For His Friends

The Old Florida Capitol Building (now a museum) and behind it the current capitol building.

This was a long day for several hundred of us in the state capital today. In addition to the six diocesan bishops (Bishop John Ricard of Pensacola-Tallahassee, our usual host, was unable to join us) and one auxiliary bishop, about three hundred women and men joined us for the annual “Catholic Days at the Capitol” events. These people received a briefing yesterday from the staff of the Florida Catholic Conference and then were asked to personally visit the offices and, hopefully, speak to their individual Senators and Representatives about forthcoming legislation of interest to the Church and to Catholics. It can be both exciting and frustrating. It is exciting because these volunteers often find strength in numbers and work up their courage to make their case with the elected representatives and it can be frustrating because early in the legislative session (we are in the second week) many members of the legislature are tied up in committee hearings and suddenly are unavailable.

The bishops were supposed to meet with Governor Crist this morning, something we have done for the past three years, but late word came that the governor had to fly to seven Florida cities/towns today and would not be available. Those meetings are valuable but predictable. We talk about education, farmworkers, migration and health care issues and he is engaged but when the subject switches to the death penalty, he, like his predecessors listens respectfully, but then says that he must uphold the laws of the state and continue to sign death warrants for prisoners on Florida’s death row. I am now in my third governor (Chiles, Bush and Crist) and the response of all three have been the same on this neuralgic issue. There was, in fact, to be an execution today but it was stayed last week by the Florida Supreme Court while they determined whether the felon had a sufficient IQ to warrant full knowledge of the consequences of his acts.

Representative Will Weatherford, recipient of the "Defensor Parentum" award from the Florida Catholic Conference

We had a giant, fast lunch today with all the volunteers in town for “Catholic Days at the Capit0l” and any legislator who can break away and make it (they pay for their own lunches) and I am happy to report that Representative Will Weatherford sat at my table and was awarded the Defensor Parentum (Latin for “Defender of Parents) award from the Conference this year for his abiding commitment to “choice in education.” Representative Weatherford, a Methodist, is from Wesley Chapel in our diocese and while not of our faith he has consistently voted pro-life and pro-educational choice. He is from a family of nine  children and a younger brother would be well known to football fans in the state (Drew Weatherford, quarterback for Florida State University). The awardee is slated to become Speaker of the House in three years and I am proud to have him represent a large portion of our diocese. Congratulations to you, Representative Weatherford, for receiving this award and the Catholics of our diocese are proud to have you among our delegation in the Florida House of Representatives.

We bishops met for an hour in the morning with Heroic Media and an hour in the afternoon with the leadership of Catholic Volunteers in Florida. The former is an effort to utilize more fully the media in reaching young women and convincing them of the terrible  consequences of abortion. Its founder, Brian Follett, claims significant success in reducing the number of abortions in those markets which Heroic Media has so far chosen. In the Tampa Bay area there are approximately 300 abortions for every 1000 live births (in Miami the number is a staggering 650 for every 1000 live births) and in Austin, Texas, where the media effort was first tried, the number of abortions per live births has been reduced by one-third. It is an interesting concept which each diocese will have to consider in the future. CVF (Catholic Volunteers in Florida) is a program for recent college graduates whereby they can if they choose to do so devote a few years to doing volunteer work for their Catholic Church. This year there are twenty volunteers working in the state.

The annual Red Mass took place at six o’clock at St. Thomas More Co-Cathedral with Archbishop Favalora as both celebrant and homilist. The Archbishop is planning to retire in November of this year and a lot of things we will do will be something of a victory lap or farewell tour for him. So while he is usually the celebrant for the Mass, this year, likely his final year, we also asked him to preach. He is quite cognizant of the length of time other Red Mass preachers have taken so this year I “clocked” him at exactly fifteen minutes hoping for conversation “fodder” in private.

I should note that we normally have a Florida Catholic Conference meeting of about three hours on this day and will again in the future but last week we did our business on a conference telephone call freeing up some time today (again the Archbishop’s idea leading the rest of us to acknowledge that he must be counting the days). Nonetheless, it is a long day for the bishops and those volunteers who come from around the state seeking to secure some political capital in the capitol.

The 2010 St. Petersburg contingent at Catholic Days at the Capitol

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The bishops of the state have arrived in the state capital and gathered early this evening with our fine and extremely competent staff of the Florida Catholic Conference for a “renewing our acquaintance and getting to know you” opportunity. Later the bishops had dinner together and we were happy to celebrate Bishop Frank Dewane’s birthday today. There was a cake with four candles and best wishes to the bishop for many more happy years.

I spent the day driving the panhandle. You may recall that last week in this space I mentioned that I wished to arrive a day early so that I might visit my friend and fellow-bishop, John Ricard of Pensacola-Tallahassee who was in therapy at a rehabilitation facility in Panama City. So at 1015am, my driver for this jaunt and I departed our hotel in Tallahassee for the two hour drive to Panama City. The bishop had initially suffered an incident of blood being unable to return to the heart from his brain on December 22, 2009 and was hospitalized in Pensacola in intensive care for several weeks. Since then he has suffered several more incidents and found himself in rehab at the facility in Panama City.

Well, about twenty miles out of Panama City I received word via cell-phone that the bishop had left the rehab facility and was at that very moment enroute to his house in Pensacola (another 120 miles west) via medical transport. What to do? It was fairly easy for me as I had determined that I would see my friend on this trip so back to I-10 we went and on to Pensacola. Finally reunited, Bishop Ricard and I had a visit of about an hour and he was both surprised and happy to see me.

I have previously asked for prayers for Bishop John and I renew my request now. His recovery is far more challenging in a number of ways than my own was. The bishop, as you may know, is an African-American from Louisiana originally. He entered the Josephite Fathers and was ordained for priestly service with that wonderful and predominantly African-American religious community. I first saw him when he was pastor of a parish on New York Avenue in Washington, D.C. and then from there he was chosen by Pope John Paul II to be an auxiliary bishop in Baltimore and Vicar for the city of Baltimore. Priests and people loved and respected him. In 1997 he was sent to Pensacola-Tallahassee as its fourth bishop and his acceptance and affection quickly visited his service here. It was a bold move by the Pope to assign an African-American to an area of Florida which others call “The red-neck Riviera.” The bishop has shared with me some anguishing stories of what it was like to be black, to be a black Catholic, to be a black Catholic priest in the Church in the United States. The cruel hand of racism was as strong an image for this good man as the hands of the bishop on his head when he was ordained priest and ordained bishop.

With a doctorate in psychology and a deep personal commitment to Africa, he served as chairman and president of Catholic Relief Services (he preceded my term in the same capacities) and has also chaired the USCCB Committees on Domestic and International Social Justice. In the man’s blood there has always been a passion for the poor and a yearning for justice. He is a genuine article, a pastor par excellance, and for me a confidant, mentor and wonderful friend.  On the three hour drive back to the capital city, I thought how tough it was to say good-by to him this afternoon though I know we shall see more of one another in the months and time ahead. The Church of Pensacola-Tallahassee is praying for their good shepherd and I hope you will join me in doing the same.

Bishop Ricard and I before saying good-bye this afternoon in Pensacola. Picture kindness of Walter Pruchnik.

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For a Lenten week-end, it has been kind of crazy. First, last night (Saturday night) Transfiguration parish in St. Petersburg celebrated its golden anniversary as a parish with a Mass and dinner. I celebrated the Mass and preached the homily. For a long time I could not figure out why a parish would choose a week-end in Lent to celebrate  an anniversary, until I started looking at the readings and discovered that the Gospel was Luke’s account of the Transfiguration of the Lord. However, even with that Lent is a time during which we all need to hear again and again the call to conversion and more radical discipleship. I left uncertain as to whether or not I had served the parish occasion or the scriptures well. Preaching is always a challenge for me though some would likely dispute it but when one is a bishop, the occasions often tend to suffocate the liturgical seasons. Congratulations to Transfiguration parish on five decades of existence and service to God’s people, to Monsignor Avellino Garcia, its pastor and to its tri-cultural community who respect one another’s traditions, language and style of worship (Anglo, Hispanic and a growing Tongan community).

Today I found myself still celebrating the Second Sunday of Lent but it was Marriage Jubilee Mass afternoon at the Cathedral of St. Jude. 390 couples from around the diocese gathered for this annual celebration representing 19,697 combined years of marriage. Here are the statistics:

• 60 parishes represented  with 54 couples celebrating twenty-fiver years of marriage sometime this year
• 138 celebrating fifty years
• 122 celebrating between fifty-one and fifty-nine years
• 75 married over 60 years.

Bishop Lynch Congratulating Charles and Barbara Wellen for their 71 years of married life. Photo credit: John Christian.

Charles and Barbara Wellen were present today as the longest married couple in the Cathedral, an amazing 71 years. They have four sons, fourteen grandchildren and thirty-five great grandchildren celebrating the occasion with them. When I asked the assembly to stand and to face each other, join their right hands and renew their wedding vows, they looked at one another with the same eyes and delight at they must have shown on the day of their wedding.

Marriage is another sacrament of the Church which is in some trouble. We notice less and less young people coming to Church for weddings and from time to time I will see that a certain graduate(s) of our Catholic high schools will have gotten married on the beach, at Disney World or some other secular place. Being married in a Catholic Church no longer carries for many of our baptized the reality of yet another sacramental encounter with Jesus and so it is abandoned or ignored. Granted, it is not always easy to get married in a Catholic Church. There is a lengthy period and program of preparation but those couples who still embrace the sacrament in Church often comment how beneficial the program was to them even if there was initial reluctance. One of my pastors once commented that there is less time on Saturday for marriage in most of our Churches since the advent of the Saturday Vigil Mass for Sunday. Where once there may have been two or three slots in the afternoons for weddings, there is now likely only one.

I also think sometimes that like many other things in society and our world today, the indissolubility of marriage which the Church proclaims leads some to just ignore sacramental marriage in the Catholic Church. It has become somewhat easy to  get out of most of our fiduciary responsibilities (via bankruptcy, abandonment, dissolution of prior promises) and perhaps Church weddings just do not seem that important any more, especially a Church which takes the vows of fidelity “until death do us part” so seriously.

The bishops of the United States addressed the issue of marriage in the Church in a document released this last Fall and have established “strengthening marriage” (http://www.foryourmarriage.org) as one of the five primary goals and objectives of USCCB activity.

Today in the Cathedral the fundamental and enduring grace of the sacrament of marriage was present for all to see. I know how tough it can be to endure “good times and bad, sickness and health. . .” but 390 couples came to Mass today to ask God’s help in strengthening their promises and providing abundant blessings until “death do them part.”

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Bishop Lynch making the sign of the cross with ashes on the forehead of a student at Ash Wednesday Mass at St. Petersburg Catholic High School. Photo Credit: John Christian

Hard as it may be to believe, our celebration of Lent 2010 began yesterday with Ash Wednesday and now will continue through Easter Sunday on April 4th. I began my liturgical celebration of this holy and penitential season by celebrating Mass for the students of St. Petersburg Catholic High School. They are unfailingly attentive at Mass when I am there and make it a genuine pleasure. The provincial superior of the Salesians, Father Thomas Dunne, was present and preached the homily to the assembly.

Bishop Lynch and Fr. Tom Dunne, SDB at Ash Wednesday Mass at St. Petersburg Catholic High School. Photo Credit: John Christian

On March 11, 2010 we will repeat last year’s highly successful The Light is ON for You event. If you recall, we promise that all 75 parish churches and missions will be open on that Thursday night from 5pm until 8pm for the celebration of the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Most Churches will also continue their practice of Penance Services sometime during Lent, so what’s the big deal about The Light is ON for You? To begin with, it will be easy to go to confession. You need not call the parish and ask what time confession is because every parish in the diocese will offer confession between five and eight that night. If you find a place closed during those hours that night, I want to know about it.

Secondly, if you have been away for a while or wish true anonymity, you can go to confession at any Church. Perhaps you work in downtown Tampa and live and worship in New Tampa at St. Mark’s as an example. You could choose Sacred Heart downtown, Corpus Christi in Temple Terrace, St. Mary’s in north Tampa and just stop by on the way home. Chances are you would have the anonymity which you feel you need for peace. Just come in, reflect on your mortal sins and your life in general, enter the confessional space and talk to the Lord and the priest. Listen carefully to his words of absolution and leave feeling healed and clean.

You may recall that last year when I presented the idea of The Light is ON for You to the priests they were skeptical. Well, to their amazement many of them were slammed that night by the number of people who made use of this opportunity and they were pleased in the end. It is now the priests who have asked that this opportunity become an annual one and it will be repeated on the Thursday night of the second full week of Lent for the foreseeable future or as long as it meets a need. Word came to me that many were wonderful confessions of people who had been away from the sacrament for a long, long time.

This Sunday finds me  at the Cathedral of St. Jude for two “Rite of Election” ceremonies. This is always a day that makes a bishop feel particularly good as he officially and formally welcomes the catechumens (those who will be baptized at the Easter Vigil, confirmed and make their First Holy Communion) and the candidates (those who have already been baptized, perhaps in another religion or if Catholic it has been years since they practiced) and who will make a profession of faith, be confirmed and make their first communion. Next Sunday there will be 385 catechumens and 678 candidates for a grand total of 1063 coming into the Church and present at the Rite of Election (there are always those who are catechumens or candidates who are unable to make this ceremony but will still be received at Easter.) By the way, this year’s number is down by only nine from the number received at last year’s two Rites of Election.

From all of this, you should be able to tell that I am finally back at work. I will do all I am physically capable of doing but still am told and suspect that it will be the Fall before I can expect to be fully recovered and back at full strength. For this reason, I have reduced my confirmation schedule this year but expect to resume full service in the Fall for confirmations.

I hope that together we can spend these forty days fasting and praying so that we may fully comprehend the great Easter mystery all the more.

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Laying Hands on Bishop Etienne as part of the Rite of Ordination. Photo courtesy of John Christian.

Yesterday, December 9th, I flew out and back to Cheyenne, Wyoming for the ordination of my friend and former colleague, Bishop Paul Etienne, as a bishop. It would never have been possible for me to do that were it not for a generous friend who made his private plane available for the round trip in one day.  I attach here my Homily for the Occasion which I hope you will enjoy as the people of the Church of Wyoming seemed to appreciate it.

Preaching the Homily at Bishop Paul Etienne's Ordination. Photo courtesy of John Christian.

No more blogs from me till I am well enough  to resume, probably in about one week. Let us pray for one another and seek God’s help as we prepare to celebrate again the birth of the Messiah.

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I was able to stop by Pinellas Hope on Thanksgiving Day at 1 o’clock when Thanksgiving Dinner with all the trimmings was served to about 230 residents of the homeless shelter. The dinner (food) was a gift of two individuals who wish to remain anonymous but it was served at tables duly decorated for the day by about 150 volunteers who just showed up to serve the meal. Many were families with small children, all of whom carried plates of turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, vegetables and rolls to the residents at tables in the dining tent. Here are some of the pictures which I took but please be aware that we do not take pictures of the residents.

Volunteers preparing to serve Thanksgiving meal to residents of Pinellas Hope

Volunteer father and son delivering full plates of turkey and trimming from the buffet line to the dining tent

Sheila Lopez, "housemothet/Godmother/denmother" of Pinellas Hope with some of the 125 volunteers who showed up to help serve Thanksgiving dinner to 230 residents

Dining tent has been decorated for "festive" Thanksgiving dinner by Volunteers who arrived early in the morning to "dress up" the area

Dinner in the "diner"

From individual tents to single occupancy "Casitas" made possible by gifts from generous benefactors, Each casita costs $1000 to build and place

Pinellas Hope II new buildings now under construction - transitional low cost housing includes a kitchenette, bath with shower and living/sleeping area. The old and the new