Posted in March, 2008
On March 12, 2008, St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke declared two women who live in the archdiocese and another who lives in Germany, excommunicated. Burke also excommunicated Patricia Fresen, the bishop who led Hudson’s and McGrath’s ordinations. Fresen is a former Dominican nun from South Africa who now lives in Germany. All three women are members of the Womenpriests movement. 
The area women, Rose Marie Hudson, 68 ,of Festus, and Elsie Hainz McGrath, 69, of St. Louis, were ordained as priests in November 2007. They currently co-pastor a faith community and hold a worship service for about 35 people Sunday evenings at the first Unitarian Church of St. Louis.
Bridget Mary Meehan, a spokesperson for Womenpriests, said Burke is not authorized to excommunicate Fresen because she lives outside the Diocese of St. Louis. Monsignor John Shamleffer, the archdiocese’s chief canon lawyer, said Burke is within his right to respond to disobedience within his geographic jurisdiction, regardless of Fresen’s residence outside the U.S. “Excommunication is not meant to be a penalty,” he said, but a “wakeup call” aimed at helping the women “see the error of their ways and return to full communion with the church.”
A total of 10 women priests have been excommunicated since ordinations began in 2002. The original “Danube Seven” were excommunicated within weeks of their ordination on the Danube River in Germany. Meehan indicated there are 53 women candidates for priesthood, deacons and priests in North America and elsewhere around the world.
In a statement on March 13, Hudson and McGrath said that they “and all Roman Catholic Womenpriests, reject the penalties of excommunication, interdict, and any other punitive actions from church officials. We are loyal daughters of the church, and we stand in the prophetic tradition of holy disobedience to an unjust man-made law that disciminates against women.”
They cited the words of Pope Benedict XVI, who, as Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, wrote that Catholics must obey their own conscience, “if necessary even against the requirement of ecclesiastical authority.”
Salon reported the Womenpriest movement “is the most flamboyant and incendiary challenge to the Roman Catholic Church’s unrelenting discrimination against women.” “They are asking, Is Sexism a sin? How does the Church reconcile its teaching that women and men are created in God’s image, that once baptized, there is ‘no male or female’ and ‘all are one in Christ Jesus,’ with its contention that women cannot represent the ultimate sacred or hold ultimate power through ordination because they are, literally, the wrong ’substance’?”
It is interesting to note that while Pope Benedict has strongly hinted his support for the excommunication of politicians that support abortion, he has said nothing about excommunicating women priests.
Michael Hampson, an Anglican priest for 13 years and now a full time writer and retreat leader, wrote and asked if CCLonline would like a review copy of his upcoming book, God Without God. I wrote back to him to say I would be delighted to review the book, and post the review in our May 2008 bookshelf. God Without God is published by O Books, an imprint of John Hunt Publishing of Hampshire, U.K.
I picked up my copy at the Greenport post office yesterday morning. I plan to take the book with me on my upcoming pilgrimage trip to Ireland. It was probably serendipity to receive the book now, as I head off in the footsteps of St. Patrick and St. Brigid.
Hampson descibes his book as “suprisingly conservative” in its affirmation of the entire Nicene Creed and serious approach to scripture and tradition; and yet the final chapter (”Home Life, Sex and Gender”) affirms the place of LGBTI people within the Christian community.
It appears Hampson also attempts to refute the God of atheists–the angry, invisible avenger–is not the God of people of true faith.
I welcome anyone else to read the book with me, and let’s exchange comments for the book review.
In the meantime, my thanks to Michael Hampson and Catherine Harris of O Books. I’ll do my best. 
Last night I attended a private screening of “They Killed Sister Dorothy,” a documentary about Sister Dorothy Stang, S.N.D., an environmental activist who was murdered in Brazil in 2005. She began her ministry there in 1966. The movie was filmed by Daniel Junge and produced by Henry Ansbacher and Nigel Noble of Just Media of Denver, CO.
A citizen of Brazil and the United States, Sr. Dorothy worked with the Pastoral Land Commission, an organization of the Catholic Church that fights for the rights of rural workers and peasants, and defends land reforms in Brazil. Her death came less than a week after meeting with the country’s human rights officials about threats to local farmers from loggers and landowners.
After receiving several death threats Sr. Dorothy commented, “I don’t want to flee, nor do I want to abandon the battle of these farmers who live without any protection in the forest. They have the sacronsanct right to aspire to a better life on land where they can live and work with dignity while protecting the environment.”
The film examines the following questions: who was this woman, and why was she killed? What will become of her murderers, and who else was involved? What are the implications of her murder and these trials in the future?
The film’s producers are outreaching to Catholic groups, environmentalists like the Rainforest Alliance, and other socially-minded people and organizations who want to support the poor in finding sustainable livelihoods.
I found the film very timely, with a growing interest by Catholics around the world in protecting the environment, and the way its abuses fall disproportionably hard on the poor and the marginalized.
Catholics make up about one quarter of the registered voters in the U.S., and have backed the winner of the national popular vote for the last nine presidential elections going back to 1972.
Hillary Rodham Clinton has run away with the votes of Roman Catholic Democrats in nearly all the primaries, often beating Barak Obama by two to one or better. In New York, she received 66% of the Catholic vote vs. his 30%.
While the pro-life and anti-gay marriage contingent has been vocal, a new wave of progressive Catholics has focused on increasing the minimum wage, ending the war in Iraq, and implementing universal health care. This group has emerged as a key voting bloc this election year.
Catholic voters gravitate to Senator Clinton for several reasons: favorable memories of her husband’s administration, her emphasis on health care, and support of the peace process in Northern Ireland. Some of her positive showing is also the result of support from working class Catholics and Hispanics, two groups that have largely been ignored by both parities.
Some Catholic Democrats say that Senator Clinton’s emphasis on specific solutions is similar to Catholic social teaching, which urges its followers to use the doctrine as a way of bringing about positive social change particularly when it comes to poverty and, more recently, protecting the environment. “We’ve got a history of not only having faith, but acting on it,” says Bill Roth, director of Catholic Democrats of California.
Another argument is the “nun theory” which holds that Catholics are more accustomed to strong-minded female leadership because of the prominent role of nuns.
“I think Catholic Democrats…are accustomed to having female authority figures in the form of sisters in our schools and Senator Clinton, I think, benefits from that,” said Christopher McNally, the Pennsylvania chair of Catholic Democrats and an active Obama supporter.
The “nun theory” was first floated by Catherine T. Nolan, who attended St. Aloysius elementary school in Queens, NY and now represents her old neighborhood in the New York State Assembly. She notes that older Catholic voters grew up with women in charge of daily life.
“Maybe we’re a little more open to female leadership,” said Ms. Nolan, chairman of the Assembly Education Committee, one of the most powerful legislative jobs in Albany. “We had female role models from an early age. When I was growing up, all the Catholic school principals were women, and almost none of the public school principals were. That’s changed now, but we’ve been used to female authority figures for much longer than other groups.”
In case you’re wondering..this 55-year-old Catholic Democratic voter originally supported Sen. Joe Biden, then Sen. Christopher Dodd, then Governor Bill Richardson, and now Sen. Hillary Clinton for president.
I’m sorry New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg isn’t running. He would have been my first choice.
I haven’t decided who I will vote for if the presidential election comes down to Barak Obama and John McCain.
Sr. Margaret A. Farley, an emeritus professor of Christian ethics at Yale Divinity School has been awarded the 2008 Louisville Grawemeyer Award in Religion. The award, which carries a $200,000 honor, is given for new ideas. Farley’s belief is that justice is an indispensable part of sexual ethics. She defined the verb ”justice” in her book as, “to render to each her or his due.”
In her 2006 book, Just Love: A Framework for Christian Sexual Ethics, Farley argues that justice is the quality that forms, guides, and protects loving relationships.
When she became an ethicist almost 40 years ago, it never occured to her that she might write a book about sexual ethics. But after looking at the pained faces of hundreds of lay people and students tussling with the complexities of love, she began to mull over their struggles.
Farley, a Sister of Mercy who lives in Guilford, CT, acknowledges she’s taken a progressive stance on issues like homosexuality, remarriage and masturbation. “Although homosexual genital actions are still judged to be intrinsically disordered, and hence, ‘objectively’ immoral, they can be ’subjectively’ moral depending on the state of mind and intentions of an individual person,” she writes.
“It is difficult to see how on the basis of sheer human rationality alone..an absolute prohibition of same-sex relationships or activities can be maintained…We have to witness that homosexuality can be a way of embodying responsible human love and sustaining human and Christian fellowship.”
Farley says that gay people have both a right, and a responsibility, to be fruitful through having and/or raising children an that a committed couple has the right to a satisfying sexual relationship.
Her views on divorce and remarriage, same-sex relationships and the ordination of women can be considered to differ with he official positions taken by the current Roman Catholic hierarchy, but Farley said that she proposes such challenges as an ethicist and moral theologian who is “trying to think through some of the troubling issues facing the church and society.”
“I do not just assert my positions,” Farley said, “I work my way to them, paying serious attention to the concrete situations in real lives where questions are raised, and working with significant resources in Scripture and Christian tradition. My conclusions may indeed sometimes differ from official positions, but my effort is to shed light both on new questions, new contexts, and potential new interpretations of the tradition.”
Susan Garrett, who directs the Grawemeyer award program, said Farley’s idea to chew over these issues, rather than believe what society or the church advocates, is essential.
“It’s an important message in light of all the confusion surrounding sexuality today,” Garrett said. “The religious right issues stark decrees while the entertainment industry tells us ‘Anything goes.’ People get confused about what’s right.”
Matos McGreevey is seeking $600,000 in a divorce filing in which she accuses her husband, the former governor of New Jersey, of defrauding her by hiding his homosexuality.
But a former driver and aide to Jim McGreevey made the bombshell claim that Dina Matos McGreevey must have always known her husband was gay - because he was the other man in bed with them.
In an explosive March 16 interview with the NY Post, Ted Pedersen, 29, gave explicit details on three-way sex romps that he claimed to have had with the McGreeveys, starting during their courtship and ending when McGreevey became governor in November 2001.
Pedersen told the Newark Star-Ledger that he had sex with Matos McGreevey while her husband watched.
Pedersen said never had sex with McGreevey, but hinted he thinks his presence was required to get McGreevey aroused. He thought the former governor only had “light interest” in him.
Pedersen said he and the McGreeveys had what they called “Friday Night Specials” that began with dinner at T.G.I. Friday’s and ended with sex at McGreevey’s condo.
Dina Matos McGreevey shot back by declaring Pedersen’s claims were “completely false” and that he is one of her husband’s “cronies.” She told ABC News that last August McGreevey paid for Pedersen to go to China with him and Mark O’Donnell, his domestic partner. The three of them, plus a few others in McGreevey’s innner circle went there for vacation.
Pedersen retorted that she was in denial and a hypocrite. He said he came forward in part because he disputed Matos McGreevey’s assertions that she was unaware of her husband’s homosexuality.
The McGreeveys go back to court on Thursday. In the meantime, I am left with two questions:
- Didn’t Dina McGreevey think it even a wee bit odd her boyfriend liked to watch another man screw her?
- Are there T.G.I. Friday’s in China now?
The University of Portland, run by the Holy Cross Fathers, has recognized a club that seeks to build community and understanding between gay and straight students. Approved in January, the Gay Straight Partnership’s mission statement says it “aims to help all students grow in friendship, knowledge, faith and service.” Club members also plan to educate students on issues surrounding sexuality–without advancing an agenda.
The University approved the club after asking for some changes in its proposal, including the removal of a section on networking with other schools. It also requested the group offer a clear, faithful presentation of the Catholic church’s teaching on sexuality and sexual orientation. The university turned down clubs in 1994 and 1999 that seemed to promote beliefs counter to Catholic teaching on homosexuality.
“I’m delighted and honored that this group of students got to be involved in a process and it went this way and got recognized,” club founder Valerie Silliman told The Beacon, the University of Portland newspaper.
Silliman, a senior English major from Sequim, Washington, said the club will make the university a more welcoming place.
Ms. Silliman and club members - I hope it is true. Good luck in your pioneering ministry to students, faculty, university administrators, press and church officials. Your faith will certainly be challenged at times…I hope it is also strengthened through participation in a spiritual community of friends and lovers.
Last week I got an email from Fortunate Families asking us to contact the New York State Catholic Conference and express our unhappiness over one of the NYSCC’s main lobby day priorities - “Oppose the Legalization of Same-Sex Unions.”
This week saw Lt. Governor David Paterson ascend to the governership of New York. He will complete the term of Gov. Elliot Spitzer, who resigned on March 12 when his patronage of high class call girls came to light.
Paterson’s chief of staff, and Albany’s new head gatekeeper, is a former Jesuit priest who presided at John F. Kennedy Jr.’s wedding, and wrote a never-published book about sex in the Catholic church.
Charles O’Byrne made headlines in September 2002 with this Playboy magazine article - “Sex & Sexuality: One Man’s Story About Religious Life and What Seminaries Really Teach About Sex.”
In the Playboy piece, O’Bryne wrote that while a Jesuit “I became aware there was sex all around me–including relationships between Jesuits. One of my best friends, a virgin at 30, was surprised when his superior encouraged him to respond to the sexual overtures of an older Jesuit. When another friend fell in love with a woman, the seminary superiors supported his relationship..”
O’Byrne specifically cited the issue of gay priests, saying the American Catholic church may not be able to stay within the Vatican fold if Roman continues to maintain certain blatant contradictions. He cited the church’s insistence that homosexuality is an “intrinsic evil” while at the same time the church has a significant number of priests who are gay. Asked to estimate the percentage of American priests who are homosexual, O’Byrne, 43, said, “In my peer group, I can easily say 70 percent, comfortably, no question about it.”
O’Byrne is now on leave of absence. He is still a priest, but he cannot administer sacraments or say Mass.
After leaving the Jesuits in 2004, he worked for Howard Dean’s presidential campaign. Then-Senate Minority Leader Paterson to instill more discipline in his staff.
Archdiocese spokesman Joseph Zwilling said O’Byrne’s past “certainly won’t impede us from working with the governor.”
The principal at Cardinal Hayes High School, an all-boys school in the Bronx, was ousted last week after photos of nude men were discovered on his computer.
No criminal charges were filed against the principal, Christopher Keogan, because the photos were of adults.
Two ex-faculty members and a priest associated with sexual abuse lawsuits have accused Keogan in letters and affidavits of theft of petty cash, an affair with a male subsordinate, faking transcripts to help that man get into college, and misuse of funds. The priest alleged that Keogan took $10,000 from a charity set up to provide scholarships to purchase furniture for his new apartment.
In 2006 a staffer claimed to the Equal Opportunity Commission that she was fired after reporting that Keogan had an affair with a male subordinate. Keogan denied the affair and the unfair firing charge. He said the archiocese investigated it and the allegations were not substantiated.
His ouster stunned teachers and students at the school, where Mr. Keogan was largely seen as charismatic and fair. He joined the school in 1990, and served as dean of discipline for six years before becoming principal in 2003.
“He was a really nice guy, really down to earth, really cool,” said Kyle Brooks, 18, who graduated last year. “If you got into trouble, he would listen to both sides of the story. He was an honorable guy. Extremely fair.”
So, was Keogan set up by disgrunted and possibly homophobic staffers-or–did some instances of bad judgement do him in? The case gets more interesting with the addition of Fr. Bob Hoatson, a priest who wrote Keogan a scathing letter accusing him of a slew of misconduct at the school. He blasted the payment from the scholarship fund (which may have been legitimately authorized) to Keogan.
Fr. Hoatson comes with a little scandal of his own. Believing he had been fired from his job at Catholic Charities because of his advocacy for sex abuse survisors, in 2006 he filed a 44-page complaint in which he outed New York’s Cardinal Edward Egan.
Halfway through the 44-page complaint, the priest-turned-advocate drops a bomb on the cardinal–he alleges that Egan is “actively homosexual,” and that he has “personal knowlege of this.” His suit names two other top Catholic clerics in the region as actively gay–Albany bishop Howard Hubbard and Newark archbishop John Myers.
What Hoatson claims is that, as leaders of a church requiring celibacy and condemning homosexuality, actively gay bishops are too afraid of being exposed themselves to turn in pedophile priests. The bishops’ closeted homosexuality, as the lawsuit states, “has compromised defendants’ ability to supervise and control predators, and has served as a reason for retaliation.”
Before an incident last summer, my knee-jerk reaction would have been to applaud Fr. Hoatson. Now I give these crusaders a little more scrutiny for personal motives. Why is Hoatson involved in this case? No sex abuse of minors has surfaced.
In August 2007 it came to my attention that a homophobic group of persons (they were anonymous)-under the guise of being concerned about pedophile priests-attempted to use the “gay-friendly” college and parish listings on cclonline.org to justify their entries on wikipedia that Archbishop John Favalora protected pedophiles and gay priests. These individuals refused to dialog with the rest of us, or substantial their allegations on Archbishop Favalora and priests they named as gay. They were eventually banned from Wikipedia, and their entries largely removed.
As the student said, there are two sides to every story.
Unfortunately for Mr. Keogan, (or Brother Keogan, if he’s still with the Christian Brothers), his career as an educator is finished either way.
