Two Catholic Bishops, Conscience, and the Common Good

By Paula Ruddy

Two U.S. Catholic bishops have recently expressed urgent concern for freedom of conscience in the public sphere. They are arguing for legal protection for people whose jobs require them to provide service to people whose ethics they disagree with. The services in question are medical services for those who choose to have abortions or sterilizations and the services connected with civil marriage to same-gender couples.

Are the bishops right? Should people employed to serve the public be protected by law in refusing to provide services to those they disagree with?

Examples from outside the emotionally charged areas of abortion and same-sex civil marriage may make the question clearer. Recently in local news, Muslim cab drivers were refusing to transport airport fares carrying duty-free alcohol or any passenger accompanied by a dog. The cab drivers’ refusal was based on religious beliefs and ethics. As it turned out, they were not given legal protection; they were threatened with suspension of their licenses. When another religious tradition’s ethics were the subject of conflict, did the Catholic bishops argue that the law should protect the cab drivers’ right to refuse service?


Archbishop Nienstedt on Abortion Services

Archbishop, John C. Nienstedt, in his April 2 column in the Catholic Spirit says he intended to reflect on the Easter triduum, but because of “a grave threat to our country’s well-being through the infringement of our right to exercise a freedom of conscience,” he was compelled to talk about a Health and Human Services (HHS) rule instead. In doing so, he uses phrases such as: government coming “between an individual citizen and God;” “first step in moving our nation from democracy to despotism,” “slippery slope to moral chaos.”

The intemperate language is aimed at the Obama administration and a move it made to hold hearings on a Health and Human Services agency rule dealing with the right to refuse abortion and sterilization procedures. What the Archbishop did not explain is that the HHS rule he is defending as crucial to our freedoms has been in effect only since January 20, 2009, and has nothing to do with forcing Catholics to assist in abortion or sterilization procedures.

The HHS rule in question was promulgated in the last days of the Bush administration and took effect in January 2009. It was intended to implement a law that has been in effect since the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973. That law, 42 USC Section 300 a-7, provides that health care entities receiving federal funds may not discriminate against either providers of abortion services or those who refuse to provide abortion services on the basis of “religious belief or moral conviction.” Catholic health care facilities are not forced to provide abortions or sterilizations. Catholic physicians are not forced to provide those services. Revising or rescinding the 2009 HHS rule would not repeal the 1973 law, so it is hard to see this as “a grave threat to our country’s well-being” or a move from “democracy to despotism.”

I do not know the results of the hearings or how his administration intends to re-write the rule, but President Obama, in his address at Notre Dame on May 17, 2009, made this conciliatory appeal:

Let’s honor the conscience of those who disagree with abortion, and draft a sensible conscience clause, and make sure that all of our health care policies are grounded in clear ethics and sound science, as well as respect for the equality of women.

This does not look like a step down “the slippery slope to moral chaos.” Is the Archbishop’s vehement language an effort to protect individual conscience or is it an effort to frighten people in order to criminalize abortion?

There may be political reasons to do so, but what is the logic of providing ”conscience clauses” for health care providers? Aren’t health care workers employed in a public facility providing abortion and sterilization procedures in the same position as the Muslim cab drivers? There are eleven abortion providers in the state of Minnesota, according to the Guttmacher Institute’s website. Why work for one if you are conscientiously opposed to providing abortion services? We would like to hear from anyone who has experienced problems of conscience in providing health care.


Bishop McCormack on Same-Sex Marriage

Another U.S. bishop’s concern is service providers’ freedom of conscience in same-sex civil marriages. Bishop John B. McCormack of Manchester urged the New Hampshire Governor to veto a same-sex marriage bill then making its way through the legislative process. He is quoted in the Manchester Union Leader of June 6, giving these reasons for his position:

When a change of this momentous scope is proposed and there is not adequate time to not only look at all the implications of it, but also not to hear in depth from the people whom it will affect, then there are going to be serious problems. Short of preserving marriage as the union of one man and one woman, there must be adequate protections for churches, but also for individuals who have a genuine conscientious objection to participating in or assisting ceremonies of same sex couples.

We urge Governor Lynch to veto this legislation, if for no other reason than it leaves too many unanswered questions regarding protections for religious organizations and persons of conscience.

The bill has since been signed by Governor Lynch making same-sex marriage legal in New Hampshire.

Imagining a situation Bishop McCormack may be talking about, let’s say a county clerk has a religious conviction that same-gender sex is sinful. In handling the marriage application of two men or working for the marrying judge, he is “assisting ceremonies of same sex couples.” If he can’t rationalize his duty as a public employee in serving people who are legally requesting a service of him, then he will have a problem of conscience. I’d say he is in the same position as the Muslim cab driver. He must either reason his way to providing the service or find a job in which he can avoid contact with people he considers sinners. He is in the same position as a person who in the past was conscientiously opposed to serving blacks, Irish, Jews, foreigners, women, or any other marginalized group. There is no reason to legally protect him in refusing to fulfill the duties of his employment.


A Mix-Up of Moral Questions

These two Catholic leaders appealing for “the right to freedom of conscience” in relation to public law set me to thinking about what that right is and how it affects the common good. I think the bishops have mixed up two very different moral situations.

One situation is about being coerced by law against one’s conscience. But neither the federal law restricting the states from criminalizing abortion nor the state laws allowing same-sex marriage force anyone to have an abortion or to marry a same-gender person. Both laws allow a freedom; neither coerces a person to some act in violation of conscience. Each woman is free, with restrictions in the second and third trimesters, to terminate a pregnancy according to her own conscience; and each man or woman is free, with some restrictions, to marry whomever he or she chooses in conscience to marry. If a law required a woman to have amniocentesis and abort a fetus with health problems, for example, civil disobedience would be in order and the bishops would be right to campaign against it.

In the other situation a person must choose what employment conditions are consistent with his or her ethical code. No one is forced by law to work in a job that violates his or her conscience. Though some people have the luxury of avoiding repugnant conditions, the necessity of making a living can make a person quite tolerant of sinners around him. If a person believes his own moral rectitude is threatened by the choices of the people it is his duty to serve, he has the freedom to quit the job. This is the moral situation both bishops describe. In a pluralistic society with multiple ethical codes, is it reasonable to expect the law to protect each person’s right to refuse to serve people whose ethics they disagree with? I don’t think so.

The bishops erroneously speak as if the moral obligation in the second situation were the same as in the first. This might be a good question to test the bishops’ position: if the state criminalized abortion or homosexual sex, would prosecutors who did not believe in the justice of criminal penalties for either of those acts have the right to refuse to prosecute under a “conscience clause” provided for them? Would the bishops advocate for that conscience clause? Probably not. What they advocate is not about freedom of conscience at all. It is about coercing others to live by a Catholic ethical code

I do not doubt that both bishops sincerely think that their ethical view is the objectively “right” one and that the nation’s adopting their view would be for the common good.


The Common Good

This is the crucial question: who is to say what is for the common good? There are myriads of goods (values) and individuals have different priorities of goods. Since the conception of a good life and how people should relate to one another is deeply ingrained in a culture, each cultural group knows what is good for them. In pooling our views, we the people, all voices heard, decide what is for the common good in creating laws for ourselves. It’s a very messy process, one that often fails to include all voices. Nonetheless it is the ideal. No one group can decide what is good for the whole nation. Cooperation within the system of laws that we ourselves have made is the closest we can come to delivering the common good.

Whether the laws are just is always open to question. Time, public debate among citizens, and evolution in ethical thinking will tell how durable they are.

And what of the ethics of citizenship in a pluralistic nation? I think good citizenship calls for recognizing ourselves and our own ethical community as one of many individuals and communities, all with a stake in determining the common good. It calls for respect for the others’ freedom of conscience, a reluctance to force laws on people. It calls for recognition of ethical ambiguity and compassion for the way others view their choices. It calls for reasonableness and the careful use of language in public discourse All in all, a serious task for all of us.

CCCR Work/Study Groups Underway

Coordinated local effort seeks to initiate dialogue and discern recommendations for reform

Currently across the Twin Cities metro area, small groups of Catholics are gathering in “work/study groups” to discuss a range of issues crucial to the local church. It’s an intentional and coordinated effort set in motion by the April 18 prayer breakfast that heralded the launching of the Catholic Coalition for Church Reform (CCCR). Although not officially sanctioned by the Archdiocese of St. Paul-Minneapolis, CCCR is composed of many individuals who are both members of local parishes and dedicated to respectful dialogue and hoped-for reform concerning various issues currently polarizing the Church.

Bernie Rodel, a member of CCCR leadership, notes that the coalition is an “organized mechanism for speaking out . . . the coming together of organizations of concerned and caring Catholics who promote the full participation of the baptized in all aspects of church life.”

Accordingly, the coalition is planning a series of “synods of the baptized,” the first of which is scheduled for September 18, 2010. Entitled “Claiming Our Place at the Table,” the 2010 Synod is being billed as a “workshop to address our role as baptized Catholics within the institutional church in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.”

Paul Lakeland (pictured at right), director of the Center for Catholic Studies and the Aloysius P. Kelly Professor of Catholic Studies at Fairfield University in Connecticut, will be the keynote speaker at the 2010 synod. It’s an appropriate choice as Lakeland’s most recent book is the award-winning Catholicism at the Crossroads: How the Laity Can Save the Church.

The numerous work/study groups that have begun meeting on a regular basis throughout the Twin Cities metro area are a key part of the preparations for CCCR’s 2010 Synod. Their purpose is to gather people together who share a passion for reforming certain areas of church life. These areas are ones that many have long recognized as being at odds with the Gospel message of love proclaimed by Jesus. They include clericalism, the selection of bishops, official teaching on sexuality and gender, and church authority and governance. Other areas are less controversial though still crucial when discussing renewal of the Church – Catholic spirituality; Catholic identity/Christian identity; social justice; and children, youth, and church.

Coalition member Paula Ruddy explains the rationale for the work/study groups as follows: “We identify with the tradition of baptismal responsibility for creating an institution that supports the human development of all its members. We also believe that grace builds upon nature. Accordingly, when institutional teachings and practices undermine full adult human development they hinder participation in the Church’s mission to bring the Gospel message to the world. Such teachings and practices must be identified and reformed.”

The plan that’s underway is that for the next sixteen months leading up to the 2010 Synod, each work/study group will prepare to present questions and recommendations for the Synod’s input and approval. The questions will be focused on the ways the local church does and does not manifest the Gospel message through its culture and practices. The Synod will then produce concrete recommendations for accentuating the positive and eliminating the negative in the Archdiocese of St. Paul-Minneapolis.

The primary outcome of the 2010 Synod will be the election of a Coordinating Council whose task will be to create mechanisms of horizontal and vertical communication within the Archdiocese so as to begin conversation about implementing the recommendations for reform.

It’s certainly not too late to become involved in one or more of CCCR’s work/study groups. To find out more information about the groups, click here. To sign-up, call Paula Ruddy at 612-379-1043.


See also the previous PCV posts:
“Something Exciting and Joyous”
In What Sense Are We Progressive Catholics? An Offering for Reflection and Discussion

One Archdiocesan Community, Two Mindsets

By Paula Ruddy

Are you a “Communion” Catholic or a “Kingdom” Catholic? Does it matter? Can you be a “just plain” Catholic?

The Pentecost encounter between Archbishop John C. Nienstedt and the Rainbow Sash Alliance this past week may be an example of two different mindsets, or worldviews, trying to make sense of each other.

Timothy Radcliffe, O.P., has an analysis that may help us understand the polarity within our church and give us a way to approach each other.

Here is how he describes each mindset:

By Kingdom Catholics, I mean those of us who have a deep sense of the church as the pilgrim people of God, on the way to the kingdom. The theologians who have been central for this tradition have been people like the Jesuit Karl Rahner, and the Dominicans Edward Schillebeeckx and Gustavo Gutiérrez. This tradition stresses openness to the world, finding the presence of the Holy Spirit working outside the church, freedom and the pursuit of justice. They became very much identified with a publication called Concilium.

By Communion Catholics I mean those who came, after the council, to feel the urgent need to rebuild the inner life of the church. They went with theologians like Hans von Balthasar and the then Joseph Ratzinger. Their theology often stressed Catholic identity, was wary of too hearty an embrace of modernity, and they stressed the cross. They had their publication. It was called Communio.

Of course, all this is a bit of a caricature. I am able to go into a more nuanced analysis in my book. Most of us will feel some attraction to both of these traditions, but will probably feel a primary identification with one or the other. We will only heal the divisions if we stretch our imaginations open to understand why the others think and feel as they do. Before we can talk, we must sympathize, and feel how it is that their way of understanding the church offers them a home, a place in which to be at peace.

- Timothy Radcliffe, O.P., What is the Point of Being a Christian?;
lecture in April, 2006, entitled “Overcoming Discord in the Church”,
published in the National Catholic Reporter, May 5, 2006

Radcliffe says Vatican II disrupted the peace of Communion Catholics while it liberated Kingdom Catholics. Retrenchments from Vatican II dismay Kingdoms while they hearten Communions. They both experience what he calls “root shock,” a feeling of losing a home.

John L. Allen, Jr., in the National Catholic Reporter, May 17, 2007, writing about the Pope’s way of communicating, says this of the “communio school”:

Benedict is close to the communio school in Catholic theology, whose key figures accent the need for the church to speak its own language. It's an "insider's" discourse, premised on the conviction that Christianity is itself a culture, often at odds with the prevailing worldview of modernity. All this is part of Benedict's project of defending Catholic identity against pressures to assimilate in a relativistic, secularized world.

We don’t want to think of one mindset as right and the other wrong. They are different. They probably both have upsides and downsides. But to avoid extreme relativism in saying one is just as good as the other, we might say one has more going for it in 21st Century U.S.A. than the other. One may take into account more stages of human development than the other. One may produce stability while the other produces growth. We’d have to think that one through.

But for now, how does this analysis relate to the Archbishop and the Rainbow Sash?

The Rainbow Sash Alliance is a group of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GLBT) people, their families, friends, and allies, who gather each Pentecost at the St. Paul Cathedral at the noon Mass to celebrate their lives and gifts and to give thanks and praise in the Eucharistic celebration. They wear rainbow colored sashes to identify themselves. Not unlike the Knights of Columbus in full gear, celebrating the contributions they have made to the community.

The recent Archbishops have seen this as a protest to Church teaching about the intrinsic disorder of homosexual sex. As we understand it, their view is that protest at the Eucharistic celebration is contrary to the sign of unity Eucharist is supposed to be.

In responding to the Rainbow Sash leader, Brian McNeill, Archbishop Nienstedt wrote: “I ask you to refrain from such a public act of dissent, especially as it so clearly shows disrespect and irreverence for the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ.” He also talks about disrupting the prayer of the gathered community. He speaks of being out of communion with the Church’s teaching when there is disagreement.

We are suggesting that this illustrates the two different mindsets Radcliffe is talking about. The Archbishop, as a good leader, wants to maintain order. He is focused on the external behavior of respect and reverence for the sacrament, shown in this case by not drawing attention to the fact that there is disagreement among the communicants. He is concerned for the inner life of the church in that to function well the members should be in agreement on all the basics and obedient to the leaders. The Church is one body, thinking alike, acting reverently, producing a right minded, godly membership. He is speaking like a Communion Catholic.

The Rainbow Sash Alliance, on the other hand, wants to affirm difference. There are many ways we are not alike. Perhaps it would be acceptable to leave differences at the door of the Cathedral when going in to celebrate Mass if there were a forum within the Archdiocese for bringing them up and having them affirmed in another venue. But there is such a high value on uniformity within the Communion leadership, that there is no room for difference. Individuals who do not fit are stifled. GLBT persons do not fit the mold, defined in formulations about sin. People who question do not fit the mold, defined in dogmas and “unchanging truths.”

Kingdom Catholics value diversity, inclusion of all differences, openness to the world of differences. The building of the Kingdom is a process of relating to difference in mutual love and cooperation, difficult as it may be. They believe that the Spirit of God is in every person and in the community of persons. The question arises for them: Why is reverence and respect for God in the Blessed Sacrament more important than reverence and respect for God in other humans?

Is there any way for these two mindsets to work together? Radcliffe suggests that each has to empathize with the other’s needs for belonging, affirmation, contribution. Each has to have a home in the Church.

Maybe if a person is self reflective at all, or aware of the human dynamics in community, he or she cannot be a “just plain” Catholic. Or maybe a “just plain” Catholic is one who, with either Communion or Kingdom leanings, has a spirituality deep enough to accept and value the other.

We would like to hear your ideas about these questions and if and how the polarization can be healed. Sign up for a Google account and leave us a comment.


See also the previous post:
Civil Discourse. In Church? - Charles Pilon (Progressive Catholic Voice, January 5, 2009).

Archbishop Nienstedt Responds to Rainbow Sash Alliance

Archbishop John C. Nienstedt of the Archdiocese of St. Paul-Minneapolis has responded to a letter by Brian McNeill, organizer of Rainbow Sash Alliance USA, in which McNeill notified the archbishop that - as in previous years - lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) Catholics and their allies would be present wearing rainbow sashes at this year’s Pentecost Sunday noon Mass at the Cathedral of St. Paul

Notes McNeill on the Rainbow Sash Alliance USA website:

We cannot repeat too often that we attend Mass on Pentecost to celebrate who we are, not to protest. We participate in Mass in the same way we do all the other days of the year. But on Pentecost we come out of the closet as lgbt Catholics, family and friends to remind our fellow Catholics that we too are part of God’s loving family.

McNeill’s letter to the archbishop also stressed that the rainbow sash represents and invites dialogue between LGBT Catholics and the Roman Catholic hierarchy.

Following is Archbishop Nienstedt’s response.

_____________________________________

Dear Brian,

I write to acknowledge your letter of May 10, 2009, alerting me to the fact that you and some fellow protesters will be wearing rainbow sashes at the noon Mass on Pentecost in the Cathedral of St. Paul. I ask you to refrain from such a public act of dissent, especially as it so clearly shows disrespect and irreverence for the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ.

Anyone wearing a “rainbow sash” will not be permitted to receive Holy Communion, since their dissent is a sign that they have publicly broken communion with the Church’s teaching. I also ask that those not wearing the sashes refrain from sharing the Holy Eucharist with those who do. Such an action is unbecoming the dignity of the sacrament.

With regard to the dialogue you request, it would first be essential that you state clearly that you hold with the conviction all that the Church teaches on matters of human sexuality. If you do not believe, then there cannot be dialogue, but only debate. The truths of our faith are not open to debate.

Again, I hope you will see how disruptive your planned protest will be for those who will gather on Pentecost to pray. I ask you to refrain from being the cause of such disruption.

Sincerely yours in Christ,

The Most Reverend John C. Nienstedt
Archbishop of Saint Paul and Minneapolis


Recommended Off-site Links:
Rainbow Sash Wearers Prohibited from Receiving Communion - The Catholic Spirit, May 27, 2009.
“Take, All of You, and Eat” – Communion and the Rainbow Sash - The Wild Reed, May 28, 2007.

Fr. Thomas Doyle: "There is Something Radically Wrong With the Institutional Catholic Church"

Last week saw the release of the Irish government’s Report of the Commission to Inquire Into Child Abuse. This report is the result of a nine-year investigation into Catholic church-operated schools and reformatories in Ireland. It covers a 60-year-period from 1936 to the present, and documents how Roman Catholic institutions permitted and fostered climates of sustained abuse - sexual, physical, emotional, spiritual - by priests and nuns.

Following is an excerpt from U.S. Dominican Fr. Thomas Doyle’s powerful May 22 National Catholic Reporter commentary, “Irish Abuse Report Demands Decisive Action.” Doyle (pictured above) is a canon lawyer and advocate for those abused by priests. He calls for nothing less than the fearless examination - and dismantling - of the current institutional component of the Roman Catholic Church.

___________________________________

. . . The vicious sexual, physical, emotional and spiritual devastation inflicted upon these children was not accidental. It was systemic. It was part of the everyday life and indeed deeply ingrained in the very culture of the childcare system in Catholic Ireland.

The intellects and emotions of decent people, of committed Christians and especially of devoted Catholics cannot truly process the unbelievable reality presented in this report. The sadistic world of these institutions is not that of some crazed secular dictatorship. It is not the world of an uncivilized tribal culture that ravaged the weak in ages long past. This report describes a world created and sustained by the Roman Catholic Church. The horrors inflicted on these helpless, trapped children – rapes, beatings, molestation, starvation, isolation – all were inflicted by men and women who had vowed themselves to the service of people in the name of Christ’s love.

The Report of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse is not unique though it may well be the most shocking example of the reality of such a culture of evil. In the past two decades over two dozen reports have described physical and sexual abuse of children and vulnerable adults by Catholic clergy and religious. Among the more shocking have been a series of reports submitted to the Vatican between 1994 and 1998 revealing sexual exploitation of religious women in Africa by African priests. These reports remained largely unknown until they were brought to light by the National Catholic Reporter in 2001. Other reports have opened the doors to the secret world of clergy sexual abuse in the U.S. and elsewhere. The report of the Winter Commission about rampant sexual abuse at Mount Cashel, the Christian Brothers orphanage in Newfoundland and the report of the Philadelphia Grand Jury investigation stand out as examples not only of the depravity but of the institutionalized cover-up.

Revelations of various forms of abuse by Catholic religious and clerics all have common elements. Likewise, they evoke responses from the institutional leadership that are common to all examples of abuse and consistent in their nature. Most disturbing is the certain knowledge that the vicious abuse, in Ireland and elsewhere, is not accidental nor isolated and it is never unknown to Church authorities. The Church’s authorities, from the pope himself down to the local bishops and religious superiors have known about this unbelievable culture of abuse and have done nothing.

Archbishop Timothy Dolan referred to the Church as a “Loving Mother” when he spoke at his installation Mass in New York. In light of the facts disclosed in the Irish report as well as the information revealed about countless other cases of abuse, such a description of the Church is not only absurd, but insulting to the countless people whose belief and trust in the hierarchy and clergy has been betrayed.

The official reaction is predictable. Denial, minimization, blame shifting and finally limited acknowledgment followed by carefully nuanced “apologies” has been the standard fare. At no time has the leadership of any part of the institutional Church ever owned up to any systemic accountability. The standard responses are totally unacceptable because they are devious and irrelevant. Those who still hold to the institutional Church as their source of emotional security may well bray about anti-Catholicism, media sensationalism and exaggeration of what they claim to be an aberration. Such responses are mindless but far worse, they inflict even more pain on the thousands whose lives have been violated.

The Church cannot and will not fix itself. The very reality of the systemic abuse in the Irish institutions (and elsewhere as well) reveals a deep disdain for people by those charged with leading the Church. There has been an abandonment of the fundamental values that are supposed to vivify the Church if indeed these values were ever really internalized by many in positions of power. There is something radically wrong with the institutional Catholic Church. This is painfully obvious because it allows systemic abuse and radical dishonesty to coexist with its self-proclaimed identity as the Kingdom of God on earth.

The institutional Church is defensively changing its approach to the systematic abuse all too slowly and only because it is forced to do so by external forces it cannot control. The Irish government commission is one and the U.S. legal system is another. No amount of bureaucratic programs, pious apologies, rhetorical hand wringing and effusive promises of future change will make the difference. The problem is more than the widespread abuse itself. Punishing the perpetrators is completely missing the forest standing behind the trees. The clerical culture intertwined with the institution needs to be fearlessly examined and dismantled as we know it. It has wrought far too much destruction and murdered too many souls to be tolerated for another generation.

Catholics have a profound obligation in charity and justice to the countless victims of all forms of abuse. They have an obligation to believers of all kinds everywhere. They must ceaselessly do all that can be done to free the Christian/Catholic community from the toxic control of the clericalized institutional structure so that once more the Church will be identified not with an anachronistic and self-serving monarchy but with the Body of Christ.

To read Fr. Thomas Doyle’s commentary in its entirety, click here.


Recommended Off-site Links:
In Ireland, the Abuse of Children - and Power - Mary C. Curtic (Politics Daily, May 21, 2009).
Richard Sipe: Bill Donohue is a Bozo - National Catholic Reporter (May 23, 2009).
On Truth Commissions: Parallels Between Legacy of Torture and Catholic Sexual Abuse Crisis - William D. Lindsey (Bilgrimage, May 21, 2009).
Crisis in the Catholic Church - Timothy Lytton (National Sexuality Resource Center, August 1, 2008).
Absolute Power - Tony Hopfinger (Newsweek, January 14, 2008).

DignityUSA Releases "Talking Points" on Archbishop Weakland's Coming Out

DignityUSA, the nation’s largest Catholic LGBT organization, has released the following “talking points” on Archbishop Rembert Weakland’s disclosure that he is gay.

_____________________________________

Archbishop Weakland has shown tremendous courage to come out as a gay man. He is the first US Catholic bishop to do so.

It is time for the whole Catholic Church to be honest and open about what everyone knows. There are gay priests and bishops in the church.

We hope that Archbishop Weakland’s courageous action will be a big step towards creating a climate in which other gay bishops, priests, women religious and church workers will feel safe in living honestly and openly.

Millions of gay Catholics and their families in the United States and around the world will find hope in Archbishop Weakland’s openness and honesty.

As Catholics debate celibacy, we know that we all need to be honest about God’s gift of human sexuality.

God’s call to priesthood transcends gender, sexual orientation, relationship status and other human constraints. All should be able to use their gifts in the service of the church.

Archbishop Weakland’s lifelong record of distinguished service to the Church shows that being gay does not prevent him from being effective as a priest and bishop.

Archbishop Weakland’s frank discussion of his shortcomings in handling the sexual abuse crisis shows that secrets create problems. Secrecy was the source of the church’s failure to recognize the dysfunction of abusive priests and to take immediate, strong steps to protect all church members from abuse.

Secrecy was also the problem when Archbishop Weakland was sued for creating a bond with a young adult seminarian. To keep the accusation a secret, a confidential settlement was reached. Despite the agreement, it became public and Archbishop Weakland resigned to avoid a public battle. Unfortunately, this is another sad case in which secrecy about sexual orientation impeded honest, open, and healthy relationships within the Church.


Recommended Off-site Link:
Ex-Archbishop Speaks About Catholic Church and Homosexuality - Laurie Goodstein (New York Times, May 14, 2009).

Why One Young Woman Still Calls Herself Catholic

The following excerpt is from an article by a young woman named Jamie Manson posted on the National Catholic Reporter website’s “Young Voices” page. We at the Progressive Catholic Voice find it to be a very hopeful testimonial. Perhaps you will too.

________________________________________

The notion that grace perfects nature forms the basis for the uniquely Catholic idea that all finite things in creation are capable of revealing truths about what is infinite or eternal. Catholics have a sacramental view of the world. That is, for a Catholic, all of creation is good, and everything in our finite world can be a vessel of God’s presence and God’s transforming grace. This idea provides the foundation for Catholicism’s rich mysticism and spirituality, its unparalleled social justice doctrine, its care of the poor, and its exquisite legacy of artists and writers.

These traditions keep me calling myself Catholic. But I separate the Catholic tradition from the institutional church, namely its governing body. Because I see so much harm done to women, to those dying from the AIDS pandemic, to American nuns under scrutiny, to victims of pedophilia, to divorced people, to women who have had abortions, and to gays and lesbians. I do not currently trust that the hierarchy of the church is acting with integrity toward the people of God. I struggle to believe that the hierarchy’s intentions are centered in the desire to be a beacon of the healing, reconciling, challenging love of God. Rather, I wonder if they aren’t motivated instead by the drive toward self-preservation rooted in the fear of engaging the people of God where they are in all of their very real struggles and questions.

For me, there is nothing to “leave.” I cannot leave my Catholic tradition any more than I can leave my Italian tradition, which also formed my vision and imagination, my way of seeing the world, my way of relating to others. One can argue that I have left the Catholic church since I no longer accept the authority of the hierarchy. However, I feel equally left behind by the institution. As a woman and lesbian, I have no voice in this institution, and I am denied the ability to make a substantive contribution to it. Rather than speaking about leaving the church, I believe is time to call the institutional church to accountability for how many people it has left behind.

Unlike many of those fighting for reform in the Catholic church, I’m not aiming to “take back my church.” I’m not sure that the institution and its endless tomes of rules, its privileged priesthood, and its propensity for uninviting people from the Eucharistic table is something worth re-inheriting because I’m not convinced these functions were ever conceived or practiced with God-centered intentions.

I don’t wish to reclaim this church, nor do I feel like I have to in order to call myself Catholic. Rather, I am attempting to take all of the riches of the Catholic tradition with me and share them with others in the hope of finding communities that share this common Catholic vision: that we are all unequivocally called to have a preferential option for the poor, that contemplative prayer and meditation is a path to greater wholeness, and that ritual, symbol, image and word can make real the life-giving power of God’s love in our world.

To read Jamie’s commentary in its entirety, click here.

Archdiocese "Management System" Lacks Compassion and Justice

By Darlene White

Catching the headline, “Archdiocese Policy Models Justice in the Workplace” (National Catholic Reporter, 3-20-09), I was eager to see where this piece of heaven was planted. However, I was stunned to learn it was the St. Paul/Minneapolis Archdiocese – a place I have been part of most of my 71 years. Just a few of my own experiences provoke this response and both happened within the last five years.

Diocesan officials wiped out an entire staff of a once vibrant justice-seeking inner city parish in Minneapolis. Nothing about that was exemplary . . . more purge than process.

An employee of a suburban parish was fired. She requested a meeting with chancery officials. The officials were lined up but she was denied the presence of even one and instructed to write a letter of voluntary resignation to her parishioners. The purported rationale for this demand was “to avoid confusion among the faithful”! That standard excuse appears with greater frequency these days but is no less of an affront to the intelligence and judgment of adult Catholics!

The author mentions that most employed Americans who work without a contract can be fired “virtually any reason, absent violations of state or federal discrimination statutes”.

In Minnesota, thank God, our Human Rights Ordinance includes discrimination based on sexual orientation. It is interesting that churches and other non- profits are exempted from that injunction. This archdiocese labored tirelessly to make sure that that particular language was part of the ordinance. How secure are our gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender employees in this environment. And how sad is that!

Termination ‘for cause’ means whatever ‘the powers’ determine it to be. Their criteria are broader and deeper than the Grand Canyon . . . without the beauty! As a result, there are constant assaults on the freedoms of church employees that other citizens take for granted. Everyday in this archdiocese, hundreds of men and women struggle to lead lives of integrity and service while living and working in an institution that grows more archaic, fear-driven and abusive.

Rigid orthodoxy and authoritarianism are the hallmarks of employer/employee relationships in the St. Paul/Minneapolis Archdiocese. Below a veneer of justice is a cesspool of deceit and bullying. There is no reflection of the compassion and liberating spirit of Jesus in this management system!


Among other organizations, Darlene White is a member of Catholic Rainbow Parents, Grandmothers for Peace, Women Against Military Madness (WAMM), and several small Christian communities. She believes patriarchy is the antithesis of the gospel message which requires radical equality and respect all creation. An edited version of this commentary was published as a letter-to-the-editor in the April 17, 2009 issue of the National Catholic Reporter.

Catholics Call for the Repentance of the Sin of Heterosexism

The Des Moines Catholic Worker Community has issued a public statement entitled, “A Call for the Repentance of Heterosexism.”

The statement laments the long history of “unspeakable acts of hatred and violence that have devastated [gay people’s] lives and, in countless instances, lead to their deaths.”

It also declares that “the trust that God has given to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender daughters and sons has not been misplaced, and this is evidenced by their unfailing witness of love [in the world]. By their fruits, we know them. They have continued to love us, even we didn’t love them, and their labors have led only to a deeper understanding of love, strengthened and expanded communities, reconciliation among the faithful, and a world in which it is easier to love. To neither cherish nor express our gratitude for this blessing is a desecration of God’s love and therefore a sin.”

In the April 2009 edition of the Des Moines Catholic Worker newspaper, the following was shared about the specific recent events that led to the issuing of this call for repentance:

In December, 2008, a number of cruel and ignorant public statements regarding same-sex relationships were made by church leadership that weighed heavily on the hearts in our community.

After prayer and reflection, our souls insisted that we publicly confess and repent our sins of heterosexism and call others to do the same.

Following is the full text of the Des Moines Catholic Worker Community’s statement.

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A Call for the Repentance
of Heterosexism

We are past and present Catholic Workers who come together to speak in support of the United Nations Declaration on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity presented to the United Nations General Assembly on December 18, 2008. The declaration condemns violence, harassment, discrimination, exclusion, stigmatization, and prejudice based on sexual orientation and gender identity. It also condemns killing and executions, torture, arbitrary arrest, and deprivation of economic, social, and cultural rights on those grounds.

For nearly a millennium, millions of our sisters and brothers who have been, or were perceived to have been lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender have endured unspeakable acts of hatred and violence that have devastated their lives and, in countless instances, lead to their deaths. Today, 77 nations still criminalize these children of God based on their sexual orientation and gender identity, and in seven nations these “crimes” are punishable by death. As recently as 2003, the United States of America still had such laws in effect in several states.

Throughout the history of the Catholic Worker movement, these brothers and sisters have stood with us, praying together, performing works of mercy together, witnessing for justice together, being arrested together, and sitting in jail together. They have stood with us even though we have often denied and mistreated them. We have done those things we have done together because we shared a common belief in the teachings of Jesus Christ that the greatest commandment is that we are to love our neighbor as ourselves and that our love is measured by what we do for the least of these.

The sanctity of romantic and filial love inherent in this commandment is self-evident. The clear God-given blessing of these expressions of love inspire us to care for one another as much as we care for ourselves and lead us to form families and communities to more closely express, as Jesus taught, that God is love.

When there is no greater love that that love for which one would lay down one’s life for a friend, love so expressed can only come from God. Where there is love so compelling that one will stay true to that love even when it calls one to leave one’s father and mother and all that was treasured before that love was known, that love can only come from God. When a love triumphs over grave after grave after grave, that love can only come from God. To confess rather than deny before the world the love placed in one’s heart by God though others revile you, persecute you, and say all manner of evil against you for its sake is striking and irrefutable evidence of God and that the words of Jesus are lasting and true.

The trust that God has given to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender daughters and sons has not been misplaced, and this is evidenced by their unfailing witness of love so described. By their fruits, we know them. They have continued to love us, even we didn’t love them, and their labors have led only to a deeper understanding of love, strengthened and expanded communities, reconciliation among the faithful, and a world in which it is easier to love.

To neither cherish nor express our gratitude for this blessing is a desecration of God’s love and therefore a sin. This sin is not ameliorated by abstractions or by hiding behind the parsing of terminology or other deviations that serve to rationalize sin. Exposing sin, however controversial, does not derail nor shrink any other concern for peace and justice on our path. We know that fearing to take this position now will.

Because historic and contemporary acceptance and practice of a sin does not diminish the obligation of a contrite heart to confess it, we choose to repent. Furthermore, we hold that heterosexist bigotry is not based in nor supported by the gospels but is a human invention wrought by fear, ignorance, and greed. Therefore, now and forever, we confess all our sins of heterosexism against our lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender brothers and sisters within and outside the Catholic Worker Movement; we ask these sisters and brothers and God to forgive us our sins against them, and we pledge our best efforts to go and sin no more.

As part of our penance, we call upon all nations, in particular the United States of America, all organized entities, and people of faith to join us in repentance and to:

Endorse enthusiastically and without equivocation the 2008 United Nations Declaration on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity as well as any such future declarations.

Renounce all public remarks made regarding lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people that serve to demean, degrade, or foment hostility toward and discrimination against them such as, but not limited to, those comments made by religious leaders comparing them to pedophiles or saying they are more threatening than global warming. Moreover we ask those who have made such ascription to confess the cruelty of these words and to recant them.

While we pray and wait for these things, we join hands with our lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender brothers and sisters willing and prepared to share any slight, bear any burden, and suffer any affliction with them until the day they are regarded by all humankind as worthy and equal to us all, as they have always been held in the eyes of God.

Respectfully submitted March 1, 2009
The Des Moines Catholic Worker Community

Papal Appointment of Bishops is Not Traditional

The following is excerpted from Richard P. McBrien’s column in the April 17, 2009 issue of the National Catholic Reporter.

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Throughout most of the history of the Catholic church, bishops were elected from the local diocesan clergy by laity and clergy alike. The bishop of Rome had no direct role whatsoever in those elections.

However, because of the communion that existed, and still exists, among all the local churches, or dioceses, both with one another and with the diocese of Rome and its bishop, the pope was subsequently informed of the results of these elections as a matter of courtesy and protocol.

It was not until the 19th century, however, that the popes began to claim the exclusive right to appoint bishops throughout the Catholic world. Although the pope has exercised this prerogative ever since then, it is hardly traditional.

Catholics in the first millennium would have been taken aback by the papal appointments of bishops, but they would have been utterly shocked to learn that someone who was already the bishop of one diocese would accept election to another.

Such a practice would have been recognized as being in direct violation of the teaching of the First Council of Nicaea in 325, the council that defined the divinity of Jesus Christ and gave us the Nicene Creed. Nicaea’s teaching was reaffirmed by the Council of Chalcedon in 451, the council that defined the relationship between the divinity and humanity of Christ.

Canon 15 of Nicaea reads as follows:

On account of the great disturbance and the factions which are caused, it is decreed that the custom, if it is found to exist in some parts contrary to the canon, shall be totally suppressed, so that neither bishops nor presbyters [priests] nor deacons shall transfer from city to city.

If after this decision of this holy and great synod anyone shall attempt such a thing, or shall lend himself to such a proceeding, the arrangement shall be totally annulled, and he shall be restored to the church of which he was ordained bishop or presbyter or deacon.

The Council of Chalcedon, 126 years later, reiterated the teaching of Nicaea in its own Canon 6:

In the matter of bishops or clerics who move from city to city, it has been decided that the canons issued by the holy fathers concerning them should retain proper force.

These two canons, which have never been explicity revoked, were consistently regarded as retaining “their proper force” as late as the year 897, when the body of Pope Formosus (891-96) was exhumed from its resting place nine months after his death. The body was clothed in full pontifical vestments and placed on trial in what became known as the “cadaver synod.”




Among the charges leveled against the deceased pope was that he had accepted election as bishop of Rome when he was already the bishop of another diocese (Porto, Italy), in clear violation of the canons of the councils of Nicaea and Chalcedon.

It is significant, however, that no known protest had been registered at the time of his election to Rome, nor was there any known reaction when Marinus because the first bishop of another diocese to be elected bishop of Rome in 882.

The force of these canons obviously did not endure into the second ot third Christian millennium, when the practice of transferring bishops from one diocese to another became common.

In our time, a certain type of Catholic pines for “the good old days: before the Second Vatican Council when, it is mistakenly thought, the Lord’s “organizational plan” for the his church was faithfully honored and implemented.

But we realize now, in the light of history, that what people had become accustomed to in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s was not at all a part of the unchanging tradition of the Catholic church.

Fr. Richard McBrien is the Crowley-O’Brien professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana.


NOTE: If this issue interests you and if you live in the local church of St. Paul/Minneapolis, you may be interested in joining a work/study group focused on the selection of bishops. This group was formed as a follow-up action to the recent prayer breakfast of the Catholic Coalition for Church Reform (CCCR), and is one of a number of work/study groups leading up to CCCR’s 2010 Synod of the Baptized. For more information, call 612-379-1043.