Call To Action News Release in Support of Sr. Lears

Catholic Diocese Uses Surveillance Video on Church Reform Group
The Archdiocese of St. Louis, led by Archbishop Raymond Burke, authorized the use of a surveillance video to record the participants of a women's ordination ceremony in November 2007, according to a story published this week in the National Catholic Reporter. Sr. Louise Lears, SC, who had participated in the ceremony, was given notice by Burke in late June 2008 that she was to be denied the sacraments as punishment for attending the filmed ceremony where two women were ordained priests in the Roman Catholic WomanPriest movement.Call To Action/USA, the Catholic justice organization, finds the use of the surveillance video to be an unacceptable abuse of authority and misuse of diocesan resources. Such actions are of deep concern, not only to those gathered at the ordination ceremony, but to all Catholics who seek justice in the church. Nowhere in the gospels does Jesus encourage religious leaders to spy upon the faithful.However, the gospels do tell many stories of Jesus encouraging justice for women. The Gospel of Luke records a story where a religious leader, indignant that a woman is set free on the Sabbath, tries to warn the people against rituals in which women are liberated (see scripture passage below). Gratefully, Jesus says that any time a woman is crippled under an oppressive spirit, she deserves to be 'set free on the Sabbath day from what bound her' (Luke 13:16). Upon hearing this, the people rejoiced.Call To Action/USA also rejoices when Catholic women are set free or free themselves to participate fully in the church. We look forward to the day when our religious leaders will also respond with rejoicing rather than surveillance and punishment. Call To Action will continue its church justice work, in conjunction with other organizations in the church reform movement, until all women are set free of the dogmatic yoke that binds them.Scripture:"On the Sabbath Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues, and a woman was there who had been crippled by a spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not straighten up at all. When Jesus saw her, he called her forward and said to her, 'Woman you are set free from your infirmity.' Then he put his hands on her, and immediately she straightened up and praised God. Indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, the synagogue ruler said to the people, 'There are six days for work. So come and be healed on those days, not on the Sabbath.' The Lord answered him, 'You hypocrites! Doesn't each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or donkey from the stall and lead it out to give it water? Then should not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long years, be set free on the Sabbath day from what bound her?' When he said this, all this opponents were humiliated, but the people were delighted with all the wonderful things he was doing." -Luke 13:10-17