Comments for Queen City Queen at http://www.thecatholicthing.org , comment 1 to 10 out of 10 comments http://www.thecatholicthing.org Wed, 22 May 2013 11:21:05 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/queen-city-queen.html#comment-8115 It would be a great shame if anything would ever happen to St. Peter in Chains Cathedral... it is a bulwark of faith. Mass and Confession are offered several times a day there. I know of no other place where Catholics can have their spiritual needs cared for so frequently and conveniently. It's the closest thing I can think of to a 24/7 spiritual marketplace. I'll be sure to include its revival in my prayer intentions. - Matt Thu, 15 Sep 2011 01:17:35 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/queen-city-queen.html#comment-8114 A little more perspective on the situation in Cincinnati. The oldest part of Cincinnati is in the "Basin," an area (including Downtown) that borders the Ohio River and is almost completely surrounded by hills. At the end of the 19th Century, the vast majority of Cincinnatians lived in the Basin. In the Basin, there are several major areas - the Central Business District, Over-the-Rhine, and the West End. At the turn of the 19th to the 20th Century, The CBD had six parishes; OTR had six; the West End had eleven. Added to these parishes were numerous parishes along the Mill Creek Valley (which flows out through the West End and north between two of the hills), others just up on the hills surrounding the Basin, and still others just over the Ohio River in Covington and Newport, Kentucky. Then, as was mentioned, the population starting moving up the hills and out. It wasn't a religious thing. Folks just decided that the suburbs were a better and healthier place to live. By 1938, the situation had gotten so bad for St. Peter's that Archbishop McNicholas decided to replace St. Peter's as the Cathedral with St. Monica, which is located on top of one of the hills (Clifton Heights). After Archbishop McNicholas came Archbishop Alter who wanted to move the Cathedral back to Downtown. After a restoration project, the Cathedral was moved back to St. Peter's in 1957. But the move of the Cathedral back to the Basin didn't mean that the population loss had reversed itself. Folks just kept leaving the central part of town. As noted by Mr. Miner, it didn't help that urban revitalization efforts eliminated entire neighborhoods and cut others off from one another. The population moved; it didn't matter the religion. Of course, Catholics could measure the move by the diminishing number of parishes. Whereas the Basin used to have 23 parishes, it now has six. The CBD now supports three parishes; OTR supports two; the West End is down to one. With this said, there is a great deal of hope, so it will be interesting to watch this area of the Church in the next decade or so. - Steve Feldmann Wed, 14 Sep 2011 16:42:22 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/queen-city-queen.html#comment-8113 I attend a parish that, 25+ years ago had 300 or so parishioners, all of them elderly, Polisih immigrant or first-generation offspring of POlish immigrants. A late-vocation priest arrived, found the facilities in total disrepair and no money to restore anything. He held novenas, 40-hour devotions, all the traditional devotional and cultural practices of the Polish people and Catholicism at large that were abandoned as out of date and passe by the post-V2 priests and bishops. He never once asked for money from the pulpit. When the technology arrived, he had a website, and televised the Mass on community TV. None of the statues, icons, paintings, banks of candles, niche shrines, confessionals, were removed. Confessions are still heard EVERY day before Mass. Only one day in all those years has there not been a Mass celebrated, and that was because a substitute priest became ill just before Mass. No days off for this priest. He wears clerics all the time. I have never seen him otherwise. No altar girls ever. The altar rails are being returned to the Church. The tabernacle is veiled. A little more than 25 years later, I believe the number of registered parishioners is higher that 1400, and people come from three states--young people with lots of children--a great many from other parishes. Midnight Mass is held at Midnight. Isn't this what you are looking for, Mr Miner? It is the Faith and the Mass in all beauty, depth, devotion but also intellectual challenge. Forty-hours devotion is this weekend if you're interested. It begins with the priests. - Louise Wed, 14 Sep 2011 12:53:58 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/queen-city-queen.html#comment-8112 I read this essay with interest because I'm an XU grad with fond memories of my years in Cincinnati. As I read the several comments touching on the vast problems faced by the Church in core cities, I couldn't help recalling with irony Joni Mitchell's lyric, "They pave paradise and put up a parking lot." I fear that with many of our urban sacred treasures "we won't know what we've got till it's gone." But as lamentable as that is, it will be even more so if we don't recognize the pearl of great price and hand it on through proclamation and witness of life. Brad Miner is right: we need basic, person-to-person evangelization. Freely we have received; freely we must hand on (cf Mt 10:8). The Acts of the Apostles must again be our model, but where do we see this in the Church of today? I dare say if we canvassed diocesan and parish evangelization plans and programs, we would find few that urge 2x2 street evangelization. One group that regularly engages in this method is the Neocatechumenal Way and with demonstrable results. Unfortunately, some voices in the Church are so busy criticizing the Way, they miss the point that this Vatican approved and papally praised charism is producing good fruits with ancient methods. I think it is long past time to end the insanity of "circular firing squads" in the Church and get on with the work of evangelization (see Redemptoris Missio 3). - Bill Beckman Wed, 14 Sep 2011 11:50:31 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/queen-city-queen.html#comment-8111 Mr. Miner, thanks for your response; and I think your last sentence is spot-on. Salvation is a personal matter; our Lord called people one-by-one and baptism is administered one-by-one. The Gospel spread throughout the world without benefit of electronic media because men and women with souls on fire could not but help declare the reason for their hope and joy -- which gets us back to our Holy Father's magnificent Spe Salvi, no? The second challenge is that when people are baptized, they are baptized into a relationship with Christ and His Church, which means that the local communities have to be ready, willing, and able to receive new members into their number. There are all kinds of reasons why historically beleaguered peoples may have been unable to receive new members; but those days are and have to be behind us. To your prayer that God raise up new St. Pauls should be added the prayer that He make "me" one, too: each of us is called to be an apostle. The task is daunting, but "greater is He that is in you..." This leads me back to my point on interior life. More of us need more of it. God grant we correspond to the graces. - Dave Wed, 14 Sep 2011 08:22:02 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/queen-city-queen.html#comment-8110 I'm very grateful for these early comments about my column, and I'm mostly in sympathy with the opinions expressed. However, if I may address Dave and Steve, I think the loss (or lack anyway) of Catholic population in the catchment area of an urban cathedral is a very serious matter, although evangelization surely has flagged and would most certainly help remediate. That said, and having walked around downtown Cincinnati, it looks to me like St. Paul is needed: him or somebody with his charism. And yet (now augmenting you arguments) I must say modern Catholic evangelization (much of it superb, as in Fr. Barron's CATHOLICISM) is too oriented to electronic media and not enough on actual men and women proclaiming the Gospel on the streets of places such as OTR. - Brad Miner Wed, 14 Sep 2011 07:31:03 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/queen-city-queen.html#comment-8109 Mr. Miner, the problems you describe facing St. Peter's in Chains are felt by many of the Archdiocesan suffragan Cathedrals as well. In Toledo, we have one of the most beautiful cathedrals in the United State, Our Lady, Queen of the Most Holy Rosary Cathedral. However, despite her unique place in artistic and architectural history (the only Plateresque cathedral in the world) we are challenged to fill her pews for Pontifical liturgies alone, not to mention Sunday Mass. Ohio is blessed with many churches of incredible beauty and grandeur, and their historic and cultural significance might one day be lost if care and attention is not paid them immediately. Please visit us in Toledo to see our beautiful mother-church, as well as our basilica in Carey, OH. But we, and many churches throughout the state, share your woes. - Robert Wed, 14 Sep 2011 06:47:35 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/queen-city-queen.html#comment-8108 Next time you're here in Cincy, call us at Sacred Heart Radio and come visit us at our studios in Our Lady of the Holy Spirit Center, which used to house Mount St. Mary's Seminary of the West and now houses many statues, relics and other treasures from closed Cincinnati parishes. - M. Swaim Wed, 14 Sep 2011 06:16:36 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/queen-city-queen.html#comment-8107 Dave, I agree 100%. I despise church closing until I am convinced that all efforts to evangelize the Gospel are exhausted and even then I have doubts. This has been too much a business decision and not a faith decision. Here in Boston there has been too much of that going on. Of course the Priests shortage also plays a role in these closings. I have heard of an urban church in New York that was scheduled for closing and undertook a strong evangelization program and now has full pews and a vibrant congregation albeit with a different demographic. - Steve Wed, 14 Sep 2011 05:29:08 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/queen-city-queen.html#comment-8105 Mr. Miner, thank you for this beautiful article. When the Church rediscovers how to evangelize she will once again transform lives, families, neighborhoods, cities, and larger polities. Then the Cathedrals and parish churches will fill. I may be wrong, but I think our hierarchs spend great time on corollary issues without getting to the heart of the matter: the offer of salvation that Jesus Christ brings and the hope acceptance of the offer generates. So people tune out the Church because it appears she has little to say except for which social policies we should and should not support. We need more bishops like the Pope, and his predecessor of blessed memory, who never fails to preach Jesus Christ. The issue in Cincinnati and elsewhere is not that the original population moved out: it is rather that the Church failed to evangelize those who moved in. The demise of the great urban churches is but a consequence of that failure, and no amount of fund raising to maintain them will address the root causes. And how could the Church have evangelized, when in the wake of the Second Vatican Council chaos ensued and far too many people thought the ancient verities were no longer regnant. How could the Church have evangelized, when so many priests and religious simply abandoned the ranks, and lay people were not deeply enough catechized to take up the slack? So we have to hope that the New Evangelization will indeed fill the churches once again, as we pray and sacrifice for our clergy, for ourselves, and for the neighbor whom we are supposed to love as we love ourselves. We have to catechize ourselves through the assiduous study of the Word of God in Scripture and Tradition as understood by the Magisterium, and we have to rediscover the power of the sacraments so deeply that we will be impelled to bring others to them. And this program presupposes, first of all, a deep and vibrant interior life. God grant us shepherds and teachers who can help us, and ears to hear and eyes to see. - Dave Wed, 14 Sep 2011 03:27:11 +0100