European reform engine seems to
sputter
By ROBERT BLAIR KAISER
Special to the National Catholic Reporter Schmiedeberg,
Germany
From an organizational viewpoint, it seems that the engine of
church reform in Europe, in overdrive from 1995 to 1999, has shifted into low
gear.
This impression was formed during the second weekend in January,
when a leading network for Catholic reform groups in Europe held its 10th
annual meeting here. Delegates from 12 countries spent three days telling one
another their stories, firming up their links in cyberspace, electing new
officers and doing a marvelous liturgy together on Saturday night -- in German,
French and English.
But they launched no new initiatives, and the outgoing secretary
for the group -- known as the European Network Church on the Move -- reported
the demise of one Italian affiliate and the resignation of another. Simon
Bryden-Brook of London also said that a reform group from Liechtenstein has
declined several invitations to join the network. Its tentative affiliation
last year was hailed as one of the networks more significant
accomplishments.
The closest thing to dramatic action came when members of the
group decided to be present in Rome as a kind of shadow synod when the
worlds bishops gather again in 2000.
This sense of drift on the Catholic left in Europe is admittedly
based on one January meeting in a remote ski town in eastern Germany. There is
another, bigger reform group, the International Movement We Are Church. And
there are a number of local groups who didnt send delegates to this
meeting; they continue quietly to live the spirit of Vatican II in their little
towns and campus organizations. One brochure issued by a German network called
Initiative: Church From Below listed 42 affiliated local groups
from Munster, Germany, to Munich, Germany.
But the engine for reform is certainly sputtering in Austria,
until recently the heartland of European reform energies. In the Easter season
of 1995 a small group of Catholics in Innsbruck, Austria, launched a petition
drive to call for a more loving, democratic and generous church. They seemed to
triumph in 1998, when the official church-sponsored Dialogue for Austria, a
national convention of Austrian Catholics, endorsed a sweeping program of
reform.
The Austrian Kirchenvolksbewegung, or Peoples Movement
in the Church, hacked out a five-point action program. They said the
church had to: (1) respect all the people of God, whether lay or ordained, by
giving them a meaningful voice in church affairs -- including a role in the
selection of bishops; (2) give full equal rights to women; (3) lift mandatory
celibacy for priests; (4) encourage a positive understanding of sexuality; and
(5) teach the gospel as a message of joy.
Within a few months, this renewal campaign had spread to Germany,
and soon local versions of the Austrian initiative sprang up in countries all
over the world, including Belgium, Brazil, Bolivia, Canada, Catalonia, Chile,
Colombia, Costa Rica, France, Great Britain, Holland, India, Ireland, New
Zealand, Portugal, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland, the United States and
Venezuela.
By October 1999, this rough coalition of Catholic reform groups
was ready to present signed petitions to the Synod of European Bishops meeting
in Rome. In a good-natured, laughing and very informal ceremony,
representatives of the reform from all over the world presented more than 2
million signatures to a functionary of the synod outside the synods
meeting hall at the Casa Santa Marta, just a stones throw from the Holy
Office.
There is no evidence that the synod took any official notice of
this shadow synod.
What happened in Austria? Our bishops pulled back,
reported Matthias Jacubec, one of the delegates to the network gathering.
For a while there, we thought we had something going. But the bishops
were not willing to continue the dialogue.
Emboldened, perhaps by secret letters from Cardinal Ratzinger
telling them that the Austrians were departing from church teachings and
discipline, Jacubec said, They decided on a policy of aussitzen --
waiting it out.
And then, said Jacubec, after the Austrian press
lost interest in a story that wasnt going anywhere, a lot of the people
lost interest, too. Many just stopped going to Mass.
Is there no sign of hope in Austria? There is, said
Jakubec, who works as a software engineer for the Austrian telephone company.
Laymen and laywomen will just start taking over in communities where the
priests are fading away. Thats the future of Catholicism in
Austria.
The trouble is that in much of Europe, Austria included, there is
no separation of church and state; the government gives the church 40 percent
of its yearly budget, no questions asked. That money, said Jakubec,
doesnt go to the people of God. It goes to their bishops.
The European Network delegates didnt spend all their
convention time looking inward. Valerie Stroud of Rochester, England, and an
officer in We Are Church United Kingdom, said, We need to do more than
talk. We have to get out there and be Christians in the spirit of Matthew
25.
She was an eager listener to presentations that took most of one
day by four earnest young women, Catholic social workers from Germany, Hungary,
Poland and the Czech Republic. They told about the rise of prostitution in
Poland and along the German border, and a vicious new slave trade that sells
(or leases) pretty young women from the former Soviet Union and most of the
other countries in Eastern and Central Europe to well-heeled businessmen
throughout the world.
Fully half of the slavers, it was said, are tough women from
Bulgaria, Romania and Russia. And the other half are Russian Mafia.
Typically, they give their working girls 10 percent of their
earnings; after paying rent in the brothel, with six to eight roommates in a
single room, their take home pay is 300 marks a month, about $150.
And so, network delegates learned about the facts of life under
Europes new capitalism. Most of them even took a bus trip to the nearby
Czech border to observe streetwalkers in action. Nothing new here,
said Simon Bryden-Brook. They looked no different than the streetwalkers
of London or Rome. Its an old profession.
If only it were more of a profession in Eastern Europe. Joanna
Garnier, a social worker from Warsaw, said there are no laws against
prostitution in Poland (and therefore no legal protection for the young women
caught up in it). She said social workers are pushing for the legalization of
prostitution in Poland. So far, they have received no help at all from the
official church to do something for the victims of Europes new sex
trade.
National Catholic Reporter, January 28,
2000
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