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  Keeping Faith, but Not Status Quo

By Julia Scott
San Mateo County Times [California]
October 13, 2005

HEADS BOWED in prayer, the gray-haired group of Roman Catholics who gathered Sunday at St. Matthews Catholic Church had a much more controversial agenda than their appearances would suggest: to discuss naming the next Archbishop of San Francisco.

Controversial, because lay people haven't had a role in voting for bishops or archbishops in more than 500 years.

The members of Voice of the Faithful's Northern California chapter, a lay Catholic group whose motto is "Keep the faith, change the Church," would like to alter all that.

According to the nationwide group, 80 of whose members were at the meeting on Sunday, the Church is ripe for change. Revelations of widespread child sex abuse shattered its image and exposed its lack of accountability. Western youths are deserting the Church in droves, and fewer priests are joining its ranks.

"The bishops have to realize that the lay people are not going to stand for their malfeasance," said Ed Gleason, a coordinator for Voice of the Faithful. "We've been shut out."

Voice of the Faithful member Jim Jenkins described his devout Catholic comrades as "reluctant revolutionaries" who believe that the Church is headed for a schism and want to play a part in reforming it before it's too late.

"You wake up one morning and realize the bishops are corrupt," said Jenkins. "Most people won't wake up to what's going on in the Church until there's no one left."

Many of the members seek more than accountability from their unelected leaders. They believe that lay people should have a say in the Church's doctrine and budget, much of which always has been decided in Rome.

"(This system) is a remnant of feudalism in America, the land of freedom and democracy," Jenkins said.

A secretive process

Gleason said his chapter of Voice of the Faithful, a group founded in Boston in 2002 that boasts thousands of members across the country, is simply trying to revive an old tradition from the first millennium of the church's existence.

"In ancient times, people named the bishops," he said.

In August, Archbishop William Levada left to replace Joseph Ratzinger as the leader of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome. Ratzinger became Pope in April.

The process of selecting a new bishop is secretive. The Vatican's U.S. ambassador submits three names to the Congregation for Bishops in the Vatican. That council, which Levada is a member of, then sends its top name to the pope.

Every few years, a bishop will ask selected priests and laypeople to nominate a colleague for the position of bishop should the need for one arise.

Gleason said Archbishop Levada never appreciated the efforts of Voices of the Faithful to reform his diocese, which includes San Mateo, San Francisco and Marin counties.

When the group tried to place a paid advertisement for its upcoming meeting in the weekly diocesan newspaper, its editor, Maurice Healy, rejected it.

"Archbishop Levada advised the archdiocese not to support Voice of the Faithful," Healy said. "I chose not to promote the meeting."

Sunday's attendees noted the conspicuous absence of priests at the public meeting, seen as another sign of the Church's unresponsiveness.

Gleason said several priests and nuns had told him they would have liked to attend, but didn't out of fear of losing their jobs.

Wanted: new leadership

In a breakout discussion group on Sunday, Jane Clinge, a parishioner at St. Matthews for more than 30 years, gave her two cents on the qualities the new archbishop ought to possess.

"He needs to be willing to share power and control," she said, adding that he should be bilingual, have compassion and be "a good listener."

People also agreed that the candidate ought to hail from the Bay Area and be responsive to local needs.

"We have to do something for the poor," Clinge said. "And there has to be a new study of theology on homosexuality. We need to stop saying (homosexuals) are evil."

When it came time to vote on some ideal candidates, two top local vote-getters were activist Franciscan pastor Father Louis Vitale of San Francisco's St. Boniface Church, and St. Matthews' own the Rev. Anthony McGuire, a bilingual pastor known for bringing gays and lesbians into the congregation at his previous church in the Castro.

Gleason said he'd already heard from other dioceses across the country seeking advice on how to replicate his group's election discussion, the first such meeting held in the United States. The tricky part, he said, will be finding pastors "willing and brave enough" to lend their church as a venue for the event.

The group will forward its votes to the Vatican's U.S. ambassador and the Congregation for Bishops in Rome, but Gleason said he was under no illusions that their input will make a difference.

"Right now we're trying to elbow our way to the table," he said. "We're not even in the room yet."

 
 

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