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Reinventing Commonweal Local Communities

Updated 10/30/2024 Reinventing Commonweal Local Communities What do you see as the potential value of Commonweal Communities? A four-year experience in the 1980s as a voluntary member of pastoral staff of a parish in Toledo formed my ideal of a small community.  Most of the pastoral staff members were volunteers. We were diverse in our parish responsibilities, professional backgrounds, and spirituality.  Parish responsibilities included social justice minister, youth minister, accountant, maintenance.  Professional backgrounds included a Black woman with a state level award for her public-school teachings who told stories that allowed children to think about values. We had a union shop steward.  A couple who gave Marriage Encounters were our RENEW program leaders. The leader of woman’s organization had lost her daughter to suicide. Several of the staff had backgrounds in the charismatic movement.  We took turns leading opening prayers by sharing our spiritual ...

Catholic Music: The Gregorian Propers & the Psalms

  VUC  Psalm 90:  1 Laus cantici David . DRA  Psalm 90:  1 The praise of a canticle for David. Qui habitat in adjutorio Altissimi, in protectione Dei caeli commorabitur .   2  Dicet Domino: Susceptor meus es tu, et refugium meum; Deus meus, sperabo in eum.   3  Quoniam ipse liberavit me de laqueo venantium, et a verbo aspero.   4  Scapulis suis obumbrabit tibi, et sub pennis ejus sperabis.   5  Scuto circumdabit te veritas ejus: non timebis a timore nocturno;   6  a sagitta volante in die, a negotio perambulante in tenebris, ab incursu, et daemonio meridiano.   7  Cadent a latere tuo mille, et decem millia a dextris tuis; ad te autem non appropinquabit.   8  Verumtamen oculis tuis considerabis, et retributionem peccatorum videbis.   9  Quoniam tu es, Domine, spes mea; Altissimum posuisti refugium tuum.   10  Non accedet ad te malum, et flagellum non appropinquabit tabernacu...

Phonograph: Audio Virtual Reality

The virtual world created by the phonograph has changed not only music but also our lives as persons and communities. REFERENCES How the Phonograph Changed Music Forever Much like streaming music services today are reshaping our relationship with music, Edison’s invention redefined the entire industry. Clive Thompson is author of Smarter Than You Think: How Technology is Changing Our Minds for the Better and Coders: The Making of a New Tribe and the Remaking of the World. He is a contributing writer to the New York Times Magazine and Wired.  The Walkman’s Invention 40 Years Ago Launched a Cultural Revolution In 1979, the new device forever changed the way we listened to music History of the Record Industry, 1920— 1950s

Virtual and Physical Worship: Incorporating the Electronic Revolution

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Virtual and Physical Worship Incorporating the Electronic Revolution In the past Christianity has flourished in large part because it incorporated two revolutions in the use of paper.  The first was using the codex rather than the papyrus form of manuscripts. The book form provided longer manuscripts making the modern bible possible and easier access to the pages of a manuscript. Christian communities as well as Jewish communities became connected by written as well as oral communication.   The greater flexibility of the codex allowed Christian communities to exist as household assembles rather than being limited to synagogues with their rolls of papyrus.  The second revolution was the printed book that allowed the mass production of bibles, liturgical books and universal literacy. Each individual Christian could read the bible, and pray with their own prayer books such psalters, breviaries and missals. Currently Christianity is challenged by the electronic revolu...

National Study of Catholic Priests

  Well-being, Trust, and Policy in a Time of Crisis:  Highlights from the National Study of Catholic Priests Presentation of the National Study of Catholic Priests

Regional Syntheses

  NATIONAL SYNTHESIS REGION I   I (CT, MA, ME, NH, RI, VT) In the absence at the submission time of diocesan syntheses from the Archdiocese of  Boston and the Diocese of Manchester, these findings represent a broad synthesis of the input  received from the (Arch)Dioceses of Hartford, Bridgeport, Burlington, Fall River, Norwich,  Portland, Providence, Springfield, and Worcester. REGION II  II (NY) Region II includes all eight New York dioceses, organized geographically under the spiritual leadership of a diocesan bishop. REGION III   III (NJ, PA) Archdiocese of Newark, NJ  Archdiocese of Philadelphia, PA Diocese of Allentown, PA Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown, PA Diocese of Camden, NJ Diocese of Erie, PA Diocese of Greensburg, PA Diocese of Harrisburg, PA Diocese of Metuchen, NJ Diocese of Paterson, NJ Diocese of Pittsburgh, PA Diocese of Scranton, PA Diocese of Trenton, NJ REGION IV  IV (DC, DE, MD, VA, VI, WV) • - Diocese of Arlingto...

Just War: Two Views

A CONSISTENT ETHIC OF SOLIDARITY

Rediscovering the Black Social Gospel

  King & His Mentors  By Gary Dorrien COMMONWEAL January 20, 2020

LAITY & THE RENEWAL OF CATHOLICISM

WE ARE ALL NUNS

RENEWAL, MINISTRY AND RELIGIOUS LIFE

CATHOLIC VS SECTARIAN RENEWAL

RENEWAL OF CATHOLICISM BY RELIGIOUS ORDERS

GUTIERREZ: WHAT IS SPIRITUALITY?