Outreach will also go beyond our own Church walls. We have identified over 325 former Roman Catholic priests in the United States alone who are now serving with dignity and honor in the Episcopal Church. We are looking for ways to identify and connect with others who are now serving in the Lutheran, United Church of Christ, and other main line Protestant denominations. We are working on developing contacts with the numbers of women who, in order to be true to their own call to sacramental ministry, have been ordained in other Christian communions. These men and women, our sisters and brothers in ministry, have stories to tell and experiences of value to help us move toward inclusivity.
Back at home, we are working on expanding our outreach to canonical priests to whom we can be supportive, and the over 500 worker-priests with whom we share a ministry perspective. From press stories we know that by 2010 about 60% of Catholic theologians will be lay people, mid 75% of them will be women. We know that they, and the pastoral associates already functioning in our parishes, can use our encouragement and support. We know that there are dioceses where married priests already provide ministerial service and bishops who see us as partners. We want to promote those relationships and take them to the next level. Over the past year we have been continuously amazed as well to discover there is a whole new generation that needs to know that a married priesthood is alive in the Roman Church.
Soon after our election as new board members, Bill, Ray and I sent off letters of introduction to Bishop Wilton Gregory, USCCB President, Rev Robert Silva, NFPC President, and Rev Cletus Kiley, USCCB Executive Director Priestly Life & Ministry. To each, we highlighted that "[ coRpus members'] experiences across a very broad spectrum of theological, philosophical, pastoral and spiritual paths can be of particular value to the US Church at this moment." We requested the opportunity to begin a serious dialogue process that would create a movement of formal healing between representatives of the "official Church," those of us who transitioned from canonical ministry, and those supporting an inclusive sacramental ministry.
As I sit to write this communiqu￩ with you I just received a warm declining letter from Bishop Gregory. He stated that he did 11 not think that a dialogue between the Conference and corpus would be productive or helpful. In fact, such an event would more likely achieve just the opposite result, creating confusion for those who do support the Church's discipline for a celibate priesthood, as well as among those who do not embrace and support that discipline." We have yet, however, to receive a reply to our follow-up calls to Bob Silva or Cletus Kiley.
We had hoped that the experiences of the American Church during the past year would have created an atmosphere more ready for dialogue and collaboration... obviously not at the level of full repatriation ... but tentative steps ... talking, at least. In the Spirit's good time, I guess. It is amazing how far we have come with the support we have received thus far.
Numbers of you have responded generously to our annual Christmas appeal. Many of you have already responded to our postcards reminding you to renew membership. Encouraging your friends who support our mission to become active participants is invaluable.
We need local spokespersons to represent CORPUS to priests councils and NFPC area representatives. We need persons in each diocese willing to be the local voice of CORPUS to bishops, pastoral councils, and pastoral ministers. We need people willing to make a few phone calls, or even answer an inquiry from local media. We want CoRpus to be the vital local and national voice for change we know it can be. We know you are already overloaded, but you would be amazed how much further we can go with a few more helping hands.
Finally, most of all, we need your prayers AND we need to hear from you directly. We need to know how we can be of support to you. We need to communicate with each other how we can be sources of encouragement when times seem less than hopeful.
Together we have been gifted with a vision of Church that people are longing to experience. Help us build that Church worthy of our children and grandchildren, and ourselves.
Thank you for blessing us with your presence.
