Talks test US-Vatican culture gap

The culture gap also figures directly in the main task at hand – defining sex-abuse policies and procedures to be adopted by US bishops. The Vatican has definite fears which top its agenda for the meeting, Mr. Allen says. These include policies demanded by the US public and legal system that Rome sees threatening its operations as a church. Two examples are automatic-reporting policies requiring a bishop to pass any credible allegation to law enforcement officials, and the practice of going public with names of priests facing allegations, which the Vatican sees as violating canon law.

"The notion is that once you legalize things and have iron-clad policies, it's no longer handled in a community and from a spiritual point of view," Allen explains.

From the perspective of American society, canon law seems to have shortcomings. For example, it treats sex between clergy and adult women as more serious than molesting minors, and emphasizes restoring wrongdoers to active priesthood over removing them. The prelates may have their hands full just resolving these issues.

Yet the clash most affecting the long-term health of the church is over responding to the concerns of the laity. John Paul II has appointed enough US bishops to bring the hierarchy in tune with his conservative views, but liberal American theologians and people in the pews have gone about redefining their faith within the context of the American experience.

It's a practice with a long history that often antagonized Rome but has also had a beneficial impact on the church at large.

In the 19th century, for example, the Vatican deplored the pluralistic milieu of US society; a papal encyclical to the American church in 1895 warned that religious freedom and church-state separation were to be viewed as expedients, not Catholic principles. As late as 1955, the most important US Catholic theologian, John Courtney Murray, was silenced by Rome for advocating church-state separation. Yet a decade later, his work was instrumental in a major achievement of the Second Vatican Council – the church's embrace of the principle of religious freedom.

With their pluralism experience, says Father Reese, US Catholics then became a leading force in ecumenism and in improving ties between Catholics and Jews.

The clergy-abuse scandal is galvanizing many outraged Catholics for a new reform effort. While some of their concerns are supposedly on the meeting's agenda, few expect more than very limited discussion.

"This meeting does have the potential to be quite historic," says Dr. Appleby. "If the issues festering underneath the surface of American church life" were simply taken seriously, even without action, "it would be monumental."

And having leaders like Archbishop Mahony willing to speak out is significant. Some say it may be the beginning of a conversation that deepens during the next papacy, a conversation other countries may want to join.

"One may not be optimistic about change now, but all this is a prelude to the next papacy," says Chester Gillis, assistant professor of theology at Georgetown University. "Bringing these ideas to Rome and putting them on the table plants seeds for the future. It puts them in the minds of those electing the next pope."

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