Posted on 05/15/2003 8:49:29 AM PDT by american colleen
CARDINAL MAIDA'S LETTER
Reverend Robert Ruedisueli, Pastor St. Mark Parish 4257 Bart Avenue Warren, MI 48091-1977
Dear Father Ruedisueli
Recently it has come to my attention that your parish will be hosting Dr. Anthony Padovano for a full day lecture series entitled: "Finding Optimism and Hope for the Future Church" on May 14th, from 9:30am. until 3:00 pm. Although Ms. JoAnn Loria is listed on the promotional literature as the person responsible for information, I presume that you, as Pastor, have given consent for the lecture series. As chief Teacher and Pastor of the Archdiocese, I must ask that you cancel Dr. Padovano's lecture. I do not undertake this matter without due consideration for you, as Pastor, and the practical and personal difficulties you may encounter in fulfilling my directive.
You may not be aware of the range of Dr. Padovano's theological views, some of which are clearly in opposition to the authoritative teaching of the Church. Among such positions are his advocacy for the ordination of women and his view that the celebration of the Eucharist need not be limited to ordained ministry. According to the National Catholic Reporter (March 14, 2003, p. 11) he is a "National Tour Co-sponsor" for the "Rev. Ida Raming, Ph.D., noted Catholic theologian and women's ordination pioneer. Dr. Raming [will speak] about her experience of ordination, excommunication, and the future of women's ministry in the Roman Catholic Church."
Other doctrinal ambiguities concern Dr. Padovano's understanding of original sin, the virginal conception of Jesus, the importance of the physical resurrection of Jesus, apostolic succession as essential for the validity of Holy Orders, as wellas positions concerning contraception and abortion.
Most distressing however, is the fact that Dr. Padovano continues to celebrate Mass publicly at "The Inclusive Community" as "Pastor" in Nutley, NJ, although he was laicized in 1974 and married soon afterwards.
You may not be aware that Dr. Padovano helped to establish CORPUS (Corps of Retired Priests United for Service) soon after his laicization as an advocacy group for married priests. A review of the CORPUS homepage indicates active web-links to "Catholics for a Free Choice," "Dignity" and other advocacy groups which promote doctrines and social policies contrary to the teachings of the Church. I fully recognize that such web-links do not, of themselves, necessarily indicate any heterodox position held by Dr. Padovano himself on such matters. However, Dr. Padovano has identified Dignity and the Women's Ordination Conference, among other groups, as 'the synagogues of the renewal(National Catholic Reporter, November 12, 1.999, cover story).
In review of the serious concerns which Dr. Padovano's writings and advocacy efforts present, especially in matters ecclesiological, I believe that the potential harm caused to the lay faithful by his lecture series at your parish outweighs the potential benefit envisioned.
Pastoral prudence and my obligation as Archbishop require me to direct you to cancel Dr. Padovano's engagement at your parish on May 14th .I have asked Bishop Blair to be available to meet with you to discuss any questions or concerns you may have.
Sincerely yours in the Lord, Cardinal Adam Maida, Detroit
cc: Bishop Blair
RESPONSE BY ANTHONY PADOVANO
Cardinal Adam Maida Archdiocese of Detroit 1234 Washington Blvd. Detroit, Michigan 48226
Dear Adam,
Your April 28 letter to the pastor of St. Mark Parish canceling my lecture on "Optimism and Hope in the Church" left me perplexed and disappointed. The cancellation of a talk on hope in such a season of cynicism and despair in the Church is especially mystifying. Just thirteen days before, on April 15, your auxiliary bishop, Tom Gumbleton, who knows my work well, and I met in New Jersey during his lecture on non-violence.He told me he knew of my scheduled talk, was delighted I was coming to Detroit and welcomed me to the archdiocese.
I find the letter disappointing because there was no effort to deal with me directly.I was never informed of your concerns or invited to address them.Did I not deserve that?Is it really just, under canon or civil lawor even just plain human decency and courtesy, to criticize me in absentia in a letter from one Church official to another?Should I not have had some say in a decision by you of what I teach and what I believe?
I am writing this letter on Sunday, May 11, Mothers Day; the Sunday Gospel is the Good Shepherd.Such a contrast!I was taught to see the Church as Mother Church and the ministers of the Church as shepherds.How many Catholics today, loyal, faithful, intelligent, find such images alien to their experience of the Church, partly because of letters written in the spirit of your April 28 letter?
The charges the letter raised are so many and so generic that a defense would be a burden for me and would amount to an irrelevance for you because you have already judged me, without a hearing, from newspaper accounts, hearsay, and critics whose grasp of theology is often ideological or uninformed.I expected more from a canon lawyer, a cardinal, a colleague, a pastor.
The letter is astonishing in its sense of fear and misinformation.I do not feel anger over this, only disappointment.The letter recognizes "ambiguities" in my theology and notes that my writing is not necessarily "heterodox".So there was a lot of room for discussion and distinction and definition.None of this occurred.In place of truth, we got judgment.
Allow me to chose one instance of misinformation.
There is a citation of your being troubled by my views on contraception.Actually, I hold on contraception the same position found in Human Life in Our Day, the l968 pastoral letter of the American Catholic bishops.As you know, I wrote that letter and I included in it the rules for legitimate theological dissent, rules I have followed.All this was approved as the authentic teaching of the American Catholic hierarchy.In that letter, it was affirmed that a married couple might be faced with a conflict between papal teaching, the needs of the marriage and the inability responsibly to have more children.In such instances, they should address such "agonizing crises of conscience" with a certitude that they will find compassion from Church ministers and from Christ. Other hierarchies, such as the French, dealing with the same dilemma, asked couples to let their consciences decide the issue.
Indeed, as late as June of l995, some 52 American bishops asked for greater dialogue in their meetings and less fear of Rome as they discussed some fifteen points of contested teaching, covering indeed most of the items listed in your letter of disapproval. I suspect that the vast majority of priests and laity in Detroit think as I do on this and many other issues.
In any case, this is not a point-by-point letter.It is meant to illustrate briefly how differently you might have seen things if we had had a chance to talk before judgments were made.
I am especially disturbed by your use of terms such as "laicization" when the Code and Catholic teaching make it clear that a priest can never be made a lay person.I filed for a dispensation and I received it.I am always a priest.Why would such inaccurate terminology have been used in your letter, indeed terminology that is against authoritative teaching of the Church?The implication furthmore that a priest is punished by being made a lay person is offensive to every baptized Christian.
I am concerned that CORPUS is defined exclusively as an advocacy group.It was established as a place of healing and witness for Catholic priests who married, a pastoral resource for priests who were abused, in many instances, by the Church and especially by its bishops.If we call for a married priesthood, we are calling for something that already exists among Eastern Catholics and, in the West, among former Protestant pastors.Indeed a married priesthood was the norm during the entire apostolic period of the Church.
We need not go on, Adam, because your letter implies that you prefer to judge me, indeed to pre-judge me, without reference to my own testimony.
I am mindful of the fact that when we were students in Rome, authentic papal teaching moved in a very different direction from where it is now.Vatican II reversed this former teaching on many issues.Were the theologians who advocated their positions before Vatican II so much out of the tradition then?Or were the popes further from the present teaching than they now are willing to admit?
You are the Archbishop of Detroit and you have been there a long time.It astounds me that my being there for one day might unsettle the laity so unduly that you feel it necessary to prohibit even one day of exposure to what might be an alternative way of addressing our common Catholic faith. As you know, the lecture will go on, with even more laity in attendance, at a different venue.It seems sadly patronizing to be so concerned about the laity as though they are not adults.You are not concerned about the clergy although, as you know, many, if not most, think as I do.
I am concerned for the humiliation the pastor of St. Mark Church must feel at this public rejection of his pastoral decision to invite me to his parish and to his rectory.He knows the people of his own parish better than anyone else.He was not troubled about their hearing me.
The fact that this decision was delayed until almost the last moment, even though the invitation to lecture was begun seven months ago, is especially insensitive.
Adam, you need to live with the pastoral consequences of your own decisions.No doubt, you feel justified in what you are doing. The fact that so many others in your diocese disagree with you must cause you some concern.There was a more gentle and compassionate and Christ-like way for you to have handled this issue.The fact that you chose not to follow that path saddens me.
Dr. Anthony T. Padovano Catholic Theologian 9 Millstone Drive Morris Plains, New Jersey 07950
Maida's a coward; it's easy to kick a guy he went to seminary with, but it would take guts to stand up to Jennifer Granholm.
Sadly, it seems that in too many diocese, it is all about the $$$.
But I like to see a bishop, any bishop, take a stand like this. It is a beginning.
Padovano is like a slow spreading poison though, and it is good to see Cardinal Maida take some action. Like you say, maybe he is "ramping up" to tackle Granholm. I guess everybody starts with baby steps.
Nobody knows who Anthony Padovano is, and those who do and were coming to hear him likely agree with most of his positions anyway.
So I'm not sure who Maida is "protecting"; he's angered a pastor and some people who likely can't stand him in the first place.
Plus, look at how he handled it. He writes a letter (rather than pick up the phone and call the priest), and releases it to publicly humiliate the guy. In addition, instead of making himself available to answer questions from the pastor, he palms the job off on an auxiliary bishop.
It's no wonder Maida's being bitch-slapped by a woman!
Most of us Catholics have heard of "Catholics for a Free Choice" or "Call to Action" and some of us "CORPUS" or "International Federation of Married Catholic Priests" - all of which Professor Anthony T. Pavodano, Catholic Theologian, has a hand.
He is vitriolic about the papacy (esp. JPII) and advocates an impeachment process to remove JPII, saying "If the institutional church won’t meet our needs, we’ll do it ourselves. We are not asking permission anymore."
This page has a pretty good take on him and includes his own writings plus a lovely picture of him with Frances Kissling.
Still, it's amazing to watch a prelate stomp around in his own barnyard, but suddenly grow silent when standing up to somebody he can't control.
Maida searches soul for answers on priests' abuse
Bishops meet Thursday to help guide church
June 11, 2002
BY DAVID CRUMM
FREE PRESS RELIGION WRITER
On the eve of the U.S. Catholic bishops' summit on sex abuse, Detroit Cardinal Adam Maida is admitting his own poor judgment and the church's tragic reliance on flawed advice from insiders and therapists that have contributed to the crisis.
If anyone could have envisioned the seriousness of the situation, it should have been Maida, who was the first bishop to conduct a national briefing for his colleagues on the legal implications of abusive clergy.
That was 18 years ago.
"The question is: Why has it taken us so long? I know we've lost our credibility on this," Maida told the Free Press in an hour-long interview last week.
For months, Maida allowed his staffers to take the flak for him while he made only a few public appearances in carefully controlled settings.
But last week, Maida cleared his schedule to prepare for the bishops' 3-day meeting in Dallas, which starts Thursday. First, he met with more than a dozen reporters to answer questions. Then on Sunday, he departed from his prepared text and apologized awkwardly to 500 Catholics after mass at a parish in Plymouth. He also had an apology read aloud in other parishes in the six-county Archdiocese of Detroit.
A man who stands near the pinnacle of the church as a papal favorite and a savvy legal fixer, Maida also has been working feverishly behind the scenes to help his fellow bishops turn the corner on the crisis.
"My phone has been ringing off the hook," Maida said, as bishops seek his legal advice and lobby for amendments to a 17-page proposal for combating abuse that will be debated in Dallas.
The cardinal acknowledged that it has taken multimillion-dollar legal settlements, embarrassing revelations about clergy misbehavior and many victims' tragic stories about the long-term impact of abuse to sway the bishops toward placing children's safety above the welfare of priests.
"For a long time, the victims weren't uppermost in our consciousness," Maida said.
In fact, they were almost invisible to bishops, most of whom assumed they had relatively few cases of abuse in their home dioceses, Maida said.
"There are more victims than any of us realized," he said.
Since widespread abuse by priests in the Boston area was revealed in January, many bishops have reviewed their files and were shocked at what they found.
Some bishops, including Maida, have met with victims.
"And, when you listen to their stories, if you're human, you have to cry," he said. "Now, we know we've got to reach out to victims."
That clear vision wasn't in Maida's head when he conducted his briefing for about 100 bishops in 1984.
The bishops looked to Maida because he is both a civil and church lawyer, so respected by the Vatican that he helped to write large sections of the current code of canon law that governs every Catholic parish in the world.
"In '84, some of these first cases were being discussed at our November meeting in Washington. The bishops wanted to know more about this, so I discussed some of the general legal principles," Maida said. "I told them that this can be a sickness and about the fact that it can be a crime."
For years, bishops treated sex abuse of minors primarily as a legal, therapeutic and spiritual matter, the cardinal said. Cases needed to be weighed and, if a priest was guilty, they needed to be settled -- as quickly and quietly as possible. Abusive priests needed treatment.
"We thought we understood the problem, but we really had taken our eyes off the ball," Maida said. "For a while, we put our credibility in treatment."
Therapists at residential centers around the country worked with the wayward priests and later indicated that many could be reassigned safely.
Bishops sometimes gave the cases little scrutiny.
On the day he left Green Bay, Wis., for Michigan in April 1990, Maida said, he signed off on a letter returning one accused priest to parish work and asserting that the charges made by a boy's parents weren't solid enough. It took three more years before the family settled a civil lawsuit with the Diocese of Green Bay and the abusive priest was ousted.
When asked about the case, Maida frowned.
How carefully did he check out the abuse claim before clearing the priest for parish work?
Maida paused before admitting that he didn't even recall the case.
"Honest to goodness, if the priest walked into the room today, I wouldn't even know him," Maida said.
In those days, bishops paid less attention to signing off on abuse cases than they do today, he said.
These are difficult admissions for a prince of the church, as cardinals commonly are called.
This is a man so proud of his religious heritage that he crisscrossed the country for years, drumming up $60 million to build a state-of-the-art Catholic visitors center in Washington, D.C., named for Pope John Paul II. As Maida unveiled the gleaming edifice last year with President George W. Bush, he was the toast of hundreds of deep-pocket Catholic donors.
In contrast, at St. Kenneth in Plymouth on Sunday, Maida's public apology came at the end of the parish's high-spirited, 35th-anniversary mass and made families fidget nervously in the pews.
At one point, apparently trying to ease the tension, the cardinal pointed at the four priests who had helped say the mass with him.
"There have been no allegations against any one of these priests," Maida exclaimed.
The congregation applauded, but hesitantly.
Ordinary Catholics are overwhelmingly disappointed in their leaders right now, said Frank Newport, editor-in-chief of the Gallup Poll in Princeton, N.J.
"We've asked Catholics about this in March, late April and again in late May and between 70 and 75 percent of Catholics across all three polls are saying their church has done a bad job handling this," Newport said.
Most Catholics aren't convinced that their leaders are committed to rooting out abuse.
"We asked Catholics: What do you think the church's primary motivation is? And we had three quarters of Catholics who said the church seems more interested in protecting its own image than in getting at the real truth," Newport said.
Maida said he is well aware his followers' trust has been strained.
Now, with three years to go before retirement at age 75, Maida said he may be facing some of the toughest negotiations in a long career of difficult arbitration for the church.
As the bishops approach Dallas, some want the strictest possible punishment to be meted out -- a one-strike-and-out policy for all abusive priests, past and present. Others, including Maida, want that kind of policy as a deterrent for future abusers, but want more flexibility in weighing past cases.
Several Vatican officials already have published harsh critiques of the U.S. bishops' plan to turn over church records to law-enforcement officials.
"There's going to be a lot of very tough negotiation ahead," Maida said. "But, in the end, I think we will do what we need to do."
Sorry - he certainly $crewed up on Granholm (hard to keep her from speaking in her own parish, though), but I think it was better that he acted on Padovano than ignored the situation.
Tragically, whose are? Good article and thanks for posting it. It seems to me that Maida is struggling and trying to overcome his failings (in a public way) regarding the "crisis." Sounds to me like he accepts his own culpability as well.
I dunno. He's got that freak Gumbleton on an awfully long leash. Granted that he inherited Gumbleton when he came to Detroit, but if he had any sense he'd keep him chained up in the basement of the chancery.
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