August 1983 Print

A Book Review by John Commoner
Reprinted from The Homiletic and Pastoral Review, January, 1983.

 The Crisis of Authority: John Paul II and the American Bishops
by Msgr. George A. Kelly. Available from HPR Bookshelf,
86 Riverside Drive, New York, NY 10024. $11.95 postpaid.

Msgr. Kelly gets to the point in his opening sentence: "The thesis of this book is that the chief responsibility for the ongoing difficulties of the Catholic Church in the United States now rests with the American bishops."

Readers of Msgr. Kelly's Battle for the American Church, published in 1979, may be wondering how his latest book differs from its much discussed predecessor. The chief difference probably lies in the explicitness with which this one puts responsibility upon the bishops. Msgr. Kelly seems to say the evidence for such an accusation was not conclusive when he wrote the earlier book. Another position is, I think, tenable: The Battle for the American Church itself could be drawn upon to draft a bill of particulars against the bishops.

Yet it remains true that, in contradistinction to the earlier volume's approach, the evidence cited in the present slim volume is brought clearly to bear directly upon the bishops and their "substantial errors of judgment." These errors are reduced by the author to three.

One is failure "to be hierarchy," a failure (the author explains) to rule. This in itself seems less an error of judgment than simply dereliction. The phenomenon is described by Msgr. Kelly:

Episcopal statements still proclaim the authoritative status of the episcopate but American bishops appear more as brothers to their people than as fathers, more as facilitators obtaining agreement about what Christ really intended than as bold preachers of the revealed word ...

The main cause of this decline, according to Msgr. Kelly, is the bishops' "toleration of disobedience by priests and religious teachers." Such mischievous toleration is probably a corollary of the second substantial error of judgment attributed by Msgr. Kelly to the bishops: an early misreading of the dissenters' intentions and of their disruptive potential.

Our author calls this error "excusable" on two counts: "The early postconciliar era was a period of experimentation which called for latitude at lower levels of the Church, wider than anything known in the preceding century. Furthermore, most of the bishops had been chosen by Rome to lead a settled and highly successful Church."

A reason not mentioned by the author is that dissenters themselves often, and perhaps usually, failed to realize where their dissent would lead. Here the paradigmatic dissent is contraception. Despite the earnest and reasoned denials of early days, acceptance of contraception has led to acceptance of just about any sexual behavior, save what cannot be contemplated without nausea by anyone but a case-hardened clinical psychologist. Contraception now is discernible as the turning point toward the broader ecclesial dissent which has become the mainstream.

Such dissent became mainstream through the third substantial error of judgment Msgr. Kelly lays upon the bishops. It is their "strategy of diffusing [sic] dissent through dialogue with their antagonists, while keeping supporters of the magisterium at a distance." This error, akin to punishing one's friends and rewarding one's enemies, "has had the effect of institutionalizing dissent in church structures and enhancing its respectability."

The destructive dynamism of this policy has worked in several dimensions. It has steadily eroded faith, morals and the pieties. Bishops of what now may—perhaps must—be called the mainstream have, by institutionalizing dissent, made mugs of two classes of Catholic: The bishop who would not tolerate dissent in his diocese (Bishop Joseph Sullivan, R.I.P., comes most readily to mind, but Cardinals O'Boyle and McIntyre are also cited by Msgr. Kelly), and the priest or layman who has clung to the loyalties of his youth, who gives the bishops' teachings in faith and morals a ready and respectful allegiance of mind.

Such a Catholic is only too easy a target for the trendy bishop. A loyal Catholic, whether priest or layman, can quite plausibly be dismissed as narrow and reactionary, precisely because sad and even tragic experience has made him suspicious of innovation. (St. Thomas was such by reasoned conviction: cf. Ia IIae 97, 2.)

One notorious case in point is almost comic. The Ordinary of a midwestern see had paid scant attention to protests from Catholics against an invitation to Fr. Charles Curran to lecture religious educators of his diocese. Yet this same Ordinary, when called upon to present to the body of bishops a proposal to remove "sexist language" from the Formula of Institution, explained that such language pained worshippers. He knew this was so because they had told him so.

Thus assured, the National Conference of Catholic Bishops voted to amend the Formula of Institution. Naturally this reform was greeted by the priestess lobby at the bishops' assembly as a welcome step toward women's ordination. And what of the less progressive Catholics of this country? Their pain is simply part of the scenery as the juggernaut of progress progresses.

Why have bishops of the mainstream felt they could ignore the distress, indeed anguish of ordinary Catholics? Why could they in Msgr. Kelly's restrained phrase, keep supporters of the magisterium at a distance? Chiefly because the bishops could, almost by definition, count on their support.

Obedient Catholics have a constitutional aversion to opposing a bishop. Not so, of course, the progressives, those for example who find themselves pained by the generic term man in the Mass. Unless sure of their man (which by now they usually are), their style is confrontational, their tactics Alinskyite. One need not pursue a peace-at-any-price policy to prefer placating the pugnacious to placating the pacific. One need only be human.

But this only-too-human approach, usually styled "pastoral," has backfired. Witness the voluminous and scholarly indictments of Prof. James Hitchcock, the recent broadside of Mr. Ralph Martin. Witness Msgr. Kelly's latest book, or even this review of it. The bishops, having sacrificed the feelings of their supporters to the ferocious appetites of their opponents, now find themselves lectured by laymen and priests demanding loyal leadership, or rather ordinary fulfilment of ordinary duty.

What does the future hold? "Unless checked soon," responds Msgr. Kelly, "the optimum future bishops can expect is to preside over a worldwide Anglican-type Catholicism—high, middle, low churches to suit all tastes ..."

How to check this drift? Msgr. Kelly prescribes three specifics: Bishops must become preachers of the Word; they must insist that theological investigations and presentations be carried out in conformity with Catholic norms; they must implement the Holy See's decrees and the Church's general law.

Everything in Msgr. Kelly's prescription depends upon the bishops. History appears to bear him out, though it also seems to show that one great bishop must arise to lead the way. Permit me to cite the cases of Ireland and Poland.

Poland at the time of the Reformation cried out for true reform. The bishops were a sorry lot, concerned chiefly about revenue; indifference to doctrine was rife among them. Among the clergy, many took wives. Among the aristocracy, Calvinism was modish, and useful to boot because it gave laymen a voice in Church government. These lords drove priests from the pulpit and installed Protestant ministers, at the same time ordering the villagers to attend Protestant services. A powerful movement to create a national church was afoot, and maintained momentum for half a century. At one point, tribute to the Holy See was forbidden by decree. In a word, Poland seemed lost to the Catholic Faith.

The dominant figure in the restoration of Catholicity to Poland was Cardinal Stanislaus Hosius, the Cracow born bishop of Warmia. It was he who, as much by virtue of his radiantly selfless person as by deep learning and clarity of mind, rallied the wholesome elements of the clergy to implement the reforms of Trent. Hosius also introduced into Poland the Jesuits, who brought the aristocracy back to the Faith. Jesuit schools proliferated. Not content with restoring Catholicity among the traditionally Catholic Poles, the Jesuits worked to heal the Greek schism among other inhabitants of the upper and middle Vistual basin, whose chief cities were Cracow and Czestochowa; this labor resulted in the union of the Ruthenian bishops with Rome in 1596.

If Poland is today regarded as the quintessentially Catholic country, Hosius and the Jesuits he brought to Poland have to be credited at least with creating the conditions that enabled it to become such. An equally striking example is Ireland. There the vision and energy of a single man succeeded, within the space of a quarter-century, in consolidating earlier reforms and creating that very character of Irish Catholicity which has left its stamp on the Church in this country.

Reliable witnesses tell us that at the opening of the 19th century the Irish Church—clergy and laity—showed evidence of the final stages of moral decay. By mid-century, however, a rebellious and dissolute clergy had been brought under the bishops' control, and a beginning had been made of that devotional revolution which was to make Irish Catholics what they long remain. At that point Paul Cullen arrived on the scene, as Archbishop of Armagh and papal delegate. Through devotions he had seen at work in Italy, he transformed the preponderant mass of the Irish into firm and practicing Catholics. Of course he could not have done this without the full cooperation of the other bishops; and he could not have obtained that cooperation unless he replaced reluctant bishops with his own men, something he accomplished gradually over the span of a quarter-century.

It is no accident that the bishops who reformed Poland and Ireland and kept them within the one sheepfold were in the closest union with Rome. (Hosius went there to die, and Cullen proposed to the Fathers of Vatican I the formula on papal infallibility they were to adopt.) Contrariwise, the drift plotted by Msgr. Kelly for the Church in this country, toward religion "to suit all tastes," is characteristic of something one rarely hears of, indeed scarcely dares mention. It is a reality whose name Pope John XXIII said burned his lips as he pronounced it, concerning the church in China. I speak of schism.

Schism, so far as I can recall, is not a word Msgr. Kelly here uses in an ominous or prophetic sense. Still, the notion hangs heavy over this book, like a suffering man's unspoken fear of some dread disease. Despite the book's vigorous style, it is instinct with sadness:

The fact that the body of bishops ignore orthodox scholars is only one bad sign. Their frequent cohabitation with dissenters is another. An inexcusable situation arises when bishops appear to be harassing defenders of the magisterium (for all their faults) or appear unfriendly to dissenters' critics (for all their faults). One begins to wonder on whose side the bishops actually are. Or whom they wish to have on their side. Or whether their unity with John Paul II is real or illusory.