Reveille for the Catholic Church, Elizabeth W. Mcgahan, Telegraph-Journal, October 23, 2009

Reveille for the Catholic Church

By Elizabeth W. Mcgahan
Telegraph-Journal
October 23, 2009

http://telegraphjournal.canadaeast.com/opinion/article/833317

Cardinal William Levada, the Vatican's chief doctrinal official, speaks at a news conference at the Vatican, Tuesday. The Vatican has made it easier for Anglicans to join the Catholic Church, responding to the disillusionment of some Anglicans over the election of openly gay bishops and the blessing of same-sex unions. Doctrine remains a subject of debate within the Catholic Church as well, with laity disillusioned by scandals.

A few years ago, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend wrote Failing America's Faithful, in which she discussed the wide ranging role of religion in American society, suggesting at one point that it was "reveille" for the Christian churches. Townsend's call may resonate for Maritime Catholics as the tragedy in the diocese of Antigonish unfolds.

Stunned and embarrassed, many Catholics listened as various priests and bishops offered a plethora of tepid bromides - "we are all flawed" or "he has been accused but not convicted" or "he who is without sin, throw the first stone." Each observation on its own contains a measure of validity. But in a world-wide Church roiling for more than two decades from public scandals, some in the laity might have expected to hear these initial reactions balanced by reflection on the Church's requirements for recruitment and membership within the priesthood, and for the advancement of priests to the hierarchy. Sadly, various spokesmen talked in terms of individual weakness while overlooking possible limitations in organizational structures.

With respect to the Lahey crisis, one asks, how carefully did the committee that drew up the terna (list of candidates sent to Rome) review the priest-candidates who were recommended for the position of bishop of Antigonish? Did they scrutinize Lahey's career in Newfoundland? Have any members of the committee spoken since this story broke?

The Lahey situation is a metaphor for the worst in a Church desperately in need of reform. Clergy personnel in all churches are held to a high standard of conduct; the Church's stature has been eroded by the behavior of some of its priests and bishops. And for many faithful Catholics the inescapable impression is that their Church has not had enough men in positions of authority with either administrative acumen or pastoral integrity when it mattered most to the laity.

Within the Church the system of accountability and transparency is weak; in some dioceses it appears non-existent to the laity. When advising Church authorities of wrongdoing, members of the laity have had to rely on the personal integrity and courage of a priest or diocesan consultor (advisor to a bishop) to bring a matter forward. Too often Church authorities, including diocesan consultors, have done little more than merely pass the file along. No one takes ownership. Too many "company" men. That is how it appears to have been in the Archdiocese of Boston, in the various dioceses and institutions in Ireland as the recently released Ryan Report suggests, and in the Diocese of St. John's, Nfld.

A number of Catholics who encountered a bureaucratic rather than pastoral response to their concerns have given up on their Church. For those who have persevered and even "won" their cases, it has been disheartening to have had to rely on civil authorities when seeking redress from their Church.

Catholics, clergy and laity, have lived through the residential schools crisis and scandal, the Newfoundland Mount Cashel disaster, the Bishop Hubert O'Connor rape trial in the early 1990s, and now the Lahey imbroglio.

While the proverbial "jury" may be out on Raymond Lahey, the "jury" has returned its verdict on the Church. Many Catholics have reached their tipping point in terms of needed Church reform. They voted with their feet, as the Sunday empty pews remind those who are soldiering on.

Laity, who remain, hope to see meaningful reform and are prepared to work towards that end. They want healing for those injured by agents of their Church as well as for the victimizers. But of paramount importance, they want Church reform.

They recognize that some priests are sympathetic to change but are constrained from speaking publicly because it will curtail their careers in the priesthood. And another, perhaps, less visible phenomenon may explain the clergy's silence. It is the still-operative culture of endemic deference that envelopes the entire Catholic world. Not quite like the 1950s, but still there: a world where priests defer to superiors and laity defer to clergy. In many ways, the Church is a closed system. For many, that closed system appears to have been imploding for some time.

Vatican II may have produced the vernacular Mass, but the celebrants come from an all-male clergy. There are no married priests, no women priests. And while an active, engaged laity is sorely required, there are some priests for whom such a prospect is thoroughly threatening. Discussions about the need for changes to the priesthood or visioning within dioceses are few.

For the laity, some of the apparent lassitude is explained by an aging clergy. The vast majority of priests have served faithfully and honourably. Countless Catholics have been, and continue to be, the beneficiaries of their ministrations. But these men are now quietly moving into retirement; many privately expressing disgust with the recent scandals and the overall response from Church leadership. In sharp contrast to the 1950s, when the priesthood as a profession or calling was held in esteem, today there are few men clamouring to enter Catholic seminaries.

The Church needs an open priesthood, embracing men and women, married and single. Prominent Catholic priest-scholars have critiqued the limitations of mandatory celibacy, among them Donald Cozzens (Freeing Celibacy, 2006) and Richard McBrien. As a practical consequence of mandatory celibacy, McBrien has identified the loneliness priests face as they move into old age without families. The pathos described by McBrien is evident in every diocese where rectories stand as silent sentinels, occupied by a solitary priest, frequently presiding over a diminishing congregation.

The current crisis within the Church demands that the consequences of mandatory celibacy on individual priests, and the Church as a whole, be examined. Although it is too soon to measure the impact that the anticipated infusion of married Anglican priests will have on the Church as a result of the recent overture to the Anglican Communion, some members of the Catholic laity view their presence as potentially modeling for a wider appreciation and acceptance of a married clergy.

Pope Benedict XVI has named this year as the "Year of the Priest" and it is appropriate to celebrate the many faithful servants of the Church. But one wonders as the Church strives for new recruits how many in the hierarchy have reflected on the difficulty of attracting candidates to a profession that consigns women to a second-class status. At least one observer has noted that in the 21st century, there may be a connection between the Church's refusal to ordain women and the limited appeal of the priesthood to men (in "Religious life in the age of Facebook," America, July 7, 2008).

In all of the crises, however, most disappointing for the Catholic laity is that no one from within the ranks of the clergy or hierarchy publicly questions how the best ideals of Catholicism came to be so debased. And among the laity, a number are convinced that until the priesthood is opened up to wider representation from among all baptized persons in the Church, some questions will never be asked.

For too long many Catholics, especially within the laity, have been merely followers, operating in a "father knows best" mode. But an awareness has been emerging that "father" has not known best for some time.

The Church has to have bishops and priests with the moral courage to advocate for meaningful reform and, of late, the faithful have not heard much of that.

United by baptism, committed laity and clergy need to break the silence and begin a forthright conversation on genuine reform at the parish and diocesan levels.

It's reveille for the Catholic Church.

Elizabeth McGahan is a historian specializing in women and religion, and the history of women religious. She teaches part time at the University of New Brunswick, Saint John Campus.