Merry Christmas!!!

85 percent of U.S. dioceses report embezzlements

From NCR Cafe:

A whopping 85 percent of U.S. dioceses have detected embezzlement over the past five years, according to Villanova University researchers. “No question
about it, it’s a large number,” said Charles Zech, director of the school’s
Center for the Study of Church Management and coauthor of the 15-page paper,
“Internal Financial Controls in the U.S. Catholic Church,” that details the
findings. Supported by a grant from the Louisville Institute, Zech and Villanova
accounting professor Robert West surveyed 174 diocesan chief financial officers.
Seventy-eight responded.
The researchers don’t put a precise dollar figure on how much was embezzled, but the range indicates it’s significant. In 11 percent of the dioceses at least $500,000 was stolen over the last five years (meaning that a minimum of $4.3 million went missing) while one-third of the dioceses reported thefts of under $50,000. “You can only wonder about those [96] dioceses that didn’t respond to our survey,” said Zech.
Dishonest church employees and volunteers are the immediate cause, but the heart of the problem lies elsewhere, say the researchers.
“Unlike corporations which provide quarterly financial statements to the SEC and hold quarterly conference calls with outside analysts, the church is subject to almost no recurring outside financial scrutiny,” according to the report. Further, while “many dioceses provide parishioners with an annual financial and administrative newsletter,which provides a highly summarized view of the cash flows for the year and the results of social and spiritual programs offered by the diocese -- many other dioceses do neither.”
While external oversight of diocesan and parish finances is virtually nonexistent, internal checks are hardly any better. “Only 3 percent of the dioceses conducted an annual internal audit of their parishes,”while “21 percent of the dioceses indicated that they seldom or never audit their parishes.” When such reviews do occur, the researchers say, it’s frequently because a pastor or bookkeeper has ceased working in the parish.

Merry Christmas from the Vatican

From a card I receieved from one of the Pontifical Commissions:

More Surprising That "George" was Popular

Obviously not in the U.S. :

Mohammed overtakes George in list of most popular names

but another sign that Europe is quickly changing.

Cardinal Ruini on the Mind of Pope Benedict XVI

I feel a special link to Cardinal Ruini, because when I was in Rome I attended a Mass that he said in the Clementine Chapel one morning that included a priest, three Italian women and me. After the Mass the Cardinal went to the tomb of Pope John Paul II, knelt, prayed with great emotion and openly wept.

Sandro Magister gives a translation of Cardinal Ruini's brilliant talk recently to the priests of Rome on the thought of Pope Benedict.

Pope Warns of Threats to Christmas

From the International Herald Tribune:

"Today many consider God irrelevant. Even believers sometimes seek tempting but illusory shortcuts to happiness. And yet perhaps even because of this confusion humanity seeks a savior, and awaits the coming of Christ," the pope said.

Although he warned against being distracted by what he called the "trappings of Christmas," Benedict offered thanks for the 33-meter (110-foot) Christmas tree set up in St. Peter's Square, and the one in his private apartment in the Vatican, both gifts from the mountains of Calabria in southern Italy.

He also encouraged the custom of setting up nativity scenes in the home.

"It is my hope that such an important element (of Christmas) not only part of our spirituality, but also of our culture and art continue to be a simple and eloquent way of remembering Christ."

Another Riveting Appeal from Sophia Press

Help Sophia Press:

As I waited for Mother Angelica to come through the door, I saw that the man standing
next to me had a gun.

It was just fifteen minutes before Mother and I were scheduled to spend an hour together on Mother Angelica Live!

They'd dusted my face with makeup and led me into the cramped corridor that connected Mother's monastery to the EWTN studio. The guard looked me up and down
and then stared right into my face.

"Why do you have a gun here?" I asked.

"These days, you can't be too careful," he said, relaxing his gaze, but resting his hand on his holster.

Indeed, not a hundred yards from where I stood, thugs had twice shot up the walls of Mother's convent, in a failed attempt to drive her and her nuns out of Birmingham. Mother said that one bullet landed so close to her she "could smell the gunpowder."
And she added with a chuckle: "You never saw a crippled nun run so fast in all your life."

In Raymond Arroyo's wonderful biography of Mother Angelica, Mother notes that: "Some people say I'm a woman of great faith. I'm really a coward who keeps moving forward."

To me, that sounds like courage, not cowardice.And it's courage she's shown for eight decades now despite abandonment, lack of education, bullets, bad bishops,
near-bankruptcy, asthma, injuries, operations, pain, scorn, criticism, and the spiritual bleakness that afflicts many of us who labor these days in the vineyard of the Lord.

That evening, it was a delight to be on live TV with Mother Angelica. Her quick wit, her frank comments, and her frequent laughter enlivened my talk about the Catholic books I've published by St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Francis de Sales, St. Catherine of Genoa, Dietrich von Hildebrand, and other holy men and women.

But she was motherly, too, admonishing her viewers as if they were errant teenagers: "You have to educate your conscience. You have to read and read and read! If you spend fifteen minutes a day reading, your whole life will change. So turn off that TV!"

And then she added mischievously, "Except EWTN, of course!"

During the station break, Mother asked about my work. Hoping to impress her, I said, "I started Sophia Institute Press with $100 and no publishing experience."

"Well how about that!" she responded, unmoved. "I started EWTN with $200 and no broadcasting experience."

Once the cameras were rolling again, Mother said to the audience, "John and I both started with nothing. And we're always asking for funds."

The live audience laughed, but I was embarrassed."That's true," I began slowly, looking at my hands as I sought the right words. "It's unfortunate. I apologize. . . ."

"Oh, don't do that!" Mother shot back loudly. "I don't!"She chortled, and the audience laughed along with her.

The Nativity Story is No Passion of the Christ

Falls to #9 in its third week out. Gibson's Apocalypto falls to #6.

Benedict the Unlikely Pin-up Pope

From the BBC:

Benedict XVI, the shy former disciple of that most media-friendly of popes, John Paul II, has entered an area of the mass communications market that his predecessor apparently never tapped.

The Polish pope could easily have filled out a wall calendar had he wanted to.

Diocese of Monterey has a New Bishop

Monsignor Richard J. Garcia

Why Do Catholics Become Evangelicals?

I would add my comment that once they do and get into the Bible, they usually come back with a better understanding of what Catholicism is about...if the Church could just open the Bible to them in the first place I doubt they would ever leave. More about Jesus, less about the institution that exists to make Christ present.

From Homiletic and Pastoral Review...

An Operative Theology of Exit: Why Catholics Leave

1. Lack of active participation
2. Lack of scriptural and theological sophistication
3. Lack of appropriate and effective Catholic catechesis
4. Anemic parishes and preaching

Keep the Mass in Christmas!

I begin with an ingenius "smiley" making a reverencial Sign of the Cross...Ever stop to think what you are wishing everyone to have a "Merry" of..? Not the Espanol "Feliz Navidad"...essentially "Happy Birthday" but rather a joyful Christ mass. What is the Mass?

There are those who think they cut Christ out of the picture by replacing Christ with an "X"...but the first letter of Christ in Greek is "X" and even when you say X-mas...you are still left with the Mass and what is the Mass?

Then there is the Christmas story, especially as it is found in the Gospel of Luke.

The Gospel of Luke begins and ends with a "vision of angels." First there is the appearance of the Archangel Gabriel to Zechariah and Mary. When Mary later visits Zechariah and Elizabeth she proclaims that God "has shown the might of his arm dispersed the arrogant of mind and heart. He has thrown down the rulers from their thrones but lifted up the lowly. The hungry he has filled with good things; the rich he has sent away empty,"(Luke 1:51-53) Zechariah at the birth of John prophesies "by which the daybreak from on high will visit us to shine on those who sit in darkness and death's shadow, to guide our feet into the path of peace" (Luke 1:78,79).

There is a common theme hinted at in both of these canticles, the lowly understand a message that those in power totally miss, hunger is filled, and those who sit in darkness are given light. These precede another vision of angels; in Luke 2: 8 immediately following the birth of Jesus we read about shepherds keeping "night watch" over their flocks, the shepherds are literally a people "sitting in darkness" who have an experience of light: "the glory of the lord shone around them.".

What is the message given to the shepherds? " "Be not afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy which will come to all the people; for to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a babe wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger" (Luke 2: 10-12).

We may be overly familiar with this Christmas story to notice what it might be telling us. What exactly is a sign? It is not an end in and of itself but rather points to a greater reality. What is the sign the shepherds are told they will witness? They are told that they will find an "infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger." A manger is a feeding box for animals. We are told that it is a "sign", what they witness points to something beyond the experience of the birth of Christ to something else.

When the angels leave, the shepherds say, "Let us go, then, to Bethlehem to see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us." The key phrase here is "Bethlehem" which literally means "house of bread". "Let us go to the House of Bread to see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us."

All of this is how the Gospel of Luke begins, but how does it end? Here the Risen Christ has joined two disciples on the road to Emmaus. They do not recognize him and here they tell him about a "vision of angels" that the women who came to the tomb have reported to them. In response to this He opens the Scriptures to them. They invite Him to stay with them. He takes bread, says the blessing, breaks it, gives it to them, then physically vanishes from their site. Luke tells us quite blatantly, for the really dense reader, that they recognized Him in the "breaking of the bread".

Where are we to find Jesus this day? In the bread that is broken in the Eucharist! So at Mass we sing the Gloria, the message of the angels. It is both a reminder and an invitation for us to encounter the Lord here.

I have good news for you! This Christ Mass you too can get up and see what the Lord has made known to us--He is waiting for you.

I recommend also two books that I've written as the perfect Christ Mass gift to give, to remind and to inspire what we wish everyone to have a Merry one.

My How-To Book of the Mass for those who want to understand the Mass better and How to Get the Most Out of the Eucharist for those who understand but our bothered by the way they actually experience the Mass in their parish. Both will help you and your loved ones trek that trial of the shepherds this Christ-Mass.

Joy of Christmas Directed at the Poor

Pope Benedict's Angelus message for today:

The proclamation of the joy of Christmas, of the coming of the Lord, is directed especially at the “lame of the earth”: those who suffer because they face the tragedy of war, in the Middle East or some places in Africa, or because they are stricken by sickness or solitude, or because, like many of today’s young people, they do not know the true meaning of joy for they have lost themselves in an exaggerated quest for the mirages of consumerism, for moments of intoxication and all forms of alienation. On this day when the liturgy makes a call to joy of the spirit, Benedict XVI urged the faithful to reflect on the true meaning of joy, found not in the myths of our time but in the proclamation of salvation contained in the word of God. The pope remembered especially Iraqi refugees in Syria, “forced to leave their country because of the tragic situation they are experiencing” and he made an appeal on their behalf to “individuals, international organizations and governments” to commit themselves still more “to meet their most urgent needs”.

Today there were many children in the crowd of 40,000 people who took part in the recital of the Angelus in St Peter’s Square, where a Christmas tree has been installed and a crib is being prepared. As per Roman tradition, the children brought ‘baby Jesus’ with them, that is, statuettes of the Child Jesus to place in cribs in parishes, schools and homes, to be blessed by the pope. They noisily welcomed Benedict XVI and responded heartily to his greeting after the Marian prayer. The pope said the call to joy in the antiphon of today’s liturgy, which echoes an exhortation of the apostle Paul, “Gaudete in Domino”, is not directed only at Christians: “It is a prophetic announcement for all humanity, especially for the poorest, in this case, those who are most deprived of joy! Just think about our brothers and sisters who, especially in the Middle East, in some places in Africa and the rest of the world, are experiencing the tragedy of war: how could they experience joy? What will their Christmas be like? Think about sick people and those who are alone, whose soul is tested apart from their physical trials, because they not infrequently feel abandoned: how to share joy with them, without being disrespectful of their pain? But let us think also of those – especially youth – who have lost the meaning of true joy and who vainly search for it in places where it is impossible to find: in an exaggerated quest for self-affirmation and success, in false entertainment, consumerism, moments of intoxication, artificial paradises of drugs and all forms of alienation. We cannot but contrast today’s liturgy of ‘Rejoice!’ with these tragic realities. As in the times of the prophet Zephaniah, the Word of the Lord addresses in a special way those who are undergoing trials, the ‘lame of the earth and orphans of joy’. The invitation to joy is not an alienating message or a sterile palliative; on the contrary, it is a prophecy of salvation, an appeal to redemption that starts with internal renewal.”

The pope continued: “To transform the world, God chose a humble maiden from a village in Galilee, Mary of Nazareth, and greeted her thus: ‘Rejoice, full of grace, the Lord is with you.’ The secret of an authentic Christmas lies in these words. God repeats them to the Church, to each one of us: Rejoice, the Lord is near! With the help of Mary, let we offer ourselves with humility and courage so the world may welcome Christ, who is the source of true joy.”

After reciting the Angelus, while greeting the children and youth of Rome, he said: “I bless from my heart all the ‘Baby Jesus’ statues. Dear children, before the crib, pray to Jesus for the intentions of the pope as well! I thank you and wish you a happy Christmas!”

From Asia News Italy

Prayers and Donations Needed

Johnnette Benkovic's husband Anthony's health has taken a dramatic turn fort he worst. They have been praying for the intercession of Fulton Sheen. Please take a moment, stop and add your own prayer for his healing. Also say a prayer for Johnette and her family as they care for Anthony.

In the same letter that I learned of Anthony's worsening condition, Johnnette alerts us to the fact that the ministry that she founded is in dire straits financially and could use help immediately. Given that many of you are looking for good causes to donate at this time of the year, please consider her ministry which strives to spread the Gospel message. You can donate here.

Scrooge Roundup

Nativity Scene Stolen by Abortion Clinic Worker Returned by Police

A "silent night" as carolers told to stop singing at skating show

T.O. judge orders Christmas tree out of lobby

Big Agreement

“Habemus Papam.” Twenty Months Later, a Portrait

From Sandro Magister...The numbers speak. Benedict XVI is the most popular pope in history

Our Lady of Guadalupe

From the Comments

One comment caught my eye, because I have already written a book that deals specifically with answering this question:

If parish life is the center of Catholic spirituality and you are not supposed to "shop around" every week for the mass you like (and if you live in a diocese where your parish is predetermined by geography) how do you deal with a really unorthodox, or maybe just unappealing parish? For example, it may not be unorthodox to kneel, but what if standing feels wrong to you? What if the music is "new-agey"?

The book:

Ecclesia Dei Meeting Today

to discuss liberalization of Tridentine liturgy...from Rorate Caeli