In Franco Zeffirelli?s ?70s movie about St. Francis of Assisi “Brother Sun, Sister Moon,” there is a scene which speaks to the flap over the recent forced resignation of the Rev. Ray Martin, popular pastor of Our Lady of Good Counsel Catholic Church in Locust Point.
In it, a suddenly inspired pope, receiving Francis and his tattered band in a sumptuous throne room, descends from papal perch and pomp to embrace the popular, itinerant preacher ? and momentarily seems to want to shuck power and pressure to join him.
It’s a scene that distills the age-old problem of sanctity and shepherding in the expanded sheepfold ? an expansion that inevitably means vaguer, increased dangers to the flock ? and one whose policy implications seem not to have leavened the to-date coverage of a case on the heels of widespread calls for church strictness with priestly misconduct.
“Father Ray Martin was asked to resign [by Archbishop O?Brien] ? because of his [continued] refusal to follow church teachings and archdiocesan policies over the past 18 months,” Baltimore Archdiocese spokesperson Sean Caine told The Examiner.
Although a multiple-issue complaint that includes the unauthorized hiring and retention of a parish employee and the alleged, frequent tolerance of animals in the church sanctuary, Caine said a principal concern related to an October funeral Mass where Martin allowed a non-Catholic minister to receive communion and perform functions expressly reserved for Catholic ministers.
“Holy communion is a symbol of unity that we, as Catholics, share,” Caine told The Examiner. “That symbol therefore becomes a hallow one [if shared] with other Christians who do not share our beliefs about what the Eucharist represents.”
The Rev. Annette Chappell, the Episcopal minister at the controversial service, would not comment on the archbishop?s action, but stated that her tradition, like Catholicism?s, also regards the Eucharist as the actual body of Christ.
Such agreement, however, is not necessarily the case with other key, Catholic teachings.
“It makes me sick,” said 50-year Our Lady of Good Counsel parishioner Colleen Rosenbach, who decried the archbishop?s action. “[Father Martin] is the greatest guy in the world. Anybody who meets him, loves him. And this here to me is all nit-picking.”
Rosenbach believes, however, that non-Catholics should be permitted to receive Catholic communion.
“Open communion is a contradiction for our theology,” said the Rev. Michael Roach, pastor of St. Bartholomew?s Church in Manchester, who said some Lutherans also ban it.
