by Holly McKenna
ALBANY, New York (Reuters) - Some are Catholics who see their church as stuck in the past. Others are believers who happen to be divorced, pregnant before marriage or gay. A few just can't find a priest when they need one.
Roman Catholics shunned by the official church are "renting" married priests in times of crisis and celebration.
They turn to http://www.rentapriest.com, a Web site with 2,500 Catholic priests in a national database known as "God's Yellow Pages."
Virtually all the priests in the database have left their official clerical ministries due to the Roman Catholic Church's mandatory celibacy rule, but they continue to conduct weddings, usually for a fee, while performing baptisms, last rites and funerals for free, in keeping with the practice of officially recognized priests.
"We are doing Jesus' work and apparently the church isn't," said Louise Haggett, director of Celibacy Is The Issue (CITI) ministries, which runs the site and helped arrange 3,000 weddings last year.
The group also is working to change the Catholic church's ban on married priests.
Haggett said the Internet is a popular source for rent-a-priests because there is a shortage. Twenty-seven percent of U.S. parishes lack a resident priest, according to a U.S. Conference of Bishops study.
Priests are aging, churches are closing and fewer priests are being ordained. The church knows there are fewer priests than decades ago but there are plenty to meet the spiritual needs of the faithful, said Ron Menty of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany.
"Sometimes the reason why people go to this source concerns the rules, regulations and expectations of the church," Menty said. "Sometimes a priest outside the community feels freer in providing services."
The going rate for a wedding in New York is about $500, cheaper in other states.
FAITHFUL TO JESUS, NOT RULES
Haggett founded the site in 1992 when her mother was in a nursing home and unable to find a parish priest.
CITI locates, recruits, certifies and promotes married or gay Roman Catholic priests. Haggett said 21 canons in church law validate married priests.
But the church does not recognize these priests because they violated their vows, said Ken Goldfarb, spokesman for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany.
The church does recognize some married Protestants who became priests later in life.
"These rent-a-priests have already taken their vows, then married. That's the distinction," Goldfarb said.
Richard Hasselbach, who married after he was a priest for 13 years, defends the organization because many people are turned off by what he calls the inflexibility and rigidity of "the corporate Catholic Church."
He routinely marries people who are divorced, pregnant or gay and counsels people who were sexually abused by Roman Catholic priests. He celebrates Mass in his home and performs marriages outside of church buildings. The Roman Catholic Church does not allow wedding ceremonies to be held outside.
Jim and Mary Ann Graves of Batavia, Illinois, were married in their backyard by Bob Scanlan, whom they found on the Web site. Both were raised Catholic, married for the first time in the church, and then divorced. Together they have eight children.
"We never considered an annulment because it's a real hassle," Mary Ann Graves said. "We were looking for something different than the first time, but we wanted a religious and spiritual ceremony."
Faith is a relationship with Christ and not about rules and dogma, Hasselbach said. "Once you're a priest, you're always a priest," he said. "If I fail to respond to the call to minister, I do so at my own peril."
Thursday, August 31, 2006
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
Serving Those Abandoned by the Corporate Church
On Monday afternoon I had a call from a hospice chaplain with Group Health asking if I could provide the sacrament of the sick for one of her clients who was approaching death. Faced with the difficulty in getting access to local Catholic priests she has turned to me on many occasions in the past. Sometimes I am able to "push the right buttons" at the appropriate local parish to get a priest there and arrange for the person to be included in regular communion rounds. In this case, death was imminent, and a delay in making arrangements was not appropriate.
I arrived at the adult care facility on the other side of Seattle from my home the next morning at 10am and met Appolonia Cobala, a devout Polish lady in her 80's, and her loving daughter Helen. Helen explained that she had called 12 different nearby parishes the day earlier and was unable to arrange for a priest to visit her mother. She was most appreciative for my prompt response, adding that she fully supported a married clergy.
We had a very beautiful celebration of the sacrament of the sick together. She then asked if I could assist her with a graveside service at the local Catholic cemetery when her mom passed. I explained that unfortunately the previous auxiliary bishop had issued an edict banning any resigned priests and me explicitly in doing so. Although any layman is allowed to conduct graveside services at Catholic cemeteries, or clergy from any other denomination, the one group that is barred is resigned priests. She was sad to hear about this. I told her to call me and I could put her into contact with a canonical priest who would provide a nice service when her mother passed.
This exchange brought out in microcosm the continued tragedy of the ripple effect of the current clergy shortage as well as the vindictive polices of the Institution toward resigned priests. Over and over again, good Catholics pay the price for these narrow policies that place mandatory celibacy over the pastoral care of God's people. A close friend shared a similar story regarding the difficulty in finding a priest to annoint his Dad, a daily Mass Catholic in his 90's who sent 2 sons into the priesthood and has generously supported the Church over his long lifetime. It was Louise Haggett's frustration with finding pastoral care for her dear mother that ultimately lead her to launch CITI. And it goes on and on.
I felt privileged to be able to respond to Helen's efforts to find help for her mother Appolonia. But how many similar needs go unmet and how many good Catholics become more and more disillusioned by this indifference to their sacramental needs and rejection of the many resigned priests ready to respond?
Fr. Pat Callahan
Married Catholic Priest
Seattle
I arrived at the adult care facility on the other side of Seattle from my home the next morning at 10am and met Appolonia Cobala, a devout Polish lady in her 80's, and her loving daughter Helen. Helen explained that she had called 12 different nearby parishes the day earlier and was unable to arrange for a priest to visit her mother. She was most appreciative for my prompt response, adding that she fully supported a married clergy.
We had a very beautiful celebration of the sacrament of the sick together. She then asked if I could assist her with a graveside service at the local Catholic cemetery when her mom passed. I explained that unfortunately the previous auxiliary bishop had issued an edict banning any resigned priests and me explicitly in doing so. Although any layman is allowed to conduct graveside services at Catholic cemeteries, or clergy from any other denomination, the one group that is barred is resigned priests. She was sad to hear about this. I told her to call me and I could put her into contact with a canonical priest who would provide a nice service when her mother passed.
This exchange brought out in microcosm the continued tragedy of the ripple effect of the current clergy shortage as well as the vindictive polices of the Institution toward resigned priests. Over and over again, good Catholics pay the price for these narrow policies that place mandatory celibacy over the pastoral care of God's people. A close friend shared a similar story regarding the difficulty in finding a priest to annoint his Dad, a daily Mass Catholic in his 90's who sent 2 sons into the priesthood and has generously supported the Church over his long lifetime. It was Louise Haggett's frustration with finding pastoral care for her dear mother that ultimately lead her to launch CITI. And it goes on and on.
I felt privileged to be able to respond to Helen's efforts to find help for her mother Appolonia. But how many similar needs go unmet and how many good Catholics become more and more disillusioned by this indifference to their sacramental needs and rejection of the many resigned priests ready to respond?
Fr. Pat Callahan
Married Catholic Priest
Seattle
Serving Those Abandoned by the Corporate Church
On Monday afternoon I had a call from a hospice chaplain with Group Health asking if I could provide the sacrament of the sick for one of her clients who was approaching death. Faced with the difficulty in getting access to local Catholic priests she has turned to me on many occasions in the past. Sometimes I am able to "push the right buttons" at the appropriate local parish to get a priest there and arrange for the person to be included in regular communion rounds. In this case, death was imminent, and a delay in making arrangements was not appropriate.
I arrived at the adult care facility on the other side of Seattle from my home the next morning at 10am and met Appolonia Cobala, a devout Polish lady in her 80's, and her loving daughter Helen. Helen explained that she had called 12 different nearby parishes the day earlier and was unable to arrange for a priest to visit her mother. She was most appreciative for my prompt response, adding that she fully supported a married clergy.
We had a very beautiful celebration of the sacrament of the sick together. She then asked if I could assist her with a graveside service at the local Catholic cemetery when her mom passed. I explained that unfortunately the previous auxiliary bishop had issued an edict banning any resigned priests and me explicitly in doing so. Although any layman is allowed to conduct graveside services at Catholic cemeteries, or clergy from any other denomination, the one group that is barred is resigned priests. She was sad to hear about this. I told her to call me and I could put her into contact with a canonical priest who would provide a nice service when her mother passed.
This exchange brought out in microcosm the continued tragedy of the ripple effect of the current clergy shortage as well as the vindictive polices of the Institution toward resigned priests. Over and over again, good Catholics pay the price for these narrow policies that place mandatory celibacy over the pastoral care of God's people. A close friend shared a similar story regarding the difficulty in finding a priest to annoint his Dad, a daily Mass Catholic in his 90's who sent 2 sons into the priesthood and has generously supported the Church over his long lifetime. It was Louise Haggett's frustration with finding pastoral care for her dear mother that ultimately lead her to launch CITI. And it goes on and on.
I felt privileged to be able to respond to Helen's efforts to find help for her mother Appolonia. But how many similar needs go unmet and how many good Catholics become more and more disillusioned by this indifference to their sacramental needs and rejection of the many resigned priests ready to respond?
Fr. Pat Callahan
Married Catholic Priest
Seattle
I arrived at the adult care facility on the other side of Seattle from my home the next morning at 10am and met Appolonia Cobala, a devout Polish lady in her 80's, and her loving daughter Helen. Helen explained that she had called 12 different nearby parishes the day earlier and was unable to arrange for a priest to visit her mother. She was most appreciative for my prompt response, adding that she fully supported a married clergy.
We had a very beautiful celebration of the sacrament of the sick together. She then asked if I could assist her with a graveside service at the local Catholic cemetery when her mom passed. I explained that unfortunately the previous auxiliary bishop had issued an edict banning any resigned priests and me explicitly in doing so. Although any layman is allowed to conduct graveside services at Catholic cemeteries, or clergy from any other denomination, the one group that is barred is resigned priests. She was sad to hear about this. I told her to call me and I could put her into contact with a canonical priest who would provide a nice service when her mother passed.
This exchange brought out in microcosm the continued tragedy of the ripple effect of the current clergy shortage as well as the vindictive polices of the Institution toward resigned priests. Over and over again, good Catholics pay the price for these narrow policies that place mandatory celibacy over the pastoral care of God's people. A close friend shared a similar story regarding the difficulty in finding a priest to annoint his Dad, a daily Mass Catholic in his 90's who sent 2 sons into the priesthood and has generously supported the Church over his long lifetime. It was Louise Haggett's frustration with finding pastoral care for her dear mother that ultimately lead her to launch CITI. And it goes on and on.
I felt privileged to be able to respond to Helen's efforts to find help for her mother Appolonia. But how many similar needs go unmet and how many good Catholics become more and more disillusioned by this indifference to their sacramental needs and rejection of the many resigned priests ready to respond?
Fr. Pat Callahan
Married Catholic Priest
Seattle
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
The Institution and Faith are Not One in the Same
As a Priest of a happy twenty-one years, I have countless times ministered to brothers and sisters who have shared with me that they were mad or upset, or hurt by their Faith and when I uncovered the layers of that hurt, I have always discovered the same thing, that the people who are indeed the Church are not really mad with the core beliefs that sustain them but rather the Institution that is supposed to be embracing them.
Of course there are so many ways that this has been manifest in their lives over the years. Maybe by a parish priest, that sadly abused them physically or mentally or dealt with them and their family in the most un-Christlike of ways. Maybe it was a pronouncement by a local Bishop or the Pope that was so insensitive that it bore no likeness to the compassion and love of the Lord. Now, I know that the Institutional Church is compromised of humans and that humans are bound to fail, that has been and always will be. However, that can't always be the excuse to fall back on, especially in the ongoing revelations of the horrific sex-abuse coverups. Yes the Sacraments and their grace still work their wonders even when those that administer them show no likeness to Christ by their life or behavior. That is the greatness and yet the paradox of our Faith.
I want to make clear in these words to those that read them that if you are upset with your faith, you have every right to be. Yet do understand that you are really not upset and miffed at
the love of God that has been poured out into our hearts in Christ Jesus the Lord, but at the fallible men and women that steer this bark of Peter. I would venture to say in this country alone, there are thousands of thousands of beloved Roman Catholics who have taken a hiatus from the community of Faith simply because they are hurt by the Institutional Church, not that they are mad at their Faith lovingly bestowed on them in Baptism. And many have not made this distinction which is why, as a Priest and theologian, I wish to make this clear difference. Our Faith is a precious jewel that can NEVER be taken from us. As Paul says, nothing can separate us from the Love of God poured out in Jesus the Lord. Can a priest, a pope, a bishop,a pronouncement make us so mad and hurt that we have no choice but to depart and leave. Yes of course, because we all have our limits, and one thing that no one can judge is the primacy of our conscience. Even St. Augustine made that clear.
I know as a fellow Roman Catholic and Priest, who has also experienced the deep human pain of a cold non-compassionate Institution, that my Faith can never be touched or taken away from me. It is a sacred gift that the Lord keeps burning brightly in me and in you with His grace and no one, not one pastor or pope can take it from me. Does the Institution have much work to do to recover its moral stance in the world, you bet it does. But don't allow one person or persons in this Institution keep you from your goal of running the race as Paul so eloquently puts it. If you have been hurt, and many who read this have, seek a loving community of Faith where you can once again worship, where you can feel at home and rekindle your Faith that cries out to you to be re-ignighted. Or find a friend, or Priest that truly understands and cares for your situation and can set you back on the right path toward a spiritual rebirth of your faith. With prayer, discernment and time your hurts will be healed by the Lord. He wants you home with Him, He wants you in his arms. Remember as St. Augustine wrote" Our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee."
There is no question that it is more than OK to be mad with the Institution, because that's how through the Spirit we can, and must enact the changes that are necessary to dispel the darkness and cover-up of the past, and these clear and present dangers amongst us now. Change comes from within, not above. It has not yet, nor do I see it coming from those who say they lead us. Remember the police can't police themselves to use an analogy. So take that desire for the terrible injustice that unfortunately may have been done to you and those you love, or those we know of, and allow Grace to bring forth the light of change this Institution needs. We are the Church, the People are the Church. It is not a building, a dogma or a hierarchical cast system. The Church is the Faith that resides in each of our hearts. Bring it out, place the Faith that is in your heart in your hands and make it alive again. All of us will be the better because of YOU, and so will the Christ. Don't be afraid to reclaim your Catholic Faith, because you will be so much the better for it, and so will each person in your life with whom you interact. Remember, " We hold a Treasure not made of gold, in earthen vessels wealth untold, one Treasure only, The Lord, The Christ, In earthen vessels!" God Bless each of us on our journies to renew our hearts of Faith and rebuild the Church that call us forth. Pace e bene!
Of course there are so many ways that this has been manifest in their lives over the years. Maybe by a parish priest, that sadly abused them physically or mentally or dealt with them and their family in the most un-Christlike of ways. Maybe it was a pronouncement by a local Bishop or the Pope that was so insensitive that it bore no likeness to the compassion and love of the Lord. Now, I know that the Institutional Church is compromised of humans and that humans are bound to fail, that has been and always will be. However, that can't always be the excuse to fall back on, especially in the ongoing revelations of the horrific sex-abuse coverups. Yes the Sacraments and their grace still work their wonders even when those that administer them show no likeness to Christ by their life or behavior. That is the greatness and yet the paradox of our Faith.
I want to make clear in these words to those that read them that if you are upset with your faith, you have every right to be. Yet do understand that you are really not upset and miffed at
the love of God that has been poured out into our hearts in Christ Jesus the Lord, but at the fallible men and women that steer this bark of Peter. I would venture to say in this country alone, there are thousands of thousands of beloved Roman Catholics who have taken a hiatus from the community of Faith simply because they are hurt by the Institutional Church, not that they are mad at their Faith lovingly bestowed on them in Baptism. And many have not made this distinction which is why, as a Priest and theologian, I wish to make this clear difference. Our Faith is a precious jewel that can NEVER be taken from us. As Paul says, nothing can separate us from the Love of God poured out in Jesus the Lord. Can a priest, a pope, a bishop,a pronouncement make us so mad and hurt that we have no choice but to depart and leave. Yes of course, because we all have our limits, and one thing that no one can judge is the primacy of our conscience. Even St. Augustine made that clear.
I know as a fellow Roman Catholic and Priest, who has also experienced the deep human pain of a cold non-compassionate Institution, that my Faith can never be touched or taken away from me. It is a sacred gift that the Lord keeps burning brightly in me and in you with His grace and no one, not one pastor or pope can take it from me. Does the Institution have much work to do to recover its moral stance in the world, you bet it does. But don't allow one person or persons in this Institution keep you from your goal of running the race as Paul so eloquently puts it. If you have been hurt, and many who read this have, seek a loving community of Faith where you can once again worship, where you can feel at home and rekindle your Faith that cries out to you to be re-ignighted. Or find a friend, or Priest that truly understands and cares for your situation and can set you back on the right path toward a spiritual rebirth of your faith. With prayer, discernment and time your hurts will be healed by the Lord. He wants you home with Him, He wants you in his arms. Remember as St. Augustine wrote" Our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee."
There is no question that it is more than OK to be mad with the Institution, because that's how through the Spirit we can, and must enact the changes that are necessary to dispel the darkness and cover-up of the past, and these clear and present dangers amongst us now. Change comes from within, not above. It has not yet, nor do I see it coming from those who say they lead us. Remember the police can't police themselves to use an analogy. So take that desire for the terrible injustice that unfortunately may have been done to you and those you love, or those we know of, and allow Grace to bring forth the light of change this Institution needs. We are the Church, the People are the Church. It is not a building, a dogma or a hierarchical cast system. The Church is the Faith that resides in each of our hearts. Bring it out, place the Faith that is in your heart in your hands and make it alive again. All of us will be the better because of YOU, and so will the Christ. Don't be afraid to reclaim your Catholic Faith, because you will be so much the better for it, and so will each person in your life with whom you interact. Remember, " We hold a Treasure not made of gold, in earthen vessels wealth untold, one Treasure only, The Lord, The Christ, In earthen vessels!" God Bless each of us on our journies to renew our hearts of Faith and rebuild the Church that call us forth. Pace e bene!
Friday, June 16, 2006
Defying church, 12 Catholic women to be ordained here
Thursday, June 15, 2006
By Marylynne Pitz, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
On July 31, a dozen well-educated, experienced Roman Catholic women will pass into uncharted spiritual waters on a boat cruising Pittsburgh's rivers.
On that afternoon, three women in vestments will lay their hands on the heads of the 12 women and anoint their hands with oil during an ordination ceremony that will be the first of its kind in the United States.
Among the participants is Joan Clark Houk, 65, of McCandless, who with seven other women are answering a call to be priests; the other four are candidates to be deacons.
It will be the fourth such ceremony in the world since 2002, all unrecognized by the Vatican. The women are part of a growing international movement to push for women's ordination.
The Women's Ordination Conference, based in Fairfax, Va., will announce today its support of the Pittsburgh ceremony, which will be held aboard the Gateway Clipper boat Majestic. Pittsburgh was selected because of its central location.
In a three-page letter dated May 9, Mrs. Houk, a member of St. Alexis in McCandless, advised Bishop Donald Wuerl of her plans. She has received no response. Mrs. Houk also sent a copy of the letter to all 360 priests in the diocese.
"It is a sin for the Church to discriminate against women and to blame God for it," Mrs. Houk wrote.
The Rev. Ronald Lengwin, spokesman for the Diocese of Pittsburgh, said the church "has determined that the ordination of males is a part of the faith handed down by Christ through his apostles and therefore the church is not free to change it. Ordination to the priesthood can only be conferred on a male."
The participants in the July 31 ceremony, Father Lengwin added, are ignoring church teaching. "I would say they have freely chosen to separate themselves from the church," he said.
Mrs. Houk is a cradle Catholic and mother of six. She has served as a pastoral director in two Kentucky parishes, worked on a marriage tribunal, taught catechism and the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults and worked with her husband, John, to prepare engaged couples for marriage.
"The church has to take a stand for women ... that they are the image of God and are to be respected and treated on an equal, human level. This is really why I have to do what I am doing," she said in a recent interview.
Presiding at the ceremony will be Patricia Fresen, Gisela Forster and Ida Raming, who live in Germany and are bishops in Roman Catholic Womenpriests, an international group of Catholics who support women's ordination.
The women claim they are part of the church's valid apostolic succession because Roman Catholic bishops in good standing ordained them secretly. The women refuse to name those bishops to protect them from reprisals by Vatican authorities in Rome.
Ms. Forster and Ms. Raming joined the "Danube Seven," a group of women ordained on the Danube River near Austria in August 2002.
In January 2003, all seven were excommunicated by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI. The women appealed but the decision was affirmed.
Ms. Fresen belonged to an order of Dominican nuns for 45 years. But she left her order in 2004 after she was ordained a priest in Barcelona, Spain, in a secret ceremony. Since 2004, she has lived in a small village outside of Munich, Germany.
In Roman Catholic tradition, priests and deacons are ordained in churches, but the Roman Catholic Womenpriests' previous ceremonies were held aboard boats, on the Danube in 2002 and on the St. Lawrence Seaway near the Canada coast in August 2005.
"To be honest, the main reason is that no Catholic priest or bishop is brave enough to give us a church," Ms. Fresen said about the ceremonies on water.
A boat is one of the earliest Christian symbols of the church. "Jesus ... taught from a boat. Some of the earliest disciples were fishermen," she added.
One of the outspoken disciples in the women's ordination movement is Ruth Steinert Foote, a board member of the Women's Ordination Conference.
In March, Ms. Foote brought Ms. Fresen from Germany to the United States for six speaking engagements in the Midwest.
"Everywhere that we went, she was received joyfully and loved. She is a wonderful, holy and grace-filled woman. Patricia Fresen is the person that will change hearts," Ms. Foote said.
In a recent telephone interview from her home, Ms. Fresen said her religious order's struggle against apartheid when she lived in South Africa taught her "a great deal about how to fight against gender discrimination. For me, they are parallel."
Ms. Foote, an active member of a Catholic parish in Cincinnati, is a medical technologist and married to an Episcopal priest.
"This movement is not just about the ordination of women. It is about making the Roman Catholic Church a just institution. If women are made in the image and likeness of God, they have the same potential to be called by God that men do," she said.
Christine Schenk, a member of the Sisters of Saint Joseph and executive director of Future Church, which attempts to effect change within the church, will not openly support the ceremony in Pittsburgh, she said.
Last year, she attended the International Synod on the Eucharist in Rome.
"We took 35,000 signatures to Rome to petition for the ordination of married men and opening the diaconate to women. There was, much to my surprise, a very vigorous discussion about a married priesthood."
Last summer, Ms. Schenk attended the Roman Catholic Womenpriest ordinations in Canada because a friend of hers was among the candidates.
"I thought, if she had been ordained in the Methodist church, I would have gone. I have had a number of women Catholic friends who complete their master's of divinity and then are ordained in other faiths."
The Roman Catholic Church, Ms. Schenk added, has changed more than most people realize.
"Taking interest on a loan -- that used to be the gravest of sins. It was OK to have slaves. Some bishops fought to keep slaves. Eventually, church teaching changed on that. 'The Mass will always be in Latin,' [Pope] Pius XII said. Six years later, it was in English."
By Marylynne Pitz, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
On July 31, a dozen well-educated, experienced Roman Catholic women will pass into uncharted spiritual waters on a boat cruising Pittsburgh's rivers.
On that afternoon, three women in vestments will lay their hands on the heads of the 12 women and anoint their hands with oil during an ordination ceremony that will be the first of its kind in the United States.
Among the participants is Joan Clark Houk, 65, of McCandless, who with seven other women are answering a call to be priests; the other four are candidates to be deacons.
It will be the fourth such ceremony in the world since 2002, all unrecognized by the Vatican. The women are part of a growing international movement to push for women's ordination.
The Women's Ordination Conference, based in Fairfax, Va., will announce today its support of the Pittsburgh ceremony, which will be held aboard the Gateway Clipper boat Majestic. Pittsburgh was selected because of its central location.
In a three-page letter dated May 9, Mrs. Houk, a member of St. Alexis in McCandless, advised Bishop Donald Wuerl of her plans. She has received no response. Mrs. Houk also sent a copy of the letter to all 360 priests in the diocese.
"It is a sin for the Church to discriminate against women and to blame God for it," Mrs. Houk wrote.
The Rev. Ronald Lengwin, spokesman for the Diocese of Pittsburgh, said the church "has determined that the ordination of males is a part of the faith handed down by Christ through his apostles and therefore the church is not free to change it. Ordination to the priesthood can only be conferred on a male."
The participants in the July 31 ceremony, Father Lengwin added, are ignoring church teaching. "I would say they have freely chosen to separate themselves from the church," he said.
Mrs. Houk is a cradle Catholic and mother of six. She has served as a pastoral director in two Kentucky parishes, worked on a marriage tribunal, taught catechism and the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults and worked with her husband, John, to prepare engaged couples for marriage.
"The church has to take a stand for women ... that they are the image of God and are to be respected and treated on an equal, human level. This is really why I have to do what I am doing," she said in a recent interview.
Presiding at the ceremony will be Patricia Fresen, Gisela Forster and Ida Raming, who live in Germany and are bishops in Roman Catholic Womenpriests, an international group of Catholics who support women's ordination.
The women claim they are part of the church's valid apostolic succession because Roman Catholic bishops in good standing ordained them secretly. The women refuse to name those bishops to protect them from reprisals by Vatican authorities in Rome.
Ms. Forster and Ms. Raming joined the "Danube Seven," a group of women ordained on the Danube River near Austria in August 2002.
In January 2003, all seven were excommunicated by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI. The women appealed but the decision was affirmed.
Ms. Fresen belonged to an order of Dominican nuns for 45 years. But she left her order in 2004 after she was ordained a priest in Barcelona, Spain, in a secret ceremony. Since 2004, she has lived in a small village outside of Munich, Germany.
In Roman Catholic tradition, priests and deacons are ordained in churches, but the Roman Catholic Womenpriests' previous ceremonies were held aboard boats, on the Danube in 2002 and on the St. Lawrence Seaway near the Canada coast in August 2005.
"To be honest, the main reason is that no Catholic priest or bishop is brave enough to give us a church," Ms. Fresen said about the ceremonies on water.
A boat is one of the earliest Christian symbols of the church. "Jesus ... taught from a boat. Some of the earliest disciples were fishermen," she added.
One of the outspoken disciples in the women's ordination movement is Ruth Steinert Foote, a board member of the Women's Ordination Conference.
In March, Ms. Foote brought Ms. Fresen from Germany to the United States for six speaking engagements in the Midwest.
"Everywhere that we went, she was received joyfully and loved. She is a wonderful, holy and grace-filled woman. Patricia Fresen is the person that will change hearts," Ms. Foote said.
In a recent telephone interview from her home, Ms. Fresen said her religious order's struggle against apartheid when she lived in South Africa taught her "a great deal about how to fight against gender discrimination. For me, they are parallel."
Ms. Foote, an active member of a Catholic parish in Cincinnati, is a medical technologist and married to an Episcopal priest.
"This movement is not just about the ordination of women. It is about making the Roman Catholic Church a just institution. If women are made in the image and likeness of God, they have the same potential to be called by God that men do," she said.
Christine Schenk, a member of the Sisters of Saint Joseph and executive director of Future Church, which attempts to effect change within the church, will not openly support the ceremony in Pittsburgh, she said.
Last year, she attended the International Synod on the Eucharist in Rome.
"We took 35,000 signatures to Rome to petition for the ordination of married men and opening the diaconate to women. There was, much to my surprise, a very vigorous discussion about a married priesthood."
Last summer, Ms. Schenk attended the Roman Catholic Womenpriest ordinations in Canada because a friend of hers was among the candidates.
"I thought, if she had been ordained in the Methodist church, I would have gone. I have had a number of women Catholic friends who complete their master's of divinity and then are ordained in other faiths."
The Roman Catholic Church, Ms. Schenk added, has changed more than most people realize.
"Taking interest on a loan -- that used to be the gravest of sins. It was OK to have slaves. Some bishops fought to keep slaves. Eventually, church teaching changed on that. 'The Mass will always be in Latin,' [Pope] Pius XII said. Six years later, it was in English."
Wednesday, June 07, 2006
Dreams for the church
With 50 years as a priest behind him, retired Diocese of Austin bishop envisions Roman Catholicism for the future.
By Eileen E. Flynn AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF Monday, June 05, 2006
Bishop John McCarthy writes everything down on neatly organized pieces of scrap paper: household tasks, phone messages and, on a recent morning, a list of his dreams for the Roman Catholic Church.
McCarthy is conscious of his life passing — at age 75, the days are precious — and of the possibilities he imagines for the institution to which he has given his life.
He's promoting reform in an institution famous for its resistance to change, taking public stands on controversial issues such as celibacy and divorce that have put him at odds, privately, with the Catholic hierarchy over the years.
He's known by friends and admirers, hundreds of whom helped him celebrate his 50th anniversary as a priest at a special Mass in Houston on Sunday, as a champion for the oppressed and a man unafraid to challenge authority.
But McCarthy, who led the Diocese of Austin from 1986 to 2001, believes he's merely offering loving criticisms, not throwing grenades from the safety of retirement.
A hopefulness lights his blue eyes when he talks about the church's worldwide growth, but there's worry on his face, too.
Because of the priest shortage and church law on marriage, McCarthy says, millions aren't receiving the Eucharist, the communion wafer that Catholics believe literally becomes the body of Christ during Mass.
He would like to see the church reconsider its rules on priestly celibacy and the denial of communion to Catholics who have divorced and remarried. He envisions bishops becoming more accountable to lay people and establishing a vehicle for change through more frequent gatherings of Catholic leaders worldwide (much like the historic second Vatican council in the 1960s but on a smaller scale).
"Our goal ought to be a better world, a better world for Roman Catholics, a better world for Muslims, a better world for everybody," he said. "That's a tremendous challenge before us."
Six years into his retirement, McCarthy has eased into a quieter existence. He moves slowly, often feels tired and spends his days "reading, writing and telephoning" at his diocese-owned house, an airy Spanish-style mansion in Northwest Austin.
A simple coffin he bought years ago serves as a bookcase for his volumes of Irish folklore and literature, standing against a wall near the back door, useful even before its final purpose.
"You're going to die," he says. "You might as well be ready."
He approaches the decline of priests and the changing face of the church with a similar pragmatism.
In the past four decades, the number of priests serving in the United States has dropped from about 58,600 to about 43,300, while the American Catholic population has risen from 45.6 million to 64.3 million, according to church reports.
Before his retirement, McCarthy wrote letters to the Vatican and to his fellow U. S. and Texas bishops, urging them to confront what he saw as a looming crisis and to consider a possible solution: optional celibacy. These days, he wants to share his ideas with a broader audience.
McCarthy doesn't have a specific plan in mind, but he makes clear that he doesn't want to scrap the centuries-old tradition of priests abstaining from marriage and sexual intimacy.
Celibacy "has been a terrific gift in the life of the church for the last thousand years," said McCarthy, adding pointedly, "It was not dominant for the first thousand years."
In the 1980s, the church began making exceptions to the celibacy rule by allowing married Protestant ministers who have converted to Catholicism to serve as priests, but it has otherwise reaffirmed its stance on mandatory celibacy.
The lack of priests has left some parishes without a resident pastor and forced many to close or merge. The U. S. church frequently turns to foreign priests to meet its needs.
The most devastating consequence, McCarthy says, is that there are people who do not have access to the Eucharist because there are no priests to consecrate the wafer and wine.
"The priesthood and the Eucharist in the Catholic Church cannot be separated," he said, "and we cannot bring the Eucharist to people without priests. The present system of utilizing the priesthood has got to be examined."
But McCarthy has had little luck convincing church leaders. Fellow bishops and Vatican officials either ignored his letters or responded politely but did not pursue his suggestions.
Louise Haggett, founder and president of rentapriest. com, an organization that supports men who have left the priesthood to marry, says many bishops are afraid to challenge the rules. McCarthy, she says, is a rare example of someone "willing to make public his views on the rejuvenation of the church."
Friends say McCarthy has always spoken his mind while remaining, as longtime friend Pat Hayes says, "right down to his toes, a man of the church."
"His desire that in the church there's an open dialogue about things is rooted in a deep love for the church and faithfulness to the church," said Hayes, executive vice president and chief operating officer of Seton Healthcare Network and past president of St. Edward's University, a Catholic college in South Austin.
McCarthy, a native Houstonian, began his career in Pasadena, a blue-collar industrial town south of Houston. He served at several churches and began a steady ascent through the ranks, working for national church bodies in Washington and leading the Texas Catholic Conference in Austin.
All the while, says Patrick Flood, a former priest and Austin interfaith leader, McCarthy used his sharp tongue against the establishment.
When McCarthy was appointed head of the bishops' committee for Spanish-speaking Catholics, which was staffed by Anglos, he made sure his successor was Hispanic. In the 1960s and 1970s, he served the national church on social action issues, lobbying the government on open housing and voter rights.
Flood and McCarthy helped found the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, a national church organization that provides millions of dollars in grants to grass-roots organizations serving poor communities.
In those tumultuous days, when social activism was a key component to church life, priests longed to offer a prophetic voice, and McCarthy fit that bill, Flood says.
When he became bishop of Austin, McCarthy met other challenges. The largely rural, 25-county diocese was poised for rapid growth. During his tenure, the Catholic population more than doubled.
McCarthy spent hours covering the diocese's 22,000 square miles, guiding some 200 priests and interacting with a diverse flock that included new Vietnamese immigrants and fifth-generation Anglo Texans.
Because the bishop's office wields so much power, he says, he could solve the problems he had time to address. As bishop, he said, "it was easier to make decisions."
But not all decisions were easy.
McCarthy took heat from the Vatican for allowing Brackenridge Hospital, run by Seton, to perform tubal ligations, which conflicts with church law on birth control. He also carried out the unpleasant task of asking Rome to defrock an abusive priest in 1987.
McCarthy says his approach in that case reflects his general philosophy on handling a problem: "Deal with it aggressively and as forcefully as you can immediately."
He says bishops could have stemmed the sexual abuse crisis by taking that attitude and trusting lay people with the truth instead of covering up the scandal, a lesson on accountability and transparency he hopes the church will heed.
Bishop Gregory Aymond generally avoids addressing McCarthy's views, but he speaks warmly of his predecessor. "We thank him for saying yes to God not only on the day of his ordination but for every day of 50 years," Aymond said.
Since his retirement, McCarthy has repeatedly said that the diocese needs only one bishop and has remained in the background. But as he scans his list of dreams scrawled on scrap paper, McCarthy says he's still moved by the needs of Catholics, including those alienated from the church because of divorce.
Millions can't receive the Eucharist because church policy bans Catholics who have divorced and remarried from taking communion, he says. He quickly adds that he doesn't want the church to turn a blind eye to "flippant" marriages and divorces or to alter its theology, which states that marriage is indissoluble unless deemed invalid by the church and that those who divorce and remarry commit adultery.
"But when the situation goes by for years and people who are believing Catholics who believe that the Eucharist contains the reality of Jesus' presence in their lives, to tell them they can't (receive communion) because of a terrible mistake they made 18 years ago," he said, "no, I don't hold it."
McCarthy knows how difficult it is to change a 2,000-year-old institution. "Substantial change will only occur when and if our holy father decides that substantial change is necessary," he said of the pope.
Convening councils of bishops worldwide every 10 years might provide a "comfortable, manageable vehicle" for reforms, McCarthy says.
The last such council, known as Vatican II, was in the 1960s. It lasted four years and resulted in major reforms, including accepting the validity of other Christian faiths and dropping the requirement for Mass to be celebrated in Latin.
McCarthy may not live to see the next major reforms of the church, but "the last of the progressive bishops," as Flood called him, is not discouraged.
He has faith that, given time, the church will make the reforms necessary to be "a servant to the world."
"I may be naive," he said, "but I think that we're moving into a time where we're beginning to see that."
eflynn@statesman.com; 445-3812
By Eileen E. Flynn AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF Monday, June 05, 2006
Bishop John McCarthy writes everything down on neatly organized pieces of scrap paper: household tasks, phone messages and, on a recent morning, a list of his dreams for the Roman Catholic Church.
McCarthy is conscious of his life passing — at age 75, the days are precious — and of the possibilities he imagines for the institution to which he has given his life.
He's promoting reform in an institution famous for its resistance to change, taking public stands on controversial issues such as celibacy and divorce that have put him at odds, privately, with the Catholic hierarchy over the years.
He's known by friends and admirers, hundreds of whom helped him celebrate his 50th anniversary as a priest at a special Mass in Houston on Sunday, as a champion for the oppressed and a man unafraid to challenge authority.
But McCarthy, who led the Diocese of Austin from 1986 to 2001, believes he's merely offering loving criticisms, not throwing grenades from the safety of retirement.
A hopefulness lights his blue eyes when he talks about the church's worldwide growth, but there's worry on his face, too.
Because of the priest shortage and church law on marriage, McCarthy says, millions aren't receiving the Eucharist, the communion wafer that Catholics believe literally becomes the body of Christ during Mass.
He would like to see the church reconsider its rules on priestly celibacy and the denial of communion to Catholics who have divorced and remarried. He envisions bishops becoming more accountable to lay people and establishing a vehicle for change through more frequent gatherings of Catholic leaders worldwide (much like the historic second Vatican council in the 1960s but on a smaller scale).
"Our goal ought to be a better world, a better world for Roman Catholics, a better world for Muslims, a better world for everybody," he said. "That's a tremendous challenge before us."
Six years into his retirement, McCarthy has eased into a quieter existence. He moves slowly, often feels tired and spends his days "reading, writing and telephoning" at his diocese-owned house, an airy Spanish-style mansion in Northwest Austin.
A simple coffin he bought years ago serves as a bookcase for his volumes of Irish folklore and literature, standing against a wall near the back door, useful even before its final purpose.
"You're going to die," he says. "You might as well be ready."
He approaches the decline of priests and the changing face of the church with a similar pragmatism.
In the past four decades, the number of priests serving in the United States has dropped from about 58,600 to about 43,300, while the American Catholic population has risen from 45.6 million to 64.3 million, according to church reports.
Before his retirement, McCarthy wrote letters to the Vatican and to his fellow U. S. and Texas bishops, urging them to confront what he saw as a looming crisis and to consider a possible solution: optional celibacy. These days, he wants to share his ideas with a broader audience.
McCarthy doesn't have a specific plan in mind, but he makes clear that he doesn't want to scrap the centuries-old tradition of priests abstaining from marriage and sexual intimacy.
Celibacy "has been a terrific gift in the life of the church for the last thousand years," said McCarthy, adding pointedly, "It was not dominant for the first thousand years."
In the 1980s, the church began making exceptions to the celibacy rule by allowing married Protestant ministers who have converted to Catholicism to serve as priests, but it has otherwise reaffirmed its stance on mandatory celibacy.
The lack of priests has left some parishes without a resident pastor and forced many to close or merge. The U. S. church frequently turns to foreign priests to meet its needs.
The most devastating consequence, McCarthy says, is that there are people who do not have access to the Eucharist because there are no priests to consecrate the wafer and wine.
"The priesthood and the Eucharist in the Catholic Church cannot be separated," he said, "and we cannot bring the Eucharist to people without priests. The present system of utilizing the priesthood has got to be examined."
But McCarthy has had little luck convincing church leaders. Fellow bishops and Vatican officials either ignored his letters or responded politely but did not pursue his suggestions.
Louise Haggett, founder and president of rentapriest. com, an organization that supports men who have left the priesthood to marry, says many bishops are afraid to challenge the rules. McCarthy, she says, is a rare example of someone "willing to make public his views on the rejuvenation of the church."
Friends say McCarthy has always spoken his mind while remaining, as longtime friend Pat Hayes says, "right down to his toes, a man of the church."
"His desire that in the church there's an open dialogue about things is rooted in a deep love for the church and faithfulness to the church," said Hayes, executive vice president and chief operating officer of Seton Healthcare Network and past president of St. Edward's University, a Catholic college in South Austin.
McCarthy, a native Houstonian, began his career in Pasadena, a blue-collar industrial town south of Houston. He served at several churches and began a steady ascent through the ranks, working for national church bodies in Washington and leading the Texas Catholic Conference in Austin.
All the while, says Patrick Flood, a former priest and Austin interfaith leader, McCarthy used his sharp tongue against the establishment.
When McCarthy was appointed head of the bishops' committee for Spanish-speaking Catholics, which was staffed by Anglos, he made sure his successor was Hispanic. In the 1960s and 1970s, he served the national church on social action issues, lobbying the government on open housing and voter rights.
Flood and McCarthy helped found the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, a national church organization that provides millions of dollars in grants to grass-roots organizations serving poor communities.
In those tumultuous days, when social activism was a key component to church life, priests longed to offer a prophetic voice, and McCarthy fit that bill, Flood says.
When he became bishop of Austin, McCarthy met other challenges. The largely rural, 25-county diocese was poised for rapid growth. During his tenure, the Catholic population more than doubled.
McCarthy spent hours covering the diocese's 22,000 square miles, guiding some 200 priests and interacting with a diverse flock that included new Vietnamese immigrants and fifth-generation Anglo Texans.
Because the bishop's office wields so much power, he says, he could solve the problems he had time to address. As bishop, he said, "it was easier to make decisions."
But not all decisions were easy.
McCarthy took heat from the Vatican for allowing Brackenridge Hospital, run by Seton, to perform tubal ligations, which conflicts with church law on birth control. He also carried out the unpleasant task of asking Rome to defrock an abusive priest in 1987.
McCarthy says his approach in that case reflects his general philosophy on handling a problem: "Deal with it aggressively and as forcefully as you can immediately."
He says bishops could have stemmed the sexual abuse crisis by taking that attitude and trusting lay people with the truth instead of covering up the scandal, a lesson on accountability and transparency he hopes the church will heed.
Bishop Gregory Aymond generally avoids addressing McCarthy's views, but he speaks warmly of his predecessor. "We thank him for saying yes to God not only on the day of his ordination but for every day of 50 years," Aymond said.
Since his retirement, McCarthy has repeatedly said that the diocese needs only one bishop and has remained in the background. But as he scans his list of dreams scrawled on scrap paper, McCarthy says he's still moved by the needs of Catholics, including those alienated from the church because of divorce.
Millions can't receive the Eucharist because church policy bans Catholics who have divorced and remarried from taking communion, he says. He quickly adds that he doesn't want the church to turn a blind eye to "flippant" marriages and divorces or to alter its theology, which states that marriage is indissoluble unless deemed invalid by the church and that those who divorce and remarry commit adultery.
"But when the situation goes by for years and people who are believing Catholics who believe that the Eucharist contains the reality of Jesus' presence in their lives, to tell them they can't (receive communion) because of a terrible mistake they made 18 years ago," he said, "no, I don't hold it."
McCarthy knows how difficult it is to change a 2,000-year-old institution. "Substantial change will only occur when and if our holy father decides that substantial change is necessary," he said of the pope.
Convening councils of bishops worldwide every 10 years might provide a "comfortable, manageable vehicle" for reforms, McCarthy says.
The last such council, known as Vatican II, was in the 1960s. It lasted four years and resulted in major reforms, including accepting the validity of other Christian faiths and dropping the requirement for Mass to be celebrated in Latin.
McCarthy may not live to see the next major reforms of the church, but "the last of the progressive bishops," as Flood called him, is not discouraged.
He has faith that, given time, the church will make the reforms necessary to be "a servant to the world."
"I may be naive," he said, "but I think that we're moving into a time where we're beginning to see that."
eflynn@statesman.com; 445-3812
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
Going to Church by Staying at Home
Clergy-Less Living Room Services Seen as a Growing Trend
By Michael Alison Chandler and Arianne Aryanpur
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, June 4, 2006; A12
After Sunday dinner at Joe Rodgers's Rockville home, guests adjourn to the living room for church.
In his makeshift chapel, wooden kitchen stools and a floral print couch act as pews, a portable keyboard substitutes for an organ and the host, an electronics technician by day, serves as pastor.
But just as there is no formal name or dress code for this church, there is no sermon or pastor-led prayer. When it came time to bow their heads on a recent May evening, each of the 10 adults in attendance had something to contribute: One man prayed for success with his new fitness program; another sought guidance as he prepared for his upcoming marriage.
The worshipers have different faith backgrounds, including evangelical, Episcopalian and Catholic. What they share is a dissatisfaction with traditional church services.
"You can't ask questions in most churches. You might make an appointment with the pastor, get in his daybook for a quick lunch," said Rodgers, 50.
A growing number of Christians across Washington and around the country are moving to home churches -- both as a way to create personal connections in the age of the megachurch and as a return to the blueprint of the Christian church spelled out in the New Testament, which describes Jesus and the apostles teaching small groups in people's homes.
Estimates vary widely for a movement that is by design informal and decentralized, but the consensus among home-churchers is that they are part of a growing trend.
George Barna, a religion pollster, estimates that since 2000, more than 20 million Americans have begun exploring alternative forms of worship, including home churches, workplace ministries and online faith communities. Barna based that figure on surveys of the religious practices and attitudes of American adults that he has conducted over the past 25 years.
"These are people who are less interested in attending church than in being the church," said Barna, who became a home-churcher last year. The alternatives are attractive to those who want to deepen their relationships with God and one another, and they also suit Americans' growing taste for flexibility and control of their schedules, he said.
Although many Christians still participate in their old churches while trying out a new one, Barna predicts that over the next two decades, traditional churches will lose half their "market share" to these alternative start-ups.
His estimates far exceed the best guesses of home-church networks. The Orlando-based Dawn Ministries places the number of home churches in the United States in the tens of thousands, based partly on the size of online directories and attendance at home-church conferences.
Home churches are usually nondenominational and consist of a dozen or so friends or family members who often meet without an ordained pastor.
They have historically proliferated in countries with repressive regimes. In China, millions of people have converted to Christianity in unauthorized home churches over the past half-century. But the United States has seen only intermittent swells of activity.
The free-form style of fellowship got a boost in this country during the 1960s and 1970s with the hippie Jesus Movement and the Charismatic Renewal, a worldwide movement best known for embracing speaking in tongues and other emotional expressions of faith. Those movements downplayed hierarchy and emphasized broad participation.
The more recent rise of home churches has been facilitated by the Internet, said John White, a Denver-based coordinator for Dawn Ministries, one of several organizations that helps plant new home churches.
White said that when he tired of the "endless" church administration meetings and quit his job as a Presbyterian minister to start a home church eight years ago, it was difficult to find anyone to join. Now he has an e-mail list of more than 800 people nationwide who receive his postings about practical issues of home churching -- addressing such matters as how to organize child-friendly services, how to handle tithing, and what to do if the church gets too big.
With more access to religious information online, people are realizing that they don't have to rely on a pastor with an advanced degree to lead them, White said. Instead, they can learn how to create an alternative in a few steps. The result is an overall "flattening of the church," White said.
This is in keeping with God's plan to have a "kingdom of priests" in which everyone participates in his or her religious life, he said.
With next to no overhead, home churches are easy to set up. Dawn Ministries has been sending missionaries, or "coaches," to establish home churches around the world since 1985 and now has about 2,000 volunteers working in about 150 countries.
The model has been less successful in the United States -- until recently. Responding to the growing interest in home churches, over the past year the organization has increased the number of coaches working in North America from about five to 70, mostly in the Midwest, California, Texas and Colorado.
Critics of the home-church movement warn that, by meeting only in small groups with lay leaders, Christians could become disconnected and stray from orthodox beliefs.
"We human beings are prone to error; we need each other," said Scott Kisker, an associate professor of evangelism at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington. He said that even the early home-based churches were connected through the apostles and that "many books of the New Testament are letters from the apostles calling churches to more faithful doctrine."
But Kisker said that a growing home-church movement could be good for traditional churches by encouraging them to foster small breakout groups, something he agreed is necessary for people to feel connected.
Many traditional churches do have midweek Bible study groups or cell churches. For some, these can be a first taste of home church, said Greg Windsor, a real estate developer and a member of the Rockville congregation that meets in Rodgers's home.
Windsor, 48, became interested in home churching almost 10 years ago while he was attending a megachurch in Montgomery County.
"The person sitting next to you in the pew could be close to dying, but people don't really know one another," he said. By abandoning the steeple, the pastor and the crowds of people, Windsor said, his tiny congregation is trying to live according to the New Testament.
"A lot of embellishments happened over the centuries," Windsor said. The modern Christian church is "like a photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy," he said. "It starts getting distorted and changed."
Windsor and his wife started reading about home churches and broke off from a bigger church to meet with a group in northern Maryland. After several years, that group grew too large -- about 30 people -- and the couple broke off again, starting the home church in Rockville.
Stripped to its most basic elements, he said, his group can focus on developing "deep friendships" and "helping one another grow spiritually."
The service changes from week to week, depending on what members are going through or thinking about; they might organize a Bible study or discussion around managing their finances or overcoming depression.
On a recent Sunday, they watched a film by Focus on the Family that chronicles the lives of early Christians and their attempts to convert the Greeks. Afterward, they talked about how those experiences compare with challenges in spreading the faith today.
They sang hymns and put money into a small cardboard box, to be donated to homeless programs and victims of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. As the Communion bread and wine were passed around the circle, music played while others swayed and whispered "Oh God" and "Merciful God."
By about 9 p.m., it was time to go home. But Windsor said church does not end when the service is over. Members might meet several times during the week, and church can continue over coffee at Starbucks or during a biblical discussion at a family barbecue.
For them, church is not tied to a building or confined to a couple hours a week, he said. "It's a way of life."
By Michael Alison Chandler and Arianne Aryanpur
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, June 4, 2006; A12
After Sunday dinner at Joe Rodgers's Rockville home, guests adjourn to the living room for church.
In his makeshift chapel, wooden kitchen stools and a floral print couch act as pews, a portable keyboard substitutes for an organ and the host, an electronics technician by day, serves as pastor.
But just as there is no formal name or dress code for this church, there is no sermon or pastor-led prayer. When it came time to bow their heads on a recent May evening, each of the 10 adults in attendance had something to contribute: One man prayed for success with his new fitness program; another sought guidance as he prepared for his upcoming marriage.
The worshipers have different faith backgrounds, including evangelical, Episcopalian and Catholic. What they share is a dissatisfaction with traditional church services.
"You can't ask questions in most churches. You might make an appointment with the pastor, get in his daybook for a quick lunch," said Rodgers, 50.
A growing number of Christians across Washington and around the country are moving to home churches -- both as a way to create personal connections in the age of the megachurch and as a return to the blueprint of the Christian church spelled out in the New Testament, which describes Jesus and the apostles teaching small groups in people's homes.
Estimates vary widely for a movement that is by design informal and decentralized, but the consensus among home-churchers is that they are part of a growing trend.
George Barna, a religion pollster, estimates that since 2000, more than 20 million Americans have begun exploring alternative forms of worship, including home churches, workplace ministries and online faith communities. Barna based that figure on surveys of the religious practices and attitudes of American adults that he has conducted over the past 25 years.
"These are people who are less interested in attending church than in being the church," said Barna, who became a home-churcher last year. The alternatives are attractive to those who want to deepen their relationships with God and one another, and they also suit Americans' growing taste for flexibility and control of their schedules, he said.
Although many Christians still participate in their old churches while trying out a new one, Barna predicts that over the next two decades, traditional churches will lose half their "market share" to these alternative start-ups.
His estimates far exceed the best guesses of home-church networks. The Orlando-based Dawn Ministries places the number of home churches in the United States in the tens of thousands, based partly on the size of online directories and attendance at home-church conferences.
Home churches are usually nondenominational and consist of a dozen or so friends or family members who often meet without an ordained pastor.
They have historically proliferated in countries with repressive regimes. In China, millions of people have converted to Christianity in unauthorized home churches over the past half-century. But the United States has seen only intermittent swells of activity.
The free-form style of fellowship got a boost in this country during the 1960s and 1970s with the hippie Jesus Movement and the Charismatic Renewal, a worldwide movement best known for embracing speaking in tongues and other emotional expressions of faith. Those movements downplayed hierarchy and emphasized broad participation.
The more recent rise of home churches has been facilitated by the Internet, said John White, a Denver-based coordinator for Dawn Ministries, one of several organizations that helps plant new home churches.
White said that when he tired of the "endless" church administration meetings and quit his job as a Presbyterian minister to start a home church eight years ago, it was difficult to find anyone to join. Now he has an e-mail list of more than 800 people nationwide who receive his postings about practical issues of home churching -- addressing such matters as how to organize child-friendly services, how to handle tithing, and what to do if the church gets too big.
With more access to religious information online, people are realizing that they don't have to rely on a pastor with an advanced degree to lead them, White said. Instead, they can learn how to create an alternative in a few steps. The result is an overall "flattening of the church," White said.
This is in keeping with God's plan to have a "kingdom of priests" in which everyone participates in his or her religious life, he said.
With next to no overhead, home churches are easy to set up. Dawn Ministries has been sending missionaries, or "coaches," to establish home churches around the world since 1985 and now has about 2,000 volunteers working in about 150 countries.
The model has been less successful in the United States -- until recently. Responding to the growing interest in home churches, over the past year the organization has increased the number of coaches working in North America from about five to 70, mostly in the Midwest, California, Texas and Colorado.
Critics of the home-church movement warn that, by meeting only in small groups with lay leaders, Christians could become disconnected and stray from orthodox beliefs.
"We human beings are prone to error; we need each other," said Scott Kisker, an associate professor of evangelism at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington. He said that even the early home-based churches were connected through the apostles and that "many books of the New Testament are letters from the apostles calling churches to more faithful doctrine."
But Kisker said that a growing home-church movement could be good for traditional churches by encouraging them to foster small breakout groups, something he agreed is necessary for people to feel connected.
Many traditional churches do have midweek Bible study groups or cell churches. For some, these can be a first taste of home church, said Greg Windsor, a real estate developer and a member of the Rockville congregation that meets in Rodgers's home.
Windsor, 48, became interested in home churching almost 10 years ago while he was attending a megachurch in Montgomery County.
"The person sitting next to you in the pew could be close to dying, but people don't really know one another," he said. By abandoning the steeple, the pastor and the crowds of people, Windsor said, his tiny congregation is trying to live according to the New Testament.
"A lot of embellishments happened over the centuries," Windsor said. The modern Christian church is "like a photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy," he said. "It starts getting distorted and changed."
Windsor and his wife started reading about home churches and broke off from a bigger church to meet with a group in northern Maryland. After several years, that group grew too large -- about 30 people -- and the couple broke off again, starting the home church in Rockville.
Stripped to its most basic elements, he said, his group can focus on developing "deep friendships" and "helping one another grow spiritually."
The service changes from week to week, depending on what members are going through or thinking about; they might organize a Bible study or discussion around managing their finances or overcoming depression.
On a recent Sunday, they watched a film by Focus on the Family that chronicles the lives of early Christians and their attempts to convert the Greeks. Afterward, they talked about how those experiences compare with challenges in spreading the faith today.
They sang hymns and put money into a small cardboard box, to be donated to homeless programs and victims of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. As the Communion bread and wine were passed around the circle, music played while others swayed and whispered "Oh God" and "Merciful God."
By about 9 p.m., it was time to go home. But Windsor said church does not end when the service is over. Members might meet several times during the week, and church can continue over coffee at Starbucks or during a biblical discussion at a family barbecue.
For them, church is not tied to a building or confined to a couple hours a week, he said. "It's a way of life."
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
Netherlands outreach to the disenfranchised Christian
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
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
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
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