Posted on 06/23/2007 3:17:51 PM PDT by NYer
Unless you're thinking mid-1940s East Coast priestly ordination, your eyes aren't deceiving you with that shot above.
Then again, said conjure wouldn't have taken place on a football field: it's a scene from the aforementioned liturgy last weekend at which 60 permanent deacons were ordained for the Santa Barbara region of the archdiocese of Los Angeles, with Cardinal Roger Mahony as ordaining prelate.
Glad Tidings in the archdiocesan weekly:
The ordination of 60 men to the Permanent Diaconate at Santa Barbara City College's La Playa Stadium represented the largest single group of deacons ordained at one time in the history of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, and possibly in the country. Held a week following the ordination of seven deacons in Los Angeles, the celebration also represented the successful efforts led by pastors of the Santa Barbara Region (Ventura and Santa Barbara Counties) to draw forth more men to ordained ministry in their local parish communities.
"This is one of the most glorious days of my 40 years of priesthood," declared Santa Barbara Region Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Curry, who oversaw the formation process that began in 2002, and who delivered the homily at the ordination Mass. "Your presence is testimony to the good work of God that is present in all of you."
Referring to the day's second reading from the Acts of the Apostles (Peter's speech to the disciples), Bishop Curry reminded the deacons and the assembly of the Synod's first pastoral initiative, which "speaks to our call to evangelize, to testify to the power and goodness of the risen Lord. As deacons, believe that God has called you to continue the renewal of the Church by testifying to the faith and power of God manifested in you."
The celebration began with the 60 deacon candidates --- the 56 married men accompanied by their wives --- processing into La Playa Stadium to the sounds of "Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee," in front of more than 3,000 cheering family, friends and parishioners from around the region. Several wiped tears from their eyes as they made their way down the middle of the football field and to their places.
"This is an important and historic occasion," noted Cardinal Roger Mahony in his opening remarks. "We gather with great joy as you receive the sacred order of deacon. And we are so proud of you in this region, for the initiatives you have taken to bring forth the laity into this service."
The formation process took place at Our Lady of Sorrows Church in Santa Barbara, and was led by Jesuit Fathers Luis Quihuis and Thomas McCormick, pastor and associate. According to Father Quihuis, the process was launched at the behest of pastors in the region who saw a shortage in Spanish-speaking priests and deacons in their area, where the 38 parishes are between 40 and 200 miles from downtown Los Angeles....
Pastors were invited to identify and recommend deacon candidates, "all of whom were actively involved in their parishes," said Father Quihuis. The candidates were divided into groups of English- and Spanish-speaking, who met respectively on alternate Saturdays (9 a.m.-4 p.m.) or on alternate Saturdays (2-6 p.m.) and Thursdays (7-9:30 p.m.).
In addition to the ongoing service component, the first two years of the formation process were heavily Scripture-based, "to provide a solid foundation to build on," said Father Quihuis. Christology, systematic theology, church history and homiletics were also included in the process, with married candidates' wives --- also involved in service to the church --- encouraged to participate.
All of the 60, Bishop Curry told them in his homily, "are a light shining in the darkness, evidence of the grace of God, the vitality of God, the goodness of God in his people."
No comment.
LOL. It’s always good to know when to hold one’s tongue. Good to see you.
On the other hand, in our modest little diocese, we ordained three PRIESTS today.
That makes 4 priests and 56 helpers.
Way to go! Auguri to the newly ordained.
:-)
Good to be back in the forum. I missed all of you.
Last deacon I talked to, when I tried to bring up my concerns with liturgical abuses and heresy, said, “I don’t even want to talk to you.”
They are DU leftists first, second and third, and priest or deacon maybe fourth or fifth.
I’m struggling to meet a deadline and concentrated right through the 30 minutes that confession is offered this week. The odds of getting a priest to hear my confession outside that time are worse than zero. Another week without the sacriments, thank you very much Bishop Michael Driscoll, Protector of Sodomites.
There as no Corpus on the Cross!
**All of the 60, Bishop Curry told them in his homily, “are a light shining in the darkness, evidence of the grace of God, the vitality of God, the goodness of God in his people.”**
Can you imagine that, if all these deacons become orthodox priests..........what the injection of 60 new priests would do for that Archdiocese??????
We need to pray for them as well as Cardinal Mahony.
**They are DU leftists first, second and third, and priest or deacon maybe fourth or fifth.**
I have not found this to be true. Very orthodox deacons who were ordained this year. (three — but 25 priests for our Archdiocese preparing for the priesthood next year -— yay!)
Pray that they will be orthodox. (And read my tagline!)
“I have not found this to be true.”
I was talking about the ones I’ve encountered here, not your’n.
Back in the mid 80s we had three married deacons. Bad! One called adoration of the Blessed Sacrament “cookie worship”!!!
One told me I was too old fashioned, out-of-touch and said I should read the V2 documents. He loaned me a copy. Later I showed him where it said that Latin was to be maintained. He was not amused!
These deacons only lasted one year. It was almost 15 years later until we got another married deacon.
Congrats! We had 4 in the Diocese of Baltimore, which I think is down from recent and previous classes.
One was from my parish and we still have 2 more from my church at Mount St. Mary’s.
God bless your new priests.
For those not familiar with the Los Angeles Archdiocese, the ordaining prelate, Cardinal Mahoney, has been an activist in the "rights" of illegal immigrants -- almost from the day of his ordination.
These are married permanent deacons, so there’ll be no priests in that crowd! It’s all part of Mahony’s plan to eliminate priests in his Archdiocese.
My experience with these permanent deacons has been miserable. They’re not very bright, a lot of them are elderly and most of them were formed in the worst practices of Vatican II, to say nothing of the fact that they appear to have a fuzzy grasp of doctrine; and furthermore, in many cases, you get the impression that it is their wives who want to be the “deacons,” and the guys are just their way of achieving it.
One of the problems with the whole diaconate thing is that it is not very clear what they are supposed to do. If they actually performed a useful service, such as running parish charitable activities or even doing the bookkeeping and scheduling, I could see the point; but instead they seem to be up on the altar, fighting with Father to get to the pulpit and preach, and trying to nudge him over when they get to elevate the chalice.
They were intended as an end-run around clerical celibacy, getting people used to the idea of a married clergy, and also as a way of deemphasizing the sacramental priesthood. I think in some parishes and dioceses they have been very successful in doing that.
Thank you! I believe our bishop, Bp. Victor Galeone, is from Baltimore.
Our first bishop in St Augustine, Bp. Augustine Verot, came to us via Baltimore, where he had been involved in the Council of Baltimore. He was from France originally. In any case, St Augustine, Fl seems to have a pretty steady connection with Baltimore!
Their meteoric rise in numbers has paralleled the plummeting numbers of priests. All they do is read the Gospel, dispense Communion (with a horde of EEMs) and deliver an abyssmal homily once per month.
3 years, 8 months, and 2 more days...
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