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U p F r o n t
By Karl Keating
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SEVERAL years ago I was in Lincoln, Nebraska, giving a study day to the priests of the diocese. The weather was cold, but the reception was warm. During my stay I met several priests and got some sense of the diocese.
At the Saturday luncheon I sat with Bishop Glennon P. Flavin, whom I complimented on the high quality of his men. He turned to me and said, with a broad smile on his face, "In this diocese we don't have even one dissentient priest." Could any other bishop in this country say that?
His was one of the few dioceses with a surplus of vocations-and not just to the priesthood. Bishop Flavin had established (I hope I remember correctly) two women's religious orders and had invited in a third one, a cloistered order known affectionately as "the pink sisters" from the color of their habits. (Wonderful and joyous women, they talked with me through a grill in their parlor.)
Much of the credit for the vocations boom had to go to Msgr. Leonard I. Kalin, long-time chaplain of the Newman Club at the giant University of Nebraska campus located in Lincoln. I never would have guessed that good things could come out of a Newman Club.
(Perhaps I was prejudiced from the memory of my own university's Newman Club: In four years all three of its chaplains left the priesthood to get married.)
Msgr. Kalin asked me to speak to the Catholic students after their weekday Mass, which is celebrated nightly at 10:00 p.m. (after the last class ends). I confess my mind wasn't much on the Mass itself -I spent the hour marveling at the students. I could not recall ever having been to a more reverent Mass, and I include in this the old Latin Masses of my youth. Msgr. Kalin had trained his charges well.
Bishop Flavin, who died recently, was succeeded in 1992 by Fabian W. Bruskewitz, who had been a pastor in the Milwaukee Archdiocese. If Catholics of Lincoln feared a new bishop might alter course, their fears were dispelled quickly. Bishop Bruskewitz maintained his predecessor's sensible policies, and Lincoln remains a preternaturally good diocese.
But now there is a greater fear- not among most Lincolnians, but among heterodox Catholics there and throughout the country. The fear is that other bishops might do what Bishop Bruskewitz has done. He has done the unthinkable. He has called a spade a spade.
As reported in this issue's "Dragnet" column, Bishop Bruskewitz has declared that Catholics can't participate in certain organizations. Membership in them is incompatible with membership in the Catholic Church. Among the off-limits groups are, on the left side of the spectrum, Call to Action, Catholics for a Free Choice, Planned Parenthood, and the Hemlock Society.
Call to Action, which has been mentioned in "Dragnet" repeatedly, rejects Catholic sexual standards, lobbies for priestesses, and encourages do-it-yourself liturgical innovations. It's probably fair to say that the organization is not identifiably Christian, let alone Catholic.
Catholics for a Free Choice is a minuscule pro-abortion group funded by big pro-abortion and anti-Catholic foundations. The word "Catholic" in its name is misapplied, of course.
Planned Parenthood, in many of it chapters, features nominal Catholics in positions of leadership. While claiming to promote "responsible parenthood" through sex education and contraceptives, Planned Parenthood is really one of the largest abortion providers and referrers in the country.
The Hemlock Society advocates euthanasia and so is to the end of life what Planned Parenthood and Catholics for a Free Choice are to the start of life.
These were not the only groups mentioned by Bishop Bruskewitz. He also listed one group on the right end of the spectrum, the Society of St. Pius X, and its St. Michael the Archangel Chapel. The SSPX is an independent order established by the late Archbi<->shop Marcel Lefebvre, who was excommunicated for ordaining bishops without papal approval. Many people who adhere to the SSPX reject all aspects of Vatican II; some even doubt the validity of the current papacy.
Bishop Bruskewitz also forbade membership in Freemasonry and its men's, women's, and young people's auxiliaries, including De Molay, Rainbow Girls, Eastern Star, and Job's Daughters. For two centuries popes have written that Freemasonry is incompatible with Christianity because Freemasonry is itself a kind of religion that undermines the faith. You can be a Freemason or a Catholic, the popes have said, but you can't be both.
What is especially refreshing is that Bishop Bruskewitz didn't merely advise against membership in these groups-he drew a line. Any Catholic remaining in these groups after a "grace period" will incur automatic excommunication, which is not a punitive sanction, but a medicinal one. Its purpose is to bring the wayward back to their senses.
Let's pray that as Bishop Bruskewitz takes flak-which he will-his brother bishops will rally around him. Better than that, let's pray that they emulate him.
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