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Please visit the Diocese of Arlington, Virginia. You may find it to be a breath of fresh air.

AB

Bishop Loverde's filling Bishop Keating's shoes admirably.

Labor Day's a long way off, but are you going to the Fairfax St. Mary's picnic? Best BBQ chicken in town (the secret ingredient is whiskey).

i agree totally with regard to Bishop Loverde! i went to a Confirmation last fall and heard him speak, he is fantastic. he has also headed prayer vigils at the abortion clinic next to St. James in Falls Church (where my kids attend school) regularly. However, our parish, OLGC, and the priests there, are the pits...

Re: The Diocese of Arlinton, VA and Bishop Loverde - troubling times: Piece by piece Bishop Loverde is dismantling the system that Bishop Keating put into place that generated the miracles of vocations in your diocese: #1. Sacking Fr. Gould, the renown vocations director under Bishop Keating, apparently because of controversy over seminarian candidates with homosexual orientations. #2. Sending some seminarians to his former seminary in Ogdensburg, NY, Wadhams Hall, which in August, 2001 invited Fr. Richard Sparks of Berkeley, CA for a weeklong series of lectures. Fr. Sparks postulated at the 2001 L.A. Religious Education Congress meeting in February that Christ may have contemplated marriage with Mary Magdalene (perhaps preceded by heavy "petting"), and that St. Joseph may have wanted to "jump her bones" (the Blessed Virgin Mary), and that she fondled him and he fondled her. The sordid history of dissent in the seminary, encompassing the episcopacy of Bishop Loverde's term and spanning 18 years of documentation was published in the fall by The Wanderer. One may wonder whether the seminarians who came to Arlington under the belief that they would receive orthodox training might feel a bit of the bait and switch. #3. Bishop Keating was one of the few bishops in the U.S. who resisted female altar servers, which Bishop Loverde appears to be on the verge of installing in his diocese. It has been estimated that 85% of more of priests were at one time altar servers. Some bishops who have experienced great blessings of vocations have sought to maintain only boys as altar servers under the belief that it may assist further in vocations. These unfortunate events presage an uncertain future for the Diocese of Arlington.