February 2019
“Clothes make a man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.” So wrote Mark Twain, echoing the proverb listed by Erasmus some 400 years ago.
How then would Mark Twain view members of the Catholic Hierarchy based on the clothes they wear? What sort of man wears a cassock-dress, a mitre (embroidered, high-pitched hat), a scarlet skull cap, wide scarlet sashes, a bejewelled cross and ornate staff of office?
These are the remnant attire of Prince-Bishops from the time of the Hapsburg Empire. Called to be Shepherds of the People members of the the Catholic Hierarchy dress like and are called Princes of the Church. The contradiction of symbol is stark.
The attire speaks of position, privilege and power. Speaks of control. Speaks of influence as Mark Twain noted. It is the dress of a higher class in the Church, a special clerical caste of men only, above and beyond the ordinary laity. This caste is non-accountable and non-transparent in its deliberations and actions.
The Irish writer Margaret Hungerford, in her 1878 book “Molly Bawn” used the phrase “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder”. There are those who see beauty in the massed gathering of Catholic Hierarchy decked out in their sacred robes. Others see scandal and contradiction, an unholy men’s club, an array of power.
We are a long way from Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli and his vision, as Pope John XXIII, of a renewed Church.
Pope John – the “meanwhile” Pope who was considered to be a papal seat warmer – inspired and startled both the Roman Catholic World and the world in general when in 1958 at the age of nearly 77 he called for a second Vatican Council, thus putting in motion the wheels of renewal in a Church set and safe in its ways.
Pope John saw the church through the eyes of a shepherd and sought the renewal of the church as a community. He would define the word “church” as people. In 2019 “The Church” invariably connotes a clerical institution.
The process of renewal was slowed by Pope John’s successor, Paul VI, who was half-hearted in implementing changes and met with strong opposition. The little renewal that had taken place was both stopped then reversed by the Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI. Under their reign orthodoxy and doctrine ruled over faith and mission as the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) came once more into its own. The CDF is the successor to the Inquisition and is the Vatican’s watchdog of orthodoxy.
The entrenched clericalism of the institutional church has facilitated the world-wide sexual abuse scandal itself as well as the effective and disastrous cover up over decades. The reign of Pope John Paul II embodied this cover up.
It has also led to the potentially irreparable loss to the church of a multitude of people who were positioned to be leaders in the renewal of the church as called for by Vatican II: men and women from every strata of society committed to Jesus Christ and his church-as-community but who were confronted by institutional dead-ends and no-through roads in their journey toward a renewed church.
It is a scandal, a stumbling block that priesthood continues to be defined in such a narrow way, that women continue to be regarded as handmaidens in a men’s church, that ritual and sacraments are so rigidly regulated, that local communities are required to depend on clerical imports from other nations and cultures, that individuals are not challenged toward primacy of conscience particularly in the arena of sexual mores and marriage customs.
It remains a scandal that generations of Catholics grew up with a Latin Eucharist, committed to the Ten Commandments, the Rosary and the unquestioning submission to a host of church laws while being ignorant of the Scriptures and basic theology. For so many of them simple changes became stumbling blocks: the removal of the altar rails, the change of fasting rules, the demise of sodalities. Not to mention the transition to the vernacular in liturgy, and the introduction of Parish Councils and lay-led liturgies.
It remains a scandal that in a country such as the Philippines – predominately Catholic – Catholic Prelates wined and dined with President Marcos and his wife Imelda who were systematically raping the country and violating the lives of tens of thousands under Martial Law. When Bishop Julio Labayan stood against the military on behalf of his people, no Bishop stood with him. In our present time it is a scandal that while the people are challenged to attend Mass, go to confession and honour the Blessed Virgin, President Duterte remains largely unchallenged by the Bishops as he calls on the people to kill Bishops and steal from the Churches while sending death squads after supposed drug users in slum areas.
Pope Francis, another Shepherd in the mould of Pope John XXIII, is seeking in our own day the renewal of the whole church envisaged as community. Against great opposition. Opposition that in the United States has the bearing of a revolt on the part of a significant sector of Bishops and high-wealth conservative Catholics.
The ultimate raison d’être of the church is to bring its members as a community to a belief in the person of Jesus Christ and a commitment to his Mission. Such belief and commitment can be expressed and lived out in a myriad of ways according to the person, the culture, the age and the social and political environment. There is no “one size fits all” and regulations are meant to liberate the energy of the church community: local, national and international.
Could we dream of a church that:
Sees all ministries open to all committed members of the community regardless of age, gender and political orientation?
Has a voice in the selection of the local bishop
Participates in the formation of those seeking permanent ministry in the church
Allows for both single and married Ministers of the Eucharist
Allows for temporary ordination of Ministers of the Eucharist, especially in far-flung parishes.
Allows for creative ritual within the context of general guidelines
Challenges members to an ongoing commitment to the mission of Jesus vis-à-vis the disabled, disadvantaged and neglected of society.
