In this two-part presentation Professor Margaret Susan Thompson shows us how the history of the Catholic Church in the United States was indelibly shaped by the contributions of sisters – by their work in the parochial school system, their founding and administration of hundreds of hospitals, and untold numbers of charitable organizations. These ministries have transformed the lives of millions of Catholics and the social and humanitarian character of the nation itself. Sisters also have long been advocates for social justice, and unlike most priests, have always provided services not only for Catholics but for the entire population. As laypeople, like most Catholics, sisters have experienced the impact of “engendered power” applied to them by generations of priests and prelates. This presentation will reveal the perhaps surprising history of their resistance and suggest ways we can all learn from their experience as we work collaboratively to build a future church that is more egalitarian and supportive for all believers.
Professor Margaret Susan Thompson is an expert in the history of Catholic women religious in the United States. Her decades long research spans the origins of women’s religious life, the often-treacherous foundings of the first North American communities, the lives of pioneer nuns, ethnic and assimilation issues, tensions with clergy, Vatican II and its impacts, current circumstances, and much more.
Elizabeth Johnson, CSJ (2014 Keynote Address, LCWR annual meeting)
“I grew committed to bringing women’s voices to the table…. It means using the human dignity of women as one lens through which we think about other religious and ethical subjects. It means attending to poverty, lack of education, sexual violence, and other injustices that ruin women’s lives. It means employing theologically what promotes the flourishing of women in all their diversity.”
“As we spend these next days reflecting… I would like to start our explorations by reminding us that not all revelation comes with light—but that we have a long biblical history of God working with people in the mystery of darkness. The problem is that we have associated darkness with evil and created a sense of fear around it, thus seeking to avoid the experience. The poet Mary Oliver wrote: ‘Someone I love once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this, too, was a gift.’ “
National Catholic Reporter’s Joshua McElwee talks about Pope Francis’ latest reform, “Praedicate Evangelium,” and its potential impact on the future of the Catholic Church.
Hello, my name is Sean Gargamelli-McCreight, and I am a member of Benincasa Community, a lay catholic community founded in the tradition of religious life and the Catholic Worker movement in New York City in 2015 and now also based as an emerging eco-spiritual center in Guilford, CT. As a community of believers dedicated to the works of mercy and justice in our Church and world, the question of how to live out a faith that does justice is everat the forefront of our hearts and minds. In our practice together, we attempt to listen to the sacred revelations found in creation and the life of Jesus.
In today’s scripture from the gospel of John we read that at his suffering, Jesus considered heaven and said, “I don’t pray for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all may be one.” (John 17:20)
Dorothy Day writes about the striving for heaven as the “building of beloved community”. A place within ourselves and around us where divisions cease and justice prevails.
When we read today that Jesus “looked to heaven”, can we imagine him deeply regarding and remembering hisbeloved community? Reflecting on the lives and faces of the people he loved in his life and his ministry, “notservants but friends” (John 15:15): Mary his mother, Joseph his father, Mary Magdalene his protector and proclaimer, Peter his confidant and his rock, his followers, the forgotten, forlorn, forbidden and forsaken. All of them, a part of his definition of heaven. And yet, Jesus doesn’t pray for them alone. As he cries out to God in pain,exclaiming his final words to those marginalized by the mainstream, suffering in solidarity with the oppressed, he prays for me too…for you, for the Romans and the Clerics, for our church leadership, the bishops and cardinals, for the privileged and powerful.
It’s easy to forget that Jesus in his mission and ministry came to redeem the whole world, but was predominantly present and preaching to those deemed by the dominant culture to be the “poor” and wretched. He was teaching among the troubled and ministering to the mistreated. His comforting words and healing message were primarily directed to those ostracized and battered by the bastions of the mighty. And yet, today he has a special message for this dominating culture. We must listen.. Listen to those who have been pushed to the perimeter, oppressed andyet living in fullness despite how they might be characterized as downtrodden.
Pope Francis similarly invites us to listen, “to the cry of the Earth and the cry of the poor.” Listen.
FutureChurch seems to have gotten the message. We are after all here for a “listening session” in this synodal process. And yet, what might it be like for us to continue in this practice of listening and sharing? To listen to a child, a friend, a family member, or someone writing and speaking about the pain that our Church has inflicted upon them. Our reflections from this six week process will be shared with our bishops, cardinals, and representatives from the Vatican. Let’s also ensurethey receive our message in the weeks, months, and years to come. Continue to ask your bishop or cardinal to listen to you.
Let’s remember Jesus teaches us that reform always happens from the bottom up not the top down (Matthew20:16), and we will even initially be reviled by those in power for our pursuit of justice and reform (John 15:18).But alas, the good news is Jesus promises those of us with a vigorous faith, that our grief will turn to rejoicing (John 16:16).
Many people here today know there is nothing quite as exhilarating as a group of “cradle catholics” showing up with signs, prayer, and song outside of your local cathedral or bishop’s mansion or even St. Peter’s Square insisting thatchurch leadership listen to our concerns about increased support for refugees, survivors of clerical abuse, women’s ordination, the lives of LGBTQ people, and an end to what Dr. Martin Luther King identified as the “triplets of evil” in America, racism, militarism, and unfettered capitalism. We can insist the United States Conference of Bishops listen to us on these issues.
Afterall, for a myriad of reasons, we are still here, still a part of the catholic tradition in one form or another. Either for ourselves or for others, we have an obligation to listen and to be heard in this movement for reform. To send the message that people are not leaving the Church in droves because of a “secularization of society”, but ratherbecause church leadership refuses to evolve with the faithful people.
We are not here to incriminate practices of faith from centuries past, for it is certainly the faith of our parents and grandparents and ancestors upon which we build today. The rituals, the devotions, the prayers are all the bedrock upon which we can strengthen the beloved community. And yet, Catholicism has changed and evolved throughout the centuries, and therefore in this growth we have become more Catholic, more universal, more whole, because people and communities on the ground have modeled what a more expansive, inclusive, and dare I say joyful faith can be. From the Cluniac Reforms to Vatican II, the Church does change. However difficult and hopeless it can feel at times, we are right in the middle of one such major shift in our tradition.
For many of us making our voices heard will mean demonstrating in front of these palaces of power. However, we know money talks too. So in this year’s Diocesan or Cardinal appeal consider writing a letter and sending it to yourparish priest, bishop or cardinal. Then, tell them instead of including money in your envelope you are making a donation to an organization working to support the rights of women, lgbtq people, indigenous groups, poc and black led movements, because you believe in the separation of Church and State and don’t want your donation included in the many millions of dollars they spend on the church’s lobbying arm to strike down public legislation protectingthe rights of women, and victim survivors, and LGBTQ people. Then if you feel like they’re still not listening to your concerns, bring a group back to their doorstep, and this time invite the media.
After several such actions in which members of our community and its supporters held vigils outside diocesan spaces advocating for sanctuary in catholic churches, in 2018 Benincasa was called upon to stand on the front steps of St. Patrick’s Cathedral with victim survivors of clerical sex abuse in support of the Child Victims Act whichthe Archdiocese was vigorously opposing as it would significantly expand the “look-back window” and statute of limitations for individuals attempting to file suit against their perpetrators. During this outdoor liturgy, with yellow cabs weaving through traffic lanes and tourists meandering with arms full of shopping bags, we invited people to bring a favorite image or icon of Mary and together we prayed to Our Mother, with rosary beads in hand, for healingand intercession and the passage of this monumental law and an end to the Church’s opposition.
I’ll be honest, I don’t imagine Cardinal Dolan pays any attention to us when we show up at St. Pat’s on 5th Avenue, but people passing by certainly do and their reactions of love are all anyone really needs to keep vigiling for inclusion.
So to be Catholic, in public and in private, is to listen and to learn: to be in pursuit of making things whole, creating circles of community rather than pillars of power, what Jesus calls “a house with many rooms” (John 14:2). We’renot universal in the sense that to be Catholic is the only way to encounter the divine, rather to be Catholic means tomaintain a deeper presence to and acute awareness of the innumerable ways in which God is revealed through the vast diversity of Creation, diversity of faith, diversity of people and culture. To limit or diminish any sacred part of this creation is antithetical to a message grounded in love and listening. To this end, since our founding in 2015, it has been essential for us also to open our home to those in need with what Peter Maurin and Dorothy Day called “christrooms.” Temporary, supportive housing grounded foremost in community for folks who are facing housing insecurity, domestic violence, newly arrived immigrants, students, artists, and international activists. Along the way, we listen to each other and try to learn what makes every individual feel whole.
For each of us here today, this very catholic practice of “making things more whole” will take on many different forms, person to person and at various points in our lives. It is in this sacred variety divinity dwells. The question for all of us then becomes, how do we open our hearts to receive this unifying message and to share the message withthe powerful, even when it makes us uncomfortable? How might we know when faith and justice are coming to fruition in our Church? One way of knowing is certainly when American bishops and cardinals are feeling challenged by the social conscience of the laity, but we might also know when we sense the fullness of the Holy Spirit within ourselves, that gift Jesus offered us in his death and resurrection.
Unlike many of our Protestant brothers and sisters, as Catholics we are often conditioned from a young age to be passive recipients of faith not active participants. We are told we “receive” the sacraments, receive the body of Christ, receive reconciliation, receive the gifts of the Holy Spirit during confirmation, rather than being reminded that in every moment as an ecclesial body we’re renewing our baptismal rights as “priests, prophets, and kings.”
By virtue of Jesus’ life of inclusion, we are a part of a much more participative faith tradition than we are led to believe, and in this moment we are called to remind power that they too must listen. Like Jesus, let’s pray to our God that they, and that we, might listen and therefore know Jesus and know our creator more deeply.
Thank you, and much peace to you and your loved ones on this blessed day.
Possible questions for reflection
How might we know when faith and justice are coming to fruition in our Church?
In what ways have you encountered “the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor”?
How do you understand the question of heaven, beloved community, a house with many rooms? What issues are standing in the way of realizing this dream? What needs to happen in order to get closer to this ideal?
What does a faith that does justice mean to you? How important is it for faith and public life to intersect?
A Holy Cross priest, Steve Newton is the current executive director of the Association of U.S. Catholic Priests. In addition to his role with the AUSCP, Steve is also on the campus ministry team at St. Mary’s College, Notre Dame, Indiana. He offered this witness for FutureChurch’s Lenten Synodal Sessions in 2022.
The legacy of Canada’s residential school system for Indigenous peoples — a system of education remained in operation for over a century (from approximately 1876 to the final school closure in 1996) — left generations broken by the experience. The Truth and Reconciliation Report of 2015 convincingly argues that the residential school system was an integral part of a larger government initiative that amounted to an attempt at “cultural genocide,” in that its goal was the eradication of Indigenous cultures. The Catholic Church was responsible for the operation of the majority of the schools, with a large number, including some of the most notorious, run specifically by the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate.
Dr. D.W. Lafferty writes that when he first learned of the residential school issue, he initially dismissed the findings and demands of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and saw the emphasis on residential schools as a one-sided attack on the Church; eventually, though, I took the time to learn and listen, and it changed my mind completely. He hopes his perspective may be helpful given that there are still North American Catholics who are skeptical and in some cases dismiss the experiences of Indigenous peoples. He will discuss the general history, the response of the Catholic Church, and the mood of Canadians today.
Diane Batts Morrow is Associate Professor Emerita of History and African American Studies at the University of Georgia. She taught courses which focused on the African American experience in United States history. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Swarthmore College with a B. A. in History, earned her M.S. in Social Science Education from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and her Ph.D. in History from the University of Georgia. Her first book, Persons of Color and Religious at the Same Time: The Oblate Sisters of Providence, 1828-1860, which the University of North Carolina Press published in 2002, won that year’s Letitia Woods Brown Memorial Book Prize from the Association of Black Women Historians. In 2004 the Conference on the History of Women Religious honored this work with its Distinguished Book Award. Morrow is currently working on a second volume which continues the story of this first Roman Catholic black sisterhood—which celebrated its 190th anniversary in 2019—into the middle of the twentieth century.
The Munich Report is the result of the German church commission of law firm Westpfahl Spilker Wastl to investigate wrongdoing. The firm examined church files and questioned witnesses and on Wednesday, January 20th, they released their report documenting then Cardinal Joseph Ratizinger’s “wrongdoing” in his handling of sexual abuse cases during his time as prelate in the archdiocese of Munich between 1977 and 1982. During the investigation, the pope emeritus provided more than 80 pages of documentation to the law firm. The retired pope has denied any personal wrongdoing.
Christian Weisner is on the leadership team of We Are Church Germany. Since his youth he has been shaped by the Second Vatican Council. He has been involved in community youth work, the Catholic student community and the Catholic base community. From 1991 to 1996 he was a member of the coordination committee of the Church from Below Initiative, co-initiator of the church people’s initiative in 1995, and co-founder of the international movement We are Church in Rome in 1996. Since then he has been in the leadership of the Church People’s Movement We are Church; co-organizer of several parallel synods in Rome; and worked as a journalist/reporter for We are Church Internationalthe 2005 and 2013 conclaves in Rome. Born in 1951, he lives with his family in Dachau near Munich.
Renate Holmes is also an active member of We Are Church Germany from its beginning and has held many leadership roles over the years. She is 58 years old and was trained and worked as a teacher for English and Religious Education at a grammar school in Munich for 25 years. For the last six years she has taught young refugees and migrants in a Munich school especially set up for this group of young people to enable them to get a school degree. Renate is a member of Amnesty International and works as a volunteer in a fair trade shop once a month. She is married to Christian Weisner and they have a daughter who is 24 years old and works for a German NGO for civil sea rescue in Berlin.
FutureChurch marks Martin Luther King, Jr. Day 2022 with a prayer service inspired by the “Say Her Name” campaign, remembering the lives of Black women who have been murdered in our streets and in their homes. While there is an appalling level of violence against women of color by police and others, these crimes are under-reported. Together, we will remember their names, their stories, and their lives, as we work together for racial and reparative justice.
Kayla August, a doctoral student at Boston College leads the prayer. Sr. Melinda Pellerin, ssj, a board member of the National Black Sisters’ Conference preaches. Alessandra Harris, Kimberly Lymore, and Vickey McBride serve as readers.
