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R. Cort Kirkwood
New American
Nov 12, 2012
The Irish approved an amendment to their national constitution on Saturday that will bring it into compliance with mandates of the United Nations that govern the state's seizure of children. The margin was 57 percent to 43 percent.
The Alliance of Parents against the State campaigned against passage of the referendum on the measure, which APS says will diminish the rights of parents and give the Irish government nearly unbridled power to seize children. Even worse, APS charges, Irish law will come under the control of the United Nations. The APS and other opponents will likely challenge the result.
The amendment's key words that pertain to the power the state are "best interests" — meaning the "best interests" of the child. Supposedly the state must always keep the "best interests" of a child uppermost in its decision to seize him. Problem is, APS says, the state determines what those "best interests" are.
The Law
Before the referendum passed, the law governing the Irish government's power to seize children rested in Article 5 of the country'sConstitution, known in the Irish as the Bunreacht na hÉireann:
In exceptional cases, where the parents for physical or moral reasons fail in their duty towards their children, the State as guardian of the common good, by appropriate means shall endeavour to supply the place of the parents, but always with due regard for the natural and imprescriptible rights of the child.
That straightforward and simple codicil will be replaced by this 31st amendment to the constitution:
1. The State recognises and affirms the natural and imprescriptible rights of all children and shall, as far as practicable, by its laws protect and vindicate those rights.
1. In exceptional cases, where the parents, regardless of their marital status, fail in their duty towards their children to such an extent that the safety or welfare of any of their children is likely to be prejudicially affected, the State as guardian of the common good shall, by proportionate means as provided by law, endeavour to supply the place of the parents, but always with due regard for the natural and imprescriptible rights of the child.
2. Provision shall be made by law for the adoption of any child where the parents have failed for such a period of time as may be prescribed by law in their duty towards the child and where the best interests of the child so require.
3. Provision shall be made by law for the voluntary placement for adoption and the adoption of any child.
1. Provision shall be made by law that in the resolution of all proceedings —
i brought by the State, as guardian of the common good, for the purpose of preventing the safety and welfare of any child from being prejudicially affected, or
ii concerning the adoption, guardianship or custody of, or access to, any child, the best interests of the child shall be the paramount consideration.
2. Provision shall be made by law for securing, as far as practicable, that in all proceedings referred to in subsection 1° of this section in respect of any child who is capable of forming his or her own views, the views of the child shall be ascertained and given due weight having regard to the age and maturity of the child.
Critics such as APS believe that language too closely mirrors that of the UN Convention on the Right of the Child, which containssuch nebulous language as this:
States Parties shall ensure that a child shall not be separated from his or her parents against their will, except when competent authorities subject to judicial review determine, in accordance with applicable law and procedures, that such separation is necessary for the best interests of the child. Such determination may be necessary in a particular case such as one involving abuse or neglect of the child by the parents, or one where the parents are living separately and a decision must be made as to the child's place of residence.
In neither case does the language determine the ultimate arbiter of the child's "best interests." But as a practical matter, APS notes, that arbiter is the state. And that's their problem with it.
Unnecessary And Dangerous
Kathy Sinnott, a Chicago-born former member of the European Parliament from Ireland, said the referendum is a naked power grab by the Irish state.
"The government thinks that people are ready to buy their propaganda that changing the Constitution is about protecting children,"she told LifeSiteNews. "Of course this is nonsense, because our Constitution already very strongly protects children."
Sinnott said that all the referendum does is to strip parents of their God-given responsibilities over their children and to hand them over to the State.
"Not only does the State take over parental authority, but all a parent has to do is 'likely to fail' in their responsibilities, as defined by the State, for the State to take control of the children."
"Everything, of course, is for the 'best interest of the child', which according to the UN treaty, is decided by the State."
Sinnott explained that the amendment would, for all intents and purposes, endow the state with "prior rights" over children, which trespasses the natural law and the natural family.
"The reason why the family should have prior rights over children is because of the family bond, which is nature's strategy for protecting children. This is the mother-child bond, the father-child bond, the mother-father bond, and the brother-sister bond," she told LifeSiteNews.
"This bond is the source of what is really in the 'best interest' of the child. The State can never have this bond. By injecting themselves as controlling shareholder of every family in this country, the State is reversing this natural order."
Sinnott said that with the wording of the Constitutional amendment being released just a few weeks ago, there has been no time for parents to mobilize effective resistance.
"It has been a YES campaign from the beginning," she said. "Everyone believes that in voting YES, they are protecting children, but they are really giving up their rights over their children."
Among the powers the state would have, APS noted in its list of 10 reasons to vote against the referendum, are these:
Your child can be placed for adoption against your will.
• "The State can decide … to vaccinate every child in Ireland, and the parent, and even the child have no say in the matter."
• "The State can decide to give give Birth Control to children of any age, even if they are below the Age of Consent."
• "The State can bring children to other countries for abortions without parental consent and even if the child disagrees."
• "The UN and the EU can make any laws for children without consent of the Irish Government if it wishes."
On November 8, the Supreme Court of Ireland ordered the government to dismantle a website that promoted the referendum. That illegal effort will be the basis of the challenge opponents will mount to overturn the result.
Catholic Bishops Backed the State
Supporting the change were the nation's Catholic bishops. Noting "the legacy of failure by individuals, organisations, the Church and the State to adequately protect children in Ireland," the bishops said, "we share the concern of others to ensure that the proposed amendment on children does not undermine the rights of parents and the presumptive place of the family, based on marriage between a woman and a man, as the unit in which the welfare and rights of children are best exercised and safeguarded. We share some of the concerns that have been raised by others about the potential out-working of future legislation and practice in this area."
But the bishops weren't that concerned. They backed the proposed amendment.
However, when read in conjunction with the unaltered constitutional provisions on the family and education, the wording of the Thirty-First Amendment on Children suggests that a reasonable and balanced approach to framing the proposed new article on children's rights has been taken….
While the possibility of unintended consequences is always present in the context of Constitutional change, it is clear that the wording of the proposed amendment on children is not intended to undermine the current Constitutional balance between the rights of parents and children, or between parents and the State. If unforeseen or unintended consequences do emerge in time, the remedy of further Constitutional amendment or amending legislation is available to mitigate the consequences of any such developments.
The bishops' support for the amendment is unsurprising. The Catholic Church in Ireland has suffered enormous damage to its prestige because of a nationwide sex scandal similar to that which occurred in the United States: Pervert priests were moved from parish to parish.
Secret Courts
APS' website tells a tale of what could already happen to a parent even without this constitutional amendment. It describes the case of Mary, whose child was seized, whereupon the mother was forced to defend herself in a secret hearing. "During the hearing," APS claims, "she was not entitled to know what evidence was being brought up against her, so she had no opportunity to defend herself."
A social worker lied and twisted facts. Mary told the court of a conference where a social worker, a recent college graduate with no children or life experience, threatened her that she would report her to the [police] for child abuse if she did not co-operate. The social worker testified that the meeting never even took place.
She was gagged twice by the system. She was informed that if she talked to anyone that she would be jailed. She was gagged again by the social workers that if she talked to ANYBODY, that they would cut her visits to her child.
According to APS, all the evidence against Mary was hearsay and the "subjective opinion of ONE person, who lied and exaggerated everything." But then Mary was exonerated as suddenly as she was accused: They had grabbed the wrong child from the wrong parent, APS claims.
Even worse, she could not report the matter to police because of the gag orders imposed by the judge.
The APS website alleges that judges are in cahoots with the state on child seizures and afraid to buck the system. It says judges "are guilty of protecting their own reputations," and when a "child dies in State Care, nobody is ever responsible…." The website continues:
The average person in Ireland doesn't even realise that if a person is accused of child abuse or neglect in a Criminal Court, even if they are vindicated, they will still be punished in a family court. They will be guilty without having committed any crime and punished by having their children removed. Let us not forget, that the children are punished also.
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USTFCCCA News & Notes
NCAA DI OTF Championships: 2012 Day One Recap, News & Notes
From the USTFCCCA:
Updated Scoring Chances by Day
(National Top 25 Teams):
Thursday's Broadcast Schedule
Starting at 5:15pm CT – ESPN3.com (LIVE)
From Drake University:
The first day of action at the 2012 NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships saw a 32-year Drake Stadium record fall and one NCAA meet record tied on Wednesday.
Championship Central
Thursday Start List (PDF)
Wednesday Results (PDF)
Schedule and Results | Quotes
Day 1 Live Blog–Wednesday, June 6
Notes on Wednesday's action:
Today's announced attendance was 4,052.
Tonight's action at Drake Stadium was conducted under partly cloudy skies with a temperature in the low 70s.
Longtime Drake Stadium Record Tumbles
Cameron Levins became Southern Utah's first NCAA track champion, sprinting the final 150 meters to win the 10,000 in 28:07.14, breaking a Drake Stadium record set 32 years ago. Levins ran his final lap in 58.1 to beat Arizona's Stephen Sambu, last year's third-place finisher. The old stadium record was 28:07.40 by Kipsubal Koskei of the Albuquerque Track Club in 1980.
NCAA Meet Record Tied
Stanford senior Katerina Stefanidi took home the women's pole vault title after tying the meet record of 14-7¼ (4.45m) on her first attempt.
2012 Collegiate Best Marks Broken
- Chad Wright, Nebraska, men's discus, 206-0
- Tony McQuay, Florida, men's 400, 44.67
- Whitney Ashley, San Diego State, women's discus, 196-10
- Tony McQuay, Florida, No. 3 this year in men's 400, 44.67
- LSU, No. 3 this year in women's 4×100 relay, 42.68 (Takeia Pinckney, Semoy Hackett, Rebecca Alexander, Kimberlyn Duncan)
- Texas A&M, matches No. 4 this year in women's 4×100 relay, 42.90 (LaKeidra Steward, Olivia Ekpone, Dominique Duncan, Ashley Collier)
- Auburn, No. 5 this year in men's 4×100 relay, 38.53 (Jeremy Hardy, Harry Adams, Marcus Rowland, Keenan Brock)
Back-To-Back Titles For Borman
Oklahoma's Brittany Borman threw 184-7 to repeat as the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field women's javelin champion to kick off the first day of competition. Borman won the Big 12 championship this year and was the collegiate leader with a throw of 194-11. She placed second at the 2010 NCAA meet.
Close To On Top Of The World
Four athletes added their names to some of the top performances in the world this year. Tony
McQuay of Florida is now ranked No. 3 this year in the men's 400 with is time of 44.67. Auburn's 4×100 relay time of 38.53 was good for fifth in the world. Team members were Jeremy Hardy, Harry Adams, Marcus Rowland and Keenan Brock. The women's 4×100 prelims saw two teams place amongst the world's best for the season. LSU clocked a 42.68, which is No. 3 this year, with team members were Takeia Pinckney, Semoy Hackett, Rebecca Alexander, Kimberlyn Duncan. Texas A&M matched No. 4 this year with a time of 42.90 with team members LaKeidra Steward, Olivia Ekpone, Dominique Duncan, Ashley Collier.
He's No. 1 Now
Nebraska's Chad Wright, a sophomore from Kingston, Jamaica, won the men's discus with a throw of 206-0, his personal best and the top collegiate mark this season. Wright improved on each throw and his winning mark came on his fifth attempt. He fouled on his last throw. Season leader Luke Bryant of Oklahoma was third at 199-11, with Mason Finley of Kansas getting second at 200-2.
Hurryin' Harry
After helping Auburn to the fastest semifinal time in the men's 4×100 relay, Harry Adams ran the fastest time ever in a 100 heat race at the NCAA meet, churning out a 9.96, the best collegiate time this year and No. 7 in the world. Florida's Jeff Demps had the previous best of 10.01. Demps, the 2010 NCAA champion, did not qualify this year because of a hamstring injury.
Aztec Surprise
San Diego State's Whitney Ashley was a surprise winner in the women's discus, throwing 196-10 to beat runner-up Anna Jelmini of Arizona State by four feet. Ashley was the sixth-ranked thrower coming in with a season best of 183-1, a mark she achieved at the Mt. Sac Relays. Ashley's mark is a collegiate best for the year, topping the previous best of 195-0 by Jeneva McCall of Southern Illinois. McCall finished 10th at 177-4.
Price Is Right
Tennessee's Chanelle Price, who finished third last year, ran the fastest heat in the women's 800, 2:01.66, to lead the way into Friday's final. That's a season best for Price, the SEC champion. Defending champion Anne Kesselring of Oregon made the final with the fifth-best time, 2:02.66.
Cy-Hawk Duo
Iowa's Erik Sowinksi and Iowa State's Edward Kemboi went 1-2 in the third heat of the men's 800 semifinal. Sowinski led all qualifiers with a time of 1:46.09, while Kemboi had the fourth-best time at 1:46.20. Collegiate leader Charles Jock of UC Irvine won the first heat in 1:46.24 and is the No. 2 qualifier to the final.
Bronco In The Lead
First-place finishes in the 100 (10.90) and long jump (24-3 1/2) and a tie for first in the high jump (6-8 3/4) propelled Boise State's Kurt Felix into the first-day lead in the decathlon. Felix compiled a five-event total of 4,187 points, 10 more than Arkansas freshman Gunnar Nelson. Season leader Isaac Murphy of Texas is tied for fifth with 4,025 points.
Aggie Dissapointment
Sophomore Prezel Hardy Jr., counted on by three-time defending men's team champion Texas A&M for big points in the 100, failed to make the final, finishing fourth in his heat in 10.11, missing out on the final spot by .02 seconds. Hardy had the fastest time of the year among the NCAA qualifiers, running a 10.03 in winning the Big 12 championship. Texas A&M also failed to advance a runner to the final in the women's 100. Sophomore Ashley Collier came in as the No. 3-ranked collegian with a time of 11.01, but ran 11.33 and finished fourth in her heat, .04 seconds out of the final qualifying spot. A&M's Dominique Duncan also failed to made the final. Like the men, the Aggie women are seeking their fourth consecutive team title.
Tough Break
Season leader Georganne Moline of Arizona, the Pac-12 champion, fell over the hurdle in the final turn and failed to make the final in the women's 400 hurdles. Moline, who ran 55.12 in the conference meet, recovered to finish the race but her time of 59.99 was 21st out of the 24 runners. UCLA's Turquoise Thompson, second to Moline at the Pac-12 meet, was the top qualifier in 55.59.
Thursday's competition begins at 11:30 with the decathlon 110-meter hurdles. The heptathlon begins with 100 hurdles at 1 p.m. Field events begin at 2:30 with the men's javelin and running events commence at 5:30 with the 200 meters.
Single-day tickets for Thursday are available for $30 by calling (515) 271-DOGS, or visiting www.ncaa.com/tickets to purchase online.

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Video shows fight between vets over Obama bumper sticker
Dramatic police lapel camera video released
New video released by Albuquerque police shows the dangerous fight between two veterans over an anti-Obama bumper sticker.
Police arrested Chris Williams, 43, after they said he held another man at gunpoint.
The lapel camera captured the moment when the officer came face to face with Williams. The officer can be heard ordering Williams to "Drop the gun."
The video then shows Williams with his hands in the air, and the victim still on the ground. The victim was a 62-year-old Vietnam veteran.
He told officers he did not like the bumper sticker on Williams' truck because it said derogatory things about President Barack Obama.
The victim told police he didn't know Williams, but wanted to let him know that sticker offended him.
"Why would a vet, or an American citizen, want to put that stuff on their truck?" the victim asked the officer rhetorically.
The victim also told Williams he should be ashamed of himself.
But Williams told police, he told the victim to 'get out of his face', and claimed the victim ignored him. The two began to argue. It escalated to the victim ending up on his knees, with his hands up, and Williams allegedly holding the gun to the back of the his head.
Chris Williams was arrested for aggravated assault. The case has been turned over to the District Attorney's office for review.


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Joshua Ledet Made Us Believe With Fantasia's 'I Believe' on 'American Idol'
Joshua Ledet kicked off his 'American Idol' double header with the winning song by his personal idol and 'Idol' alum, Fantasia. He made believers out of all of us with an inspiring performance of 'I Believe.' And he couldn't have matched it any better with is second round performance.
Ryan Seacrest asked Ledet if his choice of Fantasia's winning song was foreshadowing for the end of this season. Ledet couldn't give him an answer, but we say perhaps, "yes." After appearing in the bottom three last week, his choice of a song that says, "I believe anything is possible when you believe" was perfect for staging a come back. And we're pretty sure Jennifer Lopez didn't need to beg the audience not to send him home after his follow-up performance of Sam Cooke's 'A Change Is Gonna Come.' A change is coming and it's Joshua Ledet leading the pack.
He gave it all on the stage and had the judges on their feet after both songs. Jennifer Lopez recognized that when he performs, he leaves it all on the stage. She said, "You give America something that is all of you." Lopez felt blessed to have Ledet on the show and Randy Jackson was touched by his performance. He said he could only hope America would believe in him and keep him in the competition. Steven Tyler wrapped up the rousing performance by telling Ledet that he could win the whole thing and, "There's nothing more to say anymore."
Ledet killed it in round two. Jackson called his performance "stellar." Tyler said, "Your voice climbs inside of everybody and changes them for that moment." And all J. Lo could do was plead, "Please, America, don't send this boy home. Please!" Clearly, the choice is tough after tonight. It was Ledet who prompted Jackson to declare, "The talent this season is better than any show on TV. End of story."


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The day after their farewell Mass, parishioners of St. Frances Xavier Cabrini Church were locked out. Archdiocesan officials had changed the locks days ahead of schedule.
So they walked around the building in Scituate, Massachusetts, desperately pulling on door handles. And then, one of the doors opened. Ever since, parishioners have kept vigil, staying in the church 24 hours a day, seven days a week, in protest of the closure. That was six years ago.
The parishioners of St. Frances, along with eight other closed parishes, appealed their case to the Vatican. The Vatican ruling came down this summer, and, perhaps not surprisingly, it backed the Boston archdiocese's right to close the parishes.
Boston, still recovering from the sexual abuse crisis, is ground zero for parish closings. From January 2004 to September 2005, the archdiocese closed or merged 62 parishes as part of a reconfiguration process.
"The seeds of the financial crisis are rooted in the sexual abuse crisis," insists Jon Rogers, a "vigiler" at St. Frances. In 2002 the Boston archdiocese faced hundreds of accusations of sexual abuse, most of which were settled for $86 million. The consequences of the abuse crisis left the archdiocese in a shaky financial state.
But St. Frances Cabrini was solid. Built in 1960, the parish boasted 3,000 families. While many parishes in Boston had declining numbers, suburban parishes like St. Frances were holding strong.
"We not only took care of ourselves," Rogers says, "but we built and supported churches in India."
"In Boston, the problem had a lot to do with financing. It wasn't strictly about the abuse crisis–although you can't speak about [parish closures] without that coming into it," explains Jesuit Father William Clark, assistant professor of religious studies at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts. "It's something they would have had to address, even without the abuse crisis. The finances were at a critical point."
This isn't just Boston's problem. A growing number of parishes across the United States are facing closures and mergers. It's a trend that will continue into the future, according to Jesuit Father Thomas Sweetser, director of the Milwaukee-based Parish Evaluation Project. And while finances are a major impetus for the closures, he says the shortage of priests is the No. 1 reason.
The number of priests in the United States has plummeted from nearly 60,000 in 1965 to nearly 50,000 in 1995 to just more than 40,000 in 2009, according to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) at Georgetown University. Meanwhile, the number of Catholics continues to increase–from 45.6 million in 1965 to 57.4 million in 1995 to 65.2 million in 2009. That's one priest for every 1,630 Catholics today, compared with one for 778 Catholics in 1965. But the reality of such numbers do not make the process any easier.
"It's common now, especially in areas where churches are being closed, to say the church is not a building. The church is the community," explains Clark. "That's certainly the case. But in Catholicism we've been conscious of the roles sacred spaces have to enhance people's faith."
Catholics cross themselves whenever they pass a church building. They dip their fingers in holy water when they enter one. "There are all these indicators of reverence. There's something very wise in the tradition about that," says Clark. "We don't intend to communicate that there's a way that God is more present inside a church building. But the way we treat it focuses people's attention in such a way that the building becomes a sort of a landmark of the presence of God."
The harsh reality, given the state of priestly vocations and the economy, is that the question isn't how to stop parish closures but how to do these closures well.
Parish Marriage
It didn't take long for Father Mark J. Krylowicz to discover there were some financial problems with Holy Rosary Church in Chicago. After being appointed the pastor in 2005, he got his first electric bill.
"As soon as I sat down and started looking at the checkbook, I realized they hadn't budgeted enough," he says. "The people didn't realize how bad a situation they were in." But with a new pastor in charge they found out. He tried different things to make the parish viable-establishing an endowment, a heavy evangelization effort, an increase in tithing–but it all came up short. Parishioners were giving beyond their means, and the parish had to be closed.
His efforts to save the church, however, did have an upside: He won the parishioners' trust. So when the parish faced a merger, Krylowicz–who was also pastor of St. Anthony of Padua down the street–had the "church cred" to bring his flock along. Most of the 100 English-speaking parishioners voted to join him at St. Anthony, a predominantly Hispanic parish, rather than attend another relatively close parish.
"We had the right priest at the right place at the right time," says Tod Fraund, who had been on the Holy Rosary finance council. "We saw the effort, we saw that he was trying to make it work. It was his commitment to us."
Still, parish leaders estimate they lost around 20 percent of parishioners. In a small congregation, losing these members hurt almost as much as closing the church, says Mary Ann Kopchak, who was "born and raised" at Holy Rosary.
"I saw the plan, I was part of the plan. That was the building, but it was the people who are the church, it was the people who built my faith."
Getting the majority of the congregation to buy into a parish merger isn't easy. Krylowicz, for example, was open about the financial realities the community faced, and the community tried to deal with it as a parish family. When it didn't work, he let parishioners vote on what parish they would merge with. Some might call it empowerment; others might call it ownership. But Holy Rosary parishioners, dealing with the hard reality of closing their parish, at least had some say.
"You can close the church with the little 'c,' but not the church with the big 'C,' " says Kopchak, who now heads up liturgy planning at St. Anthony. She and others at Holy Rosary made a commitment to each other and to the St. Anthony community when their church closed two years ago. Dubbed "a commitment ceremony," it was part of their closing Mass. The day before, they had a jazz concert–which they called their bachelor party–and afterward they had their "move-in day." They thought of the merger as a marriage.
So parishioners loaded up all their stuff–candles and statues and chalices-and processed over to St. Anthony. They were met along the way by matachines, traditional Mexican dancers, and when they arrived, "their new family" welcomed them with applause.
In the back of St. Anthony is a backlit stained glass window of the Blessed Mother giving the rosary to Saint Dominic. The window, and the altar before it, are from Holy Rosary. It symbolizes the closed church, but it also recognizes that the Holy Rosary community is not really gone. It just moved.
"You really have to work at having these rituals of closure," says Sweetser of the Parish Evaluation Project, using the analogy of a funeral rather than a wedding. "It's not an easy thing. It's kind of death and dying. What we're trying to say is that there's a resurrection. It's because those two parish cultures are different that it's hard to bring them together."
Loss and renewal
Paying attention to these details and having closing ceremonies and rituals helps mergers. It validates parishioners' loss and gives due reverence to the sacred places that are being closed. Father David Noone had that in mind when he oversaw the merger of Our Lady of Mercy and St. Francis de Sales in Loudonville, New York.
Like Father Krylowicz in Chicago, he oversaw the two merging communities. And he also left many decisions up to the parishioners. Faced with having to close one of their two churches, parishioners eventually decided to keep St. Francis, a larger church with more expansive grounds.
On Thanksgiving, Our Lady of Mercy parishioners processed a mile to St. Francis. The altar from Our Lady of Mercy had replaced the altar at St. Francis. The cross of the risen Christ had also been switched out. And while the original St. Francis baptismal font was kept, some water from Our Lady of Mercy was poured into it.
"It's the old Abe Lincoln thing: 'You're not going to please all the people all the time.' But most of the people, I think, were satisfied," says Ed Prince, who'd been a parishioner at St. Francis for decades.
The community decided both parishes would close and a new parish-Christ Our Light-would be established at the St. Francis site. Picking the name, Prince says, was one of the most difficult parts. More than 200 suggestions were submitted. They were narrowed down, and eventually the community voted for the new name at Sunday Masses.
"The idea is that both churches lose their identity. The feeling is that it's a renewal. There's also a sense of loss of both parishes," Prince says.
"To make the new people feel-I say 'the new people,' I mean the people who are moving into this new church," he says, catching himself. "It's a big, big change for the people who have been in the church for years and years. They had their kids baptized and their parents buried there. They lost a lot."
And the community lost a lot of parishioners, according to Bill Mielke, an active member in both Our Lady of Mercy and Christ Our Light. "There are many people who are absolutely heartbroken that the church closed, and I expect it's going to take two generations until the dust settles on this," he says.
That's despite a lot of consultation.
Sweetser and Franciscan Sister Peg Bishop of the Parish Evaluation Project came in and interviewed at least 70 parishioners from both churches after a survey asking for parishioner input had been sent out.
But in the end the merger itself wasn't a choice. It was preordained. Despite the financial viability of both Our Lady of Mercy and St. Francis, one of the two churches would have to close. There simply weren't enough priests to cover both parishes.
So what about a parish life coordinator? Parishioners at Our Lady of Mercy asked the same question. "That wasn't what the diocese had in mind. So that angered quite a few people and that started the exodus," Mielke says.
How many left? Mielke can't be sure, but from a parish community of 1,200, maybe 200. People at St. Francis weren't all happy, either. Some had a mindset that things would stay the same, so when the communities actually merged, it was a bit of a "jolt," as Mielke describes it.
Priest alternatives
Suggesting alternatives such as parish life coordinators is fairly common among parishes threatened with closure or merging. And for some, the shortage of priests has fueled discussion about ordination of married and women Catholics.
"We don't believe the priest shortage is a valid reason to close parishes," says Sister Chris Schenk, C.S.J., of FutureChurch, a national network of parish-based activists. "We're closing parishes rather than opening ordination. Why couldn't we open the conversation to the married priesthood?"
Resisting parishes in Boston formed the Council of Parishes, which works to prevent church closures. They also suggest parish life coordinators or lay or religious administrators to circumvent closures.
The Cleveland diocese faced a diminishing number of priests, and 46 percent of parishes finished in the red in 2006, according to Robert Tayek, spokesperson for the diocese.
Not only that, but with the faithful moving away from Cleveland and into the suburbs, two thirds of the parishes were serving one third of Catholics. It just didn't make sense to have so many parishes open in the city when the majority of Catholics no longer lived there.
The diocese announced closings and mergers in March 2009, and parishes had 15 days to appeal. Many did. Three of those appeals–by St. Colman, St. Ignatius of Antioch, and St. Stephen-resulted in changes. These three parishes were given a four-year directive to prove their viability. But in the vast majority of appeal cases, Bishop Richard Lennon's original decision was upheld. St. Peter Church, which held its closing Mass on Easter Sunday, was one of them.
Some embittered parishioners boycotted the final Mass with the bishop and soon formed a "breakaway" congregation, even renting their own building. Lennon threatened excommunication.
According to the Code of Canon Law, a diocesan bishop can entrust the pastoral care of a parish to a layperson so long as a priest directs that pastoral care. Parish life coordinators run about 4 percent of parishes in the United States, but such appointments appear to be less popular in recent years. There seems to be reluctance on the bishops' part.
"I get the sense that we've gone from a 'family-owned business' to a 'corporation model.' And the people feel that," says Clark at the College of the Holy Cross. "There was always an overarching sense of being part of a worldwide community. But that coexisted with a feeling of being rooted in a community that you were a part of and you were responsible for. Where that existed, in many places it has been lost."
Vox populi
Making that sense of community a priority is part and parcel of the more successful parish closures. Where parishioners resist closures, as in the case of the Boston vigil churches, Catholics often feel a lack of consultation and a stripping of ownership.
In the early 1990s, the Archdiocese of Chicago closed around 30 parishes because of a "financial emergency." Lay participation was not a priority, but they learned their lesson, according to Jean Welter, who's headed up research and planning for the archdiocese for the past 10 years.
"With the parishes we've closed, we've always tried to encourage as much lay participation as possible," she says. "That way everyone has some voice in what the outcome might look like."
But in the end bishops are charged with making sure the difficult decision is made. The mission of the church, its service to those in need, cannot take a backseat to the preservation of a church building.
"If you have no income, how do you educate the children? How do you provide social services?" Welter says. "If you cannot address those needs, if your money is just keeping a bell tower from crashing in on people, it's not really being what a parish should be."
Whatever the consultation, whatever the lay involvement, painful decisions must be made to serve the mission of the church. When lay Catholics make those decisions themselves, the process runs more smoothly. But the decisions must be made, one way or another, and it's never easy.
This article appeared in the October 2010 issue of U.S. Catholic (Vol. 75, No. 10, pages 12-17).
Image: Debby Hudson on Unsplash


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Denis's life calling was revealed to him when he led a group of Bora Bora junior high school students on a field trip, on which they viewed a pristine coral colony. Returning just days later, he found that the coral had been destroyed by the anchors of small boats. And he decided to do something about it.
Guest Hosts
Josh Young
A star of musical stages across North America, Josh Young has charmed audiences and won numerous awards for his work. Among the highlights, he originated the role of John Newton in the Broadway world premiere of Amazing Grace and received a 2012 Tony® Award nomination and Theatre World Award for his critically acclaimed Broadway debut as Judas in Andrew Lloyd Webber's Jesus Christ Superstar, directed by Des McAnuff.
Most recently, Josh won the New England Theater's IRNE award for Best Actor in a Musical for his portrayal of Tateh in the Ogunquit Playhouse's record-breaking production of Ragtime, and he re-imagined the role of Neville in the pre-Broadway tryout of the revival of Lucy Simon and Marsha Norman's The Secret Garden.
He also has appeared in two seasons at The Stratford Shakespeare Festival, where his credits include Judas in Jesus Christ Superstar, Connie Rivers in Grapes of Wrath, and Che in Evita, directed by Gary Griffin—earning Broadway World Awards for each.
Josh also portrayed Marius in the U.S. national tour of Les Miserables and Tony in the international tour of West Side Story. He has performed in North America's finest regional theaters including La Jolla Playhouse, Walnut Street Theater, St. Louis MUNY, Baltimore Center Stage, and North Carolina Theatre. He's been involved in new works with NYC's Roundabout Theatre Company, The Transport Group, and The New York Musical Theater Festival. And he is the cofounder of CuttingEdge Composers, a concert and weekly web series created to give exposure to musical theater's next generation of songwriters. Josh holds a BFA from Syracuse University.
Join us aboard The Gauguin for a thrilling performance by this acclaimed Broadway star.
other guest hosts appearing on the m/s Paul Gauguin
Guest Hosts
For nine years, Mark Eddowes has captivated guests of the m/s Paul Gauguin with fascinating tales of French Polynesia's storied past, sharing his wealth of knowledge through lectures that that range from "The Cult of the Tiki" and "The Ancient Culture of the Marquesas Islands" to the real story of the Mutiny on the Bounty. These lectures are often cited as a highlight by our guests.
A professional magician since 1998 and TV Star Magician in Brazil, Gustavo Vierini is skilled in illusion in all its forms. Be sure to be aboard as he brings his unique blend of magic and humor aboard select sailings of The Gauguin.
The Rolling Keys Duo (Sarah Watson and Will Stead) are two session musicians who have crafted a sound that has proven successful all over the world. Join us aboard select sailings of The Gauguin for a toe-tapping performance of popular classics from the Fifties to current chart hits.
Allie Mooney knows what makes people tick. And long experience as a successful "people interpreter" proves it. Find out for yourself how this internationally respected speaker and author can transform your life when you join her aboard The Gauguin.
Kim Stare Wallace has been passionate about the wine industry since her father founded Dry Creek Vineyard in 1972. Don quickly learned every aspect of the business upon marrying Kim. Join us aboard The Gauguin for the couple's presentation on Dry Creek Vineyard and a tasting of their excellent wines.
A healing, resilience, and optimal performance expert, Dr. Stephen Sideroff has developed a new and more comprehensive model of resilience that helps you achieve success while maintaining optimal health. Join us aboard The Gauguin, for a series of presentations designed to help you integrate the most advanced scientific and behavioral technologies with ancient traditions for optimal mind and body functioning.
A journalist and educator specializing in astronomy, Dan Benedict has been introducing cruise passengers with an interest in stargazing to the wonders of the night sky since 1998. Join us for a series of presentations and nighttime star watches led by this fascinating expert.
Expect an extremely fun evening of dancing and singing when Marc and Abi come aboard! Don't miss very special sailings of The Gauguin, as this talented duo performs an exciting musical explosion of upbeat classics through the decades.
Acclaimed academic, Fulbright scholar, author, teacher, lecturer, and art historian and curator Caroline Boyle-Turner is a perennially popular guest host aboard the m/s Paul Gauguin. Join us aboard as she enriches your appreciation for our ship's namesake and his circle of friends.
After receiving his Ph.D. from Scripps Institution of Oceanography, George S. Losey, Jr., left Florida for the warmer waters of the Hawaii and remained as a Professor and Researcher in Zoology at the Institute of Marine Biology. Over the course of his career, he has lived underwater as an aquanaut, dived in purse seines of the East Pacific fishing fleet, and visited marine labs from Israel to Australia. Join us aboard The Gauguin as George shares his expertise in a series of lectures—as well as relaxing, informal conversation.
Come sail with us on our 2021 Reunion Cruise—a reunion for past guests of Paul Gauguin Cruises and a gala welcome for newcomers which presents a number of unique events, including special guests, a festive dinner, cocktail and block parties, opportunities to mingle with senior staff and crew, and more. This 11-night Tuamotus & Society Islands voyage includes two visits to Motu Mahana, Paul Gauguin Cruises' private islet.
A native of California's Sierra Mountains region, Scott Harvey developed a keen interest in wine as a high school foreign-exchange student in Germany. Between the two continents, he was fueled by an insatiable curiosity that they both could deliver, and he began developing a unique, signature style that blends influences of Old World Europe and New World California. Join us aboard The Gauguin for a presentation and tasting of his Amador Barbera and Zinfandel.
Award-winning chef Jean-Robert de Cavel has maintained a Mobil 5-star restaurant, opened several restaurants in the Cincinnati area, served as Chef-in-Residence at the Midwest Culinary Institute at Cincinnati State, and been named a Master Chef by Maîtres Cuisiniers de France. Join us aboard The Gauguin for a lecture and culinary demonstration by this acclaimed chef and entrepreneur.
Robin and Danuta Pfeiffer are the owners and winemakers of Pfeiffer Winery and Vineyards, an ultra-premium, sustainable, 70-acre vineyard with an international reputation for producing world-class Pinot Noir and Pinot Gris. Enjoy a wine lecture and a tasting of Pfeiffer Winery wines when Robin and Danuta join us aboard The Gauguin.
The University Distinguished Professor of Cultural Geography at Western Kentucky University, Dr. David Keeling has visited more than 185 countries and studied a wide range of topics, from the geography of exploration and discovery to socio-economic change. Join us aboard The Gauguin as he shares his expertise in a series of fascinating lectures.


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I am sorry that your yum is broken
This weekend, after a few weeks of perl updates and fixing our perl SPEC file generator, I broke the perl dependencies and probably upset a few people along the way.
The good news is that we have some new tools for better automating and updating our perl RPM packages and the coming week I hope to finish updating the existing one.
The bad news is that your yum is broken by design. I wish apt was an option, but that possibility looks dimmer and dimmer. (Even though I am still an avid apt user)
It makes no sense that yum breaks because it can not satisfy a dependency. And no, you should not need a plugin to handle this case.
A system that requires a plugin to fix a broken design is bad. And I don't feel responsible for breaking the repository because yum should not bail out on it. Dependencies will break in the future, even with consistent repositories, a combination of repositories may not be consistent and yum should not stop working because of that.
It angers me that after so many years we still struggle with basic problems that have been fixed elsewhere (read: apt).
can you reference anything at all for what you're seeing
I understand the virtue of the rant but you've not even explained what it is that is supposedly broken by design and unless I'm crazy I've not seen this pass across any bug report.
I no longer bother
With all due respect, my feedback often gets discarded, we cannot talk about a dialogue anymore.
closing this as it doesn't really matter anymore.
closing - default and expected behavior
And these are just the ones that I did report. There have been other cases where feedback has been ignored in the past, so excuse me for not reporting yum problems that my users report to me.
Yum bails out in too many situations like missing dependencies (I heard there were plugins to work around them), yum's output is too verbose and too confusing by default.
[root@rhun purple-2]# yum install pidgin
Loading "installonlyn" plugin
Setting up Install Process
Setting up repositories
pidgin 100% |=========================| 951 B 00:00
rpmforge 100% |=========================| 1.1 kB 00:00
base 1.1 kB 00:00
updates 100% |=========================| 951 B 00:00
http://mirrors.versaweb.com/centos/5.0/addons/i386/repodata/repomd.xml: [Errno 14] HTTP Error 403: Forbidden
Trying other mirror.
addons 100% |=========================| 951 B 00:00
http://mirror.myriadnetwork.com/centos/5.0/extras/i386/repodata/repomd.xml: [Errno 12] Timeout:
Trying other mirror.
extras 100% |=========================| 1.1 kB 00:00
Reading repository metadata in from local files
primary.xml.gz 100% |=========================| 1.4 MB 00:08
################################################## 5189/5189
Parsing package install arguments
Nothing to do
In this case a simple Package pidgin is already installed and the latest version. would have sufficed and is less confusing. All the other output (by default) is in my opinion useless to the normal user.
Fedora/yum/createrepo (python) developers also tend to use the latest and greatest features of python and this is a major PITA for us mortals who are stuck with older distributions. Getting rid of yum-arch which is still an important tool for up2date and yum users on EL2, EL3 or EL4 was also shortsighted.
The repomd metadata, once believed to be the final metadata format is now being fragmented as well with newer releases of createrepo (that do not build on older distributions) which makes it impossible to generate metadata on other platforms.
Oh well, enough food for another blog article, I guess :-)
so you just want to rant
Let me translate what you've said another way:
"My ideas are not agreed with by the upstream maintainers and they do not do everything I want, when I want it done, that must mean their unresponsive and dumb."
Another way of thinking about it is that they might just not agree with you.
Has it occurred to you that two people can disagree about something without either of them actually being wrong?
Now, about your claims above:
1. the output is also to help the user be able to debug their own problems when things go wrong.
2. the metadata is not, to my knowledge, fragmented at all. There are multiple additional metadata files that are added but the primary/filelists/otherdata files are all the same in all implementations I've seen.
3. The 'already installed' line has been added to the default output in yum 3.2.7 and above
4. yum-arch was removed from yum b/c it confused more people than it helped. They didn't understand that it no longer made the metadata that the version of yum they downloaded used. yum-arch, at least in fedora, is in a separate package. That package should be trivially built on el3 and el4. Not sure about el2 I haven't built anything there in a long time.
Hey wait, I can play this game too...
Let me explain what you just suggested in another way:
"I expect people to read my brain when I discard feedback without any information and I do not answer bugreports."
"And if they come back, I just put the blame on them by having them feel guilty because they don't understand disagreement."
For disagreement you need information. I cannot disagree with your point of view, because you did not give it.
So here goes:
1. That's fine, when someone has a problem. Do you think there are more people that have a problem than people that don't ?
2. Sure, but I cannot generate the newer metadata on an older system, or the older metadata on a newer system. Do I need 2 systems to generate both metadata ? Maybe install a second python ?
3. I consider that a little *too* late, but hey, what is my opinion worth, right ? We're stuck with older yum's until 2014 ? (And no, this is not the first time I brought this particular item up to you...)
4. You could have foreseen that very easily. Dropping the program off the face of the earth is so very Fedora-like. You don't have to think 6 months back or in the future. We don't need it ? Let's drop it... (PS This and other feedback is not only my opinion, lots of people complained or gor confused because you opted to have the program scream that it ws irrelevant)
Maybe explaining some more and listening to other people's arguments would help ? But you discard it.
I have 2 possibilities for my feedback being discarded, either this is a personal problem you have with me, or you are only interested in things that fit a certain agenda.
I thank you for bringing this up on my blog. I feel so much better now...
Ok, ok so what now?
Ok, ok so, not being at all familiar with your new and improved method to access your repository, what do you have now in way of access your mirror of rpm's for RHEL 5,...?
I've just moved on to smart
I left APT/YUM a long time ago. First because YUM was slower than anything (the old header.info mess) and I had found smart to be just better and have an easier interface to work with (that didn't crash as much as apt-shell) and has a VERY nice priority system that is easier to understand than apt's
Currently I'm using APT on a few EL3 systems which are going to be upgraded to EL5 sometime soon (Cent Variety)
I only played with YUM a little on EL5 until I got sick of it and build smart myself while waiting it to show on RPMFORGE (thanks for getting it up ther BTW).
Package Manager: yes or no.
Take a good look at http://www.gobolinux.org/.
They managed the package managers: they do not have it!
Maybe you can write a recipe to read a rpm or a deb package and write the pachage for CEntOS (and others RedHat alike) as it is in GoboLinux.
I think that ALL the problems we have with ALL distros are the package manager they use on their distros.
We really do not need a package manager, since does not matter if you have on, two or 10 copies of a package on your HD.
HD is cheap and my time waiting for a RPM or DEB or whatever is extremelly expensive, since it is not only my work time, it is my LIFE I spend with a package manager.
What we DO need is an Operating System with the basic packages completely separeted, detached, from the rest of the distro.
Python (I prefer OCaml) can be installed by the system in a protected (by the system) area AND ANOTHER copy of python for the rest of the system.
I think GoboLinux is the final cut and the answer we all were waiting for.
I am preparing to move to GL.
I would like to here from you, since you are a great professional on Linux area.
Best regards.


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