News: American Bishops' Meeting Agenda

“They will channel resources away from broad social pronouncements and focus more on defining Catholicism for an often uninvolved flock... ”

By Rachel Zoll, Associated Press
Posted Sunday, November 12, 2006.

Baltimore – There was a time when the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops was a powerful force for bringing the church’s moral teachings to bear on national policy debates. . . .

But the bishops now face a different world – one where their authority has been diminished by the clergy sex abuse crisis, where money for church programs is scarce and where many American Catholics have little understanding of, or regard for, church teaching. . . .

At national meeting starting Monday in Baltimore, the bishops are expected to make changes that adjust to their new circumstances. They will channel resources away from broad social pronouncements and focus more on defining Catholicism for an often uninvolved flock. . . .

The new focus is clear from the agenda for this week’s gathering. The bishops will vote on documents explaining the church’s ban of artificial contraception and worthiness for receiving Holy Communion. The prelates will also consider new guidelines on ministry to gay Catholics, which explain the theological underpinnings of church teaching that marriage should be limited to one man and one woman.

In addition, the bishops will take up a proposed restructuring on the conference’s Washington headquarters to reflected their new priorities. Under the plan, American dioceses would send less money to the conference, which would in turn cut jobs and committees. . . .

. . .critics see the turn inward as disturbing. The Rov. Thomas Reese, former editor of the Jesuit magazine America, noted that the agenda included no mention of the war in Iraq, although bishops could still raise the topic from the floor.

“It is the most important moral issue facing the country, and in the past bishops would have said something about it,” Reese said.
         
The proposed changes partly reflect a transition in the church hierarchy.

Older bishops who experienced the modernizing reforms of the Second Vatican Council have been retiring in significant numbers. They have been succeeded by appointees of Pope John Paul II who have taken up the late pontiff’s defense of Catholic orthodoxy.

"Unfortunately, the bishops have interpreted the signs of the times as calling for a circling of the wagons,” said R. Scott Appelby, a University of Notre Dame historian who has written extensively about the church. “That is maybe politically or culturally realistic, but it lacks the kind of courage and embrace of the theological virtue of hope that characterized the Vatican II generation of bishops.”

Early reports of discussions at the meeting indicate that many bishops favor the reception of Holy Communion at Mass be only for those who follow the Church’s official positions on artificial contraception. That would restrict the reception of Holy Communion to some 4% of the nation’s Catholic married couples. Since most of those who attend Mass receive Holy Communion as part of that Mass the position taken by up to 96% of married couples would be considered wrong by these bishops.