Pope John Paul II, invoking his full authority as the supreme pastor of Roman Catholicism, on Wednesday dashed the hopes of American dissenters seeking a more democratic and liberalized church.
He took a hard line after hearing, in unusually blunt terms, from four American bishops about a spirit of ferment and independence coursing through parts of the U.S. church.
Speaking to more than 300 of his U.S. bishops behind closed doors at a San Fernando Valley seminary, he used firm and unflinching words to call for fidelity to traditional Catholic teachings.
The Pope decried the widespread U.S. phenomenon of selective adherence to church doctrine.
”It is sometimes claimed that dissent from the Magisterium (the church`s teaching authority) is totally compatible with being a `good Catholic` and poses no obstacle to the reception of the sacraments,” he said.
”This is a grave error that challenges the teaching office of the bishops of the United States and elsewhere.”
After the speech, several leading American bishops sought to downplay the impression that the pontiff might be asking priests to be police officers, keeping parishioners away from the sacrament of communion if they disregard church sanctions against, for example, artificial birth control.
”We can`t read the hearts of people,” Chicago`s Joseph Cardinal Bernardin said in an interview after the bishops met with John Paul, adding that individual Catholics are to make their own decision as to whether they are ”in accord with the message” of the church.
”I can`t judge a person`s conscience,” said the Chicago cardinal, one of four American prelates to formally address the Pope during the lengthy session. ”But I can help form it. We (as bishops) have more work to do to convince people as to what they should do.”
New York`s John Cardinal O`Connor acknowledged that the Pope ”wanted to intensify” the invididual church member`s sense of sin. But he said that
”only Catholics can deprive themselves” of the sacraments by their actions.
Cincinnati Archbishop Daniel Pilarczyk said the pontiff was emphasizing
”the fact that Catholic teaching is not the kind of grocery store in which Catholics are free to take what they want and not take what they don`t. . . . The church will continue to teach unpopular truths.” The Pope`s essential message, Archbishop Pilarczyk said, is that the church`s teachings
”cannot be watered down.”
Indeed, while the Pope`s positions on such questions as birth control and the ordination of women were not new, he reaffirmed them in uncompromising terms.
In his 26-page message to the American prelates, John Paul said it ”has never been easy to accept the gospel teaching in its entirety and it never will be.”
Nevertheless, the pontiff told the bishops to ”address this situation
(of dissent) courageously in your pastoral ministry, relying on the power of God`s truth to attract assent.”
John Paul, making his most important and detailed response so far to the spreading spirit of doctrinal dissent in American Catholicism, specifically dealt a blow to those advocating women in the priesthood and a more open attitude toward changing sexual mores.
His speech came at the opening of the seventh day of his 10-day U.S. tour, and it demonstrated the breadth and depth of the conflicting styles of authority between the Vatican and the U.S. church. The Pope also joined First Lady Nancy Reagan in a visit to a Catholic elementary school and met with representatives of non-Christian faiths. Wednesday evening he led a mass in Dodger Stadium.
In his address to the Pope, Cardinal Bernardin told him that American Catholics are profoundly shaped by living ”in an open society where everyone prizes the freedom to speak his or her mind.”
He also said many Americans ”almost instinctively react negatively when they are told that they must do something, even though in their hearts they may know they should do it.”
Such an attitude of defiance, Cardinal Bernardin said, often gives the impresssion that there is ”a certain rebelliousness in many American Catholics, that they want to `go it alone,` ” independent of Rome.
The Chicago prelate was the first of four U.S. bishops to address the Pope. The others were Archbishop Pilarczyk and Archbishops John Quinn of San Francisco and Rembert Weakland of Milwaukee.
All four employed surprisingly stark language to describe the atmosphere of tension and confrontation within the church.
Cardinal Bernardin, a powerful and politically savvy cleric widely known for his cautious approach to controversial issues, pleaded for greater openness and trust.
”We must be able to speak with one another in complete candor, without fear,” he said. ”This applies to our exchanges with the Holy See as well as among ourselves as bishops.”
The cardinal said it was especially ”painful” for American bishops to be ”cast in an adversarial position” with Vatican authorities-”or with certain groups within our own dioceses.”
He also appeared to repay some of the criticism he has been dealt by right-wing Catholics, assailing, before the Pope, church members he described discreetly as extremists who ”simply oppose some of the teaching of the Second Vatican Council.”
Archbishop Quinn told the Pope: ”We cannot fulfill our task (of teaching the faithful) simply by an uncritical application of solutions designed in past ages for problems which have qualitatively changed or which did not exist in the past.”
Archbishop Weakland spoke to the Pope about the deep resentment toward an ”authoritarian style” of church leadership in the U.S., terming it
”counterproductive.”
He also reminded the pontiff of the anguish and frustration of many Catholic women ”who feel they are second-class citizens in a church they love. . . . Women do not want to be treated as stereotypes of sexual inferiority, but want to be seen as necessary to the full life of a church.” In reply, the Pope asserted that women bear ”a dignity equal to that of men`s dignity,” and he spoke of their ”special and exalted roles . . . as wives, mothers or consecrated women (nuns).”
The pontiff also acknowledged the growing shortage of active priests in the U.S., but he stopped short of terming it a crisis.
John Paul called for the teaching of the church`s ”authentic” doctrine in Catholic colleges and seminaries, and he drew the limits for the exploration of theological issues by professors in church-operated divinity schools.
”Theological discussion takes place within the framework of faith,” he said. ”Dissent from church doctrine remains what it is: dissent. As such, it may not be proposed or received on an equal footing with the church`s authentic teaching.”
He did not specifically mention the recent discipline against Catholic University of America theologian Rev. Charles E. Curran, but he appeared to reinforce the decision to expel him from the theology faculty.
Those who have ”the title Catholic theologian (are) subject to the authority of the pastors of the church,” he said. The pontiff also told the bishops to ”show the inacceptability of dissent and confrontation as a policy and method in the area of church teaching.”
