Gramick seeks to overturn ruling
By TOM ROBERTS
NCR Staff
School Sister of Notre Dame Jeannine Gramick, ordered in July by
the Vatican to cease her pastoral work with gays and lesbians, said she will
seek a reversal of the Vatican decree.
Gramick, in a statement released to NCR Sept. 23, said she
will not defy the decision of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith
but will work to have it overturned. While I see no benefits for lesbian
and gay Catholics and their parents if I passively accept the CDF decision, I
believe it is more beneficial to minister on their behalf with the blessing of
church leadership than without it. Therefore, I believe it is important to work
within church structures to have the CDF decision reconsidered and, hopefully,
ultimately reversed.
Gramick and Fr. Robert Nugent began ministering to gays and
lesbian Catholics in 1971, underwent 20 years of investigation by various
church leaders and agencies, and were ultimately barred from pastoral ministry
in the July decision.
Nugent decided to comply with the ban on active pastoral ministry
with gays and lesbians, but he has continued speaking in academic settings
about his ministry and his experience during the Vatican investigation.
Gramick, 57, said in a telephone interview that she had not yet
consulted a canon lawyer and did not know if an appeals process was open to
her. But, she said, she took some hope from the case of Sri Lankan theologian
Tissa Balasuriya, who was excommunicated in January 1997 only to be reinstated
12 months later. Fr. Balasuriyas excommunication, she said, was a
far more severe penalty than mine and it was lifted.
Balasuriyas reinstatement came after intense and direct
negotiations with the Vatican by leaders of his order. Gramick, in the
interview, said she doubts that religious women would have such direct access
to Vatican authorities.
Part of her statement was a plea to the wider church community --
from members of her congregation to church leaders -- to help me find
creative, collaborative ways to lift the burden of this directive from my
shoulders. I believe that creative solutions to the dilemma I am facing can
ultimately be advantageous to lesbian and gay Catholics and to the whole
church, she wrote in the statement.
She said that, although she was unable to acquiesce in a
decision I consider unjust and harmful to lesbian and gay Catholics, she
was looking for some way to reconcile the Vatican directive with what she feels
is a call from God to minister to lesbian and gays.
She said she is taking a reconciling approach to the
Vatican directive, one that is consistent with my ministry in the
past, which has been one of reconciliation of homosexual Catholics
with the institutional church.
In the meantime, she said, she and the leaders of her community
will discuss ministry options for the future. One option, she said, might be
research and writing on the major issues involved in the churchs teaching
on homosexuality as well as issues involved in her experience with the Vatican
investigation and the tactics of the hierarchy in those proceedings.
The full text of Sr. Jeannine Gramicks most recent
statement is available on the NCR Web site,
http://www.natcath.com/NCR_Online/documents/gramnuge.htm as are
previous documents dealing with the Vatican investigation into her and Fr.
Nugents ministry.
National Catholic Reporter, October 1,
1999
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