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| Bishop Matthew Clark, right, yukking it up Muhammad Shafiq, imam of the Islamic Center of Rochester. |
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Milestone anniversaries often are times for reminiscing, but it's the future that interests Bishop Matthew Clark, who celebrates his silver anniversary this month with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Rochester.
He remembers fires of the past 25 years and he knows there are issues that are smoldering and waiting to flare up. But he says he's determined not to leave problems that can be solved today as burdens for tomorrow's generation.
"Challenges and burdens are a vehicle for new life," the 66-year-old bishop said in a recent interview.
The anniversary will be celebrated with an open house and reception Sunday at the diocese's Pastoral Center in Gates and a Mass the night before in Chemung County.
But the real talk about his lengthy tenure as leader of the 350,000 Catholics in a diocese that stretches from Lake Ontario to the Pennsylvania border is going on in the pews.
Clark has faced many tough issues - ncluding the priest sex-abuse scandal, a breakaway congregation, the roles of women and homosexuals in the church - and received both praise and criticism for his handling of them.
He plans to remain bishop until he reaches the mandatory retirement age of 75 on July 25, 2012. So he figures to be dealing not only with those issues but also with the priest shortage, whether married men should serve as priests, medical advances that are constantly challenging religious thinkers, and relations with other faiths and other branches of Christianity.
More than 25 years ago, Sister Janice Morgan, president of the Sisters of St. Joseph, helped draft a list of qualities needed in a bishop for Rochester: open to change, spiritual leader, personable, compassionate heart, someone who would go out among the people. It's the same list she would put together for the next decade.
"I feel that Bishop Clark has brought us to a wonderful point," Morgan said. "I think those same qualities will take us into the future."
Clark recognizes the challenges that lie ahead. "You try to absorb and live out what you are asked to do by the church. And that's never easy."
Finding candidates for the priesthood isn't easy, either. Already, some of the 200 parishes in the diocese are sharing priests. Others have merged.
"I pray daily that many will hear that call and respond," Clark said. "I'm convinced that there are noble young men out there with gifts."
Married priests
As the priest shortage continues, so does the push by activists to allow women and married men into the priesthood.
The bishop can imagine a day when married men become priests.
"There's no inherent contradiction," he said, pointing out that some married clergy from other denominations are permitted to remain married and become Catholic priests.
But it's hard for him to see the ordination of women in the church's future because it hasn't been part of its tradition or its understanding of scripture.
"Were it possible, I'd be pleased to ordain women."
Those kinds of statements and ideas don't sit well with some parishioners.
"His leadership has watered down Christianity to a 'politically correct' agenda," said Michael F. Brennan of Rochester, a member of the Coalition in Defense of Church Teaching and a critic of Clark. "Core Christian-Catholic beliefs continue to be downplayed or ignored to create social institutional meeting halls instead of parishes and churches.
"The heresies of the Spiritus Christi congregation are quietly taught and encouraged," Brennan said, referring to the church that split from the diocese in 1998 and ordained a female priest.
To others, Clark's "middle ground" approach is encouraging, said Ray Grosswirth, national secretary of Corpus, a group that supports allowing women and married men into the priesthood.
"It is not easy being a bishop these days, considering that many have categorized the church in its present state as a battleground between conservatives and liberals," Grosswirth said. "Decisions made by bishops are often met by attacks from either the right or the left."
Clark's decision to abide by the church's teaching doesn't mean the issue will go away. Gloria Ulterino, chair of the Greater Rochester Community of Churches' worship and discipleship team, recently returned from a conference in Boston where participants were re-imagining the church that women want.
Twenty-four years ago, Ulterino felt she had a call to ministry and she knows other Catholic women who feel that they are meant to serve as priests. "I know that God is at work in this. What do we do about that? Do we open ourselves up to some new possibilities?"
Throughout the tough discussions about the priesthood, war and homosexuality, Ulterino hopes more people will claim a voice "and that in this process of dialogue we will ultimately govern ourselves differently because top-down is not a good way for us to live our lives together."
'In need of reform'
Changes have come to the Catholic church in the 41 years since the Second Vatican Council encouraged more participation by the laity.
"But the challenging part is that we've just begun," Clark said. "We're never there. We're always in need of reform."
He has seen some reform in how gays and lesbians are treated in society and in the church. "Attitudes have changed enormously in my lifetime, I think for the good."
Still, there are those who say the church uses hurtful language toward homosexuals. A Vatican document last year that called homosexuality a "serious depravity" sparked letters of protest by priests in Chicago and Rochester, though Clark reprimanded the local priests for not consulting with him first.
Yet the bishop agreed that "language, when it's not carefully chosen, can be damaging. I hope we change a lot in our fair treatment and affection for gay and lesbian people."
Clark came under fire in 1997 when he celebrated a Mass for gays and lesbians and their families. And though he has never personally met with the Rainbow Sash Movement, a group that wears colorful sashes to Mass to show that gays and lesbians are part of the body of Christ, he knows representatives attended a local Mass on May 30 and were given Communion.
But what Clark sees as reaching out in love, some in the church call heresy.
Parishioners wearing rainbow sashes were refused Communion in Chicago. In Minnesota, churchgoers at one parish knelt in front of the altar to try to prevent those wearing sashes from receiving Communion.
Still, Clark won't label himself liberal.
"Some consider me liberal. And believe it or not, some think I'm conservative. I try to avoid self-labeling and try to be faithful to what the church asks of us. I try not to do things based on an ideological tag."
And he tries not to do things - or say things - just because other bishops do, such as threatening to deny Communion to Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry because of his pro-choice stance on abortion.
"In my 42 years as a priest, I've never once refused Holy Communion to anyone," Clark said. "I would not anticipate refusing Mr. Kerry or anyone else. I always presume good faith in those who approach."
Tough times
Standing firm in the midst of controversy isn't anything new.
"He has been there to lead his community," said Muhammad Shafiq, imam at the Islamic Center of Rochester. "You can see him trying his best."
Shafiq watched while Spiritus Christi formed and saw the priest sexual-abuse scandal unfold, causing Clark "the most painful year of my priesthood."
Eighteen men who had been clerics in the Rochester diocese over the past 53 years - about 1 percent of the priesthood - were suspended or resigned in the scandal, which led the diocese to implement a system of background checks and monitoring to try to halt the abuses.
Clark showed strength through those times, Shafiq said.
"What I see in the bishop is a very humble man, a person who believes in reaching out and in interfaith work," said Shafiq, who helped form an agreement of understanding and mutual cooperation with the diocese. It's believed to be the only agreement of its kind in the world.
Even with the benefit of hindsight, there's little Clark would change about his handling of Spiritus Christi and the scandal.
"I don't mean to say that I've done things perfectly. Every day when I finish my work, I try to go to sleep in peace. I don't feel restless or guilty about the ways I've responded."
So, while Grosswirth worries that Clark will eventually be replaced with a more conservative bishop and Brennan's group thinks the Vatican is remiss for not replacing Clark immediately, the bishop seems to have a serene confidence.
It's the faith of the people that will sustain the diocese, he said.
"My successor may have a different set of gifts. I hope I'm here to root him on."
MGREGORY@DemocratandChronicle.com
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