“The Tablet” – the International Catholic news weekly – is one of those rare church publications, like The Church Times, every issue contains an article which more than repays reading.
In the current issue is a homily given by Fr Timothy Radcliffe OP to mark the 25th anniversary of a bishop’s ordination.
Cardinal George of Chicago complained recently that the Church ‘is not a Christ-centred church, as it is supposed to be; it is a bishop-centred church’ (National Catholic Reporter October 7 2009, Quoted Michael Crosby p.83). That statement can be applied to churches other than the Roman expression.
In some respects this is as it should be. The bishop is the person moreso than anyone who should gather us into unity.The bishop is the focus of mission and ministry in the diocese. Fr Timothy said, “This is a healing ministry, overcoming division in society and in the Church, in the parishes and the diocese, and within the Universal Church. But it is not any sort of unity. It is living the unity of the Triune God, ‘that they may be one even as we are one”.
This is because we are baptised into an equality of love. A bishop is called and charged to build a unity that undoes inequality. This is indeed a paradoxical sort of hierarchy. Fr Radcliffe comments, “Bishops are ordained to govern. Obviously this involves a lot of administration, letter writing, meetings, taking of difficult decisions. But Christian government is always at the service of the rule of God, not the rule of the bishop”.
He continues, “But the bishop’s rule, I believe, is about always opening the space for God’s rule. This includes making sure that no one else rules: the bullies must not rule, the fearful must not be allowed to control things. The latest fashion cannot manipulate us; nor the media, nor people who threaten to report you to Rome. God’s rule works through the Holy Spirit which is poured into every member of the Body of Christ. So the bishop’s government, I would think, is about helping the timid to speak up, the minority to have their word, the despised to be heard with respect and especially those who disagree with you. So the bishop’s government is not about control, but opening the space for God’s surprising grace. Jesus says in today’s gospel: ‘Sanctify them in truth.’ Cardinal Suhard of Paris famously said that the first task of a priest is to speak the truth. There is no healthy unity except in the truth. The trouble is that when one starts to speak the truth, one is likely to stir up controversy, provoke division, and your desk will be deep in angry letters.
“The greatest challenge for Church leadership today is to how to speak truthfully and preserve unity. If you take a strong stand on a moral issue, then the media will fall upon you, and if you question what the Church has so far taught, and explore some new development, then you will stir up a storm. How can you both speak the truth and keep unity? How can we be one without being fuzzy? This requires of us a deep confidence in the great teachings of our faith. But also a vast humility in the face of the mystery of God’s love, which is always beyond our grasp. We are a teaching Church, entrusted with the great doctrines of the Creed, the Trinity, the divinity of Christ, the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. We must dare to teach these with confidence, otherwise our religion will just become tedious moralisation. But we must also be humble in the face of God’s mystery, beggars after the truth, eager for what anyone can teach us, regardless of whether they are Christian or not. We should be attuned to the creative thinkers, the novelists and filmmakers, the poets and song writers, the wise men and women, for what they can teach us. St Dominic wanted us preachers to be beggars, not just for bread but beggars for the truth, which is why he sent the first friars off to the best universities to learn.
“Anyone who has insight into the heights and depths of love, regardless of whether they are Christians or not, has something to teach us. If we give them authority, then we shall have authority. Bishop Butler, who ordained me, said at the Vatican Council in his perfect Ciceronian Latin: ‘Ne timeamus quod veritas veritati noceat’; ‘Let us not fear that truth can endanger truth’.”
Houston McKelvey