CATHOLICS ARISE! 140 Hear Vatican Expert's Advice on Church Closings
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Organizer Ginger Marx introduces Peter Borre at meeting of Catholics at Bay City Country Club.
Mrs. Marx welcomes huge group of Catholics to informational meeting on church closings.
Catholics in the Saginaw Diocese are in ferment, shown by the attendance of 140 at a meeting Monday night at the Bay City Country Club.
Activist and consultant Peter Borre, head of the Boston Council of Churches, spoke for an hour and a half and fielded dozens of highly charged questions. He was introduced by organizer Ginger Marx as a Jesuit trained and Harvard educated consultant with important contacts among the 15 Vatican certified lawyers (canonists) in Rome.
"You in the Saginaw Valley are pioneers, vaulting over local leaders and putting your concerns front and center on the desks that count in Rome," he exclaimed. The comment was in reference to the parishioners of St. Matthew Parish, Zilwaukee, who have staved off closing of their church by an appeal.
There was no open conflict at the meeting but apparently some who opposed dissent were present since two pages of the sign-up sheet listing attendees names, phone numbers and e-mails were surreptitiously torn off a clipboard and disappeared.
Thus the organizers, Ginger Marx and her niece Cindy Bourdow, both of St. Matthew, were left with incomplete records of the meeting and are hampered in pursuing further organization.
Borre pointed out that the vast majority of parishioners in about 75 parishes that are appealing decisions in 35 dioceses nationwide are women. He said Rome "has made a mistake of historic proportions to marginalize women." Only men are permitted to become priests in the Catholic church and women are confined to pastoral assistant roles despite a shortage of priests.
Several priests were in attendance, including Father Joseph A. Schabel, retired, of Saginaw. The crowd cheered when Rev. Schabel stood to ask a question.
Some attendees suggested withholding donations as a form of protest. Borre suggested formation of a committee to receive parishioner donations and offer to pay a fair share of the bills of the church.
Some dissenters from bishops' decisions are wearing colored ribbons on their lapels, he noted. Catholics who protest are not subject to excommunication, he added.
Borre advised parishioners to convene meetings without creating a "grand superstructure" and to pursue all avenues to challenge decisions of bishops on closings, mergers and suppressions of churches.
"Watch out for words like 'pastoral planning,' he told the group.
Catholics have a right to appeal decisions of the hierarchy involving their churches to Rome, said Borre, pointing to the Congregation for the Clergy and the Vatican Supreme Court as arms of the church that have been more willing to consider appeals than in the past.
Such appeals are "cheap by comparison with U.S. legal fees," he said, with the first phase testing the system based on inadequate notice averaging under $1,000, he said. Such actions by individual parishioners may possibly skirt canon law that requires filing an appeal within 10 days of a bishop's decision.
Borre was involved as a consultant in the Diocese of Cleveland that had a decision to close 11 parishes reversed by the Congregation for the Clergy. And he heads a Boston group that is involved in such litigation.
"Something is systemically wrong with Catholic America," said Borre, criticizing the management skills of bishops and their failure to "suppress the monster" of clergy sex abuse.
The church environment created by proposed closings and realignment of parishes here is perhaps more volatile than any time since the 1896 "church war" at Bay City St. Stanislaus. Those events are described in a book, "Ghosts, Crimes and Urban Legends of Bay City," and in an article in The Bay City Times by Tim Younkman Sept. 16, 1990.
Events in Bay City 1896-1898 resulted in beatings, stabbings, shootings, death of a "guard" apparently by heart attack, and violence reminiscent of European conflicts. Riots often broke out during church services and parishioners were beaten with clubs, with women being among the most active attackers.
New details have come to light with research by Mary Freel, a Bay City nurse and genealogist. She has compiled information documenting the turmoil. Her research has revealed many new details about the events here. A complete scrapbook of Ms. Freel's research on the church turmoil is located in the genealogical section of the Wirt Library.
Arrests included a city alderman, George W. Kabat, found guilty of violating a court order not to interfere in the dispute. He was charged by the bishop of the Diocese of Grand Rapids, Henry Richter. The case went on appeal to the Michigan Supreme Court where the conviction was thrown out.
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mdoloresbarron Says:
On June 19, 2013
at 05:36 PM
Excellent reporting on this meeting. Succinct and a complete account of the speaker's address. I love this guy.
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Dave Rogers |
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