Dear Friends,

Here is what a friend wrote to the LA Dodgers:

“Dear Dodger Organization: One of the great gifts of growing up in Southern California was the LA Dodgers. As a 67yr old man my life memories are filled with Dodger blue. Going to Chavez Ravine for a game and having a Dodger Dog were the highlights of my summer. Listening to Vin Scully was better than watching a game on TV as he could paint pictures with his words. I can hear him now: “2 on, 2 out, the count is 2 balls and 2 strikes. The deuces are wild!”

Dear Friends,

Whenever elections come around so do calls for revocation of the tax-exempt status of Churches. In fact some put it this way, “it’s time for the government to stop subsidizing the Churches”. Well tax exemption and subsidies are not the same thing by a long shot. And here is why.

For the founders of the US not taxing the property of the Church (remember income tax didn’t come along until the 20th century) was something that they brought with them from England. In many European countries there were official Churches, such as the Church of England, which gave the Church a quasi-governmental status. So why would the government tax itself? But beyond that as the Church and State became more and more disentangled the state saw the social impact of the Church as benefiting the common good. So things like education, hospitals, feeding the poor etc. that the Church did took the burden off the state. For governments to tax the Church would mean less of those services. So for government this was a win-win situation.

Dear Friends,

This time of year is when clerical assignments are given out. The main driver behind the new assignments is the addition of the newly ordained to the starting line-up. For us, here in the Diocese of Phoenix, two new priests were ordained. Though we are grateful for them, the addition of two doesn’t make up for the number of retirements and deaths and especially in our case, the amount of growth in our area. So, pray for vocations and encourage vocations to the priesthood.

Dear Friends,

Tommy Lasorda was Manager of the LA Dodgers for over twenty years. He was also a Catholic and made sure that a priest would come to offer Mass at Dodger Stadium for team members and staff on Sundays when his team played. So, I wonder what he would have thought about the Dodgers Organization “honoring” the so called ‘Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence’? Probably not much.

The ’Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence’ describe themselves as “queer and trans” who dress up as nuns, in a mocking fashion and indulge in lots of sacrilegious, profane, and disgusting displays. Some of those include mocking the Blessed Virgin, disrupting Mass, using a large crucifix to do a stripper’s pole dance, and a whole lot worse that I won’t scandalize you with. Basically, they are an anti-Catholic hate group engaging in belittling religious sisters, blasphemously using Catholic symbols, and trampling upon some of our most sacred beliefs.

Dear Friends,

The “road less traveled” is not the smoothest road. Anyone who takes being a Christian seriously will eventually find him or herself on that road. I don’t just mean because of the challenges that come from without, whether persecutions, hostility or suffering personal loss because of your beliefs. Often the most difficult part resides within our own spiritual journeys. God has a way of being very exacting of his children. And for good reason: He wants us to live the abundant life. It’s just that sometimes it seems as though He makes the grade in the road especially steep!

Dear Friends,

“Half-time goes by, suddenly your wise, another blink of the eye, 67 is gone, the sun is getting high, we’re moving on.” 100 Years sung by Five for Fighting Lord Jesus, Eternal High Priest, Thirty-five years have passed since that day when my name was called at the Cathedral and I responded: Here I am. Well Lord, here I am, still, despite myself---

Dear Friends,

The “devil is in the details”. In this case I am referring two recent films that feature Satan as best supporting actor. I always find it amusing how Hollywood is firmly atheistic but believes in the Devil. A devil without a God seems like a losing proposition. Still, Satan’s greatest success, via the Enlightenment, was to get society to accept that he doesn’t exist, except as a metaphor.

In his Preface to The Screwtape Letters, C. S. Lewis wrote: “There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall into about devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe and feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves (the devils) are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight.”

Aloha Friends,

They are too few and far between, saints from our corner of the globe, our portion of the Body of Christ. But when they do happen, they are impactful. This week we can rejoice as we celebrate the feast day of another good guy who worked among us and has washed his robes white in the blood of the Lamb and made it to the rolls of the sanctified. Wednesday, we celebrate the feast day of Joseph De Veuster, known as Fr. Damien, who was canonized by Pope Benedict XVI and now known as Saint Damien of Molokai. The road to canonization for Damien was a little long and at times quite bumpy. But he is a man for our times as he was a strong advocate for the proper care of the sick and treatment of the most vulnerable among us. We need his intercession as we try to rise to the challenge of providing adequate and just health care in our country and face potential epidemics that might again require forms of quarantine.

Dear Friends,

What motivates an 84-year-old to shoot a young man knocking on his door? That’s the issue in a recent shooting in Kansas City, where a young black man knocked on the wrong door, as he was picking up his brother, and the homeowner, an 84-year-old white man, shot him twice. Miraculously, the young man has survived, and the shooter is being charged with a crime. The police indicate that racism may be a factor.

Dear Friends,

I’m not shouting “fire” in a theater but I do smell smoke. The culture seems to be burning itself down quicker than we can put out the flames. True enough, political wranglings give me much fodder to inveigh against. And I do seem to have this compulsion to point out foolishness that needs to be pointed out. But my overarching concern is not to opine the state of affairs but to give Christians some tools to provide the culture with Life support. But at this point in our journey it may be helpful to define what we believe our Catholic culture should look like. This is especially for the benefit of the newly baptized and confirmed. After all they are starting out their Catholic life and may need a few pointers from us so they can grasp what it means to be part of the Catholic world.

Dear Friends,

Alexis de Tocqueville in his much-quoted “Democracy in America” wrote: “Our descendants will tend more and more to be divided into only two parts, those leaving Christianity entirely and others entering into the bosom of the Roman Church.” Was he correct and if so, what evidence do we have?

Dear Friends, “The chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowds to ask for Barabbas but to destroy Jesus” Matthew 27:20 Pilate offers the crowd a choice.

The Gospel writers keep the Hebrew name Barabbas instead of the Greek translation: Barabbas meaning in Hebrew “son of God”.

So the choice Pilate offers: which son of God do you want? The revolutionary, the zealot or this one the Nazarene whom you call king of the Jews…We want Barabbas.