Posted on 01/29/2006 3:44:40 PM PST by NYer
Previously posted here:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1562404/posts
Bishop Paprocki became well known among traditionalists about 9 years ago when he preached a homily at St. John Cantius Church in Chicago calling for a Reform of the Reform. He used the example of the decision by the Chicago City council to admit they made a mistake turning State St. into a pedestrian mall and their willingness to tear it up and restore it to vehicular traffic. He said the Church needed to admit that the liturgical reforms after (note, after--he was not rejecting the Council itself) Vatican II were in some ways flawed and needed to be fixed.
People gave him an ovation (I don't remember if it was a standing O but at St. Johns people never, I mean never, applaud in church) when he finished. The homily was printed in Catholic World Report, I believe.
At the time he was vice-chanceloor of the archdiocese. He later became chancellor and then auxiliary bishop. He also runs marathons.
Before you leap to conclusions, do some research. You calumniated a good bishop. You should instead be praying that he is named to his own see ASAP so that he can be ready for one of the major dioceses before he's in his dotage.
1. From the lead article:The Bishop is also a veteran marathon runner, which he does just to stay in shape for hockey, he told the magazine. Even allowing for the bias in the article, (it's about hockey), this statement is problematic. Did not Our Lord say that where your heart is, there is your treasure? and that man cannot serve both mammon, (the things of this world) and God? Did not St. Paul, one of the first Bishops of the Church, say that when he became a man that he put away childish things?
Again, going by the slant of the article, it gives the appearance that the Bishop's heart is directed more towards hockey, than toward the things of God. The appearance in and of itself is scandalous, but the second article posted on this thread does nothing to dispel this appearance Now we have pictures in the Bishop's office of him at marathons in Rome and Greece, of the Bishop playing hockey. Where is the Bishop's heart? When does he have time to be a Bishop? And he even has a picture of Our Lord playing hockey. Is this making God into man's image?
The article about the Bishop reminds me of a story that I read recently about St. Jerome. As you know, St. Jerome was very learned in the languages of Latin, Greek and Hebrew. St. Jerome especially loved the elegant Latin prose of Cicero, and he strove to imitate Cicero's style. One night, St. jerome had a dream that he had died and was appearing before Our Lord in judgement. St. Jerome was condemned. He asked Our Lord why? The reply was that St. Jerome loved Cicero more than he loved Our Lord, and that St. Jerome needed to choose between the two. As you know, one of St. Jeromes great legacies to the Church is the Latin Vulgate, the Bible translated, not into the high prose of Cicero, but in the common (very readable)Latin spoken by the people. Perhaps the good Bishop should consider the example of St. Jerome?
2. As to the masculinity issue. Though I would agree that sports are a great aid in teaching a boy to become a man, I do not believe that participation in sports, especially in later life, indicates masculinity/sexual orientation. Sports should never be any measure of manliness. Rather, the measure should be how the man responds and reflects the manly virtues. For example, do we not cheer the handful of Bishops who had the backbone (the masculinity) to deny pro-abortion politicians Holy Communion and bewail the many spineless(wimpy)Bishops who would wring their hands in despair over the issue? To this, we can add their response to liturgical abuses, heterodox teachings, the sex scandals, and a host of other issues.
So, in the end, do we want Bishops and priests who display their masculinity by uncompromising adherence to the doctrines of Our Lord and the Church, or do we want clergy who elicit a superficial manliness playing sports while their diocese collapses around them? I know that I would prefer the former over the latter anyday.
That was not my intention, as I was commenting on the article. Thank you for the added information. He does sound like he is, at heart, a good man. I will take your advise to pray that he gets his own bishopric.
However, it still does not alleviate my concerns. How does a Bishop have the time to train for and play hockey, and to go to Rome and Greece to participate in marathons? We are talking about a significant amount of time taken away from his duties. Are the duties of a Bishop an 8 to 5 job? What happens when there is a conflict between his duties and a hockey game? Does he get someone to substitute for him as the Bishop or as the goalie? (I am giving him the benefit of the doubt that his duties as Bishop would come first, but it is a legimate question.)
Yes, I am cynical. Far too often I have either seen or heard reports of priests who are unavailable to their parishoners because they have tickets to the big game or the opera, or it's their day off, or their weekly get together with other priests for dinner. "I can't come to the funeral home to pray the Rosary, I have tickets to the playoffs. I'll send Sister Mary instead." or "I can't come to the hospital today, its my day off. I'll send an EEM, but if you need a priest, I sure Father Joe, (who is 30 miles away) will be happy to make the trip."
So, what kind of role model is this Bishop, or any Bishop, for his priests? Why should his priests be expected to be available to take care of their parishioners' needs while any Bishop has plenty of time to engage in his outside interests? Thus my comment about dereliction of duty. We Catholics deserve, and should demand, that our Bishops and priests be wholly dedicated to Our Lord and His Church.
Give me a break. You respond relying on hearsay and appearance (the slant given by the writer, Tom Sheridan) rather than either doing your own research or giving some credence to those of us who have known the man for a decade.
He runs to stay in shape. Reasonable recreation and taking care of one's body are not just options but requirements for a Christian. He put on a hocky suit and spent an afternoon with the Chicago Blackhawks. Bishops routinely as part of their duties attend dinners and other events in civic society of their town. We expect them to do that. He played floor hockey for years and took up ice hockey for recreation. You have no evidence that he does any of these things to excess. If he does them for recreation how is that different from any other bishop who does other things for recreation? His recreations have the advantage of keeping him healthy. Is that wrong? Then what do you do with the young bishop Karol Wojtyla in Krakow? By your standards he was a bad bishop.
That he cares more about marathons or hockey than his duties as bishop is entirely your inference, as you yourself acknowledge. That's called rash judgment. We are required as Catholics to put a good construction on people's actions unless we have evidence to the contrary. I gave you evidence against your inference but you stick stubbornly with your inference based on hearsay about other priests and the tone of the writer for the Chicago archdiocesan newspaper. (Note that I have not endorsed the latter--I'll leave it at that.)
While he was still merely Fr. Paprocki, he celebrated the Novus Ordo in Latin every month at St. John Cantius. That was not part of his assigned duties as vice-chancellor! He took some of his non-office time to celebrate the Latin Mass at the premier parish for Latin liturgy in the archdiocese. He went further than that. At a time when few others in the diocese were supporting the Tridentine rite, under Cardinal Bernardin (who to his credit approved the indult but otherwise remained at armslength, Bernardin's vice-chancellor went way out on a limb with enthusiastic support. His support is remembered with gratitude by the Latin Mass community in Chicago to this day, even though he had to stop regularly celebrating at St. John Cantius when he became a pastor and then bishop. He is still greeted fondly whenever he appears at the parish. His reform of the reform homily is legendary lore.
He put some of his "free time" into founding and maintaining a free legal clinic for the poor in one of Chicago's neighborhoods. I could go on. He's an energetic man. He gets more done than a lot of men his age, perhaps because he runs and stays in shape! Did it ever occur to you that proper care of one's body pays dividends in how much work one gets done otherwise?
Lay off his case until you have real evidence that he's a wastrel bishop. Your initial response was unintended. I withdraw my claim that you calumniated him initially. I now suggest that you calumniate him by rashly and stubbornly holding to your initial unwittingly unjust inferences after we have presented evidence to the contrary. Now you do owe him an apology.
Pope John Paul II was an avid sports enthusiast, also.
Pope Benedict XVI, on the other hand, prefers to practice classical music, ordering his piano be moved to his residence at Castle Gandolfo.
And the first apostles, what did they do when they had some free time on their hands? They went fishing. (Surely, one could say, just after the crucifixion the apostles on the road to Emmaus had something to do besides fishing!)
... besides, running is also prayer time for a lot of people. Although the bible doesn't say so explicitly, I am also certain St. Paul was a long distance runner. I never understood his running metaphors as deeply as I did after I took up running.
By the way, one could ask you if you don't have something better to do than Freep. Come to t hink of it, I do... G'nite
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