This weekend you will be asked to pledge to the Archbishop's Appeal 2010.
You will hear an audio message from him (and some of you may even hear it from him or one of our bishops in person).
You will be asked to complete a card making your pledge ("Print Your Name. Then, print your address...") or if you are so inclined, right then and there make your contribution.
As in the previous years, I will not.
I encourage you not to do so too.
Donate but not to the Archbishop's Appeal.
I do not say that lightly or flippantly.
There are many good things that the Appeal does. Over the last few years, the Archdiocese has provided more information about where the money is going. Finally!
It helps educate our seminarians, pro-life activities, etc.
But even with all of those good things, I in good conscience cannot give.
I say this not because I believe that the Archbishop and his staff are out there having lavish cocktail parties and taking expensive vacations.
I do so because I believe that he has failed time and time again to act as a shepherd of this diocese against the pro-abortion, pro-homosexual, anti-family and anti-marriage forces.
He continues to support CCHD, even when we have seen time and time again, the money used against Church teaching. We even honor those who run it inappropriately.
He refuses to admit that this health bill is a disaster and should be scrapped, while at the same time advocating that those who are illegal aliens be given full health care coverage.
Finally, they have set up a policy that will make it easier to close a school, and if parents want to keep it open, placing more of a burden on them, so that we can spend more of our money acting as a social services agency. Remember how they all told us that no schools would be closing!
Unfortunately, the Archbishop just does not get it. The only way that he will understand is to reduce the amount that is received.
Donate but not to the Appeal.
I am urging you to take the money and donate it directly to your local Catholic elementary school. The changes tuition and funding are really going to hurt many parents, esp. those with large families. A couple of our schools are barely managing to stay open next year. Three will close in June.
Catholic schools are always in need of funding. Many have lists of items needed. Help purchase one of them or join in with another family to do so. Ask that the money you donate be spent directly on assisting a family who cannot afford school supplies. Donate the money with the stipulation that it be used to reduce the tuition of a family in need, above and beyond what the diocese may do.
Donate it directly to the school so that the Archdiocese cannot get it.
Donate but not to the Appeal.
If you don't have a Catholic elementary school, then donate to the religious order which educated you (provided they are faithful to the teachings of the Church and not some loony tune order - no offense to Warner Bros.).
Donate but not to the Appeal.
Donate to the Jeanne Jugan Residence, St. Ann's Home, or St. Joseph House.
Donate but not to the Appeal.
Donate to the Missionaries of Charity.
Donate but not to the Appeal.
Want to support seminarians? Then find your local Knights of Columbus group. They always have fund raisers for seminarians.
Donate but just not to the Appeal.
I think you got the message: Donate but just not to the Appeal.
10 comments:
I also will not be contributing to the Archbishop’s Appeal this year, despite its many wonderful works. But the CCHD should not be funded. I actually agree heartily with the spirit of the CCHD, I like the grass-roots mentality, but I believe it is ill-conceived. The problem with the CCHD, as I see it, is that the good work it is funding is work that could better be done at the parish-level. Why fund a secular anti-poverty campaign? It should not come as a surprise to anyone that a secular organization (even a great organization that does a lot of good work) may also hold or later adopt social positions that are not in accord with the Church. As you note, fund Catholic education instead. Everything good the CCHD could do, Catholic education already does, only better.
My review of this article goes as follows:
Five Stars from the galaxy of your choice.
There are pivotal sins of negligence of which that particular archbishop is publicly guilty. It has to do with moral theology and society. He has been holding back church teaching on pivotal issues since Day 1 in Pittsburgh.
A bishop who remains deliberately silent to specific issues involving socialwide moral theology is equivalent to an unauthorized person who chisels off three commandments from the original ten.
Bravo for this article. You really do deserve the name Big D. This is a big thing to do. Yes!!!! Isn't it a liberating feeling to not be a spineless coward cow-towing to whoever is in power, especially when the person in power is a saboteur who been shown to have abridged the Catholic faith?
Paul VI stated that the mission of the Laity is the renewal of the temporal order. A bishop is to empower the laity to fulfill this mission. Take note on how this archbishop takes power out of the hands of the Faithful. It seems that this archbishop finds the role of the laity to be nothing more than handing over their money to him. Cult leaders regard their followers in that way.
Whatever happened to the phrase, Catholic Action? What is wrong with putting Catholics into direct action?
CCHD is a very valid issue. However, the comment about the "lavish coctail parties" reminded me of a column I read recently. Excerpt and link below:
"What has this to do with the Pope’s expensive hat? Everything. Why does the Pope have the hat? Do you really think he wears the hat on Friday night to go bowling? Does he stand in front of a mirror and say, “Boy, have I got a swell hat or what?” There isn’t enough money in the world to convince me to be a pope, or even a bishop, for that matter. Bishops and popes, at least in our times, are usually very poor men. I mean it. They have nothing that is really their own. Nothing, not even time.
I remember Bishop Conway, my former vicar, may he rest in peace. He was my immediate supervisor. I remember how hard he worked and how good he was to me who am, at times, a bit difficult. He was scheduled to confirm our eighth grade class. It is a customary to have a banquet with the confirming bishop and all those who are responsible for the instruction of the students. It is a grand event. When I saw him at a meeting, I asked the bishop what he preferred for the banquet, Vietnamese or Mexican. He replied, “Whatever is easiest. I looked at him and his tired expression and asked, “Would you like to not have the banquet?” His eyes opened wide and he said, “Oh! That means I could eat at home that night!”
I felt so bad for him. Night after night, banquets and ceremonies and events, eating pickled squid one night, pig’s ear salad the next night and Heaven know what the night after that. (I am not making pig’s ear salad up. It is a Vietnamese specialty and everyone seems to have a unique recipe for it that they force you to try because it’s just like their grandmother used to make back home. Pigs’ ears are very crunchy. I needn’t go into detail)
Bishop Conway never got to say, “Heck. Let’s go to the movies. I’ll call in sick. He never got to do much. He was always at a meeting, or a banquet, or a ceremony, or answering angry phone calls about me. I remember him standing in the sun at some procession or dedication at which fireworks were blown off. It was really something. I remember the Cardinal jumped a foot. He was new to the liturgical use of fireworks. There Bishop Conway stood, glorious in his gold braided miter and damask robes partially shielded by a magnificent twenty foot tall, two foot wide parasol held by an enthusiastic participant. It was glorious. He tried to smile and look like he was enjoying it as he dripped sweat and choked on gun powder fumes from the ceremonial fireworks. Perhaps he really was having a good time, but I suspect he would have had a better time were he wearing a straw hat and a Hawaiian shirt.
We processed through the neighborhood, endured a two hour service with no bathroom breaks and then adjourned to the hall for, you guessed it, pig’s ear salad. I had to endure this a few times a year. He endured that sort of thing just about every day in one way or another. Magnify this by ten and you’ve got the Cardinal. Magnify this by twenty and you’ve got the pope. Ah, the glorious perks of office, pointy hats and strange food, all punctuated by jet lag. As I said, popes and bishops are some of the poorest people on earth. They lack what the even the guests at our parish soup kitchen had plenty of: time."
http://www.rev-know-it-all.com/2010/2010---01-24.html
Something tells me the Appeal will not get much money this weekend(ha ha ha). Perhaps all the snow is a sign for us to give money directly to your Catholic schools, not to the Appeal.
This article reads like Garcia Lorca's Five O'Clock in the Afternoon. That was moving poem. Therefore, your article could be read in a town square with really good cadence --- after the clanging of the bell and the "Hear Ye, Hear Ye," of course.
You should continue to write like the Spanish poets which included, incidentally, John of the Cross.
--- The Saint John of the Cross ---
How do you think you would do in writing a petition to the Holy See? There is one subject that needs a petition attached to it, and that petition then needs to be circulated throughout the capital of the United States. That would be a statement as awesome as giving to the Knights of Columbus instead of the archbishop's appeal.
It would be the capital of the United States factor which would be the awesome statement in such a petition. The awesomeness consists in the fact that a number of people have long since suspected this particular archbishop of having been trying to start the AM Church, and to have it disconnected from obedience to the Holy See. This has been suspected, at the very least, in matters of doctrine. Such doctrine twistedly distorted by this archbishop includes Holy Communion, in how it cannot morally be given to an unrepentant politician belligerently dedicated to the proliferation of one of the four sins which cry Heaven for vengeance.
Again, I state "suspected" and "alleged." So, let's not have anymore cries of "misinformation" on this D.C. Catholic's comment board.
Now, that which is not suspected, but which is reasonably evident, is that D.C.'s present archbishop gained the distrust of people, as far back as his first year in Pittsburgh, when a certain D.A. accused Wuerl and his Pittsburgh personnel of having foot dragged through a molestation investigation which resulted in the indictment of three diocesan priests.
One important point needs to be made here: In order to have distrust for this particular archbishop, you had to have had an encounter with him. From a distance, you assume that he is a good guy, due to the public relations stronghold he possesses. Then, you encounter the real Donald Wuerl, and not merely the propagandist's cardboard cut out of the guy. Then comes the distrust, the bitterness, the shock, and resentment. This distrust involves a number of topics; not merely the topics of school closings, church sales, and intermittent clergy cover-ups.
Giving to the Knights of Columbus is the act of giving to a charity. Going by memory, in the Diocese of Springfield (MASS.), the knights had a collection drive, but they were not collecting money. They were collecting clothing, cribs, and strollers, in order to stop elective abortion from looking like the only alternative to poor mothers.
Now, that's how you be Catholic!
You wanna be Catholic? Then, do what members of the Rosary Confraternity do.
You wanna be Catholic? Then, do what the Divine Mercy Prayer Apostolate people do.
You really wanna be Catholic? Then, be like the students of Immaculata High School, in Somerville, New Jersey, who rally against Child Slave Labor practices.
Do you really really want to be Catholic? Then, do what the Knights of Columbus do.
Do you really really really want to be Catholic?
Then don't be like Donald Wuerl.
During a radio talk show, conducted on WBVP Radio, in Beaver Falls, PA, best selling author Malachi Martin stated the following:
... and the Bishop of Pittsburgh is a fool who will one day have to answer to God for all the sins he has allowed." (Malachi spoke the beginning part of this statement in a light armored gavel tone of voice, and then he ended it in an almost singing tone of voice, accompanied by the sound of bitter dishevelment in the singing thereof.)
While on WBVP Radio, Malachi also stated about Wuerl:
"One day God will say to this bishop, 'And what do you think you were doing with my church'?"
Malachi concluded by stating about Wuerl:
"He's not Catholic. He's just not Catholic."
As far as goes Malachi's credibility, he is the one who precisely predicted that Albino Luciano would succeed Paul VI to the throne of Peter.
If anyone is consider to draft a petition to the Vatican, or even an individual's letter of complaint, simply enumerate what documented things of an adverse nature Wuerl did individual Catholics and the Catholic Church the same way in which Jefferson enumerated what King George did to individual colonists and the colonies, themselves. Go back to Pittsburgh and move up to 2009.
An archbishop shouldn't encroach on the income potential of religious orders and Catholic associations. And there are religious orders out there dedicated to the service of the poor. Can those religious orders make fund raising appeals in D.C.?
By the way ...
How much of the money given to the Archbishop's Appeal Campaign do not make its way to the poor?
If anyone is not considering to write at least a personal letter of complaint or petition to the Vatican, take a little time to consider this:
On Wuerl's 10th anniversary as bishop of Pgh, the Pittsburgh Catholic newspaper published a multiple paged insert on Wuerl. In that insert, Wuerl was literally called, the Pontiff of Pittsburgh. For those who missed the point in mentioning this, the title made him appear to have a status equal to that of the Successor of Peter.
Let's go a step further. The Pittsburgh chancellor under Wuerl was a Father Lawrence Dinardo. He is not to be confused with the former Pittsburgh diocesan priest, Daniel DiNardo, who was elevated to the college of cardinals a little while ago. None the less, Lawrence DiNardo, during a catechism meeting held on Sept 16, 1995, was tape recorded as having said that it is not a part of Catholic doctrine for the laity to believe the teachings of Pope; only the teachings of their local bishops. He concisely said, "...that's not part of our doctrine, whether you believe in the Pope. You don't need to believe in the Pope. Only bishops need to believe in the Pope. You need to accept the teaching authority of the bishop..."
This is mentioned in the Mother's Watch article which was cited on the comment board of a recent D.C. Catholic article.
Perhaps you now see the reason why Wuerl was suspected of having attempted to trigger the establishment of an AM(erican) Church which would have been made to appear equal to the Vatican, while being entirely independent of the Vatican. If such a thing were intentionally orchestrated by Wuerl, then Wuerl failed to have an AM Church established simply because he is not as popular as the media made him seem to be.
Donald Wuerl was the beneficiary of very artificially contrived propaganda. If he were as popular as he was made out to be, he wouldn't have been sued as many times as he was while he was stationed in Pittsburgh. It's that simple.
The point to make here is that Wuerl has thus far shown himself to have not changed his ways since leaving Pittsburgh for D.C. In both Pittsburgh and D.C., he has neglected doctrinal matters which were inexcusable to neglect. He deliberately swept some of those things under the carpet, so as to hide them from the laity. However, the laity has the right to be taught the entirety of the Catholic faith; not merely Wuerl's abridged version of it.
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