For His Friends

You may recall that last year for the first time and during Lent we had what we called “The Light is ON for You“. Every Catholic Church in the diocese was open one evening at the same time for the purpose of making the Sacrament of Reconciliation (“Confession” to most of us) available at the same time everywhere -- no phone calls to ascertain when confessions would be heard, checking the bulletin for the same. Every Church was open and priests were hearing confessions from five to eight p.m. throughout the diocese. It was an idea inaugurated by Archbishop Donald Wuerl and the priests of Washington, D.C. (no need to reinvent the wheel) and I brought it to our Presbyteral Council. Legitimate concern was expressed in that body concerning the effect it might have on Lenten Penance Services and would anyone come or not. But they “let the old man” have this one and as regular readers of this blog will recall, our parish Churches were “slammed” with people seeking the sacrament. This year the priests themselves asked to repeat the experience, and on Thursday, March 11th, from five in the evening until eight, every one of our Churches and missions will be open again with priests hearing confessions throughout the evening. In subsequent years until it becomes passe or few use it, the opportunity will always be provided on the Thursday of the Third Week of Lent.

Why the success here in this diocese and in other places? I will offer my thoughts. It is often difficult and nearly impossible to find out what time confessions will be heard or a Lenten Penance Service scheduled if you failed to bring the parish bulletin home, misplaced it, or do not regularly attend week-end Mass. This way you are guaranteed that if you find a Catholic Church on Thursday, March 11th, from 5-8 p.m., at least one and perhaps several priests will be there to welcome you back to the sacrament. A second reason, perhaps you are just a little uncomfortable confessing to a priest in your home parish and wish a higher level of anonymity. A third reason, you may pass a Catholic Church every night commuting from work to home or from one of your children’s after school activities and on this night, at least you can just stop in even though it is not your parish. Last year the priests reported they were amazed both at the number of penitents and the good confessions after being away from the sacrament for a long time. Whatever the reason, it met a need and our priests are happy to make themselves available.

To help remind you of the evening, there will be some 100+ thirty-second “spots” running on BayNews 9, ESPN, ESPN2, and the ABC Family Channel (all on Bright House Networks) between now and March 11th.

Spirit FM 90.5 will also be reminding its listeners of the upcoming opportunity throughout the next ten days. Parishes will highlight the opportunity in their bulletins for this coming week-end. Newspaper ads are out of our price range which I regret but we will be using whatever opportunities are afforded for getting the word out. Each year we will become a little more sophisticated in communicating this opportunity.

So come home if you have been away from this marvelous sacramental encounter with the loving, forgiving Jesus. Experience the relief of the words of absolution and the welcome of a priest acting like the father in the parable of the prodigal son. It is not just Motel Six that is leaving the lights on for you, but the Church of your Baptism offering an unusual opportunity for reconciliation, wiping the slate clean, experiencing the love of God through a wonderful sacramental moment. Try us on March 11th, you will like us. We are leaving the light on for you.

+RNL

Saturday night last (the 20th), the Catholic Foundation which has as its goal among other things providing tuition assistance to needy families so that their children can attend Catholic schools held its annual fund raising dinner at the Grand Hyatt in Tampa. 527 people were in attendance for the dinner.

Timothy Dolan, Archbishop of New York gives the principle address at the 2010 Catholic Foundation Gala

The principal address was given by my friend, Archbishop Timothy Dolan, Archbishop of New York. I was h0nored that he would fly down here to be present on this important occasion on the eve of the First Sunday of Lent and his own archdiocese’s Rite of Election and Call to Continuing Conversion later on Sunday at St. Patrick’s Cathedral. He spoke about the year of priests which has been declared by the Holy Father and the importance of Catholic schools in helping priests transmit the Gospel and make Jesus real and alive to our young people. The archbishop is a brilliant Church historian but in casual conversation and in formal presentations, he presents a wit and charm which makes all listeners see and hear a man of hope. He flew back right after his talk and I heard him at 1015am the next morning celebrating Mass and preaching at his St. Patrick’s Cathedral (You can listen to the Archbishop in a special one hour program he does every week entitled “Conversations with the Archbishop” on Sirius or XM satellite radio (Thursdays at 1pm, Sundays at 8am and 6pm and at other times). I am so grateful to the Archbishop for accepting my invitation and I have not met or heard from anyone yet who did not enjoy and gain from his presence.

We presented a special award to a husband and wife who have worked hard all their life for Catholic education, Darcie and JoAnn Cleary of St. Paul parish in St. Petersburg. JoAnn was principal for many years of Transfiguration elementary school and then taught at St. Petersburg Catholic High School.  Darcy has been the administrator of the Mary C. Forbes Foundation which makes tuition scholarship grants to Catholic schools to area students.

The “A-Train”, aka Mike Alstott was present to autograph a football auctioned off and the event probably cleared $135,000 for next year’s tuition scholarships.

My thanks to those who worked hard in planning the evening and to the over five hundred who purchased tickets, tables, etc. and attended. It was a sparkling evening for a good cause.

+RNL

There has been quite a lot of media attention directed towards the Church in Ireland and the Irish government with regard to how both entities have dealt with reports of sexual misconduct against minors in the past. A devastating report issued about six weeks ago laid the blame squarely at the feet of the bishops and the police (in the Dublin archdiocese) demonstrating massive cover-ups on both parts and the reassignment of offenders. This study also examined claims of misconduct leveled against religious sisters, brothers and lay employees. As a result, the present Archbishop of Dublin asked a number of the former auxiliary bishops of the Archdiocese to resign their episcopal duties. Such a request won the Archbishop high praise from most quarters of the Irish media but irritation and anger from many of his priests. The turmoil was enough for Pope Benedict XVI to call a meeting of all the Irish ordinaries (residential bishops but not auxiliaries) in Rome on Monday and Tuesday of this week. The Holy Father met for two full days with the Irish bishops in attendance, allowed each of them to address the situation from their perspectives and at the end, at least publicly issued a statement saying that the bishops needed courage in dealing with the events at home, that he, the Pope, would write a letter to the Irish Catholics in which he would apologize for the mistakes of the past and would condemn such acts against minors as heinous crimes and sins. That letter should be forthcoming sometime shortly after Easter. Left unanswered was whether or not he would accept the resignations of the former auxiliaries of Dublin as called for by the present Archbishop. The media in Ireland have had a field day with all this and the victims of abuse probably feel their hurt even deeper.

The challenge to the moral credibility of the Church on this matter is not going to disappear quickly, even in our generation or the one which follows us, in my personal view. The credibility of persons in authority in the Church (bishops like myself no matter how hard we have worked to insure the future safety of children), the ministry of our priests with young people, the relationship of priest and bishop, have all been dramatically altered in the last ten years. Now, at least in Ireland in general and Dublin in particular, the relationship between the bishop and his brother bishops is challenged. I have a strong sense that after many years of writing much of this off as media-hatred for the Church and a local matter, the Holy See and this particular Pope now get it and they furthermore get the consequences for Church ministry for the future. It has become easier for bishops to seek release of a priest predator from his priestly promises and vows. There was a time early in my ministry when the burden of proof sat almost wholly on the shoulders of the bishop and the predatory priest was protected.

The Church in the United State suffered significantly in the last decade from the clerical misconduct situation. There is no question in my mind that we lost membership by people who either just could not believe what they were hearing and/or reading or chose to use this as a moment to leave the Church which might have hurt them in other ways. The morale of our good priests tanked in some instances. Our path to recovery is still long and daunting. But with our various “Child Protection Programs” and Codes of Professional Conduct, we are doing probably the best we can do in righting this horrendously wrong situation. Cover-ups should be out of the question and lay review boards who are privy to accusations against Church personnel should inform the public when they think I or any other person in authority is not living up to the claims of the Dallas Charter. As a bishop I must answer not only to a higher authority in the person of the Lord but in this matter to the collective wisdom of competent lay advisors who review all allegations and recommend action. Ireland has begun this process in an attempt and hope to regain trust.

Finally, sexual abuse of minors is not just a Church problem or issue. It is a societal issue. It needs to be addressed by society at every level. Almost all of my priests would tell you that most cases reported to them have nothing to do with Church personnel but rather a parent, family member, in-law, step-father or step-mother. Here in the Tampa Bay area the news of misconduct in recent years has centered on public school teachers, scout leaders, doctors. We have tried to do what we can to reduce the incidences in the Church knowing that it will be practically impossible to prevent every instance. Awareness on the part of the whole Church will help, from parents and elders observing behavior to the codes of professional conduct which require supervision from authority and observation from all. My heart goes out to the Church in Ireland at this time. We have been there. In some ways we are still there though we are clawing our way back to credibility and trust one incident at a time. Our goal is that children will always be safe on the grounds of or in activities of their Church.

+RNL

First, I wish all the readers of this blog and many others a most happy, healthy and holy 2010. Every new year is full of some promise and most of us hope that it will somehow be better than the year concluding. That is certainly our prayer for the world, our nation, city and Church.

This, I hope, will be the last of my updates on my personal health. I did come home from the hospital the day after Christmas and once again find myself in the recuperative phase of recovering from major surgery. The osotomies have been reversed and my colon has been reconnected and all that seems to the doctors and to me to be going quite well.  Since parts of my system have had a five plus month holiday, it will take some time for them to get back into action but I should be resuming my duties in a few weeks. This final (I hope and pray) operation has been more challenging than I thought it would be but I definitely feel that I am improving. In the past I have given you some idea of my own estimation of my condition and I would say that I am 60% of the way to normal energy and function with each day bringing improvement. So absent some horrible setback, I hope not to have to write about my health but to be present once again to the diocese and demonstrate my health. Thanks for all your prayers and good wishes – I can see the finish line.

Finally, we lost to eternal life a good priest on December 30. Father Stephen Dambrauskas went home to the Lord after 61 years in the priesthood. The people of Our Lady of the Rosary in Land-o-Lakes  will remember him as their beloved pastor and people at Light of Christ in Clearwater will remember him as the kindly retired priest who would come to hear confessions and celebrate a week-end Mass. May Father Steve now rest in the peace promised by the Lord he served for so many years.

+RNL

Yesterday, our Church ordained its 100th priest since its establishment in 1968. John Bailey Lipscomb was ordained to the priesthood by Archbishop John C. Favalora, Archbishop of Miami, at the Chapel of St. James, Bethany Center in Lutz. Father John is the first priest to enter priestly service in our diocese under what is called the “Pastoral Provision” by which married Anglican/Episcopalian priests can become priests of the Roman Rite.  Father John and his wife Marci  made their profession of faith almost two years ago at Nativity parish in Brandon and he has been assigned to be the priest-in-residence and Spiritual Director at the Bethany Center. In this capacity he will be celebrating the sacraments for groups who may be unable to have the presence of a priest, assisting in hearing the confessions of young people on retreat and guiding retreatants during their stay at Bethany. He spent his diaconate months at St. Paul parish in Tampa and will celebrate his First Mass this coming Sunday at St. Paul and then another the following Sunday at Nativity, Brandon.

Since I was uncertain of my ability to preside at the ordination ceremony, I invited Archbishop Favalora to return to ordain Father Lipscomb and he graciously accepted. I was able to preach and if you wish, you can read my homily for the occasion.

100 priests in forty-eight years ordained for this diocese is a milestone of sorts but also an indicator of how desperate we are for vocations from the diocese. With over thirty in the seminary at this time, things look brighter but I don’t count my chickens until my hands rest on their heads at their ordination. What I do count as a blessing is the renewed generosity of young men to try the seminary against the current of popular opinion about the celibate and chaste life and I also pray that the sisters may also experience a growth in vocations.

Congratulations, Father John Lipscomb and we welcome you to priestly ministry in the Church of St. Petersburg.

+RNL

Deacon John Lipscomb is presented as a candidate for priestly ordination

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Deacon John Lipscomb stands as he is presented to Archbishop Favalora by Fr. Len Piotrowski (not pictured) as a candidate for ordination to the priesthood.

Pictures by Ray Basett, Maddock Photographers
for the Diocese of Saint Petersburg

1. That I am still alive to celebrate Thanksgiving 2009 with both my brothers still alive, my niece and nephew and their spouses all who were at my side even though I was unaware of it, my friends from everywhere I have lived and worked. Special thanks to Drs. Reilly, Williams, Boulay, Abel and Rizzo, CPICU staff and especially JD and Jim, Therapy persons like Kathy, Jed, my special PT person at St. Anthony whose first name I am unable to remember due to a senior moment  Marcelo, Jennifer, Hermine, Anne Marie, Adela, Kathy B., Ann, Debbie, Beverly, Walter, Lori, Jeri and to Father John Tapp and Father Bob Morris who stood vigil through what had to be one of the longest days and nights of their life. All of you made this Thanksgiving possible and may God bless you all.

2. That thousands of people, most of whom I do not know, have been praying for me since July 27th raising my spirits and helping my recovery.

3. That I have been attended to by the finest surgeon, doctors and nurses and nurses-aids since becoming so sick.

4. That I have a group of priests who have been patient with me, supportive of my enduring the challenges of serious illness and whom I love and think the world of. Now I just need to be more patient with them and perhaps even more supportive in return.

5. That I live in the United States and enjoy so many of the blessings God has bestowed on this nation.

6. That late in life I have been “gifted” with an experience of suffering and uncertainty which I hope as I get stronger I can share with many who also carry the same burdens. Our Gospel is a message of hope.

7. During this time of my long road to recovery that our local Church has been led by Father Bob Morris, our Vicar General, and Elizabeth Deptula, Joan Morgan, Frank Murphy and the wonderful, committed people of our diocesan staff in seeing that the work of the Church continues successfully.

8. Apropos of number 7 above, that I have finally learned that it is not all about me, and that none of us are irreplaceable. It is one of the Lord’s gifts to His Church.

9. That I was baptized into the Catholic faith and am taking more seriously than ever before what it means to be “gathered, nourished and sent”, looking forward to our final convocation in May 2010 and more convinced than ever that the Lord has left me here to proclaim His presence in the sacraments of the Church.

10. This list of things to be thankful for could go on and on but I finish with the thought that I am so gifted to have been planted in this Church of St. Petersburg with its priests, deacons, religious women and men, and active, committed laity for whom faith is more than an obligation but rather a gift. Happy Thanksgiving to all.

Bishop Lynch