Do bishops want a more divided church?

National Catholic Reporter, May 12, 1995

Considering last month's firing of Sr. Carmel McEnroy at St. Meinrad Seminary, questions arise: Do the U.S. bishops really want a more divided church? Do they want more disaffection among the laity? Do they want more psychological schism? Do they want to put down women simply because they fear them? Is it the gender or the clerical divide that is so dispiriting the church? Sometimes it seems it just might be more honest for some to place signs in front of parish church doors that read: "Males only."

Clearly this is not the intent. Just as clearly, it is the signal being sent to women across the land. Only the very foolish will disregard the depths of alienation involved. This is a church on a suicide mission.

It is said some simply don't get it. Many bishops do. They need to gain the ears of those who do not. Apparently no one else can. To the late 20th century episcopacy, the message is: Wake up and smell the roses before the garden dies.

The firing of Professor McEnroy is the latest permutation of episcopal illness. It followed what was initially intended as a friendly and helpful site visit by a National Conference of Catholic Bishops' seminary investigation team headed by Archbishop Elden F. Curtiss of Omaha, Nebraska.

The idea was to assist struggling seminaries to gain compliance with revised seminary norms published by the bishops' conference in November 1993. It was the bishops, way of helping beleaguered rectors and faculty. Seminaries wanting help were invited -- not demanded -- to ask for assistance. Reaffirmed teaching credentials can attract a bishop's attention and help draw students.

Then came the Curtiss-led team. During the visit, Curtiss singled out McEnroy as unfit to teach at the seminary. Why? Had she denied the divinity of Christ in class? Belief in the Trinity? The Incarnation? No, her offense was she had signed an ad that appeared in NCR, Nov. 4, 1994, questioning Pope John Paul 11's May 30, 1994, reaffirmation of the ban against women's ordination. The advertisement did not call for ordination but for discussion of the issues leading to the papal ban.

St. Meinrad Seminary apparently believed it would have no problem passing the compliance test. It would be a snap. The faculty apparently did not properly gauge how small the circle of orthodoxy has become within the Catholic church.

Wanting compliance as he saw it and in his newly visible position as archbishop, Curtiss arrived at St. Meinrad. Seeing McEnroy's signature as beyond the obedience pale, he wanted her out. The seminary was also instructed to stop' using inclusive-language liturgical texts and to dismiss any seminarian who publicly acknowledged a homosexual orientation.

By tradition, the seminarians at St. Meinrad have sung their morning prayers, as do the Benedictines in the monastery connected to the school. But in his oral report, Curtiss said the seminarians would have to stop singing and begin reciting the prayers, the way it is done in most parishes. Curtiss is said to have brushed aside objections that the singing of morning prayers is recommended in the Roman breviary.

Strictly speaking, Curtiss, it appears, does not have the authority to force seminary changes. Fr. Paul D. Theroux, director of the U.S. bishops' Secretariat for Priestly Formation, told NCR the so-called "visitation teams" can only issue recommendations. "They don't have the authority to go and say, `You have to do this or you can't do that.' That is a decision made by the rector of the seminary and the local bishop." But Curtiss is not without influence. Were St. Meinrad not to go along with the recommendations, U.S. bishops could pull their seminarians out. Sometimes the more subtle pressures are the most painful.

St. Meinrad is one of the first seminaries to be visited as part of the new program. Rectors will now be more cautious in sending invitations to the archbishop.

The local prelate, Archbishop Daniel M. Buechlein of Indianapolis, past chairman and now adviser to the U.S. Committee on Priestly Formation, was once St. Meinrad Seminary rector and played a role, too. Ironically, he hired McEnroy years ago. He was not part of the team but agreed with Curtiss -- or was powerless to disagree.

"For their students' sake and for the good of the whole church, it is essential that seminary faculty members fully support our church's teachings both in the classroom and in the public forum," Buechlein said, commenting on the dismissal.

When the U.S. bishops first imagined the visitation teams they did not see them as thought police or as a way to punish women teachers. This is, however, the way the Curtiss operation has come across to many Catholic women and men.

Did the archbishops use the visit to deal with a festering irritant? Or to set an example? To tighten control? Or did they act simply out of conditioned instinct? Whatever the case, they owe their fellow bishops, to say nothing about the wider Catholic community, serious explanations.

Sadly, St. Meinrad will be the biggest loser. It did not need the black eye. Suspicion and fear, meanwhile, have gained the upper hand among the faculty. In our church today, the price of an institutional paycheck is often biting the lower lip and silencing one's personal thoughts. Not exactly the liberation of which Jesus spoke to the inquiring crowds.