The Spirit of Dorothy Day

I attended a fund-raising breakfast this morning for three programs in Spokane under the umbrella Transitions. The programs help women and children in a variety of ways. At the Women's Drop-In Center homeless and low-income women have a place to hang out during the day and just chat or participate in classes. The Transitional Living Center provides apartments for homeless women and children. And Miryam's House offers shelter for women without children.

I'm blogging about the programs here, because Transitions is sponsored by four different groups of women religious -- The Sisters of St. Francis Philadelphia, Sisters of the Holy Names, Sisters of Providence and Sinsinawa Domincan Sisters.

If your stereotype of nuns is still grounded in the rule-slapping crabby woman garbed in stifling habits, you haven't met the modern sisters who do this amazing work all over the world.

The Transitions programs continue a long tradition in the Catholic Church of forming relationships with people living in poverty. Only through relationship can true help be given. One of the most famous Catholics to do this work in a radical way was Dorothy Day in the Catholic Worker movement which began in the 1930s.

This preferential treatment for the poor is what keeps many Catholics fastened to the church and provides hope of a different way during those times when the heirarchy seems to be so preoccupied with rules and power.

The Prophet Michael

I heard a prophet speak last night at Gonzaga University. His name is Michael H. Crosby and he's a Capuchin Franciscan from Milwaukee who has written many thought-provoking books including Rethinking Celibacy, Reclaiming the Church. He spoke some truths about the problems plaguing the Catholic Church, especially around issues of power and the clergy, in such direct language that some in the crowd of 250 gasped. He's not afraid to speak his mind, even if it generates controversy.

On the Roman Curia, the power structure in the Vatican.
"Every bishop is living in fear of the Roman curia. It is sinful. It is ungodly. And it must be challenged."

On why clergy are afraid to speak up against structural injustices in the Catholic Church:
"They are afraid they won't be named a monsignor, they won't be named a bishop, they won't get a parish they want."

On what lay people can do when they see abuse of power.
"Challenge it non-violently. Tell him, 'Father, I think you are abusing your power.' We've got to use our counter voices. Submission is not obedience. It's sick."

On the essentials of the church:
"I believe in God. I believe God is at the center of the church. I believe God became flesh and his message was a threat to the power structure. That's the meat and potatoes. The rest is gravy. And we are now fighting about gravy and bad gravy at that."

On the priest shortage and closing of churches:
"No one has the guts to write the Vatican and say we aren't going to close down one more church until you allow us to ordain married priests."

A Change of Heart

In an Oct. 7 blog item, I came out pretty strongly in favor of the pope stepping down now for the sake of his health. In the weeks that followed, I changed my mind, primarily because I heard from several women and men in their 80s in those weeks. They called me on many topics, but I was struck with one similarity: How tightly they held on to their roles in life, in much the same way the pope hangs onto his papacy. Jungians would say this was no accident. Spiritual folks might call it a conversion experience. It was odd enough for me that I columnized about it in the newspaper Saturday Oct. 25. Here's the entire column, for the blog record.

Rebecca Nappi
The Spokesman-Review

Everywhere I go in Catholic Land these days, people are buzzing about Pope John Paul II. He's been out in public a lot recently -- celebrating his 25th anniversary as pope, celebrating the life of Mother Teresa, celebrating the creation of 31 new cardinals.

The pope looks terrible. His head tilts sideways. His eyes are nearly closed when he speaks, and he speaks hardly at all. He sometimes grimaces involuntarily from pain he cannot control. A Canadian broadcast station caught the pontiff napping.

The pope is 83 years old, and Parkinson's disease shakes his body. Though the chair that he's hauled around in looks lush, it's really just a fancy wheelchair.

The Catholics I speak with divide into two camps. There are those who believe the pope should resign and focus on his journey to death privately and with dignity. And then there are those who think the pope should hold onto his papacy to the very end, no matter how impaired. The pope has basically said -- and I paraphrase -- pray for me and I'm not budging.

For weeks, I've sided with the resign-now camp. I even wrote an Internet blog item more than two weeks ago that accused the pope's handlers of elder abuse. I also compared the macabre way they seem to be forcing the pope into public life with the tasteless movie "Weekend at Bernie's." Two guys in that 1989 film pretend that their dead boss is still alive by propping him up in lifelike positions.

Slowly, I've started to rethink my opinion on the pope's resignation. Maybe it was the coincidence of running into several women and men in their 80s these past few weeks. Some of them talked to me about how they power through their ailments and hold onto the things that make them feel most alive -- their work, their homes, their friends, their interests.

Some complained about their middle-age children who give them advice, such as slow down, sell that big house, move into an assisted-living unit.

Then I got a call from Maurice Hickey. He's 80 and lives at Royal Park Care Center on Spokane's North Side. He loves it there. He's a retired public relations executive, and he called to pitch me a story. Seems a Royal Park resident was Spokane's first woman bus driver. He thought I might like to do a story on her. Maybe someday.

But I really wanted to ask him his view of the pope, because they are in similar situations. Hickey's mind is probably sharper and he's not as physically impaired as the pope, but he does use a wheelchair and relies on oxygen to help him breathe.

Hickey, a lifelong Catholic, is firmly in favor of the pope not resigning.

"I think God will take him in his own time," Hickey said. "And I don't think he's that far away from his demise."

In his younger years, Hickey belonged to the Rotary, Kiwanis and Lions Club. He gave more than 1,000 speeches as part of his civic and work life. He loved talking in front of crowds.

I posed a hypothetical to him. Say someone asked him now to give a talk to 100,000 Rotarians outside in the warm sun. Would he do it?

Absolutely, he said. "I still have something to say."

Hickey acknowledged that the experience might exhaust him. He'd do it anyway and then rest up the next day.

Our hour-long visit at Royal Park made me realize how easily we can hide from our society's elderly in the United States. They don't show up in the media much. They aren't in movies either. They appear in commercials in stereotypical ways. We often don't live in the same communities with our aging parents, and if we don't have a good reason for hanging out in nursing homes, we stay away.

Pope John Paul II is hard to hide from right now. He's on TV, shaky and stilted and sometimes snoozing. The pope redefined the concept of forgiveness when he pardoned the man who shot and almost killed him in 1981. It was a radical gesture. Pope John Paul's refusal to sit in the Vatican and meekly wait for death might be just as radical.

I don't agree with some of this pope's teachings, especially concerning the role of women in the church, but on the issue of aging and death, I think he still has something to say. I'm listening.

The Tablet

My newspaper colleague, S-R editorial page editor Doug Floyd heard from an Episcopal priest and friend about a Catholic publication called The Tablet. I'd never heard of it before, but when I checked it out, I was wowed. It offers a unique perspective on the reforms brewing right now. The London-based Catholic publication, which has been publishing since 1840 has an ecumencial bent and wonderful writing.

For instance, in a recent article, Sheila Keefe, a member of an east London parish, describes her parish's outreach to fallen-away Catholics.

She writes: "The more visits we made, the more we started to realise how absurd is the term 'non-practising'. Listening, we discovered that Catholics who do not go to church have not ceased to be people of faith; often the faith is deep but unexpressed, or lived out at home and in the office, at school and on the football pitch, but without the strength we Massgoers derive from the faith community and the sacraments. These Catholics struggled on their own, often unsupported. But they taught us that there is a profound witness, frequently hidden, in the lives of many alienated Catholics, and that all of us, Massgoers or not, were 'practising' Catholics."

Why We Stay

Non-Catholics sometimes ask liberal Catholics why they stay in a church that seems so messed up, especially around issues of sexuality, celibacy and the status of women. It's hard to articulate the reasons. But at a lunch today with some Catholic buddies, Donna Hanson, diocesan director for Catholic Charities for the Catholic Diocese of Spokane, read us this quote below. It sums up beautifully the paradox felt by those who stay.

"In the course of a half of a century, I have seen more Catholic corruption than you have read of. I have tasted it. I have been reasonably corrupt myself. And yet, I joy in this church -- this living, pulsing, sinning people of God, love it with a crucifying passion. Why? For all the Catholic hate, I experience here a community of love. For all the institutional idiocy, I find a tradition of reason. For all the individual repressions, I breathe here an air of freedom. For all the fear of sex, I discover here the redemption of my body. In an age so inhuman, I touch here the tears of compassion. In a world so grim and humorless, I share here rich joy and laughter. In the midst of death I hear an incomparable stress on life. For all the apparent absence of God, I sense here the real presence of Christ."
Father Walter Burkhard, S.J.

The Secret Cardinal

Pope John Paul II created 31 cardinals today, although only 30 of the names were announced.

According to an article in the Guardian Unlimited: "The 31st (cardinal's) name was kept secret, or `in pectore.' That's a Vatican formula often used when the pope wants to name a cardinal in a country where the church is oppressed."

Thomas J. Reese, editor of America. (See post below for more information about him) says the "the best guess is that he is Bishop Joseph Zen Ze-kiun of Hong Kong. Others have suggested Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz (the pope's personal secretary), Archbishop Sean O'Malley of Boston, or the Latin-rite Patriarch Michel Sabbah of Jerusalem."

Reese points out that past cardinals in pectore have been from "Communist countries where the government would oppose the appointment." Example: Cardinal Ignatius Gong Pinmei of Shanghai, who spent 30 years in a Chinese prison, was made a cardinal "'in pectore" in 1979.

The Guardian article also explains that an unnamed cardinal doesn't have any of the duties of cardinal until his name is published. Even if he is under age 80, he wouldn't be able to vote for the new pope unless John Paul II names him before he dies.

Cardinals for Dummies

Tomorrow, Pope John Paul II will create 31 new cardinals. This blog entry will try to explain some facts about cardinals in the simplest way possible, because it can be complicated. Most of the information comes from Thomas J. Reese, the Jesuit priest who edits America, a Catholic newsweekly. In my opinion, Reese, a prolific writer, does one of the best jobs in Catholic world of translating complex church stuff.

So here goes:

What do cardinals do?
The cardinals advise and help the pope in the governance of the universal church, Reese says, but their most important function is probably electing popes.
Any cardinal under the age of 80 when the pope dies get to vote for the new pope. These are called cardinal electors.

How many cardinal electors are there?
As of tomorrow, 135.

Where are they from?
Italy: 17%
Western Europe (without Italy): 19.3%
Eastern Europe (including Berlin): 12.6%
Africa: 9.6%
Asia: 9.6%
Latin America: 17.8%
Oceania: 3.7%
Canada:2.2%
USA: 8.1%

What is their average age?
The average age of the 135 cardinal electors is 71.4 years.

Coming tomorrow: More cardinal fun facts.

The Pope's Party: Behind the Scenes

Today, the Vatican was filled with song and liturgy in honor of Pope John Paul II's silver jubilee. Rome is buzzing with activity as the Pope's 25-year reign is commemorated today and for the rest of the month.

But think of any family and friend gathering you've been to marking a birthday or anniversary. Isn't there always something going on behind the scenes, some rumors, some feud ready to blow, some intrigue, some secrets?

The Pope's celebration is no exception, as you can see in National Catholic Reporter's John L. Allen Jr's excellent report. Let's see, Cardinal Godfried Danneels of Brussels, Belgium, widely considered a leading candidate to succeed John Paul II, is making news for a little word spat he's having with Colombian Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, who heads the Pontifical Council for the Family. The two are arguing about comments concerning condoms, believe it or not.

And will he or will he not resign? That is the Pope question of the day. Says Cardinal Bernard Gantin of Benin: "Popes do not retire, they are chosen as servants for life."

Stay tuned.

Of Crabby Saints and Mother Teresa

Hundreds of thousands of people are streaming into Rome for this weekend's celebration of the beatification of Mother Teresa. Beatification is the gateway to sainthood in the complicated system the Catholics invented to identify and elevate folks to sainthood.

I might get struck dead by the Big Editor in the Sky for putting this opinion here, but I've never been a big fan of Mother Teresa. She was too crabby for my taste. I also think she loved humankind but didn't like individuals much.

Diana Dawson, a wonderful journalist who worked here at The Spokesman-Review in the '80s and '90s, planned to travel to Calcutta once with some good local church people. She had to get Mother Teresa's permission and so she called her on the phone. Mother Teresa basically chewed Diana out. Very crabby.

The British writer Christopher Hitchins exposed Mother Teresa's dark side in the book The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice.

His criticisms include the fact that MT received millions in donations and yet spent little of it upgrading the clinics for the poor. Hitchens also believes MT was co-opted by the religious right and also given a free ride by the mainstream media who failed to report some of her less than saintly attributes.

To be fair, most saints had complex personalities and dark sides, so Mother Teresa is not alone. The best book of saints I've read is All Saints : Daily Reflections on Saints, Prophets, and Witnesses for Our Time by Robert Ellsberg who includes saints from all faith traditions, and not just the official Catholic kind. He writes brief bios of the women and men throughout history whose lives provide blueprints on how to change communities and the world.

25 years of Pope John Paul II

Thursday is the 25th anniversary of Pope John Paul II's selection as pope. It's a rare milestone, as John L. Allen Jr. of National Catholic Reporter points out, because only two other popes have reigned 25 years, Leo XIII and Pius IX, both in the 19th century.

You'll be seeing lots of mainstream press coverage of the event this week, but for more in-depth coverage, and great analysis, check out National Catholic Reporter's issue on the anniversary. It's balanced and fair and includes the legacy John Paul II will leave behind. But the editors are not afraid to point out the mixed record of this pope.

An editorial summarizes: "John Paul II certainly has energized sectors of the church with his charisma, his travels and his teaching, but he also leaves behind an American Catholic community that is deeply polarized ideologically and seemingly adrift in terms of governance. The sexual abuse crisis of 2002 is the most recent and dramatic eruption of these underlying structural realities.

"American Catholics have rarely been as angry with the leadership of their church, and therefore as angry with Rome, as they are today. Polling, even before the crisis, suggested that a substantial block of Catholics in the United States regarded the institutional dimension of their faith, especially the hierarchy, as increasingly irrelevant."

Pacem in Terris: Popes and Peace

Tom Fox, publisher of National Catholic Reporter, predicted Thursday that Pope John Paul II would be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize today. See column. He wasn't. Iranian activist Shirin Ebadi won it. But Fox's prediction reminded me of the wonderful tradition in the Roman Catholic Church in terms of writing and speaking out for world peace.

People wonder why some Catholics stay in a church with such a byzantine power structure and a church that relegates women to second-class status. Well, it's also a church with a rich tradition of social justice and activism for peace. And that keeps a lot of us around.

My favorite pope, John XXIII, wrote Pacem in Terris (Peace on Earth) in April 1963. It's a classic. Popes since that time have built on the beauty of the document by citing it when speaking up against war.

Fox thought John Paul II deserved the award, in part, for speaking out against the war in Iraq. "In the months leading up to the Iraq war Pope John Paul spoke out vehemently against the notion of 'preemptive" strike' and 'preventive war,' arguing the notion upsets a fragile international consensus against first strikes.

"Because of his position as a religious leader, as a Christian leader, the pope's opposition also contributed to lessening the potential rift that opened up between Christianity and Islam as a result of the war."

Treat yourself today and read Pacem in Terris. It's a gift from the past that's helped keep our world a bit more peaceful than it might have been without it.

A Dialogue: Catholics Rethinking Homosexuality

Mark Jordan is a theology professor at Emory University. He's Roman Catholic. He's gay. And Monday night, at Gonzaga University, he gave an eloquent and academic presentation on "Beyond Silence and Scandal: Catholics Rethinking Homosexuality."

The gay and lesbian issue in the Catholic Church is another one being sorted out right now, one that will probably be greatly discussed if and when there's a Vatican III. It's a complex issue for Catholics because, as Jordan pointed out, "Catholic institutions have offered sacred spaces for same-sex relationships" for hundreds of years. "The church," he said, "offered haven for those who fall outside of convention."

This is true. Ask almost every Catholic, of any age, and they'll tell you of priests or sisters they know well who are almost certainly gay or lesbian. They might be celibate, but that is who they are. And gay and lesbian nonreligious stay in the church, too, despite the church's official teaching on homosexuality, summarized in a 1986 Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons.

The most-quoted part of the letter states: "Although the particular inclination of the homosexual person is not a sin, it is a more or less strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil; and thus the inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder. Therefore special concern and pastoral attention should be directed toward those who have this condition, lest they be led to believe that the living out of this orientation in homosexual activity is a morally acceptable option. It is not."

Jordan says despite the condemnation weaved into those words, "Lesbians and Catholics are not outsiders banging on the door. They are cradle Catholics who want to stay despite exclusion. Why do they stay?"

Jordan believes it could be God's way of helping the church rethink its attitude toward gay and lesbians, a way to show that God is not bound by human boundaries of what is acceptable and what is not.

The room where Jordan spoke holds about 250 people. Every chair was taken and students jammed the aisles. Conservative Catholics on campus had heard about Jordan's talk and filled some of those seats, but I was impressed how respectful everyone was, even if they strongly disagreed with Jordan.

After the presentation, a retired lawyer came up to me and said he was homophobic and proud of it. He recommended the book Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth by Jeffrey Satinover, M.D. which argues that homosexuals can change their sexual identity.

Even the retired lawyer was respectful, when I thanked him but told him I don't share his anti-gay and lesbian beliefs. The evening gave me hope that Catholics who do not disagree can listen to one another without anger. That kind of dialogue is the beginning of true reform.

Elder Abuse? A Woman's Perspective on the Pope

The morning TV news brought footage of Pope John Paul II in Pompeii. He looked so frail and out of it, I had to turn away from the television set. He reminded me of a man I knew eight years ago. The former minister lived in the room next door to my father in the nursing home. The gentle and kind man suffered from late-stage Parkinson's Disease, the same ailment hounding the pope.

I offered to walk with him to chapel one morning, just a hall away from his room. It took us an eternity to get there. When I see Pope John Paul II now, I don't see the leader of the Roman Catholic Church. I see an 83-year-old man in need of intervention.

At a dinner last night with some Catholic women we talked about how we would feel if the pope were an uncle in our own family. If other family members were forcing the sick uncle out in public, due to some weird power thing, we would intervene, because it's a form of elder abuse. We worried that no one is playing that role of guardian in the pope's life now. He seems surrounded by men who have to prop him up and keep him in the public eye for their own means and ends.

It sounds very irreverent, but maybe the shock value is worth it. In 1989, a tastless movie, Weekend at Bernie's, was popular. Two young men pretend their boss, Bernie, is alive. He isn't. The two guys prop Bernie up in lifelike positions and cart him places. Very tacky.

Sad to say, I think of that movie when I see the pope in public now.

Should the Pope Resign?

In today's Charlotte Observer newpaper, a syndicated opinion writer makes some interesting arguments for the pope's resignation.

Syndicated columnist Michael J. McManus writes: "Sadly, it is time to say publicly what has been whispered privately: The time has come for the valiant and remarkably effective Pope John Paul II, now 83, to resign."

McManus quotes Father Richard McBrien, Notre Dame professor of theology who says: "If the pope were to retire, it would make an extraordinarily important spiritual statement that would have a global impact. He would show by his action that no one is indispensable, not even a pope, and that we must always be ready to relinquish power for a greater good."

Peter Steinfels, Catholic author of a new book, A People Adrift: The Crisis of the Roman Catholic Church in America, believes that if the pope resigns, "it would further nail his reputation in Catholic history because it would give a new model of transferring papal responsibility. Today extended periods of decline and incapacity are made much more likely by modern medicine. Resignation would be a real gift to the church."

Cyber Home for the Lapsed

I predict that some lapsed Roman Catholics will watch closely the developments that will occur in the post-Pope John Paul II world to see if the church changes enough to entice them back. It's hard to get those rituals from childhood washed from the soul and many lapsed Catholics miss them once they leave. But their anger over church practices prevents them from returning. Maybe the reforms inevitable in "Vatican III" will beckon some folks back to the fold.

David Gregorio, in his Reuters Internet Report takes a look at the wide variety of Web sites for lapsed and disgruntled former Catholics. The Once Catholic Web site, put together by the St. Anthony Messenger Press and Franciscan Communications of Cincinnati, Ohio, helps people hoping to make a return to the church.

Gregorio wrote: "It offers 'online companions' trained to answer questions in a compassionate and nonjudgmental way and a 'Help Room' listing parishes with 'welcome home' programs."

About the Journey to Vatican III

We're smack dab in the middle of a huge story in the Roman Catholic Church. Pope John Paul II is ill and could die soon. The whole world will be watching as a new pope takes the helm. Reforms are in the wind.

Conservative Roman Catholics hope these reforms mean a return to more traditional ways. Liberal Catholics hope the reforms mean more openness and inclusiveness.

Perhaps it will take a Vatican III to institutionalize all the changes in the wind now. After all, Vatican II, held from 1962 to 1965 in Rome, changed the modern church in surprising ways. Surprising, unless you look back five to 10 years before Vatican II. Most of reforms were already in the works.

In this blog, I hope to catalog and comment on the changes already going on in the Roman Catholic Church -- some subtle changes, some covert changes, some out-in-the-open changes. These changes are happening in conservative Catholic groups and liberal Catholic groups and for everyone in between. My plan for this blog is to capture commentary, and link to further reading sources, from all sides.

These "signs of the time" going on in the Catholic Church right now will have to be dealt with in a formal way in a gathering I am calling Vatican III, even though no one can say for sure a Vatican III will ever be called.

But so much is stirring now. It's an exciting time to be a Roman Catholic, because no one can predict how this part of the church's story will play out. In the meantime, the dialogue intrigues. So, let it begin.

Vatican II: A Look Back

It’s fascinating to look back to the decades before Vatican II and see what reforms were brewing then that are commonplace in the church today.

Priests and women religious now are involved in social justice issues of all kinds, especially in work for the poor. Back then, some were too, but it was considered more radical. Former San Francisco Archbishop John R. Quinn in his book “The Reform of the Papacy,” writes about the pre-Vatican II worker priests from France and Belgium who “got jobs in factories, where they could be close to their people and share their hardships and insecurities.”

Also in Germany and France in the 1950s, native languages were being introduced into the mass, a radical move, considering that Latin masses were required. The theological jargon for mass in a country's own language is “the vernacular.” Vatican II made it OK to say mass in the vernacular; that’s why you hear English (and some Spanish) in U.S. churches when you attend Roman Catholic masses today.

The Pope's Demise?

John L. Allen Jr., the Vatican correspondent for National Catholic Reporter, offered a good perspective on stories about the pope’s possible demise.

In his Oct. 3 The Word from Rome Column, Allen writes:

"I received scores of panicked phone calls from editors and special project planners wanting to know if the curtain was about to go up on what TV contracts euphemistically refer to as the 'papal death event.'

"My response? Calm down.

"One of these times, of course, the alarmists will be right. Given the pope’s age, the burdens of office, and the cumulative toll of his Parkinson’s disease and other ailments, he could take a dramatic turn for the worse at any moment. I spoke to a member of the pope’s inner circle on Oct. 1, and for the first time in our conversations he allowed that John Paul’s overall fragility — his immobility, his breathing, his motor functions — has him worried. The pope’s heavy schedule in October, with at least one major public event almost every day, is also a source of concern.

"Yet anyone who has followed John Paul knows that rumors of his demise have been around for 20 years. Even if we are in a new phase, in which the pope becomes increasingly more of a spectator to his own pontificate, that phase could endure for a long time. Between now and the inevitable, there will be a series of false alarms, and while it’s wise to be prepared, it’s also a good idea not to get terribly carried away with every rumor that floats along."

Magdalene: Wife of Jesus?

Feminist theologians hope that a new pope would be willing to be more inclusive of women at every level, from meetings in the Vatican to liturgy in the parishes. A bestselling thriller is helping outsiders understand how much the institutional church has silenced women over the centuries.

The Da Vinci Code is a novel by Dan Brown that explores the church's suppression of women's stories, including the story of Mary Magdalene, a woman the book says was married to Jesus.

In Sightings, an online column collection, University of Chicago theologian Margaret M. Mitchell takes a look at what part of the fiction is true -- and what part is false.

"Brown propagates the full-dress conspiracy theory for Vatican suppression of women. Feminist scholars and others have been debating different models of the "patriarchalization" of Christianity for decades. Elisabeth Schuessler Fiorenza's landmark work, In Memory of Her (1983), argued that while Jesus and Paul (on his better days) were actually pretty much pro-women, it was the next generations (the authors of letters in Paul's name like 1 and 2 Timothy and others) who betrayed their feminist agenda and sold out to the Aristotelian, patriarchal vision of Greco-Roman society.

Others (unfortunately) sought to blame the misogyny on the Jewish roots of Christianity. More recently it has been argued that the picture is more mixed, even for Jesus and Paul. That is, they may have been more liberal than many of their contemporaries about women, but they were not all-out radicals, though they had ideas (such as Gal 3:28) that were even more revolutionary than they realized (in both senses of the term). Alas, no simple story here.

And while obsessing over Mary Magdalene, The Da Vinci Code ignores completely the rise and incredible durability and power of the other Mary, the mother of Jesus, and devotion to her which follows many patterns of "goddess" veneration (she even gets the Athena's Parthenon dedicated to her in the sixth century).

Read the entire essay.

What Happens when the Pope Dies?

The Rev. Thomas J. Reese, S.J., editor in chief of America, a Catholic Weekly, has written an excellent explanation of what happens next if the pope goes into a coma or dies. See complete report.

Here's his partial explanation of who would be in charge between the pope's death and the election of the new pope.

"All the cardinals and archbishops in charge of departments in the Roman curia, including the secretary of state (Cardinal Angelo Sodano), lose their jobs when the pope dies. The ordinary faculties of these offices, which are run by their secretaries during the interregnum, do not cease on the death of the pope, but serious and controversial matters are to await the election of a new pope. The offices are run by their secretaries who remain in position...Any decision made is provisional until confirmed by new pope."

The Other Side of the Sex Abuse Story

In the Aug. 15, 2003 issue of Commonweal, attorney Patrick J. Schiltz writes that the mainstream media distorted many aspects of the sex abuse crisis and this left much of the public misinformed. He makes some valid points. The media hasn't done a good job of pointing out that very few new cases of abuse have been reported. Most of the reporting has been about older cases, because many have just recently come to light.

He also says that the mainstream media has neglected to clearly point out that "a large and growing percentage of the litigation against churches is not covered by insurance." So a diocese basically has two choices: Reduce services or ask the people in the pews to give more.

Schiltz also explains that in the '60s, '70s and '80s many bishops were advised that abusive priests could return to ministry after psychotherapy. They were wrong. Schiltz wonders why no one is holding those psychologists accountable.

The complete article titled: "Not All The News is Fit To Print" is not available on Commonweal's Web site, but it can be back ordered.

A Case for Celibacy

In mid-August 163 priests of the archdiocese of Milwaukee called for optional celibacy. This was considered a fairly “out there” move by priests. It was applauded by liberal Catholics who believe that celibacy requirements are outdated and based on shaky theological tradition. Some also believe that celibacy vows have contributed to the sex abuse scandals. The argument goes that if you repress one major area of a person’s being it will surely express itself in unhealthy, secretive ways. Last month, the National Catholic Register, considered a conservative Catholic publication, offered a different explanation in an editorial titled "Celibacy will save the priesthood."

Editors wrote: "Church history shows how celibacy is the best answer to scandals of divorce, polygamy and other sexual sins of the clergy. And modern practice shows that married priests impose considerable difficulties on themselves, their wives and their ministries. It's time to stop apologizing for celibacy, and start promoting it more vigorously than ever." See the complete article.

Blueprint for Vatican III

In 2002, the National Catholic Reporter asked Catholics in all parts of the world to tell editors what three issues a future general council of the Roman Catholic Church should address. They called the project "Blueprint for Vatican III" but added: "The tag, 'Vatican III,' is purely utilitarian. Obviously the sessions ought to be held in cities large and small throughout the developing world, with perhaps the final session held in Rome. This Council, realistically, ought to be Haiti I, or Calcutta I, or Benin City I, or Aotearoa I, or World Church."

The editors received hundreds of responses on the topics worldwide Catholics hope would be discussed at a Vatican III, including married clergy and the ordination of women. See the complete report.