Thursday, June 25, 2009

Open Letter to Bishop Peña

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




5 comments:

Anonymous said...

hhhhhmmmmmm
you seem bitter and negative.
And very you have a VERY GRINGO way of doing things," if you are not with me to hell with you" to be catholic means to be open to all voices of the spirit in the church even though they are differnt from yours. you speak peace and justice while you live in your comfortable mcallen homes por favor !!!!!!!! the gospel calls you to be one with poor how bout you go live in colonia for a while and stop bitching about something that is over and done with becasue you can do some much more that attacking and deviding in the name of the gospel.....communion not devision!!! in one word YOU ARE A CONTRADICTION even to your own message...

me das acasco ....because you are using the gospel to use for your AGENDAS instead of really listening to the spirit who is speaking in the poor and forgotten who you forgot while you throw rocks from you blog .......it's been 6 years ....MAYBE THE BISHOP HAS NOT GROWN BUT HAVE YOU????

ya cambia!!!!! lets change lets work to be more postive .....what we cannot let it lie ...lets work with REALITY !!!!lets build bridges not waste time burning them!!

i am sorry to be so frank but i feel the need to voice my opinion ..thank you

Anonymous said...

Yeah, I agree. One thing this incident has shown is what a piece of work the Roman Church is. It is all fakery. Save your time and money and don't go to church and certainly do not give them your money. Spend time helping the poor and fighting for justice instead. God or no god, that is the right thing to do.

Anonymous said...

Obviously the truth hurts. In a way it's our fault to expect so much from the clergy. History has shown many times over since the fourth century where the church's intrest rests. The reality is, not with the common people. From a social perspective it's great to see people getting together the way christ would have intended.

Anonymous said...

Why don't you people start a backwards counting clock like the one you had counting down to Bishop's retirement!!!

Anonymous said...

What are the odds that the bishop is gay? I would say better than 50:50. If he would admit it I would think a little more highly of him.