Wednesday, October 03, 2007

"Vibrancy Plan" Elements of Interest

Terry has a lengthy post which addresses the planning process laid out by Fr. Connell of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee.

One item caught my attention:

Fr. Connell leans toward having the Archdiocese take over parish schools. There's no comparative analysis form dioceses where this is already the case. Nor does he cite any experience from the multi-parish schools already in existence in our Archdiocese.

Both changes in parishes and schools would mean reallocating personnel.

On this blog, I have yapped about Federalism, which is based on the Principle of Subsidiarity--a principle expressly advocated by the Roman Catholic Church and clearly evident in its Canon Law.

So Fr. Connell seems to think that a takeover by the gnomes at the Puzzle Palace (3501 S Lake Drive) will allow the parochial schools to evade the usual destination of Aggrandizement-Demolition-of-Subsidiarity institutions? (Think, e.g., the Federal "Education" Department, or even the State's Department of Instruction....)

Good luck with that, Father.

Since roughly 1990, FOUR parent-run schools (they cannot call themselves "Catholic") have sprung up in SE Wisconsin. ALL of them have enough enrollment to be viable.

Yes, they were formed to escape parochial schools--but let's not forget that the Archdiocese of Milwaukee's "Education" Department had a great deal to do with required coursework...

Hmmmmm?

By the way, Terry also cites a commenter:

The problem with these institutional self-examinations is that they are usually deeply dishonest, and unable to say, "The reason we have lost, er...vibrancy...is because our priests and catechists haven't been teaching the faith for about 40 years and our liturgies are boring, didactic, uninspired messes."

If you want "vibrancy," start with The Mission: "Go, teach all nations..." (what I have taught you...) "Mission" creates vibrancy. Not Educababble. Not statistics.

Not boring, didactic, and uninspired Liturgy.

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