Correspondence: Readers respond to David O'Brien
Strangest views I'm baffled as to why both Robert Bar-ron and the reviewer of his The Strangest Way, Robert Imbelli ("Needed: Mysticism & Method," February 14), need to mar what seem like otherwise...
...church fade away, but unless there is systemic change by the hierarchy, I fear it will...
...In the United States today, we are so threatened by corporate greed, war, religious fanaticism, flawed criminal justice, damaged education, health-care, and welfare systems, and rampant consumerism, that I wonder why I would turn my attention from the real-world ills of society and focus on the reform of the American hierarchy...
...As co-director of Call to Action I would like to point out that we, in addition to Voice of the Faithful, have been organizing Catholics to respond to this crisis for more than a year...
...2. Is there a template for the structure and responsibilities of parish councils, or do they differ from diocese to diocese, parish to parish...
...One factor that substantially contributed to the crisis is the pattern of secrecy in the governance of dioceses...
...No Catholic hospital, doctor, or institution can administer contraceptives...
...We all know where the power is, and we all know we don't have any of it...
...I have been nurtured by the church and am grateful to it...
...As a priest, I feel my authority and ministry are enhanced, not impaired, by this partnership with the rest of the baptized...
...Call to action I read with much enthusiasm David O'Brien's passionate call for Catholics to organize in response to the tragic sexual-abuse scandal...
...Giving real decision-making power to anyone but the ordinary of the diocese seems to be one of those "radical" ideas...
...For years, we have had to listen to Catholic bashing at lunch tables, country clubs, and bars...
...BARBARA KANE PILLIOD Niskayuna, N.Y...
...We have so very much to offer each other...
...There is no conflict in their faith, love and respect for them...
...They expect them to have wives and families, mistresses, and lovers...
...Unfortunately it seems that as soon as one calls for real change that doesn't come from the hierarchy one is considered a "radical," and that makes it difficult for the "moderates" to be "seen" in public with us...
...Standing up I read "How to Solve the Church Crisis" at least twice in an attempt to understand why David O'Brien would start out by calling Catholics in America "ordinary" and then ask us to take up the cause of the church to help solve its current crisis...
...The Episcopal Church, together with most of its sisters in the Anglican Communion, enjoys all of these reforms...
...Why such fear of a slippery slope toward "Unitarianism" if the Roman Church opens itself to lay participation in its governance, full disclosure of its finances, and the ordination of married persons and women...
...Do lay people have any authority of their own if bishops and pastors reserve it all to themselves...
...MICHAEL E. LEE South Bend, Ind...
...And I sincerely hope that other readers of Commonweal are doing the same...
...If Bergson's "Catholicness" was the result of his thought expressed in Time and Free Will, Matter and Memory, Creative Evolution (all put on the Index at the start of the last century), and The Two Sources of Morality and Religion, then he might yet have an impact on Catholic theology which is still expressed in Aristotelian terminology (adopted by Aquinas)-especially on the doctrine of transubstantiation...
...Strangest views I'm baffled as to why both Robert Bar-ron and the reviewer of his The Strangest Way, Robert Imbelli ("Needed: Mysticism & Method," February 14), need to mar what seem like otherwise fine works with the trite caricature of Vatican II as a capitulation to the evils of modernism (not that one can discern any differentiation in Im-belli's review between modernity and its excesses...
...I am going to think about what kind of a Catholic I am...
...But lay people do participate in and must approve the election of their bishop and the call of their priest...
...At least here in North America and also in Western Europe...
...It's about French philosopher Henri Berg-son (1859-1941), a Jew...
...SHEILA DALEY Chicago, III...
...I am one of the "ordinary Catholics" alluded to and I recommend to O'Brien and others the action I am taking: having read the superb book review by Robert Imbelli of Robert Barron's The Strangest Way that appeared in the same issue, I am going to buy that book...
...It is Vatican pronouncements, some of which forbid even talking about certain changes in church practice, that have created a culture of fear and silence that makes those of us who do speak out appear to be a radical minority...
...The church's response...
...Our bishops and pastors are selected through a process combining lay and clerical democracy with episcopal oversight and consent...
...No Unitarianism here As an Episcopal priest who counts himself a Catholic, albeit Anglican, not Roman, I read with great interest David O'Brien's "How to Solve the Church Crisis...
...There are now more than 600 people in eighty-seven dioceses seeking to have such a public accounting given to the Catholic people...
...When I look at the significant percentage of its members who are religious professionals in the Catholic Church, and all the people they may influence, I suspect they are closer to the center than he imagines...
...Two questions come to mind: 1. From whom do parish councils derive their authority...
...O'Brien's suggestions are excellent...
...If the hierarchy in the United States will stand up and say we need our married priests back, we need to tap into our wholesome, holy men and women, re-ordain or ordain them to serve in many different ways in order to lead the church back to its rightful place in American society, then we "ordinary" Catholics will act and act decisively...
...REV...
...We have had to answer for inane pronouncements from the hierarchy that we cannot, in conscience, support...
...It is no wonder that everyone-from Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger to the local chancery-is terrified about calls for greater participation by the laity...
...Certainly the conciliar theologians freed Aquinas from the strictures of neo-Scholasticism...
...This seems to be a very big sticking point for Rome...
...likewise, the structure of liturgy and sacraments...
...There are many avenues for mutual review of policies and performance between bishops and priests, priests and laity...
...most Catholics accept the fact that priests are men...
...These are different kinds of legitimate power, making trust and dialogue difficult...
...Study parish councils Would you consider running an article on parish councils as a follow-up to David O'Brien's piece...
...Decades ago religious men and women jumped freely into new and creative ministries in concert with permissive bishops...
...Call from the center In response to David O'Brien's call for "shared responsibility": it is difficult to see how any significant reform of the Catholic Church will take place as long as all the structures of lay and priestly participation are solely advisory, and the bishops of a country cannot even effectively discipline their own peers...
...geraldine ethen Portland, Oreg...
...KENNETH SMITS, O.F.M...
...It just wasn't the right time to dissociate himself from the Jews...
...However, we know that Call to Action members are the people in the parishes, parents, grandparents, graduates of Catholic universities, parish council members, and more...
...I'm not impressed by O'Brien's characterization of Call to Action as being on the left...
...Anglican polity is far from perfect, but it is also far from Unitarian-or even congregational...
...In his will (1938) he declared that his thoughts (mes reflexions) led him morally to assent (adhesion morale) to Catholicism, seeing it as the complete fulfillment (I'achevement complet) of Judaism...
...Madison, Wis...
...Early on, many "moderates" were calling for more lay involvement in church decision making...
...If not careful, they may find themselves hoisted by their own methodological petard...
...It is time for lay people to take responsibility for making them so...
...We do not "vote" on matters of doctrine or dogma (these are determined by the bishops in collegial deliberation...
...Barron and Imbelli would do well to reexam-ine the mysticism in figures such as Karl Rahner, Thomas Merton, and Oscar Romero, to name a few of the modern mystics...
...The pastor...
...It's a different world in the United States today and it needs a different Catholic Church...
...And this in the name of Jesus Christ, who had no power...
...How can ordinary Catholics who minister to others in health-care and social agencies respond to such pronouncements...
...As to religious men and women, it is important to remember that they represent the only significant democratic structure in the Roman Catholic Church: they elect their own superiors and mostly govern their life collectively...
...I believe many bishops (unfortunately, not all) are open to working with Catholics who share their concern for the church and the protection of our children...
...Call to Action has been working on the first (truthfulness) for several months, calling on each diocese to give a full report of the history of clergy sexual abuse, including the number and disposition of complaints, costs, and numbers of priests accused...
...kathleen kelly Syracuse, N.Y...
...the religious see the bishops as a group with no elective constituency...
...Call to Action has not moved to the margins of our church...
...This movement is organized and has a collective voice, which is no small accomplishment, but no real power in the church, of course...
...Were it not, he went on to say, for the Nazi persecution of the Jews, he would have become a Catholic publicly...
...Similarly, while there may have been some mistakes in the pastoral applications following Vatican II, it is erroneous to vilify the council with absurd cliches that it viewed confession as manifesting "lack of self-esteem" or that it ignored earlier sources in the tradition...
...They often say that in Europe, especially in Italy...
...I live in an American society that is the most diverse it's ever been and extraordinary in its current state of indecision and lack of leadership, so much so that keeping my faith in America as well as in the Catholic Church takes a lot of courage...
...This would involve a real sharing of power in a church that has invested enormous energy in building up a system of hierarchy in which all power flows to the top...
...If we want to solve the church crisis, the hierarchy needs to turn outward and have the courage to say its system is no longer relevant...
...JOHN L. MCCAUSLAND Weare, N.H...
...I am going to continue my search for a deeper spirituality and closeness to God...
...We "ordinary" Catholics stand up for our faith and the church every day...
...The congregation...
...Some Catholics said that Bergson's declaration did not constitute baptism of desire...
...The responsible critique of modernity should not only criticize its faults, but recognize its contributions- among them, the values of freedom, democracy, and human rights...
...As for method, critics who dismiss the postconciliar period as a "Carte-sianizing of Catholicism" that is "relatively bland and domesticated" Christianity may discover their own selective appreciation for the church's history turned on them, earning for themselves the title "dissident Catholics...
...Strange but true The stridency of articles such as "How to Solve the Church Crisis" by David O'Brien (February 14) is beginning to bother me...
...I do not want to see the U.S...
...I am convinced that Bergson's contribution to philosophy has the potential of making theology much more relevant, and, yes, more attractive...
...I pray that some day our two communions may achieve full mutual recognition of ministry and sacraments...
...How do we deal with them in light of the revelations about so much sexual abuse of children, young men, and young women by priests we once respected...
...The church may then take a new position in America's diverse society, speak to the "real-world" issues from well-grounded Catholic principles of charity, justice, and mercy, and become relevant once again...
...Vatican II sprang from the retrieval of sources that makes Barron's work even possible...
...The writer is co-director of Call to Action...
...Bergson's intuition This is a footnote to your "Judaism & Christianity" issue (January 31...
...If they differ, such an article should describe two or more versions, so that we ordinary Catholics can have a correct sense of our entree into the system, where lay authority lies (if it exists at all), and what canon law has to say about parish councils...
...It is only with this data that we will be able to do the analysis that may enable us to understand fully why and how this crisis reached such appalling proportions...
...Others, refusing to see baptism as an absolute necessity, thought otherwise...
...Now dioceses are in "draw-down" mode, emphasizing safe and orthodox ministries, never mind their effectiveness...
...The bishop...
...I say, "Physician, heal thyself...
...My European friends often chide us American Catholics for putting priests and bishops on a pedestal...
...Dioceses and parishes must publish audited financial statements and elect their lay officers...
...jean barriere Montreal, Quebec...
...Children and young women around the world are those most threatened by aids, and without protected sex, more of our young people will die...
...Still, there are, as David O'Brien suggests, structures that could be made more effective: "diocesan and parish pastoral councils, finance committees, presbyteral councils and religious senates...
...So religious, in their own "draw-down" mode, reach out to church and society relatively independent of diocesan structures, as one would expect of a democratic group...
...When bishops and religious superiors meet, the bishops see the religious as a group with no episcopal power...
Vol. 130 • March 2003 • No. 5
