NEWS STORY: Catholic liberals launch petition drive aimed at key changes in church

c. 1996 Religion News Service WASHINGTON (RNS)-A coalition of more than 20 liberal Roman Catholic organizations, taking a cue from church members in Germany and Austria, Wednesday (May 22) launched a drive to gather 1 million signatures over the next year in support of changes in church law, including a married priesthood, female ordination and […]

c. 1996 Religion News Service

WASHINGTON (RNS)-A coalition of more than 20 liberal Roman Catholic organizations, taking a cue from church members in Germany and Austria, Wednesday (May 22) launched a drive to gather 1 million signatures over the next year in support of changes in church law, including a married priesthood, female ordination and the popular election of bishops.

But Cleveland Bishop Anthony Pilla, president of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, warned Catholics the campaign could create division in the church and said some of the”reforms”are”challenging church teaching.” Sister Maureen Fiedler, national coordinator of the”We Are Church”coalition sponsoring the campaign, said the”Referendum,”as it is called,”is the rough draft of an agenda for a Third Vatican Council.” Many liberal Catholics believe that the Second Vatican Council, which ended in 1965, began a process of fundamental reform of the church that has been halted and in some instances rolled back during the papacy of John Paul II. They hope the next pope will call a new, or third, council that will include priests and laity as well as bishops to renew the reform movement.


The petition campaign-and its demands-mirror similar drives in Europe. In three weeks last June, more than 500,000 Austrians signed a call for fundamental change in the church. In Germany, 1.8 million signatures were collected last fall. Drives also are under way in Italy, France, Australia, Belgium, the Netherlands and Canada.

While public opinion polls, most recently at the time of Pope John Paul II’s visit to the United States in October 1995, have shown large support among self-identified Catholics for many of the changes sought by the campaign, the year-long petition drive could be a key test of the liberal groups’ efforts to organize and mobilize that support.”The Referendum calls for lay participation in the selection of pastors and bishops, equal rights for women including ordination to the priesthood and the right of priests to marry,”Fiedler told a Washington news conference.”It affirms the goodness of sexuality, church teaching on the primacy of conscience in moral decision-making and the human rights of all persons regardless of sexual orientation.”It longs for a church that gives greater attention to issues other than sexual morality-issues such as peace and non-violence, social justice, (and) the preservation of the environment,”said Fiedler, a member of the Sisters of Loretto order and a longtime liberal activist in the church.

The campaign also supports increased protection for those who dissent from church teaching and the right of married couples to follow their conscience regarding the use of artificial birth control, which the Vatican opposes.

Linda Pieczynski, president of Chicago-based Call to Action, a group that supports liberalization in the church, said the reforms”are necessary to address the real problems that we are experiencing in this church-the alienation of women and youth, sexual abuse by priests, the church’s lack of credibility on sexual ethics, and the priest shortage, which threatens the church with the loss of the Eucharist.”They cannot be solved by being ignored,”she added.

Pilla said he supported dialogue.”However, for it to be successful, dialogue needs to be honest, and, in all honesty, I must say that I do not believe this referendum announced today contributes toward creating a spirit of dialogue,”he said.”Ignored by those sponsoring the referendum are their brother and sister Catholics who do not share their point of view, since this referendum asks only for agreement.” He urged the leaders of the drive”not to create new divisions”in the Catholic church”by continued challenges to the teachings and the authority of the church that has nurtured the faith of us all.” But the issues raised by the liberal groups echo concerns voiced last June by 40 U.S. bishops in a statement circulated among the prelates as they debated the role and structure of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops. The 40 bishops, out of a total U.S. count of about 300, expressed concern that the Vatican had cut off debate too rapidly on such issues as a married priesthood and female ordination.

Conservative Catholic groups criticized the new campaign.

The National Committee of Catholic Laymen, a Washington-based group that supports Catholic orthodoxy, accused the organizers of not being Catholic because”they have rejected Catholic doctrine and many of (the coalition’s) members have probably not seen the inside of a Catholic church in years-if ever,”according to a statement issued today.

Michael Ferguson, executive director of the Catholic Campaign for American said the liberal coalition’s”call for a new (Vatican) council of the church is a perfect example of selective Catholicism.” But Pieczynski, noting that she attended Catholic schools from the elementary level through college and that her three children also attend parochial school, responded,”If I’m not Catholic, I don’t know what I am.””If you exclude people like us from being Catholic, you’d see 80 percent of the people in the pews disappear.” Anthony Padovano, president of CORPUS, a national association that supports a married priesthood, also rejected the conservative charges.”We’re in this (reform effort) for the duration because we’re doing this out of love for the church,”he said.


Other groups represented at the news conference were the Women’s Ordination Conference, Association for the Rights of Catholics in the Church, Catholics for a Free Choice, Dignity/USA, Federation of Christian Ministries, New Ways Ministry and Pax Christi/Maine.

END CAMPBELL-ANDERSON

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