Christ the King

Who is our King? It seems that all to often in the Catholic Church we point to the Pope or the Magisterium or a bishop or priest or nun. Our king is Jesus the Christ. Within many Protestant churches they will place kingship in the Bible, as do some Catholics. But our king is Jesus the Christ.

When we pray, we should be fostering our relationship with the Christ. When we attempt to live lives dedicated justice and peace in the world, in our country, in our city, in our home, and in our Church, we should be fostering our relationship with the Christ. Although it is an added bonus if we foster relationships with Pope, bishop, priest, friend, enemy, children, family, etc., what is most important is the Christ.

He is the pearl of great price and the treasure for which we will sell all we have to acquire him. I would hope that all reading this blog could agree on this point. If we cannot agree on this, then there are more problems within the body of Christ than I previously thought.

Let us praise our King as we prepare for his coming!!!

A Faithful Catholic

Initial Thoughts about Milwaukee Archbishop "Elect"

On Saturday morning the news was spreading: Bishop Listecki of La Crosse will be the future archbishop of Milwaukee - news conference at 10:00am. I watched to see what our future archbishop would say. He did not surprise me, much. Although I can appreciate someone who is Church-centered and Christ-centered (shouldn't we all be), it makes all the difference in the world how one interprets those terms.

Listecki constantly referred to the Church during his press conference. It was clear from the context that in almost every instance, Church = hierarchy. Not very good Vatican II theology. As to how his Christ-centered talk will come to fruition in his policies will be interesting. We did see an example of how papal infallibility can be misused. Listecki, multiple times, equated the Pope choosing him for Milwaukee with the movement of the Holy Spirit. When people think they have the Holy Spirit on their side, they think anything they do is Holy Spirit-inspired. In other words, they have a mandate to do what they want. Hopefully, I am wrong in this assessment, but I am nonetheless uncomfortable with that language.

Listecki's comments on politics were interesting. He basically stated that his involvement in politics was an involvement in our political system. Real lawyer talk, which makes sense because he is a lawyer. He did not state that his past political (abortion) comments were an attempt to address a society of death. It will be interesting to see how that plays out. I'm intrigued.

A Faithful Catholic

Random Thoughts...

Still waiting for a new archbishop for Milwaukee. Things seem at a standstill at the moment. Understandably, Bishop Callahan does not want to make major decisions that could be overturned if he is not the next archbishop. Yet the number of priests is decreasing and the number of parishes in financial trouble is increasing. The reason for the latter being mostly the current economic crisis, but not in all cases.

Although abortion is obviously an important issue, the vocal U.S. bishops seem more concerned with abortion than health care for all Americans. They seem to forget that a lack of the latter also causes death among adults, infants, and fetuses. The United States has the highest infant mortality rate among First World nations. We're number 37 among nations of the world.

Nevertheless, for the most part, our churches continue week after week. The body of Christ distributed and the Scriptures are proclaimed. It seems that if the laity want something magnificent established, they will need to turn to themselves and take seriously the body and word that has been given to them.

A Faithful Catholic