David Ancell / Saturday May 01, 2004
Take a look at the letter that Fr. Bryce Sibley has written for the bulletin of his church. On the one hand, I am thankful to God that this man has been made a pastor. On the other hand, it’s sad that he even had to think about writing a letter like this.
Basically, he is writing that, sadly, many of the kids in his First Communion class have been missing Mass. This reminds me of something that we heard twice in our RCIA class this year, from two different priests. One of the priests who said it posted a comment to Fr. Sibley’s post. The other priest is my pastor.
It’s hard to understand why parents would go to the trouble to have the child baptized and promise to raise him/her in the faith, and then not even bother to take the child to Mass. It’s even harder to understand why a priest would agree to do the baptism. Then again, it’s not inconceivable that parents would say whatever it takes to get the baptism done, including “Yes Father, we are there every single Sunday.”
Interestingly enough, a coworker of mine went to baptismal class for her child here in the Memphis area (not at my parish), and they told her nothing about the duties she is assuming in having her child baptized. In fact, the whole class focused on the ceremony. If I get that kind of “class” when and if I have a child, the pastor of that parish, and possibly the bishop, will hear of it. I am aware of what duties I would be assuming, but I know that many others are not. Given that Fr. Sibley probably wasn’t at that parish when these parents went through baptismal class, he is having to hope that his predecessor did his job.
I appreciate the fact that Fr. Sibley wrote the letter the way he did to the whole parish. He asked people who knew parents who weren’t taking their children to Mass to remind them to do so. I sincerely hope that he has the support of his community in this.
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