News - September 2018 RSS Feed

Dear friends in Christ,
I always like when Moses appears in our First Reading on Sunday. As I’ve stated a number of times, I’m a big fan of Moses, and outside of Jesus (and probably Mary, too), he’s my favorite person in all of the Sacred Scriptures. In the Book of Numbers today we hear how God comes down in the cloud and strikes up a conversation with Moses, and then “takes” some of the Spirit that was on Moses and bestows it to the elders. I find that fascinating! The Spirit that Moses has, which he of course received from God, is thus sort of subdivided out and given to others, and when the elders receive some of what Moses had been given, they too are able to prophesy in the name of the Lord. That my friends is some powerful stuff!

Dear friends in Christ,
Thank you for the wonderful response to last weekend’s “text to join” Flocknote sign-up. More than 1,900 of you opted in and more are still coming in every day. That’s quite a flock! I had no idea it would be of interest to that many, but I am overjoyed at the level of excitement about it. You should have received your first messages this week including a introduction to the Word on Fire series sent this past Tuesday and my pastor’s message sent this past Thursday. If you didn’t get either of those, contract Bridget Richardson, our director of Communications.

Dear friends in Christ,
Today is Catechetical Sunday in the Church in the United States. It’s the day set aside to mark the beginning of the new Religious Education year for children, youth and adults. It’s also our first day of new RE year at CtR as classes begin this week for all our children and for junior high and high school youth ministry as well.

In 2001, a then-16 year old girl and her family notified this Archdiocese that Fr. Manuel La Rosa-Lopez had kissed and touched her inappropriately when he was assigned as Parochial Vicar at Sacred Heart in Conroe. We immediately referred this information to Children’s Protective Services for further investigation. Father La Rosa-Lopez denied touching the girl inappropriately, and the girl’s family decided not to pursue the matter, relocating out of the country that same year. After an internal review, including presentation of the above allegations to the newly founded Archdiocesan Review Board in 2003, Father La Rosa-Lopez was permitted to return to parish ministry in 2004.

Dear friends in Christ,
Given the early deadline this week for today’s bulletin (it was moved up several days by our printing company due to the Labor Day holiday this past Monday), I’m going to use this space today to print Pope Francis’ recent letter addressing the current crisis and climate in the Church in the wake of the recent revelations of sexual abuse and misuse of power by some in the hierarchy. This message was released on Monday, Aug. 20 and is addressed simply “To the People of God.” It follows below.