KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Bishop Charles H. Helmsing of Kansas City-St. Joseph has issued an "official condemnation" of the National Catholic Reporter.
The bishop accused the paper of denying "the most sacred values of our Catholic faith" and of making itself "a platform for the airing of heretical views on the church."
After citing material published in recent months, the bishop said: "It is difficult to see how well-instructed writers who deliberately deny and ridicule dogmas of our Catholic faith can possibly escape the guilt of the crime defined in Canon 1325 on heresy, and how they can escape the penalties of automatic excommunication entailed thereby."
The statement continued:
"In fairness to our Catholic people, I hereby issue an official condemnation of the National Catholic Reporter. Furthermore, I send this communication to my brother bishops, and make known to the priests, religious and laity of the nation my views on the poisonous character of this publication."
Later in the statement the bishop said the paper does not reflect the teaching of the church but openly opposes it. Therefore, he said, "I ask the editors in all honesty to drop the term 'Catholic' from their masthead. By retaining it they deceive their Catholic readers and do a great disservice to ecumenism by being responsible for the false irenicism of watering down Catholic teachings."
John J. Fallon, president of the board of directors of the National Catholic Reporter Publishing Co., said there would be no immediate response, pending a forthcoming meeting of the board.
The statement was distributed to press, radio and television media for release Friday. The N.C.R. obtained its copy from a reporter for the Kansas City Star.
Material from the paper cited by the bishop as the basis for his stand included an editorial (N.C.R., July 10) on the "Creed of the People of God" proclaimed by Pope Paul at the close of the Year of Faith, a column by Rosemary Ruether on the perpetual virginity of Mary (N.C.R., Sept. 18) and an essay by Daniel Callahan on the papacy (N.C.R., Oct. 9). The bishop said the editorial was guilty of "belittling" the Creed. On the other articles he said: "Vehemently to be reprobated was the airing in recent editions of an attack on the perpetual virginity of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the virgin birth of Christ, by one of its contributors. Finally, it has given lengthy space to a blasphemous and heretical attack on the Vicar of Christ."
The bishop recalled also his earlier reprimand to the Reporter (N.C.R., Jan. 18, 1967) for its policies on birth control and celibacy.
The bishop said the policy of editorial freedom under which the paper was launched should be understood tn terms of Vatican II declarations on the subject. "There is a legitimate freedom of opinion to be exercised by the Catholic press," he said, "so long as it is absolutely loyal to the church's teachings. If an editor is to merit the name 'Catholic,' he must remember 'to think with the church.'
"As long as the Catholic editor carries the name Catholic, he can never forget that he is a teacher of Christ's revelation. What he writes necessarily touches on faith -- that gift of the Holy Spirit which 'we carry in earthen vessels' and by which we accept Christ, the word of God incarnate, and his revelation."
In an apparent reference to a news story (N.C.R., Oct. 9) reporting a survey of priests' opinions on contraception, the bishop said sociological studies can provide information on the attitudes held by people. "But it is a total reversal of our divine Lord's policy," he added, "to imagine for a moment that the disclosure of attitudes through such surveys becomes the norm of human conduct or thinking."
He said also that the church's effort to preach the ideals of Christ and the spirit of penance is increasingly frustrated by "the type of reporting, editorializing and ridicule that have become the week-after-week fare of the National Catholic Reporter.
The National Catholic Reporter was established in 1964 with the blessing of Bishop Helmsing as an offshoot of the diocesan newspaper but under control of its own board of directors. Besides Fallon, who is a Kansas City attorney and president of the Missouri Chamber of Commerce, the other directors are:
Dan Herr, vice president, president of the Thomas More association, Chicago;
Robert E. Burns, secretary, executive editor, U.S. Catholic, Chicago;
Frank E. Brennan, treasurer, insurance executive and member of the city council of Kansas City, Mo.;
Joseph E. Cunneen, editor with Holt, Rinehart and Winston and managing editor of Cross Currents, New York; the
Rev. Joseph H. Fichter, S.J., sociologist and author, Cambridge, Mass.; the
Rev. Martin E. Marty, Lutheran theologian, associate editor of the Christian Century and a member of the faculty at the University of Chicago;
Donald J. Thorman, publisher, and
Robert G. Hoyt, editor.
Canon 1325, cited by Bishop Helmsing in his statement, reads as follows:
"The faithful are bound to profess their faith publicly whenever silence, subterfuge or their manner of acting would otherwise entail an implicit denial of their faith, a contempt of religion, an insult to God or scandal to their neighbor.
"Any baptized person who while retaining the name of Christian obstinately denies or doubts any of the truths proposed for belief by the divine and Catholic faith is a heretic; if he abandons the Christian faith entirely he is called an apostate; if finally he refuses to be subject to the supreme pontiff or to have communication with the members of the church subject to the pope he is a schismatic.
"Catholics shall not enter into any disputes or conference with non-Catholics -- especially public ones -- without the permission of the Holy See or in urgent cases of the local ordinary."
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Notes:
The underline and bold attributes have been applied to the text for emphasis.
A single underline denotes an unexpected NON-capitalization.
The above Canon Law was prior to the 1983 Code.
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Notre Dame Archives Index NCR002
In October 1968, Bishop Helmsing sent a letter to the National Catholic Reporter, issuing "an official condemnation" of the paper and requesting the editors to remove the term "Catholic" from the masthead. At a special meeting on October 12, the Board of Directors of the National Catholic Reporter Publishing Company unanimously declined to remove the term "Catholic" from the paper's title, and at that same meeting, after expressing full agreement with the action taken by the Board of Directors, Mr. Fallon submitted his resignation as President of the Board and as a member of the National Catholic Reporter Publishing Company.