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PAGE 10 — The Southern Cross, September 19, 1985
Synod Document Says U.S. Church "On Right Track"
BY JERRY FILTEAU
WASHINGTON (NC) — Despite the
views of some critics, the U.S. Catholic
Church “is fundamentally of the right
track” in carrying out the work of the Se
cond Vatican Council, said Bishop James
Malone in a preparatory report to Rome
for the upcoming world Synod of Bishops.
Bishop Malone, of Youngstown, Ohio, is
to attend the extraordinary synod as presi
dent of the National Conference of Catholic
Bishops. The synod, to be held Nov.
25-Dec. 8, was called by Pope John Paul II
to review Vatican II 20 years after its clos
ing.
Bishop Malone’s 7,000-word pre-synod
report, released in Washington Sept. 16,
urged the special meeting of bishops at the
Vatican to give “particular attention” to
women’s “role in church and society.”
The report also called on the synod to ad
dress “specifically such issues as celibacy
and the general weakening of'the sense of
commitment” as factors in the priest shor
tage.
Bishop Malone wrote that major needs
in the church include greater evangeliza
tion efforts, clearing up “confusion over
moral issues,” giving young people a sense
of “Catholic identity,” clarifying the
distinctions between ordained and non-
ordained ministry, and spelling out the
proper role of bishps’ conferences around
the world.
The NCCB president did not directly cite
recent criticisms of the U.S. church by
some Vatican officials, among whom the
most notable has been Cardinal Joseph
Ratzinger, head of the Congregation for
the Doctrine of the Faith. But he incor
porated into his report several points of
response to the critics.
Cardinal Ratzinger, in a book published
earlier this year, criticized what he called
a “feminist mentality” among U.S. nuns,
an “indiscriminate opening to the world”
after the council, and “a progressive pro
cess of decadence” in the church “under
the slogan of a so-called ‘spirit of the coun
cil.’”
Bishop Malone urged further process in
advancing women into leadership posi
tions in the church and said that the church
needs “to define the appropriate Christian
stance toward the secular feminist move
ment.”
The U.S. bishop questioned efforts to
blame Vatican II or misinterpretations of
the council for weaknesses in Catholic
faith or practice today. Rather, he said,
“cultural factors originating outside the
church and the council account for many
recent problems in Catholic life in the
United States, as in many other coun
tries.”
He added that “there are grounds for
thinking that such factors would have done
more harm to Catholic life than they have,
were it not for the council and postcon-
ciliar renewal.”
He also said, however, that church
leaders had sometimes harmed implemen
tation of the council when they “either
resisted the Vatican II reforms or advanc
ed personal agendas in the name of
renewal.”
While generally praising the council
itself and the quality of its implementation
in the U.S. church, Bishop Malone
acknowledged numerous problems and
rough edges and an unfinished agenda.
One of the greatest needs, he argued, is for
“renewed, serious efforts at all levels in
the church to learn and interiorize” the
council’s teachings.
“Fewer people have studied the coun
cil’s doctrine than speak of it,” he wrote,
“and fewer have made it fully their own
than have studied it.”
The 1962-65 council issued 16 official
documents of major areas of church life,
starting one of the most thoroughgoing
programs of renewal in the history of the
church.
Among major benefits flowing from the
council in the United States, Bishop
Malone cited the extensive renewal in
liturgy and worship, including greater ap
preciation of Scripture, spiritual renewal
among priests and Religious, ecumenical
and interfaith understanding, and strong
Catholic education in the country which
“continues to maintain the world’s largest
system of Catholic schools at all levels.”
He also priased “a healthy emphasis” on
social justice alongside personal morality
in moral teaching and said that collegiality
and shared responsibility have been
developed in the U.S. church to the point
that “listening, dialogue and consultation
are now taken for granted and significant
ly enhance the involvement of Catholics in
the church.”
On the other hand, while praising the ex
pansion of ministries and developments in
lay leadership, Bishop Malone warned of
“a blurring of the roles of the ordained and
non-ordained.”
In liturgy, he said continuing renewal
“remains a high priority.” He noted a
decline in Mass attendance among U.S.
Catholics in years following the council,
but he said that it was “not directly at
tributable to the council” and is still
“encouragingly high” when compared
with rates of Mass attendance in other
countries.
He focused on catechetics and cons
cience formation as key issues in postcon-
ciliar years but said that “a working con
sensus...has begun to emerge” on “how to
strike the right balance between ‘content’
and ‘experience’” in religious education.
He said there is a need “to re-instill in
Catholics generally a commitment to
evangelization and a sense of mission, as
well as a correct understanding of
ecumenism.”
He also argued for “increased docrinal
and moral content” in homilies without
undercutting the emphasis on Bible-based
preaching recovered by Catholics since
the council. One way to strengthen doc
trinal and moral content in homilies, he
suggested, would be to place more em
phasis on the second reading at Mass,
which is usually drawn from the letters of
the apostles to early Christian com
munities.
On U.S. religious life, Bishop Malone
praised the “fine work being done by a
special commission chaired by Archbishop
John R. Quinn” of San Francisco to bring
U.S. bishops and men and women
Religious together. He urged “prudent
openness to continued adaptations and ex
perimentation” in continuing the renewal
of religious life, and he called for “the fur
ther incorporation of women Religious into
policy-making and overall direction of the
church.”
Addressing continuing tensions over the
proper role of bishops’ conferences in the
postconciliar church, Bishop Malone
recalled that collegiality, or the shared
authority of bishops, was the topic of the
only previous extraordinary Synod of
Bishops, called in 1969 by Pope Paul VI.
“There is need for continued reflection
on and clarification of the theological basis
for the episcopal conferences,” he said.
This, he added, includes questions of the
moral and doctrinal authority bishops’
conferences have and their role in dealing
with “national problems such as dissent by
some theologians and Religious.”
He urged fuller implementation of
recommendations from the 1969 synod to
strengthen the role of the Synod of Bishops
itself.
He also raised a possibility of “a na
tional bishops’ synod or plenary council to
conduct a postconciliar assessment
paralleling the extraordinary synod’s.”
There has been no such national synod or
plenary council in the United States since
the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore in
1885.
Symposium Marks Anniversary Of Black Bishops' Pastoral
BY TRACY EARLY
NEW YORK (NC) — Father Edward
Braxton, director of the Catholic student
"enter at the University of Chicago, called
Sept. 9 for his fellow black Catholics to join
with other blacks in combating such com
munity problems as the growing number
of pregnancies outside marriage.
He made his remarks in the major
theme address at a symposium in New
York marking the first anniversary of the
issuance of the pastoral letter by the 10
U.S. black Catholic bishops titled “What
We Have Seen and Heard.”
The symposium, sponsored by Cardinal
John J. O’Connor of New York, brought
together seven of the black bishops as well
as several other U.S. bishops in an au
dience of 650 priests, Religious and laity.
It was held at the Harlem parish of St.
Charles Borromeo, whose pastor is Aux
iliary Bishop Emerson Moore, one of the 10
black bishops. Because of space limita
tions, organizers said they had to turn
down another 1,000 would-be participants.
“Recent figures suggest that 57 percent
of all the black children born in America
are born to unwed fathers and mothers,”
said Father Braxton in his address.
“Black Americans are justifiably proud
that we have not accepted the abortion
mentality that accompanies so many un
wanted pregnancies in this country,” he
said. “However, we are facing a crisis.
Our young people must be effectively
taught the importance of growing to
maturity, obtaining an education, securing
employment and getting married before
they begin their families.”
He said that a pattern of “three genera
tions of unwed mothers in a single family
may be the single greatest internal
obstacle to the growth and economic
stability of the black family in America.”
Black Catholics, like other black
Americans, Father Braxton said, have
reacted to their “traumatic encounter”
with the white American culture in four
ways, sometimes moving through them as
four stages.
At first, he said, many blacks accepted
the negative views of whites about black
identity and sought to “imitate the white
world.” Next, some would make black
values normative and “become anti-white
in order to be pro-black,” he said.
In a third stage, Father Braxton said,
some blacks became totally immersed in
black culture, turning away from all white
culture to “surround themselves with
African artifacts,” take African names,
demand more university courses in
African history and reject French, Ger
man or Spanish language study in favor of
“Lungala, Kikongo, Tshiluba and
Swahili.”
Although such immersion may seem to
provide a bridge back to “halcyon days in
the motherland,” Father Braxton said, re
maining in that stage is “not healthy.”
The final stage he described as
“appropriation and transcendence” of the
black experience. “At this point black peo
ple become more critical and selective,”
he said, adding that at this stage real pro
blems within the black community are not
glossed over or romanticized.
Father Braxton praised the 1979 pastoral
of the National Conference of Catholic
Bishops on racism, “Brothers and Sisters
to Us,” for its “Landmark” stands on
fostering vocations, expanding Catholic
schools in the inner city, promoting affir
mative action in dioceses and religious in
stitutions and avoiding support of racism
through church investments. “There is no
need to say more,” he said. “The need is to
do what we have said.”
Father Braxton made several recom
mendations for future action including:
—A deepening of commitment to
evangelization in the black community. By
the end of the century, the number of black
Catholics in the U.S. could be doubled, he
suggested.
—Giving priority to Catholic schools in
the black community, with emphasis on
“value formation.”
—Efforts to ensure that church
documents such as the 1984 pastoral of the
black bishops become known and studied.
“Many black Catholics have never seen or
heard of ‘What We Have Seen and
Heard,”’ he remarked.
In the afternoon, each of the black
bishops spoke briefly, and then responded
to questions.
Auxiliary Bishop James Lyke of
Cleveland said spirituality in the black
community avoids otherworldiness and
deals with the human community in its
concrete situation. “The other world does
not need the Gospel,” Bishop Lyke said.
“This world does.”
Auxiliary Bishop John Ricard of
Baltimore spoke of poverty as a special
problem of the black community, and said
it was associated with problems of drugs,
alcohol, tobacco, teen pregnancy,
homicide, family disintegration and abor
tion. He said that although, as Father
Braxton had earlier stated, the black com
munity may have resisted the abortion
mentality, 1983 and 1984 statistics in
dicated black women were much more
likely to have abortions than white women.
Bishop Ricard said that was largely
because of “coercion” and “lack of infor
mation.”
Auxiliary Bishop Harold Perry of New
Orleans, ordained in 1966 as the first U.S.
black Catholic bishop in the 20th century,
said the black community would not have
enough black priests and Religious in the
forseeable future, and therefore would
continue to need the help of whites. But he
said they must be in harmony with the
spirituality and culture of blacks.
Auxiliary Bishop Wilton Gregory of
Chicago called for bringing together the
“treasures” of black culture and the
liturgy of Rome, and make the resulting
liturgy a resource for evangelization.
Auxiliary Bishop Moses Anderson of
Detroit said black artists in the Catholic
Church should be encouraged to offer their
contribution in a way analogous to that
described by John Paul II in his recent en
cyclical on Sts. Cyril and Methodius,
apostles to the Slaves.
Auxiliary Bishop Eugene Marino of
Washington said that although the black
bishops’ pastoral emphasizes oppor
tunities, it also notes that a principal
obstacle to black evangelization is “the
racism that lingers in our church and in
our society.