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Contemporary Catholic Voices


Now that the London Olympics are over, we can focus again on the Vatican games. Three LCWR comments from this past week still echo in my head…the voices of Burke, Campbell, and Appleby.

“How in the world can these consecrated religious who have professed to follow Christ more closely . . . be opposed to what the Vicar of Christ is asking? This is a contradiction,” Cardinal Raymond Burke, leader of the Vatican’s Supreme Court, told Catholic TV station EWTN. “If it can’t be reformed, then it doesn’t have a right to continue.”

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Cardinal Burke

“They’re saying it’s only about doctrine. But for us, the dialogue is about reflecting on our lives out of Gospel. Theology in our view is about exploration and discovery. They think that’s wrong. It’s like cutting the heart out of who we are,” said Sister Simone Campbell, a lawyer and lobbyist in Washington who this summer led nuns on a well-publicized tour called “Nuns on the Bus.”

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Sister Campbell

“Both sides in the standoff speak of ‘dialogue,’ but they seem to mean different things,” said R. Scott Appleby, a historian at Notre Dame. Leading bishops “understand dialogue as a conversation about how best to implement the pope’s vision of religious life and witness. The sisters mean an open-ended give-and-take that is more of a mutual discernment of where the Spirit is leading the Church at a given moment in history.”

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Professor Appleby

…….

And a Greenleaf reflection about the term “Vicar of Christ.” The term has a long and problematic history. In the third century, in the epistles of Tertullian the term meant the Holy Spirit. Later it meant pastors of parishes. When the papacy became a powerful monarchy in the later Middle Ages, it was adopted by popes as a self-descriptive term for their authoritative power. Currently the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that all bishops are vicars of Christ……..

Pope Benedict XVI in 2012 asked that the term be used to describe him. The 2012 edition of the Annuario Pontificio (the official Vatican directory of the world’s bishops) gives “Vicar of Jesus Christ” as the second official title of the Pope, the first being “Bishop of Rome.”

Jesus of course never knew the term. In the Fourth Gospel, Jesus says:
“I am the vine. You are the branches. Those who live in me while I live in them will produce a lot of fruit. But you can’t produce anything without me.”

So in fact we are all branches…..or all vicars. Hmmmmm ….

Then Cardinal Burke would have to say: “Sister Campbell is vicar of Christ on earth.”

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A NEW CATHOLIC POLITICAL DILEMMA


Many months ago, when I launched ANOTHER VOICE, I decided that I would not take sides with any US political party. I am an historical theologian not a political campaigner.

I am also a strongly committed Roman Catholic who, even with so much current Vatican-inspired nonsense, says proudly “hell no I won’t go!”

Being Catholic for me means belonging to the Catholic wisdom tradition. It means appreciating all human striving for personal meaning, integrity and justice. And it means looking at the world from a Jesus perspective. It means adopting an outlook that encourages personal growth and social transformation. It means building community and learning from history. It means not being afraid to ask questions about faith, about the Church, or about the world in which we live.

Now that the Mormon Mr Romney has picked the Roman Catholic Mr Ryan as his vice-presidential running mate, I have some serious questions. I see a new Catholic political dilemma; and I have serious questions about what it means to be “pro-life.”

I clearly remember this past April, when our USCCB sent a blistering message to the House Ways and Means Committee. Our US bishops insisted that any federal budget must be judged by the way it protects the “least of these.” I remember the words of Bishop Stephen Blaire of Stockton, Calif., the chairman of the USCCB’s Committee on Domestic Justice, Peace and Human Development, when he stressed that “The House-passed budget resolution fails to meet these moral criteria.”

The architect of the federal budget that our Catholic Bishops deemed immoral was of course Rep. Paul Ryan, a Catholic, who has now joined Mitt Romney as his running mate on the GOP ticket.

Catholic voters will now have a choice in the November 2012 presidential election that highlights contemporary Catholic tensions and ethical priorities.

Tensions and ethical priorities are of course an essential part of our Catholic life.

LCWR, as of last Friday, August 11th, has formally rejected the Vatican takeover of its  organization. The sisters have been accused of emphasizing work with the poor and not focusing enough on issues such as abortion and gay marriage. It is a question, once again, about our broad-based catholic (meaning universal) CATHOLIC perspective on human life.

LCWR Sister Simone Campbell, who participated in “Nuns On A Bus” tour during which she and other sisters traveled to nine states protesting the budget proposal of Rep. Paul Ryan, has continually reiterated that Ryan’s budget “rejects church teaching about solidarity, inequality, the choice for the poor, and the common good. That’s wrong.”

At the end of April 2012, Representative Ryan was invited to speak at the Jesuit affiliated Georgetown University. Before he arrived, Ryan was sent a letter signed by more than ninety members of the Georgetown faculty. In that letter, the vice presidential candidate was again taken to task. “Your budget appears to reflect the values of your favorite philosopher, Ayn Rand, rather than the Gospel of Jesus Christ,” the letter emphasized. “Her call to selfishness and her antagonism toward religion are antithetical to the Gospel values of compassion and love.”

So now we have much food for Catholic thought over the next three months. And…..ironically or not…..both the current vice-president and the recent vice-presidential addition to the Republican ticket are Catholics from heavily Catholic states.

I close with remarks from Michael Sean Winters, writing in the National Catholic Reporter on August 11th:

“Mr. Ryan has taken to invoking Catholic Social Teaching, and especially the concept of subsidiarity, to defend his budgetary schemes. Alas, he could not tell the difference between subsidiarity and sausage…. Mr. Ryan has put forward no strategy for assisting the poor, protecting the vulnerable, guaranteeing health care to all. He simply wants to roll back the role of government to pre-FDR days. And, to be clear, to achieve his goal, he is willing to engage in explicit dissent from years and years of explicit magisterial teaching. Dissent may not bother non-Catholics. It may not, in this instance, bother some Catholics. But, I look at our socio-cultural landscape and think Catholic Social Teaching is the only thing that can save our ideologically confused, socially centrifugal culture from itself. Ryan’s willingness to dissent from it – and for what? for Rand ? – is not only bothersome. It is dangerous.”

 

 

 

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Civil Discourse in an Era of Catholic Polarization


In our Catholic tradition, there has long been a variety of theologies. From the earliest years of the church in fact, we had a Petrine theology, a Pauline theology, and the four theologies of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

Occasionally, however, polarization sets in. Civil discourse breaks down, Christian charity disappears, and church people seem better at fighting each other than celebrating and living their common bonds of faith, hope, and charity.

That is where we are today. LCWR’s difficulties with Rome make an excellent case study. Another good case study is the way many a high placed American ecclesiastic demonizes Barack Obama and his policies. History will judge whether Obama is or was a good president. But it is cruel and immoral to demonize him and either his supporters or his opponents.

The same goes for the Pope. Another excellent contemporary case study. He is not my favorite Pope. I find his theology narrow-focused and archaic in a disturbingly unhealthy way. Nevertheless he has a a right to hold and express his theology. Others in the church have an equal right (responsibility) to hold and express a different and more contemporary theology. Disagreement with papal theology does not make one a Catholic heretic.

Nevertheless: Polarization in today’s church is an ecclesiastical infirmity of major proportions. People hide behind their favorite stereotypes and arrogantly condemn and assail their enemies. Like medieval knights fighting dragons. In the process they demean the other. In the process they demean themselves.

Such heated exchanges are painful for the actors. They are painful for the observers as well. I still remember an exchange, that got out of hand, between my friend, Joe, a somewhat rigid and very macho Catholic businessman and my friend, Ellen, a rather assertive sociology instructor who belonged to a community of progressive women religious. Both were participants in a seminar I had organized on “women in the church today.” It started out fine. There were keen observations, expressions of concern, and occasional laughter.

It became tense when someone in the group asked why women could not be Catholic priests. Joe, well-known and influential in the diocese, bristled and said the Lord did not want women to be priests. Ellen bristled and said she was certain the Lord did want women priests and had called her to ordained ministry. The fight was on.

At one point red-faced Joe yelled at Ellen: “why don’t you just jump on your broom and fly back to your feminist convent?” She locked her jaw and hissed: “well isn’t this nice….just what we need… another arrogant, narrow-minded talking penis!” I stood up and as calmly as I could (well I do have Quaker roots) announced it was time for a coffee break and took the two “friends” for a long walk in the backyard…..

Most of us do have strong viewpoints. When our buttons get pushed, it is not always easy to come up with something other than a polarizing response.

Nevertheless, as I scan the contemporary church scene, it is obvious we are well beyond the eleventh hour in the Catholic Church. Red danger lights are flashing. We have to move beyond the liberal/conservative — preVatican II/postVatican II — pro-life/pro-choice –feminist/sexist polarizations that demean and destroy all of us.

We need to develop the habit and the skills for critical and respectful dialogue.

I have been following the work of a young American theologian who, I believe, understands exactly what we need: Charles C. Camosy, assistant professor of Christian ethics at Fordham University in New York City and author of an insightful book about polarization: Peter Singer and Christian Ethics: Beyond Polarization.

Charles proposes five practices for moving beyond the polarization which currently dominates so much of contemporary church (and contemporary political) discourse:

(1) Humility. We are finite, flawed beings and are prone to making serious mistakes. We need to enter into discussions and arguments with this at the very front of our minds — not only in being comfortable with someone challenging our point of view, but also reserving the right to change our mind when our argument is shown to be problematic.

(2) Solidarity with our conversation partner. This involves active listening, presuming that one has something to learn, and (if possible) getting to know the other personally beyond an abstraction. Never reduce the other to what you suspect are “secret personal motivations.” Instead, give your partner the courtesy of carefully responding to the actual idea or argument that he or she is offering for your consideration.

(3) Avoiding binary thinking. The issues that are seriously debated in our public sphere are almost always too complex to fit into simplistic categories like liberal/conservative, religious/secular, open/close-minded, pro-life/pro-choice, etc. Furthermore, it sets up a framework in which taking one side automatically defines one against “the other side” — thus further limiting serious and open engagement.

(4) Avoiding fence-building and dismissive words and phrases. It might feel good to score these rhetorical points, but doing so is one of the major contributors to our polarized discourse. Let us simply stop using words and phrases like: radical feminist, war on women, neocon, limousine liberal, prude, heretic, tree-hugger, anti-science, anti-life, and so on. Instead, use language that engages and draws the other into a fruitful engage of ideas.

(5) Leading with what you are for. Not only is this the best way to make a convincing case for the view you currently hold, but this practice often reveals that we are actually after very similar things and simply need to be able to talk in an open and coherent way about the best plan for getting there.

Charles C. Camosy can be reached at camosy@fordham.edu.

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I Heard the Voice of Catholic Fundamentalism


Listening to Bishop Leonard P. Blair of Toledo, Ohio, on National Public Radio’s “Fresh Air” program on July 25th, I heard the voce of Catholic fundamentalism. It is a dangerously arrogant voice; and we hear it ever more frequently in episcopal rhetoric.

Bishop Blair believes firmly that the bishops have the truth and the LCWR sisters need to conform and adhere to it. No one in fact has all the truth; and we should all be in respectful dialogue. But dialogue for Bishop Blair is not genuine dialogue. For him it appears to be more like a monologue demanding loyal submission of intellect and will.

On the dialogue that the LCWR would like to have with the Vatican, Bishop Blair said in the NPR interview: “If by dialogue, they mean that the doctrines of the church are negotiable, and that the bishops represent one position and the LCWR represents another position and somehow we find a middle ground about basic church teaching on faith and morals, then no, I don’t think that’s the dialogue the Holy See would envision. But if it’s a dialogue about how to have the LCWR really educate and help the sisters appreciate and accept church teaching and to implement it in their discussions, and try to heal some of the questions or concerns they have about these issues, that would be the dialogue.”

When the subject of women’s ordination came up, the Toledo bishop made statements that are simply wrong. I will explain in a minute what I mean. First Bishop Blair’s statement: “The church doesn’t say that the ordination of women is not possible because somehow women are unfit to carry out functions of the priest, but because on the level of sacramental signs, it’s not the choice that our Lord made when it comes to those who act in his very person, as the church’s bridegroom. And you can say that sounds like a lot of poetry or you know, how do we know that’s true, but if you’re a Catholic, this is part of our sacraments and practice for two millennia, and it’s not just an arbitrary decision of male oppression over women.”

Now why the bishop is dead wrong.

(1) Jesus did not ordain ANYONE! In the church’s first century, ordination, as we know it, did not exist.

(2) There is now ample and clear historic evidence that demonstrates beyond a doubt that women did in fact preside at Eucharist in early Christian communities; and women were called “apostles” by St. Paul and other early church leaders.

(3) And (as I indicated in an earlier post) there is also solid historic evidence that women were ORDAINED and functioned as deacons and priests even into the Middle Ages.

Yes…..Fundamentalism is hardly confined to just Islamic religion and is found in all societies and religions, including Roman Catholic Christianity; and the virus of Roman Catholic fundamentalism is pernicious, self-righteous, and devilishly destructive….

Increasingly, Roman Catholic fundamentalism (one need only reflect on many a red-faced outburst from the Cardinal Archbishop of New York) is a form of organized anger in reaction to social and religious change.

Fundamentalists find change emotionally disturbing and dangerous. Cultural, personal, and institutional religious “certitudes” are shaken. Today’s Catholic fundamentalists, like Cardinal Raymond Burke wrapped in his medieval cappa magna (picture below) pushing to bring back the Latin liturgy of the Council of Trent, yearn to return to a utopian past or a golden age, purified of “dangerous” contemporary ideas and practices.

Todays Catholic fundamentalists, like supporters of Pope Benedict’s New Evangelization, have aggressively banded together in order to put things right again – according to “orthodox” principles. They want to get things back to “normal”….Or as Bishop Blair said: dialogue is “about how to have the LCWR really educate and help the sisters appreciate and accept church teaching.”

Today’s Catholic fundamentalists are still troubled by: (1) the cultural revolution of the 1960s that questioned all institutions and brought profound social, economic and political consequences that continue to this day; and (2) the impact and immense cultural changes generated by the much-needed reforms of Second Vatican Council.

Catholic fundamentalism is becoming a powerful movement in the church to restore uncritically pre-Vatican II structures and attitudes.

Here are some clear signs of contemporary Catholic fundamentalism:

(1) Nostalgia for a pre-Vatican II Golden Age, when it is assumed that the church never changed, was then a powerful force in the world, undivided by the post 1960s misguided devotees of the Vatican II values. In fact, we know for certain that the church and its teachings have often changed. Some church statements have been shown to be wrong and were repealed or allowed to lapse.

(2) A highly selective approach to what fundamentalists think pertains to church teaching and belief. Statements about sexual ethics, for instance, are obsessively affirmed. At the same time, papal, conciliar, or episcopal pronouncements on social justice are ignored or considered simply matters for debate.

(3) An exaggerated concern for accidentals, not for the substance of issues, e.g., the Cardinal Burkes stress Latin for the Eucharist, failing to see that this does not pertain at all to the church’s authentic tradition.

(4) Vehemence and intolerance in attacking people like LCWR who are striving to relate the Gospel to the world around them according to the insights and teachings of Vatican II.

(5) An elitist assumption that Catholic fundamentalists have a kind of supernatural authority and the right to pursue and condemn Catholics who disagree with them, especially “radical feminists” and theologians.

(6) A spirituality which overlooks the humanity, compassion, and mercy of Christ and stresses in its place an unbending and punishing taskmaster God.

Remember: Membership in Catholic fundamentalist groups is not a question of logic, but an often sincere, but misguided, search for meaning and belonging.

If we react to Catholic fundamentalists with heated expressions of anger we will only confirm them about the rightness of their beliefs.

Our best witness to the truths of our Catholic beliefs, as they continue to be explored and developed, is our own inner peace built on faith, charity, and concern for justice, especially among the most marginalized.

And a closing biblical refection:

Jesus called them together and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave-just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Matthew 20:25-28; cf. Mark 10:42-45 and Luke 22:25-27)

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Frightening Climate Change


Pondering the US heatwave 2012, a good friend in Michigan just sent me a frightening article about climate change, written by Mark Bittman, an opinion columnist for the New York Times.

“The climate has changed,” Bittman writes, “and the only remaining questions may well be: a) how bad will things get, and b) how long will it be before we wake up to it.”

While thinking about people “waking up to how bad things really are,” another email popped on my screen. This one about Sister Pat Farrell, President of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious and the Vice President of the Sisters of St. Francis in Dubuque, Iowa. Sister Pat had been interviewed by Terry Gross on her NPR program “Fresh Air.”

A few months ago, the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, as you recall, said Sister Pat’s LCWR was undermining Roman Catholic teachings on homosexuality and birth control and promoting “radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith.” It also reprimanded the sisters for hosting speakers who “often contradict or ignore” church teachings and for making public statements that “disagree with or challenge the bishops, who are the church’s authentic teachers of faith and morals.”

In April, the Vatican announced that three American bishops (one archbishop and two bishops) would be sent to oversee the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (now representing 80 percent of Catholic sisters in the United States) to get the sisters to shape up and conform. Or else…

Climate change in the Catholic Church. How bad will things have to get before people wake up?

Sister Pat: “The question is, ‘Can you be Catholic and have a questioning mind?’ That’s what we’re asking. … I think one of our deepest hopes is that in the way we manage the balancing beam in the position we’re in, if we can make any headways in helping to create a safe and respectful environment where church leaders along with rank-and-file members can raise questions openly and search for truth freely, with very complex and swiftly changing issues in our day, that would be our hope. But the climate is not there. And this mandate coming from the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith putting us in a position of being under the control of certain bishops, that is not a dialogue. If anything, it appears to be shutting down dialogue.”

Doing my own version of multi-tasking, I jumped back to Mark Bittman’s article while listening to Sister Pat.

Mark Bittman: “Some people respond well to ‘Big trouble is coming and we must do something immediately,’ but others are overwhelmed and just turn off….But feelings of helplessness are practically un-American: we have the opportunity to demand principled and independent leadership, if we will only try.”

Then I heard Sister Pat ever more clearly…

“As I read that document, the concern is the issues we tend to be more silent about, when the bishops are speaking out very clearly about some things. There are issues about which we think there’s a need for a genuine dialogue, and there doesn’t seem to be a climate of that in the church right now.”

And she continues, with observations about sexuality: “We have been, in good faith, raising concerns about some of the church’s teachings on sexuality. The problem being that the teaching and interpretation of the faith can’t remain static and really needs to be reformulated, rethought in light of the world we live in.

“And new questions and new realities [need to be addressed] as they arise. And if those issues become points of conflict, it’s because Women Religious stand in very close proximity to people at the margins, to people with very painful, difficult situations in their lives. That is our gift to the church. Our gift to the church is to be with those who have been made poorer, with those on the margins. Questions there are much less black and white because human realities are much less black and white. That’s where we spend our days.”

“A bishop, for instance, can’t be on the street working with the homeless. He has other tasks. But we can be. So if there is a climate of open and trusting and adequate dialogue among us, we can bring together some of those conversations, and that’s what I hope we can help develop in a deeper way.”

Catholic Climate change and heated issues?

Sister Pat on right-to-life: “I think the criticism of what we’re not talking about seems to me to be unfair. Because [Women] Religious have clearly given our lives to supporting life, to supporting the dignity of human persons. Our works are very much pro-life. We would question, however, any policy that is more pro-fetus than actually pro-life. If the rights of the unborn trump all of the rights of all of those who are already born, that is a distortion, too — if there’s such an emphasis on that. However, we have sisters who work in right-to-life issues. We also have many, many ministries that support life….

And the Vatican concern about LCWR’s “radical feminism”?

Sister Pat Farrell again: “Sincerely, what I hear in the phrasing … is fear — a fear of women’s positions in the church. Now, that’s just my interpretation. I have no idea what was in the mind of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, when they wrote that.

“But women theologians around the world have been seriously looking at the question of: How have the church’s interpretations of how we talk about God, interpret Scripture, organize life in the church — how have they been tainted by a culture that minimizes the value and the place of women?”

In his article, Mark Bittman warns: “We may look back upon this year as the one in which climate change began to wreak serious havoc, yet we hear almost no conversation about changing policy or behavior.”

John Greenleaf commented: “All serious conversation — and action — about changing
policy and behavior begins with you and me!”

………..

And here is a picture of Sister Pat, whom the CDF so greatly fears……..

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John Chuchman


Thanks to a journalist friend, who noticed the error, the author of the poem in today’s post is John CHUCHMAN……….not Churchman.

And here is more information followed by a photo:

John Chuchman, a graduate of John Carroll University has been a Hospice volunteer since 1990. He has received Pastoral Bereavement Counselor certification and a Certificate in Spirituality. In 2000, he was awarded a Master of Arts degree in Pastoral Ministries from Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota. In July, 2010, John was ordained by the Catholic Diocese of One Spirit. John shares his story, his experiences, his wisdom-discoveries in a series of workshops, seminars, and weekend retreats with his Sacred Quest Team, more and more centered on Spiritual Growth. John has spoken at a number of state, national, and international conferences and has written a number of books (13) on his life experiences, grief and caregiving, spiritual discoveries, and frustrations with institutional church. He has been published in Spirituality magazine and his article Forgiveness: A Key to Grief Healing has been published in Healing Ministry magazine. His books can be ordered directly from John or Amazon.com. His website, Sacred Quest, is http://www.torchlake.com/poetman.

Some of John’s writings can be viewed on http://apoetman.blogspot.com

His books are available on KINDLE.

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Struggling to Stay Catholic


Up to now I have decided to stay. It is an important part of my identity.

I do understand the concerns and frustrations. Nearly everyone in my close family has now left the Catholic Church. The American Catholic exodus is gathering momentum. Dioceses are closing parishes across the country.

“A necessary purification,” one of my US archbishop friends told me. “You just DON’T understand,” I replied…….

John Chuchman caught my attention a few days ago. I suspect many resonate with him.

Turning Point

I have struggled so long
not wanting to be possessed
by my anger
with what the corrupt hierarchs have been doing
to my Church.

Though I have come to realize
that the church of the hierarchs
is not my Church,
and that WE as The Body of Christ are Church,
institutional church
was too much of my past
for me
just to leave quietly.

Well, God knows,
as do many hundreds of others,
that I have not expressed my grief and my anger
quietly.

But it dawned on me last night,
that if I died this moment,
too many people would recall me
only as rabble-rouser,
not really my most important gift.

Those who do know me well
know I am a man in and of Love,
know that I believe God is Love,
know that I trust that
when we live in Love, We live in God,
and God is us.
That is how I wish to be remembered.

So,
I think I better
just move on
and let the hierarchs
have the church of their making
while focusing my efforts
on helping Grievers and their Caregivers
and on Spiritual Growth and Nurturing,
on Love.


John Chuchman

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Fourth of July for the Catholic Church


ANOTHER VOICE is back. I have been on vacation but also on a pilgrimage. Visiting a number of cities in Turkey, like Ephesus and Pergamon, I heard again the courageous, creative, and critical voice of Paul.

Paul understood the importance of “another voice” to announce, to the world beyond Jerusalem, the message of Christ. To speak to a different culture, to adjust to a new language, to lay foundations for tomorrow. He understood what Jesus meant when he said new wine requires new wineskins.

The focus of ANOTHER VOICE is that we must think and speak creatively about our belief, if Christian Faith is going to make sense to believers today and to the men and women of tomorrow.

Father Richard Rohr wrote recently: “Lenin is supposed to have said, shortly before he died, that if he had to do his Russian revolution over again, he would have asked for ten Francises of Assisi rather than more Bolsheviks. He realized that something imposed by domination and violence from above only creates the same mirrored response from below.” Yes. And that is part of the growing problem in our church. That is why we need another voice. Why we need our own Catholic Fourth of July….to speak out against and declare our independence from domination and violence from above.

Happy Fourth of July!

John W. Greenleaf

A BIBLICAL REFECTION:

Jesus said, “The rulers of the Gentiles [the Romans] lord it over those who are under them, exercising authority over them.” Jesus was speaking of top-down authority….of hierarchical leadership.

According to Jesus, the Gentiles exercised authority from the top-down. They were lording it over people. They are dominating people. They are controlling people. This always happens with hierarchical structures of descending authority. It creates a culture of control and oppression.

But Jesus says, “Let it not be so among you!” Jesus came set people free. Not to lord it over them. Not to control them. But to set them free. That is what we as church ought to be about……. And that is the ministry of Jesus Christ.

A CONTEMPORARY PASTORAL REFLECTION
BLESSED TRINITY CATHOLIC PARISH, CLEVELAND OHIO

From the Desk of Fr. Doug, (pastor), Sun, May 27, 2012

What the Nuns’ Story is Really About

Many of you have asked me to comment on the recent investigation into the US nuns. Here goes. In short, the Vatican has asked for an investigation into the life of religious women in the United States. There is a concern about orthodoxy, feminism and pastoral practice. The problem with the Vatican approach is that it places the nuns squarely on the side of Jesus and the Vatican on the side of tired old men, making a last gasp to save a crumbling kingdom lost long ago for a variety of reasons.

One might say that this investigation is the direct result of the John Paul II papacy. He was suspicious of the power given to the laity after the Second Vatican Council. He disliked the American Catholic Church. Throughout his papacy he strove to wrest collegial power from Episcopal conferences and return it to Rome.

One of the results of the council was that the nuns became more educated, more integrated in the life of the people and more justice-oriented than the bishops and pope. They are doctors, lawyers, university professors, lobbyists, social workers, authors, theologians, etc. Their appeal was that they always went back to what Jesus said and did. Their value lay in the fact that their theology and their practice were integrated into the real world.

The Vatican sounded like the Pharisees of the New Testament—legalistic, paternalistic and orthodox— while “the good sisters” were the ones who were feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the sick and imprisoned, educating the immigrant, and so on. Nuns also learned that Catholics are intuitively smart about their faith. They prefer dialogue over diatribe, freedom of thought over mind control, biblical study over fundamentalism, development of doctrine over isolated mandates.

Far from being radical feminists or supporters of far-out ideas, religious women realized that the philosophical underpinnings of Catholic teaching are no longer valid. Women are not subservient to men, the natural law is much broader than once thought, the OT is not as important as the NT, love is more powerful than fear. They realized that you can have a conversation with someone on your campus who thinks differently than the church without compromising what the church teaches. (For example, I could invite Newt Gingrich here to speak. You’d all still know what the church teaches about divorce in spite of him) Women religious have learned to live without fear (Srs. Dorothy Kazel, Maura Clark, Ita Ford) and with love (Mother Teresa). And the number of popes and bishops and cardinals following in their footsteps, Jesus’ footsteps, is_____?

This is what annoys American Catholics. The Vatican is hypocritical and duplicitous. Their belief is always that someone else needs to clean up their act; the divorced, the gays, the media, the US nuns, the Americans who were using the wrong words to pray, the seminaries, etc. It never occurs to the powers that be that the source of the problem is the structure itself. We can say that now with certainty as regards the sex abuse crisis. It was largely the structure of the church itself, the way men were trained and isolated, made loyal to the system at all costs and not to the person, that gave us the scandalous cover-up.

US nuns work side by side with the person on the street. They are involved in their everyday lives. Most cardinals spent less than five years in a parish, were never pastors, are frequently career diplomats.

Religious women in the US refuse to be controlled by abusive authority that seeks to control out of fear. They realize that Jesus taught no doctrines, but that the church, over time, developed what Jesus taught in a systematic way. Nuns have always tried to work within the system. This time their prophetic voices may take them out of the system. They may take a lot of Catholics and a lot of their hospitals, schools, colleges, orphanages, prison ministries, convents, women’s shelters, food pantries and, of course, the good will they have earned over the centuries with them.

This investigation is not about wayward US nuns. It is the last gasp for control by a dying breed, wrapped in its own self-importance. It is a struggle for the very nature of the church; who we are, how we pray, where we live, who belongs, why we believe. The early church endured a similar struggle. The old order died. The Holy Spirit won. Happy Pentecost Sunday!

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Posted on by Dr. John A. Dick

AWAY UNTIL AFTER JULY 4th


Dear Friends,

(SOME PEOPLE DID NOT RECEIVE MY EARLIER MESSAGE SORRY IF THIS IS A DUPLICATE FOR YOU!)

From now until the Fourth of July I will be on the road: a bit of vacation, time for my own spiritual reflection, and time to do some professional research.

As I pack my bags, I encourage you to remember the Peter Principle. It has great significance in our contemporary church.

The Peter Principle we devoutly recall is a belief that in an organization, like the church, the organization’s leaders will eventually be promoted beyond their level of ability. The principle is commonly phrased, “employees tend to rise to their level of incompetence.”

The Peter Principle was formulated by Dr. Laurence J. Peter and Raymond Hull in their 1969 book “The Peter Principle,” a humorous treatise, which also introduced the “salutary science of hierarchiology.”

Hierarchiology certainly resonates with our contemporary Catholic scene…..

According to the science of hierarchiology, leaders are promoted as long as they work loyally and obediently. (In our hierarchy we know of course that the big leaders are rewarded with red dresses. It is hard to ask in our hierarchy “who wears the pants in this church?”) Eventually the obedient leaders — we used to call them sycophants — are promoted to a position at which they are no longer competent (they have exceeded their “level of incompetence”), and there they remain, being unable to earn any further promotions.

In time, every leadership post tends to be occupied by a leader who is incompetent to carry out his duties.

Institutional self-worship and self-justification take over. Leaders look for scape-goats and side issues to shift public attention away from their own incompetence and negligence.

A common refrain from incompetent leaders is: “They are taking away our freedom…They are persecuting us.”

A some point a reformation occurs……

We need a Fourth of July in the Catholic Church……..

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And unless something really extraordinary happens….like Cardinal Tim Dolan publicly endorses the US presidential candidacy of Barack Obama…Or Pope Benedict appoints members of LCWR to the College of Cardinals, I will be silent throughout the month of June.

Peace be with you!
John W. Greenleaf

PS My email will be working for urgent thoughts….jwgreenleaf@gmail.com

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