Holy See Upholds Excommunication Decree for "Call to Action"

 

Date: 2006-12-11


Lincoln Bishop Had Warned of Excommunications

LINCOLN, Nebraska, DEC. 11, 2006 (Zenit.org).- The Vatican has upheld a 1996 excommunication decree issued by Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz in relation to Call to Action and 11 other organizations, the Lincoln Diocese says.

A Nov. 24 letter from Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, head of the Congregation for Bishops, confirmed that the Holy See agrees with Bishop Bruskewitz's ruling on the matter, according to the Southern Nebraska Register, the diocesan newspaper.

In early 1996, Bishop Bruskewitz received a letter notifying him that a local Call to Action (CTA) chapter had been formed in the Lincoln Diocese. Two weeks later, on March 19, the prelate issued a statement of extrasynodal legislation, which was published in the Southern Nebraska Register.

Citing Call to Action, Call to Action Nebraska and the other entities, Bishop Bruskewitz wrote, "Membership in these organizations or groups is always perilous to the Catholic faith and most often is totally incompatible with the Catholic faith."

Catholics who had such memberships were invited to remove themselves from the organizations and seek the sacrament of reconciliation so that they could return to full communion with the Catholic Church. Those who refused to do so within a month were automatically excommunicated.

Local CTA members objected to the bishop's instruction and appealed his decision, but Bishop Bruskewitz remained steadfast.

"Parents have to tell children that they can't test everything in the medicine cabinet or drink everything under the sink," the bishop explained. "The Church is our mother and gives us these instructions as protection against dangers we might not perceive. … It is liberating, not enslaving."

Years of support

CTA Nebraska then appealed to the Holy See to reverse the legislation, but the appeal was rejected.

The Vatican's response was no surprise to Bishop Bruskewitz. "I received nothing but 10 years of support from officials of the Holy See, including our previous Holy Father, Pope John Paul II and our current Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI," he said.

According to the Register, Cardinal Re in his letter stated: "The judgment of the Holy See is that the activities of 'Call to Action' in the course of these years are in contrast with the Catholic Faith. … Thus to be a member of this Association or to support it, is irreconcilable with a coherent living of the Catholic Faith."

Call to Action was forged in 1976 in the wake of the U.S. bishops' "Call to Action" Conference in Detroit, Michigan.

The original purpose of the conference was to celebrate the U.S. bicentennial. However, the push for "cultural revolution" was in full force as secular humanists tried to erase Christian sensibilities from popular culture, the Register said.

For two years prior to the event, a study was made regarding the attitudes of U.S. Catholics.

The conference was attended by around 100 bishops, but many more delegates were invited to foster discussion. Lay people and former priests and nuns who had already rejected Church authority attended, bringing agendas that better matched the so-called cultural revolution than the Catholic faith, the diocesan newspaper observed.

Opposition movement

American bishops soon began distancing themselves from the event. In the years that followed, several Chicago-based organizations of former religious, schoolteachers and other lay people who were in opposition to Church authority established the movement Call to Action, the Register continued.

Initially, the members focused on trying to improve benefits for Catholic schoolteachers or lobbying for more effective parish councils.

In the 1980s, the group focused on societal issues such as nuclear disarmament and influencing U.S. political policy in Latin America. Swiss theologian Hans Küng was invited to speak at an annual conference, boosting national membership, though the organization remained insignificant compared to the number of faithful Catholics.

By 1990, CTA leaders were growing impatient with their own lack of influence on Catholicism in the United States, the Register said. To motivate change, CTA founders Dan and Sheila Daley, both former religious, drafted a document titled "Call for Reform in the Catholic Church."

In it, they chastised the Church for "ignoring" social issues such as the environment, poverty, drug abuse and international conflicts. By contrast, the solutions they offered included ordination of women, an end to the discipline of priestly celibacy, popular election of bishops instead of papal appointments, new forms of liturgy, and the use of contraception.

CTA is also closely linked to and cooperates with abortion providers and abortion supporters, the Register said.

CTA currently claims 25,000 members nationally, but these numbers are unsubstantiated and attendance at its national conferences is on the decline, the newspaper said.

Bishop Bruskewitz, 71, said he hopes that Cardinal Re's letter will bring clarity to Catholics who have continued their affiliation with Call to Action or the other groups cited in the original legislation.

"My prayer," the Lincoln prelate said, "will always be that when people understand they have taken a wrong turn, they will stop and take the right turn."