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Entitlement Vs. Responsibility

CWNews editor Phil Lawler has been one of the best Catholic commenters on the Scandal. He’s an orthodox Catholic, the former editor of the Archdiocese of Boston’s newspaper, and the author of a very good book about the roots of the scandal in Boston: The Faithful Departed: The Collapse Of Boston’s Catholic Culture.  Phil has just […]

CWNews editor Phil Lawler has been one of the best Catholic commenters on the Scandal. He’s an orthodox Catholic, the former editor of the Archdiocese of Boston’s newspaper, and the author of a very good book about the roots of the scandal in Boston: The Faithful Departed: The Collapse Of Boston’s Catholic Culture.  Phil has just posted an interesting reflection on the fact that the American cardinals now in Rome agreed to shut down their daily press briefing, apparently under pressure from other cardinals. Excerpts:

Yesterday scores of newspaper headlines announced that the Vatican had silenced the American bishops. Who or what is “the Vatican” in this context? The Vatican is a little city-state, ruled by the Pope. But at the moment there is no Pope. The Holy See is vacant, and since the prelates who hold high offices in the Roman Curia serve only to carry out the policies set by the Roman Pontiff, they currently have no authority. During the sede vacanteperiod the Vatican is led by the College of Cardinals, acting in concert. There is no higher authority within the Church that could impose a gag order on the American cardinals. Evidently, then, the Americans acceded to a wish expressed by other cardinals, to avoid upsetting the serenity of the congregations. Yet they did so reluctantly. Sister Mary Ann Walsh, who is (or should I say had been?) handling press relations for the American hierarchy, said bluntly: “The US cardinals are committed to transparency.”

Not all of the world’s cardinals share that commitment, apparently. The American cardinals did not want to violate the confidentiality of their colleagues, but they did want an open discussion of the challenges that face the universal Church. They wanted to air their own ideas, allowing others to comment, stimulating public discussion. They wanted their colleagues to know—wanted the world to know—what they were thinking, so that everyone would be more informed as the conclave opened. If the American cardinals had been politicking during their daily briefings, they would have deserved a public rebuke. But they had not been lobbying for votes; they had been answering questions from reporters, and raising questions for other Church leaders to address.

In other words, Phil says — correctly, I think — that the US cardinals had been doing the right thing. They understand that as much transparency as possible is both a good thing and a necessary thing in this age. Many of their colleagues do not. More:

Next week—or whenever the conclave begins—I believe there will again be a single question at the top of the cardinals’ agenda: whether or not the Church will opt for transparency and accountability.

The blackout of the American cardinals has only heightened the tensions between two competing visions of the Church, and ironically enhanced the influence of the American hierarchy. This is not a matter of liberals vs. conservatives, or progressive vs. traditionalists, or First World vs. Third World, or centralization vs. decentralization. It is a conflict between those who see ecclesiastical power as an entitlement and those who recognize it as a responsibility—between those whose model for Vatican administration resembles the court of a 17th-century monarch and those who believe that anyone working in the Roman Curia is merely a servant of the Pope, who himself is the Servant of the Servants of God.

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