Word: pastorals
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Back in his Harlem pulpit for the first time in four months, the Rev. Adam Clayton Powell, 62, told the 2,500 faithful in his Easter congregation that he was retiring. It might have been more of a shock-Powell has been pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church since 1937-but the ex-Congressman's stock has fallen nearly as low in the church as it has in politics. Not long ago, for example, he tossed his wallet onto the Communion table and offered to bet $1,000 that nobody in the congregation could prove to him that...
...Pacifica, Calif., they called him "Father Bob"-or just plain Bob. He had come to the seaside community just south of San Francisco in 1966 as pastor of the airy, modern church that is the nucleus of St. Peter's Roman Catholic parish. He was a Vatican II priest, no question: folk Masses, a strong parish council, an adult education program on church history and theology. But he was a bit more as well. Last week the rest of the U.S. found out what some of his parishioners have known for months: that the pretty woman and five-year...
...announcement, 800 parishioners assembled in St. Peter's for a show of support. When Father Bob entered, still in his clerical collar, they gave him a standing ovation. "If there was any way possible," said a formal statement from the parish council, "we would keep him as pastor. Because of our experience with Father Duryea, we feel that the church's rule on celibacy, which deprives our community of ministers such as Father Duryea, should be changed as soon as possible. As a married priest, he has been a very successful pastor...
...Though he felt even in seminary days that celibacy "was wrong," he had simply accepted it. When he and Lualan married, "I wasn't trying to show the church anything. I had no thought that our marriage would become public. Later I saw that I was an effective pastor and a good husband." One thing that helped convince him, says Duryea, was ecumenical contacts with married ministers and rabbis-as well as with busy professional men. How did he manage a double life? "Any busy doctor could tell you that...
...feel a shiver in his heart at the grave and terrible comment of Jesus: 'It were better for that man if he had not been born.' I cannot think of that tragic Easter drama," he went on, "without associating it in my mind, as bishop and pastor, with thoughts of the abandonment, of the flight of so many brethren in the priesthood." His voice shaking, the Pontiff castigated the "vile earthly reasons" many had for leaving the priesthood and asked the congregation to pray "for those runaway brethren and for the communities they deserted and scandalized...