(Ad)Ministering to the faithful

[muckefuck]

So the Parish of St. Stanislaus Kostka in the Archdiocese of St. Louis had sorta fallen off my radar until the Trib published an update last weekend. The article provides a sketch of the situation: The parish has administered its own finances since 1891 through a board appointed by the archbishop. (This isn't as unusual as it may sound. The Sacred Congregation of the Council officially endorsed this type of arrangement back in 1911, just after the Archdiocese of New York had instituted it for all of its member parishes.) Several times, the board has tried to rewrite the by-laws to reduce the power of the archbishop and each time they've gotten the slapdown. The most recent one has been the nastiest with the parish going a year-and-a-half without a pastor until the board found a priest to take the position, thereby causing the excommunication of themselves, the priest, and any Catholics who continue to attend the church.

Since then, the size of the congregation had doubled.

Part of me supports them wholeheartedly. The ongoing clerical sexual abuse scandal has made it utterly clear what a piss-poor job the clergy are doing of fulfilling their most basic responsibilities to their flocks. It's not just a case of individual moral failings (although Jesus knows these are not in short supply) but of lack of oversight at all levels. Imagine if a corporation had demonstrated the nationwide systematic failures of the RCC. Would it still be running? Even if it were, would any of the original officers still be in place? Fat chance. Yet the bishops want the rank and file to believe that their tardy, haphazard, inconsistent, and inadequate fixes are enough. (Working a like a charm for the Chicago Archdiocese, aren't they?) It's not an institution that I would want to manage anything important to me, that's for damn sure.

On the other hand, I keep thinking back to a nasty little point that princeofcairo drew my attention to over a decade ago: If you don't believe in a powerful clerical hierarchy, then why be a Roman Catholic? On some level, if you remain with the Church, then you accept the fact that you will have virtually no say in the running of the organisation and that disobeying a direct order from a superior risks excommunication. It's not like you can't find virtually the same theology in a less authoritarian structure; this is precisely the issue that the Old Catholics, the Polish National Catholic Church, and other minor schismatics split over. If autonomy is what they want, the PNCC will give them all they can handle.

But that's not really my concern. Frankly, I'm simply glad that someone is raising this issue and keeping a spotlight on it. As American Protestants have been warning us for centuries, the RCC is at heart a deeply undemocratic institution and there's a huge unexamined irony in the fact that so many Americans accept restrictions in their interactions with it that they would never for a moment countenance accepting in dealing with the civil authorities. Honestly, the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority exhibits more openness. I can't think of anything short of massive defections on a unprecedented scale that would prompt the hierarchy to instigate substantive changes in governance, but every little bit of accountability and diminution of moral hazard that those who rely on the organisation can inject into it helps.

Edit: Looks like the parishners are considering exactly the options I mention above. From the FAQ on the parish website:

What will St. Stanislaus do if no resolution on this with the Archbishop is possible?

The Archbishop and archdiocese place our dedicated Roman Catholic Parish in a position that we may not desire to take or want to take, but may be forced to take. There are other religious organizations willing to serve our religious needs.

Good on them!

Comments

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

It does not follow that because some areas of religious life (e.g. morality) should be insulated from the will of the masses that every aspect of the Church--down to the nitty gritty of ecclesiastical administration--should be "completely and utterly undemocratic".

Confusion reigns among Catholics and non-Catholics alike over the distinctions between dogma, doctrine, law, and tradition. These are by now means on an equal footing. The unchanging moral law that you are defending is enshrined in dogma and doctrine. But the details of parish administration? These have changed countless times over the last two millennia. Do you think the government of the early church looked anything at all like what we have now? Archbishop Kenrick gave the parish its autonomy; Cardinal May approved the changes to the bylaws granting the board financial control. What does Archbishop Burke know about the deeper moral principles of Catholicisms that these men (not to mention all members of the aforementioned Sacred Congregation of the Council) didn't?

I'm amazed to hear that you have no issue with the preservation of a governance structure that allowed hundreds of priests to molest thousands of children over a period of decades resulting in hundreds of millions of dollars being taken from the collection plate to pay damages to the victims and continues to allow such abuse to take place. I'm even more amazed to hear that you think that those who do have a problem with such a structure should be given no other choice but to leave. If I've misunderstood you, please clarify. I just don't see why it's not possible to be conservative, change-resistant, and even authoritarian without spectacularly failing in one's overriding moral responsibility to protect the most vulnerable people in one's charge.

[goreism.livejournal.com]

Confusion reigns among Catholics and non-Catholics alike over the distinctions between dogma, doctrine, law, and tradition.

Maybe because this sort of thing is still an open question among theologians: the hierarchy has in recent years made increasing use of the infallibility of the ordinary and universal magisterium mentioned in Lumen Gentium 25, and Ordinatio Sacerdotalis caused some questioning of more than a few theories of the magisterium.