Cardinal Maida Reportedly Takes Issue With Elderly Theo-Dissident

Since Cardinal Maida is regularly criticized at St. Blog for allowing dissidents to speak at various Catholic events around the Archdiocese of Detroit, I found the following repo

Reverend Robert Ruedisueli, Pastor St. Mark Parish
4257 Bart Avenue
Warren, MI 48091-1977

Dear Father Ruedisueli

Recently it has come to my attention that your parish will be hosting Dr. Anthony Padovano for a full day lecture series entitled: "Finding Optimism and Hope for the Future Church" on May 14th, from 9:30am. until 3:00 pm. Although Ms. JoAnn Loria is listed on the promotional literature as the person responsible for information, I presume that you, as Pastor, have given consent for the lecture series. As chief Teacher and Pastor of the Archdiocese, I must ask that you cancel Dr. Padovano's lecture. I do not undertake this matter without due consideration for you, as Pastor, and the practical and personal difficulties you may encounter in fulfilling my directive.

You may not be aware of the range of Dr. Padovano's theological views, some of which are clearly in opposition to the authoritative teaching of the Church. Among such positions are his advocacy for the ordination of women and his view that the celebration of the Eucharist need not be limited to ordained ministry. According to the National Catholic Reporter (March 14, 2003, p. 11) he is a "National Tour Co-sponsor" for the "Rev. Ida Raming, Ph.D., noted Catholic theologian and women's ordination pioneer. Dr. Raming [will speak] about her experience of ordination, excommunication, and the future of women's ministry in the Roman Catholic Church."

Other doctrinal ambiguities concern Dr. Padovano's understanding of original sin, the virginal conception of Jesus, the importance of the physical resurrection of Jesus, apostolic succession as essential for the validity of Holy Orders, as wellas positions concerning contraception and abortion.

Most distressing however, is the fact that Dr. Padovano continues to celebrate Mass publicly at "The Inclusive Community" as "Pastor" in Nutley, NJ, although he was laicized in 1974 and married soon afterwards.

You may not be aware that Dr. Padovano helped to establish CORPUS (Corps of Retired Priests United for Service) soon after his laicization as an advocacy group for married priests. A review of the CORPUS homepage indicates active web-links to "Catholics for a Free Choice," "Dignity" and other advocacy groups which promote doctrines and social policies contrary to the teachings of the Church. I fully recognize that such web-links do not, of themselves, necessarily indicate any heterodox position held by Dr. Padovano himself on such matters. However, Dr. Padovano has identified Dignity and the Women's Ordination Conference, among other groups, as 'the synagogues of the renewal(National Catholic Reporter, November 12, 1.999, cover story).

In review of the serious concerns which Dr. Padovano's writings and advocacy efforts present, especially in matters ecclesiological, I believe that the potential harm caused to the lay faithful by his lecture series at your parish outweighs the potential benefit envisioned.

Pastoral prudence and my obligation as Archbishop require me to direct you to cancel Dr. Padovano's engagement at your parish on May 14th .I have asked Bishop Blair to be available to meet with you to discuss any questions or concerns you may have.

Sincerely yours in the Lord,
Cardinal Adam Maida, Detroit

cc: Bishop Blair

RESPONSE BY ANTHONY PADOVANO

Cardinal Adam Maida
Archdiocese of Detroit
1234 Washington Blvd.
Detroit, Michigan 48226

Dear Adam,

Your April 28 letter to the pastor of St. Mark Parish canceling my lecture on "Optimism and Hope in the Church" left me perplexed and disappointed. The cancellation of a talk on hope in such a season of cynicism and despair in the Church is especially mystifying. Just thirteen days before, on April 15, your auxiliary bishop, Tom Gumbleton, who knows my work well, and I met in New Jersey during his lecture on non-violence.He told me he knew of my scheduled talk, was delighted I was coming to Detroit and welcomed me to the archdiocese.

I find the letter disappointing because there was no effort to deal with me directly.I was never informed of your concerns or invited to address them.Did I not deserve that?Is it really just, under canon or civil lawor even just plain human decency and courtesy, to criticize me in absentia in a letter from one Church official to another?Should I not have had some say in a decision by you of what I teach and what I believe?

I am writing this letter on Sunday, May 11, Mothers Day; the Sunday Gospel is the Good Shepherd.Such a contrast!I was taught to see the Church as Mother Church and the ministers of the Church as shepherds.How many Catholics today, loyal, faithful, intelligent, find such images alien to their experience of the Church, partly because of letters written in the spirit of your April 28 letter?

The charges the letter raised are so many and so generic that a defense would be a burden for me and would amount to an irrelevance for you because you have already judged me, without a hearing, from newspaper accounts, hearsay, and critics whose grasp of theology is often ideological or uninformed.I expected more from a canon lawyer, a cardinal, a colleague, a pastor.

The letter is astonishing in its sense of fear and misinformation.I do not feel anger over this, only disappointment.The letter recognizes "ambiguities" in my theology and notes that my writing is not necessarily "heterodox".So there was a lot of room for discussion and distinction and definition.None of this occurred.In place of truth, we got judgment.

Allow me to chose one instance of misinformation.

There is a citation of your being troubled by my views on contraception.Actually, I hold on contraception the same position found in Human Life in Our Day, the l968 pastoral letter of the American Catholic bishops.As you know, I wrote that letter and I included in it the rules for legitimate theological dissent, rules I have followed.All this was approved as the authentic teaching of the American Catholic hierarchy.In that letter, it was affirmed that a married couple might be faced with a conflict between papal teaching, the needs of the marriage and the inability responsibly to have more children.In such instances, they should address such "agonizing crises of conscience" with a certitude that they will find compassion from Church ministers and from Christ. Other hierarchies, such as the French, dealing with the same dilemma, asked couples to let their consciences decide the issue.

Indeed, as late as June of l995, some 52 American bishops asked for greater dialogue in their meetings and less fear of Rome as they discussed some fifteen points of contested teaching, covering indeed most of the items listed in your letter of disapproval. I suspect that the vast majority of priests and laity in Detroit think as I do on this and many other issues.

In any case, this is not a point-by-point letter.It is meant to illustrate briefly how differently you might have seen things if we had had a chance to talk before judgments were made.

I am especially disturbed by your use of terms such as "laicization" when the Code and Catholic teaching make it clear that a priest can never be made a lay person.I filed for a dispensation and I received it.I am always a priest.Why would such inaccurate terminology have been used in your letter, indeed terminology that is against authoritative teaching of the Church?The implication furthmore that a priest is punished by being made a lay person is offensive to every baptized Christian.

I am concerned that CORPUS is defined exclusively as an advocacy group.It was established as a place of healing and witness for Catholic priests who married, a pastoral resource for priests who were abused, in many instances, by the Church and especially by its bishops.If we call for a married priesthood, we are calling for something that already exists among Eastern Catholics and, in the West, among former Protestant pastors.Indeed a married priesthood was the norm during the entire apostolic period of the Church.

We need not go on, Adam, because your letter implies that you prefer to judge me, indeed to pre-judge me, without reference to my own testimony.

I am mindful of the fact that when we were students in Rome, authentic papal teaching moved in a very different direction from where it is now.Vatican II reversed this former teaching on many issues.Were the theologians who advocated their positions before Vatican II so much out of the tradition then?Or were the popes further from the present teaching than they now are willing to admit?

You are the Archbishop of Detroit and you have been there a long time.It astounds me that my being there for one day might unsettle the laity so unduly that you feel it necessary to prohibit even one day of exposure to what might be an alternative way of addressing our common Catholic faith. As you know, the lecture will go on, with even more laity in attendance, at a different venue.It seems sadly patronizing to be so concerned about the laity as though they are not adults.You are not concerned about the clergy although, as you know, many, if not most, think as I do.

I am concerned for the humiliation the pastor of St. Mark Church must feel at this public rejection of his pastoral decision to invite me to his parish and to his rectory.He knows the people of his own parish better than anyone else.He was not troubled about their hearing me.

The fact that this decision was delayed until almost the last moment, even though the invitation to lecture was begun seven months ago, is especially insensitive.

Adam, you need to live with the pastoral consequences of your own decisions.No doubt, you feel justified in what you are doing. The fact that so many others in your diocese disagree with you must cause you some concern.There was a more gentle and compassionate and Christ-like way for you to have handled this issue.The fact that you chose not to follow that path saddens me.

Dr. Anthony T. Padovano
Catholic Theologian
9 Millstone Drive
Morris Plains, New Jersey 07950