Today, I attended our Clergy Conference for the Central Diocese, and was invited by my Bishop to assist at the Holy Mass of Chrism. This Holy Mass is concelebrated with all the Priests of the Diocese signifying the unity of the Holy Priesthood.
P. So the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered the council, and said, —What are we to do? For this man performs many signs. If we let him go on thus, everyone will believe in Him, and the Romans will come and destroy both our holy place and our nation.
Choir: But one of them, Caiaphas who was high priest that year, said to them, —You know nothing at all; you do not understand that it is expedient for you that one man should die for the people and that the whole nation should not perish—. So from that day on they took counsel how to put Him to death, for as they said: —The Romans will come and destroy both our holy place and our nation—.
P. With hyssop sprinkle me, o Lord, and I shall be cleansed. Wash me and I shall be whiter than the snow.
May my prayer before You be counted as incense and the lifting up of my hands as an evening sacrifice.
Choir: Children of the Hebrews, bearing branches of olive went out to meet the Lord, crying: Hosanna in the highest! Children of the Hebrews spread their garments on the road and cried out saying: Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.
P. And when they drew near to Jerusalem, then Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them: —Go into the village opposite you, where you will find an ass tied and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to Me. If anyone says anything to you, you shall say, —The Lord has need of them!— The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them; they brought the ass and the colt and put their garments on them and He sat thereon. Most of the crowd spread their garments on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road and the crowds who went before Him and that followed shouted,
Choir: Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord! O King of Israel: Hosanna in the highest!
First reading: Isaiah 50:4-7
Psalm: Ps 22:8-9,17-20,23-24—¨
Epistle: Philippians 2:6-11
Gospel: Luke 22-23—¨
The Lord GOD has given me—¨
a well-trained tongue,
—¨that I might know how to speak to the weary
—¨a word that will rouse them.
Lord for us Your wounds were suffered
Oh Christ Jesus have mercy on us—¨
Christ speaks to us profoundly
At the beginning of our first reading, taken from Isaiah, the Lord tells us that His Word, Jesus Christ, is the Word that will be spoken to us. He tells us that our Savior will speak profound and moving words that cut through the chatter and clutter that infect our lives. He tells us that His beloved Son will rouse us when we are weary. Jesus will change us.
As we know, Isaiah is writing well before Jesus’ coming. He likely ended his ministry of prophesy about 680 years before Jesus’ coming. Yet through Isaiah the coming Savior is clearly prefigured.
God is telling us that the life of Jesus, the life we are to model and imitate, this life of a servant who will be beaten and looked upon as lowly and outcast, is more than just a wasted life. Jesus’ life is the life offered for us. Jesus’ life as the servant, offered up for us, brings real change. That change is for you and me. There is real change, day-to-day renewal and rebirth here in Johnson City, and in Binghamton, Albany, Utica, Scranton, Oneonta, and in cities, towns, and villages around the world. That change in Jesus starts now and ends in glory.
His words and His path are one
Indeed, Jesus cuts through the noise of the world and unifies everything in Himself. Jesus’ life, words, and ministry are not just a series of historical one-off events, but a unity of message and purpose. Jesus’ life is an eternal constant, and the love and salvation He brings has been and will always be there for us.
When we join ourselves to Him in our Holy Polish National Church we become part of that constant, the life and words of Jesus washing away the old, destroying the noise, picking us up, rousing us, and changing us.
This week’s path will weary us
The path we follow this week will weary us. Whether that weary comes from the commitment, time, and sacrifice necessary to be with Jesus through these holiest of days, from Maundy Thursday to Resurrection morning, or the shopping, cooking, and cleaning that need to be done, or the work schedule that cannot wait, or the children, or projects, the weariness will be there. Our eyes will be heavy like the eyes of the disciples’ were in the garden. We will feel like we want to run away, like the disciples did. Our crosses will sit heavy upon our shoulders, as the cross bore down on Jesus.
This week’s path will rouse us
But, Jesus will rouse us. Walking this path will empty us of the old and fill us with new life. St. Paul gives us the greatest hymn of all time in today’s Epistle. This ancient Church hymn tells us what His disciples found from the beginning, that Jesus came emptied of His Godship to serve us, that He offered Himself as a sacrifice for us, and these words that rouse us: He reigns in Heaven with the Father and the Spirit.
The weariness gives way to the great and high position of Jesus in which we have a share. Christ lives eternally in glory, and so shall we. This is our assurance, the promised change Jesus brings to us. We know what awaits us. We will be changed into the glory that awaits us in heaven with Jesus forever. This is our great and rousing joy!
This week’s path buries us
This week we are buried with Christ. It is important to recall that during Holy Week we recall and renew our Baptism. As St. Paul tells us (Romans 6:4):
We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
In baptism our old nature was buried. We are buried in those waters. That burial of the old self prepares us for the change Jesus has for us. Jesus’ change makes us new men and women.
This week’s path resurrects us.
The new man is our resurrected selves. As we emerged from the waters of Baptism so we emerge changed, into a new and resurrected life with Jesus.
Our rebirth, regeneration in Baptism, is the doorway into Jesus’ resurrected life. The grave is nothing to us because it is but a way station, a brief respite for our bodies before they enter into God’s glory. As we process on Easter Sunday morning we process changed people. The burial is forgotten, God’s glory is before us.
This week’s path surpasses all the glories we can imagine.
This week’s path is a series of steps. If we have walked them once or one hundred times, let us never forget that walking them is a small price to pay for the direction in which they lead. They lead to Jesus, to that moment when we stand as a changed, reborn, regenerated, renewed people before the throne of God. That eternal moment will surpass all the glories we can imagine, and indeed have ever been imagined. Earthly glories are but a thimble sized amount of the glory we will behold as a people changed by Jesus.
This week, my friends, walk the path and allow our Lord and Savior to push out the old, to crush the noise, and to make us a changed people once again. He is ready to do it. Only let Him. Amen.
President Michael M. Kaiser of the Kennedy Center is traveling to all 50 States, Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C., to assist arts organizations in need. He will be coming to Albany, NY on Tuesday, April 27, 2010 from 9:30 AM – 11:30 AM at The Linda, WAMC’s Performing Arts Studio, 339 Central Avenue, Albany, NY to present Arts in Crisis: A Kennedy Center Initiative.
To attend, please RSVP by calling 518-465-5233. x145. The event is FREE and open to the public.
Mr. Kaiser will engage in an interview format discussion with the President and CEO of WAMC Northeast Public Radio, Alan Chartock, with an audience Q&A session to follow.
Arts in Crisis also enables senior arts managers across the United States to volunteer to serve as mentors to other arts organizations.
—There are many talented arts administrators around the country, and we encourage them to lend their expertise,— said Michael Kaiser. —If all of us work together, we can turn a time of crisis into a time of opportunity.—
Non-profit performing arts organizations who would like to participate in the program should submit an online request. The Kennedy Center will quickly match organizations in need with a member of the Kennedy Center executive staff or a volunteer mentor in their local area.
The program, open to non-profit 501(c)(3) performing arts organizations, provides free and confidential planning assistance in areas pertinent to maintaining a vital performing arts organization during a troubled economy. The program is currently working with almost 500 organizations in 40 states, Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia. More than 120 experienced arts leaders from across the country are volunteering their time to serve as mentors to organizations in need.
“Children’s Odyssey” will be screened on 13 April 2009 at 7:30PM at Congregation Beth David in Saratoga CA. One of the children, who survived the journey, featured in the film, Joe Rosenbaum, will be on hand to provide personal background and answer questions.
The Children’s Odyssey tells the relatively unknown story of a group of Polish Jewish children who are now known as the —Tehran Children.—
When Germany declared war on Poland in September 1939, more than 300,000 Jews fled eastward, among them thousands of children. It was a 4-year odyssey in which these children, aged 2 to 15, went from Poland to Persia. Only about 1,000 reached their haven: Teheran. Then they struggled on – by ship and rail to Palestine. This film shows again how, in times of war and persecution, children have so often faced appalling hardships and overwhelming challenges – and overcome them.
No Hopers, Jokers & Rogues from Ben Woolnough on Vimeo.
Fisherman’s Friends, is an emerging vocal group from Port Isaac in Cornwall. The group of 10 includes former or current fishermen, coast guardsmen and marine rescuers. For nearly 15 years they have gathered on evenings by the shore or in local pubs to have a few beers and sing sea shanties.
The group has recorded two CDs with their own interpretations of shanties. A vacationer recently came across them at the pub where they normally gathered and saw the potential. That vacationer was record producer Rupert Christie who brought them to Universal’s attention. The group signed with Universal this March.
The group’s prior two CD’s will soon be joined by a third. Their first album was recorded in a fifteenth-century church in St. Kew, Cornwall (the video above). They have also been invited to sing at the Glastonbury summer music festival.
Two cases, highlighted below, where individuals, institutions, and a whole diocese have fallen short of the Church’s teaching on Labor.
From IWJ: Healthcare workers in Michigan–and across the country–need our support!
In his recent Encyclical, Caritas in Veritate, Pope Benedict XVI repeatedly speaks of the “grave dangers for the rights of workers” that today imperil so many of our friends and neighbors who struggle daily to provide security for their families. It is imperative that people of faith stand with those workers hoping to secure wages and benefits consistent with their dignity as children of God.
Ascension Health is the nation’s largest Catholic and non-profit health system, comprised of 37 health systems or centers in 20 states, totaling over 570 hospitals, clinics, rehabilitation centers, labs, and other facilities. The employees of Genesys Health System, a member of Ascension Health, provide health care services in the Flint, Michigan area.
The management of Genesys is proposing severe wage, benefit, and pension cuts for several hundred of its employees. These healthcare workers are men and women committed to serving the health and welfare of the members of their communities.
On Friday, March 12, Genesys workers and their supporters traveled to the Ascension headquarters in St. Louis, Mo. to protest these wage and benefit cuts. Workers also gathered at Ascension centers in seven cities across the country – Washington, D.C., Buffalo, N.Y., Tucson, Ariz, Detroit, Flint, Mich. and Kansas City, Mo. – and held vigils before the management of Ascension and its subsidiary, Genesys Health System.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops reminds us that “among the elements of a just and fair workplace [in medical and health care centers] are: fair wages, adequate benefits, safe and decent working conditions…” (See A Fair and Just Workplace: Principles and Practices for Catholic Health Care.) These things are indispensible if we hope to assure quality care for patients and dignity for working people.
As has been seen in several Labor issues over the past few years, the message often does not translate into action. While the R.C. Church is not unique in pushing out Unions, or resisting employee efforts to unionize, it should hold itself to a higher standard, especially in light of Encyclicals exhorting fair treatment of workers going back to Leo XIII.
From the U.S. Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit via BNA: Ninth Circuit Nixes Seminarian’s Wage Claim, Says Exception Applies to Priest-in-Training
The First Amendment’s “ministerial exception” barred a Catholic seminarian from bringing his claim for unpaid overtime compensation against the Corporation of the Catholic Archbishop of Seattle under the Washington Minimum Wage Act, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled March 16 (Rosas v. Corp. of the Catholic Archbishop of Seattle, 9th Cir., No. 09-35003, 3/16/10 [pdf]).
Judge Robert R. Beezer wrote for the unanimous panel that the “ministerial exception helps to preserve the wall between church and state from even the mundane government intrusion presented here.” “The district court correctly determined that the ministerial exception bars [Cesar] Rosas’s claim and dismissed the case on the pleadings,” Beezer wrote.
In affirming the lower court, Beezer found that the interplay between the First Amendment’s Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses carves out an exception to otherwise applicable statutes if enforcing them would interfere with religious organizations’ employment decisions about their ministers.
Seminarian in Ministry Training Program
Rosas was a Mexican seminarian who was required to participate in a ministry training program at St. Mary Catholic Church in Marysville, Wash., located in Snohomish County, as part of the ordination process for the Catholic priesthood.
Rosas and another Mexican seminarian, Jesus Alcazar, worked under the supervision of St. Mary’s parish priest, Horatio Yanez, performing some pastoral duties and doing maintenance work for the church in 2002.
In February 2006 both Rosas and Alcazar filed a lawsuit against the Archdiocese alleging Yanez had sexually harassed Alcazar and that the Archdiocese fired them in violation of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act for complaining and reporting the conduct. The two men also claimed the Archdiocese had failed to pay them overtime compensation in violation of the Washington Minimum Wage Act.
Trial Court Dismisses Wage Claims
The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington dismissed Rosas’s harassment claim because he had not indicated that he had been sexually harassed but allowed Alcazar’s sexual harassment claim to proceed (4 DLR A-10, 1/8/07).
Alcazar subsequently settled his sexual harassment claim against the Archdiocese and was dismissed from the lawsuit.
The district court dismissed all other claims on the pleadings as barred by the First Amendment’s ministerial exception. “This exception prohibits a court from inquiring into the decisions of a religious organization concerning the hiring, firing, promotion, rate of pay, placement or any other employment related decision concerning ministers and other non-secular employees,” the trial court said.
Ministerial Exception Applies to State Law Claims
Rosas argued on appeal that the district court had erred in dismissing his state law claim without first determining if requiring the church to pay overtime wages actually burdened the church’s religious beliefs. Second, Rosas argued that requiring the church to pay overtime wages did not implicate a protected employment decision. Finally, he claimed that the district court erred in determining on the pleadings that he was a “minister” to whom the exception applied.
The appellate panel disagreed. Beezer first clarified that although the district court had relied on precedent involving only Title VII cases, the exception also applied to state law claims.
Beezer wrote that the ministerial exception encompassed “all tangible employment actions” and barred lawsuits seeking damages for lost or reduced pay.
“Our previous cases focus on Title VII, but our analysis in those cases compels the conclusion that the ministerial exception analysis applies to Washington’s Minimum Wage Act as well,” Beezer wrote. “Because the ministerial exception is constitutionally compelled, it applies as a matter of law across statutes, both state and federal, that would interfere with the church-minister relationship.”
Next, Beezer disposed of Rosas’s assertion that the trial court should have considered if the law “actually” burdened the church. “The [ministerial] exception was created because government interference with the church-minister relationship inherently burdens religion.”
Overtime Claim Triggers Exception
In addition, Beezer said that Rosas had misinterpreted Ninth Circuit precedent in arguing that the payment of overtime wages was not a protected employment decision that would trigger the exception.
Beezer said that Rosas admitted that his case involved the training and selection of the Catholic Church’s priests-issues the Ninth Circuit had expressly addressed in Bollard v. Cal. Province of the Soc’y of Jesus, 196 F. 3d 940, 81 FEP Cases 660 (9th Cir. 1999); (232 DLR AA-1, 12/3/99).
“This case thus quintessentially follows Bollard’s explanation,” Beezer wrote. “Rosas interprets our case law too narrowly. Bollard refers not only to the selection of ministers but more broadly to ’employment decisions regarding … ministers,’ ”
Beezer wrote that the ministerial exception therefore encompassed “all tangible employment actions” and barred lawsuits seeking damages for lost or reduced pay.
Finally, Beezer rejected Rosas’s argument that the district court erred in ruling on the pleadings that the exception applied because Rosas claimed that his primary duties at the church primarily involved maintenance rather than ministerial duties…
Here is some text from Judge Beezer’s decision (emphasis mine and discussed below):
“The First Amendment has erected a wall between church and state. That wall must be kept high and impregnable. We could not approve the slightest breach.” Everson v. Bd. of Educ., 330 U.S. 1, 18 (1947). The interplay between the First Amendment’s Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses creates an exception to an otherwise fully applicable statute if the statute would interfere with a religious organization’s employment decisions regarding its ministers. Bollard v. Cal. Province of the Soc’y of Jesus, 196 F.3d 940, 944, 946-47 (9th Cir. 1999). This “ministerial exception” helps to preserve the wall between church and state from even the mundane government intrusion presented here. In this case, plaintiff Cesar Rosas seeks pay for the overtime hours he worked as a seminarian in a Catholic church in Washington. The district court correctly determined that the ministerial exception bars Rosas’s claim and dismissed the case on the pleadings. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, 1 and we affirm.
…
Cesar Rosas and Jesus Alcazar were Catholic seminarians in Mexico. The Catholic Church required them to participate in a ministry training program at St. Mary Catholic Church in Marysville, Washington as their next step in becoming ordained priests. At St. Mary, Rosas and Alcazar allegedly suffered retaliation for claiming that Father Yanez
Currently Pastor of Holy Family Parish in Seattle, WA. sexually harassed Alcazar, and they eventually sued Father Yanez and the Corporation of the Catholic Archbishop of Seattle (“defendants”) under Title VII. 2 In addition, Rosas and Alcazar sued under supplemental jurisdiction for violations of Washington’s Minimum Wage Act for failure to pay overtime wages. See Wash. Rev. Code § 49.46.130. The district court dismissed the overtime wage claims on the pleadings, see Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(c), and Rosas’s overtime wage claim is the only issue on appeal.…
Because the judgment was on the pleadings, the pleadings alone must be sufficient to support the district court’s judgment. We thus base our decision on the very few allegations in Rosas’s complaint. Rosas alleges as follows:
1.3 … The Corporation of the Catholic Archbishop of Seattle hosted [Rosas] as [a] participant[ ] in a training/pastoral ministry program for the priesthood.
. . . .
2.2 Cesar Rosas entered the seminary to become a Catholic priest in 1995 in Mexico.
2.3 As part of [his] preparation for ordination into the priesthood, the Catholic Church required [Rosas] to engage in a ministerial placement outside [his] diocese, under the supervision of a pastor of the parish into which [he was] placed. The Archdiocese of Seattle sends seminarians to Mexico and has Mexican seminarians come to its parishes. [Rosas was] placed in St. Mary Parish in Marysville, Washington under the supervision of defendant Fr. Horatio Yanez.
. . . .
2.10 … [Rosas] was hired to do maintenance of the church and also assisted with Mass. He … worked many overtime hours he was not compensated for.
First, I think the Court erred in defining exactly what a minister is. Is a seminarian a minister of the R.C. Church? It could be argued that in the Roman Church, prior to Vatican II, most seminarians were ministers of the Church since they were likely tonsured and deemed clerics entitled to beneficences (the civil benefits then enjoyed by clerics)
In this day and age a R.C. seminarian is no more a minister than your average lay person. They receive no beneficence from the Roman Church (health care, salary, stipend, room and board), nor are they entitled to carry out any ministry different than your average lay person (men and women both who may serve at the altar, distribute the Holy Eucharist – yuk, read the lessons, etc.). The average seminarian is just a student and a “civilian” with a vocational choice.
Next, seminaries are open to any lay person who may engage in a variety of ‘ministries’ or jobs in the Church. It is definitely no exclusive club and there is no real differentiation any longer. Any person may be in a training program related to their studies (an internship/externship) which makes the work these seminarians were doing no different from your average pew dweller. The Court, and likely the defendant’s lawyers, missed that point
Additionally, look at the work they were “hired” to do. The Archdiocese of Seattle took these university educated Mexicans, and in typically American fashion, made them maintenance men who also happened to serve as altar boys from time-to-time. It would only have been worse if the Archdiocese would have had them go out and pick crops. There is definitely something wrong here. If the ministerial teaching was to be about menial labor and humility, why not send them to a monastery?
Judge Beezer quoted the Fifth Circuit’s holding that if a person (1) is employed by a religious institution, (2) was chosen for the position based ‘largely on religious criteria,’ and (3) performs some religious duties … that person is a ‘minister’ for purposes of the ministerial exception,” What was missed was that the choice of these individuals for this service had very little to do with religious criteria and more to do with whether they had strong backs. Further, the religious duties portion of the test likely fails because the ministerial or religious portion of the training was so de minimis as to be almost non-existant.
So did the Court err in finding that these men were engaged in ministerial training? Absolutely! There was no ministerial training going on. These two young men were merely janitors, and the whole escapade a scam aimed at obtaining cheap labor. What happened here was wage theft, all disguised as “ministerial training;” another example of actions inconsistent with teaching.
As the Seattle Herald reported:
The two seminarians became disillusioned by the experience and have given up their quest to become priests…
“Both these young men had a lifelong dream of being priests,”… “It’s emotionally damaging when your lifelong dream and your spiritual vocation is shattered by the very people you entrusted that dream to.”
So much possibility wasted in a world plagued by a shortage of men willing to offer their lives for worship of God and service to His people. A sad case, and a case teetering on the edge of going the other way if all the facts had been established.
From the Catholic PR Wire: Renowned Polish Director Remembers Pope John Paul II
“John Paul the Great has enabled people to put fear behind them,” said Kazimierz Braun, internationally acclaimed Polish director, author, and former student of Karol Wojtyla (later Pope John Paul II). “Like a broken reed, he has raised and made whole our hope. He has fanned the sparks of faith and courage into a flame. Above all, he has embraced all in unconditional love.”
Braun spoke of the late pontiff in the first annual John Paul the Great Fine Arts Lecture, sponsored by the Franciscan University Fine Arts Society, on March 5.
In his youth, Braun joined a group of students and faculty from the Catholic University of Lublin, Poland, called Swieta Lipka (“Holy Linden”), whose spiritual pastor and scholarly mentor was Bishop Professor Karol Wojtyla.
“Thanks to John Paul II, with increasing clarity I saw how inseparable is the union of the artistic and ethical dimensions of theater, and I understood that only this union can give a theater production meaning and energy, and express the abundant and inexplicable richness of the human being,” said Braun.
“What my mentor and pastor was steering me toward was unlike anything I had studied at drama school or experienced in professional theater. I believe this was one of Wojtyla’s peculiar gifts: pointing to new possibilities in every domain of human activity and restoring a proper sense of order to life, beginning with the spiritual life and branching out into politics, economics, scholarship, or art.”
Braun recounted visiting Bishop Wojtyla in Krakow and being assigned a paper “on the ethical problems which a young director encounters in theater.
“It was Wojtyla’s way of teaching and guiding people: to let them identify their personal, moral, or professional problems and freely search for just, honest, and proper solutions.”
Bishop Wojtyla discussed the paper with Braun. “I remember his questions: How do you want to unite faith with art in your theater work? How will you strive for the highest values in terms of both aesthetics and ethics? In the time of trial, what would you choose—”the world or God?”
For Wojtyla and for Braun, that question carried real meaning. “During World War II under Nazi occupation and after the war under Soviet occupation, theater in Poland was prohibited since it was considered an expression of Polish national spirit. Thus, to do theater against the occupiers’ will was an act of bravery and patriotism.”
Braun quoted one of the late pope’s poems: “‘You have gone, but through me you walk on’…This thought precisely and perfectly expresses my own thoughts after the passing away of John Paul II: He has gone, but he is still walking through me, and you, and millions of us around the world.”
“Throughout my career, I would ask myself, ‘What would he think? Would he approve?'”
Braun is a professor of theater art at the University at Buffalo in New York, and holds doctoral degrees in Letters, Theatre, and Directing. He worked for professional theater companies in Poland before being forced to leave the country by Communist authorities in the 1980s. Braun has directed more than 140 theater and television productions in Poland and other countries, and has published more than 30 books.
He is currently guest directing Claudel’s Christopher Columbus, which will be performed by Franciscan University students and faculty the weekend of April 9-11 and April 16-18. Tickets are $4 for adults and $2 for students and seniors. Religious and children 12 and under are free…
Professor Braun and I hovered in and out of different Polonian circles in my days back in Buffalo. A real gentleman and a great director. I would recommend seeing his work. He has also published and I would recommend his “A Concise History of Polish Theater from the Eleventh to the Twentieth Centuries” (Studies in Theatre Arts, V. 21)
You can now pre-order Interfaith Worker Justice’s new book: A Worker Justice Reader: Essential Writings on Religion and Labor.
Next month Orbis Books is publishing A Worker Justice Reader: Essential Writings on Religion and Labor, an exciting anthology compiled by IWJ that will be a vital resource for seminaries, congregational study groups, social justice committees, labor unions, and beyond.
The book is organized into five parts:
- Crisis for U.S. Workers
- Religion-Labor History
- What Our Religious Traditions Say about Work
- Theology and the Ethics of Work
- The Religion-Labor Movement Today
I will be picking up a copy. I wonder if the role of the PNCC in Labor history will be included, as well as the role played by organizations like the Polish National Alliance (An interesting history, the PNA is generally non-sectarian and was a close ally of the PNCC
You can pre-order a copy online or by phone (call 800-258-5838 and use code WJR for FREE shipping) or through your local bookstore.
For suggestions on incorporating the Reader into your curriculum, contact Rev. April McGlothin-Eller, IWJ’s Student Programs Coordinator, at (773) 728-8400, ext. 21, or by E-mail.
From Interia:
The funeral of the Rev. Joachim Badeni, the oldest member of the Dominican Order in Poland, who died March 11, 2010 at the age of 97. The funeral was held in Krakow and was presided over by Cardinals Stanislaw Dziwisz, and Franciszek Macharski. Until his death, Rev. Badeni lived in Dominican monastery in Krakow.
Rev. Badeni was born as Kazimierz Stanislaw hr. Badeni. The Badeni family was part of Polish nobility under the Boncza coat of arms (about 20% of the citizens of the Polish kingdom were nobility or gentry). The Badeni family’s political influence and land holdings extended over tracts of Eastern Poland and Ruthenia, then referred to as Galicia and Lodomeria. Kazimierz was named after his grandfather, Count Kazimierz Felix Badeni, Viceroy of Galicia and the premiere of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Rev. Badeni was the author of several books covering theological and existential themes. He was co-founder of the famous Krakow pastoral academic institute “Beczka“. Rev. Badeni was buried in the famous Rakowicki Cemetery in Krakow.
Notice two things in the photos below: In Poland funeral liturgies are generally performed in purple or black vestments. White is not a popular (or very proper) liturgical color for funerals. This unlike in the United States where we tend to psychologically and liturgically separate ourselves from the fact of death. Second, the Rev. Badeni’s sister, Maria Krystyna Habsburg, Arch-Dutchess of Austria, was in attendance.
