A Letter from Chicago
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A Letter from Chicago Is America's Greatest Arcudicxiese Really in Decline? Thomas F, Roeser You BE the judge. An official Chicago arch- Joseph Cardinal Bernardin cautioned last Septem diocesan report notes that, of 5.6 million ber, when the report was released, that "our re people in Cook and Lakecountieswhich sources are limited.... We must dream but from constitute the archdiocese (not the entire those dreams let's come up with ideas and recom Chicagoland area, let it be noted), about 2.3 mil mendations that are practical. And if we can't do lion, or 41 percent, are Catholics. However, of the everything at one time, let's decide what steps we Z.3 million, only one-quarter attend Mass on Sun can take." day. Despite this modest (somewould say, pedestri There are 73 fewer parishes than in 1975. an) statement appended to the gloomy report. Dr. Of the 429 elementary schools in 1965, 309 re James Hitchcock of Saint Louis University, church main. Despite explosive growth in the Hispanic scholar and historian, says that Chicago's cardinal population—with basic Catholic heritage— is as effective in his way, as was James Cardinal throughout the archdiocese, enrollment of stu Gibbons of Baltimore (1834-1921). Gibbons served dents of Hispanic background in Catholic schools when many Americansfeared Catholic immigrants has remained relatively flat since 1987. as tools of a foreign prince in Rome. Denying Since 1965, enrollment in Catholic elementary claims of and-Catholics that his church was an un- schools has declinejd 6z percent; enrollment in American invader, the cardinal successfully ex high schools during |the same period declined 52 plained Rome to manyAmericans, and,conversely, percent. Only a handful of seminarians was or explained America to a late-nineteenth- and early- twentieth-centurycuria that didn't fully understand dained priests for Chicago last year. democracy. Parishes finished the year with a $12.8 million Like Gibbons, says Hitchcock, Bernardin is deficit. A pastoral center operated at more than a achieving success withexquisite subtlety butfardif $5.7 million deficitin 1992, including $1.9 million ferently. "He haspresented himself asan authentic in costs associated with alleged clerical sexual mis and at the same time 'moderate' spokesman when, conduct with minors. But, not counting the mis in fact, he basically supports the liberal agenda. conduct costs, it ran a $3.8 million deficit due to That doesn't mean I agree with Bernardin—far smaller than anticipated collections of The Cardi nal's Appeal. from it," says Hitchcock Does it mean Bernardin employs a bait-and- While the report and the video tape accompa switch in favor of liberal positions? "You could say nying it cite poverty, concentration of African- Americanpoor without Catholic heritageor funds it hke that," answers Hitchcock. to pay to church support, they do not discuss the In the past, priests avoided controversy,leaving lack of Catholic growth in the suburbs of Lake it to the laity—butnot so in Chicagotoday. At least and Cook counties, where many former city one angry pastor. Father Anthony Brankihof Saint dwellers now reside. Thomas More parish, has publicly denotmced litur The man responsible for the archdiocese's spir gical laxity that has gone uncorrected despite re itual and financial well-being describes the condi peatedpleasto the archdiocese. "The problem," wrote the youthful pastor in a tion of both with typical calm and understatement. communication faxed widely in Chicago, "is spiri Thomas F. Roeser is a former Fellow of the John F. tual; it is deep and profound. What I mean to Kennedy School of Government, Harvard, a business sayis that for 25 yearswe have beensetspiritually executive, and columnist forthe Chicago Sun-Times. adrift by forces beyond anyone's control—certain- July-August 1994 »«• Crisis 43 ly beyond the control ofany of us. For 25 years we now head of DePaul University's office for Com have been victimized by modernists and reformers munity Affairs, went public with his defense of who do not believe the same things you and I be Ms. Simmons. lieve—^and have always believed. "Adele Simmons is a woman of the highest in "They changed the way we worship and that ef tegrity," he wrote to the Sun-Times. Unconcerned fected a change in the way we think, the way we about MacArthur's use of a bogus Catholic orga feel, the way we believe, the way we live, and the nization to fund abortion counseling, Monsignor way in jwhich we regard the Body of Christ, the Egan instead called for a "public apology" to the Catholic Church. foundation president. "Oh it was slow; but it was sure. They told our Father George Helfrich, an erstwhile canon high sctool students they don'thave togoto Mass lawyer formerly assigned to the chancery, is now anymoije—so they don't. They told our college stu retired. Close to but not a direct participant in lib dents there were no absolute moral standards any- eral or radical priestly activism, Helfrich is a friend more^and that's the way many now live. ... of his ex-classmate Father Andrew Greeley. (Of all They hire agnostics to teach philosophy and non- these sources, I know Father Helfrich the best; he believers to teach religion in Catholic universities is not only my cousin but the family member to and seminaries. They sledge-hammered altars and whom I am closest. Our views of the Church are at remove|d statues. They tore up rosaries and called as great a variance as our tennis games: he's al Benediction*cookie worship.'... most a pro, I'm a duffer.) "I believe until we bite the bulletand finally face Father Helfrich believes that the Church has up to the spiritual chaos that has reigned for 25 hardened into two groups. The official church is years, all the financial finagling in the world will too clergy-dominated. When the pastor ripped out not soon be able to put us back together again. kneelers at one parish where Father Helfrich ".. LTuesday's newspaper had a lovely photo served—an arbitrary step unsanctioned by Church graph of a pro-abortion rally held at Loyola Uni policy—Helfrich was supportive. Kneelers mean versity under the auspices of Loyola's newly ap too deferential a supplication, he says,citing Gree- proved pro-abortion club, the Women's Center. ley's belief that our role instead should be that of Loyola? Remember Saint Ignatius? The Catholic loving children. Father Helfrich suspects church? Society ofJesus? Catholic families who Bernardin's chancery is not as supportive of dis helpedIbuild the two-campus traitor? My alma senting priests as he thinks it should be. mater?; While Bemardin has been widely criticized, it is "Arid I'll bet they have to gall to still send out commonly agreed in Chicago that the cardinal is fund-raising letters hoping to cage the last dime popular—^not because of accomplishments but for from some poor widow who thinks she's con being exonerated of a baseless charge of sexual tributing to the cause of Christ." abuse. On November 12,1993, a former seminari In contrast, there is Monsignor John J. Qack) an, Steven Cook, filed a lawsuit in federal court in Egan. An elderly priest celebrated for his early Cincinnati, allegingthat Bemardin, while archbish work in civil rights, whose years have not dimmed op there some 17 years before, had sexually his outlook on liturgical matters, Egan worked in abused him. Cook's suit, which drew national at the 1940s with the late Saul Alinsky (author of tention, was based on allegedmemoriesof abuse he Reveille for Radicals and Rules for Radicals) in had "recovered" only a month before the suit was building urban protest organizations. He em filed. On February 28,1994, to the immense relief ployed the same technique to empower supposedly of Catholics in Chicago and elsewhere. Cook egalitarian church causes in a local version of a dropped Bemardin from the lawsuit, saying he no "Call to Action" program. Egan's objectivewas to longer trusted his own hypnotically recovered incorporate grass-roots democracy within the memories. The exoneration won widespread na church to push for far-reachingsocialand litui:gical tional praise for the cardinal, who had handled the programs. Later he helped found the Association of mortifying charges with deconmi and grace. ChicagoPriests,which censuredthe lateJohn Car Bernardin's most articulate defender i« Dr. Eu dinal Cody. gene Kennedy, in his book Cardinal Bemardin: When the MacArthur Foundation's president, Easing Conflicts and Battling for the Soul of Adele Smith Simmons, was criticized by The New American Catholicism (Bonus Books, 1989). World(Chicago'sarchdiocesannewspaper) and me Kennedy is professor of psychology at Loyola Uni (in my Chicago Sun-Times column) for contribut versity of Chicago and an ex-priest married to an ing over $i million to "Catholics for Free ex-nun. He writes that, just as New York Govemor Choice"—a pro-abortion group admittedly with Mario Cuomo, the first Italian-American to achieve out a membership roster, run by a former abortion national prominence, threads his way to publicso clinic owner who had assailed the Pope—Egan, lutions, so Bemardin, the first Italian-American to 44 Crisis ^ July-August 1994 become a cardinal; seeks "human compromises es. The remainder were German, Polish, Italian, that avoid clashes while honoring the integrity of Lithuanian, Estonian, or Russian. Even the Irish the disputing parties.** Kennedy cites Bernardin's fought among themselves. In 1900, when the pas skill at weaving a "seamless garment" of pro-life, tor of a prosperous West Side parishwentpublic anti-capital punishment, and anti-nuclear weapon to try to thwart appointment of Reverend Peter ry positions a decade ago.