Father Duryea
Q: It is a fact that Ariel's stepfather was excommunicated? I will look it up in the annuls of the Chancery Office of the Catholic Church. I should like to know more about this fellow--why he was excommunicated, for example.
A: Yes. He was excommunicated in 1976 for marrying my mother. I was five years old. I'll paste his correspondence with the Archbishop of San Francisco below. If you want to know more about him, you should read his autobiography, Alive Into the Wilderness, or pick up his photo book, Father D in the High Sierra.
***
Archdiocese of San Francisco
Chancery Office
445 Church St.
San Francisco, CA 94114
4 June 1976
Dear Mr. Duryea:
It is with deep sorrow that I am obliged to notify you that by attempting marriage you have incurred the automatic excommunication provided in Canon 2244 of the Code of Canon Law. In addition to the suspension which you have already received, under Canon 2244 you will be automatically excommunicated. Consequently, you are forbidden to celebrate holy Mass or to receive Holy Communion.
We have been saddened by the fact that many people are scandalized at St. Ann's Chapel when they see you approach the holy table. I hope that you will respect the provisions of the law of the Church and not place any priest who is celebrating Mass under the disagreeable obligation of refusing you Holy communion.
Despite our sorrow over this situation, I assure you that we will keep you in our prayers, with the hope that through the grace of God you may be restored to full membership in the church and priestly activities, through your obedience to the laws of the church.
Yours sincerely in Christ,
Joseph T. McGucken
Archbishop of San Francisco
***
June 7 1976
Dear Mr McGucken,
Your letter, graciously timed to arrive on my wedding day, was so remote from the reality of the occasion that it could hardly arouse anger, much less fear. It reads like a document disintered from the age of the Inquisition, complete with stifling legalism, muted threats, and crocodile tears. I ask you to consider which spirit is represented by such a letter: the spirit of Christ, or that or the pharisees?
Your anxiety over scandal at St. Ann's appears to be unwarranted. Some 500 people attended my "attempted" marriage in the Stanford Memorial Church. Most of them were practicing Catholics, and they made their warm support very evident.
I will continue to minister in all available ways, and my conscience is entirely clear in doing so. I am and will remain a priest; that is why I did not go through the procedure of laicization. I do not wish to be a layman. And I do not intend to admit the rightness of the law which denies the option of Christian marriage to priests. There are countless Catholics--I meet them daily--who are alienated by the rigidity and inhumanity of the official church and its representatives. I am finding a fruitful ministry among them.
Despite the hollow booming of your Automatic Canons, I am peacefully in communion with the universal Church, and shall receive communion when I please. If priests are too intimidated, I am sure the lay minister will not be.
Sincerely yours
John S Duryea
A: Yes. He was excommunicated in 1976 for marrying my mother. I was five years old. I'll paste his correspondence with the Archbishop of San Francisco below. If you want to know more about him, you should read his autobiography, Alive Into the Wilderness, or pick up his photo book, Father D in the High Sierra.
***
Archdiocese of San Francisco
Chancery Office
445 Church St.
San Francisco, CA 94114
4 June 1976
Dear Mr. Duryea:
It is with deep sorrow that I am obliged to notify you that by attempting marriage you have incurred the automatic excommunication provided in Canon 2244 of the Code of Canon Law. In addition to the suspension which you have already received, under Canon 2244 you will be automatically excommunicated. Consequently, you are forbidden to celebrate holy Mass or to receive Holy Communion.
We have been saddened by the fact that many people are scandalized at St. Ann's Chapel when they see you approach the holy table. I hope that you will respect the provisions of the law of the Church and not place any priest who is celebrating Mass under the disagreeable obligation of refusing you Holy communion.
Despite our sorrow over this situation, I assure you that we will keep you in our prayers, with the hope that through the grace of God you may be restored to full membership in the church and priestly activities, through your obedience to the laws of the church.
Yours sincerely in Christ,
Joseph T. McGucken
Archbishop of San Francisco
***
June 7 1976
Dear Mr McGucken,
Your letter, graciously timed to arrive on my wedding day, was so remote from the reality of the occasion that it could hardly arouse anger, much less fear. It reads like a document disintered from the age of the Inquisition, complete with stifling legalism, muted threats, and crocodile tears. I ask you to consider which spirit is represented by such a letter: the spirit of Christ, or that or the pharisees?
Your anxiety over scandal at St. Ann's appears to be unwarranted. Some 500 people attended my "attempted" marriage in the Stanford Memorial Church. Most of them were practicing Catholics, and they made their warm support very evident.
I will continue to minister in all available ways, and my conscience is entirely clear in doing so. I am and will remain a priest; that is why I did not go through the procedure of laicization. I do not wish to be a layman. And I do not intend to admit the rightness of the law which denies the option of Christian marriage to priests. There are countless Catholics--I meet them daily--who are alienated by the rigidity and inhumanity of the official church and its representatives. I am finding a fruitful ministry among them.
Despite the hollow booming of your Automatic Canons, I am peacefully in communion with the universal Church, and shall receive communion when I please. If priests are too intimidated, I am sure the lay minister will not be.
Sincerely yours
John S Duryea
posted by Contact at 11:20 AM
3 Comments:
Thanks, Ariel. Very informative on your stepdad. Saved me the trouble, indeed. I just found out from a priest that priests are automatically excommunicated for marrying, just before your response to my email. So it's a form of self ex-communication, if you will. Many did as much in the height of the sexual revolution. The non-optional celibacy is the biggest buggaboo for Catholics, a divisive issue for so many and the line falls straight down the middle with half wanting the celibacy laws to be dropped the other to be left. It's not as simple as one might imagine -- to simply drop the existing rule as we know it. BUt if one thinks of Christ and what it is He asked of His followers, that one lay down one's life for others, then the priest truly living a celibate life is the closest model to this ideal set by Christ. Sadly in our hyper-sexed society, the temptations are many and very great. Once I cared for an old man, a former Franciscan, who left the priesthood to marry a woman he loved. At the end of his days, he was seriously haunted by this decision of his to leave the priesthood, made years earlier, and begged me to find a priest for him, to relieve the anxiety of his sad soul. And yet, he was without a doubt one of the holiest and noblest of men that I for one have ever met, a man so close to God and yet, this haunting he endured. Broke my heart to see him suffer. The priesthood has that kind of a grip on its members and the demands it makes of the joiner is no small thing. Indeed for many of us, it is unimaginable. There but for the Grace of God, I suppose, goes the priest who can honestly live out the life they promised with the vows made at their ordination to the priesthood.
wow
your step dad looks like such a great guy. happy pictures
you should see pictures of my dad from back in the day - government worker in a crew cut, black glasses, white button down shirt with a pencil liner in his pocket
-china
ariel, your step-father is the coolness! that could nothave been easy. What a love he and your mother must have.
:)
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