October 2, 2012      Martin Mallon  (Ireland)    Martin's previous articles

                                      CALL FOR REFORM

Fr Harry Winter, in his article of Sept 18, Did Vatican II “Reform” the Church?,  raises some interesting issues. He writes:  

Walter Abbott SJ’s edition of the Vatican II Documents footnotes the reality of the purification of the Church between Trent and Vatican II by calling attention to the Collects for the First Sunday of Lent, and the fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost, which spoke of the Church needing purification (Abbott, p. 23, n. 25).  These collects were used from Trent on, but since they were prayed in Latin until the Vatican II changes, not many Catholics would have heard their plea for the purification of the Church.  

However, while he mentions Abbott’s n 25, on p 23, Fr Winter omits the first three sentences of the footnote, in the section on Lumen Gentium (Dogmatic Constitution on the Church), which are very significant today; especially the third sentence which is highlighted below:  

The comparison between the Church and Christ is a reminder that the Church, like its Master, should not seek to be served but to serve. But of course there is no complete parallelism. Unlike Christ, the Church is not a divine Person; in its concrete historical existence, it is capable of being tarnished by sin.

The Church has been badly tarnished of late, but will survive thanks to the Holy Spirit, but hopefully in a different form, after it is reformed. The purification currently needed must start with the hierarchy and must involve opening the higher echelons of power in the Church to the laity; this could be achieved, using an idea advocated by Giovanni Franzoni :

Moreover, nothing has been done to make the conciliar claim of the Church as the “people of God” concrete. It would have been completely logical that, once the premise had been put forward, a kind of Senate of the Catholic Church would have been created where bishops, priests, monks, nuns, religious, lay men and women would be represented, to discuss the big problems together. Or, better, along with each bishops’ conference (which gathers the local churches of a nation or a territory) there should be this Senate, that would send a representative to the Senate of the Catholic Church

This reform would change the Church for the good and would bring the Church back to its roots, as in Acts 15, when everyone was involved in Church Councils.  

Another aspect to footnote 25 is that it emphasises the fact that “the Church is not a divine person.” This is a statement of the obvious, but it appears that many people do think that the Church, the Mystical body of Christ, is divine and it is important to make clear that it is not and that, therefore, it can and does make mistakes. If the hierarchy freely acknowledged this it would make it easier to admit and correct errors as and when they occur rather than waiting for decades and centuries before issuing apologies.  

The current situation is very dangerous for all the people of the Church as it could and does cause people to drift along, believing official Church teaching is God given and binding, without using their discerned moral consciousness, therefore, abdicating personal responsibility.  The reform of the Church must also begin with the people of God informing their consciences, especially those calling for reform. This includes being aware of their own freedom as children of God, studying and reading the teaching put before them and using other relevant sources as explained in the excellent section on The Formation of Conscience in the Catechism of the Catholic Church  

Section 15 of Lumen Gentium is also relevant in this area, referring to the Church’s connection to baptised non-Catholic Christians and states:  

They are consecrated by baptism, in which they are united with Christ…we can say that in some real way they are joined with us in the Holy Spirit, for to them too He gives His gifts and graces whereby He is operative among them with His sanctifying power. Some indeed He has strengthened to the extent of the shedding of their blood. In all of Christ's disciples the Spirit arouses the desire to be peacefully united, in the manner determined by Christ, as one flock under one shepherd, and He prompts them to pursue this end. Mother Church never ceases to pray, hope and work that this may come about. She exhorts her children to purification and renewal so that the sign of Christ may shine more brightly over the face of the earth.

This “purification and renewal” should be ongoing and continuous; the policy of preserving the good name of the institutional Church at all costs must be binned. A good step in the right direction here would be, for example, the withdrawal of the secrecy oath each new Cardinal must make whereby each new Cardinal pledges “not to make known to anyone matters entrusted to me in confidence, the disclosure of which could bring damage or dishonour to Holy Church.” (In this article)  

Once again we see that the Institutional Church ’s reputation must be guarded no matter what the cost. This situation must change; we need reform and let each of us do what we can to ensure the Church is reformed. Lumen Gentium points out in Chapter IV, on The Laity, Section 37 that:  

They are, by reason of the knowledge, competence or outstanding ability which they may enjoy, permitted and sometimes even obliged to express their opinion on those things which concern the good of the Church.

Are we not all obliged to call for reform?