What’s Up With Our Bishops?

This week I signed a statement petitioning the US bishops to deny Holy Communion to political leaders who persist, 36 years after Roe, in advocating for the destruction of innocent, powerless human lives. The intent here is not primarily to change our political landscape; and it is certainly not to judge the soul of another person. The intent is to protect and communicate our Catholic faith, specifically the sacraments in their integrity in relation to our moral ethos of respect for life. That prominent, prestigious and powerful personalities like our Vice President and Speaker persist and prevail in their agenda of death through many decades, with majority support of Catholics, and remain in good standing in the Church is an injustice to them, to the Church, and especially to the “little ones” who deserve clear, inspiring teaching.

Our bishops have been a grave disappointment in recent decades: first we had the cover-up of the priest sex scandal; that was followed by the unhappy Dallas response in which priests were denied rights but the bishops accepted no responsibility. But worst by far is the continued failure of the bishops to speak and act with clarity, courage and force on powerless life.

How striking is the contrast between our lukewarm, indecisive, assimilative and “let’s-all-just-get-along-and-not-ruffle-any-feathers” bishops and the last half-dozen of our popes in their intellectual brilliance, inspirational courage, and Holy-Spirit-inspired leadership. Imagine the US Church without a strong papacy! It would be very close to the calamity that is the Episcopal Church.

Why are the bishops so weak? One part of the problem, I believe, is the job description. Each bishop is CEO of a major corporation and this task demands that they protect, maintain and build the organization. In our society, such a job requires financial, legal and political skills. These skills and mind habits are not always coherent with the Gospel. So we have a pious and talented cleric like Cardinal McCarrick who accomplished so much for the American Church but is so irenic and diplomatic that he was unable to confront pro-choice politicians in a virile, forceful, authoritative, challenging and genuinely paternal manner.

Decades ago, Ivan Illich called for the de-institutionalization of the Church. Perhaps he was right. If the hierarchy did not have to worry about so many schools, hospitals, cemeteries, buildings, property and organizations of all kinds, perhaps they would be able to proclaim more freely and clearly the Good News. This does not mean that the Church would give up organized corporal and spiritual works of mercy; rather, these tasks would not be directed by the hierarchy, but by the laity. An analogue would be the decision of the early Church to delegate serving of food to a distinct class of deacons so that the apostles were freed up for prayer, study and preaching of the Word.

Such an amiable separation (not a divorce) in many cases will also benefit the works of mercy. For example, Mother Angelica spun EWTN off as an independent group, free from the episcopacy, in a brilliant maneuver, so that it might present Catholic truth unhindered by a hierarchy bound up with institutional anxieties, liberal orthodoxies, and political correctness. That network presents an orthodox, challenging, and fascinating symphony of catecheses (Father Groeschel, Marcus Grodi, Ralph Martin, Raymond Arollo, and Scott Hahn, to name a few) in a manner the bishops’ conference never could.

We are desperately in need of virile, authoritative, paternal guidance from our bishops. We need more men like the late Cardinal O’Connor who ran the Archdiocese down financially but spoke the truth in season and out of season.

For lent, let’s all pray for our bishops!