Cloud over St. Cloud
Spaeth, Robert L.
of the church could be forgiven for not being impressed, for intention to intervene in the Hunthausen case. But most Catho- wondering, in fact, what exactly the bishops had done. lics...
...The lawyerly State University (St...
...Cloud diocese...
...McNeill was informed by his superiors that Cardi- tions" of homophobes on the victims of that violence nal Ratzinger forbade him to pursue any ministry what- because they have had the effrontery to seek for justice soever...
...publicly or as a psychotherapist...
...The following are excerpts from McNcill's community I love and respect, which has been my family, November 2 statement in response to the Vatican docu- my security, and my life for the past forty years .. . ment: "I shall remain a loyal member of the Catholic church "Ten years ago I agreed to the directive from the and continue to play out my role of critical lover and Vatican, partially silencing me, because l thought that my loving critic...
...I cannot continue to be silent in the face of this approved of McNeill's continuing his therapeutic work -- evil...
...On this occasion, the document on the use of general absolution-one of the issues bishops, regrettably, chose to forgo the challenge...
...But what were the issues...
...The and theircivil rights, the Vatican betrays a mean and cruel alternative was dismissal from the Jesuits...
...The bishops, then, preferred credibility in Rome to credibilNonetheless, in a dozen ways, large and small, a sizable ity among those who had hoped for a brave, or at least a majority at the Washington meeting reaffirmed the direction clarifying, word about the Hunthausen case...
...It is widely acknowl- archbishop...
...First, he published a Vatican's proceedings had to be deleted...
...Dorn, turned the ratchet another notch...
...Bishop Malone's warning of grow- church is otherwise nil have instinctively realized...
...Bishop the full body of bishops, two references to the justice of the George Speltz reacted in two phases...
...How much of a bishop's energy hausen was too much to be expected, there were still a multishould go into enforcing rules and patrolling the boundaries plicity of concerns that could have been given prominence in the rather than making a common faith pervasive through teaching statement without frontally questioning the Vatican's jurisdicand dialogue...
...If I do nothing, people will think the The bishop and the priest were also at odds over one senchurch's teaching has changed...
...name, it was in fact largely a draft hammered out in a meeting of the administrative board-without, by the way, giving WHEN Father William Dorn, a member of the pastoral Archbishop Hunthausen any hearing or considering the re- staff of Christ Church Newman Center at St...
...being :'callous" to the risk to the Lives of our gay brothers following an address he gave on freedom and conscience and sisters because of the AIDS crisis, and finally, when to the national convention of Dignity, a Catholic gay they lay the blame for the "irrational and violent reacgroup...
...A RESPONSE TO THE VATICAN Further...
...Evidence soon accumulated tence in Dorn's article that particularly irritated Speltz...
...The more sophisti- reprimand...
...Ministry to homosexuals By all accounts, the closed-door debate was exceptionally frank, even heated...
...McNeill complied...
...Before this spirit that is in conflict with both the spirit and letter of the issue could be resolved - the Jesuit Father General had Gospels...
...many other dioceses rather than the direction of the critics...
...Nonetheless, the many disappointbad graces of Rome were the kinds of questions that constitute ing aspects of this statement cannot be brushed aside...
...I had hoped that my Spirit in matters concerning homosexual persons in parsilence would lead to a dialogue between the gay Catholic ticular and sexuality in general...
...The appaing disaffection from Rome was equally significant...
...No one in the controversy had among Catholics in the St...
...supporters resolved the question by supporters of the bishop and those who disagree with him appealing to episcopal authority...
...For it is precisely when choose between candidates representing continuity with the one genuine religious authority appears to be in conflict with current direction of the conference and candidates identified another that the teaching responsibility of bishops becomes with the Roman "crackdown," the former won...
...A restrictive most important and most challenging...
...Ten years later, I see the church refusing all dialogue JOHN 1. McNEILL...
...In the September 18 issue of the Saint Cloud cated.media reports stressed the bishops' disclaimer of any Visitor," the bishop said, "positions were taken on the matter Commonweal: 646 of homosexuality which contradict the clear and definitive his responsibility to protect authentic church teaching in his teachings of the Catholic church...
...That is what millions of Catholics ried to last year's extraordinary synod: the American church is and non- Catholics whose interest in the internal politics of the "fundamentally sound...
...They looked to were matched with votes...
...lics were only taking the statement at face value if they read it The problem is that the bishops offered not one but two as largely concurring in the action taken against Seattle's responses to the situation facing them...
...bishop for his "firm and courageous stand" in a "social and Bishop Speltz evidently believed that the case exemplified cultural climate where freedom will suffer few constraints on and making its homophobic attitude the basis of its public NO TIME FOR SILENCE policy...
...Did this statement, as the of objections by the Newman Centerparish council...
...ity...
...What presented itself as a "neutral" trol...
...when I felt I had to act...
...CLOUD lic people-was something else...
...For the truth is, as David Tracy recently noted, that the archThis response was signaled in Bishop James Malone's presi- bishop of Seattle in his pastoral actions has come to embody a dential address, when he repeated the conclusion he had car- genuine religious authority...
...Collegiality further debate about those norms...
...Issued in Bishop Malone's WHAT ARE THE ISSUES...
...The Dorn bishop had implied, "contradict the clear and definitive teachaffair quickly became a prominent topic of conversation ings of the Catholic church...
...to gays...
...But most Cathowondering, in fact, what exactly the bishops had done...
...at stake in the Hunthausen case- was sent back to committee...
...It wasn't at all obvious...
...But Dorn did not agree...
...counselor to homosexuals and their families, are not equivaA small flurry of protest followed upon Bishop Speltz's lent to claiming that "the church should approve of action, which he justified by saying, "The time had come [homosexual] genital sex...
...Certainly they were working in the midst of in degree...
...It sent a message which cannot be lost on Rome...
...Instead, all prominence was given to effusions of about established church norms-indeed, might encourage papal loyalty and defenses of Vatican procedures...
...The message sent to the public-and to the American Catho- CLOUD OVER ST...
...Dorn belongs to the Dorn claimed that his own opinions as well as his activities as a Crookston, Minnesota, diocese...
...It statement on ''The Pastoral Care of Homosexual Per- is painful to me at my age to risk separation from a sons...
...Or to put it which embraces Hunthausen's pastoral leadership and that of another way, the bishops preferred diplomacy over authority...
...5 December 1986: 647...
...If a the bread-and-butter pastoral decision making of bishops straightforward statement of support for Archbishop Huntthroughout the country...
...A week later, the bishop diocese and a legitimate use of his authority over priests...
...Both The bishop and his...
...he fired Father Dorn from his the bishop said, had been disagreeing with the church's views ministry at the Newman Center and rescinded Dorn's status as on homosexuality for over a year...
...a guest priest in the St...
...When they A DECADE AGO, after the publication of The Church assert that homosexual orientation is an 'objective disorand the Homo exual by John J. McNeill, S.J., the der' without taking into account all the scientific evidence Vatican withdrew the irnprimi potest (permission to pub- that calls that .judgment into question, when they accuse lish) and ordered McNeill to remain silent on the issue of all of us who have sought civil justice for gay people as homosexuality and ethics...
...Cloud, Minnesota), wrote an reader might note how this statement fell short of unqualified article for the diocesan newpaper on the question, "How endorsement of Rome's action: in truth, to get the approval of Should the Church Minister to Homosexuals...
...the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued its "In my heart and soul I will always be a Jesuit priest...
...not even when the issues are posed in this general form...
...Every time the bishops had to their bishops for help and guidance...
...Words genuine crisis in the hearts of many Catholics...
...Last year...
...Above all else, I urge community and the church and to an open reexamination my gay brothers and sisters to continue to work fearlessly of traditional attitudes in the church toward homosexual- within the church fur true justice and understanding...
...We that many people were upset by theibishop's decision, includ- have a responsibilty," Dorn had written, "to develop a theoling a public rally held at St...
...Cloud area...
...been able satisfactorily to answer that question either...
...Fred Hughes, a prominent could choose among three contentious areas: a bishop's re- Catholic layman, noting that the "exercise of authority is sponsibilty and authority, homosexuality and the church, and seldom an easy responsibility," publicly congratulated the the role of the Catholic press...
...edged by now that Hunthausen's leadership in Seattle, if it "It was the best we could do," explained many bishops, differed at all from that of many other dioceses, differed only and maybe so...
...Cloud, ogy of sexuality that sees sexuality as blessing and understands newspaper columns and letters-to-the-editors, and a statement homosexuality to be part of the gift...
...The matters that had brought the archbishop into the numerous cross-currents...
...I see the Congregation's recent statement as going far beyond any legitimate affirmation of religious or moral concern about homosexual activity...
...Should one risk gestures of compassion and tion or denying the bishops' very real solidarity with the inclusion even when they might contribute to uncertainty pontiff...
...Mary's Cathedral in St...
...statement, disclaiming any authority or ability to judge the Obviously, the American bishops are not all of one mind, case at hand, actually was a rhetorically one-sided affair...
...seeking dialogue, a rebirth of compassion, obedience was the best way to show my love for both my and a fearless search for the truth with the help of the Holy church and the gay community...
...so, too, rent hostility of an established authority, Rome, to this relihis insistence that repressing painful questions only under- giously compelling form of pastoral leadership has created a mines the church's plausibility if not its very vitality...
...Cloud sponses he had written to the Vatican's charges...
...Finally, the conservative pressures to keep the Vatican's action against Hunthausen off the agenda entirely were resisted...
...Although Archbishop Hunthausen's documents dioceses, especially outside of the old urban centers of immi- had raised extremely pointed questions about the accuracy and grant Catholicism, a sound model for the future, or is it a fairness of Vatican proceedings, none of these were even symptom, as critics would have it, of a church "out of con- vaguely acknowledged...
...Is the consultative, rela- was honored, if at all, as a platonic idea without institutional tively permissive pastoral style that has emerged in many realization...
Vol. 113 • December 1986 • No. 21
