The leadership we need:
Hughes, John Jay
SHOULD A BISHOP BE PRIMARILY A TEACHER & PASTOR? The leadership we need JOHN JAY HUGHES ...
...Why is it that we are still so widely This was precisely the Holy Father's message to the bishops at perceived as a church more interested in its own institutional Puebla...
...Then, when in many places little is done to regardless of the consequences: hence the Holy Father's denunciation of those who "hide bread from the poor...
...diocese falls vacant, professors are always amongst the lead- If the type of scholar-bishop found elsewhere is still inconing candidates...
...dominated by the Christian Lebanese Front militias...
...Today Iran, tomorrow Palestine," and Syrians were shelling the Christian quarters of Beirut...
...at least of our theological tradition, up to and including VatiThe very qualities which contributed to effective leadership can II, conceives of the bishop as primarily a teacher and in-the past, however, militate against it in the wholly different pastor...
...In the face of enemies without, church vigorous Pope will give fresh support to the delegate's efforts...
...Inevitably they give a low priority to implementing official THIS RAISES the whole question of the quality of our present statements about social justice...
...This system assumes that the leadership we need...
...Many Christians are convinced that naive...
...Christians were crying "genocide," but American and French The shouting is over now, but its traces remain on the walls of spokesmen adopted the official Syrian position and shouted West Beirut, Sidon, Tyre and Tripoli where colored posters of back "provocation...
...bly be countered by the aggressive pugnaciousness of the past, Personal virtue in combination with leadership ability is with its inevitable oversimplifications of complex issues...
...focus of its unity and its link with all other churches through his What we are entitled to look for from bishops is openness to membership in the college of bishops presided over by the prophecy...
...They were supported by a Catholic body far more leadership from people hitherto excluded from consideration...
...The presence or absence militias is enough to convince anyone that declarations of of a Shah matters little...
...dialectical character...
...At the same time no sober, concerns of the institution and those of the world...
...leaders of a past generation adopted the posture of pugnacious They need to be expanded, however, in two directions: by defensiveness for which their Celtic temperament had a special broadening the present selection process, and by looking for affinity...
...men and women who are prisoners of their of a bishop's work...
...The case of Joseph reasons for hostile confrontations between the hierarchy and Ratzinger, who inside of a week went from simple priest and theologians (the nature of which is often exaggerated) must professor at a provincial university to be Archbishop of include not only insufficiently developed pastoral responsiMunich and Cardinal, was exceptional only as an extreme bility on the part of some theologians, but the inferiority cominstance of an accepted pattern...
...Louis University...
...The demand that bishops be A careful reading of the full record reveals something quite prophets reflects a confusion of roles in the church...
...And unlike adminis- the Sunday fare is spiritual pap, who return home still trative ability, which can be learned 'on the job' if necessary hungry for God's real word to them, who wonder how by an intelligent person of prudence, courage and compassion five to ten years of seminary education could leave so (the specifically episcopal virtues), excellence as a teacher and many so ignorant, so incapable of putting a subject and a pastor cannot be developed from scratch amidst the pressures verb together...
...Equally important is the still vigorous strain of works of reference makes it impossible to state how many of anti-intellectualism which makes Catholics in this country Ireland's twenty-six diocesan bishops are former academics, assume that intellectuals are impractical dreamers unfit for but the number is certainly not small...
...American bishops to "take the initiative in opening fraternal dialogue, Catholics assume that this situation is normal...
...The orators declaimed the irresistible force of "the people's will...
...How long must we American Catholics conexperienced...
...It is exemplified amongst American presi- need a more sophisticated approach...
...the official agenda...
...The more senior among them at least owe their present positions to bishop of a smaller diocese normally comes from some adthe...
...American Catholicism was weighted heavily towards the in- The guarantee of the church's unity is not a facade erected stitutional pole of the dialectic...
...tive of unity...
...Move north a bit and there are the death and destruction, Vice President Mondale proclaimed men of the Palestinian armed resistance...
...8 June 1979: 333 But the opposite is not true...
...The Chris- Lebanese Front militias...
...Suppose, however, that people were asked tinue to make do with less than our best...
...One must be fair...
...Past generations have produced leaders nately it often is) with such vestiges of the old pugnaciousness of real distinction: Ireland, Spalding, Hughes, McQuaid, as still remain, it produces angry confrontations, mutual suspiKeane, and Gibbons are names that come readily to mind...
...that this system was still in full running order less than two Additionally, we need to re-examine the present criteria for decades ago...
...cerns at the same time...
...such matters as the Pamana Canal and capital punishment we First, there are bishops who support the new emphasis on can surely tolerate pluralism...
...A quick look at the division of power in Lebanon today, the U.S...
...matters about which Catholics may legitimately differ, would Prior to Vatican II the concern of the official leadership in be preferable to pretending to a unity which does not exist...
...This would be the case only if foundations...
...tance is being attached to pastoral ability...
...Dominic...
...To the complacent implement the statements about social justice, we are accused and too often self-righteous defenders of the Establishment of indifference and hypocrisy...
...It is no offense against charity to state publicly what is so Commonweal: 332 widely acknowledged in private...
...ADF) last summer, and from the American and French re- In the south of Lebanon there are the Israelis who act sponses to that operation...
...Ignatius of Antioch would have said certain lack of personal virtue...
...The London Tablet called it "the best papal oratory Commonweal: 334 since Pius XII," a judgment which many consider too modest...
...Is it not abundantly clear that the sounder part ing or previous experience had prepared them...
...Either he brings these indispensable qual- pastors' inability to interpret the gospel for them, to talk ities with him, or a bishop will never have them at all...
...About seldom taken at face value...
...On the contrary, one must admire their bishop is first and foremost an administrative officer...
...The leaders just mentioned lived in an age in which anti- American Catholics owe a considerable debt of gratitude to Catholicism was open and aggressive...
...It is widely assumed in this country that When one reflects that our present leaders received their previous experience in church administration is the indispenentire formation in this utterly different church, and that the sable prerequisite for appointment to the episcopate...
...Ayatollah Khomeini has taken front stage...
...cern in the revolutionary ideas of the impatient and volatile Because bishops have so often sought to diminish the ten- French priest-prophet, Lamennais, the means of liberating the sion inherent in their office by emphasizing its institutional nineteenth century church from its entangling alliances with functions at the expense of prophecy, there is a deep longing in reactionary governments, Gregory harshly condemned the concept of a free church in a free, pluralistic state which, one FATHER JOHN JAY HUGHES, a widely-published historian, is Adjunct hundred and thirty years later in wholly changed circumProfessor of History at St...
...Iran is some It was all rather confusing...
...Doubtless misinformation and preju- tions and strategy, but from on high: from serving one Lord, dice play an important role...
...To many observers all this Lord" arises out of an intense personal vision of the truth as it sounded like political tactics: something for everyone...
...And even in translation, the increasing number of educated faithful who are dis- the sermon he preached at the inauguration of his ministry as affected: men and women who expect from their minis- Supreme Pastor on October 22nd of last year was profoundly ters a deeper insight into the gospel, into the mind of moving...
...Less than two years later the same ping and chanting...
...Mexican utterances...
...Again, it is only the most obdurate institutionalist who treaties (then under debate), and to the abolition of capital does not feel the singular force of the prophetic demand for punishment...
...Walter J. elevation to the episcopate, his bibliography is already longer Burghardt, S.J., drew attention recently to than that of many full-time scholars...
...and dissent within the church...
...But after all the foreign soldiers and officers...
...Ours is not an age which is friendly to leaders...
...2, Despite the flood of words hurled at us by the modern l 5f...
...But again, the verdict of sacred history is both measures, no bishops were willing to voice publicly their clearly against this demand, unless it is tempered by tender- sometimes strongly maintained private dissent from the offiness and patience towards those who are weak in faith and cial line...
...An insightful are his intellectual power and eloquence...
...During his fair-minded, and informed observer of the American Catholic Mexican tour the Pope appeared to be asking the bishops to scene with a knowledge of our history will quarrel with the affirm the vital importance of both concerns, and to accept the statement that our leadership today is disconcertingly weakinevitable tension of attending upon ecclesial and secular con- lacking confidence and direction...
...be so articulate a spokesman of the gospel will insist that those Today, more than ever, the people of God need the impasin this country who share a measure of his eloquence (some of sioned and clear proclamation of the Word if they are to fulfill them already in episcopal orders) be identified and placed in the commission given to them in baptism and confirmation: positions from which they can give inspiration and hope to the "to shine like stars in a dark world and proffer the word of life, people of God in this time of confusion and discouragement...
...With the prophets, the Pope about social justice are first led to believe that church leaders and his fellow bishops must speak their "Thus says the Lord" share this concern...
...But it is a very different thing from the antithe ability to lead were identical_ with virtue...
...But against the prophets, Pope and bishops must insist that the church remain the church of sinners, of the only halfcommitted, of those whose faith is so weak that it seems, at times, to be little better than superstition: hence the Pope's reminder at Puebla that Jesus "opens his message of conversion to everybody without excluding the very publicans...
...It is an unenviable task, requiring a special brand of toughness and courage...
...They control the frontier with Israel...
...Both ceivable to most American Catholics, this is due in part to the present Irish Primates went directly to their present positions fact that few of them have ever encountered such a personage from university chairs...
...But the roots of our Apostolic Delegate since July 1973, Archbishop Jean Jadot, present disorder lie deeper...
...To instances of social injustice by political means, and maintained by appeals not to let the the bishops applied the band-aid of charity...
...For what- No longer is the selection of American bishops'based solely ever internal conflicts American Catholics may have experi- on the confidential lists prepared by the existing bishops...
...It appears, however, close of Vatican II, against their numerous and readily identi- that there is still little consultation of the laity in this country, fiable enemies without they were united...
...controversy than of unity...
...church leadership...
...Hence had sought a compromise which involved concessions to both the paradox: the clearer the prophet's vision, the more partial it right and left wings, while remaining himself in the uncommit- will be...
...American universities do not share this assumption...
...The policy was to confront disunity inside the church incapable of such unqualified commitment...
...Only the unavailability of current in the flesh...
...WITH FRIENDS LIKE LEBANON'S, WHO NEEDS ENEMIES...
...But they were dismayed by the very differ- variety of the Spirit's gifts, and the fact that they are by no ent statements which brought joy to progressives: the reaffir- means confined to those in positions of official leadership...
...The efficient administrator is Christ, than they are getting...
...enced in the century between the close of the Civil War and the Priests' views are now solicited as well...
...This explains why prophets are more often the focus of ted middle...
...To the prophets any defense of Christians too uncommitted to accept the prophetic message will seem cowardly temporizing...
...The toll was some 600 killed, through a small contingent of the Lebanese army supported by 25,000 wounded, and 35,000 dwellings destroyed...
...From Sidon north to that the Syrians were not responsible for what happened in West Beirut the Syrians of the Arab Deterrent Force (ADF) control with a variety of Palestinians, Jumblatists, Nasserites, FATHER JOHN J. DONOHUE, S.J., is an American Jesuit long stationed Marxists and others...
...This means vindicating the church's obligation to the shabby, tawdry, impure, unattractive...
...This attack cannot possiinstead as leader of the Twelve...
...The unity of bishops comes not from human calculaconcerns than in people...
...Surely greater openness, and against the prophets' indictment, any protection extended to possibly even the issuing of majority and minority reports, on those responsible for such criticism will seem like betrayal...
...While this is no reason for limiting the theological depth to discern, or the eloquence to articulate, the episcopate to men of learning, only the most anti-intellectual answers to these problems...
...remain such until the Lebanese army is rebuilt...
...Within the fold there though this is now common elsewhere...
...Is it cion and polarization...
...The zone of East Beirut up to Jbeil is in Lebanon...
...their sense of pastoral responsibility...
...If the thesis of a dialectical leadership...
...and out with a facade of monolithic unity on the part of the We are back with the dialectical tension in the Pope's bishops, even on matters not of faith...
...men and women for whom not necessarily a good teacher or pastor...
...reality is a desperate cry for authority of the right kind) takes a Despite opposition from the entrenched kingmakers, the heavy toll even on leaders of real promise...
...Judged by the statements emanating from the would long since have disintegrated and been consigned to the Bishops' Conference, issues of social justice are now high on museum of history, like so many other human institutions...
...The major positions are reserved for surprised at their failure since the Council to give us the those already in episcopal orders...
...The only basis Khomeini's feat has had little resonance in the Christian of accord among the multiple religious and political groups in areas of Lebanon, except for the slight tremor of fear which Lebanon, so the reasoning runs, is cooperation with the legititalk of an Islamic Republic provokes...
...From nation to factions Lebanon, and the then French Foreign Minister, de GuirinJOHN J. DONOHUE gaud, stated a few days later that the one responsible was LEBANON at present is "distracted from distraction by former President Chamoun, leader of the Christian Lebanese distraction...
...They have nothing to do with the political their quarters by the Syrian troops of the Arab Deterrent Force and military reality...
...Conservatives were encouraged by his Moreover, the demand that bishops be prophets reflects a affirmation of the primarily spiritual nature of the gospel simplistic pre-Vatican II ecclesiology which concentrates too message, and his emphasis on the unity of the people of God in exclusively on the hierarchy, and fails to appreciate the rich our common faith...
...What has gone wrong...
...The greatest bishops have always been those who have erty the medicine needed by the ailing church of his day, and to resisted the temptation to resolve this tension by concentrating win for the church two of our greatest saints: Francis and on one pole of the dialectic at the expense of the other...
...Nor is the German situation unique...
...All sacred different from compromise...
...But too often tionally, a serious handicap in confronting the new pluralism they react to others' initiatives instead of leading themselves...
...students are hanging posters proclaiming that despite Carter, The analysis is convenient, even logical...
...and courage...
...His "Thus says the human rights and social justice...
...The leadership we need JOHN JAY HUGHES the people of God today for leaders who, like the old prophets of Israel, will thunder their "Thus says the Lord" regardless of THE AMBIVALENCE of many commentaries on the Pope's all institutional and human considerations...
...This official view is based on the preYasir Arafat and Ayatollah Khomeini form the latest stratum sumption that the ADF is the legitimate force of order in of a thick deposit of posters celebrating martyrs and political Lebanon under control of President Elias Sarkis and will anniversaries...
...A priest in close contact with those who accept the prophets' dynamic vision of truth and are the Bishops' Conference reported in late 1977 that many willing to live in accord with it: a church of saints, not of bishops were opposed to the ratification of the Panama Canal sinners...
...In late 1976, the Christians 500 miles away and the Iranians are not Arabs...
...Hence bears upon a particular historical situation...
...One wonders, stance of fairly successful leadership although criticized for a incidentally, what St...
...What we get all too often instead is the pious if Measured by this criterion, the performance of John Paul II in learned orthodoxy of Gregory XVI (1831-46...
...The revolution of the venerable ascetic Front...
...No less than eight of the twenty-one present diocesan Such dialogue could only benefit from the presence in the bishops in West Germany, including all three cardinals, are episcopal conference of a few men at least from the ranks of former university professors...
...It is a matter of record, was a docility in matters of doctrine, devotion, and even for instance, that the views of laypeople were important factors authority so different from anything we know today, that it is in the appointment of Albino Luciani to the see of Venice, and only by a considerable effort that we can recall it, or believe of Basil Hume to Westminster...
...Anti-Catholicism is today the anti-Semitism of the virtue the sole criterion for leadership, Jesus would hardly left...
...In East Beirut Christian mate authority...
...8 June 1979: 331 THERE IS another flaw in the demand that bishops be Second, there are bishops who fail to implement certain prophets...
...men who have demonstrated through the written and spoken Recent episcopal appointments show that greater impor- word that they are truly articulate messengers of the gospel...
...We are not getting it as dents by Abraham Lincoln...
...What matters to them is their continued support for a united, sovereign, independent and integral independent existence...
...He is at the center of his own church, the of undoubted good w...
...It would not be difficult to compile a lengthy list of past I F ONE were to ask Catholics in a vacant American diocese and present university presidents in the United States, includwhether they wanted "a scholar" for their chief pastor, it is ing some of the most eminent, who attained distinction in their unlikely that the suggestion would arouse much enthusiasm...
...The tension between the pastoral history shows that prophetic utterance is the characteristic exhortations to unity and the prophetic denunciations of injus- mode of speech, not of the official leaders of the people of tice was real- and intended...
...But truth is always the understandable but erroneous conclusion that the Pontiff larger than any one person's ability to grasp or express...
...Our enemies now crusade against us under the banner of have passed over his closest friend, John, and chosen Peter toleration, liberalism and progress...
...Lebanese crowds moved through ADF, who came to put an end to the 18-month war which had the Muslim-dominated quarters firing automatic rifles, clap- torn the country apart...
...This was the quality which enabled the scholarly Bishop of Rome...
...Is it a sities and seminaries, theologians de facto often exercise more sign of ecclesial health that apart from Fulton Sheen (long influence than the bishops in today's catechetical scene...
...intelligently and passionately about Christ and his Are we well served by a selection process which puts a church, about God's grace and man's resurrection, premium on administrative ability, and then looks for solu- about the Eucharist and the hungers of all humans...
...Moreover, any fair account of the diocesan leadership from university chairs...
...The Pope was giving a lived God, but of lonely, Spirit-gifted individuals whose clarity of example of the dialectical imperativo imposed on all who share vision places them far in advance of their day and makes them with him the episcopal office...
...plan has been to hand Lebanon over to Syria and to the proliferation of foreign armies and the ubiquity of armed encourage emigration of Christians...
...However, because the Conference had endorsed total commitment...
...This requires the bishop to be in a sign of contradiction to their contemporaries, even to many two places at once...
...Were vious day...
...In the 8 June /979: 335...
...but it is terribly Lebanon will remain free...
...This the Christians were not doing...
...success...
...fidelity with which they served that church, one is hardly ministrative or desk job...
...With rare exceptions our bishops are men of impressive The lack of discernment indicated by that protest is, addipersonal goodness...
...best are deeply edifying...
...We obviously the ideal...
...mation of the teaching of Vatican II and the recent popes about The prophet is inevitably one-sided...
...social justice, but consider institutional concerns paramount...
...But the present occupant of the long as a spokesman for the American bishops can complain White House is an example of personal virtue with little publicly that the Carter administration is not "grateful" for the capacity for leadership...
...stances, was to be approved by a general council...
...At the Council the holds together in fruitful though often painful tension a dispabishops may be said to have rediscovered the social dimension rate family of sinners, who, without the Spirit's presence, of the gospel...
...tions to the grave problems of faith in today's world from Vatican II has re-emphasized that " the duty of teaching is people who, however gifted as organizers and managers, and conspicuous among the principal duties of bishops" (Decree however endowed with good will, all too often lack the on Bishops, 12...
...But there are at least two further from being animated by one Spirit, and from loving one and reasons why episcopal pronouncements on social justice are the same church...
...People who are concerned defend the church's catholicity...
...however limited and intermittent, in adjusting to Where is the theological justification for this view of the suddenly changed conditions for which nothing in their train- bishop's office...
...Most were called directly to professional theologians...
...Lebanon pivoting around the legitimate authority are the stuff They are still smarting from the savage bombardment of of poetry and myth...
...His task, like that of any bishop, is to This policy bears bitter fruit...
...has sought quietly to refashion the American hierarchy...
...The assumption Catholicism which confronted the immigrant church of a preof such an identity is one cause of our present disarray...
...A glance not to silence theologians, but to challenge them to develop elsewhere shows that it is not...
...Some of the most widely publicized criticisms imperative inherent in the bishop's office is correct, surely it of the American bishops in recent years have been grave requires that bishops refuse the tempting choice between the violations of charity and truth...
...united than that which confronts the bishops today...
...And all church -history-the example of our best situation now prevailing...
...Whenever a West German plex displayed by some bishops in dealing with theologians...
...whether they wanted "a bishop able to expound the relation- Not the least exciting characteristics of our new Holy Father ship between our age-old faith and modern life...
...While this is wel- At the last Roman Episcopal Synod a man who is himself come, one must ask how much attention is given to the func- such a messenger, Archbishop Bernardin of Cincinnati, stated tion which Vatican II clearly regards as pre-eminent amongst that "because of their teaching positions in colleges, univerthe bishop's duties: the office of preacher and teacher...
...It is unity around the gospel...
...Only those of the recent visit to Mexico was due to a quality in his utter- most relentlessly ecclesiastical outlook do not share this deances as little perceived as it was understood: their sire...
...Anti-Catholicism is still alive and bishops and greatest popes-shows that the really good well in this country: in the media, in the elite universities, in teacher and pastor is also a competent administrator, or at least the upper echelons of business, government, and the great that he becomes one when he must...
...Though his academic observer of American Catholicism suggests that the answer to career was terminated at the early age of thirty-eight by his such a question would be strongly positive...
...while Franklin Roosevelt is an in- bishops' support of the Panama Canal treaties...
...Unable to disMexico was a notable success...
...But the bishop is also summoned to the Pope Innocent III (1198-1216) to perceive beneath the heretichurch's periphery, as a sacramental sign of the church to the cal tendencies of the new twelfth century spirituality of povworld...
...tians had expected a sympathetic response from the United Then there are the 6,000 men of the United Nations Interim States with its verbal insistence on human rights, and from Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) composed of an assortment of France with its historical ties to Lebanon...
...The prophets, if left to themselves, would turn statements about social justice because they disagree with the the church into a sect: the purified, gathered congregation of official line in some particular...
...It is, nonetheless, more romantic than realistic...
...Is such a system not a grave will dispute the unique qualifications for episcopal ministry of injustice to bishops themselves...
...respective fields of scholarship before being called to adminisOne can hardly expect people to opt for what they have never trative positions...
...media-or perhaps precisely because of this inundationIs it too much to hope that a Pope who has shown himself to people today are as hungry as ever for the Word of God...
...in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation" (Phil...
...He retired) it is difficult to name a single one of the more than three complained that open conflicts between bishops and theolohundred Catholic bishops in this country who has written a gians had harmed church unity, and called upon his fellow book of which the world has taken any notice...
...Seldom did they side down, but rather the presence of the Holy Spirit, who address the structural roots of injustice...
...One hopes that a new facilitated their task...
...The very quality which, in the past, mere nostalgia for a past golden age that makes it impossible to enabled bishops to build up the church's unity is today destrucidentify their successors today...
...When combined (as unfortuIt was not always so...
...The worldwide protest against authority (which in FORTUNATELY, we have begun to get better leadership...
...about such a complaint...
...But, no welcomed the entry of the Syrian troops, the bulk of the 30,000 matter, they are Muslims...
...Paradoxically, this him, and to Paul VI who appointed him...
Vol. 106 • June 1979 • No. 11
