|
Who we are
What we do
Contact us
Search |
|
| 11 October 2011 |
Message from the president
October 11, 2011
Dear friends of ARCC,
We are now launching one of our new initiatives to improve our communication with all of you - Constant Contact. This Constant Contact will allow us to pass on to you all the information that we find that is important to advocacy for the rights of Catholics in the Church. We will also use this to announce any programs or events that are either sponsored by us or related reform groups. The board is committed to taking every step to be sure that you know what we are doing. It is crucial that the strongest bond be maintained between the board and the members and this will go far to achieve that goal. We also want to be sure that this improved communication goes both ways. The last thing we ever want to be or even appear to be is anything but transparent and open. So, please send on your comments or anything else you want us to know.
As part of the Constant Contact initiative, we also want to serve as a clearinghouse for material on rights in the church. This is an area where all of you can play a vital role. Please tell us about any experiences you have had or that you know about in which either rights have been violated or upheld. We don't always have to hear the bad news. We will be happy to post all those stories that will contribute to our mission.
It is also very important that ARCC be able to broaden our influence. One of our huge issues right now is to reach out to younger members. We are very interested in the perspective of our brothers and sisters who have come after us. Most of us are very much a part of the Vatican II experience. However, we know that many young Catholics have very little awareness of Vatican II and may not see it as relevant in their lives. It is especially vital that we reach out to them. So, if you know of young Catholics or others who might be interested in our message and mission, please pass on our information to them. If you have ideas how we might reach out to a wider audience, I sure would like to hear them.
Finally, I appeal to you to continue your support of ARCC. We cannot do anything without you. We ask for your prayers and financial support. If you have not renewed your membership, I hope that you will. If you have been away for a while, you are always welcome back. Now is the time for us to make a difference. The challenge has never been greater or more important than it is now. Drop me a line or anyone on the board. If we are having an event, like the Hans Kung Award, in your area, please come and visit for a while. I look forward to meeting all of you at some point.
Wishing you the peace of Christ,
Patrick B. Edgar, DPA
|
Bishop Thomas Gumbleton to Receive Hans Küng Award
The Association for the Rights of Catholics in the Church will present its 2011 Hans Küng Rights of Catholics in the Church Award to Bishop Thomas Gumbleton at the BWI Best Western, Friday, November 11, 2011, at 7:30 p.m.
The Award was named after Father Hans Küng (its first recipient in 2005), who was removed by the Vatican from his position as Professor of Catholic Theology at the University of Tübingen, Germany, in 1979. This was the culmination of a year-long series of silencing actions taken by the Vatican. One consequence of these actions was the formation of the Association for the Rights of Catholics in the Church, now an international organization of Catholics working for structural reform of the Church.
Bishop Thomas Gumbleton, a retired auxiliary bishop of the Detroit archdiocese, is a leading voice for peace, justice, and civil rights in the United States. He is a co-author of the 1983 U.S. Catholic Bishops' Conference Pastoral Letter, "The Challenge of Peace." One of the first bishops to speak out against the Vietnam War, he is a founding member and past president of Pax Christi USA, the American Catholic peace movement. He is also a founder and former president of Bread for the World.
Since becoming a bishop in 1968, he has traveled throughout the world calling for an end to war and the abolition of nuclear weapons. He has spoken out courageously on behalf the victims of sexual abuse within the Catholic church, and he has advocated for the full participation and the rights of women and homosexuals in the Catholic Church. He has met with victims of war in Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Israel, Palestine, Colombia, Haiti, and Peru. He led a delegation to visit the American hostages in Iran in 1979. Among his many awards and honorary degrees are the 2007 Detroit Spirit of MLK Award and numerous lifetime achievement awards for peacemaking.
His homilies are read by thousands each week in the National Catholic Reporter. From 1983-2007 he was the pastor of St. Leo Parish, a vibrant church in inner-city Detroit. In January of 2007 he was forced by the archdiocese of Detroit to leave his post and his home at St. Leo's. He continues to serve the people of Detroit as a priest and bishop, and to travel the world speaking and working on behalf of victims of war, violence, and prejudice.
The Award Ceremony will take place at the BWI Best Western , 6755 Dorsey Road, Elkridge, MD 21075 at 7:30 p.m. with a reception to follow. Bishop Gumbleton will be offering remarks on "Vatican II and the Rights of Catholics". The public is welcome. Donation at the door is $10.00.
Information:
|
Some of the news we've been reading
Austrian priests refuse to revoke their call to disobedience
Christa Pongratz-Lippitt and Sarah Mac Donald - 8 October 2011
Members of the Austrian Priests' Initiative, led by Vienna's former vicar general Mgr Helmut Schüller, have said they cannot revoke the "Call to Disobedience" that they issued on 19 June. In their latest newsletter (which you can find on www.thetablet.co.uk), the 407 priests and deacons say: "We have been asked to revoke our 'Call to Disobedience' but cannot do so in good conscience as we continue to stand by its contents."
The priests are demanding reform or dialogue on the issues of priestly celibacy, women priests, Communion for the divorced and remarried. They also want an enhanced role for the laity in the Church.
America Editorial: Save the Altar Girls
THE EDITORS | OCTOBER 10, 2011
This is not a local story, but one that represents larger trends in the church-in the priesthood, the liturgy and in the role of the people of God. Recently Sts. Simon and Jude Cathedral in Phoenix, Ariz., changed its policy on altar servers. From now on only boys may serve; girls may apply for jobs as sacristans. Why? The rector of the cathedral told The Catholic Sun that the cathedral is not alone in making this regulation. A parish in Ann Arbor, Mich., and the Diocese of Lincoln, Neb., he argues, have found that replacing girls with boys as servers leads to more vocations to the priesthood.
Read more
What is wrong-and right-with the new translation
"Every time I preside at Mass now, here in the USA where the imposition has still not occurred, I find myself grieving. Soon the Mass will be taken away from us; this may be the last time I use a text that basically works and that I have come to love. If I can bear going to Mass at all once the plague is inescapable, it will be as a penance and a duty- not as a source of strength. Why disaffected ex-Anglicans and Tridentinists can have their own liturgical disciplines, and why we Conciliar Catholics cannot, is simply beyond me."
Hierarchy criticised at priests' first agm
PATSY McGARRY, Religious Affairs Correspondent
THE FIRST annual general meeting of the Association of Catholic Priests was told last night that if people had a vote on such matters church leaders would be swept out of office.
If Irish Catholics had a democratic way of reflecting their feelings "church leaders would suffer a defeat as cataclysmic as that administered to Fianna Fáil in the recent general election", Fr Kevin Hegarty said.
Read more
A shepherd who refused to become a sheep...
Edinburgh priest, Mike Fallon
The late Cardinal Thomas Joseph Winning was the Archbishop of Glasgow between 1974 and 2001. His biographer, Stephen McGinty, revealed in 'This Turbulent Priest: The Life of Cardinal Winning' [Harper Collins 2003] that at the beginning of the new millennium Winning was both aware and suspicious of the intention of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments (CDW) to issue a document outlining new instructions on how Liturgical texts should be translated. He was also outraged at the disrespectful way in which the CDW treated the members of the International Commission on English in the Liturgy (ICEL) in particular its chairman, Bishop Maurice Taylor, his old college friend and a fellow member of the Scottish Episcopal conference.
Read more
New Missal
See www.MisguidedMissal.com for information on the new Missal as well as a side-by-side comparison of the 1973, 1998 and 2011 Missals.
Click here to register today to receive future issues of ARCC Contact.
SHOP or SEARCH and SUPPORT ARCC
To comment on anything you've read here,
Call ARCC: 1-(870) 235-5200 (2722)
Email: ARCCNews@arcc-catholic-rights.net
Mail to: ARCC, 3150 Newgate Dr., Florissant, MO 63033 |
|
Other voices
Another Voice
Questions From a Ewe
Challenges Facing Catholicism
(Bishop Geoffrey Robinson in converation with Dr Ingrid Shafer) |
Join Email List
