The Nation's Pulse/The Bishops' Mysteries
Mainland, Mary
THE NATION'S PULSE THE BISHOPS' MYSTERIES by Mary Mainland A redictably, news coverage of the Catholic bishops' June meeting in Col-legeville, Minnesota, to discuss revisions in their letter on...
...So, the bishops are obviously aware that the pastorals are not being read...
...economy emphasized signs of dissension within the episcopal ranks over the Mary Mainland is a lawyer living in Stanford, California...
...A price is paid, however, when the bishops essentially delegate their teaching authority to those who lack the competence, in the juridical sense, to exercise it...
...What, then, accounts for the steady flow of these massive, heavily footnoted documents whose pastoral label is clearly a misnomer...
...THE NATION'S PULSE THE BISHOPS' MYSTERIES by Mary Mainland A redictably, news coverage of the Catholic bishops' June meeting in Col-legeville, Minnesota, to discuss revisions in their letter on the U.S...
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...The most salient information to emerge, however, was the present and projected length of the...
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...At the Collegeville meeting, Archbishop Weakland said that a summary would be prepared for distribution along with the final version of the letter...
...As a psychiatrist had to admit to me, under cross-examination, the past tends to be the best predictor of the future...
...Only the rare and aberrant politician will read it, although several will pretend to have done so, relying on aides to cull and feed them passages that have not appeared in the news media...
...Created by the bishops in 1966, and strategically located in Washington, D.C., the USCC serves as the voice of the episcopacy in matters of public policy...
...Despite their pastoral label, the notion that these documents are intended to educate Catholics about the religious and ethical principles that apply to social policy must also be given short shrift...
...The bishops may be less scholarly, and certainly have less time, than staff...
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...Surely, they are under no illusion that legislators read the pastorals...
...Brief press releases would be immensely more efficient...
...USCC staff, on the other hand, have no institutional role other than to draft and issue a seemingly endless stream of pronouncements on such topics as nuclear weapons, the Panama Canal treaty, farm policy, strip-mining, and, soon, women—all in the name of the bishops...
...few of them will have read it, either...
...Shortly thereafter, hearings on the next pastoral will begin...
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...The New York Times will carry the most extensive coverage, devoted almost exclusively to the policy section...
...TWO TREATISES OF GOVERNMENT* 12...
...pastoral: The draft is 60,000 words long, but the chairman of the drafting committee, Archbishop Rembert Weakland, hopes that the final version will be "only" 40,000 words...
...From this perspective, the pastorals can be seen merely as justification for hearings, meetings, and media debates which generate publicity but little genuinely thoughtful discussion, particularly among Catholics and the general public, whose only role is that of spectator...
...Far too long to be read from the pulpit, it will be the subject of few sermons, because its length and complexity will discourage most parish clergy...
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...Many, however, will publicly commend the bishops for raising important moral issues...
...Quite clearly, the same persons who are orchestrating the "events'— staff at the United States Catholic Conference...
...One consequence is that the average length of appellate opinions has been steadily increasing...
...In order to cope with the dramatic expansion of their caseloads, the federal (and state) courts are hiring greater numbers of law clerks 'Harvard University Press, $25.00...
...Paul, but genuine exercises of their teaching authority would, like his epistles, evidence the intent that the faithful read them...
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...The USCC's Father Bryan Hehir, for example, was awarded a MacArthur Foundation prize after he became known for his work on the peace pastoral...
...but the fact that they have borne the burdens of pastoral responsibility means that they are more likely to have the judgment normally acquired only through experience, a greater appreciation of the necessary connection between ends and means, and a better sense of their inherent limitations...
...In the absence of any satisfactory explanation, I am inclined to think that attention should be redirected from the documents to the process whereby they are developed and released...
...Moreover, as "timid jurists," in POsner's phrase, they are afraid to leave anything out and, hence, "err by inclusion...
...other newspapers will follow suit, in much abbreviated fashion...
...Before press conferences were held in Washington or New York, the pastorals would have arrived in the parishes...
...PoHtical activists, lay and clerical, will attempt to capitalize on it...
...When one considers the documents themselves, not simply their subject matter, the answers are by no means obvious...
...At minimum, they would be brief enough, and possess sufficient clarity, that they could serve as the basis for sermons and be reproduced and distributed to parishes by local dioceses...
...As Judge Posner notes, "The less that lawyers and especially other judges regard judicial opinions as authentic...
...Whose interests does the process serve...
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...Moreover, the highly publicized pastorals offer them public visibility and other professional rewards...
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...religious" intellectuals, i.e., theologians and moral philosophers, will focus primarily on the principles section but will also feel qualified to discuss its policy implications...
...Published weekly in London, the TLS reviews over 2,500 books a year...
...In short, the pastorals are basically staff products...
...Now that the bishops have announced a forthcoming pastoral on women and returned its immediate predecessor to the drafting committee, perhaps it is time to inquire why these pastorals are being written and to whom they are addressed...
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...Were staff unavailable, or reduced in numbers, pastorals would undoubtedly be fewer and more modest in scope, less newsworthy, but more likely to be considered religious, rather than political, exercises...
...Few, if any, copies will appear in parish vestibules, and few, if any, parish bulletins will tell the interested where to obtain one...
...For the same reason, the contention that they are merely trying to win or regain the approval of disaffected liberals seems unconvincing...
...As Posner points out, strings of facts, quotations, citations, and conclusions conceal the reasoning which is the most crucial part of a decision...
...Although I hesitate to use the term, it strikingly resembles the staging of media events, which are, of course, their own rations d'etre...
...An indeterminate number of individuals, unclass-ifiable but persevering, will actually read it in its entirety...
...Staff was indeed kept busy on the economic pastoral, with 23 days of hearings, more than 100 witnesses testifying, and the draft's 243 footnotes...
...The Audio Classics Series is designed for those who have the desire but not enough time to lead what Socrates called ' the informed life '. There is absolutely no risk to you...
...With growing frequency, judicial opinions are being drafted by law clerks and attorneys, rather than by judges, who, like the bishops, are functioning as editors...
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...the bishops are merely editors...
...If the bishops are concerned about pending legislation, presumably they will employ the much more effective tactic of placing a few strategic phone calls...
...Intellectuals will read it, but only if asked to write articles about it...
...The bishops, after all, have dioceses to administer, and necessarily lack the time to research and write 60,000 word epics...
...A few decades ago, it was not uncommon for even extremely important decisions, such as Brown v. Board of Education, to be only a few pages long...
...The bishops have demonstrated that when serious about reaching the laity—the issue of abortion immediately comes to mind—they can utilize appropriate techniques...
...In his recent book, The Federal Courts,' Federal Circuit Court Judge Richard Posner identifies the effects of a comparable delegation that is occurring, for different reasons, in the field of law...
...Nor would their newsworthy public policy recommendations be allowed to overshadow the religious principles upon which they are purportedly premised...
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...No one expects the bishops consistently to meet the standards set by St...
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...The logical implication is that a summary that will have some chance of being read can, in the opinion of the bishops, serve as an adequate substitute for the document itself...
...Gradually, fresher controversies will displace the pastoral from the nation's op-ed pages and journals of opinion...
...The Investment in Time: The Hours You Aren't Using...
...Scholars in most disciplines will ignore it, as will most of the general public...
...The fate of the equally publicized and perhaps slightly shorter peace pastoral portends the following scenario for the letter on the economy: At the press conference accompanying its release, Archbishop Weakland will announce the appointment of a committee to devise ways to promulgate it, and will reiterate that the section on moral and ethical principles is more important than the section on policy applications...
...The fundamental problem is that law clerks, however bright and scholarly, lack the experience and judgment of judges...
...letter's controversial public policy recommendations...
...TLS would still make it twice as long as the average doctoral dissertation, presumably read by no one but professors and reluctant students...
...With the exception of the small minority who subscribe to such periodicals as America, Catholics will learn about the pastoral primarily from the secular media...
...If the purpose is to influence public policy, a 40,000 word document is not, as the bishops are surely astute enough to recognize, the best way to achieve it...
...Today, even where the issues are of relatively minor significance, the opinions are apt to be voluminous...
...This 'age of information' in which we live is not necessarily the age of wisdom...
...The inordinate size and quasi-scholarly format of the pastorals are readily understandable if their real purpose is to sustain and extend the process itself...
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...Staff members who believe that the Church should speak out on various issues can better implement their convictions if the pastoral letters proliferate...
...Hesitant to tread on religious turf, "secular" intellectuals, i.e., economists and political scientists, will confine their comments to its policy section...
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...unfortunately, they won't know anyone with whom to discuss it...
...THE FEDERALIST PAPERS* 11...
...Another effect is that opinions are likely to be more poorly written...
Vol. 18 • October 1985 • No. 10
