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PDF versionSecret Church in Czechoslovakia honored
by Tom Roberts on Apr. 08, 2011
The Tablet today posted a fascinating piece by Christa Pongratz-Lippitt about the secret church that sustained the Catholic community in the former Czechoslovakia during four decades of Communist rule.
It has become increasingly clear in our own time of crisis in the church – granted most of it self-imposed and not a matter of state interference – that when things get bad enough the community can always find the theology to meet the need. Too few priests? All of sudden pastoral associates, who could be nuns or lay people or a married couple, have what it takes to run a parish.
Seminaries short on single, celibate men? Other schools of ministry are filled with lay people doing theology and studying pastoral skills needed to minister. Or we bring in foreign priests or ordain waves of married men as deacons or accept men from other denominations and allow them to break the unbreakable rule and bring their wives and families to ordination.
In the former Czechoslovakia, as Pongratz-Lippitt relates, theology met need in a really big way. The late Bishop Felix Maria Davidek founded one of the foremost underground movements in the church, ordaining married men and at least one woman, Ludmila Javorová, “a prominent member of Koinotes, and later made her his vicar general, which she remained until his death in 1988.”
During a recent awards ceremony honoring Davidek’s Koinotes community, Javorova had this to say: “The work has been begun. Others must continue it. Even if the Vatican considers the matter closed, it is my firm belief that at some point in the future this dossier will be reopened.”
The question in all of this, in those moments when theology meets need, is how long before practices considered “closed” become normative? How long before figures like Fr. Roy Bourgeois are not ushered quickly and unceremoniously out of the priesthood for raising questions that have at their heart a respect for the call to vocation that women experience as well as concern for the survival of Eucharistic communities?
Read about Bishop Davidek and his experiments that helped save a church forced to exist under a severe regime.
Michael - Fr. Roy wasn't
Michael - Fr. Roy wasn't ushered out of the priesthood for raising questions about women's ordination. A lot of us have been preaching that message from pulpits for forty years or more. I've written articles in periodicals and scholarly journals and never once been reprimanded. Fr. Roy has marched to the tune of his own drummer for a long, long time, and both the Vatican and Maryknoll finally had enough. The next pope may well approve priesthood for married men, and perhaps even the diaconate for women, for precisely the reasons you mention. When that happens, Maryknoll will have had more to do with the result than Fr. Roy ever did. - robert.
Robert, you seem to be
Robert, you seem to be saying that the Vatican and Maryknoll have had enough of anyone who seeks to live a whole life of truthful conscience. If one can not be true to himself, then he can not be true to others. This is the problem of the Vatican pure and simple avoiding the truth in order to placate those in power. It is father Roy who presents the saintly personality not the soon to be beatified JP the great enabler.
Davidek was not alone in the
Davidek was not alone in the Czech "catacomb church"...consider also Cardinal Korec,clandestinely ordained in his twenties long before Davidek and unlike the "Blaha line" fully normalized as a diocesan bishop when the time came.To have the faith not to resort to desperate measures in defiance of tradition had its rewards.To assume those desperate measures will become normative is not faith.
Christa Pongratz-Lippitt's
Christa Pongratz-Lippitt's article in THE TABLET reminded me of Miriam Theresa Winter's moving biography of Ludmilla Javorová - "Out of the Depths: The Story of Ludmilla Javorová Ordained Roman Catholic Priest". [Crossroad, 2001]. A very inspiring read that put to rest any lingering doubts about the utter necessity to ordain women.
The example of Bishop Felix Maria Davidek, and the Koinotes movement/network he founded, should inspire both Archbishop Rino Fisichella, President of the newly erected Pontifical Council for Promoting New Evangelisation and the upcoming Roman Episcopal Synod on the same theme. Perhaps NCR readers could send copies of Miriam Theresa Winter's book to episcopal delegates to the synod when their names are eventually announced.
Robertg chooses anonymity.
Robertg chooses anonymity. And no one will hear/listen to Robertg's whisper under the blankets. The nerve to diss Fr Roy!!!
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