Brother Jeffrey Gros, RIP

Brother Jeffrey Gros, 75, died in Chicago, IL on August 12, 2013. A De La Salle Christian Brother for 58 years, he was born John Jefferson in Memphis, TN, the son of Jeff and Faye (Dickinson) Gros. He graduated from Price College in Amarillo, TX, entered the novitiate of the Brothers in Glencoe, MO, in 1955, and professed his final vows in 1963. He received a BA and a MEd from St. Mary’s University of Minnesota.

Brother Jeffrey earned an MA in Theology from Marquette University and a PhD in Theology from Fordham University. During his years as an educator, he taught in Evanston and Romeoville, IL, Glencoe and St. Louis, MO, and Memphis, TN. He was well known in the ecumenical movement for broadening its scope, published widely in theological journals and periodicals, edited numerous books on ecumenism, and spoke to various religious and educational groups throughout the world. Continue reading “Brother Jeffrey Gros, RIP” →

Amen to it all: my first Holy Communion and then what happened

by John Kotre

My first Holy Communion was white. It was back in 1948 and the girls wore little bridal outfits and the boys white shirts and pants. The priest was vested in white and a white cloth covered the communion rail. The bread I received was itself white–a thin, almost transparent wafer. I let it dissolve on my tongue. “You don’t chew Jesus,” Sister Girard had told us. It was her way of saying “transubstantiation.”

I didn’t chew Jesus but I don’t remember talking to him either. My face was buried in my hands, and I was imagining what a softening host looked like in my mouth, far from my teeth. Sister Girard said that communion poured sanctifying grace into our souls, and for years I pictured that grace as milk. After each communion I checked my milk-bottle soul and saw that the level of grace had risen. It must have gone down between communions because I was never able to top off the tank.

In my teens the milk bottle gave way to abstract thinking. Now I could absorb concepts like transubstantiation, and so I did during six years as a Jesuit seminarian. Continue reading “Amen to it all: my first Holy Communion and then what happened” →

News release on 2013 Bridgefolk conference

2013 Bridgefolk conference to focus on reconciliation
News release
June 6, 2013

Collegeville, MN (Bridgefolk) – Bridgefolk, the Mennonite-Catholic ecumenical organization, will hold its 12^th annual conference July 25-28 at Conrad Grebel University College in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. The conference theme, “Reconciliation: A Way to Peace,” is one of a series focusing on key spiritual practices that unite both Mennonites and Roman Catholics. Continue reading “News release on 2013 Bridgefolk conference” →

Register now for Bridgefolk 2013 conference!

Bridgefolk 2013 online registration is now open! Under the theme “Reconciliation: A Way to Peace,” Bridgefolk is holding its 12^th annual conference July 25-28 at Conrad Grebel University College in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. The conference will feature John Rempel (Toronto Mennonite Theological Centre) and Christian McConnell (St. Michael’s College, University of Toronto) as keynote speakers. Conference sessions will include times of worship, instruction, reflection, and fellowship (including agape meal, hymn sing, and ice cream social!). As a grassroots movement of Catholics and Mennonites “proceeding through friendship,” Bridgefolk welcomes all those interested to join us. Day registration options are available for Friday and Saturday. Child care will be provided on request. For registration, schedule, and travel information, go to http://www.bridgefolk.net/conferences/bridgefolk-2013.

Catholic bishop and Mennonite Central Committee partner wins U.N. prize for peace work in South Sudan

Bishop Emeritus Paride Taban, a long-term friend of Mennonite Central Committee, recently won a U.N. award for peace work he did in South Sudan. (Photo courtesy of Håvard Kleppa, the Oslo Center)

AKRON, Pa. (MCC) – The peacebuilding efforts of Bishop Emeritus Paride Taban, a longstanding friend of Mennonite Central Committee (MCC), were recognized at a March 1 ceremony in Geneva, Switzerland.

The Catholic bishop from South Sudan won the United Nations 2013 Sergio Vieira de Mello Peace Prize for his work with the Holy Trinity Peace Village in Kuron, where he helped to build peace and trust among people in conflict over cattle rustling. Continue reading “Catholic bishop and Mennonite Central Committee partner wins U.N. prize for peace work in South Sudan” →

Pope Francis: “Build bridges, not walls”

(Vatican Radio) Evangelization is not proselytizing. This was the focus of Pope Francis’ remarks to faithful gathered for Mass on Wednesday morning in the Chapel of the Domus Sanctae Marthae residence in the Vatican. The Pope reiterated that the Christian who wants to proclaim the Gospel must dialogue with everyone, knowing that no one owns the truth, because the truth is received by the encounter with Jesus.

Pope Francis stressed the courageous attitude of Paul St Paul at the Areopagus, when, in speaking to the Athenian crowd, he sought to build bridges to proclaim the Gospel. The Pope called Paul’s attitude one that “seeks dialogue” and is “closer to the heart” of the listener. The Pope said that this is the reason why St Paul was a real pontifex: a “builder of bridges” and not of walls. The Pope went on to say that this makes us think of the attitude that a Christian ought always to have. Continue reading “Pope Francis: “Build bridges, not walls”” →

Ivan Kauffman: Pope Francis and peace

Bridgefolk perspectives on Pope Francis

For the past half-century, ever since John XXIII and Vatican II, the popes have been strong advocates of peace. Since John Paul II they have been non-Italians. And beginning with John Paul they have been increasingly attractive to the evangelical community. If early indications endure, this trend will continue under Pope Francis—and if so it will be strengthened, and likely become permanent. This has profound and long-lasting significance for the Mennonite-Catholic reconciliation in which Bridgefolk has played an important role.

This is very good news, but it also comes with a price. A pope from Argentina inevitably brings the legacy of that nation’s “Dirty War” with him—and with it the Churches’ inaction during the reign of terror and state-sanctioned murder, which impacted all the Americas, including the United States in that period. Along with the gift of this attractive new papacy we must now confront our unwillingness and our inability to deal with this great mass of political evil.

In his final speech before being elected pope and choosing the name Francis, Cardinal Bergoglio told his fellow cardinals he heard Jesus knocking at the door, but that he heard Jesus knocking from inside the Church, asking to be let out into the world. It is widely believed this speech played a major role in his election. Belonging to a Church which goes out with Christ into the world’s evil and suffering will be a very different experience for most of us. It will require not only personal and political change, it will require some new institutions. But this is an opportunity, not a burden, and it is one that both Catholics and Mennonites can enthusiastically embrace. Let us do so.

Ivan J. Kaufman is a co-founder of the Bridgefolk movement.

Julia Smucker: A pontiff to build bridges

Bridgefolk perspectives on Pope Francis

One meaning of the word “pontiff,” as some have pointed out, is “bridge-builder,” and there was much speculation going into the conclave that the need for a pope to bridge geological and ideological divides in the worldwide Catholic Church would be a prominent concern on the cardinals’ minds. Electing someone with pastoral as well as managerial capabilities, who could connect the first and third world and represent the breadth and depth of Catholic teaching and praxis, seemed like a tall order, but they appear to have found their man in Cardinal Bergoglio, now Pope Francis. As an Argentinean with Italian parentage, Francis comes to the papacy with an understanding of the concerns facing the Church in multiple contexts. He has demonstrated a deep concern for the poor and marginalized which has already become a defining feature of his pontificate, while also acknowledging the “spiritual poverty” that pervades much of the industrial West. Not only does he show strong commitment to social justice as well as doctrinal soundness, he has a remarkable way of showing by word and deed that the two are inseparable.

Our affable pontiff has great potential to unify the Catholic Church, but if he is to do so, we must all do our part by resisting temptations to turn him into a polarizing figure or force him into any ideological mold. This may be a particular challenge for Catholics in the United States, steeped as we are in a dramatically polarized political and ecclesial atmosphere. No pope has been truly compatible with North American political labels, but ironically the first “New World” pope is particularly poised to give us a fresh reminder of this. His deep love for the poor and his deep commitment to the Catholic tradition cannot be set against each other, in short, because he is Catholic. Hopefully, what he teaches by example can inspire us to bridge divides in our own corners of the Catholic world.

Julia Smucker is graduate student in the School of Theology at Saint John’s University and writes for the Vox Nova website.

Gerald Schlabach: A pope from the global South

Bridgefolk perspectives on Pope Francis

On some issue or another, any pope who takes seriously his responsibility to guide the discernment and to name the consensus of the global Church will probably disappoint every Catholic, along with other Christians who care about the witness of Catholicism in the world. The Church is simply too big, with a calling to express the gospel in so many cultures, for the pastoral judgments of the bishop of Rome to line up with one’s views and priorities across the board.

To be sure, every pope has been called to take seriously this global pastoral responsibility. But now we have a pope from the global South, and hopes run high. He is an experienced bishop from the streets and barrios of Argentina. He has named himself after Francis of Assisi, who is not only Catholicism’s most beloved saint but an exemplar of cross-class simplicity and cross-cultural peacemaking. He has de-vested himself of the most ostentatious trappings of clerical privilege. Disappointing traditionalists immediately, he has washed the feet of Muslims and women.

But sooner or later, on some issue or another, Francis will disappoint the rest of us too. And that is okay. Christians from the global South do this (not just Catholics). They are delightfully frustrating for North Americans and Europeans in their tendency to reshuffle our categories of left, right, progressive, orthodox, liberal, conservative. We deceive ourselves if we claim to champion just relationships between North and South yet disparage their voices.

So in fact this will be the opportunity we need. The first pope from the global South — along with likely successors who will soon come from Africa and Asia – will teach us truly to learn practices of global Christian solidarity, and to become the world Church of which the Second Vatican Council has been foretaste and guide. We now have no excuse.

Gerald W. Schlabach is a co-founder of the Bridgefolk movement. As professor of theology at the University of St. Thomas (MN) he teaches a class on Global Christianity.