BishopAccountability.org
 
  A Religious Alternative
Some Catholics Find Independent Churches More Suited to Their Beliefs

By Shirley Ragsdale
Des Moines Register [Des Moines IA]
June 5, 2005

A former Des Moines diocese priest, citing the priest abuse scandal and the conservative direction of the Roman Catholic Church, has left the church and become a pastor in one of about 100 splinter Catholic organizations in the United States.

The Rev. Ray McHenry, who served as a parish priest in West Des Moines, Carter Lake and Council Bluffs, has renounced the Roman Catholic Church and joined a small group of disenchanted Catholics who seek more inclusive beliefs and are part of a growing independent Catholic church movement.

McHenry, 52, of Bellevue, Neb., is now a priest in the National Catholic Church of America, a denomination that has no pope, ordains women, marries couples regardless of gender and makes celibacy optional.

The National Catholic Church of America began as a Catholic religious community in 1944 and became a church in 1998. It has fewer than a dozen parishes in eight states and no count of members. It is among more than 100 "expressions of Catholicism" in the United States, some more conservative than the Roman Catholic Church, some more liberal, McHenry said.

The independent Catholic movement in the United States is not particularly new, and there is little evidence that it is suddenly booming.

"This has been going on since the 1960s," said Stuart O'Brien, service director for CORPUS, an organization promoting an expanded and renewed priesthood. "It's hard to tell how much it is growing."

Duane H. Larson, president of Wartburg Theological Seminary, believes the independent Catholic congregations can prosper temporarily, but the denominations have trouble sustaining themselves.

"To flourish, you need an institution, and for many of these groups, that's what they're moving away from," he said.

Not luring Catholics

Bishop Joseph Charron of the Des Moines diocese, McHenry's former boss used a letter to diocese priests to ask Iowa Catholics to pray for McHenry "that he may realize the seriousness of his decision to leave the priesthood and even more so the scandal of attempting to lead the faithful away from the Roman Catholic Church."

McHenry denies he is trying to entice Catholics away from the church.

"I have not tried to lure anyone away, I'm not actively evangelizing or speaking to people asking them to leave the church," McHenry said. "I don't know where the bishop got the idea that I was."

His small Council Bluffs congregation agrees. The dozen or so members were eager to embrace a more progressive form of Catholicism. Several said they know that many of their former parishioners are looking for something else.

"I'm totally committed to this," said Erin White of Council Bluffs, who welcomes the group for Mass in her home every Saturday. "We are doing something we totally believe in. Everyone who has joined us is of a like mind."

Charron said in a statement Friday that the people attending McHenry's services, if they publicly renounced the Roman Catholic faith, "then, by their own choice, they have removed themselves from communion with the Catholic Church, or excommunicated themselves."

Excommunication is the Roman Catholic Church's most serious penalty, its chief purpose being the correction of the guilty. A person who has been excommunicated is barred from participating in its communal life, including participating in the liturgy and receiving the Eucharist, according to the Catholic Encyclopedia Online.

"This is a scary step to take, but I have to trust the Holy Spirit in this move," McHenry said. "We are trusting He will give us guidance."

Charron said McHenry's decision to transfer his allegiance to another Catholic church was "a matter of greater sadness," calling the National Catholic Church of America "a clearly schismatic group."

McHenry will take a secular job to support himself and his ministry, as do a majority of priests in the independent Catholic movement. In the interim, he has been living off his savings.

Change of allegiance

The priest abuse scandal and the conservative direction of the Roman Catholic Church are among the issues McHenry said caused him to take a leave of absence a year ago.

"I'm a product of Vatican II and its goals for reform and change, as many Catholics are," McHenry said. "I see the church regressing, not moving forward toward change but going backwards."

Ultimately, he decided to change his allegiance.

Archbishop Richard George Roy, leader of the National Catholic Church, described the denomination as "inclusive Catholicism."

"We would like to give those with a broader view of Catholicism a place to go. Women have been especially disheartened. There could be no discussion of ordination of women and a married priesthood under Pope John Paul II, and it seems remote under the current pontificate," Roy said.

The independent Catholic movement is not in business to "steal people away from Rome," said Bishop James Alan Wilkowski of the Independent Evangelical Catholic Diocese of the Northwest, which is based in Chicago. The Independent Evangelical Catholic Church in America has four U.S. dioceses and a steadily growing membership, he said.

"There are far too many Catholics who are pastorally orphaned, both clergy and laity," Wilkowski said. "People who are divorced and want to remarry, people who want to practice birth control, people who long to participate in the sacraments."

O'Brien, of the group for expanded priesthood, said that more than 25,000 Roman Catholic priests have left the church since the 1960s.

"It is a fracture in the institutional church," O'Brien said. "The majority leaving now do not want to continue the ministry. Some might want to return if the church permitted married clergy. "I think, if the Roman Catholic church keeps on this road, we're going to have a shrinking community. Someone has to take a broader view."

Catholic Church growing

Although the church struggles to attract and keep priests, a denominational census shows Roman Catholic Church membership growing, both in the United States and around the world.

Christine Schenk of FutureChurch , a group of Catholics working for church reform, said she feels sad when people decide to leave the Roman Catholic Church.

"I feel sad and wish it wasn't happening. But I wouldn't be surprised if it happens more," she said.

"The Vatican has closed down dialogue in matters that are extremely important to ordinary Catholics," she said. "I know of two independent Catholic denominations that are rapidly growing, serving 3,000 to 4,000 families in New York and California. The bishops and Rome are reaping what was sown."