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PAGE 9 — The Georgia Bulletin, November 21,1985
Collegiality Remains At Center Of Church Debate
COLLEGIALITY in action at Catholic Bishops held at the Capi-
the 1984 National Conference of tal-Hilton in Washington D.C.
BY JOHN THAVIS
ROME (NC) - The Se
cond Vatican Council em
phasized the collegial rela
tionship between bishops
and their sharing in church
authority, launching an era
of cooperative leadership
among individual bishops
and their regional and na
tional conferences.
Twenty years later, as
the bishops prepare to meet
in an extraordinary synod
to evaluate the council’s
results, collegiality re
mains at the center of
church debate.
In particular, discussion
has focused on the expand
ed activities of national
bishops’ conferences and
their teaching and dis
ciplinary role.
In interviews with Na
tional Catholic News Ser
vice, Vatican officials
described the pastoral work
of bishops’ conferences as
necessary and good, but
some said the conferences
risk overstepping their
limited authority and eclip
sing the role of the diocesan
bishops.
Meanwhile, presynod
reports from bishops in the
United States and other
countries have suggested
that the synod clarify the
nature of national bishops'
conferences, their teaching
authority and their place in
dealing with dissent.
It was the Dogmatic Con
stitution on the Church,
“Lumen Gentium,” that in
1964 clearly stated that
bishops, with the pope as
their head, share in the
supreme authority over the
church. It said the order of
bishops was the successor
to the order of apostles in
illXlli
VATICAN II
REVISITED
Fifth
In A Series
their roles as teachers and
pastors.
The council also em
phasized the bishops’
obligation to join in com
mon action, specifically
through episcopal con
ferences. It encouraged the
bishops to meet regularly,
exchange views and “for
mulate a program for the
common good of the
church.”
Moreover, many of the
council’s documents assign
specific decision-making
tasks to national bishops’
conferences. Several of
these have been officially
incorporated into the chur
ch’s new Code of Canon
Law.
Many bishops’ con
ferences around the world
have grown to include per
manent administrative
staffs and sub-agencies that
deal with social justice and
peace issues, education and
communications.
The bishops in individual
countries, especially in the
last several years, have
issued more frequent
pastoral letters on social
teaching regarding specific
national issues. Two ex
amples are the U.S.
bishops’ letter on war and
peace and their proposed
letter on the economy.
Cardinal Joseph Ratz-
inger, prefect of the Con
gregation for the Doctrine
of the Faith, has criticized
the greater role of bishops’
conferences and their
operation by “consensus.”
In the 1985 book, “The
Ratzinger Report,” he said
the council’s emphasis on
the bishops’ role "risks be
ing smothered by the inser
tion of bishops into
episcopal conferences that
are ever more organized,
often with burdensome
bureaucratic structures.”
He said some bishops
showed a lack of individual
responsibility by dele
gating their personal
authority as “shepherd and
teacher” to structures of
the bishops’ conference. In
many conferences, he said,
the majority of bishops are
moved by “the group
spirit” or conformism to ac
cept the positions of active
minorities.
Cardinal Ratzinger said
that episcopal conferences
have no teaching mission
and that their documents
have no weight of their own
— except “the consent
given to them by the in
dividual bishops.”
“We must not forget that
the episcopal conferences
have no theological basis;
they do not belong to the
structure of the church, as
willed by Christ, that can
not be eliminated; they
have only a practical, con
crete function,” he said.
Brazilian Archbishop
Lucas Moreira Neves,
secretary of the Congrega
tion for Bishops, said he
agreed with Cardinal Rat
zinger regarding the role of
bishops’ conferences.
In a “strict sense,” he
said, bishops’ conferences
are not an expression of col
legiality, spelled out by the
council as the bishops act
ing in union with the pope.
Instead, they are an ex
pression of the “spirit of
collegiality” between
bishops, and their role is
“purely pastoral,” he said.
Because the council did
not define any “theological
basis” for the conferences,
he added, they must not
“oppose, substitute or. suf
focate” the ordinary
sacramental power of in
dividual bishops.
The prefect of the Con
gregation for Bishops, Car
dinal Bernardin Gantin,
said the national bishops’
conference is “the place
where bishops can reflect,
help each other solve pro
blems, agree on a policy,
without taking anything
away from their freedom as
diocesan bishops.”
“If a local bishop loses his
personality, he isn’t a good
one,” he said.
Cardinal Gantin praised
the overall work of bishops’
conferences and said it
must continue. “Not only is
it a good thing, it is an ex
cellent thing,” he said.
But he said bishops today
need to balance their time
between their own dioceses
and their work elsewhere.
“Before the council,
bishops would close them
selves off like princes or
emperors. Now, they have
opened the windows to see
what can be seen outside.
Perhaps it went too far. The
bishop no longer stays at
home,” Cardinal Gantin
said.
In their presynod report,
U.S. bishops asked that the
synod help clarify the role
of bishops’ conferences in
dealing with local dissent.
The British bishops’ report
said that in some areas, the
bishops should have
greater freedom of deci
sion.
Bishop James Malone of
Youngstown, Ohio, presi
dent of the National Con
ference of Catholic Bishops,
said in his report that the
synod should help clarify
“the theological basis for
the episcopal conference —
the character and force of
its statements, its role in
dealing with national prob
lems such as dissent by
some theologians and
Religious, its relationship
to individual bishops, to
other episcopal confer
ences, and to the Holy See.”
“The perception of ten
sions in these relationships
is ultimately inimical in the
church generally,” Bishop
Malone said.
After a number of
Brazilian bishops recently
visited the Vatican, one of
them said the Roman Curia
should try to have a better
understanding of concrete
situations in individual
countries and regions.
In an interview published
in the Vatican newspaper,
L’Osservatore Romano,
Cardinal Avelar Brandao
Vilela of Sao Salvador da
Bahia, Brazil, said that
while relations between
bishops and the Curia had
improved, they could do
better.
“What else is expected
from the Curia? That it
have, or try to have, more
direct knowledge of the
Latin American reality, of
our anthropological and
social problems, so that its
services can be more in line
with our needs,” Cardinal
Vivela said.
Cardinal Pietro Pavan, a
key adviser to Pope John
XXIII on social issues, said
that while bishops’ con
ferences cannot be called
“divine” or essential in
stitutions in the church,
they have assumed a ma
jor, positive role of medita
tion.
The church’s magiste-
rium, or teaching authori
ty, appears to be and is
“rather abstract,” he said,
and needs to be applied to
concrete local situations.
This is a role for which
bishops’ conferences have
shown themselves to be
“fully qualified,” he said.
Cardinal D. Simon Lour-
dusamy, secretary of the
Congregation for the
Evangelization of Peoples,
said regional and national
conferences in missionary
territories had greatly im
proved cooperation be
tween bishops in solving
common problems.
Several Vatican officials
pointed to the Synod of
Bishops, which meets
regularly every three
years, as enhancing col
legiality between the pope
and bishops. The synod was
instituted in 1967 by Pope
Paul VI to get more input
from bishops. It has
discussed such issues as
church doctrine, evange
lization, catechetics, the
family and penance.
Council Called Religious
To Rediscovery, Redirection
BY JERRY FILTEAU
NC News Service
One of the more interesting Catholic
phenomena of the last 20 years has been
the massive effort of the church’s several
hundred thousand men and women
Religious to rediscover their roots and
redirect their whole lives by what they
found.
That was what the Second Vatican
Council directed Religious to do with
“Perfectae Caritatis,” the Decree on the
Appropriate Renewal of Religious Life,
approved and issued Oct. 28,1965.
The document began by referring back
to an earlier council document, the
Dogmatic Constitution on the Church,
which placed religious life in the broader
context of church life, noting that all
Christians are called to be holy,
whatever their specific vocation.
Those who undertake the vowed
religious life, said “Perfectae Caritatis,”
follow the evangelical counsels of pover
ty, chastity and obedience to “spend
themselves ever increasingly for Christ,
and for his body the church.”
The decree called all Religious to
return constantly “to the sources of all
Christian life and to the original inspira
tion behind a given community” as their
first norm for renewal. The second basic
norm was “an adjustment of the com
munity to the changed conditions of the
times.”
Since the Gospel is the heart of Chris
tian life, “a following of Christ as pro
posed by the Gospel” was to be the
“supreme law” for all Religious.
Contemplative communities were call
ed “the glory of the church” and were
urged to revise their rules but retain
their basic character of “withdrawal
from the world” and prayerful con
templation.
Religious communities formed for
apostolic purposes were reminded that
in their orders, “the very nature of
religious life requires apostolic action
and services...Hence, the entire life of
the members of these communities
should be penetrated by an apostolic
spirit, as their entire apostolic activity
should be animated by a religious
spirit.”
Monastic communities were seen as
another distinctive form of religious life.
Secular institutes, whose members live
lives guided by the evangelical counsels
but without taking public vows or living
in community, were also commended
and urged to engage in renewal.
