For His Friends

Several things have happened in the last few days which cause me to pause and reflect on my role as bishop. I really think that the definition of what a bishop is expected to be is evolving in the Church though not theologically or canonically. We know that when we were ordained to this ministry of service, we were told that our three principal tasks were to teach, govern and sanctify. Those three words are right there in the episcopal ordination rite itself. However, the office has evolved to include a lot of things which are not directly related to those three munera. The bishop also has to pastor people, albeit in a sometimes slightly different way than say your pastors and priests “pastor” you in your parishes.

I have a special obligation to my brother priests which transcends governance and acquires the characteristics of a familial relationship. Some say the bishop is to be a “father” to his priests and some would say, wrong person in the family food chain, the bishop should be a “brother” to his priests. In the last decade as a result of the sexual misconduct scandals, the bishop’s relationship with his clergy has become in some instances strained. There is hardly room in the typical family definition of either father or brother for a prosecutorial role, yet that is how some priests view their bishop. One phone call can change their lives, whether they are innocent or guilty. I don’t think bishops in the past were ever truly “fathers” to their priests unless what I would call (forgive me, men) the Irish notion of father was operative in the Church. They were administrators, often remote, sometimes threatening in their very character, neither frightfully loving or expressive of their gratitude. Often isolated and insulated by the “trappings” of the office, one did not approach the bishop except for the most serious of reasons. Better to ask forgiveness than permission was often the norm for dealing with one’s bishop. The Second Vatican Council attempted to “humanize the office”, taking away a lot of the trappings and suggesting a more servant oriented definition of bishop.

Today’s bishop, even with the newer paradigm, probably needs to ignore the comparisons of father/brother and just be present to his priests, in moments of happiness and sadness. I had some time to think about all of this yesterday as I was traveling to and from the funeral Mass for John Schneider, the 92 year old father of our Father Bob Schneider, pastor of Espiritu Santo. It was not easy for me to get to Salina, Kansas and Father Bob and his family would probably easily have forgiven me for not being there (I had missed his mother’s funeral several years ago at Christmas time). But I try whenever possible to be with my priests when they lose a parent. I am successful honestly about half of the time and the parental deaths of our Polish, African and Indian priests are very hard to attend, primarily because of the custom of immediate burials (so quick that if the priest son is not present at the time of death, he too misses the funeral) and, of course, the distance, time and expense. I hate to miss them nonetheless and often feel a sense of guilt for a while when I know it was impossible. There is no time when a priest needs the support of his bishop more than the death of someone dear to him. Yesterday, it was particularly heart warming to see the priests of the Salina diocese gather in great number to support Father Bob who prior to coming to the diocese of St. Petersburg had been ordained for and served in his home diocese. The current and retired local bishops were present and about twenty priests and several hundred friends of the family. I felt good coming back last night, feeling that being there was as important for me as for Father Schneider.

In fourteen years, I have had the privilege of saying the funeral Mass for almost all of our deceased priests, if they lived in the area. I shall not soon forget that during even the height of my incapacity last year I was unable to attend the Mass for our beloved Father Stephen Dambrauskas. I still think of that, long after everyone else probably has forgotten it. I feel a strong sense of going to the cemetery after the funeral Mass for our priests even though it is not always the custom for a local bishop to do that. I guess I would want my successor(s) to be with me to my grave and so many of our older men have no natural family, only myself and their brother priests. Whatever we are called, there is a strong element of family among us.

Driving back to the Wichita Airport, I called my office and learned that a Marine son of one of our long-time employees in Finance, Tracy Kelly of Christ the King parish in Tampa had been shot and very seriously wounded in Afghanistan late last week. Alex is going to live but rehabilitation will be long and begins today as he is flown to Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland. Most of Tracy’s children are serving in the armed forces of the United States and each time they are sent to Iraq and Afghanistan she has asked me for prayers for their safety. Learning that Alex was shot was like a blow in the stomach to me. How often his Mom had asked for my prayers when Richard (“Ricky”) left for an Army deployment or Katherine (“Katie”) left for the Navy. But I remember especially Tracy asking for prayers for Alex, the Marine, headed back, this time to Afghanistan. Yesterday when I talked to Tracy, she was a strong mom but one could tell she was struggling. I promised more prayers for Alex and she said a remarkable thing: “Alex asks for prayers for his buddies in his company he left behind. He is alive and grateful for it. He is most worried about his buddies.” Even bishops learn a lot from the lived experience of other people.

Maybe I had too much time on the two plane rides, but each year I learn more and more about what the role of the bishop is in the family of Christ’s church. Perhaps in six years, God willing, at the time of retirement, I will have finally learned what being a good bishop really involves.

+RNL

A thoughtful reader of the previous entry reminded me quite appropriately that another distinction between diocesan and religious priests is that the former do not take vows but rather promise obedience at ordination to their bishop and his successor but the latter take vows of obedience and poverty and chastity. Since diocesans promise celibacy as well, the vow of poverty becomes a distinguishing characteristic. There is a distinction without a difference, however, between a promise and a vow. I thank the reader for reminding me of this distinction.

Last week a bishop friend of mine and I had the opportunity to visit the Trappist Monastery of St. Benedict which is located in the community of Snowmass, Colorado, about twenty miles outside of Aspen. I had always heard that the monastery was built in one of the most beautiful spots in the United States and that certainly is the case. The Trappists basically own a valley.

St. Benedict's Monastery, Snowmass, Colorado

There are about twenty monks in the present community who rise early in the morning to pray and retire to bed early in the evening so that they can rise again early in the morning. I sometimes am asked, what is a monastery and what is a cloistered community and what is a contemplative community, so in this blog I will try to tackle all three questions. A monastery is home to a group of men, usually lay brothers and a few priests, who pray the Church’s Liturgy of the Hours at the appropriate times throughout the day and celebrate liturgy daily. When not praying, the monks are usually working with some time built into their lives for rest or reading.

The Snowmass Trappists work a large agricultural field and make and sell jelly to support themselves. If the monks seldom leave the confines of the monastery building itself or the grounds, then they are “cloistered.” There was a time when one or two monks would be chosen by the community and only they could speak to outsiders, the monks could never or very rarely leave the cloister, even to visit their natural families, and they remained silent throughout the day. These extremes of the life have now given way to a little more contact with outsiders and/or visitors and there are fewer and fewer monasteries where absolute silence except for prayer remains the rule. However, even today some monasteries still maintain a relatively strict cloister into which only the members are allowed inside. That seemed the case at Snowmass as there were signs everywhere asking that one not enter the cloister or private confines of the monks.

A "hermitage" at the Trappist Monastery at Snowmass

The Trappists are one expression of monastic life and their monasteries and Abbeys throughout the country often contain retreat quarters for individuals wishing to make a silent retreat. Snowmass also has hermitages (very small one-room houses away from everyone else) if you really want to be alone. The monks provide spiritual direction to the retreatants who are invited to attend the recitation of the Office and Eucharist but the visitors sleep, eat and pray in a different place throughout the day if they choose to do so. It was at the famous Trappist monastery at Gethsemani in Kentucky that Father Thomas Merton lived, prayed and wrote. If you would like to experience what a retreat is like in a Trappist monastic setting, the abbeys at Conyers, Georgia and Mepkin, South Carolina welcome retreatants for private, directed retreats. Food is basic. No one starves.

The Benedictine Monastery of St. Leo Abbey just outside of San Antonio in Pasco county welcomes retreat groups.

So that answers the question of what is a cloister and a monastic community. There is one more iteration which deserves mention here and that is what is a “contemplative” order. Traditionally a “contemplative” order is one whose primary charism is prayer, non-stop prayer allowing the member time to contemplate, for example, on the life and death of the Lord. They often have as their apostolic work praying for others, an obligation they take seriously. Time is spent in the presence of the exposed Blessed Sacrament. These strict communities are dying in the United States but almost every monastic community provides as a part of their daily life periods of prayer and contemplation. So remnants remain today of the contemplative life.

There are priests and brothers who live in monasteries and whose life is spent in work and prayer. Those were the two foundational elements of St. Benedict, ora et labora, in Latin meaning “prayer and work.” I hope this has been somewhat interesting to the reader and if I have not exhausted a possible treatise on religious life, I can assure you I have exhausted my personal knowledge of the topic.

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Fifty years ago, when I was beginning my college life, there was a joke making the rounds which went like this: What are the three things even God does not know? The first is what is going through a Jesuit’s mind; the second is how many religious orders of women are there; and the third is how much the Vatican Museum’s collection is worth. As the “Year of Priests” now draws to a close, I thought I might make an attempt at answering some questions which are often put to me about priests and priesthood. I have often been asked, what is the difference between diocesan priests and Jesuits, Franciscans, Benedictines, Salesians, etc.? A response which was never really a response suggests that diocesan priests were established by Christ in his commissioning of the apostles and religious orders trace their origins to a human founder (or foundress in many instances of religious women). A better but still incomplete answer is that diocesan priests are ordained to serve in a specific locale and promise obedience and respect to their bishop and his successors. Every priest I have ordained for the diocesan ministry knows that they are likely to serve in one of the five counties which make up our diocese (there is an occasional exception for a priest released to serve as a chaplain in the military or given permission to work or study outside of the diocese for a specific period time).

Religious priests serve a much broader Church geographically and they promise obedience and respect to their superior (could be a provincial, an abbot, etc.). But the distinction does not end there necessarily. Most religious communities were founded by charismatic men and women who focused on serving a special mission in the Church (often called a  founding charism). Examples of charisms which were foundational in the early days of many communities were education, health care, social service, begging (mendicant orders), praying constantly (contemplative and cloistered life), etc. A young man studying for the priesthood for the Jesuits, for example, could probably expect to either teach or work in parish life mostly. A young man studying for the Franciscans could probably expect to either do parish work mostly in poorer areas such as the inner-city or missionary work, etc. And they could spend their lifetime working in many countries throughout the world and/or dioceses throughout the country. They go where their superiors tell them to go.

Their superior must get the permission of the diocesan bishop where the priests are to be sent for the granting of the “faculties” necessary for ministry but the local bishop does not decide which religious priests are to serve where or for how long. He can remove the “faculties” of a priest for good reason which would impede and prevent their ministry but that rarely happens.

So the long and short of this is that every diocese contains two types of priests, diocesan and religious. In our case in the Church of St. Petersburg, our diocesan priests would be the first to acknowledge with gratitude the presence of their brothers from about nine different religious communities who staff some of our parishes and schools. As bishop, I am especially grateful to these men and their sending communities. Religious orders, however, face the same staffing challenges with an aging clergy that diocesan priesthood is facing and sadly from time to time, a religious community informs me and other bishops that they can no longer assume the responsibility for staffing this or that parish or school. Those are sad moments in the life of parishes, the diocese, the priests and the bishop. Here in St. Petersburg we have been fortunate in my fourteen years to have accepted four new communities to serve with us, one of which had to leave after only a few years. Thank God we have  reputation of being a “welcoming Church” and along with little things like the weather, we have been attractive to some communities for which the charism of their founder works well here.

I hope this is helpful but I have been so wordy that I will need to save some other questions often asked for another day.

+RNL

There is an old story which probably most of you know about the kid feverishly shoveling his way through a huge and high pile of compost. When asked what in the world he/she was doing, the child replied, “with all this, there has to be a pony down here somewhere.” Today in Rome, the Holy See announced the expected pontifical visitation to the Church in Ireland in light of the horrendous revelations of sexual abuse of minors by priests, religious brothers and religious sisters which has devastated the faith in that country. Some must ask why now? Is it not too late? Is the horse not already out of the barn? Of course, it is never to late to confess one’s sins, personal and institutional, amend one’s life, personal or institutional , and agree to commit the sin no more, as a person or an institution. The Catholic Church in Ireland has basically asked the Holy Father, send us “good confessors” to whom we can confess our sins and who will guide us on reclaiming moral high ground we seem to have lost. The Apostolic Visitators to the four archdioceses in Ireland and to the dioceses are all from outside of Ireland but all have born the heat of the day in their own dioceses and can be good confessors to a Church seeking healing and redemption. From the United States, Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston has been appointed by the Pope to perhaps the toughest of situations in the Archdiocese of Dublin and its related suffragan sees (ecclesiastical talk for the dioceses outside of Dublin which come under the loose supervision of the Archbishop of the capital city). At the same time as the whole Church in Ireland will be visited, there will also be a visitation to Ireland’s remaining seminaries led  by our Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York. Archbishop Dolan spoke last week at Ireland’s major remaining seminary, St. Patrick’s in Maynooth and I encourage all of you to take the time to read his lecture by clicking here. Quite frankly, I think he has found the pony! It is a great synthesis of how I think my priests have suffered but made it through the last decade here, in St. Petersburg. Archbishop Dolan’s talk is lengthy but illuminating.

The bishops of the United States, some 210 strong, will be assembling in St. Petersburg starting Monday, June 14, 2010 at the Vinoy Hotel. 212 bishops have registered for an “assembly” which we hold every four years. It is not a business meeting so the media and observers will not be attending. It is closed to all but bishops. It is relaxed and informal. It is something like five days of continuing education and this year the general theme is “the bishop and his priests.” Archbishop Dolan will give the keynote address on Monday night to start us off. It has been my special privilege to be a part of every committee planning the agenda and topics for these assemblies since I was made a bishop and I was chair of the committee which planned the Assembly held in Tucson, Arizona, in June of 1998. We always invite a cardinal from outside the United States to spend the days with us and deliver the homilies at morning and evening prayer throughout the days and at daily Mass, lead our Hly Hours, and our Reconciliation and Penance Service. This year, our “spiritual father” will be  Cardinal Peter Turkson who is from Ghana and was recently asked by Pope Benedict XVI to leave his archdiocese and come to Rome to head the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace. I look forward to the Cardinal’s wisdom and insights into being a bishop in the Church and world today. He too will help us try and rediscover the “pony.” Our assemblies are  as I mentioned relaxed. Evenings can be spent in informal conversation with others, there are even new or relatively new movies which the Hollywood studios make available for bishops to see in the evening. If you happen to be in downtown St. Petersburg from Monday, June 14 through Saturday, June 19th and see a group of men in the evening walking through Straub or Vinoy Park, it will likely be some of us.

Relationships between bishops and priests is an important topic because it has changed for the worse since the sexual-abuse controversy of 2001 and following. In many places priests don’t trust their bishops any longer and are terrified that they will receive a call and be asked to come and see the bishop for fear it might be a complaint or something of that nature. Priests and bishops need to search together for the “pony” that remains down there somewhere, as it was before.

I ask your prayers for our Assembly which is being held in our diocese in two weeks. May it be five days of grace, wisdom and insight for those of us who have been asked to lead the Church at this moment in history.

+RNL

Esta homilía también está disponible en español en un documento PDF.

If someone were to ask me, [and up to now no one ever has,] what my all-time favorite play/movie is, my answer would be the agnostic Robert Bolt’s A Man for all Seasons which recounts the final months and days of the life of St. Thomas More. In one particular scene, King Henry VIII is losing all patience with his Lord Chancellor’s support for the Pope in Rome, and More’s very nervous wife, Alice, warns her husband that he is on a sure and certain path to at least prison and maybe even death. More turns to her, points to himself and says, “Alice, there is no stuff of martyrdom here.” In that simple and humble declaration, Thomas More indicates what the Italians say in, “que sera, sera” (“what will be will be”). He will follow his conscience not seeking to die for his faith but open to the possibility.

The first reading from the Acts of the Apostles reminds me of that moment in the life of St. Thomas More. A new, renewed, reborn, courageous, committed, conscientious and fully conscious Peter recalls for his largely Jewish audience a summary of the life of Jesus. No longer concerned with “saving his own skin”, Peter aggressively pursues his own personal mission to preach the Gospel for the salvation of the world. Perhaps, like More,  Peter sensed the risk of his words and actions and did not seek or wish to be a martyr for the cause, but gave his life, finally, to our Lord in a martyr’s death.

Paul in Ephesians, the second reading, grasps the consequences of embracing the Gospel of Jesus and declares that he was a “prisoner for the Lord.” His bonds and bars, freely accepted, were the tasks of building up the body of Christ, unifying God’s people without discrimination between Jew or Greek, Gentile or Jew. His words to his audience are as true to this moment, 20 centuries later as they were when spoken;  we are to take upon ourselves humility and gentleness, patience and forbearance, and through a generous dose of love, to create a bond of peace among the believers. Beaten, tortured, imprisoned, and reviled in certain circles, Paul probably felt no “stuff of martyrdom” either, within himself even though like Peter and like More and like Christ Himself, he too would suffer a martyr’s death.

Peter, Paul, More, Dominic and Dayan, the five of you have at least one thing in common; they were chosen by God for the work of making Christ present and real in the Church and so are you. How did they and how are you two to make Christ present in the world: by loving one another. By loving those whom the Church will soon entrust to your care, regardless of nation of origin, language spoken, color of skin, gift of gender, holier-than-thou or the most despicable of sinners. They are precisely whom God has chosen for you to serve.

If I may one more time, [and come to think of it, who is to stop me?] return to my opening theme.  Like Peter, Paul and Sir Thomas More, risks in ministry must be taken. They are constitutive of who we are and what we do.  Preaching the Gospel in this moment of history, especially outside the relative safety of a Church, can be challenging. And while it will not likely lead to loss of life, a martyrdom of being ignored, mocked, reviled is quite possible. My dear brothers, I am confident that you enter this moment with the theological training you need but that is the safest part of the ministry you will be beginning. Theology did not get my three historical proto-types in trouble, shaking up the establishment of their time did. Preaching the value of every human life, in a womb of a pregnant mother or a cell at Raiford can get you in trouble. Challenging the establishment to care for the vulnerable elderly, the homeless, the illegal, through active engagement in the mission of social justice can at times make you feel like you are imprisoned by a society that just does not get it. You will make Christ present today not just by celebrating the sacraments, but by calmly, consistently and courageously proclaiming the Gospel with and for those who are most in need of it.

Dominic and Dayan, in a few moments you will answer a few final questions I will ask for the sake of the Church. As I look at you, I know More’s response to Alice would be yours to me: “there is no stuff of martyrdom here.” But in your “yes” you are assuring the Church that you are willing to be sent into ministry, chosen by Christ for this office, without fear or favor, to proclaim the good news in good times and bad. Hearing those affirmations, this Cathedral and this local Church will be filled with hope for you and for the future of the Church.  Wewill thereafter seek the help and protection of all the saints of God among whom will be Peter and Paul and Thomas More. Embrace the ministry, full of challenges but also full of joy. The rewards of a good priestly life, indeed a good life lived by anyone, are surely out of this world. But they begin with an acknowledgement that He has chosen for what only He knows but He assures you that you will have the grace you need. More than that, we cannot ask.

This homily is also available as a PDF Document.

As the year for priests draws to a close, we have the happy gift of two men to be ordained tomorrow (Saturday, May 15th) to the priesthood at St. Jude Cathedral. There is nothing that brings greater delight to a bishop’s heart and life than ordaining to the diaconate and priesthood. It is also a great day for the whole local Church. Deacons Dominic Corona and Dayan Machado have been in formation for many years preparing for their ordination and a life of service and ministry. Tomorrow their dreams will be fulfilled and their joy nearly complete (complete joy is a reality of the next life in heaven). People still love their priests. They may not love their bishops and leaders as much but my experience has been if they trust the men in front of them week after week, they grow to love them. The road to priesthood is a long one – nine years for both of these men. They are tested, tried, tested again and tried over and over. No one in the Church is more placed under the microscope as a candidate for priestly ordination in the Catholic Church. Most undergo two separate rounds of psychological examinations, are supervised and monitored closely by a formation faculty, and ultimately judged worthy of ordination. The ordination rite itself requires the Rector of the Seminary or the Vocation Director to confirm “that upon consultation with those in charge of their formation and with the people of God, they are found worthy.” Are they perfect? I doubt it but who of us really is perfect?

Deacon Dayan Machado is an interesting story. He was born and grew up in Cuba. Though baptized at birth, he was not raised a Catholic and in the Communist environment on the island, was discouraged from religion. One day, by total accident, he and his parents turned on the television and there was Pope John Paul II celebrating Mass in Havana. Dayan would tell you that he knew little about popes in general or John Paul II specifically. He listened to the Holy Father’s perfect Spanish, with his parents, and was taken by the message of the Pope. He became curious and after the Pope’s departure from Cuba, Deacon Dayan on Sunday would go stand outside of the small parish Church in his rural Cuban town, peer in the open windows and listen to the local pastor and watch the Mass. As time went by he felt attracted to Catholicism (a dangerous thing to do in Cuba), approached the priest and joined the Church. When he and his parents immigrated to Tampa, he finished high school, and then contacted Father Len Plazewski about the possibility of entering the seminary in first college. We were impressed with him when we interviewed him prior to admission. He was extremely bright, linguistically gifted, and quite committed to the Church. While in the College Seminary his parents were baptized and entered the Church through the guidance of Father Felix Sanchez, pastor of St. Joseph’s parish in West Tampa. Dayan graduated from the college seminary with highest academic honors and spent the next five years preparing for ordination at St. Vincent de Paul Regional Seminary in Boynton Beach, Florida. God planted this seed in this young man’s heart by the gift of a papal visit to Cuba and a television moment of pure serendipity. Father Machado will be assigned to the parish of St. Lawrence in Tampa under the guidance of his gentle pastor, Father Thomas Morgan.

Deacon Corona’s story is also clearly one of the Holy Spirit nudging Dominic toward the altar. Tomorrow will probably bring many tears to people who know how difficult it was in the early days of his seminary formation for Deacon Dominic to embrace the assurance that God was indeed calling him to priestly life. He will begin his priestly ministry at St. Raphael Church in St. Petersburg where Father Tim Sherwood will soon become pastor taking the place of the much loved Monsignor Bernard Caverly who is retiring.

So in the closing months of this year of priests, we priests of St. Petersburg welcome our two new members, thank God for their generous “yes” to God’s call, and assure them of our fraternal support and affection not just on their ordination day but throughout their priestly ministry. To add to my joy, we have a great number of seminarians studying for the priesthood from this diocese. I have been interviewing candidates for admission the last couple of weeks and it looks like we will increase number in the seminary slightly from last year’s wonderful thirty-two, a tribute not only to our priests but also to our Vocation Director, Father Leonard Plazewski. It takes courage in today’s environment to choose the seminary and we must pray for those who have chosen to follow the “call” – the ordained and the hopefully soon to be ordained. Queen of heaven rejoice, alleluia!

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