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 Editorials | At Issue | May 2005 
A Consequential Church Debate
 Fred Rosen - The Herald Mexico
Because Pope Benedict XVI has a reputation as a strict defender of Church doctrine and authority, his election by the College of Cardinals has stimulated some interesting discussion within and outside the Church of questions of papal authority and the limits of disagreement.
This is a brief comment from a non-Catholic on some of the secular aspects and, from the vantage point of Mexico, historical importance of that discussion.
Several articles about Benedict stress his theological formation during the turbulent decade that ran from the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s. One of the lessons he apparently took from that period was that unchecked freedom of expression — the breaking of the normal rules of debate and decorum — can easily get out of control and lead to the breakdown and (perhaps) unsought and dangerous reconstitution of legitimate authority. It may require a strong hand, therefore, to maintain order.
His primary concern, of course, as a young priest, a cardinal and now as pope, has been with the authority of the Church. When he was Cardinal Ratzinger, Benedict expressed the view that if any Church practices were to be changed, they must be changed by constituted Church authorities, and not by the ordinary faithful, "from below." In his autobiography he criticizes as a dubious assumption "the idea of an ecclesial sovereignty of the people in which the people itself determined what it wants to understand by church."
The Church has never been separate from the society in which it has found itself. In an age of absolutism, many ordinary Catholics — as a matter of faith — accepted the divine right of absolute monarchs. In an age of questioning, change and uprisings from below, it was almost inevitable that some Catholics would be moved by their faith to question a variety of religious and secular practices and institutions.
The decade we remember as "the sixties," of course, is remembered in a variety of ways. Mostly it is remembered for its dissident sensibility, its unrest, its ever-present, if never quite specified slogan: power to the people. Its most lasting impact was probably the creation of counter institutions with a life of their own. In the Catholic Church, this was Liberation Theology, a term coined by a Peruvian priest named Gustavo Gutiérrez.
Among the well-known practitioners of liberation theology in Mexico — there have been many — is the retired bishop of San Cristobal de la Casas, Chiapas, Don Samuel Ruiz. As bishop, Don Samuel championed the impoverished, excluded indigenous people of his diocese in northern Chiapas, and their secular struggles for land, inclusion and dignity. In 1994 he expressed compassion and understanding for the uprising of an armed indigenous group calling itself the Zapatista National Liberation Army.
I had an opportunity to interview Don Samuel back in 1997. This is part of what he told me in response to a question about the role of the church in Chiapas. It is worth quoting at some length:
"First, for the sake of perspective, I would like to say that the Church is not the bishop. It is made up of Christians. Your assessment that the Church has played an important role is correct, because there are Christians who are very active in the process of social change and reconciliation. Christians have been involved, for example, in promoting dialogue within and between indigenous communities, many of which are being harassed from the outside….
"There has been a great deal of violence in northern Chiapas and those mainly responsible have been shrouded with impunity. Groups of Christians have set up camp in the region to oversee the return of the more than 5,000 people who have been displaced by this violence, some of whose homes were destroyed. The situation in this area is being dealt with through negotiation and dialogue. Yet it has not been completely resolved, since some of the agreements -among the communities and between the communities and the government have yet to be implemented.
"The actions of Christians and thus of the Chiapas Church in different communities deserve great admiration. There are people who are feeling the effects of these conflicts and community divisions, but whose faith and hope has not wavered and who remain active in the search for reconciliation, even speaking to enemy groups who have killed some of their own people. This work towards peace is indeed a powerful thing."
This "work toward peace," a democratic expression of faith, is precisely the "ecclesial sovereignty of the people" so disapproved of by Benedict XVI. Even for non-Catholics, there is a consequential debate here.
frosen@cablevision.net.mx |
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