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By John O’Loughlin Kennedy | Ireland
This is the second of a four-part series before the Synod of Bishops' Oct. 6-27 special assembly on the Pan-Amazonian region that will discuss the theme "New Paths for the Church and for an Integral Ecology."
In his encyclicals and sermons, Pope Francis has been facing the inter-related problems of clericalism, abuse of sex, abuse of power, institutionalized injustice, cronyism, curia personnel who lack a living relationship with Jesus and become "bureaucrats", shortage of priests and Eucharistic famine.
These are all failures to prioritize love of neighbor. He recently felt the need to proclaim: "There is no place for selfishness in the Church".
This is a direct echo of St Paul's "self-indulgence is the opposite of the Spirit" (Gal. 5:17, Jer.) and "living men should live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised to life for them," (2 Cor. 5:15).
He has been setting the scene for radical change. This is reflected in the breadth of proposals set out in the working document of the Synod, the Instrumentum Laboris.
The changes necessary to remedy the sacramental famine and adapt mission practice to the many indigenous cultures in Amazonia will face a hazardous passage through the Synod.
They will have to overcome the formidable forces of group self-interest and bureaucratic values that helped to create many of the problems in the first place.
Whatever form the changes take, they can only be decided and implemented by the leaders of the professional priesthood whose prerogatives and privileges will be directly affected.
It will require participants to subordinate their own self-interest, and that of their colleagues, to the missionary needs and opportunities of the times.
The missionary bishops of the area who have been consulted, have made it clear that changes are essential. Other missionary bishops may be expected to support them.
However, the attitude taken by the curia will be crucial.
The curia opposed the ordination of married men when it was discussed previously by the Synod, in 1971. A change then might have prevented the shortage of priests acknowledged then from reaching crisis proportions now.
The change had been requested or supported in pre-synodal submissions, by the Episcopal Conferences in missionary areas and by some in countries where the Church was not yet desperately short of priests.
It seemed to command widespread support.
Yet, surprisingly, it was voted down when the Synod met. Such an outcome was possible because the proportion of curial cardinals and bishops in attendance is normally enough to determine the outcome of a Synod vote. The Synodal structure was designed from the outset to ensure curial control.
While Synodal decisions are purely advisory, the generalized aura of Roman inerrancy suffers if the subsequent Papal Exhortation is not seen to reflect the recommendations.
In 1971, the curia voices were opposing the ordination of married men, which was likened during the debate to "the thin end of the wedge" that might lead God-knows-where.
This reluctance to deal with a real and immediate problem for fear of possible unforeseen problems in the future revealed a depressing lack of confidence in the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
The unwillingness to change could be interpreted at a more worldly level as bureaucratic inertia or as the profession prioritizing its privileges and traditions over the Church's two primary mandates.
The missionary bishops had principle on their side. They had a manifest shortage of priests and a failure to adequately provide the sacraments. They could quote the recent Council: "missionary activity is the greatest and holiest task of the Church" (LG 23).
The right of Pope Paul VI to govern as he pleased was not being questioned but the missionary bishops wanted the Synod to assert unequivocally that "by reason of pastoral needs and the good of the universal church" a pope could "allow the priestly ordination of married men".
The curia proposed instead the internally contradictory statement: "Without denying always the right of the Supreme Pontiff, the priestly ordination of married men is not permitted, even in particular cases".
As the discussion progressed, it began to look as if the curial bloc vote might be insufficient to win the day.
Cardinal Franjo Seper, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, publicly proposed that the religious superiors (who had supported the change in respect of diocesan clergy) and the bishops of the Eastern Churches (who were already accustomed to a married clergy) should be excluded from voting on the issue.
Paul VI scotched this attempt at gerrymandering.
It was then announced that the voting would not be secret. Ballots had to be signed! This worried missionary bishops who relied heavily on Vatican support, lest it foreshadowed future repercussions, depending on how they were seen to have voted.
In the end the curial vote decided the issue. The internally contradictory statement won by 107 votes to 87. It meant that the sacramental shortfall in mission areas could be tolerated for another 50 years without disturbing any curial conscience.
The decision, however, did not prevent a later approval of the ordination of married men — when the papacy wanted to facilitate the conversion of entire Anglican parishes with their pastors.
The actual recommendations to emerge from the upcoming Pan-Amazonian Synod may depend once more on the consensus of the curial cardinals and non-diocesan bishops, who have never presided over sacramental famine nor are ever likely to do so.
They will have to choose between the new priorities inspired by Pope Francis or the bureaucratic preoccupation with power and control and resistance to change.
The missionary bishops may again be reminded of their need to preserve a working relationship with the curia going forward.
While Pope Francis will have the last word, he is a good listener and his post-Synodal Exhortation will undoubtedly reflect the debate. Whatever changes emerge, however, will take time to put down strong roots.
In the meantime, the Curia will continue to be the government of the Roman Catholic Church, being the legislature, judiciary and administration combined in one and holding sway over 4,000 dispersed bishops who have been denied the structures that would have made Collegiality effective.
Unfortunately, self-preservation, resistance to change and the pursuit of additional power and control are in the DNA of every bureaucracy—the larger, the more so.
Theoretically, popes enjoy unlimited power, but they reign for an average of only nine years. They tend to be overworked, elderly men and there are only 24 hours in a pope's day, most of them managed by the curia itself.
The Roman bureaucracy endures. The curia is self-perpetuating and has been so, under different names, since 380 AD, when the 600-year-old pagan bureaucracy of the Roman Empire suddenly became a Christian one, by order of Emperor Theodosius, with the Bishop of Rome taking over the leadership and, before long, the coveted (but Christologically indefensible) pagan title of Pontifex Maximus.
The Christianised bureaucracy was in undisputed charge of religious affairs for a hundred years as part of the civil administration of the Roman empire which encompassed much of the then known world.
With the collapse of the Western empire in 476, it lost that hegemony.
The Roman ambition to regain total dominance has been a recurring and costly feature of church history ever since, reaching its zenith with the definition of papal infallibility and universal jurisdiction at Vatican I.
The bureaucracy endures. In the long run it gets its way.
Dr John O'Loughlin Kennedy is a retired economist and serial social entrepreneur. In 1968, he and his wife, Kay, founded the international relief and development organization Concern Worldwide, which now employs about 3,800 indigenous people on development work in 28 of the world's poorest countries.
Part I of the series can be read here.
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