Focus 580; A People Adrift: the Crisis of the Roman Catholic Church in America

In this part of focus 580 we will touch on a topic that we certainly have discussed before with other guests and that's what's happening today in the Roman Catholic Church in the United States. Our guest for the program is Peter Steinfels. He has been writing about religious issues as a journalist for some time now. He was the senior religion correspondent for The New York Times between 19 88 and 1997 and now continues to write for the paper he writes the bi weekly column beliefs. He has also worked in a number of areas he has taught. He has been a visiting professor of history at Georgetown and American studies at Notre Dame. He's also worked in the area of Bioethics he was the editor of common wheel and is the author of The Book of the neo conservatives. He is also a Catholic himself. He's the author of a recently published book and one of a number that has has come out recently looking at this particular issue. The title of his book is a people adrift. The subtitle is The crisis of the Roman Catholic Church in America. It's published by Simon and. Booster. And in the book he makes the observation

that indeed it is a difficult time for the church. The very first line of the introduction to the book is today the Roman Catholic Church in the United States is on the verge of either an irreversible decline or a thoroughgoing transformation. He says that indeed things could go either way as a result. In either case really as a result of a couple of big changes transitions that are going on in the church one of those being the transition from an older leadership to a younger leadership the other a transition in leadership from ordained people priests and nuns to people increasingly now laypeople who are doing administrative work and sometimes not just administer. It works sometimes indeed the religious work the kind of things that in the past had been done by priests and nuns. We're trying to talk about some of these issues this morning and questions of course are welcome. Questions are always welcome here in Champaign Urbana 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. We do also have a toll free line and that's good anywhere that you can

hear us. That is 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5 3 3 3 w. while toll free 800 to 2 2 W was designed bells. Hello hello thank you for talking with us. I'm glad to be with you. Certainly appreciate it. Maybe to start out we can talk about you you in the book talk corner for I don't know if you coined this phrase but I'd like the phrase of the leading Catholic indicators you know those things that are an indication some kind of indication of the health of the church. Things like for example how often people attend and so forth. Let's take those. Things and just give us a snapshot your snapshot of where the Roman Catholic Church in America is right at the moment. Right. I think that if one ran down a list of all what I call leading Catholic indicators you would find a lot of things that would be. I think a business term wouldn't

take them as cause for great concern. And they involve such things as the decline in the weekly attendance that man the decline in the number of priests both absolutely but also especially the ratio of priests to people in the church. They would. Probably include in the drop in the percentage of Catholics of school age who are now in Catholic parochial schools. There would be a lot of things that wouldn't. Because for worry now I also make the point that a lot of those statistics are not so clear or so easy to interpret for example it's clear that fewer Catholics are attending mass weekly than in the 1960s say. But many of them are participating

more or many of them are receiving holy communion for example which is often then a measure of devotion at much higher rates. There's a lot about. There are statistics that suggest it. It's a more complex pattern than people sometimes think but I think it's it's at least enough there's enough bad news there to be worrisome and to have some alarm bells start going off. Now certainly it's appropriate and understandable that our focus here in this country should be on the church in this country and for all I know there are people out there writing books with subtitles like the crisis of the Roman Catholic Church in Italy or the crisis of the Roman Catholic Church in France or in Canada but that there seems to be something particularly American that's going on here both in terms of the way American Catholics have reacted to particularly to the churches leadership and its increasing conservative ness that that somehow sets of Catholics in this country apart from

Catholics elsewhere. I may be completely wrong about that but that seems to be the case and you can tell me whether I'm right or not. Well the first. Thing you said is interesting that there are people writing books about the Catholic Church in France or Spain or elsewhere I'm sure there probably are but I suspect that that's something that is a much livelier topic in the United States and not just now and it it's it's a lively talk topic for reasons that are a little different than what I was just saying about the worrisome signs in recent church history. The reality is the church here has about at least 67 million Americans who call themselves in one way or another to members of this Catholic family even though like many family members they're not always on very good speaking terms. But

and that figure maybe is over 70 million and it's roughly a quarter of the population. And compared to a lot of other countries including many countries of where Catholicism has long been implanted in the majority religion the Church here still remains very vital and probably because of that. You know it's more of an issue if there's a there's a way in which the church and in France for example or in the Netherlands has. Declined in its vitality due in the extent that you know there are people up in arms about which way it's going to go and what should be the policies that it pursues. So that's my comment on the first part of your question I mean why do we have so much attention here. It isn't just because of the differences between America and say the Vatican in terms of conflict it's also because of the remaining

vitality of the American church. Just to give you before. One little note on that there. There are over 600 hospitals with the Catholic affiliation that treat 80 million patients a year. That's Catholic and non-Catholic alike. There's a net. The work of Catholic schools and social services and so on that is kind of unique in the world. So that's one of the reasons why there is this attention now. It's an old story about the conflict between a kind of American democratic activist perhaps more individualistic and a way of looking at religion and and the role of the European and particular Vatican way. And I think that's definitely an issue today. I think it's been an issue for a long time I think the American experience particularly of separation and church and state was actually a great gift to the Catholic Church because

we know what the sort of landmark Second Vatican Council bishops from all over the world indorsed the declaration on religious liberty which really made official Catholic policy a kind of experience that the American church had taught the rest. The church that it had flourished under this kind of separation of church and state. Nevertheless there are American ways of looking at things that we absorb as Catholics from our Protestant and individualists culture which puts the church often at some in some tension with with particularly the Vatican. One of the things that interest me and and and as a as someone who is not Catholic but certainly someone who has known a lot of people who are is the issue of Catholic identity and I've said this before on the program that sometimes

in conversation with people who are Catholic I've had with people who are Catholic who are disenchanted with the church and I've said something like well why don't you just find yourself another church go to another you know go to another denomination and then they look at you as if you're suggesting they become a Buddhist. You know the idea there is something to the idea that once a Catholic always a Catholic and I wonder if there is some sense in which Catholic identity in this in this country may indeed be stronger than other places that we really think of as strongly Catholic societies. Well I I think there there's a lot of truth to that that the the fact of being a minority religion even if such a sizable minority religion I mean actually it's you know it's the Catholic Church is the single largest religious group in the country but Catholicism compared to other forms of Christianity still certainly remains a minority and that experience which was a minority in the sense of really

stronger conflicts starting a lot of the 19th and and early 20th century when a lot of Americans had a sort of nativist fear of Catholicism and Catholic immigrants that helped to shape I think a strong identity. Now that kind of tension between Catholic Americans and other Americans has largely disappeared. And that of course. And then that. Says poses problems if you've had an identity which has got a lot of it's a straight from from being at odds with your surrounding environment and suddenly your surrounding environment becomes much more accepting. Then does the identity get weekend I think the American Jewish community has has felt that it has discussed that if you know a lot of identity was based on widespread

anti-Semitism and if that disappears. Is there going to be an assimilation in which identity is is largely lost but there may be some other things too I think. The nature of sacramental life the emphasis isn't on the ritual and so on may instill a kind of Catholic identity that sticks with people even when they're very much at odds with certain certain church teachings or or they're very discontented about the institutions organization and conduct. Let me introduce Again our guest in the we have a caller he will get right to we're talking this morning with Peter Steinfels He's a journalist. He was the senior religion correspondent for The New York Times for a number of years between 88 and 97 and now continues to. Right for the paper he writes be liefs a bi weekly column and is author of a recent book titled A People Adrift the crisis of the Roman Catholic Church in America is published by

Simon and Schuster. Questions are welcome 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. Toll free 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5 here someone in champagne wine wine. Hello. Hi. I'm not Catholic so I'm going to ask the sisters try to be a naive questioner. How do Catholics. You had mentioned that they were getting more conservative. How do they reconcile being quote unquote religiously conservative with the fact that for decades they've been covering up homosexual priests for doing in unspeakable acts to children let alone other adult homosexuals. How do they reconcile that it seems like covering up for homosexual acts is more progressive versus conservative and the continued cover up in the face of overwhelming evidence to suggest that there's I don't know something weird going on. Maybe you can shed some light on that. Alison thanks. All right. First of all David I think your remark about the church being

more conservative was really a correct me if I'm wrong but I think you were really commenting on how some of the church leadership particularly under this papacy seems more traditional in reasserting traditional position as am I right about this that that was what. Yes and maybe I wasn't there. I was lucky. I was thinking just really about the church the church leadership and what has happened under this under the current pope. First as I comment on these two current terms of conservative and liberal or conservative and progressive they're kind of blunt terms for dealing with a lot of complicated subjects and they're taken from political life and I do think they have some application to religious life but sometimes they don't serve us well. But in general I'd say the American Catholic church and here I'm talking about the population and the priests in the hierarchy all together exhibit a strong

element of conservatism in their attitude toward cultural moral issues sometimes we call them the social issues family issues sexual morality. There are more community then individual list oriented but they're still pretty individuals but just relative to other Americans. But they're pretty liberal in our ordinary jargon way of talking about this when it comes to say government intervention on behalf of the people who are the losers in the society. And the church will be anti abortion which is considered conservative in our society but certainly the hierarchy is the anti-capital punishment and more wary of use of military power overseas than what we see to be where the average American position. So it's a funny mixture I just want to put that down before and now when we get to the question of the recent sexual scandals. I've written a lot about that

and I've written a lot about it in the book but I should say that I actually started this book well before the revelations that particularly marked the year 2000 and two although there was an earlier wave of revelations from nine hundred eighty five one thousand nine hundred three that made a lot of the primetime news and headlines and I was I covered those as a reporter and I was going to. Right about them not. I just think that people really do have to inform themselves and some of the details and I get a little nervous when I hear a phrase like. Covering up homosexual priests as though this whole thing were not a lot more complicated than that and and when I say complicated I don't want to somehow diminish or brush aside the fact that there was some appalling behavior certainly on the part of the predatory priests who still we constitute a very small percentage of

the American priesthood but there was also some appalling behavior on the part of some of their superiors who did not take the action that they should have. To say that you look at that and you look at you know different time periods nineteen sixties 1980s 1990s. You see considerable improvement never up to what it should be. And I just I get a little nervous however if we look lump it all together and then we give it a a title like that that was progressive or that was conservative. The things that were wrong were wrong things where people made bad judgments in in good conscience because they were badly informed by treatment centers there's cars that are are the psychological literature or a lot of other things. Are tragic. So I guess I don't want to avoid the

tough thing about that question but I'm I'm nervous about it being it's so sweeping and using a term like progressive in regard to a cover up. Well clearly very large numbers of Catholics in this country were outraged by the way that the leadership of the church responded to this particular issue. But it's all but it's just seems to be the latest and perhaps the most intense example of people being unhappy with the church leadership. But but that. It has been going on for some time and there have been in particularly a number of issues and which particularly it seems American Catholics have departed from the guidance and teaching of their leadership. That may be one of the clearest examples is birth control where it seems that very large numbers of American Catholics have chosen to disregard the church's position on birth control. Also very big departures in the attitudes of the congregants on issues like ordination of women and women's

participation fully and in church life and what that leadership particularly And we're talking about the very top leadership of the Vatican in Rome feels the place of where we've it's taken some time to get. Where we at now and that this this didn't just start with the recent revelations about sexual abuse in the church. Absolutely I think that the the reverberations of the revelations and even a reluctance of many Catholics to say anything in defense from those complexities where they may have been a little bit more defensible I don't think every court agreement that resulted in confidentiality and so on was done at the at the at the request of church officials some of them were done at the request of lawyers for the victims or the victims themselves and and so we use the word like cover up and very sweeping terms. But the fact is many Catholics. You're right they were outraged and they were

unwilling to to to come to the defense of because they they had an underlying distrust I think that had been built up over the years over the kind of issues that you just mentioned. And I would say what I try to write about in a People Adrift is not only those two internal transitions in leadership from an older generation to a new generation that came of age in a very different culture and a very different church and and a change from leadership by priests and nuns to leadership by laypeople. But I. Also talk about to external changes in the world that the church have to grapple with and one of them has to do with with sexuality. I think that the change in the our ability to separate sexual intercourse from procreation and reproduction as a kind of epical change and in human history and it has all sorts of

consequences for the way we understand human sexuality and the church starting with the debate over birth control in the 1960s when the church reasserted in what I think was a tragic decision the traditional opposition despite the finding of a papal e appointed commission of high church leaders and theologians that the traditional position should be modified. That was that's one thing that's that that's really a problematic area still. And the other one is the one you're very you know properly pointed to. We have a massive global change in our recognition of the equality and dignity of women and therefore of their. There are their proper roles in public life. And and and the church. You know it's not just the conflict between the church and the surrounding culture it's a

conflict within the church itself. This pope on matters of sexuality for example when it comes to the bottom line he is completely traditionalist. But if you listen to the language in which he has talked about sexuality about the human body about marital love it's a totally different language. Express it's very positive expressing intimacy expressing talking about the personal dimension in a way that no previous pope has ever done. And I see that as evidence that you know we really do have this massive shift in which the church is so far caught betwixt and between. Again the Pope has been firmer on the equality of men and women and at the same time we do have the the reassertion that the ordination to the priesthood is reserved to men. And at the

same time we have the practical fact that ordination of the priesthood is kind of the gateway to much of the decision making. Power within the Catholic Church. So I do think. These are internal conflicts and these are the major elements. And unlike the sexual scandal which of the church I think we hope and pray will will deal with these are lasting issues. They're not going to go away. They're set of irreversible changes. And that's why I started writing this book. Including the sentence that you cited at the beginning about the sort of stark alternatives between an irreversible decline and thoroughgoing transformation I see. I wrote that sentence in 1907 because I saw all these major changes which which are are are they are in there they're not going to be reversed and the church has to come up with creative and new answers to them. We have another caller to talk with let's do that multi-culti one. Before toll free line.

Hello. Yes I'm not a Roman Catholic either but I kind of follow what's going on and I agree with you that these terms like Progressive Conservative Liberal so forth are not very good that's the best one I can come up with as Orthodox and I have read that Orthodox Diocese and to that that I've seen named are Peoria Illinois and Lincoln Nebraska and some orthodox seminary. And I don't know where any of them are not seeing this decline in indications that they have a much considerably larger number of. That's where the priesthood is. Can you confirm that or deny it or what about the story. Well first of all on the very you know the concrete point that you raise. It's my impression that there are a number of

diocese a few more than you mention that are seen as very traditionalist. And that have had good numbers of people entering the seminary there. The reasons may not be the same in all those dioceses this is one thing I point out in the book by the way it's also true of certain more traditionalist religious orders too. They've also had good numbers and some of their seminaries. I think this is an area where we need much more research and careful research because in some instances and I think Lincoln Nebraska people have looked at that. He largely had to do with local factors including some charismatic priests that have recruited successfully to the priesthood in other areas that may have to do with the fact that those dioceses have become targets. Seminaries where people of a more traditionalist or conservative outlook from all around the country sometimes people who have not made it through other

seminaries are going there and to those seminaries and to the extent that they reflect that pattern then it doesn't seem to be a realistic answer for the future. It's just so that's something that I think is worth exploring I'm going to get back to that in a minute about what it says about about the seminaries in this model of the priesthood. A little troubled by the use of the term Orthodox in the sense that some Catholics are appropriate that to themselves and say we're Orthodox which is a very important term in Christian history history and by implication all the rest of Catholics and that would probably include me are somehow heretical or in apostasy or something else and I don't think that's the case I think that what's what's going on here is is a serious discussion sometimes it's a debate and sometimes unfortunately it's something approaching lethal warfare among

Catholics about what you know what is the proper understanding of the proper demands of orthodoxy for our time I mean I very much consider myself an orthodox Catholic and yet as I just suggested I I would think that the choice of Pope Paul the 6 in 1968 to over to to reject the findings of his own commission was a tragic one. Now there's a really basic thing behind this question. That stance in aiding in the introduction. David you said something about laypeople carrying out not only administrative tasks but pastoral tasks. Today there are 30000 lame parish ministers and there are 35000 more in training who are doing all sorts of pastoral things and parish life most of which used to be done by priests or in some cases sisters. And

that is that 30000 is a greater number than the active parish priest. In all the parishes in the country. So the typical face now of a Catholic parish is more apt to be the one who's the director of religious education then it is going to be the man who is today the pastor if it has a resident pastor. So one of the questions is can we reverse this. Decline in that ratio of priests to people which was about one priest for every six hundred fifty Catholics in one thousand fifty and it's now one priest for probably going on almost fourteen hundred Catholics because the population of Catholics has been growing today. Can that be reversed and can it be reversed as many more conservative things by drawing a sharp line between the priests and the laity and their argument is and it's an argument that should be attended to that you

only get priests if you have a very clear cut definition of their role. And in a sense their prerogatives and their authority in the community. Well. That may work but how is that going to relate to the roles of this 30000 parish ministers and 35000 more in waiting who are now doing all sorts of the bread and butter work of the church. Are they going to be see themselves and other Catholics see them as second class. As you know. What we get because father isn't available and what does that mean in terms of the quality of those people and who will be recruited and so on. That's the kind of basic choice it seems to me that church leaders in the next 10 years or so have got to the face is the root a sharp line drawn between priests and laity or do we have

to think of this in pretty much entirely new terms as a new category of lay leadership in the church which cannot be just second class citizens. Thank you. Thanks for the call the questions are welcome. 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 toll free 800 2 2 2 9 4 5 5. So well we've been talking about the situation here is that that the church in America faces where we have the increasingly restive congregants who believe that there is a need for change. A number of areas the top leadership of the church in the Vatican who is seems completely almost completely resistant to change in those very areas. And then there's another level here that we really haven't talked about and that is that the middle management of the church sickly American bishops who seem are increasingly unhappy about being buffeted about back and forth between the two groups between their parishioners and Rome. How how is all this. Obviously you feel that the church is at a very

important point here where it could go one way or it could go the other. How do you think that it's likely that this is all going to get worked out. Well obviously one thing that people say when faced with that very realistically framed question is you know it will work out depending on what the next papal election and whether that marks a greater than not necessarily. Radical switch in terms of Catholic teaching on fundamental issues. The ones we find in the Creeds and scriptures as well as important issues about sexual morality but just more leeway in giving local churches around the world that as hierarchies in different regions. Giving them more leeway to tailor things to their own cultures. And there's a lot of feeling that the next pope will favor less centralization of decision making and wrong because even a lot of conservative bishops and cardinals from

around the world will be electing the pope seem to feel that things maybe have become too centralized So that's one thing that people or people point to. But I think another question exists at the level of the American hierarchy and the bishops now it's not a job I would want to hold it's about the most unrewarding job in the world. But that's because they've created some of their own problems obviously in regard to the sex abuse issues they have. They've become more conservative and more cautious and less willing to take initiative and less willing to speak out about things because of the appointments. In the latter half especially of this papacy. And that's a real drawback now. I would say that if I had to if I could convince the bishops of one thing I'd like to convince them that well this is more than one I guess but hey business as usual

isn't going to do it. Be have got to really listen to the rest of the church and see you've got to find a way to voice the real disagreements that exist among you about strategies to take in choices to make. You've got to find a way to voice that publicly and politely so. Because right now too much discussion on questions like the future of the priesthood or the church's positions on a number of sexual issues the discussion is suppressed. It may go on but it goes on behind closed doors and. I do think that the bishops within the framework even now that can oversight could take a lot more initiative. They could speak up more. They could look more to their own priests and parishes and less looking over their shoulder to the Vatican and I in anticipation of what it's

reactions to various things might be. We have about 10 minutes left in this our focus 580 Our guest is Peter Steinfels he was the senior religion correspondent for The New York Times from one thousand eighty eight until 1997 and today Wright's beliefs a bi weekly column for that paper he is the author of the book A People Adrift the crisis of the Roman Catholic Church in America published by Simon and Schuster. We do have some of the callers here to bring into the conversation will next someone on a cell phone on our line for help. Yes I was just curious about the Goldmans and how other granted are granted like in the case of infidelity of one partner and the other partner you know it now can actually see the sacraments of the church. Could you go into that. Oh hang up and listen. OK. Well I can. I couldn't very quickly go into the details of how all this is is carried out in practice. I think that it's based on the

idea that a lot of Catholics have entered into marriage with maybe a cultural understanding of marriage but not genuine Sacramento understanding of what that means as a permanent commitment and therefore in the eyes of the church though obviously not Nies of the law. There are marriages where not Catholic marriages and they could they can be an old in effect since it's a recognition it isn't a norm not really it's a recognition that this this was not a truly sacramental marriage for that from the first in the first place. Now the procedures for doing this are quite rightly a matter of controversy as to whether there some people would argue that that they have been spiritually meaning and they've resulted in people reviewing in much better understanding their their own spiritual life other people have argued that the procedures are demeaning and there's a lot of problems. Do it and I won't try and go into more detail except to add finally that I think that the UN reasoned questions about an all months.

Is part of the underlying distrust that many Catholics have felt that led to the outburst of anger about the sexual abuse issues I remember talking to a man who'd been in a parish where not one but two priests had been removed because of allegations of sexual misconduct. And despite that very dramatic thing within two or three minutes he was talking to me about his scepticism about his brother in law's Normans or something like that so these things are connected in the eyes of many Catholics as well as as other Americans. I do think that it is one of those cases where people are looking for some indication of inconsistency. That's one of the things that gets pointed to people say well the Catholic Church says there's no such thing as divorce except when we decide that there's divorce and then in particular no people can point to cases where somebody was granted a moment who actually was married and had children.

And and that that that somehow doesn't. It doesn't really make so there are some profound theological issues here that have to also be attended to and there's been a tradition in Western Christianity of R and Catholicism of seeing marriage as really a contract which is kind of totally. It's like an on off switch at the very time of the marriage itself. And so then you do that you get these cases where people apparently had a had a flourishing marriage for many years and then it broke down somehow in a way that the couple separated and one of the other of them wanted to remarry and then rather than looking at they post marriage process and its full complexity and so on there's this kind of legal examination that goes back to what people understood about marriage and how capable they were of making a fully knowledgeable

and intentional decision at the at the time they were married and I think in the eyes of many people that does not that does not jibe with their their understanding of the ongoing process of marriage. Let's talk with someone else or better. Well I was a lawyer. Oh yeah. Are you familiar with the writer Paul William I would like for you your book. It was just written by him. How the Vatican about the ties to the Vatican and the. The Roman Church in general and ties to the Holocaust. The ties to the Vatican bank with drug lived during money and ties to the Mafia and the importation of money through that bank there's no accounting of that money at all you know I'm not I'm not familiar with that

name or that book and therefore I I can't comment directly on it. I guess I have to give them many of my views are a little bit of the on the one hand on the other hand statements on the one hand I don't think the Vatican is above the law. Close investigation and I don't believe that as a bureaucracy and so on it hasn't had its Enron moments. I also know that there's a long tradition in American culture of anti-Catholic literature that in which all these kinds of things can be lumped together. For example I'm surprised that someone named. But this is a subject about the church's relationship to the Holocaust to something to which I've given a fair amount of attention and I think I'm fairly familiar with most of the serious writing on the subject and this is not something that this is not a name

that comes to mind. So I'm a little wary about you know the the the line between proper investigation and critique and things that are the anti-cop Catholic or parallel of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and other classic anti-Semitic literature we have a fair amount of that in our culture. The book did very well. I would recommend it. The topic check about how well you could you tell me what the publisher is. The publisher I can't tell you right off publisher is Promethea comedian. Yes that's right. Thank you. OK no Promethea is a press which is connected with to the movement that calls itself and isn't just called by others a kind of secular humanist movement. And so I'd be while looking very

carefully at the documentation I know how to do footnotes and at the at the ideological orientation of the whole book. Well I preceded to the suggestion of the God we don't appoint here we have a couple of minutes left I want to return just one issue just for the many for a moment here just because I think for you the issue of gender or gender equity how we think about men and women and women's participation in the church is a is very important and I guess the thing that I'm interested in hearing just a little bit more about Unfortunately we have to three minutes is the issue of ordination of women something that the Vatican has just said this is this is not open for discussion that's that we've closed the question. Not going to happen but apparently in the many many American Catholics feel that would that would be a good thing and of course we're dealing with the issue of declining numbers of men interested in becoming priests. Do you do you in fact think that

that's something that within our lifetimes we're likely to see. I don't personally think we are myself but but I devote a lot of discussion and a people adrift to the serious theological arguments about ordaining women to the priesthood and I have to say that personally I find the arguments against it not persuasive. On the other hand I think that Catholics think it's the church they have their act. They need to think and develop their theology communally and so in the book I advocate the immediate movement toward the ordination of women to the diaconate which is considered by Catholics a kind of a part of the holy orders but it isn't. It isn't the priesthood per se and I think that historically since President counts a lot in Catholic tradition there are there's a lot of precedent for that in the early centuries of the church.

And then I think that. That the church should actually encourage serious and I don't mean bumper sticker but I mean serious theological discussion of the ordination of women to the priesthood and not penalize that discussion. So I'm kind of for a a gradualist incremental list approach on that. But but personally I I don't find the arguments that are currently being offered against the ordination of women to be persuasive. Well just as a way of finishing at the very beginning I'd mention the fact that in you begin the introduction to your book by saying that with the statement that today the church from a Catholic church. United States is on the verge of either irreversible decline or through a growing transformation so obviously you're saying well things could go one way or the other. Do you have a particular feeling about. Indeed which. What is the more likely path. You know every other day I see another sign either of hope or

discouraged. And I swing back and forth praying for the hopeful developments and and trying to understand the best I can the one that seems so discouraging so for my mind this is not a settled matter I did put a little piece of art on the cover of the book which is the 5th 16th century stained glass window that's in the Metropolitan Museum here in New York of Jesus calming the storm on the Sea of Galilee as something recounted in the Gospels. And I suppose that's my that's some expression ultimately of of hope rather than discouragement. Well there we're going to have to leave it again. The book is A People Adrift the crisis of the Roman Catholic Church in America published by Simon and Schuster by our guest Peter Steinfels a former senior religion correspondent for The New York Times and continues to

write for the paper writes a bi weekly column beliefs. Mr. Seinfeld thank you very much for well. Thank you and thank all your call.