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Post Script: A call to the Church to deal with human sexuality honestly

An adult relationship with Jesus sets us free!

Back in 1917 with a $90.00 loan the Irish immigrant priest Edward Flanagan opened a Nebraska home for orphaned boys; Boys' Town Chronicles tell us: "By 1930, Boys' Town was home to 280 and a new $400,000 building was underway to house the trade school, faculty offices, and gym."

Most of us old timers know the story of the wayward brat who makes good, played by a young Mickey Rooney. Flanagan's adventure offers an insight into the United States — a nation growing up and the rise of the Roman Church from virtual Irish poverty to be a political and financial power broker in the development of American culture. In THE FAITHFUL DEPARTED, The Collapse of Boston's' Catholic Culture (2008) Phillip F. Lawler points out that in 1920 Cardinal William O'Connell killed a state lottery proposed by Massachusetts Governor Curley, O'Connell's "clout dramatic but not unusual". The Roman Catholic Church, on the backs of Irish and German immigrants was rising to prominence nationally; it was to this power church and priesthood that this writer, born in the year of the Great Wall Street Crash, was ordained in 1954 after 12 years of seminary. I would be witness to money's corrupting power.

Like driving a "spiritual model T"…

As I drove out of my major seminary yesterday (10/2/08, St. Patrick's, Menlo Park, Ca.) I fantasized about my six years there as learning to drive a spiritual model T like the one that rambles down the sleepy street in the opening scenes of TO KILL A MOCKING BIRD; you old time readers know the routine, church dogmas and morals taught in Latin, daily Mass, fasting before communion, common rosary at 7pm, meals in common and in silence, no TV, no radio, no newspapers, no contact with the outside world …. it was like drip-water torture, the whole designed to make us perfect reclusive monks. Numbers, merely wanting to be priests, withstood the brainwashing; obedience to the seminary rule was the will of God. So many came through the experience as if in a trance, men out of touch with reality. On Holy Thursday of 1970 my now deceased classmate Bill Burns preached at the Cathedral Chrism Mass, the church's memorial of the unity of Jesus and his priests and the bishop and his clergy; Bill offered fine words on the priestly state, but stunned the congregation, and presiding Archbishop, with a slow and deliberately reading of a list of names (most the best thinkers in the archdiocese) who had left ministry, ending with a question "why have they gone?"

Within a few days/years of ordination, with a now suspect driver's license and bogus training program (ordination/seminary) I found myself behind the wheel of a high powered vehicle of reform twisting and swerving to avoid old monsignors who blocked the path of Vatican Two; I brought into a special pair of Vatican Two glasses (like the night vision ones our troops have in Iraq) and gratefully saw/read attractive theological detour signs, such as posted by Hans Kung and Bernard Haring; my European seminary training was obsolete, as was my model T priesthood. The reclusive monk needed a tank as I was now driving in a spiritual war zone. I was forbidden entry into conservative rectories. In 1966 having assembled 120 families to study the Documents of Vatican Two I was deemed a heretic, many old pastors never realizing that a Church Council of 1600 Roman Catholic bishops had signed the Vatican declarations; leading a group of good-willed teenagers into Russia in 1967 I was condemned as a communist and heard rumors that John the 23rd had been secreted to Moscow for a lobotomy. The rural church of my past was giving way to the age of technology and I was a commissioned officer in corporation sole (the roman system of chancery offices), one of the wealthiest anonymous depersonalized world-wide corporations. Front line priests were beginning to rebel and question their role. We looked for leadership and found none … "the people sought bread and you gave them stones" … In America alone 27,000 priests resigned.

Hildegarde of Bingen (1098-1179)

Meister Eckhart (1260-1328)

Bill Dowsley from Wombejan, NSW questions in the Catholica Forum: Tom, why are we tied to the learning of 500-2500 years ago? and adds: I look forward to your writing on "rank and orders". Americans tell the world they have no time for "rank" but I wonder when we see the fawning over wealth … And Tom, looking back over the years of confusion over power/money in the church offers: when we deal with Jesus generalities pale to nothing as the Christ is the master of disguise over the centuries; I look into history to see where Jesus stays alive and under what experience he rises again. Historically I can see where Jesus walked and taught, for example the Irish monks who came to Europe during the Black Death (see Thomas Cahill's HOW THE IRISH SAVED CIVILIZATION). We can add such Christians as Hildegard of Bingen and Meister Eckhart I myself don't look too often among the ranks within the church, realizing that it is in 1127 ce that the first basic distinctions of holy orders are made, such as priest being the only rank to say Mass. Money and the building of new churches after WW2 mislead a number of decent priests; kept separate from society and humanly speaking unable to handle huge numbers many broke, retreating to the monastic style of life taught in seminary. The lone wolf cleric was loose around the world, lonely and in pain. Does the sexual abuse scandal have any connection?

I would grow older and mature, hearing the bishop-priest who sent me to seminary and who coached me in baseball in 8th grade curse out Archbishop Raymond Hunthausin … "That g.d. Kraut has ruined my diocese" … Dutch Hunthausin had stood on the tracks with his people in protest of the nuclear train crossing America and Ronny Reagan would secretly call upon Rome to banish the peoples' genuine bishop of Seattle. I was no longer innocent; I was ignorantly confused. I heard the student cries of Kent State and protest about Vietnam, becoming disillusioned with my military commission; my bishop told me to grow up and I told him that was the very problem … I was growing up. At Fort Ord I would see my giving communion to Black and Mexican G.I's, being sent off to death in Asia as Viaticum (last communion … God on the way). The church and priesthood of my youth were changing; alone I would search and read, now heavily immersed in the world. I would come full circle (if ever this happens) when I became the primary teacher (as well as a member) of the dialogue Community of Christ Our Lord and Brother in New Almaden,Ca. I learned from people. When expelled from the institution in 1980 for having created my own family community I would match up my concept of priest with Joseph Campbell's analysis of the Hero with a Thousand Faces (1970); twenty years later Fr. Donald Cozzens would ratify my search and departure in THE CHANGING FACES OF THE PRIESTHOOD (1997) and SACRED SILENCE (2002) I get phone calls from priests who ask me if I know what is going on; I tell them to turn off their TV and do some catch-up reading.

A definition of maturity…

Before I go on I wish to introduce our readers to my definition of maturity; I spent fifteen years in study of Teilhard de Chardin, Thomas Berry, William Glasser, Rollo May, Carl Jung (and many more geniuses of psychology and environmental science). It is primarily from Alexander Lowen, Transactional Analysis and Bioenergetics that I learned the value and the meaning of genuine maturity. As seed goes through the stages of bud to blossom and on to ripened fruit we speak of the finished product as going through the process of maturation or simply put, over time sunshine, minerals, and water combine to develop fibrous texture. Human maturity is best understood as the seasoning of body tissue by the entry and exit of energy and how a person handles the ever on-going process. At 42 I danced for my first time, experiencing the exchange of body pleasure from a 25 year-old woman who in time matured giving us two sons as I neared 50. Years in place did not mature me as energy is so easy to block; the complex and ever-active unrestricted exchange of energy did its job. The experience of that energy exchange is permanently mine, stored in my maturated tissue. Energy imprints on human tissue are never forgotten. Shortly after I experienced face-to-face energy from John the 23rd in 1961 my process of maturing was fast underway. I was moving–growing-maturing from an impersonal "It-it" (Martin Bauber) relationship of parent-to-child (bishop-to-priest) to an "I-Thou" personal adult-to-adult. I took off the iron mask of guilt and experienced nature in its created goodness. I became conscious of how depressed, constrained, and constricted I had become in the 12 year suppression process of seminary. Jesus had come to set us free and his liberating message would enliven my life. I began to understand Iraneus as he said "the glory of God is man fully alive". Maturity is a life-long process. My relationship, especially with my bishop, changed radically from servant-child to thinking-adult. I consider this my salvation in the here and now. An adult relationship to Jesus has set me free!

Joseph Campbell describes the journey of the hero as having three basic rites of passage: separation, initiation, and return. "… a hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder; fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man" (Hero with a 1000 Faces 1948). I had became one of the heroes of the Roman Catholic Religion, my separation taking place in 1942 when I left my mother's home at age 13 to begin my initiation in the ways of the Catholic priesthood; I can see myself the first time I shaved, as a faculty member encouraged me to get rid of my peach fuzz … I was 15 and a helluva good baseball catcher. (I just invited Bill Leininger, my battery mate for ten years over to dinner tomorrow night; Bill's a retired pastor, a justice priest who may not show if he gets arrested again protest marching for rights of Mexican janitors and their families. I'd say Bill has matured. I preached at his first Mass in 1956, making a deliberate point in telling him that he would be successful if he continued to believe in himself. Bill's life story is one of a Jesus priest who has faced much opposition from the Roman power boys. Bishop DuMaine removed him from pastorate because Bill did not make enough money in the parish … expulsion being a great growth experience. Today Bill is consumed with justice issues.

Campbell in detailing the rites of passage invites us to see the world of mythology; for me the whole of creation is vested in myth, surely ministry. THE CALL TO ADVENTURE, SUPERNATURAL AID, THE CROSSING OF THE FIRST THRSHOLD, THE BELLY OF THE WHALE, THE ROAD OF TRIALS, THE MEETING OF THE GODDESS, WOMAN AS THE TEMPTRSS, THE ULTIMATE BOON ……are Campbell's chapter headings, all familiar life experiences of this seasoned cleric. I see THE RETURN as that period of life in which aging clergy take stock of who they/we are and what we/they have done with our lives … and what's it all about Alphie? I write for, with and about these men in these difficult days of abandoment, trial and wonderment, hoping to share their joy, pain and loneliness. We are a Band of Brothers who care and love one another, transitional men who have dared to go deep into a spiritual Wonderland (Alice in Wonderland with the mad hatters etc.). Like all human being we are not perfect; the word human has the Latin hum, giving us humor, humble, humus, humility, etc., its base root hum meaning earthy. Jesus who is my Christ fits all of the above categories; the historical Jesus is the perfect earthy human. Jesus made a priesthood out of his daily life. (Michael Morewood's GOD IS NEAR 1992 and IS JESUS GOD 2001) To serve in Jesus' name is special — the human instrument is blessed, but not privileged.

Tom McMahon, San Jose, Ca., 24/02/08.

NEXT WEEK: Answering Bill D of NSW, rank in the church!

ARTICLE NAVIGATION: You are presently looking at Part VI
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PART I | PART II | PART III | PART IV | PART V | PART VI | PART VII
PART VIII | PART IX | PART X | PART XI | PART XII | PART XIII | PART XIV | PART XV
Post Script: A call to the Church to deal with human sexuality honestly

Tom McMahon, a former priest now married, lives a very fulfilled life in San Jose and continues to contribute voraciously to several Catholic discussion lists in the States. He has been an enthusiastic supporter and encourager of the Catholica Australia initiative from the very beginning.

What are your thoughts on this commentary by Tom McMahon? You can contribute to the discussion in our forum.

©2008 Tom McMahon

[Index of Commentaries by Tom McMahon]