Column Thought control extends its reach in Lincoln
By ROSEMARY RADFORD
RUETHER
Recently I gave a lecture in
Lincoln, Neb. Alert NCR readers will remember that Lincoln is the
diocese where all members of Call to Action were declared excommunicated by
Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz in May of 1996. Although I have been a member of Call
to Action since its beginning 25 years ago, I did not expect any particular
difficulty. My speaking engagement was with the local Methodist college,
Nebraska Wesleyan. I was speaking on the topic of my forthcoming book,
Christianity and the Making of the Modern Family (Beacon Press, August
2000).
The term family was seen by many at the college as making
this a ho-hum topic. In my lecture I planned to show that, far from blessing
the family values type of family, Jesus appears distinctly hostile
to the family. Recall his startling words in Luke 14:26-7: If anyone
comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children
and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my
disciple. For most of Catholic history the choice of marriage was seen as
distinctly second rate to that of celibacy. My book explores the ambiguity
toward marriage and family in the Christian tradition.
However, shortly before my arrival in Lincoln, I was informed that
the Catholic diocese had raised a great furor over my coming. An editorial in
the diocesan paper declared that I was a phony, not a Catholic at
all, certainly not a theologian and that I advocated witchcraft!
The diocese coupled this protest with an assault on the college, declaring that
Nebraska Wesleyan was guilty of anti-Catholicism for having invited
me.
Mentioning a list of various other offenses against Catholics
supposedly committed by the college, such as having condom machines on campus
(untrue), the diocese threatened to advise the graduates of Catholic high
schools not to go there and also to prevent education students from the college
from having teaching internships in Catholic high schools. Spokespersons from
one Catholic high school threatened to bring picketers to my lecture. In fact,
no picketers showed up, but the result of the furor was that my lecture was
packed with eager and interested listeners, contrary to the previous
disinterest in the family topic.
In contrast to the vitriol pouring from the diocese, I was warmly
welcomed by Call to Action Catholics of the area who invited me to a liturgy at
the home of one of their members. This gathering gave me a glimpse of the
situation of CTA Catholics in Lincoln since their excommunication four years
ago. What has happened to them? Some I was told simply moved to Omaha,
occasioning the running joke that excommunication was dissolved by crossing the
Platte River. Others stopped going to church. Some attend a regular house
liturgy put on by the Call to Action network in Lincoln. For a while they
invited priests from outside to say Mass for them, but these priests received
letters from the diocese threatening them with excommunication as well. Now
they do eucharistic liturgies themselves. The one I attended was led by a woman
religion professor.
A determined core group of CTA members tough it out in the
parishes, continuing to go to Communion at Masses of friendlier priests. But
the situation in all the parishes sounded distinctly unwelcoming for
open-minded Catholics. One Catholic professor who came to teach at Wesleyan two
years ago went to her local parish once. She was immediately told by the pastor
that if her views on birth control were known, he would have to deny her
Communion. She did not go back again. Others have been informed by priests
verbally (and one by letter) not to come to Communion at their Mass.
Call to Action members told me that some older priests are quietly
friendly, but dare not speak out publicly in any way. CTA members that belonged
to parish or diocesan committees were told to resign. Jean Krejci, one such
member, was told to stop coming to the meetings of the Bishops Hispanic
Advisory Committee, which she helped to found. The committee has lost any
dynamism since that time. More ominous, the diocese seems to have become the
refuge of younger right-wing priests who have made it their base.
Bruskewitz clearly wishes to extend his thought control not only
to all Catholic institutions, but to the entire town. Nebraska Wesleyan and the
University of Nebraska, as well as the local newspaper, the Lincoln
Journal-Star, are kept under surveillance. Speakers or articles deemed
questionable to the conservative Catholic party line are quickly protested.
Newman Club activities at the universities are tightly controlled. Faculty and
staff are told they are unwelcome at Newman Club Masses. The bishop plans his
own seminary where he can produce priests to his liking.
One question that has continually come to me since this visit is
Is Lincoln, Neb., the future of American Catholicism? Progressive
American Catholics may scoff at such a question, choosing to regard Lincoln as
a freak situation of a right-wing extremist bishop. But those who
cherish an open church need to remember that the people control Catholic
institutions control the future of the American Catholic church. Autonomous
house churches are wonderful as support groups, particularly for older people
whose Catholic identity is long since confirmed. But these informal groups will
not deliver church membership in the next generation.
By and large, progressive Catholics are not very successful in
getting their own children to become regular churchgoers. If we are interested
in having the creativity of the Vatican II generation of progressive American
Catholics carried on into the future, it is time to get concerned about younger
Catholics, those born after Vatican II. And this means defending the base for
progressive Catholicism in Catholic institutions: parishes, religious orders,
high schools, and colleges and seminaries.
This will entail a degree of investment of time and effort in
Catholic institutions that many progressive Catholics have spurned, preferring
to create house churches or independent movements, such as Call to Action. This
option for voluntary organizations is not to be dropped. These are the main
bases of progressive Catholicism at the moment. But movements such as house
churches should not be set against institutional church reform. Rather they
should become a base for efforts to enter into such institutions and find ways
to organize to defend the presence of progressive Catholicism in them.
Otherwise I fear that Bruskewitz, and not Call to Action, will command the
future of the American Catholic church.
Rosemary Radford Ruether is a professor of theology at
Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, Evanston, Ill.
National Catholic Reporter, March 31,
2000
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