ODAN - McClosky Articles

Articles by Fr. C. John McCloskey III, Priest of the Prelature of Opus Dei

Commencement Address by Fr. McCloskey

Baccalaureate Homily, by Fr. C. John McCloskey III, June 8, 2002, St. Thomas Aquinas College, Santa Paula, California. "Go Out Into the Deep" Respice in nos ("Look at us"). Duc in altum ("Go out into the deep"). Laxate retia ("Lower your nets for a catch").

Quotes from the speech:

"At the present moment, the world's only superpower is under attack. We all are living in a country during a time of war with an enemy that has been an enemy of Christendom for centuries."

"We also remember the command of Our Lord, issued from the barque of Peter: "Go out into the deep." Our apostolic work is an overflow of our commitment to a life of prayer and sacraments. As you go forward, go forward to be fishers of men, and remember that the fish are caught by their heads." See 'Fishing' for Vocations in Opus Dei by Tammy A. DiNicola.

Articles by Fr. C. John McCloskey, III can be found on his own website http://www.frmccloskey.com/.

"2030: Looking Backwards" by Father John McCloskey -- is one of his articles -- here are some excerpts:

"All seminarians now take six years of Latin in addition to a full year of
Greek, Hebrew and Arabic. We will convert those Moslems yet!"

"You might ask how we went from that number [60 million] down to our current
40 million. I guess the answer could be, to put it delicately,
consolidation. It is not as bad as it looks. In retrospect it can be seen
that only approximately 10% of the sixty or so were "with the program. .
.The rest, as was inevitable, either left the Church, defected to the
culture of death, passed away, or in some cases at least for a couple of
decades, went to various Christian sects..."

"You will also note that as a group they are averaging four to five children
per family, which means that over the next few decades we will see an
increasing natural growth."

"The great societal upheavals of the last thirty years have enabled them to
see the beauty of our tradition, the gift of authority..."

"The final short and relatively bloodless conflict produced our Regional
States of North America. The outcome was by no means an ideal solution but
it does allow Christians to live in states that recognize the natural law
and divine Revelation, the right of free practice of religion, and laws on
marriage, family, and life that reflect the primacy of our Faith."

"We pray that as Europe survived the barbarian invasions of the so called
Dark Ages, it will survive its own attempted continental suicide by
contraception."

"The majority of the former Catholic colleges have closed down, been sold
... the majority of remaining truly Catholic colleges provide strong core
curriculum, liberal arts curriculum ..."

"Many millions are schooled at home through a combination of the use of
interactive Internet, cable and satellite television, and good old-fashioned
reading in addition to the traditional one-on-one approach."

"There has been, as you know, a renaissance in Catholic literature, novels
and poetry which mirror both the quality growth in the Church and the
reality of our past hard times over the last twenty years."

Revised: November 16, 2003