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

Commonweal Special Supplement
The Train Lept the Tracks

JAMES FINN

 

For better and worse, time has dimmed my memory of much of the proceedings in which I participated in A Call to Action. What I recall is a mixture of trivia, strong debates, intense moments, sharp visual perceptions. I recall, for instance, the gentlemanly, scholarly patient approach of John Cardinal Dearden; the sometimes searing testimony of those who appeared at the regional hearings; the debate over the appropriate symbol for the conference; and Bishop James Rausch's anger when he realized that the goal of the conference had not been realized: "We wanted to put the conference in the hands of the people, but instead it's in the hands of the experts."

Looking back, I would maintain that the purpose and goals of the Detroit conference were admirable, but that in the execution, the train left the tracks. The conference began to breakdown with the selection of delegates and the mandate that was given them. First, the delegates: in spite of efforts to reach out to the non-"professional" Catholic, those who were selected were in a sense self-selected. They frequently worked in some organization and, not unnaturally, wanted to inject those goals into the considerations of the conference. Good enough, but, no one can say they represented the sentiments of the larger Catholic community.

The mandate: The delegates, broken down into smaller groups according to interests and competencies, were told to review the reports of the writing committees and to make whatever changes they thought appropriate. The result was, at least in the section on humankind, a near disaster. It gave very short shrift to the carefully prepared report, and instead produced one that represented a near-pacifist approach to matters of war, peace, arms control, and arms sales. This happened because a small group of activist pacifists wanted a strong statement they thought would inevitably become diluted. But that is not what happened. As it turned out, their minority voice shaped the statement sent to the plenary session, a statement that was not in the mainstream Catholic tradition but in fact, departed, from it radically.

The plenary session: There was little time and almost no inclination to debate even the most questionable resolutions presented to the plenary session. Thus the participants were able to affirm contradictory positions simultaneously. They were able, for example to affirm support for Israel and to reject arms sales to any country, including Israel.

The follow-up: Given what was proposed by the conference there was little chance that the resolutions would be enthusiastically received, even by bishops who were initially sympathetic to the Call to Action -- and no chance that they would be received at all by other bishops. A Call to Action was thus, almost doomed to be a disembodied voice fading with the years.

What then is the legacy, or the residue of the Call to Action? The process was almost bound to attract activists with special interests, not the "ordinary" Catholic that Bishop Rausch and others had in mind. These activists not only ran head-on against the attitudes and beliefs of a significant minority of Catholics but they failed to represent the views of many others in the Catholic community to whom the bishops were necessarily and properly responsive. Further, the list of recommendations grew to monstrous proportions. Useful, desirable, and possible proposals were buried under the more extreme proposals . Those who forwarded these proposals, encouraged by the support they had been given by the conference, were angered or dispirited by the lack of post-conference response.

Ten years after A Call to Action, it seems clear to me that the Catholic church in America is in need of reconciliation and healing. The call to which we might well respond would be a Call to Reflection.

James Finn is the editor of Freedom at Issue, a bi-monthly publication of Freedom House.

 

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