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Filmmaker from Skokie explores faith, religious imagery and -- tacos?
(POSTED: 2/8/10) Rob skateboards to June's Hot Dog and Taco Palace often, it is where he gets his favorite tacos. When he sits down for lunch, he surrenders himself to the joy of eating his perfect meal. He enjoys it so much that he almost fails to notice the Virgin Mary image shining in his food.
This is the beginning of Taco Mary, a short film written and directed by Mary Novak, a staff member and part-time film professor at Chicago's Columbia College. Novak filmed the movie at Poochie's, a hot dog and hamburger restaurant in Skokie.
Novak, a practicing Catholic, lives in the northern suburb with her daughter and husband, a self-proclaimed atheist. Although Novak never adopted her husband's worldview, her writing was motivated by their dialogue on religion.
"The material comes from different sources: personal, my husband -- our dialogue on faith and non-faith -- and that weird cultural thing where people see things," said Novak.
Novak is fascinated by the way some people reinforce their faith by seeing religious imagery in otherwise ordinary objects.
What "kind of prompted it all is 'Underpass Mary,'" Novak said, referring to the stain on the wall of a Kennedy Expy. bridge that some say resembles the Virgin Mary.
When Rob sees the Virgin Mary in his taco, he shows it to people around him, but is met with mixed reactions. Some people are stunned by it, others see nothing, and Rob must decide if he should sell it on eBay or let the owner of June's put it on display.
Novak's movie is funny, even a bit irreverent, but it never makes fun of religion. Taco Mary deals with themes of exploitation and the way people react to the wonders around them, but Novak allows her audience to think about their own views on religion.
"There's an ambivalence that I kind of want the audience to feel," said Novak. "Yeah, it's not good to exploit, but if it brings people to an altar where they can renew their faith, then maybe the show of it is alright."
Although Novak is a practicing Catholic, she is not trying to be a missionary. She believes that all forms of spirituality are important, and hopes to convey that with her short film.
"I think if you really look at life, how can you not have some sort of faith?" Novak said. "You live with a lot more hope and vibrancy when you do."
The Taco Mary script was submitted to a writing competition at the D.C. Shorts Film Festival in 2008 where it won an award for Best Screenplay. The festival then provided Novak with $1,000 to bring the film to life and show it the following year.
Even at 50 years old, Novak is a young filmmaker. She earned an MFA in film at Columbia College, and has made five movies, but each one is just a step in her learning process.
"It takes a while to be good at it, as a filmmaker, because it's a very complicated art. There's so much to learn," said Novak.
Novak has been submitting her work to different film festivals, with varying success, in hopes of finding the means to continue making movies. She is not trying to make money from Taco Mary, in fact she has only been losing money so far, but she considers each film an investment in her career.
"To get into festivals and get some credibility, you want to base that success to move forward with your next project," said Novak.
By Stan Golovchuk, for ChicagoCatholicNews.com
Contact: info@chicagocatholicnews.com
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L’Osservatore Chicago: Tangible metaphors for the beauty and mystery inherent of all life
(POSTED: 2/8/10) Between news of troop surges in Afghanistan and national fiscal difficulties, The New York Times recently printed a half-page article about a remote cliff-top monastery in Syria.
Their reporter, Robert Worth, described a "motley crew of religious seekers and backpackers from a dozen countries" climbing stone steps to what had been, until 1982, an abandoned Byzantine ruin. They had come for Christian-Muslim dialogue, to build, in Worth's words, "harmony around a religious fault line that has only grown more volatile since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001."
The visitors were eager to meet the Rev. Paolo Dall’Oglio, the Jesuit priest who had found the 6th century site and, almost single-handedly, created on it a new house of worship, lovingly restoring the deteriorating church and frescoes.
What struck me, looking at the pictures of the arched gate over the stone steps and the chapel with its ancient Arabic, Greek and Syriac inscriptions was my response to the story of this site.
Why do I get the same feeling looking at the cave-like chapel and the gate on the craggy hillside as I do driving into Milwaukee, suddenly aware of a flurry of steeples piercing the skyline with reminders of life's other dimension?
Or the way our Brooklyn daughter describes Easter at her parish where children in festive hair bows and bow ties come out from behind the altar where they have been sequestered for "catechism," carrying pastel balloons (or not carrying them in the case of those that have escaped into the lovely church dome) bringing up, as she says, "our hearts to God."
All and each, the chapel at Syria's Deir Mar Mousa, the Milwaukee churches, the Brooklyn sanctuary, are tangible metaphors for the beauty and mystery inherent of all life. Father Dall’Oglio, who doesn't claim to know the absolute, says that what is offered at the chapel in Syria is "a road, a path, that we are on together."
Margery Frisbie, a graduate of Mundelein College, has raised lots of kids and written lots of columns. She is the author of several local histories, two graphic histories published in Europe, and An Alley in Chicago, the Life and Legacy of Monsignor John Egan.
Contacts: margeryfrisbie@sbcglobal.net or info@chicagocatholicnews.com
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Turmoil at Tommy More -- Archdiocese plans to transfer pastor, which isn't sitting well with many parishioners
(POSTED: 2/1/10) Members of Chicago's St. Thomas More Church -- considered an "oasis" of conservative Catholicism on the South Side -- are up in arms over the Archdiocese of Chicago's plans to transfer their pastor, who is wrapping up his first term and wants to stick around for another.
A recent meeting at the church -- hosted by Auxiliary Bishop Gustavo Garcia-Siller to solicit input on the qualities parishioners would like to see in their next pastor -- turned into an emotional and sometimes noisy lobbying session to keep the Rev. Charles Fanelli, according to several people who were there.
Fanelli was not at the meeting, which drew an estimated 250 people. But he told ChicagoCatholicNews.com later that he has personally appealed to Cardinal Francis George to renew his term.
"As a priest I always have a job, but I hate to leave a parish that will have gone through two major changes in six years," Fanelli, 64, said.
The cardinal appointed Fanelli in 2004 after transferring out the previous pastor, the Rev. Anthony Brankin. Parishioners unsuccessfully fought Brankin's departure, and it turned out to be a rocky transition for Fanelli, in part because the school ended up closing on his watch. Besides, Brankin had been at St. Thomas More for 21 years and earned a fiercely loyal following. But many eventually embraced Fanelli.
Why he's being bounced now is not totally clear.
Priests typically are assigned to parishes for six years, and usually get a second six-year term if they want and the parish is agreeable. In fact, it's not unheard of for priests to stay beyond 12 years. Activist-priest Michael Pfleger, for instance, has served at nearby St. Sabina Church for nearly three decades -- a point raised several times by parishioners at the meeting with the bishop.
Fanelli (pictured above) said he's been given evolving reasons for his "non-renewal."
All Church officials would say is there's no scandal or wrong-doing -- just some "administrative" issues that Fanelli is well aware of. At the January meeting, one of the priests with Garcia-Siller told the crowd "this is not a punitive measure in any way, shape or form, they were simply not approving his request for a second term," recalled parishioner Terry Hodges.
Among other things, Fanelli's supporters like that he's carried on the tradition of Brankin, who re-introduced Latin mass to St. Thomas More years back. (Brankin said he did so at the request of the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin.)
Parishioner John Chesna said "99 percent of the people there" at the recent meeting were in favor of Fanelli staying. "I personally asked everyone to do one hour of adoration for Father Fanelli, . . . that he could stay."
But the parish is not wealthy, and some members were upset with his spending habits, and some of the changes he implemented. Fanelli's decision to refurbish candles, move the altar and add lights to the confessionals were among the things that bothered folks, said Anthony Philbin, a long-time parishioner.
"He's a very holy man, . . . but he has no sense of money whatsoever," Philbin said.
Fanelli alluded to some of his critics in the parish bulletin, writing: "Please keep praying for me and for the parish that we love so much. Once again I apologize to anyone whom I may have hurt or disappointed in any way. Please forgive me and let us work together for the future of this beautiful parish."
Unless the cardinal grants a reprieve -- neither he nor his press office could be reached, so it's unclear whether that will happen -- St. Thomas More will likely be among roughly 30 parishes that sees turnover in pastors this year, officials said.
Whatever the outcome, the church at 2825 W. 81st St. has challenges ahead.
The once white, largely Catholic neighborhood surrounding the church has turned largely black and non-Catholic. Many members of the parish still come from other parts of the region -- from Palos Park and Oak Lawn to beyond -- for mass, and there's a dedicated following for the Latin service. But the number of parishioners is shrinking. Roughly 520 people attend mass there on the average Sunday.
Fanelli said one of his goals was to make more inroads in the immediate community.
By Robert Herguth, for ChicagoCatholicNews.com
Contact: info@chicagocatholicnews.com
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From the Portico: On power and politics
(POSTED: 2/1/10) The Roman Catholic Church is more than just a spiritual entity: it's big business.
To that end, Crain's Chicago Business recently ranked the largest employers in the Chicago region, and two Catholic institutions were in the Top 25: Resurrection Health Care, with more than 10,000 full-time employees, and the Archdiocese of Chicago, with nearly 8,000.
A number of leaders of Catholic institutions also were featured in the Crain's "Who's Who" list, including: the superintendent of Chicago's Catholic schools, Sister Mary Paul McCaughey; the heads of DePaul, Dominican, Loyola and St. Xavier universities; and Cardinal Francis George.
Governor's race
Speaking of the cardinal, he's never been known to publicly, directly favor a political candidate.
But with the primary election fast approaching, you wonder who he'd back.
What about Jim Ryan -- one of the Republicans vying for the state's top elected job?
The cardinal's top issue is abortion, and Ryan's stance seems pretty in line with Church teachings.
Besides, Ryan's son is a top official at Chicago's Catholic Charities, and Ryan told ChicagoCatholicNews.com that he talks with the cardinal on occasion.
"I know the cardinal, and from time to time I talk to him; I value his opinion and his advice," Ryan said. "I'm a Catholic, so obviously what the cardinal thinks matters to me morally and personally."
What do they talk about?
"I talk to him every once and a while, but I don't want to talk about personal conversations with the cardinal," Ryan said.
Do you think you're his candidate of choice?
"I wouldn't say that . . . I would never presume . . . the cardinal is a prince of the Church, and the Church is a non-partisan organization."
But he must be happy with your politics on abortion and some other things.
"I hope so, I want to be on the right side," Ryan said.
George's press secretary did not respond to calls and emails.
Ryan, the former Illinois attorney general, also mentioned the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, whom he got to know when Ryan was battling cancer years back.
Latino surge
The University of Notre Dame recently compiled a report on Latinos and Catholic schools.
The gist: Catholic schools need to reach out more to the Hispanic community, which is a huge and important segment of the Catholic Church in America.
There were recommendations, etc. (You might have read about them here.)
But here's the most telling fact I found:
"In the United States, Latinos now comprise 35 percent of all Catholics and 67 percent of practicing Catholics aged 18 to 34."
That's 67 percent. Latinos are the future of the Church in Chicago and around the country.
Let's hope the Archdiocese of Chicago finally has figured that out. It's given the Hispanic population short shrift in a lot of ways, critics contend, although in recent months there have been signs that that's changing.
St. Boniface project inching forward
The redevelopment of Chicago's closed St. Boniface Church is moving ahead, but more slowly than initially planned.
Groundbreaking on a multimillion-dollar project to turn the property into a "senior living" complex -- which would retain the church's signature towers, as well as other parts of the historic but crumbling building -- was supposed to take place in spring.
But developer Ken McHugh of Oak Brook-based Institutional Project Management LLC said everything's still on track, just not moving as fast as originally thought. His guess is all the legal agreements will be wrapped up in June, with construction starting in late summer or early fall.
There are some schematics on the company's web site that are worth checking out.
Campus creation
Speaking of Institutional Project Management, the company has a hand in an interesting project out West: building a new Catholic college.
Wyoming Catholic College is new, housed in temporary quarters in Lander, Wy., while the school raises enough money to build a campus from the ground up.
For now, McHugh's group is serving as consultants on a variety of things, including fundraising. Ultimately, the company will be the developer of the new campus, which is planned for a sprawling patch of wild.
The school has an equestrian program and, McHugh said, draws many students that had been home-schooled.
McHugh knows a thing or two about Catholic colleges, having been an administrator at DePaul University for years.
This and that . . .
As the Catholics Come Home television ad campaign wraps up, a new smaller media campaign is underway: the Archdiocese of Chicago has been running radio ads to promote Catholic Schools Week, running on WBBM-AM, FM 105.9 and even Radio Disney . . . It goes without saying that Bishop J. Peter Sartain of the Diocese of Joliet -- which includes DuPage and Will counties -- has had a rollercoaster ride the last few weeks. First, one of his priests apparently tried to kill himself after being accused of sex abuse. Then, a new auxiliary bishop was ordained. And, just in recent days, a report recommending school closures or consolidations was released. A lot of news for a usually quiet operation . . . Just across the border in the Diocese of Gary, Ind., is Bishop Dale Melczek, who just left for a trip to the Holy Land, in what's described by his staff as a pilgrimage. . . . The back and forth continues between the Archdiocese of Chicago and attorney Phillip Aaron, whose clients have claimed the Church here shortchanges minorities in sex abuse settlements. Vicar General John Canary has angrily denied that, but Aaron recently released a report that asserts otherwise. Stay tuned. . . . On a selfish note, we wanted to mention that readership of ChicagoCatholicNews.com continues to grow, as does attention from outside news sources. Our stories in recent weeks have made the Huffington Post, the Chicago Sun-Times, the SouthtownStar and Fox News Chicago. Thanks very much for reading, and think of us for story ideas.
From the Portico is an occasional column -- written by ChicagoCatholicNews.com editor Robert Herguth -- that focuses on the people, policies and inner-workings of the Catholic Church in the Chicago region.
Contact: info@chicagocatholicnews.com
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L’Osservatore Chicago: Will loss outweigh gain in liturgy changes?
(POSTED: 1/25/10) I plead no expertise in devising liturgy, but I have some notion of the power of the repeated word. Our children were patient hearing the same books read over and over again. In fact, they insisted on it. "Fly Away, Goose" I read a hundred times, every night for a couple of years before any other book could be opened.
And "Monsters of the Middle Ages" at least that often. It traveled with us everywhere during its hegemony.
You'd think that children, of all people, would want novelty. And they do. But more than novelty, they want the rite and ritual of the familiar beloved word.
They insisted that we read the same stories in the same words over and over. Should I nod and say "heffalamp" instead of "heffalump" in the Winnie the Pooh story, many small voices would vociferously object.
They knew the favorite stories by heart, but they wanted to hear them read aloud, sitting on the same sofa and listening to the same voice. Parenthetically, they waited for favorite passages, especially when Jack the Brindle Bull Dog was lost in the Laura and Mary books and when Charlotte died in E.B. White's classic, because they knew I would cry. They would watch me with great satisfaction and, (as I experienced it, superiority) as I tried to get the words out through my tears. They were not crying. I was the whole show.
Saying the same words aloud is surely a big part of the power of the Mass. And it is no wonder that there are complaints from all parts of the country now that the wording of the liturgy is being updated by the Catholic Church. "They're ruining the poetry," my Brooklyn daughter says, when they change:
"Dying, you destroyed our death,
Rising, you restored our life"
to
"We proclaim your death, O Lord,
And profess your Resurrection until you come again."
I balk at changing "one in being with the Father" to "consubstantial with the Father," no matter how much closer that word is to the Latin root. "Born of the Virgin Mary" sings. "By the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary" sinks.
Moreover, as my choir member daughter moans, "If you change the Gloria, you are changing my favorite song."
There were good reasons for changing the Latin Mass into the vernacular, however painful the variations were for those who responded joyfully to "Introibo ad altare Dei" every morning of their lives. There was also a loss.
Will the loss this time, I wonder, outweigh the gain?
Margery Frisbie, a graduate of Mundelein College, has raised lots of kids and written lots of columns. She is the author of several local histories, two graphic histories published in Europe, and An Alley in Chicago, the Life and Legacy of Monsignor John Egan.
Contacts: margeryfrisbie@sbcglobal.net or info@chicagocatholicnews.com
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Daley administration official accused of ordering city crews to work at mayor's ancestral parish in Bridgeport
(POSTED: 1/23/10) A high-ranking Daley administration official who was described at the Robert Sorich trial as a cog in the city's patronage hiring operation should be fired, a government watchdog is recommending.
But being part of a scheme to hire and promote politically connected employees wasn't Deputy Water Management Commissioner Tommie Talley's only alleged transgression.
Talley also dispatched city water department crews to work at private sites -- including Nativity of Our Lord Roman Catholic Church, the mayor's ancestral parish in Bridgeport, Chicago's inspector general found, according to city government sources.
Talley, a veteran city worker allied with the Daley family's 11th Ward Regular Democratic Organization, couldn't be reached, and a city spokesman had no immediate comment.
At the Sorich trial several years ago, Talley was mentioned on the stand by Hired Truck czar-turned-government witness Donald Tomczak as one of the city officials who helped facilitate the city's rigged hiring process.
Sorich, who oversaw Mayor Daley's patronage activities, was convicted in the case and sent to prison. Talley was not charged, and kept his city job.
But the allegation was pursued by the inspector general's office, which also looked into separate claims that Talley was directing city water department resources toward select private sites.
One of those spots, sources said, was Nativity of Our Lord. That's where the mayor grew up, and it was Sorich's home parish as well.
In spring 2008, one of the church buildings was getting water. Somewhere along the line, someone contacted Ald. James Balcer (11th), who called Water Management Commissioner John Spatz to have it checked out, sources said.
The commissioner reached out to Talley, who dispatched crews to the church at 37th and Union, sources said.
It was quickly evident that the trouble -- later diagnosed as a "collapsed pipe" near the foundation -- wasn't on public property and should have been handled by the church, a source said.
But city crews excavated the site nonetheless, and even called in a contractor to help pinpoint the problem, the source said.
"By the time they started digging, they knew it shouldn't have been their problem, but they went ahead with it regardless -- and this was at Talley's insistence and behest," the source said.
The Rev. Dan Brandt said that while city crews were on the scene for a time, he stressed that the church paid a private company to ultimately fix the piping issues.
"I really don't give a whole lot of credence to what they [at the inspector general's office] have to say," said Brandt, the pastor.
Balcer declined to comment, saying "it's a pending investigation."
The amount of taxpayer resources expended on the job was not immediately clear; whatever the ultimate pricetag, the city has the option of pursuing restitution from Talley.
There were at least a couple of other similar instances in which city water crews did work on private sites, sources said, although those details were not available.
This week the inspector general's office forwarded its findings to top city officials, who now must decide whether to accept the recommendation to fire Talley.
Inspector General Joe Ferguson declined to comment.
By Robert Herguth, for ChicagoCatholicNews.com
Contact: info@chicagocatholicnews.com
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From Evangelical minister to Catholic seminarian -- unusual spiritual journey for Chicago native
(POSTED: 1/18/10) Gregg Bronsema came from a pretty committed Protestant household.
Born in Chicago and raised, for part of his childhood, in Evergreen Park and Oak Lawn, his family belonged to the Christian Reformed Church, before becoming Baptist and moving out West, to Oregon.
Years later, Bronsema became an Evangelical minister.
But, it turns out, his spiritual journey was not finished. He ended up in an unlikely place given his background -- the Roman Catholic Church -- studying for an unlikely calling: the Catholic priesthood.
"It was a little difficult, I'd have to say," Bronsema, 53 and single, said of his decision to convert to Catholicism and enter the seminary, where he is today, studying at Mount Angel in Oregon.
As he told ChicagoCatholicNews.com, it was the "last thing in the world" he imagined himself doing.
In an open letter to a parish he's been affiliated with, Bronsema recounted his journey away from Protestantism, saying he started asking questions like: "Why are there so many churches when our Lord stressed so much of us being one?"
"Rather than seeing the Reformation as glorious, I began to view it more like a bad divorce, and I happened to be the kid of the divorce with no say," he wrote. ". . . I acquired books to delve deeper into the Early Church fathers. Those books showed me that the Church right from the beginning believed and died martyrs' deaths for their belief in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist."
"I didn't exactly come running to the Catholic Church. I had a lot of stereotypes and misconceptions about the Church that had to be broken down. Finally I got enough guts to enter into a Catholic Church all by myself for the first time."
In recent times, it seems, Evangelical churches have had more luck in attracting Catholics than the other way around. As such, his story has gotten some ink, including from Portland's archdiocesan publication.
Bronsema, who still has relatives in the Chicago area, said he looks forward to completing his studies -- although there's a long way to go. He's in the first of what could be seven years of training.
By ChicagoCatholicNews.com
Contact: info@chicagocatholicnews.com
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Afghan Journal: Deployment "a wonderful time to come home to Church"
(POSTED: 1/18/10) It is dark and cold, and the military personnel and civilians are doing everything to keep spirits up. Our faith is essential to maintain a spirit of hope during these dark days away from family. I encourage the worshippers to bring a battle buddy back to Mass. Deployment is a wonderful time to come home to Church.
Always an area of concern is the spiritual fitness of our soldiers. Their hearts long to be with their families. I try and remind them that as we gather around the Lord's table we are in communion with all those we love. Come home, come back to Mass and remember to pray for those fallen comrades and your loved ones you miss.
An area of education for all parents and military personnel is making sure that one is identified as a Roman Catholic. Every branch of service has ID tags (dog tags) and also paperwork that allows one to identify their religious preference. For military wounded or killed in action these identifiers are essential for a priest to be contacted for Roman Catholics who then receive prayers and sacraments. More than once I knew of a Roman Catholic wounded or deceased military personnel, however I was not contacted to celebrate the sacrament of Anointing of the Sick for the wounded or Final Commendation for the deceased, because they had not identified themselves as Roman Catholics on official paperwork.
This is not the fault of the military, the one serving in a combat zone is responsible for identifying their respective religion. I hope more military families will make sure their loved ones are identified as Roman Catholics.
Know that we pray for peace and hope that all families will be blessed this Christmas.
By the Rev. Matt Foley, a Roman Catholic priest who, in 2008, gave up a parish assignment at St. Agnes of Bohemia in Chicago's Little Village neighborhood to go to war. More to the point, he joined the Army as a chaplain. Now posted in Afghanistan, Father Matt has agreed to send occasional dispatches to ChicagoCatholicNews.com, sharing his experiences.
Contact: info@chicagocatholicnews.com
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School enrollment numbers in the Diocese of Joliet
(POSTED: 1/13/10) We've already published a list of the biggest schools in the Archdiocese of Chicago, which covers Cook and Lake counties.
Today, we're pulling together a list of the biggest schools -- in terms of enrollment -- in the Diocese of Joliet, which includes Will and DuPage counties.
Naperville's SS. Peter & Paul Parish (pictured here) has the biggest elementary school in the Joliet Diocese, while Benet Academy in Lisle was the largest high school.
Elementary schools:
1) SS. Peter & Paul, Naperville--619
2) St. Walter, Roselle--616
3) St. Joan of Arc, Lisle--593
4) St. Isaac Jogues, Hinsdale--558
5) St. Petronille, Glen Ellyn--548
6) St. Michael, Wheaton--524
7) St. Mary Immaculate, Plainfield--510
8) St. Mary of Gostyn, Downers Grove--486
9) Immaculate Conception, Elmhurst--483
10) Cathedral of St. Raymond, Joliet--471
11) Visitation, Elmhurst--465
12) All Saints Catholic Academy, Naperville--463
13) St. Mary, Mokena--441
14) Our Lady of Peace, Darien--408
15) St. Joseph, Downers Grove--405
High schools:
1) Benet Academy, Lisle--1,332
2) Providence Catholic, New Lenox--1,162
3) St. Francis, Wheaton--772
4) Joliet Catholic, Joliet--763
5) Montini Catholic, Lombard--700
By ChicagoCatholicNews
Contact: info@chicagocatholicnews.com
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L’Osservatore Chicago: On Quakers, Van Gogh and mental hospitals
(POSTED: 1/11/10) The last story I heard on National Public Radio in the old year was two 89-year-old Quakers telling of the horrendous conditions in the mental hospitals where they worked as conscientious objectors during World War II.
One of them snuck a camera into the "barracks." He compared the pictures he took to Holocaust pictures then being circulated. Many of the inmates were naked, filthy in filthy conditions.
The COs had seen conditions at home as egregious as those our armies had discovered in Europe.
The first story I read in the new year, in the New Yorker, told of Vincent Van Gogh's incarceration in a mental hospital in France. It tells how Van Gogh found community among the insane, "the only authentic community he found."
Van Gogh wrote, "Although there are a few people here who are seriously ill, the horror I had of madness before is now greatly softened. . . . People know each other very well and help each other when they suffer crises." (My granddaughter who visited the hospital, when she was a student in France, remembered a square building with a balcony surrounding a pleasant garden.)
Here, even in this institutionalized setting, it was possible for people to reach out to one another. I'm reminded of that classic of the Holocaust, "Man's Search for Meaning," where Viktor Frankl wrote that "experiences of camp life show that man does have a choice of action. . . . We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread."
What Frankl seemed to be saying was that however horrific the circumstances, there is one thing that cannot be taken from a person: the ability to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.
In Van Gogh's case, maybe the garden helped. In the case of the World War II hospital for the mentally unfit, maybe those poor souls had lost that one last facet of being human.
Margery Frisbie, a graduate of Mundelein College, has raised lots of kids and written lots of columns. She is the author of several local histories, two graphic histories published in Europe, and An Alley in Chicago, the Life and Legacy of Monsignor John Egan.
Contacts: margeryfrisbie@sbcglobal.net or info@chicagocatholicnews.com
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"Catholics Come Home" ad blitz inching toward goal
(POSTED: 1/7/10) The "Catholics Come Home" campaign, which enlists television commercials to beckon lapsed Catholics back to the pews, is in full swing in the Chicago region.
Already, some inactive Church members have trickled back to the faith, but Church officials say it's too early to gauge the full impact of the ad blitz, which began prior to Christmas and wraps up later this month.
FOX-TV in Chicago just ran a story on Catholics Come Home, touching on, among other things, why Church members drift away, and how well the ad campaign worked when tried in other dioceses. (The editor of ChicagoCatholicNews was interviewed for the segment.)
Meanwhile, the Rev. Thomas Enright of Our Lady of Ransom Church in Niles said "I think it's going to be a while" before there's a significant response to the ads. So far, he knows of no phone calls to the parish from folks who have seen the ads, and only a handful of people have stopped by an informational table set up at masses.
But he thinks there could be a solid response down the road, perhaps in Lent.
And he mentioned two noteworthy examples to date.
One man -- who presumably saw the ads -- attended mass at the near north suburban parish after Christmas and relayed that he'd been away from the faith for 40 years and "really felt at home" being back, Enright said.
On the other end of the spectrum, another man brought his mother to a service where the ads were previewed for the congregation, Enright said.
The man relayed that "the ads are really well done, but 'It's not going to make me want to come back,'" Enright said.
"All we could say is that, 'You'll always be welcome here no matter what,'" Enright said.
By ChicagoCatholicNews
Contact: info@chicagocatholicnews.com
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Out of Left Field: Where is Sister Mary Mean when we really need her?
(POSTED: 1/4/10) There has been an awful lot written about the Vatican's investigations of American women religious, and most of it has been extremely supportive and protective of our Sisters and very suspicious of the true motives behind these unrequested and unwelcome intrusions into lives of American nuns.
I mean, really, who was the Vatican "brain child" behind this unpopular and costly project, anyway? Has this been on the pope's "to do" list ever since he spent years investigating Sister Jeannine Gramick's ministry to the GLBT community and their families? Or was it just a case of some Vatican bureaucrat finally catching on that these days, nuns are the Catholics most respected and admired by Americans, Catholics and non-Catholics alike, and logically concluding that this deserved an investigation or two? In order to learn from them and emulate them, you ask? No, no, heavens, no! What could the Vatican learn from a group of mostly older, wiser women who took both the documents and the spirit of Vatican II seriously? Using Curia logic, one must assume that if these women are so liked and admired, they must be doing something wrong -– or at least more than a few things in an "unorthodox" manner, right? So, of course, a million-dollar-plus investigation is definitely in order!
But, our American women religious have not quietly and humbly acquiesced to the "Apostolic Visitator," and their first show of resistance has been reported to be a broad non-compliance or partial compliance to a Vatican questionnaire sent to each Community. Instead of answering questions, the leaders of many religious orders sent copies of their constitutions -– which outline the specific purpose, charism and structure of each Order, and have all already been Vatican approved! While this seems to make sense to most of us, not strictly following orders is just NOT the usual way Catholics respond to Vatican demands . . . oh, I mean, "requests."
However, the actual "visits" by Vatican-appointed investigators are still to come. (Of course, Rome not only had the chutzpah to ask the nuns to cooperate with the uninvited visitors, but to "host" them at the Order's expense as well!) And, while the good Sisters probably already have their visitation strategy well worked out, I have a suggestion for handling this most intrusive phase of the inquiry:
Now, many of us remember, in those long-ago, pre-Vatican II days, when the "good Sisters" were respected, but not necessarily loved. Of course, we all had that special Sister in our Catholic grammar school lives . . . the Sister who had a beatific smile and who seemed to really, really care about us; the Sister with the great personality, who could hit a softball farther than any of the boys and tell some pretty good jokes; the pretty Sister who sang like an angel and really looked like Jesus’ bride; the Sister who was such a dynamic teacher, she could even make Geography fun! But then, in the life of every Catholic girl and boy there was a "Sister Mary Mean." You know, the dreaded ones who earned all the nuns the "Black Veiled Monster" moniker. These were the Sisters who, as my mother would so charitably say, "perhaps needed to go back to the Motherhouse and fold napkins." These were women who were, to some greater or lesser degree, unhappy, frustrated, perhaps not well physically or emotionally, and who seemed to not like children (or at least teaching an overcrowded, poorly equipped classroom of them) at all! Now, often, the tales of the dastardly deeds of Sister Mary Mean were more myth than reality, but no matter, the toughest boys in the class quaked when she entered the room, and little girls trembled when she called on them and they weren't sure of the answer.
So, what has happened to all the Sister Mary Means? Have they all gone to their reward of a classroom-free heaven? Did they mostly leave the religious life when the convent doors were "thrown open" with Vatican II? Or, once they had choices, did they, in leaving behind elementary level teaching, find peace and fulfillment in the science lab, the university, the courtroom, the boardroom or the picket line? Did some transform themselves from a Sister Mary Mean to a Sister Mover and Shaker?
Now, the reason I'm wondering about all this is not to relive the time an enraged Sister Mary Mean slammed an unabridged dictionary over my head, but to consider what perfect foils these women would be to the Vatican investigators. I'm sure these investigators experienced a Sister Mary Mean or two in their lives, and would still react in fear and trembling if she appeared before them to answer their questions with a raised eyebrow and that "I know what you were just doing in the cloakroom" look. After several encounters with a few really, really scary Sister Mary Means, the investigation of our Sisters would end once and for all.
So, if there are any former Sister Mary Means about, show yourselves! Whether you are contentedly "folding napkins" or giving lectures on feminist theology or hiding undocumented immigrants in your convent attic, your Order and the American Church need you now. While most of our bishops cower in the background, you are the ones who can step forward and make these Vatican types understand (and remember) the power of your Sisterhood. While you may have to resort to digging up an old habit and donning it for the occasion, you are the ones who know how to evoke that universal sense of Catholic guilt and fearsome awe in these unwanted "visitors." And, you can probably get them to shift from foot to foot and mumble a "thankyouster" as they back out of the room, too!
By Margaret Field
A Chicago-area Catholic who is involved in Vatican II reform and renewal efforts, she writes a regular column for ChicagoCatholicNews.
Contact: meafield@comcast.net or info@chicagocatholicnews.com
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