February 27, 2012              Book Review:   A New Vision for the Catholic Church: A View from Ireland

The Columba Press, Dublin, 2011. 116 pages         By Gerry O’Hanlon SJ

Reviewed by Peter J. Wilkinson

Gerry O’ Hanlon is an Irish Jesuit theologian attempting to understand how the moral monopoly of the Irish hierarchy came to be turned on its head by a succession of state-commissioned reports into clerical sexual abuse, and how the 1960s vision of the 2^nd Vatican Council failed to be fully implemented.

The leitmotif of his book is ‘vision’, highlighted with two quotes from the Old Testament: ‘where there is no vision, the people perish’ (Proverbs 29:18) and ‘Yahweh answered and said. “Write the vision down, inscribe it on tablets, to be easily read, since this vision is for its own time only: eager for its own fulfilment, it does not deceive; if it comes slowly, wait, for come it will, without fail”’ (Habakkuk 2:2-3).

For O’Hanlon, the vision for our times is that of the church as the People of God, inscribed and easily read in Vatican II’s Constitution on the Church (Lumen Gentium).

Theologians were long aware that the 1st Vatican Council’s teaching on papal primacy and infallibility was an unbalanced and inadequate doctrinal understanding of the church. It had led to the autonomy of local churches being weakened, the appearance of other bishops as vicars of the pope rather than vicars of Christ, and a strengthening of the centralist power of the Roman Curia.  Pius X’s 1907 anti-Modernist encyclical Pascendi had also attempted to consolidate Roman authority by outlawing ‘that most pernicious doctrine which would make of the laity a factor of progress in the Church’ and had tried to ensure that for the first half of the 20^th century there would be no talk of de-centralized ecclesiastical government ‘reformed in all its branches’, or any share in government being given to the lower ranks of the clergy or the laity.  The Catholic Church was hierarchical, not a democracy. The 1917 Code of Canon Law also augmented the Pope’s authority, giving him control over councils and the appointment of bishops.

Nevertheless, tensions between the centralizing, static and monarchical model of Vatican I and a more modern theology of church based on a critical historical approach which tested classicist assumptions about the status quo, slowly emerged.  By 1944 Pius XII was prepared to accept that democracy as a form of government ‘compatible with the dignity and liberty due to citizens’ was appropriate for the time.

Hence, by the first session of Vatican II in 1962 a majority of the 2500 bishops present were primed to redress the imbalance of power caused by Vatican I, and eager to introduce new forms of collegial governance more in tune with the times, and more closely related to earlier church practice.

Vatican II’s vision of the church as the People of God was the key to restoring the balance. The People of God would have priority over the hierarchy, and communio or collegiality would define relationships within the church.  Though the council’s treatment of collegiality focused mainly on the relationships among the bishops and between the bishops and the Pope, it clearly implied that others in the church, including the laity, rightly had a voice in decision-making. In consequence, one of the council’s most important tasks became how to recognize the dignity of lay man and women and empower them to fulfill their vocation in the church.

While the vision was clear, the problem was implementing it. During the Council there were huge struggles between a powerful minority with vested and ideological interests in the status quo, and the majority who wanted a better balance between papal primacy and collegiality.  Structural change was called for, but the contest was unequal: the Council was held at Rome , organized by Rome , and was to be implemented by Rome . And with the aid of Paul VI, who forbad the Council to discuss reform of the Roman Curia, the minority group never really lost control. They held firm and steady and, in the decades since Vatican II, have become even stronger.

For O’Hanlon it was not just the failure of implementation which led to the present crisis, but also the lack of clarity in the vision, or more precisely, the Council’s failure to define the Roman primacy in such a way as to offer strong central leadership, but without stifling local autonomy. As a result, key outstanding questions remain: how can the church function as a more ‘open’ organization; how can its leadership at all levels – episcopal, presbyteral, lay – be empowered; and how can its doctrine and dogma be more balanced with today’s pastoral needs?

O’Hanlon believes that, more than anything else, the failure has been in not empowering real co-responsibility and not allowing a real sharing in church governance. He sees an urgent need for a new culture and new structures encouraging more effective participation and shared decision-making, but without losing the unity which enables the church to offer global leadership. Many of the problems, he believes, could be addressed by implementing the principle of subsidiarity, empowering and supporting local churches to act more effectively and carry out their mission in a way more attuned to local circumstances. But that would require reform of the Roman Curia, which is still off the agenda.

Resistance to change and renewal is guaranteed, despite the obvious need and a church in crisis. But O’Hanlon sees no future in just trying to ‘ride out the crisis’.  To turn the vision into a reality there must be a plan, and O’Hanlon proposes seven ways forward: placing prayer – the type that leads to discernment and motivates action – at the centre of renewal; getting more lay Catholics to speak up with responsible freedom and ensuring their voice is heard; getting bishops to exercise real leadership, acting as a group, and taking a more adult, assertive role vis-à-vis Rome; having Episcopal Conferences act and communicate more effectively; having a more robust, adult, and responsible engagement between local churches and Rome on the role of the laity, the authority of Conferences and some of the more controversial issues; recruiting the skills of varied disciplines to handle the more complex issues of church governance; and making the church an authentic ‘light to the world’.  

Finally, as a very practical way forward, O’Hanlon proposes an Irish National Consultation of the Faithful, preceded by parish and diocesan consultations. He sees this as a real sign of hope in a time of despair, and a major step towards a program of ecclesial and individual renewal.

For anyone with a serious interest in contemporary Catholicism, this book will prove a stimulating read.

This review was published in Tintean, No 18, December 2011, p. 28.
Tintean is published out of Melbourne and is the magazine of The Australian Irish Heritage Network.