Lucker, Crosby, Feichtlbauer: Time for health dissent, less Vatican interference

"You are the holy people of God," Bishop Ray Lucker told an overflow CTA audience. "I believe 100 years from now you will be acknowledged for your contribution to the renewal of the Church, for your commitment to justice and reconciliation." A longtime CTA member, Lucker said he continues to attend CTA national conferences year after year because he always goes back to his diocese "enlivened."

But he is troubled, he said, that efforts in may dioceses continue to "marginalize" CTA and to portray its opponents like Lincoln Bishop Fabian Brusekwitz as "defenders of orthodoxy." In fact, said Lucker, the Holy Spirit has been with Church reformers from the beginning. There is and always has been a place for legitimate dissent against authoritative (though not infallible) Church teachings, and there are times when such dissent is good and necessary, he declared.

Lucker spoke of doctrines which have been altered or totally reversed, such as the teachings on the inherent evil of sexual pleasure, the permissibility of torture, and the sinfulness of the Jewish people. Dissenters deserve respect for urging discussion and reconsideration of problematic issues, he insisted, adding, "A thoughtful critic is a friend."

A major obstacle to reform, Lucker said is the Roman Curia, which seeks to direct Catholicism from the central headquarters in Rome, while bypassing input and forbidding comment from the larger Church in the world. "When there's no room in the Church for dissent and disagreement," said Lucker, "there's no room!"

Crosby critiques Curia
In a separate session, theologian Michael Crosby offered his own trenchant critique of the Curia. He called it "one small group in the church, unaccountable to anyone, dictating to the rest of the Church what it needs to do." Its rising influence as "a parallel magisterium in the Church" undermines the roles of the bishops, purports to act in the name of the pope and even undermines his office, he said. The end result is "fear instead of fidelity, coercion and control instead of care." The U.S. bishops' statement against domestic violence describes violence as "any use of fear and intimidation to control another." Crosby suggested the words apply to the climate in today's Church. "We need to return to the New Testament understanding of authority,"he concluded. "The only ultimate source of authority in the Church is Jesus Christ."

Austrian leader brings European experience
Detailed and recent examples of Rome undermining local bishops came from Hubert Feichtlbauer, the veteran Vienna journalist who now heads the We Are Church movement in Austria. "The near-unanimous consensus of the German bishops on continuing pregnancy counseling before abortion decisions was twice overturned this year by Vatican officials who pretended to know better what was good for the church in Germany," he said. But Germany's bishops then voted three to one to reelect Karl Lehmann of Mainz their leader, "clear proof that even the conservatives were upset with the Vatican interference."

Feichtlbauer participated in the Oct. 5-11 Forum of European Catholics in Rome during the Synod of Europe's bishops. He said wide publicity for this progressive "shadow synod" in Europe, and for progressive bishops' statements which leaked to the press from within the official synod, were signs of hope. "Over-extended Vatican centralism is a sure bet to be counterproductive," he predicted. "The call for decentralization and subsidiarity will be irresistible in a new pontificate."