A bold advocate for progressive Catholic ideals

James Callan, the Rochester priest whose bold advocacy for women in leadership and other progressive positions led to his dramatic departure from the Roman Catholic Church and the founding of Spiritus Christi Church, died Dec. 13 at the age of 77.

The cause was oral cancer, according to Mary Ramerman, his longtime friend and colleague. He spent his last days in hospice care at Strong Memorial Hospital.

Spiritus Christi has not yet announced funeral plans.

While serving as pastor at Corpus Christi Roman Catholic Church, Callan had allowed Ramerman to participate in the communion ceremony while wearing priestly vestments. That, along with his blessing of same-sex couples and allowing non-Catholics to receive communion, put both Callan and Ramerman in a “state of schism” with the church.

Callan first was transferred to a church in Elmira and then suspended in December 1998.

In response, more than 1,000 of their parishioners defected from Corpus Christi to form a new “independent Catholic church,” Spiritus Christi, in 1999, with Ramerman as senior pastor.

Callan served Spiritus Christi as an associate pastor, a position he held until his death Friday.

The Roman Catholic Church declared in February 1999 that Callan had “excommunicated himself” by starting a new church, but Callan didn’t see it that way.

“I don’t believe in excommunication,” he said at the time. “I believe in including people. That is what the universal church is supposed to be about. … I was ordained by God to serve the people, and I will.”

Callan was born Oct. 19, 1947, in Irondequoit, and attended St. John Fisher College and St. Bernard’s Seminary. While still in training to become a priest, he opened a dance hall at a shuttered Pentecostal church on Child Street, the first sign of the nonconformist approach that came to define his career.

“It was for what you would call problem kids, and I got more problems than I expected,” he said in 1976. “The neighbors complained about the noise, and the kids would lock me out.”

Just a year after graduating from the seminary, Callan was removed from an assignment at St. Peter’s and Paul’s Church in Elmira because of his insistence on allowing girls to assist at the altar as well as boys.

He was transferred to St. Ambrose in Irondequoit. Callan was stripped of his priestly duties before he could begin for refusing to move into the parish rectory, which he considered too opulent.

“Jesus’ message to the apostles was, ‘Don’t take too much with you. That way you won’t have much to lose,’” he said then. “That’s how the church should be today.”

He soon was reinstated and appointed to Corpus Christi, an urban church unlike the ones he’d known in his childhood and early career.

Over 20 years at Corpus Christi, Callan learned to fit his progressive ideals together with the needs of his congregation, arriving at a series of conclusions that grew the church and made him a sort of folk hero to his parishioners but put him at odds with Bishop Matthew Clark and the Roman Catholic Church.

For one, he was deeply affected by presiding over the funerals of dozens of AIDS victims, mostly gay men, in the 1980s. He later recounted what one gay man told him then: “Corpus Christi is getting a reputation as being a good place to die from. Why can’t we be a church where gay people can live from?”

He began to offer blessings for same-sex couples and called on the church to sanctify their civil commitments.

Callan also pushed boundaries in allowing women to participate in the rite of communion, including allowing them to wear priestly garments.

“Women are powerful ministers, and to deny them their appropriate dress on the altar is an act of injustice and a message of power and dominance by a defensive male patriarchy,” he said. “Such a defrocking is one more abusive act that our people cannot tolerate.”

Third, Callan allowed Protestants to participate in communion, another violation of church doctrine. In his view, the theological distinction underpinning that doctrine—whether the wafer represents the living presence of Jesus Christ or is simply a symbol—mattered less than its ability to draw people into the church and closer to God.

“I came to see that the table we receive communion from is not a Catholic table or a Protestant table; it is the Lord’s table,” he said. “Jesus never closed off his table to anyone.”

Clark in 1998 commended Callan for his “extraordinary ministries … and efforts to welcome all into the community with open arms.”

At the same time, the bishop pointed to a lack of “an appropriate acceptance of definitive church teachings.”

He transferred Callan to Our Lady of Lourdes Church in Elmira and fired Ramerman from Corpus Christi.

The schism attracted national attention, part of a broader conversation about the limits of progressive reform within the Roman Catholic church. Locally, meanwhile, parishioners loyal to Callan and Ramerman set to work establishing a place of their own. Spiritus Christi first rotated among several religious buildings before settling at Downtown United Presbyterian Church, its current home, in 2003.

The Diocese of Rochester’s communications director, Edward Giblin, wrote in an email Sunday: “We join his family and friends in praying for the repose of his soul.”

In an interview, Ramerman said Callan never envisioned Spiritus Christi as a permanent institution but instead held out hope for a reconciliation with the diocesan authorities.

“We saw ourselves as an ark in a difficult period in history of the church, when the church was not yet ready to accept women in leadership or gay and lesbian people,” she said. “Spiritus Christi has lasted much longer than he or I ever thought it would last.”

The church, now under the leadership of Rev. Myra Brown, has provided a home for many progressive and public-facing ministries that Callan long championed. They include a prison outreach center, a hospice, physical and mental health clinics, and an addiction recovery program.

As associate pastor, Ramerman said, Callan was always encouraging of parishioners seeking to pursue their own religious and charitable vocations.

“I think when people are around Father Jim, they become a little bit kinder, a little bit more tolerant of other people, a little bit more generous, and a lot more powerful with the love they have to transform the world,” she said.

He also wrote several books about the church’s history and his movement, including biographies of Ramerman and other Spiritus Christi leaders.

Callan died one day after several thousand people gathered at Spiritus Christi, in person and online, to pay him tribute.

Among scores of messages was one from Associate Pastor Celie Katovitch, who attempted to craft a “parishioners’ state of the heart” to voice to him directly.

“So many (people) expressed that you brought them back to church with your example of sincere passion for Jesus and love of others,” she said. “You have been courageous in your determination to uphold the ideals of the church—not the rules.”

Justin Murphy is a Rochester Beacon contributing writer. He is the research and communications coordinator for Our Local History and a former reporter for the Democrat and Chronicle.The Beacon welcomes comments and letters from readers who adhere to our comment policy including use of their full, real name. See “Leave a Reply” below to discuss on this post. Comments of a general nature may be submitted to the Letters page by emailing  [email protected]. 

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