Reconciliation in Memphis
Holton, Robert R.
Like Kissinger himself, Metternich was widely and incomprehensibly regarded as a great bringer of peace to a warring world. The Austrian statesman brought peace to Europe at the expense of an...
...Commonweal: J9...
...38 similar program established in Pueblo, Colo.," said the Rev...
...A number of innovative things have been happening in the Diocese of Memphis, and much more is coming, including one program that is sure to be something of a national precedent-setter...
...CYRIL CUSACK CONFITEOR O dear my Lord, but what a tricky cute and cunning customer in me you have across your counter, one eluding true communion's equity...
...a religious education program for children and adults...
...But he hasn't been late since when it comes to getting things done...
...After the two liturgies---the second being in Jackson, Term.rathe bishop said he was "overwhelmed" by not only the turnout but by the change in attitude for good noticed among the people during the weeks leading up to the liturgies...
...We will truly make the Diocese of Memphis the Good Samaritan on the banks of the Mississippi, pouring the oil of mercy and love onto our fellowman healing those whom we can reach...
...Victor Ciaramitaro, diocesan vocations director, who is fashioning the new unit...
...The day after the first reconciliation liturgy that attracted more than 11,500 to a civic sports and entertainment area in Memphis last Dec...
...O I can fake and I can fable, I can fiddle, fib and fumble, glibly gamble with you, Lord (and tell me, boys, who better able...
...Each of the male and female volunteers will be asked to sign up for a one- or two-year 'hitch' in our corps," Father Ciaramitaro explained...
...In other cases the kids will be part-time---~erve while going to college, for example, or after high school classes or during summer vacations from school...
...He announced his plans and there followed a six-month program of prayer, instruction from the pulpit, in the diocesan newspaper and in seminars before the Day of Reconciliation liturgies were celebrated...
...ROBERT R. HOLTON (Robert R. Holton is the editor of Common Sense, the diocesan newspaper ol the Memphis diocese...
...The crusade---including special confession stations on weekends--will continue through Easter Sunday...
...His critics contended he had no canonical right to do what he had done...
...He was praised as lavishly by some as he was condemned severely by others for his use of general absolution...
...Hoping to launch the program by the middle of summer, Father Ciaramitaro confessed that "we still don't know how much it will cost, how much the kids will be paid, or exactly where the money will come from...
...He also said some volunteers will be assigned to the many poverty areas of the City of Memphis...
...But in each agency here in this diocese, the new and the time-honored, we try a little harder because we don't want to be second best to anyone," said one department head...
...One member of the group described it as "certainly a unique effort to provide the bishop and a wide variety of others in the area who want it, solid backgrounding on the most worthy contemporary theology available...
...These will include the top-rated Protestant and Jewish professors and scholars in the area...
...That you, you Three in One and One in Three, could fail to see through me, could be wide open to my wide-eyed bribery or guiltily contrive-you, Father, Holy Spirit and the Son-to look the other way, conniving at the filching and the fun of taking all for f r e e . . , say which of us would thus betray, pretending Satan's not alive...
...Two weeks after the liturgies, priests reported a marked increase in the number of confessions and "a changed +attitude among the people---a new attitude prevails of more tolerance and more concern and more love for one another...
...We will open ours to high school graduates and college students...
...Later, explaining hi~ thinking on the overall crusade, Bishop Dozier said: "For years I had been hearing about those who 'no longer walk with us.' Well, I began to think that it was time something be done about those people---not just talk...
...You might say the bishop almost didn't get to the church on time," quipped one of the members of the group that met the incoming plane back in 1971...
...We don't ask that the kids have any talents other than that greatest of all talents---the disposition to help others and do the best you can in that job...
...I myself with guiltless smile myself beguiling, shall I you beguile...
...That remark was made several months before Bishop Dozier launched a diocesan reconciliation crusade last July that eventually attracted widespread national and considerable international attention for its unique use of general absolution as the keystone of an effort to woo inactive Catholics of the area back into the full sacramental life of the church...
...Certainly this will he one of our prime targets," the corps planner said...
...The two together are summed up today as bugging and bombing, the main fields in which the departing Secretary excelled...
...In some cases, the volunteers will be full-time and reside in special communities set up in poor areas throughout the diocese...
...FRANK GETLEXN 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 AN UNUSUAL DIOCESE BECONCI IA TION IN IqEI PHIS On a bitter cold day in early January six years ago, a cluster of church and community leaders milled impatiently around one of the debarking areas of the airport in Memphis awaiting the arrival from Norfolk, Virginia, of the man who in a few days would be ordained as the first bishop of the Diocese of Memphis----Monsignor Carroll Thomas Dozier...
...Rough plans have been worked out whereby "ideas on the best of contemporary theology" will be exchanged among members of the group...
...5, the bishop's critics and supporters were doing battle...
...Last spring, the revised English version of the sacrament of confession---reconciliation-was issued and an idea was born...
...The debate escalated to the point where Archbishop Joseph Bernardin felt obliged to speak out in a statement on behalf of the nation's hierarchy...
...The reconciliation crusade did not give Bishop Dozier his first exposure to the burning rays of the national spotlight and the problems its warmth can hatch...
...He perhaps summed up the diocese's objectives best when he closed his homily at the two reconciliation liturgies with the same statement he used to close his address at his ordination six years before: "We promise one thing in return for God's love and mercy...
...We have people from the diocese working in these poverty areas in the counties and in the city and they are welcomed with open arms," he said...
...After a two-and-a-half-hour storm delay, the commercial jet carrying Monsignor Dozier touched down at Memphis ~and within minutes he was wading into the midst of his welcoming party, apolo~zing profusely for inconveniencing his welcomers and good-naturedly blaming the Wright Brothers for the whole mess...
...The bishop maintained he used the sacrament in an effort to reach out and touch inactive Catholics in his diocese...
...The Austrian statesman brought peace to Europe at the expense of an unceasing war against subject nations from the Baltic to the Black Sea and he maintained peace of a sort at home by an elaborate system of domestic intrigue and espionage...
...In that respect, we will be one of a kind...
...Actually, all those who received the absolution and took communion were reminded in the printed program passed out at the liturgy that they were expected to "visit your counselor/confessor within a year as a result of general absolution...
...The relatively tiny diocese has followed the time-honored trends in many more areas than it has pioneered...
...It has a Catholic schools department...
...Another new unit established in the diocese and now "searching for identity" from the standpoint of a name and detailed course of action is a theological think tank under the direction of Sister Frances Belmonte, a theologian...
...The news media zeroed in on only one aspect of the general absolutionmthat it was given to divorced and remarried Catholics as a sort of "free ticket" to reenter the full sacramental life of their church without confessing their sins to a priest and then setting their marriage situations in line with canon law...
...I saw in that revised rite and the doors it opened for the use of general absolution a beautiful way for the church to reach out and invite these inactive Catholics back," the bishop said...
...And that's precisely what Bishop Carroll T. Dozier apparently had in mind last July when he launched his reconciliation crusade--to make the people of his diocese second to none in the grace of God...
...In fact, he's usually early...
...Whe diocese already has helped to set up a 'Poor Peoples Health Clinic' there (Rossville) and I hope to move some volunteer teams in there right off to visit sick people, handle youth ~inistry and teach religion and do many other physical things to make their lot out there better...
...There is a 21 ~ 1977...
...It is a diocesan "peace corps" ,aimed at inducting teenagers and young adults recently graduated from high school or college...
...Although he did not dispute the bishop's decision to grant general absolution in the manner he did, the archbishop indicated that he would go the route of individual confessions...
...But the program in Pueblo is open only to college graduates...
...a training program for the permanent diaconate...
...Fayette County, adjacent to Shelby County in which the City of Memphis is located, has been rated by the federal government as one of the ten poorest counties in the nation...
...a liturgy department, and other vitally necessary but hardly innovative agencies...
...provide you do not grumble that I blunt Saint Michael's sword, lay not all my cards upon your table, refusing me, accusing me that I, I only ape humility, in pride but feigning to be humble...
...So we are certain the same welcome mat will be spread for the 'peace corps' volunteers when they move into those areas...
Vol. 104 • January 1977 • No. 2
