Roy Bourgeois is a former missionary, a Nobel Prize nominee, a Vietnam vet with a Purple Heart and a Maryknoll priest, who founded and now presides over SOA Watch, a grassroots organization that is seeking to close down the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC).
WHINSEC (formerly "School of the Americas") is an academy for torture whose alumni include Manuel Noriega; many of Augusto Pinochet's generals; the leaders of the 2009 military coup in Honduras; and Roberto d'Aubuisson, the commander of El Salvador's notorious death squads -- the same death squads that executed tens of thousands of Salvadoran civilians, including three nuns and the church worker they raped before murdering. (Two of the nuns were friends of Father Bourgeois.) That same year, SOA-trained assassins murdered Archbishop Romero. The name of the school has changed but the work of father Bourgeois and others continues to be consecrated to putting WHINSEC/SOA, which continues to train assassins, out of business.
Roy Bourgeois made the front page of this past Saturday's New York Times, and I was glad for the good news at hand: 157 priests signed a statement in support of Father Roy Bourgeois, whom the Vatican has begun to defrock. The 157 have not necessarily signed on in favor of women's ordination -- but rather to protest the punishment of a priest for speaking out on a matter of conscience.
The Vatican began its crusade to defrock Father Bourgeois in November of 2008 with the threat of excommunication. (Read Bourgeois's response.) In April of this year, Father Bourgeois received his first "canonical warning," which was signed by Rev. Edward M. Dougherty, the Superior General of the Maryknoll order. The Maryknoll have a tradition of taking the Christ-like part of the priest's vocation seriously; therefore, we can assume that Vatican made Father Dougherty an offer he couldn't refuse.
Usually (and especially in recent years), when we hear about the defrocking of a Roman Catholic priest, an accusation of sexual misconduct is involved. Not so in this case. Had Father Bourgeois raped an altar boy, he would not now be hanging on to his frock by a thread.
Father Bourgeois has been ordered by the Vatican to recant -- to formally, publicly, withdraw -- his support for women's ordination. If he refuses to cave, Bourgeois will be laicized by Ratzinger & Co. Father Bourgeois's transgression, as the Vatican sees it, is not merely that he is a proponent of women's ordination, but that he has been present at the ordination rites and liturgies.
According to the New York Times, Father Bourgeois explained why he cannot recant in an interview this past week:
"I see this very clearly as an issue of sexism, and like racism, it's a sin. ... It cannot be justified, no matter how hard we priests and church leaders, beginning with the pope, might try to justify the exclusion of women as equals. It is not the way of God. It is the way of men."
I have been following (and writing about) the persecution of Father Bourgeois for a while, and it seems to me that the Vatican's determination to crack down on priests who support the ordination of women, when seen alongside its (relative) indifference to the plight of adults who were raped as children by Catholic clerics, is self-serving and twisted. Even the Knights of Columbus set are beginning to be troubled by this bizarre juxtaposition, and that more and more Catholics are beginning to see the pontiff and his team as a gang of mean, power-drunk perverts who aren't all that interested in God.
Sure, there are ultra-conservative, lockstep Roman Catholics who take a strict construction approach to embracing dogma and doctrine. They'd follow the Borgia pope to the letter, too. But most Catholics are not that, and even the most conservative of us -- because we tend to agree that the current Vatican teaching which upholds the obligation of Catholics to discern is correct -- are, to some degree, pick-and-choose Catholics.
Even Catholics who oppose the ordination of women are beginning to notice that there's something not quite right about defrocking a missionary veteran with a Purple Heart as hundreds of bishops who pimped out children continue to minister amok, frocks intact.
The July 23 Times piece quotes Christopher Ruddy, an associate professor of theology at the Catholic University of America, as saying the following:
"I don't think anything will come of it..."
Maybe Professor Ruddy is right about the infallible teaching aspect. But I think a lot has already "come of it." More than 150 signatures is something. These priests have publicly confirmed what people in parishes all over the world know: that there is widespread support among practicing Catholics for the ordination of women.
I sat beside a friend who is a Catholic priest this past weekend at a dinner party. We were talking about women's ordination. One of his remarks should shed a particular light: "[The Vatican] won't even talk about it."
We have all experienced some version of this kind of refusal to talk in our personal lives. An argument transpires. Logic falters, stubbornness sets it, fear of losing the argument takes over and the one losing the debate walks away.
That the Vatican won't ordain women might possibly be a matter of infallible doctrine. The refusal to engage, however, is not. The refusal to even engage is a sign of weakness. The refusal to engage is evidence of bigotry and fear.
The argument against women's ordination is a lousy one. Arbitrary and flimsy, it's a variation on "because we said so." The prohibition is a man-made "law" grounded in medieval, temporal politics. It's man-made policy based on broad interpretations and misinterpretations of select, ancient, translated, retranslated and mistranslated texts. The argument against women's ordination is fueled by greed and a juvenile fear of the power, strength and sexuality of women.
In street terms: the pontiff and his boys -- they got nothin'.
The pontiff can take his shot at Bourgeois, but he won't land a punch.
According to the Vatican's own doctrine, it is God who turns men into priests. "Defrocking" Father Roy Bourgeois will not render Father Bourgeois any less a priest. The dress does not make the man a priest.
So Ratzinger and his boys in lace will just have to be satisfied with the hope they might yet rob a 72-year-old Nobel Peace Prize nominee of his medical insurance and modest retirement plan.
And they probably will be because that's who they are.
Follow Michele Somerville on Twitter: www.twitter.com/NYpoet
Roy Bourgeois - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
No Indulgence for Father Bourgeois -- In These Times
Maryknoll head feels 'sadness' over warning issued to Father Bourgeois
Michele Somerville: Christian Sacrifice and the Unholy Crusade to ...
I'm sorry but this idea that a god's law should change because his followers' opinions change is ridiculous. I realize that such positions are common for christians and atheists who consider differing opinions as being innately incorrect and less valid, rational, or "true".
By the way, the church does have the authority to change its mind on ordination. Jesus tells the disciples, " I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven." This mandate gives the church the authority to change - on this issue and on homosexuality.
Brother Chris, OP
http://www.catholic.com/library/Women_and_the_Priesthood.asp
"...1994 Pope John Paul II formally declared that the Church does not have the power to ordain women..."Although the teaching that priestly ordination is to be reserved to men alone has been preserved by the constant and universal tradition of the Church and firmly taught by the magisterium in its more recent documents, at the present time in some places it is nonetheless considered still open to debate, or the Church’s judgment that women are not to be admitted to ordination is considered to have a merely disciplinary force. Wherefore, in order that all doubt may be removed regarding a matter of great importance, a matter which pertains to the Church’s divine constitution itself, in virtue of my ministry of confirming the brethren (cf. Luke 22:32) I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church’s faithful" (Ordinatio Sacerdotalis 4).
...1995 the (CDF) in conjunction with the pope, ruled that this teaching "requires definitive assent, since, founded on the written Word of God, and from the beginning constantly preserved and applied in the tradition of the Church, it has been set forth infallibly by the ordinary and universal magisterium (cf. Second Vatican Council, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium 25:2)" (Response of Oct. 25, 1995)."
Veritas
The writer loves the church.
No one knows who exactly Jesus call, but we all (even you) seem to agree it's likely he took at least two women as disciples, which as you suggest would have been a violation of the way Jews prayed.
Thank you for the comment.
MMS
Maybe I misread the tone of lines like: "hundreds of bishops who pimped out children continue to minister amok, frocks intact. "
You ignore the serious work of the Church with the victims, but you're only mentioning these atrocious criminal sins to gain attention to your article.
I'd expect your article to at least mention the reasoning of the Church teaching on the topic, why didn't you?.
Regarding women Priests, here is a good article on why this will never change:
http://www.catholic.com/library/Women_and_the_Priesthood.asp
"...the Church has always answered "No." The basis for the Church’s teaching on ordination is found in the New Testament as well as in the writings of the Church Fathers.
While women could publicly pray and prophesy in church (1 Cor. 11:1–16), they could not teach or have authority over a man (1 Tim. 2:11–14), since these were two essential functions of the clergy. Nor could women publicly question or challenge the teaching of the clergy (1 Cor. 14:34–38). ...
The Fathers rejected women's ordination, not because it was incompatible with Christian culture, but because it was incompatible with Christian faith. Thus, together with biblical declarations, the teaching of the Fathers on this issue formed the tradition of the Church that taught that priestly ordination was reserved to men. Throughout medieval times and even up until the present day, this teaching has not changed. "
Hope this helps form your conscience on this matter. Veritas.
Many thanks.
MMS
But that probably doesn't belong in this essay. Their being so bone-headed and beneath contempt on that issue can't be used as proof that they're also wrong on this issue.
Something a bit more fair and reflective is in order.
And I'd urge the author not to select random quotes from people like Father Ruddy. For a theologian to suggest that a specific practice established under canon law (non-ordination of women) may come under the heading of "infallible teaching" is ludicrous. That's simply wrong. And all kinds of Catholic theologians with all kind of views on the ordination of women would want to whack him across the surplice for suggesting that.
a person who was in charge during a horrific period in church history.
You are correct that something cannot be partially infallible, it either is or it isn't. In this case, it isn't.
But that doesn't mean that the Roman Catholic church is breaking any of its own rules in deciding to laicize a priest who advocates for ordination for women and who (rather publicly) attends such ordination ceremonies.
I have no problem with the priest doing that, I applaud it. But it's quite analogous to civil disobedience. A Roman Catholic priest can't do that, and still expect not to be booted out as a consequence. Follow one's own thoroughly examined and tested conscience -- even when it means disobedience to some human hierarchy or authority -- but never forget that they'll enforce their rules upon you one way or another.
Even if he is laicized, it won't actually end either his career or his advocacy. Just his status as priest within the Roman Catholic church.
And kudos to the Maryknollers for trying to handle this as well as could be hoped.
Ms. Somerville is simply wrong about this. Unlike Protestant and other "churches," Holy Orders, by which men are ordained as priests, is a SACRAMENT in the Catholic Church. The Church affirms that sacraments were instituted by Jesus himself, and the Church simply does not have the authority to change the nature of something that Jesus himself bestowed. (See JPII's 1994 'Ordinatio Sacerdotalis.')
Ms Somerville's erroneous information is unfortunate.
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As "legalistic" issue under Church law, you also appear to assert that the ordination of men only is a matter of doctrine. It is not. It is established under canon law, but has not been defined as doctrine. It is, therefore, also subject to change and reform under canon law. Should leaders ever choose to take that step.
Such a fine point may elude many folks, but it surely should weigh upon one such as yourself.
Thank you for this comment. Last time checked, the "Church" doing the 'affirming' would seem to refer to a group of men "affirming."
As you know, Jesus didn't write it all down. The "authority" of the Church is not as you say/suggest "simple."
Rather it is complex.
Thank you for recommending 'Ordinatio' which I have read. (It is erroneous to assume that simply because one is not persuaded by them that one doesn't know what's in these major tracts!) 'Ordinatio' was written by a man, not Jesus.
Furthermore, "the Church" has seemed to have found the "authority" to dramatically "change the nature" of at least 5 of the 7 sacraments within my lifetime.
Thank you again.
MMS
Thank you for reading my piece, and for commenting.
I hope what you say is true (in which case -- good on those Maryknolls!). It doesn’t usually go that way.
I hope Fr. Bourgeois will not be laicized, but should he be, I hope the Maryknoll order will prevail in safeguarding his benefits -- without Vatican interference.
Thanks for your “correction.”
MMS
Widen your view of the divine.
In reporting the dissident Fr. Bourgeois' conflicts with Church authorities, Johnson makes no mention of the fact that the priest was reportedly excommunicated from the Catholic Church on November 24, 2008.
I agree the Church is not a democracy. Nor is it a corporation. Nor is it a monarchy.
The people you wish to expel from the church ARE the church.
Thank you for commenting.
MMS
The church has "elected" its Popes for a millenia and the early Friors elected their leaders too - so the notion that we have a dictatorship or monarchy in the Vatican is without historical merit.
We are called to disern, to ask, to pray, to think and to be lead by the Holy Spirit more that we are called to follow a man - even a Pope.
If we cannot question or ask or even pray - we give up the Holy Spirit and cease to be Christian.