ARTICLES

Maybe The Samaritan Woman Made Jesus Feel Better

EX-PRIESTS MEET AT UCSD, ENCOURAGE DEFECTIONS

By Judith Markel

The annual CORPUS national conference, held at UCSD June 28-30, attracted over 300 people sympathetic with the ex-priests group. Headline speakers included feminist nun (and self-proclaimed "priest") Edwina Gately, CORPUS President Anthony Podovano, and Louise Haggett (founder of the group Celibacy is the Issue (CITI) and of Rent-A-Priest, a company which provides ex-priests for unapproved sacraments.

The conference was organized by University of San Diego of High School nurse (and diocesan sex ed promoter) Ann Buko. Her husband, ex-priest Joe Buko, spoke at a conference panel on "ministries" for ex-priests. Ann Buko has served on the CORPUS national board of directors. The conference was co-sponsored by the Fellowship of Christian Ministries, which promotes small-faith communities. FCM sees itself as a loosely-organized "church" composed of such communities, holds Masses in homes, usually with CORPUS priests.

Louise Haggett conducted a seminar to aid ex-priests in promoting freelance "ministries." She suggested that they hold local workshops for ex-priests and diocesan priests, about how to make money performing weddings and funerals, as a hospital chaplains. Haggett stressed that a "career counseling person" be available at the seminar for the benefit of "transitional priests" who may not have decided to leave the diocese yet.

Describing a conference she hosted in Boston, Haggett praised the "liturgy." "We had a round table, and everyone brought their chalices and their patens -- is that what they're called? -- and we had those around the table. And then we had vials of oil with perfume that we blessed. So everyone brought chrism home with them for anointing of the sick."

Haggett then introduced "priests" successful in freelance ministries. Michael J. Cuso, who left the priesthood three years ago after five years' ordination, spoke about his funeral ministry. He began by cold-calling mortuaries and having clergy liaisons put him on the Roman Catholic clergy lists, specifying he wanted to work with disaffected Catholics. "They're disenfranchised," said Cuso. "And they all can tell you, 'Father said this, sister said that, and that's why I'm no longer going to church, but I want a Catholic priest to bury my mother...' I give them what is due. I give them the funeral liturgy outside of Mass, vigil services. Even if they want a Rosary in place of the vigil service, I will do whatever the family wants me to do."

Cuso suggested that the men send Haggett's Rent-A-Priest brochures, which include citations from canon law which they believe support their claims to be allowed to function as priests, to the mortuaries. "It gives you legality to function, because of the canons of the church," he said, adding: "My boss happens to be God -- not a bishop, not a person. My authority comes from Jesus Christ. Business cards -- you can have them printed any way you want to. At that time, I did not include the word 'married Catholic priest'; I just included 'Catholic priest.' That's the way I was at that time. I was a little gun-shy."

Cuso noted, "If more of us start doing this, it will become a tradition again. Like Louise says in her beautiful information -- she talks about altar girls -- you do it and don't ask permission."

Former priest Mike McFadden and his wife Joyce talked about couples retreats and enneagram retreats in Florida: "We are going to market our program of retreats... There's a tremendous market out there for people who are disenfranchised, who are disenchanted with the Church."

McFadden performs marriages, baptisms and Masses for couples they work with in the retreats. "I don't give two dimes about a bishop or anybody around," said Mike. "No one will take from me the ministry that I was called to in baptism -- not my priesthood as much as my baptism." He stated, "People are looking for spirituality. They have to realize they can find it in themselves. And the god within them speaks to the god within me."

As the meeting was ending, Haggett directed the men to information packets she had prepared, with information on various ministries, sample press releases to entice local newspapers to write stories about the ex-priests, media interview guidelines, and other marketing tips. Haggett praised the work of the priests, citing how her CORPUS-affiliated small faith community in Boston had enhanced her spirituality. "Incidentally, our small faith community has two Jews and two Protestants," she said. "We don't ask anybody, you know, if they were baptized."

Haggett closed the session by reminding the listeners that, if they "run into trouble," such as getting contacted by the diocese, she would do their fighting for them, writing letters and providing canon law references in their defense. "I will stand behind you people all the way," she said. "I will become a Joan of Arc if I have to."

Florence Gillman, assistant professor of Biblical Studies at the University of San Diego, addressed the meeting about "Seeking God in Scripture." Introduced as "a former Franciscan," Gillman is author of Women Who Knew Paul, a book which suggests that women in the New Testament were priests and leaders of the early Church, but that their roles were obscured by later, more patriarchal, Church leaders.

Gillman claimed that CORPUS is helping renew the Church by promoting a return to the ancient Christian practice of ordaining married men and women. "Those called in the New Testament by the Greek terms apostoloi, episcopoi, presbyteroi, and deconoi -- that is apostles, bishops, presbyters, and deacons -- included married and the celibate, and in some groups, possibly in all, persons of both genders."

She encouraged her listeners to persevere, even though Catholicism's "continuous renewal on these issues" is a slow process. Gillman spoke about a genderless God who seeks out humans to give them "inspiration" and "strength." She recounted stories from the Bible about "archetypal believers" who show us how to understand God. She referred to "patriarchs and matriarchs" of the Bible but complained that Miriam and other important women in the Bible were downplayed in the texts. "This is due to, let us say, patriarchal preoccupations," she said, to laughter and applause from the audience.

Gillman repeatedly described God as "a difficult God" who doesn't interact with people, doesn't supply answers to questions, is illogical and paradoxical. She viewed the ironies and surprises in the lives of people like Sarah, Abraham, Moses, and Paul as providing comfort that, in the long run, God's actions will come to make sense.

CORPUS founder Anthony Padovano presided at the conference's "Eucharistic liturgy." All references to "Lord" and "Father" were deleted. In the Gospel reading "Abba-God" replaced "Father" and the Holy Spirit was changed to "she." The original reading stated that the Holy Spirit "will convict the world in regard to sin and righteousness and condemnation," but Padovano softened this to "will prove the world wrong about sin, about justice, and about judgment."

According to Padovano's homily, "This passage is really about faith and especially about the inadequacy of institutions and the need to get beyond the past." At the end of his homily, Padovano thundered, "If we cannot ordain as church leaders those whom God has clearly called to priestly ministry, we shall anoint them and commission them, with the full authority of our communities, to go forth and free us from the prison of institutions and intimidation, and from the dead dogmas of the past, where there is no more life, and our faith will not be shaken."

Former Jesuit Eugene Bianchi spoke about the need for a "revolution" in ministerial roles, saying that the "priest-minister of tomorrow," man or woman, should be a spiritual friend, not a dominating leader.

In his definition of "religion," he revealed his fundamental differences with Christianity. "Spirituality, though neglected, is within all of us... Religion and religions, as institutionalized structures, on the other hand, try to provide answers to the questions of human spirituality. They do this through doctrines, rituals, moral injunctions. Religions establish hierarchies of authority that claim to have answers from God."

He praised what he considers the more open-minded religious founders, who agree with his perspective. "Both Buddha and Jesus understood that the kingdom was already within us, that we, each one and together, had to walk our own paths."

After describing Jesus' non-condemning attitude toward the Samaritan woman at the well and Zaccheus in the tree, he asked, "Have you ever wondered what Jesus learned from these two conversations, for the benefit of his own spirituality? Maybe the Samaritan woman made Jesus feel better about his relationship with Mary Magdalene. And maybe Zaccheus helped Jesus with his income tax, or at least taught him something about the things that belong to Caesar."

Bianchi presented pre-modern Catholicism as useless. He stated that until now priests were seen as "masters" and the laity as "slaves." Said Bianchi: "Think about the rejecting mentality toward those who practice birth control, who are gay, who are divorced, who live outside marriage, who are women desiring equal roles in the church, who decide in conscience for an abortion, or who harbor dissenting theological views. The drive to convert others to our religion, still strong in many Christian circles, basically rejects the intrinsic spirituality of other traditions. The priest of the past and even of the present represents a church of rejection; such a one cannot be a spiritual friend. It seems that the earliest portrayals of Jesus in Scripture depict him as an accepting spiritual friend."