Reaching out... for reform
Calls for change come from Catholics in the US and around the world
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CTA founder Dan Daley says relations between hierarchy and laity have retrogressed, partly because "this pope has appointed many bishops who don't have that sense that the church is from below as well as from above. This sad scandal dramatically portrays the need for accountability to the people.
Mr. Weigel, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, rejects structural reform. But bishops could consult more with "responsible and mature laity" on questions like oversight of seminaries, he says. "And the Vatican needs to consult with lay people more extensively on the appointment of bishops."
Meanwhile, the global reform movement has grown to include the European Network-Church on the Move, involving more than 20 organizations, and the International We Are Church Movement.
"We Are Church" began in Austria in 1995 when lay and ordained Catholics initiated a petition drive for reforms in the spirit of Vatican II. They quickly garnered more than 2 million signatures in Austria and Germany, and the group now has representatives in some 40 countries.
During international bishops' synods in Rome in 1999 and 2001, they held "shadow synods" nearby and presented their recommendations to the Vatican. No bishops accepted their invitation to meet.
"There's not a direct dialogue, but we found that our website ... was very much used by the Vatican," says Christian Weisner, of We Are Church in Germany. And after a German Catholic newspaper recently carried a public forum on We Are Church, the group heard from people in Rome, quietly indicating support.
No one envisions the church as a democracy, nor expects change from this pope. Traditionalists are confident the next pope chosen will carry on his legacy. What's needed, they say, is simply a recommitment to holiness and discipline.
"This is at root a profound spiritual crisis. Men who believe they are what the church says they are, icons of Jesus Christ, simply do not behave that way," says Weigel. "It's a problem of inadequately formed priests."
Others suggest church leaders need to pay attention to the "sense of the faithful," one source of church authority. Well before the current crisis, the National Catholic Reporter study identified trends of declining support for church leaders and a shift of moral authority to the individual.
New groups like the Coalition of Concerned Catholics, who held the Good Friday service, and Voice of the Faithful are taking on responsibility for promoting greater openness and change. They are determined not to let the situation return to "business as usual," as it has in the past.
At Monday's meeting, the Wellesley group agreed on a healing and reconciliation service for April 26 and worked on plans for the congress. "We need some kind of representative structure for the laity," Dr. Muller says. He was a founding member of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, which grew to 160,000 physicians in 50 countries and won the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize. "There is," he says, "immense energy and hopefulness that real change can occur."
