A Great Asset for Oregon's Catholics - New faith formation chief wants people to 'encounter Christ'

3/25/2016 9:15:00 AM  from the Catholic Sentinel. Parents must practice faith zealously if children are to follow, says Rolando Moreno
Archdiocese of Portland photo Rolando Moreno works in his office on Ash Wednesday. In the corner is an image of St. John Bosco, patron of youth. Moreno, new director of the Archdiocese of Portland’s Office of Catechesis and Faith Formation, says the focus of teaching the faith should be an encounter with Jesus. The church needs to teach people that Christian belief matters in their everyday existence, says the new director of the Archdiocese of Portland’s Office of Catechesis and Faith Formation. “We have to place a strong emphasis on the encounter with Christ,” explains Rolando Moreno, who took the post in December. “Christ has to be proclaimed as real and that he has a plan for our lives.” Moreno sees catechesis in part as a confrontation of what he calls a “post-Christian worldview” — relativism, uncertainty and self-centeredness. Parents and catechists themselves need to be transformed by the gospel before they can help children move past cultural malaise, he says. “I think that to reach young people today you have to be real to them, taking their lives and questions seriously,” says Moreno, a 39-year-old member of St. Joseph Parish in Salem. “We have to speak directly to them and not speak down to them. We have to present the faith in a beautiful and dynamic way, in language that speaks to their hearts.” It’s crucial for parents to bring their children to Mass from day one, says Moreno, who with wife Angela is a parent of five, including an infant girl born in late February. “It builds a family culture centered on the faith,” he explains. Moreno embraces what Pope Francis said about catechesis in “Joy of the Gospel”: It’s about accompanying people. Moreno received a master’s degree of Theological Studies from the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family at the Catholic University of America in 2005. In 2003, he received a bachelor’s degree in theology and philosophy with a concentration in religious education from the Franciscan University of Steubenville. Archbishop Alexander Sample has identified catechesis and faith formation as a top pastoral priority for the Church in western Oregon. Before taking the new role, Moreno worked as pastoral associate in massive St. Joseph Parish in Salem, 2005-2014. Then he taught theology for a year at Central Catholic High School. Since 2008, he has been a part-time theology instructor for the Archdiocese of Portland Ministry Formation Program. For Moreno, catechesis in the family and the need to strengthen marriage and families makes up “the most important challenge facing the Church today.” Calling parents “the first witnesses of the Gospel to their children,” he challenges them to live out their baptism and live what they profess. If parents do so, he says, the chances are better that children will, too. “We are convinced that the work of catechesis has to be strong in the family in order for the church to be strong as a whole,” Moreno explains. “The first step in this task is to call the family/parents to conversion. Parental catechesis is only effective if the parents are actively living the faith with humility and sincerity.” He says families need to center their lives on Sunday Mass, Holy Days of obligation and family prayer. “In my experience, this has to go beyond just a routine adherence,” he says. “When we encounter the Lord in the Eucharist with openness, it begins to shape our lives and we then take on our role as parent-catechists.” Moreno says nine years in the bustling Salem parish taught him about parish ministry among a culturally rich — and diverse — population. The task of reaching different cultures in the church is not something new, he explains. “The church has been living its catholicity — universality — from its very beginning,” Moreno says. “The universality of the church —meant for all peoples, of every time and space — is a concept that is imbedded in the church’s theology, in its very nature. From this point of departure, the unity of faith can be lived because the church knows how to reach humanity with all of its varieties of peoples and cultures.” Moreno says experience has taught him that “the human heart is the same across the board.” No matter our heritage, we all have the same need to encounter the infinite, the same need for love, fulfillment, joy and truth. On a practical level, he says, the church does need to respect the particular needs of different communities. Moreno grew up in Michigan in a mostly English-speaking neighborhood. He is not fluent in Spanish, but can converse and understand quite a bit. He promises to continue working on his Spanish.  As the Spanish-speaking community of Catholics grows, parishes are short on trained Spanish-language catechists, Moreno says. That’s a problem he’d like to address. It will be his job to offer support and resources to help parish ministers flourish, no matter the language. He will train and form catechists, hoping especially to boost faith formation among young families. The end game for Moreno is “a renewal of Catholic life and culture in the archdiocese.” Moreno is humbled by his new post and by the trust Archbishop Alexander Sample has placed in him. The new job, he says, has prompted new prayer in him.

Celebrating Babies on this very Special Day.

Hi everyone! Guess what?! Today is World Down Syndrome Day (21.03 - 3 x 21 chromosomes, get it?!)! As such, we thought...

Posted by Ollie & Cameron on Monday, March 21, 2016

Requiem Mass for Our Dear Friend, Fr. Robert Palladino, on Friday, March 11 at 11 AM

CANTORES IN ECCLESIA BULLETIN - March 7, 2016
Cantores Website About Cantores About Blake Applegate, director Directions to Holy Rosary Church Directions to St. Stephen's Church Donations Contact Us CANTORES IN ECCLESIA P.O. Box 2783 Portland, Oregon 97208-2783 Telephone: 503.295.2811 Email: cantores@ cantoresinecclesia.org Cantores in Ecclesia is also on	The Requiem Mass for our dear friend, Fr. Robert Palladino, will be celebrated in St. Mary's Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception on Friday, March 11, at 11 am. Although his sudden death came as a shock, we are grateful that years ago he had given Dean Applegate instructions for the music he wanted sung by Cantores in Ecclesia. In his beautifully calligraphed hand, he indicated the readings, plainsong and motets he had chosen for his funeral, when that time came. Sadly, that day arrived far too soon for us all. Fr. Palladino died in his home on Friday, February 26. We will always be indebted to him for his decades of support, encouragement and friendship. To say he will be greatly missed only understates our loss. St. Mary's Cathedral is located at 17th and NW Davis in Portland. The above picture of Fr. Palladino was published as part of a substantial and deeply deserved tribute to him in The New York Times on March 4 (online), and in the print version of the paper on March 6. To read this tribute in full, please click HERE.

LA’s Religious Ed Congress hosts transgender Catholics -

VOCAL helped  the gender terms of Patti, born male and Mateo, born female in this article.  Another note of interest, during this workshop there was apparently no one giving the Church's side of transgenderism.  Mr. FitzMaurice who is a homosexual, organized this workshop. 

Archbishop José Gomez during the closing Mass of the 2013 Religious Education Congress. (photo credit: Victor Aleman/Angelus)

The following comes from a March 7 Crux article by Michael O’Loughlin:
LOS ANGELES – Tens of thousands of Catholics descend on Los Angeles each winter to sharpen their ministry skills, partaking in dozens of workshops and seminars about liturgy, prayer, Bible, and parish life as part of the LA Religious Education Congress. With close to 40,000 participants, it’s the largest annual gathering of Catholics in North America, a celebration of all things Catholic.

But event organizers this year took a cue from popular culture and included a new session, one that attracted a standing room only crowd of 750 people, nearly all of whom jumped to their feet for a sustained round of applause after talks from two young, committed Catholics.

The name of the session? “Transgender in the Church: One Bread, One Body.”

Father Christopher Bazyouros, director of the office of religious education for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles

The Rev. Christopher Bazyouros, the director of the office of religious education for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, said including the discussion in the program was an important first step for the Church in grappling with an issue that exploded onto the national consciousness last June when Caitlyn Jenner appeared on the cover of Vanity Fair, announcing to the world that she is transgender.
“There aren’t many places for Catholics to discuss these things that are thoughtful, intentional, and that gathers people who have had this experience,” he said. “Many Catholics want information about this topic, they want things to help them understand this situation.”

To that end, conference organizers invited two transgender Catholics to speak, both of whom were surprised and gratified that they were included. And both used their presentations to urge acceptance by the wider universe of Catholics.

Anna Patti (born male), a 23-year-old Michigan resident, told the crowd she didn’t believe “God made a mistake” with her, as some have said of transgender people.

In an interview after her presentation, she said having the opportunity to speak freely about her struggles and her joys was “an unexpectedly affirming experience.”

“I hadn’t realized how silenced I felt within the Church,” she said. “At Mass I always sit in the back row in the back corner, making myself as visibly small as possible. Here was the opposite, where people wanted to learn about an issue that is so often immediately condemned.”
“It was beautiful,” she said of the crowd’s reaction.

Mateo Williamson (photo from Dignity USA‘s giveoutday.org page)

Mateo Williamson (born female), a 24-year-old medical student at the Jesuit-run Loyola Medical School in Chicago, described with joy his deeply Catholic upbringing, part of a family that included several priests and nuns.

After his talk, he said many young people thanked him for sharing his story about living as a transgender man in the Church.

“Pope Francis’ charity, compassion, and call to mercy, it’s changed the tone in the Church,” he said. “He hasn’t been explicit about trans people, and there’s nothing in the Catechism, but there’s been a change among people in general to understand something they maybe haven’t encountered before.”
Pope Francis has spoken out repeatedly against so-called gender ideology, but Patti said she doesn’t interpret those comments as hostile to trans people.

In fact, she thinks the pope’s remarks about gender not being just a social construct actually support the transgender community by pointing out that gender identity is innate.

The LA Congress workshop sold out quickly, and some of the audience, which included several priests, seminarians, and nuns, said the fact it happened at all gave them hope about the future of the Church.

Arthur FitzMaurice, who speaks frequently about LGBT issues in the Church and who organized the workshop, said he believes it was the largest discussion devoted to transgender issues and Catholicism in the Church’s history. He said that organizers have already asked him to plan a similar workshop next year.

NEW VIDEO. Planned Parenthood OC Changes Abortions to Harvest Intact Fetuses for Lo...