The 2nd and 3rd Books of Isaiah
Fall 2004 Bible Study
Sidelined by a Distraction
The 2nd and 3rd Books of Isaiah
Fall 2004 Bible Study
Sidelined by a Distraction
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Greetings
I was again unable to attend the musings at the old country church this past
Tuesday evening but have an idea of what transpired. Bob was kind enough to
put in writing some observations of the evenings course. I am not 100
percent sure if we will discuss 49 - 51 this coming Tuesday and or who will
facilitate it. I know Bruce was facilitating last night but it sounds like
we never got to the overview. But then at the end of Bob's note, it says
Betty will facilitate 49-51 next week. What up?
Here follows Bob's note...
The facilitator did an excellent job researching and preparing Chapters 49 through 51, but we never got to Isaiah. Instead, we were called to prophecy on the events involving the parish of St. Joan of Arc, Father George, our bishops, and a cardinal in the Vatican. For anyone who has not heard, the people who are "monitoring" our church for "orthodoxy", were frustrated by Archbishop Flynn's directive that they recognize that is is he, the bishop, who makes decisions for the diocese, and not they. They went over his head to authorities in the Vatican, who then directed the Archbishop to respond to their complaints. The two auxiliary bishops summoned George to require that guest speakers not be guest homilists, and that two articles on the parish web page which reported the Gay Pride award given to St. Joan's as a welcoming community be deleted. This was reported at the Sunday liturgies, and expanded upon at two meetings for concerned parishioners.
Your reporter cannot accurately transcribe what was said at Bible Study, having been maybe too engaged himself in the very dynamic and far-ranging discussion, but paraphrases of some of the statements follow:
The news of the bishops' actions came like a kick in the stomach. What shall we do for our GLBT parish members and their families? We are still welcoming, but we cannot write articles about it? Why is it that our support for GLBT worshippers is mistaken for promotion of same sex sex? What more can happen to us? What will we do if the archbishop removes George as pastor? Have we caved in, violated our consciences by acceding to these demands? Where do we draw the line?
We may be overreacting. In Europe, the pronouncements pouring out of the Vatican are ignored, if not derided. Americans culturally tend to give more respect to figures in authority positions. Moving the guest speaker to a place before the official beginning of the liturgy is not a big deal. Back in the days of Harvey Egan, we made similar accommodations. This has happened to us before and we survived, and it will happen again, in what looks like a four year cycle.
If we are going to be a prophetic church, we are going to be persecuted. That's part and parcel of being prophets. What can we do to prevent our contributions from going to the archdiocese and the Vatican?
Since 20% of the worshippers at St. Joan are protestant or other, how do we minimize the "Roman" part of "Catholic"? There are provisions in canon law which are not observed by the authorities in imposing such demands without an opportunity to make counter-arguments or to seek redress of unjust acts. The abuse crisis and its financial burdens may provide opportunities for reform of church governance and finance.
We are St. Joan of Arc...this will only stimulate us to do more. Finally: we must (be) doing something right if even the Vatican is paying attention to us.
For a Proposed Constitution of the Catholic Church based on canon law, see www.arcc-catholic-rights.net .
October 26: Isaiah chapters 49 - 51 (we'll try again; besides we don't want to waste all the good work that went into the preparation)