Chill that surrounded the Crowleys finally melting in Patty's scrapbook

National Catholic Reporter, August 14, 1998 by Tim Unsworth

About six weeks before he died in November 1996, Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, archbishop of Chicago, called Patty Crowley and asked if he could come over for a visit.

Already under a death sentence from cancer of the pancreas and tormented by a painful stenosis of his spine, the cardinal walked alone the few blocks to Patty's 88th floor apartment in the John Hancock building. Unlike other prelates, Bernardin rarely moved in a posse. He didn't feel that he needed toadies at his side to provide deniability.

"He knocked on the door, came in and sat on one of the couches just like you and Jean [Tim's wife] do when you visit," Patty said. "He stayed for just over an hour, and I can't remember a thing he said.

"We talked about the Birth Control Commission [The Commission for Studies on Problems of Population and Birth Control, initiated by John XXIII and developed by Paul VI] and the encyclical [Humanae Vitae, 1968]," she continued. "I guess I talked most of the time. I just wanted to say that the Birth Control Commission did not promote birth control. It simply said that it was not intrinsically evil."

The cardinal listened. He had written to Patty some months after his arrival in Chicago in 1982. It was his response to her letter in which she traced the hurt she and her late husband, Pat, had suffered after the encyclical appeared.

At that time, Bernardin had written a carefully worded letter, pointing out that he wasn't a bishop during the period in which the commission was meeting. It was more political than pastoral, but Bernardin, in the years that followed, changed.

Patty and Pat Crowley had called upon Chicago's Cardinal Albert Meyer when they were appointed to the commission by Paul VI in 1964. "Go ahead," he said. "But it won't make any difference."

He was right. The majority report of the commission, which called for a reexamination of the teaching on birth control, was never even distributed. Two years after the close of the commission's fourth meeting, the Crowleys were awakened at 2:00 a.m. by a reporter's phone call, asking their reaction to Humanae Vitae. The Crowleys never heard from the Vatican again. In that league, even thank-you notes can be suspect.

After the commission finished its work, the Crowleys wrote to Meyer's successor, Cardinal John Patrick Cody. He never responded.

Following Bernardin's death, Patty presented his successor, Cardinal Francis George, with a copy of Robert McClorfs 1995 book, Turning Point, that chronicled the commission's work. "I have your book," he told Crowley, "and I don't agree with it."

Then he walked away.

Patty Crowley had run into a wall, one that separated those who used the law as a guide from those whose religion is based on the commandment of love. For the past 30 years, she has listened for even the mildest sound of support from the church she loves. Instead, she has heard only soul-drying silence or bitter criticism.

Bernardin, in Crowley's living room, listened with pastoral ears. "Let's pray for each other," he said. Then he embraced her and walked to the elevator.

Recently, a bishop's diocesan newspaper termed her "a very old degenerate" who roamed about "promoting sexual immorality." It echoed the thinking of Fabian Bruskewitz, bishop of Lincoln, Neb., an ecclesiastical Captain Ahab who specializes in harpooning minnows. It was typical of the paranoid style now infecting the church.

Pat and Patty Crowley were the founding couple of the Christian Family Movement, which grew out of a number of Catholic Action groups operating in the mid-1940s. The Crowleys' charismatic leadership so dominated the movement that they became known as Mr. and Mrs. CFM." In seven years alone (1949-1956), membership increased to 20,000 couples.

According to Jeffrey M. Burns, archivist for the San Francisco archdiocese, the movement enjoyed remarkable success during the 1950s, peaking in 1963. Membership has declined, but it continues to exist, enjoying renewed success among Spanish-speaking groups and acting as a booster shot to other groups such as the Cana Conference and Marriage Encounter.

Patty Crowley gave birth to six children; four survived. The Crowleys had at least a dozen foster children and opened their home to nearly 40 foreign students. They traveled the world, helping to establish the International Christian Family Movement.

Following the release of Humanae Vitae, the clergy closed ranks and stopped speaking about birth control altogether. They also stopped talking to the Crowleys. Even sympathy might be viewed as support, and that could short circuit a career.

Pat Crowley died in 1974. Years later, Patty wrote an article for NCR, presenting her reflections on the experiences with the commission. She received letters from priests warning her that she was going to hell. Although the commission was unanimous in its recommendations to Paul VI, it was the Crowleys who were treated like E-coli.

In the years since Pat's death, Patty has been involved on many projects. She founded a women's discussion group. With her daughter Patricia, a Benedictine nun, she founded a shelter for homeless and abused women. She is a Communion minister at Northwestern Hospital and a lector in her parish. Now nearing 85 and hobbled by two hip replacements, she continues to serve the church with love and compassion, although she feels terribly distanced at times -- perhaps as Joe Bernardin felt toward the end of his life. Living the Beatitudes can run counter to church politics.