Sweet Home Chicago


From left to right: Dr Gavin Ashenden (former chaplain to the Queen), Fr Ryan Brady, Katherine Bennett, Fr Chris Landfried and me at St Mary of the Angels, Chicago.

I'm just back from a week in Chicago, Illinois, where I had been invited to speak about the faith to various parishes along with my Catholic Unscripted friends. It was a wonderful experience and I am so happy to say I made loads of amazing friends.

I have long been a fan of the US which is somewhat unusual among Brits who tend to have quite a cynical attitude to the States...Come to think of it, Brits are like that about pretty much everyone!

Anyway...More on the USA later. I just wanted to check in with you all and say hi. I haven't written much on the blog because I had two weeks away and then this week I had a talk at St Bede's Church in Clapham Park on Marriage so I had to write a good talk for them! (if you want me or any of us (or all of us) to come and speak at your parish send me a message on Twitter @sitsio)

I did want to mention one thing I hope you might help with.

One amazing friend I made was this young Catholic man, Dan Janeiro. He is the Head Teacher at the Chesterton Academy in Volo. He has taken a huge pay cut to teach at a proper Catholic School with an amazing ethos and curriculum. It is small, but utterly brilliant and inspiring.

The school follows the Socratic method of teaching, with a rigorous focus on classic literature, philosophy, science, mathematics, history and Latin. Students begin every day with Mass and additionally participate in a fine arts program which includes art, choir, drama, and ballroom dance. At the beginning of every school year, the faculty and staff take an oath of fidelity to the Magisterium of the Catholic Church — if you ask me, this should be fundamentally essential in ALL Catholic Schools, it makes no sense why it would not be!

Dan has a growing young family and no health insurance through his work. I was frankly terrified to hear that if one of his children falls and breaks an arm it potentially bankrupts his family. Yet he bravely accepts this as the cost for being true to his faith and vocation. I was so moved by his passionate articulation of Catholic education and clear love of culture. This guy is a genius.


Katherine & Dan, the Teachers, brainstorming at Chesterton Academy.


He does have a rather wonderful Substack and one way we could help him without embarrassing him would be to subscribe to this. It's the price of a couple of cups of coffee and you could really help him with pressing issues of being a Catholic dad in a hostile culture. You also get to connect with Dan's superb writing which he has called The Banquet. A place where he provides insights into the great classics of literature (the Great books and the Good books). It is a place for those who have dined on the finest for years to interact with those who are taking their first bite. Here's a link if you want to check it out:
Please do share with anyone you think might be interested.

I will be back soon to fill you in with more details of our grace filled trip to Catholic America. God bless!

Mark.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Problem is the Bishops - Dr Janet Smith.

Image
  Dr Janet Smith is a true gift to the Church. She is an American classicist and philosopher, and former professor of moral theology at the Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit, Michigan. She is now retired and works helping victims of the sex abuse crisis where she does amazing work. It's my great pleasure to count her among my friends and I can assure you she loves Jesus and His Church with an incredible depth and honesty. She is wonderful company especially in that she is as sharp as a tack but also extremely warm and funny. This is a talk she gave recently at the Coalition for Cancelled Priests Conference at the end of June in Chicago. It's a must listen talk if you want to know the painful reality of the corruption in the Catholic hierarchy, corruption of all kinds, sexual, financial and spiritual/ theological. Having defended the Church during the paedophile crisis she was devastated when, after the Dallas Charter, the McCarrick scandal broke. She addresses the critici
Read more

Real Life Catholics on BBC TV defend Church Teaching on Contraception.

Image
This morning on BBC TV Sunday Morning Live there was a good debate inspired by Melinda Gates (who identifies as Catholic) comments about the pope potentially changing doctrine on contraception. The Catholic contributors were Fr Paddy McCafferty, Clare Short and Obianuju Ekeocha. I think they did really well. Uju's direction is very interesting and easily wrong foots those who want to impose western ideas of morality on Africans in an imperialistic way. Interesting that the presenter agrees with her on this. Fr Paddy gave a great account of his experience as a priest. He was compassionate, realistic and honest, while upholding the value and importance of the doctrine. Clare said she had experience of both ways and the Catholic way is better by far. I thought that was awesome! I especially liked her focus on equality and bringing the responsibility of both husband & wife into the discussion. Watch out for the bit where the other lady says "Pope Francis has ind
Read more

New Head of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith

Image
I can hardly bring myself to write about yesterday's announcement that Pope Francis has appointed Archbishop Victor Manuel Fernández to be the new head of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith replacing Cardinal Luis Francisco Ladaria Ferrer, S.J. (now 79) who was previously the secretary to Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Muller. Fernández is certainly one of the Pope's men, his whole career has been crafted and guided by Jorge Bergoglio. He headed the Faculty of Theology at the Pontifical Catholic University of Argentina (CUA) and then on December 15, 2009, the then Cardinal Bergoglio appointed Fernandez as rector of the Pontifical Catholic University of Argentina. However, much to the frustration of Cardinal Bergoglio, Fernandez was not able to take the oath of office until May 20, 2011, after he had answered objections to his appointment raised by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which assessed concerns about the orthodoxy of certain elements of his scholarship
Read more