Grief and Anxiety in Appalachia

The following article appeard in the Canadian publication, Tomorrow's Trust, on February 27, 2009:

Grief and Anxiety in Appalachia

For over a year now the Catholic teachers of the Scranton diocese have had to suffer the scorn of their Bishop, Joseph F. Martino.

This month however, Bishop Martino seems hell bent on alienating just about every group of Catholics who still call their local Catholic parish their spiritual place of worship.

He began the month with a group of Scranton area Catholics forming a Council of Parishes to fight the closing and consolidation of parishes now proposed by the bishop. Evidently there has been little consultation and the logic behind those churches chosen for closure or left open defies analysis by many parishioners.

Then on February 6th Martino accused the popular Sen. Bob Casey Jr. of “cooperating with … evil” by refusing to back legislation to block U.S. tax dollars from flowing to foreign family planning groups that refuse to renounce abortion. In a Jan. 30 letter to the senator, the bishop also calls on Casey to live up to his Catholic faith and “oppose abortion and other clear evils, including contraception.”

On February 9th Bill Genello, Communications Director for the Diocese of Scranton issued a statement that claimed that Zenon Cardinal Grocholewski, who heads the Office for Catholic Education said that “that fair labor policy and wages can be guaranteed by means other than those proposed by Mr. Milz (the Catholic teachers’ union president) and that Bishop Martino violated no Church law in refusing SDACT’s request for an election to determine union representation.”

As if this wasn’t provocative enough Martino then had the Diocese of Scranton Superintendent of Schools, Joseph Casciano, send a letter to each of the school principals asking that each school have parents contact their respective legislator and ask him/her to refrain from supporting House Bill 26, because it “Could close our schools.” The bill would amend the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Act to cover Catholic teachers, thus allowing the Labor Relations Board to force the diocese to let teachers vote on unionization by secret ballot. Worse however, was another request that principals gather a list from each school with the names of the individuals who will be contacting their representatives and please forward them to the office ASAP.” At this point the principals refused to cooperate because it was so potentially divisive.

The next week began with Martino attacking the local Catholic Misericordia University, founded by the Religious Sisters of Mercy in 1942, and not directly under Diocesan control, for inviting a black gay supporter of same-sex marriage, Keith Boykin, to speak on the election of a black president, to the University’s long standing “Diversity Institute.” The next day Boykin did speak on campus, with administration’s support.

This was followed on February 19th with the Bishop issuing a warning to the three organizing committees for the traditional St. Patrick Day parade and festivities that he would close St. Peter’s Cathedral in Scranton during St. Patrick’s Day celebrations if the groups feature any elected officials who support abortion rights at their annual events. None of them even claimed they were considering such officials. One organizing group wasn’t even Catholic. The person who delivered and signed the letter was Auxiliary Bishop John M. Dougherty. Martino was seen as simply avoiding the glare and wrath of the public and organizers so he sent his underling. As might be expected the warning was not well received; “provoke fierce debate” is how one headline put it.

But things were not about to quiet down. This past weekend, there was a mass said at Sacred Heart Church, one, that local parishioners are fighting to save. They had planned a protest in the form of prayer on the Church steps for Wednesday night. When they arrived they found the Church locked and yellow tape barring the steps, with a notice tacked to the door which said the church was structurally unsafe even though it had about 400 people in it just 3 days before.
And Martino hasn’t given up on Misericordia University yet, as Monday he issued a virtue demand that the Diversity Institute be shut down. Naturally, the reaction of the students was both shock and defiance. In the meantime NACCP and Proctor and Gamble, a major supporter of the Institute, have come forward in its support. The president of the university is attempting to organize a meeting with Martino.

“The joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the men of this age, especially those who are poor or in any way afflicted, these too are the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of the followers of Christ.” This is the opening sentence of Gaudium et spes, the Second Vatican Council’s epochal Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World.

There is little evidence that Bishop Martino has ever read it, or if he has, cares for what it says. There is little evidence that Martino is the least bit interested in listening to those Catholics who sit in the pews. Martino seems to feel none of the grief of parishioners faced with the closure of their Churches or their schools. He doesn’t appear to care about what anxieties he puts on teachers, principals or parents in his campaign to defeat Bill 26. He doesn’t seem to understand or care about what the griefs and anxieties of those who are faced daily with discrimination based on race, color, gender, ethnicity or sexual orientation is like. Better you dispose of help in this area to keep Catholicism pure in sex.

Commonweal’s editorial for the February 27th issue is titled “Griefs and Anxieties”, which is from where I borrowed the title for this piece. It is about Benedict lifting the excommunication of the four Lefebvrite bishops. The closing sentence seems to apply to Bishop Martino also:

“For better or worse, Catholics remain ‘intimately linked with mankind and its history,’ and bishops…urgently need to be seen sharing the griefs and anxieties of men and women of this age, not just being concerned for the good opinion of their peers.”

It is a message Bishop Martino needs to take to heart.