Deliver Us from Evil

Among Scholars, it is popular to say that Vatican II aimed to do for bishops what Vatican I did for the Pope: define more clearly their importance, authority, and role in the church. The irony is that, in fact, the period since Vatican II has so far had the opposite effect: it has done more to re-define the papacy than the bishops. In fact, a case could be made that the main change we should hope and pray for in the papacy which follows John Paul II is this: to establish a more effective working relationship between Pope and bishops.

Vatican II proved conclusively how important the Pope is to Catholicism. Without a Pope like John XXIII, a council like Vatican II never could have happened. The church’s cardinals did not expect it, the church’s bishops did not call for it, and the church’s laypeople were not prepared for it. Only the Pope’s authority made it possible, for that authority enables one man to steer the entire church—the world’s largest organization—in the direction his vision leads. But that was a generation ago, and the top-down reforms that John XXIII triggered will ultimately be wasted unless a new spirit animates the next generation of Catholics from the bottom up. And for that, we’ll need a new kind of papacy.

During John Paul II’s second voyage to the US, my wife and I flew to San Francisco for a special meeting between the Pope and 3,000 lay leaders in St. Mary's Cathedral on September 18, 1987. The meeting was hosted by John R. Quinn, then the Archbishop of the San Francisco archdiocese. Patrick McCormick, a lay theologian, was one of the leaders selected to address remarks to the Pope. Four weeks ago, on September 8, these two men reversed roles, as McCormick hosted Archbishop Quinn for a special conference on “Catholicism for a New Millennium” at Gonzaga University in Washington.

Since that historic 1987 meeting in San Francisco, Archbishop Quinn has emerged as the Catholic hierarchy’s most forceful and articulate champion of a new kind of papacy. In addition to his address at the Gonzaga conference, Quinn has shared his vision of the church’s future with a wide variety of audiences. Perhaps his most important vision statement was his 1995 lecture to celebrate the centennial of Camion Hall, the Jesuit house of studies at Oxford University, England. He later expanded his remarks into a book, The Reform of the Papacy: The Costly Call to Christian Unity.

Archbishop Quinn reminded his listeners that the papacy has evolved through many forms over the centuries, and cited John Paul II’s encyclical Ut Unum Sint on the importance of re-shaping the papacy to each new age:

The Pope himself…sees that there must be new forms of exercising the primacy [of the papacy] as the church approaches the threshold of a new millennium. He calls the Christian family to look at how the gift which is the papacy can become more credible and speak more effectively to the contemporary world.

These words are especially timely for Catholics in America, struggling right now to find the credibility in church leadership. But of course the whole world’s situation has changed dramatically since Vatican II. Just think: contraceptive pills, legalized abortion, personal computers and the internet, the women’s movement, digital technology, the fall of Soviet Communism and the end of the Cold War, the rise of the European Union, the ecumenical and interfaith movements, the threat of fundamentalism in the world’s religions—all these had transformed daily living even before 9/11 and the clergy sex abuse scandal shocked American Catholics.

A new style of papacy, Archbishop Quinn argued, would greatly strengthen Catholicism’s presence and influence in the new situation we face. He called Ut Unum Sint the Pope’s Magna Carta for the Church’s future. With this in mind, he offered several ideas for making the “new style” a reality.

First, a new papal style should embrace Vatican II’s notion of “collegiality,” in which the Pope collaborates with the church’s bishops rather than acting alone. The underlying idea is that the Pope is not only the leader of the “college” (or gathered body) of bishops—he is also a member. This is a little like saying that the Pope would not make major decisions without a quorum, or at least extensive consultation. John Paul II’s own words in Ut Unum Sint confirm this as a basic operating principle for the church:

When the Catholic Church affirms that the office of the Bishop of Rome corresponds to the will of Christ, she does not separate this office from the mission entrusted to the whole body of bishops, who are also “vicars and ambassadors of Christ.” The Bishop of Rome is member of the “College,” and the Bishops are his brothers in the ministry.

So bishops should not be seen (or be treated) as the Pope’s employees, or as mere “regional managers.” They are the church’s true leaders, operating as a body with the Pope presiding. Archbishop Quinn noted, with some irony, that it will not be enough, in the future, to honor this principle in theory—it will have to be put into actual practice.

This implies, of course, that consultation must become the basic operating mode of church leadership at all levels. Quinn, for example, acknowledges that papal “primacy” gives the Pope the authority to act alone (for example, when declaring a new doctrine or publishing a new catechism), but he argues that future Popes will show more prudence if they consult their bishops first.

Quinn also expressed hope that the International Synod of Bishops regains its power. The Synod, which has operated since Vatican II, periodically brings bishops from various countries to gather in Rome to advise the Pope on major issues. In recent years, however, the Synod has convened less frequently, with less scope for the topics it addresses and less authority for the bishops to issue recommendations. Quinn spoke for many fellow bishops when he made his opinion clear:

The procedures of the Synod are outdated and not conducive to collegiality in its fuller sense…A new way of structuring and holding these synods could have a significant effect on the search for unity ands the exercise of true collegiality.

And then Quinn went a step further: “we need to recapture,” he said, “the importance of ecumenical councils.” After Vatican Council I defined papal infallibility, it took nearly 100 years before all the world’s bishops convened again at Vatican II. Archbishop Quinn is convinced that more frequent councils would enhance the next papacy: “a council is a witness of the unity of the whole church...that amid the certainties of faith, still the Church does not have all the answers ready made, that she must struggle and search for the truth.”

In 1958 the College of Cardinals elected Angelo Roncalli as Pope John XXIII at the age of 77, assuming he would provide a short, uneventful papacy. What they got instead was Vatican II. Imagine how different the Church’s future might look a year from now, if that history repeats itself!

Next: Archbishop Quinn foresees a papacy that gives new roles to ALL Catholics.

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Smoke Signals—Part 3