In Defense of the Church
March 28, 2010 By Leave a Comment

In Defense of the Church

Bishop Pates' Ordination.

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There has been more stories than anyone cares to read about the horrific cases of sexual abuse by priests of the Catholic Church and moreso recently with the Irish, German and Wisconsin cases breaking.

No one can even attempt to defend the men who actually committed these acts. What they did was horrible, wrong, sinful in the worst ways and they deserve some type of punishment–civil, canonical, eternal, etc.
Many church leaders have been targeted for roles they played in handling the cases. I know some leaders, quite honestly, failed. Cardinal Law, seemingly, really screwed up. He’s resigned doing, basically, nothing now. The deputy involved with the German case admits he erred.
I believe, and still do, that in many (most) cases, the leaders were trying to do their best to figure out how to solve the problem in a way that dealt with the issue at hand in a private matter. In the end, who knows if that was the right, or best, way, but most of this was done with no malice on the part of church leaders.
In short, the guilty are guilty, but let’s not throw the entire church under the bus.
Filed Under: Church
Designations Galore
March 27, 2010 By 1 Comment

Designations Galore

I’m slowly becoming more settled into my new position with the Knights of Columbus. I do a number of things for my councils–assist with recruitment, integrate new members into council life (although, ideally, the council itself wouldn’t need me for this), assist members with financial planning and helping them with the various options to implement those plans.

The programming side of my position is something I could do with my eyes closed. Nothing really new, not much of a learning curve. Slightly different implementation of the same basic principles I’ve been working for sometime now. The financial side of my position, while I’m comfortable overall, requires a great deal of training, continuing education and frankly, experience in order to perform at the level I expect out of myself.

One thing that is different than the training and continuing education that I immersed myself in when working at the UCC is that everything has letters. What I mean is that many of the training programs carry “designations” that are post-nominal notions. For example, the Knights of Columbus is a fraternal benefits society which has joined with the hundreds of other “fraternals” in an association that created a couple of these designations. Currently, I’m studying material for the FIC, fraternal insurance counselor, designation. The FIC requires a number of courses and is a prereq for the FICF, fraternal insurance counselor fellow, which has a few more courses dealing with more advanced topics.

The letters go on and on. There is the CLU, CFP, ChFC, CASL, CSA, LUTCF, CLF, CAP, MSFS (like it looks, this is a Master of Science degree in Financial Services) and probably many more. I think it a bit of a carrot and stick situation; encourages folks to continue their education if they get to show it off on paper in addition to in action.

Starting FIC Basic (the first of three courses). I’ll keep you up to date.

Filed Under: Work
Lent 2010
March 22, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Lent 2010

Verhülltes Kreuz während der Karwoche der röm....

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It is precisely in this that God proves his love for us: that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Now that we have been justified by his blood, it is all the more certain that we shall be saved by him from God’s wrath.

– Romans 5:8-9

Tonight’s Evening Prayer reading is more confident than I am. Today’s one of those days where I related more to the midmorning reading:

Our crimes and our sins weigh us down; we are rotting away because of them. How can we survive? As I live, says the Lord, I swear I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked man, but rather in the wicked man’s conversion, that he may live.

– Ezekiel 3:10b,11a

Besides 8th grade, I have never been “good” at Lent. I truly am a “bad Catholic” when it comes into preparing for the mysteries of Holy Week and Easter. My Lenten observances didn’t make it a day. I went technical and ate meat this last Friday–March 19th was the solemnity of St. Joseph and thus, according to Canon 1251, not a day of abstinence. We’re now into the fifth week of Lent and I’m still football fields away from being where I should be entering into the most holy time of our year.
I know better. I’m a happier person when I’m taking an active role in my faith life. By active, I’m not referring to really actually doing anything, but simply praying. It seems like a no brainer that if I’m more myself when I pray, I should pray more. Then again, the entire message of Christianity is, boiled down, love, which has already been written on our hearts (CCC 27), and we’re still pretty bad at that.
I digress.
As a human people, we’ve been trying to get closer to God and thus closer to our true nature for quite some time. The Jewish faith is five thousand years old. The God-man gave himself up for us to be able to realized our true humanity two thousand years ago. The Church has progressed (mostly) for that time, giving us additional aids, guides, suggestions, hints, paths, writings, techniques and examples to make it easy to figure it out.
Yet, we don’t.
The battle between good and evil still wages on. The big picture stuff–as a society, we still condone killing people (unborn babies to felons to the terminally ill to those who lack utility to the poor) and we condone basically any action if we twist it around enough. What amazes me more is that the battle between good and evil still wages on in each of our hearts. As a baptized member of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church with all of the resources of 2,000 years of tradition at my fingertips, literally (the Internet is good too), the battle to reach my eternal home is still in the opening round.
That’s the kicker to me. There is still a battle going on, but there’s no reason that it should be. I have the tools, resources and graces needed to make this a cosmic version of my 5th grade football team playing against the 2005 National Champion Texas Longhorns. Why don’t we take advantage of what is freely offered to us?
As we enter these final weeks of Lent, may we try to pray this prayer:

Father of love, source of all blessings,
help us to pass from our old life of sin
to the new life of grace.
Prepare us for the glory of your kingdom.
We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.

Filed Under: Reflections
Sir Knight
March 20, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Sir Knight

Members of the Knights of Columbus salute duri...

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Today, about 50 Knights of Columbus were knighted into the 4th Degree–the highest level within the Knights of Columbus. If you know virtually nothing about the Knights of Columbus, but have seen them, you’ve seen the 4th Degree. They’re most known for the colorful regalia worn by their color corps members who serve as the honor guard at special Masses and for any event with the bishop, by request.

Within the Knights of Columbus, there are four degrees which candidates work through before reaching either their third or fourth degrees.

The ceremony attached to the degree is secret to allow the full impact of the ceremony to be felt by aspiring candidates. Honestly, there is not much to these ceremonies, but nevertheless, after going through all four degrees, it is a good thing that I had no expectation of the ceremony as I learned from them their intended lessons.

The first degree is devoted to the most important principle–charity. If someone “joins the Knights”, they are entering into the First Degree. Membership in the first degree allows members to attend virtually all meetings, join in service work and participate in the financial options of the Order. The second degree is devoted to unity and the third degree is fraternity. In Texas, the second and third degrees are taken in a back-to-back ceremony at once. The third degree is, all in all, the terminal degree and is required for attendance at state and national meetings and to be an officer in a council.

Joining the fourth degree is joining an organization in an organization. You’re still a 3rd degree member within your council, pay dues to them and function as before, but you’re now also a member of a fourth degree assembly, pay separate dues to them and have added responsibilities to the fourth degree. The vast majority–over 80%–of Knights never reach the fourth degree, so it is a relatively small fraternity of men.

The Georgetown Assembly hosted the day’s events and did a fine job at that. Congrats to all of the new Sir Knights in Central Texas. Sir Knight Brandon Kraft, signing off.

Filed Under: Knights of Columbus
March 18, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Watch This

Daniel Cardinal DiNardo, the Cardinal-Archbishop of Galveston/Houston recently spoke at the Houston Baptist University. A great reflection heading into the ending weeks of Lent.

Filed Under: Church, Reflections
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