Here you can have a little glimpse of eternity touching time. Most Reverend Robert W. Finn, DD, offered Mass for us in Our Lady's House at Ephesus, Turkey, each day of our pilgrimage, very early, before the typical crowd of 6,ooo other pilgrims arrived.
Bishop Finn became bishop of the Diocese of Kansas City - St. Joseph in May 2005, after spending a year there as coadjutor. During that time he assessed the distinct needs of the diocese. Not long after his appointment in Kansas City, he established two commissions to examine diocesan catechesis and evangelization.
“I asked my vice chancellor to take a zero-based approach,” explained Bishop Finn. “Assume if we didn’t have any programs at all, what would we need? What do people and pastors want?”
One commission surveyed the diocese, sought the assistance of others, such as Claude Sasson, a history professor who had a decade of experience developing catechetical programs, and ended up replacing the Center for Pastoral Life and Ministry — the diocese’s 27-year-old lay ministry program — with the Bishop Helmsing Institute, a faith-formation model aimed at adults.
“He cleared out that part of the diocese that was supposed to be the teaching part and was wholly inadequate,” said local civil litigation attorney Martin Meyers. “He’s uninterested in creating lay people as neo-clerics but is more interested in teaching people about their role as laity.”
“One of the focuses of the other group was preparing the diocese for when we didn’t have enough priests,” said St. Francis of the Holy Eucharist Sister Connie Boulch. Sister Connie serves as director of the Office of Consecrated Life, which Bishop Finn just started. “He has turned that around and wants a priest in every parish.”
“We needed to see if the program still fulfilled the particular needs it once took care of,” said Bishop Finn. “At over 20 years old, it was pre-Catechism of the Catholic Church. Whatever we do will take a strong lead from the Catechism. People don’t want to hear just sharings of the faith. They want more content so they can explain and defend their faith in the midst of the culture.”
This article continues the Register’s series exploring how some bishops are finding the voice to address the issues that most bishops, priests and deacons have tended to avoid.
Among others, it will feature Bishop Samuel Aquila of Fargo, N.D., Bishop Robert Baker of Charleston, S.C., Archbishop John Myers of Newark, N.J., Bishop Michael Sheridan of Colorado Springs, Colo. and Bishop Robert Vasa of Baker, Ore. The series previously featured Bishop Victor Galeone of St. Augustine, Fla. and Bishop Thomas Olmsted of Phoenix.
"There are cultural challenges about relativism and the rejection of any notion of objective or transcendent truth,” said Bishop Finn. “These views are challenging when they are presented among us by Catholics. Sometimes the varieties of points of view are defended under pluralism or tolerance.”
He sees clarity as the key to responding to such challenges.
“What our society needs more and more are clear references to what the Church teaches, both in doctrinal content and in moral principles,” said Bishop Finn. “The bishop is called to explicitly apply those principles to the world around him.”
“The youth have told us straight-forwardly that they want to know the authentic teachings of the Church and want to try to live them,” he continued. “The New Evangelization is a kind of re-evangelization of people like myself and others who were baptized Catholic or Christian. In the new millennium, I think we have to be very basic.”
Shortly after taking office, he eliminated a recurring column in the newspaper by University of Notre Dame theologian Father Richard McBrien. Bishop Finn said he made the decision because Father McBrien often questions Church teachings such as lifelong priestly celibacy.Wow, this sounds like a bishop and he's calling it out like it is!
The decision drew criticism from some of the newspaper’s readers.
“Bishop Finn removed Richard McBrien’s column from the Catholic Key not because McBrien is out of line, but because he personally does not agree with him,” wrote Karen Stigers of Kansas City in the Kansas City Star. “His actions … bear comparison to a corporate housecleaning in a hostile takeover.”
Yet, Bishop Finn sees his role as a teaching bishop as one that has a responsibility for what appears in his own diocesan newspaper.
We don't have any more rooms available in our cloister for women at this time. However, if you feel called to an enclosed life of adoration of Jesus in a spirit of thanksgiving there is still hope. We have other houses that you can contact. Below you can find some links to their websites.
