Friends,
Janice got another letter published in The Baltimore Sun,
and this time she condemns patriarchy. Also note that she was a friend of
the indomitable Carl Kabat. Kagiso, Max
How to boost church attendance: Allow women to serve
as priests | READER COMMENTARY
For The Baltimore Sun
Aug 13, 2022 at 6:32 am
In this April 25, 2021 photo,
Pope Francis arrives inside St. Peter's Basilica to lead a ceremony to ordain
nine new priests at the Vatican. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini, file) (Andrew
Medichini/AP)
I want to thank Dan Rodricks for his column, “Alito
laments loss of faith, but it’s the Supreme Court’s credibility he should worry
about” (Aug. 5) ,and I agree with his reasoning for the decline in
people affiliating with the Catholic Church. He cites as one of the reasons
“its refusal to allow women to be priests.”
As an ordained Roman Catholic woman priest through the Association
of Roman Catholic Women Priests, I agree and have long recognized
the church’s patriarchy. Note that I was excommunicated. Women in the church
are still second-class citizens after 2,000 years. This patriarchy must end. I
love the church, but want it to become more relevant in the 21st century with
the Gospels interpreted from women’s lived experiences.
Pope Francis should note declining attendance at church services. Imagine
if he were wise enough to open the door to women priests. I believe church
attendance would skyrocket.
— Janice Sevre-Duszynska, Towson
-
Catholic Review - https://catholicreview.org -
Father Carl Kabat, a former Baltimore
resident, spent 17 years in prison for anti-nuclear protests
Posted
By Dennis Sadowski On August 9, 2022 @ 11:26 am In
Feature, News, Obituaries, Social Justice, World News |
WASHINGTON (CNS) —
Oblate Father Carl Kabat, a former Baltimore resident who routinely described
himself as a “fool for Christ” for his many faith witnesses challenging U.S.
nuclear weapons policy, died Aug. 4 at his religious order’s Madonna Residence
in San Antonio. He was 88.
His witnesses and
acts of civil disobedience spanned more than four decades and included what was
the first plowshares action in 1980 to symbolically dismantle nuclear warheads.
A funeral Mass was
celebrated Aug. 6 in the chapel at the residence.
Father Kabat devoted
most of his priesthood to protesting what he considered to be misguided government
and military preparations for nuclear war. In addition to the Plowshares Eight
action, he joined seven other plowshares and civil disobedience symbolic
disarmament protests, for which he served more than 17 years in prison.
Oblate Father Carl Kabat,
third from left, is seen holding a banner with three other plowshares action
participants after they used a jackhammer to damage a Minuteman II missile silo
cover at Whiteman Air Force Base in Knob Noster, Mo., Nov. 12, 1984. Others
participating in the protest were Oblate Father Paul Kabat, who was Father Carl
Kabat’s brother, Helen Woodson and Larry Cloud Morgan. Father Carl Kabat died
Aug. 4, 2022, at age 88. (CNS photo/Bob Roller)
The 42-year-old
plowshares movement takes its name from the Book of Isaiah’s call to beat
swords into plowshares and for nations to end war.
Father Kabat told
Catholic News Service in 2009 that being jailed did not bother him. He spoke to
CNS as he awaited sentencing for cutting a hole in a fence surrounding a
missile silo in rural Colorado and hanging banners with joyful message of
peace. He was turning 76 at the time.
The priest regularly
reminded people that Jesus was arrested for challenging the Roman empire.
During one of his
imprisonments, Father Kabat became blind in his right eye when complications
developed after cataract surgery. Even so, he remained an avid reader.
Father Kabat was born
Oct. 10, 1933, to the late Nick and Anna Kabat on a farm in Scheller, Ill., the
third of five children.
He decided to become
a priest after leaving college, following the path of his older brother Paul,
who also had joined the Oblates. He professed his first vows as a Missionary
Oblate of Mary Immaculate in 1957 and was ordained a priest in 1959. Early in
his priesthood he was assigned to ministries in Minnesota and Illinois and then
was sent to Philippines and Brazil.
Reading St. John
XXIII’s 1963 encyclical “Pacem in Terris” (“Peace on Earth”) influenced him to
begin peacefully protesting the possession and potential use of nuclear
weapons. Father Kabat joined his first nonviolent protest in Plains, Ga., the
home of President Jimmy Carter, who supported production of first-strike
nuclear weapons systems.
The priest later
moved to Jonah House, a collective in Baltimore, which worked for peace and
ministered alongside poor residents in their neighborhood. It has been the home
of several plowshares participants over the years. It’s where he met attorney
John Schuchardt, who also was one of the Plowshares Eight.
Schuchardt recalled
Father Kabat as a person who was determined to call out what he considered the
misguided military and government policy regarding the potential use of nuclear
weapons in war.
“Looking at Carl’s 17
years in prison, here was someone whose greatest gift was hope,” Schuchardt,
83, told CNS Aug. 8. “What do you manifest when you are imprisoned again and
again and again? You act for truth for the eventuality of humanity waking up.
You wake up every day with the gift of hope.”
Schuchardt, director
of House of Peace in Ipswich, Massachusetts, said the Oblate’s life “was a
ministry.”
“He was a witness to
the risen Christ. He had experienced the risen Christ. He was the
resurrection,” Schuchardt said.
Art Laffin, a member
of the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker in Washington, recalled Father Kabat in a
reflection posted on the Pax Christi USA website, saying his priest friend
considered himself a “fool for Christ.”
The reference comes
from the First Letter to the Corinthians, which says: “We are fools for Christ,
but you are so wise in Christ! We are weak, but you are strong! You are
honored, we are dishonored!”
Laffin said the
priest at times would dress in a clown suit to demonstrate the absurdity of
U.S. nuclear weapons policy. At his protest actions, he often would display
peace banners on fencing surrounding the target of his angst, Laffin said.
Schuchardt said
Father Kabat would often break into song during his trials, singing spiritual
hymns that highlighted calls for peace and belief in the Resurrection.
Father Kabat
continued to protest nuclear weapons until 2014. He lived at a Catholic Worker
house in St. Louis until moving to the Oblate residence in his later years.
Survivors include a
sister, Mary Ann Radake of Tamaroa, Ill., nieces and nephews. Brothers Paul,
Robert and Leonard preceded Father Kabat in death.
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Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops
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