Poor catechesis in action
Things are slow here at work on the reference desk, so I decided to poke around the Internet instead of doing anything academically useful. The controversy and eventual splinter church and excommunications at Corpus Christi in Rochester, NY popped into my head while I was reading something else. I decided to dig up a few articles on it–my memory was fuzzy on some of the details, and I suspected I’d look at it differently now than I did then. I saw the events as the facts were reported in my local paper. Now I have access to the New York Times, and magazines of varying ideological stripes.
I suppose it says a lot that at the time, I thought that Corpus Christi/Spiritus Christi* was a pretty cool idea. I was in my late teens. “So what if they’re schismatic!” I said to myself. “That just means that the power hierarchy is WRONG!” In hindsight, looking at their programs, it seems that even if it weren’t for the (many) other issues, the big problem is that they’re just too liberal for me. Which is quite an accomplishment, when you get down to it. After all, Newshour quoted their pastor:
REV. JIM CALLAN: All the issues I’ve been removed for will seem absolutely silly in 10 years, because we will have married priests, we will have married women priests, we’ll have Protestants and Catholics receiving Communion together. Gay people will be getting married in church. Yes, I would not do these things if I thought they were - are so far off the mark.
That was in, um, 1999.
I’d be honored to be part of a parish with so many ministries helpful to the community surrounding it–prior to the break, the church’s programs were amazing. The trouble is, I can’t get behind drastic breaks with tradition. I had considered conversion to Buddhism or to the Episcopal Church, but neither really worked for me at heart.
* - I’m linking to the Wikipedia article precisely because of how terrible it is. They’re never going to achieve a neutral point of view on this thing.
