Following up on DougJ’s post, there’s a model for quitting the Catholic Church that’s been going strong for 14 years here in Rochester: a schismatic church called Spiritus Christi, formed from an extraordinary urban church called Corpus Christi:
Father Jim Callan was assigned to Corpus Christi in 1976. Back then, it only had about 200 members. It was considered a dying parish. Now, it’s one of the largest in the diocese, with an active membership of about 3,000, with one of the biggest budgets and perhaps the highest number of outreach programs.
There’s the Corpus Christi health center, which treats about 15,000 people a year. Most have no health insurance. Doctors and nurses volunteer their time. Matthew’s Closet sells used clothing for those who can’t afford department store prices. And Rogers Restaurant provides jobs for ex-convicts and recovering drug and alcohol addicts. Corpus Christi’s work in the inner city was welcomed by the diocese, which includes 160 parishes in the City of Rochester and 12 surrounding counties.
Callan was excommunicated for having a woman act as a priest, marrying same sex couples and giving communion to non-Catholics. After his excommunication, he started Spiritus Christi, which is still going strong doing the same kind of ministry that Corpus Christi did. Callan is obviously an exceptional leader, but he sure as hell is no prophet, since he said this in 1998:
All the issues I’ve been removed for will seem absolutely silly in 10 years, because we will have married priests, we will have married women priests, we’ll have Protestants and Catholics receiving Communion together. Gay people will be getting married in church. Yes, I would not do these things if I thought they were – are so far off the mark.
This path certainly isn’t easy and it will only work in urban centers large enough to support break-away ministries, but it’s the alternative that E.J. Dionne is looking for, if he’s really looking.
c u n d gulag
The Catholic Church, like our own Republican Party, is still fighting the battles of the 1960’s.
Only the DFH Liberals the Church rails against aren’t negro-lovers, and DFH peaceniks, and women’s libber’s, they are Pope’s John XXIII and Paul VI, and the Second Vatican Council.
Here, take a look at what these radical DFH’s did:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Vatican_Council
And Pope John Paul, and Pope Rat-faced-zinger, are the Reagan and Cheney of that group of Catholic reactionaries.
WereBear
In one of my early science fiction works (which got repeatedly rejected because “it wasn’t genre enough”) I postulated that Catholicism would break into Orthodox & Reform. And this was in the 1980’s!
Linda Featheringill
This is the way realignments happen.
4tehlulz
Is Mel Gibson involved?
Odie Hugh Manatee
For those who want to continue to ‘believe’ something like this could be good, but the last thing I ever wanted after leaving the RC church was to go find something to replace it.
I just don’t need it because I just don’t believe in the whole mess they have made of it. If there is a god I think he/she/it has a lot more to do than being concerned about my salvation. That and if I ever meet this god I have a few questions about their glorious fucked up creation, humanity.
Hawes
In New England, you have a lot of Catholics moving to the Episcopal church, some to the Unitarians.
Episcopal services have all the robes and pomp that are familiar to Catholics, but with women and teh gheys leading the service. I think that’s why my diocese came down remarkably hard on some of the parishes that started to follow the Bishop of Uganda on anti-liberalization.
Catholics are a growth industry.
Odie Hugh Manatee
Sometimes I think that god is a student in high school and we’re his science project (our millennia are but a blink of the eye to his and all that).
If that’s the case, he’s getting an F and we’re getting tossed in the trash can.
curiousleo
@Hawes: Yep. The Episcopal Church in many areas is a good landing spot for folks who decided they’re no longer able to continue in the RCC but do want to continue w/ church. In most parts of the country, The Episcopal Church is just liberal enough but still liturgically similar enough that it’s a comfortable slide. Being Epsicopalians, though, we’re not as good at the “Hey, come join us, we’re sane” PR.
Bonus points for the presiding bishop being a woman. And an evolution believing scientist.
RossInDetroit
@WereBear:
I was told by an Episcopal priest in all sincerity that he expected to see the Catholic churches in the US split from The Vatican in his lifetime. It sounds unlikely to me, but he’s in a much better position that I to know.
Jamey
Not sure I understand why this is important? Why buck convention in the effort to make mainstream religion more relevant (read: “secular”)?
Cut out the middle-man. Why does doing “good works” have to be framed as doing “God’s work”? Is this a tax-break thing?
WereBear
@Jamey: Some people are going to need religion with a rule book. I recognize this, and contribute by saying nice things about religions that are not batshit insane. Because Episcopalians, for instance, are actually hip to the human rights/humanitarian thing, and our local Unitarian church actually feeds the hungry.
Some people, no matter what it is, need more structure than others.
ruemara
Now that’s what I’m talking about. This is how you do religion. Not by diddling innocent kids and then puling with a straight face that women are using birth control and it’s a sin.
Kathy in St. Louis
@RossInDetroit: The Catholic Church in the U.S. probably won’t split from the Vatican because it’s been infused with the most conservative of hierarcheies. The Catholics in the pews can be divided into three classes….the old time “sweet baby Jesus piety” Catholics who will never leave, the “Catholics raised Catholic” who go through the motions and pass their faint faith on to the kids, and those who have one foot out the door and maybe a leg, too. Those folks care enough to be infuriated with the state that the church is in today, and they will be the ones who start a new break away church, if that ever happens. Unfortunatley, those catholics are getting so beaten down by the crazy right wingers that they’ll probably just give up the entire concept of church and do whatever praying they do privately.
Dan
IANAC, but I think the “just join the Anglicans” argument casually dismisses the ethnic and neighborhood connections that are what bind many American Catholics to the church.
Winston Smith
@curiousleo:
Oh, I dunno about that: Top 10 Reasons to be an Episcopalian
curiousleo
@Winston Smith: That’s really funny. In my lifetime of being an Episcopalian, I’ve never seen that shirt worn by anyone. Maybe it’s just my neck of the woods, then, where TEC doesn’t do the “Hey! Join Us!” stuff.
Kathy in St. Louis
@Winston Smith: If I were an Episcopalian, I think I’d probably resent the recent trend among former Catholics to land at my church. It’s always reminded me of a second prize sort of attitude about the Episcopalians. The several times that I’ve attended their services, I’ve found them to be nice, comfortable, and inclusive. Lots of Catholics who have remarried chose this church, but it is certainly not the booby prize, and I think that lots of Catholics see it as such. Problem with Catholics, though, is that after joining they find out that the Episcopal Church has problems, too, just a different set. You still have members who don’t like gay bishops, prefer a man as a minister, etc. Same old, same old.
RalfW
Spirit of St. Stephen’s in Minneapolis has had a similar genesis/exodus.
They were a congregation grounded in Catholic social teaching running a soup kitchen, homelessness assistance, medical assistance, etc. Liberal community with open worship, etc.
Well, a new Bishop came to town who seems cut from Ratzinger’s cloth, and St. Stephen’s got a new priest and a new set of marching orders. So over half the congregation marched out the door and haven’t looked back.
Sadly, it’s that All are welcome thing that the current (and past) Pope-n-bishops seem not to be able to handle.
Jay C
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
Naaah, not trashed: more likely just let loose in the wild to fend for ourselves…..
Uncle Cosmo
@RossInDetroit:
It is unlikely, and he is not in a better position to know. In all likelihood your informant is hearing the rumblings from the lower depths–a few parish priests, cannon fodder from the more intelligent orders, & whatever of the laity has recovered its ability to think from the flash & dazzle of John Paul Superstar. None of these people count except to the extent that they pay the bills, or convince others to pay the bills. Catholics who give even a penny to the bastards who run The Church are enabling their continued inhumane & autocratic behavior.
The only way to change the RCC is from within: by organizing a successful nationwide contributions strike. That would get Ratzo’s attention. (But it’s far less likely to produce change than to cause the excommunication of everyone in the leadership of the strike.)
Dave
Or you could try my model: put on a British accent and declare to the nearest bishopric, “You are the weakest link. Goodbye.”
mikeyes
Just to keep the record straight, there are married priests in the Catholic church, it’s just that the Pope doesn’t want to mention them and if he had his druthers, they’d go away.
There are a few married Episcopal priests who have come over, but the largest number are from the Uniate churches that stuck with Rome after the split with the Orthodox church or came back later on. The Catholic rules are such that if you are born to the Roman rite, you can’t switch over to the Ruthenian Church, for example, and the Latin rite church has made it so difficult for them that many of these churches have switched over to the Orthodox.
This is not a new thing, the Irish used to have a Celtic rite (actually several) until Rome made them switch over to the Latin rite about 900 years ago. Since the split Rome has never trusted the Eastern Uniate churches or the other minor rites but had to put up with them and their married priests.
r€nato
@Uncle Cosmo: what Cosmo said.
EJ is kidding himself if he thinks liberals Catholics can change the church. This is not a democratic institution which responds and changes over time to the people; it is a very top-down institution which has proven over centuries that it is extremely resistant to change. Nobody but the cardinals elect the pope; the laity sure doesn’t elect the cardinals. Furthermore, the very nature of the church is to resist listening to the laity. We’re talking about a church which has as a fundamental part of its doctrine that the Pope is Christ’s vicar on Earth. Religious dogma is certainly not up for popular vote or discussion; after all, it’s allegedly an eternal truth.
How long did it take for the church to admit Galileo was right? Only, what, 400 years. There’s your answer, EJ. Perhaps eventually the Catholic church will change its attitudes on gay marriage and women priests and contraception… I guarantee we will all long be dead, by then.
Kathy in St. Louis
@mikeyes: And the thing I love about this is that the Church is so shorthanded in some areas that they are persuing the priests of other denominations, i.e. episcopalians, to come over and serve. Now the married men and women who were born and raised Catholic aren’t really good enough to serve the Church, but any warm body from the episcopalians is more than welcome. Makes utterly no sense, and it will, evenutally kill the American church. The African church is fed up over it, Austrian priest have struck over it, Belguim is practically no longer Catholic, and the Irish church, though fed up about other matters is down to 1 in 4 attending mass. I never thought I’d live to see this day, but the Church is in danger of death from a self inflicted wound.
Kathy in St. Louis
@r€nato: And so will the Church be dead as a force in the world. It will die of irrelevancy.
Winston Smith
@Kathy in St. Louis:
I don’t know how the Catholics see it; I’m sure it varies. Also, there are some people who leave the Episcopal church and go to the RCC — not as many, but some. The Episcopal attitude is, “we’re here if you need us.” Frankly, I don’t want to be part of a church with an attitude of “we’re here if you wake up to the TRUTH(trademark of Rabid Zealots Inc.).” The Catholic Church is rife with conversos who joined the RCC later in life and are now more Catholic than the Pope.
This always baffles me. I’ve met some Episcopalians who hold this attitude and my response to them is, “There’s a church that’s almost exactly like the Episcopal church except that it only allows male clergy and insists that they not be (openly) gay. It’s the Roman Catholic Church.”
Mnemosyne
This isn’t that unusual — there’s also the American Catholic Church in the United States, which has married clergy and welcomes LGBT members. There’s a fair amount of schism, but those breakaway churches don’t seem to be willing or able to get together and form a larger community.
gaz
This. Ladies and Gentlemen, this is how it is done.
That just means you are doing it correctly.
And that’s just confirmation.
Kathy in St. Louis
The Catholic Church is beginning to remind me more and more of a an alcoholic or drug addicted relative. At first, you try getting him help, you try reasoning with him, you read up on the illness, you may even spend your money on a good program to help them see the light. Then it happens again and again. You begin to suspect he really doesn’t want your help, or want to get better. You may try many times before you just get sick of the entire situation. So, you cut him off or, at the least, try to stop thinking about the situation. And that, my friends, is the end of your friendship, at least until the person decides to change. That’s where millions are with the Catholic Church today. We’re avoiding our alcoholic friend.
Shinobi
The Catholic Church spend roughly 1700 years acting not as a spiritual guide, but as a institution of social control. For centuries it was essentially a government of governments. It had its fingers in every country in Europe, and some far away. It’s role was to preserve order, which means keeping things the way they are, protecting the clergy, and spreading the influence of the church.
We’re essentially asking why a 2,000 year old dictator hasn’t changed their mind and let us have fair elections yet.
And like every dictatorship, trying to change it from within just gets you branded a traitor.
gaz
@Kathy in St. Louis: Nice analogy. =) Taking it a little further:
My father, who went through recovery, used to say “If you can’t help them up, help them down”
You can’t really help an addict see that they are destroying themselves. It’s something that has to come from within. And that only happens when they finally “hit bottom”
The catholic church hasn’t found their bottom yet. They’re still digging. I think they’ll continue to dig for another 1000 years or so, at least. But who knows?
In any case, it’s time to help them down. Maybe one day, they’ll find Jesus.
jheartney
@Shinobi: I think there’s a feeling that it wasn’t always like this. People who grew up Catholic in the aftermath of Vatican II had the idea that the institution could be changed, and updated with the times. Even when they got a true reactionary (JPII), they were willing to love him because he was cuddly. But Ratzi doesn’t have that quality, and his unrestrained right wing ideology is right out where everyone can see it.
The RCC is the last unapologetic authoritarian patriarchy in the western world. It suffers from the usual afflictions of the form: blindness to changing circumstances, unwillingness to listen to sympathetic advice, and an instinct to value purity over popularity. I think the Vatican saw what happened to the old Soviet Union when they tried putting in a reformer (Gorbachev), and they’re determined not to let the same thing happen to them.
Zagloba
You’re not wrong, but that particular knife cuts both ways: if the pews are empty and the social atmosphere at Donut Sunday is all little old blue-haired ladies, then there’s not much point in being Catholic.
What’s a much heftier stumbling block (and is eventually the reason I’m an atheist and never even momentarily considered becoming Episcopalian instead) is the amount of time and effort the Catholics put into convincing you of their historical legitimacy (and the illegitimacy of any upstart church which didn’t exist before 1000 CE). Basically, if they’ve got the right neurons firing in your brain, you’ll see the A&E as just Sunday morning social clubs, not worth trading for your deeply historic and apostolic Sunday morning social club.
curiousleo
@Mnemosyne: Yeah, there are a batch of independent Catholic churches. I know a woman ordained as part of the Ascension Free Catholic Alliance. Trouble is, for folks who want to remain Catholic but jettison Rome, there aren’t that many congregations out there that are independent Catholic and they can be hard to find.
Xecky Gilchrist
we will have married priests, we will have married women priests, we’ll have Protestants and Catholics receiving Communion together. Gay people will be getting married in church.
He might have been right it it hadn’t been for the radical throwback period the entire world went through in the 2000s, leading to somebody like Benedict getting the top spot.
Sly
@RossInDetroit:
It depends on what he means by “split,” really. In a sense, a schism has already begun to take place; since the 1970s, three American Catholics have left the Church for every new entrant, and American Diocese have been facing a logistical crisis in recruiting more priests. There are over three thousand parishes in the United States alone that do not have a priest, a number that has steadily increased since the late 60s. Protestant congregations and the number of Protestant ministers in the United States have grown over the same period.
If you asked someone living in the 16th century about their thoughts on the Protestant Reformation they’d have no idea what you were talking about, because it was a slow schism that occurred across several generations. We’re quite possibly seeing the same thing happen all over again.
Amanda in the South Bay
@mikeyes:
You can, technically (ex-Orthodox and Byzantine Catholic here).
To change particular churches (which is what they are, not rites per se) takes an awful lot of paperwork, and applying to your episcopal hierarchy. But a lot of RCs who are fed up with post V2 liturgical changes often switch over to the Byzantine Rite (Ukrainian GCC, Byzantine Catholic Church in America [Ruthenian Metropolia], the Melkites, etc). And then often end up becoming Orthodox, because the liturgical and spiritual life of those churches is lackluster.
It can be hard to be a married priest in the Eastern Catholic Churces in America, since in many respects those particular churches have blocked it themselves, to avoid upsetting RC bishops. Its changing, but very gradually.
Most of the big movements to Orthodoxy from Byz Catholicism happened earlier in the century-Alexis Toth, then ACROD and Orestes Chronok.
Amanda in the South Bay
@Sly:
Well, large chunks of the Reformation also involved state coercion and some pretty fast change that, well, would be hard to imagine today. Just look at how Christianity changed in England-1530, 1545, 1554, and, oh, lets say 1580. Orthodox Catholicism, Edwardian Reformation, restoration under Mary, then something resembling modern day Anglicanism under Elizabeth. In a lifetime religious life could change drastically.
wobbly
About ten years ago, I worked alongside a male toolmaker whose long-time live-in female partner was a big fan of Fr. Callan. This was before Fr. Callan got booted out of Corpus Christi for his heretical doings, including the blessing of same sex “marriages”, which, of course, did not obligate either partner to pay the other’s debts, contribute to child support, or pony up some alimony should one of the “spouses” run off. The same sex “marriages” at Corpus Christi were basically blessing homosexuals having sex, with no attending financial obligations.
These were fantasy “weddings”, no strings attached.
My co-worker was reluctant to marry his long-time partner, because he thought she was sticking with him solely for his income and would run away as soon as she found another source. Had he married her,he would,indeed,have been liable.
AT THE SAME TIME that Fr. Callan was “blessing” same-sex unions, he told my co-worker’s partner to stop having sex with him until they got married (like really, legally married!),since all sex outside of marriage was WRONG!
At least for heterosexuals, who did have the right to legally marry. So, my co-worker’s partner did “cut him off”, on the advice of this Catholic priest!
The misery he experienced consequently…
I saw it, heard it, and am no fan of Fr. Callan.
call