WAILING WALL
The Legacy Lingers: Will a New Pope Bring Change?
Matthew Fox comments on the dismissal of peace witness John Dear from the Jesuit Order:
“I wish John Dear much strength and peace in what is sure to be still more commitment to peace and justice. I also thank him as do millions of others for his generous and courageous witness to Gospel values all these years. I am sad at the news and the deja vu reality of his story which sounds so familiar to my own and hundreds of others within the Catholic Church of the past 34 years.
One hopes that the new pope, whose message seems to be genuinely Gospel-based, will be successful to putting an end to the spiritual timidity of the male religious orders and what the priesthood has become under the last two papacies.”
Silenced, Expelled, or Banished Theologians
and Pastoral Leaders Under Ratzinger
(Excerpted from The Pope’s War: Why Ratzinger’s Secret Crusade Has Imperiled the Church and How It Can Be Saved)
It is good that we remember those who tried to serve but were banished in doing so. This list is only partial, and of course it continues to grow. As one editor of a Catholic newspaper wrote to me: “Some theologians are not publicly disenfranchised but nonetheless are marginalized and in effect banned. Friends in these jobs tell me moral theology is basically dead in RC institutions because of the chill.” It is a strange organization indeed that fires its thinkers and leaders, those who respond to the “signs of the times.”
The work of these various persons varied as did their sentences. For example, some were fired from their jobs as editors of Catholic journals, others were expelled from their orders or expelled from their teaching positions, and some were hounded. All were tainted by the accusations from Rome, and many had to withdraw from their ministries. Some were rendered homeless; others died of heart attacks under the pressure. It is the people they served who were punished the most by the detour of distraction from their work that it took to defend themselves and ultimately by their absence. That is why a wailing wall is appropriate – a grieving ritual to remember and process all we have lost, all that might have been. And as a thank-you for their generous service.
- Jon Sobrino, S.J (El Salvador, born in Spain)
- Bernard Haring, CSsR (Germany)
- Sr. Lavinia Byrne, IBVM (UK)
- Jacques Dupres, SJ (France)
- Thomas Reese, SJ (USA)
- Professor Michael Buckley (USA )
- Fr. Philip S. Keane, SS (USA)
- Fr. John McNeil, SJ (USA)
- David Hollenbach, SJ (USA)
- Anthony de Mello, SJ (Indian Goan priest)
- Michael Morwood (Victoria, Australia)
- Bishop Thomas Gumbleton (Detroit, USA)
- Archbishop Paulo Evaristo Arns (Sao Paulo, Brazil)
- Jose Antonio Pagola (Basque)
- Fr. Hans Kung (Switzerland)
- Fr. Edward Schillebeeckx, OP (Holland)
- Fr. Charles Curran (USA)
- Fr. Leonardo Boff, OFM (Brazil)
- Fr. Anthony Kosnik (USA)
- Fr. Gustavo Gutierrez (Peru)
- Fr. Karl Rahner, SJ (Germany)
- Fr. Matthew Fox, OP (USA)
- Sr. Mary Agnes Mansour, RSM (USA)
- Sr. Elizabeth Morancy, RSM (USA)
- Sr. Arlene Violet, RSM (USA)
- Archbishop Raymond Hunthausen (Seattle, USA)
- Fr. Ernesto Cardenal (Nicaragua)
- Fr. Robert Nugent (USA)
- Sr. Jeannine Gramick (USA)
- Sr. Barbara Ferraro, SND (USA)
- Sr. Patricia Hussey, SND (USA
- Miguel d’Escoto, Maryknoll (Nicaragua)
- Fr. Edgar Parrales (Nicaragua)
- Uriel Molina, OFM (Nicaragua)
- Jean-Bertrand Aristide (Haiti)
- Fr. Tissa Balasuriya, OMI (Sri Lanka)
- Fr. Eugen Drewermann (Germany)
- Sr. Ivone Gebara, SND (Brazil)
- Bishop Jacques Gaillot (France)
- Fr. Fernando Cardenal, SJ (USA)
- Fr. Roger Haight, SJ (USA)
- Sr. Margaret McBride (USA)
- Fr. Andre Guindon (Canada)
- Bishop Remi DeRoo (Canada, forcibly retired)
- Bishop Pedro Casaldaliga (Brazil)
- Fr. Paul Collins (Australia)
- Sr. Jane Kelly (USA)
- Bishop Helder Camara (Brazil)
- Fr. Gyorgy Bulanyi (Hungary)
- Don Luigi Sartori (Italy)
- Fr. Eugenio Melandri (Italy)
- Fr. Paul Valadier, SJ (France)
- Don Vittorio Cristelli (Italy)
- Bishop Bartolome Carrasco Briseno (Mexico)
- Fr. Philippe Denis, OP (France)
- Bishop Samuel Ruiz (Mexico)
- Teresa Berger (Germany)
- Fr. Renato Kizito Sesana (Kenya)
- Don Leonardo Zega (Italy)
- Fr. John Sye Kongseok (Korea)
- Fr. Paul Cheong Yang-mo (Korea)
- Fr. Edouard Ri Jemin (Korea)
- Jacques Dupuis, SJ (Belgium)
- Luigi Lombardi Vallauri (Italy)
- Fr. Jim Callan (USA)
- Monsignor Luigi Marinelli (Italy)
- Reinhard Messner (Austria)
- Fr. Marciano Vidal (Spain)
- Josef Imbach, OFM (Italy)
- Don Franco Barbero (Italy
- Fr. Cipriano Carini, OSB (Italy)
- Juan Jose Tamayo (Spain)
- Don Vitaliano Della Sala (Italy)
- Rev. Mary Ramerman (USA)
- Rev. Ludmila Javorova (Czechoslovakia)
- Bishop Felix Maria Davidek (Czechoslovakia)
- Rev. Christine Mayr-Lumetzberger (Austria)
- Rev. Adelinde Theresia Roitinger (Austria)
- Rev. Gisela Forster (Germany)
- Rev. Iris Muller (Germany)
- Rev. Ida Raming (Germany)
- Rev. Pia Brunner (Germany)
- Rev. Angela White (Austria and USA)
- Fr. Edward Cachia (Canada)
- Fr. Clodovis Boff (Brazil)
- Fr. Bill Callahan, SJ (USA)
- Fr. Johannes Metz (Germany)
- Fr. Pedro Arrupe, SJ (Spain)
- Fr. Alvaro Arguello (Nicaragua)
- Fr. Jacques Pohier, OP (France)
- Archbishop Oscar Romero (El Salvador)
- Fr. John Dear, SJ (USA)
- Fr. Roy Bourgeois, MM (USA)
- Bishop William Morris (Australia)
- Elizabeth A. Johnson (USA)
- Fr. Jose Maria Vigil, CMF (Spain)
- Fr. Jose Comblin, CMF (Spain)
- Bishop George Robinson (Australia)
- Fr. Willigis Jager, OSB (Germany