept it. How many nuns are still out there? How many catholic schools are closing? And how many catholic schools are in real trouble financially? I have always felt that people who send their kids to the catholic schools are, in general, more connected to their church. But, I knew a whole bunch of people who sent their kids to public schools and attended public schools who went to church. Now, many of those same people rarely or never go.
is attendance down in most churches? Is attendance growing in some churches? I don't know. There is no doubt we have seen a huge decline in catholic church weddings. But my daughter and son were both married in a catholic church.
Personally, I think the country is becoming more secular with each passing day and year. If you see what is going on in some places when it comes to religious symbols and thoughts you can't deny it.
If the catholic church decided to go more progressive would it bring more people in? I really don't know if that is the answer. If priests are allowed to marry, will that increase attendance? One way to find out is to see exactly why we have seen a drop in attendance. You will get 10 different opinions as to why if you ask 10 different people, I think. For us, we simply haven't found a pastor we really like and we have been to several different catholic churches over the past five years.
Sorry I rambled on, but I typed this as the thoughts came to me.
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My view is a little more radical ... I believe strongly in women priests ... and women quickly rising to leadership positions in the church. If we had women bishops 50 years ago, there'd be a lot fewer cases of pedophile priests staying in ministry.
OK, a lot more radical.
Yes, I was stunned to see you agreeing with me.
Regarding married priests ... I think that if priests were allowed to be married, there's be more priests. Humans are not wired to be single; at least not most of us. I've heard more than one priest say the the priesthood was a very lonely life.
I think one thing would happen if priests were allowed to marry. It would give them more credibility when counseling people on marriage..if they still do that. A lot seems to have changed. I remember the days when the priests went out to people in the parish and visited the sick. I remember them going to the house of parishioners who were too ill to go to church to give communion. I wonder how many, if any, do that anymore. If priests being allowed to marry would increase attendance fine.
When I was a kid growing up, our pastor knew everyone in that parish. And our church was the most attended in town by far. He was the best pastor I ever knew. Tremendous personality...a guy who liked sports and could talk about it...loved to fish and played in a New Orleans style jazz band. Attendance in that church increased while he was there and it was already pretty good. But he left sometime around 1980 and went to another parish.
My wife and I attended church regularly for years. About 20 years ago we ran into financial problems, like many people do at one time or another. But things were so tight we couldn't give anything on Sunday. We went to church every week though. This went on for about two months. We lived only a couple blocks from the church.
One Sunday afternoon the pastor came walking by our house and saw me outside. He stopped and asked me why I wasn't in church for the past couple months. I can't imagine what my expression looked like when I heard that question. I told we had been attending and asked him how he came to that conclusion. He said they determine attendance from the envelopes collected. I can't begin to tell you how pissed off I was when he said that.
Back in the day priests KNEW who attended because they saw faces and got to know people. Obviously this guy didn't do that. Soon after, our financial situation improved greatly but we never went back to that church again. That happened to be the church I attended as a child. If he had known we were there but not contributing to the collection he might have asked if things were OK with us. But no, he just assumed, because of laziness, we weren't even there. It was little, but big, things like that, that slowly turned me off.
One other thing that turned me off with that church prior to that incident was when they started asking parishioners to contribute 10% of their incomes. When I was growing up I remember several times sitting in that pew listening to a priest say "please give generously, but give what you can." Whatever happened to that? I can remember a whole bunch of parishioners complaining about that. Give what you can, show up every Sunday.
So, as far as money and donations what do we do now? Every month we get a call from the Vietnam vets and every month we donate clothes and other items. We have also donated a lot of money to that cause. We were donating to the Wounded Warrior Project but recently there has been a scandal with them and the handling of money. So, we stopped.
Right now, we don't go to church often and quite frankly we feel like, where our current monetary donations are going, are doing more good. The country is becoming more secular and I think that is extremely dangerous. I wish it would change. But the catholic church is going to have to make some changes too. They are going to have to deal with this situation and come up with different plans to bring people back. They can't just put their heads in the sand and hope for the best like they did when all of the sexual abuse was going on.
Again...sorry for the rant.
As a non-catholic, I think they should allow priests to marry, and more importantly allow women priests. I'm not sure if thats a recipe for a turnaround agenda though. Religious attendance is down in general, including in denominations that have female pastors. As you said, the world is just more secular. Not really sure that is a general trend, any organization, even one as powerful as the catholic church can change. But ut probably does mean a changing role. (I dont know what that role would be)
Said what I was going to say.
There are whole forums to discuss the reasons.
But to get to the topic i always am in favor of more options so I dont like to see schools closing down so hopefully whatever decisions are made here provide that community with options.
Interesting. What dangers do you see that I am not seeing coming from non-secular fronts?
I think one of the unique and redeeming characteristics of the Catholic church is the concept of a celibate priesthood. I know that some of you out there are likely laughing to yourselves or thinking that the celibate priesthood is the cause of some of the sexual abuses that have been initiated by priests. I'm happy to explore that further with anyone who wants to discuss it, but I'm not going to veer off in that direction in this post.
What I want to focus on is the concept of a celibate priesthood relative to the institution of marriage as it is commonly understood. In many respects, Catholic priests do get married. Their bride is the Church, and the intimacy within that relationship is of a platonic and non-romantic nature.
Catholic priests have a priestly vocation and married folks have a married vocation. Both priests and married folks profess vows to enter into their vocations. Similar to the exclusive relationship that husbands and wives have with their spouses, so are Catholic priests supposed to not allow anyone to come between them and the exclusive relationship they have with the Church.
On the list of priorities, married priests/clergy from other denominations understandably place their spouses and immediate families ahead of their churches. When push comes to shove, a married priest/cleric is going to choose his/her spouse and family over his/her church. That is not intended to be a criticism. Rather, it is simply an acknowledgement of human reality.
In the Catholic church, priests don't have any spousal/parental responsibilities that they can prioritize before the church. I think that is a tradition within the Catholic Church that should be preserved. I have no objection for women to become priests, as long as the priesthood remains celibate. In my opinion, a celibate priesthood is a cornerstone of the Catholic Church that would weaken the Church's foundation if it were to be eliminated.
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No disrespect at all but why do we as a people need to speak on behalf of others unnecessarily. My son is a "Larry's" alum and has no problem with it being called "Larry's". We actually do have a name for Loyola but I do not want to get kicked out from Edgy. Let's let everyone speak for themselves and I'm sure this will be a happier place.
Now on to the real reason I'm here. My son received a note from Larry's last night asking him to conduct a survey monkey regarding the current state of affairs at said school, Larry's. Lots of questions about the merging and of course, "would you be willing to contribute"? He suggested buying Q of P and making it a full campus with one building housing FroshSoph and the other housing the Juniors and Seniors.
My question was, Queen of Lawrence or Larry's Pease?
To your first part, I would never place the celibacy of priesthood as a reason for the sexual abuses. A priest who is urged by sexual desires will go find consensual sex. A child abuser will find opportunities to take advantage of children. Totally different motivations. One person is experiencing natural human desires, the other is not.
I can definitely appreciate a lot of the other points you bring up. Although historically, celibacy wasn't always a cornerstone, I get that desire as a parishioner to want someone totally dedicated to the church. I'm not sure how realistic it is though, and if thats the continued path, some additional path must exist for lay people to have greater roles in the church. At the end of the day, I've had incredibly dedicated married pastors lead my church, but the greater support network of the church allowed that - granted its a much smaller church than the scale of most Catholic churches. But that partially is due to the organization of the church too, IMO. My church is wholly run by its members (and it willingly joins a larger network of churches in the denomination). Thats unlike the Catholic structure which is much more top down. Part of the beauty of the universality of Catholicsm also leads to some of its weaknesses. So at the end of the day, Catholicism is perhaps just answering one method of faith, and other paths exist, but less people are seeking either.
Agreed. I sense, however, that many people have a different take and assume that the abuses are a byproduct of self imposed celibacy.
There are plenty of such paths. You see them mainly at the local parish level, not so much at the diocesan or higher levels. I'm talking about lay people who have taken on increasingly greater roles in liturgy, ministry and administration in recent years. Not too long ago, I served a three year term on the Parish Pastoral Council in my church, which is probably the closest thing you could get to a board of advisors to the pastor for all things non-financial (there is a separate Parish Finance Council that handles church finances). Perhaps this is not at the same level of lay involvement where your church is at, but compared to the level of where it was 30, 40, 50 years ago, the Catholic Church has come a very long way in that regard.
Excellent post and I totally agree with you Ramblin! My late wife used to refer to some Catholics critical of the Church as cafeteria Catholics who wish to pick and choose which parts of their faith they are most comfortable and agree with. I agreed with her then and still felel the same way now. She also noted extra full churches at Easter and Christmas and referred to some of these folk as Chreasters, having never seen many of them during the rest of the year at Mass.
Changing the Catholic Church (which has been around for almost 2000 years) and its teachings is the prerogative of the Pope and his Cardinals. Yes, there has been instances of abuse and worst throughout the history of the Church but I for one am uncomfortable with changing any of the doctrine of the Catholic Church without the prerogative mentioned above. The early church had married priests and changed that probably because of the reasons you eloquently enumerated in your post.
By the way I live in a parish in Plainfield which has a married priest!!!. Fr. Dave was a Minister with a Protestant denomination who converted to Catholicism and is now our pastor. He was given with a special dispensation from the Pope to become a married Catholic priest. He's a great guy and everyone respects the heck out of him. According to some folks we have the 2nd or 3rd largest church membership in the country. Various ethic and racial groups attend our masses and they are welcomed with open arms. Attendance at Sunday masses are full to the brim with 7 different Mass times. Spanish and Polish masses are said each Sunday. There are so many various ministries that people can join that benefit Plainfield, Joliet and the other surrounding villages. We had over 2000 people sign up for "Make a difference day" in October helping people in need doing various deeds of fellowship and charity. Quite frankly our parish is growing with new parishioners coming in weekly.
Changing the Catholic Church (which has been around for almost 2000 years) and its teachings is the prerogative of the Pope and his Cardinals. Yes, there has been instances of abuse and worst throughout the history of the Church but I for one am uncomfortable with changing any of the doctrine of the Catholic Church without the prerogative mentioned above. The early church had married priests and changed that probably because of the reasons you eloquently enumerated in your post.
By the way I live in a parish in Plainfield which has a married priest!!!. Fr. Dave was a Minister with a Protestant denomination who converted to Catholicism and is now our pastor. He was given with a special dispensation from the Pope to become a married Catholic priest. He's a great guy and everyone respects the heck out of him. According to some folks we have the 2nd or 3rd largest church membership in the country. Various ethic and racial groups attend our masses and they are welcomed with open arms. Attendance at Sunday masses are full to the brim with 7 different Mass times. Spanish and Polish masses are said each Sunday. There are so many various ministries that people can join that benefit Plainfield, Joliet and the other surrounding villages. We had over 2000 people sign up for "Make a difference day" in October helping people in need doing various deeds of fellowship and charity. Quite frankly our parish is growing with new parishioners coming in weekly.
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I meant to post this two weeks ago, when everyone was saying "Saint Laurence will not go co-ed ... it seems moot now that they are officially inviting the girls.
It's a clarification of Ramblin's post regarding HC/Guerin. He is 100% correct about the rivalry/strife/animosity between the two schools. The schools had several classes together, as well as band, cheer, etc.
However, the schools did not actually merge. Holy Cross closed. Mother Guerin had no intention of going co-ed. The archdiocese intervened and told them they had to go co-ed if they wanted to continue to use the archdiocese owned buildings and land.
It's a clarification of Ramblin's post regarding HC/Guerin. He is 100% correct about the rivalry/strife/animosity between the two schools. The schools had several classes together, as well as band, cheer, etc.
However, the schools did not actually merge. Holy Cross closed. Mother Guerin had no intention of going co-ed. The archdiocese intervened and told them they had to go co-ed if they wanted to continue to use the archdiocese owned buildings and land.
I suppose it's a good thing that you didn't spell it "piece", that could have taken the conversation off in a whole other direction.