1. Beyond the difficult to pin down empirical data re: the exact
nature, rates, causes & handling of abuse incidents, in one
denomination vs another (and some fairly good studies are
emerging even as some fairly dubious & facile analyses
persist), there is a related issue in play re: church polity
vis a vis Michael's 2nd question re: a grassroots 'people's
reform' of the RCC.
It may be that, in theory, the sense of the faithful (sensus
fidelium) or "what has been received & practiced by the
faithful" is what guides the Teaching Office (magisterium) but
it seems pretty obvious to me that, in practice, this process
has been seriously flawed.
Apparently, this is less the case with the methodologies
employed in formulating & articulating social teachings even
as it has clearly been the case where church disciplines (e.g.
celibacy, women's ordination), liturgical practices (e.g. open
communion, sacramental reception by divorced & remarried) and
moral doctrines (e.g. contraception, homoerotic behavior) are
concerned. Catholic social teaching has experienced three
rather seismic shifts in methodology. In Catholic social
teaching, Charles Curran describes three methodological shifts
in emphasis from: 1) classicism to historical consciousness 2)
natural law to personalism and 3) legalism to relationalityresponsibility. This methodological shift implicitly invites &
fosters the collegial participation of lay experts &
commissions (iow, us anawim - of both genders, even), social &
political scientists, academic theologians and so on in a much
broader & deeper consultative, active-listening process.
The good news, then, is that the seeds of reform are there for
the planting if only the church could cross-pollinate its
seminal social doctrine cultivation and plant and nurture them
in the furrows of its church discipline, liturgical practice &
moral doctrine rows. This will require pulling the weeds of
patriarchalism, hierarchicalism, clericalism, sexism and so on
from those rows as has been done on the others. Or, to change
metaphors, one has reason to hope that the seismic shifts that
have already taken place already, to the edification of the
faithful and the world community writ large, will cause some
tectonic reshuffling as their aftershocks emanate out from
that epicenter.
There are roles to play, then, in ongoing institutional reform
and there are end-arounds, too, via non-institutional vehicles
(not mutually exclusive). In some sense, it seems to me that
the hierarchicalism & clericalism is not just a top-down
oppression but that it reflects where so much of the laity
remains. We don't want to over-identify THE church with either
its institutional form or its clerical leadership but we
cannot deny that their re-formation and ongoing transformation would help advance the Kingdom. A significant but
marginalized minority continues to voice prophetic protest and
live in loyal dissent; others change denominations or employ
non-institutional vehicles. Whatever the case, a denomination
is but a means and not the end, thank God.
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