Votf calls on Bishops to resign

Here is Votf’s latest call for specific bishops resignation:

“We call on those leaders who failed to protect the well-being of our children by knowingly and secretly transferring predator priests from parish to parish without informing the laity to resign their current office or position of authority on or before June 30th, 2009.

It is our position that in cases where bishops, despite the weight of evidence against them, refuse to resign their offices, Pope Benedict XVI should request their resignations. As examples, we cite five current bishops where records from public documents, court testimony, and multiple survivor accounts clearly indicate “culpable negligence … with harm to another …” and thus have a clear obligation to the Body of Christ to resign: Cardinal Francis George, Cardinal Roger Mahony, Bishop William F. Murphy, Bishop John B. McCormack, and Archbishop Daniel Pilarczyk. In addition, Cardinal Bernard Law should resign from all ecclesial positions he currently holds in Rome.”

Here is the documentation. http://www.votf.org/resignation.pdf

For the complete press release.
http://www.votf.org/Press/pressrelease/010709.html

Erie Benedictines: Standing by Joan Chittister

Erie Benedictines: Why we said no to the Vatican demand
August 2001


In this press statement, Benedictine Sr. Christine Vladimiroff, prioress of
Joan Chittister’s Erie, Pa., community, explained their deliberations with the
Vatican. For more background, visit www.eriebenedictines.com
For the past three months I have been in deliberations with Vatican officials
regarding Sister Joan Chittister’s participation in the Women’s Ordination
Worldwide First International Conference, June 29 to July 1, Dublin, Ireland.
The Vatican believed her participation to be in opposition to its decree
(Ordinatio Sacerdotalis) that priestly ordination will never be conferred on
women in the Roman Catholic Church and must, therefore, never be discussed.
The Vatican ordered me to prohibit Sister Joan from attending the conference
where she is a main speaker.
I spent many hours discussing the issue with Sister Joan and traveled to Rome
to dialogue about it with Vatican officials. I sought the advice of bishops,
religious leaders, canonists, other prioresses, and most importantly, my
religious community, the Benedictine Sisters of Erie. I spent many hours in
communal and personal prayer.
After much deliberation and prayer, I concluded that I would decline the
request of the Vatican. It is out of the Benedictine, or monastic, tradition
of obedience that I formed my decision. There is a fundamental difference in
the understanding of obedience in the monastic tradition and that which is
being used by the Vatican. Benedictine authority and obedience are achieved
through dialogue between a member and her prioress in a spirit of
co-responsibility, always in the context of community. The role of the
prioress in a Benedictine community is to be a center of unity and a guide in
the seeking of God. While lived in community, it is the individual member who
does the seeking.
Sister Joan Chittister, who has lived the monastic life with faith and
fidelity for 50 years, must make her own decision based on her sense of
Church, her monastic profession and her own personal integrity. I do not see
her participation in this conference as “a source of scandal to the faithful”
as the Vatican alleges. I think the faithful can be scandalized when honest
attempts to discuss questions of import to the church are forbidden.
I presented my decision to the community and read the letter that I was
sending to the Vatican. 127 members of 128 eligible members of the Benedictine
Sisters of Erie freely supported this decision by each signing her name to
that letter. Sister Joan addressed the Dublin conference with the blessing of
the Benedictine Sisters of Erie.
My decision should in no way indicate a lack of communion with the Church. I
am trying to remain faithful to the role of the 1500-year-old monastic
tradition within the larger Church. We trace our tradition to the early Desert
Fathers and Mothers of the fourth century who lived on the margin of society
in order to be a prayerful and questioning presence to both church and
society. Benedictine communities of men and women were never intended to be
part of the hierarchical or clerical status of the Church, but to stand apart
from this structure and offer a different voice. Only if we do this can we
live the gift that we are for the Church. Only in this way can we be faithful
to the gift that women have within the Church.
© 2001, Benedictine Sisters of Erie, Pa.

Pax Christi finds Christ's little ones.

Report and photos from December 2-5 delegation to Haiti
Patrick Cashio, Pax Christi USA national staff, went to Haiti December 2-5 to meet with Pax Christi Haii leadership, document their program in Cite Soleil and shoot video and take photos of their program. We will be posting video in the weeks to come, but currently have posted this short report on the delegation and photos from the trip.

The great Jesuit theologian, Ignacio Ellacuria (one of the Jesuits killed in the 1989 University of Central America massacre in El Salvador) said
that the truest understanding of reality comes from "coproanalysis" (literally the study of feces), a medical term he employed as a metaphor for understanding the true health of a society based on the "waste" of civilization--namely examining the status of the poor and discarded of the world to really gauge the health of our world. So imagine a city by the sea built for about 200,000 people--but with 3,000,000 crammed into it. Imagine the trash that piles up. Imagine the overwhelming smell of human excrement and trash flowing through the slums. Imagine people selling everything imaginable--from fruit to cell phones--on every crowded corner. Imagine UN soldiers patrolling your streets armed and ready to "keep peace." Imagine people that have been threatened, killed, or forced into working in sweatshops. Imagine a people that are so proud of their independence but the history and presence of political violence subjects them to a humiliatingly handicapped municipal infrastructure. This is the feces of the west. This is the feces of the U.S. This is the feces of power. This is the feces of capitalism.

Pax Christi Haiti has an impressive and ambitious program focused in Cite Soleil (Sun City), one of the poorest slums in the capital city Port-au-Prince. About 18 months ago after two years of extreme violence and gang wars in Cite Soleil, Junior St. Vil and Daniel Tillias, Pax Christi Haiti's executive and program directors, decided that if a culture of peace was to be cultivated in Haiti, it must start in Cite Soleil. Their program now has about 85 kids representing about 75% of the neighborhoods in Cite Soleil.

The kids come as a package of needs. Most of these kids need to be fed. Money and resources are scarce for many of these families and anywhere that kids can eat is well worth it. Tuition help is also a crucial need for keeping these kids in school. Pax Christi Haiti's soccer program provides them with an outlet and a space to practice non-violence with themselves and others.

With a very small room, one fluorescent desk lamp, one table, one dry erase board, one full book case, and one chalk board, the children of Cite Soleil try and do their homework and wait patiently for a meal that may or may not be provided for them today. On Friday, Saturday, and Sunday the teams have soccer practice and usually always get fed. On Sunday morning, the directors lead a peace and nonviolence workshop for the teams and any other kids that show up. The hope is that through modeling new behaviors for kids a culture of peacefulness and reconciliation will spring up around the other children in Cite Soleil. Also this program hopes to redefine for Port-au-Prince and Haiti what kind of children and people can come from the poorest slum in their country.

Here is a quick message from Daniel Tillias, the program director, shortly after my return from Haiti:

"Again thank you very much for this time spent among us that gave us hope that our work will have more voice and more resources for the cause of peace. I feel bad that you could not be in the yesterday game with the category of 13 years old. This was so great to see these angels playing for their neighborhood in a spirit that reflects the philosophy that we try teaching them. We won the game, but the best victory for me is that these kids are happy and they feel confidence in a staff that can lead them to something more positive in their future than what they have experienced in the past."

http://www.paxchristiusa.org/news_Events_more.asp?id=1492