Imagine this conversation at the altar rail: Are you now or have you ever been a member of Call to Action? If the answer is yes, and you live in the diocese of Lincoln, Nebraska, there will be no Communion for you. Nor will you be able to participate in a Catholic baptism or even have a Catholic burial.

As a Christmas gift to Lincoln's progressive Church reformers, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, head of the Vatican Congregation of Bishops, heartily approved the Inquisitional action of Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz, who excommunicated every single local member of the country's largest and most progressive church reform group, Call to Action.

The original excommunication order came in 1996.  At that time, Bruskewitz gave members one month to renounce their membership in a list of organizations that he specified or be "automatically excommunicated." Call to Action or CTA, newly formed in Lincoln, appealed the decision and the Vatican finally heard their call -- and rejected it.

As Bonavoglia notes:

In his letter of response, Cardinal Re confirmed that membership in or support of CTA was "irreconcilable with a coherent living of the Catholic faith," and declared that Bruskewitz's decision to issue a blanket excommunication was "properly taken."

The letter is specific to Call to Action, a group which is particularly supportive of gays and women in church roles, but others were also fingered for condemnation by Bruskewitz. In addition to Catholics for Free Choice and Planned Parenthood, the original Bruskewitz broadside named for ejection members of Rainbow Girls, Freemasons (including Shriners), Eastern Star, Job's Daughters, Demolay, Hemlock Society, Society of Saint Pius X (Lefebvre Group) and Saint Michael the Archangel Chapel.

The people of Nebraska were probably unaware that, according to Bruskewitz, "membership in these organizations or groups is always perilous to the Catholic Faith and most often is totally incompatible with the Catholic Faith."  Bruskewitz declared: "All Catholics in and of the Diocese of Lincoln are forbidden to be members."

Rainbow Girls might be especially shocked to find that they are "perilous," since they emphasize leadership, poise, public speaking for girls and teach "three basic virtues: Faith in a Supreme Being and other people, having Hope in all that they do, and Charity toward others."  But they are apparently affiliated with Freemasons, and Masons were condemned in the 1800s by Pope Leo XIII for anti-Catholic teachings. Job's Daughters, DeMolay, Eastern Star are also affiliated with the Masons, and the Society of St. Pius X and St. Michael the Archangel Chapel are forboden because they oppose certain reforms of the Second Vatican Council, according to the National Catholic Digest.

At the time that Bruskewitz issued the order, others try to soft-soap it. Father Richard McBrien, a theologian at the University of Notre Dame, told Catholic World Report in May 1996 that the "edict is so irresponsible that no one is bound by it."

The new Vatican support for the Bruskewitz Inquisition highlights other illuminating positions of the bishop. For example, in 2003, he wanted the Catholic Conference of Bishops to declare that homosexual acts are "intrinsically evil, and if they are done with free will and due deliberation, they are mortal sins and place one's salvation in jeopardy," according to Daniel J. Wakin, writing in The New York Times. The sex abuse crisis in the church is a "homosexual problem, not a pedophile issue"  Bruskewitz told
The Wanderer, ignoring the abuse of girls and boys as young as five and sex.  Bruskewitz also stands alone in rejecting the participation of altar girls, according to Bonavoglia.

Bruskewitz has fans in the religious blogworld.  "Hopefully, his leadership style will spread ... and get THE Church back to orthodoxy," wrote one poster on catholic-pages.com.

But Call to Action is still in action, vowing an appeal and mounting a new public campaign: "Justice Cannot Be Silenced,"
the group declared.

 
"We will not let this excommunication letter stop our work for justice," says Patty Hawk, a member of CTA/Nebraska and CTA/USA board co-president. "We are asking Catholics across the country to sign a letter to Bishop Bruskewitz objecting to the denial of due process we experienced during the excommunication proceedings and also requesting his compliance with the national charter to protect our children from sex abuse. These letters will also be delivered to Bishop Skylstad, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops."

The tenacity of Call to Action in the face of difficult odds is a bright bit of fireworks to take into the new year.