A Punt on the Five-Yard Line

Since organizing the Roman Catholic parish of St. Paul the Apostle in Richardson, Texas, eleven years ago, a team of four Paulist priests has created ecumenical good will in an area of traditional Catholic-Protestant coolness. The priests fostered a ministerial alliance in Richardson that even included Southern Baptists and Nazarenes, helped set up interdenominational Thanksgiving and Good Friday services. Last year one member of the quartet, the Rev. Joseph W. Drew, 34, became the first Catholic ever elected president of the Dallas Pastors' Association, most of whose members are Protestant. Father Drew recently became the first Catholic to receive a master's degree from the Methodists' Perkins School of Theology in Dallas.

Since the Paulists had been acting all along with the approval of Roman Catholic Bishop Thomas K. Gorman of Dallas-Fort Worth, there was considerable shock in local church circles last month when he abruptly fired them from his diocese. The reason, the bishop explained, was that, for all their parish achievements, the four priests had neglected another responsibility required by the contract between the Paulist order and the diocese--servicing the Catholic student-center Newman Clubs at local colleges. Because "one project after another had been abandoned, basically for lack of financial support," said Gorman, he "reluctantly" decided to relieve the Paulists of their duties.

Rally v. Refusal. The firing touched off widespread demands that the four Paulists be allowed to stay on the job. More than 1,000 parishioners of St. Paul's turned out at a rally supporting the priests, and 90% of the parish members signed a petition asking that they be reinstated. Mindful of the Paulists' ecumenical pioneering, a number of Protestant ministers wrote to the bishop asking him to reverse the decision. "What Bishop Gorman has done," said the Rev. Robert Matheny of Richardson's First Christian Church, "is like a football team that has driven all the way down the field, has a first down and goal to go on the five-yard line, and punts." The Paulists' superior general, the Very Rev. John F. Fitzgerald, called the bishop's explanation "not sufficient for such a drastic action."

Since the Paulists' ouster, delegations from their parish have met twice with the bishop, who refuses to reverse the decision. What most disturbs supporters of the four priests is their conviction that Gorman's explanation, whether justified or not, skirts another reason for the firing: the interfaith popularity of the Paulists had proved too much for the 75-year-old bishop and other ardent Romanists in his diocese.

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