By Dorothy Anne Merryman

Merryman holds a degree in art history and religious studies from Lewis & Clark College. She lives in Portland.

I was very disappointed by your Aug. 11 article, "Reverence and Resistance in one of Portland’s oldest Catholic churches." As a Catholic millennial who is one of many in my generation seeking and supporting a more liturgically traditional church, I found the piece to be painfully one-sided and unhelpful to the discussion of spirituality and Catholicism in America today. Your article certainly covered the resistance; but where was the reverence?

I found it telling that the story neglected to mention that the new priest at St. Francis, Father George Kuforiji, is a black man. Had this been an article about white conservative parishioners treating a black priest – an immigrant from Nigeria – with such vitriol and disrespect, I venture the racial dynamics would have been central to the article, and rightly so. Why are white liberal parishioners excused from having their behavior questioned?

The arrogant attitudes of the protesting parishioners are a perfect example of the entitlement rampant in our society. Parishioners boasted their standing at St. Francis: they went to school there, held an administrative position there, or, as one parishioner said in a startlingly offensive outburst at Father Kuforiji “How can you be a priest? I’ve been here over 15 years. You’ve been here a year.” Coming from people outraged over the removal of an “immigrants and refugees welcome” banner, the hypocrisy of this statement made to Father Kuforiji and its deep misunderstanding of Catholic theology is disturbing. The Catholic Church is a universal church; each parish is but one small part of a larger whole. It is every Catholic’s church. A homeless immigrant convert who has taken but one step inside that church’s walls has just as much claim to that church as any privileged parishioner who was baptized there before man walked on the moon.

It also astounds me that the story did not note how theologically out of sync these parishioners’ beliefs are with Catholic teaching. My husband and I kept asking each other: "Why are these people clinging to a Catholic parish when their ideology is so unabashedly un-Catholic?"

They believe that they are closer to God when resisting authority? While there are and should be systems in place to question real abuse in the church, Christ gave authority to Saint Peter and the Apostles – handed down to our pope and our bishops – to be stewards over the faithful and the universal set of beliefs we have inherited through the ages.

They insist that their parish should have a special community statement announced during our sacred universal liturgy? It is startling to think self-professed Catholics would deface the liturgy with their ego in such a way, especially since there is a part of the mass (the Prayers of the Faithful) designated for personal intentions. Mass is said in the same way, in a hundred languages, the world over every day.

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They are unwaveringly outraged by how vestments made by parishioners were discarded? Let’s be honest. The protesters’ fury over Father Kuforiji cleaning house was not about the technicalities of sacramentals being rightly burned or buried, but about the removal of the tangible and intangible ways they had made the parish “theirs.” Their personal attachment to those objects is exactly the problem. A priest’s vestments should not be an opportunity for parishioners to see themselves and their handiwork celebrated during the mass.

This could have been an interesting article had the reporter presented both sides. Instead, he spent pages profiling the “resistance,” but did not bother to engage the voices of traditionalist Catholics like me – though I might not fit people’s idea of a traditionalist. I am a young, educated mom of three who converted to the faith as an adult. I am deeply concerned about the environment, the horrors being committed at the border, universal health care, and a host of other social and political issues common to Portlanders.

But this is precisely why a small but growing undercurrent of young people like myself are coming home to a more liturgically traditional church: in a world of hedonism and egocentrism, a world of selfies and crippling anxiety, a world ravaged by blind consumerism, divisive bipartisan shouting matches, mass shootings, opioid crises, global warming, and fear, we are seeking the sacred. The chaste. The quiet. The universal. The holy. We are embracing the challenge of the church to be thoughtful, prayerful, restrained, and humble. How many of the world's injustices would be righted if we all listened to this call?

So while Latin chant and Gregorian hymns seem stuffy and outdated to many "progressive" Catholics, to me they speak of the beautiful universality and sacred otherness of the church. Mere minutes after reading your Aug. 11 article, I was sitting in the pews of my parish, quietly answering my squirmy toddler’s questions about the saints and martyrs depicted in the sparkling stained glass windows above, getting goosebumps from the hauntingly beautiful female solo in William Byrd's Mass for Three Voices, music written 400 years ago as a quiet rebellion against real oppression of Catholics by Elizabeth I. The protesting parishioners at St. Francis want to stand up at the altar, singing worldly folk-style songs that appeal to their taste in music, banging their tambourines front-and-center for all to see. But what a gift it was to have the choir unseen up high above me, ringing out centuries-old notes in the universal language of the church, crisp and clear and faceless like angels in the choirs of heaven.

What a gift to remember our place in the church and in this world: important, but never self-important.