2015 Red Mass of the Holy Spirit -Tallahassee

6 MARCH 2015. All the bishops of Florida's Church gathered this week in Tallahassee to celebrate the 40th annual Red Mass of the Holy Spirit.

In the global Church the Red Mass is an 800-year old tradition, through which the guidance of the Holy Spirit is prayerfully sought to be poured out upon the persons within the government and the legal profession in the carrying out of their duties for the benefit of society. In Florida, the Red Mass has been celebrated now for forty years during the opening weeks of Florida's annual Legislative Session.

Archbishop Wenski, Archbishop of Miami, was the principal celebrant. This year's homilist was Bishop Peter Baldacchino, Auxiliary Bishop of Miami.

Below are a few snipets from Bishop Baldacchino's homily, which spoke candidly and eloquently of the need for humility and sense of service, in following Christ, by all in government and the practice of law:

With Christ there comes about a reversal of values.

Christ Jesus embodies what service really means. [However,] He was not saying that we should never come first.

[But,] [w]hoever wishes to be great among you should be servants.

It is power that gives authority. But, service gives much more.


All human values, particularly those that we Americans can experience in our nation: justice, freedom, liberty, are important instruments that enable us to live in a world that can make of a human person what he or she is meant to be. However, these instruments in themselves can never be sufficient to achieve true human happiness. They are not an end in themselves.

[In seeking] social justice, the end should be the "other," not directed at ourselves.

Our society needs to be renewed. This renewal needs to begin with our conversation in humility [to Christ Jesus].

The full text of the Bishop Baldacchino's homily can be read here.

Belief in Nothing is not a Protected Right that Trumps the Right to Express our Faith

24 DECEMBER 2014. In Tallahassee this year, the Department of State, concerned with law suits, has decided to let anything be displayed as a part of the Capitol's annual holiday displays.

Several groups, with the pure intent of mocking faith and the existence of God, have petitioned and been allowed to make displays which are both offensive to our community's sense of appropriateness and pitiful for their sheer display of ignorance.

Above is a picture of the Satanic Temple's holiday display. The Satanic Temple has officially gone on the record to say it does not worship Satan, but rather believes there should be absolutely no expression of religious belief in the public square. The Satanic Temple has no religious belief. The temple's display is not an exercise of religious expression. It is mere retaliation against expressions of faith that has been, now, given the equal footing to expressions of faith.

So, in the name of First Amendment rights, the Satanic Temple, with the assistance of the State of Florida, has somehow garnered to itself the right to mock and retaliate against expressions of religious faith, even offending the community, and in doing so the rights of all others to express religious belief in the public square are demeaned.

Belief in nothing is irrational. St. Thomas Aquinas, who was himself building upon the work of Aristotle who was a Greek pagan, has proven that reason alone leads each person to proof of the existence of God.

Belief in nothing is not a right guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution. Expression of belief in the public square is such a right.

Dominican Laity in Tallahassee

13 SEPTEMBER 2014. Today the Lay Dominicans del Espiritu Santo celebrate six new temporarily professed members of the Order. All this, from a gathering of two or three more than seven years ago. Praise God!