Inside NCR
A friend recently returned from a
brief time on the East Coast with one of those Catholic nightmare stories. As
she explained, on Christmas Day, the young priest told the assembled
congregation, If you did not attend yesterday (which, remember, was a
Sunday) you may not go to Communion. He also noticed that some had been
late, and he told them they also should not approach the altar for Communion.
He ended by putting everyone on notice that he would be available in the back
of the church after Mass to hear confessions. Merry Christmas. And the peace
and love of Jesus be with you.
We all have those stories. Theyre the ones that force us to
say, There must be something better. Paul Wilkes had that kind of
moment and took the search farther than most of us could imagine (see page
3).
Many of us have our own stories about parish hunting. When we were
living in New Jersey, my wife, Sally, and I subjected our kids to miserable
sermons and awful liturgies for several years until, in desperation, we went
parish shopping and wound up at St. Marys in Colts Neck, N.J., a model
place.
In the Midwest, our search (inspired when a priest on the feast of
Corpus Christi read about the Eucharist from canon law) led us to St. Francis
Xavier in Kansas City, Mo. It has much of what Wilkes sees in excellent
parishes -- good preaching, community, sense of purpose and service -- the
elements that, if youve had the good fortune to find one of these places,
you understand.
The point is eloquently made in the study. Wilkes book is an
Easter morning collection of ecclesial data, a herald that announces that for
all the grim news out of Rome, all the exhausting and navel-gazing
pronouncements, all the disciplines and silencings and threats and secret
little letters shooting around among curialists and hierarchy the world over,
Catholics -- ordinary pew style Catholics -- and a lot of their priests,
understand what counts. To keep up with developments in the study project,
visit the Web site, www.pastoralsummit.org, e-mail the project at
staff@pastoralsummit.org.
It is not surprising to hear young
women today speak of the church as hostile to their concerns and dismissive of
their talents, gifts and what some feel is a call to ordained ministry. When
some dioceses still ban altar girls and when any discussion of womens
ordination is officially forbidden, it is easy to become numb to the authentic
power and inclusiveness of the Catholic community. And then there are those,
like Kerry Egan, who rediscover a deep connection with Catholicism, something
that allows them to see beyond the contemporary flaws in the community to
something more significant.
The story of her journey to an adult decision to be a Catholic
(see page 12) includes a vividly written account of a pilgrimage in Spain.
In a wonderful bit of serendipity, two days before this issue went
to press I received another wonderfully written account of another young woman
who found her way to Catholicism from the Anglican tradition. Look for it in
next weeks issue.
-- Tom Roberts
My e-mail address is troberts@natcath.org
National Catholic Reporter, January 26,
2001
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