An outraged bump & ping
An increasingly rare talent is used as a tool to take
the liturgy home to the childrens hearts.
http://www.dioshpt.org/connection/frdoug.htm
A Real Treasure
Father Doug Sweet
Father Douglas Sweet brought Charlie to mass at St. Josephs School, Shreveport this past month. Charlie isnt what you would expect, he is a wooden puppet and is the instrument that Fr. Doug uses to teach the simple, yet complicated, lessons of life, love and faith. He and Charlie, who is named after our very own Father Charles Glorioso, always has a message for the young children. The idea to use ventriloquism in his childrens liturgies came to Father Sweet during his time as a seminarian when he had first met Father Charles. They attended seminary together and are good friends. For part of his degree work, he had to give a series of liturgies to children. It was a challenge for him to come up with a way to present these liturgies in a fresh and new way in which the children would understand and listen to what he had to say. He started out with hand puppets as a way to boost the childrens interests and it has evolved into a wonderful talent.
I had the pleasure of sitting in on one of Fr. Dougs liturgies with Charlie this past month. He and Charlie discussed the Feast Day of St. Teresa of Avila and the Popes 25th Anniversary mentioning how both are people of great prayer and we should remember to pray often ourselves. I thoroughly enjoyed watching the reaction of all the small children in church that day. As Gloria Patterson, religion teacher for grades 1-3 said, There was so much laughter at church by the young and young at heart. The children that I teach say he is awesome, hilarious and so cute. They hope to see the puppet again at Mass. Susie Brewer who teaches religion in grade 4-5 also added,
We all love Fr. Doug, he is so full of joy. His puppet Masses are a true delight for everyone. The children get so excited they can hardly stay seated in the pews. The first time Fr. Doug did a Mass with his grandfather puppet was at our grandparent liturgy. You could feel the joy in our church that day. He makes God's love come alive for our children. They remember the message from Fr. Dougs Homily and they get very excited to tell you about the message. The day he did the Grandparent liturgy one boy turned to me and asked Why is Fr. Doug putting Grandpa in that box. Fr. Doug was so good with grandpa puppet that he seemed alive to many of our children. Fr. Doug loves these kids and they can feel it too.
Fr. Doug only uses his puppet shows for special occasions at St. Joseph School as he is very busy with all of his regular ministries at St. Joseph Church. It is wonderful to see such a an interesting way to reach our children with the message of our Lord.
Sherry Swaney Heflin
Editor
Liturgy Commission Plagued by Pederasty Problems
The Rev. Michael J. Spillane, 59, executive director of the Federation of Diocesan Liturgical Commissions (FDLC) for sixteen years, had already announced his resignation effective at the end of this year when it was revealed that he had been defrocked in 1991 by the Archdiocese of Baltimore for molesting six youths while working in parishes of the Baltimore Archdiocese from 1969 to 1986. The announcement of Spillane's resignation had appeared in the current FDLC Newsletter (Dec. 2001-March 2002), along with notice that he would receive the organization's 2002 Frederick McManus Award for his "services to pastoral liturgy".Burton also told the Post that he has since learned that when FDLC officials were informed by the Baltimore Archdiocese of Spillane's abuses, they had decided to keep Spillane in his job "because it was purely administrative and involved no contact with children".
He said that Spillane had brought the FDLC out of debt and made major contributions to reform of the Liturgy - including overseeing a project to rewrite the official prayers for a now widely used Children's Mass.
Father Burton, though he noted Spillane's involvement with the Children's Mass, did not mention the latter's association with the National Federation of Catholic Youth Ministers [NFCYM], or his consultation with the homosexual activist organization, New Ways Ministry on the controversial 1997 statement of the USCCB Committee on Family, 'Always Our Children'.
In his comments about Spillane, Father Burton did not allude to last year's pederasty scandal involving his own immediate predecessor as FDLC board chairman, Father Kenneth Martin.
Father Martin, 56, was forced to resign from his BCL post six months later, following his June 2001 arrest for molesting a male student at a high school in Maryland where Martin, a former Xavierian Brother, had taught before he was ordained to the priesthood in 1989.
That puppet mass - or so called mass - just creepy. Little wonder some young adults leave - were they ever really there? I think from my education by the nuns (and no, it wasn't a bad thing - as many of the 'Catholics' I went to school with seem to think), how much they taught us about the faith, the little things about saints and trying to model after them and just by their own example. And now, so much stripped away. And even people who recognize it's missing, at least in our area, our complacent or even antagonistic to what was once a great tradition. I could go on...