Council of the Baptized Launched in Minneapolis-St. Paul

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History was made in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis when 19 men and women accepted commissions as members of the first lay-organized Council of the Baptized in the archdiocese.

The commissioning ceremony, which took place Saturday, Oct. 22, at Gloria Dei Lutheran Church in St. Paul, set a precedent as the first organization of its kind for the Roman Catholic Church in the United States. The Council’s mission is to hear the voices of the faithful throughout the archdiocese and to be the vehicle of communication among them and with hierarchical leadership. The Council’s purpose is to strengthen the Catholic community to carry on the mission of the Church in the world.

Nineteen women and men answered the community’s summons to leadership to serve the first two year term on the Council. By archdiocesan quadrant, they are: Dan DeWan, Tom Hallberg, Becky Leuer, and Mary Beth Stein from the Northeast quadrant; Michael Anderson, Bob DeNardo, Paul Mandell and Brent Vanderlinden from the Southeast quadrant; Don Conroy, Carol Larsen, and Mary Jane Santele from the Northwest quadrant; Nancy Gotto, Karin Grosscup, Lyn Yount, and Amy Zabransky from the Southwest quadrant; and Rosemary Desmond, David Jasper, Joan Mitchell, and Lisa Vanderlinden, members at large.

The call to leadership in the Council came from the approximately 400 Catholics at the Synod of the Baptized on September 17, 2011. From the 214 nominations, these nineteen people responded yes to the call. The Council’s charter provides for sixteen members representing quadrants of the Archdiocese and five members at large. The Council has one opening in the Northwest quadrant and one opening in the membership at large.

Synod participants are working on thirty-two proposals for position papers and programs that they will bring to the Council for endorsement and publication. Teams are meeting in homes to prepare position papers on subjects such as the need for lay preaching, the need for communication with youth and alienated Catholics, the need to welcome all to the Eucharistic table. The people will make their voices heard on their concerns of conscience through the Council of the Baptized.

Following the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) and at its direction, many dioceses established Pastoral Councils. They were advisory to the bishop of the diocese, composed of lay people, and enjoyed varying degrees of influence depending on the bishop. The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis had a Pastoral Council until the 1980’s when it was disbanded. The Council of the Baptized established today is entirely lay organized and has no official authorization but is consistent with church canon law:

According to the knowledge, competence, and prestige which [the laity] possess, they have the right and even at times the duty to manifest to the sacred pastors their opinion on matters which pertain to the good of the Church and to make their opinion known to the rest of the Christian faithful, without prejudice to the integrity of faith and morals, with reverence toward their pastors, and attentive to common advantage and the dignity of persons. (Canon 212 §3)

Also, Christian faithful, either as lay persons alone or in an association with clerics, may organize in "a common endeavor to foster a more perfect life to promote public worship or Christian doctrine, or to exercise other works of the apostolate . . ." (Canon 298 §1)

In that spirit and in concert with church law, the Council of the Baptized invites participation from all the faithful and dialogue with the hierarchical leadership in the spirit of Vatican II.

The Council’s organization was sponsored by the Catholic Coalition for Church Reform (CCCR), but it is now an independent organization with its own leadership and purposes.


Images: Kathryn Warneke.

A Tradition Worth Returning To

By Michael J. Bayly


Recently on 60 Minutes, New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan called for a return to orthodoxy and tradition within the Roman Catholic Church. Judging from recent events, some might conclude that this “return” is in full swing. We see Catholics excommunicated for simply voicing support for female ordination; girl altar servers banned; certain theologians declared “a curse and affliction upon the church,” and parents supportive of their gay and lesbian children being viewed as cooperating in evil.

Exclusion appears to be the hallmark of this “return to tradition,” along with the clerical leadership’s condemnation of “relativism” – the allowing of wider cultural trends or developments to inform and shape church teachings and practices. Yet, ironically, the exclusionary, so-called “traditional” attitudes and practices being championed by members of the church hierarchy are themselves relative to past historical and cultural developments. Specifically, they are relative to the church’s embracing of the imperial trappings of empire in the fourth century and the Vatican’s later appropriation of absolute monarchy in the seventeenth century. Such accommodations to exclusionary political systems and hierarchical structures have obscured the radical egalitarianism that Jesus lived and taught and which actually reflects the earliest and deepest tradition of the Catholic faith.

We see all of this being played out in our own local church. Recently Archbishop John Nienstedt cautioned the priests and the Catholic faithful of the “threat to unity” posed by a local coalition of Catholics gathering for its second annual “Synod of the Baptized” on September 17 at the DoubleTree Hilton in Bloomington. The event, expected to draw over 500 reform-minded Catholics, will feature a keynote address by theologian Anthony Padovano on the role of conscience in the work of church reform.

“Making Our Voices Heard” is the title of the Catholic Coalition for Church Reform’s 2011 synod. It is a title purposely chosen by organizers in response to many Catholic lay people’s experience of not having their voices heard on matters of church teaching and practice that impact their lives. A new initiative, the Council of the Baptized, will be launched at the synod. Its members will act as representatives of the lay Catholic community in developing policies, practices, and church administrative structures that will serve the Gospel message of justice, inclusion and compassion. It is envisioned that the Council will work collaboratively with the ordained leadership of the Archdiocese. Yet according to the archbishop, the only baptized members of the church that can respond to the issues and concerns raised by the Council are the bishops. The implication is that all others must be quiet and simply obey. Some even declare that this is the traditional role of the laity.

Organizers of Synod 2011, however, draw on church history and teaching to support a very different role of the laity – one that makes a claim for active participation by all in every aspect of church life. Such participation was a deeply valued and practiced tradition of the early church and reflects the belief that the consensus of the Christian people indicates the guidance of the Holy Spirit in the church. Cardinal John Henry Newman highlighted this belief in the nineteenth century when he noted that church authority needs to take into account “the opinion of the laity on subjects in which the laity are especially concerned."

The Catholic Coalition for Church Reform also draws inspiration and support from the Second Vatican Council of the 1960s, where it was taught that church teachings develop through the contemplation and study made not just by members of the hierarchy, but by believers’ “intimate understanding” of things they experience. (Dei Verbum, 8)

Thus contrary to Archbishop Nienstedt’s recent condemnation of the “Making Our Voices Heard” synod as “an affront to the hierarchical ordering of the church,” organizers insist that they are in no way denigrating the proper role and authority of the bishops and the Pope. Rather, we are emphasizing and claiming the traditional Catholic role of the laity. For many Catholics, it is to this earliest and inclusive tradition, free of the exclusionary attitudes and practices that developed later, that the church needs to return if it is to faithfully embody the presence of Jesus in the world.

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UPDATE: Following are images and commentary from CCCR's Second Annual Synod of the Baptized: "Making Our Voices Heard" – September 17, 2011, at the DoubleTree Hilton in Bloomington.

Above: Theologian and author Anthony Padovano, keynote speaker at Synod 2011.

Here's part of what Anthony shared with the close to 400 Catholics in attendance . . .

. . . The sensus fidelium is the point of convergence in Catholic life for law, reception, community, conscience, and faith.

The escalating division in the Catholic Church between what people believe and what administrators teach, between how people behave and what lawmakers require is not due solely to secularism or self-indulgence. Educated and autonomous Catholics do not accept monarchical legislation. They force a culture of dialogue on the Church by non-compliance if they have not been consulted or taken into account.

The three magisterial or teaching offices in the Church (bishops, theologians, and the People of God) are obliged by Church teaching to create a culture of dialogue between and among them. If this does not happen, the community acts accordingly. Today, bishops at large ignore university scholarship and have contempt for the sensus fidelium when it is not compliant. The response of people has been active and passive resistance to being governed in such a manner.

This crisis gives us the opportunity to act creatively and responsibly. . . .

Right: Roman Catholic Bishop Regina Nicolosi, one of three recipients of the Catholic Coalition for Church Reform's 2011 Adsum Award.

Adsum is a Latin word which means "I am present and listening." Whenever the participants in Vatican II were gathered at St. Peter's Basilica their traditional prayer was the exclamation: Adsumus – "we are present and listening" CCCR's Adsum Award recognizes those individuals who have made an extraordinary commitment to be present and attentive to the Spirit, to be partners in re-creating the face of the church here in the Archdiocese of St. Paul-Minneapolis.

Notes Regina:

We in the Roman Catholic Womenpriests movement pray and work for a reformed priesthood in a renewed Catholic Church. We affirm the priesthood of all believers. We believe that our brother Jesus invites all to gather around the table. For me personally, the end of sexism, the inclusion of our GLBT brothers and sisters, the protection of our earth and continuous work for peace are important issues.

Left: The second recipient of the 2011 Adsum Award was local theologian William C. Hunt.

Says William:

We live in a seemingly God-forsaken world where one third of our sisters and brothers are so poor that they are starving to death; where preventable diseases and natural disasters claim the lives of tens of thousands each day; and where senseless wars consume precious lives and resources for destructive purposes. I envisage the Church as a caring, sharing, life-giving community in which all the baptized proclaim and embody the message of God's love in Jesus Christ and serve the world both by providing emergency relief and by working for structural change that embodies justice, peace and reconciliation. I also envision the Church as a functional family in which those called to ministry serve the baptized through word and sacrament so that that the baptized may be empowered to reach out to the world in love and service.

The third recipient of CCCR's 2011 Adsum Award, artist Ansgar Holmberg, was unable to join us on September 17. She did, however, share the following in the Synod 2011 program booklet.

As an artist and illustrator, a major thrust of my work has been inclusivity of gender, race, church, all creation. This is an "adventure" when illustrating church for religious education for children but it is possible to do in subtle ways and I delight in putting in my two cents worth.

Above: Roman Catholic Womanpriest Judith McKloskey. For The Wild Reed's August 2008 interview with Judith, click here.

"We, Together, Are the Church": A Response to Archbishop Nienstedt

Chuck Pilon responds to Archbishop John C. Nienstedt's July 18 letter in which he cautions the priests of the Archdiocese and the Catholic faithful against attending the Catholic Coalition for Church Reform's September 17 Synod of the Baptized.


I wish you well, Archbishop Nienstedt. You are a man dedicated to the Church – the institutional, Roman Catholic version of Church.

Based on my understanding of Church as clarified by the Second Vatican Council, in my opinion, Archbishop, in your way and your style of being a bishop you have betrayed the Catholic Church – which is to say you have betrayed us, the People of God – ordinary people, baptized into the Body of Christ.

The Church you envision does not square (again, in my opinion) with the second Reading for the (Cycle A this year) second Sunday after Easter, the Acts of the Apostles 2:42-47. There we find the simplest description of the community of followers – call it Church to make it simple – a community of followers established by Jesus of Nazareth through his teaching, his way of life and his death and resurrection.

We, together, are the Church – neither you alone, with your episcopal call and charism, nor we alone, with our Baptism into Christ and our call to the kind of lives lived and told of in that short passage from the Acts of the Apostles.

I encourage you to find ways to live and work together within the People of God – people made so, not through consecration as a bishop, as you were, but through Baptism into Christ, our teacher, our model for life, who paid the price for his teaching and his way of life, the one Jesus of Nazareth.

– Charles J. Pilon
Author, Waiting for Mozart:
A Novel about Church People Caught in Conflict
www.waitingformozart.com

See also the previous PCV posts:
"All Voices Must Be Heard": A Response to Archbishop Nienstedt
Archbishop Nienstedt's July 18 Letter
Talking About Disconnects: One Response to Archbishop Nienstedt
Notes on the Magisterium
The Consensus of the Faithful as the Voice of the Infallible Church
Acclaimed Church Historian Marvin O'Connell to Discuss Cardinal Newman
The Call of the Baptized: Be the Church, Live the Mission
Richard Gaillardetz on the Need to "Wrestle with the Tradition"
Nicholas Lash on Dissent and Disagreement
Communicating With Leadership
It's Critical That Catholics Find Their Voice
Let Our Voices Be Heard!

Big Deal or No Big Deal?

By Paula Ruddy
Catholic Coalition for Church Reform


Something happened this past weekend, not a big deal on a global scale of injustices, but it got to me. This is what happened:

Back in June, a group of parishioners from a lovely suburban Catholic parish invited CCCR to facilitate a Listening Session at one of their bimonthly meetings, an August Saturday morning adult gathering. People deeply concerned with being the Church in the world. Committed people, well educated and reflective people.

CCCR readily agreed. Four Listening Session facilitators met with the group’s planner, had a conversation with one of the liaisons to staff, cleared calendars, printed handouts, got ready. This was a great opportunity to hear what these people, committed to living the life of the spirit, were thinking. It was an opportunity to plan with them for responsible action in our local church — for its mission and survival.

You guessed it. The call came on Wednesday before the Saturday gathering. The parish told its members they could not hold the meeting in the church building. The group meets there regularly but on this occasion they were not welcome in their own church. You know the hassle that then ensued — between work schedules, emailing and calling people, trying to get the sense of what the group wanted to do, trying to make a respectful decision. Bottom line -- the group decided to cancel.

CCCR respects the group’s decision. They are free and responsible adults following their consciences. They too may be disappointed and saddened by the action of their parish. We empathize with that. They don’t want to jeopardize the possibility of meeting on their own church property in the future.

Who made the decision for the parish to put the kibosh on this meeting and why? Was it the pastor? He is reportedly out of town. A staff member? Yes, it was reportedly a staff member, citing the technicality that the group had not reserved one of the available rooms as well as Archdiocesan disapproval of CCCR.

And why is CCCR non-grata? We want to discuss the “magisterial teachings” of the Church.

This is a tiny incident. I hear people responding: No big deal. Get over it! Coalition members have been shut out of church property for years — CTA, CPCSM, Dignity, Roman Catholic Womenpriests, anyone who asks a question. You should have expected it, should have moved the meeting elsewhere in the first place. Don’t make a fuss about it for such a small number of people. The parishioners have to pick their battles. We have to be strategic. That wouldn’t happen in my parish, thank God!

Okay, I can get over it, but is it really no big deal? Institutional support for the human need to question, to think, to understand and make sense of the world and our mission in it is an absolute necessity, not a luxury. If you are lucky, you may get this need met in your parish, but it is starved in our local church, the Archdiocese. It is a need particularly strong in young people and in the Vatican II generation. The church may be able to survive the dwindling and death of the old folks who were awakened by Vatican II, but can it survive the departure of the young who get no support for their awakening minds? Authoritative fiats from the “magisterium” do not satisfy the questioning mind.

CCCR calls for pastoral leadership at the archdiocesan level for the sake of the Church’s mission, leadership that cares for human needs. We need a robust culture of reflective, imaginative, nuanced moral reasoning. I suppose that is, inevitably, threatening. But we are on minimal life support here, and it is a very big deal.

We can’t wait around for the Archbishop’s approval. The Council of the Baptized, to be launched at Synod 2011 on September 17, is our attempt to provide for ourselves a unified, reflective and deliberative discernment of the sense of the faithful in our local church. Come and help. Go to www.cccrmn.org.

Notes on the Magisterium

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By Carol Larsen

The Archdiocese is taking note of CCCR. In the July 21 issue of the Catholic Spirit we are given valuable free publicity, and also a warning in the name of the “universal Roman Catholic Church.” It directs all of the faithful to believe and abide by the “magisterial teachings” of the Church. (By the way, “Magisterial teachings” is a redundancy, since the meaning of the Latin word for teacher is magister).

Church history is replete with examples of church teachings which have been overturned by science. The most egregious example, perhaps: the church taught for centuries that the Earth was the center of the universe and threatened Galileo with severe penalties for believing the evidence of science and his own eyes.

In more mundane matters, we were told for ages that eating meat on Fridays was a mortal sin.

We were told that divorce was forbidden, but if you could convince some board to give you an annulment, you could marry again with the blessing of the Church. If not, you were barred from the sacraments, whether you remarried or not, according to many bishops and pastors, though not all. This inconsistency has pretty much made a laughing stock of our beloved church in the eyes of our Protestant brethren. It's not hard to see why.

Many of us had communal penance in our parishes for a decade or more: now we are told that we must return again to the confessional box. So, which was was right, according to the magisterium?

The word “magisterium” has a foreign and intimidating aura about it. It frightens the easily cowed into doing, or not doing, things out of fear of their souls being lost. However, the American Catholic has, in large numbers, overcome that fear with common sense — in the matter of birth control, for instance. We lag behind in our use of artificial contraception by 2% as compared to our Protestant brethren. In fact, many of our Protestant brethren used to be Catholics, due in large part to the unreasonable strain put on their marriages by the doctrine that “every sexual act must be open to new life.” This doctrine is in direct opposition, in my view, to the good of the planet, and cannot much longer stand. The Church will soon come under attack if it continues to insist on this dangerous philosophical stand. It is surprising that the United Nations has not come out against it more forcefully in view of the population growth, particularly in Africa and South America. The doctrine is no longer tenable in the modern world, although sexual restraint is still a moral virtue, easier for some than for others.

Of course, the Archbishop is also concerned that we are interested in seeing to it that women are allowed to be accepted as pastors and priests in our parishes. Many women have already been ordained validly but in secret by certain bishops. Yet they are not allowed to serve in traditional priestly roles. The reason usually given against women priests has to do with the fact that all the Apostles were male. This is no more than an excuse to maintain male dominance. Consider the type of life that the Apostles were required to lead in order to spread the Gospel two thousand years ago, and you will see that a women in those days would have had a hard time surviving the rigors of life on the road, not to mention that women's roles were very restricted, as they still are in many third-world countries today. In the developed world today, however, we have women leading several democracies. Would you like to explain to them why they are not fit to lead?

If our priests were allowed to marry, the stand of the Church on the foregoing issues of human life would be dead in the water, as the intellectualism that permeates so much of church doctrine in these matters would be largely replaced with humanity, understanding, compassion and common sense. Many Catholics do not realize that, for the first 1000 years after Christ, priests were indeed allowed to marry. The reason that changed had little to do with spirituality and a lot to do with money and property, which the Church did not want to pass into the hands of wives and children of priests after they died.

These are some of the issues that worry the Archbishop and which he would prefer not to be brought up for discussion. We are instructed to “shun any contrary doctrines” and embrace fully the doctrines of the magisterium. We are to have no part in the way the church is governed. Apparently it is none of our business. This attitude is in direct conflict with Vatican II, which states that we have a right and a duty to help guide our church in the right path. The saints — including clerics, nuns, and members of the laity — have always done this through the centuries. It is not always “top down,” and Vatican II was quite emphatic about this principle, although it has been degraded to a large degree by subsequent Popes since the beloved John XXIII, who wanted to “open the windows” and let fresh air in!

We must help that spirit to succeed, for the love of the Church, which is us! We need to reclaim the spirit of Jesus and urge our leaders to do the same for the sake of life on this planet and, as we hope, in the next world as well. The Lord would expect no less of us. Courage!


Click here to register for Synod 2011.


See also the previous PCV posts:
"All Voices Must Be Heard": A Response to Archbishop Nienstedt
Archbishop Nienstedt's July 18 Letter
Talking About Disconnects: One Response to Archbishop Nienstedt
The Consensus of the Faithful as the Voice of the Infallible Church
Acclaimed Church Historian Marvin O'Connell to Discuss Cardinal Newman
The Call of the Baptized: Be the Church, Live the Mission
Richard Gaillardetz on the Need to "Wrestle with the Tradition"
Nicholas Lash on Dissent and Disagreement
Communicating With Leadership
It's Critical That Catholics Find Their Voice
Let Our Voices Be Heard!

"All Voices Must Be Heard": A Response to Archbishop Nienstedt

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James Moudry responds to Archbishop John C. Nienstedt's July 18 letter in which he cautions the priests of the Archdiocese and the Catholic faithful against attending the Catholic Coalition for Church Reform's September 17 Synod of the Baptized.


As a member of the Catholic Coalition for Church Reform (CCCR) I was pleased that the Archbishop recognizes that “some of the aspirations” held by CCCR and other groups are “valid.” It has always been our intention to be faithful Catholics and to be, in the Archbishop’s words “a prophetic sign in and for the world, to promote justice and reconciliation in the Church, and to facilitate courageous and honest dialogue.”

Furthermore, we agree with him when he says that “it is the bishops, in communion with the Roman Pontiff, that have the responsibility to respond to the issues raised by CCCR.” Our concern is with how to get these issues raised, heard and understood in all sectors of the church. Without in any way denigrating the proper role and authority of the bishops and the Pope, we wish to raise up the correlative roles of the baptized faithful and the theological community in discerning the authentic meaning of the Christian life. These latter two voices are part of the Catholic tradition. Church history shows the necessity of listening to this sense of the baptized faithful in matters of church doctrine and discipline because God’s Spirit is present and speaking in them, too. The same holds true for the Catholic theological community. All voices must be heard. It is not the Catholic tradition that the official magisterial voice alone exhausts the conversation.

Our experience as baptized Catholics is that our voice on many matters of church teaching and discipline has not truly been heard. Yet God’s Spirit is leading the Church through the voice and experience of the people, too. For that reason we continue to meet, pray, reflect, speak out and act. For that reason we have scheduled the “Synod of the Baptized” for September 17, 2011 to make our voices heard. We hope that our Church can honestly listen and honor our experience as part of how God is guiding the Church.


Click here to register for Synod 2011.


See also the previous PCV posts:
Archbishop Nienstedt's July 18 Letter
Talking About Disconnects: One Response to Archbishop Nienstedt
The Consensus of the Faithful as the Voice of the Infallible Church
Acclaimed Church Historian Marvin O'Connell to Discuss Cardinal Newman
The Call of the Baptized: Be the Church, Live the Mission
Richard Gaillardetz on the Need to "Wrestle with the Tradition"
Nicholas Lash on Dissent and Disagreement
Communicating With Leadership
It's Critical That Catholics Find Their Voice
Let Our Voices Be Heard!

Talking About Disconnects: One Response to Archbishop Nienstedt’s Letter of July 18

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By Paula Ruddy


It has come to the attention of the Catholic Coalition for Church Reform that Archbishop John C. Nienstedt has written a letter dated July 18 to the priests of the Archdiocese cautioning them, as well as the Catholic faithful, “against participating . . . or otherwise supporting the CCCR and its efforts.” You can read the letter here.

CCCR’s efforts consist in Listening Sessions throughout the archdiocese and the launching of a Council of the Baptized at Synod 2011 on September 17. A fundraiser for these efforts is scheduled for August 2 at Lake Elmo Park Reserve.

The purpose of all our efforts is to be active participants in the mission of the Church which we take to be growth in the Christ life as individuals and as a community with the responsibility to manifest that life to the world. Our responsibility is direct service to and in the world, but it is also to help create an institutional Church culture that is a sacrament of the Gospel in the world.

The Archbishop is correct that we are trying to create a “structure of authority within the Church.” The Council of the Baptized is intended to be a structure to discern the sense of the faithful and to communicate it to each other and to our ordained leaders. We claim authority from our baptisms and from our lived experience of the faith. We have something to contribute. Our contribution does not “stand against” the authority of the bishops, the pope, the constitutions of Vatican II. Rather, we think we are also authorized by our tradition to think and to speak.

The Archbishop affirms our aspirations as valid: “to be a prophetic sign in and for the world, to promote justice and reconciliation in the Church, and to facilitate courageous and honest dialogue.” Then he makes it very clear that it is the responsibility of bishops and the pope to “to respond to the issues raised by the CCCR.”

How can the issues be raised if we are to sit down and be quiet as well as to be shunned by our pastors in the Archdiocese and by our brothers and sisters in the Church?

The Archbishop seems to think that the issues and the answers are all pre-existing, enshrined in crystal clear, logically and experientially unquestionable writings of a pope in communion with all bishops somewhere in the abstract. No discussion necessary.

We, however, think that the experience of faith is individual and communal and grows through communication and in specific contexts. What a community believes is a continuous process of communication among the faithful — all of us together — people who live the life, theologians, and the ordained leadership whose job it is to listen, articulate, and teach.

How can we reassure the Archbishop that we want to work with him?



Click here to register for Synod 2011.

Negative Experience of Contrast: Synod and Council As Liberation

By Don Conroy


The experience of neglect, oppression, dependency, etc., are negative experiences of contrast to the way things ought to be and can be. Liberation theologies are a response to negative experiences; for example, poverty, patriarchal systems, and absence of civil and human rights. Another example of negative experience is excessive demands by ecclesiastical authority in governance and teachings.

Let's begin with teachings. When religious leaders make authoritative statements that address issues outside their discipline, such as the natural or social sciences, their statements are suspect if not entirely false. This was the classic case of Galileo in the 17th century, and this is the case today in their attempt to define the nature of the human condition of same-sex attraction. Another example of negative experience of contrast as what ought to be is the condemnation of artificial birth control by celibates; whereas, those of good faith who are not consulted in the condemnation and are directly affected ignore the condemnation. These are only two examples.

Now let's look at governance. The most striking fact that applies to the negative experience in Roman Catholic ecclesiastical governance is the systemic exclusion of over half its members from active roles in governance and praxis: women. (Praxis is structured activity of free persons.) Not only is it the case that women are relegated to a place of little or no power in church governance, the non-ordained baptized also have no representation.

Catholics who have been influenced by the Spirit alive in the documents of promise and the reforms consequent to Vatican II are now responding in a variety of ways to their experience. They are engaging in forms of liberation thought and praxis. One example of this is the call to the baptized to gather in a synod and be part of organizing a "council of the baptized," the members of which will act as representatives of the people in forming policy for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.

Liberation theologies are contemporary expressions of oppression. Our post-modern culture calls on us to examine and take personal responsibility to understand systems and relationships of power. Our social responsibility does not allow us to be defined and relegated to an inferior place in society. Liberation theologies address questions that, for clarity sake, can best be expressed in a negative form. Why should we contribute to a social system that places us in a marginalized passive role? Why should we accept a teaching that all are equal when it is clear that we are not included as equal? Why should we submit to a hierarchical system where some dominate others and deny them due process? How explain the exclusion of women from the Sacrament of Orders?

These are religious questions, not only about the existence of a God that is the ground of being, but also about the kind of God, the interest of this God in human existence, and the quality and character of a divine will for human history.

– Roger Haight
Jesus: Symbol of God
p.374

We find it necessary to raise our voices against oppression as we experience it. We come together for solidarity of expression and action. If we do not express our negative experience, the clerics in high position would not be advised of the destructiveness of their policies and practices. Come join us.

Twin Cities-Based Coalition for Church Reform Has High Hopes

By Zoe Ryan


Editor's Note: This article was first published in the July 5, 2011 issue of The National Catholic Reporter.


ST. PAUL, MINN. – Some 2,000 people gathered in Detroit June 10 for the American Catholic Council to attend discussions surrounding current issues in the church. Among them was Paula Ruddy, who said the spirit of hope in the people was inspiring.

Ruddy isn’t a person who needs inspiration from other lay Catholics just for the nice feeling it gives her. She leads a lay organization in Minnesota. Like the American Catholic Council, it calls for more discussions in the church and more involvement from the laity in those discussions. Unlike the council, Ruddy’s group wants to become a permanent, official organization in its archdiocese one day.

So far, the St. Paul-Minneapolis archdiocese hasn’t bought into the reform group’s agenda -- last year the archdiocese warned people to stay away from the group’s study sessions and convention and this year the archbishop called them a threat to church unity – but Ruddy remains hopeful.

Ruddy helped found the Catholic Coalition for Church Reform in the St. Paul-Minneapolis archdiocese because, she said, “there’s a lot of wonderful stuff going on in our archdiocese” but the laity of the archdiocese are not really pulled together as one core unit.

The coalition wants to strengthen the laity in the archdiocese and eventually create a “council of the baptized.” Ruddy said that she does not know of any other group like it in any diocese in the United States.

“We want to make policies, practices, church administrative structures that will serve the Gospel message and we need to hear from the people in order to do that,” Ruddy said.

As one of its guiding themes, the group uses a description attributed to Pope Pius XI: “The church, the mystical body of Christ, has become a monstrosity. The head is very large, but the body is shrunken.”

The “shrunken” body of the church – the laity – has to develop its own organizational strength, Ruddy said. That’s where the Catholic Coalition for Church Reform comes into play.

“We found that people were really concerned about a lot of ... issues and also feeling that they had no place to talk,” said Eileen Rodel, co-chair of the Catholic Coalition for Church Reform. People can speak about those issues -- such as equality for women and sexual minorities – at listening sessions the coalition hosts.

In putting together their vision, the organization’s founders had to come up with a very specific understanding of what they mean by church, said Bernie Rodel, another coalition co-chair. They modeled their understanding of church after the Asian bishops’ model, he said.

“The church, in their understanding, is really a communion of communities that’s based upon acceptance,” Bernie Rodel said. The other qualities for church the Asian bishops outlined, he said, were equality, participation, dialogue and prophecy.

The coalition started in 2009 after a few Catholics noticed that there were many reform groups in Minnesota working on different things and wanted them to band together.

Eight groups are members: Association for the Rights of Catholics in the Church, Call to Action-Minnesota, Catholic Pastoral Committee on Sexual Minorities, CORPUS, Dignity Twin Cities, Minnesota St. Joan’s Community, the Progressive Catholic Voice and Roman Catholic Womenpriests.

The coalition is a nonprofit Minnesota corporation and does not have a voting membership. It is run by a board of directors.

In April 2010, the coalition started work-study groups that explored any disconnect they saw between church practice and the Gospel message. The work-study groups looked at topics such as Catholic identity, Catholic spirituality and social justice. [Note: CCCR's work/study groups actually started in May 2009.]

The object of 2010 was to get action teams started to build networks and relationships with the community, and also to find out what people were “thinking and wanting,” Ruddy said. Listening sessions provided an outlet for the latter.

The groups also planned the Synod of the Baptized, where an action plan and listening sessions could begin.

According to Ruddy, 500 registrants gathered at the Synod of the Baptized in September 2010. The coalition hopes to have 1,000 at this year’s synod, planned for Sept. 17, she said.

This year’s synod will launch the Council of the Baptized, which will be different from the coalition, Ruddy said.

The council will be the “spokesperson” for the people and will be a “lay organization to discern and to communicate the sense of the faithful and to invite partnership with the official archdiocesan leadership in working for the mission of the church,” according to Ruddy.

Council members will be nominated by lay Catholics in the St. Paul-Minneapolis area who attend the synod or are supportive of the coalition. Nominees who agree to the responsibilities will then meet and each will nominate three people among themselves. From that pool of nominees, 16 people will eventually be chosen by the coalition board members, as well as five others who will be members-at-large.

The coalition invited Archbishop John C. Nienstedt to join its process, but he declined the invitation. In a June 8 letter to the group, Nienstedt noted that by canon law only a diocesan bishop can convoke a diocesan synod and that the coalition does not have his permission to hold a diocesan synod. He called the coalition’s organizing “an affront to the hierarchical ordering of the church ... and a threat to her unity.”

Nienstadt asked the group to cancel its plans “since nothing positive will be gained by such a meeting. Should you persist in your planning, I ask you to be honest enough to drop the word ‘Catholic’ from your organizational title.”

Ruddy said the invitation to Nienstedt still stands and the group wants to engage him in dialogue.

As for the future of the group, Ruddy said she thinks it’s going to be a constantly evolving idea. But the laity always will be the core.

“The sense of the faithful comes from listening to people,” Ruddy said.


Zoe Ryan is an NCR intern.

Launching a Council of the Baptized in St. Paul and Minneapolis

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Editor's Note: The following is a statement from the Twin Cities-based Catholic Coalition for Church Reform (CCCR), of which The Progressive Voice is a founding member organization.

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Archdiocesan Catholics want a voice in the direction of their local church. We want a local church inclusive of all age groups, all cultures, and points of view, where communication promotes spiritual growth. We want to manifest God’s love for the world as was Jesus’ mission.

It’s not that we don’t value the role of the Archbishop as spiritual/institutional leader. We appreciate the value of that role very much. The world-wide institutional network of dioceses that is the Roman Catholic Church, with the Bishop of Rome as its symbol of unity and the bishops in regional conferences working together, creates an unparalleled structure for spreading the good news of God’s love for humanity, the message of Jesus. How bishops understand and live out their role matters. It makes the difference between a local church that manifests the Spirit and a lifeless one.

We, the laity, have a role to play in the institutional church too along with the Archbishop and the ordained clergy. Vitality in any organization comes from all its members taking ownership, in open communication, working toward common goals.

Through our Catholic practice we have become profoundly aware of the need for institutional change so that the Church can fulfill its mission. We are calling the disconnects we see between the Gospel message and institutional policies and practices “concerns of conscience.” We the people want to partner with the Archbishop and the ordained clergy to voice our concerns of conscience, and to embody the loving community that manifests the Gospel message. We see this as our baptismal responsibility.


Council of the Baptized

To further our goal of participation, CCCR has founded a charter Council of the Baptized, a 21 member panel, to receive input from the people of the Archdiocese, to deliberate on questions of conscience they present, and to prepare and publish consensus statements in their name. Click here for the Charter document.

Nominations for the 21 seats on the Council of the Baptized are now open. Think of the people you know who are wise, open-minded, thoughtful, and compassionate. You may nominate up to three persons. You can nominate them on-line or you may print the nomination form, fill it in, and mail it to the address listed on it. Click here for a nomination form.

Nominations will be open throughout the months leading to the Synod of the Baptized on September 17, 2011, where it will be one of the main tasks of the participants to nominate Council members. Nominations will remain open until September 24, 2011. At that time, CCCR/ACT will sort and collate the nominations.

The sorting will be by geographical quadrants. There is nothing rigid about the geographical designation: the East/West divide is generally between St. Paul and Minneapolis and the North/South divide is Interstate 94. Choose the quadrant of your parish or your home. We have used the Archdiocesan deanery system as a convenient way to divide parishes into quadrants. In 2015 the deanery system will become a convenient way to group parishes for elections. Click here for your parish and the deanery and quadrant it is in. You may nominate people from any quadrant.

The Council Charter calls for 3 phases of the Council’s establishment. We want it to be as representative as possible of all the people who want their voices heard. Ideally we would have elections at the parish and deanery level. But we will not be able to set up mechanisms for elections right away. Rather than wait till we can make that happen, this year CCCR/ACT will select members by a process of discernment from the nominations by all those who choose to join us before or at Synod 2011. By 2015, the 50th Anniversary of Vatican II, we hope to have elections from parish groups to the deanery level and from the deanery level to the Council

In 2011, then, the 21 member panel will be comprised of 16 quadrant representatives-- 4 members from each quadrant. Each member will have a 3 person support team chosen from the same quadrant. The remaining 5 members will be at-large, chosen for the skills and qualities the Council needs to do its work.

We project that the process of discernment shall be complete by the end of 2011 and the first Council of the Baptized will be seated in January, 2012. It will be ready and open to take the concerns of conscience you wish to present for consideration--in writing, signed with your name or the names of the people in your group

The first topics to be considered by the Council will come from the concerns of conscience brought forth at the Listening Sessions being held now throughout the quadrants. Those concerns will be brought to the Synod for Synod participants to discuss and add their own. Synod Table Leaders will gather after the Synod to work on presentations to the Council.

We need you to pray for guidance for us during this time when many decisions are in the making. We want our first Council to model the kind of community we want our local church to be—collaborative, welcoming the gifts of young and old, full of hope and joy.


See also the previous PCV posts:
The Call of the Baptized: Be the Church, Live the Mission
Synod of the Baptized Uncovers Deep Well of Hope
Listening Sessions Underway in the St. Paul-Minneapolis Local Church

Recommended Off-site Links:
The Catholic Coalition for Church Reform
Can the Catholic Church Change? – Michael Leach (The Huffington Post, March 30, 2011).

Listening Sessions Underway in the St. Paul-Minneapolis Local Church

In preparing for Synod of the Baptized 2011, the Twin Cities-based Catholic Coalition for Church Reform (CCCR) is inviting local Catholics to host and/or attend "listening sessions." A number of these sessions have already taken place and more are being planned.

A listening session is a small gathering of Catholics who come together to discuss concerns about the institutional Church. They raise questions of conscience, note disconnections between the Gospel and Church practice, and express the needs they see within their Archdiocese. Listening sessions are an opportunity for the people in the pews to share concerns and listen to one another. These concerns will also be shared with the Council of the Baptized, the representative and deliberative body that will be the primary outcome of CCCR's Synod of the Baptized 2011.


Do you know people troubled by church policies and practices that do not reflect Gospel values?

Just invite them to your home, 6-20 people. Then call the coordinator, Paula, at 612-379-1043. CCCR will provide a facilitator to lead the discussion for you. Touch base with the facilitator ahead of time and she/he will do the rest.

Invited participants to listening sessions will discuss two main questions: "What disconnections do you see between the Gospel and our Church?" and "If you could talk face-to-face with Archbishop Nienstedt, what would you say?"

CCCR's goal is to attract 500 new participants to Synod 2011. "These added to the 500 Synod 2010 participants will make us 1000 strong," say organizers. "Our numbers give us courage, strength and hope."

Save the Date!

Saturday, September 17


Synod of the Baptized 2011

Sheraton Bloomington Hotel
7800 Normandale Blvd.
Minneapolis, MN 55439
(For map, see here)

Join Vatican II-inspired Catholics as together we
launch the Council of the Baptized, a representative and
deliberative body that will address questions of conscience
and communicate the voice of the people throughout
the Archdiocese of St. Paul-Minneapolis.

More information, including a registration form,
will be available soon on the website of the
Catholic Coalition for Church Reform, www.cccrmn.org.

Catholic Coalition for Church Reform (CCCR)

We are the Church. In our understanding of Church, all the baptized are one big community of smaller communities. We are all equal. We all participate in different ministries. We communicate with one another and we share a vision and an attitude of self-critique. The five words we have been using to summarize this model of Church are community, equality, participation, dialogue and prophecy. Our mission, the Church's mission, is the mission of Jesus.


History

In December 2008, a few people met around a dining room table with the idea that all the reform-minded organizations in the Archdiocese of St. Paul-Minneapolis could be more effective in coalition. We gathered the Association for the Rights of Catholics (ARCC), Call to Action Minnesota, the Catholic Pastoral Committee on Sexual Minorities (CPCSM), Dignity Twin Cities, CORPUS, Minnesota St. Joan's Community, The Progressive Catholic Voice, and Roman Catholic Women Priests (RCWP).

In April 2009, at a prayer breakfast, ten work/study groups, involving about 70 people, formed to prepare for Synod of the Baptized 2010. They suggested actions and practices to bring gradual cultural change within our local Church.

Five hundred people became the Synod of the Baptized on September 18, 2010. The Synod's outcome was the formation of the Action Coordinating Team (ACT), the Action Plan and action teams for Synod 2011.

CCCR's Action Plan for 2011

The Twin Cities-based Catholic Coalition for Church Reform (CCCR) is building on its successful Synod of the Baptized of last September with a bold and hope-filled action plan for church reform.

The Progressive Catholic Voice is a founding member organization of CCCR, and so the PCV editorial team is happy to share the following message from CCCR. This message was originally published last month on the CCCR website.

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Happy 2011, everyone!

What is the Action Plan for 2011?

First, just to remind ourselves of why we have a plan at all: Our experience of our oneness with God makes us rise up and go tell it on the mountain as Jesus did. We want to be part of a church institution that is singing the message loud and clear for this troubled world: God is love. Do not be afraid.

But just a minute. In our local church there seems to be a test for being 100% Catholic. We have no way to communicate with the appointed leaders. Gay people who have life partners are condemned as sinners. Divorced and remarried people are excluded from communion. All institutional decision-making is restricted to self-appointed men who are formed in a clerical culture. Women are not allowed into the holy of holies. Fear silences the non-conforming voice. And many people of conscience walk away. Does that sound like a church that is embodying the Gospel message?

Can we make some cultural and institutional adjustments here? We are hoping that with enough people working together we can make adjustments so the voice of the Spirit will sing through us a joyful song.

That’s where the plan comes in.

Number 1. We practice what we preach. The institution cannot prevent us from deepening our own spirituality or from forming our own supportive communities or from working our own programs of living the message of love.

Number 2. We gather people in small groups all over the Archdiocese in listening sessions. We envision the institution we need to support us in the Christian life we want to lead. We have formed some resource groups to bring information and ideas to parishes and inter-parish groups following the listening sessions.

Number 3. We establish a representative, deliberative Council to channel the energy created through the small groups into the work of producing and disseminating the policies we want to see implemented. For example, the Council’s first question could be something like this: As a matter of policy, within the diocesan organization, how should communication between the people and their bishop be facilitated?

That’s the plan for 2011. We will get together in the Synod of the Baptized in September to form our Council and get on with the work. Pray for us. Join our work by signing up on our website or calling (612) 379-1043. And save Saturday, September 17, 2011, to attend the Synod of the Baptized where it will all come together!