May 9, 2013

Craig Hanson

For LCWR, the more the papacy changes, the more it stays the same

The more something changes, the more it stays the same. It’s a cliché, yes, but it seems to be an increasingly apt one to apply to the situation between women religious and the Vatican.

For those watching the situation unfold since April 2012, when the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith mandated that the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) be reformed by three U.S. bishops, this week promised to offer some explanations about where the new pope stands on the issue. Pope Francis even met with members of the International Union of Superiors General (UISG), a group of nearly 2,000 leaders of women religious throughout the world who have been meeting in Rome all week.

There have been high hopes for Pope Francis among those left spiritually bruised by the papacy of Pope Benedict XVI. Francis paid his own hotel bill after the conclave, took the bus with the rest of the bishops, refused to move into the papal apartment, claimed to want a “poor church,” and celebrated Holy Thursday at a juvenile detention facility where he washed the feet of 10 men and two women.

But a month after his election, a fly got caught in the balm Francis was pouring over the church’s body. LCWR leaders were informed in a meeting with the doctrinal congregation’s lead cleric, Archbishop Gerhard Müller, that the new pope had reaffirmed the mandated reform of the their organization.

Many Catholics who support both the LCWR and the new pope were at a loss to understand the news. Some imagined Francis simply wasn’t up to speed about the injustices behind the mandate. Speculation ran high that Müller hadn’t even spoken to Francis about the issue in any depth and that, somehow, Müller was speaking on behalf of Francis without the new pope’s approval.

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There was hope this week that all this conjecture was accurate when Cardinal João Braz de Aviz, head of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Religious, told the sisters at the UISG meeting that the doctrinal congregation made its fateful decision without his knowledge and that it caused him “much pain.”

Less than a day later after his stunning admission, Cardinal Braz de Aviz was apparently taken to the doctrinal congregation’s woodshed. The Vatican quickly released a statement claiming that the media (namely, the report in NCR) had misinterpreted Braz de Aviz’s words and that Braz de Aviz and Müller “reaffirmed their common commitment to the renewal of Religious Life, and particularly to the Doctrinal Assessment of the LCWR and the program of reform it requires, in accordance with the wishes of the Holy Father.”

The statement made two realities clear. First, as has typically been the case throughout the church’s history, the doctrinal congregation wields more power than any other congregation in the Curia. Second, Francis is more familiar with the saga between the doctrinal congregation and LCWR than some had hoped.

In a press conference the following day, Braz de Aviz claimed not to have seen this statement from the Vatican and affirmed NCR‘s report as “precise.” He said the only idea that got lost in translation was his explanation of authority.

Braz de Aviz went on to reassert what Pope Francis had said earlier in the day about authority and obedience during his speech to the UISG.

“Christ and the church. The two have to be together. For some people, Christ is fine, but the church isn’t. You can’t separate the two,” the cardinal told the press.

Braz de Aviz was echoing Francis’ statement to women religious: “It is an absurd dichotomy to think of living with Jesus but without the church, of following Jesus outside of the church, of loving Jesus without loving the church.”

Francis has offered this idea more than once over the last few weeks, but when directed at women religious, as it was on Wednesday, it takes on a particular weight.

At the UISG meeting the previous day, Congregation of Jesus Sr. Martha Zechmeister, an Austrian professor of systematic theology, told the gathering of 800 women superiors, “Religious obedience ultimately can only respond to God’s authority. In the traditional language, fulfilling the will of God is the only legitimate reason for religious obedience.”

It is a sentiment we’ve heard often since the doctrinal congregation’s crackdown on LCWR, and one for which the new pope apparently has little sympathy. Francis makes it clear that it is impossible to follow Jesus and not follow the church. In Francis’ eyes, it seems, to love and obey God is to love and obey the church.

Though Francis was the first pope to meet with the UISG, those who expected a dialogue with the new pontiff were likely disappointed. Francis offered a 15-minute reflection on religious life, then shook hands and exchanged brief pleasantries with the UISG’s executive board and staff.

As NCR‘s Joshua J. McElwee reported from Rome, Francis’ speech “focused on three themes, telling the sister leaders to keep their lives centered on Christ, to think of authority in terms of service, and that they must hold a ‘feeling with the church that finds its filial expression in fidelity to the magisterium.’ “

In other words, the way to be a true daughter of the church is to be faithful and obedient to the teachings of the pope and bishops.

With ideas that are no different from those of Pope John Paul II and Benedict, Francis told the sisters they should accept a “fertile chastity” because women religious are “mothers” who “generate spiritual children in the church.”

The new pope maintained his and his predecessors’ belief in the “special” (but not equal) role of women in the church, telling the sisters that without them, the church “would be missing maternity, affection, tenderness.” He went on to tell them to put themselves “in an attitude of adoration and service.”

If there is a point on which both Francis and the sisters agree, it is the importance of “touching the flesh of the poor Christ in the humble, the poor, the sick, and in children.”

But Francis does not seem to understand that it is precisely because women religious regularly touch that wounded body of Christ that they have such rich theological imaginations and a longing to delve into the spiritual questions of our time. Their intensely sacramental lives of service help clarify their priorities in their pursuits of justice and mercy.

All that women religious have done — the work they have committed to, the leadership style they have developed and the theologians they invite to their meetings — has been inspired by their ministry to the broken body of Christ. What Francis and the doctrinal congregation may interpret as a “deviation from doctrine” or a “failure to obey” are really just the fruits of women religious fulfilling their vocation as a prophetic life form.

Perhaps the greatest irony is that the Vatican is punishing women religious for failing to strictly adhere to doctrines that they have had no voice in developing and no role in shaping — precisely because they are women.

The look and feel of the papacy may be changing under Francis, but the fundamental understanding magisterium’s authority and the requirement that the women obey the men, I’m afraid, will continue to stay the same.

[Jamie L. Manson received her Master of Divinity degree from Yale Divinity School, where she studied Catholic theology and sexual ethics. Her NCR columns have won numerous awards, most recently second prize for Commentary of the Year from Religion Newswriters (RNA).]

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Apr 24, 2013

Terri Mann

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The Countercultural Way of Christ’s Love

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, it is always a pleasure for me to come to this campus-ministry program Mass here at St. Stephen’s Church that serves all of you who are part of the George Washington University family.

In a particular way, I want to offer a word of support and encouragement to your chaplain, Father Greg Shaffer. All of us have come here this evening for two purposes: to celebrate Mass and to stand in solidarity with a good priest.

I am inspired by the ministry here. I often use Father Shaffer and you students of the Newman Center as examples of the New Evangelization. In fact, my recent book, entitled New Evangelization: Passing on the Catholic Faith Today, begins by describing my visit here and witnessing the vitality of this chaplaincy.

In today’s Gospel, we are reminded of two very important elements in the life of the Church, foundational elements: that Jesus is risen from the dead and offers us a whole new way of life and that Jesus chooses, appoints and empowers shepherds of his flock.

In the encounter between Jesus and Peter, Jesus asks Peter, “Do you love me?” And in answer to the affirmative response of Peter, Jesus said, “Feed my sheep.”

For 2,000 years, successors to Peter and those who work with the bishops — priests all over the world — have that same charge: Feed Jesus’ flock.

The whole world watched one month ago as the Church chose the most recent successor to Peter, Pope Francis. He continues to do the same work that was assigned to Peter, to every priest: “Feed my sheep!”

With what is the flock to be fed?

There are two great sources of nourishment for those who claim to be a part of the flock of Jesus, those who wish to be associated with the risen Lord, those who have encountered Christ alive in their hearts, in the world, in the Church today.

Those two sources are the word of God and the sacraments — the Eucharist.

But before we even begin to talk about the word of God and the sacraments of the Church as that substance with which the flock is fed, we have to ask: Who are the members of this flock? Who are the sheep of Jesus’ flock?

If anything is clear from the Gospel, it is that some have chosen to follow Jesus. Jesus has chosen some to work with him in guiding his flock.

But the choice to follow Jesus and his visible presence in the world today, that is, the Church, is rooted in the free will of people who say, “I would like to be your disciple. I want to be with you. I want to be a part of your Church.”

Not all who hear the words of Jesus, not all who hear the words of the Church, not all who hear the words of the Gospel, the word of God, choose to follow.

With respect to those who do not choose to follow, we do not impose those words of the Church on anyone. We propose the ways of the Kingdom of God in terms that the world can understand and examine, in terms they may freely accept or reject.

There are recorded in the Gospel many episodes of those who found what Jesus said to be simply “hard sayings,” and they would no longer walk with him.

When Jesus was proclaiming his teaching that his own body and blood would be food for his flock, that the Eucharist that he would establish the night before he died would be the sustenance of his family, there are those who simply walked away.

They said: “We cannot take this; we cannot accept this; we are not going to follow this.”

Jesus did not respond by changing the teaching.

Even when they said to him, “You need to be current; you need to be contemporary; you need to be politically correct; you need to be with the times,” Jesus did not say, “Oh, then, I will change my teaching.”

He simply said, “No, this is my body; this is my blood. This is food for you; this is sustenance for eternal life.”

And some simply walked away.

Jesus continued to be a countercultural voice.

Jesus did not change his teaching — indeed, he could not change his teaching because what he teaches is truth.

He announced with firmness that he had come from God, that God loves us, that there is a way to live that is in conformity with God’s plan and will.

He proclaimed that he had come to confirm the commandments of God. He proclaimed that he had come to bring us new life and a way of walking with him. He announced the Beatitudes. He announced his law of love.

All of this Jesus offers to us. What he does not offer to us is the right to change his words, his vision, his revelation, his teaching of truth and love to conform with any particular cultural demand today.

Priests — your chaplain, pastors all over this diocese, bishops all around the world — are trying to be faithful to that Gospel teaching. That is what they announce. This is who they are — preachers of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. They cannot change Our Lord’s message. They pass on the Good News.

Yet there are those who claim that voices for the Gospel should be silenced, that we should be silenced.

There are those who say there is no room for any other view but their own.

As the first reading for the liturgy today reminds us, “When the captain and the court officers had brought the apostles in and made them stand before the Sanhedrin, the high priest questioned them, ‘We gave you strict orders, did we not, to stop teaching in that name?’” (Acts 5:27-28). But the text goes on to point out, “But Peter and the apostles said in reply, ‘We must obey God rather than men’” (Acts 5:29).

We are not talking about ancient history and faraway lands. We are talking about our own lived experience in our country.

The Church’s long history recounts many examples of efforts to silence her teaching.

Pope Francis is the 266th pope. Nearly all the first 60 popes were put to death for the faith by those in political power who disagreed with Jesus, his Gospel — and, therefore, his Church’s shepherds.

We have seen this over and over again, in various forms of narrow-minded discrimination and blind bigotry.

Catholics have suffered at the hands of all kinds of movements, the Ku Klux Klan, the Know Nothing Party, the burning of Catholic churches and convents in various parts of the then-Protestant colonies.

This history teaches us that, like any freedom, religious liberty requires constant vigilance and protection or it will disappear.

And so, here we are.

The idea that the pastor of a parish today or the chaplain of a religious community and campus ministry today should simply be silenced because he faithfully announces the Gospel of Jesus Christ — that he should not be allowed to engage in dialogue with our culture, even in a place that is dedicated to the free and diverse expression of ideas — may seem somewhat radical today, but you have to remember there have always been those who try to force their totalitarian views on all of us.

When we talk about marriage, when we speak about the dignity of human life, when we teach about the natural moral order — these are all elements that we find deeply rooted in the consciousness of the Judeo-Christian tradition.

Just because someone wants to change all of that today does not mean that the rest of us no longer have a place in this society.

Remember after someone says you cannot speak here, then comes the sentence, “And you do not belong here.”

I want to make something very, very clear: Our response must be the response of Jesus Christ, the response of his Church, a response rooted in love. When we are attacked, there will always be the temptation to respond in kind. But we must respond out of who we are: We are followers of Jesus Christ.

But we also need to remember that we all know people — homosexual and heterosexual alike — who may disagree with particular teachings of the Church, but do not express that disagreement by demanding that the Church and her ministers be silenced.

We all struggle to live up to the demands of the Gospel — even when we fail — because we know that what Jesus and his Church teach are the words of everlasting life.

The Church calls us to keep trying to draw closer to Christ.

This we do, not because we are perfect, but because he is the Way, the Truth and Life.

We must be inclusive; we must recognize the bonds of mutual charity, and we must continue to reach out to all of those brothers and sisters who come to Mass to be with us. We must be allowed to do so freely.

The Catholic Church welcomes everyone and tries to walk with them on life’s journey, while at the same time upholding a moral law by which we are all obliged to live.

We have so much more to offer, and so does America.

There should be tolerance and respect among all people.

There has to be room enough in America in a society as large, as free and pluralistic as ours to make space for all of us.

Dear brothers and sisters, never be ashamed of Christ, his Gospel, his Truth — or your identity as Jesus’ disciples. Always be proud of who you are.

Thank you for standing up for the freedom to speak our faith, and thank you for standing up for your chaplain.

God bless him and all of you.

Cardinal Donald Wuerl is the archbishop of Washington.

Apr 5, 2013

Craig Hanson

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Dolan and Cordileone: please don’t call it love

Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York made headlines on Easter Sunday morning during an interview with George Stephanopoulos when he professed his love for gays and lesbians, saying:

“Well, the first thing I’d say to them is, ‘I love you, too. And God loves you. And you are made in God’s image and likeness. And — and we — we want your happiness. But — and you’re entitled to friendship.’”

I’m getting weary of bishops and cardinals who tell me how much they love my gay and lesbian friends and I, while at the same time willfully misunderstanding us, refusing to talk to us and devaluing our relationships. (I would include my transgender friends here, but no hierarch, to my knowledge, has even uttered the “T” word yet.)

Dolan has claimed to love gay people before. Back in June 2011, on the Sunday following the historic passage of marriage equality (which by coincidence was also the day of the NYC gay pride parade) he told the press inside St. Patrick’s Cathedral:

“To the gay community, I love you very much. If anything I ever said or did would lead you to believe that I have anything less than love or respect for you, I apologize.”

Dolan said this just three months after his infamous interview with “60 Minutes” where he likened same-sex marriage to incest, saying, “I love my mom, but I don’t have a right to marry her.”

As he spoke to the press that Pride Sunday, just outside the cathedral doors stood dozens of Catholic LGBT people and their allies in a peaceful act of witness and a call for dialogue with the institutional church. The witness is an annual event organized by members of the New York City chapter of Dignity USA, and it has gone on for decades. Dolan knew they were outside, but like every archbishop before him, he refused to engage with those gathered.

I didn’t believe Dolan’s profession of love back then, and I am no more convinced since Easter Sunday. When Stephanopoulos pressed Dolan to articulate how he could push an agenda against marriage equality without seeming anti-gay, Dolan appeared baffled (one of his standard rhetorical devices), saying:

“Well, I don’t know. We’re still — we’re — we’re trying. We’re trying our best to do it. We got to listen to people …”

Apparently, for Dolan, “trying our best” in 2012 looked something like this:

Co-signing an anti-marriage equality document with some of the most vociferous anti-gay leaders of Evangelical churches.
Refusing to respond to a letter and petition written by Joseph Amodeo, a former member of the junior board of Catholic Charities of the New York archdiocese, pleading with Dolan to meet with LGBT homeless youth, many of whom were thrown out of their homes by religious parents. Amodeo later resigned from the board, without public reaction from Dolan.
Failing to speak out when his brother bishops and priests turn the Eucharist into a political weapon, denying communion to LGBT people and those who support marriage equality.

Given the harm of the recent past, it is understandable that Dolan’s head-scratching felt a bit disingenuous to many Catholic gays and lesbians.

Of course, Dolan isn’t the only hierarch claiming to love gays and lesbians while also simultaneously working to ensure that they do not receive equal rights under the law. When Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone was named to his current post in San Francisco, he declared in his first press conference:

“The challenge for us in the church is to help people who are in a situation of a sexual orientation where they feel alienated from the church and sometimes experience it very directly. We need to continue to learn how to be welcoming, let them know that we love them and we want to help them.”

Cordileone made this statement in the wake of his years of intensive organizing against marriage equality in California, which earned him the dubious title “Father of Proposition 8.”

Cordileone further demonstrated his perverse notion of love this past Holy Thursday when he literally created a sign of division on the San Francisco archdiocese’s Facebook page.

The archbishop and his communications team posted a graphic of a white division sign and the citation “Luke 12:51” on a red square. (Luke 12:51 is the verse in which Jesus says, “Do you suppose that I came to grant peace on earth? I tell you, no, but rather division.”)

The symbol was intended to mock an image, created by the Human Rights Campaign (a gay rights group), that depicts a white equal sign on a red square. The group encouraged supporters of marriage equality to use the symbol as their Facebook avatar while the Supreme Court heard arguments on issues related to same-sex marriage and the Defense of Marriage Act.

Cordileone’s divisive post was reportedly deleted after eliciting more than 350 angry responses on the archdiocese’s Facebook page.

Much as Cordileone’s Holy Thursday message offends me, at some level I appreciate his graphically transparent depiction of his

beliefs. Dolan, on the other hand, seems to want to ride the waves of good vibes being felt by Catholics and non-Catholics worldwide in response to Pope Francis’ recent series of humble and inclusive acts.

But for all of his radical reaching out to the margins, less than three years ago, the new pope himself had less-than-loving words for gay and lesbian couples seeking equal rights. In a strongly-worded letter to a group of Benedictine nuns, then-Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio wrote:

“Let’s not be naive: This is not a simple political fight; it is a destructive proposal to God’s plan. This is not a mere legislative proposal (that’s just its form), but a move by the father of lies that seeks to confuse and deceive the children of God… Let’s look to St. Joseph, Mary, and the Child to ask fervently that they defend the Argentine family in this moment… May they support, defend, and accompany us in this war of God.”

While it may be true that Dolan, Cordileone and even the new pope are seeking a more pastoral approach to gays and lesbians, I really wish that they would stop calling it love.

Love does not ignore letters pleading for dialogue and reconciliation.

Love does not turn away spiritually hungry people from God’s Eucharistic table.

Love does not use spiritually violent rhetoric against a marginalized community’s fight for justice.

When we love another person, we genuinely desire to know her or him. When we love, we long to listen to the beloved and to learn his or her story. To love in this way, we must be authentically present to the beloved. This kind of love is risky because it demands vulnerability on the parts of both the lover and the beloved.

If members of the hierarchy took the risk of truly listening to gay and lesbian couples, they might find, as the majority of U.S. Catholics have, that many of these couples equally embody the faithfulness, devotion, sacrifice and fruitfulness that characterize the best heterosexual relationships.

They might open themselves up to the possibility that God is speaking new truths through the voices and lives of gay and lesbian couples and transgender persons. They might see that not only are same-sex couples entitled to equal rights and protection, they have as much potential to honor the institution of marriage as opposite-sex couples.

But that quality of listening requires true presence and vulnerability. For now, men like Dolan and Cordileone continue to insist that gays and lesbians do not know the truth about themselves and their relationships. They contend that the institutional church’s understanding of gays and lesbians is based on absolute truth, and they tell gays and lesbians that their own self-understanding is based not on truth, but on personal opinion, whim or caprice.

So, until Dolan, Cordileone and their fellow prelates are willing to offer gays, lesbians and transgender persons mutual dialogue, deep listening and authentic presence, I respectfully ask that they stop telling us they love us.

Call it politeness, or civility or an attempt at tolerance, but please don’t call it love.

[Jamie L. Manson received her Master of Divinity degree from Yale Divinity School, where she studied Catholic theology and sexual ethics. Her NCR columns have won numerous awards, most recently second prize for Commentary of the Year from Religion Newswriters (RNA).]

Editor’s note: We can send you an email alert every time Jamie Manson’s column, “Grace on the Margins,” is posted to NCRonline.org. Go to this page and follow directions: Email alert sign-up.

Mar 17, 2013

Michael Gadson

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Paedophilia ‘not a criminal condition’, says leading Catholic

The church is still dealing with historic international evidence of sexual abuse by priests and allegations of a cover-up.

As recently as this month, the BBC claimed to have seen evidence that bishops in the Catholic Church in Scotland knew about 20 allegations of child sex abuse by priests between 1985 and 1995.

Wilfrid Fox Napier, The Catholic Archbishop of Durban, told BBC Radio 5 Live that people who were abused during childhood and became paedophiles were not criminally responsible for their actions in the same way as somebody “who chooses to do something like that”.

Cardinal Napier was among the 115 cardinals in the Vatican conclave that elected Pope Francis earlier this week. He called paedophilia a “psychological disorder.”

He said: “What do you do with disorders? You have got to try and put them right. If I as a normal being choose to break the law knowing that I am breaking the law, then I think I need to be punished.

“From my experience paedophilia is actually an illness. It is not a criminal condition, it is an illness.”

The cardinal mentioned two priests he knew who were abused as children and went on to become paedophiles.

He told the BBC: “Don’t tell me that those people are criminally responsible like somebody who chooses to do something like that.

“I don’t think you can really take the position and say that person deserves to be punished when he was himself damaged.”

Barbara Dorries, from the US-based Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, who was herself abused as a child by a priest, told the BBC: “If it is a disease that’s fine, but it’s also a crime and crimes are punished. Criminals are held accountable for what they did and what they do.

“The bishops and the cardinals have gone to great lengths to cover these crimes to enable the predators to move on, to not be arrested, to keep the secrets within the church.”

Mar 16, 2013

Michael Gadson

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Paedophiles are ill, not criminal, and should not be punished, says Catholic …