Politics should defer to people at church

In Ezekiel, the Bible speaks of “legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay.”

I have clay feet. So does Father James Michaud. So does Bishop Joseph Gerry. So does Cardinal Bernard Law. So does, in fact, Pope John Paul.

I have such clay feet that for more than 15 years, I’ve been leading songs at St. Joseph Catholic Church in Ellsworth – and even taking Communion occasionally – although not being a member of the Catholic faith. This is my “outing.”

I’ve even called myself a member of this church – a church I’ve been edified by in the truest meaning of the word; a church that has nurtured my spiritual growth; a church that has been blessed with the likes of Father Peter Gorham, Father James Gower and Father Michaud.

But it has not always been so. When I married in 1965, the ailing monsignor in the diocese instructed me – a Methodist – per the requirements for marrying a Catholic: no birth control, a promise to raise our children Catholic, no divorce, etc. My mother was forced to sign an affidavit attesting to the fact I’d never been married. (I was 22 and one day out of college.)

So I crossed my fingers on the birth control directive, I did raise the children Catholic, and, so far, there’s been no divorce. But, I never converted to Catholicism.

As a non-Catholic – but one who espouses the “universal” meaning of the word catholic in Christian creeds – I would remind all the hierarchy within the upper-case Catholic Church that it, indeed, has clay feet, not those of iron.

Yet you won’t allow women priests. You won’t allow priests to marry. You won’t allow one of your young to marry a divorced person.

You don’t include. You exclude, all because of inflexibility, rules and strictures by which the Catholic Church governed ignorant masses for way too long. These people don’t want their feet in irons when they’re of clay.

The church is no longer a congregation of hostages without knowledge. Catholics have grown in their sense of denomination and in their higher calling to Christianity.

They have proclaimed – on a local level, if not a broader one – “quit dictating.” God gave us consciences, God gave us intellect, God gave us choice.

In the case of St. Joseph Catholic Church of Ellsworth, the politics should defer to the people. The people say to bring back their beloved priest. Someone eloquently wrote that Father Jim – and the church – will be stronger. Why can’t the “officials” admit a mistake after examining their own clay feet.

As the hymnal from which I sing says: “Abba, Father, You are the potter, we are the clay.”

Mold us, shape us. Make a beautiful sculpture of us for the glory of God. We all are of pliable clay.