Posted on 06/27/2005 1:42:52 PM PDT by Coleus
| Parents miss Mass, kids get ax |
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The Rev. Michael Cichon, pastor of St. Joseph/St. Thomas in Pleasant Plains, used each family's bar-coded donation envelope to track attendance. He's tossed about 300 kids from classes and told them not to reapply until next April. Without the classes, children cannot receive the sacraments, meaning some youngsters who thought they'd be making their First Communion next year will have to wait. The suspensions, legal under church doctrine, were a shock to many parents with kids enrolled in the 1,400-child program, which caters to kids who don't attend Catholic schools. "It's hurtful," said Joseph LoPizzo, 38, whose 6-year-old son was booted. "I've been a parishioner at that church for 23 years - longer than he's been the reverend." LoPizzo said he paid the $150 for his son's Thursday afternoon classes last year, but his father-in-law's illness hampered the family's church attendance. "I've just never heard of a church kicking you out," complained Lisa Nicol, 36, who got a letter saying her 7-year-old twin daughters had been barred from classes. "They should be more welcoming and sensitive." The pastor said he suspended kids from the 2005-2006 after-school program because Mass is an "essential" component of the Catholic faith. The affected families were attending church less than once a month, he said. Cichon insisted that the move has nothing to do with the lack of a donation. "There are many families who put absolutely nothing inside the envelopes they submit," he said. |
Might help end the Sunday School / Mass as free daycare mentality.
But, that's what abortion is...
a lot of Protestant churches operate up to five days a week, so not sure what your point is...
Meaning, do not keep them from coming to me...as this priest has done...
To appease their own guilt. This way they can feel like they are spreading Catholicism by forcing their kids through the system.
I notice a few of those kids every Sunday as I go to 10:00 Mass. They wait for their parents outside the Church for their parents to come pick them up. I would say 2/3rd of the kids attend Mass with their parents right after CCD class.
some people choose to send their children to Catholic schools even if they are not Catholic, due to a better curriculum, smaller classes, more like a private school setting, but in this case, the children are getting booted if the parents aren't coming to Mass.
How has this priest, in very gravely reminding the parents of the importance of coming to Jesus in the Sunday Mass, kept the children away from Jesus?
It's like Orwell around here. The priest wants the kids going to Mass and wants them prepared for First Communion. He's very serious about it.
SD
After-school Catholic religious education classes are the issue, not attendance at a Catholic school.
Maybe it was a "last resort," but I don't see anything in here about him going to the homes of any of these families. The impression I got was that this parish is just too damn big, there are 1400 kids in the religious education (and would someone please tell me what was wrong with the word CATECHISM) classes and I'm not sure if that's just the kids for First Communion. But this just starts sounding like way to big a congregation, at least it would be for me.
Taking them out of class means they learn less about Jesus, does it not?
Excummunicate the parents, not the kids...
No you miss the point...Jesus had a special place in his heart for children...he didn't say to the kids"You can come to me except those whose parent haven't been going to the yearly passover in Jerusalem regularly!" He said "Let them come to me and forbid them not!"
No exceptions!
If you, or they, has "isues" then why on earth would they be sending their children to be taught the faith from the parish they disagreed with!!?
If they attended Mass at another parish, consistently, I would presume they would have their children take CCD classes from the same parish.
Welcoming and sensitive? It's not a club. It's one thing when parents have to work weekends and can't attend Mass, but another when Sunday is sleep in day. I've just finished my 8th year as a rel ed teacher. I teach 2nd grade. Which means we prepare kids for their First Confession. When I started, about 1/2 of the kids families attended Mass regularly or at least a few times a month. Now, most don't attend with any regularity except for maybe Christmas and Easter. And funerals. And for some of the most surprising reasons. The kids are young and may not have attended regularly up to that point anyway, but their parents? It is a real dilemma, teaching about Mass and it's importance and following the 10 Commandments and finding most parents aren't going to Church. As an aside, it's not surprise that many of the kids are unfamiliar with most things Catholic and many of the Bible stories and prayers we heard as kids. And the sacrament of Reconciliation is a whole other matter, most parents apparently aren't even going once a year by their own account. It does create a huge discrepancy and there is debate on how to handle it. I don't know what the short answer is, but I can certainly see where the Pastor is coming from.
Then the parents don't ever live the Christian life so all that teaching becomes in essences for naught. I think that more strictness like this should go on. Entirely to much laziness in our country, IMHO
Jesus is present in the Eucharist which the parents are denying them by not bringing them to Mass.
Education in the faith is wonderful but Mass is what it is all about.
Priorities. Seems to be a problem with Catolics.
Sometimes the church is all some children have...it was all the comfort I had as my parents were totally failed in that department!
Catholics have communion several times each day and usually once or twice on Saturday evening and three to five times on Sunday.
It's rare to miss seven opportunities on a weekend.
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