The First American Pope
Page 4
CHAPTER 4
POPE JOHN XXIV’S 1st PRONONCEMENTS ON THE CELEBRATION OF ECUMENICAL SUNDAY 2014
WOMEN AND THE CHURCH
“Americans lead in the battle for equality of the sexes in the Catholic Church. The Vatican, realizing the growing needs to legitimize women's role in the church and in the modern era, attempted to walk a fine line balancing tradition with progress. The results of these efforts left both traditionalists and modernists unsatisfied. Against the backdrop of the women's movement and the great progress that had been made in mainline Protestant churches, progressive nuns and laity demanded a larger, more visible role for women in the Catholic Church. They advocated for women to be ordained as priests and to have a greater say in church policy. These are seen as major goals in fostering equality. Nuns fighting the two-thousand-year-old, male-dominated church joined together to form groups to enhance their strength and shed their image as "docile." Organizations such as the National Assembly of Religious Women, The National Coalition of American Nuns, The Leadership Conference of Women Religious Speakers, and The Black Sisters Conference saw their membership increase, and all worked for feminist causes in and out of the church.
Another sign of the rebellion of women in the church was the sheer drop in the number of women who chose to enter convents. Seeing no hope for equality and justice in Catholicism, many young Catholic women steered away from it as a vocation. The nuns who remained in the church are highly educated, with 65 percent having master's degrees and 25 percent possessing doctorates. Conservative Catholic women, such as Phyllis Schlafly, opposed all facets of women's equality in the church and are staunch opponents of the ERA. She and many conservative Catholics have joined with fundamentalists to lobby against women's rights and abortion. Though well-funded and strident, activists such as Schlafly have grown insignificant among Catholic women as the quest for equality entered the mainstream. In 1985 Gallup polls found that 47 percent of Catholics were in favor of women priests. In 1988 U.S. Catholic bishops, realizing the need for some new official statement on women's role in the church, published the "Partners in the Mystery of Redemption." The document differed from previous bishops' documents in that some nuns were allowed to participate in discussing and drafting it, but in the end the document broke very little new ground on the issues that interested female Catholics. The church condemned sexism as a sin; yet it still did not favor women priests, contraception, or abortion. In 1989 out of desperation at the realization of the shortage of priests, the bishops issued the "Order for Sunday Celebrations in the Absence of a Priest." This decree allowed a bishop to assign a deacon or nun to lead a prayer service based on the Scriptures. Some nuns felt that this act was a first step toward real changes in the Catholic Church.”
I now issue a decree from this date September 14, 2014, that the Catholic Church now will accept women as equals in the ministries performed within the episcopacies of the church government. No longer will male dominated church governance run the church. There is to be equality in membership and positions of authority throughout the church’s collegial governance.
The church here on earth is to mirror Gods heavenly kingdom in who is to attain entrance. Inclusion is not based on sexual identity, race, color, creed, ethnicity, or nationality. Every human being is to have equality of membership. As Jesus said, “the first shall be last, and the last shall be first”.
If we as a new church want to have a new universal Catholic church, we must start by looking internally to our own doctrines that historically were obstacles to resolving reunification efforts, with other religious traditions, in embracing the common love of our Lord Jesus Christ who came to set us free. We can no longer exclude from our membership those that do not conform to our ideas of who is a Christian. If we believe that Jesus is the Messiah that had been promised to all Christians regardless of denominations, must unite together as one people, one faith and one Universal Catholic Church.”
SEXUALITY
A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
“The Catholic Church's condemnation of homosexuality remained historically consistent prior to the 1980s, but with the emergence of AIDS the church found that criticism of its policies intensified. One of the church's most current militant crusaders against homosexuality was New York's John Cardinal O'Connor. O'Connor, appointed in 1984, believed wholeheartedly in the strict Vatican teaching that homosexuality was a sin against God and nature. O'Connor vehemently refused an organization of gay Catholics called Dignity, to hold masses in New York churches. He also attacked the New York City Council for sponsoring a gay-rights bill that would have made it illegal to discriminate against homosexuals. In October of 1986, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger of the Vatican issued an order forbidding Father John J. McNeill, author of the book The Church and the Homosexual, from preaching to the gay community and from speaking publicly about his ideas and works. McNeill's silencing followed that of Father Charles Curran the year before for his statements on sexuality, contraception, and homosexuality. The Vatican's crackdown continued on October 30, 1987, with what gay activists referred to as the "Halloween letter". It is a directive that ordered all Catholic bishops to withdraw support from any organization that opposed the official church teaching on homosexuality. Greatly impacted by this letter were many Dignity groups located across the country that used church facilities to hold their masses. Homosexual Catholics vowed to continue their services with or without official approval, as they believed it is possible to be gay and still be a good Catholic. Surveys showed that American Catholics for the most part, did not view homosexuality in the abstract as a threatening concept. Church officials held their ground, viewing homosexual acts as immoral, and were unwilling to compromise with the current sentiment. Only the epidemic of AIDS, which had caused about eighteen thousand fatalities in the United States by 1988, prompted U.S. bishops to action.
The Catholic Church, after substantial debate, allowed in 1987, for the educational discussion of the use of condoms to help control the AIDS virus. Condoms, considered a form of contraception, were previously forbidden to be discussed. Several conservative cardinals, among them Law of Boston, O'Connor of New York, and John Karol of Philadelphia, voted against the measure, believing that it condoned sex and homosexuality, but more-liberal cardinals, such as Joseph Bernardin of Chicago, pushed the issue. The question of homosexuality was also an internal one for the Catholic Church in the 1980s. Homosexual priests and nuns, exposing to the world the church’s internal conflict, wrote several works. A book that caused the biggest stir in the church was the 1984 publication of the biography of the late Francis Cardinal Spellman of New York by John Cooney. The work entitled The American Pope exposed evidence of the cardinal's homosexuality. Another work Lesbian Nuns: Breaking Silence (1985) documented the stories of present and former nuns. The Catholic Church's official response to the majority of these accusations was denial.”2