Category: Support

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Belgian Catholics issue reform manifesto

The week before the start of Advent, four Flemish priests issued a church reform manifesto that called for allowing the appointment of laypeople as parish pastors, liturgical leaders and preachers, and for the ordination of married men and women as priests.

By the week’s end more than 4,000 of publicly active Catholics had signed on to the “Believers Speak Out” manifesto. By Dec. 1, the number of signers had reached 6,000.

Among the supporters are hundreds of priests, educators, academics and professional Catholics. Two prominent supporters are former rectors of the Catholic University of Leuven, Roger Dillemans and Marc Vervenne.

“These are not ‘protest people.’ They are people of faith. They are raising their voices. They hope their bishops are listening,” said Fr. John Dekimpe, one of four priests who launched the manifesto.

“Some people are fearful about approaching church leadership,” said the priest, who lives in Kortrijk. “Is this being a dissident? I don’t think so. The Belgian church is a disaster. If we don’t do something, the exodus of those leaving the church will just never stop. … I really want the bishops to reflect deeply about the growing discontent of so many believers.”

Among the manifesto’s demands, made “in solidarity with fellow believers in Austria, Ireland and many other countries,” are that:

  • Parish leadership be entrusted to trained laypeople;
  • Communion services be held even if no priest is available;
  • Laypeople be allowed to preach;
  • Divorced people be allowed to receive Communion;
  • “As quickly as possible, both married men and women be admitted to the priesthood.

So far there has been no official reaction from Archbishop André-Joseph Léonard, the Catholic primate of Belgium, any of the other Belgium bishops, or the Vatican. Privately, and off the record, one Belgian bishop has applauded the manifesto.

Jürgen Mettepenningen, a Leuven theologian and former press officer for Léonard, told the Belgian newspaper De Morgen that he hopes the manifesto can lead to a well-thought-out church reform. “When I reflect on what I have written and said over the past years, I can only say that the spirit of the manifesto is the very same spirit in which I have been trying to work to make the church more credible: true to the faith.”

Last year, after reports of abuse rocked the Belgian church, an independent commission discovered sexual abuse in most Catholic dioceses and all church-run boarding schools and religious orders. The commission said 475 cases of abuse had been reported to it between January and June this year.

In one of the more prominent cases, Bruges Bishop Roger Vangheluwe was forced to resign after admitting to years of abusing his nephew. In April of this year, he told Belgian television that he had molested another nephew and that it had all started “as a game.”

The full text of the manifesto, “Believers Speak Out”:
Parishes without a priest, Eucharist at inappropriate hours, worship without Communion: that really should not be! What is delaying the needed church reform? We, Flemish believers, ask our bishops to the break the impasse in which we are locked. We do this in solidarity with fellow believers in Austria, Ireland and many other countries, with all who insist on vital church reform.

We simply do not understand why the leadership in our local communities (e.g., parishes) is not entrusted to men or women, married or unmarried, professionals or volunteers, who already have the necessary training. We need dedicated pastors!

We do not understand why these our fellow believers cannot preside at Sunday liturgical celebrations. In every active community we need liturgical ministers!

We do not understand why, in communities where no priest is available, a Word service cannot also include a Communion service.
We do not understand why skilled laypeople and well-formed religious educators cannot preach. We need the word of God!

We do not understand why those believers who, with very good will, have remarried after a divorce must be denied Communion. They should be welcomed as worthy believers. Fortunately, there are some places where this is happening.
We also demand that, as quickly as possible, both married men and women be admitted to the priesthood. We, people of faith, desperately need them now!

Complete Article HERE!

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Pro-Gay Catholics Vastly Outnumber Homophobic Bishops

COMMENTARY

Earlier this month I visited Milwaukee to attend the Call to Action National Conference, a gathering of progressive Catholics from around the country, and introduce pro-LGBT attendees to the organization I work for, Truth Wins Out.

Many readers will understandably balk at the words “progressive,” “pro-LGBT,” and “Catholic” appearing in the same sentence. However, these words and concepts are far more compatible than many people realize.

Not that equality-minded people could be blamed for thinking otherwise. After all, the Catholic Church and its affiliates vociferously push an insidious anti-gay agenda. New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan was the most outspoken opponent of the state’s marriage equality law. Minnesota’s Catholic bishops are leading the charge to add an anti-gay amendment to that state’s constitution, calling the denial of marriage rights to same-sex couples a “top priority” in 2012 and using tax-exempt church resources for political purposes.

The Knights of Columbus, a lay Catholic group, bankrolls the National Organization for Marriage, which fights against the civil rights of LGBT people across the country. In fact, in 2009 the Knights spent more money fighting marriage equality than they did on all other social programs, such as food banks and food drives, combined.

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops formed a Subcommittee for the Promotion and Defense of Marriage in order to organize and galvanize opposition to same-sex marriage nationwide. (Dan Avila, the bishops’ Policy Advisor for Marriage, was forced to resign this month after publishing a column in which he stated that homosexuality was caused by the devil.)

And the Catholic Church even has its own “apostolate” for gay people, called Courage, which counsels members to abandon their natural sexuality for a lifetime of celibacy and endorses the National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality, a leading proponent of “ex-gay” conversion therapy.

But the bigotry of the Catholic hierarchy is only part of the story. In fact, the beliefs of the rank-and-file Catholic faithful couldn’t be more different. Recent polls have repeatedly shown that a majority support granting same-gender couples the freedom to marry.

A survey released in March by the Public Religion Research Institute, billed as “the most comprehensive portrait of Catholic attitudes on gay and lesbian issues assembled to date,” found that a large majority of American Catholics – a whopping 71 percent –support civil marriage equality for same-sex couples. It further states that “Catholics are more supportive of legal recognitions of same-?sex relationships than members of any other Christian tradition and Americans overall” and that “Catholic support for rights for gays and lesbian people is strong and slightly higher than the general public.”

Perhaps most revealing, though, is the PRRI’s finding that “less than 4-in-10 Catholics (39 percent) give their own church top marks … on its handling of the issue of homosexuality.”

Social justice has long been an important component of the Catholic faith tradition. The Church is outspoken in its support of labor unions (Pope John Paul II even asserted the fundamental principle of “the priority of labor over capital” in a 1981 encyclical.), immigrants and financial reform, as well as its opposition to capital punishment. American Catholics appear to view the issue of LGBT equality as one of social justice as well, consciously rejecting the bigotry of their religious leaders in much the same way they reject the official prohibition on contraception (98 percent of Catholics use forms of contraception banned by the Church).

So let’s resist the impulse to stereotype all Catholics as anti-gay extremists. After all, our community knows the sting of prejudice all too well. Instead, work together with pro-equality Catholics, as Truth Wins Out and many other organizations are doing already.

Let’s speak out together against the Catholic Church’s institutionalized bigotry and work towards a society that’s truly just for all people.

Complete Article HERE!

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I’m a Christian, and the Catholic church doesn’t speak for me

COMMENTARY — John Aravosis

I’m getting increasingly fed up with the Catholic church following the lead of the religious right in claiming that a) they’re oppressed, and b) they speak for all Christianity. No you’re not, and no don’t.

I’ll get to the first part later, but let’s start with this notion that the Catholic church speaks for all Christians. I am not a Catholic, yet still, I’m a Christian. Magic! No, not really. Lots of us are Christians and not Catholic, and that’s okay. And lots of us are Americans and not Christians, and even that is okay. Of course, the Catholic church often doesn’t even speak for Catholics, certainly not American Catholics (and I suspect the church leadership’s soft spot for enabling pedophiles isn’t much appreciated by most of the non-American Catholics either).

What has the Catholic church in such an uproar of late is America’s slow but steady march towards civil rights and liberty for all. You see, the Catholic church, like the evangelical far right, believes that common decency is a zero sum game. They actually believe that recognizing the civil rights of all Americans somehow takes something away from the Catholic church – no, strike that, they claim that America’s civil rights laws somehow oppress the religious liberty of Christians, not Catholics, but Christians.

This, in spite of the fact that the Catholic church is exempt from new civil rights laws covering gays, for example, so the church is free to practice as much bigotry and discrimination as it wishes to in the name of Christ. But that’s not enough. The Catholic church thinks that it’s not entirely free unless you’re note entirely free. It’s not enough for them to demand their own followers practice bigotry, they, like the Mormon leadership, or the evangelical far right, aren’t content unless they’re forcing everyone, even those of other faiths or no faith, to live under their rules.

So now the Catholic church is throwing a hissy fit over gay marriages (even though, again, they’re exempt) and state laws governing contraceptives. You see, the Catholic church is happy to feed at the government teat by accepting over $2.8 billion a year from the government at all levels. Yes, you read that right. Sixty-seven percent of Catholic Charities $4.27 billion in annual revenue comes from the government.

Understandably, the Catholic church would prefer that American taxpayers fund them to the tune of over two billion dollars a year and not attach any strings, such as not permitting Catholic charities to discriminate in their charity work against those very Americans who are paying 67% of Catholic charities’ bills. Heck, I’d love two billion a year with no strings attached, who wouldn’t? That’s why Catholic Charities stopped helping a segment of the poor and disadvantaged in Washington, DC and in Illinois – in both states they’re no longer providing foster care and adoption services to needy children – because Catholic Charities couldn’t stand the fact that local laws required them to use state tax dollars in a non-discriminatory manner. So rather than treat all Americans fairly – rather than help needy children – Catholic Charities decided to just pull the plug and stop helping the needy.

Oh, and saw a quick aside, it’s interesting that Catholic Charities is trying to claim that it’s still the Catholic Church, so civil rights laws shouldn’t apply to it. Really? The American taxpayer is funding the Catholic Church’s proselytizing to the tune of $2.8 billion a year? I’m a bit confused about that one. I didn’t think we funded any faith. So how is it that the Catholic church is now claiming that its charity work is somehow its faith, when we’d never fund its proselytizing in the first place?

What’s really going on is that the Catholic Church’s anti-gay animus is deemed more important than the needs of children. (Then again, the Catholic Church doesn’t exactly have a stellar record of late when it comes to giving a lick about the needs of children.)

And now the Catholic Church is becoming increasingly hysterical, screaming about how America is quickly becoming unfriendly territory for Christians (which certainly begs the question of when America will finally have a Christian president, or elect a Christian to Congress).

Maybe, just maybe, this debate isn’t about religion at all. After all, it doesn’t quite make sense, all this talk about America – which is run and ruled by Christians for the most part, and has been for over two hundred years, and whose government regularly nods towards Christianity far more than most modern democracies – becoming “anti-Christian.” So what’s really going on?

Maybe, just maybe, the Catholic Church is more worried about the $2.8 billion it gets every year from the American government (at all levels) than it is about some nonsensical notion of religious freedom when the Catholic church is exempt from every civil rights law its complaining about. Maybe, just maybe, this is all about money, and not about religious freedom at all.

PS I’ve asked it before and I’ll ask it again: What are bigots like this doing on the board of the supposedly progressive Coalition on Human Needs? You have to wonder if CHN would have racist or anti-Semitic organizations on its board. No, you don’t wonder – we all know they wouldn’t. But somehow when the prejudice is against gays and lesbians, some of our top “liberal” organizations find it in their hearts to look the other way.

<em>Complete Article <big><strong><span style=”font-family: arial; color: #ff6600;”><span style=”color: #cc0000;”>HERE</span></span></strong></big>!</em>