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Bishop Joensen and the local Priest Council extend ‘ban’ Catholic Mass at Des Moines Catholic Worker
First, the good news. The Des Moines Catholic Worker community is starting weekly Saturday 9:30 a.m. liturgies at Dingman House – all are welcome! Hopefully, this can be our community’s positive response to Bishop Joensen’s terrible July 7th letter and bring back to life our community’s long history of providing the eucharist.
In 2019 when Bishop Joensen became the Bishop of Des Moines, I made efforts to see and talk to him about the Des Moines Catholic Worker, our works of mercy, our relationship with the Catholic Church, and current issues we were working on, the local Black Lives Matter protests and our Armed Drone Command Center campaign.
I also made it a point to ask the bishop to lift the “No Catholic Mass Ban and Bar” from the Des Moines Catholic Worker community..
Over the last four years, the Bishop and I have met several times. Each time we spoke openly to each other about many things. We clearly are not in agreement on a number of important church issues. Yet, the fact that we were talking was enough for me.
On May 9th of this year I met with Bish[1]op Joensen, Fr. Dave Polich, Fr. John Ludwig, and Fr. Mike Amadeo, specifically about lifting the “No Mass Ban” at the Des Moines Catholic Worker. It was a good discussion. We covered a lot of history. I spoke personally about my own struggles with the Church and weekend Masses.
For Bishop Joensen, the one thing the Des Moines Catholic Worker would need to agree to, in order to lift the “No Mass Ban,” was not to let a woman celebrate a Catholic Mass in our houses. The Bishop has no problem with women of other faiths celebrating a bread and wine liturgy at the Des Moines Catholic Worker, nor did he have an issue with people of other faiths worshiping at our houses.
We ended the meeting amicably. No decision was made. I told the bishop I needed to talk to my ommunity before getting back to him. He would do the same with the Priest Council.
Then I got a letter from Bishop Joensen on July 7th extending the “Mass Ban and Bar” at the Des Moines Catholic Worker, end of discussion.
The bishop gave two reasons for his decision to end our discussion and keep the “No Mass Ban” intact. He wrote:
“Two areas of serious concern have arisen since we met: (1) your recent reiterated public support and solidarity with the ‘Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence’ at the most recent Des Moines Pride Parade. This is highly objection[1]able and insulting to our religious sisters of various communities who have selflessly served the Church in our Diocese and beyond for more than a century. The ‘Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence’ lampoon and misappropriate the symbols associated with religious life and make a mockery of these noble and dedicated women who serve all sorts of vulnerable persons, using them for their own purposes and agenda to a degree that is not only offensive, but blasphemous. (2) Your most recent ‘beg letter’ highlighted many salutary works being performed by folks associated with the Catholic Worker House in the name of social justice and the lifting up of the poor. Yet, it also calls attention to ‘Rev. Amy Bruner, our local Catholic Women (sic) priest.’ I trust and am edified that Rev. Bruner performs the work of the Gospel on many fronts, including her ministry to immigrants. At the same time, given her public affiliation with the group, ‘Roman Catholic Women Priest,’ a group who is not in communion with the Catholic Church, and given your seeming affirmation of her self-declared status, I cannot have moral assurance that you would provide appropriate oversight that any prospective Mass at the Catholic Worker House would be celebrated only by a validly ordained Catholic priest, precluding invalid attempts at celebration or concelebrating by other parties.
For these reasons, and with the concurrence of the diocesan Presbyterian Council, I conclude that I cannot grant your request to resume periodic celebrations of Mass at the Phil Berrigan Peace and Justice Catholic Worker House.”
After I got Bishop Joensen’s July 7th letter, I was very hurt. I emailed copies of the bishop’s letter to priests and sisters I know in the diocese asking the following questions:
Is marching in the Des Moines Pride Parade with the Sisters and mentioning in the Berrigan beg Rev. Amy, a Woman Catholic Priest, is volunteering and helping with our asylum seeking families sooooo offensive?
Do the religious women in our diocese agree with the bishop and Priest Council on this?
Has the Bishop or any of the priests talked to our local Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence chapter and asked them about who they are and their relationship with Catholic nuns?
Did you all know that the local Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence have been cooking for the Des Moines Catholic Worker on a regular basis for years? Our community member, Julie Brown’s, fathers are both members of the local Sisters Chapter. Has anyone talked to them?
Do you know the Los Angeles Catholic Worker has been letting women celebrate mass in their community for years? They are also open critics of the Archdiocese and their bishop on many fronts, but their archbishop and priests don’t ban Catholic Mass at the Los Angeles Catholic Worker!
What’s going on in our Diocese? Can any of you explain it?
We Need a Solid Canonical Lawyer
I also emailed a copy of the Bishop’s letter to Fr. Michael F. Czerny SJ, who I now find out is Cardinal Czerny, head of the Office Promoting Integral Human Development at the Vatican.
Ten years ago, in 2013 at the World Food Prize, I met Fr. Michael F. Czerny SJ. He was our Occupy the World Food Prize folk’s contact person for Cardinal Turkson, the Pope’s main peace and justice guy. It was the high point of our Occupy the World Food Prize five-year campaign. Cardinal Turkson was invited by the World Food Prize to talk at their event. When he came to Des Moines to give the official talk at the State Capitol, he insisted he also come to our Occupy the World Food Prize venue to listen to our concerns and to address our gathering.
Over the years I have kept Fr. Czerny on my email list.
On August 1st, I emailed Fr. Czerny SJ, to the same email address he had ten years ago, a copy of Bishop Joensen’s letter saying, “I believe Bishop Joensen is being very unfair and clerical in dealing with me and the Des Moines Catholic Worker. Can you help us?”
Two days later I got the below email back from Cardinal Czerny’s office in Rome:
“Dear Frank, Cardinal Czerny thanks you for your email of August 1. He is suggesting you first seek the advice of a wise canonist in the United States, who could help prepare the case, and then contact the Dicastery for Clergy (clero@cclergy.va) and for bishops (vati096@cbishops.va).
Cordially, Aiza Asi, General Secretariat
Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Devel[1]opment Palazzo San Calisto, 00120 Vatican City
+39 06698 92734”
We want to keep fighting this, and as Cardinal Czerny’s email outlines, our best shot is finding a good canonical lawyer. If you know anyone who fits this bill or may be able to help, please contact us!
Des Moines Catholic Worker Liturgies – Past
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I have a profound sense of long-haul grief for our local Catholic Diocese.
Why?
Because, once we had a bishop, Maurice Dingman, from 1968 to 1986. He was a Vatican II bishop who trusted in the Holy Spirit and the People of God enough to believe true dialogue began with the people whom you disagree with. He made the spirit of “slow and constant dialogue” the heart of his pastoral life as our bishop.
It was during his tenure that the Des Moines Catholic Worker started with his full blessing and support. Catholic Workers don’t need the blessing or support of their local bishop to start or exist, but it didn’t hurt to have it!
Today, four bishops and 37 years later, we find ourselves in a very different Catholic church, country, and world, and not for the better.
In the process, the Des Moines Catholic Worker community has evolved in our understanding of ourselves, our faith, and our relationship with our local bishops, the larger Catholic Church, and the Catholic Worker movement.
In the Dingman years, the Des Moines Catholic Worker was squarely in the camp of (unofficial) Official Roman Catholic Church approval. We were listed in the Diocesan Directo[1]ry. Mass was celebrated weekly on Friday nights at 713 Indiana Ave, our first house, now known as the Phil Berrigan House. Bishop Dingman was part of the rotating priests who celebrated Mass every Friday.
In the Bishop Dingman years, we could publicly criticize the Catholic Church. I know I did! We could publicly advocate for women’s ordination, and, no matter what we said about the Church, Bishop Dingman would always want to talk to us about our concerns. He never gave up on dialogue and doing what he could, within the limits of Church law, to meet people’s needs.
In addition, during the Dingman years, we were encouraged and led by Bishop Dingman n to be proactive for peace and justice, and nonviolently protest United States-led wars and violence across the globe and here at home. We were encouraged and led by Bishop Dingman to address the issues of abortion, prison reforms, racism, Native American rights, United States foreign policy, nuclear weapons, the arms race, and global industrial agriculture.
As Catholics, we were encouraged to be ecumenical, to celebrate the Eucharist everywhere and anywhere where Christians found common ground. As a priest, I was allowed to do experimental home and small group litur[1]gies. Sadly, it is not so now.
Bishop Dingman worked within church law and teachings. Today the church laws of the “how’s” and “who’s” regarding mass have changed, putting us back into the 1950s communion wars mentality. Still, the church’s social justice teachings have not changed.
Today’s younger priests live in a church which places far more emphasis on uniformity when celebrating mass and at the same time, are led by bishops who ignore all other church teachings on peace and justice issues, except abortion. On this issue, they effectively mirror the social agenda of the Republican Party.
Even though the Des Moines Catholic Worker stopped doing weekly liturgies, we took public and strong stands for women priests, homosexuality, and “Open Communion.”
See:
July 2014 via pacis – see pages 6 & 7 stories on Rev Janice Sevre-Duszynska https://viapacis.wordpress.com/2017/04/05/2014-2-july-v-p/
Also: Dec 2014 via pacis – see page 9 Announcement “Rev Janice Sevre-Duszynska to celebrate Mass at Dingman House” https://viapacis.wordpress.com/2017/04/05/2015-4-dec-v-p/
All of this came to a flash point in 2016 when our community invited Rev Janice Sevre-Duszynska, a friend, fellow peace activist and a, Roman Catholic Woman Priest (RCWP) to concelebrate with Rev Mary Kay Kusner, RCWP, from Iowa City, our 40th Anniversary Celebration Mass, with Fr Roy Bourgeois as our keynote speaker for the weekend.
See: https://wordpress.com/post/frankcordaro.wordpress.com/7474
This set-in motion a very public censorship by Bishop Pates and the Priest Presbyteral Council, banning all Catholic priests from celebrating mass at the Des Moines Catholic Worker. This, despite the fact we were publicly a nondenominational, ecumenical, interfaith Catholic Worker community.
We managed to get a meeting with Bishop Pates and the Priest Presbyteral Council regarding their “Mass Ban and Bar.” It was a mind-blowing experience for me. For better than an hour, each one of us, bishop, priest and Catholic Workers, got to speak.
The dispute made TV and radio news and the Des Moines Register covered it. Stories about the “No Mass Ban and Bar” can be found in our July and December 2014 issues of the Via Pacis.
Also: https://frankcordaro.wordpress.com/2017/02/17/dec-2015-v-p-womens-ordination-and-the-dmcw-p-5/
No doubt in my mind, these were some of our better movements as a Catholic Worker community, calling out the sin of sexism committed by our Des Moines Catholic clerical establishment. Even though it appeared to me we won the arguments, at the end of the day, the “ban and bar” remained.
Since then, our community’s shared faith and prayer life continued a slow decline. During the two-plus years we lived through the COVID-19 pandemic, and our community’s spiritual life became a desert for me: there was none.
Des Moines Catholic Worker Today – Something new, Something Old, Renewed Again a LiturgicalLife.
It was only after I moved to Manning House as part of the elder collective that things started to change. Soon after we moved in together, Norman, Ed and I, along with Austin Cook, started doing a lectionary/prayer circle five days a week.
Soon after that, we started doing a liturgy of sorts, doing everything we do the other four days, and at the end have a short blessing with bread and wine on Saturdays.
After Norman’s death, Rev. Bob Cook joined the circle after moving back into the community at Manning House. Annie often joins us. After Austin took leave of our community, Taylor Burkhead, who’s Catholic, replaced him as our faithful young person. Other folks have joined us as well, among them Rev. Amy Bruner. I wrote about Amy in my annual 2023 Phil Berrigan beg later:
“Thank God for Rev. Amy Bruner, our local Catholic Woman Priest. She is a Godsend to our community. Rev. Amy started volunteering right around the time we took in our two immigrant families. She’s been helping our families a lot! One thing she is doing is helping me with the immigration and legal stuff our Honduran family is up against. I am so grateful for her help.”
Rev. Amy has since then joined us for prayer at Manning House and has started sharing with me, presiding over our weekly Saturday morning liturgies at Manning House.
All of this is to say it’s time for us to bring back a weekly community eucharist. It’s central to any Catholic, and it’s central to the Catholic Worker movement.
We are now publicly inviting all our friends and supporters to come join us for our weekly Saturday liturgies, led by Rev. Amy or me, every other week. We are open to having more people preside as we mature in our liturgy life.
I’m excited about celebrating our liturgies back in the Dingman House’s first floor dining room every Saturday morning. It’s the space where we serve Jesus five days a week. If the space is good enough for “poor Jesus,” it’s ideal for the Jesus in our liturgy’s bread and wine!
Come join us!
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