Monday, December 15, 2014

Pope Francis and the Catholic Crisis

By Charles J. Reid, Jr.
Professor of Law, University of St. Thomas


NOTE: This commentary was first published December 15, 2014 by The Huffington Post.


There is a growing crisis haunting the Catholic Church. And it is a crisis larger than the events that have so greatly afflicted the American Catholic Church. The pedophilia scandals are a horrifying element of this crisis. So, too, are the bishops who covered up and excused these outrages. And so, also, the more general loss of confidence Catholics have in a hierarchy that seems oddly concerned with rank and privilege and with fighting yesterday's culture wars. Yes, these are all elements of the crisis, but the crisis is larger than this.

And that something larger is both sad and profound: a loss of faith in the institutions of the Church. Pope Francis, in his remarkable interview with La nacion, published the weekend of December 6 and 7, made it clear that he recognized the gravity of the moment. He was asked why so many people were leaving the Church. As posed, the question addressed Latin America. By implication, it looked to the world.

Pope Francis could have directed his answer at factors external to the Church. Indeed, one can imagine his predecessors alternatively blaming culture, or relativism, or the forces of secularism. Pope Francis, however, is different. His was a more introspective answer. We must look within, he advised, to what Catholics are themselves doing wrong.

At the root of the crisis, he proposed, was the problem of clericalism. Clericalism is strangling true Christianity. Pope Francis has spoken often about clericalism during his brief pontificate. It was the reason, early in his tenure, that he ceased granting applications by priests to be raised to the rank of monsignor. Being called monsignor adds little to a priest's life. But the quest for this title led, in Francis's judgment, to careerism and a preoccupation with title and honor that had little to do with the Gospels.

Well, it seems that in taking this step, Pope Francis was merely warming up. In recent speeches, he began to explore how deep the crisis of clericalism extends. It has poisoned the relationship between priests and lay Catholics. It can serve, for the laity, as heedless abdication of responsibility, and on the part of the clergy a dangerous concentration of power.

Thus Pope Francis declared in March, 2014: "Clericalism is one of the evils of the Church. . . . Priests take pleasure in the temptation to clericalize the laity, but many of the laity are on their knees asking to be clericalized, because it is more comfortable! . . . This is a double sin!"

So how should lay and clergy interact? The Pope sees a wide latitude here. It is an intersection that must be governed principally by a respect for the power of prophecy. The prophet, Pope Francis has stated, is someone with a sense of the historical moment. The prophet must appreciate the confluence of "past, present, and future." The prophet knows the past promise of God's word, but knows how to interpret this word in her or his life and "to speak a word [to others] that will lift them up."

Again, what is noticeable is what is omitted. The prophet is not someone who listens patiently for instructions from others, or is someone who is fond of restating that perennial objection to growth and development – "but we've done anything like that before!" No, the prophet is someone who sees things fresh, in context, and knows how to take creative action appropriate to the moment.

The clergy must come to terms with this dimension of the lay vocation and be supportive of it. "The priest's suggestion is immediately to clericalize," the Pope warns. This temptation must be resisted. The priest has a spiritual role, a pastoral role, and a sacramental role, but the priest must not subsume the role of the laity. Harmony between the two orders is what Catholics should strive for. It should never become a situation in which "the big fish swallows the little one."

Pope Francis, in other words, expects an active and engaged laity, a laity that can think for itself, and is not fearful of its own independence. But how shall this Church, of harmonious yet different orders, address the Catholic crisis?

It must not preach. It must not proselytize. It must not condemn, or throw tantrums, or engage in theatrics. Rather, the Church – the People of God, lay and clergy alike – must set a good example. They must know that the world is filled with human suffering and that they are called to go about relieving in some small quantum this great misery in ways adapted to need and circumstance.

Only a leader with a great sense of faith could propose such a radical agenda for the Church. And Pope Francis' interview with La nacion makes plain his great faith. Only a confident and faithful leader would have opened the Synod on the Family to the kind of free discussions that occurred last October. Other popes have hosted synods on the family. They were entirely forgettable affairs. The script was written well in advance, everyone recited their assigned lines, and nothing of significance occurred. Pope Francis, on the other hand, opened the Synod up to prophecy, and a consideration of the needs of the moment.

It is fair to describe Pope Francis's summons as a call to Christian adulthood, but not in some superficial or trite sense. Rather he expects all Catholics to show a spirit of leadership, independence, and good judgment. The Church, he has warned, must not be obsessed with the self-referential. It must instead do as Jesus did – minister to the afflicted and the marginal. It is truly a bold vision of renewal.

Wednesday, December 10, 2014

Pope Francis' Woman Problem

By Candida Moss and Joel Baden


Editor's Note: This op-ed was first published December 7, 2014 by the Los Angeles Times.


At first, it was easy to overlook. With all of his statements about caring for the poor, the disabled and immigrants, and all the fanfare surrounding his famous “Who am I to judge?” proclamation, Pope Francis seemed like a breath of fresh air for a church stuck resolutely in the past. The fact that he never commented on the long-standing marginalization of women in the Catholic Church, and asserted quite plainly that there would be no ordination of women, did nothing to dampen progressive enthusiasm for the new pope. There has been a hopeful sense that he would get around to it eventually.

He hasn't, however, and there is reason to question whether he ever will. Instead of a more compassionate and understanding take on the standing of women in the church, Francis has repeatedly embraced the traditional Catholic view that a woman's role is in the home.

Ten days ago, Pope Francis organized and addressed an interfaith colloquium on the subject of “The Complementarity of Man and Woman in Marriage.” The use of the doctrinal term “complementarity” signals the conservative underpinnings of Francis' views on marriage. The religious teaching of complementarity holds that men and women have very different roles in life and in marriage, with men outranking women in most areas. Although Francis did acknowledge that complementarity could take “many forms,” he nonetheless insisted that it is an “anthropological fact.”

Last week, in chastising the European Parliament on the subject of immigration policy, Francis provided another alarming insight into his attitudes toward women, this time in his choice of metaphor. He described Europe as a “grandmother, no longer fertile and vibrant,” but instead “elderly and haggard.” At 77 years old, presumably Francis still thinks himself relatively vibrant and useful to society. Women of his age, however, have apparently outlived their utility.

Francis has made it clear that he sees childbearing and child rearing as crucial womanly roles.

But his remarks about European immigration marked the first time Francis has used the natural loss of fertility and change in appearance that accompany aging to cast a moral judgment. By selecting the image of an aging woman — someone who is, to use Francis' words, no longer “relevant” to the world — is nothing other than crass chauvinism. Francis has elsewhere condemned our modern “throwaway” culture that discards the elderly, but here — when the subject is exclusively female — he demonstrates the same attitude.

Even when ostensibly elevating women, Francis reveals a highly patriarchal view of where their value lies. In a July statement that many took as a positive sign, he said that women are “more important than bishops and priests.” But it is unclear just how progressive we should understand that statement to be. Repeatedly, Francis has come back to extolling the role of women specifically as mothers, noting that “the presence of women in a domestic setting” is crucial to “the very transmission of the faith.”

To his credit, Francis has called for an expansion of women's participation in the life of the church, and he has said that “the role of women in the church is not only maternity, the mother of the family.” But he seems to have trouble articulating that role in non-maternal terms, or at least in terms that are not circumscribed by the familial: “I think, for example, of the special concern which women show to others, which finds a particular, even if not exclusive, expression in motherhood.” Although women may have lives outside the home, Francis has urged that we not “forget the irreplaceable role of the woman in a family.”

It is too much to expect, even with Francis at the helm, that the church would decide to admit women to the clergy. But it would be no violation of doctrine to recognize women as contributing to the life of the church, as being intrinsically and equally valuable, regardless of their familial role or fertility. Francis has had many opportunities to express these sentiments, yet he hasn't. It's hard not to conclude that he sees procreation as the end goal — and the functional utility — of a woman's life.


Candida Moss is professor of New Testament and early Christianity at the University of Notre Dame. Joel Baden is professor of Hebrew Bible at Yale University. They co-wrote the forthcoming Reconceiving Infertility: Biblical Perspectives on Procreation and Childlessness (Princeton University Press).

Monday, December 8, 2014

Statement of Catholic Theologians on Racial Justice


The following statement was first published December 8, 2014 at Catholic Moral Theology, a website created and maintained by a group of North American Catholic moral theologians who "come together in friendship to engage each other in theological discussion, to aid one another in our common search for wisdom, and to help one another live lives of discipleship, all in service to the reign of God." For more information about this group of theologians, click here.


Advent is a season of waiting and of hoping. In the face of conflict, distrust, and division – in the wilderness – we are called to cry out for a different way. In consultation with several others, CMTer and former law enforcement officer Tobias Winright has prepared a statement of commitment to racial justice, which names the particularly difficult hope we might bring to illuminate darkness. We are happy to share the statement here on this blog. Many Catholic theologians, including myself and my co-editor, Jana Bennett, have already signed on to the statement. Please pray and act for truth and reconciliation this season . . .


Statement: Catholic Theologians for Police Reform and Racial Justice

The season of Advent is meant to be a time when Christians remember the birth of Jesus Christ, when God became human, born on the margins of society. To the poor shepherds, the angelic host proclaimed “peace, goodwill among people” (Luke 2:14), which refers to a shalom that is not merely the absence of conflict, but rather a just and lasting peace, wherein people are reconciled with one another, with God, and indeed with all creation. But this Advent, hope for a just peace must face the flagrant failures of a nation still bound by sin, our bondage to and complicity in racial injustice.

​The killings of Black men, women and children – including but not limited to Rekia Boyd, Eric Garner, Michael Brown, John Crawford, 7 year-old Aiyana Stanley-Jones and 12 year-old Tamir Rice – by White policemen, and the failures of the grand jury process to indict some of the police officers involved, brought to our attention not only problems in law enforcement today, but also deeper racial injustice in our nation, our communities, and even our churches.

As Eric Garner’s dying words “I can’t breathe” are chanted in the streets, and as people of faith, we hear the echo of Jesus’ breathing on his disciples, telling them, “Peace be with you.” His spirit-filled breath gives his disciples, then and now, the power and obligation to raise our voices about the imperative of a just peace in fragmented and violent world.

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” speaks searingly to our headline divisions today. The “cup of endurance runs over” again for African Americans and many others of good will. Our streets are filled with those exhausted by the need to explain yet again “why we can’t wait.”

King challenged “white moderate” Christians for being “more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice;” and for preferring “a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice.” This challenge to the White Christian community is as relevant today as it was over 50 years ago. Such a negative peace calls to mind the warning by the prophet Ezekiel, “They led my people astray, saying, ‘Peace!’ when there was no peace” (13:10).

Pope Francis’s warning of the explosive consequences of exclusion and fearful seeking of “security” based on such a negative peace are similarly prophetic:

“Today in many places we hear a call for greater security. But until exclusion and inequality in society and between peoples are reversed, it will be impossible to eliminate violence. The poor and the poorer peoples are accused of violence, yet without equal opportunities the different forms of aggression and conflict will find a fertile terrain for growth and eventually explode. When a society – whether local, national or global – is willing to leave a part of itself on the fringes, no political programmes or resources spent on law enforcement or surveillance systems can indefinitely guarantee tranquility. This is not the case simply because inequality provokes a violent reaction from those excluded from the system, but because the socioeconomic system is unjust at its root. Just as goodness tends to spread, the toleration of evil, which is injustice, tends to expand its baneful influence and quietly to undermine any political and social system, no matter how solid it may appear.” Evangelii Gaudium, 59

As Catholic theologians, we wish to go on the record in calling for a serious examination of both policing and racial injustice in the US. The time demands that we leave some mark that US Catholic theologians did not ignore what is happening in our midst – as the vast majority sadly did during the 1960s Civil Rights movement.

● We pledge to examine within ourselves our complicity in the sin of racism and how it sustains false images of White superiority in relationship to Black inferiority. In the words of the US Catholic Bishops Conference, “Racism is a sin: a sin that divides the human family, blots out the image of God among specific members of that family, and violates the fundamental human dignity of those called to be children of the same Father.”

● We pledge to fast and to refrain from meat on Fridays during this Advent season and through the seasons of Christmas and Epiphany, as well as during Lent, as a sign of our penitence and need of conversion from the pervasive sin of racism.

● We commit ourselves to placing our bodies and/or privilege on the line in visible, public solidarity with movements of protest to address the deep-seated racism of our nation.

● We support our police, whose work is indeed dangerous at times, but we also call for a radical reconsideration of policing policy in our nation. We call for an end to the militarization of police departments in the US, and we support instead the proven, effective results of community policing. Rather than perpetuating an “us versus them” mentality, a community policing approach is more consonant with our Catholic convictions that we are all each other’s keepers and should work together for the common good of our communities.

● We call for a honing of the guidelines for police use of lethal force so that they are uniform in all states within the US and so that the use of lethal force, echoing Catholic teaching on “legitimate defense,” is justified only when an aggressor poses a grave and imminent threat to the officer’s and/or other persons’ lives.

● We support those calling for better recruiting, training, and education for our police so that they may truly and justly do what they have sworn, namely, to “serve and protect” their communities.

● We support new efforts to promote accountability and transparency, such as body cameras for police officers.

● Regarding the widespread dissatisfaction with recent grand jury decisions, and the perception that a conflict of interest exists between local prosecutors and police departments, we call for the establishment of publicly accountable review boards staffed with civilian attorneys from within the jurisdiction and/or for the appointment of independent special prosecutors’ offices to investigate claims of police misconduct.

● Our nation’s pervasive yet too often denied systemic racial divisions compromise our structures of justice – in our view so much so that we support calling for a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to examine race in America. A precedent would be the 2004 Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission in North Carolina.

● In view of the recent US Justice Department’s report on the pattern of excessive force found in the Cleveland Police Department, we call for similar investigations of the Ferguson Police Department, the New York Police Department, and other police forces involved in the killings of unarmed Black citizens.

● We call upon our bishops to proactively proclaim and witness to our faith’s stand against racism They have authored pastoral statements in the past, and these documents need to be revisited – in parishes, dioceses, and seminaries – and brought to the forefront of Catholic teaching and action in light of the present crisis.

● As Catholic theologians and scholars, we commit ourselves to further teaching and scholarship on racial justice. Our faith teaches us that all persons are created in the image of God and have been redeemed in Christ Jesus. In short, our faith proclaims that all lives matter, and therefore, Black lives – and Brown lives, the lives of all, regardless of color – must matter, too. As part of this commitment, we pledge to continue listening to, praying for, and even joining in our streets with those struggling for justice through nonviolent protests and peaceful acts of civil disobedience.

We pray that all of these actions will move us closer toward the fulfillment of the hope of the Advent season, toward a time when “love and truth will meet; justice and peace will kiss” (Psalm 85:10).

To view this statement's list of signatories, click here.


Related Off-site Links:
This is Not a Protest – It is an Uprising – Zoë Carpenter (The Nation, December 3, 2014).
NYC Clergy Join Black And Latino City Council Caucus 'Die In' to Protest Eric Garner Killing – Antonia Blumberg (The Huffington Post, December 8, 2014).

Image: Michael Bayly. For more images of the December 4 solidarity rally in Minneapolis for Eric Garner and other victims of police brutality, click here.

Tuesday, November 25, 2014

Local Catholics Select Three Priests for Bishop/Archbishop

Following is a media release from the Twin Cities-based Catholic Coalition for Church Reform.

Members of the Catholic Coalition for Church Reform (CCCR) Lay Network have “voted” and selected three priests of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis to be bishop/archbishop.

The three priests who rose to the top of a slate of seven are Frs. J. Michael Byron of St. Pascal Baylon, St. Paul; Paul Feela of Lumen Christi, St. Paul; and Timothy Wozniak of St. Thomas Becket, Eagan. None of the priests on the slate were consulted, nor did they give their consent to be included in this initiative. Those that voted believe these men would be able to unify polarized factions in this archdiocese and bring Catholics together to accomplish the Church’s mission. (Learn about the selection process at www.cccrmn.org.)

Lay Catholics can’t actually elect their own leadership (hence, vote in quotes), but the CCCR’s Bishop Selection Task Force created the opportunity for local Catholics to “vote” for several reasons:
• To help local laity identify the priests in this archdiocese in whom they have confidence to be effective leaders

• To promote lay Catholics’ ability to raise a unified voice in support of a healthy, sustainable local church

• To begin to re-establish the teachings set forth by the Second Vatican Council, which called for lay Catholics to actively participate in their church

• To help increase the Vatican’s awareness and understanding of the needs of this archdiocese

Of the 1,540 local Catholics registered in the CCCR Lay Network and, therefore, eligible to vote, 410 votes were received. “I’m delighted with the response,” said Bob Christensen of the Bishop Selection Task Force. “That’s almost 30 percent participation – pretty impressive for the first time we’ve done anything like this.”

Lay Catholics, whether or not they voted in the selection process, are now being urged to write to the papal nuncio with their recommendations for leadership. The papal nuncio is the Vatican’s ambassador to the U.S., who decides which names will be forwarded to Rome when bishops and archbishops are needed in this country. Those who write may recommend the priests identified by the vote, other priests they feel are credible choices for bishop/archbishop, and/or qualities they feel are essential to reunifying the archdiocese and refocusing on the mission of the church.

Correspondence to the papal nuncio should be sent to:

Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò,
Papal Nuncio to the U.S.
3339 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20008-3687

nuntiususa@nuntiususa.org

“We’d like everyone to write to the nuncio by December 15,” said Paula Ruddy of CCCR. “We want him to be aware that we’re concerned about this archdiocese and care enough to contact him about it. We hope a lot of correspondence from our archdiocese within this timeframe will get his attention. The CCCR has written to give Archbishop Viganò a heads up, but the power is in the voice of the people. The people are who he needs to hear from.”

Those who write may choose to frame their letters in the context of the upheaval in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, but this initiative started long before the archdiocesan woes came to light.

Carol Tauer of CCCR said, “Our group was established in 2009 to stimulate lay interest and participation in our local church. Vatican II called for all Catholics to step up and take responsibility for the future of the church - not just the clergy. Those Vatican II teachings have been forgotten over time. We want to see them come alive again and be strengthened through active lay engagement.”

The CCCR was formed in 2009 to help re-establish a healthy, sustainable Catholic church in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. It is building a Lay Network and encouraging a growing community of Catholics to take action and be heard on issues including evolutionary Christianity, sexual ethics, gender inclusivity, transparency and accountability, bishop selection and lay involvement in church leadership.

Sunday, November 16, 2014

Complementarity of the Sexes: A Trap

By Maureen Fiedler


Note: This commentary was first published November 14, 2014 by the National Catholic Reporter.


Pope Francis will address a conference on traditional marriage and the family in Rome (Nov. 17-19) headlined as dealing with the “Complementarity of Man and Woman.”

It is an interfaith conference with several noted conservative theological attendees, including Mormons, Southern Baptists, Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia and Rev. Rick Warren, senior pastor of Saddleback Church in California.

The conference was apparently initiated by very conservative German Cardinal Gerhard Müller, the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

What struck me, however, was the headline word: complementarity. It’s a word and concept long rejected by those who care about the equality of women and men in our world. Complementarity emphasizes the ways in which the sexes are different and thus is used as a support for traditional marriage. People who favor this concept argue that same-sex couples lack such complementarity, and this is an important sign that same-sex marriage is not part of God’s law.

But complementarity is also used to argue against the equality of women and men in general. It emphasizes the differences between the genders, rather than the fact that both share similar human qualities, and can hold similar positions in life. In the 21st century, we know that both men and women can and do have powerful intellects, leadership abilities, physical prowess, financial skills, a capacity for gentleness and caring, and a love of children. There is no innate reason why a woman cannot be a CEO of a corporation, a senator or President of the United States. And there is no innate reason a man cannot be a loving counselor, a cook or a full-time father and homemaker.

The emphasis should be on gender equality, not complementarity. What a difference that would make!

Looking at the title of this conference also reinforces my view that Pope Francis – wonderful man that he is – still needs a course in “Woman 101.” And maybe “Families 101” as well. His participation in this conference is just the latest sign that he has not moved into the 21st century when it comes to either gender roles or marriage.

Maureen Fiedler, SL, is the host of Interfaith Voices, a public radio show, heard on 62 radio stations in North America. She has been involved in interfaith activities for more than three decades as an active participant in coalitions working for social justice, racial and gender equality, and peace. Her special interests lie at the intersection of theology and public policy. She is a Sister of Loretto, and holds a Ph.D. in Government from Georgetown University in Washington.


Updates and Related Off-site Links:
Pope and Christian Conservatives Team Up to Promote Patriarchy – Patricia Miller (Religion Dispatches, November 20, 2014).
Pope Reinforces Traditional Family Values – Nicole Winfield (Associated Press via Yahoo! News, November 17, 2014).
Francis Urges De-politicization of Family, Confirms US Visit – Joshua J. McElwee (National Catholic Reporter, November 17, 2014).
Stop in the Name of Discriminatory Ideology! – Michael Bayly (The Wild Reed, October 29, 2008).
How the Pope's Recent Remarks on Evolution Highlight a Major Discrepancy in Church Teaching – Michael Bayly (The Wild Reed, October 30, 2014).


Monday, November 10, 2014

U.S. Catholic Bishops Try to Calm Right-Wing Anxieties Over Pope

By Rachel Zoll


Note: This article was first published November 10, 2014 by the Associated Press.

America's Catholic bishops came together Monday to project an image of unity, after a Vatican meeting on the family unleashed an uproar over the direction of the church.

Last month's gathering in Rome on more compassionately ministering to families featured open debate — alarming many traditional Catholics, who argued it would undermine public understanding of church teaching. Pope Francis encouraged a free exchange of ideas at the assembly, or synod, in contrast to previous years, when such events were tightly scripted.

At a meeting Monday in Baltimore, Archbishop Joseph Kurtz, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, signaled there was no conflict between a gentler approach and upholding church orthodoxy. Kurtz cited his home visits to parishioners, where he wouldn't give them "a list of rules to follow firsthand," but would instead "spend time with them trying to appreciate the good that I saw in their hearts," before inviting them to follow Christ.

"Such an approach isn't in opposition to church teachings. It's an affirmation of them," said Kurtz, who attended the Vatican gathering.

Cardinal Donald Wuerl of Washington, who also participated in the Vatican gathering, emphasized that last month's meeting was only the start of a discussion before a larger gathering on the family next year, where bishops will more concretely advise the pope on developing any new church practices. New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan said the divisiveness he read in media accounts did not reflect the collegial discussion inside the event.

"It was a synod of consensus," Dolan said. The pope, he said, has a God-given gift "for attentive listening."

The bishops made the remarks at their fourth national meeting since Francis was elected. While many Catholics have praised Francis' new emphasis on mercy over the culture wars, many theological conservatives have said Francis is failing to carry out his duty as defender of the faith. Some U.S. bishops have resisted turning their focus away from gay marriage, abortion and other contentious social issues to take up Francis' focus on the poor, immigrants and those who feel unwelcome in the church.

The papal ambassador to Washington, Archbishop Carlo Vigano, said in a wide-ranging speech bishops "must not be afraid to work with our Holy Father."

The public sessions at the U.S. bishops' meeting are focused on religious liberty, upholding marriage between a man and a woman, and moral issues in health care. In his speech, Kurtz said the bishops would continue to fight the Obama administration over the birth control coverage requirement in the Affordable Care Act. The administration has made several changes to accommodate the bishops' concerns, but church leaders say the White House hasn't gone far enough. Dozens of dioceses and Catholic nonprofits have sued over the mandate.

At the Rome gathering, tensions arose when Vatican officials released a mid-meeting report that contained language more welcoming to gays and people in civil heterosexual unions. The language was not included in the final report.

The Rev. Tom Rosica, a Vatican press office official for English-language media, attended the American bishops' assembly. He said an in interview that Catholic church leaders and lay people, as well as those outside the church, are reacting strongly to the Vatican meeting because they aren't accustomed to addressing issues the way Francis advocates.

"The pope made it clear doctrine would remain untouched," Rosica said.

He said Francis "is traveling at high altitude," above the backlash to his leadership, as he tries to revive discussion and move the church forward.


Related Off-site Links:
Cardinal: Pope Francis Doesn't Want a 'Self-pitying Church' – Cathy Lynn Grossman (Religion News Service via Crux, November 10, 2014).
The Church Needs the Commotion the Family Synod Caused – Editorial Staff (National Catholic Reporter, November 7, 2014).
What the Left and Right Get Wrong About Pope Francis – John Gehring (Crux, October 27, 2014).

See also the previous PCV posts:
Tony Flannery in Minneapolis
The "Francis Era" in America Starts Today in Chicago
Creating a Liberating Church

Image: Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Indiana, attends the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops general meeting in Baltimore Monday, November 10, 2014. (AP Photo/Steve Ruark)

Saturday, November 8, 2014

Tony Flannery in Minneapolis

.

By Michael J. Bayly


We’re at a moment in time when reform-minded Catholics must let their voices be heard.

This was one of a number of messages that both inspired and challenged the 300+ Catholics who gathered at St. Frances Cabrini Catholic Church in Minneapolis on the evening of Wednesday, November 5, 2014. It was a message delivered by Irish priest Tony Flannery.

Minneapolis was the tenth stop on Flannery’s 18-city speaking tour of the U.S., and was significant as it will be the only time he speaks on official Catholic Church property. This is because bishops throughout the country have banned the 68-year-old Redemptorist priest from church premises, or, perhaps more accurately, have warned parishes against hosting him. Flannery’s tour is sponsored by the Catholic Tipping Point Coalition, which offers the following explanation for the hierarchy’s inhospitable attitude.

Fr. Tony has been ordered to remain silent and forbidden to minister as a priest because of his refusal to sign a document that violates his conscience: namely that women cannot be priests and that he accepts all Church stances on contraception, homosexuality, and refusal of the sacraments to people in second relationships. After a year during which he attempted to come to some accommodation with the Vatican without success, he has decided to take a public stance on the need for reform in the Church. . . . Rather than remain silent, Fr. Tony and all people of conscience are ready to dialogue.


In Minneapolis, Flannery’s talk and the dialogue it facilitated took place on official church property due to St. Frances Cabrini pastor Mike Tegeder's decision to defy a directive from Archbishop Nienstedt. (Tegeder has a long history of criticizing and defying the archbishop. See, for example, here, here, here, and here.)

Responding to Nienstedt's concerns about Flannery's presence on Catholic property, Tegeder had the following message posted on the podium.

Tonight's speaker, Tony Flannery, is not to be perceived in any way as being sponsored by the Catholic Church. This announcement comes from Archbishop John C. Nienstedt, Chief Catechist of the Archdiocese of St. Paul & Minneapolis.


Of course, the first part of this statement is only true if one reduces "the Catholic Church" to its clerical leadership. Large segments of the local church, representative of the church as the people of God, clearly have no problem with supporting, welcoming, and, yes, sponsoring, a speaker like Tony Flannery.


Implementing Vatican II

Flannery first came to the attention of many outside his native Galway when, in response to the Irish bishops' “total lack of leadership” in dealing with the clergy sex abuse scandal, he co-founded the Association of Catholic Priests in 2009.

The association works toward the “full implementation of the vision and teaching of the Second Vatican Council,” with special emphasis on the primacy of the individual conscience, the status and active participation of all the baptized, and the task of establishing a Church where all believers are treated as equal.

Such work corresponds with the activities of Catholic reform groups around the globe, as do the specific objections of the Association of Catholic Priests, which include:

• A redesigning of ministry in the Church in order to incorporate the gifts, wisdom, and expertise of the entire faith community, male and female.

• A re-structuring of the governing system of the Church, basing it on service rather than on power, and encouraging at every level a culture of consultation and transparency, particularly in the appointment of Church leaders.

• A culture in which the local bishop and the priests relate to each other in a spirit of trust, support and generosity.

• A re-evaluation of Catholic sexual teaching and practice that recognizes the profound mystery of human sexuality and the experience and wisdom of God’s people.

• Promotion of peace, justice and the protection of God’s creation locally, nationally and globally.

• Recognition that Church and State are separate and that while the Church must preach the message of the Gospel and try to live it authentically, the State has the task of enacting laws for all its citizens.

• Liturgical celebrations that use rituals and language that are easily understood, inclusive and accessible to all.


According to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Flannery’s (and by extension the Association of Catholic Priests’) views on ordination, contraception, and homosexuality could be construed as "heresy" under church law. During his talk in Minneapolis on November 5, Flannery noted that the Vatican had been particularly alarmed by two views he had expressed in his writings for the Association: that the priesthood as we have it now is not of the mind of Jesus, and that the hierarchical, monarchical structure of the church as it exists today is not what Jesus intended. As a result of these statements, Flannery has been threatened with "canonical penalties," including excommunication, if he does not change his views.

Yet Flannery has no intention of backing down, noting that “the Vatican hasn’t got the Holy Spirit in its pocket.” To those who insist that he must submit in total obedience to the Magisterium, the legitimate teaching authority of the church, Flannery counters by stating that “any authority that tramples on the dignity and basic human rights of its members has long lost claims to legitimacy.”

In his recent book, A Question of Conscience, Flannery recounts his treatment by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.


Two central issues

Flannery believes that as Catholics we are living through extraordinary times with the papacy of Francis. In 100 years time, he says, historians will be writing volumes on this pivotal moment in the history of the church. The bulk of Flannery's November 5 talk was focused on what he identifies as two central issues facing the church at this important time.

The first of these issues is the Magisterium, the teaching authority of the church. Flannery says that there is currently a conflict between two notions of the Magisterium – a narrow notion and a broad one. The narrow notion sees the Magisterium as being composed solely of the bishops (including the pope as Bishop of Rome). The broader version recognizes that the church’s teaching authority depends on recognition of and dialogue among three groups: the bishops, Catholic theologians, and the collective wisdom of the Catholic people (the sensus fidelium).

Flannery contends that Pope Francis is doing the best he can to move the church from the narrow view of teaching authority to the broader view. Francis, says Flannery, wants to hear the voice of the sensus fidelium, and to embed in the structures of the church the broader view of the Magisterium.

Flannery was quick to point out that he’s not an academic, yet his grasp on theology, says Eugene Cullen Kennedy of Chicago’s Loyola University, is better than those in the hierarchy who have attempted to silence him.

Flannery’s condemnation by the Vatican, writes Kennedy in his January 25, 2013 National Catholic Reporter column, should be “recognized as a harbinger of the kind of problem that sure-of-their-infallibility Vatican authorities will encounter in their relationships with the rising generation of theological scholars, most of whom are laymen and women who will not accept condemnations such as that now imposed on Father Flannery.”

Continues Kennedy:

Even well-educated Catholics know as much or more theology than these veiled Roman enforcers. That also goes for the American bishops, who are wonderful men in general but who are unprepared for theological conversations with their people. One of the reasons the bishops have difficulty in communicating effectively with ordinary Catholics arises from their discomfort and/or inability to discuss theological issues with them. . . . Flannery's condemnation is an augury of the deepening estrangement that will take place if the Vatican does not respect the growing theological understanding of its members. The bishops are sincere in wanting to establish better channels of communication with their people. The best thing they can do to achieve that is to master the language of modern theological and scriptural studies that so many Catholics understand better than they do right now.


In his 2013 column, Kennedy also examines two of the issues that Flannery “is being forced to sign off on if he wants to continue his work: Christ's having established the church in hierarchical form and the assertion, employed constantly by bishops to legitimate their authority, that they are the direct descendants of the apostles.”

“If anything,” writes Kennedy “Christ called together a college of apostles, and the collegiality to which Vatican II returned is a far better image than the hierarchical form that was adopted from the hierarchical cosmological view of the universe and expressed in secular kingdoms, including the Roman Empire, whose provinces and proconsuls provided the model for laying out the governance of the church.”

In should be noted that Kennedy highlights an interesting discrepancy in the rhetoric of those who unquestioningly assert that the current structure of church governance is somehow ordained by God and has thus always been. The Vatican’s doctrinal chief Cardinal Gerhard Müller, for example, recently declared that Pope Francis’ Synod on the Family, which for Flannery is a prime example of the pope’s efforts to move the church from a narrow understanding of authority to a broader one, is evidence that the bishops are being “blinded by secularism.” Yet as many Catholics now recognize, the feudal and monarchical structure of the church is itself based on a secular structure from a specific historical era. If the church could adopt an organizing and leadership structure from secular society at one point in its history, why can it not adopt another, namely democracy, from a more current time? And as Robert McClory has compellingly documented, modern democracy actually is more aligned with the democratic impulse and egalitarian spirit of the early Christian church than the Vatican’s model of leadership, fashioned as it is around Roman imperial power of the fifth century.

Decision-making in the church was the second central issue highlighted by Flannery in his November 5 talk in Minneapolis. As with the issue of authority, two understandings of decision-making are currently in conflict – decision-making through authoritarian, top-down edicts vs. decision-making through discernment by the whole community through a process that honors conscience.

Flannery acknowledges that decision-making through discernment can initially cause confusion. But he is adamant that, over time, truth is discerned, “the Spirit’s voice heard.”


“Not a time for reform people to sit back”

Despite his obvious affinity for the group he co-founded, Flannery acknowledges that with the steady decline in the number of priests the true hope for future reform of the church lies with lay reform movements and groups, and with the growing number of intentional Eucharistic communities.

Flannery said he is impressed by the number and vitality of Catholic reform groups in the U.S., but cautioned that, despite the hopeful signs from Francis’ papacy, it is “not a time for reform people to sit back.” We need to do everything we can to ensure our vision of church is heard at the highest levels of church leadership. “Bishops should not only hear from conservative Catholics,” Flannery said, especially in over the next year in the lead-up to Synod on the Family 2015.

One way local lay Catholics are making their voices heard is through a process being facilitated by the Catholic Coalition for Church Reform (CCCR). Through this process local members of the clergy are being nominated for the next archbishop of St. Paul-Minneapolis. CCCR leadership notes that the lay people of Chicago spoke out about the kind of leadership they needed and that many believe they were heard, as evidenced by the appointment of their new archbishop, the moderate Blase Cupich.

After voting concludes on November 15, CCCR will announce the top three names in the polling. Local Catholics will then be encouraged to write to the U.S. papal nuncio, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, to let him know their thoughts about the kind of leadership needed in the St. Paul/Minneapolis Archdiocese. The goal is that when next there’s an opening for bishop/archbishop in the archdiocese, Archbishop Viganò will not only know that lay Catholics here are paying attention, but will also be aware of the names of men that Catholics have confidence in. (Note: In order to be eligible to vote in CCCR’s Bishop Selection Campaign, registration with the group’s Lay Catholic Network is necessary. You can register here.)

It is activities like CCCR's Bishop Selection Campaign – proactive and voice-raising – that encourage Tony Flannery and many others. Such activities are time-consuming, unglamorous, and more-often-than-not slow to yield results. Yet they are vital for reform-minded Catholics to engage in and spread the word about.

We truly are at a time when our voices need to be heard!




Recommended Resources for Letting Our Voices Be Heard:
The Lay Network in the Archdiocese of St. Paul-Minneapolis – The Catholic Coalition for Church Reform.
Where Do We Go from Here? – Writing to Our Bishops – New Ways Ministry.

Recommended Off-site Links:
Controversial Priest's Visit Exposes Rift in Catholic Church – Jon Tevlin (Star Tribune, November 4, 2014).
Silenced Irish Priest Tony Flannery Touring U.S. – Dennis Coday (National Catholic Reporter, October 21, 2014).
A Review of Tony Flannery's A Question of Conscience – Dermot Keogh (The Independent, September 15, 2013).
Fr. Flannery's Grasp of Theology Better Than That of His Silencers – Eugene Cullen Kennedy (National Catholic Reporter, January 25, 2013).
Irish Priest Receives Support from Near and Far in His Vatican Struggle – Francis DeBernardo (Bondings 2.0, January 23, 2013).
Vatican's Demand for Silence is Too High a Price – Tony Flannery (The Irish Times, January 21, 2013).
Dissident Irish Priest Fears Excommunication Over Views on Women Priests – Patrick Counihan (IrishCentral.com, January 21, 2013).
Irish Redemptorist Father Tony Flannery Gets the Ray Bourgeios Treatment from the CDF – Colleen Kochivar-Baker (Enlightened Catholicism, January 20, 2013).
Priest Is Planning to Defy the Vatican’s Orders to Stay Quiet – Douglas Dalby (The New York Times, January 19, 2013).

See also the previous PCV posts:
"Our Voices Are Growing"
Creating a Liberating Church
Let Our Voices Be Heard

Images: Michael J. Bayly.

Tuesday, November 4, 2014

Controversial Priest's Visit Exposes Rift in Catholic Church


By Jon Tevlin

Note: This commentary was first published November 4, 2014, by the Star Tribune.

A south Minneapolis church plans to bring in controversial Irish Redemptorist priest Tony Flannery to speak on Wednesday, despite warnings from Archbishop John Nienstedt. And the church’s pastor is using the words of a powerful church leader to justify it: Pope Francis.

Father Mike Tegeder, pastor of St. Frances Cabrini Church, has been intent on bringing in Flannery, who is on a speaking tour of the country. But the Cabrini visit will be the only time he speaks on Catholic Church property.

Flannery, author of several books on religion, holds controversial positions on birth control, homosexuality and the ordination of women. He was silenced by the Vatican in 2012 and told he would be allowed to return to ministry only if he signed a statement denouncing beliefs that don’t agree with current church doctrine. He has refused.

Tegeder, long an outspoken priest who has repeatedly tangled with Nienstedt, met with him late last week to discuss the issue.

“We didn’t have a meeting of the minds,” said Tegeder. “He listened to me, and I’m thankful for that. But I pounded the table, as I’m prone to do, and said this is non-negotiable. I told him, ‘you could throw my ass right out of here, but I’m throwing myself in your mercy.’ ”

In a letter to the archdiocese, Tegeder referenced Pope Francis in defending the speaker.

“Thank God for Pope Francis, who in a speech at the closing of the recent Synod on the Family, said, ‘Personally I would have been very worried and saddened if there hadn’t been these . . . animated discussions . . . or if everyone had been in agreement or silent in a false and acquiescent peace,’ ” Tegeder wrote. He added that Francis said he “wanted a mess in our dioceses.”

Tegeder has certainly been willing to accommodate that wish. He has repeatedly fought church hierarchy, most recently over gay marriage.

In their meeting, Tegeder asked why it was fine for church bishops and cardinals to discuss controversial issues, “and you don’t approve of those, so why can’t this little church in Minneapolis talk about them,” Tegeder said.

Even though the diocese has much bigger issues at hand, such as the relentless news accounts of child abuse, Tegeder said he’s not surprised that the issue of someone speaking at his church has gotten the attention of church leadership.

“It’s a minor thing in my opinion, but this is what these guys live for — hierarchical control,” Tegeder said.

“He doesn’t make a cogent argument about why we shouldn’t do this,” Tegeder added. “Enough of this crazy control of people.”

Tegeder said his congregation is excited to hear from Flannery, a founding member of the Association of Catholic Priests in Ireland. Flannery has a recent book out, A Question of Conscience, which recounts his treatment by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, then led by Josef Ratzinger.

Flannery “is trying to reform the church,” said Tegeder. “He said listening to women in confession talk about sexual issues and birth control, it’s transformed him.”

Tegeder said that while very few American priests openly call for change, about one-third of those in Ireland are pushing hard for reforms.

Initially, Nienstedt asked Tegeder to change the venue of the speech, something the priest called “progress.”

Then on Friday, a worker at Cabrini called Tegeder to tell him a registered letter had arrived, and wanted to know if they should open it.

“Hoping that I won some kind of jackpot, I said of course,” Tegeder wrote in response to the archbishop.

As it turned out, it was an official request that Flannery’s visit not be perceived in any way as being sponsored by the Catholic Church.”

In the letter, Nienstedt said that “Flannery attacks the teaching of the Church” on important issues.

“In light of this record, I request that he not be perceived in any way as being sponsored by the Catholic Church,” Nienstedt wrote. “To that end, I stipulated that he not be permitted to speak on any Catholic premises in the Archdiocese. Notice please that I have not cut off dialogue here, which would, by the way, be my personal preference.”

Tegeder responded: “I will indeed announce this publicly and will even have a sign up at the lectern to that effect noting that it comes from you, the Chief Catechist of our Archdiocese.”

So, unless there are further communications, Flannery’s talk will happen Wednesday, November 5 at 7 p.m., with the support of the Cabrini community.

“I’ve got a lot of love behind me,” Tegeder said.

Jon Tevlin can be contacted at jtevlin@startribune.com or 612-673-1702. Follow Jon on Twitter: @jontevlin




Related Off-site Links:
Silenced Irish Priest Tony Flannery Touring U.S. – Dennis Coday (National Catholic Reporter, October 21, 2013).
A Review of Tony Flannery's A Question of Conscience – Dermot Keogh (The Independent, September 15, 2013).

See also the previous PCV posts:
Fr. Tony Flannery: "Vatican's Demand for Silence is Too High a Price"
A Call for Dialogue in the Catholic Church

Tuesday, October 21, 2014

"Our Voices Are Growing"


Mary Beth Stein (pictured above, second from left) was one of approximately 50 church reform representatives who gathered in Rome in the days leading up to the Vatican's recent Synod of the Family. This gathering of church reform representatives was entitled the Forum on the Family and was organized by Catholic Church Reform International.

Upon her return to the Twin Cities and her work with both the Catholic Coalition for Church Reform and the Council of the Baptized, Mary Beth shared her thoughts on the Forum on the Family with The Progressive Catholic.



Gathered together at the Forum on the Family were people from all around the world. We all came with different levels and forms of involvement in Church reform. Some represented reform groups, both large and small, with varying histories of action and organization. Others were individuals who care deeply about the direction that our Church is taking in its teaching and ministry to families of all kinds. One young man is a PhD student working on his dissertation about reform groups within the Catholic Church.

All of us came together in hope for our Church. We expressed hopes for the Synod – hope that the bishops will hear our voices and honor our lived experiences as we live out our faith from within our families and in the world. But whether or not the bishops choose to hear us, we all came away from the Forum on the Family knowing that our experiences and concerns are echoed around the world. We are not alone. People across the continents are daring to stand up as Catholics empowered by our baptism to speak out for our faith. We came away from the forum with new worldwide connections, united in our love for the Church and concern for its ministry, and knowing that the Spirit is uniting us and calling us to speak the truth as we know it.

My greatest blessings in attending this forum came from meeting and joining with people from around the world and standing in solidarity with them as we all work to bring about a Church more faithful to the compassion of the Gospel. We are united and our voices are growing.


Related Off-site Link:
Catholic Church Reform's Alternate Gathering on the Family Highlights Lay Vocation – Joan Chittister (National Catholic Reporter, October 2, 2014).

See also the previous PCV post:
Let Our Voices Be Heard!


Monday, October 20, 2014

In the Archdiocese of St. Paul-Minneapolis, Renewed Calls for Archbishop Nienstedt's Ouster

The following media release has been issued by the Catholic Coalition for Church Reform.

Last week’s editorial in the Minneapolis Star Tribune said, “. . . the archdiocese needs a true reformer to lead it forward. Nienstedt lacks the credibility, both internally and externally, to overcome skepticism that little will change, and his resignation is a necessary next step for an archdiocese in need of healing.” Jennifer Haselberger, the archdiocese's former chancellor for canonical affairs, was quoted last week by WCCO saying the same and calling for the top leadership of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis to be removed as well.

These statements echo the Catholic Coalition for Church Reform’s (CCCR) plea for new leadership in the Archdiocese. Once again, CCCR has issued a statement calling for the resignation or removal of Archbishop John Nienstedt. It says:

In response to Archbishop John Nienstedt’s refusal to resign, the CCCR Board reiterates its vote of no confidence as originally stated in our letter of October 24, 2013. We join with SNAP and others in calling for the removal of the archbishop. We remain convinced that the Archbishop is unable to lead our local Church as he can neither unite nor bring healing to our church community. Further, as demonstrated by the many calls for his resignation from Catholics throughout the archdiocese and beyond, John Nienstedt lacks the confidence of the people.

The archbishop’s statement of July 30, 2014, in which he refuses to resign, highlights the gulf between his view of leadership and the type of leadership we need. Although he likens himself to a father, his authoritarian approach to church leadership alienates many and continues to demoralize our local church community. Rather than an authoritarian figure focused on defending his actions and correcting our “errors,” we look for a humble leader who welcomes diversity and fosters unity. Only this will heal the pain of betrayal and alienation caused by Archbishop Nienstedt’s misplaced priorities and mishandling of the ongoing clergy sex abuse crisis.

We take this stance because as lay Catholics we envision a Church that both unites and heals us as a community. Such a church encourages courageous and honest dialogue, creates opportunities for everyone’s full participation, and promotes justice and reconciliation. We seek a Church fully alive, locally and universally, that radiates Jesus’ core teaching of radical equality, unabashed inclusivity, and transforming love. Under the leadership of Archbishop Nienstedt, such a church is not possible. Therefore, we call for his resignation or removal to make way for new leadership that can work with all Catholics to foster this vision of church.

Members of the CCCR picketed the office of the archdiocese last winter carrying signs asking for the Archbishop’s ouster. “He refuses to resign, yet as more time passes, more secrets are revealed and more Catholics feel they have no voice about what’s happening. His resignation or removal is necessary to pave the way for a healthy future for this archdiocese.” said Bob Beutel, CCCR board member. He concluded, “The knife must be removed for the wounds to heal.”

Mary Sutherland of the CCCR Lay Network said, “It is with great sadness that I have watched the current crises in this Archdiocese unfold under the leadership of Archbishop Nienstedt. His actions have not fostered the healing that is so desperately needed and he has not led the people of this Archdiocese into the full meaning of church. His actions in this current climate have further betrayed and alienated the people he was appointed to lead. I can come to no other conclusion than new leadership is necessary for this Archdiocese.”

CCCR was formed in 2009 to help re-establish a healthy, sustainable Catholic church in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. Following the teachings of the Second Vatican Council, CCCR seeks to activate Catholic lay people because they are critical to achieving that goal. To facilitate engagement in our local Church and develop a strong, unified voice for Catholic laity, the CCCR is building a Lay Network and encouraging a growing community of Catholics to take action and be heard on issues including evolutionary Christianity, gender inclusivity, transparency and accountability, bishop selection and lay involvement in church leadership.


See also the previous PCV posts:
Minneapolis Priest Says Archbishop Nienstedt Must Resign If Church is to Heal
To Heal Church, Nienstedt Must Resign
Archbishop Niestedt Needs to Go. Now
In the Archdiocese of St. Paul-Minneapolis, "Regime Change is Not Enough"
Healing Can’t Start Until the Knife is Removed from the Wound

Related Off-site Links:
Jennifer Haselberger Was Ignored, Bullied Before Blowing Whistle on Archdiocese, Records Show – Jesse Marx (City Pages, July 15, 2014).
Twin Cities Archdiocese Wanted to Label Marriage Equality-Supporting Priest ‘Disabled’ – Andy Birkey (TheColu.mn, July 22, 2014).
Betrayed by Silence: How Three Archbishops Hid the Truth – Madeleine Baran (Minnesota Public Radio News, July 14, 2014).
Has Archbishop Nienstedt's "Shadow" Finally Caught Up With Him? – Michael Bayly (The Wild Reed, July 1, 2014).


Saturday, October 11, 2014

Save the Date!

Fall 2014 Conference


Where Love and Justice Meet
An Emerging Sexual Ethic for Our Time

with
Fr. John Heagle
and
Sr. Fran Ferder, FSPA

Saturday, October 18 , 2014
9:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.

Hennepin Avenue United Methodist Church
511 Groveland Avenue, Minneapolis
Located where Hennepin & Lyndale Aves. merge at Groveland Ave., across the street from the Walker Art Center.
Parking lot is next to the church building.

Registration fee: $40 (includes breakfast snacks, lunch, and beverages).

Event scholarships are available. Contact Sharon at 651-457-3249.

The program begins at 9:45 a.m.
Call Art Stoeberl at 651-636-7356 
or email artstoeberl@yahoo.com
to tell us that you would like to attend.

Morning presentation:
Human Sexuality: Facing the Crisis,Reclaiming the Vision

Afternoon presentations:
Sexuality, Power and Biblical Justice
The Spiritual Promise of Sexuality

There will be time allowed for questions and dialogue.

Program includes a presentation of the CTA-MN 2014 Leadership Award and a short business meeting.


About this year's theme
The Catholic Church is facing a crucial turning point in its understanding of human sexuality. It is increasingly clear that the lived experience of ordinary people differs significantly from official church teaching. The ‘traditional’ Catholic ethic that most of us grew up with is grounded in medieval philosophy and natural law theory. This approach is no longer adequate to address the contemporary challenge of human relationships.

CTA-MN's 2014 Fall Conference introduces a more biblically-based understanding of the gift of sexuality and the responsibility of faithful loving. It explores the profound connection between relationships and biblical justice, sexuality and systems of power. In the gospel accounts, Jesus has little to say about the biology of sex, but he speaks decisively about the qualities of authentic loving: respect, responsibility, covenantal faithfulness, and mutuality. How would such a radical and demanding vision challenge and transform our lives and our community of faith?

We’ve been through a lot lately in this local Church. Stories about homosexuality and sexual abuse have grabbed headlines. In addition, many Catholics find themselves at odds with teachings related to sexuality and gender, yet they want to honor what is life-giving and supportive within the Catholic tradition. This is why we believe that John Heagle and Fran Ferder FSPA are exactly the right people, coming at exactly the right time to help us reflect upon “an emerging sexual ethic for our time.”

Fr. John Heagle
Ordained a Catholic priest for the Diocese of La Crosse, Wisconsin, in 1965, John has had more than 37 years of pastoral experience: college teaching, campus ministry, justice and peace leadership, and almost ten years as a pastor. He holds an M.A. in philosophy from Catholic University of America and a licentiate in canon law from Pontifical Lateran University in Rome. For the past seventeen years John has also served as a licensed psychotherapist, retreat director. He is the author of seven books on spirituality and human relationships.

Sister Fran Ferder, FSPA
A native of Salem, Oregon, and a member of the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration, Fran has had more than 30 years of ministerial and professional experience as a college professor, director of student counseling, psychotherapist, psychological consultant for various religious communities and dioceses, and a research director for a major social ministry study. She holds a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Loyola University, Chicago, and a doctorate in ministry from Aquinas Institute of Theology, St. Louis. She is the author of Words Made Flesh and Enter the Story: Biblical Metaphors for our Lives.

Both Fran and John serve as adjunct faculty in the School of Theology and Ministry at Seattle University. They are internationally recognized leaders of workshops and conferences, authors of several articles, tapes, and books on spirituality, ministry, and human relationships, including Your Sexual Self: Pathway to Authentic Intimacy and Tender Fires: The Spiritual Promise of Sexuality.

Saturday, September 20, 2014

The "Francis Era" in America Starts Today in Chicago

By John L. Allen, Jr.


Note: This article was first published September 20, 2014 by Crux.


With the appointment of Blase Cupich (pronounced “SOUP-itch”) today as the new Archbishop of Chicago, one can say that the Francis revolution in Catholicism has finally arrived in the United States.

Up to this point, one could have made the argument that the change triggered by Francis is largely a matter of a new tone and style in Rome, but one that had not yet reached down and begun to alter the culture of the church on these shores.

With the appointment of the 65-year-old Cupich, however, the American landscape has shifted.

This is the fourth appointment Francis has made to a major archdiocese since July, following earlier choices for Cologne, Germany; Madrid, Spain; and Sydney, Australia. Each pointed a direction for the church in those countries.

By now, the profile of a “Francis bishop” has come into focus: Ideologically, moderates rather than hardliners; pastorally, men who place special emphasis on concern for the poor and those at the margins; and personally, leaders who aren’t flashy personality types, with a reputation for being accessible and hands-on.

In some ways, those are precisely the sort of leaders perceived to have been out of favor in the American hierarchy during the late John Paul II and Benedict XVI years, but with Francis, the dynamic has changed.

Chicago is on a short list of pace-setter dioceses around the world whose leaders help set direction for the church in their regions, and it’s long been a bellwether for deeper realignments.

During the 1980s and 1990s, the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin embodied the moderate, reforming spirit of the Second Vatican Council. The transition to Cardinal Francis George embodied the stronger emphasis on Catholic identity in the later John Paul II years, with the effort to resist the inroads of secularism in the faith as a defining cause.

Bernardin famously called for a “seamless garment” ethic in Catholicism, one that placed equal emphasis on opposition to war and concern for the poor alongside opposition to abortion. George, meanwhile, helped make the defense of religious freedom a signature cause for the American bishops, crystallized in the tug-of-war between the bishops and the Obama White House over contraception mandates imposed as part of health care reform.

Both Bernardin and George served as president of the U.S. bishops’ conference at different points, and both were seen as representing the broader spirit of their era in the American church.

With Cupich, Francis has found another tone-setting prelate to take over in Chicago. Among other things, the appointment puts Cupich in line to become a cardinal the next time the pope creates new Princes of the Church.

Cupich is clearly a moderate, clearly upholding church teaching on all the hot-button issues in the wars of culture such as abortion, contraception, and gay marriage, but like Francis, he tends to shun strong rhetoric on those matters.

Instead, Cupich has been identified with the wing of the American bishops that’s tried to steer the church down a less confrontational path, and tends to place special emphasis on the social gospel, meaning concern for the poor and for social justice.

In 2011, for instance, Cupich dismayed some of the most aggressive pro-life forces in Catholicism when he discouraged priests and seminarians in Spokane from praying in front of Planned Parenthood clinics as part of an anti-abortion protest, seeing the gesture as unnecessarily provocative.

Cupich is also seen as an adept manager and an internal reformer who has helped lead the American church’s efforts to recover from the child sexual abuse scandals from his role as chair of the U.S. bishops’ Committee for the Protection of Children and Young People.

In 2010, Cupich said that listening to abuse victims is an “opportunity to recalibrate” the whole of a bishop’s ministry, because it’s a powerful reminder that “there are voices out there which the leadership doesn’t usually hear.”

“We have to keep the connection with victims visceral and fresh,” he said, because doing so “will help us not to have amnesia.”

On a personal level, Cupich is regarded as humble and open, precisely the sort of pastor who “carries the smell of his sheep” that Francis has said he wants.

Pope Francis was personally involved in the selection of a successor to the 77-year-old George, making phone calls to a wide variety of sources in and around the American church and also consulting American prelates when they came to Rome. In those conversations, sources say, Francis asked for blunt assessments of the strengths and weaknesses of a variety of candidates.

One American cardinal said on background recently that he had been surprised when Francis asked him for an assessment of Cupich, since the Omaha native was not generally regarded as a front-runner for position.

The cardinal said he got the vibe at the time that Francis was seriously considering Cupich, an intuition that clearly turned out to be correct.

Whether Cupich turns out to be another Chicago heavyweight who puts a stamp on his era remains to be seen, but one could make a strong case that the “Francis era” in American Catholicism begins today.


Related off-site Links:
Pope Names Cupich as Next Chicago Archbishop – Rachel Zoll (Associated Press via Yahoo! News, September 20, 2014).
Blase Cupich – Champion of Social Justice – is the Next Archbishop of Chicago – Christopher Hale (Millennial, September 20, 2014).
There May Be Brighter Days Ahead for LGBT Issues in Chicago Archdiocese – Bob Shine (Bondings 2.0, September 20, 2014).
Blase Cupich of Spokane Named Archbishop of Chicago – Dennis Coday (National Catholic Reporter, September 19, 2014).
New Chicago Archbishop Blase Cupich: A Moderate Voice – Michael O'Loughlin (Crux, September 19, 2014).
Pope Francis Names Spokane Bishop to Chicago, Dashing Conservative Hopes – David Gibson (Religion News Service, September 19, 2014).
Cupich to Chicago: What It Actually Means – Thomas Peters (CatholicVote.org, September 19, 2014).