Old Roman Catholic Church in North America -- New Perspectives, Issue 4

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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