Cupich closed St Thecla parish in 2020. It’s located on Chicago Far Northwest Side in a safe, solidly middle class neighborhood – not some ghetto.
The graffiti included racial and homophobic slurs.
Story in Nadig Newspapers: http://nadignewspapers.com/2021/04/08/vandals-hit-saint-thecla-church-which-closed-last-year-some-windows-broken-much-of-the-damage-in-a-stairwell/
There was a mass shooting in Chicago on Monday night, which you’d think would make national news. Seven POADs shooting a ghetto neighborhood where most children are bastards (probably most of the adults too). On WBBM-TV’s 5pm Tuesday newscast, coverage of the the story didn’t air until six minutes into the newscast, and didn’t include any interviews or on-the-scene reports.
Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe
Our Lady of Guadalupe, South Chicago, Chicago, undated postcard
Feast of St Damasus I;
of Our Lady, Queen of the Angels
Queen of Angels, Ravenswood, Chicago, 1920
A little fun.
September 21 23, 2018
Dear Parishioners and Staff laymen and clergy of Resurrection Parish the Archdiocese of Chicago,
For some weeks now, I have become increasingly concerned about a number of issues at Resurrection Parish in the Archdiocese. It has become clear to me that Fr. Kalchik Blase “Cardinal” Cupich must take time away from the parish archdiocese to receive pastoral support so his needs can be assessed. Effectively immediately, I have appointed Msgr. James Kaczorowski, Pastor of Queen of Angels Parish and Dean, Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano as Administrator of Resurrection Parish archbishop of Chicago, effective tonight today.
I do not take this step lightly. Rather, I act out of concern for Fr Kalchik’s “Cardinal” Cupich’s welfare and that of the people of Resurrection Parish the archdiocese. I have a responsibility to be supportive of our priests when they have difficulties, but I also have a duty to ensure that those who serve our faithful are fully able to minister to them in the way the Church expects.
Bishop Mark Bartosic, your Episcopal Vicar, Athanasius Schneider will monitor the situation along with the Administrator Canons Regular of St John Cantius to ensure that you as parishioners receive appropriate pastoral care.
Sincerely yours in Christ,
Cardinal Blase J. Cupich The Four Marks
Archbishop of Somewhere in Chicago
Tonight, the Archdiocese of Chicago kicks off its summer “Theology on Tap” (TOT) series for young adults. In an archdiocese that plays host to Mundelein Seminary, Loyola University, DePaul University, and numerous other schools, one would expect the opportunity to hear and speak with well-educated, seasoned theologians about the Faith.
Not only won’t you be hearing any discussion of theology at tonight’s event, you won’t be hearing from any theologians, much less speakers from the archdiocese or even America for that matter. No, instead, Peter Wojcik of the Archdiocese says he chose the speakers.
And they are Thomas Rosica from Canada, and Rob Galea from Australia. One assumes the archdiocese is picking up the tab for their airfare, transportation, housing, and feeding. Good thing the cardinal archbishop sold the cathedral parking lot for $110 million.
Rosica’s known for his poor, errant theology; lying to the media; threats to ruin a blogger with a lawsuit; and for declaring Fr Gregory Baum his “hero,” among Rosica’s other exploits.
Regarding Baum, as Church Militant noted, he “publicly rejected Church teaching on contraception, homosexuality, devotion to Our Lady, Church authority and the nature of the Catholic priesthood.” It’s telling that the archdiocese’s Theology on Tap marketing materials for tonight’s kick off refer to Rosica as CEO of Salt + Light, a television station he runs in Canada. His credentials are secular; as a “business leader.”
Galea’s a young priest from Australia who plays the guitar and sings and competed in the X Factor reality TV show. He has a website that promotes himself and his music, with one omnipresent feature everywhere you go: A cart icon in the top corner.
This is Rosica’s second year in a row kicking off the Chicago archdiocese’s TOT series. In 2017, he joined Michael O’Loughlin, who writes for the Jesuit’s Amerika magazine. Spokane Bishop Blaise Cupich was supposed to join them, but had to attend a funeral out of town.
Last year’s kick off could be summed up as, “Two Queens and a Microphone.” Rosica and O’Loughlin sat on stools on a stage, Rosica’s bulging gut hanging out (must be from all that fasting and abstinence) and O’Loughlin in his tailored clothes, limp wrists flailing, with his stylish little socks and coiffed hair and designer eyeglasses, fawning over Pope Francis, endless plugging their television network and book (respectively), and generally embarrassing themselves.
If you were a young person, coming here with questions about your Faith, you didn’t get any answers. If you were a young person, on the fence about this whole Catholic thing, hearing two brag about themselves and gush about another man would not have compelled you to stay within the Church.
If you were an atheist, coming here with an open mind favorable to reason and intellectual arguments, you’d have walked away thinking the only reason to be a Roman Catholic is because we have a “cool Pope who kisses babies” and we seem to place an inordinate emphasis as of late on temporal issues such as the environment and immigration.
Neither speaker made an argument for being Catholic, other than we have a “cool” Pope (Rosica could not stop describing Francis with that adjective) and we’re for the little guy. The meaning of life? Is there a God? Forget about answers there.
Given the 400 to 500 people in the bar – and yes this was held in a bar in downtown Chicago on a Monday night when most young people in the archdiocese would never have been able to attend, much like tonight’s – this such a missed opportunity.
Think about all the issues young Catholics face today, in a radically secular world that says it’s all about you, the individual, you are the center and God is on the peripheries or not even there; none of this was addressed.
You’re called to live a holy chaste life, to date and find a spouse, to enter into a sacramental marriage that participates in the creation of an immortal body that will contain an immortal soul. You’re not getting any advice or encouragement from Rosica or O’Loughlin (who mentioned Pope Francis’ dreadful “Who am I to judge?” statement on sodomites and also referred to the homosexual lifestyle as “a different sort of life” rather than reinforcing the Church’s immutable teaching that homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered and mortally sinful).
How do you strive for holiness in a culture that is hostile to your Faith? How can the sacraments of the Church sustain you and forge a saint out of you and aid you in achieving eternal salvation? Rosica, who we are told is an ordained priest, spoke nothing of these matters.
Some more essential topics for young Catholics that weren’t on the agenda:
The papal idolatry demonstrated by Rosica and O’Loughlin was off the charts. They asked each other about their jobs, Rosica kept mentioning his “staff” at his business, trying to show how important he was. He’d ask O’Loughlin, “What was it like for you to meet Pope Francis and give him your book?” O’Loughlin asks Rosica about his role as a Vatican spokesman. It was all. about. them.
At one point, Rosica made a disgusting remark about Pope St John Paul II, describing him as “drooling because of the Parkinsons.”
Forty-five minutes in, we had heard nothing catechetical, nothing about holiness, nothing about the sacraments.
Verboten
Discussion of the Synod on Youth came up. A breathless Rosica let out, “Tell us who we are… what you would like us to be!” Remake the Church in your own image, kids.
The last portion of the event was a pseudo question and answer session. It was highly scripted and controlled. We had to write our questions down on a piece of paper and the organizers selected which questions were chosen. There was no open mic, no opportunity to directly address Rosica or O’Loughlin. No dialogue. Answers pandered to the audience, weaving in tripe like the “seamless garment” at one point. We suspected the organizers wrote the questions and rehearsed the answers with Rosica and O’Loughlin well in advance.
In their closing remarks, O’Loughlin talked up his career (again) and thanked the organizers and us for attending, but did not thank the Lord or invoke any person of the Trinity. Rosica blathered on about the pope and the Church as a field hospital (not as the means to salvation) and did not invoke or thank any person of the Trinity. Finally Sneaky Pete gave his closing remarks (while O’Loughlin ignored him and tapped on his smartphone), ending with “God bless and good night.”
There was no closing prayer.
Mexicans in Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood perform a living stations of the cross, or via crucis, every year on Good Friday. The television stations dutifully cover it.
The event starts out at Providence of God parish, then proceeds one and a half miles west down 18th Street to Harrison Park.
Providence didn’t post any signs outside its church. The doors to the church itself were locked, so anyone wanting to visit the Blessed Sacrament in the altar of repose were out of luck. After seeing some other confused visitors wind their way into a side door, I discovered the stations start out in the basement hall underneath the church.
Those who got there early enough to find a seat contended with hard metal folding chairs. The performance began 30 minutes late. Everyone in the audience was casually dressed. Many held up their smartphones, often quite conspicuously, to record photos or videos. The performance was mostly in Spanish and was well done. Although, there were repeated audio issues – every time the actor playing Jesus turned his head to the right, his mic cut out.
At the point where our Lord takes up his cross, we filed outside to 18th Street to follow him. Following the procession was a van with loudspeakers blasting a campy song in Spanish accompanied by acoustic guitar. It distracted from attempts to focus on the passion of our Lord.
Every so often the procession would halt. An announcer would narrate the current station, first in Spanish and then in English. But this wasn’t consistent; he skipped the English for several stations, then at another he narrated entirely in English with no Spanish translation.
Many of the women among us wore tight jeans or tight leggings, surely a potential temptation to sins of lust for the men.
When we reached Harrison Park, where the crucifixion itself was re-enacted, our male narrator vanished and a woman, speaking only in Spanish, took over. She spoke in a monotone voice with no emotion, clearly reading off a script.
Roaming about the park were vendors hawking cotton candy and treats, on a day of fasting.
After the actor playing our crucified Lord was taken down from the cross, the procession turned north towards Pilsen’s cavernous, crumbling, beautiful, soon-to-be-closed St. Adalbert’s parish for a “reflection.”
Alas, the priest who spoke from the pulpit offered no Good Friday reflection, just some remarks thanking the volunteers. Meanwhile the church organ played in the background, in what struck me as a discordant violation of the prohibition on music from Holy Thursday to the Easter Vigil.
The priest concluded his remarks without even so much as a blessing or wishing of a Happy Easter. We all sat in our pews wondering what to do. After a few moments, we realized it was over and started to leave.
I couldn’t locate the altar of repose. As I passed through the narthex, there were individuals handing out parish bulletins. I asked no less than three of them, “Where is the altar of repose?” Not one of them could tell me. One young man shrugged, said he didn’t know, and turned away from me.
Food vendors encamped the sidewalk, tempting the weak flesh.
As I walked back to catch the CTA, I took note of all the Mexican restaurants open on 18th Street, the smell of cooked meat in the air.
Pilsen’s named after the Czech city of Plzen. For the first half of the 20th century, it was home to a large population of Central European immigrants – Czechs, Poles, Lithuanians. As they graduated up the economic ladder, Mexicans moved in and Pilsen became known as one of Chicago’s most Mexican of neighborhoods, if not a hotbed of gang violence and shootings.
In recent years, however, 10,000 of its Mexican residents have left, as the neighborhood’s close proximity to downtown attracts yuppies and gentrification, while its reasonable rents attract hipsters and artists. Its five or so Catholic parishes face closure, consolidation, and likely extinction. How long before Via Crucis is just a memory?
Recently, I made a pilgimage to the National Shrine of St Jude in Chicago.
One hopes a shrine provides solace, quiet, and an atmosphere of prayer and quiet contemplation. One is therefore quite taken aback to find children running around, scantilly-clad women with exposed shoulders and thighs, and numerous outbreaks of applause.
The Shrine is housed in a parish, St Pius V, in a now-Mexican neighborhood, and I walked in on a mass baptism of children. The church building was erected for an Irish congregation in 1893, and has been wreckovated in the wake of the Second Vatican Council. There are no communion rails; the statue of Mary was squeezed in with St Joseph’s statue to the right of the altar; a small cube-shaped tabernacle takes Mary’s place left of the altar; the high altar itself is long gone, replaced by a baptismal font and several feet in front of it, a freestanding ironing board I mean altar table.
As an aside, I found it peculiar that a parish named in honor of Pius V does not offer the sacrifice of the mass in the extraordinary form! Yet their web side advertises plans to HONOR Catholic heretic (pro-abortion, pro-sodomite marriage, etc) Democrat Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan.
Placing the baptismal font at the center of the sanctuary worries me. I fear it opens up theological problems. I fear it sends a message that, as long as you’re baptized, you’re saved. The Eucharist, the sacrifice, is not the center. Another sacrament supersedes it –it may appear to some– and gives us free license to sin, to obey the magisterium of our consciences, to worship at the altar of man.
Neither of the two red tabernacle lamps appeared to be lit. A tablecloth from a Mexican restaurant, or perhaps a Mexican quilt (I’m not sure which) draped the tabernacle.
Repeatedly, I witnessed men, women, and children walk directly in front of the tabernacle without reverencing it with a bow or a genuflection.
At one point, I witnessed a photographer pose a small girl in a sequin gown with two adults (possibly her parents), a well-dressed man and a woman in a tight, short dress, directly in front of the tabernacle obscuring it and taking their picture.
The priest or deacon appeared to be performing an assembly line baptism, one baby after another, with no interaction from godparents. I lost track of how many times the audience oops congregation broke into applause. I’m not sure if they were applauding the children or themselves, but it certainly wasn’t our Savior.
At one point I could hear music coming from a cell phone on the other side of the church.
Meanwhile, the side altar / shrine to St Jude was ignored, save for a pre-teen boy before it, who kept toggling several elective votive “candles” on and off.
I suppose I should take heart that these parents and families saw fit to have their children baptized in the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. Were their children taken tonight, they would be assured of the beatific vision. Yet I worry. The lack of decorum, the lack of respect for the Real Presence, the applause; these brothers and sisters either received deficient catechesis or reject various truths of the faith. Will their children fare any better?
Is it not damning that this parish and shrine are operated by the Dominican Friars, and order of preachers? Is it not demonic that the Domincans brag on the parish’s Web site about their role in getting a local high school named after Freemason and persecutor of the Mexican Church, Benito Juarez?
There is one approved Marian apparition in the United States, and it is outside Green Bay, Wisconsin at the Shrine of Our Lady of Good Help. Our Lady, it is believed, spoke to a young woman 140 years ago and instructed her to catechize the immigrant children of the area.
Let us pray to Our Lady of Good Help and St Jude, patron saint of hopeless causes, for the salvation of the souls of these new children of Christ; of their parents and families; and of the Dominican Friars entrusted to serve them.
The Four Marks 