Peoria bishop asks Catholics, 'What will it take to get us mad?'

Catholic News Service ^ | September 3, 2003 | Tom Dermody

[NYer]

PEORIA, Ill. (CNS) -- In a passionate call to defend the faith that drew sustained applause at an outdoor Mass on Peoria's riverfront Aug. 24, Bishop Daniel R. Jenky declared contemporary culture is "at war with Jesus Christ" and asked Catholics, "What will it take to finally get us mad?"

"Will you tolerate the holiest things of our religion on a daily basis being mocked and ridiculed on TV, in the press and in the movies?" he asked the crowd of 800 worshipping under a tent on the grounds of the city's annual Irish festival.

Noting that "even the most blessed and glorious mother of God becomes a joke for comedians and sports writers," Bishop Jenky challenged Catholics to "rise up and become more militant about what you say you believe."

"Jesus asks each and every one of us today, 'Are you with me or against me?'" he said. "'Are you in my company a confessing member of my holy church, or would you prefer to sell me out to a world that is going straight to hell?'"

Bishop Jenky concluded his homily by paraphrasing a Scripture reading of the day: "Speaking as the bishop of Peoria," he said, "as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord." The assembly answered with lengthy applause.

The annual Mass is planned by the Peoria area division of the Ancient Order of Hibernians and featured music by the Irish Heritage Singers from Chicago. This was the second consecutive year that Bishop Jenky was celebrant and homilist.

"He didn't mince any words," said Mike Duncan, local Hibernians' president. "It was a most passionate homily, very clearly stating everything he thought and believed was important."

Bishop Jenky's message had a challenge for Irish and Irish-American Catholics.

"Will the Irish of the 21st century in their daily practice abandon that true faith and that true church their ancestors died for?" he asked. "Will American materialism and gross pagan immorality, disguised as personal autonomy and moral neutrality, finally succeed and win the hearts of the Irish, where Oliver Cromwell and Great Britain failed?"

Influenced by a secularist world view, American culture today is "living in direct opposition to the truth of Christ's Gospel and is aggressively hostile to the church," said Bishop Jenky.

Secularists, he explained, believe human choice should be determined only according to personal preference. While "convinced secularists" are in the minority, they have used culture's "command posts" of the national media, entertainment industry and university campuses to successfully win acceptance for such "freedoms" as easy divorce, premarital sex, cohabitation, out-of-wedlock birth, abortion and euthanasia.

The Catholic view of what constitutes human freedom is much different, said Bishop Jenky.

"Catholic Christianity strongly asserts that true human freedom doesn't reside in doing anything we want, any time we want to do it," he said. "Catholicism is convinced that there can be no absolute autonomous self apart from our essential connection with a community, no personal freedom without obligation to other people -- especially children and the elderly, the weak and the defenseless."

In the face of "vicious attacks" against the church in the cultural war, the bishop asked, "Why do we as Catholics not stand up and fight and defend our faith? What will it take to finally get us mad?"

Four days earlier, Bishop Jenky had expressed "profound horror and enormous dismay" at plans to name a local bar "Hail Mary's Last Chance Sports and Spirits." Area Catholics also protested the plan, with 2,600 people signing letters delivered to the Rock Island City Council Aug. 25. Developers of the bar said the name refers to a sports play.

In a letter published by the Rock Island Argus newspaper, Bishop Jenky said he loves sports and noted his long affiliation with the University of Notre Dame, where he served for two decades as rector of Sacred Heart Basilica on campus. He is a former chaplain to the Notre Dame football team.

"But the mother of my Savior is not a mascot," he wrote. "Her name is holy and does not belong on a bar."

[Pyro7480]

Bishop Jenky echoes the words of the prophet Joshua: "Speaking as the bishop of Peoria," he said, "as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord."

[NYer]

Four days earlier, Bishop Jenky had expressed "profound horror and enormous dismay" at plans to name a local bar "Hail Mary's Last Chance Sports and Spirits."

A classical example of giving a bar or restaurant a controversial, albeit 'double entendre', to draw attention to their establishment. Sports plays have many different names. They simply copped out the most exploitive one they could find.

[independentmind]

A classical example of giving a bar or restaurant a controversial, albeit 'double entendre', to draw attention to their establishment. Sports plays have many different names. They simply copped out the most exploitive one they could find.

Bump for Fr. Jenky, a name I haven't heard in many years. I had no idea he had been made a bishop.

I don't think your criticism of the bar owners is completely fair, though. They named their bar precisely because they thought it would appeal to a particular kind of fan--a kind that Notre Dame has all too many of.

[dangus]

Jinkies, scooby! A bishop with guts!

[Maximilian]

Sounds like a really great sermon, the kind we need a lot more of.

But in answer to his question: "Who will respond to the call of an uncertain trumpet?" The Church herself must first get her act together and decide what she believes in. After all, who is going to fight the culture wars under the banner of the gay-ordaining Anglican communion? No one. And if the Catholic Church is determined to follow a few steps behind the Anglicans, then we'll end up just as useless.

[OPS4]

Maybe its time for the Catholic Church to bring back the weekly tv show that Fulton Sheen had bought time for throughout the country, so the rebuttal time and the
Word of God can be heard.

It seems the Anglicans, Baptisits, and others have thier religious beliefs on Pax, and many other outlets.

Ops4 God BLess America!

[Pyro7480]

They show old episodes of Fulton Sheen's show Friday nights on EWTN.

[OPS4]

Unfortunatley, we all do not have EWTN, and the problems
facing the Church today are not the same as 20 years ago.

They need to break out some of the treasure, and get on
a UPN or some similar syndicator, or better yet buy
one and run the news from ZENIT, 24 hours with commentaries from key church leaders.

Ops4 God BLess America!

[Aliska]

Four days earlier, Bishop Jenky had expressed "profound horror and enormous dismay" at plans to name a local bar "Hail Mary's Last Chance Sports and Spirits." Area Catholics also protested the plan, with 2,600 people signing letters delivered to the Rock Island City Council Aug. 25. Developers of the bar said the name refers to a sports play.

The bar is not local. It is about 50-75 miles away. The bishop is in Peoria; the bar will be in Rock Island.

[Aliska]

I kind of miss those impassioned sermons from my protestant years. I think I would have liked hearing this one. Often I found myself wishing to hear more catholic homilies like that, not hateful hellfire stuff, but ones that really stir you out of your spiritual lethargy. Not that I am accusing catholics of lethargy. But I like to hear fired-up preachers sometimes.

[Snuffington]

The bar is not local. It is about 50-75 miles away. The bishop is in Peoria; the bar will be in Rock Island.

Depends how close you need to be to call something local. Rock Island is part of the Peoria Diocese.

[ThomasMore]

as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord

AMEN!

I delivered a similar homily two Sunday's past. Read HERE

[ninenot]

....and if you're stuck in Rock Island, it is well worth the time to tour the Arsenal--at least their museum.

It would also be interesting (maybe not allowed) to tour the actual factory.

[ninenot]

Well, if there's any fire at all left in those Irish, the mention of Cromwell ought to fan it.

Good stuff. Good man.

[NYer]

Maybe its time for the Catholic Church to bring back the weekly tv show that Fulton Sheen had bought time for throughout the country, so the rebuttal time and the Word of God can be heard.

Life Is Worth Living is broadcast each week on EWTN. Check for day/time here.

SEPTEMBER SCHEDULE

[NYer]

Unfortunatley, we all do not have EWTN

You have the internet, don't you? You can watch EWTN live over the internet. EWTN LIVE

[BlackElk]

Fulton Sheen did not buy that time. He was then Auxiliary Bishop of the New York Archdiocese (Manhattan, the Bronx and a few counties outside the city). He bacame friendly with NBC executives who were at wit's end trying to find programming that would draw at least SOME viewers opposite Milton Berle's variety show that was then the top rated of all TV shows. NBC invited Bishop Sheen to do his show in the time slot opposite Berle and paid Sheen to do it. He did the show for two or three years and drove Berle out of the time slot and Sheen retired on top of the ratings to do other things.

Today's NBC and today's America are not what they used to be in the 1950s.

[BlackElk]

Bishop Jenky seems a worthy successor to Archbishop Meyers.

[NYer]

Excellent sermon, Deacon. Do you plan to deliver more of these as we draw closer to election season? Someone needs to wake up the minds of the catholics whose fingers always seem to press the wrong buttons, once behind the curtain of the voting booth. Someone means YOU ;-)

How many people have been mislead by embracing Kennedy's heretical statement that rejects the eternal moral law taught to us by Jesus Christ? It's not as if an atheist made the denigrating remarks about the Church. IT WAS A PROMINENT CATHOLIC POLITICIAN which makes this situation extremely scandalous.