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I know Rochelle well and Fr. Peck. I was married in that "gorgeous" church building, which will be gone sooner rather than later...

As for the school in Rockford you mention. I have a couple of questions. Why has there been such a HIGH TURNOVER rate among the faculty and teachers? If it is such high quality, why does it only have 40 or so students, and has climbed beyond that for several years?

If it is so wonderful, why do the board members continuously change the rules over and over and over again to suit their own personal preferences, and treat the teachers and administration like their hired servant boys and girls?

And how come the vast majority of the homeschoolers who participate in the homeschool co-op (I hear this is very well organized and run) which numbers maybe 150, not want to have anything to do with the school?

Just a couple of questions on that. I know Fr. Bovey. I also know that Musicam Sacram asked for the laity to learn how to sing their parts of the Mass and that low Mass is an exception, not the norm. Why in the world would ANYONE attend low Mass when they have the option to attend High Mass? Seems like you're missing parts of Sacrosanctum Concilium, Mediator Dei and Pius II's Musicam Sacram. What gives?

You want to keep engaging in politics and sociology and history. I'm not qualified. I'm actually not too interested either, to tell you the truth...

Politics is the province of the laity, however, as you very well know, this weekend, we celebrate the Feast of Christ the King. Christ should rule sovereign over not only individuals, families, states and nations as well--in actuality. He actually does, whether we recognize it or not, but our government, whatever form it takes, should reflect that. That is the true meaning of the Kingship of Christ. Other than that, I know what "conservative" policies and laws correspond more or less with Catholic doctrine and discipline, and which ones don't. So much for "conservatives," so-called. I'm really not interested in the little tiff you must have with "Euroweenies" as you call them. Is the current Pope one of them?

Besides, Europe will become Muslim in my lifetime, so they are history anyway.

As Black Elk is North of Rockford, and I am south of Rockford, but north of Rochelle (in Ogle County, I figured out of Winnebago was the only longterm solution), I hope I can be the "in-between" in this discussion.

Regarding the school:

Why has there been such a HIGH TURNOVER rate among the faculty and teachers? If it is such high quality, why does it only have 40 or so students [ . . . ]?

I attended a secular, rather expensive second-tier prep school in Connecticut growing up. My home town of Wallingford is also where first-tier Choate/Rosemary Hall is located, and where I first started playing with computers. (That school is considered first tier, is even more expensive, and Kennedys went there). I also had contact with other first through third-tier prep schools in Connecticut through friendhips and athletics. All lay-run schools have high turnover among faculty and administration. There are several reasons for this. The pay is generally very low. One teacher at the Choate School transferred to the inner-city Meriden public school system for the pay and bennies. The hours and commitment during the school year are extreme. (in boarding schools you never get to get away from work, playing dorm master in many cases. Even in the Day schools and mixed schools, you pretty much have to take on after-school sports and/or extra-curriculars. These teachers are generally young. The teachers in the lower grades are more likely to be women. One teacher who left the Rockford school in question went to join the traditional Benedictine nuns who are now in Kansas City (and whose name has changed, so I cannot give you the proper name). This is certainly an upgrade but does not reflect badly on the school or the quality of teachers attracted. With such a small staff, even a few teachers moving makes for a high turnover rate.

Regarding the small student body, that is likely as much a function of the location as anything. I understand that a non-inner-city location will be built and put into operation next year, this should help. Christendom College, in ten years, with the whole country to draw from, only had 120 students in 1985.

If it is so wonderful, why do the board members continuously change the rules over and over and over again to suit their own personal preferences, and treat the teachers and administration like their hired servant boys and girls?

I am not close enough to the school to know exactly what you are talking about, but all private institutions changes the rules over and over again to meet new needs. That's one thing that sets them apart from the NEA. Also, the school is not even ten years old! When I transferred to Christendom in 1985, the school was ten years old, and I was the first to try to transfer AP credit over (I succeeded, Deo Gratias!) I won't dismiss out of hand what you are saying about the treatment of teachers and administration, but it sounds like mere empty gossip to me, without specific examples.

And how come the vast majority of the homeschoolers who participate in the homeschool co-op (I hear this is very well organized and run) which numbers maybe 150, not want to have anything to do with the school?
Because they are homeschooling! My oldest daughter (5) is being homeschooled now, and we have no plans to enroll our children in any program outside the home. That does not mean the school is not a big plus for others. There is no reason that the Rockford area cannot have excellent home-schooling, homeschool coops, hybrid programs, and a full-blown school. To some degree, a full-blown school and home-schooling are mutually exclusive for parents choosing for their children.

Why in the world would ANYONE attend low Mass when they have the option to attend High Mass? Seems like you're missing parts of Sacrosanctum Concilium, Mediator Dei and Pius II's Musicam Sacram. What gives?

Elk is only 25% Irish, but this side has been naturally dominant and well-cultivated over the decades. They like things quiet and meditative. Elk also likes air conditioning.I am also only 25% Irish, but I also have a natural preference for Low Mass. I suspect God prefers High Mass, as does my wife, and the Oratory offers a full sacramental life (Confirmation, Confession, Baptism, etc. all in the old rite) so we attend the Oratory exclusively.

Another aspect of Elk's self-nursed Irish temperament is to meet kind-with-kind. So, when someone like John Rao makes statements along the lines of "Pope John Paul II is the worst Pope of all time" he figures the gloves are dropped. He genuinely believes that the rhetoric and behavior of SSPXers will undermine the long-term authority of the Church and will lead people to Hell. While I agree concerning the objectively schismatic nature of the conseration I prefer to take a milder approach, as it has been my experience that it is sometimes fruitful at the individual level. His motivations are honest, and are based in a genuine love of the Faith and fear of separation.

I understand the Vatican to be a sovereign nation as well as the HQ of our Faith. Admire John Paul the Great though I did, I can understand distinctions between the foreign policy imperatives of the Vatican and those of the United States. The Vatican needs Islamic cooperation in pro-life initiatives and Third World (often anti-American) cooperation as well. The United States, even under a pro-life president, has many more issues for which it has primary responsibility.

Bear in mind the background of Mehmet Ali Agca, attempted assassin of JP the Great. He grew up in a hut in interior Turkey with a picture of John XXIII on the hut wall. This was to remind him that he would want to assassinate a pope some day, not to prove loyalty to Marcel, but to prove loyalty to Islamaofascism. Fortunately, he failed. More fortunately for Agca, I remember reports that he told JP during a jail visit that Christ had appeared to him without words to show him the empty tomb, thereby convincing Agca that Christ was divine, not a prophet at all much less secondary to Mohammed, thereby refuting the two main tenets of Islam.

These matters of Faith are the province of the clerics. When it is necessary for Dubya to hammer Baghdad or Kabul or Teheran or Pyongyang is conceded by the Catechism to be beyond the knowledge if Church leaders who can establish norms for just war but will not know that the standards are met. That is a burden necessarily born by national governmental leaders.

St. Patrick's in Rochelle was the scene on September 16, 2001 of a sermon by Bishop Doran to the effect that those who think it doesn't much matter what religion one holds so long as one believes in God, ought to review the 9/11 tapes as often as necessary to get the point that it does matter.

You are obviously acquanted with some of our locals. That they are local does not guarantee that their heads are screwed on straight. The faculty (and administrative) turnover at the school has a wide variety of reasons, good and bad. Some were legendarily bad hires in the first place although the decisionmakers had little reason to think so when the hires occurred. In my less informed opinion (than that of the board), some folks should have been retained but were not (but the board knows all of the reasons for the board's decisions as I do not). Some of the departed might better have been burned at the stake but few lasted long enough to cause concern and I am forever falling back on the auto da fe as a default position. NONE, to the best of my knowledge turned over for reasons related to the kids' physical or emotional well-being. Courtesy of Adam and Eve, we are fallen creatures. Marketing has been far less effective than it should be. The numbers of students DO steadily climb and the numbers of faculty along with them. I believe that the numbers are in the 50s at this point but concede that it ought to be higher. Also, some parents object to the rigorous education because their kids complain of the homework compared to their experiences at schools that maintain low standards or compared to nice, sweet mommy who can be emotionally beaten to a pulp in the name of the fallen desire for a life of preteen and early teen leisure. My youngest is sometimes inclined to think that watching insipid Disney sitcoms is a constitutional right. Of course, that is why God gave to her my wife and me as parents. We discourage Disney in favor of cultural, educational and athletic pursuits, good friendships with appropriate friends, etc. I dismay some of the RAICHE (homeschooling parents) by not carrying a bullwhip fulltime to adjust my kids' each and every attitude. I favor the notion that they will soon enough be responsible for their own moral decisions, that morality is what we do when no one is watching but God, take as a reward their every moral behavior, and trust that, when they are loosed upon the world the world will have more to worry about than we will because we did not raise our children as potted plants. Someone has to be raised to rule the gummint skewel kids and we raise our kids with that in mind.

There are also some parents in these circles who believe that actual education of young ladies is a near occasion of sin. We, ummmm, disagree.

The priest you mention is Fr. Brian Bovee who is the pastor of the Oratory. He does early morning Low Tridentine Mass at 7 AM on Sunday and High Mass at 9 AM and then goes to say a third Mass at Aurora.

Some of us who grew up with crisply said (1/2 hour Low Masses) have little desire to devote 90 minutes to the sung High Mass with all the bells and whistles times three. So long as the Church offers shorter Masses of obligation, I do notb imagine that attending them is sinful. I personally find the long form to be like an entire football game in slooooooow motion. I have never pretended here or elsewhere to prefer the Mass that lasts for ages over the Mass of the Ages that I recall from serving it in my youth when it was still the norm. If people want the long form, you can trust Fr. Bovee to provide it at the 9 AM on Sunday. No objection here particularly as I can attend the far crisper version of Fr. Geary at St. Patrick's. I also routinely pray the rosary at Mass as did my ancestors. You don't have to do likewise. I don't have to use a Missal when the choreography alone tells me where we are in the Mass. I don't claim that length and Baroqueness are equivalent to piety. Call me old-fashioned Irish. Just the kind of boy I am.

As to the documents you mentioned, they may represent an ideal but I find MUCH more important the excommunications and declaration of the adherents of the SSPX schism than I do counsels of perfection. I have an extremely long way to go before I'll have to worry about perfection. The choir at the Oratory has a long way to go before it has to worry about being accused of meeting any counsels of perfection either.

To paraphrase a decidedly non-Catholic fellow, Lev Trotsky, who, like the legendary stopped clock, just happens to be right for a change, you may not be interested in politics, sociology and history but, like war, they will be interested in you and in your family. Besides, politics, sociology and history are within my province as a laymen. Bossing the pope around ala Fellay is not nor is it in Fellay's province for that matter.

I decline to answer your questions as to the school for quite moral reasons which relate to personal loyalty and to avoidance of detraction whether or not your perceptions, presumably second hand, may be correct. Living in South Carolina, you have no need to know. If you were actually here and considering the school, you would be much more entitled to SOME but not all info. Some of the turnover has necessarily to do with unacceptable behavior by students and is their business, that of the school and no one else's.

You make various assumptions on one side of local controversies. SOME but not all of RAICHE (homeschool support group) members are not inclined as you say and tend to put their kids in the school when they deem it necessary and bring the kids back to homeschooling . Some are reluctant to be involved with the school but they tend to be the most controlling parents(which is their right before God).

I am not a board member and my agreement with the board is not automatic but the board members are parents who created this school and have spent years bleeding cash for it. They have more knowledge as to their decisions than I can have but I will not engage in calumny against them and I will give them, in most circumstances, a very firm benefit of the doubt as the good people that they are. They are not popes and not infallible nor does any sensible person expect them to be.

Europe will be Muslim in your lifetime and even in mine because the actual Catholics refused to meddle in mere worldly politics (though it IS the province of the laity), because, somehow marshmallowism is equated in some minds with piety, because the Euroweenies decided that two wars in one century was enough and that they are not their brothers' keepers, and besides, they could feel sooooo much better while processing to Chartres or wherever instead of having backbones in civil affairs. Edmund Burke was not Catholic but, unlike today's Eurotrash, he got the meaning of the French Revolution. If the "Goddess of Reason" again dances her nude obscenities on the altars of Notre Dame, it will be because the Catholics of France, for one example, no longer cared enough to suffer inconvenience much less injury or death in defense of their civilization. We Americans are just a few decades at most behind the Euroweenies. Meanwhile, except to save England (which has been our good ally under Thatcher and Blair), Ireland, Scotland, Andorra, Poland, Bulgaria or the Vatican, we should save our capital of men at arms and cash to defend countries that care enough to defend themselves. When the time comes, with those exceptions, I would slam the door on Euro immigration as I never would on Mexico.