the church is MORE than a democracy.

it is a communion of persons, with Christ as the head.

the lack of regard we show for each other on all sides is pretty appalling.

there has to be room in the church for all sorts of understandings of the
way we relate to each other.  we have to get our governance and consultative
models from somewhere else than civil society, and we have to keep the goal
in mind and not get stuck in any one structure.  we've done fine since we
lost the Papal States and Papal Army, which would have been unthinkable 200
years ago.  we have airplanes and fax and the internet now.  we have laity
who not only can read and write, but who are officially encouraged to earn
degrees in biblical studies and church history and theology and canon law
and all the related subjects.  again, something unthinkable 200 or even 100
years ago--women with doctorates in sacred theology!  I guess a bit of
patience is needed as the church adjusts to the idea that lay people can
gain and exercise such expertise for the common good.  I have a cherished
quote from a catholic encyclopedia published in 1967 explaining why women
could never be accorded the title "doctor of the church" as women can't
participate in Christ's teaching office in that way.  well, about 3 years
later, Paul VI blew that one out of the water by so honoring Teresa of Jesus
and Catherine of Siena, and John Paul II added Therese of the Child Jesus
last year.


the usury teaching is a standard example of the irreformable teaching that
got reformed.  lots of papal bulls back in the middle ages.

then there's the thorny story of Galileo.

or the condemnation of membership of Catholics in labor unions, of
acceptance of evolution as a mechanism by which God's creation flourished,
or the custom of cremation of the dead.  in these cases, there may have been
legitimate issues of anti-religious context which led to the prohibitions
that have now been removed, but no such nuances reached the faithful.  

here in the US, the bishops in the 19th century thought it wise to ask the
Vatican to oppose a penalty of excommunication on those who obtained civil
divorces (apparently, they thought it would deter catholics from doing so)
which was removed in the 70s. (the current penalty of banishment from
communion applies only to those who remarry civilly without an annulment.)
I also remember sermons about the evils of non-Catholic colleges (in the
1960s!!!)  these are lesser issues, perhaps, but important in the faith life
and of high pastoral sensitivity.

I need to track the details down, but there was a priest on the faculty of
the place we have the hubris to call "the Catholic University of America"
who got singled out and was asked early in this century to swear an oath
that he affirmed his belief that Moses personally wrote every word of the
Pentateuch.  he lost his job, as he could not with integrity so swear.
however, he lived past the promulgation of Divino afflante Spiritu in 1943,
which thereby proved him "Orthodox."  there's a history of american catholic
biblical scholarship that I think will have this.

we also have the wonderful recent acceptance of the World Lutheran
Federation and the Vatican that Catholics and Lutherans have no doctrinal
differences on justification.  what does that say about all the RC clergy
who knew so before 1998?  the usual line about pride and individualism and
thinking you know better than the communal wisdom doesn't work, as the best
of RC tradition has always taught the integrity and harmony of intellectual
study and faith life.


on the particular issue of the ordination of women, the arguments from the
Pontifical Biblical Commission are not so much in favor of this practice but
rather that the scriptural data pose no barriers to it.  I'm not capable of
assessing the scholarship in the book When Women were Priests, but there may
be historical data to bring to the discussion.


to RCs, leaving for another ecclesial communion is not usually an option the
way it seems to be for those formed in other ecclesial traditions.  it's
like family or nationality.


Maureen Lahiff




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