Newspaper Page Text
PAGE 8 — The Georgia Bulletin, January 19, 1989
OFFERTORY GIFT — Celeste Marlene Dela Garza, 3, has her own
gift in mind as she leans forward to give Detroit Cardinal Edmund C.
Szoka a kiss during Offertory procession at St. Ann parish. (NC photo
by Elizabeth DeBeliso, The Michigan Catholic)
U.S. Bishops' Study
Celibacy Among Top Causes
Of Low Morale With Priests
BY JERKY FILTEAU
WASHINGTON (NC) - Many U.S.
priests feel “trapped, overworked,
frustrated” and suffer low morale, says a
study issued by the U.S. Bishops’ Commit
tee on Priestly Life and Ministry.
The growing shortage of priests and a
feeling by many that their years-long work
to implement the Second Vatican Council
“is now being blunted or even betrayed”
contribute to the low morale, the study
says.
It also cites loneliness, tensions over sex
ual issues and polarized views of the
church as key factors.
“Generally every study or commentary
done on the priesthood and shortage of
vocations mentions sexuality — and
specifically mandatory celibacy — as a
major reason a) for leaving the
priesthood, b) for shortage of vocations
and c) for loneliness and personal unhap
piness of those who stay,” the report says.
It says that sexual tensions involve not
only questions of “personal and interper
sonal levels of sexuality” for individual
priests, but also “what might be called ‘the
politics of sexuality’ which would include
the issues surrounding feminism, married
clergy, optional celibacy, the role and
place of homosexuals in ministry, just to
name a few.”
The report was completed and sent to
the U.S. bishops last spring, but it was not
made public at that time. In September the
Administrative Committee of the National
Conference of Catholic Bishops approved
publication and wider distribution of the
report, and the NCCB Public Affairs Office
released copies to the press after
Christmas.
The report, titled “Reflections on the
Morale of Priests” and printed as a
20-page booklet, was the work of a subcom
mittee, headed by Bishop John L. McRaith
of Owensboro, Ky., of the priestly life and
ministry committee.
Another source of frustration for priests,
the report says, is the fact “that some solu
tions to the clergy shortage are precluded
from discussion and that not all pastoral
solutions and options can be explored.
“Discouragement,” it continues,
“comes from the acute awareness of
priests that some possible avenues of relief
are not to be considered or discussed.
Those most commonly referred to are or
dination of married men, effective use of
laicized priests and expanded roles for
women in ministry.”
“The priest must deal with those who
are angry and disillusioned with what they
consider the slow pace of renewal; he must
also face the unreasoning and often well-
organized opposition of the self-styled or
thodox and of those who simply do not
believe in the decisions and directions of
Vatican II... (Priests) find themselves
caught in the middle,” the report says.
What a bishop can do to ease the
demoralization of priests "is not easy and
is definitely limited,” the reports says.
It says that what priests often want most
from their bishops is “more personal con
tact, greater interest in their ministry and
ongoing moral support.”
According to the report, one way to im
prove morale among priests is to give
them greater say in their future by invol
ving them more fully in the selection of
diocesan officials, including bishops, and
in the development of diocesan policies.
Priests’ “need for a sense of community,
common vision and mutual responsibility”
can be met in part by encouraging col
laborative forms of ministry and by
establishing policies in areas such as
health care and retirement which show a
sense of caring, the report says. It says
priests may feel a closer sense of com
munity with "bishops who are frank and
honest ... about their own frustrations and
questions.”
“Priests do not expect from their bishop
all the answers and solutions to the issues
that confront them,” it says. “What they
do look for is the opportunity to dialogue
with their bishop in the issues that affect
their lives. These issues generally include
a vision for the diocese, collaboration,
shared ministry, as well as the tensions of
parish life, rectory living, celibacy and
sexual maturity.”
While noting the many practical issues
that affect the morale of priests, the report
stresses that all such questions "need to be
placed within the context of discipleship
which is central to spirituality for the
priest today.”
31 Detroit Parishes Shut,
25 Given Year's Reprieve
DETROIT (NC) — Cardinal Edmund C.
Szoka of Detroit, ending three months of
uncertainty over a controversial parish
reorganization plan, announced Jan. 8 that
31 Detroit parishes will close and that
another 25 will be given a year to “reach
viability” or close.
Two of the 31 parishes will reopen as one
parish with a new name. Members of the
other parishes being closed will be ab
sorbed into existing parishes.
The cardinal disclosed his final decisions
to pastors of the affected churches in
private meetings before he made his for
mal announcement in a Sunday afternoon
press conference Jan 8.
Pastors were given permission to tell
their parishioners during weekend
Masses.
Cardinal Szoka said resources were not
available to operate a total of 112 parishes
in Detroit and the enclaves of Hamtramck
and Highland Park. Of the 82 remaining, 25
were deemed “questionably viable."
Each of those, he said, has until Dec. 31
“to demonstrate its ability to make
genuine progress toward viability" in the
areas of worship, spiritual and religious
formation, evangelization, service, parish
staff, organizations and parish property.
There are to be periodic reviews.
“Can they do it? I honestly don’t know,”
the cardinal said during the press con
ference. "But it does appear reasonable to
hope that they can and they certainly have
my encouragement, my cooperation and
my prayers that they will.”
He said there would be disappointment
over the decisions that have been made
and that he personally shared in a “com
mon sorrow and sadness” over any parish
closing but said the resources "are not
there” to keep them all open.
Cardinal Szoka said the church of
Detroit was committed to “a strong, per
manent presence in the city” as evi
denced, he said, by having its Sacred
Heart Seminary there.
He also called for “a stirring up of bap
tismal waters” of Hispanics and blacks
and said the emergence of black and
Hispanic lay leadership was essential.
Parishes are expected to close by June
30 and parish priests will be reassigned.
Berman said he did not know how many
parish staff members would be affected by
the closings but that the Office for the
Church in the City would assist in their
placement elsewhere.
The reorganization plan was outlined
Sept. 28 during an archdiocese-wide
telebriefing releasing the preliminary
recommendations of two archdiocesan
committees, the Urban Advisory Board
and Implementation Committee.
The two were formed in 1987 to
strengthen the church in the urban areas
in light of falling parish enrollment, the
declining number of priests and rising
costs.
The original recommendations included
closing 45 Detroit parishes and'one parish
in nearby River Rouge, designating two
parishes as shrines, and establishing five
new parishes.
Fifty-four hearings were held for af
fected parishes from Nov. 1 to Dec. 10.
Auxiliary Bishop Patrick R. Cooney,
chairman of the two committees,
presented final recommendations to the
cardinal Dec. 19.
The three months were marked by
prayer vigils, petition campaigns and
large-scale meetings in an effort to save
parishes. In the last two weeks before the
final announcement, groups of mothers
and their children greeted the cardinal
each morning at his residence and asked
him not to close their parishes.
Religious Orders Plan Challenge
In Court On Employer Sanctions
BY TRACY EARLY
NEW YORK (NC) — The Intercommuni
ty Center for Justice and Peace, which in
cludes more than 40 religious orders in the
New York area, plans to go to court to
challenge employer sanctions in the 1986
immigration reform law.
Darlene Cuccinello, a spokeswoman for
the Manhattan-based center which
represents both men’s and women’s
religious orders, said in a Jan. 6 interview
she did not know how many orders would
enter the suit, but that a court test was now
certain and would likely be filed in
February.
Under the law. employers who hire il
legal aliens are subject to fines ranging
from $250 to $10,000 per alien. The law
allows levying criminal penalties, in
cluding six-month jail sentences, for “a
pattern or practice of violations” by an
employer.
Miss Cuccinello said she had met Jan. 5
with Bruce Lupion, an official in the New
York district office of the Immigration and
Naturalization Service, and officials of two
of the center’s member-orders who had
asked their orders be exempt from com
plying with the sanction provisions of the
law.
Lupion told them that “the answer is
no,” Miss Cuccinello said, and that their
only recourse was through the courts.
Verne Jervis, INS spokesman in
Washington, said Jan. 9 that INS does not
have the authority to offer any exemp
tions.
“The law didn’t exempt anyone,” said
Jervis, adding that Congress would have to
amend the law or the courts declare it un
constitutional . for exemptions to be al
lowed.
The American Friends Service Commit
tee had already filed a suit challenging the
sanctions in California.
The meeting was set up in response to a
letter sent Dec. 23 to INS Director Alan
Nelson in Washington and District Direc
tor Charles Savy in New York. It was
signed by Sister Monica McGloin, presi
dent of the Dominican Sisters of the Sick
Poor, Ossining, N.Y., and Sister Joanna
Ohlandt, a Sister of St. Joseph who is ad
ministrator of the Maria Regina Convent
for sick and aged members in Brentwood,
N.Y. Both nuns attended the Jan. 5
meeting.
Sisters McGloin and Ohlandt had said in
their letter they felt “to deny persons
employment, when their survival depends
upon a job, or even to discriminate against
them by checking their documentation,
seems to us to violate the most basic right
to exercise our religious beliefs."
Auxiliary Bishop Joseph M. Sullivan of
Brooklyn sent Savy and Nelson identical
letters Dec. 27 supporting the nuns’ re
quest for exemption.
“As a member of the National Con
ference of Catholic Bishops. I have sup
ported our position of opposition to
employer sanctions,” he wrote. "I would
hope that as a first step in removing the
sanctions which cause undue hardship for
many poor undocumented aliens that
religious organizations would be exempt
from these provisions.”