Beyond the present state
of Catholicism
On September 18, in the company of an
audience of more than 2,000 in Conte Forum, Boston College
launched the second year of its Church in the 21st Century
initiative, with a focus on the theme, "Toward renewal:
What have we learned? Where are we going?" Following
a welcome by Jack Connors, Jr. '63, chairman of the
BC Board of Trustees, and an introduction by University President
William P. Leahy, SJ, Meet the Press moderator and
NBC News Washington Bureau chief Tim Russert led a conversation
from the stage with six Catholics: Patrick B. Downes '05
is a human development major in the Lynch School of Education
and a native of Cambridge, Massachusetts. He directs BC's
Kairos retreat program for students. Fr. J. Bryan Hehir, former
head of the Harvard Divinity School and Catholic Charities
USA, was named president of Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese
of Boston by Archbishop Sean P. O'Malley in late September.
Mary Johnson, SND, is an associate professor of sociology
and religious studies at Emmanuel College in Boston. She is
coauthor of Young Adult Catholics (2001). Catalina
Montes H'98 is principal of the Thomas Gardner Elementary
School in the Allston section of Boston. Elizabeth M. Paulhus
'04 is a member of the Honors Program majoring in theology
with a history minor. A native of Wheeling, West Virginia,
she participates in the Liturgical Arts Group at BC. Peter
Steinfels writes the "Beliefs" column in the New
York Times. He is the author of A People Adrift:
The Crisis of the Roman Catholic Church in America (2003).
Tim Russert: Peter Steinfels,
what must our Church do to restore credibility and trust in
its leadership?
 Peter
Steinfels: I'm going to steal a word from a book
by David Gibson called The Coming Catholic Church:
"doctrinizing." It's a good word to characterize the tendency
we have fallen into to raise every practical and pastoral
issue to an issue of high doctrine.
Without minimizing the importance of
theology, my first suggestion would be that at every level
of the Church we emphasize the pastoral questions, the practical
questions, and wherever possible, the empirical questions,
whether we're talking about parish life, Sunday worship,
religious education, or issues of sexuality and family.
 Sr.
Mary Johnson: About a month ago, a young man came
up to me after a talk I gave, and he said, "I want to figure
out what you are." And I said, "What do you mean?" And he
said, "You began the talk by mentioning Catholic social teaching,
so right away I thought, ‘She's a liberal.' And then
you talked about personal morality, and I changed and thought,
‘She's a conservative.' Then you mentioned Dorothy Day,
and I thought, ‘She must be a radical.' So, what are
you?" And I said, "I'm a Catholic." And he replied, "But what
kind? I've never just used the word Catholic without a word
in front of it."
There is a new generation that's
only heard about liberal Catholics and conservative Catholics.
We've got to talk about who and what are Catholics.
Bring the two together and seek common ground.
Russert: Catalina, Hispanics
in the United States are finding themselves increasingly drawn
to evangelical Churches, more than to the Catholic Church.
What must the Catholic leadership do to reach out to the Hispanic
community?
 Catalina
Montes: Catholic Hispanics have to feel accepted.
We are immigrants, and what the evangelicals are doing is
giving the kind of welcome and moral support that everybody
needs to receive. The leadership and the Catholic people have
to be more welcoming. I also have to say that the Hispanic
Church is a little different from the American Church. The
Hispanics have a great belief in our Blessed Mary and different
saints, for instance. And it's a bit of a shock for us that
there is no such big devotion here. So there are cultural
issues.
Russert: Patrick, you've
told people that you perhaps feel a vocation but also feel
drawn to parenthood and being a spouse. Talk about the Church
and its teachings on sexuality as you see them.
 Patrick
Downes: Well, that's a huge question. In terms
of sexuality, I think we need to address everyone in the Church.
Many people who are homosexual feel as though they too are
immigrants and don't have a home.
Russert: Last year,
I interviewed Fr. C. John McCloskey [of Opus Dei and the Catholic
Information Center in Washington, D.C.], who made it clear
that to his mind the Catholic Church in the United States
should reduce its ranks from 60 million to 30 million. These
would be real Catholics, people who would practice the faith,
adhere to the teachings of the Church, and--my words,
not his--enough of this dealing with cafeteria Catholics
who pick and choose what they want to follow. Peter, talk
about that.
Steinfels: It would
be a terrible mistake. It's a policy that would have
the American Church, which remains tremendously vibrant, pursue
the course of the Church in many European countries where
there's been extensive secularization.
The image of cafeteria Catholicism distresses
me a great deal. If that's what Fr. McCloskey would
oppose, I'd be with him. On the other hand, I do think
that in the array of Catholic teachings, and in our efforts
to live out those teachings, we sometimes have to make choices--conscientiously
and prayerfully and in the context of the sacramental life.
That sort of grappling with the whole heritage of Catholic
teaching the bishops, I think, should encourage.
Russert: Sister, you've
written that there are 19,000 parishes in our country, and
that if current trends continue, there could be as many as
6,000 without a priest to administer sacraments. As you look
at the demographics of our Church, what do you say to the
leadership?
Johnson: The first thing
I would say is that there are social scientists who've
studied the Church for 20 or 30 years, who have credible data
and who care deeply about the Church's mission. The
bishops must sit down with scholars and get the data, hear
their analyses, and then make more informed judgments. I'll
give you one example. Bishop Wilton Gregory, the president
of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said the other
day that he felt that a married priesthood would not produce
more priests. There are social scientists who have studied
that question for 20 years, and they would disagree with him.
Russert: Fr. Hehir,
is the Church capable of stepping back and asking, who is
going to administer the sacraments? What alternatives should
we be talking about thoughtfully and respectfully, and perhaps
even presenting to the Vatican?
 Fr.
J. Bryan Hehir: I think many bishops are hesitant
to enter those kinds of discussions. They're hesitant partly
because they don't control the data; partly because they are
divided among themselves on what to do--and the question of
where they will stand vis-à-vis their peers influences
them; and partly because they are directly accountable to
Rome, and they have different views of how to deal with that.
At the same time, if you get around the
country the way my job requires that I do, you see that there
are in fact women who administer parishes under various titles,
and different team approaches in the ministry of the Church.
Now, I do think that an ad hoc approach will only take you
so far. What's necessary is a theoretical framework
pushing the questions out further. If you're asking
me, do I think the bishops can put together a coherent posture
and take it to Rome, I would be hesitant to think that will
happen right away.
Russert: What can the
laity do to motivate, encourage, cajole their leadership to
become more engaged on this issue?
Hehir: When you asked
Peter the question at the beginning--what do we do to
regain credibility--my view is, as a kind of
simple principle, that we've got to treat adults as
adults in the Church. We now have in the United States the
most educated laity the Catholic Church has confronted in
2,000 years of history. You can't have a situation where
men and women are in charge of their lives, treated as adults
in corporations, universities, and politics, and are not
treated as adults inside the Church.
The question of how to mobilize discussion
among the leadership comes partly from laity who understand
what a significant strategic role they are now in. A hundred
years ago, this discussion would have been inconceivable in
American Catholicism--that you would have this kind of
room, at this kind of university, on this kind of topic. I'm
not calling for revolution. I don't think that works
in the Catholic Church. I do think that there's a range
of definable, discussible issues on which the laity need to
say at the parish level and every other level, we simply won't
accept anything except adult conversation.
Johnson: And while the
bishops should be learning their social science, the laity
should be as well. There was a book written a few years ago
entitled They Call Her Pastor consisting of 80 interviews
with women--single and married laywomen and sisters--who
pastored parishes in the Midwest and the Southwest. The sociologists
who conducted the study found that in all the parishes without
exception, attendance and collections increased when the women
took over. The priests who worked with the women pastors were
delighted; they were happy to concentrate on the sacramental
ministry. Many of those women had wonderful bishops who called
them to their ministry.
Russert: Liz Paulhus,
talk about the role you would like to see for women.
 Elizabeth
Paulhus: It's important to point out that although
oftentimes it feels like women don't have a role in the Catholic
Church, about 85 percent of non-ordained positions in the
Church are held by women. These women may not be making the
final decisions, but they are actively involved. As a young
woman, as a theology major, I certainly would like to see
women ordained. There's not a lot that can be said against
women's ordination. The problem is that this is an area where
conversation is basically closed with the Vatican. Cardinal
Ratzinger's letter on the ordination of women was unequivocal:
We're not discussing it. So, although women need to keep pushing
in that direction, I also think that women need to start pursuing
more creative roles.
Steinfels: There should
be an effort to open the question of ordaining women to the
diaconate. The roles that women in the diaconate played in
the early centuries were not exactly parallel to the roles
played by men deacons, but historical studies show that the
ordination rituals were quite similar. This is something that
a Church as tradition-minded as ours could begin with. It
would make women part of the orders of the Church with a special
relationship to the bishop and a role in decision making.
Russert: Fr. Hehir,
there are many Catholic priests who converted from the Anglican
faith who are married. How do you understand and accept that
when applied to the Roman faith?
Hehir: Among the problems
we're talking about tonight, the question of the celibacy
of the clergy is a simpler issue than some of the others.
The ordination of women embraces doctrinal questions that
have to be worked through in a Church that takes doctrine
seriously. The celibacy of clergy is a legal problem within
the Church, a canonical problem. It could be changed tomorrow
morning. And precisely because of that, accommodations are
made in the Eastern Rite, and for the priests who come in
from the Episcopal Church.
The Catholic tradition holds that there's
a certain kind of witness to the kingdom that comes from marriage,
a kind that comes from faithful single life, and another kind
that comes from a celibate commitment as part of institutional
service in the Church. I think that tradition is valuable,
but it doesn't have to be universalized, and changing
it would be fairly simple compared to some other questions.
Now you will say to me, if it's simple why don't
we do it?
Russert: If it's
simple, why don't we do it? I'm a quick study,
Father.
Hehir: I have always
told undergraduates that to be Catholic is to be complicated.
My sense is that the feeling that exists on the issue in the
United States is particularly strong. I'm not positive
it's the same throughout the universal Church. This
may be a question of tactics, of working out a pluralism with
married and unmarried clergy in the same Church.
Steinfels: The other
day, a Church official mentioned to a friend of mine that
we couldn't have a married clergy because they would
have to pay college tuition, and we could never afford that.
It seems to me that there is an opportunity for lay scholars
to look at the positive and negative experiences of our fellow
Christian groups--and at groups within our own Church
who have married clergy--and think about a transition.
The question still would await some higher decision, but the
more thinkable we could make it by dealing with the practical
questions, the more we would move in a positive direction.
Russert: Sister, a personal
question, and if you don't want to answer it I understand.
Would you like to be a priest if you could?
Johnson: People ask
sisters that on a weekly basis. I've also done a study
on the question. I do not feel called to priesthood. And the
vast majority of sisters who have entered religious orders
since the Second Vatican Council do not feel called to priesthood,
either. However, in many of the orders there's tremendous
support for the ordination of women. Some orders have sisters
who've served in Latin America, in places where, if
you die rich, you get a funeral Mass, if you die poor, you
get a prayer service.
The sacramental life of the Church is
a concern for many sisters. Some days, I think we're
more concerned about it than some priests are, and that is
very perplexing because the distribution of the sacraments
is at the core of the faith.
Russert: We sit here
tonight in a diocese that has been terribly scarred by sexual
abuse. Church attendance is down considerably. What do you
say to Catholics, Father, about becoming re-energized, re-engaged
with their Church?
Hehir: I think in an
overwhelming number of cases Catholics may have lost contact
with the Church, but they haven't lost their faith.
Catholic faith is theistic, in God; christic, in Christ; and
ecclesial, in the Church. Of these three levels of faith,
two remain secure. It is in the third level where we've
had the explosion. The re-knitting of that faith requires
recognition by the Church of how much harm it has done, and
an acknowledgment of what that harm is. This will be a continual
process, lasting for the rest of my life, I'm sure.
People are right on the edge. If we lose them, the next two
or three generations in their families are gone too. The loss
will be irremediable and devastating, not just to the Church,
but to those who might have been enriched by the sacramental
and intellectual life that is Catholicism.
Russert: Peter, A
People Adrift--what steps must be taken to stop
that drift?
Steinfels: We need leadership
at all levels. I've seen figures that half
of young Catholic adults don't know anything about the
Second Vatican Council. Can we blame all that on priests and
members of religious orders, or Catholic schools? Isn't
some of that breakdown of communication our responsibility
as laypeople?
There are a lot of initiatives that the
laity could embark upon right now. The Church is facing issues
of financial accountability. I don't see why a group
of well-qualified laypeople couldn't organize themselves
to take the standards of the bishops' conference for
accounting and reporting on the use of money, and make a national
survey of dioceses to see how many actually live up to that.
Montes: To move the
people back who have drifted from the Church, I would say
we have to present to them a different Church. They are not
going to go back to the same thing. At the parish level, we
have to have good preaching. We have to have good music. We
have to present on Sunday morning that our Church is vibrant,
that we're praying together, that we're there
to support one another.
I have a daughter who stopped going to
church. She moved to Florida with her family, and she called
me up and said, "Oh, I love the church here, I'm
having such a good time going to church! I'm volunteering,
I'm going to enroll my kids." I asked, why the
sudden change? And she said, "Everybody was so welcoming,
the church was so open, so bright, the priest gave a homily
that I thought about for days."
Russert: Patrick, and
then Liz, how critical is the Sunday celebration of the Eucharist,
in your minds?
Downes: I think it's
huge. When I go to church on Sunday night, at nine o'clock,
I am surrounded by some of the best friends and most intelligent
people that I will ever meet. I listen to a Jesuit priest
who's in touch with people as human beings. It's
a time of rest, of reflection.
Paulhus: We've
all been addressing this tonight: One of the key elements
of renewing this Church is to feel like we are a community.
For me one of the most beautiful parts of the Mass is the
profession of faith because I know that the words I am saying
are the same words that someone in Poland or Italy or Nicaragua
is saying. And the Eucharist is the pinnacle of what it means
to be Catholic--this idea of a sacrifice, not blind submission
or following somebody's orders, but a true giving of
oneself.
I have some friends who feel that God
is going to strike them down if they don't go to Mass
every Sunday. They don't understand that it should be
a voluntary thing, that you go because you want to be in that
community and share your faith. There are a lot here at BC
who recognize this community every Sunday night at nine o'clock,
in St. Ignatius.
Hehir: What Liz and
Patrick have said poses an enormous pastoral challenge to
the Catholic Church. The better experience you have at college
or university, the tougher it is to match that in a parish.
There are two pastoral challenges here.
One turns on quantity, and the other on quality. We've
got 65 million Catholics in the United States. In recruitment
to the priesthood, we've got to be like the Marines:
Because we're in tough times on numbers, we've
got to raise the standards. We have to watch out that in pursuit
of numbers we don't bring people into the ministry who
can't confront the kind of challenge that comes from
the most educated Catholic laity in the history of the Church.
To anybody taking the challenge today,
I would say it is much tougher than when I got ordained. I
have enormous sympathy for people who are willing to step
up and try.
Steinfels: We've
seen the percentages of people regularly attending Sunday
liturgy decline gradually, to 40 percent, 30 percent, in some
areas to 20 percent. Now, at least two-thirds of our parishes
have lay pastoral ministers involved in the preparation of
worship, catechesis, youth ministry, and other things, and
that's a very encouraging development. But does the
staff in these parishes get together on a regular basis and
debrief about the quality of Sunday liturgy? Do we have a
way of talking to our priests about the quality of homilies?
If we're saying Mass is essential, this needs to be
worked through in a systematic, institutionalized fashion,
and not just through the individual genius and inspiration
of a particular person. In some parishes I see signs of this,
but not in many.
Russert: As we look
out at this vast audience of Catholic laity, let's focus
on that. Patrick, as a young Catholic, what do you see as
the role of the laity in the future of the Church? What do
you say to the laity?
Downes: I say to the
clergy and the hierarchy, the Church is community and without
us as parishioners it is nothing. We can have a priest up
there, but if there's no one to hear God's message
and to then live it out in their lives, the faith is lost.
It's tough but exciting at the same time to know that
we might have a chance to better our faith for ourselves and
for our children. I say, take on that responsibility. Speak
your mind. Keep pushing.
Russert: Fr. Hehir,
in your business running the Catholic Charities, you have
to stay focused, establish priorities. Catholic laypeople
come to you and say, Father, we think there should be married
priests, we think the Church should be more open to homosexuals,
the hierarchy failed us miserably on the issue of sexual abuse.
What do you tell them their priority should be in 2003?
Hehir: You can't
have one priority. I'd say, we've got to keep
our eye on the internal life of the Church and on the external
role of the Church in this society. We haven't really
talked much about that tonight. The Catholic teaching has
always been that the charism of the laity is to shape the
world.
We live in a country whose decisions have direct, immediate
impact around the world. People get killed when they shouldn't
have gotten killed when we make bad decisions; people die
when they shouldn't die if we're not sufficiently
open and generous as a society. And therefore it isn't
enough only to think about the internal life of American Catholicism.
We have to think about the fact that in the U.S. Congress,
Catholics outnumber others three to one, that in the business
world there are more CEOs who are Catholic than anything else.
We still lead the labor unions. What kind of contribution
should we make to society?
Now, people will say, if I'm not
nourished internally, how am I going to make the external
contribution? And I agree with that. And that takes us back
to the liturgy, to the intellectual formation and the moral
fabric of Catholicism. But it is crucial for us in this time,
when the internal issues are so overwhelming, that we not
be totally exhausted by them. We've now got the capacity,
thanks to the BCs and Notre Dames and Georgetowns, to make
a difference in this society. So my priority is: How do you
make that difference, and what kind of internal life of the
Church is necessary to feed people so they can make that difference?
Russert: Liz, what do
you want the Church to look like at the end of the 21st century?
Paulhus: There needs
to be much more of the equality that you hear about in the
Gospel. And we need more emphasis on social justice and helping
the poor. We throw around the word "solidarity"
but we don't live it enough. I'd like to see a
Church in which we could all say we're truly in communion
with one another, this is our Church--my decision and
your decision.
Russert: Peter, can
you put all this together--where do you see the Church
at the end of the 21st century?
Steinfels: I think of
the phrase from the end of the novel The Woman Who Was
Poor by Léon Bloy: "The only tragedy in
life is not to be a saint." My hope is more modest:
only that we build and strengthen the kind of infrastructure
that will be the platform and the vehicle for the works of
grace and individual heroism that Bryan and Liz have just
mentioned. If we can set that in place, maybe a lot of the
21st century will take care of itself.
Photos (from top):
Tim Russert. By Gary Wayne Gilbert
Peter Steinfels, By Gary Wayne Gilbert
Mary Johnson, SND By Gary Wayne Gilbert
Catalina Montes. By Gary Wayne Gilbert
Patrick B. Downes ‘05. By Lee Pellegrini
Fr. J. Bryan Hehir. By Lee Pellegrini
Elizabeth M. Paulhus ’04. By Lee Pellgrini
Top of Page |
