Two sides to a coin

I work for college students. I live among college students.

We live in a time in which people don't recognize authority...at least most don't. People want to know that an authority figure is a human being not entirely different from themselves. They want to joke with us but they also want to know that, despite that, I'm also holy, that I live up to what I preach.

So, the question that keeps coming up for me is when do I tell students that I can't go with them, that our journeys must go in different directions. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm never going to a bar with a group of students on a weekend night. I know priests who have done this because they met and ministered to students that they wouldn't have otherwise met. I can't get past the fact that bars tend to be places students go to get drunk. They lose inhibitions and act in ways that are inappropriate. It just seems unseemly.

Yet, sometimes students invite me over for a movie and, when I arrive, I realize one or two have a beer. They will even offer me a beer and, to be honest, I will have a beer or two with them. I'm not going to get drunk obviously but I'm not going to be puritanical either. I tend not to leave because the plan is not to get drunk but to have a drink and relax. I've had incredible conversations with students in this context because the questions that they've always wanted to ask but couldn't get the courage or didn't know how to ask them tend to come out. I feel like there's an opening for very good for ministry.

Yet, I sometimes fear that I'm getting too close; that I'm becoming too much like the "older brother" and not maintaining the "other side of the coin" that allows them to see in me the image of our heavenly Father. For me, this is what I'm learning here at St. Thomas. I'm learning how to be a priest to the current generation and how to figure out what the current generation needs in a priest. I tend to learn the hard way and there have been times when I've made mistakes, nothing that would in any way compromise my ability to be a priest but definitely times when I think that I wish I could pull those words back into my mouth or not act that way to this particular student. But, I feel blessed because students are very forgiving and very honest. They tell me when something is "not cool" and they tell me that they appreciate my willingness to walk among them now...to minister to them where they are.

I just hope that God will continue to give me the grace to minister to these students and help me be there for them when they need me. It's amazing. This has been one of those weeks where I , again, started asking if this is the right ministry for me and, if I'd stop listening to the voices that deform the gospel and listen to the people who I minister to, it would be to patently obvious that God has put me here. It doesn't matter if it's always comfortable. God wants me to be here. That is sufficient.

Bats in the bellfrey

Have you ever had a bat in your house?

I've had two circling my apartment in the last couple of weeks. One was above the drop celing in my kitchen. I called our janitor over and he took removed it from my house. Then, the other night, one was on my kitchen window. I thought I could get it out on my own but, one half hour of circling my living room later, I had a bat sleep-over in my apartment.

I found something out about mysel that night. Some people are scared of bats. I'm terrified. I didn't know this about myself. For all intents and purposes, this bat was trapped in my living room behind a stack of books in my book case. It couldn't have made it into my room because I had shut my door and put a pair of jeans below the door and hung a blanket over the entrance to the hallway (there's no door there so I used a blanket instead). I bet I got 15 minutes of sleep that night because I kept convincing myself that there was a bat in the room. Irrational? Absolutely! But that's what my brain told me was reality. Each time that I heard something in the room, each time that I felt movement close to my cheek, each time that I had an itch, it was the bat!

We rely on our brains to provide sensery data to us. Yet, our brains are not infallible. If there's one thing about the human person of which we are sure it is that. Look at history and we will see people who thought big rocks fall faster than little ones, the earth was flat and stationary with a bunch of star satelites revolving around it, and that the French are cultured. We search for hard and fast laws to define these realities. Isn't the true hubris of any civilization when that civilization believes it has all the answers or is capable of defeating all quandries?

I pose this because, quite often, the intellectual community will say that religion believes that it can answer questions that it cannot. Some of this criticism is justified. It's not fair to say that a four thousand year old document was trying to answer modern scientific questions about the creation of the earch, let alone the origin of human beings. The Bible was written to answer the question of who did it, not how was it done. They did an excellant job in keeping us focused on God and did the best they could with how the whole thing took place. I know fundamentalists give us a black eye by believing in a literal interpretation of Genesis (despite the discrepencies between the TWO creation stories) but isn't it AT LEAST ironic that some in the scientific community believe that they can bring about an end for the need for God. There are some people who believe that the time will come when all the questions we have will be answered and we will figure out that there is no God.

To this I quote a friend, "poppycock"! The more answers we get the more questions we have. When you answer one quandry it opens up a dozen more. Human beings are insatiably curious. That's why the Bush Administration can see a connection between 9-11 and Iraq and why the Democrats can see a connection between religion and terrorism: because we thirst for simple answers in a complex world, especially if those answers help us feel good about ourselves. Yet, in the end, there will always be things that we simply cannot resolve. I'm not being pessimisstic. I"m being optimistic in human society as a whole. We won't stop exploring because, when we do, we will die. Mystery is a necessary part of the human person. Some explain it away and, in the process, begin down a trek toward utter hopelessness. I prefer to allow it to exist and learn how to love it. I do so because I believe it loves me and wants me to know that.

keeping the traditions

I've been reflecting on a phrase from today's reading....

"Therefore, brothers and sisters, stand firm
and hold fast to the traditions that you were taught,
either by an oral statement or by a letter of ours."

I've been thinking about how Paul had to get them to think "outside the box" or, better "outside the book" every once in a while. He had to remind them that the written word can be distorted and that God didn't just leave us an instruction book and abandon us. That just doesn't make sense that God would do that. God has been clarifying his relationship to us througout time, the fullness of that revelation being in the Catholic Church. We are the ones who have held "fast to the traditions (we) have been taught".

Fear not. Stand firm. Be proud to be Catholic.

murmuring

The disciples this past Sunday were murmuring. Our liturgy was very packed since we spent the first ten minutes, or so, introducing our rather large staff. So, I had to be brief and focus on what I thought the point of the homily was. Give them something to go home and think about.

I tried to focus on what it means to murmur...how that tears apart a group. I encouraged people that have complaints to approach people who can answer questions rather than simply complaining. I also encouraged people to not stay on the fringes but to get involved. I thought that was, in essence, what Peter was saying when he said, “Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God.”

I wish I could have preached about the second reading about wives being submissive to husbands and such. And I wish I could have highlighted that, once again, Simon Peter is the one who has faith. But, you can't say everything.

Catholic Church not against Science

In a shocking development, this story will not make CNN or any of the major news networks.

Cardinal Christoph Schornborn of Vienna, Austria says we should study Darwinism as a science. Here's the thing that the church wants: you shouldn't have to choose to believe in God or believe in Darwin. You can believe in God, believe in the truth of revelation and still believe that we descend from Monkeys.

Shocking? Not if you had given even the slightest bit of attention.

completing my interviews

As I said in a previous post, I've been interviewing priests for an upcoming meeting of priests. I did the last one I will do last night. I didn't get all the ones I was responsible for done so I hope my brother priests will forgive. That's why I haven't posted in a while. I'm hoping that, once this is done, I'll be able to look around and find out what's been happening in the church. This feels way too much like the conclusion of finals week.

Great pastoral letter

Bishop Braxton of the Belleville, Illinois has written what I think is a great pastoral letter. You can find it here.

Pay particular attention to his critique of the direction of the church in the US. Very good for a pastor who has been there just one short year.

Retiree visits Lebanon

Most people, when they retire, start planning vacations.

Here's a cardinal who went to a war zone to make sure catholcs were doing what we could do.

I am the bread of Life

I can remember, in my younger days, seeing a female friend walking down the hallway of my High School. I ran up behind her, threw my arms around her waste, lifted her up in the air, (as was our custom) only to realize that this wasn’t my friend at all. This was a poor stranger that I was triumphantly holding up in the air…right next to her boyfriend. I apologized, put her down, and walked, red-faced, in the complete opposite direction. I imagine most of you have not had quite that huge of a mistake but we all get names and faces confused. After a year at St. Thomas, I still marvel at the number of people who I should be able to call by name that are still a mystery to me. I’d rather not call people by any name than call them by the wrong name and, being a man, I’ll definitely not ask them their name any more than I’ll ask for directions.

In the gospel today, we heard Jesus say, “I am the bread that came down from heaven,” It’s hard to believe that a seemingly simple statement such as this caused as much turmoil as it did and I have to be careful here because, two years ago, my homily got me in trouble. People complained loudly about it for this Sunday and I think part of the reason had to do with leaving out the context. You see, to understand why this statement is so controversial, you have to know what comes before it. You might remember that two weeks ago we heard the story of the multiplication of the loaves. Jesus looked out over the crowds and had pity on them. Last week, we briefly interrupted our regular Sunday schedule to celebrate the feast of the Transfiguration. We should have been hearing the first part of this reading in which, one day after the multiplication of loaves, a group who had been fed seek him out in order to be fed again. Most of us can probably sympathize with both Jesus and the crowd. When someone does something nice for you, you are more likely to turn to them in need, right? And, likewise, it seems like there are some people that constantly turn to you for help if you offer it once. In what was supposed to be last week’s reading, Jesus sought to help them understand that he wasn’t just giving them a hand-out, he was giving them salvation. They ask for a sign similar to the one that Moses had given their ancestors. So Jesus reveals to them that the bread that they were eating was his flesh that would, through his suffering on the cross and his glorious resurrection, redeem the world.

That brings us to our present reading which is, in some way, trying to clarify how Jesus’ flesh is this bread of life. There is an allusion to the Old Testament Exodus event in that, just as the Jews murmured through the desert on their way to the promised land, so this group of Jews are murmuring about Jesus’ identity. In some ways, this story reminds me of the story that we heard a few weeks ago when Jesus was in his home town but he could not perform a miracle for them because of their lack of faith. These Jews have the same objections. They ask, “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph? Do we not know his father and mother? Then how can he say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?” You can almost hear the sarcasm seething through each word. As scripture scholar Diane Bergant said, “In a clever turn-of-phrase, (Jesus) explains that only those drawn by God will be drawn by the one sent by God.”[1]

What would only become clear later was that, in this instruction, Jesus was calling them to a new identity. He was calling them to become Christian. Not just to break bread with him, but to believe in him and, through that belief to see in the bread the reality of his flesh, his very self. The action of the Eucharist was to manifest and enliven the faith that was given them by the Father. Now, please don’t get me wrong. If you know me you know that I have a profound love for the Jewish People. I get frustrated by the statements of some liberal Jews and I get frustrated by some of the actions of Israel. But, especially given what has happened surrounding Mel Gibson and the military activity in the Middle East, I think it’s once again important to understand that Jesus was inviting the Jews to a fuller, deeper understanding of their relationship to God, not nullifying their past understanding. Our Jewish brothers and sisters remain in a relationship with God, even if it is incomplete without an understanding of the messiah.

In our present circumstances, unfortunately, the Eucharist not only separates Jew from Christian but, as we are all painfully aware of, it also separates Christian from Christian. In our ecumenically charged world in which we tend to emphasize what unites us as Christians and even find ourselves frustrated by certain Christian denominations that don’t even consider us Christian, we may feel tempted to obliterate the differences and expect that anyone is allowed to take communion. As we look more deeply at this reading, we are confronted by a very divisive Christ that does not tolerate half-hearted unity. Either, we understand that, through the body of Christ that we receive and the faith that we cultivate, we are being led to the Father or we do not have eternal life. This isn’t simple bread that appears from heaven, this is the flesh of Jesus Christ that connects our lives to the cross. In our exuberance to be one, we cannot deny the differences that painfully separate the body of Christ even as we continue to pray and work for those differences to be eliminated. We, as Catholics, must continue to take seriously the gospel call, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.”

[1] Bergant, Diane Preaching the New Lectionary Liturgical Press, Collegeville, Mn c. 1999

Don't use American Express

This post is one of those "my own opinion" pieces. There is no sin involved with those people who disagree with me and I'm in no way proposing that the church has any agreement with this post.

But, I'm one of those people that sends a request to credit card soliciters that they stop doing it. I use their own "no postage necessary" envelopes when I do so by circiling my name and saying something like, "Please do not contact me as I have no desire to use your credit card." Sometimes they will send a second time and I will write, "Second Time" and repeat the above or a variation with a more direct message (something along the lines of "cease and desist").

I think the all of the credit card companies have figured out that they are annoying me not making any positive impression...all except American Express. I have asked them three times before to cease and desist but they continue to waste paper and IGNORE what I have to say. So, here's my request. There are tons of good credit cards out there that listen to people. They solicit but they don't waste all kinds of money and paper when people make it quite clear that they don't want their product. If you have an American Express, your card does this. So, why do you want to use it? I think it's time to destroy our American Express cards and let them know that we are doing so because of unethical solicitation practices.

myspace worries

A while back, a friend talked me into making a profile for myspace.com. I believe that if you go to www.myspace.com/fatherdennis that it will send you to the site. So far, I've connected with three guys that I thought had fallen off the face of the earth and it's proving to be one way of finding those college friends that I just kind-of lost.

In the process, I've received several inquiries from attractive young women to become their friends or start conversations with them. I wrote to the first three asking if I knew them and received no response. I don't know think it's healthy to meet friends via the internet. I don't mind reconnecting with people but, just like I don't dial random phone numbers just to meet people, so I don't just look up random people and try to correspond with them.

But, it does make me wonder how many men have done this. Hoe many married men are cheating on their wives, even if it is just in the heart, by corresponding to these women? How many men are writing to desperate housewives, so to speak, in order to do the same thing? I just find this troubling.

first bat of the season

Usually I post profound theological posts here on my blog. I imagine all of you know that by now. But, I'm on vacation. So, here's what I did today.

I was sitting in my dining room listening to the radio and watching TV when I heard movement above me. I thought a mouse had somehow got into the drop ceiling of my kitchen but, then, it moved really fast from one corner over to the other. I was tempted to move the ceiling and see what was there when I thought to myself, "what are you doing? What would the Archbishop say if you got rabies because you were trying to get a bat out of your apartment. So, I called the building manager and told him that I had a critter in my ceiling.

It was small and, according to the janitor, laying in the corner. But, he's not in my house anymore. And, for the second year in a row, I have the first bat of the season in my apartment.

Homily Panic

I had put the final touches on my homily at around 11:00 Saturday night. It was a very eventful Saturday as some of my extended family came to my apartment for a visit and supper. While it was good to see them and good to travel to the Iowa Cubs baseball game, I was short on homily preparation time. But, I got a decent one prepared and, right when my brain seemed too tired to function, I heard the knocking on the back door. It was a couple of friends, one of whom is beginning doctoral studies at the University of Evil...I mean Iowa. So, after a couple of relaxing beverages, I told them that it was time for me to go to bed and thanked them for their visit. Before one left, however, she asked me if I had looked at the second reading. I said I had...one of Paul's lettters. She said that it was one of Peter's, which made me think she was crazy. I brushed my teeth, prayed my night prayers and entered into night silence. Precious sleep.

Then it hit me.

This Sunday is not the 18th Sunday in Ordinary Time. This Sunday is the Feast of Transfiguration! I had prepared the homily for the wrong celebration. I shot out of bed and found my "lost cause" website. Thank goodness I could re-work it slightly and use it instead of having to make no sense with my other homily.

What's truly ironic was that my other homily was going to be based on the predictability of the church...how you can go to church most every sunday and receive the same body and blood, hear the same prayers and readings, etc. This is a source of consolation for us that we don't have to make stuff up. I had to change it up, though.

youtube

I found this great website that posts a few great television shows from times past. When you have some time and need a blast from the past, click here.

Introduction

Mahna Mahna

Swedish Chef making sweedish meatballs

I've been memed!

Don't know what being memed means? Here's a definition. Thanks Domini Sumus.

1. One book that changed your life
The Sabbath by Abraham Josua Heschel. I know, I know, that's not Christian. But all Christians can understand Christ a little better by reading Heschel. This book showed me how the day of rest is what re-orients our life to God. Man was made for the Sabbath and the Sabbath was made for man.

2. One book that you've read more than once
The Lord of the Rings. Love it!

3. One book you'd want on a desert island
I wish it was the Bible and I know I would need it but I don't know how I'd survive without my brievary! I know the psalms are all there but I could find all the material for prayer that I would ever need in my brievary.

4. One book that made you laugh
DON'T HATE ME!!!! Rush Limbaugh is a big, fat, Idiot by Al Franken. It was vulgar and contained way too many swear words but I really don't like Rush Limbaugh and this book helped me explain why...dialogues are supposed to be two way not playing something someone says and then commenting on what they say. Franken is not always right but he's right in many of his criticisms of the conservative media.

5. One book that made me cry
This is a tough one, not only because I'm a guy and, therefore, never cry but because I don't read frustrating works. But, if you were looking for books that should have been a lot better, on the top of my list was "Lake Wobegon Summer 1956" which had one funny part and then really sucked after that.

6. One book you wish had been written
How to make a young man know that priesthood/celibacy is a great life. I not only wish that I could write it, I wish I could explain it.

7. One book you wish had never been written
Duh Vinci Code. If you know me, you know that I believe this is the most evil book ever written and that it will only cause evil. People who think this book will cause people to think about religion and that all publicity is good publicity are ignoring the problem that we are beginning to experience within Christianity: freedom is not defined as the ability to tell God what he should be/do.

8. One book you're currently reading
The Collar by Jonathon Englert. REALLY BAD THEOLOGICAL EXPLANATIONS!!! But, I'm waiting to see what's going to happen with some of the guys. One of the guys is the typical liberal wacko straight out of the sixties/seventies: women priests, married priests, communion for anyone even unbaptized, church should be out in the trenches and doing everything different, destroy the church and her history and that's going to be good. He's either going to leave seminary or have to change.

9. One book you've been meaning to read
Let me start a list:
Christian Faith and Same-Sex Attraction: Eastern Orthodox Reflections. by Thomas Hopko
Deep Conversion Deep Prayer by Thomas Duba SM
God is Near us by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger
Priestly Celibacy Today by Thomas McGovern

Cardinal Johannes Willebrands

Probably no one really knew who this man was but he worked tirelessly for the ecumenical movement to make us one again. Who's gonna fill his shoes?

A better tribute than "Have you forgotten"

I don't like the song "Have you forgotten" by Toby Keith. First of all, I don't like his voice. He's got a problem with what I call forced vibrato. But, secondly, he acts like a schill for the Bush administration. I haven't forgotten about the World Trade Center. Have you forgotten that Iraq and Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with that and that while we waste precious resources fighting that war, the real war on terror OSAMA BIN LADEN, continues to make movies and reinforce troops. I want to shout, "no, I haven't forgotten. How in the heck did you?"

So, I don't like the song. I found this video using Enya's song "Only Time", which I find to be a better reminder of that awful day.

God or the GIRL

So, I found out here that the one guy in the series "God or the Girl" that was supposed to have gone to the seminary never went.

It's not a huge surprise. I was encouraged by the fact that he was one guy that seemed to have celibacy in correct perspective. But, he was too affective. You can't depend on God to make this vocation feel comfortable. It's innately uncomfortable.

Just as the grains of wheat are gathered, so let your church be gathered

In one of the earliest descriptions of mass, called the Didache, this prayer was prayed over the bread, “We thank you, our Father, for the life and knowledge which You made known to us through Jesus your Servant; to you be the glory for ever. Even as this broken bread was scattered over the hills, and was gathered together and became one, so let your Church be gathered together from the ends of the earth into your kingdom; for yours is the glory and the power through Jesus Christ for ever.” I was thinking about that the other day when something strange happened. I looked around the student center and asked myself, “Where are all the students?” Now, you may ask yourself if I’m totally oblivious to what is happening around me or if I had a temporary memory loss, but let me assure that, you that life at St. Thomas is not like a Soap Opera. Instead, what happened was that I became acutely aware that I’m really looking forward to having the rest of our parish back. It’s not that I don’t appreciate those of you who have stayed here the whole time; our resident parishioners and student parishioners who were here for the summer, but, to use an image borrowed from Pope John Paul II, our parish has two lungs and one of them has been gone for a while. It will be nice when we have them both back.

The ironic thing is that you would have received an entirely different response from me two or three months ago. I was ready for some peace and quiet after several 2:00am moments of being awoken as the bar crowd walked by my window. I actually looked out as Buchanan hall one Saturday morning when all kinds of moving vans and trucks were pulling up to take students home and I said to myself, “good, get those kids out of here” now I want them back so that our parish can get back to normal.

Our gospel today is both a culmination and a transition: it is the culmination of what has taken place the last two Sundays. These past few Sunday’s we’ve been hearing a consecutive set of readings from the gospel of Mark. You might remember two Sundays ago, Fr. Ev preached about how the apostles were sent on mission and Fr. Ev also challenged us to go on mission. Last week, I preached about the return of the apostles and how they were not given time to reflect on their evangelical mission because they were overrun by people. I challenged us to persevere through the tough times in order to carry out the mission that we began. The next story in Mark is the very story that we heard today but, as you may have caught, we transitioned to the Gospel of John. Same story, just expanded a little bit…enough to fill five Sundays talking about the bread of life. The transition to this is this miracle story of the feeding of the 5000 and all that surrounds it. Just like last week, we recognize that the success of the apostles evangelical endeavors has led to a large crowd that seemed like sheep without a shepherd, to use terminology from the gospel of Mark. In John, however, there is no demand for food. Jesus just knows their hunger and desires to feed them. I imagine most of us can sympathize with the hunger of the crowd. But, imagine being Phillip who heard that it’s his responsibility to feed them. It seems impossible. It would take 200 days wages to feed 5000 people! It takes Andrew’s cool head to see that Jesus wasn’t going to leave them without hope. He was probably at the wedding at Cana when Jesus turned Water into wine, he knew he could feed the hungry masses. Because of a boy’s five loaves and two fish and the faith of Andrew, the whole crowd is fed such that there is even more left over than when they started.

I think it deserves to be said that there are a few messages that aren’t quite central for this reading. The fact that there was enough left over that they had to gather it up is not just an ecological message about not wasting food, even though that’s a good message that we Americans need to hear. Nor is this gospel merely a message about sharing, as though the crowd, upon seeing the young man turn over his meager fish and loaves, opened their bags and started giving over what they had. It’s obvious from their reaction, wanting to make him king, that a real miracle happened here similar to the miracle that Elisha did in the first reading. Despite how important an ecological message or a message about sharing is, neither of them really has to do with this particular passage of scripture.

Instead, taking the next step from the previous two passages in Mark, Jesus is trying to tell us that his message needs to go out to all people, not just either to those who want to hear it or those who act like they want to hear it. Our goal, according to the second reading today, is “to preserve the unity of the spirit through the bond of peace”. God wants us all to be united under Jesus Christ “with all humility and gentleness, with patience.” Just as Jesus gathered the fragments together, so we are called to gather the lost sheep together, especially the ones that are hardest to convince.

In the next few weeks, we will go through a difficult transition with the arrival of several new parishioners. Many of them will walk into St. Thomas and experience a liturgy like they have never experienced before. Let’s face facts; we do things here that don’t happen in most other catholic churches. This is intimidating and, again to be honest, it turns some people off. One thing that can help people make the transition to St. Thomas a little easier is quite simple: helping them know that even as strange as our liturgy might seem, they belong here. This is part of our common mission as baptized Christians – to welcome the stranger and help them feel united to us. It’s not just the role of the staff or even just the role hospitality ministers. All of us are called to do what we can to gather the people of God together so that, “(e)ven as this broken bread was scattered over the hills, and was gathered together and became one, so let your Church be gathered together from the ends of the earth into your kingdom; for yours is the glory and the power through Jesus Christ for ever.”

The Collar

I was reading this book called The Collar by Jonathon Englert about a group of second-career seminarians at Sacred Heart Seminary in Hales Corners, Wisonsin. Now, admittedly, the author was denied access to two other seminaries after being told he would have access. The sexual abuse crisis seems to have forced some vocation directors to re-think the exposure they want their seminarians to have. Nonetheless, it looks like the actual stories of the men will be good so I'm going to stick with it. One complaint that I have is that the author tries to explain complex theological issues but is wrong. For instance, an annulment is not when a person's civil marriage is considered valid while the sacramental marriage is considered invalid. There is one marriage here. The whole marriage is considered flawed from the beginning. Not being a theologian, who can fault him for that mistake? Plus, the book is about the life of these guys who have all lived "other lives" that are now considering priesthood, not about annulments.

The author described what happened during orientation. One evening they did a Native American prayer service before supper and sang a song based on the Mickey Mouse Club song in which the spelling of the letters to Mickey Mouse was replaced by S-A-C R-E-D H-E-A-R-T during supper. I almost lost my lunch...and this was right before going to bed! This is how you want to present prayer to new seminarians?

Seminarians need to know the church's prayer. Why not pray liturgy of the hours and chant the Salve Regina during supper? Believe it or not, I've never experienced Native American spirituality or sang campy pop quasi church songs before and I think I'm a pretty well formed priest. But, if you start chanting "Regina Coeli, laetare" I can sing along because I did it at St. Paul Seminary. If they aren't rooted in the church's teaching, how can they possibly ever be considered a competent spokesman for the church?