“Excommunicate me, please”

So writes Sheila O’Brien, wife, mother, daughter, sister, a product of 22 years of Catholic education and active in her parish, also a justice of the Illinois Appellate Court, Chicago, in today’s Chicago Tribune. She’s fed up.

The question of the day isn’t whether you are too. If you’re a regular contributor or commenters at PrayTell, we probably already know where you stand. This is the question: is she an outlier, or does she speak for the solid center? How representative is she of Catholic laity?

Discuss among yourselves.

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Comments

23 responses to ““Excommunicate me, please””

  1. Fr. Allan J. McDonald

    This article sounds like the teenage girl who screamed at her mother for her unbending truths, “I didn’t choose to be born!” It was her mother’s fault she was here. This article has that feel to it. Wish people could deal with the truths of life and Church in a less immature, emotional, manner. I guess the girl could blame her mom if she kicked her out of the house, then it would release her from any complicity in terms of behavior and accepting family norms. I think this article speaks for Catholics who are formed by democratic principles and bleeding hearts, not Scripture and Tradition–emotional appeals rather than intellectual honesty characterize so many in these arena.

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  2. Angela Steffens

    I don’t think that anger toward an institution that has failed time and again to protect its most vulnerable members can be equated to an immature teenage rebellion. Jesus did not tell us that we are to support a hierarchy steeped in Tradition, but to care for others. Jesus is our model in this – not “democratic principles and bleeding hearts.” He himself protected those unable to protect themselves (children, women, the sick) and decried the institutions that upheld rules for rules’ sake.

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  3. Jonathan Sullivan

    Can we please stop acting as if there is a monolithic “Catholic laity?” The studies I’ve read seem pretty clear that there are a number of “Catholic laities” that cleave along lines of young/old, regular Mass attendance/CEOs (Christmas-Easter observers), white/Latino. And that’s just in this country. I’m sure Justice O’Brien is representative of one of these groups.

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    1. Cody C. Unterseher

      One or more of the groups.

      It’s true in the various mainline denominations, with similar “lines” sorting the groups. About the only place I’ve experienced monolithic laity is in some of the Pentecostal churches — and even there, shades of difference persist.

      CEOs… that’s a new one for me: gotta remember that!

      Reply
      1. Jack Rakosky

        A former pastor called them the Easter bunnies and the Santa Clauses.

      2. Jeffery BeBeau

        We called them C&E Catholics, and then we had Crackerjack Catholics, who came for Ash Wednesday and Palm Sunday.

  4. Todd Flowerday

    I think I’m with Angela on this one. Teen rebellion isn’t a very fitting comparison, unless it were an adolescent calling out a parent for being a drug addict and child abuser.

    Christ as a model for the hierarchical church–that can be very hard to discern in this mess. Judge O’Brien speaks for the mainstream. But Rome’s not listening. And given his missteps and dismissal of his own diocese’s protection plans, neither is her bishop.

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  5. Chris McConnell

    Is she representative of most of the laity? I don’t know. Increasingly, most of them aren’t around to ask.

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  6. Philip Endean SJ

    Not an easy article to assess. But it comes across to me as a sensible Catholic getting near to a breaking point that I suspect may reflect the position of many. I very much resonate with her sense of a dilemma: ‘stay and fight’ (with not much hope of success), or ‘leave’–with both being spiritually and emotionally pretty daunting.

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  7. anne kavanagh

    I think Judge Shelia O’Brien speaks for the solid center giving voice to the angst so many of us feel when it comes to the Catholic Church in 2010. As a young girl, I asked Sister Francis how I should handle a situation with a friend. She told me when in doubt ask yourself, “what would Jesus do.”
    I am asking myself that now and I think he would side with Shelia O’Brien.
    This is no longer the church that Jesus built. I hope Cardinal George and Rome take notice. Big change is often sparked by women in the solid center.
    Just think of Rosa Parks.

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  8. Ben Blackhawk

    Maybe I would feel the same way Sheila O’Brien feels–if I accepted and swallowed the tone of every biased “news” report written by people with an agenda to shove down our throats. I’m talking about propagandists who treat the Pope like a child rapist and also treat a real child rapist (Roman Polanski) like he was a pope. I suspect most of the laity sees through such treatment and is choosing to stay with the Church, and just be even more skeptical whenever the Church is mentioned in a headline.

    Not sure if I could wish that the big bad hierarchy would do me wrong too by kicking me out. Seems like a weasel way out.

    I imagine the editors of the Chicago Tribune have this fantasy that O’Brien is the average Church-goer of the future. “22 years of Catholic schooling” during the last 40 years could mean many different things, not all of them equally based in Scripture and Tradition. But one thing it should mean is that when a document from Rome says explicitly that abuse of children and ordination of women are not being equated, someone should not misrepresent that fact to millions of readers, sowing further confusion.

    Unless the writer really does understand all this and has some other axe to grind.

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  9. Adam Fitzpatrick

    I think the anecdotal example the author of this article uses is poor and doesn’t set up a strong point. However, there is a problem in Catholicism here and people feel real tension, especially if one has been in the faith for a long time. The abuse of people in any way is something which must be considered, and there are real issues with how power is used by some people which must be addressed and dealt with. There are also issues of people who hate the Church and want to see it completely destroyed and take things too far. What’s important is that we listen to the concerns of people and challenge everyone to grow in their experience and stop having extremist reactions? When we deal with real being, then we can serve the needs of people who suffer.

    So yes, bad anecdotal example, but let’s address the real problem, for everyone else’s sake…

    Reply
  10. Joe O'Leary

    This article is a juvenile rant. She caricatures the Vatican by saying it would be a crime for the Church to ordain Teresa of Avila a priest. In fact the Vatican document is directed at ordinations performed not by “the Church” but by maverick bishops, acting in contempt of the people of God and courting recklessly the possibility of schism. I am certain that Teresa of Avila and Therese de Lisieux, both doctors of the Church, would regard these ordinations as crimes.

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  11. John Drake

    I think a juvenile rant might actually demonstrate more personal responsibility than does Ms. O’Brien. The juvenile usually wants to take matters into her own hands and demonstrate her independence. Ms. O’Brien refuses to take responsibility, and wants someone else – “the Church” – to excommunicate her and relieve her anxiety. Well, adulthood is about making decisions.

    PS Did any of our female saints ever insist on a “right” to be ordained?

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  12. Nathan Standifer

    I believe that Judge O’Brien is writing from her pain and disappointment. To merely call it a juvenile rant is to dismiss her very valid criticisms. It is true that bishops (worldwide) have been complicit in the shuffling of priest ephebophiles and pedophiles. There has been a concerted cover-up in many dioceses, and the laity have borne the overwhelming burden of these decisions by our shepherds.

    Unfortunately, when I read comments that liken Judge O’Brien to a juvenile, it seems strikingly similar to those who blamed the media most recently when it was reported that there was shuffling of a priest-abuser in a certain German diocese a few decades ago.

    However, I don’t believe that Judge O’Brien represents the center of the laity. In my experience, most of the laity will just readjust their estimation of our bishops and give even less credence to their teachings than a few years ago. This is very sad. Yet, most of us will continue to attend Mass and continue to rely on our consciences, as “imperfectly formed” as they may be.

    NS

    Reply
    1. F C Bauerschmidt

      I see no reason why something cannot be a genuine expression of pain and disappointment and a juvenile rant. There are days when I feel like ranting in a quite juvenile way over things that have caused me pain and disappointment.

      Some of the problems she sees are genuine; some of her solutions are juvenile. Particularly, the strategy of starving “downtown” of money is redolent of the adolescent desire to strike out at the parental figure, thought much thought for the reality of the parent’s life. My parish has a number of people who only give to the second (outreach) collection because it is not taxed by the Archdiocese. They fail to see all of the important services and support that “downtown” offers our parish, that the vast majority of that money goes to paying the salaries of those who minister on a diocesan level, not to buying safehouses for pedophiles or cappae magnae for the bishop to sit around watching Mad Men in.

      Reply
  13. Padraig Whalen

    There are times that I feel like the good judge. The clericalism, power structure, lack of open communication, the us versus them mentality, the lack of evangelazation, continued infant baptism, the pope as a rock star, the curia as his groupies, mediocre everything. But then, it is the Church were talking about.

    If your spending more time convincing yourself to stay a catholic than actually being a catholic it is time to go or at least take a time out.

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  14. Jack Rakosky

    Jesus provides us with a model for dealing with religious professionals.

    Certainly most of the religious establishment of his day were not happy with Jesus, nor was Jesus very happy with them. Most of the people whom Jesus picked to be his religious establishment were not very impressive either. The Gospels present Jesus not his disciples as the model for us to follow.

    Jesus did not withdraw from participation in the established religious institutions of the Temple and Synagogue. But he didn’t make them the religious center of his life. He spent a lot of time in homes (where the women were), market places and workplaces, e.g. the seashore (where the men were), and in the marginal places of wilderness outside the established towns and cities (where the marginal people were).

    While Jesus did not hesitate to challenge the religious establishment on their home territory, he spent a lot more time being religious with a rather diverse group of people in non-religious settings. Most of the religious establishment did not like the company that he kept in these settings, nor the things he said or did in these settings.

    Jesus also spent a lot of time alone in the wilderness. Sometimes as at the Transfiguration he took a few special people with him to that solitude.

    All sounds pretty relevant today, unless perhaps if you are a religious professional.

    Reply
    1. Ben Blackhawk

      JR, nice summary of Jesus’ dealings with the ‘religious establishment.’ I might add to it this way: most of the time he spent with those “diverse people in non-religious settings” consisted of confronting sin, healing lives broken by sin, healing bodies broken by disease, teaching and preaching. The gospels also seem to indicate that most of those people came to him, sought him out, traveled tired and dirty miles and disrupted their lives in order to get to him. He welcomed them but never pleaded with them to come or to stay, in fact he took pains to make sure he was not available to them at their convenience. He even once appeared to discourage some from a particular racial group (the Phoenician woman) from even asking him for help (not that it deterred her any).

      Though the gospels don’t explicitly record it, I doubt that it was only the “religious professionals’ who were critical of Jesus’ teachings, behavior or the company he kept. Wait, didn’t I read that the whole synagogue in his hometown wanted to throw him over the cliff? That seems pretty explicit.

      No, perhaps you are right that only the ‘religious professionals’ were upset with Jesus. All the ‘diverse’ people probably really enjoyed his hard teachings on how divorce was odious to God, on the blessings of forgiving those who hated your guts, on extinguishing all your earthly attachments (etc, etc. insert your least favorite biblical teaching of Jesus here.)

      Reply
  15. Mark Duch

    Well, Jesus did have something to say about how to deal with the “religious establishment,” but it’s not some bra-burning, fight-the-power hippy-theme song like many make it out to be.

    Instead, Jesus said to obey them, because they have the authority of their office, in spite of the fact that they tell us to do one thing and do another.

    “The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. ‘Therefore whatever they tell you to observe, that observe and do, but do not do according to their works; for they say, and do not do.'” Mark 23:2

    This is still the Church established by Jesus. The institution has not failed to teach the truth, even when its leaders have failed to practice it.

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  16. Rita Ferrone

    Jack, I’m surprised at your sneering tone at “religious professionals.” The category didn’t even exist in the first century AD, so it seems to me you must be engaging in a put-down of a current phenomenon. And since the clergy and vowed religious don’t call themselves professionals, it also seems puzzling to me that you would take a gratuitous swipe at lay people who have labored long and hard to prepare themselves for ministry, and who work tirelessly for the good of the People of God, often without any of the professional respect or remuneration those in other professions receive. What are you trying to say?

    To hold to a profession is a good and honorable thing, involving standards and accountability and collegiality. I don’t think the gospel is opposed to such values, or that the words of Jesus should be taken to condemn those who treasure them. Perhaps you are railing against an elite which has substituted their own authority for that of God, but this move is really—sorry—unprofessional!

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  17. George P. McAndrews

    Forgive me but even Christ batted only about 92% in picking his Apostles (remember Judas). The pedophile priests and nuns account for less than 4% of those who have committed their entire lives to the human family. Protestant and Jewish clergy and public school teachers are reported to have a higher percentage of sexual miscreants. Ms O’Brien should give her age and post her beliefs on such things as abortion, euthanasia, gay marriage, etc., and openly state whether or not she has ever suffered injury at the hands of the Church. She seems to epitomize the dictum “Hell has no fury like a woman scorned”. I wonder if she even thinks about the definition of scandal. She has defamed hundreds of thousands of priests and nuns who have dedicated their entire lives to caring for the sick and the poor through charities, holy works, hospitals, schools and lifelong commitment to the human family. I will pray for Ms. O’Brien while she struggles with this period in her life. I will also pray for those, not as privileged as Ms. O’Brien, who have carried out the will of Jesus throughout the United States and around the world in evangelizing and caring for God’s creatures. Thank You Jesus for Your commitment to Peter and Your Church as well as Your Sacrifice for forgiveness that You dedicated to all. May we not forget “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

    Reply
    1. Anthony Ruff, OSB Avatar
      Anthony Ruff, OSB

      As a priest I don’t feel defamed – probably because she didn’t defame all priests. Did we read the same article?

      We don’t have any accurate number like 4% – that is self-reported, and we don’t know how many victims never reported in. And a comparison with eg. public school teachers is apples and oranges – children are in public school 8 hours a day 5 days a week for 9 months a year, but they are hardly with clergy that much of their lives. Proportionately, the abuse from Catholic clergy is much higher in terms of total time with youth.

      By defending ourselves at all cost, I think we make ourselves less credible. I try to state the full truth, however painful, because I think it’s the best ‘apologetic’ for the Catholic faith at this time – not to say a Gospel mandate.

      But apart from that, I think the point has been made about a hundred times already that the scandal for most people isn’t the sinful behavior of individual clergy (though that is very serious and very hurtful). It is the inadequte, dishonest, non-transparent, self-serving response of the hierarchy. I think Mr. McAndrews perhaps missed the point of the judge’s words.

      awr

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