Renewal on All Levels

There have been many excellent articles in America on the current crisis (6/3). Different perspectives, often complementary, have been presented. It was, however, refreshing to read Christopher Ruddy’s thoughts from the Second Vatican Council seeking inspiration for a renewal in the heart of the church’s tradition rather than outside of it. There is a salutary and lucid optimism here, a confidence that the Holy Spirit has sowed the seeds of resurrection and given the church the means to confront the crisis. As Mr. Ruddy points out, the theological tools are there; they need only be deployed with seriousness and consistency. If there is not a renewal on this level, all the other remedies will only be superficial patchwork. We have, indeed, been offered a terrible and graced opportunity. Mr. Ruddy has done a great service by reminding us of the need for the church to become what it has already defined itself to be.

Jerry Ryan

Powerless

I am writing in response to Professor Mary Jo Bane’s article, Exit, Voice, and Loyalty in the Church (6/3). In 1968 I was 29 years old and had six children. I remember exactly where I was when Pope Paul VI spoke from Yankee Stadium and essentially said, Set another place at the table. That was the message of Humanae Vitae. I sat in my kitchen listening to the radio and sobbed. My husband and I had had six children in seven years, and two miscarriages.

Did I experience lay dissatisfaction and anger? No. I think it was desolation, futility and awful resignation. We were two good, educated, Catholic parents; what could we do? We did the only thing possible at the time to preserve our marriage and our family. We exited from the teaching, and that only after prayer, more tears and lots of guilt.

The current scandal, or Catholic Watergate, has also made me cry, and I have incredible anger. I was not so angry in 1968, just more resigned. I have changed; my church has not. They are still in my bedroom!

Sexual abuse of children is not even in the same category with the teaching of Humanae Vitae. It is despicable, sinful and manipulative. Yes, I live in Boston and have been assaulted by all of it for five months, but never in 1968 did I feel as powerless as I do now. My faith is much stronger now; it is who I am; it is the peaceful, powerful part of me. It speaks to me and says, You are mine, I have counted every hair on your head.

If in two years nothing much has changed, if the same dusty, musty mitres and crosiers are still around, I will be so angry at myself for not speaking out. Please don’t anyone compare the encyclical on birth control in 1968 to this mess. I was there. Then it was resignation and personal decisions; now it is rage, and all decisions are completely out of our hands.

Barbara M. Donahue

In Remembrance

I had to chuckle while reading Elizabeth Ficocelli’s Avoiding Mass Hysteria: Teaching Children to Behave in Church (5/6). She and her young ones would be as discomfited as I was by the children wandering loose at Sunday Mass in the Catholic chapel of the state penitentiary in Tijuana. Some are visiting their fathers; others are in residence with their mothers. None of their motion or commotion, however, seems to distract the prisoners from close attention to the Eucharist or the word, God bless them. As to my own reactions as a priest, I have this poetic meditation, called Suffer the Little Children:

the benches crowded and solemn

Compassion

You’ve done something wrong, repented and have spent the following years, even decades, in faithful, compassionate service to others. Then, without warning, you’re placed on extended medical leave, and your calling is gone overnight (4/22). The resultant trauma is mind-boggling.

We need to remember such priests now with a note that details their kindnesses to us and ours. We need to let them know how their counsel, homilies and actions have made us better people, and how, through us, this good continues in the world. As even that flawed place tells us, Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Joan Huber Berardinelli

New Directions

Many, many thanks for your honest and forthright consideration of the current horrible scandal. The entire April 1 issue was the best I have seen in 40 years of subscribing. I am sharing it with my friends in our parish, and I expect it to become thoroughly worn out in its labor of love. Thanks too for the attitude of hope and new directions that the articles contain.

Robert F. Hanlon

Continuities and Gaps

The trenchant review by Katarina Schuth, O.S.F., of Passionate Uncertainty, by Peter McDonough and Eugene C. Bianchi, (3/25) fairly raises issues of method, interpretation and context, to which the authors are rightly challenged to respond. In particular, more attention to the global Society of Jesus and its official documents would have helped contextualize the Society in the United States. But it would be unfortunate were potential readers to be persuaded by Schuth’s review to ignore the book, which vividly offers numerous insights, bracing but not hostile, into the experiences, perceptions and choices shaping American Jesuit life today. It does not disappoint on almost all accounts, nor do the 34th General Congregation documents offer an adequate substitute. Better to read both official documents and this book and ponder the continuities and gaps between what we Jesuits say and how we live.

Francis X. Clooney, S.J.

Credit Where Due

In reading through the items in Signs of the Times of your March 11 issue, my eyes went to the picture of the unidentified woman waving the youth day flag at the World Trade Center in New York. And yes, even from the side view I recognized her. She is Francine Guilmette, F.M.A., a Salesian sister, who is the associate director of the World Youth Day Organizing Committee in Toronto, and one of the best youth ministers Montreal has ever had on the diocesan level. She worked many years with me when I was in the diocesan pastoral office and really changed the face of what we call youth ministry. I think she deserves full identification. Much thanks for a superb magazine, to which I look forward every week.

(Msgr.) Francis Coyle

Gospel Message

Thanks to John R. Donahue, S.J., for his beautiful, reassuring words, so badly needed in the shadowy dim and darkness of this unusual Eastertide (The Word, 4/1).

For the past four or five weeks, our local newspaper has featured a major news feature almost every day on some aspect of priestly misconduct. For all Catholics, and certainly for our priests, the vast majority of whom are deeply committed to Christ and to his people, this has been vastly upsetting and troubling; and as Father Donahue suggests, we are, indeed, walking with flagging spirits. But then...from the shadows, in the midst enters our Christ, transforming, consoling, lifting up, reminding us again and again, I am with you...peace with you.... It is I.

As we walk through these troubled days, may we journey with hope and courage, to rise up in our beloved church stronger, more loving, more deeply committed to Jesus, more compassionate and more determined than ever to live the reality of the Gospel message.

Rose Christine Wagner, S.S.J.

Not Deterred

The article Guatemala’s Violent Peace, by Robert B. Gilbert, (3/25) must have tugged at the heart of every New York Sister of Charity as we recall with sorrow the assassination of our sister, Barbara Ann Ford, on May 5 of last year.

Barbara had served the poor of Guatemala for almost 20 years as a nurse and trained counselor when she was fatally shot by someone determined to steal her vehicle.

Your graphic piece leaves one appalled at the level of cruelty people are capable of when they inflict such horror on others for an economic, social or racial pretext.

The situation in Guatemala described in the article ranks right up there with the malice of the terrorism we experienced here on Sept. 11. By the grace of God, it has not deterred the five remaining Sisters of Charity who continue working among the Guatemalan people.

Yolanda De Mola, S.C.

Our Own Penance

To add to the tragedy of pedophile priests (Signs of the Times, 3/18), there have been no words of sorrow, no admissions of complicity, no words of compassion from the pope or his Vatican officials addressed directly to the victims (and their families) of sexual abuse by priests. The victims have been stonewalled and ignored. The only thing we hear about is damage to the church.

Pope John Paul II has repeatedly exhorted us that there is no peace without justice, no justice without forgiveness. In order to make just amends, we must begin by doing our own penance at the highest level in the church. Anything less only adds to this continuing injustice that eats away at any credibility we may yet have.

(Rev.) Charles E. Irvin