Wednesday, April 22, 2015

PRAYER RALLY AND MOTORCADE, MAY 3

Island Catholics are organizing a prayer rally and motorcade event for May 3. The motorcade will begin at several different island locations and culminate on the steps of the Cathedral Basilica on Sunday, May 3, at 4:30pm for prayer, music, and speeches. For updates, check back on this blog or join the even on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/events/1642130966009143/


19 comments:

  1. On a more cheerful note please remember to wish Msgr. Benavente a happy birthday on May 6 and reassure him of your prayers on his behalf. A donation towards his canon lawyer would be helpful, too. And don't forget prayers for Fr. Gofigan and donations towards his canon lawyer as well.

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    1. What a kind gesture and recommendation for the two. However, I believe Msgr James and Fr. Paul would prefer that your donations be used to directly help your parishes and not be used for the Charities Appeal, RMS Seminary, or the NCW. Unlike Msgr. Bibi on his anniversary, these priests aren't asking for money to send them on trips and personal expenses. Remember that ad in the U Matuna a while back?

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    2. AAA can and does directly assess ANY money that goes to the parishes, not just the Appeal. And with the failure of the Appeal, he is likely to go after more parish money.

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    3. Then it would be good to pay bills directly or put the money into the hands of your parish priests, except the NCW priests...who knows what they'll do with it. Maybe write a check and memo it for the specific need/bill? Or make a donation to CCOG of JungleWatch...they do more work for the church than the archbishop

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    4. Good point Tim. Pastors consider placing parish funds into parish council account. aaa is now in financial difficulty and it shows. Even cashee will not be able to supply instantly the financial requirement needed.

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    5. Mary Lou Garcia-PeredaApril 23, 2015 at 11:27 AM

      Anonymous (April 23, 2015 at 9:56 AM), a C-B parishioner who wanted her contribution to help pay parish bills wrote a check to GPA only to discover the endorsement on her check was that of C-B and not the GPA payee. Clearly earlier suggestions to write checks to the utility companies only served to put more funds into AAA's pet projects, rather than help the parish.

      Unfortunately there are STILL people — "Regular Catholics" — who, out of the goodness of their hearts, and concern for the parish, continue to write checks and/or drop cold hard cash into the collection baskets … and they will continue to do so, despite all that they read here in the blog. Those are the people AAA can continue to count on …

      Your suggestion to put the money into the hands of the parish priest is an EXCELLENT one! Your other options — CCOG and JungleWatch — are also fine alternatives. The suggestion that Agnes (April 22, 2015 at 10:15 PM) made — donating to help offset the costs of the Canon Lawyers for Msgr. James and/or Fr. Paul — is yet another way to ensure our money is being kept out of AAA's grabbing hands.

      I pray that the well-meaning Catholics will understand that their good intentions only serve AAA's interests and not those of the parishes they want to support.

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    6. Apuron should have realized that financial gaps will occur when he dragged accountability questions in the hopes that people will stop asking. No, sir, you irk the source of your revenue, namely the lay people who pay your bills and global excursions, and you will have pushback from donors. You think laypeople pick money on trees? No, they have families to feed, illnesses and many bills too! We give to the Church because we value our faith and the institution required to regulate it. Yes, if you cannot have the decency to put in writing the basic answer as to where our money goes and what we pay for, you expect us to just keep giving? This is a no-brainer SOP, yet like many of your decisions, you have remained obstinate, proud and short-sighted. People who push back are not malicious, just fed up with bad stewardship.

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    7. I appeal to all those who have temporarily changed parishes to please attend mass at a Church that doesn't run ACs or attend the first or last mass of the day. We'll be sure to turn off the ACs. All are welcomed in our parish, but we can't afford the power it takes to keep everyone comfortable and we're not in a place with good air flow. Thank you. To the person who had their check endorsed, I would report it to GPD. If the check is written to GPA, it cannot be cashed by anyone or any place else.

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  2. It would be helpful if each priest would set up an account with paypal. Some of us don't use checks and the priests will be best able to show accountability for the donations.

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    1. Yes'm excellent idea. I will do a post on it.

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  3. With regards to the motorcade, do we just show up at the parking lot? Or are there people in charge of each parish's gathering?

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    1. Details coming. I will post here but recommend going to the Facebook page indicated for immediate updates.

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  4. anxiety, tensions distress chancery.

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  5. JUSTICE AAA (ACCOUNTABILITY AND ACTION)

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  6. There can be no peace or love without justice. Justice, accoountabality, action.

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  7. As many of us see it, the smaller the amount in monetary donations that the parish takes in from the Sunday collections, the smaller the parish dollar base becomes from which the aa/ncw appeal will be able to take their parish assessment from -- this “assessment” is our parish’ contribution to the ncw/aaa appeal which is forced from our parish priests and disguised as support for our island’s archdiocese. We seriously and immediately need to consider supporting our parish and our parish priest, our associate priests, and priests in residence, in a different and more DIRECT manner and method. This is how this suggestion works:

    1. We continue to put our envelops with our checks (not cash) in the Sunday collection or give it to our parish priest. BUT,

    2. INSTEAD of writing our parish’s name (example: San Roke) on the check, we write instead: GPA or GWA or GSWA, or the parish florist’s name, or the name of the business that does the ground maintenance or building maintenance, or name of the liturgical supply source, etc.

    3. Explain clearly to our priest that we want our check, specifically as we wrote it, to be used to augment the parish’s payment of the larger bills -- utility, Church or building maintenance and repair, liturgical supply etc. -- thus, cutting down the parish’s portion of the month’s bills by our contribution amount but also, minimizing the over-all monthly parish income base from which aaa/ncw calculates their monthly parish assessment on. OR,

    4. We might also choose to give personal monetary GIFTS or gift certificates to our priests directly, toward their personal needs or choose to financially contribute towards specific parish projects. ADDITIONALLY,

    5. Be on guard. Be on constant alert as well, to those other devious ways the ncw/aaa will collect from us! Because we are not the nincompoops nor the doofus that aaa and kikos treat us as, or regard us to be, we’ve discovered and “are on” to their other creatively devious devises concocted in their desperate quest to outsmart us and to, subtly, continue to take our monies via our events and celebrations at the diocese level, parish level or parish ministry/apostolate event levels.

    We too, can be creative in the ways we directly keep our priests supported; keep our parishes bolstered and existing; keep our authentic Catholic Faith viable and strong, and keep the ncw and aaa out of our pockets and out of our parishes’ financial security.

    This manner of contributing should be done on our own volition (it should be the individual parishioners’ own decision and own doing) and not our parish Priest’s decision or doing. We have the prerogative to choose what to donate or contribute to and how to do so in our Church -- at least, UNTIL the ncw is completely and absolutely out of the picture in our island’s Catholic diocese!

    Here’s a simple money management “natural law” I use: “You can’t take out what you don’t put in.” It’s a practical “law” which, put to practice in our parishes, would ultimately mean that, the NCW can’t take out much (from our parish finances) what (cash monies $$) we don’t put into it. “Parish On!”

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  8. Not enough 4:34,

    Supporting the parish, even with checks written to GPA and GWA, only frees up money given to the parish for AAA to take. STOP ALL THE MONEY! I hate to say it but the priest must all be suffering at the hands of AAA. Sadly, Rome will only act when $$$ is very low and archdiocese can no longer support the priest and daily functions. It's a sacrifice we all have to make to win back our church.

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  9. Stop money to the parishes and learn from cashee cashee. Cashee gives envelopes to her priest direct so follow example. Apuron obviously supports this. No more money to the parishes give direct to the priests.

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    1. Cashee give me some filled envelopes and I will give to MY priest.

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