Ready for Rome:

...By then the bishops will be at work commenting on the draft statement Rome has prepared on bishops' conferences...

...The colloquium also discussed the application of the principle of subsidiarity within the church, which has a direct bearing on the role of bishops' conferences in the overall life of the church...

...to be genuine, it must find practical expressions...

...Another, is bishops working together in the same nation or region to face common problems and concerns...

...Two different approaches to the questions turned up remarkable convergences...

...The scholars in Salamanca considered other elements for developing a theological basis for bishops' conferences, but found them too ambiguous to be useful at this time...

...Is there a danger of clericalization in the fact that these conferences do not include a broader cross-section of the people of God...

...The recent controversy over the document on the pastoral treatment of AIDS victims issued in December by the administrative board of the United States Catholic Conference has once again raised these questions...

...Second, conferences of bishops are based on the nature of the church as a communion of churches...

...This is primarily a theological reality, before it is a canon-law concept...

...Or, is it only individual bishops who have authority, which they exercise in a coordinated way when a conference issues a statement...

...What is the significance of "culture" in how the "local" church is defined...

...Not all of these could be wrestled with in a week-long colloquium, but some received fairly detailed attention, especially those concerning the theological basis for conferences and their teaching authority...

...Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger in The Rat-zinger Report (Ignatius Press, 1985), expressed some rather sharp criticisms of the conferences, criticisms which to some degree framed the question as it was posed at the 1985 extraordinary session of the Synod of Bishops...

...The colloquium began with a look at the experience to date, including a review of the debates of Vatican II and the experience of conferences since...

...Furthermore, bishops have a special responsibility for evangelization...

...Fourth, bishops' conferences express the collegiality of bishops...

...The question of conferences' teaching authority, which also received attention at Salamanca, is often posed this way: Do conferences as such have any teaching authority...

...an analysis of how conferences relate to local bishops and to the Holy See...

...From January 2-9, 1988 their plans were carried out, when an international and interconfessional group of fifty theologians, canonists, historians, and sociologists met in Salamanca, Spain for a week's study...

...That synod did not attempt to settle the disputed theological and canonical questions, but simply suggested that "since bishops' conferences are so useful, indeed necessary in the present pastoral work of the church, a study of their theological status is desired, and especially a clearer and more profound explanation of their doctrinal authority.'' John Paul II assigned this task to a special commission under the Congregation for Bishops...

...Third, as groupings of bishops, conferences have a sacramental basis...

...Another issue which came up repeatedly throughout the week and which needs clarification is the present process for the selection of bishops...

...At week's end there was common agreement that the colloquium had achieved its scholarly goals and that it might represent a model for the way in which scholars can contribute with the hierarchy to on-going discussions in the church...

...It is the latest chapter in a discussion that began with Vatican II, which strongly recommended that such conferences be established to foster harmony and cooperation among bishops and to promote a pastoral response to the challenges of the modern world...

...Finally, several questions remain open...

...This teaching is limited only by what limits the bishops' pastoral office itself...

...These various groupings are rooted in the social reality of human life, and one of these realities is the regional or national basis on which bishops' conferences are formed...

...The particular churches or dioceses are not isolated units but are bound together in a true communion...

...Subsequent discussions suggested agreement that the principle is useful today...

...What is their relation to particular churches or dioceses, and to groupings of these...

...MEETING IN SALAMANCA READY FOR ROME DEFINING EPISCOPAL CONFERENCES What is the nature and authority of bishops' conferences...

...On the latter, a review of the considerable theological and canonical literature led to the conclusion that it is the underlying ecclesiological questions, rather than the principle itself, that need further clarification...

...Bishops' conferences provide this, and are needed to maintain unity in faith, fraternity, and charity at this level of mission...

...From this, four elements emerged as a theological basis for bishops' conferences...

...While that task is going on, the practical issues for which subsidiarity has been invoked should not be neglected...

...Historically this has been expressed in gatherings of bishops, whether in local councils or in other ways...

...The Salamanca colloquium was conceived from the start as a scholarly contribution to the debate over episcopal conferences...

...How are these conferences working today...

...a historical examination, back to the first millennium, of precedents in bishops' gatherings and Rome's attitude toward them...

...Subsidiarity applies in the church, but as a formal principle whose content will be determined according to the subject matter to which it is applied, for example the issue of centralization in the church...

...As they gather in conferences, bishops carry out the evangelizing, sanctifying, and governing functions which are theirs in virtue of the sacrament of orders...

...The discussions that followed also suggested agreement among the various scholars that conferences as such, and not just the bishops who are present at a meeting, do have a true teaching authority...

...Their task may well be helped by the homework already done in Salamanca...

...By 1969 enough questions had been raised about the role of conferences, and particularly about the fashion in which they responded to Paul VI's encyclical Humanae vitae, that an extraordinary session of the Synod of Bishops was convened to discuss the relations between the conferences and the Holy See, and among themselves...

...The synod's recommendation that conferences be given fuller study was also welcomed by scholars, a group of whom met in Paris in 1986 to plan a colloquium...

...Are there analogous ways to being a bishops' conference...

...Following Vatican II the number of conferences greatly increased and many have become extremely important instruments of the church's pastoral activity...

...It concluded by recommending topics that need further study, which included the distinction between "divine law" and "human law" in the church, a comparison of the statutes of the conferences, the theological status of all groupings of churches, the teaching authority of the conferences, the meaning of collegiality, and the relationship between the conferences and their administrative organs...

...The question of subsidiarity was approached from two directions, one from the perspective of organizational theory, and the other from the state of the theological debate within the church...

...Although the practices of conferences preceded theory, there is a theological and not merely a canon-law foundation for them...

...For them to have an impact on this wider scene, it is necessary for them to act as a group...

...A collegial ''instinct" or "sensus" is supposed to exist among all the bishops as members of the episcopal college...

...and a carefully reasoned argument for their theological status...

...the efforts of local parishes and dioceses are not enough...

...The communion of churches is something which exists all along a continuum, from very local groupings to the universal communion of the whole church...

...The debates continued during the revision of the Code of Canon Law, which did not settle all the questions...

...There seemed to be no problem with the proposition that the general assembly of a bishops' conference could exercise this teaching function...

...Initial discussions identified five central questions: What is the theological foundation for bishops' conferences...

...First, the mission of the church calls for a grouping beyond the local diocese, but more localized than central church authority...

...To put the question more baldly, how much are individual bishops bound by a statement from an episcopal conference...

...Today the church exists on an increasingly larger and more complex stage...

...JOSEPH A. KOMONCHAK & JAMES H. PROVOST Rev...

...This does not simply express good feeling...

...Bishops' conferences are certainly an apt structure through which to do this...

...As bishops' conferences issued more frequent statements, including those of the United States addressing concrete political and economic issues, the questions returned with renewed urgency...

...But has a statement any more authority than that of the individual bishops who issued it...

...What is their relation to the mission of the church, especially the teaching function in the church...

...Both attended the meeting in Salamanca.ended the meeting in Salamanca...

...Other open questions concern how teaching documents of a conference are developed, whether such statements carry binding authority, and the danger of a certain inflation in teaching statements...

...After sharp debate, Vatican II came to the position that episcopal consecration is sacramental, and that the functions bishops carry out are rooted in this sacrament...

...What are the results of the experience with conferences to date...

...But views were divided on whether a committee (even the central or administrative committee of a conference) could exercise it...

...James H. Provost are on the faculty of The Catholic University in Washington, D.C...

...The solicitude one bishop has for another is an example of this collegial sense, sometimes expressed in sharing personnel or financial support...

...What is the most appropriate geographical or political basis for bishops' conferences...

...The church needs to be present to the wider realities of our day, which often take place on a national as well as regional basis...

...Indeed, it is this communion of particular churches which is characteristic of the Catholic church...

...The world to which the Gospel is addressed is not just small communities...

...The council itself Vigorously debated the theological foundations of bishops' conferences, their juridical authority, their relationship to the Holy See and to individual bishops-topics that have continued to be debated...

...The commission has now finished its work and is circulating a first draft, an Instrumentum laboris, inviting comments from the conferences and from individual bishops...

...Joseph A. Komonchak and Rev...

...Today, as Vatican II and recent popes have emphasized, bishops' conferences serve this function on a regular basis, while plenary or provincial councils take place more rarely...

...The papers will be available later this spring...