Rock the Rotunda for Religious Freedom

In what has begun a tell tale sign of summer, things are gearing up for the Fortnight for Freedom, which is observed annually from June 21st through July 4th to promote and defend what the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops calls "our first, most cherished liberty."

In conjuction with the Fortnight for Freedom, the Diocese of Springfield in Illinois will hold a special event at the Illinois State Capitol to Rock the Rotunda for Religious Freedom on Wednesday, June 28th beginning at Noon. We gathered outside at the statue of President Abraham Lincoln in previous years, but this year we will move inside the Capitol itself.

Here is the bulletin announcement sent out yesterday concerning this important gathering about a vital aspect of our common life:

ROCK! The Rotunda for Religious Freedom - Mark your Calendars! The public is invited on Wednesday, June 28 at 12 Noon to the Rotunda of the State Capitol in Springfield, Illinois. Devote an hour to music, prayer, and dialog for religious freedom. Hillary Byrnes, Assistant General Counsel for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) in Washington, DC, will give a powerful witness for Religious Liberty. Join in prayer with Bishop Thomas John Paprocki of the Diocese of Springfield in Illinois. Also, listen to the passionate music of Michael James Mette. Bring a bag lunch, enjoy some light refreshments in air conditioned comfort. Let’s ROCK the Rotunda for religious freedom!

I will be unable to rock the rotunda this year because of my coming studies at The Liturgical Institute, but I hope you'll make plans to attend. Don't forget to bring a friend!

Diocesan seminarian running to support Christians in Iraq and Syria

For the second year in a row, Dominic Rankin, a seminarian for the Diocese of Springfield in Illinois and a fellow Quincyan, is once again teaming up with eight other seminarians at the Pontifical North American College in Rome and the papal charity Aid to the Church in Need to run across Italy to pray and raise funds for the Christians suffering in Iraq and Syria under the Islamic State.

Dominic Rankin is fifth from the left.

The group of nine seminarians will run across the width of Italy on 6 May 2017.

The runners hope to raise $10,000, all of which will be given to Aid to the Church in Need and used in the food package project. Thus far, the group has raised $6,395.00 Let's put them over the top by supporting Dominic! An anonymous donor has already agreed to match whatever amount they raise, up to $500,000!

Dominic has set a goal of raising $500 and is nearly half-way there. Please, join me in supporting Dominic both prayerfully and financially by making a donation here. No gift is too small to help support our brothers and sisters living in the midst of persecution.

Thinking back to his run last year, Dominic writes:

Dominic Rankin

About 2 miles in, and 2 pretty big hills, I was gasping along.  But I glanced down at the list of names in my hand - Christians, and their families, in Syria - and images of men in orange jump-suits flashed before my eyes.  They were suffering more than my aching legs were!  I gasped out another decade of the rosary, crested one more hill, knocked out another mile, and moved to the next name.  This was the feeling - sheer exhaustion - that had brought me to a walk, and a leg-spasming final 6 miles during my marathon several days prior, but this time I knew I couldn't stop and walk.  These labored strides were for my team-mates, for the countless people who were praying and supporting us, for the many fellow Christians who were suffering and dying for Our Lord throughout the world, and they were steps along the road to calvary that Jesus had staggered while He carried His cross.  3 miles down, 7 to go...

This year, I won't have a marathon a week before the Roman Run, but it will no doubt still be a struggle, but one, like last year's, that is totally worth it!  Peter encouraged his disciples to "rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed"[1 Peter 4:13] and Paul gives us the same message, "I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church," [Collossians 1:24].  In our struggles, in our sufferings, in our sacrifices, we are truly joined with Christ, and all the members of His body who are united to Him.  

Join yourselves to Christ!  Join us in supporting, and having com-passion with the Christians suffering in Syria!  Please, pray for them, and pray for us!  If you can, contribute to the run so that their families, homes, and faith can be sustained!  100% of any financial gift will go directly to them (and doubled by a doner!), and 100% of any spiritual gift will be all the more appreciated, and multiplied 100-fold by a not-so-anonymous Giver! 

Dominic is currently in his third year of theological studies in Rome. 

New priestly assignments are not April Fool's jokes

This weekend, priests across the Diocese of Springfield in Illinois - myself included - are announcing the new assignments they have received from His Excellency the Most Reverend Thomas John Paprocki, most of which will take effect July 1, 2017.

The decree of appointment I have received from His Excellency reads as follows:

Reverend Daren J. Zehnle is appointed Pastor of Saint Augustine Parish, Ashland, Illinois, and Adjutant Judicial Vicar, while retaining duties as Judge of the Diocesan Tribunal, and as Bishop’s Delegate for Matrimonial Concerns, from Parochial Vicar of Saint Agnes Parish, Springfield, Illinois, and Chief Master of Ceremonies to the Bishop, effective August 1, 2017. He is also appointed Director of the Office for Divine Worship and the Catechumenate, and to post-graduate studies in the summer program for the degree of Master of Arts in Liturgy at theLiturgical Institute of the University of St. Mary of the Lake, Mundelein, Illinois, effective May 1, 2017.

Included in this weekend's bulletin at St. Agnes Parish where I presently serve as Parochial Vicar is a letter I wrote to the parishioners, the text of which follows:

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, 

Shortly after I arrived here among you at St. Agnes Parish, a number of you asked how long I would serve as your Parochial Vicar. I answered honestly when I said I did not know because my assignment came with no expiration date, but that I hoped it would be for a long time. 

I have enjoyed my time among you and ministering alongside Father Bob, but the needs of the Diocese will soon require me to leave St. Agnes Parish to take up the Pastorate of St. Augustine Parish in Ashland, effective August 1, 2017. At that time, I will also become Adjutant Judicial Vicar while remaining Judge of the Diocesan Tribunal and the Bishop’s Delegate for Matrimonial Concerns. 

Beginning May 1, 2017, I will become the Director of the Office for Divine Worship and the Catechumenate and no longer serve as Chief Master of Ceremonies to the Bishop. In order to facilitate my work in the Office for Divine Worship and the Catechumenate, Bishop Paprocki has asked me to return to The Liturgical Institute in Mundelein, Illinois over the course of the next five summers to obtain a Master of Arts in Liturgy (M.A.L.). These studies will require me to be away from St. Agnes Parish from June 9 through July 21. 

I am grateful for the welcome you have extended to me and for the many kindnesses you have shown me these past many months, and look forward to my remaining time among you. Please remember me in your prayers in these coming weeks, as I will continue to remember you in mine. May our heavenly patroness, Saint Agnes, intercede for each of us, that with her we might be faithful lambs of the Good Shepherd and counted among his flock.

Attentive readers may note what might, at first glance, appear to be something of an April Fool's joke (which, I assure you, is unintentional). Not all of the effective dates I provide in my letter match those given in the Bishop's decree. The original text of the decree was altered after my letter was written and printed; I was unaware of the new dates until it was too late. I regret the error, small though it might seem.

Please, in the charity of your prayers, remember me as I seek to fulfill the tasks entrusted to me. 

Life Advocacy Day - March 29, 2017

Please join us if you can:

On the St. Patrick's Day dispensation, or the lack thereof

While other Bishops and Archbishops have seen fit to grant a dispensation from the law of abstinence on the Fridays of Lent to allow Catholics to eat meat this year on the memorial of Saint Patrick, His Excellency the Most Reverend Thomas John Paprocki has decided not to grant such a dispensation from the law. For reasons unclear to me, the State Journal-Register has decided this matter to be worthy of the front page.

In a letter to the priests of the Diocese, the Vicar General indicated the Bishop's reasoning when he noted the decision was made in "honor of the heroic virtue and sacrifice of St. Patrick in his life as a disciple." Such a rationale is in keeping with the mind of Saint Anthony of Padua who once preached these words:

We celebrate their feasts, so as to receive from their lives a pattern of living. How ridiculous, to want to honor the saints on their days with eating, when we know that they got to heaven by fasting! If we do not imitate the saints, but rather love the world and its glory; if we pamper our bodies with pleasure and amass money: then their justice will prove that we ought to be condemned (Sermon for the Fourth Sunday after Easter, 11).

Indeed, it is from this mindset that the Vicar General encouraged the faithful of the Diocese of Springfield in Illinois to honor the patron saint of Ireland, “and Almighty God, with the sacrifice of abstinence from eating meat.”

Bishop Paprocki, of course, is not alone in deciding not grant a dispensation this year. By my count of the 196 dioceses and archdioceses in the United States of America, according to a list compiled and updated by RoccoPalmo, the faithful in only 68 dioceses and archdiocese have been a granted a dispensation this year; that means that 128 bishops and archbishops have not granted a dispensation.

The different disciplines across the nation – and even within the same state – have led some people to wonder why the Church does not have the same policy across the board. To this I would simply say that the universal policy is to abstain from meat.

But even the universal law provides an exception to this requirement for those members of the faithful who belong to a diocese or a parish named in honor of Saint Patrick. For them, March 17^th is not simply the liturgical memorial of a saint, but a liturgical solemnity and Catholics are not bound by the law of abstinence on solemnities (which is why everyone can eat meat when the Solemnity of Saint Joseph – March 19^th – falls on a Friday of Lent).

Bishops have different policies and disciplines in this matter because the Code of Canon Law provides them the power to grant dispensations from the law because of the power of binding and loosing that Christ Jesus gave to his Church. The use of this authority is an act of prudential judgment; some bishops judge it useful to dispense from the law of abstinence and some (many more) do not.

I have never really understood why some people get upset if their bishop decides not to grant them a dispensation to eat meat on St. Patrick’s Day. Most – but not all – Catholics in the U.S.A. who want to eat meat to celebrate Saint Patrick want to eat corned beef, but the Irish do not eat corned beef on St. Patrick’s Day because corned beef is actually not an Irish dish, but a Jewish dish which Irish immigrants seem to have picked up in New York City.

Better in this instance, I think, to follow the insight of Saint Anthony of Padua, though I should perhaps say that I dislike both corned beef and cabbage.

Deacon Michael Friedel proclaims the Gospel at Papal Mass

A member of the clergy of the Diocese of Springfield in Illinois was chosen to proclaim the Gospel during the Holy Mass celebrated by His Holiness Pope Francis in the Basilica of St. Peter in honor of today's Solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God.

It fell to Deacon Michael Friedel to chant the passage from the Gospel of Saint Luke in which the shepherds find the Holy Family just as the angel had told them (2:16-21).

You can see a few shots of Deacon Friedel during the entrance procession. The Gospel procession begins at 19:05. He did a very fine job!

Deacon Friedel is from Holy Angels Parish in Wood River, Illinois and is preparing for the priesthood at the Pontifical North American College in Rome. He will, God willing, be ordained a priest of Jesus Christ this spring. Please remember him - and all of our seminarians - in your prayers.

Homily for the Pilgrimage Procession Commemorating Father Tolton's Return to Quincy

Pilgrimage Procession and Evening Prayer

Commemorating the 130^th Anniversary of the Return of the

Servant of God Father Augustus Tolton to Quincy

Dear brothers and sisters,

It was one hundred and thirty years ago this morning that the recently ordained Father Augustus Tolton returned to Quincy from Rome. Because I, too, recently returned to Quincy from studies in Rome, it is a day to which I feel a special affinity and a special closeness to Father Tolton.

In order to welcome him home, the priests then in Quincy chartered a special railroad car to bring Father Tolton from Springfield to Quincy. The train was named the “Q,” and when it pulled into the station at Front and Vermont streets, a brass band greeted Father Tolton by playing his favorite hymn, “Holy God, We Praise Thy Name.”

As he disembarked, a large crowd cheered and waved in greeting to the first black priest in these United States of America. Father Tolton climbed into a carriage, drawn by four white horses and decorated with flowers, and a procession with the band and the people moved from the train station to St. Peter’s church, then at Eighth and Maine streets.  As the procession moved along, the people shouted, “Father Tolton, Father Augustus Tolton! Welcome home! Welcome home!”

When the procession arrived at St. Peter’s church, Father Tolton entered the sanctuary, blessed his mother for the first time as a priest, and began giving his blessing to the hundreds of people who came to welcome him. They received him well and welcomed him gladly as a priest, though there was earlier some confusion concerning his person. In a brief notice concerning his return published in The Quincy Journal the day before, we read:

Father Tolton explains the report of his death, which was current a couple of months ago, as having arisen from a mistake in reading the cards he sent out in memory of his first mass. As the notice contained the words ‘In memoriam,’ he supposed it was taken as a death announcement.”[1]

This is but one small example of how, in many ways, his life was fraught with misunderstanding, a circumstance even present at his return to Quincy.

Father Tolton offered the holy sacrifice of the Mass for the first time in Quincy the following day at St. Boniface church, a celebration The Quincy Daily Journal called “the grandest service ever held in Quincy.”[2] It was a day on which, as Father Tolton later recalled, “everyone received me kindly, especially the Negroes, but also the White people: Germans, Irish, and all others. I celebrated Mass on July 18, in the Church of Saint Boniface with more than 1,000 whites and 500 colored people present.”[3]

Father Anselm, the rector of St. Francis College - which would later become Quincy College and then Quincy University - preached a sermon on the priesthood. Taking a text from Saint Paul as his launching point, “This is how one should regard us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God,” a text very dear to my own heart (and from which I have taken the title of my blog), he expounded on the duties and the necessity of the priesthood (I Corinthians 4:1). Afterwards, he said to those gathered, “Rejoice today because another priest has been given to us. Rejoice, and today when he holds in his hands that of which God has said, ‘This is my beloved son,’ pray for the church and that you may live and esteem and treat him as is due a priest.”[4]

Our celebration today may lack something of the pomp and grandeur of that one one hundred and thirty years ago today and our numbers may not be so high, but our devotion is no less than theirs. We, too, have come to honor the first black priest in our country and to give thanks to God for the gift of his heroic and faithful witness.

Father Tolton ministered in Quincy for nearly three and a half years before he left for Chicago to be away from an intolerable situation of prejudice. After he arrived in Chicago, Father Tolton wrote these words to a friend:

My gratitude to those people of the Gem City is threefold. Some of the white friends and benefactors of St. Joseph’s church did not forget their colored priest Father Tolton. They did not let him go away empty handed from the Gem City, but as a token of respect they have made him a suitable donation, asking him to remember them in his prayers, and promised to do three times more if he would only remain with them. Catholics will love and respect a priest regardless of nationality; at least that is the spirit of those people in the Gem City who knew me for twenty-nine years or more. Never will I forget the happy hours spent in the little St. Joseph church. I wish them all the blessings that can be bestowed upon them, for that charitable spirit that they have always shown toward me and the colored children.[5]

Three days after his departure from Quincy, Father Tolton was voted the second favorite priest in Quincy, despite the fact that he was no longer in the city. In fact, he missed being voted the favorite priest by just eleven and a half votes.[6]

All these years later, we have gathered to keep Father Anselm’s words; we have gathered to esteem Father Tolton and to treat him as is due a priest, to treat with respect and honor one who served so faithfully as a dispenser of the mysteries – of the sacraments – of God. We have come because, as the Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI reminds us,

the true stars of our life are the people who have lived good lives. They are lights of hope. Certainly, Jesus Christ is the true light, the sun that has risen above all the shadows of history. But to reach him we also need lights close by — people who shine with his light and so guide us along our way.[7]

In Father Tolton, we see the light of a good life that illuminates before us the path of Jesus Christ.

Throughout his life, Father Tolton remained “content with weakness, insults, hardships, persecutions, and constraints, for the sake of Christ” (II Corinthians 12:10). We have no record of him bemoaning the difficulties he encountered. We have no record of him drawing public attention to the harsh treatment he received from a fellow priest. In all things, he seems to have imitated Christ the Lord and remained a humble and long-suffering servant who united himself to Christ. This Servant of God allowed the love of the Lord to motivate his life and to this love he dedicated his life. His fidelity to the Church is a clear proclamation of the Gospel, and an invitation for all people to enter into and to know the merciful love of the Lord.

In this he is a model for each of us; never did he cease his proclamation of the Gospel, not even when he encountered discrimination and prejudice. As Father Roy Bauer has said, “Some people could easily judge that his life was not a success, but God calls His servants to be faithful, not successful!”[8] The fidelity of Father Tolton cannot be doubted, and for this reason he is a model and continual reminder for us that, as Saint Paul says, “when I am weak, then I am strong” (II Corinthians 12:10). This, I suspect, is why he remained so popular in Quincy even after he left for Chicago; this is why we remain attached to him today and have come to commemorate his return to the Gem City.

Father Tolton entrusted himself completely to the Lord and we now pray that he will soon be declared Blessed and raised to the dignity of the altars, a cause which continues to move slowly forward. Let us pray that, through his example and intercession, the Lord will raise up many more such servants of Christ in our Diocese, that each of the Lord’s altars may have a priest to administer the mysteries of God.  Amen!

---

[1] “Our Colored Priest,” The Quincy Journal, 17 July 1886.

[2] “Solemn High Mass,” The Quincy Daily Journal, 19 July 1886.

[3] Augustus Tolton, Letter to Cardinal Checchi, September 1886.

[4] “Solemn High Mass,” Quincy Daily Journal, 19 July 1886.

[5] Quoted in “Father Tolton,” The Quincy Daily Journal, November 13, 1889, page 4.

[6] “Lucky Ladies,” Quincy Daily Herald, November 17, 1899.

[7] Benedict XVI, Spe Salvi, 49.

[8] Roy Bauer, They Called Him Father Gus, Part Twenty-nine.

The flier for the Tolton pilgrimage procession

Though it is not necessary to do so, please don't forget to sign up on the Facebook page to help us plan for chairs and water. Thanks!

Quincy area Catholics to commemorate Father Tolton's return to Quincy

In just a few short days, we will commemorate the 130th anniversary of the return of the Servant of God Father Augustus Tolton to Quincy following the conclusion of his formation and studies for the priesthood in Rome. As I mentioned a few days ago, we will celebrate this historic occasion with a pilgrimage procession to his grave for the celebration of Vespers.

Yesterday afternoon, the Office of Communications of the Diocese of Springfield in Illinois issued this press release regarding the procession:

AREA CATHOLICS TO COMMEMORATE FATHER TOLTON’S RETURN TO QUINCY

QUINCY - Area Catholics and others devoted to the Servant of God Father Augustus Tolton will commemorate the 130^th anniversary of Father Tolton’s return to Quincy following his studies and ordination in Rome with a pilgrimage procession on July 17^th.

The pilgrimage procession will begin at 6:00 p.m. at the statue of Father Tolton outside St. Peter Catholic School at 2500 Maine Street. After a few words of welcome and explanation, followed by a prayer, the pilgrimage procession will process along the south side of Maine Street where it will cross onto the east side of South 33^rd Street. It will then process along the east side of South 33^rd Street until it reaches St. Peter Catholic Cemetery.

After entering the cemetery, the procession will stop at the grave of Father Tolton for the celebration of Evening Prayer at 7:00 p.m. After Evening Prayer, the pilgrims will pray for more priests through Father Tolton’s intercession and for his canonization as a saint.

The pilgrimage procession will conclude with the singing of “Holy God, We Praise Thy Name,” Father Tolton’s favorite song.

Those who wish to participate in the Evening Prayer but cannot walk in the procession are invited to park in the Midas parking lot. Because of the small size of the cemetery, no one should park in the cemetery itself.

Chairs and bottled water will be provided at the cemetery for those who wish to participate in the Evening Prayer.

Please help spread the word and make plans to join us. Please also let us know you are coming through the event page on Facebook (if you're not on Facebook, maybe you could drop a message in the comments here); this will help us plan for the chairs and water. Thank you!