Month: September 2011

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Kentucky voices: Catholic hierarchy wrong, women should be ordained

COMMENTARY

I am a Roman Catholic woman, married with three teenage children. My roots in the United Church of Christ gave me a strong foundation of Christian beliefs and practices. With this background, one would not expect that I am on a path to being ordained a Roman Catholic priest. I was the last to know that this was possible, and that God would call me to this vocation.

As a young Protestant girl, I remember asking a Catholic neighbor what a nun was. “She is someone who gives her life to God,” she answered.

Moved by her response, I wanted to know if I could become a nun. Her answer disappointed me, yet the idea of giving my life to God never left me.
Years later, I became Catholic when I discovered how much I loved the liturgy and the opportunity to receive communion every day. I called myself a Vatican II Catholic, and I struggled with those who thought the pre-Vatican II church superior.

Sometimes my Protestant roots would surface when I encountered the hierarchy’s abuse of authority. Resonating with Martin Luther, I found myself speaking out and trying to right the wrongs I saw happening in this church that I loved.
I graduated from Lexington Theological Seminary in 2009.In July 2010, the Vatican issued a document about pedophile priests. In the very last paragraph, ordaining women was compared to the criminal act of pedophilia and both were called “grave offenses against the faith.”

I could not believe what I read. How could ordaining women called by God to priesthood be compared to pedophilia, which caused immeasurable suffering to innocent children?

As I reflected on the male hierarchy’s attack against women, I was in a crisis. My experience had led me to hear God’s call to ministry as a hospice chaplain. Should I become an Episcopalian?

Running away was not the answer. I knew I needed to stay and work for reform.
I talked with a friend who is an Anglican priest about my struggle. I told her that deacons in the Roman Catholic Church should be allowed to administer the sacrament of Anointing the Sick. In the midst of this conversation she said, “It sounds like God is calling you to be a deacon.”

Hearing those words, I realized that I could no longer deny the truth of God’s call. I was in a religious culture whose idolatry of maleness oppressed women and denied their call from God.

Today, I will be ordained a deacon by Bishop Bridget Mary Meehan of the Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests. Next spring, I will become what God has always intended for me: a priest.

It’s humbling and empowering to be part of a prophetic movement that is transforming the Roman Catholic Church. My joy is full of the freedom that perhaps Rosa Parks felt in standing up against racism. Our brothers at the Vatican will say that this action excommunicates me, but I share this status with a long list of saints.

Full Article HERE!

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Catholic Priest Writes Book on Ministering to Gays

A controversial retired Catholic priest has penned a new book aimed at helping parishes that seek to reach out to homosexuals.

And it doesn’t focus on changing their orientation.

James Schexnayder’s book, Setting the Table: Preparing Catholic Parishes to Welcome Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender People and Their Families, is intended to serve as a resource guide for churches attempting to create “safe, supportive and healing places” for non-heterosexual individuals and their families, according to an article in the latest issue of Oakland’s the Catholic Voice.

“This book came out of my experiences not only locally, but in working with various diocesan clergy regarding welcoming gay and lesbian families into parishes,” Schexnayder told the Voice.

“There is nothing in it contrary to Church teaching.”

Schexnayder in 1994 was a co-founder of the National Association of Catholic Diocesan Lesbian and Gay Ministries, now known as the Catholic Association for Lesbian & Gay Ministry.

He’s been criticized in the past for advocating views insiders see as inconsistent with those of the church, such as suggesting that homosexuals are directed toward chastity, but not celibacy, in their sexual relations.

“Regarding sexual behavior, the Catholic Catechism… does not use the word ‘celibacy’ for gay and lesbian people; the word is ‘chastity,’” Schexnayder told an audience at Spring Valley’s Santa Sophia parish in 2002.

He says the issue is “about successful integration,” and that homosexuality can be a spiritual blessing.

At the same talk, he also touched on a controversial view of same-sex marriage, according to a report at California Catholic Daily.

“I don’t think the Church is going to deal with gay and lesbian marriages, but in its history and those who have done research on this, the Catholic Church and other Christian churches like the Orthodox church, have in fact in history blessed same-gender unions as spiritual bondings, and there are saints who have had very committed relationships.”

Full Article HERE!

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Monastery pays €700,000 to victims of abuse

The Benedictine monastery Ettal in the German state of Bavaria announced Tuesday that it is paying 70 former pupils between €5,000 and €20,000 each in compensation, after decades of child abuse were uncovered there last year.
The compensation payments were determined by an independent board of trustees that judged each case individually.

The cases, some of which dated back to the 1950s, included incidents of sexual and psychological abuse as well as severe beatings.

“The monastery was not included in the board’s decision-making process and had no influence on the size of the payments,” a board statement said.

The total sum of €700,000 includes the victims’ legal and therapy costs.

The organization representing the Ettal abuse victims welcomed the compensation payments and praised the Benedictine monks for showing the “courage and honesty” to deal with the claims and face the school’s dark history.

The organization also said the average compensation payment for Ettal victims – of €10,000 – doubled the average for Church abuse victims in Germany.

But the German Catholic Church still falls short of the payments handed out in other countries.

The Irish Church has paid out an average of €68,000 to each abuse victim, an organization statement said.

The organization also pointed out that the Pope’s visit to Germany will cost the Catholic Church €1 per member, while its compensation model for abuse victims – determined by the German Bishops’ Conference – cost the church €0.15 per member.

The monastery’s Abbot Barnabas Bögle and the head of the school Maurus Kraß both resigned in the wake of the scandal in February 2010, following pressure from Archbishop of Munich Cardinal Reinhard Marx.

But the Benedictine monks re-elected Bögle later in the year after the Vatican declared there was nothing standing in the way of his return to office. Kraß was also reinstated by the Bavarian Education Ministry later.

At the time, both admitted that regulations on reporting accusations of abuse had not been followed, but a Vatican committee came to the conclusion that the former leaders of the abbey had done nothing wrong regarding the abuse scandal.

Full Article HERE!

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Lawsuit alleges priest abused San Jose altar boy in 2001

The Roman Catholic bishop of San Jose has been served with a lawsuit from a 23-year-old San Jose former altar boy who alleges a priest sexually abused him a decade ago.

Matthew Frazer alleges that as a shy boy in the eighth grade, he was fondled by Father Don Flickinger at St. Frances Cabrini Church in San Jose in December 2001.
“It’s unusual for victims to come forward this soon,” said the young man’s attorney, Tim Hale of Santa Barbara, explaining that 10 years, in his view, is not a long time to report a crime of sexual violence. “Some victims take this to their graves. Others, in their 30s, 40s or 50s after a lifetime of problems. This is way out of the ordinary.”

The priest grabbed the boy’s genitals as they sat on his bed, Hale said.
Kurt Seibert, Flickinger’s attorney, said Friday that the 76-year-old priest is now retired, living within the Diocese of Fresno.

“He denies all wrongdoing,” Seibert said. “The DA investigated this and there were never any charges filed.”

Flickinger has never been arrested or charged, his attorney stressed in Friday’s interview.

Frazer is now on leave from studying at California Lutheran University. Hale also said his client’s 2009 misdemeanor possession of child pornography conviction is directly related to his suffering as a sex victim.
The suit, filed Aug. 9 in San Francisco County Superior Court, alleges San Jose’s bishop, along with Catholic leaders in San Francisco and Fresno, were negligent because they knew or should have known that Flickinger had an inappropriate sexual behavior dating back to the 1960s when he worked in Fresno and did nothing about it.

The 47-page suit outlines 14 formal complaints, which include hiring and retention fraud, failure to warn, intentional infliction of emotional distress and childhood sexual abuse.

The Roman Catholic Diocese issued a statement last month, stating Flickinger did indeed live within the San Jose diocese from 1991 to 2006 to care for “his ailing mother.” But the statement also noted that he was technically still part of the Fresno diocese and had “letters of good standing” there. The statement stressed Flickinger “is not and has never been a priest of the Diocese of San Jose,” and has not privileges to perform religious duties in San Jose since November 2006 .
But Hale said it doesn’t matter where Flickinger worked. Hale added he can produce several witnesses who can testify that Flickinger performed Mass and other ministry duties in San Jose, whether officially or not, for many years.

The Diocese of Fresno also issued a statement that says Flickinger is in “full retirement and residing” within the diocese. In general, the diocese said that any accused clergyman is placed on administrative leave with religious duties suspended, and that they will conduct an internal investigation.

Much of the lawsuit centers on Flickinger’s history in Fresno, after he was ordained in 1964, and served as a chaplain as San Joaquin Memorial High School. The suit lists several unnamed witnesses who complained that during the 1960s, Flickinger had several unflattering sexual nicknames because of how he allegedly called boys into his office or confessionals, touched them on their upper thighs, hugged them too long and asked them questions about their girlfriends or whether they masturbated. The suit alleges leaders in the diocese had to know about the priest’s reputation on campus.

The lawsuit said Matthew Frazer went to San Jose police in 2008. However, the suit also states that the priest was tipped off to the investigation somehow and therefore, was prepared to answer a taped phone call between Matthew and himself and denied any type of abuse.

The civil statute of limitations on a crime such as this is until the victim turns 26, or within three years of the victim making the connection between the abuse and a resulting psychological injury.

Full Article HERE!

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Pope ousts Rev. Teczar

The Rev. Thomas H. Teczar, a diocesan priest convicted in Texas of sexually abusing a child and who was publicly accused of molesting at least two Central Massachusetts boys, has been defrocked by the Roman Catholic Church.

Officials with the Vatican and the Diocese of Worcester announced that Pope Benedict XVI has decreed that Mr. Teczar “is no longer in the clerical state.”

Mr. Teczar, who was ordained in 1967 by then-Bishop Bernard J. Flanagan, is the first diocesan priest to be laicized or removed from the priesthood.

As a result of the pope’s canonical decision, Mr. Teczar can no longer function in any capacity as a priest.

The 70-year-old was twice found guilty of molesting an 11-year-old boy in Ranger, Texas, about 20 years ago and is serving a 50-year sentence at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice’s Michael Unit in Tennessee Colony, Texas.

Mr. Teczar has filed a second appeal of his conviction to the Court of Criminal Appeals, the Lone Star State’s Supreme Court, which sits in Austin.

The Worcester Diocese has not allowed him to minister publicly since 1984.

Bishop Robert J. McManus, who had lobbied Vatican authorities to laicize Mr. Teczar, asked local Catholics to pray for those harmed by the former clergyman and all who have suffered abuse by priests.

“We hope this news will bring some comfort to the perhaps dozens of individuals Teczar molested as kids,” said David Clohessy, the director of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, adding that it shouldn’t have taken the Vatican years to defrock Mr. Teczar.

Meanwhile, Russ Thomason, the criminal district attorney in Eastland County whose office prosecuted the molestation case in Texas, said the papal action was “long overdue.”

“It’s about time,” said Mr. Thomason. “I really don’t know what took them so long. . . This is good news.”

Mr. Teczar was originally convicted on March 7, 2007, of three counts of aggravated sexual assault and one count of indecency with a child but the conviction was thrown out in the fall of 2008 by an appeals court, which ruled that state District Judge Steven Herod had made errors during the trial.

A new trial was ordered and the priest was found guilty for a second time of molesting the boy.

The victim charged that he was abused by the Rev. Teczar when the priest was assigned to St. Rita’s Church in Ranger.

The victim, who at the time lived across the street from the church rectory, told authorities that he was enticed into having sex with threats and promises.

According to court testimony, the boy was given marijuana and alcohol and was allowed to smoke cigarettes and to drive the priest’s Mercedes.

The boy also went on boating trips with Mr. Teczar and went flying with the priest in a single-engine plane.

In the first trial, Mr. Teczar chose a judge to decide his fate and any resulting sentence. He opted for a jury trial the second time around.

Witnesses in the court proceedings included the victim and his mother, along with Daniel Hawley and William Demerit Bixley, who were both involved in a gay relationship with Mr. Teczar in the early 1990s.

Mr. Thomason said Mr. Hawley and Mr. Bixley agreed to testify against the priest after striking plea bargains.

Both are serving 35-year sentences.

Mr. Thomason said Mr. Teczar, in his second appeal, is charging that Judge Herod should have recused himself from presiding over the second trial.

“I don’t think he has a case,” said the prosecutor.

Mr. Thomason said that he seriously considered prosecuting Fort Worth Bishop Joseph P. Delaney for shielding Mr. Teczar.

He said his office was working on the case when the bishop, a Fall River native who had been battling pancreatic cancer for two years, died.

Mr. Teczar had moved to Texas, where his brother lived, in the early 1980s after Worcester Bishop Timothy J. Harrington banned him from clerical duties here after allegations surfaced that he had molested at least two local boys.

Sexual abuse allegations were also later raised against the priest in Texas in 1993, five years after he began his ministerial duties in Fort Worth.

Raymond L. Delisle, a spokesman for the Worcester diocese, said Bishop McManus has asked that the Vatican laicize other local priests who have been removed from active ministry by the diocese because of allegations of sexual misconduct.

Mr. Delisle said he did not know who those priests were.

SNAP officials used Mr. Teczar’s defrocking to once again call for local church officials to release the names of all priests, nuns, seminarians, brothers, and church staff that stand accused of molestation.

“Worcester Catholic officials recruited, educated, trained, hired, transferred, and shielded Teczar,” said Mr. Clohessy. “So their duty to find and help others he hurt doesn’t end here. We beg them to act like real shepherds and use their vast resources to aggressively seek out those who were assaulted by Teczar and are still suffering in silence.”

Full Article HERE!