The Bishops' Change of Priorities

by Fr. Roger J. Landry - November 24, 2006

There was much comment in both the secular and Catholic media about the items on the agenda for the U.S. Bishops' Conference meeting last week in Baltimore. All noted a marked shift from the docket of past November meetings and concluded, accurately, that there is a new set of priorities not just for the annual assemblies but for the Conference as a whole.

For the past few decades, the U.S. Bishops' Conference has had a decidedly outward-looking focus. The Church, after all, is missionary and has been given by the Lord a divine commission to proclaim and live the Gospel "to the nations," thereby serving as the salt of the earth, the light of the world and leaven for all of society.

The bishops have interpreted this mandate as a call to apply the principles of Church teaching to a wide variety of concrete social issues at the national and global levels. They have focused on international policy, land mines, the arms race, debt relief for poor countries, migration and immigration, global climate change and other environmental concerns. They have lent their moral authority to crises in different parts of the world, such as in Iraq, Darfur, Niger, Northern Ireland, El Salvador, Sudan, Israel and Palestine, Russia, Haiti, Burundi, Liberia, Kenya, Cuba, Kosovo, the Congo, Sierra Leone, Colombia, East Timor, and Mexico. They have commented upon economic justice, faithful citizenship, health care, assistance for those with disabilities, women's issues and a multitude a social justice concerns. These have all been in addition to the Church's well-known action in defense of the family and human life at all stages, as well as more to the more explicitly "religious" external activities like ecumenism and inter-religious dialogue.

In order to support the conference's multivalent work, a huge bureaucracy needed to develop and with it a proportionately vast budget. Eventually 36 different standing committees and 16 ad hoc committees formed and the total annual budget of the conference ballooned to about $140 million.

Last week the bishops did several things to show that they are beginning to move in a new direction. First, they decided to streamline the conference's committee structure, reducing the 52 committees to 16. They eliminated 60 staff positions. They cut by 16% the annual tax each diocese needs to pay to fund the staff. They articulated five priority goals for the next five years — the defense and strengthening of marriage, faith formation focused on sacramental practice, priestly and religious vocations, the life and dignity of the human person, and ministry to the burgeoning number of Hispanic Catholics.

But perhaps the greatest shift was seen in the studies and documents they discussed and approved, all of which flow from those priority goals and deal with issues "internal" to the Church in the United States.

They authorized a more in-depth study of the context and causes of clergy sex abuse. They gave assent to the formation of a "Directory for Music and the Liturgy" for use in U.S. Dioceses. They approved revisions in the Lectionary for use in Advent. And they approved three pastoral teaching documents. The first focused on the pastoral care of those with same-sex attractions and clearly distinguished the sexual ethics revealed by Christ from that advanced by the gay agenda. The second discussed the criteria for worthy reception of Holy Communion and described the conditions under which Catholics should not receive the Eucharist. The third outlined the gift of life within married love and discussed why the use of artificial contraception within marriage will harm the love between husband and wife and injure their relationship with God. All three of these will be discussed in upcoming editorials.

Critics of the shift in focus have asked, "With all the problems going on in the world, why would the bishops be turning inward now?" They view the new set of priorities, the documents and the reduced staff as a withdrawal from the world at a moment when the world needs the Church most. Some have described it as the "arranging the chairs in the sanctuary" when society is facing Titanic problems.

As sincere as these questions and concerns are, however, these critics are missing something that the bishops have wisely realized. Over the past few decades when so much of the attention of the conference was dedicated toward external issues, many significant matters inside the Church were not getting the attention they needed, by the Church as a whole and by bishops in particular.

The most obvious example is the prevention of the sexual abuse of minors by clergy and religious. But there are many others. There is the dramatic decrease in participation at Sunday Mass and regular confession — and in the five other sacraments, too. The celebration of the Mass, rather than being "catholic" in the sense of universal, has to some degree become a free-for-all, where not just genuine abuses have been tolerated but legitimate disparities from one parish to another and one priest to another have become so great that traveling Mass-goers no longer know what to expect. There is a vast religious illiteracy among young Catholics. Some Catholic politicians have for decades been abusing their baptismal status and scandalizing the faithful, pretending that they can be in communion with Christ at the same time they're in cahoots with abortionists. Catholic married couples have largely not received an adequate presentation on the good news of the Church's teachings on marriage and sexuality and for the most part have ignored what they heard, which has contributed to high rates of permanent schisms within "domestic churches." The list of internal issues goes on.

In their shift of focus, the bishops have wisely realized that before they help the world tackle its many challenges, they must first get their own house in order. Last week's meeting was a propitious start. Then, once the planks are removed from the Church's eyes, she can return with a stronger, clearer and more united vision — as well as greater credibility — to help the nation and the world.

Father Roger J. Landry is pastor of St. Anthony of Padua in New Bedford, MA and Executive Editor of The Anchor, the weekly newspaper of the Diocese of Fall River.