CTA Stronger after Nebraska bishop's censure

CTA Stronger after Nebraska bishop's censure

The March 22 decree of Lincoln, Nebraska Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz threatening excommunication of CTA members has caused a bonanza of national publicity, new members and increased donations for CTA. It has also strengthened the fledgling CTA Nebraska, which drew 75 people to its first meeting Feb. 3, and 200 at its second event Apr. 27.

The saga began when Bruskewitz reacted to the establishment of CTA Nebraska by proclaiming that anyone among the 85,000 Catholics in his diocese who belongs to CTA or CTA Nebraska after May 15 faces automatic excommunication. He also banned membership in ten other organizations, including Planned Parenthood, Catholics for a Free Choice, and Masonic groups, but CTA was clearly his reason for acting now.

Omaha Archbishop Elden Curtiss later added his own threats. His letter read from every pulpit Apr. 28 banned Catholics from teaching, liturgical or other church ministry who publicly support the ordination of women. Though avoiding Bruskewitz's blanket excommunication, Curtiss was providing the basis for firing CTA-minded Catholics from church jobs, and even from teaching C.C.D. or distributing communion. The letter applied the same ban to public support of abortion and euthanasia. It also reasserted, without attaching a penalty, official church positions against both optional priestly celibacy and people's participation in selecting bishops -- planks in CTA's platform.

The affair has made headlines on network television, in the New York Times, and dozens of papers nationwide, thus introducing millions to CTA and its progressive platform of church reform. The Today Show on NBC March 28 interviewed both Bruskewitz and CTA Nebraska co-chair John Krejci. On Apr. 14 a national story in USA Today reported that "dozens of Catholics" in Lincoln would defy Bruskewitz's deadline and continue to receive communion. Krejci and his wife Jean were pictured in their parish church, smiling but insisting they'd remain with CTA because the bishop's "unjust law doesn't bind." Feature-length photo stories appeared in New York's Newsday and the Washington Post. It was the most free publicity for CTA since the 60 Minutes CBS-TV program in January, 1995.

Two visions of church collide
Bruskewitz opposes CTA for the very reasons many mainstream Catholics are embracing it: open dialogue on ordaining women, accepting married priests, birth control for married couples, a popular voice in selecting bishops. So his censure has prompted a wave of new CTA memberships. The story broke just as 15,000 national CTA members were mailed an annual appeal. Many have chosen to increase their donations (see letters, page 6).

Beyond disagreement over issues, Bruskewitz's authoritarian style is in sharp contrast with CTA's vision of church. The cover story in the Apr. 5 National Catholic Reporter quotes his blistering words about CTA Nebraska: "fundamentally divisive, inimical to the Catholic faith, destructive of Catholic church discipline, contradictory to the teaching of Vatican II and an impediment to evangelization." The same story quotes Bishop Ray Lucker of New Ulm, MN, a CTA member, describing CTA people as "very respectful, open and concerned about authentic Catholic teaching ... very dedicated, active Catholics who love the church and are interested in church renewal."

True to Lucker's description, CTA Nebraska is responding to Bruskewitz with forbearance and a renewed call for dialogue. The first issue of their newsletter asks the bishop of Lincoln "to see us not as adversaries but as fellow travelers searching for the best way to be Catholic Christians. Conflicts happen; with dialogue and openness to change, healing and forgiveness and growth also happen." Sixteen CTA members from Lincoln signed a five-page letter to the bishop Apr. 4, a formal appeal under canon law, reasoned and temperate in tone, to have the decree rescinded. Apr. 11 Bruskewitz met with one signer, University of Nebraska literature professor Jim McShane, but only to defend his decree at great length. He then rejected the appeal in a blistering letter Apr. 24, blaming its signers and their cohorts for "aggressive rebellion" and reaching for words like "frivolous" and "contemptuous."

Where does Bruskewitz get his picture of CTA? A prime source is "Inside Call To Action," a sarcastic and misleading article about the 1995 CTA National Conference by Mary Jo Anderson in the Feb., 1996 issue of Crisis, the ultra-conservative monthly whose publishers are Michael Novak and Ralph McInerny. Bruskewitz reprinted the article in his diocesan newspaper Apr. 19. It describes the CTA meeting as "3,500 Catholic dissidents" bent on forming an American Catholic Church, who "unleashed open, aggressive rebellion in session after session."

Bruskewitz insists there will be no effort to enforce the ban or refuse anyone communion. He says it is up to CTA members in his diocese to either leave CTA or in conscience exclude themselves from the sacraments. But prominent canon lawyers say the automatic excommunication is not even legally valid. Fr. James Coriden, professor of church law at Washington Theological Union, Washington, DC, and co-editor of The Code of Canon Law, a Text and Commentary, the primary U.S. textbook in the field, is CTA's advisor in canon law. His comments, published in Commonweal Apr.19, put it this way:

As frightening as this legislation sounds, the good Catholic people of Southern Nebraska need have no fear, for none of them will fall under its threatened automatic interdicts or excommunica- tions. A law so contrary to the spirit and letter of Canon Law, so sweepingly broad and aimless, so unsupported by evidence of necessity, so intemperate and harsh, and so contemptuous of the precious value of ecclesial communion, is invalid on its face, or at best a doubtful law. Doubtful laws do not oblige (canon 14.) They are worse than no law at all, because of the confusion they engender.

No other bishops join ban
No other U.S. bishop has joined Bruskewitz in the excommunication decree. Many, even conservatives, have called it a pastoral mistake. Cardinal Bernard Law's archdiocesan weekly in Boston editorialized that Bruskewitz should have consulted his fellow bishops, and said even Pope John Paul II invoked excommunication only as a last resort with schismatic Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre. Cardinal Bernardin of Chicago said he likes CTA on some issues, disagrees on others, and always prefers dialogue to censure. Similar public statements came from the bishops of Denver, Pittsburgh, Sacramento, Saginaw, MI, Kansas City, MO, Kansas City, KS, and Grand Island, NE. Jesuit Fr. Thomas Reese, an expert on the U.S. hierarchy, predicted that the U.S. bishops would "burn up the telephone wires talking about how they are going to handle Bruskewitz."

CTA Nebraska holds forum
Converting hurt and anger into energy, 200 Nebraska CTAers held a study day Apr. 27 at First United Methodist Church in Omaha. Journalist Tom Fox discussed a topic that is also the title of his 1995 book, Sexuality and Catholicism. Fox and CTA national co-director Dan Daley joined CTA Nebraska leaders in a press conference. Sr. Maureen Fiedler of Women's Ordination Conference flew in from Washington to rally the crowd behind the nationwide We Are Church referendum (see pp. 4-5). Lots of volunteers signed up for committees to plan more study days, publicize CTA members' personal stories, hold prayer services, and foster small faith communities. Scores of letters from CTAers nationwide lent courage. Said co-chairs John Krejci of Lincoln and Lori Darby of Omaha, "The support from the people of God has been overwhelming."