Ash Wednesday prayers lift national awareness of priest shortage
IN MANY COMMUNITIES across the U.S. on Ash Wednesday, Feb. 21, CTA-minded Catholics anointed church doors with ashes and prayed for a new kind of conversion: a National Dialogue on the Future of Priestly Ministry.
The unusual counterpoint to traditional Ash Wednesday services was suggested by CTA and Cleveland-based FutureChurch, who are co-sponsoring the Call for National Dialogue and supplying sample prayers with the project materials. In many regions, the prayers attracted new media attention to the looming priest shortage. For example:
Des Moines, IA - All three TV stations covered a prayer service by 16 Catholics of Iowa CTA on the steps of St. Ambrose Cathedral. Rita Hohenshell read a statement citing the statistics on the priest shortage both for the U.S. and for the Des Moines diocese, and called for dialogue about expanding priesthood to include spirit-called women and married persons. She also read a statement of support signed by five diocesan priests who would have been present but for fear of "possible consequences for our active priestly ministries." Coverage in the Des Moines Register quoted a statement from Des Moines Bishop Joseph Charron that he supported the Pope on priesthood issues, and worried that the prayer service might polarize rather than engage the Catholic people.
Washington, DC - A variation on the CTA/FutureChurch service by members of St. Aloysius Parish, Pax Christi/D.C. and a Catholic Worker House drew 100 people to the steps of St. Matthew's Cathedral. Three young women in stoles led the service and marked the foreheads of passersby with ashes from a burned copy of the Vatican decree calling the ban on women priests infallible. Photo stories appeared in the archdiocesan weekly, The Catholic Standard, and the National Catholic Reporter.
Belleville, IL - A documentary film crew from Southern Illinois University recorded the ritual at the doors of St. Peter's Cathedral. The service was organized by Fellowship of Southern Illinois Laity, a CTA-allied organization. FOSIL coordinator Lena Woltering said the religion editor of the St. Louis Post Dispatch called after the event for a long conversation about priesthood and church reform issues.
Besides cathedrals, many parish groups, such as St. Nicholas in Evanston, IL, and Pax Christi in Eden Prairie, MN, openly embraced the special prayers. At St. Mark, St. Malachi and Resurrection in Cleveland, the prayer for dialogue was made part of the regular liturgy. The Cleveland Plain Dealer ran a lengthy article on the National Dialogue project, stressing that unlike some bishops, Cleveland Bishop Anthony Pilla has not attempted to stifle FutureChurch or its role in the National Dialogue. At Community of God's Love in Lowell, MA, New England CTA coordinator Dot Landry reported that four dialogue sessions on the future of priestly ministry were underway.
Even apart from Ash Wednesday, announcements of the Call for National Dialogue are stirring up media attention to the priesthood crisis. The Boston Globe ran a front page article in January about non-priests running parishes elsewhere in the U.S., with a chart of U.S. and Boston declines in numbers of clergy. The Dayton Daily News ran a picture essay about Nympha Clark, longtime pastoral administrator of St. Agnes, a priestless parish, and cited CTA/FutureChurch statistics about the priest shortage.
Join the National Dialogue
To order a National Dialogue packet, clip and mail the form below to CTA. To discuss the project, contact project coordinator, Christine Schenk, CSJ, director of FutureChurch, 2459 Washington Ave., Cleveland OH 44113. (216) 631-6965. E-mail: euch2005@aol.com
Call To Action News is one of three quarterly publications from Call To Action. For more information, contact:
Call To Action
2135 W. Roscoe
Chicago, IL 60618
(773/604-0400; fax 773/604-4719)
cta@cta-usa.org