In the UK’s Independent (4 Nov., 2012) there is an extraordinary
telling article regarding the absolute dysfunction of the Roman Catholic
church in that part of Europe.
It is written by a teacher at the Dublin
City University, Colum Kenny.
It could have been written in any
English-speaking jurisdiction including Canada.
Basically it deals with
the stunning arrogance of papal-appointed bishops so convinced of their
rectitude and episcopal power that they do not have to listen to the
people they are sworn to serve.
One hardly knows where to start with
such appalling behaviour. It would appear they are deeply enmeshed in
‘System think’.
They appear totally enmeshed organisational molasses far
from being a community of believers in the same church. They seem tone
deaf to the voice of fellow Christians in an organic body.
Here in brief
is the story.
The Irish Bishops Conference has refused to meet with the Association
of Catholic Priests, 1,000 strong in this small Catholic country. The
reason of course is they fear what the front-line providers are going to
say to them.
Vatican ll insisted that bishops are not branch plant
managers, sent from headquarters to enforce the Roman line. Lumen
Gentium (27) stated that they are not to be regarded as “vicars of the
Roman pontiff.”
Vatican ll insisted that the bishops were there,
‘teaching sanctifying and governing’.
One verb is missing: Listening.
It was the martyred Lutheran Dietrich Bonhoeffer who put his finger on this refusal to listen deeply:
“The first service that one owes to others in community consists in
listening to them. Just as love for God begins with listening to His
Word, so the beginning of love for the brethren is learning to listen to
them. It is God’s love for us that He not only gives His Word but also
lends us His ear … Many people are looking for an ear that will listen.
They do not find it among Christians because these Christians are
talking where they should be listening. But he who can no longer listen
to his brother will soon be no longer listening to God either; he will
be doing nothing but prattle in the presence of God. This is the
beginning of the death of the spiritual life, and, in the end, there is
nothing left but spiritual chatter and clerical condescension arrayed in
pious words”.
Fifty years after the Council’s inception, there has been much
movement in this regard, in hearing the lived experience of the baptized
and integrating in ecclesial life.
The great Anglican convert John Henry Newman inspired much of the
thinking that it is the entire People of God which is the bearer of the
Spirit. As an Anglican he never bought the cult of the papacy, “a church
with a church” he called it.
By the time of the Council this
ultramontane view had become rigid in the Roman Church.
The pope was
infallible (by himself), his bishops too at the local level and the
priest was the voice of God in the parish. Infallibility previously had
been exercised in many ways —councils, papal pronouncements and the
witness of the entire people.
By 1962 there had been was a massive
delegitimizing of the lay voice.
Pius Xl phrased it well in 1939, saying
the Roman church had become a monstrosity, is head is way out of
proportion to its body.
Cardinal Newman had been saying all of this in
his own way.
The papal magisterium can never be the sole locus of truth.
The voice of great theologians those who advanced the understanding of
the great Mystery must be taken into considration.
Vatican ll (1962-65) began the massive corrective. The vast majority of the baptized must be heard.
The Anglican Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC) states this quite nicely:
“Those who exercise episcope in the Body of Christ must not be
separated from the ‘symphony’ of the whole people of God in which they
have their part to play. They need to be alert to the sensus fidelium,
in which they share, if they are to be made aware when something is
needed for the well-being and mission of the community, or when some
element of the Tradition needs to be received in a fresh way”. (#30)
As the Irish would say, who do these bishops think they are?
It’s not as
if they are riding high in the polls after shocking scandal after
scandal has emptied churches in this almost totally Catholic country,
they are acting like fossilised bureaucrats in a church which has
privileged communio.
They have not grasped that the day is long gone
when diktats from the centre carry much weight. The Church as politburo
is a non-starter.
If these silly men will not meet with their priests, what are lay
people to think?
One Catholic layman Geoffrey Chaucer phrased it well in
the 14th century, ‘If gold ruste what shall iron do?’