Tom Gallagher's blog

My colleague, Michael Sean Winters, offers a critique of Archbishop William Lori's installation Mass homily, concludes that it was "bizarre" and ends his analysis: "The first reading yesterday was from Acts, recounting Paul's visit to Athens, and Lori used that as a metaphor for his own role, but instead of preaching Christi crucified and risen as Paul did, Lori preached Neo-con Constitutional Theory 101."

In 1972, the new archbishop of Cincinnati, Joseph Bernardin, centered his installation Mass homily on the Eucharist as the moral imperative for the life of the church and her members individually.

USA Today writers Stephen Starr and S. Akminas offer insightful reporting into the challenges facing Syrian Christians:

The "not in my backyard" policy, or NIMBY, came to the fore when legendary film producer George Lucas attempted to build a film studio on his ranch in Marin County, Calif., north of San Francisco. So instead, and apparently without trying to "stick it" to those who opposed his film studio plan, Lucas will build 2,500 units of affordable housing in this affluent community. Time will tell if the advocates of NIMBY show up again to thwart the housing project.

CNN Money reports:

From Bloomberg News:

Over the weekend came a story of a Catholic refugee from war-torn Yugoslavia, who comes to the U.S., assumes a menial but honorable job at a prestigious Ivy League university, and eventually gets his college degree with honors.

The New York Post reports:

Carol Glatz of the Catholic News Service does the U.S. church a great service by interviewing Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, president of the Pontifical Council for Culture. I don't know anything about Cardinal Ravasi, but based on this interview alone, I like him a lot.

When one compares Cardinal Ravasi's approach to evangelization and engagement of the broader world and compare it to the nastiness coming out of the vocal Republican bishops and their Republican staff at the U.S bishops conference, the differences are severe and remarkable.

Now we have an interesting story about Rev. John Regan, a priest-thief who was found guilty of stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from his parish and was sentenced to court supervision and a requirement to work in a factory making $9.00/hour (min. wage in Illinois is $8.25/hr) to pay back his theft.

The Joilet, Illinois diocese stepped in and paid the parish $300,000, and Regan is paying back the diocese. Now, Regan wants to return to full-time ministry and is crying "uncle" about having to work a menial job to provide restitution. The judge, to his credit, says, sorry, "no go." Regan needs to understand that the parishioners worked hard for the money they chose to donate to the parish.

St. Paul and Minneapolis archdiocese priest, Dennis Dease, may not be well-known to most Catholics, but he's probably earned legendary status at this point for the work he's done superbly leading the University of St. Thomas for the last 22 years. Anyone aspiring to be president of a Catholic university would be wise to get on Fr. Dease's calendar. He is arguably the most able president of a Catholic university in the country. Yesterday, he announced his retirement to take place next year.

Hats off to The Tablet, the international Catholic news weekly based in London, for two back-to-back stories. Last week you recall, writer Robert Mickens opened up the back story on the investigation into the U.S. Leadership Conference of Women's Religions. Mickens laid out the work of the tag team of Arcbhishop-designate William Lori, of Bridgeport, Conn., en route to the Archdiocse of Baltimore, Maryland, and disgraced U.S. Cardinal Bernard Law.

Says Mickens:

Truth is stranger than fiction. But Cardinal Dolan's first tweet is an odd one in which he calls himself Timothy Cardinal Tebow. I'm not making this up. Cardinal Dolan's "exuberance" comes across as immature and out of place for the Archbishop of New York. If this is the "new evangelization," take me back to the old one, please God.

The Huffington Post has the story and the tweet:

Hey everybody. It's Timothy Cardinal Tebow. I mean Dolan. I'm on Twitter. And I'm live on Town Hall on SiriusXM's The Catholic Channel 129.

— Cardinal Dolan (@CardinalDolan) May 8, 2012

Jobs. Jobs. Jobs. The usual hyper-partisan divide argues that President Barack Obama's policies are hurting the economy, keeping corporate profits oversees and impeding job growth. Meanwhile, corporations' continued resistance to hire new employees while not spending massive amounts of cash has created charges of hoarding against major U.S. companies.

The Wall Street Journal had this report titled "Corporate Cash Levels Spike To All Time High, Up 38% Since 1Q09":

Fordham University sociology professor Jeanne Flavin has thrown aside the risk of eternal damnation (or at least damnation by some U.S. bishops and their Republican staff at the bishops' conference) in an essay on the issue of contraception over at the Huffington Post.

These paragraphs capture Professor Flavin's view:

The Associated Press reports:

Jesus seems to be everywhere these days, except in the Republicans federal budget proposal. According to a marketer for Christian-theme performances, "Broadway is having a faith moment."

The New York Times reports on this story.

Over at The Atlantic, senior editor Derek Thompson describes in convincing fashion why immigration to the United States is critically important to our future growth.

Florence D'Urso of Pelham Manor, one of the most important benefactors of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York who was also responsible for restoring many works of art at the Vatican, died Tuesday at Calvary Hospital in the Bronx. She was 79.

She was the widow of Camillo D'Urso, who founded the Key Food supermarket chain and was presumed drowned after he disappeared during a 1986 fishing trip off Florida.

Over several decades, Florence D'Urso supported numerous Catholic causes and schools in New York and elsewhere. She was a prominent figure at the front of many Catholic events, often the only woman among bishops and priests.

In recent years, she became ill and continued her work in a wheelchair.

"Florence D'Urso was a valued and trusted friend to me, and to my predecessors, as well as a great supporter of the Archdiocese of New York, the Holy See, and many other Catholic causes," said Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the archbishop of New York.

From Bloomberg News:

Fr. Everett Hemann, 66, has died after a yearlong struggle with pancreatic cancer.

I have periodically blogged about Hemann, who was publicly sharing his final days on this earth.

According to The Des Moines Register, Hemann died this past Tuesday:

De LaSalle Br. Louis DeThomasis, president of Christian Brothers Investment Services, is also the former president of St. Mary's University of Minnesota and the author of Flying in the Face of Tradition: Listening to the Lived Experience of the Faithful, published by ACTA Publications.

The book offers a timely reflection on the presence of the Holy Spirit in the life of the church. He concludes: "Yet now, more than ever, those of us who believe in the vision of Vatican II cannot back down from speaking the truth as we see it. The institutional church needs to respond in a vitally new and more effective way to Vatican II that will allow the church to once more 'teach as Jesus did.' "

Read his latest column, "The Subversion of Vatican II."

The Huffington Post reports:

From The Huffington Post (seriously, you cannot make this stuff up):

From The Huffington Post:

Last week, my Mission Management column focused on the Chicago archdiocese's Catholic Charities' initiative to reduce childhood obesity in collaboration with Michelle Obama's "Let's Move" public awareness campaign. Embedded in that article was a video of kids having fun, dancing to award-winning pop singer Beyoncé's song "Move Your Body."

Chicago's Catholic Charities just submitted a new video about its summer lunch program to the Let's Move video challenge and has been selected as a finalist. The winner is chosen by viewer votes.

Sami El-Yousef, regional director for Catholic Near East Welfare Association in Palestine and Israel, published a report on his recent visit to the Gaza Strip. The report can be found at CNEWA's website.

CNEWA's blog is worth checking out for latest news on Christians in the Middle East and beyond.

From Michigan Live: Grand Rapids, Mich. diocese unveils major downsizing

The Grand Rapids Diocese today will formally release what leaders are referring to as a “roadmap for the future”—a plan that calls for a dramatic restructuring of parishes across West Michigan through mergers, clusters, and the closing of three Grand Rapids-area churches.

The “Our Faith, Our Future” plan is nearly three years in the making and involved consultation with priests from all nine deaneries of the diocese, and parish lay members.

Bishop Walter A. Hurley gave his approval April 5.

In November, I blogged about an article written by Fr. Everett Hemann, who is dying of pancreatic cancer.

The Des Moines Register has written an updated story about Fr. Everett's journey toward death. It's worth a read.

From Bloomberg:

In a recent blog, I highlighted the fact that a priest attending the trial of two gangsters would not identify himself to a reporter. It seemed like odd behavior to me.

Now we have the embattled national director of Priests for Life, Fr. Frank Pavone, writing in the Washington Post's On Faith blog, and his byline is plainly, "By Frank Pavone." Odd. Why no reference to "Father"?

Pavone, then, goes on with a reflection on the role of the church in the U.S. politics, saying the church must be an equal-opportunity critic, challenging both political parties. The essay lacks Pavone's usual unbridled bombast and attacks on President Barack Obama and his administration.

Pavone does add:

From The Pacific Northwest Inlander:

From the Hartford Courant: