Religious for rent at an hourly wage.
By: Margreet Vermeulen
Amsterdam
People not belonging to a church, will now be able to hire a priest or a protestant minister, to bless their marriage or to preside over a funeral service. Through www.rentapriest.nl three ministers and a priest offer their services for a fee.
The initiative was taken by Jan Schonewille from Fochteloo, a retired protestant minister.
“Four out of ten people don’t consider themselves as related to a church, but that does not mean that they don’t feel the need for spirituality in the most important moments in their lives such as marriages and funerals. We want to help these people”.
The religious who cooperate with rentapriest.nl are “of course not very conservative pastors”, emphasized Schonewille. “We don’t have any trouble with people outside church structures, we are open to different ecclesiastical movements, and we speak an understandable language, not unintelligible bible texts”.
Schonewille got some of the idea from de United States. Over there, almost all of them are married (and therefore resigned) priests who can be hired by people who find themselves outside the structural churches. The Dutch variety of rentapriest is not hostile towards the ecclesiastical establishment. “I live on social security, but the priest and the two other ministers still have a part time relationship with their churches”.
These religious can be hired for about € 20 an hour. A funeral service costs about € 400.
Those of the faithful who want a spiritual meeting without hearing constantly the word God throughout the meeting hall, are also welcomed by Schoneville and his colleagues. “Naturally, the vey conservative people go to the real church”.
The website is in Dutch.
The fees do not include travel expenses of € 0.18 a kilometer.
Pastoral counseling is € 65.00 an hour.
Blessings,
Fr. Pedro van Marissing, Puerto Rico
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
Friday, May 19, 2006
Letter to a bishop from a woman about womenpriests
Wexford, PA 15090-9703
May 9, 2006
Most Reverend Donald W. Wuerl, S.T.D.
Diocese of Pittsburgh
111 Boulevard of the Allies
Pittsburgh, PA 15222-1618
Dear Bishop Wuerl,
A letter to be shared with the faithful
My name is Joan Clark Houk, the woman from the Diocese of Pittsburgh who is to be ordained a Roman Catholic Womanpriest in Pittsburgh on July 31, 2006. I want you to know who I am and why I prayerfully follow this path.
My life of almost 66 years has been rooted in the Catholic Church. I grew up in St. Francis Xavier Church on the Northside (presently Risen Lord Parish). It was in this community where I received all of my sacraments, was educated, joyfully anticipated in May Crownings, reverently processed in 40 Hours devotions, joined the Junior Catholic Daughters of America, and was active in the CYO in the 1950¹s. My education continued at St. Peter High School where I learned to share the earnings from my after-school jobs with the missions, and to pray the rosary daily. In my Catholic family, my grandmother taught me how to make bread, blessing it as it went into the oven, and sharing it with every person who came to our door.
Contrary to the experiences of many others who have a vocation to the priesthood, I did not grow up wanting to be a priest. My daily prayer in senior high was for God to send me a man who would be a good husband and a good father to the many children I hoped to have. My prayer was answered when God sent me John, my husband and partner of 45 years. We were blessed with three birth children and three adopted children. As advocates of pro-life there were many January 22¹s that we marched in Washington, DC. As a family we also marched for civil rights, peace, and for jobs and economic justice.
As our children grew I taught them their Catholic religion and prepared them for First Communion, Reconciliation, Confirmation, and then Marriage. What I taught my own children around the dining room table, I taught to parish children in the CCD room, and to young adults in the parish hall. With four children at home, I began my college education one class at a time and became a professional DRE with a degree in Elementary Education from St. Martin¹s College. Energized by the spirit and documents of the Second Vatican Council, I worked for a renewed Church. Always active in our home parish as we moved throughout the United States, ministering as a parish volunteer or parish employee, I listened to the Holy Spirit and followed her call.
The Spirit had been leading me, preparing me, and finally calling me through various people in my faith community. At last, in 1992, I recognized the call to priesthood. In 1996 I received my Master of Divinity Degree from the University of Notre Dame, and during 1997-2002 I led two parishes that had no resident priest in Kentucky. What a wonderful blessing, serving God¹s people. After the many years away I returned here to my hometown where John and I continue to share our talents in the local Church. From my birth as a Catholic through this day, I have never doubted my Catholicism, never been away from the Church. I am a Catholic, and will always be a Catholic.
Canon Law 1024 states: A baptized male alone receives sacred ordination validly. Competent Catholic scriptural scholars and theologians find no scriptural or divine law against a woman being ordained. As a matter of fact, history and archeology reveal examples of ordained women in the early Church. The history of this canon has been traced not to God¹s will nor to Jesus¹ intent, but to cultural errors in the understanding of the basic nature of women and men. The history of cultural bias against women finding its way into Church law has been extensively documented.
Canon 1024 must be changed to read: A baptized person alone receives sacred ordination validly. As it stands now Canon 1024 is an unjust law. Just as many unjust laws had to be broken in order for the laws to be changed (such as during the civil rights movement), I believe Canon 1024 must be broken. For forty years women have been petitioning the Vatican for women¹s ordination once the true cultural foundation for canon 1024 was uncovered. It is a sin for the Church to discriminate against women and blame God for it. The Church¹s discrimination is part of the systemic discrimination that results in the physical violence, rape, mutilation, bondage, harassment, poverty and abandonment of women. I admonish the Church to turn away from this sin of discriminating against women. In obedience to the Gospel of Jesus, I will disobey this unjust law, Canon 1024, through the valid but illicit ordination as a Roman Catholic Womanpriest in July.
The validity of these Roman Catholic Womenpriests ordinations is of course the central issue. The womenbishops who will ordain womenpriests here in Pittsburgh have been validly ordained by male bishops in good standing with the Vatican. We believe there is no question regarding the validity of orders, but they are indeed illicit with the specific intent to bring about a change to Canon 1024.
Bishop Wuerl, I do not intend to start a Church. I will exercise my priesthood here in Pittsburgh by reaching out to those people in the margins, the apathetic person, the hurt person, the excluded person, and minister to them. I will encourage them to become active in the parishes, and in the spirit of Vatican II to use their voices in renewing the Church. I will encourage them to serve the poor, and to work for social justice.
This is who I am, and why I will be ordained. This is why other faithful Catholics support my ordination.
This letter is an open letter. It is not my intent to direct any action against the Pittsburgh Diocese or address any criticism toward you personally. Neither do I intend to ask for your support because I know it cannot be given. I am fully aware that you personally are not able to effect this change in Canon 1024. I welcome any opportunity to meet with you with only one condition that any communication between us be open to the faithful.
Your sister in Christ,
Joan Clark Houk
P.S. It has come to my attention that you are being advised by your staff regarding these ordinations, and that some of the information you have been given is not accurate. I have polled the women ordained in Canada in 2005. They have not received any notice of excommunication from the Vatican, or any communication from the Vatican, as you may have been advised. Nor have the women ordained in 2004 and 2003 received any such notification. Secondly, the ordinations take place on a boat primarily for the symbolic value, and not to avoid the jurisdiction of the local bishop. When ordinations have been in international waters, as some have, it has provided an opportunity for the local bishop to dismiss them as not in his jurisdiction. This will obviously not be possible here in Pittsburgh. I am sure you want to receive and provide the faithful of this diocese with only accurate information. I am available to answer any questions you may have.
May 9, 2006
Most Reverend Donald W. Wuerl, S.T.D.
Diocese of Pittsburgh
111 Boulevard of the Allies
Pittsburgh, PA 15222-1618
Dear Bishop Wuerl,
A letter to be shared with the faithful
My name is Joan Clark Houk, the woman from the Diocese of Pittsburgh who is to be ordained a Roman Catholic Womanpriest in Pittsburgh on July 31, 2006. I want you to know who I am and why I prayerfully follow this path.
My life of almost 66 years has been rooted in the Catholic Church. I grew up in St. Francis Xavier Church on the Northside (presently Risen Lord Parish). It was in this community where I received all of my sacraments, was educated, joyfully anticipated in May Crownings, reverently processed in 40 Hours devotions, joined the Junior Catholic Daughters of America, and was active in the CYO in the 1950¹s. My education continued at St. Peter High School where I learned to share the earnings from my after-school jobs with the missions, and to pray the rosary daily. In my Catholic family, my grandmother taught me how to make bread, blessing it as it went into the oven, and sharing it with every person who came to our door.
Contrary to the experiences of many others who have a vocation to the priesthood, I did not grow up wanting to be a priest. My daily prayer in senior high was for God to send me a man who would be a good husband and a good father to the many children I hoped to have. My prayer was answered when God sent me John, my husband and partner of 45 years. We were blessed with three birth children and three adopted children. As advocates of pro-life there were many January 22¹s that we marched in Washington, DC. As a family we also marched for civil rights, peace, and for jobs and economic justice.
As our children grew I taught them their Catholic religion and prepared them for First Communion, Reconciliation, Confirmation, and then Marriage. What I taught my own children around the dining room table, I taught to parish children in the CCD room, and to young adults in the parish hall. With four children at home, I began my college education one class at a time and became a professional DRE with a degree in Elementary Education from St. Martin¹s College. Energized by the spirit and documents of the Second Vatican Council, I worked for a renewed Church. Always active in our home parish as we moved throughout the United States, ministering as a parish volunteer or parish employee, I listened to the Holy Spirit and followed her call.
The Spirit had been leading me, preparing me, and finally calling me through various people in my faith community. At last, in 1992, I recognized the call to priesthood. In 1996 I received my Master of Divinity Degree from the University of Notre Dame, and during 1997-2002 I led two parishes that had no resident priest in Kentucky. What a wonderful blessing, serving God¹s people. After the many years away I returned here to my hometown where John and I continue to share our talents in the local Church. From my birth as a Catholic through this day, I have never doubted my Catholicism, never been away from the Church. I am a Catholic, and will always be a Catholic.
Canon Law 1024 states: A baptized male alone receives sacred ordination validly. Competent Catholic scriptural scholars and theologians find no scriptural or divine law against a woman being ordained. As a matter of fact, history and archeology reveal examples of ordained women in the early Church. The history of this canon has been traced not to God¹s will nor to Jesus¹ intent, but to cultural errors in the understanding of the basic nature of women and men. The history of cultural bias against women finding its way into Church law has been extensively documented.
Canon 1024 must be changed to read: A baptized person alone receives sacred ordination validly. As it stands now Canon 1024 is an unjust law. Just as many unjust laws had to be broken in order for the laws to be changed (such as during the civil rights movement), I believe Canon 1024 must be broken. For forty years women have been petitioning the Vatican for women¹s ordination once the true cultural foundation for canon 1024 was uncovered. It is a sin for the Church to discriminate against women and blame God for it. The Church¹s discrimination is part of the systemic discrimination that results in the physical violence, rape, mutilation, bondage, harassment, poverty and abandonment of women. I admonish the Church to turn away from this sin of discriminating against women. In obedience to the Gospel of Jesus, I will disobey this unjust law, Canon 1024, through the valid but illicit ordination as a Roman Catholic Womanpriest in July.
The validity of these Roman Catholic Womenpriests ordinations is of course the central issue. The womenbishops who will ordain womenpriests here in Pittsburgh have been validly ordained by male bishops in good standing with the Vatican. We believe there is no question regarding the validity of orders, but they are indeed illicit with the specific intent to bring about a change to Canon 1024.
Bishop Wuerl, I do not intend to start a Church. I will exercise my priesthood here in Pittsburgh by reaching out to those people in the margins, the apathetic person, the hurt person, the excluded person, and minister to them. I will encourage them to become active in the parishes, and in the spirit of Vatican II to use their voices in renewing the Church. I will encourage them to serve the poor, and to work for social justice.
This is who I am, and why I will be ordained. This is why other faithful Catholics support my ordination.
This letter is an open letter. It is not my intent to direct any action against the Pittsburgh Diocese or address any criticism toward you personally. Neither do I intend to ask for your support because I know it cannot be given. I am fully aware that you personally are not able to effect this change in Canon 1024. I welcome any opportunity to meet with you with only one condition that any communication between us be open to the faithful.
Your sister in Christ,
Joan Clark Houk
P.S. It has come to my attention that you are being advised by your staff regarding these ordinations, and that some of the information you have been given is not accurate. I have polled the women ordained in Canada in 2005. They have not received any notice of excommunication from the Vatican, or any communication from the Vatican, as you may have been advised. Nor have the women ordained in 2004 and 2003 received any such notification. Secondly, the ordinations take place on a boat primarily for the symbolic value, and not to avoid the jurisdiction of the local bishop. When ordinations have been in international waters, as some have, it has provided an opportunity for the local bishop to dismiss them as not in his jurisdiction. This will obviously not be possible here in Pittsburgh. I am sure you want to receive and provide the faithful of this diocese with only accurate information. I am available to answer any questions you may have.
Monday, May 01, 2006
THE CALF-PATH
A moral lesson especially apt for those tempted to continue doing what , for centuries, has been done thinking it to be 'traditional' having precedential value, and calling it 'the will of God':
by Sam Walter Foss (1858 – 1911)
I
One day, through the primeval wood,
A calf walked home, as good calves should;
II
But made a trail all bent askew,
A crooked trail as all calves do.
Since then two hundred years have fled,
And, I infer, the calf is dead.
But still he left behind his trail,
And thereby hangs my moral tale.
The trail was taken up next day,
By a lone dog that passed that way.
And then a wise bell-wether sheep,
Pursued the trail o'er vale and steep;
And drew the flock behind him too,
As good bell-wethers always do.
And from that day, o'er hill and glade,
Through those old woods a path was made.
III
And many men wound in and out,
And dodged, and turned, and bent about;
And uttered words of righteous wrath,
Because 'twas such a crooked path.
But still they followed - do not laugh -
The first migrations of that calf.
And through this winding wood-way stalked,
Because he wobbled when he walked.
IV
This forest path became a lane,
That bent, and turned, and turned again.
This crooked lane became a road,
Where many a poor horse with his load,
Toiled on beneath the burning sun,
And traveled some three miles in one.
And thus a century and a half,
They trod the footsteps of that calf.
V
The years passed on in swiftness fleet,
The road became a village street;
And this, before men were aware,
A city's crowded thoroughfare;
And soon the central street was this,
Of a renowned metropolis;
And men two centuries and a half,
Trod in the footsteps of that calf.
VI
Each day a hundred thousand rout,
Followed the zigzag calf about;
And o'er his crooked journey went,
The traffic of a continent.
A hundred thousand men were led,
By one calf near three centuries dead.
They followed still his crooked way,
And lost one hundred years a day;
For thus such reverence is lent,
To well established precedent.
VII
A moral lesson this might teach,
Were I ordained and called to preach;
For men are prone to go it blind,
Along the calf-paths of the mind;
And work away from sun to sun,
To do what other men have done.
They follow in the beaten track,
And out and in, and forth and back,
And still their devious course pursue,
To keep the path that others do.
But how our wise old God would laugh,
Who saw the first primeval calf!
Ah! many things this tale might teach -
But I am not ordained to preach.
by Sam Walter Foss (1858 – 1911)
I
One day, through the primeval wood,
A calf walked home, as good calves should;
II
But made a trail all bent askew,
A crooked trail as all calves do.
Since then two hundred years have fled,
And, I infer, the calf is dead.
But still he left behind his trail,
And thereby hangs my moral tale.
The trail was taken up next day,
By a lone dog that passed that way.
And then a wise bell-wether sheep,
Pursued the trail o'er vale and steep;
And drew the flock behind him too,
As good bell-wethers always do.
And from that day, o'er hill and glade,
Through those old woods a path was made.
III
And many men wound in and out,
And dodged, and turned, and bent about;
And uttered words of righteous wrath,
Because 'twas such a crooked path.
But still they followed - do not laugh -
The first migrations of that calf.
And through this winding wood-way stalked,
Because he wobbled when he walked.
IV
This forest path became a lane,
That bent, and turned, and turned again.
This crooked lane became a road,
Where many a poor horse with his load,
Toiled on beneath the burning sun,
And traveled some three miles in one.
And thus a century and a half,
They trod the footsteps of that calf.
V
The years passed on in swiftness fleet,
The road became a village street;
And this, before men were aware,
A city's crowded thoroughfare;
And soon the central street was this,
Of a renowned metropolis;
And men two centuries and a half,
Trod in the footsteps of that calf.
VI
Each day a hundred thousand rout,
Followed the zigzag calf about;
And o'er his crooked journey went,
The traffic of a continent.
A hundred thousand men were led,
By one calf near three centuries dead.
They followed still his crooked way,
And lost one hundred years a day;
For thus such reverence is lent,
To well established precedent.
VII
A moral lesson this might teach,
Were I ordained and called to preach;
For men are prone to go it blind,
Along the calf-paths of the mind;
And work away from sun to sun,
To do what other men have done.
They follow in the beaten track,
And out and in, and forth and back,
And still their devious course pursue,
To keep the path that others do.
But how our wise old God would laugh,
Who saw the first primeval calf!
Ah! many things this tale might teach -
But I am not ordained to preach.
Thursday, April 27, 2006
Some Rules for Effective Communication
by Fr. Rich Hasselbach
One of the most important skills a married couple can possess is the ability to communicate effectively. The word communicate comes from the Latin communicare, meaning, "to make one." Communication is NOT just speaking the process of making our thoughts and feelings clear! It is doing so in a way that brings another into our inner world gently. It is finding the deeper connection beneath all our divisions. It is discovering that where we are most ourselves, we are not ONLY ourselves.
Words are not necessarily communication - words spoken in anger, for example, drive people apart, and so are antithetical to communication. When we fail to listen as well as speak, we again fail to communicate. The process of communication is involves not only our own thoughts and feelings, it also requires sensitivity to the other. Wisdom, as Solomon knew, did not involve having the right answers - to be wise is to have a listening heart.
And so, a few guidelines for effective communication - for married couples, and anyone else who wants to genuinely communicate:
1. Listen with trust - Have faith in the other, and in your own inner wisdom. Trust that each of you has the answers to your questions and problems within
2. Listen with love - Listen to the other from within his or her experience; listen to what he or she is saying and, more important, feeling. Then affirm with or without words that you are listening and trying to understand.
3. Listen with patience - Communication is not all about words, sometimes it's about silence. Try to become comfortable with the still points in a conversation; those intervals of silence that sometimes occur in important conversations. Don't interrupt or rush to share your own experience until you have fully heard the other's experience.
4. Speak from "I" - When you respond, do so from your own experience, feelings, and opinions. Don't intellectualize and criticize what the other says, respond from your own point of reference and experience.
5. Accentuate the positive - Try to find common ground, and affirm the other as much as possible.
Remember, the truth is not an absolute value - love is. The truth without love can be devastating, The great virtue of communication is learning to speak the truth with love.
One of the most important skills a married couple can possess is the ability to communicate effectively. The word communicate comes from the Latin communicare, meaning, "to make one." Communication is NOT just speaking the process of making our thoughts and feelings clear! It is doing so in a way that brings another into our inner world gently. It is finding the deeper connection beneath all our divisions. It is discovering that where we are most ourselves, we are not ONLY ourselves.
Words are not necessarily communication - words spoken in anger, for example, drive people apart, and so are antithetical to communication. When we fail to listen as well as speak, we again fail to communicate. The process of communication is involves not only our own thoughts and feelings, it also requires sensitivity to the other. Wisdom, as Solomon knew, did not involve having the right answers - to be wise is to have a listening heart.
And so, a few guidelines for effective communication - for married couples, and anyone else who wants to genuinely communicate:
1. Listen with trust - Have faith in the other, and in your own inner wisdom. Trust that each of you has the answers to your questions and problems within
2. Listen with love - Listen to the other from within his or her experience; listen to what he or she is saying and, more important, feeling. Then affirm with or without words that you are listening and trying to understand.
3. Listen with patience - Communication is not all about words, sometimes it's about silence. Try to become comfortable with the still points in a conversation; those intervals of silence that sometimes occur in important conversations. Don't interrupt or rush to share your own experience until you have fully heard the other's experience.
4. Speak from "I" - When you respond, do so from your own experience, feelings, and opinions. Don't intellectualize and criticize what the other says, respond from your own point of reference and experience.
5. Accentuate the positive - Try to find common ground, and affirm the other as much as possible.
Remember, the truth is not an absolute value - love is. The truth without love can be devastating, The great virtue of communication is learning to speak the truth with love.
Friday, April 21, 2006
The Ministry of prayer: A modest proposal
Prayer lies at the heart of the life of a disciple. Jesus’ ministry was rooted in his prayer to the Father – he prayed in the wilderness, he prayed with his disciples, and he taught that we should pray confidently, as a child would address his or her loving, doting daddy (Abba).
Paul admonished the Thessalonians to ‘pray without ceasing’ 1 Thes. 5:17; he tells the Ephesians “hold faith as a shield, …and take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. [And] with all prayer and supplication, pray at every opportunity in the Spirit. To that end, be watchful with all perseverance and supplication for all the holy ones” (6:16-18).
It is our great privilege to be called, as Christians, to a ministry of prayer. Each week, people in our community, and people from around the world, ask our prayers. As a community, lets commit ourselves to honoring those requests every day.
Take just 30 minutes – either alone or, better yet, as a family, and pray.
Pray in praise of the wonders you have seen and experienced that day; pray in thanks for the gifts you have received from the hand of the Lord that day; pray in supplication for your needs, the needs of the people of God worldwide.
In particular, pray for those persecuted for the faith around the world, and for the spread of the Gospel throughout the world. Every day more than four hundred Christians lose their lives for their faith, but every day thousands make a decision to follow Christ.
Pray for our world itself – for peace and freedom and justice for all people. The Gospel grows best where people are free to hear the word. But throughout much of the world there is no such freedom.
Pray for the triumph of faith over secularism. Pray for the poor and needy, the forgotten, lonely, sick and suffering – especially those in our community and in our church. Pray for the ministry of married priests, and womenpriest in the Roman Catholic tradition – that we might be useful to the Lord in the building up of His Kingdom.
Pray for each other by name - for members of your family or faith community.
Pray silently if that is the prayer the Spirit gives you to pray. But pray for no less than a half hour.
Then conclude with the Lord’s Prayer.
Finally, as Paul suggests, at other times in the day, “pray at every opportunity in the Spirit.”
Paul admonished the Thessalonians to ‘pray without ceasing’ 1 Thes. 5:17; he tells the Ephesians “hold faith as a shield, …and take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. [And] with all prayer and supplication, pray at every opportunity in the Spirit. To that end, be watchful with all perseverance and supplication for all the holy ones” (6:16-18).
It is our great privilege to be called, as Christians, to a ministry of prayer. Each week, people in our community, and people from around the world, ask our prayers. As a community, lets commit ourselves to honoring those requests every day.
Take just 30 minutes – either alone or, better yet, as a family, and pray.
Pray in praise of the wonders you have seen and experienced that day; pray in thanks for the gifts you have received from the hand of the Lord that day; pray in supplication for your needs, the needs of the people of God worldwide.
In particular, pray for those persecuted for the faith around the world, and for the spread of the Gospel throughout the world. Every day more than four hundred Christians lose their lives for their faith, but every day thousands make a decision to follow Christ.
Pray for our world itself – for peace and freedom and justice for all people. The Gospel grows best where people are free to hear the word. But throughout much of the world there is no such freedom.
Pray for the triumph of faith over secularism. Pray for the poor and needy, the forgotten, lonely, sick and suffering – especially those in our community and in our church. Pray for the ministry of married priests, and womenpriest in the Roman Catholic tradition – that we might be useful to the Lord in the building up of His Kingdom.
Pray for each other by name - for members of your family or faith community.
Pray silently if that is the prayer the Spirit gives you to pray. But pray for no less than a half hour.
Then conclude with the Lord’s Prayer.
Finally, as Paul suggests, at other times in the day, “pray at every opportunity in the Spirit.”
Monday, April 10, 2006
Recognizing female Roman Catholic priests: It's long overdue
By Fr. Rich Hasselbach
In fact we ourselves are disenfranchised Catholics. With rare exceptions, if our local parishes knew of our ministry, the married priests among us would not be welcome to take up the collection there. The corporate church does everything in its power to discredit us, and de-legitimize the ministry we offer, the sacraments we celebrate. Just recently I had a wonderful couple back away from a wedding because their pastor convinced their family that, should these kids be wed before a married priest, they’d be heading to hell on skis.
In a debate last year, on the Alan Colmes radio program, the information director of the Washington Archdiocese, Opus Dei priest C. John McCloskey, told me that I (and married priests like me who continue to do ministry) should “get on with life and stop pretending to be a priest.” One of the greatest barriers I see to our ministry expanding is the patina of illegitimacy that the corporate church so deftly applies to us.
There is another group of disenfranchised Catholics -- women! Especially women who feel called to priestly ministry.
According to Rosemary Reuther, “The local parishes available to [women] are alienating and even offensive. For some this is due to the sexist language and male priesthood, which rejects in principle the possibility of women’s full and equal membership in the church.” Of course not all women feel this way, but lots do.
This is a tremendous injustice in the Church, and male priests who don’t speak out and do something to effect change are complicit in the injustice. While there may be some “mission creep” in accepting this woman, assuming she is otherwise qualified, it would be a logical next place for CITI to go in its outreach to the alienated.
Dr. Kelley A. Raab, a professor of Religious Studies at St. Lawrence University, has an interesting take on the problem. “It is my conviction,” she writes, “that women priests will not be officially permitted in the Catholic church until there are women priests. “In other words,” Raab continues, “Catholic women must be seen in a priestly role, in particular celebrating the Eucharist, in order to be approved and ordained priests [by the corporate church].”
In effect, they need to “just do it.”
For the past twenty years or more, women have been doing it -- in their own communities, often communities deprived of meaningful ministry. Nuns have little control over their sacramental life; they have to take the priests they’re sent, and they often get the dregs. Often enough they take matters into their own hand and celebrate the Eucharist among themselves, without ordained male priests presiding. Are these celebrations really the Eucharist? Of course they are. What makes Christ present at the Eucharist is the gathering of two or more in His name -- in faith. There is no special power only in the ordained priest -- the Spirit cannot be held hostage to ecclesial clericalism.
For at least a decade some pioneering women, called by local communities that identify with Roman Catholicism, have been functioning as ordained ministers. Their problem, like ours, is that the corporate church, fearing them, does everything in its power to de-legitimize them, to make the faithful think that ONLY celibate males can be, and are, Roman Catholic priests.
To again quote Reuther:
Courageous women who feel called to ministry are attempting to establish their legitimacy as priests -- and challenge the "sacramental materialism" of the corporate church. As spurious as “apostolic succession” is, (Jesus didn’t found a hierarchical church, nor did he “ordain” the apostles to the episcopacy), some women have found bishops with “apostolic succession” to ordain them, realizing that only with legitimate episcopal ordination would they have the chance of being taken seriously. “Tin can bishops” may have ordained them, but in rectories and chanceries around the country, we are likely referred to as “tin can priests,” or so Fr. McCloskey has led me to believe.
Roman Catholicism isn’t owned by the hierarchy -- isn’t that the rationale for what we do in CITI? The tradition belongs to all God’s people. And the Spirit moves in all God’s people, regardless of random distinctions of race, gender or social status. There are no Greeks, no Jews, no slave, no free, no male, no female; just radical equality before the Lord. That was the wisdom of the apostolic church.
Somewhere along the line, that fundamental equality of the children of God got lost in the burgeoning bureaucracy that became the “Catholic” Church, modeled on the organization of the Roman Empire itself, which quickly began assuming to itself both wealth and temporal power. “The institutional church of episcopal hierarchy is not the successor of [the] apostolic church, ... it arose by suppressing [the] apostolic church.”
It is completely faithful to the Roman Catholic tradition, writ large, to accept the orders of female priests – hearkening back to the practice of the apostolic tradition. If Dr. Raab is correct, though, (and I think she is) paradoxically the church (understood as the People of God) must recognize women priests before the institution's corporate leadership will be able to accept their service. The church needs married priests for exactly the same reason. We have common cause with these women!
But for women priests to succeed their ministry needs to be accepted; they need credibility; they need legitimacy. The corporate church will never give that to them, but, in a small way, on behalf of the people of God, married priests can -- by accepting these women as our sisters and co-laborers in the vineyard of the Lord -- and honoring their priesthood. Unless the ministry of the ordained female clergy gains a foothold in praxis, the corporate church will not find its way to welcoming women in priestly ministry. The same may be said for the ministry of married priests in the Latin Rite.
We may ruffle a few feathers by accepting female priests and their ministry; we may turn some folks off. Isn’t that exactly the risk Jesus ran when, against the advice of more cautious and prudent heads, he ate and drank with tax collectors and sinners, when he picked corn on the Sabbath, and when he openly challenged the hypocrisy of the religious elites of his day.
Can we accept the proposition that the hierarchy has the right to call the shots for the entire Catholic tradition, even when the shots it calls are unjust, unwise, or unkind? Isn't CITI's rejection of that proposition a foundational principle of its being? If we believed that the Corporate church couldn’t be challenged on its narrowness, each one of us would have, long ago, heeded Fr. McCloskey’s advice and gotten on with our lives. We didn’t, and we can’t, because we know the Spirit calls us to ministry.
So do these women!
Yes, there are risks associated with this (as there were dangers associated with Jesus own ministry to the outcasts). Accepting women as a “Roman Catholic” priests may make CITI look less “Catholic” itself -- cause married priests to lose some credibility. I would rather lose credibility, though, than be complicit in an injustice.
Through faith you are all children of God in Christ Jesus. For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free person, there is not male and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. (Galatians 1: 26-28).The great work of married priests is to serve the alienated and disenfranchised Catholics -- the folks who fall through the cracks of corporate Catholicism. We bless second (and third) marriages; we welcome folks living gay lifestyles to the table of the Eucharist; we minister to the abused and neglected -- the Church’s throw-aways.
In fact we ourselves are disenfranchised Catholics. With rare exceptions, if our local parishes knew of our ministry, the married priests among us would not be welcome to take up the collection there. The corporate church does everything in its power to discredit us, and de-legitimize the ministry we offer, the sacraments we celebrate. Just recently I had a wonderful couple back away from a wedding because their pastor convinced their family that, should these kids be wed before a married priest, they’d be heading to hell on skis.
In a debate last year, on the Alan Colmes radio program, the information director of the Washington Archdiocese, Opus Dei priest C. John McCloskey, told me that I (and married priests like me who continue to do ministry) should “get on with life and stop pretending to be a priest.” One of the greatest barriers I see to our ministry expanding is the patina of illegitimacy that the corporate church so deftly applies to us.
There is another group of disenfranchised Catholics -- women! Especially women who feel called to priestly ministry.
According to Rosemary Reuther, “The local parishes available to [women] are alienating and even offensive. For some this is due to the sexist language and male priesthood, which rejects in principle the possibility of women’s full and equal membership in the church.” Of course not all women feel this way, but lots do.
This is a tremendous injustice in the Church, and male priests who don’t speak out and do something to effect change are complicit in the injustice. While there may be some “mission creep” in accepting this woman, assuming she is otherwise qualified, it would be a logical next place for CITI to go in its outreach to the alienated.
Dr. Kelley A. Raab, a professor of Religious Studies at St. Lawrence University, has an interesting take on the problem. “It is my conviction,” she writes, “that women priests will not be officially permitted in the Catholic church until there are women priests. “In other words,” Raab continues, “Catholic women must be seen in a priestly role, in particular celebrating the Eucharist, in order to be approved and ordained priests [by the corporate church].”
In effect, they need to “just do it.”
For the past twenty years or more, women have been doing it -- in their own communities, often communities deprived of meaningful ministry. Nuns have little control over their sacramental life; they have to take the priests they’re sent, and they often get the dregs. Often enough they take matters into their own hand and celebrate the Eucharist among themselves, without ordained male priests presiding. Are these celebrations really the Eucharist? Of course they are. What makes Christ present at the Eucharist is the gathering of two or more in His name -- in faith. There is no special power only in the ordained priest -- the Spirit cannot be held hostage to ecclesial clericalism.
For at least a decade some pioneering women, called by local communities that identify with Roman Catholicism, have been functioning as ordained ministers. Their problem, like ours, is that the corporate church, fearing them, does everything in its power to de-legitimize them, to make the faithful think that ONLY celibate males can be, and are, Roman Catholic priests.
To again quote Reuther:
The institution claims to possess the Holy Spirit under the control of its institutional channels and to be the sole cause of grace, rather than understanding itself as, at best, a context and occasion where experiences of the Spirit may take place. It claims that only the words preached by the ordained, whom it has designated and whose theology it controls, preach a valid Word of God, and only the rituals it validates mediate relation to God. In so doing the institutional church creates a sacramental materialism that teaches people that only the actions of the validly ordained, according to its rubrics, can cause the gracious life of God to be present.
Courageous women who feel called to ministry are attempting to establish their legitimacy as priests -- and challenge the "sacramental materialism" of the corporate church. As spurious as “apostolic succession” is, (Jesus didn’t found a hierarchical church, nor did he “ordain” the apostles to the episcopacy), some women have found bishops with “apostolic succession” to ordain them, realizing that only with legitimate episcopal ordination would they have the chance of being taken seriously. “Tin can bishops” may have ordained them, but in rectories and chanceries around the country, we are likely referred to as “tin can priests,” or so Fr. McCloskey has led me to believe.
Roman Catholicism isn’t owned by the hierarchy -- isn’t that the rationale for what we do in CITI? The tradition belongs to all God’s people. And the Spirit moves in all God’s people, regardless of random distinctions of race, gender or social status. There are no Greeks, no Jews, no slave, no free, no male, no female; just radical equality before the Lord. That was the wisdom of the apostolic church.
Somewhere along the line, that fundamental equality of the children of God got lost in the burgeoning bureaucracy that became the “Catholic” Church, modeled on the organization of the Roman Empire itself, which quickly began assuming to itself both wealth and temporal power. “The institutional church of episcopal hierarchy is not the successor of [the] apostolic church, ... it arose by suppressing [the] apostolic church.”
It is completely faithful to the Roman Catholic tradition, writ large, to accept the orders of female priests – hearkening back to the practice of the apostolic tradition. If Dr. Raab is correct, though, (and I think she is) paradoxically the church (understood as the People of God) must recognize women priests before the institution's corporate leadership will be able to accept their service. The church needs married priests for exactly the same reason. We have common cause with these women!
But for women priests to succeed their ministry needs to be accepted; they need credibility; they need legitimacy. The corporate church will never give that to them, but, in a small way, on behalf of the people of God, married priests can -- by accepting these women as our sisters and co-laborers in the vineyard of the Lord -- and honoring their priesthood. Unless the ministry of the ordained female clergy gains a foothold in praxis, the corporate church will not find its way to welcoming women in priestly ministry. The same may be said for the ministry of married priests in the Latin Rite.
We may ruffle a few feathers by accepting female priests and their ministry; we may turn some folks off. Isn’t that exactly the risk Jesus ran when, against the advice of more cautious and prudent heads, he ate and drank with tax collectors and sinners, when he picked corn on the Sabbath, and when he openly challenged the hypocrisy of the religious elites of his day.
Can we accept the proposition that the hierarchy has the right to call the shots for the entire Catholic tradition, even when the shots it calls are unjust, unwise, or unkind? Isn't CITI's rejection of that proposition a foundational principle of its being? If we believed that the Corporate church couldn’t be challenged on its narrowness, each one of us would have, long ago, heeded Fr. McCloskey’s advice and gotten on with our lives. We didn’t, and we can’t, because we know the Spirit calls us to ministry.
So do these women!
Yes, there are risks associated with this (as there were dangers associated with Jesus own ministry to the outcasts). Accepting women as a “Roman Catholic” priests may make CITI look less “Catholic” itself -- cause married priests to lose some credibility. I would rather lose credibility, though, than be complicit in an injustice.
Thursday, April 06, 2006
Married Priests Available for Holy Week Services
--For immediate release--
Holy Week and Easter services, considered among the most holy in the Catholic Church, will not take place in many of the U.S. parishes this year due to a shortage of priests. Recent and continuing sexual abuse revelations have resulted in shortfalls and churches closing in most dioceses, leaving parishioners with no Lenten rituals.
Rentapriest.com, a free referral service of CITI Ministries (Celibacy Is the Issue) offers married priests in almost every state, for confession and Holy Week services including Easter Mass. Church law has provisions for the use of married priests either in or out of the church building, when no priest is available. The request, however, must be come directly from the people, without permission from anyone.
Over 50,000 individuals have been spiritually served by married priests over the past 10 years, with baptisms, marriages, anointings of the sick, funerals, in-home Mass and other needs. In the spring of 2005, the parishioners of Sacred Heart Church in Natick Massachusetts, one of the 80 parishes scheduled to close in the Boston diocese, called a married priest for Easter Mass in an outdoor setting. 250 attended.
According to founder/president Louise Haggett, "CITI is not a protest organization. We see our work as an adjunct to the church and it has been quietly applauded by several bishops. We exist only to provide ministry where needed because of the tremendous shortages. We also serve many people who have been turned away by the Catholic institution: divorced Catholics, interfaith situations and others. We believe that by just doing it--using married priests, they will become the norm in the church the way female altar servers did. People ignored the Vatican in the 1980s and used female altar servers anyway. Now they are 'legal.' We can do the same with married priests.?"
More information is available at http://www.rentapriest.comor by calling 1-800-PRIEST 9 (774-3789). According to Haggett, ?No one should be without Easter services, and it's unlikely that any hierarchical figure will stop the grassroots effort of "just doing it without permission," because Canon 1752 says, "'the salvation of souls'is always the supreme law of the church."
CONTACTS: Louise Haggett, 207-729-7673
MJ Harris, 386-445-1476
CITI MINISTRIES, INC.
(Celibacy Is the Issue)
14 Middle Street, Suite 2
Brunswick, ME 04011
www.rentapriest.com
1-800-PRIEST 9 (774-3789)
Contact: Louise Haggett, Pres. 207-729-7673; cell: 508-740-3365
Holy Week and Easter services, considered among the most holy in the Catholic Church, will not take place in many of the U.S. parishes this year due to a shortage of priests. Recent and continuing sexual abuse revelations have resulted in shortfalls and churches closing in most dioceses, leaving parishioners with no Lenten rituals.
Rentapriest.com, a free referral service of CITI Ministries (Celibacy Is the Issue) offers married priests in almost every state, for confession and Holy Week services including Easter Mass. Church law has provisions for the use of married priests either in or out of the church building, when no priest is available. The request, however, must be come directly from the people, without permission from anyone.
Over 50,000 individuals have been spiritually served by married priests over the past 10 years, with baptisms, marriages, anointings of the sick, funerals, in-home Mass and other needs. In the spring of 2005, the parishioners of Sacred Heart Church in Natick Massachusetts, one of the 80 parishes scheduled to close in the Boston diocese, called a married priest for Easter Mass in an outdoor setting. 250 attended.
According to founder/president Louise Haggett, "CITI is not a protest organization. We see our work as an adjunct to the church and it has been quietly applauded by several bishops. We exist only to provide ministry where needed because of the tremendous shortages. We also serve many people who have been turned away by the Catholic institution: divorced Catholics, interfaith situations and others. We believe that by just doing it--using married priests, they will become the norm in the church the way female altar servers did. People ignored the Vatican in the 1980s and used female altar servers anyway. Now they are 'legal.' We can do the same with married priests.?"
More information is available at http://www.rentapriest.comor by calling 1-800-PRIEST 9 (774-3789). According to Haggett, ?No one should be without Easter services, and it's unlikely that any hierarchical figure will stop the grassroots effort of "just doing it without permission," because Canon 1752 says, "'the salvation of souls'is always the supreme law of the church."
CONTACTS: Louise Haggett, 207-729-7673
MJ Harris, 386-445-1476
CITI MINISTRIES, INC.
(Celibacy Is the Issue)
14 Middle Street, Suite 2
Brunswick, ME 04011
www.rentapriest.com
1-800-PRIEST 9 (774-3789)
Contact: Louise Haggett, Pres. 207-729-7673; cell: 508-740-3365
Sunday, April 02, 2006
Limbo, Infants and the Afterlife
By Sidney Callahan
Forty-some years ago, at the baptism of our fourth infant son, I murmured a half-serious doubt to a fellow graduate student, “Should the church really be baptizing babies without their awareness?” One month later this question came back with a vengeance, when on my 28th birthday I discovered our baby dead in his crib, a victim of what is now called sudden infant death syndrome. In this crisis of pain and shock, I found great consolation in the church’s communal faith and practice of infant baptism. I could imagine placing Thomas in Christ’s loving arms. Had not Jesus commanded his disciples to “let the little children come to me, and do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of heaven belongs” (Matt 19:13)? And how lovingly Jesus responded to distraught parents as he healed their ill children.
I dwelt on the scriptural promises that in God’s coming kingdom there will be no more dying of infants, and every tear will be wiped away. In this “not yet” time before the risen life, I could take courage from the witness of other devout women who had lost their children but kept their faith in the God who loves us like a mother.
I identified with Mary at the foot of the cross and even more with the two saints whose memorial (appropriately) was celebrated on my dread birthday, Saints Felicity and Perpetua. These two young mothers were separated from their children and martyred for their faith in a North African Roman amphitheater. Perpetua and Felicity, her servant, went steadfastly to the arena to be torn apart by wild animals. Perpetua had received a vision of the future life, and she and Felicity were confident of meeting their Lord. Felicity had given birth while in prison and went to meet her death still streaming milk, a heroic model for me as a bereft nursing mother flooded in milk and tears.
In our family’s crisis we were also helped by an outpouring of practical support from friends, relatives, neighbors and the priests of the parish. Slowly we were able to go forward, as we had to do, with three little boys under 6 to take care of. I could identify with King David, who wept, fasted and lay prostrate all night praying for the life of his infant son; but when his courtiers finally dared to tell him that the child was dead, David rose up. He ate, washed, dressed, went to worship in the temple and explained why to those who attended him: “He will not return to me,” but “I shall go to him” (2 Sam 12:23).
In the onward journey of our family, sadness was assuaged by the birth and baptism in the next four years of two more sons and a daughter. Life must triumph over death and loss. We moved from Cambridge, Mass., to New York and became incredibly busy raising five sons and a daughter, completing professional degrees, writing books and pursuing demanding careers. Still, the theological question of suffering and the problematic challenge of infant death never receded from my thoughts.
Good News, but the Question Remains
Now word has come that theologians in Rome are beginning to reconsider the destiny of infants who die without baptism. This is good news, if for no other reason than that it demonstrates that the church since the Second Vatican Council understands that it is an ever-reforming, ever-learning church, continuing its pilgrimage toward an ever fuller understanding of God’s infinite graciousness. Christians can progress toward God as truth, in response to the authority of Scripture, church tradition, reason and human experience—including feminine experience.
For me, gratitude for the solace brought by the church’s sacramental practice of infant baptism does not solve the question of the future of the unbaptized babies who die; nor even more crucially, does it address the more urgent problem of the destiny of all the human beings who die unbaptized by the institutional church. It seems important to propose that the discussion of baby limbo be but the beginning of a wider theological reconsideration of Christian hopes for the afterlife.
At this point it seems clear that there is growing agreement that unbaptized babies could not be denied the presence of God. It is too hard to accept a vision of the risen Christ reversing his loving reception of children or ever deciding to deny babies the presence of God’s light. Could we imagine, for example, that if we had not had Thomas baptized in the first weeks of his life, he would have been eternally separated from God, from his baptized siblings and from all of his family? Surely this would contradict the merciful words of Christ, who said, “Look, I have opened a door before you which no one can close” (Rev 3:8).
Even now the church has moved far away from the harsh and pessimistic stance of St. Augustine, who thought that most of mankind would be damned, including some baptized babies who died before the age of reason. To uphold such a view, one must exaggerate the severity of the corrupting effects of original sin and see human nature not as wounded but as completely depraved. This older view of baptism also runs the risk of turning the sacrament of baptism into an isolated act of magic.
Yes, baptism can be affirmed as the great sacrament of birth that incorporates new members into Christ’s body. But the birthing takes place through the power of the Holy Spirit, and the Spirit blows where it listeth. To insist that all the unbaptized will be denied God’s presence limits the reach of God’s mercy and love and seems to be a wrongheaded act of premature foreclosure, if not sinful presumption.
Newer views of baptism can be seen in the present pastoral practice of baptizing infants only if there will be a Christian family to bring up the child in the Christian community. Few now think that agnostic parents who do not approve of their infants being baptized are committing mortal sin or dooming their children. My own agreement with the new, nonmagical approach to baptism has withstood the grandmother test. While I deeply regret that I have unbaptized grandchildren, I have never secretly baptized a grandchild in the bathtub (with the counsel of my holy pastor, I might add).
Those who want to defend older views about the necessity of the institutional liturgical act of baptism for salvation will persist in defending the idea of limbo as essential. They will have to look backward to find supportive statements of long-dead popes and out-of-print, pre-Vatican II moral manuals. I saw such an approach displayed in an extremely conservative newspaper that arrived in the mail. The lead article deplored all efforts to let limbo lapse. These fervent folks (few in number, I hope) embrace the teachings of Pius X. They go on to attack the statements of then-Cardinal Ratzinger, who thinks that the concept of limbo seems “unenlightened” and can be dropped, since “it has always been only a theological hypothesis.”
In this newspaper’s theological perspective, Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, is a “dangerous progressivist” and part of the liberal conspiracy that is ruining the church. This pope, along with Pope John Paul II, is castigated for being influenced by that “popular modernist,” Hans Urs von Balthasar. Balthasar is seen as a danger because he has dared to hope that all might be saved.
If such narrow supporters of past norms were to win the theological arguments over limbo, then the church would have to be seen not only as regressing but also missing out on an important chance to initiate a spiritual dialogue with modern culture on the nature and destiny of human life. A clear sign of the times can be found in the increasing concern and interest in the United States about what happens after death.
A flood of new novels, plays, television series and nonfiction books are focusing on the existence and characteristics of the afterlife. I can hardly count the number of recent novels I have read that feature narrators who are dead. Many more millions of books are sold that purport to describe the five people you will meet in heaven or give dramatic accounts of near-death experiences and what they mean for the life to come. Much of this material offers thin gruel and slim pickings for those seeking spiritual nourishment.
Yet another development evident in the present cultural mix is the spread of Eastern and indigenous religious influence. Beliefs in karma and reincarnation are entering mainstream consciousness. Or perhaps they have never left. It is fascinating to note that in the medieval town of Montaillou, the Inquisition found heretics preaching reincarnation and the transmigration of souls. Such beliefs served, among other things, to console grieving mothers of dead infants; they were assured that the souls of their dead children would be reincarnated in their subsequent pregnancies.
Modern revivals of beliefs in reincarnation should not be dismissed in new theological reflections. Rather they can be taken as the signal for Christians to take seriously the insight that spiritual growth takes time and experience that may not be available in one brief life.
Growth After Death
Christianity, with its teaching on purgatory, has always accepted the belief that a chance for spiritual growth can exist after death. At the very least, purgatory is defined as a process of purification and positive transformation. While limbo for babies should be dropped as an inadequate theological hypothesis, a reconsideration of purgatory could be spiritually important. The idea that more opportunity for positive growth beyond the end of this life implies the possibility of some form of ongoing dynamic process in God’s “fullness of time.” What we know of the evolutionary story of creation seems to validate the possible existence of continuing spiritual development that transcends this life.
For that matter, it has taken billions of years for our human species to evolve. It is easy for those who believe in some form of universal future purgatory to conclude that for most of humanity one brief lifetime may hardly be enough to become what God desires us to be. Moreover, millions of the human family have died in infancy, or miscarried or been aborted; they have not had a chance to obtain consciousness or self-awareness.
Countless others of those who have been born and survived have had lives that were stunted and afflicted by the ravages of disease, injuries, natural disasters and sinful acts of evil. These lives have had little chance to develop or to hear and understand God’s good news. Are these deformed lives never to have a chance to grow and flourish? I have faith that a maternal and loving God never fails in the desire or the creative means to draw beloved creatures Godward. God never suffers from empathy fatigue.
Moreover, we can be certain that no spiritual journey is ever taken alone in a world with created co-creators. New thinking on the afterlife will have to make salient the communal cooperative reality of Christianity. St. Paul asserts that “the life and death of each of us has its influence on others”; how could this not be true in the afterlife? To pray for the dead and invoke the help of the saints is an ancient Christian practice of great wisdom.
Scientific discoveries of the embedded and entangled nature of matter confirm the interactive ecology of spiritual reality. But the recent Catechism of the Catholic Church gives little attention to purgatory and not much more to heaven. (Limbo rates no entry at all.) Instead there is the brief assertion that “the mystery of blessed communion with God and all who are in Christ is beyond all understanding and description” (No. 1026). This must surely be true, but historians of the faith have also pointed out that attention to the “all” could be ignored in the exclusively “theocentric heaven” propagated by 17th-century Protestant divines.
More attention now can be paid to the assurances of the catechism that “the blessed continue joyfully to fulfill God’s will in relation to other men and to all creation” (No. 1029).
Surely, this is where St. Théresè of Lisieux’s intention to spend eternity doing good works on earth comes into play. Those “roses” she sends include a message: Of course the friends of God continue to take joy in healing and renewing creation. If we meditate enough on the mercy and love of a God who proclaims “I am making all things new” (Rev 21:5), then we can envision an afterlife where human friendship and love can be healing those in need of transformation.
Perhaps the new concern for infants is the beginning of a deeper understanding of God’s mercy. The church may be taking to heart the greatest promise of love, “a bruised reed I will not break or a flickering wick extinguish.”
Sidney Callahan is a psychologist who has taught moral theology and is a columnist for Commonweal magazine.
Forty-some years ago, at the baptism of our fourth infant son, I murmured a half-serious doubt to a fellow graduate student, “Should the church really be baptizing babies without their awareness?” One month later this question came back with a vengeance, when on my 28th birthday I discovered our baby dead in his crib, a victim of what is now called sudden infant death syndrome. In this crisis of pain and shock, I found great consolation in the church’s communal faith and practice of infant baptism. I could imagine placing Thomas in Christ’s loving arms. Had not Jesus commanded his disciples to “let the little children come to me, and do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of heaven belongs” (Matt 19:13)? And how lovingly Jesus responded to distraught parents as he healed their ill children.
I dwelt on the scriptural promises that in God’s coming kingdom there will be no more dying of infants, and every tear will be wiped away. In this “not yet” time before the risen life, I could take courage from the witness of other devout women who had lost their children but kept their faith in the God who loves us like a mother.
I identified with Mary at the foot of the cross and even more with the two saints whose memorial (appropriately) was celebrated on my dread birthday, Saints Felicity and Perpetua. These two young mothers were separated from their children and martyred for their faith in a North African Roman amphitheater. Perpetua and Felicity, her servant, went steadfastly to the arena to be torn apart by wild animals. Perpetua had received a vision of the future life, and she and Felicity were confident of meeting their Lord. Felicity had given birth while in prison and went to meet her death still streaming milk, a heroic model for me as a bereft nursing mother flooded in milk and tears.
In our family’s crisis we were also helped by an outpouring of practical support from friends, relatives, neighbors and the priests of the parish. Slowly we were able to go forward, as we had to do, with three little boys under 6 to take care of. I could identify with King David, who wept, fasted and lay prostrate all night praying for the life of his infant son; but when his courtiers finally dared to tell him that the child was dead, David rose up. He ate, washed, dressed, went to worship in the temple and explained why to those who attended him: “He will not return to me,” but “I shall go to him” (2 Sam 12:23).
In the onward journey of our family, sadness was assuaged by the birth and baptism in the next four years of two more sons and a daughter. Life must triumph over death and loss. We moved from Cambridge, Mass., to New York and became incredibly busy raising five sons and a daughter, completing professional degrees, writing books and pursuing demanding careers. Still, the theological question of suffering and the problematic challenge of infant death never receded from my thoughts.
Good News, but the Question Remains
Now word has come that theologians in Rome are beginning to reconsider the destiny of infants who die without baptism. This is good news, if for no other reason than that it demonstrates that the church since the Second Vatican Council understands that it is an ever-reforming, ever-learning church, continuing its pilgrimage toward an ever fuller understanding of God’s infinite graciousness. Christians can progress toward God as truth, in response to the authority of Scripture, church tradition, reason and human experience—including feminine experience.
For me, gratitude for the solace brought by the church’s sacramental practice of infant baptism does not solve the question of the future of the unbaptized babies who die; nor even more crucially, does it address the more urgent problem of the destiny of all the human beings who die unbaptized by the institutional church. It seems important to propose that the discussion of baby limbo be but the beginning of a wider theological reconsideration of Christian hopes for the afterlife.
At this point it seems clear that there is growing agreement that unbaptized babies could not be denied the presence of God. It is too hard to accept a vision of the risen Christ reversing his loving reception of children or ever deciding to deny babies the presence of God’s light. Could we imagine, for example, that if we had not had Thomas baptized in the first weeks of his life, he would have been eternally separated from God, from his baptized siblings and from all of his family? Surely this would contradict the merciful words of Christ, who said, “Look, I have opened a door before you which no one can close” (Rev 3:8).
Even now the church has moved far away from the harsh and pessimistic stance of St. Augustine, who thought that most of mankind would be damned, including some baptized babies who died before the age of reason. To uphold such a view, one must exaggerate the severity of the corrupting effects of original sin and see human nature not as wounded but as completely depraved. This older view of baptism also runs the risk of turning the sacrament of baptism into an isolated act of magic.
Yes, baptism can be affirmed as the great sacrament of birth that incorporates new members into Christ’s body. But the birthing takes place through the power of the Holy Spirit, and the Spirit blows where it listeth. To insist that all the unbaptized will be denied God’s presence limits the reach of God’s mercy and love and seems to be a wrongheaded act of premature foreclosure, if not sinful presumption.
Newer views of baptism can be seen in the present pastoral practice of baptizing infants only if there will be a Christian family to bring up the child in the Christian community. Few now think that agnostic parents who do not approve of their infants being baptized are committing mortal sin or dooming their children. My own agreement with the new, nonmagical approach to baptism has withstood the grandmother test. While I deeply regret that I have unbaptized grandchildren, I have never secretly baptized a grandchild in the bathtub (with the counsel of my holy pastor, I might add).
Those who want to defend older views about the necessity of the institutional liturgical act of baptism for salvation will persist in defending the idea of limbo as essential. They will have to look backward to find supportive statements of long-dead popes and out-of-print, pre-Vatican II moral manuals. I saw such an approach displayed in an extremely conservative newspaper that arrived in the mail. The lead article deplored all efforts to let limbo lapse. These fervent folks (few in number, I hope) embrace the teachings of Pius X. They go on to attack the statements of then-Cardinal Ratzinger, who thinks that the concept of limbo seems “unenlightened” and can be dropped, since “it has always been only a theological hypothesis.”
In this newspaper’s theological perspective, Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, is a “dangerous progressivist” and part of the liberal conspiracy that is ruining the church. This pope, along with Pope John Paul II, is castigated for being influenced by that “popular modernist,” Hans Urs von Balthasar. Balthasar is seen as a danger because he has dared to hope that all might be saved.
If such narrow supporters of past norms were to win the theological arguments over limbo, then the church would have to be seen not only as regressing but also missing out on an important chance to initiate a spiritual dialogue with modern culture on the nature and destiny of human life. A clear sign of the times can be found in the increasing concern and interest in the United States about what happens after death.
A flood of new novels, plays, television series and nonfiction books are focusing on the existence and characteristics of the afterlife. I can hardly count the number of recent novels I have read that feature narrators who are dead. Many more millions of books are sold that purport to describe the five people you will meet in heaven or give dramatic accounts of near-death experiences and what they mean for the life to come. Much of this material offers thin gruel and slim pickings for those seeking spiritual nourishment.
Yet another development evident in the present cultural mix is the spread of Eastern and indigenous religious influence. Beliefs in karma and reincarnation are entering mainstream consciousness. Or perhaps they have never left. It is fascinating to note that in the medieval town of Montaillou, the Inquisition found heretics preaching reincarnation and the transmigration of souls. Such beliefs served, among other things, to console grieving mothers of dead infants; they were assured that the souls of their dead children would be reincarnated in their subsequent pregnancies.
Modern revivals of beliefs in reincarnation should not be dismissed in new theological reflections. Rather they can be taken as the signal for Christians to take seriously the insight that spiritual growth takes time and experience that may not be available in one brief life.
Growth After Death
Christianity, with its teaching on purgatory, has always accepted the belief that a chance for spiritual growth can exist after death. At the very least, purgatory is defined as a process of purification and positive transformation. While limbo for babies should be dropped as an inadequate theological hypothesis, a reconsideration of purgatory could be spiritually important. The idea that more opportunity for positive growth beyond the end of this life implies the possibility of some form of ongoing dynamic process in God’s “fullness of time.” What we know of the evolutionary story of creation seems to validate the possible existence of continuing spiritual development that transcends this life.
For that matter, it has taken billions of years for our human species to evolve. It is easy for those who believe in some form of universal future purgatory to conclude that for most of humanity one brief lifetime may hardly be enough to become what God desires us to be. Moreover, millions of the human family have died in infancy, or miscarried or been aborted; they have not had a chance to obtain consciousness or self-awareness.
Countless others of those who have been born and survived have had lives that were stunted and afflicted by the ravages of disease, injuries, natural disasters and sinful acts of evil. These lives have had little chance to develop or to hear and understand God’s good news. Are these deformed lives never to have a chance to grow and flourish? I have faith that a maternal and loving God never fails in the desire or the creative means to draw beloved creatures Godward. God never suffers from empathy fatigue.
Moreover, we can be certain that no spiritual journey is ever taken alone in a world with created co-creators. New thinking on the afterlife will have to make salient the communal cooperative reality of Christianity. St. Paul asserts that “the life and death of each of us has its influence on others”; how could this not be true in the afterlife? To pray for the dead and invoke the help of the saints is an ancient Christian practice of great wisdom.
Scientific discoveries of the embedded and entangled nature of matter confirm the interactive ecology of spiritual reality. But the recent Catechism of the Catholic Church gives little attention to purgatory and not much more to heaven. (Limbo rates no entry at all.) Instead there is the brief assertion that “the mystery of blessed communion with God and all who are in Christ is beyond all understanding and description” (No. 1026). This must surely be true, but historians of the faith have also pointed out that attention to the “all” could be ignored in the exclusively “theocentric heaven” propagated by 17th-century Protestant divines.
More attention now can be paid to the assurances of the catechism that “the blessed continue joyfully to fulfill God’s will in relation to other men and to all creation” (No. 1029).
Surely, this is where St. Théresè of Lisieux’s intention to spend eternity doing good works on earth comes into play. Those “roses” she sends include a message: Of course the friends of God continue to take joy in healing and renewing creation. If we meditate enough on the mercy and love of a God who proclaims “I am making all things new” (Rev 21:5), then we can envision an afterlife where human friendship and love can be healing those in need of transformation.
Perhaps the new concern for infants is the beginning of a deeper understanding of God’s mercy. The church may be taking to heart the greatest promise of love, “a bruised reed I will not break or a flickering wick extinguish.”
Sidney Callahan is a psychologist who has taught moral theology and is a columnist for Commonweal magazine.
Happy Birthday to Meister Eckhart
Meister Eckhart: March 27
By Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat
Meister Eckhart (1260-1329) was a Dominican priest and theologian who exerts a hold on many contemporary spiritual writers. Long ago, he made the startling declaration that God and human beings are already bonded together, already in intimate contact. The only obstacle is our consciousness and the dreadful construction of dualism that constricts our ongoing divinization. This mystical understanding got him in trouble with the Catholic church, and in 1326, he was accused of heresy. He responded but the bull of Pope John XXII issued on March 27, 1329, speaks of him as already dead.
On this anniversary of his death, his cogent and soul-stretching quotations are invigorating. They nourish us and challenge us to step into the spiritual adventure with him. Pick one of the quotations — all are by Eckhart, and we note the book where we found it. Make the quote your own by placing it on your desk or carry it in your wallet. Read the quote during the day and let it seep into your consciousness.
God Is Everywhere
"One who truly has God will have Him in all places, in the streets and in the world, no less than in the church."
(Meister Eckhart, from Whom God Hid Nothing)
A Book about God
"Every creature is full of God and a book about God."
(The Reinvention of Work by Matthew Fox)
Spiritual Transformation
"A person works in a stable.
That person has a breakthrough.
What does he do?
He returns to work in the stable."
(Meditations with Meister Eckhart by Matthew Fox)
What God Expects of You
"God expects but one thing of you, and that is that you should come out of yourself in so far as you are a created being and let God be in you."
(The Perennial Philosophy by Aldous Huxley)
Why We Miss God
"God is at home in us, but we are abroad."
(Call to Purpose by Richard Solly)
The Laughter Behind Grace
"God laughed and brought forth Jesus. Jesus laughed and brought forth the Holy Spirit. All three laughed and brought forth us."
(Elder Wisdom by Eugene Bianchi)
The Inward Work
"The outward work can never be small if the inward one is great, and the outward work can never be great or good if the inward is small or of little worth."
(The Reinvention of Work by Matthew Fox)
The Underground River
"God is a great underground river that no one can dam up and no one can stop."
(Wrestling with the Prophets by Matthew Fox)
God Is Still at Work Creating
"God is creating the entire universe, fully and totally, in the present now."
(Wrestling with the Prophets by Matthew Fox)
Do Justice
"If you want to discover who you are, do justice engaging fully in order to change things."
(Earth Story Sacred Story by James Conlon)
Let Go of God
"In order to find God, we must let God go.
There above the mind, God shines."
(Why Not be a Mystic? by Frank Tuoti)
God in the Soul
"God is not found in the soul by adding anything but by a process of subtraction."
(How, Then, Shall We Live? by Wayne Muller)
Everything Praises God
"Everything praises God. Darkness, privations, defects, and evil praise and bless God."
(Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh by Matthew Fox)
No Bad Luck
"However, I have never had bad luck. This is because I live with God and always feel that what He does is for the best. Whatever God sends me, be it pleasant or unpleasant, I accept with a grateful heart. That is why I have never had bad luck."
(The Inner Treasure by Jonathan Star)
By Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat
Meister Eckhart (1260-1329) was a Dominican priest and theologian who exerts a hold on many contemporary spiritual writers. Long ago, he made the startling declaration that God and human beings are already bonded together, already in intimate contact. The only obstacle is our consciousness and the dreadful construction of dualism that constricts our ongoing divinization. This mystical understanding got him in trouble with the Catholic church, and in 1326, he was accused of heresy. He responded but the bull of Pope John XXII issued on March 27, 1329, speaks of him as already dead.
On this anniversary of his death, his cogent and soul-stretching quotations are invigorating. They nourish us and challenge us to step into the spiritual adventure with him. Pick one of the quotations — all are by Eckhart, and we note the book where we found it. Make the quote your own by placing it on your desk or carry it in your wallet. Read the quote during the day and let it seep into your consciousness.
God Is Everywhere
"One who truly has God will have Him in all places, in the streets and in the world, no less than in the church."
(Meister Eckhart, from Whom God Hid Nothing)
A Book about God
"Every creature is full of God and a book about God."
(The Reinvention of Work by Matthew Fox)
Spiritual Transformation
"A person works in a stable.
That person has a breakthrough.
What does he do?
He returns to work in the stable."
(Meditations with Meister Eckhart by Matthew Fox)
What God Expects of You
"God expects but one thing of you, and that is that you should come out of yourself in so far as you are a created being and let God be in you."
(The Perennial Philosophy by Aldous Huxley)
Why We Miss God
"God is at home in us, but we are abroad."
(Call to Purpose by Richard Solly)
The Laughter Behind Grace
"God laughed and brought forth Jesus. Jesus laughed and brought forth the Holy Spirit. All three laughed and brought forth us."
(Elder Wisdom by Eugene Bianchi)
The Inward Work
"The outward work can never be small if the inward one is great, and the outward work can never be great or good if the inward is small or of little worth."
(The Reinvention of Work by Matthew Fox)
The Underground River
"God is a great underground river that no one can dam up and no one can stop."
(Wrestling with the Prophets by Matthew Fox)
God Is Still at Work Creating
"God is creating the entire universe, fully and totally, in the present now."
(Wrestling with the Prophets by Matthew Fox)
Do Justice
"If you want to discover who you are, do justice engaging fully in order to change things."
(Earth Story Sacred Story by James Conlon)
Let Go of God
"In order to find God, we must let God go.
There above the mind, God shines."
(Why Not be a Mystic? by Frank Tuoti)
God in the Soul
"God is not found in the soul by adding anything but by a process of subtraction."
(How, Then, Shall We Live? by Wayne Muller)
Everything Praises God
"Everything praises God. Darkness, privations, defects, and evil praise and bless God."
(Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh by Matthew Fox)
No Bad Luck
"However, I have never had bad luck. This is because I live with God and always feel that what He does is for the best. Whatever God sends me, be it pleasant or unpleasant, I accept with a grateful heart. That is why I have never had bad luck."
(The Inner Treasure by Jonathan Star)
Friday, March 31, 2006
Don't Treat Married Priests Like Pariahs
The church welcomes married Protestant ministers to its clergy--so why the double standard?
By John Horan
The starting premise--celibacy is not essential to the priesthood--is surely something everyone agrees upon. Jesus explicitly chose married men as his apostles. Peter, a married man, was Jesus' handpicked leader. The epistles clearly contain references to married bishops and priests. For the first 12 centuries of church practice, 39 popes were married, in addition to many priests and bishops. Three popes (Anastasius I, Saint Hormidas, and Sergius III) produced pope sons of their own, two of whom went on to be declared saints (Saint Innocent I and Saint Silverius).
But in the 11th century, the starting premise was mothballed. Pope Gregory VII mandated that anyone seeking ordination must first pledge celibacy, stating that "the church cannot escape from the clutches of the laity unless priests first escape the clutches of their wives." The Second Lateran Council and Pope Innocent II (forgetting the example of his fifth-century namesake) effectively put a halt to the married priesthood in 1139.
The starting premise was chained up for centuries until June 1980, when John Paul II fiddled with the lock. He made special pastoral provisions for married Protestant ministers who converted to Catholicism to be ordained to the Catholic priesthood, bringing along their wives and children--provision that, to this day, most U.S. Catholics are unaware of.
Since then, 70 Episcopalians and an assortment of Lutheran, Methodist, and Presbyterian clerics--most of them married--have converted to Catholicism and been ordained Catholic priests in the United States. The practice continues worldwide.
In roughly that same time frame, 23,000 U.S. Catholic priests have left active ministry (100,000 worldwide). Twenty-five percent of the world's parishes are now said to be without resident priests.
So how can we start from the same premise--celibacy is not essential to the priesthood--and end up with such different conclusions concerning formerly Protestant married priests and Catholic priests who resigned and then married?
This is the way the Vatican sees it for married Protestant ministers who have converted to Catholicism and are now practicing, married Catholic priests: Becoming a Catholic priest should not require these clergy to forsake the marriage commitment made prior to becoming Catholic. The original promise of these priests--to be Anglican and to minister to Anglican congregations--can be renegotiated without it affecting their status as an active Catholic priest.
And this is the way the Vatican sees it for celibate Catholic priests: Becoming a Catholic priest requires forever forsaking a marriage commitment. Original promises by the celibate Catholic priests--to be celibate while being a Catholic priest--cannot be renegotiated without their active status as Catholic priests ending.
Clearly, the problem is not that the Catholic Church sees any problem with a married Catholic priesthood. The Holy See has affirmed this practice in both word and deed. The problem is being Catholic to begin with. You can be a married Catholic priest if you started out a married Protestant minister. But you can't be a married priest if you started out Catholic. If you are experiencing the beginning of a headache, you are not alone. Someone is confused.
Why not welcome married Catholic priests back to active Catholic ministry the way we welcome recently converted married Protestant clergy? Church leaders assert that there are two major obstacles to this. First, they say that the Catholic who leaves the ministry in order to marry is in a significantly different situation from the married priest convert. The Catholic candidate, prior to his ordination as a priest, agrees to celibacy as a standard set by the church in 1139 for all priests ordained in the Latin Church. But this does not bind the convert. His denomination permitted him to be both married and a minister. He did not promise to be celibate. Being received as a Catholic priest, therefore, should not require forsaking his freely chosen marriage commitment.
Second, it is simply not fair, the church says, to allow for the reentry of inactive married Catholic priests. Laymen who have chosen not to be priests and are now married would howl. Active celibate priests who have lived the long, solitary promise would howl. Seminarians who have not pursued or who have cut off promising romantic relationships would howl. People in the pews would howl because the Father who left to become a Mister is back as a Father Mister.
The fact of the matter is that most priests struggle with celibacy--a human-made requirement for ordination. They live with a prerequisite that must be complied with in order to get to their real call, which is to be a priest. Candidates to the priesthood desire with all their hearts to be priests. They pray with all their hearts that something might help them live out the celibacy cover charge in a relatively healthy and life-giving fashion.
So what are we to do? I think the first thing to do is let people know about the starting premise that celibacy is not essential to the priesthood. Let Catholics figure out whether welcoming married, converted Protestant ministers--while excluding married Catholic priests--makes sense. Let them fiddle some more with the lock on the box and move the furniture around a bit in their minds. See what happens.
The second thing is to encourage inactive married Catholic priests to act actively. There are plenty of places to start: rural parishes, people who want to get married but have been turned away from their parish, wake services, priestless parishes, and base communities--the list goes on and on, running from licit to illicit activity.
Last June, I attended the wedding of a--substitute your favorite adjective--inactive, ex-clerical, irregular, non-canonical, fallen, shamed, or procreatively challenged Catholic priest. Dave and Ann were married under a circus tent, there being no room for them in any of the 350-plus churches in that diocese, four of which he had served with distinction in his previous 18 years as a priest.
Over half of those gathered in that makeshift prayer space were former parishioners of Dave's. After the ceremony, Anthony and his wife, Marie, waited just before me in the reception line. Middle-of-the-road Catholics in their late 50s, they raised three daughters (all married by Father Dave) and have seven grandchildren (all baptized by Father Dave).
Anthony and Marie were fired up. Why couldn't Father Dave be married in a Catholic church? Why were there no other priests present (i.e., pastor, classmates, and past associates)--are they running scared? Why couldn't ex-Father Dave continue being Father Dave somehow? When will the losses of great priests like Father Dave end?
Who knows? The time is coming. In the meantime, thousands of us wait at the end of the receiving line, looking for the cracks on the periphery. It will have to be enough for now.
By John Horan
The starting premise--celibacy is not essential to the priesthood--is surely something everyone agrees upon. Jesus explicitly chose married men as his apostles. Peter, a married man, was Jesus' handpicked leader. The epistles clearly contain references to married bishops and priests. For the first 12 centuries of church practice, 39 popes were married, in addition to many priests and bishops. Three popes (Anastasius I, Saint Hormidas, and Sergius III) produced pope sons of their own, two of whom went on to be declared saints (Saint Innocent I and Saint Silverius).
But in the 11th century, the starting premise was mothballed. Pope Gregory VII mandated that anyone seeking ordination must first pledge celibacy, stating that "the church cannot escape from the clutches of the laity unless priests first escape the clutches of their wives." The Second Lateran Council and Pope Innocent II (forgetting the example of his fifth-century namesake) effectively put a halt to the married priesthood in 1139.
The starting premise was chained up for centuries until June 1980, when John Paul II fiddled with the lock. He made special pastoral provisions for married Protestant ministers who converted to Catholicism to be ordained to the Catholic priesthood, bringing along their wives and children--provision that, to this day, most U.S. Catholics are unaware of.
Since then, 70 Episcopalians and an assortment of Lutheran, Methodist, and Presbyterian clerics--most of them married--have converted to Catholicism and been ordained Catholic priests in the United States. The practice continues worldwide.
In roughly that same time frame, 23,000 U.S. Catholic priests have left active ministry (100,000 worldwide). Twenty-five percent of the world's parishes are now said to be without resident priests.
So how can we start from the same premise--celibacy is not essential to the priesthood--and end up with such different conclusions concerning formerly Protestant married priests and Catholic priests who resigned and then married?
This is the way the Vatican sees it for married Protestant ministers who have converted to Catholicism and are now practicing, married Catholic priests: Becoming a Catholic priest should not require these clergy to forsake the marriage commitment made prior to becoming Catholic. The original promise of these priests--to be Anglican and to minister to Anglican congregations--can be renegotiated without it affecting their status as an active Catholic priest.
And this is the way the Vatican sees it for celibate Catholic priests: Becoming a Catholic priest requires forever forsaking a marriage commitment. Original promises by the celibate Catholic priests--to be celibate while being a Catholic priest--cannot be renegotiated without their active status as Catholic priests ending.
Clearly, the problem is not that the Catholic Church sees any problem with a married Catholic priesthood. The Holy See has affirmed this practice in both word and deed. The problem is being Catholic to begin with. You can be a married Catholic priest if you started out a married Protestant minister. But you can't be a married priest if you started out Catholic. If you are experiencing the beginning of a headache, you are not alone. Someone is confused.
Why not welcome married Catholic priests back to active Catholic ministry the way we welcome recently converted married Protestant clergy? Church leaders assert that there are two major obstacles to this. First, they say that the Catholic who leaves the ministry in order to marry is in a significantly different situation from the married priest convert. The Catholic candidate, prior to his ordination as a priest, agrees to celibacy as a standard set by the church in 1139 for all priests ordained in the Latin Church. But this does not bind the convert. His denomination permitted him to be both married and a minister. He did not promise to be celibate. Being received as a Catholic priest, therefore, should not require forsaking his freely chosen marriage commitment.
Second, it is simply not fair, the church says, to allow for the reentry of inactive married Catholic priests. Laymen who have chosen not to be priests and are now married would howl. Active celibate priests who have lived the long, solitary promise would howl. Seminarians who have not pursued or who have cut off promising romantic relationships would howl. People in the pews would howl because the Father who left to become a Mister is back as a Father Mister.
The fact of the matter is that most priests struggle with celibacy--a human-made requirement for ordination. They live with a prerequisite that must be complied with in order to get to their real call, which is to be a priest. Candidates to the priesthood desire with all their hearts to be priests. They pray with all their hearts that something might help them live out the celibacy cover charge in a relatively healthy and life-giving fashion.
So what are we to do? I think the first thing to do is let people know about the starting premise that celibacy is not essential to the priesthood. Let Catholics figure out whether welcoming married, converted Protestant ministers--while excluding married Catholic priests--makes sense. Let them fiddle some more with the lock on the box and move the furniture around a bit in their minds. See what happens.
The second thing is to encourage inactive married Catholic priests to act actively. There are plenty of places to start: rural parishes, people who want to get married but have been turned away from their parish, wake services, priestless parishes, and base communities--the list goes on and on, running from licit to illicit activity.
Last June, I attended the wedding of a--substitute your favorite adjective--inactive, ex-clerical, irregular, non-canonical, fallen, shamed, or procreatively challenged Catholic priest. Dave and Ann were married under a circus tent, there being no room for them in any of the 350-plus churches in that diocese, four of which he had served with distinction in his previous 18 years as a priest.
Over half of those gathered in that makeshift prayer space were former parishioners of Dave's. After the ceremony, Anthony and his wife, Marie, waited just before me in the reception line. Middle-of-the-road Catholics in their late 50s, they raised three daughters (all married by Father Dave) and have seven grandchildren (all baptized by Father Dave).
Anthony and Marie were fired up. Why couldn't Father Dave be married in a Catholic church? Why were there no other priests present (i.e., pastor, classmates, and past associates)--are they running scared? Why couldn't ex-Father Dave continue being Father Dave somehow? When will the losses of great priests like Father Dave end?
Who knows? The time is coming. In the meantime, thousands of us wait at the end of the receiving line, looking for the cracks on the periphery. It will have to be enough for now.
Thursday, March 23, 2006
Ireland and Iraq -- "A fanatic heart"
by
Fr. Daniel O'Rourke
Saint Patrick’s Day has come and gone, but it’s still with me. I don’t
mean those phony brogues, green beer and all that ersatz Irishness. I
mean “the Troubles,” as the Irish poetically name them. I mean the
diminishing conflict between Catholics and Protestants in Ireland.
Saint Patrick’s Day reminded me of another artificially divided land,
of another suppression of one religious group by another. It reminded
me of the civil war now already begun between Iraq’s Sunnis and the
Shiites. Different groups divided by class and clout, prestige and
power but whose overarching identification is religion. In Iraq two
sects of Islam, in Ireland two divisions of Christians fearing, hating
and killing each other.
Listen to W. B. Yeats’ verse from his poem Remorse for Intemperate
Speech. It cries out from the heart of a tortured people.
Out of Ireland we come.
Great hatred, little room,
Maimed us at the start.
I carry from my mother’s womb
A fanatic heart.
When Yeats wrote that, he “had witnessed the birthing of a new Irish
nation through insurgency and civil war. He had served as a Free State
senator, and after winning the Nobel Prize in Literature, was the
country’s public man of letters.”
As Thomas Lynch, the poet and author of Booking Passage: We Irish and
Americans, has also observed, Yeats’ poem admits that intelligence and
good intentions are often overcome by hatred and enthusiasm for a
cause. ”It is what links enemies, what makes terrorists ‘martyrs’ and
‘patriots’ among their own ‘ -- the fanatic heart beating in the breast of
every true believer.”
I inherited some of that hate. As a boy I heard those songs of
rebellion from my grandparents. Experience, education, travel - life
itself have leached that hate from my heart. But even three generations
removed from Ireland, I heard suspicion, distrust and hate for the
English Protestant landlords, who forced my famished ancestors onto
“coffin ships” and into steerage for passage to a distant land.
Is such religious hatred destiny? Can experience and education cure
fanatic hearts? They did mine; can they do so in Iraq? Only history
will tell, but here’s a story that gives me hope.
Some years ago fundraisers from the Irish Republican Army stopped to
see an American executive. He was an Irish Catholic CEO of an
international company. They went to his office in his up-scale
Manhattan headquarters. They spoke of the prejudice, injustices,
killings and suppression of Catholics in Northern Ireland and requested
money for arms. He refused them.
“All right they said, but what then do you intend to do to help?” The
CEO did not answer, but long after the IRA terrorists left their
question haunted him.
Weeks later he flew to Belfast and began making plans to build a plant
in Northern Ireland. Eventually, with instructions that his people
hire both Catholics and Protestants as workers and managers, he built
it. The plant prospered and its non-discriminatory personnel policies
were widely praised.
A few years later this same CEO was in London on business to meet with
an English counterpart. Their work had brought them together and they
had become friends. Their different religions and ethnic backgrounds
were hardly noticed. Over lunch in an exclusive club they were
discussing the Belfast plant and its hiring practices.
“What made you build it?” asked the Englishman. The American told him
of the IRA soliciting money for arms. “But why did you do it?” his
English friend persisted.
“My grandparents were tenant farmers in Connemara. Their landlord
forced them to leave Ireland during the famine.”
Curious now the Englishman asked, “What part of Connemara?” When the
American named the remote, mountainous village, the Englishman paled.
“What’s the matte?“ asked his friend.
Shaking his head, the Englishman said quietly, “My grandfather owned
that mountain.”
Generations from now will the descendents of today’s Shiites and Sunnis
have similar conversations -- will they meet as friends? Will they sit
at table to share a meal to discuss business? Or will that hatred,
which today rips Iraq asunder, still maim them? Will the grandchildren
of today ‘s Sunnis and Shiites still carry fanatic hearts?
It can happen, if visionary statesmen like Senator George Mitchell who
nurtured the historic Good Friday Irish agreement bring similar
diplomatic skills to the Sunni-Shiite conflict. (I must say, however,
that presently I find the Bush administration ‘s Iraq policy is not
long-term and visionary but short-term and delusional.)
In Ireland economic prosperity, cultural cooperation and
interdependence have drawn Catholics and Protestants closer. Full
peace has not yet come to Ulster, but most fanatic hearts are have been
silenced. Iraq desperately needs such modernization.
The reformation of the Catholic Church at the Second Vatican Council
helped greatly in Ireland. That council broke down many Catholic and
Protestant prejudices. Islam too needs a religious reformation.
Eventually modernization and reformation will come to Iraq but it will
not happen quickly. As in Ireland, it could take generations perhaps
centuries.
And how long will our troops be there? God only knows; President Bush
doesn't. We should set a timetable and start bringing them home. As
the Quakers have told us “if our troops leave, then an independent
Iraqi government, free of external control, could open the door to
discussion and reconciliation between groups.”
We should again remind ourselves of Ireland and the transitional Irish
Free State, which was also born out of insurgency and civil war. It
struggled from 1922 to 1937. Americans must take the long view of
history and not, as politicians instinctively do, think only of the
next congressional election.
One more comparison: in Ireland women jump-started the struggle for
peaceful cooperation. In 1977 Mairead Corrigan and Betty Williams
received the Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts. Iraq too needs to
hear the voices of its women who have lost too many children, husbands
and brothers. If the Iraqi constitution gives a real voice to women --
and not only a nominal presence, the chances for peace between Sunni
and Shiite will increase.
That’s what Ireland can teach America about Iraq.
Daniel O’Rourke is He’s a married Catholic priest, retired from the administration at State University College, Fredonia. A mediator for the Center for Resolution and Justice, he lives in Cassadaga. His column appears the second and
fourth Thursdays of each month. Comments may be sent to
orourke@netsync.net
Fr. Daniel O'Rourke
Saint Patrick’s Day has come and gone, but it’s still with me. I don’t
mean those phony brogues, green beer and all that ersatz Irishness. I
mean “the Troubles,” as the Irish poetically name them. I mean the
diminishing conflict between Catholics and Protestants in Ireland.
Saint Patrick’s Day reminded me of another artificially divided land,
of another suppression of one religious group by another. It reminded
me of the civil war now already begun between Iraq’s Sunnis and the
Shiites. Different groups divided by class and clout, prestige and
power but whose overarching identification is religion. In Iraq two
sects of Islam, in Ireland two divisions of Christians fearing, hating
and killing each other.
Listen to W. B. Yeats’ verse from his poem Remorse for Intemperate
Speech. It cries out from the heart of a tortured people.
Out of Ireland we come.
Great hatred, little room,
Maimed us at the start.
I carry from my mother’s womb
A fanatic heart.
When Yeats wrote that, he “had witnessed the birthing of a new Irish
nation through insurgency and civil war. He had served as a Free State
senator, and after winning the Nobel Prize in Literature, was the
country’s public man of letters.”
As Thomas Lynch, the poet and author of Booking Passage: We Irish and
Americans, has also observed, Yeats’ poem admits that intelligence and
good intentions are often overcome by hatred and enthusiasm for a
cause. ”It is what links enemies, what makes terrorists ‘martyrs’ and
‘patriots’ among their own ‘ -- the fanatic heart beating in the breast of
every true believer.”
I inherited some of that hate. As a boy I heard those songs of
rebellion from my grandparents. Experience, education, travel - life
itself have leached that hate from my heart. But even three generations
removed from Ireland, I heard suspicion, distrust and hate for the
English Protestant landlords, who forced my famished ancestors onto
“coffin ships” and into steerage for passage to a distant land.
Is such religious hatred destiny? Can experience and education cure
fanatic hearts? They did mine; can they do so in Iraq? Only history
will tell, but here’s a story that gives me hope.
Some years ago fundraisers from the Irish Republican Army stopped to
see an American executive. He was an Irish Catholic CEO of an
international company. They went to his office in his up-scale
Manhattan headquarters. They spoke of the prejudice, injustices,
killings and suppression of Catholics in Northern Ireland and requested
money for arms. He refused them.
“All right they said, but what then do you intend to do to help?” The
CEO did not answer, but long after the IRA terrorists left their
question haunted him.
Weeks later he flew to Belfast and began making plans to build a plant
in Northern Ireland. Eventually, with instructions that his people
hire both Catholics and Protestants as workers and managers, he built
it. The plant prospered and its non-discriminatory personnel policies
were widely praised.
A few years later this same CEO was in London on business to meet with
an English counterpart. Their work had brought them together and they
had become friends. Their different religions and ethnic backgrounds
were hardly noticed. Over lunch in an exclusive club they were
discussing the Belfast plant and its hiring practices.
“What made you build it?” asked the Englishman. The American told him
of the IRA soliciting money for arms. “But why did you do it?” his
English friend persisted.
“My grandparents were tenant farmers in Connemara. Their landlord
forced them to leave Ireland during the famine.”
Curious now the Englishman asked, “What part of Connemara?” When the
American named the remote, mountainous village, the Englishman paled.
“What’s the matte?“ asked his friend.
Shaking his head, the Englishman said quietly, “My grandfather owned
that mountain.”
Generations from now will the descendents of today’s Shiites and Sunnis
have similar conversations -- will they meet as friends? Will they sit
at table to share a meal to discuss business? Or will that hatred,
which today rips Iraq asunder, still maim them? Will the grandchildren
of today ‘s Sunnis and Shiites still carry fanatic hearts?
It can happen, if visionary statesmen like Senator George Mitchell who
nurtured the historic Good Friday Irish agreement bring similar
diplomatic skills to the Sunni-Shiite conflict. (I must say, however,
that presently I find the Bush administration ‘s Iraq policy is not
long-term and visionary but short-term and delusional.)
In Ireland economic prosperity, cultural cooperation and
interdependence have drawn Catholics and Protestants closer. Full
peace has not yet come to Ulster, but most fanatic hearts are have been
silenced. Iraq desperately needs such modernization.
The reformation of the Catholic Church at the Second Vatican Council
helped greatly in Ireland. That council broke down many Catholic and
Protestant prejudices. Islam too needs a religious reformation.
Eventually modernization and reformation will come to Iraq but it will
not happen quickly. As in Ireland, it could take generations perhaps
centuries.
And how long will our troops be there? God only knows; President Bush
doesn't. We should set a timetable and start bringing them home. As
the Quakers have told us “if our troops leave, then an independent
Iraqi government, free of external control, could open the door to
discussion and reconciliation between groups.”
We should again remind ourselves of Ireland and the transitional Irish
Free State, which was also born out of insurgency and civil war. It
struggled from 1922 to 1937. Americans must take the long view of
history and not, as politicians instinctively do, think only of the
next congressional election.
One more comparison: in Ireland women jump-started the struggle for
peaceful cooperation. In 1977 Mairead Corrigan and Betty Williams
received the Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts. Iraq too needs to
hear the voices of its women who have lost too many children, husbands
and brothers. If the Iraqi constitution gives a real voice to women --
and not only a nominal presence, the chances for peace between Sunni
and Shiite will increase.
That’s what Ireland can teach America about Iraq.
Daniel O’Rourke is He’s a married Catholic priest, retired from the administration at State University College, Fredonia. A mediator for the Center for Resolution and Justice, he lives in Cassadaga. His column appears the second and
fourth Thursdays of each month. Comments may be sent to
orourke@netsync.net
Sunday, March 19, 2006
Father Marty's Funeral Ministry in Denver
I am a new member of Rent a Priest in Denver, CO...I celebrate between 225 and 250 funerals each year in the Denver Metro area. I have built up this ministry over the past five years, and I now work with over 30 funeral homes in the Denver metro area. (When I left the formal ministry, I worked for four years at the largest Mortuary - Cemetery in Colorado in Family Service. Getting to know the business from the inside out put me on the path to what I do full time now) Most of my services are for families who do not have a minister to assist them. About twenty percent are for Catholics who are fringe or who have been turned down by their pastor. I have found that this is a gift I have, and I plan to continue using it. Yes, the bishop here tried to shut me down. A few letters from my lawyer put a stop to that, and the directors who received the letter from the bishop trying to discredit me have committed to using me even more.
I have found that many funeral directors have a strong dislike for assisting with Catholic funerals because of the demands the priests put on them and their families. A good bit of my income each year comes from praying the rosary with families who have been refused this simple gesture because "father is too busy." One "priest" in particular in this diocese has sent more business my way than I could handle. I guess he just dislikes doing funerals, because every family who goes to him comes away horrified by how they were treated at this most painful time. I end up doing a lot of services because of him!
When the bishop here tried to discredit me last December, I decided to add weddings to my ministry, and to join Rent a Priest. I had always been happy to quietly celebrate my funerals, but I also had to pay my bills. Since the second week of January when I put up a simple web sight offering my services for weddings, I have booked 23 weddings. All but two of these are with Catholic couples who for a number of reasons are unable, or choose not to be married formally in the Church. I had no idea the need was so strong in this area of ministry.
I have found Rent a Priest to be a real blessing also. Knowing that there are so many others out there continuing the work we were ordained to do gives me a real sense of encouragement. Keep up the good work all!
Peace,
Fr. Marty
I have found that many funeral directors have a strong dislike for assisting with Catholic funerals because of the demands the priests put on them and their families. A good bit of my income each year comes from praying the rosary with families who have been refused this simple gesture because "father is too busy." One "priest" in particular in this diocese has sent more business my way than I could handle. I guess he just dislikes doing funerals, because every family who goes to him comes away horrified by how they were treated at this most painful time. I end up doing a lot of services because of him!
When the bishop here tried to discredit me last December, I decided to add weddings to my ministry, and to join Rent a Priest. I had always been happy to quietly celebrate my funerals, but I also had to pay my bills. Since the second week of January when I put up a simple web sight offering my services for weddings, I have booked 23 weddings. All but two of these are with Catholic couples who for a number of reasons are unable, or choose not to be married formally in the Church. I had no idea the need was so strong in this area of ministry.
I have found Rent a Priest to be a real blessing also. Knowing that there are so many others out there continuing the work we were ordained to do gives me a real sense of encouragement. Keep up the good work all!
Peace,
Fr. Marty
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
The Eucharist and the Future of Christian worship
What should the style of our Eucharistic celebrations be? What is the appropriate role of the priest? Of the lay Christian?
In a way, there is no simple answer to these questions – no ‘one size fits all’ approach to the Lord’s Supper. But we should be very clear on one point – it IS the Lord’s supper, not ours! Eucharist is a gift of the Spirit to the people of God that pre-dates the ordained priesthood: long before there were ordained, professional clerics, those who loved the Lord and found hope in his message gathered in small groups, in private homes, and broke bread as they remembered Him.
Two thousand years of history have transpired since those early communities gathered – in Jerusalem, in Corinth, in Galatia. The celebration of the Eucharist has been, long ago, clericalized, and lay Catholics trained, from generation to generation, to sit quietly and watch. After the Council, just getting Catholics to sing hymns and shake hands was a chore. Change occurs incrementally, and the art of celebrating the Eucharist (and leading a Eucharistic community) is to allow people feel comfortable with what they know, even as we help them discover new ways of being a Eucharistic community.
This means that the nature of the community will, to some extent, tell us what is appropriate. For a large gathering of Catholics, what they know best is a priest-proclaimed Eucharistic prayer, in which they join at the acclamation and the concluding Amen. They have been taught that, without an ordained priest to lead the celebration, to proclaim the words of ‘consecration,’ no Eucharist is ‘real,’ and that belief, rooted in centuries of tradition, will not be easily overcome.
In that kind of setting, involving the congregation is as much of the celebration as possible (through hymns, acclamations, as readers, etc.) without jarring the expectation of the priest led Eucharistic prayer is probably the best practice. And the presider should be as un-clerical as is humanly possible when such a role is thrust upon him. This would also hold true, I’d think, in newly formed groups whose members are used to the institutional structures of Eucharist. A ‘home mass’ for communities such as these should probably be a more intimate version of what they would experience were they to go to a local parish.
In a smaller, more intimate gathering, though, the nature of what is appropriate, I think, shifts with the nature of the praying community. When members of the community understand their role and dignity as gifted members of Christ’s body – and equal before the Lord, and when they understand the nature of the Eucharistic prayer itself – not as the rote recitation of words approved by the Vatican, but as a prayer remembering the saving life, death and resurrection of the Lord – then I have no problem with the Eucharistic prayer being shared by the entire group in whatever way the group decides works for it. This is a giant step away from the clerical control of the Eucharist.
In spiritually mature communities, I see no reason why an ordained priest is needed at all. As in the earliest Christian communities, ministry will emerge as gifts of the Spirit to the group itself. The call arises from the community itself, and there is no reason why the person so gifted need be an institutionally ordained male priest. We are all baptized priest, prophet and king with the Lord; He is the one true priest, mediating the love of the Father to us through the Spirit, we need no other. But the theological expertise of the institutionally ordained is a valuable asset in these communities, and will help them remain faithful to the best of the tradition within broadly diverse parameters. In this model, the ordained priest becomes more like a rabbi.
I believe that this later model is the direction in which the entire church is heading, impelled by the Spirit – but change is difficult for people, and they must be lead incrementally, in baby steps, back to the future.
In a way, there is no simple answer to these questions – no ‘one size fits all’ approach to the Lord’s Supper. But we should be very clear on one point – it IS the Lord’s supper, not ours! Eucharist is a gift of the Spirit to the people of God that pre-dates the ordained priesthood: long before there were ordained, professional clerics, those who loved the Lord and found hope in his message gathered in small groups, in private homes, and broke bread as they remembered Him.
Two thousand years of history have transpired since those early communities gathered – in Jerusalem, in Corinth, in Galatia. The celebration of the Eucharist has been, long ago, clericalized, and lay Catholics trained, from generation to generation, to sit quietly and watch. After the Council, just getting Catholics to sing hymns and shake hands was a chore. Change occurs incrementally, and the art of celebrating the Eucharist (and leading a Eucharistic community) is to allow people feel comfortable with what they know, even as we help them discover new ways of being a Eucharistic community.
This means that the nature of the community will, to some extent, tell us what is appropriate. For a large gathering of Catholics, what they know best is a priest-proclaimed Eucharistic prayer, in which they join at the acclamation and the concluding Amen. They have been taught that, without an ordained priest to lead the celebration, to proclaim the words of ‘consecration,’ no Eucharist is ‘real,’ and that belief, rooted in centuries of tradition, will not be easily overcome.
In that kind of setting, involving the congregation is as much of the celebration as possible (through hymns, acclamations, as readers, etc.) without jarring the expectation of the priest led Eucharistic prayer is probably the best practice. And the presider should be as un-clerical as is humanly possible when such a role is thrust upon him. This would also hold true, I’d think, in newly formed groups whose members are used to the institutional structures of Eucharist. A ‘home mass’ for communities such as these should probably be a more intimate version of what they would experience were they to go to a local parish.
In a smaller, more intimate gathering, though, the nature of what is appropriate, I think, shifts with the nature of the praying community. When members of the community understand their role and dignity as gifted members of Christ’s body – and equal before the Lord, and when they understand the nature of the Eucharistic prayer itself – not as the rote recitation of words approved by the Vatican, but as a prayer remembering the saving life, death and resurrection of the Lord – then I have no problem with the Eucharistic prayer being shared by the entire group in whatever way the group decides works for it. This is a giant step away from the clerical control of the Eucharist.
In spiritually mature communities, I see no reason why an ordained priest is needed at all. As in the earliest Christian communities, ministry will emerge as gifts of the Spirit to the group itself. The call arises from the community itself, and there is no reason why the person so gifted need be an institutionally ordained male priest. We are all baptized priest, prophet and king with the Lord; He is the one true priest, mediating the love of the Father to us through the Spirit, we need no other. But the theological expertise of the institutionally ordained is a valuable asset in these communities, and will help them remain faithful to the best of the tradition within broadly diverse parameters. In this model, the ordained priest becomes more like a rabbi.
I believe that this later model is the direction in which the entire church is heading, impelled by the Spirit – but change is difficult for people, and they must be lead incrementally, in baby steps, back to the future.
Monday, March 13, 2006
Back to the future
Thoughts on the Eucharist in a new key
by Pete Szafran
To catch the spirit of Jesus and move beyond present day clericalism in worship, we need to get back to the first three centuries of the church and the early Christians. To me that means small worshiping communities.
Rote meaningless recitations of the Eucharistic Prayer by the presider and/or the attendees do not make for meaningful liturgy.
I was at a home mass yesterday. There were about 15-20 people there. We had met together before and knew each other for the most part, but went around and introduced ourselves again. The liturgy of the word was in a circle, with readings and sharing. The presider wore no vestments. After the liturgy of the word we ate together, a pot luck meal. At the end of the meal, we had the liturgy of the Eucharist. The Eucharistic prayer was alternately read by men and women, with all saying the words of consecration. My experience was not one of rote recitation or mindless reading. It was a prayerful experience for me and I’m glad I went and hope to go again. It certainly met my needs.
I have been a presider at such a Eucharist, and the response from those present was, this is how it should be. As I was leaving the area and would be many miles away, I encouraged them to continue to do this themselves, taking turns as presider.
I don’t think we need uniformity, and I’m glad that we are exploring, and hope we continue to grow by sharing ideas and experiences. Speaking the truth with love.
by Pete Szafran
To catch the spirit of Jesus and move beyond present day clericalism in worship, we need to get back to the first three centuries of the church and the early Christians. To me that means small worshiping communities.
Rote meaningless recitations of the Eucharistic Prayer by the presider and/or the attendees do not make for meaningful liturgy.
I was at a home mass yesterday. There were about 15-20 people there. We had met together before and knew each other for the most part, but went around and introduced ourselves again. The liturgy of the word was in a circle, with readings and sharing. The presider wore no vestments. After the liturgy of the word we ate together, a pot luck meal. At the end of the meal, we had the liturgy of the Eucharist. The Eucharistic prayer was alternately read by men and women, with all saying the words of consecration. My experience was not one of rote recitation or mindless reading. It was a prayerful experience for me and I’m glad I went and hope to go again. It certainly met my needs.
I have been a presider at such a Eucharist, and the response from those present was, this is how it should be. As I was leaving the area and would be many miles away, I encouraged them to continue to do this themselves, taking turns as presider.
I don’t think we need uniformity, and I’m glad that we are exploring, and hope we continue to grow by sharing ideas and experiences. Speaking the truth with love.
Friday, March 10, 2006
Advocates for clergy sex abuse victims aim criticism at bishops
By Elizabeth Hardin-Burrola
Two outspoken advocates for victims of clergy sex abuse were in Arizona this weekend, leveling heated criticism against leaders of the Roman Catholic Church.
David Clohessy and the Rev. Thomas Doyle spoke about sex abuse in the church in a presentation sponsored by Call To Action, a liberal Catholic organization. The event, which was Sunday afternoon at Tempe's Episcopal Church of the Epiphany, drew an audience of about 100 people. The mostly older audience included a number of individuals who said they were victims of clergy abuse.
Clohessy is the national director for the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. Doyle is the Dominican priest and canon lawyer who authored a 1985 report on sexual abuse for the Catholic Church. In the 1980s, he predicted that legal settlements for abuse cases would eventually exceed $1 billion dollars, a prediction that has since come true. Since the sex abuse scandal broke nationally in 2002, Doyle has emerged as one of the most vocal critics of the church's handling of the scandal.
In his presentation on Sunday, Doyle had blistering criticism of the church hierarchy and of "clericalism," a reference to Catholic clergy at the expense of faithful lay Catholics. Clohessy criticized what he sees as the Catholic bishops' continuing failure to root out sexual abuse in their dioceses and their failure to reach out to abuse victims in a just and compassionate manner.
Continuing problem
Although the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops drew up the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young Adults at a 2002 Dallas conference, Clohessy likened the Charter to a baseball game in which the bishops drew up the rules of the game, decided who could play, and handpicked the umpires. "Now they've decided they won," he said. The "so-called reforms" of the Charter, added Clohessy, are like "speed limits with no cops."
Citing current examples of mismanaged allegations in the five largest dioceses in the United States New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Houston Clohessy scoffed at the idea that the U.S. bishops adequately addressed the problem of clergy sex abuse in 2002. "If the problem before was ignorance, what's the problem now?" he said.
Clohessy was particularly critical of Cardinal Francis George of the Chicago Archdiocese who is the vice president of the USCCB. Two Chicago priests have recently been removed from ministry, and one of them has been arrested on criminal child molestation charges. Clohessy characterized some of George's statements about the situation as "lies" and said those statements have been disputed by two individuals within the archdiocese.
Doyle criticized the institutional structure of the Catholic hierarchy. He believes it is incorrect to refer to sexual abuse within the Catholic Church as the "sex abuse crisis." Because of its long history in the church, he said, the abuse is an "integral part" of the institutional church. Doyle said he has spent years researching the history of abuse in the church and claims that church documents provide evidence that abuse problems date back to the fourth century.
"This horror story is still going on," he said.
21st century monarchy
Doyle argued that the Catholic church is a 21st century monarchy, suffering from the "disease of clericalism." "Our governmental system is deficient at the core," said Doyle, who added that Jesus never said anything about establishing a church with an institutional structure like the Catholic hierarchy. "You know," he said, "religion is not given to us by God, it's given to us by us."
Doyle singled out comments made by Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput in which Chaput said efforts to remove the statute of limitations for sex abuse cases has the potential for "dismantling and pillaging the Catholic community nationwide."
Doyle suggested perhaps the church hierarchy should be dismantled. "Dismantle the structure and allow the Body of Christ to stick its head out," he said.
Comments about Jesus garnered Doyle some enthusiastic applause from the audience. "He's the center of this whole endeavor, not the pope," said Doyle. "He cared about love, he cared about compassion," he added. "The only time the Lord got angry is when he went to church."
Eliminating statute of limitation laws for sexual abuse will help curb institutions that have covered up abuse within their ranks, said Doyle. Although he admitted other institutions and other churches have also covered up abuse by their members, Doyle called the Roman Catholic Church the most "egregious offender" among institutions.
"This is all documented fact," he said. "This is not my opinion."
Reduce the power
Doyle and Clohessy also argued that the Catholic Church is a powerful institution that only responds to pressure from other powerful forces.
Clohessy said Catholics, the general public, legislators, prosecuting attorneys, and the media need to "reduce the power" of bishops by keeping the issue of sexual abuse of alive and in the public eye.
He urged his audience to work to eliminate statute of limitations laws pertaining to sex abuse crimes, pressure dioceses to appoint independent law enforcement professionals to their sexual abuse review boards, write letters about the issue to church officials and newspapers, and make the "climate more welcoming" for victims to come forward.
"The only way this institution can be fixed," said Doyle, "is if we fix it." Catholics have to stop "enabling" clericalism and start interacting with Catholic clergy on a level ground of equality and mutual respect, he explained, characteristics of the early Christian community.
Clohessy and Doyle did single out Paul G. Bootkoski, the bishop of the Metuchen Diocese in New Jersey, as one bishop who has impressed them with his efforts to reach out to victims. Bootkoski initiated contact with SNAP and voluntarily provided information to a New Jersey prosecutor, said Clohessy.
If other Catholic bishops are truly sincere in reaching out to victims, Clohessy said, they will include SNAP contact information on their diocesan Web site, they will publish a list of abusive priests on their website, and they will visit every parish where abusive priests have worked and encourage parishioners to come forward with any relevant information.
Clohessy challenged bishops to be obedient to Jesus' parable of the lost sheep in which the shepherd leaves 99 sheep in order to find and bring back the one lost sheep.
Thursday, March 09, 2006
Remembering Jehran Omran
By Fr. Dan O'Rourke
The Iraq War and Jehran Omran by Daniel O’Rourke 03-09-06 The American Friends recently brought a traveling exhibit to Erie, Pennsylvania on the human cost of the Iraq War. The exhibit displayed one hundred-eleven pairs of military boots in honor of the hundred and eleven Pennsylvania soldiers and marines killed in Iraq. The Quakers do not have a similar exhibit for New York State. Sadly, there are far too many pairs of empty boots to transport and display.
The boots were marked with the names, rank, age and hometowns of the dead. In a few instances where families objected, the shoes were unlabeled.
In a cluster at the center of the exhibit were three sets of boots from the City of Erie. One pair was marked for Donald Samuel Oaks, Jr. One of his boots held a bouquet of red roses his aunt had placed there together with a picture of the soldier as a mischievous five-year-old. Oaks was only twenty when he was killed in Iraq.
Yet another boot held a crumpled, hand-written note from a grieving father to his dead son. ”I will love you, Johnny, and will never forget you!.” That soldier was from Oil City. He was 21.
Incongruously, amid the blackened, heavy military boots were sneakers, sandals and children’s shoes. Each pair labeled with the name and age of a dead Iraqi citizen. What most touched me were four-year-old Jehan Omran’s tiny shoes. They were pink with Velcro straps. The kind I help my granddaughter with when she visits our home.
The hushed visitors at the exhibit lingered over the footwear like mourners at a funeral parlor. They moved reverently to the posters, which spelled out the growing financial cost of the war. At the time of this writing it is two hundred and forty-five billion, but even that seems insignificant in the light of all these needless deaths.
So far there have been 2,302 American military deaths in Iraq. We number them meticulously -- as we should. Yet General Tommy Franks has said brusquely of the Iraqi dead, “We don’t do body counts.” Some sources have estimated from 26,000 to 32,000 Iraqi civilian deaths. President Bush himself has cited that figure. Researchers at Johns Hopkins University, however, in a now outdated report published in The Lancet, a prestigious British medical journal then estimated the Iraqi dead at 100,000.
Even that monstrous figure is just a statistic and doesn’t move me as much as Jehan Omran’s shoes with those Velcro straps. Too sentimental? Perhaps, but more realistic than a military spokesman with a chest full of service ribbons dismissing the Iraqi dead as “collateral damage.” Can the dead be dismissed that easily? Won’t they come back to haunt us? Haven’t they already?
Rosie Musacchio of Dunkirk crafted a sculpture, The Spirit Groaneth - A Response to the Grief of the Iraqi People. She’ll display and interpret her work at a gathering grieving the third anniversary of the Iraq War. This event, sponsored by the Dunkirk Fredonia Center for Peace and Justice and the Fredonia Students for Peace, will take place on Saturday, March 18 at 1:00 PM in Fredonia’s Barker commons.
But back to those empty boots and shoes. There has been much grief in this country about the mounting deaths from this damnable war. Understandably, much of it focuses on our own military dead. After all we knew these young men and women as family, friends and neighbors and we grieve them deeply and personally. But what of the Iraqi dead? Why do we minimize them? They too have loving families, friends and neighbors.
Aren’t we all one? Isn’t John Dunn’s famous line pertinent? “No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.” Or as someone else has asked, doesn’t “our own pulse beat in every stranger’s throat?” Did our pulse beat in Jehan Omran’s throat before a piece of shrapnel silenced her laughter?
Of course it did. We are one. Iraqi deaths diminish us Americans just as our casualties diminish them. Listen to a few words from a Spanish song.
Somos el barco; somos el mar.
Yo navego en ti, tu navegas en mi.
We are the boat; we are the sea
I sail in you; you sail in me.
What these poets are saying is that we are all meshed, interwoven and braided together. Iraqi and American lives, whether we admit it or not, are interconnected. And I’m not speaking of the increasing reality of international economies and politics. “We are one” is the ancient insight of the mystics.
If we deny this, as much of our government and media continue to do, we can rationalize almost anything including killing, torture, and endless illegal detentions. This debasement and degradation of Iraqis has also debased and degraded us and our nation’s ideals. The sea in which we sail together has been polluted by our arrogant, self-centered militarism.
Where is the outrage at all this death? Where is it in the media? In the political opposition? From our pulpits? Oh I know, it’s there occasionally and selectively, but too often it’s timid and muted.
Americans and Iraqis are in the same boat, on the same sea. Our languages, dress and religions may differ, but we share a common humanity, a common earth and a common God.
Jehan Omran was my granddaughter too - and she was yours.
Daniel O’Rourke is a married Catholic priest, retired from the administration at State University College, Fredonia. A mediator for the Center for Resolution and Justice, he lives in Cassadaga. His column appears the second and fourth Thursdays of each month. Comments may be sent to orourke@netsync.net
The Iraq War and Jehran Omran by Daniel O’Rourke 03-09-06 The American Friends recently brought a traveling exhibit to Erie, Pennsylvania on the human cost of the Iraq War. The exhibit displayed one hundred-eleven pairs of military boots in honor of the hundred and eleven Pennsylvania soldiers and marines killed in Iraq. The Quakers do not have a similar exhibit for New York State. Sadly, there are far too many pairs of empty boots to transport and display.
The boots were marked with the names, rank, age and hometowns of the dead. In a few instances where families objected, the shoes were unlabeled.
In a cluster at the center of the exhibit were three sets of boots from the City of Erie. One pair was marked for Donald Samuel Oaks, Jr. One of his boots held a bouquet of red roses his aunt had placed there together with a picture of the soldier as a mischievous five-year-old. Oaks was only twenty when he was killed in Iraq.
Yet another boot held a crumpled, hand-written note from a grieving father to his dead son. ”I will love you, Johnny, and will never forget you!.” That soldier was from Oil City. He was 21.
Incongruously, amid the blackened, heavy military boots were sneakers, sandals and children’s shoes. Each pair labeled with the name and age of a dead Iraqi citizen. What most touched me were four-year-old Jehan Omran’s tiny shoes. They were pink with Velcro straps. The kind I help my granddaughter with when she visits our home.
The hushed visitors at the exhibit lingered over the footwear like mourners at a funeral parlor. They moved reverently to the posters, which spelled out the growing financial cost of the war. At the time of this writing it is two hundred and forty-five billion, but even that seems insignificant in the light of all these needless deaths.
So far there have been 2,302 American military deaths in Iraq. We number them meticulously -- as we should. Yet General Tommy Franks has said brusquely of the Iraqi dead, “We don’t do body counts.” Some sources have estimated from 26,000 to 32,000 Iraqi civilian deaths. President Bush himself has cited that figure. Researchers at Johns Hopkins University, however, in a now outdated report published in The Lancet, a prestigious British medical journal then estimated the Iraqi dead at 100,000.
Even that monstrous figure is just a statistic and doesn’t move me as much as Jehan Omran’s shoes with those Velcro straps. Too sentimental? Perhaps, but more realistic than a military spokesman with a chest full of service ribbons dismissing the Iraqi dead as “collateral damage.” Can the dead be dismissed that easily? Won’t they come back to haunt us? Haven’t they already?
Rosie Musacchio of Dunkirk crafted a sculpture, The Spirit Groaneth - A Response to the Grief of the Iraqi People. She’ll display and interpret her work at a gathering grieving the third anniversary of the Iraq War. This event, sponsored by the Dunkirk Fredonia Center for Peace and Justice and the Fredonia Students for Peace, will take place on Saturday, March 18 at 1:00 PM in Fredonia’s Barker commons.
But back to those empty boots and shoes. There has been much grief in this country about the mounting deaths from this damnable war. Understandably, much of it focuses on our own military dead. After all we knew these young men and women as family, friends and neighbors and we grieve them deeply and personally. But what of the Iraqi dead? Why do we minimize them? They too have loving families, friends and neighbors.
Aren’t we all one? Isn’t John Dunn’s famous line pertinent? “No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.” Or as someone else has asked, doesn’t “our own pulse beat in every stranger’s throat?” Did our pulse beat in Jehan Omran’s throat before a piece of shrapnel silenced her laughter?
Of course it did. We are one. Iraqi deaths diminish us Americans just as our casualties diminish them. Listen to a few words from a Spanish song.
Somos el barco; somos el mar.
Yo navego en ti, tu navegas en mi.
We are the boat; we are the sea
I sail in you; you sail in me.
What these poets are saying is that we are all meshed, interwoven and braided together. Iraqi and American lives, whether we admit it or not, are interconnected. And I’m not speaking of the increasing reality of international economies and politics. “We are one” is the ancient insight of the mystics.
If we deny this, as much of our government and media continue to do, we can rationalize almost anything including killing, torture, and endless illegal detentions. This debasement and degradation of Iraqis has also debased and degraded us and our nation’s ideals. The sea in which we sail together has been polluted by our arrogant, self-centered militarism.
Where is the outrage at all this death? Where is it in the media? In the political opposition? From our pulpits? Oh I know, it’s there occasionally and selectively, but too often it’s timid and muted.
Americans and Iraqis are in the same boat, on the same sea. Our languages, dress and religions may differ, but we share a common humanity, a common earth and a common God.
Jehan Omran was my granddaughter too - and she was yours.
Daniel O’Rourke is a married Catholic priest, retired from the administration at State University College, Fredonia. A mediator for the Center for Resolution and Justice, he lives in Cassadaga. His column appears the second and fourth Thursdays of each month. Comments may be sent to orourke@netsync.net
Thursday, February 09, 2006
"At the end of a long day a priest is totally alone'
by Sarah McInerney
Sunday Times of Ireland
FATHER James Dempsey was never too keen on the Catholic church's rule on celibacy. Even at the tender age of 18, as he walked towards the seminary, it niggled at him. Went against his nature and instincts.
But he fiercely wanted to be a priest, wanted more than anything to serve God and help people. He thought that wish would be enough. He thought he would learn to accept the vow of celibacy.
He was wrong.
Pottering around his little pub in Cadamstown in Co Offaly, Dempsey makes tea and gets quickly passionate about his subject. "Do you not think it's strange, " he says.
"That the church preaches about intimacy and the importance of married life and family life, and yet it denies all this to the priests?"
There's a minor explosion in the corner, interrupting all conversation. Two tiny people hurtle into the room, followed at a more leisurely pace by a woman wearing an apologetic smile. Dempsey's face breaks into a grin of delighted fascination as he watches his two daughters, Bridget and Norah, fill every second of silence with noise.
His wife, Lila, settles into a seat with an equally content expression. The couple's third child, a baby girl, is sleeping.
"Three children in five years, " Dempsey says proudly.
"Making up for lost time." He pats his wife's knee affectionately, and they share a smile.
James met Lila in Canada in 1998. At that time, having worked as a priest for 20 years, James was desperately struggling with the celibacy rule. " I was finding it very hard, " he says. "The loneliness and the isolation, and as you get older it gets worse, not better, " he pauses, and his voice pleads for understanding.
"We all need to be hugged, " he says. "We all need to be held and cared for, and have a companion in our lives. At the end of every long day, a priest is totally alone. Who is the pastor's pastor?"
It was to resolve these issues within himself that Dempsey had taken a sabbatical in 1996/97. He returned to Ireland, and spent some time running the family pub in Cadamstown before returning to his parish in Canada.
"I went back but I was still very uneasy, " he says. "Not about the priesthood, I loved what the priesthood was all about. But I was just getting more isolated and disillusioned. I think most people want to find their significant other and have a relationship. And I wanted that. I craved it."
It was in this frame of mind that James met Lila, who was instantly drawn to him.
"I walked into my sister's kitchen, and saw this guy in a Van Morrison t-shirt and shorts and sandals, and he introduced himself to me as 'Fr Jimmy', " she says, grinning broadly at the memory.
"We hit it off straight away, and I remember thinking, 'There's someone I'd like to meet again.'
"But it never once occurred to me that he was a potential boyfriend. I mean, he was a priest."
The pair became fast friends, phoning each other, meeting each other, occasionally going out together.
Their relationship was intense, but platonic. Then James decided to move back to Ireland. "I missed him so much, " says Lila, her hand straying unconciously to her heart. "When I realised how much it hurt to have him leave, I knew I must be in love with him."
They talked on the phone for hours. They admitted their feelings for each other.
And then they made a decision.
In 2000, James wrote his letter of resignation to the Bishop, and Lila broke the news to her staunchly Catholic family. The couple were married immediately in a tiny ceremony in Canada by another 'ex-cleric' who had left the priesthood to marry a nun.
"My mother told me it was the biggest disappointment of her life, " says Lila, her voice trembling a little. "Everyone in my family told me that she was never going to accept this.
"I remember when I told her I was pregnant with my first child and she said, 'That's the worst news I've ever heard.'" Lila pauses, her eyes filling quickly with tears as if she's just hurt herself unexpectedly. Five years later, the shock and pain are still fresh.
In Ireland, the couple were given a warmer welcome.
James's mother was initially distraught, but has since accepted the marriage. For the residents of Cadamstown, a married priest posed no problems.
"The people who celebrated my ordination here in 1982 celebrated my marriage with me in 2000, " says James. "I think if I was to say mass in the morning, the vast majority of people would just be happy to have a priest. At the moment, we have only one priest in this parish. One priest, and four churches.
The man is run off his feet, and I'm sitting here, aching to serve the church, and not allowed to do so."
"We need to change from within. The church is the people. Not the popes, not the bishops, not the priests.
Change will only come if the people stand up and say, 'No, we're not going to accept this any more.' I believe with all my heart that God called me to be a priest and I refuse to say that my vocation was a mistake."
James stops for a second, just time enough to ask if he would still think of himself as a priest. He bristles slightly.
"Of course, " he says. "I'm not an ex-priest. I'm an excleric. I'm still ordained, I'm still a priest. Some people won't accept that. I remember somone once said I was a 'defrocked priest'. Defrocked, " he laughs. "I never even wore a frock. Not my style."
CELIBACY DOWN THE AGES
1st century: St Peter, the first pope, was married, as were most of the apostles.
4th century: In 306, it is decided that a priest should not sleep with his wife the night before mass. In 325, it is decreed that a priest cannot marry after ordination. In 385, Pope Siricius (LEFT) leaves his wife to become pope. It is decreed that priests may no longer sleep with their wives.
5th century: St Augustine writes on the dangers of women - "Nothing is so powerful in drawing the spirit of a man downwards as the caresses of a woman."
6th century: Pope Gregory says that all sexual desire is sinful.
7th century:
Majority of priests are still married.
11th century: Pope Gregory VII says that anyone to be ordained must first pledge celibacy . . . "priests [must] first escape from the clutches of their wives".
12th century: Pope Calistus II decrees that clerical marriages are invalid.
16th century: Council of Trent states that celibacy and virginity are superior to marriage.
20th century: In 1930 Pope Pius XI says that sex can be good and holy. In 1980 married Anglican/Episcopal pastors are ordained as Catholic priests in the US. In 1994, this trend spreads to Canada and Britain.
Sunday Times of Ireland
FATHER James Dempsey was never too keen on the Catholic church's rule on celibacy. Even at the tender age of 18, as he walked towards the seminary, it niggled at him. Went against his nature and instincts.
But he fiercely wanted to be a priest, wanted more than anything to serve God and help people. He thought that wish would be enough. He thought he would learn to accept the vow of celibacy.
He was wrong.
Pottering around his little pub in Cadamstown in Co Offaly, Dempsey makes tea and gets quickly passionate about his subject. "Do you not think it's strange, " he says.
"That the church preaches about intimacy and the importance of married life and family life, and yet it denies all this to the priests?"
There's a minor explosion in the corner, interrupting all conversation. Two tiny people hurtle into the room, followed at a more leisurely pace by a woman wearing an apologetic smile. Dempsey's face breaks into a grin of delighted fascination as he watches his two daughters, Bridget and Norah, fill every second of silence with noise.
His wife, Lila, settles into a seat with an equally content expression. The couple's third child, a baby girl, is sleeping.
"Three children in five years, " Dempsey says proudly.
"Making up for lost time." He pats his wife's knee affectionately, and they share a smile.
James met Lila in Canada in 1998. At that time, having worked as a priest for 20 years, James was desperately struggling with the celibacy rule. " I was finding it very hard, " he says. "The loneliness and the isolation, and as you get older it gets worse, not better, " he pauses, and his voice pleads for understanding.
"We all need to be hugged, " he says. "We all need to be held and cared for, and have a companion in our lives. At the end of every long day, a priest is totally alone. Who is the pastor's pastor?"
It was to resolve these issues within himself that Dempsey had taken a sabbatical in 1996/97. He returned to Ireland, and spent some time running the family pub in Cadamstown before returning to his parish in Canada.
"I went back but I was still very uneasy, " he says. "Not about the priesthood, I loved what the priesthood was all about. But I was just getting more isolated and disillusioned. I think most people want to find their significant other and have a relationship. And I wanted that. I craved it."
It was in this frame of mind that James met Lila, who was instantly drawn to him.
"I walked into my sister's kitchen, and saw this guy in a Van Morrison t-shirt and shorts and sandals, and he introduced himself to me as 'Fr Jimmy', " she says, grinning broadly at the memory.
"We hit it off straight away, and I remember thinking, 'There's someone I'd like to meet again.'
"But it never once occurred to me that he was a potential boyfriend. I mean, he was a priest."
The pair became fast friends, phoning each other, meeting each other, occasionally going out together.
Their relationship was intense, but platonic. Then James decided to move back to Ireland. "I missed him so much, " says Lila, her hand straying unconciously to her heart. "When I realised how much it hurt to have him leave, I knew I must be in love with him."
They talked on the phone for hours. They admitted their feelings for each other.
And then they made a decision.
In 2000, James wrote his letter of resignation to the Bishop, and Lila broke the news to her staunchly Catholic family. The couple were married immediately in a tiny ceremony in Canada by another 'ex-cleric' who had left the priesthood to marry a nun.
"My mother told me it was the biggest disappointment of her life, " says Lila, her voice trembling a little. "Everyone in my family told me that she was never going to accept this.
"I remember when I told her I was pregnant with my first child and she said, 'That's the worst news I've ever heard.'" Lila pauses, her eyes filling quickly with tears as if she's just hurt herself unexpectedly. Five years later, the shock and pain are still fresh.
In Ireland, the couple were given a warmer welcome.
James's mother was initially distraught, but has since accepted the marriage. For the residents of Cadamstown, a married priest posed no problems.
"The people who celebrated my ordination here in 1982 celebrated my marriage with me in 2000, " says James. "I think if I was to say mass in the morning, the vast majority of people would just be happy to have a priest. At the moment, we have only one priest in this parish. One priest, and four churches.
The man is run off his feet, and I'm sitting here, aching to serve the church, and not allowed to do so."
"We need to change from within. The church is the people. Not the popes, not the bishops, not the priests.
Change will only come if the people stand up and say, 'No, we're not going to accept this any more.' I believe with all my heart that God called me to be a priest and I refuse to say that my vocation was a mistake."
James stops for a second, just time enough to ask if he would still think of himself as a priest. He bristles slightly.
"Of course, " he says. "I'm not an ex-priest. I'm an excleric. I'm still ordained, I'm still a priest. Some people won't accept that. I remember somone once said I was a 'defrocked priest'. Defrocked, " he laughs. "I never even wore a frock. Not my style."
CELIBACY DOWN THE AGES
1st century: St Peter, the first pope, was married, as were most of the apostles.
4th century: In 306, it is decided that a priest should not sleep with his wife the night before mass. In 325, it is decreed that a priest cannot marry after ordination. In 385, Pope Siricius (LEFT) leaves his wife to become pope. It is decreed that priests may no longer sleep with their wives.
5th century: St Augustine writes on the dangers of women - "Nothing is so powerful in drawing the spirit of a man downwards as the caresses of a woman."
6th century: Pope Gregory says that all sexual desire is sinful.
7th century:
Majority of priests are still married.
11th century: Pope Gregory VII says that anyone to be ordained must first pledge celibacy . . . "priests [must] first escape from the clutches of their wives".
12th century: Pope Calistus II decrees that clerical marriages are invalid.
16th century: Council of Trent states that celibacy and virginity are superior to marriage.
20th century: In 1930 Pope Pius XI says that sex can be good and holy. In 1980 married Anglican/Episcopal pastors are ordained as Catholic priests in the US. In 1994, this trend spreads to Canada and Britain.
The gift of love is the gift of self
In a Florida supermarket where they sold postage stamps a man in the checkout line requested some. Pulling the stamps from under her tray in the cash register, the clerk said, ‘We only have love stamps.’ Unexpectedly, in a voice loud enough to startle those around him the man barked. ’I hate love stamps!’ He paid his bill and left angrily.
I can understand why that angry character wouldn’t want to mail a letter to the IRS with love stamps, but couldn’t he use them on a valentine or a note to a friend somewhere, sometime? I hope so. For we all need to love and be loved for happiness and health. The Dalai Lama tells us ‘without love we could not survive. Human beings are social creatures, and a concern for each other is the very basis of our life together.’
Love is big in the news recently. Pope Benedict just wrote his first encyclical on it. Valentines Day is soon upon us. Brokeback Mountain, Desperate Housewives and Dr. Phil McGraw make us look at love in different ways. Much, of course, depends on whether we can first love ourselves and what ‘love’ really means.
Our culture is perplexed by what love is. It confuses altruism and passion, concern and romance, caring and sex. The couple in the bunny rabbit stage of sexual attraction sees love one way. Mature jubilarians know there is much, much more to it. The firefighter rescuing someone from a burning building, the soldier defending his country, committed teachers in inner-city schools are lovers. They place the needs of others before their safety, preferences or comfort. Theologians like the Pope see love intellectually and identify it with the Loving Mystery who shares divine bounty and sustains us all. Indeed, the Christian Scripture says boldly, ‘God is love.’ (1 John 4:16)
Nor are these distinctions merely theoretical. If some really believes that love is primarily sexual attraction and romance, they will have great difficulty with commitment. When romantic feelings for spouse fade, as they inevitably do, the disillusioned partner will look to other relationships expecting them to last. Moreover, if we believe implicitly or explicitly that love reflects a God who gives constantly and abundantly, it will help us too to live unselfishly.
Eknath Easwaran puts it aptly in Words to Live By.’‘We only need to ask ourselves, am I ready to put the other person first? ‘ Relationships break down not because people are bad but because they are illiterate in love. To become literate in love, we must learn how to reduce our lifelong preoccupation with our own needs and feelings.’
And how do we lessen that lifelong preoccupation? We love by loving. Love grows through practice. It is a skill that can be sharpened. When you put aside your own wants in order to give time and energy to the needs around you, not only are you loving; you are increasing your capacity to love.
It is primarily in the mundane and the ordinary that we love. Not in expensive meals in five-star restaurants but at the family supper table. Not in romantic cruises but in picking up the laundry or emptying the dishwasher. In bringing a casserole to a shut-in or sending a note to the grieving.
Not that there is anything wrong with restaurants and cruises. They can help re-enkindle relationships. The danger, however, is that the exceptional and exotic become the norm. They aren’t; love’s arena is the ordinary. Its venue is the everyday. It is there where love either grows or fades, flourishes or dies.
The essence of love is spiritual. Despite nagging media ads love is not chocolate, red roses or diamonds. Of course, love can prompt such gifts, but it is not those gifts. Love comes from the heart and soul, not from the wallet or credit card. Love is the gift of self, not the gift of stuff.
When we speak of love, marriage gets lots of attention. All love, of course, is not conjugal. There is love of family and friends, neighbor and God. Love can be caring and erotic. Ideally, they are united in marriage, which brings all aspects of love into sharper focus.
Married love is not commercial. Even when there are pre-nuptial agreements, arriage is not a business contract. It does not count and keep book, e.g. ‘I ran the vacuum; it’s your turn to put the kids to bed.’ Or ‘I washed the car; you wash the dishes.’ When it’s really love, doing those things come naturally. They are done for the other without thinking. Love is then instinctive. It’s easy and natural. It’s a way of life, a habit.
Oh I know there are givers and takers. There are the exploiters and the xploited. There are those who find it difficult to love themselves and therefore almost impossible to love others. There are the insecure and the self-centered, those who must control or be controlled. And often there is effective professional help for such as these. To be honest, however, there is a bit of all that in all of us.
It’s a matter of degree, and sometimes in relationships an unselfish attitude can be contagious.
Moreover, acknowledged or not there is always grace. It enables us to love flawed human beings, or as W. H. Auden said to love our crooked neighbor with our crooked hearts. That grace is the healing power of the loving Mystery we call God. It has transformed many a selfish person and a struggling marriage.
Daniel O’Rourke is a married Catholic priest, retired from the administration at State University College, Fredonia. A mediator for the Center for Resolution and Justice, he lives in Cassadaga. Comments may be sent to orourke@netsync.net
I can understand why that angry character wouldn’t want to mail a letter to the IRS with love stamps, but couldn’t he use them on a valentine or a note to a friend somewhere, sometime? I hope so. For we all need to love and be loved for happiness and health. The Dalai Lama tells us ‘without love we could not survive. Human beings are social creatures, and a concern for each other is the very basis of our life together.’
Love is big in the news recently. Pope Benedict just wrote his first encyclical on it. Valentines Day is soon upon us. Brokeback Mountain, Desperate Housewives and Dr. Phil McGraw make us look at love in different ways. Much, of course, depends on whether we can first love ourselves and what ‘love’ really means.
Our culture is perplexed by what love is. It confuses altruism and passion, concern and romance, caring and sex. The couple in the bunny rabbit stage of sexual attraction sees love one way. Mature jubilarians know there is much, much more to it. The firefighter rescuing someone from a burning building, the soldier defending his country, committed teachers in inner-city schools are lovers. They place the needs of others before their safety, preferences or comfort. Theologians like the Pope see love intellectually and identify it with the Loving Mystery who shares divine bounty and sustains us all. Indeed, the Christian Scripture says boldly, ‘God is love.’ (1 John 4:16)
Nor are these distinctions merely theoretical. If some really believes that love is primarily sexual attraction and romance, they will have great difficulty with commitment. When romantic feelings for spouse fade, as they inevitably do, the disillusioned partner will look to other relationships expecting them to last. Moreover, if we believe implicitly or explicitly that love reflects a God who gives constantly and abundantly, it will help us too to live unselfishly.
Eknath Easwaran puts it aptly in Words to Live By.’‘We only need to ask ourselves, am I ready to put the other person first? ‘ Relationships break down not because people are bad but because they are illiterate in love. To become literate in love, we must learn how to reduce our lifelong preoccupation with our own needs and feelings.’
And how do we lessen that lifelong preoccupation? We love by loving. Love grows through practice. It is a skill that can be sharpened. When you put aside your own wants in order to give time and energy to the needs around you, not only are you loving; you are increasing your capacity to love.
It is primarily in the mundane and the ordinary that we love. Not in expensive meals in five-star restaurants but at the family supper table. Not in romantic cruises but in picking up the laundry or emptying the dishwasher. In bringing a casserole to a shut-in or sending a note to the grieving.
Not that there is anything wrong with restaurants and cruises. They can help re-enkindle relationships. The danger, however, is that the exceptional and exotic become the norm. They aren’t; love’s arena is the ordinary. Its venue is the everyday. It is there where love either grows or fades, flourishes or dies.
The essence of love is spiritual. Despite nagging media ads love is not chocolate, red roses or diamonds. Of course, love can prompt such gifts, but it is not those gifts. Love comes from the heart and soul, not from the wallet or credit card. Love is the gift of self, not the gift of stuff.
When we speak of love, marriage gets lots of attention. All love, of course, is not conjugal. There is love of family and friends, neighbor and God. Love can be caring and erotic. Ideally, they are united in marriage, which brings all aspects of love into sharper focus.
Married love is not commercial. Even when there are pre-nuptial agreements, arriage is not a business contract. It does not count and keep book, e.g. ‘I ran the vacuum; it’s your turn to put the kids to bed.’ Or ‘I washed the car; you wash the dishes.’ When it’s really love, doing those things come naturally. They are done for the other without thinking. Love is then instinctive. It’s easy and natural. It’s a way of life, a habit.
Oh I know there are givers and takers. There are the exploiters and the xploited. There are those who find it difficult to love themselves and therefore almost impossible to love others. There are the insecure and the self-centered, those who must control or be controlled. And often there is effective professional help for such as these. To be honest, however, there is a bit of all that in all of us.
It’s a matter of degree, and sometimes in relationships an unselfish attitude can be contagious.
Moreover, acknowledged or not there is always grace. It enables us to love flawed human beings, or as W. H. Auden said to love our crooked neighbor with our crooked hearts. That grace is the healing power of the loving Mystery we call God. It has transformed many a selfish person and a struggling marriage.
Daniel O’Rourke is a married Catholic priest, retired from the administration at State University College, Fredonia. A mediator for the Center for Resolution and Justice, he lives in Cassadaga. Comments may be sent to orourke@netsync.net
Friday, February 03, 2006
Women,, Change, and the Hope for Reform
THE SOCIAL EDGE INTERVIEW:
AUTHOR ANGELA BONAVOGLIA
by Gerry McCarthy
Angela Bonavoglia is a nationally recognized writer on Church reform. Her work has appeared in The Miami Herald, The Chicago Tribune, The Nation, Ms., Cosmopolitan, Redbook, and Newsday.
Her most recent book Good Catholic Girls: How Women Are Leading The Fight To Change The Church was recently published by HarperCollins (Regan Books). It will be released in paperback in March. I reached Bonavoglia in Westchester, New York, to speak about the book.
Gerry McCarthy: In Good Catholic Girls we learn about Harvard University's first Catholic laywoman chaplain Jacqueline Landry. She says a fundamental problem is the difficulty the Church has integrating sexuality with spirituality. You add that: "Because women have represented sexuality in the Church, lay ministers like Landry bear a special burden." Can you talk to me about this? Do you see more signs that the Church is waking up to what Landry is saying?
Angela Bonavoglia: Jackie Landry is a very beautiful woman. She is tall with blonde hair. She could have been a model. But she's a chaplain. When she talks about these things --she knows from whence she speaks.
It's interesting that when I spoke with her about this issue, she talked about trying to find this third way in terms of being a minister. She says: "All my energy is spent?negotiating?door number three? Father, Sister, me."
We know that 80 percent of the lay people in paid parish ministry in the Catholic Church are women. Lots of them are married. But a good number are single. Some of them are divorced. So they've come out of the box. In the Catholic Church sexuality is supposed to be limited to married people open to procreation. As Jackie Landry told me, nuns have had to exchange their sexuality for their power. She says they have to be "perceived as a neutered, neutral women." Although she adds that some nuns she's worked with have worn lipstick and earrings. But she talks about being very conscious of what she wears when she speaks from the pulpit. How does she look? Does she wear high heels? Female sexuality in the Catholic Church is still a very scary thing. The fear for the powers-to-be in the Church is that women take control of their sexuality. Now we have all these women coming into the Church who are ministering, and many of them are not former nuns. They are confronting us with this image of women no longer in the box they were put in --which was: Be home, take care of your children, and be nurturing. That's wonderful. There's nothing wrong with that. But that was a safe place to have women.
The Church has taken awhile to deal with these women in ministry. It's taken years for them to address them. Now they are addressing lay ecclesial ministry in a much bigger way. But we have a long way as a Church to go in terms of addressing and celebrating sexuality, and coming up with an ethic that we can all agree on. These young ministers are going to push us forward by their very presence.
GM: Your chapter "The Revolt of the Erie Benedictines" was particularly engaging. In her decision not to comply with Vatican's "precept of obedience" to forbid Sr. Joan Chittister to attend a women's ordination conference held in Dublin in 2001 --the prioress of the Erie Benedictines Sr. Christine Vladimiroff made a significant public statement: "I cannot be used by the Vatican to deliver an order of silencing. I do not see her participation in this conference as a 'source of scandal to the faithful' as the Vatican alleges. I think the faithful can be scandalized when honest attempts to discuss questions of importance to the Church are forbidden." You write that the Erie Benedictines provided a model for a "new spirit" of Church reform. But it's going to take more public stands like this for serious reform to take place isn't it?
AB: Definitely. When I heard about the Erie Benedictines I was doing a piece for The Nation magazine on the Church. I interviewed a priest in the Boston-area named Walter Cuenin. He's a wonderful man. He'd been a co-founder of an organization called The Priests' Forum where they began to gather together the priests in that community. This is right after the clerical sex abuse scandal broke in the U.S. in 2002. The Priests Forum would meet to talk about being a priest. They did this outside the aegis of the Archdiocese of Boston. It was a brave step for them to take.
When I interviewed Fr. Cuenin he talked about the Erie Benedictines and Sr. Joan Chittister. He said that they were an influence on him and that their courage was inspiring to him.
Shortly after that The Priests' Forum became stronger and worked with The Voice of the Faithful. Eventually Fr. Cuenin and The Priests' Forum put together a list of 50 to 70 signers calling for the resignation of Cardinal Law (of the Boston Diocese). That was a very dramatic action. In the book I quote Fr. Richard McBrien saying it was "unprecedented" in modern Church history for priests to take that kind of a stand in relationship to their bishop. Shortly after this action Cardinal Law resigned.
In the interim Fr. Cuenin was dismissed from his position. So the attack on him came later. But it came. Still over a 1,000 parishioners formed a movement to bring him back, or to deal with what they felt was the unjust grounds on which he was fired.
That's just one example of this movement that we've seen in the U.S. (and elsewhere) of Catholics joining up and taking a stand. The most colourful and provocative example just happened in Canada last summer. I was there for the ordination of the nine women on a boat on the St. Lawrence Seaway. The Roman Catholic women's priest movement is a very dramatic action. It began in 2002 with the ordination of women on the Danube River. And the movement has grown.
There's a lot more willingness to stand together in opposition to these Church policies. Another example: Look at the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. This organization --which not coincidentally was begun by a woman-- is the most powerful organization we have for abuse for victims in this country. This organization is everywhere. They demonstrate all the time, and call attention to particular parishes and diocese where the Church is failing to bring sex abusers to justice.
There is on the ground a tremendous movement of Catholics to take back the Church --in terms of their own consciences and what they think the Church should be. But questions remain. How deep is that movement? How strong is it? How long will it take to have an impact on the institutional Church?
GM: The Vatican never followed through with the penalties (including excommunication) they threatened to impose on Sr. Chittister and the Erie Benedictines. Can you speculate on why this didn't happen?
AB: This was a surprise to everybody. But the people I've spoken to about this said they finally realized whom they had tried to take on. Not only in the Church --but also in the culture-- there's this lack of awareness of the power of Catholic women in the Church. To my mind, Joan Chittister is the most powerful voice in the Catholic Church right now. The Church skipped over that. They didn't realize the extent of power she had. It wasn't just that the Erie Benedictines had signed that letter of support. Joan Chittister is an orator and author known worldwide. Maybe they did a little homework. I think they became a little freaked, because they realized they wouldn't get away with it.
GM: It's very depressing to read where some dioceses in North American are firing laywoman ministers or replacing them with male deacons. Some reports suggest pressure from conservatives in these dioceses contributed to the firings. What are your thoughts?
AB: There are a number of situations I reference in the book. In particular there is Lexington, Kentucky where five people were fired --four of them senior women leaders-- and replaced by male deacons. That's where the local news reports said it was conservative pressure to replace them.
One person who figures prominently in my book is Sr. Celine Goessl. She was a parish administrator for 30 years heading up parishes. She is an amazing person. She said that the order had come from Rome to move women out and move deacons in.
Without pointing to a particular conservative person who is making this happen --we can clearly see that this is a Church (especially right now) that's steeped in a belief that women do not belong in the role --or close to the role-- of someone who is ordained. They want more priests and male deacons. As you get these priests and male deacons they'll move them into other positions. It just fits in with their view of what the Church should be --and the place of women in the Church. It's very depressing.
I heard one woman chaplain speaking at a conference at Boston College called "Envisioning The Church Women Want" a few years ago. She talked about the effort to literally split her job so that she'd no longer be the spiritual chaplain, but the administrator. They would have a priest coming in to do the spiritual matters.
At that same conference there was a woman theologian from Boston College who said it was important to look at the parish closings. She believed that the Church would prefer to close parishes rather than to allow women who want to be priests and deacons to fill those responsibilities.
The Church is in a tricky position. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops recently came out with a new paper on lay ecclesial ministry. Included in this was a new study done on lay ministry. It's taken the Church a long time to accept that this is a movement that's here to stay. That movement is principally women. Eighty percent of lay paid parish ministers are women. Seventy percent of the U.S. Catholic Chaplain Association are women. The Church is going to be pushed more and more on these limits they impose on women. They're not going to be able to replace these women unless they go with what Benedict XVI seems to be open to --which is shrinking the Church. You take away the people who don't fit within this very conservative structure. If they're willing to do that --then this will continue.
It's an interesting moment now. There has been a decline in lay ecclesial ministers in the last nine years. From 1990 to 1997 it jumped by approximately 35 percent. But from 1997 to now it's only been five percent. So there are people who think that women are just getting fed up and walking away. There are no jobs for them. The wages and benefits are terrible. And as some leaders in the Church have said --if women walk way, that's the end of it, because women make up much of the Church.
GM: You write about the issue of lay preaching in the book. Currently the Vatican forbids a layperson from preaching the homily, but it takes place in many parishes when it's called a "reflection." Still the Vatican insists it must never be "transformed from an exceptional measure into an ordinary practice." But you explain that: "Ironically, some bishops may have learned to preach in a homiletics course taught by a Catholic woman at a seminary, yet remain silent as the Vatican tightens the restrictions on Catholic women's right to preach." Do you think more bishops are being challenged on this issue? Do you think the Vatican will loosen these restrictions given the continuing shortage of priests?
AB: What's interesting is this new study on lay parish ministry (which was conducted by the committee of the laity of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops). It's all about who lay parish ministers are --and what they're doing. There's a little chart that lists ministry's role. One of them is preaching. They don't say a homily or explain anything about it in the study. But it says only two percent of people who are in lay ecclesial preaching are doing this. But I thought that was progress. In other words: In this book done by the National Pastoral Life Center (which is an organization in the U.S. that works with the bishops) they didn't bother to dress up the fact that lay people are preaching. So it's a good sign.
A bad sign is that about a year ago the Archbishop of Boston Sean O'Malley gave a homily about preaching and he called it the eighth sacrament. He said it's the first and irreplaceable path of the ordained. He was putting out the party line that only priests should be doing the preaching. But on the ground the reality is that women are preaching. It may not be called a homily, but they're invited to step up and take the opportunity. As Jackie Landry says it doesn't matter whether they call it a homily or not, because when students look up and see her preaching they look like deer caught in the headlights. They've never seen a woman get up and talk like that.
This is something that could change (and is changing) on the ground. I have a little bit of hope for this.
GM: At one point in the book you write that: "I find it extremely troubling today that the fight for dialogue is so desperate today. That the days when the hierarchy listened to the laity are long gone, and so much ground has been lost." Do you see any sign of change under Pope Benedict XVI?
AB: One thing that people have fastened on to is that Benedict XVI did meet with Hans Küng --which is kind of fascinating. Because Küng had his licence to teach in a Catholic university taken away from him.
Küng sent a letter to Benedict XVI asking for a meeting. In the past he'd sent many letters to John Paul II asking for a meeting and never received one. But he did get a meeting with Benedict XVI. They both came out after the meeting and put a wonderful spin on it. They found the areas they had in common, and decided not to get into a dispute over their doctrinal differences. Küng seemed to imply that this gave him hope that this was a pope who was going to listen to people.
Sr. Joan Chittister did comment on Cardinal Ratzinger taking the name Benedict and the notion of hospitality. I would love to hold on to that. But I don't see issues like women's ordination as a side issue. The place of women in the Church is absolutely central to the future of the Church. If women can't have sacramental authority --and if they can't be involved in the decision-making in the Church-- it's a Church that's deeply discriminatory and flawed. So a pope who won't look at that (even though he happened to meet with Hans Küng and look at some of the areas that they'll work in together) doesn't give me much hope.
GM: In the book we learn that almost two years ago Boston Archbishop Sean O'Malley referred to "feminism" among the world's worst ills lumping it along with "the drug culture," "hedonism," "consumerism," and "the culture of death." What could he be thinking --particularly when one considers the death and destruction caused by patriarchy in Third World countries? Was there any reaction to what he said?
AB: People were very upset about this. There were a lot of opinion-editorial pieces written in response. I can't tell you what he was thinking when he said that. But I can tell you what my impression would be. Within the Church, feminism has been linked with selfishness, women as careerists, and women rejecting a nurturing role. It's also been linked to divorce. Most of all they've linked feminism with women as advocates for reproductive health care.
Feminism has always had this negative image in the Church. Which is not to say that there aren't things about feminism worth criticizing. But the issues I cited are the reasons O'Malley would lump feminism with the things he did. But it's such a disturbing thing to do. Because feminism has been liberating for so many women.
Also: As you noted there's this absence of understanding the details of women's lives. For example: Many women in sub-Saharan Africa are married --and they're in a culture where sex outside of marriage is okay for their husbands. They suffer from that, because their husbands are bringing home HIV/AIDS. For the Church to say that marriage will solve this problem is to completely be unable to see what's going on.
But there are some positive things happening. In South Africa, Bishop Kevin Dowling (who is a fantastic bishop in that part of the world) and a group of nuns called "The Sisters for Justice of Johannesburg" came out and opposed the Church's ban on condoms to prevent AIDS for all of the reasons that were mentioned. They've talked about what the realities of life are like for women in these countries, and where the increase in HIV/AIDS is being most dramatically realized.
Bishop Kevin Dowling talks about the need for a new moral understanding of sexuality. From the Church's perspective, condoms have been thought to be part of a culture of death. But according to Bishop Dowling, not allowing people to use condoms --when it could kill them-- is a death related matter.
So there are these voices in the Church saying: Pay attention to what's really going on. But how long it will take for these voices to filter up --if they ever will-- is what we're all holding our breath about.
GM: It was particularly inspiring to read about young women ministers for social justice. For example: You write about twenty-four-year-old Sara Willi who majored in peace studies at the College of St. Benedict in Minnesota. Willi says that at St. Benedict: "I claimed my faith for myself." Are these young ministers signs of hope for you?
AB: Totally. Sara Willi is incredible. She has a roommate and they live in an apartment they rent. They're all devoted to social justice. They do that as their ministry. Her roommate worked at the Center for Concern. This is a Jesuit-founded independent organization for global and economic justice.
There is also a young woman named Aisha Taylor who is now the head of the Women's Ordination Conference in the U.S. She used to work for Network --which is a Catholic social justice lobby and a fantastic organization. There is a young woman named Leslie Kretzu who was a Masters of Theology student at Union Theological Seminary (and who I was amazed by). She is devoted to social justice and is a kind of one-woman sweatshop movement. She and her husband went to live in Indonesia on the amount of money people are paid by Nike --and then came back and made a movie about it.
When Ida Raming --who was one of the women ordained on the Danube in 2002-- came to Union Theological Seminary, the question was posed: Could she celebrate a Mass there? Many of the Catholic students and faculty were very much against it --for a lot of reasons. Without going into the pros and cons of that, Leslie Kretzu was so clear that Ida Raming should be able to say Mass. She believed this 74-year-old woman had taken this stand for women's ordination, and that she did it for herself and young people. Leslie fought to make that Mass possible. They finally held the Mass outdoors in a park in Manhattan, not far from Union Theological Seminary.
These young women don't always get into all the pros and cons of issues the way some of us older people do. They seem clearer about what their faith is to them. And the social justice women are just fantastic. Their faith moves them to help make the world a better place. That's what they devote their energies to.
GM: Your epilogue was very moving. You write that: "With all my hurt and all my anger, I am Catholic still. Because of the love. Because of the hope. Because of the community. And, oh. Because of the beauty." During the course of researching and writing the book were there things that surprised you about the Church and Catholic women who are fighting for change?
AB: I went through so much writing this book in terms of emotion. It was up and down the range. I didn't realize how deep the struggles were for the women who were doing the ministering. When I finished the book I had such incredible respect for them. To try and work within this institution that talks out of both sides of its mouth. But these women are out there helping people. They love the people and take care of them. I watched them in action with parishioners, and I had such sadness that they're being held back from giving all the gifts they have to the Church. It's a bundle of emotions for me in terms of what their place is in the Church.
GM: You write that some Catholic women can't take it anymore and walk away from the Church.
AB: Yes. Many.
GM: But you also provide the reader hope when you write about the various small faith communities and reform organizations that exist. So you don't have to be in exile from the Church --there are places to go aren't there?
AB: Yes. In the back of the book I give a directory of all the Church reform organizations in the U.S. and elsewhere where people can become connected with other Catholics who want change or are working toward change. That's important to have support for fighting for change in the Church. It can be a long road if you're just going to church and struggling through another sermon that makes you so upset --and just having to be silent.
But to get involved in these organizations with people who love the Church, Eucharist, Catholicism --and are Catholics who want a more inclusive, open Church that appreciates everybody's gifts.
thesocialedge.com
AUTHOR ANGELA BONAVOGLIA
by Gerry McCarthy
Angela Bonavoglia is a nationally recognized writer on Church reform. Her work has appeared in The Miami Herald, The Chicago Tribune, The Nation, Ms., Cosmopolitan, Redbook, and Newsday.
Her most recent book Good Catholic Girls: How Women Are Leading The Fight To Change The Church was recently published by HarperCollins (Regan Books). It will be released in paperback in March. I reached Bonavoglia in Westchester, New York, to speak about the book.
Gerry McCarthy: In Good Catholic Girls we learn about Harvard University's first Catholic laywoman chaplain Jacqueline Landry. She says a fundamental problem is the difficulty the Church has integrating sexuality with spirituality. You add that: "Because women have represented sexuality in the Church, lay ministers like Landry bear a special burden." Can you talk to me about this? Do you see more signs that the Church is waking up to what Landry is saying?
Angela Bonavoglia: Jackie Landry is a very beautiful woman. She is tall with blonde hair. She could have been a model. But she's a chaplain. When she talks about these things --she knows from whence she speaks.
It's interesting that when I spoke with her about this issue, she talked about trying to find this third way in terms of being a minister. She says: "All my energy is spent?negotiating?door number three? Father, Sister, me."
We know that 80 percent of the lay people in paid parish ministry in the Catholic Church are women. Lots of them are married. But a good number are single. Some of them are divorced. So they've come out of the box. In the Catholic Church sexuality is supposed to be limited to married people open to procreation. As Jackie Landry told me, nuns have had to exchange their sexuality for their power. She says they have to be "perceived as a neutered, neutral women." Although she adds that some nuns she's worked with have worn lipstick and earrings. But she talks about being very conscious of what she wears when she speaks from the pulpit. How does she look? Does she wear high heels? Female sexuality in the Catholic Church is still a very scary thing. The fear for the powers-to-be in the Church is that women take control of their sexuality. Now we have all these women coming into the Church who are ministering, and many of them are not former nuns. They are confronting us with this image of women no longer in the box they were put in --which was: Be home, take care of your children, and be nurturing. That's wonderful. There's nothing wrong with that. But that was a safe place to have women.
The Church has taken awhile to deal with these women in ministry. It's taken years for them to address them. Now they are addressing lay ecclesial ministry in a much bigger way. But we have a long way as a Church to go in terms of addressing and celebrating sexuality, and coming up with an ethic that we can all agree on. These young ministers are going to push us forward by their very presence.
GM: Your chapter "The Revolt of the Erie Benedictines" was particularly engaging. In her decision not to comply with Vatican's "precept of obedience" to forbid Sr. Joan Chittister to attend a women's ordination conference held in Dublin in 2001 --the prioress of the Erie Benedictines Sr. Christine Vladimiroff made a significant public statement: "I cannot be used by the Vatican to deliver an order of silencing. I do not see her participation in this conference as a 'source of scandal to the faithful' as the Vatican alleges. I think the faithful can be scandalized when honest attempts to discuss questions of importance to the Church are forbidden." You write that the Erie Benedictines provided a model for a "new spirit" of Church reform. But it's going to take more public stands like this for serious reform to take place isn't it?
AB: Definitely. When I heard about the Erie Benedictines I was doing a piece for The Nation magazine on the Church. I interviewed a priest in the Boston-area named Walter Cuenin. He's a wonderful man. He'd been a co-founder of an organization called The Priests' Forum where they began to gather together the priests in that community. This is right after the clerical sex abuse scandal broke in the U.S. in 2002. The Priests Forum would meet to talk about being a priest. They did this outside the aegis of the Archdiocese of Boston. It was a brave step for them to take.
When I interviewed Fr. Cuenin he talked about the Erie Benedictines and Sr. Joan Chittister. He said that they were an influence on him and that their courage was inspiring to him.
Shortly after that The Priests' Forum became stronger and worked with The Voice of the Faithful. Eventually Fr. Cuenin and The Priests' Forum put together a list of 50 to 70 signers calling for the resignation of Cardinal Law (of the Boston Diocese). That was a very dramatic action. In the book I quote Fr. Richard McBrien saying it was "unprecedented" in modern Church history for priests to take that kind of a stand in relationship to their bishop. Shortly after this action Cardinal Law resigned.
In the interim Fr. Cuenin was dismissed from his position. So the attack on him came later. But it came. Still over a 1,000 parishioners formed a movement to bring him back, or to deal with what they felt was the unjust grounds on which he was fired.
That's just one example of this movement that we've seen in the U.S. (and elsewhere) of Catholics joining up and taking a stand. The most colourful and provocative example just happened in Canada last summer. I was there for the ordination of the nine women on a boat on the St. Lawrence Seaway. The Roman Catholic women's priest movement is a very dramatic action. It began in 2002 with the ordination of women on the Danube River. And the movement has grown.
There's a lot more willingness to stand together in opposition to these Church policies. Another example: Look at the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. This organization --which not coincidentally was begun by a woman-- is the most powerful organization we have for abuse for victims in this country. This organization is everywhere. They demonstrate all the time, and call attention to particular parishes and diocese where the Church is failing to bring sex abusers to justice.
There is on the ground a tremendous movement of Catholics to take back the Church --in terms of their own consciences and what they think the Church should be. But questions remain. How deep is that movement? How strong is it? How long will it take to have an impact on the institutional Church?
GM: The Vatican never followed through with the penalties (including excommunication) they threatened to impose on Sr. Chittister and the Erie Benedictines. Can you speculate on why this didn't happen?
AB: This was a surprise to everybody. But the people I've spoken to about this said they finally realized whom they had tried to take on. Not only in the Church --but also in the culture-- there's this lack of awareness of the power of Catholic women in the Church. To my mind, Joan Chittister is the most powerful voice in the Catholic Church right now. The Church skipped over that. They didn't realize the extent of power she had. It wasn't just that the Erie Benedictines had signed that letter of support. Joan Chittister is an orator and author known worldwide. Maybe they did a little homework. I think they became a little freaked, because they realized they wouldn't get away with it.
GM: It's very depressing to read where some dioceses in North American are firing laywoman ministers or replacing them with male deacons. Some reports suggest pressure from conservatives in these dioceses contributed to the firings. What are your thoughts?
AB: There are a number of situations I reference in the book. In particular there is Lexington, Kentucky where five people were fired --four of them senior women leaders-- and replaced by male deacons. That's where the local news reports said it was conservative pressure to replace them.
One person who figures prominently in my book is Sr. Celine Goessl. She was a parish administrator for 30 years heading up parishes. She is an amazing person. She said that the order had come from Rome to move women out and move deacons in.
Without pointing to a particular conservative person who is making this happen --we can clearly see that this is a Church (especially right now) that's steeped in a belief that women do not belong in the role --or close to the role-- of someone who is ordained. They want more priests and male deacons. As you get these priests and male deacons they'll move them into other positions. It just fits in with their view of what the Church should be --and the place of women in the Church. It's very depressing.
I heard one woman chaplain speaking at a conference at Boston College called "Envisioning The Church Women Want" a few years ago. She talked about the effort to literally split her job so that she'd no longer be the spiritual chaplain, but the administrator. They would have a priest coming in to do the spiritual matters.
At that same conference there was a woman theologian from Boston College who said it was important to look at the parish closings. She believed that the Church would prefer to close parishes rather than to allow women who want to be priests and deacons to fill those responsibilities.
The Church is in a tricky position. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops recently came out with a new paper on lay ecclesial ministry. Included in this was a new study done on lay ministry. It's taken the Church a long time to accept that this is a movement that's here to stay. That movement is principally women. Eighty percent of lay paid parish ministers are women. Seventy percent of the U.S. Catholic Chaplain Association are women. The Church is going to be pushed more and more on these limits they impose on women. They're not going to be able to replace these women unless they go with what Benedict XVI seems to be open to --which is shrinking the Church. You take away the people who don't fit within this very conservative structure. If they're willing to do that --then this will continue.
It's an interesting moment now. There has been a decline in lay ecclesial ministers in the last nine years. From 1990 to 1997 it jumped by approximately 35 percent. But from 1997 to now it's only been five percent. So there are people who think that women are just getting fed up and walking away. There are no jobs for them. The wages and benefits are terrible. And as some leaders in the Church have said --if women walk way, that's the end of it, because women make up much of the Church.
GM: You write about the issue of lay preaching in the book. Currently the Vatican forbids a layperson from preaching the homily, but it takes place in many parishes when it's called a "reflection." Still the Vatican insists it must never be "transformed from an exceptional measure into an ordinary practice." But you explain that: "Ironically, some bishops may have learned to preach in a homiletics course taught by a Catholic woman at a seminary, yet remain silent as the Vatican tightens the restrictions on Catholic women's right to preach." Do you think more bishops are being challenged on this issue? Do you think the Vatican will loosen these restrictions given the continuing shortage of priests?
AB: What's interesting is this new study on lay parish ministry (which was conducted by the committee of the laity of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops). It's all about who lay parish ministers are --and what they're doing. There's a little chart that lists ministry's role. One of them is preaching. They don't say a homily or explain anything about it in the study. But it says only two percent of people who are in lay ecclesial preaching are doing this. But I thought that was progress. In other words: In this book done by the National Pastoral Life Center (which is an organization in the U.S. that works with the bishops) they didn't bother to dress up the fact that lay people are preaching. So it's a good sign.
A bad sign is that about a year ago the Archbishop of Boston Sean O'Malley gave a homily about preaching and he called it the eighth sacrament. He said it's the first and irreplaceable path of the ordained. He was putting out the party line that only priests should be doing the preaching. But on the ground the reality is that women are preaching. It may not be called a homily, but they're invited to step up and take the opportunity. As Jackie Landry says it doesn't matter whether they call it a homily or not, because when students look up and see her preaching they look like deer caught in the headlights. They've never seen a woman get up and talk like that.
This is something that could change (and is changing) on the ground. I have a little bit of hope for this.
GM: At one point in the book you write that: "I find it extremely troubling today that the fight for dialogue is so desperate today. That the days when the hierarchy listened to the laity are long gone, and so much ground has been lost." Do you see any sign of change under Pope Benedict XVI?
AB: One thing that people have fastened on to is that Benedict XVI did meet with Hans Küng --which is kind of fascinating. Because Küng had his licence to teach in a Catholic university taken away from him.
Küng sent a letter to Benedict XVI asking for a meeting. In the past he'd sent many letters to John Paul II asking for a meeting and never received one. But he did get a meeting with Benedict XVI. They both came out after the meeting and put a wonderful spin on it. They found the areas they had in common, and decided not to get into a dispute over their doctrinal differences. Küng seemed to imply that this gave him hope that this was a pope who was going to listen to people.
Sr. Joan Chittister did comment on Cardinal Ratzinger taking the name Benedict and the notion of hospitality. I would love to hold on to that. But I don't see issues like women's ordination as a side issue. The place of women in the Church is absolutely central to the future of the Church. If women can't have sacramental authority --and if they can't be involved in the decision-making in the Church-- it's a Church that's deeply discriminatory and flawed. So a pope who won't look at that (even though he happened to meet with Hans Küng and look at some of the areas that they'll work in together) doesn't give me much hope.
GM: In the book we learn that almost two years ago Boston Archbishop Sean O'Malley referred to "feminism" among the world's worst ills lumping it along with "the drug culture," "hedonism," "consumerism," and "the culture of death." What could he be thinking --particularly when one considers the death and destruction caused by patriarchy in Third World countries? Was there any reaction to what he said?
AB: People were very upset about this. There were a lot of opinion-editorial pieces written in response. I can't tell you what he was thinking when he said that. But I can tell you what my impression would be. Within the Church, feminism has been linked with selfishness, women as careerists, and women rejecting a nurturing role. It's also been linked to divorce. Most of all they've linked feminism with women as advocates for reproductive health care.
Feminism has always had this negative image in the Church. Which is not to say that there aren't things about feminism worth criticizing. But the issues I cited are the reasons O'Malley would lump feminism with the things he did. But it's such a disturbing thing to do. Because feminism has been liberating for so many women.
Also: As you noted there's this absence of understanding the details of women's lives. For example: Many women in sub-Saharan Africa are married --and they're in a culture where sex outside of marriage is okay for their husbands. They suffer from that, because their husbands are bringing home HIV/AIDS. For the Church to say that marriage will solve this problem is to completely be unable to see what's going on.
But there are some positive things happening. In South Africa, Bishop Kevin Dowling (who is a fantastic bishop in that part of the world) and a group of nuns called "The Sisters for Justice of Johannesburg" came out and opposed the Church's ban on condoms to prevent AIDS for all of the reasons that were mentioned. They've talked about what the realities of life are like for women in these countries, and where the increase in HIV/AIDS is being most dramatically realized.
Bishop Kevin Dowling talks about the need for a new moral understanding of sexuality. From the Church's perspective, condoms have been thought to be part of a culture of death. But according to Bishop Dowling, not allowing people to use condoms --when it could kill them-- is a death related matter.
So there are these voices in the Church saying: Pay attention to what's really going on. But how long it will take for these voices to filter up --if they ever will-- is what we're all holding our breath about.
GM: It was particularly inspiring to read about young women ministers for social justice. For example: You write about twenty-four-year-old Sara Willi who majored in peace studies at the College of St. Benedict in Minnesota. Willi says that at St. Benedict: "I claimed my faith for myself." Are these young ministers signs of hope for you?
AB: Totally. Sara Willi is incredible. She has a roommate and they live in an apartment they rent. They're all devoted to social justice. They do that as their ministry. Her roommate worked at the Center for Concern. This is a Jesuit-founded independent organization for global and economic justice.
There is also a young woman named Aisha Taylor who is now the head of the Women's Ordination Conference in the U.S. She used to work for Network --which is a Catholic social justice lobby and a fantastic organization. There is a young woman named Leslie Kretzu who was a Masters of Theology student at Union Theological Seminary (and who I was amazed by). She is devoted to social justice and is a kind of one-woman sweatshop movement. She and her husband went to live in Indonesia on the amount of money people are paid by Nike --and then came back and made a movie about it.
When Ida Raming --who was one of the women ordained on the Danube in 2002-- came to Union Theological Seminary, the question was posed: Could she celebrate a Mass there? Many of the Catholic students and faculty were very much against it --for a lot of reasons. Without going into the pros and cons of that, Leslie Kretzu was so clear that Ida Raming should be able to say Mass. She believed this 74-year-old woman had taken this stand for women's ordination, and that she did it for herself and young people. Leslie fought to make that Mass possible. They finally held the Mass outdoors in a park in Manhattan, not far from Union Theological Seminary.
These young women don't always get into all the pros and cons of issues the way some of us older people do. They seem clearer about what their faith is to them. And the social justice women are just fantastic. Their faith moves them to help make the world a better place. That's what they devote their energies to.
GM: Your epilogue was very moving. You write that: "With all my hurt and all my anger, I am Catholic still. Because of the love. Because of the hope. Because of the community. And, oh. Because of the beauty." During the course of researching and writing the book were there things that surprised you about the Church and Catholic women who are fighting for change?
AB: I went through so much writing this book in terms of emotion. It was up and down the range. I didn't realize how deep the struggles were for the women who were doing the ministering. When I finished the book I had such incredible respect for them. To try and work within this institution that talks out of both sides of its mouth. But these women are out there helping people. They love the people and take care of them. I watched them in action with parishioners, and I had such sadness that they're being held back from giving all the gifts they have to the Church. It's a bundle of emotions for me in terms of what their place is in the Church.
GM: You write that some Catholic women can't take it anymore and walk away from the Church.
AB: Yes. Many.
GM: But you also provide the reader hope when you write about the various small faith communities and reform organizations that exist. So you don't have to be in exile from the Church --there are places to go aren't there?
AB: Yes. In the back of the book I give a directory of all the Church reform organizations in the U.S. and elsewhere where people can become connected with other Catholics who want change or are working toward change. That's important to have support for fighting for change in the Church. It can be a long road if you're just going to church and struggling through another sermon that makes you so upset --and just having to be silent.
But to get involved in these organizations with people who love the Church, Eucharist, Catholicism --and are Catholics who want a more inclusive, open Church that appreciates everybody's gifts.
thesocialedge.com
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