Catching Up

I've been a little lazy in my posting duties lately so there's a bit to catch up on since my last post.

First, there was vestition. That's the name of the ceremony where you get the habit of the Dominican order. If you go to google and search images for St. Dominic you'll see what I'm talking about. If you want to, you can choose to have the Order give you a religious name at that time. You submit three choices and usually your new name comes from that list but there is no guarantee. After getting some input from my family, especially my mother, I decided to stay with Nicholas. Tony got the name Peter and Michael got the name Paul - which I thought was a good choice for both.

Second, there is the near death experience on the mountain. Br. Peter thought it would be a good idea to go hiking in mountains at a place about 25 minutes away from where we live and so Br. Paul and decided to join him. Everything was fine going up the mountain. When we finally got to the top though we noticed that a rather nasty looking storm was rolling in very very quickly. We spent the next 50 minutes bsically jogging down the mountain in freezing rain and getting soaked to the bone while praying that we wouldn't be struck by any of the lightning which was flashing all around us. We finally made it to the base of the mountain and started walking across this field toward our car. Just as I looked up lightning stuck the top of a small ridge quite close to us. Peter, who was in the lead, turned around and said "I think we should keep runnning." Which Paul and I thought was a great idea. So thankfully we made it back to the car alive. On the ride home Peter told me to look at the map of all the trails in the area where we had been. I noticed that the trail we took was more than twice as long as any other trail and was the only one labeled "strenuous."

Thirdly, I had my first birthday with the Dominicans here in Denver. Things went quite well. I heard the wong "Happy Birthday" 4 times which is a record. One of the ladies who regualrly goes to morning Mass, Judy, invited the three of us and Fr. Louis out to lunch which was prepared by her and her family - so that was really nice. Then after visiting a shrine to Mother Cabrini up on top of this mountain (we drove up this mountain thank God) we get home and had dinner with the senior community of Dominicans here. The cook, Diana, made pasta and shrimp as I requested and I of course had three helpings...and some apple pie for desert. Then two parents and a sister of one of members of last year's class came over and brought two cakes with them. (At this point I'm so full from dinner and lunch it's painful to even think about food. Oh and my mother sent a batch of crescent cookies which are absolutely delicious so of course I've had some of those as well.) Thankfully we didn't start eating the cakes until after some festivities - which included the wierdest game of pin the tail on the donkey I've ever seen. The rule was that whereever you first touched the wall that was where you had to put the tail. Only one person managed to hit the donkey at all (me), one other person managed to hit the right wall, and one person wasn't even in the right room when they finished. A very fun night. Interestingly, the wine didn't make an appearance till after the games were over with.

I went back and read the 3rd and 4th Harry Potter books which were both very good and have gotten about halfway through an okay biography of St. Dominic. I also finished Celibacy in Crisis and The Unhealed Wound which my parents had given me. Both books were by former priests and approached the crisis in the Church from various perspectives - neither of which I agreed with. The Unhealed Wound by Eugene Kennedy was this long sort of anti-Catholic rant which attacked the Church on everything from celibacy to abortion to women priests. The real problem is that Kennedy thinking he's on the inside of the Church making a contribution when in fact he's on the outside yelling in. There is a real unhealed would though that needs addressing and that is the wound is in Mr. Kennedy himself. He left the priesthood many years ago and has never recovered. His own unwillingness to live up to the vows he took and accept the responsibility given to him at his ordination is evident in how he trats John Paul II. Kennedy says that he can look at JPII and see in his sad eyes (or something like that) a man who is wounded because he divides the flesh from the spirit is basically being hurt by his celibate commitment. Pstchologists would call this projection and Mr. Kennedy is a poster-child for it.

Celibacy in Crisis is a much more interesting book which builds on Richard Sipe's many years a psycholgist working with priests. He presents a lot of facts and figures which are inciteful in mnay ways. The biggest problem with his work is that it is dated and more data has since been revealed about the crisis. Many of the problems in seminary training he talks about have disappeared and don't resemble what is going on today in seminary formation programs. Not only but there is a the perception, which Sipe seems to have, that the crisis existed uniformly over time and across the United States which is absolutely not true. Most of the incidents took place over 20 years ago and the perpetrators were not evenly distributed amongst seminaries. On that second point, there was a story that came out not too long ago on how soemthing like 10% of all the priests who graduated from the Los Angeles seminary in the past 40 years or so had been accused of abuse. This is a really high rate compared to most seminaries but on top of that, in certain classes during the late 60's and early 70's almost of a third of the class was accused of abuse. This seminary is also reported to have had an atmosphere of sexual licentiousness. This is the exception which is being regarded as a rule. For more stats on the abuse crisis go here.

Well that's enough of that for now. Have a good day and God bless.