The Bishops in Charge

“At last.” I breathed a sigh of gratitude upon my first reading of Bishop Wilton Gregory’s presidential address at the November meeting of the bishops conference. At last they are no longer jumping through media hoops and giving the impression of scurrying about like scared executives in search of a public relations fix. At the June meeting in Dallas they were perceived by many as—in the memorable phrase of Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz of Lincoln, Nebraska—“this hapless bench of bishops.” Gregory’s address set a different tone. Haplessness was displaced by hopefulness, touched by a note of determination and even defiance. We are bishops of the Catholic Church, he told his brothers, and the events of the past year have called us back to the responsibilities that attend that dignity and responsibility.

He took his text from Isaiah: “Comfort, give comfort to my people, says your God.” To be comforted does not mean to be at ease, Gregory said, but is God’s gift of “a life of complete and active engagement with God in Jesus Christ.” “We bishops, by the grace of our sacramental consecration, are the authentic bearers of [Christ’s] mission . . . . Like the apostles whom we succeed, we have been sent to announce God’s word.” After a year of frequent floundering, of embarrassed pandering, and of pathetic excuse-making, Gregory’s message was that the bishops are prepared to reassume their office, recommit themselves to their tasks, and speak again in the distinctive language of the Church. At last.

There was much else that was heartening in the presidential address that set the tone for the meeting. Gregory underscored that the threefold office of the bishop is to teach, to sanctify, and to govern, and none of those responsibilities can be shirked or farmed out to others. The Church is not defined by the story line of the culture; the culture is defined by the story borne by the Church. “Only the light of Christ,” Gregory declared, “can fully reveal the truth of the world in which we live.” He noted that the June meeting had been totally given over to the sex abuse scandals. “We put in place measures to ensure the greatest protection of our children in the Church,” he said, and he expressed confidence that the revisions of those measures proposed by Rome and to be adopted by the November meeting would further strengthen what Dallas did.

At the same time, Gregory made clear that the mission of the Church and the attention of the bishops cannot be, and will not be, monopolized by sex abuse and scandals. He spoke of the other items of business before the meeting: a statement on violence in the home, a joint appeal with the Mexican bishops on the treatment of migrants, a declaration on overcoming poverty, and a strong affirmation of the Church’s defense of the unborn on the thirtieth anniversary of the infamous Roe v. Wade decision. He didn’t quite put it this way, but he seemed to be saying to the culture, and to the media in particular, “We appreciate your concern, but the Catholic Church doesn’t need to take lessons from you on caring about the vulnerable and marginal.” One might dispute some of the policy proposals adopted by the bishops, but Gregory struck a refreshing note of candor and even feistiness that we haven’t heard in a long time. At last.

“There are those outside the Church who are hostile to the very principles and teachings that the Church espouses,” he asserted, “and have chosen this moment to advance the acceptance of practices and ways of life that the Church cannot and will never condone.” He did not explicitly mention homosexuality, but one wonders what else might be meant by “practices and ways of life.” Before Dallas, Gregory was outspoken in his worry about the association between homosexuality and the priesthood. It appears he may again dare to speak the name of an undeniable factor in the sins and crimes that have come to light this year. It is known that Rome is preparing a document that will underscore the necessity of, among other things, not admitting homosexuals to holy orders. In any event, the reference to practices and ways of life that the Church cannot and will never condone met with strong approval from the assembled bishops. At last.

Aware that many priests have been demoralized or outraged, or both, by the way Dallas undermined the relationship of trust between priest and bishop, Gregory went out of his way to affirm “the overwhelming majority of priests [who] are faithful servants of the Lord.” “ God bless our priests! ” he declared, “ They have surely blessed us! ” He also said, “Priests today too often are being unfairly judged by the misdeeds of other priests, men often long departed from ministry or even deceased.” This was a carefully calibrated address, and one may infer from the second part of that statement a criticism of bishops who have promiscuously publicized confidential files about priests in order to demonstrate their achievement of the episcopal virtue du jour, “transparency.” Never mind whether accusations are substantiated or even credible: priestly vocations and the reputations of priests honorably retired or deceased are a small price to pray for a bishop to be media-certified as tough on sexual abuse. At least I hope Bishop Gregory intended a criticism of bishops who seem to take that view. If so, one says again: At last.

The chief business of the November meeting, it is fair to say, was to defend and reassert the Catholic teaching that the Church is, by divine constitution, governed by bishops. “Sadly,” Bishop Gregory observed, “even among the baptized there are those at extremes within the Church who have chosen to exploit the vulnerability of the bishops in this moment to advance their own agendas. One cannot fail to hear in the distance—and sometimes very nearby—the call of the false prophet, ‘Let us strike the shepherd and scatter the flock.’ We bishops need to recognize this call and to name it clearly for what it is.” At their Washington meeting in November, the bishops recognized and named the challenge to episcopal governance. To that, too, one wants to say, At last.

Allocating Shares in the Mission

And yet, in their actions, as well as in Bishop Gregory’s presidential address, there is evidence that the bishops may not fully understand the sources of the challenge to their authority. Not only “at extremes within the Church,” and not only at one extreme of right or left, there is the belief that somewhere near the heart of the evils exposed in the last year is the corruption called clericalism, with its attendant vices of clubbiness, secretiveness, and obsession with power. Clericalism is the policy and habit of maintaining or increasing the power of a religious hierarchy. Clericalism is about power, and therefore elicits aspirations to countervailing power. Clericalism is the opposite of priestly and episcopal grace, which is the grace of service. Clericalism is deaf to the words of the one who said that the greatest among you must be the servant of all, and offered himself as one who came “not to be served but to serve.”

This is not to suggest that bishops do not work very hard at what they believe to be serving the People of God. I have no doubt that they do. The critical misstep of clericalism is to think that the Church and her mission belong mainly, perhaps even exclusively, to the clergy, and especially to the bishops. Clericalism is the operative assumption that the clergy are the Church rather than the less than .01 percent of her members who are ordained to serve the others by helping them to serve the Lord. Episcopal and priestly servanthood invites the response of servanthood; episcopal and priestly clericalism provokes the reaction of anticlericalism.

Speaking of the Church’s mission, Bishop Gregory says, “We bishops, by the grace of our sacramental consecration, are the authentic bearers of that mission and the message it contains.” To be sure. But he might have added that all Christians, by the grace of Baptism, are also authentic bearers of that mission and message. On the troubles of the past year he says, “Moreover, we bishops ourselves have not been immune from disagreement and discord on this matter . . . . Whatever the differences we have experienced with one another this year, it is essential to our life in Christ that we address them appropriately and reconcile fully with one another.” To be sure, discord is not good, but one might suggest that honest disagreement among bishops is a healthy thing, not least in holding negligent and miscreant brothers to account. The needed thing is bishops who are teachers able to teach in their own voice, rather than being anonymous components of the bureaucratic collective that is the episcopal conference. Collegiality should not mean conformity. Nor should cooperation be confused with clubbability.

Bishop Gregory says, “The mission given us by the Lord is one in which all members of the Church have a proper share. That is especially true of those who are related to us in ministry by Sacred Ordination. It is also true of the religious and laity. When I think of those in my own diocese who assist me in fulfilling the mission that the Lord has given me, my heart’s eye turns toward all of my brother priests.” Bishops should, he says, “give both the religious and laity their rightful place and share in the mission of the Church. He goes on to describe how lay people render great service in various church offices and councils, saying, “The opportunities for the laity to assist us are great and we need to seize upon them in order to fulfill effectively the mission the Lord has given us.”

One understands that Bishop Gregory is intending to reaffirm the governing authority of the bishops, but one may be permitted to suggest that he frames that authority in a way that plays into the hands of those who are challenging it. Voice of the Faithful and other activists agitate for “power sharing,” which is to say they agitate for power. They agitate for power on the clericalist assumption that the Church and her mission belongs to the bishops. The disagreement between them and the bishops is over the extent of “their rightful place and share” in that mission. Bishop Gregory says the bishops “give” the laity their part in the mission, and some of the laity demand that they be given more. He says the laity have a “rightful” part, and some of the laity demand an expansion of their rights. Such are the confusions generated by conceiving the Church along clericalist lines. Similarly with priests. It is understood that bishops possess the fullness of priestly ordination, but if priests are only there to “assist” the bishop in his ministry, it encourages the mindset that successful assistants should aim at becoming bosses. That is to say, they should become bishops.

Most problematic is the implication that lay people find “their rightful place and share in the mission of the Church” by gaining positions of influence in ecclesiastical structures, or by being given a part of the bishop’s job. The Second Vatican Council underscores that the mission of the Church is the mission of Christ and belongs to all the faithful, for all participate in the mission of Christ. To be a lay person is the typical and ordinary way of participating in that mission. The vocation of the laity is not realized by obtaining a share of the vocation of the clergy, the Council insists, but by advancing Christ’s mission in the world. Not by being “Father’s little helper” (or the Bishop’s little helper) but by fulfilling their tasks in the temporal order do lay people respond to the call to holiness, which is a universal call. The place and share of bishops in the mission of the Church is indispensable. They are, the Council says, “teachers of doctrine, priests of sacred worship, and officers of good order.” That is the threefold responsibility, and the last refers to governance. Good order is assured when each member of the body is rightly ordered to his or her calling in the body, of which all are equally part.

“For you I am a bishop, with you I am a brother,” said St. Augustine. Some of our brothers who are bishops were not doing their job over a long period of time. Had they been doing their job, we would not have the present crisis. The remedy is for them to be more the bishops they were ordained to be, not less. The remedy is not in sharing their authority but in exercising their authority. Their first responsibility is to teach. In April’s historic meeting with the Pope in response to the crisis, the Holy Father accented the importance of “total commitment” to the Church’s teaching on human sexuality. In living in fidelity to that teaching and their sacred vows, he said, the laity need the example of bishops and priests who do the same.

Perhaps that lesson has been learned through the shame and sadness of the past year, although it must be said that there has been slight public reference by bishops to fidelity in teaching and life. Perhaps because insisting upon fidelity on the part of bishops and priests would be controversial, possibly resulting in disagreement and even “discord.” Perhaps because bishops charged with oversight are not aware of the many clerical infidelities, although that seems improbable. Or perhaps because it is thought that, if such infidelities pose no threat to minors and therefore pose no further threat to the Church’s reputation or purse, they pose no problem. It would be pleasant to say that the last possibility is not plausible.

Almost Business As Usual

The message of the November meeting was that the bishops are in charge. There was even an air of going about business as usual: receiving committee reports, passing resolutions on this and that. When people make a point of insisting that they’re in charge, they’re usually not. But, this being the Catholic Church, there is nobody else to be in charge. No doubt Our Lord will one day explain why he set things up this way. Perhaps to test our faith. Although some are outstanding in competence, holiness, and apostolic zeal, the Church, all things considered, deserves a better set of bishops. But then Our Lord deserves a better Church, meaning all of us. He got us, and we got one another. The problem, if that is what it is, began when he decided not to entrust his mission to the angels.

The bishops adopted “A Statement of Episcopal Commitment.” There has been much criticism that the bishops have had a great deal to say about errant priests but nothing about bishops who allowed, or were complicit in, wrongdoing. The statement, it is said, “manifests our accountability to God, to God’s people, and to one another.” “Participating together in the college of bishops, we are responsible to act in a manner that reflects both effective and affective collegiality, including fraternal support, fraternal challenge, and fraternal correction.” At last, one might say. But the particulars of the statement are pretty limp. If an allegation of sexual abuse is made against a bishop, the Metropolitan bishop will be informed. If the allegation is against the Metropolitan, the bishop next in seniority will be informed. That’s it. Nothing is said about what will be done. It does not even say that the papal nuncio will be informed. “You say Bishop Wasisname is accused of fiddling a teenage boy? Thanks for telling me.” That’s that. Some people may be excused for thinking this falls somewhat short of manifesting “accountability to God, to God’s people, and to one another.” The statement does not even touch on the main concern, which is not bishops guilty of sexual abuse but bishops guilty of facilitating sexual abusers. Of course the episcopal conference does not have direct authority over bishops who are heads of their local churches”and a good thing, too”but it might have been better not to adopt a statement on episcopal accountability at all than to adopt a statement so vacuous as this.

The bishops also adopted an eleven-page statement, “When I Call for Help: A Pastoral Response to Domestic Violence Against Women.” It is, with some updating, a recycling of a statement on that subject of ten years ago, and it may be welcomed by some advocacy groups if, at this point in history, they still think it helpful to invoke the moral authority of the bishops conference. Then there is the “Statement on Iraq.” The Catholic bishops of the country helpfully alert President Bush to the fact that war is attended by serious risks. “Thanks, I needed that,” one does not imagine him saying. It is not as bad a statement as the voluble Bishop Thomas Gumbleton, auxiliary of Detroit, and other pacifists wanted. It is mainly a rehearsal of the bishops’ concerns, anxieties, fears, etc., joined to a reflection on the pertinence of traditional just war doctrine. (For a clarification of aspects of the doctrine that the statement neglects, see George Weigel’s essay in this issue.) “There are no easy answers,” the bishops say. They acknowledge that they do not know all the facts pertinent to decision-making (they have been very busy with other matters this past year), but they pray that leaders “will find the will and the ways to step back from the brink of war.” Importantly, they do not downplay the threat of terrorism, they do not blame America or engage in “root causes” blather, and they do recognize that the final decisions rightly belong to civil authority. Given the bishops’ track record on questions of war and peace—if the U.S. had accepted their counsel during the Cold War, we would likely still be fighting it or its outcome might have gone the other way—the statement is more judicious than might have been expected.

Much more useful is “A Place at the Table,” a long statement on the Catholic recommitment to overcome poverty, both domestic and global. It engages in serious moral and theological reflection, underscoring both the opportunities and threats posed by globalization, and is refreshing in its proposal of a non-statist understanding of economics. The economic “table” mentioned in the title rests, the statement says, on four legs: 1) what families and individuals can do, 2) what community and religious institutions can do, 3) what the private sector [the free market] can do, and 4) what the government can do. The chief role of the government is to secure the legal and policy context within which the first three players can do their job. For the first time in a major statement by the episcopal conference, it appears that the arguments and conceptualizations advanced by the 1991 encyclical Centesimus Annus have been seriously engaged. One might raise questions about this or that, but, all in all, “A Place at the Table” indicates a new and more promising direction in the conference’s pronouncements on political economy and moral discernment.

Welcome also is “A Matter of the Heart,” a strong statement occasioned by the thirtieth anniversary of Roe v. Wade , January 22, 2003. The statement clearly reaffirms Catholic teaching, and notes the ways in which, despite entrenched opposition, “the pro-life movement has grown year by year, in numbers and in vitality.” The infamous Supreme Court ruling has resulted in “forty million lives destroyed” and in “a long trail of broken hearts,” especially the broken hearts of women. But the statement notes that fewer abortions are being done each year, that more Americans now identify themselves as pro-life than as pro-choice, that there are a growing number of ministries helping women with crisis pregnancies, and that most state legislatures have enacted measures to protect the unborn. (Among hopeful signs, the bishops do not mention the pro-life position of the Bush Administration or the increase in pro-life legislators elected the week before their meeting. Perhaps such mention was thought too partisan.) “Above all,” the statement notes, “the pro-life movement is brimming with the vibrancy of youth.” The most pro-life part of the population is people under thirty, matched only by those over sixty-five. “We will speak out,” the bishops declare, “on behalf of the sanctity of each and every human life wherever it is threatened, from conception to natural death, and we urge all people of good will to do likewise.” The last sentence is short and to the point: “ Roe v. Wade must be reversed.”

Moreover, I am glad to say that I was wrong last month when I suggested that the proposal for a plenary council of the Church in the U.S. would probably get short shrift. It didn’t get a lot of attention, but it appears that the proposal is not dead. A discussion of the idea is on the agenda for the semi-annual meeting next spring. Bishops who worry that such a council would be “hijacked” because canon law requires the participation of many non-bishops are floating an alternative proposal: asking the Pope to convene a special Synod of Bishops just for the bishops of the U.S. Whether a council or a synod or a series of regional synods leading up to a council is the best way to go, it is imperative that the bishops find a way to solemnly and decisively receive the teaching of the Second Vatican Council as authoritatively interpreted by the Magisterium, to examine and act upon the corruptions of leadership now so flagrantly on public display, and, at last, to assume their full responsibility in leading toward “a holier episcopate, a holier priesthood, and a holier Church.”

The Price That Has Been Paid

And now I have not said much about the charter and revised norms dealing with sexual abuse. That is because there is not much to say. I have read the documents and the reams of commentary on the documents, but everything depends on what happens now. Rome reined in the panicked policies of the Dallas meeting, which is what some bishops were counting on and why they voted for those policies even as they admitted they were deeply flawed. For instance, the definition of sexual abuse is more precise. The Dallas definition (borrowed from the Canadian bishops) was so elastic that almost any adult could be found guilty of sex abuse. The new rules also return to the old-fashioned idea that even priests should not be pronounced guilty”should not have their life’s work shattered and their reputations trashed”without due process. Provisions for transferring priests from one jurisdiction to another are tightened, and it is clarified that the rules apply also to priests in religious orders. Contrary to some press reports, all credible accusations will still have to be reported according to civil law. Statutes of limitations in canon law may even provide some opening toward taking into account the possibility of repentance and transformation of life, a possibility that the Pope at that April meeting said must never be forgotten, but that the bishops, knowing it is public relations poison, have done their best to forget.

Will the charter and the revised norms work? Nobody can know. If by “work” one means that there will be nobody in the priesthood or any other ministry of the Church who poses a threat to children, I expect it will work as well as is humanly possible. If by “work” one means that this entire mess can now be put behind us, there are months and probably years of lawsuits and trials to come, and we cannot discount the possibility of further revelations of past misdeeds. If by “work” one means that all we have been through will result in, as the Holy Father put it in April, “a holier episcopate, a holier priesthood, and a holier Church,” that is the subject of earnest prayer. Keep in mind also that the revised rules are riddled with footnoted references to provisions of canon law, some of them quite obscure. Keep in mind above all that—apart from judgments in civil and criminal courts—the crucial decisions will still be made by bishops, whether here or in Rome. For those who find that not entirely reassuring, see above on the perduring puzzlement over why Christ constituted his Church as he did.

It can be argued that the bishops have, all in all, successfully weathered the troubles of 2002. The Catholic scandals are off the front pages and the evening news, and, although there was much negative commentary, the revisions of Dallas adopted at the November meeting have not reignited the media firestorm of the past year. It is hard to know how the storm could be reignited, although the possibility cannot be excluded. There is no doubt that the bishops are very serious about preventing the sexual abuse of minors, although it is possible a few bishops still do not get it. The public perception would seem to be that the bishops, after a long period of negligence and a few instances of complicity, are now back on the job. If Dallas and subsequent actions have done that, it is no little achievement.

The cost has been of monumental proportions. It will take years, and perhaps decades, for the bishops and, therefore, the Catholic Church to recover the moral credibility that has been lost. The past year has given long-lasting ammunition to the forces of anti-Catholicism in American life. Not so much among the Catholic faithful and people favorably disposed to the Church, but among the general public the positions and pronouncements of bishops will for years to come be met with ribald comments about clerics and little boys. The inestimable cost includes the historic failure of the bishops at Dallas to speak the gospel of Jesus Christ as it relates to sin and grace, repentance and restoration. Not perhaps for the general public, but for those who care about the Church’s witness and for those who write the histories of this period, the indelibly imprinted image of Dallas will be that of panicked executives abasing themselves before media inquisitors in order to save their skins.

Closely related to that, it will take years or decades to restore the former level of trust between priests and bishops. Priests will not soon forget that, come the crunch, too many bishops were all too ready to offer them, their vocations and their reputations, to appease the appetite of the public relations monster. Pro-lifers will not forget, nor should they forget, that, come the crunch, the bishops violated their own policies and solemn pronouncements by appointing notorious proponents of abortion to positions of oversight in the Church, as witness the National Review Board. And it may be many decades, if ever, before the respect of civil authorities for the Church’s right to govern itself ( libertas ecclesiae ) will be restored. In that connection, a little but telling incident: a bishop and a priest met about an accusation that had been made, and the bishop explained that the diocesan lawyer was present at the meeting “in order to protect the confidentiality of our conversation.” It is assumed that the civil authorities will show greater respect for a lawyer than for a bishop, for the rights of the legal profession than for the rights of the Church. Two years ago, such a thing was nearly inconceivable. We have hardly begun to appreciate the cost exacted by the Long Lent of 2002.

But as I wrote last month, there is undoubtedly a new sense of gravity and a widely shared determination to understand what went wrong and how to set it right, or at least to make sure it doesn’t happen again. Laurie Goodstein of the New York Times has been a generally fair and perceptive reporter of the troubles. Her story after the November meeting is titled “Tradition as Healer,” and she notes that the cause of those who have agitated for married clergy, women priests, gays in ministry, the approval of contraception, and other changes has been severely set back. The new mood of the bishops, she says, is reflected in the words of Allen Vigneron, auxiliary of Detroit: “These are things in the Church that are not policies. They are doctrines, and they aren’t ever going to be negotiable. For us to explain ourselves as a Church, we need to say that.” Goodstein writes: “A vast majority of bishops are company men, appointed by and loyal to Pope John Paul II. At the Washington meeting, they made it clear that those who were looking to them for innovation would be disappointed.” She concludes her account with this: “There is one antidote to the abuse crisis, the Rev. Richard John Neuhaus said at a recent forum. That, he said, is ‘Fidelity, fidelity, fidelity.’”

Ms. Goodstein got an important part of the story right. The gravity that I mentioned is the order of the day. For most, if not all, of the bishops, the silly season is over, the era of wink and nudge is definitively past, the bishops are back in charge. But, pace Ms. Goodstein, to be loyal to John Paul II is more than a matter of being a company man, and fidelity is about much more than toeing the line. Fidelity is the high adventure of following John Paul in effectively teaching the vibrant orthodoxy of the radical call to holiness. Fidelity requires change and, yes, innovation in obedience to the truth of the faith. Fidelity is the excitement of discovering and living the living tradition of the saints, past and present. Fidelity is the surrender of self to Christ and his Church. Fidelity is the courage to be different, to lovingly engage the culture and, when necessary, to be countercultural and even contra mundum. Fidelity is the alternative to the dreary conformism that produced this season of outrage and shame. Fidelity is conversion.