Have You Kissed Your Bishop's Ring Lately?

I have. First time too. I didn't go down on one knee though. I have poor balance and would probably end up falling over.

This is the first time I've ever been face to face with my current bishop. Tonight at Mass was Confirmation for the kids in our parish, the neighboring parish and the local Newman Center.

After His Excellency, three priests and one deacon filed out with a troupe of altar servers surrounding them, the congregation kept on singing. My row had already emptied out at Communion and singing isn't for me anymore, so I ducked out and on my way by the bishop, I reached out to shake his hand and gave his ring a quick kiss.

Pushing the Agenda

From the local paper... My comments in italics and red in some places.

Wanted: More Catholic priests | [Iowa City] press-citizen.com
Robert Daniel, August 22, 2008

The Rev. Jeff Belger has been a priest for five years.

Nice guy, good priest.

Formerly running camps for the YMCA in Eastern Iowa, he said he felt called at the age of 30 to become a priest in the Catholic Church. Following five years of seminary training at St. Ambrose University in Davenport and St. Meinrad School of Theology in Indiana, he came to Iowa City, where he splits his time between serving at St. Mary's Catholic Church and the Newman Catholic Student Center at the University of Iowa.

It was a job he said he felt called by God to do.

"Through prayer, I felt led to explore if this was (what God wanted)," Belger, 40, said. "As I learned about being a priest, I felt it was more of a calling."

Belger, however, is becoming more of an anomaly as the Catholic Church continues to deal with a shortage of priests that is becoming more severe as more and more of them retire. [...]

Here be dragons! a lot of the usual numbers detailing a decline in priests...

The Diocese of Davenport, which Johnson County Catholic churches belong, has not been immune to the decrease.

Even though the total Catholic population has decreased slightly from 105,715 in 1976 to 105,650 in 2006, the number of priests has dropped 48.6 percent, from 226 in 1976 to 116 in 2006, according to figures from the Official Catholic Directory and FutureChurch [remember that name], a Cleveland-based group that has pushed for ordaining women and married priests.

The priest shortage even led the diocese to decide to move St. Thomas More Parish from Iowa City to northern Coralville rather than start a new church to better serve Catholics in Coralville and North Liberty.

The Rev. Wally Helms, pastor of St. Thomas More, said the decision is reflective of what the Catholic Church is enduring worldwide.

"You reallocate your resources," he said. "That's true with anything."

The reasons why fewer men are entering the priesthood are varied. The Rev. Marty Goetz, who is the vocation director for the Davenport Diocese, said factors such as materialism discourage some who decide to pursue a more secular job rather than the priesthood. Other factors, such as the requirement of celibacy for priests and the sex abuse scandal the Catholic Church has endured in recent years [yadda yadda yadda], have played a minor role in knocking down interest as well, he said.

However, he said a major reason could be fewer men heeding "a call from God."

"The vocations are out there," Goetz said. "But people are not listening to God's call."

Possible solutions for the priest shortage are as varied. Since priests are the only church members who can lead Mass and celebrate the Eucharist, some Catholics, such as members of FutureChurch [haven't we read about a similar movement here? Nearly same agenda too :P], have pushed for ordaining married priests as well as women.

Helms said it is unlikely changes will occur any time soon though he would welcome them.

"I don't have any problem with women priests or married priests," he said. "Lots of other Christian religions have that and they seem to be doing that."

Not my parish, thank God.

Goetz said it is a matter of current priests having a "sense of true joy" in their work as clergy and displaying it for others to see.

"When we find that joy, we celebrate through prayer and daily contact with people," he said. "We learn this is a wonderful life that way. It's not easy, but I believe if God brings you to it, he'll bring you through it. We have to trust God is there."

Belger said those considering becoming priests have to be willing to listen to God.

"(It's) asking God what He wants for your life as opposed to your desires," he said.

Reach Rob Daniel at 339-7360 or rdaniel@press-citizen.com.

Okay, this post is a /little/ mistitled as Mr. Daniel does a fairly good job of keeping it balanced by having some decent quotes from the vocations director and Fr. Belger. Might have been a better article if the reporter had mentioned the return of the Mass of Blessed John XXIII/St. Pius V/St. Gregory the Great/etc. to the area, but we can live without it.

Huzzah!

I think Google has deemed that the blog is not spam. I didn't get the warning message on the dashboard page.

Reminder:

When: Sunday, August 3rd, 1:30pm

What: Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite aka the Gregorian Rite aka the Mass of Pius V aka the Mass of Blessed John XXIII aka the Traditional Latin Mass

Where: St. Wenceslaus' Church, 623 Fairchild Street, Iowa City, Iowa 52245

I may take the camera for pictures, but don't get your hopes up.

'Traditional Latin Mass' Announced

This has been out there awhile, but I'll post it anyway:

Una Voce Quad Cities takes great pleasure in making the following announcement:

Beginning August 3, 2008, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass will be offered in the extraordinary form (Missa Cantata) every Sunday at 4pm at St. Anthony's Church in Davenport, Iowa. Fr. Scott Lemaster, Fr. David Brownfield, and Fr. Tim Regan will alternate in offering the Mass. For parish information see http://www.stanthonysdavenport.4lpi.com.

Our heartfelt gratitude goes to Bishop Martin Amos and his director of liturgy, Deacon Frank Agnoli, who administered a diocese-wide survey of interest in the Traditional Latin Mass and then encouraged six diocesan priests to seek training in the extraordinary form. We are also deeply grateful to these priests (three of whom will be offering the Traditional Mass at St. Wenceslaus in Iowa City, also beginning August 3rd, at 1:30pm) for sacrificing their time and energy to offer us the ancient form of Mass, and to the Canons Regular of St. John Cantius in Chicago who offered the (by all accounts superb) training program they attended in May.

Deo Gratias!

After the release of SP, I found my way onto someone's email list for organizing the Extraordinary Form here in IC, so I've been following along with their efforts. It is pleasing to see such efforts come to fruition.

A new facility

IC Press-Citizen: St. Patrick's to break ground two years after tornado

In case you don't remember, two years ago, St. Patrick's here in IC was damaged beyond repair by a tornado on Holy Thursday. The parish is relocating to the east side of Iowa City. It's a good move, even if it was brought about by sad reasons. The quotes in the article are interesting though.

The article describes how the new building's construction makes use of various methods that will make it 'greener' and all that.

"It is an opportunity to build a state-of-the-art facility that can carry the church in the 22th century," said [redacted], a member of St. Patrick's since 1996.

"It will be a gathering place for families young and old. It will be a place to develop and deepen relationships," he said.

It's nice that it will be a gathering space and will help deepen relationships for the young and old...

[The pastor] agreed.

"Our dream has been to build a type of facility where youth could be comforted, where we could meet the needs of our parish to prosper and to serve our neighbor," he said.

A 'facility' where youth may be comforted, that allows the parish to prosper and where the parish can serve their neighbors...

No offense, but they're building a church, not a multi-purpose community center. When does the worship of God through the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass come in?

Leave it to the Daily Iowan

This at DailyIowan.com started off as a decent story about patterns and how these things play out. Then of course, it descended into blaming it on religiou... Bolding is mine.

People who commit these slayings usually suffer some sort of immense public embarrassment and often impose a choice, albeit an irrational one, on themselves, Black [a University of Iowa psych professor] said. Is my family better off dead or alive and left to suffer from public shame?

"It reflects a very distorted view of the future," said Michael O'Hara, a UI professor of psychology.

Though contradictory, Black said, many of these episodes can ultimately be tied to religion. Christian doctrine may explicitly forbid killing - and for Catholics, suicide as well - but such killers are frequently Christian white males.

According to these religious teachings, "they wouldn't get to heaven," Black said. "It's just part of the irrational person who sees his life as completely bleak and hopeless. So an afterlife may seem preferable."

Black said, however, that individuals such as Sueppel are more often white just because whites so heavily outnumber other ethnicities in Iowa.

Nice, huh. He forgot the part about it being a religion that is also about forgiveness. But then of course, that doesn't go along with the 'pattern'. :P In the last sentence, the professor adds that individuals are more likely to be white males because there just happens to be so many of them in Iowa. (Blogger's disclosure: I am a white male Catholic.) Couldn't the same conclusion be reached about this case since I would say that the majority of 'white males' may also be Christian?

A tragedy

As you all know, I live here in IC and the Sueppel case is dominating the news. I attend the same parish as the family, though I did not know them at all. Please pray for Sheryl Sueppel and her children: Eleanor, Seth, Ethan and Mira. Pray as well for the troubled soul of Steven Sueppel himself. Doctor Peters has a post regarding if Mr. Sueppel should be granted an ecclesiastical funeral. An excerpt:

One of the reasons we have rules is to help us guide our decision-making when circumstances make it difficult to think clearly. The horrific murder of the Sueppel family by their husband-father Steven, who then finally succeeded in killing himself, is nothing if not a difficult circumstance. My read, in any case, of 1983 CIC 1184.1.3, in light of the gruesome facts of this case, leads me to conclude that Steven Sueppel should be denied ecclesiastical funeral rites.

...
Requiescat in pace.

The MP II

The MP went into effect on the 14th. I guessed in the last post that there would be something in the next issue of the weekly newspaper. It arrived today and...

ZIPPO!

Must be hard work spelling out in your own words what the Pope spelled out in his own words. Of course, HE the Bishop could be using his Latin skills as a former teacher to actually come up with a decent translation since the Holy See has dropped the ball there. We'll wait and see, but HE is on borrowed time right now.

The MP

My bishop has promised some kind of guidelines for the implementation of the MP here in the diocese by tomorrow. I would assume that they will be published in the next edition of the newspaper. HE is a former Latin teacher, so I am hoping that he has some interest in the 'Latin Mass' and will support it here at home, but we'll see.

Catholics welcome Bishop Amos to Iowa (QCTimes.com)

Bishop Martin Amos knocked on the doors of a Quad-City church, and the people of the Catholic Diocese of Davenport stood to welcome him into their arms during his formal installation ceremony Monday.

Archbishop Jerome Hanus of the Archdiocese of Dubuque officially welcomed Amos through the open doors of St. John Vianney Church, Bettendorf, and bade him be a “loving father, gentle shepherd and wise teacher” to the faithful of the diocese that stretches over 22 counties in southeastern Iowa.

Later, during his homily, the new bishop discussed life’s journey. He spoke of an experience when he became lost during a walk and finally, after some difficulty, found his way back to a monastery.

“Life is like this,” he said, noting that the journey is not made alone but in concert with others and with Christ.

Amos said he will reach out to those who were sexually abused by priests and try to promote healing. He also will work to restore financial health to the diocese, which last month became the fourth one in America to declare bankruptcy.

“I will continue the journey and listen to God’s word on the gentle breeze, move with Jesus and trust the shepherd,” he said.

Amos, who becomes the eighth bishop to be installed in the 125-year history of the Diocese of Davenport, will begin his new job by doing a lot of listening, he said, repeating his intentions to go out and meet the people of the 84-parish diocese.
[...]

In his homily, Amos talked about the call he received to move to the Davenport Diocese.

“The nuncio told me what the pope wanted to do to me,” he said, adding that Bishop Franklin assured him he would find that many good people live in this area of the country.

“I was then calm, but that didn’t last,” he said with a laugh.

Image: Kevin E. Schmidt/QUAD-CITY TIMES

Opening remarks

The Quad-City Times has the story on the press conference yesterday in Davenport with Bishop Franklin and Bishop Amos.

From the website of the diocese, the bishops' remarks in full:

Bishop Franklin:
Thank you for attending this meeting today on such short notice.

In May of 2005, I offered my resignation to the Holy Father on the occasion of my 75th birthday. With my resignation, I offered to continue my work as Bishop of the Davenport Diocese until a successor is installed. I am now the second oldest bishop of a diocese in the United States and the seventh oldest bishop of a diocese in the world.

For the past seventeen months, we have prayed for a new bishop. Today, our prayers have been answered.

The Holy Father has accepted my resignation and has appointed Bishop Martin John Amos as the Eighth Bishop of Davenport. It is with joy and great pleasure that I introduce to you Bishop Amos.

Bishop Amos:

Thank you, Bishop Franklin.

First, let me tell how grateful I am for the warm welcome I have received since arriving in Davenport yesterday.

As you are now aware, Pope Benedict XVI has appointed me the 8th Bishop of the Diocese of Davenport. Bishop Franklin will remain in the Diocese as the apostolic administrator until my installation on November 20.

I am sure that you are curious about who I am, where I come from and what I am like. The biographical details will be available after this press conference, but let me make some brief comments now.

I was born in 1941 in Cleveland, Ohio. The oldest of six children - three boys and three girls. I was ordained to the priesthood in 1968. Served in two parishes as associate pastor and then was transferred to the Borromeo Seminary High School and then the Seminary College where I was Academic Dean and taught Latin and Scripture.

After 10 years I was sent to St. Dominic Parish in Shaker Heights, OH where I pastored for 18 years. So pastoring and teaching have always been a part of my life.

On April 3, 2001 Pope John Paul II named me Auxiliary Bishop of Cleveland and life greatly changed.

But those are just a few of the facts about where I've been.

Last week, Archbishop Sambi called to tell me the Holy Father wished me to pastor here in the Diocese of Davenport. It has certainly been a roller coaster week! I am sad about leaving what I have called home for almost 65 years. I am anxious and at the same time excited about this new path on my journey. Certainly God has been with me on many twists and turns in life and I know that God is with me as I come here today.

I come to a Diocese that recently celebrated its 125th Anniversary. I have been told about the wonderful priests, deacons, religious and people of the Diocese.

Bishop Franklin has briefly discussed with me the serious issues facing the Diocese. I know we need to continue to reach out to those touched by abuse and to continue to strengthen the protection of children and young people. The recent decision to declare Bankruptcy will have serious implications.

I know you have many questions about a variety of these issues and others as well. So have I. But until I have an opportunity to meet with my staff and the leadership and the people of the Diocese, I really can't respond to your questions until a later date.

As a bishop when I install a new pastor for a parish, one of the final things I say to him is what I hope will be the mark of my own pastoring of the Diocese of Davenport. I say to him, "My brother, be a loving father, a gentle shepherd and a wise teacher." I pray I will be that for you….a loving father, a gently shepherd and a wise teacher. After this press conference I will join Bishop Franklin and some of the staff to celebrate Mass - to pray for the people of the Diocese and for myself.

My thought was, after that I will be going home, but I realized I am home, now. I will return to the Diocese of Cleveland to wrap up affairs there, to say my good-byes and return for my installation on November 20th.

In the meantime, I ask the people of the Diocese to keep me in your prayers. I know that over the past year you have been praying for me as you prayed for the new bishop, now you can pray for me by name.

Habemus episcopum!!

Today the Vatican Information Service announced that the Holy Father had chosen Martin J. Amos (pictured at the right) to succeed William Franklin as Bishop of Davenport, Iowa, USA. The soon-to-be Ordinary of Davenport is currently an auxiliary of Cleveland, Ohio.

The newly retired Bishop Franklin had this to say in the Davenport Catholic Messenger:

In May of 2005, I offered my resignation to the Holy Father on the occasion of my 75th birthday. With my resignation, I offered to continue my work as bishop of the Davenport Diocese until a successor was installed. I am now the second oldest bishop of a diocese in the United States and the seventh oldest bishop of a diocese in the world.
For the past 17 months, we have prayed for a new bishop. Today, our prayers have been answered.
The Holy Father has accepted my resignation and has appointed Bishop Martin John Amos as the eighth bishop of Davenport. It is with great joy and pleasure that I welcome Bishop Amos.

The Messenger also provided this background on the incoming bishop:

The Most Rev. Martin Amos was born on Dec. 8, 1941, in Cleveland, the oldest of six children. He attended Benjamin Franklin Elementary School and James Ford Rhodes High School in Cleveland.
Rev. Amos entered Borromeo Seminary in Wickliffe, Ohio, in 1959. He received his B.A. in classics from Borromeo in 1964. He entered St. Mary Seminary, Cleveland, in 1964 and received an S.T.B. from St. Mary Seminary, Cleveland, in 1968. He later attended St. John College in Cleveland and was awarded a Master’s in Education degree in 1975.
He was ordained to the priesthood on May 25, 1968 by Bishop Clarence G. Issenmann at St. John Bosco, Parma Heights, Ohio.
His first assignment was as associate pastor at St. James, Lakewood, from 1968-70. He was transferred to St. Thomas, Sheffield Lake, and served from 1970-73. During this time, he was also on the facult of Elyria Catholic and Lorain Catholic High Schools teaching in the religion department. Father Amos was sent to be on the faculty of Borromeo Seminary High School in 1973 and remained there until 1976. During this time he attended John Carroll University and was certified to teach Latin, history and humanities and received certification in administration and supervision. When the high school closed in 1976, he was transferred to Borromeo College. There he served as academic dean and taught Latin and Scripture from 1976-1983.
His most recent assignment was St. Dominic Church, Shaker Heights, where he served as associate pastor from 1983-85. He was appointed pastor of St. Dominic in 1985 and served there until 2001.
On April 3, 2001, Pope John Paul II named Fr. Amos titular bishop of Meta and auxiliary Bishop of Cleveland. He receieved his Episcopal ordination on June 7, 2001. Bishop Pilla has given him primary pastoral care for the sourthern districts of the diocese, including Summit, Wayne, Ashland and Medina counties. He currently resides at St. Vincent Church in Akron.
Bishop Amos is a graduate of Leadership Akron, Class XIX. His current involvements include Board of Trustees at The Village of St. Edward, Diocesan Committee on Migration and Immigration, and Diocesan Fund Development Committee.

A seminarian I spoke to today passed along a quote of Bishop Amos that he said expressed his thoughts on the new appointment: "As a bishop when I install a new pastor for a parish, one of the final things I say to him is what I hope will be the mark of my own pastoring of the Diocese of Davenport. I say to him, "My brother, be a loving father, a gentle shepherd and a wise teacher." I pray I will be that for you….a loving father, a gently shepherd and a wise teacher."

The jubilation surrounding the appointment of a new bishop to succeed Bishop Franklin comes only two days after the Diocese of Davenport became the fourth in the United States to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

On Oct. 10, the diocese filed a petition for Chapter 11 reorganization in the Iowa District of U.S. Bankruptcy Court.
The action came 22 days after a jury awarded $1.5 million to a Davenport man who claimed he was sexually abused by a diocesan priest nearly five decades ago.
Demands for settlement of that lawsuit and 25 claims that exceeded $7 million prompted the diocese’s decision to go to trial for the first time rather than settle out of court.
The possibility of bankruptcy had been looming large in the diocese since October 2004, when it announced an agreement to settle 37 sexual abuse claims and lawsuits for $9 million. In the past two years the diocese has reached settlements totaling more than $10.5 million. The jury’s award last month left diocesan leaders with no other option, they said.

In the October 12th Messenger (today), Bishop Franklin had a personal message regarding the bankruptcy and the goals of the diocese in reorganization to meet its financial obligations. The final three paragraphs:

I and the leadership of the Diocese believe that, as difficult as this decision is, it provides the best opportunity for healing and for the just and fair compensation of those who have suffered sexual abuse by clergy in our Diocese, those who have come forward and those who have not yet decided to come forward. While providing just and fair compensation to victims/survivors, we also believe that the decision to reorganize is the best way in which we will be able to continue the Church’s mission in the Diocese of Davenport.
In the coming days, more information will be made available and shared regarding the specifics of this reorganization process. I will do my best to keep you informed as the process continues. The pain and suffering by survivors of abuse will not end with the reorganization of the Diocese. The clergy abuse scandal has impacted everyone in some way: victims, laity, priests and religious. I pray that with the decision announced today, a new path toward healing can begin for everyone.
I ask for your continued prayers for the victims/survivors and their families. Please pray for me and for all who are involved in this reorganization process. Please pray for healing in our Diocese. Let us continue to trust that the Lord will guide us through this difficult time in our history.

Bishop Amos has much work ahead of him in leading Davenport forward in its time of financial trial and tribulation. He has the right attitude and with that and the Holy Spirit, all things are possible.

EDIT: Thanks to a reader for correcting the title.

So it goes

Jury: Diocese must pay victim $1.5 million

By Dustin Lemmon | Monday, September 18, 2006 | (7) Comments | Rate this article

BREAKING NEWS: (4:43 p.m.) A Scott County jury has awarded Michl Uhde $1.5 million in damages from the Diocese of Davenport for sexual abuse he suffered more than 40 years ago.

The jury deliberated for six hours Monday before returning its verdict around 3 p.m. The $1,536,800 covers future medical expenses, lost wages, lost function of the mind, and pain and suffering.

The amount doubled the $744,000 that Uhde and his attorneys had asked for. The diocese had said it was going to court because it couldn’t afford to settle any more cases regarding alleged sexual abuse by its priests.

The trial in Scott County District Court started Sept. 11 and ended with closing arguments Friday afternoon. Jurors heard testimony from Uhde, who recounted abuse by Monsignor Thomas Feeney that occurred from 1957 to 1963, starting when he was 7.

After the verdict Uhde said the case was never about the money but getting answers from the diocese.

“This is about the victims,” he said. “I feel better. Hopefully, we’ll get some help for other people.”

Dustin Lemmon can be contacted at (563) 383-2493 or dlemmon@qctimes.com

The Bishop going into the trial wrote this in the Messenger and then had this to say today after the verdict.

As His Excellency stated in the first letter, the point of going to trial was that the diocese had no money to pay out. The second letter outlines what is next, i.e. belt-tightening on a massive scale and serious consideration on filing for bankruptcy.

And this is only the first trial. As the first letter explained, there is another one in the offing... For a diocese that is largely rural outside of the Quad Cities and Iowa City, this is going to be very tough for everyone.