First black voted conference vice
president
By TOM ROBERTS NCR
Staff Washington
The nations Catholic bishops
took a symbolically bold step recently by electing their organizations
first black vice president, a position that historically has led to the top
leadership position.
Bishop Wilton Gregory, 50, of Belleville, Ill., told NCR
his election hopefully is a sign that the bishops are serious and
committed to living our Catholicism in its fullness.
For most of their annual four-day meeting in mid-November,
however, members of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops treated themes
that are echoes of past conference initiatives or restatements of past
positions. Among items approved was a document that ups the ante in the
abortion debate, telling Catholic voters and officials that opposing abortion
is the most important issue when considering candidates for election or when
voting on leglislation.
The choice of Gregory sends a clear signal to African-American
Catholics who long have complained that they are kept on the margins of the
church and that blacks are rarely selected for or appointed to leadership
positions.
But there are other messages in his selection, and one of the most
apparent is that the conference has deliberately chosen to retain moderate
leadership although some of its major powers and many of the bishops appointed
during the past 15 years are considerably more conservative.
Moderate leadership seems to be the expectation for the next three
years under Bishop Joseph A. Fiorenza of Galveston-Houston, who was elected
president during the recent meeting. Having served as vice president, he was
expected to take the top spot.
Marching to Selma
Fiorenza, who as a young priest joined the Rev. Martin Luther King
in 1965 during the March to Selma, Ala., is known for a strong record on social
justice issues and a deep concern for the poor and for immigrants. He also has
a reputation for building consensus as a method of leading.
The same reputation holds for Gregory, a Chicago native who served
there as an auxiliary bishop under the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin.
Jesuit Fr. Tom Reese, who has written extensively on the American
hierarchy and is currently editor of the Jesuit orders America magazine,
said Gregory will be a good consensus-builder.
This is not a case of affirmative action, Reese said.
This is a very talented man, very highly respected by the bishops, a good
listener and a good speaker.
Even so, said Reese, the fact that the bishops elected a
black vice president shows that the Catholic church is not just a white
European club but wants to welcome everybody into the community.
Reese said he considers it significant that the conference is
willing to entrust the future to a protégé of Bernardin, who was
a major figure among those American bishops who believed strongly in the
concept of collegiality or shared responsibility. Bernardin was known for his
ability to mediate disagreements.
It is significant, too, that Gregory, on the final ballot,
defeated St. Louis Archbishop Justin Rigali, a high-profile conservative.
I think this shows that the spirit of Bernardin is still
alive in the bishops conference, Reese said.
What was unspoken during the conference was the difficulty even
the best leader might face in developing any new initiatives or major
statements among the bishops.
In recent years, the bishops have seen two major endeavors
reversed by Vatican officials -- one involving translation of scriptural texts
used at Mass and another involving a way to apply canon law on higher education
to Catholic colleges and universities in the United States. The bishops had
spent years developing consensus on the issues with the help of scripture
scholars and presidents of Catholic colleges and universities. Both measures,
in final votes in the conference, were approved overwhelmingly.
We havent
finished
NCR asked both Gregory and Fiorenza how the recent actions
by Rome, apparently sound rejections of the process used by the American
bishops, would affect their leadership styles.
We have to keep dialoguing with the Holy See, said
Fiorenza. When asked if the bishops had not already discussed both matters at
great length with Rome, he responded, We havent finished. We have
to keep being patient, adding that the Vaticans rejection of the
two projects wont change dynamics within the conference.
Gregory said he would not necessarily agree with the assumption
that Rome does not have a high regard for the way the U.S. bishops conduct
their busines.
On both issues in question, he said, negotiations took place
between conference members and the Holy See because the conference leadership
encouraged that.
He said he hopes that in the future discussion on points of
disagreement occur earlier in the process so we dont give the
impression that we are two adversaries meeting. The bishops dont see
themselves as adversaries, he said.
If the bishops have to worry about disagreements with authorities
in Rome, they also are concerned about divisions within the church at home.
In his last address as president of the conference, Bishop Anthony
Pilla of Cleveland spoke of a loss in the church of a sense of the need for
leadership. Some, he said, are unwilling to accept a role for authority
in the church. They endlessly debate the decisions of their pastors on issues
great and small, extraordinary and routine. They appear to live either in a
past or in a future of their own imagining but not in the present in which
their pastors must make these decisions.
Eugene Kennedy, a long-time commentator on the American church,
said in an interview that Pillas speech shows the bishops are
unfortunately trying to serve two masters when it comes to the idea of
authority.
The bishops are caught, he said, between the hierarchical model of
governing the church, which Pope John Paul II wants to see restored, and
collegiality, the original form in which Jesus related to his
apostles.
The awkwardness cited by Bishop Pilla is not a sign of
rebellion in the ranks, said Kennedy, who with his wife, Sara Charles,
co-authored the book Authority: The Most Misunderstood Idea in America.
In general, Catholics are happy to cooperate with their pastors. The
answer cannot be a renewal of a species of blind obedience. That demeans the
true religious and moral authority that the church possesses and that few if
any Catholics would contest, he said.
The abortion initiative, Living the Gospel of Life: A
Challenge to American Catholics, urges Catholic elected officials who
privately say they oppose abortion but do not oppose it publically to
consider the consequences for their own spiritual well-being, as well as the
scandal they risk by leading others into serious sin.
The statement also says political officials should take the risk
of losing an election for their antiabortion convictions.
Our worship on Sunday should shape our work on Monday,
Bishop William S. Skylstad of Spokane, Wash., as he introduced a proposed
statement on everyday Christian living for adoption by the U.S. Catholic
bishops.
The statement, adopted by the bishops, challenges U.S. Catholics
to meet the demands of discipleship in the pursuit of justice and peace
in everyday activity.
Catholics are called by God to protect human life, to
promote human dignity, to defend the poor and to seek the common good, it
says. This social mission of the church belongs to all of us. It is an
essential part of what it is to be a believer.
In other business the bishops:
- Approved a 12-point statement of principles on how the church
should welcome and treat persons with disabilities.
- Discussed but did not vote on a set of national standards for
admitting seminary candidates who have left seminaries in the past.
- Discussed a new document that would set U.S. norms for
implementing canon law dealing with Catholic colleges and universities.
- Began what Coadjutor Bishop George V. Murry of St. Thomas,
Virgin Islands, called an opening discussion on racism.
National Catholic Reporter, December 4,
1998
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