Church in
Crisis Boston reform group meets with bishop
By CHUCK COLBERT
Boston
The reformers in Boston met the leaders of the target of their
reform recently in the first face-to-face, sit-down meeting between officials
of the Boston archdiocese and a three-person leadership team representing a
cutting edge church-reform organization, the Voice of the Faithful.
Representatives of the newly formed organization seeking a greater
role for the laity in the governance of the church came away describing the
session as cordial and constructive, while short on particulars regarding the
main goal of the group -- reshaping the governance structure of the church.
Steven Krueger, a spokesperson for the lay-led group,
characterized the meeting as a conversation, a preliminary
conversation. He added, We wanted the archdiocese to get to know
us, understand what our motivations are, and to start to develop an atmosphere
of trust.
Krueger is a parishioner at St. Ignatius, a Jesuit parish, located
on the campus of Boston College. Krueger is serving in his third year of a
five-year appointment to the Boston Archdiocesan Parish Council.
Representing the archdiocese was Bishop Walter J. Edyvean, vicar
general and local moderator of the curia, along with Fr. Mark OConnell.
The meeting, which lasted about two hours, took place May 23 at the chancery in
Bostons Brighton neighborhood.
Others who represented Voice of the Faithful included its
president, Jim Muller, and vice president, Mary Calcaterra, both of St.
Johns the Evangelist Church, Wellesley, Mass.
Calcaterra described the meeting as frank and
open, and Edyvean as disarming and quite
cordial. During a telephone interview, Calcaterra explained that the
archdiocesan officials really listened as the delegation presented
an overview of the organizations mission and goals.
Organized months ago in Bostons western suburbs, Voice of
the Faithful has grown rapidly in part by its quick-fire response to the
anguish, if not outrage, of many lay Catholics to the now global scandal of the
sexual abuse of children and young adults here in the nations fourth
largest Roman Catholic archdiocese.
Since mid-winter the organization has garnered considerable media
attention and interest from lay people around the United States and in other
countries. The organizations mission statement is ambitious, if lacking
in specifics: To provide a prayerful voice, attentive to the Spirit,
through which the faithful can actively participate in the governance and
guidance of the Catholic church.
Although Calcaterra and Krueger said they were happy with the
meeting, they also said that specifics on how to continue a conversation did
not come up.
Nor is it clear just where Voice of the Faithful would fit, if at
all, into existing ecclesiastic structures and mechanisms to bring about
significant participation in governance and oversight by the laity.
I am more hopeful than when I went in, said Krueger.
Hopeful in the context of an opportunity to create and establish an
ongoing dialogue between VOTF and the entire archdiocese, he added.
During a wide-ranging interview recently at the groups
regional planning and working group session, Krueger was quick to point out
that the archdiocese and Voice of the Faithful were in full agreement with the
lay groups first two goals, which are to support those who have
been abused and to support priests of integrity.
But it is the groups third goal to shape structural
change within the church that hits a snag. Obviously this area is
where we believe there is an opportunity for continuing dialogue, Krueger
explained. We stressed to the archdiocese that we are mainstream
Catholics, Catholics who love the church and want to work within the
hierarchical structure, he said. We do not want to tear down that
structure.
Krueger said that Edyvean emphasized, Nothing could come
between a bishop and his church. Just what that means, Krueger said,
we are trying to ascertain.
What would impede dialogue between VOTF and the archdiocese
of Boston, Krueger said, is any concern [by archdiocesan
leadership] that the organization may do something to create space between the
bishop and his church. We have as many questions as they must have as to what
it means to shape structural change.
While acknowledging the laitys right to meet, the
archdiocesan response to greater lay participation and voice effecting
structural and systemic changer sounded a cautionary note. Bishop Edyvean
pointed to the right of all the faithful to form associations, said Donna
Morrissey, a spokeswoman for the cardinal and the archdiocese, in a written
statement issued on the day of the meeting.
But, she added: He underscored the fact that associations in
the church, from the point of view of both theology and canon law, are meant to
aid the mission of the church and that mission is carried on necessarily with
and under the bishop of the diocese. Likewise, it is the diocesan bishops
role to exercise vigilance with regard to the way in which Catholic
associations perform the tasks they set for themselves.
NCR faxed questions to the archdiocese as requested, but
had received no response before press time.
Morrissey said that Edyvean would brief Cardinal Bernard Law and
the other auxiliary bishops about the meeting.
Freelance journalist Chuck Colbert writes from Cambridge,
Mass.
National Catholic Reporter, June 7,
2002
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