c. 1996 Religion News Service

(RNS)-The Roman Catholic bishop of Lincoln, Neb., is threatening to excommunicate Catholic members of a dozen groups whose ideas he considers incompatible with church teachings.

Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz said he has forbidden Catholics in his southern Nebraska diocese from belonging to Planned Parenthood, the Freemasons, the Hemlock Society, Catholics for a Free Choice and eight other groups.”Membership in these organizations or groups is always perilous to the Catholic faith and most often is totally incompatible with the Catholic faith,”the bishop declared in an official edict published Friday (March 22) in the diocesan newspaper, The Southern Nebraska Register.

Bruskewitz said any of the 88,000 Catholics in his diocese who are members of the named organizations will be barred from Holy Communion after April 15. Those remaining as members a month later will be excommunicated, he said.

Other groups named by Bruskewitz include Call to Action, a Catholic organization that has challenged church teaching against birth control, female ordination and married clergy; Call to Action Nebraska; the Society of Saint Pius X, a group affiliated with excommunicated Bishop Marcel Lefebvre; and a regional chapter of that group, Saint Michael the Archangel Chapel.

In addition to the Freemasons, a men’s fraternal organization and the world’s largest secret society, four affiliate Masonic groups were cited-Job’s Daughters and Rainbow Girls, two female youth groups; the Order of DeMolay, a male youth group; and the Order of the Eastern Star, a predominantly female group.

The Rev. Thomas Reese, senior fellow at Georgetown University’s Woodstock Theological Center, said Bruskewitz’s edict is bound to cause confusion in Catholic circles.”Every bishop in the country is now going to be asked why he is not excommunicating members of these groups in his diocese,”said Reese, a Jesuit priest.”This is the kind of thing the bishops normally don’t do-go off on their own like this without consultation and collegial cooperation with other bishops.” Monsignor Timothy Thorburn, chancellor of the Diocese of Lincoln, said the bishop’s edict was in fact aimed at reducing confusion within the diocese about church teachings.”We had had a lot of questions from laity about many of these organizations because of local events,”he said.

A Planned Parenthood clinic that provides a wide range of services, from prenatal counseling to birth control and abortion, has opened in Lincoln. The Nebraska chapter of the Hemlock Society has supported a proposed state act to allow physician-assisted suicide.

Bruskewitz does not intend to single out individuals by name who belong to the targeted groups, Thorburn said. Rather, he said, the bishop hopes those who remain members of the organizations will refrain from taking Communion and will resign from any church boards.

Rescue America, a Baltimore-based anti-abortion group, announced Monday (March 25) that it intends to provide the bishop with names of Lincoln-area Catholics who support groups such as Planned Parenthood.

Thorburn said, however, the bishop is not seeking such assistance.”We’re not making up lists and making priests or Eucharistic ministers memorize lists of people,”he said.”The legislation (edict) was set up so that it covered all of them and they know who they are. … It’s up to them to be honest enough to realize … that they have separated themselves from the Catholic Church.” He called the edict”medicinal”in that Bruskewitz hopes people will leave these organizations and reconcile with the church.

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Bruskewitz’s ban on membership in the Masons reopens a longstanding issue within Catholicism.

The church once had a strict legal ban on Catholic membership in the Masons. But, according to the”Stylebook on Religion”produced by Catholic News Service, a code of church law instituted in 1983 made that prohibition”moral and doctrinal, not legal.” A Vatican declaration that year said the new code”no longer invokes excommunication for belonging to the Masons,”the stylebook said. Still, the declaration said Masonic principles”have always been regarded as irreconcilable with the church’s doctrine”and”Catholics enrolled in Masonic associations are involved in serious sin and may not approach Holy Communion.” In 1985, a U.S. bishops’ committee said Masonic tenets and rites”embody a naturalistic religion”that is”incompatible with Christian faith and practice. Those who knowingly embrace such principles are committing serious sin.”(END OPTIONAL TRIM)

Richard Fletcher, executive secretary of the Masonic Information Center in Silver Spring, Md., said he was disappointed with the bishop’s edict.”It’s … disheartening to have this kind of rigid position taken,”he said.”There is nothing in Freemasonry that is anti-Catholic. … We have a lot of Catholic members around the country.” A Planned Parenthood spokeswoman called the edict”unfortunate”for Catholics who are involved in her organization, especially in Nebraska.”They’re very committed to their church and they’re also very committed to Planned Parenthood,”said Susan LaMontagne, vice president for media relations for the Planned Parenthood Federation of America in New York.

She cited the bishop’s statement as an instance of”members of a hierarchy who are not in touch with their membership.” Leaders of Call to Action said they regretted Bruskewitz’s”intemperate”action.”It is the sort of bully-boy tactic that makes the church incredible in the eyes of many reasonable people,”co-director Sheila Daley said in a statement.

Helen Voorhis, acting executive director of the Denver-based Hemlock Society USA, said Bruskewitz’s edict is having an effect he may not have intended.”We’ve already had three calls from Catholics who, by gosh, are going to join Hemlock,”said Voorhis.”I think the poor man is shooting himself in the foot.”

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