by Bishop James Conley
Editor’s Note: This column is taken from a talk Bishop Conley delivered Jan. 11 for the Lincoln chapter of Legatus, a Catholic organization for business leaders.
When I took my medical leave of absence at the end of 2019, little did I know the whole world would take a medical leave of absence just a few short months later. We have gone through a tremendously difficult time over these past few years, not only as a society and as a people, but as a Church and as a culture. I don’t need to enumerate the litany of examples, about which we know all too well. But if we take the long view of history, we see that every age has had their own crosses to bear in this vale of tears. Every epoch feels like theirs is the worst: that the end times are upon us; that the world is falling apart; that chaos and anarchy have taken over and all is lost.
But I am firmly convinced that we were made for these times. God has called each one us in our own individual vocations to be alive at this time in history for a divine reason. We all have work to do. In the words of St. John Henry Newman, “God has created me to do him some definite service.” Each one of us has an important role to play in these times.
Newman and his colleagues in the Oxford movement had immersed themselves into the writings of the Church Fathers; the great saints and theologians of the first four centuries of Christianity. And in their writings, Newman discovered that the Church and society had always been in crisis. No age could claim to be the worst in history. Every age was part of God’s master plan. Just as Christ stilled the storm when the apostles were in the boat on the sea of Galilee headed for sure disaster, so he stills the storms of every age and every heart if we would but have the eyes to see and the hearts to believe that God is mightier than any human or worldly catastrophe.
As I mentioned above, there is no doubt that we have gone through some extraordinary times in these past three and a half years. In the summer of 2018, we experienced some traumatic events, both in the Church universal and in our own Diocese of Lincoln. There was the public revelation of the second wave of the clergy abuse scandals in the Church: there was the McCarrick report and the Pennsylvania Grand Jury findings which revealed—in excruciating detail—the evil and horrific crimes of child sexual abuse by some members of the Roman Catholic clergy. My heart goes out to these victims of abuse and the tremendous pain it has caused them and their families.
At a local level, a number of our own priests were placed on administrative leave for misconduct. These events, in part, occasioned a statewide Attorney General’s investigation of all three Nebraska dioceses which lasted over three years before a final report was issued this past November. The Attorney General’s report again revealed a number of other cases of clergy sexual abuse dating back over 40 years.
Some of our Catholic schools faced insurmountable financial challenges, which led to the closing of two of our oldest and most cherished schools, St. Mary and Sacred Heart in Lincoln. We lost an active active young priest, Father Ramon Decaen, related to complications due to COVID-19. The effects of the pandemic on our parishes, on our schools and on our culture and society have been like a heavy pall hanging over our heads. All of this has made these last three and a half years a time of great suffering and distress. But God knows what he is about, and through our suffering in union with the redeeming love and suffering of Christ, we continue to persevere in living out God’s providential plan for the world.
After I returned from my medical leave in the fall of 2020, I sent all of our priests a little book entitled: “From Christendom to Apostolic Mission: Pastoral Strategies for An Apostolic Age,” published by Msgr. James Shea and the University of Mary. The book speaks about how the Catholic Church is missionary by her very nature. In this post-Christian culture in which we live, we, the Body of Christ, are called to move from being a Church of maintenance to a Church of mission. We are called to keep our eyes on Jesus Christ and to respond to his call to holiness. Whatever is happening in the visible world around us, we are called to keep our eyes on the permanent things, the invisible world, the supernatural realities that must become more real to us than this visible world that is quickly fading away.
I firmly believe we are a healthy and strong diocese. We have 141 active priests for a diocese of 96,000 Catholics. Very few dioceses in the world can boast those numbers. Of those 141 active priests, 71 are 50 years old or under. We have 25 seminarians studying for the priesthood at various stages and, thanks to the Joy of Gospel campaign, we have a newly renovated college seminary, St. Gregory the Great. We have a great rector, faculty and staff forming these future priests. Over 75% of our seminarians are products of our Catholic schools.
We have seven communities of religious women, all in religious habit, praying and serving in our diocese. I know of no other diocese in the United States the size of ours, who can match that. For example, I spent last Sunday with Marian Sisters for Mass and brunch, and the holiness, joy and hope of those sisters is contagious. They have over 12 sisters in formation and their chapel is nearly filled to capacity.
We have one of the most beautiful, vibrant, and effective Newman Centers in the country on the campus of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. There are over 100 active bible studies with the students on campus and an active Catholic fraternity and sorority.
And thanks to the extraordinary generosity and deep faith of a wonderful couple in our diocese, the debt has been completely retired on the construction of the Newman Center. This is such a blessing to the mission of the Newman Center and to the entire Diocese of Lincoln.
We have 24 Catholic elementary schools and six Catholic high schools that are thoroughly Catholic in their identity. Over 40 of our Catholic priests are teaching or administering in these schools, along with many religious sisters.
While we have struggled to financially support our Catholic schools, thanks to the Joy of the Gospel capital campaign, we have a robust scholarship fund, the Good Shepherd Scholarship Fund, which assists those families who are in financial need so that every family who wishes to send their children to Catholic schools is able to do so. This past year we were able to raise $2 million to add to the scholarship fund.
Catholic education has always been at the heart of our mission in the Diocese of Lincoln. Our Catholic schools have always been, are now, and will always be affordable to families, and will always be truly Catholic. People continue to move to the Lincoln Diocese from all over the country because of our schools and because of the vibrant faith of our parishes.
The pandemic has really taken a toll on our schools and parishes in many ways. Our Sunday and Holy Mass attendance was about 52% of registered parishioners before the pandemic. It dropped to 28% during the height of the pandemic and this past October we climbed back to 42%. We are still down about 10%. Although the whole Church in the United States has seen a drop in Mass attendance, we are still well above the average.
The loss of faith in the Holy Eucharist and the rise of “nones” in the United States has prompted the US bishops to launch a Eucharistic Revival that will begin this summer with the Solemnity of Corpus Christi and last two years. It will culminate with a National Eucharistic Congress to be held in the city of Indianapolis in the summer of 2024. This will be a local and national initiative to call people back to the “source and summit” of our Catholic faith, the representation of the Holy Sacrifice of Jesus Christ on Calvary that redeemed us and saved us from our sins.
It was the belief in the real presence of Jesus Christ in the Holy Eucharist that first drew me to the Catholic faith when I was a college student. The beauty, the transcendence and the mystery of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is truly a taste of heaven and where we are invited at every Mass to receive the body, blood, soul and divinity of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
The Sunday liturgy is the heart of our Catholic prayer and worship, and our priests offer holy and reverent Masses. We plan on enhancing and strengthening Eucharistic adoration, Eucharistic processions and Eucharistic spirituality in our diocese. I ask all of you to begin praying for the success of the Eucharistic Revival. There will be an abundance of resources that will be provided to parishes to renew the life of faith and apostolic mission in our parishes.
We are living in a culture and a society that is working against Christians. In this toxic culture we are swimming against the tide. In the words of St. Pope John Paul II, we are living in a culture of death. And yet, we know that the dignity and sanctity of human life and human sexuality is undeniable. Science is on our side. On Jan. 21, thousands of people, mostly young people, will be peacefully and prayerfully marching in Washington to stand up for life.
This past month, Ignatius Press published a new biography of St. Gregory the Great, who reigned as pope from 590 to 604, at the end of the Roman Empire. Gregory the Great is the patron saint of our seminary. I did a podcast on the new book with Ignatius Press. I was struck in reading the book, how much his times were a lot like ours.
As the empire was crumbling all around him, St. Gregory stayed the course and led the Christians of his time to live their lives in deep faith and holiness, even in the midst of numerous plagues and pandemics, the invasion of barbarians from the north, the collapse of culture and widespread moral corruption. He led the Christians of his day to keep their eyes on Christ, to have hope in his love and mercy and to be joyful in living out their faith. He accomplished so much good under these conditions—he is known for the establishment of Gregorian Chant and the beauty of the liturgy. He wrote insightful commentaries on Scripture that are still considered gems today.
St. Gregory taught and preached that God’s mysterious providence is always at work in our lives and in the world in which we live, that every age has its own struggles. Every age is called to the same mission: to keep our eyes on Christ, to hold in our hearts the hope of heaven, and to love our neighbor as Christ loves his Church.
