{"id":91,"date":"2010-10-18T09:46:48","date_gmt":"2010-10-18T09:46:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/religionandpubliclife\/2010\/10\/one-courageous-parish-priest.html"},"modified":"2010-10-18T09:46:48","modified_gmt":"2010-10-18T09:46:48","slug":"one-courageous-parish-priest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/2010\/10\/one-courageous-parish-priest.html","title":{"rendered":"One courageous parish priest"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m happy to discover that Fr. Michael Tegeder, pastor of St. Edward’s
\nchurch in Bloomington, Minn., appears to have suffered no ill effects in
\nthe archdiocesan reorganization and retrenchment <\/a>laid out this weekend by St. Paul-Minneapolis Archbishop John C. Nienstedt. Tegeder had the chutzpah<\/a>
\nto take to the pages of the state’s leading daily to criticize
\nNienstedt for sending out 400,000 DVDs attacking same-sex marriage a few
\nweeks before an election that gives Minnesota voters some opportunity
\nto weigh in on the issue.<\/p>\n

Tegeder’s comments to his parishioners, posted on his web page<\/a>,
\nbristle with well-placed barbs. Under “THE AXE FALLS,” the clearly
\nunreconstructed Vatican II-nik responds to the archiepiscopal call for
\ngreater collaboration among parishes by saying, “Thankfully we have been doing
\nthat for many years as we work with local Catholic and Protestant<\/i>
\n[ital. added] parishes in many areas of ministry.”<\/font> <\/p>\n

After noting that financial pressure may require freezing benefits for
\nemployees and denying pension coverage to hew hires, Tegeder turns
\n(under CLOTHE YOURSELF IN CHRIST JESUS) to NIenstedt’s readiness to
\nallocate $90,000 to procure identical vestments for all priests to wear
\nat diocesan Masses and clergy funerals. Helpfully, he points out that,
\nin fact, the liturgical year utilizes five different colors, which would
\nrequire five different sets of matching matching vestments, at a cost
\nof $450k. “Or perhaps,” he offers, “a rainbow colored
\nvestment is called for, something like Joseph’s coat of many colors.
\nIndeed, a rainbow stole would suffice. And I already have one.<\/font>“<\/p>\n

Finally, alluding to the priest shortage that the archbishop points to
\nas a partial explanation for the merging of parishes, Tegeder–a member
\nof Voice of the Faithful–turns to A COLORFUL BISHOP:<\/p>\n

Bishop William Lee of the
\nWaterford Diocese in Ireland has recently called for more formal
\ninvolvement by the laity in church governance. He said that he would
\nhave no problem with the ordination of women or married priests. It is
\nrefreshing to see bishops addressing the real concerns of the day.<\/font>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But perhaps not so colorful or refreshing. After his remarks were published in the local biweekly Munster Express<\/i>, Bishop issued a “clarification”<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

The Pope has spoken very formally and authoritatively on these
\nmatters and I fully accept his teaching and guidance always.  The Pope’s
\nteaching authority is a gift from God to his people which I appreciate
\nand follow in all my preaching and teaching.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I regret any confusion or misunderstanding that may have arisen on
\nthese matters at a recent Pastoral Listening Session and I am glad of
\nthe opportunity to clarify this. \n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Whatever he was quoted as saying, it cannot now be found on the
\nnewspaper’s website. So it goes when parish priests speak truth to power
\nand successors of the Apostles behave like church mice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m happy to discover that Fr. Michael Tegeder, pastor of St. Edward’s church in Bloomington, Minn., appears to have suffered no ill effects in the archdiocesan reorganization and retrenchment laid out this weekend by St. Paul-Minneapolis Archbishop John C. Nienstedt. Tegeder had the chutzpah to take to the pages of the state’s leading daily to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":222,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-91","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\nOne courageous parish priest - Religion & Public Life With Mark Silk<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/2010\/10\/one-courageous-parish-priest.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"One courageous parish priest - Religion & Public Life With Mark Silk\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I’m happy to discover that Fr. 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After teaching at Harvard in the Department of History and Literature for three years, he became editor of the Boston Review. In 1987 he joined the staff of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, where he worked variously as a reporter, editorial writer and columnist. In 1996 he became the founding director of the Leonard E. Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life at Trinity College and in 1998 founding editor of Religion in the News, a magazine published by the Center that examines how the news media handle religious subject matter. In 2005, he was named director of the Trinity College Program on Public Values, comprising both the Greenberg Center and a new Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture directed by Barry Kosmin. In 2007, he became Professor of Religion in Public Life at the College. Professor Silk is the author of Spiritual Politics: Religion and America Since World War II and Unsecular Media: Making News of Religion in America. He is co-editor of Religion by Region, an eight-volume series on religion and public life in the United States, and co-author of The American Establishment, Making Capitalism Work, and One Nation Divisible: How Regional Religious Differences Shape American Politics. In 2007 he inaugurated Spiritual Politics, a blog on religion and American political culture.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/author\/msilk"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/222"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}