Thou shalt not kill...

The State of Missouri has scheduled an execution for January 12.

Where is the Catholic outrage?

Latest from CAN

Dear Friends of CAN,

Women Led Prayer is this Saturday, August 28th, at 11 am. We will gather at 1077 S Newstead. All are welcome for inclusive, creative, woman led liturgy!

Next week please join Union Ave. Christian Church and Instead of War for an
Interfaith Breakfast.
Countdown to Withdrawal with Raed Jarrar
Join us for a talk by Raed followed by a discussion.

Friday, September 3rd from 8-9:00 am (Raed Jarrar will be available for more informal discussion between 9-9:30 for those who can stay)
Union Ave. Christian Church
733 Union Boulevard
St Louis, MO 63108-1037

RSVP by Tuesday, August 31st to staff@insteadofwar.org or call Megan at 314.721.2977. More information available at http://www.insteadofwar.org

What can we as people of faith do to respond to what is left behind in Iraq(military contractors,military bases, troops and destruction)?
How do we educate ourselves and our faith communities around this issue?
What other resources do we need to continue working for peace?

The U.S. occupation of Iraq continues and the reduction of U.S. troops in Iraq can at best be called only a rebranded occupation. While the number of U.S. troops in Iraq will be reduced from a high of 165,000, there will still be 50,000 troops left behind, some 75,000 contractors, five huge “enduring bases” and an Embassy the size of Vatican City. The U.S. military’s overthrow of the brutal dictatorship of Saddam Hussein did not lead to a better life for Iraqis—just the opposite. It resulted in the further destruction of basic infrastructure—electricity, water, sewage—that continues to this day and the war has drained our treasury, leading to huge hardships as home. The War has not made us more secure.

Please join us to hear from Raed Jarrar, is an Iraq-born architect, blogger, and political advocate based in Washington, DC. He is currently the Iraq consultant for the American Friends Service Committee, and a Senior Fellow at Peace Action. Jarrar is half Iraqi and half Palestinian. He holds a degree in architecture from the University of Baghdad, and a Master's Degree in Architectural Engineering, specialized in post-war reconstruction, from the University of Jordan.

After the fall of Baghdad in 2003, Jarrar worked as the country director of CIVIC Worldwide, the only door-to-door civilian casualties survey in Iraq since 2003. He also founded Emaar, an NGO that carried out humanitarian and reconstruction work in Baghdad and southern Iraq. After immigrating to the U.S. in 2005, Raed Jarrar has been working on a number of projects aimed at ending the U.S. occupation.

Jarrar gained attention after an incident on August 12, 2006 at John F. Kennedy International Airport. Raed had attempted to board a JetBlue flight from New York City to Oakland, California while wearing a black T-shirt with the text "We will not be silent" in English and Arabic. After a lengthy exchange with airport staff, Jarrar was made to cover his t-shirt with another T-shirt bought for him by JetBlue staff from an airport gift shop. On August 13, 2007, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit against JetBlue alleging illegal discrimination against Jarrar. In January 2009 JetBlue paid Jarrar $240,000 to settle the case

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Peace,
Megan Heeney

Catholic Action Network
can@catholicactionnetwork.org
314.766.8713 cell
314.721.2977 work





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Words to ponder

“I hope whatever emerging Christianity is,” said Franciscan Fr. Richard Rohr, a featured speaker at the conference, “it’s going to be much more practice-based than doctrine-based. Where has this obsession with believing correct doctrines gotten us? The Roman church is right back into it, although maybe that’s why God is humiliating us, to say: ‘This obsession with being right and having the whole truth, look where it’s gotten you, Roman church,’ ” he said in a not-so-thinly veiled reference to the then-breaking story that the shadow of the clergy sex abuse scandal had darkened the door of the papal palace. “It might well be in the great scheme of God’s grace the only way to bring us to humility, to balancing all of our absolutely certain knowing with a necessary unknowing.”

COME DISCUSS ..... and weep?

Hi Friends of CAN,

On July 15, 2010, the Vatican issued a clarification of its canonical procedures for how dioceses should handle priests who sexually abuse children. As part of the statement, they have said that the “attempted ordination of a woman” has now been added to the list of “delicta graviora,” or most serious crimes in church law, alongside the sexual abuse of minors.

Many of us have been deeply hurt by the Vatican's statement due to its inadequate response to sexual abuse of children and its oppression of women.

Please join us this Sunday, July 25th from 12:30-1:30 at the Center of Survivors (1077 S Newstead). This will be an opportunity for us to process our feelings about this statement, as well as a chance to gather with others who are interested in further action. Thank you and we hope to see you there.


--
Peace,
Megan Heeney

Catholic Action Network
can@catholicactionnetwork.org
314.766.8713 cell
314.721.2977 work

CAN Events:

Catholic Action Network

Hi Friends of CAN,


* Please join us this Saturday, July 17th, at 11 am for Women Led Prayer at CTSA(1077 S Newstead), if nice weather across the street outside. The feast day of Mary of Magdala is approaching on July 22nd, join us to celebrate her witness this Saturday morning and again with the Sisters of St. Joseph on Thursday, July 22nd



* Join Call To Action members throughout the US who will be withholding funds from this year's Peter's Pence(USCCB information on Peter's Pence available here.) "Send the Bishops a Message"by withholding funds during the Peter's Pence Collection on Sunday, June 27th. Catholics are encouraged to print the following flyer and drop it in the collection basket to let the pope know that we do not approve of his handling of the sexual abuse crisis. It reads: "This year for the Peter's Pence collection, I'm sending advice rather than money...." The flyer can be found here. Please share this with people in your parishes and communities.

Donate to disaster relief through reputable organizations and encourage the Pope to do the following;
1. For the protection of children around the world, institute a zero-tolerance policy for those credibly accused of sexual assaults on children.
2. For the healing of the survivors, insist that bishops publish lists of all credibly accused and the parishes in which they served.
3. Donʼt ask for forgiveness until you and the bishops have amended your ways to act with transparency—just, inclusive & accountable.


Thank you! For more information see www.catholicactionnetwork.org



If you are what you should be, you will set the world on fire. Nothing great is ever achieved without much enduring. Cry out with a million voices: it is silence that kills the world.
– St. Catherine of Siena
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Peace,
Megan Heeney

Catholic Action Network
can@catholicactionnetwork.org
314.766.8713 cell
314.721.2977 work

CAN Events:

Hi Friends of CAN,

Please join us this weekend for Women Led Prayer, PrideFest and Gather Again in the Garden with the Shareholders of JPS at McGurk's.


* Women Led Prayer, Saturday, June 26th, at 11 am at The Center for Survivors (1077 S Newstead). Come enjoy inclusive, creative women led liturgy.



* PrideFest this Saturday and Sunday from 11 am to 8 pm in Tower Grove Park. Pride Parade is at noon on Sunday!



* Gather in the Garden with the Shareholders of Justice and Peace Shares on Sunday, June 27, 2010, 4:30 - 6:30pm at McGurk's Irish Pub, 12th and Russell in Soulard (map). Accoustical music by City Lark, appetizers and first drink provided. Bring a new Justice and Peace Shareholder and you and your guest attend free. $10 suggested donation.


Also join CTSA and the Palestine Solidarity Committee as we welcome back Hedy Epstein to speak about her experiences with the Gaza Freedom Flotilla in late May and early June. Saturday, June 26th at 7 pm at CTSA, 1077 S Newstead. Suggested donation for Free Gaza Movement: $5.00

CAN's next book group is meeting August 10th at 7 pm to discuss "Between a Barack and a Hard Place: Racism and White Denial in the Age of Obama" by Tim Wise. The book is available at a discounted rate at Left Bank Books.

Hope to see you this weekend. More information available at www.catholicactionnetwork.org


--
Peace,
Megan Heeney

Catholic Action Network
can@catholicactionnetwork.org
314.766.8713 cell
314.721.2977 work

Oh sooo right...

If Bishop Olmstead had been around when surgery was novel, he would certainly have been right there with the boys who excommunicated the first medics to grab a knife.

Conclusion:

If a bishop offers you medical advice, get a second opinion.

Israeli thugs do it again!

The criminal state of Israel has again committed piracy on the high seas with the tacit blessing of the United States. Can we expect to hear condemnation from the pulpit?

Latest from CAN:

Hi Friends of CAN,

Please join us this weekend for Women Led Prayer on Saturday and on Sunday for a 1:00 pm Vigil at the Cathedral.

* Please join us for inclusive, creative, Women Led Prayer at 11 am on Saturday, May 22nd, at 1077 S Newstead (CTSA). See you then! The next Women Led Liturgy will be June 26th at 11 am.

* Responding to the Spirit, We are called to Renew our Church: Join FOSIL and VOTF for a prayer vigil at the Cathedrals on Pentecost Sunday 2010 (May 23rd ): St. Louis at 1:00 P.M.; Belleville, 3:00 P.M.

As Catholics we struggle with feelings of betrayal and mistrust because of the despicable behavior of churchmen complicit in the sexual abuse of minors, now witnessed worldwide. So on Pentecost we will pray very simply, asking the Spirit to renew the face of our Church.

Our prayer will also be one of thanksgiving for all those who continue to serve as faithful ministers of the gospel, priests and religious men and women of integrity; we support them fully and join them as co-workers in faith.

We gather together in prayer, seeking a new perspective of church for the future, and we encourage area clergy, religious and laity to join us on this Pentecost Sunday as we listen to the Spirit within each of us. We cannot simply cower in the face of today’s scandalous headlines, but like the early disciples, must listen to the voice of the Spirit calling us to speak out with the openness, honesty and integrity so needed in our Church today. Our common prayer offers hope for a renewal of our church. The prayer vigil, lasting approximately 30 minutes, will be a familiar service of the Word, to include an opening song, Scripture reading, a brief commentary, prayers of petition and a closing song.

* The next CAN Book Group is "The Lemon Tree: An Arab, a Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East" by Sandy Tolan. We are meeting to discuss the novel on Tuesday, May 25th from 7- 8:30 pm at CTSA(1077 S Newstead). More information about this novel available here http://www.left-bank.com/book/9781596913431 Our summer book group is "Between Barack and a Hard Place: Racism and White Denial in the Age of Obama" by Tim Wise. We will meet on Tuesday August 10th to begin our discussion. Both books are available at Left Bank Booksat a discount. E-mail can@catholicactionnetwork.org if you are planning to join us for either Book Groups.

* This Week is Harvey Milk Week see http://stlmilk.wordpress.com/ for events. “What set Harvey apart from you or me was that he was a visionary. He imagined a righteous world inside his head and then he set about to create it for real, for all of us.” -Anne Kronenberg, his final campaign manager.


--
Peace,
Megan Heeney

Don't expect accountability from the last feudal system in the West

by Donald Cozzens on May. 17, 2010

* Examining the crisis


Miters somewhat askew, the recent queue of bishops from Ireland to Germany, and beyond stepping forward to offer apologies for sexual abuse by their priests is unprecedented for the European Catholic church.

Even as the apologies pile up and policies for dealing with abuse allegations are tightened and meetings with victims are promised, something remains amiss that takes the heart out of the bishops' mea culpa.

There is no real accountability for bishops who abetted sexual abuse by failing to remove predator priests from access to children or for bishops who failed to comply with civil laws requiring reporting of abuse of minors.

Nor will there be soon.

Two explanations surface; one might be considered divine, the other, thoroughly human.

Bishops are jealous men. They are jealous of their responsibility as divinely appointed teachers of the Catholic church. To their way of thinking, anything that might weaken their God-given, divine authority as teachers and guardians of the faith merits immediate and fierce resistance. From this point of view, calls to hold bishops accountable save to the pope himself, offend the dignity of the bishops' office and are framed by Vatican officials as attacks on the church. Instead of accountability, we are told that mistakes were made, sometimes tragic in their consequences. But, it is explained, they were mistakes made in the best interests of the church. Anything more, the Vatican fears, would undercut the authority of the bishop's teaching office and diminish his credibility.

The other explanation rests on more humble, though still lofty, grounds. Bishops are princes. We need but look at their ermine-trimmed robes and catch the ring of their courtly titles, "your excellency," "your grace," "your eminence." As elite members of the last feudal system in the West and one of the last absolute monarchies in the world, we shouldn't be surprised if bishops, as princes of the realm, are answerable only to their sovereign, the bishop of Rome.

If the hierarchy's royal accruements were simply vestiges of their medieval past, they might be harmless enough. But these episcopal conceits have forged a culture of privilege, secrecy, and exemption that is now exposed as a detriment to both their teaching and pastoral roles.

Even armchair psychologists can imagine how insular the life of royalty inevitably becomes -- and how dangerous the royal power can be even in the best of men. A sobering insight follows: It remains exceedingly difficult for anyone in power to feel the pain of others, even the pain of young victims abused by their pastors. It's the exceptional bishop who maintains real contact with members of his flock, who listens to the laity as one disciple to another, who lets the pain of the abused rend his heart. Sadly, it appears that it's the exceptional bishop who puts the good of the children ahead of the good of the institutional church.

More than a half century ago, the Lutheran theologian Paul Tillich wrote that any religion that took upon itself the right to judge the values and mores of the world must be ready to subject itself to the same standards of judgment by which it judged the secular sphere. If a religion failed to do so, he warned, it rightly stood subject to the judgment of the world.

Then, Tillich added, this is the particular danger of the Catholic church.

[Fr. Donald Cozzens, author of The Changing Face of the Priesthood, is writer in residence at John Carroll University, a Jesuit university near Cleveland, Ohio.]

Technology undermining Catholic church structures

Technology undermining Catholic church structures
By Thomas C. Fox
Created Apr 27, 2010

I toured China for three weeks in late 1998. Computers hooked to the expanding Internet were being set up in hotels frequented by tourists. While public Chinese access to electronic information was still in its infancy then -- and still largely restricted to foreigners -- I remember thinking to myself that the country was facing another revolution and that accessible information would be its catalyst. Secretly I was cheering it on.

The Chinese leadership today continues, as best it can, to battle the free flow of information. Government censorship continues, but reports out of China indicate those efforts are failing. As in the case of Iran, Myanmar, North Korea and other dictatorships, efforts to limit and control information in the age of the Internet with the explosion of mobile phones and Twitter accounts are on the losing side of history.

Some might cry foul, using the examples of modern thugs as a jump point into the situation within our own church today. Allow me this defense: I deal here not with personalities as much as I do with structures and systems. My broadest point is that the old top-down, one-voice-serves-all model of government and the information system it employs is anachronistic, dead as a functioning model.

People want give-and-take, understandable explanations. They want information to be a two-way street. Above all, they expect accountability. When all they get are press releases, you cannot expect them to be satisfied. No, they will be suspicious, they will question, they will most often not give you the benefit of the doubt. And this is what has happened, what is happening, as the Vatican tries to manage the current phase of the sex scandal that has rocked the Western world.

But there’s more. As noted above, the Internet has decentralized information and allows it to be sent globally in an instant. It occurred to me the other day that this latest round of church sex abuse reportage, which began in Germany three months back, is the largest eruption since 2002 — and the first such eruption since blogs and social networking and news sites matured on the Internet.

Remember how for much of our lives we heard it said that things change slowly within our church, over centuries, if at all. Well, in an age requiring rapid response to remain part of any ongoing conversation, this approach increasingly works against us. It was one thing when news of a papal action took weeks or longer to get across the globe. Today news assessments take place within minutes. To be influential one needs to be fast, nimble and flexible, like it or not.

One recent example supports the point. By the time Pope Benedict XVI issued his long awaited response on sex abuse last month to the Irish church, the story had already migrated to Germany and beyond. When his letter omitted any reference to the German situation, many in Germany were hurt. Others were offended.

Another related church matter that pitted old and new ways and technologies occurred in the final hours of the health care debate in Washington.

The U.S. Catholic Conference of Bishops, attempting to present one voice on the bill as they saw it relating to abortion, came off, in the eyes of many observers, as out of step with a quickly changing political scene. Meanwhile, they found themselves making judgments based on faulty and perhaps outdated information. On the other hand, Network, the Catholic women religious lobbying group, used electronic technology to rally members of their organization and to spread word of their analyses. The Leadership Conference of Women Religious, in turn, used the Internet to seek voluntary signatures in support of the bill. The bishops and the women appeared to be working out of two opposing authority models, one vertical and the other horizontal. The second, the invitational assessment model, it turned out, won the day — and the legislation, leaving the bishops in the dust, and with some upset and perhaps not quite yet understanding what or how it happened.

Even the old monarchies of Europe are now grounded in constitutions. The Enlightenment, new understandings of human dignity, public education, the liberation of women, access to information and, now, instantaneous global transmitting systems have rendered ineffective governing models. Is it any wonder our church’s prelates feel besieged?

When will it end?

Here are two recent headlines from NCR:

For Benedict, Malta was a break in the storm

Munich vicar general reportedly says he took the fall for Ratzinger

CAN Schedule:

Hi Friends of CAN,

I hope you are enjoying this beautiful Easter time weather! Please join us this month.

* Women Led Prayer- Saturday, April 17th at 11 am. Join us at CTSA (1077 S Newstead). All are invited!


* Our next Book Group will be on the novel The Lemon Tree: An Arab, a Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East by Sandy Tolan. The book is available at Left Bank Books- let them know you are with the CAN Book Group and you will receive a discount- the book will be under $12.00. We will meet to discuss the novel on Tuesday, April 27th from 7- 8:30 pm at CTSA(1077 S Newstead). More information about this novel available here http://www.left-bank.com/book/9781596913431 E-mail can@catholicactionnetwork.org if you are planning to join us for the Book Group.


* May Day Events: Join CAN and many others on May 1st from 11:30am - 1:30 pm to March for Immigrant, Civil and Human Rights. The March will be from the America Center (11:30 am) to Kiener Plaza (noon). There will be interfaith prayer, Puppetistas, music and call to action. Afterward from 1-10 pm there will be a May Day Festival on Cherokee Street. This will include a street fair of progressive groups, a screen filming, a rally and much more. More information available http://www.facebook.com/events/edit/index.php?new&step=2&eid=110478172308129#!/event.php?eid=200734103711

For more information see www.catholicactionnetwork.org. See you this month!



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Peace,
Megan Heeney

Catholic Action Network

Catholic Sisters Support Passage of Healthcare Bill

Washington DC: NETWORK, A National Catholic Social Justice Lobby, released the text of a letter to Congress supporting healthcare legislation from organizations and communities representing tens of thousands of Catholic Sisters. This letter, which is being delivered to each Member of Congress today, comes just days after a statement in support of passing healthcare reform by Sister Carol Keehan, President and CEO of the Catholic Health Association.

Dear Friends of CAN,

I hope you are enjoying the spring weather! Please join us this spring for spiritually and mentally invigorating events and campaigns.

* Women Led Prayer is Saturday, March 20th at 11 am at CTSA (1077 S Newstead). All are Welcome to join us!

* Sunday, March 21, Angie O'Gorman will host a book signing for her recently published novel, The Book of Sins, from 4:00 till 6:00 PM at CTSA. "The Book of Sins" is available from CAN and Angie for $18.95 today.

* Promo Lobby Day is Wednesday, March 24th. Support PROMO's priority proactive legislation, the Missouri Nondiscrimination Act. MONA would prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in house, employment, and access to public accommodation. Register to attend by calling 314.862.4900 or go to http://www.promoonline.org

* People's Settlement: Stand Up and Stand Together Against Corporate America!

March 24th, 3 p.m. at Kiener Plaza till Monday, March 29th. Join us for a 3 hour shift in Kiener Plaza.

Frustrated with Corporate Control of Politics? Angry over unjust Housing Foreclosures? Big Bank Bailouts? Continuous War? No Change?

All of us are working on issues from local control to clean energy to peace to jobs to healthcare and everything in between. We have been working separately for too long and we need to stand up and stand together on a united front! Many of us have worked hard on political campaigns and activist campaigns attempting to get legislators to listen to us. However, we feel the real issue is corporate power that is dividing us on every issue and blocking us from affecting real change from political figures.

That is why a group of us have decided us to take the power back and come together on a broad based front, united against a common threat. Join us at the People's Settlement, a week of action dedicated to focusing on various corporations in the downtown area; from Bank of America's bailouts to Peabody Coal's unethical energy to the prison industrial complex to Anthem's blocking of real healthcare reform.

* Economic Literacy and Building Solidarity Alternatives in a Time of Crisis Workshop: The St. Louis Justice and Peace Shares (www.jps-stl.org) in collaboration with the Center for Popular Economics will offer a two-day workshop designed to equip local activists to explain the roots of the current economic crisis and to design alternative economic projects. DATES: Thursday April 22 and Friday April 23 TIMES: 9 AM to 5 PM each day PLACE: TBA COSTS: $100 includes lunches (subsidies available) To register initial interest in participating please reply by e-mail staff@jps-stl.org or call 314-725-5303 by March 19



More information available at www.catholicactionnetwork.org.

--
Peace,
Megan Heeney

Catholic Action Network
can@catholicactionnetwork.org
314.766.8713 cell
314.721.2977 work

Children denied Catholic schooling, lesbian couple speaks out

The women talk with NCR in their first media interview
NCR sits down with lesbian couple whose children are being denied to attend a Catholic parish school in Boulder. The couple explained they agreed to speak with NCR because they wanted to clear up misconceptions in the media and specifically wanted Catholics to better understand their situation.

By Thomas C. Fox

Two Boulder women have been at the center of a firestorm of media attention here for the past ten days since news broke that their daughters would no longer be welcome at the Sacred Heart of Jesus parish school because their mothers are lesbians.

Local media have been covering the story seemingly around the clock. Television crews have come to the school. Articles, letters to the editors, and opinion pieces, including one by Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput in support of the expulsion, have appeared. Protesters have shown up outside the church with banners calling shame on parishioners. Police have been called in to patrol the school grounds for the safety of the children. Division has emerged within the parish though many Catholics – and others – here ask themselves how this could possibly have occurred in their progressive, welcoming community.

Referred to as “the mothers” here by those who do not know the couple and by those who do and want to protect their identities, the women have avoided all media contacts and interviews – until now. They also asked that they not be photographed.

I sat down with the women, both professional physicians, in the living room of their home here, walls covered with framed photographs of their five-year-old and three-year-old daughters. As we spoke for more than an hour, a long haired dog playfully rolled on the living room carpet before us.

The couple explained they agreed to speak with NCR because they wanted to clear up misconceptions in the media and specifically wanted Catholics to better understand their situation.

The women, members of the Sacred Heart parish, describe themselves practicing Catholics eager to raise their children in the faith of their parents and grandparents. They say they attend mass weekly at the parish with their children and continue to believe the Sacred Heart of Jesus parish school, including pre-school and kindergarden through eighth grade, excels in education and Catholic formation.

The women, meanwhile, said they have been overwhelmed by the media coverage and by the support they have received by friends and family. They said they are not political activists and have no agenda other than providing for the safety of their children. For this reason they asked not to be identified by name.

The following is their story, as they told it together, For the sake of the report I distinguish between them, when necessary, using the names Mary and Martha.

“People are making assumptions about us that are flat wrong, completely wrong, and we felt it was time to clear up some of these misconceptions,” Mary said as we began the interview.

From the time they first enrolled at Sacred Heart three years back they never hid the fact that they are a lesbian couple, they said. “We decided for a number of reasons to send our children to Sacred Heart School,” Mary said. “We have loved it there. Our children were thriving there. When we first enrolled our daughter in pre-school we told the school administrators our daughter had two moms. We asked if this was going to be a problem. We said that if it was going to be a problem we could go else where. We were very open and they said it would not be a problem.”

The women said they never made a “big issue” of their family situation. “We have never flaunted it or pushed any political agenda at the school at all,” Mary continued. “The parents know; the teachers know. We’ve sat with the kindergarten teachers and have talked with them. Never over a three year period we never had any indication that it would be a problem at all. We found it to be a very accepting environment for our child.”

All seemed quite natural until a it came time for next year’s enrollment a couple weeks back, Martha recalled.

“I went in to turn in our daughter’s kindergarten application and was called into the principal’s office. That’s when, she said, she got “blind sided.”

“She sat me down and told me we were no longer accepted here any more. She said it was not going to be a good fit for our child and that she would encourage us to look elsewhere,” Martha went on, explaining the principal said she was worried there could be confusion when the teachers teach about the family unit.

“Her main point was she was concerned about our child, about her well-being. She never came out and said we were not welcomed to stay. But she pretty much told us it was time for us to move on.”

That evening the women discussed what was said adding they were upset and so they decided they wanted clarification because the principal had stopped short of saying their daughter could not enroll, just that it would not be wise to do so.

Mary said she called the principal and asked for clarification. She recalls asking: “Are you just worried about how this is going to be for my child because of the church’s stance on homosexuality?” She said she told the principal that if that was the case the women could handle it. I told her we did not expect any accommodations for our children based on our family situation. She then asked directly: “Are you telling us we are not allowed?”

At that point, Mary said, the principal replied that she needed to call the archdiocese. The next day, with the principal and the pastor of Sacred Heart parish, Fr. William Breslin, on the line, the women were told that their daughters could stay one more year in school and after that they would be out.

What changed?

The women say they don’t know. They said they were told that the issue had been thoroughly discussed by the parish administrators. Yet the women said they never heard of any complains about their children being in the school from teachers or parents.

“At first we were conflicted about what the right response would be,” Mary said. “We knew there was potential for this to become a big deal. But we felt it would be in our children’s’ best interest to simply focus on finding other educational opportunities for them.”

“We did not feel then and we still don’t feel now that pushing the church to change its mind would be in our children’s best interests. We don’t want our children to become targets in a place where they were not welcome. So we decided to meet with Father Bill and send a letter to the archbishop and we would leave it at that.”

They women said they were “personally hurt, personally upset,” but decided it was time “to move on.”

But that was not the end. It turned out to be only the beginning. Following the decision the parish administrators told the school teachers and as best the women can reconstruct one of the teachers contacted a local television news channel. Word of the decision was soon flashed on local television and the story appeared the next morning in the Daily Camera.

“Within hours it was out to the entire community,” Martha said. “The parents knew; it was the talk of the parking lot. This started on a Monday and by Thursday when I went to drop off our children I had people I didn’t even know coming up to me and hugging me with tears in their eyes. We hadn’t told any of them. It was spreading like wildfire. And it didn’t come from us.”

The women said there have been surprises along the way. One of the biggest was the amount of support they quickly received from parents at the Sacred Heart school. “We have been around for years but just didn’t think much about it and didn’t think that it would be such an issue for so many,” Mary said. “It meant a lot coming from this group of people.”

Was this somehow about making a point on gay issues?

“People have suggested that we put our children in the school to make a political point or that we are fighting this battle and making our children political footballs. This is not the case,” Martha insisted. “You are the first person we have talked to. We haven’t spoken to any of the reporters who have wanted to speak with us. We value our privacy.”

Both of the moms were born and raised Catholics. Mary went to Catholic schools from pre-school through 12th grade. Martha went to Notre Dame. Mary’s mother taught in a Catholic school system for 25 years. Martha’s aunt was a Catholic school teacher for decades. “We have a lot of history with the Catholic school system. It is what we are familiar with. It is what we are comfortable with. We value what a Catholic education can do for our kids,” Martha said.

As for Sacred Heart, the women say it has been good place for their children’s education. They say they appreciate the moral foundation the teachers have provided. They say they support the character of Catholic education. They say it is very important to them that their children be provided with religious education. “We want our kids to learn about religion. We feel religion is really important. And they love it. They love God. They love their school. They love their friends. They love their teachers,” Mary said.

The women take pride in the fact that their children like to repeat bible stories they learn in school. They say they encourage these stories.

Mary and Martha each gave birth to one of the children. Legally each has joint custody of both children. The women are not legally married. They have lived in Colorado for nearly a decade and Colorado does not allow gay marriages.

Each of the children was baptized by local priests, one who is in a neighboring parish and another who has been reassigned outside the area. The baptisms followed by months the publication of a 2006 statement issued by the U.S. bishops offering guidelines to ministers and parents of gay and lesbian children. The outlines suggest baptism for children of gays and lesbians, the women say, as long as there is a reasonable assumption that the children will be raised as Catholics.

“They asked if we would raise our children in the Catholic faith and we said we would and we have really tried to live up to that commitment,” Martha said. “We take them to church every week. We switched to the Sacred Hear parish when our kids starting going to the school. We signed up and our money goes into the basket every week. Our kids go to Sunday school. We are making the effort.”

Part of the disappointment for the women is that they feel the Catholic church is now not fulfilling its part of the promise to provide all the support it can in the raising of the children as Catholics.

Said Mary: “We are trying to live up to the promises we make to raise our kids as Catholics and now the church we made the promise to is sort of undermining our attempts to do so.” They said they were shocked when a local priest suggested they raise their children as Episcopalians.

After being told their children could not continue into the elementary school, they women said they spoke with Sacred Heart pastor, Fr. Breslin, and were told they could continue to come to church and that the their children could come to CCD classes. They then asked what was the difference between CCD education and school education. “Isn’t the doctrine the same?” they asked. They felt Breslin was not able to provide an understandable answer.

They say they are also troubled because behind the decision to forbid their children from going to the elementary school is a presumption about their personal lives and that no one ever asked them about what it means for them to live as a couple.

“No one has every asked us if we are celibates. How do they know we are not upholding official church teachings?” Mary asked. Meanwhile, other parish parents, they say, have been coming to them saying they are not upholding church teachings. Some have noted they are divorced and remarried without a church blessing. Others say they are practicing birth control methods contrary to church teachings.

Said Martha: “The frustrating argument for me is that our priest and archbishop are saying we are openly living in disagreement with the doctrine of the church. They are saying people who are divorced are not as open, but everyone knows they are divorced. They imply that we are flaunting our relationship. That is the last thing we do. We go to church as family. We never show any affection for each other in church. We are very private. But that’s how the archdiocese is seeing it.”

Bottom line, the women regret this whole incident has happened. They regret it not only for themselves and for their children, but also, they say, for the school. “This is unfortunate because Sacred Heart is a great school. Those teachers are dedicated and they are good. And the families are wonderful. It’s just the people above. It’s the administration that’s the problem. I feel very bad that the school is getting such a black eye from this. It is a wonderful school.”

The women also regret their children are going to suffer from the decision. Then they gave a telling example.

Last week they were driving home from school having just picked up their children in the car. Recalled Martha: “In the car, our older daughter was helping our younger daughter with words from the “Our Father.” They were both trying to get the words right. Then they began the “Hail Mary” and we listened we had tears in our eyes. We were really sad about it because they are going to lose it.”

The women say they have tried really hard not to let anger take a grip on them. At the same time they wanted, they said, to express their gratitude to the parents of the children in their classes and to the school teachers. So they wrote them a letter and emailed it, expressing their thanks, trying, as they could, to explain the situation as they best understood it. They also asked the teachers not to say anything “that could put themselves at risk for our benefit.”

One point that the women wanted me to know and report is that they are not part of any gay movement. They are not activists. “You have never seen us at protests or marching in parades. We never intended to pave the way for gays in the Catholic church. We just wanted to be a normal family.”

The morning after meeting with Fr. Breslin the women woke up to see their story on the front page of the Boulder paper. They were shocked and worried. So they immediately called Breslin and had him paged. They said they wanted to let him know that the leak did not come from them. “I actually called to warm him this was coming out. He needed to know,” said Mary.

“All through this we have decided that we are not going to let our hearts be filled with anger and disgust and hatred. We decided we are just going to move on, take care of our family and we are going to be fine. The family is going to be fine and maybe bringing this out to the forefront of people’s minds is going to have some positive effect. You can’t let it drag you down.”

Later, the women said they were working on a press statement and wanted to be sure I knew its last sentence so that I could report it. The sentence reads: “We will continue to raise our children with strong Catholic values and hold faith that through our actions, we are doing our part to create a more loving, inclusive world."

Fox is NCR Editor.

There will be more related stories appearing on the NCR web site in the coming days.

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Anticipation high ahead of Romero anniversary

Published statements from both the church and the government in El Salvador are raising hopes that the 30th anniversary of the death of Archbishop Oscar Romero may occasion an official announcement of his beatification. San Salvador Archbishop José Luis Escobar Alas told a press conference Feb. 7 that the bishops of El Salvador had written to Rome to ask that Romero be canonized “as soon as possible.”

Published statements from both the church and the government in El Salvador are raising hopes that the 30th anniversary of the death of Archbishop Oscar Romero may occasion an official announcement of his beatification.

San Salvador Archbishop José Luis Escobar Alas told a press conference Feb. 7 that the bishops of El Salvador had written to Rome to ask that Romero be canonized “as soon as possible.” Escobar cautioned that he had received no official word from the Vatican, but said the bishops would like to be able to give everyone the good news that Romero was declared “Blessed” on the anniversary day. Romero was assassinated while saying Mass on March 24, 1980.

Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes, who represents the political wing of the leftist rebels in El Salvador’s 1980-92 civil war, said when he was elected in March 2009 that he sought the “kind of government envisioned by Monseñor Romero,” including a commitment to the “option for the poor,” a phrase found in church documents and in liberation theology, which holds that the Gospel rejects the historic disequilibrium between privilege and wealth of the few and the vast poverty of the majority in many Latin American countries.

In a Jan. 17, 2010, statement, Funes formally apologized for the government’s role in human rights abuses during the civil war. Last November, he acknowledged official complicity in the 1989 murders of six priests, their housekeeper and her daughter on the campus of the Jesuits’ Central American University in San Salvador. Funes is widely expected to mark the Romero anniversary with a similar admission of government involvement in Romero’s death, clearing away any concerns that canonization might create a breach between the Vatican and the Salvadoran state.

Romero’s canonization could strengthen both Funes’ political and economic reforms and the church’s call for a process of truth and reconciliation, stalled by a general amnesty for war crimes that was built into the 1993 peace accords. Romero’s canonization would also help the church counter the wave of conversions of Latin America’s historically Catholic population to Pentecostal movements.

The cause for sainthood seemed on track in 2005 with formal verification from the Vatican that Romero’s writings contained no doctrinal errors and with strong support from Pope John Paul II, who had personally added Romero’s name to a list of slain church workers during a ceremony in Rome in May 2000 for contemporary martyrs.

But John Paul’s death in 2005 and the election of Pope Benedict XVI seemed to slow the process over charges by some in the hierarchy that Romero is too closely tied to liberation theology’s emphasis on social transformation and church involvement in politics. While Benedict praised Romero in 2007 as a “great witness for the faith and a man of great Christian virtue who worked for peace,” he also permitted an aggressive probe of the writings of Jesuit Fr. Jon Sobrino, El Salvador’s most prominent liberation theologian and a key advisor to Romero in the final years of his life. Sobrino, a tireless promoter of Romero as an embodiment of the “church of the poor,” said in August 2009 that he feared Romero’s canonization would be delayed for political reasons and that his legacy would be watered down over time.

What happens -- or does not happen -- during the upcoming ceremonies in San Salvador will be closely watched for signs that the road to sainthood is either open or being extended. Romero, controversial in death as in life and already revered throughout the world, is likely to continue to influence the direction of both church and state in the Americas.

[Patrick Marrin, editor of Celebration, NCR’s sister publication, will be in El Salvador to cover the Romero anniversary.]


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CAN Events:

* Women Led Prayer Saturday, February 20th from 11:00- 12:30 at CTSA (1077 S Newstead.) All are welcome to join us for inclusive, creative prayer.


* Winter Book Group on Angie O'Gorman's novel "The Book of Sins" meets Monday, February 22nd and Tuesday, March 2nd from 7-8:30 pm at CTSA (1077 S Newstead). Information about the book is available at http://thebookofsins.wordpress.com/about/ . "The Book of Sins" is available for $18.95 through Angie and CAN. Books are available now, contact can@catholicactionnetwork.org or at 314.721.2977. E-mail can@catholicactionnetwork.org if you are interested in joining the book group. Thanks!


* Peaceable Assembly Campaign- CAN is taking part in the Peaceable Assembly Campaign which is a national campaign encouraging local communities to Demand Alternatives to U.S. Militarism. We are having a meeting on Sunday, February 21st from 3:30-5 pm at CTSA (1077 S Newstead) to discuss the Peaceable Assembly Campaign and get involved. . Before the meeting it would be helpful if people checked out the Peaceable Assembly Campaign Website (http://vcnv.org/pac). The meeting will be a space to learn about Peaceable Assembly Campaign and discuss peoples ideas on how they would like to act to demand alternatives to U.S. militarism. Ideally we can begin to meet in smaller groups(affinity groups), people whom we can commit to meeting and acting with on a regular basis, then we could meet as a big group once a month to coordinate efforts, discuss road blocks, etc. If you have any questions please let me know and feel free to share with others.

If you can make it to the Sunday meeting please let me know so I have materials available.

* If you are interested in being part of a working group for a Support Our Sisters Campaign please contact CAN. This group will work on raising awareness around the "Apostolic Visitation." As the Vatican continues its unjust investigation of US Women Religious Communities, we will stand in solidarity with our Sisters. E-mail CAN can@catholicactionnetwork.org today if you want to join this working group.

For more information check out the CAN website- www.catholicactionnetwork.org.

--
Peace,
Megan Heeney

Gay bashing again...

Dear Friends and Supporters of Fortunate Families,

We write to ask you to consider writing in support of New Ways Ministry.

Most of you know that New Ways has been striving for many years in its mission to be a bridge-building ministry between lesbian/gay Catholics and their families and friends, and the institutional church. Yet, it's authenticity as a Catholic group has recently been challenged by Cardinal Francis George, archbishop of Chicago and president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Relative to Fortunate Families, New Ways has been extremely supportive of Catholic parents of LGBT persons, from its 1994 offering of the first national retreat for Catholic parents to its more recent symposiums, retreat/workshops and Next Steps programs that always include parent concerns in the programming.

If you have been to any New Ways program, you know how sensitive New Ways always is to the pastoral concerns of the attendees and addressing those concerns within the framework of the Catholic moral and social justice tradition.

Please read Frank DeBernardo's note below and the other material referenced, including Cardinal George's statement. We strongly encourage you to respond in the manner that Frank suggests.

Thank you for your consideration of this request!

Blessings!

Mary Ellen & Casey Lopata
Fortunate Families, Inc.
PO Box 18082
Rochester, NY 14618-0082
585-698-6100
www.fortunatefamilies.org
info@fortunatefamilies.com

The truth:

The truth is that male religious leaders have had - and still have - an option to interpret holy teachings either to exalt or subjugate women.

They have, for their own selfish ends, overwhelmingly chosen the latter.

JC