The Council and the Move to the Left

Archbishop Thomas Toolen of

Mobile Alabama who forbad

his clergy to participate in Civil

Rights Demonstratons

I want to give another example of where the Council brought about a change of direction in the Church—here perhaps more of what Pope Benedict would call “reform” rather than “rupture” but a change none the less.  Robert Blair Kaiser writes in his Tablet article to which I have referred in my last two posts:  

Before the Council, we thought we were miserable sinners when we were being nothing but human. After the Council, we had a new view of ourselves. We learned to put a greater importance on finding and following Jesus as 'the way' (as opposed to what we said in the Creed. It didn't matter so much what we said. What mattered was what we did: helping to feed the hungry, clothe the naked and find shelter for the homeless. That's what made us followers of Jesus. …. Before the Council, we identified 'salvation' as 'getting to heaven.' After the Council, we knew that we had a duty to bring justice and peace to the world in our own contemporary society, understanding in a new way the words that Jesus gave us when he taught us to pray, 'thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.' By the end, among the most influential figures at the Council, we encountered two humble souls, one a woman, Dorothy Day, the founder of the Catholic Worker movement, who wasn't allowed to speak to the assembled bishops at Vatican II (no woman was), and a bird-like figure, Dom Helder Camara, the archbishop of Recife, in Brazil. Both of them went around Rome telling individual bishops and those who were putting together the Council's crowning document, Gaudium et Spes: please don't forget the poor.

The Council did not forget the poor, and the statement out of Rome in October 2011 allying the Church with the world's have-nots only proves that even the current powers-that-be in the Church (still so unaccountable in so many other ways) get it. I will quote Gaudium et Spes: The joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the men of this age, especially those who are poor or in any way afflicted, these are the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of the followers of Christ.

The Council radically reshaped what we meant by “sin.”  Before the Council sin meant—to the Catholic-in-the-pews a personal violation of the Church’s moral code.  While this  most frequently fell into the category of a sexual transgression, there were other types of sin possible ranging from missing Mass on Sundays or Holy Days to eating meat on a day of abstinence to stealing from one’s employer to lying under oath.   The pivotal element was, however, that it was a personal violation of the moral code.   There was no awareness—to the ordinary Catholic—of the social dimension of sin.  While various popes such as Leo XIII and Pius XI had written encyclical letters talking of the rights of labor and the obligations of employers towards their employees, connections were not being made in the pulpit or confessional between such magisterial teaching and moral culpability.  Of course, in the first half of the twentieth century, as in the century before, most people in a position to exploit their employees were in the Protestant ascendancy in this country and Catholics were far more likely to be sinned against than sinning when it came to the sins outlined in the economic theories of the magisterium.  But the Church’s hands were not entirely clean.  Such prelates as Cardinal O’Connell of Boston and Archbishop Corrigan of New York, being Paddies of the most shameless social-climbing sort,  had always allied themselves with the Protestant ascendancy and its economic interests.  And of course Cardinal Spellman in 1949 sent his seminarians to dig graves to break a strike by cemetery workers in Archdiocese of New York graveyards—and was proud of it. 

Moreover, while the Church did have—at least on paper—a credible theology of defending the rights of workers, there were other social sins rarely spoken of and even more rarely condemned.  Racism was not only rarely denounced from the pulpit but the Catholic Church had long supported policies of segregation and did not accept African-American candidates for the priesthood until the ordination of Father Augustus Tolton in 1886 and such vocations remained rare until the mid-twentieth century.  Tolton himself had to be sent to Rome for his studies as no American seminary would have him as a student.  (In telling this story I have omitted the saga of the Healy brothers who—despite their slave mother managed to be accepted and treated as whites—one becoming a bishop, a second a Vicar General of the Boston Archdiocese, and a third, president of Georgetown University.  See entry for February 14, 2011.)  Cardinal Glennon of Saint Louis blocked the integration of Webster College and tried to do the same with Jesuit Saint Louis University.  Archbishop Toolen of Mobile forbade his priests to take part in any civil-rights demonstrations and won the support of other bishops who initially forbad their priests to travel to Alabama to be part of the marches led by the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.  Cardinal McIntyre suspended priests and expelled from this Archdiocese priests and religious who preached or spoke on civil rights.  (See entries for August 31 and September 1, 2011).
All this changed with the Second Vatican Council.  Catholics have become very much aware of the social dimension of sin and consequently have moved from being a conservative force in American society to a force for social change and liberation.  This fits the model of a “hermeneutic of reform” more than a “hermeneutic of rupture” as the Ecumenical and Interfaith issues addressed in yesterday’s posting.  However it is probably one of the reasons that some influential members of the hierarchy are so anxious to “turn back” the Council and the Church’s record of social progress during the last 50 years. 

The Nuns Are Still Here and So Is the Vatican

The boys in the Vatican are better dressed,

but God bless the Sisters for the great work

they have done and continue to do--by the
way, the picture is stolen from the NY Times
Thanks, Times. 

Traditionally the religious orders, both of men and of women, have had their independence from the authority of the local bishops.  In times past when communication with Rome was long and difficult, that meant that monks and nuns were virtually a Church within the Church—answerable to no one outside their own monasteries or their Order.  While some small congregations of religious are in only one diocese and therefore  “of diocesan right” and thus do report to the local bishop, most are part of larger organizations with a Superior General who reports directly to the Congregation of Religious in Rome.   Such religious communities need the permission of local bishop to come into a diocese and establish a community there, but once in the bishop has little or no say over them,.  If that community is involved in an apostolic work that is under the bishop—such as religious priests serving in a parish or religious men or women who teach in a diocesan school (note: a diocesan school, not a private school owned by the religious congregation) they are accountable to the bishop for matters that pertain to their ministry but not to matters of their religious life.  In matters of religious life they answer to their own superiors who, in turn, answer to the Congregation for Religious in Rome. In Europe it is even typical for many religious communities of men, and even some of women, to have their own churches where the faithful gather to hear mass.  The friars—the Dominicans, Franciscans, Augustinians, and Carmelites—in particular run many public churches that are not parish churches but offer a full range of Sunday and daily masses.  The liturgy and in particular the preaching is often better in these churches than in the local parishes and often the laity choose a “friary church” as an alternative to their parish.  But even in the United States many bishops are slow to interfere in a parish run by a religious order—even though, if it is a parish, it has to obey the bishop’s guidelines.  Some bishops see a parish run by Benedictines or Franciscans or Dominicans as a “safety valve” that provides a place for people who are disaffected by the more conservative parishes to worship.  During the Civil Rights era or the Vietnam War era the religious priests often were more outspoken than the diocesan clergy felt safe in being.  In some dioceses such as Los Angeles where the Archbishop—then the dreaded Cardinal Francis McIntyre—forbad the clergy to speak about Civil Rights, the religious clergy dared to speak out when the diocesan clergy could not.   

     But this independence gives many bishops agita.   The bishops often get complaints from the laity, especially right-wing ones, who want the nuns in habits or who resent the freedoms that many religious have in the years since Vatican II.  Today many sisters have gone on for graduate degrees and teach and lecture in colleges, do social work, are involved in lobbying on behalf of the poor and minorities, work with immigrants or abused women and engage in works that more conservative Catholics resent.  Those opposed to the nuns’ liberalism appeal to the bishop to rein in the nuns and the bishops are powerless.  While religious men tend to be more conservative than religious women, in many more conservative dioceses, parishes run by religious men are still more progressive than those run by local diocesan clergy.  The religious men often work better with women, give women—both lay and religious—more decision making roles and leadership in ministries, and speak up more on women’s issues.  Religious priests often tend to be less clerically oriented than diocesan clergy, especially the “new crop” currently coming out of seminaries.  The religious priests and brothers are more inclined to wear ordinary clothing when not in the habit of their congregation or order.  They also more often go simply by their name and do not bother with titles.  This too drives many neo-traditionalists crazy, especially when the laity flock to their parishes.   Now I need to make sure that the reader doesn’t let me generalize because I myself can think of many fine diocesan priests who are keeping  Vatican II Catholicism alive and well and I know some religious, even in progressive communities, who are, well for the lack of a better words, nuts.  (For emphasis I would use a Joe Biden expletive here if I could).
      The tradition of religious exemption is nothing new and, in fact, ever since the 1917 Code of Canon Law, is actually more restricted than it had been in times past.  In the Middle Ages some of the great Abbeys of nuns were not only exempt from all authority except that of their own abbess and the far-away-in-Rome (and in the days before  modern communication that was far away indeed), but their abbesses ruled dioceses (called abbeys nullius) where they granted annulments and dispensations, appointed pastors,  wrote letters dimissorial,  convoked clerical synods and all the other things bishops did except for administering the sacraments (for which they had to hire a priest or bishop). 
       Even today many religious houses of women report directly to the Holy See bypassing not only the local bishop but the control of their order.  Among them is Mother Angelica’s Monastery of Our Lady of the Angels in Hanceville Alabama.   The good Lady Abbess (Poor Clares have abbesses) took her monastery outside the jurisdiction of the bishop and of the Franciscan Order and made it directly reportable to Rome. 
       Religious foundresses  such as Saint Mary MacKillop of the Australian Sisters of Saint Joseph and Mary Theresa of Jesus Gerhardinger of the School Sisters of Notre Dame were bound and determined that their communities would be self-governing and not under the authority of the bishops.   But today many bishops want to change that. 
      One of the issues, of course, is that these congregations of sisters sometimes own considerable property  and as the congregations get smaller and will die out, the question is –who will get control of their properties.  Now many of the Sisters’ groups have not planned well for the future and depend on our generosity for the support of the older nuns, but some groups have been very provident.  You can imagine that they are not going to let whatever survives them fall into the hands of the men who have persecuted them.  Part of the agenda of the Holy See and the bishops is to get sufficient control over the sisters that their properties will transfer to the various dioceses in which they stand.   
       A major factor in this  nonsense between the American Sisters and the Vatican now has to do not with their “doctrinal aberrations”  but with their independence.  It is American bishops (and Supreme Knight Carl Anderson of the Knights of Columbus) that are behind the stir up.  Many bishops are frightened of the nuns as today’s nuns are highly educated and articulate women, many of whom have better theological training than most priests, indeed more than most of the bishops themselves.  Sisters such as Sandra Schnieders or Elizabeth Johnson are a theological match for the best educated bishops.  Moreover, at a time when the bishops have lost their moral credibility, the nuns inspire great confidence among the laity.  The powers that be are frightened and that is the hidden issue—or one of them—behind this current nonsense out of Rome.   It will be interesting to see how it plays out. 

Fractured Leadership in the Amerian Church -1

Francis Haas, 1889-1953, Bishop of

Grand Rapids who championed the

rights of the working classes

You might remember from earlier postings (particularly March 5, 10, 11, 12, 16, 17 and April 5, and 10) that there was a strong division in the American hierarchy at the end of the nineteenth century between the “American” party and the ultramontanes or Europeanists.  The Americanist party, led by Gibbons, Ireland, and O’Connell (of the North American College and later Richmond) wanted Catholicism in the United States to adapt itself to American cultural patterns.   In fact, the Americanists thought that the American experience of democratic government, freedom of religion, and social equality had something to teach the old European hierarchical, monarchical, and religiously bigoted nations.  Rome was not so sure.  Well—that isn’t the whole story.  Leo XIII was of two minds as we shall see in a minute.  More to the point of this entry, the Americanists  in pushing their agenda of how great American institutions are, got behind the labor unions and were very outspoken in defending the rights of the working class (largely Catholic and immigrant) from the machinations of the industrialists (largely Protestant and blue-blood).  The Ultramontanes, on the other hand—led by Corrigan and McQuaid, took up the cause of Capital and championed the Social and Political Establishment.  They were more than surprised—they were left naked out on a limb—when Leo XIII wrote Rerum Novarum and clearly outlined Church treaching on the rights of labor.   Of course, Leo would later write Testem Benevolentiae which did not retract any of the social program he had laid out in Rerum Novarum but which did make it clear that American ideas of democracy and religious freedom where not to be exported to fan the ideological flames European liberals, especially the French. 
     Through the course of the twentieth century the American hierarchy has usually been of two minds regarding social matters.  Gibbons and Ireland found their heirs in such liberal prelates as John McNicholas, (1877-1950) Francis Haas (1889-1953), Edward Mooney (1882-1958), Bernard Shiel (1888-1969) and Richard Cushing (1895-1970) to name the more prominent.   There were also Monsignors John Ryan (1868-1945), George Higgins (1916-2002), and Geno Baroni (1930-1984).  Somewhat behind the scenes and usually not recognized for their support of liberal social reform, should be mentioned Cardinals George Mundelein (1872-1939),  Francis Spellman (1889-1967) and Patrick O’Boyle (1896-1987).  A key to this list is to not confuse social liberals for theological liberals.  Many of these prelates, and the last three in particular, were anything but theological radicals but they were very effective in championing social reform in their day.  O'Boyle merits special note for his desegrating the Washington DC Catholic Institutions when he became the City's second Archbishop in 1948. 
     Corrigan and his party found their heirs as well.  Cardinals Glennon of Saint Louis (1862-1948) and McIntyre of Los Angeles  (1886-1979) along with Archbishop Thomas Toolen (1886-1976) were notorious opponents of social change in general and racial integration in particular.  William O’Connell (1859-1944) and Denis Dougherty (1865-1951) were champions of the old East Coast Establishment that had no room for “ill-bred paddies” like themselves.   Ironically, you can even move Spellman from the social progressives (which he was in general) and lump him with Corrigan’s heirs when it came to how he treated Archdiocesan employees who went out on strike—not holding himself to the same standards to which he held others.   But don't we all do that.
     By and large by the mid-twentieth century the American episcopacy was liberal on labor, cautious on civil rights, and staunchly opposed to the first signs of the sexual-revolution that would strike in the late ‘60’s.  In this they reflected the values of their flock which were still for the most part from labor rather than management.  When the Civil Rights movement picked up steam in the ‘60’s the Catholic Church was slow to get behind it—embarrassingly slow.  When the picture of the Greek Orthodox Primate, the should-be-sainted Archbishop Iakovos, appeared walking alongside Dr. Martin Luther King at Selma in 1965 some Catholic bishops finally woke up and realized that we had better stand with the righteous on that issue or we would be left on the moral low road.  As the anti-Vietnam War movement then gathered speed Catholic participation was all the more difficult because most bishops were terrified of the wrath of Francis, Cardinal Spellman, who was not only Archbishop of New York, but Archbishop for the American Military as well and who was not without influence in Rome.  His death in December 1967 paved the way for stronger hierarchical leadership in the anti-war movement.   Catholics, at least led by the hierarchy, were late in coming to both these causes, but come they did eventually. 
     The sexual revolution provided the greatest challenge to the leadership of the Church and it merits multiple entries of its own.  For this entry let us simply say that the American Bishops have stood consistently with conservative social values, reflecting the universal magisterium of the Church.  The early battles were about birth control with the 1968 Encyclical Letter Humanae Vitae, but as the decades have passed the sexual revolution has become ever more complex  dealing with abortion, in-vitro fertilization, surrogate parenting, homosexual rights, transgender issues,  same-sex marriage, genetic engineering and dozens of wrinkles in each of these topics and more.  As if that was not complicated enough, the issue of Gender Roles is not confined to matters sexual but has raised serious issues both within the without the Church as the traditional roles assigned to women and to men are not so clearly delineated anymore. 
    Other challenges have risen as well with end-of-life issues involving nutrition and hydration protocols, brain-death, assisted suicide and a host of incredibly complex questions.    The growing international condemnation of the Death Penalty has demanded moral response from Church leadership—a response that is often muted, whispered, actually non-existent.  The excesses of American wars ranging from Vietnam down through our various covert and not-so-covert operations in Latin America and beyond to Iraq I and II, Afghanistan, and the war on terror have all cried for moral commentary.  Then there are environmental issues that have serious moral aspects and consequences.  I am sure that the bishops would love to return to the simple days of supporting the rights of labor but the moral complexity of our society requires serious study and clear teaching.  So where is it? and why is it so slow in coming?