Why parishes need to embrace diversity

MILWAUKEE — “And we, though many, throughout the earth, we are one body in this one Lord,” goes the popular hymn, One Bread, One Body. It is that line which reflects and helps the Catholic community understand the diversity of cultures within its church.

“We have a choice to embrace this growing cultural diversity or resist,” said Sacred Heart Sr. Mary E. McGann at a workshop for musicians at the National Pastoral Musicians Conference in Milwaukee. Sr. McGann is associate professor of liturgy and music at the Franciscan School of Theology and the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, Calif.

“God is engaged in a great act of summoning, changing the faces and sounds of the church we serve,” Sr. McGann said.

The changing faces and sounds of the church today, she said, are evident in dioceses across the country that have all been affected by the large influx of immigrants to the United States in the past several decades. New York City alone, she noted, is home to more than 1.3 million Latino immigrants, while the Diocese of Memphis, Tenn. serves large numbers of people of Vietnamese, Polish, Filipino, and Hispanic descent.

“How are we to respond to these changes?” Sr. McGann questioned participants. “I believe we are called today to a new vision of church, to look beyond the horizons of local parishes, to the increasing diversity gathering around the church.”

The U.S. bishops are calling the members of the church to embrace the new people and changes that are occurring today, she said. For many, they consider it to be the process of birthing a new church.

“The bishops are calling us to embrace these new arrivals of brothers and sisters,” said Sr. McGann. “We are called to a new Catholicity, a new vision of the church, a new way of being church, through a path of conversion, communion and solidarity.

She added that the goal is not assimilation of all peoples into one way of being the church, but that all may find a home so that the whole may be strengthened.

For many people, Sr. McGann said, these increasing changes in the church make them fearful and uncomfortable in this new church that is about to be birthed. It is through this fear and discomfort that the birthing of a new church faces a severe roadblock. It is here, Sr. McGann believes, a sense of conversion can greatly aid many parishes.

“Conversion is the ongoing struggle to overcome misunderstandings that stand in the way of new relationships and a new life,” said Sr. McGann.

“Conversion invites us to be stretched so that we may become pioneers, ready to embrace the rich varied sounds of the Body of Christ.”

Once conversion is achieved, she explained, communion may enter into the congregation, as deeper communication is reached throughout the cultures.

“Communion thrives on hospitality,” Sr. McGann said. “Hospitality is always a two-way street, in giving and receiving. We need to learn the arts and skills of these intercultural communities, so we can embrace our differences. To truly appreciate the culture of another community we need to experience it.”

She spoke of how experiences of other cultures can occur through music in the Mass.

“Music,” said Sr. McGann. “What better way to build bridges across cultures? Music is not just an artifact of a culture, it is a threshold into the doorway of the history of a culture. And it’s not just about the music. It’s about the message. We are not performers. We are God’s messengers.”

She added that through these messengers, bridges can be built within and across communities in any given archdiocese.

“As we forge our way into a new future, we must tend to those who follow us,” Sr. McGann said. “No doubt through these transformations we will have new insights. Music as a meeting point, a devotion, and a source of solidarity. No doubt that through this path, we will be on our way into singing a new church into being.”

Prayer service for women's ordination
held at St. Matthias

Archbishop surprised organization allowed to gather in church

OFFERING PRAYERS -- Ginny Kiernan Dahlberg presides at a World Day of Prayer for Women's Ordination prayer service at St. Matthias Parish, Milwaukee on March 25. The day was marked at several sites in the United States and one in Europe, but according to Dahlberg, the gathering at St. Matthias was the only one in a Roman Catholic church. (Submitted photo by David Gawlik)

By Maryangela Layman Román
CATHOLIC HERALD STAFF
MILWAUKEE -- Most of the sights, sounds and symbols were familiar. Like so many gatherings at St. Matthias Church before, the prayer service on March 25 opened with song. Two candles flanked the altar which contained a basket and chalice next to a third candle.

About 35 people clustered in the first few rows of pews to pray, on the Feast of the Annunciation, led by a presider dressed in a long white alb with a green, embroidered stole draped over her shoulders.

Yes -- her.

The presider, Ginny Kiernan Dahlberg, led the gathering in a prayer service on the World Day of Prayer for Women's Ordination, as designated by the national Women's Ordination Conference.

Dahlberg began the evening by noting about a dozen similar services were being held in the United States and one in Europe on this, the seventh annual Day of Prayer for Women's Ordination, "but we are the only service taking place in a Roman Catholic church."

St. Matthias agreed to host the prayer service, according to pastor Fr. David Cooper, only after consultation with staff members and parishioners.

"St. Matthias Parish was only a host for the prayer service," said Cooper. "The parish has no official or unofficial position on the question of the ordination of women."

After being approached by Dahlberg to host the service, Cooper admitted he made a difficult decision.

"I felt it was a decision not to be made by one person," said Cooper who explained he consulted with pastoral staff, parish council members, parish trustees and members at large, before granting permission for the service to be held.

"Some worried about fragmentation or causing a division within the parish and some people said I should be worried about my own career," said Cooper, "but the general consensus seemed to be that a prayer service is a prayer service and as such, there are not bad prayers."

Cooper's consultation process did not include archdiocesan officials or Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan, who according to his spokesman, Jerry Topczewski, did not learn of the service until hours before it occurred when his office received a number of calls after it was reported in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

"He was surprised an organization that was in direct opposition to defined teachings of the church would be welcome at one of our parishes," said Topczewski of Dolan, adding the archbishop was especially disappointed by what he heard occurred.

Following the gathering song, opening prayer and a reading from "The Time is Ripe for Ordination," David Gawlik, a member of CORPUS (the national association for a married priesthood) reflected on women's role in the church. Intercessory prayers included petitions for "the healing of those wounded by the rejection of the priestly call, due to gender and/or marital status," and "that the whole people of God -- in all the churches, but especially the Roman Catholic Church; recognize the injustice of denying God's call to women and to married persons."

Dahlberg opened her reflection by quoting St. Catherine of Siena. "Preach the truth as if you had 1,000 voices. It is silence that kills the world.... Yet church officials have repeatedly tried to silence a renewed priesthood," she said.

Walking to the altar Dahlberg held up the bread basket and chalice and said, "This is my body, this is my blood, Jesus said, do this and when you do this, you do it to remember me."

"And yet, they tell me you may not say those words, woman. You may not touch those vessels, woman," she said, adding "men who share intimate relations with a woman" may also not do so.

"You may not wear an alb as a priestly symbol," said Dahlberg, stripping off her stole and alb and tossing them to the ground at her feet.

"Yet the Holy Spirit has taught me and so many others, that they are wrong," said Dahlberg, "so I do stand in this holy sanctuary, a woman called by God to priestly service."

She put the alb and stole back on and declared that she will serve her church as a priest "whenever and wherever people call me to serve."

Speaking to a Catholic Herald reporter after the service, Dahlberg, a Racine resident, described herself as a lifelong Catholic who belongs to Jesus Our Shepherd Church in Neenah, a church not recognized by the Green Bay Diocese in which it is located. She said she organized the local chapter of the Women's Ordination Conference which has a mailing list of about 150, last fall and the prayer service was its first public gathering.

Dahlberg, who will receive a master's degree in theology this May from Marquette University, said she has wanted to be a priest since age 5.

"I'm not ordained, but I consider myself to be a priest," she said, noting she's served as a lay presider, conducted Communion services in a rehabilitation center, and presided at home liturgies.

Seven Catholic women claimed they were ordained last July during a ceremony on a Danube River pleasure boat by excommunicated Archbishop Romulo Braschi of the Catholic-Apostolic Charismatic Church of Jesus the King. A few weeks later, the Vatican issued an excommunication order to the women. Their appeal was rejected in January confirming their excommunication. Dahlberg said she hasn't decided whether she will follow their path to "ordination."

"I've told God, 'OK God, I've done everything I can do, now it's up to you,'" she said, adding she believes change in the church is coming.

Cooper did not attend the prayer service because he and his staff were meeting in a different part of the parish facility, but he said he stopped in the church and heard part of the petitions.

While he was clear the parish has no official stand on the issue of women's ordination, he said he personally does.

"I do have a personal opinion. I am grateful to Mr. George Weigel and the clarification he offered in his column on March 20 in the Catholic Herald. He said that the Holy Father's teaching about the current war with Iraq is not to be considered binding: 'such statements do not constitute, and cannot constitute, an exercise of the papal magisterium. They are to be carefully and respectfully considered as the prudential judgments of experienced churchmen,'" said Cooper.

"Therefore one can conclude that the United States war with Iraq is moral and justifiable. By that same standard, the question of whether or not women and married men should be allowed into Holy Orders may be handled on the same basis. It has nothing to do with morality. It has nothing to do with our doctrinal faith .... It is a tradition of the Catholic Church. But traditions have and do change."

Cooper added he stands in solidarity with Fr. Donald Cozzens, author of "Sacred Silence, the Denial and Crisis in the Church." "(Cozzens) says the issue of ordaining married men and women needs to be examined anew. Silence is killing the ministerial priesthood. I believe the time for silence is long past. It is time to speak the truth."

Asked whether he regrets allowing the prayer service at St. Matthias, Cooper said, "I regret the issue seems to be so upsetting to some people and I regret if this causes any embarrassment to the archbishop because that was not my intention."

As of Monday afternoon, Topczewski said Dolan had not yet spoken directly with Cooper, but "he intends to discuss the matter with those concerned" and he hopes that in the future "if there is a question about a group who is not in agreement with teachings of the church -- Planned Parenthood comes to mind -- they should call (the archdiocese) to ask for counsel." He added that such groups "probably should not use parish meeting space."

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