Reflections of the Spirit

Letter to Bishop Peña

2010-06-19T16:13:00.008-05:00

OPEN LETTER TO BISHOP PEÑA

June 18, 2010

Dear Bishop Peña,

Do you remember what day today is?

It just so happens that today is the 7th Anniversary of your hostile take-over of Holy Spirit parish in McAllen. A lot of very sad things happened because of that take-over, the worst of which should always remain heavily on your conscience.

As you may remember, your actions caused a great number of our parish families to leave Holy Spirit parish for other Catholic parishes, thereby destroying one of the most vibrant Catholic parishes in the Valley (your words).

Many of our parish families left the Catholic Church entirely and have became active members of other local Protestant religious entities. Many have quit attending church altogether, due to the hurt and disgust that they experienced from your actions, depriving them of the salvation of Christ's Eucharist.

We just wanted to remind you that your actions while acting as the spiritual leader of our church have not been forgotten. They never will.

May God have mercy on you.

Holy Spirit Parishioners (in Exile).

Stations of the Cross

2010-03-24T08:40:00.019-05:00

DOWNTOWN WAY OF THE CROSS

The Holy Spirit Peace and Justice Community will again sponsor their annual Stations of the Cross through downtown McAllen - Good Friday - April 2, 2010, from noon until about 2:30, beginning and ending at Archer Park, in McAllen, Texas.

This prayer emphasizes how the sufferings of Jesus Christ continues today in the lives of the poor and oppressed, in sickness, unemployment, AIDS, addictions, violence, and war.

Participants will take turns carrying a large cross as the group winds its way through downtown McAllen, stopping at fourteen different places relating to the fourteen stations of the cross, depicting the sufferings of Jesus Christ from his trial to his burial. This year, there will be added emphasis on immigration and justice for immigrants.

The first station in Catholic tradition is “Jesus is condemned to death.” The first station, therefor, will take place at the Federal Court Building where participants will pray about the death penalty.

The third station remembers Jesus falling. Here, participants will stop in front of a local bar establishment in downtown McAllen to pray for those who have fallen under the cross of addictions.

One of the stations will be at the "food pantry" at Sacred Heart Catholic parish, also located in downtown McAllen. Participants are asked to bring canned goods, rice and beans to donate to the needy of the parish at the food pantry.

This is an excellent way for the whole family to pray together on this holy day. This very rewarding event is usually blessed by our wonderful McAllen spring weather. You are reminded to wear comfortable shoes and to bring your own water.

Please join us in praise and love of our Savior...

FIFTH ANNUAL PEACE & JUSTICE GATHERING

2010-01-27T12:30:00.010-06:00

FIFTH ANNUAL PEACE & JUSTICE GATHERING

SATURDAY, JANUARY 30, 2010

10:00 AM TO 2:00 PM

South Texas College, Weslaco,

Student Services F-Building

Keynote Speaker: Sarwat Husain

President, San Antonio Council of American-Islamic Relations"

The War, Islamophobia, and the Aftermathof the Fort Hood Shootings"

Dear Peace and Justice Friends,

The Fifth Annual Peace and Justice Gathering is shaping up pretty well. There is some real interest in hearing Sarwat Husain’s speech, “The War, Islamophobia, and the Aftermath of the Fort Hood Shootings.” Although I am finding that students I speak to do not spontaneously understand the importance of the topic, with a bit of explanation, they do get it. I am really glad she is the keynote. We had a little scare last week that she was going to cancel, but she got the schedule worked out well.

More news: Jay Johnson Castro from the Border Ambassadors will be here. Scott Nicol is coming and will have a table set up…he has just joined an important committee on the Sierra Club and has some very interesting things on the Border Wall he told me about. David Anshen of Pan Am is coordinating a two-person panel on U.S. Imperialism -- I’m hoping there will be questions on Honduras and Haiti as well as Iraq and Afghanistan -- for one of the breakout sessions. Georgiana Duarte of UT Brownsville Education Department, besides coordinating the Children’s Play Day for Promoting Peace, will be doing a breakout session on the National Convention on the Rights of the Child.

And another bit of news, Sylvia Garza of the local Texas Coalition Against the Death penalty has a speaker coming down from Houston. Gloria Rubac from a sister organization, Abolition Movement, will be giving a workshop session in Spanish and another one in English. (Jay will also be giving one in Spanish and one in English and I think Georgiana Duarte will do one session in each language on the Rights of the Children.)

I hope to see everybody there Saturday, January 30, 2010.

Nick Braune
Associate Professor, Philosophy
South Texas College/Mid-Valley Campus
(956)973-7629
nbraune@southtexascollege.edu

Out to Media - Brownsville Statement

2009-12-11T08:11:00.009-06:00

For immediate release: Wednesday, Dec. 9, 2009
Statement by Barbara Dorris of St. Louis, Outreach Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (314 862 7688 home, 314 503 0003 cell)

We wish Brownsville's new bishop well, and hope that a breath of fresh air in this diocese will help heal the still fresh wounds of both clergy sex abuse victims who are suffering and Catholics who are feeling betrayed because of the church's on going child sex abuse and cover up scandal.

It's ironic that Brownsville's new bishop was named today. It was five year ago today that media reports surfaced suggesting that Brownsville's former bishop may have helped a predator priest flee the US and escape justice. (see below)

There's a tendency among Catholics, however, to assume that almost any new bishop will be better than the old one. However, wishful thinking and naive assumptions don't protect kids. Only vigilance protects kids. So we urge Brownsville Catholics to remember that children are safe when abuse suspicions and reports go to law enforcement officials, not to Catholic church officials.

SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, is the nation’s oldest and largest support group for clergy abuse victims. We’ve been around for 21 years and have more than 9,000 members across the country. Despite the word “priest” in our title, we have members who were molested by religious figures of all denominations, including nuns, rabbis, bishops, and Protestant ministers.

Our website is SNAPnetwork.org Contacts: David Clohessy (314-566-9790 cell, 314-645-5915 home), Barbara Blaine (312-399-4747), Peter Isely (414-429-7259), Barbara Dorris (314-503-0003)

http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news3/2004_12_09_AP_BrownsvilleBishop_Basil_Onyia_10.htm
Brownsville Bishop Says He Never Advised Priest to Flee

Associated Press - December 9, 2004
Brownsville Catholic Bishop Raymundo Pena has denied that he ever advised a priest wanted on sexual assault and abuse charges to flee the country.

The Rev. Basil Onyia fled to his native Nigeria in 2001, days before a warrant could be issued for his arrest stemming from allegations that he sexually abused a mentally retarded girl. Onyia claimed in a story in Monday's editions of The Dallas Morning News that the Brownsville bishop advised him to leave the country.

The bishop, who earlier would not confirm or deny Onyia's claim, has since responded on the diocese's Web site.

"Bishop Pena never advised Father Onyia to go back to Nigeria, and we are surprised that Father Onyia is working as a priest there," the statement said.

"It is unfortunate that he did not remain in this country to address the allegations made against him," Pena is quoted saying in the statement.

The Morning News tracked Onyia to Nigeria, where he has worked in parish ministry since disappearing from South Texas in 2001.

Hidalgo County District Attorney Rene Guerra charged Onyia but has not tried to extradite him for trial.

Onyia has said he never attacked his teenage accuser — a mentally retarded, emotionally disturbed incest victim. A witness told the newspaper that she saw the priest apologize to the accuser's family and blamed his actions on the devil.

Barbara Dorris
National Outreach Director
314-862-7688
SNAPnetwork.org

Bishop Daniel Flores

2009-12-09T18:59:00.004-06:00

Pope Benedict XVI names new Bishop of Brownsville

BROWNSVILLE, Dec. 9 - Pope Benedict XVI has named Bishop Daniel Flores, of the Archdiocese of Detroit, as the new bishop for the Diocese of Brownsville.

Flores will be installed as the sixth bishop of the diocese on February 2, 2010. He replaces the Most Rev. Raymundo J. Peña, who is retiring as bishop of the Diocese of Brownsville.

Peña will introduce Flores today at 9:30 a.m. at a news conference at the Immaculate Conception Cathedral in Brownsville (1218 E. Jefferson St.) and at 3 p.m. at the Bishop Adolph Marx Conference Center in the Diocesan Pastoral Center in San Juan (700 N. Virgen de San Juan Blvd. - near the Basilica grounds.)

Flores currently serves as an auxiliary bishop for the Archdiocese of Detroit. He was ordained a bishop on November 29, 2006 at Detroit’s Blessed Sacrament Cathedral. He was born in Palacios, Texas, in 1961 and baptized in Zapata, Texas, where both of his parents, Fernando Javier Flores and Lydia Dilley Flores, were born. He grew up in Corpus Christi.

Flores was ordained a priest for the Diocese of Corpus Christi in January 1988. As a priest of the Diocese of Corpus Christi, he served in a number of capacities, including Parochial Vicar at Corpus Christi Cathedral, Secretary to the Bishop, Diocesan Master of Ceremonies, Assistant Chancellor, Rector of the Saint John Vianney House of Studies, and Episcopal Vicar for Vocations.

Flores also served in the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston, on the formation faculty and as vice-rector of St. Mary’s Seminary and on the teaching faculty at the University of St. Thomas School of Theology.

And The Walls Came Tumbling Down...

2009-11-26T10:17:00.004-06:00

"And the Walls come Tumbling Down"

Holy Spirit Parish has been changing for several years now.

First we had to remove the staff - they caused problems.

Next we had to remove some volunteers - they were misdirecting our parishioners, especially our youth.

We had to make a parish that was more in line with today's Catholic church, so we rid ourselves of several programs that were not in line with today's church.

No more Mother's Day Out.

No more Pre-School.

No more Peace & Justice committee.

No more children's liturgy during the readings.

No more Thanksgiving on the 4th Thursday in November. We needed to be with our families on that day, not with our parish family and those that wanted to join us for a day of GIVING, as was our long standing custom.

Yes, we lost many parishioners, but that happens when change occurs.

We needed to add lighting to the church because it was dark during the mass.

Now, we need to remove walls in that horrid building called our church so that we can see the tabernacle, even though the parishioners chose the design of the church through an open process of town hall meetings.

More change is coming, we are redesigning the layout within the church and how we enter the sanctuary.

What happens after all this is done?

How about we rename the church??

Pat Bond and son Nate

2009-11-12T09:03:00.007-06:00

Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests

Friends, CNN will be airing a segment this Thursday, November 12, at 9:00 pm CST about Pat Bond and her son Nate.

Nate is the child of a priest and is currently battling brain cancer. Pat, Nate's mother, has been forced to fight for support for her son. Until the article appeared in the New York Times, the priest was still a pastor in a Wisconsin parish.

Note - he's also accused of molesting a girl. We suspect that unless other victims and witnesses come forward, sooner or later, he will be put back into a parish. This show will have a call in segment. Please call and express your feelings about this story.

Here is some background information: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/16/us/16priest.html

Please send this to as many people as you can.

Thank you for your help.
Barbara Dorris

More on Fr. Roy Bourgeois

2009-08-24T22:40:00.013-05:00

Rev. Roy Bourgeois again speaks out for women's ordination.

By
Michael Paulson

Globe Staff

August 24, 2009

WESTON - A prominent priest whose support for women’s ordination has him in trouble with the Catholic Church ratcheted up his confrontation with the hierarchy yesterday, calling the church’s refusal to ordain women a “scandal’’ and “spiritual violence.’’

“I will not be silenced on this issue,’’ said the priest, the Rev. Roy Bourgeois, to about 100 people in Weston at an event hosted by the congregation of Jean Marchant, a former staffer for the Archdiocese of Boston who claims she was ordained as a priest in an unsanctioned ceremony four years ago.

The Catholic Church views Marchant and Bourgeois as having been automatically excommunicated for participating in unsanctioned ordination ceremonies.

Yesterday Bourgeois said he remained unclear about his status because he has had no formal communication from his order, the Maryknoll Fathers, or from the Vatican, which last fall told him he would face excommunication if he did not recant.

“If they choose to kick me out of the church because I believe that men and women are equal, so be it,’’ Bourgeois said. “I will never be at peace being in any organization that would exclude others.“What’s going on in our church today is spiritual assassination, it’s spiritual violence being done that’s inexcusable. That is a scandal,’’ he said.

The Archdiocese of Boston yesterday declined to comment on the event in Weston, referring instead to a statement it issued last year saying, “The ordination of men to the priesthood is not merely a matter of practice or discipline within the Catholic Church, but rather, it is part of the unalterable Deposit of Faith handed down by Christ through his apostles.’’

And in 1994, Pope John Paul II declared that “the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women,’’ citing both tradition and the fact that Jesus’ apostles were male.For their part, advocates for women’s ordination say Jesus also had women in his inner circle, that polls show most American Catholics support their cause, and that the church faces a crushing shortage of priests.

But church officials say women play other valuable roles in the church, and the answer to the priest shortage is a combination of prayer and efforts to help young men recognize and accept callings to the priesthood.

Bourgeois is the first Catholic priest in good standing to participate in an unsanctioned ordination ceremony held by advocates of women’s ordination. He took part in a ceremony in Kentucky last summer.

In an interview yesterday, Bourgeois, 70, a Louisiana native, said he has stopped wearing a clerical collar and celebrating the Eucharist and other sacraments out of respect for the church’s view that he has been excommunicated.

But, he also said at one point, simply, “I am a priest.’’

He said he is confident his position on women priests is the correct one.“If anyone should be excommunicated, it is the patriarchy involved in this discrimination,’’ he said. “But I don’t believe in excommunication - no one has a monopoly on the truth.’’

Bourgeois said he is winning some support from other priests.

He said five priests around the country have agreed to go public with their support for women’s ordination, and yesterday’s gathering drew at least three archdiocesan priests, none of whom would comment publicly.

Another attendee at yesterday’s event was Joe McLaughlin, 60, a Dorchester native who now lives in Storrs, Conn.

He said he came to the event after becoming frustrated by the diminished role for women at his own parish.

“My sister is a nun, I was an altar boy, and I don’t want to leave. But I get angry now, instead of inspired,’’ McLaughlin said.

Roberta Robinson, 60, of West Roxbury, said she now worships at an “ecumenical Catholic congregation’’ - a group not recognized by Rome - and that she came to the event “to support the movement.’’

She said she believes the Catholic Church will change its position on women’s ordination, saying, “it has to, or it will fall.’’

The event was held at the Congregational Church of Weston, a United Church of Christ congregation.The pastor, the Rev. Joe Mayher, said in an interview that the church regularly hosts Marchant’s congregation, called “Spirit of Life,’’ because “we strongly share their values and their prophetic justice commitments.’’

Michael Paulson can be reached at mpaulson@globe.com.

2009-07-23T17:05:00.012-05:00

Shatter the Stained Glass Ceiling

A National Tour Encouraging Women’s Ordination.

DATE: Friday, August 7, 2009

TIME: 7:00 PM

PLACE: First Christian Church
1400 N. 10th Street
McAllen, TX

Father Roy Bourgeois, a Maryknoll priest and a School of the Americas Watch (SOA Watch) founder, has been one of the few Catholic priests willing to speak publicly about Women’s Ordination within the Catholic Church. In spite of his being threatened with excommunication by his Church, Fr. Roy remains steadfast in his support for Women’s Ordination.

Father Roy and other women’s ordination advocates are now hitting the road to encourage a national movement for a more inclusive church and the local chapter of Call to Action (www.cta-rgv.org) is sponsoring the local stop of their national Shatter the Stained Glass Ceiling Tour.

Father Bourgeois, 70, who began his 36-year ministry as a Maryknoll priest in Bolivia, has been an outspoken critic of the U.S. foreign policy in Latin America since 1980, when a Salvadoran death squad raped and killed four American churchwomen. In 1990 he founded the School of the Americas Watch (http://www.soaw.org), which has been holding weekend vigils annually at Fort Benning, Ga., to demand closure of the US Army's combat training school for Latin American soldiers.

What led to the altercation between the Vatican and Father Bourgeois was the fact that he showed his support for women's ordination by delivering a homily at the ordination of Janice Sevre-Duszynska, 58, on August 9, 2008, in Lexington, Ky. She was the sixth woman ordained that year in the United States, according to the National Catholic Reporter.

Sevre-Duszynska is among 60 other women who have been ordained since June 29, 2002, when the first seven women stepped forward, according to the Women's Ordination Conference. Four of these women priests have become bishops and nearly 100 more are in preparation programs sponsored by the Roman Catholic Women Priests.

The work of the Women's Ordination Conference has continued since then and the idea of women priests is no longer an aberration. According to a September 2005 Gallup Organization survey, 63 percent of US Catholics said they supported ordaining women. An Associated Press-Ipsos poll taken in April 2005 found the same result.

Fr. Roy Bourgeois will be joined by Rev. Linda Whitworth-Reed, Co-Pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in McAllen, who will also be speaking on women's ordination within the Presbyterian Church and what ordination has meant to her.

Everyone is welcome to attend.

Open Letter to Bishop Peña

2009-06-25T21:43:00.007-05:00

Received this by e-mail a few days ago...

~Kanickers

OPEN LETTER TO BISHOP PEÑA

Dear Bishop Peña,

Here we are six years after you assigned Fr. Ruben Delgado to Holy Spirit Parish and had us all fired. And what a journey we, and the parish, have been on since then.

We just wanted to touch base with you and let you know that while we have forgiven you for your part in this action, you have done little to bring about the restoration of the parish, putting things back into place, doing justice.

This must be something that weighs on you terribly, the destruction of a vibrant parish which was one of the few in your diocese with a strong social justice thrust, great liturgies, a nationally recognized religious education program, and people involved in a diverse choice of ministries from Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament to visiting the nursing homes.

In the last six years a majority of the active parishioners have left Holy Spirit Parish and attend other Catholic parishes, other Protestant parishes, other non-denominational parishes, and even one left and joined the local Jewish community.

Many families have just left organized religion altogether and go nowhere, all good people, all good Christians. Can you imagine the amount of pain that they must have suffered to have taken such radical moves? We would not want to be in your shoes for sure, for we do know that sometime you will be held accountable for your lack of action as the bishop of this church.

All the employees who were pushed out the door have continued with their lives and are doing great things. While they miss parish ministry, they do not miss working for the institution in this diocese as it now exists. What a sad statement.

We continue to meet regularly and hold our community together with no help from you or your clergy. We continue to celebrate and to do justice work and to do charitable work.

We do not forget, and we continue to tell our story and the story of our parish. On this sixth anniversary we want you to know that we still remember, we still pray for you to fix Holy Spirit Parish, and we pray for all those who have been so damaged by this event in their lives.

–Holy Spirit Parishioners in Exile

Here We Go Again...

2009-06-22T17:06:00.002-05:00

KMBH Spots Worry Radio Group
Some think the announcements are targeted at a planned second public radio station.

By: Laura Tillman
ltillman@brownsvilleherald.com

BROWNSVILLE — Announcements on the Rio Grande Valley's public radio station, KMBH, warning listeners that donations to a different public station are either "a scam or fantasy" have riled members of a group seeking to create a second public radio station in South Texas.

"When the spots began to air, people immediately called me about it," said Betsy Price. Price is organizing a new public radio station - Voices from the Valley, which plans to begin broadcasting in the next few months. "They were very concerned."

Voices from the Valley members said they worried the ads could mislead the public to believe that they are not a legitimate radio station, and that making pledges of support was somehow dangerous.

Price says she and the other members of Voices from the Valley have not placed any calls to solicit money, but have been fielding calls and pledges of support from those who log onto the group's Web site.

"We're not asking for money at this time, just pledges of support," Price said. "People have tried to hand me checks and we have to tell them, ‘No, we can't accept money until we are launched and have a business plan.' "

KMBH had this text posted at the top of its Web site as of June 19:

"ONLY ONE PUBLIC RADIO! ONLY ONE PUBLIC RADIO!
There is only ONE PUBLIC RADIO in the Rio Grande Valley ... and this is Public Radio 88FM, serving you with the best of NPR and local talent since October 1989. If you or someone you know is contacted requesting a donation for Public Radio which is not Public Radio 88FM please report it to the authorities and let us know at 956-421-4111. Public Radio 88FM has been serving you in the Rio Grande Valley for TWENTY YEARS. Anything else may be a scam or fantasy."

Voices from the Valley said it is organizing a second legitimate public radio station in the Valley. It is common for large cities or well-populated regions to have more than one public radio station. Often, stations have different genres, group members said. Msgr. Pedro Briseño, the president and CEO of KMBH, says the spots are unrelated to Voices from the Valley and are rather the result of calls from listeners.

"So far we have just received a couple of vague reports about attempts to collect financial pledges for a public radio station," Briseño wrote in an emailed statement. "No more information (was) given and the individuals reporting do not want their names disclosed. It has been suggested for us to make a public warning such as the one on our Web site in order to protect the public from a potential scam."

Asked for more details on the calls, Briseño said the station's role was not to investigate.

"We are not in the business of law enforcement investigation," Briseño wrote, "but in the business of serving our community through educational broadcasting, twenty years through public radio, twenty-five years through public television."

But organizers for Voices from the Valley, who are attempting to establish their credibility as a second regional public radio station, see the spots differently.
"I think they're trying to prejudice the public against another station," said Joe Perez, who used to host "North of the Border," a conjunto show on KMBH with his wife, Rosa.

Rosa and Joe Perez left KMBH after the network failed to air the "Hand of God" documentary at its scheduled time. The documentary, which the station later said aired at 1 a.m. the next morning, chronicled molestation by Catholic priests.

Joe Perez said he lost faith in the honesty of KMBH's managers when they provided what he called a "totally unbelievable" explanation for why the program didn't air. He said this distrust is the reason he also doesn't buy the station's explanation about the new spots. "I do not believe there is a scam going on," Joe Perez said.

Pablo Almaguer, a McAllen resident who used to volunteer with KMBH and is now helping to spread information about the Voices from the Valley station, says the spots are a "threat wrapped up in a warning." "I listen to the ‘NPR Morning Edition' pretty religiously and, when I heard the spots, I couldn't help but smile and shake my head," he said. "The last sentence, saying that another station is a ‘scam or a fantasy' is passive aggressive. This is a threat to those folks who are out there trying to start a new station, and I think this is the way management has decided to deal with it, by flexing their muscles and by saying: ‘Don't contact our funders.' "

Briseño insists that any speculation that the commercials are related to Voices from the Valley is unfounded. "We are not in the business of attacking anybody or campaigning against anything. We have no interest on useless debates of opinions. Any negative reaction to our warning is perhaps a confirmation that such a warning was needed to protect the public of the Rio Grande Valley from scams," Briseño said.

Perez, who plans to donate his show to Voices from the Valley when it starts up, says he hopes that potential listeners will continue to pledge their support. "All I can say is Voices from the Valley is starting from scratch and we're going to be fighting for listeners, so all is fair in love and war and radio," Perez said.
___
Laura Tillman is a reporter for The Brownsville Herald.

Sad Rememberance... from June 19th, 2003

2009-06-22T00:46:00.015-05:00

What a sad remembrance of the actions of a Catholic bishop in retaliation of his church employees for joining a union, all of which was necessitated by his very own fire-happy administrative policy.

How sad it is that Protestant and Non-Denominational churches in the Valley are now stealing so many of our parishioners and our bishop doesn't have a clue on what is causing it!

Bishop Peña once had a parish in North McAllen that was attracting new parishioners like crazy. Many thought the growth at Holy Spirit was just a result of the growth in North McAllen. How wrong they were!

Holy Spirit's secret to attracting new parishioners was purely because it had a well qualified professional staff. One deeply rooted in the Catholic faith that cared about their parishioners and that took pride in the services that they provided to their parishioners. Incredibly simple logic.

Go to Holy Spirit today and you will see a very different parish. The current priest is poorly qualified to run a parish. The current staff could care less. It is a far cry from the 'vibrant parish' that Holy Spirit parish once was.

This should be a lesson to you, Bishop Peña. Maybe all of your Catholic parishes' should be run by a highly-qualified professional staff. Your priests have no expertise in running a parish, much as you are poorly qualified to run the business end of a Catholic diocese. Your past performance proves that out. At least be smart enough to hire yourself some professional help and lets stop the hemorrhaging! Maybe then you and your priests could dedicate your time to preaching the Gospel. That would be a good thing.
~Kanickers

Does Anyone Remember This from June 19, 2003?

2009-06-20T23:01:00.001-05:00

In Texas, Parishioners Protest Church Firings

Dismissed Lay Workers Accuse Bishop of Trying to Break Labor Union Contracts
By Lee Hockstader,

Washington Post Staff Writer

Saturday, July 5, 2003; Page A03

McALLEN, Tex. -- Nothing seemed amiss when 60 parishioners from the Holy Spirit Catholic Church here gathered at dusk the other day on the church's pink-bricked patio before a burbling fountain. They clasped hands in a semicircle, bowed their heads for the Lord's Prayer and, accompanied by two guitars and a tambourine, sang hymns in Spanish as the scorching Texas sun succumbed to an evening softened by shadows.

But the tranquility of the moment was deceptive, for the gathering was, in fact, a protest. The parishioners are at the forefront of one of the most venomous confrontations between the Catholic Church and organized labor since Cardinal Francis Spellman of New York faced down striking gravediggers in 1949, sending seminarians in to dig graves for 1,000 unburied bodies.

On one side of the dispute is a handful of parish churches in the Rio Grande Valley, including Holy Spirit, whose lay workers unionized last year -- a virtually unheard-of step in the American Catholic Church. On the other side is the powerful local bishop of the Brownsville diocese, Raymundo J. Peña, and his top aides, who condemned the contracts when they were signed and moved vigorously against the union.

It is an anomalous clash, casting the church and organized labor, traditionally warm allies, as rivals in one of the poorest and most heavily Catholic corners of the nation. And it is being played out in blazing local newspaper headlines and escalating mutual accusations, at a time when the Roman Catholic Church is trying to surmount the staggering effects of sex abuse scandals nationwide.

"It's almost like an intra-family dispute with some labor union trappings attached to it," said David Hall, executive director of Texas Rural Legal Aid, which is representing some of the unionized lay workers.

The family fight burst into public view June 18 when a parish priest, Ruben Delgado, newly assigned to Holy Spirit by the bishop, arrived at the church for his first day on the job and fired four of the unionized workers.

The fired workers received little explanation. One, Ann Cass, had been a key member of Holy Spirit's administrative staff for 22 years and played a central role in building the church's new building in the 1980s. Another, Edna Cantu, a young secretary who is several months pregnant, had been dismissed last fall from yet another parish church shortly after she and her co-workers unionized there.

The United Farm Workers (UFW), which represents the employees, received a court order temporarily halting the dismissals; the church then placed them on paid administrative leave. In the ensuing uproar, Delgado, the priest, resigned as pastor of Holy Spirit after a week. Aside from a written statement defending the firings as an administrative reshuffle designed to replace some paid staff with volunteers, he did not communicate with his parishioners and never celebrated Mass there.

Peña said he had no hand in the firings, noting he was out of town when they took place. He has reaffirmed his opposition to unionizing parish lay workers, whose minimum wage of $7, he said, is well above the average in the Rio Grande Valley.

"I honestly do not believe that is necessary or beneficial for church employees in the Valley to join a labor union," he said in an e-mailed response to questions from The Washington Post.

Hundreds of parishioners at Holy Spirit have accused Peña of engineering the firings to break union contracts that he publicly denounced as "invalid in church law" because he, as bishop, was not consulted and did not approve them.

To protest the dismissals, hundreds of Holy Spirit's parishioners have boycotted Sunday Mass for the past two weeks, holding communion services instead on the church patio and staging nightly candlelight vigils. They have urged other parishioners to divert contributions from the church to the Texas Civil Rights Project, which is representing the fired workers.

"It's one thing to suffer for the church; it's another thing to suffer at the hands of the church," said Dora Saavedra, a communications professor at University of Texas Pan-American who chairs Holy Spirit's parish council, an advisory body. "We want the staff reinstated -- period."

Holy Spirit was one of five parish churches in the Brownsville diocese that signed union contracts, but it has become the focal point of the dispute. In contrast with the mostly poor and rural churches of the area, Holy Spirit has a relatively affluent, well-educated congregation of 3,300 families.

From its perch in a predominantly middle-class neighborhood of McAllen, the church has been a vocal advocate for liberal causes in this city of 120,000 -- higher wages for low-skilled workers; an increase in the local sales tax; a reconfiguration of the town council to benefit poorer neighborhoods. It has also been at the forefront of demands that Peña disclose more information about priests accused of sexual abuse and about the diocese's finances -- demands that the bishop has resisted.

In the face of an open rebellion at Holy Spirit, Peña has condemned the protesters as a small group of firebrands who have challenged his authority and manipulated the parish. In an interview, Peña acknowledged he has become the lightning rod for the protests but said, "It's ridiculous to say it's me against them. I am their bishop, their pastor, and I have no ill will or animosity against anyone."

Peña, 69, was the bishop of El Paso before he arrived in Brownsville in 1995. His diocese is a long, thin strip running from the Gulf of Mexico west along the Mexican border, a sun-blasted, heavily Hispanic territory. Since his arrival, Peña has aroused resentments with a leadership style that is variously described as hands-on, micro-managerial, autocratic and preoccupied with secrecy.

The genesis of the current crisis can be traced to 2000, when the bishop abolished a 20-year-old pension plan for the diocese's approximately 1,100 paid lay workers, including administrators, religious education workers, secretaries and others. Rather than receiving monthly checks upon retirement, as many were expecting, they received one-time checks in early 2002 according to a formula that favored older employees over some younger ones who had worked longer.

The diocese did offer an alternative -- a defined contribution retirement plan, similar to a 401(k) -- which diocesan officials characterized as an improvement. But some church employees were indignant, insisting that the abolition of the pension plan would do particular harm to lower-paid workers.

Responding to those concerns, five parishes signed union contracts with the UFW a year ago, establishing pension plans and grievance procedures for approximately 50 lay workers. One of the parish priests, Jerry Frank, former pastor of Holy Spirit, said he did it to protect his staff from what he considered Peña's arbitrary management.

"I told him I had to protect my workers from him, and that he treats people as objects rather than as human beings," said Frank, 61, who has since been transferred by the bishop to a small, rural parish.

Diocesan officials denounced the union contracts, saying they corrupted what was akin to a marital bond between paid lay workers and the church -- even though parishioners point out lay workers at the Vatican itself are unionized. In a communique sent to all parishes, Peña warned them against further inroads by the union.

Unions "do not make sense in covenantal relationships of trust and love," Robert E. Maher, vicar general of the diocese, wrote last July in an e-mail to a lawyer who protested the diocese's policy. "There is no place in the Christian community for divisions along the lines of self-interest, and that means, among other things, no unions."

Maher, who is Peña's second-in-command, also threatened to slash funding for unionized churches, according to several pastors. He wrote to one pastor that the Catholic Extension Society, a grant-giving agency in Chicago that funds poor parishes, had also refused to help unionized churches -- an assertion that the Extension Society vigorously denied. Peña, saying his position was "misunderstood," reinstated the funding after he learned the pastor had ties with the Extension Society.

"It sounds to me like the vicar is trying to bring these guys into line by making that kind of threat," said Richard Ritter, the Extension Society's vice president. "Those decisions are up to the bishop completely."

Peña, in his e-mailed statement, said: "I have always been an advocate for social justice in Texas. I have supported labor's right to collective bargaining, and I support it now. Cesar Chavez [founder of the UFW] was my friend, and as a young priest I supported his organizing efforts."

© 2003 The Washington Post Company

Don't go washing no female's feet!

2009-05-29T14:04:00.007-05:00

Opinion Piece
Editor: David Jackson

When Catholics were preparing to celebrate Holy Week, April 5-12. Parishes in the Brownsville diocese received information about celebrating those holy days. The directive for Holy Thursday seems to insist that only "men’s" (males) feet are to be washed.

Pope Benedict XVI during his trip to the African nation of Angola delivered a strong plea for women's rights during the next-to-last day of his first trip to Africa, insisting that discrimination against women "forms no part of God's plan." Several African women said the pope’s message is undercut by what they see as a pattern of discrimination inside the church itself. The pope quoted from John Paul II’s 1995 message for World Day of Peace. In it John Paul emphasized that women have a "full right to become actively involved in all areas of public life, and this right must be affirmed and guaranteed...where necessary through appropriate legislation." John Allen writing about Benedict’s trip says: "By virtually any measure, the pope’s assertion of male-female equality remains more an aspiration than a reality across much of Africa."

It surely seems to me that Allen’s statement can be extended to the entire Roman Catholic Church. It has particular application to the directives given to parishes in the Brownsville Diocese. The pope went on to say: "I call everyone to an effective awareness of the adverse conditions to which many women have been -- and continue to be -- subjected," he said, "paying particular attention to ways in which the behavior and attitudes of men, who at times show a lack of sensitivity and responsibility, may be to blame."

African women responded to the pope’s talk: "Women are always in second place in the church," said Pauline Maissaba, a 24-year-old Cameroonian Catholic, who spoke to NCR following Sunday Mass at Yaoundè's St. Kisito Parish, where the liturgy is celebrated in the local Ewondo language."When you come to church, you always see priests, deacons, and seminarians taking charge," Maissaba said. "Women clean the church, they wash the priest's clothes, and they do the cooking. They're always doing the less rewarding work."

These African women are expressing the sentiments of many Catholic women the world over. "The church talks about honoring the place of women, as if women are no longer left behind. But women are left behind," said Grace Atem, a 22-year-old Cameroonian. "When it comes to decision-making in the church, you won't see many women," Bekono said. "Even the pope's visit shows this. In Cameroon, the pope met the bishops, he met the Muslims, he met politicians, but he did not meet with women."

I could not help but remember the pithy statement made about John Paul II and his visits to different countries, "He kisses the ground and steps on the women."

from the Valley Morning Star, Palm Sunday 2009

Ireland Child Abuse

2009-05-23T10:02:00.004-05:00

The following is from the National Catholic Reporter.
~Kanickers

Irish abuse report demands decisive action
On Wednesday, May 20 [2009], the government of Ireland issued a 2,600-page report on the nine-year investigation into Catholic church-operated schools and reformatories. The report came from the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse and covered a 60-year-period from 1936 to the present. It raised serious questions about Catholic institutions that permitted and fostered climates of sustained abuse by priests and nuns.

U.S. Dominican Fr. Thomas Doyle, a canon lawyer and advocate for those abused by priests, offers this reflection on the report.
* * * *

Thus far the reaction to the publication of the Report of the Commission to Inquire Into Child Abuse has been quite consistent. Most who have read news accounts of the 30 page executive summary have expressed shock, horror, disgust, anger and other like sentiments. Presuming that the executive summary is exactly that, a summary one can therefore presume that the full report is more of the same horror except in more detail.

This report was the end result of a long investigation conducted by a government agency and headed by Justice Sean Ryan. The report's credibility, indeed its very power lies with its source. The lengthy investigation was not a private endeavor and certainly not sponsored by the Roman Catholic Church. As if this report is not mind and soul blowing enough, it will be followed on later this summer by the report of the inquiry into sexual abuse by clergy of the Archdiocese of Dublin.

The Roman Catholic Church has been intimately enmeshed with every facet of life in the Republic of Ireland. The Church controlled the education, health care and welfare systems. Every one of the institutions probed by the Commission was run by a Catholic religious order, the two predominant ones being the Christian Brothers and the Sisters of Mercy. Both orders are headquartered in Rome and in Ireland, the activities of each has been subject to the oversight and authority of the Irish Bishops. The young children who are described in the report as the victims of all types of horrific abuse are members of what the Second Vatican Council referred to as the "People of God."

The vicious sexual, physical, emotional and spiritual devastation inflicted upon these children was not accidental. It was systemic. It was part of the everyday life and indeed deeply ingrained in the very culture of the childcare system in Catholic Ireland.

The intellects and emotions of decent people, of committed Christians and especially of devoted Catholics cannot truly process the unbelievable reality presented in this report. The sadistic world of these institutions is not that of some crazed secular dictatorship. It is not the world of an uncivilized tribal culture that ravaged the weak in ages long past. This report describes a world created and sustained by the Roman Catholic Church. The horrors inflicted on these helpless, trapped children -- rapes, beatings, molestation, starvation, isolation -- all were inflicted by men and women who had vowed themselves to the service of people in the name of Christ's love.

The report of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse is not unique though it may well be the most shocking example of the reality of such a culture of evil. In the past two decades over two dozen reports have described physical and sexual abuse of children and vulnerable adults by Catholic clergy and religious. Among the more shocking have been a series of reports submitted to the Vatican between 1994 and 1998 revealing sexual exploitation of religious women in Africa by African priests [1].

These reports remained largely unknown until they were brought to light by the National Catholic Reporter in 2001. Other reports have opened the doors to the secret world of clergy sexual abuse in the U.S. and elsewhere. The report of the Winter Commission about rampant sexual abuse at Mount Cashel, the Christian Brothers orphanage in Newfoundland and the report of the Philadelphia Grand Jury investigation stand out as examples not only of the depravity but of the institutionalized cover-up.

Revelations of various forms of abuse by Catholic religious and clerics all have common elements. Likewise, they evoke responses from the institutional leadership that are common to all examples of abuse and consistent in their nature. Most disturbing is the certain knowledge that the vicious abuse, in Ireland and elsewhere, is not accidental nor isolated and it is never unknown to Church authorities. The Church's authorities, from the pope himself down to the local bishops and religious superiors have known about this unbelievable culture of abuse and have done nothing.

Archbishop Timothy Dolan referred to the Church as a “Loving Mother” when he spoke at his installation Mass in New York. In light of the facts disclosed in the Irish report as well as the information revealed about countless other cases of abuse, such a description of the Church is not only absurd, but insulting to the countless people whose belief and trust in the hierarchy and clergy has been betrayed.

The official reaction is predictable. Denial, minimization, blame shifting and finally limited acknowledgment followed by carefully nuanced “apologies” has been the standard fare. At no time has the leadership of any part of the institutional Church ever owned up to any systemic accountability. The standard responses are totally unacceptable because they are devious and irrelevant. Those who still hold to the institutional Church as their source of emotional security may well bray about anti-Catholicism, media sensationalism and exaggeration of what they claim to be an aberration. Such responses are mindless but far worse, they inflict even more pain on the thousands whose lives have been violated.

The Church cannot and will not fix itself. The very reality of the systemic abuse in the Irish institutions (and elsewhere as well) reveals a deep disdain for people by those charged with leading the Church. There has been an abandonment of the fundamental values that are supposed to vivify the Church if indeed these values were ever really internalized by many in positions of power. There is something radically wrong with the institutional Catholic Church. This is painfully obvious because it allows systemic abuse and radical dishonesty to coexist with its self-proclaimed identity as the Kingdom of God on earth.

The institutional Church is defensively changing its approach to the systematic abuse all too slowly and only because it is forced to do so by external forces it cannot control. The Irish government commission is one and the U.S. legal system is another. No amount of bureaucratic programs, pious apologies, rhetorical hand wringing and effusive promises of future change will make the difference. The problem is more than the widespread abuse itself. Punishing the perpetrators is completely missing the forest standing behind the trees. The clerical culture intertwined with the institution needs to be fearlessly examined and dismantled as we know it. It has wrought far too much destruction and murdered too many souls to be tolerated for another generation.

Catholics have a profound obligation in charity and justice to the countless victims of all forms of abuse. They have an obligation to believers of all kinds everywhere. They must ceaselessly do all that can be done to free the Christian/Catholic community from the toxic control of the clericalized institutional structure so that once more the Church will be identified not with an anachronistic and self-serving monarchy but with the Body of Christ.

[Fr. Thomas Doyle served as a consultant to the Dublin archdiocese's commission on abuse by clergy.]

Copyright © The National Catholic Reporter Publishing Company

Letter to Bishop Pena

2009-05-15T14:31:00.002-05:00

OK, here's another...
~Kanickers

Good afternoon, Bishop!

With all due respect, when I heard and read the directives/guidelines that you and your fellow bishops issued regarding liturgical changes in light of the H1N1 flu, I felt so sad and somewhat angry that you all do not use the same urgency and passion to protect our children from pedophile clergy.

Perhaps the next generation of bishops will show us that they care enough for our children who are already born to protect them by naming the known clergy who are pedophiles. Perhaps they will stop trying to protect the institution at the expense of those who were victimized, thus showing us whom and what they truly love.

Sincerely,
Ann Williams Cass

Farewell to Bishop Peña

2009-05-15T13:41:00.005-05:00

Received this some time back.
~Kanickers

FAREWELL BISHOP PEÑA

As Bishop Peña turned 75 and is now up for retirement, there have been many published accolades of his accomplishments in the Brownsville Diocese since becoming our bishop in 1995. Before we turn the page of his administration, however, it is important to read the full page.

When he arrived in August of 1995, he asked for the resignation of all lay diocesan employees and told them that they would each know if they still had their position within the diocese by the end of the year, five months in the waiting. This was all based on information that he had received about some of the staff from misinformed laity, not fellow clergy. At a clergy conference, it quickly became apparent that he was going to accept the resignations of these employees without so much as meeting or talking with them.

He kicked the Oblate fathers out of the Shrine. The Oblates are a religious community of men who had decades of presence and leadership in the Valley. He then incorporated and formed a board whose members were all sworn to confidentiality about any and all matters that the board discussed, even when they were not in executive session.

He spent thousands of dollars remodeling the building that housed diocesan offices in Alamo, turning it into a residence for himself. The house plans show that it even has an indoor sauna.

He terminated the pension fund for all diocesan and parish lay employees without consulting the board of the pension fund. The fund was nearly $12 MILLION over-funded. While a very small portion of this over funded money was returned to the parishes, there was little or no accounting for where the rest of this money went and although he terminated the employee pension fund, he DID NOT terminate the same pension fund for the priests.

On August 2nd, 1999, a check from the diocesan insurance carrier, Gallagher Bassett Services, Inc., was paid out in the amount of $350,000 to his mother, Elisa Peña, to settle a claim made against the diocese on her behalf after a December 24th 1996 accident that involved a diocesan vehicle in which she was a passenger.

He employed his own CPA from El Paso for the Brownsville Diocese rather than employing a CPA firm from the Valley. This CPA has had to fly into the Valley every time he is needed. Few in the diocese feel that the Bishop has been transparent in the finances of the diocese and this area was a constant cause for contention at clergy gatherings.

According to the Dallas Morning News, Bishop Peña asked Fr. Onyia, a priest from Nigeria, to leave the country as soon as possible after allegations that Fr. Onyia had sexually molested a mentally disabled minor while at the Shrine. He also accosted two teenage girls in Harlingen, after the Bishop had transferred him there.

The Brownsville diocese has paid out MILLIONS OF DOLLARS in secret settlements of sexual abuse cases involving clergy. Is it possible that this is where the almost $12 MILLION in proceeds from the termination of the employee pension fund went?

While other US Bishops, including some fellow Texas bishops, have released the names of their pedophile priests, Bishop Peña has refused to go public with the names of those priests within the Brownsville diocese who have been asked to leave public ministry because of their KNOWN (not alleged) sexual abuse of minors. This decision on his part has left these guilty priests free to live and work within our community, putting our children at great risk.

He also demoted a pastor to “parish administrator” for participating in a Labor Day press conference and march supporting justice for all workers.

He was also responsible for the destruction of a progressive parish in north McAllen and thereafter awarded some priests the title of “monsignor”, presumably for their assistance in this action.

And perhaps the saddest of all, according to the late Bishop Fitzpatrick, while Bishop Peña called for particular care to the elderly, he never once went to visit Bishop Fitzpatrick during his retirement, let alone, as he was dying of cancer. Bishop Fitzpatrick lived in a parish within close proximity of the Chancery.

This is a short list. Much more could be added. But, suffice it to say, we look forward to the retirement of Bishop Raymundo Peña and hope and pray that it comes quickly.

Concerned Catholics of the Rio Grande Valley

Call to Action-RGV

2009-04-17T08:18:00.012-05:00

CALL TO ACTION-RGV

Transparency Urged

Catholic Diocese of Brownsville

NEWS RELEASE
McAllen, TX

April 16, 2009

WHAT:

Members of Call To Action-RGV will deliver a letter to Bishop Raymundo Pena urging him to release the names of the priests in the Catholic Diocese of Brownsville who have serious allegations of sexual abuse filed against them.

WHERE:

In front of Bishop Pena's office on the east side of the Basilica in San Juan, TX.

WHEN:

April 20, 2009 at 11:00AM.

STAND WITH US:

For the past 5 years CTA-RGV has urged Bishop Pena to make public the names of priests in the Brownsville Diocese who have serious allegations of sexual abuse against children and adults. To date, he has refused to make these names public.

Other bishops in Texas have already made public the names of priests who have serious allegations of sexual abuse against them. It is time Bishop Pena follows suit to ensure greater protection of the children in our diocese.

We encourage all concerned citizens of the Rio Grande Valley to make your voices heard by standing with us in support of the sexual abuse victims of our diocese. It is not only the victims that suffer, but the entire family of those that have been sexually abused.

CTA-RGV is a nonprofit 501(c)3 entity whose mission is to educate, support and stand-up for issues of social justice in our Catholic Diocese and our community. More information may be found at: http://www.cta-rgv.com/ or by contacting David Saavedra @ (956)345-5444

Downtown Stations of the Cross

2009-04-17T08:00:00.000-05:00

DOWNTOWN STATIONS OF THE CROSS
Thanks to everyone who attended!
See you next year.
(click to enlarge picture)

2009-04-09T13:02:00.007-05:00

DOWNTOWN WAY OF THE CROSS
Friday, April 10, 2009

The Holy Spirit Peace and Justice Community will sponsor their annual Stations of the Cross through downtown McAllen this Friday, April 10, 2009, from noon until about 2:30PM, beginning and ending in Archer Park.

This prayer emphasizes how the suffering of Jesus continues today in the lives of the poor and oppressed, in sickness, unemployment, AIDS, addictions, violence, and war.

Participants will take turns carrying a large cross as the group winds it's way through the downtown area stopping at fourteen different places, depicting the fourteen stations of the cross which tell the suffering of Christ from his trial to his Crucifixion and burial.

The first station in the Catholic tradition is "Jesus is condemned to death." The first station will be the Federal Court, where participants will pray about the death penalty.

The third station remembers Jesus falling. Participants will stop in front of a downtown bar to pray for those who have fallen under the cross of addictions.

Another station will be that of the food pantry at Sacred Heart Catholic parish, where participants will donate canned goods, rice, beans and other food items to the food pantry.

Joining us in our Way of the Cross this year will be about 100 students and teachers from Saint Joseph Academy in Brownsville, who have been participating in service projects this week in the mid-Valley with various non-profit organizations.

Everyone is cordially invited to participate in this annual event.

More news on Father Jim McCauley

2009-02-21T16:02:00.002-06:00

For Your Information:

Father McCauley is finally out of the nursing home after 7 months! He is at home in Brownsville, MN and needs 24 hr/day care, but is very happy to be home. His address is PO. Box 203, Brownsville, MN 55919.

He misses Holy Spirit and wants to be there next winter. Just thought I'd give you an update.

Lois Hackbarth,
one of Fr. Jim's caregivers

Resist The Wall Fund Raiser

2009-01-11T17:53:00.006-06:00

Here is a Fund Raiser you should Support!

There is a local organization that has long been supporting the efforts to RESIST THE BORDER WALL. As with any such "good cause" organizations, most are desperate to raise funds to help offset financial support of their efforts. The RESIST THE WALL organization is no exception.

Here is an easy and economical way that you can help support the RESIST THE WALL efforts with something that you and your family will really enjoy!

There is an entity located within the Ware Road (Ware & Pecan) HEB store. It's called the HEB Chinese Kitchen. If you have ever eaten there, you know that they have one of the best Chinese Buffet Dinners in the Valley. The food is excellent! Cleanliness is impeccable! Service is outstanding and the food is totally FRESH! It hasn't been in a take-out box since early morning, like most take-out chicken or beef Barbecue plates.

Folks, this is "enjoyable" food that is well worth the short pick-up drive. Cost is $6/plate and you get your choice of one entree (large selection), fried rice or lo-mein, an appetizer and even a fortune cookie! Plates may be picked up any day of the week between 11:00 AM and 8:00 PM during the 2-week redemption period, January 18, 2009 through January 31, 2009. The RESIST THE WALL organization benefits from every ticket sold...

Why not solve the problem of what you and your family are going to eat tonight... or, what you and your fellow workers are having for lunch today... You can eat in or take-out... The price can't be beat, the food is excellent and you could not find a better cause...

Why not order your tickets today by calling (956) 648-3246

HASTA LA VISTA CHERTOFF

2009-01-10T13:24:00.006-06:00

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

FROM EL PASO TO BROWNSVILLE, TEXAS BORDER COMMUNITIES CELEBRATE THE RETIREMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY MICHAEL CHERTOFF

BROWNSVILLE & EL PASO, TX —

On January 10th communities along the Texas border will be throwing Retirement Parties to celebrate the end of Michael Chertoff’s tenure as Secretary of Homeland Security. During his illustrious career, Secretary Chertoff has driven a wall through the borderlands, condemned the property of hundreds of Texas landowners, waived the laws that protect us, imprisoned immigrant families, and set a new low in the response to Hurricane Katrina.

Border residents will gather in Brownsville and El Paso, where Chertoff’s concrete and steel legacy is being erected along the Rio Grande, to remember the man who has done so much to our communities.

“This is not a protest disguised as a party - this is a party. Chertoff has only been Secretary for three years but he has managed to do a tremendous amount of damage. Texas will be glad to see him gone, and it can’t come soon enough,” said Scott Nicol of the No Border Wall Coalition.

In Brownsville Chertoff’s Retirement Party will be held at Galeria 409 starting at 6pm, within spitting distance of the coming border wall. Chertoff’s retirement is like Christmas morning and the day after you get over the flu all wrapped up together..

So the party will blend a corporate retirement party and Carnival. Poets and artists will contribute their thoughts on the man who has so profoundly impacted the border; Ensamble la Mision (and possibly other bands) will play; a retirement cake and piñata will bear his likeness; Chertoff’s Wheel of Fortune; a raffle; and still-President Bush may even stop by to give Chertie a send-off.

“We’re having a party for Michael, but he’s not invited,” said Bill Guerra Addington from No Wall – Big Bend.

At the other end of the state, El Paso’s Chertoff Retirement Party will be held at the Chamizal National Memorial starting at 2pm. The memorial commemorates the harmonious settling of a century-long boundary dispute between the U.S. and Mexico, providing a counter-example to the militarization of the border that Chertoff has worked so diligently to put in place.

Games and the traditional breaking of the Chertoff piñata will greet the dawning of the post-Chertoff era. Galeria 409 is located at 409 E. 13th Street in Brownsville, between Levee and Elizabeth, a block from the Gateway Bridge. Call gallery owner Mark Clark at (956) 455-3599, or Scott Nicol at (956) 532-5983, for information, or email No Border Wall at noborderwall@yahoo.com.

To reach the Chamizal National Memorial near El Paso, from I-10 exit at Hwy 54 and follow the brown Chamizal National Memorialdirectional signs. If traveling south on Hwy 54, take the exit marked Juarez, Mexico, turn right onto Paisano Street, and continue to follow signs towards Chamizal. For more information contact Bill Guerra Addington at (915) 539-4158 or mailto:aguavida%40valornet.com.

Support Granjeno Day

2008-08-30T11:57:00.007-05:00

Support Granjeno Day!

Labor Day, Sept. 1, 2008
5:00 pm to 7:00 pm

Public is Invited

GRANJENO CIVIC CENTER
(Downtown Granjeno, take South Shery Rd past the McAllen Trade Zone)

FREE Chicken Barbeque (500)
Hot Dogs and Drinks for the kids (while supply lasts)

They didn't ask for the Border Wall,... but now they have to live with it!

This is an opportunity to show the people that must now LIVE with the BORDER WALL that we support them! It is a chance to hear first hand the effects that the BORDER WALL is already having on the residents of South Texas.

It is a gathering for the residents of Granjeno to tell their personal stories and to document memories of the rich history of their unique community, to tell stories about their families and their ancestral land. It is our opportunity to learn their feelings about what they are now being forced to accept from the United States Government.

Proudly sponsored by the Pharr Community Outreach Project/Shalom and the Resist The Wall Campaign, who will be providing video recording teams for documentary use against the BORDER WALL.

Please attend to help us show them that we support them.

More on Fr.McCauley

2008-08-07T10:43:00.002-05:00

Gunderson Lutheran Hospital
Room 3-204
1900 South Avenue
LaCrosse, Wisconsin 54601

He enjoys hearing from friends.

He is getting stronger and working hard at rehab. He may be getting back to you via e-mail. (That's part of his rehab too.) It continues to be a slow process.
Thanks for asking.

Fr. McCauley

2008-08-07T10:41:00.001-05:00

Father McCauley
This is to inform you that Fr. McCauley suffered a stroke on June 30th .He is paralyzed on his left side and is in intensive rehab at Gunderson Lutheran Hospital at LaCrosse, Wisconsin.He has a very positive attitude and is hopeful that he will recover, however, his progress is slow and will take a long time.Lois Hackbarth, friend of the familyRochester, Minnesota

NATIONAL DAY OF PROTEST AGAINST THE BORDER WALL

2008-07-05T07:31:00.020-05:00

Protest the Border Wall
University of Texas-Pan American
July 12, 2008

What: A protest opposing the Border Wall.

When: Saturday, July 12, 2008 at 5:00 PM

Where: Rally at the University of Texas-Pan American Student Ballroom, located on the Southwest corner of the campus (University Dr & Sugar Rd), next to the University Center.

Parking: No parking permits are required on weekends. There will be plenty of free parking. Parking Lot B-1 is right next to the Student Center/Ballroom.

What to Bring: We have signs, banners and percussion instruments to share, but please feel free to bring your own. Walking shoes, water, strollers and umbrellas are also recommended. Most of all, bring your family and friends!

Event Schedule: Saturday’s activities will begin at 5:00 PM with a RALLY at the Student Ballroom. Our invited speakers will address the crowd from 5:15 until 6:00. We will then march to the Hidalgo County Courthouse Parking Square (corner of Closer and Cano).

At the Courthouse Parking Square, members of the community will have an opportunity to speak out against the border wall. Comments will be videotaped, and a DVD of the comments will be given to the Hidalgo County Commissioners and will be made available to the press.

The Hidalgo County Commissioners, led by Hidalgo County Judge JD Salinas, have allowed incorporating the border wall into the county’s flood control levees. Construction of this levee/border wall is being done during the area's peek hurricane season.

This protest is meant to raise local and national awareness of the vast opposition to the border wall because of its potential to divide border communities, destroy homes and farms, devastate unique ecosystems, damage border economies, and undermine our flood control levees. Also of concern is the impact the border wall will have on the border area’s relationship with Mexico. Many view the border wall as racist because no corresponding wall is being built on the Canadian border.

In Hidalgo County, the border wall is being linked to levee repairs. While no one in the Valley disputes the fact that our levees need repair, allowing the Department of Homeland Security to take them over and make them into a border wall is a terrible idea. There have been no studies on the safety, effectiveness, and environmental impact of a combination levee/border wall.

According to the No Border Wall Coalition, repairing of our levees could require only a few feet of earth and caliche in many places, while the levee/wall project calls for a solid 16-foot wall of concrete, the costs of which will ultimately be borne by Valley taxpayers.

Initial estimates that the levee/border wall would cost $5 million per mile have now ballooned to $12 million per mile. Based on recent bids, Hidalgo County will be responsible for paying over $200 million of the construction costs, rather than the original estimate of $48 million.

Rather than providing flood control, repairing the levees has become a means for the Department of Homeland Security to build piecemeal border walls that do not match up with the sections of our levees that are in need of repair.

The costs go beyond monetary for this region. DHS has initiated condemnation proceedings against hundreds of private landowners along the border. U.S. homes, farms, ranches, and businesses lie either in the path of the wall or on land that will be behind it, cut off from the rest of this country.

Along the Rio Grande, a natural border in and of itself, farmers and ranchers could be prevented from accessing irrigation water. The border wall is set to go through and literally divide the campus of the University of Texas in Brownsville. Firefighters and emergency crews will have difficulty reaching homes and people on the south side of the wall. Our community will be divided, not just from Mexico, but from neighbors and from free access to the river.

The levee-border wall will also do tremendous damage to the environment of the Rio Grande Valley. The first two sections of combined levee/border wall will bisect parts of the Lower Rio Grande National Wildlife Refuge. They will destroy habitat that is critical to the endangered species and migratory birds, which now brings in over $125 million in ecotourism to this area every year.

Please join our protest!
~Kanickers

Regional Border Wall Forum

2008-06-25T18:27:00.004-05:00

Regional Forum on the Border Wall

Confused about the Border Wall? A community forum on this contentious issue will take place this Thursday evening, June 26, at 7 p.m. in the Auditorium, Building G, at South Texas College in Weslaco. The Department of Homeland Security has announced that it intends to begin construction on the Wall in Hidalgo County in just 30 days.

Among the speakers will be Scott Nicol of the No Border Wall Coalition, who will review the legal challenges to the Wall and address the government’s latest plan to link the wall to the improvement of the levee system. A number of objections to this plan have been raised. One important objection, according to Nicol, is that linking the Wall to levee construction will be very dangerous to the Valley in case of a hurricane.

Martin Hagne, an environmental advocate and Executive director of Weslaco ’s Valley Nature Center will also speak. Hagne also will be available afterward to answer questions on how the proposed Wall will affect wildlife, water resources, etc. There has been work carried out over decades to protect the natural environment in South Texas , work many environmentalists believe will be set back by the Border Wall.

Rogelio Nunez, director of Projecto Libertad in Harlingen , who has tentatively agreed to speak, and Meredith Linskey, an immigration rights attorney in Harlingen , will address human rights issues and the cultural context of the wall. The Wall reflects a mean spiritedness to Mexico and to immigrants and is perceived by many human rights activists as another step toward militarization of the border region.

The forum is free and open to the public. “A year ago at this time, momentum against the Wall seemed sufficient to stop it, l thought,” said Bob Fowler of Weslaco , a philosophy instructor and peace and justice activist who supports the idea of a public forum. “The Mayor of McAllen, the McAllen Chamber of Commerce, the President of U.T. Brownsville and all the environmental groups seemed so opposed to it that I thought the government would back off.

“Because there seemed to be so many rallies against the Wall from Del Rio to Brownsville ,” said Fowler, “it has come as a shock that now the government has announced that it is going right ahead with it in July. We need to organize a series of events right away.”

The No Border Wall Coalition, which is sponsoring the event at STC, has reached out to many Valley groupings within the last few years and has developed links nationally in opposition to the wall. The forum is intended as a wake-up call to the community. Despite the opposition from many Valley organizations and despite legal suits, the Department of Homeland Security has announced it will begin construction of the Border Wall in Hidalgo County on July 25th.

Parishioners' Newsletter 06/01//08

2008-06-03T11:51:00.007-05:00

Somos el Cuerpo de Cristo
Thoughts from Some Fellow Catholics of the Rio Grande Valley
June 1, 2008

A Celebration of Pentecost
The newsletter returns—much to the irritation of some, the muted delight of others, and, I am sure, the yawning indifference of the vast majority of people.

I have been gone from the Valley for over a month because of some important family responsibilities in Seattle. While in the Northwest, I celebrated the Eucharist with the community of St. Patrick’s on the north end of Capitol Hill. The parish is small, in an older neighborhood, but its joyous and moving Eucharistic celebrations, the vibrant and open community atmosphere, and the parish’s deep commitment to peace and social justice draw parishioners from the entire Seattle metropolitan area, some coming thirty or forty miles each Sunday.

The Pentecost Sunday celebration was particularly powerful and, for me, poignant because the feast of the Holy Spirit, since 2003, is always a day to reflect on the community that was so special for us in McAllen. At St. Pat’s the celebration was filled with music and dance and joy and prayerfulness that stirred everyone, from the opening procession to the brass band-led recessional.

Strong, vibrant parishes do still exist out there and can be created anywhere that the Spirit is allowed to break through.

If You Don’t Like It, …
You are a hard road, I am a seeker.
How long, old friend, can you hold out?
I can make it to the end.
from “Hard Road,” by Vince Bell, Texas singer-songwriter

In the tender compassion of our God the dawn from on high shall break upon us, to shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death, and to guide our feet on the road to peace.
from “Zechariah’s Canticle,” said each day at morning prayer

When examples of parish life from other places are pointed out, a common response is, “well, if you don’t like it here, why don’t you just go to [wherever]?” That response sort of misses the point—the point being that there are parish communities that show us ideals (at least in some aspects) to strive for. It is possible to have prayerful, moving liturgies with professionally directed music and artistic expression; it is possible to have effective and competently run religious education programs for adults, youth and children; it is possible to have a transparently run parish administration with the involvement of the parishioners that church law calls for; it is possible to have real parish life that expands beyond pious practices.

These are ideals to work for and it is reassuring to see them achieved, at least somewhat, in other communities.

From Stuck Debate to New Conversation
“On a subject that has been hotly polarized for a long time, the dominant discourse often delineates the issue in a win-lose bi-polar way; it draws a line between two simple answers to a complex dilemma and induces people to take a stand on one side of that line or the other…Most people who care deeply about the issue yield to this induction.

“Being aligned with one group offers benefits. It gives one a socially validated place to stand while speaking and it offers the unswerving support of like-minded people. It also exacts costs. It portrays opponents as a single-minded and malevolent gang. In the face of such frightening and unified adversaries, one’s own group must be unified, strong, and certain. To be loyal to that group, one must suppress many uncertainties, morally complicated personal experiences, inner value conflicts, and differences between oneself and one’s allies. Complexity and authenticity are sacrificed to the demands of presenting a unified front to the opponent. A dominant discourse of antagonism is self-perpetuating. Win-lose exchanges create losers who feel they must retaliate to regain lost respect, integrity, and security, and winners who fear to lose disputed territory won at great cost.”
from Stuck Debate to New Conversation on Controversial Issues: A Report from the Public Conversations Project. Carol Becker et al.

Anybody out there ready to get unstuck?

Causes
“Everyone speaks of the loss of trust that this [clergy sex abuse] scandal has caused. But what about the loss of trust that preceded it—a loss expressed by both liberals and conservatives, across the spectrum of Catholic views. Why, in other words, had the reservoir of trust run so low?

The causes are many. Secrecy is one. Careerism another. Silent and passive acquiescence in Vatican edicts and understandings that you know to be contrary to your own pastoral experience. Another is a widespread sense of double standards. One standard for what is said publicly and officially, another standard for what is held and said privately. One standard for the baptized, another for the ordained. One standard for priests, another for bishops. One standard for men, another standard for women. One standard the ordination of heterosexuals and what now threatens to become another standard for homosexuals. One standard for justice and dialogue outside the church, another for justice and dialogue within.”
Margaret O'Brien Steinfels in a speech at the USCCB meeting in Dallas, June 13, 2002 ]

What Peggy Steinfels pointed out to the Bishops nearly six years ago remains true today, and some would say even more so. In many places in the Church there has been a retrenchment, a circling of the wagons, that instead of facing the root causes of the disaffection within the Church, has actually exacerbated the situation.

Communal Discernment
Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, retired Archbishop of Milan, in his just published nocturnal colloquies in Jerusalem, has said that he has “lost his dreams for the Church and can now only pray for it.”

“A Church which fails to provide a forum for communal discernment, open discussion, of moral issues, but reduces the informed conscience to a lonely dialectic between official church teachings and the individual in her own private forum is failing to make Christian life an experience of growing in the art of conscience. We badly need a new Catholic culture where we are enabled to have adult consciences and not to remain forever oscillating between conformism and indifferentism. Also we need practice of conscience on a wide range of issues, not only pelvic ones, and a wide range of political issues, not only abortion. But we cannot expect such a culture from a Church that banished Charles Curran and a host of other competent and Catholic moral theologians to the wilderness. This is part of what Cardinal Martini refers to when he says he has lost his dreams for the Church and can now only pray for it.”
Father Joseph O’Leary in dotCommonweal, May, 2008.

Holy Spirit Parish, June 2003-June 2008
“Solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.”
[They make a desert and call it peace]
Tacitus, Roman Senator and historian, ca. 100 C.E.

Prepared for all Valley Catholics and edited by Jerry Brazier. Copy this, and pass it on, either by e-mail or paper. If you want an opportunity for prayerful discussion of these and other issues in the Church or have any other comments, please contact at: gbrazier@rgv.rr.com

Abusive Priests STILL In Our Midst.

2008-05-26T07:43:00.004-05:00

WHERE ARE ALL OUR ABUSIVE PRIESTS?

SURVEY: Abusive priests still in our midst?
An investigation by a local TV station has revealed that at least 100 priests relieved of ministerial duties because of credible allegations of sexual abuse in the Boston archdiocese are now living in anonymity in cities and towns. (See the report online: http://wbztv.com/local/boston.priest.abuse.2.722373.html)

Many of these individuals have not been removed from the priesthood and still receive pensions from the diocese. Most never had to register as sex offenders because their cases never went to criminal court. As a result, there is no way for the rest of us to know who or where these people are – unless the Archdiocese provides a publicly accessible list, and offers accurate recommendations when these individuals apply for other jobs.

The problem uncovered by Boston media is not an isolated one. While a few dioceses such as Philadelphia have online lists of credibly accused priests, most do not.

The Pope and the Bishops say they are ashamed by the clergy sexual abuse scandal and are committed to protecting children. Yet if hundreds of pedophile priests are still unsupervised and in our midst – and we don’t know it – isn’t it likely that more children will be abused in the future?

What do you think the Pope should require each Archdiocese to do about this to protect children? Please fill out our online survey. Email a link to the survey to your friends and ask them to fill it out too. We will then present the results of the survey to the USCCB in early June.
Sincerely,

Dan Bartley, President
Voice of the Faithful

P.S. We can conduct surveys like this only through your continued support of VOTF -- which helps us keep the lights on and the computer server running. It's easy to do on our donation page. Also please consider committing to a monthly gift online by credit card. Your gift of $10, $20, or $50 per month will be greatly appreciated – and all you need to do is sign up once. You may then increase or decrease your monthly contribution at any time.

Congressional Hearing on Border Wall

2008-04-23T21:27:00.005-05:00

*** NEWS UPDATE***

BISHOP PEÑA TO SPEAK AT CONGRESSIONAL HEARING ABOUT BORDER WALL

The Catholic Diocese of Brownsville has confirmed that Bishop Raymundo J. Peña will attend a U.S. Congressional field hearing about the border wall on Monday. The hearing takes place at the University of Texas at Brownsville. Peña attended a No Border Wall rally last year.

Field Hearing and Bus Tour to Highlight Impacts of Border Wall

What: A U.S. Congressional field hearing on the Border Wall and a press bus tour organized by Lower Rio Grande Valley residents

When: Monday, April 28th, at 10am

Where: Brownsville, Texas on the campus of the University of Texas at Brownsville

A U.S. Congressional field hearing will be held in Brownsville, Texas on Monday, April 28th, starting at 10am. The hearing, entitled Walls and Waivers: Expedited Construction of the Southern Border Wall and the Collateral Impacts on Communities and the Environment, will be held in the Lecture Hall of the Science, Engineering and Technology Building (SET-B) at the University of Texas-Brownsville (UTB).

The hearing is a joint effort of Representative Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ), chair of the Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests, and Public Lands and Representative Madeleine Z. Bordallo (Guam-at large), chair of the Subcommittee on Fisheries, Wildlife and Oceans. Both subcommittees are part of the House Natural Resources Committee.

Among those invited to testify are two U.S. Congressmen, Duncan Hunter (R-CA) and Silvestre Reyes (D-TX), Dr. Juliet Garcia, president of UTB, Ralph Basham, Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Patrol, and Ned Norris, Jr., chairman of the Tohono O’odham Nation.

Following the hearing, Texas State Representative Eddie Lucio III, whose district includes parts of Brownsville, is hosting a bus tour of areas due to be directly affected by the border wall. The bus tour is intended to provide a better understanding of the border wall issue. It is being organized by Representative Lucio’s office and concerned citizens of the Rio Grande Valley. Various members of the community will be on the bus tour and available for interviews.

The bus tour will begin on the UTB campus. The proposed wall cuts through part of the campus. The tour will continue on to the Sabal Palm Audubon Center. This 557-acre sanctuary is one of several wildlife refuges on the Rio Grande that may no longer be accessible to the public if the proposed wall is built. Another stop on the tour will be at the small community of El Calaboz, where the wall will slice through private land. The tour will end at Hope Park in historic downtown Brownsville. Hope Park is a short walk from old buildings that are in the wall’s path. Barbecue at the park will be provided for all attending.

Directions to the hearing: Heading southeast on US-77/US-83, exit on International Blvd. Turn right on International. Turn left onto the campus at Ridgely Road.

For more information and to book a seat on the bus tour, please contact Betty Pérez at 956-580-8915 or email her at bettygraceperez@gmail.com.

Voice of the Faithful.

2008-04-22T17:16:00.004-05:00

TO POPE BENEDICT XVI AND HIS FELLOW BISHOPS

On the occasion of the Pope’s April 2008 visit to the United States, please join Voice of the Faithful (VOTF) in calling all Catholics to transform our Church.

Join your voice with thousands of others who must raise our voices through petition because the Pope has scheduled no discussions or listening sessions with ordinary laity. Will he hear the concerns of the faithful without such conversations?

We Catholics are still addressing the clergy sex abuse scandal, one of the worst crises in the history of our Church. One-third of those raised Catholic in the U.S. no longer call themselves Catholics, according to a recent survey. Numbers of priests are declining; many parishes and schools are closing; we face massive financial crises.

Voice of the Faithful, with more than 35,000 members, proposes concrete solutions to address this crisis:

(1). Treat survivors of sexual abuse with the justice and compassion our faith demands.

(2). Hold bishops accountable to the people they serve.

(3). Embrace full participation of Catholic men and women in Church decision-making.

(4). Require full financial transparency and accountability in all governance matters.

We believe these steps will produce:

A. An open, transparent and accountable Church.

B. A participative Church embracing the gifts and talents of the baptized.

C. A Church governed by compassion, informed by justice, empowered by equality, and animated to act collegially.

We urge all clergy to listen to the voices of the faithful as we join together to inspire our Church to become a community of believers worthy of our founder, Jesus Christ. We pledge our energy toward realizing these changes.

Link to sign the patition (click): http://votf.org/petition/sign-petition

Thanks for your help.
~Kanickers

Parishioners' Newsletter of 03/30/08

2008-04-03T07:03:00.003-05:00

Somos el Cuerpo de Cristo
Thoughts from Some Fellow Catholics of the Rio Grande Valley
March 30, 2008

Affirmed
“The parish used to have a ‘social activist’ priest, but now has one who is ‘spiritual and focused on the Eucharist.’” from Father (now Monsignor) Bert Diaz, Chancellor of the Diocese, in his discussion with representatives from Holy Spirit Parish, 6/29/05.

“In 1971 the essential link between faith and justice was written into magisterial teaching when the World Synod of Bishops wrote that ‘action on behalf of justice and participation in the transformation of the world fully appear to us as a constitutive dimension of the preaching of the gospel’ (Justice in the World, Nov. 30, 1971)” from Roger Haight, S.J., in America, 3/17/08.

The contrast between Father Diaz’s statement, which implies that “action on behalf of justice” is some sort of personal preference of a pastor that can be abandoned for some other personal preference (like being “spiritual”), and that of the bishops of the Church gathered in Synod which calls such action “a constitutive dimension of the preaching of the gospel” could not be more striking. This diocesan administration seems to take the stance that “participation in the transformation of the world” is a hobby that might be tolerated (if it doesn’t ruffle too many feathers) but certainly is not something required of its priests (in their preaching or their actions) or required of the faithful of the Rio Grande Valley. It gives one pause to ask what this Bishop believes is required of the priests and of the faithful—do pious practices and a spirituality limited to “me and God” do the trick, while the “essential link between faith and justice” is conveniently ignored (or even ruthlessly condemned and vilified)?

The most recent Holy Spirit Peace and Justice Affirmation Night (held last Friday, March 28) brought to the front of people’s consciousness, once again, the sharp differences of practice and attitude between the current diocesan administration and that of Bishop Fitzpatrick. The stories that were told of the sanctuary movement, the struggle of the farm workers, the rise of Valley Interfaith, the efforts to work with immigrants on education and health issues, etc. all bore the marks of heavy involvement of individual Catholics and the official involvement and strong support of the Diocese of Brownsville. Under the two succeeding bishops virtually all of that has been dismantled. Bishop Peña periodically “talks a good line” but there are no “action[s] on behalf of justice and participation in the transformation of the world” coming from the chancery these days and those in the Church who become too vocal in their own actions soon find themselves marginalized and even persecuted.

It was inspiring to hear the history of that era, to affirm those who were part of that work, and to affirm those who continue it today, but it was disappointing to be reminded, again, of the failure of the official Church in the Valley to live up to the Gospel mandate. The judgment described in Matthew 25 does not speak of novenas and holy pictures and special chapels—it speaks of our obligation to justice, for where justice is absent we have the hungry and the naked and the homeless and the…

Limited
During the past few weeks, the word cancer has come up in different settings. News of friends with a diagnosis, prayers for a friend whose cancer has reappeared, and even a few references to situations being like cancer – growing, changing and seeming to overtake anything in its path. I think we can all identify moments in our lives when emotions, events or conditions seem to be overwhelming – like a cancer taking over our world, sometimes maybe even our church. One Easter when my father was battling his kidney cancer, we found the following poem that helped me regain my perspective. It is another way of saying at Easter we remember to celebrate more than ever that God is bigger than anything we experience. In the shadow of God’s love, cancer and our challenges in whatever form they take regain their proper perspective.

Cancer is so limited…
It cannot cripple love, It cannot shatter hope,
It cannot corrode faith, It cannot eat away peace,
It cannot destroy confidence, It cannot kill friendship,
It cannot shut out memories, It cannot silence courage,
It cannot invade the soul, It cannot reduce eternal life,
It cannot quench the Spirit, It cannot lessen the power of the Resurrection.
from Michelle Peña

Either/Or vs. Both/And
One of the interesting things to think about these days is what the Church will be like down the road when Western Europe/North America will no longer be the dominant culture within the Church (the day has long past when the majority of Catholics come from that culture). It seems that our current Pope cannot envisage such a time as he calls for reinforcement of “Catholic identity”—which appears to be an attempt to stave off a cultural remaking of the Church into a Latin American, African and Asian church. Such a staving off is really impossible and a more useful effort would have Western Europeans begin to reflect on what the Gospels sound like within other cultures and what a theology developed in another cultures tells us.

The liberation theology developed in Latin America arrived at a lot of conclusions that have unsettled folks trained in Thomism with its reliance on Greek philosophy and a narrow approach to understanding the Scriptures. The work of Father Peter Phan, an Asian working in the United States, has roused the ire of Rome recently. The list goes on—ultimately, non-European cultures will develop their own expressions of Catholicism which will become, by default, the standard.

One difference between the West and the East has been described as the fact that West is dominated by the powerful engine of logic, which relies on the ability to dissect a situation into “either/or” alternatives and proceed by eliminating one of them. The East, on the other hand, is very comfortable with “both/and” being possible and living with the ambiguity that results. Keep in mind that the Scriptures are Semitic literature (though parts are in Greek) and so are more of the East than the West.

Baptized Into ...
So many of my family and friends no longer seem members of the institutional church into which they were Baptized.

But wait a minute?

Were they baptized into an institution or into a Faith?

I can certainly understand why Institutional Church no longer appeals to them; Abusive, Tyrannical, Fraudulent, Sexist, Exclusionist, Unaccountable, Retro, Non-transparent, Stifling, Fear-based, Suppressive, and still treating adults like an uneducated immigrant laity.

So many have Just Moved On or Never Intended Joining Some Exclusive Club.

By leaving the institution behind, have they nullified their Baptism?

I suspect our Baptism, just like that of John the Baptizer and Jesus to follow is not a Baptism into a human organization, but into a Faith far deeper and more advanced than the hierarchs wish us to go.
from John Churchman

Prepared for all Valley Catholics and edited by Jerry Brazier. Copy this, and pass it on, either by e-mail or paper. If you want an opportunity for prayerful discussion of these and other issues in the Church or have any other comments, please contact gbrazier@rgv.rr.com.

Abuse of Power

2008-04-01T18:26:00.010-05:00

ABUSE OF POWER!

I wish this were an April Fools Day joke, but it’s not.

Today, the Bush/Cheney Administration announced that it will waive environmental and land management laws along 470 miles of the U.S./Mexico border in order to build the Texas/Mexico Wall.

Laws ensuring clean water for us and our children? Dismissed.

Laws protecting wildlife, land, rivers, streams and places of cultural significance? Disregarded.

And laws giving American citizens a voice in the process? Gone.

Clearly, this Border Wall project has gotten out of control.

Please call your U.S. Representative and Senators at the phone numbers provided below:

Ruben E. Hinojosa - (202) 225-2531 or (956) 682-5545 (local)

John Cornyn III - (202) 224-2934 or (512) 469-6034 (local)

Kay Bailey Hutchison - (202) 224-5922 or (512) 916-5834 (local)

Once you are connected, please deliver the following simple message:

“My name is __________ . I am calling from ________, TX, to voice my shock and outrage about the announcement that all of the important environmental and land use laws along 470 miles of the U.S./Mexico border will be totally disregarded in order to complete construction of a 'Berlin Type Wall' along our Texas/Mexico border.

This flagrant abuse of power threatens our border communities and wildlife. and I urge you to do EVERYTHING IN YOUR POWER to challenge this awful decision.”

My Dear Friends,
We simply can not allow our Government to unilaterally disregard laws that were designed to protect the health and safety of our families and communities and to preserve America's Wildlife and environment for our future generations.

Please join me in attempting to stop this process.
Thank you for your participation,
~Kanickers

Press Release from the No Border Wall Coalition

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 1, 2008
Contact: Scott Nicol, (956) 532-5983

No Border Wall Coalition: Chertoff’s Border Wall Waiver is an Assault on the Rule of Law

The No Border Wall Coalition is deeply disturbed by the announcement that Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff has decided to “waive in their entirety” 36 federal laws to build walls along the United States’ southern border. This represents an unprecedented abuse of authority on Secretary Chertoff’s part, and clearly demonstrates the need for an immediate repeal of section 102 of the Real ID Act. Obeying the law is not voluntary, it is mandatory, and Secretary Chertoff cannot claim that he is sweeping aside a host of laws on the border in defense of immigration laws. In a nation of laws all laws must be respected, not just those that are convenient.

Equal protection under the law is meant to be a fundamental right shared by every American, but the Real ID Act makes the legal rights of citizens who live near the border conditional on Secretary Chertoff’s whims. Section 102 of the Real ID Act of 2005 states, “Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the Secretary of Homeland Security shall have the authority to waive all legal requirements such Secretary, in such Secretary’s sole discretion, determines necessary to ensure expeditious construction of the barriers and roads under this section.” No one else is granted this extreme power under any circumstance. The president cannot waive our nation’s laws even in times of national crisis, and Secretary Chertoff cannot waive the laws that protect citizens who live away from the border. Only border residents may have their legal protections waived.

The only reason for Secretary Chertoff to waive these laws is because he knows that the border wall will violate them. In setting these 36 federal laws aside Secretary Chertoff sets himself above the law. If congress allows unchecked power to remain in the hands of an unelected administration appointee they are complicit in fundamentally undermining the rule of law. Leaving the Real ID Act on the books and allowing Chertoff’s waivers to stand sets a precedent that should outrage the American people. If our nation’s laws can be set aside to build a border wall today, they may be similarly set aside for whatever crisis politicians discover in the next
election cycle.

The No Border Wall coalition calls on Congress to repeal section 102 of the Real ID Act and restore the rule of law. We also urge the Supreme Court to take up the constitutional challenge brought by the Defenders of Wildlife and Sierra Club to Secretary Chertoff’s earlier waiver of 19 federal laws to force the border wall through the San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area in Arizona. Allowing one man to overrule laws passed by Congress and signed by the President for the express intent of circumventing judicial oversight is fundamentally un-American.
# # #

No Border Wall is a grassroots coalition of groups and individuals united in the belief that a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border will do irreparable harm to our borderlands and the nation as a whole. No Border Wall is opposed to the construction of a border wall because of the devastating consequences such a wall would have on border economies, on the environment, on human rights, and on the U.S. relationship with Mexico and the rest of the world.

Affirmation Night Success

2008-03-31T16:41:00.005-05:00

CONGRATULATIONS ARE IN ORDER...

HISTORY OF VALLEY'S PEACE AND JUSTICE MOVEMENT A HUGE SUCCESS FOR HOLY SPIRIT PEACE & JUSTICE GROUP!

Thanks to all that were responsible for putting it together and making it happen.

Good Job!

Cesar Chavez Birthday

2008-03-27T16:22:00.014-05:00

WALK the WALK

10:00 AM ~ Saturday ~ March 29

La Marcha de Cesar Chavez

La Union del Pueblo Entero (LUPE)

506 West Business 83, San Juan, Texas

Also, sign the patition to make Cesar Chavez's birthday a national holiday!

Affirmation Night Event

2008-03-27T14:46:00.010-05:00

HISTORY OF VALLEY'S PEACE AND JUSTICE MOVEMENT TO BE TOPIC OF ANNUAL EVENT

This year's Holy Spirit Peace and Justice Affirmation Night will be held on Friday, March 28th, at 7:00 PM at the First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) on the corner of North 10th Street and Nyssa St.

This annual event recognizes and "affirms" those individuals and organizations that work for peace and justice in the Valley.

The highlight of this year's event will be a panel of seven activists that have been involved in peace and justice work in the Valley for over thirty years.

Edinburg attorney, Joe Richard Flores, worked with the South Texas Project when legal work in the area of civil rights began. One of his most historic cases included the McAllen police brutality case of 1981, which received national attention and which he will discuss.

Nina Ochoa Krueger is the founder of BARCA, the Border Association for Refugees of Central America. She and her husband, Ed Krueger, an ordained Disciples of Christ minister, were active in the early years with the Farmworker Ministry, organizing farm workers and informing them of their rights. In the 70's Ed was directly involved in the controversies between the United Farm Workers and the Texas Rangers, which led to historic legislation. He also organized women in the maquiladoras along the border.

Telma Longoria was the director of Catholic Social Services at the height of the controversy surrounding the Catholic diocesan refugee center, Casa Romero, as well as organizing legal services during the Amnesty program of the mid 80's.

Sister Marian Strohmeyer responded to refugees from Central America by opening Casa Merced on her family’s McAllen property. She is also well known as a health care advocate who founded Comfort House, initially for persons with AIDS.

Ann Williams Cass is a member of the McAllen Ministerial Alliance and will speak about the local interfaith involvement in addressing Valley justice issues. She will also be the moderator of the panel.

Juanita Valdez-Cox, director of La Union del Pueblo Entero (LUPE), previously the United Farm Workers Union in San Juan, will speak of the farmworker movement in the Valley and the challenges and victories gained in the 80's.. Linda YaZez, Judge with the 13th Court of Appeals, was practicing immigration law in the early 1980's and dealt with the challenging cases of Central Americans applying for asylum.

This event is free and open to the public. Childcare will be available. It will be a wonderful opportunity to learn about the history of peace and justice in the Valley. Refreshments and desserts will follow the presentations.

Friday, March 28, 2008
First Christian Church
North 10 and Nyssa Street

DON'T MISS THE VERY SPECIAL EVENT!

Easter 2008

2008-03-23T09:11:00.002-05:00

Happy Easter!

Easter Obituary

2008-03-21T17:40:00.008-05:00

Jeruselem ~ OBITUARIES ~ 33 AD

Calvary

Jesus Christ, 33, of Nazareth, died Friday on Mount Calvary (a place also known as Golgotha). He was betrayed by Judas, one of His apostles, Jesus was crucified by the Romans under order of the Ruler Pontius Pilate. The cause of death was crucifixion, extreme exhaustion, severe torture and loss of blood.

Jesus Christ, a descendant of Abraham, was a member of the house of David. He was the son of the late Joseph, a carpenter of Nazareth and Mary, His devoted Mother. Jesus was born in a stable in the city of Bethlehem, Judea. He is survived by His mother Mary, His faithful Apostles, numerous disciples and many loving followers.

Jesus was self-educated and spent most of His adult life working as a teacher. Jesus may have also occasionally worked in the medical field, as it is reported that He healed many patients. Up until the time of his death, Jesus spent His time teaching and sharing the Good News of His Father, healing the sick, touching the lonely, feeding the hungry and helping the poor.

Jesus was most noted for telling parables about His Father's Kingdom and performing miracles, such as feeding over 5,000 people with only five loaves of bread and two fish, as well as, healing a man who was born blind.

On the day before His death, He celebrated a Passover meal with His friends and asked them to preach His message throughout the world in remembrance of Him.

Upon His death, His body was quickly buried in a stone grave donated by Joseph of Arimathea, a loyal friend of the family. By order of Pontius Pilate, a boulder was rolled in front of His tomb and Roman soldiers were posted to stand 24-hour guard.

In lieu of flowers, the family is requesting that everyone try to live by His teachings and that any donations be given to anyone that is in need of them.

Parishioners' Newsletter of 03/16/08

2008-03-20T09:00:00.003-05:00

Somos el Cuerpo de Cristo
Thoughts from Some Fellow Catholics of the Rio Grande Valley
March 16, 2008

Five Years
“[you have built] a dynamic, progressive Vatican II parish in every respect—spiritually vibrant, financially solvent and generous with many outstanding charitable endeavors, many active volunteers in a wide variety of programs, extensive participation of members in educational and renewal programs, a large number of small church communities…and a strong, prophetic voice in the larger community.”
Bishop Peña to the parishioners of Holy Spirit in February 2003.

That Lenten sermon of five years ago is always worth recalling and reflecting on. Within a few short months of those words, the Bishop set in motion a process to produce a parish diametrically opposed to the one he praised—he has succeeded. We can wonder if, in this his final year as bishop, he looks upon this as one of his great successes.

Four Lenten Sundays
The last four Sundays of Lent brought us the woman at the well, the man born blind, the raising of Lazarus, and finally, the Passion narrative. Water, light, dark, life and death—pretty serious stuff that focused our thinking on the nature of Christ and what he has brought to us by his life, death and resurrection.

I spent these last four Sundays with four different communities, celebrating in many different ways—a home Mass with a visiting priest and a familiar community, a para-liturgical service with Call to Action chapter leaders from all over the country, a standard upper-middle class suburban Austin parish’s celebration (professional music, lots of families with young children, lots of smiling faces, an air of formality) and finally back in the Valley at a small, relatively poor parish, with lots of honest effort but without many resources to create an inspiring and uplifting Palm Sunday liturgy.

Though wildly different, these celebrations were essentially the same—a community gathering to hear the Word, to give thanks for being bound to each other and to Christ’s life, death and resurrection, and to share the ritual meal that cements those bonds.

I think we need to periodically think about the three-fold core that makes up our Eucharistic celebration. The surrounding, peripheral parts of the liturgy should all point to and reinforce the essentials—the Word, the giving of thanks and the meal—not distract from and certainly not overshadow them. Those peripherals matter and how they are done matters but they are not the core of what we are about when we celebrate the Eucharist. That’s a lesson that was reinforced for me these last four Sundays.
from Jerry Brazier

Compartments
But Jesus cried out again in a loud voice, and gave up his spirit. And behold, the veil of the sanctuary was torn in two from top to bottom.
from the Passion of Matthew, read on Palm Sunday

The veil of the sanctuary (in the Temple in Jerusalem) separated the sacred from the profane—only the chosen, ritually clean, and special ones were allowed inside the veil. With Jesus’ death the veil has been torn from top to bottom. There are no longer, in this post-redemption world, sacred things and profane things. It is no longer possible to compartmentalize our lives into the spiritual/religious/holy parts and the secular/human/everyday parts. Our relationship with God is carried out in our human, everyday, secular lives with the people with whom we share those lives. This is what the life, death and resurrection of Jesus is about: the redemption of humanity, right now, not at some time in the future.

E.G.
“..What occurred to me, the new insight is this: whereas before, I believed that issues of sexual morality polarized and politicized the Church; and while that’s true, to some extent, I now believe that polarization is less significant to the life and future of the Church than I had believed. The deeper reality that marks our ecclesiastical life is this: not in opposition to the Church’s teachings, but a sense of irrelevance. The Church is increasingly not polarized over these issues. Rather, large segments of the community have come to the conclusion that the Church is simply irrelevant in terms of having anything credible or useful to offer when it comes to human sexuality.

“Now let me illustrate this by making reference to what is, admittedly, an anecdotal experience from my own teaching at Marquette University. As I was teaching class, and after discussing the Church’s teaching on human sexuality, I had the students keep journals. And one student after that discussion wrote the following in her reflection journal; she said, “When it comes to the Church’s teachings on gender and sexuality, I look at the Church much like I do my senile grandmother.” She continues, “I respect her as a dear old lady, but I don’t base my decisions on anything she has to say.”
from Fr. Bryan Massingale, a priest of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee. Bryan has a doctorate in moral theology from the Pontifical Institute in Rome and he is currently an Associate Professor of Theology at Marquette University

“In psychological and psychiatric terms, homosexuality represents a defect in the psychosexual development of the individual.

“It is not considered an illness but a human conduct that in the majority of cases is a learned behavior that may be altered to a ‘normal’ or natural order.
from Monsignor Juan Nicolau, in the McAllen Monitor, 3/9/08

Contrasting Structures
Our Church institutional structure can be traced back centuries to the adoption of a Roman governance system centered on a supreme human authority. Until then, following the example of St. Paul, it adapted its structure to different cultures as it spread the Good News.

Scholars identify the chief characteristics of a Roman system as monarchical, dogmatic, male dominated, with overtones of infallible divine authority coupled with legalistic administration. Citizens were indoctrinated with loyalty to the state. Discipline, loyalty and obedience were the esteemed virtues.

In contrast, the early Church revolved around local leaders, often women, in house churches. Entire households were included. The sensus fidelium was sought in a consultative system structured for shared responsibility and collaborative governance. The legalism of original Jewish converts flexed in response to Paul's stress on Christ's universal message as gentiles were added to the Church. Esteemed virtues were love, compassion, and humility. Prophetic zeal for the Gospel message was the focus of their life.

The rigidity of this Roman System gave us the sinful division of East and West, the Reformation, the contra-reform against Vatican II and the current crisis.

Compare legalism, governance-by-divine right, and absolute obedience with compassion, subsidiarity, and respect for conscience. Which offers most to the adult, thinking, Catholic Christian community? It will be a long road back, but a clear awareness of the problem is a good start. As human instruments of God, the change begins within ourselves. The Roman system will not, cannot, change itself. Invest your time, talent, and treasure in the system that you want for the Church.
from ARCC, Association for the Rights of Catholics in the Church

Prepared for all Valley Catholics and edited by Jerry Brazier. Copy this, and pass it on, either by e-mail or paper. If you want an opportunity for prayerful discussion of these and other issues in the Church or have any other comments, please contact at: gbrazier@rgv.rr.com

Vigil For Peace!

2008-03-20T08:02:00.000-05:00

LOCAL VALLEY PRIESTS SHOW STRONG SUPPORT FOR CHURCH'S OBJECTION TO THE WAR IN IRAQ

I attended the Vigil for Peace commemorating the 5th anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq. It was so refreshing to see all of the Catholic priests that were there to show the Church’s objection to this unjust war. I am sure that this over-flow priestly attendance was the direct result of our bishop’s strongly suggesting that they attend…

Oh, sorry... I thought today was April Fools Day!
~Kanickers

Priests Call for their Bishop to Resign.

2008-03-17T16:00:00.007-05:00

A statement from the Priests in the diocese...
March 12, 2008

As priests serving in the Diocese of Belleville, we have become increasingly frustrated by the lack of collaborative and consultative leadership of Bishop Edward K. Braxton since his installation in June 2005. Our repeated attempts to work cooperatively with Bishop Braxton through the Presbyteral Council, Diocesan Pastoral Council, Diocesan Finance Council, Priests’ Personnel Board and annual Priests Convocation have proven futile. Because of the Bishop’s lack of cooperation, consultation, accountability and transparency, it is the judgment of a great number of the presbyterate that he has lost his moral authority to lead and govern our Diocese. Therefore, it is requested that Bishop Braxton resign from his office as Bishop of the Diocese of Belleville for his own good, for the good of the Diocese and for the good of the presbyterate.

Recent revelations of Bishop Braxton’s misappropriation of funds have only intensified the lack of trust the priests, religious and laity of our Diocese have in our Bishop. We believe that his spending patterns, his pursuit of outside donors to cover these expenditures and his lack of transparency in finances and other areas has resulted in a total lack of trust.

We also publicly affirm our trust in the integrity and competence of Mr. Bill Knapp, Chief Financial Officer of the Diocese. We believe it is imperative that Bishop Braxton renew his contract for another term if any trust is to be restored. Mr. Knapp has earned our confidence during his 10 years of dedicated service to our Diocese, and without his presence in the Diocesan Finance Office, we fear that Bishop Braxton will not be held accountable for his administration of the temporal goods and finances of the Diocese.

We also take this opportunity to encourage all members of the Diocese of Belleville to give their generous support to the 2008 Catholic Services and Ministry Appeal so that we can continue the essential pastoral, educational, social and outreach ministries that make Christ visible in Southern Illinois . We pledge to ensure all these funds are closely monitored and used only for their intended purposes.

We make this statement as advocates for all the people of God in the Diocese of Belleville, whom we are privileged to know, love and serve. We also hereby re-commit ourselves to being more collaborative, consultative and transparent in our own pastoral ministries. We will continue to work and pray for healing and reconciliation in our Diocese.

Forty four (44) priests (60% of active incardinated pastors) within the diocese of Belleville, Ill. signed this statement.

Holy Spirit Parishioners' Newsletter 03/02/08

2008-03-06T13:53:00.005-06:00

Somos el Cuerpo de Cristo
Thoughts from Some Fellow Parishioners of Holy Spirit—March 2, 2008

Forty Years
Forty years is a long time. The Exodus must have seemed interminable to the Israelites. How could they have survived that long, long stretch of time? Who knows for sure how much time it really took to travel from Egypt to Canaan—the point of the story is that none of the generation that led the flight from Egypt survived to reach the Promised Land—that’s how long it took.

Forty years ago was 1968. In late winter, Gene McCarthy almost won the Wisconsin primary by running an anti-war campaign and in doing that effectively drove LBJ from office. In the spring of that year, in Memphis, Martin Luther King was murdered. In June, in Los Angeles, after winning the California primary, Bobby Kennedy said, “It’s on to the convention,” and was dead within twenty minutes. That summer, in a lot of cities, there were riots and fires and martial law. A lot seemed to be unraveling and the country eventually turned to Nixon to make things right again and, in the course of that, seemed to back away from the great causes of civil rights and peace.

It was about forty years ago that the Second Vatican Council finished its work and the implementation of its reforms began. We seem to still be in the desert in many ways, with the institutional Church hankering for the good old days in Egypt and looking for Nixon-like leaders to “make things right again.” Maybe the generation of the transition has to pass away before the reforms can really take root and fundamentally transform the Church—it’s a biblical forty years, just scripture talk for a long time.

Examine The Catholic Exodus
Now for a reflection on a different sort of Exodus.

“Among the many fascinating findings of the recent study by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life showing the porous borders of the country’s religious denominations and the diversity of religious expression in this country, is the sobering note that the Catholic church has been hemorrhaging membership in recent years.

“The survey found that while 31 percent of Americans were raised Catholic, only 24 percent still identify as Catholic. While the retention rate among Catholics remains one of the highest among world religions, the fact is that millions have left.

“We have been able to ignore that sad reality year after year by boasting of the significant numbers of new Catholics signing up, most of them immigrants from Mexico and other areas of Latin America. While their numbers and vibrancy bring new life and perspectives to a church that is otherwise losing members at a record rate, it would be foolish to keep ignoring those who feel compelled to find religious homes elsewhere.

“Undoubtedly, some of the more self-righteous among us will say good riddance to those who decide to leave, disdainful of such infidelity.

“It would be of far greater value to the community, however, to seek to understand why so many feel so at odds with the tradition, its teachings and its leaders or so rejected by the community that their only option, as they see it, is to leave.

“Sociologists such as William D’Antonio, Dean Hoge, Fr. Andrew Greeley and others have accumulated years of research detailing the attitudes and shifting loyalties of U.S. Catholics. Some of it makes for discomfiting reading, raising challenging questions about church structures, authority and the role of the laity.

“Speculation about why the numbers have dropped began immediately after the report was released: secularism; assimilation of former immigrants who no longer feel an attachment to the church; poor efforts at evangelizing; not enough priests and nuns to go around. All of that may be true. We’d add a few of our own: the sex abuse crisis, particularly the cover-up by bishops; rules prohibiting birth control; rules forbidding Communion to divorced and remarried Catholics; lack of accountability on financial matters; the second-class status of women in the church; rejection of gays and lesbians.

“We don’t need any more speculation. What we need is a church wide discussion of what we know and don’t know about those who leave. The alternative, of course, is to continue on in blissful ignorance, bidding good riddance to the critics, and pretending smugly that all is well.” National Catholic Reporter, March 7, 2008

Wood and War
Very soon, we will not only celebrate Holy Week but a very somber anniversary. March 19th will mark the 5th anniversary of the war in Iraq. How ironic that the traditional gift for 5th anniversaries is wood as we prepare to gather around the wood of the cross. The wood of the cross brought resurrection, perhaps our shared prayer and conversion to the nonviolent way of Jesus can resurrect peace.

Excerpts from “A Service of Repentance on the 5th Anniversary of the Invasion of Iraq”, Pax Christi USA:

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons and daughters of God …You have learned how it was said, “You must love your neighbors and hate your enemy,” but I say to you, “Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you.” In this way you will be daughters and sons of your Creator in heaven.

We ask for forgiveness for our complicity in the violence now unleashed in our world and we repent of the violence in our own hearts.

For initiating war ……..forgive us, we pray.
For turning from truth
For raining down death
For resorting to torture
For shattering innocence
For trusting in weapons
For needing to dominate
For failing to love
For failing to negotiate
For our pride

That we learn compassion ……change our hearts.
That we practice mercy
That we embrace nonviolence
That we act in justice
That we live in hope
That we love tenderly
That we do Your will
That we will be peace.

God, hope and joy of all creation, grant us we pray the grace to hear deep in our hearts our Muslim brothers’ and sisters’ daily call to prayer: “O God you are peace. From you is peace and unto you is peace. Let us live our lives in peace. Bring us into your peace. Unto you be honor and glory. We hear and obey. Grant us your forgiveness God, and unto you be our becoming.”
Amen. from Michelle Pena

Prepared by RGV Parishioners for Progress and edited by Jerry Brazier. Copy this, and pass it on to fellow parishioners, either by e-mail or paper. If you want an opportunity for prayerful discussion of these and other issues about the parish or have any other comments, please contact us at gbrazier@rgv.rr.com.

Is Union Busting Catholic?

2008-02-27T13:41:00.008-06:00

Interesting article concerning Unions and the attitude of the Catholic Church.

Naturally, Holy Spirit Parish and our own Bishop Raymundo Peña got mention for his union busting efforts relative to our church employees.

When are the leaders of our Catholic Church going to start teaching us by example?

Christ is crying!
~Kanickers

Here is the link:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/angela-bonavoglia/ask-benedict-is-union-bu_b_88358.html

Invitation to sign a letter to the Pope

2008-02-24T17:58:00.006-06:00

Invitation to sign a letter to the Pope

In advance of Pope Benedict's scheduled April visit to the United States, the letter below is being circulated for signatures. If you would like your name added, please send it to me in the form that you would like it to appear. Include whatever other forms of identification you deem appropriate, e.g., organization, vocation, position. Also feel free to circulate it to others who might be interested with the instruction to reply to me at stephen.kobasa@gmail.com by March 16.

in peace,
Stephen Kobasa

To His Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI

Most Holy Father:

In your own words, "today we should be asking ourselves if it is still licit to admit the very existence of a 'just war'." Yet, during your upcoming visit to the United States, you are planning to meet with President George W. Bush, whose empty justifications for the violence in Iraq lead to increasing numbers of dead, injured and displaced people. Iraqi civilians still endure the "continual slaughter" which you described in your 2007 Easter Sunday address.

Shortly before the U.S. invaded Iraq, you rightly declared that "there were not sufficient reasons to unleash a war." You've also called attention to the terrible new technologies which cause indiscriminate destruction. Five years later, how much more reason you have to call for an immediate end to this war, and to refuse to meet with the President of the United States until that is accomplished.

If you kneel in grief and outrage before the cross of the tortured Christ, can you offer your blessing to a head of government who excuses the most terrible abuses of human minds and bodies as "legal"? If meet with him you must, then meet as a prophet should - issuing a warning and an invitation to repentance. Courtesy cannot be used as an evasion of our biblical faith. Ezekiel was repeatedly reminded of his responsibility to admonish those doing evil if he desired to escape sharing in the responsibility for their sins. Shouldn't any of us who recognize the horror of what is happening in Iraq be condemned if we are silent?

You are scheduled to be in Washington, D.C. on the anniversary of your birth. We feel sure that you will be thinking of the countless children of Iraq who never reached their fifth birthday. In 2005 alone, 122,000 Iraqi children under age five died. There are many, both within the Church and outside of it, who long for your voice to speak for those innocent dead and - face to face with those whose policies denied all respect for their lives - demand that the killing stop.

We are, in faithful hope,

Bishop Thomas Gumbleton, Archdiocese of Detroit
Kathy Boylan, Dorothy Day Catholic Worker
Stephen Vincent Kobasa
Kathy Kelly
Marie Dennis, Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns

Lay Congress for Valley Catholics

2008-02-22T11:16:00.000-06:00

DON'T MISS THIS!

Noted Scripture Scholar to Address Lay Congress for Valley Catholics

Father Roger Karban, from the Diocese of Belleville, Illinois, will be the featured speaker at We Are The Church, a Lay Congress for Valley Catholics.

This second session of the Lay Congress, which has as its theme, The Parish: Living as a Gospel Community, will be held from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm on Saturday, February 23rd at the Echo Hotel and Conference Center in Edinburg.

Organized by interested laity in the Valley, the Lay Congress is a bringing together of people to learn about their rights as faithful, lay Catholics and so become empowered to impact the Church in the Rio Grande Valley and the world.

Father Karban will speak on the Parish as a Gospel Community and Meeting the Challenge of Discipleship. There will be small group discussions with opportunities to discuss such questions as, what sort of community is a parish? What is expected of us as parishioners? What should we expect from our parish?

Father Karban was ordained a priest in Rome in 1964. He received a licentiate in Theology from the Grgorian University in Rome and did his doctoral work in Scripture at St. Louis University. He has taught adult scripture courses from 1966 to the present at Southern Illinois University and the University of Notre Dame and he will be joining the faculty of St. Louis University in 2008.

All interested Catholics are invited to attend this Lay Congress. It is free of charge and no pre-registration is required, however, donations will be accepted to help defray costs. Lunch will not be provided, but will be available at the Echo Hotel or nearby restaurants.

For further information, see http://www.laycongressrgv.org/, or contact the RGV Lay Congress Committee at LayCongressRGV@gmail.com.

Holy Spirit Parishioners' Newsletter 02/17/08

2008-02-20T17:33:00.004-06:00

Somos el Cuerpo de Cristo
Thoughts from Some Fellow Parishioners of Holy Spirit
February 17, 2008

Correspondence from the Bishop
“Thank you for your expression of concern in regard to Monsignor Louis Brum’s ministry in your parish. I have received expressions of approval of his ministry, as well. The parish is seriously divided, and we must evaluate Monsignor’s ministry as well as that of the entire staff….

“I will cancel a personal trip…, so that we can address this urgent matter. In accord with the Church’s Code of Canon Law, I will then meet with the parish priest consulters whose counsel I must seek, as a first step, in these matters. I anticipate being able to take some action relatively soon.”

This correspondence from Bishop Peña was in February of 2006. Is there any evidence that “parish priest consulters” had their counsel sought? Was the Monsignor’s ministry ever formally evaluated? Was any action taken, ever, even if not “relatively soon” to resolve what the Bishop himself then called serious divisions? The answers to those questions are obvious and reveal the disingenuousness of the administration of the diocese—they acknowledge that there are (or were) problems at Holy Spirit and express commitments to solve those problems, but do absolutely nothing to create solutions. This is leadership?

Transition
This week the Bishop celebrates his 74th birthday, which means that next year at this time the diocese will have a new bishop or will be in the process getting a new bishop.

“Unless it is legitimately established otherwise, whenever a diocesan or coadjutor bishop must be appointed, as regards what is called the ternus to be proposed to the Apostolic See, the pontifical legate is to seek individually and to communicate to the Apostolic See together with his own opinion the suggestions of the metropolitan and suffragans of the province to which the diocese to be provided for belongs or with which it is joined in some grouping, and the suggestions of the president of the conference of bishops. The pontifical legate, moreover, is to hear some members of the college of consultors and cathedral chapter and, if he judges it expedient, is also to seek individually and in secret the opinion of others from both the secular and non-secular clergy and from laity outstanding in wisdom.” from the Code of Canon Law (C. 377.3)

This canon can be read very restrictively, emphasizing phrases like “if expedient,” “in secret,” and “laity outstanding in wisdom” which could justify a closed and minimally consultative process for selecting a new bishop. That restricted reading is not required, however. Prior to John Paul II, wide consultation with priests and laity was commonplace—Bishop Matthiesen of Amarillo (in an article in the NCR) recalled that about 100 lay people in his diocese were part of the consultative process that led to his being named bishop.

No one seriously believes that an open election of bishops by the clergy and laity of a diocese is workable in this day and age, but everyone should know that such elections were the norm in the early Church (St. Augustine was chosen bishop in exactly that way). From the early Middle Ages until the nineteenth century, bishops were more often than not chosen by the secular authority and ratified by the Pope. It is only with the collapse of the close relationships between church and state that that practice changed. In fact, the first bishop of the United States, John Carroll, was named after Rome consulted with the most well-known (at least in Europe) political figure in America, Benjamin Franklin, an anti-clerical agnostic.

The faithful of the Rio Grande Valley, clerical and lay, should have an opportunity to express their opinions about what sort of bishop they want and who should be their bishop. It is an ancient prerogative and one for which the law of the Church provides.

Slain In The Spirit?
“Being slain in the Spirit is a term related to the Charismatic movement and Pentecostalism which describes a religious phenomenon in which a person enters a state with loss of all motor control over their body and falls to the floor during an event perceived as a personal encounter with God's glory power, usually associated with occasions of public prayer ministry when the laying on of hands is practiced.

“Being slain in the Spirit occurs in many contemporary Charismatic or Pentecostal church meetings. It was also extremely common in early American (late eighteenth-century) Methodism, particularly at camp meetings and love feasts. Many refer to the phenomenon as ‘falling under the Spirit's power,’ ‘falling before the Lord’ or ‘resting in the Spirit.’ ” from Wikipedia

There is persistent talk that some parishioners have been “slain in the Spirit” during adoration at Holy Spirit. It is difficult for many people to take this sort of religious phenomenon seriously. We all admit the possibility of intense personal experiences of God, but most of us also recognize the huge potential for self-delusion that exists when we begin to deal with the mystical.

Traditionally, Catholicism has been extremely skeptical of the Charismatic movement and has been particularly pointed in its criticism of the practices of Pentecostal churches. It seems that the Parish should have the same healthy skepticism about being “slain in the Spirit” and other such phenomenon, particularly if they occur as part of an organized service in the parish.

Mixed Signals
The Diocese has announced that due to poor financial support for Public Radio from local listeners (only 15% of needed donations have been received) programming may have to been drastically modified or the station may even go off the air. Monsignor Briseño chastises listeners for not contributing and surmises their dissatisfaction with the technical quality of the signal is the cause.

The Good Monsignor might also consider the possibility that the small group of traditional supporters may be unhappy with more than the signal; they may be unhappy with the management of both operations (radio and television). The Hand of God fiasco, the purging of the board of directors, and rumblings of other personnel issues may the cause of disenchantment. Maybe it is time for the University of Texas, through its Pan American and Brownsville campuses, to buy the radio and television stations and operate them in the public interest, with proper oversight from the entire local community.

Cast Iron Beauty
There is a simple and elegant beauty when an object fully serves its purpose. We can sense this especially in handmade objects. We have a quilt that was made for us by my aunt. It is beautiful not just because of her sewing skills or because of the material. It is beautiful because it wraps us in warmth—physical warmth and her warmth.

I just recently learned how to cook with cast iron pans. There is a certain amount of respect and care you must treat a cast iron pan with—you can’t let it sit in water, it must be oiled and it must be preheated. But in learning to treat the pan correctly I was reminded that we all need to be treated with care and respect. And when that happens, we can beautifully fill our purpose. My cast iron pan is no longer a clunky mystery. It is beginning to take on the role of a cast iron pan from my husband’s memory. A pan his aunt would cook for them with, a pan whose appearance in her hand and headed for the stove immediately reassured you that something good was being prepared.

Scraps of material and simple cast iron that become beautiful as they serve their purpose. We are the same. As we treat each other with care and respect we can all discover our purpose. And in filling that purpose we can be transfigured, and the beauty our Creator crafted in us can be revealed. from Michelle Pena

Prepared by RGV Parishioners for Progress and edited by Jerry Brazier. Copy this, and pass it on to fellow parishioners, either by e-mail or paper. If you want an opportunity for prayerful discussion of these and other issues about the parish or have any other comments, please contact us at gbrazier@rgv.rr.com

Holy Spirit Parishioners' Newsletter 02/03/08

2008-02-05T21:40:00.000-06:00

Somos el Cuerpo de Cristo
Thoughts from Some Fellow Parishioners of Holy Spirit
February 3, 2008

Broken, Isolated, Adrift
“Our parish has become for us a place of anger and artifice, of division and dysfunction. …

“It is hard to describe the parish situation without appearing to cast stones. Every priest is unique in his gifts and his shortcomings, and living in and contributing to an authentic faith community is never simple or easy. Of course there will be differences of opinion, and differing commitments and callings, among parishioners. But the Gospel is the Gospel. To be a dwelling place for the Gospel, a healthy parish requires cooperation, compassion, listening, honesty, respect, trust and shared goals, just for starters. But when all of those things go missing, the community has no foundation on which to rest as it weathers storms. The storms take over. The structure is lost.

“We are, I believe, a broken parish. We do not really know what to do, other than pray. The priest shortage is partly to blame, as is our own surrender to frustration. Our pastor has accused some of us of a conspiracy to bring him down, but really, we are just broken in our own little ways, isolated and adrift. Some of us who can afford the gas commute to other parishes. Some of us skip Mass. Some of us have begun to give our offerings to other charities, where our dollars will be put to responsible and life-affirming use. We realize, when we are berated for the dwindling collection plate, that we have perhaps hit upon the only vote that counts: our money. This makes us even sadder….

“If Jesus himself, disguised as a layperson, visited some of our parishes, if he sat somewhere in the middle and did not sing very loudly and forgot his envelope, would he feel welcomed, loved and necessary?”

This quote sounds like it could have come from a Holy Spirit parishioner, but instead comes from an anonymous contributor to the Jesuit magazine, America (2/11/08—for the entire article, see http://reform-network.net/?p=1391 ). It seems that the dismantling and breaking of parishes is not limited to the Rio Grande Valley—is that somehow comforting? No, it is just deeply saddening. Pray for the unnamed parish and all those parishes suffering because they have ceased to be “a dwelling place for the Gospel.”

Whither Church Reform?
“In addition to the anger, distrust, frustration, disillusionment and spiritual aridity the institutional Church has caused because of its totally inept response to the evil of clergy abuse, there has been another equally toxic reaction and that is the profound feeling of nausea in reaction to the self-serving public relations campaign of the U.S. hierarchy by which they continue to try to flip the whole mess around, make themselves look like victims and demonize anyone who has ever challenged their collective stupidity, cruelty and total lack of compassion.…

“`It’s a long, excruciatingly painful process to grow up in the Catholic Church. Most chronological adults never make it. No matter how liberated and avant-garde they believe themselves to be, there is still a very powerful core, deep down inside, that causes dependency feelings to take over whenever one is faced with the challenge of taking the risk of not only thinking but acting like an adult when in the realm of the Church world. To do so means to challenge the clerical office holders and to express opinions that they do not want to hear. To do so means taking the risk that some of them might try to capitalize on the magical thinking that has supported their power by threatening canonical penalties or equating disobedience to them with disobedi-ence to Christ. …

“I don’t want to expend much more energy tilting at windmills in the world of Catholic Church reform. I have no hope that it will happen. I don’t want to spend any more time trudging through what can best be described as a swamp of toxic waste. I believe change will happen because it has happened over the past few years. It has not taken place through dialogue with the hierarchy however. It’s happened when the Church office holders (I intentionally don’t use the word leaders) have found themselves face to face with powers greater than themselves like the law enforcement agencies or the civil court system. That’s where the change will take place...”

This is a quote from Father Thomas Doyle, a canon lawyer and a Dominican priest, who was commissioned by the USCCB, following the sex abuse scandal in Lafayette, LA, in 1984, to prepare a report and recommendations to the nation’s bishops. This report, which reads today as if he had access to a crystal ball, was heavily criticized by the bishops and completely ignored. After the serious problems that arose in Dallas and then in Boston and then, it seems, almost everywhere, it is no wonder that Father Doyle has little confidence in the bishops’ willingness to do the right thing, related to this and other issues, without being forced to do so.

Father Doyle has spent the last twenty-five years working for the victims of clergy sex abuse (along with serving, until recently, as a military chaplain), and his take on Church reform is food for thought for all those expending time, energy, and emotion on the cause of reform and renewal in the Church. Is this institutional Church really an irredeemable “swamp of toxic waste”?

Transformation
It’s funny how certain words or ideas seem to keep appearing. As we get ready for this season of Lent, “transformation” seems to be that word. We will be using a Pax Christi USA booklet called “Invited to Transformation” at my house this year. (We will be meeting at 7:30pm on Fridays at our house if anyone is interested in joining us.) But it has been watching the transformation of my mom that has really blessed me with a renewed perspective for Lent. My father died a little over 5 years ago from kidney cancer at age 63. He and my mother handled his cancer and death with grace and strength, but it was definitely not what they had planned for their lives. My mother went from being part of a couple that had always done so much together to being alone. She kept herself involved in many volunteer activities but always felt like she was still trying to find her path. Recently one of her closest friends lost her husband as well. As the two have kept each other company, an idea was born – maybe we should start a group that can offer the same kind of support we have been for one another to others. And so the transformation began. My mother writes me excited emails of how the planning is going and the unex-pected ways she receives encouragement and knows that she is an-swering a call. She has been transformed into an inspired leader, and the grief of my father’s death has been transformed into new life. What a beautiful picture of Lent and Easter—if we can be open to transformation, then resurrection will follow. from Michelle Peña

Let’s All Gather At The River
In the Brownsville Diocesan Manual it states that the Sacrament of Baptism is to be celebrated as part of a Sunday Mass in the parish—there are to be no “private baptisms.” Private baptisms continue to be celebrated at Holy Spirit parish in direct defiance of diocesan policy. What do they call those who pick and choose what directives of the Church they will follow? It must be “cafeteria Monsignors.”

Prepared by RGV Parishioners for Progress and edited by Jerry Brazier. Copy this, and pass it on to fellow parishioners, either by e-mail or paper. If you want an oppor-tunity for prayerful discussion of these and other issues about the parish or have any other comments, please contact us at http://www.blogger.com/gbrazier@rgv.rr.com.

Peace & Justice Event

2008-02-05T10:47:00.000-06:00

3rd Annual Peace and Justice Gathering

NO WALLS! NO WARS!
NO DETENTION CENTERS!

FEBRUARY 16, 2008 – SATURDAY
10 AM – 2 PM
SOUTH TEXAS COLLEGE – MID VALLEY CAMPUS
STUDENT SERVICES BUILDING
400 N. Border
Weslaco

The event starts 10 a.m. sharp
Child Care and Peace-making Program for All Kids Will be Available

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
DIANE WILSON – Co-Founder of Code Pink
JAY JOHNSON-CASTRO – Co-founder of Border Ambassadors

See you there!

Pax Christi - RGV

2008-02-01T07:10:00.000-06:00

Lent 2008

Pax Christi Rio Grande Valley invites you to join us on Friday evenings during Lent for prayer and reflection based on Pax Christi USA’s “Invited to Transformation”

7:30pm, fridays during Lent
Home of Mark & Michelle Peña
164 Austin Blvd.
Edinburg, TX
Call 956-380-3731 for directions
or email mpena113@rgv.rr.com

About the program:
Invited to Transformation: Reflections for Lent 2008

Like our faith communities, this year’s Lenten reflections are from many different and unique voices joined together as one in the Body of Christ. These reflections invite us to transformation and to experience God more fully in our midst. We are invited to examine our hearts, to watch for and name the temptations of our world and lives, and to plumb the depths of God’s transforming grace. Together we journey from the repentance of ashes to the sorrow of Christ crucified to the joy of resurrection. Authors include many Pax Christi USA Ambassadors of Peace.

Letters To The Editor

2008-01-31T17:30:00.000-06:00

OK, Just in case you missed these...

January 29, 2008 - 7:11PM

Bishop’s new year list requires additions

To the editor:

In response to Bishop Peña’s article of Jan. 11, “Top Ten List for the New Year,” I am pleased he is asking us to pray and work for an end to abortion and the death penalty, for world peace and an end to war, for justice in the work place, for an end to poverty and hunger, for a revision of immigration policies and a halt to the border wall project, and for an end to racism and prejudice.

What is missing is what the diocese is committed to doing about these issues. I hope the bishop has a plan for conveying his commitment to these issues to his priests who then would bring them to parishioners. How refreshing and challenging when I hear homilies based on the social justice concerns. How wonderful if the diocese would issue a call to action with specific suggestions for us. For example, every fourth Sunday of each month, a group gathers on the corner of Nolana and 10th streets in McAllen to protest the war and demonstrate for peace. The local chapter of the Texas Coalition against the Death Penalty holds prayer vigils outside the Hidalgo County courthouse when there is an execution. Border wall opponents get signatures for petitions. There is much that can be done and more folks would be involved if encouraged to do so by their priests.

The bishop also calls for Catholics to confess their sins, and be reconciled with God and the community. It is time our diocese does this itself regarding the sexual abuse scandal in our church. There needs to be a loud cry from the people that the diocese be transparent and reveal the names of pedophile priests in order to protect our children.

Bishop, please add that to your top items for the New Year.

Sister Moira Kenny
McAllen

January 25, 2008 – 7:33PM

Less talk, more action from Bishop Peña

To the editor:

For the most part, Bishop Peña’s Top 10 list for the New Year (Jan. 11) is admirable. But like so much the bishop does, it is only empty talk. Why doesn’t he send letters about these topics to the parishes to be read at masses and acted upon by the congregations?

His No. 10 wish is that people “practice the faith.” Maybe he could start by showing us how it is done. Does one practice the faith by hiding pedophile priests? By not coming clean with the faithful in the way donations are used? By running public broadcasting stations with secrecy and deceit? By having toady priests fire loyal church workers? By destroying unions started try and help these good workers? By ruining former excellent parishes like Holy Spirit in McAllen? By making looser priests monsignors? By lying?

Yes, Bishop Peña, show us how to practice the faith. Then maybe your wishes for the New Year will come true.

Guy Hallman
McAllen

Re: Bishop Pena's Top 10 List

To the Editor,

It was encouraging to read Bishop Pena’s top ten list for 2008. The items he asks us to prioritize this year are all necessary and worthy items.

However, the Bishop needs to set an example by personally demonstrating ways to be active in accomplishing these goals. It does no good just to talk, action is required if we are to be an example to everyone in the Valley in caring for our brothers and sisters and our world.

I ask Bishop Pena to show us how he and the diocese are taking the lead in addressing these issues. By the examples of action and programs supported by the Bishop, each of the members of the diocese that he leads can see the value of action and join in the process.

Christians are called to be in the world addressing injustice and the leadership needs to be an example to the entire community. Others will be attracted to the Church community by the example of support for justice not just words or wishes.

Sincerely,
Fred Dabrowski

Holy Spirit Parishioners' Newsletter 01/20/08

2008-01-22T22:13:00.000-06:00

Somos el Cuerpo de Cristo
Thoughts from Some Fellow Parishioners of Holy Spirit
January 20, 2008

True of Many?
I met a gal wondering exactly what God wanted of her.
She realized one thing for sure:
that in order to keep her faith she had to leave.
Not leave the Church, but leave the inside of the church,
Leave Church official, go out the church door leaving behind clericalism and arrogance and hierarchical exclusiveness,
to begin a refreshing search in the wider Christian community
where she might find God in new places.
Though Church official cannot be reformed from the outside,
and maybe not even from the inside,
it is sad, though understandable, to see such loving agents of reform,
just simply leave.
Sad, because, it makes happy the anti-agents of reform,
those seeking a smaller purer church, (contrary to Jesus’ call);
Sad because they are our family.
But our sadness is overcome by Joy.
Joy in knowing their departure speaks the Truth of Jesus’ Call;
Joy in knowing that their departure is a true sign of the end of times for the outdated and un-Christ-like form of church;
Joy in knowing that they will grow and prosper outside fake hierarchical boundaries; and
Joy in knowing that this is the Will of the Holy Spirit.
from John Churchman, poet and bereavement counselor

New Year’s Wishes vs. New Year’s Resolutions
In his column of January 11th, Bishop Peña presented a “top 10” list for the New Year. This was a list of wishes—outcomes that we should pray for and goals to be achieved. It is an impressive list that touches on virtually every social issue in our nation and our world: abortion, the death penalty, building strong families, peace and war, violence, justice in employment, poverty and hunger, economic inequality, the environment, immigration and the border wall, globalization, racism and prejudice. It reads, in the main, like a set of concerns of the nutty, left-wing peace and justice crowd. Of course, that is not surprising, since the nutty, left-wing peace and justice crowd takes up these concerns from the teachings of the Gospel and the longstanding social teachings of the Church—which are presumably the same sources that the Bishop draws upon.

The Bishop himself makes it very clear that this is not a list of resolutions; that is, specific things he is going to do or even specific things he is exhorting Valley Catholics to do. The question is why did he not present a set of his own resolutions (or propose some for us)? If these are important goals (important enough to pray for), then they should be important enough to generate, as the bureaucrats like to say, “action plans.” Of course, making a dent, even a tiny one, in many of these concerns is problematic, but as some leader once said, “every great journey begins with one small step.” How difficult would it have been for the Bishop to inaugurate a diocesan office of social justice that could inspire and organize the work of lay people, working at the grassroots level with fellow parishioners?

The Bishop’s track record in this area is consistent: fine words and no works. It is even more disturbing when you reflect on the fact that he has permitted (and possibly encouraged) the ostracizing and public vilification by a pastor of his own parishioners for trying to organize peace and justice efforts in the context of their own parish community. Bishop Peña has not prevented the dismantling of Holy Spirit’s social justice work, work he lavishly praised in February of 2003, so even though his “wishes” are well articulated, some cynicism about his willingness to actually do anything to support their fulfillment seems justified.

Let’s make our own resolutions on these important issues, let’s make common cause with those of like mind, and wait for (work for?) the day when our Eucharistic communities will be environments within which we can carry out the mandates of the Gospel.

Parishes and Families
“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina, Chapter 1, first line

The parish as a family is a metaphor we are all familiar with and when all is well in a parish, we take comfort in the metaphor and it seems apt. When the edges of parish life start to fray and we continue to cling to the “parish as family” metaphor, we can get ourselves into a difficult position.

A parish is not the same sort of society as the family and neither is the Church. The family is a natural society, “the end of which is the human fulfillment which husband and wife achieve by conjugal union and the rearing to maturity of the children born to them (John McKenzie, Authority in the Church, p. 9).” Authority in a family is dominative (paternal) and is directed to the maturation of the children. The parish is not a natural society and authority in a parish is not paternal. The parish differs from all other kinds of societies (po-litical, familial, contractual) in its ends and its means—both to be found only in the Gospel and New Testament. Metaphors can only go so far and pushing them beyond a certain point can be destructive.

Anna’s Peace
My daughter Anna was so excited when she figured out that she would be celebrating her birthday on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. So to honor the gift of her wonderful enthusiasm, a quote from him and another great peacemaker, Gandhi, as we hope to start a new year for peace, peace for our world and for our children.

“The old law of an eye for an eye leaves everybody blind. Violence is immoral because it seeks to humiliate the opponent rather than win his or her understanding; it seeks to annihilate rather than to convert. Violence is immoral because it thrives on hatred rather than love. It destroys community and makes brotherhood and sisterhood impossible. It leaves society in monologue rather than dialogue. Violence ends by defeating itself. It creates bitterness in the survivors and brutality in the destroyers.” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

“But I maintain that far more undreamt of and seemingly impossible discoveries will be made in the field of nonviolence … My optimism rests on my belief in the infinite possibilities of the individual to develop nonviolence. The more you develop it in your own being, the more infectious it becomes until it overwhelms your surroundings and by and by might sweep the world … When the practice of nonviolence becomes universal, God will reign on earth as God does in heaven.” Ghandi
from fellow parishioner, Michelle Peña

Come To The Cabaret
What is the fascination with sponsoring performances by artists who are physically challenged in some way? Isn’t the point of art the art itself, not the personal story of the artist? People were initially drawn to Ray Charles (or George Shearing, for the really old amongst us) by the music, nothing else. Has the sanctuary of Holy Spirit become a carnival midway?

Prepared by RGV Parishioners for Progress and edited by Jerry Brazier. Copy this, and pass it on to fellow parishioners, either by e-mail or paper. If you want an opportunity for prayerful discussion of these and other issues about the parish or have any other comments, please contact us at http://www.blogger.com/gbrazier@rgv.rr.com.

Holy Spirit Parishioners' Newsletter 01/06/08

2008-01-08T12:43:00.000-06:00

Somos el Cuerpo de Cristo
Thoughts from Some Fellow Parishioners of Holy Spirit
January 6, 2008

Epiphany
‘A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For the journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.’
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging high prices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly. …
from Journey of the Magi, by T. S. Eliot, 1927

Epiphany, meaning “appearance” or “manifestation,” is a feast intended to celebrate the “shining forth” or revelation of God in human form, to the Gentiles, in the person of Jesus. Originally it was the only celebration of the Incarnation and it consisted of a combined commemoration of the Nativity, the visit of the Magi, the Baptism of Christ, and even the marriage at Cana—all manifestations to the world of God in human form. It wasn’t until the year 534 that the celebration of Christmas was seperated from the other commemorations, and that was only in the Western Church. To this day, in the Eastern Church, Epiphany is the third most important feast (after Easter and Pentecost) and far outshines Christmas.

In reflecting on the readings for the Epiphany, it is clear that the focus is on the universality of the manifestation of Christ—He became a human being, not for a select few, but for all of humanity, even for the most strange and foreign people we could imagine. Those Magi were as different from pious Jews as any individuals could possibly be—secular men given over to studying the occult, etc. As St. Paul says, the Incarnation, and thus salvation, is also for the Gentiles, not just the Jews—meaning it is for everyone.

In today’s world and in today’s Church it is important to remember those words. Just as no one is required to become a Jew in order to be Christian, no one is required to conform to superficial details of appearance, pious practice, or taste to be a “real” Catholic. Our Church is meant to be diverse, universal, not narrow.

In Praise of the Parish
“If you are not a child and still get a stomachache on Sunday mornings when you think about going to church, or if you have thought how nice it would be to spend the same hour at Starbucks reading The New York Times, this message is for you.

“Parishes are important. In any larger discussion about the role and direction of the church, we can’t forget that the structure and mystery of the church are actually experienced in the local faith community. The parish is the place where church happens, not as an abstract ideal or as an administrative structure but as an expression of real human lives, a rich but frustrating work in progress, diverse lives united by common hungers and hopes. …

“Baptized people are meant to be in community. It is a loss to all of us when some feel so discouraged that they leave their local church. We know those (or have been those) who, for varying reasons, have needed to “go away for a while” or who have found safe haven and nourishment in other communions. We know all about the sometimes depressing realities of many parishes—the coldness of some Catholics; the lethargy or heavy-handedness of some pastors; the sometimes deadening homilies. Yet, like the anonymous Christian, the anonymous church exists everywhere. People get together over coffee to talk about life. They tell stories, rediscover the scriptures, break bread, drink to common purposes and to making a difference in the world. And like the formal church they have left, they become two or three gathered together, disciples on the road to Emmaus, coming full circle.

“Here are some challenges. Parishes need such pilgrims. The most important evangelization effort needed in the church is to welcome home her own. But this will happen only if we also welcome the de facto diversity of the church as a mystery that defies homogenization, head-counting, personalized envelopes or even regular attendance. Because change will happen only from within, self-exiled Catholics of all stripes ought to belong to a parish—a challenging one, not a comfort zone. It is a good way to stay in the game, at the family table where all the arguments about the future, good and bad, are taking place. But this will be possible only if we accept the mess, the imperfect, painful process of being human together.

“Because the essential work of the church is reconciliation in the world, this starts with us, at the altar, where forgiveness is the miracle we witness in the death of the Lord. Parishes are centers where this grace waits to become flesh in us.
“See you in church.”
National Catholic Reporter, September 28, 2007

Dishes
One of my many quirks is that I enjoy reading cookbooks – not just flipping through and looking for a recipe, but reading a cookbook like a novel. Cookbooks are more than just ingredient lists and instructions, many share stories, family memories, musings and observations, and how food connects us. I am currently reading one on southern cooking and came across this little piece about washing dishes, something that naturally goes along with cooking.

“Maybe you are lucky enough to have a window over your kitchen sink. You can watch the world go by. Put up a bird feeder. Plant a bulb, an herb, a perennial, a tree and watch it grow … contemplate life. Washing dishes is a chance to be alone with yourself, let your mind wander – or reel it in, whichever needs to be done. Washing the dishes is the Universe giving you a chance to wash up and regroup, to wet down and shake off like a dog, to rinse away your troubles and clean up your mind, to take a Brillo pad to the grimy nooks and crannies of your heart. To wash your troubles down the drain.” (Ann Jackson)

As we start 2008 make a resolution to find a daily, ordinary moment and look for the sacred. God came to us as a most vulnerable human baby – frail and yet divine. And Jesus becomes manifest with us in the most simple of foods and drink, common bread and wine. May we all find something more than ordinary dishpan hands, may we find the miraculous. from Michelle Peña

An Observation for the Political Season
“Liberals feel unworthy of their possessions. Conservatives feel they deserve everything they've stolen.” Mort Sahl

Prepared by RGV Parishioners for Progress and edited by Jerry Brazier. Copy this, and pass it on to fellow parishioners, either by e-mail or paper. If you want an opportunity for prayerful discussion of these and other issues about the parish or have any other comments, please contact us at gbrazier@rgv.rr.com.

Holy Spirit Parishioners' Newsletter 12/23/07

2007-12-26T07:27:00.000-06:00

Somos el Cuerpo de Cristo
Thoughts from Some Fellow Parishioners of Holy Spirit
December 23, 2007

A Christmas Sermon (with comments)
He brought light out of darknesse, not out of a lesser light; he can bring thy Summer out of Winter, though thou have no Spring; though in the wayes of fortune, or understanding, or conscience, thou have been benighted till now, wintred and frozen, clouded and eclypsed, damped and benummed, smothered and stupefied till now, now God comes to thee, not as in the dawning of the day, not as in the bud of the spring, but as the Sun at noon to illustrate all shadowes, as the sheaves in harvest, to fill all penuries, all occasions invite his mercies, and all times are his seasons.
from a sermon of John Donne (Poet and Anglican priest), preached at St. Paul’s Cathedral, Christmas Day, 1624.

“This [post] raises another question for me: How many of us, in church, have ever heard a sermon that is a poem? (I don’t mean quotes from Hallmark or “Footprints.”) I’m not that fond of Donne, but I do wish we had more poetry in our preaching, more sensitivity to the beauty of words, better craftsmanship in use of their rhythms, and attention to how they fall on the ear.”
from Rita Ferrone, dotCommonweal, 12/22/07

“No, I have never heard a Catholic priest make up a poem for a sermon, recite a poem for a sermon, or refer to literature in any way. References to non-Catholic traditions seem mostly limited to football. Ouch! I’m such a grouch today; I’ve now begun to annoy myself.”
from Jean Raber, dotCommonweal, 12/22/07

A Christmas Poem
Christ climbed down
from His bare Tree
this year
and ran away to where
no Bing Crosby carollers
groaned of a tight Christmas
and where no Radio City angels
iceskated wingless
thru a winter wonderland
into a jinglebell heaven
daily at 8:30
with Midnight Mass matinees

Christ climbed down
from His bare Tree
this year
and softly stole away into
some anonymous Mary’s womb again
where in the darkest night
of everybody’s anonymous soul
He awaits again
an unimaginable
and impossibly
Immaculate Reconception
the very craziest of
Second Comings
from Christ Climbed Down, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, ca. 1955

The Dynamics of Reform
“Some people argue that we’re going to sit at a table with these people and they’re going to voluntarily give their power away. I think it is a complete fantasy; it will never happen.” Presidential candidate, John Edwards (in reference to reforming health care)

Those who care about and are working for reform in the Catholic Church would do well to keep John Edwards’ comment in mind. The Church is a human institution, and those in authority who view that as the same as having power will never voluntarily give away what they perceive is their power. Real change can never be completely amicable. “Do you think I came to establish peace…? No, rather division….I have come to set the earth on fire and how I wish it were already blazing.”

John Edwards is talking about insurance companies, drug companies, etc. Who are those that instead of exercising authority in the Church, instead wield power? To reform the Church, the very notion of what the Church is must be re-thought so that conversations around a table will not have to be about power at all.

False Certainty
“I know what you mean about being repulsed by the church when you have only the Mechanical-Jansenist Catholic to judge it by. I think that the reason such Catholics are so repulsive is that they don’t really have faith but a kind of false certainty. They operate by the slide rule and the Church for them is not the body of Christ but the poor man’s insurance system. It’s never hard for them to believe because actually they never think about it. Faith has to take in all the other possibilities it can.” Flannery O’Connor in a letter to a friend, in the collection, The Habit of Being (1979)

Chain of Sorrow
You can gaze out the window get mad and get madder,
Throw your hands in the air, say “What does it matter?”
But it don't do no good to get angry, so help me I know.
For a heart stained in anger grows weak and grows bitter.
You become your own prisoner as you watch yourself sit there wrapped up in a trap of your very own chain of sorrow.
from Bruised Orange, John Prine

This is the first Christmas away from Holy Spirit in a very long time and I find myself thinking about how that makes me feel. Angry? Bitter? Sorrowful? All of those, to some extent, but none with the sharp edge of even a few months ago—I won’t be my own prisoner.

Those responsible for the dismantling of the Parish, the Bishop and the Monsignor, have much to account for, and believing as I do in “what goes around, comes around,” I am certain there will be some justice, some day, for this community. But bruises heal, at least somewhat, and new Christmases bring new kinds of Christmases. No chain of sorrow, not anymore—Merry Christmas to the Holy Spirit community, especially those in exile.
from a parishioner, Jerry Brazier

Prepared by RGV Parishioners for Progress and edited by Jerry Brazier. Copy this, and pass it on to fellow parishioners, either by e-mail or paper. If you want an opportunity for prayerful discussion of these and other issues about the parish or have any other comments, please contact us at gbrazier@rgv.rr.com.

Merry Christmas

2007-12-23T23:27:00.001-06:00

MERRY CHRISTMASLet us give thanks for Christ's love

and for the joy we share through Christ.

Peace on Earth.

Good for you Victor Garcia, Jr.

2007-12-20T20:17:00.000-06:00

December 19, 2007 - 4:29PM
To the Editor:

It’s our religious duty to care for ‘illegals’

I was at the “rally” last Tuesday, and a Caucasian lady sitting in front of me, educated and seemingly a good person, made the statement that she was there to voice her opinion on illegal immigration: that every person must wait in line, even if it takes 10 years. I could not believe that she had said that.

These “illegal immigrants,” all they want is to earn a decent honest living. They are hungry and poor. They risk their lives and family to get to the promised land: the United States of America.

At one time, America had open arms like a true Christian and welcomed anyone, and the hungry were fed and given the opportunity to live a decent life. Even the Cubans that were killers and thieves that were sent here by Castro during the Carter administration were given citizenship.

I still believe that the United States of America has a Christian philosophy; except now, the powers that be have made us believe that the wall is the solution.

I will always help feed the poor and teach them to fish, even if they are labeled “illegal.” My creator did not make my empty stomach wait 10 years so that I could become a “legal citizen.”

If that lady was born in Mexico and had to come to America as an “illegal,” I as a Christian would be there to feed and help her, and that’s because I am a Catholic.

Victor Garcia Jr.
McAllen

ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT?

2007-12-12T10:55:00.000-06:00

Would you keep your money in a Bank that only has part of a vault door?

Every Texas rancher knows that if you don't have fencing all the way around your ranch, the cows are going to get out!

I spent some time at the No Border Wall Rally last night. I also got to talk to many of the U.S Department of Homeland Security/Border Patrol personnel at the public comments gathering on the draft of the RGV Border Fence Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). I tried hard to be objectionable.

First of all, the EIS is about the size of the complete Rio Grande Valley Telephone Book. It was printed November of 2007. Like everyone else, I didn't get a copy of this publication until last night (12/11/07). The cover sheet of this publication states that our comments are due by December 31, 2007.

Folks, week after next is CHRISTMAS. Does our Government really expect us to spend our CHRISTMAS HOLIDAYS reading their propaganda on why they feel a Berlin Wall should be constructed along our cherished river?

If nothing else, please do one thing right now! Click on the following link to e-mail the SBI Tactical Infrastructure Program Office to let them know that two (2) weeks (including Christmas holidays) is just not enough time to read and analyze all of their information and/or to make a comment. A more realistic time-frame would be three to six months. Tell them that!

Link: RGVcomments@BorderFenceNEPA.com

I'll have more comments as I am able to study thir book.

Thanks for your help,

~Kanickers

Holy Spirit Parishioners' Newsletter 12/09/07

2007-12-10T20:02:00.001-06:00

Somos el Cuerpo de Cristo
Thoughts from Some Fellow Parishioners of Holy Spirit
December 9, 2007

Strange Bedfellows
The saying, “politics makes strange bedfellows,” is certainly applicable to the No Border Wall effort in full swing these days up and down the Valley. An uneasy coalition of immigration activists, environmentalists, business interests, and now the Diocese of Brownsville itself, is emerging to try to stop the Border Wall’s construction.

Of particular interest, for its high irony, is the invitation given to Father Jerry Frank by the McAllen Chamber of Commerce to speak at the large anti-Wall rally being organized by the Chamber (scheduled for December 11th at the McAllen Convention Center). This is the same Father Jerry who was (and continues to be) vilified by business leaders in the community for his forceful and very vocal efforts for social justice when he was pastor at Holy Spirit. “It’s a strange, strange world we live in, Master Jack.”

The strong appeal that the Diocese made at every parish this week-end to have people sign petitions and to participate in the McAllen rally has the potential to have a big impact. It would be interesting to know what the dynamics were that finally brought about this effort at the grass-roots, parish level.

Imagine what the impact could be, over a whole range of issues, if the Diocese would embark on a sustained effort to bring the parishes into an organized work of educating parishioners about Catholic social teaching and providing them with the opportunities and tools in their parish communities to put those teachings into practice.

Giving Trees
The Giving Tree, by Shel Silverstein, is a “short moral tale about a relationship between a young boy and a tree in a forest. The tree and the boy become best friends. The tree always provides the boy with what he needs: vines to swing from, shade to sit under, apples to snack on, branches to build a house. As the boy grows older and older he requires more and more of the tree. The tree loves the boy very much and gives him anything he asks for. In the ultimate act of self-sacrifice, the tree lets the boy cut her down so the boy can build a boat in which he can sail. The boy leaves the tree, now a stump.

“Many years later, the boy, now an old man, returns and the tree says ‘I have nothing left to give you’. The boy replies that all he needs is a quiet place to sit and rest as he awaits death. The tree happily obliges.” [excerpted from Wikipedia]

“The Giving Tree” at Holy Spirit is a Christmas season tradition that extends back into the deep mists of parish history. The idea is simple. There is a tree in the gathering space that has paper ornaments, each indicating some sort of gift or donation (a toy for a young girl, money for a poor family’s meal, a donation to help an impoverished Central American community, etc.) A parishioner takes an ornament and returns the associated gift to the parish in time for Christmas. This is not something elaborate that requires much of people, but is a nice gesture “in the spirit of Christmas” on the part on the parish community.

Wouldn’t you know it, this practice has been abandoned at Holy Spirit. The party line from the ever-thoughtful Monsignor is that people are already being asked to do so much at the holidays, that the parish should back off from this project. Make your own judgements, but given the abandonment of the parish Thanksgiving dinner, this is not really very surprising, is it? Like the tree in Silverstein’s story, the Holy Spirit tree has nothing left to give, but not because it has given all that it can, but because it doesn’t want to be bothered anymore.

What is Preaching?
“Preaching is a high and awesome responsibility. It is not to be equated with teaching, for in teaching the subject matter is outside of oneself and capable of being controlled. In preaching, the subject matter is very much part of the preacher and calls the one who speaks also into question. It is certainly not to be identified with the delivering of bromides, or of nosegays of pleasant thoughts. Preaching is not raconteurship, or the recital of charming anecdotes. It is not even the exposition of Scriptures. It is, instead, a matter of both the preacher and people being brought into question.” from Luke Timothy Johnson, Professor of New Testament and Christian Origins at Emory University in Scripture and Discernment, Decision Making in the Church (pp. 153-154)

Mi Casa es Su Casa
The word is that the parish is going to embark on two building projects. One is a retreat center/youth building and the other is a new home for the pastor (in older parlance, a rectory).

Let’s think about the retreat center /youth building first. It is very problematic that parish capital funds should be used as the primary source of building space for what is, in effect, a diocesan-wide ministry. Building funds have been collected over the years from parishioners with the assurance that they would be spent for capital improvement of the parish facilities—it is doubtful that the parish at large views the retreat movement as a Holy Spirit parish ministry, at least to the extent of this level of investment. What assurance does the parish have that there will be a sufficient income stream to staff and maintain such a facility? A building to support the parish’s youth ministry was part of the long-range plan established well prior to June, 2003, but given the dramatic decrease in financial support of religious education in the parish in the last two years, it seems unlikely that youth ministry will really play much part in this planned facility’s use.

What about the new rectory? What in heaven’s name is motivating such an expenditure at this time? You would hope it is something more than, “Father wants a nicer house to live in.” Wouldn’t we all like someone else to pay for us to have a nicer home? The current house that the parish provides for its pastor is in a subdivision a few blocks south of the church property and is very much like the homes of many of the parishioners.

Is it reasonable or even proper for a pastor live in a home that is markedly different from those of the parishioners he is called to serve? Bishop Fitzpatrick lived in a two-bedroom apartment, which he shared with another priest, not in a residence that cost $300,000 to remodel (as our current Bishop does). The argument that has been heard is that the Monsignor needs to be closer to the parish property to be able to serve the community better. That is truly laughable, given the fact the Monsignor is virtually never in the parish offices—is it truly the rectory’s current four block distance from the parish that is interfering with his putting in time there?

Prepared by RGV Parishioners for Progress and edited by Jerry Brazier. Copy this, and pass it on to fellow parishioners, either by e-mail or paper. If you want an opportunity for prayerful discussion of these and other issues about the parish or have any other comments, please contact us at gbrazier@rgv.rr.com.

NO BORDER WALL RALLY

2007-12-05T23:17:00.000-06:00

December 5, 2007

Hidalgo Communities and Businesses link arms in Fight against Border Wall

McALLEN, TX—
The Chambers of Commerce of Hidalgo County are joining forces in a fight against the proposed Border Wall. A No Border Wall Rally is scheduled for Tuesday, December 11th from 5:30pm to 6:15pm at the new McAllen Convention Center.

The No Border Wall Rally is an effort by the Chambers, environmental groups, community activists, faith based groups, land owners and ranchers to enlighten the government on the issues that gravely effect on the economy and the environment.

“After seeing the proposed wall and its locations, I am more convinced than ever this is a total waste of taxpayers’ money and will not secure our country,” said Steve Ahlenius, President and CEO of the McAllen Chamber of Commerce. “We are for secure borders, but there are better ways,” he said.

Here are some of the main points for the rally:

· We oppose the wall because it divides our communities, provides a false sense of security, betrays our region’s history, usurps private property rights and gives away part of Texas to Mexico.

· We support the use of natural barriers and the clearing of Carrizo Cane at the Brownsville Weir and reservoir projects and other sites along the Rio Grade River.

· We oppose the Draft Environmental Impact Statement’s arbitrary dismissal of alternatives to the Border Wall suggested by border communities.

· We support development and use of technology such as radar, ground sensor, unmanned aerial drones, intelligence networks to stem smugglers’ networks, more Border Patrol agents and increased funding and staffing at the ports-of-entry.

· Enforcement of existing immigration laws.

· The proposed wall will in the long-term reduce the natural habitats found in the region. Currently, the region has over 500 recorded species of birds, 39 which are seen no where else in the United States. This region is the funnel for the major migratory flyway in the Western Hemisphere and is home to 340 endemic species.

· Nature tourism in Valley has an economic impact of $125 million dollars and produces 2,500 jobs.

· Mexico has recently requested the United States to pursue other alternatives to building the Wall.

· Currently over $3 billion in retail trade occurs between Northern Mexico and the Rio Grande Valley. The wall sends the wrong message to tourists and legal visitors from Mexico.

The No Border Wall Rally serves to coordinate and to encourage every citizen to testify against the current proposal. “This may be our last opportunity to get the attention of the Department of Homeland Security and Border Patrol about the wall,” said Ahlenius. “It is time for the all citizen to speak-up.”

For more information pertaining to the rally or environmental concerns due to the Border Wall, contact the McAllen Chamber of Commerce at 956-682-2871.

PLEASE MAKE EVERY EFFORT TO ATTEND. WE WANT AT LEAST 3,000 PEOPLE. RALLY SIGNS WILL BE PROVIDED, BUT YOU CAN MAKE AND BRING YOUR OWN, IF YOU PREFER.

Urgent Action Request

2007-12-01T08:49:00.000-06:00

Please help us distribute the following action request far and wide as it contains extremely important information about the Border Wall Environmental Impact Statement and environmental justice.

Thank you for your help.
~Kanickers

~URGENT ACTION REQUEST~

November 29, 2007

Dear Community Leaders and Activists:

We are gearing up for the Department of Homeland Security public meetings December 11and 12 in McAllen and Brownsville regarding the Rio Grande Valley border wall. At these meetings DHS will be soliciting public comments about the Draft RGV Border Fence Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). We need your help to get the word out that the EIS is not just an environmental issue. By law, environmental impact statements are supposed to cover issues of the human environment as well. Unfortunately, the Rio Grande Valley Border Fence EIS (copy available at http://www.borderfencenepa.com/rio-grande-valley-sector-eis/) does not adequately address these issues, and the most vulnerable people of the Rio Grande Valley are being left unprotected from the damage a border wall is certain to cause. We want to raise this concern among religious leaders and humanitarian organizations, so they’ll be better armed to challenge the EIS during the public comment period.

Environmental Justice means that “no group of people, including racial, ethnic, or socioeconomic groups, should bear a disproportionate share of the negative environmental consequences resulting from industrial, municipal, and commercial operations or the execution of federal, state, local, and tribal environmental programs and policies” (EPA Fact Sheet). This sentiment was codified by President Clinton in executive order 12898 (Federal Action to Address Environmental Justice [EJ] in Minority Populations and Low-Income Populations), which provides that “each Federal agency must identify and address, as appropriate, disproportionately high and adverse human health or environmental effects of its programs, policies, and activities on minority populations and low-income populations in the U.S.”

In 2004, the Operation Rio Grande Environmental Impact Statement found that environmental justice was indeed an issue for projects in the Rio Grande Valley: Approximately 85% of the population in the area can be classified as minority (well above the state average of 39.4%). The median annual household incomes for the counties in the project area (Starr, $10,182; Hidalgo, $16,703; and Cameron, $17,336) are well below the state average of $27,016 and, in the case of Starr County, below the $15,000 established by the EPA for defining the economic status risk group. Therefore, many of the households in the project area doubtless have a high potential EJ index. (Operation Rio Grande EIS, Section 3.12.6, emphasis added) However, in the 2007 Draft Rio Grande Valley Border Fence EIS, it is claimed that the protections of environmental justice do not apply. This questionable judgment is achieved by sleight of hand and is revealed in the following quote:

Of the 21 fence sections, 11 are within census bureau tracts in which portions of the tracts have a higher proportion of minority or low-income residents. Of the proposed 70 miles of tactical infrastructure, substantially less than half is within census bureau tracts that have a higher proportion of minority or low-income residents—therefore the overall impacts of the proposed tactical infrastructure would not fall disproportionately on minority or low-income populations. (Section 5. 5.11)

Rather than stating that the majority of people who will be negatively impacted by the border wall are poor and/or minorities, which is what environmental justice is all about. The EIS counts miles. Miles that fall within US Fish and Wildlife refuge tracts, where no people live, are counted along with the miles that pass through poor communities, allowing them to dilute, at least on paper, the wall’s impact on minority and low-income populations. Mileage is irrelevant to the question of environmental justice. The question is whether a disproportionately high number of the people who will be negatively affected are members of minority and/or low-income populations.

We must not allow the Department of Homeland Security to paper over the real human hardships that a border wall tearing through our communities will cause. We must force them to acknowledge that here in the Rio Grande Valley it is minorities and the poor who will bear the brunt of the damage of this misguided and politically-motivated project. Please urge your group members or congregation to attend one of the public meetings in McAllen or Brownsville and to comment on the border wall. Please also submit official comments from your organization or church. See below for details on meeting times and comment submission.

Thank you,
Stefanie Herweck
No Border Wall Steering Committee

Public “Open House” Meetings
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
4:30-8:00 pm
McAllen Convention Center
(956) 681-3800

Wednesday, December 12, 2007
4:30-8:00 pm
Brownsville Events Center
(956) 554-0700

Written comments will also be accepted until December 31, 2007.

You may submit comments in the following ways:
a) Electronically through the web site at http://www.borderfencenepa.com/
b) By email to: RGVcomments@BorderFenceNEPA.com
c) By mail to: Rio Grande Valley Tactical Infrastructure EIS, c/o e²M, 2751 Prosperity Avenue, Suite 200, Fairfax, Virginia 22031
d) By fax to: (757) 282-7697

Manuel Antonio "Tony" Eberhardt

2007-11-29T14:26:00.000-06:00

Manuel Antonio "Tony" Eberhardt

It is with great sorrow that I must announce the death of Tony Eberhardt, husband of Margaret Eberhardt.

Margaret is a very dear friend and a frequent contributor to this Web site. Tony died suddenly in Cusco, Peru, last Saturday while he and Margaret were visiting Tony's family in Peru. Tony died of a heart attack as the result of altitude sickness. Tony and Margaret had three children: Mercedes, Luis and Nito.

Tony's funeral will be held on Saturday afternoon at 2:00pm at St. Ann's Parish in Pharr, TX. The Rev. Genardo A. Henriquez will preside over the bilingual funeral Mass. Edward Arguelles and previous members of the Holy Spirit Choir will provide spiritual song. Burial will follow at Valley Memorial Gardens.

Please know how much you are loved, Margaret, and how deeply your loss has been felt by all of your friends during this very sad ocassion.

~Kanickers

Holy Spirit Parishioners' Newsletter 11/25/07

2007-11-27T13:07:00.000-06:00

Somos el Cuerpo de Cristo
Thoughts from Some Fellow Parishioners of Holy Spirit
November 25, 2007

You Better Watch Out!!
Some new signs have appeared on the parish grounds recently. Are these signs simply signs of the times, in the sense that our buildings and grounds are under assault by the lawless hordes that are wreaking havoc on our society, culture, and property, or are they signs of a different mentality at the helm in the parish? Maybe it is true that the neighborhood has so dramatically deteriorated in the past four years that it has become necessary to plaster these sorts of things around the parish property. But maybe it is more true that the Monsignor and his advisors just look at the world and the parish from a perspective that would strike many parishioners as hostile and intimidating.

Has there truly been use of church grounds without permission that has been damaging or unsafe? Oh yes, we all know that there has been “unauthorized” praying happening on church grounds for many months. Such dangerous behavior must stop, of course, and now don’t we feel better (more secure? more powerful?) that we will have it all recorded (probably in HD).

“Where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am in the midst of them, unless of course they haven’t obtained permission from the church office first.”

Advent Understanding
We went to spend thanksgiving with family out of town this holiday, which offers all kinds of new opportunities, including the opportunity to read different newspapers with articles that might not make it to our home paper. One story helped me start to focus my thoughts towards advent and the spirit of new understanding it brings. The story has a somewhat bittersweet ending.

A nine year old boy and his mother were traveling through an isolated stretch of highway in Arizona, when his mother lost control of the car. His mother was killed and the boy was left injured, distraught and alone. He was found by a man illegally entering the United States who stayed with the boy, built a fire and cared for him until they were found by some hunters. Border Patrol was the first one to respond to the hunter’s radio call for assistance and the boy will recover from his injuries. The man was sent back across the border, his dreams and hopes for his own family sacrificed for a young boy’s need.

No drug trafficking, no terrorist—just a man who became an angel of mercy. I suspect most of the people crossing are like this man, decent people who can bring the gift of hope. This advent we will again tell the story of a young family immigrating to Bethlehem and the human needs and responses along the journey. Maybe this advent can be a rebirth of compassion for each character in an immigration story and a rebirth of hope for us all.
from a fellow parishioner, Michelle Peña.

Priestly People
“You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation” (1 Pet 2:9)

Father Paul Stanosz, a priest of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, has researched and written extensively on the priesthood, particularly seminary training. Here are a few of his thoughts that have appeared in Commonweal in the past few years:

“Priestly training in the seminaries I studied tended to impart a clerical difference, a sense of specialness that led the seminarians to see themselves as not only separate but also superior to laypeople. These students tended to see loving human relationships as involving lust and sexual desire rather than mutuality, communication, and collaboration...

“The current dearth of priestly vocations also leads seminarians to think of themselves as markedly different from other people. That they are entering a profession for manifestly altruistic purposes and lofty ideals likewise adds to their understanding of themselves as special or different from most other people.
“I found that this sense of specialness was also heightened by a feeling that their services would be in great demand following ordination. The day would come when men and women, a generation or more their senior, would address them as Father and kneel before them for a blessing…

“Priestly identity must be rooted in the person and ministry of Christ and the church, not in a search for superior status…

“I see the priest shortage as a blessing in disguise that will eventually break the clerical choke hold on absolute power and force ad-justments down the road, bumpy though it may be along the way. I am optimistic in the long view that new modes of ministry will prevail, and bring more blessings than problems.”

Financials
A parishioner kindly supplied me with the financial report provided to the parish on November 4th and the parish offices came through with a copy in the mail—thanks to both.

As a fussy, nerdish math guy, numbers take on an almost mystical life of their own for me, so bear with me as I wander through the report’s entries and muse out loud for a while.

First, I don’t believe that the report is untrue in any overall sense—there are too many ways that deception could be uncovered that the risk would be too great to attempt it. That being said, there are some things in the report that raise questions.

One oddity is that adding up the 52 weekly reports of collection totals presented in the Sunday bulletins gives a yearly total (from 7/1/06 to 6/30/07) of $680,549.41, but the yearly report gives that total as $780,437.58—that’s an almost $100,000 difference. Why have the weekly totals been so dramatically under-reported?

Another oddity is that the diocesan assessment (cathedraticum) is reported as being 12.35% of the Sunday collections, yet the required percentage is 11.5%. Why did the parish pay a little over $6,700 more than is required to the diocese?

The categories used in the current report do not, in general, match those used in the last report (2004-05), so it is very difficult to see how the expenditures/income have changed from two years ago, except in the most general terms. Some specific differences can be noted, however: “Other Collections” decreased from about $67,000 to about $17,000; expenditures for “Religious Education” decreased from about $116,000 to about $50,000. The magnitude of those differences is puzzling. Also, there is an entry of over $35,000 for “Legal Fees.” What is that about?

I have asked the Blog Person to post the two reports and let people do their own perusing. Jerry Brazier

Prepared by RGV Parishioners for Progress and edited by Jerry Brazier. Copy this, and pass it on to fellow parishioners, either by e-mail or paper. If you want an oppor-tunity for prayerful discussion of these and other issues about the parish or have any other comments, please contact us at gbrazier@rgv.rr.com.

School of the Americas

2007-11-20T07:33:00.000-06:00

McAllen coalition protests the School of the Americas

Rio Grande Gardian
November 14, 2007
By Michele Angél

Sister Moira Kenny

AUSTIN, November 14 - A delegation from McAllen will travel in caravan Thursday evening to join thousands of other protesters at the gates of the School of the Americas in Fort Benning, Georgia.

Now officially named the Western Hemisphere Institute for Strategic and Economic Coordination, or WHINSEC, the school is believed to teach torture and terrorism to Latin American regimes that control armies.

Led by the Holy Spirit Peace and Justice Christian group, a coalition will leave from McAllen, for the first time, to attend the annual vigil and demonstration to close the school. Organizer for the trip, Benny Arsele said that usually South Texans join groups in Austin and leave from there.

Sister Moira Kenny will join the group to attend the non-violent direct action campaign for the 10th year. She has been arrested twice for crossing the line that on another day does not exist.

"We pay taxes, why shouldn't we be able to go on there? Every other day of the year, people can drive right up to it," said Kenny.

Kenny served six months, with another line-crosser, for trespassing. "We were the only two in the jail serving time for a misdemeanor offense," she said.

In 2002, about 90 people crossed the line together and were arrested. Students had their charge dropped and about 60 or so went to jail, Kenny reported.

The Catholic nun was willing to go to jail to raise awareness about closing the school and to honor the memory of four United States church women who were raped and assassinated on December 2, 1980, by graduates of the SOA.

The role of the U.S. in shoring up the Salvadoran governments before and during the civil War there became controversial after a National Guard death squad raped and murdered the women, according to Joao Da Silva, communications coordinator for SOA Watch.

Maura Clarke, Ita Ford, Dorothy Kazel were American nuns, and Jean Donovan was a young laywoman doing a Catholic relief mission to provide food, shelter, transportation, medical care, and burial to the poor.

This spring, in defiance of Pentagon pressure, 203 Members of Congress voted for the McGovern/Lewis amendment to cut funding for the school. The amendment lost by six votes. Congressman Rubén Hinojosa, D-Mercedes, was the lone South Texas vote to cut funding.

Congressman Silvestre Reyes, D-El Paso, voted not to cut funding. Reyes could not be reached for comment at press time.

Other Texas congressmen who voted against de-funding the school, included Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, Charlie Gonzalez, D-San Antonio, Ciro Rodriguez, D-San Antonio, and Lamar Smith, R-San Antonio. Rep. Solomon Ortiz, D-Corpus Christi, did not vote on the amendment.

Kenny said that their efforts to raise awareness are working. Several countries, including the Bolivian and Costa Rican governments have recently announced that they would cease all training at the school.

"These Latin American countries are not being invaded now from foreign countries," Kenny said of the countries that send their troops there and questioned why countries train at Fort Benning.

"It is being used against their own people. It's a war on the poor," said Kenny. "Why are our U.S. tax dollars being used for this?" The activist would like to see Congress close the school and stop the funding, so she continues to make the trip.

Arsele said that will also be garnering national and international visibility on the issues of building a border fence. The group will attend some of the presentations and speakers at the convention center and demonstration.

"We will be taking materials from the No Border campaign to other peace and justice-minded people at the event," said Arsele. In 2006 about 22,000 people were reported to attend. Most recent years have seen close to that amount, according to the School of the Americas Watch, or SOAW.

Kenny said that she wants to tell everybody in the country, "We don't want a border wall. Our politicians, business leaders, environmentalists, and immigration rights advocates are all on the same side of this issue."

Called the "Convergence of Hope and Resistance," organizers have been gathering at the gates of Fort Benning since 1990.

The dates of the demonstration, November 17-18th, coincide with the anniversary of the 1980 murders of six Jesuit priests, who were pulled out of their homes in the night. Jesuits have been advocating the closure of the school and educating around the world on issues of non-violence.

Some of the coordinated activities include mass, a prisoner reunion, a Veterans for Peace gathering, nonviolence training, legislative training, and benefit concert, and puppet theatre.

Teach-in and panel topics include issues like movement building, the struggle for civil liberties, violence against women, children of war, restoring indigenous values, terrorism, neoliberalism, water privatization, counter recruitment in high schools, labor rights, migration, free trade, U.S. foreign policy, race, class, and criminal justice.

Presenters include the Committee in solidarity with the People of El Salvador, or CISPES, Amnesty International USA, the American Friends Service Committee, Witnesses for Peace, Pax Christi, the Latin America Solidarity Coalition, 1,000 Grandmothers, Pace e Bene, and others.

Groups from Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Bolivia, Venezuela, Oaxaca and others will be represented.

Perhaps the most dramatic event will be the memorial service and solemn funeral procession on Sunday, when a list of names of murdered victims of graduates of the SOA, will be read. The names will also be posted on crosses carried by thousands of demonstrators. The reading takes several hours.

Solidarity vigils will be held simultaneously world-wide.
For more information on the upcoming event, see http://www.soaw.org/.

Thanksgiving Days Past

2007-11-18T15:11:00.000-06:00

Thanksgiving Days Past
I just read "The Monitor" section on Valley Life, where there was a great article show casing Tomas Tijerina and the story behind his Thanksgiving Dinner provided in front of his restaurant, Rene's. I was most touched by the woman who was in tears because now she had a place to go for Thanksgiving Day dinner. He is to be commended for organizing such a charitable event for the residents of Mission.

Perhaps he will understand how those of us from Holy Spirit Parish are upset that, after doing the same thing for 22 years, a new Pastor, Fr. Brum, comes in and stops what had been so successful.

We started the Thanksgiving Day dinner, following the morning bilingual Mass, back in 1983. The two reasons we did it was to have a place for people with no extended family to come with parish family to eat, and to provide a place for those of low income, migrant workers and colonia residents, to come and eat and take food home with them.

It did not cost us more than a few hundred dollars, as parishioners were very generous in donating all the food. We never had a problem getting volunteers; we had more than enough volunteers every year. Families would come gratefully with their children, and it became a Thanksgiving Day tradition that many of our children grew up with. I will never forget the second year we had it, a woman came and told Fr. Marti that she was contemplating suicide because she felt so alone. She was thrilled to come to the parish and worked to help serve and eat and laugh and be with others.

Fr. Brum's having a dinner on Sunday for the parish does not help people out on Thanksgiving Day who have no family. His offer to send people with a certificate to Rene's is fine, but why cannot they go to their own parish for this event in McAllen?

Are we going to pretend that the pastor's message, "Thanksgiving Day is a day to be with family members" answers the reason why he stopped the Thanksgiving Day meal? Could it be that he himself is out of town on Thanksgiving and doesn't want anything happening that he cannot be at? Is that micro managing or what? Could it be that because this was a tradition of Holy Spirit Parish before he arrived that this meal, along with almost everything else that was in place, had to be done away with so he could assert his own power? Was this part of the plan the Bishop had made up by sociologists and psychologists to deal with unionized parishes? Does this act on the pastor's part sound like someone who claimed he came to Holy Spirit "to serve the people?"

Every week I run into people who have left the parish, some have left the church itself. They are in shock over what is left at Holy Spirit Parish. They are discouraged and hurting. Where is the process the bishop promised for healing five years ago? Does he not care? What a sad testament to our leaders, both the lay people leading the parish at this time and the clerical leaders, the pastor and the bishop. It is all about power, it is not about making people feel welcome. And, you critics out there, that is one thing you cannot disagree about the parish before June 18, 2003: Holy Spirit Parish was a welcoming parish community. There was room for everyone around the Table. Now it seems no one gives a damn!
~Ann Williams Cass

Holy Spirit Parishioners' Newsletter 11/11/07

2007-11-13T19:25:00.000-06:00

Somos el Cuerpo de Cristo
Thoughts from Some Fellow Parishioners of Holy Spirit
November 11, 2007

Corporation Soul
In the liberal press we frequently read about “soulless” corporations that in the drive to improve the bottom line mercilessly run roughshod over people and communities. These corporations do not seem to be bound by the same moral codes that individual people are. They are just creatures of the capitalist system, forces of nature, really, that if just left alone (we are assured) will serve the common good—eventually.

In most parts of the country, the local Catholic diocese is a corporation sole—that doesn’t mean a corporation with a soul, but a corporation whose only (that is, sole) member is the local Bishop—all property and assets are in his name. This practice arose in the United States in the nineteenth century in reaction to what has been described as the “trustee system.” In the trustee system, each parish was a separate legal entity whose assets were held in trust for the parishioners and were managed by a local board of trustees in each parish—the trustees managed the money and property and the pastor took care of the spiritual needs (roughly speaking). Given the democratic tendencies of the American spirit and mindset, this eventually created conflicts between some pastors and parishioners and led the hierarchy to abolish the trustee system and to either institute a corporation sole for the diocese (in most places) or to wrest control of parish trustee boards from the parishioners (e.g., the Archdio-cese of New York).

The Vatican has always looked dimly on the corporation sole model since it is at odds with the way parishes are described in Canon Law. Ironically, many dioceses in the United States are now looking to separate incorporation of each parish, doing away with corporation sole, not because of some new insight into the nature of parish communities, but as a way to protect assets when the diocese loses a judgment in court (e.g., a sex abuse settlement).

Our diocese is a corporation sole which many times seems to act like a corporation without a soul—witness the latest foolishness associated with KMBH. The powers associated with the station (the Bishop, Monsignor Briseño, etc.) seem to think they can run a public broadcasting operation like they run their parishes and diocese, secretly and tyrannically. This is the only PBS station in the country owned and operated directly by a church (there are two others with church-related ties: Provo’s station is run by Brigham Young University, which in turn is owned by the Mormon Church, and New Orleans’ second PBS station—a small effort with very limited programming—is owned by an organization with only informal ties to the Archdiocese). It remains to be seen whether the general community of the Valley will continue to be satisfied with the ownership and management of its public broadcasting being in the hands of this diocese, this corporation sole.

The Eleventh Hour
“I pray for the millions of Iraqi brothers and sisters who have been killed in the 16-year war of the United States against the people of Iraq. I pray that all soldiers will put their guns down and refuse to kill. I pray that no young person will join the military. And I pray that we will not pay for war any longer. For this I pray to God.” a Prayer of the Faithful offered by Kathy Boylan at St. Aloysius Parish in Washington, D.C.

There are those who remember November 11th as Armistice Day, com-memorating the end of World War I (the “war to end all wars”). Many decades ago the commemoration morphed into Veteran’s Day, which has a slightly different emphasis—rather than celebrating the end of a war, we now reflect more on the men and women who sacrificed so much of themselves (and some their lives) by participating in our nation’s wars.

For some of us raised in families for whom World War II has always been and probably will always be “The War”, it is difficult to look at the last sixty years of history and see the righteousness of America’s wars over that period of time with the same clarity that we saw the righteousness of World War II. Vietnam, the various Latin American invasions, Iraq, etc. have all raised serious questions about how our nation uses military force to impose its will on the world.

Our Catholic Church is not a peace church in the sense that Quakers and Mennonites belong to peace churches, but in modern times Catholicism, at least at the level of the official, teaching Church, has officially condemned more and more conflicts as violating the teachings of Christ and the Gospel. The American invasion of Iraq is one such condemned conflict. What becomes the moral obligation of the young people who find themselves being combat soldiers and ordered to kill in a war that has been condemned by the Church? We hear a lot about “material cooperation with evil” in the context of abortion, but we do not hear much about material cooperation with evil in the context of war.

I am a conflicted person about all of this. My father was in France and Germany in 1944-45 and in Korea; my brother flew over 100 missions over North Vietnam; my brother-in-law was in Saigon during the Tet offensive. It is impossible to deny their courage and sacrifice (over half my brother’s squadron did not come home), but if people continue to accept the command to kill, then war will never end.

At this eleventh hour of this eleventh day of this eleventh month let’s at least not glorify war and warriors. As Wilfred Owen, young British poet who died in the trenches in World War I wrote:

“My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.”
from fellow parishioner, Jerry Brazier

Call to Action’s National Conference
On the weekend of November 2-4, Call to Action (CTA) held its National Conference in Milwaukee. The weather was terrific and the theme was challenging, From Racism to Reconciliation: Church Beyond Power and Privilege.

Every institution in our society—business, schools, the churches, the political system—needs to look at itself and understand how prejudice can lead to an assumption of privilege by some of its members and then to uses of power that amount to oppression of those who are different in some way from the privileged. Racial and/or ethnic prejudice is the basis for many of these Power/Privilege situations in our society. It’s a complicated problem that on the surface may not seem to apply in our particular part of the world, but we all would benefit from reflecting on how we see ourselves vis-à-vis those who are different from us and who we see as being less privileged in some way.

By the way, the All Saints Parish Choir from Milwaukee was marvelous and helped remind everybody that there is really only one truly American musical tradition—the one that brought us Ray Charles and Aretha Franklin and (with apologies to the Monsignor) provides the real meaning of the phrase, “make a joyful noise unto the Lord.”

Financials
Rumor has it that a financial report was given to the Parish during the weekend of November 3-4. I was out of town and have been unable to find a written copy of the report (the parish office doesn’t seem to have one available). Is there someone out their in cyberspace who could get me a copy of the report? Jerry Brazier

Prepared by RGV Parishioners for Progress and edited by Jerry Brazier. Copy this, and pass it on to fellow parishioners, either by e-mail or paper. If you want an opportunity for prayerful discussion of these and other issues about the parish or have any other comments, please contact us at gbrazier@rgv.rr.com.

It's SOA Time Again

2007-11-11T08:37:00.000-06:00

VALLEY GROUP LEAVING WEDNESDAY

Washington, D.C.–On the weekend of November 16-18, thousands of human rights advocates from across the U.S. and Latin America will converge at Fort Benning, Georgia to demand a dramatic shift in U.S. foreign policy and the closure of the controversial U.S. Army’s School of the Americas (SOA).

The annual Vigil to close the SOA at Ft. Benning has grown from a dozen people in November of 1990 to more than 20,000 in 2006. The annual event is held on the anniversary of the November 16, 1989 massacre at the University of Central America (UCA) in El Salvador where Julia Elba Ramos, her fourteen year old daughter Celina, and six Jesuit priests where brutally murdered by the Atlacatl Battalion, a unit of the Salvadoran army. A U.S. Congressional Task Force reported that those responsible were trained at the U.S. Army School of the Americas (SOA).

“The school is an obstacle to democracy, which is really beginning to take root in Latin America,” said Fr. Roy Bourgeois, founder of School of the Americas Watch, a non profit human rights organization. “We should be investing our money and resources into civil institutions of these countries, and not on their militaries, which have a long history of oppressing their people, of torture, of causing untold suffering and death.”

The SOA, now called the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), made headlines in 1996 when the Pentagon released training manuals used at the school that advocated torture, extortion and execution. Despite this admission and hundreds of documented human rights abuses connected to soldiers trained at the school, no independent investigation into the facility has ever taken place.

Thanks to an ongoing grassroots campaign, support for the SOA/ WHINSEC continues to erode. In 2007, Presidents Evo Morales of Bolivia and Oscar Arias of Costa Rica announced that they would cease to send military and police to the school, becoming the 4th and 5th countries after Argentina, Uruguay and Venezuela to withdraw from the U.S. Army training facility.

The events will culminate on Sunday, November 18 with a symbolic funeral procession to the gates of Ft. Benning. Many will negotiate a barbed-wire fence to enter the military base in an act of nonviolent civil disobedience. Since protests against SOA/WHINSEC began more than a decade ago, 226 people have served federal prison sentences.

On June 21, 2007 a McGovern/Lewis amendment to the FY 2008 Foreign Appropriations bill that would have prohibited funding for the SOA/WHINSEC lost by a margin of only six votes. 203 members of Congress voted in favor of the amendment to cut the funding for the school quoting its connection to human rights abuses throughout Latin America.

KMBH-TV - WHAT IS GOING ON?

2007-11-08T19:03:00.001-06:00

Catholic bishop reduces PBS station's board from 7 to 4 without explanation

Bruce Lee Smith (Valley Morning Star)
November 7, 2007 - 8:49PM

HARLINGEN — Three members of the KMBH-TV board of directors were dismissed in August without explanation, according to information that recently became public.

Their dismissal reduced the board from its original seven members to four, one less than required by the station’s original articles of incorporation.

KMBH is owned and operated by RGV Educational Broadcasting Inc. The sole member of that corporation is the bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brownsville, according to the articles of incorporation.

Bishop Raymundo Peña referred all questions — including inquiries about the directors’ dismissals and when new directors will be named — to the station’s lawyer, according to Brenda Nettles Riojas, diocesan relations director. The original articles of incorporation state the KMBH board must have at least five members, one of whom is elected its chairman.

The Valley Morning Star submitted 14 questions to Peña on Tuesday, seeking information about the finances and operations of KMBH. The station is the Public Broadcasting Service affiliate for the Rio Grande Valley.

The three dismissed board members are Bill Elliott, Chelse Benham and Betsy Price. All three have extensive experience in broadcasting.

Elliott has been a fixture on the Valley PBS and National Public Radio affiliates almost since the day the stations went on the air.

For many years, Elliott hosted Health and You, a KMBH-TV program that was sponsored by his former employer, Valley Baptist Medical Center. He also participated in the pledge drives for both KMBH-TV and KMBH/KHID-FM.

For seven years Elliott served on the board of directors of RGV Educational Broadcasting, rising to chairman of the board.

All of that ended in August when he received a letter from Peña, thanking him for his years of service but stating that his services were no longer needed.

No explanation was given, he said.

Peña also sent similar letters to Price and Benham, removing them from the board of directors, they said.

As the head of the Catholic Diocese of Brownsville, Peña controls RGV Educational Broadcasting and its entities KMBH-TV and KMBH/KHID-FM.

According to the articles of incorporation filed with the state of Texas in 1983, the bishop or administrator of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brownsville is the only member of RGV Educational Broadcasting. Directors of the corporation “serve at his pleasure.”

Elliott said he doesn’t know why he fell out of favor with Peña.

“Anything I could say would be pure speculation because I have no idea,” the former board member said Monday.

The only change he was trying to make over the past year was to “increase the role of the board as a policy-making body and guiding body to the staff,” he said.

Price responded to inquiries about her departure from the KMBH board with a written statement:

“The letter I received thanking me for my participation and taking me off the board has me a bit confused.

“Monsignor Briseño has not returned my calls to clarify this. The letter I received thanked me for my term being up, however I have only served a couple months,” she wrote, referring to KMBH president, general manager and chief executive officer Monsignor Pedro Briseño.

Price said such mistakes may occur but they can be fixed quickly.

“I can’t imagine (why) shortly after I learned that they cycled two people off the board that have a rich experience in radio and television that they would cycle off the only other board member that has extensive experience,” she wrote.

For eight years Price volunteered at KRCL Community Radio in Salt Lake City as a board member and as a producer and programmer of three radio programs.

She was also part of the fundraising team that raised $1.5 million for a new studio and worked on every fund drive.

While on the board of the Utah Museums Association, Price helped raise $2 million for the association.

She also serves as a consultant to nonprofit organizations on budget and management issues.

“KMBH has the same potential that KRCL has to become a leader in the community serving the people of the Valley by providing local programming. What other alternative is there for a local voice?” Price said in her written statement. “I am sure this is all a mistake and I hope to be able to serve.”

Benham, radio/TV production supervisor at the University of Texas-Pan American, has many years of experience in broadcasting. She is also the Rio Grande Valley/South Texas regional representative for the Texas Motion Picture Alliance.

Benham said she hasn’t asked any questions of the station management or the diocese since receiving her letter.

Instead, her focus has been on winning a Lone Star Emmy last month for Dead Letter, a film she directed and edited that will soon serve as an educational tool on problems faced by teens.

“We serve because we care,” was all Benham would say about her experiences with KMBH.

Like Price and Benham, Elliott said he would not hesitate to rejoin the board if asked.
“I think public broadcasting is a very important part of the community,” he said. “Whenever I can be of service to the station, I’m more than happy to do so.”

Here is the link to vote, read and make comments on this story at the Valley Morning Star: http://www.valleymorningstar.com/news/pdf_13441___article.html/board_kmbh.html

To Hell With Any Laws

2007-11-08T08:54:00.000-06:00

Nov. 7, 2007, 1:35AM

Chertoff might waive laws to get Texas Border Fence built

By MICHELLE MITTELSTADT
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON — Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, who has invoked his power to waive federal laws to build border fencing in Arizona and California, said Tuesday that he hasn't ruled out doing the same in Texas, where opposition to the fence has been running high.

While Chertoff said at a Washington news conference that he will take community concerns into consideration, he added: "I'm not laying down any of the authorities I've been given to get the job done."

Congress in 2005 gave Chertoff the power to bypass environmental, historic preservation and other federal laws to build border fences. That authority, which Chertoff has used three times, is now under legal challenge by the Sierra Club and Defenders of Wildlife, which oppose the fences.

With more than 160 miles of steel fences already built along the U.S.-Mexico border, Chertoff renewed his commitment to building 225 more miles — including 70 miles in Texas.

Fencing "is not a magic bullet to deal with every issue at the border," Chertoff said. "But it is one of a number of important tools that we can use to make the job of the Border Patrol easier and more efficient."

Ken Kramer, state director for the Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club, expressed concern that Chertoff will waive environmental laws in a rush to complete the Texas fencing.

"We're definitely very concerned about that," Kramer said. "It appears that when the pressure is on the secretary to try to address environmental concerns, the response thus far has been to waive environmental laws. That doesn't give us a great deal of comfort."

National security trumps individual Texans' concerns about the fence, Chertoff said, noting that the impact of illegal drugs and criminals entering the U.S. is felt far from the border.

michelle.mittelstadt@chron.com

More on KMBH-TV

2007-11-07T21:52:00.000-06:00

KMBH financial statement blurred.
By BRUCE LEE SMITH/VALLEY MORNING STAR
November 1, 2007 - 12:01AM

Here is the link to more on KMBH-TV: http://www.valleymorningstar.com/news/kmbh_12913___article.html/cpb_financial.html

Please remember to read the comments that follow the article. Click your "back" button to return to the blog.

Also, check out: Portraits of Clergy Sex Abuse (Photo Essay) at the following link: http://www.alternet.org/rights/66551

~Kanickers

Letter To The Editor

2007-11-05T13:12:00.001-06:00

Church’s ‘Family’ Very Dysfunctional

The Monitor
November 5, 2007

To The Editor:

It never ceases to amaze me how some of the leaders in my Catholic Church manage to circumvent the Gospel and the law in decisions regarding just treatment of church employees.

It is sad that no progress was made in the way that a pastor, under the guidance of our bishop, could so easily fire a parish employee, even after all that the four of us women at Holy Spirit Parish went through with the unionization of parish employees five years ago.

This journey of ours included a court-ordered mediation between the bishop and us, including the establishment of a grievance process for all diocesan and parish employees and hiring and firing practices for all pastors. These agreements were filed in state court.

We continue to raise our voices in the struggle for those who work for the institutional church, precisely because of what happened last month in Pharr. It seems that, in spite of the mediated agreement to the effect that a new pastor cannot fire an employee until he has been there for at least 90 days, the bishop has found a way to circumvent those policies and guidelines.

St. Margaret’s former pastor fired the director of religious education the last week that he was there, doing the dirty work for the new pastor. The director now finds herself without unemployment benefits (the church doesn’t pay unemployment) and no health insurance (the church doesn’t pay COBRA). She served the community of St. Margaret’s for more than 26 years, the last six with the pastor who fired her.

Msgr. Maher, our vicar general, said five years ago that we didn’t need a union for parish employees because they are treated like family. Obviously, our church “family” is very dysfunctional.

And what about the bishop’s motto, “haz todo con amor” does he not get? What about the Gospel?

Yes, we need to forgive them, but they need to reconcile and do justice and put things in right order! Nothing less should be expected from them.

Ann Williams Cass
McAllen

Also in the paper again... KMBH-TV.

In light of the fact that our bishop is trying to organize a diocesan fund-raising campaign for the Diocesan-owned TV station, the following link provides some interesting reading about their reluctance to disclose the utilization of federal funds that they receive. Be sure to read the "comments" section, as well. Click your "back button" to return to the blog.

Click here: http://www.valleymorningstar.com/news/smith_13078___article.html/station_kmbh.html

Holy Spirit Parishioner's Newsletter 10/28/07

2007-10-30T17:48:00.000-05:00

Somos el Cuerpo de Cristo
Thoughts from Some Fellow Parishioners of Holy Spirit
October 28, 2007

Zero-Sum Game, Slippery Slope, and Other Clichés
Too many times we look at situations as zero-sum games in which increasing one component must necessarily result in the decrease of another. When conflicts arise, people sometimes refuse to accept that another person might have a piece of the truth, because to do so would be a sign of weakness and a compromise of the “noble cause.” This is a destructive attitude and can be manipulated by others who see the conflict itself as beneficial to their own agendas.

The slippery slope is not everywhere—a step towards common ground does not have to plunge us into an abyss. It really is possible to have [Alert: cliché coming] a “win-win.”

Irony
“We have just pounded the drum again and again that, for churches to reach their full redemptive potential, they have to do more than hold services—they have to try to transform their communities. If there is racial injustice in your community, you have to speak to that. If there is educational injustice, you have to do something there. If the poor are being neglected by the government or being oppressed in some way, then you have to stand up for the poor.” from Bill Hybels, an Evangelical Christian, founder of the Willow Creek Community Church near Chicago, and very possibly the sin-gle-most-influential pastor in America

As Catholics we tend to be very wary of Evangelicals (as they tend to be of us). It is ironic that this quote from Bill Hybels could very easily have come from documents of the U.S. Bishops or a papal encyclical, but would never have come from the pulpit of Holy Spirit, at least in the current days. How is it that the grand tradition of Catholic Social Teaching has been completely abandoned in our Parish and that people who question this abandonment are vilified? “Transform our community?” Too controversial, let’s leave that to the Evangelicals!

Elementary Science
One of the Bishop’s recent Monitor commentaries brought back grade school memories. I will make the disclaimer that I agreed with the main idea of the commentary—that we can approach God through science. The more we learn in any field of science can bring us to a greater level of awe and faith. It was the assertion that because of our special knowledge of God, only Christians were capable of making any great scientific discoveries. I hadn’t heard something like that since Catholic elementary school. I should add that most of my classmates didn’t buy it then either. It was especially ironic that this commentary was published during the same time frame as Nobel Prize winners from all over the globe were being recognized for their various accomplishments.

Why is it that our church leaders feel such a great need to package God into a tidy little box that only certain people can touch? Wasn’t that the Pharisee’s greatest fault this weekend, to presume to judge and belittle the man beside him? Isn’t God big enough for us to share? Or may be the question is why aren’t we big enough and secure enough to share God? from fellow parishioner, Michelle Pena

Drown It in a Bathtub
Grover Norquist, an influential advisor to conservative politicians, has said that he wants to shrink government “down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.” It is this disdain for government itself, or at least a certain view of the role of government, that leads some people to conjecture that when politicians influenced by Norquist (and others of his ilk) actually take control of government they do not take seriously the day-to-day tasks of making the machinery of government work. Amateurism, sloppiness, cronyism, and corruption tend to be tolerated—since government is seen as pretty much worthless anyway, who cares?

Some folks have a very minimalist view of a parish (and the Church)—coarsely put; they see a “store” where they periodically get their supply of sanctifying grace and pious platitudes. In this view, a parish is a purveyor of goods that are owned by the Church and what matters is the transfer of those goods, by the Church, to the parishioners.

With that mentality, it is not important that liturgy (and other parish activities) be done well or that the community be centrally involved in directing the life of the parish. What is important is that parishioners receive the goods—the rest is peripheral, and who cares?

Why Aren’t You Inside?
“Why aren’t you inside? Don’t you believe in the Blessed Sacrament?” spoken by a member of the parish to a group of parishioners gathered outside the church for evening prayer a few weeks ago.

Aside from the person’s rudeness in interrupting prayer, and aside from the fact that the gathered group’s prayer service had been thrown out of the chapel, the logical conclusion that comes from the joining together of the two questions is truly astonishing.

Do you think the person really meant to imply that if you believe in the Blessed Sacrament, then you cannot gather for prayer anywhere except in a chapel, in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament? Or to put in another way, did this person mean to say that anyone who gathers for prayer outside of the presence of the Blessed Sacrament does not believe in the Real Presence of Christ in the bread and wine of the Eucharistic celebration?

Whatever do you think the Gospel means when Jesus is quoted as saying, “Wherever two or three are gathered in my name, there I am in the midst of them?”

Death Penalty Dying?
This week the Supreme Court will hear a case that challenges the constitutionality of lethal injections in carrying out death sentences. Since the ruling from the lower court, this case has created a de facto moratorium on the death penalty in the United States (since lethal injection is by far the most common method used).

In another development, the American Bar Association says in a recent report:
“Serious problems in state death penalty systems compromise fairness and accuracy in capital punishment cases and justify a nationwide freeze on executions. … every state with the death penalty should review its execution procedures before putting anyone else to death. …”

“After carefully studying the way states across the spectrum handle executions, it has become crystal clear that the process is deeply flawed,” said Stephen F. Hanlon, chairman of the ABA Death Penalty Moratorium Implementation Project. “The death penalty system is rife with irregularity.”

These two developments do not guarantee the end of the death penalty, or even a true moratorium, but they do seem to be positive signs that real progress may be on its way. It’s a shame that Holy Spirit Parish can no longer see its way clear to join with the U.S. Bishops and the last several Popes to pray periodically for the end of the death penalty and to help organize efforts to influence public policy on this issue—it must be too controversial.

Prepared by RGV Parishioners for Progress and edited by Jerry Brazier. Copy this, and pass it on to fellow parishioners, either by e-mail or paper. If you want an opportunity for prayerful discussion of these and other issues about the parish or have any other comments, please contact us at gbrazier@rgv.rr.com

Holy Spirit Parishioners' Newsletter 10/14/07

2007-10-15T17:50:00.000-05:00

Somos el Cuerpo de Cristo

Thoughts from Some Fellow Parishioners of Holy Spirit
October 14, 2007

Fatima in Brownsville
The diocesan Fatima celebration, held last weekend at the Basilica, was sponsored by something called America Needs Fatima, an outreach of The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family, and Property. Any organization with that sort of name just cries out to be looked into—at least a little bit.

This group is the United States version of Tradition, Family and Property (TFP), an international organization founded in Brazil and based on the writings of Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira, particularly, Revolution and Counter-Revolution. According to the aims laid out in this book, TFP acts to oppose the anti-Christian process that has undermined Christian civilization since the 14th century, the “Revolution” of the study's title. TFP opposes liberal and egalitarian ideas, policies, and trends in both society as a whole and in the Catholic Church. It argues for the need for authentic elites in society that raise, above all, the moral tone of general society. Corrêa de Oliveira seeks to balance the notion of “preferential option for the poor” with support for the “natural elite” that exists in all societies.

Corrêa de Oliveira says that there have been three phases of “the gnostic and egalitarian Revolution,” which progressively undermines the Church and social order, have taken place: 1) the renaissance up to and including the “Protestant pseudo-reformation”; 2) the “Enlightenment” and French Revolution which ushered in modern political liberalism; 3) the Communist revolution. The final phases that follow (now taking place) seek to eradicate the Church and Christian civilization while applying more radical egalitarianism and implementing neo-paganism. [excerpted from Wikipedia and TFP’s website, http://www.tfp.org/ , emphases added]

Aside from the right-wing kookiness that attacks the basic notions on which our own country has been founded, this group puts itself in direct opposition to virtually all the social justice teachings of the Church since Leo XIII. Note also two examples from the website which are simply incorrect representations of Catholic teaching:

“If we want our acts of love, praise, thanksgiving and reparation to reach the throne of God, we must place them into the hands of Mary Most Holy.”

“This teaching of the Church condemning contraception is infallible through the ordinary pontifical Magisterium of the Church, that is to say, the common and constant teaching of the Popes.”

It is stunning that the Diocese of Brownsville would officially associate itself with a group that puts itself so much at odds with Church teaching. TFP isn’t calling for structural reform of the Church (as many progressive groups do), but is calling for the Church’s repudiation the Gospel mandate: peace and justice.

Graceful Steps
My last two weeks have involved a significant amount of time spent with doctors and nurses. That time has reminded me about an aspect of respecting life that we all tend to push aside – taking care of ourselves. All life has dignity and is created and loved by God, and we are to respect and treasure all life—including ourselves. That means the time worn catch phrases like “you are what you eat”, “make time to take time”, and “5000 steps a day” have a spiritual significance that we cannot ignore. Part of our daily prayer of gratitude to God is to take care of the gifts He gives us, including the gift of our health. Watching the unraveling of a family member’s years of ignoring a health problem and how many lives and emotions were affected was a great wake-up call to me. Maybe Adam and Eve aren’t that far removed from us, even if the forbidden fruit is now more on the lines of over-processed and fast food, the challenge is still the same. God loves me and cares for me, and I should do the same. A prayer of gratitude can be not only what comes out of my mouth, but what goes in it—not just on my knees but in my walking shoes.
from fellow parishioner, Michelle Peña

October
This month is a busy one for those interested in traditionally Catholic things: feast days of St. Francis of Assisi, St. Therese of Lisieux, The Guardian Angels, and Our Lady of Fatima; the month of the Rosary, and (if the Monsignor is to be relied upon) yet another Respect Life Month (how many of those are there each year, anyway?).

What about the Rosary? Saying it is an ancient prayer custom, going back to apostolic times, right? It is one of those essential things about being Catholic, like going to Mass, right? Actually, no on both counts.

The Rosary as a meditative prayer (with the Mysteries) began in the 16th century and as simply a recitation of 150 Aves began in the 12th century—the legend about St. Dominic is just that, a legend. In its beginnings in the 12th century the Rosary was a way in which the illiterate populace could mimic the monastic tradition of reciting all 150 psalms as part the monks’ weekly recitation of the Divine Office. The use of beads to keep track of prayer is something many religions have employed, particularly Islam. The Church functioned through the first 60% to 80% of its existence without the Rosary, so its recitation is hardly essential to the practice of Catholicism.

Many people find meditative praying of the Rosary to be a powerful spiritual experience; others don’t, choosing different forms of prayer and practice—it’s a big Church with lots of diversity of religious expression—St. Francis offers an example that inspires a another sort of expression of Catholicism: Pace e Bene, Peace and All Good Things.

Catholic Identity and Mega-Trends Revisited
Pope Benedict has spoken a lot about Catholic Identity in his brief pontificate and John Allen considers this one of his Mega-Trends in the Church today (see http://ncrcafe.org/node/782 ):

“Another major force is the relentless press for a stronger sense of Catholic identity, an impulse felt in virtually every area, from liturgy to education, from religious orders to the church's engagement with secular politics…. Like John Paul II before him, Benedict is keenly concerned that Catholics do not assimilate to this broader secular mentality. As the practical translation of this imperative, the church has seen a growing emphasis over the last 25 years on what sociologists call the “politics of identity”—efforts to reinforce distinctively Roman Catholic language, practices and belief systems, our markers of difference in a rapidly homogenizing world.”

Maybe this concern, more than any other, is at the heart of much of the emphasis, in some quarters, on traditional (and Catholic-only) pious practices (the Rosary, Adoration, Marian devotions, etc.), which arose in the Middle Ages when the celebration of the Liturgy became distant and removed from ordinary Catholics. It also may be at the heart of some people’s almost fanatical refusal to see Catholic social teachings as essential to living out the Gospel—these teachings demand that we be “in the world” in a way that some see as being “of the world,” a secular, hostile and definitely, not Catholic, world. An extreme emphasis on identity can distort authentic Catholicism by emphasizing the peripheral and runs the risk of re-ghettoizing Catholics in cocoons, detached from society at large.

$$$$$ Update
This weekend completes two years since the last financial report to the Parish, so here is a version of an “annual report,” for the 52-week period from 10/15/06 to the present.

The collection total of $674, 155.20 (taken from bulletin notations) fell $79,854.80 short of the supposed parish budget and was $2,536.85 less than the previous twelve-month period. If spending continued at the rate reported two years ago, the total shortfall was $180,852.32. As more and more time goes on, the relationship between budget, spending and income becomes difficult to keep track of.

Prepared by RGV Parishioners for Progress and edited by Jerry Brazier. Copy this, and pass it on to fellow parishioners, either by e-mail or paper. If you want an opportunity for prayerful discussion of these and other issues about the parish or have any other comments, please contact us at mailto:gbrazier@rgv.rr.com

Help Needed - Join the Protest.

2007-10-11T13:38:00.000-05:00

Members of Holy Spirit Peace & Justice/Pax Christi protesting the Border Wall.

No Border Wall group members protested outside Pharr City Hall on Wednesday evening. Inside, U.S. Sen. John Cornyn was meeting with local elected officials to talk about the region's structurally suspect levees. Some say the levees should be used as a security barrier, instead of a border wall.

Action Needed NOW!

2007-10-04T20:31:00.000-05:00

HERE IS YOUR CHANCE TO BE HEARD!!
Send In Your Public Comments about the
Border Wall

Comments concerning the construction of Border Walls in Texas are being accepted as part of the Environmental Impact Statement. “Environmental Impact” is the impact on the human environment, as well as, on wildlife and the quality of water and air.

Please write, fax or e-mail your comments in by October 15, 2007.

Here are a few ways to focus your comments:

· Destruction of wildlife habitat.
The lower Rio Grande Valley has already been cleared of 95% of the brush. In an area considered one of the most biologically diverse in North America, any additional destruction of brush, including clearing 508 acres for construction of the Border Wall, will have severe consequences for wildlife. How will wildlife survive with their habitat limited by a wall? How will they get to and from the river, find food, shelter, and potential mates in habitat dissected by a wall? In some areas like Starr County, the Rio Grande is the only source of water for wildlife. Any animal that encounters miles of wall will have to travel long distances for a very basic necessity, water.

· Endangered & rare species.

The ocelot, jaguarundi and red-billed pigeon currently face the real possibility of extinction or extirpation. These are just a few of the endangered and rare species whose U.S. populations would certainly collapse with construction of the wall. The ability of rare species like the ocelot and jaguarundi to cross into Mexico helps keep wildlife populations healthy by maintaining a level of genetic integrity. Reduction of gene flow among or within populations will reduce the likelihood of long-term survival of these species. A formal Section 7 Consultation under the Endangered Species Act needs to be done.

· Violation of International Migratory Bird Treaty.

If construction of the wall takes place during the spring, as stated in the Federal Register, many migratory and nesting birds will be affected. The clearing of brush will destroy thousands of nests, many with young birds in them. This is in direct violation of the International Migratory Bird Treaty.

· Impact of construction.

What will be the impacts of construction? Of roads for vehicles and heavy equipment? Of lighting and transmission lines?

· Economic impact.

Access will be cut off for wildlife enthusiasts interested in wildlife watching, canoeing, kayaking, and hiking along the river. Eco-tourism brings more than $125 million to the RGV annually from 200,000 eco-tourists, creating 2,500 jobs in the local economy. What are the economic impacts of limiting access to refuges, state parks, and other public and private parks and natural areas?

· Community impact.

A wall could mean uprooting families from their homes and demolishing or cutting off access to historical buildings and community centers. How many people will lose their homes? What buildings will be destroyed? How will property owners gain access to their land? What will the presence of a wall do to property values? How will there be public access to cemeteries and historical and archaeological sites along the river? Will there be access in case of fire or other emergencies on the other side of the fence?

· Impact on agriculture.

Farming is still the backbone of the economy in the Rio Grande Valley. How much agricultural land will be taken out of production by the wall? How will farmers gain access to their land? To their pumps and irrigation equipment? How will they bring farm equipment onto farmland behind a wall?

· Impact on flood control.

All the walled areas are in a floodplain. Has the Army Corps or DHS coordinated with FEMA? How will the wall affect the flood control levees? Will the IBWC have access to the levees and input in the construction? Will future widening of the levees result in even more habitat loss on the south side (since the wall is on the north side)?

· Relations with Mexico and the rest of the world.

Mexico will perceive the border wall as an insult. How will this affect the bi-national relations and cooperation? How will the border wall affect US relations with other countries and its standing in the world? By building a wall around our borders, what kind of example is the US setting of a free and open democratic society?

· Problems with the EIS.

The EIS is geographically too limited. The EIS should look at total and cumulative impacts into the future. What about the impacts in other areas where a wall is proposed? How will the impacts of this initial proposed fencing change if the total amount of fencing called for by the Secure Fence Act is installed? What will be the environmental impacts of future needs of the wall such as maintenance and lighting?

· Inadequate public comment period.

The public comment period is less than thirty days. For a project of this magnitude, the public comment period should be extended. In addition, the Web site has been down everyday, for the last several days, which has severely hindered the flow of comments. What a trick!

Submit your comments to Customs & Border Patrol by one of the following methods:
~ E-mail: RGVcomments@BorderFenceNEPA.com

~ Mail: Rio Grande Valley Tactical Infrastructure EIS C/O e2M
2751 Prosperity Avenue, Ste. 200
Fairfax, Virginia 22031

~ Fax: (757) 282-7697

~ Electronically: http://www.borderfencenepa.com/

** Be sure to include you name, address and identify your comments as for the RGV Sector EIS.**

The deadline for public comments is October 15, 2007!

For more information: http://www.notexasborderwall.com/

Holy Spirit Parishioners' Newsletter 09/30/07

2007-10-02T13:04:00.000-05:00

Somos el Cuerpo de Cristo
Thoughts from Some Fellow Parishioners of Holy Spirit
September 30, 2007

The Wall
The bleeding hearts and artists
Make their stand.
And when they've given you their all
Some stagger and fall, after all it's not easy
Banging your heart against some mad bugger's wall. Pink Floyd

The No Border Wall campaign has developed quite a bit of momentum in the past few months and has started to make itself heard outside the Rio Grande Valley and border area. Whether enough voices will be raised nationally to derail the ill-advised wall is still very unclear.

The effort against the wall in the Valley has brought together disparate folks—environmentalists, business leaders, immigration activists, and those drawn to the issue by their understanding of Catholic social teaching (not mutually exclusive groups, of course). Our Bishop Peña has weighed in and made a strong statement when he participated in the Pachanga in the Park in Brownsville this past weekend. His strong words, echoing those of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), have been widely appreciated and widely praised by progressive Catholics in the Valley, not always noted for appreciating and praising his words.

They are only words, however, and that is the rub. What we have not seen is an organized effort within the Diocese and its parishes to put the fine words into real efforts at the grassroots, parish level to educate the faithful of the Rio Grande Valley about the Church’s teaching on immigration and to provide the parish infrastructure to support Catholics who want to influence public policy that supports that teaching. The Bishop’s words in Brownsville and in columns in the newspapers are great, but they are like the seed that falls on barren soil and is trampled under foot. The parishes should be fertile soil in which commitment to the Church’s social teaching can grow but that will never happen without organized effort and support at the diocesan level.

In our own parish we have a pastor who not only has no interest in the social teachings of the Church, but has engaged in a concerted effort to rid the parish of all activity directed toward educating parishioners about these teachings and all efforts to provide opportunities for parishioners to actually put those teachings into practice in the context of their parish life. The complete silence on the Border Wall or on any immigration issues in the parish is not surprising, but that does not make it any less scandalous.

Not every pastor has the inclination or the talent to be an articulate voice for the social teachings of the Church, but no pastor is entitled to remain ignorant of them or to actively prevent his parishioners from being voices, in the context of their parish life, for them.

Bishop Peña should ensure that every parish has, within its ministries and activities, opportunities for parishioners to learn what the Church teaches about social justice and to participate in efforts to implement those teachings. In his address last Saturday, the Bishop referenced Matthew 25 (“when I was hungry…” etc.)—this is how we are to be judged, not by the fervor of our pious practices.

Deep Thoughts
At 8:30 this Sunday morning there were about 250 people at Holy Spirit. When Mass actually began (late, of course) a few more folks had arrived, but the church remained far less than half full.

There were no altar servers, one lector did double duty as a choir member, and the projection screens, in several instances, failed to present the correct song. This is nit-picking, sure, but the sloppiness of it all reflects a disrespect for the Eucharistic community that is shameful.

Because of no altar servers, the Offertory became a Chinese fire-drill as people from the congregation tried to help out (you might wonder if certain other folks’ attempts to lend a hand would have been as well received, or even allowed). This was preceded by a homily that seemed to be motivated more by Stuart Smalley than the parable of Lazarus and the rich man.

It is no wonder the building was less than half full.

Good Words
I am going to cheat a little here and just share some words that I just posted again in my kitchen. I am a big fan of quotes. Perhaps others might send in some of their own favorites as well.

Words to ponder and live by from Henry David Thoreau:

“Be not simply good, be good for something.”
from fellow parishioner, Michelle Peña

Francis, John, and the Three Theresas
“In my soul I feel just that terrible pain of loss—of God not wanting me—of God not being God—of God not really existing.” Mother Teresa to her confessor, in 1959.

This week finds the Church celebrating the feast days of Francis of Assisi and Therese of Lisieux. We have also seen a lot press about Mother Teresa and because of that, renewed interest in John of the Cross and Teresa of Avila. The mystics (John and the Theresas) all recount decades of feeling abandoned by God, of even having no sense of God’s existence. Anyone who has ever taken on the discipline of regular meditation has to have some sense of what these mystics are talking about—refusing to trust possibly self-delusional emotional responses is a radically honest way to approach God, but can still leave a person desolate when left in a very dark night. The mystics shouldered on because of faith, a faith that was not reinforced or coddled in any way, shape or form in their daily lives. Mother Teresa apparently carried out her great work with the poor with no “warm fuzzies” to make her feel good nor with any consolations other than the firm conviction that she was doing work she must do.

Francis of Assisi is not typically presented to us as a “dark night of the soul” sort of mystic, but there is no doubt that he suffered some sense of estrangement in his life. He was a zealous, maybe even fanatic, reformer, calling for the Church to abandon its luxurious ways and seek not only to help the poor, but to be poor. His message of peace did not resonate with an institutional Church engaged in the Crusades; he was even driven from the leadership of the religious community he founded. It is unfortunate that many times Francis is portrayed as some sort of medieval Doctor Doolittle, instead of a person with a strong voice crying out for peace and justice.

$$$$$ Update
Since 10/15/06:
Total below budget: $76,173.67 (last year same date: $74,851.58)
Total shortfall (including expenditures over budget): $173,286.67
Projected yearly shortfall: $180,218.14

A Papal Pronouncement
“The one who is head over all should be chosen by all. No one should be made a bishop over the unwilling; the consent and desire of the clergy, the people, and the order is required.”
Pope Saint Celestine I (d. 432 A.D.)

You would think such a principle would also apply, maybe even more strongly, to the parish level.

Prepared by RGV Parishioners for Progress and edited by Jerry Brazier. Copy this, and pass it on to fellow parishioners, either by e-mail or paper. If you want an opportunity for prayerful discussion of these and other issues about the parish or have any other comments, please contact us at gbrazier@rgv.rr.com.

Not In My Backyard.

2007-09-24T09:20:00.000-05:00

The Border Wall
would just about
give our river
to Mexico.

The Monitor
September 24, 2007

Letter To the Editor

The government's misguided scheme to erect a border wall will cut off all American's rights to access and enjoy the Rio Grande river and effectively gives away the entire river to Mexico.

The Texas border with Mexico is unique because the Rio Grande River divides the two countries. Unlike border walls erected in other states, the wall in Texas will be constructed north of the international boundary line on the U.S. side of the river, leaving the entire river basin and, in some areas, significant swaths of land, historical landmarks, businesses, homes and other private and publicly owned facilities behind the wall.

If you have ever had the opportunity to canoe or kayak down the river, hike its wandering river banks or simply stare across the peaceful river valley into Mexico, you know the tremendous natural beauty and tranquility that will be destroyed and lost forever if this wall is erected.

Like a loving mother that selflessly nurtures her children, the river has given us sustenance and life. It is part of our proud heritage and historical connection with our land. Our country is turning its back on us. A part of our soul and our great river is being ripped away and shamelessly discarded for all the world to see.

I call on all Americans to speak-out and demand immediate cassation of the border wall's construction unless we are prepared to turn our heads in defeat and bid adios to the Rio Grande.

Mark S. Peña
Edinburg

Bishop Peña - Keynote Speaker

2007-09-21T08:29:00.000-05:00

BISHOP OF BROWNSVILLE WILL BE KEYNOTE SPEAKER AT RALLY AGAINST BORDER WALL

Bishop Raymundo J. Peña of the Diocese of Brownsville will be the keynote speaker at the Brownsville NO BORDER WALL PACHANGA IN THE PARK on Saturday, September 29 at 5:00 pm at Dean Porter Park in Brownsville, Texas.

Bishop Peña, whose diocese operates 107 parishes and missions for the almost 800,000 Catholics who live in the Rio Grande Valley, has been outspoken against the construction of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. The Bishop’s opposition echoes the sentiment of the Vatican, where a top official has called the U.S. plan to build a border wall “inhuman.”

In this border region where many residents have ties to Mexico and where the presence of the Catholic Church predates the founding of the United States, many Catholics agree. As Mark Peña, local coordinator for Holy Spirit Peace and Justice/Pax Christi USA, a Catholic peace and justice organization, explains, “Christ calls each of us to love our neighbors as ourselves. The proposed border wall is hostile to this great call. Latin America and its peoples are our neighbors in the truest sense.”

The Brownsville NO BORDER WALL PACHANGA IN THE PARK will highlight the culture and community spirit of Brownsville and the Texas-Mexico border. Participants hope to show the nation just what is at risk if a wall is built through the city of Brownsville and along the rest of the border, including their close relationship with their Mexican neighbors.

In addition to the Bishop Peña, other community leaders, including state representatives Eddie Lucio III and Juan Escobar, will voice the concerns of their constituents, and local experts will discuss the negative impact a wall could have on our communities, historical landmarks, farms, and natural areas. The event will also feature a variety of food booths, live South Texas music, and children’s activities.

EVERYONE IS INVITED TO ATTEND.

Late entry 9/22/07:
Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev compared the United States' proposed 700-mile wall on the U.S.-Mexico border to the Berlin Wall during a Tuesday visit to Midland, Texas.

"You remember President Reagan standing in Berlin and saying, 'Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall’, said the 1990 Nobel Peace Prize winner. "Now the United States seems to be building almost the Wall of China between itself and this other nation with which it has been associated for many decades and has had cooperation and interaction with."
-Mikhail Gorbachev

PACHANGA IN THE PARK

2007-09-18T09:45:00.000-05:00

BROWNSVILLE PACHANGA IN THE PARK
TO PROTEST THE BORDER WALL

What: A community barbecue and rally opposing the building of a border wall on the Texas/Mexico Border.

When: Saturday, September 29, 2007 at 5:00 pm

Where: Dean Porter Park in Brownsville, Texas

Everyone is invited!

This is the latest in a series of community rallies to oppose the building of a wall along the Texas-Mexico border sponsored by the NOBORDERWALL COALITION. It will begin at 5:00 pm at Dean Porter Park in Brownsville.

This festive, family event will highlight the culture and community spirit of Brownsville. Participants hope to show the nation just what is at risk if a wall is built through the city of Brownsville and along the rest of the border.

The event will feature a variety of food booths, including that South Texas staple, fajitas. While the children fly specially-made kites and smash a wall-shaped piñata, adults can listen and dance to live South Texas music into the evening.

Community leaders, including State Representatives Eddie Lucio III and Juan Escobar will voice the concerns of their constituents and local experts will discuss the negative impact a wall would have on our communities, historical landmarks, farms, and natural areas. We have also received confirmation that Bishop Raymundo Peña will also honor us with his attendance at this event.

Building a border wall along the Rio Grande will cut a wide swath through the city of Brownsville. Maps to date have shown the proposed wall following the flood control levee that runs through the city, rather than the river itself. Parts of the downtown area, with its rich history and charming old buildings, are at risk for demolition because they lie so close to this levee.

The University of Texas at Brownsville’s International Technology, Education and Commerce Campus could be cut off entirely by the wall, since it lies to the south of the levee. A border wall could also threaten the close economic and social ties between Brownsville and its sister city Matamoros.

Outside the city, landowners and farmers could lose land and critical access to river water for irrigation. A double-layered wall and Border Patrol road could also cut through nearby natural areas such as the Sabal Palm Audubon Sanctuary and the Nature Conservancy’s Lennox Foundation Southmost Preserve.

University of Texas at Brownsville Vice President of External Affairs, Dr. Tony Zavaleta said, “In my forty odd years of studying the U.S.-Mexico border, I have never seen anything suggested by either government that is so wrong headed and destructive to our communities and our people as this border wall.”

NOBORDERWALL is a grassroots coalition of groups and individuals that are united in the belief that a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border will do irreparable harm to the borderlands and to the country as a whole. NOBORDERWALL is opposed to the construction of a border wall because of the devastating consequences such a wall would have on border economies, on the environment, on human rights, and on the U.S. relationship with Mexico and the rest of the world.

To get to Dean Porter Park: Exit 6th Street from Expressway 77/83. Turn right on 6th and take another right at the first light (Ringgold Street). Turn right again onto Dean Porter Park Street. The park entrance will be on the left.

For more information or to volunteer contact Stefanie at noborderwall@yahoo.com or 956-453-0754.

Also visit our Website at: http://www.notexasborderwall.com/.