EDITORIAL Breaking the papal monopoly on
tradition
Because the Catholic church looks to
the pope as its unifying center, theres a natural temptation to confuse
what is Catholic with what is papal, and to assume that
the latter is always and everywhere the best measure of the former. This
tendency is reinforced by the fact that the pope, working through the Roman
curia, assumes the administrative power to define whats in and out of the
tradition at any given moment.
But the plain truth is that a given papacy is not always the best
embodiment of Catholic tradition. Sometimes it can be a distortion of what is
authentically Catholic. This is precisely the case under John Paul, a heroic
figure, but nevertheless a pontiff whose centralization of power and creeping
infallibilism has tilted the churchs historic balance away from diversity
toward a stifling uniformity.
Given the charisma of this pope, combined with the inclination of
many Catholics to defer to authority, it is not always easy to perceive how far
the tradition has been bent out of shape on John Pauls watch.
In recent weeks, however, retired Cardinal Franz König of
Vienna has -- gently but clearly -- broken the scarlet code of silence that
says cardinals do not criticize the pope they serve. In so doing, König
has outlined how this papacy has led the church off-course and what we must do
to find our way back.
König first took on the Congregation for the Doctrine of the
Faith in a Jan. 16 article in the London-based Tablet, where he
responded to news that the congregation has launched an investigation of
Belgian Jesuit Fr. Jacques Dupuis. König expressed deep concern for the
potential chilling effect on inter-religious dialogue.
With its long-standing, extensive experience over centuries,
one should surely be able to rely on the doctrinal congregation to find better
ways of doing its job, he wrote. Most pointedly, König said that the
congregation must find a way to shed its Western bias when dealing with
theologies emanating from non-Western cultures.
König next offered a broad vision of the churchs future
in a March 26 Tablet article. His key theme was the need to combat
inflated centralism.
König is unflinching: In the post-conciliar period ...
the Vatican authorities have striven to take back autonomy and central
leadership for themselves. ... The style of leadership of the universal church
which is being practiced today is not entirely in keeping with the
councils intentions.
König calls for two reforms. First, the college of bishops
must be allowed to share in the governance of the universal church, especially
through the synod.
The cardinal asserts the curia has overstepped its bounds.
In fact, however, de facto and not de jure, intentionally or
unintentionally, the curial authorities working in conjunction with the pope
have appropriated the tasks of the episcopal college, König writes.
It is they who now carry out almost all of them.
Second, König says that bishops must have more freedom to
administer their own dioceses. Lumen Gentium 27 makes it quite
clear that the bishops are not the popes emissaries, nor are they here,
as some maintain, to carry out the popes instructions.
We have to return to the decentralized form of the
churchs command structure as practiced in earlier centuries,
König concludes. That, for the world church, is the dictate of
today.
König is not alone in this diagnosis. His words echo retired
Archbishop John Quinn of San Francisco in his memorable Oxford lecture,
Cardinal Godfried Danneels of Mechelen-Brussels, Belgium, who called for a
program of decentralization more than three years ago, and the 41 bishops who
spoke at the Synod for Asia on that theme.
He also joins the approximately 40 U.S. bishops who issued a
document in 1995 calling on their colleagues to take a less subservient stance
with respect to the Vatican, and demanding more freedom to speak openly on
issues such as women in the church and contraception. Signatories included
Archbishop Rembert Weakland of Milwaukee and Bishops Raymond Lucker of New Ulm,
Minn., and Kenneth Untener of Saginaw, Mich.
The need for a more flexible approach from the Vatican is
underscored by the letter from Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, which rejects key
recommendations from last falls Dialogue for Austria. The inescapable
conclusion for many Catholics is not only that the church will never change,
but it is not even remotely interested in what they think.
König, Quinn and others who advocate a more pastoral,
open-minded approach are hardly radicals. They represent the moderate heart of
the church, a center that desperately needs to be restored.
The next time the college of cardinals files into St. Peters
for a conclave, they would do well to have such thoughts in mind.
National Catholic Reporter, April 9,
1999
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