[Sundaycommunity] Thoughts

Sat Aug 7 08:28:36 PDT 2021

Thank you, Catherine! I needed to hear this!

John

On Sat, Aug 7, 2021 at 9:10 AM Catherine Walther via Sundaycommunity <
sundaycommunity at lists.integralshift.ca> wrote:

> Cathy, I hear you and have the same frustrations. I don’t think I’d have
> survived as a Chaplain if it wasn’t for the Taproot, CNWE, and Sunday
> communities.
>  To have changed the liturgy to inclusive language and then to change it
> back was the last straw for me. It’s like being stabbed where you were just
> healing.
> What also irks me is that so few priests say ‘NO’. To have allegiance to a
> sexist, authoritative, homophobic institution over allegiance to God is
> just wrong.
> And while I’m at it, I believe theologies based on original sin rather
> than theologies based on God’s love and abundant generosity are
> crazy-making. God is Love, and that’s what our relationship with God should
> be based on.
> There, I’ve had my say. Thank you all for listening.
> Catherine
> On Fri, Aug 6, 2021 at 10:34 PM Catherin Cavanagh via Sundaycommunity <
> sundaycommunity at lists.integralshift.ca> wrote:
>
>> Thanks Brenda!  A very interesting read by someone who is always worth
>> listening to.  It doesn’t quite answer all the concerns that have bothered
>> me for decades though, let alone the ones the last few months have thrust
>> to the fore.
>>
>> When he says there’s nowhere else to go, I can’t say I agree.  I mean
>> there are in fact other churches where people like me (women)aren’t banned
>> from positions or barred from preaching in the Sunday gatherings.  There
>> are churches that paid the money that the TRC prescribed without complaint
>> or prevarication.  There are churches where apologies were issued from
>> their highest levels without any quibbling about who exactly should
>> apologize.  The fact that no other church is perfect isn’t a sufficient
>> reason to stay in a church that has failed to deal with its own sins and
>> continuously teaches things we know are damaging to whole swathes of
>> people.  It’s like telling someone to stay in an abusive relationship
>> because, you know, nobody’s perfect.
>>
>> I’ve been lucky enough to find this community and that’s keeping me here
>> (thank you!!) but I’m really not at peace with the RCC (more so than usual
>> that is). Here’s where I am:  I think it’s okay to stay but I don’t think
>> it’s okay to stay without loudly, persistently and unapologetically calling
>> on the Church to change.  I mean really loudly.  Indigenous people had no
>> say in the operation or existence of residential schools.  Women have had
>> no say in the theologies and restrictions applied to them.  LGBTQ people
>> same thing.  So why do we always only apply our fabulous social Justice
>> principles to issues outside the church and not inside?  We have a church
>> that is openly and unapologetically sexist.  As the largest religious
>> institution in the world it legitimates sexism.  But ho hum right for most
>> Catholics?  Pass the host and check off being Catholic for the week.
>> Communities like this one we are in are so very rare on a global scale.
>> The Church teaches that the Eucharist is fundamental but does not always
>> remember that oppressed are the Eucharist.
>>
>> I imagine I’m not the only one for whom this latest round of horrors is
>> perhaps maybe the last straw.  I’ve been inspired by people who follow
>> Christ and live the spirit in the world.  I’ve been inspired by our
>> church.  I’ve been inspired by many of you.  The Catholic Church is in fact
>> my ‘mother tongue’ and I don’t want to leave. But if the church is our home
>> then there’s something rotten in the walls. We Catholics have to stop
>> thinking we can ignore it by pointing out that good thing we once did.
>> Either we provoke change or we (or I, to speak just for myself) really do
>> have to leave as a gesture to the Vatican and Church rulers that we do not
>> consent to all the sin that has been a persistent part of RC church
>> structure, teaching, and practice for generations. We teach the world
>> through our actions after all.
>>
>> Rolheiser points out the great good the Church has also offered the
>> world, but refusing restitution, reconciliation and reformation (around
>> decision-making, power sharing, gender issues, etc) completely undermines
>> the good.  I’m struggling to remain convinced that I still want to be part
>> of that.  But this community, including our priests and so many of you who
>> are an inspiration to me stand against that and keep me here for now.
>>
>> One last thing.  I don’t think any part of the Trinity cares what Church
>> I belong to.  This is entirely a human problem.
>>
>> I’ve ranted here and I’m tempted to delete it all.  I think I’ll send it
>> though and just thank you all for listening to my frustrations.  You are in
>> fact the face of goodness in the church and I’m grateful.
>>
>> Peace,
>> Cathy C
>>
>> Sent from my iPhone
>>
>> On Aug 6, 2021, at 3:49 PM, Mr. Gillis via Sundaycommunity <
>> sundaycommunity at lists.integralshift.ca> wrote:
>>
>> 
>> Thank you Brenda, a fantastic reminder in this age of cynicism!  We too
>> are all complicit in sin. All we have to do is look at the climate
>> emergency.  Once again a deep call to humility and metanoia!
>>
>> Peace
>>
>>
>> Greg
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Aug 6, 2021 at 2:14 PM Dave Snelgrove via Sundaycommunity <
>> sundaycommunity at lists.integralshift.ca> wrote:
>>
>>> A terrific read!!  Worth re-reading.  Thank you, all responsible.
>>> Rosemary Gray-Snelgrove
>>>
>>> On Fri, Aug 6, 2021 at 8:30 AM Brenda Holtkamp via Sundaycommunity <
>>> sundaycommunity at lists.integralshift.ca> wrote:
>>>
>>>> An interesting read….
>>>>
>>>> W H Y  S T A Y  I N  T H E  C H U R C H ?
>>>> J U L Y 1 2 , 2 0 2 1 - Author - R O N R O L H E I S E R , OMI
>>>> Several weeks ago after giving a lecture at a religious conference, the
>>>> first question from the audience was this one: How can you continue to stay
>>>> in a church that played such a pivotal part in setting up and maintaining
>>>> residential schools for the indigenous people of Canada? How can you
>>>> stay in a church that did that?
>>>> The question is legitimate and important. Both in its history and in
>>>> its present, the church has enough sin to legitimize the question. The list
>>>> of sins done in the name of the church is long: the Inquisition, its
>>>> support for slavery, its role in colonialism, its link to racism, its role
>>>> in thwarting women’s rights, and its endless historical and present
>>>> compromises with white supremacy, big money, and political power. Its
>>>> critics are sometimes excessive and unbalanced, but, for the most part, the
>>>> church is guilty as charged.
>>>> However, this guilt isn’t unique to the church. The same charges might
>>>> be leveled against any of the countries in which we live. How can we stay
>>>> in a country that has a history of racism, slavery, colonialism, genocide
>>>> of some
>>>> of its indigenous peoples, radical inequality between its rich and its
>>>> poor, one that is callous to desperate refugees on its borders, and one
>>>> within which millions of people hate each other? Isn’t it being rather
>>>> selective
>>>> morally to say that I am ashamed to be a Catholic (or a Christian) when
>>>> the nations we live in share the same history and the same sins?
>>>> Still, since the church is supposed to be leaven for a society and not
>>>> just a mirror of it, the question is valid. Why stay in the church? There
>>>> are good apologetic answers on this, but, at the end of the day, for each
>>>> of us, the answer has to be a personal one. Why do I stay in the church?
>>>> First, because the church is my mother tongue. It gave me the faith,
>>>> taught me about God, gave me God’s word, taught me to pray, gave me the
>>>> sacraments, showed me what virtue looks like, and put me in contact with
>>>> some
>>>> living saints. Moreover, despite all its shortcomings, it was for me
>>>> authentic enough, altruistic enough, and pure enough to have the moral
>>>> authority to ask me to entrust my soul to it, a trust I’ve not given any
>>>> other communal
>>>> entity. I’m very comfortable worshipping with other religions and
>>>> sharing soul with non-believers, but in the church in which I was raised, I
>>>> recognize home, my mother tongue.
>>>> Second, the church’s history is not univocal. I recognize its sins and
>>>> openly acknowledge them, but that’s far from its full reality. The church
>>>> is also the church of martyrs, of saints, of infinite generosity, and of
>>>> millions of
>>>> women and men with big, noble hearts who are my moral exemplars.  I
>>>> stand in the darkness of its sins; but I also stand in the light of its
>>>> grace, of all the good things it has done in history.
>>>> Finally, and most important, I stay in the church because the church is
>>>> all we’ve got! There’s no other place to go. I identify with the ambivalent
>>>> feeling that rushed through Peter when, just after hearing Jesus say
>>>> something
>>>> which had everyone else walk away from him, Peter was asked, “do you
>>>> want to walk away too?” and he (speaking for all the disciples) replied:
>>>> “We’d like to, but we have no place else to go. Besides we recognize that,
>>>> despite everything, you still have the words of everlasting life.”
>>>> In essence, Peter is saying, “Jesus, we don’t get you, and what we get
>>>> we often don’t like. But we know we’re better off not getting it with you
>>>> than going any place else. Dark moments notwithstanding, you’re all we’ve
>>>> got!”
>>>> The church is all we’ve got! Where else can we go?  Behind the
>>>> expression, I am spiritual, but not religious (however sincerely uttered)
>>>> lies either an invincible failure or a culpable reluctance to deal with the
>>>> necessity of
>>>> religious community, to deal with what Dorothy Day called “the
>>>> asceticism of church life”. To say, I cannot or will not deal with an
>>>> impure religious community is an escape, a self-serving exit, which at the
>>>> end of the day is not very helpful, not least for the person saying it.
>>>> Why? Because for compassion to be effective it needs to be collective,
>>>> given the truth that what we dream alone remains a dream but what we dream
>>>> with others can
>>>> become a reality. I cannot see anything outside the church that can
>>>> save this world.
>>>> There is no pure church anywhere for us to join, just as there is no
>>>> pure country anywhere for us in which to live. This church, for all its
>>>> checkered history and compromised present, is all we have. We need to own
>>>> its faults
>>>> since they are our faults. Its history is our history; its sin, our
>>>> sin; and its family, our family – the only lasting family we’ve got.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> D
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> --
>
> *May you walk in joy as love calls us on.*
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