BuzzFlash Reader Contribution

CONTRIBUTOR ARCHIVES  

Why Don’t You Leave?

One Progressive Roman Catholic Woman Minister’s Morning-after Manifesto on the Election of Benedict XVI

A BUZZFLASH READER CONTRIBUTION
by Susan Lersch

When my husband and I traveled in Europe by train early last spring, right after the Madrid bombing, we began each conversation with every person we met by humbly saying, "We’re Americans and we’re so sorry about Bush." They’d smile, then laugh, then thank us. After that, we had conversations that were both honest and forthright about the issues of the day.

Today, I feel I must begin the same way: I’m a Catholic, and I am so sorry about yesterday’s election of Benedict XVI, the former Cardinal Ratzinger of Germany. I am sorry for the damage already inflicted on so many people by this man. I deeply fear for the damage he will do in the future. It is for this reason, I must speak out today.

So Ratzinger is pope. I feel like my mostly non-Catholic progressive friends felt the morning after Bush was elected –- sort of sucker-punched in the gut, hurting in the heart.

I’m a progressive –- perhaps even radical -- Roman Catholic. I live and worship in Edgewater, a Chicago neighborhood. Members of my parish include people who would also describe themselves as progressive, but also more traditional Catholics. Since our neighbors include two mosques, a synagogue, a couple Protestant churches, and many people who would probably describe themselves as secular humanists if pressed to do so, we take diversity, dialogue and pluralism as facts of life in our culture.

I love being a Catholic. I love the stories, the art, the ritual, the rich (if not always proud) history of the tradition into which I was born. Most of all, I love the Eucharist, the central mystery of my faith tradition. I love it so much that I serve as both a Eucharistic Minister (one of the people at the altar who serve Holy Communion to the people who worship) and as a Minister of Care to the Sick and Dying (a minister who visits, like the title says, the sick and dying, bringing them the Eucharist and supporting the family and caregivers).

As a woman minister, I’m often asked, "Do you want to be a priest?" Most often, I find the question puzzling at some deeply personal level. "I am a priest" is my most common gut-level answer. What I do is respond to what I perceive to be a inner call to do a job that needed doing, which largely consists of reminding people that God loves them passionately, it being in Her nature to do so, that it’s never too late to claim one’s place in the light, and that everybody is welcome at God’s table. For example, I remind them that, as I read the story, Jesus said, "Take and eat this -– this is my body." There weren’t any qualifiers like "Take and eat this –- all of you who are proclaimed to be orthodox by the Vatican clergy . . ." Jesus hung out with everybody, and everybody was welcome at his table. He practiced diversity in a culture that was rife with more-orthodox-than-thou religionists. There were lots of people that claimed to speak with God’s voice in those days too. It’s an outrage that goes back lots further than George W. and the Ayatollahs, that’s for sure.

So when the now-pope says I can’t be a priest -– or arguably, even a Catholic -– I smile a compassionate smile (on my good days) or flip him a non-Holy-Spirit bird (on my less Christian ones). The pope simply doesn’t have the authority to take my religion or my ministry away from me. Because while he opines, puffs himself up, claims to be the only channel of the Spirit’s voice -– guess what? I’ve got Holy Communion to give out, dying people to see, survivors to comfort, children to bless. There’s a lot of damage my church has done to women, to gay people, to divorced people, to non-Catholics of all faiths and none. The wounds that require healing are overwhelming. Some days, it seems like a lost cause, and not only friends, strangers and my co-religionists ask me "Why don’t you leave?" Some days, I ask myself, and I’m not always as sure of the answer as I’d like to be.

But the response comes close to something like: because I’m a Catholic. It’s who I am. The Catholic religious metaphor is deep in my bones. Even if someday some official person comes and drags me off the altar, even that won’t change the fact that, like Popeye, I am who I am –- radical woman minister; will travel.

Here’s the secret, I think: progressives are indeed alive and well not only in Chicago, but all over the world, despite the Vatican’s deep desire that we just shut up, submit, and/or go away. (Ratzinger has expressed the thought that it would be swell if the church got smaller and all the riff-raff like us would just leave already!) But we’re not going anywhere. We’re the Catholics of Nigeria, the Catholics of Latin America, the Catholics of the Philippines, the Catholics of China, the Catholics of Europe, the Catholics in the United States . . . we are literally everywhere.

We will continue to dissent, witness, and work. And will not go about our business quietly.

Again: sorry about that Ratzinger thing, dear world.

With love and hope,

Susan

A BUZZFLASH READER CONTRIBUTION

Susan Lersch is a part-time Roman Catholic Eucharistic Minister and Minister of Care. She is married and makes her living as a writer, editor, transcriptionist and –- when she’s lucky –- an artist who paints in oils. Her images are mostly modern religious iconography.