{"id":684,"date":"2008-06-09T09:56:19","date_gmt":"2008-06-09T09:56:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2008\/06\/and-hes-back.html"},"modified":"2008-06-09T09:56:19","modified_gmt":"2008-06-09T09:56:19","slug":"and-hes-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2008\/06\/and-hes-back.html","title":{"rendered":"…and he’s back."},"content":{"rendered":"

I never thought that this two-week leave would turn into anything permanent. Father Pfleger back at St. Sabina’s next week:<\/a><\/p>\n

At a three-hour Sunday mass filled with songs and dancing, pastoral associate Kimberly Lymore read a letter from Pfleger in which the priest wrote, “This has been a very painful time for me personally and for our church family.”
\n“Let this time be a teaching moment for us to hear the Lord, to grow closer to him and become even stronger to build a kingdom on Earth as it is in heaven,” Pfleger wrote.
\nLymore said parish leaders were told by Cardinal George that Pfleger will continue as pastor of the church he has led for 30 years with “no restrictions” — other than not being able to mention publicly the names of presidential candidates or campaign for them. On hearing this, several parishioners called out “That’s all right.”
\nAsked if it was fair that Pfleger was restricted from talking about the candidates, longtime parishioner Michelle Wong Scott said, “a lot of times, when you’re a member, you have to follow your leadership and do what your leaders tell you to do.” She said if Cardinal George had removed Pfleger permanently, the parish would have continued the work he started.
\nTwo other parishioners, Rhonda Williams and Leslie Ross, who are not Catholic, said they would have left St. Sabina’s and followed Pfleger to a new church if he had been removed.
\n“I’m here because of the pastor, what he’s done for me spiritually,” Williams said.
\n“Father definitely challenges you,” said Ross, noting that 79th Street near St. Sabina had a lot of drug problems before he came. She also credited Pfleger with closing down a house of prostitution and ministering to gang members.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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I never thought that this two-week leave would turn into anything permanent. Father Pfleger back at St. Sabina’s next week: At a three-hour Sunday mass filled with songs and dancing, pastoral associate Kimberly Lymore read a letter from Pfleger in which the priest wrote, “This has been a very painful time for me personally and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n...and he's back. - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2008\/06\/and-hes-back.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"...and he's back. - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I never thought that this two-week leave would turn into anything permanent. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. 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