Fort Worth Catholic Bishop endorses Troops of St. George

[RememberSchiff]

“After a careful review of the program and its contents, including its mission statement, curriculum, pedagogical structure, letters of Ecclesiastical approval, and statement of mission that faithfully reflects and adheres to the Magisterium of the Catholic Church, the Troops of Saint George is hereby approved as a Catholic Apostolate of the Diocese of Fort Worth,” the Most Reverend Michael F. Olsen, Bishop of the Diocese of Fort Worth, Texas wrote in a letter, dated May 16, 2018.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/deaconsbench/2018/05/bishop-approves-alternative-to-boy-scouts-as-a-catholic-apostolate/

Looking at the Diocese website, the Bishop's decision does not appear to remove Boy Scouts as an endorsed youth program.  Trail Life is not mentioned. Also there appears to be only one Troop of St. George in the Fort Worth Diocese.

https://fwdioc.org/scouting

Troops of St. George

 

[qwazse]

Wonder if they have a dragon patrol. 

[Peregrinator]

I don't know in what sense Troops of St. George is supposed to be an "alternative" to the BSA ... it's not scouting, as they will tell you if you ask them.

[thrifty]

never heard of this.  It's getting difficult to keep track of all of these youth groups.  sounds similar to scouting to me.

The Troops of Saint George is a fraternal Catholic nonprofit apostolate for priests, men, and young men looking for a life of adventure coupled with virtue. Initially founded in 2013 by Catholic author and professor Dr. Taylor Marshall we have become a collection of troops that do the following:

 

• experience reverent and beautiful Masses on mountaintop vistas
• pray the Rosary with other men around fire pits in the freezing cold
• catch a Fish Friday meal by fly fishing for trout
• go to confession with our priests while kneeling on moss in the woods
• teach our sons archery, rockclimbing, marksmanship, fishing, survival skills…and Catholic virtues
• foster a love for the priesthood and a reverence for the sacrament of Matrimony
• support our local parish, our priests, our bishops, and community by being available for works of mercy and service

[allangr1024]

This is not good.  Scouting in the US is fragmenting into pieces.  Along religious lines we will have evangelical scouting (Trail Life),  catholic scouting (troops of St George),  LDS scouting (whatever they are going to call it),  Scouting BSA (whatever),  and who knows how many other separate scouting organizations.  What would it take to bring all of these divergent pieces of the old BSA back together again?  

[FireStone]

48 minutes ago, allangr1024 said:

What would it take to bring all of these divergent pieces of the old BSA back together again?  

 

It's not possible with many of these groups. There is a better chance that groups who diverged from the BSA because of past policies that have since changed might be brought back into the fold. Like the BPSA, which gained most of their membership from people who opposed the gay scout ban. The BSA aligns more closely with them now, except for the religious part. 

Those who left for Trail Life, LDS, Troops of St. George, they won't come back unless the BSA kicks out girls and gay members. That won't happen. Any group that kicks out members based on gender or sexual orientation would be committing organizational suicide in this day and age. 

[Eagle1993]

There is roughly 60M youth in scouting age in USA.  All scouting combine probably has 4M youth?  I would be more interested in seeing why 56M youth are not in scouting vs worry about the 0.03M in Trails Life or few thousand in all of the other various scouting organizations.  

[Hawkwin]

1 hour ago, allangr1024 said:

 What would it take to bring all of these divergent pieces of the old BSA back together again?  

TIme and probably a generation or two.

[gblotter]

42 minutes ago, FireStone said:

The BSA aligns more closely with them now, except for the religious part.

God will be gone from BSA soon enough, but that won't halt BSA's decline anymore than gays/trans/girls did.

42 minutes ago, FireStone said:

Those who left for Trail Life, LDS, Troops of St. George, they won't come back unless the BSA kicks out girls and gay members. That won't happen.

With the departure of conservatives/traditionalists, BSA will become the Scouting choice of liberal/progressive families (who have fewer children). That doesn't represent a broad enough membership pool to sustain the movement. Given the huge debt load for The Summit, I honestly don't see a future for BSA. I expect we'll see some sort of bankruptcy reorganization within the next decade, with possible sale of assets.

Edited May 18, 2018 by gblotter

[Eagle1993]

The question isn’t conservative/liberal. There are plenty of youth in any segment of population to sustain BSA.  The question is what is missing in youth development today that scouting can help solve.  

In general: Rich kids are rushed around to various sports, music, language, STEM and other structured activities..led by adults.  Poor kids have less structured activities but more experience of youth led/created play.

 Scouting can bridge this gap.  It can provide overly structured wealthy youth the chance to lead and get outdoors (less adult structure than they typically see).  It provides poorer youth some structure and exposure to various skills and adult mentorship.  I believe BSA is trying to do too much (STEM, learning for life, etc) and should get back to a clear mission, help units easily follow that mission and advertise that mission and its impact.

I know this is simplified but these other scouting organizations are not the issue BSA should focus on.  

[David CO]

I don't think this program is intended to be a replacement for scouting. It looks more like a replacement for the Knight's of Columbus youth program, the Columbian Squires. It is almost an exact duplicate, only parish based.

The Catholic Church recently directed the KC's to transfer its scout units over to the parishes, because it wants all youth programs and activities to be parish based. 

[David CO]

I don't think this program will take off. Despite what the priests and nuns might want, even the most devout Catholic men and boys don't want to spend every waking moment of their lives saying the rosery.

[Peregrinator]

8 hours ago, allangr1024 said:

catholic scouting (troops of St George)

Troops of St. George is not scouting, so it is not Catholic scouting.

[T2Eagle]

On 5/18/2018 at 11:48 AM, David CO said:

I don't think this program will take off. Despite what the priests and nuns might want, even the most devout Catholic men and boys don't want to spend every waking moment of their lives saying the rosery.

I've known a lot of priests and nuns, including some close relatives.  They didn't want to spend their lives saying the rosary either.

[perdidochas]

On 5/18/2018 at 9:47 AM, Eagle1993 said:

There is roughly 60M youth in scouting age in USA.  All scouting combine probably has 4M youth?  I would be more interested in seeing why 56M youth are not in scouting vs worry about the 0.03M in Trails Life or few thousand in all of the other various scouting organizations.  

I agree with you 100%.  What I'm afraid of with these alternative groups is that they may end up turning off kids who would be great as Boy Scouts.