Pope tightens reins on bishops' conferences

Christian Century, August 12, 1998

By way of a new apostolic letter, Pope John Paul II is attempting to exert greater control over national bishops' conferences. Some church observers say the letter has the potential to create ecclesiastical gridlock in Rome. The papal declaration requires action on major statements of faith and practice from the world's 108 national bodies of bishops to be either unanimous--a near impossibility in the U.S., with some 300 voting bishops--or submitted to Rome for approval.

Bishop Anthony M. Pilla of Cleveland, president of the Washington-based National Conference of Catholic Bishops, welcomed the statement's affirmation that bishops' conferences can exercise appropriate teaching authority on important issues. But he said July 24 that unanswered questions raise concerns about the conference's "ability to act in a timely manner."

Major policy statements could be delayed for years if hundreds of documents from around the world started being dropped on administrative desks in Rome, where quick action is not the norm, commented Thomas Reese, editor of the Jesuit magazine America. "It could paralyze the ability of the bishops' conference to do any kind of creative work," Reese added. "The practical effect... is that it's going to be very difficult for them to do anything."

U.S. church leaders have been meeting together since 1810, and, by the time the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s encouraged the development of national episcopal conferences, the American experience was a model for the church throughout the world. However, that history also has been marked by tension, from Pope Leo XIII's scolding papal encyclical on the errors of "Americanism" in 1899 to the recent discussions on the use of gender-neutral language in the liturgy and the toning down of a pastoral letter offering support to the parents of gay and lesbian children.

Andrew Greeley, a University of Chicago sociologist, characterized the latest apostolic letter--coming on the heels of a papal declaration limiting dissent by theologians--as troubling. "It certainly does seem to impose ever more centralized control," Greeley said. "They took care of the theologians a couple of weeks ago, and now they're taking care of the bishops."

Until now, the bishops' conference required a two-thirds majority before issuing policy statements such as their influential pastoral letters on nuclear arms and the economy. The apostolic letter stipulates that doctrinal declarations published in the name of the conference must be unanimously approved by the member bishops or else receive approval from the Apostolic See.

While the U.S. church often issues statements by committees or smaller representative groups such as its 50-member administrative board, the apostolic letter also says smaller bodies "do not have the authority to carry out acts of authentic magisterium [binding teaching] either in their own name or in the name of the conference."

Pilla indicated that there are several questions the U.S. conference needs to clarify with the Vatican, including what documents fall under the purview of doctrinal declarations and how conferences are to understand the requirement for unanimous approval. For example, he said, since the documents on war and peace and the economy each were overwhelmingly approved with fewer than ten negative votes, "to me, that's unanimous."

Reese, the author of books on both the Vatican and the U.S. bishops' conference, said such distinctions are critical. If church officials allow flexibility in interpreting the requirement for unanimity and consider most of the U.S. bishops' work pastoral rather than doctrinal, then the apostolic letter will have little effect. However, if they apply a strict literal interpretation-and Reese said he has never seen a pastoral statement that didn't have some doctrine in it--actions by bishops' conferences could languish for years on Vatican desks. "It's gridlock," he said.