Church officials evaluating priest who told Catholics to ‘disobey’ bishop on mask wearing

Theodore McCarrick before his dismissal from the clerical state. / Copyright Mazur_catholicchurch.org.uk

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Sep 2, 2021 / 16:35 pm (CNA).
Disgraced former cardinal Theodore McCarrick is expected to appear in a Massachuset… […]

Pittsburgh, Pa., Aug 29, 2018 / 03:01 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Catholics who are demoralized, angered, or scandalized by revelations about sex abuse must feel free to talk to clergy and other Catholics, and other Catholics must reach out to them, a priest of the Diocese of Pittsburgh has said.

“I would invite those who are wavering to be open about their concerns – their anger, their frustration, their questions – so that someone can respond to them,” Father Nicholas Vaskov, executive director of communications for the Pittsburgh diocese, told CNA.

“I would also encourage them to stay close to God in prayer so that he can hear their calls to him and respond with his compassion and love.”

Father Vaskov, who is also administrator St. Mary of Mercy parish in downtown Pittsburgh, reflected on the tendency of some people scandalized by abuse allegations to stop going to Mass. He encouraged Catholic clergy and laity to “be patient with those who are scandalized by the reports.”

“Listen attentively as they share what is on their heart,” he said. “I would also suggest that clergy and laity reach out to those who they know are particularly troubled by what they have learned. Thoughtful conversation can be such an effective way to process what is troubling us.”

On Aug. 14 a Pennsylvania grand jury released its report claiming to have identified more than 1,000 victims of 300 credibly accused priests from 1947 to 2017 across six Pennsylvania dioceses. It presented a portrait of efforts by Church authorities to ignore, obscure, or cover up allegations, either to protect accused priests or to spare the Church scandal.

Approximately two-thirds of the accused priests have died. Due to laws regarding the statute of limitations, nearly every abuse allegation cannot be criminally prosecuted, although two indictments have been filed. One priest named in the report was convicted of sexually assaulting a student in the early 1990s.

Before the report’s release, Bishop David Zubik of Pittsburgh confirmed that some of the priests named in the Pennsylvania grand jury report into sexual abuse remain in active ministry, but stressed that none faced substantiated allegations of child sexual abuse.

Responding to the report, Zubik emphasized that “the Diocese of Pittsburgh today is not the Church that is described in the grand jury report,” and that “it has not been for a long time.” Data from the diocese showed that more than 90 percent of abuse incidents took place before 1990.

The bishop apologized to victims of clergy sex abuse and to “any person or family whose trust, faith and well-being has been devastated by men who were ordained to be the image of Christ.”

The Catholic response is ongoing. The grand jury report could affect the future of Cardinal Donald Wuerl of Washington, a previous Bishop of Pittsburgh. Wuerl is already a center of controversy as critics ask what he knew of allegations of sex abuse and sexual exploitation against his predecessor, Archbishop Theodore McCarrick.

On Aug. 20 National Public Radio and its member stations had sought comment from listeners, asking, “Have you stopped going to Mass as often, left your church or left the Catholic faith entirely because of these revelations or ones that were previously reported?”

Pittsburgh-area couple Andy and Courey Leer were among those who had responded to NPR about their reaction.

“So it goes beyond just the priests and their superiors,” Courey, 31, told NPR. “It leads me to question entire Catholic communities. Who knew what? And not only why didn’t they expose them, but, how long have people been turning the other way?”

Courey attended part of  Mass with her two-year-old daughter after the report was released but they didn’t stay.

“I think a part of me was thinking I’m going to go to Mass and I’m going to get an okay to leave and not come back,” she said. “And of course that’s not going to happen. Part of me just wanted someone to say ‘we really messed up, it’s all on us, and you guys use your own moral discretion to decide what’s best because we have no moral authority’.”

According to NPR, she said the priest acknowledged the report and “offered little more than prayers.” She stood up with her daughter and left after the homily.

“And I’m thinking ‘is this our last Mass?’ And it’s hard. I can’t fathom when she’s eight years old saying ‘no we don’t go to church, sorry you can’t receive Communion, even though your mom and dad did, your grandparents did, you don’t get to do that’.”

The Leers told NPR that they will miss the sacraments, community dinners, and the music ministry. They said they want to see Church leaders push for more investigations into sex abuse in dioceses around the country.

“They don’t need to be worried about our spirituality right now,” said Andy, 32. “They need to be worried about dealing with the corruption, and dealing with the priests that are out there that need to answer for what they’ve done, and the people that have potentially covered up and withheld information.”

Andy, 32, was a teenager when decades-old claims against his priest, Father Joseph Pease, surfaced. He thought the “bad apple” had been removed. He later watched the movie “Spotlight,” about sex abuse in the Archdiocese of Boston, but he said the issue “doesn’t really hit until it’s in your backyard.”

The Leers said they don’t know what it will take for them to go back to church.

Father Vaskov cited his experiences with churchgoers who went to Mass in the wake of the latest news. He thought there was an upturn in attendance for the Aug. 15 feast of the Assumption, a holy day of obligation which came a day after the release of the Pennsylvania grand jury report.

He also reflected on what churchgoers told him, such as one woman at Mass last Sunday.

“She said that while it was difficult for her to go, she knew that she couldn’t be anywhere else because it is only in the Eucharist that we can be renewed,” the priest said. “Another conversation with a recent convert to the Catholic faith revealed the depth of his love for Christ and His Church and his desire to stay close to the sacraments when he felt his frustration was getting the better of him.”

Fr. Vaskov said that in response to the abuse scandals, many parishes had organized holy hours, days of Eucharistic adoration, discussion groups, and listening sessions. He said he has had “beautiful moments” praying with people for “strength in their lives and in the lives of those who have been harmed by abuse.”

“I have also had some very fruitful conversations with parishioners, friends and strangers over the past weeks because they were willing to open up about their concerns,” the priest said. “That doesn’t mean that every issue is resolved or every suffering is healed, but it is the beginning of an important discussion that needs to happen.”

Participation in Mass on Sundays is “at the heart of the Church’s life”, the Catechism of the Catholic Church states, and “participation … in the Sunday Eucharist is a testimony of belonging and of being faithful to Christ and to his Church.”

By attending Sunday Mass the faithful together “testify to God’s holiness and their hope of salvation. They strengthen one another under the guidance of the Holy Spirit,” according to the Catechism.

Participation in the sacrifice of the Mass is the means by which “we already unite ourselves with the heavenly liturgy and anticipate eternal life” and render worship to God.

The Catechism adds that “the institution of the Lord’s Day helps everyone enjoy adequate rest and leisure to cultivate their familial, cultural, social, and religious lives.”

Father Larry Adams, a priest at St. Ursula’s Church in the Pittsburgh diocese, told NPR that he understands the frustration of his fellow Catholics, but the struggle to confront abuse is why he became a priest.

“To a certain extent. I’m kind of a ‘spotlight’ priest — the movie Spotlight,” he said. “When this broke, (it) was kind of the time when I was discerning what my vocation would be. And in a certain way, what has formed me is the desire to be part of this Church, and be part of the solution.”

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Religious sisters of the Benedictines of Mary, Queen of Apostles, sing as the process with the body of their late foundress, Sister Wilhelmina Lancaster, on May 29, 2023, at their abbey near Gower, Missouri. The sisters exhumed the nun’s body on May 18 and discovered that it was apparently intact, four years after her death and burial in a simple wooden coffin. / Joe Bukuras/CNA

Gower, Missouri, May 29, 2023 / 20:02 pm (CNA).

The body of Sister Wilhelmina Lancaster, an African American nun whose surprisingly intact remains have created a sensation at a remote Missouri abbey, was placed inside a glass display case Monday after a solemn procession led by members of the community she founded.

About 5 p.m., dozens of religious sisters of the Benedictines of Mary, Queen of Apostles, carried their foundress on a platform around the property of the Abbey of Our Lady of Ephesus, reciting the rosary and singing hymns. Some of the thousands of pilgrims who visited the abbey over the three-day Memorial Day weekend followed behind.

The procession, held in bright, late-afternoon sunshine, culminated inside the abbey’s church, where the nun’s body was placed into a specially made glass case. Flowers surrounded her body and decorated the top of the case, where there is an image of St. Joseph holding the Child Jesus. The church was filled with pilgrims, including many priests and religious sisters from other orders. 

Sister Wilhelmina, who founded the Benedictine order in 1995 when she was 70 years old, died in 2019. Expecting to find only bones, her fellow sisters exhumed her remains on May 18 intending to reinter them in a newly completed St. Joseph’s Shrine, only to discover that her body appeared astonishingly well-preserved.

The sisters say they intended to keep their discovery quiet, but the news got out anyway, prompting worldwide media coverage and a flood of pilgrims arriving at the abbey in Gower, a city of 1,500 residents about an hour’s drive from Kansas City, Missouri. A volunteer told CNA that more than 1,000 vehicles came onto the property on Monday but no official count was available.

There has been no official declaration that Sister Wilhelmina’s remains are “incorrupt,” a possible sign of sanctity, nor is there a formal cause underway for her canonization, a rigorous process that can take many years. The local ordinary, Bishop Vann Johnston of the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, has said that a “thorough investigation” is needed to answer “important questions” raised by the state of her body, but there has been no word on if or when such an analysis will take place. 

Before Monday’s procession, pilgrims again waited in line throughout the day for an opportunity to see and touch Sister Wilhelmina’s body before its placement in the glass case, where it will remain accessible for public viewing.

Among those who came on Monday were Tonya and William Kattner, of Excelsior Springs, Missouri.

“You’ve got to experience the magic and the miracle of it,” Tonya Kattner said.

“It’s a modern-day miracle and it was just something we had to come to,” William Kattner said. “Especially with everything going on in the world today, something like this brings hope.”

Kate and Peteh Jalloh, of Kansas City, Missouri, also didn’t want to pass up the chance to see Sister Wilhelmina.

“I strongly believe in the Catholic faith. I believe in miracles and I have never seen anything like this before. I’ve got a lot going on in my life and this is the best time to get that message from a nun,” Kate Jalloh said.

“It could take another hundred years for us to see something like this,” she added.

Janie Bruck came with her cousins, Kristy Cook and Halle Cook, all from Omaha, Nebraska. 

“I came to witness the miracle. I believe we’re in a Jesus revolution and he’s sending us lots of signs,” Bruck said. Kristy Cook, a former Omaha police officer, said she was surprised that Sister Wilhelmina’s body had no odor of decay.

The sisters have publicly thanked the many local law enforcement officers, medical personnel, and volunteers who helped manage the influx of pilgrims over the holiday weekend.

Among the volunteers was Lucas Boddicker, of Kearney, Missouri, who joined members of his Knights of Columbus council based at St. Anne’s Catholic Church in nearby Plattsburgh, Missouri, to guide visiting vehicles to a makeshift parking lot in an open field. Other knights from local parishes helped set up tents and handed out free hamburgers, fruit, and bottles of water.

“That’s one thing the Knights do pretty well,” Boddicker said. “They get the word out when we need manpower.”

Priests heard confessions in a large grass field for hours, some using trees for shade, as young children played on the abbey grounds.

Three religious sisters from the Poor of Jesus Christ order, based in Kansas City, Kansas, said they were inspired by seeing Sister Wilhelmina’s body. 

One of the religious, Sister Azucena, said she “wanted to cry,” while praying at the nun’s side. “I just had this feeling of peace and love. We share a vocation. Her fidelity to the Lord and her love, I could feel that there,” she said.

A married couple, Jason and Jessica Ewell, both of whom are blind, were visiting Kansas City, Missouri, from Pennsylvania when they heard Monday morning about Sister Wilhelmina’s body.

“It’s just kind of a neat thing to be a part of the beginning of this story,” Jessica Ewell said.

“I was asking for her intercession for children for our marriage,” she said. “A lot of people think ‘Oh, it’s the blindness,’ but no, it’s not that at all,’” she said.

“Yesterday I was kind of in a place where I said, ‘God, I need something right now,’” she said. “We always hear about these miracles. But they’re long ago and far away and always happen to other people.”

Trish Bachicha, Jessica’s mother, said she believes that God is sending a message. 

“He saying ‘I’m alive and well and I haven’t forgotten you,’” she said.

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