“The determination of those attending the conference was infectious. Throughout the weekend we laughed and cried and moved quickly to the deepest levels of understanding. These forward thinking, optimistic, bright, energized people will save the world and I am fortunate to call them friends.”
So wrote CTA co-president Patty Hawk to her CTA Nebraska colleagues who couldn't
attend the CTA national conference Nov. 5-7 in Milwaukee.
Over 3,200 conferees, 400 more than last year, came together. It was just three
days after the national election. Hawk had cautioned the CTA board in September:
“Progressives might not be successful on Nov. 2 and conference participants
might be disheartened.”
They were. But the annual “miracle of conference” changed that,
breathing new Spirit into the faith community. By Sunday, homeward bound, hundreds
of CTA faithful were handing in comments like this one: “Every single
speaker lifted me from my post-election despondency, filled me with hope, and
turned me toward the future.”
Young people bring hope
As usual, this year's conferees were overwhelmingly mainstream Catholics, including
23 percent women religious and five percent priests. Over 98 percent attend
church regularly, and 66 percent are also active as parish volunteers. Twenty-three
percent are church employees. Ten percent of participants were in the 18-42
“Next Generation”age group, and played visible roles, especially
in prayer sessions and liturgy. That number will likely grow: 20 had Shirley
Adler scholarships (picture, page 4), and half of the offertory collection at
Sunday Eucharist went to fund next year's conference scholarships for young
adults.
Sex, Science and the Sacred
The triple theme of the conference was picked up eloquently by the three plenary
speakers. Friday night scientist Brian Swimme inspired awe at the 15 billion
years of “The Universe Story” with a mind-expanding visual presentation
from both deep space and the subatomic world. The new awareness begets an all-new
understanding of the place of humans in a sacred, evolving universe. He described
a galactic intelligence. Invoking Teilhard de Chardin, he asked, “What
is greater, the intelligence of the galaxies or the human mind that cannot understand
them?” One listener said the session left her feeling “both incredibly
small and terribly important.”
Saturday morning, moral theologian Margaret Farley presented a tightly reasoned
examination of Christian sexual ethics — both its history and its ongoing
development. (Separate story, page 3.) She offered six specific norms for a
more adequate sexual ethic than current church teaching provides, all based
not simply on love but on justice. She emphasized, “These norms for just
love are the same for homosexual and heterosexual relations.”
Sunday morning, Clarissa Pinkola Estés evoked a breathtaking sense of
the Sacred in our midst, calling it“The Church Beneath the church,”
and telling her own story. (Her talk is published in last month's Spirituality/Justice
Reprint.) Above all, CTA member Estés encouraged all her fellow CTAers,
“Don't lose heart, because we were made for these times. We are the
leaders that we have been waiting for!”
Election 2004 and the bishops
CTA lost no time being such leaders in the wake of the Nov. 2 election. Co-president
Paul Scarbrough told the convention Sunday morning, “Despite our efforts
to urge evaluation of candidates on the full range of Catholic Social Teachings,
Christian conservatives have reduced the term ‘moral values’ to
code language for anti-abortion and anti-gay marriage.” The media fell
for it, Scarbrough said, and CTAers didn't do enough to make their voices heard.
“A few Catholic bishops distilled Catholic Social Teaching down to a single
issue and used that issue and the Eucharist to bludgeon candidates and bully
Catholic voters.” The vast majority of other bishops offered no countervailing
leadership, said Scarbrough. So we must be the leaders. He announced that Call
To Action would begin immediately to work on coalitions with like-minded reform
groups, both Catholic and interfaith, in order to create “a powerful voice
for progressive religious perspectives on critical social issues.” He
asked the members to identify local media spokespersons and to forward their
names to the national office, which will provide resources and training for
media relations. Scarbrough's message was also mailed to the entire CTA membership
two weeks later.
At the U.S. Bishops' meeting in Washington Nov. 17, a USCCB task force again
ducked responsibility for correcting fellow bishops, instead upholding the right
of individual bishops to take a single issue approach with Catholic politicians
and voters. So CTA the same day issued a press release challenging partisan
bishops in dioceses such as Denver, Colorado Springs, St. Louis, Atlanta and
Newark. “God is not a Republican or Democrat, and the laity have a responsibility
to provide fraternal correction to those partisan bishops,” said CTA.
The statement was cited in the New York Times.
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