Follow Up

New Developments on Stories Featured in Catholic World Report

The "reform" movement within the American Catholic Church is still smarting from its failure to collect the planned 1 million signatures on a petition for changes in Church teaching. But there are dramatic signs of vigor among orthodox Catholics in the new Call to Holiness movement. That is the message to be drawn from the competing national conferences of the two groups, both of which were held in Detroit.

Last year Call to Action (CTA)--the umbrella group that claims leadership of the US dissident movement--brought more than 60 speakers to Detroit to promote a wide menu of "reforms." Previously, CTA had hosted seven annual conferences in Chicago. Detroit conservatives, worried about the effect such an event would have on the local Church, rallied to blunt CTA's effect by creating a new

group, Call to Holiness and hosted a simultaneous conference that drew more than 2,000. This year's conferences provided a similar scenario, although the two groups' conferences were separated by a two-week interval.

Call to Holiness hosted its conference from October 31 to November 2, with famed EWTN founder Mother Angelica again serving as keynote speaker. Returning speakers included Fr. Joseph Fessio, SJ, and Fr. John Hardon, SJ. Bishop James Sullivan of Fargo, North Dakota, was homilist for the Sunday Mass.

On November 14-16, Call to Action presented its long list of luminaries of the left, including American professor Charles Curran, who was stripped of his teaching authority by the Vatican years ago, and the former Sri Lankan priest Tissa Balasuriya, who was excommunicated by the Vatican this year.

The clear sense of optimism seen at the Call to Holiness meeting was in stark contrast to the tone at Call to Action, where it was conceded that the ballyhooed We Are Church "referendum" had been a stunning failure.

Sister Maureen Fiedler, SL, who led the petition drive, told a workshop that she had amassed only 37,000 signatures--less than 4 percent of the projected goal--because "we just could not get out of first gear." She explained the failure by saying that most Catholic Americans were too ignorant of "the issues," and too attached to traditional understandings of the Church, to recognize the need for change. The organizers, she said, had "overestimated the degree of maturity and underestimated the level of piety among Catholic laity in the US." She expressed particular disappointment over the failure of young Catholics to participate in the signature drive.

That failure was dramatically underlined just a few days later, when a group of high-school students presented Pope John Paul II with a statement of supported signed by 90,000 young Americans. The group, which used the name "We Are Catholics" in a clear rebuke to the "We Are Church" drive, gathered their signatures without fanfare, without publicity, and without the bulk mailings that Sister Fiedler had attempted. Yet in roughly half the time, they had raised nearly three times the support of We Are Church.

Father Michael Crosby, OFM Cap, added another gloomy voice to the Call to Action meeting with his closing talk. Explaining that he had attended the first CTA event in 1976, he said he today sees himself more and more "out of place." He said he knew that his movement has lost touch with young people, who "don't seem to be turned on by the debate" about sexuality. CTA, he concluded, had once filled him up with "false expectations" of victory. "I don't think it will ever come for us--ever. Hope for restoration is not in the Church."

At the Call Holiness conference, however, hope was very much alive. After Mother Angelica urged Detroit Catholics to buy a radio station in order to promulgate Church teaching, a committee was organized on the spot, and within weeks had developed a full marketing plan to support the proposal. Father Fessio [the publisher of CWR] pointed out that in the years since Vatican II the Catholic laity in the United States has produced six new colleges dedicated unabashedly to the magisterium, 20 new magazines, a new generation of independent newspapers, and dozens of new Catholic bookstores; he added that 30,000 Catholic families join the home-schooling movement each year. "There is a real movement of the Spirit moving across the land, and it is happening with the laity," he said.

That movement is being noticed by the ecclesial establishment, as well. Last year the Archdiocese of Detroit issued conflicting signals regarding the dueling conferences. This year, Cardinal Adam Maida personally approved a Call to Holiness advertisement in his archdiocesan newspaper, while the paper banned ads for Call to Action.

As the US bishops gathered for their annual meeting in November, the recent pastoral statement on homosexuality, "Always Our Children," drew tempered support from gay activists. Charles Cox, the executive director of the pro-homosexual group Dignity, said that the bishops' statement showed "improved sensitivity," and could be "only the beginning of a more open and fruitful dialogue between gay men, lesbians, bisexuals and transgendered persons and the Catholic Church," but cautioned that "all is not perfect."

Robert Miailovich, the group's president, spelled out the Dignity complaints: "Though the letter is very pastoral, we continue to be disturbed by the bishops' continued distinction between homosexual orientation and homosexual activity." The bishops' statement had urged tolerance for individuals with a homosexual orientation, but stopped short of approving homosexual acts. That was not enough for Dignity. As Charles Cox explained: "Dignity believes that expressions of love, including sexual intimacy between two individuals of the same sex, can be morally acceptable."

Approval for homosexual activities naturally brings Dignity into sharp conflict with Courage, the group designed to promote chastity among people afflicted with a homosexual orientation. On the Dignity site on the World Wide Web, Dignity spokesman Paul Halsall offers "a catechism on Courage," which he characterizes as "an anti-gay group which tries to persuade lesbian and gay Catholics to conform with official Church anti-gay teaching." Halsall laments that Father John Harvey, the founder of Courage, once "was progressive. But his ideas... have not moved on. He ...has always denied that gay relationships are acceptable."

The Halsall analysis goes on to explain that while Courage has won official recognition from many bishops, Dignity, "because it takes an unambiguous position that being gay is a gift from God that can be expressed in a sexual relationship, is not given official support." He does, however, commend Bishop Matthew Clark of Rochester, New York, for his unstinting support. He concludes his case against Courage by saying: " You can know the Church's teaching is wrong for you by using your reason, your intelligence, and your conscience."

In a September 20 letter to Archbishop Anthony Pilla, the president of the US bishops' conference, the head of the Vatican Congregation for the Sacraments has rejected a new English-language translation of the rite of Ordination, explaining that the American effort is "seriously deficient." Thus Rome has once again signaled dissatisfaction with the work of the International Committee on English in the Liturgy (ICEL). But in this latest case, the Vatican Congregation has actually asked for a completely new translation--and, more important, a completely new translator.

In his September 20 letter, Archbishop Jorge Medina Estevez, the pro-prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, noted that Archbishop Pilla had written to the Holy See in April 1996, asking for approval of the new translation. The effort was forwarded to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which quickly concluded that the translation was inadequate, "not only by reason of its failure to adhere faithfully to the Latin editio typica altera and to convey accurately in English its contents, but also because the translation is not without doctrinal problems."

In fact, Archbishop Medina Estevez continued, the problems with the text furnished by ICEL are "widespread," involving the translation of liturgical texts, the references to pontifical documents, and the explanation of rubrics. "These matters are of grave concern to this Congregation at a time when by mandate of the Holy Father it is working for improved norms to govern liturgical translations," he wrote.

The archbishop pointed to problems caused by "arbitrary changes by translators" which altered the meaning of the original texts. He also observed that the ICEL offering had included some new elements which were not found in the original Latin. "These have been found to be in disharmony with the convention of the Roman Liturgy, confused, largely unsuited to the circumstances in which they would be used, and at best theologically impoverished," he charged.

While emphasizing that the Vatican had made every effort to consider the American bishops' request in the most favorable light, the Vatican official concluded that the translation could not be approved, nor could editorial changes salvage the project, because "the shortcomings are so diffused that minor isolated corrections will not suffice."

Archbishop Medina Estevez reported the conclusion of his Congregation that "it may be helpful to recommend that there be a complete change of translators on this project and that a new, independent, and definitive English version be made afresh from the Latin texts."

In an effort to protect its physical assets from a massive legal judgment, the Diocese of Dallas has filed papers in a Texas court claiming that the bishops does not exercise legal control over his own parish properties.

Although Bishop Charles V. Grahmann is listed in public records as the owner of all parish properties, lawyers for the diocese have argued that his ownership is merely a formality, and that in fact the parish itself is "the owner and holder of all equitable and beneficial interest and title in the property."

In July a jury found the Dallas diocese responsible for having failed to protect parishioners from Father Rudy Kos--a priest who has subsequently been suspended from the ministry--despite evidence that Kos was a sexual predator. The court ordered the diocese to pay $120 million in damages, and lawyers for both the diocese and the plaintiffs (men who had been molested by Kos) have been sparring over the question of how the diocese might pay that judgment.

Sylvia Demarest, an attorney for the plaintiffs, told the Dallas Morning News that the latest diocesan maneuver was a transparent effort to avoid paying the judgment. Church officials, she pointed out, "are attempting to create the fiction that somehow the parishes and schools are not under the direct jurisdiction, control, and ownership of the bishop of Dallas."

Indeed, the effort to distance the bishop from the ownership of parish properties appears to be at variance with a clearly established legal and canonical precedent. Since the "trusteeship" controversy of the last century, each American diocese has taken the legal form of a "corporation sole," in which the bishop enjoys legal title to all properties held by all parishes.

In Texas, furthermore, the law adds another wrinkle to an already unique case. The state law allows for the removal of a trustee who has shown himself to be either incompetent or insolvent. The court judgment against the diocese could be taken as evidence of incompetence. And the diocese has already stated that it cannot pay the legal judgment without going into bankruptcy--thus becoming insolvent. So the case could eventually prompt a Texas court to declare that parishes in Dallas are legally independent of the bishop's authority.

No one expected that life would be easy for the successor to Cardinal Joseph Bernardin. In a letter of complaint to Archbishop Francis George, a group of unhappy pastors admitted that they were "still grieving" for the late cardinal. But in their letter, summarizing the concerns that had been expressed at an October "Pastors Forum," the priests made it clear that the new archbishop was not living up to their expectations. And their complaints concluded with a message that sounded very much like a warning.

The three priests who signed the letter--Fathers Frank Jenks, Bob McLaughlin, and Tom Ventura--conceded that there had been some suspicions about the new archbishop even before he was named. They had heard rumors "that conservative or reactionary forces in the Vatican intended to appoint a new archbishop who would shape up this wild group in Chicago." Nevertheless, they charged that the new man's style--which had "led to the unfortunate nickname 'Francis the Corrector"--was unsettling to the priests of the archdiocese.

The letter questions several of the steps Archbishop George has taken during his first months in Chicago:

To heighten their concerns, the priests added, the new archbishop had failed to consult them before undertaking these actions.

"Be careful not to intimidate us," the priests warned Archbishop George. But the tone of their conclusion did not suggest that they would be easily intimidated: "We will resist being treated as branch managers of some huge international corporation who simply take orders from headquarters, be that at the Vatican or at the [archdiocesan] Pastoral Center."

The ABC television network announced in November that it would order a full season of the drama Nothing Sacred despite the show's poor ratings, the weakness of advertising revenues, and the continuing protests from critics who argue that the show harbors an anti-Catholic bias.

The Catholic League for Civil and Religious Rights has announced that 29 advertisers have withdrawn their support from the show, after nearly 1 million people--responding to requests organized by the Catholic League, Focus on the Family, and other Christian groups--promised to boycott the program's sponsors. The show has also suffered low ratings during its run, ranking 94th in the Nielsen ratings system. Only four other shows on the three major American networks ranked lower, and all four have been canceled.

But Nothing Sacred did win an extraordinary sign of support from a group of 117 priests and nuns, who bought a full-page advertisement in the trade journal Advertising Age, in which they encouraged potential sponsors to support the show. Saying that they "cannot in good conscience stand idly by while a wonderful television show is unfairly maligned," the signatories noted that protesters "do not speak for most American Catholics." They concluded: "We hope advertisers will continue to support Nothing Sacred. We certainly do."

The advertisement did not explain why, among all the issues confronting Catholic Americans, the signatories felt that the preservation of an unpopular television drama was most worthy of their support. But there was a clear indication that the effort was inspired by something other than literary appreciation. Although it was not sponsored by any particular group, press inquiries were directed to a familiar name: Sister Maureen Fiedler, the organizer of the We Are Church campaign. Four bishops were among those who signed onto the ad: Raymond Lucker of New Ulm, Minnesota, and auxiliaries P. Francis Murphy of Baltimore, Thomas Gumbleton of Detroit, and Peter Rosazza of New Haven, Connecticut.