Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Newman Center Response

I'm not quite sure if the Albuquerque Journal will post the letter that I wrote in response to a guest column by Colt Balok that they printed in February 2, 2014 edition of their paper, so I am going to post it here as well for people to see.  If you would like to read the column by Mr. Balok, you can find it here:  http://www.abqjournal.com/346381/opinion/newman-center-change-for-the-good.html


Dear Editor,
I am writing in response to Mr. Colt Balok’s guest column dated February 1, 2014 regarding the Aquinas Newman Center.   While I do appreciate Mr. Balok’s opinion, much of what his writes is only his opinion and not based on anything but that opinion.

First, I have been a parishioner at the Newman Center for the last 6 years.  I am also an alumnus of the University of New Mexico and attended church regularly at the Newman Center when I was a UNM student in the early 1990’s.   When I moved back to Albuquerque in the middle part of the last decade, I made it a point of attending Mass at every parish in the Albuquerque Metro area in the hope that I would find one that would as Mr. Balok put it, “deepen my faith.”  I found that at the Newman Center.

Mr. Balok asserts that Mass is the same each day worldwide, which is not true.  Even within the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, Mass is different at a number of the parishes.  Archbishop Michael Sheehan himself has acknowledge as much when in the January 2014 edition of the Archdiocese’s newspaper, People of God, he discussed the beautiful way in which parishioners at Our Lady of La Vang celebrate the Vietnamese culture in their Masses.

My personal experiences are that not all parishes are the same nor should they be.  I, like Mr. Balok, grew up attending church in the Diocese of Gallup.  I was an altar server at St. Francis of Assisi Church and later Sacred Heart Cathedral in Gallup.  This was a time when there were no female altar servers, only altar boys, and when we always wore heavy wool cassocks and cotton surplices.   Did that make us more pious or devout than those who volunteer at the Newman Center to serve at Mass just because we didn’t wear “polo shirts”?  Maybe we should focus more on the devoutness and dedication of the more than 100 parishioners who volunteer at the Newman Center to serve in the various different liturgical ministries each weekend, than solely on what they wear while doing so.

I have lived in different parts of the country and different parts of the world, as well as having served in the United States Marine Corps, and I have attended church regularly throughout.  I have been to parishes that have had Diocesan, Jesuit, Franciscan, and Dominican priests and have found differences depending on the order of priests.  By far I, as well as most parishioners at the Newman Center, prefer Dominicans.  Dominicans are also known as the Order of Preachers and were founded to preach the Gospel.  Dominicans are known to have produced some of the greatest theological minds throughout the history of the Catholic Church.

Another issue that I take issue with is Mr. Balok utilizing UNM’s undergraduate enrollment number of about 21,000 to make his point as to why the Newman Center should have had someone become a candidate for priesthood.  If we utilize national statistics, then less than 1 out of 4 students at UNM is likely a Roman Catholic.  That leaves us at about 5,000 Catholic students.  However, normally, only those students who live on or near campus will attend church on campus which leaves less than 700 Catholic students that fit that description.  Even if every single one of those 700 students attended Mass every weekend, the Newman Center could not survive.  It cannot survive, let alone thrive, without the support of the 750+ families that call the Newman Center home. 

Mr. Balok says that students “no longer wish to attend Mass at the Newman Center” but this statement is not supported by the fact that every weekend students attend each of the parish’s five Masses, especially the 5pm Mass on Sundays which is primarily for students.  Students participate as Lectors, Eucharistic Ministers, Altar Servers, Ushers, Choir Members, and some are even Peer Campus Ministers.  Mr. Balok purports to talk for the “vast majority” of UNM students but in reality he only speaks for himself and the few people that he talks to that might agree with him. 

While Mr. Balok has been a part of the UNM and the Newman communities for a year and a half, many Newman parishioners have been members of both communities for a decade or more.  If he does not find Mass at the Newman Center “profound and stimulating” then he is well within his right to attend one of the many different Catholic Churches in the UNM area.  Why should the majority of the Newman Center parishioners have to suffer so that he can have the church he judges sufficiently Catholic?  The truth is that like most UNM graduates, Mr. Balok and his friends will leave the Newman Center behind after graduation, and it will be up to the devoted parishioners that remain to ensure that the parish continues to thrive. 

With 220,000+ Roman Catholic parishes worldwide, 17,000+ parishes here in the United States and 91 parishes in the Archdiocese of Santa Fe alone, does Mr. Balok really believe that every single one of those parishes is the same as each other.  He says that “selecting things that fit you personally from a menu is not an option,” and while I do agree with this when it comes to core Catholic beliefs, I wholeheartedly disagree with him when it comes to being able to choose what provides them “spiritual strength, guidance and direction.”  I have rarely seen two parishes that are exactly the same. Even rarer is finding two priests who are exactly the same.  In fact, often in a single parish different Masses on the same weekend are pronouncedly different.  We as Catholics are well within our rights to choose whatever parish we choose for whatever reason we choose and nobody has a right to tell us differently. 

Finally, Mr. Balok points to the idea that the Catholic Church is not a democracy, to which I agree.  As someone who believes in the Catechism of the Church, I’m sure he would agree with me that we should listen to the Pope regarding issues involving the Church.  Pope Francis recently called for a revision of the relations between local bishops and religion orders.  During a November 2013 meeting with the superiors general of the religious orders the pope said, “Dialogue between the bishop and religious must be rescued so that, due to a lack of understanding of their charisms, bishops do not view religious simply as useful instruments.”  The pope also said, “We bishops need to understand that consecrated persons are not functionaries but gifts that enrich dioceses.”

I, and my fellow Newman parishioners that have signed the petition to the Archbishop, see our Dominican priests as gifts from God who help us enrich and grow in our Catholic faith each and every day.  Replacing four Dominican priests with two Diocesan priests makes little sense especially when there is a shortage of priest already in the Archdiocese.  We are the ones who have remained after the students have graduated and left and we are the ones who wish to have a parish where the 64 year tradition of Dominicans being an integral part of our parish is not destroyed in the hopes of increasing Diocesan vocations.  I implore Archbishop Sheehan to reverse his decision and let the Dominicans remain at the Newman Center.

Sincerely,
Rick Carpenter
Aquina Newman Center Parishioner