The following came in a May 5 email to Cal Catholic. We contacted emailer to get the other seven events.
1) St. Patrick Proto-Cathedral in San Jose, burned in August 2012, has been declared a total loss and will have to be rebuilt. The diocese has put out an email to the priests and lay staffs, but I cannot find it online. The church will be rebuilt with the name Our Lady of La Vang, in honor of the parish being the Vietnamese national church. The rebuild will cost in the tens of millions of dollars. The minority Hispanic faction is apparently upset by the renaming. This is the most populous parish in the diocese.
2) Fr. Mark Catalana, longtime vocation director of the diocese, died unexpectedly on Thursday. He had been injured by riding a bicycle a few weeks ago (struck by a car) but his recovery was proceeding apace. Felt ill Thursday morning, brought to the hospital, died of an apparent heart attack– all within hours. Not quite 50 years old. Every priest and lay staffer is in shock in this diocese: the man used his bike for primary transportation, was in apparent great health.
Appointed by Bishop McGrath to be Vocation Director, San Jose went from a seminarian-poor diocese to a seminarian-rich diocese during his tenure. Up to him, the diocesan yapdogs would make lots of noises about “priestless parishes.” Nobody apart from a few lone wingnuts speak about that now as we have a serviceable number of priests and expect to do so for decades. Also served as chaplain to the homeschoolers in the diocese. Obituary here.
3) The Drexel Initiative. Requires participating parochial schools to raise millions while eliminating the pastor’s authority over the school. Deathknell of Catholic influence in the schools. Lots of controversy, especially at St. Clare School where the pastor was publically humiliated, but I can’t give you sources yet.
Diocesan PR spin can be found here. “Mandatory” priest meeting regarding the initiative a couple weeks ago was apparently ignored by the vast majority of the priests, who understood that yet another San Jose scam was upon them. PR doesn’t reflect the reality of the changed governance structure: principals and school staffs will henceforth report to the superintendent, not the pastors.
This reminds me of the time many years ago when a black church was burned down in San Jose. My father, who headed the San Jose Building and Safety Department, called for help from the community and headed the rebuilding project. Help arrived in droves, and a new building was erected swiftly that was indeed up to modern building code standards and beyond. That helped the black community to realize that people cared, and the healing was palpable. I hope something similar happens again today in San Jose. With the anti-Catholic resentment across the United States of America, I think we should not count on it.
How about the day the Diocese of San Jose hosted 12th Annual National Association of Catholic Diocesan Lesbian and Gay Ministries Conference.
There seems to be something inherently wrong with the way the American Church hierarchy functions. Some day this fundamental error will be exposed, hopefully sooner than later.
Herod caught up to Joseph.
Not to mention all the pro-gay activity from Fr. John Pedigo. With certain bishops, who would want to be a priest these days in many of the dioceses?
Is Father Pedigo pro-gay?
The last time I heard of him, he reported his pastor for having a teenage boy in his room…overnight…on more than one occasion.
He had tried talking to his pastor about this wrong behavior but was told to “mind his own business.”
So, he went to the bishop of San Jose, and the pastor got removed from the priesthood!
Just found the data…Father Pedigo’s pastor at St. Catherine Church in Morgan Hill was removed in March of 1997 after just ten months in office. It was actually THANKS to Father Pedigo reporting this behavior that action was taken, and the man went on to become a funeral director instead.
As for Father Pedigo himself, I don’t know what he’s up to.
The gays do stuff like that, Michael.
The San Jose Metro newspaper ran a front-page feature about him three years ago under the tagline: “Secretly, San Jose is the most gay-friendly diocese in the nation. And now, one parish wants the world to know.” The parish alluded to was Fr. Pedigo’s. The cover photo showed a smiling Fr. Pedigo holding out an earthenware “chalice” against a backdrop of the rainbow colors of the gay rights movement. Read the article and decide for yourself: https://www.metroactive.com/metro/11.18.09/cover-0946.html.
I’m not clear why the Church should NOT be the most gay welcoming community in the world. Why should it not embrace everyone who seeks God, as God calls out to each of us and embraces us with himself to the Cross, so that we all may be Resurrected with him?
To do so, YFC, that is to be most welcoming to gays, is tantamount to inviting a permanent trip to Hell.
I’m wondering why my comment was attributed to Anonymous? I have had issues with the person who uses that moniker at times, and I most certainly do not wish to be mis-identified as that person. I would like my name on my comments please unless you can explain with good reason why I have been assigned that moniker? It was not the father of Anonymous who spent his free time rounding up the volunteers and donations and working in the hot sun to rebuild the church belonging to black Christians that had been burned down by evil-doers in San Jose all those years ago. It was my father. He was a profoundly imperfect man, I will be the first to acknowledge, but in countless ways he was a good man who did endless good for humanity as a faithful Catholic, and though he is long gone, the hard work he did to right this terrible wrong in the City of San Jose deserves proper acknowledgement and widespread emulation. Now we Catholics are suffering a great deal of vandalism in our churches across the nation and even around the world, and I would hope that others who find the dastardly acts reprehensible would help us rebuild our burned down churches in return. It would do my heart good to learn that that is in the works, although in this world, I do not expect the present generations to live up to the honorable legacy of previous generations. More likely, insurance will pay for rebuilding by paid employees, many of whom couldn’t care less about Jesus Christ or the faith of His followers, and the rest will be paid for or performed by faithful members of the parish. Anyone in the know care to enlighten me on any of the above?
Hey, I’m Anonymous. Who gave you permission to write in MY name?
Just FYI, if you don’t type your name into the box, you will be labelled as “Anonymous.”
So “Annonymous”, just what is your name? Are you implying the CCC assigned that non descript title to you?
God bless, yours in Their Hearts,
Kenneth M. Fisher
I am a different poster than the one’s above. I just leave the name and email fields blank and that is what comes out. So CCD not CCC assigns it.
You need a handle, or do you customarily converse with your friends and family while wearing a ghilly suit so’s nobody recognizes you?
Don’t know what you had for dinner, but you ought to consider changing chefs.
Perhaps the error was mine. In the past we did not have to type in our names in posting comments; now I see that we do. If that is the case, please remove my question if you will. Thank you.
Maryanne, you might have to set your computer to accept cookies from this site if your security level is set on high. I don’t type my name in each time but must if I clean out the cookie cache. .
Or you can transition your operating system to a less malware magnet type.
Dear Skai, the devil infiltrates the depths of our computers, BEWARE!! Malware – that is DevilWare! – abounds. Seek ye forth the fruit of the Apple, from hence you choose between good and evil!
YFC, Apple uses a Linux opsys; there are other Linux operating systems, and these are not nearly as targeted by malware villains. Also, Linux based systems offer a great deal of share ware … as in free. And it’s not so important to run an anti-malware program, which then frees up the opsys from that bogdown stuff. So, YFC, it is not necessary at all to gain what Apple boasts in while not having to put up with the likes of Apple.
Amen, seek ye the Apple.
YFC you have lost it…