Archbishop: Family ministry is giving more love to those most in need

By Cindy Wooden

Archbishop Blase J. Cupich of Chicago arrives for a session of the Synod of Bishops on the family at the Vatican Oct. 14. (CNS photo/Paul Haring) See SYNOD-SECOND-REPORTS Oct. 14, 2015.
Archbishop Blase J. Cupich of Chicago arrives for a session of the Synod of Bishops on the family at the Vatican Oct. 14.

Chicago Archbishop Blase J. Cupich told reporters that something his mother once said might give the Synod of Bishops a way to balance the need to affirm church teaching while reaching out to those who are struggling.

The archbishop said Oct. 16 that his mother was asked if she loved one of her nine children more than the others. “Only if they need it,” she responded.

“That’s the way mothers speak,” the archbishop said, and that is the way the church needs to speak to families, especially to those who feel excluded or in need of extra attention. “The greatest contribution bishops can make to families is to act and speak like families act and speak,” he said.

At the same time, he said, the Catholic Church cannot “accompany, integrate and reconcile” people whom it does not know and with whom it is incapable of communicating.

“If we are going to really accompany people, we have to first of all engage them. In Chicago, I visit regularly with people who feel marginalized, whether they are the elderly or the divorced and remarried, gay and lesbian individuals, also couples. I think that we need to really get to know what their life is like if we are going to accompany them.”

But underlying all the outreach activity, he said, “We have to believe in the mercy of God and the grace of God to trigger conversion.”

The questions of ministry to homosexuals has come up in the synod, Archbishop Cupich said. “That discussion, it is clear to me, needs to mature in the life of the church. If we are really going to accompany people, we have to first of all engage them.”

“The words accompaniment, integration and reconciliation continue to be repeated in the synod,” he said, and the church needs to find a way to transform those words into real action on behalf of all people, including people who are gay or the divorced and civilly married “or other people who feel disenfranchised.”

On the issue of finding possible ways to lead the divorced and civilly remarried back to full participation in church life, including reception of the sacraments, Archbishop Cupich said synod members have been clear in their positions and those positions are diverse. Some, like the German bishops, see it as an urgent obligation for the church while others say it is impossible without weakening church teaching on the indissolubility of marriage.

The divorced and remarried, he said, must be ministered to on “a case-by-case basis.”

General principles are essential, he said, but ministry — like a mother’s love — adapts to meet the needs of real-life situations.

Some Catholics need their bishops and priests to speak clearly and firmly, while others need their ministers to demonstrate humility and a desire to search together for the best way to live out God’s call, he said.

The pull of those two demands is something the archbishop said he has felt for 40 years as a priest. Archbishop Cupich added that he had an archbishop friend who claimed he wanted his tombstone to read, “I tried to treat you like adults.”

“We really do have to have an adult Catholic response to living the Christian life. That is, I think, where the Holy Father is leading us. We have the means by which we can help people come to decisions — important decisions — about how they live their Christian life” through prayer and discernment.

Religious education “cannot be just about giving people the fixed doctrines,” he said. It must also show them “the path the church has outlined for making prudent decisions. We have documents that really do help us do that,” including a document from the International Theological Commission from 2009 on natural law and moral decision-making.

In a section on “The moral dispositions of the person and his concrete action,” the document discusses the formation of the conscience with an explanation of moral norms, but also how the person must be helped to apply those norms in his or her real life.

“We can’t just refer to doctrines as though they are syllogisms that we deduce a conclusion to,” Archbishop Cupich said. “There has to be the integration of the person’s circumstances, case by case.”

Asked if the case-by-case approach also applies to pastoral ministry to homosexual persons, the archbishop responded: “Gay people are human beings, too, and they have a conscience. And my role as a pastor is to help them discern what the will of God is by looking at the objective moral teaching of the church, yet at the same time helping them — through a period of discernment — to understand what God is calling them to at that point.”

“We have to make sure that we don’t pigeonhole one group as if they aren’t part of the human family, as though there is a different set of rules for them,” he said.

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NJ archbishop sets rules for barring Catholics from Communion

File under: Grandstanding Idiot

By 

Archbishop John J. Myers of Newark, N.J., addresses Pope Francis at the conclusion of Mass at the Pontifical North American College in Rome on May 2, 2015. Photo by Paul Haring, courtesy of Catholic News Service
Archbishop John J. Myers of Newark, N.J., addresses Pope Francis at the conclusion of Mass at the Pontifical North American College in Rome on May 2, 2015. Photo by Paul Haring, courtesy of Catholic News Service

Even as Pope Francis and Catholic leaders from around the world debate ways to make the Catholic Church more inclusive, Newark Archbishop John Myers has given his priests strict guidelines on refusing Communion to Catholics who, for example, support gay marriage or whose own marriage is not valid in the eyes of the church.

In the two-page memo, Myers also orders parishes and Catholic institutions not to host people or organizations that disagree with church teachings.

He says Catholics, “especially ministers and others who represent the Church, should not participate in or be present at religious events or events intended to endorse or support those who reject or ignore Church teaching and Canon Law.”

The new rules could raise eyebrows given that Francis is currently leading a high-level Vatican summit, called a synod, where he and some 270 bishops are debating whether to let divorced and remarried Catholics receive Communion, and how to be more welcoming to cohabiting and gay couples whose lives don’t conform to Catholic teaching.

The guidelines could also up the ante for the coming election season, when Catholic candidates who support abortion rights or gay rights are sometimes challenged by conservatives over whether they should receive Communion.

A spokesman for Myers said in an email on Tuesday (Oct. 13) that the archbishop saw this as an opportune moment to set out the guidelines for priests in the northern New Jersey archdiocese.

“With so much being generated in the media with regard to issues like same-sex unions and such, this memo about ensuring that Catholic teaching is adhered to in all situations — especially with regard to the use of diocesan properties and facilities — seemed appropriate,” James Goodness, a spokesman for Myers, said in an email.

LetterArchdiocese of Newark Memorandum

Archdiocese of Newark Memorandum

The memo is titled “Principles to Aid in Preserving and Protecting the Catholic Faith in the Midst of an Increasingly Secular Culture.” It is dated Sept. 22 and was sent to priests this week, according to a source who provided a copy to Religion News Service.

In the memo, Myers writes: “The Church will continue to cherish and welcome her members and invite them to participate in her life to the degree that their personal situation permits them honestly to do so.

“Catholics,” he continues, “must be in a marriage recognized as valid by the Church to receive Holy Communion or the other sacraments. Non-Catholics and any Catholic who publicly rejects Church teaching or discipline, either by public statements or by joining or supporting organizations which do so, are not to receive the Sacraments.”

Myers issued these guidelines even though he is scheduled to retire next July when he turns 75, turning over the reins to Archbishop Bernard Hebda.

In 2013, Francis named Hebda a “coadjutor archbishop” — meaning he would automatically take over when Myers left office — after a series of controversies that angered many priests and parishioners in the 1.4 million-member archdiocese.

In one instance, Myers was criticized for allowing a priest — who was under court order to stay away from children — to work with youths, and in another he was criticized for using church funds to pay for pricey renovations to a retirement home.

Complete Article HERE!

Fired Polish priest: ‘no gay lobby in Vatican’

Fired Polish priest: 'no gay lobby in Vatican'
Krzysztof Charamsa, left, with his partner.

Krzysztof Charamsa told a private Italian television channel that he has “never met a gay lobby in the Vatican”, referring to rumours of a network of homosexual priests.

“I met homosexual priests, often isolated like me… but no gay lobby,” said Charamsa, adding that he also met gay priests who were “homophobes” and had “hatred for themselves and others”.

“But I also met several fantastic homosexuals who are some of the best ministers in the Church,” he said in an interview due to be broadcast Sunday.

Charamsa said he wrote a letter to Pope Francis asking him to convey his spirit of openness to bishops at the synod, where Church leaders discussed marriage and family teachings.

The pontiff has in the past spoken about homosexuality and the “gay lobby”.

In 2013 he famously said “Who am I to judge?” when asked about homosexuals in the Church, and the rumoured network of gay Vatican leaders.

Since 2005, the Church has forbidden the ordination of priests with homosexual tendencies. But this rule is applied in different ways, with many bishops turning a blind eye as long as priests remain celibate.

Charamsa, who was fired from his post at the Vatican, says he has stayed faithful to his vow of celibacy because he has “never touched a woman”.

Complete Article HERE!

Synod on the Family 2015: A Reflection from the Paulist Fathers

Synod on the Family 2015

SYNOD ON THE FAMILY: A Reflection from the Paulist Fathers

The joy and the hope, the grief and anguish of the people of our time, especially of those who are poor or afflicted in any way, are the joy and hope, the grief and anguish of the followers of Christ.
– Gaudium et Spes, Preface, [1]

If Christ is to be for us a savior, we must find him here, now, and where we are, in this age of ours also;
otherwise he is no Christ, no Savior, no Immanuel, no “God with us.”
– Servant of God Issac T. Hecker, Founder of the Paulist Fathers

These two quotations, one from Vatican II’s Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, the other from Servant of God Issac Hecker, reflect the missionary vision of the Paulist community today. As we approach the second session of the “Vatican Synod on the Family” in October 2015, amidst the chorus of voices being raised, we Paulists, wish to contribute our voice.

THE PAULIST MISSIONARY PERSPECTIVE

Founded in 1858, by five Catholic converts from various Protestant traditions, the Paulists have always sought a more inclusive community of God’s children. We have demonstrated time and again the value of hospitality, inclusion, and a special degree of understanding for those on their own unique journeys.1 Phrases like “meeting people where they are,” “walking the journey with someone,” and “being a wounded healer” resonate with our Paulist way of living the Gospel. We Paulists echo and applaud Pope Francis and the spirit of mercy, compassion, and outreach that he so readily incarnates and preaches. The old adage “you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar” represents a truth about human nature. So regarding the upcoming part II of the “Synod on the Family” the Paulists stand foresquare and humbly with those who counsel “mercy.” As Pope Francis so poignantly phrases it:

The Church needs to be a field hospital and we need to set out to heal wounds, just as the good Samaritan did. Some people’s wounds result from neglect, others are wounded because they have been forsaken by the church itself; some people are suffering terribly. [2]

In this statement we Paulists will propose areas for consideration that arise from our pastoral experience. Nevertheless, we know that these areas come under the supreme issue of the family today—how its life and love form the human basis of faith. We pray that the Synod will find the language to re-articulate to the faithful today their essential role, through the human dynamics of family, in passing faith from one generation to another. We likewise pray that the Synod will envision ways in which modern families can come to see themselves more clearly as disciples who live the joy of the Gospel. The greatest challenge for church today is to encourage and equip families to accept, and live out, their fundamental role as the first and best teachers of faith.

SOME PAULIST SUGGESTIONS FOR THE SYNOD

1: A More Inclusive Notion of “Family”

First and foremost, we think the very definition of “family” ought to be as broad as possible, allowing for traditional as well as contemporary models and cultural differences. While “families” are and rightly ought to be the core building blocks in society, the fact is that real families (i.e., household communities) come in all sizes, shapes, and configurations. [3] The concept of ‘one-size-fits-all’ family ministry seems inadequate, outdated and insufficient. It seems to us that the Synod on the Family ought to listen to the peoples of the world – old and young, married and single, parents and children, those together as well as those estranged or divorced, straight as well as the lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, transgender, and questioning community (LGBTQ). What are their joys and hopes? What are their griefs and anguishes? How might we, as the followers of Christ, help them the most? How can we help the human family and individual human families move forward – humanely, personally, interpersonally and spiritually? [4]

2: Theological, Spiritual, & Pastoral Education at All Stages

In the United States and Canada, the Catholic Church and its many publishing outlets (including Paulist Press) have been at the forefront in offering educational and pastoral services. The vast majority of parishes and dioceses have created frequently-available series and programs to assist engaged couples of any age in preparing for their covenant marriages together. We applaud these valiant efforts and encourage similar frequent programmatic opportunities in all countries, dioceses, and parishes across the globe.

It is also commendable that so many parochial high schools and Catholic colleges and universities offer courses on dating, sexuality, marriage, parenting, and the like. In addition, campus ministry programs and Newman Centers offer similar opportunities for relational and marital education as well as one-to-one counseling and marriage preparation. Less prolific, but no less needed, are educational and counseling opportunities across the lifespan of one’s married or family life. Each stage of a married relationship or of a family’s evolution has its own particular learnings and pitfalls. We encourage national bishop conferences, dioceses, parishes, and catechetical publishers to foster an even richer menu of programs and aids for marriages and family life.

3: Ministry to Separated & Divorced Catholics

Just as our Holy Father Pope Francis tends toward a more gentle and decidedly pastoral approach, we Paulists consistently have welcomed and offered pastoral care to individuals in a variety of relationships, even those that may be more complex or conflicted than the ideal norm: interfaith marriages, pregnancy issues, ethnic or family ostracism or tensions, divorced, remarried, with or without annulments. Our first instinct is not to judge or condemn, but rather to view each individual and couple as our sisters and brothers. Much like Jesus in his encounter with the woman caught in the very act of adultery, our first pastoral utterance tends to be “neither do I condemn you.” [5]

How can we better walk with these people? If there is a solution–pastorally, psychologically, sacramentally, canonically–can we search for it together? Often the wisest and best counsel comes from those who have “been there.” We have been enriched by those women and men who have lived through and learned from painful marriages, separations, and civil divorce. We recommend to the Synod that fostering ministry to Catholics and others who are separated and divorced is pastorally necessary and can be healing ministry for all involved.

4: The Rightful Value and Use of Canon Law

When a recently separated or divorced person or newly single parent comes to the attention of a priest or parish minister, he or she is in pain, hurting, perhaps feeling guilty, often feeling overwhelmed. At this first stage, psychological counseling, spiritual support, and pastoral care are far more helpful than pulling down the Code of Canon Law from one’s bookshelf. The ministry of canon law supplements the primary mission of accepting people in their pain and promoting their healing.

Once Canon Law becomes more useful and pastorally appropriate for a given counselee, our application of Church law and the annulment process ought to be as expeditious and sensitive as possible. The tribunal practices and pastoral care approaches adopted by many U.S. dioceses across the post-Vatican II decades are to be commended and are recommended for wider use and application around the world, but even these practices can be cumbersome. Since “the law was made for humanity, not humanity for the law,” we applaud Pope Francis’ recent efforts to revise canonical procedures that will respond more readily to the situations of people who seek reconciliation in their lives and with the church and urge them to continue on this path. [6]

5: The So-Called “Internal Forum” or “Pastoral Solution”

In the post-Vatican II era there has emerged something called “the Internal Forum Solution.” [7] Initially it emerged and was proposed as a way to resolve questions of sacramental participation and access to communion for those in pastoral distress: knowing something was wrong with their prior marriage, they still were unable to attain a legal annulment and eagerly wanted to receive the sacraments. Provided no public scandal ensue, this “internal forum” or confessional-like practice (a discernment between the individual’s conscience and a local pastor or clergy person) seemed like a sufficient solution. Subsequently, some have suggested extending this extra-canonical solution for other hardship cases of divorced Catholics seeking access to communion, anointing of the sick, or other sacraments. Nevertheless, this pastoral practice has been discouraged in more recent years.

It is our recommendation that, in addition to fostering a greater pastoral use of canon law to assist separated and divorced persons who have remarried without a decree of nullity, the Church should foster the further use of this additional, extra-canonical approach known as “the internal forum” or “pastoral solution.” Erring on the side of graced mercy and pastoral care in doubtful cases would be a great gift to the faithful who yearn for the Eucharist, reflective of the attitude of Christ.

6: Access to Communion or Other Sacraments for the Divorced

When it comes to access to sacraments for such persons, we Paulists, consistent with our tradition, tend to side with those who emphasize that Jesus came as a healer, a physician for those who are ill and in need of care and nourishment. [8] We urge the Synod to consider St. John XXIII’s admonition that the “medicine of mercy,” the Eucharist, is to be freely dispensed. [9] Pope Francis points out that the Eucharist, although it is the fullness of sacramental life, is not a prize for the perfect but a powerful medicine and nourishment for the weak. Medicine and food are meant to heal and nourish. We trust the power of the sacrament to do its healing work. We recommend finding ways to welcome more people to the Eucharist, not to exclude them. [10] Once someone has been fed, they then have the sustenance to accept Christ’s way of life more fully in their lives.

7: The Orthodox View of “the Death of the Marriage”
A Possible Alternative

In some of the Orthodox churches and more recently in the writings of some Catholic moral theologians one finds that the concept of marriage “till death do us part” may not only refer to the physical death of one or the other spouse, but also might refer to the death of the marriage relationship itself. Might spousal- or child-abuse, untreated addictions, or similar extreme hardship situations indicate that the bond, the human interpersonal commitment, has snapped, been torn asunder and, in effect, died? [11] We urge the Synod to consider the pastoral remedies in our sister Orthodox Churches for those divorced and remarried.

8: Ministry to Married Couples and Those Divorced: A Summary Thought

Our underlying or overarching Gospel concern, derived from our 157 years of ministry with hurting and broken families, is that the Church can and should serve as a balm for their wounds, as the tender touch of mercy more than judgment. First and foremost, we find Jesus’ challenge to the crowd in the case of an adulterous woman to be cogent: “Let the one who is without sin cast the first stone.” [12] It is telling that Jesus himself, who is without sin, chose not to cast stones either. We all say before receiving the Eucharist, “Lord I am not worthy . . . . say but the word and my soul shall be healed.” [13]

9: LGBTQ Persons and Gay Commitments: A Pastoral Thought or Two

We Paulists find ourselves in the 21st century being called to open our hearts and our church doors to those of the LGBTQ communities. Lesbian women, gay men, bisexual and transgender persons, as well as those still questioning face many challenges: to figure out and accept their own sexual identities, to share their experience with family and loved ones, and to find their place in our society and in the Church. In a traditional theology or philosophy classroom, distinctions concerning human nature, sexual orientation and gender roles seem to be more or less easily mapped out. However, in modern medicine, recent genetics and gender studies, the halls of psychiatry and psychological counseling, in recent jurisprudence, as well as in the interpersonal lives and complexity of real LGBTQ people, these distinctions are less clear, less absolute, and undoubtedly in need of further study and theological discernment.

Despite public opinion surveys, which indicate a great acceptance of LGBTQ persons, data indicates that the number one cause of suicide among young men in North America is feeling hated and ostracized for “being gay” or even misperceived as gay. Facing one’s own sexual inclinations and homosexual or bisexual orientation can be so frightening, so shame-producing in one’s ethnic or cultural tradition that one would rather be dead. [14]

We as a Church must endevour to proclaim that every person has unique dignity in the eyes of God. This is one of the reasons so many have been touched by Pope Francis’ seemingly pastoral comment about gay persons, made during a plane interview returning from his first trip abroad, “Who are we to judge?” This past Lent, gay and transgendered inmates in a jail near Naples were invited to share lunch with Pope Francis. He seems to be echoing in his words and actions the quotation from Gaudium et Spes with which we began this reflection. Pope Francis is calling us to go to those on the periphery and proclaim to them that they are loved and valuable in God’s sight.

It has been our pastoral and personal experience, that members of the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender community are people of good will, deep faith, with an abiding sense of their own Catholicity who have probed the depths of their consciences in their desire for the sacraments. [15] We urge those gathered for the Synod to consider the personal needs, sexual experience, and covenant commitment of our LGBTQ sisters and brothers with the utmost pastoral care and sensitivity.

SYNOD ON THE FAMILY: A PAULIST SUMMARY

It may be a bit presumptuous for us to propose that this reflection is somehow uniquely Paulist in its content or flavor. Indeed we consider it a reflection of the Gospel and Christ’s way of life for all people and all times. We realize that there are many other important issues that impact the family such as poverty, immigration, the role of women, and sex trafficking. Still, we feel called to speak on these issues from our pastoral experience. Surely the election of Pope Francis, his modeling of mercy and compassion, and the forthcoming Jubilee “Year of Mercy” all parallel the tenor and content of this reflection. While what we have written here may in some sense be distinctively Paulist, surely it is not uniquely so. Let’s reach out graciously, in gratitude, compassion, and hope. ‘All are welcome’ in this Church, this multi-faceted, grace-filled, and still mysterious Family of God: As we sing it, we strive to live it.

We conclude with the words of our founder Servant of God Isaac Hecker, which seem so poignantly and prophetically apropos:

If Christ is to be for us a savior, we must find him here, now and where we are, in this age of ours also; otherwise he is no Christ, no Savior, no Immanuel, no “God with us.”

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