Church Speak vs Church Action

Had a busy day today and part of my day was taken up in an extensive meeting with a priest who works in Brooklyn. The purpose of our meeting was something else but the discussion could not help but gravitate to his parish.

His parish serves the poor of the poor, but the word is that the diocese of Brooklyn is looking to shut it down because the population is very low and it is probably a drain on resources, manpower and finances.

What hurts here is that there have been 42 baptisms in the past year and for many of the people in that community, black and hispanic, the church is the only thing positive in their lives. There are kids there who were born with AIDS, there are children of prostitutes, addicts, felons, and also of very, very poor people there. The church is where they get food, love, support, etc. These are who the Church is here for, yet such places get the lowest priority on the Catholic food chain!

For all the Church's talk about option for the poor and the like, the fact is that we leave so much to be desired that we border on hypocrisy. Can we justify $1 million renovations on basillica domes when five parishes that serve the most needy parishes have to shut down? Especially when those parishes could have survived on that money for basic operations for 4-6 years.

The fact also is that many of these populations are black, hispanic and immigrant. And if the Church is serious about reaching out to these communities, then these Churches, which are outposts of evangelization are necessary.

To the credit of some Bishops like Hickey and McCarrick, both of Washington, they see the sustenance of these parishes and inner city Catholic schools as a priority. Unfortunately this is not the case in many other dioceses.

I often ask why these things happen. After all racism, which would be a culprit for these type of actions has been eliminated among God fearing Catholics . . . right? There is no racism among our Catholic faithful, or in our Catholic schools, or in our Catholic parishes or administrations, or among our Catholic priests, or even especially among our Bishops . . . but why then do prejudicial actions abound? Coincidence? I think not.

In addition to our dirty little secret of racism that the Church still festers, we really have failed miserably to live up to our expectations in our mission to the poor. If we are not about the poor and the oppressed, what then makes us Christians? Are we such wonderful Catholics because we, unlike those liberals, adore the Eucharist, understand the canons of Trent, can spout apoogetic arguments, love Mary, defend orthodoxy, etc?

I contend we can partake of the Eucharist all day, be at adoration all week, pray every rosary and chaplet and novena ever created, sing to Mary all we want, in short do all the things that make us possibly boast about orthodoxy and be worfully short of being a true Christian.

I think we need to read Matthew 25 and 1 Cor. 13 over again and again in the Church until it finally sinks in. In the end all that counts is love. Not hours of adoration, not songs to Mary, not evangelicals converted, in the end all that matters is love. Did we love who we are asked to love? Were we true channels and images of God's love?