R
Ray_Marshall
Guest
Ten “Joanies” of St. Joan of Arc parish in south Minneapolis attended a conference in Milwaukee that was held by Call To Action. Here is a report from the St. Joan’s web page.
www.stjoan.com
Reporter Attends National Conference
Call to Action is a 28 year-old organization seeking church reform in the American Catholic church (www.cta-usa.org). Its annual meetings have been held in Milwaukee for the past several years (and again next year). The theme of this year’s conference was Sex, Science and the Sacred: Embracing Divine Mystery. For three days (November 5 – 7, 2004) 3,000 liberal leaning Vatican II believers celebrated great speakers, great company, and great liturgies.
The first plenary speaker was Brian Swimme on The Universe Story, a new cosmology that traces humankind from the primordial dust to our present place on one tiny dot in an amazing universe. He spoke of the “sacrificial dimension of exploding stars” which furnished the elements of new creation and “the generosity of the universe”, including the life giving energy of our sun which grows our food. He wove the notions of quantum physics, biological evolution, and the development of human consciousness into a continuous story which reveals the mysteries of the divine.
Then we heard from Margaret Farley on Contemporary Christian Sexual Ethics. She gave us a graduate level lecture analyzing the historical developments of sexual ethics, which started as a guaranty of reproduction and evolved to complementarity of persons, which in itself is evolving through changes in power relations. Technology, cross-cultural discoveries, biology, economics, and health are all influencing these changes.** Dr. Farley did not think love can be the basis of a new ethic of sex, because there can be bad love, or foolish love. Rather, the new ethic must be grounded in justice, which is rendering to each his/her due. This features autonomy, the capacity for choice and self-determination, and also relationality, in which respect for each other is an end, not just a means to individual needs and desires. She posits 6 norms for sexual ethics: free consent, mutuality, equality of power, commitment/covenant, fruitfulness for the community (including responsible procreation), and community respect for the sexual being (non-discrimination). Such an ethic is consistent with gay and lesbian relationships as well as heterosexual relationships.**
The third plenary presenter was Clarissa Pinkola Estes on The Church Beneath the Church. Estes, author of Women Who Run with the Wolves, presented not so much a lecture as a performance of her spiritual journey through her being adopted, running with gangs, to being a mother and grandmother as well as Jungian psychoanalyst. Her language, her use of Spanish, and the musical quality of her voice enlivened the stories of her grandmother (“the brick building is not our church; our church is beneath the church”) and her own sad and joyful experiences. I can only hope that CTA publishes a video of her presentation, because words cannot convey what a treasure she is.
The conference scheduled 45 breakout sessions over three days, so making a choice was like being a kid at the candy counter – it all looked so good, but you could pick only five at most. They could be roughly classified as church reform including resolution of the abuse scandal and moving to an inclusive priesthood, peace and justice issues, spiritual practices, and reflections on the sacred in creation. Your reporter took in Diarmuid O’Murchu’s Erotic Relationships: Cosmic and Personal Dimensions (more cosmic than erotic), Linda Pieczynski’s Sex Abuse and the Accountability of Bishops, Chris Schenk’s Optional Celibacy: the Priest Shortage and the 2005 Synod on the Eucharist, and Jason Berry’s The Vatican and the Crisis (he is the New Orleans reporter who broke the Lafayette diocese’s scandal).
We were treated to Friday Night Live!, a satirical news report on all things ecclesiastically foolish, such as the controversy over non-wheat hosts and the report of an Adult Christian Education director directed to sign a loyalty oath to the bishop, which she considered heretical, demeaning, and unjust. As the weekend presider at her priest-short parish, she resigned at the Saturday evening service and again at the Sunday morning service. The moral is: don’t abuse your church employees and don’t over schedule your education directors. **We concluded with a Sunday morning Eucharist featuring a whole cast of celebrants, at least one of which, a footnote read, was a priest in good standing, **
continued
www.stjoan.com
Reporter Attends National Conference
Call to Action is a 28 year-old organization seeking church reform in the American Catholic church (www.cta-usa.org). Its annual meetings have been held in Milwaukee for the past several years (and again next year). The theme of this year’s conference was Sex, Science and the Sacred: Embracing Divine Mystery. For three days (November 5 – 7, 2004) 3,000 liberal leaning Vatican II believers celebrated great speakers, great company, and great liturgies.
The first plenary speaker was Brian Swimme on The Universe Story, a new cosmology that traces humankind from the primordial dust to our present place on one tiny dot in an amazing universe. He spoke of the “sacrificial dimension of exploding stars” which furnished the elements of new creation and “the generosity of the universe”, including the life giving energy of our sun which grows our food. He wove the notions of quantum physics, biological evolution, and the development of human consciousness into a continuous story which reveals the mysteries of the divine.
Then we heard from Margaret Farley on Contemporary Christian Sexual Ethics. She gave us a graduate level lecture analyzing the historical developments of sexual ethics, which started as a guaranty of reproduction and evolved to complementarity of persons, which in itself is evolving through changes in power relations. Technology, cross-cultural discoveries, biology, economics, and health are all influencing these changes.** Dr. Farley did not think love can be the basis of a new ethic of sex, because there can be bad love, or foolish love. Rather, the new ethic must be grounded in justice, which is rendering to each his/her due. This features autonomy, the capacity for choice and self-determination, and also relationality, in which respect for each other is an end, not just a means to individual needs and desires. She posits 6 norms for sexual ethics: free consent, mutuality, equality of power, commitment/covenant, fruitfulness for the community (including responsible procreation), and community respect for the sexual being (non-discrimination). Such an ethic is consistent with gay and lesbian relationships as well as heterosexual relationships.**
The third plenary presenter was Clarissa Pinkola Estes on The Church Beneath the Church. Estes, author of Women Who Run with the Wolves, presented not so much a lecture as a performance of her spiritual journey through her being adopted, running with gangs, to being a mother and grandmother as well as Jungian psychoanalyst. Her language, her use of Spanish, and the musical quality of her voice enlivened the stories of her grandmother (“the brick building is not our church; our church is beneath the church”) and her own sad and joyful experiences. I can only hope that CTA publishes a video of her presentation, because words cannot convey what a treasure she is.
The conference scheduled 45 breakout sessions over three days, so making a choice was like being a kid at the candy counter – it all looked so good, but you could pick only five at most. They could be roughly classified as church reform including resolution of the abuse scandal and moving to an inclusive priesthood, peace and justice issues, spiritual practices, and reflections on the sacred in creation. Your reporter took in Diarmuid O’Murchu’s Erotic Relationships: Cosmic and Personal Dimensions (more cosmic than erotic), Linda Pieczynski’s Sex Abuse and the Accountability of Bishops, Chris Schenk’s Optional Celibacy: the Priest Shortage and the 2005 Synod on the Eucharist, and Jason Berry’s The Vatican and the Crisis (he is the New Orleans reporter who broke the Lafayette diocese’s scandal).
We were treated to Friday Night Live!, a satirical news report on all things ecclesiastically foolish, such as the controversy over non-wheat hosts and the report of an Adult Christian Education director directed to sign a loyalty oath to the bishop, which she considered heretical, demeaning, and unjust. As the weekend presider at her priest-short parish, she resigned at the Saturday evening service and again at the Sunday morning service. The moral is: don’t abuse your church employees and don’t over schedule your education directors. **We concluded with a Sunday morning Eucharist featuring a whole cast of celebrants, at least one of which, a footnote read, was a priest in good standing, **
continued
