UNITED STATES
Bilgrimage
This morning, I’d like to share an essay by Rev. Emmet Coyne, a retired priest of the diocese of Manchester, New Hampshire, and author of The Theology of Fear. Emmett has kindly offered to let the essay be published here. It’s a proposal to rehabilitate the ancient Catholic practice of interdict, but to turn it upside down, so that lay Catholics begin to use it to call their pastoral leaders to accountability. Here’s Emmett’s essay:
In 1909 in Adria, Italy, “Several thousand fanatical Catholics nearly stoned their bishop to death.” What triggered this? The pope (Pius X) instructed the bishop to move the seat of the diocese to the more important city of Rovigio. One might assume the Catholic citizens of Adria felt they were losing their prominence. So, for the pelting of their prelate, the pope pronounced an interdict on Adria and the surrounding area.
The interdict is an arrow in the Vatican’s quiver for subduing unruly members. It’s a papal ploy to deny the sacraments to individuals and dioceses. It has been employed intermittently to threaten Catholics and was successful. The interdict remains a measure of last resort. To deny the sacraments, particularly the Eucharist, effectively cuts members off from God. The interdict conveyed this threat.
Real power in the Roman Church resides exclusively in male celibates. Since Vatican II, lay persons were allowed in to participate in parish councils, but these were simply advisory. There is nothing in the pipeline currently which will allow lay members to exercise authentic power. John Paul II anticipated the emerging laity might seek to ascend to a position of power. He then legislated that no cleric could be under the authority of a lay person. Canon Law through the centuries was the exclusive domain of male clerics to write the rules. The laity are subservient in all of the canons, being accorded with few rights and mostly responsibilities.
The current structure of the Roman Church is an absolute monarchy. Laity are left to beg, cajole, and petition for any participation in advocating structural change and power sharing. Collegiality, even for bishops, is not a constant. They are dependent on the whim of the current pontiff. The result is that committed lay persons are left to their own creative devices until the Pentecost event becomes an accepted truth and is institutionalized. At the first Pentecost, the Spirit was poured out upon the whole People of God, not simply community leaders. This was a unique episode in the consciousness of the new community struggling for self-identity in the wake of the Jesus event. All persons would share equally in the life of the community. This was the radical nature that drew slaves and women especially. So the community surged until the time of Constantine when the imperial model was imposed. This has endured till Vatican II when the hope of lay persons was to become equal participants, no longer relegated to ‘pray, pay, and obey.’
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