An adult church begins to stir

Catholic New Times, Nov 6, 2005

Conformity means death in any community. A loyal opposition is a necessity in any community.

--Archbishop Karol Woytyla 1969 (JP II)

God rejects the divine when it violates the human.

--Jon Sobrino, S.J.

When a movement reaches a revolutionary momentum, we no longer have the eloquent privilege of moving slowly.

--Fr.Carroll Stuhlmueller

On April 11, 1963, Pope John XXIII issued the second of his great encyclicals, Pacem in Terris. It was addressed not to the world's Catholic bishops but to "all men and women of goodwill." This was no accident. The wise pastor had already felt the changing winds of history and it showed in this encyclical. One of the great "signs of the times" he wrote, was the changing role of women who "are gaining an increasing awareness of their natural dignity. Far from being content with a purely passive role or allowing themselves to be regarded as a kind of instrument, they are demanding both in domestic and public life the rights and duties which belong to them as human persons."

John intuited the depth and importance of one of the most authentic Spirit movements of world historical dimensions, that of the equality of women. Within five years and with the promulgation of the birth control encyclical, Humanae Vitae, the Roman Catholic church would begin to feel the cataclysmic aftershocks of the engaged laity's rejection of this teaching.

Despite the insistence of the validity of this teaching by Pope John Paul II, Catholics have simply not accepted it and therefore it falls into the category of a docens non receptus, a teaching which is not applicable because it simply does not resonate with people's experience, in particular, those who minister the sacrament to each other, the husband the wife. In effect, it has become a dead letter with staggering consequences well noted by theologians.

Cardinal Avery Dulles stated the obvious:

"When the emphatic and repeated teaching about key issues of sexual ethics falls on deaf ears and is widely rejected, the church ceases to appear in the world as a sign of unity God intends for the whole human family. The more the hierarchy insists on adherence to Humanae Vitae the more alienated the majority of the faithful feel."

Yet, so strongly did John Paul II insist on his own insight as a clerical celibate with no experience with sexual intimacy, that he made the acceptance of this teaching and that of celibacy and women priests normative for advancement to the episcopacy. If priest-author Andrew Greeley is correct when he says that the rejection of the birth control encyclical has resulted in "the catastrophic collapse of the old Catholic sexual ethic," then the continued failure by a monarchical papacy to test its teachings through the crucible of the sensus fidelium is deeply injurious to the church.

Bishops are teachers not learners

When the U.S. bishops bravely but unsuccessfully attempted to write a pastoral letter on women in 1992, they were informed by Vatican officials that their methodology was flawed. Their mistake was that they began listening to women. They were informed, according to Bishop Francis Murphy, that bishops are teachers, not learners! Lamentably, the last pope proved this again and again, despite being told by some brave American priests to simply cut his speeches in half, and listen the rest of the time.

Bishop Murphy, in a Commonweal article written shortly after the pastoral letter died, simply stated the obvious, that if bishops do not believe they have anything to learn from the experience of the faithful, the process is indeed flawed.

The lack of credibility in areas most foreign to the celibate clerical powerholders, women and sexuality, continues to bedevil the church, to the frustration of many. The famed ripple effect of Humane Vitae and other teachings is now well known. After the sex abuse by priests/bishop-enablers scandal, it screams out for redress.

The influence of the Roman Catholic church in all areas of human living has been severely compromised. A brilliant storehouse of accumulated wisdom goes unheeded and unheard. Who can doubt, for example, that the sacred and holy fire of sex must be tempered with control and asceticism? That this is best served in covenantal and committed relationships? Society reaps a destructive whirlwind when this insight is ignored. But the institutional church's adamant insistence (despite the majority opinion of the Papal Birth Control Commission's findings tragically overturned in 1968) that any form of contraception is mortally sinful, puts the church at risk of being judged as a prurient, pleasure-hating, misogynist institution. The result--a dramatic loss of credibility in other areas.

Secondly, pastoral episcopal leadership has dramatically suffered under John Paul II. When you narrow the pool to those who simply repeat hard-line Vatican positions as a prerequisite for ecclesial advancement, the church is poorly served. To keep repeating worn-out answers on sexual morality and the role of women in today's world is, in Peter Steinfel's words, to degenerate into a "Catholic fundamentalism"--again with a terrible loss of credibility. When canon law trumps Gospel inclusion, you know you are in trouble.