Gramick speaks; others silenced - School Sister of Notre Dame Jeannine Gramick - National Association of Catholic Diocesan Lesbian and Gay Ministry

National Catholic Reporter, Oct 22, 1999 by ROBERT J. McCLORY, Tom Roberts

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In her first public presentation since she was permanently banned last July from ministering to gay and lesbian persons, School Sister of Notre Dame Jeannine Gramick charged that the Vatican had trampled on established, well-founded church policies and procedures in its investigation of her and Fr. Robert Nugent.

She spoke at DePaul University in Chicago Oct. 11 before an audience that was mostly students and highly supportive. The talk indicated the general thrust of the argument she intends to present in a yearlong effort to overturn the ban. She cited a barrage of accepted authorities, including popes, ecumenical councils, international synods, canon law and the Catechism of the Catholic Church to drive home her points.

Vatican II, the reform council of the early 1960s, teaches, she said, "that anyone who speaks about justice in the world should be fair and just in their own life. The church was less than fair in its dealings with us."

Gramick spoke at DePaul four days after Chicago's Cardinal Francis George opened a gathering of the National Association of Catholic Diocesan Lesbian and Gay Ministry with an order that the organization not discuss the cases of Nugent and Gramick.

The order was accepted by the group's leadership but caused one speaker to question whether, given such restrictions, the organization has a reason to exist.

At DePaul, Gramick cited four general areas in which, she argued, the Vatican violated church rights and even basic civil rights.

* Subsidiarity: The principle that a higher agency or court should not interfere in the competency of a lower one was well established by Pope Pius XI, Vatican II and other authorities, noted Gramick. She said that principle was followed in 1982 and 1985 when the Vatican asked her own religious order to investigate her ministry.

In both cases, the School Sisters of Notre Dame found no cause for concern. Instead of accepting that decision or approaching the next higher authority (the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, for instance), the Vatican began in 1989 its own probe through the Sacred Congregation for Religious.

"My religious order," said Gramick, "never received any thanks for their investigation or any indication whether the Vatican accepted or rejected their findings." The decision to launch a new probe from the top could mean either that her order's study was not vigorous enough or that "they didn't come to the right conclusion." In any event, she said, the launching of a new probe strayed far from church commitment to subsidiarity.

* Judicial Process: The 1971 Synod of Bishops spoke eloquently on the rights of accused persons to be given adequate defense and to know their accusers, Gramick said. Yet, she noted, Cardinal Adam Maida, head of the Vatican's three-member investigating body, refused to identify any of the accusers (referred to only as "bishops and others"). Later, after she protested, Gramick said, Maida admitted that of some 300 letters the Vatican had received concerning her and Nugent's work, all but 10 supported their case -- and two of the 10 were from Cardinal James Hickey who had banned their work in his Washington, D.C, archdiocese in 1984.

In addition, she said, it appeared that she and Nugent were in double jeopardy in the probe since Cardinal Ratzinger's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith was also involved from the beginning and indeed took over the probe in 1995.

* Conscience: Gramick cited the Catechism's lofty presentation of conscience as a "sacred" and private "sanctuary" that cannot be violated. However, she said, when she and Nugent replied to charges that their books contained "dangerous and erroneous" propositions, Maida's investigation turned from its original intent -- a study of their public presentations -- into an invasion of conscience. Both were asked to sign a formula of faith designed by the Vatican that said they believed that homosexual acts are intrinsically immoral.

Gramick refused, claiming her work as a bridge between the gay and lesbian community and the institutional church precluded her from divulging publicly her personal beliefs. While Catholic ministers may be required to state their assent to "essential or core doctrines," she said, they cannot be so obligated on lesser ones.

* Development of Doctrine: The Vatican's apparent "underlying concern" throughout the investigation, said Gramick, was that she and Nugent were determined to change church teaching on homosexuality. When quizzed about this by Maida, she said, she explained that she always presented the official church position as well as other views but added her conviction that the church "must always be open to new data" coming from the social and physical sciences and from human experience. Clearly, doctrine does develop, Gramick told the audience, citing church views on usury, slavery, the ends of marriage and human freedom as examples of teachings that underwent total change. In the case of homosexuality, "the doctrine has already developed," she said. "Today most Catholic moral theologians hold that homosexual activity in a loving, committed relationship is not morally wrong."