More Good News from KC

The Catholic Key is on a bi-weekly summer pub schedule, and The Vanguard Bishop is back with more treats:

Bishop Robert W. Finn issued three "challenges" to Catholic school teachers and administrators as he celebrated Mass Aug. 12 to mark the opening of the 2005-06 school year:

• Celebrate Mass more often.
• Increase the reverence in students for the presence of the Lord in the Holy Eucharist.
• Renew a personal commitment, both in the students and in the faculty, for confession.

"At this point, those in charge of scheduling are ready to throw their computers at me," Bishop Finn joked with the teachers during his homily.

"But we must increase the opportunities for students to hear God's Word and receive him in the context of Holy Mass. And I am not speaking of Communion services, but Holy Mass," he said.

Turning to his concelebrating priests whose parishes sponsor schools and early childhood education centers, Bishop Finn said that more frequent school Masses will be "a sacrifice for our priests as well."

"I ask them to be as accommodating as they can for this most central event of our life of faith," he said.

Don't mess with this guy. He knows what's up.

"If we want to say, 'Our life is Christ,' we have to put ourselves in touch with him more frequently, in the most significant manner in which he has chosen to be present, in his Eucharistic presence."

Welcome to Smart Ecclesial Renewal, 101.... And Part Two of Finn's catechesis on the role of the diocesan newspaper (Part One linked here):

There is a difference between strict news reporting and those sections which are perhaps the most significant part of a Catholic paper: the editorials, editorial page columns, and the more extensive commentary we provide to deepen our readers' understanding of theology, encyclicals, etc.

We must report the news, good and bad. The sex abuse crisis renewed our awareness of this, however that is not to say that the crisis was always reported in a fair and balanced way in the commercial press. In some quarters it was not.

News reporting is necessarily selective. We have choices to make, and the editor's choices show his or her priorities. In the case of the diocesan paper I hope they align with those of the bishop, who usually is called "the publisher." When a writer writes about a news event, he or she tries to give a thorough representation of the most important things that took place in a limited space. You make your choices. It is here, in more strict "news reporting," that a comparison between commercial media and the Catholic press may be made.

What about the other parts of the Catholic paper? Editorials, editorial page columns, and commentary?

Here I think the methodology of the Catholic press and the commercial media is somewhat different. People need us here to be the Catholic press. Here we must apply the principles of the faith to the situation in the world around us. Instead of fair, let's be "faithful."

Again, this is the upbuilding of the Key as KC's thorough, faithful and fair alternative to the Reporter down the street. Who predicted this awhile back?

And, lastly, also from the "outflank the fringes" department, this intriguing development in the American capital of the SSPX:

Although some members of the Latin Mass community expressed misgivings, the majority greeted with joy the news that they would soon be moving into a church of their own.

"This is the answer to the prayers of many, many people for many years," said John Heuertz, one of a few hundred people who have been attending Mass celebrated in Latin, according to the 1962 pre-Vatican II rite, at Our Lady of Sorrows Parish near Crown Center.

Bishop Robert W. Finn, who had been consulting on the plan with a core committee of community members, told about 200 members of the community at the end of Mass Aug. 14 that they will soon have both their own church - historic Old St. Patrick at Eighth and Cherry streets in downtown Kansas City - and their own priest, specially trained in the celebration of sacraments in Latin.

The priest will be coming from the Institute of Christ the King, Sovereign Priest. We've met them before.... But Finn's savvy enough to keep them in line. There will be no throne rooms in Northwest Missouri.

More award-winning coverage from Cologne soon.

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