Author: Charles Dittmeier

National Catholic Office of the Deaf

Pastoral Week (Sunday)

In the morning we had our last information session and then left right away for a national pilgrimage site, The Grotto on a Portland hilltop.

The Grotto is a shrine to Mary as Sorrowful Mother and is part of a huge rock face on the hill top.

At the top of the cliff and the grotto is a beautiful forest of magnificent trees.

On the edge of the cliff, with a panoramic view, is this chapel for meditation and prayer. It is amazing that all of this is within the city of Portland.
Our time at The Grotto concluded with a final liturgy. The presider was Bishop Stephen Raica whom I first met at the 1978 Florida NCOD conference in Florida, when he was a new priest getting into deaf ministry.
Back at the hotel, we had a concluding banquet. For me it was a chance to meet more new friends.

National Catholic office of the Deaf

Pastoral Week (Saturday)

This has to be a brief post. I need to leave the hotel at 3:30 AM to get to the airport and I need to get some sleep. It could be a l-o-n-g journey back to Louisville with all the snow and air travel disruption.

At one of our announcement sessions, two representatives from the International Catholic Deaf Association gave information about the activities and programs of the ICDA,

National Catholic Office of the Deaf

Pastoral Week (Friday)
As many Catholic gatherings do, our pastoral week started with a liturgy for 90 or so participants from all over the USA.
There is a group of six American Sign Language interpreters working at this conference to facilitate the spread of the program content and enable communications among the participants with various levels of sign language skills.
One of the first speakers was Fr. Bill Key from Milwaukee. He and I have been friends since these annual gatherings in the early 1970s.

Two other friends from the early days of deaf ministry are Bea (L) and Judith, Sisters of Providence who are ministers in Seattle. Here we are at a nearby mall food court for a supper to allow us to catch up.

National Catholic Office of the Deaf

Pastoral Week (Thursday)

We flew through Denver to get to Portland from Louisville, and then in Portland it was a 24-mile drive to the hotel where the gathering is being held. On the drive I noticed one sign that we are not in Kentucky: the trees here have no mistletoe while the barren trees around Louisville are full of the dark clumps of the seasonal parasite.

Registration for the gathering started at 4:00 PM and then in the evening we had a welcome reception. I was pleased to meet some of the pastoral workers I first met 50 and 60 years ago.

National Catholic Office of the Deaf

Pastoral Week (Thursday)

Every year the National Catholic Office of the Deaf has a pastoral week to bring together people who minister in religious formation programs for Catholic deaf people. I am attending this year’s gathering in Portland, Oregon, and got this photo on the way here, changing planes in Denver.

You want me to check the oil, too?

War is not the answer

“Catholic personnel in the US military could in good conscience consider disobeying orders to attack Greenland, according to the bishop responsible for their pastoral care.

The Archbishop of the Military Services Timothy Broglio said personnel “could be put in a situation where they’re being ordered to do something that’s morally questionable” if the US acted on President Donald Trump’s threats of military action to take control of Greenland.”

Week of Christian Unity

Today is the first day of the week of prayer for Christian Unity. Jesus emphasized our unity as God’s children and as brothers and sisters, and especially now, when there are so many divisive forces at work in our world and our politics, it is even more imperative that we Christians work together to create a new environment of peace and collaboration.