LCWC & Bishops

Bishop Blair is one of the three bishops appointed by Rome to supervise reforms of the leadership organization of American nuns and he has indicated that they are willing to enter into dialogue with the leaders of the nuns on needed changes. It might help the "dialogue' if we can get a clarification of his vision of "Church" which seems distinct from that which most Christians find in the Scriptures and in the teaching of Vatican II.

Among my favorite ecclesiologists were Adrian Dulles and Edmund Schillebeeckx, neither of whom were notable liberals. Both significantly influenced my concept of the Church as well as that expressed by the bishops at Vatican II, Dulles in delineating various models of Church, Schillebeeckx in forming a vision of the Church as the Body of Christ who acts and speaks through it in the world today. I also have found Richard McBrien to be a most readable writer as well as an outstanding theologian.

When I started to formulate my vision for the Church of the future, not the heavenly New Jerusalem but the church down and dirty in its members, I tried to put that vision in words in the context of the world in which we live and love and strive and fall and rise again today. I think that it is the same vision as that expressed by Vatican II in the document Lumen Gentium.

The structure and authority of the Church, and the way that authority is exercised is not clear in the New Testament, but it developed over centuries. More important: What is the purpose of the Church? Why did Christ establish this community and why does He maintain it in existence in spite of its faults and failures, its betrayals and its rejection of His message?

Scripture tells us that God made a covenant with Abraham and his descendants and that this covenant was renewed or extended by Jesus with those who accepted Him and His message until the end of time. "You will be my people and I will be your God." God poured out His everlasting love on us, freely and without merit on our part and wants our love in return.

The Church is a means to achieve this end by introducing us to that loving relationship with the Father for which we are made and to nurture and grow us in that relationship. It is not a legalistic or dominating relationship: God does not force us, He invites us to love Him and trust Him as we journey to that eternal Kingdom where we will be with Him forever.

And that is why I reject the concept of a Church which juridically expels or excommunicates members whom God has called to Him. God calls each one individually to this relationship with Him. The Church exists to help us on our way, to provide doctrinal and moral principles to guide us, but faith is a personal gift, not an institutional one and in the final moments when our life changes the relationship is not with the Church or the hierarchy but with the Father.

Christ's Church is a servant Church, not an authoritarian structure,one where service not power is the keyword. The initial appointments made by the apostles were deacons to care for the needs of the widows, and the only fund raiser described was Paul’s appeal for funds for the needy in Jerusalem. Peter was the leader appointed by Christ to lead His Church, but we know that Paul challenged Peter on some issues and prevailed. That is my vision of the Church – the pope is head of the Universal Church, the sign of unity and spokesman for the Church on issues of faith, on our understanding of the Gospel, but individual bishops are free to express their opinions and seek a consensus as they appear to have done at the Council of Jerusalem. This is the role of the pope in the Church, preserving its unity and fidelity to the teaching of Christ. The pope is "servus servorum Dei", servant of the servants of God, and his primacy is rooted and expressed in that role. In the early Church the bishop of Rome functioned primarily as a mediator of disputes rather than an interpreter of doctrine or an ultimate authority.

McBrien describes the role of Peter’s successor: "The Catholic Church considers the pope to be the Vicar of Peter, that is, the one who personally succeeds to the distinctive ministry of St. Peter for the sake of the unity of the universal Church." "Before the pontificate of Gregory VII (1073-1085) … (the popes) did not appoint bishops. They did not govern the universal Church through the Roman curia." John Henry Newman, who was beatified recently, "contended early in his Catholic career that the laity should be consulted on doctrine, since it was sometimes more faithful to revelation than was the hierarchy (including the pope.) He pointed out that the promise of the Spirit was to the whole Church."

Many Christian theologians of various denominations in the post-Vatican II period seem to have shared that same vision of the servant Church, though it has never been fully grasped or implemented.In 1966, Cardinal Cushing issued an Advent pastoral "The Servant Church." He set forth the image of Christ the Servant who "came to serve to heal, to reconcile, to bind up wounds. Jesus, we may say, is in an exceptional way the Good Samaritan," and argued that the Church must be the body of Christ, the suffering servant and hence the servant Church. "So it is that the Church announces the coming of the Kingdom not only in word, through preaching and proclamation, but more particularly in work, in her ministry of reconciliation, of binding up wounds, of suffering service, of healing . . . As the Lord was the ‘man for others,’ so must the Church be ‘the community for others.’

A similar understanding of the servant church is present in declarations of other church bodies of the period: the Presbyterian Confession of 1967, the Uppsala Report in 1968, the Second General Conference of Latin American Bishops at Medellin in 1968 and the document on Justice in the World issued by the Catholic Synod of Bishops in 1971.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer suggested that the Church should give away all its property to those in need, and the clergy live solely on the free-will offerings of their congregations, or possibly engage in some secular calling. The Church would thus experience the secular problems of ordinary human life. Anglican Bishop John A. Robinson argued that the house of God is not the Church but the world." Robert Adolfs took Paul’s phrase in Philippians 2:7 "Taking the form of a servant" to mean that Jesus divested himself of all craving for power and dignity. The Church, if it is to be like Christ, must similarly renounce all claims to power, honors, and the like; it must not rule by power but attract by love.

While my vision of the Church may not be as radical as Bonhoeffer’s, neither does it include an Episcopal palace such as the one currently on the market for 8 million dollars or a twelve room beach house for the summer. I recall one bishop who lived in a normal family sized home in a middle-class neighborhood, probably valued at less than $100,000, and several others who lived in the parish rectory.

In many ways I think this vision harks back to the early Church we find in the Acts of the Apostles. It is the Church described by Paul who wrote, "Have that mind in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross". (Phil 2:5-8). It is the Church of the ghetto and the catacombs, the weak and the voiceless, the Church of the Servant Christ who told His Apostles at the Last Supper, "I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do….no slave is greater that his master nor any messenger greater than the one who sent him" (John 13:35-36).

I find it troubling that Cardinal George in a recent interview speaks about the bishops’ mandate to be "governors who exercise … the power to punish." He does not make it clear whence they derive this power. It is certainly not from Christ’s command to His Apostles at the Last Supper. Nor is it in Paul's description of what Christ did: "He emptied himself, taking the form of a slave coming in human likeness, and found human in appearance, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross." (Phil.2:5-8).

The true definition of the bishop's role in the Church is service and leadership (like the "good shepherd" who leads out his flock), a vision certainly absent in many recent highly publicized statements and actions by bishops, not only in America but around the world. In spite of Cardinal George's opinion to the contrary, most Catholics seek from their leaders clear moral principles on which to base their decisions not moral micromanaging by the hierarchy. Christ’s Church calls for pastoral leadership, not juridical and punitive authority.

In like manner the role of patriarchs and bishops is rooted in the same service to their flocks. Vatican I diminished their role but Vatican II clearly restored it. Statements by the Pope which express the teaching of the universal Church are truly guided by the Holy Spirit but his personal opinions are not infallible.In a Church that seems to be gradually eroding the changes of Vatican II and reversing its teachings, it is important to remember and defend this principle. Unity in faith refers to formal teachings of the universal Church, not personal opinions. And nowhere is there any basis for authoritarian edicts or legal decisions affecting the life of the faithful, only teaching and guidance in the way of the Lord.

Bishop Kevin Dowling echoes this when he says:"It is, therefore, important in my view that church leadership, instead of giving an impression of its power, privilege and prestige, should rather be experienced as a humble searching ministry … which does not presume to have all the answers all the time."

It seems clear that Bishop Blair has a different concept of the nature of the Church and the role of the bishop. It might help if he could clarify the differences.