Excommunication

Station 7 from "Passion Play" by Paul Dodd, 24" x 30" inkjet print 1998
Station 7 from “Passion Play” by Paul Dodd, 24″ x 30″ inkjet print 1998

The Spiritus Christi community rose from temporal Corpus Christi (body of Christ) church, the place I was baptized in. My parents had a second floor apartment around the corner on Alexander Street, a place so small, I have heard, that my crib was out in the hall. In Jim Callan’s 2001 book, “Studentbakker Corporation” Jim tells the now familiar story of his early priesthood.

He was assigned to Saint Ambrose’ parish. They had just spent a fortune on new facilities and Jim had taken a vow of poverty. He refused the opulence and for his obstinance he was reassigned to Corpus Christi, a parish long past its glory days with a dying congregation. With ideals borrowed from Jesus he turned the place around with little regard to t the church orthodoxy. He shared communion with non Catholics, he welcomed gays and he allowed women to take their rightful place at the alter. He filled the pews and after twenty two years the church hierarchy, god’s rottweiler himself, Cardinal Ratzinger, the future Pope Benedict XVI gave him the boot. They renamed their community, Spiritus Christi, and under the direction of Mary Braverman have made it the largest breakaway Catholic group in the country.

Matthew Spaull, an RIT graduate, made a short film of the story and screened it for a sold old crowd tonight at the Little Theater. The director spoke after the film and said “I made this film, not for the people in this theater, I made it for Pope Francis.” He tried to speak to the Catholic Church for six months but they would not talk to him on the record.

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