Category: COMMENTARY

Posted on

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!

Posted on

Advice for new archbishop: Real Catholic agenda is way broader than abortion

COMMENTARY

WHEN POPE Benedict XVI transferred Archbishop Charles Chaput from Denver to Philadelphia, one of the nation’s most prominent Catholic archdioceses, the appointment captured the attention of faithful Catholics, the media and undoubtedly a few nervous elected officials.

The archbishop has earned a reputation as one of the church’s most outspoken conservatives. During the 2004 presidential race, he warned Catholics they would be “cooperating in evil” if they voted for Democrat John Kerry, a devout Catholic who does not favor criminalizing abortion but whose positions on support for pregnant women, immigration reform, nuclear disarmament and other issues align with Catholic teaching. The archbishop has also scolded the University of Notre Dame for honoring President Obama and, in contrast to most of his fellow bishops, insists that Catholic politicians who depart from church teaching on abortion should be denied communion.

Chaput’s appointment is likely to have national implications in the 2012 election. As the presidential campaign gains momentum, Pennsylvania Catholics will again be aggressively courted as swing voters in this battleground state. GOP presidential candidates Rick Perry, Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum are staunch Christian conservatives. “Values voters” are back in the news. If history is any guide, Catholic voters in Pennsylvania will be key to who wins the White House.

Despite the media fixation on the religious right, the Public Religion Research Institute and other experts on faith in politics consistently find that most religious voters reject a culture-war approach to politics and instead embrace a broad spectrum of values – protecting the poor from budget cuts, passing immigration reform, expanding health care to all Americans and building a moral economy.

A disproportionate focus on criticizing politicians who do not accept that criminalizing abortion is the only way to solve this terrible problem gives the false impression that the Catholic Church is a religious wing of the Republican Party. Elected officials who support the death penalty, demonize immigrants and slash programs that protect the poor and most vulnerable, all in contradiction to church teaching, rarely receive the sort of public rebukes Chaput and other conservative Catholic bishops direct at those who deviate from the church position on abortion.

Full Article HERE!

Posted on

Clergy devalues language in response to child sex abuse

IT’S THAT “if” word again. Irish Catholic bishops and archbishops have been finding it so very helpful in recent years when expressing personal sorrow for what others have perceived as wrongs on their part.

Such a delightfully useful word. It creates just the right amount of wriggle-room to allow a putatively penitent prelate allow an outside perception of deepest repentance while not really feeling such a thing at all.

You could say the small “if” word, with such a big meaning, comes from the same stable as that thoroughbred “mental reservation”, of which there is none better when conveying a false impression – truthfully.

And so, little “if” popped up when the former bishop of Cloyne John Magee spoke to RTÉ on Monday.

“To the victims I say I am truly horrified by the abuse they suffered – it is very clear to me when I read the complete report – and if through my not fully implementing the 1996 guidelines which we had, I have made any victim suffer more, on my bended knee, I beg forgiveness, I am sorry.”

The extravagance of the language (how Italianate!) should not distract from the place of little “if” in the scheme of things. Or that of the equally useful “fully” term.

The Dublin archdiocese liked the “fully” word too.

In explaining how it could say in a mid-1990s statement it had co-operated with gardaí in dealing with allegations of clerical child sex abuse cases, while at the same time retaining files not handed over to gardaí, the Dublin archdiocese pointed out it had not said it co-operated “fully” with gardaí.

This was also presented to the Murphy commission as an example of mental reservation in all its glory.

Recall that the Cloyne report found Magee “took little or no active interest” in the management of clerical child sexual abuse cases until 2008, 12 years after the framework document on child sexual abuse was agreed by the Irish Bishops’ Conference.

There are no “ifs” about that. It was “little or no” interest.

And Magee was similarly athletic with his use of language in the statement he issued on Monday.

He accepted “full responsibility for the failure of the diocese to effectively manage allegations on child sexual abuse”. He unreservedly apologised “to all those who suffered additional hurt because of the flawed implementation of the church procedures, for which I take full responsibility”.

This would suggest he was taking on board such responsibility because of his role as bishop rather than through any direct personal fault of his own.

And that “fully” word appears again. He let the victims down “by not FULLY [my capitals] implementing the guidelines which were available to me” and he apologised “to the people of the diocese for not managing this important work more effectively”.

It is difficult not to agree with the Cloyne woman, herself abused by a priest, who told my colleague Barry Roche last Monday she was sceptical over Magee’s expression of remorse, saying she had heard so many apologies from the bishop and other clergy in Cloyne that she questioned their value.

“Anyway, whatever he does now can’t undo what was done to us.

We can all be sorry after the fact – he can say sorry as much as he wants, but it isn’t going to change what happened to me or to the other girls who were abused,” she said.

Wise words.

Indeed, it is hard not to concur with Magee himself when he said on Monday, “I feel there is nothing I can say now, which will ease the pain and distress for victims.” There isn’t.

The problem Magee and other senior clergy face is that they have devalued language.

They have rendered words of sorrow and remorse redundant through repeated abuse.

They have done as did Humpty Dumpty in Through the Looking Glass.

“When I use a word,” he said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.”

The question was, said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”

He knew better.

“The question is,” he said, “which is to be master – that’s all.”

The bishops and archbishops might also reflect on what became of Humpty Dumpty.

http://tinyurl.com/4xqqle8

Posted on

Prestonwood saga shows clergy abuse database is overdue

COMMENTARY

Most major faith groups in the United States have denominational processes for assessing reports about clergy sex abuse. The Southern Baptist Convention does not. Instead, the SBC has chosen to denominationally do nothing. That choice makes the world a more dangerous place, especially for children.

The danger was revealed most recently in news about a former minister of Prestonwood Baptist Church in Dallas. The minister, John Langworthy, admitted to his Mississippi congregation that, while at prior churches, he “had sexual indiscretions with younger males.”

When this “disturbing revelation” made headlines, Prestonwood’s executive pastor, Mike Buster, acknowledged that, in 1989, Prestonwood had received an allegation that Langworthy “acted inappropriately with a teenage student.” But Buster claimed Prestonwood officials had acted “firmly and forthrightly” because Langworthy “was dismissed immediately.”

Coming from a top official at one of the SBC’s largest churches, Buster’s statement should cause parents serious concern. Confronted with allegations of clergy sex abuse, Prestonwood got an accused minister off its own turf, but the minister was left free to church-hop to other congregations.

This quiet dismissal served to unleash Langworthy into the larger body of Baptist churches and to place other kids at risk. And to this day, Prestonwood officials seem to think they handled things appropriately.

The ways in which Prestonwood failed will appear obvious to many, but the problem is really much bigger. Within the Southern Baptist Convention, many other churches, big and small, have made the same dreadful mistakes in dealing with reports of clergy sex abuse. When church after church makes the same mistakes, there is something wrong with the system.

A systemic problem requires a systemic solution. That’s why, in 2006, I worked with the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests in urging Southern Baptist officials to establish an office through which clergy abuse reports could be assessed by trained professionals, and to keep records on ministers determined to be credibly accused.

There was nothing radical in this request. Other major faith groups are already doing more in that their denominational assessments can result in defrocking. But we didn’t ask for that. We simply asked for a denominational system of objective assessments and record-keeping — i.e., a database.

Recently, Southern Baptist pastor Wade Burleson renewed the call for a denominational database. I pray that people will listen.

Consider the difference such a system could have made in the Langworthy case. Amy Smith was a young staff intern during Langworthy’s tenure at Prestonwood. She knew there had been abuse allegations. In early summer of 2010, Smith started contacting everyone she could think of to try to assure that Mississippi kids would be protected.

She contacted Prestonwood officials, hoping they would work to remediate their earlier mistake and warn Mississippi parents about Langworthy’s past. But Smith didn’t get any help from Prestonwood, and so she persevered on her own for over a year until, finally, Langworthy resigned his ministerial position.

That’s over a year in which more kids were left at risk. If there had been a denominational office to which Smith could have provided her information, kids could have been better protected much sooner.

That office could have assessed the allegations, reported on its assessment to the Mississippi congregation and kept a record if the allegations were found credible. And if a church chose to keep a convicted, admitted or credibly accused minister, the SBC could conceivably choose to disfellowship.

If Southern Baptists provided such an office, and if it were truly a safe and welcoming place, there would be many more clergy molestation survivors who, in adulthood, would bring forward their reports. This could greatly diminish the incidence of clergy sex abuse, because one of the best ways to prevent abuse in the future is to institutionally listen to those who are trying to tell about abuse in the past. But Southern Baptists have no system for even hearing clergy abuse survivors.

“Go to the police,” you say? Of course. But typically, by the time an abuse survivor grows up and is capable of bringing forward a report, it is too late for criminal prosecution. Tell churches to do background checks? Sure. But over 90 percent of active child molesters have never been criminally convicted and so they won’t have criminal records.

Other safeguards are needed, and most other faith groups have realized that by now.

Einstein said “the world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.” For too long, Southern Baptists have done nothing to effectively address clergy sex abuse. A denominational database of convicted, admitted and credibly accused clergy is overdue.

http://tinyurl.com/3d2oyzw

Posted on

Pope In Spain: Good Catholics Use Condoms

COMMENTARY

No, Pope Benedict didn’t really say that, but there are really interesting developments coming out of this trip for World Youth Day. Thanks to Bridget Mary’s blog for alerting us to these developments.

The poster below was to have appeared on billboards and buses across Spain, until municipal authorities, bowing under pressure from the Cardinal of Madrid, rescinded the permission.

Maybe it’s just me, but there is something amusing about the way Catholics for Choice have taken Benedict’s quite timid and tentative statement last year (If condoms are not “a real or moral solution … in this or that case, they can be nonetheless, in the intention of reducing the risk of infection, a first step in a movement toward a different way, a more human way, of living sexuality.”) and run with it all the way to the goal post. Maybe this is the way change always comes to the church, timidly at first, with many reversals, fits and starts. Of course, as you can see from the press release below, Catholics for Choice’s ingenious plan to place their slogan – Good Catholics Use Condoms – on billboards and buses throughout Spain during the Pope’s visit, first met with approval, then censorship, thanks to the intervention of Cardinal Antonio Ruoco of Madrid.
FROM CATHOLICS FOR CHOICE BLOG
POPE ARRIVES IN SPAIN AMID CENSORSHIP CONTROVERSY
International Youth Coalition Seconds Archbishop’s Affirmation of Freedom of Expression
The World Youth Day 4 All coalition welcomed the remarks from Archbishop Braulio Rodriguez of Toledo, Spain, who pointed out that the Catholic World Youth Day celebration is taking place in a country where freedom of expression is protected.

“Spain’s openness to freedom of expression is something Catholics for Choice took for granted when we arranged, months in advance, for the display of our Condoms4Life ads in Madrid’s transit system to coincide with World Youth Day,” said Marissa Valeri, a lead organizer of the coalition. “We were surprised, then, when the message ‘Good Catholics Use Condoms’ was deemed too offensive for Madrilenos. In reality, the best interests of the public was not the issue. Instead, it was a move made by ultraconservatives to stifle the many diverse voices of Catholics at World Youth Day, which should be a place where, as Archbishop Rodriguez affirmed, ‘we can all say what we want to say.’

The municipal authorities did a disservice to all visitors and to all Spaniards by stepping between the life-giving message that condoms save lives, on the one hand, and the individual’s right to make up his or her mind about that message, on the other.”

Condoms are apparently not the only topic that is too hot to handle in Madrid this August. Patrons at the Madrid public library have allegedly complained they were unable to access Web sites providing information on protests being organized against World Youth Day.

One of the hallmarks of the Catholic tradition is unity in diversity. Like the World Youth Day 4 All coalition, the event itself is made up of participants from all over the world, people who may speak different languages and come from different cultures, but who find kinship on the level of faith. The church hierarchy obviously feels that Spain’s respect for freedom of expression gives them room to express their viewpoint—Archbishop Rodriguez even decries those who think that certain points of view are “more right than others.” Spain’s civic freedoms should be able to include the voices of the Catholic people—including those who support the use of condoms—as well as the perspectives of non-Catholics. Otherwise, the “world” part of World Youth Day goes missing, and those from a tiny, easily ruffled minority within the Catholic hierarchy and the Spanish authorities are the only ones celebrating.

Luckily, diversity is not so easily squelched—the Condoms4Life message has been making headlines all week (see the blog, and pilgrims have encountered stickers and projections on walls around the city.

http://tinyurl.com/3myc8vg