Autocracy isn't the Catholic style
Kaufman, Philip S.
AUTOCRACY ISNT THE CATHOLIC STYLE TOWARD A DIVINE-RIGHT DEMOCRACY PHILIP S. KAUFMAN Many a worthwhile debate over Catholic issues comes to a sudden stop with the utterance of a single line: "The...
...In the thirteenth century, popes moved to control metropolitans...
...The trend was (again) a reflection of the times: kings, too, were increasing their control and their revenues...
...Thomas Jefferson, or Lech Walesa, couldn't have said it better...
...As late as 1829, popes appointed only a limited number of bishops outside the papal states...
...only the lower levels of lay society seem always to have been excluded...
...The democratic tendencies put on view during the Second Vatican Council have deep roots, going back to the New Testament church with its community participation and absence of authoritarian structures...
...Pope Paul's handling of the birth control issue, in contrast, exemplified the decision-making process of an absolutist divine-right monarchy...
...Solidarity must be valued "but never toa degree such as to stifle opposition...
...But these partial reforms will lose credibility if that spirit is not applied to larger structures and central choices of the church...
...This was democratic thinking expressed in religious language...
...A man intellectually and temperamentally capable of strengthening this trend was elected pope at the beginning of the thirteenth century...
...This procedure was subsequently extended to the whole church...
...it taught that infallibility of pope and bishops has meaning only in the context of the church as a whole...
...Celestine I (422-32) wrote: "A bishop should not be given to those who are unwilling to receive him...
...The present system in the Western church, in which control of the appointment of bishops is wholly vested in the papacy, is a very late development indeed...
...Before the promulgation of Humanae vitae, a crisis had developed among devout, married laity because the rationale offered for the official teaching on contraception no longer corresponded with their experience...
...In Luke's account of the resolution of the issue at the so-called Council of Jerusalem, James- not one of the Twelve, but "brother of the Lord''-presided (Acts 15:13-21) and decisions were made by "the apostles and the elders, with the whole church" (Acts 15:22...
...In the earliest (New Testament) times and in the first centuries thereafter, democracy flourished in fact if not in name...
...By this time, however, a trend toward subordinating the laity's role to that of the clergy had set in...
...In the search for the ideal, all norms recognized as essential to good governance and authentic community in civil society will apply equally in the church...
...Consider the workings of the Second Vatican Council...
...But then Paul VI removed the issue from the council's jurisdiction...
...To review the whole story of how the church developed into what is now widely perceived as among the most centralized and authoritarian of institutions is clearly beyond the scope of this essay...
...The Second Lateran Council (1139) held that an election that excluded the participation and consent of "religious men" (religiosos viros) would be "null and void...
...But there is no reason why an experientially tested principle of governance must be judged sound for secular bodies yet not for the church...
...A mere catechumen at the time, Ambrose, as governor of the province, went to the church to prevent a disturbance...
...Vatican II demonstrated what could be accomplished in the church when all the bishops worked together, with significant contributions from theologians (some formerly silenced), Protestant observers, and, because of the presence of the media, the world church...
...But this too was a temporary development...
...The church is God's congregation: the grex, the flock that God has gathered together...
...And, generally, the fifth-century papacy assigned higher status to the clergy than to the laity in the election of bishops...
...belongs to priests, and the duty of the faithful people is to consent humbly...
...In the case of Martin of Tours in 371, they prevailed over neighboring bishops...
...In the 1170s, Pope Alexander III wrote that laymen were not to be admitted to an election: "The people should be taught not obeyed...
...Any authentic community" is founded on participation...
...In the discussion on collegiality at Vatican II, Patriarch Maximos IV Saigh insisted that "appointment of bishops is not restricted by divine right to the Roman pontiff" but is a merely historical development in the Western church that should not be made a rule of law for the whole world...
...The answer, of course, is history...
...I question that autocracy, in which the educated, privileged few control and teach the uneducated masses, best meets that test...
...The original reasons for the people's election of their bishops remain valid...
...A Catholic understanding of democracy will include awareness of Pius XI's social teaching in Quadragesimo anno on the principle of subsidiarity, which prevents the absorption of smaller units of society by a monopolizing central power and promotes widescale involvement in the group's decisions and activities: not just "constitutional" but also "participatory" democracy...
...In the third century in the West, not only did the people elect their bishops, but it was considered important that they do so...
...or it is God's convocation: the people God has called together...
...This was repeated by the Councils of Antioch (341), Sardica (343), and Laodicaea (ca...
...By the fifth century, provincial bishops had primary responsibility in the election of new bishops...
...Instead, I will sketch-all too briefly, at that-the steps by which the choice of church leaders (in particular, of bishops) slowly passed out of the hands of the whole assembly of the faithful...
...many will agree that today's church needs structures more responsive to the Spirit'syoice at work among the people of God...
...Innocent III (1198-1216), often called the greatest medieval pope, more than any other pope pushed papal monarchy toward absolutism...
...As will be seen, there was a time when it was taken for granted that all the people as well as all the clergy of a local church took part in electing a new bishop...
...The request was refused, and a decision was made that American bishops could only recommend possible appointees, whom the v pope could freely accept or reject...
...It was the moral and educational decline of clergy and laity during the Germanic invasions, together with abuses in the election process in this period of turmoil, that led to the people's loss of the right to elect their bishops...
...Around 1140, despite Lateran II, Gratian's Decretum, an influential collection of ideas, church laws, and church practices from a thousand years of the church's history, held that people were not to be summoned to perform the election of a bishop but only to give their consent: "For election...
...It is true that Paul, according to Acts 14:23, appointed elders in churches he founded...
...only after Peter had been prepared by a special vision (Acts 10: 9-16) and the Holy Spirit had come upon the household of the Gentile Cornelius did Peter decide to receive them (Acts 10:44-48...
...The two principal methods of choosing candidates for the episcopacy were election by cathedral chapters and royal or imperial patronage...
...Contrast all this with the way the early church resolved the crisis over the acceptance of Gentiles...
...But democracy is not just about elections...
...Effective action for the common good requires "solidarity"-but not automatic conformity, for "opposition is not inconsistent with solidarity,'' and those who stand up in constructive opposition actually confirm their concern for the common good...
...The answer to the second question is a flat No...
...For similar reasons, abbots, bishops, and other litigants appealed their cases to papal courts, enhancing papal prestige...
...That is already evident in parishes and religious orders and whole dioceses in this country and elsewhere, where the spirit of Vatican II has been translated into practice...
...The election1 ofa bishop had to be "confirmed" by the metropolitan, so that eventually the role of the clergy was reduced to little more than proposing a candidate for the metropolitan's approval-thus increasing the bishop's dependence on the metropolitan and proportionately increasing the authority of the metropolitan...
...Leo the Great's assertion: "He who governs all should be elected by all" still holds...
...specifically, to the election of bishops...
...Indeed, "the structure of a human community is correct only if it admits not just the presence of a justified opposition but also that practical effectiveness of opposition required by the common good and the right of participation...
...offices conferred on clerics for their financial support-in any church...
...They had normally been at the disposal of bishops, and were often granted to unworthy persons...
...In the nineteenth century Pius VII continued this arrangement through concordats entered into with various Catholic rulers...
...Human nature is operative in both...
...Under any form of government certain necessary decisions will displease some...
...In 1810, the American bishops requested that the right of nomination of future bishops be granted to the archbishop of Baltimore and his suffragans...
...he does not exercise the office of man, but of the true God on earth...
...In a long and strictly secret process for obtaining names of suitable candidates, the papal legate is "to hear some members of the college of consultors and of the Cathedral chapter...
...Canonists accepted a pyramidal model of the church...
...Today it is in almost universal disfavor...
...At first the primary motive appears to have been the desire to centralize control, but soon the large "voluntary" gift expected for confirmation of an electus became an important part of papal revenue and a heavy burden on newly elected bishops...
...He held that not just human law but divine institution required that important cases in the church be referred to the pope, to whom had been granted "fullness of power" (plenitudinem potesta-tis...
...This gave enormous control over church affairs to the rulers who chose the bishops, and to bishops, who were usually not selected because of their religious qualifications...
...If he thinks it expedient he may obtain the opinions of other members of the clergy and outstanding laity, but only individually and in secret...
...the touchstones of judgment will harmony with today's needs and fidelity to gospel values...
...Canon 377, 1 states: "The Supreme Pontiff freely appoints bishops or confirms those who have been legitimately elected...
...Today, at least in the Latin rite, Roman control is almost complete...
...Feelings ran high between Arian heretics, who had controlled the bishopric, and Catholics, who hoped to gain control...
...If metropolitans could use the power of confirmation to control suffragan bishops, then popes could use the same power to control metropolitans...
...Autocracy is particularly inappropriate in the modern world, with its growing respect for individual human dignity and rights, including the right to take part in communal decision-making...
...Under the feudal system, bishops were both secular and ecclesiastical rulers of their bishoprics, vassals of their regional overlords...
...But Peter was called upon to explain his action, and the question was raised again when Paul and Barnabas also accepted Gentiles...
...By "acting with others," Wojtyla said, the human person realizes personal transcendence and integration...
...In this case as with the confirmation of bishops, the approval of transfers to better sees, and the conferral of benefices, the fees that were paid were another source of revenue, which in itself increased the reach of the Roman church...
...At that time, however, only about half the world's bishops were appointed by Rome...
...The first bishop, John Carroll, had been elected by twenty-six active priests in the United States and Pius VI accepted their choice...
...Once adopted, centralizing tendencies that may have begun in response to urgent current needs, or that reflected the temper of given times and/or the character and personality of particular leaders, tend to become permanent features of government...
...The power of the canons, however, quickly diminished in its turn...
...Of the sixteen bishops and cardinals, however, one appointee (the archbishop of Cracow, Karol Wojtyla) did not attend, only three voted to keep the old teaching, and a strong majority of the commission as a whole advised the pope that change was possible and proper...
...But, according to Innocent, Christ had granted a special privilege to Peter and his successors to dissolve unconsummated lay marriages, and also marriages between bishops and their churches: "God, not man, separates a bishop from his church because the Roman pontiff dissolves the bond between them by divine rather than by human authority...
...With the breakdown of civil government, bishops-the only educated and competent personnel available-became heavily involved in temporal administration...
...The process, however, was poisoned by tfie involvement of contending factions of the Roman nobility 4nd by the interference of the Holy Roman emperors, with devastating consequences...
...No other than Karol Wojtyla, nine years before his election as Pope John Paul II, wrote of the importance of participation for the realization of fundamental human values (see the chapter on "Intersubjectivity by Participation" in The Acting Person...
...Is that necessary...
...The 1983 code ignored such pleas...
...Forms and structures of church governance have changed radically many times over the centuries...
...Change has risen sometimes out of the political climate of a given time, combined with an urgent need for church reform and with aggrandizing and centralizing instincts of individual church leaders (Innocent III, 1198-1216...
...Consider the handling of the birth control issue in our day, and then compare it with the spirit of the approach used in the early church to address a rather more basic issue, whether and how Gentiles were to be received into the body of Christ...
...Until his time, no consistent rules governed transfer of bishops from one see to another...
...Oddly enough, it was an unusual situation in the United States that led the way toward universal appointment of bishops by Rome...
...Western Europe underwent a period of steep cultural decline which lasted until 1000...
...And what are the effects of our system...
...When rulers in Protestant-dominated countries sought the same privileges, Rome compromised by agreeing to accept recommendations from cathedral chapters...
...more basically, "[h]e who governs all should be elected (eligatur) by all...
...One of the more significant acts of the council, understood as such at the time, was the decision to alter the order of the second and third chapters of Lumen gentium (the Constitution on the Church), when the council fathers deliberately placed the chapter on the church as the "People of God" ahead of a chapter on the hierarchical structure of the church...
...Leo I (440-61) echoed that same concern...
...But the rest of the New Testament evidence about choosing leaders and about decision-making-the election of Matthias by the disciples (Acts 1:12-26), of the "seven" by "the whole multitude" (Acts 6:1-6), the events of the "Council of Jerusalem," already discussed-points to a high level of involvement by the entire community...
...power is hard to acquire but harder to release...
...Characteristically, this involves an elected representative assembly that makes laws and imposes taxes...
...The phrase "religious men" could include abbots, other priests besides the members of the cathedral chapter, or important laymen...
...AUTOCRACY ISNT THE CATHOLIC STYLE TOWARD A DIVINE-RIGHT DEMOCRACY PHILIP S. KAUFMAN Many a worthwhile debate over Catholic issues comes to a sudden stop with the utterance of a single line: "The church is M not a democracy...
...Subsequently, Pius VII accepted five candidates ''elected" by American priests and bishops...
...That doesn't mean that today's vast global institution can be run like a town meeting...
...Forms of church governance have developed out of the models available and in response to political, social, and cultural changes in "the world," or to particular crises and abuses within the church...
...democratic structures are designed to develop a consensus that all citizens can be persuaded to accept, even if sometimes without enthusiasm...
...Nevertheless, after careful study the commission in a preliminary vote decided overwhelmingly in favor of change...
...The Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus from around 230 provides that "the bishop be ordained after he had been chosen by all the people...
...Since change has occurred in the past and is inevitable in the future, it is appropriate to take thought now about desirable directions of change...
...In other times, less authoritarian-minded leaders (John XXIII, 1958-63) have followed contrary impulses and sought to solve problems by sharing power and responsibility...
...Innocent carried it further...
...its structures and attitudes exist now, if in some tension with contrary traditions and assumptions...
...Democracy in the church is not only a memory...
...To change that, Innocent used a commonly held idea of the time that bishops were married to their churches...
...it tends to be sacralized, seen as flowing inexorably out of Christ's few words of establishment...
...As temporal rulers they were appointed and "invested" with ring and crosier, symbols of their office, by kings or emperors...
...Only such a structural reform can counter authoritarianism and lead to the rapport between the People of God and their leaders needed for the church and its mission...
...Election of their bishops by clergy and people has deep roots in the communitarian, democratic nature of a church whose leaders are called to serve and not to be served...
...the assembled bishops made it clear by their applause that they agreed...
...Consent of other groups remained a factor...
...In another fourth-century election, that of Ambrose in Milan, the people gathered in the cathedral to choose a new bishop...
...And the Lord did not say, "....upon this rock I will build my autarchy...
...Innocent saw control over resignation, deposition, and translation (transfer) of bishops as a keystone of papal supremacy...
...it does not use the gifts of the people...
...As only God could break the bond of a marriage, he argued, so only God could dissolve the bond between the bishop and his church...
...The centralizing trend has not been a constant...
...But, in an earlier letter, Leo appears to distinguish between "election" by the clergy and the "request" of the people...
...Discussing "constitutionalism" in his 1965 presidential address to the American Catholic Historical Association, Brian Tierhey included the notions of "government under law" or "government by consent," guarantee of due process of law with law not dependent on an autocratic ruler's arbitrary will, but reflecting an entire society's moral principles...
...at the 1980 Synod, the bishops were rebuffed in their effort to reopen the case...
...Yet the encyclical barely acknowedged the commission's existence and all but ignored the arguments it had developed...
...one man exercised leadership, but all took part and all decided...
...This dawning clericalization of church machinery exemplifies the constant historical interaction between the church and the environnment it inhabited...
...When he spoke soothing words, a voice (said to have been that of a child) called out "Ambrose for bishop...
...This transformation has a history, of course, and not all of it can be though of as "sacred" history, Though the church has -been established by God, it is never directly governed by God but by human agency...
...The church on earth was thought to mirror the heavenly ranks of spirits, with inferior spirits joyfully and humbly obeying higher ranks...
...In preparation for the 1985 extraordinary synod, almost all bishops' conferences referred explicitly or equivalently to this principle, but Cardinal Hamer, apparently speaking for the curia, rejected its application to the church because of its sociopolitical connotations...
...Witnesses of the earliest period in the church point to variety of structures rather than uniformity, but suggest that the democratic tendencies of the New Testament period were continued...
...In the 150 year period before the beginning of reform under Leo IX (1048-1054), there were thirty-six popes, compared with the eleven in the last 150 years of our own time...
...Monarchical forms are compatible with democracy, as in England, the Netherlands, Scandinavia...
...In its imperfect way, democracy does all these things better...
...Opinion had been widespread that, with the definition of papal infallibility at Vatican I, councils would no longer be needed...
...Ambrose made serious attempts to avoid the office, but was finally baptized...
...A number of respected theologians concluded that the teaching could and should be changed...
...With the secularization of Catholic states in Europe in the twentieth century, the church recovered control over episcopal appointments in those countries...
...Reform and centralization were achieved together...
...certainly it did not require papal approval...
...The special problems of democratic governance will surface in the church, but so will its virtues, such as openness and accountability...
...the papacy today is not the church...
...But the first pope was not regarded and did not regard himself as the only source of Christian wisdom, the only guarantee of orthodoxy...
...I believe it will be as fair and effective in the church as it has been in secular government...
...it does not promote participation...
...In brief, the Council of Jerusalem resembled a New England town meeting...
...To see the church as a democracy is not to suggest that the church has been established by a contract among its members...
...A breathtaking claim...
...Instead of restoring the right of election to cathedral chapters, however, appointment was reserved to Rome...
...John XXIII established a commission on birth control but died before anything was accomplished...
...Though thousands of Jews had been baptized into the young church (Acts 2:41), the notion of accepting uncireumcised Gentiles seemed unlikely...
...It will astonish many to learn that the process by which the people lost all voice in the choice of their leaders passed through many stages and reached its climax only in our own century...
...In Cyprian's own election the people had prevailed against the local clergy...
...Moreover, no cathedral chapters existed to elect bishops, and separation of church and state precluded any involvement of the American government...
...One means was by providing satisfactory justice in their courts...
...Part of the meaning of democracy is that it sets limits on the exercise of authority...
...it is not authority but authoritarianism that stifles the spirit...
...It does not foster authentic community or personal engagement...
...Neither does it mean that the papacy must be replaced by a collective leadership, or that the church, however structured, must be deprived of authority...
...The early period of the reform was marked by a return to the ancient ideal of election of bishops by clergy and people...
...The whole congregation, Arians and Catholics alike, took up the cry...
...By the end of his pontificate he had established the pope's legal right to bestow "benefices"-endowed ecclesiastical...
...Abuses proliferated, some of the most serious occurring in Rome, where, at least in theory, the bishop-who by his election automatically became pope-was chosen by the clergy and people of the city...
...The Council of Nicaea (325) provided that new bishops be appointed by all bishops of the province with confirmation by the metropolitan (the bishop occupying the most important see of an ecclesiastical province...
...And, again, was it always governed the way it is now...
...Struggles between military factions, widespread disease and famine, and serious impoverishment in the preceding century left the empire powerless before invading Germanic tribes...
...Why is it in place...
...Butthe end of the people's role was in sight...
...The canonists placed the pope at the apex of the pyramid...
...the citizens will despise or hate the bishop they do not want and thus become less religious than they should...
...Clearly this system contrasts starkly with the spirit and forms of church governance in the earliest times...
...One need not wax romantic about democracy to see its virtues: It is, said Churchill, "the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time...
...That spirit penetrates the church as well...
...The consent and the wishes of the clergy, the people, and the nobility are required...
...In the fourth session of the Second Vatican Council three cardinals and a patriarch argued that the issue should be examined in council...
...In church governance, central control of administration comes to be linked with preservation of true doctrine...
...The council also acknowledged the importance of the sensus fide-Hum, the sense of the faithful...
...The decline of popular involvement coincided with the collapse of civilization and the accompanying political fall of the Roman Empire (usually dated 476...
...Cyprian of Carthage, writing to an African council in Spain in 254, warned the people to separate themselves from a sinful leader, "especially since they themselves have the power either of electing worthy bishops or of rejecting the unworthy...
...Today, though the teaching of Humanae vitae on contraception clearly has not been accepted ("received") in the church, John Paul II continues to demand its acceptance and insists that the issue is not open for discussion among theologians...
...Looking to the record, however, it is legitimate to ask what type of government comes closest to realizing the New Testament ideal...
...they are not to be consulted' 'collectively" lest it appear that they are actually involved in choosing their future bishop...
...Autocracy-the right name of our present order-has little to recommend it as a form of government, except perhaps in periods of emergency, to deal with widespread ignorance or indiscipline or abuse...
...By 1180, Alexander had made it clear that the right of election really belonged to the cathedral canons, whose collective vote could outweigh that of attending abbots and other priests...
...He passed throught the various grades of the ministry in six days, and was consecrated bishop on December 1 in 373...
...A monarchical (not necessarily anti-democratic) structure appears to have developed in churches of Asia Minor around 100, to judge from the writings of Ignatius of Antioch, but does not seem to have developed in Rome until mid-second century...
...the pope would function as the church's sole teacher...
...The Synod of Rheims (1049) decreed: "Without the election of the clergy and the people, no one may be advanced to an ecclesiastical office...
...Norms of the code for selection of bishops are carefully devised to avoid even the appearance that those who may be consulted have any right to elect...
...In the sixteenth and following centuries, Catholic rulers regained much influence in episcopal appointments through right of patronage (jus patronatus), under which, for financial considerations, Rome granted Catholic monarchs the right to appoint bishops to sees that had been reserved to Rome...
...whereupon the pope added fourteen more cardinals and bishops to the two already on the commission, again with a view to turning the vote around...
...He gave John's commission more time to do its work, but at the same time he enlarged its membership in a way calculated to stack it in favor of the official teaching...
...Election of leaders can be a mere charade and in any case is not the sole constituent of democracy, but it is a principal one and without it real democracy does not exist...
...360), with the provision that the synod of bishops must be present at episcopal elections...
...The 1917 Code of Canon Law claimed that the bishop of Rome "freely appoints" the other bishops (Canon 329, 2) and that any right of others to appoint is a concession...
...Since the American colonies had been founded from Protestant England, no right of patronage had been granted...
...So: Should church structures be democratic-or, at least, more democratic than they are...
...There is a valid re-sponse, not often voiced: But should the church be democratic...
Vol. 116 • February 1989 • No. 4
