THE MONARCHICAL HERITAGE
It should be clear from reading all the preceding chapters that sexual
abuse scandals, in the United States and elsewhere, are but a symptom of the
church’s much more fundamental problem: its current institutional
structure of government is extraordinarily centralized and hierarchical. In 2002
Pope John Paul II warned a group of Austrian bishops visiting the Vatican,
“The church is not a democracy, and no one from below can decide on the
truth.” Yes, the church is not a democracy, because it lacks institutions
of democratic accountability, and that is the problem. Saying the church is not
a democracy is not just saying that democracy in the church would be bad, but
continues a hierarchical suspicion of democratic government itself, as
manifested in nineteenth-century papal pronouncements like Pope Leo XIII’s
condemnation of the heresy of “Americanism.” Saying the church is
not a democracy becomes the assertion of a point of pride that it is not like
those “others.” The church’s lack of democracy is embedded
both in its culture and in its lack of adequate institutions to constrain abuses
of power. Consequently we have one of several central and pernicious myths:
the myth that democracy is irrelevant to good governance in the church
.
Some historical reasons are evident. Over the centuries the church
periodically faced powerful and hostile secular authorities who threatened its
independence. Rome’s response, understandably, was to seek temporal as
well as spiritual power, and eventually to construct a centralized,
hierarchical, even monarchical, institution capable of resisting those threats.
That institutional structure corresponded with that of temporal authorities in a
long era of monarchy in which secular monarchs often claimed to be ruling by
divine right. Church authorities could not, in those conditions, claim anything
less than divine right for themselves. Even so, just as parliaments and
representative estates arose in the national kingdoms, so too in the church a
conciliar tradition was in tension with strong papal claims. The powerfully
centralized church structure as we know it coincided with the rise of absolutist
monarchies from the late sixteenth into the nineteenth centuries. It was
solidified by the First Vatican Council, in a Rome beleaguered by revolutionary
forces. Its centralization has been deepened and extended since the time of the
Second Vatican Council, to a degree that sharply contrasts with many other
institutions in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries’ era of widening
democracy.
The chapter in this volume by Francine Cardman identifies the loose and
decentralized community structure of the early church, and those by Brian
Tierney and Francis Oakley recount some of the ups and downs of centralization,
leading eventually to the contemporary monolith. Consolidation of the monolith
is a recent phenomenon, and was by no means a linear process. The story of an
instant monarchy is a second central myth. Like other foundation myths of
governance, it has been propagated by those who create and maintain the
institutions, and are privileged by them.
In any social institution some people must take decisions on behalf of
others. Most institutions exhibit some degree of hierarchy. Every hierarchy is
led by administrators. People at the top of any hierarchy are expected to take
decisions on behalf of the institution, and to look out for the interests of
those who depend on that institution. Those occupying the peaks are supposed to
be “agents” of those “principals” below them. They are
supposed not only to be looking after the well-being (material, and in many
organizations spiritual) of the principals, but also must in some degree be
responsive to the perceptions of the people below about what they need and want.
In any organization this responsiveness is limited, and needs to be. Complex
organizations require specialists, with particular skills, experience, and
insights. They cannot be run by a continuing plebiscite from below. At the same
time, they must not ignore the views of those below. Every institution needs
some mechanisms to keep people at the top responsible to all of the people
below.
Many contemporary institutions have created systems giving voice and
authority to all members. Some are finding that their governing structures,
though designed to promote responsibility to those below, have been subverted or
captured. The top leadership is not responsive to the interests of those below,
and this can lead to a situation where the organization is hijacked and looted
by the leader and his co-opted board of governors. Obvious examples are those
multinational corporations of which the directors are unwilling to restrain
their chief executives, and ordinary shareholders lack the information or the
ability to exert control. These abuses have spurred efforts to restore greater
accountability. The absence of such mechanisms creates the fundamental problem
identified by Lord Acton, who coined his famous aphorism as a commentary on the
Renaissance popes: “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts
absolutely.”
The church is not immune to this problem, but its governing structures stand
out as an anomaly. John Beal documents how the writing and interpretation of
canon law has constrained the diffusion of information and discussion in favor
of yet another myth, that of special holiness for the upper hierarchy.
Gerard Mannion makes it clear how pervasive the effects are in Europe as well as
North America. We like to think that church leaders are especially motivated to
serve God and humanity, to care for the well-being (eternal as well as temporal)
of those in their charge. And it is reasonable to assume that they are so
motivated, and well intentioned. Yet they are also human, meaning subject to the
failures induced by original sin. Holiness and spirituality give some protection
against such failures— but cannot be a sufficient protection. No one is
free of imperfection or selfcenteredness. Church leaders, like all of us, will
sometimes fail. History is full of examples. Recognizing this practical and
theological insight, the problem then is to mitigate and restrain such
failures.
DEMOCRACY IN THE CHURCH?
Saying the church should not be a democracy can be a rhetorical ploy of
deliberate exaggeration, by implying that democracy means that everyone gets to
vote on everything. This — government by plebiscite — is one form of
democracy. Close to that was the direct democracy of ancient Athens where all
the citizens (meaning adult males, not women, foreign residents, and slaves)
voted on all major decisions of the city. Some of these decisions were indeed
disastrous.
But modern democratic organizations with far more members than the small
citizen class of Athens do not govern directly. Rather they create
representative institutions of members elected by the citizens, with those
leaders kept responsible for their acts by the periodic need to face their
electorate and risk being thrown out of office. Representative democracy
requires allowing leaders to make some decisions on behalf of the larger
membership, and sometimes to enforce those decisions. Yet democracy also implies
an institutionalized system to restrain leaders and, if necessary, to make it
possible for the people to remove leaders who consistently make decisions that
damage the general well-being. Contemporary understanding of democracy requires
a political system in which most of the adult population is eligible to vote, in
fair and competitive elections, and where the chief executive, if not elected
directly, is chosen by and responsible to a body of elected representatives (as
in a parliamentary system). Civil liberties— notably free expression and
assembly — are also essential, as is some measure of decentralization of
authority and separation of powers. The precise form and strength of these
elements varies widely across different systems, but all are necessary, and
mutually reinforce one another. Democracy thus means checks and balances,
devolution, and periodic community re-authorization of the leadership.
There are institutions within the church that may lay some claim to
democratic principles. Most, however, sharply circumscribe any such claim. Here
are three examples, ranging from top to bottom.
One is the process of choosing a new pope, as done by the College of
Cardinals in secret ballot. This is, at that high level, a democratic process.
It is, however, a one-time event since the pope is then elected for life, in
recent centuries, with neither any prospect that he can be removed from office
nor a precedent for voluntary retirement. Even more restrictive to any
democratic claim is the answer to the question, “How are the electors
chosen?” That answer is of course obvious. They were chosen, by previous
popes, from the celibate male bishops. Cardinals lose their voting power at age
eighty, making it likely that most of the electors were chosen by the
immediately preceding pope if he had any extensive reign. Currently 96 percent
were appointed by John Paul II. Moreover, in this papacy in particular, they
have been selected with painstaking attention to their loyalty to the principles
so forcefully articulated by that pope. Thus the college does not represent in
any vaguely proportional way the perspectives of the clergy at large (not to
mention the laity), and may not represent them even in token fashion.
A second is the national bishops’ conference, which frequently issues
statements on public and ecclesiastical topics. It does so by majority vote
after public debate and sometimes, as for the US bishops’ 1983 letter on
peace, after wide consultation. But, as just noted, this is not an institution
drawing its legitimacy by selection from below. Bishops are not chosen by any
national body, and are not even self-replicating. Not since the time of
Archbishop John Carroll have any American bishops been elected by their priests.
Gerald Fogarty’s chapter outlines the process whereby both priests and
bishops lost control, to the Vatican, over the composition and independence of
the US hierarchy. Should the American bishops as a group have any inclination
toward independence they know that the Vatican can now forbid the issuance of
any collective statement they adopt if the vote falls short of complete
unanimity. Is this how the principle of subsidiarity is to be practiced in the
church?
A third possibility might be found in local parish governance, with a role
for parish councils, finance committees, or, as for a while in
nineteenth-century America, by trustees. But the trustee experiment was
abandoned by the middle of that century, and most parish councils and finance
committees have little real authority. Much more often than not their members
are appointed by the pastor, not elected by the parish. They rarely have any
role in choosing that priest. (Nor may the priest have much to say about where
he is assigned.) Consequently, such bodies may exemplify hierarchy all the way
down. Decrees of the Second Vatican Council called for greater participation and
active involvement by the laity as part of “the people of God,” and
urged pastors to consult them and listen—but did not require them to do
so.
A “DECENT CONSULTATION HIERARCHY”?
Not only is the church no democracy, it is not even as responsive to the vast
majority as many hierarchical systems are. John Rawls, the eminent political
theorist, conceded that some hierarchies are so constituted as to share, with
democratically governed systems, the label “well-ordered peoples.”
His last book describes such “decent consultation hierarchies” as
those allowing,
[A]n opportunity for different voices to be heard—not, to be
sure, in a way allowed by democratic institutions, but appropriately in view of
the religious and philosophical values of the society as expressed in its idea
of the common good. . . . [Members] have the right at some point in the
procedure of consultation (often at the stage of selecting group’s
representatives) to express political dissent, and the government has an
obligation to take a group’s dissent seriously and to give a conscientious
reply. . . . Judges and other officials must be willing to address objections.
They cannot refuse to listen, charging that the dissenters are incompetent and
unable to understand, for then we would not have a decent consultation
hierarchy, but a paternalistic regime. Moreover, should the judges and other
officials listen, the dissenters are not required to accept the answer given to
them; they may renew their protest, provided they explain why they are still
dissatisfied, and their explanation in turn ought to receive a further and
fuller reply.
Some—perhaps many—local parishes would qualify as decent
consultation hierarchies. Yet many would not. And the farther one looks above
the local level, the more uncertain even that label often becomes.
In the current crisis, many people are calling for greater participation and
responsibility in local churches, and for independent organizations capable of
speaking up to priests and bishops. That is an essential start, but not
sufficient.
Informal grass-roots organizations wither without sustained, committed, and
collective leadership, and they do not have the potential of making much impact
on the established hierarchical institutions. Those institutions themselves need
to be reformed, with people at all levels given a voice. At present, officials
who grossly violate the interests of those for whom they are responsible can be
removed and replaced only by a superior official. A priest may be removed by a
bishop; a bishop by the pope; a pope only by God. If the superior chooses to
keep the official in office, those below him have little recourse. That is not
sufficient. Nor is Bishop Wuerl’s endorsement of what would in effect be a
voluntary transparency. The chapters by Peter Steinfels, Francis Butler, and
James Heft all illustrate in various ways both the need for greater transparency
and the insufficiency of transparency alone to sustain accountability without
structural change. John McGreevy and Thomas Reese, while identifying the
difficulty of producing change in structures, make evident the likely futility
of any reform that does not address the need for extensive structural repair and
renovation. The US bishops’ lay review board encountered great openness
and compliance from some bishops, and great resistance or stone-walling from
others—to the undiplomatic but understandable frustration of its former
chair, Governor Frank Keating. Bishops who fail to report on their practices can
be exposed to lay outrage, but the only sanction is potential embarrassment, not
any assurance of dismissal or required change of policy. Bishops who cover-up
face far less accountability, from below or above, than do the errant priests
farther down the chain of authority. The church experience mirrors the mixed
success of enforcing transparency in governments and corporations. In all such
institutions, structures must be in place to insure that gross offenders can be
removed and replaced at the insistence of those below.
The church may never be a democracy in the sense of truly elected leaders all
the way from bottom to top. Theology cannot be made by simple majority vote. All
the faithful need to be led and taught. But there is room for much more
democracy. In a democratic era that shows no sign of abating, mere arguments
from authority are not enough. Authority figures cannot simply impose doctrines
which are deeply contested among a majority of the people of God. We have been
rightly proud that our Catholic faith is accessible to right reason. Thus we
have a right to hear reasoned argument, by people who hear and respect a
reasoned response. Just as the institutional structure was in times past far
less monolithic, Marcia Colish’s chapter shows how theological belief and
practice have been far more pluralistic, with vigorous participation by the
laity in modifying hierarchical doctrine on matters such as marriage and money.
Peter Phan draws on the Asian experience of an ecclesiology directed away from
defense of the church as a reign of hierarchs and toward the kingdom of God;
that is, a community of equals in justice and peace, with local participation
and mutual learning and dialogue. Donald Cozzens concurs that the situation
constitutes an ecclesiological crisis, and raises a passionate call for speaking
truth to one another, in love.
Whether influence over temporal matters can in practice be insulated from
influence over issues of doctrine is doubtful. In no case, however, can the
possession of acknowledged teaching authority be equated with good judgment on
more worldly issues of finance or personnel. Those who are expected to
contribute to the treasury have a right to monitor fiduciary responsibility:
“no taxation without representation.” Those whose lives may be
blighted by leaders’ scandalous acts have a right to full participation in
institutions and procedures that choose those leaders and hold them to account.
These are fundamental rights of a people both holy and free.
Maybe there is something to be said for the ancient principle of a mixed
constitution as reported by Tierney, with elements of monarchy, aristocracy, and
democracy serving as checks and balances on one another. There is no perfect
balance for all time for any institution, and the church has experienced many
variations over its history. What is clear is that the present mix, heavily
tilted toward monarchy, is so badly out of balance as to endanger the
institution itself and all its members. The revival of constitutional structures
rescued from a forgotten past is essential, as is the design and construction of
new ones. Several chapters in this book make concrete proposals. All need
further exploration, and none alone would suffice. What matters is that the
changes be embodied in theology and canon law, give solid rights to those at the
base of the pyramid of power, and not be dependent on the energy or good will of
particular individuals. The next decade or so will provide a key opening in the
history of the church, when major changes may be possible. After that the
institutions are likely to solidify again, whether as reformed or reaffirmed
essentially as they have been.
Institutions in crisis evoke three kinds of behavior from their members:
exit, voice, and loyalty. Exit means leaving the church, with little likelihood
of return. (“I’m out of here.”) Many are doing just
that—but none of the contributors to this volume is doing so. Loyalty in
this context means simply accepting without protest whatever the hierarchical
authority decrees or does. (“Just as you say, father.”) Voice
implies loyalty to the community and to the institution, but not uncritical
silence. It means speaking up, insisting on being heard and heeded. It is not a
course of action for the faint-hearted, and it requires a long-sustained effort.
Let us therefore “make a joyful noise:” not joyful because we are
satisfied with the status quo, but joyful because we see a chance to
reinvigorate the institution we love.
Bruce Russett is the Dean Acheson Professor of International Relations and
Political Science at Yale University.