Why I Left My Parish: A Cautionary Tale

By Albert Little
ChurchPop.com
Originally posted on The Cordial Catholic

When I decided to get serious about becoming a Catholic I phoned up the Catholic church closest to my house.

I made the cardinal mistake of thinking they were all the same.

After all, at that point in my faith journey I’d already been intellectually converted to the truth of the Catholic faith without ever having actually been to a Mass (at least, not since understanding what was actually taking place).

Disappointment After Disappointment

So, I rang up my local parish, and a few days later was meeting the religious sister who ran the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults (RCIA).

When RCIA began, a Tuesday night some weeks later, I was almost instantly disappointed. The Catholicism being presented was the kind of watered-down, post-Vatican II stuff that I’d heard about. It was genuine, to a point, but disappointingly free from any serious vigor.

What I imagine a knitting circle might be like—though that might give a bad name to knitting circles.

At any rate, it was plodding.

I’d come home, nearly every Tuesday, not feeling excited at becoming a Catholic—a decision which had been nearly a decade in the making—but rather feeling depressed at what life as a Catholic looked like.

Is this really what I’m in for?

Sunday Mass was no better.

The elderly priest—at seventy-nine years old—was earnest but, well, old. And while I can’t speculate on what kept him at it, his witness at the altar, to me, as an excited prospective Catholic, was disappointing. When one of the RCIA sponsors, a few Tuesdays later, remarked that Father was one of the best homilists he’d ever heard I nearly slunk right out of my plastic folding chair.

The worst pastors I’d ever heard preach as an Evangelical would’ve left Father’s homilies in the dust.

What this really what I was to expect?

So… Where’s the Community?

Finally, on our last night of RCIA, a couple of weeks after Easter, we were introduced to the various ministries and programs the parish had to offer.

As a confirmed Catholic, I was excited to get involved in my new parish but my heart sank when I saw the little pamphlet that Sister produced from her binder.

“It was the only copy I could find,” she explained, “it was made about 12 years back for the parish’s 100th anniversary.”

I was flummoxed.

Sadly, the small pamphlet offered next to nothing in the way of parish life.

As an Evangelical, I was excited to get connected with a new, vibrant community of Catholics. This is what we did as Christians: we plugged in and supported one another. We gave our time, talents, and energy to the Church. We journeyed together.

In the Evangelical churches I belonged to I was kept busy, and I loved it. At various intervals I helped in Sunday School, volunteered in the soup kitchen, volunteered as a youth leader, worked with the audio/visual equipment, ran a small group, sat on the Mission’s Committee, ran the website, and organized a monthly married couples’ meeting with my wife.

I was a joiner, and a doer, and my new parish offered three stark choices: I could be a lector, join the choir, or help wrangle kids in the curriculum-less Children’s Liturgy which ran infrequently.

This was a parish of 2,000 Catholics.

So I left.

I left and began a search for a parish that had more to offer and I did, eventually, find one.

The parish we now call home is vibrant—growing, in fact—and has a lot going for it. Not only have they made the Eucharist the center of the community—and offer a 24-hour Adoration Chapel—but they’ve created space for Catholics to grow, fellowship, and worship together. There are groups for all ages, a constant rotation of solid Catholic formation programs running, a well-organized Children’s Ministry, and they even recently hired a youth pastor.

A stark contrast to the parish I became a Catholic in.

Night and day.

But I’ve learned a lot along the way, and have made a couple of poignant realizations. Call it a cautionary tale.

Maybe I Should Have Stayed, But…

First, I probably could’ve stayed in the parish where I was confirmed. Maybe I should’ve stayed.

A few months later the elderly pastor did retire and was replaced by a younger, more enthusiastic priest who immediately began to shake things up. He instituted, radically, a homily at the Daily Mass. Something which the outgoing priest had simply been too tired to offer.

I could’ve stayed, in hindsight, and started some of programs and ministries that I felt were lacking in the church. I could’ve been the catalyst and, maybe, should’ve been the catalyst.

Sometimes it’s us that God is asking to take a risk.

My second takeaway from this whole experience is this: That we, as Catholics, need to take our communities seriously.

It was a Sunday following Mass, about a month after becoming a Catholic, that the elderly Father stopped me as I left the nave. “You know,” he said, “It’s commendable that you’re here every Sunday. A lot of the folks who go through RCIA fall off the radar pretty quickly, I can see you’re committed.”

I smiled, but the thought that crossed my mind was, “Well of course, what do you offer them once they’ve joined?”

The Mass is not enough.

Controversial, I know, but bear with me a moment longer.

While the Mass—and the Eucharist at its center—needs to be what binds our communities together this can’t be the only thing we offer in our parishes.

Around the orbit of the Mass we need opportunities for fellowship, catechesis (for young and old), and outreach to our broader neighbors.

We need to genuinely engage our community to care and understand the Eucharist and then, in the next breath, care and understand each other. One should, naturally, lead to the next.

A New Beginning?

Admittedly, I’ve returned to the parish I left and I’ve been back there, sometimes daily, for Mass. It’s close to our house and convenient on the way to work. And Daily Mass is such a blessing.

And you know what I’ve found? Something astounding. Amongst the hundred of us who attend the Daily Mass regularly there’s a real sense of fellowship and community. We’re a tight-knit little group. And maybe that’s where a parish needs begin to build up from.

The new pastor, as well, has made some sweeping changes and continues to. There’s some steam building.

After all, it’s not like God abandoned the place just because I did. He works, always, and through everything. And, actually, I recently bumped into a guy from the parish at a local coffee shop.

“I’m starting a new ministry at the parish,” he said. “I’ve seen a real lack of outreach to new parishioners. So, I’m calling each new person that comes to our church, and helping them to connect more deeply.”

That guy, I thought, is taking that risk. God is good.

The Heroes and the Miracle Baby

Four Questions to Ask in an Interfaith Relationship

By Michelle Fleming
BustedHalo.com

Question: My boyfriend and I are beginning to have serious conversations about marriage. He is a shamanist, and I am a Catholic. He has attended Mass with me on multiple occasions, has prayed with me, and is open to conversations about marrying in the Church and raising our kids Catholic.

It’s not that he’s thinking of converting, and that’s not what I expect of him either. I just know that interfaith marriages can be very challenging. What would be your advice for conversations we should have before deciding on marriage and also advice for our lives together as partners and potentially parents?

Answer: I want to commend you for considering this question now. When couples get engaged first and then start thinking about working through their differences, it can be difficult to discuss potential conflicts because of the pressure to move forward with wedding plans.

So, the conversations to have before getting married are the same conversations as for people of the same faith tradition. Here’s a link to some discussion topics.

Specific to your question: Yes, there are many conflicts that can occur with couples of different faiths. To work toward resolving those, I would start with answering this question:

What does “faith” mean to each of you?

Talk about your beliefs (from the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ to the Eucharist, the sacrament of marriage and the virgin birth, etc.) and how they impact your life. What has happened on your faith journey? Share how your faith influences your relationships. Does your faith extend into ministry or social justice? Are religion and spirituality the same to you, or do you see some differences?

And the same questions are for your boyfriend. How did he come to his beliefs? What does he believe and how does it impact his life? What does he value about his faith? Does he see potential problems for your future relationship because of your difference in faith traditions?

Which leads us to the next question:

What do you expect from him?

Catholic School Students with Special Needs Star in Video for Pope Francis’ Visit

By Kathy Dempsey
ChurchPop.com

Local Catholic school students with special needs star in a short video showing Pope Francis the sites of our nation’s capital as he and the country prepare for his upcoming papal visit.

Pope Francis said earlier this year when speaking to children with disabilities, “Each one of us has a treasure inside … What I want to ask of you is that you do not hide the treasure that each of you has.” In the video, our treasured children show Pope Francis the treasures of our nation’s capital.

It features 10 children with intellectual disabilities, along with their siblings and school ‘buddies,’ welcoming Pope Francis to Washington DC and visiting several monuments and other sites to show him around since the Pope has never visited the United States.



At the Catholic Coalition for Special Education (CCSE), we know how important it is for children with disabilities to be fully included in our Catholic schools. CCSE is helping to transform the lives of families and students with disabilities who can now benefit from a quality, inclusive education while nurturing friendships that can last a lifetime, and at the same time benefit from spiritual and moral instruction. And, it’s important for the schools, teachers and students, who benefit from being part of a more open and just society.

Research indicates that typically developing students derive academic benefits from involvement and relationships with students with disabilities. This exposure provides learning opportunities and rich, rewarding experiences they otherwise might not have. It is a win-win for all. All students benefit from an inclusive education.

CCSE’s mission is unique and its innovation has gained national attention. The Catholic Coalition for Special Education is a non-profit that assists Maryland and DC Catholic schools in educating students with intellectual disabilities. CCSE is transforming schools into inclusive communities through grants, program support, technical assistance and professional development. Demand for its services continues to far outweigh what CCSE is able to provide.

CCSE also offers spiritual and practical support to parents who are on a journey to raising a child with a disability. A couple days after visiting Washington, Pope Francis will attend the World Meeting of Families to promote the role of the family in society today.

CCSE is what Pope Francis preaches: inclusion; support, love and hope for those who often are relegated to the margins of society. Children with special needs have worth; they are treasured.

More on CCSE:

The mission of the Catholic Coalition for Special Education is to ensure that children with special needs are able to attend and receive an appropriate education in their local Catholic elementary schools and high schools. In the words of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI “no child should be denied his or her right to an education in faith, which in turn nurtures the soul of a nation.” CCSE provides grants and technical assistance to help Catholic schools in Washington, D.C. and Maryland achieve this goal.

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God VS Atheism

Six Types of Teens We Encounter

Three Beautiful Celebrities Who Gave It All Up to Become Nuns

This article is from ChurchPop.com and can be read in its original form here.

 

What makes a person happy? What makes a life worth living?

Is it money? Fame? Popularity? Career success?

We all know the answer, even if we don’t always live like we know it: not at all. All of these things come up short. There is only one thing – or one person, to be more exact – that can make us happy, and that’s Our Lord Jesus Christ.

This is the only way to understand what the three women described below decided to do. Even in the midst of worldly success, they gave it all up to pursue Christ in a more focused way in the religious life.

Of course, one can follow after Jesus without joining a religious order. Some of us are called to go into business, to work in the entertainment industry, and have families, etc. But some are called to the radical religious life – and they remind us of what’s really the most important.

1) Dolores Hart – “If you heard what I hear…”

 

Born with the name Dolores Hicks in 1938, Dolores took the stage name Dolores Hart when she started her acting career as a young woman. And that career took off pretty fast! At the age of 18 she landed a part playing Elvis Presley’s love interest in the 1957 movie Loving You. Famously, she gave Elvis his first on-screen kiss in that role. She had important parts in 9 more films over the next 5 years, playing opposite Stephen Boyd, Montgomery Clift, George Hamilton and Robert Wagner. She got engaged to be married, and her pick of roles.

Then, suddenly, at the age of 24, engaged to be married and a rising Hollywood star, she announced she was leaving it all to become a nun. She later explained that she had a turning point while filming Francis of Assisi, in which she played St. Clare of Assisi. She met Pope St. John XXIII in Italy during the filming, and when she introduced herself, “I am Dolores Hart, the actress playing Clare,” he responded, “No, you are St. Clare of Assisi!”

Her fans and friends were in shock, angry even, when they heard the news. “Even my best friend,” Hart recalled years later, “who was a priest, Fr. Doody, said, ‘You’re crazy. This is absolutely insane to do this.’” One friend wrote her angry letters for years after she joined the convent, trying to to talk her out of “throwing her life away.”

Hart’s response?

“If you heard what I hear,” she told her friend, “you would come, too.”

2) Olalla Oliveros – “The Lord is never wrong…”

 

Olalla Oliveros was a successful Spanish model, starring in movies and advertisements throughout the country and the world.

Then she visited Fatima, Portugal, site of the famous Marian apparition to three children there in 1917, and had what she later described as an “earthquake experience.” She says she received in her mind the image of herself dressed as nun, something she said she initially found absurd.

But she couldn’t shake the image. She eventually concluded that Jesus was calling her to give up her glamorous life and become a nun.

“The Lord is never wrong,” she said. “He asked if I will follow him, and I could not refuse.”

She is now a member of the semi-cloistered Order of Saint Michael.

3) Amada Rosa Pérez – “Now I live in peace…”

Amada Rosa Pérez was one of Colombia’s most successful models before she disappeared from the public eye ten years ago. Then, five years ago, she re-emerged to explain her absence: she had had a religious conversion and was working with a Marian religious community.

At the height of her career, she was diagnosed with a disease that made her lose part of her hearing. The diagnosis led her to question her lifestyle, saying, “I felt disappointed, unsatisfied, directionless, submerged in fleeting pleasures… I always sought answers and the world never gave them to me.”

Now, she regularly goes to Mass, goes to Confession, prays the Rosary, and prays the Divine Mercy Chaplet. “Before I was always in a hurry, stressed out, and got upset easily,” she explained. “Now I live in peace, the world doesn’t appeal to me, I enjoy every moment the Lord gives me.”

She also has re-evaluated what it really means to be a “model”: “Being a model means being a benchmark, someone whose beliefs are worthy of being imitated, and I grew tired of being a model of superficiality. I grew tired of a world of lies, appearances, falsity, hypocrisy and deception, a society full of anti-values that exalts violence, adultery, drugs, alcohol, fighting, and a world that exalts riches, pleasure, sexual immorality and fraud.

“I want to be a model that promotes the true dignity of women and not their being used for commercial purposes.”

This article is from ChurchPop.com and can be read in its original form here.

On the Trail in Volunteer Recruitment

It's Day 11 of a 30-Day Change Project to build a youth ministry volunteer team at Our Lady of the Valley. This is a sustained effort to recruit partners, define, and project the direction of youth ministry for the year. Each day has a task list. The tasks are mostly brainstorming who could help in the parish, contacting them, making a wish list of volunteer positions, describing the roles needed, fitting partners into places they can succeed, and following up, following up, following up with people.

My guide during this project is Building Your Volunteer Team: A 30-Day Change Project for Youth Ministry by Mark DeVries and Nate Stratman. Today's chapter struck me because it described my tendency to do things myself instead of trusting and empowering others. I thought others might relate too. Below is the chapter (it's short, I promise).

Day 11: Ridiculous Lines from the Chronically Ineffective Leader

"It's easier just to do it myself."

"A leader is not an administrator who loves to run others, but someone who carries water for his people so that they can get on with their jobs."

ROBERT TOWNSEND

When we find a church with an anemic volunteer leadership team, we don't have to look far before we stumble on to someone who lives by the motto, "It's easier just to do it myself!"

Well, of course it is. It's almost always easier simply to knock out a single task by ourselves than to have to coordinate with others. If easy is what we're looking for, its actually easiest to do nothing at all!

But can we just agree that easy is not primarily what we're looking for?

Most of us, if we're willing to admit it, are like typical contestants on cable TV's design or food competitions. You don't have to watch long to realize that the least favorite challenges on these shows are the team competitions, the ones that require contestants to work together. There's a reason the contestants hate these kinds of challenges. When it comes to creating or innovating, it's easier to do it alone than to have to compromise, co-create, or share leadership with others.

Beyond the drama it creates, the judges on these shows have a purpose. They know from experience that the highest-level work, the most significant accomplishments in almost any field seldom happen by a single individual accomplishing a task. The greatest discoveries and most profound innovations take place as leaders build teams, not only beneath them but beside them and above them as well. In short, the greatest fruit in life and ministry might just come in the form of a "team challenge."

But we can't successfully lead a team until we have one, which is why you've made it a priority to build your team in this intense thirty-day challenge.

Can transgender people find happiness in the Church?