Category: Who Is The Church

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Women are a problem for the Catholic Church

— An institution with ingrained misogyny

Women comprise half of the Catholic Church but end up being a category.

Papal plámás is no substitute for an end to discrimination against women

By Soline Humbert

The Catholic Church is bedevilled by sex … the female sex. Church men, who claim a privileged insight into the mind of God, earnestly agonise over what women can be and do. Mostly, what they can’t be and can’t do. Obstat sexus: “her sex prevents her”. It is ubiquitous and overrides Christ’s great commandment “love one another as I have loved you”.

Three years ago the Catholic Church worldwide embarked on what it called a synodal journey, described as the largest consultation process ever, involving in theory at least, every church member. This led to two assemblies in Rome, one last year and the final one which just concluded last weekend.

A 52-page document is the fruit of that process. Each of the 155 paragraphs was voted on by the members, mostly bishops but with some “non–bishops” too, including 14 per cent of women. Women had campaigned long and hard to get these few votes.

All through his pontificate Pope Francis has reaffirmed: ‘That door is closed.’

In September an obituary for American Sr Teresa Kane reminded us how in 1979 she had made worldwide news when she publicly implored John Paul II: “The Church, in its struggle to be faithful to its call for reverence and dignity for all persons, must respond by providing the possibility of women as persons being included in all the ministries in our church.” Not only did this fall on deaf ears but the closed doors got even more tightly locked and woe to whoever dared raise the issue.

All through his pontificate Pope Francis has reaffirmed: “That door is closed.” Not just to the priesthood. Asked whether a young girl could dream of becoming a deacon his curt answer was “No”.

So it is hardly news when in 2024 the Synodal Document states: “By virtue of Baptism, women and men have equal dignity as members of the People of God. However, women continue to encounter obstacles in obtaining a fuller recognition of their charisms, vocation and roles in all the various areas of the Church’s life. This is to the detriment of serving the Church’s shared mission.”

Women deacons will continue being studied ‘ad infinitum’ in a Vatican commission

The issue of women’s second-class status generally, and their ordination to the diaconate and presbyterate, was raised in many countries during the earlier consultation phases, including here in Ireland, but was filtered out. Any mention of women priests was carefully excised. Out of sight, out of mind.

Women deacons will continue being studied “ad infinitum” in a Vatican commission. This is the 4th commission and the second one under Pope Francis; the first one set up in 2016 never published its findings, and this one, set up in 2020, still hasn’t produced an interim report. No hurry since in any case the female diaconate is deemed “not ripe”.

Women are half of the church but end up being a category, an issue, a problem in a patriarchal institution with ingrained misogyny.

In fact, this women’s issue was deemed too contentious to be on the table at last month’s synodal gathering. Pope Francis entrusted it to the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) who will report, if possible, next June.

It doesn’t matter whether one has the same mind that was in Christ Jesus, one must have the same sex

The DDF is an all-male clerical body with 28 consultors, mostly Italian priest theologians and six women. They are studying women saints, mystics, doctors of the church. Dead women, safely canonised, are easier to deal with than live ones, especially those with a calling deemed impossible because “her sex prevents it”.

It doesn’t matter whether one has the same mind that was in Christ Jesus, one must have the same sex.

Coinciding with the opening of the Assembly last month, Pope Francis published a book on women: Sei Unica (You are unique), subtitled: A Hymn To The Feminine Genius. The seven special talents he lists are obviously not needed in the ordained ministries. It’s hard not to cringe at the stereotyping. All the papal plámás in the world are no substitute for equality, justice and an end to discrimination.

When I read in the document its recommendation for more women to be involved in training men for the priesthood, I thought of another woman who had also just died. As a Dominican Sister in South Africa, Patricia Fresen had courageously fought the apartheid regime.

To answer her call she was ordained in the Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests and ministered as a priest and a bishop

Later when she trained seminarians to deliver homilies, she became aware that as a woman she could never preach at Mass and her eyes were opened to the gender apartheid in the church, which is no more godly than the racial one was. To answer her call she was ordained in the Roman Catholic Women Priests Movement and ministered as a priest and a bishop.

No more walking the synodal pathway hopelessly kicking cans down the road. That gender apartheid must be dismantled now. The Gospel requires it and the Spirit shows the way.

Soline Humbert is a spiritual director and the author of the forthcoming memoir God Calls, Rome Stalls

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Pope’s words create confusion for Catholics on same-sex relationships

By MICHELLE R. SMITH

An ideological tug of war over the firing of a Rhode Island church music director for marrying his same-sex partner illustrates the confusion that permeates some U.S. Roman Catholic parishes over Pope Francis’s words on homosexuality.

Francis’s famous declaration “Who am I to judge?” in 2013 energized Catholics who had pushed the church to accept gays and lesbians. Now, some gay Catholics and supporters who hoped for rapid acceptance find themselves stymied by many bishops and pastors.

Francis is being cited by both the music director, Michael Templeton, and by Providence Bishop Thomas Tobin, known for taking a hard line on church teaching about marriage and abortion. Tobin has criticized Francis, writing after the pope’s summit on the family two years ago that “Francis is fond of ‘creating a mess.’ Mission accomplished.”

The pope has upheld Catholic teaching on homosexuality, reiterating the church’s opposition to same-sex relationships. But his shift in tone and broad statements about mercy have left a trail of comments that amount to a Rorschach test open to interpretation, say those who have closely followed Francis.

“Pope Francis has not said, ‘Here’s what you should do in a parish where you have a music director who has married his partner of the same sex,’ ” said Rev. James T. Bretzke, a professor of moral theology at Boston College. “Pope Francis is articulating general principles: forgiveness and mercy and not harsh judgment. But how you handle a particular case like this, he has been very reluctant to weigh in on it.”

That means a gay Catholic’s fate depends on his diocese or individual pastor. Templeton, 38, says he was called in last month and fired from the job he held for five years at the Church of St. Mary. The pastor, appointed in July, told him someone had sent him a 2015 Associated Press article that included details about Templeton’s wedding. A representative from the Providence Diocese also attended. At the end of the meeting, disappointed and hurt, Templeton cited Francis.

Thomas Tobin“This seems truly inconsistent with the teachings of Pope Francis,” Templeton said he told them.

The firing caused an outcry in the parish. A fellow employee resigned minutes after Templeton’s firing. Several lay leaders also resigned and dozens of parishioners have left, including most of the church’s 20 to 30 gay members, according to people interviewed by the Associated Press.

Many cited Francis’s example, saying the firing was in conflict with his declaration that 2016 be a “Year of Mercy.”

The pastor, Rev. Francesco Francese, referred comment to Tobin’s office, and Tobin declined a request for an interview.

Tobin issued a statement to The Providence Journal saying church employees and volunteers are “expected to live in a way that is fully consistent” with church teachings. If a person engages in activity that contradicts those teachings, “that individual leaves the Church no choice but to respond,” Tobin said.

In a later Facebook posting, Tobin defended his approach, citing Francis.

“When church leaders have to respond to situations involving persons living an openly ‘gay lifestyle’ these days, we’re often scolded and told that we should be ‘more like Pope Francis,’ presumably the ‘Who-am-I-to judge’ Pope Francis,” Tobin wrote.

He listed several examples that “critics should also remember,” including that Francis fired a priest who was working in the Vatican upon learning the priest was gay and in a relationship.

In the past few months alone, Francis has made statements or taken actions that give fuel to both sides.

Francis underscored his emphasis on mercy over defending orthodoxy with his first U.S. picks for cardinals, announced Sunday, choosing bishops who have taken a more welcoming approach to gays and others who have felt alienated from the church.

Asked this month about how he would minister to transgender Catholics, Francis responded: “When someone who has this condition comes before Jesus, Jesus would surely never say, ‘Go away because you’re gay.’ ” At the same time, he recently supported Mexican bishops working against a push to legalize same-sex marriage. New Ways Ministry, which advocates for gay Catholics, has documented around four dozen cases during Francis’s tenure where people have been forced from positions in Catholic institutions or faced other negative consequences for reasons such as being in gay relationships or advocating for gay rights.

Francis DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways, said gay Catholics continue to see problems in places with conservative bishops, such as Providence. Tobin, he said, was interpreting Francis too narrowly.

Before Francis, “people were afraid to even say the words gay or lesbian,” DeBernardo said. “I do think he’s taken an important step that could lead to further steps. I’m not certain, I don’t think he will make a change in church doctrine, but I think he is laying the groundwork for future changes.”

Complete Article HERE!

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Homeless At Saint Mary’s Cathedral Intentionally Drenched With Water While Sleeping

File under: Absolutely astonishing.  Just like Jesus would do.

By Doug Sovern

SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS) — KCBS has learned that Saint Mary’s Cathedral, the principal church of the Archdiocese of San Francisco, has installed a watering system to keep the homeless from sleeping in the cathedral’s doorways.

The cathedral, at Geary and Gough, is the home church of the Archbishop. There are four tall side doors, with sheltered alcoves, that attract homeless people at night.

“They actually have signs in there that say, ‘No Trespassing,’” said a homeless man named Robert.

But there are no signs warning the homeless about what happens in these doorways, at various times, all through the night. Water pours from a hole in the ceiling, about 30 feet above, drenching the alcove and anyone in it.

The shower ran for about 75 seconds, every 30 to 60 minutes while we were there, starting before sunset, simultaneously in all four doorways. KCBS witnessed it soak homeless people, and their belongings.


A homeless man uses an umbrella to hold off the water. (CBS SF)

A homeless man uses an umbrella to hold off the water. (CBS SF)

 

“We’re going to be wet there all night, so hypothermia, cold, all that other stuff could set in. Keeping the church clean, but it could make people sick,” Robert said.

The water doesn’t really clean the area. There are syringes, cigarette butts, soggy clothing and cardboard. There is no drainage system. The water pools on the steps and sidewalks.

A neighbor who witnessed the drenching told KCBS, “I was just shocked, one because it’s inhumane to treat people that way. The second thing is that we are in this terrible drought.

Jennifer Friedenbach, executive director of the Coalition on Homeless said, “It’s very shocking, and very inhumane. There’s not really another way to describe it. Certainly not formed on the basis of Catholic teachings.”

A cathedral staff member confirmed to KCBS the system was installed, perhaps a year ago, to deter the homeless from sleeping there.

Chris Lyford, a spokesman for the Archdiocese, said cathedral staff tries hard to help these people.

“We refer them, mostly to Catholic Charities, for example for housing,” Lyford said. “To Saint Anthony’s soup kitchen for food, if they want food on that day. Saint Vincent de Paul if they need clothes.”

But he says they keep coming back, and most seem to have serious substance abuse issues.

“We do the best we can, and supporting the dignity of each person. But there is only so much you can do.”

Some of the homeless bring waterproof gear, even an umbrella, to try to stay dry. Frustrated cathedral employees tell us they don’t have the staff to police the doorways, which are used by churchgoers during services.

Lyford, who says he didn’t know about the water system until we showed it to him, admits it doesn’t seem to be an effective deterrent.

Then, suggests this church neighbor, turn it off. “I would hope that they would stop doing this, both for environmental reasons and for common decency.”

KCBS has also learned from a review of city permit records that the system was installed illegally, and may violate water use regulations.

The Archdiocese issued a new statement Wednesday morning about the story, saying the church will address the situation at the Cathedral immediately and will have further comment later in the day.

The statement goes on to say, “Catholic organizations in San Francisco serve thousands of homeless people every year, providing shelter, food, and critical services.  That is the true picture of compassionate Catholic care.”

Complete Article HERE!

Shame on you Sal!

ArchbishopCordileone

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Spain’s new cardinal says homosexuality a ‘defect’

Pope Francis’ newly chosen Spanish cardinal, 84-year-old Fernando Sebastian Aguilar, has described homosexuality as a “defect” that can be corrected with treatment, sparking condemnation from gay rights groups.

Fernando Sebastian Aguilar

“A lot of people complain and don’t tolerate it but with all respect I say that homosexuality is a defective way of manifesting sexuality, because that has a structure and a purpose, which is procreation,” Sebastian told Malaga newspaper Sur.

The interview was published Sunday, a week after the Spaniard was named as one of 19 new cardinals chosen by the pope, to be officially appointed February 22.

“We have a lot of defects in our bodies. I have high blood pressure. Am I going to get angry because they tell me that? It is a defect I have that I have to correct as far as I can,” said Sebastian, who is the archbishop emeritus of the northern city of Pamplona.

“Pointing out a defect to a homosexual is not an offence, it is a help because many cases of homosexuality can be recovered and normalised with adequate treatment. It is not an offence, it is esteem. When someone has a defect, the good friend is the one who tells him.”

The archbishop was asked in the interview if he shared the view of Pope Francis, who said in July last year: “If someone is gay and seeks the Lord with good will, who am I to judge?”

The Spanish archbishop, who, because of his age, will not hold a vote in the conclave that elects pontiffs, said the pope shows respect to all people but is not changing the teaching of the Church.

“It is one thing to show welcome and affection to a homosexual person and another to morally justify the exercise of homosexuality,” he said.

Gay and lesbian rights group Colegas called on the archbishop to retract his comment.

“We hope that Fernando Sebastian will correct his words and we note that homosexuality is not a curable disease, but homophobia is,” it said in a statement.

Nicolas Fernandez, head of the Malaga-based gay and lesbian rights group Entiende, added his condemnation.

“It is not the first time the cardinals have said we are defective,” he said, calling for non-discrimination legislation that would condemn such “repugnant” statements.

Complete Article HERE!

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What’s the message on the runway for Baroque fashions?

By Thomas F. O’Meara

When I was a boy, more than 50 years ago, ecclesiastical clothes were impressive. They were unusual and colorful, antique and sacral; they were distinctively Roman Catholic. The colored watered silk, the jeweled gloves, the red slippers (buskins) pointed to an individual caught up in a church office. This transcendent figure, a representative of the divine, appeared among the ordinary suits and dresses of working-class Catholics at rare moments. Nonetheless, even as a teenager singing in a college choir at the archbishop’s liturgies, I had already noticed that sometimes rituals focused more on the clothes than on religious words and sacrament. Removing gloves and putting on glasses, keeping a skullcap in place or adjusting a pallium could appear more important than the elevation of the chalice.

SampleTime passes, and today ecclesiastical clothes are less intelligible and point less clearly to something beyond their colors and gilt. They raise questions of gender and class, of culture and sacramentality.

There are three kinds of clothes male Catholics wear for public ecclesiastical and liturgical events. There are vestments for the liturgy of the Eucharist and other sacraments and for devotions. Among them are chasuble and stole, alb and cincture, miter and cope. Second, there are the habits of religious orders and congregations. Third, there are special garments for those in the episcopal order and for those in levels below (monsignors) or above (cardinals). Vestments at the Eucharist and other liturgies appear at their best when they are simple, aesthetically pleasing and inspiring to the people viewing them. Members of religious orders, particularly monks and friars, tend to wear their habits at liturgy and at other times inside their religious houses.

Here is a ninth-century description of the liturgical clothes used by the bishop of Rome, clothes related in their style to garments worn by Romans two centuries earlier. Walahfrid Strabo, who died in 849, wrote: “Priestly vestments have become progressively what they are today: ornaments. In earlier times priests celebrated Mass dressed like everyone else.”

Often special church garments do not come from the patristic or medieval period (which did not encourage distinctive clothes). They come from the Baroque period from 1580 to 1720, when liturgy as theater arranged rituals to channel graces. After 1620, in the world of Pope Urban VIII, ecclesiastical garments began to assume the importance they have today in spotlighting ecclesiastical officeholders. Who may wear what, in which color, and at which church services? The years from 1830 to 1960 witnessed additional, quite artificial elaborations of church attire. Today vestments that reflect the simplicity of the patristic or early medieval style also appear contemporary, while those that appear antiquarian and flamboyant are the product of the Baroque.

Critics of religious clothes

Jesus is a critic of religion. He warns against human display and the use of religious objects to disdain others. He condemns using religion to further being noticed or set apart from most people. “The scribes and the Pharisees … do all their deeds to be seen by people; they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long, and they love the place of honor at feasts and the best seats in the synagogues … The greatest among you must be your slave” (Matthew 23:5-6, 12).

Few dimensions of human life aroused Jesus’ anger, but religious leaders seeking attention and power through clothes were called “whitewashed tombs that look handsome on the outside but inside are full of the bones of the dead” (Matthew 23:27).

In the years just before the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), Dominican Fr. Yves Congar wrote a critique of the church’s display of power and privilege. He had researched the origins of church vestments and insignia in the Roman Empire and in feudalism, concluding that those clothes no longer have any clear meaning for people. He concluded that vestments can have value, although their religious presence must resonate with the people they address.

One contemporary critique of ecclesiastical clothes was Federico Fellini’s 1972 movie “Roma.” Ecclesiastical fashions are exhibited on a runway where models display chasubles and miters for an audience of nuns and clerics and a presiding cardinal, a pale, sexless creature with crimson robes and ill-suited sunglasses who falls asleep. The style show ends with new designs using electric lights on chasubles.

Vatican II spoke of “a noble simplicity” for ecclesiastical clothes. In the years just after Vatican II, Pope Paul VI sold papal tiaras and issued instructions to set aside unusual clothes like flamboyant cloaks, colored stockings, special buckles and sashes with tassels.

Clothes today

Among a few small groups in the church, religious clothes are returning. They may be returning not as religious signs but as distractions from faith and ministry. Sashes and birettas, chains and large crosses, amices and maniples, special gloves and shoes have reappeared. Restorationist and reactionary groups tend to have striking clothes just as dictatorships have uniforms.

These groups show a preference for special kinds of clerical collars, tall miters, elaborate trains, a metal cross hung around the neck. Programs on EWTN are the runway for Baroque fashions, some authentic, some from the 19th century, most imitations. Great attention is given to gold vestments and gold vessels, odd new habits and distortions of past religious objects. Monastic habits with tunic and hood were originally the ordinary clothes of laborers. As centuries passed, they became unusual when ordinary clothes changed. Still, the habits of the medieval monks and friars were simple, and no sashes and capes or medals are added. The habits of many congregations of men founded after 1830 were colorful and attention-getting, elaborating on the medieval or Baroque but without any connection to the modern world.

At graduations at Catholic universities, students, faculty and administrators wear their academic robes, while parents and families wear suits and dresses. A bishop in a silk cape with ribbons and a skullcap looks out of place. Once, at a fundraising event in a large hotel, a bishop wore what he called his “full dress uniform, which attracts lots of compliments on my wardrobe.” The main speaker of the night remarked: “If I were dying and someone with a red bow and gown drew near, I would be scared stiff.”

The media pays attention to the current pope’s red-pink shoes, fur-lined hat of the eighth century, elaborately embroidered stole from the 18th century. Recent images on television of bishops and popes in white and red cassocks, Renaissance hats and jeweled gloves no longer seem religious and sacramental but antiquarian and self-centered. The pope, during a visit to the White House garden in white cassock and no visible pants, looked out of place; distinctive and different, yes, but not spiritual. American Catholics are, for the first time, reacting to televised gatherings of bishops and cardinals where there is concern over wearing properly colored skirts and sashes.

Clothes and ministry

New religious groups in the United States, along with some young members of older orders seem eager to wear a religious habit in public, not just on the grounds around a school but at airports or on the subway. What does a monastic habit or a cassock in public say to Americans at the beginning of the 21st century? It is not at all evident that the general public knows who this strangely dressed person is or even connects the clothes to religion. The symbolism is not clear and a message is not evident. The person does stand out, but as a kind of public oddity. Eccentric clothes instill separation. While some argue that odd clothes attract people, the fact is that more often than not they repel. Normal people are not attracted by the antique or bizarre costume, and ordinary Christians are not drawn to those whose special costume implies that others are inferior. Sometimes wearing clothes seems to be a substitute for real ministry.

It is not clear how men wearing dresses and capes proclaim God’s transcendence or the Gospel’s love. A man’s identity is something complex; the search for it lasts a lifetime. A celibate cleric gives up things that form male identity, like being a husband and a father. One cannot overlook possible links between unusual clothes and celibacy. Does the celibate male have a neutral or third sexuality that can put on unusual clothes? Are special clothes a protection of celibacy? Or are they a neutralization of maleness? Why would a man want to wear a long dress or a cape in public? Are spiritual reasons the true motivation?

Cultural meaning

Clothes are useful as they keep us warm or cool and cover our nakedness. They can make men and women attractive to others. Human beings and societies have come up with a variety of clothes to which they give particular meanings, using a few clothes as symbols — the toga, the high hat, the veil, the robe. What do ecclesiastical clothes say today? This question touches not only the wearer’s identity but the community’s faith. There is no absolute answer, no answer apart from people in their time and culture. Tradition and history are not an answer, for there is always a time when this ecclesiastical garment was unknown and there will be a time when it will be seen only in a museum.

Time brings and then buries styles. A medieval person probably understood episcopal regalia fairly well because aspects of his or her life depended upon its rare appearance, and it was seen in a milieu of many insignia. The elaborate arrangement of artificial clothes in the Catholic church is from the past four centuries. Today, unusual clothes appear on television as something connected to entertainment. What thoughts are conjured up when a cardinal or archbishop appears at a baseball game in a cape and gown? What does the cape and sash say personally and socially? Does it recall the New Testament or the liturgy of the Christian community?

There are no intrinsically religious clothes. Religious clothes are meant to point to some truth of faith or suggest a sacramental presence. The public person of each minister in the church should relate to the humble Jesus and to sacramentality in this church’s life. In the Christian community all clothing — this includes liturgical clothing — expresses the church’s life animated by the Spirit. Capes and cloaks in a Baroque style are neither prophetic nor countercultural. If regal or antiquarian distinction was once a value for church leaders, if pretension to being ecclesiastically or even metaphysically better was presumed, since Vatican II more and more people ignore such displays. Time never stands still. What seemed powerful in the past is today merely curious. Many Catholics are reaching a point where antiquated clothes are not inspiring and sacramental but exist outside human life.

Both the church’s expression of the reign of God and the culture to which it speaks are historical. Change touches everything. At any time, something new is being born and something static and alien is dying. History flows through the relationships between faith and grace and people, and those are always being determined anew in the concrete. The Holy Spirit strives, against sin, unreality and selfishness, to animate the church. In the last analysis, clothes are just clothes.

Henry David Thoreau said it well: “Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes.” Perhaps some lesson remains in the words of Psalm 132: “I will vest the priests in holiness, and the faithful will shout for joy.”

Complete Article HERE!

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Catholic League: Jewish Rabbis Even Greater Abusers Than Catholic Priests

COMMENTARY

Bill Donohue, the head of the pedophile priests supporting Catholic League, in an attempt to deflect attention from the regular, serious, and unresolved sexual transgressions, sexual assault, and child rape within the Catholic Church, today pointed the finger at Orthodox Jewish Rabbis, saying, “[t]he most serious cases of the sexual abuse of minors currently taking place are among Orthodox Jewish rabbis in Brooklyn.” Donohue, proving the ludicrousness of the existence and purpose of his entire organization, lambasted Jay Leno for a joke he made last night about an L.A. Bishop who recently resigned after revealing he had fathered two children. Donohue claims also that Leno has “a long track record of bashing Catholicism.” So, rather than work to fix the root causes of systemic and felonious issues within the Church, Donohue chooses instead to attacks its critics, hoping, praying that no one will notice the Catholic Church’s role and reputation in America is rapidly diminishing, even among America’s Catholics.

Jay Leno, according to the Catholic League, Thursday said, “I thought bishops could only move diagonally. I didn’t know they could move up and down.”

Donohue’s group added,

When making these remarks, Leno gestured with his hands, waving them side to side, and then up and down.

Leno went on to say, “Isn’t it amazing the bishop of L.A. confessed to fathering two children? But, hey, he didn’t use birth control, so at least he followed the church rules. Ya gotta give him credit for that.”

“The most serious cases of the sexual abuse of minors currently taking place are among Orthodox Jewish rabbis in Brooklyn, yet Leno would never tell a joke at their expense,” Donohue said in a statement. “The rate of HIV/AIDS among homosexuals is 50 times higher than in the rest of the population, yet Leno would never tell a joke at their expense. [Note: making such jokes would be equally offensive.] But if there is one wayward Catholic clergyman, it’s not only acceptable to ridicule him, it’s okay to mock the teachings of the Catholic Church.”

(The disclaimer above is Donohue’s, not ours.)

Donohue offered no proof of his allegations, nor did he offer any compassion, help, or hope for any victims, regardless of religious affiliation.

Donohue, who earlier this month claimed that rape victims of the Catholic Church’s pedophile priests are “professional victims,” and “a pitiful bunch of malcontents” unable to move on, apparently is learning that we’re watching his every word. In the past, Donohue would not have inserted the HIV/AIDS disclaimer.

In fact, just two months ago, Donohue called AIDS a “self-inflicted wound,” claiming that if “homosexuals” followed the teachings of the Church they would not “self-destruct.”

But Donohue’s default position of trying to point the finger elsewhere is offensive and misguided. No doubt there are child abuse problems in the Jewish community also, but Donohue neither works for the Jewish community, nor the Islamic community, nor any other community.

If Donohue spent his time working to prevent abuse, working to help victims of child rape by the Catholic Church — rather than, say, assist Archbishop Dolan to bash 16-year old abuse victims — then perhaps he would be qualified to point fingers and call his organization the “Catholic League.” Because right now, it’s merely a league of one extraordinary bigot.

Complete Article HERE!

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Maine Catholic Church versus gay rights advocates

Maine’s Catholic Church and a coalition of gay rights advocates are once again fighting an emotional battle over same sex marriage.

Supporters delivered signatures to the Secretary of State’s office in Augusta Thursday and officially launched a new campaign to give same sex couples the right to marry in Maine.

From Cumberland to Caribou, these boxes contain the signatures of more than 100,000 Maine voters.

All of them gathered by gay marriage supporters who want the issue on the November ballot.

“It is never too late for justice never too late to do the right thing, time to end discrimination against Maine same sex couples and their families,” said Shenna Bellows with Maine’s Civil Liberties Union.

This new campaign comes three years after a stinging defeat for gay marriage supporters when Maine voters overturned a same sex marriage law passed by the legislature.

Back in 2009, gay marriage supporters needed to lobby lawmakers. This time around, they are going directly to Maine voters.

Advocates say they have knocked on more than 100,000 doors in the past year, trying to change hearts and minds one person at a time.

Lucy Bauer and her partner of nearly 20 years, Annie Kiermeyer, are hopeful this more personal campaign will have a different result.

“Nothing will please us more than to have the commitment made to each other acknowledged and honored by people here in our beloved state,” said Bauer.

Maine’s Catholic Church, which played a big role in the campaign to overturn the law three years ago is gearing up for another battle, albeit reluctantly.

“Quite frankly, we don’t think we should have to go through this again,” said Church spokesperson Brian Souchet. “It’s divisive and contentious lot of money spent on both sides.”

Gay marriage advocates believe the campaign will cost their side between four and five million dollars.

They are encouraged by internal polling that shows 54 percent of Mainers now support the issue.

But polls aren’t votes and, over the next 10 months, both sides expect it’s going to be a difficult and emotional debate.

Complete Article HERE!

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Jacqueline G. Wexler, Ex-Nun Who Took On Church, Dies at 85

Jacqueline G. Wexler, a former Roman Catholic nun who fought the Vatican’s authority and won, then found herself on the other side of the barricades when she became president of Hunter College in 1970, facing student demonstrators storming her office, died on Thursday in Orlando, Fla. She was 85.

Her death was confirmed by her daughter, Wendy Wexler Branton.

While still a nun and battling the church on many issues, Ms. Wexler drew nationwide attention as a bellwether of the liberal reforms of the Second Vatican Council. She fought successfully against church control of Webster College, the small Catholic women’s college near St. Louis that she headed in the 1960s. She advocated greater participation by women in church leadership and criticized the church’s ban on birth control.

Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, the Catholic televangelist, referred to her as a “Benedict Arnold” in 1967, the year she won autonomy for Webster and simultaneously renounced her vows. Dick Cavett had her as a guest on his late-night TV talk show.

Ms. Wexler’s appointment in 1970 as president of Hunter, one of 11 colleges in the City University of New York system, coincided with a turbulent year in its history. Students, roiled by a combination of antiwar politics and local tensions caused by rising fees and a new university-wide open admissions policy, held demonstrations that shut down the campus repeatedly that spring.

Protesters blocked building entrances and elevators, forcing others to use emergency doors and stairways. Ms. Wexler, refusing at first to call the police, waded into angry crowds to talk, only to be shouted down. Barricaded in her office several times, she finally called the police.

A reporter for The New York Times was in the president’s office one afternoon that April when the phones rang, bringing news that students had blocked elevators and entrances for the second time that month.

“Here we go again,” Ms. Wexler said.

Outside her window, protesters chanted in rhyme, accusing her of colluding with “pigs,” the epithet they used for the police.

Ms. Wexler said that if anything had prepared her for the turmoil, it was having been a lightning rod for condemnation by conservatives in the church.

“Zealotry is the enemy,” she said, adding: “The far right called you every name, from daughter to Beelzebub on, and you learned to take it.”

She was born Jean Grennan on Aug. 2, 1926, the youngest of four children of Edward and Florence Grennan, who owned a small farm in Sterling, Ill. She later took the name Jacqueline in honor of an older brother, Jack, who died of a brain tumor at 21.

After graduating from Webster College, she entered the order of the Sisters of Loretto in 1949, and taught high school math and English in St. Louis and El Paso, Tex. She received her master’s in English from the University of Notre Dame in 1957, and returned to Webster in 1959 as an instructor and administrator.

Sister J., as she was known, was named president of Webster in 1965. She began initiatives aimed at raising educational standards and halting declining enrollment, then common among Catholic women’s colleges.

Sister J. made institutional separation from the church her first priority. “The very nature of higher education is opposed to juridical control by the church,” she said at the time.

She also led the transition to co-education, built new facilities, and started a social-justice program that sent students to work in the poorest neighborhoods of St. Louis, attracting the attention of the Kennedy administration.

She was appointed to the president’s advisory panel on research and development in education and to the original steering committee that developed Project Head Start, the federal program for low-income children.

After several years of well-publicized jousting with Sister J., the Vatican, in 1967, granted the Sisters of Loretto permission to put Webster under the control of an independent, secular board of trustees. It was one of the first Catholic colleges to cut its ties to the church. Asked for his reaction, Archbishop Sheen replied to a reporter: “No comment. I am more interested in Nathan Hales than Benedict Arnolds.”

In 1969, the former Sister Jacqueline married Paul Wexler, a record company executive, and adopted his two children, Wayne and Wendy. Besides Ms. Wexler Branton, Ms. Wexler is survived by her husband and son, as well as four grandchildren, two great-grandchildren and two sisters.

Ms. Wexler was known as a calming presence at Hunter. She led it through the rocky early 1970s and helped make it the city university’s premier center for health care education. Before stepping down in 1979, she brought Bellevue Hospital’s nursing school into the college, expanded health care training, raised money to start a gerontology program in the school of social work and inaugurated a women’s studies program.

From 1982 until 1990, she was president of the National Conference of Christians and Jews.

After receiving an honorary degree from her alma mater, now Webster University, in 2007, Ms. Wexler, then 81, was given a tour of the campus by the president accompanied by a reporter for The St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Many buildings had been added since she left. She was eager to see them all, the newspaper said, and seemed to grow impatient when the elevator in one building was slow to arrive.

Whether out of eagerness or habit forged in the crucible of 1970, Ms. Wexler proceeded to the stairs.

“Let’s walk,” she said. “I wore comfortable shoes.”

Complete Article HERE!

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Disobedient priests plan global movement

A parish priest who encouraged clergymen to be “disobedient” towards the Vatican plans to go international.

Helmut Schüller of the Preachers’ Initiative said yesterday (Sun) that “2012 will be the year of internationalisation”. Schüller – who previously headed Caritas Austria – said the Austrian Roman Catholic Church should “finally take members seriously”.

Schüller criticised the Vatican due to its conservative approach towards key topics of the 21st century and said the institution resembled an “absolutist monarchy”. The head of the parish of Probstdorf in the province of Lower Austria stressed that his initiative “receives a lot of approval from Catholic reform movements all over the world.”

Schüller claimed some weeks ago that the Preachers’ Initiative currently consisted of 370 members. He said yesterday there were no plans for further talks with the highest representative of the Roman Catholic Church of Austria, Viennese Archbishop Christoph Cardinal Schönborn. The archbishop condemned the word disobedience as a “term of fight” last month. Schönborn said it was “burdened with a negative connotation”.

Schönborn said it was not true that he opposed all kinds of reforms of the Church. He admitted that there was the need to rethink certain decisions and opinions but also made clear that he was against the crucial points of Schüller’s agenda.

The Preachers’ Initiative, which was established more than half a year ago, calls on the Vatican to allow priests to give Holy Communion to people who married a second time at registry offices after getting divorced following church weddings. The group also says women should be allowed to become Catholic priests.

Austria is one of the Roman Catholic Church’s most significant strongholds in Europe. Around 5.4 million Austrians are members of the Church. The number of people leaving the Church declined by 32 per cent from 2010 to 2011. More than 58,600 people quit their membership last year. Around 65 per cent of adult residents of the country are part of its Catholic Church – down sharply from 1981 when the same applied to 84 per cent.

The budget of Austria’s Catholic Church was strained in 2011 due to declining membership numbers meaning receding financial support but also compensatory payments to victims of sexual and physical abuse. The Church paid 6.4 million Euros altogether to 456 people who came forward to inform special commissions dealing with the issue that they suffered abuse at boarding schools and other institutions run by the Church.

The Church was also in the news recently due to discussions over whether it should be allowed to charge people who left it. Maximilian Hiegelsberger of the Austrian Association of Farmers’ section in Upper Austria said the Church could tax everyone regardless of whether they were members or not. Hiegelsberger argued that every resident of the country benefited by the Church’s activities in some way. He also made aware of abbeys’ positive effects on the domestic tourism industry.

The Social Democrats (SPÖ) rejected his appeal while St. Pölten Diocese Bishop Klaus Küng said it was an idea worth discussing in his opinion. Hiegelsberger is a member of the conservative People’s Party (ÖVP) which has formed a federal government coalition with the SPÖ since 2007. The SPÖ emphasised it would not support his initiative. The party branded Hiegelsberger’s suggested post-Church membership fee as a “forced charge”.

The Austrian Catholic Church generated 394 million Euros with the so-called Church tax in 2010. The sum Church members have to transfer depends on their salaries. Unemployed people and everyone with a comparably small income do not have to pay anything.

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Ex-priest keeps the faith

Unable to deny his feelings, Father Jim resigns to be with the woman he loves

Like many Roman Catholic men who feel called to the priesthood, the Rev. Jim Hearne wrestled with whether ordination was right for him.

The youngest of seven in an Irish Catholic family, he saw the joy of family life firsthand and never could quite extinguish the desire to one day have children of his own. But spurred to help stem the priest shortage and strengthen the integrity of the cloth, Hearne donned a priest’s collar in 2005 at age 25.

Now he wonders if his six years in the pulpit as “Father Jim” might have been preparation to become Jim, the father. After a six-month leave of absence from St. Giles Roman Catholic Church in Oak Park, Illinois, Hearne decided not to return to the pulpit, but to stay in the pews and pray to one day start a family of his own.

He has no intention of turning his back on Catholicism. Rather, he wants to be more faithful to the church he calls home, and faithful to his feelings.

Hearne has fallen in love.

“To stay and bear and grunt it out I think would be unfair to God,” Hearne, 32, said during a recent interview at his childhood home in Dolton, Illinois. “It would be unfair to the people of God and would be unfair to me. … Perhaps God just wanted me to be a priest for six years. It’s odd. It’s weird. It’s mysterious. That’s our God.”

Hearne’s decision has sent a ripple through the Oak Park congregation, where many parishioners bemoan the Catholic Church’s celibacy requirement and the scarcity of men who want to become priests. Allowing priests to marry would bolster the dwindling ranks, many believe, and enable committed Catholics like Hearne to serve both God and family.

Meanwhile, Cardinal Francis George said he wishes Hearne would reconsider.

But Hearne’s tale is not about a loss of faith or a clash with church hierarchy. It’s about a man who believes he is following God in an unexpected direction. While he already misses his ministry, he does not resent his church for prohibiting priests from marrying. Celibacy is not necessarily a bad idea, he says.

“I think the spiritual quest or journey is our attempt to understand, freely receive, embrace God’s entering into our life out of pure love,” he said. “Am I to have a family? What kind of work will I do? Will I be seen as an outcast by other members of the clergy and even the cardinal for having left the ministry?”

Hearne doesn’t speak in simple sentences. He delivers sermons. After all, he spent most of his life training to become a priest.

That journey began at the bedside of his dying mother 21 years ago. As he waited for his six older brothers and sisters to arrive at the hospital, priests rotated in and out of the room, offering prayers and comfort to the 11-year-old son and his father.

Hearne believes he saw the best of the priesthood that day.

“I really saw God shining through all those people in a way I hadn’t before and thought: ‘Maybe I could do that. Maybe God is calling me in that direction,’ ” Hearne said.

His older brother John saw Hearne’s vocation then, too. While most of the siblings were angry with God for taking their mother at age 50, their youngest brother remained upbeat, he said.

“When I look back, my brother was probably the strongest of all. We all knew there was something there,” said John Hearne, 45, of Dyer, Indiana. “I believe he saw something that we didn’t: faith.”

Jim Hearne enrolled at Mount Carmel High School, an all-boys school run by the Carmelite religious order.

He later enrolled at St. Joseph College Seminary at Loyola University, where for the first time in years he attended classes with the opposite sex.

Several fellow seminarians disregarded the prohibition on dating and eventually dropped out of the program. Hearne adhered to the rule, but it was a challenge. When he reached Mundelein Seminary for his graduate work, a veteran clergyman offered some words of wisdom that helped. Every priest falls in love during the course of his priesthood, the clergyman warned.

“You praise God in those moments,” Hearne said. “Just because you have the blackandwhite collar on doesn’t mean you stop having feelings. That’s what he really got across. Now it’s what you do with that love that will determine your course of action.”

Just as seeing the best of the priesthood propelled Hearne toward the vocation, witnessing the worst of the clerical culture by the time he was ordained further fuelled his commitment. While he was still enrolled in Mundelein Seminary, the sexabuse scandal erupted in Boston and spread nationwide.

“It was going to be on my generation of priests to try and somehow, some way restore trust and integrity to the priesthood, remembering that [the] majority of priests are doing what they’re supposed to be doing,” Hearne said.

As an associate pastor at St. James Catholic Church, in Arlington Heights, Illinois, and also at St. Giles, Hearne was popular with young people and heavily involved in the youth ministries.

But as the young priest immersed himself in the daytoday demands of priesthood, he realized he was lonely.

“They can teach you all they want” about celibacy, he said. “You can read all the books about it that have been printed – volumes and volumes. Until you live it and experience it, it’s a far different thing.”

To protect her privacy, Hearne won’t say much about the woman he fell for. But he does acknowledge that it’s serious.

“A man doesn’t leave the priesthood just to date,” he said.

His brother John made sure of it, interrogating the woman the first time they met, to make sure she was equally committed and understood what his brother was willing to give up for her.

Jim Hearne emphasizes that he has “crossed no moral boundaries,” and he still upholds the church’s teaching on chastity.

Unable to deny his feelings any longer, he met with the cardinal last July and requested a leave of absence. Falling in love was not a legitimate reason to leave the priesthood, the cardinal told him, before granting him six months to give his decision more thought.

“Jim is a very fine man. He’s a really good man,” George said. “I hope with God’s grace that it will work out.”

The cardinal also warned him that if he left the priesthood and became a layperson once again, he could not immediately marry in the church – a source of heartbreak for Hearne, who wouldn’t want to marry anywhere else.

In a letter to parishioners at St. Giles, Hearne assured them that misconduct had not spurred his sudden departure. He also assured them that they had not forced him to leave.

“Please know that you have done nothing wrong,” he wrote.

“I love God. I love my faith. I love you. And it is because of this love that I need to do this for myself.”

Complete Article HERE!