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CANADIAN RELIGIOUS CONFERENCE REDISCOVERS THE PROPHETIC MOMENT

by Ted Schmidt

Courage is nowhere
Prudence is everywhere
and we shall all die of wisdom
Cardinal Leo Suenens

Corporately we are totally co-opted, part of the system, enjoying the benefits too much to critique either church or society.
Richard Rohr OFM

One of the many side effects of the last pontificate has been the disappearance of what the apostolic Church called parrhesia or free speech, the type of plain talk which characterized Paul's challenge to Peter at the Council of Jerusalem. The word went out very early in John Paul ll's tenure that even in non-infallible areas of Church teaching, no dissent would be brooked. Over one hundred theologians were muzzled and a veritable chill descended on the Church. Fear seemed to stalk the ecclesial landscape, the irony being that the mantra of the last pontificate was "Be not afraid."

     This fear seeped all the way down to local levels and any diocesan priest brave enough to proffer a different opinion was disciplined or reprimanded. In Cobourg, Ontario (an hour east of Toronto) parishioners were outraged at the treatment of Fr. Ed Cachia in the fall of 2005. The much-loved pastor was quoted in the local paper as saying that he welcomed the women priests who had been "illicitly" ordained last July on the St. Lawrence River. Furthermore he said the Catholic Church needed to open up the priesthood to women. That Cachia was echoing the sentiments of a broad majority of his flock was irrelevant, that this "idea" might be the sensus fidelium of God's people at this moment in history seemed inconceivable to Cachia's bishop and the blind loyalists around him. And now the inevitable has happened: An alternative Catholic community has been set up in the Peterborough Diocese with Cachia as the pastor. But I digress.

     Bishops today seem to be answering to a constituency of one, the Roman pontiff. That they should also be listening to the baptized in their own dioceses seems to have eluded many of them. The highest teaching in the Church, the Vatican Council (in this case, Vatican ll) reminded us that, "the holy people of God share in Christ's prophetic office and that it is the people as a whole" who share in this infallibility. The Spirit is the head of the Church, and all are under obedience to the same Spirit. In the last 25 years the institutional leaders have arrogated to themselves the sole interpretation of scripture and Church tradition. All this despite the profound advance in theological literacy among lay people. As of yet, the celibate hierarchy has not accepted the lay sensus fidelium as an authentic prophetic charism. As Pope Pius Xl put it two weeks before he died in 1939: "The Body of Christ has become a monstrosity --the head (the papacy and Curia) has far outstripped the Body" (the vast majority of lay people). And this was over 65 years ago!

     The terrible silence of the last twenty-five years has so bothered Capuchin priest Michael Crosby that he wrote a book about the disappearance of prophecy in religious life. The book was entitled Can Religious Life be Prophetic? As a member of a religious order, Crosby was particularly saddened by what had transpired in the last two decades.

     In his judgment the religious orders have defaulted on their charisms. Religious life is not purely functional. It exists as a "sign" and a "privileged witness to God's reign particularly among the poor." This "experience of the Spirit," this charism precedes fidelity to the Magisterium. Religious orders, particularly after Vatican ll, re-founded themselves to come closer to the poor and marginalized and "to read the signs of the times and return to the Gospel according to the charism of their founders." As the late Pope John Paul ll said, these men and women in the history of the Church "have carried out a pastoral ministry, speaking in the name of God even to the pastors." This, of course, is a reference to the traditional role of the biblical prophets who spoke both to the king, and to the Temple and synagogue (Matt. 23).

     Crosby maintains that, "we began to reinterpret our lives as revolving around the poles of prophecy and contemplation, with solidarity with the poor and marginalized and commitment to social justice as the benchmarks of the authentic expression of these two poles in our lives." All of us can name several in religious life who did this. They moved out of huge houses and confronted institutions with God's challenging word.

     There is not much of that activity left, according to Crosby. While proclaiming publicly this prophetic charism, the orders illuminated by their own internal polling, realized that they had been assimilated into the dominant culture too. The blandishments of worldly success and power, the toxicity of rampant individualism, the loss of energy of aging clerics unsupported by the more conservative confreres and sisters, the Episcopal swing to the right, and in the United States the overwhelming presence of American civil religion --all took their toll. Yet, many religious kept on, faithful to God's reign of justice and the Church's fading claim that it was semper reformanda (always in the process of renewing itself).

     But something happened in Canada in March of 2006 which would bring a smile to Crosby's face. The Canadian Religious Conference (CRC) found its prophetic voice once again.

Enter the Canadian Religious Conference

In June 2004, the CRC assembly, obviously disturbed at the diminished involvement of the Canadian bishops in the social sphere and their seemingly utter capitulation to Rome, expressed a desire to speak out more publicly and to engage the faithful (both lay and clerical) in a deeper discussion. A survey was then sent out to the 230 congregations representing 22,00 priests, nuns, and brothers. On December 13, 2005 the Administrative Council approved the "Message to the Bishops" and sent the results out to its members. According to Sr. Donna Geernaert, the CRC vice-president, the responses were meant to be private, but were leaked to La Presse, a Montreal newspaper. On March 18 they found their way into The Globe and Mail, Canada's national paper of record.

     The results are dramatic and are slowly causing a buzz among Catholics.

     In a letter to all CRC members, president Allain Ambeault a priest of the Clercs de Saint-Viateur, a Quebecois order, stated that: "We have the firm conviction that this message reflects the thinking of religious communities in Canada as well as the majority of the men and women religious throughout the country...We can expect it to evoke criticism, perhaps even strong criticism...At times solidarity expresses itself in disquieting words."

     While always respectful, the CRC document pulls no punches and Ambeault in his letter, asked the bishops to "carry with them to Rome in their upcoming ad limina visit what the People of God are saying...Our Church is isolated by its language and its attitudes. It moves away from being a meaningful force in our world."

A blunt report

The 26-page letter is blunt in its description of the Canadian Church's defects. Divided into five parts and sub-headed by "Recognitions, regrets and hopes," it is a model of rophetic clarity and would dearly cheer Michael Crosby. Prophecy is back --at least in the Canadian Church.

      Under the heading "The Church and the search for meaning," the document faults the Church in its failure to advance in areas of sexual morality: Legalistic, rigid, and intransigent. The Church is nota player among the young, the message is out of synch with their search for meaning. There is little freedom and theologians seeking pastoral responses are condemned much too quickly. The John Paul ll ordinands' theological training is not "bringing valid answers to today's problems." This is not a listening Church, the document states, and there is no training for collegial relationships. For the CRC the Canadian bishops are supine to Rome, too afraid to defend general absolution and raise the issue of married priests and the role of women.

And this is just the start!

Always attempting to name the positive achievements of the Church, the second subheading of the report deals with "Community Life in the Church." After listing nine positive steps, this section laments the loss of collegiality 40 years after Vatican ll --the failure of integrating more lay people in the area of Church governance and too much clerical domination. What is the hope here? More dialogue without arrogance, more collaboration and lay consultation, and more openness to the world and dialogue with other churches.

     "Solidarity with the Church," the area dealing with social justice concerns, acknowledges the Canadian Church's well-deserved reputation for progressive justice stands in the years after the Council, but laments the poor follow-through in those same areas in the last few decades. Charity is not enough. The hope is that the Canadian Church will "position itself closer to the major issues of the world-environment and inequality etc." and that "a true partnership will be established with social organizations and groups involved in the struggle for humanitarian causes..." The Canadian Church has been notorious in this regard. If it's not leading the justice parade, it's not in it, much to the embarrassment of engaged laity.

     Finally, an interesting section on "Prophecy in the church" challenges the bishops. It is very pointed, and from my long experience, absolutely correct. "We regret the timidity of the prophetic voice of the Canadian church: fear of change, lack of encouragement of various initiatives by lay people." The most egregious example of this was when the well-known grassroots Christian Peacemaker James Loney went missing in Iraq. It took the institutional Church two full weeks to wake up to the fact that Loney was a Catholic and that prayers should be offered up in each parish for his release. Phone calls to the out-of-touch Toronto chancery office finally shook it from its torpor. Still not one member of the hierarchy showed up at weekly vigils for Loney while he was held hostage. This autistic avoidance of justice issues has long been the norm.

A prophetic challenge

The document concludes with "profound solidarity with you...even if some of our statements may be difficult to receive."

     Make no mistake about this challenge to the bishops. Coming from such a respected group it can only be ignored at the bishops' peril. It names --in no uncertain terms-- the deep problems of the Canadian Catholic Church. It zeroes in on an overly timorous episcopate. While the broad sensus fidelium has been badly marginalized, frustrated, and leaving the Church in droves, the CRC has been listening and is acting on what they have learned.

     Slowly but surely, this brave but faithful initiative will make its way into the broader Catholic community, and the hope is it will serve its purpose of regenerating a Church which has ceased to be salt in this predominantly Catholic country.

Ted Schmidt is the former editor of Catholic New Times. He can be reached at jtschmi@pathcom.com