Bishop Edward J. Slattery on Nov. 25, the Solemnity of Christ the King, completed the second pastoral letter he has written during his 14 years as Bishop of Tulsa. The complete pastoral letter can be downloaded HERE.
“The Suffering Faces of the Poor Are the Suffering Face of Christ/Los rostros sufrientes de los pobres son el rostro sufriente de Cristo” is now at the printer and will be sent to all pastors in about three weeks, Bishop Slattery said Nov. 26. Five thousand copies are being printed and will be distributed in bulk to all parishes.
The document will be a flip book – published in both English and Spanish.
The letter includes a four-point action plan Bishop Slattery has devised “in response to the situation of fear created in so many of our neighbors in the implementation of H.B. 1804. The plan calls for:
1. Equal accessibility to all Catholic programs regardless of legal status;
2. A pledge to provide legal assistance through Catholic Charities who need help in establishing or maintaining their legal residence in this country;
3. The Diocese will work with legal agencies to prepare a standardized “power of attorney” form that parents can use to indicate who should assume guardianship over their dependent children should those parents be arrested and face deportation,
4. Provides Catholic foster care for parents who have used the power of attorney to state their decision about who should care for their children.
Bishop Slattery began work on the letter Nov. 1, the date that H.B. 1804 became law. He has opposed the legislation since it was first drafted last spring, and the pastoral letter quotes from a March 31, 2006, letter he sent to priests and deacons in which he pledged he would be jailed “when it become a crime to love the poor and serve their needs,” adding, “I pray that every priest and every deacon in this Diocese will have the courage to walk with me into that prison.”
H.B. 1804 penalizes those who employ illegal immigrants and also prohibits persons from assisting someone who is in the country illegally.
The pastoral letter begins: “By the grace of God and the favor of the Apostolic See, I am the Catholic Bishop of Tulsa. As a bishop, I speak with the voice of one who has been consecrated to proclaim the truth of the Gospel here in Eastern Oklahoma, and I do so with the authority and in the name of Jesus Christ, King of the Universe.”
After citing the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council on the power and duties of a bishop, Bishop Slattery stated, “I wish to make it clear that I do not speak as an elected official, whose service to the public proceeds from the will of those who elected him or her to office. Nor do I speak as a civil servant, appointed to the task and accountable to those by whom he or she has been appointed.
“Rather, I speak as the Catholic Bishop of this Diocese, and I speak with the authority of Jesus Christ, Who in His life here on earth always showed his predilection for the poor and oppressed.”
Toward the end of the pastoral letter, Bishop Slattery includes two prayers he will ask the pastors to invite their parishioners to pray at the end of every Sunday Mass.
Those prayers – and the full pastoral letter – can be found HERE.
Brendan J. Fitzgerald
[9/8/2009 3:26:18 PM]I think the photo of Bishop Slattery on Page 10 of the September 4, 2009 NCR is an apt representation of the position of a number of American Bishops in regard to their flocks. They have too often turned their backs on them. The Shepherd, as described in John 10, would NEVER do that. Imagine the famous painting of the Last Supper with the BACK of Christ facing us, or imagine being present at a mealtime gathering, which the Liturgy of the Eucharist truly is, with your BACK to your fellow guests, or would you so PROUDLY imagine yourself as BETTER than the others there gathered for a COMMON purpose. Lord, deliver us all from vanity. Regards, Brendan J. Fitzgerald
Fr. Joe Sanches
[8/27/2009 7:53:10 AM]Dear Bishop Slattery: I am a priest of 40 years now retired living in Nashville. I understood fully your letter "Ad Orientem" and respectfully diagree. That 1800 year old "tradition" ( small T) was not original to the Eucharistic gathering in the first century church. Besides the church is a dynamic entity and not slavishly afixed to all of its devotional postures.
While acknowledging your right to teach and guide your flock as Ordinary, may I say that such a reversal can cause great confusion and upheaval and smacks of a revisionism contrary to the spirit of the Vatican Council Fathers.
fr. Joe Sanches
