During the Jan. 22-27 visit of Pope John Paul II to Mexico City and St. Louis, CTA-minded Catholics responded in at least two ways: applause for his message of societal justice, and pleas for a similar justice within the Church, especially toward women. Delivering in Mexico his official response to the 1997 Bishops' Synod for the Americas, the Pope pointedly referred to the whole hemisphere as one continent of "America," from Canada to Chile, decried its unbridled consumerism and market competition, and challenged all its Catholics to a preferential option for the poor. Brazil, Mexico and the U.S. have the three largest Catholic populations in the world. The pontiff issued specific pleas for debt forgiveness for poor nations, non-violent solutions to conflict, protection of indigenous populations, and just treatment of immigrants. In St. Louis, he made headlines for attacking the death penalty, and persuaded the Missouri governor to spare the life of one death row inmate. Vatican spokesmen also said the Pope used his private meeting with President Clinton to protest continued U.S. air attacks on Iraq.

Catholic women pray for justice
But John Paul II does not see the ordination of women as a matter of justice. So CTAers were among 550 Catholics in a candlelight prayer vigil outside the St. Louis cathedral Jan. 25, the eve of the pope's arrival. Their banner read: "Catholic Women for Justice," a coalition begun by area women after their return Nov. 1 from the CTA conference in Milwaukee. Prayer rather than a protest was chosen in order to be "lovingly confrontational," said Sr. Louise Lears, one of the leaders. But the prayers called for full participation of women in all ecclesial roles, and an end to sexism in the Church. In the homily, Sharon McMullen Orlet said, "About Chiapas (Mexico), Pope John Paul said that the indigenous people must be seen as the first owners of the land. Are women even to be seen as owners of the light Christ has given to them?" The event was widely covered on television news in St. Louis and Chicago, and picked up by ABC and NBC national news programs. Press accounts appeared in major dailies coast to coast, including the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the Kansas City Star and the Dallas Morning Herald.

Democracy in Church at issue
While women's issues were central, the prayer vigil also reminded the news media of other church reform goals: just treatment of church employees, participation in selecting church leaders, and remedying the priest shortage. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch headline read, "Group seeks democracy within Catholic Church." Local groups in the coalition included Fellowship of Southern Illinois Laity; the Sisters of Loretto; and the Center for Theology and Social Analysis. National groups with representatives at the vigil included CTA, the Association for the Rights of Catholics in the Church, the Women's Ordination Conference, and CORPUS -- the National Assocation for a Married Priesthood.

Many media accounts of the Pope's American trip noted that Catholics can revere the Pope while disagreeing with him on many issues. The Boston Globe, for example, published graphs on page one from Gallup polls showing that U.S. Catholics favor married priests (69 percent), women priests (65 percent), and a role for the people in choosing bishops (65 percent). The Cleveland Plain Dealer carried a long feature about Catholic teens who admire the pope but think he's wrong to exclude women and married people from priesthood.