I have a friend I met when we had our Faith In Recovery support group at Blessed Trinity, before it was another church closed in Catholic Church in North Central Milwaukee. He has some mental health or brain disorders that leave him confused and forgetful at times. He had lived with his mother until she had severe dementia and went to an assisted living place. He wants to be normal so hard, drive a car, work a job, be independent but he is unable to. Recently he has been plagued with some other physical illnesses such as diabetes. Bureaucracy messes him up with his food stamps and his monthly SSI payments. He has no family in town and friends come and go in his life.
He is one of my friends who call on me for rides when needed but does not take advantage of our friendship. In fact he is the one that always wants to go bowling, fishing or play golf and I am the too busy one. He knows what true friendship is since often persons befriend him when he has a little money and know he is a soft touch. At times he has to go without food or money since people had taken advantage of him.
He is a good example of a person in need of a Church community. He had one at the Blessed Trinity but now living on the east side of town has a hard time finding another Church community.
The Archbishop recently released a long term plan for the Archdiocese of Milwaukee. In 2020 he predicts there will only be around 100 Catholic, male, celibate priests so he plans to reduce the parishes in the Milwaukee archdiocese from around 235 now to just 100 in 2020. One priest, one parish might make sense if you believe a church is hierarchical and needs a celibate male ordained priest to be a church. If a Church is a community of people, like Vatican II said it was 50 years ago, then there are other models, married and female ordained priest, lay parish directors and church communities without a priest. We are the church.
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