September 22nd, 2026
Dear Diary,
Had Mass at St. Aloysius last Sunday. It’s part of that new merger into the Living Stones Catholic Collaborative. It’s getting damn complicated to remember the changes. As Fr. Tommy muttered at the last meeting we might as well call it One Bread Many Buildings. Because we have the parishes in that mandatory Synodal Listening Encounter process Fr. Gilbert slapped up a homily for me about accompaniment, listening, and building bridges. Good stuff but somehow he lost it on the way so I had to improvise.
Not entirely sure what happened. I was tired, breakfast was rushed. So I’m in the church hall downstairs where they put out vestments and got the servers dressed and Fr. O’Rourke says they they tried confessions before Mass but he was going to stop because nobody believes in that anymore. Anyway, when it was time for the homily and I was running out of funny stories I spotted one of the confessionals, the old kind like at SnT* like Tommy spiffed up that made McSwiney so pissed off, and I joked that it was a mistake for Fr to cancel because going to confession is the only place where admitting you did it gets you a lighter sentence. Then, I don’t know what happened, maybe my blood sugar was low, and told them they ought to go to confession. I said something about “mortal” sin and something about “judgment” and even “hell”. It was like what I memorized a zillion years ago from the Balt Catechism all rushed back. I can’t believe I even said receiving communion while knowing you’re in mortal sin is bad. It’s like I had a stroke or something. It got really quiet in there and I figured I really stepped in it. This morning O’Rourke called. 48 for confession last night. Took forever. He called up Billy at St Rita’s if he could drive over and help. Lots of them said it was from what I said. Apparently a couple asked about getting their marriage straightened out and one young men wanted to talk about seminary.
Then the communications girl called. Someone posted a recording with one of those damn phones on the internet! Jude called and said, “Well done, Atticus.” You could hear the grin over the phone which made me grind my teeth. I dread what Dozer will say. He’ll call, for sure. Or the Noonch! What if word gets to him that I hinted people were sinners? Then Tommy just happened to drop in. Yah right. He was grinning. “You said people need confession more than they need another committee.’” “I did not.” He played the recording. I did. So right away I told the comm girl to put out a statement to downplay the sin thing. She said she’s gonna say that my remarks should not be interpreted “outside the diocesen synodal framework”. Sounds great. When we have the priest convocation I’ll tell them to lay off the sin thing from the pulpit ’cause once was enough for now and we have the synod stuff going on which has priority.
From now on Gilbert has to make two copies of the homily.
Meatloaf for lunch today the kind where you bake it with some ketchup on top. It was pretty good but I left a chunk for Chester. And there were potatoe chips. It was kinda like being back at lunch time at St Philomena’s with the sisters with those rulers and the old catechism questions. HA!
*Libville’s “Spirit and Truth” Cathedral is really St. Telesphorus. They didn’t want Telesphorus after he was removed from the calendar in 1970 so they called it “Spirit and Truth” because Fatty’s predecessor wanted the cathedral rectory’s engraved silverware and place settings to have the same initials, ST for Saint Telephrous. The rector at S and T is still Msgr. Seamus Patrick McSwiney (aka “The Irish Setter”), still there from Fatty’s predecessor. His overarching strategy in pastoral life is to do as much nothing as possible. He is not going to be there much longer… maybe.
Glad to hear that +Atticus is not trying too quickly to “wean” folks over from practices like regular confession and communion in favor of “spirituality” for the new collaborative. I presume that the churches will be administered by non-clerical leaders with specially-designed regular services in the newly designed and renamed “worship space”.
For years I was able to attend a VO Mass and how to fit in confession was always a part of our travel plan. (It took and hour and 15 minutes to drive counting a bathroom stop when we finally began going to a diocesan VO.) The line for confession before Mass was always long. The priest, however, almost always made himself available for confession after Mass, and that line was long as well.
At the NO mass we assist at these days confession is regularly scheduled from 4 to 5 on Saturday afternoon, whereas Mass begins at 5. He is available for appointment, which my wife has taken advantage of occasionally, though it seems she always asks me to make the appointment for her. (It’s really because her hearing aids don’t work well with the phone.) I find it difficult to make an appointment for confession because I presume the priest must think it is something super serious, which makes me worry that he will say, “you made an appointment to confess that?” I know he wouldn’t say that, but I still worry about it.
Before distributing Holy Communion, our NO priest typically announces a shortened list of mortal sins that one should have confessed before receiving the Body and Blood of our Lord. He would not be shy about saying what Bishop McButterpants did not remember saying. When I mentioned to an acquaintance from work (we are now both retired) that I found it annoying being reminded that if I was in an irregular marriage, missed Mass for no good reason, etc. that I should not receive, he replied that he liked being reminded of this even if it was every Sunday. He kept him on his toes, so to speak.
Hence, there is a lot truth in all good fiction and in this episode of the Bishop’s diary, there certainly is. I expect that if every Bishop regularly reminded people to go to confession, it would really help. The only time I ever listened to a sermon by Pope Francis, he spoke about confession and it was very moving. It really changed my opinion of the man, until TC.
She said she’s gonna say that my remarks should not be interpreted “outside the diocesen synodal framework”.
Wonderful diary entry comment here. He really nailed the benefits of organizational “synodality”: throw it in wherever you like, and you get instant deniability – for anything. Bp. Fatty really gets the idea.
To paraphrase “The Incredibles”: if a phrase can be used everywhere, then it means nothing.
That’s the beauty of synodality. Somebody doesn’t like some proposal? “Don’t worry, this is just under discussion: it’s a process, I am sure that with further consultation the bugs will be addressed.” Don’t like who is involved? “We understand, but everyone’s concerns will be heard: just as yours will be considered, we must give weight to their concerns as well.” And the ever useful “This is what the people said they wanted.” Lather, rinse, repeat ad infinitum, ad nauseam: it gives total and absolute insulation from any complaints.
“outside the diocesen synodal framework”. Hahaha. Except is probably true in many places. Poor +Atticus, he accidentally did the real bishop thing.
Reminds me of when we had some parish sharing initiative in the diocese of Los Angeles. You were supposed to give money to the diocese so they could send it to the poor parishes. Mahoney was in charge at the time. I forget what the program was called, but it came up during a homily by a somewhat liberal priest. For reference, he would say things like “The fishes and loaves weren’t multiplied; people shared food they already had.” So, when one day he opened with the reality of Hell for unrepentant sinners, it was surprising. We didn’t say people were “Based” back then, but there he was, sounding based. Then, it turned out his definition of mortal sin was failing to donate to the parish share thing. Okay, back to normal.