{"id":465,"date":"2008-03-03T08:49:09","date_gmt":"2008-03-03T08:49:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2008\/03\/the-case-of-st-stephens.html"},"modified":"2008-03-03T08:49:09","modified_gmt":"2008-03-03T08:49:09","slug":"the-case-of-st-stephens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2008\/03\/the-case-of-st-stephens.html","title":{"rendered":"The case of St. Stephen’s"},"content":{"rendered":"

Anyone who’s hung around Catholic blogs for the past few years has heard about St. Joan of Arc parish in Minneapolis, a center of, er, creativity, etc.\u00a0 SJA isn’t alone in that diocese, however. Its companion – and some say more extreme – is St. Stephen’s.
\nSt. Stephen’s has made news over the past few days because the archdiocese has declared that its liturgical abuses must come to an end, and have assigned a new pastor committed to celebrate according to the ritual given by the Church.
\nThis has made news because a contingent of parishioners has decided to leave the parish, and local columnist Nick Coleman has written about their walkout – sympathetically, of course. <\/a>
\nThere are many local Catholic-centered blogs up there commenting on this. We’ll start with those sympathetic to St. Stephen’s:
\nMichael Bayly is coordinator of the Catholic Pastoral Committee on Sexual Minorities (it’s independent – not an archdiocesan office, even though it kind of sounds like it). He blogs extensively on this<\/a>, and includes photographs of the procession of the departing parishioners to the place they’ll be worshipping as well as of some who remained in the gym to make a stance of what they call “holy resistance.”<\/p>\n

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that the parish I attend was recently ordered by the archdiocese to conform its various liturgies to the rubrics of the General Instruction of the Roman Missal.
\nAs I noted in my previous post, I\u2019m sure that for many Catholic parishes, these rubrics serve well to express and reflect their faith and community life. Yet for the past 40 years, the Catholic parish that I consider my spiritual home, St. Stephen\u2019s in South Minneapolis, has developed its liturgy in ways that reflect the presence of the Spirit as discerned in the unique gifts and needs of its members and in our shared life together.
\nThis development has been a very intentional and faith-filled embodiment of the Second Vatican Council\u2019s call for \u201cfull and active participation\u201d of the laity in \u201cliturgical celebrations\u201d (Sacrosanctum Concilium, 1963). Yet many now feel that, in one fell swoop, this embodiment \u2013 along with the Spirit that nurtured and inspired it \u2013 has been discounted by the archdiocese in its demand that it be abandoned for the rubrics of GIRM.
\nI can\u2019t help but think that in this situation, the \u201cform,\u201d which Jesus said \u201cprofits nothing,\u201d has been elevated above the \u201cSpirit,\u201d which gives life.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And what did these developments look like? Ray from MN, blogging at Northland Catholic, describes it:<\/a>
\n(The “sacramental minister” is the priest, of course)<\/p>\n

The “Sacramental Minister” and a woman walked together up to the altar, took their microphones and the “Mass” began with the female \u201cminister\u201d welcoming everyone and asking visitors to introduce themselves. The “Sacramental Minister” then said the introductory prayers and then stepped back and let the female \u201cminister\u201d lead the congregation in saying the Kyrie Eleison.
\nThen a middle aged man gave the second reading, the Epistle, letting us know that it would be accompanied by a poem by an environmental poet. It was Earth Day. Halfway through the reading, a woman (possibly his wife) joined the lector and assisted him in finishing the poem. Relieved, thinking to myself, well I\u2019m glad that\u2019s over, now we can get down to the meat of the Mass.
\nBut the Sacramental Minister, legs crossed, looking extremely uncomfortable, remained seated next to the female \u201cminister\u201d and the couple proceeded to read the Gospel, taking turns. The couple remained at the microphone and then proceeded to give the homily, again in turn.
\nAfter the Gospel\/Homily abomination, the Creed was omitted and there were \u201cGeneral Intercessions\u201d coming from various members of the congregation. The Sacramental Minister remained seated, still ill at ease, crossing and uncrossing his legs, leaning over his knees, hands in his pocket, while the female \u201cminister\u201d continued to control the flow of the service.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If you read the various letters at the parish’s website about all of this – from the incoming pastor, Archbishop Flynn, a letter to the parish from the parish lay leadership – you hear words about confidence that everything will work out and so on.
\nWell, that would be nice – except for that whole 200 people walking out and establishing their own worship service in holy resistance thing.
\nLocal blogger Cathy of Alex, a former SJA parishioner, writes, wisely:<\/a><\/p>\n

In many ways, St. Stephen is almost worse then my old haunt a few miles to the south. They do some marvelous homeless outreach at St. Stephen’s but I don’t see why they can’t continue to do that AND conform with the Mass rubrics. Who knows? Maybe by doing so they will teach some of the parishes that perhaps don’t focus enough on homeless shelters, but do follow the rubrics, that perhaps they could consider opening a shelter or a soup kitchen too.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What is most unfortunate, of course, is that this has been allowed to continue for decades. Archbishop Flynn, in his letter, disputes any claims that the liturgical stylings of St. Stephen’s have been tolerated and allowed without challenge during all this time, but there are, of course, different ways to challenge. There is a kind of challenging that is pro forma, offered in the hopes that either the whole thing will go away or no one will notice. And then there is the kind of challenging that lays it all out and points out the reality of what it means to say one is a local expression of the Catholic Church and give people a clear choice.
\nAnd before anyone comments – look again at what Ray wrote. This is not news to anyone who’s familiar with more radical liturgical sensibilities, but it truly begs the question (as it always does for me) – why bother with the sacramental minister at all?
\nHonestly, if you’re going to blow the whole ritual apart and, by the way you reconstruct it, indicate that you really don’t think the Sacramental Minister has any more to do with any transformation of the elements that takes place than the community at large or any other minister the community designates to stand up there and hold things and say words,\u00a0 why bother with the ordained guy at all?
\nTo keep up appearances? To maintain some kind of tie to the institution thereby assuming a cloak of respectability along with\u00a0an exciting\u00a0frisson of transgressiveness?
\nOh, and do check out the post from Minnesotan-in-Exile (if you want to call LA “exile”) Clayton Emmer on this.<\/a> As he points out in a comment, he’s tried to be in dialogue with Michael Bayly for many years. Clayton also has good perspective Archbishop Flynn and the issue of timing.
\nThe related story, of course, is the CDF’s declaration last week about alternative baptismal formulae, specifically baptizing in the name of the “Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier.” But…let’s do another post on that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Anyone who’s hung around Catholic blogs for the past few years has heard about St. Joan of Arc parish in Minneapolis, a center of, er, creativity, etc.\u00a0 SJA isn’t alone in that diocese, however. Its companion – and some say more extreme – is St. Stephen’s. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=465"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}