Catholic activists mark end of an era

By Margaret Ramirez
Chicago Tribune
May 31, 2008

In the late 1970s, with memories of Vietnam still raw and the Cold War raging, hundreds of activists rallied in peace and justice movements, pressing the government for change.

Here in Chicago, a former priest and a former nun saw a chance for similar activism within the Roman Catholic Church. In 1976, Dan and Sheila Daley launched Call To Action, a group of Catholics seeking to act out God's vision in society and hold leaders accountable.

Bold and controversial from the start, Call To Action made history as the first lay group to publicly question the church's prohibitions on birth control, women's ordination, homosexuality and celibacy for priests. Its actions paved the way for other reform groups, including Voice of the Faithful and the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.

Along the way, many church leaders branded the group's members as dissidents and rebels, with one conservative bishop punishing Nebraska members with excommunication.

Now the group's founders have announced they will retire this fall as co-executive directors of Call To Action after 32 years. Though a horrific 2006 collision that permanently injured Sheila Daley was a factor in the decision, the married couple, both 65, say the time is right to pass the movement to younger Catholics.

"It's younger people who are going to have to put the flesh on a new way of being 'church' in today's world," Sheila Daley said in the group's Roscoe Village offices. "And I don't think it just means changing the institution. I think it's how you live your life today."

The question is whether the next generation will take up the call. Many of the Catholic priests and laypeople who pushed for more far-reaching change after the Second Vatican Council are now 60 or older. In addition, church activists see the papacies of Pope John Paul II and his successor, Pope Benedict XVI, as bringing church reform to a near-standstill. Because of that, some observers think the couple's exit may signal the end of an era.

"What we're seeing today with Catholics under 40 is, frankly, the reason they're not joining groups like Call To Action is not because they agree with the bishops. It's because they don't care," said Rev. Thomas Reese, senior fellow at Georgetown University's Woodstock Theological Center.

"Younger people are simply leaving the church, rather than stay and try to reform it."

Call To Action's efforts did not bring about changes in church teaching but did help change attitudes, said Terrence Tilley, theology professor at Fordham University in New York.

Several polls have shown that many American Catholics agree with the group's liberal positions.

"We live in a post-progressive church where many of the progressive goals have been met not by the church, but by the attitudes of American Catholics," Tilley said. "If they are young, many of them are perfectly happy to have married priests and to have women ordained. . . . The bishops' positions are very clear, but they are generally ignored, especially those having to do with contraception."

In the next era, church activism will probably take a different shape and adopt a different agenda, he said.

With a national search under way for a new leader of Call To Action, the group's younger members—known as Next Generation or "NextGen"—already have begun to shape the future of reform.

Nicole Sotelo, 30, Call to Action's program coordinator, said NextGen members recently created a group on Facebook, the popular Internet meeting place. In May, they also launched a blog for young Catholics at youngadultcatholics-blog.com.

"I think many young Catholics have not found the church to be a welcoming place, and they have left. So we're trying to reach them," she said.

Sotelo said future battles for Call To Action will focus on monitoring sexual abuse reforms, fighting racism in the church and protecting the environment, which is the theme for this year's convention, to be held Nov. 7-9 in Milwaukee.

The idea for Call To Action originated in a 1976 bishops conference in Detroit that sought to determine the mind of the church on various issues. The bishops discussed several propositions, yet ultimately reiterated their authority.

When Cardinal John Dearden of Detroit closed the conference and told participants to implement the ideas at home, the Chicago contingent took him seriously and formed Call To Action.

"It wasn't just us," Sheila Daley said. "It was a lot of people like us who were trying to figure out: How do you live out your Christian commitment in this contemporary world? We had tried traditional religious life as options and found those didn't function for us. So this was really a way of trying to search out a new model."

Call To Action members started their work locally, forming a performing arts ministry and organizing an annual conference that would become the largest progressive Catholic gathering in the country. The group shifted gears and expanded nationally after the Vatican, under Pope John Paul II, began disciplining theologians who strayed from church teaching.

By 2002, Call To Action had become well-known in Catholic circles for its activism, which some admired and others abhorred. Their movement gained credibility when the sexual abuse scandal exploded on the scene and exposed cover-ups by church leaders, and church observers said Call To Action provided fertile soil for other reform groups to grow.

Today, the group includes 25,000 members in the U.S. and Canada.

But if you ask what the founders believe has been their greatest accomplishment, Sheila Daley said it is creating a place for progressive Catholics to find community.

"I think we have been a very significant support to people who are trying to live out this kind of vision of their Christianity and Catholicism and have felt isolated and alone," she said. "Through us, they have found other people that they can gather with who have that similar vision. That's almost the most important thing."

Excommunication?: The Women Respond

Women's Ordination Conference Statement on Vatican Decree of Immediate Excommunication of Ordained Women

Aisha Taylor, executive director of the Women's Ordination Conference, issued the following statement about the Vatican's decree that ordained Roman Catholic women and the bishops who ordained them incur latae sententiae excommunication, which means excommunication that is immediate and self-imposed.

The Women's Ordination Conference is outraged by yesterday’s Vatican decree, which reminds Catholic women once again of the animosity they face from the hierarchy, despite being the backbone of most Catholic parishes throughout the world.

Out of fear of the growing numbers of ordained women and the overwhelming support they are receiving, the Vatican is trying to preserve what little power they have left by attempting to extinguish the widespread call for women’s equality in the church. It will not work. In the face of one closed door after another, Catholic women will continue to make a way when there is none.

We reject the notion of excommunication. In our efforts to ordain women into an inclusive and accountable Roman Catholic Church, we see it as contrary to the gospel itself to excommunicate people who are doing good works and responding to injustice and the needs of their communities. While the hierarchy prattles on about excommunication, Catholic women are working for justice and making a positive difference in the world.

This inappropriate use of excommunication and the Vatican’s stance on ordination are based on arguments that have been refuted time and again. In 1976, the Vatican’s own Pontifical Biblical Commission determined that there is no scriptural reason to prohibit women’s ordination. Jesus included women as full and equal partners in his ministry, and so should the hierarchy.

The call for women’s equality in the Catholic Church is reverberating loudly in the public consciousness. Around the world, over sixty women have been ordained as priests, deacons or bishops by the group called Roman Catholic Womenpriests (RCWP), and there are nearly 100 women in the RCWP preparation program. There are 16 national organizations from 11 different countries that advocate women’s ordination, and the vast majority of US Catholics support the ordination of women.

The refusal to ordain women is nothing more than an egregious manifestation of sexism in the church. It is time for the Vatican to listen to its own research, its own theologians and its own people who say that women are equally created in the image of God and are called to serve as priests in a renewed and inclusive Catholic Church.

Roman Catholic Womenpriests’ Response to Vatican Decree of Excommunication

Roman Catholic Womenpriests reject the penalty of excommunication issued by the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith stating that the “women priests and the bishops who ordain them would be excommunicated latae sententiae.” Roman Catholic Womenpriests are loyal members of the church who stand in the prophetic tradition of holy disobedience to an unjust law that discriminates against women.

We hold up heroic women in the church’s tradition like Hildegard of Bingen, Joan of Arc and St. Theodore Guerin who obeyed God, followed their consciences and withstood hierarchical oppression including interdict, excommunication and death.

In obedience to Jesus, we are disobeying an unjust law. The Catholic Church teaches that a teaching or law of the church is authoritative only if it is “received” by the sensus fidelium, the community of faith. If the community of faith does not accept the law, it has no effect on us. All people have a moral obligation to disobey an unjust law. St. Augustine taught that an unjust law is no law at all. Since 70% of U.S. Catholics favor women’s ordination and a growing majority of Catholics worldwide also favors women’s ordination, we do not “receive” or accept the Church's prohibition against the ordination of women and the church’s continued reliance on sexist metaphors, beliefs and assumptions for denying ordination to women.

Pope Benedict XVI, written when he was Cardinal Ratzinger, in the commentary section of the Doctrine of Vatican II, volume V, page 134, stated: "Over the Pope as the expression of the binding claim of ecclesiastical authority, there still stands one's own conscience, which must be obeyed before all else, if necessary even against the requirement of ecclesiastical authority.”

Roman Catholic Church laws are often contradictory. In this instance, canon 1024 limits sacred orders to men, while canon 849 states that baptism is the gateway to the sacraments. Scholar Bishop Ida Raming, doctor of theology, points out a prior church understanding: “some medieval canonists hold that not maleness but baptism is the pre-requisite for valid ordinations: “After being baptized, anyone may be validly ordained.” (The Exclusion of Women from the Priesthood: Causes and Background)

Recent scholarship affirms that women were ordained in the first thousand years of the church’s history. The first half of the church’s history provides us with images and accounts of the inclusion of women in Holy Orders that contradict the later prohibition. We are reclaiming this important tradition in order to bring equality and balance, and reconciliation and renewal to the church we love, and to all the holy people of God who have been hurt, marginalized, and ostracized in the name of Jesus Christ, who always and everywhere said, as we do, that ALL ARE WELCOME.

“Roman Catholic Womenpriests are leading the way to a renewed Roman Catholic Church in which the full equality of women will be a reality,” commented Bridget Mary Meehan, U.S. media spokeswoman. “Like Mary Magdalene, apostle to the apostles, and the women deacons, priests and bishops who served in the early centuries of our church, we are offering a model of a renewed priesthood in a community of equals.”

Vatican decrees excommunication for participation in ordination of women

"Father, forgive them, they know not what they do."

Vatican City, May 29, 2008 / 02:29 pm (CNA).- The Vatican declared today that any women who attempt ordination or any bishops who attempt to ordain women are automatically excommunicated from the Church by their actions. The decree from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is said to be absolute, universal and immediately effective.

The decree which was published in the Vatican daily, L’Osservatore Romano, comes in the wake of several women attempting to be ordained as Catholic priests.

The most recent attempt to ordain a woman occurred on May 4 in Winona, Minnesota when Kathy Redig, participated in a ceremony of ordination.

Bishop of Winona Bernard Harrington responded to the news of Redig’s purported ordination by saying it made him “very, very sad.” The bishop also said that “She, by her actions, has excommunicated herself.”

Another occurrence of attempted ordination occurred in St. Louis, Missouri on November 11, 2007. The ceremony involved a German woman named Patricia Fresen conducting a would-be ordination ceremony at a St. Louis synagogue. Fresen used the formula and rite of a Catholic ordination to “ordain” as priests two St. Louis-area women, Rose Hudson and Elsie McGrath.

The attempted ordination caused Archbishop Raymond Burke of the Archdiocese of St. Louis to declare the three women excommunicated for taking part in an attempted ordination of women to the priesthood. The archbishop said the excommunication was part of his “solemn duty” to protect the faith and unity of the Church.

Archbishop Burke, who is regarded as one of the foremost experts on canon law, explained that this type of situation has been addressed before. In August 2002, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith also excommunicated two women who had taken part in an invalid ordination ceremony, he said.

Patricia Fresen, the archbishop said, had “formally and directly engaged” in founding a “new and separate sect” called Roman Catholic WomenPriests USA.

The decree from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith also mentions that it applies to all people in communion with the Catholic Church, including any bishops or women who are members of the Eastern Churches. Anyone who incurs this excommunication can only be received back into the Church by the Apostolic See, the decree says.

The declaration, which is signed by Cardinal William Levada, concludes by saying that it is absolute, universal and immediately effective upon its publication in L’Osservatore Romano.


Translated text of the Decree:

Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith
General Decree

Regarding the crime of attempting sacred ordination of a woman

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, to protect the nature and validity of the sacrament of holy orders, in virtue of the special faculty conferred to it by the supreme authority of the Church (see canon 30, Canon Law), in the Ordinary Session of December 19, 2007, has decreed:

Remaining firm on what has been established by canon 1378 of the Canon Law, both he who has attempted to confer holy orders on a woman, and the woman who has attempted to receive the said sacrament, incurs in latae sententiae excommunication, reserved to the Apostolic See.

If he who has attempted to confer holy orders on a woman or if the woman who has attempted to receive holy orders, is a member of the faithful subject to the Code of Canon Law for the Eastern Churches, remaining firm on what has been established by canon 1443 of the same Code, they will be punished with major excommunication, whose remission remains reserved to the Apostolic See (see canon 1423, Canon Law of the Eastern Churches).

The current decree will come into immediate force from the moment of publication in the 'Osservatore Romano' and is absolute and universal.

William Cardinal Levada
Prefect
Angelo Amato, S.D.B.
Titular Archbishop of Sila
Secretary

Peoria diocese ordains its first married priest

By Michael Miller
Journal Star
May 17, 2008

Doug Grandon will add the role of Catholic priest to his roles of father and husband one week from today.

The 49-year-old Sterling native and father of six will become the first married man to be ordained a priest in the Catholic Diocese of Peoria. Widowers have been ordained, but never someone whose wife is still alive, said Monsignor Paul Showalter, vicar general for the diocese.
Grandon is a former Episcopal priest who converted to Catholicism in 2003 along with his wife, Lynn, and four of their children.

About 100 Episcopal priests, many of them married, have become Catholic priests since a "pastoral provision" was created by Pope John Paul II in 1980, said Grandon, director of catechetics for the diocese.

Grandon said that though he came to the Christian faith as a 14-year-old born-again convert who attended an evangelical-Pentecostal church in Sterling, he’s been on this path to becoming a Roman Catholic priest the whole time, all along asking himself, "What is (the church) supposed to be like and how do I fit in it?"

"I’ve always felt from the time I was a teenager that I was called to be an ordained minister," Grandon said. "So it was natural as an evangelical and an Anglican and now as a Roman Catholic that I would pursue that."

Grandon brings plenty of experience to his new vocation.

He went to Yugoslavia in the late 1970s as a missionary serving underground churches, being ordained as an evangelical minister in 1978. Grandon started the Church on Glen Hill in Peoria in 1988, serving as pastor there until 1995, when he left for studies at St. Louis University.

After studying church history there, Grandon felt led to enter the Anglican tradition. Ordained an Episcopal priest in 1999, he was pastor at Christ Church in Moline for four years before converting to Catholicism. That move came out of a desire to more fully be in communion with the bishop of Rome, he said.

Grandon said the possibility of his becoming a Catholic priest was discussed early on. He went through several examinations, was assigned reading, and waited through the bureaucratic process.

Bishop Daniel Jenky twice asked the priests of the diocese whether they would have any problems with a married priest being among them, Grandon said. Jenky told Grandon there was "universal consensus" that he should proceed.

"The priests (of the Diocese of Peoria) have been more than kind, more than sensitive from the beginning," Grandon said.

The permission from Pope Benedict XVI for Jenky to ordain Grandon arrived on April 25. He and five other men will be ordained as priests at a 10:30 a.m. Mass on May 24 at St. Mary’s Cathedral, 607 NE Madison.

The best thing about becoming a Catholic priest, said Grandon, will be celebrating the Eucharist and knowing for sure the bread and wine are becoming the body and blood of Christ during the Mass.

His family life will remain the same, he said. Contrary to popular misunderstandings, he won’t have to be celibate.

"We have had comical questions about that from people that have tried to very graciously ask," said Lynn Grandon.

Actually, married priests are common in Eastern parts of the Catholic Church, such as the Maronite and Byzantine rites. He’ll also be able to provide for his family, since diocesan priests don’t have to take a vow of poverty.

His wife, who oversees the diocesan office of Respect Life/Human Dignity, said their children are "very, very happy" about the ordination.

The best change, she said, will be to hear him preach again.

"Honestly, we have had the joy of listening to his extraordinary sermons for 20 years, and we missed those," she said.

Vicar general Showalter said Grandon’s ordination and ministry will "offer an opportunity for us to have this experience in our diocese, see how a priest who is married will function in our parish and diocesan system."

"It’s going to be new, so there is some nervousness or apprehension on the part of some," Showalter said. He added, though, that Grandon already is well-known throughout the diocese as director of catechetics.

There will be no nervousness or apprehension for Lynn Grandon, only joy.

"I’ve watched him all of these years on this journey," Lynn Grandon said. "He has had to sort through all of his theology. I watched his anguish. I feel like he’s come on this arduous journey, and now he’s started on this new season of his life where he’s meant to be. We’re just going to get behind him and do all we can to back him in his ministry."

Bishop Forbids Lay 'Communion services'

Note: Remember that last month we shared some resources with you on how to conduct a service in the absence of a priest? Well, don't try this if you are in the Diocese of Rockville Centre, New York. In a pastoral letter issued on May 9, 2008, Bishop William Murphy has decreed that effective July 1st, "no weekday Celebrations of the Word with the distribution of Holy Communion will be allowed in this Diocese." Lay people and deacons may continue to lead "Liturgy of the Hours" morning and evening prayer services, but may no longer distribute pre-consecrated hosts. However "[t]his new policy must not be seen as “taking something away” from the laity."

5/14/2008
Catholic Online


ROCKVILLE CENTRE, NY (CNA) - Bishop of Rockville Centre William Murphy has issued a pastoral letter restricting the practice of Communion services at parishes and schools in his diocese.

He said the ban on Communion services would bring the archdiocese into conformity with the liturgical norms of the Church.

Writing in an eight-page letter sent on Friday, Bishop Murphy reflected on the importance of the Eucharist. "The Eucharist is the greatest gift Jesus left us… The celebration of the Eucharist gives us our identity as well as our life,” he said.

The bishop said that Communion services, in practice, often sever what he called “the connection between receiving the Sacrament and celebrating the sacrifice.”

“The two go hand-in-hand,” he continued. “Receiving the Sacrament is the culmination of participating in the sacrifice.”

“There is an inherent interconnection between sacrifice, Real Presence, and Communion,” Bishop Murphy said.

“In the popular mind, all too often the purpose of Mass is still seen as an action simply to consecrate hosts; some people think their participation in the Eucharistic Prayer is all about watching the priest and then receiving Holy Communion,” he wrote.

Bishop Murphy said that the internal “offering” of ourselves both differentiates a Mass from a Communion Service and provides context for the laity’s “full, conscious, and active” participation in the Mass.

He ordered the Communion services in the diocese to end by July 1. Bishop Murphy explained in his letter that the Communion services were originally intended for use on Sundays only in remote, missionary parishes where priests could rarely visit.

According to Newsday, for the past thirty years, students at the elite Chaminade High School in Mineola, NY could receive Holy Communion during a 15-minute Communion service just before lunch. Schools like Chaminade have said they conduct the services because they lack the time to celebrate Mass amid classes. Some schools lack priests to celebrate Mass.

At some parishes in the diocese, church workers hold the services on weekday mornings because no priest is available for Mass.

In his pastoral letter, Bishop Murphy said that in 1997 his predecessor Bishop John Raymond McGann had instituted a moratorium forbidding any new Communion services from being offered on weekdays, though the moratorium allowed parishes with existing services to continue to hold them.

Since that moratorium, Bishop Murphy said, liturgical legislation has clarified that “Celebrations of the Word, especially the use of the Church’s Liturgy of the Hours is encouraged, the distribution of Holy Communion is not a part of such service nor should it be.”

Celebrations of the Word include all of the designated Mass readings for the day but no Eucharistic prayer or consecration. At Communion services, the Mass readings are followed by the reception of Communion Hosts consecrated by a priest at a previous Mass.

Bishop Murphy said celebrations involving Communion services could no longer be held on weekdays.

“I, as Bishop, am declaring that no weekday Celebrations of the Word with the distribution of Holy Communion will be allowed in this Diocese thereby bringing our Diocese into conformity with the liturgical norms of the Church,” he wrote.

“This new policy must not be seen as ‘taking something away’ from the laity,” the bishop insisted. “All of us are called to offer our proper roles in the Liturgy and none of us is other than servant of the Church when we fulfill any role in the Liturgy”

According to Newsday, several schools and parishes who hold Communion services have said they would follow the bishop’s instructions. Some, however, said they were disappointed the services would end.

Others saw the bishop’s letter as an opportunity to reflect on the importance of Holy Communion and to counter its casual reception among some Catholics.

"I think it's positive and something to be embraced," said Father James Williams, president of Chaminade, Newsday reports. "The bishop is the teaching arm of the church."

Priests Working Part-Time, Short-Term

by Anthony Stevens-Arroyo
On Faith/Catholic America blog on Washingtonpost.com
Posted 5/12/2008

There is no such thing as a part-time Catholic priest: the sacramental character of Holy Orders is permanent. However, a priest can work part-time in ministry, and that may prove a solution to the lack of priests.

Working part-time is not something new: as long as I can remember, priests who taught in high schools or who sat at desks in the chancery during the week celebrated Mass on weekends. That idea can be enhanced by a little twist. Why not expand the pool of priests by ordaining men for a definite period of time, say 7 year tours of ministry? It might be that celibacy would be accepted by more if it were not a life-long commitment. There could also be recruitment of new clergy from those who are married, but whose children are grown. Of course, if celibacy were not required, the largest standing reservoir of priests working part-time would be the Church’s married deacons, and they could become the weekend priests.

The dilemma for parishes would be steady management. If the clergy work during the week in schools and offices, who is left to man the fort at the rectory Monday through Friday? Providentially, just as the Eastern Churches have the tradition of married priests, the Latin American Church has the experience of letting lay persons manage many aspects of the ministry. My late father-in-law, for instance, was a rezador. In the mountains of his native Puerto Rico, he went from house to house to lead a prayer service, especially at times of sickness or death. He had memorized many of the sanctioned prayers, understood the catechism very well and had a clear singing voice to command respect. When he could not address a specific need, he would refer people to the parish priest in the town. This was how lay ministry served Catholicism in a priest-poor country.

When don Benito migrated like so many other Puerto Ricans to New York City in the 1950s, he and his daughters continued their ministry to their compatriots. In a U.S. city where only a limited number of priests spoke Spanish, lay people took up the slack by preparing children and parents for the sacraments, visiting homes to bring piety and catechism. In her award-winning book, Oxcart Catholicism on Fifth Avenue, don Benito’s daughter showed how these Latino traditions -- once necessitated because of the homeland's lack of priests -- eventually have become a model for all of US Catholicism, whether Spanish-speaking or not.

Training would be the major problem for ordaining priests working part-time. Would the equivalent of 4 years of study for the ministry make a 7 to 10 year ministry too long of a commitment? Would it be better to start with a married deacon in ministry, then choose the best of these for priestly ordination for part-time apostolate? It may also be time to consider inviting back to ministry priests who resigned 10 or 20 years ago in order to get married. They are already trained, and if married men would be accepted into the priesthood, many of them provide willing volunteers. As vexing as these questions may be, the increase in the number of priests would seem to be worth the risks. It would help chase the 800-pound gorilla from the sanctuary.

We Are Church writes to Pope calling for voluntary celibacy for priests

Independent Catholic News
May 12, 2008

In a letter to Pope Benedict XVI the international Catholic reform movement We Are Church asks him "to reconsider the present organisation of the ministries in the Roman Catholic Church, to urgently repeal the present Church,' law of obligatory celibacy and to re-introduce voluntary celibacy for ordained priests as a first step towards a renewed form of priesthood.

In its letter WAC writes: "The opportunity to celebrate the Eucharist should take precedence over the Church law of compulsory celibacy referring canon 213 which gives Christians the right to receive the Holy Eucharist each Sunday.

The Catholic reform movement is greatly concerned about the growing shortage of ordained priests which can be seen in the Vatican,s "Annuario Pontificio". Because of this the celebration of the Holy Eucharist has had to be omitted in an increasing number of parishes. This does not only affect Europe and the United States of America, but especially the parishes and missions in South America. It is a global problem that urgently requires a global solution and one that a great majority of practising Catholics would like to see changed.

The letter is addressed to "Dear Pope Benedict XVI, dear brother in Christ and is signed by Raquel Mallavibarrena from Madrid, present Chair of the International Movement We Are Church

Members from Austria, Belgium, Catalonia, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, UK and USA attended the Council in Strasbourg April 30 and May 1. They also participated at the subsequent 18th Annual Conference of the European Network Church on the Move and its study day 'Secularisation in a multicultural and multiconvictional Europe in search of social cohesion based on common values' from May 1st until May 4.

We Are Church - a grassroots church reform movement of lay people, priests, and members of persons in religious orders writes in its mission statement that it: "is working to continue the process of reform in the Roman Catholic Church, a process which began with the Vatican II Council (1962-1965) and which has come to a standstill in recent years. We Are Church was started in Austria and Germany in 1995 with a referendum, is now represented in more than twenty countries and is in touch with other reform movements all over the world.

The next informal Council will take place in London in May 2009.

Ordination in Detroit draws protesters

Catholic group intends to demonstrate outside archdiocese for women to get right to be priests.

Gregg Krupa
The Detroit News
May 9, 2008

DETROIT -- The Archdiocese of Detroit will ordain five men to the priesthood Saturday, a sacred, joyous event for Catholics who are concerned about the dwindling number of men who hear "the call" to what is, by any estimation, a difficult life.

But outside of the Cathedral of the Most Blessed Sacrament on Woodward, a group of Catholic men and women, organized by Call to Action of Michigan, intend to demonstrate in favor of the ordination of women and married men, asserting that while they fully support the five new priests, the church must be far more inclusive.

"I find it very oppressive," said Sister Beth Rindler, of the Franciscan Sisters of the Poor. "I mean, our church tells us we can't even talk about it, but I feel very keenly about justice for women in the church."

Rindler, who works in Hamtramck among the burgeoning population of immigrants from Bangladesh, says that she has longed to be a priest and desired to join some of the nuns who have been ordained in violation of the rules of the church. "But seeing how many younger women have taken that step, now, I feel it is less necessary that I do it," Rindler said. "Besides, a lot of pressure is placed on the leadership of our orders when we even talk about women as priests, let alone take that step."

Roman Catholic "Womenpriests" were "ordained" in unofficial, underground ceremonies as early as the 1990s in the United States. In 2001, a woman was ordained in Rochester, N.Y., and others have taken similar vows since then. Bishops who dissent from the church's position on women priests have performed the ceremonies, including two involving women in Michigan, over the years.

"It is something I have long wanted to do," Rindler said.

Married men also will demonstrate Saturday for a broader approach to the sacrament of Holy Orders, in which priests are ordained. Some are former priests who have married, but still say Mass and perform baptisms at the request of Catholics. They refer to themselves as "married priests."

"I transitioned from the priesthood to married life when I got involved in studying social work," Arnie Messing said. "I was not going to stay in a very narrowly focused, celibate world.

"We commend all of the young people who are being ordained," Messing said. "We tell them: We commend you, we pray for you, but we are sad for so many of the people who would have committed, too, but who are not allowed. Among Catholics in the United States, about 80 percent favor optional celibacy. To me, it is an old story that should have been settled long ago."

Some priests were allowed to marry, to varying degrees, until 1123, when celibacy was adopted as the policy even for regular parish priests, as opposed to priests, monks and friars of specific orders, who practice various disciplines to worship God -- including celibacy, poverty and silence.

But the church considers its official dogma on the issue incontrovertible: priests are celibate men, except in rare circumstances.

A few years ago, as he announced a significant reorganization of parishes in the archdiocese, based in part on a shortage of priests, Cardinal Adam Maida said that he does not expect to see women or married men ordained to the priesthood in his lifetime.

'The Faithful' is a steady look at a changing church

By Rich Barlow
The Boston Globe
May 7, 2008

In America, the Catholic Church is in trouble. Enervated by a priest shortage, its faithful often disregard official teachings with abandon while struggling to maintain a Catholic identity in a Protestant land.

"Yes, I follow the news. So what else is new?" you say. But the church I speak of is not in the America of George Bush but of King George III. Visited by itinerant priests only sporadically, American Catholics around the time of the Revolution innovated with a do-it-yourself church centered on home worship conducted by the laity, Boston College historian James M. O'Toole writes in "The Faithful." They didn't always toe the official line. For example, marriages to non-Catholics, unsanctioned by the church, were more common than in Europe.

The laxity left some clergy aghast, and indeed these autonomous congregations aped Protestant organization. But they harkened back to the earliest Christian communities, and they were the only means of keeping the faith alive.

Therein lies a lesson, especially for contemporary traditionalists aggrieved by their co-religionists' straying from the supposedly eternal truth of church teaching on artificial contraception, same-sex marriage, female ordination, and priestly celibacy, among other matters. "For Catholics," O'Toole writes, "understanding the successive ages of their church may open them to accepting change that will continue whether they want it or not. The church and its people have never stood still in changing times, and they cannot do so now."

Like a homilist who loiters too long in the pulpit, O'Toole made even my Catholic eyes glaze at times with excessive detail. But this is generally an intriguing book, brimming with wisdom. It studies the evolution of US Catholicism by dividing it into a half-dozen historic segments, from the Colonial "priestless church" to the muscular, immigrant-fed church a century ago, to the reformist, post-Vatican II church and beyond.

Pope Benedict XVI has talked passionately of the danger of faith without reason. To acknowledge that believers must use their reason is to admit the possibility that reason will lead some to disagree at times with official positions. For those convinced that the church is always right - or who believe the faithful should shelve any doubts - there are cautionary stories. Take the 1960s study by the Vatican of its stance against artificial birth control.

Most on the commission advising Pope Paul VI on the matter suggested ditching the ban. One priest on the commission objected that admitting the old position had been misguided would call into question the church's authority generally (not a particularly principled argument, to be sure). If the anti-contraception stand was wrong, the priest demanded, "What, then, of the millions we have sent to hell" for defying it? Puncturing his certitude, a laywoman on the commission replied, "Father Zalba, do you really believe God has carried out all your orders?" The pope, of course, ultimately rejected his commission's advice and maintained the church's teaching.

O'Toole's final chapter looks to the past to forecast the future. Once again, American Catholicism is becoming an immigrant church, as newcomers from traditional societies in Latin America, Asia, and Africa flood the pews. But O'Toole believes that vigorous sanding by American culture will smooth the sharp edges of dogmatism. From same-sex marriage to the war to immigration policy to the death penalty, "American Catholics will face these issues more broadly as Americans than narrowly as Catholics." In the 21st-century church, informed both by Vatican II and the tragedy of the priest sex abuse scandal, "The days of unquestioning lay deference to the hierarchy were over." Good riddance.

Optional Celibacy, SI!

The Spanish Catholic magazine, 21rs, which last year did a comprehensive opinion survey of priests in Spain, this year turned its attention to the views of Catholic laity who are involved in church ministry. It found, among other things, that two-thirds of the 815 laypersons surveyed favor optional celibacy for their priests and 49.4% support women's ordination (two-thirds in the case of younger respondents).

Although one-third were unfamiliar with Vatican II and 4 out of 10 thought the process had largely been halted within the Church, 40% thought that priests and laypeople act with shared and equal responsibility. Another third believe they have a lot of autonomy in their areas of responsibility even though the priest has the final word. A slightly smaller group would like to have more responsibility without having to depend on priests.

As far as the hierarchy is concerned, only one in 5 of these committed laypeople felt that directives from the bishops were necessary and tried to follow them. On moral questions, they generally viewed pronouncements from their bishops as informative but not binding, preferring to follow their own conscience.

Finally, most respondents, but especially the youth, would like to see a Church that is more committed to the poor and more open to dialogue. And that is very good news indeed!

Ordain women and married men to priesthood

By Chava Redonnet
Rochester Democrat & Chronicle
4/30/2008

Web editor's note: Chava Redonnet is a member of the Corpus/Spiritus Christi Community in Rochester, NY and is preparing for ordination as a woman priest. She has served as a Parish Community Forum Facilitator, Lector and Eucharistic Minister. A mother of three, she works as a laboratory technician at the University of Rochester while attending Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School, where she expects to graduate in May 2008. She is also part of the Rochester Catholic Worker community and the author of two books -- Standing in the Light: A Parishioner's Story (Writers Club Press, 2002) and Don't Forget to Breathe Glory: Essays for the Spiritus Community (iUniverse, 2004).

We have heard in recent months about the shortage of priests. However, there are women, like myself, called to the priesthood; there are men called to the priesthood but not to celibacy. It's like having barns full of grain in a time of famine. The wealth of vocations is there; we need only to open the doors.

Pope Benedict XVI's U.S. visit came at a crucial moment for me, personally. I have completed my coursework for the master of divinity degree at Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School and will soon graduate. I'm an applicant for ordination with Roman Catholic WomenPriests, an organization that has ordained nearly 100 women worldwide in ceremonies not recognized by the Roman Catholic Church. No pastorate waits, however, for any of us.

I've been reluctant to speak out much about women's ordination. It has seemed to me that answering my call means doing the work I'm called to, which is about creating community and building bridges between people, especially between those of us who are comfortable and those who are on the margins in this world — homeless people, developmentally disabled people and people in El Salvador — and doing the work of ministry out on those margins.

But when you're trying to bring some healing, you get to a place where you have to ask why things are the way they are, and you become aware of structural injustice that makes it hard for people to get out of the situations they are in.

And in the midst of working my various part-time jobs, mostly in ministry, it occurred to me that I'm in a situation of injustice myself, that a person shouldn't need to work five jobs — and the reason is sexism.

My seminary colleagues are becoming pastors in their various denominations, while as a Catholic woman, I expect to continue piecing together my ministry — and for my sister priests, for male priests not called to celibacy, the situation remains bleak as well. So here's the message for Pope Benedict and all the Roman Catholic hierarchy: We're willing, able and prepared to serve, to use our gifts, our faith and knowledge to build up the people of God and work to heal the world. Employ us. Ordain us. Put us to work.

Catholic America: The 800 Pound Gorilla in the Sanctuary

By Anthony Stevens-Arroyo
Washington Post "On Faith" Blog
4/28/2008

On balance, the visit of Pope Benedict XVI to the United States achieved its basic goals of stating remorse for the pedophilia scandal and showing solidarity with the vigorous cultural diversity of the U.S. Catholic Church. What the papal visit lacked was a direct encounter with the 800 pound gorilla in the Catholic sanctuary: vocations to the priesthood.

It rehearses stale news to point out that the number of priests has dropped drastically in the past three decades and that the median age of those who remain is in the retirement home range. Moreover, most priests will confidentially tell you that because of the lack of priests, candidates are accepted in today’s seminaries that in other years would be rejected as unworthy. A more selective priesthood would probably solve a lot of other current church problems like dwindling attendance, stifled ministries and scandal.

Priestless parishes deny the faithful sacraments. Without a priest, there can be no celebration of Mass, and in many places, new rites led by women or deacons are substituting today for the sacramental liturgy. So, addressing the issue of priestly vocations has become a matter of institutional life or death for Catholicism.

Pope Benedict XVI did ask Catholics to pray for priestly vocations. I have nothing against prayer, but I do not think it appropriate to expect a heavenly miracle each time we pray. As the saintly Pope John XXIII pointed out, the Holy Spirit speaks through “the signs of the times.” What he meant was that sociological and cultural changes are often used by God to send a message.

Of course, he was right. We can diagnose the ebb and flow of priestly vocations by social changes in history. For instance, under feudalism only the elder son inherited land or property, so a clerical career assured education, status and survival to younger offspring. (A military career did the same.) The predictable result was an abundance of priests (and knights) in feudal times. I am not saying that all vocations in the Middle Ages were attributable to material security. However, it seems hard to deny that social conditions in that epoch encouraged many to enter the priesthood.

Closer to our own day, the sons and daughters of a largely working-class American Catholic population coming of age after World War II viewed the priesthood and the convent as upwardly mobile choices affording education and professional standing their parents could not otherwise provide them. Not surprisingly, the 1950s marked a high water mark for the US Catholic priesthood. In our 21st century society, however, a priestly vocation is no longer the only route to education and useful social service. (Latino Catholics may be the current exception.) Lifetime commitments to the priesthood and celibacy (or to the convent and celibacy) are less likely in a world filled with career options that pay better and demand less. It’s time for reassess the game plan.

As a believer, I am sure that the Holy Spirit will guide the Church in its adaptations to new circumstances, just as has happened at crucial moments in past centuries. But as a concerned Catholic, I fear the decision may take too long. In future days, I will explore on this blog some of the possible responses to the “signs of the times.” For now, let’s not use prayer for vocations as an excuse to drown out the Holy Spirit.

Vatican ponders Paraguay case after bishop elected

The more I hear about former Catholic bishop and newly elected president of Paraguay, Fernando Lugo, the more I LIKE him! Lugo, a firm believer in liberation theology and preferential option for the poor, decided to trade the pulpit for the presidency after more than 100,000 people signed a petition asking him to run for office to unseat the Colorado Party that had controlled Paraguay for the last 61 years. When he retired as bishop in 2006, Lugo said: "From today on, my cathedral will be the country." The Vatican promptly suspended him "a divinis" and now we are waiting for the next chapter, but the poor in Paraguay are dancing in the streets.

Photos of Fernando Lugo at his ordination as bishop and with some young campaign supporters today come from his Web site.

By Phil Stewart

Reuters

4/23/2008

VATICAN CITY - The election of ordained bishop Fernando Lugo as the next president of Paraguay poses a dilemma for the Roman Catholic Church.

The Vatican strongly opposes clergy assuming political office, but it is not clear whether it would be prepared to effectively defrock a man hailed by supporters as the "bishop of the poor".

Lugo abandoned his role as a Catholic bishop three years ago saying he felt powerless to help Paraguay's poor. He asked the Vatican to accept his resignation.

The Vatican responded last year by suspending him from his priestly duties, like saying Mass. But it argued he remains a bishop because his ordination was a lifelong sacrament.

Now faced with the prospect of a bishop in the presidency upon inauguration in August, the Vatican says Lugo's unique case is under review.

"The personal situation of Monsignor (Fernando) Lugo will be examined, calmly," Father Federico Lombardi, chief Vatican spokesman, told one Italian newspaper this week.

The head of Paraguay's bishops' conference said the decision may ultimately fall to Pope Benedict.

"The relations between the Church and nations depend directly on the Holy Father and he will be the one to make the decisions in this respect," Ignacio Gogorza, head of the bishops' conference, was quoted as saying by ANSA news agency.

HAITI, U.S. EXAMPLES?

Under Benedict's predecessor, the late Pope John Paul II, the Vatican vocally opposed priests pursuing political office.

Haiti's first democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, left the priesthood in 1994 under pressure from the Vatican and later married.

Rev. Robert Drinan, the first Roman Catholic priest elected to the U.S. Congress, decided against running for reelection after being told in 1980 to decide between politics and the priesthood.

In the case of Lugo, the Vatican's existing "a divinis" suspension -- which leaves him as a bishop, but one not in good standing with the Vatican -- may be all that is necessary or prudent, said Rev. Tom Reese, a senior fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University in Washington.

"They don't want to alienate the people of Paraguay who voted for him and turn it into a big Church-state crisis, so the best strategy on their part may be to simply ignore him," Reese said.

The Vatican has said that Lugo's election would not alter the Holy See's diplomatic relations with Paraguay. Neither would it prompt his excommunication.

Lugo's future religious aspirations are unclear. Media in Paraguay have even reported that Lugo expressed an interest in serving as bishop again once his presidential term ends in 2013.

"For that to happen, he'd have to pass through a period of penitence and reflection, if the Church were to accept that," Gogorza told a radio program in Paraguay.

(Additional reporting by Hilary Burke in Asuncion; editing by Keith Weir)

The Papal Visit: A Different Perspective

At Fr. Rich's request, here is an English translation of some comments I offered on a Spanish theology blog in response to an article they had posted about the Pope's trip to America. I recognize that my view is more cynical than most but, as Gustavo Gutierrez has observed, one's viewpoint depends on where one sits. My perspective is skewed by the recent experience of having to bail out one of the brothers in my prayer group so he would not lose his home to foreclosure and be one more Latino victim of the mortgage crisis that is devastating hard-working people in our community, and contrasting this with the millions that were spent on high-end accomodations and security for His Holiness...

"To tell the truth, I'm an American (but with a latino heart) and I feel a little lonely because I can't embrace all this acclamation for the Pope that we are experiencing in Washington. While he was here the raids and other anti-immigrant policies that are destroying our communities and robbing us of hope, continued. The Pope did not publicly denounce these raids.

While he was here, there was a decision in the U.S. Supreme Court in favor of the death penalty by lethal injection. The Pope did not publicly denounce that decision and he even dined at the White House with the 5 Catholic Supreme Court justices who approved this decision. And, as several other people have already commented [on the Spanish theology blog], nothing was said directly about the war in Iraq.

For Latinos, the Pope gave us four paragraphs in Spanish at the end of his homily in English because he knows that today we are 30% of the Church and tomorrow we will be 50%. He told us not to become pessimistic and to keep on offering our lively spirit and our gifts to the Church. In my parish, not one single ticket to the public Papal Mass went to a Hispanic family. They do not want to pay for a regular Spanish-speaking priest for our community but when it comes time to solicit funds, they know where to find us. But if we denounce these injustices, they say we are resentful and bad Catholics who lack commitment to our faith.

The Pope talked about the sexual abuse victims and it's true that this has been a huge problem. But there is a bigger problem, and that is the fundamental structure of the Church and its hierarchy and the lack of respect for the laity, and as long as this theme isn't addressed, it's difficult to see in the Pope's visit a reason for hope."

Church needs non-Catholic partners

By Msgr. John Powis
New York Daily News
Wednesday, April 23rd 2008, 4:00 AM

The Pope's recent visit to New York highlighted the vibrancy of the Catholic Church. In a city where change is the only constant, the church's success has hinged on its ability to transform itself as a way to remain vital.

Over the nearly 50 years that I have been a priest in the Brooklyn Diocese, I have seen the four parishes in Bushwick where I was pastor have a weekly worship attendance between 1,500 and 2,000 people. This, for me, is just one indication of how vital the church is even in the city's poorest neighborhoods.

Catholic schools, while struggling financially, continue to provide excellent education to young people all over the city, and thousands of low-income families receive financial assistance to keep their children in these schools. The church also continues to provide a variety of social services through various Catholic Charities offices, including seminars to aid families affected by the subprime mortgage crisis; orchestrating new construction of low-income housing; building low-rent apartments for the elderly, and operating Head Start Centers for preschool children from low-income families. Recently, 18 Catholic churches in Brooklyn put together a powerful coalition to assure that all new construction along the Greenpoint-Williamsburg waterfront includes a substantial amount of affordable housing. The church also offers legal assistance to immigrants through Catholic Migration offices. Vital work, indeed.

Despite its extraordinary record, the church faces real challenges, some of which were raised by Pope Benedict during his visit.

There was nothing more important for the Pope than his meeting with the victims who were sexually abused by priests. But Pope Benedict must go one step further. Bishops still in charge of a diocese who regularly transferred abusive priests from one parish to another should be asked to resign.

Also, the critical shortage of ordained Catholic priests is making the work load of the excellent priests we have almost unbearable. While the church must support priests who seek life-long celibacy, it is time to rethink the tradition that celibacy be mandatory for all priests. It should start by ordaining as priests some of the married, well-prepared deacons of the church. It might also be time for Rome to at least permit discussion once again on the question of woman serving as priests. There are now 4,000 functioning parishes in the country without a resident priest. [emphasis added]

Pope Benedict's visit brought attention to the problems of the church, but his visit also must serve as a reminder that the church continues to remain a powerful force in the city, where there are signs that a new kind of grass-roots religious coalition is developing - one that includes some Catholic churches, some non-Catholic congregations, some synagogues and some mosques. This coalition is organizing to reinvent the concept of church and to rebuild key sectors of the city.

If you look around Brooklyn, Manhattan and the Bronx, you can observe some of the early success the church and its partners have had, including 3,000 affordable single-family Nehemiah homes in East New York and Brownsville, Brooklyn; 1,500 more Nehemiah homes in construction along Flatlands Ave. in Brooklyn; two extremely successful high schools with the Department of Education in Bushwick; a program to keep tenants in their rent-regulated apartments; the John V. Lindsay Park on the lower East Side; the 1,000 additional Nehemiah homes in the South Bronx, and a campus of four public high schools being built that is sponsored by this coalition and the Department of Education in the South Bronx.

The Catholic Church is involved in all these efforts. But this new concept of churches, congregations, synagogues and mosques working together may actually be more in sync with the unified religious spirit of the 21st century. And this partnership is necessary if the church is to remain vibrant and vital to its parishioners.

Msgr. John Powis is the retired pastor at St. Barbara's Catholic Church and a leader of the East Brooklyn Congregations.

What To Do When There Is No Priest

Since the Catholic Church has yet to solve its priest shortage problem by admitting married men and women into its ranks, we thought we would bring you these resources as a public service because, lay brothers and sisters, the task of leading the Sunday liturgy will fall increasingly to you.

FREE RESOURCES:

From the Archdiocese of Dubuque, Iowa:

• Sunday Celebrations in the Absence of a Priest: An Overview



• Sunday Celebrations in the Absence of a Priest: Sunday Worship: The Mass vs Celebrations Without a Priest



• Sunday Celebrations in the Absence of a Priest: The roles of those who participate in Sunday Celebrations in the Absence of a Priest



• Sunday Celebrations in the Absence of a Priest: Forms of the Sunday Celebration in the Absence of a Priest

From The Catholic Liturgical Library: Directory for Sunday Celebrations in the Absence of a Priest (Office of the Congregation for Divine Worship, 1988)

In Spanish/En Español: Directorio Para las Celebraciones Dominicales en Ausencia del Presbítero ( Congregación para el Culto Divino, 1988)

From the Diocese of Richmond, Virginia:

• Sunday Celebrations in the Absence of a Priest



• Discernment Process for Selecting a Lay Leader of Prayer



• Outline for a Liturgy of the Word With and Without Communion



• Outline for Morning Prayer and Liturgy of the Word With and Without Communion



• Script for Celebration of SCAP

From the Diocese of Davenport, Iowa (These planning sheets for SCAP are intended for use with the second edition (2007) of the ritual text.):

• Planning Sheet for SCAP: Word Service



• Planning Sheet for SCAP: Morning Prayer



• Planning Sheet for SCAP: Evening Prayer



• Planning Sheet for a Weekday Liturgy of the Word with Communion

PUBLICATIONS:

From the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops: Sunday Celebration in the Absence of a Priest (English/Spanish, 2007, $59.95) -- for details, see Fr. Louis Dorn's review of this resource on the National Federation of Priests' Councils Web site.

From the Federation of Diocesan Liturgical Commissions: Sunday Celebrations in the Absence of a Priest, Revised Edition: A Pastoral-Liturgical Commentary, by Michael Henchal and Michael R. Prendergast (2007 revised, $12)

From Resource Publications: Leading The Assembly in Prayer: A Practical Guide for Lay and Ordained Presiders, by Michael J. Begolly (2008 revised, $24.95)

Theology students extol pope's pastoral gifts but say change unlikely

By Chris Herlinger
Catholic News Service
4/21/2008

NEW YORK (CNS) -- Catholic students at one of New York City's most prominent schools of theology said Pope Benedict XVI's visit did not soften some of their concerns about his papacy and the future of the U.S. Catholic Church.

The students at Union Theological Seminary, a nondenominational graduate school of theology with Protestant roots and a home for Catholic academics who have run afoul of the Vatican, praised Pope Benedict's pastoral gifts and his ability to energize the Catholic faithful.

But they also said the visit will not lead to what they feel are much-needed reforms within the church and expressed concern that the U.S. church's current and future needs are not likely to be addressed any time soon.

"The excitement of the adults and young people -- that was real excitement and real inspiration," Kim Harris, 50, a Union doctoral student focusing on worship and the arts, said April 20, the last day of the pope's six-day visit.

"A trip like this energizes people and makes them realize they're not just a part of a parish or a diocese but of a church that has a worldwide presence," she said. "That's clearly positive."

But Harris said she sees the problems caused by small, rural parishes closing due to a shortage of priests as having grave consequences for U.S. Catholic religious life.

"The people of God in the Catholic communion are starving because of the want of Eucharist," she said.

"Why is it that the people of God have to starve while the institution is holding to clergy celibacy?" said Harris, who lives in Schoharie County, about 150 miles north of New York.

"I have to place the excitement of the pope's visit next to the fact that there are now only a few churches in my county," she said.

The Albany Diocese lists four churches in Schoharie County, including Harris's home parish, St. Catherine Church in Middleburgh.

A common concern among the fellow Catholic faithful she knows is simply the physical condition of priests who must travel long distances between rural churches.

"Look at Father So-and-So, he's tired and beat up. He had a car accident and is driving on icy roads," Harris said is a common refrain she hears.

Jeremy Kirk, 30, a master of arts candidate at Union, plans to pursue a doctorate in Christian ethics focusing on the work of Jesuit Father Jon Sobrino, a Latin American liberation theologian. Kirk gave measured praise to Pope Benedict's pastoral outreach to those who survived clergy sexual abuse.

"I see he's doing the right thing pastorally," said Kirk, whose social activism includes volunteering with the Catholic Worker Movement. "The apology (Pope) Benedict offered impressed me. But it would have been more powerful if every person involved in an institutional cover-up (of clergy sex abuse) would be ousted from office."

The pope remains a symbol of a hierarchy "that has failed the victims," Kirk said, adding that he believed media coverage of the pope's visit was focusing too much on Pope Benedict's pastoral image rather than on what Kirk said was the pope's potent political symbolism.

"If the pope had gone to the nearest soup kitchen after arriving and (President) Bush had been the third person, rather than the first person, he had met, I'd be happier," said Kirk.

Catholic students are a minority at Union but one of the largest single denominational groups at the predominantly Protestant school.

Although Union is still perhaps best-known for being the midcentury intellectual home of such leading Protestant theologians as Reinhold Niebuhr and Paul Tillich, since the 1970s the school has been known as a leading center of study in the United States for black and feminist liberation theologies. The prominent black theologian James Cone, for example, has taught at Union for more than three decades.

But Union also has had a long tradition of hosting well-known Catholics. Liberation theologians such as Peruvian Dominican Father Gustavo Gutierrez have taught for short terms at Union, which has ties with Columbia University. Catholic scholars not associated with liberation theology, including the late biblical scholar Sulpician Father Raymond Brown, have also been permanent faculty at Union.

Of the current five full-time Catholic faculty members at Union, three are women. Union's current Catholic faculty includes Jesuit Father Roger Haight, whose book, "Jesus Symbol of God," was sharply criticized by the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith when it was headed by then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict. The Vatican has banned Father Haight from teaching at a Catholic institution.

Another Roman Catholic theologian who has had trouble with the Vatican is Paul F. Knitter, currently Union's Paul Tillich professor of theology, world religions and culture.

Kirk told Catholic News Service April 20 that Union was lucky to have scholars like Father Haight and Knitter on the faculty, adding that the student view of Pope Benedict at Union is colored in large part by the pope's relationship with them, with figures like Father Sobrino and by Pope Benedict's past criticism of liberation theology.

For her part, Harris -- a Catholic who used to be Presbyterian -- said her concern about church reform, specifically the need to expand the eligibility for clergy to include noncelibate men and women, is coming out of real and "lived experience."

Catholic women at Union share a commissioning service as a tribute to their work and also as a formal recognition that they cannot be ordained as clergy within their church.

Harris said she would like to be ordained if she could be, though she doubts that her ineligibility will change in her lifetime. Still, she added, "We never thought we'd see altar girls and now we do have altar girls."

Father fills role of priest

We like to keep an eye on the Pastoral Provision...This article is useful because we've seen commentators who dismiss the paradox of the pastoral provision and the ongoing mandatory celibacy by saying that, well, these PP guys don't really serve in a pastoral capacity and they certainly aren't living in the rectory. Is that so? Well, somebody must have forgotten to tell the Diocese of Scranton.

By Roja Heydarpour
Scranton Times-Tribune
04/20/2008

Parishioners recited Hail Marys in unison as they waited for their priest, and all the while, above the sounds of prayer, the alternating cries and yelps from a pew of fidgety children echoed through St. Anthony of Padua Church in North Scranton.

Soon, the Rev. Eric Bergman walked down the aisle with his hands clasped to begin his sermon, facing the altar.

“Da-da,” said 17-month-old Joan Bergman. “Da-da?”

She was referring to her father, who also happens to be the father.

The Rev. Bergman became the first married Catholic priest in the Diocese of Scranton on April 21.

He converted to Catholicism after being an Episcopalian priest for seven years.

Like the Rev. Bergman, most of his congregation are converts to Catholicism, although lifelong churchgoers at St. Anthony’s attend his Masses as well.

“We like him and we hope he will stay forever and ever,” said Angela Marino, one such parishioner.

Other parishioners, like Ed Jordan, of Clarks Summit, converted along with the Rev. Bergman because their conservative views worked better with the Catholic Church.

“It was a perfect fit,” said Mr. Jordan, 57.

“I love the sound of children in church.”

The adjustment from being an Episcopal priest to being a layman to becoming a married Catholic priest has been a relatively smooth one, the Rev. Bergman said.

“The adjustment has not been in being a married priest, but being a priest,” the Rev. Bergman said.

Celebrating daily Mass and hearing confessions has added a workload that did not exist before. He used to do a lot more administrative and evangelical work, which, for the most part, he can no longer do.

He converted through the Pastoral Provision of Pope John Paul II, which was established in 1980. The provision allowed for American Episcopal priests who were married to convert to Catholicism, thus forgoing the vow of celibacy. There are currently about 90 priests like the Rev. Bergman in the United States.

The Rev. Bergman renounced his orders as an Episcopal priest on New Year’s Eve 2004 and less than a year later, the Most Rev. Joseph F. Martino, bishop of Scranton, confirmed him.

For the Rev. Bergman, part of the appeal of Catholicism was its stance on what he calls “the culture of death.” The Episcopal Church had become too lax in its stances on abortion and contraception for the Rev. Bergman, so he renounced his religion. He was prepared to be a layman, if necessary.

His wife, Kristina, was an integral part of the conversion process, the Rev. Bergman said.

“She is a complement to me and the ministry,” he said. “She has a vocation, too.”

Mrs. Bergman also had to submit a letter to the Vatican saying she fully supported her husband’s calling to the priesthood and that she would raise their children Catholic.

Opposition to Rev. Bergman’s status as a Catholic priest with a wife and large family — they are expecting their fifth child at the end of the month — has been mostly anonymous, he said, noting an anonymous e-mail.

“Those people aren’t courageous enough to talk to me,” he said. “You can’t really respond to people who don’t show their face.”

The Rev. Bergman understands that people may be angry about the fact that the Most Rev. Joseph F. Martino made an exception for him, but again, there have not been any head-on conflicts.

For now, the Rev. Bergman is happy performing a daily Mass at St. Anthony’s for the St. Thomas More Society, which he runs.

On Sundays, he helps the Rev. Cyril D. Edwards and performs mass at either Saint Anthony’s, Saint Joseph’s or Holy Rosary in North Scranton. The partnership is valued during a time of pastoral consolidation that can wear priests in charge of multiple churches thin.

The Rev. Bergman says the majority of the Diocese’s clergymen support his conversion and lifestyle.

“They don’t feel ... deprived of something, just like I don’t feel deprived because I was not raised Catholic,” he said.

The Bergman family recently moved into the Saint Clare Rectory after living in an apartment on Adams Avenue for the past year.

“It’s an exciting time,” the Rev. Bergman said. “New home, new baby.”

What to Do About the Priest Shortage

By Kent Garber
US News & World Report
Posted April 18, 2008

During a 1997 interview, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of Germany, now Pope Benedict XVI, was asked about the declining ranks of the Catholic priesthood. "Mustn't celibacy be dropped," the questioner asked, "for the simple reason that otherwise the church won't get any more priests?" Ratzinger demurred. "I don't think that the argument is really sound," he said, noting that the trend had less to do with strict rules and more to do with family size and priorities. "If today the average number of children is 1.5," he reasoned, "the question of possible priests takes on a very different role from what it was in ages when families were considerably larger." The main obstacle, he argued, was parents "who have very different expectations for their children."
A priest blesses a boy as he prepares to receive communion during the Papal mass in DC.

A decade later, the challenge of attracting priests continues to bedevil the Roman Catholic Church. The pope's visit this week is clearly meant as a stimulus to his American flock, and, apart from the tarnish of the sex abuse scandal, there is perhaps no more immediate concern among Catholic leaders than that of adequate church leadership. Congregations often abandon traditions and lose direction without guidance from priests; parishes, in some cases, have folded.

According to statistics, the number of U.S. priests began falling in the 1970s, and the decline has since accelerated. In 1975, the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University reports, there were 36,005 diocesan priests in the United States. By 1995, the total had fallen to 32,300; in 2005, the count stood at 28,700. The most recent count, from 2007, puts the number at 27,971. The decline appears to be even more precipitous when one includes "religious" priests, members of religious orders who tend to live within the priestly community. In total, the number of Catholic priests in the United States dropped from nearly 59,000 in 1975 to about 41,500 last year.

The causes of the decline are many. As the pope has said, changing family structures and social values are one problem; fewer children mean fewer potential priests, and parents are less likely to encourage the vocation. At the same time, more young Catholics—and more young people in general—are attending college or immediately entering the work force, thereby bypassing priestly considerations. Behind these trends is a strong cultural pull: American society prizes not only wealth and choice but also, to an increasing degree, mobility (the average American, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, will switch jobs 10 times between the ages of 18 and 38)—a privilege not in keeping with the lifetime commitment required of priests.

And, of course, there is the celibacy problem. In post-sexual revolution America, where, as novelist Tom Wolfe wrote in his 2000 book Hooking Up, "sexual stimuli bombarded the young so incessantly and intensely they were inflamed with a randy itch long before reaching puberty," the practice of celibacy is all but discouraged, if not viewed with suspicion. The sexual abuse scandal that rocked the church in the early part of this decade further sullied the American attitude toward celibacy.

But what to do? Pope Benedict XVI, like his predecessor Pope John Paul II, opposes liberalizing the current rules that forbid marriage and female priests. His followers are split. A 2001 survey by the U.S. Conference on Catholic Bishops found that 56 percent of priests thought celibacy should be a "matter of personal choice." A Gallup Poll conducted in 2005 shortly after the death of John Paul II found that 63 percent of American Catholics support allowing priests to be married; 55 percent said women should be allowed to become priests.

Interestingly, those numbers fall among the more devout: Among weekly Catholic churchgoers, only 48 percent said that priests should be allowed to marry, and only 44 percent want women to become priests. "The church has always taught that priests are men," said Monica Kolf, 24, who attended the mass at Nationals Park on Thursday. "That's how Christ instituted it at the Last Supper. Women have important roles to play in the church as well, and of course they are not in any less of a position or have any less dignity in the church in that sense. Of course, Mary, the mother of God, was a woman. There's no higher human being besides that."

In the past 10 to 20 years, there has been talk of reform; in 2003 more than 150 priests signed a letter to the U.S. Conference on Catholic Bishops, calling for optional celibacy in "an ever-growing appreciation of marriage and its many blessings." But with steady opposition from the Vatican and domestic dissent, none of the proposals has been adopted, and in the vacuum some dioceses have become creative, assigning, for instance, church officials to focus solely on recruitment of new priests. Some parishes now share priests with each other, hire traveling priests, or allow lay people to conduct traditional duties.

One potential source of alleviation, however small, may come from foreign immigrants, who are replenishing the ranks of American Catholics in large numbers. As recently as the late 1990s, nearly 20 percent of priests in the United States were foreign born, and for them the cultural barriers to entering the priesthood might arguably be lower than for Americans. (Worldwide, the total number of priests has grown slightly in recent decades, from about 403,000 in 1990 to about 406,000 in 2005, even as specific regions, such as western Europe, are experiencing crunches like the one in the United States.)

Conservative Catholics have argued that the vocation, if it is to continue to attract qualified candidates, must remain privileged, special, and distinct—in the same way that the selective Marine Corps ("the few, the proud") pitches itself to secular America. The pope, for his part, seems to view the priest issue as a conceptual matter rather than as something requiring practical remedies. As he said in 1997: "The first question...is: Are there true believers? And only then comes the second question: Are priests coming from them?"

The Other Mass

Well, there will be a lot of press about the BIG Papal Mass ... the one that most of us regular folk never got close to. I would like to share some photos from a different Mass that took place on Monday night, April 14th. Sponsored by the Women's Ordination Conference and held at Foundry United Methodist Church in DC, this Mass featured women celebrants and inclusive language. The third photo in this series is a billboard truck paid for by WOC that followed Pope Benedict XVI around the city. We also got some TV coverage on Fox 5.