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A US scripture commentator has had her writings pulled from a book for lectors because she attended a progressive group’s conference.
At the request of Chicago archdiocese’s censor, Margaret Nutting Ralph’s work was withheld from a resource book published by Liturgy Training Publications.
Ms Ralph had given a presentation on contextual interpretation of Scripture at a Call to Action conference.
Call to Action is a Chicago-based lay organisation that works for progressive reform of the Catholic Church.
One of its aims is ordination of women to the priesthood.
Ms Ralph told the National Catholic Reporter that she and her audience discussed Vatican II’s Dei Verbum on revelation, as well as homosexuality and contraception.
They also spent a very short time on women’s ordination, she said.
But at a later telephone conference between Ms Ralph, the publisher and the archdiocese’s censor, the topic of women’s ordination was raised repeatedly by the censor.
The censor, who is a priest, told Ms Ralph that refusing to publish the commentaries was called for because he wanted to avoid any public perception that the Archdiocese of Chicago is not firm on doctrine, especially the doctrine against women’s ordination.
“He explained that by accepting an invitation to speak at Call To Action, even though my topic was on how to be a biblical contextualist, I had ‘passively supported this unorthodox group’s whole agenda’,” Ms Ralph said.
She said the commentaries she wrote for the lectors’ resource book were faithful to Church teaching.
She wrote to Chicago Cardinal Francis George in March and received a note from his office that her correspondence had been received and forwarded.
Ms Ralph worked for 16 years as secretary of educational ministries for the diocese of Lexington, Kentucky.
She was also director of a master’s programme in pastoral studies at Lexington Theological Seminary.
Ms Ralph had written commentaries for two previous Liturgy Training Publications books.
Liturgy Training Publications retains copyright and ownership the work it hired Ms Ralph to do.
The company stated it would keep her writings on file in case they could be published in the future.
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