The 1976 U.S. Catholic Bishops' Call To Action Conference in Detroit

Commonweal Special Supplement
Incompatible views of church?

DENNIS P. MCCANN

 

Did Call to Action suffer from a confusion of ecclesiologies - a mix of incompatible understandings of the church? That was suggested by some of the participants in Commonweal's October symposium marking Call to Action's tenth anniversary.

On the one hand, Call to Action emphasized the responsibility of all the baptized and fostered an unusual kind of direct dialogue between bishops and laity. On the other hand, the Detroit conference produced a great many resolutions -essentially asking for action from the bishops. Likewise. a process that highlighted the variety of Catholic voices addressing issues of social justice in different ways also contained a strong impetus for the church to take a clear-cut and specific stand on socio-economic and political questions.

Participants in the symposium differed in offering explanations for these apparent discrepancies. Was there a genuine confusion in the minds of participants? Was the clash of ecclesiologies structured into a situation where laity ultimately had little real decision-making power and had to address their concerns for action to the bishops? Or did it simply reflect the fact that Call to Action was, as James Jennings said, "a massive experiment." According to Jennings, who now directs the Campaign for Human Development, "It's completely unrealistic to expect that there would have been clarity on the ecclesiological question going into the Detroit conference. We couldn't even begin to ask the question . . . until after we had the experience."

Jennings and many other participants agreed, however, that the questions raised about the meaning of church in 1976 are still in need of answers ten years later.

 

This Special Supplement, dated December 26, 1986 has been reprinted with permission of Commonweal Magazine.