Roman Catholics: Bishops in Trouble

In St. Paul, Minn., the reaction was almost as if another leader had been shot. “I haven’t felt like this,” sobbed one Catholic housewife there, “since Jack Kennedy was killed.” No one, as a matter of fact, had died, but one of Roman Catholicism’s most articulate and progressive shepherds in the U.S. had been abruptly estranged from his flock. The Most Rev. James P. Shannon, who had resigned as auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of St. Paul-Minneapolis earlier this year (TIME, June 6), last week announced that he had married. The wedding took place on Aug. 2, Shannon revealed, in the First Christian Church in Endicott, N.Y., before a Disciples of Christ minister. Shannon’s bride, the former Ruth C. Wilkinson, 50, had had three previous husbands. Two of the marriages ended in annulment, the third in divorce — though the partner of that union later died.

Shannon might have asked to leave the active priesthood and marry, but such permission is granted slowly, if at all. Without it, under Roman Catholic canon law, the marriage automatically excommunicates Shannon, though there was no formal condemnation.* Said Shannon: “The fact that we have acted contrary to this particular law does not by any means indicate that we do not respect the church, its canon law, or its need for norms in the liturgy and the life of the people.” Indeed, Shannon said, he had written to Pope Paul VI to assure him that “I will try by my life style, with my wife, who shares my deep Christian views, to pray and work for the renewal of the church.” Perhaps, he suggested, he might even find a place in the church eventually, if it “permits a married clergy within our lifetime.”

Staunch friends and followers were among the most deeply hurt by Shannon’s decision. Father John Reedy, editor of the Catholic weekly Ave Maria, voices the fears of many in the magazine’s Aug. 23 issue. “Morale sinks lower,” Reedy writes. The marriage is a “cloud of distraction” that may now encourage conservatives to “tune out all that Bishop Shannon was saying because ‘all the time, he just wanted to get married.’ ” Underground churches, says Reedy, will be tempted anew to disregard church discipline, however much Shannon himself may protest—as he still does—that he disapproves of such tactics.

The church’s embarrassment continued to grow over the troubles of Munich’s Bishop Matthias Defregger. Last month, he was implicated in the World War II execution of 17 hostages in Italy, where he served as a German army captain (TIME, July 18). Apparently wanting to wash its hands of the affair, the Vatican denied that it had knowledge of Defregger’s wartime past when it made him bishop last year. The Vatican daily L’Osservatore Romano reported that only Defregger’s “immediate superiors”—led by Munich’s Julius Cardinal Döpfner, one of the main liberal architects of Vatican II —knew of the incident, and they did not inform the Holy See of it.

Although Pope Paul VI was known to be studying the Defregger dossier, L’Osservatore’s editorial—the Vatican’s first official comment on the case—scrupulously avoided taking a stand that would prejudge an official investigation currently going on in Italy concerning Defregger’s role in the massacre at Filletto di Camardo. (The Italian carabinieri have issued a warrant for Defregger’s arrest if he crosses the border, with the deferential provision that he not be handcuffed if he is taken.) “The basic problem,” the paper said, “is whether [Defregger] is today, spiritually and morally, a ‘new man.’ ” The editorial somewhat ambiguously cited “elements of interior forum” that must be considered—which some Vatican insiders interpreted as strong encouragement for the bishop to examine his conscience and then resign his post in the interest of the church. Perhaps the worst aspects of the Defregger imbroglio are its repercussions in the religious life of Germany. For the first time in years, the German Evangelical (Lutheran) Church has broken a carefully maintained harmony with the Catholic hierarchy to criticize Catholic handling of the case, and the prestige of Cardinal Döpfner has been damaged.

* Shannon was the first American bishop whose marriage became public, but another American bishop, the Vatican confirmed last week, quietly left in 1954 to marry. His identity is still secret.