The Bishop Writes

(From the Oct. 5, 2000 edition of the Inland Register)

Each year the priests of the diocese gather some days for a convocation to share and reflect together on a topic of importance and interest in our ministry. Socializing is also an important goal of coming together.

This year we went again to Nelson, B.C. On Monday afternoon, there was an opportunity to discuss certain topics of importance in our local Church. The bishop and priests of Diocese of Nelson were invited to our dinner together on Monday evening. There are work sessions on both Tuesday and Wednesday mornings with the afternoons and evenings free. Finally, on Thursday morning, we have the final work session with Eucharist and lunch concluding our gathering.

On Tuesday morning we invited the local Spokane Jewish rabbi, Jacob Izakson, to be with us for sharing and reflection. As I mentioned in introducing the rabbi, we gathered in context of Pope John Paul II’s visit to Israel last spring and his strong statements about the Shoah (the Holocaust) and his request for forgiveness for times in the history of the Church when there have been expressions of anti-Semitism. This conversation also took place in context of a dialogue in which I participated about Catholicism and Judaism at St. Mary Medical Center in Walla Walla earlier this summer.

You may be interested in knowing that Temple Beth Shalom, the Jewish synagogue in Spokane, is the only organized synagogue between Minneapolis-St. Paul and Seattle. In addition we need to remember the cultural context of some of the anti-Blacks and anti-Jewish sentiment in our general area of Spokane.

We also need to look to ourselves as a Catholic community and observe how we relate to other communities of faith. There is a common heritage and rootedness with the Jewish tradition from our perspective as Catholics.

Our time together in Nelson was an opportunity to dialogue with Rabbi Izakson. Both of his parents are Holocaust survivors. We spoke frankly about the uneasiness of relationship between the Catholic and Jewish communities. I think everyone at the convocation felt there was a need to work at ways of strengthening our contact with and respect for one another.

On Wednesday morning, Archbishop Alex Brunett of Seattle joined us to share and reflect on a similar theme. The archbishop has extensive and long experience in Catholic-Jewish relationships and dialogues.

It’s is interesting that while he was a priest in the Archdiocese of Detroit, Archbishop Brunett was pastor of the parish, the Shrine of Little Flower, where Father Coughlin of radio fame was pastor in the 1930s.

For those of you who don’t remember, Father Coughlin’s radio broadcasts had an audience of some 30 million listeners. Though he was a fiery orator, he was also anti-Semitic and eventually was silenced by the Church. Archbishop Brunett shared that one of the first Catholic Jewish dialogues was held in the rectory of the Shrine of the Little Flower in Royal Oak, Mich. What a tense moment that was — but also how necessarily symbolic was the location of that meeting!

This was the first time the archbishop had a chance to meet our presbyterate as a group, share with us his own reflections, and enter into dialogue and discussion with the priests. I am most grateful both to him and Rabbi Izaakson for their time with us. From my perspective both mornings were very fruitful.

On the final morning I made a brief Power Point presentation concerning fewer priests in the U.S. and some accompanying statistics of the Church for the last 50 years. In addition, we had a discussion about the liturgical changes which soon will be published both in the General Introduction to the Roman Missal and the new Sacramentary.

Even though there has been a certain amount of publicity about some of the changes, I ask everyone to be calm until the final documents are published and until we have ample time for catechesis and preparation for the changes. The changes won’t be dramatic, but we need to go about them carefully and in a knowledgeable and respectful manner.

The liturgy of the Church is very precious for us, and we need to take common responsibility to celebrate it with great care in solidarity with the Church universal and in respect to our tradition. I shall keep you informed as to timeline and direction in the future.

May God bless you and give you peace.

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