Bishop Exiles Priest Who Follows Pope's Agenda
Every once in a while, I find myself engaged in one of those intriguing conversations where someone just back from a trip will come up to me and, rather breathless with surprise and excitement, say, “While we were away, we found the most wonderful parish, Father…” Often, these are interesting conversations. Sometimes it’s just a matter of a family struck by the loveliness of a particular church building, situated in a charming spot.
Now, supposing I were to tell you of a parish of some 2000, served by only one priest, a parish where you can find not only six reverently celebrated Masses each Sunday (English, Spanish, and Latin Novus Ordo with English homily), but, every day, the Divine Office (Matins, Terce, Sext, Vespers), some parts chanted in Latin, some recited in English or Spanish; the Holy Rosary; Holy Mass, of course, and Compline with Benediction and asperges to round off the day. Not to mention that the Blessed Sacrament is exposed through much of the day.
Sounds unusual?
The parishioners of Blessed Sacrament Church in Dallas, TX have become used to this daily routine over the past decade, ever since the arrival of their tireless pastor, Father Paul L. Weinberger.
Returning from months of immersion study of Spanish in Mexico, Father Weinberger presented himself to his bishop for assignment and was sent to Blessed Sacrament.
There was no reason to expect a long assignment.
Blessed Sacrament is located in a fairly challenging area of Dallas. The second oldest church in the city after the cathedral, it has a long history of service, but anyone seeing it when Father Weinberger arrived would have assumed that its best days lay in the past – far in the past.
The parish was under a crushing debt, the plant had deteriorated, and the new pastor found himself facing serious financial concerns quite aside from the building maintenance problems. Even the large parking lot urgently needed repaving. It was clear that Blessed Sacrament Church was, in all likelihood, lurching towards an inglorious close.
Little did anyone suspect that its best days actually were lying just ahead – the little church had entered into them when Father Weinberger dropped his bags in the front hall.
The recipe for this success is hardly secret – as a matter of fact, not long ago it was handed out to the entire church. In his encyclical letter announcing the great Year of Jubilee of the third millennium, Novo Millennio Ineunte, Pope John Paul II spoke from his heart to us all about the possibilities offered by this moment of grace.
He offered practical suggestions as well, which he hoped would be implemented by pastors of souls for the enrichment of the common life of the Faithful.
Here are just a few of his observations about what the Faithful should be offered:
“We are certainly not seduced by the naive expectation that, faced with the great challenges of our time, we shall find some magic formula. No, we shall not be saved by a formula but by a Person, and the assurance which he gives us: I am with you! It is not therefore a matter of inventing a 'new program'. The program already exists: it is the plan found in the Gospel and in the living Tradition, it is the same as ever. Ultimately, it has its centre in Christ himself, who is to be known, loved and imitated, so that in him we may live the life of the Trinity, and with him transform history until its fulfillment in the heavenly Jerusalem. This is a program which does not change with shifts of times and cultures, even though it takes account of time and culture for the sake of true dialogue and effective communication. This program for all times is our program for the Third Millennium. But it must be translated into pastoral initiatives adapted to the circumstances of each community.”
“Yes, dear brothers and sisters, our Christian communities must become genuine 'schools' of prayer, where the meeting with Christ is expressed not just in imploring help but also in thanksgiving, praise, adoration, contemplation, listening and ardent devotion, until the heart truly falls in love".
"It is therefore essential that education in prayer should become in some way a key-point of all pastoral planning. I myself have decided to dedicate the forthcoming Wednesday catecheses to reflection upon the Psalms, beginning with the Psalms of Morning Prayer with which the public prayer of the Church invites us to consecrate and direct our day. How helpful it would be if not only in religious communities but also in parishes more were done to ensure an all-pervading climate of prayer. With proper discernment, this would require that popular piety be given its proper place, and that people be educated especially in liturgical prayer. Perhaps it is more thinkable than we usually presume for the average day of a Christian community to combine the many forms of pastoral life and witness in the world with the celebration of the Eucharist and even the recitation of Lauds and Vespers.”
"I am also asking for renewed pastoral courage in ensuring that the day-to-day teaching of Christian communities persuasively and effectively presents the practice of the Sacrament of Reconciliation… if many people, and among them also many young people, have benefited from approaching this Sacrament, it is probably necessary that Pastors should arm themselves with more confidence, creativity and perseverance in presenting it and leading people to appreciate it. Dear brothers in the priesthood, we must not give in to passing crises! The Lord's gifts — and the Sacraments are among the most precious — come from the One who well knows the human heart and is the Lord of history.”
"We need to promote a spirituality of communion, making it the guiding principle of education wherever individuals and Christians are formed, wherever ministers of the altar, consecrated persons, and pastoral workers are trained, wherever families and communities are being built up.”
Years before the encyclical was issued, Father Weinberger anticipated the Holy Father's program for the third millennium. The Pope's encyclical simply led him to redouble his efforts.
So, what do you find at Blessed Sacrament in Dallas?
A Model Parish
You find a place where the church is open all day long, offering a quiet, recollected place to pray; where the rhythm of the day is set by the liturgy of the Church, the Divine Office and the Holy Mass; where the grace of Reconciliation is made available through generous Confession hours. All of this daily.
You find a place where one’s faith is nurtured through sound teaching. The Pope’s call to develop a spirituality of communion finds expression in the daily “Center for Virtue and Learning” at Blessed Sacrament. These sessions, offered at different times and integrated with the daily liturgies, range over a wide range of topics.
In a given week you might find presentations offered on understanding the Divine Office, on the Gospels, on the spirituality of Louis de Montfort, on one of the Vatican II documents, Marriage and Spirituality, contemplative prayer, basic Catholic information based on the Radio Replies format.
Walk into the church building itself, and one is struck by how lovingly everything is cared for. In his office, Father Weinberger has a beautiful statue of his inspiration, the holy Cure d’Ars, St John Vianney, patron saint of parish priests; and he has certainly imitated his patron in his care for the fabric of the church. The roof is repaired, the walls carefully plastered and repainted; long-empty niches now hold lovely statues of saints which were carefully brought back by Father Weinberger from trips abroad, statues which had been discarded by wreckovated churches elsewhere.
Everything is clean, bright and inviting, and one’s eyes are drawn upwards to the very top of the baldachino over the altar, scores of feet upwards, on top of which rests the Monstrance with Jesus in the Most Blessed Sacrament.
What is it like to worship there?
Here was the reaction of a good friend of mine, experiencing Blessed Sacrament for the first time:
“Just got in a few minutes ago from Dallas, where we were visiting my wife's family.... We went to the 10:45 a.m. mass, which is the Novus Ordo done almost entirely in Latin. The congregation was mixed by ethnicity -- Anglo, Latino and African-American -- and age (there were elderly folks there, middle-aged parishioners, and young families too).
"The Mass began in a church filled with incense and Gregorian chant. Fr. Weinberger was astonishingly reverent (astonishing to those of us accustomed to the hugger-mugger mess that most Novus Ordo priests make of the liturgy), but he wasn't the least bit remote or stiff, and my wife and I didn't feel alien to the liturgy…
"He preached about how John Paul II was formed in sanctity by his own father, and by the good example and loving care of holy laymen throughout his early life. His point was that the laity was absolutely key to the making of our sainted pope's character, and that we in the congregation should understand that we too are the Church, and responsible for living and teaching sanctity. He said that in this time of terrible scandal for the Church, we shouldn't look to the bishops and the clergy to lead us out of the mess. If they do, that's great, but we mustn't despair and forget that the Holy Spirit is calling us to do our part to restore holiness and righteousness to the Body of Christ.
"The liturgy of the Eucharist was amazing. The lights went down in the church for the consecration, and Fr. Weinberger confected the Eucharist by candlelight, through a curtain of incense. He held the Host and then the chalice high for a solid minute. We received kneeling at the altar rail. When we returned to our pew, my wife was making her thanksgiving, and started crying. She couldn't stop weeping, and I asked her if she was okay. She said, 'This is what I thought the Church was. This is why I became Catholic.....'
"After Mass, Julie was speaking to one of the parishioners outside the parish about how great the Mass was. She said to the woman, 'Do you realize what you have here?' The woman replied, 'You don't have to tell us! We know how blessed we are'."
Sacked
Sadly, Dallas Bishop Charles Grahmann has informed Fr. Weinberger it is time to leave. He is not part of the bishop’s plans for Blessed Sacrament.
The bishop is not pleased with Father Weinberger’s ministry there. In the bishops eyes, far more people live in that neighborhood than the 2,000 who worship at Blessed Sacrament on Sundays, and the bishop feels that the area is underserved (by this parish which a decade ago was being eyeballed for closing).
Indeed, the bishop is disturbed that there are only 1,000 baptisms a year at Blessed Sacrament!
Father Weinberger, having been advised that he is “not part of the future” of Blessed Sacrament, has been told to expect that in January 2004 he will begin a sabbatical (as he had requested should it be the case that he would be transferred), following which he will return to Dallas and be reassigned. It is quite clear that the Bishop has future plans for the parish, plans which will be markedly different from its present life.
In a poignant June 22 letter to his parishioners, marking his tenth anniversary at the parish, Fr. Weinberger informed them of the bishop's plans to move him.
"... [O]n Tuesday, June 17th, Bishop Grahmann and Bishop Galante informed me that I was not part of their plans for Blessed Sacrament's future. After more than an hour of discussion, the agreement was reached that I be allowed to stay at Blessed Sacrament until January 5, 2004, whereupon I would be sent to Rome for a 3-month sabbatical at the North American College ....
"When I arrived 10 years ago, the Church was in a sad state for any Catholic Church. It appeared ready to be closed. In fact a 'rumor' which circulated widely among informed Catholics was that soon this Church would be closed and the land sold to DART. Instead of 'hitching my wagon' to failure, I saw the opportunities present and we began to work and pray. On June 18, 1993 I made the predictions that 'by or before our parish centennial in 2001 our parish would be completely out of debt (at the time of its resolution it was just shy of one million dollars), the crumbling, stained-glass windows would be repaired, the Church interior would be repainted, the hole-ridden asphalt parking lot would be replaced and that Blessed Sacrament Church would be a prominent, positive force in the Diocese of Dallas in many ways.'
"The parish in the last 10 years has truly 'risen from the dead.' While ALL of these predictions were realized through God's Providence, the intercession of Our Lady of Guadalupe and St. Joseph, the tremendous help of the Catholic Foundation and the prayers and cooperation of our parishioners, the last part of my forecast is still in 'Limbo'- my own future here as Pastor.
After making that forecast without having completed even my first week at Blessed Sacrament Church, I asked you to include me in your prayers. I said on my first Sunday in 1993: 'Please pray that the Bishop who sent me to Blessed Sacrament will forget that I am here and just leave me here to serve. I plan to be here a loooooong time.' My goal was to 'spoil the poor'....
"The poorer a parish is the greater the need for a stable Pastor. Here at Blessed Sacrament, without the administrative staff of the more affluent parishes, so much MORE depends on the day-to-day guidance of its Pastor. If the Pastors of 2 affluent parishes are switched one to the other, the impact on the parish is minimal. Why? They both have a large staff to absorb the shock of the change. This is not possible in a parish such as Blessed Sacrament. The impact, in my opinion, will greatly undermine the progress made at such a dear cost over the last 10 years.
"My goal as Pastor has been not only to celebrate our 2001 Parish Centennial but to prepare the parish for the future.
"My goal has not been to nurse the Mexican Immigrants as a hen sits on an egg. By integrating Mexican immigrants into a parish which also offers Mass in English, their children have a place to attend Mass. Many teens of immigrants are more comfortable with Mass in English, although their parents speak Spanish. Also, by introducing the Mexican immigrants to native Dallasites, the possibilities for everyone increases exponentially. I have avoided a "ghetto" mentality in serving the Mexican immigrants in order to help them in the necessary process of acclimating to a new home - the USA. There are no fights or jealousies present between my Mexican immigrant parishioners and my native Dallasites. Rather, there is mutual love and respect.
"And all of this has been done 'on a shoestring.' Week after week, your contributions have not sat in a bank vault earning interest. What $$$ came in, went out in the same week. While we have NO DEBT, we also have no savings account either. Instead God has provided through you from week to week. (For example, 2 weeks ago, after paying all the bills and writing all of the checks on Friday, there was a remainder of $93.95 left over in the checking account.)
"Each week I recalled God's Providence - that this is exactly how it has been during my 10 years as Pastor. Like the manna in the desert, our people had 'just enough.' It truly shows you Who has been taking care of us at Blessed Sacrament. During these years of unending scandals, our Parish has been a constant beacon of positive, Catholic life in Dallas, Texas. Pray for God's Will and if possible that I be allowed to remain as pastor."
-Fr. Wilson is a Priest of the Diocese of Brooklyn. This article appeared in The Wanderer, July 2003. You may reach him by email at Frwils@aol.com.
Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church, Dallas Texas
A parking lot that will be filled several times Sunday Morning, and Saturday evening, thanks to the work of Fr. Paul.
Grace in truth, not in secrecy.