Sunday, August 03, 2008

The Universe Bulletin

There are some people who look at the diocese of Cleveland's newspaper, the Catholic Universe Bulletin, only for the entertainment value they derive from the copy errors. Which are sometimes hideous. And which are sometimes in the headline. On the front page.

I am not one of those people, although I am not the UB's biggest fan either. However last week I saw two great articles in the paper, both of which motivated me to clip and save and add to my unorganized files. The one department "Theologically Speaking," which on this occasion covered the subject of suffering, I can't find online, however I did find my other favorite piece, which was written by Bishop Lennon. Our ordinary writes a column every week for his paper (he is the publisher) as do most bishops I believe.

A lot of times the bishop writes about the Vibrant Parish Life program or the "clustering process," in other words the plan for closing parishes. Please note that is not the only thing Vibrant Parish Life is supposed to do, but that is what it "means" to most people. This week was no different, but his effort this time was unique in that it came from a truly personal perspective. He wrote about the parish he grew up in, in Boston, how much he loved it and how he celebrated so many life milestones with his family there -baptisms, weddings, funerals. And he also wrote about how, as Vicar General of the Archdiocese of Boston, he had to see his old parish close. He notes how difficult and sad that decision was, but also that even though the parish is closed, its positive influence continues in his life.

You can read the piece here. I think for a lot of people the main thing is that they want someone to acknowledge their pain and give them a way to move forward. He ends the column very well: "As we continue the clustering process, please know your Bishop has experienced a wonderful parish, has had it close, and strives to live the gift received going forward as a testimony that God’s gift is not ended."

2 comments:

  1. You should buy a ScanSnap scanner from Fujitsu and drop all your unorganized clippings into it. It OCRs them so they're fully text-searchable when you want to find them later.

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  2. I did not know such a marvelous gadget existed! Thanks for the tip. They seem a little pricey except for the S300 model, that seems more like my end of the scale. Definitley on my want list now.

    ReplyDelete