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From the Pastor: A New Look!
This week the church will be in a bit of turmoil but for a very good reason. The morning Masses will be held in the social hall and Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament will be moved to the rectory chapel. Confessions will probably be heard there as well. We shall see as it all plays out. We have a Nuptial Mass scheduled for Friday afternoon, so the church will have to be put back in order before the wedding and the bride and groom will be the first to experience the new look. Many of you already have a general idea of what the wall behind the altar will look like when we are done, for we have had a rough mock-up of it hanging in the office for several months now, plus some rough sketches of the artwork in the sacristy for anyone interested enough to take a peek at. But most of you will probably not be aware of what has been in the works for quite some time. A world-renowned artist, who just happens to attend Mass at Epiphany, has offered to loan us a crucifixion scene and two large angels as a triptych to be displayed as long as we are allowed to celebrate the TLM here. The style is along the lines of that of the great 15th-century Dominican Friar and artist, Fra Angelico. I think you will be quite pleased with it. We will have to do some more work later to fully incorporate it into the church, but this week at least the first stage will be completed. While we are working to bring beauty to the church, giving even more glory to God and edification to His people, such is not the case in all parts of the Church. The Vatican has announced a new “mascot” for the Church’s 2025 Jubilee Year. “Luce” has blue hair, is dressed in a yellow raincoat and hat with green galoshes splattered with brown mud, wears a rainbow rosary around his/her/its neck, and carries a witch's stang-like walking stick. Her (how are we to know what gender this thing has? Do they expect us to all be biologists?) eyes have pupils shaped like scallop shells (the symbol of those who have completed a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela). She has several friends, Fe, Xin, and Sky (all of which sound like trans pronouns), and a dog named Santino (“little Saint”). This/these figures are the work of an “artist” whose company’s anime-inspired toys include plenty of “pride” toys and (ahem) “adult” toys in the form of child toys. It is presumed that Rupnik was unavailable for the job. I have two serious questions for those who dreamed up this mascot idea. 1) If you really think that a toy pilgrim is going to evangelize the young, couldn’t you have at least found an artist who is not already known for scandalous “works of art”? 2) Or was scandal, rather than Faith, the whole “hidden” idea behind your choice? Going further into things that don’t glorify God or edify His people, this week (as I write this article, not as you read it) the Bishops of the United States are gathered for their Fall meeting. What is on their agenda? I do not know. But something reportedly not on their agenda ought to be a priority for them: Catholic hospitals have been performing mutilations on children in the name of “trans therapy.” How many? According to the National Catholic Register, “As the Register reported last month, on Oct. 8 a medical watchdog organization called Do No Harm released a database finding that about 150 Catholic hospitals in the United States provided “pediatric sex-change services” between 2019 and 2023, including 33 Catholic hospitals that performed so-called gender-reassignment surgeries on minors... More than 520 minors received treatments in Catholic hospitals in about 40 states during that five-year period, according to the data. More than 150 had surgeries to alter their appearances to resemble the opposite sex, while more than 380 children were given puberty blockers or hormone therapies.” Make no mistake about this, not a bit of this gives glory to the One True God but rather makes a mockery of Him. None of this actually edifies His people, even those mentally ill enough to claim that the children benefit from doctors “correcting” God’s “mistakes.” Every parent, doctor, nurse, and other “official” involved in these actions should be judged in this world, not just in the next. And the Bishops (who have all been made aware of the above-mentioned report), for the sake of their own souls, need to immediately remove the “Catholic” moniker from any hospital doing such evil and excommunicate all “catholics” involved, from the hospitals’ top dogs (even if—no, especially if—that means excommunicating all of the Religious Sisters who officially own and/or run so many “catholic” hospitals) down to the “ethics department” staff as well as those actually doing the dirty deeds. And the parents who subject their children to such mutilations of both body and soul. And the politicians who champion such causes. And the list goes on... Those “catholics” who think that the above examples of ridiculousness and sickness are real Catholicism will hate the paintings going up at Epiphany this week. To them, the crucifixion of Jesus is a stumbling block, for they are, at best, looking for salvation without the Cross, without the Savior, without God. In the coming weeks you will have an opportunity to hear from our faithful Catholic artist an explanation of the who’s, what’s, and why’s of his work. You will be edified. God will be glorified. Epiphany will be beautified. With prayers for your holiness, Rev. Fr. Edwin Palka Comments are closed.
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