Papal 'World Religion Summit' Draws Discord in Catholic Ranks

This article comes from the Catholic News Agency.
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Pope's call for interfaith day of prayer provokes debate

 

Rome, Italy, Jan 20, 2011 / 01:01 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Benedict XVI’s call for world religious leaders to gather in Assisi, Italy to pray for peace has touched off a lively debate among Italian Catholic opinion leaders.

Critics of the Pope’s plan charge that it will create a false impression that all religious believers pray to the same deity or that there is no real distinctions among religious faiths.

The Pope announced his desire to revive the "spirit of Assisi" in remarks made on New Year’s Day. He said he planned to mark the 25th anniversary of Pope John Paul II's “World Day of Prayer for Peace,” held in the hometown of St. Francis of Assisi, the 13th-century saint known for his concern for peace and inter-religious dialogue. Pope John Paul also hosted a similar event in Assisi in 2002.

A date for the new celebration still has not been set, although Pope Benedict indicated that it would be held sometime in October.

Each of the two previous gatherings garnered a mixture of criticism and praise. Criticism came from those who thought the event transmitted the impression that all participants, among them Hindus, Muslims, Animists and Atheists, were praying to the same God.

Detractors said it promoted relativism and religious syncretism, that is, a mishmash of contrary beliefs.

Before his election to the papacy, the future Pope Benedict may have had mixed feelings about the event as well. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger did not take part in the Assisi event in 1986, but attended in 2002 at the request of John Paul II.

Now that Pope Benedict has announced the third such gathering, a new wave of criticism and defense has rolled in. The arguments being heard today often seem recycled from the earlier debates.

Initiating the debate in Italy was a group of nine intellectuals who made a direct, and very public, appeal to the Holy Father in the pages of Il Foglio newspaper on Jan. 11. The group, all obvious supporters of the Pope and his teaching, pleaded with him not to revive the "spirit of Assisi."

In spite of the words and intentions of those who promoted the inaugural event in 1986, the first encounter "had an undeniable repercussion, relaunching, precisely in the Catholic world, indifferentism and religious relativism," they said.

According to the group, it taught people "to archive" the teaching of the Church on Christ as the Savior and "had the effect of making many believe that everyone was praying to 'the same God,' only with different names."

Seeing Catholic priests sharing in certain rites with people of other religions conveyed the idea that "all rites are nothing but empty human gestures. That all conceptions of the divine are equal. That all morals ... are interchangeable," they argued.

The "spirit of Assisi ... casts confusion," they concluded.

Political and state channels as well as dialogue might be followed to bring about peace, they said, but they cautioned about giving those desiring "to confuse the waters and revive religious relativism" a platform on the anniversary of the 1986 occasion.

In the Milan-based daily newspaper Corriere della Sera the next day, historian, philosopher and religion scholar Alberto Melloni struck out at those who appealed against the meeting, calling them "zealous and disrespectful Catholics who seek to influence the Pope."

He called their appeal "attempted intimidation" that "aims to render the presence of Benedict XVI in Assisi qualitatively and quantitatively minimal."

It is an "audacious and mistaken move," he said, as "it's enough to know a little about the life ... of the intellectual character of Joseph Ratzinger to know that no conformism has ever tied his hands."

The debate raged on with another article in the Jan. 13 edition of Il Foglio, in which two of the scholars Melloni dubbed "zealous and disrespectful" called Melloni out as "brother censor."

One of the nine, Francesco Agnoli, whittled their appeal down to a single phrase. "We only posed a question: in going to Assisi does one run the risk of syncretistic interpretations?

"The question seems legitimate to me," he told Il Foglio.

"Today Assisi means one thing for the people: the Pope who prays together with the representatives of other religions to a presumed 'one God.' It is an image that undermines the idea of the doctrine that Christ is the Savior."

Agnoli pointed to Islamic fundamentalists who "exterminate Christians," or Hindus who "burn" them while professing equality among men. "Blessed be medieval times, when you could argue among Catholics, in fidelity to Christ and the Church," he concluded.

The open debate has attracted its share of commentators. Among those was Vatican analyst Andrea Tornielli who pointed out through the online Bussola Quotidiana that the argument was partial. He found it strange that all reference to the second encounter, which followed the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on New York and the Pentagon, was omitted from discussion.

Appealing to the Pope on such a matter is a "hazardous" affair, he said. "The initiative, in the end, is not limited to being a concerned letter from those who ask the pontiff that risks and bad interpretations be avoided ... rather, (it reads) as the will to dictate the line to the Pope to prevent him from leaving the programs of his own pontificate.

This means, at the end of the day, that “they have made an idea of Benedict XVI that does not correspond to the reality, also because it was the Pope ... who decided to convoke Assisi III.”

Tornielli quoted Cardinal Ratzinger's own words to the magazine "30 Days" after the 2002 experience. On that occasion, the cardinal refuted the idea that it was an encounter that made all religions equal. "Rather," he said, "Assisi was the expression of a path, of an investigation, of the pilgrimage for the peace that is such, only if united to justice."

"With their testimony for peace, with their commitment for peace in justice, the representatives of the religions have begun, in the limits of their possibilities, a path that must be for all a path of purification."

Tornielli said that, in 2011, the conditions of religious freedom in the world could be the Pope's justification for running the "risks" of another "Assisi."

To those who would counter Pope Benedict's decision, the Vatican analyst said "you can not be in agreement with him, but it is unfair to seek to prove that the Pope is not in agreement with himself."

Church Power Struggle Continues in Japan

This article comes from the National Catholic Reporter.
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Bishop: Vatican-approved group has caused 'problems', 'chaos'
  
Japanese bishop's statement on Neocatechumenal Way comes after Vatican meeting

The president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Japan (CBCJ) has called for the cooperation of priests and laypeople to confront “problems” with the Neocatechumenal Way, which he says has had a negative effect in the country.

“In those places touched by the Neocatechumenal Way, there has been rampant confusion, conflict, division, and chaos,” the Jesuit Archbishop of Osaka, Leo Jun Ikenaga, said in a statement published in Katorikku Shimbun, the Catholic Weekly of Japan, yesterday.

“In Japan, the net effect has been negative,” said Ikenaga in his statement. “We bishops, in light of our apostolic pastoral responsibility, could not ignore the damage.”

Pope Benedict XVI refused a request from four Japanese bishops, including Ikenaga, in Rome Dec. 13 to suspend the international organization’s activities in Japan for five years.

The Neocatechumenal Way is dedicated to the Christian formation of adults. It was given definitive approval by the Vatican in 2008 and has an estimated 1 million members worldwide, in around 40,000 small, parish-based communities.

A few weeks before the Rome meeting, the Japanese episcopal conference announced that it would suspend the activities of the movement in Japan.

Ikenaga’s statement suggests that the bishops are unwilling to let the matter rest there.

“Until now, the CBCJ has engaged with both the Holy See and the Neocatechumenal Way. But now the time has come to gain the participation of the laypeople of Japan,” he wrote in the statement dated Dec. 20.

Ikenaga said that the pope plans to send an envoy to Japan soon.

He said that the bishops hope that those who have come into personal contact with the actions of the Neocatechumenal Way will relate their experiences to the pope’s envoy.

“The fact is, it’s very difficult for the real state of affairs to be conveyed to a place as far away as Rome,” he wrote.

“We hope that they [the Neocatechumenal Way] will take a hard look at why things haven’t worked out here so far and, for the first time, help us root out the cause of the problems, so that we can find the path to a solution.”

The meeting in Rome was attended by the pope, the Vatican’s Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, five other cardinals and one archbishop.

The Japanese delegation included Bishops Osamu Mizobe of Takamatsu, Ryoji Miyahara of Fukuoka, and Isao Kikuchi of Niigata. The 86 year-old Bishop Takaaki Hirayama, who is retired in Rome, also attended.

The Neocatechumenal Way set up in Japan around 1970 in the Diocese of Hiroshima. In 1990, an affiliated Redemptoris Mater seminary was built in the Takamatsu diocese, which has the smallest number of resident Catholics of any Japanese diocese -- only 5,000 are registered there.

Vatican Forbids Japanese Bishops From Banning Secretive "Way"

The bishops of Japan recently made a decision to outlaw the "Neocatechumenal Way" for five years in their country.  Their reason for doing so was the "Way's" secretive activities and divisive methodology.  After a meeting with Pope Benedict XVI in mid-December, the Vatican decided to overrule the Japanese bishops completely.

This is the kind of control that the Vatican maintains over its various episcopates.  Some people erroneously believe that each country's bishops are independent of Vatican authority.  Meanwhile, nothing could be further from the truth as this story indicates.

This article comes from Zenit.
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Neocatechumenal Way Will Not Be Suspended in Japan 

Secretariat of State Sends Letter to Movement

MADRID, Spain, JAN. 7, 2011 (Zenit.org).- The Neocatechumenal Way will not be suspended in Japan for five years, as was previously announced by the country's episcopal conference, reports the lay movement.

According to a spokesman of movement, Alvaro de Juana, this decision was communicated recently in writing by the Vatican Secretariat of State to the Neocatechumenal Way founders: Kiko Arguello, Carmen Hernandez and Mario Pezzi.

De Juana informed ZENIT that the letter came after Benedict XVI presided at a Dec. 13 meeting with a representation of several Japanese bishops, among them the president of the episcopal conference, Archbishop Leo Ikenaga of Osaka, to address some aspects of the Neocatechumenal Way in Japan.

A few weeks earlier, the Japanese episcopal conference announced that it would suspend the activities of the movement in Japan for five years.

De Juana explained that "the Holy See has made a series of decisions," which were revealed in Cardinal Bertone's letter.

"The first indicates that the suspension of the Neocatechumenal Way in Japan for five years -- as attempted by the country's Episcopal Conference -- is not admissible," he said.

On the other hand, the spokesman added, it specified that "the dialogue between the bishops of Japan and the Neocatechumenal Way must be taken up again as soon as possible with the help of a competent delegate who loves the Way and respects the problems of the bishops."

"Finally, if necessary, the latter must give concrete indications to the Way for each of its own dioceses, avoiding pronouncements of the episcopal conference," explained De Juana.

"The Holy See points out in addition that the Secretariat of State will be in charge of giving the necessary instructions and will address, in contact with the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, the questions referring to the presence of the Way in said country," concluded the spokesman.

The Neocatechumenal Way began in Spain in 1964, initiated by painter Argüello, a convert from atheistic existentialism, and Hernández, a missionary. They worked among prostitutes, gypsies and ex-convicts in a novel approach to the evangelization of the "fallen away."

Archbishop Casimiro Morcillo of Madrid was the first prelate to support the movement, on his return from the Second Vatican Council. The first communities were born in the parishes of Zamora, Madrid and Rome. Today they are active in some 5,000 parishes worldwide.

Ten Percent of US Congress Educated by Jesuits

A sobering statistic indeed.

Does this mean that 10% of our elected representatives are working for the Vatican?  No.  However, it does suggest that 10% of our elected representatives perform their political work with a mindset uniquely influenced by Jesuit ideology and remain more open to Vatican influence than other members of Congress. 

This post comes from National Jesuit News.
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Graduates of Jesuit Institutions Well Represented in the 112th U.S. Congress

8 January 2011

Ten percent of the 112th U.S. Congress are Jesuit college and university alumni/ae. Among the 535 Members of this Congress, 53 of them are alumni/ae of Jesuit institutions. At least 30 alums also serve in appointed positions in the Obama Administration.

“With the many challenges facing our nation, we are happy that our Jesuit college and university alumni/ae continue to play important roles in Congress and the Administration,” said AJCU President Fr. Charles Currie, S.J. “Their commitment to lead and to serve is in the best Jesuit tradition.”

There are 12 Jesuit alumni/ae in the Senate and 41 in the House of Representatives. Among the top leadership, Congressmen John Boehner (R-OH) is the first Jesuit alumnus to serve as the Speaker of the House of Representatives. Congressman Steny Hoyer (D-MD) serves as the House Minority Whip. In the Senate, Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL) continues as the Assistant Majority Leader.

Of these 53 alumni/ae, 35 received graduate or professional degrees from Jesuit universities. There are 18 Jesuit institutions represented by alumni/ae in the U.S. Congress. Georgetown University has the most alumni/ae with a total of 18; followed by Boston College with seven; the College of the Holy Cross with four; while Creighton University, Fordham University, Marquette University, and the University of Detroit Mercy each have three.

For a full listing of Jesuit alumni/ae, click here.

10 Stories that Could Define Vatican in 2011

An interesting post from a British Catholic perspective.

This comes from the Catholic Herald.

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Ten stories that are likely to define the coming year

For British Catholics, the past 12 months were both unsettling and exhilarating. Will the year ahead be as dramatic? Given the turbulent nature of the times, it is impossible to know for certain which themes will define the year. But here are 10 stories that we believe are likely to dominate 2011 and have a far-reaching impact on the Church.

The ordinariate: In arguably one of most interesting developments in English Christianity since the Oxford Movement, groups of former Anglicans will form the first personal ordinariate. The English ordinariate will become a model for similar ventures around the world.

Persecution in the Middle East: The bombing of the Coptic church in Alexandria was al-Qaeda’s way of saying that no Christian in any Middle Eastern country is safe. The terror network is likely to wage a concerted campaign this year to drive Christianity out of its ancient heartlands.

Post-papal visit renewal: Many of us are still trying to absorb the impact of Benedict XVI’s trip to Britain. There is a danger that, if we continue to simply bathe in the visit’s warm afterglow, we will miss a key opportunity for spiritual renewal.

The Church and the Coalition: Archbishop Vincent Nichols of Westminster has said that the papal visit seemed to herald a new era in relations between Church and state. But will the new spirit of cooperation survive the Coalition’s decision to place abortion at the forefront of overseas aid and to drive through controversial cuts?

Apostolic Visitation to Ireland: This year the Apostolic Visitators will attempt to discover what went wrong with the Irish Church and how it might be corrected. If Rome can draw the right conclusions about the malaise it can ensure that the scandal is not repeated elsewhere.

Reforming the Legion of Christ: No less important is the radical re-shaping of the most dynamic post-Vatican II clerical religious congregation, the Legion of Christ, and its lay movement, Regnum Christi. Pope Benedict has rejected the easy option of simply abolishing the Legion and will devote much energy in 2011 to salvaging the wreckage left behind by Marcial Maciel.

The referendum in Sudan: This month the people of southern Sudan (many of whom are Catholic) will vote on whether to secede from the north. Khartoum has warned them to expect violence if they opt for independence. Will anyone defend them?

Sino-Vatican ties: Before Christmas relations between Rome and Beijing deteroriated dramatically. Chinese state media accused the Pope of behaving “like a western politician”, while the Vatican said the Chinese authorities had engaged in “unacceptable and hostile acts”. Will Sino-Vatican ties continue to worsen in 2011?

SSPX talks: This might be the year that discussions between Rome and the Society of St Pius X finally bear fruit. As we report this week, SSPX leader Bishop Bernard Fellay is cautiously optimistic about full reconciliation. But we shouldn’t underestimate the obstacles that remain.

The Pope in Berlin: In September Benedict XVI will make his first papal trip to the German capital. Protests are expected, but the Pope may be able to charm the German public just as he did the British people. His scheduled address to the Bundestag is likely to be memorable.

Panelists: Laity the Future of the Catholic Church

This article comes from the National Catholic Reporter.
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Saying bishops 'scared,' panelists urge laity to take lead

By Jerry Filteau

Panelists at a recent Woodstock forum in Philadelphia urged lay Catholics to grab the reins and set the course for the church’s future.

“We are becoming a do-it-yourself church” for the laity, said Jesuit Fr. Thomas J. Reese, one of three senior fellows of the Woodstock Theological Center in Washington who spoke at “The Future of the Church: A Woodstock Forum on Sources of Hope,” held at St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia Dec. 5.

The U.S. Catholic hierarchy today is fearful and defensive, a far cry from the collaborative, pastorally transformed hierarchy that emerged during and after the Second Vatican Council, said Dolores R. Leckey, former longtime head of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Secretariat for Laity, Family, Women and Youth, and a noted writer on spirituality.

It’s up to the laity to take responsibility for where the church goes in the years to come, Leckey, Reese, and Fr. Raymond Kemp, a Washington diocesan priest and director of Woodstock’s “Preaching the Just Word” program, said during the two-hour session with nearly 300 Philadelphia-area Catholics. (This reporter did not attend the forum but later requested and was given access to a video recording of it.)

Reese, a political scientist, nationally known media consultant and former editor of America, a Jesuit-run national magazine, said, “Personally, as a social scientist, I tend to be a pessimist when looking at the church. But as a Christian, I think I have to be an optimist. That’s part of our DNA as Christians. After all, our religion is based on someone who died and rose from the dead.”

A recent Pew Forum study showed that about one-third of American adults who were raised Catholic are no longer Catholic, he said, and the number of priests and religious in the U.S. church has declined dramatically, with new vocations few and far between.

“At 65, I’m considered a young priest,” he said, adding that the Catholic priesthood may be the only profession in the country today where someone who dies of old age is still considered “young.” Because of the church’s sacramental theology linked to ordination, lack of priests means lack of access to the Eucharist and other sacraments, weakening the entire institutional structure, he said.

He said that for him the most depressing finding of the Pew study was that 71 percent of former Catholics said the reason they left the church was “that my spiritual needs were not met by the church -- in other words, our fundamental product failed.”

Another major negative factor in U.S. Catholic membership trends, Reese said, is that in the United States today, many of those leaving are women.

“In the 19th century we lost men in Europe. We didn’t lose the women,” he said. “Today we’re losing women too. ... Mothers are more important to the Catholic church than priests, because they are the ones that pass the faith on to the next generation. They are the ones who teach the kids how to pray, answer their questions about God, etc. Women are absolutely essential. If we lose women, we might as well close shop. And then the worst thing about this is that the more educated a woman becomes, the more alienated she tends to become from the Catholic church.”

Reese said that for church leaders to blame the exodus of Catholics from the church on sinfulness, dissent, lack of commitment, or other factors among those who leave is ignoring a major issue. “If this was a retail outlet, we’d say we’re blaming the customers -- and that’s not a way to make your bottom line,” he said.

He said a welcoming attitude, implemented in concrete welcoming practices, is lacking in most Catholic parishes and is one of the major weaknesses in U.S. Catholic practice today.

“When was the last time you entered a Catholic church and actually were welcomed?” he asked. “Our churches and our liturgies are boring. That, I think, more than theology, is what is driving our people away from our church.

“What you need is good music, good preaching, programs for kids and a welcoming community,” he said. “If you have that, you will have a full church.”

He called the Catholic church today “a lazy monopoly” around which evangelical churches “are running circles.”

As signs of hope, he said, the church “is much better today than it was” in the 1950s, and it is a church “that always changes.”

He cited the return to biblical scholarship and spirituality among the major causes for hope in the Catholic church today.

The Catholic focus on social justice attracts young Catholics, “especially when this work is seen not just as kind of an appendix to Christianity, as being a Catholic, but is integrated into our spirituality, as part of who we are, so it becomes part of who we are as Christians -- for many young Catholics this becomes attractive,” he said.

On the church’s immediate prospects for the future, “maybe God knows what she’s doing,” he said. “If you don’t have clergy, maybe the job’s yours.”

Leckey and Kemp struck similar notes on lay responsibility for the church’s future.

Leckey, who recently completed a book, The Laity and Christian Education, in the Paulist Press “Rediscovering Vatican II” series, said the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s is one of the chief reasons for her hope for the future of the church.

“What happened there was a monumental conversion of consciousness” among the world’s 2,500 Catholic bishops, she said, and one key area of that was recognition of the role of the laity, by virtue of their baptism, in the church’s mission of ministry and spreading the Gospel in the world.

She contrasted the conciliar view of the laity with the prevailing preconciliar view best expressed by Pope Pius X in the early 20th century when he said, “The one duty of the laity is to allow themselves to be led like a docile flock, to follow their pastors.”

Besides re-envisioning the church as the pilgrim people of God, the council stressed the universal call to holiness and changed the ongoing narrative of the church’s life, making it more biblically and liturgically centered, she said.

Today, she noted, 85 percent of the ministers in U.S. parishes are laity, most of them women.

Kemp said a key to a hopeful future for the church is a vital parish -- a parish that welcomes people and calls on them to contribute their time and talents. He cited Old St. Patrick’s Parish in Chicago as an exemplar, saying it has some 120 peer ministry groups and attracts young adults from across the city.

Another sign of hope for the church’s future in the United States, he said, is its involvement in works of charity and justice.

“We have a story to tell that attracts people who are not Catholic,” he said. “Where are we? We’re at the borders. Where are we? We’re at the AIDS hospice in Africa. Where are we? We are the ones that are walking the undocumented through the process. Where are we? We are the ones that are in the detention centers. We’re the ones that are building houses or founding houses outside the detention centers so that families can meet with their folks before they’re deported. Where are we? We as a church educate, feed, house, clothe, resettle more of those who do find their way here than any other NGO [nongovernmental organization] in this country.”
That is the kind of institution that attracts young people who want to make a difference in the world, he said.

During a question-and-answer session after their presentations, all three panelists stressed the need for laypeople to take the initiative if they want to see things happen in the church.

When she was asked how laypeople can engage in a dialogue with their bishops on issues that matter to them, Leckey suggested that the growing collaboration of religious and laypeople -- many religious communities have established lay associate programs -- could serve as a model and a means of developing such a dialogue.

It is difficult to get today’s bishops to enter into such a dialogue because they do not trust in the laity as they did after the council, she said.

“Our bishops are scared,” she said. “You don’t act defensively like that unless you’re scared to death. Their defenses are high. They weren’t high in the days right after the council.”

[Jerry Filteau is NCR Washington correspondent.]

US Bishop Threatens to Revoke Hospital's Catholic Status

With this post, I begin a new category of news items on The Vatican Lobby entitled "Vatican Discipline."

Since I started this blog over a year ago, I have received several comments from readers challenging my statements about Vatican control. "The Catholic Church is a lot more than just the Vatican," they say. "The Vatican is a figurehead. The Church is actually controlled by the different priests and bishops in all the different churches of the world. It is simply a lie that the Vatican controls the entire Church from Rome."

For my official response to these comments, see the tabbed page above marked "Vatican Authority?"

The new "Vatican Discipline" category will highlight how the Vatican uses a variety of punishments -- all of them effective -- to maintain tight control of its worldwide dominion. 

I call this punishment "De-Catholicization."  Bishops use it when they want to make a particularly strong point.  Needless to say, they operate under explicit Vatican authority and guidelines when they do so. 

This article comes from the Catholic News Service.
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Bishop extends deadline on threat to hospital's Catholic identity

By Nancy Frazier O'Brien
Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Citing "ongoing communication and attempts to rectify the situation," Phoenix Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted extended from Dec. 17 to Dec. 21 a deadline he had set for a local Catholic hospital to comply with three demands related to the church's ethical directives for health care.

The bishop set the new deadline for Catholic Healthcare West, the San Francisco-based health system that includes St. Joseph's Hospital in Phoenix, to agree that the termination of a pregnancy at the hospital in late 2009 violated the "Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services" and "so will never occur again" there.

The other requirements outlined in a Nov. 22 letter were for Catholic Healthcare West to agree to "a review and certification process" concerning its compliance with the ethical directives and for the medical staff of St. Joseph's to receive "ongoing formation" on the directives, overseen by the National Catholic Bioethics Center or the diocese's medical ethics board.

If the requirements were not met by Dec. 17, Bishop Olmsted said in the November letter, he would be forced "to notify the Catholic faithful that St. Joseph's Hospital no longer qualifies as a 'Catholic' hospital because of its failure to acknowledge the bishop's right and duty to judge whether the (directives) are interpreted and implemented correctly."

After the letter from Bishop Olmsted to Lloyd H. Dean, president of Catholic Healthcare West, was published Dec. 15 by the Arizona Republic newspaper, the Diocese of Phoenix neither confirmed nor disputed the contents of the letter, saying it was "considered to be private and confidential."

"The bishop and his staff are working together with Catholic Healthcare West and St. Joseph's Hospital to find the best way to provide authentic Catholic health care in accordance with the church's teaching," the Dec. 15 statement said.

The case under discussion in the dispute involved a woman, who has not been identified, who was 11 weeks pregnant and suffering from pulmonary hypertension, a condition that the hospital said carried a near-certain risk of death for the mother if the pregnancy continued.

A nun who concurred in an ethics committee's decision to abort the child was "automatically excommunicated" by her action, Bishop Olmsted said in May.

Mercy Sister Margaret Mary McBride also was reassigned from her position as vice president of mission integration at the hospital after news surfaced about the abortion. She remains at the hospital but has declined to comment on the case.

St. Joseph's Hospital said in a Dec. 15 statement that dialogue with the bishop was continuing "and we hope to achieve a resolution."

"We believe that all life is sacred. In this case, we saved the only life we could save, which was the mother's," the statement added.

The withdrawal of a hospital's Catholic identification would not be unprecedented.

Bishop Robert F. Vasa of Baker, Ore., announced in February that St. Charles Medical Center in Bend had "gradually moved away" from the church's ethical directives and can no longer be called Catholic.

As a result of that decision, Mass is no longer celebrated in the hospital's chapel and all items considered Catholic were removed from the hospital and returned to the church. The hospital retained the St. Charles name and a cross remains atop the building.

In his November letter, Bishop Olmsted outlined similar consequences.

"A revocation of my endorsement of St. Joseph's Hospital would necessitate the following actions:

-- "Removal of the Blessed Sacrament from all chapels and tabernacles at St. Joseph's Medical Center.

-- "Prohibition of all Masses celebrated in chapels within St. Joseph's Medical Center.

-- "Public advisory from the bishop's office issued through the Catholic Sun newspaper and website that St. Joseph's no longer qualifies as a 'Catholic' hospital."

Bishop Olmsted said "priestly ministry and other ministry to the sick will most certainly continue with St. Joseph's Hospital, as it does in any hospital when the sacraments or pastoral care are requested by patients."

Although the correspondence from Dean to Bishop Olmsted was not made public, the bishop indicated in his response that Dean had included a lengthy moral analysis of the case by moral theologian M. Therese Lysaught of Marquette University with his Oct. 27 letter to the bishop.

"Undoubtedly, the assessment from Dr. Lysaught is extensive and I appreciate the diligence with which it was drafted," Bishop Olmsted wrote. "At the same time, however, I disagree with her conclusion."

"In effect, you would have me believe that we will merely have to agree to disagree," the bishop told Dean. "But this resolution is unacceptable because it disregards my authority and responsibility to interpret the moral law and to teach the Catholic faith as a successor of the apostles."

Bishop Olmsted also cited problems with Chandler Regional Hospital in Chandler, Ariz., which is not Catholic but is operated by Catholic Healthcare West. He said he found it "deeply troubling" that voluntary sterilizations were performed at Chandler.

"I recognize that my objections to how Chandler Regional operates are more involved, but I would foresee us needing to address those directly in the near future," he said.

Regime Change in the U.S. Bishops' Conference

This article comes from the National Catholic Reporter.

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Shake up in the bishops' conference

The American anti-incumbency mood of 2010 hit the U.S. bishops’ conference this month when the group, for the first time in the history of the modern conference, declined to elect an eligible sitting vice president.

This year’s shakeup, in which New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan defeated Bishop Gerald Kicanas of Tucson, Ariz., is telling in several respects. For starters, the defeat of Kicanas punctuated the end of the “Bernardin era,” a loose designation that honors the approach of the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin of Chicago. 

Bernardin took a broad and generally progressive outlook on the big cultural issues and employed a conciliatory style within the church. One of the consistent hallmarks of that era was its strong advocacy for those on the margins. At the era’s most robust point during the 1980s and early 1990s, bishops were known to swallow individual disagreements so that the conference could present a unified face, whether toward the wider culture or the Vatican.

The end of the Bernardin era is the fulfillment of the late Pope John Paul II’s wish that the U.S. bishops’ conference’s influence be diminished and that the scope of its concerns be reduced. In recent years, during which a moderate conference has become increasingly conservative, the body has become splintered, often arguing over an agenda dominated by such in-house matters as liturgy and Catholic identity.

Episcopal activity in the public square has been focused almost exclusively on abortion, homosexuality and same-sex marriage.

Just how deeply insular and inward-looking the conference has become was apparent in the fact that the agenda for this year’s meeting, conducted amid the greatest recession since the Great Depression, contained no mention of the poor, the jobless or the state of the economy.

It is impossible to say precisely why the bishops voted as they did, but several explanations emerged in private conversations.

One is that a number of bishops who voted for Kicanas three years ago have since retired, eroding his base of support. Another is that younger bishops resisted the system that automatically elevates the vice president to the top spot. Finally, some said that a number of bishops walked away from Kicanas after victims’ groups accused him of mishandling the case of an abusive seminarian.

If, indeed, some bishops feared getting the new leader tangled up in allegations before he even took over the job, Dolan may provide small consolation. While he did some admirable things when he took over the Milwaukee archdiocese from Archbishop Rembert Weakland, he also faces a bill of particulars on the other side of the equation that groups like Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (known as SNAP) and BishopAccountability.org will be only too eager to list for the New York media.

The allegations against Kicanas, hyped just before the election by conservative groups that previously showed little interest in investigating clergy sex abuse, may have provided a convenient shield for those more concerned with ideological purity (Kicanas was viewed as a moderate in the Bernardin tradition) than with accountability.

The “heckler’s veto” against Kicanas, whatever its value in upending him, is one mark of how the conference has been shaped recently by the extremes. Another is the defense the bishops were forced to make of the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, a program that annually gives tangible expression to the heart of the Gospel the church professes. The program has been attacked relentlessly by a tiny, irrational but highly vocal camp of detractors.

In much the same way the Republican Party is paying a price for its courtship of the extremes by now having to deal with the anarchy of the tea party, the bishops are paying a price for their accommodation of some of the most unreasonable elements in the Catholic community. The splash back, they are discovering, can be toxic.

Notable for his absence at this meeting was soon-to-be Cardinal Raymond Burke, who gained distinction for excommunicating people while archbishop in St. Louis. Burke’s appointment to the Vatican’s high court means that he lost his conference vote.

Gone, too, is the mercurial former bishop of Scranton, Pa., Joseph Martino, whose rants against politicians, academics and others alienated a good portion of his diocese. We are left to our own conclusions about why he suddenly “retired” some 12 years ahead of schedule. Some insiders privately claim that the most vociferous and imprudent among the American hierarchy are being isolated and removed from center stage.

If, as Jesuit Fr. Thomas Reese contends, this year’s election was a decision by the bishops to focus on the culture wars, they chose two of the happiest warriors in Dolan, who has a well-earned reputation as a hail-fellow-well-met, and his vice president, Archbishop Joseph Kurtz of Louisville, Ky. Both are amiable men who genuinely like people and are more interested in persuasion than in fighting.

They face two enormous challenges: unifying a conference that has fractured in many ways over the past quarter century and unifying a church that is bleeding members who are deeply suspicious of their leaders.

How Dolan and Kurtz use the relatively small amount of political and public relations capital the conference may yet possess will be important. Being elected leader of the conference at this point in history may be an honor, but it’s no easy path to glory.

Priest Denies Synod's Political Tone

This article comes from the Catholic News Agency.

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Middle East synod participant explains factors behind its controversial conclusion

New York City, N.Y., Oct 31, 2010 / 07:55 am (CNA).- The Synod for the Middle East, a historic gathering of the region's bishops, concluded October 24, amid controversy over alleged bias in its concluding message. One expert on the region told CNA that the document reflected pastoral needs, not a political agenda. 

The bishops' concluding “Message to the People of God” criticized Israel in detail, but omitted most of the criticisms made against Islamic governments during the synod. Some observers took remarks about using religion to “justify injustices” as a blanket rebuke of Israel, a charge participants denied.

Shortly after his return from Rome, synod participant Monsignor Robert Stern, secretary general of the Catholic Near East Welfare Association. He spoke with CNA about some of the considerations that shaped the synod's concluding message. 

“The synod really didn't have a political focus at all,” Msgr. Stern said, recalling that its main purposes were to strengthen bonds between diverse groups of Catholics, and to ensure a continuing Middle Eastern Christian presence and witness. 

As such, he said, the synod's final message did not contain “the same degree of detail about every situation where Christians have difficulties in the Middle East.” Rather, he said, the message reflected “two major concerns” that took priority as “the more compelling matters,” Palestine and Iraq. Migration has greatly diminished both regions' Christian populations in recent years.

In this context, he said, the bishops' choices of emphasis and restraint --which could appear to focus on Israel's treatment of Palestine, while treading lightly with Islamic regimes-- should not be interpreted as political statements, but as expressions of their pastoral priorities, and suggestions toward peace. 

“They did list out several of the issues that are raised by (Muslim and Christian) Palestinians,” the monsignor said, noting that all of the specific criticisms of Israel were ongoing “issues of concern for the Christians who live in Palestine.” The synod fathers, he recalled, “also mentioned being conscious of the suffering and insecurity in which Israelis live” because of violence from some Palestinians.

Monsignor Stern also acknowledged that fear for the safety of Christians in some Muslim countries may have prompted the synod fathers to moderate their comments. This was, he said, a “prudential judgment,” since Christians throughout the region can suffer consequences of their leaders' remarks.

“Most of these bishops come from ... places where they're a very small minority, they're bishops of a very small community, and they feel a lot of social pressure living in an Islamic world,” he observed. “A lot of them are in politically very uncertain circumstances-- where they're at risk, and their people are at risk. So, they don't have quite so open and expansive of a way of talking about the situation.” 

“Just the experience for them to come to Rome, and talk to one another, and experience a kind of free ambiance where anything can be said ... was a very powerful experience for them-- to have solidarity, to be gathered around the Pope, and to be able to reflect.”

He said that the Middle Eastern bishops' “Message to the People of God,” whatever its possible limitations might be, was a historic and crucial statement-- giving guidance to communities whose decisions in the near future could make the difference between their survival or disappearance.

“The whole thrust of it is saying, 'What's our ... situation in the Middle East, and what do we want to say to our people here, or our people abroad? How do we stick together as Catholics? ... How do we deal with our brothers and fellow citizens, the Muslims and Jews?'”

Catholic Writer Justifies Anti-Israel Tone at Synod

This article comes from the National Catholic Reporter.

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Thinking straight about Israel, the Jews and the Archbishop

By John Allen, Jr.

We in the media have a genius for grabbing a small but sensational piece of a bigger picture and banging it like a cheap drum, which usually produces a fun-house mirror view of reality: Relatively small things seem huge, while bigger and more significant things shrink into near invisibility.

To take the most obvious recent example, whatever the big picture is for Islam in America, it certainly isn’t an epidemic of Qur’an burnings. Yet the mere threat of such an event from a Florida pastor whose entire congregation could fit into a phone booth held the world hostage for a month thanks to saturation “will he or won’t he?” coverage.

In some ways, reaction to the close of the Oct. 10-24 Synod of Bishops for the Middle East is following the same script.

The synod produced 44 propositions for Pope Benedict XVI and a 5,000-word final message, both of which contain a bewildering array of insights and ideas for solidifying the Christian presence in the Middle East and contributing to its great dream -- which is that the tiny Christian minority, hanging on by the skin of its teeth, can somehow catalyze a democratic revolution in the region, building societies based on religious freedom and equality before the law.

Yet the only storyline that’s had any traction in the American press is Israeli and Jewish backlash to a comment by one synod participant in the closing press conference on Saturday.

In a nutshell, Greek Melkite Archbishop Cyrille Bustros, who heads the Eparchy of Newton, Massachusetts, told reporters that Christ “abolished” the notion of a “Promised Land” for Jews, because the Kingdom of God is for all. (Bustros was speaking in French and used the word abolie, while the English translation given over the headphones was “nullified,” which is the term that appeared in many English-language reports.)

While there may have been a few other aspects of the synod which didn’t go down well in Israeli and Jewish circles, this was the shot heard ‘round the world.

Theologically, Bustros’ comments seemed to revive what the late Cardinal Avery Dulles called “crude supersessionism” -- meaning that the coming of Christ rendered Judaism irrelevant. That position has been widely held to have been rejected by the Second Vatican Council and subsequent papal teaching, such as a November 1980 speech by John Paul II to a delegation of Jews in Germany in which the late pope referred to “the Old Covenant, never revoked by God.”

Politically, many Israelis took Bustros’ remarks to suggest a wholesale rejection of the legitimacy of Israel’s identity as a Jewish state.

Reaction has been swift and severe.

Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon complained that the synod had turned into “a forum for political attacks on Israel in the best history of Arab propaganda.” The Anti-Defamation League in the United States claimed that Bustros had essentially said that “Judaism should no longer exist,” and that it’s “the worst kind of anti-Judaism, bordering on anti-Semitism.”

The Jerusalem Post editorially called upon Pope Benedict to repudiate Bustros.

“Pope Benedict XVI still has a chance to distance himself from the synod’s declarations, and make it clear that Bustros’ comments deviate from Church teaching,” the Post editorial said. “That is the right and necessary thing for the pope to do -- not just for Jewish-Catholic relations, but also for the sake of the Middle East’s persecuted Christian minority.”

Without trying to settle the debate over what Bustros said, or whether the pope needs to address it, there are four important bits of context to bear in mind if we’re going to think straight about what’s really at issue.

Not “the Vatican”

Some reports billed the contretemps as a new chapter in tensions between “the Vatican” and Israel and/or Judaism -- analogous to earlier controversies over Pope Benedict’s speeches at Auschwitz and Yad Vashem, the Latin liturgy and its Good Friday prayer for the conversion of Jews, and the lifting of the excommunication of a Holocaust-denying traditionalist bishop.

Those comparisons are misleading, however, because they involve official papal speeches and policy decisions while this case pivots on a comment from a single Eastern Catholic bishop.

We have been down this road before and should know better: More times than anyone can count, a Vatican official or a bishop who happens to be in Rome says something careless and it gets billed as a “Vatican statement.” Spokespersons for the Vatican are then compelled to disown it, insisting that it was merely a “personal opinion.”

That’s the case again this time, as Jesuit Fr. Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesperson, told reporters that the only official statements of the synod are contained in its final message and in the propositions. Lombardi’s clear implication was that Bustros was speaking only for himself.

I realize that there’s a tendency to leap to Machiavellian assumptions about everything that happens in the Vatican -- that everything is somehow scripted from on high and no official or visiting prelate would dare speak out without explicit papal approval.

In truth, however, things are far more loosey-goosey. There’s no “war room” in the Holy See where spin doctors meet at 8:00 a.m. to work out the day’s message; there’s no script approval when senior officials or bishops meet the press.

In that sense, the real story here may be more about the Vatican’s continuing PR problem than any change in its theology of Judaism.

In any event, if one wants to know the official teaching of the Catholic church vis-à-vis Judaism, there’s a wealth of material to draw upon -- beginning with the Vatican II document Nostra Aetate and the Catechism of the Catholic Church. A one-off comment from a single prelate does not, and by definition cannot, carry anything like the same weight.

Don’t exaggerate Bustros’ importance

Theologically all bishops may be equal, but sociologically and politically some are more equal than others. When the Vatican’s Cardinal Secretary of State says something, he’s presumed to be speaking for the pope; if it’s the Cardinal-Archbishop of Paris, or Milan, or New York, we’re talking about one of the premier movers and shakers in the Catholic world.

Archbishop Bustros, to be honest, is awfully far down that informal food chain. Official Vatican numbers say that his Greek Melkite eparchy counts a grand total of just over 25,000 faithful, scattered across the entire United States.

In reality, there are plenty of individual Catholic parishes in America with larger congregations. Ordinarily, nobody would think that when Fr. Joe at Our Lady of Angels says something outrageous, he’s automatically speaking for the Vatican or the Catholic church writ large. The same sense of perspective ought to apply to Bustros.

Without comparing Bustros to Pastor Terry Jones or his Dove World Outreach Center in Florida, there is nonetheless an apt analogy in terms of media coverage and public perceptions. Just as Jones galvanized far more attention than his actual sociological footprint justifies, there’s a similar danger in overplaying Bustros’ standing.

That’s not to say, of course, that Bustros is alone. It’s undeniably true that many Arab Christians have a tendency to be uncritically supportive of the Palestinians, in an effort to prove their Arab credentials. It’s also true that while “crude supersessionism” may not be official church teaching, it certainly endures in some quarters of Catholic thinking.

Nor is Bustros himself a complete nobody. Observers say he’s theologically well trained, and was among the Eastern bishops tapped to review drafts of the Catechism of the Catholic Church back in the late 1980s and early 90s. Some church-watchers believe he might be in line for an eventual appointment to help lead the Greek Melkite church in his native Lebanon.

Nonetheless, to think that Bustros plays a central role in shaping Catholic teaching or practice over-sells his place in the grand scheme of things.

Trying to be inclusive

Context is usually the first casualty of any controversy and in some ways that’s the case this time around too. Looking at the entirety of what Bustros said last Saturday, the thrust of his remarks was that Christians ought to be concerned with everybody -- in the case of the Middle East, both Israelis and Palestinians.

In other words, Bustros was trying to be inclusive -- even if his language created a very different impression.

Here’s a transcript of the full exchange, as it came through the English language translation provided by the Vatican. The question was asked in Italian and Bustros responded in French.

Question: In the “Message,” number eight talks about the dialogue with the Jews. That’s where you talk about the use and abuse of the Word of God and of faith itself. I would like to know why it’s under relations with the Jews, not relations with everybody -- since normally in the West we hear that it’s not the Jews who use the Scriptures to justify their actions.  
Bustros: In number eight of the Message, we say that we cannot resort to theological and Biblical assumptions as a tool to justify injustice. We want to say that the promise of God in the Old Testament, relating to the ‘promised land’ … as Christians, we’re saying that this promise was essentially nullified [in French, “abolished”] by the presence of Jesus Christ, who then brought about the Kingdom of God. As Christians, we cannot talk about a ‘promised land’ for the Jews. We talk about a ‘promised land’ which is the Kingdom of God. That’s the promised land, which encompasses the entire earth with a message of peace and justice and equality for all the children of God. There is no preferred or privileged people. All men and women from every country have become the ‘chosen people.’ This is clear for us. We cannot just refer to the ‘promised land’ to justify the return of the Jews in Israel, and [ignore] the Palestinians who were kicked out of their land. Five million Jews kicked out three or four million Palestinians from their land, and this is not justifiable. There’s no ‘chosen people’ any longer for Christians. Everybody is the ‘chosen people.’ What we say is something political. Sacred scripture should not be used to justify the occupation of Palestinian land on the part of the Israelis.

 

Politically, the payoff is that Christians should not support Israel at the expense of the Palestinians.

No doubt, that point could have been made without using loaded vocabulary about Israel and the “Promised Land.” Still, it seems that what Bustros wanted to voice was not so much a revisionist interpretation of Christian theology, but rather a cri de Coeur about Palestinian suffering. However imbalanced or badly expressed, that’s a different kettle of fish.

Not just the Jews and Israel

Though Bustros failed to make this point explicitly, many observers who followed the two-week long Synod of Bishops for the Middle East, and who are familiar with the rhetoric of the bishops of the region, did not automatically assume that the primary focus of his remarks was Israel or Judaism.

In fact, insiders tended to assume he was talking at least as much about some currents in Evangelical Christianity, which often cite the Old Testament to buttress a strongly pro-Israel political position.

Notably, Bustros does not directly claim that it’s illegitimate for Jews to think in terms of a “Promised Land,” or to assert a divine warrant for their attachment to the land of Israel.

Instead, what he actually said is that Christians shouldn’t read the Old Testament in a one-sided fashion to support Israeli claims. Knowing the way Catholic and Orthodox bishops of the Middle East think, it’s likely that was directed at least in part to Evangelicals -- whose growing visibility and outspokenness has long rubbed many Arab Christians the wrong way.

To put the point crudely, Bustros probably wasn’t only, or even primarily, grinding an axe against Israel or the Jews. The backdrop to his comments probably wasn’t so much Israeli rhetoric (which doesn’t often pivot on the Bible, but on security considerations and Israel’s status as the region’s lone democracy), but rather that of some -- often U.S.-backed -- Evangelicals.

Final point

Arguably, the most compelling Christian drama in the world today is in the Middle East -- where a flock that’s shrunk from 20 percent of the population a century ago to maybe five percent today is desperately trying to punch above its weight.

Christians in the Middle East know that their future is democracy or death, so they’re trying to figure out how to be change agents in their societies -- pressing Israel to better integrate its Arab minority and the Islamic countries of the region to make their peace with modernity.

If the Christians of the Middle East can pull that off, the whole world will be in their debt. If they disappear, the most natural human firebreak against a “clash of civilizations” will be gone.

One hopes, therefore, that when the dust settles over the Bustros episode, the broader discussion fostered by the Synod of Bishops for the Middle East can come into focus. There’s a hugely important story here and it ought not to be permanently waylaid by what amounts to a sideshow.

Catholic Bishops and the Arizona Immigration Law

This article comes from the National Catholic Register.

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Not Preaching to the Choir?

Bishops Struggle to Air Their Views on Immigration

By Joan Frawley Desmond

WASHINGTON — Arizona’s controversial immigration law takes effect July 29 — unless the Obama administration succeeds in blocking it. 

The law is expected to complicate efforts on Capitol Hill to pass comprehensive immigration reform this year — a longtime legislative goal of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

But even if the president’s legal challenge is successful, the nation’s Catholic bishops hope Arizona’s plight will be a wake-up call for legislators in Washington, D.C.

“The Arizona law is the result of growing levels of frustration and fear that have developed within the state,” acknowledged Bishop Gerald Kicanas of Tucson, who also serves as the U.S. bishops’ conference’s vice president. “But the bishops of Arizona do not believe this bill is the answer. The real answer is comprehensive immigration policy at the federal level.”

Last week in a Phoenix federal district courthouse, Judge Susan Bolton reviewed sharply opposing arguments by the Justice Department and the state of Arizona. But she has yet to issue a ruling, which could come at any time.

Attorney General Eric Holder hopes to secure a preliminary injunction against Arizona’s S.B. 1070, which he criticizes as both an untenable challenge to the federal government’s traditional role in setting immigration policy and a problem for U.S. foreign policy. If Holder obtains the preliminary injunction, legal experts predict the judge will ultimately strike down the state law.

Arizona’s Republican governor, Jan Brewer, however, contends that the state has been forced to act because federal immigration laws have not been effectively enforced. If the measure stands, it will be a violation of state law to be in the country illegally; police engaged in routine law enforcement will be permitted to investigate the immigration status of anyone they suspect to be in the country illegally.

Whatever the law’s fate, polls confirm its broad popularity, not only in Arizona, but across the country. Support for the law reflects mounting public frustration with the real and perceived issues linked to illegal immigration during a time of economic crisis.

During testimony this month before the House Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security and International Law, Bishop Kicanas argued that voters want real solutions to a “broken” system and that the Arizona law should revitalize the push for immigration reform in the nation’s capital.

“The message is to break the partisan paralysis and act now,” Bishop Kicanas stated in his testimony. “Without congressional action on immigration reform — sooner rather than later — other states will pass similar laws, to the detriment of our nation.”

He added that he witnesses “the human consequences of our broken immigration system in my diocese’s social service programs, hospitals, schools and parishes.”

Political Will?

President Obama signaled his interest in addressing immigration reform in a July 1 speech, but even immigrant-rights groups agree that Capitol Hill isn’t prepared to work out a compromise during an already contentious election year.

“The situation in Arizona has brought national attention to the crisis in the immigration system. But it will be difficult for Congress to act before the election,” said Clarissa Martinez, director of immigration and national campaigns for the National Council of La Raza, an advocacy group for Hispanics in America.

“The administration seems not to be anxious to advance legislation unless there were some assurance that 60 senators would support it,” noted Archbishop Thomas Wenski of Miami, a longtime Catholic leader on immigrant issues. “Unless there would be some action during a ‘lame duck’ session of Congress after the November elections, it seems that we are far away indeed.”

Republican senators say border security must be stepped up before they address divisive issues like legalization for illegal immigrants. But the USCCB’s director of migration policy and public affairs, Kevin Appleby, questions the logic of narrowly focusing on enforcement issues.

“Since 2000, the U.S. government has spent more than $100 billion on immigration enforcement,” Appleby wrote in the July 4 edition of the Register. “During the same period, the number of undocumented persons has grown from 6 million to 12 million, and border communities continue to see drug-related violence. Since 1998, nearly 5,000 migrants have died attempting to cross the American desert.”

“Comprehensive immigration reform, as supported by the U.S. bishops, would help achieve the seemingly incompatible principles of a secure border and a generous immigration policy,” Appleby continued.

The USCCB seeks passage of a number of measures, including an expansion of a path to citizenship for the 12 million undocumented persons in the country and the creation of a new worker program, which would permit unskilled migrant laborers to obtain visas to come to the United States legally and work under certain conditions.

A recent USCCB-sponsored poll concluded that “69% of Catholics supported a path to citizenship for the undocumented, provided they register with the government.”

Prudential Judgments

But the bishops’ support for immigration reform has also sparked considerable debate and a measure of antagonism. Bishops who have used their own Internet blogs to criticize the Arizona law have received a flood of overwhelmingly negative comments.

“Some Catholics, on hearing Catholic bishops speak on social doctrine and social issues, can’t help thinking that the bishops embrace pious visions but avoid real messiness and costs and low probabilities of success,” said Michael Novak, the prominent Catholic thinker and an occasional critic of USCCB policy positions.

“Regarding immigration, there are probably hundreds of legitimate prudential judgments among Catholics about which are the most moral and realistic policies to support,” Novak observed. “Some of these judgments seem a lot less naive than others.”

Asked for his response, Archbishop Wenski acknowledged some “legitimate concerns regarding the rule of law — and so sometimes an immigrant’s ‘illegal status’ does not win him sympathy.”

But the archbishop also suggested that believing Catholics should take the Church’s social teaching to heart. Catholics in America “should not be divided on this issue. And the bishops, in our pastoral letter, ‘Strangers No Longer: Together on the Journey of Hope: A Pastoral Letter Concerning Migration from the Catholic Bishops of Mexico and the United States,’ give clear teaching that good Catholics should be open to receiving.”

The archbishop vowed that Florida’s Catholic bishops would be “vigorously opposed to any attempt to pass a Florida-specific law, as was done in Arizona. Such an attempt would prove, I fear, divisive and counterproductive.”

In Arizona — the “epicenter” of an increasingly volatile immigration debate — Bishop Kicanas has echoed the Church’s consistent concern for the social needs and human rights of migrants.

But the bishop also has looked for opportunities to clarify the USCCB position, disputing common mischaracterizations of the bishops’ stance, and he has initiated public forums where all points of view are aired.

“Some people believe the Church is supporting open borders, but the Church does not support open borders, and it doesn’t support amnesty,” said Bishop Kicanas. “What the bishops are asking and pressing for is an earned pathway to citizenship. Illegal immigrants could come out of the shadows and wait their turn.”

“But we have legitimate policy concerns, like family reunification,” he added. “The Arizona law could force mothers or fathers or young people, who never lived outside this country but do not have proper papers, to leave the United States.”

Earlier this year, Bishop Kicanas presided at the funeral of Rob Krentz, the Arizona rancher whose still unsolved murder fueled support for the Arizona law.

Initial reports suggested that Krentz had been killed by an illegal immigrant, but state law enforcement officials have yet to confirm the identity of the rancher’s assailant.

“Krentz’s murder cries out for justice,” said the bishop, noting that the Church’s stake in the immigration policy debate was not limited to the plight of migrants, but also the plundering of Arizona ranches and the safety of border patrol officials.

“The Church has been criticized for getting involved in politics,” he said. “But it’s actually concerned with public policy — how we live together in a community.”

Joan Frawley Desmond writes from Chevy Chase, Maryland.

Vatican Appoints Special Rep to Vietnam

This article comes from the National Catholic Reporter.

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New Vatican Vietnam appointment spawns confusion

By Thomas C. Fox

The Vatican late last month announced that Pope Benedict would soon name "a non-resident representative" to Vietnam, a highly unusual move that seems to have divided local Catholics and taken some Vietnamese church leaders by surprise. 

"In order to deepen the relations between the Holy See and Vietnam, as well as the bonds between the Holy See and the local Catholic Church, it was agreed that, as a first step, a non-resident representative of the Holy See for Vietnam will be appointed by the Pope," the Vatican said in statement.

Vietnam has Asia's second-largest Catholic population and has been holding talks with the Vatican for years on forging diplomatic ties.

“I’m really confused,” said Father Jean Baptiste Huynh Cong Minh, an aide to
Cardinal Jean Baptiste Pham Minh Man of Ho Chi Minh City reportedly told a local paper , “because this morning when I met with the cardinal he seemed to know nothing about the move either.”

“Personally, I have not any idea on the representative office of Holy See to Vietnam, nor who will be in charge of such an office. I’m completely unaware of that and all those with whom I have met did not know either,” Father Huynh said.

“Our expectation is that since we live in Vietnam, any issue pertinent to the Vietnamese cause, even when it only concerns the government, we should be informed and involved,” he added.

The new move follows the April appointment of Bishop Peter Nguyen Van Nhon, chairman of the Conference of Bishops, to the post of coadjutor to Archbishop of Hanoi, a move described by Bishop Joseph Nguyen Chi Linh, vice President of the Vietnamese Episcopal conference, as “sudden and unexpected”. 

Divisions continue to exist among Vietnamese Catholics and these get exaccerbated when questions arise as to how to deal with the communist government. Hard-liners see it one say; those advocating reconciliation see it another. 

In recent months, some of these lines are being crossed, it appears, as the Vatican, which has had no official representation in Vietnam since 1975, has worked to build bridges with the Hanoi government. 

The speed of recent events seems to be hatching confusion and suspicion. More should be clarified when details of the new non-resident representative become known.