News Briefs

Schism Widens as Vatican Fails to Placate Group

VATICAN CITY (AP)  — A year after the first major Roman Catholic schism in a century, the Vatican admits that it has been unable to curtail the ultratraditionalist movement of Marcel Lefebvre, the rebel archbishop.

Both sides say Lefebvre has gained thousands of followers since he was excommunicated for consecrating four bishops in defiance of papal orders.

West German Cardinal Paul Augustin Mayer, director of a papal commission charged in July, 1988 with keeping traditionalists in the church, said many bishops resist the Vatican's effort to make the Latin Mass more available.

"Among traditionalist Catholics there is an attitude of desperation, and because of that an ever-greater number of them consider returning to Monsignor Lefebvre as the only possible response," Mayer said in an interview with the Italian Catholic monthly 30 Giorni.

Some Catholics believe the church should be cautious with compromise. Church sources said the presidents of the bishops' conferences of England, France, West Germany and Switzerland told Pope John Paul II in May that he was going too far in wooing traditionalists.

Lefebvre, 83, rejects the reforms of the 1962-65 Second Vatican Council, including acceptance of religious freedom, celebration of the Mass in local languages and interfaith cooperation.

John Paul said, after the June 30, 1988 schism, that followers of the French archbishop faced excommunication unless they renounced him, but even the threat of expulsion, the church's gravest punishment, has not hindered the movement. Spokesmen for Lefebvre said primary attraction of the renegade movement is its use of the 16th century, Latin Tridentine Mass, which was suppressed after Vatican II. In the new Mass, the local language is used and the priest faces the congregation.

Mayer said many bishops have ignored the pope's request a year ago to make "full and generous" application of a 1984 decree allowing the tridentine rite to be used in special circumstances.

"Lay people know this and their response—in England, France, America—has been to turn to the St. Pius X Fraternity of Monsignor Lefebvre," he said.

The Lefebvre movement claims millions of sympathizers, and Vatican estimates put its membership at 500,000 to 1.2 million. The Roman Catholic Church has about 850 million members. An official at the U.S. National Catholic Conference of Bishops, familiar with the traditionalist issue, said the "vast, overwhelming majority" of American Catholics support the new Mass.

Ecclesia Dei has granted special permission to more than 150 priests to use the old Mass and has received scores of other requests from priests who asked the Vatican instead of their local bishop. Vatican efforts to minimize the effect of his renegade movement have irritated Lefebvre, making it unlikely that the church will be able to heal its first major schism since the Old Catholics left the church in 1870 over the issue of papal infallibility.

"They are waging an indecent war against us," Lefebvre said recently. "How is it possible to have a dialogue with these men?"

Federal Judge Strikes Down Law on Handling of Aborted Fetuses

MINNEAPOLIS (RNS)  — A federal judge has struck down a 1987 Minnesota law calling for the dignified and sanitary disposal of aborted or miscarried fetuses.

In his ruling, Judge David Doty attacked the vagueness of the measure. He said those charged with enforcing it are left free to react to their own preferences.

By elevating the status of a fetus to that of a person or a human being, the law creates a psychological burden similar to those found unconstitutional in other states, the judge said.

The law was to have gone into effect Aug. 1, 1987, but Planned Parenthood of Minnesota and Dr. Mildred Hanson, a Minneapolis physician who performs abortions, filed a suit a few days earlier challenging it. Restraining orders issued by Judge Doty kept the law from being enforced.

Planned Parenthood argued that the law suggested to women that an abortion is to be equated with taking a human life, which would interfere with her right to an abortion by making the abortion decision psychologically more disturbing.

The State of Minnesota claimed that the law would not unduly interfere with a woman's abortion decision. It argued that it was not equating fetal remains with a deceased person but was acknowledging that a fetus is different from other human anatomical issues because it has the potential to develop into a human being. Judge Doty said he was not persuaded by that argument.

He also noted that requiring individual treatment of fetuses could increase the cost of an abortion by at least $40.00.

"Although to many seeking an abortion a $40.00 increase may seem insignificant, for a woman on welfare or for an unemployed teenager, this additional cost may put the cost of an abortion beyond reach and become a direct burden," the judge said.

The state said the law was necessary to protect public sensibilities and to help women who suffer a miscarriage or spontaneous abortion by assuring them that the fetal remains are treated with dignity.

In Setback for Conservatives, Vatican Refuses to Ban Sex Ed Series

WASHINGTON (RNS)  — Conservative Catholic activists, disappointed by a recent Vatican ruling, said they plan to continue with their campaign against a sex-education curriculum used in Catholic elementary schools across the country.

The controversial series of texts, titled "New Creation," emerged relatively unscathed from a recent examination by the Vatican. The effect of the Holy See's judgment is to leave the matter in the hands of individual bishops and dioceses.

The ruling was a setback for a vocal minority of conservative Catholics who want the sex-education program banned from Catholic schools. Nonetheless, some U.S. Catholic groups have resumed an attack on the texts, including pressure on bishops and even a suit filed under the church's canon law.

"We've been hearing from parents throughout the country who say they're going to continue resisting New Creation," said Jim Likoudis of Catholics United for the Faith, which has led the fight. "This whole New Creation thing is basically a Planned Parenthood-type of sex education sprinkled with holy water."

Critics say the program is too much like sex education in public schools, dwelling on the clinical aspects of sexuality, including detailed descriptions of sex organs, and failing to give proper moral guidance. But its defenders say the sex-education materials, one of the most widely used in the nation's Catholic schools, conform with official church guidelines on teaching about sexuality.

The dispute over New Creation reached a previous high point in 1986 when Cardinal Edouard Gagnon, president of the Pontifical Council for the Family, wrote several mysterious letters to Catholic parents, saying Pope John Paul II had condemned the series. "Only if families unite and join in battle against this travesty of sex education will the battle be won," the French Canadian-born cardinal said in one of the letters.

Then as now, the series bore the imprimatur of Archbishop Daniel Kucera of Dubuque, Iowa, where the publisher, Wm. C. Brown Co., is located. At the time, Archbishop Kucera said he knew of no such condemnation and questioned "the competence" of Cardinal Gagnon's council to render such a judgment.

The matter was taken up by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the Vatican's chief doctrinal watchdog. In a letter dated Feb. 23rd of this year, Cardinal Ratzinger said the series, as revised by the publisher, did not appear "problematic from the doctrinal point of view." But he did express reservation about the manner in which the material is taught, and he referred the question to Cardinal William Baum, the Vatican's top education official.

Cardinal Baum cautioned, in a letter dated May 8th, that any sex education in classrooms must be "delicate" and "prudent," paying special attention to moral and spiritual values. But he added that the best way to deal with New Creation or any other program like it is "through the spiritual shepherd of the diocese, its bishop."

Three Protesters Leave Carmelite Convent in New Jersey

(RNS)  — Three of the four women who had barricaded themselves in a Carmelite convent in Morris Township, N. J., since last October to protest what they considered liberalizing trends left the facility June 30th.

There was no immediate indication of the whereabouts of the three; Sisters Philomena Kastanowski and Maria Ercolano and Bemadette Williams, whose temporary vows had expired. The fourth protester, Sister Teresita Romano, remained in the infirmary of the monastery.

Nicole Prescott, whose temporary vows also expired earlier this year, had been part of the protesting group but left the monastery in March for health reasons.

The women had defied orders to end the protest that came from their immediate superiors, Bishop Frank J. Rodimer of the Paterson Diocese, and the Vatican Congregation for Religious and Secular Institutes. The diocese had planned to deliver an order demanding that they leave the premises July 3rd.

The protesters have objected to the leadership of Mother Teresa Hewitt, complaining that the prioress had introduced innovations like television and brighter lights in the chapel after she was appointed by Bishop Rodimer in August, 1987.

But the seven other nuns in the monastery say the dissidents were given special privileges by the former prioress, who is now living in France, and had separated themselves from the rest of the community after Mother Teresa was appointed.

The protesters filed an appeal before the highest court of the Vatican, the Apostolica Signatura, in mid-June.

Tim Manning, communications director of the Paterson diocese, said the three women who left the monastery could now be disciplined for taking that action without permission from Mother Teresa.

"Over the next couple of days we want to evaluate the situation and determine where the three sisters are," he told the New York Times. "Then we can determine what the next steps will be."