We finally switched parishes
We finally did it. After 9 years of growing angst and frustration, we officially switched parishes.Actually, it's more like we left over a year ago, but we just now made it official by registering at the parish we've been attending, and notifying the old one of our departure. I was on my old parish's web site committee, and so it made things a little awkward when I told them I was stepping down. Thankfully, they didn't press for details at the last committee meeting I attended (this past Monday). While I won't miss the parish in the slightest, I will miss a few folks on that committee.
Ah, well. At least now it's done and over with, and we can move on.
It was just too difficult and exhausting to stay at Old Parish, as it was a hotbed of dissent and heterodoxy. The first major sign of trouble was when folks proposed building a labyrinth. (We wrote a letter of protest, and apparently enough other people complained that the idea was nixed.) Then we began picking up on lots of other craptastical junk. Like: liturgical abuses abounding with regular frequency; the pastor spouting approval for books by notorious dissenters during homilies; dissenting publications in the parish library (National Catholic Reporter, St. Anthony Messenger, you get the idea); and the bulletin frequently publishing heterodox claptrap about the liturgy, advertising -- and defending -- meetings for Call To Action on parish property, promoting seminars with dissenters and New Age gurus/topics ...
How'd we find New Parish? When discussing the insanity of Old Parish with one of my Franciscan sisters, she highly recommended us visiting what is now our new parish. New Parish has a 24-hour Eucharistic Adoration chapel, does NOT have any liturgical abuse (thank you, Lord!), and treats the Consecration with reverence (!) -- the first Mass we attended there, we both thought we were gonna faint when they actually rang the bells at the Consecration!
The pastor regularly speaks of the dangers of mortal sin (!), NOT with hellfire-and-brimstone ranting, but in a realistic, "Hey, don't do that" kind of way. His homilies INSTRUCT us on the faith and the Church. He actually calls out what kind of stuff is immoral and sinful. He includes praying for an end to abortion in the intentions EVERY Mass. He doesn't pull punches or gloss over the truth to make everyone feel happy and spout I'm-OK-you're-OK-let's-all-hold-hands-now-and-sing, in his weekly bulletin articles.
And New Parish has lots of immigrants from Poland, the Philippines, Vietnam, and Mexico. We have Polish and Spanish Masses, which is splendid.
We've also noted that, while Old Parish was pretty damned wealthy, New Parish is exceedingly poor. It's very much reinforcing our past experiences of rich parishes breeding stupidity and heterodoxy, and poor ones being faithful and solid. Interesting. So, while Husband Mike and I are happy to tithe at New Parish, we find ourselves hoping that it doesn't get too well-off.
And, I swear it wasn't intentional, but the name of our new parish is "St. Joseph the Worker".
Labels: dissent, heterodoxy, liturgy
posted by Lisa, sfo | Permalink | 7 comments
|links to this post
