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| Tragedy, or Transformation? | ||
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| By Robert Beutel | ||
I missed the parish meeting on the scandal (our Small Christian Community was meeting after a too-long hiatus), but I heard the mood was pretty gloomy - not much hope for change from current practices. However, I would like to make a case that this is an unprecedented opportunity for the long hoped for transformation of the American Catholic Church.
The Opportunity for Change - Moral Authority
The bishops have lost nearly all of their moral authority; few Catholics will listen or obey them anymore just because of their office. If anything, that office is now a stigma. This moral vacuum is out there waiting to be filled by the non-clerical members of the Church.
We must step in, first to reach out to the clergy’s victims, to heal them, to make them whole, to make amends for the wrongs of both the offenders and the bishops, and to assure them that these crimes are the work of men, not of God, that they should find a spiritual home somewhere… even another tradition if they cannot stomach the Roman Catholic tradition anymore.
Second, we must step in to pick up the moral banners of peace and justice which the bishops have carried admirably in their statements of 1986 on poverty and 1983 on peace. We must convince ourselves first, and the public second, that we are the Church, not just those guys in the funny collars and pointed hats. This kind of moral authority is harder to exercise, but “they will know us by our love”.
The Opportunity for Change - Financial Authority
The bishops are on the verge of losing their financial authority. Jury verdicts and settlements threaten to bankrupt many dioceses. The potential obligation is $1 billion.
Not only are the assets of the diocese, such as cash, school buildings, and cathedrals at risk; many Catholics have declared their refusal to contribute anything if it will wind up paying for priests’ and bishops’ civil liability for abuse and cover-up.
Again, this vacuum awaits our stepping in. Look at how the commercial banks have stepped in to rescue troubled borrowers such as K-Mart. They impose stringent conditions such as the termination of irresponsible executives and the appointment of a majority of board members. We, too, must gather the financial power to do some hard bargaining with the bishops. Their clueless public statements make clear the impossibility of changing their hearts and attitudes. “We can rescue the Cathedral”, we will say, “but you must commit to the following contractual conditions: women priests now (we can borrow Lutheran pastors and Episcopal priests until the seminaries produce our own), married priests now (there are a lot of them ready to put on the stole tomorrow), election of the bishop by the laity and the priests,” …, …. Their refusal means the liquidation of the legal and financial organization of the diocese, putting them out of business. Without facilities, without staff, without their own salaries and housing, they cannot rule. Rome will not be able to rescue them from disaster.
Not only will we save the Church’s assets, we will meet the Church’s (our) moral obligation to compensate and restore the clergy’s victims. If the diocese were to be liquidated, their claims will be reduced to pennies on the dollar. We cannot leave them out in cold, regardless of our own blamelessness.
An Achievable Goal?
This is an enormous undertaking. It will require raising huge sums of cash and the formation of a powerful negotiating structure to take on the bishops. But it may not be as fanciful as it appears. The money could be raised by the sale of 30-year interest bearing bonds attractive to a wide variety of investors. The bishops would be obligated to repay these bonds as a part of the contract. The victims may be willing to discount their claims if they get from us the Christ-like loving response they first asked of the bishops.
In a perverse way, the bishops may welcome their hand being forced. Most of them, even the conservatives, chafe under the arbitrary, secretive arrogance of Rome. We are giving them the excuse they need to demand from Rome the respect the American Church deserves. This need not be a world-wide schism, for Rome will have little effective power, and the bishops of Northern Europe and Asia, and perhaps of other areas, will back the Americans.
The Alternatives
What is the alternative? We can watch with much handwringing as one diocese after another loses its cathedrals, its pension funds, and its staff . We can watch the Catholic Church wither as disgusted members stay away or drift into other traditions; brand loyalty isn’t what it used to be. Some of us will hang on out of habit or nostalgia, but certainly our children won’t. Our daughters are even now being ordained to serve Protestant congregations.
Or we can believe we are the Children of God, that with our brother Jesus we can transfigure the Church, his Mystical Body, into a loving, welcoming, inclusive, and courageous home, where the table is set for everyone. This shall be a church where we enter weak and fearful, but emerge strong and courageous carrying the banners of Peace and Justice. Does not the Holy Spirit burn within us, as it did among the first disciples? Are we not called to lead, just as they were?
The First Steps
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