[JMJ
June 24,2018
Whatever happened to the Preferential Option for the Poor ? It is not a term that I often use because it has been used as a rational for promoting socialism and socialism is particularly harmful and cruel to the poor. In the French Revolution, a socialist event, more poor people were guillotined than any other group. In Cuba the poor were and are starving and imprisoned. However the Scriptures and the lives of the saints make it clear that the poor must be a priority. They were with Ste. Marguerite deYouville, St. Martin de Porres, Ste. Mother Theresa of Calcutta and many , many more. However what these saints had in common is they needed the generosity of the rich They fed people because people gave them the food and money to do so. What the poor need is caring, rich people who will help them not to be so poor. That is obvious. Denouncing the rich is not the same thing as helping anyone.
Chicago, to people who live in a former public housing, in a little northern community
who run a mission on private donations , is unimaginably rich. However what greatly bothers
me is the money that is wasted by the Chancery office. No I haven’t been there, I haven’t
scanned their accounts . I just can’t understand in a city of very wealthy and very poor
how the Cardinal can spent money persecuting a priest who is doing his job by restoring the
inner city by restoring the parish. The Cardinal thus forces those who would give to the parish to spend money on canon lawyers and all that an international fight entails.
The Cardinal has tortuous long meetings of priests and nuns to discuss what parishes to close. He has closed 40 ,with three hundred twenty left... so far. How many people could be reached on the street with a simple gospel message, or visited in a hospital or nursing home, or counseled against an abortion in the hours and days it takes to discuss maintaining the decline? The Cardinal may find that he cannot possibly close any more churches because they are all full of people who need help or want to help.
St. Cardinal Newman his years of High Anglicanism said that the poor need the
beauty and glory of the High Mass because their lives are drab . Beauty of sound and sight
is needed as much as food. God apparently thinks so. People, rich and poor flock to St. John
Cantius because a breathing, living Beauty is there.
People need to hear that there is Right and Wrong, Truth and Falsehood, Beauty and Ugliness.. Life is not just a meaningless string of personal preferences. The Greatest Poverty is never knowing that God exists and God created the Heavens and Earth, that God loves you and wants you in Heaven some day. How can people be reached with these Truths when the Troops must be involved with international legal fights.
It is now known that Father Frank Phillips, founder of the Canons Regular of St. John
Cantius , pastor of St. John Cantius has been completely exonerated of all wrong
doing. Stay tuned. Gay
