A More Conservative Place
Sunday December 18 and Monday December 19, 2005
Today I went to Church in Oberlin. The street in front of the church is totally blocked as it has become the Church parking lot. This is a more modern building of about the same size as the Kinder Church. Other than the building itself, St. Joan of Arc, like Oberlin itself, seems to have changed less over the years than Kinder and still seems to have a strong traditional Cajun influence. I am told that many people in Allen Parish and in particular in Oberlin continue to speak French. The Pastor her is Michael J. Barras.
Again, the Deacon (one of the Parish’s two) gave the homily. He railed against the use of Happy Holidays and said that those who don’t celebrate this time of year out of devotion to the birth of Jesus should “get another day.”
Interesting that on Monday the 19, USA today had an op-ed piece by a man who used to work for Richard Cardinal Cushing, the Archbishop of Boston when I was young. He place the debate over happy holidays in the context of a historic event of which I was not aware.
Catholic interpretation of the bible used to be that if you were not Christian then you could not go to heaven. Well, the Cardinal had a brother in-law who was a devote Jew. He visited his sister’s home regularly and new how good a man his brother in law was and could not believe it in his heart that God would keep this man out of heaven. At that time there was a conservative Catholic Priest who held the traditional view and insisted on evangelizing on the Boston Common. Having a more inclusive view that was tolerant of other paths, when he would not relent the Cardinal excommunicated him for preaching doctrine inconsistent with the Cardinal’s interpretation of Jesus’ intentions. With great confidence the priest appealed his excommunication to Rome, where to his surprise, it was upheld by the Pope – thus changing official Church doctrine.
The writer believed that the Cardinal would have approved of the inclusiveness of Happy Holidays. After all you are wishing people Happy Holy Days. Somehow, I think many in this area would disagree. My hunch is that many believe that you cannot go to heaven unless you are a Catholic or at least a Christian. Many things changed in the Church in the 1960s. But in many places those changes never happened.
Today I went to Church in Oberlin. The street in front of the church is totally blocked as it has become the Church parking lot. This is a more modern building of about the same size as the Kinder Church. Other than the building itself, St. Joan of Arc, like Oberlin itself, seems to have changed less over the years than Kinder and still seems to have a strong traditional Cajun influence. I am told that many people in Allen Parish and in particular in Oberlin continue to speak French. The Pastor her is Michael J. Barras.
Again, the Deacon (one of the Parish’s two) gave the homily. He railed against the use of Happy Holidays and said that those who don’t celebrate this time of year out of devotion to the birth of Jesus should “get another day.”
Interesting that on Monday the 19, USA today had an op-ed piece by a man who used to work for Richard Cardinal Cushing, the Archbishop of Boston when I was young. He place the debate over happy holidays in the context of a historic event of which I was not aware.
Catholic interpretation of the bible used to be that if you were not Christian then you could not go to heaven. Well, the Cardinal had a brother in-law who was a devote Jew. He visited his sister’s home regularly and new how good a man his brother in law was and could not believe it in his heart that God would keep this man out of heaven. At that time there was a conservative Catholic Priest who held the traditional view and insisted on evangelizing on the Boston Common. Having a more inclusive view that was tolerant of other paths, when he would not relent the Cardinal excommunicated him for preaching doctrine inconsistent with the Cardinal’s interpretation of Jesus’ intentions. With great confidence the priest appealed his excommunication to Rome, where to his surprise, it was upheld by the Pope – thus changing official Church doctrine.
The writer believed that the Cardinal would have approved of the inclusiveness of Happy Holidays. After all you are wishing people Happy Holy Days. Somehow, I think many in this area would disagree. My hunch is that many believe that you cannot go to heaven unless you are a Catholic or at least a Christian. Many things changed in the Church in the 1960s. But in many places those changes never happened.
posted by J Corlss at 12:09 AM
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