Wednesday August 14, 1996
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

FURTHER INFORMATION:
MARY LOUISE HARTMAN (609)461-8960 OR FAX (609)921-3924
E-mail to Mary Lou Hartman at mlhmls@aol.com

The Association for the Rights of Catholics in the Church (ARCC) is still calling for a Constitutional Convention to help move Catholics into the 21st century. But today it hailed a call by Cardinal Joseph Bernardin of Chicago to bring Catholics together "in service to the Lord and to the world."

"We in ARCC may have contributed to the polarization Cardinal Bernardin is talking about," said Mary Louise Hartman, president of ARCC, in a news release given to wire services on Wednesday morning. "We've been asking for dialogue. So, if Cardinal Bernardin and the group of clergy and laypeople he's assembling want to talk," she said, "we d like to sit down with them and talk, as he says, 'with civility and generosity.'"

She said, "Cardinal Bernardin calls us back to some important issues: 'A crisis in religious literacy, the drift of young people away from the sacraments, the changing roles of women, the ways in which the church's teaching can contribute to the development of public policy, the role of Rome in local church affairs -- these are some of the issues we should be talking about, and doing something about. ARCC would add: church governance."

"Before we Catholics, can, in the Cardinal's words, work "together in service to the world, "Hartman said, "we have to return to the spirit of the early Church, which prompted one early Roman observer to say, 'See those Christians, how they love one another."

The Association for the Rights of Catholics in the Church (ARCC) is a national organization of Roman Catholic clergy, religious and lay people with affiliations in eleven European countries. ARCC works for the promulgation of those teachings which were stated at the Second Vatican Council. ARCC accomplishes this task through education advocacy, networking. and the circulation of its document A Constitution for the Roman Catholic Church to the Catholics of the world. For information about ARCC, write or call our office, PO Box 912 Delran, New Jersey, (609)461-8960.

Wednesday May 22, 1996 9:30AM EDT
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

FURTHER INFORMATION:
MARY LOUISE HARTMAN (609)461-8960 OR (609)921-9134

A Catholic reform organization, the Association for the Rights of Catholics in the Church (ARCC), has called on the pope to work for the election of bishops by the world's one billion Catholics.

"Of all the suggestions being made today for reform in the Church," said Mary Louise Hartman, president of ARCC, a U.S. organization based in New Jersey, "the election of bishops would quickly settle many of the Church's most vexing issues. The pope should appoint a commission to work out ways for Catholics to vote for their local leaders." This call, in the form of a referendum for Catholics in the United States, is one of many demands being made by a consortium of Catholic reform organizations in the United States and Europe this year.

In addition to the popular election of bishops, the referendum calls for equal rights for women in the Church, and for the abolition of the law of compulsory celibacy for priests. But it also expresses a hope that the Church will focus on the importance and urgency of other issues that have nothing to do with sexual morality, such as peace and non-violence, social justice and the preservation of the environment.

Those being asked to sign the referendum will, among other things, "embrace and welcome" those who are divorced and remarried, along with married priests and theologians who exercise freedom of speech.

Hartman said that some 2.3 million Catholics in Austria and Germany have already signed such a referendum, and that similar initiatives are under way in Italy, France, Belgium and Holland. In addition to ARCC, other Catholic organizations in the United States will be circulating the referendum during the coming year, after which it will be presented to the leaders of the Church. Hartman hopes that this cry for reform will trigger a constitutional convention for the Church.

In the Church's long history, these types of conventions were called ecumenical councils. Typically, delegates were priests and bishops and members of the laity, meeting in union with the pope, but these councils were not always summoned by the pope. The first council -- Nicea in 325, was called and presided over by a layman, the Emperor Constantine. In fact, all the councils, from the beginning until well into the middle ages were always, with one exception, called by the emperor. Nicea II in the 8th century was the one exception, and it was summoned by a woman, the Empress Irene.

Having the people-at-large call for a council would represent a new democratic twist for a Church that has grown more absolutist since the Council of Trent (1545 to 1563). ARCC says Catholics should expect Pope John Paul II himself to be the biggest cheerleader for democracy in the Church. In his encyclical Centesimus Annus John Paul II said, "The Church values the democratic system, inasmuch as it ensures the participation of citizens in making political choices, guarantees to the governed the possibilities both of electing and holding accountable those who govern them, and of replacing them through peaceful means when appropriate.... Authentic democracy ... requires ... structures of participation and shared responsibility."

Referring to the legitimacy of the referendum, Hartman also quotes Church Law: Canon 212:2-3 states that Catholics "have the right and even at times the duty to manifest to the sacred pastors their opinion on matters which pertain to the good of the Church, and they have a right to make their opinion known to other Christian faithful, with due regard for the integrity of faith and morals."

In effect, members of ARCC want to bring the pope in line with the Church's own most solid democratic traditions. "The early Church elected its own leaders," said Hartman. "And in 1789, the first bishop in U.S. history, John Carroll, was elected by the band of priests then serving the tiny U.S. church."

Said Hartman: "The pontificate of John Paul II has broken with that long democratic tradition, which was given expression in the new democratic charter written by the bishops themselves at Vatican II." ARCC cited a series of dictatorial acts by John Paul II. The most recent was the Vatican's invocation ten months ago of infallibility to squelch all talk of women priests. "The pope," said Hartman, "has failed to live up to his own best democratic instincts. But if we could give him the signatures of ten million Catholics. Or a hundred million...."

The Association for the Rights of Catholics in the Church (ARCC) is a national organization of Roman Catholic clergy, religious and lay people. It is affiliated with the European Network/Church on the Move, reform organizations operating in European nations. ARCC works for the structural change of the Church and the promulgation of those teachings which were stated at the Second Vatican Council. ARCC accomplishes this task through education, advocacy and networking. For information about ARCC, write or call our office, PO Box 912 Delran, New Jersey, (609)461-8960

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: March 28, 1996
Contact: Mary Louise Hartman (609)461-8960 (609)921-9134

Feudalism Lives in Lincoln, Nebraska

The Association for the Rights of Catholics in the Church welcomes the statement of Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz threatening excommunication of those Catholics who are members of certain organizations located in the Diocese of Lincoln, Nebraska. The threat of imposition of excommunication in this, immoderate manner, reminiscent of the 13th century and the Spanish Inquisition, without, presumably, wider consultation with other bishops and without naming the particular "treacherous offenses" in question, is a sure rallying cry for all Catholics who have hesitated to join the numerous Church reform organizations now operating in the United States.

Bishop Bruskewitz embarrasses all Catholics, especially his brother bishops, some of whom are members of Call to Action (one of the groups targeted), in this attempt to exercise a power which is increasingly declining in the face of an educated Catholic population which is no longer willing to tolerate such arbitrary actions. We call on his brother bishops to speak up and convince him that he is bringing our beloved Church into ill-repute with thinking men and women of our times who regard the days of excommunication as long gone.

Bishop Bruskewitz's action makes ARCC more committed than ever to its pursuit of a written constitution for the Roman Catholic Church which would provide all Catholics with the opportunity to elect their leaders-- who (in the words of Saint John XXIII spoken in the context of disagreements among the faithful on matters Catholic) would pursue: "In necessary things, unity; in contingent things, liberty; in all things charity."

The Association for the Rights of Catholics in the Church is an international organization of lay, religious and ordained Catholics organized in 1980 to seek substantive, structural, change in the Roman Catholic Church. Allied with Catholics Organized for Renewal (COR) and the European Network, ARCC is committed to bringing democratic processes into the operation of the Church according to the norms established at the Second Vatican Council.

On 22 November 1995, Mary Louise Hartman, President of ARCC, sent out the following press release in response to a three page letter, dated 28 October 1995, but not published until 18 November, in which Cardinal Ratzinger insists that the Pope's May 1994 ban on discussing the possibility of ordaining women must be taken as "infallible."

Contact: Mary Louise Hartman
609-461-8960
609-921-3924 FAX

The statement issued by Rome's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, with the approval of the Pope, on November 18, making the ban on the ordination of women an infallible teaching reminds us of the saying, "Those whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad." Coming in the wake of Cardinal Ratzinger's declaration that men who are allergic to gluten may not be ordained to the priesthood, mature Catholics have good reason to ponder the truth of that old adage.

This statement brings the tragedy and scandal of Humanae vitae full circle. Applicable here is the ancient Catholic doctrine of "Reception," which states that if a teaching is not accepted by the faithful it is not authentic. This has made Humanae vitae inauthentic teaching. It likewise renders this latest Roman announcement null and void. Right #16 of The Charter of the Rights of Catholics says: "All Catholics, regardless of canonical status (lay or clerical), sex or sexual orientation, have the right to exercise all ministries in the Church for which they are adequately prepared, according to the needs and with the approval of the community."

The failure of the CDF to consult the world's bishops on this issue, a necessary proviso for an infallible statement, once again points up the need for a constitution for the Roman Catholic Church--a constitution that would preclude arbitrary acts of power. Such a constitution would insist on collegial decision making, which was part of the vision of Vatican II.

This time the Vatican has shot itself in both feet. If it is the hope of the Pope and Cardinal Ratzinger that this issue of the ordination of women will die, they are wrong. If it is the hope of the Pope and Cardinal Ratzinger that women who seek ordination will leave the church and stop causing trouble, probably some will. Most will not. If Humanae vitae damaged the credibility of the papacy, this latest pronouncement has destroyed it.

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