Bishops, people speak out against dictatorial Vatican

Frantic efforts by the Vatican to micro- manage bishops and local churches are stirring resistance in many places around the globe. This bodes well for more collegial church governance in the next papacy.

In Austria, involvement of priests and people in the selection of bishops is a prominent goal of the 1995 We Are Church referendum, and of the 1998 Dialogue for Austria. When the Austrian bishops brought this and other Dialogue resolutions to the Pope and Vatican, they were sharply reprimanded. Nevertheless, Bishop Kothgasser of Innsbruck developed a process of consulting priests and laity to propose episcopal candidates, within the bounds of canon law. Bishop Weber of Graz even held such consultations recently. So Cardinal Moreira Neves, head of Rome’s Congregation for Bishops, sent an incredible “secret” letter (Austrians leaked it to the press) furiously claiming the Pope would be “hindered” in appointing bishops by any input from local churches. That’s contrary to nearly all of church history, as Archbishop John Quinn detailed in The Reform of the Papacy last year. It also shows the Vatican’s disdain for the people: when Andrew Greeley recently surveyed Catholic opinion in Germany, Ireland, Italy, Poland, the Philippines, Spain and the U.S., the one proposal with majority support in all seven countries was the election of bishops, far more than the consultative role the Austrians were asking for.

We Are Church leaders in Austria called the Vatican rigidity a sign of hope, because it only increases resistance from national bishops’ conferences the world over. Cardinal Franz König, Austria’s retired primate and a hero of Vatican II, criticized Vatican centralization of power in a press interview. He said some officials in Rome believe that “every Monsignor in Oceania must be appointed by us and not by the bishops, as only we know what is what.” They are using the Pope’s authority for their own purposes, he said.

Vatican appointment of bishops without regard for local church suggestions is also becoming an issue in the U.S. Before the death of Cardinal John O’Connor of New York in May, American bishops submitted the required list of three suggested replacements. The New York Times published the list, which included O’Connor’s favorite, Henry Mansell of Buffalo. The Vatican ignored the list and appointed Edward Egan of Bridgeport, Conn., a Vatican insider who had spent 18 years in the Curia as a canonical judge.

Brazilian Cardinal Paulo Evaristo Arns criticized the dictatorial Vatican in a recent newspaper interview in Poland. He said the dismembering of his Sao Paulo archdiocese in 1989, widely seen as a papal rebuke for his support of liberation theology, was actually carried out by Vatican officials despite “five statements in writing from the Pope” opposing the scheme. He said Cardinal Ratzinger is a more implacable foe of liberation theology than John Paul II. Ratzinger recently admitted that the liberation theology of Leonardo Boff’s book, Church, Charism and Power, banned in 1985, has not ceased to circulate and “is still very current” even 15 years later.

In France, Bishop Jacques Gaillot, ousted by the Vatican in 1995, has been welcomed back by the French bishops’ conference. Though Rome removed him for public stands on contraception, priestly celibacy, and homosexuality, his fellow French bishops reaffirmed their communion with him by including him in a national ecumenical meeting May 13. Without consulting the Vatican, they officially recognized his new way of being a bishop — ministering at large to the poor and on the Internet to excluded Catholics. In July the Pope forbade Gaillot to address a religion and homosexuality session during international Gay Pride events that brought more than 200,000 visitors to Rome. Gaillot obeyed, but spent the day telling reporters the church must be more open to gays. (The gentle prophet spoke at the CTA national conference in 1996.)

The Catholic bishops of New Zealand are supporting proposed legislation to register same-sex couples for the same rights as married couples to tax allowances, income support, and parental leave for child care. They act despite John Paul II’s repeated opposition, not only to same-sex marriage, but to any legal rights for homosexual couples.

In Germany, a Catholic lay group, “Donum Vitae,” has opened in Hamburg its first counselling center for pregnant women to replace those the Pope forced the German bishops to shut down. A certificate that a woman has received counselling is a legal requirement for obtaining an abortion in Germany. Donum Vitae believes, as did most bishops, that the Church-run counselling centers often succeed in dissuading women from abortion. The Pope sees any church role in issuing certificates as complicity in procuring abortions. Donum Vitae is supported by the mainstream Central Committee of German Catholics (ZdK), which is funded by all the German dioceses. Also in Hamburg in June, 70,000 people came to a four-day Katholikentag, the national gathering of German Catholics sponsored by ZdK. The principal theme was ecumenism, and featured a first-ever ecumenical closing ritual.

Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles has issued a pastoral letter emphatically endorsing the widest variety of lay ministries. The letter is in sharp contrast to recent Vatican curbs on lay ministries for fear of encroaching on the priesthood. “Even if our seminaries were packed, we’d need to cultivate lay ministers,” Mahony said. He is also initiating a two-year process toward a synod that promises to take lay ideas seriously in this largest of U.S. dioceses. The openness sounds like another Dialogue for Austria. CTA will sponsor one of its conferences in Los Angeles in August, 2001.