The Vatican is to announce Saturday the appointment of Bishop Blase Cupich of Spokane, Wash., as the new archbishop of Chicago, NCR has learned. He will succeed Cardinal Francis George, who has been archbishop of Chicago since May 1997.
Cupich, 65, has been bishop of Spokane since September 2010. He served as bishop of Rapid City, S.D., from 1998 to 2010*, and before that he was a priest with the Omaha, Neb., archdiocese.
At 77, George is two years past the usual retirement age of bishops. He has also been battling cancer. In May, the archdiocese announced that the Vatican's representative to the U.S. had begun the vetting process to find a replacement and suggested the announcement would be made this fall.
Chicago is the third most populous Catholic diocese in the U.S. and is historically one of the most important. Since the election of Pope Francis in 2013, church watchers have been saying the replacement for George would be the pope's most important U.S. appointment because it would be interpreted as sign of the direction Francis wants the American church to take.
Patrick T. Reardon, a lifelong Chicago Catholic and a member of the Archdiocesan Pastoral Council in Chicago, told NCR in an interview that the greatest challenge facing the next archbishop of Chicago “is how to serve a modern American society that isn’t much interested and doesn’t want to listen to a religious and moral leader.”
“The archbishop of Chicago,” Reardon said, “is a leader not just for Chicago but for the whole church and the world, really. The tone he sets will have an effect, positive or negative, it will have an effect.
A hint of the pastoral sensibilities Cupich will bring to Chicago could be found in a pastoral letter he released last month in Spokane, “Joy Made Complete.”
The letter spells out a four-year pastoral plan for the Spokane diocese. The basis for the plan is a list of priorities established by the Know Love and Serve (KLS) Leadership Summit, a weekend conference for 50 Catholic leaders, lay and clerical, from the Spokane diocese that Cupich hosted last spring.
To prepare for the summit, Cupich had participants read Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortation, “The Joy of the Gospel,” which he said “beautifully articulates a vision for the Church in our time.”
Cupich’s pastoral letter begins with a Scripture quote, 1 John 1:1-3, and then says:
“The brave souls who wrote these stirring words nearly 2,000 years ago were facing dark threats from within and without. Divisions were tearing at community life. Public persecution throughout the Roman Empire threatened their very survival. Yet, these first disciples of Jesus of Nazareth did not fix their attention on the crisis of the present moment, nor on their own personal interests or impulses of self-preservation.
“As daunting as these concerns were, the life-transforming experience of encountering the Risen Lord compelled them to set their sights higher. Jesus spoke to them in a way that left their hearts burning for more, and that “more” was sharing Him with others. Nothing else mattered."
Cupich offers this challenge in his letter: “Are you ready to join me and your fellow parishioners and take personal responsibility for the work of renewing the Church? Simply put, this is about making sure that Know Love Serve are not just three words on a page or a catchy slogan, but that they are the distinguishing actions which define each of our lives as believers, as intentional disciples of Christ.”
Reardon said, “The new archbishop must be a shepherd to believers and non-believers -- and a good shepherd, not one that scolds, but one that guides and takes care.”
Cupich has served as an associate pastor and pastor in Omaha parish and the director of worship for that archdiocese. He has a doctorate in sacramental theology and wrote is dissertation on Advent. He studied at the College of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minn., the North American College and Gregorian University in Rome and The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.
Last March after national bishops’ conferences from around the world had turned in reports to the Vatican on a 39-question survey about issues such as contraception, same-sex marriage, divorce and other topics touching on family life as preparation for the a synod of bishops on the family, many lay Catholics were wondering if the synod, which opens Oct. 5, may presage a change in church teachings. Many bishops and other church leaders tried to tamp down expectations.
In an interview with NCR, Cupich took another tack. The church "must allow the Holy Spirit to move us," he said.
Citing the change in hearts of church leaders following the Second Vatican Council, he said that ordained leaders must take seriously the "joys, sorrows, heartaches, and challenges of laypeople."
In the winter of 2013, when the U.S. bishops conference and the Obama administration had locked horns over the contraction mandate in the health care reform law, Cupich wrote a letter to church employees who might have become worried that their ministries would be shut down or their health insurance cut-off. He wrote:
In visiting with many of you about the issue of insurance coverage, I know you have been concerned by calls for the Church to shut down her organizations or withdraw health coverage to those who serve in our various institutions as a protest to regulations that may infringe on our religious freedoms. These kinds of scare tactics and worse-case scenario predictions are uncalled for and only unnecessarily disturb the hardworking and dedicated people who are employed by the Church. I am confident that we can find a way forward, and this latest response of the government appears to provide some new openings, which we need to explore and for which we should express appreciation.
Cupich’s homily for a Prolife Mass in January 2013, seemed to have echoes of another Chicago archbishop, the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, who spoke of a “seamless garment” or consistent ethic for life that embraced equally anti-abortion, anti-poverty and anti-war strains of Catholic social teaching. In the 2013 homily, which fell on President Obama’s second inauguration and the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday, and came a month after 20 schoolchildren where shot to death in Newton, Conn., Cupich seemed to stitch together the prolife, anti-voilence and anti-poverty themes in a similar way.
The Gospel today gives us the image of the futility of trying to patch a torn old cloak with new unshrunken cloth, for “the fullness of the new eventually will pull away.” That is an apt image for what we want to say to our fellow citizens on this day, a day that offers so much promise. The tear in the fabric of our nation wrought by no defense of the children of the future cannot be fixed with a patchwork of defending only those fortunate to see the light of day, permitted to take that first breath or enjoy the work of their own hands. No, we are saying that we need a new cloak that covers all.
He then adds:
We should not be disheartened or bitter if many of our fellow citizens do not heed us at this moment, nor should we pull back on our efforts to join hands with others to improve the lot of suffering people in need just because they don’t fully agree with us on everything. The truth will win out and we have to believe that a nation whose collective heart can break and grieve for babies slaughtered in Newtown has the capacity and God’s grace to one day grieve for the babies killed in the womb.
Reardon said that the new leader in Chicago to rebuild a working relationship with legislators and government officials “so that we’re not banging our heads between our beliefs and laws.”
An effective leader “will listen to people -- even when he has an answer they don’t want to hear -- but they will know that he heard them.”
A 20102 NCR editorial cited Cupich as a good model for how bishops should conduct themselves in the public square. Cupich, NCR said, “wrote a letter to all Catholics in his diocese on the issue of same sex-marriage. Without vitriol, without mischaracterizing the positions of those who disagree, with a presumption of good faith, Cupich set forth the teachings of the church clearly but not obnoxiously, and affirmed the innate human dignity of all people, including gay men and women. We disagree with his conclusion, but not his approach.”
Cupich served on the U.S. bishops’ ad hoc committee on sexual abuse 2002 - 2005 during the time the bishop wrote the Dallas Charter for youth and child protection, the guidelines diocese are to us when dealing with the sexual abuse of minors by clergy.
He served on the bishops’ Committee on Protection of Children and Young People in 2005 and 2006 and chaired that committee 2008- 2011
In April 2011 Cupich was a speaker at a two-day conference at Marquette University law school titled "Harm, Hope and Healing: International Dialogue on the Clergy Sex Abuse Scandal."
At the conference Cupich said that church officials need to maintain a “visceral connection” to the pain and damage done to those abused by priests, and that bishops need to remain “at that soul-searching level” or risk “regression or complacency.”
After hearing wrenching stories from victims and stinging critiques of their handling of the crisis, the bishops in Dallas in 2002 placed healing as the top priority and that was “a public admission that an entirely new direction was needed.”
As part of that new direction, Cupich said, the bishops recognized “that we cannot respond to the crisis by ourselves; we need a community of learning.”
While bishop of Rapid City, S.D., Cupich was the episcopal adviser for the Emerging Models of Pastoral Leadership Project, a collaboration of the six national Catholic groups: the National Association for Lay Ministry, Conference for Pastoral Planning and Council Development, National Association of Church Personnel Administrators, National Association of Diaconate Directors, National Catholic Young Adult Ministry Association and National Federation of Priests' Councils.
At a gathering of the group in Orlando, Fla., in 2008 he spoke of the expanding role for professional lay ministers. Cupich said laypeople who were increasingly involved in ministry were answering the call to holiness that is part of their baptismal heritage.
"Lay ministry is not about filling in the gap because of a shortage of ordained ministers and it's not about a struggle for the rights of people," he said.
The growing emphasis on lay involvement is a sign of maturation and ongoing conversion in the church that "flows out of a call to holiness in which we see ourselves as the body of Christ."
Friday, September 19, 2014
Cupich of Spokane to be named archbishop of Chicago
Dennis Coday
National Catholic Reporter
September 19, 2014
The Vatican is to announce Saturday the appointment of Bishop Blase Cupich of Spokane, Wash., as the new archbishop of Chicago, NCR has learned. He will succeed Cardinal Francis George, who has been archbishop of Chicago since May 1997.
Cupich, 65, has been bishop of Spokane since September 2010. He served as bishop of Rapid City, S.D., from 1998 to 2010*, and before that he was a priest with the Omaha, Neb., archdiocese.
At 77, George is two years past the usual retirement age of bishops. He has also been battling cancer. In May, the archdiocese announced that the Vatican's representative to the U.S. had begun the vetting process to find a replacement and suggested the announcement would be made this fall.
Chicago is the third most populous Catholic diocese in the U.S. and is historically one of the most important. Since the election of Pope Francis in 2013, church watchers have been saying the replacement for George would be the pope's most important U.S. appointment because it would be interpreted as sign of the direction Francis wants the American church to take.
Patrick T. Reardon, a lifelong Chicago Catholic and a member of the Archdiocesan Pastoral Council in Chicago, told NCR in an interview that the greatest challenge facing the next archbishop of Chicago “is how to serve a modern American society that isn’t much interested and doesn’t want to listen to a religious and moral leader.”
“The archbishop of Chicago,” Reardon said, “is a leader not just for Chicago but for the whole church and the world, really. The tone he sets will have an effect, positive or negative, it will have an effect.
A hint of the pastoral sensibilities Cupich will bring to Chicago could be found in a pastoral letter he released last month in Spokane, “Joy Made Complete.”
The letter spells out a four-year pastoral plan for the Spokane diocese. The basis for the plan is a list of priorities established by the Know Love and Serve (KLS) Leadership Summit, a weekend conference for 50 Catholic leaders, lay and clerical, from the Spokane diocese that Cupich hosted last spring.
To prepare for the summit, Cupich had participants read Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortation, “The Joy of the Gospel,” which he said “beautifully articulates a vision for the Church in our time.”
Cupich’s pastoral letter begins with a Scripture quote, 1 John 1:1-3, and then says:
“The brave souls who wrote these stirring words nearly 2,000 years ago were facing dark threats from within and without. Divisions were tearing at community life. Public persecution throughout the Roman Empire threatened their very survival. Yet, these first disciples of Jesus of Nazareth did not fix their attention on the crisis of the present moment, nor on their own personal interests or impulses of self-preservation.
“As daunting as these concerns were, the life-transforming experience of encountering the Risen Lord compelled them to set their sights higher. Jesus spoke to them in a way that left their hearts burning for more, and that “more” was sharing Him with others. Nothing else mattered."
Cupich offers this challenge in his letter: “Are you ready to join me and your fellow parishioners and take personal responsibility for the work of renewing the Church? Simply put, this is about making sure that Know Love Serve are not just three words on a page or a catchy slogan, but that they are the distinguishing actions which define each of our lives as believers, as intentional disciples of Christ.”
Reardon said, “The new archbishop must be a shepherd to believers and non-believers -- and a good shepherd, not one that scolds, but one that guides and takes care.”
Cupich has served as an associate pastor and pastor in Omaha parish and the director of worship for that archdiocese. He has a doctorate in sacramental theology and wrote is dissertation on Advent. He studied at the College of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minn., the North American College and Gregorian University in Rome and The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.
Last March after national bishops’ conferences from around the world had turned in reports to the Vatican on a 39-question survey about issues such as contraception, same-sex marriage, divorce and other topics touching on family life as preparation for the a synod of bishops on the family, many lay Catholics were wondering if the synod, which opens Oct. 5, may presage a change in church teachings. Many bishops and other church leaders tried to tamp down expectations.
In an interview with NCR, Cupich took another tack. The church "must allow the Holy Spirit to move us," he said.
Citing the change in hearts of church leaders following the Second Vatican Council, he said that ordained leaders must take seriously the "joys, sorrows, heartaches, and challenges of laypeople."
In the winter of 2013, when the U.S. bishops conference and the Obama administration had locked horns over the contraction mandate in the health care reform law, Cupich wrote a letter to church employees who might have become worried that their ministries would be shut down or their health insurance cut-off. He wrote:
In visiting with many of you about the issue of insurance coverage, I know you have been concerned by calls for the Church to shut down her organizations or withdraw health coverage to those who serve in our various institutions as a protest to regulations that may infringe on our religious freedoms. These kinds of scare tactics and worse-case scenario predictions are uncalled for and only unnecessarily disturb the hardworking and dedicated people who are employed by the Church. I am confident that we can find a way forward, and this latest response of the government appears to provide some new openings, which we need to explore and for which we should express appreciation.
Cupich’s homily for a Prolife Mass in January 2013, seemed to have echoes of another Chicago archbishop, the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, who spoke of a “seamless garment” or consistent ethic for life that embraced equally anti-abortion, anti-poverty and anti-war strains of Catholic social teaching. In the 2013 homily, which fell on President Obama’s second inauguration and the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday, and came a month after 20 schoolchildren where shot to death in Newton, Conn., Cupich seemed to stitch together the prolife, anti-voilence and anti-poverty themes in a similar way.
The Gospel today gives us the image of the futility of trying to patch a torn old cloak with new unshrunken cloth, for “the fullness of the new eventually will pull away.” That is an apt image for what we want to say to our fellow citizens on this day, a day that offers so much promise. The tear in the fabric of our nation wrought by no defense of the children of the future cannot be fixed with a patchwork of defending only those fortunate to see the light of day, permitted to take that first breath or enjoy the work of their own hands. No, we are saying that we need a new cloak that covers all.
He then adds:
We should not be disheartened or bitter if many of our fellow citizens do not heed us at this moment, nor should we pull back on our efforts to join hands with others to improve the lot of suffering people in need just because they don’t fully agree with us on everything. The truth will win out and we have to believe that a nation whose collective heart can break and grieve for babies slaughtered in Newtown has the capacity and God’s grace to one day grieve for the babies killed in the womb.
Reardon said that the new leader in Chicago to rebuild a working relationship with legislators and government officials “so that we’re not banging our heads between our beliefs and laws.”
An effective leader “will listen to people -- even when he has an answer they don’t want to hear -- but they will know that he heard them.”
A 20102 NCR editorial cited Cupich as a good model for how bishops should conduct themselves in the public square. Cupich, NCR said, “wrote a letter to all Catholics in his diocese on the issue of same sex-marriage. Without vitriol, without mischaracterizing the positions of those who disagree, with a presumption of good faith, Cupich set forth the teachings of the church clearly but not obnoxiously, and affirmed the innate human dignity of all people, including gay men and women. We disagree with his conclusion, but not his approach.”
Cupich served on the U.S. bishops’ ad hoc committee on sexual abuse 2002 - 2005 during the time the bishop wrote the Dallas Charter for youth and child protection, the guidelines diocese are to us when dealing with the sexual abuse of minors by clergy.
He served on the bishops’ Committee on Protection of Children and Young People in 2005 and 2006 and chaired that committee 2008- 2011
In April 2011 Cupich was a speaker at a two-day conference at Marquette University law school titled "Harm, Hope and Healing: International Dialogue on the Clergy Sex Abuse Scandal."
At the conference Cupich said that church officials need to maintain a “visceral connection” to the pain and damage done to those abused by priests, and that bishops need to remain “at that soul-searching level” or risk “regression or complacency.”
After hearing wrenching stories from victims and stinging critiques of their handling of the crisis, the bishops in Dallas in 2002 placed healing as the top priority and that was “a public admission that an entirely new direction was needed.”
As part of that new direction, Cupich said, the bishops recognized “that we cannot respond to the crisis by ourselves; we need a community of learning.”
While bishop of Rapid City, S.D., Cupich was the episcopal adviser for the Emerging Models of Pastoral Leadership Project, a collaboration of the six national Catholic groups: the National Association for Lay Ministry, Conference for Pastoral Planning and Council Development, National Association of Church Personnel Administrators, National Association of Diaconate Directors, National Catholic Young Adult Ministry Association and National Federation of Priests' Councils.
At a gathering of the group in Orlando, Fla., in 2008 he spoke of the expanding role for professional lay ministers. Cupich said laypeople who were increasingly involved in ministry were answering the call to holiness that is part of their baptismal heritage.
"Lay ministry is not about filling in the gap because of a shortage of ordained ministers and it's not about a struggle for the rights of people," he said.
The growing emphasis on lay involvement is a sign of maturation and ongoing conversion in the church that "flows out of a call to holiness in which we see ourselves as the body of Christ."
The Vatican is to announce Saturday the appointment of Bishop Blase Cupich of Spokane, Wash., as the new archbishop of Chicago, NCR has learned. He will succeed Cardinal Francis George, who has been archbishop of Chicago since May 1997.
Cupich, 65, has been bishop of Spokane since September 2010. He served as bishop of Rapid City, S.D., from 1998 to 2010*, and before that he was a priest with the Omaha, Neb., archdiocese.
At 77, George is two years past the usual retirement age of bishops. He has also been battling cancer. In May, the archdiocese announced that the Vatican's representative to the U.S. had begun the vetting process to find a replacement and suggested the announcement would be made this fall.
Chicago is the third most populous Catholic diocese in the U.S. and is historically one of the most important. Since the election of Pope Francis in 2013, church watchers have been saying the replacement for George would be the pope's most important U.S. appointment because it would be interpreted as sign of the direction Francis wants the American church to take.
Patrick T. Reardon, a lifelong Chicago Catholic and a member of the Archdiocesan Pastoral Council in Chicago, told NCR in an interview that the greatest challenge facing the next archbishop of Chicago “is how to serve a modern American society that isn’t much interested and doesn’t want to listen to a religious and moral leader.”
“The archbishop of Chicago,” Reardon said, “is a leader not just for Chicago but for the whole church and the world, really. The tone he sets will have an effect, positive or negative, it will have an effect.
A hint of the pastoral sensibilities Cupich will bring to Chicago could be found in a pastoral letter he released last month in Spokane, “Joy Made Complete.”
The letter spells out a four-year pastoral plan for the Spokane diocese. The basis for the plan is a list of priorities established by the Know Love and Serve (KLS) Leadership Summit, a weekend conference for 50 Catholic leaders, lay and clerical, from the Spokane diocese that Cupich hosted last spring.
To prepare for the summit, Cupich had participants read Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortation, “The Joy of the Gospel,” which he said “beautifully articulates a vision for the Church in our time.”
Cupich’s pastoral letter begins with a Scripture quote, 1 John 1:1-3, and then says:
“The brave souls who wrote these stirring words nearly 2,000 years ago were facing dark threats from within and without. Divisions were tearing at community life. Public persecution throughout the Roman Empire threatened their very survival. Yet, these first disciples of Jesus of Nazareth did not fix their attention on the crisis of the present moment, nor on their own personal interests or impulses of self-preservation.
“As daunting as these concerns were, the life-transforming experience of encountering the Risen Lord compelled them to set their sights higher. Jesus spoke to them in a way that left their hearts burning for more, and that “more” was sharing Him with others. Nothing else mattered."
Cupich offers this challenge in his letter: “Are you ready to join me and your fellow parishioners and take personal responsibility for the work of renewing the Church? Simply put, this is about making sure that Know Love Serve are not just three words on a page or a catchy slogan, but that they are the distinguishing actions which define each of our lives as believers, as intentional disciples of Christ.”
Reardon said, “The new archbishop must be a shepherd to believers and non-believers -- and a good shepherd, not one that scolds, but one that guides and takes care.”
Cupich has served as an associate pastor and pastor in Omaha parish and the director of worship for that archdiocese. He has a doctorate in sacramental theology and wrote is dissertation on Advent. He studied at the College of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minn., the North American College and Gregorian University in Rome and The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.
Last March after national bishops’ conferences from around the world had turned in reports to the Vatican on a 39-question survey about issues such as contraception, same-sex marriage, divorce and other topics touching on family life as preparation for the a synod of bishops on the family, many lay Catholics were wondering if the synod, which opens Oct. 5, may presage a change in church teachings. Many bishops and other church leaders tried to tamp down expectations.
In an interview with NCR, Cupich took another tack. The church "must allow the Holy Spirit to move us," he said.
Citing the change in hearts of church leaders following the Second Vatican Council, he said that ordained leaders must take seriously the "joys, sorrows, heartaches, and challenges of laypeople."
In the winter of 2013, when the U.S. bishops conference and the Obama administration had locked horns over the contraction mandate in the health care reform law, Cupich wrote a letter to church employees who might have become worried that their ministries would be shut down or their health insurance cut-off. He wrote:
In visiting with many of you about the issue of insurance coverage, I know you have been concerned by calls for the Church to shut down her organizations or withdraw health coverage to those who serve in our various institutions as a protest to regulations that may infringe on our religious freedoms. These kinds of scare tactics and worse-case scenario predictions are uncalled for and only unnecessarily disturb the hardworking and dedicated people who are employed by the Church. I am confident that we can find a way forward, and this latest response of the government appears to provide some new openings, which we need to explore and for which we should express appreciation.
Cupich’s homily for a Prolife Mass in January 2013, seemed to have echoes of another Chicago archbishop, the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, who spoke of a “seamless garment” or consistent ethic for life that embraced equally anti-abortion, anti-poverty and anti-war strains of Catholic social teaching. In the 2013 homily, which fell on President Obama’s second inauguration and the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday, and came a month after 20 schoolchildren where shot to death in Newton, Conn., Cupich seemed to stitch together the prolife, anti-voilence and anti-poverty themes in a similar way.
The Gospel today gives us the image of the futility of trying to patch a torn old cloak with new unshrunken cloth, for “the fullness of the new eventually will pull away.” That is an apt image for what we want to say to our fellow citizens on this day, a day that offers so much promise. The tear in the fabric of our nation wrought by no defense of the children of the future cannot be fixed with a patchwork of defending only those fortunate to see the light of day, permitted to take that first breath or enjoy the work of their own hands. No, we are saying that we need a new cloak that covers all.
He then adds:
We should not be disheartened or bitter if many of our fellow citizens do not heed us at this moment, nor should we pull back on our efforts to join hands with others to improve the lot of suffering people in need just because they don’t fully agree with us on everything. The truth will win out and we have to believe that a nation whose collective heart can break and grieve for babies slaughtered in Newtown has the capacity and God’s grace to one day grieve for the babies killed in the womb.
Reardon said that the new leader in Chicago to rebuild a working relationship with legislators and government officials “so that we’re not banging our heads between our beliefs and laws.”
An effective leader “will listen to people -- even when he has an answer they don’t want to hear -- but they will know that he heard them.”
A 20102 NCR editorial cited Cupich as a good model for how bishops should conduct themselves in the public square. Cupich, NCR said, “wrote a letter to all Catholics in his diocese on the issue of same sex-marriage. Without vitriol, without mischaracterizing the positions of those who disagree, with a presumption of good faith, Cupich set forth the teachings of the church clearly but not obnoxiously, and affirmed the innate human dignity of all people, including gay men and women. We disagree with his conclusion, but not his approach.”
Cupich served on the U.S. bishops’ ad hoc committee on sexual abuse 2002 - 2005 during the time the bishop wrote the Dallas Charter for youth and child protection, the guidelines diocese are to us when dealing with the sexual abuse of minors by clergy.
He served on the bishops’ Committee on Protection of Children and Young People in 2005 and 2006 and chaired that committee 2008- 2011
In April 2011 Cupich was a speaker at a two-day conference at Marquette University law school titled "Harm, Hope and Healing: International Dialogue on the Clergy Sex Abuse Scandal."
At the conference Cupich said that church officials need to maintain a “visceral connection” to the pain and damage done to those abused by priests, and that bishops need to remain “at that soul-searching level” or risk “regression or complacency.”
After hearing wrenching stories from victims and stinging critiques of their handling of the crisis, the bishops in Dallas in 2002 placed healing as the top priority and that was “a public admission that an entirely new direction was needed.”
As part of that new direction, Cupich said, the bishops recognized “that we cannot respond to the crisis by ourselves; we need a community of learning.”
While bishop of Rapid City, S.D., Cupich was the episcopal adviser for the Emerging Models of Pastoral Leadership Project, a collaboration of the six national Catholic groups: the National Association for Lay Ministry, Conference for Pastoral Planning and Council Development, National Association of Church Personnel Administrators, National Association of Diaconate Directors, National Catholic Young Adult Ministry Association and National Federation of Priests' Councils.
At a gathering of the group in Orlando, Fla., in 2008 he spoke of the expanding role for professional lay ministers. Cupich said laypeople who were increasingly involved in ministry were answering the call to holiness that is part of their baptismal heritage.
"Lay ministry is not about filling in the gap because of a shortage of ordained ministers and it's not about a struggle for the rights of people," he said.
The growing emphasis on lay involvement is a sign of maturation and ongoing conversion in the church that "flows out of a call to holiness in which we see ourselves as the body of Christ."
Thursday, September 18, 2014
Fear and loathing in the Vatican
Damian Thompson
The Spectator
September 18, 2014
Here is a picture of Cardinal Raymond Burke, whose grand title of Prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura is matched only by the magnificence of his ecclesiastical dress. He is famous for his willingness to don the cappa magna, the astonishingly long silk cloak often worn by bishops before the Second Vatican Council but now confined to traditionalist ceremonies. The mere sight of this garment is like a scarlet rag to Catholic liberals, and they especially resent it being worn by Burke, who is (a) very conservative in matters of faith and morals and (b) the most powerful American cardinal in the Vatican.
It’s is true that, judging by the all those photographs of him looking as if he’s just stepped off the set of The Borgias, one would not infer that Burke is personally the most humble of cardinals. But he is. There are few more devout and obedient priests in the Vatican than Raymond Burke, which makes it all the more distressing that this week he is being ritually humiliated.
The legendary Italian Vatican blogger Sandro Magister reported yesterday that Cardinal Burke is about to be ‘decapitated’. He will lose his job as head of the Vatican’s ‘Supreme Court’, which has the power to overrule unjust decisions by other curial departments. According to Magister, he will instead become patron of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, an honorary position normally reserved for ancient retired cardinals. Burke, a former Archbishop of St Louis greatly admired by Benedict XVI, is only 66 – a mere teenager in Vatican years. The ultra-traditionalist blog Rorate Caeli says this would be ‘the greatest humiliation of a curial cardinal in living memory’, and for once it is not overstating its case.
Why is this happening? The priest-blogger Fr Z, an ally of Burke’s, warns us not to jump to conclusions: it’s possible that the cardinal’s department is being merged with another as part of Pope Francis’s radical simplification of the Roman Curia. But we can’t ignore two factors:
1. Burke has highly placed enemies, who use the ‘progressive’ American magazine the National Catholic Reporter to make fun of his elaborate liturgical style. What they really hate about Burke, however, is his pugnacious attitude towards politicians (including nominally Catholic ones) who subvert traditional Catholic teaching on sexual morality. In 2009, for example, Burke said the following about President Obama, then still an icon of the Catholic Left (click here for an example of Obama-worship at its most sycophantic):
If a Catholic knowingly and deliberately votes for a person who is in favour of the most grievous violations of the natural moral law, then he has formally cooperated in a grave evil and must confess his serious sin. Since President Obama clearly announced, during the election campaign, his anti-life and anti-family agenda, a Catholic who knew his agenda regarding, for example, procured abortion, embryonic-stem-cell research, and same-sex marriage, could not have voted for him with a clear conscience.
As soon as Pope Francis was elected, Burke’s enemies seized their chance. They suspected that a pontiff who, as I noted in a recent Spectator article, deplored the Vatican ‘court’, and who also conveniently spoke little English, would be unimpressed by the sight of the roly-poly Prefect of the Apostolic Signatura donning yet another set of antique vestments. Burke has always brought out the bully in his opponents: in 2009, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor invoked Canon Law in order to rescind the Latin Mass Society’s invitation to then-Archbishop Burke to celebrate the Tridentine Mass in Westminster Cathedral. Burke accepted this humiliation with a good grace, as he did his dismissal from the Congregation for Bishops in January.
2. Cardinal Burke has become embroiled in the controversy surrounding the Synod on the Family in October. Conservative Catholic blogger Pat Archbold argues that his demotion would be
… in response to a book to which Cardinal Burke contributed, to be published soon by Ignatius Press, in which the propositions proffered by Cardinal Kasper in his keynote speech in preparation for the Synod on the Family are systematically dismantled. The book defends the traditional Catholic understanding of marriage, its history, and the praxis of withholding communion from those divorced and remarried as well as rebutting some arguments in favour of toleration of these arrangements.
Cardinal Walter Kasper, an old German liberal (and also a good and holy man) has proposed that although remarried Catholics aren’t in a sacramental marriage, their partnerships possess ‘elements’ of the sacrament just as the Anglican Communion isn’t part of the Catholic Church but possesses elements of it. Many cardinals think this is such a batty idea that they have publicly opposed it before the Synod starts. They include Cardinal Müller, head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and Cardinal Pell, newly appointed head of Vatican finances. These are heavy hitters by any standards: liberals think twice before picking fights with them. Cardinal Burke, though, is an easier target – and a visible one, thanks to his fondness for dressing up. (I’m sorry to keep mentioning this, but even his friends think he should have toned things down on the sartorial front.)
Anyway, rumours of a high-profile ‘decapitation’ against a background of confusion about what the Synod is going to discuss have well and truly poisoned the atmosphere in the Vatican. Traditionalists who have been arguing (until now, on the basis of highly debate evidence) that Pope Francis is engaged in a process of ‘de-Ratzingerisation’ are winning a wider audience. They include liberals, who hope their conspiracy theory is true.
The reality is, however, that anyone who claims to know how Burke’s demotion or the agenda of the Synod fits into Francis’s game plan is bluffing. The Pope likes Kasper; that doesn’t mean he agrees with him. He is the first Jesuit pontiff, but certainly not the first Jesuit leader to allow radical ideas to be floated only to encourage someone else to shoot them down. If he is de-Ratzingerising the Church, then why did he today appoint Anthony Fisher, the most brilliant young conservative bishop in the Anglosphere, to succeed Cardinal Pell as Archbishop of Sydney? If only England and Wales had such a leader! As it is, I hear reports that the ‘retired’ Cardinal Cormac is still trying to get some of his ‘boys’, ambitious lefty monsignors blacklisted under Benedict, eased into English sees.
So we should not rush to judgment – except, perhaps, in the matter of Cardinal Burke’s ordeal. Pope Francis loudly deplores gossip, yet he is watching one of his most loyal servants being crucified by rumour. The poor man has been briefed against like a doomed cabinet minister. This is the sort of curial backstabbing that Cardinal Bergoglio always despised; why is he permitting it to happen now?
Here is a picture of Cardinal Raymond Burke, whose grand title of Prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura is matched only by the magnificence of his ecclesiastical dress. He is famous for his willingness to don the cappa magna, the astonishingly long silk cloak often worn by bishops before the Second Vatican Council but now confined to traditionalist ceremonies. The mere sight of this garment is like a scarlet rag to Catholic liberals, and they especially resent it being worn by Burke, who is (a) very conservative in matters of faith and morals and (b) the most powerful American cardinal in the Vatican.
It’s is true that, judging by the all those photographs of him looking as if he’s just stepped off the set of The Borgias, one would not infer that Burke is personally the most humble of cardinals. But he is. There are few more devout and obedient priests in the Vatican than Raymond Burke, which makes it all the more distressing that this week he is being ritually humiliated.
The legendary Italian Vatican blogger Sandro Magister reported yesterday that Cardinal Burke is about to be ‘decapitated’. He will lose his job as head of the Vatican’s ‘Supreme Court’, which has the power to overrule unjust decisions by other curial departments. According to Magister, he will instead become patron of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, an honorary position normally reserved for ancient retired cardinals. Burke, a former Archbishop of St Louis greatly admired by Benedict XVI, is only 66 – a mere teenager in Vatican years. The ultra-traditionalist blog Rorate Caeli says this would be ‘the greatest humiliation of a curial cardinal in living memory’, and for once it is not overstating its case.
Why is this happening? The priest-blogger Fr Z, an ally of Burke’s, warns us not to jump to conclusions: it’s possible that the cardinal’s department is being merged with another as part of Pope Francis’s radical simplification of the Roman Curia. But we can’t ignore two factors:
1. Burke has highly placed enemies, who use the ‘progressive’ American magazine the National Catholic Reporter to make fun of his elaborate liturgical style. What they really hate about Burke, however, is his pugnacious attitude towards politicians (including nominally Catholic ones) who subvert traditional Catholic teaching on sexual morality. In 2009, for example, Burke said the following about President Obama, then still an icon of the Catholic Left (click here for an example of Obama-worship at its most sycophantic):
If a Catholic knowingly and deliberately votes for a person who is in favour of the most grievous violations of the natural moral law, then he has formally cooperated in a grave evil and must confess his serious sin. Since President Obama clearly announced, during the election campaign, his anti-life and anti-family agenda, a Catholic who knew his agenda regarding, for example, procured abortion, embryonic-stem-cell research, and same-sex marriage, could not have voted for him with a clear conscience.
As soon as Pope Francis was elected, Burke’s enemies seized their chance. They suspected that a pontiff who, as I noted in a recent Spectator article, deplored the Vatican ‘court’, and who also conveniently spoke little English, would be unimpressed by the sight of the roly-poly Prefect of the Apostolic Signatura donning yet another set of antique vestments. Burke has always brought out the bully in his opponents: in 2009, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor invoked Canon Law in order to rescind the Latin Mass Society’s invitation to then-Archbishop Burke to celebrate the Tridentine Mass in Westminster Cathedral. Burke accepted this humiliation with a good grace, as he did his dismissal from the Congregation for Bishops in January.
2. Cardinal Burke has become embroiled in the controversy surrounding the Synod on the Family in October. Conservative Catholic blogger Pat Archbold argues that his demotion would be
… in response to a book to which Cardinal Burke contributed, to be published soon by Ignatius Press, in which the propositions proffered by Cardinal Kasper in his keynote speech in preparation for the Synod on the Family are systematically dismantled. The book defends the traditional Catholic understanding of marriage, its history, and the praxis of withholding communion from those divorced and remarried as well as rebutting some arguments in favour of toleration of these arrangements.
Cardinal Walter Kasper, an old German liberal (and also a good and holy man) has proposed that although remarried Catholics aren’t in a sacramental marriage, their partnerships possess ‘elements’ of the sacrament just as the Anglican Communion isn’t part of the Catholic Church but possesses elements of it. Many cardinals think this is such a batty idea that they have publicly opposed it before the Synod starts. They include Cardinal Müller, head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and Cardinal Pell, newly appointed head of Vatican finances. These are heavy hitters by any standards: liberals think twice before picking fights with them. Cardinal Burke, though, is an easier target – and a visible one, thanks to his fondness for dressing up. (I’m sorry to keep mentioning this, but even his friends think he should have toned things down on the sartorial front.)
Anyway, rumours of a high-profile ‘decapitation’ against a background of confusion about what the Synod is going to discuss have well and truly poisoned the atmosphere in the Vatican. Traditionalists who have been arguing (until now, on the basis of highly debate evidence) that Pope Francis is engaged in a process of ‘de-Ratzingerisation’ are winning a wider audience. They include liberals, who hope their conspiracy theory is true.
The reality is, however, that anyone who claims to know how Burke’s demotion or the agenda of the Synod fits into Francis’s game plan is bluffing. The Pope likes Kasper; that doesn’t mean he agrees with him. He is the first Jesuit pontiff, but certainly not the first Jesuit leader to allow radical ideas to be floated only to encourage someone else to shoot them down. If he is de-Ratzingerising the Church, then why did he today appoint Anthony Fisher, the most brilliant young conservative bishop in the Anglosphere, to succeed Cardinal Pell as Archbishop of Sydney? If only England and Wales had such a leader! As it is, I hear reports that the ‘retired’ Cardinal Cormac is still trying to get some of his ‘boys’, ambitious lefty monsignors blacklisted under Benedict, eased into English sees.
So we should not rush to judgment – except, perhaps, in the matter of Cardinal Burke’s ordeal. Pope Francis loudly deplores gossip, yet he is watching one of his most loyal servants being crucified by rumour. The poor man has been briefed against like a doomed cabinet minister. This is the sort of curial backstabbing that Cardinal Bergoglio always despised; why is he permitting it to happen now?
Doctrinal wars? Both sides fire over communion for divorced, remarried
Francis X Rocca
Catholic News Service
September 18, 2014
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The extraordinary Synod of Bishops on the family will not open until Oct. 5, but some of its most prominent members are already publicly debating what is bound to be one of its most controversial topics: the eligibility of divorced and civilly remarried Catholics to receive Communion.
In an interview published Sept. 18, a proponent of changing church practice to allow such Catholics to receive Communion answered criticism from some of his fellow cardinals, suggesting they are seeking a "doctrinal war" whose ultimate target is Pope Francis.
Cardinal Kasper (CNS/Paul Haring)
"They claim to know on their own what truth is, but Catholic doctrine is not a closed system, but a living tradition that develops," German Cardinal Walter Kasper told the Italian daily Il Mattino. "They want to crystallize the truth in certain formulas ... the formulas of tradition."
"None of my brother cardinals has ever spoken with me," the cardinal said. "I, on the other hand, have spoken twice with the Holy Father. I arranged everything with him. He was in agreement. What can a cardinal do but stand with the pope? I am not the target, the target is another."
Asked if the target was Pope Francis, the cardinal replied: "Probably yes."
Cardinal Kasper, who will participate in the upcoming synod by personal appointment of the pope, was responding to a new book featuring contributions by five cardinals, including three of his fellow synod fathers, who criticize his proposal to make it easier for divorced and civilly remarried Catholics to receive Communion.
According to church teaching, Catholics who remarry civilly without an annulment of their first, sacramental marriage may not receive Communion unless they abstain from sexual relations, living with their new partners "as brother and sister."
Pope Francis has said the predicament of such Catholics exemplifies a general need for mercy in the church today, and has indicated that their predicament will be a major topic of discussion at the synod. In February, at the pope's invitation, Cardinal Kasper addressed the world's cardinals at the Vatican and argued for allowing some Catholics in that situation to receive Communion.
The Oct. 5-19 synod is not supposed to reach any definitive conclusions but instead set the agenda for a larger synod on the family in October 2015, which will make recommendations to the pope, who will make any final decisions on change.
"Remaining in the Truth of Christ," which Ignatius Press will publish Oct. 1, includes essays in response to Cardinal Kasper's proposal by three synod fathers: Cardinal Gerhard Muller, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith; Cardinal Raymond L. Burke, prefect of the Supreme Court of the Apostolic Signature; and Cardinal Carlo Caffarra of Bologna, Italy.
On the same day, Ignatius Press will also publish two other books in which synod fathers respond to Cardinal Kasper's proposal: "The Hope of the Family," an extended interview with Cardinal Muller; and "The Gospel of the Family," which features a foreword by Cardinal George Pell, prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy. (Cardinal Kasper's address, published by Paulist Press, is also titled "The Gospel of the Family.")
Cardinal Pell calls for a clear restatement of the traditional ban on Communion for the divorced and civilly remarried, to avoid the sort of widespread protests that greeted Pope Paul VI's affirmation of Catholic teaching against contraception in 1968.
"The sooner the wounded, the lukewarm, and the outsiders realize that substantial doctrinal and pastoral changes are impossible, the more the hostile disappointment (which must follow the reassertion of doctrine) will be anticipated and dissipated," writes Cardinal Pell, who sits on the nine-member Council of Cardinals advising Pope Francis on Vatican reform and governance of the universal church.
Cardinal Muller's essay, previously published in the Vatican newspaper, reaffirms the traditional ban. However, the cardinal notes that many Catholics' first marriages might be invalid, and thus eligible for annulment, if the parties have been influenced by prevailing contemporary conceptions of marriage as a temporary arrangement.
In the book-length interview, Cardinal Muller, whom Pope Francis made a cardinal in February, makes an apparent reference to Cardinal Kasper's argument, which underscores the importance of mercy.
"I observe with a certain amazement the use by some theologians, once again, of the same reasoning about mercy as an excuse for promoting the admission of divorced and civilly remarried persons to the sacraments," Cardinal Muller is quoted as saying. "The scriptural evidence shows us that, besides mercy, holiness and justice are also part of the mystery of God."
Cardinal Burke, head of the Vatican's highest court, warns that any reform of the process for annulling marriages -- something both Pope Francis and Cardinal Kasper have said is necessary -- should not oversimplify the judicial process at the cost of justice, since Catholics seeking an annulment deserve a decision that "respects fully the truth and, therefore, charity."
Cardinal Caffara, whom Pope Francis personally named to participate in the synod, argues that divorced and civilly remarried Catholics may not receive Communion because their situation "is in objective contradiction with that bond of love that unites Christ and the church, which is signified and actualized by the Eucharist."
To lift the ban, Cardinal Caffarra argues, would be to legitimize extramarital sexual relations and effectively deny the doctrine of the indissolubility of marriage.
also see article on Cardinal Pell's position
Cardinal Kasper (CNS/Paul Haring)
"They claim to know on their own what truth is, but Catholic doctrine is not a closed system, but a living tradition that develops," German Cardinal Walter Kasper told the Italian daily Il Mattino. "They want to crystallize the truth in certain formulas ... the formulas of tradition."
"None of my brother cardinals has ever spoken with me," the cardinal said. "I, on the other hand, have spoken twice with the Holy Father. I arranged everything with him. He was in agreement. What can a cardinal do but stand with the pope? I am not the target, the target is another."
Asked if the target was Pope Francis, the cardinal replied: "Probably yes."
Cardinal Kasper, who will participate in the upcoming synod by personal appointment of the pope, was responding to a new book featuring contributions by five cardinals, including three of his fellow synod fathers, who criticize his proposal to make it easier for divorced and civilly remarried Catholics to receive Communion.
According to church teaching, Catholics who remarry civilly without an annulment of their first, sacramental marriage may not receive Communion unless they abstain from sexual relations, living with their new partners "as brother and sister."
Pope Francis has said the predicament of such Catholics exemplifies a general need for mercy in the church today, and has indicated that their predicament will be a major topic of discussion at the synod. In February, at the pope's invitation, Cardinal Kasper addressed the world's cardinals at the Vatican and argued for allowing some Catholics in that situation to receive Communion.
The Oct. 5-19 synod is not supposed to reach any definitive conclusions but instead set the agenda for a larger synod on the family in October 2015, which will make recommendations to the pope, who will make any final decisions on change.
"Remaining in the Truth of Christ," which Ignatius Press will publish Oct. 1, includes essays in response to Cardinal Kasper's proposal by three synod fathers: Cardinal Gerhard Muller, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith; Cardinal Raymond L. Burke, prefect of the Supreme Court of the Apostolic Signature; and Cardinal Carlo Caffarra of Bologna, Italy.
On the same day, Ignatius Press will also publish two other books in which synod fathers respond to Cardinal Kasper's proposal: "The Hope of the Family," an extended interview with Cardinal Muller; and "The Gospel of the Family," which features a foreword by Cardinal George Pell, prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy. (Cardinal Kasper's address, published by Paulist Press, is also titled "The Gospel of the Family.")
Cardinal Pell calls for a clear restatement of the traditional ban on Communion for the divorced and civilly remarried, to avoid the sort of widespread protests that greeted Pope Paul VI's affirmation of Catholic teaching against contraception in 1968.
"The sooner the wounded, the lukewarm, and the outsiders realize that substantial doctrinal and pastoral changes are impossible, the more the hostile disappointment (which must follow the reassertion of doctrine) will be anticipated and dissipated," writes Cardinal Pell, who sits on the nine-member Council of Cardinals advising Pope Francis on Vatican reform and governance of the universal church.
Cardinal Muller's essay, previously published in the Vatican newspaper, reaffirms the traditional ban. However, the cardinal notes that many Catholics' first marriages might be invalid, and thus eligible for annulment, if the parties have been influenced by prevailing contemporary conceptions of marriage as a temporary arrangement.
In the book-length interview, Cardinal Muller, whom Pope Francis made a cardinal in February, makes an apparent reference to Cardinal Kasper's argument, which underscores the importance of mercy.
"I observe with a certain amazement the use by some theologians, once again, of the same reasoning about mercy as an excuse for promoting the admission of divorced and civilly remarried persons to the sacraments," Cardinal Muller is quoted as saying. "The scriptural evidence shows us that, besides mercy, holiness and justice are also part of the mystery of God."
Cardinal Burke, head of the Vatican's highest court, warns that any reform of the process for annulling marriages -- something both Pope Francis and Cardinal Kasper have said is necessary -- should not oversimplify the judicial process at the cost of justice, since Catholics seeking an annulment deserve a decision that "respects fully the truth and, therefore, charity."
Cardinal Caffara, whom Pope Francis personally named to participate in the synod, argues that divorced and civilly remarried Catholics may not receive Communion because their situation "is in objective contradiction with that bond of love that unites Christ and the church, which is signified and actualized by the Eucharist."
To lift the ban, Cardinal Caffarra argues, would be to legitimize extramarital sexual relations and effectively deny the doctrine of the indissolubility of marriage.
also see article on Cardinal Pell's position
Wednesday, September 17, 2014
Cardinal Pell rules out change on communion for divorced, remarried
Francis X Rocca
Catholic News Service
September 17, 2014
In a book coming out just before October's extraordinary Synod of Bishops on the family, Cardinal George Pell rules out proposed changes to church practice that would allow divorced and civilly remarried Catholics to receive Communion.
"Doctrine and pastoral practice cannot be contradictory," writes Pell, a former archbishop of Sydney who now serves as prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy. "One cannot maintain the indissolubility of marriage by allowing the 'remarried' to receive Communion."
The cardinal calls for a clear restatement of traditional teaching, to avoid the sort of widespread protests that greeted Pope Paul VI's affirmation of Catholic teaching against contraception in 1968.
"The sooner the wounded, the lukewarm, and the outsiders realize that substantial doctrinal and pastoral changes are impossible, the more the hostile disappointment (which must follow the reassertion of doctrine) will be anticipated and dissipated," writes the cardinal, who will participate in the synod.
The eligibility of divorced and civilly remarried Catholics to receive Communion is bound to be a major topic of discussion, inside and outside the synod hall, during the Oct. 5-19 gathering. According to church teaching, Catholics who remarry civilly without an annulment may receive Communion only if they abstain from sexual relations, living with their new partners "as brother and sister."
Pope Francis has said the predicament of such Catholics exemplifies a general need for mercy in the church today. In February, at the pope's invitation, German Cardinal Walter Kasper addressed the world's cardinals at the Vatican and argued for allowing some Catholics in that predicament to receive Communion.
Pell's statement appears as the foreword to "The Gospel of the Family," a book-length response to Kasper's proposal that Ignatius Press will publish Oct. 1. Kasper's address, published by Paulist Press, has the same title.
"A courteous, informed and rigorous discussion, indeed debate, is needed, especially for the coming months to defend the Christian and Catholic tradition of monogamous, indissoluble marriage," Pell writes.
But focusing on the question of Communion for the divorced and civilly remarried, he suggests, is a "counterproductive and futile search for short-term consolations."
"Healthy communities do not spend most of their energies on peripheral issues and, unfortunately, the number of divorced and remarried Catholics who feel they should be allowed to receive holy Communion is very small indeed," the cardinal writes.
"The issue is seen by both friends and foes of the Catholic tradition as a symbol -- a prize in the clash between what remains of Christendom in Europe and an aggressive neo-paganism. Every opponent of Christianity wants the church to capitulate on this issue," the cardinal writes.
Pell acknowledges that the virtue of mercy, whose importance both Pope Francis and Kasper have underscored in this connection, "is central when we are talking about marriage and sexuality, forgiveness and holy Communion."
But the cardinal also emphasizes the "essential links between mercy and fidelity, between truth and grace."
"Jesus did not condemn the adulterous woman who was threatened with death by stoning, but he did not tell her to keep up her good work, to continue unchanged in her ways," the cardinal writes. "He told her to sin no more."
Tuesday, September 16, 2014
Exile to Malta for Cardinal Burke
Sandro Magister
Chiesa
September 17, 2014
VATICAN CITY, September 17, 2014 – The “revolution” of Pope Francis in ecclesiastical governance is not losing its driving thrust. And so, as happens in every self-respecting revolution, the heads continue to roll for churchmen seen as deserving this metaphorical guillotine.
In his first months as bishop of Rome, pope Bergoglio immediately provided for the transfer to lower-ranking positions of three prominent curial figures: Cardinal Mauro Piacenza, Archbishop Guido Pozzo, and Bishop Giuseppe Sciacca, considered for their theological and liturgical sensibilities among the most “Ratzingerian” of the Roman curia.
Another whose fate appears to be sealed is the Spanish archbishop of Opus Dei Celso Morga Iruzubieta, secretary of the congregation for the clergy, destined to leave Rome for an Iberian diocese not of the first rank.
But now an even more eminent decapitation seems to be on the way.
The next victim would in fact be the United States cardinal Raymond Leo Burke, who from being prefect of the supreme tribunal of the apostolic signatura would not be promoted - as some are fantasizing in the blogosphere - to the difficult but prestigious see of Chicago, but rather demoted to the pompous - but ecclesiastically very modest - title of “cardinal patron” of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, replacing the current head, Paolo Sardi, who recently turned 80.
If confirmed, Burke’s exile would be even more drastic than the one inflicted on Cardinal Piacenza, who, transferred from the important congregation for the clergy to the marginal apostolic penitentiary, nevertheless remained in the leadership of a curial dicastery.
With the shakeup on the way, Burke would instead be completely removed from the curia and employed in a purely honorary position without any influence on the governance of the universal Church.
This would be a move that seems to have no precedent.
In the past, in fact, the title of “cardinalis patronus” of the knights of Malta, in existence since 1961, like the previous one of Grand Prior of Rome, has always been assigned to the highest ranking cardinals as an extra position in addition to the main one.
.........
Burke is 66 years old, and therefore still in his ecclesiastical prime. Ordained a priest by Paul VI in 1975, he worked at the apostolic signatura as an ordinary priest with John Paul II, who made him bishop of his native diocese of La Crosse, Wisconsin in 1993. It was again pope Karol Wojtyla who in 2003 promoted him as archbishop of the prestigious see, once cardinalate, of St. Louis, Missouri. Benedict XVI called him back to Rome in 2008, and made him a cardinal in 2010.
With a very devout personality, he is also recognized as having the rare virtue of never having struck any deals to obtain ecclesiastical promotions or benefices.
In the liturgical and theological camp, he is very close to the sensibilities of Joseph Ratzinger. He has celebrated a number of times according to the ancient rite, even donning the “cappa magna,” as do cardinals George Pell and Antonio Cañizares Llovera, without being punished for this by Pope Francis.
A great expert in canon law, and appointed to the apostolic signatura for this reason, he is not afraid to follow it to the most uncomfortable consequences. Like when, to the tune of articles of the Code - number 915 to be precise - he upheld the impossibility of giving communion to those politicians who stubbornly and publicly uphold the right to abortion, bringing the rebukes of two colleagues in the United States valued by Pope Francis, Sean Patrick O’Malley of Boston and Donald Wuerl of Washington.
Free in his judgments, he has been among the very few to make critical remarks on “Evangelii Gaudium,” pointing out that in his view it is orientational but not truly magisterial. And in view of the upcoming synod of bishops, he has repeatedly taken a stand against the ideas of Cardinal Walter Kasper - well known to be in the good graces of Pope Francis - in favor of communion for the divorced and remarried.
The dicastery headed by Burke, eminently technical, recently accepted an appeal from the Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate against a provision issued for them by the congregation for religious. A courageous move on the part of Burke, situated within the context of the punitive action undertaken by the Vatican congregation against one of the most substantial realities of Catholic traditionalism, an action that Pope Francis endorsed by approving in specific form the congregation’s decision to prevent the Friars of the Immaculate from celebrating the Mass according to the “Tridentine” rite. It is only with this kind of pontifical approval, in fact, that a decree of the curia can overturn standing law, in this case the motu proprio of Benedict XVI “Summorum Pontificum.”
It is difficult to identify among these episodes the ones that may have have had the greatest influence on the fate of Cardinal Burke.
But it is easy to predict that his definitive downgrading will provoke both a tumultuous reaction within the traditionalist world, where Burke is seen as a hero, and a corresponding wave of jubilation in the opposite camp, where he is instead considered a bogeyman.
On the latter side it can be recalled that the “liberal” Catholic commentator Michael Sean Winters, in the “National Catholic Reporter” of November 26, 2013, had called for the head of Cardinal Burke as a member of the congregation for bishops, because of the nefarious influence, according to him, that he was exercising over episcopal appointments in the United States.
On December 16, in effect, Pope Francis humiliated Burke by crossing him off from among the members of the congregation. To the hosannas of “liberal” Catholicism, not only in the United States.
The pope certainly did not do so out of obedience to the wishes of the “National Catholic Reporter.”
But now he seems right at the point of giving the go-ahead for the second and more grave demotion of one of the most untarnished personalities the Vatican curia knows.
VATICAN CITY, September 17, 2014 – The “revolution” of Pope Francis in ecclesiastical governance is not losing its driving thrust. And so, as happens in every self-respecting revolution, the heads continue to roll for churchmen seen as deserving this metaphorical guillotine.
In his first months as bishop of Rome, pope Bergoglio immediately provided for the transfer to lower-ranking positions of three prominent curial figures: Cardinal Mauro Piacenza, Archbishop Guido Pozzo, and Bishop Giuseppe Sciacca, considered for their theological and liturgical sensibilities among the most “Ratzingerian” of the Roman curia.
Another whose fate appears to be sealed is the Spanish archbishop of Opus Dei Celso Morga Iruzubieta, secretary of the congregation for the clergy, destined to leave Rome for an Iberian diocese not of the first rank.
But now an even more eminent decapitation seems to be on the way.
The next victim would in fact be the United States cardinal Raymond Leo Burke, who from being prefect of the supreme tribunal of the apostolic signatura would not be promoted - as some are fantasizing in the blogosphere - to the difficult but prestigious see of Chicago, but rather demoted to the pompous - but ecclesiastically very modest - title of “cardinal patron” of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, replacing the current head, Paolo Sardi, who recently turned 80.
If confirmed, Burke’s exile would be even more drastic than the one inflicted on Cardinal Piacenza, who, transferred from the important congregation for the clergy to the marginal apostolic penitentiary, nevertheless remained in the leadership of a curial dicastery.
With the shakeup on the way, Burke would instead be completely removed from the curia and employed in a purely honorary position without any influence on the governance of the universal Church.
This would be a move that seems to have no precedent.
In the past, in fact, the title of “cardinalis patronus” of the knights of Malta, in existence since 1961, like the previous one of Grand Prior of Rome, has always been assigned to the highest ranking cardinals as an extra position in addition to the main one.
.........
Burke is 66 years old, and therefore still in his ecclesiastical prime. Ordained a priest by Paul VI in 1975, he worked at the apostolic signatura as an ordinary priest with John Paul II, who made him bishop of his native diocese of La Crosse, Wisconsin in 1993. It was again pope Karol Wojtyla who in 2003 promoted him as archbishop of the prestigious see, once cardinalate, of St. Louis, Missouri. Benedict XVI called him back to Rome in 2008, and made him a cardinal in 2010.
With a very devout personality, he is also recognized as having the rare virtue of never having struck any deals to obtain ecclesiastical promotions or benefices.
In the liturgical and theological camp, he is very close to the sensibilities of Joseph Ratzinger. He has celebrated a number of times according to the ancient rite, even donning the “cappa magna,” as do cardinals George Pell and Antonio Cañizares Llovera, without being punished for this by Pope Francis.
A great expert in canon law, and appointed to the apostolic signatura for this reason, he is not afraid to follow it to the most uncomfortable consequences. Like when, to the tune of articles of the Code - number 915 to be precise - he upheld the impossibility of giving communion to those politicians who stubbornly and publicly uphold the right to abortion, bringing the rebukes of two colleagues in the United States valued by Pope Francis, Sean Patrick O’Malley of Boston and Donald Wuerl of Washington.
Free in his judgments, he has been among the very few to make critical remarks on “Evangelii Gaudium,” pointing out that in his view it is orientational but not truly magisterial. And in view of the upcoming synod of bishops, he has repeatedly taken a stand against the ideas of Cardinal Walter Kasper - well known to be in the good graces of Pope Francis - in favor of communion for the divorced and remarried.
The dicastery headed by Burke, eminently technical, recently accepted an appeal from the Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate against a provision issued for them by the congregation for religious. A courageous move on the part of Burke, situated within the context of the punitive action undertaken by the Vatican congregation against one of the most substantial realities of Catholic traditionalism, an action that Pope Francis endorsed by approving in specific form the congregation’s decision to prevent the Friars of the Immaculate from celebrating the Mass according to the “Tridentine” rite. It is only with this kind of pontifical approval, in fact, that a decree of the curia can overturn standing law, in this case the motu proprio of Benedict XVI “Summorum Pontificum.”
It is difficult to identify among these episodes the ones that may have have had the greatest influence on the fate of Cardinal Burke.
But it is easy to predict that his definitive downgrading will provoke both a tumultuous reaction within the traditionalist world, where Burke is seen as a hero, and a corresponding wave of jubilation in the opposite camp, where he is instead considered a bogeyman.
On the latter side it can be recalled that the “liberal” Catholic commentator Michael Sean Winters, in the “National Catholic Reporter” of November 26, 2013, had called for the head of Cardinal Burke as a member of the congregation for bishops, because of the nefarious influence, according to him, that he was exercising over episcopal appointments in the United States.
On December 16, in effect, Pope Francis humiliated Burke by crossing him off from among the members of the congregation. To the hosannas of “liberal” Catholicism, not only in the United States.
The pope certainly did not do so out of obedience to the wishes of the “National Catholic Reporter.”
But now he seems right at the point of giving the go-ahead for the second and more grave demotion of one of the most untarnished personalities the Vatican curia knows.
Monday, September 15, 2014
Clergy scandal needs more healing, less legalese, St. Thomas theologians tell Nienstedt
Madeleine Baran
Minnesota Public Radio
September 15, 2014
A group of tenured theology professors at the University of St. Thomas sent a letter to embattled Archbishop John Nienstedt on Saturday urging him to "leave the legal talk to the lawyers" and reach out to lay people to repair the spiritual harm caused by the year-long clergy sex-abuse scandal.
"We believe that without such public steps the pastoral state of the archdiocese is not sustainable," they wrote. "The Archdiocese of St. Paul-Minneapolis has had a distinguished place in the history of the Catholic Church in the United States. The current crisis is a grave blot on that history. Legal action alone will not remove it."
The letter, signed by 12 of the private Catholic university's 21 tenured theology professors, does not call for Nienstedt's resignation. Instead, it asks him to change his approach to the crisis. The archbishop should turn his focus to reconciliation, outreach to the faithful and greater involvement of lay people, it said.
"The Archdiocese is in a spiritual crisis as well as a legal crisis," the professors wrote. "The resolution of the legal actions now underway will not undo the spiritual damage."
Massimo Faggioli, an assistant theology professor who signed the letter, told MPR News that in the last several months he has watched Nienstedt increasingly focus on legal battles while the faithful have grown disenchanted with their spiritual leader.
"It's not a step that we took lightly, but we believe that it was something that ... as Catholic theologians we were called to say," he said.
Faggioli called Nienstedt's approach "not sustainable." He emphasized that he was sharing his personal view and not speaking on behalf of the group.
"I noticed in the last few months especially the conversation in the diocese has been dominated by legal talk or by the understandable anxiety of having a better image," Faggioli said.
"My worry is that we will become delusional in the sense that we think that a legal solution to the crisis...will solve the big problem."
In a response to the professors on Monday, Nienstedt wrote that many Catholics had shared similar sentiments. The archbishop said he has taken steps to reach out to lay Catholics and that in last week's issue of The Catholic Spirt and he described a series of "healing Masses designed for all those who feel they have been hurt by the Church."
Niensted also wrote that he has met with victims and survivors of clergy sexual abuse, their family and friends, and will continue to do so.
"I am also reaching out to community leaders, ecumenical leaders and parish leaders to talk and learn about how we can be a part of the healing process," the archbishop said in the letter. "I often spend my weekends celebrating Mass at local parishes or going to community events."
But Nienstedt has said little publicly about the scandal since MPR News broke the story of a decades-long clergy sex abuse cover-up last fall. According to documents and former church officials, Nienstedt approved secret payments to priests who had admitted to sexually assaulting children and allowed at least one accused priest to continue to say Mass at Twin Cities parishes.
In December, Ramsey County Judge John Van de North ordered the archdiocese to release the names of priests "credibly accused" of child sex abuse as part of a lawsuit brought by a man who claims Thomas Adamson, a priest in the 1970s, sexually abused him. In an order released Monday, Van de North divided the case into two trials.
The judge said he would decide the first case, which centers on allegations that the Twin Cities archdiocese and the Diocese of Winona each created a public nuisance by keeping secret information on priests who committed abuse. That trial is set to begin Nov. 3.
Van de North ruled that a jury would then decide the second case, which alleges that both institutions were negligent in their handling of Adamson.
Church lawyers had argued that the cases should be tried separately, and that the negligence case should go first. Attorney Jeff Anderson, who represents the plaintiff had urged the judge to try the cases together, but if not, that the nuisance case should be tried first to protect children.
While the lawsuits against the church have made their way through the courts, priests have urged Nienstedt to focus on the spiritual needs of Catholics. Some priests have said that the faith of parishioners has been damaged by revelations that Nienstedt and other church leaders protected priests who sexually assaulted children.
Several hundred people have signed online petitions calling for the archbishop to resign. Nienstedt has denied breaking any laws in his handling of abuse cases and has defended his 2009 decision to assign the Rev. Curtis Wehmeyer as pastor despite Wehmeyer's sexual interest in younger men. Wehmeyer is now in prison for sexually abusing two boys.
Doug Hennes, a spokesman for the University of St. Thomas, declined to say whether University president Julie Sullivan agreed with the letter. "Faculty are free to say what they want" as long as they do not claim to speak for the university, he said.
The professors who signed the letter are: Cara Anthony, Bernard Brady, Massimo Faggioli, Paul Gavrilyuk, Michael Hollerich, John Martens, Stephen McMichael, Paul Niskanen, David Penchansky, Gerald Schlabach, Ted Ulrich and Paul Wojda.
They called for Nienstedt to give lay people "positions of responsibility in priestly formation, in the governance of the Archdiocese, and especially in the management of the scandal.
"The harsh light now being shone on the inner governance of the Archdiocese makes clear that the problems are not merely personal. They are systemic, the product of a long-standing and deeply entrenched clericalism that does not have to be the corollary of the ordained priestly ministry," they wrote.
In a separate letter in July, five female theology professors at the University of St. Thomas called for new leadership in the archdiocese, though they did not specifically call for Nienstedt to step down.
"For genuine healing to occur, we believe it is necessary to have new leadership at the archdiocesan level, leadership that includes individuals who are neither perpetrators nor enablers of abuse," Cara Anthony, Corrine Carvalho, Sherry Jordon, Sue Myers and Kimberly Vrudny wrote in that letter.
Scandal spreads to University of St. Thomas
Although the University of St. Thomas is not run by the Twin Cities archdiocese, the two organizations are closely connected.
Last fall, former archbishop Harry Flynn and former vicar general Kevin McDonough resigned from the university's board of trustees amid reports about their roles in the cover-up.
University administrators also commissioned an investigation last year into the handling of an abuse allegation against the Rev. Michael Keating, an associate professor of Catholic Studies who was sued in October 2013 by a woman who alleges he sexually abused her as a teenager. Keating, who remains on leave, has denied the allegations.
The investigation followed an MPR News report that showed internal archdiocesan documents raised questions about what University of St. Thomas administrators knew about the allegations years earlier.
Documents showed the woman's family first reported the allegations to the archdiocese in 2006. The archdiocese's clergy review board investigated and concluded in November 2007 that there was insufficient evidence of child sexual abuse. Nonetheless, it recommended to Flynn that Keating not be allowed to mentor teenagers and young adults.
McDonough had planned to inform Don Briel, the university's director of the Center for Catholic Studies, of the conclusion of the investigation. "To the extent that others in the University have to be notified, we should see to that as well," McDonough wrote in a March 13, 2008 memo to Flynn. Briel retired in August.
The investigation into the matter has not been completed, a university spokesman said Monday.
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For related earlier story see here
Sunday, September 14, 2014
A Church with verve is at risk in Ukraine
John L. Allen, Jr.
Crux
September 13, 2014
No one should need persuading that what’s happening in Ukraine right now is alarming. A fragile cease-fire between Russian-backed separatists and Ukrainian forces could unravel at any moment, and even more lives may be at risk this winter as the country scrambles to make up for lost Russian gas.
Pope Francis met Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk of the Greek Catholic Church at the Vatican last year. (Photo/AP)
Most basically, if one nation can slice off a piece of another with impunity, it’s hard to know what international law means.
Yet if Catholics require an additional reason for concern, it’s this: What’s at stake in Ukraine isn’t just geopolitics or the military balance of power, but also one of the most remarkable Catholic communities anywhere in the world.
The Greek Catholic Church in Ukraine is the largest of the 22 “Eastern churches” in the Catholic fold. Mostly located in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, these churches follow Eastern Orthodox rituals and spirituality, but acknowledge the pope as their leader. There are roughly 3 million Greek Catholics in Ukraine, around 7 percent of the population, and 6 to 10 million worldwide.
Though little known in the West, the church’s recent history is the stuff of Hollywood drama.
In the Soviet era, the Greek Catholic Church was the largest illegal religious body in the world, and suffered mightily for it. In percentage terms, no church produced more 20th century martyrs. Pope John Paul II beatified more than two dozen victims during a trip to the country in 2001, and most experts believe the total number of Greek Catholics who perished in that era of violent oppression is in the thousands.
After Communism, the church experienced a rebirth that has flowered in some extraordinary creative energy. One example is the Ukrainian Catholic University in L’viv, founded in 1994. It’s the only Catholic university in the former Soviet sphere; as they like to say, it’s the only Catholic university “between Poland and Japan.”
Its bold aim is nothing less than to rethink what a Christian university can be in the 21st century. During a reflection process in the early 1990s, planners identified two challenges:
Building on the legacy of the martyrs. The idea, according to Bishop Borys Gudziak, the founding rector, is to pioneer “a new social, intellectual, and theological synthesis” of that experience – a theology of the catacombs.
Repairing social trust. Gudziak said “the Ukrainian soul and psyche were profoundly damaged” by the Soviet period, because they were taught from early childhood “to think one thing, say another and do a third,” and to never fully trust anyone, even family and friends.
To address that deficit, the university turned to the insights of Catholic luminaries Henri Nouwen and Jean Vanier, the founder of L’Arche, a movement that emphasizes building friendships with disabled persons.
Gudziak’s idea was that because people with mental disabilities tend to trust others instinctively, having them around could produce an emotional leaven. The university invited them to join the community, not as charity cases but as “professors of human relations.” Residences include apartments for the disabled to live among the students, becoming part of the daily fabric of their lives.
Greek Catholics have also become prominent players in national affairs. They were major proponents of Ukraine’s Orange Revolution in 2004/2005, and helped lead the Maidan protests earlier this year that swept pro-Moscow President Viktor Yanukovych from power.
The Catholic cathedral of Kiev was converted into a makeshift field hospital during the uprising, which saw at least 100 people killed by security personnel. At times, emergency operations were performed on the church’s main altar.
Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, the charismatic 44-year-old leader of the Greek Catholic church, emerged as a forceful advocate for the Maidan protestors, insisting they weren’t “nationalist extremists” but rather supporters of a “free, democratic, and European” Ukraine.
At the moment, Shevchuk and other church officials are leading the charge against Russia’s intervention and calling on the international community to stiffen its resolve.
Meeting this week in L’viv, the Greek Catholic bishops put out a statement titled “Ukraine is bleeding,” which included this warning about Russian aggression: “Whoever kills people in Ukraine will not hesitate to turn their weapons to attack any country in the world tomorrow.”
Given that track record, it’s no surprise that whenever a pro-Moscow regime takes over, tightening the screws on Catholics tends to be high on the to-do list.
Under Yanukovych, Gudziak got chilling visits from Ukrainian security agents. Rather than kowtowing, he published a memo outlining the campaign of harassment, which included tapping his phones.
More recently a Greek Catholic priest was briefly kidnapped in eastern Ukraine, and most clergy and bishops have been driven from the region. The Russian Orthodox Church in Moscow has issued worrying statements blaming “uniates” and “schismatics” for fomenting the violence — both are pejorative terms for Greek Catholics.
What all this means is that when Greek Catholics speak out, they know they may pay a price.
In their statement on Wednesday, the bishops called for “coordinated efforts … to stop the bloodshed, to defend human dignity, and to restore life-giving peace,” warning that war isn’t just the fault of those waging it, but also those who could have stopped it but did nothing.
Anyone with eyes can see how urgent the appeal is. Catholics inspired by the verve of this courageous Ukrainian flock, however, have a special motive for paying heed.
Pope Francis met Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk of the Greek Catholic Church at the Vatican last year. (Photo/AP)
Most basically, if one nation can slice off a piece of another with impunity, it’s hard to know what international law means.
Yet if Catholics require an additional reason for concern, it’s this: What’s at stake in Ukraine isn’t just geopolitics or the military balance of power, but also one of the most remarkable Catholic communities anywhere in the world.
The Greek Catholic Church in Ukraine is the largest of the 22 “Eastern churches” in the Catholic fold. Mostly located in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, these churches follow Eastern Orthodox rituals and spirituality, but acknowledge the pope as their leader. There are roughly 3 million Greek Catholics in Ukraine, around 7 percent of the population, and 6 to 10 million worldwide.
Though little known in the West, the church’s recent history is the stuff of Hollywood drama.
In the Soviet era, the Greek Catholic Church was the largest illegal religious body in the world, and suffered mightily for it. In percentage terms, no church produced more 20th century martyrs. Pope John Paul II beatified more than two dozen victims during a trip to the country in 2001, and most experts believe the total number of Greek Catholics who perished in that era of violent oppression is in the thousands.
After Communism, the church experienced a rebirth that has flowered in some extraordinary creative energy. One example is the Ukrainian Catholic University in L’viv, founded in 1994. It’s the only Catholic university in the former Soviet sphere; as they like to say, it’s the only Catholic university “between Poland and Japan.”
Its bold aim is nothing less than to rethink what a Christian university can be in the 21st century. During a reflection process in the early 1990s, planners identified two challenges:
Building on the legacy of the martyrs. The idea, according to Bishop Borys Gudziak, the founding rector, is to pioneer “a new social, intellectual, and theological synthesis” of that experience – a theology of the catacombs.
Repairing social trust. Gudziak said “the Ukrainian soul and psyche were profoundly damaged” by the Soviet period, because they were taught from early childhood “to think one thing, say another and do a third,” and to never fully trust anyone, even family and friends.
To address that deficit, the university turned to the insights of Catholic luminaries Henri Nouwen and Jean Vanier, the founder of L’Arche, a movement that emphasizes building friendships with disabled persons.
Gudziak’s idea was that because people with mental disabilities tend to trust others instinctively, having them around could produce an emotional leaven. The university invited them to join the community, not as charity cases but as “professors of human relations.” Residences include apartments for the disabled to live among the students, becoming part of the daily fabric of their lives.
Greek Catholics have also become prominent players in national affairs. They were major proponents of Ukraine’s Orange Revolution in 2004/2005, and helped lead the Maidan protests earlier this year that swept pro-Moscow President Viktor Yanukovych from power.
The Catholic cathedral of Kiev was converted into a makeshift field hospital during the uprising, which saw at least 100 people killed by security personnel. At times, emergency operations were performed on the church’s main altar.
Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, the charismatic 44-year-old leader of the Greek Catholic church, emerged as a forceful advocate for the Maidan protestors, insisting they weren’t “nationalist extremists” but rather supporters of a “free, democratic, and European” Ukraine.
At the moment, Shevchuk and other church officials are leading the charge against Russia’s intervention and calling on the international community to stiffen its resolve.
Meeting this week in L’viv, the Greek Catholic bishops put out a statement titled “Ukraine is bleeding,” which included this warning about Russian aggression: “Whoever kills people in Ukraine will not hesitate to turn their weapons to attack any country in the world tomorrow.”
Given that track record, it’s no surprise that whenever a pro-Moscow regime takes over, tightening the screws on Catholics tends to be high on the to-do list.
Under Yanukovych, Gudziak got chilling visits from Ukrainian security agents. Rather than kowtowing, he published a memo outlining the campaign of harassment, which included tapping his phones.
More recently a Greek Catholic priest was briefly kidnapped in eastern Ukraine, and most clergy and bishops have been driven from the region. The Russian Orthodox Church in Moscow has issued worrying statements blaming “uniates” and “schismatics” for fomenting the violence — both are pejorative terms for Greek Catholics.
What all this means is that when Greek Catholics speak out, they know they may pay a price.
In their statement on Wednesday, the bishops called for “coordinated efforts … to stop the bloodshed, to defend human dignity, and to restore life-giving peace,” warning that war isn’t just the fault of those waging it, but also those who could have stopped it but did nothing.
Anyone with eyes can see how urgent the appeal is. Catholics inspired by the verve of this courageous Ukrainian flock, however, have a special motive for paying heed.
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