One-third of St. Louis Catholic schools face possible closure 

South Bend, Ind., Jan 17, 2019 / 04:15 pm (CNA).- It’s not unusual for a school to offer an after school drama or Spanish club. Some schools even offer a robotics club. But few schools offer a club dedicated to adoration of the Blessed Sacrament…. […]

Baltimore, Md., Nov 12, 2018 / 04:10 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- In the afternoon of the first full day of the US bishops’ autumn general assembly, two speakers pleaded with the bishops to listen deeply to abuse victims and to lay experts in the Church about how to move forward.

Christina Lamas, Executive Director of the National Federation for Catholic Youth Ministry, told the bishops they must not ignore the pain of the victims of clergy sex abuse.

Many young people, she said, “have been hurt twice by the Church,” first when they were abused by a cleric, and then again when they were ignored by Church leadership after the abuse.

“We need words of compassion when speaking about those disconnected from the Church, to view them as sisters and brothers, not as prize objects,” Lamas said.

“We need bishops to stop seeing conspiracy and malice, instead we look for our bishops and those who work with them to assume the good” on the part of those who come forward, she added.

While the Vatican has ordered the U.S. bishops conference not to vote on proposals aimed at sex abuse reforms until after a meeting of the world’s bishop conference presidents in February, the subject has still featured prominently at the meeting of U.S. bishops, which is being held in Baltimore Nov. 12-14.

Lamas, who spoke during a Monday afternoon session, also called the bishops to examine and root out the causes of sexual abuse.

“From you our bishops, we need you to address the root of the problem – abuse of power. We need soul-searching about clericalism and its roots,” she said.

There have been “glimmers of hope,” Lamas said, noting that some bishops have opened investigations, created review boards, and held listening sessions in their dioceses.

Young people are also now being taught “not to keep secrets, and that no person is above question or above the law,” she said.

Lamas asked the bishops to “walk with” the laity at this time, “rather than ignore us. You are not spiritual fathers of only the clergy” but of all, she said.

Following a period of prayer and reflection, Sr. Teresa Maya, CCVI of San Antonio and past president of Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) addressed the bishops, expressing her disappointment at the scandals and urging them to learn from some of the lessons that women religious have learned through their own times of crisis.

“I accepted your courageous invitation (to speak at the conference) because of my deep love for the Church,” she said, although she said she had hoped a snowstorm might have cancelled the whole event.

While she loves the Church, Maya said she has found it “painful” in recent months to recite the words of the Creed: “One, holy, Catholic and apostolic Church.”

Maya said she was tempted to stop saying that part of the Creed “until something concrete happened. Then I realized this was my Church and wondered what was mine to do.”

She said she was recently asked by a friend why Catholics should stay in the Church after all of the scandals, and Maya said after a long silence, she responded: “We stay because of Jesus Christ.”

“How do we return to (Christ) for mercy and reconciliation, for the grit to do what is our to do?” she asked the bishops.

She said she prayed that the bishops would have a “deep capacity” to listen to the survivors of clerical abuse, to hear their anger and their pain.

The bishops are entrusted with the task of being the “phsycians and healers” of the Church, but “the best physicians are first good listeners,” she said.

Maya then offered the bishops three ways they could learn from orders of women religious, who have gone through their own trials and crises, and who now face sharply declining numbers and aging populations.

The bishops must face the scandals together, with a listening and contemplative heart, and must be willing to root out anything that goes against discipleship with Christ, she said.

“You are called to renewed spiritual depth,” which will enable the bishops to discern the good spirits from the bad, she said.

She urged the bishops to renewed communion among themselves, and to have the willingness to listen to other bishops who have put policies and procedures in place that have actually worked to help bring healing and reconciliation to survivors of abuse.

“You should not expect the Vatican to resolve what is yours to resolve,” she said. “The Vatican doesn’t have the knowledge, resources and gits that you do. You can be models for the rest of the world. I urge you to seize this opportunity.”

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Lincoln, Neb., Mar 18, 2020 / 04:00 am (CNA).- Demand for confessions at St. Mary’s in downtown Lincoln, Nebraska, has always been high: it’s a centrally-located church with convenient, daily confession times and often multiple confessors.

During the parish’s normal 11:30-noon weekday confession times, penitents on their lunch breaks line up, often 20 people or more deep, for absolution and sacramental grace, before returning to work, or before attending the 12:10 p.m. Mass.

“It’s a big ministry,” Fr. Douglas Dietrich, the pastor of St. Mary’s, told CNA. “And then we have a lot of people who come by the door and call up and just want to go to confession; that’s great.”

“I always joked about how I should just put up a walk-up confessional” available outside his rectory office window, Dietrich told CNA.

These days, the usual daily confession lines would violate new state and federal coronavirus guidelines, which dictate that no more than 10 people should be gathered in any space. To further complicate matters, the Diocese of Lincoln announced on Monday that public Masses would be suspended until further notice, also in an effort to combat coronavirus.

But Fr. Dietrich is not deterred.

What started out as a joke has now become a reality, in an effort to keep the sacraments available to Nebraska’s Catholics during this uncharted time of restrictions on public gatherings.

“When we got the word that they were suspending all public liturgies and the churches were basically shut down, that was my first concern was – what about people who have to get to confession?”

Starting just one day after the new restrictions, Fr. Dietrich set up shop at his office window, and advertised the new set-up to his parishioners. The line was a little shorter than usual, but Dietrich said he heard confessions until a little past noon.

Dietrich is not the only priest getting creative at this time of unprecedented closures of liturgies and churches in the United States and beyond.  Over the weekend, a photo circulated on social media of Fr. Scott Holmer of St. Edward the Confessor Catholic Church in Bowie, Md., offering drive-up confessions.

BRILLIANT! Drive-through confessions…. perfectly legal, good social-distancing. Awesome idea, Fr, way to adapt! I gotta figure how to do this at ASU … works with cars, skateboards, bikes, scooters, I s’pose. #ASUCatholic #coronapocalypse pic.twitter.com/pwgFnw29Gm

— Fr Rob Clements (@Fr_RobC) March 16, 2020

Holmer sat on a chair outside in the church parking lot, a safe six feet away from cars, which lined up behind traffic cones for the sacrament.

In a note on his parish website, Holmer said that while it was a “great sorrow” to be unable to offer public Mass, the “drive through confessional” was one way he could offer sacraments to the people at this time.

“As we go through this Coronavirus, I hope to be in daily communication with you to create a sense of being connected as a parish throughout these uncertain days,” he said.

The drive-up confessions will be available every day at varying times posted on the parish website, with an extended time of confessions from 7:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. on Sundays. A seminarian has been recruited to direct traffic, the priest noted, and the confessional will only be closed in cases of inclement weather, like heavy rain.

“This is turning out to be a Lent unlike any other. I believe the Lord is inviting us to an increased concern for the welfare of our neighbors and offering us the opportunity to make sacrifices for them. What a great Lenten penance for us all,” Holmer said in the letter to parishioners on the parish website.

“Be assured of my prayers for you. Please pray for the health and welfare of all in our parish and in the surrounding community. I miss you all terribly,” he added. The photo of Holmer’s creative confessional inspired Fr. Ryan Salisbury of Syracuse, Nebraska to think about what he could offer his parishioners.

“A number of parishioners kept sharing that photo with me, and it was like, yeah, this is something we need to do.”

Like Dietrich, he decided to set up a walk-up confessional through a window of the parish social hall.

“The way our social hall is designed, we have a classroom (where) the roof overhangs it. That way they’re kind of protected even if it would rain or anything like that. And it has a direct line of sight from the parking lot. So, I can open a window, be inside and be there with my back to the window to remain anonymous for confession,” Salisbury told CNA.

Salisbury said he planned on posting the new available confession times on the parishes website and social media pages, and that he planned on offering even more times than normal.

The priest said so far he has had about seven or eight parishioners ask him how they will be able to access confessions while ordinary Masses are suspended, so he knows it’s something on the mind of many Catholics. He encouraged people to use the walk-up confessional even if they just wanted to talk.

“We as priests, we are praying for (Catholics) and during this time we’re always there to offer anything that you need,” he said.

He added that he would encourage people “not to be afraid, to reach out with any concerns or questions or ideas that they might have. But most of all, (they should) know of our love for them and our prayer for them. And as difficult as this is for everyone, on our priestly hearts it’s also very difficult not being able to administer to them in the way that we’re used to. But we offer it up in every little sacrifice that we do,” he said.

Fr. Cassidy Stinson, a priest at St. Bede Catholic Church in Williamsburg, Virginia, told CNA that his parish has “really big confessionals with good ventilation”, so he is still offering confessions with or without a privacy screen, but at a safe distance of 6 feet or more.

Stinson has been promoting his still-open confessions on Twitter.

“We’re trying to be creative to stay safe,” he told CNA.

Fr. Carl Arcosa, like Fr. Holmer, is offering his parishioners at St Michael Parish in Livermore, California, a drive-up confessional, as well as “parking lot Benediction”, starting on Thursday, the feast of St. Joseph.

“Only one occupant per car. Drive up to the courtyard driveway and remain in your car. A priest will keep a 6-foot distance from your car window to hear your confession and absolve you,” say the instructions for drive-up confession, sent in an email to parishioners.

Drive-up confessions will be offered every day from March 19-April 7 at two different times, including bilingual confessions. Drive-up Benediction will be offered twice daily, at 8:30 a.m. and 6:00 p.m.

Directions for drive-up Benediction read: “Park in St Michael’s parking lot and remain in your car. Our clergy will process with Jesus present in the Eucharist and pass by all cars.  While in your car pray this prayer three times: ‘O Sacrament most Holy, O Sacrament Divine, All praise and all thanksgiving, Be every moment Thine.’”

Arcosa said that the priests will use their phones in order to hear people confess their sins but maintain distance, and then will bless and absolve the penitents from a safe six-foot distance.

Arcosa told CNA that he wanted his people to be “spiritually and pastoral supported” during this time, even if he cannot offer them public Masses.

The church doors are also being kept open during the day so that people may pray in front of the Blessed Sacrament, or pray the Stations of the Cross, which is normally offered publicly every Friday during Lent.

“This a very Catholic parish, they love the Eucharist and everything,” Arcosa said. “So that’s why we’re giving the sacraments back to them, and the Blessed Sacrament, and opening the church, (it) makes them feel that the church is there for them. Their priest is there pastorally, spiritually.”

“I believe that the sacraments are really important for us Catholics,” Arcosa added.

“In the midst of all the other Christian churches locking their doors or canceling their services, we’re still doing (what we can) because we know that Jesus still walks with us and Jesus wants to be with us and support us and give us strength…in our sacraments, even in this time of crisis.”

[…]