ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, January 11, 1997 TAG: 9701130002
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-5 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: MUNICH, GERMANY
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
``The pope represents everything I dislike about the Roman Catholic Church,'' said Christa Muggli, a Munich high school teacher who until 1995 was a serious, practicing Roman Catholic.
Muggli used to attend Mass every Sunday and saw her parish as a handy place to organize for her favorite cause, the environment.
For years she managed to overlook the usual sticking points that alienate many Catholics in the industrialized West - the barring of women from the priesthood, the ban on artificial contraception, scandals involving libidinous priests.
But then came the United Nations' World Population Congress in Cairo, Egypt, two years ago, ``the last drop that made the cup run over,'' as Muggli put it. She said she watched in mounting outrage as - against Egypt's sprawling canvas of poverty and female subjugation - the Vatican delegation delayed and tried to weaken the final resolution's language on abortion, birth control and sex education.
She went straight to her parish rectory and announced her departure to a nonplused pastor.
But once a Catholic, always a Catholic, as so many writers have said for centuries.
Muggli discovered that out on her own, without the cherished rituals and rhythms of faith that had comforted and inspired her throughout her life - the chants, the out-loud creeds, the saints and symbols, the transcendent moment of grace at altar and Communion rail -there was an aching hole in her life.says Then a colleague from her school told her about St. Willibrord's. Muggli went to Mass there and was delighted to discover all the familiar practices and appointments of Catholic worship - in a climate of intellectual freedom.
``Here, we have a more democratic institution,'' Muggli said.``The individual counts more.''
LENGTH: Short : 44 linesby CNB