Evangelical Catholicism And It's Not The Veil That Makes The Nun

Sister Joan Chittester OSB

I want to return for several entries to the subject of an evangelical renewal of Religious Life.  The Vatican Report on the Religious Sisters in the United States is supposedly to be released on Tuesday and I am anxious to read what it has to say, but I am not overly hopeful that the Holy See will—or, for that matter, can—do a substantial critique of Religious Life as most of those who hold key positions, other than Pope Francis himself, are not Religious and have typically shown (as have our American bishops) a gross inability to capture the substance of the vocation to the consecrated life.  I think of Bishop Paul Loverde of Arlington, a somewhat typical American bishop—that is to say a well meaning but dense individual who has no appreciation for the limits of his own knowledge and who, in a once-hopeful ambition for higher things (The Archbishopric of Hartford) has traded his moral compass to become nothing more than a “company man.”  Now that the “company” has had a change of direction under its new pontifical leadership, the Bishop is befuddled and confused and the Church entrusted to his care is finding its wheels spinning but unable to move forward.  Tragic.  But I digress.  The Bishop remarked to some friends regarding a community of women Religious that has to withdraw from their apostolate in his diocese for lack of vocations that “everything would be fine if they only still wore veils.”  Now I think this particular community of women is dying out in great part for reasons of their own doing, but not for lack of veils.  In fact, I think the preoccupation in the pre-Conciliar Church for how veils got pinned or how the Sisters were to keep their eyes lowered left many religious congregations totally incapable of the sort of renewal to which the Council called them. 

I mentioned in previous blogs George Weigel’s vision of an Evangelical Catholicism and while I think his treatment of the renewal of Religious Life is absolutely from Planet Qo'noS or some other distant unreality produced by a mind unaccustomed to having to confront the daily challenges faced by those who belong to the working class, I do agree with his fundamental thesis that

The Catholic Church is being invited to meet the Risen Lord in the Scriptures, the Sacraments, and Prayer and to make friendship with him the center of Catholic life. Every Catholic has received this invitation in Baptism, the invitation to accept the Great Commission, to act as evangelists and to measure the truth of Catholic life by the way in which Catholics give expression to the human decency and solidarity that flows from friendship with Christ the Lord.

 From which thesis I have drawn the following principles to look at Religious Life.

1.   The Religious vocation, like all other vocations in the Church is rooted in the baptismal vocation common to all Christians.

2.    Therefor all Religious, of whatever tradition they belong, are called to participate in the evangelizing mission of the Church

3.    The authenticity and power of the Gospel to which they bear witness will be dependent on their integrity as human persons (human decency)

4.    Their integrity, in turn, flows from their friendship with Christ

5.    This friendship with the Risen Lord is nourished by an immersion in the scriptures

6.    This friendship with the Risen Lord is nourished by a rich sacramental life

7.    This friendship with the Risen Lord is sustained by a life of deep personal prayer

8.    This friendship with the Risen Lord will bring us into a profound solidarity with the least of his sisters and brothers.  

We have discussed the first three of these principles in an earlier blog; let’s look at the fourth, which by the way, I consider key.  Sister Joan Chittester in her book The Fire in These Ashes which concerns the renewal of Religious Life writes that there is one reason and one reason only to come to Religious Life and that is to find God.  A friend of mine, himself a Religious and a Professor at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome, expanded on this and said in a homily: “There is only one reason to come to Religious Life and that is to Find God through the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”  To me this is spot on and I think it is what Weigel means by “to make friendship with Christ.”  It is great to want to be a missionary or to teach children or to nurse the sick or to work with the poor but these are not reasons to enter Religious Life.  And the problem with many of the communities founded in the 19^th and 20^th centuries is they copied the trappings of the monastic vocation—habits and choral prayer and kissing one’s scapular when begging pardon—but not the essence of the monastic vocation which is the solitude of the heart in search for God.   Many of these communities, both of men and women, have great pieties but no spirituality at their foundation.  The particular group of Sisters to which Bishop Loverde was referring run a retreat center where they have for years triaged the spiritually ill and comforted them with palliative care but not given them the health of a mature and genuine spirituality.  And they couldn’t because, while several of the individual sisters had discovered the spiritual life, their Congregation itself never understood the substance of Spirituality proper to their particular identity.  In fact many Religious today have nothing more to offer than the milk and cookies of the Spiritual Life.  That must change if Religious Life is to survive.       

I have to say that I am not impressed by most American Religious today.  On the one hand you get the mascara-wearing latte-sippers like Sister Sara Marks who was written about in the article that triggered this series.  On the other hand you get groups like the Friars of the Renewal or the Franciscans of the Immaculate or the Sisters of Life which groups revert back to that model where the religious are so different from the rest of the Church that they cannot effectively serve as witnesses to the universal call to holiness.  On the one hand, in a world that needs the witness of community, we don’t need Religious living individually in apartments—we need the example of people who are struggling to live in an intimate communion with one another despite the individual differences and preferences that we all have.  We need people who choose to live together in charity and to work out their differences and conflicts in mutual respect with one another so that there is an example for families—and by families I mean all the arrangements of human persons that designate themselves as families—that some sort of communal life is not only possible but an attractive alternative to the isolation of our modern culture.  In this secularized world we need examples of men and women who are educated and intelligent and professional who still gather for prayer and consider such a gathering the most important time of their day.  In a world of crass consumerism we need the challenge provided by men and women who have what they need to live with dignity and self-respect and to accomplish the work entrusted to them but who aren’t out to have the latest and the newest and the most costly of everything.

At the same time, we need to have men and women who embrace a simple life freely and whose lack of life’s frivolities are their own mature choices and not because someone else has determined what they need and what they don’t need.   We need mature men and women who can make sound decisions for themselves in in how best to serve God and his kingdom and not be at the whim and prejudice of a “superior.”    We need a Religious Life that brings out maturity in its members, demands of them a responsibility for their choices and actions, and permits them to respond to the graces that God has given them individually and not expect them to conform to some cookie-cutter “ideal” that a founder or a bishop has/had for them.  A mature spirituality will evoke this psychological autonomy  balanced with a free desire for self-emptying (kenosis) from Religious that will enable them to serve as examples of mature Christian discipleship.  I admire the enthusiasm of the various new congregations that are springing up; they are a welcome breath of spring after the burned out and tired old souls who no longer have the passion for radical commitment but I at the same time I am afraid that the enthusiasm will shortly be quenched by unhealthy structures of power copied from pre-conciliar days and a lack of roots due to the shallow pieties that characterize the devotional life of these new communities.  A genuine renewal of Religious Life will find a via media that will both provide a depth of the Spiritual Life and a psychologically healthy model for communal living.  To be cont.  

Joe Biden, Pope Francis, and the Communion Kerfuffle

Well, now the fuss is that Vice President Biden and Democratic House Minority leader, Pelosi received Holy Communion at the Mass inaugurating the Petrine Ministry of Pope Francis.  Did you honestly think that they wouldn’t?  As for whether they should or not, it isn’t my business to make a judgment call.  I am not sure it is the business of all those who have an opinion on the matter either. 
I was living in Rome during the funeral of Pope John Paul II and the inaugural Mass of Pope Benedict XVI and was working for the BBC and several other networks as a consultant.  As such I had access to a wide variety of sources of information.  Moreover, in the circle of friends and acquaintances with whom I had dinner or went to the beach or spent weekends in the Tuscan countryside were any number of low and medium level Vatican “officials.”  An inveterate gossip, I learned not to give opinions but only to ask questions with a faux innocence that opened the dams of behind-the-scenes information.  I found out, among other things, that the priests giving Holy Communion at the Masses for the funeral of John Paul and the installation of Benedict were instructed not to refuse anyone Holy Communion.  This instruction was especially reinforced for those in the diplomatic section and the sections where special guests were being seated.  This meant that not only were dubious politicians of various nationalities to be given Holy Communion but non-Catholics as well.  In fact, Cardinal Ratzinger/Pope Benedict gave Holy Communion to Prior Roger Schutz, the Calvinist prior of the Ecumenical Community of Taizé.   Of course precedents had been set when Pope John Paul had given Holy Communion to Tony Blair—at the time not only a pro-choice politician but an Anglican—at a Mass with the Blair family in the Pope’s private chapel.
As prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Ratzinger had written a letter to the American Bishops supporting the policy that pro-choice politicians should be denied Holy Communion.  Cardinal McCarrick managed to deflect the letter, not releasing it but only summarizing it in remarks to the Bishops at their semi-annual meeting.   McCarrick and Ratzinger were not on friendly terms, at least after that.  McCarrick allegedly led the American Cardinals in the 2005 conclave in an unsuccessful alliance with the Germans to evade a Ratzinger papacy.  Cardinal McCarrick’s resignation, offered on his 75^th birthday, was immediately accepted by Pope Benedict unlike the resignation of most other Cardinals who were invited to stay on for several years.  Was McCarrick’s refusal to implement canon 915 the reason for Benedict’s quick acceptance?  The Holy Father could have removed the Cardinal from his see earlier, of course, but that would have been a too obvious rebuke. Nevertheless, had Benedict wanted canon 915 to be enforced he would not have appointed Donald Wuerl to the Washington See as Wuerl, when Bishop of Pittsburgh, had made it very clear that he was not going to refuse Holy Communion to anyone, even those politicians who supported abortion or euthanasia.  Wuerl’s removing the faculties of Father Marcel Guarnizo, a priest of the Archdiocese of Moscow working in the Washington Archdiocese, for Guarnizo’s having refused an acknowledged Lesbian communion, was a clear sign that in his Archdiocese ministers are not to take it upon themselves to decide who may and may  not receive Holy Communion.  We all know where Wuerl stands on this issue. 
Pope Benedict had not found it in his agenda to remove Cardinal Wuerl or, for that matter, Bishop Loverde of Arlington, from their sees for refusing to implement canon 915.  Bishop Loverde has somewhat flown under the radar on this issue while it is likely that more Democratic politicians live in his diocese than in the Archdiocese of Washington.  Loverde is a very gentle and pastoral man—perhaps too gentle with his priests who are often in rebellion against his authority for his being “too liberal.”  Moreover, priest friends of mine in the Washington chancery have claimed that both Wuerl and Loverde are under instructions from Rome not to make this matter of Holy Communion and politicians an issue.  We will see if that changes in the new papacy, but in the meantime I need to remember that it is not up to me to enforce canon 915 and it probably isn’t up to you either.  When I make judgments about who is receiving Holy Communion worthily, I probably am not doing so myself.

 

 

Why Arlingtion? Historical Context of Clerical Madness 4

The Arms of the Diocese
of Arlington

Bishop Paul Stephen Loverde is a Massachusetts native who studied in Rome and received  his STL degree there in 1966 before being ordained for service in the Diocese of Norwich, Connecticut.  He worked in the diocesan tribunal and distinguished himself in a number of positions as vicar for priests, being especially popular and trusted among the priests of the diocese.  (The Vicar for Priests is the assistant to the bishop who looks after the pastoral and professional needs of the clergy of a diocese—the “pastor to the pastors” as it were.)  After twenty-two years of priestly ministry he was named auxiliary bishop in the Archdiocese of Hartford and then six years later he was given his own diocese in Ogdensburg, NY.  Bishop Loverde was highly regarded by clergy, laity, and religious in Ogdensburg where he assiduously implemented the reforms of the Second Vatican Council in a collaborative and collegial manner.  One religious sister who worked on his staff remembers him as “a good man, a compassionate man, a listener who truly was interested in you and the challenges you were facing.”  Bishop Loverde’s episcopal motto is—To Encouarage and Teach with Patience. 

In March 1998 with the death of Bishop John Keating while making his ad liminia visit to the Holy See, the Diocese of Arlington became vacant.   The Diocese remained vacant almost a year while the Holy See searched for a successor.  Reportedly a number of bishops turned down the See because of the reputation of the clergy for unruliness.  There certainly were problems.  One retired priest remarked “Back in 1974 when the diocese was split from Richmond we had our conservatives and our liberals.  There was Monsignor McClunn and Dickie Burke and that crew on the one side and Tom Quinlin and the young Turks on the other.  But we all got along.  We would get together on Sunday nights in the summer at one parish or another for supper and have a few drinks.  But now these guys don’t even speak to one another and they tear each other down to the people in the pews.  It is a different diocese; it has become toxic.”  

Paul Loverde seemed a good choice to bring together a divided diocese.  Patience was his motto.  He had a reputation for working well with his clergy.  He had a track record of implementing the counciliar and post-counciliar changes.  Those who had been frustrated by the backwards looking policies of the Keating years were hopeful that the diocese would get on track again. 

Bishop Loverde did his best.  He came in and was not quick to mandate changes but tried to win the trust of his priests in order to build a more cohesive presbyterate.  He made few staff changes in the chancery keeping people in place but trusting that they would implement his vision for the diocese.  Arlington was one of only two dioceses in the United States that did not permit girls to serve at the altar.  Bishop Loverde brought the matter up to his clergy for discussion but decided to maintain Keating’s restrictions until he could win over the resisting priests.  Similarly he kept in place Keating’s restriction on giving the laity the chalice at weekend Masses.  He also made no effort to restore the permanent diaconate program which had been shut down in the Keating years.  The left and center began to grow disillusioned and felt that they were losing out and that all concessions were being made to the neo-traditionalist camp without the moderates gaining. 

The problem was that the hard-core conservatives of the clergy never came aboard the Bishop’s program, but resisted the Bishop at every opportunity.  What they wanted wasn’t compromise, much less conciliation, but total capitulation on the part of those who disagreed with their reactionary policies. They took what they could wheedle out of the Bishop and gave nothing in return.  When the Bishop mandated that each parish have a committee to look at ecumenical cooperation among the churches in their area, few parishes complied.  When he would bring up the question at priests’ meetings of allowing girls to serve at mass, his priests actually booed him.  When he finally did make some compromise about female altar servers—allowing pastors to install them on a parish-by-parish basis if their parishioners wished them—priests wrote to Rome asking if the individual priest had to abide by the bishop’s decision to permit girls serving.  (Rome, incredulously, overturned the theological principles of Christus Dominus and asserted that the individual priest, not the bishop, has the final word over the liturgy!)  The bishop was hurt that his priests would appeal to Rome against his decisions; the liberal and moderate clergy were furious that they had to conform to diocesan guidelines but that the neo-traditionalists could spit in the bishop’s eye. 

The end result has been that the Diocese of Arlington is a deeply fractured Church—almost three distinct Churches in a unity that is no more than nominal.  On the one hand you have parishes such as Nativity in Burke, Saint Francis in Triangle, Christ the Redeemer in Sterling or Good Shepherd in Alexandria that would be mainline in any other diocese but are the “liberal” parishes which are jammed and to which people flock from twenty and thirty miles away.  (You also have the “exiles” who cross the river to Holy Trinity in Georgetown and other Washington churches.)  Then you have other parishes such as Saint Mary’s in Oldtown Alexandria, Saint John the Baptist in Front Royal, Saint John the Beloved in McLean, or Saint Catherine’s in Great Falls that are throwbacks to the Catholicism of the 1950’s.  They too draw from a wide area and are jammed.  And then there are the great number of the bland and the boring, the mildly conservative and stalwartly unimaginative parishes where nothing much happens except disillusionment and discouragement.  But that is not unique to Arlington—spending as much time on the road as I do, and being present at Mass in so many different churches, I can only wonder what has happened to the excitement of the Vatican II years when the fresh breeze let in by John XXIII’s open window made such a difference.  Vatican II is alive in some nooks and crannies of the American Catholic World but in many more places there are shattered dreams of what the Church could be again if only the Council were taken seriously.      

Why Arlington? Historical Context of Clerical Madness 3

While I mentioned Fathers X, Y, and Monsignor Z, unnamed clergy of the Arlington diocese who developed disciples among the more extreme younger clergy of their diocese in order to pass on the “true faith” of old-time-religion, Catholic style.   One of these had come to the diocese in its early days having been refused final vows in the Dominican Order because he was too backwards looking for the Dominicans.  Now, internationally the Dominicans are a very liberal order, faithful to their mendicant tradition of service to the poor and so one of the most committed orders to the principles of justice and peace as laid out at Vatican II and in a string of encyclical letters going back to John XXIII and Mater et Magistra, but the East Coast Province in the USA, the Saint Joseph Province is not typical of the larger Dominican family.  They are good men and well trained in theology and they perform well in their many ministries, but when it comes to the trappings of religious life and to their theological methodologies, they are antiquarians of the first degree.  It is impossible for me to imagine what it would take to be dismissed from them for being “too conservative.”  But seminarian X was.  He was no sooner out of the Dominicans than picked up for Arlington and ordained by Bishop Welsh for the Arlington Diocese. 

I don’t know as much about Father Y except that he is not native to the Arlington Diocese but a refugee from the then liberal Archdiocese of Detroit from the days of Cardinal Dearden.  He has ties to Opus Dei, and is a polished orator—perhaps more accomplished as a stylist than for his content.  In other words, he is more articulate than knowledgeable—a common quality of many clergy.  Well, it would be if one could say that there were many of the Catholic clergy who were at least articulate.  Father also is given to the buttons and bows of clerical dress and to gilding the lily of the Mass with as many liturgical antiques as can be devised.  Before the restoration of the Tridentine Mass he was known as a specialist in tricking out the “new Mass” to look like the old in the “Solemn High Masses” at his former parish.    However, to his credit, I hear that he makes a charming guest at dinner parties in the better homes of Northern Virginia. 

Monsignor Y—and to be honest, while I am not certain that he is a Monsignor (I suppose I could check the Kennedy Directory) I know that that he does not contradict those who called him that—is a pompous Irish windbag who would introduce himself as “Doctor Y” although he had never finished his dissertation.  The Irish are very good at making fun of pompous asses, but that requires that there be among them pompous asses of whom to make fun and Monsignor Y has always been good enough to oblige.  He particularly liked to criticize the “faulty” translation of the 1970 Sacramentary when the fact was his Latin was not, shall we say, itself Ciceronian.  

There actually was (is) a fourth horseman to this Arlington Apocalypse.  This fellow is bright, and I hear an above average Latinist.  He has always dreamed of living in a world untouched by Vatican II and so appealed to go to Bishop Fabian Bruskewicz’s Diocese of Lincoln, the only diocese more conservative than Arlington.  Unfortunately he was sent back after only a few years.  Like the others he was given to whining and complaining about the liturgy and was very active in the “Reform of the Reform” movement championed by Father Joseph Fessio, a member of the minority of Jesuits who have rejected the direction that the late Father Pedro Arrupe took the society during his tenure as General (1965-1983).  These Fathers were the nucleus of a catechetical school for young priests to unteach them anything they had learned in the seminary that smacked of progressive thought and to reform them in their own image and likeness as “Reform of the Reform” clergy.  They have had great influence over many of those 84 priests ordained by Bishop Keating and not a few of those ordained by the current bishop, Bishop Loverde, and their catechisis has created a distinctive sort of priest that one does not often find elsewhere.  In Arlington one might find a priest in his cassock picking up a few items at the supermarket or taking the parish youth for ice-cream at Coldstone Creamery.  In Arlington it is not all that unusual to find a priest facing away from the people for Mass or celebrating the preconciliar Requiem Mass, perhaps in English with some mumbled Latin, for a funeral.  Birettas are common, Roman or fiddle-back chasubles more common.  Purple Vestments (rather than Resurrection-white) is a common color for funeral Masses. Churches being built in the diocese these days are an architectural throwback to the 1950 Chicago-gothic and antique fixtures from the closed churches of Boston and other northern cities are finding new homes in the parishes of northern Virginia.  God forbid you come to Church with an Obama bumper-sticker on your car—you will find a note on your windshield telling you that you shouldn’t be coming to communion and just to make sure, it is not unlikely that some parish stalwart might track down your license plate and tell your pastor that he should refuse you communion at Mass.  It is not only a considerable number of the clergy in Arlington who are throwbacks to the days of the gentle Torquemada but an invisible empire of NKVD apparatchiks who monitor everything from the sermons of the suspiciously liberal to the liturgical oddities of the boomer generation priests to textbooks in religious education programs, to hymns sung at Mass.  One of their favorite targets of complaint and criticism is none less than the bishop himself.  But more on that in future postings.      

Inquisition Cancelled--All A Misunderstanding

Arlington Bishop,
Paul Loverde

I am deeply ashamed.  I broke a cardinal rule of historians.  I published (albeit in blog form) without having completed my research.  It turns out that there is no “fidelity oath” in the Diocese of Arlington after all.  After contacting the diocese I received a copy of Bishop Loverde’s letter and of the alleged “oath.”  And the diocesan spokesperson told me: “It is not an oath.  It is a profession of faith”—and that is the very sort of thing that I had said was the appropriate requirement. Here is the text of the Arlington profession of faith.  

I, N., with firm faith believe and profess everything that is contained in the Symbol of faith: namely:

I believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is seen and unseen. I believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten not made, one in Being with the Father. Through him all things were made. For us men and for our salvation, he came down from heaven: by the power of the Holy Spirit he became incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and became man. For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered death and was buried. On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures; he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son. With the Father and the Son he is worshiped and glorified. He has spoken through the Prophets. I believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church. I acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins. I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.

With firm faith, I also believe everything contained in the Word of God, whether written or handed down in Tradition, which the Church, either by a solemn judgment or by the ordinary and universal Magisterium, sets forth to be believed as divinely revealed.

I also firmly accept and hold each and everything definitively proposed by the Church regarding teaching on faith and morals.

Moreover, I adhere with religious submission of will and intellect to the teachings which either the Roman pontiff or the College of Bishops enunciate when they exercise their authentic Magisterium, even if they do not intend to proclaim these teachings by a definitive act.

   This profession of faith contains the key doctrines of the faith as articulated in the Nicene Creed, as well as that which is taught by the Magisterium as divinely revealed in scripture and (Apostolic) Tradition.  It further demands assent to that which has been defined by the Church in the areas of faith and morals.  And it includes that which is taught by the Universal Magisterium even when it is not defined as dogma.  That is actually not asking a lot, especially of a potential religion teacher.  When one understands the language, it is not as fearful as it might sound. 

First, while I would have preferred that it not require a “religious submission of will and intellect” to that which is taught by the Roman Pontiff and the College of Bishops,” such a requirement does not infringe on the rights and obligations of conscience in the interior forum.  It simply means that in the public forum—in the classroom, in public discussions, in what one writes or publishes—one does not dissent from that which is taught by the Pope or by the College of Bishops, that is by the ordinary magisterium.  One must agree publically with what the Pope has taught not only in “infallible statements” but in his ordinary teaching mode—i.e. encyclicals.  (This would exclude Mr. Justice Scalia from teaching CCD were he so inclined as he has publicly dissented from the teaching on Capital Punishment as laid out in Evangelium Vitae.  By equivalency, however, it also means that one cannot dissent in teaching, writing, publishing, or public speaking from the teaching on contraception as outlined in Humanae Vitae.)  It does not mean, however, that one in one’s own conscience cannot reach a different conclusion on contraception, or another issue taught by the magisterium.   Operative here is “in one’s own conscience” which is not a public forum but a matter of internal forum.  Of course such a private divergence from Church teaching requires that one have studied the issue with due seriousness.  Furthermore, if one is to actually practice contraception (and not only privately disagree with the teaching) it normally would mean that in addition to a serious study of the issue, one has discussed this with his or her confessor before deciding that the moral principles laid out in the Church’s teaching for some grave reason do not apply to the particular circumstances of one’s own life.  And it would require due discretion in the public forum regarding such a decision.  While one might come to such a conclusion in one’s own circumstances, and one can discuss it freely with one’s family or friends, one should not advertise one’s dissent—theoretical or practical—from magisterial teaching.    I know this sounds awfully complicated but there are some fine lines here precisely to protect the sovereignty of conscience. 

Secondly, in regard to this final paragraph of required profession of faith, let me draw your attention to the phrase “College of Bishops.”  One must not only show public respect and not publicly dissent from the magisterial teachings of the Roman Pontiff, but also to the magisterial authority of the College of Bishops. 

While a bishop can require of the Catholic faithful over whom he has authority assent to his magisterial authority in his diocese, this document does not attempt to go that far.  It only requires assent to the magisterial authority of the Pope and the College of Bishops.  That refers to the universal college of bishops acting as one such as when the bishops proclaim in the canons or decrees of an Ecumenical Council.  “College of Bishops” refers neither to an individual bishop nor to a Conference of Bishops such as the USCCB.  A bishop (who is the Ordinary, i.e. the bishop of the diocese) has magisterial authority in his own diocese but this document does not include that.  A Bishops’ Conference (such as the USCCB) does not have magisterial authority in any circumstances.  So the USCCB position on the HHS mandate is not binding—publicly or privately—on the faithful, even those called to be catechists.   It also must be remembered that magisterial authority is limited in all cases—even that of the Roman Pontiff—to matters of faith and morals.  While faith and morals can (and should) have impact on one’s political, economic,  or social behavior or one’s ideas in philosophy, history, science, mathematics,  magisterial authority extends only over areas of doctrine and morals.  Thus the magisterium cannot directly command a particular political choice though it can lay out the moral principles which should bind the Catholic citizen to certain criterion in making his or her political choice.  In any event, despite the claim of the unnamed doctrinal authority of the Arlington Diocese quoted by the Washington Post, there is no required affirmation that the HHS mandate violates the religious freedom of the Church.  One may hold that opinion if one so chooses but the USCCB has no authority to require assent to any teaching and while the universal magisterium rightly teaches the moral requirement for freedom of religious practice, the question of whether this particular bill impinges on that freedom is a matter of Constitutional Law and not in the realm of faith/morals. 

More comments on the Arlington Profession of Faith in future entries.      

Freedom of Conscience--All Depends On Whose Conscience It Is

Bishop Loverde of Arlington

teaching children the faith

My last posting concerned a “fidelity oath” that the Diocese of Arlington has imposed on teachers in Catholic Schools and Religious Education programs throughout the diocese.  This oath allegedly requires teachers to “believe everything the bishops characterize as divinely revealed and Arlington’s top doctrine official said it would include things like the bishops’ recent campaign against a White House mandate that most employers offer contraception coverage…” 

Well we have some problems, here, don’t we boys and girls?
In the first place, is the problem of oaths.  Let us look at paragraph 2155 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church

The holiness of the divine name demands that we neither use it for trivial matters, nor take an oath which on the basis of the circumstances could be interpreted as approval of an authority unjustly requiring it. When an oath is required by illegitimate civil authorities, it may be refused. It must be refused when it is required for purposes contrary to the dignity of persons or to ecclesial communion.

Now I will be the first to say that it is extremely important that those charged with teaching the faith teach the faith as the Church teaches it, no problem.  I will also agree that a priest being given the charge of souls as Parish Priest (the canonical term for a pastor) may be required to take an oath to teach the faith in its fullness and without alteration.  Even more would this be true for a man being installed as bishop of a diocese.  No problem.  But an oath requiring complete assent of intellect and will to be in conformity to all Church teaching for a man or woman teaching seven-year olds?  Or—for that matter—teaching seventeen year olds?  I think the pastor needs to meet with the teachers and explain the importance of teaching what the Church teaches.  I think teaching needs to be—to some extent—monitored to make sure the children are getting the faith of the Church and not the private opinions of a teacher presented as the teaching of the Church.  But an oath!  I would think that it is funny—somewhat like a cartoon of a man going after a horsefly with cannon—were it, if not a violation of the 2^nd commandment at least skirting its violation. 

Secondly, in taking an oath, is the person being required to admit the right of

diocesan authorities to require such an oath and do the bishop and his officials  have the moral right to require religion teachers to take an oath that extends their authority over “intellect and will”? 

According to the catechism we should not take an oath that is being imposed unjustly lest the taking of that oath be interpreted as approving the unjust exercise of authority.  Do Diocesan authorities have the right to call in individuals and make them swear that not only in the public forum—i.e. in what they say in the classroom—but in the internal forum—i.e. what they believe and practice in their conscience—that they give complete assent to whatever the bishop(s) determine is divinely revealed.  This is very complicated as it involves authority over the internal forum—the conscience of the individual.  Now, under certain circumstances, the Church has imposed the obligation on certain people to give assent both internally and externally to certain doctrines, including the teaching on contraception.  I have no problem with the Church requiring priests and those who teach in the name of the Church to promise that they will not teach contrary to Church doctrine.  I do have a problem, however, when you talk about requiring internal assent if that extends to conscience.  While I believe that we must form our consciences according to the teaching of the Church, I also believe that the conscience is sacrosanct and that even an erroneous conscience must be listened to by the person to whom it belongs. I have been taught that this too is a fundamental principle of Catholic moral theology.  What authority then does the Church have to make a person hold in conscience what they do not in fact hold in conscience?    

Now up to this point we have been talking about issues like contraception or same-sex relationships and these are certainly within the area of the Church’s teaching competency, but this Arlington “oath” extends not only to such grave matters but to agreement of intellect and will that the HHS mandate that most employers offer contraception coverage is a violation of religious freedom.  We have crossed a line here from faith and morals (contraception) to Constitutional Law (that the mandate is an infringement of the First Amendment).  Can such a principle justly be required to be accepted in “intellect and will?”  Would not taking such an oath involving a constitutional question with political overtones be a validation of the authority of the Church to impose itself beyond the area of faith and morals?  Or perhaps the catechism is saying that the requirement to resist an unjust oath only applies to civil authorities but that the Church has such a right over its members? Hmmm.  No it seems to be that this oath is wrong in the first place because the matter is not sufficiently grave to require an oath.  Secondly it is wrong because it tries to exercise an absolute jurisdiction over an individual’s conscience.  Thirdly it seems to be to be wrong because it admits the validity of the diocesan authority to impose its weight beyond the competency of the Church’s magisterium.  Let me conclude with an email I recently received from a friend of mine.  It just repeats part of the Washington Post article—but a significant part

Loverde, who called for the oath, was not available for comment. Catholic bishops have broad authority in their dioceses, and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said there is no churchwide requirement for such oaths.

Some experts said the oath embodies the intense struggle in Catholicism today to define what makes someone a true follower. What teachings are core? What authority do laypeople have?

The Rev. Ronald Nuzzi, who heads the leadership program for Catholic educators at the University of Notre Dame, said many bishops “are in a pickle.” They want Catholic institutions to be staffed by people who not only teach what the church teaches but whose “whole life will bear witness.”

Nuzzi said he keeps a photo on his desk from the 1940s that shows all the German bishops in their garb, doing the Nazi salute.

“I keep it there to remind people who say to do everything the church says, that their wisdom has limitations, too.”     

Let me repeat

“I keep it there to remind people who say to do everything the church says, that their wisdom has limitations, too.”     

There Is A New Edition of the Spanish Inquisition--Right Here in the USA



Is this to be the "new look" of

American Catholicism?

 The following article by Michelle Boorstein appeared in the Washington Post last week. 

Kathleen Riley knows her beliefs on the male-only priesthood and contraception put her at odds with leaders of her church. But as a fifth-generation Catholic who went to a Catholic school and grew up to teach in one, Riley feels the faith deeply woven through her. So when her Arlington parish asked for volunteers last summer to teach Sunday school, she felt called by the Holy Spirit to say yes.

A year later, the 52-year-old computer scientist feels the same spirit calling her to say no.

Last month, Riley joined at least four other Sunday school teachers and resigned from her post at St. Ann’s parish after a letter  arrived at her home requiring her — and all teachers in the Arlington Catholic Diocese — to submit “of will and intellect” to all of the teachings of church leaders.

Although the St. Ann’s teachers represent a tiny fraction of the diocese’s 5,000 Sunday and parochial school teachers, the letter went out to parishes just as classes were finishing for the summer and diocese officials says they do not know how many teachers have received it.

The Arlington Diocese, which includes nearly a half-million Catholics across northern and eastern Virginia, is one of a small but growing number that are starting to demand fidelity oaths. The oaths reflect a churchwide push in recent years to revive orthodoxy that has sharply divided Catholics.

Such oaths are not new for priests or nuns but extend now in some places to people like volunteer Sunday school teachers as well as workers at Catholic hospitals and parish offices.

One in Baker, Ore., reiterates the sinfulness of abortion and says, “I do not recognize the legitimacy of anyone’s claim to a moral right to form their own conscience in this matter.” One in Oakland Calif., requires leaqders of a grop doing outreach to gay and lesbian Cagtholics “affirm and believe” official church teaching on marriage, hell and chastity.

The Arlington “profession of faith” asks teachers to commit to “believe everything” the bishops characterize as divinely revealed, and Arlington’s top doctrine official said it would include things like the bishops' recent campaign against a White House mandate that most employers offer contraception coverage. Critics consider the mandate a violation of religious freedom.

The Arlington Diocese is considered among the most conservative in the country and was the next to last in the nation to say girls could serve at the altar.  Teachers must give the new oath in front of a priest.

“The church is foremost a communion, not a building,” said the Rev. Paul deLadurantaye, Arlington’s head of education and liturgy. “And the church’s teaching is meant to be a service, not to coerce or oppress. . . . This is just to say the church is a reliable guide, more reliable in these matters than what I read elsewhere. There’s something more transcendent than just my own judgment.”

Diocesan spokesman Michael Donohue said the letter was sent to parishes this spring in response to Pope Benedict XVI’s direction that churches worldwide celebrate this year’s 50th anniversary of the start of Vatican II in various ways, including those that “profess our faith in the risen Lord.”

He said the oath is meant to be a positive sign to parents and called it uncontroversial.

“I can’t imagine there are many [teachers] who have issues with the church’s teachings on faith and morals,” Donohue said. Asked about polls showing that the majority of American Catholics use artificial contraception, forbidden by church doctrine, he said he “found it hard to believe” that anyone who had concluded that a church teaching was wrong would want to teach it.

But for some, particularly more liberal Catholics, the oaths are an alarming effort to stamp out debate in the church at a time when it is bleeding members and clergy in the West. They note that church leaders’ views have changed over the centuries on various subjects, including contraception. 

“I’m just shocked, I can’t believe they’re asking me to sign this,” said Riley, who said she may keep her own children out of the parish education program in the fall. “The bishops are human, and sometimes their judgment is not God’s judgment. We always have to be vigilant about that. The Holy Spirit gives us the responsibility to look into our own consciences.”

The pastor and director of religious education at St. Ann’s parish did not return requests for comment, but Riley and others said about 20 teachers attended a meeting last week that the pastor held for people with questions about the new oath.

Riley and others said St. Ann’s is considered a community that deliberately doesn’t focus on such hot-button issues as abortion and same-sex relationships on which Catholics, like Americans generally, are divided.

“It’s an oasis of humanity,” said Rosemarie Zagarri, a history professor at George Mason University who also resigned last month from teaching at St. Ann’s.

Zagarri said the oath was a “slap in the face” to Catholics who have remained active and close to the church despite controversies.

“Although I fully understand the authoritative role of the Catholic hierarchy in defining the teachings of the faith, in my view only a person who is willing to abandon her own reason and judgment, or who is willing to go against the dictates of her own conscience, can agree to sign such a document,” she wrote to Arlington Bishop Paul Loverde.

“This is not in the spirit of what people go to a Catholic church for, which is community and a loving, welcoming environment. It’s exclusionary, a suppression of dissent, let’s all line up and be the army of God,” Zagarri said in an interview for this article.

To others, the oaths are an inspiring correction after a period when they think Catholic teaching has been watered down.

“The bishops have been appointed by the pope to let us know: This is the path you should be following,” said Kerri Polce, 31, who teaches at the Cathedral of St. Thomas More in Arlington and says she has no problems signing the oath. “If you’re struggling with something, fine, don’t teach.”

Loverde, who called for the oath, was not available for comment. Catholic bishops have broad authority in their dioceses, and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said there is no churchwide requirement for such oaths.

Some experts said the oath embodies the intense struggle in Catholicism today to define what makes someone a true follower. What teachings are core? What authority do laypeople have?

The Rev. Ronald Nuzzi, who heads the leadership program for Catholic educators at the University of Notre Dame, said many bishops “are in a pickle.” They want Catholic institutions to be staffed by people who not only teach what the church teaches but whose “whole life will bear witness.”

Nuzzi said he keeps a photo on his desk from the 1940s that shows all the German bishops in their garb, doing the Nazi salute.

“I keep it there to remind people who say to do everything the church says, that their wisdom has limitations, too.”

More on this in future entries.  Rich material for us to consider.