Men's Breakfast Report, January 2008

The Men’s Breakfast group met Saturday, January 12 with Father Jim Blocher, priest at Saint Mary’s Star of the Sea Catholic Church. 

Much of the discussion time was taken up with discussions of history, especially state and local, in which several of the participants were interested.  There was also discussion of fishing, which Father Jim has been doing of more of since he has come to Freeport.  One aspect of local history that was discussed was the former Freeport Catholic School that was closed in the sixties.  It turned out that a couple of participants had attended the school including Frank Moreno, pastor of the Iglesia Baptista. 

Father Jim was raised in Houston and became a member of the Basilian Order.  The Basilian order was founded in France in the early 1800’s after return of the monarchy after the French Revolution.  The order is a very small order compared to the large well- known orders such as the Dominicans or Jesuits.  The order concentrates on teaching.   Father Jim was a high school Spanish teacher in Rochester, New York and later in Texas. He was ordained as a priest in 1975.  He feels that he was not really well suited for teaching and is better fitted as a priest.  He was called to Saint Mary’s because the diocese wanted to consolidate Saint Mary’s and Saint Henry’s parishes.  They needed a bilingual priest since Saint Henry’s was a Hispanic church and Saint Mary’s an Anglo Church.  He now conducts services in both English and Spanish. 

He was interested in our bell that had been rescued from the Quintana Presbyterian Church and is mounted outside our church after a roundabout journey.   He has rescued a bell from Saint Henry’s church and needs to do something with it.  Our bell might be a model for what he will do. 

There was also some discussion about the new Cardinal Daniel DiNardo.  The pope is expanding the College of Cardinals and bringing in some younger cardinals.  Father Jim thinks that the Houston-Galveston diocese was assigned a cardinal because Houston is now the fourth largest city in the nation and should have a cardinal like some other smaller cities. There was also speculation that Pope Benedict expects his papacy to be relatively short and that the next pope may even be from the Western Hemisphere.  

As usual the men had an interesting discussion and a good breakfast.  All men are invited to the next breakfast on February 9.