Column As interdicts pile up, Catholics drift away
By TIM UNSWORTH
One of the bedrocks of Vatican
teaching is that lay Catholics are too dumb to pass water. Again and again,
when condemning individuals or groups one finds the phrase, [They] have
caused confusion among the Catholic people and have harmed the community of the
church. Almost from the day they were baptized, confused Catholics appear
to be asking, Hey, who doused me?
I came to this conclusion after reading about Fr. Robert Nugent
and Sr. Jeannine Gramick, two dedicated souls who have been ministering to
homosexuals for some 25 years. Recently they have been barred from their
ministry and from even holding office within their congregations (NCR,
July 30). The announcement left me genuinely confused, especially since it came
from under Michelangelos great dome, where it had been passed from one
desk to another many of them, no doubt, manned by homosexual priests.
The incident brought back memories of a wonderful dinner in a
Roman restaurant with a gay priest. Thank God, gays are not forbidden to eat
pasta. Its a good thing that linguine con vongole isnt
intrinsically evil. There were enough gay priests there that night
to staff a synod.
The Vaticans announcement came on the heels of the death of
Englands Cardinal Basil Hume, one of the most admired figures in Britain.
Hume could be heard beyond his church. He understood that it was a
bishops role to lead, not to suppress, to comfort people rather that
insist on saving them. He urged homosexuals not to develop a sense of
guilt or think of themselves as unpleasing to God.
On the contrary, he added, they are precious to
God.
Humes hand never became a fist. He believed in clarity but
understood that one could never arrive at a pastoral decision legalistically.
The Vaticans recent announcement reminded one of Vera Carps
pronouncements that, You will act like a Christian or I will slap the
snot out of you.
Author Auberon Waugh, son of Evelyn Waugh, called Hume
silly, a wonderful endorsement from a family of stuffy bed wetters
who viewed Vatican II as the end of civilization as we know it.
Confrontation is seldom the best pastoral technique. Yet, when the
Vatican uses its holy hammer, it is always careful to point out that it has
been the soul of patience.
Cardinal Hume also supported a more open dialogue on the
possibility of married priests. He welcomed married Anglican priests into the
Roman church. According to historian Terence Dosh, Hume once said: When I
was abbot and sometimes had to come down to London, I would go back to my room
alone at night and Id miss somebody there to talk to about what sort of
day it had been. You miss not being somebodys first choice and someone
not being yours.
Hume was not scandalized by the presence of resigned priests.
Instead, he was edified by their love of God. He also wrote of his observations
of sincere Catholics who practiced birth control. He found such people to often
be good, conscientious and faithful.
A priest friend recalled that if Hume met a woman who had had an
abortion, he would probably throw his arms around her rather than give her a
lecture. He hated sin but loved sinners. He supported church teaching but never
seemed to feel that clarity was important when pastoral concerns were at
stake.
Meanwhile, back in Chicago, rumors persist that the core
administration of the archdiocese is positioned to crack down on parishes that
use resigned priests in any form of church ministry. Reportedly, Cardinal
Francis George will be given full discretion in determining which resigned
priests will be permitted to serve. With some parishes literally held together
by resigned priests with immense talent and dedication, the notion of sweeping
them under the sanctuary rug is sickening. The archdiocese might be better
served if the archbishop booted out those priests in good standing who are
doing next to nothing in pastoral work.
Early one morning some years ago, Jean and I passed the late
Cardinal Joseph Bernardins gingerbread mansion while riding our bikes. We
spotted a thin-faced, white haired man in the driveway, taking the air. We were
blocks away before we realized it was the late British cardinal, who was
visiting his brother, Joseph.
Hume seemed to echo the sentiment of poet and Brooklyn Dodger fan
Marianne Moore, who wrote: It is an honor to witness so much
confusion. Indeed, it may be that a mark of the church is not that it is
one, holy, catholic and apostolic, but that it is confused.
It is my belief that playing it safe is idiotic. Indeed, taking
risks might be a grave sin, causing culpable confusion to the hierarchy. I
revisited my Catechism of the Catholic Church and found paragraph No.
2235, which reads: Those who exercise authority should do so as a
service. No one can command or establish what is contrary to the dignity of
persons and the natural law.
The responses given to Fr. Nugent were liberally salted with
punitive language such as erroneous and dangerous,
ambiguous and imbalanced in methodology. It sounded
like a professors commentary on a mathematics dissertation.
Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger is not a man given to
flabby statements. He has written in his book Years of Renewal:
For any student of history, change is the law of life. Any attempt to
contain it guarantees an explosion down the road; the more rigid the adherence
to the status quo, the more violent the ultimate outcome will be.
I dont know what will become of all this suppression. Sadly,
Im already finding more room in the pews as Catholics who once genuinely
listened and cared drift away, while the quarantines and interdicts pile up at
our feet.
Tim Unsworth writes from Chicago where he reports that his
chemotherapy is going nicely. He expects to found a devotional group called
Catholics in Chemo.
National Catholic Reporter, September 17,
1999
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