Church in the World

Jesuit official resigns over article

Americas

A US Jesuit conference official has been forced out of his job after writing an article in a Jesuit national newsletter that advocated open church dialogue with homosexuals. The news comes a week after Thomas Reese SJ resigned as editor of the influential Jesuit magazine America after years of pressure from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith over the journal?s content and editorial line (The Tablet, 14 May).

Erik Meder was summoned to meetings with his immediate supervisor, Fr Jim Stormes SJ, and the executive secretary of the US Jesuit conference, Fr Tom Gaunt SJ, as soon as his article ?Strangers No Longer Who is the Other Among Us?? appeared in the April/May 2005 issue of National Jesuit News. Following the meetings, Mr Meder resigned as the outreach coordinator for the Office of Social and International Ministries at the Jesuit Conference, a position he had held for about 10 months.

In his article, Mr Meder questioned why US church leaders do not encourage a similar openness with homosexuals in the Church as they do with migrants. ?I was asked to resign or be terminated for submitting the article,? Mr Meder told the American paper National Catholic Reporter (NCR). ?Because the article was already printed, it had caused, it was explained to me, ?irreparable harm to the Society of Jesus in the United States?. The reason [for being asked to resign] officially was that in choosing to submit the article I displayed ?a lack of prudence?, ?a lack of discretion? and I couldn?t therefore be trusted in the future to represent the national office as liaison.?

Fr Gaunt told NCR that the article was ?inappropriate?. He said that once the ?error? of publishing it was realised, the newsletter, which serves the 3,200 Jesuits who belong to US provinces, was not mailed out. The article was deleted from the internet version of the newsletter. Fr Gaunt would not discuss details about the resignation, only confirming to NCR that Mr Meder had resigned on 27 April.

In the offending article, Mr Meder wrote ?The same approximate percentage of the US population is homosexual as is foreign-born 10 to 15 per cent. When the Other is a migrant, Catholics are urged by the Church to employ a hermeneutic of self-uderstanding in encounters with the Other. When the Other is homosexual, the notion of hermeneutic encounter drops from the scene.?