Good for Fr. Joseph Illo!

Boys Only to Serve at Star of the Sea

Thank God for courageous priests, manly priests in fact, who are willing to take on the culture in order to do something good. Fr. Illo of Star of the Sea parish in San Francisco recently decided to phase out girl altar boys at his parish with the permission of Archbishop Cordileone. The usual suspects are on the attack. In this report note that the TV crew didn't interview one person who agreed with father's decision. Is that because there were none? Hardly! I suspect Fr. Illo will see an upsurge in parish attendance as orthodox Catholics see an alternative. ChurchMilitantTV began a GoFundMe donation page for the parish which has already collected over $32,000 since it was posted two days ago.

Want to give a donation to support Fr. Illo and his parish? Go here.

On the Feast of St. Ignatius - A Vocation Story

Blogging is funny. Sometimes you just happen upon a story that seems interesting to you that you'd like to share. This morning I was looking at my statcounter and found a large number of hits from people googling "Fr. Michael Taylor." Now, my diocese has a Fr. Taylor and I blogged awhile back about an altar girl flap when he decided to retire the girls and steer them in another direction. Needless to say, he incensed some of the feminists in the parish. 

However, I suspect from at least some of the googlers that they were not looking for our Fr. Taylor but for a newly ordained Fr. Michael Taylor in the diocese of Albany. (Gosh, I though Bishop Hubbard had totally killed vocations there, but apparently he still gets a few.) 

Anyway, Fr. Taylor's vocation story was carried in the diocesan paper and it intrigued me since he's a convert and originally thought that Catholics "were so weird that I was just curious."  Here's what the paper included about him:

(REV.) MICHAEL TAYLOR 

The first time Deacon Michael Taylor set foot in a Catholic church was to research a role for his high school musical. He's come a long way: This weekend, he'll be ordained a priest for the Albany Diocese.
Catholicism was considered cultish in his hometown of Warner Robins, Ga., which had 75,000 people and only one Catholic parish. Deacon Taylor, cast as a priest in the school play, was messing up his role - so he drove to a church seeking education.
He went to another town to keep from being spotted. Entering during a liturgy, he was immediately puzzled by the "swinging ball of smoke" (incense), the cross "with a guy on [it]" and Mass-goers' constant "interrupting" with prayer responses. As for the missal, it "might as well have been in Chinese," he remembered.

He mirrored the people in the pews as they sat, stood and kneeled. Then it was time for the Eucharist.

"This priest was all about this piece of bread," said Deacon Taylor. He was familiar with the concept of communion, but "I couldn't figure out why this priest thought it was so important." 

Sense of humor
The visit sparked something.