7th Station

7th Station (Our Lady of Peace, Cleve., O.)
VII Jesus falls for the second time
7. Jesús cae por segunda vez

John xii ― 24 Amen, amen I say to you, unless the grain of wheat falling into the ground die,

24 Amen, amen dico vobis, nisi granum fruménti cadens in terram, mórtuum fúerit,

Aquí donde Cristo es carne que sufre, aquí donde Cristo es cosa, donde Cristo es persecución, donde Cristo es hombres que duermen en el campo porque no pueden dormir en su casa, donde Cristo es enfermedad que sufre por consecuencia de tantas intemperies y de tantos sufrimientos; aquí es Cristo con su cruz a cuestas, no meditado en una capilla junto al vía-crucis, sino vivido en el pueblo; es Cristo con su cruz camino del Calvario ― Monsenor Romero. 5 Marzo 1978.

Here, Christ is flesh that suffers. Here where Christ is something, he is persecution, where Christ is men who sleep out in the country because they can’t sleep in their house, where Christ is sickness that suffers because of the consequences of being so unprotected. Here is Christ with the cross upon his shoulders on the road to Calvary, not meditated in some chapel with the way of the cross or lived outside the people.

6th Station

6th Station (Saint Colman, Cleve., O.)
VI Veronica wipes the face of Jesus
6. Verónica limpia el rostro de Jesús

Matthew xxvi ―27 And taking the chalice, he gave thanks, and gave to them, saying: Drink ye all of this.

27 Et accípiens cálicem, grátias egit : et dedit illis, dicens : Bíbite ex hoc omnes.

Si viéramos que es Cristo el hombre necesitado, el hombre torturado, el hombre prisionero, el asesinado; y en cada figura de hombre, botadas tan indignamente por nuestros caminos, descubriéramos a ese Cristo botado, medalla de oro que recogeríamos con ternura y la besaríamos y no nos avergonzaríamos de él ― Monsenor Romero. 16 Marzo 1980.

If we could see that Christ is the needy person, the tortured person, the prisoner, the assassinated one, the one thrown away with so much indignity on our roads. If we could discover in this rejected one Christ, we would treat this Christ as a medal of gold. We would pick him up with tenderness and kiss him. We would not feel ashamed of him.

Reasons cited for closure are invalid

In two earlier numbers, №1, № 2, there was presented, verbatim, canon laws. Below is an argument that has them as premises and rationale.

The three reasons cited for the necessity of reducing parishes, in Cleveland, Ohio, and elsewhere, are: priest shortage, demographic change, and lack of funding. It should be remembered that in defining the terms of debate, more than half the argument is won.

The proposed answer, to the three reasons cited for the necessity of reducing parishes, is invalid. The church must answer to the dictates of God, especially in the teachings of Jesus, Our God and Brother. Christ instituted the Church, and left Peter and his successors to guide it. Over the years, there has developed, a body of canon law that governs the working of the church as an organisation. The parish, the diocese, the bishops, and more are defined, and delineated, within canon law. A parish is a juridic person (similarly, in american law a corporation is a fictive, yet legal, person). A parish is formally erected by a bishop, in the diocese he oversees, not rules. Once created it is meant to be perpetual. To suppress it towards extinction is not easily done, canonically! The proposed answer, closing parishes, is not a response to the premises given. The premises may all be accurate, but they are not germane to the action desired.

Canon law provides for the administration of parishes without each parish having a resident priest. There is no equation, no quota, no ratio relating laity to clergy, priests to parishes, no 1 to ‘x’. Many countries have a higher ratio than the US, and the US has had higher ratios in the past. At the founding of the United States there were thirteen states and, probably, less than that number of priests.

The communities, who labored, and built their parish church, and signed the deed over to the bishop, would never have thought a future bishop would suppress them. With infrastructure, and transportation changes people can have a greater separation of their domicile from their labor and other pursuits. If one can regularly drive an hour to work, each way, and travel 90 miles or more round trip five times a week; such an one can drive more than a few miles to mass.

In Cleveland, and other cities of the industrial rust belts of the northeast and middle west, that multiplied in population several fold from the civil war to the vietnamese war, the catholic immigrants and their immediate descendants were the great engines and producers of growth. Now, with greater social and economic, status and opportunity (compared to their forebears), they have left their old haunts; but they can return, somewhat. The juridic persons, parishes, remain. New ones are not required to be made. The old ones were not created as temporary ad hoc entities, but as perpetual.

If funding were to be a canonical requirement, then self sustaining parishes would be exempt. Non self funding parishes could be forced to a reduced physical campus without extinction as a parish, in fact many people were led to believe, that initially, such measures were suggested by clustering, and that clustering would not mean suppression.

There may be other financial considerations of convenience that have not been stated. But they are not canonical either.

The three reasons cited are reasons the american business model gives for the reduction of franchises. The american business model gives great honor to capitalism. Capitalism is a form of mammon worship. Many people are quite pleased to say something is run, or ought to be run, like a business. Others are willing to assume, or acknowledge, that is the way to do things.

Capitalism wants to maximise profit. Capital is stored and accumulated labor. Without this cache of labor--there is no capital. Profit is receipts minus expenses. In every capitalistic business exchange the goal is to increase this vigorish. To accelerate and expand the principle: to get the most, while giving the least. To reduce to the ultimate simplicity: everything for nothing. THIS IS THE EXACT OPPOSITE OF CHRIST, AND HIS WAY.

Christian economic theories were: the early, simple communism of the early church, the theory of just prices of Augustine, the distributivism of Chesterton. In capitalism, as we know it to-day, there is given great power to the owner, or the chief economic officer, or simply management. In his business he demands to be as powerful as faro of old, an absolute despot. The dissenter is to be crushed, his prescribed role is to be silent and obedient. This american business management theory has become the accepted fallback model, here. In regards to the Church of Christ, Peter’s Barque, it is anathema.

The three reasons cited are not appropriate within the Church. General Electric, Starbucks and the rest of american apparat can act that way with impunity. A pastor is to guard each member of the flock. A bishop is not self invested with administrative power to do as he wishes. The Church does not need bureaucrats, whom think as MBAs from Wharton, Weatherhead or the University of Chicago. God have mercy on us, and send us an occasional saint.

Parishes can exist without a resident priest

Can. 526 §1. A pastor is to have the parochial care of only one parish; nevertheless, because of a lack of priests or other circumstances, the care of several neighboring parishes can be entrusted to the same pastor.

§2. In the same parish there is to be only one pastor or moderator in accord with the norm of can. 517, §1; any contrary custom is reprobated and any contrary privilege whatsoever is revoked.

Can. 517 §1. When circumstances require it, the pastoral care of a parish or of different parishes together can be entrusted to several priests in solidum, with the requirement, however, that in exercising pastoral care one of them must be the moderator, namely, the one who is to direct the joint action and to answer for it to the bishop.

§2. If, because of a lack of priests, the diocesan bishop has decided that participation in the exercise of the pastoral care of a parish is to be entrusted to a deacon, to another person who is not a priest, or to a community of persons, he is to appoint some priest who, provided with the powers and faculties of a pastor, is to direct the pastoral care.

5th Station

5th Station (Saint Peter, Cleve., O.)
V Simon the Cyrene helps Jesus to carry the Cross
5. Simón el Cirineo ayuda a Jesús a cargar la cruz

Luke xxiii ― 26 And as they led him away, they laid hold of one Simon of Cyrene, coming from the country; and they laid the cross on him to carry after Jesus.

26 Et cum dúcerent eum, apprehendérunt Simónem quemdam Cyrenénsem veniéntem de villa : et imposuérunt illi crucem portáre post Jesum.

Lamentablemente, queridos hermanos, somos el producto de una educación espiritualista, individualista. Donde se nos enseñaba: procura salvar tu alma y no te importe lo demás. Como decíamos al que sufría: "Paciencia, que ya vendrá el cielo, aguanta". ¡No!, no puede ser eso, eso no es salvar, no es la salvación que Cristo trajo. La salvación que Cristo trae es la salvación de todas las esclavitudes que oprimen al hombre. Es necesario que el hombre que vive bajo de tantas opresiones y esclavitudes rompa las cadenas-el miedo que esclaviza los corazones; la enfermedad que oprime los cuerpos, la tristeza, la preocupación, el terror que oprime nuestra libertad y nuestra vida ― Monsenor Romero. 9 Septiembre 1979.

Unfortunately, dear brothers, we are the product of an education which is spiritualistic and individualistic, where we are taught ‘to gain salvation of the spirit, don’t worry about others.’ Like we say to the suffering, ‘Have patience that you will get to heaven, endure!’ No! That can’t be. This isn’t salvation, not the salvation that Christ brought. The salvation that Christ brings is the salvation from all the slaveries that oppress people. It is necessary that people break the chains that bind them: starting with the many oppressions and slaveries, fears that enslave their hearts, illnesses that oppress their bodies, sadness, preoccupations, terrors that oppress their freedom and their life.

Rome does not allow bishops to close parishes

Can. 115 §1. Juridic persons in the Church are either aggregates of persons (universitates personarum) or aggregates of things (universitates rerum).

§2. An aggregate of persons (universitas personarum), which can be constituted only with at least three persons, is collegial if the members determine its action through participation in rendering decisions, whether by equal right or not, according to the norm of law and the statutes; otherwise it is non-collegial.

§3. An aggregate of things (universitas rerum), or an autonomous foundation, consists of goods or things, whether spiritual or material, and either one or more physical persons or a college directs it according to the norm of law and the statutes.

Can. 120 §1. A juridic person is perpetual by its nature; nevertheless, it is extinguished if it is legitimately suppressed by competent authority or has ceased to act for a hundred years. A private juridic person, furthermore, is extinguished if the association is dissolved according to the norm of its statutes or if, in the judgment of competent authority, the foundation has ceased to exist according to the norm of its statutes.

§2. If even one of the members of a collegial juridic person survives, and the aggregate of persons (universitas personarum) has not ceased to exist according to its statutes, that member has the exercise of all the rights of the aggregate (universitas).

Can. 121 If aggregates of persons (universitates personarum) or of things (universitates rerum), which are public juridic persons, are so joined that from them one aggregate (universitas) is constituted which also possesses juridic personality, this new juridic person obtains the goods and patrimonial rights proper to the prior ones and assumes the obligations with which they were burdened. With regard to the allocation of goods in particular and to the fulfillment of obligations, however, the intention of the founders and donors as well as acquired rights must be respected.

Can. 122 If an aggregate (universitas) which possesses public juridic personality is so divided either that a part of it is united with another juridic person or that a distinct public juridic person is erected from the separated part, the ecclesiastical authority competent to make the division, having observed before all else the intention of the founders and donors, the acquired rights, and the approved statutes, must take care personally or through an executor:

1/ that common, divisible, patrimonial goods and rights as well as debts and other obligations are divided among the juridic persons concerned, with due proportion in equity and justice, after all the circumstances and needs of each have been taken into account;

2/ that the use and usufruct of common goods which are not divisible accrue to each juridic person and that the obligations proper to them are imposed upon each, in due proportion determined in equity and justice.

Can. 123 Upon the extinction of a public juridic person, the allocation of its goods, patrimonial rights, and obligations is governed by law and its statutes; if these give no indication, they go to the juridic person immediately superior, always without prejudice to the intention of the founders and donors and acquired rights. Upon the extinction of a private juridic person, the allocation of its goods and obligations is governed by its own statutes.

Can. 369 A diocese is a portion of the people of God which is entrusted to a bishop for him to shepherd with the cooperation of the presbyterium*, so that, adhering to its pastor and gathered by him in the Holy Spirit through the Gospel and the Eucharist, it constitutes a particular church in which the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church of Christ is truly present and operative.

Can. 373 It is only for the supreme authority to erect particular churches; those legitimately erected possess juridic personality by the law itself.

Can. 374 §1. Every diocese or other particular church is to be divided into distinct parts or parishes.

§2. To foster pastoral care through common action, several neighboring parishes can be joined into special groups, such as vicariates forane.†

Can. 515 §1. A parish is a certain community of the Christian faithful stably constituted in a particular church, whose pastoral care is entrusted to a pastor (parochus) as its proper pastor (pastor) under the authority of the diocesan bishop.

§2. It is only for the diocesan bishop to erect, suppress, or alter parishes. He is neither to erect, suppress, nor alter notably parishes, unless he has heard the presbyteral council.

§3. A legitimately erected parish possesses juridic personality by the law itself.

Can. 516 §1. Unless the law provides otherwise, a quasi-parish is equivalent to a parish; a quasi-parish is a definite community of the Christian faithful in a particular church, entrusted to a priest as its proper pastor but not yet erected as a parish because of particular circumstances.

§2. When certain communities cannot be erected as parishes or quasi-parishes, the diocesan bishop is to provide for their pastoral care in another way.
_________________________________
*college of priests
†deanery
noto bene: color highlighting not in original, nor footnotes and their marks

4th Station

4th Station (Saint Patrick, Cleve., O.)
IV Jesus meets his Mother
4. Jesús encuentra a su madre

John xix ― 25 Now there stood by the cross of Jesus, his mother, and his mother's sister, Mary of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalen. 26 When Jesus therefore had seen his mother and the disciple standing whom he loved, he saith to his mother: Woman, behold thy son. 27 After that, he saith to the disciple: Behold thy mother. And from that hour, the disciple took her to his own.

25 Stabant autem juxta crucem Jesu mater ejus, et soror matris ejus, María Cléophæ, et María Magdaléne. 26 Cum vidísset ergo Jesus matrem, et discípulum stantem, quem diligébat, dicit matri suæ : Múlier, ecce fílius tuus. 27 Deínde dicit discípulo : Ecce mater tua. Et ex illa hora accépit eam discípulus in sua.

La liberación de Cristo, hermanos, es ternura, es amor, es la presencia de una madre bondadosa: María. Y María es el modelo de quienes colaboran con Cristo para la liberación de la tierra y la adquisición del cielo. María en su cántico de acción de gracias proclama las grandezas de Dios y también proclama que Dios desecha el orgullo de los poderosos y enaltece a los humildes ― Monsenor Romero. Marzo 24, 1978

Brothers, the liberation of Christ is tenderness; it’s love; it’s the presence of a loving mother, Mary. And Mary is the model of those who collaborate with Christ for the liberation of the earth and the acquisition of heaven. Mary, in her song of thanksgiving, proclaimed the greatness of God and also proclaims that God rejects the pride of the powerful and exalts the humble.