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St. Aloysius Church Celebrates 100 Years

May 24, 2013, 7:00 am
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From the Great Neck Record -

"Great Neck’s beautiful, majestic St. Aloysius Church celebrates its 100th birthday this year. On Sunday, June 23, the church hosts a centennial celebration, including a special mass and a dinner dance. The historic church is located at 592 Middle Neck Road in the Village of Great Neck.


“Even after 100 years, many people still consider St. Aloysius one of the most beautiful churches on Long Island,” said Monsignor Brendan Riordan, pastor of St. Aloysius.
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The church traces its roots back to 1876 when Bishop John Loughlin, the first Bishop of Brooklyn, established the parish and appointed Reverend Patrick Sheridan its first pastor. Father Sheridan celebrated the first Mass in Great Neck in February 1876 in a near-by private home. Later that year the first church was dedicated on May 20, 1876, further back than the current site.

Father John J. Molloy, fourth Pastor, was responsible for the building of the present church. He chose a distinguished architect, Gustave Steinbach, an expert in Byzantine Romanesque style of church architecture. The cornerstone was laid on August 13, 1913. "


Here is the website for the parish (the link in the article is incorrect, it is for a 500 year old school in Glasgow.)

And here is more info on the parish including pictures, from Joe McMahon's Nassau County N.Y. Catholic blog. 


Sanctuary of St. Aloysius (Joe McMahon)
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How the West Really Lost God

May 24, 2013, 5:19 pm
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At Crisis Magazine, Austin Ruse of C-Fam looks at a new book:  How the West Really Lost God by Mary Eberstadt here and then again here.  Basically the book argues that the decline in religion was caused by the decline of the family.

The description from the publisher makes this book sound like something I would enjoy reading:

"In this magisterial work, cultural critic Mary Eberstadt delivers a powerful new theory about the decline of religion in the Western world. The conventional wisdom is that the West first experienced religious decline, followed by the decline of the family. Eberstadt turns this standard account on its head. Marshalling an impressive array of research, from fascinating historical data on family decline in pre-Revolutionary France to contemporary popular culture both in the United States and Europe, Eberstadt shows that the reverse has also been true: the undermining of the family has further undermined Christianity itself.


Drawing on sociology, history, demography, theology, literature, and many other sources, Eberstadt shows that family decline and religious decline have gone hand in hand in the Western world in a way that has not been understood before—that they are, as she puts it in a striking new image summarizing the book’s thesis, “the double helix of society, each dependent on the strength of the other for successful reproduction.”



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Bishop Murphy Authorizes Special Collection for Those Suffering from Oklahoma Tornado

May 24, 2013, 5:22 pm
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From the Diocese of Rockville Centre:

"ROCKVILLE CENTRE, N.Y. – May 17, 2013 – The Most Reverend William Murphy, Bishop, Roman Catholic Diocese of Rockville Centre asks that all parishes join in prayer for those who are suffering after the tornado in Oklahoma this week, particularly for those who were injured and those who have died.


To support those in need at this time the bishop authorizes a special collection to be taken at the Masses either this weekend or next. Pastors are asked to remit proceeds of the collection to the finance office as soon as possible so that the aid can be sent to help the Church in Oklahoma meet immediate needs in the work of relief."
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Woolwich heroine says Catholic faith inspired her to confront attackers

May 24, 2013, 5:39 pm
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In yet another terrorist attack by muslims, this time in Woolwich England, two muslims savagely hit an innocent man with their car and then cut him to death with a butcher's knife.  A woman got off a bus to try to help the dead man and she confronted the attackers.  Just as the attackers were motivated by their muslim faith, that woman, Ingrid Loyau-Kennet, was motivated by her Catholic faith.

"A mother of two who calmly confronted the Woolwich attackers on Wednesday has attributed her courage to her Catholic faith.


Ingrid Loyau-Kennet, a practising Catholic, told the Daily Telegraph: “I live my life as a Christian. I believe in thinking about others and loving thy neighbour. We all have a duty to look after each other. A whole group of people walking towards those guys would have found it easy to take those weapons out of their hands. But me, on my own, I couldn’t.”

Read more here at the Catholic Herald.

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Islam's Civil War

May 25, 2013, 8:49 am
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Michael Coren writes a great column in the Toronto Sun about the battle within Islam:  Extremist Vs. Moderates and how the west must support the moderates.

Islam's Civil War

"Islam is undergoing a civil war, between those who interpret their primary holy texts literally and those who understand and embrace metaphor and modernity.

As author Daniel Pipes puts it, if fundamentalist Islam is the problem, moderate Islam is the solution.

But if the moderates have even a hope of winning, we have to enable and empower them. And we don’t do that by pretending, as British Prime Minister David Cameron and London Mayor Boris Johnson have just done, that violence and Islam have no connection."



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The Rise of Suicide in America

May 25, 2013, 9:00 am
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The cover story at The Daily Beast is on suicide and anyone interested in a Culture of Life should take the issue seriously.  The rise of suicide seems to go along with the breakdown of the family and the loss of faith in the west as mentioned in my previous post.

The Suicide Epidemic

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New Pastors and priest transfers in the Diocese of Rockville Centre

May 26, 2013, 7:30 am
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June is the traditional time for the Diocese to shift priests around.  The Long Island Catholic would always publish all the personnel changes, so now that it is not published weekly I suppose we will have to watch the DRVC website to learn where priests will land. 
I did find some of this info on Bishop Murphy's blog a couple of months ago:

  • Msgr. Gerald Ringenback from pastor at St. Bernard, Levittown, to pastor of Good Shepherd Parish in Holbrook (replacing Msgr. Thomas Spadaro, who was pastor at Good Shepherd for 31 years!)
  • Msgr. Ralph Sommer from pastor at St. Brigid, Westbury to pastor of St. Bernard, Levittown
  • Father Anthony Stanganelli from pastor at Ss. Philip and James in St. James, to pastor of St. Brigid, Westbury
  • Msgr. James McNamara from pastor of Holy Cross, Nesconset, to pastor of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal, Point Lookout, where he will replace retiring pastor, Father Patrick Callan.
  • Father Frank Grieco will leave St. Anthony in East Northport to become pastor at Holy Spirit, New Hyde Park.
  • Father Valentine Rebello will go from associate at St. Barnabas, Bellmore, to pastor of St. Pius X in Plainview.
  • Father Robert Holtz will move from associate at St. Christopher, Baldwin to be pastor of St. Raphael, East Meadow.
  • Father Michael Holzman will finish up as chaplain at St. John the Baptist Diocesan High School to become pastor of Holy Cross, Nesconset.
  • Father Marian Bicz will leave as pastor of Our Lady of Obstrabama in Cutchogue to become pastor of St. Hyacinth in Glen Head.
  • Father Thomas Haggerty completes his years at St. Raphael, East Meadow, to become pastor of SS. Philip and James in St. James.
In addition I know of these two moves:

Fr. Christopher Costigan of St. Bernards in Levittown will go to St. Mary's in Manhasset

Msgr. Batule will become the pastor of Corpus Christi in Mineola.

If anyone knows of any other information please let me know.
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Dr. Peter Kreeft's conversion to Catholicism - Part 1

May 27, 2013, 7:56 pm
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Over at the Catholic Education Resource Center, Dr. Peter Kreeft tells the story of his conversion to Catholicism.  I has no idea he was a convert - they really should wear name tags or something.

"We lived in New Jersey, and we went to New York City a lot as tourists — I'm an only child — with my parents, and we went to St. Patrick's Cathedral, just to see it, and I'd never seen anything like that before.  I was stunned.  It was just like the gate of heaven.  It was a different kind of beauty.  I said to myself, this is the most beautiful piece of architecture I've ever seen in my life.  And I turned to my father and I said, "Dad, this is a Catholic church, isn't it?"  And he said, "Yes."  And I said, "The Catholics are wrong, aren't they?" And he said, "Oh, yes, of course;  they're very, very wrong."  And then I said, "Then how can their churches be so beautiful?"  And it was the first time in my life that my father didn't have any answer to a question at all;  he was just stumped.  I saw the confusion on his face.  I think I was at the time much more scandalized by the fact that my hitherto-infallible father didn't have the answer to a very simple question than my doubts that the Catholic Church was as bad as I had thought it.  Well, sermons in stone: You can argue with thoughts;  you can't argue with beauty"
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Catholic Church Mediates Ceasefire Between Honduran Gangs

May 28, 2013, 5:48 pm
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Vatican: 100,000 Christians killed annually

May 28, 2013, 5:51 pm
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By Catholic News Service


GENEVA (CNS) -- More than 100,000 Christians are killed each year because of their faith, and millions more face bigotry, intolerance and marginalization because of their beliefs, a Vatican official said.

Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Vatican's permanent observer to U.S. agencies in Geneva, told the Human Rights Council May 27 that "credible research" by Massimo Introvigne, a former representative of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe on combating intolerance and discrimination against Christians, "has reached the shocking conclusion that an estimate of more than 100,000 Christians are violently killed because of some relation to their faith every year."

In addition, he said, "in some Western countries, where historically the Christian presence has been an integral part of society, a trend emerges that tends to marginalize Christianity in public life, ignore historic and social contributions and even restrict the ability of faith communities to carry out social charitable services."

Of course the bigots in this country will deny this, or downplay it as they always do.

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Five Schools Get Reprieve From Rockville Centre Diocese

May 28, 2013, 5:58 pm
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From CBS 2

"The Diocese of Rockville Center[sic]will not be closing five grammar schools next fall.

Two of the schools are in Nassau County and three of the schools are in Suffolk County.

Nassau, they are St. Dominic Elementary School in Oyster Bay and St. Edward the Confessor School in Syosset.

In Suffolk, they are St. Isidore School in Riverhead, Our Lady of Mercy Regional School in Cutchogue, and Our Lady Queen of Apostles School in Center Moriches.

The’ve been removed from a watch list, at least for now, according to Diocese spokesman Sean Dolan.

“It’s dependent upon enrollment. It’s dependent upon adequate funding from the parishes and contributions from parishioners and fundraising and stuff,”


What is needed in the DRVC is a couple of small schools setup by lay people and run explicitly to teach the faith.  This is a trend in Catholic elementary education and the Diocese has plenty of empty school buildings that the schools could reside.

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Disgusting perverts in political office and the priesthood

May 29, 2013, 5:59 pm
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As a New Yorker, I have been accostomed to politicians being exposed as perverts or crooks (Elliot Spitzer, Anthony Weiner, Vito Lopez, etc...).

As a Catholic I have become accostomed to priests being exposed as perverts or crooks (Paul Shanley, John Corapi, Marcial Maciel, etc..).

 This short article talks about perverted and crooked politicians but everything said about them would also apply to perverted and crooked priests as well.

Political Narcissists:  Lacking a Moral Center
 By George Marlin
   
"What makes these and so many other political lowlifes believe they are indispensible and that nothing they ever do will be led against them in the long run?
First and foremost, they are narcissists.  They have grandiose views of their talents, excessive interest in themselves, a craving for attention and admiration, and a consciousness of superiority.
This type of person, as social philosopher Christopher Lasch once observed, depends on others “to validate his self-esteem.  He cannot live without an admiring audience. . . .For the narcissist, the world is a mirror, whereas the rugged individual saw it as an empty wilderness to be shaped to his own design.”  Success for these narcissists “consists of nothing more substantial than a wish to be vastly admired; not for one’s accomplishments, but simply for oneself, uncritically and without reservation.”
   






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The atheist orthodoxy that drove me to faith

May 29, 2013, 6:03 pm
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Below is a link to a great column by Megan Hodder, a Catholic convert who was a devotee of the 'New Atheists', those angry and fundamentalist atheists such as Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, until she read Aquinas, George Weigel, and Pope Benedict.  But the intellectual writing was just the spark, it was contact with 'real life' Catholics who brought her into the Church.

"My friendships with practising Catholics finally convinced me that I had to make a decision. Faith, after all, isn’t merely an intellectual exercise, an assent to certain propositions; it’s a radical act of the will, one that engenders a change of the whole person. Books had taken me to Catholicism as a plausible conjecture, but Catholicism as a living truth I came to understand only through observing those already serving the Church within that life of grace."


Do yourself a favor and read the whole thing at the Catholic Herald (UK), it is well worth it.  Catholicism can be very exciting when you encounter it in books from great writers.  It is so all encompassing that when you discover one person, such as Chesterton, you will be lead to others (Belloc) and then you will be brought into a whole other topic such as distributism, which will lead you to economics and justice, which will lead you into other people and topics, and on and on etc...  But, without real encounters with genuine Christian people and good Liturgy, it can be just intellectual stimulation.  As the author of the column puts it:

"I grew up in a culture that has largely turned its back on faith. It’s why I was able to drift through life with my ill-conceived atheism going unchallenged, and at least partially explains the sheer extent of the popular support for the New Atheists: for every considerate and well-informed atheist, there will be others with no personal experience of religion and no interest in the arguments who are simply drifting with the cultural tide.

As the popularity of belligerent, all-the-answers atheism wanes, however, thoughtful Christians able to explain and defend their faith will become an increasingly vital presence in the public square."



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Fake Catholic Weddings on Long Island

June 4, 2013, 6:07 pm
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When I was an altar boy I served Mass for a newly ordained priest named Fr. Robert Allmendinger.  He later left the active ministry (I am not sure why) and was featured on a local investigative news feature called 'Shame on You'.  He was presenting himself as a Catholic priest and marrying people but they were later finding out that he was not a priest in good standing.  He now seems to have shorted his name to Robert Allmen and is calling himself a bishop (complete with snazzy bishop type outfit!).  He has a second almost identical website here.  I don't know if he is still doing the rent a priest thing here but he was 'returned to the lay state' as of November 9, 2011.  So he is no longer a Catholic priest, and has not been a priest in good standing from long before that.  I hope Catholics of Long Island realize that this man is not an active Catholic priest and if they want a Catholic wedding it will be inside a Catholic parish. 

Update:  Based on this thread on Liweddings.com some people still think he is a Catholic priest.  Apparently he founded his own church called the Good Shepherd in Hamptons Bays (this is not a Catholic Church).

Related:  Deacon Greg Kandra of The Deacon's Bench discusses the important question of "Why can't a Catholic get married outside of a Church?".


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Fr. Andrew Greeley

June 4, 2013, 6:39 pm
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When I heard Fr. Andrew Greeley died the first thing I thought of was his writing about having documents hidden away about a ring of pedophiles in the Chicago priesthood.  Fortunately I was not the only one who remembers this.  When I first read that, before the priest sex scandals broke open,  I always wondered whether it was true and if so why did he hide away the documents instead of handing them over to the police or press to expose this ring.   Now that he is dead I hope we find out.
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Brooklyn's Catholic churches celebrate Feast of Corpus Christi

June 5, 2013, 5:29 pm
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From the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, a short article on public Eucharistic processions including a picture of the procession at St. Finbars.  My grandfather used to work at St. Finbars as a handyman.

"At Saint Finbar Catholic Church, hundreds of parishioners followed their pastor, the Rev. Michael Louis Gelfant, through the streets of Bath Beach singing “Christ Be Beside Me,” “Praise to the Lord, the Almighty” and other hymns.
The participants included dozens of children dressed in crisp white dresses and suits who had recently received their first Holy Communion.
Curious onlookers waved at the religious procession. Some took pictures with their cell phone cameras.
After the procession, the parishioners returned to the church at 138 Bay 20th St., where a benediction took place. Noting the hot and humid weather the participants marched in, Gelfant said, “We were sweating, but we were sweating for Jesus!”
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Debunking the Myths of a Good Death

June 5, 2013, 5:31 pm
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Date: Thursday, June 20, 2013
Time: 6:30 PM
Location: New York University
Kimmel Center, Room 914
60 Washington Square South, New York

A discussion about euthanasia and the value of suffering toward the end of life


with Dr. Margaret SOMERVILLE, Founding Director, Centre for Medicine, Ethics and Law at McGill University, Montreal, and Daniel P. SULMASY, MD, PhD, Kilbride-Clinton Professor of Medicine and Ethics, Department of Medicine and Divinity School; Associate Director, MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics, Chicago

Presented by Crossroads Cultural Center

This event is dedicated to the ongoing debate about the possible legalization of assisted suicide or, in some cases, even euthanasia.

 End-of-life issues are not easy to discuss because they involve very fundamental questions, such as the meaning and scope of individual freedom, the very value of human life and the nature of the medical profession. For this event, we have asked our speakers to help us understand better two very basic questions.

The first question is: what motivates the current push towards assisted suicide? What cultural forces are at work and how should we respond to them? Contemporary culture places a disproportionate emphasis on individual autonomy, but is that the only criterion? Is our death really just our own? Or does the idea of legal euthanasia ignore that fact that how we live and die has profound consequences on the lives of people around us?

This last question leads us to second theme that we would like to discuss tonight, namely the apparent inability of our culture to attribute any value to the unavoidable suffering that is associated with dying. Nothing makes suffering more unbearable than the perception that it is utterly meaningless. But is it really so? Is it possible to discover a possibility of good even in suffering?

The event is open to the public and free of charge.
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1 Year Anniversary of Priesthood

June 9, 2013, 6:46 pm
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The Charismatic Renewal and the Catholic Church

June 9, 2013, 6:46 pm
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The Catholic World Report takes a look at the history of the Charismatic Renewal movement within the Church.    This is a short background history focused mostly on the origins in Italy, sparked by Sister Elena Guerra, and does not look at the movement today in the US, which I think would make a good followup article.

"The Charismatic Renewal was eventually sparked in the Catholic Church in 1967, not by any intervention of the pope or clergy, but at the level of the laity at a students’ retreat at Duquesne University, in February of that year. Interestingly, tradition puts in an appearance here as well, as Duquesne was founded in 1878 by the Holy Ghost Fathers, members of the Congregation of the Holy Spirit. From there the flame went almost simultaneously to Notre Dame where, in the words of Dorothy Ranaghan, writer and witness of the beginnings, after the initial outpouring of the Holy Spirit


Summer school brought in priests, nuns, and lay people from all over the world. And so we held prayer meetings and crowds attended and hundreds were baptized in the Holy Spirit and they took the baptism in the Holy Spirit back to their home countries. It was a wild and wonderful summer. There were no Life in the Spirit Seminars [they hadn’t been written yet], we just laid hands on everyone and prayed right away and amazing things happened. Given our youth and inexperience it is all the more evident that it was God’s work, not ours."







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2 Long Islanders ordained Jesuits Priests

June 9, 2013, 7:58 pm
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 Yesterday, at Fordham University in the Bronx, 2 Long Islanders became Jesuits:

Rev. Mr. James Donovan, SJ (NYK), 48, was born in Brooklyn, New York, and grew up on Long Island. Mr. Donovan’s Catholic education dates back to grammar school at Our Lady of Lourdes School in his hometown of Malverne, New York, followed by Maria Regina Diocesan High School in Uniondale.

Rev. Mr. Peter Folan, SJ(MAR), 34, is a native of Massapequa Park on Long Island, New York. A 1996 graduate of Chaminade High School in Mineola, New York, Mr. Folan attended the University of Notre Dame and earned a bachelor’s degree in the Program of Liberal Studies and German in 2000.
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