Tuesday, March 31, 2020

Sunrise Baptist Church, Casper Wyoming


This small Baptist Church in south Casper has a location that gives a good view of Casper Mountain, although its unconventional shape doesn't have any windows.

Other than its denomination, and its unconventional architecture, I don't know anything else about this particular Casper church.

Monday, March 16, 2020

The Diocese of Cheyenne suspends public Masses due to the Coronavirus


Yesterday we reported on some regional actions by Catholic churches to address the Coronavirus.  Since we made that post, the Diocese of Cheyenne has suspended public Masses due to the virus, effective as of the Masses today.

It's now known when they'll resume.  Confessions remain unaltered for the time being and the directive does not extend to other Catholic observances.

Sunday, March 15, 2020

Lex Anteinternet: Sunday Morning Scene: The Church and the Pandemic...

Lex Anteinternet: Sunday Morning Scene: The Church and the Pandemic...:

Sunday Morning Scene: The Church and the Pandemic



Diocese of Cheyenne:
From: Bishop Steven Biegler
Date: March 13, 2020 Re: Obligation to attend Sunday MassAs the Coronavirus continues to spread throughout the United States, the Diocese of Cheyenne is committed to taking all reasonable precautions to prevent transmission of the virus. In addition to the directives issued on March 3, 2020 (summarized below), from March 13 to April 8, 2020, a dispensation from the obligation to attend Holy Mass (canon 1245) is granted to:

• those of any age who are ill, and • those with an underlying health condition, such as chronic lung disease, COPD, asthma, etc. • Moreover, any person over 60 years old may choose to use this dispensation.Stay home if you are sick or in a high-risk category, since this virus is primarily transmitted through contact with respiratory droplets when an infected person coughs or sneezes. Sunday Mass is broadcast on K2 (ABC) at 9 AM.CORONAVIRUS PRECAUTIONS • Mandatory hand-washing for all ministers and thorough washing of all liturgical vessels. • Permission to suspend Holy Communion from the Chalice accompanied by encouragement to receive Holy Communion in the hand and not on the tongue. • Permission to suspend physical contact during the Sign of Peace. • Permission to empty Holy Water fonts.
Please note: these precautions are of limited effectiveness. They are no substitute for staying home when you are ill. We will continue to monitor the progression of this disease and make appropriate recommendations. Clergy and lay leaders are to make prudent decisions so that non-essential gatherings are avoided. In addition to the effect on physical health, I am concerned about the social and economic impacts of this outbreak. Isolation and loneliness are already experienced by so many people. I encourage clergy to discuss with Finance and Pastoral Councils how the parish might offer outreach to those who are affected by social isolation or how they could collaborate with the local community to provide support to those needing financial aid because of health care costs or lack of employment. Please offer the following or a similar intention at Masses: For all people affected by COVID-19 or any serious illness, the elderly and homebound, as well as all medical personnel and caregivers for the sick.

Archdiocese of Denver:
The bishops of the three dioceses of Colorado have announced that all public Masses have been canceled, effective immediately. This includes daily Masses. Parishes offices will remain open for now. More information will be posted shortly….NOTE: When Mass is unavailable, the Catholic faithful are dispensed from their Sunday obligation.
This decision was made was made in the interest of the common good after the governor of Colorado ordered the cancellation of all public gatherings of 250 or more people. We are acting out of prudence and in charity to our communities to do our part to mitigate the spread of this virus. We have the examples of countries from around the world, where those who took proactive steps quickly are seeing far better outcomes. 

Diocese of Salt Lake City:
Based on Bishop Oscar A. Solis’ consultation with senior diocesan staff and the announcement from Governor Gary R. Herbert regarding the precautions to be taken with regard to the coronavirus disease, Bishop Solis is suspending the public celebration of worship, including Sunday, weekday and other Holy Masses from March 14 to March 31, or until further notice.During this time, Catholic school facilities will close and instruction to students will be provided remotely. Each individual school will contact parents and inform them of how instruction will be delivered at home for each grade level.The Utah Catholic Schools do not have any confirmed cases of COVID-19, but some students and family members have been quarantined due to their possible exposure to the virus.All other parish or school meetings, public gatherings and other events also are canceled. Funerals and weddings are to be postponed when possible; otherwise, these are to be limited to immediate family members only.Private Confessions will depend on the availability of the priest.Churches may remain open for personal prayer as appropriate; holy water fonts must be emptied to help avoid transmission of virus.By reason of this emergency, a general dispensation is given from the Sunday and Holy Day obligation. Catholics are asked to pray at home, with the rosary, biblical prayer, personal devotions and/or to devoutly watch televised Masses. It is appropriate to pray for the healing of those suffering the current outbreak of illness, for health professionals, public officials and those serving the common good, and to ask that our merciful and loving Father will strengthen our faith and trust in His goodness and divine providence. “In view of the very serious development of the growing, unpredictable and uncontrolled spread of the coronavirus and with an abundance of caution, it is critical to have clearly defined measures to guide us in facing this pandemic and protecting everyone,” Bishop Solis said. “It is no longer about containment of the spread of the disease but preventing the loss of lives and the greater well-being of the faithful.”

Saturday, February 29, 2020

City Park Church, formerly First Presbyterian Church, Casper Wyoming

This is City Park Church, and was formerly, as noted below in the original entry, the First Presbyterian Church.
This Presbyterian Church is located one block away from St. Mark's Episcopal Church and St. Anthony of Padua Catholic Church, all of which are separated from each other by City Park. 
The corner stone of the church gives the dates 1913 1926. I'm not sure why there are two dates, but the church must have been completed in 1926.
This century old church became the home of the former First Baptist Church congregation on February 28, 2020, and as noted in a thread we'll link in below, had been experiencing a lot of changes prior to that.

The original entry here was one of the very first on this blog and dated at least back as far as January 25, 2011.  While the architecture hasn't changed at all, with the recent change our original entry became misleading to an extent.

Related Threads:

Grace Reformed at City Park, formerly First Presbyterian Church, Casper Wyoming


Changes in Downtown Casper. First Presbyterian becomes City Park Church, the former First Baptist Church.

Lex Anteinternet: Today is the last day of Butter Week (Maslenitsa, ...

Lex Anteinternet: Today is the last day of Butter Week (Maslenitsa, ...:

Today is the last day of Butter Week (Maslenitsa, Мaсленица, Масниця, Масленіца) for 2020

Taking A Snow Town, 1891


Butter Week?



Yes, Butter Week, or Butter Lady, Crepe Week or Cheesefare Week, or in Russian, Ukrainian and Belorussian respectively;   Мaсленица, Масниця, Масленіца.



Maslenitsa, 1878.


Maslenitsa.



What is Maslenitsa?



Well, earlier this past week we discussed Clean Monday, the first full day of Great Lent for the Eastern Rite, including those who are Eastern Rite Catholics and Eastern Orthodox observing the "old Calendar" in liturgical terms.  For those in the Eastern Rite who are in the new calendar, which this past Monday would have been part of, this week was last week.  In other words, for those Eastern Rite on the old calendar, Clean Monday is this upcoming Monday and Great Lent starts tomorrow.



Maslenitsa is, therefore, sort of a week long Slavic Mardi Gras and indeed shares the connection with the same set of foods, fats, and stuff made with them.



And it was also a week long celebration, as the pre Lenten celebrations are to some extent in some Latin Rite countries.  Except, appropriate for its region, it featured traditionally a lot of winter games.



Of course, the Communists put a damper on all of this, given its religious nature, but it never went away.  And as Christianity has revived in the Slavic regions following the downfall of Communism, it's religious nature and the tradition is reviving.

Lex Anteinternet: Ash Wednesday

Lex Anteinternet: Ash Wednesday:

Ash Wednesday

Today is Ash Wednesday for those churches that follow the Catholic Latin Rite's liturgical calendar, which includes a fair number of Protestant churches.

Ash Wednesday is the beginning of Lent for Western Christians, Lent being the (approximately) forty day long penitential season preceding Easter.  Great Lent, the Eastern Christian seasons, precedes Ash Wednesday and commences on Clean Monday for Eastern Christians on the new calendar, but not on the old calendar which has, of course, which departs from the calendar we're otherwise familiar with.   The day is named for the Catholic practice, which is observed by at least some Anglicans and Lutherans as well, of placing ashes on the foreheads of those who come to the Ash Wednesday service, with the reminder being made that from ashes you were made, and from ashes you will return.*

For Latin Rite Catholics, Ash Wednesday is a day of fast and abstinence.  I.e, they eat only one full meal on this day and it can't include meat, which under Latin Rite Catholic rules does not include fish.  For Eastern Christians a much stricter Lenten fast and abstinence set of rules applies.  This sacrifice serves the purpose of being penitential in nature.

It also serves to really set Catholics apart, as fasting and abstinence are the rage in the west now, but for purely secular purposes, not all of which square with science or good dietary practices.

For the members of the Apostolic faiths, Lent also serves as a time in which for penitential reasons they usually "give up" something.  A lot of people have a really superficial understanding of this, assuming that Catholic "give up" desert or chocolate or something, and in fact quite a few people do something like that. Indeed, as an adult I've been surprised by how many Catholics (usually men) give up drinking alcohol, which means that frequent consumption of alcohol is pretty common society wide in a way that we probably underestimate.

Indeed, just recently, on that, I was asked by an exuberant Catholic Midwestern expat, who seemingly has no boundaries at all, on what I was "giving up" for Lent. This was the week prior to Ash Wednesday at which time I wasn't particularly focused on it myself.  The same fellow asked at least one Protestant what she was giving up, with that Protestant being a member of one of the American millennialism religions, to receive a totally baffled reply.  Indeed, I'm sure they don't celebrate Lent at all, so the question was odd.  Anyhow, he was giving up alcohol and asked if I'd like to join him, to which I absent mindedly said sure.  Later he was wondering if I thought it would be tough, which I'm sure it won't be at all and I'll have to find something else to mark Lent really.  But that sort of "giving up" line of thinking is very common.

In a lot of Catholic cultures the Lenten penitential observations have traditionally been much stronger, which helps explain Mardi Gras as we just discussed.  Even well after the Latin Rite rules were very much relaxed, in many Catholic areas, including Catholic areas of the United States, people engaged in much more extensive penitential observations with the "giving up chocolate" type thing really sort of an introduction to the practice.  In Louisiana, without going into it too deeply, there was traditionally a big spike in births nine to ten months after Easter, which reflected a very widespread serious observation among Catholic couples as to their penitential practice, for example.

Some of that is really coming back, which reflects an interesting trend towards a deeper understanding of their faiths by members of the Apostolic faiths and even a return of Lenten traditions in some Protestant ones.  During the full "Spirit of Vatican Two" era there was a lot of attention devoted to not giving anything up but rather to work on some spiritual need.  I.e, be self reflective and work on what that lead you to.  At the same time, the misuse of the word "fasting" became very common, with there being advice, even from the clergy, to fast from things other than food or drink.  You can't really fast from sinful behavior, or from narcissism, for example.  You can't even "fast" from the Internet, although "giving it up" for Lent might be a darned good idea (one that I really ought to consider, probably).

A lot of that is now passing and there's been a real return to more traditional observations of Lent, including fasting but also forms of dedicated worship and observation.

Which brings me to the next thing about "giving up".  One feature of this season is that many Apostolic Christians, as it is the season of repentance, have used the season to break bad conduct when there's support, spiritual and temporal, for doing it.  People with alcohol problems will use it to break them, smokers will quit smoking during Lent so they can quit smoking.  And sometimes people with serious attachments to sin take it head on during Lent, with some people I've known even announcing the renouncement of what are very serious sins from a Christian purpose over Lent in the hopes of breaking from the permanently. And many who do that, succeed at doing that.

Which in turn takes us to our final observation.  This season, which is lead by the Apostolic faiths but which is observed by at least some of the Protestants as well, tend to turn the self indulgent retained Puritan abstinence on its head.  I've noted this before, but North American and the Northern Europe may have strayed enormously from Calvinist influence in terms of faith, but not in terms of the concept that public suffering is really necessary.  That retained concept explains in large part the real focus in these lands, as opposed to others, in "giving up" something for no real purpose other than the sense it must be done.  People give up all sorts of things that Apostolic Christians around the world give up for forty some days, and often on a declared permanent basis (they fail at it more often than not), with it being notable that the purely secular nature of that makes it shallow from the onset.  Indeed, plenty of people who will spend Lent scoffing at Catholics for Lent will spend part of the season or all of it on some no carb, or no meat, or whatever, diet, for no real reason other than a constructed one. Suffering, in many instances, is the ultimate goal of those efforts, but suffering without something to redeem it.

For Apostolic Christians, all fasts are followed by feasts, and that's something to remember.

_________________________________________________________________________________

*I don't think this is a practice in the East and its not a requirement for Catholics, something that in fact even confuses some Catholics.  Ash Wednesday is widely observed by Catholics and the placing of the ashes isn't restricted to Catholics.  Perhaps for that reason quite a few Catholics assume it is a Holy Day of Obligation.

One thing of note here is that Ash Wednesday also serves to point out to everyone who is a Catholic, as if a person has ashes on their head, they're probably Catholic, although not necessarily.  By the same token, if you are known to be a Catholic and don't make it to Ash Wednesday you'll tend to get comments about it.

Lex Anteinternet: Fat Tuesday

Lex Anteinternet: Fat Tuesday:

Fat Tuesday

Bear guiding.  A Polish Shrove Tuesday tradition.  No, I don't understand it.


Yesterday I marked Clean Monday.



Today is Fat Tuesday, or Mardi Gras.



The day marks the day before Ash Wednesday on the liturgical calendar of the Latin Rite of the Catholic Church.  Like the other major day noted in the United States, setting aside Christmas and Easter, which derives from the Catholic liturgical calendar, St. Patrick's Day, the day is celebrated widely in the US by folks who have no idea whatsoever what it marks.



The day is called "Fat" Tuesday, or Mardi Gras, in French as it marked the day when people in Louisiana, French speaking Catholics, attempted to use up excess fats in their household that would otherwise go to waste during the Lenten season.  The Lenten Fast in the Latin Rite is much less strict than it once was, so this isn't a problem today, but the tradition of having a big pre Lenten celebration remains.  In its original form, it was a major Franco North American celebration, but wasn't the sort of weird event its devolved into, featuring topless women and beads and the like.  Indeed, quite the opposite is true.  It had a religious nature to it.



This is also true in many other predominantly Catholic countries around the globe.  In Spanish and Portuguese speaking countries the day is also widely celebrated, with the use of a term which actually very closely approximates Mardi Gras or the use of the term Carnival, which means "to put away meat", derived from Latin.  Carnival is celebrated in some Catholic European cultures under that name as well, including southern Germany.  Germans also call the day Fastnachtsdienstag, Faschingsdienstag, Karnevaldienstag and Veilschendienstag.  The day is marked by a partial day off from school as well as parades and the observance of some distinctly odd German customs.



In English speaking countries where, outside of Ireland, the Reformation took them out of the Catholic world in the 1500s, the tradition none the less remains, reflecting how strong the Catholic customs were even where Protestantism came in.  Shrove Tuesday is widely observed in Anglican circles. "Shrove" in this context derives from an Old English word for "absolve", and it reflected the day which people reflected on their lives and resolved to work on them over Lent.  Lent is still a penitential season in the Anglican Communion, but has been much less observed than in the Apostolic faiths where its a major seasons.  Having said that, at least by observation, there seem to be a revival of Lenten observation in Anglican circules.



In English speaking countries today is also Pancake Tuesday or Pancake Day for the same reason that French speaking countries call it Mardi Gras.  Pancakes are made with fat and flour and there was an effort to use up fat by making big pancake breakfasts on this day.



Nearly every country with a Christian heritage, except perhaps those in North American, have a celebration on this day with a strong regional, national and Christian aspect to them, including those nations who followed Luther into the Reformation. The Icelanders, for example, feast today with salted fish and meats.  It's interesting how widespread this custom is, and in some ways makes the American celebration of it seem a bit poor in comparison, outside of those areas of the Louisiana and Texas where the locals are celebrating it for real.



As a final note, why would people be so focused, as part of this, in using up the household fats and meat?



Well, before refrigeration, and with a stricter fast in place, those things weren't going to last until after Easter.

Lex Anteinternet: Today is Clean Monday. . .

Lex Anteinternet: Today is Clean Monday. . .:



Today is Clean Monday. . .

in those Eastern Rite Churches that are part of the Catholic Church in predominantly Latin Rite countries.  For Eastern Rite Churches that use the old calendar and for the Orthodox Clean Monday is on March 2, a week from today.







Clean Monday is the first day of  Great Lent in the East (although technically it actually starts the Sunday prior) and marks the beginning of the Lenten Fast, which is much broader in the East than the West.  Shellfish are the traditional entre, as they're an exception, and darned near the only one, to the prohibition on meat in the Eastern fast.



It's also a day of celebration and a public holiday in quite a few Orthodox nations and features the flying of kites, as its the traditional first day of spring in those cultures.



Don't get a celebration on a day commencing a long fast?  Well, its a fast with a purpose, not because of dietary fad or some public agony virtue signaling effort.  And ultimately, although it'll be forty days later, it'll be followed by a feast.

Friday, February 14, 2020

Changes in Downtown Casper. First Presbyterian becomes City Park Church, the former First Baptist Church.

I debated on whether to put this entry here or on our companion blog, Lex Anteinternet.  In the end, I decided to put it up here first and then link it over. This will be one of a couple of posts of this type which explore changes, this one with a local expression, that have bigger implications.

When we started this blog, some of the first entries here were on churches in downtown Casper.  These included the First Presbyterian Church and the First Baptist Church, with buildings dating to 1913 and 1949 respectively.  First Baptist, it should be noted, has occupied their present location, if not their present church, for a century.

Indeed, while I wasn't able to get it to ever upload, I have somewhere a video of the centennial of the First Presbyterian Church from 2013, featuring, as a church that originally had a heavy Scots representation ought to, a bagpipe band.  Our original entry on that church building is right below:

First Presbyterian Church, Casper Wyoming

This Presbyterian Church is located one block away from St. Mark's Episcopal Church and St. Anthony of Padua Catholic Church, all of which are separated from each other by City Park.

The corner stone of the church gives the dates 1913 1926. I'm not sure why there are two dates, but the church must have been completed in 1926.

Well, since that centennial, First Presbyterian has been going through a constant set of changes, as noted in our entry here:

Grace Reformed at City Park, formerly First Presbyterian Church, Casper Wyoming

This isn't a new addition to the roll of churches here, but rather news about one of them.  We formerly posted on this church here some time ago:
Churches of the West: First Presbyterian Church, Casper Wyoming: This Presbyterian Church is located one block away from St. Mark's Episcopal Church and St. Anthony of Padua Catholic Church, all of whi...
People who have followed it would be aware that the Presbyterian churches in the United States are undergoing a period of rift, and this church has reflected that.  The Presbyterian Church, starting in the 1980s, saw conflict develop between liberal and more conservative elements within it which lead to the formation of the "moderate conservative" EPC.  As I'm not greatly familiar with this, I'll only note that the EPC is associated with "New School Presbyterianism" rather than "Old School" and it has adopted the motto  "In Essentials, Unity; In Non-Essentials, Liberty; In All Things, Charity. Truth in Love.".

The change in name here is confusing to an outsider in that this church is a member of the EPC, but it's no longer using its original name.  As it just passed the centennial of its construction, that's a bit unfortunate in some ways. 

We'd also note that the sought set of stairs is now chained off.  We're not sure why, but those stairs must no longer be used for access.

The changes apparently didn't serve to arrest whatever was going on, as there's a sign out in front of the old First Presbyterian, later Grace Reformed, that starting on February 23, it'll be City Park Church.

City Park Church, it turns out, is the name that the congregation that presently occupies another nearby church, First Baptist Church, will call its new church building, which is actually a much older building than the one it now occupies, which is depicted here:

First Baptist Church, Casper Wyoming

This is the First Baptist Church in Casper, Wyoming. It's one of the Downtown churches in Casper, in an area that sees approximately one church per block for a several block area.

This particular church was built in 1949, and sits on the same block as Our Savior's Lutheran Church.

What's going on?

Well, it's hard to say from the outside, which we are, but what is pretty clear is that the rifts in the Presbyterian Church broke out, in some form, in the city's oldest Presbyterian Church to the point where it ended up changing its name, and then either moving out of its large church, and accompanying grounds, or closing altogether.  I've never been in the building but I'm told that its basement looked rough a couple of years ago and perhaps the current congregation has other plans or the grounds and church are just too much for it.  At any rate, the 1949 vintage building that First Baptist occupies is apparently a bit too small for its needs and it had taken the opportunity to acquire and relocate into the older, but larger, church.  It can't help but be noted that both churches have pretty large outbuildings as well. Also, while they are both downtown, the 1913 building is one of the three very centrally located old downtown Casper churches, so if church buildings have pride of place, the Baptist congregation is moving into a location which has a little bit more of one.

While it will be dealt with more in another spot, or perhaps on Lex Anteinternet, the entire thing would seem to be potentially emblematic of the loss that Christian churches that have undergone a rift like the Presbyterian Church in the United States has sustained when they openly split between liberal and conservative camps.  The Presbyterian Church was traditionally a fairly conservative church, albeit with theology that was quite radical at the time of its creation.  In recent years some branches of that church have kept their conservatism while others have not and there's been an open split.  As noted elsewhere this has lead in part to a defection from those churches in a lot of localities, and a person has to wonder if something like that may have happened here, as well as wondering if the obvious fact that a split has occurred would naturally lead to a reduction in the congregation as some of its members went with the other side.  We've noted here before that the Anglican Community locally not only has its two Episcopal Churches in town, but that there are also two additional Anglican Churches of a much more theologically conservative bent, both of which are outside of the Episcopal Diocese of Wyoming.

A person can't really opine, from the outside, if something like this is "sad" or not, but it's certainly a remarkable event.  We've noted church buildings that have changed denominations of use before, but this is the first one where we've actually witnessed it.  And in this case, the departing denomination had occupied their building for a century.

Thursday, January 30, 2020

Wamsutter Baptist Church, Wamsutter Wyoming.


Side window view of the Wamsutter Baptist Church in Wamsutter, Wyoming.

Not all of the photographs on this site are works of art, to be sure, in part because we sometimes end up with photos taken simply when we can. This is one such example.

Monday, January 6, 2020

Lex Anteinternet: January 6, 1920. Peace Secured. Protestants Unite? Suffrage Advances

Lex Anteinternet: January 6, 1920. Peace Secured. Protestants Unit...:

A historical item from one of our companion blogs of potential interest here:

January 6, 1920. Peace Secured. Protestants Unite? Suffrage Advances.

The headline news for this day, January 6, 1920, was that a treaty was to be signed between the victorious Allies and the Germans.  Or, more properly, a protocol to the Versailles Treaty



More properly, this was an amendment to the Versailles Treaty altering and amending some of its terms.  Germany's reluctance to enter into a protocol had lead the Allies and Germany back to the brink of war several months earlier, an event now wholly forgotten, but in the end the amendment had been worked out.



The U.S. Senate had not ratified the original text and would still not be ratifying the treaty in its entirety.



The Casper paper was also reporting that a new Wyoming corporation had been formed to build or take over the manufacturing of the Curtis Aircraft line.  I've never heard of this before and Wikipedia sheds no light on what was going on with this story.  Does anyone know the details?





Also making headlines was an effort to unite the nation's Protestant churches into a single organization. The headlines are apparently a bit misleading as they would suggest that the individual denominations were set to be united, which was not the proposal.



Also misleading, today, is the use of the term "United Church of Christ". That denomination would not come about until 1957.



On the same day, Kentucky and Rhode Island passed the 19th Amendment.



Suffrage supporters watching the Governor of Kentucky sign his state's passage of the 19th Amendment.



And Walt experienced something that I routinely do a century later.


Saturday, December 21, 2019

St. Peter's Catholic Church, Carpenter Wyoming


This is St. Peter's Catholic Church in Carpenter, Wyoming. The Church is served by St. Paul's parish in Pine Bluffs, which is the closest Wyoming town to Carpenter.


As with the Methodist Church in Carpenter which is discussed immediately below,  I don't know the age of this Prairie Gothic style church in tiny unincorporated Carpenter.  My suspicion is that the church is nearly as old as Carpenter, but I don't have the immediate information on that.

Carpenter United Methodist Church, Carpenter Wyoming.


This is the Carpenter United Methodist Church in Carpenter, Wyoming.


Carpenter is a very small, but still there, town in southeastern Wyoming.  Indeed the town is almost in Colorado and and is has much of the character of western Nebraska.  Founded as a railroad town, the town hangs on in spite of its very small size and is quite isolated.

This church was obviously built early on as a Prairie Goth style church and then modified, probably in the 1970s, to have a new entry way.  The entry way is architecturally inconsistent with the remainder of the church so the exact thinking of the addition isn't obvious to an outside viewer.

Wednesday, December 18, 2019

Thursday, December 5, 2019

Holscher's Hub: Pentax: Built like a tank

Holscher's Hub: Pentax: Built like a tank: So states a professional photography blog naming the Pentax K1 full frame one of the three bests cameras of 2019. And they are. The revi...

Friday, November 29, 2019

Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew states a reunion between the East and West is inevitable.

More than that, he essentially said there are no barriers to it.

This is unlikely to be front page news in the United States, but it is in fact a major development.  Patriarch Bartholomew is the Archbishop of Constantinople and the Ecumenical Patriarch.  In that position, he's regarded as the first among equals in Eastern Orthodoxy, although its also noted that the Pope as the Bishop of Rome is generally regarded as the First Among Equals in the church as a whole.

All this may leave Americans in particular a bit lost, as the United States, even with Catholicism being the single largest Christian denomination, is a Protestant nation and even American Catholics frequently have a poor understanding of Eastern Orthodoxy (or even of their own faith).  But this is a huge event.

The Catholic and Orthodox churches were separated in the Great Schism, which occurred in the 1054, was briefly repaired in 1453, and which has existed since then.  Efforts to put an end to the schism have occurred since the onset and in recent decades its been noted that serious progress was made in ending the schism permanently.  Mutual excommunications were lifted some time ago and a meeting within the past decade made a significant amount of progress before breaking down, which seems to have been over objections from members of the largest Orthodox Church, the Russian Orthodox Church.

Part of the process of healing the rift has been the realization that what seemed to be significant theological differences between the two churches often didn't really exist.  Now the Patriarch has stated that they don't exist.

Patriarch Bartholomew made the comments while taking part in the evening service at a the Catholic Abbey of Our Lady of St. Rémy in Rochefort, Belgium this past week.  He attended Vespers with Abbot Alexis of Xenophontos Monstary and Hieromonk Theophilos of Pantocrator Monastery on Mt. Athos in Greece.  While in attendance, Partholome sat upon the Bishop's Throne at the monastery.

The Patriarch, while at the monastery, reportedly held an unofficial talk with a collection of Orthodox monastics in attendance and told him, in his opinion, there was no longer any theological differences between the Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church.  None of the Orthodox audience raised any objections to the statement but some took it emotionally and weeped upon hearing it.  He further indicated that the rift today reflects history, rather than theology.

The reaction of the other Orthodox clerics is significant as for some time the real opposition to a reunion has seemingly been centered in the rank and file level of the Orthodox clergy and the conservative wing of the laity.  Without going into it in depth, it is clear that nearly all of the supposed differences between the Orthodox and the Catholic churches has in fact been addressed to the point where the differences are hardly there.  There do remain some stumbling blocks, however, the principal one being the role of the Pope.  The Catholic churches uniformly regard the Pope as the monarch of the faith and above all other clergy.  The Orthodox accord him the position of the first among equals, but do not agree that he has a superior authority in that role to the heads of the various Orthodox churches.  Somewhat ironically, Patriarch Bartholomew has been involved, in his role as the Ecumenical Patriarch, in a controversy over the Orthodox church in Ukraine with his having recognized the autocephalus status of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church there, which the Russian Orthodox Church has declared to be in schism.

That isn't the only reaming difference, there are some significant ones.  But many of the ones that have been cited as differences over the years are now gone.  A very strong protective instinct in the Orthodox community combined with Orthodox churches having traditionally been strongly identified with ethnicity has operated as a bar to reunion in recent years and it's my guess that this will slow it now, although its also my guess that a reunion is closer than people might think and in fact inevitable, as Patriarch Bartholomew has stated.  The Eastern Orthodox themselves have been fairly rapidly moving away from being ethnic churches in recent years and have benefited in that in the west from the conversion of disaffected Protestants who have been discouraged by the direction of their own churches.  With this evolution going on, the likely question will be how long it will take in order for the Easter Orthodox to come back into full communion with the Catholic Church.

My additional guess, at least right now, is that if that's in the short term, say ten to twenty years, which is quite possible, it will see some further schisms as some small branches of the Eastern Orthodox balk at the move and, more significantly, the Russian Orthodox Church, the largest Orthodox Church, might.  Long term the Russian Orthodox will return as well, but it has been the most resistant to date.  Perhaps ironically a large portion of it had previously returned before reversing directions, although that occurred centuries ago.

All in all, however, Patriarch Bartholomew is no doubt largely correct in his comments and his statements are encouraging.  Orthodoxy is the second largest single branch of the Christian world, making up 300,000,000 of the world's 2.4 Billion Christians.  Catholicism makes up 1.15 Billion, with Protestant churches combined making up the remaining 900,000,000 Christians.  Contrary to what is commonly reported, globally all branches of Christianity is growing and Catholicism is rapidly expanding in the third world and in areas of northern Europe which had been lost to it during the Reformation.  The number of Orthodox has doubled over the last century but, unlike Catholicism or the various Protestant faiths it has not seen an expansion outside of its traditional territories and in some of those territories in the Middle East there are serious threats to Christians which are resulting in their emigration out of them.  Countering that, however, as noted the Orthodox have seen a rise in membership in North American as disaffected Protestants have entered Eastern Orthodoxy.

If the Orthodox and Catholic churches were to reunite it would give a massive, and many would argue necessary, boost to the Eastern Rite in the Church. The Church has always retained the Eastern Rite and in recent years the Eastern Rite has been growing in North America as well, for reasons which are related to what is noted above.  But if the Orthodox were to reunite with the Catholic Church it would mean that overnight 1/5th of all Catholic would be members of the Eastern Rite, a much higher number than to today, and for the first time since the 15th Century the Church would have a large number of Eastern Bishops, whose absence has been sorely felt.  Likewise, a infusion of Eastern Rite cardinals would occur.

Thursday, November 28, 2019

Lex Anteinternet: Thanksgiving Reflections

Lex Anteinternet: Thanksgiving Reflections: Puritans on their way to church. It's become sort of an odd tradition in the US in recent years to either criticize a holiday in ge...

Sunday, November 3, 2019

Lex Anteinternet: St. Hubert's Day.

Lex Anteinternet: St. Hubert's Day.:

St. Hubert's Day.

Today is St. Hubert's Day.  That is, the day on the Catholic calendar honoring this Saint.









St. Hubert is the patron Saint of Hunters and is still celebrated in Northern Europe, where he is the patron of hunting associations.  In Germany, hunters celebrated this day as Hubertustag, pausing in the hunting season to honor St. Hubert.



As we had just referenced him in the post noted above, and we're further noting this day ourselves.

Friday, November 1, 2019

Minor Irritants

My home Parish, 1958.  This was before I was born.  It was also before the architectural insult of removing the alter rails occurred in the 1970s.

I was originally going to post this at our companion blog Lex Anteinternet, as some of the observations have general application and this is more of the type of thing I tend to publish there, but in thinking about it, as it involves observations derived at Mass, and because it also in part involves architecture, I'm going it here instead.  This is, therefore, one of our few real departures from the general theme of this blog, which is photography related in the main.

I'm attuned, I suppose, to the spoken word in part due to my occupation, which involves speaking a lot, as well as writing. Therefore, perhaps, in some ways I might be viewing this matter from a prospective that's more out of the past than the present, as to how most people perceive the world, although I don't think so.  I give that by way of a caveat.

Also as a caveat, I'm in my mid 50s, and I'm in a high stress occupation, which can make me really cranky.  As a Catholic in my mid 50s, I've now sat through, but not appreciated until much later, the changes brought about by the "spirit of Vatican II" and I frankly don't like most of them.  That's a view that I've come to over the years and feel more now that I'm in my mid 50s than I did in about them in my mid 20s when I was aware, but barely aware, of them.  That may be because I now have a deeper appreciation of quite a few things and a better appreciation of the history of things, let alone the direction of things, than I did back then.  That doesn't really place me in the "Trad" camp in the Catholic world, and certainly not in the "Rad Trad" camp, but I can see the Trad camp, I suppose, from where I'm camped.

And from where I'm camped I've viewed certain things come into the churches that ought to go right back out.  So here goes.

The late announcements.

If you want to totally destroy any audience recollection of what you have just said in an assembly of any sort, put some announcements at the end of your assembly.

This applies to any sort of assembly.

The Catholic Mass is a type of assembly and an ancient one.  It's basic form has existed the entire length of Christianity and it features two principal aspects.  One is the reading or readings, and the second one is Holy Communion. The readings lead up to Communion.

In its common form, in all Rites, and beyond the Catholic Church in all Apostolic Churches and those which claim Apostolic succession, there's a central reading followed by a homily.  In the current Latin Rite, there's a reading from the Old Testament, from the Psalms, from the New Testament, and the main reading from the Gospels.  Then there's the homily.  The readers are selected so that they're tied together in some fashion.  They lead up to the homily, and then that is followed by Holy Communion.  There's some short aspects of the Mass following the homily, followed by the dismissal of the congregation, which is done with the worlds "The Mass has ended, go in Peace."

If the homily is effective, it should remain on your mind on the way out of the Church.  If it isn't, at the readings out to.

They probably won't if just before dismissing the congregation there's the "please be seated for just a few announcements".

Human beings are set by their nature to receive a main message.  Once its received, it's received.  They aren't set by their nature to receive auxiliary messages after that.  If they receive them, they delete the first one.

In spite of this being really obvious, if you have ever experienced it, in recent years Catholic parishes where I've gone to Mass have become absolutely chronic about tail end messages. So much so, that some of them start to become auxiliary homilies.  The number of extra speakers that come up to the ambo to deliver a message to the congregation, frequently delivered by somebody who has absolutely no public speaking skills whatsoever, is at an all time high.  And the Priests themselves have taken up delivering all sorts of messages just before they dismiss the congregation.  Perhaps the most frequent of those messages, and in some ways the most insulting, is the extraordinarily irritating habit of reading bits of the bulletin to the congregation. 

On that last item, I was an early reader and ever since then I've hated to be read to.  I know how to read.  Reading out loud is for those who can't read.  Reading a bulletin is an implicit suggestion that the congregation isn't reading the bulletin.  Why should it, it the Priest is going to read the important parts, by his definition, to you before he dismisses the congregation?

Anyhow, any more it's not uncommon to go to Mass, be standing for the dismissal be told to sit, have one speaker come up on something like Marriage Encounter, or enrolling your kids in school, or encouraging people to join the youth group, or go to some function, followed perhaps by an additional auxiliary message from the Priest, and then highlights of the bulletin. By the time that's been done, the homily is completely lost.

Think about it, if your parish was to receive a letter from St. Paul today, you'd be eager (and given the nature of St. Paul's letter, likely a bit scared), to hear them.  It's easy to imagine the Priest or Deacon standing up and trembling a bit and saying "now we're going to hear a letter from St. Paul".  If that happened, you'd probably solemnly go up to Communion after that, be dismissed, and go home thinking about it for the rest of the week.

What wouldn't occur is that the Priest would stand up and say, please be seated we have . . . and two boring speakers stood up and droned on about something followed by the Priest reading the bulletin.

But that's exactly what's occurring on most Sundays.

We'd note that its actually contrary to the rubrics.  Announcements are supposed to come before the Mass. 

Not after.

The Screens

Humans are evolved for the reception of oral information.  Early on, we learned how to write and read, but receiving information in that fashion is much more recent.

Up above I stated I hate to be read to, and I do. But one thing about most writing is that it isn't designed to be read to an audience.  Ancient texts, however, are as they were written at at time in which most people couldn't read.  Indeed, they were often written by a scrivener who received dictation from somebody who could neither read nor write, so the messages were often sent by somebody who couldn't read or write and received by somebody who couldn't read or write and in both instances require the assistance of somebody who could do both.

The text of the Bible, in the Mass, can and should be effectively delivered orally, as the homily should as well.  The entire Mass is immediate sensory, involving your direct listening and often, depending upon the right, various distinct sounds and smells.

Contrary to what some churches apparently like to believe, and what many lawyers and courts have come to believe, what people don't do well is receive information second party via screens.

Every since the 1960s there's been the idea around that because television and movies (and now video games) are so common, people must receive information in that fashion.  In reality, they tune most of that out.

Proof of that is ample.  For one thing, it's really difficult to tune out an effective speaker if you are in the same room as that speaker.  It's easy to tune out a boring speaker, but its easy to tune out anything that's boring.  Tuning out video and screen received information is really easy however.

Indeed, there are a lot of people who turn on televisions for "background noise".  I absolutely hate that, but it's really common.  There are plenty of people who turn the television on the second they get up and keep it on until they go to sleep without ever really watching anything its playing (again, that really annoys me). 

This is also true, I'd note, of second person sound delivered by some medium such as radio.  If you want to listen, you will, but there are a lot of people who turn on the radio and never listen to it.  Personally, I can't stand to have the radio on at all when I'm working and as a result I've had more than one occasion where I've had to tell secretaries to turn their radios down, as I could hear them in my office.  A former partner of mine, in contrast, bought an expensive speaker set for his work computer (I now have it) as he'd play music all day long.

Anyhow, if you really want people to be distracted and/or bored, bring in a screen.

Screens in churches exist in two forms. One is the old slide screen, now commonly used for a video presentation. Video presentations delivered in churches nearly uniformly feature bad production values and horrible audio, so they are ineffective.  They usually are in aid of some campaign, but they aren't convincing for that reason.  Additionally, as the person who controls the presentation in the church usually has the same technical skills as teachers in classrooms who use the same technology, either problems showing the presentation or constant messing with the audio is nearly inevitable.

There are exceptions to this.  Our local Parish has been featuring a series on the Mass that it has been showing before Mass commences and it has been excellent and engaging.

The other type of screen is the television type screen.

A beautiful church across town, where I'll now be attending on Sundays due to a schedule change at my old parish, has been wounded there by the inclusion of screens bolted to the walls.  They serve no purpose whatsoever other than to put up a selection words here and there for the readings and then a picture or pictures for the homily.

That really needs to be stopped.

All that does is distract and again, it's insulting to the congregation.  It really isn't hte case that they were ignoring the engaging Priest there with his deep booming voice.  He didn't need the electronic aids and it actually detracts from his presentation, as it would anyone's.

Not thinking things out

I have to be careful on this one as it could sound like I'm saying something that I'm not.

When I was really young my family attended an early Sunday morning Mass.  I've been told how early it was, and it was early.

Later on, we attended the Saturday evening Mass.  I guess this was done as we weren't doing anything on Saturday evening and this was a convenient way to attend Mass and leave all of Sunday open to do whatever.  When I was in university I normally attended the Saturday evening Mass for the same reason, or simply because I was acclimated to it. When I moved back to town and got married, we did as well.

When the kids were born we switched to the across town Parish as it had a better cry room.

Later, however, we started attending the Sunday morning early mass again, which was at 7:30 at that point.  I can't recall quite why, but it was likely because after that the kids attended the Catechism class that was held at the old Catholic school on Sundays, so it worked out really well.  As they grew older and processed through that, we kept going to the Sunday morning Mass.

One Priest moved the time of that Mass to 8:00.  That was fine.  Recently the new Priest has moved it to 9:00.  The 11:00 Mass, which is later than I normally ever go to, has been moved to 11:30, and is now the Spanish Mass.  The late Sunday Mass at 5:15 and the Saturday evening Mass at 5:15 remain in the same positions.

All of this makes a huge amount of sense and it reflects a demographic shift in the Parish.  I think the decisions to change the times was fully warranted.  Indeed, back some years ago when I attended a special meeting of parishioners it struck me that it made no sense that in a town of our size, which sin't small but isn't gigantic, it didn't make sense to have three churches with Saturday evening Masses (which still is the case) and two that offered early Sunday morning Mass.  Indeed, taking a Medieval view of things I'd tend to have consolidated all three Parishes into the "Tri Parish" that they technically are.

Be that as it may, it has a direct impact on me, and now I'll go across town. For a guy who routinely wakes up as early as 3:00 a.m., 9:00 a.m. is fairly late.

None of that is my point.

All this came about for two reasons, both of which are demographic and one of which is due to poor planning.

The downtown Parish, where I attend, was the founding church in the county.  All the other churches were founded by it.  When the second church was built across town,t hat church was bigger, but the downtown church was still very large.  The third one is much smaller.

All three had school buildings on their grounds, but only one school actually existed. That school dated to the 1920s, I think, and was one black away from the downtown church.  It was the central Catholic school for the town.

Now, I n ever went there and I don't have any romantic feelings about it. But I do grasp the demographic realities of schools.

When the downtown church was built, it was the only Catholic church in town, which it still was at the time the school was built.  AS the town expanded, however, a second church was built on the east side of town, and it is larger.  It's a beautiful church.

The obvious intent was for it to have its own school, but Catholics are a minority population here and therefore there was never a sufficient Catholic population base that would have justified that.  Indeed, the struggle for many years was to keep the existing school viable.  For the same demographic reasons, two other religious schools, one Lutheran and one of a Calvinist variety, are present in town, even though there's more than one church for each respective group that provides the population base for the schools.

All that was fine but in the 1990s a very generous donor family granted a very large sum of money just to build a school  It was really needed as well as the old school was now very long in the tooth and had the problems that all old buildings have.

What was determined to be done was to build a school on the very expansive grounds of the small mid town church on the west side, as it had the grounds.  That was done, and the old school was closed.

That was a mistake.

The problem with that decision was an absolute failure to grasp demographics.  The downtown parish, the oldest one, was the largest because it was the first and it had the school.  Over time, the east side parish probably had more people who attended it, but the numbers were close.  The mid town church, on the other hand, was small and more of a neighborhood church. 

When the downtown church was built, a century ago, the town was around 20,000 in population and the nicest part of town was in fact close to it.  It's location meant that a high percentage of school age children could walk to it, something that is made more evident by the fact of a major public grade school being just one block away, and the town's then only high school being about four blocks away.  By  the 1970s, however, that was less and less true and more people likely lived on the east side of town.  Kids got to the school by their parents taking them there, which if you went by early in the morning was pretty clear.

The location really had its drawbacks.  It didn't have an expansive modern playground and it evolved into being right on the edge of the busy downtown.  But it was one block away from the oldest downtown church and the kids who went to the school went to Mass at that Parish. So did their parents, who tended to keep going there as those kids grew up.

Once the school was closed, however, that ended.  Kids went to the mid town Parish, which was on the same grounds.  Their parents no longer went to the downtown Parish either, either going to the mid town church or to the one on the east side, close to where it was located.

That this would have occurred should have been evident.  None the less, the mistakes were compounded.  The old school building, which was still used for a time for various church functions including religious education, was sold.  The neighboring convent, which had once housed nuns who taught at the school (which had ended long before the school was closed) was also sold.  Religious education was moved to a building that once housed the Knights of Columbus, between teh church and the school, after the Knights moved to the east side church.

And with all of that, predictably, the church lost a lot of Parishioners.

The ones it didn't loose, however, were Hispanic.  The reasons aren't really clear but its most likely due to most of them being newer residents of the town. As they moved into town, they looked for a parish, and the downtown one is by far the easiest to find.  And as its centrally located, it's easy to get to.

Not that any of the local churches are hard to get to, and that's one of the challenges the downtown church faces. They're all fairly easy to get to, but the other two are right on the edge of residential areas whereas the downtown parish is right at the edge of the downtown.  They're all on the borders, however, of residential areas.

The downtown parish, however, is a lot easier to get to if you live in the town that borders this one immediately to the north, which is all middle class housing.  It's also really close to another neighboring town that likewise has a strong working class base, and it's not hard to get to from a third town that meets that category.  It's by far the easiest to get to for people who live in the oldest sections of the town that are very much in a working class district.  Anyway you look at it, it's well situated for a new community that's comprised of working people.

All the parishes have people who meet that definition and indeed Catholicism in Wyoming has always had s strong working class element to it.  But another added element to it is that if you are part of a new demographic to an area, you are part of a "community" in a unique way.

In recent years I've heard a lot in Catholic circles about "building community".  I frankly think the entire concept is grossly misunderstood in some ways. All Catholics are part of a unique community simply by being Catholic, and usually only people who are very poorly Catechized or who were Protestants for most of their life really don't have the sense of the Catholic Community. That's part of what makes being  a Catholic really unique.  Catholics have a sense of the near, the far, and the supernatural.  When Catholics refer to "the communion of the Saints", they have the sense of the Saints being with us in the present time.  Our distinction between the living and the dead is much slighter than other people.  And likewise, as we're part of the Universal Church, which is what "Catholic" implies, we feel as much as part of a church across the world in many ways as we do to our own.  Only when the local churches disrupt that do we feel ill at ease.

Indeed, a lot of Catholics never register at a parish, and are called "vagabondi" in terms of Canon Law.  This isn't a weird concept for Catholics and actually the phrase "joining a church" that Protestants use is hopelessly bizarre to Catholics.

But for recent immigrant populations, they are a special kind of community and that plays in here as well.  Speaking a different language and coming from a different culture, they'll tend to go to one church as its where they are most at home, even if it involves some inconvenience.

None of this is wrong or a problem, and indeed the Church and the Parish is right to react to serve them, so that they are served. And by changing a Mass time to the middle of Sunday, that makes a lot of sense. The prior Spanish Mass was only twice a month and in the middle of Sunday afternoon, which made sense at the time but no longer does. Further, a Hispanic youth group leader has stepped forward and volunteered to serve in that capacity and, beyond that, some Spanish speaking nuns from Mexico have arrived in town.

All that points in a very clear direction and it makes sense. But there's a risk running there as well.  In the thinking things out area, hopefully this has been done.

Closing the school detached people from the downtown church and reattached them either to the small neighborhood church which is near the school or to the big across the town church near where man of them lived.  That this would occur was inevitable and should have been appreciated from the start.  The subsequent selling of the old school and the convent that followed was an incredibly bad mistake that deprived the old downtown church of two major items of infrastructure. Selling real property is nearly always a horrifically bad idea, and its one the Parish did over the protest of a lot of people who had a romantic attachment to their old school. That romantic attachment was wrong, but the selling of the property was even worse.  

All that left the downtown parish with a population of parishioners who either went there out of long habit (like me), personal taste (probably also partially me), because they lived nearby (which almost made them older by default, with rare exceptions), or they were part of a unique demographic.

The remaining parishioners today, therefore, are not likely to be the ones with young kids, except for Hispanic families.  The exception to that was the 11:00 Mass which was attended by a lot of people with families.  If those families don't speak Spanish, most of them will not go elsewhere.  Not due to prejudice, but because they won't easily understand what's being said at Mass.

If the overall idea is that the Parish will simply become an Hispanic one, that will probably fail. Even with the increased number of Hispanic Catholics in town, they're still not numerous enough to carry a Parish on their own, unless the Church is successful in getting a lot of quasi observant Hispanic Catholics to attend.  It might, but that will be difficult.

That's probably part of the goal, and maybe they'll be able to do it. If that's the plan, they need to dive full in and not try to make any compromises at all.  It'll be tough, however, as right now while there are many, many, highly observant Hispanic Catholics in our culture, the results of the Mexican Revolution are still being recovered from in regard to this.  The Mexican government was bitterly hostile to Catholicism for decades and ultimately produced a result much like that produced by the Russian Revolution in which people remain attached to their faith, but in a looser fashion than had been the case prior to the suppression.  As with the many Russians who remain highly loyal to the Russian Orthodox Church, and the many Ukrainians who remain loyal to the Ukrainian Catholic Church, there are many Mexicans who remain loyal to the Roman Catholic Church. There are also, however, a lot whose affiliation is much looser.  They're Catholic, but their attendance tends to be light.  Overcoming that would in fact be a huge triumph and would fill the church at every Mass, but it will be tough to accomplish.

If it isn't accomplished, what will occur is that the non Spanish speaking Parishioners will go to another church and most will take their financial support with them to that new Parish.  Right now, for example, I remain registered at the downtown Parish and when I go there I make my donation. But now I'm mostly going across town due to the Mass times.  I may re-register and if I don't, it's only out of a sense that my old downtown Parish should retain some loyalty from me.  But most won't view it that way and will feel that their loyalty and support should go to the Parish where they attend.

There are things that could be done and could have been done to stem this, but they weren't thought out.  I'll get to some of those in just a moment, but a lot of this goes back to the school. The school was in really bad shape, but it didn't need to come down.  It didn't. It was renovated into apartments as was the old convent.  That no doubt took a lot of money, but the point is that the downtown parish had an infrastructure that was available.  It sold it.

After it was sold some Catholic home schoolers made a move to try to establish a Catholic high school here.  It fell flat.  I don't think that would have been a good idea, but one of the things that made it absolutely impossible is that it would have entailed building another school building.  Such a school would never have had a large number of students, so ironically the existing building, particularly if considered in the context of the neighboring convent, would have sufficed, with remodeling, for that.  

Those structures could have also served other purposes, including allowing the convent to be a convent.  For some reason people's sense of the time doesn't tend to extent beyond the immediate and it was apparently believed there'd never be nuns here again. Well, even since the convent closed there has been from time to time, and there are once again.  

A page probably could have been taken here from the Episcopal Diocese for Wyoming which ultimately moved its offices to Casper rather than retain them in Laramie. Why Laramie was chosen for the Episcopal Cathedral in the first place makes for an interesting topic, but it was a poor choice right from the onset.  Moving the offices to Casper made sense, and frankly they ought to just make their large downtown church an auxiliary cathedral.

That's also what should have been done to the downtown parish.  Business offices are presently in Cheyenne, as is the beautiful cathedral, which does make sense. But frankly Cheyenne as the state capitol doesn't make sense as its practically in Colorado and Nebraska. No state would locate its capitol in a corner of the state if it had the choice and Cheyenne being the state capitol is an accident of history.  The choice of Cheyenne as the location for the Catholic Cathedral makes sense, but it means that the bishop has double to triple the normal amount of ground to cover that he ought to.  Making Casper the auxiliary seat would make sense.

It still would, but clearly things aren't headed that way.  It would have made more sense but for the shortsighted sale of all the real property.

I hope the changes work out and I agree with their being made. But my suspicion is that they won't work out well.  Probably the main body of remaining parishioners who aren't Hispanic will relocate if they're not older parishioners, and even if they are and they were going to the 11:00 Mass.  They same groups will remain if they're older at the now 9:00 Mass, Saturday 5:15 Mass and Sunday 5:15 Mass.  But over time, unless the change is hugely successful, I suspect that this will put the Parish in a financial bind and won't be the last of the changes that will be forthcoming.

People who supported moving the school, and selling it, should have seen that coming.

Making It Impossible To Go To Mass

I've talked about Mass times a lot in the item above, so it would seem I wouldn't have a lot to add, but I do.  It just doesn't relate to Sunday.  Well, not much.

I think one of the things that is sometimes not grasped by those who set Mass times is that Wyoming is incredibly working class in a unique way.  Lots of people work six days out of seven if not seven out of seven, by necessity.  Getting to Mass for them is an effort in and of itself, but most make it.  

That means, however, that a lot of people are getting Mass in prior to or after something that they're otherwise fitting in, often by necessity.  Getting to Mass should be the priority, and for most it is, but the reality of their lives means that simply getting to Mass can be an effort that it isn't for people who live in Denver.

I'll go so far as to state for people who work six days out of seven, that may simply include trying to have some downtime on Sunday. That sounds absolutely awful, but in a really rural state with really hard working conditions, that's true.  Lots of families live in a situation in which the breadwinner or winners work six days out of the week, go to Mass on Sunday, and then head out to go fishing or hunting for the rest of the day, or any number of things like that.

Pushing Mass into later in the day makes it hard to do that.  Of course, there's always Saturday evening's Mass, the mass of Anticipation. But frankly if you worked all day on Saturday, and lots of people do (I do most Saturdays), by evening you are pretty beat.  

I note this as the later Mass is on Sunday morning the more likely it is that the observant will simply end up with the classic American (Protestant) lazy Sunday.  

Some people really like that idea, but it's not the regional idea of how things work.  Wyoming has actually always been the least observant state, in terms of religion, in the United States and this is part of the reason why.  The whole idea of getting up late, getting dressed up, going to church, going to lunch (or the detestable brunch) and then spending the rest of the day doing nothing doesn't appeal to a lot of people here, particularly locals.  If you go to an 8:00 Mass in the summer you'll see vehicles that are clearly going right out to the prairie after Mass.  Nobody is dressed up (which isn't part of Catholic culture here) and they're not going to.  If you make the Mass a 9:00 Mass, they'll have to go to another Parish.

Ultimately, if you make it impossible for them to go early, they'll end up going in the middle of the day.  They'll accommodate the Church, and they should, but it's something that at least a little more consideration should be given to.

A lot more consideration should be given to Holy Day schedules.

At the time I'm writing this its All Saints Day (I started this on the morning of All Hallowed Eve).  This means its a Holy Day of Obligation and I must go to Mass.

It's also a blistering work day.

The Catholic Priests on Catholic Stuff You Should Know have noted that the inconvenience of attending a Holy Day Mass is part of what makes it something that should in fact exist.  It refocuses you in a necessary fashion.  I agree with that, but those who schedule Masses should also make it at least somewhat easy to attend.

The downtown Parish has a built in demographic of downtown Catholics. For many years, it had a noon Mass.  I used to attend it and not only on Holy Days, but on days I was in town.  I loved it. Rather than lunch, which I'm not a huge fan of, I'd just go to Mass.  I'd see some of the same people who worked downtown doing the same thing I was, walking to Mass for noon.

Due to their being only one Priest at the Parish for a time, the noon Mass was eliminated. There are two now, but the noon one has never been restored.  There is an early morning Mass, but frankly working people aren't going ot make that one as a rule, even though its very early.  I suppose I could, but I leave the house plenty early as it is, and when I still had to take children to school, it was impossible.

Noon was quite possible.

On Holy Days a person could make that early morning Mass, but I won't.  I'll have to make one later in the day.

Both of the other parishes have a Mass at 9:00. No working person can make that.

Our Parish used to have an anticipatory Mass at 5:15.  That was ideal for working people who worked downtown.  You got off work and went right to Mass.

Well, now that's at 6:00.  For downtown workers that means they'll go home and then go elsewhere, as a rule.

For anticipatory Masses, in fact, there are no early ones.  Two of the churches have 6:00 Masses.  But again, if you worked a hard day, by the time you go home, you'll be tired.  For people with young children, they'll be fussy.  For people with older children, the specter of homework will be looming.  

Indeed, locally, the only Mass that now is convenient for me is the 5:30 Holy Day Mass at the neighborhood church.  So the rescheduling has not only taken me out of my local parish again, it's taken me right to one of the churches that is now full to overflowing at every Mass, because of the relocation of the school.

Greeters

Okay, one more really minor one.

I know that one of the really common complaints people have about any church is that "they don't feel welcome".

Frankly, I doubt that.  I've never felt unwelcome at a Catholic Church and what I think the real story is that people who leave a church use an excuse like that.  Nobody wants to use the excuse like "the Catholic Church takes the Christ and the Apostles really seriously so I couldn't be married five times and be having an affair with six women and fell good about myself".  People switch churches for a lot of reasons, of course, but a lot of people do so really do so as they want to make life easier for themselves and the Apostolic Churches take the Gospels very seriously. 

Anyhow, seemingly as a reaction to that, or simply even due to polling of parishioners in general, getting into a church in some localities is like being a running back trying to get past a defense line.  You go in and all of a sudden you're going to have to shake somebody's hand and somebody is going to welcome you.

For me, being welcomed at the door is a really odd experience if I'm at a Mass that I'm not usually at.  Catholic Parishes have a lot of members but its very often the case that people tend to go to the same Mass.  It's actually possible for you not to know that somebody who attends the same church you do is a Catholic if they're a casual acquaintance as you don't go to the same Mass, save for the vagabondi who move around.  Given this, you can have the really odd experience of being welcomed by an overenthusiastic greeter who then asks something like "visiting?"

He or she is trying to be friendly, but I'm highly introverted, old and cranky.  I'm just trying to make it into Mass.  So I'm likely to respond "No, I've been coming here since 1963".  Its' rude on my part but for the highly introverted to be flanked by greeters is stress inducing.

Indeed, at the downtown Parish I go in a side door.  That way the only greeter I ever meet is the very nice and very nicely dressed teenage girl who hands out bulletins.  As she recognizes me, all she's going to do is hand me a bulletin.

I was asked, I'd note, to be a greeter at one time. That would be such a nightmare for me, I declined.

One change the new Priest has done downtown is to quit having bulletins available before Mass. That's an interesting change and I don't know why.  There's probably a reason for it.  It's not an accident however.