Fr. Bob's Corner

According to the National Pastoral Life Center, there are 31,000 lay ecclesial ministers working in Catholic parishes in the United States today, surpassing the 29,000 diocesan priests in the country. Growth has been rapid. As of 1990, there were just 22,000 lay ministers, meaning that American Catholicism generated an additional 9,000 lay ministers in just a decade and a half. During the same period, the total number of priests, diocesan and religious, dropped by almost 6,000, from 49,054 to 43,304. Lay ecclesial ministry and the feminization of the church National Catholic Reporter Conversation Cafe

The pope is well aware that many Latin American bishops believe the church stands at a turning point after losing ground in recent decades. Read more:

Church at turning point – Papal trip to spotlight Latin America – Catholic Online

“Forcing religious belief makes no sense in this culture,” states, Archbishop Philip Wilson, president of the Australian Catholic Bishops’ Conference. We live in “difficult times for the church.” The Catholic faith community’s role is to lead others to “the discovery that the gospel makes sense of their being.” Read full report: <http://www.catholic.org/international/international_story.php?id=23855&wf=rsscol>

Married priest ordained in NWT :: The Catholic Register :: Canada’s Catholic news source: “Hundreds of parishioners packed St. Patrick’s Church in Yellowknife, NWT, on Feb. 18 to see Don Flumerfelt ordained as the first Catholic priest married with children in the Mackenzie-Fort Smith diocese.”

Re the resignation of Cardinal Wielgus, a quote from a Polish Newspaper:“There is now a feeling of a new beginning,” said Tomasz Pompowski, an editor with Dziennik, an influential Polish newspaper. “I know it’s difficult for the foreign press to understand, but this is important.”
The quote was offered by John Allen in his weekly article on Vatican Events. Read full article

A detailed rendition of the chain of events etc. surrounding the resignation of the Cardinal: Read Here
Updated: (Jan 20, 2007)

In Poland, New Wave of Charges Against Clerics – New York Times

I’m not sure what all this means. I think one would have had to have lived in communist Poland at the time these events took place to fully appreciate the significance of all this. However, the resignation of a newly named Cardinal in one of the last bastions of the Catholic faith in Europe is a major event, and I am sure that many will construe this in the worst possible way without fully understanding or appreciating the climate of those times. All I really know is that the church did survive in this communist country, and even gave the church a fantastic Pope.

Archbishop of Warsaw resigns, Weigel warns of future ‘blackmail’ National Catholic Reporter Conversation Cafe

Ten mega-trends shaping the Catholic church | National Catholic Reporter Conversation Cafe: “Ten mega-trends shaping the Catholic church”