I've heard there was a secret chord...

I never thought I'd be doing this. Writing a blog, seems like the lowest of the Internet junkie activities. And to make my initial post after one-thirty in the morning, just goes to show what kind of a life I live here. All my roommates are out. Two of them are drunk, staggering back to Kennedy Hall, and trying not to rearrange the features on their faces by mis-stepping on the stairs. My other roommate goes home on weekends to work. So for the next few minutes, I'm completely alone here. And I can't say I'm complaining.

Considering my propensity for starting an activity and never following through, I have no idea if I'm ever going to update this. Wouldn't be a new thing if I didn't. I've got a blog somewhere, with one entry of a few short sentences. I can't even remember where, that's how bad a 'blogger' I am.

Blogger. What a vile word. It sounds so forced, contrived, ejaculatory. I absolutely despise it. I refuse to be categorized as one. I am a writer seeking a media.

I suppose you might be wondering about the origin and explanation of the title of my online journal, A Cold and Broken Hallelujah. The words are taken from a song lyric in Leonard Cohen's singer/songwriter piece, "Hallelujah." This selection is one of my most favorite songs, and one I feel I can perform reasonably well; at least better than some of the recorded and published fools I found on iTunes. But the lyric has a double-meaning for me, as an abandoned Catholic.

You see, my home parish is St. Jeremiah in Framingham, Massachusetts. We were selected as one of eighty-two parishes (of three hundred and forty-six parishes) to close before the year 2004 is out. The criteria the Archbishop of Boston says he used in his decisions for the closing parishes does not fit our parish, nor many other vibrant, community-oriented parishes. We are a Vatican II parish, we believe in a community, a congregation coming together to celebrate Mass. We don't buy into the 'pay, pray, obey' style of Mass that was prevalent before the Second Vatican Council. And it seems that the Archbishop is closing just the good parishes, the lively and beautiful churches with pastors that genuinely love the flock they lead.

My trust in the hierarchy of this establishment is gone. I stayed with them through the sex abuse scandal, thinking surely some of the claims are for money, not for vindication. That belief became solidified when some cases were thrown out for that very reason. But before that situation had died down at all, the next major catastrophe of this Archdiocese began. And that was too much. I cannot believe that this process was carried out in a democratic way. I cannot believe that we were fairly represented at any, let alone every stage in the process. I cannot believe that the pastor of a vibrant parish has less say that the Diocesan bishop who's never seen the church firsthand. And I cannot believe that the money brought in from these 'supressions' will not be used to pay for abuse settlement claims.

My faith has not been shaken. I will still attend Mass every Sunday, pleading to God for the salvation of my parish and the others, while decrying the Archbishop for his hypocrisy and baldfaced lies. But my Hallelujah is no longer an obedient one. My Hallelujah is bitter and doubtful. My Hallelujah is spiteful and angry. My Hallelujah is distraught and desperate. My Hallelujah is cold, and broken.