Gratitude?

I'm working on a mega-post on the Wyandotte County church-closin' fiasco, but it's taking way too long. But I did see the Kansas City Star article today about the results that were previously published in the Leaven.

Three observations with more detail to follow....someday:

A. First, as to the schools, everything I heard and saw that was associated with Alan Meitler was about numbers, numbers, numbers (and they weren't necessarily the right numbers...more on that later). No where in the process did anyone I knew hear Meitler talk about what the systemic problems were with the parishes and schools of the Dotte. It was all about numbers. Not identifying the real problems that cause the bad numbers. Not about identifying solutions that would raise the numbers. Just talking about how to reshuffle the numbers. Particularly with the schools. Lemmie tell ya what Meitler wouldn't (and I'll do it for free, which I'm sure Meitler wouldn't):

1. People don't fill the schools up because they're contracepting.
2. People don't fill the schools up because they're run on an expensive model, that involves amenities, full-fare lay teachers instead of nuns, "experts" and other staff that don't actually teach full time, and the folks in Wyandotte County couldn't afford them, even if they were the greatest schools that ever wuz. I heard a wise fellow talk at one session about the "scandal of the cost of Catholic education." Damned straight. Parishes, and schools and the diocese should be directing their financial resources to the schools, not for goofy stuff, and not for archdiocesan taxes to maintain a huge chancery staff.
3. People don't fill the schools up because they're contracepting.
4. People don't fill the schools up because they don't see the value in Catholic education...at any price. Catholic schools have been running on the fumes of fond memories and unfounded reputations for infusing morality and building character. They really don't do that these days, and mostly haven't done so for a couple of decades, and parents (many of whom suffered, like me, as students in the early years of confusion) are finding out otherwise. The modest, mantilla-clad schoolgirls in plaid, and the pious altar boys, genuflecting and mumbling with the priest in Latin, are replaced by kids leaving (maybe) the Gameboy in the pew while they saunter up for communion in the hand, standing, at their one-a-week or once-a-month kiddie Mass. If you read some of the stuff in the Leaven or the Catholic Key about the crap going on (which is presented as good stuff, not crap), you know what I'm talking about. As Bishop Finn said (most likely knowing his schools weren't), our schools have to be unabashedly Catholic, in every subject, and each teacher needs to see it as his duty to pass on the faith (not just the spirit of Vatican II or pious-sounding redistributive politics, the FAITH). They're not doing that. You can't trust Catholic schools to teach the Catholic faith; instead of praying the rosary or teaching the Baltimore catechism, they're having pseudo pagan rituals to build self esteem. I haven't been in schools on the Kansas side, but that's what I've seen in Missouri and that's what I hear from folks with experience on the Kansas side.
5. People don't fill the schools up in the Dotte because the masonic, evil federal government has incentivized suburbanization and have lured people out of their Catholic neighborhoods into the moral wasteland of Johnson County (or in the case of some families in Holy Family and St. John the Baptist parishes, they've bulldozed families out of their homes to make way for the Interstates.
6. People don't fill the schools up because they're contracepting (have I mentioned that?).

B. Second as to the churches, I don't expect we'll get a bouquet of flowers or anything, but the continued existence of St. John the Baptist, Holy Family, Blessed Sacrament and St. Mary-St. Anthony in particular, and the decision not to close Ss. Cyril and Methodius immediately, is due in part to the "threat" of the Latin Massers. You remember us, don't you? The folks who more baptisms than even the oldest parishes have funerals? The folks who have the most generous collections per family? The folks with the vanloads of kids? The folks that will actually talk to you about the faith (because they actually know their faith)? The folks who have the highest Mass attendance? (Well, you wouldn't know all that, because Meitler conveniently "forgot" to add the data to his presentations, several times in a row). You might know us as the mere tenants of Blessed Sacrament, balancing ourselves on our knees where the altar rail used to be, begging to keep our 6:30 am Mass time, and being erroneously referred to as the "Latin Rite" group (What are the rest of you? Byzantines?). The fear that they couldn't justify closing a church without flack for not putting it in our care is probably what kept your buildings open and (with the exception of Ss. Cyril and Methodius) kept your parishes canonically intact. For that we're happy to oblige. Really, we're not carrion birds; we don't want your carcasses so much as we want the Archbishop's authorization to go out and do things on our own.

C. As to the parishes that are being moved towards consolidation, don't think you're in the clear just yet! The chancery people might still put you out of business (or get ahold of your money) when no one is looking. Before you know it, you might be at Mass in the church down the street, while your own church is being converted to lofts or somesuch thing.

Ahem. Well. There it is.