At synod, church leaders disagree on
war
By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
Rome
As the Synod of Bishops drew to a close in late October, two
points were generating lively debate: What to say about the U.S.-led war in
Afghanistan, and whether to use the concept of subsidiarity to
describe how power should be exercised in the church.
On the war, the synods final message, released Oct. 26,
denounced terrorism in strong terms. An earlier draft had linked that
condemnation with a plea to address the root causes of terrorism, especially
poverty and injustice, but, in debate inside the synod hall, concerns emerged
that this linkage could seem to justify the Sept. 11 attacks on the United
States.
The concerns, sources said, came especially, though not
exclusively, from Americans. One who spoke strongly and at length on the point
was Cardinal Edmund Szoka, formerly archbishop of Detroit and the current
administrator of the Vatican city-state.
Sources also said that the final version of the document, which
was being debated as NCR went to press, will call for efforts to combat
injustice, but this passage has been clearly distinguished from the point on
terrorism to make it clear that one thing does not excuse the other.
The mystery of evil cant be explained by
poverty, said Sydney, Australia, Archbishop George Pell Oct. 24,
commenting on the message. Often terrorists are educated middle-class
people.
Pell was the chief translator of the message into English.
The debate reflected tensions that have surfaced in the synod, and
even more so in conversations, interviews and public events around the edges of
the synod, between Catholic leaders critical of the conflict in Afghanistan and
others who are more supportive.
Outside the synod hall, Archbishop Vincent Concessao of Delhi,
India, told Asian church news agency UCAN Oct. 20 that bombing and
hurting other people in order to pursue Osama bin Laden is unjust.
Why do you take the whole of the country to task because of
one individual or a group of people? he asked. The kind of anger
and hatred this builds into people is very, very dangerous for the
future.
Archbishop John Olorunfemi Onaiyekan of Abuja, Nigeria, struck a
similar note in an Oct. 15 interview.
The missiles used cost millions of dollars and are being
hurled into the desert. The cost of just one of them could build 20 hospitals
in Nigeria, he said.
Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, in a press briefing Oct. 22, said
military action is justified only if it does not strike innocent
civilians, and stressed that misery and international injustices in
a certain sense constitute the roots of terrorism.
Martini refused to offer a judgment on the U.S.-led attacks. He
said the church is not a moral licensing agency that gives permission to
governments for particular initiatives, but must promote deeper reflection on
gospel values.
Others have been warmer to the U.S. campaign. Bishop Joseph
Fiorenza, president of the U.S. bishops conference, released a letter to
President Bush Oct. 9 calling the military strikes a necessary
response.
Virtually the same word was used Oct. 24 by Cardinal Camillo
Ruini, president of the Italian bishops conference and the popes
delegate to administer the diocese of Rome. In a session with reporters, Ruini
referred to the necessity of the fight against terrorism, while
adding that a clash between civilizations and religions must be
avoided.
A still more ringing endorsement came from Fr. Richard John
Neuhaus, an influential conservative thinker and unofficial advisor to the Bush
administration. Neuhaus is not participating in the synod, but is offering a
course on Catholic social doctrine at the Legionaries of Christ university in
Rome while the synod meets.
From the point of view of traditional just war doctrine, Neuhaus
said in a public lecture Oct. 23, the aims of the conflict in Afghanistan are
clearly just, and to date the war is being waged with just
means.
Neuhaus said the church must preserve space for dialogue, but
without suggesting there are nonviolent means for resolving a conflict
when they do not exist, and without joining the chorus of those who say
lets go out and hug a terrorist because he feels unloved.
Pell said the synods final message contains no explicit
reference to the just war theory, but it is presumed that the
principles of that theory should guide evaluation of the conflict.
On subsidiarity, it was still up in the air as NCR went to
press whether a proposal for study of the idea, which implies decentralization
of power in the church, would survive final balloting on Oct. 26. In official
discourse, the term communion is now preferred.
The synods concluding act is always to approve a set of
propositions for the pope, who is free to act on them as he sees fit. The
propositions are not released to the public.
In debate over propositions this time around, subsidiarity has
generated some of the sharpest clashes. When working groups met during the
synods third week, they produced a total of 285 propositions, and
subsidiarity had enough support to survive a cut down to 68 for floor
debate.
As the final vote loomed, however, the drama was whether
subsidiarity could withstand a challenge on the floor. Sources told NCR
that advocates of a strong papal office were mounting a serious effort to scrub
subsidiarity from the propositions.
As understood in Catholic social thought, subsidiarity implies
that decisions should be taken on the lowest level possible, with higher
authority intervening only when absolutely necessary. Opponents object that
subsidiarity applies well to politics, where power is based on the consent of
the governed, but not to the church, where power flows from apostolic
succession.
The debate has ebbed and flowed over much of the last seventy
years.
The development began with the 1931 social encyclical of Pius XI,
Quadragesimo anno, in which the pope wrote: It is an injustice and
at the same time a grave evil and disturbance of right order to assign to a
greater or higher association what lesser and subordinate organizations can
do.
Referring to this passage, Pius XII said in an address to new
cardinals in 1946: Such words are indeed enlightening; they apply not
only to society, but also to the life of the church within its hierarchical
structure.
Taking their cues from such statements, bishops and theologians
from the time of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) have invoked subsidiarity
as a tool for evaluating church structures. The synod of 1967, for example,
voted to make subsidiarity one of 10 guiding principles for the revision of
canon law, and the 1969 synod voted to apply subsidiarity to episcopal
conferences.
The official preface to the revised 1983 Code of Canon Law
says subsidiarity must all the more be applied in the church since the
office of the bishops and their powers are of divine law.
Without subsidiarity as a guiding principle, the 1983 code
undoubtedly would have been more Roman-centered than it is, Fr. John
Huels, a canon law expert at St. Paul University in Ottawa, told NCR
Oct. 24.
The high water mark of this development came at the 1985 Synod of
Bishops, when a call for a study of subsidiarity was among the points in the
final message (with an explicit reference to Pius XIIs 1946 address).
Since 1985, however, the tide has shifted, as Vatican officials
and some theologians have become sharply critical of applying subsidiarity to
the church, preferring to speak of communion as an organizational
principle instead.
Efforts by participants at the 1998 Synod for Asia to invoke
subsidiarity in defense of the rights of local churches, for example, were
rebuffed by Vatican officials.
The tug-of-war over at this synod suggests that the fate of the
principle of subsidiarity, and the decentralization it implies, is very much an
unresolved tension.
In an Oct. 22 briefing with reporters, Bishop Raymond John Lahey
of St. Georges in Canada said that synod participants agreed the
sociological applications should be avoided, but that subsidiarity must
be looked at from a theological point of view.
Pell was more sharply critical.
The notion of subsidiarity is radically incompatible with
the hierarchical and communitarian nature of the church, he said. Its
fundamental flaw, Pell said, is the assumption that power comes from the
people, which is not the case in the church.
Other topics set to be treated in the propositions were a call for
study of the theological status of bishops conferences, proposals for
better formation and training of bishops, and suggestions concerning the
relationship between bishops and priests.
The synod ended Oct. 27. Its final document will eventually be
issued by the pope; experience suggests at least a year will be necessary for
its preparation.
John L. Allen Jr. is NCRs Rome correspondent. His
e-mail address is jallen@natcath.org
National Catholic Reporter, November 2,
2001
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