Perspective A good time to help bishops resist
careerism
By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
As this column is written, the Vatican has not yet named new
archbishops for New York or Washington. Appointments are expected soon since
Cardinal John OConnor is now 80 and James Hickey is 79. Catholics in
England likewise are awaiting news of a successor to Cardinal Basil Hume, who
died in June 1999.
As is always the case when a major bishops job opens up,
theres plenty of speculation as to whos got the inside track.
Usually it focuses on candidates who have proven themselves by administering
another diocese. Thus Archbishop Justin Rigali is seen as a front-runner for
one of the East Coast jobs, in part because of his time in Rome, and in part
because hes been a success as a fundraiser in St. Louis.
Even if Rigali gets neither post, the new leaders in New York and
Washington are likely to have served as bishops someplace else.
To the extent anyone thinks about it, this game of musical chairs
is justified on the grounds that its good for someone with experience to
take over the churchs most important jobs. More often, the transfer of
bishops is simply accepted as the way things work.
Since we seem poised on the brink of some high-profile transfers,
this is perhaps a good time to resurrect a call for reform issued last spring
from a most unlikely spot -- the Roman curia.
In May, Cardinal Bernardin Gantin said that during his 14 years as
head of the Vaticans Congregation for Bishops he had been shocked by the
amazing careerism of many of the worlds prelates. He
recommended that except in rare cases bishops should remain in their dioceses
for life.
His comments came in an interview with Trenta Giorni
magazine. Asked if he had ever been approached by bishops eager to move up,
Gantin said, And how! I heard demands like this: Eminence, I have
been in this diocese already two or three years, and I have done everything
that was asked of me.
I was very shocked by this -- because the
person saying it, sometimes joking and sometimes not, believed he was
expressing a legitimate desire.
The churchs top doctrinal officer, Cardinal Joseph
Ratzinger, quickly echoed Gantins argument.
In the church, above all, there should be no sense of
careerism, he said. To be a bishop should not be considered a
career with a number of steps, moving from one seat to another, but a very
humble service.
As San Franciscos retired Archbishop John Quinn points out
in his recent book The Reform of the Papacy, the practice of
transferring bishops is a remarkable reversal of earlier policy.
Canon 15 of the Council of Nicea prohibited transfers on the
grounds that it caused great disturbance and the formation of
factions. If a bishop moved to another see, the council decreed, he must go
back. A local council in Alexandria called a bishop who moved to another
diocese an adulterer, and a synod in Carthage listed transfers of
bishops along with rebaptism and reordination as heretical practices.
The Council of Sardica noted in 342: Almost no bishop is
found who will move from a large city to a small one
Whence it appears
that they are inflamed by the heat of avarice to serve ambition.
The stigma attached to episcopal transfer was so strong that until
882, no man was elected pope who had previously been the bishop of another
diocese.
In the most bizarre testimony to this tradition, Pope Stephen VI
in 897 had the corpse of his predecessor, Formosus, dug up and put on trial
before a rump synod. At Stephens insistence, the synod declared the
election of Formosus invalid on the grounds that he had previously been
consecrated bishop of Porto.
Today many voices insist that the church must be countercultural
-- that it should resist prevailing notions of hedonism, individualism and so
on. The transfer of bishops presents as clear a case as one is likely to find.
Corporate ladder-climbing is as old as Roman provincial governors pleading for
better assignments from the emperor, and as modern as junior executives in
Fortune 500 firms clawing their way to the CEOs suite. Anyone
concerned with a collapse into secularism should see this issue as the
frontline of the debate.
Of course, banning transfers may seem cruel where the people of a
diocese are clearly hoping their shepherd will move on. But spectacularly
divisive or incompetent bishops usually dont get the bigger jobs anyway;
the only hope is a sinecure in Rome, and theres a limited supply to go
around.
In most cases, Catholics would prefer to know their bishops are
not making decisions rooted in ambition -- that their concerns are with this
diocese and not the prospects for the next one. The church has always taught
that genuine freedom comes only in commitment; here is an opportunity to make
that point in structural form.
As for experience, moving from one diocese to another is not the
only way to obtain it. Being rooted in one place, knowing its parishes and its
people, would surely be just as fruitful.
The worlds bishops are slated to meet next year in a general
synod devoted to the topic of the episcopacy. While the question of transfers
is hardly the only reform they might consider -- restoring a meaningful voice
to the local church in the selection of bishops is another -- it would
nevertheless be an opportune moment to dust off the Gantin/Ratzinger plan.
John L. Allen Jr. is NCRs opinion editor. He may
be reached at jallen@natcath.org
National Catholic Reporter, January 28,
2000
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