Notice: Undefined index: HTTP_REFERER in /home/stparch/public_html/headmid_temp_main.php on line 4394
Newspaper Archive of
Shelton Mason County Journal
Shelton, Washington
May 17, 2007     Shelton Mason County Journal
PAGE 9     (9 of 46 available)        PREVIOUS     NEXT      Jumbo Image    Save To Scrapbook    Set Notifiers    PDF    JPG
 
PAGE 9     (9 of 46 available)        PREVIOUS     NEXT      Jumbo Image    Save To Scrapbook    Set Notifiers    PDF    JPG
May 17, 2007
 
Newspaper Archive of Shelton Mason County Journal produced by SmallTownPapers, Inc.
Website © 2025. All content copyrighted. Copyright Information
Terms Of Use | Privacy Policy | Request Content Removal | About / FAQ | Get Acrobat Reader




Kramis crams a lot into 50 years (Continued from page 8.) Griffin begins with a passage from As You Like It, a comic play writ- tea by Shakespeare, an English playwright who was suspected 0t Catholic tendencies at a time hen London and Rome were very aluch at odds. The passage describes the first .lf: of man as being that of "the nt, mewling and puking in the aUrse's arms" and says "the last ene of all is second childishness alld mere oblivion, sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything." Sans is an old way of saying Without, and it seems that Kramis d Griffin are sans guile when it c0aaes to the final age. Code, Com- raunity and Ministry was pub- liahed in 1992, and since then Grif- thl has since gone to his reward. He tote: "Retirement. This ends this ange, eventful history. I've been h to find no references in canon law to that last scene of all." He d0es allow that possible exceptions . the official silence on the age of llere oblivion" when man is "sans r..hing " may be those canons ting church authorities to ak.le provision for the pension of red bishops and priests. LIYHE CLIMB OF life," he told gathering. "The story of Jesus be summed up as three move- ts: climbing out of hatred to (t' climbing out of exclusion to :itision, climbing out of retalia- ito reconciliation. This takes a _ime of learning and climbing, I have been so blessed these Years to have so many good Pe:e on the rope to teach me thes lessons as we climb together , od s full glory." yen that he is only semi-re- il and still gives a stirring hom- i as a Catholic sermon is called, ,ter Kramis seems to be shift- ,.ears from the fifth age of man e sixth, with Shakespeare de- ping the one as when we are :ml of wise saws and modern in- -ICeS" and the other as the time n "one shifts into the lean and tbPered pantaloon, with spec, €les on nose and pouch on side. days his pouch is full of fond ries and thoughts about  Vatican II shed new light on l er, the Holy Scriptures and 1 justice. , .... There was a strong emphasis, IQ on family life and the,need for : gthening the family, he said 1  interview with this newspa- was after Vatican II that ish replaced Latin as the lan- e of the mass in the United es and the Catholic church hed out to the Christi fidelis, k' is Latin for the people Kra- calls "our Christian brothers Sisters." PRELATES of Vatican considered the role of con- in Catholicism and put emphasis on the role of the as Catholics who are not priesthood are also called. days the laity help to lead services and do more and of the heavy lifting when it to spreading the Word of is when we with God and His voice in our depth," Kramis said. that speaks volumes about then and where we well-thumbed copy of the The Documents of Vati- Speaks volumes about the man's striving in this regard be- cause the first word on the first page is "Conscience" written in his own hand and directing the read- er to a passage in the book titled, "The Dignity of the Moral Con- science." It reads: "In the depths of his conscience, man detects a law which does not impose upon him- self, but which holds him to obe- dience. Always summoning him to love good and avoid evil, the voice of conscience can when necessary speak to his heart more specifi- cally: do this, shun that. For man has written in his heart the law of God." The "good conscience" which Kramis finds in his moments alone with God has been his guide through many things. After com- pleting his studies in canon law, he spent 13 years at the Chancery of the Seattle Archdiocese, that being the headquarters of Catholi- cism in this part of the state and he being the Secretary of the Mar- riage Tribunal. THAT ASSIGNMENT put him in the vanguard of the changes in the church wrought by Vatican II in that the tribunal is charged with considering petitions of dissolu- tion, which is a Catholic variation on divorce. Canon law prohibits divorced Catholics from marrying again in the church without a dis- solution. In the years before Vati- can II, dissolutions could be very hard to get, and they required the petitioner to demonstrate that his or her marriage lacked the funda- mentals of faithfulness, perma- nency or the will and the means of having children. After the council the church recognized new grounds for a dissolution by allowing that a couple didn't have a marriage of the heart and the soul in the first place if they were too young or dis- tracted to know what they were doing when they tied the knot. After his stint with the tribu- nal, Father Kramis moved on to become pastor of Saint Theresa's Catholic Church in Federal Way, and he invited a friend by the name of Joan Walker to establish a place that he said "came to be known as the Home" where people could take contemplative retreats and find a haven in times of tran- sition. In one year they welcomed more than 200 people who were looking for a little "quiet time," and over the years they provided a kind of sanctuary to those in need of it: a couple of men who were going through a divorce and a married priest who dreamed of returning to active ministry in the Catholic church; a woman dying of cancer and a female graduate of Yale Divinity School who was be- ing stalked. "She came to us to avoid this guy," Kramis said of the latter lady. The rest of her story is a happy one, though not without enough twists and turns for another Shakespearean comedy. She found herself at cross purposes with the church authorities after she start- ed preaching the Word of God at Saint Theresa's and got orders from the Vatican to cease and de- sist. "They were cracking down all over the place at that time," Kra- mis said. DETERMINED THAT her conscience not be stifled by the Roman Curia, the woman became an Episcopalian and thus found herself in a congregation that is catholic in form but not Roman in authority. She was drawn to the Episcopal sect, in part, because it allows the ordination of female priests but then found herself mar- ried to an Episcopal clergyman. After finding that her duties as a cleric's wife were keeping her just about as busy as a woman could be, she returned to the Catholic church. Kramis finds all this to be very much in the spirit of Vatican II. "In the church today there are many models of the church," he said. "The church has prided itself on diversity." A sadder note is sounded by the case of Father James McGreal, a Catholic priest who had been ac- cused of molesting boys. Archbish- op Raymond Hunthausen asked Kramis and Walker to work with McGreal and do what they could to help him. Kramis and a psy- chologist met with McGreal twice a day in the hope of getting him to change his ways, but this was to no avail. There was something of a flap when the word got out, but the congregation at Saint There- sa's forgave their pastor some time ago, and he now regrets not hav- ing told them that McGreal was in the vicinity. McGreal lives far, far away now, and Hunthausen lives in Montana, the state of his birth and the place of his retreat from the events that dislodged him from his position of leadership on August 21, 1991. The archbishop was the youngest of the Americans to sit at Vatican II, and some of his actions in the years after the council did not sit well with Rome or Washington, D.C. The Internal Revenue Ser- vice garnisheed his wages after he refused to pay taxes in a protest of nuclear arms. The Vatican pres- sured him to resign amid reports about his liberal policies toward birth control, divorce and homo- sexuality. An investigation of the concerns was conducted by Car- dinal James Ratzinger, who now sits atop the Catholic hierarchy as Pope Benedict XVI. AFTER SPENDING the Eighties in Federal Way, the next assignment for Kramis was in Ho- quiam, where he was pastor of a handful of small churches which didn't have priests of their own. Ever ready to comfort the afflict- ed, his fbur-year ministry in Grays Harbor County found him tending to the troubles of lumberjacks and homosexuals. Come the day when some fun- damentalist churchmen preaching thereabouts got into the business of gay baiting from their pulpits, Kramis and some other minis- ters took a stand against what he calls "the mashing of homosexu- als." Meanwhile the communities of Grays Harbor County suffered through the economic troubles that were putting a hurt on the timber industry. The people prayed and Bill Quigg, a parishioner of Our Lady of Good Help, became an answer when he and his crew re- tooled a pulp mill that had closed into a paper mill that came to em- ploy 250 people. "That was a red-letter day," Kramis said. "A red-suspender day, I would call it. I used to wear my red suspenders when anything special came up, like the loggers with their red suspenders." After five years in "the Harbor," as he calls his pasture as a "circuit rider," Kramis entered his period of semi-retirement. The last 10 years have found him helping out at the Church of the Sacred Heart and working with Walker at a re- treat that has a smaller footprint list but a longer reach. Among their guests in Shelton has been Rita Wuen, a Buddhist woman from Hong Kong who still writes them every year. SOIL LIQUIDATION!: Huge Inventory -- 40,000 Yards of Top Soil Economy Top Soil $700per yard Double Screened Top Soil $99Sper yard ( Deliwry awfilable for extra charge -- 5 yard minimum) Our Topsoil is: * Composted • Sludge-free * Earth-friendly Bill McTurnal Enterprises • Beauty Bark • Land Clearing * Excavating * Hauling • Danger Tree Removal • Demolition • Drainage • Site Preparatior • Forestry Consultant • We Buy Timber it Union€ It's more than just business. Here, #'spersonal. Shelton • Elma. McCleary 800.426.5657 • www.ourcu.com CASINi Thursday, May 17, 2007 - Shelton-Mason County Journal - Page 9 Kramis crams a lot into 50 years (Continued from page 8.) Griffin begins with a passage from As You Like It, a comic play writ- tea by Shakespeare, an English playwright who was suspected 0t Catholic tendencies at a time hen London and Rome were very aluch at odds. The passage describes the first .lf: of man as being that of "the nt, mewling and puking in the aUrse's arms" and says "the last ene of all is second childishness alld mere oblivion, sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything." Sans is an old way of saying Without, and it seems that Kramis d Griffin are sans guile when it c0aaes to the final age. Code, Com- raunity and Ministry was pub- liahed in 1992, and since then Grif- thl has since gone to his reward. He tote: "Retirement. This ends this ange, eventful history. I've been h to find no references in canon law to that last scene of all." He d0es allow that possible exceptions . the official silence on the age of llere oblivion" when man is "sans r..hing " may be those canons ting church authorities to ak.le provision for the pension of red bishops and priests. LIYHE CLIMB OF life," he told gathering. "The story of Jesus be summed up as three move- ts: climbing out of hatred to (t' climbing out of exclusion to :itision, climbing out of retalia- ito reconciliation. This takes a _ime of learning and climbing, I have been so blessed these Years to have so many good Pe:e on the rope to teach me thes lessons as we climb together , od s full glory." yen that he is only semi-re- il and still gives a stirring hom- i as a Catholic sermon is called, ,ter Kramis seems to be shift- ,.ears from the fifth age of man e sixth, with Shakespeare de- ping the one as when we are :ml of wise saws and modern in- -ICeS" and the other as the time n "one shifts into the lean and tbPered pantaloon, with spec, €les on nose and pouch on side. days his pouch is full of fond ries and thoughts about  Vatican II shed new light on l er, the Holy Scriptures and 1 justice. , .... There was a strong emphasis, IQ on family life and the,need for : gthening the family, he said 1  interview with this newspa- was after Vatican II that ish replaced Latin as the lan- e of the mass in the United es and the Catholic church hed out to the Christi fidelis, k' is Latin for the people Kra- calls "our Christian brothers Sisters." PRELATES of Vatican considered the role of con- in Catholicism and put emphasis on the role of the as Catholics who are not priesthood are also called. days the laity help to lead services and do more and of the heavy lifting when it to spreading the Word of is when we with God and His voice in our depth," Kramis said. that speaks volumes about then and where we well-thumbed copy of the The Documents of Vati- Speaks volumes about the man's striving in this regard be- cause the first word on the first page is "Conscience" written in his own hand and directing the read- er to a passage in the book titled, "The Dignity of the Moral Con- science." It reads: "In the depths of his conscience, man detects a law which does not impose upon him- self, but which holds him to obe- dience. Always summoning him to love good and avoid evil, the voice of conscience can when necessary speak to his heart more specifi- cally: do this, shun that. For man has written in his heart the law of God." The "good conscience" which Kramis finds in his moments alone with God has been his guide through many things. After com- pleting his studies in canon law, he spent 13 years at the Chancery of the Seattle Archdiocese, that being the headquarters of Catholi- cism in this part of the state and he being the Secretary of the Mar- riage Tribunal. THAT ASSIGNMENT put him in the vanguard of the changes in the church wrought by Vatican II in that the tribunal is charged with considering petitions of dissolu- tion, which is a Catholic variation on divorce. Canon law prohibits divorced Catholics from marrying again in the church without a dis- solution. In the years before Vati- can II, dissolutions could be very hard to get, and they required the petitioner to demonstrate that his or her marriage lacked the funda- mentals of faithfulness, perma- nency or the will and the means of having children. After the council the church recognized new grounds for a dissolution by allowing that a couple didn't have a marriage of the heart and the soul in the first place if they were too young or dis- tracted to know what they were doing when they tied the knot. After his stint with the tribu- nal, Father Kramis moved on to become pastor of Saint Theresa's Catholic Church in Federal Way, and he invited a friend by the name of Joan Walker to establish a place that he said "came to be known as the Home" where people could take contemplative retreats and find a haven in times of tran- sition. In one year they welcomed more than 200 people who were looking for a little "quiet time," and over the years they provided a kind of sanctuary to those in need of it: a couple of men who were going through a divorce and a married priest who dreamed of returning to active ministry in the Catholic church; a woman dying of cancer and a female graduate of Yale Divinity School who was be- ing stalked. "She came to us to avoid this guy," Kramis said of the latter lady. The rest of her story is a happy one, though not without enough twists and turns for another Shakespearean comedy. She found herself at cross purposes with the church authorities after she start- ed preaching the Word of God at Saint Theresa's and got orders from the Vatican to cease and de- sist. "They were cracking down all over the place at that time," Kra- mis said. DETERMINED THAT her conscience not be stifled by the Roman Curia, the woman became an Episcopalian and thus found herself in a congregation that is catholic in form but not Roman in authority. She was drawn to the Episcopal sect, in part, because it allows the ordination of female priests but then found herself mar- ried to an Episcopal clergyman. After finding that her duties as a cleric's wife were keeping her just about as busy as a woman could be, she returned to the Catholic church. Kramis finds all this to be very much in the spirit of Vatican II. "In the church today there are many models of the church," he said. "The church has prided itself on diversity." A sadder note is sounded by the case of Father James McGreal, a Catholic priest who had been ac- cused of molesting boys. Archbish- op Raymond Hunthausen asked Kramis and Walker to work with McGreal and do what they could to help him. Kramis and a psy- chologist met with McGreal twice a day in the hope of getting him to change his ways, but this was to no avail. There was something of a flap when the word got out, but the congregation at Saint There- sa's forgave their pastor some time ago, and he now regrets not hav- ing told them that McGreal was in the vicinity. McGreal lives far, far away now, and Hunthausen lives in Montana, the state of his birth and the place of his retreat from the events that dislodged him from his position of leadership on August 21, 1991. The archbishop was the youngest of the Americans to sit at Vatican II, and some of his actions in the years after the council did not sit well with Rome or Washington, D.C. The Internal Revenue Ser- vice garnisheed his wages after he refused to pay taxes in a protest of nuclear arms. The Vatican pres- sured him to resign amid reports about his liberal policies toward birth control, divorce and homo- sexuality. An investigation of the concerns was conducted by Car- dinal James Ratzinger, who now sits atop the Catholic hierarchy as Pope Benedict XVI. AFTER SPENDING the Eighties in Federal Way, the next assignment for Kramis was in Ho- quiam, where he was pastor of a handful of small churches which didn't have priests of their own. Ever ready to comfort the afflict- ed, his fbur-year ministry in Grays Harbor County found him tending to the troubles of lumberjacks and homosexuals. Come the day when some fun- damentalist churchmen preaching thereabouts got into the business of gay baiting from their pulpits, Kramis and some other minis- ters took a stand against what he calls "the mashing of homosexu- als." Meanwhile the communities of Grays Harbor County suffered through the economic troubles that were putting a hurt on the timber industry. The people prayed and Bill Quigg, a parishioner of Our Lady of Good Help, became an answer when he and his crew re- tooled a pulp mill that had closed into a paper mill that came to em- ploy 250 people. "That was a red-letter day," Kramis said. "A red-suspender day, I would call it. I used to wear my red suspenders when anything special came up, like the loggers with their red suspenders." After five years in "the Harbor," as he calls his pasture as a "circuit rider," Kramis entered his period of semi-retirement. The last 10 years have found him helping out at the Church of the Sacred Heart and working with Walker at a re- treat that has a smaller footprint list but a longer reach. Among their guests in Shelton has been Rita Wuen, a Buddhist woman from Hong Kong who still writes them every year. SOIL LIQUIDATION!: Huge Inventory -- 40,000 Yards of Top Soil Economy Top Soil $700per yard Double Screened Top Soil $99Sper yard ( Deliwry awfilable for extra charge -- 5 yard minimum) Our Topsoil is: * Composted • Sludge-free * Earth-friendly Bill McTurnal Enterprises • Beauty Bark • Land Clearing * Excavating * Hauling • Danger Tree Removal • Demolition • Drainage • Site Preparatior • Forestry Consultant • We Buy Timber it Union€ It's more than just business. Here, #'spersonal. Shelton • Elma. McCleary 800.426.5657 • www.ourcu.com CASINi Thursday, May 17, 2007 - Shelton-Mason County Journal - Page 9