The Reform of the Papacy
Quinn, John R.
A modest proposal Martin E. Marty he reform of the papacy, here advocated by Archbishop John R. Quinn, is a good idea for several reasons. Aware of the "if it ain't broke don't fix it"...
...The College of Cardinals receives scrutiny because it has acquired importance far beyond its historic and chartered definitions...
...I'm happy to say that the crucial evidence is in this carefully documented, all too brief book itself...
...And "This unity, which the Lord has bestowed on his church, and in which he wishes to embrace all people, is not something added on, but stands at the very heart of Christ's mission...
...He says we Christians are all in this together...
...Such reform is of intrinsic value in respect to an institution integral to the life of the world's largest religious communion...
...But on what basis can this reviewer comment...
...Aware of the "if it ain't broke don't fix it" principle, Quinn finds enough broken to merit a call for fixing...
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...It is also radical because it goes to the root, the radix...
...Again, Quinn offers pointed and positive proposals...
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...in Religious Studies Areas of Study 9 Biblical Theology 9 Historical Theology 9 Systematic Theology 9 Theological Ethics 9 Theology and Society Financial Assistance 9 Tuition Scholarships 9 Teaching/Research Assistantships The special 75th anniversary double issue of Commonweal (November 19) on the CRISIS OF LIBERAL CATHOLICISM offers a stimulating, multi-faceted discussion, featuring: Cardinal Francis George, Peter Steinfels, John Noonan, John McGreevy, and E.J...
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...At times his impatience in the face of peculiar actions and particular persons is evident...
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...Rather it belongs to the very essence of this community...
...Throughout he is predictably and responsibly respectful of the pope, but he cannot avoid comment on occasions when papal action circumvents councils of bishops or expressions such as the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, which Quinn once headed...
...Applause also for Quinn the pedagogue, who explains every possibly obscure term and does so without condescension...
...Answer: The business was set forth by the pope himself in Ut unum sint...
...In the time of medieval papal schisms, of open conflict between popes and councils, and before the Protestant Reformation, the papacy and some of the popes were often corrupt...
...Ratzinger completely reversed his view of bishops' conferences between 1964 and 1984, without adducing good theological justifications...
...That claim gets forgotten in many intrachurch quarrels...
...What business does a Lutheran have coming on the scene and commenting on this intramural Catholic affair...
...Rather, they are victims and perpetrators of the kind of complexifying to which bureaucracies are prone...
...Our Lutheran hearts were quickened by the October 1999 statement of the Vatican and the Lutheran World Federation affirming so much in each other's central witness...
...And Hamer did the same when he publicly changed his teaching about "episcopal collegialities...
...By contrast, it is also possible to say that the adjustments Quinn calls for might look like mere rearranging of the chairs a third of a century after the aggiornamento of Vatican II (1962-65...
...Martin E. Malty is the Fairfax M. Cone Distinguished Service Professor emeritus at the University of Chicago and the George B. Caldwell Senior Scholar-in-Residence at the Park Ridge Center...
...But the same reformers can show, as Quinn does here, that the tradition to which the defensive refer is confined to hardline interpretations derived from the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries' codifications at the Council of Trent or the First Vatican Commonweal 2 2 January28, 2000 Council...
...One wishes---one hopes--that it could also lead them to have eyes and minds opened...
...Quinn quotes the encyclical: "How could [believers] refuse to do everything possible, with God's help, to break down the walls of division and distrust, to overcome obstacles and prejudices which thwart the proclamation of the gospel of salvation in the Cross of Jesus...
...Quinn's book certainly furthers the cause, One hopes that the arguments it inspires will be waged in modes as evangelical and thoughtful as those he manifests...
...Their ways and workings cried out for reform...
...I hope that sentence does not sound condescending...
...Nor is it some secondary attribute of the community of his disciples...
...How can he make judgments that find Quinn on target...
...The Reform of the Papacy is also a conservative, traditional book Quinn grounds virtually every argument in older, longer traditions than those relied upon by selfprotective members of the curia, counselors to the pope who downgrade bishops and frustrate expressions of collegiality, or those who would restore some pre-Vatican II concepts that isolate and elevate the pope...
...Reform is of evangelical and strategic importance, because it can further the positive work of all Catholicism...
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...Commonweal 2 3 January28, 2000...
...Elevating cardinals has meant downgrading the other bishops in ways contrary to earlier Christian usage...
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...Are there predictable villains in Quinn's reform drama...
...Having that pointed out will lead the criticized to get their backs up...
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...The reform for which Quinn appeals would have looked modest to critics of the historic papacy in its worst hours...
...The curia, the bureaucratic web that buffers the pope and often oversteps its bounds, needs reform not because its staff is full of miscreants...
...And, as Quinn, former San Francisco archbishop, makes amply clear, there are ecumenical implications that cannot be denied, especially if Catholicism is serious about one of the four marks of the church, that it express itself as "one...
...The documentation confirms suspicions many of us have after observing conflicts in bodies as disparate as Catholicism and Baptist churches: The reformers get criticized as modernizers, if not modernists, by traditionalists...
...They both altered their views on the basis of a selective (mis)reading of a few lines by theologian Willy Onclin, and without regard to history...
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...Those resisting change overlook most developments in the early and medieval church and many orthodox reforms through the past century...
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...This gentle but searching critic takes off from a strong appreciation of Pope John Paul II's 1995 encyclical, Ut unum sint, a bold reaffirmation of the papacy's interest in furthering unity...
...Although careful not to heap criticism on powerful people such as Cardinals Joseph Ratzinger or the late Jerome Hamer, O.P., Quinn cannot resist showing irritation at their flip-flops...
...Quinn's suggested reforms are clear, direct, and consistent with the kind one would propose to secular institutions as well, but quickened by awareness that more is at stake in the church...
...And on the more domestic level, many of us feel that the probably imminent "full communion" between Lutherans and Episcopalians, alongside Lutheran full communion with three Reformed bodies, are at least small signs that "the very essence of this community" and the "proclamation of the gospel of salvation in the Cross of Jesus" are worth the inconvenience and adjustments experienced at this turn of the millennium...
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...The Reform of the Papacy is a radical book, in that its proposals could have far-reaching effect...
...It comes as a fervent prayer--are reviewers allowed to pray in midreview?--prompted by the invitations of Ut unum sint...
Vol. 127 • January 2000 • No. 2
