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Fall 2000
Proloquium
Prior to launching--and
indeed, naming--this journal in January of this
year, our publisher Bishop Facione, his vicar
general Bishop Adams, and I spent many hours
sharpening its focus. A given was that, as the
quarterly journal of the Old Roman Catholic Church
in North America, it would faithfully reflect the
Church's teachings and experience. We soon
discovered, however, that any discussion of the
Church's unique expression of
Catholicism--preserving tradition while respecting
conscience--necessarily brought into relief the
controversies that are roiling the greater Church
Catholic--papal authority, priestly celibacy,
desacrilization, to name just a few. As eager as we
were to address these issues, the danger in
presenting only our own perspective--a pitfall that
Bishop Facione clearly foresaw--was that our tone
could easily descend to one of "us versus them".
Rather than promoting dialogue among us Christians
from the various Catholic traditions, we could risk
widening the divides between us. Thus, we agreed to
offer these pages as a forum for a wide variety of
views on the issues we termed collectively "Crisis
in the Church", and to call our publication,
befittingly, New Perspectives.
That commitment, I believe,
makes New Perspectives rare, perhaps even unique,
among Catholic publications. You can count on the
National Catholic Reporter, for example, to provide
a liberal viewpoint, and Crisis magazine, a
conservative one. But in neither will you read
three separate articles on the ordination of women
and get three unique perspectives on it, as you
will in this issue of NP. This and other
controversies will never be settled by
reactionaries on the right or radicals on the left.
Neither possesses as much truth as they believe
they do nor are they as heretical as the other
believes they are. Stepping over the trenches each
has dug into, we soldier on in search of routes
that will bring us to deeper understandings of
difficult issues. For example, I'd venture that
regardless of your position on the ordination of
women, you cannot read Dr. Gregory Holmes
Singleton's article "Here I Am; Send Me" on the
marks of a true vocational calling from God without
reflecting on how well attuned you are to His voice
and how willing to answer it. Nor can you read "One
Woman's Calling" by the Reverend Sue Eaton, a
United Methodist minister, without being moved by
her faith and courage, and concluding that her
tradition is blessed to claim her. And while my own
article, "Why It's a Man's Priesthood", supports
the Old Roman Catholic tradition of reserving holy
orders for men, I hope that after reading it
advocates of women's ordination will understand
that our tradition is grounded in human psychology
rather than in bias against women. Regardless of
our different perspectives, how we discuss this and
other critical issues will undoubtedly determine
whether or not we truly resolve them.
This issue of New Perspectives
not only marks the completion of our first full
year of publication but also our first full color
photo-feature. In September, our own Bishop John J.
Humphreys, Archbishop of Caer Glow, head of the
diocese of Florida, pastor of Our Lady of Good Hope
in Pinellas Park, and rector of St. Thomas Aquinas
Old Roman Catholic Seminary in St. Petersburg
celebrated the silver anniversary of his
consecration to the episcopacy. The event was
joyous and we are delighted to share it with you.
Of special interest are two related pieces written
over fifty years apart. "Adventure for Peace", from
the December 1947 issue of The Augustinian--the
forerunner of this publication-- is a pastoral
letter in which Archbishop Carmel Henry Carfora
reflected on the tragedy of Christian divisiveness
and urged all to pray for unity. (We reprint that
prayer on p. 5) In "A Perspective on Church Unity",
Father Norman A. Sieme writes on the prerequisites
of reunification of the various Catholic traditions
from a uniquely broad vantage. Father Sieme was
ordained in the North American Old Roman Catholic
Church by Bishop Francis Donahue in 1947, and until
1950 was associate editor of The Augustinian. He
also served in the Polish National Catholic Church
and as Archdeacon of Susquehanna in the Episcopal
Diocese of Albany, New York.
When Archbishop Carfora wrote
his Christmas pastoral in 1947, it was amidst the
ruins of two world wars and on the eve of the
descent of the Iron Curtain. In "The Never-Ending
War", an excerpt from an article that originally
appeared in The Weekly Standard, Yale computer
science professor (and Unabomber victim) David
Gelernter argues that World War II was in large
measure a religious war between paganism and
Judeo-Christianity. Moreover, he alerts us to the
ongoing nature of this war. Alarming as the piece
may be, I found it a moving affirmation of our
Judeo-Christian tradition, not to mention a
refutation of the postmodern dictum that no one
idea, culture, religion is superior to another.
Though it won't conjure visions of sugarplums, this
unique offering from an original writer whose work
I've long admired is my Christmas gift to you.
Once again, Father Charles Wolff
has plumbed the Secrets of the Saints--this time,
those of St. Willibrord. Please take time to
discover what this eighth century saint, the first
bishop of Utrecht, has to say to us. And don't miss
The Last Word, in which Bishop Raphael J. Adams
relates the poignant story of one of his childhood
visits with the unforgettable "Great Aunt Mae". Let
perpetual light shine upon her.
Finally, I'd like to thank
Bishop Facione, our editorial board, our
contributors and columnists, and Diane Kunz, who
manages our subscriptions, for their support of me
and dedication to NP this past year. To the readers
and subscribers who have responded to NP with
enthusiasm and encouragement, God bless you. May
all of you and yours enjoy the Lord's peace this
Christmas and throughout the New Year.
--
Valerie
Kane
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