Cuba 2011

When does "The Revolution" need a revolution? Answer: When the new ruling class becomes as entrenched and self serving as the ruling class it destroyed to achieve power. Today, Cuba needs a new Fidel Castro, only this one must truly love the people and return basic human rights...freedom to assemble, travel, politically choose, worship God, and pursue an economic dream. This new Castro must destroy the aging Communist privileged class that strangles the island nation for their own welfare. The blueprint is given by history. A nation waits. A people so destroyed have little time or energy for a revolution without a leader. This is not middle class Egypt 2011, France 1789, America 1776, or Tunisia 2011. This is China 1949, Russia 1917, Cuba 1959. Cuba needs a new and better Fidel Castro if its torture heroic people are to be rescued. Teddy Roosevelt did it in 1898. We thought Fidel 1 did it in 1959. we were wrong. Cuba waits...

The Wreckage

How do you begin... what went wrong? How could an institution so strong, so organized, so historic, so moral, so wealthy, so powerful...just collapse? The picture shows all that remains of a Catholic school in modern Cuba. Destruction from outside...Fidel and his communists. Yes the altar boy, Jesuit trained Fidel Castro grew up to all but erase his church from his nation.
Today, another generation of altar boys are erasing Catholicism. This time it is in America. This time it is not a famous dictator, a Catholic kid who turned bad. This time it is the innocent. Holy boys presented to the church by loving trusting parents only to be sexually molested by sick men ordained as priests. Small in number but devastating beyond anticipation these pedophiles and those bishops who protected them are bankrupting the church financially and morally. Once again they reprove the historic fact that real destruction of the church does not come from persecutors but from its own priests. Probably every heresy was begun by a priest. Today, Holy Mother Church bleeds in America but is being reborn in Cuba.

Silent Soldiers in The Snow

The sun sets at the monastery on a cold brief Winter day. The bells wait. Like soldiers in the snow they wait to remind us of the glory of the Creator Who is present at all times and in many ways. Soon it will be time for vespers. The bells will call everyone to thank the Creator for another day of life. After vespers the chapel will again be empty. Only the dancing shadows of the vigil light flickering before the icon of the Blessed Virgin remain. Outside, the snow slowly turns from white to blue under the rising moon. The bells stand at attention. So much of the secular world holds no attraction from this peace.

United We Stand

Torn over issues of female clergy, the practice of homosexuality, declining Sunday services attendance, and some of its former churches turning into mosques, the Anglican Churches of England and Scotland were required by the Queen to welcome Pope Benedict XVI at former Catholic institutions lost when stolen by Henry VIII in the 16th century. Indeed, the current Queen Elizabeth is probably named after Elizabeth I who was excommunicated by the Pope also in the 16th century. Again, history surprises us in our lifetime. Many thought the Soviet Union, the "Iron Curtain" and the Berlin Wall would out last us and our children, but in an historical instant they were all gone.

Now we have the Pope welcomed by Queen Elizabeth to visit the former Benedictine monastery of Westminster Abbey, and the actual courtroom where Thomas Moore was sentenced to death because of his loyalty to the Vicar of Christ, the Roman Pontiff. Four hundred years ago Catholic priests were hung, disemboweled and quartered for the "crime" of being a priest. Henry VIII stole, looted and destroyed 600 Catholic churches and monasteries. Now the Roman church returns to declare blessed, John Cardinal Neuman who left the Anglican priesthood, converted to Roman Catholicism and became a cardinal. A Pope honoring an Anglican who converted to Roman Catholicism in England under the witness of the schismatic Archbishop of Canterbury... historically unthinkable but now a reality.

One senses that the Christians of Europe are possibly finally reuniting. Devastated by Nazism, Communism, Secularism and now a growing Islam, Christians are seeing an urgency and duty to save Europe's Christian soul and identity. Perhaps our lifetime will witness the spectacular once again...a reuniting of Protestantism, Anglicanism, the Roman and Orthodox churches.

Saint Edward the Confessor

It was a sad Mass. So sad even the priest cried. We were not burying a person but rather a building…the church of Saint Edward the Confessor still standing amidst the urban prairie of the north Philadelphia badlands. Over a century old it had watched its community built, beautified, abandoned and finally destroyed. All that was left were occasional defiant row homes without rows that gasped on acres of broken bricks and dead trees. The aftermath of another great urban battlefield, one of many that chanted the sorrow of American cities at the end of the twentieth century. And now the little congregation of ten gathered in a church which had once greeted a thousand for spectacular Christmas Masses. We came to bury this glorious monument of English Gothic architecture. Towering stained glass windows from France reflected for one last time the story of our faith. Altar bells echoed in the great void. The Virgin Queen gave her final loving gaze. “Ita Missa Est” whispered the broken priest. He had tried so valiantly to save this lighthouse of love in a violent sea of drugs and cruelty. It was over. He had lost.

They entered before the incense had even drifted up to the interior heaven. Protected by security guards they began to take as much of the art that they could move this day. The twenty foot crucifix was lowered carefully onto a padded vehicle for transport to the archdiocesan warehouse. Each man carried a massive candlestick from the home they had known for a century. In one corner a group wrestled the Virgin from her pedestal with the help of a small crane. Yes it was really over. Outside nervous young guards stood by as the loot was taken. Across the street a Black man was yelling, “Thieves! This is God’s house. His glory belongs to His people who have nothing!” Some dismissed him as a drunk, a street person from the rubble. The guards would briefly give him quick stares, always avoiding prolonged eye contact. “Thieves! God’s vengeance on you!” He was a prophet of the street. He had nothing but the truth.

The Six Thousand

This week Cardinal Dougherty High School in Philadelphia will officially close...a thought considered impossible in 1958 when it opened as the largest Catholic high school in the world. Those were the glory days for American Catholicism. Seminaries and convents were struggling to find room for their unending floods of candidates. Priests sat down to rectory dinners at crowded dinning room tables. It was unusual to see an elderly priest. It was equally unusual to have a teacher who was not either a priest or a nun. Parishes and schools were well into a building frenzy. The issue of individual conscience and disagreeing with Church doctrine seemed to be non existent. There were the rules, and those who disobeyed them confessed their sins, or just left. No energy was waisted on accommodation and strained compromises. The Church was "One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic" in word and actuality. Each year Cardinal Dougherty would graduate well over 1,000 students. Its halls were built extra wide to accommodate the vast crowds during the change of classes. Tuition was $25.00, books were rented, field trips and movies were unheard of. Silence permeated the school during instruction time. All of the 6,000 students prayed as a mass 8 times a day. Female students wore modest uniforms. Male students sported a suit, white shirt and tie. Sneaks appeared in gym and jeans at home. Ours was a European style education with emphasis on lecture and memorization devoid of any current educational fix all program. Manners, respect, patriotism and God were the constant themes of the school.

Today, the building houses 500 students within its endless halls and 2,000 seat auditorium. Nuns disappeared first, then the priests. Catholicism probably has a bare majority as the faith of the student body. Enduring a withering storm of Great Recession, clerical scandals, and a pagan culture, the building somehow remained open until now. It closes this week. The marvel is that it lasted this long. In many ways it represents the Church in America today. Standing, empty and beloved by those who are blessed with memories of a better America. We are promised by Christ that Holy Mother Church will survive to the end of times. He never mentioned, however, our numbers.

Spring Diet

Not everyone is slimming down for the summer.