The hard thing, in my view, is to read his post with the eyes of those who don’t believe that a gently boiling pot of water can make such a difference. Those priests who turn their backs on the supernatural part of their jobs in their haste to do it all are burning out for good reason – but lord help you if you tell them so.

In a way, these pastoral provision churches are a breath of fresh air, but I am not sure that their experience is applicable to the parishes we have been in (now in Wisconsin). What’s needed to help turn the tide is an exorcism of sorts. TO take all of the doctrines and teachings of the Church and believe it seems like a herculean thing in most parishes. And you cannot talk about it as if it were easy (which it is, once you give the task to Jesus, as the pastor of our lady of atonement has), and yet, if you talk about how hard it is – well, the devil has you stuck, then, doesn’t he.

It’s time in this country to be bold. Go for it, Our lady of the Atonement! The rest of us will try to follow.

A decade ago when I lived in a fairly progresive parish in Chicago, the new pastor assumed that he and his two assistants were so overwhelmed with work that he needed to rotate daily masses into a communion services. He did not, it was subsequently learned, consult the other two priests. His plea was that the priests each needed a total day off. His true intention was to create a means allowing middle-age females to celebrate the communion service and clear a bit, in his mind, the road to female ordination.

However whenever a communion service replaced a mass, the attendance dropped at least by fifty percent. And his successor, one of his assistants, immediately resumed the daily mass and did away with the communion services. His successor, by the way, never felt the need for a day off and saw the ruse the former pastor had pulled off.