Saturday, July 31, 2004
Outside the box
Thank you to the patient comments filling in the gaps of my light knowledge of 19th century European history. Vatican I bishops scurrying from Rome in the face of armed conflict does not exactly conjure confidence in an enduring institution, but if my neck were on the line, I cannot say I would do differently. Having no wish to debate the facts of history, I will only add that if the millions of European Christians shaken by the Great War had lost any hope that the Church had any power or authority circa 1920, perhaps their grandparents had begun sliding down that slippery slope in the previous century.
John Allen quotes a friend who muses about today's examples of ecclesiastical impotence: "Would it be possible, she asked, to raise the same critical questions that American Catholics are currently debating about communion and Catholic politicians, but with respect to Catholic businessmen whose firms engage in ethically suspect practices in Africa? (Mining in war zones, for example, or refusing to make AIDS medications available at reasonable costs?)"
It probably would not be possible. The Communion debate strikes me as evidence of a concession and retreat than authentic out-of-the-box thinking that might actually stem the tide of injustice. Even Darling of the Right Cardinal Arinze is refusing to fuel that flase fire in his public statements. Are bishops even aware of what Catholic-run businesses do in their dioceses? I'd fall over in a faint if more than a few were.
"Could one imagine the pope relocating to Africa for six months, inviting the world's media and political leaders to join him for a rolling seminar on the continent's future? These are the merest wisps of ideas, intended only as examples of what "thinking outside the box" might look like."
For wisps of ideas, they seem pretty inspiring to me. What kind of episcopal leadership do we see in the US? It's been a long time since an episcopal mansion was unilaterally sold and a bishop volunteered to live in a mursing home or a rectory guest room.
