Not so fast

Commonweal, Jan 17, 2003 by Peter Feuerherd

A strange byproduct of the church scandals is the inordinate media attention to the minutiae of Catholic life. The New York Times devoted an entire story to the role of parish councils, a story that without the obligatory mention of the crisis about sex abuse could have been featured in the most drab of diocesan newspapers years ago.

Now some of our greatest newspaper columnists, whose attachment to the religion of their baptism can best be described as loosely cultural, are holding forth as experts on church governance.

Pete Hamill of the New York Daily News wrote that parishes should consider returning to governance by lay boards, much as parishes were operated in the early days of New York, before the hierarchy took control over the selection of pastors and of finances.

Sounds great: lay control of parishes. What better way to assure that children are protected and that Catholics get the spiritual care they deserve? Why not participatory decision making in church governance?

Yet I am reluctant to agree, remembering a series of events I covered for a Catholic newspaper in a Midwest city a few decades back. The story went like this: A group of young boys wanted to go swimming at a local pool on a hot summer's day. They were not allowed in, however. One of their party was a black kid, and the local swimming pool, operated under private auspices, held to a de facto Jim Crow policy.

Stymied because their friend was not allowed into the pool, the group decided to go swimming in the nearby river. The young black boy drowned in its currents.

The story created quite a local stir. Some prominent citizens of the town defended the club's policy, arguing that it was a private matter. To their credit, many in the neighborhood, both black and white, were spurred to action. After demonstrations and lawsuits, the club's policy was eventually changed.

In a largely Protestant city, it was the Catholic clergy who took the lead. In covering the story, it became clear to me that many of the Protestant clergy chose to remain on the sidelines. Why? Did they embrace a theology favorable to such discrimination? Were they less conscience-stricken? Did they lack courage to confront an injustice that cried out for a prophetic biblical response?

I don't think so at all. I'm not willing to say that Protestant clergy are any less or more courageous than Catholic priests. But in this case, the reticence could be explained because of the presence of lay boards that some reformers now want to make part of the Catholic scene. Simply put, these pastors' livelihood depended upon placating their congregants, many of whom, in this particular case, saw no problem with the sinful policies of the local swim club. For better or worse, Catholic pastors serve at the pleasure of their bishop. In this case, it was for the better.

What Hamill and other church reformers are calling for in these days of crisis could result in a scenario we are quite familiar with. Pastors within such settings would be obligated to put their fingers into the wind, lest they risk alienating one crucial interest bloc or another. Some might want to spend time observing focus groups and reading the latest poll data, carefully measuring what their parishioners are thinking.

In other words, it's a system that sounds much like our politics, whether it's Bill Clinton signing on to a questionable welfare-reform policy or George W. Bush throwing out free-enterprise principles in promoting subsidies to big agriculture. Likewise, it would behoove pastors to be conscious of the popular will, at least if they cared about job security. Traditionally, of course, this is part of the way cautious religious leaders have responded, even in the most insulated of systems.

When it comes to religious teaching, a small dose of the sense of the faithful can go a long way. Still, prophetic witness--by its nature unpopular--is the commodity in shortest supply among our religious leaders of all denominational stripes. Be careful, church reformers: You may get what you wish for. Hamill's system is a formula for church governance that enshrines caution. There's enough cozy, smarmy sermonizing already. You can only expect more with a system of lay boards ruling parishes.

Within such a system, you will pretty well forget raising unpopular themes, whether it be capital punishment and the right to life of the unborn, meeting the pastoral need for a Spanish-language liturgy in a majority-Anglo parish, or even considering whether a kid who drowns in a river on a summer's day has any call upon the conscience of those who didn't let him into a neighborhood swimming pool.

Peter Feuerherd writes frequently for Commonweal.