Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz acted properly in excommunicating members of the Catholic reform group Call to Action, a high-ranking Vatican official has said.

In a letter to Bruskewitz dated Nov. 24, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, head of the Congregation for Bishops, confirmed that Bruskewitz’s 1996 ruling “was properly taken within your competence as Pastor of that diocese.”

Bruskewitz said membership in CTA and several other organizations is “perilous to the Catholic faith and most often is totally incompatible with the Catholic faith.”  In March 1996, he gave local Catholics a month to leave the forbidden groups or be automatically excommunicated.

Local CTA leaders appealed the decision to Rome but have never received a direct response from the Vatican. Today, the Southern Nebraska Register, the official newspaper of the Lincoln Diocese, will publish an article detailing the cardinal’s letter and stating that the Holy See upholds the excommunication decree. The article was published on the diocese’s Web site Thursday.

Call to Action holds “views and positions … which are unacceptable from a doctrinal and disciplinary standpoint,” Re said in his letter. “Thus to be a member of this association or to support it, is irreconcilable with a coherent living of the Catholic Faith.”

Bruskewitz said Re’s letter makes clear the Vatican’s opposition to Call to Action and other groups considered incompatible with the faith.

“My prayer will always be that when people understand they have taken a wrong turn, they will stop and take the right turn,” he said.

The bishop urged local Catholics to “repudiate their membership in these groups” and then seek the Sacrament of Reconciliation in order to be reinstated with the church.

Leaders of Call to Action, however, said they do not expect the letter to have a major impact on CTA members in Lincoln, Nebraska or nationwide. Nicole Sotelo, acting co-director of CTA’s national office in Chicago, said the organization plans to work with canon lawyers to appeal the ruling to the Signatura, a body which acts like a supreme court in the Vatican.

Local CTA member Jim McShane, who signed the original appeal of Bruskewitz’s ruling, said the local group has never received any response from Rome or been given the opportunity to state its case to Vatican officials.

“This letter is very unfortunate,” McShane said. “I’m deeply distressed by it. There’s every evidence that Rome is acting on misinformation.”

Rather than getting correct information about the beliefs and purposes of Call to Action from members of the organization itself, Vatican leaders have received incorrect information from Bruskewitz, McShane said.

For example, today’s Register article includes a list of claims about Call to Action which McShane says are not true — such as that CTA members do not support the Nicene Creed, which is a statement of faith for Christians, or that they consider belief in the incarnation (divinity of Christ) to be optional, and doubt Jesus’ virgin birth.

“No one in CTA has ever suggested that I give up the Nicene Creed” or other basic doctrinal beliefs, McShane said.

McShane also pointed out that Re had his name wrong in the letter — calling him John rather than Jim. He also took issue with Re’s statement that McShane and other members of CTA “will understand that their line of action is causing damage to the Church of Christ.”

Rachel Pokora, president of Call to Action-Nebraska, said she plans to continue attending church in the Lincoln Diocese and taking communion, as she has in the past. 

“It will be interesting to see what the implications (of Re’s letter) are,” she said. “Will other dioceses take stronger actions against Call to Action?” So far, Bruskewitz is the only bishop to issue an excommunication ruling.

Patty Hawk, a Nebraskan who is co-president of the national board of Call to Action, expressed chagrin that the Vatican did not respond to the CTA’s requests for due process and that Bruskewitz chose to communicate through the newspaper rather than talking with CTA members directly.

“It makes me sad that this is the way Bishop Bruskewitz has chosen to deal with members of his faith community,” she said.

Bruskewitz pointed out that there are only 25,000 CTA members nationally, compared to more than 66 million Roman Catholics. Fewer than 300 CTA members live in Nebraska, including about 50 active members in Lincoln, Hawk said.

Father Mark Huber, chancellor of the Lincoln Diocese and a spokesperson for Bruskewitz, said CTA members have never been prohibited from making their case to Rome.

“They have a right to send whatever information they want” to Re or other Vatican officials, he said.

Reach Bob Reeves at 473-7212 or breeves@journalstar.com.