I’m currently knee deep in readings related to the question of the status of the “local church” in Roman Catholic ecclesiology and how local churches (understood in different ways of course) relate to the “universal” church. This issue of course involves explorations of the meaning of “catholicity” and the exercise of authority at the various levels of the church. Indeed, much of the reading has me coming back to the idea that the church has been struggling to get beyond a pyramidal and territorial view of ecclesial authority toward an understanding rooted in the image of ecclesial and episcopal communion. The latter is a much more open (or “deliberately vague,” in Roger Haight’s terms) concept that allows for a richer sense of episcopal authority, leaving behind the mechanical and rigid jurisdictional view of Christendom.
So in the midst of this focus of study, two stories involving bishops in “discommunion” jumped out at me this week. The first was the case of Richmond bishop Francis DiLorenzo refusing to allow the local Pax Christi USA group to meet on diocesan property. The story has circulated a bit through the Catholic blogosphere already, often pointing out that one of the meeting’s featured speakers was retired Richmond bishop Walter Sullivan, a well-known and much admired bishop to folks involved in Catholic social justice ministries in Appalachia. Anyone familiar with the views and record of Pax Christi should know that this kind of heavy-handed exercise of authority is without just cause.
While this case indeed involved two bishops, the real conflict was between a bishop and a Catholic organization. Another bishop was simply caught in the crossfire. The second case that struck me was similar, but a bit more interesting. A Catholic social justice group in Marquette, Michigan invited Bishop Thomas Gumbleton, a well known peace activist, to speak at one of their events. In response, Marquette bishop Alexander Sample has denied Gumbleton, a fellow bishop, the opportunity to speak in the diocese under his care.
Turf-war scuffles are nothing new in the Catholic church, especially in the united states. Bishops and lay groups, for example, have periodically duked it out in ways that are probably healthy and to be expected to some degree. It seems to me, though, that bishop-to-bishop turf wars are growing more and more common in the american church, reaching an intensity that is bordering on pathological. The sad (and justifiably infuriating) case of former Scranton Bishop Joseph Martino is still fresh in our minds.
I don’t mean to rely on naive notions of ecclesial “unity” that ignore the real and often painful divisions in our church, divisions that need to be concretely worked out in our communities. But is it too much to ask that our bishops not devolve into a jurisdictional exercise of authority that quite simply belongs to another era of church history that we have rightly tried to leave behind? A “police-force” approach to the episcopacy that could result in such utter disrespect for a fellow bishop in good standing is a scandal and has no place among the college of bishops, a body whose authority is meant to be very much unlike the authority wielded by the territorial powers of this world.
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