THE CHAIR OF ST. PETER

The inspiration to create this website came to me while attending a 9 a.m. weekday Mass at Blessed Sacrament Church on Staten Island. 

 
The second-graders at Blessed Sacrament School were at Mass that day as part of their preparation for First Communion. I was deeply moved by the confidence and enthusiasm with which they proclaimed the various liturgical responses. Surely, their reverence and pride would be unsurpassed on the day they received the body and blood of Christ for the first time. 

 
But I knew something else too. I knew the alarming statistics. I knew that by the time they left the eighth grade, and often before, most would no longer be attending Sunday Mass. And by not giving God even one hour of a 168-hour week, they would be on their way toward relegating their Catholic faith to the farthest of back burners. Indeed, even among those second-graders destined to become altar servers, most would cease serving before the eighth grade. 

Yes, these children will likely receive their confirmation. But, sadly, for most Catholic kids today, the Sacrament of Confirmation has become not so much a reaffirmation of their faith, as a license to walk away from it; a sort of imprimatur to join the ranks of the so-called "Cafeteria Catholics" - or worse.

 
A large portion of the blame for this falls squarely on those parents who, sadly, have themselves pretty much walked away. They may want their kids to receive the benefit of a Catholic education, but most of them, too, won’t give God even one hour a week, or make sure their kids do. 

 
Recently, I was a sponsor for a boy about to receive his confirmation in another state. While seated with the other sponsors prior to the beginning of the service, I heard one man say to another, “I hope we don’t have to sit through a Mass”. 

Think about that for a minute! This man was sponsoring a boy for his confirmation, and yet he treated the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass as if it were some kind of a disagreeable encumbrance on his time. What do you suppose are the chances that he attends Mass on Sunday? Or that the boy he was sponsoring does? 

 
So, yes, absolutely, parents are primarily responsible for those alarming statistics. But other, societal factors contribute to them too. Public education has become a bastion of secularism; the entertainment industry routinely defames God and mocks religion; so, too, do large segments of the mainstream media. Attacks on Catholicism in particular are pervasive, insidious and unrelenting,

It’s thus with the highest urgency that faithful Catholics of all ages are called upon to practice, defend and extol their faith by becoming, in effect, Titans of the Spirit. I settled on the name at that very same Mass. Clearly, the battle for our faith can only

be won with the assistance of the Holy Spirit. And the Spirit’s power is boundless. 

 
Titans of the Spirit are committed Catholics of all ages, dedicated to practicing their faith and standing up for their Church when the world about them is obsessively driven to tearing it down. 

 
They are confident Catholics too, emboldened by Jesus’s promise to be with His Church all days even until the consummation of the world.

 
Hopefully, this website will be of assistance in this challenging, but critically necessary undertaking.