Minutes
of November 14, 2002
Meeting Voice of the Faithful-Long Island
North Babylon High School
North Babylon, New York
The meeting was co-chaired by Dan Bartley and Pat Zirkel.
· Dan Bartley Opened the meeting and introduced Brother Ed Bacon who led the room in the Prayer to the Holy Spirit.
· Sue Baer led the room in the hymn “We are Many Parts”
Dan Bartley welcomed all to the meeting with thanks to the many priests who
have stepped forward to support lay participation in the church. The
priests thanked and listed in particular included:
Fr. Peter Pflomm and Fr. Jerry from Maria Regina
Fr. Charlie Papa from St Louis De Montfort
Fr. Vinny Rush
Fr. Jerry Twomey
Fr. Bill Brisotti
Fr. Ed Kealy
Fr. Tom St Pierre
Fr. Walden from St. Thomas More
Dan stated that we welcome, encourage and hope for their continued support.
It was announced that there would be a change of format.
First, would be committee reports, then the Guest Speaker, Group Discussion
followed by open mike, time permitting.
The room was reminded by Pat Zirkel that there would be no December meeting
and that the next meeting would be January 9, 2003 at North Babylon High School.
Everyone was asked to please get any direction and information re the meeting
from the website and from her directly and to refrain from calling the school.
Committee
Reports
Event Committee:
Eileen Weidig invited all to the December 8 mass at Maria Regina at 3pm.
Fr. Pete will say the mass with Bishop William Murphy’s permission.
We are asked not to arrive any earlier than 2:30.
Eileen called for 10 Eucharistic Ministers for the mass, 2 alter servers and
4 to 6 people to act as greeters.
There will be a collection at the mass with the proceeds going to support
Lon Island Voice of the Faithful.
Invitations are being sent to Bishop William Murphy and all pastors in Rockville
Centre. All are welcome.
Allen Connell, Tippy Case and Gerry Case of the Parish Voice of Southold announced
that they will be circulating a statue of the Holy Family titled A Quiet Moment
presented to them by their pastor, Fr. George Michell. This statue will
be placed in participating churches while each parish will be asked to involve
28 people to form a prayer chain of 4 hours each. The Prayer chain will
pass house to house. Each family will pray in their own way, whether
formal prayers, household chores, etc. The prayers will be for the goals
of VOTF.
Terry and Alan Connels will be available for information and scheduling.
The statue will be at the December 8th mass.
Victim Support Committee
Anne Marie D’Angelo, John Ryan and Grace Haller all spoke for Victim support. They informed all that while they are faithful, they are also qualified and listed those qualifications.
Mission Statement Our mission is to support those who have been abused by
clergy to listen, advocate, and empower them and their families.
Goals:
1) Support survivors and their families through listening sessions, and appropriate
referrals.
2) Educate and inform the church community to understand abuse issues and
prevent future cases of abuse.
3) Empower survivors and their families through advocating for them as we
can.
Victim support (VS) wants to support survivors, educate and inform the community,
prevent future abuse. VS is here for you, we feel for you and apologize to
you. VS wants to listen and be there for victims. Anyone
interested in speaking with any of the members of Victim Support was invited
to a listening Session from 9:15 to 9:45 during the meeting. It was
explained that no confidentiality could be promised as it is an open listening
session. However, anyone interested in confidential consultation was
invited and encouraged to contact any of the members privately.
Planning Committee
Barbara Ashley explained that it was discussed in the Planning Committee that
there is a need to move to strategic practical objectives. There is
a need to be on parish counsels as the Synod will be made up of parish counsel
members. It was announced that all members of VOTF are now members
of Planning Committee. It was suggested that members go to their pastors,
ask for a Pastor’s Wish List, offer practical services. A directory
of VOTF members and their talents could be arranged and made available to
pastors for their use.
Catholics are not used to having a voice. But Voice and spirit are all
that is needed.
Finance Committee
Finance Committee Co-Chair Kevin Connor spoke. He introduced John Mulvey as Co- chair and then delivered the Finance
Committee Report.
“I would like to touch on three issues with you this evening:
The first is finances.
Through the end of September, we had a cash balance of
$3,294.81
Income through contributions in October were
2,560.00
October expenses were
2,583.76
End of October cash balance was
3,271.05
A more detailed Financial Statement is available from the table at the entrance.
Please take on home with you.
The second issue has to do with envelopes. The cost of operating
LI-VOTF is not great. But it is ever present, and there are costs associated
with some upcoming events that we must cover.
Ushers distributed mailing envelopes to you as your took your seats here this
evening. We ask you to take the envelopes with you. Put a stamp
on the envelope, and put a small contribution inside. And mail it back
to us. If as you leave the auditorium, you see an usher with a box,
you can give him or her the envelope and it will be mailed for you.
The third issue is the one our committee spent the most time with this
past month:
Development of a Policy Statement for the Long Island Voice of Compassion
Fund.
Let me say that our purpose is not to set up a competing fund to the Bishop’s
Annual Appeal! A copy of that approved policy statement is available
from the table at the entrance. Please take one with you. Read
it and tell your friends about it.
I will read the first paragraph of that policy for you now:
“Long Island Voice of the Faithful anticipates the likelihood that recent
events will result in a significant decline in contributions to the Bishop’s
Annual Appeal. Accordingly, we intend to provide Catholics with an opportunity
to lessen the impact of such decline on the local Catholic institutions and
charities. Therefore, we are establishing an alternate fund that will
be used to provide supplemental financial support tot these organizations.”
The policy continues to state the fund’s name, its’ goal and how it works.
So what do we expect to accomplish by issuing Financial Statements and policy
Statements, and by all the other activity?
You are familiar with our mission statement and goals. These are a series
of steps that we expect will lead us to our goals. But how will we know
when we have achieved them…?
We, the laity, seek a place at the table. We seek complete financial
openness. When that happens, our voice will be heard.
Let me say that again. We, the laity, seek a place at the table.
We seek complete financial openness.
Let me ask you, as a lady from Boston did at a recent meeting: If a
lay person… a parent…were at the table in Boston, or in Rockville Centre,
or in Chicago when it was decided to reassign a priest guilty of pedophilia
to work again with children…would that reassignment have been made?
If there were complete financial openness, would millions of dollars of funds
have been diverted from worthy charities to buy the silence of abused children
and their families?
And to bring the point home still further. If there were complete financial
openness, would Catholics on Long Island be embarrassed by stories in the
media about luxury, stainless steel refrigerators? About the return
of costly oriental rugs? About hard working pastors, fearful that a fall off
in contributions will prevent needed repairs to their kitchen or rectory?
We are not; we will not be a voice crying in the wilderness! Our voice
will be heard. And it is with the cooperation and support of people
like you that we will succeed!
John Mulvey then took the mike and stated “We intend to teach something to
the Bishop. You will see every penny accounted for here!”
Membership Committee
Gene Zirkel
Good evening. My name is Gene Zirkel and I am a member of the Membership Committee. Our co-chairs are Sue Baer and Joan Bedosky. Joan and Sue, please stand. Notice that they are wearing orange nametags. There are a dozen of us wearing these tags tonight. We are all here to help you. If you have any questions after the meeting, please feel free to approach any one of us. Thanks.
Since I am reporting about your Membership Committee the first thing I want
to do is to invite any one of you who is not already a member of the LI VOTF
to sign up with us tonight. Members of the committee will now pass among
you handing out forms which we ask you to fill out while I am speaking.
Just raise your had if you need one. In a few minutes they will collect
he filled out forms. Thanks for your cooperation.
The Membership committee met last night, 13 Nov 02.
Our first and most important charge is to Help coordinate the formation of
Parish Based Voice of the Faithful Groups.
There are several reasons for this priority.
One of them is that these regional meetings are too large for really effective
listening sessions and discussions. And although we do allow a little
time for listening to one another, it is just impossible for a group of this
size to really hear one another. In a smaller Parish Voice you can have
much more fruitful discussions and more people can be heard from.
People join a Parish Voice for varied reasons. For example, some were
abused or are close to someone who was abused. Others are angry over
the misuse of our charitable contributions for hush monies and for lawyer’s
fees attaching the victims. Some want tot see the hopes of Vatican II
become a reality; they want to see the words “We are the Church” really applied
to all of us-clergy and laity alike. Some feel that our good priests
are operating under an unfair and undeserved cloud.
It is in these smaller parish listening sessions that we can get to know one
another, that we can begin to work together for all 3 of our goals.
Another reason is effective change. Changing the church is going to
start at the bottom, at the parish level and work its’ way up to the dioceses
and to the universal Church. If you have read the report form our national
Structural Change Working Group Report on the national web site you are aware
of this. If you haven’t, let me suggest that you do. Just click
on Structural Change on our national home page-votf.org.
I recently attended a meeting of the St. Louis de Montfort Parish Voice.
I was impressed by what they were doing there. They were creating a
list of local goals - local actions that they can do now. What are your
parish issues? Would a Parish Voice help you to attain some of your
goals?
Another important reason is networking - allowing for easy contact between
the members of different Parish Voices. For example, on of the goals
of the Parish Voice at St. Louis de Montfort is to welcome and interview new
members of their parish staff - clergy, religious and laity when theft arrive.
A suggestion was mad3 to contact the laity in the parish where the person
is coming from. Are they sorry to lose this person of were they glad
to see them go? If there is a parish voice there, this contact will
be easily made. Other examples are not hard to find.
There are already a dozen Parish Voices on Long Island now. If your
parish hasn’t got one, why not consider joining with a few friends and starting
one? If that is impossible at this time, why not attend a Parish Voice
meeting nearby?
Starting a Parish Voice is not very difficult. Talk with a few friends.
Form a core group. Talk to your pastor. Explain that you are not
confrontational, that you want to support and help him and your parish.
Whether he is supportive, opposed or neutral, keep him informed and invite
him to every meeting. Be gentle. Send him the minutes of you meetings.
Ask him to announce the meetings in the weekly bulletin and from the altar.
Many other pastors do so.
You are not asking for the moon. Canon Law and the documents of Vatican
II support our right to form associations. Read some of the quotes on
our LI web page votf-li.org from Vatican II’s Decree on the Apostolate
of the Laity. You are not asking for his permission to meet. Canon
Law #215 gives you that right. It states that “Christ’s faithful may
freely establish and direct associations which serve charitable or pious purposes
or which foster the Christian vocation in the world and they may hold meetings
to pursue these purposes by common effort.” You are inviting him
to join with you.
Our committee has prepared a packet of materials that your core group can
use. After you have discussed them, attend a nearby Parish Voice meeting.
Then call your first meeting. Public libraries, schools and veteran’s
halls are likely meeting places. Someone’s home if the first group is
small.
At any stage, ask us to help. Members of this committee will be glad
to come to your first (or any other) meeting to assist you.
Before I close, if anyone is not a member, let me invite you to fill out a
membership form and leave it up here before you leave. In numbers there
is strength. I strongly urge you sign up with all three - join or start
your parish voice, our LI Regional Voice and our national Voice.
Next time I would like to see signs in the audience saying the name of your
parish voice.
If I have not been 100% clear, if you have any questions, please speak to
one of us after tonight’s meeting.
Thank you.
Respectfully submitted,
Gene Zirkel
Pat Zirkel spoke about the need to discuss structural change. That
most of the misinformation is spread regarding this is the goal.
St Louis de Montfort meeting discussed a draft of goals. Certain parish
practices had to change to prevent further abuse. Discussing changes
in the Parish Voice setting will have huge effect.
Dan Bartley introduced Fr. Raymond Schroth and cites some of his credentials.
Including that he is the award-winning author of 6 books and over 300 published
articles.
Fr.
Raymond Schroth
A NEW FUTURE FOR THE CHURCH
Last month (Oct 12) the American correspondent fort the British Catholic
weekly, the London Tablet declared that “with the Dallas charter the purely
sexual aspect of the crisis had effectively ended.” By that he did not
mean that we should all shut up and go home. He meant rather, that for
a number of reasons - like press and public vigilance, the testimony of victims,
a shift in the church’s cultural climate - sexual abuse of the scale of the
major offenders was no longer possible in the church.
Today, as the bishops close their meeting in Washington, we may still be too
close to the events to put the turmoil of the last few years in perspective.
In a comprehensive survey of 10 diocese, USA today (November 11) concludes
that now very few of the accused priests - about 900 over 40 years or one
percent of the 25,616 in service since 1965 - have any access to children.
And Tuesday’s New York Times reports that the bishops are turning their attention
to other issues, like abortion, immigration, and Iraq. And Bishop Wilton
D. Gregory ahs warned his brother bishops to beware of “false prophets,” “even
among the baptized,” who would “strike the shepherd and scatter the flock.”
Are these remarks meant as reassurance that once the offending priests have
been punished - now after receiving a fair trial - that the American church
can go back to being its’ old self, its familiar structures intact?
If that is what they believe, I respectfully suggest that the bishops, collectively,
are as blind today as they were in Dallas six months ago.
In his preface to Hans Kung’s Structures of the Church (1963) published after
the Second Session of the Vatican Council, Boston Cardinal Richard J. Cushing
reminds us that the church’s structures have been both given by Christ and
conditioned by history, that the church is not a static entity but a dynamic
organism, the Body of Christ and the People of God, still as Saint Paul says
in Colossians and Ephesians, in the process of being built.
In his foreword to the English edition, Kung rejoices in the recently published
Constitution on the Church, where he finds the arguments of his book confirmed:
the laity is not an appendage of the church, it is the church; ecclesiastical
office is not dominion but service of the community; the Papal office
is not absolute power, but, in union with the college of bishops, selfless
pastoral care.
At least that is the way it’s supposed to be.
The word “to serve” appears 1360 times in the Scriptures, most distinctively
when Jesus in parables instructs his apostles and by extension, today’s priests,
bishops, and lay leadership - on the fundamental nature of their role.
What does an ancient image of leadership have to do with our collective attempt
to lead the church today?
When a good book is finally written about what has happened to the American
church in the last decade, the story would begin a hundred years ago when
the Catholic church as a specifically American community was coming into its
own, with population power centers in the big cities like Philadelphia, Boston
and New York, led by a hierarchy that was more political than pastoral setting
the patterns - solidifying the structures - that, sometimes to its disadvantage,
remain intact today.
Some would begin tin the 5th century and trace all our woes to Saint Augustine’s
alleged negative attitude toward sex, and then jump to the 10th century imposition
of celibacy, which was enforced not to make priests more available to their
flocks but to prevent them from passing church property on to their children.
Obviously sexual attitudes - including the exclusion of women from the priesthood
and thus from the central leadership; the resulting insulated, all male clubhouse
atmosphere of clerical culture; the possible sexual immaturity of men who
entered the hot-house seminaries of the mid-20th century; and the apparent
increase of openly homosexual seminarians and priests - are relevant
to the current crisis. But this crisis is not primarily about sex.
It is a case study of sick and/or sinful priests. But also of failed
leadership - of popes, cardinals, and bishops so limited by the church’s hierarchical
structures that they lost the memory of Jesus’ last words to Peter, “If you
love me, feed my sheep.”
Meanwhile, what began as a Louisiana scandal has become, within 20 years,
the battleground on which the progressive and conservative Catholics have
fought for their vision of the future of the church.
The conservatives see this sexual acting-out as the natural consequence of
Vatican II’s opening the windows to modernity, letting Marx,
Darwin and above all, Freud blow in.
The advantage of Thomistic moral philosophy, taught in Catholic colleges until
the 1960’s, was its moral clarity. The social sciences were seen as
the camel’s head in the tent, introducing ambiguity, a watered-down sense
of personal responsibility, an implied invitation, even for vowed religious,
to experiment
Progressive Catholics, on the other hand, attribute the scandal to the corrupting
influence of the clerical culture: bishops are chosen for their doctrinal
purity (which means absolute opposition to contraception, to changing the
celibacy requirement, to ordaining women, or to allowing abortion under any
circumstances). This means new bishops are, with a few exceptions, above
all, company men, short on both independent judgement and imagination.
Thus, the scandal is not about sex but power.
First, Garry Wills has pointed out that when Lord Acton said that power corrupts
and absolute power corrupts absolutely, he was talking specifically about
the church. But, let us be careful. We should not conclude that
the majority of diocesan priests lie in bed at night planning the next day’s
move that will ingratiate them with the bishop so they can be named a monsignor.
As a university priest who is occasionally able to take a parish call, I hold
in awe those many parish priests, who, like good shepherds, give their whole
lives for their parishioners. I am sure some of them are here tonight.
Second, statues and power are good if we use them for service. The corrupting
element, however, is not that once I have been made a dean, senator or bishop,
I accept a gift of a grandfather’s clock or but a beach-front condo where
I can entertain a new set of friend.
It is in the little trade-offs made along the way, where I smother my convictions,
keep quiet on the right of Catholic families to follow their own consciences
in planning the size of their families, mute my righteous anger over civilian
dead in an unjust war, so that when I get power - later - then
I can speak out and “do good.”
Alas, the virtue of courage, like all virtues, needs practice. Otherwise
it dies.
I couldn’t help thinking of this moral dilemma recently while reading a Washington
Post article by the brilliant young Catholic Style section writer, Hank Stuever,
on the Atlantic City Miss America pageant. He says:
“Miss America must always be in the perfect zone, which is part of why America
doesn’t want to hang out with her anymore. She lies. She doesn’t
tell lies, but she doesn’t tell truths, either. She pads her resume.
She doesn’t curse, she doesn’t go anywhere unescorted. She can’t really
talk about her boyfriend, or sex. When the subject matter is dicey,
or political, or enters a religious realm beyond the Oprah-style spirituality,
Miss America seems unable to choose sides. Actually, she can say whatever,
she wants, but a contestant knows she can’t do that and win. In that
way, she’s either not very American, or more American than we care to acknowledge.
She’s a kept woman, a groomed and exotic animal.”
Applying this warning to ourselves, we must, as Paul says, speak the truth
in love. And our love should give us the courage to speak - and to critically
examine what the leadership does in our names.
In June, the press and public considered the Dallas Charter positively in
that at last the victims had been heard. But soon other voices rose.
The bishops had attempted to deal with only one aspect of the crime.
They had punished the accused priests as if they were street corner drug dealers,
but ignored the circumstances, the social structures, that bred the crime.
To what degree are the structures of the church - and by structures we mean,
broadly, the way the church is organized - really ours to change?
Return to Cardinal Cushing’s distinction between those given by Christ and
those evolved over time.
Strictly speaking, Jesus himself in his lifetime, created none of he structures
which we see today. He clearly recognized Peter as the leader of his
followers in anticipation of the arrival of the kingdom, which he preached.
But Peter was not a pope or bishop of Rome. The papacy, as a centralized,
Roman, monarchical authority, did not evolve for several centuries.
In the New Testament, in Acts and the epistles, we see the laying on of hands,
the selection of a variety of leaders, from an apostle, to bishops, to deacons.
We see the beginnings of the sacraments of baptism and the Eucharist - but
we have moved a long way from the upper room of the last supper and the common
meals f the early Christians to the new $189 million cathedral in Los
Angeles, which is to be financed by the $50,000 celebrity “cremains” crypts
in the basement.
Second perhaps only to love, forgiveness is at the heart of Jesus’ teaching,
but the form of the sacrament of penance has evolved from what was in the
middle ages a one-in-a lifetime event that he devotional daily confessions
of some religious in our own century, to the group penance service popular
a few years ago, to the often empty “reconciliation” rooms of today.
We don’t know if, how or when the apostles were “ordained” priests or bishops,
although bishops emerged as leaders, considered successors of the apostles,
in the first generation. But as Paul’s letter to Timothy attests, they
were not like our bishops. The bishop, Paul says, must be non-violent
in his own home, married only once, not a drunkard, not in love with money
and able to control his own children. Otherwise, how can he control
the church? We look at how all these things have changed and one theme
stands out.
Change in itself in neither good nor bad; we must look at each change’s impact
and ask how it has affected the goal of the church: to bring all to salvation
through an encounter with Jesus Christ.
In the context of perpetual change, what is our source of continuity and truth?
In the last chapters of John’s gospel, Jesus tells us at great length that
he must die. He will send his Spirit who will remain in us, the church,
and remind us what Jesus has told us about he Father. We must have confidence
that he spirit will speak through every member.
Garry Wills’ two books, Papal Sin and Why I am a Catholic, remind us that
the screwed-up mess he describes is not the essence of the church. We
are all the church, and, as in a family, if there is a mess, it is our job
to clean it up.
Were do we start? We start with the structure, indeed with canon law,
particularly as it apples to parish life.
On the grass roots level perhaps the greatest source of disaffection among
those who used to be “faithful” is the desiccation of parish life. Recently
I went to another city to baptize the second son of a friend, only to learn
the night before the baptism that my friend had stopped going to mass.
His excuse was familiar: boring sermons, a waste of time, no connection between
the mass and his daily life.
We talked as friends late into the night. I said the mass’ primary purpose,
for me, was to get us out of ourselves, to focus on the needs of he worlds.
So we went to early Sunday mass together. And, alas, he was right.
In a large church the parishioners stood as far apart as they could get.
Because of the murky PA system the words of the pastor’s homily, which was
not well prepared, reverberated off the walls and missed our ears.
It struck me as a metaphor for the whole church - words, meant to be saving
words, lost in technological noise. But the parishioners seemed to like
him. They knew him, bore with his dull homily, and chuckled at this
humor. At communion I could see his face. He is a sweet Irish
man in his seventies with jet black hair. This is the church, both weak
and strong. But if there is to be excitement, it must come not form
the pastor but form the congregation.
Perhaps lay ownership and control of parishes is the answer.
In the New York Daily News (May 13, 2002) columnist Pete Hamill proposed a
return to the early 19th century structure called trusteeism, where the laity
planned the parish, bought he land, built the church, hired the pastor, monitored
him and fired him when he went against their will.
Trusteeism emerged form a series of historical circumstances:
prelates like Archbishop John Carroll, who insisted that American bishops,
including himself, be elected by the priests; civil law which mandated trusteeships;
national parishes, particularly German and Polish, who brought over the European
traditions of the lay people establishing and directing the parish; visionaries
like John England, bishop of Charleston, South Carolina (1821-1842) sent form
Ireland, who arrived with a diocesan constitution, modeled on the American
constitution, ready to propose to his flock. His parishes governed themselves
through periodic conventions where elected delegates of clergy and lay people
discussed the region’s problems.
But trusteeism didn’t last. Lay people had the same managerial vices
as priests, a lust for power and control. Trustee elections were not
truly democratic, only the pew holders (the middle class parishioners who
had bought their own pews) could vote; the ordinary parishioners stood in
the back of the church or in the balcony. Trusteeism was rooted in ethnic
identity and ethnic hostility - an Irish parish would reject a French or Polish
priest. In Philadelphia in the 1820’s trustee elections to control the
cathedral led to riots in the streets.
Eventually, the American urban church became predominantly Irish and New York’s
Irish Archbishop John Hughes used Irish respect for their clergy to crush
the trustee movement in the 1830’s by comparing his trustee critics to British
oppressors.
I polled a half dozen historians, theologians and a canon lawyer on whether
trusteeism would work today. The answer - the structure, no; the idea,
yes.
The basic idea was that lay persons are truly responsible for the parish and
should have more than a consultative voice in its direction. Obviously,
parish councils are the closest contemporary equivalent to trustees.
Canon 536 decrees that a council is to be established in every parish, that
the pastor presides, the bishops sets the norms of governance, and that
the lay voice is consultative. Father has the last word.
Restrictive, yes. But, depending on the atmosphere in the parish, a
potentially marvelous opportunity for the laity to assume the responsibilities
rightly theirs through baptism and confirmation.
Fordham historian theologian, Msgr. Thomas Shelley, points to St. Joseph’s
in Greenwich Village as an ideal parish. The pastor, Fr. Aldo J. Tos
(72) began with the determination to follow Jesuit theologian Karl Rahner’s
advice that, without violating the norms, the laity should, in effect, have
“deliberative” power; so his leadership style depends on shared prayer and
listening. His 600 registered parishioners elect the 12 member council;
together they plan intellectual and service programs and talk openly about
the matters which form the basis of the present crisis - “sexuality, ministry
and power.”
Canon 537 calls for a financial council to “administer the parish goods.”
At St Joseph’s it 8 volunteer members, under the direction of a parish manager-administrator,
a retired CEO who gives it several days a week, all have financial skills.
Father Tos says he would be a fool not to follow their advice.
Why should the laity have more control?
First, shat they own they will want to nourish. Second, they would free
the priest for the work for which he has been trained - liturgy, teaching
and pastoral care. Third, as overseers, they could protect an imprudent
priest from his own indiscretions. Would Archbishop Weakland have paid
bribery to his extortionist friend if a lay manager controlled his funds?
As New York Times reporter Jim Dwyer pointed out in Commonweal recently, the
monsignor in Queens who stashed $1.8 Million in a secret back account and
gave $700,000 to three ex-convict pals could not have done it if he had a
finance council - as canon law required.
If it seems that bishops have been appointed for their ability to raise and
manage money and their conservative orthodoxy, if we put finances in lay hands
perhaps we could select bishops for their theological knowledge, pastoral
skills and moral courage. When the time comes to close parishes and
schools, the laity, in a position to face fiscal reality, would make the tough
decision and take the heat.
Ironically, the bishops, many of whom are canon lawyers, drew up guidelines
in Dallas which violated basic norms of Canon 1728, which spells out the rights
of the accused person in an ecclesiastical hearing. They defined sexual
abuse so broadly that the alleged victim’s subjective feelings, even when
there has been no person contact with the accused, are enough to provide so
called “credible” evidence of an offense. Rev. John P. Beal, of the
Catholic University of America, suggests that after decades of dismissing
accusations against priests, the authorities have swung to the other extreme.
Judging from the mail I have received, many priests believe that is possible.
A former priest and long-time friend in Baltimore has sent me the Baltimore
Sun’s story on Cardinal William T. Keeler’s publishing the names of 56 priests
accused of anything - from rape to massage - over 70 years, including the
aged, sick and dead. Where, my friend asks, is the forgiveness of Christ
in this?
The USA Today article profiles two priests removed from ministry, their reputations
smeared, on the basis of a single vague, unproven allegation.
Cardinal Avery Dulles warned at Dallas that the proposed norms would destroy
the paternal and confidential relationship between priests and bishops.
As a priest who has been a pastor for many years said to me, “No priest will
ever confide in his bishop again.”
Realistically we know modest adjustments of existing structures will not solve
our problems. But here are a few suggestions that might help.
On the diocesan level, we could revive Archbishop John England’s early 19th
century practice of the diocesan constitution, where his parishes governed
themselves through periodic conventions and elected delegates of clergy and
lay people to discuss the region’s problems.
Although bishops are ordained for life, there is no reason they cannot be
limited, like superiors in religious orders to a six year term. When
a term ends they may either go to another diocese of go back to work in the
trenches, the way college deans return to teaching. This would free
the bishops to get as many reforms through as possible in a reasonable time.
And perhaps free younger priests from some of the temptations of careerism.
The office of cardinal is not from divine law. Lay persons have been
cardinals and could be cardinals again. With a stroke of his pen, the
next pope could appoint 50 women cardinals and radically enrich the face and
future of the church.
Women, I suspect, will be ordained only after the church has experimented
more with married clergy. A married priesthood will work its way through
the third world countries where the idea of an unmarried male is neither understood
nor accepted. For the immediate future, in the west, celibacy can remain
a creative institution if: priests are happy in meaningful and productive
work; they pray to nurture their love; they have intimate friends,
both men and women, in whom they may confide; they can trust their religious
superiors to be intelligent caring and just.
Otherwise, they will turn to physical comfort, power, alcohol, food, bad TV,
or vulnerable persons whom they can manipulate for furtive and fleeting self-
gratification.
Candidates for the priesthood should be accepted after they have demonstrated
their capacity for humble service by working with the poor in national or
international agencies like the JVC or the Peace Corps. Seminarians
should be educated on university campuses, where they can live in community.
I think priests, both religious and diocesan should also live together in
community and like most men, commute to work. I know the old theory
that priests give up a family. Period. But nothing - not God,
not the intellectual life - is a substitute for intimacy. Priests must
have brothers who listen to the details of one another’s bad days, kid and
praise each other, and yell STOP when a brother priest pursues a relationship
with a man, woman, girl or boy which is headed for trouble.
Finally, What kind of future church may we hope for?
In his reflection on the Council, Karl Rahner, in The Shape of the Church
to come (1972) says we must remain “Roman” i.e. unified by the papacy, whose
concrete form we may criticize - but not, he says, with mere “embittered allergy.”
The church, he says, must be open, not a defensive sect preoccupied with orthodoxy.
Certain dogmatic formulations, he says, remain subject to change: The
form of the sacrament of penance; who may receive communion: The
Sunday obligation; the stand toward the state’s penal laws on abortion; which
parties or candidates a Catholic may support; to what degree heretical opinions
separate us form the church.
It will be declericalized. A chess club, he says, is defined by its
members, those who play chess. The hierarchy, the leadership, of the
club is necessary in so far as it serves the club; but the hierarchy should
not imagine that they play chess better than the members just because of their
job.
It will be from the roots, built from below by basic communities formed by
free association. They may exist parallel to established parishes, though
not defined by territory but by their members’ commitment in service to one
another. Early forms of this movement might include both Catholic and
State college campus ministry communities, charismatic groups and the “base
communities” in Latin America formed through liberation theology. Today
it could include the Voice of the Faithful.
Finally, says Rahner, the love which energizes these communities must overflow
into t strong and personal commitment to social justice - not merely contributing
money to charity, but by personally throwing one’s full self into protecting
the environment and getting some economic justice for the Third World.
Every church community, he suggests, should send three young persons a year
to work with the poor in Latin America.
What do we say to all this? We can say, Poor old Rahner was wrong.
Thirty years have passed and his hopes have not been fulfilled. Or we
can say, as he would, that thirty years is but the blink of an eye in the
pageant of human history.
After the Dallas meeting, I wrote in the Newark Star Ledger that the
bishops should rent Yankee Stadium, put on plain gray robes, stage a great
penance service, process to the altar and place on it their resignations.
Perhaps only some resignations would be accepted. But I mean this liturgy
not as a humiliation but as a teaching act of humility and courage.
It is a public dramatization of what penance - like baptism and the Eucharist
- means: That we must die to ourselves if we re to be born again. We
must allow some of the structures of the church to die, if all the faithful
will rise again in hope.
* * *
Raymond A Schroth, S.J., is a Jesuit Professor of Humanities
at St. Peter’s College in Jersey City. He is the media critic for the
National Catholic Reporter and author of Fordham: A History and Memoir (Loyola
Press)
At the conclusion of Fr. Schroth’s speech, Dan Bartley suggested that the
audience break up into small discussion groups.
Shortly thereafter, the meeting was closed with an Our Father led by Brother
Bacon.