“Call To Action is a reform movement in the church. It is a
charism, or gift, not initiated or mandated by those in church office. It is a
work of the spirit freely moving in people's hearts.”
Elizabeth
Johnson, CSJ
For 3,700 CTA faithful at Conference 2000 in Milwaukee Nov. 3-5, hearing renowned Fordham University theologian, Sr. Elizabeth Johnson, call their movement “a work of the spirit” was what they needed: reassurance that even in “the institutional church grown gray with bureaucracy, meanness, or fear,” their stumbling journey toward church reform and societal justice can embody the Spirit.
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| Sr. Helen Prejean is still smiling, with CTA staffer Tara Dix, at 11 PM, after two hours of autographing her book for conferees. |
Prejean spins a yarn
Friday night might have been called
Cajun night at CTA. Louisiana native, Fr. Roy Bourgeois, accepted the CTA
leadership award with colleague Alison Snow for SOA Watch, the movement to
close the U.S. Army School of the Americas. Then Louisiana-born Sr. Helen
Prejean brought the same down-home bayou accent to the microphone to tell her
personal story of writing “Dead Man Walking” that led to the movie
and even an opera, and fired up the movement against capital punishment in our
society.
Even though abolishing the death penalty is a decidedly uphill battle, Prejean's story pulses with hope because it is laced with endless examples of that freely moving Spirit of God surprising us with results. “The book is a bloomin’ miracle,” she said. “I had no intention of writing a book,” but Jacob Epstein of Random House convinced her that the world needed to hear her story. “The movie is another bloomin' miracle, a virgin birth, and the midwife was Susan Sarandon, because no one in Hollywood was interested in making a movie about a nun and a death row inmate. And on March 25, 1996, the feast of the Annunciation, she got an Oscar for playing me in the movie. How's that for a sign from God?”
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| Claire Noonan Bates (left) presents CTA award to SOA Watch, represented by Alison Snow and Maryknoll Fr. Roy Bourgeois. |
As Prejean poked hilarious fun at herself as an improbable prophet, her listeners got the message: it can work that way for any of us. “Follow your conscience, and the resources begin to find their way to you,” she said. “When consciousness changes, hearts change, and people start to put their hands to work.” She also stressed that even our mistakes God can turn to good — like her failure in the beginning of her death row ministry to reach out to the families of the victims.
Johnson: We are all saints
Former president of the
Catholic Theological Society of America, Elizabeth Johnson in her plenary talk
developed the theme of the conference: we are all part, right now, of the
communion of saints as rethought in her latest book, “Friends of God and
Prophets.” If we demur, ‘I’m no saint,’ Johnson insists,
‘Yes, you are.’ In our very being we are consecrated by God. Our
holiness calls us to ethical deeds, but doesn't depend on them.
In a poetic weave of Scripture and tradition, Johnson described an utterly inclusive community: all those alive today, connected with all who have died, and even connected to the natural world, the cosmos. It was nourishing fare for CTA wayfarers when they feel left out or locked out — especially women, long denied equality with men in everything from church office to ordination.
Under the banner of inclusive community, CTA Conference 2000 closed the millennial year by spreading an unusually large tent. Eight sister organizations held Friday one-day mini-conferences under the CTA umbrella, including Dignity/USA, CORPUS, NETWORK, Federation of Christian Ministries, and Pax Christi USA. There was a reunion of Vatican II eyewitnesses, sponsored by ARCC (see page 4), a 10th anniversary meeting of FutureChurch that pondered the future of Eucharist (page 6), and a 25th anniversary gala of Women’s Ordination Conference (page 4) that wondered aloud, “What if women were ordained tomorrow?”
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| Feminist theologians from three continents meet at CTA: Elizabeth Johnson of the U.S., Chung Hyun Kyung of Korea, and Ivone Gebara of Brazil. |
Crowd more youthful, more international
As usual, the
conference attendees were overwhelmingly active Catholics: 70 percent of them
laity, 25 percent women religious, and five percent priests. What was unusual
was the higher proportion of younger adults — CTA’s Next Generation
(see page 5). Many even brought small children.
Racial, ethnic and cultural diversity was colorfully evident in liturgies and among performers and presenters. Participants came from 18 nations, and speakers hailed from 12 countries on six continents, especially the Global South (story below). CTA's growing Hispanic connection was evident, thanks to Jeanette Rodriguez, Gary Riebe-Estrella, Mauro Pineda and others.
Ecumenical and interfaith speakers enriched CTA, none more than the ebullient Chung Hyun Kyung of Korea (page 3). As a Presbyterian, the feminist theologian also marveled at the exuberant brand of Catholicism at CTA. “This weekend has changed my whole view of the Catholic Church,” she said.