Madison, WI is what I'd call a "battleground diocese": a conservative Bishop overseeing a diverse Catholic community which includes a fierce strain of dissenting instigators.
The problem with being on the front lines, of course, is that you get attacked frequently. That's the case here.
Here's an example of a dissenting Catholic blog introducing a call to organize protests:
"Make Your Voice Heard: This is like what happen to the choir directors last year and why I stopped going to church the lying and not being truthful of the real reason of wanting to get rid of the more Liberal wing of the church. Anyway, I hope those who live near enough to make their voice heard will speak up in this woman’s defense." [errors in original]
Meanwhile, here's (what I understand to be) a staff memo from Call to Action:
Please write to the Papal Nuncio today! See address at right.
Support Ruth and the more than 30,000 other Catholic lay ministers in our country who can be fired at any time by a priest or bishop without due process!
We are pursuing options for Ruth but in the meantime, our canon lawyer has encouraged us to send hundreds of letters to the Papal Nuncio, the Vatican's Representative in the U.S. He keeps files of the letters he receives and passes the information along to the Vatican. In the long term, this raises the issue of church worker justice in the eyes of the Vatican. Please see the information at right for his address.
If you live in Wisconsin, please consider joining CTA/Madison at local protest vigils this weekend to show your support for Ruth and the thousands of men and women like her who give their lives to our church. (Local Catholic Reporter)
This sort of activity has a long history in Madison, as Fr. Z covered in October of last year.
So what's happening in this latest episode? Here's some local reporting:
The firing came in a meeting with Bishop Robert Morlino. Kolpack said Morlino asked her to renounce her master’s thesis, make a profession of faith and take a loyalty oath.
... Morlino was in Janesville on Saturday for an unrelated meeting. About 45 people came to meet him to protest the firing.
The protesters held placards that said “Hear Ruth out!” and “Who would Jesus fire?”
Morlino walked up to the group and offered to talk to them later in the day.
“You don’t know the whole story,” Morlino said.
“I’m certainly sorry we have division in the church, but there it is,” the bishop said. “… If anyone is willing to talk respectfully at 3:30, I’ll be there.”
Several people interrupted Morlino as he spoke, although there was no shouting.
“You weren’t respectful to her,” someone called out.
Kolpack was present but did not participate in the protest.
...Kolpack said her thesis discussed the evil that can come of blind obedience. She said she can understand how that could be a red flag for the bishop.
“But if he would’ve read the whole paper, he would’ve understood it... he didn’t give it a chance,” she said.
The thesis also criticizes the church’s language of worship, which refers to God with words such as “he” or “Father.”
Kolpack said that’s harmful.
“I’m concerned about women, about young girls, who grow up in a patriarchal, male-dominated society. What does it do to their self-esteem?” she said.
Kolpack said she came to these beliefs as she studied feminist and liberation theology at St. Francis Seminary, where she earned her master’s degree in divinity in 2003. She said that 2003 thesis was never a problem, until now.
...Kolpack responded: “The pope speaks infallibly in matters of faith and morals. Bishop Morlino is not infallible. … The Holy Spirit speaks through everyone.”
As a representative of the church, if he would publicly display disregard for church teachings, that would be grounds for dismissal, King said.
Morlino did meet with protesters for about 15 minutes but said he could not get into personnel matters, protester Jim Andrews said.
Morlino said the issue was less about the thesis and more about “a certain mentality in the way of teaching,” Andrews said.
Morlino did agree to meet with St. Thomas parishioners at some future date, Andrews said. (GazetteXtra) [More from Beliot Daily News]
I think it's pretty clear that we don't know the whole story yet. The diocese is claiming her civil and canonical rights were not violated:
"You can be assured that the canonical and civil rights of each individual have been upheld absolutely. The Church takes this very seriously. I cannot make statements regarding Ms. Kolpack [director of communications of the Diocese], as they could injure her good reputation. The statement went on to say that church personnel "must uphold the faith and morals of the church" ... through what they publicly teach and claim to believe, what they associate themselves with, and by their actions."
Scanning the National Catholic Reporter coverage, here is one perhaps revealing paragraph:
"She's been through four priests, and we always knew she would be there. She's the heart and soul behind everything that goes on. Our priest is only 40 percent, so she was responsible for sacramental work as well. People converted and were brought back to the Catholic faith were crying because their friend was dismissed. Five- and six-year-olds were crying because they lost their teacher."
First of all, she better not have been doing "sacramental work" (according to the technical terminology). Something like that ought to get you fired. Second, as you can see from this excerpt, NCR is playing up the "sob story" card big-time. I mean, crying five-year-olds?!
My primary observation at this point is one of reactions. I think one's reaction in these situations should be to support the bishop's decision while charitable enquiring into his thinking. As the reporting points out, Morlino is perfectly willing to discuss it with them.
The reaction of these Madison dissenters, however, is to blow up and plan mass protests.
... which makes me think that this is all they really wanted to do in the first place.
Labels: bishop backbone, breaking news, catholic controversy, hot topics, liberal catholics
I've written before about the hard-fought battle won for traditional marriage in Maine earlier this month, with significant Catholic assistance.
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