Southern Priests
BY CAROLE WILLIAMS
BILOXI, Miss. (NC) — At their first joint gathering, the
priests of Mississippi and Alabama were challenged to
evangelize blacks, fight racism in and outside the church,
and be advocates for the poor.
They also were urged to welcome collaborative ministry
with the laity and to develop attitudes of trust and openness
to help deal with frustration and loneliness.
Some 180 priests from the two states gathered in Biloxi
with their bishops May 4-7 for the first convocation of the
priests of the ecclesiastical province of Mobile, Ala. The
province, headed by the Mobile Archdiocese, also includes
the Birmingham Diocese in Alabama and the Biloxi and
Jackson dioceses in Mississippi.
In an opening address on the meeting's theme, “Priestly
Life and Ministry in the South,” Bishop William Houck of
Jackson said that Southern priests need to evangelize
blacks in a region “where racism still exists in the hearts of
the people and in our own hearts"
ed To Fight Racism,
“In an area where the Catholic Church is still seen as a
white man’s church, we must offer our Catholic faith to all
of these people — all of God’s people. We must develop
positive attitudes, willingness and the skills to minister (to
blacks),” said Bishop Houck, an Alabama native.
In another address Trinity Missions Brother Loughlan
Sofield, a psychologist, told priests that they cannot deal ef
fectively with anger, frustrations and loneliness in their
lives by suppressing those feelings and becoming “con
secrated refrigerators.”
To deal with their feelings, priests need to develop “in
timate” or “inner circle" relationships with “your fellow
priests and the lay people you serve,” said Brother Sofield,
co-director of the Trinity Ministries Center in Stirling, N.J.
“Are you willing to allow yourself to be known and to
allow people to care about you?” he asked. “The greatest
mistake you can make is to stand alone.... You can't be lov
ing, compassionate priests unless you develop a capacity
for intimacy.”
He said opening oneself to intimacy is “a risk with no
PAGE 13 — The Georgia Bulletin. May 21, 198'
White Church image
guarantees. But priests and bishops need “to create a
climate of safety, trust,” in which they can openly express
their own “needs, desires and fears” and challenge one
another to deal with problems, he said.
Bishop Houck said his Diocese of Jackson, with a 40 per
cent black population, "has a higher percentage of blacks
than any other U.S. diocese.” He said priests and lay people
in the South "live in a culture that is still racist but must
learn to deal with one another interracially.”
Describing Alabama and Mississippi as “mostly rural,
predominantly Protestant and strained with poverty,”
Bishop Houck urged priests to develop “attitudes and
skills of evangelization which will “advocate justice for
the poor and “bring Christ into the marketplace, our
homes, our recreation, everywhere we are between morn
ing coffee and evening scotch.”
He also asked priests to welcome the growing role of the
laity in the church and view active lay ministry “as a new,
vibrant opportunity for the life of the church, rather than a
burden.”
Priests' Group Asks For Hunthausen Settlement
BY KAY URTZ
ST. PAUL, Minn. (NCl-
Delegates to the National
Federation of Priests’
Councils have called on
their bishops to help resolve
“the impasse that presently
exists” between Arch
bishop Raymond Hunt
hausen of Seattle and the
Holy See.
Meeting in St. Paul May
11-15, first in general con
vention and then as the
federation's House of
Delegates, the priests also
passed several resolutions
urging more justice for
church personnel and back
ing a variety of justice and
peace activities.
The priests voted 121-3 for
a resolution which said
Archbishop Hunthausen
should have his authority
restored to him immediate
ly, completely and uncondi
tionally.
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The Vatican-requested
division of authority be
tween the archbishop and
his auxiliary, Bishop
Donald Wuerl, is “extreme
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fact brought about any
positive results,” the
resolution said. The divi
sion of authority was an
nounced last September.
The resolution was in
troduced by delegates from
the Seattle priests' council
and was co-sponsored by
councils or associations of
10 other dioceses.
The federation elected
Father Joseph Brink of
Covington, Ky., as presi
dent-elect for the coming
year and president from
1988 to 1990. He is to succeed
Father Richard Hynes of
Newark, N.J.
The federation’s two-day
business session May 14-15
followed a three-day gener-
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al meeting to which lay
leaders were invited for the
first time. The chief focus
of the meeting was the U.S.
bishops’ 1986 pastoral let
ter on the economy.
Archbishop Rembert
Weakland of Milwaukee,
head of the committee that
wrote the pastoral, key
noted the convention. He
said the pastoral has
helped American Catholics
stop looking at religion as
“a private affair between
me and my God.” divorced
from the public arena.
At another session Im
maculate Heart of Mary
Sister Amata Miller, an
economist, said America is
experiencing a "dramatic
shift in the distribution of
income” which moves the
country away from its
earlier ideals of equality for
all people.
She urged priests to take
up the challenge of the
pastoral by adopting a
simpler lifestyle. If enough
Americans were to live
more simply day by day,
she said, it would make an
“enormous difference” for
the Third World.
Peter Steinfels, editor of
the Catholic lay journal
Commonweal, said the
economy pastoral “is far
from completed” and in
fact is just the beginning of
a long process of education
and challenge.
The federation gave its
annual President's Award
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calling him the “dean of
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at The Catholic University
of America, spent more
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labor and social justice con
cerns' as an official of the
U.S. Catholic Conference.
In resolutions they ap
proved, federation dele
gates:
— Called unanimously for
more justice for workers in
the church.
— Backed a motion to
promote use of inclusive or
gender-neutral language,
— Opposed, 115-4, further
U.S. aid to the contras.
— Supported, 119-2, the
recent anti-nuclear peace
protest in Nevada.
— Urged, by a 119-3 vote,
congressional support for a
peace tax fund.
— Backed, 119-1, the
sanctuary movement’s ef
forts to give a safe haven in
the United States to
refugees from Central
America.
— Called, without dis
sent, for action to bring
about full employment as a
U.S. policy.
— Urged, with one oppos
ing vote, the release of
public financial statements
each year by the Holy See.
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