Fr. Groeschel

Last night's talk by Fr. Groeschel was actually a fund raising event for Holy Family Academy in Manchester NH. A few weeks ago, I saw the notice in our parish bulletin, and my husband and I decided that it was worth the cost of tickets ($60 per) to attend. The evening started with Mass at Sainte Marie's, open to the public, at which Father was the principle celebrant and gave a wonderful 40 minute homily. Music was provided by the students of the academy, and was well done. I could argue with a couple of choices, but on the whole it was an excellent Mass - spirited and reverential. Also, there were several concelebrants and no EMEs. The homily began developing the theme that the salvation of the church will come from restoring individual holiness of every baptised member. Yes, the church is in crisis - at least in the USA. But the church has been in crisis before.
After Mass, we moved into a parish hall for dinner and more speaking. I don't have any children in the academy, we are not members of the Parish that hosted this event, and I fully expected that the only familiar face I would see would be that of my husband. Imagine my surprise to see, a pew ahead of me, a woman I knew from the NFP teacher/practitioner training. Imagine how much greater my surprise to see that we had been seated at the same table as her! God and his sense of humour..... We were also seated with another mother of 6 - except that hers range in age from 15 to 1. So it was a great bunch of people to be sitting with.
Anyhow, I bought 3 books and had them autographed by Fr. Groeshel. One will be a birthday gift to my husband, another for my daughter who turns 21 next month, and the third is for me.
I wish now that I had taken notes during his talk. It was focused on the theme of "Where do we (the church) go from here?" but it covered so many areas of thought. I remember that he referred to books like Weigel's The Courage to be Catholic, the recent book about the new orthodoxy (especially in gen x ers), another book about how anti-catholicism is the last remaining 'respectable' prejudice. He also talked about how important and difficult it is for pastors to preach on the tough topics. He gave an historical perspective and referenced one of my favorite books on church history The Four Witnesses. HE talked about how the early Protestants actually maintained several doctrines that they now reject (the immaculate conception of Mary, her perpetual virginity, eucharistic devotion), and how 'modern catholics' run the risk of also losing much of this richness.
He also talked about how important education is - and how we need to support true Catholic education. And how we need to support what is good, work against what is evil, and communicate our choices and the values that prompt them. He spoke of being totally unsurprised by the Jason Blair stories, about how the New York Times is not in the business of reporting news but rather in that of creating headlines. He had quite a bit to say about mass media, including a scathing condemnation of MTV as it currently exists.
He also spoke of hope - how his little order has been growing exponentially, about how orthodox seminaries are thriving and the heterodox are becoming less powerful.
One comment I recall was that Catholic clergy in the Roman rite can ONLY reproduce themselves through the laity. Celibacy means that the people get the clergy they produce. It gives an advantage to celibacy that, frankly, I hadn't really seen clearly before. There is not the establishment of dynasties of clergy (eg the several generations of the Martin Luther King family).
He also made a powerful plea for the establishment of Perpetual Adoration. I will say that a local parish is working very hard to establish a perpetual adoration chapel.
All in all, it was a wonderful evening. I will try to post later about the talk on education given by one of the representatives of the school. It tied right in with my thoughts about education versus training, the thoughts that I am still trying to organize into a decent post.