Above: Auxiliary Bishop Richard Pates of the Archdiocese of St Paul/Minneapolis and Rev. James Pennington of Spirit of the Lakes United Church of Christ – Monday, May 14, 2007 standing together behind infamous Rainbow Flag.Bishop Richard Pates of Des Moines, former Auxiliary Bishop of St. Paul-Minneapolis, seeks to limit “creeping incursion” of sports into church activities
prohibit any Catholic school from holding activities not related to religious services or religious education on Wednesday evenings and Sunday mornings.
May 28, 2012 By Dar Danielson
The state’s largest Catholic Diocese is implementing a policy to create a separation between church and sports. Bishop Richard Pates of the Des Moines Diocese has approved a policy at the request of the priest council that would prohibit any Catholic school from holding activities not related to religious services or religious education on Wednesday evenings and Sunday mornings.
“Our priests especially are experiencing the fact that it’s kind of a creeping incursion Wednesday evenings and also Sunday mornings, particularly in terms of their participation related to youth leagues related to sports, etcetera, soccer and that sort of thing,” Pates says.
The Bishop says a young person confronted with the possibility of playing sports or going to church, they would naturally want to play sports, and the puts pressure on the parents that want them to go to church. The other Catholic Dioceses have varying policies that seek to accomplish the same end.
Link to original...H/t: Stella Borealis
8 comments:
I actually agree with this, the Bishop is trying to help keep holy the Lord's day! However, I'd probably limit it to just Sundays if I was a Bishop
Sounds kind of busy to limit activities on Wednesdays as well.
He's absolutely right on this...no doubt Wednesday night is their CCD night and the many kids who should be learning the Faith that night are instead playing basketball. I'm a CCD teacher and believe me, this is a problem.
I'll chime in with my agreement as well. If he is genuinely trying to keep holy the Lord's Day then more power to him.
Let us hope that he takes the next logical step, which is to keep holy the Sacrifice of the Mass on Sundays, and not allow it it to turn into the usual jamboree.
I personally dislike this Bishop for his past activities, but all I ever hear about him in the news are generally positive things like this.
Didn't somebody say someplace that the bishop would be replaced by the priest council as a de facto ruling body of the diocese?
Isn't there something someplace which speaks to that?
I think CTA does.
Just kidding. Possibly a blog post in your area? Will do some research.
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