The Progressive Catholic Voice
An independent and grassroots forum for reflection, dialogue, and the exchange of ideas within the Catholic community of Minnesota and beyond April 2008 |
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 Dedicated to St. Francis of Assisi, who heard and responded to God’s call to “repair my Church,” and, in so doing, emulated the justice-making and compassion of our brother Jesus.
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The Progressive Catholic Voice
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Dialoguing with the Archbishop By the Editorial Team Archbishop John C. Nienstedt writes a column in The Catholic Spirit entitled “In God’s Good Time.” We take his public statements as an opportunity to discuss his views with him. Dear Archbishop Nienstedt:
We appreciate this opening sentence of your March 6 column. We too are conscious of this need in ourselves and in others. You go on to speak of the sacrament of penance, stating that the norm is the practice of one-on-one confession to a priest. We are taking you to mean that this ritual can be “an encounter with the living God.” We have to admit that many of us have not set foot in a confessional for years. And we seem to be in a majority. Raymond C. Mann, OFM, in the February 29, issue of Commonweal, cites a poll reporting that only 26% of American Catholics went to confession during 2005. Thank you for prompting us to question ourselves about this sacrament. We would like to think out loud about it a little here in the hope of generating some conversation with you and among our readers. When we ask questions, we do not mean disrespect. We trust that you want us to say what we think and ask questions of you as any honest conversation partner would. We appreciate your recognition that any practice or ritual has to have meaning for us. You aren’t just issuing a command like the patriarchs of old, “under pain of mortal sin.” First we will try to remember the meaning the practice of confession had for us in the past and how that has changed. Then we will try to understand how it is meaningful from the point of view you express in your column. Finally, we imagine how we could experience it as meaningful again. As children, we remember, we found going to confession on a Saturday afternoon both an anxiety and a relief. We used the little blue examination of conscience book to see all the ways we could have offended God. It was embarrassing and difficult to come up with a number of times we sassed our parents, hit our brothers and sisters, or lied. Coming up with a number was a problem because we hadn’t kept track, and we weren’t sure if reporting an inaccurate number was itself a sin. There was a great rush of repentance and relief when we had said our act of contrition, received the absolution, and said our penance. We believed that we had offended God and, through the priest, God had forgiven us. We won’t go into detail about going to confession as adolescents. The stories about scrupulosity, learning about sexuality with all the shame around “impure” thoughts and acts, and the general awkwardness of growing up have all been told. We also won’t go into detail about adults who struggled with what they thought of as moral problems like birth control, troubled marriages, or faith doubts, only to be scolded and turned away. Belief that one could offend God by noncompliance with Roman Catholic Church teaching made going to confession meaningful in the extreme. One’s eternal life depended on it. What happened? Through our moral and religious development, we stopped believing that we could offend God by noncompliance with Roman Catholic moral teaching or disbelief in doctrines. Whereas we had been afraid, now we are not. Our experience of God changed from a God to be feared to God who is love. Or our experience of church changed from a tradition handed down authoritatively to a living tradition we are responsible for developing. We see our moral lives in the context of our relationship with God. The God we experience doesn’t take offense. Having loving relationships, particularly having children of our own, taught us something about unconditional love. What could we do that could separate us from the love of God? Catholic spiritual teaching of the last forty years has been about the Holy Spirit’s freeing us to recognize that God is alive in us, bishops, priests and laity. Our mission is to make manifest God’s love for the world. It’s about building relationships that model that love. Every ritual of care or service to another is a sacrament in this view. Our moral values are infused with this religious teaching, so we reject what is unloving – in moral dictates, in any institutional structure, or in any institutional practice that undermines loving relationship. How can we believe that God is unforgiving to those billions of people who do not seek forgiveness from a Catholic priest? Or is it only Catholics who have been taught this doctrine whose sins are bound or loosed by a priest? You can see our problem. From your description of hearing confessions we get a sense that the experience is very meaningful for you. The penitent is in an open attitude of seeking forgiveness from God in confessing his or her sins, and you, enlivened by your belief that you have the power to bind and loose sins, are being a merciful Christ in forgiving them. It becomes an encounter when there is a connection like that between what is alive in each of the participants, a reciprocity of needs and desires. We understand the value to a person who believes he needs forgiveness from God and that he is receiving it through the priest. We are grateful that auricular confession is available for this person and that there are priests who give themselves as you do to that encounter. We can also understand that auricular confession is an encounter with the living God for people who believe that sanctifying grace, divine life, is transmitted to them when, with the right intent, they tell their sins to a priest and the priest says the words of absolution. The more often one engages in the operative signs of the sacrament, the more one shares in the divine life. If people believe in this quantitative view of grace, absolution from a priest is meaningful as a transformative source of divine life. Again we are grateful the sacrament is available for people who believe this. We can’t tell from your column whether you believe it, but if you do, we can understand your urging people to receive the sacrament of penance. Would communal penance be as efficacious in transmitting sanctifying grace as one-on-one confession? We can’t see confession as meaningful for us in those two ways. Perhaps with more conversation we might see it differently. Our view of how transformation happens sacramentally is more about experiences and communication than it is about very particularized matter and form, but we don’t believe there is one right way to think about anything. Or if there is, we can’t know what it is with our finite minds. So, without denying the value of any meaning it has for another, we can ask how could auricular confession be meaningful for us. It is true that we experience a loving God, but this does not prevent us from having a deep consciousness of our own psychic and spiritual woundedness. We are conscious of our failures in relationship resulting from our woundedness. We know we are in need of healing to manifest God’s love in the world through wider and wider circles of care. The “longing for encounter with the living God” you speak of attests to this sometimes buried consciousness. We believe that God supports us in our clarifying process and that union with God in communion with all humanity is its end. Because of our awareness of woundedness, we can understand confession as an opportunity for spiritual direction. Our need for healing can be met only if the priest in the confessional communicates compassionately, that is, if he understands, empathizes, and urges us to the next transformative step in our spiritual lives. This reciprocity of seeker and guide would be as life-giving as the confessional experience you describe though it is based on a different theology. The problem is that the ritual may not allow for this kind of relationship. When people are waiting in line, is there time? Are priests expecting to be spiritual directors in the confessional? We know a woman who at her last confession five years ago was “pouring out her soul” when the priest said, “Lady, you’ve got a problem!” He had no further suggestions, just the usual five Our Fathers and five Hail Marys. Mann, in the Commonweal article “The Empty Box,” cited above, quotes Bishop Michael Pfeifer of San Angelo, Texas, in a pastoral letter in 2006: “Good confessors often help people find the peace and tranquility that they often seek from psychologists and psychiatrists.” Mann goes on to say, “But that kind of healing rarely happens in a two-minute confession or in a twice-a-year communal penance service. The fact is, most American Catholics understand reconciliation as something much more encompassing and demanding than a quick spiritual cleansing rite. They see it as part of a healing process that our present ritual does not seem to provide.” Without the sacrament of penance practiced as auricular confession, how do we heal and grow in our spiritual lives? For most of us, growth is gradual. Our conversions are interior – breakthroughs in ways of thinking, in gaining new perspectives or compassion. We need forgiveness when we violate a relationship; we heal the breaches in relationship by asking forgiveness directly of the people we offend. Are we culpable if we are not self reflective, if we do not work at opening our awareness of God all around us? For these sins of omission we speak directly to God and to our intimate friends about our spiritual practices. We reconcile ourselves with God in community in the Eucharistic liturgy. Many of us appreciated communal penance because it deepened our moral growth in the context of community relationships. Through these personal and liturgical experiences, we heal and grow. As you can see we need some preparation before we can return to auricular confession. We would appreciate your speaking with us about it. If you were to set up a seminar, we would come. Sincerely, The Editorial Team of The Progressive Catholic Voice: Michael Bayly _______________________________________________
Who is Responsible for Church Reform?
A Review of The Church in the Making by Richard R. Gaillardetz By Paula Ruddy Exodus or reform? In what direction is the Spirit taking you? Many of us, Catholics in the Archdiocese of St Paul and Minneapolis, are asking ourselves this question at the beginning of the 21st Century. We are trying to discern whether the Spirit is moving us to create new communities of spiritually supportive people within the Catholic tradition while outside the control of Rome, or whether we are called to work for reform within the Roman Catholic institution. Perhaps some are called to leave the Roman Catholic institution to live their mission in another denomination. All options will bring about change within the institution. None is easy. In April and May, two thoughtful speakers have been invited to help inform our consciences in the process of making a decision. Richard R. Gaillardetz, (pronounced guy-R-dee), a theologian specializing in ecclesiology, has been invited by Call To Action to speak on April 19. Robert J. McClory, a church historian and journalist, invited by the Catholic Pastoral Committee on Sexual Minorities (CPCSM), Catholic Rainbow Parents, and The Progressive Catholic Voice, will speak on May 3. (See Upcoming Events for more details on both events. See the PCV’s Interview with Robert McClory in this issue.) Gaillardetz, in his book The Church in the Making, talks about the theologies of church coming out of Vatican II. His is one of an eight book series, “Rediscovering Vatican II,” marking the Council’s 40th anniversary and published by the Paulist Press in 2006. The series covers the 16 documents promulgated by the Council at its conclusion. Gaillardetz’s book deals with three documents: “The Constitution of the Church” (Lumen Gentium), “The Pastoral Office of Bishops’ (Christus Dominus), and “The Eastern Rite Catholic Churches” (Orientalium Ecclesiam). Is “reform” a fighting word? To some, maybe. Not in the dymanic view that Gaillardetz’s describes, however. Every Council is an “ecclesial event” in a theology of church in which reform is essential to its continued life. The lived experience of the Church gives rise to a need periodically to sort through theologies and articulate afresh its thinking and direction. The Roman Catholic Church is in a constant state of reform, leading up to and away from one council to the next. What experience gave rise to Vatican II? In the 11th Century, when secular princes threatened the Church’s autonomy by controlling bishops, Pope Gregory VII instituted a massive reform to consolidate papal authority. “What Gregory set in motion was a gradual yet inexorable shift from a church whose foundation lay in theology and sacramental practice to a church whose foundation lay in canon law. … In spite of periods of tremendous theological creativity, henceforward for almost nine hundred years the dominant framework for understanding the church would be that of law and jurisdiction rather than theology.” (pp 41-2.) It was to retrieve the theological and sacramental foundations of the Church that Vatican II was called. In their lived experience, people were thirsting for Spirit. Gaillardetz first describes the process each document went through during the successive sessions of the Council. The first draft, or schema, was usually a sketchy outline of the traditional teaching by Vatican officials. Then the theologians would rework the draft, introducing new ideas coming from updated scriptural studies and current theologies, the assembled bishops would debate the ideas, and new drafts would be prepared for the next session. For those of us who lived through that time, waiting for reports like readers of a serial novel, the names bring it all back--Suenens, Rahner, Congar, Schillebeeckx, and (Darth Vader music here) Cardinal Ottaviani, the ancient Curial obstructor. In order to get almost unanimous agreement from the bishops on the documents, theologians had to compromise. The way they did that was to place alternative formulations of some teachings one after the other in the same chapters of the document. That solution to their problem has caused new problems of interpretation over the 40 years since Vatican II. Using only the texts of documents, people who do not like change, cite the formulation that fits their agenda, and people who do want reform, cite passages that fit theirs. Gaillardetz’s method deals with this problem not only by looking closely at the history of each document, but by reading them together, and examining how they have been received and implemented. He crystallizes the major points made in the documents, which he then follows through the 40 years of their reception and acceptance by local churches. Finally, he talks about where we are today. What are the spiritual insights of the early church retrieved by Vatican II?
Those are just some of the points Gaillardetz makes in his book. They raise questions about whether the teachings, structures, and policies of the Roman Catholic institution are “in keeping with the values of the kingdom of God.” To the extent that they are not, we are called to reform them. We look forward to hearing Dr. Gaillardetz on April 19. Paula Ruddy is a co-founder of The Progressive Catholic Voice. _______________________________________________
A Democratic Catholic Church
Robert McClory is an award-winning journalist and author. His latest book is As It Was In the Beginning: The Coming Democratization of the Catholic Church. On Saturday, May 3, McClory will be the keynote speaker at the Second Annual Prayer Breakfast for Hope and Justice, entitled “Here Comes Everybody: Democratizing Catholicism in Challenging Times.” Recently, Progressive Catholic Voice co-founder and editor Michael Bayly interviewed Robert McClory via e-mail about Catholicism and democracy, his new book, and the leadership style of Archbishop John Nienstedt. Michael Bayly: In talking to folks about the topic of your upcoming presentation, “Democratizing Catholicism in Challenging Times,” I often get responses of raised eyebrows and bemused looks. People seem to have difficulty putting Catholicism and democracy together. However, in your latest book, As It Was In the Beginning: The Coming Democratization of the Catholic Church, you document how lay participation is a way of honoring Catholic tradition, not a denial of this tradition. Yet given the “tradition” of a papacy modeled on a feudal monarchical system, just how democratic can the Catholic church hope to get? Robert McClory: Instead of looking bemused, people should read the book. My whole point is that the church was never intended to be a top-down, monarchical, authoritarian institution. Jesus made it very clear in the gospels that he wanted a community that went contrary to the accepted organizational styles of this world. And it did for a time, but was gradually hijacked, and the 2,000-year history of the church is the struggle to recover the gospel style. Chapter 9 in the book makes a case for the church as a democracy. I argue that now in the 21st century we are in an unprecedented position for the recovery to begin. Michael Bayly: What compelled you to write As It Was In the Beginning: The Coming Democratization of the Catholic Church? How has it been received by critics and lay people? Robert McClory: The very widespread misunderstanding I just mentioned. Recovery from the hijackers is the goal and the time is at hand. I’m mostly preaching to Call To Action and other “choir” groups, so the book’s been well received. Time will tell when a responsible critic or opponent takes a look. Michael Bayly: Your presentation in Minneapolis on May 3 coincides with John Nienstedt’s first day as archbishop of the St. Paul/Minneapolis Archdiocese. What are your thoughts on Nienstedt’s leadership style? What advice can you give to local Catholics who find themselves in disagreement with this style and who are, as you say in your book, “disturbed at the present direction of the institutional church . . . the growing centralization of its governance, the narrow, often literal interpretation of doctrine, the instinctive rejection of modern culture and the modern world, and the vigorous effort to promote outmoded forms of piety”? Robert McClory: I did a story on Nienstedt in the National Catholic Reporter (May 4, 2004) when he banned a book by the late Bishop Lucker about two years ago. He was good enough to call me up and chat. My impression is that he is wedded to a narrow, almost fundamentalist (and wrong) interpretation of Roman Catholicism and not likely to entertain other views. I believe people who think otherwise should continually make their case in a respectful, well reasoned manner – through op eds in the media, letters to editors, public presentations when possible and efforts to make a case directly with those who think otherwise, including especially the bishop. Down deep, I believe, most of these bishops and clergy know better but have brainwashed themselves for the sake of their careers. On Saturday, May 3, Robert McClory will be the keynote speaker at the Second Annual Prayer Breakfast for Hope and Justice, entitled “Here Comes Everybody: Democratizing Catholicism in Challenging Times.” For more information, click here. _______________________________________________
By Terry Dosh
As a church historian, I find Karl Rahner’s three-epoch theory of Christian history very helpful--and hopeful--in understanding the huge changes taking place in today’s church. Rahner, the preeminent Catholic theologian of the 20th century, delivered these remarks in 1979 at age 75 while reflecting on the impact of Vatican II in the long schema of the history of Christianity. Theologically speaking, he sees this history as divided into three epochs. Chronologically, an epoch can be a very limited time period, or a very expansive time period. The transition between epochs marks significant shifts. The first epoch is the short period of Jewish Christianity from the time of Christ until the late first century. Christianity is heavily indebted to the Jewish ethos and culture in its beginning years. For example, the liturgy of the word in the celebration of the Eucharist is rooted in the Jewish liturgy of the word. The first Christians were all originally Jews who lived in a Greek-speaking Roman Empire. The shift from the first epoch to the second is marked by a deep cultural shift from Judaism to Hellenism in the empire. The second epoch goes from the late first century up to 1950. Obviously this covers a lot of ground: Constantine, Charlemagne, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance and Reformation, the Enlightenment, a variety of revolutions – scientific, industrial, agricultural, political (American, French, Russian) and two World Wars. The four characteristics of epoch two are: a Eurocentric church; a centralized governance; monocultural (Latin, Roman, Mediterranean); and patriarchal, that is, a top-down pyramidal line of authority. There are many appropriate subdivisions in this epoch, as noted above, but the overarching characteristics remain valid for the entire epoch. The third epoch is the period in which the major sphere of the Church’s life is not just Europe, but, in fact, the entire world. It began about 1950 but made itself observable officially at the Second Vatican Council (1962-65). So we are just at the beginning of epoch three. The four characteristics of epoch three are: World-Church; a decentralized mode of governance, as shown in the various regional groups of bishops promoting their regional churches; a pluriformity of cultures as manifested in the hundreds of vernacular languages in the contemporary Eucharistic liturgy worldwide; feminist, that is, a series of concentric circles (pope, bishops, priests, the rest of the baptized) wherein each circle serves the other circles in an egalitarian, reciprocal way. This term feminist is not Rahner’s as such, but rather that of John Glaser who uses the term to counter the term patriarchal of epoch two. Admittedly, this three-epoch theory is a grand schema and is open to many questions and comments. But I have found it quite helpful in reflecting on the half century since Vatican II. The four characteristics of epoch three give me a sense of hope whenever I observe some current Vatican officials and some local clerics still functioning from an epoch two model. I believe that the epoch three view of history is with us. This lifts my spirits as I keep moving along, trying to make this vision of history a reality. At 77, I experienced the first 30 years of my life in epoch two, where my parents spent most of their lives. But the last 47 years are happily in epoch three, where our two sons and their families have spent their entire lives. As a ‘middlelescent’ living in the swing generation between my parents and my sons, I see that my task is to translate the values that made my parents wholesome and holy to my children and grandchildren who only know the third epoch. Quite a joyful challenge. Terry Dosh is a married priest, a co-founder of CORPUS, and the editor of “Bread Rising,” a newsletter on Church reform. He can be reached via e-mail at tmdosh@usfamily.net. _______________________________________________
The Mysterious Potential Hiding in Our PainTom Esch meditates on the chickpea in the soup pot. The Chickpea A chickpea in a pot leaps from the flame, We are living in interesting times locally and globally. We are like Rumi’s chickpea in the boiling pot. I am an activist and, particularly when I was in graduate school at Notre Dame twenty years ago, I was very involved. One wise priest noticed this and asked me, one day, “Why are you so passionate about social justice?” I responded, “Because there are so many problems in the world to be fixed.” “Yes,” he said, “but why are YOU so passionate about them when not every one else is?” I have been exploring the question ever since. After leaving Notre Dame, I was Coordinator of Social Justice at First Universalist for three years, after which I knew it was time to move on. I did many information interviews looking for work. I think I set a record: it was over 110. I asked almost everyone I met at least two questions in the course of the conversation: What is your passion? Why is that your passion? I got a lot of interesting answers and started to make connections between people’s passions, their pain, and their work. A few people stood out because they knew their pain, their “sacred wound,” they knew their passion, and they had integrated the two in their work. I asked one fellow: “What is your passion?” He answered, “More than anything I love supporting people as they build trusting relationships in a small group.” “Why?” I asked. “Why is that your central passion?” He paused and looked right at me. He said, “Tom, I never had much of a family. What I did have wasn’t very functional or nurturing. I get a chance to recreate a group of people that is a little bit like a family. And I get a charge out of doing that.” Bingo! This guy had really been cooked. He had mixed with spices and rice and had become a vital human being. A true wounded healer. I wanted to kiss him. But I didn’t. I thought it might hurt my chance to get some really good leads. I want to explore with you the lessons and invitations in Rumi’s poem of the chickpea and relate them to the wounded healer. They have something to tell us about the mysterious potential hiding in our pain. The potential isn’t really hiding in our pain. It is just sometimes so far below the surface of our consciousness that it seems to be hiding; the potential can be hard to find. This chickpea has become a kind of spiritual guide for me, inviting me to stay in the pot and get cooked enough to be edible. The wounded healer, an image used by the late Henri Nouwen who was recommended by my spiritual director at Notre Dame, has been for me an archetype reminding us that though we may be cooked enough to be nourishing for others, we still are healing. It reminds us that we heal and are powerful when we are conscious of our pain, our wound. And for Nouwen the pain is more existential than experiential. For him the deepest pain is not the trauma from our past, but the persistent present condition he calls personal human loneliness. I love this chickpea. This little garbanzo bean. He is being boiled. See his plump little body, leaping up over the rim and talking to the cook. He isn’t happy about it. Haven’t we been there? “Why are you doing this to me?” Who doesn’t try to jump out when the water begins to boil? We leap up and say, “Why are you doing this to me?” Ten years ago I was working as a parish priest at St. Casimir’s in South Bend, Indiana. The parish I worked in was located in a rough neighborhood. Through the course of events in my life and my personal choice, I had begun to question my place in the priesthood. I jogged in the ‘hood.’ When I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt that I would be leaving South Bend, the priesthood, the woman I was in love with but knew I would not be with, and all my friendships, I was physically sick. I couldn’t sleep. One night at 3 am I went into St. Casimir’s and had it out with all the stained glass saints I could find and every single statue. It was a loud conversation; no, it was a loud monologue. They had nothing to say. It was not an easy time. In those days I actually prayed, more than once, that someone would select me for a drive-by shooting. I didn’t really want to die, just wanted out of the pot of pain. As you can see I was not chosen. I am grateful, as Garth Brooks sings, for unanswered prayers. We all want to avoid pain. It is part of our nature. But we also know on an intuitive level that, as much as we want to run from it, there is something in it for us. Our personal pain is actually screaming at us, trying to get our attention. About the only way I know to get at it is to do the counter-intuitive thing. Instead of running from it, go down into it. Fortunately, since most of us cannot even get close to doing this alone, we find ourselves knocked back down into the pot by life’s circumstances, back in a similar relationship, back in the midst of something strangely familiar. The cook knocks the little chickpea down. We feel for this little bean. We think: Poor little bean! We want to save this bean from the boiling and we probably would. I would. It is hard enough to watch others in pain, but harder still to knock them back into it. It makes me think of what happened to one of Carl Jung’s clients. She reported to him that she had a dream one night. She was waist deep in molten lava. She cried out to him, “Help me OUT, Dr. Jung.” He put his hand on her shoulder, pushed her in deeper and said, “Not OUT but THROUGH.” Jung was reportedly very pleased with her dream and thought she was doing some excellent inner work. “You think I’m torturing you. I am giving you flavor so you can mix with spices and rice and become the lovely vitality of a human being.” “Thank you, O Wise Cook. Thank you very much. Just what I wanted, to be cooked. To be softened and eventually eaten by someone else. Great.” No one said we have to like the cooking. We don’t even have to stay in the pot. By “stay in the pot” I do not mean we stay in an abusive relationship or stay in a destructive pattern of behavior or even stay in beliefs that no longer serve our efforts to make a deeper difference. By “stay in the pot” I mean we face the pain of our sacred wounds. We let the loneliness cut a little deeper. We intentionally “fast” from that which gives us immediate and temporary relief from pain, to let ourselves be seasoned by what has caused us pain. For some of us the pain is too much and we choose to jump out. We take a little break ... have a little chocolate, a few martinis. Or a lot of chocolate. We duck out for a few months or a year, or for a decade. Or for several lifetimes. If we can keep from putting it off too much, keep from staying too busy to feel, or staying safely up in our heads, or medicating it too much, if we can keep from escaping our pain by indulging in our addictions or going shopping, I know we can be taken to a deeper place in this lifetime. We can access the mysterious potential hiding in our pain, and mine it like a precious gem. If we can’t keep from avoiding it – here’s the good news – we will be knocked back into the pot eventually. I know it doesn’t sound like good news. If we jump out or are not yet cooked enough to be nourishing, we will get another chance. Something keeps cooking us. As a marriage therapist friend of mine says: “That’s the great thing about life – if you don’t deal with a big issue, it will come back again and you’ll get another chance to deal with it, or not.” Lovely, isn’t it? Lovely, precisely. So we can “become the lovely vitality of a human being.” The invitation issued by our pain obviously isn’t the only way we become the lovely vitality of a human being, but it sure is a powerful way. As I study those who nurture others well, those who make a deep difference, I often see, just beneath the surface of their love, their pain. They are feeding another person or a whole community. They are the food. Isn’t that the ultimate gift? Isn’t that what takes away our pain – when we are food for another? Have we ever reached out to another, given ourselves freely, from the divine place inside, and noticed that a goodly portion of our petty pains have vanished? When I am giving from that place, aware of my condition of still having a wound that is partly unhealed, I am not conscious of my old fall-off-the-horse-while-riding-it-bareback knee injury. I am not feeling any mid-back pain. I am pain free. Yet the injuries, or at least their scars, remain. I still have them. You do too. Kristen, my wife, is a very gifted massage therapist. Her car accident many years ago sent her into deep pain on many levels. It is for her a primary sacred wound. It reshaped her life and catalyzed a life of ministering to others who are in pain. She has not completely healed from that injury and may never heal completely. She is, like many among us, a wounded healer. Are we not all called to be wounded healers? Don’t we go among the people we feel called to serve knowing at some level we are wounded like them? You may know about Candy Lightner, founder of Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD). Her 13-year-old daughter was killed by a drunk driver years ago. Instead of sinking into anger or depression, she found a way to work through her pain and get organized. Her efforts have created laws that make it more difficult to drink and drive. She has saved thousands of lives. Or Bobby Mueller, founder of the Campaign to Ban Land Mines. He lost both legs in Viet Nam. He knows pain also. And he has become a powerful presence, a wounded healer. A well-cooked activist. Rumi says:“Eventually the chickpea will say to the cook, ‘Boil me some more . . . hit me with the skimming spoon. I can’t do this by myself.” Wow, this little pea has actually been transformed. He knows he needs more cooking and more support. It is like having a coach or a trainer or a spouse/partner. You know you can’t do it alone. Meditation, yoga, silence, long walks, daily practice, as you define it, are essential tools to permit us to mix with spices and rice. And we also need the gentle, and sometimes not at all gentle, assistance of another person. I considered life as an independent consultant, but quickly realized I couldn’t do it alone. So I have been working for my brother Dan in construction supplies. I have always found my way into jobs I found meaningful and spiritually rewarding. Life as a Catholic priest was richly rewarding. Working as a Coordinator of Social Justice lined up with my deepest values. My work at Whittier Community Development Corporation, finding jobs for men coming out of incarceration, matched my commitment to economic justice. Now I sell construction supplies. And I sell almost exclusively over the phone: yes, I am a telemarketer. I know. I’d almost rather be a lawyer. We sell diamond sawblades for cutting concrete, asphalt, brick, anything harder than wood. This is my work. It is also a source of pain. There are days I’d like to jump out. There is an immense amount of competition in our niche; diamond blades are the #1 construction supply sold over the phone. I am not sure the job is a sacred wound, but it is part of my present spiritual practice to find some meaning in it, to be fully grateful for it and let the painful part of it cook me. There are moments I long to go back to presiding, conflict facilitation, and preaching as a full time vocation, and one day I may. Today, I still feel the pain of my “priestlessness.” But I actually feel a calling to be where I am and some distant day it may all make sense. Diamond blades are amazing things and they actually have some connection to what I am attempting to say. The blades have actual manufactured diamonds on the rim embedded in a metal matrix. (Don’t worry, they are not real diamonds anymore. That was the first thing I asked about them when I was considering the job). They don’t actually cut the way a sawblade for wood cuts; they grind. The metal which holds the diamonds grinds away when it encounters the concrete or brick as the blade spins, exposing the diamonds. The diamonds literally break away from the metal and break into smaller pieces and grind up the cement or stone or brick. If they don’t break away, they don’t cut. Maybe we “cut” best when we are a little broken. We help others heal best when we are healed enough but still wounded. Those who have made some of the greatest contributions to the common good are persons who have been deeply cut, broken open. They have been able to find healing and then cut through seemingly uncuttable substances – petrified bureaucracies, hardened hearts, literal walls between people. Who among us has not been deeply cut? There are diamonds in those wounds. Sometimes they are buried very, very deep in us. They don’t come out, sometimes, unless we are cooked and recooked by some experiences that are painful. Our hidden diamonds may be waiting to be mined by us. Waiting to be useful. The world is hungry for our offering. Literally, actually starving. I do not know where you are at in the kitchen of your soul – or in the process of being cooked and served up. Perhaps you are still growing on the vine. Perhaps just being picked. Maybe just being tossed into the pot. Or you’ve been simmering for years. Or being eaten as I speak. Wherever you are in your journey, let me toss into your pot these juicy words of Hafiz, another Sufi mystic/poet who lived about 100 years after Rumi: Don’t surrender your loneliness so quickly. Tom Esch gave this meditation at Unity Universalist Church in St Paul in November, 2004. He still sells diamond sawblades for his brother’s company, but he is now also a process work facilitator in training with Arnold Mindell’s Process Work Institute in Portland, Oregon. He lives with his wife and son in St. Paul. You are invited to his process work sessions, which you will find listed in Upcoming Events in future issues of the Progressive Catholic Voice. _______________________________________________
Will You Wear the Rainbow Sash This Pentecost? By Brian McNeill Is it worthwhile to spend time and energy to try to reform Catholic teaching on homosexuality? With the immense problems of global warming, wars in the Middle East, poverty, hunger, the AIDS pandemic, and financial collapse increasing the sum of human suffering in our day, why would anyone spend what little free time they have trying to change the minds of the Roman Catholic curia on the issue of homosexuality? Isn’t this, at best, frivolous? There are many who think so. Many, who might be inclined to care about the issue because they are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT), and were baptized Catholic as infants, have simply left the Roman Catholic Church as the hierarchy has repeated its bigoted statements about homosexuality as an “objective disorder” in multiple official documents issued on an almost annual basis. In its November, 2006 statement, “Ministry to Persons with a Homosexual Inclination: Guidelines for Pastoral Care,” the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) state that LGBT Catholics are discouraged from coming out in their parishes, may not be officially involved with parish ministry, and should not adopt children. The bishops then have the gall to say discrimination against LGBT people should not be allowed. They conclude with a call to dialogue with LGBT people even though the document was created without any consultation of LGBT Catholics, and there has been no official dialogue with gay Catholic groups since the document was issued. In the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis the new coadjutor, Archbishop John Nienstedt, who will soon take over for the retiring Archbishop Harry Flynn, has done the USCCB one better by condemning the family and friends of LGBT Catholics who are living with a same-sex partner. Perhaps in the interest of getting a red hat on his head he has written: “Those who actively encourage or promote homosexual acts or such activity within a homosexual lifestyle formally cooperate in a grave evil and, if they do so knowingly and willingly, are guilty of mortal sin. They have broken communion with the church and are prohibited from receiving holy Communion until they have had a conversion of heart, expressed sorrow for their action and received sacramental absolution from a priest.” – The Catholic Spirit, November 15, 2007 The official response to letters of complaint and efforts to discuss disagreement with church officials over these teachings is met by the particularly unchristian tactic of stonewalling. They simply do not reply. This, in my mind, is a tacit admission that they cannot justify their position. A church that relies heavily on the behavioral sciences as part of its preparation of candidates for the sacraments of holy orders and matrimony, has backed itself into the corner of having to ignore or dismiss all that those sciences are saying about LGBT people in order to maintain its current policy. The hierarchy’s pointing to scripture to back up its teachings is undertaken in the same spirit of misusing the scriptures, in times past, to back up its teaching that the sun revolves around the earth, and the permissibility of human slavery. Having said all that, is it still worth anyone’s time to attend the noon Mass at the Cathedral of St. Paul on Pentecost Sunday, May 11, wearing the Rainbow Sash? Yes. Not doing so will be interpreted by Archbishop Nienstedt, and the conservatives who support him, as silent consent to their position. Wearing the Rainbow Sash is a peaceful, prayerful, and respectful way of clearly stating that the church is wrong on this issue and needs to change. There may, or may not be media covering the event, but even if there are no media, the message will be heard by the archbishop. A correct interpretation of scripture tells us that there are two fundamental gospel values: love and justice. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people, their family and friends, respond to the first by coming out, and to the second by working to change the structures of oppression. Like it or not, the Roman Catholic Church is one of the largest and most powerful oppressors of our community, and it will not change unless people work to make it change. Walking away allows bigotry and discrimination to thrive. Join us wearing the Rainbow Sash on Pentecost Sunday on May 11! We meet on the Selby Avenue side of the cathedral at 11:30 am for the distribution of the sashes, before attending the 12:00 noon Mass. Brian McNeill, a member of The Progressive Catholic Voice's editorial team, is also the president of Dignity Twin Cities and the organizer of Rainbow Sash Alliance USA. For more information, call 612-721-6341. _______________________________________________
By Dorothy Olinger, SSND “The future belongs to those who give the next generation reason to hope.” – Teilhard De Chardin We live in calamitous times when life is threatened on many levels: through war, poverty, hunger disease – a time in which the very life-systems of Earth are threatened. We live in a time when persons are excluded, denied their human rights, the opportunities to live full happy lives. We have forgotten who we are, why we are here, what is essential. It is a time for CHANGE. Anything that is alive changes or dies. As we learn more, we can make informed changes that lead to life. The scientific breakthroughs of the 20th century gave us the New Creation Story (also known as The Great Story) that opens us to the deeper truths of our interconnections, our relationships with all beings. It is the cosmogenesis, the on-going evolutionary story that began some 13.7 billion years ago, that holds ALL in its embrace: light, stars, galaxies, planets, oceans, air, sun, and the elements needed for LIFE. Diversification and complexity led to various forms of plants, animals and us. It is a wondrous story flowing from the Divine creative energy. It answers the basic questions of our existence. Where is the Church with this story? Do you hear it in Sunday reflections? In parish bulletins? Are classes offered to help people understand it and the implications for living with deep gratitude, a sense of WONDER and a huge responsibility because we are the beings that can make decisions that can partner with our Creator God. A new book by Michael Dowd has the interesting title, Thank God for Evolution: How the Marriage of Science and Religion Will Transform Your Life and Our World. In the past, science and religion were suspicious of each other. Now it is top scientists who compliment Dowd for bringing religion/faith into the picture. It is needed if we are to understand our human role. Faith goes deeper, beyond science which gives facts. Faith goes into the mystical and spiritual. Only then can we truly know who we are and what our call is as Earth-Cosmic beings. And it is this Great Story that holds the solution to a promising future. Dorothy Olinger is a School Sister of Notre Dame and the editor of An Amazing Journey! The Universe and (See Upcoming Events, below, for a viewing and discussion of the movie, "The Great Story.") _______________________________________________
By Tom White The following letter was published in the Star Tribune (Minneapolis) on Monday, March 24, 2008. How deluded can a President be to insinuate that the war in Iraq has been good for America? The original estimate by the Bush forces was $50 billion and even that would be underwritten by the sale of Iraqi oil. Well, at the end of the 5th year the government has already spent $522 billion and it is predicted by Nobel peace prize economist, Joseph Stiglitz, that before it is over we will spend $3 trillion on this deceitful war. There were no weapons of mass destruction and there was no connection between Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaida. It was a series of lies from the start and now it is devouring enormous tax funds that should be spent here at home on education, healthcare, and low-income subsidies. The cost of the war in 2007 alone was $138 billion which would have provided health insurance for all 46 million Americans who are now uninsured. What’s more, we could have added 30,000 elementary and secondary schoolteachers and built 400 schools in which they could teach. It was President Eisenhower who said, “The world in arms is not spending money alone, it is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.” . . . Never before has it been done with such abandon, and with absolutely no apology! Tom White and his wife Darlene are members of Interfaith Peacemakers of Edina. They are also co-founders of Catholic Rainbow Parents. _______________________________________________
We welcome letters from our readers. You can send your comments to progressivecatholicvoice@gmail.com. Dialoguing with the Archbishop – A waste of time?
I'm responding to the “getting slapped” post. I think your critic’s point is well taken too. At the same time, I think it is a waste of time for any of us to try to engage the Archbishop in conversation, dialogue or consultation. He’s interested in pronouncing not listening to or learning from anyone other the voices from Rome. It has been fruitful for me to pray for Archbishop Nienstedt and remember that he is as loved by God as anyone else. He is certainly in a position to do a lot of harm and personal damage with his pronouncements on gays and lesbians. In my opinion it would be more productive to support and build up those he condemns and alienates than try to engage him. Tom Jonas _______________________________________________
Allan BoesakRacial Reconciliation: The Church’s Great Unfinished Work When: 6:30 p.m., Sunday, April 6, 2008. Where: Church of All Nations (4301 Benjamin St. NE, Columbia Heights, MN). The Church of All Nations invites the entire Christian community to hear and interact with the great Reformed pastor, scholar, author and anti-apartheid activist Allan Boesak. Dr. Boesak is a global figure and a key architect of the modern, post-apartheid, democratic, and multicultural nation of South Africa today. At Church of All Nations on April 6, 2008 at 6:30pm, he will preach on “Racial Reconciliation: The Church’s Great Unfinished Work,” followed by a time for Q&A and dialogue. The Rev. Dr. Allan Boesak (born 1945) was a leading anti-apartheid activist for decades. He was the driving force behind the United Democratic Front, and later the African National Congress (ANC), which led the way to democracy in South Africa and the election of Nelson Mandela in 1994. He served as a pastor in Paarl (1967-70), then studied in Holland and New York, earning his PhD in 1975. He led a parish in Cape Town from 1976 until his unanimous election as president of the 70 million member World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC) in 1982, where he introduced a heresy motion that led to the suspension of South Africa’s unrepentant and racist Dutch Reformed Churches from WARC. He is the author of many books and continues to advance the ideas of liberation, justice and wholeness for all God’s people. Note: There will be no charge, but a free-will offering will support the international ministries at Church of All Nations.
Elizabeth JohnsonSeeking the Living God: Nourishing Faith with the Living TraditionWhen: 6:30-8:30 p.m., Thursday, April 10, 2008. Where: The O’Shaughnessy Auditorium, College of St. Catherine (2004 Randolph Ave., St. Paul). In her new book, Quest of the Living God: Mapping Frontiers in the Theology of God (Continuum), Elizabeth Johnson, CSJ, Ph.D. feeds our hunger for mature faith and meaningful life. Johnson’s talk on April 10 will explore the multiple, rich Christian theologies that are seeking and finding the living God in our perilous times and fractured world. “Every era has its insights,” writes Johnson. “Insights into the living God are flaring forth in our day as a result of faith’s encounter with changing, life-or-death circumstances.” As a result, voices from around the world are contributing to the “dawning of global Christianity.” Elizabeth A. Johnson CSJ, PhD. distinguished professor of theology at Fordham University in New York City, will speak as the second annual lecturer and awardee in the Myser Initiative on Catholic Identity series presented by the College of St. Catherine. This event is co-sponsored by Wisdom Ways. An outstanding presenter, Johnson is the award-winning author of She Who Is: the Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse (Crossroad); Friends of God and Prophets: a Feminist Theological Reading of the Communion of Saints (Continuum); and Dangerous Memories: A Mosaic of Mary in Scripture (Continuum) as well as the newly released Quest of the Living God. Don’t miss this! Sponsored by Wisdom Ways, this series will be facilitated by Joan Mitchell, CSJ, MTS, Harvard Divinity School; PhD, Luther Seminary. Cost: No cost, but tickets are required. They are available for pick-up at the Centers of Excellence of the College of St. Catherine, the O’Shaughnessy Auditorium, and at Wisdom Ways. For more information and to register: See Wisdom Ways' website.
Dignity Twin Cities Liturgy When: 7:30 p.m., Friday, April 11 and Friday, April 25, 2008. Where: Prospect Park United Methodist Church (22 Orlin Ave. SE, Minneapolis). Dignity Twin Cities meets every second and fourth Friday of the month at 7:30 p.m. at United Methodist Church. Celebrating its 33rd anniversary this year, Dignity Twin Cities is one of 70+ Dignity chapters across the nation. Dignity encourages and helps LGBT people experience dignity through the integration of their spirituality and their sexuality. The organization envisions and works for a time when LGBT Catholics are affirmed as beloved persons of God and, as such, can participate fully in all aspects of life within the both church and society. For directions, click here.
Voting Justice, Voting Hope: Progressive Faith Taking Action in 2008A National Gathering on Faith and Politics When: Friday, April 11, Saturday, April 12, and Sunday, April 13, 2008. Where: Hyatt Hotel Minneapolis Be inspired by: Voting Justice, Voting Faith is being billed as a “national gathering of faith and politics.” Featured are "the nation's most intriguing speakers on faith and politics," including Rabbi Michael Learner, Jim Wallis, Ray Suarez, and many others. For more information, including cost, registration, and full schedule, click here.
April Meeting of Spiritual ProgressivesWhen: 7:00 p.m., Monday, April 14, 2008. (Come at 6:30 p.m. for refreshments and fellowship.) Where: Plymouth Church (1900 Nicollet Ave., just south of Downtown Minneapolis. Enter the door under the canopy off the rear parking lot and go downstairs to the Jackman Room.) The Minnesota Chapter of the Network of Spiritual Progressives' April meeting will be viewing Barack Obama’s speech on race in its entirety, followed by a panel discussion featuring Rev. Jim Gertmenian, Rev. David Belton, and others.
OutFront Minnesota's Stand OUT, Live Out, Speak OUT
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Featuring Richard Gaillardetz |
When: Saturday, April 19, 2008
Where: St. Stephen Lutheran Church
8400 France Avenue South
Bloomington, MN 55431
Dr. Richard R. Gaillardetz currently holds the Margaret and Thomas Murray and James J. Bacik Endowed Chair in Catholic Studies at the University of Toledo in Toledo, Ohio. After receiving both an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Notre Dame in Systematic Theology, Dr. Gaillardetz taught from 1991 to 2001 as an associate professor at the University of St. Thomas Graduate School of Theology in Houston, Texas. He has published numerous articles and authored six books, including The Church in the Making: Rediscovering Vatican II.
Dr. Gaillardetz was a Catholic delegate on the U.S. Catholic—Methodist dialogue, 2000-2005. He was recently elected (2006-8) to the Board of Directors of the Catholic Theological Society of America. He is a past recipient of the Sophia Award (2000), offered annually by the faculty of the Washington Theological Union in Washington D.C. in recognition of a theologian’s contributions to the life of the church. He has received numerous awards from the Catholic Press Association for articles he has written and is a popular speaker at theological and pastoral conferences. He is married to Diana Gaillardetz and they are the parents of four young boys: David, Andrew, Brian and Gregory.
Morning Session: Renewing the Baptismal Priesthood.
Afternoon Session: Rethinking Hierarchy: Building a Community of Holy Conversation.
Cost: $45 Individuals
$80 Couples
Lunch is included in the cost. If the cost is an obstacle for you, please call Judy at 612-927-
6825 or Sharon at 651-457-3249.
Click here for downloadable brochure (.pdf) for this conference.
Speaking Out Against Empire Building in the Middle East
Event #1
When: 7:00 - 9:00 p.m., April 24, 2008
Where: Macalester Plymouth Church (1658 Lincoln Ave., St. Paul)
Topic: Challenging Empire
Event #2
When: 9:30 a.m. - Noon, Saturday, April 26, 2008
Where: Southdale Library, 2nd Floor, 7001 York Ave., Edina)
Topic: Understanding the Palestine-Israeli Conflict
Phyllis Bennis is a fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies and author of Challenging Empire: How People, Governments, and the UN Defy US Power and Understanding the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict: A Primer.
Phyllis Bennis’ visit to the Twin Cities is sponsored by Women Against Military Madness (WAMM), Middle-East Peace Now!, Merriam Park Neighbors for Peace, and Macalester Plymouth Peacemakers. Both events are free and open to the public.
Common Ground for the Common Good
When: 7:00 p.m., April 28, 2008.
Where: Peter O'Neill Hall
Guardian Angels Church
8260 4th St. N.
Oakdale, MN
Dr. Bernie Evans holds the Virgil Michel Ecumenical Chair in Rural Social Ministries and is an Associate Professor of Pastoral Theology at St. John’s University, Collegeville, MN.
A noted author and lecturer, Dr. Evan’s latest book is Lazarus at the Table: Catholics and Social Justice, a book that offers a comprehensive, thorough, and valuable outline of Catholic social teaching.
Click here to download a color poster advertising this event.
For more information, call (651) 738-2223, ext 131.
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Looking Ahead . . .
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Schedule |
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| 8:30 - 9:00 am |
Check-In |
| 9:00 - 9:45 am | Welcome and |
| 9:45 am | Serving of Breakfast |
| 10:00 am | Introduction of Robert McClory |
| 10:10 - 11:00 am | Keynote Address: "Democratizing Catholicism in Challenging Times |
| 11:00 - 11:30 am | Q & A |
| 11:30 am - 12:00 noon | Social Time and Networking! |
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Registration
Please note!
Limited walk-in registrations are still available for $20.
Call 612-201-4534
for information.
Sponsoring Organizations The Catholic Pastoral Committee on Sexual Minorities (CPCSM) |
About the Artwork The organizers of this event gratefully acknowledge Ansgar Holmberg, CSJ, |
To download brochure (.pdf) To download 8.5 x 11 poster (.pdf)
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Reading the Documents of Vatican II. Michael Bayly shares excepts from the preface of Richard R. Gaillardetz’s book, The Church in the Making.
"Dutch Proposal Stirs Controversy," by Robert McClory, National Catholic Reporter, February 22, 2008.
"The Dutch Plan: Will Innovation Save the Church?" by Robert McClory, National Catholic Reporter, December 14, 2007.
"What Happened at the Council?" by John Wilkins, Commonweal, Sept 14, 2007. A review of Richard Gaillardetz's book, The Church in the Making, and Cardinal Edward Idris Cassidy's book, Ecumenism and Interreligious Dialogue -- two of the five recently published books by Paulist Press (in the eventual series of eight books, entitled Rediscovering Vatican II) that present commentaries on the texts of Vatican II and discuss their implementation over the subsequent 40 years. (For easier reading, click on the Print version of this article, immediately below its title.)
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