IMWAC Report from the United States Church Justice Movement
Prepared by Nicole Sotelo, one of two
IMWAC representatives from the United States
Summary
In the
United States there are approximately 20 organizations working on church
justice issues, ranging from women’s ordination to lesbian, gay, bisexual and
transgender (LGBT) equality. Representatives of these organizations gather as a
forum twice yearly under the banner, Catholic Organizations for Renewal, or
COR. Of these organizations, approximately 10 have chosen to affiliate with
IMWAC. These IMWAC-affiliated organizations elect two representatives to the
IMWAC Council. This year, the representatives are Anthony Padovano and Nicole
Sotelo.
The
church justice movement in the United States, as a whole, is strong. Approximately
one-third of the organizations that are part of COR have paid staff and receive
funding from donors, grants or both. Most operate like any other non-profit
organization with staff addressing administration, development, media and programs.
The
organizations have separate mission statements and agendas but often will collaborate
in both formal and informal coalitions on programmatic aims that overlap. Three
recent examples include:
1) The Equally
Blessed Coalition is a formal coalition that is comprised of four pro-LGBT
Catholic organizations that work together on campaigns and programs to further
the cause of LGBT equality in church and civil society;
2) The Nun Justice
Coalition is an informal coalition of approximately 10 organizations that came
together this summer to support the women religious who were under attack from
the Vatican for their justice work or the
3) Coalition for Liberty and Justice
that has been created to address recent legal threats by Bishops against
individuals’ rights.
The
current climate in the United States church has an increasingly progressive
laity with an increasingly conservative hierarchy. More recently the hierarchy
has been willing to publicly align itself with conservative politics,
particularly on issues of healthcare/reproduction/women’s issues and lgbt
concerns. Additionally, there has been a recent concerted effort to unify the
bishops’ conservative political priorities under the banner of “religious
liberty.”
Despite this, the majority of Catholics in
the United States support church justice in its many forms including contraception,
women’s ordination, non-mandatory priestly celibacy, affirmation of gay,
lesbian, bisexual and transgender equality, increased lay participation, etc.
At
right is a photo of the COR representatives at one of the bi-annual gatherings.
Organizational Updates
Below are a list of organizations and
brief reports of their activities who are IMWAC-affiliated within the United
States and represented by the two U.S. Representatives to IMWAC. This will
impact a glimpse into the work of the U.S. church justice movement over the
last two years since IMWAC met.
Following its successful gathering of about 2,000 in June, 2011 to
celebrate the values and spirit of Vatican II, the American Catholic Council
engaged in a careful discernment of what Council attendees were calling for and
where the ACC could meet those needs not already addressed by other
organizations.
These projects were launched in 2012:
·
an Institute on Nonviolent Action and Reform of the Institutional
Catholic Church
·
structured support of Listening Assemblies to promote the Catholic Bill
of Rights and Responsibilities (unanimously acclaimed at the Council)
·
plans to consolidate and expand
online resource data on Intentional Eucharistic Communities
·
full participation in the NunJustice coalition, a sub-committee of COR
·
a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) Analysis of the
Vatican and the Catholic Reform Movement
The pilot of the Nonviolent Action Institute, “Changing Power
Relationships”, has about two dozen dedicated participants who are studying the
works of Dr. Gene Sharp in order to focus on practical, political and strategic
methods of Church reform. The Institute
is conducted online for fourteen weeks, with a final in person strategy meeting
in Washington, DC in mid-November.
More information about all ACC activities is available at the website: www.americancatholiccouncil.org.
Call
To Action (CTA) is a national movement of 25,000 Catholics working for
church justice including clergy, religious and laity. CTA coordinates an
Anti-Racism Team and CTA 20/30, a young adult program. The organization hosts the largest annual
progressive Catholic conference in the country. The JustChurch program is at
the center of CTA’s work and focuses on five priorities as outlined below. Additionally,
CTA promotes church justice through the press, website, newsletter, email
action list and social media.
Church
Worker Justice:
Call To Action assists church
workers who come to us for help after they have experienced an injustice in
their workplace, usually a church or school. We are able to offer a network of
emotional support, civil or canon law resources, and, when appropriate, a
public campaign. In the last year, we have initiated a Church Worker Justice
Awareness Week and promoted the issue during Labor Day Weekend on social media.
Lay
Empowerment:
Among other things, in the last two years we have
led a national educational tour regarding the new English language changes in
the liturgy, supported a Catholic letter-to-the-editor campaign to speak out in
support of contraception and supported a number of cases against clergy sexual
abuse.
LGBT
Justice:
Together with DignityUSA, New Ways Ministry, and
FortunateFamilies, Call To Action is part of the Equally Blessed coalition that
raises a Catholic voice for LGBT justice through programming and media. Last
year we hosted a rainbow ribbon wearing campaign in churches to raise awareness
about violence against lgbt youth and youth suicides. We also coordinated a
congressional briefing encouraging lawmakers to vote with their Catholic
constituencies who support same-sex marriage versus the bishops who do not.
Racial
Justice:
Call To Action has been raising awareness of both
racial injustice and racial justice in the church via traditional media with a media
release this year and also via social media. CTA’s Anti-Racism Team holds
trainings to promote better understanding of racial injustice in the church
today.
Women
and Girls Equality:
Last year, we held the largest rally for altar
girls in Virginia, a diocese that has not implemented altar girls across its
parishes. As a member of the Nun Justice Coalition, we were part of a
delegation that delivered a petition with 57,000 signatures on it to the US
Bishops’ meeting in Atlanta, GA this June in support of the sisters. The
coalition helped Catholics pledge over $100,000 in support of the sisters and
helped coordinate over 100 vigils nationwide throughout the summer months. Call
To Action co-coordinated a Feminist Catholic Movement Building meeting this
summer in which Catholic feminist thought leaders gathered together to assess
the state of the movement. We have also been part of the Break the Silence, Shatter the Stained Glass Ceiling project. See
Women’s Ordination Conference report below for details.
Catholics for Choice
In 2012, Catholics
for Choice has been out front, educating the media, the public, and
policymakers in the US and in countries around the world on issues of Catholics
and Contraception, Religious Liberty and Freedom, and Religious Extremism and
its influence on SRHR Policies. We have worked with progressive Catholics
individuals and organizations, other supportive faith-based groups, and secular
allies who support CFC’s work. We have
trained advocates, policymakers and doctors in South America, Europe and the US
in successful communications and values clarification with our recently
evaluated training programs that have proven results in strengthening
commitments to providing abortion and family planning. Here are a few
highlights of CFC’s achievements so far in 2012.
·
CFC developed a strategy to advance our social media
presence and engage new activists and supporters. In early 2012, we
increased our Facebook engagement by 435%, garnered more than 30,000 signatures
in an online campaign of Catholics who support contraceptive coverage, and
engaged new activists interested in supporting our work, with more than
1,000 new individuals signed up to receive CFC email updates and action alerts.
CFC communicates daily with nearly 20,000 engaged, progressive grassroots
Catholics who support CFC’s mission and work. Please visit our website
and Facebook pages to be a part of the
discussion.
·
Elevating the voices of Catholics, CFC launched the We
the Catholic People campaign. More than 30,000 people signed
the open letter demonstrating the widespread support of people of faith who
want access to no-cost contraceptive coverage and believe that the
choice to use contraceptives should be theirs—not the bishops’.
·
CFC co-convened the Global Interfaith and Secular
Alliance (GISA) to build an international network of organizations that
is well equipped to challenge religious extremism and its opposition to SRHR.
Currently including 25 members, representing secular and religious NGOs from
across the globe, GISA is working in the international community to promote
progressive SRHR reforms and messages that counters dangerous religious
fundamentalism. The GISA statement on religious extremism
was the first of its kind to be presented at the UN Commission on Population
and Development.
·
CFC formed the Coalition for Liberty and Justice. With fifty
groups, and co-convened by the National Council of Jewish Women, the
Coalition includes leaders from the reproductive health and rights movement,
women’s, labor, LGBT, RJ, civil rights, secular and religious organizations,
healthcare providers, medical and nursing students, and colleagues from both
sides of the political aisle. Through knowledge sharing and building on the
unique expertise of Coalition members, the CLJ advances religious liberty and
justice that respects individuals, supports the common good and reflects the
foundational principles of our nation.
·
For the Rio +20 conference, CFC produced a new briefing paper on the Holy See’s
influential but untenable position at the UN. The paper examines
the Holy See’s role at the UN (a privileged place no other religion holds) and
the disproportionate and negative impact its special status affords it. The
briefing paper and a collection of key CFC publications, written by SRHR
leaders on topics such as global population growth and opposition research on
the Vatican and the Holy See were shared with advocates and member state
delegations in advance of and at the conference.
·
In a speech to Hungarian activists, Jon
O’Brien explained Catholic teachings on abortion and the importance in
promoting reproductive freedom, especially when challenged by antichoice
government policies that restrict access.
·
Challenging the US bishops’ claims that their
religious liberty is under attack, CFC set the record straight and
widely disseminated a memo that debunked the bishops’
claims and presented helpful messages on true religious liberty and
freedom.
·
CFC’s powerful and popular infographic demonstrated
that the broad majority of Catholic women use and support access to
comprehensive contraceptive methods. “What Catholics Believe About Birth Control”
appeared in newspapers across the country, including the Washington Post,
Chicago Tribune, Cleveland Plain Dealer, Cincinnati Enquirer, Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette, Tampa Bay-Times, Miami Herald, Denver Post, Minneapolis Star
Tribune and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and reached millions more people
through Facebook and Twitter.
·
Strengthening the communications skills and advancing
dialogue on SRHR issues among advocates, activists, medical providers and
policymakers around the globe, this year CFC has trained 200 leaders
and organizations in the US and around the world through our highly effective
communications and values-clarification workshops.
CORPUS
www.corpus.org
Corpus is a reform Catholic community which was
created in 1974. Its original intent was the acceptance of marriage as an
option for ordination to priesthood and the reintegration of resigned married
priests into full canonical and pastoral status.
Corpus had as its mission a dialogue with USA
Catholic bishops and solidarity among those who had resigned. Some 3000
married priests formally joined this endeavor.
In 1988, Corpus became a public reform
organization and has held an annual national conference every year since then.
In 1988, Corpus changed its mission to an inclusive priesthood for men
and women, celibate or married, without reference to sexual orientation.
Corpus helped to create in 1992, COR (Catholic
Organizations for Renewal), a consortium of national USA reform groups.
Over the years, Corpus became active in three
major national reform organizations:
An assembly of some 27 countries working for Church reform in a broad
range of areas throughout
Europe and at the European Parliament and its related bodies in Strasbourg; Americans are accepted as affiliated members.
2) International Movement: We
Are Church
This gathering of lay- initiated organizations works for
comprehensive reform in the spirit of Vatican
II.
3) International Federation
for the Renewal of Catholic Ministry
This international group began in 1986 in Rome as an assembly of
world-wide organizations working
for an inclusive priesthood. It has held a dozen large meetings in
Europe, Latin America and the US at regular intervals. It now seeks
renewal of ministry on all levels
of Catholic life.
Corpus has served the Catholic Church and the
reform movement in these areas and with these issues for almost 40 years.
DignityUSA
www.dignityusa.org
Along
with partners Call To Action, Fortunate Families, and New Ways Ministry,
developed Equally Blessed, a coalition of Catholic organizations working for
LGBT equality in the Church and society. The group’s focus is on media work to
amplify the voice of the majority of Catholics who support LGBT people. The
group also sponsored the first Congressional briefing on positive Catholic support
for LGBT civil rights.
We
have marked the 40th anniversary of six major Chapters including Los
Angeles, Chicago, San Diego, New York, Boston, and Washington, DC.
We
have developed a Young Adult Caucus to support greater engagement of Millenials
in our movement. Most recently, this group gathered 24 Young Adult Leaders from
across the country to meet with the Board of Directors, as well as to
strengthen their own network, engage in leadership development activities, and
identify what draws them to Dignity. Our Caucus works closely with the 20/30
group of Call To Action.
We
co-sponsored (with WATER, the Women’s Alliance for Theology, Ethics, and
Ritual) the first Catholic Lesbians’ retreat held since the mid-1990s,
providing a weekend of prayer, reflection, and ritual that proved life-changing
for some of the 35 participants.
Our
President, Lourdes Rodríguez-Nogués, testified at a Congressional Hearing on
Hispanic attitudes about LGBT issues.
We
have hired a Program Manager, working in Minnesota where, among other duties,
he has helped to organize Catholic faith-sharing programs and other
LGBT-supportive activities in advance of this November’s vote on a same-sex
marriage ban in the state constitution. He spearheaded a powerful video project
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rCcDke3Mug)
which involved people from 40 different parishes, and which has been viewed
more than 20,000 times.
We
launched a series of interactive web-based conversations about the spirituality
of members of our community, Queer Catholic Faith, which provides programming
for both Chapters and people living all across the country, as well as
internationally. One-third of each session’s participants had never
participated in a Dignity event before. (Recordings are available at http://www.dignityusa.org/content/queer-catholic-faith-spring-2012-review
)
We
developed new guidelines regarding not having anyone preside at our liturgical
functions anywhere in the country that has had credible allegations of sexual
abuse of minors, and trained all of our chapter leadership on implementing
them.
In
partnership with the ACLU and the Matthew Shepard Foundation, we won a lawsuit
that forced a school district in Missouri to stop censoring LGBT-positive
websites—a suit that led to the software provider changing their filtering
system in all the school systems they served, and increasing access for tens of
thousands of students.
We
were a founding member of the Nun Justice organizing team, which sponsored over
100 vigils in support of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR),
organized a petition that has garnered nearly 60,000 signatures, and offered
other support for American nuns charged with being “too focused on the poor and
marginalized.”
We
led the development of a group of over 30 religious leaders to call for support
of SB 1172, a bill recently introduced in the California legislature that would
make it illegal to force LGBT minors into reparative therapy. We have also been
on the leadership team of coalitions of LGBT religious groups working for
immigration reform and to obtain federal legislation that would allow same-sex
foster care and adoption of children in all 50 states.
We
continue to participate in Catholic Organizations for Renewal, the National
Religious Leadership Roundtable, and Women-Church Convergence, all coalitions
working for greater justice.
FutureChurch
www.futurechurch.org
Changed
Vatican Policy about Church closings Working
with canon lawyer Sr. Kate Kuenstler PHJC, JCD FutureChurch’s Save Our
Parish Community project guided successful parishioner appeals in 28
parishes across the U.S.. According to a Commentary on Vatican Decrees
Upholding Cleveland Parishioner Appeals, written by Kuenstler,: “Both the
Congregation for Clergy and the Apostolic Signatura now make a clear
distinction between the legitimate reasons to merge parishes and legitimate
reasons to close a church.” No longer considered legitimate reasons for closing
a church are the following:
1. The
shortage of priests
2. The
church is in close proximity to another church.
3. The
church is no longer considered necessary for worship when a parish is
suppressed or merged.
4. The
maintenance for a building no longer needed as a church for Divine worship is a
financial burden to the parish.
Free canonical resources at futurechurch.org are
regularly downloaded by people all over the world.
Activated grassroots network to reach out
to US bishops about married priests and women deacons at the time of their ad
limina visits. FC’s Open Letter to US. Bishops resulted in
over 6,000 signatures asking U.S. Bishops "to embrace your roles as
shepherds" and "open dialogue about restoring our early traditions
recognizing married and celibate priests and women deacons." Nearly 25
percent of signers agreed to engage their bishop in dialogue resulting in 16
face to face meetings with bishops and diocesan officials and responses from 28
additional dioceses. (outcomes available at futurechurch.org)
Conducting International electronic and
paper postcard campaign asking Vatican offices to open discussion of mandatory
celibacy and women deacons. (29,000 total signers to date includes
some duplicate letters to local bishops). E-Postcard
in six languages at futurechurch.org Will be delivered to
Vatican March 2013.
Organized over 350 international
celebrations of the feast of St. Mary of Magdala each year, including
40+ in 14-16 countries outside the US.
Launched a new Women Deacons’ Why Not
Now? initiative including a process to surface candidates
to present to the local bishop and essays and prayer services about women deacons in church history.
Worked with NunJustice coalition to
organize nationwide prayerful opposition to Vatican persecution of US women
religious.
Women’s
Ordination Conference
www.womensordination.org
Women’s
Ordination Conference (WOC)
founded in 1975, and based in Washington, DC, is the largest national
organization that works to ordain women as priests, deacons and bishops into an
inclusive and accountable Catholic church. WOC represents the 63 percent
of US Catholics who support women's ordination. WOC also promotes new perspectives
on ordination that call for more accountability and less separation between the
clergy and laity.
2011-2012 Highlighted Activities:
·
Break the Silence, Shatter the Stained Glass Ceiling: In
October of 2011, WOC traveled with an international delegation to Rome with Fr.
Roy Bourgeois to deliver a petition signed by 15,000 supporters. Our press conference was
covered by major outlets including AP, Reuters, CNS, and WOC was quoted in over
2,700 outlets worldwide. The petition was delivered to a high ranking Vatican
official during a private meeting with Fr. Roy Bourgeois, and lawyers Therese
Korturbosh and Bill Quigley. Erin Saiz
Hanna (WOC Executive Director), Fr. Roy Bourgeois and Miriam Duignan
(Housetop International) were detained by Italian police.
·
World Day of Prayer for Women’s
Ordination:
Last March, WOC organized a prayer
service outside St. Matthew’s Cathedral in downtown Washington, DC during the
Chrism Mass, in conjunction with prayer vigils held across the country.
·
Nun Justice Project: Since April 2012, WOC has
served on the steering committee of the Nun Justice Project, a grassroots
movement supported by various progressive U.S. Catholic organizations. Our “Support the Sisters” petition
garnered over 65,000 signatures, which WOC hand delivered to Sr. Mary Ann
Walsh, Communications Officer of the U.S. Bishops in a public press conference.
During the meeting, WOC staff spoke with the Papal Nuncio and other bishops
about the sisters and women’s ordination; Over $100,000 has been pledged to
women religious communities in a Peter’s Pence redirection campaign; Nun
Justice Tumblr created to collate vigil information, photographs and videos
from vigils held in over 60 cities across the U.S. (www.nunjustice.tumblr.com.
Vigil attendance ranged from 10-600 in some cities; WOC met with the leadership
of LCWR and received a personal thank you letter for our work, with hopes of
continued collaboration. Throughout the Nun Justice Project, Erin and Kate have
been filmed for an upcoming documentary on the ministries of women religious
·
On-Going Advocacy: WOC continues to collaborate
with many church-justice organizations and is a visible voice for women in the
Church. In addition to supporting women at their ordinations, visiting college
campuses, and publishing our newsletter, New
Women, New Church, WOC was represented at: Call to Action Conference:
Milwaukee, WI; New Ways Ministry Conference: Baltimore, MD; Catholic
Organizations for Renewal: Arlington, VA; Women-Church Convergence:
Minneapolis, MN; Coalition for Liberty and Justice: Washington, DC.
Submitted by Erin Saiz Hanna, Executive Director,
ehanna@womensordination.org
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