In Wisconsin, Father Bill Brennan, a 92 year old priest, is under fire from the Catholic church. Brennan is a peace activist and missionary celebrated mass with Janice Sevre-Duszynska, a catholic priest and a female. His punishment:
Though Brennan remains a Jesuit and can still celebrate Mass and hear confessions with other Jesuits, he can no longer celebrate Mass or other sacraments publicly, according to Jeremy Langford, spokesman for the Society of Jesus, known as the Jesuits.
While that doesn’t appear too drastic a punishment (to me), I’m sure it’s a big deal in his church.
Langford said that the Wisconsin Province had no plans to take any further action against Brennan, who is retired from active ministry and living in a Wisconsin retirement home and was not available for comment.
“Sometimes in our lives we have to trust our conscience and bring about the consequences,” Brennan told the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. “I wasn’t trying to show off for the ladies.”
Sevre-Duszynska told Reuters that Brennan exemplifies the best of the Jesuit tradition, including that he “is able to understand the suffering of women who are called to the priesthood and are denied the priesthood by the church and by the hierarchy.”
“I think this is a bullying tactic. And I think it’s shameful. It certainly is not what Jesus would do,” she said of the sanctions against Brennan.
Brennan sounds like the kind of guy I’d enjoy.
Five years ago, at 87, Brennan traveled to Cuba as an act of civil disobedience against the U.S. economic blockade, delivering humanitarian and medical supplies to the Cuban people, the article said.
