Conservative Bishops, Liberal Results by James
Hitchcock 1995
Once
appointed, a conservative bishop finds other obstacles besides those in the
diocese itself.
This
endemic practice of diplomacy within the Church has yielded small results.
Abuses have been tolerated not for the sake of unity but merely for the
appearance of unity, which itself soon becomes an overriding concern.
A
young man applies to study for the priesthood and is interviewed by a committee
whose chairman, a high-ranking diocesan official, asks him his
"feelings" about the ordination of women. The candidate replies that
the matter has been settled by the Holy Father. The chairman replies,
"We're not asking whatthe Pope thinks. We want to know how you feel about
it". The young man states simply that he accepts the Church's teaching on
the matter. He is subsequently informed that the committee has found him
unsuitable for the priesthood. An indirect appeal to the bishop of the diocese
brings the response that all candidates must be recommended by the screening
committee.
**
In another diocese a young man enrolled in the seminary finds that a feminist
nun has much influence in approving candidates for ordination and that she has
identified him as "insensitive to the needs of women". Once again an
indirect appeal to the bishop brings the response that he will not
"interfere" in the workings of the seminary and that the candidate
must somehow gain the nun's support in order to qualify for ordination.
**
In two dioceses bishops hire lay editors for their diocesan newspapers -- men
known to be conservative in Church matters. But as the new editors try to bring
their respective papers into line with official Church teachings, protests
mount, and before long both are removed from their posts.
**
Two dioceses introduce sex-education programs that deviate from Catholic
teaching on important points, bringing protests from parents. In both cases new
bishops promote the directors of the respective programs to even more important
positions in the local hierarchy.
**
A lay woman is appointed "pastoral minister" in a parish where no
priest is available. She soon begins wearing priestly vestments while
conducting Communion services and openly announces her desire to be ordained.
**
A bishop issues a pastoral letter on the state of women in the Church that,
while stopping short of calling for their ordination, employs an unwavering
feminist perspective that describes women as systematically oppressed by both
Church and society.
**
A bishop appoints as his diocese's chief representative on "women's
issues" a woman known to be critical of Catholic teaching not only
concerning the ordination of women but of celibacy and various aspects of
sexual morality as well. She openly talks about having "enlightened"
local priests on these matters. Complaints to the bishop are ignored.
Mere
matters of opinion?
Many
worse vignettes could be collected to show the precarious state of American
Catholicism. What makes these items especially significant is that in each case
the problems occurred under bishops known to be "conservative" and
identified as part of John Paul II's "counter-reformation" or
"restoration".
The
inadequacy of the terms "liberal" and "conservative" for
ecclesiastical issues has often been acknowledged, but they have become so
convenient that, if properly understood, they are as useful as any for briefly
indicating the divisions that now plague the Church. Yet the casual way in
which these divisions are accepted itself ought to be shocking, indicating as
it does that questions of fundamental belief have been easily relegated to the
status of mere partisan opinions, on which Catholics may legitimately take
different positions.
With
very few exceptions "conservative" bishops do not go beyond what is
strictly mandated by official Church teaching or policy. Almost all of them
permit altar girls in their dioceses, and some did so even before Rome
authorized the practice. Almost none is a strong devotee of the Latin Mass.
Enshrining
"liberal" and "conservative" -- even with respect to
bishops -- in effect means giving legitimacy to positions that actively diverge
from one or another official Church teaching, which are reduced to opinions or
matters of taste, almost to matters of temperament -- some people move faster
than others and are more comfortable with change.
Although
it has not been recognized, the roots of liberalism among American bishops
actually date to the period immediately after the Second Vatican Council, when
legendary episcopal giants like Cardinal Francis I. Spellman of New York were
still in office. With few exceptions such prelates themselves showed signs of
post-conciliar confusion. Often they did little to clarify this confusion for
others, or they acted in what seemed like quixotic and inconsistent ways,
imposing strong sanctions against certain kinds of devi-ations while blandly
tolerat-ing others which were even worse.
The
great failure of the older generation of bishops was their failure to gain control
of the post-conciliar process of education. All over the United States
interpreters of "renewal" arose to skew the meaning of the Council in
numerous ways, a process that only grew worse over time. Few indeed were the
bishops who attempted -- even in their own dioceses, much less nationally -- to
establish an authentic program of education in the "new Church".
The
result was that, over the next decades, Church officials on all levels -- from
bishops themselves to kindergarten teachers -- were systematically inducted
into a view of "renewal" that was increasingly at odds with official
teaching and with the actual words of the Council. By 1975, if not before, the
Church in the United States had lost perhaps the majority of its "middle
management" to stronger or milder degrees of dissent, as most bishops
watched passively and even approvingly.
The
storm of dissent that followed the birth-control encyclical Humanae Vitae in 1968 was a crucial
moment whose opportunities were quickly lost. Apparently the American bishops
made a collective decision that they would not try systematically to educate
their people in the teachings of the encyclical, and dissent thereby gained
immense credibility. (The issue was shrewdly exploited by certain theologians
precisely because it had direct relevance to most lay people.)
Common
sense would have dictated that, faced with massive dissent from official
teachings, bishops would have made every effort to identify the core of
Catholics, clerical and lay, who accepted those teaching, given them every
encouragement, and used that core as a base from which to reach out to others.
Instead the American bishops seem to have made the collective decision almost
to ignore such people, who were soon left to fend for themselves, as practically
all pastoral efforts were turned toward those who dissented. Now, however, the
purpose of those pastoral efforts was not to bring back lost sheep but to
re-examine the very concept of being "lost", opening the possibility
that the lost sheep were in fact the new leaders of the flock.
In
deciding not to support Humanae Vitae except verbally, the American bishops
made the fundamental strategic mistake which has been the undoing of liberal
Protestantism. For over a century liberal Protestantism has steadily
surrendered Christian positions deemed incredible by a particular historical
age, the better to protect the core of the faith. But in each generation, more
such surrenders are demanded, until there is finally nothing left, and
surrender itself becomes the chief expectation which liberals must meet.
Thus
by giving up on birth control, the bishops of 1968 probably thought they were
preserving their credibility on other questions. But inevitably there has been
a steady erosion of every distinctively Catholic moral position. Finally in
1995 a survey showed that a solid majority of Catholics do not accept the
Church's teaching about the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. The
strategy of tolerating selective dissent can only have such results, and the
area of dissent can only continue to widen.
In
an episode that still remains mysterious, through most of the 1970s the Holy
See appointed bishops in the United States who were at least tolerant of
dissent and in some cases personally sympathetic to it, a pattern of
appointments that continued several years into the pontificate of John Paul II.
Beginning
around 1980 this pattern seemed to be reversed, as word circulated that the men
being made bishops were orthodox, tough-minded, and charged with the task of
salvaging authentic Catholicism from the near-chaos of spurious
"renewal". Conservatives were buoyed by this new spirit for most of
the decade, and only toward its end did it begin to dawn on informed people that
somehow the promised counter-reformation was not taking place.
In
dioceses where a conservative bishop has followed a conservative predecessor,
there have usually been few problems. However, such cases have been rare,
because during the 1970s it was clearly Vatican policy to replace conservative
bishops with liberal ones. Hence the only solidly conservative dioceses are
those whose ordinaries happened to be in office from prior to 1970 well into
the 1980s.
In
the largest number of dioceses, therefore, conservative bishops have followed
bishops who either were themselves liberal or were tolerant of liberalism, and
in perhaps a majority of those cases the conservative bishop has not seriously
disturbed the situation that he inherited.
The
dynamics of this process are easy to comprehend. Whatever his intentions, a new
bishop quickly discovers how tightly the liberals control the diocesan
machinery -- the school office, the priests' senate, the office of social
justice, and other bureaus -- and he realizes that dislodging such people will
be no easy task and will be unpleasant.
He
thus resolves to proceed slowly, until he has a firm understanding of the
situation, comes to know his personnel, and devises an effective strategy. Very
quickly he is pressed by conservatives, mainly lay people, about abuses, but he
declines even to admit that these are abuses, pending the time when he can see
a way of correcting them.
But
time rapidly passes. Soon the bishop realizes that, while he had entered his
see with some apprehension over the problems he would face, his tenure has in
fact been pleasant. At some point his chancellor may say something like,
"Candidly, bishop, there were people here who expected the worst when you
were appointed, but everyone is pleasantly surprised. You have confounded your
critics".
Given
such reinforcement, it would be a determined bishop indeed who would proceed to
make the sweeping changes necessary for authentic renewal. Human beings are
capable of finding endless excuses for putting off unpleasant tasks, and the
bishop tells himself that he must have the freedom to accomplish his mission in
his own way and in his own time.
Meanwhile,
however, the conservatives in the diocese, who had perhaps always been unrealistic
in their expectations, are becoming increasingly impatient. Of necessity, given
his unwillingness to act, the bishop finds himself defending things that he
knows are indefensible, and he also finds himself becoming annoyed at the
people who seem not to understand his problems and who demand that he act
instantly. At some point his chancellor may smile wryly and say, "Now,
bishop, you can see what we have had to put up with from those people all these
years".
Step
by step, through a process that is largely unconscious until almost completed,
the bishop is recruited as an ally by the very people whose practices he was
supposed to correct. Unless he is cynical, he cannot continue to defend things
that he knows are wrong, hence he eventually comes to believe that alleged
abuses are not abuses at all and that the problems in the diocese stem from
those who "do not accept the reforms of Vatican II". To the degree
that the bishop has a lingering bad conscience over his failure to act where action
is needed, his discomfort is projected onto his conservative critics.
The
strategy of waiting a decent interval before acting has things to recommend it.
But it is worth noting that it runs counter to established management practice
in government and industry, where each new chief executive has his
"hundred days" or his "honeymoon", during which he makes
sweeping changes of personnel in order to install people who accept his own
agenda. An administrator who continues in office people suspected to be out of
sympathy with his objectives is rarely offered gratitude. Instead his inaction
is correctly sensed as weakness, and his subordinates begin acting accordingly.
The
liberal bishops appointed during the 1970s invariably followed that practice,
replacing conservatives in the chancery office with their own people. But many
conservative bishops have not seen fit to do the reverse, presumably in the
belief that administrative continuity insures the peace of the diocese. Thus
old policies continue almost unaltered under the new regime. (In one diocese a
conservative bishop continued in office his predecessor's vicar general, and a
local priest observes: "Everyone knows it is far more dangerous to offend
the vicar general than to offend the bishop".)
None
of this is understandable without recognizing a fact that has been
systematically obscured for three decades -- the post-conciliar Church is more
clerical than it used to be, not less.
In
many ways the clericalism of the pre-conciliar Church was tempered by the very
legalism that liberals denounce -- priests and bishops had authority that was
carefully circumscribed by Canon Law, and they were not free, for the most
part, to act capriciously. In the "open", anti-legalistic Church,
however, clergy are often free to impose their own theologies, their own
liturgies, their own moralities, their own ecclesiologies, on defenseless
parishes, since there is no effective way by which the authenticity of renewal
can be judged, nor any effective way by which priests can be made to conform to
Church law. The Church is also more clerical now because a large number of lay
people have in effect been inducted into the ranks of the clergy, as diocesan
or parish bureaucrats.
One
of the great mistakes made even by the "old" bishops of the conciliar
period was to accept the notion of professionalism almost without quibble. Thus
bishops can usually be intimidated into silence by the reminder that they lack
the professional credentials to judge the work of educators, canonists, or
liturgists. These professionals soon after the Council organized themselves
into national bodies that in effect control the terms of the discussion. In
many dioceses there is an endless parade of speeches and workshops in which
certified "experts" are imported to speak to local people. Usually
the bishop, even if conservative, makes at least a token appearance at such
gatherings and gives them his formal blessing. Seldom does he attempt to stop
them or even seriously to moderate them.
When
they acknowledge the obvious evidence that Catholics reject official teachings
on a large scale, bishops usually point to the secular culture as the cause
(for the decline of religious vocations, for example). And rarely do they seem
to recognize that official Church organs -- the schools, the Catholic press,
officially sponsored conferences, even the pulpit -- have themselves been the
most effective channels for disseminating dissent. Since the Council, Catholics
have, in a sense, been reprogrammed into a new kind of faith, and against this
new program formal reiterations of official teachings make little headway.
Bishops
judge that their disciplinary powers cannot be exercised sweepingly, and there
are agencies over which they have little control, such as Catholic colleges.
But, short of actually imposing sanctions on dissenters, bishops can at least
publicly contradict them, which they also seldom do. Thus even if the local
Catholic college is a center of organized dissent, the bishop almost always attends
its major public ceremonies, where he invariably expresses gratitude that the
diocese enjoys such a vibrant center of Catholic learning. Catholics who wonder
if what they are hearing from those channels is authentic Catholic teaching
will seldom be enlightened by the bishop. To all appearances the bishop and the
local dissenters share the same faith.
By
contrast there is no such thing as "lay opinion", since lay people
are divided dozens of different ways. Even if there were, there is no
established organ through which lay opinion could be expressed.
Thus
when a bishop enters a diocese he already knows that he does not have to pay
attention to aggrieved lay people, while he does have to defer to his priests'
senate or to the religious communities in the diocese. For all practical
purposes, when it comes to the bishop's formulation of administrative policies,
such groups are the Church. Put another way, authoritarian pre-conciliar
bishops were free to disregard clerical or religious sensibilities if they
chose, while modern bishops are not. In neither case does the laity have an
effective voice, nor does priest or religious who is outside the
"mainstream" of local organized clericalism.
What
precisely bishops fear is not clear. Sometimes they probably feel constrained
by the scarcity of personnel; priests and religious are in short supply, and
the bishop cannot afford to offend the few he has. But this is a
self-perpetuating problem since, as we noted above, conservative young men are
sometimes discouraged or actually prevented from becoming priests by the
existing diocesan bureaucracy.
In
some ways having a liberal diocese presided over by a bishop known to be
conservative is better for the liberal cause than having a bishop of their own,
since the conservative bishop gives a mantle of respectability to liberal
policies. Complaining laity can be even more easily dismissed, on the grounds
that "even our conservative bishop does not make them happy". Often
there is an unspoken compromise -- the bishop says inspiringly orthodox things
on public occasions, even as diocesan policies move in quite different
directions.
Conservative
lay people find it practically impossible to make a credible stand for
orthodoxy in a liberal diocese, precisely because their opinions are defined as
merely that -- opinions. Although the Pope and the bishop may both state
orthodox teachings clearly, in particular situations the bishop seldom allows
himself to identify lapses from that orthodoxy. Thus conservative lay people
protesting diocesan practices always come to be regarded as cranks, since the
bishop himself does not recognize the abuses they see.
For
all their talk of "pluralism", liberals understand very well that a
Church divided against itself cannot stand, which is why, wherever they are in
power, they move relentlessly to push conservatives to the margins of the
community, a move with which conservative bishops sometimes cooperate.
Indispensable
to the success of the liberal strategy have been the media. Before the Council
was even over liberals were using the media's insatiable appetite for religious
controversy, their uniformly liberal viewpoint, their eagerness to publicize
internal Church conflicts in such a way as to force bishop's hands. The
strategy has continued unabated over thirty years, to the point where the
threat of hostile media often need not even be uttered -- everyone is fully
aware of it at all times.
Bishops
notorious for their tough authoritarianism were, soon after the Council,
intimidated into silence by the unfamiliar experience of being pilloried in the
media. It was a lesson the next generation of bishops learned all too well, and
often bishops now seem motivated primarily out of fear of unfavorable publicity
if, for example, a key diocesan official is replaced.
Conservative
secular journalists have cynically invented the "Strange New Respect
Award", which the media bestow on conservative public figures willing to
betray their principles. Every bishop, whether or not he hankers after the
award, knows that it exists. (Thus in one diocese a bishop with a national
reputation for conservatism before he was appointed now enjoys regular encomia
from the local media, even as he actively cooperates in portraying conservative
Catholics as unbalanced fanatics.)
There
are elements in American culture, notably the expectation that bishops and
other "community leaders" will be affable men who "fit in"
with the local scene, thatstrongly reinforce the natural human tendency to
avoid hard decisions. Particular conditions in a given diocese do the same. No
doubt also the Holy See has sometimes been disappointed at the inaction of men
it has appointed. It is not possible to understand the phenomenon of the inactive
bishop, however, without understanding that the Vatican also bears its share of
the responsibility.
Italians
can almost be said to have invented diplomacy. It was an art that came to
perfection in Italy during the Renaissance, none practicing it more skillfully
than the papacy itself. That venerable tradition has continued into the present
and, despite being sometimes denounced by liberals as a form of centralized
control, it often serves liberal interests in the Church.
The
art of diplomacy can be defined simply as the attempt to gain one's objectives
by skillful manipulation of one's opponents, through strategies that those
opponents often do not even comprehend until they are accomplished. But if war
is indeed the continuation of diplomacy by other means, then the frequency of
wars in human history shows how often diplomacy fails.
Diplomacy
tends to be especially ineffective in situations where ideology rules, where
contending parties have beliefs that they consider matters of principle and
about which they have passionate convictions, where they see nothing less than
the entire well-being of the world at stake. That is the situation in the
Church today involving contending groups who sharply disagree about morality,
doctrine, and the nature of the Church itself.
Over
the centuries the Holy See has often had to resort to diplomacy because it
lacked military and political power. ("How many divisions does the pope
have?") Such diplomacy even had to be used in internal Church matters,
where secular governments exercised a strong influence over the appointment of
bishops, for example.
It
is ironic, therefore, and discouraging, that in the modern democratic era, when
the Church enjoys the blessings of complete independence from political
control, such diplomacy still seems necessary, now often concentrated on
internal ecclesiastical matters. It appears, for example, that the pope is not
free simply to appoint bishops as he sees fit, but that an elaborate process of
consultation, of checks and balances, takes place, after which successful
candidates are often people who have no highly placed enemies.
The
Holy See now appears to treat national episcopal conferences, and the numerous
religious orders, almost as foreign powers. Scrupulous correctness is observed
at all times, formal verbiage masks barely hidden disagreements, and above all
potential "incidents" are avoided. Conservative Catholics cannot be
encouraged to take strong stands for orthodoxy at the local level, just as a government
cannot permit its citizens living in foreign countries to offend local laws.
(Thus liberals complained bitterly for ten years about the Holy See's appearing
to listen to complaints from conservative American Catholics -- whereupon the
Holy See appears to have stopped listening to those complaints.)
This
endemic practice of diplomacy within the Church has yielded small results.
Abuses have been tolerated not for the sake of unity but merely for the
appearance of unity, which itself soon becomes an overriding concern.
As
the Vatican began appointing apparently more conservative bishops after 1980,
it also appears to have developed a profile of an ideal bishop that describes a
majority of John Paul II's appointments -- personally orthodox and pious but
low-keyed, cautious, and "non-confrontational". By inference the
Vatican's strategy for reforming dioceses is to appoint bishops who will act
with such caution and skill that change will come about in time -- without people
even being fully aware of it. Entrenched liberal elements will not resist, nor
will the media interfere, because they do not even understand what is
happening.
But
in an environment governed by ideology this scenario really cannot play itself
out. Liberals are quick to notice even small "backward" steps by
their bishop, and they test him by relentlessly pushing ahead with their
agenda, so that he must either confront them or surrender. Even if this were
not the case, the strategy of painless, uncontroversial, almost unnoticed
reform is one that even the most brilliant diplomat would have trouble
effecting.
Thus
conservative bishops who prove to be disappointments in their dioceses often
are so because they were chosen by the Holy See for certain personal qualities
that were bound to produce that result. The ancient maxim, "suaviter in
modo, fortiter in re" -- "smoothly in manner, firmly in substance" --
easily degenerates into a preoccupation with "modus" at the expense of
"res".
Once
appointed, a conservative bishop finds other obstacles besides those in the
diocese itself. Despite fifteen years of episcopal appointments by John Paul
II, the National Conference of Catholic Bishops remained essentially a liberal
body in which determined conservatives have difficulty merely staving off
serious defeats, much less winning substantial victories. Once again it
requires a particularly resolute kind of man to accept the status of a defined
minority within a body that seems to place great importance on the spirit of belonging.
If nothing else, a new bishop is likely to discover quickly that he will be
consistently on the losing side unless he moderates his positions
substantially.
The
considerations that dictate such moderation are not insignificant, which is why
the Holy See itself appears to value them highly. Bad publicity never helps the
Church, especially when it highlights bitter internal divisions. Ideally the
bishop should command the loyalty and respect of his whole diocese and not be a
focus of controversy. The spirit of collegiality dictates that the NCCB not
simply be disregarded.
But
a disinterested secular student of Catholicism must conclude that few religions
in the history of the world have placed more emphasis on doctrinal purity,
liturgical correctness, and moral authenticity than has the Catholic Church. As
someone has pointed out, the Anglican tradition has been that of tolerating
almost endless degrees of liturgical and doctrinal diversity in order to avoid
schism, while the Catholic tradition has been almost the reverse.
If
at almost all times in the history of the Church, a concern for orthodoxy has
been paramount, the contemporary Church has an eerie feel about it precisely
because of the absence of that concern. At the diocesan and national levels it
is possible to raise questions about pastoral strategy, administrative
competence, economic feasibility, human sensitivity awareness of injusice, and
numerous other things but never about orthodoxy. The very word, and its
opposite -- "heresy" -- is seldom uttered, and even conservative
bishops give the impression that they are embarrassed to be caught thinking in
those terms. (Thus heterodox individuals may sometimes be removed from
sensitive positions by giving reasons that everyone knows are spurious, and
this brings even greater recrimination.)
Often
episcopal inaction in the face of obvious abuses is explained by the principle
of collegiality -- much as the bishop might like to act, he cannot do so
unilaterally but only through consensus. But the inadequacy of that explanation
can be exposed by the application of the Ku Klux Klan test -- if a priests'
senate, for example, were controlled by overt racists, the bishop would act
firmly and swiftly, without regard for protocol. When he chooses not to do so,
it is because he does not believe that the issues (doctrinal purity, liturgical
correctness, loyalty to the Holy See) are sufficiently important.
The
governing virtue in American episcopal circles at present appears to be prudence,
which is a legitimate virtue but, it should be noted, a virtue that exists only
in relation to other virtues. (As the poet Roy Campbell jibed about
neo-classicism in literature, "I see the bit and bridle alright, but
where's the bloody horse?") Prudence seeks to achieve goals in a way that
does not violate other virtues. It is not simply a synonym for caution.
In
the entire history of the Church probably not a single saint was ever canonized
for the conspicuous virtue of prudence, and many were (from a worldly
standpoint) quite imprudent. This applies to canonized bishops, many of whom
were martyrs and almost all of whom were involved in severe conflicts of
various kinds. (When Saint Charles Borromeo began to reform the diocese of
Milan, the inmates of a particular monastery actually hired an assassin who
shot at the bishop during Vespers.)
By
the logic of prudence as it is now understood, the Church should not have
canonized John
Fisher,
the only bishop who withstood Henry VIII, but instead Stephen Gardiner and
Cuthbert Tunstal -- men who, although not devoid of principle, nonetheless
managed to survive the ecclesiastical changes of three reigns. (Although the
fact is well known that all but one Englishbishop conformed to Henry VIII in
1534, much less well known is the fact that in 1559 no English bishop conformed
to Elizabeth I, and all were deposed, including Tunstall -- a fact that
demonstrates the feasibility of thoroughly reforming a national hierarchy.)
Today's
bishops may feel understandably discouraged at being asked to correct
conditions that have gone unchecked for three decades, and whose roots are
often traceable to precisely the generation of allegedly strong prelates at the
time of the Council. But this illustrates a homey principle -- every problem,
from a moral flaw to a leaky roof, merely gets worse if not addressed. Despite
the claim that he is a rigidly counter-reforming pope, these problems are more
intractable now than they were when John Paul II ascended the papal throne, and
they will only continue to worsen if not addressed.
Of
one American bishop a newspaper has said that he provoked more controversy
during his first year in office than his predecessor did in twenty. While no
one ought to welcome controversy for its own sake, the grim realities of the
situation dictate that similar things will be said about any bishop who
sincerely triesto fulfill his divine commission.
This
article originally appeared in Catholic World Report, May 1995
------------------------------------------------------------------------
James
Hitchcock,
professor of history at St. Louis University, writes and lectures on
contemporary Church matters. His column appears in the diocesan press. His
two-volume book on religion and the Supreme Court is to be published by
Princeton University Press.
E-Mail:
Dr. James Hitchcock hitchcpj@slu.edu
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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© 2003 James Hitchcock. All rights reserved. May not be reprinted without
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