ARTICLES
September/October2006 ARTICLES
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by Jim Holman.
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What Do You Mean by "Wiggle Room"?
St. Mary's by the Sea Parishioners Meet with Bishop Brown
BY ROBERT KUMPEL
On July 10, six members of "Restore The Sacred," a group of disappointed parishioners from St. Mary's by the Sea in Huntington Beach, were granted a private audience with Bishop Tod Brown of Orange at the diocese's Marywood Center. Hoping to air their grievances about being told by their pastor, Father Martin Tran, that kneeling at the Agnus Dei is a mortal sin, these parishioners could not believe that the bishop was meeting with them. (See "Canonically, It's Gobbledygook," May 2006 Mission.) In their flyer numbered "33," Restore the Sacred called the meeting "cordial, respectful and instructive." While "cordial" and "respectful" may be accurate descriptions of the meeting, "instructive" is probably more apt.
The following account of the meeting is drawn from the accounts of Restore the Sacred members who attended it.
Sitting at a large meeting table, Bishop Brown was flanked on his left by his vicar general, Father Michael Heher, and on his right by his secretary, Father Tuan Joseph Pham, and diocesan director of worship, Lesa Truxaw. The parish group presented Bishop Brown with a list of customs they wanted to keep at their parish, including kneeling after the Agnus Dei and at the communion rail. They asked as well that only males serve at the altar and argued that extraordinary ministers were not needed at their parish, since less than ten percent of parishioners approach the chalice at communion.
The meeting began with the bishop asking each parishioner at the table what he or she felt.
Parishioner 1: "It seems as though you look the other way at some strange liturgical practices in the diocese. Why can't you give us some wiggle room?"
Bishop Brown: "What do you mean by 'wiggle room'?"
Parishioner 1: "There are other things going on that are not acceptable. Just ask her."
Parishioner 2: "Well, for example, the Neocatechumenate Mass has its own customs that are not in line with what the Vatican wants. I know at least two churches where congregants stand at the consecration, and that is not the norm. So when we're told that we can't kneel after the Agnus Dei, it feels like selective enforcement."
Silence.
Parishioner 3: "Why were people kicked off the parish council for kneeling?"
Bishop Brown: "If you cannot follow the norms, you should not be in a position of leadership. But you are free to kneel if your conscience so dictates."
Parishioner 2: "Then why are you blaming Father Tran for calling this a mortal sin? I was on the parish council and privy to the meetings where Father Tran listened to the needs and wants of the parish regarding our customs. He told us to get a 'liturgical specialist' to listen to what we wanted, and they would meet with the liturgical specialist of the diocese and see if they could work something out. Then, the very next day, wasn't it you, Father Heher, who came to St. Mary's, and the meeting never occurred -- that was you, isn't that right?"
Silence.
Parishioner 2: "I feel, in all honesty, that Father Tran cared about us so much that he might have even let us kneel. He was only being an obedient priest to you, Bishop Brown. Bishop Brown, it's not important for me to be on any council, but what you're saying is that, by my desire to kneel down and adore Jesus, I now fit the criteria of 'unfit to serve.'"
Silence.
Parishioner 2: "I have a petition here signed by 1,200 people asking that the Tridentine Mass remain at St. Mary's. I know you already have this list, because we sent it to you a year ago. I'm very sad that we have 400 parishioners -- families whose children were baptized together -- they've left. I know you allow the old rite of the Mass down in San Juan Capistrano, Bishop Brown, but for a young mother with small children, to be at Mass at eight o'clock after a one-hour drive and discover when you get there that there's no seating available, that's a great hardship on the faithful. To reach out to them would be pastoral. I know that at least 400 of them have gone over to Our Lady, Help of Christians, an independent chapel in Garden Grove."
Bishop Brown: "Independent chapel? I don't know what you mean."
Parishioner 2: "Our Lady, Help of Christians. It's a schismatic chapel that offers the Tridentine Rite. They've recently added three Masses, which means there about 800 Catholic attending Mass there every Sunday. Bishop Brown, that is no small number not to reach out to."
Silence.
Parishioner 4: "Can't St. Mary's just have its traditions respected? I drive all the way from Palos Verdes just to attend Mass there."
Bishop Brown: "Our first need is to deal with the people in our diocese." [Palos Verdes is in the Los Angeles archdiocese.]
Parishioner 4: "I wonder which wise bishop allowed the Mass to stay here that should have been left the way it was? [A reference to Bishop Brown's predecessor, Bishop Norman McFarland, who allowed the Tridentine Mass at St. Mary's.] I've been a friend to St. Mary's, Ibeen a benefactor to its building fund, and I love that parish."
Silence.
Parishioner 5: "I had been away from the Church for 40 years when I stumbled upon this little parish. I decided to go in and give it a try, and when I saw it was the Old Mass, I fell in love with it, and I started going back to Mass after being away for years."
Bishop Brown: "Welcome back."
Parishioner 5: "I rediscovered my Catholic faith! My eighty year-old father started coming to Mass with me. The first time he came, we went home, he sat in a chair, and he wept. He had found God again. And this is ecumenical! I have brought many Protestant friends to St. Mary's by the Sea and they have experienced the reverence of worship, and they are now asking me about the Catholic faith."
Bishop Brown nods silently.
Parishioner 5: "I respect your desire for diversity, but can't we keep our traditions at our parish and have that under the umbrella of diversity too? We're not asking the whole diocese to change, but why can't we at our little parish have our diverse form or worship?"
Bishop Brown: "Interesting, interesting."
A diocesan employee walks into the room and hands Bishop Brown a piece of paper, which he seems to read with interest. The paper simply has the time of day on it.
Father Heher [to Parishioner 2]: "I want to thank you for reaching out to the independent church. I've made several attempts to contact them, and I've been unsuccessful."
Bishop Brown: "It was wrong for Father Tran to use the words 'mortal sin' about your kneeling, but it's been rectified now."
Parishioner 6: "I'm sorry, Your Excellency, but it has not been rectified. The retraction only appears in an obscure place on the diocesan website, and no one could possibly find it unless they were led to it. I had to be led to it. And not everyone has a computer."
Parishioner 2: "Here's a letter from an 82-year-old to the papal nuncio. This is a couple who Father Tran told, that if they knelt down on purpose, it was a mortal sin. This couple knocked on the sacristy door, and he told them that personally! They're asking the papal nuncio to intervene, because they are near the end of their years and don't want to die in a state of mortal sin! They don't have a computer."
Bishop Brown: "All right. I'll take care of that."
Parishioner 2: "He's still telling people to stand."
Bishop Brown: "I didn't know that was still going on."
Parishioner 4: "Just this week, he told some people that they had to stand."
Bishop Brown [looking at the list of requests]: "All right. I'll discuss that with him. And I pledge to you that I will get back to you in writing, and I will go down here and see if there is any 'wiggle room.'"
The following week, the St. Mary's by the Sea bulletin published an apology from Fr. Tran for using the term "mortal sin" with regard to kneeling. Yet even in his apology, Father Tran noted that failure to obey the bishop's liturgical norms would be "an objectively serious" matter. Restore the Sacred members also report that a parishioner recently asked Father Tran about kneeling, affirming that Bishop Brown allows it. According to one Restore the Sacred member, Father Tran replied, "oh no! Bishop Brown only meant that for the people who were at the meeting with him or the ones who signed the flyer."
One Restore the Sacred member said that the bishop was, indeed, very polite, but subdued. "He was sizing us up. Before we walked in there, they had us pegged as right-wing extremists. He probably only met with us because of public pressure after the Los Angeles Times story ("A Ban On Kneeling? Some Catholics Won't Stand For It," Los Angeles Times, May 28, 2006). Someone from the Times told us that the story brought in the most letters for that week. The problem is, no one who we've told about this meeting believes Bishop Brown."
Father Michael Heher's gratitude for Parishioner 2 for contacting the independent chapel seemed to indicate the diocese's full knowledge of its existence, yet Bishop Brown appeared not to know of it. When asked to explain the discrepancy, Father Heher insisted that Bishop Brown meant that he wasn't sure just what an independent chapel was. When asked if Bishop Brown's permission for parishioners to follow their conscience was for any parishioner, Father Heher said that was correct. However, Heher would not comment on Father Tran's reported remarks that kneeling in good conscience was only permitted for those who met with the bishop. "Before I'd make a response, I'd talk to Father Tran," he said. "I'm not going to carry on what would be business between the bishop and the administrator of the parish in the press."
Father Tran did not respond to requests to comment on this story.