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Polish priest’s dismissal exposes rift over dialogue with Jews

By Dagmara Leszkowicz

When the outspoken Polish priest Wojciech Lemanski returned with his parishioners to his church near Warsaw after holding a prayer vigil at the Treblinka Nazi death camp in early July, a dismissal notice awaited him.

POLAND-JEWS/PRIESTThe Warsaw diocese of the Roman Catholic Church sacked Lemanski as parish priest in the small village of Jasienica for what it said was his insubordination after numerous clashes on issues such as in-vitro fertilization, abortion and his engagement with the Jewish community.

Lemanski sealed his fate when in a radio interview he accused Archbishop Henryk Hoser, who oversees his parish, of asking whether he was a Jew and circumcised – a charge the diocese has denied.

The episode exposed a rift within the church, as it struggles to retain a central role in Polish life, between conservatives and those who want more openness in dealing with social issues and some of the darker episodes in Poland’s past.

“At a time when Pope Francis is calling for open-mindedness, the church in Poland is crawling into its shell,” said Iwona Jakubowska-Branicka, a sociologist at Warsaw University.

“As with many moral issues, the question of relations with Jews has been swept under the carpet,” she said.

Relations with the Jewish community are an especially difficult subject in Poland, where millions of Jews perished in the Holocaust during the Nazi German occupation of the country.

Most of those who survived were forced to leave in the late 1960s by the communist regime. Poland’s post-communist leaders have condemned the “anti-Zionist campaign” of that time and have often spoken out against other signs of anti-Semitism.

“SPECIAL SENSITIVITY”

Poles have celebrated those compatriots who helped to save local Jews in World War Two, but they have also downplayed events such as the burning of 340 Jews by Polish peasants in the village of Jedwabne in 1943.

The episode was buried by the communist authorities after the war and resurfaced only after a 2001 book written by Polish-born U.S. historian Jan Gross described the massacre.

The publication was criticized by some Catholic church leaders as stoking anti-Polish and anti-Jewish sentiments, but the subsequent debate inspired young Lemanski to work on improving the dialogue between the two groups.

“God knocked on my door and said he wanted something more from me. I can’t imagine being a priest without a special sensitivity for the Jews, their tragedies and a need for dialogue,” the priest said in an interview.

Lemanski is among a few Catholic priests who commemorate the massacre each year with Jewish leaders and holds prayer vigils at the Treblinka camp, one of the infamous Nazi death factories where Jews, along with Poles and others, were gassed.

He also recovered gravestones from abandoned and destroyed Jewish cemeteries, incorporating two of them into the main alter of his church. That move stoked charges from some conservative Catholics that he was turning it into a synagogue.

In a statement explaining its decision to send Lemanski on early retirement, the Warsaw Diocese did not refer to the gravestones, but said he had failed to get church permission on issues related to the parish.

The diocese also said Archbishop Hoser’s relations with the Jewish community were “proper and full of trust”.

Church representatives declined further comment.

Jewish community leaders have avoided being pulled into the affair, but some have expressed support for Lemanski’s efforts.

“I can say one thing: looking at the way parishioners treat the priest, I think that if the Jewish community had had a rabbi like Lemanski, the community would have been very pleased,” said Piotr Kadlcik, head of the Union of Jewish Religious Communities in Poland.

Despite being sidelined by his superiors, Lemanski said he would remain active after lodging an appeal with the Vatican.

“I realize it’s not an easy path but I don’t feel like someone on the margin of the church. On the contrary, I feel like I’m in the centre of my church because without this dialogue our church loses its authority,” he said.

Complete Article HERE!

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Boston Archdiocese official charged with hiring prostitute

File under: How refreshingly heterosexual

 

 

By Melissa Hanson and Peter Schworm

An official of the Archdiocese of Boston pleaded not guilty today after he was allegedly found with a prostitute behind a cemetery.

Monsignor_Coyle_080513Monsignor Arthur Coyle, 62, of Lowell was arraigned this morning in Lowell District Court. He was ordered held on $500 cash bail and will return to court Sept. 16 for a pretrial conference, said Middlesex district attorney’s spokeswoman Stephanie Guyotte.

In a statement released this afternoon, the archdiocese said Coyle had voluntarily taken a leave of absence from his post as episcopal vicar for the Merrimack Region, a post he has held since 2008.

“While on administrative leave, Msgr. Coyle is prohibited from performing any public ministry,’’ the archdiocese said in the statement. “These restrictions will remain in place pending the outcome of the case. The steps taken today do not represent a determination of Msgr. Coyle’s guilt or innocence as it pertains to these charges.’’

The statement concluded with the sentence, “The Archdiocese asks for prayers for all impacted by this matter.’’

Coyle was arrested at 5:19 p.m. Sunday after he offered a prostitute money for sex, said Lowell Police Captain Kelly Richardson. In a report filed in court, police quoted Coyle as telling them that he had paid a woman working as a prostitute $40 for oral sex. Coyle told police the sex act had not been completed, the report said.

Police had spotted Coyle’s black Chevy Equinox and noticed he had a “known prostitute” in the passenger seat, the report said. After the vehicle parked behind the Polish Cemetery in Lowell, officers waited five minutes, then approached the vehicle and separated Coyle from the alleged prostitute, Siriwan Kongkaen, 38, police said in the report.

Coyle has been charged with paying a fee for sexual conduct.

According to the police report, Kongkaen has been arrested multiple times in the past for prostitution and narcotics-related offenses.

The report also said Coyle had been spotted in the past circling neighborhoods known for prostitution, noting, in particular, an incident in November. Police had seen Coyle in his Equinox circling the area of Linden Street by Union Street and stopped him. When police asked why he had been circling an area known for prostitution, he denied doing so and went home, the report said.

Coyle was ordained a priest in 1977 and appointed an episcopal vicar, a high-ranking official in the church, in 2008, according to the archdiocese’s website.

Complete Article HERE!

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Bishop apologises for abuse at Fort Augustus School

Here’s a tip:  when your apology includes words like, “mistakes were made,” instead of “we apologize for raping your children,” your apology is no apology at all.

 

 

One of Scotland’s most senior clerics has apologised for decades of physical and sexual abuse of pupils at a Catholic boarding school.

 

The Bishop of Aberdeen, Hugh Gilbert, addressed parishioners at Fort Augustus in the Highlands.

His statement came after the BBC found evidence of physical and sexual abuse by monks at Fort Augustus Abbey School and its prep school in East Lothian.

The Benedictine order which ran the schools, has already apologised.Fort Augustus Abbey

Bishop Gilbert’s address is the first time a senior cleric has spoken publicly about abuse at the abbey schools.

He told parishoners: “It is a most bitter, shaming and distressing thing that in this former abbey school a small number of baptised, consecrated and ordained Christian men physically or sexually abused those in their care.

“I know that Abbot Richard Yeo has offered an apology to those who have suffered such abuse and I join him in that.

“We are anxious that there be a thorough police investigation into all this. And, that all that can be done should be done for the victims. All of us must surely pray for those who have suffered.”

BBC Scotland Investigations Correspondent Mark Daly has more on the developments

BBC Scotland spoke to more than 50 former pupils during its six-month investigation.

Many said they had nothing but good memories of the schools, but the BBC also heard accounts from old boys of serious physical violence and sexual assault, including rape, by monks over a 30-year period.

BBC Scotland Investigates: Sins of Our Fathers, which aired on Monday, contained evidence against seven Fort Augustus monks.

Two headmasters have also been accused of covering-up the abuse.

And the documentary contained allegations that the abbey was used as a “dumping ground” for problem clergy who had confessed to abusing children.

Mark Daly, BBC Scotland’s investigations correspondent, who broke the story, said the apology was significant because it was the first time a senior clergyman had addressed the allegations since the programme went out almost a week ago.
Fort Augustus Abbey Fort Augustus Abbey School was one of the most prestigious Catholic boarding schools in Scotland

He said: “The allegations centred on monks from the Benedictine congregation, which is essentially an autonomous order within the Catholic Church.

“The Catholic Church had told us this was not a matter for them, it was a matter for the Benedictines.

“But the evidence we obtained about offences was that they all happened on Scottish soil, they happened to Scottish Catholics – they’re all part of the Catholic flock, as far as the victims are concerned.

“And from the victims’ point of view, they have been waiting for something from the senior clergy in the Church so today will have been something significant.”

Since the programme was broadcast, the BBC has been contacted by other former pupils with similar claims of abuse, right up until the boarding school closed in the 1990s. Police Scotland have confirmed they are investigating the allegations.
‘Annual audits’

Dom Richard Yeo, the Abbot President of the Benedictines order which ran the school, apologised on the programme and said mistakes were made.

“All I can say is that I’m sorry that it happened, it shouldn’t have happened,” he said.

The Catholic Church in Scotland has said it would publish details of its annual audits, which deal with abuse allegations dating back to 2006.

Bishop Gilbert said: “The Catholic Church in Scotland has been addressing this issue increasingly effectively in recent years.

“We want to work with all public bodies who care for the young and vulnerable adults.

“We wish to share our experience and share best practice so that lessons can be learned and children can always be fully protected.”

Complete Article HERE!

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Reformist priest praises pope’s new tone but wants more

By Mary Wisniewski

An Austrian priest who has stirred controversy in Europe with his challenge to Catholic church teachings on taboo topics suggested on Wednesday that women should be allowed to become priests and said that gays need justice, not just mercy.

Father Helmut Schuller, who has been banned by American bishops from speaking in Catholic churches while on a tour of the United States that began in mid-July, welcomed recent remarks by Pope Francis on gay rights, but said discussion could go further.

Father Helmut SchüllerSchuller, in a telephone interview, said the pope’s words were a “good opener” and gay people seem to be happy there’s a friendlier tone from the church than in the past.

Schuller, leader of an Austrian priest group known for its “Call to Disobedience” challenging church teachings on taboo topics such as the ordination of women and priests marrying, has been drawing enthusiastic crowds during a 15-city U.S. tour that began in New York in mid-July and starts its West Coast leg on Wednesday.

The pope raised hopes of a softening of Catholic church opposition to gay rights when he spoke to reporters during his return from a visit to Brazil this week. Addressing the issue of gay clergy, Francis said, “Who am I to judge?” He also reaffirmed church teaching that homosexual acts are a sin.

Responding to the pope’s remarks, Schuller said, “I think it’s not only a question of mercy, but it also should be a question of justice to respect the gay people.”

On the issue of ordaining women, Francis had reaffirmed the church’s ban on women priests, saying, “That door is closed.”

But Schuller said the question is, “Who closed the door?” adding, “It is not possible to think the discussion should be finished.

“We should not only knock at the door but try to open it again,” Schuller said.

The Catholic church teaches that it cannot ordain women because Jesus willingly chose only men as his apostles. Advocates for women priests say he was only acting according to the customs of his times. Seventy percent of U.S. Catholics believe women should be allowed to be priests, according to a New York Times/CBS News poll earlier this year.

U.S. bishops, including Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley and Detroit Archbishop Allen H. Vigneron, have forbidden Schuller to speak on church property.

“Those who are not in harmony with Catholic church teachings in what they speak about should not be given a venue,” said Joe Kohn, spokesman for the Detroit archdiocese.

Schuller has been meeting privately with U.S. priests. Some priests and nuns were among the crowd of about 500 people who attended his public speech in Chicago last Wednesday.

Schuller said the “Call to Disobedience” arose out of a sense of “deep sorrow” among some Austrian priests, who feared that the worsening priest shortage would mean the end of parish communities. They feared a future of one priest serving as many as 20 parishes – offering Mass at one village before driving onto the next, unable to serve as a pastor to the people.

“We thought to speak out that this cannot be the future of the church,” Schuller said.

Last year, Austria’s church told the priests they could not support the manifesto, which had been criticized by former Pope Benedict XVI, and stay in administrative posts. The group, however, has won broad public backing in opinion polls for its pledge to break church rules by giving communion to Protestants and divorced Catholics who remarry.

Schuller said it is important for parish priests, many of whom are already quietly defying church doctrine by giving communion to divorced and remarried Catholics, to come out of the shadows.

“Don’t hide yourself in your parish communities,” Schuller said in his speech in Chicago. He said bishops know priests are defying doctrine at their parishes, but are comfortable about it because no one speaks out, so there seems to be no need for reform. “They got nervous when we spoke out.”

Schuller – who is from the Archdiocese of Vienna, the home of Sigmund Freud – said church leaders’ approach to dialogue is like “the man who goes to a psychoanalyst and says, ‘We can talk about everything, but not about my mother.'”

Dorothy Petraitis, 82, of Evanston, Illinois, who favors both married and women priests, told Schuller at his Chicago appearance that she is tired of waiting for the church to stop being a “dysfunctional family.”

“I want to be a member of a functioning church. That might mean I have to leave the church,” Petraitis said. “I don’t want to do that. Frankly, I’m a little pissed.”

“Please don’t leave the church,” said Schuller, who noted that he and his fellow rebel priests are often asked by conservatives why they don’t leave.

“We say the church is not a corporation for me. It’s not an apartment I have rented,” Schuller said. “We are church. It’s my church, and I want her to become changed.”

Complete Article HERE!