Pittsburgh priests split from
federation
By PATRICIA LEFEVERE
Special Report Writer
The Association of Pittsburgh Priests has withdrawn its membership
from the National Federation of Priests Councils, claiming the national
body is too passive and silent and no longer a vital organization of priests
leading the church toward renewal in the vision and spirit of Vatican Council
II.
The 55- to 60-member Pittsburgh group had affiliated itself with
the national federation for more than three decades, held membership on its
national board for a quarter-century and been deeply involved in leadership,
especially at its national meetings. But in recent years the gatherings have
been more about guys getting together to talk about spirituality
and less about addressing the changing needs of the U.S. church, Fr. John
Oesterle told NCR. Oesterle chairs the Pittsburgh association and was a
board member of the national federation from 1985-89.
The priest said the vote to withdraw was pretty
unanimous and under consideration for some time. Oesterle called the
decision very painful. He asked, Who else is going to lead us
on a national level?
The Pittsburgh group may be unique among groups that belong to the
national federation because about a third of its members are resigned priests,
their wives and lay Catholics -- most of them liberal in outlook and active in
church renewal issues, Oesterle said. Its membership represents about 10
percent of the approximately 500 diocesan priests in Pittsburgh. Oesterle
called the Association of Pittsburgh Priests more a Call to Action
group than a traditional priests council. It intends to continue
its links with the Catholic Organizations for Renewal -- a national umbrella
group of 33 renewal groups -- and to support the Eastern Pennsylvania Call to
Action group in its effort to renew the church and to speak for justice and
peace, Oesterle said.
He faulted the National Federation of Priests Councils for
no longer being the kind of activist group it once was. In past years the
national federation spoke out on social justice, and team ministry called for a
simple and non-clerical lifestyle for priests, he said. It made prophetic
statements about Americas military role in Vietnam, racism, nuclear
disarmament and capital punishment. It also called for the ordination of
married men and women.
While Oesterle found its leaders to be popular, hard-working
priests, he said they are not the prophetic, outspoken or
challenging priests that are needed if priests councils are to meet
the needs of the church in the new century. They dont make waves.
Yet Jesus made a lot of waves, and Peter and Paul got killed for making
waves, he said.
The new president-elect of the National Federation of
Priests Councils, Fr. Robert Silva, said he was having a hard time
understanding why the Pittsburgh priests withdrew. Were still
committed to the work of the gospel at the council level, he told
NCR in a telephone interview from Stockton, Calif., where he is pastor
and rector of the Cathedral of the Annunciation.
Silva, who replaces Fr. Don Wolf of Oklahoma City next July l,
said that the National Federation of Priests Councils had made a
deliberate shift in recent years from an adversarial style to one of being a
partner to the local diocesan councils of priests. Our advocacy will
hopefully be as strong as possible but it will not be like it was 15 and more
years ago.
Soon after the federations launch in 1968, some of its
members were viewed by some in the church as out to throw bombs,
Wolf told NCR at the groups 1998 convention in East Rutherford,
N.J. (NCR, May 15, 1998). The national federation had paid the legal
fees for priests in the Washington area who took issue with papal teaching in
Humanae Vitae, the encyclical that upheld the ban on artificial
contraception.
There is a different tenor, feel and process underway in the
national federation today, Silva said. We dont want to be
adversarial, but rather productive and positive. The group will not issue
resolutions, as in the past, but will be more likely to circulate white papers
on such topics as the priest shortage. Our task is to do the research and
to circulate it to the priests councils that we serve. Such a
method would allow for raising the issue of a married clergy, of recruitment,
personnel and of all the justice issues involving lay ministers, Silva said.
We cant be afraid to raise any of these hard questions.
Silva said that the national federation would approach the
Association of Pittsburgh Priests in brotherhood and according to the
precepts of the gospel in order to heal any wounds between the two
parties and to move forward in unity. There is enough dissention in the
church, he said.
The national federation counts 26,000 members. It works to give
priests councils a representative voice in matters of presbyteral,
pastoral and ministerial concern to the church in the United States and in the
universal church. That role has changed with the changing of canon law, the
graying of the clergy and the shortage of priests, Fr. Neil McCaulley told
NCR. McCaulley, pastor of St. Stephens Church in Pittsburgh, was
president of the national federation from 1980 to 82.
He said that the 1983 revised Code of Canon Law -- which made
bishops the chairpersons of priests councils -- had muddied the
waters for the national federation. Formerly the organization saw itself
as a vehicle for collegial dialogue with the bishops, a role that diminished
when the bishops became the chairpersons, McCaulley said.
Similarly, the work of renewal and social justice, which
frequently made its way into resolutions at federation conventions and was then
enacted by local offices of justice and peace, no longer moved in this way once
the national federation became too tied to the bishops, McCaulley
said.
Most of the members of the national federation belong to local
diocesan presbyteral councils, whose members are elected or appointed and serve
as official consulters to local bishops. The Association of Pittsburgh Priests
is one of only four priests associations in the national federation, according
to McCaulley. The associations are apart from the presbyteral councils. The
others are in Southern Illinois, South Carolina and in Chicago where the
national federation is headquartered.
National Catholic Reporter, September 24,
1999
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