Correspondence: Priests & celibacy
:,ygff5g~;x;~..f^.ty~l4k'if.. e!t3~8t5P.12:~R.;~kts3~M. eau^.Rs.;Be.NiNiTnl:Pa;~»?P',ik.RY3iAi:dt4R&~k~.}4LT4.:.ncR3t+1 uufi.+3~:.nnTiAh~`f!+,::,i3?:d,9u:u"i£AL'Ct!;n Rethinking...
...FRANCIS X. MEEHAN West Chester, Pa...
...In this issue, the balloons floated seemed to be all of one color...
...By what "right" and in what circumstances should a priest "really" deny Communion to anyone...
...but it was derisive in tone: "Ah, says my purple-buttoned interrogator, But the priesthood is a marriage to Jesus...
...I find it telling that, while many of the ordained speak routinely about denying lay people Communion for engaging in legitimate discussions of difficult moral issues, few Commonweal 3 6 August 13, 2004 seem eager to deny certain highly placed ordained the "right" to preside among the baptized, despite the serious damage many bishops and priests have caused through their negligence and self-interest...
...That's what makes you you...
...This language leaves rights in the dust...
...Many young Catholics" may consider it settled: from all re-ports, the great majority simply ignore Humanae vitae, if they have even heard of it...
...Contraception is about the best answer we have to abortion, and it solves the problem of what you call "the tragedy of unwanted pregnancy...
...Alas, in a classical missed opportunity, McGowan declared that (Continued on page 36) In keeping with Commonweal's usual schedule, only one issue is published each month during July and August...
...We seek a colleague who has an interest in contributing through teaching and research to our Catholic Studies program in a manner that engages issues of justice and culture in a diverse society...
...Andrew Greeley would be pleased with such an imagination...
...Nor is it a reflexive embrace of the faith of one's fathers, the idealization of heritage...
...But I cannot help but hope that Commonweal will maintain its lively tradition of critical reflection...
...I want to take issue with Hagen 's drafting of "young Catholics" to his cause...
...And God knows we priests thirst for the wisdom of the elders in our midst...
...Thomas continues to develop outstanding region-ally and nationally recognized academic programs and support services as it strength-ens its ties to the local community, particularly the vibrant and ethnically diverse cities of Minneapolis and St...
...This is much more than another Irish-Catholic kitchen-sink drama in which religion and tradition are merely handy devices to advance the plot but bear little weight of their own...
...Harry Byrne has clearly experienced the loveof his people...
...He told us once that he would like to share more with us, but it is not possible because of security reasons...
...Human history seems to suspect something good can happen to men and women where the discipline is engaged with sincerity...
...Msgr...
...DONALD COZZENS Cleveland, Ohio The gift of celibacy The three articles on celibacy in your July 16 issue were provocative, interesting, but, in the end, disappointing...
...The danger of abuse is obvious...
...When we do not hear from him, we know that it is because he is either engaged in combat or on a mission—or because some-one in his unit has been killed...
...Reducing abortions You say that "abortion is an especially complex legal and political issue," but you ask John Kerry to stick his neck out and criticize abortion practice and take steps "to reduce the number of abortions" ("Kerry, the Catholic," June 18...
...A chemo drip is "the sound of chemically altered holy water, washing away the sin of my cancer...
...Faculty In-Service...
...SCHWADRONCORRESPONDENCE (Continued from page 4) she was also ashamed to be an American...
...Discounts 5 percent, 3 times...
...and yet one wonders if any real discussion can take place in a Western world that has little patience for "mysteries hidden...
...JOHN GARVEY Young Catholics John Hagen claims that Leslie Tentler is stuck in the 1960s in her opposition to church teaching on contraception ("Humanae Vitae's Legacy," June 4.) According to Hagen, "many young Catholics," persuaded by "the 'theology of the body' lucidly articulated by Pope John Paul II," have moved on...
...The author replies: The language of rights (like the language of choice) has become so pervasive that it's hard to see how inadequate it is, especially where it is applied to the things that matter most...
...Not that Riley had said any of these things...
...Bonaventure priest who performed our wedding ceremony, a man who brings refreshing vigor to the cliche of living one's faith, my trusted spiritual guide...
...Communion rights...
...Rather than railing at, and rejecting, the church—and taking satisfaction in recounting such a meager victory—he wrestles with God and learns from the struggle, and by doing so seems to find strength, or at least a way to move ahead: "I raged on through the days and weeks," he writes of his cancer gauntlet, and continues: Gradually, though, fear displaced rage...
...REV...
...Paul...
...I want to meet this man...
...10 per-cent, 6 times...
...Symeon says of Communion, "I who am straw partake of fire...and am not burned, as the bush burned of old without being consumed...
...In Barry's hands, free-throw shooting becomes a devotion—complete with "decades" and supplications to the Almighty—and baseball becomes a liturgy...
...Yet I had shouted at him that I didn't want to hear any more about the crosses we must bear, or that God gave me this burden because He knew I could handle it, or that I should prepare for the possibility of meeting my maker before Nora graduates from kindergarten...
...Visit www.sacredartwork.com Books I Publications BECOME A PUBLISHED AUTHOR...
...He reports that "[a] recent theology of the body seminar in the Twin Cities attracted more than a thousand people...
...But this fact just supports Tentler's thesis that the legacy of Humanae vitae has been the alienation of the laity from the institutional church, which is reason not to forget this en-cyclical, but to take it up again: Perhaps Hagen would reply that young Catholics who deeply care Ecclesiastical Art RARE, ORIGINAL ECCLESIASTICAL ART—Custom-order a hard-to-find saint...
...REV...
...JAMES E. SULLIVAN Whitestone, N.Y...
...Mc-Gowan might have used the occasion to teach that there is nothing American about torture and that we should be ashamed of those who betray America's trust, not of ourselves as Americans...
...Paul, MN 55105...
...Hagen be-gins by quoting Christopher Ruddy's lament concerning some older theologians "whose intellectual clocks stopped in 1968 with the ecclesiastical politics of Humanae vitae," and presents Ruddy as challenging "this oldercohort of Catholic academics to desist from endlessly 'fighting the old battles' [Ruddy's words] and reciting the old grievances...
...C L A S S I F I E D RATES: $1.20 per word...
...The early church denied Communion for a period of time to those who had killed, even in self-defense...
...clergy...
...At thirty-one, I qualify as young in Catholic circles...
...Advance payment required...
...His honesty about his own struggles to re-main celibate and the loneliness it en-tailed reflects my own personal experience and that of almost five hundred priests whom I counseled during my twenty-six years at a counseling center in the Diocese of Brooklyn...
...The University of St...
...and, as the exchange between Hagen and Tentler demonstrates, it is not settled today...
...I am astonished that Garvey would make such an unqualified statement...
...For centuries the Eastern Church has insisted that its bishops be celibate...
...Need contraception be "a radical attack upon what God joined together in man-womanhood...
...Dynamic Creative Preaching PARISH MISSIONS, RETREATS FOR RELIGIOUS...
...Byrne rightly questions the Vatican's imposition of such an onerous burden on good young men simply because they generously want to serve God and the faithful in the priesthood...
...THOMAS F. MADER Walnut Creek, Calif...
...eau^.Rs.;Be.NiNiTnl:Pa;~»?P',ik.RY3iAi:dt4R&~k~.}4LT4.:.ncR3t+1 uufi.+3~:.nnTiAh~`f!+,::,i3?:d,9u:u"i£AL'Ct!;n Rethinking celibacy Congratulations on your fine issue on priests (July 16), especially the honest and insightful article by Msgr...
...As a result, he and many of his fellow soldiers are unable to engage in a meaningful dialog with the outside world about the war, world affairs, or even the upcoming election...
...Quality subsidy publisher accepting manuscripts...
...Who knows the subtle gradations of that spiritual attraction experienced at so many levels...
...Send letter of interest (refer to position #200127), resume, writing sample, evidence of teaching success, and three letters of recommendation by October 15, 2004 electronically to: www.hr.stthomas.edu or mail to: Chair of Search Committee, Mail #AQU217, 2115 Summit Ave., St...
...Young American Jo McGowan 's "In Custody" (July 16) contained an instance of hyperbole that I found particularly rankling...
...Some discussion of these phenomena is badly needed...
...BERNARD G. PRUSAK Boston, Mass...
...1-800-695-9599...
...The University of St...
...Catching up on past issues of Common-weal, I was flabbergasted to find this throwaway remark in John Garvey's usually careful column: "no one has a right to Communion, rights being a stupid category where the sacraments are concerned, and priests really should refuse Communion in some cases" ("Politics or Idolatry...
...Elder statesman Harry Byrne's essay on his fifty-nine years as a priest marks him as a true elder among the U.S...
...A Catholic and urban university, St...
...For the Vatican to keep insisting on this man-made rule, when thousands of parishes are without a single priest, is a frightful abuse of power...
...Kerry should write an article for Commonweal explaining why Humanae vitae needs to be refashioned in a hurry...
...Studies, and a commitment to student formation in extracurricular activities...
...15 percent, 12 times...
...Once his neck is loped off, where are we...
...THOMAS announces a full-time, tenure-track position in Catholic Studies to begin Fall 2005...
...WILLIAM F. DAUGHERTY San Antonio, Tex...
...Barry goes deeper than that, and perhaps be-gins to limn a new narrative for a new generation of Catholics...
...BRYAN CONES Chicago, Ill...
...There are no easy answers to any life, certainly not his...
...Applicants should demonstrate interdisciplinary competence within the liberal arts, an enthusiasm for the Roman Catholic mission of the university, interest in and a capacity for teaching under-graduate and graduate courses in Catholic about the church think differently...
...But there are Catholic heroes as well: A few days after my diagnosis, my friend the Franciscan, Dan Riley, had called to comfort me...
...REV...
...The problem with following Hagen or Ruddy here is that the "battle" about contraception is still engaged...
...Our son is also stationed in Iraq...
...I love your anger," Riley had said through his tears...
...Nowhere in the three articles does one find a reflection on what celibacy can do for the ministerial priesthood, or for the priest himself...
...I do not have a right to the love of my wife, much less the love of God or God's saving grace...
...Barry leaves plenty of mystery, as he must...
...As awful as bishops and priests can be, they should deny Communion on occasion...
...Few of our official elders—that is, our bishops—write with the honesty and candor I found in this moving article...
...My son, at war I found "My Son, the Soldier" (July 16) to be eerily familiar...
...All that is for sure is that through the sorrows of his mother's death, the terrors of his own cancer treatment, and the anguish of infertility and the travails of the adoption market, Barry emerges on the other side and generously shares his story...
...As a Roman Catholic, I must protest that access to sacraments is indeed a matter of "rights": the canonical rights of the baptized to fulfill their baptismal obligation to celebrate the liturgy and to receive Communion...
...I wonder what they made of it...
...Of course this can be abused, but so can the reception of Communion...
...405, New York, NY 10115, or e-mail copy to Malena Seldin at: circulationmgr@commonwealmagazine.org (e-mail is preferred...
...The next issue will be dated September 10...
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...www.sabbathretreats.org Catholic Studies Faculty Tenure-Track THE DEPARTMENT OF CATHOLIC STUDIES AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ST...
...PhD required...
...And while awaiting a verdict on his cancer treatment, he discerns a cross in the random pock-marks of a ceiling fan's blades...
...Harry J. Byrne about his fifty-nine years as a celibate ("One Man's Vocation...
...He is the St...
...She reports that on reading of the Abu Ghraib abuses, her daughter announced herself "ashamed to be an American...
...It was not settled in 1968...
...If I knew that someone who was coming to Communion was an unrepentant murderer, I would have no problem denying him Communion...
...The suggestion that priests should be the gatekeepers to Communion is offensive and smacks of clericalism...
...This sort of excess is to be expected of seventeen-year-olds...
...I had simply used him as a foil for God...
...for centuries, monks in every religion have cultivated celibate forms of enlightenment and renunciation...
...The only allusion to something close to this was made by Andrew Greeley ("A Priest Forever...
...David Gibson, a former reporter for the Newark Star-Ledger, is the author of The Coming Catholic Church: How the Faithful Are Shaping a New American Catholicism (HarperSanFrancisco...
...In 1970, Paul Ramsey answered this question in terms similar to the pope's, though he arrived at a different conclusion: "Where planned parenthood is not planned unparenthood, the husband and wife clearly do not tear their one-flesh unity completely away from all positive response and obedience to the mystery of procreation...
...June 4...
...Thomas is an affirmative action and equal opportunity employer...
...I confess to finding the pope's "theology of the body" much less lucid than Hagen apparently does...
...I found that during my week-day walk from Penn Station to the Times building, my whispered mutterings of God, oh God, became the softest notes among the street shouts and horn beats and gear shifts that are synthesized to create the Eighth Avenue Morning Symphony...
...Thomas seeks to develop morally responsible individuals who combine career competency with cultural awareness and intellectual curiosity...
...3-line minimum...
...Commonweal 37 August 13, 2004...
...Over the years, Commonweal has displayed a gift for puncturing both liberal and conservative balloons...
...So we wait patiently for word from him or from a "casualty assistance officer...
...SUE HINCHEE Welsh, La...
...Commonweal 4 August 13, 2004 the profoundly Catholic sensibility permeating the book...
...I do not know whether or not we should have a married priesthood right now...
...Thousands worldwide had to leave the priesthood simply because they fell in love and wanted to marry...
...Is her republican pride such a fragile thing...
...Indeed, Barry himself is an inspiring messenger, whether he intends it or not...
...Barry follows some familiar terrain in recounting the hazing rituals at his Catholic school—merciless bullying produced many a journalist—and the major and minor cruelties of priests and religious...
...These things—like the Eucharist, like my own existence—have everything to do with gift, and nothing to do with rights...
...Could it be that not only purple-buttoned monsignors, but also saints and mystics and theologians have experienced an intimacy with the Lord Jesus through the sacrificial life of celibacy...
...He is a re-porter...
...How could he not...
Vol. 131 • August 2004 • No. 14
