“Ad Deum qui laetificat juven tutum meam.” The Latin is still engraved on my mind as I recall growing up just to the North of Boston in the 1950’s and 1960’s. The world seemed to have a natural order, and in that alone God gave joy to my youth. Then that order changed. It seemed as though the Earth stood still as everything upon it shifted left. Humans shape history, but history also shapes us. In my mind, the cascade of change in the world I knew began with a single event.
I was ten years old in the sixth grade on November 22, 1963, a full year younger than the rest of my class. Our teacher, Mr. Dawson was quizzing us on Presidential succession. “What happens,” he asked, “if the President dies?” I yawned. Three years earlier, the portrait of a balding, graying President Eisenhower had been replaced on our public school walls. No one could look at John Fitzgerald Kennedy and think of death.
Just at that point in our class on Presidential succession, our Principal, Mr. Gilmore, pushed a button calling the school’s attention to the P.A. system. President Kennedy had been shot in Dallas, Texas. President Kennedy is dead. In the stunned silence, I considered for just a moment that Mr. Dawson arranged this bizarre demonstration to make his point. How awful! But the look on his face gave it away.
Then the Principal again: school was dismissed for the day. I collected my little sister from the fourth grade, and we walked the half mile home in silence. There were no school buses then. We walked to school, walked home for lunch, walked back to school, then home in the afternoon. I asked my sister a few days ago if she remembers this. She was only eight years old, but she vividly remembers that day.
The city streets were eerie, the only people on them school children hurrying home. Everyone else was in front of a television. Children walked in earnest silence, knowing that something terrible had happened. Our world had just changed, and would never be the same again.
At home, our mother was in front of the television crying, Walter Cronkite on the screen. It was all true. My dear mother, an emigrant from Newfoundland, had become a U.S. citizen at just about the time we changed Presidential portraits on our school walls. John F. Kennedy was the first President she had voted for. She took this very personally.
But it was more than that. We were also citizens of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and Greater Boston, the center of the known world. The Kennedys, then, were the Commonwealth’s Royal Family. We knew nothing of ideology. The dividing lines of Catholic conscience and the culture wars were years away.
In my mind, it was on November 22, 1963 that childhood ended. Its death throes went on for days, weeks, months as we were riveted to Walter Cronkite for all that was to unfold: Lee Harvey Oswald, Jack Ruby, the Warren Report. It was the end of innocence, and the world was now a dangerous and unpredictable place. Even as a child I had a sense that if I had to hear bad news, I’d rather hear it from Walter Cronkite. We all trusted him, and there has never been a suitable replacement.
THOU SHALT NOT PRAY
There were rumblings of change in the world before JFK’s death. On March 18 in that same year, the U.S. Supreme Court banned prayer from public schools. In the second grade, Mrs. Walsh had begun each day by reading Psalm 23. We were better off for hearing it. In the third grade, Mrs. Eisenberg recited a Hebrew Berakah. We were better off for hearing that as well. We had no sense that the age of the individual had dawned, and our collective welfare – the very soul of our nation – was to be set aside to accommodate it.
Nancy Reagan once said, “The ’60’s was the worst time in history to bring up children.” In the six years from 1963 to 1969, the storm of my adolescence raged upon a chaotic sea. Each successive wave of change, fueled by crisis, smashed away at the remnants of consistency and order. If you were an adolescent in the 60’s, then you remember how the chaos inside seemed to mirror the chaos outside. And what was going on outside was brutal. It’s all a jumble of memory.
1968 saw the assassination of Martin Luther King (April 4) then Robert Kennedy (June 5). It was a national horror. Then the TET offensive escalated the war in Vietnam, then revelations of the My Lai massacre, the Civil Rights movement at home – its violent suppression in the South playing out in everyone’s living room. In May of 1968, nine Catholic priests were arrested for burning hundreds of selective service records at a draft office in Catonsville, Maryland. 1968 ended with the election of Richard Nixon.
Before a single decade had passed since the day the Earth stood still – that day in the sixth grade that was the end of innocence – our country, our culture, and our collective and individual consciences had been radically challenged, and our societal values transformed.
Ten years later, on January 22, 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Roe v. Wade that human beings not yet born have no right to life. How on Earth did we come to that? The culture of death had arrived.
Perhaps you can see why the Beatles’ “Hey Jude” took off like a rocket in 1968. Hope had been sucked out of the world and out of our lives. Some – many – of my peers reacted with drugs, despondency, even despair. Timothy Leary became a national icon of coping with change through self-indulgence.
His advice to young people to “turn on, tune in, drop out” was published in The Politics of Ecstasy (ch.21, 1969). The grossly irresponsible sentiment infuriated me at fifteen, and still does.
DISSENT AND DISCONTENT
I was just one month seventeen at high school graduation in 1970. Perhaps it was in part a reaction to the decade-long earthquake that was the world of my youth, but I went from being a Christmas & Easter cafeteria-Catholic as a child to embracing the only consistency left in the world. I began to attend daily Mass, and I began to pray. If you are my age, however, you know only too well that in the 1960’s, Catholics were to be sorely tried. The Church as a monolithic rock of stability was about to have an earthquake of its own.
In the Summer, 2009 issue of Catholic Men’s Quarterly, Father Peter Stravinskas has an article taken from the preface of his new book, Be to Me a Father and a Priest. He wrote of having entered the seminary just a month after publication of Humanae Vitae, the 1968 encyclical that launched the culture war:
“With all the confusion and dissent conjured up by the mention of that watershed event in the life of the Church – an iconic conversation-stopper in 1968 and ever since . Not a few people have opined: ‘You couldn’t have picked a worse time to enter the seminary.”
It was just after the close of the Second Vatican Council. The resultant confusion, shift in attitudes, and polarization had a devastating effect on seminaries, and on the future of priesthood. Father Stravinskas wrote of the turmoil to follow during his years of theology study in the seminary:
“The stock-in-trade … was heresy in the classroom, liturgical abuses on a grand scale, degradations of traditional notions of priesthood, sexual immorality, and active persecution of seminarians who adhered to orthodox views of the Church and the ordained ministry. Add to that the approximately 100,000 priests around the world who left the active ministry during the last ten years of the pontificate of Pope Paul VI; it’s a miracle the suction didn’t take us all with them.”
The description by Father Stravinskas is chilling. I began seminary studies just a few years after he did, and the above captured my experience exactly. I grew up as a liberal, Boston Irish (and Scottish) nominal Catholic; a “Kennedy Catholic.” Irish Catholicism had arisen from its own poverty and despair, but forgot from whence it came.
In the seminary, I watched as charity gave way to the drawing of ideological battle lines. A major shift in my own conscience formation came when I witnessed what Father Peter Stravinskas described:
Seminarians and faculty members openly ridiculing a small group of seminarians from the mid-West simply because they gathered in the chapel to pray the Rosary together one day.
I was horrified at the way they were singled out and ostracized, and I wasn’t having it. On that day, I parted ways with the “trendy dissent” crowd. It was not their liberal theology that turned me away, or even their open heresy though, like Father Stravinskas, I knew it when I heard it. What turned me on my heel from them was the ease with which they abandoned the Gospel of Mercy in favor of dissent.
MASS HYSTERIA
In October, 1979, Pope John Paul II visited the United States. I was in my second year of theology studies at St. Mary’s Seminary & University in Baltimore. A Pontifical Institute, St. Mary’s is the oldest Catholic seminary in the United States. During preparations for the Holy Father’s visit, plans were made for a Mass in Washington, DC, less than an hour’s drive from Baltimore. The seminarians at St. Mary’s were invited to participate. Those installed in the ministry of acolyte were invited to assist at the Mass. What was to follow, however, was a typical sign of the times.
The rector of St. Mary’s Seminary, for his own reasons, declined the invitation on behalf of the faculty and students and without ever informing us. When seminarians learned that we had been invited to participate in a Mass with the Holy Father, and learned that the invitation had been declined by our rector, many revolted and made independent plans to attend.
In a seminary-wide meeting, the rector informed us that our seminary would not be represented at the Papal Mass. He refused to give a reason, but stated that any student who opted to attend on his own would not be sanctioned to do so, and would not be excused from classes or any seminary activity on that day and would be disciplined accordingly.
FLAT-OUT WRONG
We had a Kafkaesque choice: disobey the rector and honor the Holy Father, or obey the rector and dishonor the Pope’s visit. The dividing line was crystal clear. Those on the left – including most of the faculty at the time – quietly acquiesced to the rector’s determination to use the event to express open dissent – contempt even – for papal authority. Those on the right – and many, like me, hovering in the ideological middle, were in open rebellion of the fact that someone with an agenda declined the invitation in our name. The saddest part of this dismal story is that many of the seminarians appealed to their bishops to intervene. None did.
In the end, what was meant to be a sign of unity in the Church was transformed into an open battle in our seminary. The rector, a Sulpician, was a priest from my diocese. He was particularly incensed when I – the only seminarian from our diocese there – signed a petition challenging his authority to bar Catholic seminarians from attending a Mass with the Pope. On October 7, 1979, more than 200,000 people gathered on the National Mall in Washington, DC to welcome the Holy Father and celebrate the Eucharist with him. Of this event, biographer George Weigel wrote in Witness to Hope (HarperCollins, 2002):
“John Paul ended his American pilgrimage where Thomas Jefferson began the Declaration of Independence, with the inalienable right to life.”
Priesthood candidates in attendance from the oldest Catholic seminary in the United States were present under an implied threat of dire consequences, and without the blessing of our seminary. We were to return from the Mass to face open hostility and disdain from a seminary administration that maintained a list of those who defied their authority.
No one can read this account and not see, with the tools of hindsight, that dissent at the expense of charity and justice has brought much harm upon the Church. In an essay for Catholic Culture, “Dealing with Dissent,” Ronald J. Rychlak wrote:
“Not every priest, nun, or other Catholic speaks for the Church. Catholicism is a big tent. There are lots of people inside of it, and not all of them are well informed. Some are flat-out wrong.”
The rector of my seminary was “flat-out wrong.” So were those described by Father Peter Stravinskas who treated orthodoxy and respect for tradition with contempt. There is a home, in our Church, for diversity that does not tear at the fabric of unity. There is no home here for contempt.
Speaking on fifty years of priesthood and his new book on Purgatory, After This Life, Father Benedict Groeschel recently reflected:
“I’m looking forward to purgatory,” he said. “I’m from Jersey City and it’s just like purgatory. I’ll be right at home.” (Tom Hoopes, “A Reluctant Jubilee,” OSV, Oct. 18, 2009).
I laughed, of course, and then thought about purgatory. If it’s anything like the 1960’s and 1970’s, however, I won’t be right at home at all. I’ll start stepping up my prayer and good works now.
Ann Smith says
April 13, 2013 at 1:45 PMFather Groeschel is a SAINT on earth, to my estimation, ever since he was even 7 years old, and it’s quite obvious that Mother Teresa know that, AND, LOVED him ever sooo much too; and so did SO many of
thousands and thousands of other people; FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD! His fruits shall set him FREE!!! He always worked for the glory of our lady and lord…and man kind!!
All that BEAUTIFUL poor priest did, was grow OLD, for goodness sake!!!! THE TRUTH IS IN THE PUDDING with his HOLY ARTICLATE CHARACTER!! He is such a HOLY man …he is LOVED by the world…and, HUMBLEY …ME TOO!!! GOD LOVE him—HE is BEAUTIFUL!!!
God’s Blessings and much love to Fr.Groeschel FOREVER!
Friends of ST. Bernadette
Ann Gitto Smith
Robyn says
January 9, 2010 at 12:14 PMHello Father,
I came to your website via a link from a Catholic mom’s blog. This post painted a vivid picture for me of those times. I wasn’t yet born when Kennedy was shot, I was born the following July.
I think I would have been happier living in another decade, when life was simpler and predictable. It seems that our way of life has changed so radically in the last 40 years, that it seems our only hope is prayer. I have been praying the Rosary for some time regularly and started attending weekly Adoration.
I live in a little protected bubble as a stay at home mom and Catholic school parent, but I watch the news and what I see happening today is frightening. I am bookmarking your page to read more about what has happened to you. I have long felt that the abuse crisis has been largely made up by greedy and evil people.
I know that there are bad people everywhere and a few priests that have committed these horrible things, but because of them, many good priests have had to suffer. I saw Fr. Corapi in person and in his talk he said how once in an airport a mother grabbed her child away as the child was wandering in his direction and she made a comment that was very hurtful.
I get tired of people who are not Catholic making insinuations about priests based on what the media has created. I have only known good and holy priests, and I will keep you and all priests in my prayers.
Regina says
November 30, 2009 at 10:32 AMI was only three when Pres. Kennedy was shot so I have no recollection of it- but I remember when the Pope was shot… I wonder what your rector at St. Mary’s was thinking then… too chilling to even ponder.
I remember you always in my prayers, Father.
Fr. Michael McCormick says
November 26, 2009 at 7:02 PMHello Fr. Gordon.
I came to St. Mary’s Seminary in 1980. I remember you telling me that the seminary declined the opportunity to attend the Holy Father’s visit. I was really shocked! What did I, a young and inexperienced Catholic know about dissent? I grew up in an Italian neighborhood in central Pennsylvania. I thought the would world was Catholic and loved the Pope. O dopey me. At the time I asked you why anyone would refuse to visit the Pope. You tried to help me understand, but I was way too innocent.
Throughout that first year of my formation, I would discuss many issues with you, often while watching the latest episode of Hill Street Blues. You helped ease me into awareness of the disheveled condition of the Church of the 1980’s. For that I thank you. You were always patient and clear in your explanations. Somehow I persevered without loss of my faith and was ordained in 1985.
Aside from the historical synopsis you offer in this post, the most poignant thing you wrote is the following:
“No one can read this account and not see, with the tools of hindsight, that dissent at the expense of charity and justice has brought much harm upon the Church.”
You have certainly experienced this first hand, as have I. My priesthood has twice been nearly sacrificed. Once because I was falsely accused of having an affair and destroying the marriage of one of my female converts. Her mother-in-law had previously sued the diocese on a different matter about a dozen years earlier. The bishop removed me from my post and sent me away for therapy. Six months of my life and a sterling reputation were ruined because the bishop wanted to avoid a lawsuit.
Fifteen years later I was serving in the Church of my baptism. I was so happy and at peace. I was much beloved by the people, not only in my parish but throughout the 9 parishes in our county. I am also a very orthodox priest. I am not afraid to speak the truth even when it means I am correcting the misinformation given by other pastors.
Jealously got the best of one of my brothers who then launched a campaign against me with all kinds of rumors and lies. I was accused of everything from stealing, alienating parishioners, and improper relationships with the youth. I was prevented from offering the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass for over a year. I was denied sustenance or salary of any kind.
Thank God I am back in the active ministry now. Our Bishop resigned, and Cardinal Rigali having read my file recognized that this was a miscarriage of justice based on politics and jealousy. It didn’t hurt that I also had hired a canon lawyer to secure my rights and clear my record.
Fr. Gordon, my case is so mild in comparison to yours, but it does speak to the need for us to support one another in prayer. Educating the people of God through your website is a work of the Holy Spirit. We need their prayers and support always, especially when falsely accused. I will continue to remember you in every Mass I offer. One day I hope to sit with you and rejoice that you have been vindicated and freed. May that day come very soon.
Fr. Michael McCormick
Mike Gallagher says
November 23, 2009 at 2:17 PMJust back from the U.S. Army, I vividly recall the assassination. To this day, I do not view any of those documentaries on Kennedy’s murder; just too painful. And for too long, our Church and all Christian churches, have remained silent on a culture that has now taken us to abortion-on-demand, euthanasia, and same sex marriage.
But I rejoice because just the other day, over ten bishops, including Cardinal Rigali, and numerous Christian evangelicals and main line Protestants stood together and signed a document entitled The Manhattan Declaration which affirmed our God given right to life, marriage, and freedom of religion.
These brave men and women have stated that no matter what, they will stand for these principles even if it comes to ‘civil disobedience’ just as Dr. King did. We can all sign this declaration by simply going to their website: http://www.manhattandeclaration.org WE MUST UNITE AS CHRISTIANS AND FIGHT THESE LIBERALS AND ATHEISTS NOW OR IT WILL BE TOO LATE !
dolores crowley says
November 22, 2009 at 10:26 PMhi…Father….well, i took my vows as a nun in 1960…yet, i was up to my ears in the ’60 yrs’….was teaching in Watts in
L.A….”Kennedy shot?”…all the families of our 450 students came to take their children home an hr after the announcement, we had mass at 5:00 at the parish….it was packed to overflowing…..i then was sent to Montana mid-sixties to teach in high school and grade school….drugs ‘trickled’ in…the brother of one of my students killed by 2 teenagers on LSD…they admired his social worker outreach, killed him and ate his heart to get his strength….
later doing prison work, they were the only ones i could not visit….i went back to calif and finished up a degree…interned at a psych-clinic near the “Hate-Ashb” district in San Fancisco where drugs ran ‘in the streets’.., i sat thru a physical /neurological exam with dozen young doctors in training……after the examination….the head Doc looked out at us and said….”mental age of the 19 yrs old, now about age 4… he will committed to the ……..hospital the rest of his life due to
his use of drugs “…at taxpayer expense….i then went to work at a drug treatment clinic(for 13 yrs)….
what amazed me about all the Peace Marching, Anti-War, freedom freedom cries, love one another, etc. songs and chants, was the fact that on one hand we were killing 50,000 people a year( according to the highway safety reports) on our highways
thru carelessness, drugged driving, self-ishness, speed love, etc….., my clients were saying….”oh, the war is terrible”….and i would add, “isn’t this interesting, you are killing yourself with drugs….if life is sacred, etc. then why are you killing yourself
from with -in with drugs”?….and abortions done???? ummmm,
so, my memory of the 60’s and 70’s always makes me reflect on how we treat our selves, our neighbors, do we take care of
one another….we want Peace, but look at our behavior in our neighborhoods, in our parishes, on our highways( those deaths are about 150 a day, or 3,000plus a month), ah, and all in the name of ‘respect and the sacredness of life?’,…have any of you
asked or heard your pastors give a sermon about driving with “love of the other” driving, or ever heard a sermon on ‘right
to life sunday’, directed the sermon to the men, fathers, sons, uncles, grandfathers about their role in the abortion issue,?…
the whole issue of sexuality, “the sexual persona”???
men’s role in all of this abortion debate…women in the end get the “kick in the gut” with abortion..what happened to personal responsibility…are we lovers of victimhood????..and the song we sang…” where have all …..[our men] gone….long gone”……and the role of our Church Good Shepherds, who ‘Throw-away our priests,” …innocent are some, ill are others, care for widows, orphans and prisoners….”where have all our…….gone?” dee
Esther says
November 20, 2009 at 1:01 AMAloha Father Gordon:
Excellent post! Two books came to mind while I was reading this: Michael S. Rose’s Good-bye, Good Men and No Spirit: No Church by Father John Randall.
In the latter, Father Randall relates stories from the seminary which are similar to what you wrote. If I remember correctly lmost all of these men ended up leaving the seminary and it eventually closed.
Thanks Father.
God bless,
Patricica says
November 19, 2009 at 6:42 PMDear Father,
At that time we were so alienated from the Church that I cannot even begin to explain all that happened to us. Our children were never catechized properly much to my shame. It has been a harrowing journey back to our faith. I will spare you the details. None of our children our catholic. Some came back and swiftly lost interest. No shepherds to feed them.
Right now my only hope is Mary. She will get us through this. I have locked up all my family and friends in the Garden of God in her Immaculate Heart. Now we are so blessed to have good shepherds who feed us. I attend daily Holy Mass and pray for you unceasingly. It is painful to think of our neglect.
Jesus of Divine Mercy I trust in You. I will make spiritual communions with your Holy Mass too. I am so happy when I think of Jesus asking Zecheus to “Come down from that tree, I mean to dine with you at your house tonight.” He comes to my house as many times as I invite Him.
In His Name, Patricia I.O.L.
Eileen Foster says
November 19, 2009 at 3:26 PMDear Father,
Thank you for your post of Nov 18.
I was out of the country for many of those years. This was an enlightening and informative post about our country and the Church during those years.
Many thanks,
Eileen
Msgr Michael says
November 19, 2009 at 2:37 PMDear Father Gordon,
I say ditto a million times to what Fr. Joe Coffey wrote. I remember the first time I met the Pope, and how I had to stretch out my hand to touch him along with classmates of mine. Pictures show we had faces of “inexpressible joy”.
I never thought that years later, as a priest working for an episcopal conference, I would actually have dinner with Pope John Paul II. I still remember that day so vividly. He was already fairly sick, but maintained conversation in two languages at the dinner table. He managed a few jokes too… One could see the Crucified Christ in his suffering body. Yet his spirit was ever so bright.
Stay strong Fr. Gordon. You are in my prayers. Always.
Msgr. Michael
Mary Floeck says
November 19, 2009 at 12:57 PMWell, Fr. MacRae, this is a real trip down memory lane for me. I was there in Dallas, my home from birth to age 21, the day President Kennedy and his wife came through town in the motorcade. I saw him up close and fairly personal that day as they drove down the street close to where my grandmother lived. We were allowed to be out of Catholic grade school that day so as to be able to see the President. We were so excited.
I had written to the White House the previous year and had been sent a nice letter and autographed photo of the President and his wife, which I still have to this day. We were so proud to have a Catholic president in the White House. What a thing it was.
My mother, who was a transplant in Dallas from Port Chester NY, had experienced prejudice first hand as a Catholic seeking employment in Dallas back in the 50’s, as had my other relatives from the Northeast now living in the South. Kennedy seemed to be the antidote to prejudice in so many ways.
Of course, my dad had grown up in Dallas in very different circumstances from my mom, and his political affiliations were more conservative, although he had gone to Catholic schools, and graduated from the Jesuit high school there in its first graduating class, and had considered the priesthood himself. And his love for the Blessed Mother had visually left an imprint on my mind and soul, an image that touches me to this very day.
Anyway, you bring this all to mind today as I take a look back with you on my life at that time. I was in the Church but not really with it. My folks were regular Catholics, and we never missed Mass on any Sunday or holy day, and they spent loads of money they didn’t have on a Catholic education for each of their six daughters all through elementary and high school. I will always be grateful for this although I was not especially grateful back then. I was into the Beatles and boys and could not keep my mind focused on the serious current events of the day in our Church or in our country.
I am afraid I was oblivious for many years until my conversion/reversion in the 90’s and especially during the jubilee year 2000. I seemed to be in a constant state of confusion about what the Church taught anymore. I remember my Dad stopping his attendance at Mass when the Latin was changed to English. He had been an altar server and Latin was a big part of his life as a Catholic, of course. He eventually reconciled and came back to Mass. This was such a hard time for faithful Catholics who were caught in the middle of so much social upheaval in our country and in our Church.
I must say that I never knew anything about what was going on in our seminaries until after the year 2000. I finally was made aware of how horrible the climate had really been for good Catholic men who wanted to serve Christ and His Church faithfully in the priesthood. The dissent in our Church just did not fully register with me as far as our Bishops and priests were concerned. I could never have imagined the real truth as I discovered it of late. I read Good Bye Good Men and my heart sunk. I never knew about any of that. But it explained so much that I had been confused about.
Anyway, today I am here and grateful for my Bishops and priests, no matter what. I get angry about certain things, like the funding of groups by our donations to the Bishops’ CCHD, which sponsor and promote those things in direct opposition to what the Church teaches. But today I can forgive, because I have been forgiven. Mercy is my theme today. One cannot ask for mercy if one cannot give it. This is a fundamental lesson each Christian must learn.
However, I must take a stand most days as a practicing Catholic. I stand with you Fr. MacRae, in your unjust imprisonment. I stand with the unborn whose right to life has been taken away by unjust so called law. I stand with the Bishops who speak out about unjust political strategies. I stand with politicians who try to protect our freedom of speech and religious liberty.
I stand with Holy Mother Church on all she teaches through the Magisterium, and I plan to do that always with God’s grace. I must be an example if I want to do God’s will. Thankfully He lead me through His grace out of the confusion of the 60’s and 70’s to this place today. I am grateful to God and to you Father MacRae for your courage in the face of evil each and every day in prison.
You remain in my daily prayers. God bless you.
Fr. Joe Coffey says
November 19, 2009 at 12:39 AMIn the seminay I attended, St. Charles Borromeo in Philadelphia, PA, we have pictures on the wall of a young vibrant Pope, John Paul II, who visited in 1979, and the seminarians who strained from the choir stalls to reach his hand as he walked down the aisle of our chapel, had faces of inexpressible joy. For a rector of a different seminary to not even allow his seminarians to attend a Papal Mass nearby, should make Catholics cry and our enemies laugh. Thank God you were strong. Our Church history is filled with proof that it is God’s Church and the gates of Hell will not prevail. I’m praying for you, Fr. Stay strong. Fr. Joe Coffey
Jacquie Miles says
November 18, 2009 at 9:58 PMI, too, have wondered about that time in history and the present time. Where is the Church started by Christ? Where is the forgiveness, the love, the compassion? As a convert I did not know the facts you so well presented but you have increased my understanding of even what is happening now. What is the asnwer when good priests like you are locked up and held captive while the wolves outside are howling? Thank you for putting things in perspective.
Karin says
November 18, 2009 at 10:37 AMFather,
This is a wonderful post. I was born in August 1963, so I only know what others tell me of that horrific day. My parents still tell me the story of where they were that day.
I was 10 when Roe v. Wade was passed, but unfortunately would be one of the many who would make use of that “law”. Thank God for his mercy and the gift of repentance!
I do remember JPII’s visit- I watched it on TV, but had no idea of the dissent and unwelcoming reception by seminaries at the time. How sad!
John Rychlak’s quote is so true. Thanks for this enlightening post.
Prayers for as always.
Ros says
November 18, 2009 at 3:37 AMWell Father, I am getting an education from reading your blog. The pieces are beginning to fit. I love the Rosary, I started saying it regularly this year. It helps me accept life as it is, rather than how I wish it to be. I mention your name too, to Our Lady.
Mary says
November 18, 2009 at 1:25 AMWhat a marvellous post Father. You captured the essence of the change so succinctly. It resonated with me so vividly as a lay person. I remember hearing a priest speak with barely veiled contempt of the Holy Father’s coming visit.
It made me feel very sad and concerned for the priest himself. It did not surprise me when he left the priesthood one year later.
Living through it I could not understand why it was happening but like you Father my turning point came when I saw the lack of charity and respect in the treatment of those who expressed loyalty to the Rosary and the Holy Father.
You have helped me to understand how confusing and disheartening it must have been for our religious caught up in the chaos. Thank God we had the great blessing of having John Paul 2 and now Benedict the 16th to restore charity and fidelity.
God Bless you Father
Mary