NCR Deacons issue-February 2013 by National Catholic Reporter

Deacons

MISSION 8a Evangelization

NATIONAL CATHOLIC REPORTER FEBRUARY 1-14, 2013 NCRonline.org

Move the diaconate into new and creative areas yet to be touched by the church, writes William Ditewig

—Photos by Carol Hoverman, OSF

One of Deacon Stephen MacDonald’s second-grade reading groups at Holy Ghost School in Dubuque, Iowa, responds to questions about the children’s version of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol on Jan 3.

‘Mr. Mac’ sees teacher, deacon as one vocation IOWA DEACON IS MOTIVATED TO TEACH AS JESUS DID, ESPECIALLY IN SERVING ‘THE LEAST AMONG US’ By CAROL HOVERMAN

UBUQUE, IOWA . He is called “Mr. Mac” by the hundreds of second- and third-graders he has taught during his 41-year teaching career. For 38 of those years, Deacon Stephen MacDonald taught second grade in one of Dubuque’s downtown Catholic schools. He has been a teacher for 28 years at Holy Ghost Elementary School, part of the Holy Family Catholic School System. “I went through a checkout the other day and someone called, ‘Aren’t you Mrs. Mac?’ ” said his wife, Kathy. “ ‘Your husband was my favorite teacher when I had him in second grade. Does he still give out peanuts?’ ”

Continued on Page 2a

Deacon Stephen MacDonald involves students as he relates the scriptures to their experience in his homily during a January school Mass at Holy Ghost Church.

NATIONAL CATHOLIC REPORTER FEBRUARY 1-14, 2013

2a DEACONS MR. MAC: ‘TEST SCORES ARE A TINY PART OF WHAT A CHILD IS’ Continued from Page 1a

“I started at Holy Ghost and now I’m back,” the veteran teacher said. “The families, the parents, the students are just good people. They have their struggles and special needs but parents realize their children may have these needs and want what’s best for them.” MacDonald has been a permanent deacon for 24 years and says his call came from the community of Holy Ghost Parish. “I had been teaching at the school and after a bulletin notice, parishioners encouraged me to think about becoming a deacon,” he recalled. “Over the years I have prepared many, many children for first Communion and first reconciliation. That’s awfully exciting,” he said. He sees his vocation as a teacher and as a deacon as so much a part of his life that he can’t separate them. “So much of it is intermingled, especially with the sacramental preparation, so it just flows — one from the other very easily,” MacDonald said. “It’s almost like I’m never stopping ministry because I really do look upon my teaching second grade as my major ministry, even though it’s my profession.” The children relate to him when he preaches homilies at school Masses or leads prayer services. “One of his most precious gifts is his ability to make God’s word come alive to the students and their parents,” said Principal Denise Grant. “He makes it connect to their lives so they really understand.” MacDonald is now teaching children of students that he taught years ago. “I call them my grandstudents and that is just so cool,” he said with a big smile. “Sometimes when I’m shopping, a 40-year-old man will come up and ask, ‘Mr. Mac, do you remember me?’ ” He said he loves teaching at Holy Ghost because of the range of abilities in his class. “I have 22 students, some with real special needs. I have a child

From left, Brook Scherf, a resident at the Dubuque Hills & Dales Childcare Center, is pictured with Steve, MacKenzie and Kathy MacDonald.

—Carol Hoverman, OSF

reading at the fifth-grade level and I have a child who is a nonreader, and have everything in between.” The heart of his ministry is living out the Gospel mandate to teach as Jesus did, especially relating it to serving the “least among us.” MacDonald can name students who couldn’t read in second grade but later graduated from college. “If you are going to go by test scores in second grade, you would have sent the child out of the room. Test scores are a tiny part of what a child is. I think the whole nation places too much emphasis on test scores,” he said. “What we need to do is have each child reach their best potential with their Godgiven talents.” His ministry in school isn’t only to the children. “Often parents or teachers will be hesitant to go to administration with a personal problem or a faith issue, but they’ll come to the deacon. Listening to them is always No. 1 in my book,” he said. MacDonald is one of four deacons assigned to the Holy Spirit Parish — a merger of three downtown Dubuque parishes. Because of his ministry at school and also ministry with persons with disabilities, his turn to preach on weekends is less frequent.

This allows him to have some quality family time. The MacDonalds have three daughters: Benedictine Sister Stefanie, who is also a teacher; Naomi, who with her husband has three teenage boys; and MacKenzie, who was adopted as a special needs baby almost 30 years ago. Kathy’s parents died when she was a child, and she was placed in an orphanage, followed by foster care. One of her dreams was to someday take a child out of that system and adopt a special needs baby. Adopting MacKenzie fulfilled that dream. The MacDonalds were deeply involved in church ministry even before Steve was ordained. Both had master’s degrees in family ministry. Both still teach primary grades in Catholic schools and are award-winning teachers. Deacon MacDonald is a member of the archdiocesan committee for persons with disabilities. He and Kathy are both members of the subcommittee that plans renewal days and retreats for persons with disabilities. Much of their ministry is done together. For almost 20 years, they have directed the ecumenical religious education program at Hills & Dales Childcare Center in Dubuque

for children and young adults with severe and profound mental and physical disabilities. They adapt resources from the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center, which has materials for teaching religion to persons with various disabilities. Classes are taught twice a month during the school year with one volunteer paired with one student. The number of children who can take part depends on the number of volunteers. The MacDonalds are also coaches for the Special Olympics. One athlete was also in their class at Hills & Dales. “I had seen this woman with her son at a Special Olympics event and I said, ‘I’m so glad your son got to join us this year for religious ed,’ and she burst into tears,” recounted Deacon MacDonald. “She said that she had her son on the list for a long time because he never had any religious education. When we finally got enough volunteers that we could add him, she was just thrilled.” He added, “With the children at Hills & Dales and with the athletes in Special Olympics, I see the nobility of these people we term ‘the least among us.’ ” Kathy MacDonald said, “In addition to helping people with special needs, I think we’ve made an impact on the people we’ve encouraged to be companions at Hills & Dales and in other places. They come away with a richer view because they’ve worked with these special people.” Deacon MacDonald acknowledges that at his age, his energy level can be a challenge but positive reactions to his homilies from the people in the pews and his relationships with the children keep him going. “The students just keep me alive and positive. They are just fun to be with, whether it’s at Hills & Dales or Holy Ghost School or Special Olympics — that’s where I get my enthusiasm,” he said. “To teach as Jesus did keeps me motivated — keeps me most alive. I think all I do is teaching really.” [Franciscan Sr. Carol Hoverman is editor of The Witness, newspaper of the Dubuque archdiocese.]

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NATIONAL CATHOLIC REPORTER FEBRUARY 1-14, 2013

DEACONS 3a

For deacon’s kids, ordained ministry is all in the family By JOSHUA J. McELWEE

At least for some in the Catholic church, it seems ordained ministry is all in the family. Seven years ago, Jennifer Swope was married to her husband in the same parish in Georgia that she and her family had attended since 1985. The man dressed in vestments officiating the Catholic ceremony? Her grandfather. A year and a half ago, Swope’s first child was baptized at St. George Church in Newnan, Ga. The man who anointed the newborn daughter with oil and water? Swope’s father. Both her father and grandfather are permanent deacons for the Atlanta archdiocese — they’re ordained, married men entrusted with Catholic pastoral care. “Our family is chock-full,” Swope, a mother of two, said with a laugh in a January interview. “We got it covered.” Now living in the Washington, D.C., area with her own family, the daughter and granddaughter is something relatively rare in the Catholic church: Someone who has witnessed a parent go through formation for sacramental ministry and then known them as both family and ordained minister. While a 2012 study by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate estimated there are more than 17,000 deacons across the country, one of the authors of the survey said it is unknown how many of the deacons have children, much less what kind of impact their ministries might have on their sons and daughters. “I’m actually not aware of any stud-

ies like that,” said Mary Gautier, a sociologist and senior research associate at CARA. And although there may be a plethora of cultural jokes about children of preachers in other Christian denominations, along with numerous memoirs of their experiences, several prominent Protestant researchers said they weren’t aware of any recent academic studies looking into their lives. One of the researchers said in an email that the most helpful direction he could give on the subject would be to point to “two extremes” sometimes seen in preachers’ children — two poles with which many are surely familiar. “One is the possibility of rebellion, the hellion who rejected his parent’s religion because of its strictness,” said David Roozen, director of the Hartford Institute for Religion Research at Hartford Seminary in Connecticut, which was originally founded to train Congregationalist ministers. “The second is the child who came to share his/her parent’s attachment to the church and became a religious professional oneself.” From first glance, it may look like Swope followed the second path. She served seven years as a program officer for Catholic Relief Services, the humanitarian agency of the U.S. Catholic church. She left that job in July to focus on her family. One of her key projects at the agency was helping organize its annual Operation Rice Bowl, a Lenten program focused on raising money for programs that benefit those experiencing poverty around the globe.

Deacon Andres Larraza, left, with son Alec

Deacon Steven Swope, left, with daughter Jennifer

But Swope, whose father, Steven Swope, is a deacon at St. George Church and also served as the Atlanta archdiocese’s associate director of diaconate formation until January, said she was well on her path to becoming involved in church ministry before her father was ordained. Swope’s father, she said, started the deacon formation process when she was already finishing college at Xavier University in Cincinnati. She had decided she wanted to work in church ministry after doing a semester of service in Nepal and serving for a year as an intern for the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, a domestic antipoverty program of the U.S. bishops. Across the country, Alec Larraza was in a very different frame of mind when his father, Andres Larraza, said he was thinking of becoming a deacon. Now a senior at St. Francis Central Coast Catholic High School in Watsonville, Calif., Larraza remembers being in the first or second grade when his parents sat him down to tell him that Andres was going to become a deacon for California’s Monterey diocese. One of the things Alec said he remembers most about the five years his father spent in diaconate formation is waking up Saturday mornings with his father gone from the house, already attending weekend formation classes. “I just kind of got used to that,” said Larraza, mentioning that his father, who is an associate professor of physics at the Naval Postgraduate School as well as a deacon at Monterey’s Cathedral of San Carlos Borromeo, is “always really busy anyways.” The biggest change with his father becoming a deacon, Alec said, was seeing him at the altar, assisting the priest in celebrating the Mass. Swope too said that was a significant change for her, especially since becoming a deacon her father has helped celebrate funerals, weddings and baptisms for friends and family. “There are things he has gotten to do as well that plays a bigger role in larger life celebrations,” Swope said. “To be kind of part of that in an extra

special way is meaningful both for my dad and the people he’s doing that for.” “I think he’s someone that people would always be willing to talk to,” she said. “But now as a deacon it does place him in a certain level where people feel like they can really come to, not only for companionship and friendship, but also guidance and spiritual direction.” While Larraza said he doesn’t think he wants to become a deacon when he grows up, he said one thing he’s learned from watching his father in ministry is that he wants to be involved in social justice activities. Since his father started the deacon formation process, Larraza said, the whole family “became involved with a lot more ministries, especially social justice ministries. So I know that any time I have when I grow older, I would like to volunteer with social justice ministries.” Among the ministries Larraza mentioned that his family is involved in is a group at their parish called “Salt and Light,” after the 1993 U.S. bishops’ document “Communities of Salt and Light: Reflections on the Social Mission of the Parish,” which identified social justice work as “an essential part of parish life.” As for the family connections? Swope said the fact that she and her father are on something of similar tracks in working in church circles has led to interesting situations. After becoming a deacon, Swope said, her father decided to enlist in a CRS program for deacons, priests and seminarians called Global Fellows. Composed of more than 75 men, the program trains them to represent and promote the work of CRS at their parishes and in their homilies. Deacon Swope’s involvement in the program, Jennifer said, meant the father and daughter would sometimes have to attend CRS meetings together. “That was always interesting,” said Jennifer, laughing over the phone as she mentioned that in those meetings her father would sometimes ask the best questions. “He always knew more than most of the others, because I was his daughter,” she said.

NATIONAL CATHOLIC REPORTER FEBRUARY 1-14, 2013

4a DEACONS

Candidates go the distance in formation program By PATRICIA LEFEVERE

You don’t need a GPS to become a deacon in the Davenport, Iowa, diocese, but chances are most candidates for the permanent diaconate will have logged several thousand miles by the time they complete their five-year training program and are ordained in Sacred Heart Cathedral on July 13. That’s because the diocese spreads across 11,438 square miles, touching the western border of Illinois and northern tip of Missouri and crossing 22 counties in southeast Iowa. This means that those in the western end of the diocese have to travel almost three hours to get to classes. “However, the importance of participation in-person — both for formation and discernment — and the development of a sense of community far outweigh the inconvenience of such travel and argue against the use of distance learning modalities,” said Deacon Frank Agnoli, who directs Davenport’s Deacon Formation Program. The largely rural diocese counts 80 parishes and just under 98,000 Catholics. A few larger towns can be found along the Mississippi River. Iowa City, home to the University of Iowa, is near the center of the diocese. Currently, 68 active-duty priests, 42 deacons, and hundreds of lay ecclesial ministers and women religious serve the 80 parishes. While deacons help extend the church’s sacramental presence when priests are fewer in number, “it would be incorrect to think of the diaconate — and lay ministry, for that matter — as simply a way to ‘fill in’ when there is a shortage of priests,” Agnoli said in an email interview with NCR. Agnoli is quick to emphasize that the diaconate is a vocation to ordained ministry and a commitment to lifelong service to the diocese. “It’s not a second career or something to do during retirement, but a permanent way of life that defines the very identity of the deacon,” he said. Iowa has 275 permanent deacons in four dioceses, and in Davenport 12 men are in their final year of deacon formation and another 15 have begun their first year. The last class of deacons was ordained in 2002, and then the former bishop of Davenport, William Franklin, put the program on hold. When Bishop Martin Amos arrived in 2006, he asked for the program to be reinstated. Deacon candidates have the opportunity for a rigorous theological education at St. Ambrose University, where faculty offer scripture courses as well as a wide spectrum of theology classes. Several of the deacon aspirants are enrolled in the master’s in pastoral theology program, which the diocese offers them at no additional expense (except for the application and graduation fee). Whether in the degree track or not, all the men do the same homework — with the exception that degree candidates have to complete a final integrative project for the university. The Annual Diocesan Appeal funds the deacon formation program, said Dominican Sr. Laura Goedken, who directs development for the diocese.

Corinne Winter

Micah Kiel

Candidates pay their own book and travel expenses. Professor Corinne Winter, who’s taught systematic and dogmatic theology to deacons for seven of her 19 years at St. Ambrose, noted a marked difference in deacon preparation as a result of the recent U.S. bishops’ revision of the guidelines for deacon education. “Standards for doctrinal and scriptural knowledge are much higher than previously,” she told NCR in a telephone interview. Consequently, time in the classroom has increased, to 15 hours a month by the time of the final year, she noted. Winter has guided deacon candidates in their understanding of theological anthropology, Christology, Trinitarian theology and Marian theology. Along the way, seven have dropped out, she said, each of them “reaching a peacefully good decision to leave.” In some cases, the workload conflicted with the demands of their professional and family life; in others, they may have discerned that they did not have a calling, she said. While candidates bring varying backgrounds to the classroom — law, accountancy, pharmacy, teaching, youth and parish ministry work — all have had some education beyond high school. “What gets them through the rigors of the academic program is their desire to be deacons and to serve the community,” Winter said. Davenport’s deacon candidates meet at the Pastoral Center the second weekend of each month from August through May. The wives of candidates, while not required to attend, always come along, Winter said, and participate fully in classes and discussion. Many of the couples overnight with other deacon couples living in Davenport or nearby. Despite Iowa’s severe winters, no weekend has been canceled. The consent of the wife of a prospective deacon is required. A married deacon cannot remarry after his wife dies. Currently, the men range from 31 to 66 years of age. One of the first-year aspirants was widowed recently; all the other men are married. Winter said she senses no frustration among the wives that they are studying the same material as their spouses — some of them are even in

the master’s program — yet can never be ordained. “There’s an acceptance that that’s how things are right now,” she said. Micah Kiel, assistant theology professor at St. Ambrose, teaches the scriptural component. He has found the wives bring much verve to classroom discussions and are sometimes

the first to see the relevance of an ancient text to church practice today. Kiel said he believes St. Ambrose has done a good job of keeping the university and its theology department in dialogue with the needs of the diocese. He noted that traditionally the academy has not been kind to the church, and perhaps, vice versa. “Because of the critical methods used in scholarly study of theology, the historical questions it raises, and frankly, because many scholars do not value the church, a mutual sense of distrust is common,” Kiel said in an email interview with NCR. But “the diocese needed to see the value of a university and how it could enrich the theological education of its ordained ministers.” For the relationship between the school and the chancery to work, the theology department needed to focus its attention more specifically on training for ecclesial purposes, Kiel said. Kiel said those aspiring to the permanent diaconate in Davenport have been exposed to a diversity of ideas, theological methods and views of the church’s tradition. Of course there are “growing pains,” he noted, in developing a program that will advance knowledge and preaching skills in the aspirants. He’s had to listen to complaints from some of the men about having to read feminist authors. “In such situations, the bishop has completely supported what the St. Ambrose theology faculty Continued on Page 6a

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DEACONS 5a

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Ways for the assembly to bless one another By MIKE BARRETT

lay hands upon this candidate for priesthood as he knelt front and center at the sanctuary steps â&#x20AC;&#x201D; all this profound yet spontaneous, without any rehearsal or choreography beforehand. In this instance, I found out later, the deacon had begged the priestly blessing of one of our members who no longer practiced in active priestly ministry. As if that were not enough, on another occasion a younger member of the parish returned by surprise e with his wife to celebrate their marriage among us. It just so happened September 4, 2011 â&#x20AC;&#x201D; 23rd Sunday on the same day we were honoring a couple who were marking their The assembly knows T 65th wedding anniversary. Guess what? The elder couple approached what ha a to do, and how to the newly married couple with a doo iit, when it comes to prayer of blessing and the laying on of hands, after which the whole thee laying on of hands. assembly came forward one by one This iss is how they relate to to bless both happy couples. The assembly knows what to do, ch h other before Mass: each and how to do it, when it comes to wi i hugs, blessings, with the laying on of hands. This is how they relate to each other before woo words of encourageMass: with hugs, blessings, words f you saw your young child about to put his hand in a hot stove, me e and the extenment, of encouragement, and the exten-you move quickly to prevent him from being burned? If wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t sion of their lives; and with on n of their lives; and sion that faith, same child got hold of your prescription medicine, youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d act with touch and holding and loving just as quickly to prevent a terrible mishap. If a distracted friend was wit t faith, with touch with gestures. about to step into oncoming trafďŹ c, youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d grab her arm to save her, Early childhood developmental nd d holding and loving and wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t you? If, perhaps, a companion drank too much at a party, you CELEBRATION: psychologists remind us that babies gestures. A Comprehensive would see to it that he did not drive. If your teenager was hanging out who are touched and held most offriends Worship Resource ten are the ones whowith ďŹ&#x201A;ourish and who were known to be troubleWe owe it to one makers, wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t you do something to remedy prosper best. St. James already same with wii the communal anointing CelebrationPublications.org the situation? another to love knew this when he convoked the What if a friend or coworker e sick s of the at Sunday Eucharist. was in an abusive relationship â&#x20AC;&#x201D; wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t elders to step up, come forward As the e presider ambles around each other. ROMAN and lay hands on theyou to help her in some way? sicktry (James urr to those requesting the the church LECTIONARY There areacountless other occasions when 5:14). While this has always been sacrament me e of the sick, he is met at in Ordinary we see hurt or in danger and, good friends and family memnoble,Time apostolic gesture, likesomeone most perr each person and 23rd placeSunday by a huddled 33:7-9authentic liturgy, thebers that laying onwe ofare, step up to help. If we can extend our care to others in group o of parishioners whoEzek are alRom 13:8-10hands has become an all these instances of physical, emotional or psychological need, why essential eleready laying on hands, preparing la a are we reluctant to do the same when we see another person falling and healing ment of grace, blessing Matt 18:15-20 for the anointing. e presiderâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s p in the community of into elders, We did di this again following a sin?both Today the sacred texts address this issue clearly and frankly, young and old. semester seminar te e of the preaching afďŹ rming that we are to muster whatever gumption is necessary to REVISED COMMON at ourr church that wasLECTIONARY required c meet this mutual responsibility. deacons of one e of o the transitionalProper le Paul, in his letter to the Roman Christians (second reading), underp 18(23) ( ) seminary. In a rite of ffrom a local l F r. M i k e B a r r e t t i s a scored p r i e s t the o f et h e moti motivation for reaching out to one another with care: We Exod 12:1-14 sending him to his bishop, the asarchdiocese of Milwaukee.owe Writeittotohim at another one an one to love each other. Because authentic love does Rom 13:8-14 sembly came forward one by one to barrettm@archmil.org. no evil, love ve is willing to confront others with their failures â&#x20AC;&#x201D; not v Matt 18:15-20 sa of correction but with an eye to their conversion solely for tthe sake SEPTEMBER a13well. wel and2011 ours|as ANGLICAN ntegr n As an integral aspect of his own conversion to God, Ezekiel was LECTIONARY erve his e h contemporaries as a sentinel or watchman. Like his called to serve Proper 18 collea c prophetic colleagues, Ezekiel was so attuned to Godâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s will and Godâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Ezek 33:(1-6)7-11 h could cou mediate whatever God wished to make known. Godâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ways that he Twenty-Second Week in Ordinary Time Rom 12:9-21 ve ery frequently fr message very came in the form of a call to turn from evil Matt 18:15-20 ace a th and embrace the good. If he did not make Godâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s call known, Ezekiel Thurs., Sept. 1: Col 1:9-14; Luke 5:1-11 h c would be held culpable, but if he fulďŹ lled his ministry faithfully, then You will multiply good works of every sort and grow in the knowledge of God. This nsibili to hear and to heed his words fell upon the recipients n the responsibility passage, written by Paul to encourage the Colossians in their faith, suggests sssage. that as they grow in â&#x20AC;&#x153;perfect wisdomâ&#x20AC;? and â&#x20AC;&#x153;spiritual insight,â&#x20AC;? their lives willof behis message. yâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Gospel, y Go the Matthean Jesus offers a procedure for helpmarked by â&#x20AC;&#x153;good works of every sort.â&#x20AC;? As believers in Christâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s message, our livesIn todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ing others to se see the error of their ways and turn again to God. This must be dedicated to good works, not occasionally but continually; not only when we have the support of others, but even when we must go it alone; not only e of brotherly br procedure and sisterly correction probably reďŹ&#x201A;ects the when we experience a burst of energy or enthusiasm, but when we are tiredsituation orr of the the Matthean community of the 80s. It was intended nott of discouraged or abandoned. When we can truly put the needs of otherss before e or isolate issolate sinners but to encourage their conversion. toealienate dom and dIn his reďŹ&#x201A;ection our own, then we will experience wisdom and know love. O Lord, for wisdom ďŹ&#x201A;ectio ďŹ&#x201A; on on mutual correction, Dietrich Bonhoeffer described d strength, we pray. PC gnesss to admit sin before God and others as a process off g the willingness mark ked by several breakthroughs (Life Together, Harperr liberation marked Fri., Sept. 2: Col 1:15-20; Luke 5:33-39 N Y k and Row, New York: 1954). Those who surrender to this process break He is the image of the invisible God. As Paul continues his instructions to the Corrst of all to community. While sin isolates one from the other, r through ďŹ rst lossians, he refers to Christ as the very image of the invisible God. Jesus showed ssion of o sin empowers fellowship that mutually strengthenss the admission Patricia SĂĄnchez has been conthe compassion of his Fathertributing to thosetowho suffer; he s mercy y Celebration for expressed over 30 Godâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s t resist resist sin together. believers to and forgiveness to the sinner;years. he fed hungry with Godâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s bounty; he e curedThose who Shethe holds a masterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s degree w unite in admitting their sinfulness and in helping one e unite the sick and the lame; he taught to love unconditionally. pressed in us literature and religion ofJesus the also expressed o resist resisst sin will also break through to the cross. On the cross, s another to Bible from joint program a range of emotions that reďŹ&#x201A;ect God: joyaat thedegree wedding feast in Cana, tears att ered the e t scandalous public execution of a criminal for ourr Jesus suffered at Columbia and Union the death of his good friend Lazarus, angerUniversity at the hypocrites making money att belon b nging to Jesus enables us to face the death that comess sake. Our belonging Theological Seminary in New York. the Temple, frustration at the knowledge of Peterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s denial. If we would know ow God,, we have only to study Jesus, the image of the invisible God. Lord, help us follow w in your steps, we pray. PC

In all my years, the only time the laying on of hands has felt right to me was at my ordination to the priesthood 35 years ago. Otherwise, it seems this ancient church tradition â&#x20AC;&#x201D; meant to extend the power of grace and healing â&#x20AC;&#x201D; has been reserved to gentle taps on the head, hand, or shoulders; or to the stilted extension of arms toward people being blessed among or in front of the assembly. But the meaning of this tradition, clear from its name, is that it is handed on, hands-on! Over the years, I have wondered what this gesture called forth from me as a presider and how it is to be applied in the assembly. A number of years ago, following the baptism of children within the Sunday eucharistic assembly, after the closing prayer, I would assemble the parents and their newly baptized young ones up in the sanctuary for a silent gesture of blessing through the laying on of hands. Calling forth some â&#x20AC;&#x153;eldersâ&#x20AC;? from the assembly (e.g. parish councilors, catechists, trustees), I asked them to join me in the silent act of the imposition of hands upon the newly initiated and their parents. Afterward, it occurred to me that the laying on of hands became a sign of its effect upon those touched. They have now been enrolled, incorporated, into our churchly tradition. That was well and good until I found myself at my next pastoral placement, where the assembly desired a fuller part in the celebration of all our sacraments within the Sunday Eucharist. Now, not just a few elders but all members, by virtue of the â&#x20AC;&#x153;elderâ&#x20AC;? designation attained by their own reception of the sacraments, came forward exthe closing prayer to ex following f their blessing, â&#x20AC;&#x153;pass on th the ttend d th i bl i tto â&#x20AC;&#x153; faith,â&#x20AC;? so to speak, to the parents and their new initiates. We do the

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Gregory the Great, pope and doctor of the church en in the e You must hold fast to faith, be ďŹ rmly grounded and steadfast in it, unshaken y, a time e hope promised you. What a wonderful and insightful passage for today, mired in cynicism and doubt, a time plagued by wars and natural disasters. isasters.. g These are the times that try our faith and can shatter our hope. Paul wass writing these words of encouragement from prison, jailed for his beliefs. By comparison, parison,, we have suffered little for our beliefs, but his words can still lift us up and nd move e on of St.. us toward a life worthy of a follower of Christ. Through the intercession ord, for a Gregory, we ask to be ďŹ rmly grounded and steadfast in our faith. O Lord, deepening of our faith and hope, we pray. PC

CelebrationPublications.org The Lectionary provides a kind of spiritual script for the universal church that keeps us, literally, all on the same page as we journey through the liturgical seasons. These short reďŹ&#x201A;ections, written by four authors who meet regularly to share the readings, are intended to help daily preachers and others who pray from the assigned scriptures each day to orient themselves to the Living Word addressed to the church in the world. Authors are identiďŹ ed by their initials, with short bios provided on the last page.

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For this I labor and struggle, in accord with the exercise of his power working ng within me. Labor Day is a good time to take stock and determine if we are doing oing the e work we are called to do. For many, this true work changes as lifeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s circum-stances change â&#x20AC;&#x201D; when we have children, when they grow older, when we grow w older. In the Gospel we hear that when Jesus did his true work, he threatened ened the e metimess establishment. What was this true work? He healed on the Sabbath. Sometimes our true work involves stepping out of the box, risking material comforts for a life e well-spent. But if we are so blest on our deathbed that we may look back ack on a e of you, well-spent life â&#x20AC;&#x201D; wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t that be reward enough? For worthy work in service Lord, we pray. PBS

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Tues., Sept. 6: Col 2:6-15; Luke 6:12-19 See to it that no one captivates you with an empty, seductive philosophy accord-ing to human tradition. St. Paul was writing to the Christians at Colossae e aboutt paganism. What are the empty and seductive philosophies of our day? They are e legion. What pain it is to love someone who is enthralled by what seemss wrong,,

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NATIONAL CATHOLIC REPORTER FEBRUARY 1-14, 2013

6a DEACONS

Bringing a fresh perspective to the pulpit By PORSIA TUNZI

Preaching is an integral part of a deacon’s ministry, says William Ditewig, a deacon for the Washington archdiocese and professor at Santa Clara University in California. This was made clear at the Second Vatican Council when bishops were reminded of their primary duties as teacher and preacher, said Ditewig, former executive director of the Secretariat for the Diaconate at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. These tasks as teacher and preacher extend to priests and deacons. When preaching is done right and the deacon draws on his unique lived experiences, the deacon’s preaching can bring a relevancy and reliability to a congregation. “As men who live and work in the world and usually have families, deacons bring a different perspective to the pulpit,” said Greg Kandra, a deacon ordained for the Brooklyn diocese in 2007. “If I mention in a homily my wife or my in-laws, I can sense people in the pews sitting up a little straighter and thinking, ‘This is something I don’t hear often in a homily,’ ” Kandra, creator and author of The Deacon’s Bench blog, told NCR. Deborah L. Wilhelm, a homiletics instructor for the diocese of Monterey, Calif., echoed Kandra’s words. “Many deacons … bring a family life perspective to their preaching that might not otherwise be heard,” she told NCR. “Most of them are employed outside the church, so their daily lives have a different kind of rhythm and flow than priests’ lives tend to have.” Wilhelm’s husband is a permanent deacon in the Monterey diocese. They went through formation together; as he studied for the diaconate, she earned a master’s in pastoral studies through an extension program from the Loyola Institute for Ministry Extension of Loyola University New Orleans. Then-director of the diaconate, Fr. Roy Shelly, invited her to stay on as a teacher in the formation program. By the time she started teaching with retired Bishop Sylvester Ryan, Wilhelm was already working on a doctorate in ministry from the Aquinas Institute of Theology.

Deacon Paul Weisenburger gives a homily during a Mass at St. Lawrence Roman Catholic Church in Buffalo, N.Y., Oct. 14.

—Reuters/Doug Benz

‘Their daily lives have a different kind of rhythm and flow than priests’ lives tend to have.’ —Deborah. L. Willhelm “You’ll find deacons out and about in the world, in their secular jobs and in the community’s areas of need — the hospitals, the jails and prisons, the homeless shelters, and so on,” Wilhelm said. “A deacon, as preacher, can make these ‘marketplace ministries’ visible to us, the assembly at Mass, because we too are to go into the community’s areas of need and become the face of Christ in a hurting world.” “Deacons are supposed to bring the experience of the people to the table in their preaching,” said Tim Roberto, currently in his third year of deacon formation in the Oakland, Calif., diocese.

FORMATION: A UNIQUE MINISTRY Continued from Page 4a

has been teaching in the classes,” Kiel said. The wide range of professional and educational backgrounds of the candidates and their wives, and their high degree of motivation and interest have produced a dynamic in the classroom that Kiel said he and the candidates find stimulating. Winter said the program has given her a broader sense of mutuality and reciprocity as a Catholic. “As a layperson, I know am making a contribution to these men who will be ordained.” She spoke of the sometimes “powerful” atmosphere in the classroom. “It is not the power of rank or of moving up the ladder; it is the power of service and the realization that all our learning is mutual.” Besides the heavy academic preparation, deacon trainees also under-

take 50 hours of supervised pastoral ministry each year — usually two 25hour placements. These are to be representative of the wide spectrum of ministries that deacons are involved in, both in terms of content — catechetics, liturgy, social justice and charity — as well as in terms of location — parish, diocese and the broader community. During each of the five years of formation, the men are assigned to a specific liturgical ministry in their parish. They also receive spiritual direction from a priest with whom they meet monthly. In addition, they are assigned a deacon-mentor with whom they are to meet three to four times a semester. The wives are invited to be part of the meeting with the deacon-mentor and his wife, Agnoli said. The June weekend is reserved for a day of reflection or retreat; the July

Roberto’s secular job is national sales manager at Star Stainless Screw Company. “Deacons should preach from a practical life perspective — how does today’s Gospel speak to me as an employee, spouse, parent, child, sibling, balancing a budget, being a concerned citizen of the U.S., and so on,” he said. But deacons also agree preaching isn’t for everyone. “Ordination does not necessarily give anyone the gift of preaching,” Michael E. Bulson, a deacon for the Salt Lake City diocese, told NCR. “The biggest weakness in preaching that I see is serving up old platitudes or warmed up ideas that people have heard many times before and they never really relate to or carry with them when they leave the worship space,” he said. Bulson is the author of three books, all including homilies for deacons pertaining to each liturgical cycle. “After I started serving as a deacon, I gradually discovered that preaching was what I was most called to,” Bulson told NCR. He preaches every

weekend is reserved for the celebration of the particular rites — candidacy, lectorate, acolytate and finally ordination. Even with more than 40 men already working as permanent deacons across the Davenport diocese, members of the local church — clergy and laity alike — “still do not have a good understanding of the diaconate,” Agnoli said. To some, a deacon is a “mini-priest” and to others he is a “glorified altar boy.” “For some he is a threat to the priesthood and to others a threat to lay ministry,” Agnoli said. “The deacon’s ministry is unique. While deacons have particular roles — in the liturgy for example — they do not replace either the priests or lay ministers. Paul’s analogy of the body needs to be kept in mind.”

other Sunday at St. Andrew Parish in Riverton, Utah, and has also begun preaching at the Spanish Mass. “One of the reasons I wanted to become a deacon, and felt called to do it, was because I’d spent 40 years in the pews hearing a lot of mediocre and boring homilies,” said Kandra, who worked 26 years as a writer and producer for CBS News in both New York and Washington. “I knew there was a better way to do it, and I wanted the chance to make preaching engaging, relevant and interesting.” With Kandra’s background in journalism and communication, preaching comes more easily to him than it may to others. “For other people, I know, [preaching] is a chore. And it’s time-consuming to do it well. I spend several hours a week praying over the readings, looking at commentaries, and then drafting, polishing, practicing and tweaking those seven or eight minutes in the pulpit,” Kandra told NCR. “Not everybody has that kind of time, or makes it a priority.” The late Cardinal James Hickey of Washington believed that every deacon should be able to preach, said Peter Barbernitz, ordained as deacon in 1996 to the Washington archdiocese. “If you want to preach, you have to do it well or you will not be given a chance to preach anymore,” Barbernitz said. “The opposite is true as well. If you preach well, you are given more opportunities to preach.” Bulson said, “With more and more deacons coming into the clerical role, the likelihood of finding good preachers has increased significantly.” As more men are called to the diaconate, more preachers will stand at the pulpit, offering a new voice of relevance and inspiration to the congregation. [Porsia Tunzi is an NCR Bertelsen intern. Her email address is ptunzi@ncronline.org.]

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NATIONAL CATHOLIC REPORTER FEBRUARY 1-14, 2013

DEACONS 7a

Parishes’ program helps bereaved cope with loss

A GROWING VOCATION Permanent deacons in the US 20,000 15,000 10,000 5,000

898

7,204

10,932

14,574

16,921

1,000 0

By BRIAN ROEWE

1975

1985

1995

2005

2011

Source: Catholic Ministry Formation Directory

The number of permanent deacons worldwide numbered 38,155 in 2009, the last year for which global figures are available. About 98 percent of them live in the Americas or Europe. About 42 percent live in the United States. The United States has seen a steady increase in men in the permanent diaconate since the ministry was restored shortly after the end of the Second Vatican Council in 1965. The number of deacons in the United States was 16,921 in 2011. This chart and the following data are from the 2011 Catholic Ministry Formation Directory, a print and online directory that includes statistics for more than 600 formation programs that prepare priests, deacons and the laity for ecclesial ministry in the United States. The directory, which is compiled by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., includes data on the programs and the people in the programs. —NCR staff

3 percent The average annual increase of the number of men in deacon formation for the last 10 years.

14 percent

dioceses and eparchies That include deacon candidates from other jurisdictions in their programs.

archdiocese The Chicago archdiocese is the sole jurisdiction with an administratively separate formation program in Spanish.

The increase of men in diaconate formation in 2011.

170 dioceses That have active permanent deacon programs. The U.S. bishops’ conference comprises 190 dioceses and eparchies.

deacon formation programs That offer a bilingual, English-Spanish format. Some programs offer separate tracks in English and Spanish in the same program; others are primarily English but offer some of classes in Spanish. A few programs offer some instruction in languages other than English and Spanish.

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In the backyard of Edward Zeitz’s home, there is a garden filled with statues. There’s a turtle, a rabbit and a couple of gnomes. Though at first glance, the statues appear garden-variety garden occupants, they represent something more. They represent Paul. In May 2011 Paul Zeitz died at his parents’ home. He had moved back to care for his father, but ultimately it was Edward, 88, watching over Paul. “I took it very hard, because I was the one that saw that he had passed away, and was with him the last few minutes,” said the elder Zeitz, who had lost his wife three years earlier. In the wake of his son’s passing, Zeitz spoke with the deacon at his parish, Holy Family Church in Parma, Ohio, who advised him to join a bereavement group for parishioners. And so he did, and later that year he began the eight-week session of “Walking the Journey,” a program formed in 2010 by Holy Family Deacon Charles Tweddell Jr. and several others. Since its start, 86 people have gone through one of the three annual sessions, alternating sites between Holy Family and joint ministry partner St. Bartholomew Parish in Middleburg Heights. The program, open to all, uses the first two weeks to help the participants tell their story and become comfortable speaking about their loss. Because of longer life expectancies, Tweddell said, many people today lack grieving skills simply because they have never before experienced a loss. “Grief is something that none of us can escape from — we’re all going to experience it — but the more people who understand it, and the more people who have been helped through their grief, the more people we have out there helping,” he said. A retired equipment superintendent for a highway contractor, Tweddell, 62, speaks from his own experience. He and his wife, Joni, once lost a child at 21 months. And over this past summer, his father died, followed shortly by his mother. At the time of his parent’s deaths, he was leading a grief group for families who had lost a parent at the Cornerstone of Hope bereavement center in Cleveland. The members, among them losing family to suicides, drug overdoses, cancer and heart attacks, wondered how the deacon could continue with them with such loss in his own life. “The only thing I could figure is this is what God wants me to do,” Tweddell said, “and he gives me the words and the courage to come in and be with people, to help people.” Helping people initiate the grieving process is one part of Walking the Journey; another large aspect seeks to find meaning for those who feel lost. Particularly for couples, the death of a spouse can often leave the other — who might have never handled the bookkeeping or other daily tasks — feeling helpless and struggling to find purpose in their own life. “It’s basically helping them to reestablish their life, which is forever changed, but yet not over and still has value,” the deacon said.

To that end, Tweddell and other facilitators begin a new session with a yarn ball exercise, having each receiver say something good about themselves. Those grieving “tend to think that they’re not worth anything because they weren’t able to help the person, or they just feel really bad about themselves,” he said. Such icebreakers allow the members to grow comfortable with the people with whom they will share extremely personal and often painful stories. As the group collectively holds the string of yarn, it symbolizes more than their connectedness to one another and the larger community of support, Tweddell said. “I talk about the invisible string that goes from our loved ones and us. … We talk about how with God being love, and love can’t die, that our loved ones aren’t gone, they’re just in a different area, but that love still is attached to us,” he said. “Whenever we think about them, we can realize that they’re still there tugging at our hearts.” The remaining sessions move forward with each focusing around a key word — such as grace or shield — that facilitators associate with Scripture passages. The program also utilizes articles from authors in the grief field, and group members are given homework reading assignments each week. For Zeitz, exercises in building collages and sharing items of the deceased with the group — he brought a quilt of rabbit-themed patches, as rabbits were Paul’s favorite animal — helped him cope with his loss. But more than anything, it helped just to have people listen. “The most important part was being able to talk to people and just to discuss [the loss] and know that you’re not alone, that your feelings are the same,” Zeitz said. At the end of the eight weeks, each group member receives a votive light with the dates of their loved one’s birth and death alongside an image of Michelangelo’s Pietà. A rainbow of teardrops from past sessions reflects the progress the group has made, evolving from “I feel rotten,” “I feel left,” at the beginning, to “I’m at peace,” “I think I can go on,” at the end of the rainbow. But the end of the program isn’t the end of the journey. Many group members continue to stay in touch: seeing one another at Mass, offering rides to medical appointments or errands. Past members are invited back for a reunion each year. And for Twedell, the work never stops. What began shortly after his child’s passing, reluctantly meeting with other families who lost a young child, continues with each new session, and extends to his work as chaplain at a local retirement home. There he meets with people too ill to attend a funeral but still seeking closure of their own. The deacon keeps on listening, and for a simple reason. “It’s just this feeling that I got to help somebody, that I can make a difference in someone’s life,” he said. [Brian Roewe is an NCR staff writer. His email address is broewe@ncronline.org.]

NATIONAL CATHOLIC REPORTER FEBRUARY 1-14, 2013

8a DEACONS

Deacons are vital to new evangelization The challenge is to take the Gospel beyond existing church structures By WILLIAM T. DITEWIG

We deacons often find ourselves reading between the lines. When church officials hold events, promulgate documents or make public statements, the category of “deacon” is often omitted, so we have to examine it closely to see if it actually applies to all clergy (bishops, presbyters, deacons) or simply to the sacerdotal orders of bishop and presbyter. This was the case last October, when Pope Benedict XVI convoked the Synod of Bishops on the new evangelization. Many groups within the church were highlighted for their responsibilities for evangelization: the laity, religious, priests, bishops and so on. Several observers in the media (including John Allen of NCR) noticed that one group within the church — the order of deacons — was not specifically addressed by the synod. While deacons can certainly draw inspiration and encouragement from the various interventions made during the synod, appreciating and articulating the particular ways in which deacons can contribute to the effort of a new evangelization can be helpful. So, what might be said to and about deacons and our participation in the church’s mission of evangelization? After all, liturgically and sacramentally, deacons have a special responsibility for the Gospel of Christ. It is the first charge received by the newly ordained deacon when, vested for the first time as deacon, he approaches the bishop who places the book of the Gospels in the deacon’s hands with the words: “Receive the Gospel of Christ, whose herald you have become. Believe what you read, teach what you believe and practice what you teach.” When a bishop is ordained, it is the role of the deacons to hold the open book of the Gospels over the bishop’s head as he takes on his own new responsibilities. So, as proclaimers and guardians of the Gospel of Christ, deacons are clearly vital to the mission of evangelization, a fact recognized by the last two popes. On Dec. 26, the feast of St. Stephen, Pope Benedict XVI declared St. Stephen to be a model of the new evangelization; 12 years before, Pope John Paul II referred to deacons as apostles of the new evangelization. Stephen, of course, is introduced to us in Acts of the Apostles, Chapter 6, as one of the seven men “full of wisdom and the Holy Spirit” chosen by the Greek-speaking community to be presented to the Apostles for the laying on of hands. Contemporary biblical scholars caution that the seven are never actually referred to as “deacons” in scripture. Still, the tradition has long associated them with the diaconate, with Stephen himself commemorated as the first deacon and protomartyr of the new covenant. (I often remind candidates for the diaconate that Stephen was martyred for his preaching, and that they should expect no less.) In his brief Angelus message on the feast day this year, Benedict referred to Stephen as deacon three times, and proclaimed him “model of the new evangelization.” “The book of Acts presents him as a man full of faith and of the Holy Spir-

—Newscom/Archive/World History Archive

“St. Stephen Preaching,” a detail fom a 15th-century fresco by Fra Angelico in the Chapel of Nicholas V at the Vatican

it. … The deacon Stephen, in fact, worked, spoke and died animated by the Holy Spirit, bearing witness to the love of Christ to the point of extreme sacrifice.” The pope continued: “St. Stephen is a model for all those who want to serve the new evangelization. He shows that the novelty of proclamation [consists] … in being filled with the Holy Spirit and allowing ourselves to be guided by the Spirit … in immersing ourselves deeply in the mystery of Christ … so that he himself, the living Jesus, can act and speak through his envoy.” John Paul, during the Holy Year marking the new millennium, addressed permanent deacons and their families on their Jubilee Day at the Vatican in February 2000: Dear deacons, be active apostles of the new evangelization. Lead everyone to Christ! Through your efforts, may his kingdom also spread in your family, in your workplace, in the parish, in the diocese, in the whole world! This mission, at least in intention and zeal, must stir the hearts of sacred ministers and spur them to the total gift of themselves. In 1993, during a series of catecheses on the diaconate, John Paul observed, “A deeply felt need in the decision to re-establish the permanent diaconate

was and is that of greater and more direct presence of church ministers in the various spheres of the family, work, school, etc., in addition to existing pastoral structures.” This is precisely where the diaconate can offer a particular service to the church in the new evangelization. The diaconate was not restored with a limited goal of simple parochial service within “existing

pastoral structures.” The Second Vatican Council and succeeding popes have seen the diaconate as a ministry of outreach beyond existing structures. If existing structures were sufficient and adequate to the task of spreading the Gospel, there would have been no need for a council and certainly no need for a new evangelization. The challenge is this. For the past 40 years, we have often focused on the growth and integration of diaconal ministry within the existing parochial structures of the church. This is both understandable and necessary as the church reacquainted itself with the presence of deacons within the fabric of official ministry. Building on this foundation, however, now seems the time, as I have written elsewhere, to take the training wheels off the bike and encourage deacons to move into new and creative areas that have yet to be touched by the presence of the church. Consider just one example: Perhaps a band of deacons could serve together as a team of evangelizers within the community, or in identifying community resources to meet needs that transcend existing church or civic structures. A rich part of the tradition of the church recognizes that the role of the deacon has always been to serve as the “eyes and ears, heart and soul” of the bishop, extending the bishop’s ministry, especially to those who have been kicked to the curb by ignorance, prejudice, illness, violence and hatred. But as the teaching of both John Paul and Benedict remind us: The role of deacons is first to “throw [themselves] into Christ’s arms” (John Paul II, “Active Apostles of the New Evangelization”) and to bring the saving Christ to all through their very lives. [A deacon of the Washington archdiocese, William T. Ditewig is the former executive director of the Secretariat for the Diaconate at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. He currently serves as director of faith formation, diaconate and pastoral planning for the Monterey, Calif., diocese and is professor of theology at Santa Clara University.]

October 2012 – November 2013

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FEBRUARY 1-14, 2013

Vol. 49, No. 8 | $2.95

Irish priest reveals Vatican threat

WORLD NEWS MAGISTERIUM IN HISTORY Teaching authority has shifted over centuries

By JOHN COONEY

PAGE 5

DUBLIN . Irish Redemptorist

APPRECIATION Sri Lankan theologian Tissa Balasuriya was a loving, gentle rebel

—Newscom/Reuters/Brian Blanco

PAGE 7

Store owner Brooke Misantone shows his last two AR-15 semi-automatic rifles to customers at the Bullet Hole gun shop in Sarasota, Fla., Jan. 16.

Fr. Tony Flannery broke a year of silence Jan. 20 to reveal that the Vatican had threatened him with excommunication and removal from his religious congregation because he advocates for open discussions about church teach-

Roy Bourgeois receives Vatican’s official, final notice of dismissal

SPECIAL SECTION DEACONS A teacher’s vocation; formation; deacons’ kids; and more

Tough gun measures Obama proposals align with religious leaders’ pleas

PAGES 1a-8a By JERRY FILTEAU

WASHINGTON . A wide coalition of 47 national

COLUMN MISSION MANAGEMENT

Catholic and other religious leaders urged an assault weapons ban and other tough measures against gun violence the day before President Barack Obama announced gun control proposals that largely matched their pleas. “Every person who buys a gun should pass a criminal background check,” the religious leaders said in a letter to Congress that was released Jan. 15. The next day, Obama, announcing executive decisions and legislative proposals based on recommendations of a task force headed by Vice President Joe Continued on Page 10

—CNS/Reuters/Jason Reed

President Barack Obama signs executive orders on ways to address gun violence Jan. 16 at the White House in Washington.

See Page 12 ings on ordaining women, clerical celibacy, contraceptives and homosexuality. The Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith removed Flannery, 66, from public ministry last February, pending the outcome of its inquiries into views he expressed in Reality, a Redemptorist-run magazine. Flannery also said that he has had no direct contact in person or writing from the congregation. All communication has come through the Redemptorist superior general in Rome, Fr. Michael Brehl. Flannery described the actions against him as Continued on Page 8

Catholic Medical Mission Board takes care worldwide

PAGE 18

Another Catholic funeral on the sidewalk

—East Harlem Preservation/Marina Ortiz

Carmen Villegas

Carmen Villegas occupied the church years before “occupy” became a movement. Six years ago, she and a group of parishioners made local headlines when they protested the closing of Our Lady Queen of Angels, a church that had served their East Harlem community since 1886. The parish was among 21 churches and nine schools in the New York archdiocese that were casualties of Cardinal Edward Egan’s cost-saving closures in 2007. When almost 40 parishioners assembled for a peaceful witness on the sidewalk outside of the church on East 113th Street on the evening of Feb. 12, 2007, the archdiocese saw fit to send in private security guards to “pro-

tect” the church from its lifelong members. Villegas managed to find an unlocked door on the side of the church and led two dozen parishioners into the building. They sang hymns and prayed the JAMIE rosary, planMANSON ning to keep vigil in the cold, dark church until archdiocesan officials would be willing to dialogue with them. But after 90 minutes of negotiations between the NYPD, the parishioners in the pews, and the Continued on Page 19

NATIONAL CATHOLIC REPORTER

FEBRUARY 1-14, 2013

INSIDE NCR

EDITOR’S NOTE NATIONAL

Messages to Rome

CATHOLIC

St. Joseph Sr. Chris Schenk is looking for your help. Schenk, executive director of the Clevelandbased FutureChurch, is headed to Rome March 1123 with FutureChurch program coordinator Liz England, two board members and 30 pilgrims. They will be visiting the archaeological sites of women leaders in the early church, visits FutureChurch has been sponsoring for some time now. (See, for example, “Finding ‘Herstory,’ ” NCR, June 22, 2007, or online at NCRonline.org/node/43431.) The group also wants to meet with Vatican officials and drop off some letters and postcards. FutureChurch has two postcard campaigns going on right now. The first one, “So All Can Be at the Table: Restore Women Deacons,” is addressed to Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The campaign asks Müller to open the permanent diaconate to women, a possibility since Pope Benedict XVI made changes in canon law in December 2009 to clarify the role of deacons, specifically in Canon 1009. (For background on this, see NCRonline.org/node/38531.) The second postcard campaign, called “Optional Celibacy: So All Can Be at the Table,” is directed at Cardinal Mauro Piacenza, prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy, and asks Piacenza’s office to begin “discussion at the highest levels of the Church about the need to return to our earliest tradition of permitting both a married and celibate clergy.” FutureChurch’s stance is that untold thousands of Catholics are denied access to the Eucharist on Sundays and holy days of obligation because of Rome’s refusal to change this moribund practice. Schenk says that nearly 20,000 people have signed FutureChurch’s open letters to Müller and Piacenza or sent the prefects ecards, but she doesn’t want to go to Rome with fewer than 25,000 signatures. If you haven’t added your name to the lists, you still have time. Go online now to add your name. To send an e-card to Müller about opening the permanent diaconate to women, visit

tinyurl.com/begkx2c. To send an e-card asking Piacenza to open a discussion of priestly celibacy in the Roman church, visit tinyurl.com/asua9kw.

Eloísa Pérez-Lozano is our newest NCR Bertelsen intern. You can see her work on Pages 10 and 15 of this issue but those are not her first assignments for us. Originally from Houston, she graduated from Iowa State University in Ames in December 2011 with a Master of Science degree in journalism. Her interest is photojournalism and part of her master’s project was a photo documentary of the triumphs and struggles of immiEloísa Pérez-Lozano grant families in Marshalltown, Iowa. A part of the project appeared in NCR’s Deacons special section last year (“Deported wife’s absence shadowed [deacon’s] ordination,” NCR, Feb. 3-16, 2012, or NCRonline.org/node/28561). She has worked as a freelance photographer and writer since graduating and is, she says, excited to be with us now. “Though my emphasis is in photojournalism, I took the editorial internship at NCR so that I could become a better writer and, consequently, a more well-rounded reporter,” she said. “On the other hand, I also hope to share my photography skills with our readership so they may experience Catholic news in a more visual way. Being a Catholic myself, I am eager to learn more about what is happening in the Catholic church so that I can be a better informed citizen and then be better equipped to share this news with everyone else.” Welcome aboard, Eloísa.

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Film festival fun Movie guru Sr. Rose Pacatte spent Jan. 17-27 at the Sundance Film Festival. Sister Rose blogged about her experiences and reviewed many of the films shown. Find all of her dispatches at NCRonline.org/featureseries/sundance-film-festival-2013. Students taking charge Students in Camden, N.J., bring passion to meetings with public officials to transform an eyesore of a park into a safe haven. The story unfortunately didn’t fit into this issue, but you can read the piece at NCRonline.org/node/43321. Calling all volunteers! Are you a history buff? Do you like talking to people? Then have we got a job for you! NCR is looking for volunteers as we head toward our 50-year anniversary. For more information, go to NCRonline.org/volunteer. Some sketch-y preaching Our sister publication, Celebration, has a new online column called Pencil Preaching, featuring daily reflections and drawings from Pat Marrin, Celebration’s editor. The columns are at celebrationpublications.org/ pencilpreaching, and make sure to come back every day for new material.

NATIONAL CATHOLIC REPORTER

FEBRUARY 1-14, 2013

IN THE BEGINNING

US BRIEFS

Franciscans welcome texts

Fleeing violence in Mali

NEW YORK . The New York-based Franciscan Friars of Holy Name Province has started a service it calls “Text a Prayer Intention to a Franciscan Friar.” The service debuted in January. The service works by texting the word “prayer” to the phone number 306-44 and then hitting “send.” Senders will then receive a welcome message inviting them to send in their prayer intentions. Senders will receive a text in reply stating that their prayer has been received and will be prayed for. The intentions are received on a website, and will be included collectively in the friars’ prayers twice a day and at Mass. “With technology changing the way we communicate, we needed to offer people an updated way to ask for prayers for special intentions and needs either for themselves or others,” said a Jan. 8 statement by Franciscan Fr. David Convertino, the province’s executive director of development. “If the pope can tweet, friars can text!” he added.

Licenses for undocumented CHICAGO . Undocumented immigrants who can prove they have lived in Illinois for at least a year will soon be eligible for temporary driver’s licenses, under a bill passed Jan. 8 by the Illinois state House of Representatives. The Illinois Senate passed the bill in December, and Gov. Pat Quinn has said he will sign it. The Illinois Catholic bishops came out in support of the idea Nov. 13, and it also won support from a group calling itself the Highway Safety Coalition. Advocates for the program say that it benefits everyone in the state because all drivers — including some 250,000 undocumented drivers — would be tested on their driving skills and on the rules of the road before being granted a license, and all of them would be eligible to, and required to, obtain insurance.

Meth-dealing priest indicted BRIDGEPORT, CONN. . The former pastor of the cathedral of the Bridgeport diocese was indicted Jan. 15 as a member of a drug distribution ring that sold methamphetamines in Connecticut, the Hartford Courant has reported. Msgr. Kevin Wallin had been a pastor at St. Augustine Parish in Bridgeport, Conn., for nine years until his resignation in June 2011. At that time, the diocese issued a statement saying that Wallin was “struggling with a number of

—CNS/CRS/Helen Blakesley

Twins Hawa and Adama Keita, 15, warm a pot of tea in late November outside an area where 15 other family members rent rooms in a suburb of Bamako, Mali. More than 200,000 Malians have migrated to the south since a March 2012 military coup, while a similar number have fled to Niger, Burkina Faso, Morocco and Algeria. African forces were expected to join French troops in an attempt to drive insurgents

health and personal issues.” He was then granted a sabbatical in July 2011. Wallin, 61, was one of five people under investigation since September for transporting methamphetamines from California to Connecticut. To help launder money for the drug operation, Wallin bought an adult specialty and video store in North Haven, Conn., that sells sex toys and X-rated DVDs, the Connecticut Post reported. The newspaper cited unnamed sources who say parish personnel became concerned about Wallin’s erratic behavior in 2011 and notified diocesan officials when Wallin, sometimes dressed as a woman, would entertain odd-looking men, some who were also dressed in women’s clothing and engaging in sex acts.

back from central parts of the landlocked country, after French jets began bombing rebel-held towns Jan. 11. Bishop Augustin Traore of Segou, whose diocese lies in the path of the Islamic insurgents, said, “People are hiding in their homes, unable to venture out.” The Catholic church has six dioceses and makes up less than 2 percent of Mali’s predominantly Muslim population of 15.8 million.

WORLD BRIEFS

Power shifts create tension CARACAS, VENEZUELA . When Venezuela’s bishops spoke out against postponing the inauguration of ailing President Hugo Chávez, the president’s supporters accused them of meddling in politics, while government opponents praised their comments. That latest round of church-state sparring is typical of the uneasy relationship between church leaders and government officials in many Latin American countries amid shifts in the balance of power between the church and political leaders. Venezuela’s Supreme Court allowed indefinite postponement of the inauguration, scheduled for Jan. 10. Chávez has

not spoken or appeared publicly since undergoing a fourth cancer operation in Havana Dec. 11. But if Venezuela’s prelates were criticized for expressing political views, they are not alone. Church-state conflicts date back to colonial times, and when the region shook off Spanish rule, the Catholic church had to readjust its relationship with each newly independent Latin American country, says Alexander Wilde, a senior scholar with the Washington-based Wilson Center’s Latin American Program.

Funds cut for agency TORONTO . Government staffers described See Briefs, Page 4

Priest recants last year’s guilty plea in Philadelphia A surprise beginning marked the first week of Philadelphia’s second high-profile clergy sex abuse trial in a year, when a former archdiocesan priest recanted pleading guilty to conspiracy and sexually assaulting a 10year-old altar boy. Ex-priest Edward Avery testified in court Jan. 17 that he only pleaded guilty last year to avoid a longer sentence. His recanting could have ramifications for the landmark conviction of Msgr. William Lynn, the first U.S. church official to serve jail time for his mishandling of abuse claims. The revelation came in the trial of Fr. Charles Engelhardt and former

Catholic school teacher Bernard Shero, both alleged to have abused the same altar boy Avery had previously admitted to assaulting. The defrocked priest began serving a two-and-a-half- to five-year sentence March 22, 2012, four days before he had been scheduled to stand trial alongside Lynn and Fr. James Brennan. Lynn, the former secretary for clergy for the Philadelphia archdiocese, has been in prison since June 22, serving a three- to six-year sentence after he was found guilty on one charge of child endangerment. His lawyers, who pushed for bail and house arrest while they pursued a retrial, indicated to re-

porters after Avery’s testimony they intend to again pursue Lynn’s removal from prison. “If there’s a question about [Avery’s] guilt, then there’s no way you convict Lynn, because Lynn was only convicted as a derivative of Avery,” Thomas Bergstrom, one of Lynn’s lawyers, told The Philadelphia Inquirer. Others are not so certain. In speaking with CatholicPhilly.com, Jeffrey M. Lindy, a former member of Lynn’s legal defense team, said Avery’s revelation, while dramatic, will have “zero impact” on Lynn, since the Pennsylvania Superior Court, which would hear the appeal, can only review facts pre-

sented at his trial. “It means nothing except political posturing,” he said. In September, Lynn’s defense accused the prosecuting district attorney’s office of withholding evidence of Avery passing a polygraph test in which he denied assaulting his accuser. The conviction of Lynn for child endangerment was largely tied to the Avery confession. The monsignor was acquitted of one child endangerment charge and one conspiracy charge, both related to co-defendant Brennan, whose case resulted in a hung jury, and will be retried in the spring. —Brian Roewe

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FEBRUARY 1-14, 2013

IN THE BEGINNING Briefs, continued from Page 3

the bishopsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Development and Peace agency as â&#x20AC;&#x153;Canadaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most experienced development organization supported exclusively by Canadiansâ&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x201D; then slashed its funding. Internal emails, briefing notes and memoranda obtained by The Catholic Register, a national weekly, reveal that a government decision to cut funding to the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace in 2012 went against the advice of almost everyone consulted, including its own bureaucracy. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Periodic financial audits, program and project evaluations and institutional assessments have consistently shown that D&P was well managed, organizationally and financially, and very capable of achieving resultsâ&#x20AC;? for the governmentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Canadian International Development Agency, said the briefing document. The documentation, however, fails to explain why former government agency Minister Bev Oda decided to slash nearly $35 million from Development and Peaceâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s proposal: The government funded $14.5 million for projects in seven countries.

Vatican studies mummies VATICAN CITY . Experts have just concluded

a two-year study on the seven adult mummies in the Vatican Museumsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; collections. The results were presented to the Vatican and the public Jan. 17. The mummies underwent a full battery of X-rays, CT scans, endoscopic explorations, histological exams and a whole spectrum of genetic testing. The scientific advancements in genetics, imaging technology and nano research also have brought unexpected discoveries with non-invasive techniques â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a far cry from the â&#x20AC;&#x153;unwrappingâ&#x20AC;? autopsies of the 19th century. The mummy Ny-Maat-Re, â&#x20AC;&#x153;who we always referred to as â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;she,â&#x20AC;&#x2122; is in fact actually a man,â&#x20AC;? said Alessia Amenta, Egyptologist and curator of the Vatican Museumsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Department for the Antiquities of Egypt and the Near East. Mummies offer valuable information because everything about them â&#x20AC;&#x201D; how their teeth have worn down, their stomach contents, dressing and burial procedures, what diseases or ailments they suffered from â&#x20AC;&#x201D; provides numerous clues to the lives, customs and religious beliefs of ancient peoples, Amenta said.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;stalemate.â&#x20AC;? Archbishop J. Augustine Di Noia, the American vice president of the Vaticanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s â&#x20AC;&#x153;Ecclesia Deiâ&#x20AC;? Commission, which oversees relations with traditionalist groups, sent a letter to all members of the Society of St. Pius X before Christmas. Vatican Radio ran an overview of the letter Jan. 20 and published links to its text. The Vaticanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s chief spokesman, Jesuit Fr. Federico Lombardi, told the French Catholic newspaper La Croix that the letter was not an official document but a â&#x20AC;&#x153;personal appealâ&#x20AC;? by Di Noia. The archbishop wrote that â&#x20AC;&#x153;while hopeâ&#x20AC;? for full reconciliation â&#x20AC;&#x153;remains strong,â&#x20AC;? the Vatican engagement with the society is at risk of becoming a â&#x20AC;&#x153;wellmeaning but unending and fruitless exchange.â&#x20AC;? Pope Benedict XVI has actively sought reconciliation with the society. The group split from the Catholic church in disagreement with the modernizing reforms of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), which include acceptance of religious freedom, interfaith dialogue and ecumenism.

Traditionalists talks stall VATICAN CITY . A senior Vatican official admitted that years of talks between the Vatican and a breakaway group of ultra-traditionalist Catholics have led to a

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Pope meets Vietnamâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Communist Party head VATICAN CITY . Diplomatic relations between the Vatican and Vietnam were strengthened in January, officials said, when Pope Benedict XVI met Nguyen Phu Trong, marking the first time a pope had met with the general secretary of the nationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Communist Party. Trong, who has been general secretary of the party since 2011, was accompanied by an 11-person delegation of other high-level party and government officials. The Vatican was one of a number of stops the delegation had planned in Europe. The pope and Trong met Jan. 22 and held closed-door talks for half an hour. The general secretary and his delegation then met with Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Vatican secretary of state; Archbishop Dominique

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Mamberti, Vatican secretary for relations with states; and other officials from the Secretariat of State. The church and religious activity face strict controls in Vietnam, though some parts of the country have seen a gradual easing of restrictions. The two sides expressed hopes that â&#x20AC;&#x153;some pending situations could be resolved soonâ&#x20AC;? and that the â&#x20AC;&#x153;current fruitful collaborationâ&#x20AC;? may be strengthened, the Vatican said in a written statement. The Holy See and Vietnam have launched a process aimed at full diplomatic relations; there is a nonresident papal representative to the country, and the two sides are engaged in ongoing talks. The Vatican and Vietnam established a formal committee to discuss

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diplomatic relations after Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung met Benedict in 2007. That meeting marked the first time a prime minister from Vietnamâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s communist government met a pope and top officials from the Vatican Secretariat of State. Another major step in the process was Benedictâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s meeting with Vietnamese President Nguyen Minh Triet in 2009. Soon after that meeting, the two sides agreed to the appointment of a papal representative who â&#x20AC;&#x201D; for the time being â&#x20AC;&#x201D; would not be residing in Vietnam, but the move was still seen as a first step toward diplomatic relations. That representative, Archbishop Leopoldo Girelli, was named in January 2011. â&#x20AC;&#x201D;Catholic News Service

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The Vaticanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s sports czar blasted U.S. cyclist Lance Armstrongâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s admission to doping as indicative of the rot in the professional sports. High-stakes commercial interests pressure professional athletes into the illegal practices, said Msgr. Melchor Sanchez de Toca Alameda, head of the Pontifical Council for Cultureâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s â&#x20AC;&#x153;Culture and Sportâ&#x20AC;? section. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a world that is rotten, all of cycling, even soccer,â&#x20AC;? he said. Armstrong, stripped of his titles in 2012 for using and distributing performance-enhancing drugs and banned from professional cycling for life, admitted to doping during highly promoted interviews with Oprah Winfrey that aired Jan. 17 and Jan. 18. Archbishop Joseph S. Marino, a native of Birmingham, Ala., has been named the Vaticanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s first nuncio to Malaysia. Marino, 60, moves from Bangladesh, where he has been nuncio since 2008, to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s capital. The Vatican and predominantly Muslim Malaysia announced the establishment of full diplomatic relations in mid-2011. Marino will also represent the Vatican to East Timor and Brunei. Hawaii held its final major event celebrating the canonization of St. Marianne Cope Jan. 12 in Kalaupapa at the Bishop Home, the same place she practiced her charity, mostly unseen, for three decades. A Franciscan sister, Cope succeeded St. Damien de Veuster in ministering to leprosy patients. The Belgian priest, who died in 1889, was Kalaupapaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s first saint. He was canonized in 2009. Lesley-Anne Knight, who was forced out of her job as head of the Caritas network of Catholic Charities by the Vatican, has been appointed chief executive officer of The Elders, a â&#x20AC;&#x201D;CNS group of senior global leaders who include Archbishop Desmond Tutu and former Irish President Mary Robinson. Knight will manage the London-based staff and foundation that supports the work of The Elders. Returning to a theme he hit hard at the end of 2012, Pope Benedict XVI used his annual audience with workers and leaders of Catholic charities and members of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum to say the church must promote the beauty of marriage between a man and a woman. While there is â&#x20AC;&#x153;a growing consensus today about the inalienable dignity of the human beingâ&#x20AC;? and peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s interdependence and responsibilities toward others, there are also many â&#x20AC;&#x153;darks spotsâ&#x20AC;? that are obscuring Godâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s plan, he said.

NATIONAL CATHOLIC REPORTER

FEBRUARY 1-14, 2013

WORLD

The church’s shifts in spheres of authority The magisterium in historical perspective By RICHARD GAILLARDETZ

he proper role and function of the magisterium continue to be a source of controversy in many corners of the Catholic church today. Any fruitful reflection on the magisterium requires that we place the topic in its proper historical context. Today the term magisterium generally refers to the doctrinal teaching office and authority of the bishops in communion with the bishop of Rome. That more narrow meaning is a fairly recent one. The word magisterium simply means, “the authority of the master or teacher” (magister, magistra) and it was used in a wide range of ecclesial contexts in the early church. Although the term magisterium did not then have the specialized meaning that it carries today, that does not mean that there was no sense of doctrinal authority in the early church. In the pastoral letters of the New Testament we find officeholders (using the term somewhat loosely) who were recognized for a distinctive teaching responsibility, though the specific character and scope of that authority was not yet established. By the end of the second century, the office of bishop had emerged as an authoritative church office and there was a general conviction that they had in some sense succeeded to the authority of the apostles as guardians of the apostolic faith. Even as questions of doctrinal authority emerged with considerable vigor in the early church, it would be anachronistic to assume that the church of the first millennium experienced anything like our modern conflicts between the magisterium and theologians. The clear distinction between bishop and theologian that we take for granted today was not nearly as evident in the early church. Most of the church’s great theological thinkers were bishops or abbots and there was as yet no separate education for clerics and the relatively few nonclerical theologians that existed. The distinctive authority of the bishops to make binding doctrinal judgments was fairly well-established by the third century. However, it was most frequently exercised collegially in regional synods and, eventually, in what would be known as ecumenical councils. By the fifth century another decisive factor in the exercise of doctrinal teaching authority had emerged, namely the distinctive prerogative claimed by the bishop of Rome to authoritatively pronounce on doctrinal disputes. The exercise of doctrinal authority throughout much of the first millennium presupposed several basic convictions. First, the doctrine that the bishops taught pertained to public revelation. There was no sense that bishops received some secret knowledge available only to them. Indeed

A 15thcentury illumination depicts a theological lecture at the Sorbonne in Paris.

—Newscom/akg-images

Editor’s note: Following our December editorial on the ordination of women, readers asked us for more background on issues that editorial raised. This is the third article in this series. The first two articles looked at the scriptural and historic evidence of women’s leadership in the church. such a view, known as Gnosticism, had been roundly condemned. Second, what the bishops taught was not foreign to the faith of the whole church. In apostolic service to their communities, the bishops received, verified and proclaimed the apostolic faith that all the baptized in their churches prayed and enacted. The apostolic faith consciousness of the whole people of God would eventually be referred to as the sensus fidelium. Early in the second millennium, a series of shifts in the understanding and exercise of church teaching authority began to occur. With the birth of the medieval university in the 11th century, a different class of theological teacher would soon emerge, the university professoriate. These theology professors were most often clerics but their education, office and responsibility differed significantly from those of the bishop. Thus in the 13th century we can find St. Thomas Aquinas writing of both the “magisterium of the pastoral chair” (magisterium cathedrae pastoralis), by which he meant the teaching authority of the bishop, and the “magisterium of the teaching chair” (magisterium cathedrae magistralis), by which he meant the teaching authority of the “doctor” or theologian. Of course, Thomas

insisted that these magisteria functioned in different ways; only the bishops could normatively assert Catholic doctrine. As Jesuit Fr. John O’Malley has noted, theologians began to be educated in ways that differed from the formation of bishops, who often were more preoccupied with matters of canon law. The conditions were set for a new bishop-theologian relationship. This relationship would flourish when bishops and theologians acknowledged the interdependence of their respective spheres of expertise and authority; it degenerated when cooperation gave way to competition and struggle. By the late Middle Ages, many doctrinal questions were being handled not primarily by the pope and bishops but by competent theological faculties, like those at the great universities in Paris and Bologna. The active role of theologians working both independently and in partnership with popes and bishops would continue for centuries. For example, theologians played a constructive role at every stage of the Council of Trent (1545-63). And in the decades after Trent it was they, far more than the bishops, who led the theological defense of the faith against the attacks of reformers like Martin Luther and John Calvin. The

recognition of complementary spheres of authority would soon be challenged, however, by the threatening winds of modernity. In the 18th century, Pope Benedict XIV created a new teaching instrument, the “encyclical” and in the 19th century these official papal letters, generally addressed to all the church’s bishops, would become favored instruments in the expansion of papal teaching authority. Theologians continued to play an important role as consultors in the exercise of doctrinal teaching authority, but the circle of trusted theologians was for the most part now reduced to the theological faculties at the various Roman colleges. As the pope’s temporal authority came under attack in the mid-19th century (the Italian nationalist movement demanded that the pope relinquish the Papal States), many compensated by emphasizing the pope’s doctrinal authority. This trend culminated in the formal definition of papal infallibility at Vatican I (1869-70). In the late 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, popes would begin to offer, as part of their teaching ministry, extended theological treatments issued in formal magisterial documents on important topics. Pope Leo XIII (1878-1903) would publish numerous encyclicals on a wide range of theological topics. Pope Pius X (1903-14) would follow Leo’s precedent with his 1907 encyclical Pascendi Dominici Gregis, condemning the evils of modernism. This sweeping condemnation encouraged a veritable Continued on Page 6

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FEBRUARY 1-14, 2013

WORLD

MAGISTERIUM: TODAY’S ACTIVISM IS NOVEL, NOT TRADITIONAL Continued from Page 5

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witch-hunt for theologians tainted by the scent of “modernism.” Indeed the first half of the 20th century saw the hierarchy treat a number of influential theologians harshly because of their views (Marie-Joseph Lagrange, Henri de Lubac, Yves Congar, Karl Rahner, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin). Both Pius XI (1922-39) and Pius XII (1939-1958) would issue lengthy encyclicals during their successive pontificates, with the latter sharply circum- scribing the legitimate autonomy of theologians. In his 1950 encyclical Humani Generis, Pius XII limited the task of the theologian to that of faithfully explicating that which was proclaimed by the pope and bishops. Theologians were teachers of the faith only by virtue of a delegation of authority from the bishops. They were expected to submit their work to the authoritative scrutiny and potential censorship by the magisterium. “Dissent,” understood as the rejection or even questioning of any authoritative teaching of the magisterium, was viewed with suspicion. The dogmatic manuals acknowledged limited speculative discussion that was critical of certain doctrinal formulations but the assumption was that if theologians discovered a difficulty, they were to bring it to the attention of the hierarchy privately and were to refrain from any public speech or writing that was contrary to received church teaching. The Second Vatican Council (196265) did not reflect on the role of theologians in any depth but at numerous points the council affirmed the role they played in the church (Dei Verbum 23; Lumen Gentium 54; Gaudium et Spes 44, 62). Much as at the Council of Trent, theologians and bishops collaborated at numerous points in the process of moving from preliminary drafts to final promulgation of the council’s 16 documents. The council did offer a promising new framework for understanding questions of teaching authority. According to Dei Verbum, the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, the word of God was given to the whole church and not just the bishops. The magisterium was not superior to the word of God but was rather its servant (Dei Verbum 10). Although the bishops would remain the authoritative guardians of that revelation by virtue of their apostolic office, the word of God resided in the whole church as the baptized were given a supernatural instinct for the faith (sensus fidei) that allowed them to recognize God’s word, penetrate its meaning more deeply and apply it more profoundly in their lives (Lumen Gentium 12; Dei Verbum 8). The first decades immediately after the council held promise for this new framework. Pope Paul VI created the International Theological Commission as a way of formalizing a more constructive relationship between the magisterium and theologians. Unfortunately, the commission came under increasing curial control. Hopes for preserving a more positive relationship between bishops and theologians were dashed by Pope Paul VI’s final encyclical, Humanae Vitae, which elicited widespread criticism by many theologians (and a number of bishops). The ambitious pontificate of John

Magisterium: Teacher and Guardian of the Faith by Avery Cardinal Dulles, SJ (Sapientia Press, 2007) By What Authority?: A Primer on Scripture, the Magisterium, and the Sense of the Faithful by Richard R. Gaillardetz (Liturgical Press, 2003) When the Magisterium Intervenes: The Magisterium and Theologians in Today’s Church, edited by Richard R. Gaillardetz (Liturgical Press, 2012) The Eyes of Faith: The Sense of the Faithful and the Church’s Reception of Revelation by Ormond Rush (The Catholic University of America Press, 2009) Creative Fidelity: Weighing and Interpreting Documents of the Magisterium by Francis A. Sullivan, SJ (Wipf & Stock, 2003)

Paul II stands as an extended ecclesiastical “reception” of the teaching of Vatican II, particularly regarding its ad extra teaching. Yet in matters concerned with the exercise of doctrinal authority, that long pontificate more closely reflected Pius XII’s than the vision of the council. In spite of his moving rhetoric regarding the church as communion, John Paul’s policies recalled Pius XII’s suspicion of the autonomy of the theologian. The early years of the current pontificate have given no sign of a departure from these policies. All of this brings us to the present moment. There is no real historical precedent for the plethora of ecclesiastical pronouncements emanating from the papacy (papal encyclicals, apostolic exhortations, apostolic letters, papal addresses), the Curia (curial instructions and notifications of various kinds), and episcopal conference doctrinal committees (notifications and disciplinary actions regarding doctrinal irregularities of one kind or another in the work of various theologians). Some see this magisterial activism as a necessary ecclesial response to our postmodern information age. In

this view, the instantaneous dissemination of information across the globe and the spontaneous eruptions of unregulated theological conversation on countless Internet blogs and Listservs demand a rapid-response system from the magisterium if the integrity of the Catholic faith is to be preserved. Others see such a pastoral response as well-meaning but futile. In our contemporary context, they insist, it is simply impossible to “police” theological conversation in the ways in which it was done in the past. Better for the magisterium to adopt a more modest, humbler mien, one focused on preserving the essentials of the faith. Such an approach would require a more carefully modulated claim to authority, a realistic acknowledgement of the contingent dimensions of many of today’s most vexing moral

questions (e.g., the changing nature of modern warfare or our evolving understanding of human sexuality), and a greater display of patience in the face of controversial issues that need to be submitted to honest, open debate. The arguments of both sides need to be respectfully considered. We must, however, be clear about one thing: The magisterial activism that we are witnessing today is not traditional; it is quite novel and its merits will need to be assessed in that light. Next: What is sensus fidelium and how do you know when you have it? [Richard Gaillardetz is the Joseph Professor of Catholic Systematic Theology at Boston College. He is the co-author with Catherine E. Clifford of Keys to the Council: Unlocking the Teaching of Vatican II (Liturgical Press, 2012).]

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Fr. Tissa Balasuriya: a loving and gentle rebel APPRECIATION By RUKI FERNANDO

COLOMBO, SRI LANKA . Oblate Fr. Tissa Balasuriya, a noted theologian, economist and human rights activist, died Jan. 17 in Sri Lanka. He was 89. He founded the Centre for Society and Religion in Colombo in 1971 with the aim of fostering interreligious and interracial action for justice and peace. He was also instrumental in founding the Ecumenical Association of Third World Theologians in the mid-1970s. The Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith began a doctrinal investigation of Balasuriya because of statements he made about Mary, original sin, Christ’s redemptive role, revelation, and papal authority in his book Mary and Human Liberation, published in English in 1990. He was excommunicated in January 1997, accused of propagating ideas contrary to the Catholic faith. A year later, Balasuriya signed a “Statement of Reconciliation” and the excommunication was lifted. Balasuriya was a frequent contributor to NCR. His last article, a critique of Pope Benedict XVI’s third encyclical Caritas in Veritate (“Charity in Truth”), appeared in August 2009. He found it a “valuable document, but has some missing dimensions. It does not analyze the way the modern world has been set up as an association of Christians with governments and colonial powers, especially from 1492 to 1945. The pope seems to overlook the inadequacies of the church in the course of history.” Balasuriya has been called a radical and rebel within the Catholic church and society. He, like Jesus, never flinched from challenging the powerful — in the government, multinational corporations or the church. But what I remember most about Father Tissa is his love and his gentleness. Though I had begun reading his works years before, I got to know Father Tissa personally in the 1990s. He took me to slums in Colombo, Sri Lanka’s capital, and got me involved in conducting discussions on human rights in area schools. He invited me to a training course on organic farming in Kandy and made me

part of theological discussions with leading Sri Lankan and other liberation theologians from across the world. He lived a simple life, with few personal belongings, and mostly traveled by bus and train. In 2009, I was asked to present a paper on the Eucharist and armed conflict at a conference held in preparation for the plenary assembly of Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences. My thesis, that “the Eucharist has to be related positively to human liberation if it is to be faithful to its origins,” was drawn from Father Tissa’s 1977 book Eucharist and Human Liberation. Even when the Vatican, with active collaboration of local church leaders in Colombo, excommunicated him, he didn’t speak angrily of those responsible. “I feel more in communion with the real church and those oppressed” was the sentiment I remember most in my conversations with him from that time. As a teenager, I was a regular visitor to the Centre for Society and Religion. There I found critical material on church and society. From the center, we in the Young Christian Students Movement could borrow slides, videos, overhead projectors and other material and equipment. On one occasion, Father Tissa recommended a film on Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador, who was killed because he condemned the military dictatorship in his country. I had never heard of Romero or the film, but took Father Tissa’s advice and showed it. It remains one of the most challenging and inspiring films I have ever watched. I have used it many times since in presentations to various groups. A woman activist has told me that Father Tissa was among the few churchmen in the 1980s and 1990s who welcomed her and her young child. Long before Father Tissa wrote the book Mary and Human Liberation, he had been an advocate for women’s rights in society and especially within the church. In recent years, when my work as a human rights activist in Sri Lanka put me in certain danger, Father Tissa reached out, concerned for my safety. He invited me to stay with him for protection, saying, “I have a very short time to live, but you have more years ahead of you, so be careful.” He never failed to reply to an email or return a phone call.

—Mev Puleo

Tissa Balasuriya

Some people close to Father Tissa found it difficult to work with him, and indeed had disagreements with some of his thinking. He was, after all, only human. But I also think that his vision and commitment were so idealistic and challenging that some found it difficult to keep up with him. Father Tissa was and will remain one of my gurus — someone who helped me to connect my faith to realities of oppression and injustices around me — in Sri Lanka and beyond. I am among the many fortunate people Father Tissa mentored and inspired through his writings, his conferences and workshops, and personal conversations, but most importantly, in the simple way he lived and the love he radiated. [K.M. Rukshan (Ruki) Fernando has worked for a number of human rights and church-based organizations in Sri Lanka, Thailand and the Philippines. This article is adapted from one that appeared on Groundviews, a citizen journalism website based in Colombo, Sri Lanka.]

Renowned Filipino liturgist dies at age 73 By JOSHUA J. McELWEE

Former students of Benedictine Fr. Anscar Chupungco, a renowned Filipino liturgist who died in early January, say his wide-ranging academic contributions were matched by his personal kindness and influence on the students he taught. Chupungco, a former president of the Pontifical Liturgical Institute in Rome and consultor to both the Vatican’s Congregation for Divine Worship and the International Commission on English in the Liturgy (ICEL), died Jan. 8 in the Philippines. He was 73. Also a former head of the liturgy commission of the Philippines bishops’ conference, Chupungco had been set to receive the conference’s highest award, the Jorge Barlin Golden Cross, on Jan. 26. He had also been set to receive the Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice medal, a papal honor given for distinguished service to the church. Speaking to NCR Jan. 15, Fr. Jan Michael Joncas, a widely published U.S. liturgical composer and liturgist who was a doctoral student of Chupungco’s at the liturgical institute, said his former mentor had left a wide legacy in many different areas of work.

—St. Vincent School of Theology

Fr. Anscar Chupungco

Topping the list, Joncas said, was Chupungco’s work integrating local customs and traditions into the Catholic Mass and his establishing in 1993 the Paul VI Institute of Liturgy in the Philippines, a center for forming liturgists to serve throughout Asia. But Chupungco’s focus could also be very personal, said Joncas, an associate professor of Catholic studies and theology at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minn. Mentioning that the Paul VI Institute is located in a somewhat rural sec-

tion of Malaybalay City, Joncas recalled stories of the Benedictine priest using homilies to speak directly to farmers who had traveled to the institute for Mass. “Even though [Chupungco] had all those high positions, it never kept him from preaching and liturgical formation for just the simplest faithful who came to worship at the monasteries where he served,” Joncas said. “That’s really pretty stunning.” Ordained a priest in 1965, Chupungco was appointed in 1973 as the first Filipino member of the faculty of the Pontifical Liturgical Institute, which is run by the Benedictine order. Among other awards, Chupungco received the McManus Award, the highest honor of the U.S. Federation of Diocesan Liturgical Commissions in 2011. In a speech accepting that award in October 2011, Chupungco criticized the state of liturgical reform following the Second Vatican Council. Liturgical reform, he said, “is being put to task by a movement known as the ‘reform of the reform.’ It carries an agenda that can have a regrettable impact on the liturgical gains of the council.” “Dark clouds are forming ominously on the western horizon,” Chupungco

said. “They move hurriedly and decisively toward the direction of the sun that burns radiantly in the sky. They cast upon it their somber shadows to hide it from view.” He concluded: “In reality, however, the dimness is caused by the passing clouds. I am confident that these cannot put the clock back to yesterday’s evening hours.” Like Joncas, Viatorian Fr. Mark Francis, another liturgist and former student of Chupungco’s, remembered the Benedictine’s focus on individual connections. “His great learning and background in liturgy was being put at the service of the people,” Francis said in an interview with Pastoral Liturgy, a publication of Liturgy Training Publications. Francis, a former superior general of his order, is a regular lecturer at the Pontifical Liturgical Institute. “The purpose of liturgical study was … to serve the church and God’s people and to accompany them in the liturgy into the presence of God.” [Joshua J. McElwee is an NCR staff writer. His email address is jmcelwee@ncronline.org.]

NATIONAL CATHOLIC REPORTER

FEBRUARY 1-14, 2013

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FLANNERY: â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;M HARDLY A MAJOR AND SUBVERSIVE FIGUREâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Continued from Page 1

â&#x20AC;&#x153;frightening, disproportionate and reminiscent of the Inquisition.â&#x20AC;? He said that he initially tried to find a compromise with the Vatican congregation, but by September, it became clear this would not happen. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I gradually became aware that the CDF continually raised the bar, until it got to the point where I could no longer negotiate. I was faced with a choice. Either I sign a statement, for publication, stating that I accepted teachings that I could not accept, or I would remain permanently banned from priestly ministry, and maybe face more serious sanctions. â&#x20AC;&#x153;It is important to state clearly that these issues were not matters of fundamental teaching, but rather of church governance,â&#x20AC;? he said. Flannery, a popular retreat master and writer, said the congregation also had ordered him â&#x20AC;&#x153;not to have any involvement, public or privateâ&#x20AC;? with the Association of Catholic Priests. Flannery co-founded the association in 2010 as a forum for discussion among Irish clergy on issues affecting the Irish church and society. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I have served the church, the Redemptorists and the people of God for two-thirds of my life. Throughout that time, I have in good conscience raised issues I believed important for the future of the Church in books and essays largely read by practicing Catholics, rather than raising them in mainstream media,â&#x20AC;? Flannery said in a statement released at a news conference. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m hardly a major and subversive figure within the Church deserving excommunication and expulsion from the religious community within which I have lived since my teens.â&#x20AC;? The choice facing him, he said, was between deciding between Rome and his conscience. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Submitting to these threats would be a betrayal of my ministry, my fellow priests and the Catholic people who want change,â&#x20AC;? he said. The Redemptorists in Ireland issued a strong defense of Flannery Jan. 20. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We do understand and support his efforts to listen carefully to and at times to articulate the views of people he encounters in the course of his ministry,â&#x20AC;? the provincial leadership team of the Irish Redemptorists said in a statement. They said they regretted immensely that â&#x20AC;&#x153;some structures or processes of

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;AP/PA Wire/Niall Carson

Fr. Tony Flannery at a conference in Dublin Jan 20

news

dialogue have not yet been found in the Church which have a greater capacity to engage with challenging voices from among Godâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s people, while respecting the key responsibility and central role of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.â&#x20AC;? The Association of Catholic Priests also affirmed â&#x20AC;&#x153;in the strongest possible termsâ&#x20AC;? its support for Flannery. The association said that Flannery was being targeted as â&#x20AC;&#x153;part of a worldwide effort to negate the influence of independent priestsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; associations in Austria, USA, Germany, France, Switzerland and other places.â&#x20AC;? Also at the news conference was Fr. Helmut SchĂźller of the Austrian Priestsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Initiative. He criticized the â&#x20AC;&#x153;lack of basic rights and respect for personal conscienceâ&#x20AC;? in the church. Former Irish President Mary McAleese spoke in support of Flannery and other dissident Irish clerics Oct. 20 at the launch of her book Quo Vadis?: Collegiality in the Code of Canon Law at the Jesuit headquarters in Dublin. There she spoke privately to Flannery, who was making a rare public appearance. The reform group We are Church Ireland announced a peaceful vigil out-

side the Vaticanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Apostolic Nunciature in Dublin, planned for Jan. 27, to offer unconditional support for Flanneryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s right â&#x20AC;&#x153;not to be forced by an abuse of his vow of obedience to submit to the secretive demandsâ&#x20AC;? of the doctrinal congregation. Flannery said, â&#x20AC;&#x153;The threats are a means, not just of terrifying me into submission, but of sending a message to any other priest expressing views at variance with those of the Roman Curia.â&#x20AC;? From the West of Ireland, Flannery was born in Attymon, County Galway, and spent time as a Redemptorist preacher in Limerick. He has a large following both as preacher and retreat master. He is a popularizer, rather than a heavyweight scholar. He holds audience attention through dialogue, especially with parents who find that the clerical abuse scandals have alienated their children from religion. Once noted for hellfire sermons, the Redemptorists have been at the forefront of the drive for necessary church change. Flanneryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 1999 book, From the Inside: A Priestâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s View of the Catholic Church, is part autobiographical and part appraisal of Irish Catholicism. It consists of short, readable pieces, highlighting inadequate sexual and spiritual training of priests. It examines fault lines that emerged in the aftermath of Pope Paul VIâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 1968 encyclical, Humanae Vitae, upholding the churchâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ban on artificial forms of contraception.

In this book, too, Flannery criticized the institutionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mishandling of clerical celibacy. His Fragments of Reality, published in 2008 by Columba Press of Dublin, contains his collected writings since 1998, when he was a member of the Redemptorist Mission Team which comprised laypeople and clergy. He saw firsthand the steady decline throughout Ireland of church attendance and of candidates for the priesthood. He also witnessed the continued denial of any meaningful role for women in ministry. â&#x20AC;&#x153;How much longer can this policy be sustained?â&#x20AC;? he wrote. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We must be the last institution in the Western world that continues to hold such blatant discrimination against women. I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have any doubt that there is no theological or scriptural basis for this position, but that it is purely a social and institutional construct hiding a fairly barefaced and primitive desire for male domination.â&#x20AC;? In the essay â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Ordination of Womenâ&#x20AC;? in Fragments of Reality, he revealed that he knows a few of the women who were ordained in the Roman Catholic women priests movement on a riverboat in Pittsburgh in 2006. He personally knows Irish-born Bridget Mary Meehan, who is a bishop in the Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests. [John Cooney is a Dublin-based journalist and historian.]

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10 NATION

States take up gun legislation

Researcher treats gun By CLAIRE SCHAEFFER-DUFFY

By ELOÍSA PÉREZ-LOZANO

Even before President Barack Obama released details of his plan to reduce gun violence, governors and state legislative leaders were taking action on their own. New York became the first state to change its gun laws since the shooting in Newtown, Conn., Dec. 14. Signed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, on Jan. 15, the new law expands a ban on assault weapons and what weapons qualify as assault weapons. The law lowers the allowed size of gun magazines from 10 bullets to seven, according to The New York Times. It imposes stricter punishment for people who use guns in various crimes or take them onto school grounds. The law will also work to limit the accessibility of firearms to mentally ill individuals and it requires handgun owners to renew their licenses every five years. The New York State Catholic Conference has not issued a statement on the new law, but according to communications director Dennis Poust, New York bishops are supportive of efforts to address gun violence in society. Poust said that they support initiatives to stop violence, “not just what we’ve seen so tragically in Newtown and Aurora [Colo., site of a cinema shooting in July in which 12 died], but also that day-today gun violence that we almost can become immune to when we live in a large urban area.” In Maryland, Democratic Gov. Martin O’Malley is preparing to lay out a tough new gun control proposal, which includes measures similar to New York’s. In addition to banning assault rifles and reducing the size of magazines from 20 bullets to 10, O’Malley’s proposal also calls for more safety precautions at public schools and preventing mentally ill people with violent tendencies from procuring firearms. Additionally, the legislation would require anyone purchasing a firearm — with the exception of hunting rifles and shotguns typically used by sportsmen — to be fingerprinted by state police before receiving a gun owner’s license. Kathy Dempsey, communications director of the Maryland Catholic Conference, said the conference has a long history of supporting measures to reduce gun violence and would likely be active on this issue in this legislative session. “Our bishops actually have testified, along with conference staff, many times in the past for legislation aimed at curtailing all the needless and heartbreaking violence that is caused by the abuse of firearms,” she said. She added the conference was looking for a balanced approach to violence reduction that would look at gun control and “ways to help those in need of mental health assistance. … I believe the governor’s package is addressing both issues.” Other states are more like Oregon. Democratic Gov. John Kitzhaber, in interviews in early January on the eve of the opening of the legislative session, said that he wouldn’t lead the charge on tougher gun control laws, but that he would support such proposals from the legislature. A bill to ban high-capacity ammunition magazines has been introduced in the State Senate. The Oregon Catholic Conference has not issued a statement on gun control issues yet, according to communications director Bud Bunce. He said he expects the Oregon legislature will be taking up other issues before gun control is addressed. Meanwhile state representatives in Wyoming, Texas and Missouri have introduced bills that would prohibit the enforcement of any federal laws restricting the ownership or manufacturing of any firearm, firearm accessory or ammunition. [Eloísa Pérez-Lozano is an NCR Bertelsen intern. Her email address is eloisapl@ncronline.org.]

Boston researcher David Hemenway recommends we regard gun violence as a public health threat and tackle it like we tackled the hazards of motor vehicles, cigarettes and poisons. All three products continue to circulate in society but we have found ways to make them safer. Hemenway, director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center at the Harvard School of Public Health, said that applying public health strategies to the uniquely American ailment of gun violence sidesteps the contentious issue of gun ownership and focuses on injury prevention instead. When trying to reduce the hazards of a consumer product, public health practitioners think it is more useful to look at what caused the injury rather than who, Hemenway explained during a recent interview on a Boston public radio program. Asking those questions has often led to product redesign. In some ways, he said, Americans “are in the same place with guns today as we were with motor vehicles in the 1950s, because then car manufacturers tried to say it was really all the driver’s fault. ‘Cars don’t kill people; people kill

people’ was the implicit mantra.” It wasn’t until public health physicians began inquiring into the causes of car injuries that we realized people were being speared with steering columns and having their faces ripped apart by shattered glass, Hemenway said. Today, car manufacturers can’t make cars without seat belts, collapsible steering columns, and windows made of safety glass. Hemenway hopes for a similar evolution with gun manufacturers. Hemenway spoke at a Jan. 8 panel discussion on gun violence at Harvard co-sponsored by the school and the Reuters news agency. The U.S. has a “horrific gun problem,” Hemenway said. Guns kill 85 Americans a day and wound several hundred. Firearms are the second leading killer of American youth after automobiles. The high tally is not because American society is unusually bloodthirsty. When compared to other developed countries, the U.S. rate for crimes like assault, robbery, or sexual attack is about average. But the United States has “by far, the most guns, the weakest gun laws and the most homicides,” he said. In other words, what distinguishes American violence is its lethali-

SOCIAL MEDIA PROJECT AIMS TO TALLY GUN DEATHS The online publication Slate (www.slate.com) and a Twitter feed called @GunDeaths are teaming up in a social media experiment to create an interactive feature they call “Gun Deaths in America Since Newtown.” The creator of @GunDeaths is anonymous, but he (it is a he according to Slate) says he wants to “Tweet every gun death in North America regardless of cause and without comment. Help us tell the story behind the statistics.” Check it out at twitter.com/GunDeaths. As NCR went to press on Jan. 23, 40 days since the Newtown shooting, 1,169 people have died as a result of gun wounds. Slate hopes to boost @GunDeaths’ social media reach so his tally is more accurate. The publication is using his data to create an interactive tally and map of the gun deaths. Visit Slate for details on how you can help: tinyurl.com/b3kgscp.

ty. The abundance of guns in U.S. households, coupled with lax gun laws and a lack of safety measures, means that crime, acts of passion, domestic disputes, and attempts at suicide often end in fatalities. In an online essay for The Journal of the American Medical Association Jan.7 Hemenway and two co-authors made a dozen recommendations for reducing gun harm based on successful public health strategies. These included: I A national tax on guns and ammunition (similar to a tobacco tax) “to better represent societal costs and provide funding for gun safety and violence reduction programs”; I Requiring guns to have childproof locking devices, an idea inspired by the childproof packaging of poisons and medicine; I Physician counseling on storage and safe use comparable to what is provided for poisons; I Requiring gun users, like drivers of automobiles, to be licensed and to attend gun safety courses like driver’s education. Hemenway’s co-authors were epidemiologist Dariush Mozaffarian and pediatrician David Ludwig. Any harm-reduction strategy for guns would also require changing social norms. Hemenway and his colleagues point to successful

PROPOSALS: COSTS IN LIVES, DOLLARS Continued from Page 1

Biden, called for universal background checks before all firearm sales. “High-capacity weapons and ammunition magazines should not be available to civilians,” the religious leaders said. Obama asked Congress to reinstate a ban on assault weapons, limit ammunition magazines to 10 rounds and ban the sale of armor-piercing bullets to civilians. “Gun trafficking should be made a federal crime,” the religious leaders said. Obama called for new legislation with stiffer penalties and stricter enforcement against straw buyers who purchase weapons for others who would not pass a background check. Among the 14 Catholic leaders who signed the letter to Congress were Bishop Stephen Blaire of Stockton, Calif., chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development; Daughter of Charity Sr. Carol Keehan, president and CEO of the Catholic Health Association; and Fr. Larry Snyder, president and CEO of Catholic Charities USA. At a news conference in Washington Jan. 15, Keehan said the nation’s Catholic hospitals see the results of gun violence “in our emergency rooms every day.” Keehan was one of several faith leaders who spoke at the media event, sponsored by Faiths United to Prevent Gun Violence and held at the United Methodist Building across the street from the U.S.

NATIONAL CATHOLIC REPORTER

FEBRUARY 1-14, 2013

NATION 11

violence as public health issue

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;Harvard School of Public Health/Aubrey LaMedica

David Hemenway, left, speaks during the Jan. 8 panel discussion on gun violence. Beside him is Felton Earls, professor of child psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and research professor of human behavior and development at the Harvard School of Public Health.

campaigns against smoking and drunk driving of the last 50 years as providing positive precedent. However, designing effective public health policies to prevent gun injuries and fatalities requires data, and that has been hard to come by. According to

Hemenway, during the Gingrich revolution of the mid-1990s, the National Rifle Association wanted to eliminate all firearm research at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. From 1986 to 1996, the agency sponsored peer-reviewed studies on the

Supreme Court. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We know the cost, in lives and dollars, that could be prevented by a wiser gun policy and a better mental health safety net,â&#x20AC;? she said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Catholic church has spoken out for years about the urgency of reducing gun violence,â&#x20AC;? she added. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Following the Newtown shooting [killing 20 children and six adult staff members at an elementary school in December], our bishops endorsed once again the effort to create a better gun ownership policy.â&#x20AC;? Keehan noted that she â&#x20AC;&#x153;saw the effects of gun violence firsthandâ&#x20AC;? when she was president of Providence Hospital near The Catholic University of America in Washington. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I saw it in my emergency room when gang members would drive by and dump one of their comrades who had been shot,

when people would come after them to finish the job, when people would come in dead that we could do nothing for. There were even people shot on our hospital grounds. When you work in an inner-city hospital, sadly, gun violence is all too routine.â&#x20AC;? Universal background checks, bans on military-style assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, and stricter legislation against gun trafficking â&#x20AC;&#x153;will help save lives and make our communities safer,â&#x20AC;? Keehan said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;As we suggest these measures, we do so with great respect for our Constitution and the rights of hunters,â&#x20AC;? she said, â&#x20AC;&#x153;but we join that to a respect for the lives of the people of our country. â&#x20AC;Ś I believe there is a balance between gun ownership and the broad availability of weapons that can only lead to

Ideal fo educa r adult tio study n, Bible g and in roups, dividu als

Live by the Beatitudes and d become a â&#x20AC;&#x153;doerâ&#x20AC;? b erâ&#x20AC;? of the Word

TThe he S Sermon ermon oonn tthe he M Mount ount Th T The he Perfect Peerrf P rfec feecct ct Measure Meaasu Me Meas assure ure of ur of the the he Christian Chr Ch hri h ris isti tiaan n Life Life ife if Frrank F Frank an nk J. J. Matera Mat ater teerra S978-0-8146-3523-0 S97 S 978-0 8 -81 8146 8 46 352 463523-0 3523-0 -0 0 Paperback, Pape perba b ck back ck, 100 100 pp., 10 pp p., . $12.95 $12.95 $1 $12 2 95 2.9 S S9 S97 8 0-81 8-0 -81 8146814646 63 354 548-3 8-3 eBook, eBoo B k, $10.99 $ .99 $10 99 9 S978-0-8146-3548-3

IIn n this thi lively li l and d engaging volume, volum Father Frank Matera unfolds the historical and theological background to the Sermon on the Mount for contemporary readers. He explores the meaning of the individual Beatitudes and shows how the sermon provides a standard by which all believers can live out their discipleship today.

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underlying causes of gun violence. Among the findings: People who kept a gun in the home for protection faced a 2.7-fold greater risk of homicide and a 4.8-fold risk of suicide than those in similar homes without guns. Following those findings, Congress cut $2.6 million from the CDCâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s injury budget, the exact amount the agency had been spending annually on gun research. The move has had a chilling effect on firearms research ever since, Hemenway said. Even the CDCâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, which interviews more than 200,000 households about aspects of public health, has had to eliminate all questions about firearms, he said. By contrast, a variety of agencies collect a wealth of information after every automobile accident and research for traffic safety is well-funded. Since 2011, Congress has prohibited the National Institutes of Health from advocating or promoting gun control. Researchers say the prohibition, which came after an NIH-backed study drew links between alcoholism and gun violence, sends a signal to federal research agencies to steer clear of studying guns. To compensate for the data deficit on gun harm, Hemenway and the Harvard Injury Control Research Center created the National Violent Death Reporting System in 1998. The database collects information about violent deaths, includ-

NCRonline .org

ing those by firearms. The CDC has since taken over its administration. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a great system with all this really rich data, but it is only in place in 18 states because of a lack of funding,â&#x20AC;? Hemenway said. President Barack Obama has proposed expanding this system to all 50 states and has asked Congress for $20 million to do it. While lawsuits against the tobacco industry have been used to curb the health hazards of smoking, no such option exists for reducing gun violence. The Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act of 2005 grants the firearm industry broad immunity from consumer liability, which eliminates incentives for manufacturers voluntarily to make their products safer. There are â&#x20AC;&#x153;100 patents out there for childproofing guns,â&#x20AC;? Hemenway said, but the gun industry, more interested in profit than safety, has resisted implementing them. Hemenway hopes the horror of the Dec. 14 massacre in Newtown, Conn., will inspire changes in addressing our â&#x20AC;&#x153;crazy gun situation in the United States.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x153;If not now, when?â&#x20AC;? he asked. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Eighty-five people a day are dying, so what do we do? Throw up our hands and just throw people in jail? God forgive us if we donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t do something now.â&#x20AC;? [Claire Schaeffer-Duffy is a longtime contributor to NCR based in Worcester, Mass.]

ON THE WEB The letter to Congress, with signatories, is available at www.faithsagainstgunviolence.org

The list of Catholic signers is available at NCRonline.org/blogs/ncrtoday/catholics-unitenew-gun-control-measures

tremendous violence.â&#x20AC;? The U.S. bishops â&#x20AC;&#x153;hope that the steps taken by the administration will help to build a culture of life,â&#x20AC;? Blaire said in a Jan. 18 statement reacting to Obamaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s proposals. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The frequent mass shootings over the course of 2012 reflected a tragic devaluing of human life, but also pointed to the moral duty of all people to take steps to defend it,â&#x20AC;? Blaire said. At the Jan. 15 news conference, the Rev. Jim Wallis, a prominent evangelical leader and president and CEO of the national Christian magazine Sojourners, challenged the declaration by National Rifle Association leader Wayne LaPierre, following the Dec. 14 mass killing at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, that â&#x20AC;&#x153;the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x153;That statement is at the heart of the problem of gun violence in America today,â&#x20AC;? Wallis said, â&#x20AC;&#x153;not just because it is factually flawed, which of course it is, but because it is morally mistaken, theologically dangerous and religiously repugnant.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x153;The world is not full of â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;goodâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; and â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;badâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; people,â&#x20AC;? Wallis added. â&#x20AC;&#x153;That is not what our Scriptures teach us. We are as human beings both good and bad. â&#x20AC;Ś As individual persons we have both good and bad in us â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and when we are bad, or isolated, or angry or furious or vengeful, or politically agitated,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;CNS/Bob Roller

Daughter of Charity Sr. Carol Keehan attends a Jan. 15 news conference in Washington on preventing gun violence.

or confused or lost, or deranged or unhinged, and we have the ability to get and use weapons only designed to kill large numbers of people, our society is in great danger.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x153;When such weapons are allowed to be used out of powerful emotions, without restraints or rules,â&#x20AC;? he said, American parents cannot honestly tell their children that they are safe and free of danger. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We cannot because they are not.â&#x20AC;? Faiths United to Prevent Gun Violence was started two years ago by leaders of 24 national faith organizations, including Catholic, Protestant, interfaith, Jewish and Muslim groups. It has since grown to include at least 40 such groups. [Jerry Filteau is NCR Washington correspondent. His email address is jfilteau@ncronline.org.]

NATIONAL CATHOLIC REPORTER

FEBRUARY 1-14, 2013

12 NATION

Letter officially dismisses Bourgeois By JOSHUA J. McELWEE

Roy Bourgeois is now officially dismissed. Three months after first learning of his ousting from the Catholic priesthood by the Vatican because of his support for womenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ordination, the longtime peace activist received in January the official letter notifying him of the move. The letter, which comes from the Vaticanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, is signed by the congregationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s prefect on behalf of Pope Benedict XVI and states that the popeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s decision in the matter is â&#x20AC;&#x153;a supreme decision, not open to any appeal, without right to any recourse.â&#x20AC;? Written in Latin, the letter dismisses Bourgeois from the priesthood and restricts him from all priestly ministries. It asks Bourgeois to return a signed copy â&#x20AC;&#x153;as a proof of reception and at the same time of acceptance of the same dismissal and dispensation.â&#x20AC;? The letter, dated Oct. 4, was made available Jan. 9 by Bourgeois, who said he received it the first week of January from the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers, the U.S. missionary society he served as a priest for 40 years. Bourgeois said he did not plan to return a signed copy. The congregationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s letter does not make reference to specific charges

ON THE WEB NCRonline A copy of the Vatican letter and the .org English translation of it are available online at NCRonline.org/node/42596.

Roy Bourgeois

William Quigley

against, saying, â&#x20AC;&#x153;For the good of the Church, the dismissal from the said Society must be confirmed, and moreover, also the dismissal from the clerical state must be inflicted.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x153;Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s no mention of what I did,â&#x20AC;? Bourgeois said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s no mention â&#x20AC;Ś of womenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ordination. What crime did I commit that brought about this serious sentence? Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s no mention of that. What did I do?â&#x20AC;? His signature on the letter, he said, would indicate he accepts its contents. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I do not accept it,â&#x20AC;? he said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I think itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a grave injustice. I think itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mean-spirited. I think it contradicts whatever Jesus had talked about and taught us.â&#x20AC;? Maryknoll had announced the move against Bourgeois in a press release Nov. 19, but at that time, neither the society nor the Vatican congregation responded to requests to make public the official letter announcing the move.

Bourgeois said his copy of the letter arrived via registered mail along with a short note from Maryknoll Fr. Edward Dougherty, the societyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s superior general. The Vaticanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s dismissal, Dougherty wrote to Bourgeois in that note, which is dated Dec. 17, â&#x20AC;&#x153;is irrevocable and not subject to appeal.â&#x20AC;? Mike Virgintino, communications manager for the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers, wrote in an email Jan. 10 that Maryknoll officials attempted to schedule a meeting with Bourgeois in December to personally deliver the letter but the meeting had to be postponed following the death of Bourgeoisâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; father in November. The Vaticanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s letter states that Bourgeois may not exercise any priestly ministries, including giving homilies or having a â&#x20AC;&#x153;directive role in a pastoral environment.â&#x20AC;? He also cannot hold an office or teach at any seminary or theological school. The letter is signed by Archbishop Gerhard MĂźller, the doctrinal congregationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s prefect, and Archbishop Luis Ladaria Ferrer, its secretary. Oblate Fr. Francis Morrisey, a canon

lawyer at Ottawaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s St. Paul University, said the official document seems clear that Bourgeois has no recourse in the matter, as his removal was a decision of the pope himself. William Quigley, an American lawyer who had the original version of the Vatican letter professionally translated into English for Bourgeois, called the letter â&#x20AC;&#x153;very, very unfair.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s like they gave him a punishment, but theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve never given him a charge,â&#x20AC;? said Quigley, the director of the Gillis Long Poverty Law Center at Loyola University New Orleans and a former legal director for the Center for Constitutional Rights. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Under the most basic human rights law â&#x20AC;Ś everybody has a right to know what the charge is and to have a hearing before a fair tribunal,â&#x20AC;? Quigley said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;This is bewildering.â&#x20AC;? Bourgeois first attracted episcopal attention after he participated in the ordination of Janice Sevre-Duszynska of the Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests in August 2008. Shortly after, the Vatican congregation notified him he had incurred a latae sententiae, or automatic, excommunication for his participation. Maryknoll asked Bourgeois to publicly recant his support of womenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ordination, telling the priest in a March 2011 letter he faced laicization and removal from the order if he did not comply.

Attention Priests and Deacons: Have Your Rights Been Violated? Has your Bishop or Provincial removed you from functioning as a priest or deacon, such as removal as pastor, denial of faculties, allegation of misconduct, forced laicization, withdrawal of financial support, or forced psychological evaluation and treatment? Done without due process, your canonical rights have been violated. DO NOT SURRENDER YOUR RIGHTS! For more information, contact our organization for a canonical opinion and a competent canonist will advise you.

1 0 #PY t 4BO %JFHP $" 1IPOF t 'BY â&#x20AC;&#x153;How can you speak of justice without the right of defense?â&#x20AC;? Blessed John Paul II

â&#x20AC;&#x153;If you want peace work for justice!â&#x20AC;? Pope Paul VI

FNBJM KVTUJDFGPSQSJFTUT!WFSJ[PO OFU t XFC QBHF XXX KVTUJDFGPSQSJFTUT PSH

NATIONAL CATHOLIC REPORTER

FEBRUARY 1-14, 2013

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FEBRUARY 1-14, 2013

14 NATION

Released records detail LA abuse cover-up By JOSHUA J. McELWEE

Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony and a trusted lieutenant shielded archdiocesan priests known to be sex abusers from law enforcement during the 1980s, even suggesting they leave the state of California to avoid prosecution, according to a series of church records released in mid-January. The records, which were filed as part of a civil lawsuit against the archdiocese and were first reported by the Los Angeles Times Jan. 21, indicate that Mahony and Los Angeles Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Curry intentionally sent abusive priests to out-of-state treatment facilities as protection from arrest. Los Angeles County prosecutors “will review and evaluate all [newly released] documents as they become available to us,” Sandi Gibbons, a public information officer for the County District Attorney’s office, said in a brief statement. The release of the files, which concern 14 priests, comes as the archdiocese is preparing to release records of at least 75 more accused abusers under the terms of a separate 2007 civil settlement with more than 500 clergy abuse victims. While the files of the 14 priests are nearly three decades old — coming from long before the U.S. bishops started to address the wider issue of sex abuse by clergy in 2002 — the revelations they contain point to lingering questions about the accountability of bishops, said a former chairman of the U.S. bishops’ National Review Board for clergy sex abuse. Some of the documents reveal that Mahony, who retired as Los Angeles’ archbishop in 2011, personally signed off on not reporting priests known to be dangerous, and this raises the question of what to do with bishops who do not report abuse to authorities, said Judge Michael Merz, who served on the review board from 2004-2009.

—CNS/The Catholic University of America/Ed Pfueller

—CNS/Nancy Phelan Wiechec

Cardinal Roger Mahony

Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Curry

“[Bishops] are accountable to the pope, which means, of course, to the Vatican bureaucracy,” said Merz, currently a federal district court judge in Ohio. “But is anybody looking?” “No American bishop has been involuntarily removed as a result of cover-up,” Merz said. “That level of accountability hasn’t happened.” Thomas Plante, a psychologist who has helped dioceses develop seminary screening programs, said in an email that while the documents reveal problems, they “must be viewed in light of standard operating procedures and thinking at the time.” “This is what so many were doing back then,” said Plante, a professor of psychology and director of the Spirituality and Health Institute at Santa Clara University in California. “I’ve been working on these cases since 1988 and over the years some folks … handled these things well on occasion and sometimes very badly.” According to the files released Jan.

21, Mahony and Curry, who was then a monsignor and the archdiocese’s vicar for clergy, discussed how to shield at least three priests from prosecution in a series of memos in 1986 and 1987. In one memo, Curry recommends that Fr. Michael Wempe, an archdiocesan priest who had acknowledged a persistent sexual relationship with a 12-year-old, could be sent out of state “if need be.” Curry also recommends that priests known to be abusive should be sent to psychiatrists who are also lawyers as to put “under the protection of privilege” what the priests say. Mahony issued a public statement Jan. 21 apologizing “for my own failure to protect fully the children and youth entrusted into my care.” The cardinal also said he did not fully understand the pain of clergy sex abuse victims until he met with some 90 victims in 2006, 2007 and 2008. “Those visits were heart-wrenching experiences for me as I listened to the victims describe how they had their

childhood and innocence stolen from them by clergy and by the Church,” Mahony wrote, ending his statement, “I am sorry.” Curry became an auxiliary bishop for the archdiocese in 1994. The files released Jan. 21 are from personnel files submitted to a judge on behalf of a man who claims he was abused by one of the priests, Fr. Nicolas Aguilar Rivera. The Los Angeles archdiocese, under Mahony’s leadership in 2007, agreed to release files regarding abuse by at least 75 other priests as part of a historic settlement with 508 plaintiffs alleging abuse by more than 150 priests. Some of the plaintiffs agreed to the mass settlement because the agreement included release of those personnel files. Following the settlement, more than 20 accused priests went to court to block the files’ release, arguing that making their files public would violate their privacy rights. While a federal judge initially ruled in 2011 that the files would be released with redactions of names of church officials, Superior Court Judge Emilie Elias ordered Jan. 7 they be released without redactions. Comprising some 30,000 pages, it is still unclear exactly when those files will be released. Merz said the Los Angeles archdiocese should “end the agony” regarding its past handling of sex abuse by clergy by releasing the documents quickly. “The only way to end the agony is to get it all out,” Merz said. “Get that wound completely opened and drained and put the antibiotic in. To the extent that stuff’s coming out now that should have been disclosed in 2007, then they’re just prolonging the agony.” [Catholic News Service contributed to this report.]

Boston launches first phase of parish restructuring By BRIAN ROEWE

For the last 150 years, St. Mary Parish in downtown Lynn, Mass., has been part of the industrial community’s long history, situated just blocks from City Hall. Shortly, the old English church will turn the page to its next chapter, as part of the inaugural wave of parish restructuring in the Boston archdiocese. St. Mary was one of 28 parishes announced Jan. 10 as part of 12 collaboratives in the first phase of the archdiocese’s pastoral plan, “Disciples in Mission.” The pastoral plan calls for all of Boston’s 288 parishes to form into collaboratives — a grouping of one to four parishes led by one pastor, a pastoral team and shared finance and pastoral councils — while maintaining each parish’s individual identity and without closing churches (NCR, Dec. 21-Jan. 3). The entire plan will play out over the next five years, with the hope that stronger parishes — through shared resources and lessened financial strain — will allow greater focus on evangelization, the force driving “Disciples in Mission.” Fr. Paul Soper, archdiocesan direc-

tor of pastoral planning, said his team sought a diverse representation of parishes for Phase One, with at least two collaboratives located within each of the archdiocese’s five regions. Those in the first phase all volunteered. The Lynn collaborative, located 15 miles north of Boston, will pair St. Mary with nearby Sacred Heart Parish. It was selected as a case-study site in part because of circumstances seen in numerous parishes diocesewide: The two parishes offered Masses in three languages (English, Haitian Creole, and Congolese), and their schools included both a traditional

parish-based school and independently run junior and high schools. Fr. Brian Flynn, pastor of St. Mary, told NCR he nominated the parish in hopes it would benefit from additional archdiocesan support as one of the testing grounds. “I just think that it’s an interesting challenge for us. It’s challenging, but it’s exciting,” he said. Before anything, the collaboratives require new leaders. Inclusion in Phase One meant each parish’s priest submitted a letter of resignation, though they — as well as other interested priests — can re-apply for the

position. The possibility of leaving St. Mary didn’t hit Flynn until he penned his letter. “Come June when all the pieces start to fall into place, I may not be where I am now,” he said. “I may be someplace else.” Collaborative assignments will be completed by early April, with July 1 set for official inauguration of the 11 new groupings. By then priests will have begun training, with the pastoral teams, parish councils and school boards to follow. By January 2015, the collaboratives are expected to begin their work in full, enacting a local pastoral plan formed by each pastoral team.

NCR covers the important issues and events that shape our church. NATIONAL CATHOLIC www.NCRonline.org

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A community of a different sort

Puccini meets Watergate in ‘Vatileaks’ scandal ANALYSIS By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.

ROME . Perhaps only the Vatican

could invent a scandal that manages to be almost comically silly and overblown, then suddenly ugly and mean, and finally deadly serious, all wrapped into one wildly complicated Italian melodrama. Think Puccini meets Watergate, and you’ll have some inkling of the climate in Rome in mid-February.

The story may set the stage for a serious discussion of governance, beginning with the Vatican itself.

—Peggy Turbett

The congregation sings as Fr. Robert Marrone and Alan Klonowski break consecrated bread for Communion at the Community of St. Peter Feb. 12 in Cleveland.

Beginning in late January, supposedly confidential Vatican documents began appearing in the Italian press, with fresh revelations at one stage coming almost

And we’ve been doing so for nearly 50 years.

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NATIONAL CATHOLIC REPORTER

FEBRUARY 1-14, 2013 • 15

Two new portraits of a nervy prophet Reviewed by SHARON ABERCROMBIE

Hildegard of Bingen, the 12th-century German mystic and ecologist, didn’t have the Hubble Space Telescope or quantum physics at her disposal. She didn’t need them. From a young age, Hildegard experienced visions. One of them gifted her with essential information about the beginning of the universe 13.7 billion years ago, when it flared forth from a minuscule speck of energy into a vast fireball. In his new commentary, Hildegard of Bingen: A Saint for Our Times, with a foreword by Joan Chittister, Matthew Fox notes, “Curiously, Hildegard writes and draws pictures of what she calls ‘fireballs’ that enter the human baby when we are born. As she HILDEGARD OF BINGEN: explains, ‘A fireball A SAINT FOR OUR TIMES possesses the heart of By Matthew Fox this child … the firePublished by Namaste ball rules the entire Publishing, $17.95 body just as the firmament of heavens contains lowly things and covers celestial things and also touches the brain of the person … the fireball gives the greenness of the heart and veins and all the organs to the entire body as a tree gives sap and greenness to ILLUMINATIONS: all the branches from A NOVEL OF HILDEGARD its root.’ ” VON BINGEN Today’s science, By Mary Sharratt Fox writes, tells us Published by Houghton the original fireball is Mifflin Harcourt, $25 present in our brain when photons light up with new ideas and in the process of photosynthesis, the greening of the plants. “Thus when we eat plants, fish or other creatures we are ingesting ‘fireballs’ that are descended from the original fireball.” This is pretty powerful information. With it in mind, consider meditating upon baby Jesus and the fireball greening within his tiny, compassionate heart. Does the image perhaps bring up thoughts of the cosmic Christ, who is present throughout all of time and space? Fox’s book is one of two new works released in October to coincide with Pope Benedict XVI’s naming Hildegard the fourth woman doctor of the church. Continued on Page 16

Walter Astrada, Argentinean (born 1974), “Congolese women fleeing to Goma,” 2008

Humanity at war Photographic exhibit confronts combat and its aftermath By ELOÍSA PÉREZ-LOZANO

HOUSTON . War is both a universal and personal subject matter with many facets. So many facets, in fact, that various war photographs can be described as touching, artistic, beautiful and chilling. When an exhibit can elicit so many profound and deeply felt emotions on such a wide spectrum, it is almost sure to touch virtually anyone who comes to view it. “WAR/PHOTOGRAPHY: Images of Armed Conflict and Its Aftermath” is an all-encompassing exhibit. It includes famous and infamous images as well as lesser-known prints to provide an overview of virtually every aspect of war. The exhibit premiered at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, on Veterans Day, Nov. 11, and is open through Feb. 3. It then moves to the Annenberg Space for Photography in Los Angeles, then to the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and finally the Brooklyn Museum in New York. “War is the most barbarous and least effective way of resolving conflicts,” Pope John Paul II said, and many powerful images in this collection can attest to that belief. Kenneth Jarecke’s “Incinerated Iraqi” illustrates this point. Taken during the first Gulf War in 1991, all you can see is a dead Iraqi soldier’s face above the truck seat he was trying to climb over when he was burned alive. It is a haunting image because even though the man has been burned beyond all recognition, his face

retains his last expression, his humanity. It is a vivid reminder of the very real casualties of war. Robert Clark’s photos of the Sept. 11 attack on the World Trade Center buildings may also be chilling to many who remember that fateful day in 2001. The four photos show the sequence of events: The first shows a tower smoking after the first plane’s collision with the second plane on the way, the second photo shows the second plane coming closer to the second tower, the third shows the second collision, and the final photo, shown in a larger format, shows both towers on fire and smoking. Though not as bloody or graphic as others, they have become iconic and can still provoke an emotional reaction because of what they represent: a surprise terrorist attack on U.S. soil. Though most people will expect images of raw fighting and combat, other photographs in the exhibit depict less exciting, but equally important, aspects of war. Photographs of recruiting and training practices, for example, may not be emotionally gripping, but they can be aesthetically pleasing. Damon Winter’s “Flying Military Class,” taken in 2010, features the First Battalion, 87th Infantry and makes excellent use of leading lines in two ways. First, there is a half circle that is formed from one side of the plane to the other with the troops in the middle; the eye is also drawn in a line backward to a vanishing point created by the lines of troops leading to the back

These photographs transcend that fixed point in time and, in the process, represent many millions of people.

Continued on Page 17

NATIONAL CATHOLIC REPORTER

FEBRUARY 1-14, 2013

16 BOOKS

Overcoming our displaced fears Reviewed by DENNIS D. McDANIEL

Intolerance appears to be in vogue. From 2012-13 congressional intransigence to the horrifying spate of recent mass shootings, Americans appear to be less willing to compromise and more likely to act on their fears. Worse, they convince others to share those fears. In this climate, Martha Nussbaum’s The New Religious Intolerance is a welcome antidote. Her examination of contemporary religious intolerance reveals a strong command of the facts of each case that she cites, and her examples range from Aristotle to “The Invasion of the Body Snatchers.” She is the Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago, and her books apply her deep learning in ancient Greek philosophy to such issues as social justice, disability, and animal rights. Interestingly, she refers to her own upbringing and religious conversion to illustrate instances of religious intolerance. Though Nussbaum’s selfrevelations at first discomfit, ultimately her candor enriches her discourse. Nussbaum argues that we need the fear impulse to survive; too often, however, our fears lead us to misunderstand and even persecute religious minorities. No doubt, she writes, real issues like economic insecurity or rapid social change generate legitimate anxieties. However, Nussbaum shows us how demagogues exacerbate this anxiety. They displace the fears generated by actual problems onto minority groups of whom the majority has been historically suspicious. Further, political opportunists and their media supporters aggravate these fears by suggesting that the harmless mien of suspected minorities disguises a malevolent intent. Continually pounding away at these “suspect” minorities,

THE NEW RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE: OVERCOMING THE POLITICS OF FEAR IN AN ANXIOUS AGE By Martha C. Nussbaum Published by Belknap Press, $26.95

—Newscom/SIPA/Terrence Jennings

On Sept. 11, 2010, a Muslim man holds out literature to people at protests over the construction of a Muslim community center in Manhattan, N.Y.

extremist pundits and bloggers exaggerate perceived threats and thereby magnify their relative urgency — a process that Nussbaum labels the “availability heuristic.” With the threat published so widely, many jump on the bandwagon of fear and isolate the threatening minority (and thereby themselves): Burqas are banned, headscarves forbidden, and minarets — even kebab shops — are denied permits. Nussbaum characterizes these majority fears as “narcissistic” — in that fear is “focused on the self and the safety of the self.” In this manner, fear “threatens or prevents love.” Only through an “examined life” can we manage our fears, so Nussbaum offers a three-pronged solution:

I We must embrace the premise that all humans possess equal dignity, and that governments must respect that dignity and not consider it to be contingent upon certain conditions. Firmly connected is respect for conscience, especially the conscientious freedom to exercise one’s religious belief without fear of reprisal. I Because our narcissistic fears prevent us from respecting the positions or persons of others as we hope to be respected (and, conversely, excuse us from the same standards that we impose upon others), we must actively root out inconsistencies in our reasoning from principles. How, Nussbaum wonders, we can decry a Muslim community center in Lower Manhattan while we countenance strip clubs and an off-track betting site in the same neighborhood? I In order to see all people as dignified humans, despite our fears, we must exercise a sympathetic imagination and cultivate “inner eyes” that take the feared other’s perspective. By doing so, we can understand, if not agree with, the goals of the other and imaginatively participate in, instead of persecute, the lives and world that their consciences dictate. An important means by which we can cultivate this sympathetic imagination, Nussbaum argues, is through reading, especially those texts that compel us to identify with those about whom we know little and thereby fear. She

HILDEGARD: COMMENTARY, NOVEL SERVE AS COMPANION PIECES Continued from Page 15

Illuminations: A Novel of Hildegard von Bingen, by historical novelist Mary Sharratt, is the other. Kirkus Reviews cited Sharratt’s hardback as one of the outstanding novels of 2012. Fox’s and Sharratt’s books can serve as great companion pieces. Both deal with Hildegard as a child, given to a Benedictine monastery at age 8 by her family to be trained by Jutta von Sponheim, an abbess just six years her senior. Both go into aspects of Hildegard’s adult life as a Benedictine abbess, cosmologist, ecologist, herbalist and composer. Both give us good glimpses of her as a nervy prophet who criticized the church corruption of her day but whose writings and visions were validated and supported by Bernard of Clairvaux and Pope Eugenius III. Much of the material in Fox’s book is similar to the thoughts he presented in a 1985 commentary on her mandalas, Illuminations of Hildegard of Bingen. However, in this contemporary collection of essays, Fox has Hildegard meeting with Jesus and the Buddha, Mary Oliver, Howard Thurman, Albert Einstein, Clarissa Pinkola Estes and Dorothee Sölle.

“I wanted to explore some of those teachings that seem most pertinent and pressing for our time — an era, as we are all aware, of challenge and peril for Mother Earth and her creatures, and for the human race and in efforts in such areas of culture as religion, economics, education and politics,” he writes. Fox says Hildegard continues to visit him through the beauty of nature, “with its aliveness and greening power, its jasmine trees pouring forth their amazing scent, the birds singing their memorable songs, the waters glistening and the ducks coming out for the evening ritual of sunset.” Sharratt’s beautiful novel, told in the first person, traces Hildegard’s life from the time she is 4, taking us into her 80s, near the end of her life. Hildegard was the 10th child and, as such, was regarded as the tithe to be given to God. A secondary reason for her banishment was because the child kept having embarrassing visions, one being her ability at age 4 to see the unborn calf in the womb of a cow and to be able to describe what it looked like. When the calf was born, with the exact markings Hildegard had predicted, her mother became nervous — this was not normal. What would people

say? Was it witchcraft? Off to a Benedictine monastery in Disibodenberg went little Hildegard, straight into the care of a 14-year-old abbess named Jutta von Sponheim, who would teach her for the next 30 years within the confines of two tiny rooms, where the only opening was a window into the church. No more trees, chirping birds, vibrantly greening grass, cows and visions of unborn calves. Hildegard’s new substitute motherteacher-mentor was an extreme ascetic who scourged and starved herself in order to emulate Christ’s sufferings. The novel begins speaking of hope, the hope of a frightened 8-year-old girl that she will be able to return home to her family, her beloved nurse, her home and the forest, where she climbed trees with her favorite older brother and listened to the birds sing. But it was not to be, at least immediately. Hildegard’s hope of seeing the trees and the flowers would take 30 years — the day Jutta died. In her afterword to the novel, Sharratt, an American author who lived for 12 years in Germany and now lives in England with her Belgian husband, acknowledges that her version of the opening chapters is based on the writ-

makes a strong case that Gotthold Ephraim Lessing’s Nathan the Wise, George Eliot’s Daniel Deronda and the children’s books of Marguerite de Angeli should be on any ethically minded high school or college instructor’s reading list. Her subsequent extensive study of Park51, the Manhattan Muslim community center, faults the narrow-mindedness and fear tactics of Newt Gingrich and some FOX News pundits, chides the ineffectual and somewhat ambiguous response of President Barack Obama, and lauds the accommodationist rhetoric of Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has called for New Yorkers and others to exercise a logical consistency in considering the rights of minority religions. If the author promotes a single hero, it is the 17th-century Protestant theologian and Rhode Island founder Roger Williams. To Nussbaum, Williams is the paragon of religious toleration: He argued for the accommodation of all conscientious groups, including nonbelievers; he attacked the colonial governors for their inconsistent application of principles of liberty of conscience; and, in his effort to cultivate sympathy with the Narragansett Indians, he wrote a book of instructions for respectful dealings with these Native Americans that includes a primer on the Narragansett language. For Nussbaum, Williams sets an example of a principled self-examination that can enable us to manage our fears. Through its powerful examples and principled approach to creating an atmosphere of mutual respect, The New Religious Intolerance is required reading for fearful times. [Dennis D. McDaniel is associate professor and chair of the English department at St. Vincent College in Latrobe, Pa.]

ings of Guibert de Gembloux’s Vita Sanctae Hildegardis. But another account of Jutta’s life, discovered in 1991 and probably written by Volmar, Hildegard’s longtime secretary and steadfast friend, says Hildegard spent her childhood at Jutta’s family estate of Sponheim and entered the monastery when she was 14 and Jutta was 20. It is also probable that the monastic rooms they occupied did have windows where they could look out upon nature. Sharratt’s choice of Gembloux’s version makes for some dark, intense chapters, and reading them is often difficult to endure. But the author’s excellent narrative style and gift of storytelling lure the reader to persevere to see what will happen next. One is never disappointed. Sharratt’s plot line moves well and the reader becomes a willing and eager traveler. Expect to shed a tear or two — especially at the end, when Hildegard and her sisters devise a way around a yearlong papal interdict forbidding them to sing because they had buried an apostate in their convent graveyard. [Sharon Abercrombie is a regular contributor to Eco Catholic, a blog on the NCR website at NCRonline.org/blogs/ecocatholic that explores the green Catholic imagination and ecological spirituality.]

NATIONAL CATHOLIC REPORTER

FEBRUARY 1-14, 2013

ART 17 EXHIBIT: IMAGES DRAW OUT THE HUMAN ELEMENT Continued from Page 15

of the cockpit area. In addition to these pleasing lines, there is a wide variety of expressions on the soldiers’ faces. Some are resting and others are talking, while still others seem to be ruminating privately. ON THE WEB

NCRonline “WAR/PHOTOGRAPHY: Images of .org Armed Conflict and Its Aftermath” www.mfah.org/exhibitions/war photography-photographs-armed-conflict-and-its-

Eduard Korniyenko’s “Say Ahhh,” taken in 2005, shows a doctor examining a group of conscripts at a recruiting station in Russia. Since the men are squatting with their hands on the backs of their necks, their arms create diagonal lines that lead to the doctor who is standing behind them. In many of these photos, recruits preparing for a variety of wars show expressions of joy, excitement and, in some cases, eagerness to fight. As the timeline into and out of the wars continues, however, those expressions become more somber and serious. Though the majority of these photographs show a specific person in a specific moment, they have the ability to transcend that fixed point in time

Damon Winter, American (born 1974), “Flying Military Class,” 2010

and, in the process, represent many millions of people who are, have been or will be involved in a similar act of war. In other words, the human element is what makes these photographs so relatable to so many people. Other qualities present in the photograph sometimes enhance that element. Henri Huet’s black-and-white 1966 photograph of a deceased American paratrooper being lifted into a helicopter shows the humanity in the midst of the war in Vietnam, appealing to one’s emotions. One could even see the religious overtones with the fallen soldier rising from Earth and into the sky. At the same time, the aesthetic qualities of the photo itself keep the attention of the viewer. The photograph catches your eye because the perspective is atypical; shot from directly beneath the paratrooper and helicopter, the subjects are backlit by the bright sky above them, rendering them as silhouettes, their darkness contrasting with the seemingly white sky. Walter Astrada’s 2008 photograph of a Congolese woman fleeing to Goma is another example of the human element resonating with viewers. The leftmost third of this image is filled by a Congolese woman who walks as she breastfeeds her baby and carries her belongings. Any preconceived notions and feelings of this maternal portrait are shattered as you see that the woman is looking, not at her baby, but at an army tank she is walking past. The tank fills in the other two-thirds of the photograph, and the dull green and darker shades complement the brightly colored clothing the woman is wearing. The cognitive dissonance created by two opposing ideas in the same photograph — the soft kindness and tenderness of a mother and her child faced with the unbending, hard and structural roughness of the army tank and the war it represents — gives the image great impact. Even in the midst of war, however, there are moments when its participants show respect and kindness and exemplify the meaning of laying down one’s life for a friend. Huet made an image of American photojournalist Dickey Chapelle, one of the first female war correspondents in World War II, the

Henri Huet, French (1927–71), “The body of an American paratrooper killed in action in the jungle near the Cambodian border is raised up to an evacuation helicopter, Vietnam,” 1966

Korean conflict and Vietnam, receiving the last rites after being fatally hit in the neck by shrapnel in 1965. The chaplain’s face is barely visible as he looks down and administers the rites above her crumpled fallen form. Though not particularly appealing in a photographic sense, the focus of the image is the delicateness in the last moments of a celebrated photojournalist’s life. The “WAR/PHOTOGRAPHY” exhibit shows that though the phrase “war and peace” implies they are opposites, it is more accurate to say that peace is more than the absence of war, as stated in Gaudium et Spes, the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World. According to this document,

peace is not only present when there is no war, but it is “an effect of justice.” Therefore, if justice were present and upheld all over the world, there would be no reason for war and all people’s dignity would be respected. Until all the societies of the world are able to achieve such justice and consequent peace, we will need to be reminded of the stories and consequences of wars through photographs that touch us and allow us to remember the humanity present in us all that is affected by such actions. [NCR Bertelsen intern Eloísa Pérez-Lozano holds a master’s degree in journalism with an emphasis in photojournalism from Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa.]

NATIONAL CATHOLIC REPORTER

FEBRUARY 1-14, 2013

18 COLUMN MISSION MANAGEMENT

Exporting US health care to serve the poor around the world By TOM GALLAGHER

For the past two years there has been a white-hot debate about making health care available to all in the United States. President Barack Obama’s signature piece of legislation, the Affordable Care Act, was passed, signed into law and upheld by the Supreme Court. The libertarian Republican Party has repudiated it. Several Republican governors have even rejected the expansion of Medicaid that is substantially paid for under the act by federal funds. Major components of the law have yet to be implemented. Meanwhile, for more than 100 years, one organization has quietly but effectively exported the provision of U.S. health care to the poorest of the poor living in the farthest reaches in the world. New York City-based Catholic Medical Mission Board dates its inception to 1912. Dr. Paluel Joseph Flagg, an anesthesiologist at now closed St. Vincent’s Hospital, ministered to lepers in Haiti. He sent a doctor and her family to China in 1914. He expanded the medical mission of the New York archdiocese. Later the Catholic Medical Mission Board affiliated with the Society for the Propagation of the Faith. Then-Fr. (later Archbishop) Fulton Sheen, the popular radio and television preacher, joined the board in 1949 and served for 26 years. Today, under the governance of a largely lay board of directors, the organization places medical volunteers, distributes millions of dollars in donated medicines, and implements critically important programs that make health care available to thousands of people. In addition to New York City, it has offices in Haiti, Honduras, Kenya, Peru, South Africa, South Sudan, Uganda and Zambia. The Catholic Medical Mission Board is one of the largest not-for-profits based in New York City. In 2011, its revenues were more than $315 million and 97 percent went directly to services. Support for the organization comes from more than 37,000 individuals, 47 foundations, 54 corporations, 38 trusts and estates, 190 health- and faith-affiliated organizations, and two federal grants. “In 2012, we distributed a record $1 billion of pharmaceuticals and medical supplies to communities in the developing world,” said Bruce Wilkinson, the new president and CEO (see sidebar). In fiscal year 2012, the Catholic Medical Mission Board served more than 120,000 clients in 120 countries.

Bruce Wilkinson, president and CEO of the Catholic Medical Mission Board

From its inception, Haiti has been a primary area of service for the organization, which has 62 staff there, including doctors, finance and human resources personnel, and those working in the field nationwide. “We work with different partners like hospitals, clinics, schools,” said Dr. Dianne JeanFrancois, country director in Haiti. “We are focused on child health [and] HIV/AIDs care, treatment and prevention. “We are looking at life-skill training, with helping the

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NCRonline Catholic Medical Mission .org Board www.cmmb.org Secure the Future www.securethefuture.com

minister of health with the health system by providing training to the university, to the Ministry of Health staff and also work at the level of the community,” she said. The Catholic Medical Mis-

New leader brings decades of Africa experience Bruce Wilkinson, appointed president and CEO of the Catholic Medical Mission Board on June 1, 2012, has spent his entire career dedicated to alleviating poverty in the developing world. “I’ve seen CMMB’s work through various lenses,” Wilkinson said. “I ran into their work in East Africa and West Africa, seeing their pharmaceuticals and medical supplies being distributed in hospitals and clinics. While living in Zambia, I got to know CMMB’s country director, Dr. Moses Sinkala.” Wilkinson brings to his new role deep experience in the primary areas of focus for the organization, namely, maternal and child health, HIV/AIDS, malaria, behavioral change and communications, volunteer deployment, and the provision of medicines and medical supplies. In the late 1970s, Wilkinson joined the Peace Corps right out of college, serving in Ghana. Later he served with World Vision International as its West Africa regional director (in Senegal), senior vice president of international programs (in Washington, D.C.) and regional vice president for Southern Africa (in Zambia). According to his official biography, Wilkinson also served as chief of party of RAPIDS, a USAID comprehensive HIV/AIDS program in Zambia. His leadership resulted in RAPIDS being integrated in the national HIV/AIDS development plan of Zambia, leveraging a U.S. government investment of $59 million into a public-private partnership of cash and in-kind resources totaling $250 million over five years. Wilkinson is a graduate of Gordon College in Wenham, Mass., and has a Master of Buiness Administration from the Judge Institute of Management Studies, the University of Cambridge, England. He and his wife, Linda, have five children. —Tom Gallagher

sion Board has a good reputation in Haiti, Jean-Francois said. “When CMMB says it is going to do something, we achieve what we say we are going to do,” she said. One success is the Born to Live program. Forty percent of infants born to mothers with HIV will be infected. Intervention is critical. This program includes voluntary counseling and the administration of antiretroviral drug therapies during pregnancy and after birth in order to prevent mother-to-child-transmission of HIV. Another successful program was created in response to the 2010 earthquake. The Catholic Medical Mission Board has provided 1,000 Haitian amputees with prostheses and physical therapy. “We need to work together on sustainability so people of Haiti can take care of themselves in the future,” JeanFrancois said. A key element of the organization’s success is its partnerships, such as the one with a major U.S. pharmaceutical company and its foundation, the Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation. In 1999, Bristol-Myers Squibb and its foundation committed $150 million for a program called Secure the Future to develop and replicate innovative and sustainable solutions for people affected by HIV/AIDS in subSaharan Africa. The Catholic Medical Mission Board and the BristolMyers Squibb Foundation joined forces on the Secure the Future program. It has been a real success. The partnership “was not just about more funds but it captured all key components of partnerships — engagement, transparency and open communication, said Phangisile Mtshali, director of corporate philanthropy at Bristol-Myers Squibb. “It was a true partnership where there was alignment of needs and vision.” “Both organizations wanted to serve the hardest to reach communities and truly indigenous community-based interventions,” Mtshali said. “We planned jointly, we reviewed potential grantees jointly and we co-funded regardless of who had solicited the proposal. The common theme was to support the communities truly in need and those involved in homebased care and care of orphans and vulnerable children.” Another collaboration with the foundation involved the Choose to Care initiative, supporting 100 projects in five African countries. The initiative provided palliative care, orphan care and support and HIV education and hospice

care. The Catholic Medical Mission Board also collaborated with the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference on this program. “It harnessed the faith-based community, especially the Catholic community, infrastructure and sentiment,” Mtshali said. “Most importantly it moved away from ‘charity’ to capacity-building, accountability and sought for measurable effects in the benefiting communities while strengthening the institutions.” Wilkinson said the Catholic Medical Mission Board has three priorities going forward: I Developing local sustainable health care systems. “We are getting a lot of breakthroughs in some of the more stubborn diseases like HIV/AIDs and malaria and especially in maternal and child health, especially in neonatal health,” he said. “So what we do is come around these systems such as a mission hospital system, it could be ministry of health system, and we come in and build a lot of capacity.” I Expanding the number and kinds of partnerships. “We need partnerships with a broader group of companies from technology groups to health system groups because there is such a wealth of management expertise in the health care systems in the United States that could so easily applied overseas,” Wilkinson said. I Supply chain logistics. “Because we distributed [in 2012] $1 billion of pharmaceuticals and medical supplies, we want to make sure that the quality is there and that these goods are arriving at the enduser with proper supervision that they need,” he said. “We are collecting data downstream in places such as Honduras, Haiti, Zambia, South Africa, as part of our assurance that we are using these pharmaceuticals in the right way and at the same time they are creating impact at the end-user level and not creating any harm,” he said. To mark its centennial anniversary, the Catholic Medical Mission Board celebrated a Mass of Thanksgiving at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York Dec. 16. At a gala dinner the next evening the group presented James M. Cornelius, chairman of Bristol-Myers Squibb, with its Global Health Care Leadership Award, and gave Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York its International Founders’ Award. [Tom Gallagher writes NCR’s regular Mission Management column. He recently joined NCR’s board of directors. His email address is tom@tomgallagheronline.com.]

NATIONAL CATHOLIC REPORTER

FEBRUARY 1-14, 2013

COLUMN 19 MANSON: DWELLING OUTSIDE THE WALLS Continued from Page 1

parish priests (who allegedly sequestered themselves in the sacristy after the parishioners managed to access the building), the police ordered the protesters to leave the church or face arrest. In the end, six parishioners, including Villegas, were led out of Our Lady Queen of Angels in handcuffs. A chorus of protesters chanting, “Save our church!” greeted them as they were led into a police van. Facing the prospect of never stepping into their beloved parish again, the women decided to take their prayers to the street just outside the walls of Our Lady Queen of Angels. They met on the sidewalk every Sunday and holy day of obligation to pray, to sing, to celebrate and to mourn, regardless of biting cold or blistering heat, blowing snow or pouring rain. Villegas or one of other arrested women typically led the services. Dozens of parishioners, many of whom had baptized their children, celebrated their weddings, or said final farewells to family and friends inside Our Lady Queen of Angels, joined them on the sidewalk. The women were always careful to tell the press that they were not celebrating the sacraments at these services. Their only sacramentals were prayer, song and their presence to one another. In an effort to keep the parish open, the women developed a plan for managing the church’s finances independently. But the archdiocese showed no interest in their ideas. “The realignment was not a question of money, it was a question of having our resources, our resources of people, used most effectively,” said archdiocesan spokesman Joseph Zwilling. They continued their weekly prayer services, and made headlines again six months later when Carmen Gonzalez, one of the women who had been part of the vigil that February night, died of cancer at age 72. Although Gonzalez had wanted to be arrested, Villegas discouraged her because of her illness. Gonzalez had volunteered at Our

Lady Queen of Angels since the 1950s. Her four sons had graduated from the parish’s school, which, unlike the church, remained open. In fact, Egan had temporarily reopened the church building to accommodate the school’s graduation ceremony in June 2007. The Gonzalez family petitioned the archdiocese to again reopen the church for one day in order to honor their mother’s last request to have her funeral held in the parish she called home for more than 50 years. But Egan refused. Rather than have their mother’s funeral at a church she did not know, the Gonzalez family held her funeral on the sidewalk outside of Our Lady Queen of Angels. Renowned mujerista theologian Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz, a member of the parish who herself passed away in May 2012, was among many mourners to speak at the street-side service. “Church is not a building. Church is the community,” Isasi-Diaz said. “We take very literally the teaching that the church is a community of the believers.” Gonzalez’s sidewalk funeral prompted the New York Daily News to call the incident “the most disgraceful episode in the checkered reign of Edward Cardinal Egan.” But the situation would be no different under Cardinal Timothy Dolan. In late 2012, Villegas herself succumbed to breast cancer just two weeks before Christmas, at the age of 58. It was her dying wish to have her body lie, for one last time, inside of the church she had called her spiritual home for more than 30 years. “What she so yearned for in life was denied her in death,” David Gonzalez wrote in The New York Times. “Although friends, family and politicians asked the archdiocese — in writing, even — to open wide the doors for one final adios, it did not.” Although Villegas was born in New York City, she spent her childhood in Puerto Rico. She studied liturgy and scripture in Caracas, Venezuela, and once had dreams of becoming a nun. But Villegas’ life of service was not limited to the church. She dedicated her career to coordinating the HIV and

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A mourner speaks about Carmen Villegas during the Dec. 10 memorial outside Our Lady Queen of Angels Church in New York.

—East Harlem Preservation/Marina Ortiz

infectious disease program at the Lincoln Medical and Mental Health Center in the South Bronx and was an adjunct professor at Manhattan’s Touro College. A longtime member of her community board, she also served on the boards of ASPIRA of New York, a nonprofit that fosters educational excellence and civic responsibility among young Latinos, and SFDS Development Corp., an organization that provides high-quality housing to low-income, elderly and homeless individuals. Villegas could be found every Sunday praying with her community outside the walls of her beloved parish, absent only when she was too weakened by cancer treatments to leave her apartment. During her 90-minute memorial on Dec. 10, mourners prayed over her white casket, which was draped in a Puerto Rican flag and placed under a white canopy to protect it from drizzle. “She had that combination of being actively religious and active in the community. You could say she came from the liberation theology tradition,” Villegas’ friend, William Gerena-Rochet, told one reporter at the funeral. Many considered Villegas the spiritual champion of her East Harlem neighborhood, commonly known as El Barrio. A woman of deep hope, perhaps she never could have imagined that she would spend her last moments

inside of Our Lady Queen of Angels Church in handcuffs, her final departure from the sanctuary a police escort. To this day, archdiocesan officials still have not ventured into the street to speak with the parishioners of Our Lady Queen of Angels. The scene of this community worshiping on the sidewalk is a striking image of the brokenness of our current church. The faithful, desperate to continue the life of a church they love, are literally locked out of parish they have long called home. Women lead weekly liturgies outside of a church that was shut down because of a lack of priests. But the image is also a powerful vision of what I understand to be “grace on the margins.” Although the parishioners are aging and small in number, they have the spiritual gumption to realize that they themselves are the church, and they refuse to be refugees bullied into an unfamiliar parish. Through their spirits, their words and their songs, they are showing us all the face of the church that emerged and is emerging among those marginalized by religious leaders. On the sidewalk, they have found the God who has been forced to dwell outside the walls of the institutional church, too. [Jamie L. Manson’s online column Grace on the Margins appears on the NCR website at NCRonline.org/blogs/grace-margins.]

NATIONAL CATHOLIC REPORTER

FEBRUARY 1-14, 2013

20 COLUMNS

Communion without competition SOUL SEEING By JOHN SHEA

During a workshop on suffering, I was the scribe at the whiteboard. The leader asked the group to name situations of suffering they had experienced. I was capturing the experiences with succinct phrases — “sickness, disability, death of a loved one, job loss, divorce, etc.” Then someone said “death of a son.” I turned away from my task of scribbling and looked at the group. I had a sudden realization that as diverse as we were, we were all one in the common human destiny of suffering. I have no idea why this phrase, as distinct from all the others, triggered this affective-cognitive response and rang me like a bell. But it is this moment of soul seeing, this sudden realization, I want to explore. Sudden realizations, times when universal truths “hit home,” are qualitatively different from my standard way of knowing. I usually know by observation, by standing back and judging. My rational mind piles up evidence and comes to conclusions. This is the way I knew about the common condition of suffering shared by the whole human race. But that is not what happened at this moment. I was “in” the realization, swimming in the sea of suffering, not only rationally understanding but affectively feeling the communion of myself and others. Our unity seemed a given, not a conclusion my mind had arrived at. Unlike other kinds of knowing that are open to refutation, the truth of this realization seemed undeniable. Perhaps, that is why some scholars characterize this type of

knowing as “self-authenticating.” It is also why realizations stick in memory and beg for further attention. There is a promise of gold in their “givenness.” The gold is in the experience from the beginning, but often it only comes into awareness through reflection. Experiences come and go. But when their impact is significant, they leave us with a greater sense of life and the invitation to nurture that life. When we reflect on what happened, we name the gift that has been given and develop ways it can continually guide us. So, at this moment of my reflecting, and it is by no means over, I am aware of one thing that didn’t happen and one thing that did happen. My conditioned mind is very competitive. I am always judging things as better or worse and hoping, of course, that I am on the better side. Until I am convinced otherwise, I do not think I

am the only one who is constantly contrasting. Comparison is a mental frame most of us cannot discipline. It impresses its categories on almost everything. In particular, it prioritizes negative experiences. We find ourselves putting our sufferings on a better-to-worse scale. As the saying goes, “I was saddened by the fact I had no shoes until I saw a man who had no feet.” If we find someone with a worse suffering than ours, we take consolation from the fact we are not that bad off. Most minds are addicted to this form of competitive well-being. As I turned from the whiteboard and saw the group, I didn’t put the suffering on a better-to-worse scale. Although the words “death of a son” triggered my realization, I didn’t feel that combination of pity for him and relief for me. My comparison tape did not kick in. That is what didn’t happen. What did happen is the flip side of

Speaking about love with love PARISH DIARY By PETER DALY

I felt like I was in a spy novel. Or maybe like a Christian in ancient Rome, trying to make contact with the church of the catacombs. The email told me to stand in front of the student union building. Someone would meet me there and escort me to an undisclosed room somewhere on campus. The location could not be announced ahead of time because the group itself did not even know where they would meet. They just had to find an empty room somewhere. Despite the arrangements, this was not a spy rendezvous in a John le Carré novel. It was an ordinary meeting of CUAllies, the gay-straight alliance student group at The Catholic University of America in Washington. I had been asked to speak to them because of an article I wrote for Catholic News Service recounting my experiences in dealing with gay young people who were suicidal. I concluded the article with the simple observation that no one should ever feel excluded from God’s love and no one should be driven to despair. Evidently, they were surprised to hear that from a Catholic priest, so they asked me to speak to their group. CUAllies is not an officially recognized student group at Catholic University, despite overwhelming support

from the Student Association General Assembly, the student government, which voted 20 to 3 last February in favor of recognition. Lack of university recognition means the group cannot reserve rooms, publicize their meetings, receive student funds or be listed in the student directory. They still manage to meet, however. Students use social media, like Twitter, to communicate, just like the pope. Our meeting was innocuous enough. I had been invited to speak to them as a pastor and priest. I merely related stories from my own experience of more than 25 years of ministry. One story was from 20 years ago, when I worked at Catholic University in campus ministry. Back then, AIDS was almost certainly fatal. In the popular mind, it was a “gay disease.” I was asked to read the names of people who had died of AIDS as part of the NAMES Quilt display on the National Mall. We were told just to read the names of the dead and not add anything. But at the end of my list of names I felt the need to pray. So I added the standard Catholic prayer for the dead, “Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord.” When I came down from the stage, an elderly couple approached me. They were crying. They told me that I had read their son’s name and prayed just after it. They also told me that their own pastor in Upstate New York had refused to bury their son, who had died of AIDS,

because he was gay. I was, they said, the only priest who had prayed for their son. Another story was about a lesbian couple in our parish. Their friendship had saved them from both loneliness and poverty. I only knew one woman. Her partner had died more than a decade before I arrived. But the survivor kept the memory of her friend alive and maintained her friend’s grave in the local Methodist cemetery. One evening, I went to anoint the survivor, who was sick. Afterward, we spent some time looking at her photo album. She turned and asked me, “Father, do you think my friend is in heaven?” I responded, “Why wouldn’t she be in heaven?” She said, “Well, Father, she was a Methodist.” I said, “Yes, I think even Methodists can go to heaven.” Finally, I spoke about one of my best friends, a Presbyterian minister named Jack. He had been a pastor, a civil rights leader and a hospital chaplain. He lived almost 40 years with his Catholic partner, Paul. Each attended his own church faithfully. When Paul died suddenly in Florida, Jack flew down to claim the body. But at the morgue, he was not allowed to see his partner’s body because he was not a blood relative. A nephew, who hardly knew his dead uncle, was allowed to claim the body. At the Catholic funeral, my minister friend was not invited

what didn’t happen. I just felt communion without comparison. We were all together, all beset by the storms of life and all worthy despite whatever we were undergoing. A rush of peace accompanied this realization. It was like some inner defensiveness relaxed; the drawbridge over the moat was let down. I was restored to wholeness, to a wider belonging that seemed right and true. This sense of an unbreakable connection with all people was a lightening flash. It always amazes me how so much can happen in consciousness in a split second of time. One of the secrets suffering can reveal is that our fundamental communion with one another is the necessary counterweight to our highly praised separate uniqueness. If our sufferings bring us to this awareness, it is because this awareness reveals part of what is really happening. When this part is included, we are invited into a healing whole, a proper alignment of the many and the one. It is no longer “my” suffering and “your” suffering. It is “the” suffering, in which all participate at different times and to different degrees. This communion consciousness has the power to bring a measure of peace to the inner distress each of us undergoes. But it also has the power to inspire us to reach out to one another in compassion and help. [John Shea is the director for program and processes development at the Ministry Leadership Center, which designs and implements formation programs for senior leaders of six West Coast Catholic health care systems. He is also the author of many books, including Following Jesus and the fourvolume The Spiritual Wisdom of the Gospels for Christian Preachers and Teachers.]

to sit with the family or to say anything. He was not even invited to the meal afterward. How cruel. These are true stories. Those relationships do not seem “intrinsically disordered.” Collectively, they paint a picture of authentic love. They also show how the church or the society was more concerned about rendering judgment than showing compassion. How can followers of Jesus be so cruel? Why does cruelty pass for orthodoxy? French essayist Anatole France said, “It is the certainty that they possess the truth that makes men cruel.” At the end of my talk, one of the students asked, “What does the Catholic church have to teach gay people?” I was touched that he would care what we have to say. I thought for a moment. “The church can teach gay people the same thing we want to teach all people. Love is the measure of our lives. When we speak about love, we also want to speak about commitment, fidelity, respect and dignity in human relationships. Also, everyone is asked to carry a cross at times. Everyone is asked to be chaste at times in their life.” The students in CUAllies have more charity toward the church than the church, which refuses them recognition, has toward them. [Fr. Peter Daly is pastor of St. John Vianney Parish in Prince Frederick, Md. His column Parish Diary appears on the NCR website Monday mornings. Look for it at NCRonline.org/blogs/parish-diary.]

NATIONAL CATHOLIC REPORTER

FEBRUARY 1-14, 2013

LETTERS/NCR CLASSIFIEDS 21 A worthy choice? U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts is NCR’s 2012 person of the year (NCR, Jan. 4-17), mainly for his vote to uphold health care reform? What about Fr. Roy Bourgeois? The Supreme Court’s 1857 decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford (that blacks — free or slave — couldn’t be U.S. citizens) was authored by Roger Taney, the nation’s first Catholic chief justice. Of Roberts, NCR said: “Rarely has a prominent Catholic had such a profound effect … on the nation.” NCR, remember the deplorable Taney. Roberts’ written opinion in his ruling was so strange that it creates doubt about the case’s durability or applicability to other cases. The four progressive justices agreed with President Barack Obama that the health care reform is authorized by the Constitution’s Commerce Clause. Roberts denied this, saying that Obamacare is justified because it’s a taxing program, which Obama — also a lawyer — has consistently and hotly denied. Roberts muddied the legal waters.

M. HOLASEK Cudahy, Wis.

I am appalled at your pick of John Roberts as “person of the year.” He, along with at least three of the other “Catholic” Supremes, has taken the court down a path far from Catholic social justice teaching. Your reasoning that Roberts saved health care reform borders upon fantasy, since the most likely reason he bucked the other right-wingers was his correct perception that the Supreme Court had made so many one-sided procorporate decisions that it was largely discrediting itself. If this is “Catholic engagement,” then my 18-plus years under Jesuit tutorship is for naught.

STEPHEN P. HORN Blair, Neb.

Not simply replacement Roger Vermalen Karban’s reference to scholar C.H. Dodd’s reading of the water-into-wine “sign” in John’s Gospel demands comment (NCR, Jan. 4-17). It was indeed Dodd’s position that “by this miracle, John is symbolically showing that Jesus replaced the water of Judaism with the wine of Christianity.” Nevertheless, to leave it at that, without critical comment or question, prompts serious misgivings. Was the alleged “replacement” something Jesus intended or accomplished? Is it something we Christians are expected to believe? The answer must, of course, be no. The issues raised by the alleged “replacement” of Judaism, even if it is

the position of John’s Gospel, are too important to ignore in a homily. Following the Shoah, and after Vatican II’s Nostra Aetate, it is high time for a more critical reading of John and, indeed, of much of the New Testament. DAVID P. EFROYMSON Warrington, Pa. [David Efroymson is a professor emeritus of religion at La Salle University in Philadelphia.]

Women leaders, priests Thank you for the enlightening article by Mary E. Hunt, “A feminist shift in perspective,” in your Dec. 21-Jan. 3 issue. Hunt’s thesis that the leadership of Catholic women on issues of justice in society should be the measure of progress, rather than women’s efforts being defined by the kyriarchy, is a wise, healthy and creative perspectival shift. However, her wise observations should not be allowed to shift the focus away from the efforts of organizations like the Women’s Ordination Conference or people like Roy Bourgeois to achieve full sacramental ordination for all women called to ordained ministry. Their efforts must be supported if women’s leadership is to be fully integrated into an equally important social arena: reform of a Catholic kyriarchy in which justice for all has been painfully absent.

DARLENE PEITZ-HILLENBRAND Modesto, Calif.

The great biblical scholar John L. McKenzie, speaking about women’s ordination in apostolic times and the precedent it sets for us today, said in 1976: “Women are not ordained, and men should not be.” In ancient religion, if you made a thing or person sacred, you made it taboo, you set it apart from ordinary human beings. But Jesus Christ came to make all humanity holy through his Holy Spirit dwelling in every human being. If everyone is holy, no one is taboo. The early church had no priesthood. The entire community voted on any question of importance. The fact that they repudiated monarchical (hierarchical) rule may be seen in the name they chose for themselves. Not Christianoí, a name given to them at Antioch, but ekklesía, after the democratic assembly that ruled the city-state of Athens, in which every citizen had a vote and no one person ruled. The development of a priesthood in the Christian church marked a lapse into paganism and a usurpation of the rights of individual Christians. We need women leaders, but not women priests.

I believe that those of us Catholics who are saddened by the lack of progress of women within the church must send the following message to the hierarchy: “Please spare us your empty words and hollow gestures as when you tell us that Mother Church loves and cares for all her children equally, when you fail to provide women simple justice, which is the bare minimum of any genuine love or care for someone.” Let us all pray that the Holy Spirit might change the minds and hearts of those clergy and laity who wed themselves to the archaic patriarchal model of the church, so that we might become the people of God envisioned by the Second Vatican Council.

THOMAS SEVERIN Connellsville, Pa.

A television analog The television drama “Downton Abbey” has a close analog — the Roman Catholic church. The show focuses on a bygone culture in the U.K. Surprisingly, it holds a fascination for American audiences. Why? It is a cultural curiosity in the style of manners, dress, aristocracy and class structure. The parallel is too close for comfort. The church is focused inordinately on the past — a mythical time like 1213, instead of 2013. We see this in the costumes worn by prelates, the colors, the pageantry, the mindset and even our gestures. It is all from the Middle Ages.

JOSEPH P. MARREN Chicago

NCR Classifieds

JOHN B. ROACH Ovid, N.Y.

Watch your words I appreciate your good coverage of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious crackdown by the Vatican (NCR, Jan. 4-17), but please use the word schizophrenia responsibly. One sentence of the report read: “The Vatican crackdown of LCWR has exposed a schizophrenic church.” Contrary to common usage, the word does not mean split personality, which is an entirely different mental disorder.

CLASSIFIED RATES

Remember Hunthausen Thanks for the typically comprehensive and insightful article profiling Bishop Walter Sullivan, retired bishop of Richmond, Va. (NCR, Dec. 21-Jan. 3). Although John Allen saluted a number of other progressive “Jadot bishops” who were appointed while Archbishop Jean Jadot served as apostolic delegate, he somehow overlooked Archbishop Raymond Hunthausen of Seattle.

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PAT CALLAHAN Seattle

Why send a Catholic? Since the Reagan administration formalized diplomatic relations with the Holy See, all of our ambassadors have been Catholic. Doesn’t this seem to conflict with the U.S. Constitution’s ban on religious tests for public office? We do not send Jewish envoys to Israel, Hindus to India, Muslims to Egypt, or Buddhists to Sri Lanka. How about a non-Catholic envoy to the Holy See?

EDD DOERR Silver Spring, Md.

Mumblings of spirit In reference to Anthony Ruff’s article on the “low bar” setting for acceptance of the missal translation (NCR, Dec. 7-20), we are all still a little confused about it. Catholics brought up with memorization of the catechism are prone to adapt to these reading changes; others can get upset, don’t join in, or just don’t come any more. My idea is to mumble the words as I remember them — new or old, like “et cum spiritu tuo” or “and with your spirit” or “also with you” — depending on how I feel that day. As long as there’s a response from everyone there, I feel that any participation is better than the silence of many parishioners in our pews. I don’t think God or his Son worry about the words we pray, just so we can join in community and worship together. Wasn’t it the Spirit who started the mumbling of tongues in the first place?

JOHN F. CURRIE Newtown Square, Pa.

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Hunthausen and Sullivan were very much kindred spirits in their passion for peace and social justice. Hunthausen at 91 is one of the only surviving bishops of that era and lives a quiet life in retirement with his family in Helena, Mont. He received two five-minute standing ovations this September at the Seattle Cathedral when he attended the dedication of a shrine to Pope John XXIII.

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Letters to the editor should be limited to 250 words and preferably typed. If a letter refers to a previous issue of NCR, please give us that issue’s date. We reserve the right to edit all letters. Letters, National Catholic Reporter, P.O. Box 411009, Kansas City, MO 64141. Or via email: letters@ncron line.org or fax: (816) 968-2280. Please be sure to include your street address, city, state, zip and daytime telephone number.

EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES CAMPUS MINISTRY SEATTLE UNIVERSITY has an exciting, dynamic opportunity for a Campus Minister for Liturgy to join our community. This position animates and coordinates the liturgical life of the university community; serves as steward of university chapel staff, resources and policies; prepares and animates the Roman Catholic sacramental life on campus; assists in the overall pastoral ministry of Campus Ministry to all students in the Jesuit Catholic tradition. An ideal candidate will have a Bachelor’s degree in Liturgy, Theology or a related discipline and four years of relevant experience. Master’s degree is preferred. Advanced knowledge and understanding of Roman Catholic liturgical principles preferred. Basic knowledge and understanding of Protestant and ecumenical liturgical principles also is preferred. This position will start July 1, 2013 and interviews will begin

NATIONAL CATHOLIC REPORTER

FEBRUARY 1-14, 2013

22 NCR CLASSIFIEDS in April. For the full description and qualifications, please visit: http://jobs.seattleu.edu/postings/15035

the Sea, 5371 Amboy Road, Staten Island, N.Y. 10312. PRINCIPAL/ASSISTANT

DIRECTOR/ASSISTANT JESUIT SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY of Santa Clara University, located in Berkeley, CA, seeks a Director of Ministerial Formation, starting July 2013. Will design and oversee the field education requirements of Master of Divinity program, facilitate student integration seminars. Required: M.Div. or equivalent, strong background in pastoral theology and practice, supervisory experience. Initial three-year renewable term appointment, competitive salary and benefits. Applications due February 10, 2013. Include: letter of application, CV, names of three references. Full description at: http://www.scu.edu/hr/careers/faculty.cfm Send materials to: Lisa Maglio, Assistant to the JST Dean at: lmaglio@jstb.edu MONTESSORI DIRECTOR needed for a private Nursery thru K School in Chelsea (Manhattan) that embraces the Franciscan tradition and American Montessori philosophy. Director will oversee program administration, supervision of staff as well as curriculum planning. Teaching and administrative experience required. Resume and references to Patricia Fogle, OSF pfogle@sosf.org EDITOR SEEKING A MANAGING EDITOR- National Catholic Reporter, an independent, lay-owned biweekly newspaper with an active daily website, is seeking a managing editor. The managing editor will work with the editor to create and execute an editorial plan for our print publication, including working on story assignments, editing the work of staff writers, columnists and regular contributors. The managing editor will also work with the web editor to grow our already strong online presence. Thorough knowledge of the Catholic church is required. Send resumes and inquires to The Editor, Dennis Coday, dcoday@ncronline.org

PRINCIPAL- Cotter Schools, Winona, MN: Cotter Schools is an independent Catholic School that seeks a Principal for grades 7 through 12. Find more information about this position including how to apply at: cotterschools.org/employment Deadline is February 15. ST. CHARLES APACHE MISSION SCHOOL is searching for a principal for the 2013-14 school year. The School is located on the San Carlos Apache Reservation 100 miles north of Tucson. The school educates 130 students of Apache or mixed tribal heritage in kindergarten through sixth grade. Applicants should have a master’s degree and a desire to work with economically disadvantaged people. This is a wonderful place to experience a third world culture within the United States. For more information about the school and its programs visit our web site: stcharlesapacheschool. org Applicants can submit a resume and 3 references to: Sr. Georgia Greene, P.O. Box 339 San Carlos, AZ 85550 or stcharlessc@theriver.com RELIGIOUS EDUCATION DIRECTOR OF RELIGIOUS EDUCATION: St. Joseph Parish (Oradell/New Milford) is seeking a practicing Catholic with a degree and experience in religious education to serve as the full-time Director of Religious Education for youth and adult catechesis. Please send resume and letter of interest to Dr. Marianne Conway, Chair/Search Committee, St. Joseph Parish, 105 Harrison Street, New Milford, New Jersey 07646. SOCIAL JUSTICE CATHOLICS FOR JUSTICE IN THE CHURCH, affiliates of Call To Action, meets 3rd Sat, Austin, Texas, 10 AM -noon. Info: (512)906-1268; tom4peace@austin.rr.com

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

TEACHING POSITIONS

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR FutureChurch, www.futurechurch.org with headquarters in Cleveland, Ohio. FutureChurch seeks changes that will provide all Roman Catholics the opportunity to participate fully in Church life and leadership. Responsibilities include organizational management, development and fund raising, programming, communication, public speaking, and networking. Candidates should be active Roman Catholics with knowledge of renewal movements in the Catholic Church, Vatican II ecclesiology, and dialogic approach to conflict resolution. Master’s in theology or religious studies required as well as proven writing and public speaking skills. Previous experience in the nonprofit sector desired. Candidates may submit cover letter including salary requirements and resume with writing samples to Executive Director Search Committee c/o Marie Graf, 144 E 197 S. Euclid, OH 44119 or marie.graf@gmail.com Posting closes February 28, 2013

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR of Theology-Brescia University, an Ursuline, Catholic institution, seeks full-time, tenure-track assistant professor to teach undergraduate courses in theology starting in August 2013. Ph.D. in theology or STD required. Position includes teaching in time-shortened on-line as well as traditional formats, advising and serving on committees. Interested applicants should send letter of interest, vita, three letters of reference and copies of transcripts to: Tammy.Keller@brescia.edu or mail to: Brescia University, PR# 12-44, 717 Frederica Street, Owensboro, KY 42301. Position is pending budget approval and is open until filled. Brescia University is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

PRIEST PROGRESSIVE NEW YORK CITY PARISH (convenient to Manhattan and area universities) looking for a full-time Parochial Vicar. Call Msgr. Jeff Conway at (718)984- 0593 or fax (718)984-5203 or e-mail: OLSSparish@si.rr.com or write to Our Lady Star of

experience preferred. Send resume and references to Monsignor Patrick Bishop, Transfiguration Catholic Church, 1815 Blackwell Rd, Marietta, GA 30066, or Fax to: (770)578-1415 or email: msgr@transfiguration.com

AD RANDOM MARRIED PRIESTS NOW! CATHOLIC PRELATURE. Archbishop Peter Paul Brennan (516) 485- 0616. Married Priests USA on Facebook. THE NATIONAL CATHOLIC REPORTER Publishing Company is looking for issues of its newspaper dating from October 1964 to October 1965. Loose copies or bound editions are welcomed. Are you a collector? Have you recently inherited someone’s archives? Do you have any leads we could follow? We’d like to hear from you. Please email tabeln@ncronline.org or call Tracy at (816)968-2210. Many thanks from the NCR staff.

Kane, CSP and Joan Nuth, Ph.D. Deadline for registration & payment: March 31, 2013. Contact: jnuth@jcu.edu for brochure.

PROGRAMS BERAKAH: A Place of Blessing: New Offering. Mystical Perspective of Earth and Cosmic Consciousness-Walking the Sacred by PathsMarch 9-23, 2013. September 1-29, 2013. Presenters: Norman Comtois, OMI. Dorothy Landry, Denise Turcotte, CSC. For more information contact: BERAKAH@aol.com Call: (603)435-7271.

RENTALS PRIVATE RETREAT CONFERENCE Space 25 acres Scottsdale Arizona Franciscan www.casameetings.org

RETREATS

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DESERT HOUSE OF PRAYER- Private retreats, Centering Prayer, Tucson, AZ.(520)744-3825 www.deserthouseofprayer.org

îTHE TEARS I COULDN’T CRY, BEHIND CONVENT DOORSî by Patricia Grueninger Beasley, pub 2009, authorhouse isbn: 9781438962900, award-winning memoir raises questions: Were Sisters no more than pawns? Where was justice and accountability? available at: amazon.com, see customer reviews.

BETHANY RETREAT HOUSE, East Chicago, Indiana, offers private and individually- direct silent retreats, including dreamwork and Ignatian 30 days, year-round in a prayerful home setting. Contact Joyce Diltz, PHJC: (219)398-5047; bethanyrh@sbcglob al.net www.bethanyretreathouse.org

PILATE’S PRISONER by Edward Hays. In this fascinating new version of the passion story, Pilate and Jesus engage in debates over belief in God, death and life after death. A challenging and insightful resource. Paperback $16.95. Kindle, Nook and all ebook formats $9.99. To order: www.EdwardHays.com

EVENSONG BY THE SEA RETREAT CENTER on Cape Cod. Private Individual and Group Retreats, Guided Retreats, Spiritual Direction, Reiki Training. Visit: www.evensongretreat.com (508)432-0027.

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EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES FAITH IN GOD WE TRUST- Enlightened Evolution www.Word Unlimited.com

PILGRIMAGES IGNATIAN PILGRIMAGE (Loyola, Javier, Montserrat, Manresa, Barcelona) June 12-22, 2013 with Brian McDermott, SJ, Thomas

TOURS STORYTELLING TOUR with Midge Miles: Midge Miles, professional storyteller and retreat leader, conducts unique tour this spring: A Storytelling Tour to Mystical Ireland, May 15 - 23rd. Accommodations for entire tour are at Old Ground Hotel, Ennis, County Clare, Ireland. No extra packing and unpacking! Midge performs stories from Celtic myth, folklore, and stories of saints, sinners and holy fools. Stories bring mystical Ireland to life. Midge is tour’s guide and resident storyteller. One inclusive price for everything. Flights can be arranged from New York or Chicago. Check the itinerary and full details at: www.thestoriedorgani zation.com/ireland Email: midge@thestoriedorganization.com

PRINCIPAL

Crespi Carmelite High School Office of the President

YOUTH MINISTRY YOUTH MINISTER: needed for a very active, comprehensive youth ministry program with over 800 teens. Ideal candidate is a faith-filled, dynamic person with the ability to develop youth leadership, understand youth and youth culture, recruit, train, and retain volunteers, will have a good understanding of Catholic youth ministry, and will have the ability to relate well with both youth and their parents. Expertise in the use of technology, including social media in ministry is required. Practicing Roman Catholic. College degree and/or previous

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

CRESPI CARMELITE HIGH SCHOOL - PRINCIPAL The Position: Crespi Carmelite High School, a highly successful college preparatory, all-boys Catholic high school of 565 students, is seeking an exceptionally qualified Principal to join its leadership and instructional team in the summer 2013. Prospective candidates will demonstrate an understanding of 21st Century learning pedagogy and collaborative practice.

Primary Areas of Responsibility: The Principal serves as the internal school leader responsible for major operations of the school, including faith leadership, co-curricular and student life programs of the school, school operations, faculty and staff development and evaluation, and curriculum and instruction. The Principal reports to the President and Board of Directors.

Qualifications: A candidate must be a practicing Roman Catholic and hold an advanced degree in Educational Administration. A minimum of five years of administrative experience is required.

The successful candidate will demonstrate the following competencies: EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR FutureChurch, www.futurechurch.org with headquarters in Cleveland, Ohio. FutureChurch seeks changes that will provide all Roman Catholics the opportunity to participate fully in Church life and leadership. Responsibilities include organizational management, development and fund raising, programming, communication, public speaking, and networking. Candidates should be active Roman Catholics with knowledge of renewal movements in the Catholic Church, Vatican II ecclesiology, and dialogic approach to conflict resolution. Master’s in theology or religious studies required as well as proven writing and public speaking skills. Previous experience in the nonprofit sector desired. Candidates may submit cover letter including salary requirements and resume with writing samples to Executive Director Search Committee c/o Marie Graf, 144 E 197 S. Euclid, OH 44119 or marie.graf@gmail.com Posting closes February 28, 2013

• Ability to work cooperatively with the Board of Directors, president, and faculty to accomplish initiatives • Strong commitment to the educational values of the Order of Carmelites • An understanding of the unique learning environment of an all-boys Catholic high school, and Gurian principles applied to the education of boys. • Visibility and accessibility to students, staff, and school community • Demonstrated commitment to student learning and achievement through the development and implementation of effective instructional skills and strategies. • Skills in incorporating technology to support classroom instruction. • Ability to foster development and implementation of curricula that prepare students for college and the 21st Century. • Leadership skills that include setting expectations, delegating, and motivating, while maintaining expectations. • Excellent communication skills and openness to ideas expressed by students, faculty, parents, president, and Board of Directors. • Collaborative spirit and support of all departments within the school.

Application Process: Interested candidates should submit the following materials electronically: • A letter of interest that addresses the role of the principal in leading an all-boys Catholic high school, as well as leadership in preparing young men for success in college. • A current resume (c.v.) • The names, addresses, telephone numbers, and email addresses of five professional references. Information should detail the professional relationship of each individual to the applicant. Application information should be sent to: hr.principal@crespi.org. Review of applications will begin immediately. Additional information is available on our web site: www.crespi.org

NATIONAL CATHOLIC REPORTER

FEBRUARY 1-14, 2013

REFLECTION 23

The Word Scripted for Life

February 2013 | 42:2

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FEBRUARY 10, 2013, FIFTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME Patricia Datchuck Sánchez Is 6:1-2, 3-8; Ps 138; 1 Cor 15:1-11; Lk 5:1-11

Living on the edge

oday, the praying assembly hears the vocational experiences of Isaiah, Paul and three of Jesus’ first disciples, Simon, James and John. In three very different encounters, these believers heard and heeded God’s call, and in that moment, their lives changed course and took a direction they had not planned. Isaiah was a priest and counselor to four of Israel’s kings; he was called to be God’s prophet and discerner of God’s will for a people often unwilling to hear and reluctant to change their lives. Paul, who moved easily in three different worlds — Pharisaic Judaism, in which he enjoyed considerable authority; Hellenistic culture and philosophy, in which he was well-versed; and the Roman Empire, in which he claimed citizenship — was called to enter into a relationship with the One who came to redeem and unify all three worlds; and to be the ambassador of the Gospel to all, without distinction. James, John and Simon (who would be renamed Peter) were fishermen who depended on the sea for their livelihood.

FEBRUARY 17, 2013, FIRST SUNDAY OF LENT Roger Vermalen Karban Dt 26:4-10; Ps 91; Rm 10:8-13; Lk 4:1-13

Becoming other Christs

t the end of his life, Moses delivers some final words to the Israelites, who are finally about to enter the Promised Land. Deuteronomy 26:4-10 concerns the proper way to offer the first fruits of their future harvests. Setting their offering before Yahweh’s altar, they’re to say, “My father [Jacob] was a wandering Aramean who went down to Egypt with a small household and lived there as an alien. But there he became a nation great, strong and numerous.” But then note a key shift from their ancestors to them. “When the Egyptians maltreated and oppressed us, imposing hard labor upon us, we cried to Yahweh, the God of our ancestors, and he heard our cry and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression. He brought us out of Egypt.” What had once happened to others is now happening to them. Yahweh is leading them through the sea to freedom. They aren’t hearing past history; they’re actually reflecting on what’s taking place in the present, in their own lives. That’s why we have Scripture. Consider the late Jesuit Old Testament scholar Dennis McCarthy’s classic definition of canonicity: We have these specific writings in our Scriptures “be-

—Illustrations by Mark Bartholomew

They were called to leave behind the relative security of their boats and nets and families, put out into the deep, and align themselves with Jesus in drawing all of humankind to God. Each was willing to do what Edwina Gateley has described as “living on the prophetic edge” (“Being Missionary Means Being on the Edges,” in Mystics, Visionaries and Prophets, edited by Shawn Madigan, Fortress Press, CSJ, 1998). Gateley, a lay missionary, founded the Volunteer Missionary Movement in Uganda, East Africa, in 1969; its members serve in more than 40 countries today. She insists that God calls believers to walk on the prophetic edge. It is very tight and very fine, but we have to balance ourselves between the world and God’s reign. While we are aware of

cause they’ve helped the most people over the longest period of time to understand their faith.” Scripture doesn’t give us our faith. Scripture makes sense only after we’ve already acquired faith in Yahweh, or Jesus; offering us ways to reflect on our faith, to understand its implications in our daily lives. That’s why our Bible is so thick. There are lots of ways to reflect, lots of implications to surface. One size doesn’t fit all. Our sacred authors weren’t historians, scientists, biographers or zoologists. They simply were people of faith, writing for other people of faith, presuming there was always something new to learn about that faith, always something new to reflect on. The starting point for all biblical exegesis isn’t the event the author narrates, but the community for whom he or she writes. Today’s Gospel passage presents us with a classic example of that methodology. Both Matthew and Luke add something to the temptation story they copied from Mark: three specific temptations. How did they come up with these particular temptations? The answer is simple: they took for granted he was tempted in the same way they were being tempted. What was happening to them must have happened to him. It’s significant that they had these specific temptations in the earliest days of the faith. We see in the passage from Romans that there never was a “golden age” of Christianity. A commitment to follow Jesus, in the first century or today, is automatically ac-

the world and its problems, we carry within ourselves a vision of peace, justice and transformation. We walk the prophetic edge, but at times we become so overwhelmed by the negative aspects of our culture that we let go of the prophetic edge and its sharpness. “We go blob, like jelly,” says Gateley. We feel helpless. In our frustration, we say: It’s not my problem. But God does not call us to be quitters. We cannot be content to let others bear the burden of responsibility and face the possibility of rejection. Rather, God calls us to dare to be sharp and alert as we live on the precipice, with — as Karl Barth would say — the Gospel in one hand and the newspaper in the other. There is always a temptation to play it safe, but if we allow ourselves to retreat, there will be no one to speak truth to power. Isaiah, Paul and Simon, James and John could easily have held back and played it safe. Their lives would have been easier and more secure. Gateley could have stayed home in the relative peace and safety of her native Lancaster, England. But their willingness to risk their personal well-being to follow a purpose that they did not plan challenges each of us to step outside our comfort zones and be led by God into the service of the kingdom. Like Isaiah, Paul, Simon, John and James, we are called to break new ground and lead the way where oth-

companied by temptations to take that commitment in directions that would nullify Jesus’ life and ministry. That’s why it’s important to appreciate these three particular temptations; each applies to us and our imitation of Jesus. The first: “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.” Jesus’ response, “One does not live on bread alone,” tells us what’s at the

heart of this temptation. Disciples are always encouraged to choose life over death. But is there something deeper to life than just maintaining our vital signs until we achieve eternal life? Like Jesus, we’re tempted just to take care of the surface needs without actually changing the environment that created those needs in the first place. This logically leads us to the second temptation: “[The devil] took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a single instant, and said,

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ers may fear to tread. There we will encounter the strange, the new, the untried and the different. It is this very journey into the unknown future that makes those called by God agents of transformation. To encourage our exploration, Gateley offers the example of the mole. A furry little creature that lives underground, the mole is blind. Yet, the mole has developed an incredible sense of smell. She can sniff out the rain as well as the sunshine; she can make her way anywhere, even in the darkness. We who are called by God can emulate that tiny mole. We must sniff in the darkness of human sin and suffering to find the unloved and unwanted and bring the love of God to them. We may not always see the way, but we have the gift of faith, which assures us of God’s presence as we seek out and reveal God’s truth, justice and light in the darkness. [Patricia Sánchez holds a master’s degree in literature and religion of the Bible from a joint degree program at Columbia University and Union Theological Seminary in New York.]

‘I shall give to you all this power and glory ... if you worship me.’ ” During Jesus’ ministry, messianic hopes were rooted in power and glory. Jesus’ response shows a different plan for salvation: “You shall worship Yahweh, your God, and him alone shall you serve.” God has a passion for freedom, but also a unique way to achieve it. Jesus was convinced true freedom could only be accomplished by people committed to weakness, not power — the weakness that comes from giving ourselves to others, not dominating them. The third temptation — to jump from the parapet of the temple and land unharmed — cuts to the heart of Jesus’ faith. We’re always pulled to do the spectacular, to act in ways that will get people’s attention. No wonder Jesus replies, “You shall not put Yahweh, your God, to the test.” In the eyes of the world, even Jesus’ resurrection wasn’t a noteworthy event. Only his followers were convinced it had taken place and later testified to it. We’re expected to imitate Jesus’ dying and rising in the most ordinary situations of life, relating to people known only to their families and friends, doing things for them that would never make the evening news. It’s these unnoticed, dedicated few who are changing the world for the better. [Roger Vermalen Karban is a priest of the Belleville, Ill., diocese and pastor of Our Lady of Good Counsel Parish in Renault, Ill.]

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EDITORIALS

FEBRUARY 1-14, 2013

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The real scandal of our church It would be difficult to develop a script more revelatory of the confounding priorities of the Vatican than that contained in the news of recent days. Real scandal — covering up the rape of children, compromising the church’s reputation with bizarre behavior and sexual shenanigans by its priests — is met with either silence from on high or unpersuasive explanations. Meanwhile, advocates of open discussion about church teaching on women, celibacy, contraceptives and homosexuality — advocates who have advanced questions, not scandal — are met swiftly by the long arm of the law in the form of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. What the church finds deserving of its wrath in light of what it will tolerate to preserve the clerical culture and protect bishops is increasingly inexplicable to anyone outside that culture. The record grows more grotesque by the week: I Cardinal Roger Mahony’s long and expensive battle to keep secret files showing how priest sex abuse cases were handled in the Los Angeles archdiocese appears to be coming to an end. It is anticipated that soon files dealing with dozens of cases will finally be released. Mahony succeeded in diverting the spotlight from the truth of the matter long enough that it will probably be impossible for the legal system to do anything about what it finds in the documents. A hint of what might be ahead was evident in a separate release of internal files on 14 priests and they show, according to the Los Angeles Times and The Associated Press, that the cardinal and other archdiocesan officials protected priests from prosecution, hiding at least one they knew had raped an 11-yearold boy and abused as many as 17 others. In a 2010 memo, according to the AP, investigators had already concluded that the documents “showed ‘the possibility of criminal culpability’ by members of the archdiocese leadership, but a criminal conspiracy case was ‘more and more remote’ because of the passage of time.” One of those officials was thenMsgr. Thomas Curry. He’s now an auxiliary bishop. The cardinal and his staff went to great lengths and

enormous expense to hide the truth from civil authorities and the Catholic community. The cardinal would try to convince us that we should judge him on what he didn’t know rather than what is becoming clear he did know. And on these matters? Silence from the doctrinal congregation and the rest of the hierarchy. The secretive, all-male clerical club would have it no other way. I In Bridgeport, Conn., the former pastor of St. Augustine Cathedral, Msgr. Kevin Wallin, 61, was arrested recently for possession with intent to distribute and distribution of methamphetamines. The indictment claims that Wallin made up to $9,000 a week peddling the highly addictive stimulant. Wallin resigned as pastor in summer 2011 and was relieved of his priestly duties by William Lori, then bishop of Bridgeport. Church officials say they learned, after suspending Wallin, that he sometimes dressed in women’s clothing, entertained other men similarly dressed, and that the rectory was the setting for sexual activity among them. Reports say that Wallin has since purchased a store in North Haven that sells sex toys and X-rated DVDs. Wallin was once secretary to thenBishop Edward Egan, with whom he regularly socialized, and later Lori appointed him to the high-profile position of pastor of the cathedral. Egan went on to be cardinal archbishop of New York before he retired. Lori is currently archbishop of Baltimore. Once again, we are asked to believe the inexplicable — that within the gossipy culture of Catholic clergy neither of these men was aware of Wallin’s proclivities until his activities became so public they were impossible to ignore. Wallin was but one of the latest in a string of clerical disasters in Bridgeport ranging from sex abuse to theft by priests who used money to finance lavish lifestyles. The response from higher-ups to the ineptitude in appointments and management? Promotions to higher posts. I The most egregious and glaring example of a lack of accountability among the hierarchy is Bishop Robert Finn of Kansas City-St. Joseph, Mo. Finn was

convicted last year of one count of failing to report suspected child abuse after neglecting for months to notify civil authorities that pornographic photographs of children taken by one of his priests had been found on the priest’s computer. Add to the criminal conviction the fact that Finn violated, in several ways, church law established by the U.S. bishops, and the result would seem inevitable — removal from his position running a diocese. But he remains a bishop in good standing, even though under court-ordered restrictions and supervision in two jurisdictions imposed as part of bargains designed to keep him out of jail. I Cardinals Bernard Law, Anthony Bevilacqua and Justin Rigali did inestimable damage to the churches in Boston and Philadelphia with their incompetent and, in some instances, criminal handling of the sex abuse crisis. Everyone knows it. The record is beyond abundant. And the silence from the doctrinal congregation is deafening. To make matters worse, bishops who decide not to implement child safety programs or participate in safety audits, as mandated by the U.S. bishops’ conference since 2002 and confirmed by the Vatican in 2006, face no consequences. The protectors of doctrine have been too busy to notice, perhaps. Too busy investigating sisters and elevating the illegal thoughts of priests like Maryknoll Fr. Roy Bourgeois and Irish Redemptorist Fr. Tony Flannery to capital offenses. These sisters and priests have lived long lives of exemplary service, lives that have brought them to a point where certain questions are inescapable. What about women? Can we rethink contraceptives? Should the gift of celibacy be mandatory? Is the church right about homosexuality? Irreparably damage the church by hiding criminal activity against our children, and no one will disturb you. You might even get promoted. Ask questions that are on the minds of Catholics around the world? That’ll get you marginalized, even banished. The script’s conclusion is inescapable: The leadership of this institution is in terrible disarray.

Researching gun epidemic is first step to solving it Of the two dozen executive orders that President Barack Obama issued Jan. 16 as part of his plan to reduce gun violence in this country, the public needs to watch order No. 14 carefully to ensure that it is implemented fully and completely. It could profoundly reduce gun-related deaths and do it in a way that won’t raise the specter of Second Amendment rights or frighten hunters and people who shoot for sport. Item 14 directs the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other federal scientific agencies to conduct research into the causes and prevention of gun violence. The executive order includes investigating links between video games, media images and violence, but more importantly this order, by reversing a decade-and-ahalf freeze on gun violence research, removes firearms from a specially protected class of consumer products and puts them on par with other dangerous consumer products, like blenders, pharmaceuticals and automobiles. The White House fact sheet released with the president’s plan makes the point that “to research gun violence prevention, we … need better data.” Presenting the plan, Obama said, “We don’t benefit from ignorance. We don’t benefit from not knowing the science of this epidemic of violence.” Since 1996 Congress has forbidden the CDC from using federal money to “advocate or promote gun control.” Research funded by the National Institutes of Health has been similarly restricted since 2011.

Though the language is broad, the restrictions have had a chilling effect on all research into gun violence. Legal experts believe Obama’s executive order has the power to allow funding into gun violence research to go forward, though it could face a court challenge. Of greater risk is that the federal scientific agencies may have the authorization to do the research, but Congress may not appropriate the money to fund it. The president has called on Congress to provide $10 million for the CDC to conduct further research into gun violence, and for $20 million to expand the National Violent Death Reporting System, which col-

lects anonymous data on firearms used in homicides and suicides, from the current 18 participating states to all 50 states. The data includes the type of firearm used, whether the firearm was stored loaded or locked, and details on youth gun access. Such data, the White House plan says, will help “Americans better understand how and when firearms are used in a violent death” and will inform “future research and prevention strategies.” This is why the public must be vigilant toward the implementation of this executive order. Those who would doubt that such basic research can help reduce gun violence need to examine the history of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which has the sole mission of researching and preventing deaths and injuries on our nation’s roads and highways. Over its history, the agency has steadily reduced the number of traffic fatalities so that fewer people die in traffic accidents today than did in 1950, even though the number of vehicles on the road and the number of miles driven have increased. The agency achieved these results with a budget of $62.4 million in fiscal year 2012, and it didn’t advocate taking anyone’s car away. Public health professionals call gun violence an epidemic in this country. Understanding the “why” of this epidemic is the first step to solving it. We won’t have the why without the research.