A Letter to the Roman Catholic Church in the United States

Note: The following "modern epistle" by Eric Fought was first published June 18, 2013 at EricFought.com, an online forum that seeks to facilitate "a respectful dialogue about religion, politics, social justice and life."

A MODERN EPISTLE

Minneapolis, June 2013

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ –

I send greetings from Minneapolis, my home, where spring has been late to arrive and summer seems far off. It is a time of great anticipation and yet a time of frustration and angst. So, too, is the time and place we find ourselves as the Body of Christ.

Friends, I do not need to outline for you the significant concerns that face us as the Church in the United States. Each of us in some way has experienced the scandal, the division, the controversies and the ideological movements—all of which have moved us further and further away from living and preaching the Good News of the Risen One. There have been days when we have hesitated to open the newspaper, afraid that we might find yet another story telling of another sex scandal or cover-up by those we’ve entrusted with our spiritual lives and the health and safety of our children. We have watched as our brothers and sisters, our friends and grandchildren, our aunts and uncles, our nephews and nieces have been turned away from our common table because of their sexual orientation and have painfully remained silent, believing that clergy and bishops know best, while our hearts tell us otherwise. And we have witnessed a creeping backwards led by some of those same bishops and clergy—a neoconservative movement—that has sought to divide our Church and turn back years of progress. In doing so, these leaders have foolishly squandered resources entrusted to their care, resources meant to take care of the least among us and the betterment of all. They have turned chanceries into campaign war rooms and pulpits into beacons of division and distrust all while ridiculously claiming that “religious liberty” is at stake.

My brothers and sisters, I write today to the entire Church throughout our great land. However, most importantly, I seek to reach those of us in the pews, the laity who make up the Body of Christ. In the end, it is our Church and we have a shared responsibility—the responsibility found in our baptism—to be a part of the work necessary to move it in the right direction once again. We can no longer sit idly by while more and more Catholics leave to seek church homes that are more inclusive and closer to the mission set forth by Christ himself. We do not have the luxury of waiting for the hierarchy to bring about the reform necessary to save our beloved faith tradition. They have had more than enough opportunity to do so. Real reform is only possible through us.


What is at Stake?

If we do not act at this pivotal moment, we are very likely to lose an entire generation of Catholics and quite possibly render our Church completely irrelevant in the spiritual life of our society. To be frank, these three main concerns outlined above: the clergy sex abuse scandal; the treatment of gay and lesbian Catholics by the Church; and the neoconservative politicization of the Church have us on a path to destruction. Young Americans becoming adults today have a very low tolerance for any sort of discrimination and highly value equality, especially for their gay and lesbian brothers and sisters. They expect no less from the institutions in their lives, including their Church. Further, while many of these young people are engaged politically, they do not believe that the Church should be a political organization itself. Finally, they are more skeptical of the men who lead the Church, after knowing about (or directly experiencing) the unresolved clergy sex abuse scandal most of their lives.

Thus, it should be no surprise to any of us that these young men and women would leave us. Years of trying to sway this decision with pizza parties, rock concerts and pool tables will not keep them in our midst. Only true reform will.


Treatment of Gays and Lesbians by Clergy and the Hierarchy

When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. ”Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He said to him, ” “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets” (Matthew 22:34-40).

Much of the rhetoric coming from the Church as of late regarding gay and lesbian Americans has centered around the fight for marriage equality in the United States. This is partly the result of those within the gay rights movement—including Catholics engaged in the movement—focusing on marriage. While a majority of American Catholics support marriage equality, none of the American bishops have as of yet and this has led to a great polarization of the dialogue regarding the treatment of gays and lesbians within the Church. We must change the narrative, noting that at least for now, marriage within the Roman Catholic Church is a no-go.

The focus on marriage has allowed the hierarchy to remain focused on what is believed to be the untouchable Church teaching that marriage is meant to be between a man and a woman in order to foster procreation. Yet, as Jesus commanded in the passage from Matthew above, we should be focused on love, not laws.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, either all of God’s creation is good or it is not. How many gays and lesbians does God need to create in order for us to uphold without distinction their humanity? If we are to respond faithfully to our baptismal call to preach the Gospel without ceasing, how can we stand by and allow the continued persecution of our neighbors, friends and family? All of us have come to know gays and lesbians in the living of our lives—these relationships have nourished us in many ways. Our love for these men and women must be known and must be shared, especially with the leadership of our Church. For centuries upon centuries, gay men have served faithfully in our Church as priests, bishops, lay leaders and likely even popes. They have done so in silence and fear. Yet, through their service, countless Christians have come to know Christ through our Church. We must stop denying that this is true. We must demand a conversation about these issues and we cannot stop asking until it happens.



The Clergy Sex Abuse Scandal: A Deepening Wound

It has been more than 10 years since the allegations in Boston and other parts of our country rocked our Church and tested our faith. Since that time, the clergy sex abuse crisis has broadened in scope and geography. While many clergy who were found to have engaged in criminal misconduct have been separated from the Church, we continue to learn of others that have been protected and have become aware of bishops who have contributed directly to the cover-up. The grave reality is that there is no more assurance today that children will be protected as there was in 2001.

Brothers and sisters, these are our children and we have a responsibility to protect them. For too long, we have sought to protect instead clergy and bishops, believing that they are somehow more trustworthy, good or even more holy than the non-ordained. This false belief and our actions resulting from that belief has literally ruined the lives of countless men and women who have suffered abuse at the hands of these men. The cover-up of their crimes by bishops and the Vatican has allowed heinous criminal activity to continue.

The only way that our Church can move on from these realities is for the laity to stand up and demand a complete overhaul of the policies and procedures regarding these matters. Those that have committed crimes must face criminal prosecution by civil authorities; and independent authorities completely outside of the governance of the Church must conduct investigations of these matters. Finally, we must call for an open and honest dialogue between victims, their families and ordained leadership. In that dialogue, we must all conclude that we are all victims.

Children held a special place in the heart of our Lord. He loved children so much that he noted repeatedly that they shall be the inheritors of the Kingdom of Heaven. We cannot cease holding the leadership of our Church accountable until we know for certain that the safety of our children is assured. Further, we must realize that we are the leadership of the Church and stop skirting our shared responsibility. Each day that this crisis continues, we should be increasingly ashamed of ourselves. Healing will only be possible when we stop the bleeding.


Returning to the Common Good

The third concern that must be addressed is a growing desire — and implementation of that desire — to return our Church to an idealized time and place before the Second Vatican Council. This neoconservative movement not only seeks to bring back the Latin rite, which on its face seems harmless, but also seeks to further stifle the role of the laity in the daily life of the Church. We stand here 50 years after that historic council having not seen its full implementation. Indeed, many among us are not even aware of the basic tenets agreed upon by those gathered. We must work towards educating our brothers and sisters of the reforms outlined, especially concerning the role of the laity and the care and concern for the least among us.

My brothers and sisters, we can certainly argue about the details and have rigorous disagreements about the governance and care of our Church. Indeed, I believe such a discussion would be good for us all. However, at the end of the day, we must work toward a common understanding of the role of our Church in a world that is hurting. Issues of economic, racial and social justice have long been viewed as the best work of our Church and we have been as Christ to many. If we do nothing else outlined in this letter, let us return our Church to one that proclaims the social gospel without ceasing. After all, there is no “regular” gospel and “social” gospel. The Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ radically calls us to care for the poor, elderly, sick and outcast among us. The Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ does not call us to pious ashen-faced devotion in the comfort of an empty pew. Christ Jesus requires much more of us. Our Christian life demands that we cease awaiting an invitation, for the invitation has already been sent and received. That invitation—received at our baptism and confirmed on our own in adulthood—is an invitation to work to return our Church to a body of believers seeking the common good always.


Conclusion

Please know, my friends, that I believe that great hope awaits us in the future. There is no doubt, we have seen some dark days and there are likely more ahead. Nevertheless, we are a hardy lot and we have been tested before. The most important reality for us is that the Church will not change without our insistence that it do so. We must lead from the pews, speaking up and taking action to secure that the reforms outlined above become reality. Unless we do so, we sincerely risk the loss of an entire generation of sowers for the field. If we do what is right, good things will come and our Lord Jesus Christ will walk with us as we seek healing, reform and justice.

May you be strengthened in the work that we are about to do together and may you find companions along the way. May the Lord bless you and your loved ones and grant you peace.

Lasting Achievements of the Second Vatican Council

By Bill Hunt


Recent observances of the fiftieth anniversary of the start of the Second Vatican Council (like the October 11, 2012 special edition of the National Catholic Reporter) have had a muted tone – a fear that the gains of the Council are in danger of being reversed by current Vatican authorities. I understand that feeling, but I think that there are many reasons to celebrate the Council’s achievements. So I have listed a few things that the Council has done that are not likely to be overturned any time soon. I hope that this will stimulate readers of the Progressive Catholic Voice to recall still other accomplishments of the Council and to make these fiftieth anniversary years a full-throated celebration.


1. The People of God as a primary image of the Church

This is illustrated by the debate during the Second Period (1963) about the order of chapters in the decree on the Church. The vote was in favor of putting the chapter “People of God” before the chapter “The Hierarchical Structure of the Church, with Special Reference to the Episcopate.”


2. Liturgy and sacraments in the vernacular throughout the Latin Rite

Antiquarians can promote a return to the Latin Mass, but 99% of Catholics throughout the world now worship in their own language and have at least the possibility of participating actively in the prayer of the people.


3. The lectionary initiated in Advent 1969

This amazing "restauratio" of the ancient Church's three-year cycle provides Catholics with a vastly wider selection of readings than were available in the pre-Vatican II lectionary, which had no Old Testament readings and a one year cycle of gospel readings, mainly from Matthew.


4. New methods of scripture interpretation, especially historical criticism

Since the early part of the twentieth century Vatican offices, particularly the Biblical Commission and the Holy Office, were obsessed with “Modernism” and opposed modern methods of biblical criticism. One decree demanded that Catholic scholars hold that the first five books of the Bible were actually written by Moses himself. Although some relief came from Bishop Pacelli’s encyclical Divino Afflante Spiritu (1943), scripture scholars labored under many doctrinal restrictions. The decree on Revelation reversed many, if not all, of the pre-conciliar anti-modernist fulminations and gave renewed impetus to the blossoming of Catholic biblical scholarship.


5. Collegiality

Although the majority position was compromised at the Council (See, e.g., the infamous "nota praevia explicativa."), the cat is out of the bag. The hitherto unmentionable word has been mentioned and even embodied in the (till now ineffective) Synod of Bishops.



6. Episcopal conferences

Suspect before the Council and attenuated by recent legislation from the Vatican, they still are an institution. It is important to remember that prior to the Council there was no Italian bishops' conference. The American Catholic bishops’ National Catholic War Council (1917), later the National Catholic Welfare Conference (1922), was a real pioneer along with the Conference of Latin American Bishops (CELAM). Now the structure is universal.


7. Restoration of the Permanent Diaconate

This is another restoration of a practice of the ancient Church that has changed the face of the Latin Rite since the Council. Today the number of ordained deacons in many dioceses rivals or even exceeds the number of priests. Deacons play an essential role in parishes, large and small. They preach, baptize, preside at marriages, bring Viaticum to the dying, officiate at funerals, direct works of charity, and perform a wide variety of administrative functions. While the number of ordained priests in the US is declining, the number of ordained deacons is increasing. Given their training and experience, deacons are logical candidates for ordination to the priesthood.


8. Ecumenism

Ecumenical dialog, cooperation, and witness: Even though the Vatican has been cautious about multilateral cooperation on the interdenominational level (e.g. the World Council of Churches), following from the Council it has approved unilateral dialogs with various Christian denominations, e.g. the Lutheran Catholic dialog. On the local level, however, organizations like the Minnesota Joint Religious Legislative Coalition, founded in 1971, join the State Catholic Conference, the Jewish Community Relations Council, the Council of Churches, and the Islamic Center in common legislative initiatives.

Other examples of ecumenical dialog cooperation and witness include Catholic marriages in Protestant churches, intercommunion in Orthodox churches, and ecumenical publishing. An example of the latter is The New Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocrypha (New Revised Standard Edition). A Catholic priest, Roland E Murphy co-edited it with Bruce M. Metzger, a Presbyterian.


9. Inter-religious Dialog

The Council was a stimulus for active dialog, not only with Jews, but also with Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and others. This is especially true for Catholics in Asia. See for example the works of Bede Griffith, Thomas Merton, Hans Kung, Jacques Dupuis, David Steindl-Rast, etc. The Council also sparked Jewish-Christian initiatives such as the program at the University of St Thomas in St Paul, MN.


10. Lay ministries

Lay ministries have exploded since the Second Vatican Council – teachers, religious education coordinators, parish administrators, Eucharistic ministers, readers, pastoral associates, chaplains, etc.


11. Lay theologians

Another factoid illustrates this point. Notre Dame's graduate theology program dates from around 1966. Now almost every Catholic University in the world is training lay people to be theologians. Back in the 1960s meetings of the Catholic Theological Society of America (CTSA) were a sea of Roman collars with an occasional nun or layperson. As far back as the 1997 convention in Minneapolis, clerics were a small minority, and about half of the participants were women. Today, I suspect, women constitute a majority of the attendees.


12. Renewal in religious orders

There are still a few orders, mostly contemplative, that wear “traditional” garb. However, the vast majority of religious have made significant changes not only to their manner of dress but also to their life, practices, and mission since the Council. They have reviewed their foundational documents and embraced new ministries in the spirit of their founders adapted to the needs of the time. They have pioneered new structures and new methods of consultative decision-making and consensus building. Most of all, they are working to transform dying religious orders into new structures of Christian life and ministry.


13. Globalization

Prior to the Council the Roman Catholic Church was truly Eurocentric, even Italocentric. Today, with the demise of colonialism and the spread of communications technology, we are much more connected. Some of this comes from the Council and the actions that followed it, e.g. the internationalization of the Curia and the College of Cardinals (although this had the unintended consequence of electing Wojtyla!). Still, we are much more of a universal church than before Vatican II.


14. Inculturation

The whole approach to missions and non-Christian religions has changed from what it was before the Council. Rather than see indigenous religions as the work of the devil, “missionaries” spend years studying the language and religious customs of native peoples before attempting to evangelize them. Inculturation also includes things like translations that reflect the rhythm and usage of the various language groups (dynamic equivalence).

William Coughlin Hunt is a witness of the Second Vatican Council, having attended the sessions of the second period (1963) as a peritus (theological expert). He holds a doctorate in theology from the Catholic University of America. For ten years he taught a graduate theology course entitled “Christian Perspectives on Biomedical and Sexual Ethics.”

Aggiornamento : Contemporary Belief, Contemporary Language

By John A. Dick


Note: This commentary was first published June 3, 2013 at Another Voice, a blogsite of "reflections about contemporary Catholic belief and practice."


Pope John XXIII died fifty years ago today. I think his greatest gift to us was the spirit of aggiornamento: probing our tradition and our contemporary faith experiences and then UPDATING our language, symbols, and rituals to better convey what we experience.

Some contemporary reflections about aggiornamento:

(1) We all possess great capacities to sense, understand and respond to real events of transcendence in our everyday existence. A sense of the transcendent, or what we can call an instinct for the Divine, responds to real disclosures within the natural and historical: in all of our daily life realities. Very often we simply have to take time to reflect.

(2) And then we need to speak about these disclosures in our own language: a language that is readily understood, easily communicated, and a language that inspires and motivates people rather than annoying them, condemning them, or putting them to sleep.

(3) “God” names the who and the what actually present in the people, the power, depth, and scope of daily life. Right before our eyes. But they are often closed. We need a language that opens us to disclosures of divinity within the natural world and the historical realities of human life.

(4) Critical thinking – careful and care-filled reflection – is a necessary moment in the interpretation of Divine disclosures. A vigilant faith, a resolute hope, and abundant love open doors to the Divine. We need a Christian humanism that promotes attitudes and feelings of heartfelt gratitude, steadfast humility, and demanding compassion. Such deeply established attitudes and feelings can disclose and reinforce our shared humanity and bring the always-near Divine into our awareness and experience.

(5) Such a Christian humanism discloses and affirms that in spite of sorrow, pain, and agony, human life is nevertheless grounded in the Good. Responsible human action draws together that goodness into a complete life with others and for oneself. At the heart of our Christian humanism is a deep affirmation for life: a yes to existence, despite its loss and occasional terror. Christianity must still proclaim Good News.

Let us thank Pope John for reminding us about aggiornamento and let us renew our commitment to put it into practice.

For last year’s words
belong to last year’s language.
And next year’s words
await another voice.

– T.S. Eliot
"Little Gidding"

John A. Dick (Jack) is an historical theologian who grew up in Michigan and has studied in Detroit, Louvain and Nijmegen. He completed his doctorates at the Catholic University of Leuven. He posts new reflections each week at his blog, Another Voice


Image: Bernard Safran.

Andrew M. Greeley, 1928-2013: Priest, Author, Scholar, Scold

By Peter Steinfels


Note: This commentary was first published May 30, 2013 in the New York Times.

Andrew M. Greeley, the Roman Catholic priest and writer whose outpouring of sociological research, contemporary theology, sexually frank novels and newspaper columns challenged reigning assumptions about American Catholicism, was found dead on Thursday morning at his home in Chicago. He was 85.

His niece Laura Durkin confirmed the death, saying he had died overnight in his sleep. She said he had been in poor health and under 24-hour care since suffering severe head injuries in 2008 when his clothing caught on the door of a taxi as it pulled away and he was thrown to the pavement.

In a time when the word “maverick” is often used indiscriminately, Father Greeley — priest, scholar, preacher, social critic, storyteller and scold — was the real thing. One could identify a left and a right in American Catholicism, and then there was Father Greeley, occupying a zone all his own.

Exuberantly combative, he could be scathing about the nation’s Roman Catholic bishops; at one point he described them as “morally, intellectually and religiously bankrupt.” If the church wanted “to salvage American Catholicism,” he wrote, it would be well advised to retire “a considerable number of mitered birdbrains.”

But he could be equally critical of secular intellectuals, whom he accused of being prejudiced against religion, and reform-minded Catholics, who he said had a weakness for political or cultural fads.

He wrote more than 120 books, many published by university presses, and countless articles about Catholic theology in both sociological journals and general-interest magazines, often incorporating the latest scholarship. He wrote op-ed pieces and syndicated columns in both religious and secular publications.

His greatest readership certainly stemmed from his scores of novels, many of them rife with Vatican intrigue, straying priests and explicit sex. At least 10 of them appeared on The New York Times’s best-seller list, including his first, “The Cardinal Sins” (1981), a tale of two Irish-American boys from Chicago’s West Side who enter the priesthood together, one of whom contrives to become the cardinal of Chicago, takes a mistress and fathers a child.

“Sometimes I suspect that my obituary in The New York Times,” Father Greeley once wrote, “will read, ‘Andrew Greeley, Priest; Wrote Steamy Novels.’ ”

Were they steamy? The question would probably not have even been raised if the author had not been a priest and if some of the steam had not been produced by fictional priests, in one case a cardinal, breaking their vows.

In fact, most of the priests in his novels were virtuous, wise and hard-working. The big sex scenes were generally reserved for married couples rediscovering the redemptive healing of passion after trials and estrangement.

“I suppose I have an Irish weakness for words gone wild,” Father Greeley once told The Times. “Besides, if you’re celibate, you have to do something.”


No Use for Elites

The books made him rich, though he gave his first million to charity and continued to give to various causes, including a donation, decades ago, to the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, known as SNAP, then a fledgling advocacy group.

Father Greeley had been an early and vehement advocate for victims of abusive priests at least since 1989, when he began writing articles in Chicago newspapers demanding that the church take action against pedophile priests. The public criticism angered the archdiocese and many fellow priests, but his outrage and proposals for reform were eventually recognized by Cardinal Joseph Bernardin of Chicago, among others, as prescient.

Father Greeley was not shy about his politics, a New Deal liberalism grounded in an acute sense of family and neighborhood. (One of his recent books was titled with typical directness, “A Stupid, Unjust and Criminal War: Iraq 2001-2007.”) Nor did he hide his devotion to his hometown Chicago Bears, Bulls and Cubs.

He defended parochial schools, priestly celibacy, ethnic loyalties, Chicago politics and the vivid imagery of traditional Catholic piety. He deplored negative attitudes toward sexuality in the church and assailed church leaders for paying little heed to the views of the laity. He identified the controversy surrounding “Humanae Vitae,” the 1968 papal encyclical reasserting the church’s condemnation of contraception, as a turning point for the church — a time when attendance at Mass dropped precipitously and Catholics began to question church authority on an ever-growing list of topics.

If there was anything tying Father Greeley’s torrent of printed words together, it was a respect for what he considered the practical wisdom and religious experience of ordinary believers and an exasperation with elites, whether popes, bishops, church reformers, political radicals, secular academics or literary critics.

It was a thread that ran though his sociological research documenting the gap between what Catholics thought about sex and marriage — their more relaxed stance concerning artificial birth control, for example — and the more proscriptive positions of the church.

His work with the distinguished sociologist Peter H. Rossi in the early 1960s revealed the strengths of parochial schools, then being viewed by secular educators as second-rate and authoritarian and by liberal Catholics as a questionable use of church resources. The failure of many public schools soon provoked a fresh appreciation for the Catholic educational tradition.

In a 1972 book, “Unsecular Man: The Persistence of Religion,” Father Greeley marshaled evidence against the widespread intellectual assumption that religion was a fading force in the world. Developments in Latin America, Eastern Europe, the United States and the Middle East later altered that perception too.

Religion, he argued, “is the result of two incurable diseases from which humankind suffers — life, from which we die, and hope, which hints that there might be more meaning to life than a termination in death.”

Before religion became creed or catechism, he said, it was poetry: images and stories that defy death with glimpses of hope, and with moments of life-renewing experience that were shared and enacted in communal rituals.

“The theological voice wants doctrines, creeds and moral obligations,” Father Greeley wrote. “I reject none of these. I merely insist that experiences which renew hope are prior to and richer than propositional and ethical religion and provide the raw power for them.”

This same concern for the religious experience of ordinary Catholics tied his sociological work to the fiction that he churned out with such energy. It was mostly about middle-class Irish-Americans from the same upwardly mobile milieu as the author’s, with an occasional foray into science fiction and thrillers about Vatican skulduggery.

He was criticized for never having had an unpublished thought — or an unpublished fantasy, some added, faulting his fiction. Yet even his unpublished thoughts could cause trouble, as they did in 1981.


Conspiracy Theory

Materials from the 1970s found in Father Greeley’s papers by a young journalist working on an article about him led to accusations that Father Greeley had been plotting to write an exposé of his nemesis, Cardinal John Cody of Chicago, that would have shown the prelate guilty of financial misconduct and paved the way for his ouster.

As part of the scheme, according to these allegations, Father Greeley wanted to see Cardinal Cody replaced by Cardinal Bernardin, then archbishop of Cincinnati, who, the thinking went, on becoming a liberal member of the College of Cardinals would be inclined to vote for a reform-minded successor to Pope Paul VI upon the pope’s death.

In fact, Cardinal Cody’s conduct had raised alarms in the Vatican beginning in the mid-1970s and eventually led to a criminal investigation in Illinois, halted only by the cardinal’s death in 1982. And Archbishop Bernardin had long been considered the likely successor in Chicago. The archived materials, Father Greeley maintained, were speculative but reasonable scenarios developed for a book on the papal election that would follow Pope Paul’s death, which, as it happened, occurred in 1978.

“This business of conspiracy is ridiculous,” Father Greeley said, adding, “I didn’t do it, but I wish I had.”

Though the furor blew over, it momentarily appeared to create an obstacle to Archbishop Bernardin’s appointment to head the Chicago archdiocese, and it severely strained relations between the archbishop and Father Greeley.

To be sure, Father Greeley had openly stated that battling Cardinal Cody was one of the chief “crusades” of his life. He was regularly and unsparingly critical of his leadership. After the cardinal closed a number of inner-city schools, Father Greeley denounced him as a “madcap tyrant.”


Success and Setbacks

Andrew Moran Greeley was born on Feb. 5, 1928, in Oak Park, Ill., the son of Andrew T. Greeley, a businessman, and the former Grace McNichols. His grandparents were Irish immigrants. Besides his niece Ms. Durkin, he is survived by a sister, Mary Jule Durkin; four other nieces; two nephews; and 18 grandnieces and grandnephews.

From boyhood, Andrew Greeley wanted to become a priest. He attended Archbishop Quigley Preparatory Seminary in Chicago and then went to St. Mary of the Lake Seminary in Mundelein, Ill. He was ordained in 1952. For almost a decade he worked as assistant pastor of Christ the King Church in an affluent area of Chicago, writing his first books on young Catholics and church life in the suburbs.

In 1962 he earned a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Chicago, adding it to earlier degrees in theology, and joined the staff of the National Opinion Research Center in Chicago, serving as its senior study director until 1968. The group surveys American attitudes about religious, cultural and other issues.

He never quite got over a string of setbacks. One was his failure to be granted tenure at the University of Chicago in 1973, though he had taught there for a decade and been widely published. He attributed the rejection at least in part to prejudice against a Catholic priest; others said it had more to do with his cantankerous nature.

Another blow came when the American bishops repudiated a sociological study of Catholic priests that they had commissioned from him. A two-year project completed in 1972, the study found that American priests were widely dissatisfied with church leadership.

Then there was the resistance among liberal Catholics to his positive findings about Catholic schools. His research debunked the received view at the time that Catholics had low college attendance rates. He found instead that white Catholics earned bachelor’s degrees and pursued advanced degrees at higher rates than other whites, and he attributed their success to the quality of education in parochial schools, a controversial assertion in a time of public-school ascendancy.

Finally came the unwillingness first of Cardinal Cody and then Cardinal Bernardin to give him a parish of his own and appoint him its pastor.

Father Greeley later felt that he had readers everywhere and allies nowhere. Sensitive to accusations that he was getting rich from peddling stories of Catholic failings in his novels, he gave large sums to charity, notably to aid Chicago Catholic schools that served minority populations and to endow a chair in Roman Catholic studies at the University of Chicago, a double-edged gesture to the university that had spurned him.


A Parish of Readers

The pugnacious style, sweeping generalizations and ad hominem attacks often found in his writing made him an alienating figure. “Andy Greeley shoots from the hip at practically everyone with whom he has some grievances,” Rabbi Marc H. Tanenbaum, a leading advocate of improving relations between Judaism and the Catholic Church, complained to The Times in 1976.

Father’s Greeley’s chip-on-the-shoulder attitude may have stemmed from a belief that he had been misunderstood and marginalized. Indeed, a second volume of memoirs, “Furthermore!,” published in 1999, suggests a man who even while striving for serenity could never quite shed a sense of being embattled and having scores to settle.

This was particularly true when his fiction received poor reviews. He would never forget a bad one and would continue to denounce the offending reviewer for decades.

It was easy for Father Greeley to dismiss critics of his novels as prudes, because some of them were. Other critics, however, found the sex not prurient but preposterous. Some feminists complained that it was too often brutal and his treatment of women condescending. The criticism stung Father Greeley, whose advocacy of women’s advancement in the church had earned him feminist defenders as well.

Father Greeley knew well that he was writing genre novels, but he, like many of his readers, saw them as much more. They were theological parables and, for Father Greeley, something approaching sacramental ministrations. If he did not have a parish, he had a mailbox — and later an e-mail address. The faithful gathered there in huge numbers, thanking him for new insights into God and their church, adding their own tales of return and reconciliation.

For critics, the novels were merely publishing successes or even wasteful diversions from sociological scholarship. For Father Greeley, they were “the most priestly thing I have ever done.”

And priesthood was what, in Father Greeley’s eyes, held his life together.

“I always wanted to be a priest,” he once wrote. “My core identity is priest. I will always be a priest.”


Image: Jonathan Kirn.

Reforming the Catholic Church Today: Three Perspectives

By William D. Lindsey


Note: This article was first published May 14, 2013 on William's blogsite Bilgrimage.


[Following are] some articles I've run across lately, or have been sent by friends or have read on Facebook. These all have to do with reform of the Catholic church and with the role Pope Francis may or may not play in reforming the church:

In The Tablet, theologian Hans Küng sees the papacy of Pope Francis as a window of opportunity for continued reform of the Catholic church along the lines of Vatican II, after Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI sought to restore things to the pre-conciliar norms. If Francis fails to reform the church, Küng proposes that reform continue from the bottom of the church upwards, without the approval of the hierarchy and even in direct contradiction to hierarchical commands. Failure to move in the direction of reform will produce an ice age in the Catholic church, Küng believes, in which Catholicism "will run the risk of dwindling into a barely relevant large sect."

Küng sees a template for reform in the life and spirituality of the saint whose name the new pope took as his papal name--Francis lived poverty, humility, and simplicity:

Paupertas, or poverty: The Church in the spirit of Innocent III meant a Church of wealth, pomp and circumstance, acquisitiveness and financial scandal. In contrast, a Church in the spirit of Francis means a Church of transparent financial policies and modest frugality. A Church which concerns itself above all with the poor, the weak, the marginalised. A Church which does not pile up wealth and capital but instead actively fights poverty and which offers its staff exemplary conditions of employment.

Humilitas, or humility: The Church in the spirit of Pope Innocent means a Church of power and domination, bureaucracy and discrimination, repression and Inquisition. In contrast, a Church in the spirit of Francis means a Church of humanity, dialogue, brother and sisterhood, and hospitality for non-conformists too; it means the unpretentious service of its leaders and social solidarity, a community which does not exclude new religious forces and ideas from the Church but rather allows them to flourish.

Simplicitas, or simplicity: The Church in the spirit of Pope Innocent means a Church of dogmatic immovability, moralistic censure and legal hedging, a Church of canon law regulating everything, a Church of all-knowing scholastic and of fear. In contrast, a Church in the spirit of Francis of Assisi means a Church of Good News and of joy, a theology based purely on the Gospel, a Church that listens to people instead of indoctrinating from on high, a Church that does not only teach but constantly learns anew.

In the Portland Press Herald (Maine), Paul Kendrick sees how Francis will choose (or not) to address the abuse crisis in the Catholic church as the measure of whether the new pope is serious about reform. Kendrick was educated by the Jesuits, the community to which Francis belongs. The leitmotiv of Jesuit spirituality, taught to students in Jesuit institutions, is concern for social justice with a pronounced concern for the poor and vulnerable.

But the Jesuits themselves have betrayed their own spirituality, Kendrick maintains, in the abusive, unjust, demeaning way in which Jesuit institutions and communities have dealt with survivors of abuse suffered at the hands of Jesuits. The Jesuits have, Kendrick concludes, "failed to embrace those who were abused with love, compassion, care and understanding."

And so he will judge the new pope's commitment to the poor by whether Francis recognizes that the least among us include survivors of childhood sexual abuse by Catholic religious authority figures. Kendrick says he'll believe in Francis's commitment to reform and to serving the poor when he sees the following:

The day must come quickly when the new Jesuit pope has assured himself that, among other things:

• Bullying and manipulating hardball legal tactics against abuse victims have ceased.

• Professional, long-term medical and mental health treatment is available to all victims at no cost.

• Databases are published in every diocese in which the names, photos and other information about priests and church workers who abused children are listed.

• Church documents detailing trails of abuse and cover-up are made public.

• Measurable reparations and amends are made to compensate victims for their harms and injuries.

• Priests, bishops and other church leaders who cover up or conceal child sexual abuse will immediately be removed from office; i.e., they will be fired.

And in Religión Digital (by way of Iglesia Descalza), Benedictine sister Teresa Forcades maintains that the real basis for reform within contemporary Catholicism is not so much the arrival of a "Pope Messiah," but the continued vital presence of grass-roots communities, base communities, working for liturgical, theological, and structural reform of the Catholic church from the bottom up. These include communities working out of both feminist and liberationist theological insights, both of which have been challenging the "involution" of the Vatican II church under John Paul II and Benedict XVI.

Forcades's interviewer asks her what she'd tell Pope Francis if she met him. Her response:

I would ask him to go ahead with this commitment to poverty, not just through symbolic gestures like those he's been making up to now, but also through structural changes. And that he would dare to alleviate that clericalism and that structural misogynism that I spoke of as the main problems.

Forcades's reference to a point she had made earlier in the interview is this: she argues several times and forcefully that "institutional clericalism and structural misogyny are palpable" in the Catholic church. There is no avenue to real reform of the church which does not address how clericalism has been institutionalized in the Catholic church, and how misogyny is woven into the governing structures of the church.

Three different viewpoints, each coming from a different position in the church, with different prescriptions for the type of reform so critically needed in the Catholic church today--but united in their insistence that reform is imperative and, in the case of Forcades and Küng, united, too, in their judgment that the previous two papacies set the church on a path of "involution" that has threatened to make the reforms begun by the second Vatican Council null and void.

A Statement in Response to the Legalization of Same-Sex Marriage in Minnesota

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By the Editorial Board
of The Progressive Catholic Voice

Congratulations to Minnesotans for standing up for freedom to marry and equal protection of the laws.

We are proud of our GLBTQ brothers and sisters for making the long, hard “ask” and of our fellow citizens who responded affirmatively.

Why did it take so long and why put people through so much to get what the constitution promises? The answer, we know, is that human growth is developmental. The reign of God that Jesus lived and died proclaiming is a long term co-creative project. This step in Minnesota can help us believe that others are possible — economic justice, peace, Catholic church reform.

Paula Ruddy
Mary Beckfeld
Michael Bayly



Image: On Tuesday, May 14, 2013, before a crowd of more than 7,000 people, Governor Mark Dayton signs into law the bill that makes civil marriage for same-sex couples legal in Minnesota beginning August 1. With Gov. Dayton are the bill's two chief sponsors, Rep. Karen Clark, with her partner Jacquelyn Zita, and Sen. Scott Dibble, with his husband Richard Leyva. (Photo: Michael J. Bayly)

Related Off-site Links:
Marriage Equality Comes to Minnesota – Michael Bayly (The Wild Reed, May 13, 2013)
Minnesota Governor Signs Bill Legalizing Gay Marriage – David Bailey (Reuters via Yahoo! News, May 14, 2013).
Dayton Signs Marriage Equality Law on Capitol Steps – Beth Hawkins (MinnPost, May 14, 2013).
Minnesota Ushers in Gay Marriage – Baird Helgeson (Star Tribune, May 14, 2013).
For Minnesota Gay Marriage Sponsors, It's Personal – Patrick Condon (Associated Press via Yahoo! News, May 14, 2013).
Marriage Equality Bill Signing: History in the Making – City Pages (May 15, 2013).
Minnesota Marriage Equality: Top Ten Reasons this Victory is So Sweet – Rev. Meg Riley (HuffPost Religion, May 15, 2013).
Minnesota Just Passed Gay Marriage: What Now? – Alexander Abad-Santos (The Atlantic Wire via Yahoo! News, May 14, 2013).
Photos: Thousands Gather as Minnesota Same-Sex Marriage Bill Signed Into Law – Minnesota Public Radio (May 14, 2013).
Marriage Equality for Minnesota? You Betcha! – Christopher Zumski Finke (Yes!, May 16, 2013).

Save the Date!

Saturday, September 28


Synod of the Baptized 2013
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Co-Creating the Living Church


With Keynote Speaker:
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Sr. Gail Worcelo, sgm
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Ramada Mall of America Hotel
2300 E. American Blvd.
Bloomington, MN 55439
(For map, click here)



Join us as together we:

• Connect our Christian tradition
to the reality of the evolving universe

• Discern what Catholic Christianity has to offer
in a rapidly changing world of expanding consciousness

• Forge a new vision, future, and hope for the
institutional church, our faith communities,
our lives, and our world.



For more information, including a registration form
and descriptions of the afternoon breakout sessions,
visit the website of the Catholic Coalition for Church Reform
at www.cccrmn.org.

About Our Keynote Speaker

A Passionist nun of St. Gabriel's Monastery for 25 years, Sister Gail Worcelo was given permission by her community in 1999 to begin a new community of women religious with direction from her mentor, Passionist priest Fr. Thomas Berry (1914-2009). With Berry she co-founded Green Mountain Monastery, a new monastic community dedicated to the healing and protection of Earth and its life systems, and an exciting example of reform inspired and shaped by the perspectives of the 'new universe story.'

Gail holds degrees in Clinical Psychology and Christian Spirituality and is working on a new book, Moments of Grace, which explores the current evolutionary breakthrough in the long lineage of Catholic women's religious communities.

In exploring and celebrating the paradox of the Divine in an evolving universe" in relation to the ongoing work of church reform, Gail offers an inspiring message of hope and courage.

Synod of the Baptized 2013 is sponsored by

We are a growing community of Catholics within the Archdiocese of St. Paul-Minneapolis actively working to co-create a living church. The local church we envision is a community alive with the message of Jesus – a message of inclusivity, equality, and transforming love. We are energized by integrating the gospel message, Catholic practice, and the ‘new creation story’ emerging from contemporary science.

Reflections on the Gospel Reading of the Fifth Sunday of Easter (Cycle C)

By Bill Hunt


Readings for the Fifth Sunday of Easter (Cycle C):
1. Acts of the Apostles 14:21-27
Psalm 145: 8-9, 10-11, 12-13 Response: "I will praise your name for ever, my king and my God."
2. Revelation 21:1-5a
3. John 13:31-33a, 34-35


John the Evangelist casts Jesus' last supper discourse in the form of a symposium. This was the last part of a banquet in which the guests drank wine and carried on a discussion initiated by the host or the principal guest. The liturgy of the Easter season adopts some elements of this practice that was common in the ancient Greek-speaking world. It is as though newly baptized Christians were reclining at table with the risen Lord and listening to his words. Along these lines, the readings for the Easter season can be seen as a mystagogic catechesis, a further interpretation of the Christian mysteries of initiation that broadens and deepens the baptismal catechesis of the Lenten readings.


Two Gifts

This Sunday's reading stands at the beginning of Jesus' last supper discourse. Jesus’ first gift was an example to follow. As we heard in the gospel reading for Holy Thursday, after washing the disciples feet Jesus says: “I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do.” (John 13: 15)

Immediately after Judas leaves the light of Jesus’ presence for the night of betrayal and just before the prediction of Peter's denial, Jesus gives his disciples a second gift - a new commandment: "As I have loved you, so you also should love one another."

The settings for the two gifts are very similar. Throughout chapter 13 of his Gospel, John contrasts the love of Jesus for his disciples with his foreknowledge of the same disciples’ failings, especially the betrayal of Judas and the denial of Peter. Both accounts contain a dialog between Jesus and Peter; both accounts mention Judas’ impending betrayal; and both accounts have sacramental overtones – Baptism for the footwashing and Eucharist for the commandment of love.

There are few things more historically certain about Jesus than that he proclaimed a message of love. However, it was a many-faceted teaching, and each of the four gospel writers stress aspects that have particular meaning for their readers. This Sunday we ask: How did John's readers understand the commandment to love, and what message is there for us who live in radically different circumstances?


The Setting

John the Evangelist was writing for a minority within a minority. Around the year 100 adherents of the religion of Israel made up about 10% of the population of the Roman Empire. The first members of the Jesus movement comprised a minority among Israelites, along with groups like the Pharisees, Sadducees, Zealots, and Essenes. These earliest Christians did not see themselves as distinct from the People of Israel. For them the Christian Way was not a rejection of the religion of Israel but the next step in its long development. They tried to convince their co-religionists that Jesus was the Messiah, the fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets.

This endeavor ended mostly in failure. Only a handful of Israelites joined the Jesus movement. After the destruction of Jerusalem in the year 70 most of the Israelites followed the leadership of the Pharisee movement. Toward the end of the century when John's Gospel was written, Christians and Jews as we know them today were emerging with separate identities.

Relationships seem to have become increasingly hostile. This made things very difficult for the Christian Jews of John's community. Not only did other Jews shun them, but also, to the extent that public officials acknowledged the verdict of exclusion, they lost the protection Jews had under Roman law. Jews were considered to be part of a "legitimate religion" and not required to offer sacrifices to the genius of the emperor. If Christians were no longer considered a movement within Judaism, they could be denounced at any time as members of a forbidden religion and forced to offer sacrifice under pain of death.

It appears that actual persecutions were relatively rare, but in their situation of double jeopardy it was vitally necessary for Christians to join together with a special kind of love. They had to sacrifice their own interests and even their lives for the survival of the community. In this context Jesus' command to love one another as he had loved his disciples spoke to their lived experience. In the face of common enemies who were a threat to their very existence as a community, they needed to set aside differences and to demonstrate their love for each other by action. Love between and among the disciples of Jesus became the first order of business.


Deep but Narrow and New

It should be noted that this love was deep but narrow. It was deep in the sense that it participated in the mutual love between Jesus and the Father. Toward the end of the Last Supper Discourse, John’s Jesus prays: “As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us . . . .” (17.21) A few verses later Jesus declares that he will make his “Righteous Father” known to his disciples “so that the love with which you [Father] have loved me may be in them, and I in them.” (17.26) “According to John’s theology, this mutual love participates in the love flowing between the Father and the Son and between the Son and individual believers. . . Mutual love is grounded in mutual indwelling.” (Meier 2009, 563)

This love commandment is narrow in the sense that it only applies to Jesus’ loyal disciples. (At this point in John’s Gospel, Judas has left the light of the table and gone into the night.) By extension it applies to the members of the Evangelist’s community, but it does not extend to “the world” in the sense of Israelites who have rejected Jesus or the wider world of all humanity.

To some extent this kind of love can be found in any persecuted community that has managed to retain its identity. However, it was new in the sense that it was a response to the spontaneous and gratuitous love of God that forms the basis of the new covenant in Jesus. In the words of John J. Pilch, "the 'newness' of Jesus' commandment is implied in the themes that are woven throughout the farewell address: intimacy, indwelling, mutual knowledge. These are the themes that characterize a covenant, in this case, the 'new' covenant struck at the Last Supper." (Pilch 1997, 81)


Three Challenges

What meaning does this new commandment of love have for us affluent American Christians who are not persecuted but part of the cultural majority in our society? How do we apply the words of Jesus to our situation? I think today's gospel reading challenges us in three ways.

First of all, it challenges us to love in a very concrete way those Christians with whom we live day-by-day – other parishioners, our leaders, and Christians of other denominations. The love commandment should affect the way we treat divisions within the Church such as those between laity and hierarchy, conservatives and progressives, fundamentalists and critical believers, etc. As we have seen in this and other passages from John’s Gospel, the bar of love is very high. We have to ask ourselves if we would be willing to die for our Christian counterparts in conflict.

Second, it challenges the scope of our love for fellow Christians. In this age of globalization and instant communication the gospel words of Jesus challenge us to love our Christian sisters and brothers throughout the world in a new and more catholic way. For example, we might ask ourselves how we can express our love for Christians living in countries where religious extremists are using violence to impose religiously based rule. How do we live in solidarity with the Christians of India, who make up less than three percent of India's total population, especially those who are currently subject to persecution? How do we demonstrate our attachment to the indigenous Christian community of Jerusalem, Israel, and occupied Palestine that is rapidly vanishing after decades of legally sanctioned discrimination and denial of civil liberties? How reliable are we in coming to the aid of persecuted Christians in Sudan and Nigeria or the tiny Christian Community of Iraq, devastated after decades of conflict?

Third, the words of Jesus about his new commandment of love should challenge American Christians to look at other reflections of Jesus' teaching about love in the gospel tradition. True, we are called to love one another in a new way, but that is not the whole story. Even in John's Gospel Jesus speaks of God's love for the world as the reason for giving his only Son. (John 3.16) If God loves the world that is outside the circle of Christian believers, why shouldn't we?

Matthew presents Jesus' many faceted teaching on love in a different form. "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous." (Matthew 5.44-45) In Luke's Gospel Jesus praises the lawyer who sees love of God and love of neighbor as the way to eternal life. Then, with the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus makes it clear that we are to make ourselves neighbors to others by showing mercy. (Luke 10.25-37)

Thus, when we reflect on the entire teaching of Jesus about love, God challenges us to love not only other Christians but also all human beings. It is not a question of "either/or" but of "both/and." The love of those who share Baptism and Eucharist with us can transform us into a functional family in which the members care for and support each other. That same love can empower us, precisely as a local Christian community, to open our hearts to everyone in need.

William Coughlin Hunt is a witness of the Second Vatican Council, having attended the sessions of the second period (1963) as a peritus (theological expert). He holds a doctorate in theology from the Catholic University of America. For ten years he taught a graduate theology course entitled “Christian Perspectives on Biomedical and Sexual Ethics.”

___________________________________________

In preparing these remarks the following works were consulted in addition to the biblical texts:

Raymond E. Brown, S.S., The Gospel According to John (xiii-xxi), Volume 29A of the Anchor Bible (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1970), pp. 605-616.

James Carroll, Constantine’s Sword. The Church and the Jews, A History (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2001), pp. 71-88.

Reginald H. Fuller, Preaching the Lectionary: The Word of God for the Church Today (Collegeville [MN]: Liturgical Press, 1984), pp. 432-435.

Bruce J. Malina and Richard L. Rohrbaugh, Social-Science Commentary on the Gospel of John (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1998), pp. 226-228.

John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, Volume Four: Law and Love (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009), Chapter 36, “Widening the Focus: The Love Commandments of Jesus,” pp. 478-576, especially section V. “The Love Commandment in the Johannine Tradition,” pp. 558-572.

Joan Mitchell, CSJ, Sunday by Sunday, 5th Sunday of Easter, May 9, 2004, Vol. 13, No. 36, pp. 1-3.

Francis J. Moloney, S.D.B., The Gospel of John. Sacra Pagina Series, Volume 4, A Michael Glazier Book (Collegeville [MN]: Liturgical Press1998), pp. 381-391.

John J. Pilch, The Cultural World of Jesus, Sunday by Sunday, Cycle C . A Liturgical Press Book (Collegeville [MN]: Liturgical Press, 1997), pp. 79-81.

MN Catholic Bishops Oppose Anti-Bullying Legislation

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Note: The following has been adapted from a media release from the Minnesota Safe Schools for All Coalition.


Recently, the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis called on Catholic educators and parents to contact their legislators and urge them to oppose anti-bullying legislation known as the Safe & Supportive Minnesota Schools Act (HF 826/SF 783). This legislation will ensure that all schools have clear, strong policies against bullying, as well as the training and resources needed to keep kids safe. The bill enumerates protections for students who are most likely to be targeted based on certain characteristics like disability, national origin, socioeconomic status, and sexual orientation. The requirements in the bill would apply to Minnesota students in both public and private schools.

The Minnesota Catholic Conference wants private religious schools to be exempt from the requirements in the bill. To read more about the MCC's rationale for opposing the Safe & Supportive Minnesota Schools Act, click here.

Legislators are already receiving calls from constituents who oppose the bill. We need to make sure that they hear from supporters of the bill as soon as possible. Click here for background on the bill and talking points that have been compiled by the Minnesota Safe Schools for All Coalition.

Please take a moment to call or email your legislators and urge them to support the Safe & Supportive Minnesota Schools Act. If you’re not sure who represents you, find out by clicking here.

In-person visits at the Capitol or in your district are even more helpful and strategic. If you’re willing to meet with your legislators in person, please contact OutFront MN's Associate Policy Director, Nicque Mabrey at nicque@outfront.org or 763-291-0261. She can help set up the appointment for you and answer any questions you have about the bill.

Parents, educators, and people of faith are especially encouraged to meet with your legislators to share why this issue matters to you.

Minnesota currently has the weakest anti-bullying law in the nation. The Safe & Supportive Minnesota Schools Act will change that. But it’s important to act now. All students deserve an education that is safe and equitable, whether they go to a public or private school.

Please make it a priority to contact your legislators and share with them your experiences, values, and perspectives when it comes to school safety for all.


Related Off-site Link:
GSAs and the Catholic High School Setting – Michael Bayly (The Wild Reed, February 6, 2013).

On Being Catholic

By Gary Gutting


Note: This article was first published March 30, 2013 by The New York Times.


An old friend and mentor of mine, Ernan McMullin, was a philosopher of science widely respected in his discipline. He was also a Catholic priest. I don’t know how many times fellow philosophers at professional meetings drew me aside and asked, “Does Ernan really believe that stuff?” (He did.) Amid all the serious and generally respectful coverage of the papal resignation and the election of a new pope, I often detect an undertone of this same puzzlement. Can reflective and honest intellectuals actually believe that stuff?

Here I sketch my reasons for answering “yes.” What I offer is neither apologetics aimed at converting others nor merely personal testimony. Without claiming to speak for others, I try to articulate a position that I expect many fellow Catholics will find congenial and that non-Catholics (even those who reject all religion) may recognize as an intellectually respectable stance. Easter is the traditional time for Christians to reaffirm their faith. I want to show that we can do this without renouncing reason.

Toward the end of James Joyce’s “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man,” the protagonist, Stephen Dedalus, rejects the Roman Catholic faith he was raised in. A friend suggests that he might, then, become a Protestant. Stephen replies, “I said that I had lost the faith . . . but not that I had lost self-respect.” Factoring out the insult to Protestants, I would like to appropriate this Joycean mot to explain my own continuing attachment to the Catholic Church.

I read “self-respect” as respect for what are (to borrow the title of the philosopher Charles Taylor’s great book) the “sources of the self.” These are the sources nurturing the values that define an individual’s life. For me, there are two such sources. One is the Enlightenment, where I’m particularly inspired by Voltaire, Hume and the founders of the American republic. The other is the Catholic Church, in which I was baptized as an infant, raised by Catholic parents, and educated for 8 years of elementary school by Ursuline nuns and for 12 more years by Jesuits. For me to deny either of these sources would be to deny something central to my moral being.

The Enlightenment and the Catholic Church? Yes, that needs some explaining. But first let me explain my attachment to Catholicism. My Catholic education has left me with three deep convictions. First, it is utterly important to know, to the extent that we can, the fundamental truth about human life: where it came from, what (if anything) it is meant for, how it should be lived. Second, this truth can in principle be supported and defended by human reason. Third, the Catholic philosophical and theological tradition is a fruitful context for pursuing fundamental truth, but only if it is combined with the best available secular thought. (The Jesuits I studied with were particularly strong on all three of these claims.)

Careful readers will note that these three convictions do not include the belief that the specific teachings of the Catholic Church provide the fundamental truths of human life. What I do believe is that these teachings are very helpful for understanding the human condition. Here I distinguish three domains: metaphysical doctrines about the existence and nature of God, historical accounts from the Bible of how God has intervened in human history to reveal his truth and the ethics of love preached by Jesus.

The ethics of love I revere as the inspiration for so many (Catholics and others) who have led exemplary moral lives. I don’t say that this ethics is the only exemplary way to live or that we have anything near to an adequate understanding of it. But I know that it has been a powerful force for good. (Like so many Catholics, I do not see how the hierarchy’s rigid strictures on sex and marriage could follow from the ethics of love.) As to the theistic metaphysics, I’m agnostic about it taken literally, but see it as a superb intellectual construction that provides a fruitful context for understanding how our religious and moral experiences are tied to the ethics of love. The historical stories, I maintain, are best taken as parables illustrating moral and metaphysical teachings.

Traditional apologetics has started with metaphysical arguments for God’s existence, then argued from the action of God in the world to the truth of the Church’s teachings as revealed by God and finally justified the ethics of love by appealing to these teachings. I reverse this order, putting first the ethics of love as a teaching that directly captivates our moral sensibility, then taking the history and metaphysics as helpful elucidations of the ethics.

Of course, I can already hear the obvious objection: “What you believe isn’t Catholicism — it is a diluted concoction that might satisfy ultra-liberal Protestants or Unitarians, but is nothing like the robust tonic of orthodox Catholic doctrine. It’s not surprising that so paltry a ‘faith’ doesn’t conflict with the Enlightenment view of religion.” My answer is that Catholicism too has reconciled itself to the Enlightenment view of religion.

First, the Church now explicitly acknowledges the right of an individual’s conscience in religious matters: No one may “be prevented from acting according to his conscience, especially in religious matters” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, citing a decree from the Second Vatican Council). The official view still maintains that a conscience that rejects the hierarchy’s formal teaching is objectively in error. But it acknowledges that subjectively individuals not only may but should act on their sincere beliefs.

Second, the Church, in practice, hardly ever excludes from its community those who identity themselves as Catholics but reinterpret central teachings (and perhaps reject less central ones). The “faithful” who attend Mass, receive the sacraments, send their children to Catholic schools and sometimes even teach theology include many who hold views similar to mine. Church leaders have in effect agreed that the right to follow one’s conscience includes the right of dissident Catholics to remain members of the Church. They implicitly recognize the absurdity of the claim that a dissident who has been raised and educated in the Catholic Church and has maintained, with the Church’s implicit consent, a lifetime involvement in its life is not “really” a Catholic.

Those who think of themselves as the conservative “core” of the Church maintain that the faith of such “liberal” Catholics is nonetheless seriously defective because it deviates significantly from the hierarchy’s authoritative views. But liberal Catholics like Hans Küng argue that the conservative view itself is defective. Conservatives appeal to the authority of the hierarchy to justify their position, but this appeal is circular, since the nature of hierarchical authority is part of what liberals contest. And Küng and other liberals plausibly argue that the early Church’s structure was closer to the more democratic arrangements they favor than to the monarchist model of the Middle Ages.

The reasonable description of this situation is that there is deep disagreement within the Church about how its core doctrines, including those about the hierarchy’s authority, should be understood. With the Second Vatican Council, the hierarchy began a move toward the liberal position, which the successors of John XXIII have tried to reverse. But history shows that Catholics play in a very long game, and there is no reason to give up hope for a new blossoming of the liberal buds.

Critics outside the Church will ask how I adhere to an institution that has so many deep flaws. My first response is that the Catholic tradition of thought and practice is the only stance toward religion that, in William James’s phrase, is a “live option” for me — the only place I feel at home. Simply to renounce it would be, as I said at the outset, to lose my self-respect — to deny part of my moral core.

My second response is that the liberal drive for reform is the best hope of saving the Church. Its greatest present danger is precisely the loss of the members whom the hierarchy and the rest of the conservative core want to marginalize. I’m not willing to abandon the Church to them.

Gary Gutting is a professor of philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, and an editor of Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews. He is the author, most recently, of “Thinking the Impossible: French Philosophy since 1960,” and writes regularly for The Stone. He was recently interviewed in 3am magazine.