Browsing articles tagged with " Gay Marriage"
At Washington University in St. Louis, one can find the John C. Danforth Center on Religion Politics–a fitting conjunction of subjects to be considered by a center named for the former senator from Missouri who is also an Episcopal priest. That’s why it’s disappointing to see a foolishly handwringing post at the Center’s “online news journal” Religion Politics, by director Marie Griffith (h/t RealClearReligion). Titled “When Church and State Collide: The Supreme Court Goes to Mass,” Griffith’s post is devoted to criticizing the now six-decade tradition of having a “Red Mass” in Washington just before the beginning of the Supreme Court’s October term each year.
Griffith notes that “Catholic leaders have increased their public speech on any number of political issues, from contraceptive coverage and abortion to gay marriage,” and that “the Catholic bishops are currently spending money to fight same-sex marriage.” Yes, and the bishops are perfectly within their rights–they would say they are responding to the call of duty and necessity–to bear witness to the moral teachings of their faith.
It’s difficult to know what Griffith finds objectionable about the Red Mass. Is it that the Catholic Church’s hierarchy has staked out a visible position in great moral and political controversies? Is it that many of the justices (including non-Catholics like Justices Kagan and Breyer, pictured on the steps of St. Matthew’s Cathedral) attend the Mass?
Griffith writes:
Challenge me, do, but I must register deep discomfort with the cozy government-church embrace represented by the Red Mass in Washington D.C. However well intentioned, the attendance of 2/3 of the U.S. Supreme Court at a holy service that explicitly promotes the Catholic faith sends a bewildering message to citizens who hold other religious beliefs, and those with no religion at all. Perhaps the real question to ask is why some Supreme Court justices who clearly disagree with current Catholic pronouncements on political matters that divide the court—or who disagree with any perceived religious interference whatsoever, despite their own beliefs—nonetheless, apparently, feel the need to attend the Red Mass. Why?
Viewed in the sunlight of American fellow-citizenship, rather than in the dim corners of strict separationism, there is no “bewildering message” at all. Here’s a shocking thought. Perhaps the justices are just really nice people. You know, decent, civic-minded public servants, who appreciate that the leaders and laity of the Catholic community actually want to pray for them as they embark on the solemn business, on behalf of all Americans, of the administration of justice. That is the point of the Red Mass, after all, though you’d never learn it from the director of the John C. Danforth Center on Religion Politics. Instead, she approvingly quotes the professional pestiferator Barry Lynn, president of Americans United for Separation of Church and State: “There is one purpose to have this. It is to make clear … just what the church hierarchy feels about some of the very issues that are to come before the court.”
There is no Supreme Court justice inhabiting a cocoon in which he or she is unaware of “what the church hierarchy feels” about important moral and political issues that sometimes come before the Court. Lynn’s characterization of the Red Mass is the exact opposite of the truth. Here is a bit of the homily given at this year’s Mass by Archbishop Timothy Broglio, who is archbishop for all the military services (his priests are the Catholic chaplains in the armed forces) and thus knows a bit about the intersection where faith and public service meet:
[W]e gather as a community of faith to beg an abundance of blessings upon the women and men of our judiciary and the legal profession. It is a moment to pause and pray for those who serve our Country and foster justice for all. We know that a believing community engages in prayer for the needs of all, but especially for those who face arduous tasks.
Indeed “Justice is radically intolerant of injustice; justice seeks out injustice to destroy it. To emphasize security at the expense of eradicating injustice creates a fool’s paradise” The Romans put it more succinctly: “Justitia non novit patrem nec matrem; solum veritatem spectat justitia.” Justice knows neither father nor mother; justice looks to the truth alone.
For that reason we are here primarily to pray with you and for you as you execute the daunting task assigned to you at various levels. We beg a blessing for all of you and for all of those who assist you in this important ministry. We invoke the only Just One so that He might inspire all that you do. We recognize “that those who involve themselves with human law are doing God’s work. . . .”
This was the 60th annual Red Mass in Washington. As in past years, some of the justices (and other public officials and members of the bar) attended, and others did not. All comers were welcome, Catholic or not. No politicking of any kind occurred, and Griffith’s concern about Archbishop Broglio’s homily (which she calls his “address to the crowd,” as though she’d never been to a Catholic Mass before) is entirely misplaced.
For someone who directs a university center on religion and politics, named for one of the most unashamedly and openly devout public servants of recent times, Ms. Griffith is dismayingly squeamish about the interaction of faith and public life. Since she sees fit only to mention the culture-war obsessions of the Charlotte Democrats, it is hard not to suspect her attitude is ideological in its origins.
At Washington University in St. Louis, one can find the John C. Danforth Center on Religion Politics–a fitting conjunction of subjects to be considered by a center named for the former senator from Missouri who is also an Episcopal priest. That’s why it’s disappointing to see a foolishly handwringing post at the Center’s “online news journal” Religion Politics, by director Marie Griffith (h/t RealClearReligion). Titled “When Church and State Collide: The Supreme Court Goes to Mass,” Griffith’s post is devoted to criticizing the now six-decade tradition of having a “Red Mass” in Washington just before the beginning of the Supreme Court’s October term each year.
Griffith notes that “Catholic leaders have increased their public speech on any number of political issues, from contraceptive coverage and abortion to gay marriage,” and that “the Catholic bishops are currently spending money to fight same-sex marriage.” Yes, and the bishops are perfectly within their rights–they would say they are responding to the call of duty and necessity–to bear witness to the moral teachings of their faith.
It’s difficult to know what Griffith finds objectionable about the Red Mass. Is it that the Catholic Church’s hierarchy has staked out a visible position in great moral and political controversies? Is it that many of the justices (including non-Catholics like Justices Kagan and Breyer, pictured on the steps of St. Matthew’s Cathedral) attend the Mass?
Griffith writes:
Challenge me, do, but I must register deep discomfort with the cozy government-church embrace represented by the Red Mass in Washington D.C. However well intentioned, the attendance of 2/3 of the U.S. Supreme Court at a holy service that explicitly promotes the Catholic faith sends a bewildering message to citizens who hold other religious beliefs, and those with no religion at all. Perhaps the real question to ask is why some Supreme Court justices who clearly disagree with current Catholic pronouncements on political matters that divide the court—or who disagree with any perceived religious interference whatsoever, despite their own beliefs—nonetheless, apparently, feel the need to attend the Red Mass. Why?
Viewed in the sunlight of American fellow-citizenship, rather than in the dim corners of strict separationism, there is no “bewildering message” at all. Here’s a shocking thought. Perhaps the justices are just really nice people. You know, decent, civic-minded public servants, who appreciate that the leaders and laity of the Catholic community actually want to pray for them as they embark on the solemn business, on behalf of all Americans, of the administration of justice. That is the point of the Red Mass, after all, though you’d never learn it from the director of the John C. Danforth Center on Religion Politics. Instead, she approvingly quotes the professional pestiferator Barry Lynn, president of Americans United for Separation of Church and State: “There is one purpose to have this. It is to make clear … just what the church hierarchy feels about some of the very issues that are to come before the court.”
There is no Supreme Court justice inhabiting a cocoon in which he or she is unaware of “what the church hierarchy feels” about important moral and political issues that sometimes come before the Court. Lynn’s characterization of the Red Mass is the exact opposite of the truth. Here is a bit of the homily given at this year’s Mass by Archbishop Timothy Broglio, who is archbishop for all the military services (his priests are the Catholic chaplains in the armed forces) and thus knows a bit about the intersection where faith and public service meet:
[W]e gather as a community of faith to beg an abundance of blessings upon the women and men of our judiciary and the legal profession. It is a moment to pause and pray for those who serve our Country and foster justice for all. We know that a believing community engages in prayer for the needs of all, but especially for those who face arduous tasks.
Indeed “Justice is radically intolerant of injustice; justice seeks out injustice to destroy it. To emphasize security at the expense of eradicating injustice creates a fool’s paradise” The Romans put it more succinctly: “Justitia non novit patrem nec matrem; solum veritatem spectat justitia.” Justice knows neither father nor mother; justice looks to the truth alone.
For that reason we are here primarily to pray with you and for you as you execute the daunting task assigned to you at various levels. We beg a blessing for all of you and for all of those who assist you in this important ministry. We invoke the only Just One so that He might inspire all that you do. We recognize “that those who involve themselves with human law are doing God’s work. . . .”
This was the 60th annual Red Mass in Washington. As in past years, some of the justices (and other public officials and members of the bar) attended, and others did not. All comers were welcome, Catholic or not. No politicking of any kind occurred, and Griffith’s concern about Archbishop Broglio’s homily (which she calls his “address to the crowd,” as though she’d never been to a Catholic Mass before) is entirely misplaced.
For someone who directs a university center on religion and politics, named for one of the most unashamedly and openly devout public servants of recent times, Ms. Griffith is dismayingly squeamish about the interaction of faith and public life. Since she sees fit only to mention the culture-war obsessions of the Charlotte Democrats, it is hard not to suspect her attitude is ideological in its origins.
The bishops of the state of Washington issued a warning to Catholics about the untold ramifications of changing the definition of marriage, including a direct threat to faithful Catholic education:
At the November referendum, the state’s voters will have the opportunity to ratify or reject a new state law allowing same-sex marriage.
In addition, the legal separation of marriage from procreation would have a chilling effect on religious liberty and the right of conscience. Once marriage is redefined as a genderless contract, it will become legally discriminatory for public and private institutions such as schools to promote the unique value of children being raised by their biological mothers and fathers.
No institution or individual could propose that married mothers and fathers provide a singular benefit to children without being accused of discrimination. Recent attacks on churches, businesses and nonprofit organizations that express their conscientious objection to the redefinition of marriage underscore the danger. Those who uphold families based on the permanent, faithful relationship between a married man and woman as the best environment for raising children already have been accused of hate speech, and the right of religious institutions to freely practice their faith has been abridged.
The Washington State Catholic Conference represents Archbishop J. Peter Sartain of Seattle, Bishop Blase J. Cupich of Spokane, Bishop Joseph J. Tyson of Yakima, and Auxiliary Bishop Eusebio Elizondo of Seattle.
Reprinted with permission from Campus Notes, the blog of The Cardinal Newman Society.
The Romney campaign did not respond to requests for a response on Thursday.
Ryan has argued that his budget plan is informed by Catholic social teaching, and that reducing the federal deficit through budget cuts would help the poor and all Americans by allowing the economy to grow.
The bishops, with some notable exceptions, have countered that Ryan’s budget in fact violates Catholic social teaching by emphasizing cuts in programs for the needy while reducing taxes for the wealthy. Ryan’s plan has also been criticized as likely to expand rather than reduce the national debt.
By framing her critique in the context of her Christian faith, Campbell was using the kind of religious language that has been a hallmark of the GOP’s campaign to rally believers behind Romney and Ryan.
But she also sought to identify the sisters and the Democratic agenda with Catholic tradition at a time when Catholic voters — who comprise close to one-quarter of the electorate — are considered key to the November election.
Just as important, Campbell neatly folded her remarks in with statements from the Catholic hierarchy, which has had more than its share of disagreements with President Obama and the Democratic Party over issues like gay marriage and abortion.
“We agree with our bishops, and that’s why we went on the road: to stand with struggling families and to lift up our Catholic sisters who serve them,” said Campbell, who heads a Washington-based Catholic social justice lobby called Network. “Their work to alleviate suffering would be seriously harmed by the Romney-Ryan budget.”
In her seven-minute speech Campbell did not address hot-button issues like abortion directly, but she earned the loudest ovation when she defended Obama’s health care reform law as a cause she considers “part of my pro-life stance and the right thing to do.”
Like many other speakers at the convention in Charlotte, N.C., Campbell framed the election as a choice between a philosophy of individualism championed by Republicans and a more communitarian approach to society building emphasized by Democrats.
She also underscored the plight of poor and working class Americans in the recession, and pointed to Democratic policies as both the most effective answer, and the most moral one.
“During our journey, I rediscovered a few truths,” Campbell said. “First, Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are correct when they say that each individual should be responsible. But their budget goes astray in not acknowledging that we are responsible not only for ourselves and our immediate families. Rather, our faith strongly affirms that we are all responsible for one another.”
“I am my sister’s keeper. I am my brother’s keeper,” she said to applause.
The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza listed Campbell as the second biggest “winner” of Wednesday night’s events, after former President Bill Clinton’s tour de force address, noting that she “got a raucously positive reception from the crowd and turned into one of the more unlikely stars of the night.”
Campbell has become well-known both for her advocacy of liberal issues but also as one of the targets of a Vatican crackdown on American nuns who Rome believes are too eager to disagree with church teachings on sexuality and gender while overemphasizing church teachings on social justice.
In June, Campbell did a star turn on “The Colbert Report” to rebut those charges, and the Democrats clearly wanted to take advantage of her appeal.
But the nun also told convention organizers that she would only speak if she could cite her opposition to abortion as well as her other views, according to CNN. She also rejected efforts to include language that sounded too “political” and told party operatives that she would rather give her prime time speaking slot to someone else. Her concerns were heeded.
Copyright: For copyright information, please check with the distributor of this item, Religion News Service LLC.
A letter criticising the Scottish Government for supporting plans to legalise gay marriage will be read out in all of the country’s Catholic parishes later.
The Roman Catholic Church has declared 26 August as National Marriage Sunday and is calling on politicians to “sustain rather than subvert marriage”.
The letter, which will be read in all of Scotland’s 500 Catholic parishes, will urge followers to continue to act against efforts to “redefine” marriage.
The Scottish Government has said it is right to introduce same-sex marriages, but has stressed no clergy would be forced to carry them out.
Cardinal Keith O’Brien, the leader of the Church in Scotland, last week broke off discussions on the issue with First Minister Alex Salmond.
In a strongly worded message, the letter will highlight the church’s “deep disappointment that the Scottish Government has decided to redefine marriage and legislate for same sex marriage.”
It will also announce the launch of a National Commission for Marriage and the Family to co-ordinate a campaign against gay marriage.
Cardinal O’Brien, who has described gay marriage as a “grotesque subversion of a universally accepted human right”, said: “The Church’s teaching on marriage is unequivocal, it is uniquely, the union of a man and a woman and it is wrong that governments, politicians or parliaments should seek to alter or destroy that reality.”
He added: “With this letter we will announce the creation of a National Commission for Marriage and the Family, a body which will be charged with promoting the true nature of marriage, it will develop an online presence and produce materials and organise events which will help Catholic families to support and sustain marriage.
“While we pray that our elected leaders will sustain rather than subvert marriage, we promise to continue to do everything we can to convince them that redefining marriage would be wrong for society.”
The Scottish government has pledged to bring forward a Bill on the issue later this year, and has indicated the earliest ceremonies could take place by the start of 2015.
Nearly 900 Roman Catholic nuns are gathering in St. Louis this week to discuss their future relationship with the Vatican.
Ordinarily, this annual assembly of the country’s largest umbrella group for women’s religious communities wouldn’t draw the attention of the world’s press. But in the spring, the Vatican’s doctrinal watchdog office issued a report that questioned the organization’s fidelity to some church teachings, accused it of “serious doctrinal problems” and announced that three U.S. bishops would temporarily take the group’s reins in order to reform it.
This week, the members of the Leadership Conference for Women Religious – which represents 80 percent of the country’s 57,000 Catholic nuns – will discuss their options, which could range from accepting the reforms to severing their official connection to the Vatican.
“We’re hopeful it will be a time of dialogue and increased understanding,” said Sister Louise Gallahue, leader of the Daughters of Charity in the Province of St. Louise. “Everyone involved wants to see this as communication with church authorities and not in conflict with them.”
Since the Vatican report was released in April, the rift has resonated with some American Catholics who feel bishops have become too focused on gay marriage and abortion. Many took issue with the Vatican report that denounced the sisters’ group – which represents nuns who work with the poor and sick – for being “silent on the right to life from conception to natural death” and for leaving “the Church’s biblical view of family life and human sexuality” off its “agenda.”
“You see a difference in the theology of the sisters who are on the margins, who live with the people, whose theology is informed by the work they do,” said Jennifer Reyes Lay, program coordinator for the St. Louis-based Catholic Action Network. “And then the theology of people who hold positions in the hierarchy who aren’t as connected to people and who can maintain black-and-white guidelines. It gets messier when you’re on the ground.”
Reyes Lay said her group, working with a national organization called the Nun Justice Project, had held weekly vigils in support of the nuns outside the Cathedral Basilica in the spring. The group plans to welcome the St. Louis-bound nuns today at five locations inside Lambert-St. Louis International Airport and outside the conference hotel.
One of the main problems the Vatican had with the Leadership Conference for Women Religious is its choice of speakers at their annual assemblies. Bishop Leonard Blair of Toledo, Ohio, who conducted the Vatican’s assessment of the group, wrote in his diocesan newspaper in June that the group’s speakers often “explore themes like global spirituality, the new cosmology, earth-justice and eco-feminism in ways that are frequently ambiguous, dubious or even erroneous with respect to Christian faith.”
The Vatican’s April report said the speakers “manifest problematic statements and serious theological, even doctrinal errors.”
This year’s keynote speaker is Barbara Marx Hubbard, whom spiritual wellness author Deepak Chopra called “the voice for conscious evolution of our time,” according to her website.
Hubbard defines conscious evolution as “a spiritually motivated endeavor,” whose “precepts reside at the heart of every great faith, affirming that humans have the potential of being co-creators with Spirit, with the deeper patterns of nature and universal design.”
“The promise of Conscious Evolution is nothing less than the emergence of a universal humanity capable of guiding its own evolution into a future of unimaginable co-creativity,” according to Hubbard’s website.
The Vatican’s April report also noted “a prevalence of certain radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith in some of the programs and presentations sponsored by the LCWR … .”
The nuns and their supporters say the act of questioning and debating church teaching is not the same as disobeying it.
St. Louis Archbishop Robert Carlson is scheduled to address the group today. He stressed his support for the Vatican’s position in a statement this week and said he “played no role in the planning of this assembly, the selection of speakers, or its honorees.”
His presence at the assembly, Carlson said, “only indicates my love for the Church … my memory of the wonderful religious who helped me in my earliest days as a child” and his “gratitude for the extraordinary work of Sisters today, especially in the Archdiocese of St. Louis… .”
There are 1,425 sisters, in 53 orders – not all of them members of LCWR – in the St. Louis archdiocese.
Carlson is the chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ committee on Clergy, Consecrated Life and Vocations, which includes contact with religious communities in the U.S.
Carlson told the archdiocese’s newspaper, the St. Louis Review, that while he supports the Vatican’s concerns about the LCWR, his “style for 42 years as a priest and 28 years as a bishop has been one of dialogue. I find that an effective way to be a man of the Church and to live out the Gospel.”
The archbishop has a warm relationship with religious sisters. In his previous diocese of Saginaw, Mich., the members of the Religious Sisters of Mercy of Alma, Mich., helped nurse Carlson back to health after a cancer scare.
The leader of the Alma Sisters of Mercy, Mother Mary Quentin Sheridan, is close with Carlson and a founding board member of the Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious. That organization, which received formal recognition from the Vatican in 1992, is a more traditionalist version of the LCWR and adheres closely to official church teaching and obedience to the bishops.
On its website, the Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious has written of the LCWR debate: “The Sisters who use political language in their responses to the magisterial Church reflect the poverty of their education and formation in the faith.”
This summer, St. Louis has become something of a rendezvous for Catholic dissent. In June, members of the Catholic Theological Society of America held their annual meeting downtown and rallied around one of their own.
Days before the theologians’ meeting, the same Vatican office that issued the report on the Leadership Conference for Women Religious released a five-page “notification” about a book by Sister Margaret Farley, a professor emeritus at Yale Divinity School, saying her writing on sexual ethics did not conform to church teachings.
ST. LOUIS (RNS) As hundreds of nuns met here on Wednesday (Aug. 8) to begin crafting an answer to Vatican demands that their leaders toe the line on orthodoxy, there was a pervasive sense that this week’s discussions could lead to a fateful juncture in the history of Catholicism in America.
“As you know, this is an assembly like no other assembly we’ve had,” said Sister Pat Farrell, a Franciscan from Iowa who heads the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, which represents most of the 56,000 nuns in communities across the country.
“I suspect we’re in for a lot of surprises,” Farrell told the sisters as she opened the LCWR’s annual meeting.
The options under consideration by the 900 nuns — several hundred more than have attended recent gatherings — range from asking the Vatican to continue the dialogue to shuttering the LCWR and reorganizing the leadership body of sisters into a group that would be beyond the Vatican’s control.
But that would also signal a historic shift in a church in which the nuns for centuries simply did the work that the bishops preached about — serving the poor, caring for the sick, and educating the young.
If the showdown reaches such a pass, it would be the latest in a series of dramatic developments since last April, when the Vatican announced that an investigation of the LCWR, authorized by Pope Benedict XVI, had concluded that the group was infected with strains of “radical feminism” and was focusing on social justice issues at the expense of promoting Rome-sanctioned doctrine on issues like abortion and gay marriage.
The Vatican appointed a team of three U.S. bishops, led by Seattle Archbishop Peter Sartain, to take control of the LCWR by reforming its statutes and overseeing its activities.
But the move prompted such widespread outrage at the Vatican and such an outpouring of support for the nuns that it may have changed the political dynamics of a relationship in which the sisters have no canonical power.
In fact, a number of leading bishops have privately assured the nuns of their support while others have increasingly praised them publicly.
“We Catholics love the Sisters!” New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, wrote in a blog post on the eve of the LCWR meeting that effusively praised the nuns and voiced confidence that they would survive the “examination by Rome.”
Similarly, in a welcoming address to the LCWR on Tuesday, St. Louis Archbishop Robert Carlson went out of his way to praise the work of the sisters and their influence on his own life. In referring briefly to the LCWR’s standoff with Rome, Carlson cited as a model the conflicts between Apostles Peter and Paul in the early days of the church.
“They managed to work things out then, and I pray that you will work things out now,” he said.
Sister Sandra Schneiders, a leading New Testament scholar and spiritual writer, admitted that the sisters were surprised and gratified by the surge of support for their efforts to raise questions within the church that apparently many other Catholics are also asking.
“We thought we were doing our little bit,” Schneiders said. “We didn’t realize how much was riding on our experience.”
On each table in the hotel meeting room where the sisters are gathered in downtown St. Louis the LCWR staff had scattered a dozen or so of the thousands of letters of support they have received and testimonials to the role of the nuns in many lives.
More than just a psychological shot in the arm, that support also seems to have emboldened the sisters to compose a forceful response that would let Rome know that the nuns are tired of decades of criticism and that they are not going to blindly comply with the hierarchy’s demands.
What form that response will take remains unclear.
“I don’t think they’re seriously saying ‘Let’s walk away,’ but they’re raising those questions,” Sister Theresa Kane, a former LCWR president, told the National Catholic Reporter on Tuesday.
What was apparent from the opening day’s session — the assembly concludes on Friday — is that the nuns are committed to moving ahead with the kind of changes that they have embraced since the reforms following the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s. The sisters believe those changes better reflect the imperatives of the gospel, while the hierarchy often sees them as innovations that heedlessly upend tradition.
The very title of the assembly summed up the difference in approach: “Mystery Unfolding: Leading in the Evolutionary Now.” And the keynote speaker was Barbara Marx Hubbard, a futurist and promoter of “conscious evolution” who is hailed by New Age gurus like Deepak Chopra even as she channels many Christian thinkers.
Indeed, Hubbard’s address on Wednesday was replete with what some would consider standard bromides of pop spirituality and what others would value as eternal spiritual profundities. Either way, the sisters of the LCWR welcomed her sweeping panorama of impending change, and in particular their place in it.
“You are the best seedbed I know for evolving the church in the 21st century,” Hubbard told them. “That may be a surprise to the world.”
Also on HuffPost:
Nearly 900 Roman Catholic nuns will gather in St. Louis this week to discuss their future relationship with the Vatican.
Ordinarily, this annual assembly of the country’s largest umbrella group for women’s religious communities wouldn’t draw the attention of the world’s press. But in the spring, the Vatican’s doctrinal watchdog office issued a report that questioned the organization’s fidelity to some church teachings, accused it of “serious doctrinal problems” and announced that three U.S. bishops would temporarily take the group’s reins in order to reform it.
This week, the members of the Leadership Conference for Women Religious — which represents 80 percent of the country’s 57,000 Catholic nuns — will discuss their options, which could range from accepting the reforms to severing their official connection to the Vatican.
“We’re hopeful it will be a time of dialogue and increased understanding,” said Sister Louise Gallahue, leader of the Daughters of Charity in the Province of St. Louise. “Everyone involved wants to see this as communication with church authorities and not in conflict with them.”
Since the Vatican report was released in April, the rift has resonated with some American Catholics who feel bishops have become too focused on gay marriage and abortion. Many took issue with the Vatican report that denounced the sisters’ group — which represents nuns who work with the poor and sick — for being ‘silent on the right to life from conception to natural death” and for leaving “the Church’s biblical view of family life and human sexuality” off its “agenda.”
“You see a difference in the theology of the sisters who are on the margins, who live with the people, whose theology is informed by the work they do,” said Jennifer Reyes Lay, program coordinator for the St. Louis-based Catholic Action Network. “And then the theology of people who hold positions in the hierarchy who aren’t as connected to people and who can maintain black-and-white guidelines. It gets messier when you’re on the ground.”
Reyes Lay said her group, working with a national organization called the Nun Justice Project, had held weekly vigils in support of the nuns outside the Cathedral Basilica in the spring. The group plans to welcome the St. Louis-bound nuns today at five locations inside Lambert-St. Louis International Airport and outside the conference hotel.
One of the main problems the Vatican had with the Leadership Conference for Women Religious is its choice of speakers at their annual assemblies. Bishop Leonard Blair of Toledo, Ohio, who conducted the Vatican’s assessment of the group, wrote in his diocesan newspaper in June that the group’s speakers often “explore themes like global spirituality, the new cosmology, earth-justice and eco-feminism in ways that are frequently ambiguous, dubious or even erroneous with respect to Christian faith.”
The Vatican’s April report said the speakers “manifest problematic statements and serious theological, even doctrinal errors.”
This year’s keynote speaker is Barbara Marx Hubbard, whom spiritual wellness author Deepak Chopra called “the voice for conscious evolution of our time,” according to her website.
Hubbard defines conscious evolution as “a spiritually motivated endeavor,” whose “precepts reside at the heart of every great faith, affirming that humans have the potential of being co-creators with Spirit, with the deeper patterns of nature and universal design.”
“The promise of Conscious Evolution is nothing less than the emergence of a universal humanity capable of guiding its own evolution into a future of unimaginable co-creativity,” according to Hubbard’s website.
The Vatican’s April report also noted “a prevalence of certain radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith in some of the programs and presentations sponsored by the LCWR … .”
The nuns and their supporters say the act of questioning and debating church teaching is not the same as disobeying it.
St. Louis Archbishop Robert Carlson is scheduled to address the group today. He stressed his support for the Vatican’s position in a statement this week and said he “played no role in the planning of this assembly, the selection of speakers, or its honorees.”
His presence at the assembly, Carlson said, “only indicates my love for the Church … my memory of the wonderful religious who helped me in my earliest days as a child” and his “gratitude for the extraordinary work of Sisters today, especially in the Archdiocese of St. Louis… .”
There are 1,425 sisters, in 53 orders — not all of them members of LCWR — in the St. Louis archdiocese.
Carlson is the chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ committee on Clergy, Consecrated Life and Vocations, which includes contact with religious communities in the U.S.
Carlson told the archdiocese’s newspaper, the St. Louis Review, that while he supports the Vatican’s concerns about the LCWR, his ‘style for 42 years as a priest and 28 years as a bishop has been one of dialogue. I find that an effective way to be a man of the Church and to live out the Gospel.”
The archbishop has a warm relationship with religious sisters. In his previous diocese of Saginaw, Mich., the members of the Religious Sisters of Mercy of Alma, Mich., helped nurse Carlson back to health after a cancer scare.
The leader of the Alma Sisters of Mercy, Mother Mary Quentin Sheridan, is close with Carlson and a founding board member of the Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious. That organization, which received formal recognition from the Vatican in 1992, is a more traditionalist version of the LCWR and adheres closely to official church teaching and obedience to the bishops.
In a statement on its website, the Alma Sisters of Mercy wrote of the LCWR debate: “The Sisters who use political language in their responses to the magisterial Church reflect the poverty of their education and formation in the faith.”
This summer, St. Louis has become something of a rendezvous for Catholic dissent. In June, members of the Catholic Theological Society of America held their annual meeting downtown and rallied around one of their own.
Days before the theologians’ meeting, the same Vatican office that issued the report on the Leadership Conference for Women Religious released a five-page “notification” about a book by Sister Margaret Farley, a professor emeritus at Yale Divinity School, saying her writing on sexual ethics did not conform to church teachings.
EDITOR’S NOTE: This version of the story corrects an error about which organization criticized “sisters who use political language…” in a statement on their website. It was the Alma Sisters of Mercy, whose order is a member of the Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious, not the Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious itself.
With an amendment that would define marriage between one man and one woman on the ballot this November, the firefight of what is right, wrong or acceptable when it comes to marriage has really amped up.
Richfield Patch recently sat down with Richfield couple Kathy Luebbe and Rev. Dr. Robyn Provis to learn about their story, their journeys to being openly gay and their views on the amendment.
As part of the clergy, Provis provided many insights into how she views homosexuality and gay marriage in relation to religion.
***
Richfield Patch: Many of those who oppose gay marriage and also hold the Bible as moral code, would say that homosexuality is condemned in the book. How do you respond to that?
Rev. Dr. Robyn Provis: “You cannot read homosexual bias into the bible unless you are already biased against homosexuals. I regard the bible seriously, not literally. It really is a collection of stories of our ancestors who tried to make sense of their life, their environment, their social surroundings. Today’s Bible and an edition from the 1300s are very different. The word ‘homosexuality’ didn’t exist in the original text. It was coined later in German psychiatric practice.
“There is nothing in the Bible about same-gender, committed, loving couples. The few things that it does say are for specific circumstances and would no more indict homosexuals than heterosexuals.
“There are so many different ways to interpret [scripture]. I applaud anyone whose faith is so strong that they want to take [the Bible] seriously, but you have to really be willing to dig and ask yourself, ‘Who was writing? Who were they writing to? What were they trying to understand?’”
Richfield Patch: What are your thoughts on the marriage amendment being put before voters this fall?
Provis: “This amendment is going to mix religion and politics. By and large, the people who are for [the amendment] have specific views around it. It would privilege one religion over another. … And it’s just so basic to want to marry the person that you love, to make a covenant with that person.
“[If the amendment passed], it would also tell clergy who [they can] and who they cannot bless in a union. That’s an absurdity of injustice—the fact that my words hold some kind of weight, but not if you’re homosexual. … I think that everyone who loves each other should be able to enter a covenant like that.”
Richfield Patch: Opponents of gay marriage have said traditional marriage needs to be preserved. However, supporters use the high divorce rate to combat that claim. How do you respond to that?
Provis: “I think it’s a valid reaction. Divorce rates are sky-high. If all people were allowed to marry, I pray that would increase the sanctity of any marriage.”
Richfield Patch: You’re from California where a marriage amendment similar to the one proposed here passed. Do you think the measure will also pass here?
Provis: “Right now, I’m told it’s very close. And I am worried about how ugly it could get. I saw what happened in California. I hope people can vote their conscience and with common sense. I think you can vote your conscience despite what you’ve been told to do.”
***
To see the full story on Dr. Robyn Provis and her spouse Kathy Luebbe, see our “Richfield Couple: ‘We Wanted Our Marriage Recognized By A Country, Not Just A State’” article.
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by Jared Silverman
August 1, 2012
The First Amendment clearly states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof….”
This restriction on federal government must have been very important to the framers of the Constitution because it is the very first provision of the Bill of Rights. Through the 14th Amendment, the prohibition against laws prohibiting the free exercise of religion applies to all levels of government: federal, state, and local.
It seems that, for some elected officials in the Windy City, “Chicago values” would trump the Free Exercise Clause.
Dan Cathy, a Southern Baptist and president of the fast-food chain Chick-fil-A, recently stated he was supportive of the “biblical definition” of marriage as between a man and a woman.
In response, Chicago Alderman Joe Moreno vowed to block efforts by Chick-fil-A from opening its first free-standing restaurant in his ward, if not the entire city.
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel did not launch a spirited defense of the Free Exercise Clause. When asked about Moreno’s efforts, Emanuel declared, “Chick-fil-A’s values are not Chicago values. They’re not respectful of our residents, our neighbors, and our family members. And if you’re gonna be part of the Chicago community, you should reflect Chicago values.”
Emanuel went on to say, “What the CEO has said as it relates to gay marriage and gay couples is not what I believe, but more importantly, it’s not what the people of Chicago believe. We just passed legislation as it relates to civil union and my goal and my hope…is that we now move on recognizing gay marriage. I do not believe that the CEO’s comments…reflect who we are as a city.”
A Chicago alderman wants to run the company out of town on a rail because its CEO professed a deeply held religious belief, and its mayor essentially agrees, saying it is against “Chicago values” when a Southern Baptist says that, under his religious teachings, marriage is between a man and a woman. This would make the Catholic Church also against “Chicago values.” Would Emanuel and Moreno advocate that the Catholic Church not expand in Chicago?
What about the federal government? Despite President Obama’s recent embrace of same-sex marriage, the Defense of Marriage Act — defining marriage as between a man and a woman — is still on the books. Does the federal government offend “Chicago values”?
How about the Chicago-based Nation of Islam? Apparently the Nation of Islam, and its leader Minister Louis Farrakhan, demonstrate “Chicago values” despite numerous statements by Farrakhan condemning homosexuality and single-sex marriage. This past May, Farrakhan criticized Obama for supporting gay marriage, calling him “the first president that sanctioned what the scriptures forbid.” That is not different from what Chick-fil-A’s Cathy stated.
But did this earn the enmity of Emanuel and Moreno? No.
Egregiously, Emanuel, a Jew, ignored Farrakhan’s history of anti-Semitism and offered no objections when the Fruit of Islam, Farrakhan’s paramilitary unit, converged on Chicago neighborhoods to help stop a plague of gun violence.
As reported by the Chicago Sun-Times, Alderman Debra Silverstein, an Orthodox Jew, said it’s good that Farrakhan is “helping” in the fight against crime, “but it doesn’t eradicate the comments that he’s made about the Jewish community.” Emanuel offered no such caveat. “People of faith have a role to play and community leaders have a role to play in helping to protect our neighborhoods and our citizens,” Emanuel said. “They have decided, the Nation of Islam, to help protect the community. And that’s an important ingredient, like all the other aspects of protecting a neighborhood.”
Apparently, “Chicago values” allow a Jewish mayor to enlist the support of an anti-Semite and foe of gay marriage to allow an “army of men” into the streets to stop violence. But it doesn’t allow a national fast food chain headed by a devout Christian to serve chicken.
In an editorial, the New York Sun noted that Cathy’s remark was not much different from the views expressed by the Council of Torah Sages. Liberals who would prevent a business from expanding because of the religious views of its owners or executives are imposing a religious test, writes The Sun.
In past months, courts in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria have banned circumcision on the grounds it violates a newborn’s human rights. The New York Times’ Ross Douthat points out defenders of such decisions insist they don’t trample on any Jew’s or Muslim’s freedom of belief. But while the ruling would not technically outlaw Jewish theology or Jewish worship, it would effectively outlaw Judaism itself.
It was this sort of governmental behavior that the Free Exercise Clause meant to prohibit. Businesses should not be curtailed because of the religious beliefs of their owners. Catholic hospitals should not be compelled to provide abortions or contraception contrary to Catholic theology. Jews and Muslims should not be banned from performing an essential religious rite.
These should be “Chicago values,” not those espoused by Emanuel and Moreno.
Jared Silverman, a West Orange attorney, is a self-described conservatarian. He can be reached at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
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