In a video recorded before his death but shown June 18, the day after he died of cancer, Cardinal Basil Hume, primate of England for 23 years, addressed the bishops of the U.S. in their retreat-style summer meeting in Tucson, Ariz. His valedictory vision of a decentralized and more collaborative governance of the Church by pope and bishops was a moving sign of hope for the next papacy and the new millennium.

Always a "common ground" pastoral leader like the late Cardinal Bernardin, his close friend, Hume found non-confrontational ways to say a number of significant things about the proper use of authority in the Church. Referring to women's ordination he said he accepted the Pope's authoritative statements obediently. But he also said, "I ask myself whether it is ever sensible to stifle debate in the Church." Regarding angry letters beseeching the bishops to "drive out of the Church this lot or that lot," Hume said driving anyone out of the Church meant taking on a grave responsibility. The Gospel says "the wheat and tares must grow together." He leveled strong criticism at the Vatican bureaucracy: the letters that treat the diocesan bishop like "a naughty schoolboy," the manner of some episcopal appointments and the time taken to make them, the way theologians have been investigated, the "frustration at not being consulted on issues important to us as local bishops." As "a warning against a centralizing tendency," he deliberately invoked the principle of subsidiarity, which the Vatican has told Synods of bishops not to use. And despite systematic efforts by John Paul II and Cardinal Ratzinger to downplay national bishops' conferences, Hume echoed the suggestion also made by Vienna's Cardinal K–nig: the Pope should call together the presidents of all the bishops' conferences in the world "every two years or so, to hear directly their collective advice."

"The Gift of Authority"

Another harbinger of a more collegial future exercise of church authority is the latest statement from the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC), "The Gift of Authority." Sponsored by every pope and every archbishop of Canterbury since 1967, ARCIC is a process of theological dialogue that is preparing both churches for eventual unity. The latest ARCIC text, released May 12, must have pleased the dying Cardinal Hume, beloved in Britain as an ecumenical bridge-builder. It sketches ways papal primacy might be exercised that Anglicans could embrace. Universal primacy must truly respect the "variety of theological opinion" and "uphold the legitimate diversity of traditions" while preserving the unity of faith. "The Gift of Authority" tells Anglicans to strengthen their "structures of authority." It urges the Catholic Church to maximize the collegiality endorsed by Vatican II but downgraded in practice by the current papacy, when high-level decisions are made with insufficient consultation, and procedures of the Roman Curia become dysfunctional. It makes the intriguing suggestion that Anglican bishops might start accompanying Catholic ones on their ad limina visits reporting to the Pope in Rome. Anglicans would be rehearsing to accept some Petrine ministry; Rome would be starting to respect Anglican bishops as in some sense peers of its own.