Beyond John Paul II's Papacy

History has an uncanny way of repeating itself. At one of the gatherings I attended back in the late Seventies where Cardinal Basil Hume, the late Archbishop of Westminster, was the main speaker, he spoke about a Church that was witnessing the end of one pontificate and the dawn of a new one. Pope Paul VI died a few months later, only to be succeeded by the brief pontificate of Pope John Paul I and the election of Pope John Paul II.

The vein of Cardinal Hume's speech hinted at the changes needed in the Church, among which the application of the doctrine of collegiality promulgated by Vatican II. In simple terms, collegiality refers to the decentralisation of the authority in the Catholic Church.

Cardinal Hume's successor, Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor, at a meeting last November of the Churches Together in England Forum was reported to have said that "the next Pope must address the issue of how the Church is governed". He expressed his belief that Vatican II defined the nature of collegiality as the "bishop governing the Church with and under the Pope". He added: "Never Peter without the eleven, never the eleven without Peter".

In his more radical mode, the Cardinal concluded that "every bishop should consult more with the laity, and with the faith of the people of God, so that he becomes more thoroughly conversant with the Spirit of God that is in every Christian heart, and then in the mandate of Christ to govern".

It was Cardinal Franz König, the late Archbishop of Vienna, back in June 2001, who spoke of his belief that Pope John Paul II was prepared to accept moves to decentralise the structure of the Church "on a national, regional or continental basis". However, he added, that it would be the next Pontiff who would have the main responsibility for carrying out any major reforms.

It is rather interesting that three Cardinals, at a similar juncture in the life of a Papacy, should turn to the issue of collegiality and express the hope that a future Pope will address the issue, which after all was supposedly settled by Vatican II.

But why is it that so many high-ranking prelates think that the issue of collegiality is so important for the future of the Church? It is, maybe, because it would allow bishops in their respective dioceses to listen more to the laity and discern the needs of the Church in their particular domain and put in place necessary reforms to make the pastoral work of the church more effective and responsive.

It will allow them to interpret the behaviour of Catholics in areas such as family planning and the aids' epidemic and revisit the teachings of the Church with courage and openness. It will allow them to listen to what priests are telling them about their problems, about whether celibacy has become an unnecessaary link with the vocation to the priesthood, and having listened, they can proceed to devise ways forward that will provide more shepherds for the flocks that remain unattended and unfed.

It will allow bishops to listen to the great army of women who remain the backbone of the Church in many parish communities and yet, they are not properly used by the leaders of the Church in the enrichment of the lives of people with broken marriages, stale relationships and lonely existences.

One can say that there's nothing holding back bishops from attending to these areas and in fairness, it has to be said that many of them do listen. The recent synod in the diocese of Malta was an exercise in listening. The bishops of England and Wales made a determined effort last year to listen to families by appointing a bishop to visit as many families as possible and then report back to their conference.

The problem arises at the stage of post-evaluation and discernment. And the proceeds grind to a complete halt when proposals for action are formulated by bishops' conferences or individual bishops who then find that the over-arching and over-bearing bureaucracy of the Vatican Congregations stifle their proposals by delay tactics, by suspect theological dissertations or by plain arrogance.

The case for the practice of collegiality by the Church has been made repeatedly by many cardinals and bishops alike. When the Pope convened an extraordinary consistory in May 2001 and invited all cardinals, from whom he wanted to solicit advice on the Church's future as the third millenium beckoned, the issue that surfaced regularly was that of collegiality. Seven cardinals spoke about the theme, one of them was Cardinal Godfried Daneels of Belgium.

While referring to collegiality as being at the top of public opinion in the Church, he openly criticised the way synods are manipulated by curia officials and referred to the reports published by the curia as "frankly deceiving" because they tend to be heavily sanitised by Vatican officials (National Catholic Reporter, June 1, 2001)

Other cardinals referred to how the present structures of the Church do not allow local bishops the necessary freedom to act in the best interest of their local churches. The late Cardinal Thomas Winning of Scotland referred to the ongoing controversy about the Vatican norms for liturgical translations, while Cardinal Mario Francesco Pompedda, head of the Church court, argued that local churches should have a greater input in the selection of bishops.

But the most damning comment was attributed to Cardinal Aloisio Lorscheider of Brazil by the National Catholic Reporter, when he was quoted as saying that the Pope is being "imprisoned" by the Curia, "who seek to undermine him" and that the Pope's attempts to change the situation had not succeeded. In a moment of desperation he added: "all of us suffer from a faraway bureaucracy that seems ever so deaf".

It is this deafness that frustrates many bishops and their co-workers as they find themselves unable to take up initiatives, which in their considered opinion are appropriate for their particular flocks. They keep discussing, they keep attending synods and other gatherings and they keep participating in decisions, only to find these same decisions blocked later on by some Vatican document, like the recent one on the Eucharist, which has effectively banned some practices given the nod by bishops as they considered them pastorally effective and meaningful.

It is only their loyalty to the Pope and the Church that keeps them from rocking the boat. It is no wonder that prelates like Cardinal Daneels plead repeatedly for a "culture of debate" in the church. If one wants to reassure oneself that this culture is absent in the church, you only need to read what John L. Allen Jr reported in the National Catholic Reporter after the 2001 consistory: "on May 22, veteran Italian journalist Giancarlo Zizola asked Joaquin Navarro-Valls (the Vatican press officer), if any cardinal had discussed curial reform". Navarro's response was "not that I recall".

It is such arrogance and duplicity that is making many priests very unhappy, as they are forced to defend the Church and its authority in public, but in private they let rip their sense of frustration. They too must hope that the dawning of a new pontificate will bring about the necessary changes that only collegiality can deliver. And that will only be the start. Much more will remain to be done.