Homosexuals in the seminary; A Global Church in a Globalized World

Many readers undoubtedly have questions about reports concerning a new Vatican instruction on the admission of homosexuals to seminaries. I'll have analysis in the near future, though one note of caution is in order: we don't yet have the document, and as always with church texts, the devil is in the details.

That's particularly true with this instruction, since the Vatican has already twice published documents indicating that homosexuals should not be admitted to the priesthood (a document from the Congregation for Religious in 1961 and another from the Congregation for Divine Worship in May 2002). To what extent the new instruction will mark a change in policy, and what its practical impact may be, therefore remains to be seen.

I'm in the United States this week, on a speaking tour that takes me to Chicago, Cleveland, New York, New Haven, and Miami. As always, moving across the country in this way is an opportunity to reconnect with American Catholics, listening to their concerns and dreams for the new pontificate, "taking the temperature" of the American church.

While there are obvious tensions -- disillusionment related to the sexual abuse scandals, frustration that church leaders do not always seem committed to collaboration with laity, and so on -- what comes across at least in equal measure is the dynamism of the American Catholic world. One has but to show up at almost any parish, university or conference in the country to find scores of theologically literate, committed Catholics, clergy and lay, engaged in a bewildering variety of ministries. The fractiousness that sometimes characterizes American Catholics is, in that sense, the flip side of their passion; indeed, I sometimes wonder if the high blood pressure you sometimes find in American Catholic circles isn't related to the fact that Americans simply have higher expectations of the church than, say, many Europeans. (As Augustine put it, anger is the daughter of hope; cynics generally don't get angry).

On Sept. 20, I gave a lecture at Dominican University in River Forest, Illinois, sponsored by that institution's Siena Center, whose mission is "to bring faith and scholarship to the critical issues of church and society." The topic I was asked to address was "A Global Church in a Globalized World," trying to think about what the historic North/South shift currently underway in global Christianity might mean for Roman Catholicism in the 21st century. What follows is my text.

In September 2001, the Vatican issued a controversial document called Dominus Iesus, about the relationship between Christianity and other world religions. While the heart of its teaching was that the church cannot abandon its faith in Christ as the unique and lone savior of humanity, it also ruffled feathers by asserting that adherents of other religions are in a "gravely deficient" situation with respect to Christians.

Just after it appeared, I attended a workshop for rectors of seminaries around the world, held in Rome at the Casa Tra Noi, down the street from my office. In one workshop, a Jesuit theologian led a discussion on Dominus Iesus. A rector from Bangalore in India popped up and said, "This document is a disaster. It has destroyed our dialogue with Hinduism, since they don't understand these exclusivist claims." Next a rector from St. Petersburg in Russia jumped up to say, "No, you've got it all wrong. This document has saved our dialogue with the Russian Orthodox, because they have an even higher Christology than we do, and this is the first Vatican document since the Council they've been excited about."

This observation does not mean that all perspectives are equally valid, which would flirt with a kind of relativism, or that the complexity of factoring in all the variables should become an excuse for inaction. Eventually, leaders have to lead. But it does suggest that if we struggle sometimes to understand why our leaders do what they do, or why Catholics from other parts of the globe don't react as we do, sometimes the answer has to be sought by seeing through their eyes.

Let me offer a few rather random facts and figures about global Catholicism, and try to tease out a few implications. This is by no means a comprehensive survey, merely some basic data and observations that I hope will be useful for further conversation.

Despite impressions of a rocky relationship with the Vatican, much of the rest of the Catholic world believes the American church already gets too many strokes from Rome. For example, we have 6 percent of the population, but 12 percent of the bishops in the Catholic church and 14 percent of the priests. In fact, the United States has more priests by itself than the top three Catholic countries combined (41,000 in the U.S. to 37,000 in Brazil, Mexico and the Philippines).

As another index, we have 13 cardinals (11 of whom are "electors," meaning under 80 and hence eligible to vote for the pope), as opposed to Brazil, with 8 cardinals (4 electors), Mexico, with 5 cardinals (4 electors), and the Philippines, with 2 cardinals (1 elector). In the last conclave, American votes counted for more than Mexico, Brazil, and the Philippines combined, 11 to 9. (Those three countries represent a block of 340 million Catholics, more than 30 percent of the global total). American votes also outnumbered all of Africa (10 electors).

This context is important to keep in mind when American Catholics wonder why Rome seems to be slow to respond to our crises and needs. From the point of view of many in the Catholic church, America has been at the top of the heap for too long.

Asia: Asia went from 11 million Catholics to 107 million, a growth rate of 861 percent. Much of this growth, however, is accounted for by demographics rather than conversions, above all in the Philippines. There are only about 37 million Catholics in all of Asia outside the Philippines. (A reported 13 million are in China). Pope John Paul II defined Asia as the great missionary horizon of the church in the 21st century, and that ambition certainly has something to do with the importance attached by the Holy See to diplomatic relations with China. Given the obvious stirrings of spiritual interest in China, and the reality that there is no dominant religious institution in the country, some China-watchers believe an opening on religious liberty could be followed by a rapid burst of Christian expansion. If there are 13 million Chinese Catholics today, there could be 100 million within a couple of generations. Further, just as Latin America set the theological tone for the church in the 1980s with the Liberation Theology movement, today Asian theologies of religious pluralism, reflecting on how Christianity should understand the role of religious diversity in God's providence, set the agenda. We'll come back to this later.

Latin America: Latin America is home to roughly half the world's Catholics, at 520 million. Four of the ten largest Catholic countries in the world are in Latin America: Brazil, Mexico, Colombia and Argentina. Despite its youth and dynamism, the church in Latin America is in some ways under siege, facing pressure from the so-called "sects.," aggressively missionary neo-Protestant movements, often charismatic and Pentecostal. Guatemala, for example, was 95 percent Catholic a generation ago; today it is 60 percent. Peru was 97 percent Catholic at the time of a 1992 national census; in 2002, the figure was 75 percent. Similar figures could be repeated in many other nations. While some observers argue that many of these conversions are either transient or incomplete, pointing to the phenomenon of the "Guadalupe Protestant" (i.e., a evangelical who still takes part in Guadalupe festivals, prays the rosary, and so on), the evidence seems to be that most Latin Americans who became evangelical at least a decade ago have remained in an evangelical church rather than returning to Catholicism.

There's a strong sense among many Latin American Catholics that their time is coming to offer leadership to the universal church. In effect, the runner-up in the conclave of 2005 was a Latin American, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina, and many cardinals believe the Latin Americans will be strong runners the next time around.

Summary: Philip Jenkins estimated in The Next Christendom that by 2050, only one-fifth of the world's Christians will be non-Hispanic Caucasians. Increasingly, power and influence in global Christianity will shift with population. Manila and Nairobi and Abuja will be, in a sense, what Leuven and Paris and Milan were for much of church history, i.e., the leading centers of intellectual and pastoral energy in the church. Leadership will come from these regions, and the issues of concern to the South will increasingly become the priorities of the global church.

3) The Middle East
This is a small, but politically and theologically important, constituency. There are roughly 2.1 million Catholics in union with Rome in the Middle East, with the largest groupings in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and the Holy Land. These populations are in decline, as the pressures of the Intifadah, economic stagnation, and the rise of Islamic radicalism are driving them away. Today there are more Palestinian Christians in Australia, for example, than in Palestine. In the town of Bethlehem, the proportion of the population which is Christian has dropped from 80 percent before 1948 to less than 33 percent today. There is considerable alarm that the out-migration of Chaldean Christians from Iraq will accelerate due to fears about weak religious freedom provisions in the country's new constitution. It is almost impossible to overestimate the importance of these trends for understanding the foreign policy of the Holy See. At the symbolic level, the idea that the land of Christ might be empty of Christians, that the holy sites might become museums (like Hagia Sophia in Istanbul) is a subject of deep psychological alarm. Practically, the Holy See worries that if Christianity disappears from the Arab world, then a value bridge between the West and Islam will be lost. Hence while their numbers may be small, the fate of Arab Christians looms large in the imagination of Vatican policy-makers.

1) Europe
Europe claims 283 million Catholics, but in many places the practice of the faith is relatively inert; in countries such as Belgium, France and Holland, for example, rates of weekly Mass attendance dip as low as five percent. This is true for all the traditional Christian denominations. There are now more Muslims who go to Mosque on Friday in Great Britain, for example, than Anglicans who go to church on Sunday. Europe's fertility rates are also dropping; the lowest rates in human history, roughly 1.2 percent, have been recorded in Italy and Spain, traditionally Catholic nations. As one small but significant window into the historic shift underway, it's worth pointing out that today there is only one actual Roman among the 181 members of the College of Cardinals, retired 88-year-old Cardinal Fiorenzo Angelini. In the conclave of April, not a single Roman cast a vote, despite the fact that historically the College of Cardinals is supposed to represent the clergy of Rome. That point alone symbolizes the gradual de-centering of Italy, and of Europe, underway in the Catholic church.

In Eastern Europe, by way of contrast, rates of Mass attendance and vocations are generally higher, outside the Czech Republic and former Eastern Germany, where Soviet-era atheism made its greatest inroads. In some places in Eastern Europe, such as Ukraine, Catholic communities are experiencing a Renaissance, related to the sensation of having survived the Soviet period with new confidence and a sense of mission.

Given this overview, one point seems clear: in the Catholicism of the 21st century, the global south, perhaps especially Africa and the Philippines, will play increasingly important roles in setting the global agenda. As this shift unfolds, as the voice of the south is heard, what themes are likely to emerge? Without any pretense of being comprehensive, here are five:

Inculturation: Catholicism is one faith, but it has to be expressed through many cultures. Striking the right balance between unity and diversity will be a defining challenge in the church of the future, especially as a faith incubated in Europe and the West continues to expand and come of age in cultures with very different attitudes, instincts and modes of expression. Generally speaking, theologians and prelates from the developing world will push for greater freedom to adapt Eurocentric models of worship and doctrinal expression of the Western church to their own circumstances. Further, as immigration and cultural mobility increasingly bring the South to the doorstep of the West, the patterns of thought, life and worship of the South will more and more be part of the warp and woof of the church everywhere. Liturgy is one arena in which this tension will work itself out. These trends may push the envelope in terms of Western sensibilities. In general, southern Christianity tends to be more spontaneous, with a much more lively sense of the supernatural - healings, visions, prophecies, possessions and exorcisms, and so on. African worship in particular tends to be heavily charismatic. As Roman Catholicism in the future speaks with an African and Hispanic accent, it will also speak in tongues.

Poverty/Globalization: During the daily General Congregation meetings that led up to the conclave in April, several African cardinals gave moving interventions pleading with the next pope, whoever it would be, to put the struggle against poverty and chronic under-development at the top of the church's agenda. For many African Christians, the defining issues for the church are not the usual topics in the West -- birth control, women in the church, theological dissent, and so on. African Catholics will of course have different views on these questions, but by and large the overwhelming majority of Southerners regard them secondary. The truly urgent matters, they tend to believe, are poverty, war, the arms trade, HIV/AIDS, and structural reform of the international economic system. Hence as the South comes of age in the church, its focus will to some extent be increasingly ad extra rather than ad intra.

Religious Pluralism: There's a sense in which Asian Catholicism is to the Catholic church today what Latin America was in the 1970s and 1980s, that is, the frontline of the most important theological question of the day. In Latin America, the debate was over liberation theology, and more broadly, the proper relationship between Christianity and politics. Today, it's over what theological sense to make of religious diversity, meaning whether or not we can say that God wills religious diversity, and if God does will it, what does that do to Christianity's missionary imperative? In Asia, the social reality of Christianity as a tiny minority surrounded by millennia-old religious traditions such as Hinduism and Buddhism makes this an urgent, and inescapable, theological challenge. Virtually all the major cases and documents that have come through the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in the last decade and a half, from Tissa Balasuriya to Jacques Dupuis to Dominus Iesus to Roger Haight, have pivoted on these fundamental questions. In the years to come, we can expect the question of Christian teaching about other religions to increasingly occupy the center of the research agenda in Catholic theology.

Traditional Sexual Morality: Catholics in the developing world tend to hold traditional views on matters of the family and sexual morality -- homosexuality, gender, and so on. As the South comes of age, the Catholic church will be proportionately less likely to tolerate liberal positions on these questions. For a point of comparison, consider the debate within the Anglican Communion after the consecration of an openly gay bishop in the United States. Anglicans worldwide number 76 million, but that includes 26 million in the Church of England, only 1.2 million of whom are regular communicants. Meanwhile, there are 17.5 million Anglicans in Nigeria and 8 million in Uganda, and in both places the vast majority is active. More than half the global membership of the Anglican Communion is today non-Western. Episcopalians in the States are only 2.4 million. The African bishops have declared that they are not in "full communion" with the Episcopalians, and some predict a formal schism.

Consider this comment, made just two weeks at a Sant'Egidio conference in Lyon, France, by Bishop Sunday Mbang, chairperson of the World Methodist Council: "I and many African Christians are always at a loss to comprehend the whole issue of human sexuality. What really informed the idea of same-sex marriage among Christians? What is the authority for this rather depraved new way of life? Then there is the issue of this same people, who have voluntarily excluded themselves from procreation, a gift given to all men and women by God, adopting other people's children. What moral right have they to do so? Why should people who do not desire to have children go after other people's children?"

Some suggest that as Africa develops economically, more relativized secular attitudes on sexual morality will take hold there as they have in much of the West. Archbishop John Onaiyekan of Abuja, Nigeria, told me some time ago that he finds this a patronizing Western conceit, as if to say, "Once the Africans get out of their huts and get some education, they'll think like us." He predicts that if anything, as Africa's self-confidence and development levels grow, it will become bolder about asserting its moral vision on the global stage.

Islam: Western Catholics, with a few well known exceptions, tend to emphasize dialogue and welcome with respect to Islam. Many Catholic bishops in the South, especially Africa, take a harder line, insisting that the church must stand up for itself in situations of conflict, especially in states where Islam is in the majority and seeks the application of Islamic law. This is likely to press the Catholic church towards a more cautious stance with respect to Islam, especially around issues of reciprocity -- that is, the obligation of Islamic states and regions to reciprocate the religious freedom and the protection of law offered to Islamic minorities in the West. Phenomena such as the $65 million Mosque in Rome, the largest in Europe, while the one million Christians in Saudi Arabia cannot legally import Bibles, will be less likely to pass under silence within church circles. We saw movement in that direction during Pope Benedict XVI's meeting with Muslims in Cologne, Germany, during World Youth Day, where he stated bluntly that a country that does not respect religious freedom is not worthy of the name "civilization," effectively suggesting that Muslim nations under shariah are not fully civilized. The rise of the South will increasingly push this sort of reflection about the relationship with Islam to the top of the church's agenda.

These realities already are at work shaping the contours of Roman Catholicism. In many ways, they promise exciting times, as fresh voices are heard in Catholic debate and new energy pushes the church forward in theological exploration, in social engagement, and in spiritual expression. It's analogous in some ways to the early Christians encountering the Greco-Roman world, or the Christianity of the late Roman Empire adjusting itself to the rise of the Barbarian tribes, or the impact on Christian consciousness of the discovery of the so-called "New World" in the 15th and 16th centuries. We are living through another of those geological transitions in church history where the plates are realigned, giving rise to new ecclesial topography.

One kind of American Catholic, for example, might propose a different set of priorities for the church of the future, especially in the wake of the sexual abuse crisis: greater accountability for bishops, empowerment of laity, democratic and transparent procedures of administration, and a review of some questions of sexual morality. This should not be read to suggest that only Americans are concerned with these matters, or that all Americans are, but rather that Americans are proportionately more likely to rate these as top priorities than Catholics in some other parts of the world.

Without drawing conclusions on the merits, the plain truth is that most of these points are unlikely to be driving issues for the global church of the 21st century. In my experience, they do not come up much when you ask Africa, Asian and Latin America leaders about the key challenges facing the church. This does not mean Catholics from the South always oppose these things; in fact, Asian bishops, to take one example, are known for their relatively democratic and transparent style, and often think Rome could do with a little more of it. In general, however, they don't spend a great deal of time thinking in these terms.

Understanding how the rest of the Catholic world sees things is critical to effective communication. To give a concrete example, I recall vividly in April 2002, when John Paul II summoned the American cardinals to Rome, how astonished American reporters who followed them were to discover that from the point of view of many in the Vatican, the big religion story that spring was not the American sex abuse crisis, but the Israeli/Palestinian standoff at the Basilica of the Nativity in Bethlehem. (It was a discovery all by itself that the sex abuse story was not on the front pages of Italian papers). There was a sort of crash-course that went on over those 48 hours; Vatican officials finally grasped the pressure-cooker media environment the American bishops had been dealing with, and at least some reporters got a window into what the American bishops were up against.

The bottom line is that in a globalized church, America's sense of what's important, which issues need immediate engagement and which can wait, what the pope ought to be thinking about when he gets out of bed in the morning, will increasingly yield pride of place.

This reality will pose a challenge to the "catholicity" of some American Catholics. How willing are we to see ourselves as part of a worldwide family of faith, even if things don't go the way we believe they should? To what extent can we accept that Roman Catholicism is a maddeningly complex welter of different, and at times competing, cultures, theological schools, political agenda and private instincts, the interplay among which always involves compromise, disappointment, and frustration? Can we bring ourselves to accept that the church before our eyes will probably never be the church of our dreams, and perhaps that's for the best, since our own dreams are always more limited than those of the entire communion spread across space and through time?

These are complicated, difficult questions, and thank God I'm not paid to have answers to them. I look forward to discussing them with you.

Amen, brother. I think liturgically there will be a slight advance to the rear under Pope Benedict (whom I love) but you are certainly correct in your other points.

My Parish is teeming with converts - protestants, at least 10 Jews and one Muslim famly of 9 - and I don't thnk that would have happened back in the day when Mass was what is now longed-for my some self-described traditinalists and we were Church contra mundum.

Vatican Two reoriented (pun intended) us to our true Mission - the Church as Missionary intending to bring the Good News/Salvation/Sacraments to all manner of men speaking all manner of tongues

Whats with this trad this or trad that or ultra trad this or ultra trad that BS... What exactly are you conveying with such morally relative subjective nonsense? Are you a non trad or semi trad pseudo non trad -maybe you just like appearing to know you convey something important when really you convey nothing?

I suggest you relate in tems of valid versus invalid -authentic versus inauthentic ALSO document your opinion if you consider your posting on liturgy to be instructional -save your meaningless BS for home use amongst friends that may be impressed... What you do for the body of Christ with this trad non trad BS is something you should consider as detrimental to the common good...

If you are ignorant of the terms don't engage those who aren't

As to the rest of your post - Pfffffffft

One can not be ignorant of that which is subjective -comprendre? LOL

Nor can one instruct in the subjective...

-I can only suggest you refrain from continuing your nonsensical use of moral relative terms -if you wish to continue that is your choice --know that there is at least one here who recognizes your BS...

Books in Review

Passionate Uncertainty:

Inside the American Jesuits

The Jesuit Enigma

Passionate Uncertainty: Inside the American Jesuits. By Peter McDon ough and Eugene C. Bianchi. University of California Press. 380 pp. $29.95.

Reviewed by Avery Cardinal Dulles

For my part, I can say that I recognize among Jesuits, as among other priests and religious in the United States, the various trends reported in this survey. The opinions of traditionalists, moderates, liberals, and radical reformers are dutifully recorded—even to the point of tedium.

*In other words, you don't know what in the hell you are talking about

It very well could be, and thanx for sharing that. I also remembering bookmarking a website for this "Hebrew" rite,jthere adherents, and their troubles and difficulties and why JPII allowed for it, but shortly after my computer died.

I'm glad to know that it is specifically called the "Maronite' rite, although I swear I thought they called it the "Hebrew" rite, and that this was kinda a recent thing. Huh.

"...save your meaningless BS for home use amongst friends that may be impressed... What you do for the body of Christ with this trad non trad BS is something you should consider as detrimental to the common good..."

Ahhh. Another of our bretheren spreading the Good Word I see.

I suppose I could attempt to adress your comment...but why? What good would it accomplish? Would it make you any less rude?

I doubt it.

My grandfather warned me to avoid urinating contests with skunks. I think I'll take that advice.

In other words, you don't know what in the hell you are talking about

Other words are the problem -I am a Catholic -what you are is something I don't know -you differentiate your self by subjective nonsense...

I suspect you are grounded by the moral relative and subjective in many areas -not just the errant postings I see -being grounded in the absolute is being certain and that is what Catholicism is all about IT is universal -Protestants on the other hand have many flavors -trads non trads etcetra etcerata -you sure you are Catholic?

I suppose I could attempt to adress your comment...but why? What good would it accomplish? Would it make you any less rude?

Rude -another meaningless term in relation to what I posted -that which you can not address...

You and 'borncatholic' appear to be cut from the same cloth... I suggest more study about Catholicism is in order...

"I don't believe Tradition is an American thing. Most of the world was evangelized and converted by the Traditional Latin Mass and those who said it. It's hardly a property of America."

I would agree that the traditional Latin Mass is the property of the western (Roman Catholic) church. Not just the U.S. church. However, I'm going to have to disagree with you a bit with regard to what I think you're implying, which is that the TLM is the international norm. From what I've seen with my own eyes, it just doesn't look that way.

I've traveled and lived abroad. I've gone to Mass in other countries, including Italy. In honesty, I've never seen a TLM or something I would recognize as the TLM outside the U.S. It was always the NO Mass. (I'd hasten to add that I haven't done much travel in Latin America and suspect that the TLM is much more common there).

The world that was evangelized prior to 1965 was converted by the TLM and those who said it. But here's the rub: where the Roman Catholic church has seen it's greatest growth recently has not been in those same countries that were converted by the TLM.

I want to be very careful to add a point here. It's obvious that there is a lot of emotion amongst traditional Roman Catholics about the TLM versus NO. I don't wish to imply that one is intrinsically "better" than the other. Because (1) I simply don't believe that, and, (2) that's a matter for the Roman Catholic Church and Roman Catholics to decide.

Like a protestant you speak in the vernacular.

The Authority Jesus gave each individaul Apostle/Bishop. They two have the power to Bind and Loose which, you will see as the seeds of Vatican Two's Collegiality bloosom, will include, eventually, the Bishop exercising maxium authority, within right reason and authentic liturgical principles, within his Jurisdiction just like Traditionally happened prior to Trent.

Back in the day there was a WIDE diversiy within Christian Unity. A return to Tradition is what I desire yet I seem radical :). Universal uniformity in matters Liturgical is not something to be strived for, imo

Simple-minded relativism is alive and well within the Christian communities. In its radically liberal forms it is poisonous of both faith and morals, while at a pastoral level such fudging of the issues offers nothing to people young or old who are looking for truth and principles.

The quote is from an article I noted that was just posted on FR:

Cardinal Pell on the Dictatorship of Relativism (Address to National Press Club)

The article touches upon the ills of relativism and provides some description of what it is and somewhat how one may fall into such thinking and subsequently erroneous justification or misinformed conscience. As the quote says -people are looking for truth and principles. Contradiction and or conflict are red flag that imply truth and or principle are possibly vacant on one side or the other that is conflicted.

I believe and am sure that such things as the divisive "trad versus non trad" stuff is rooted in Satan -it is not of God -such divisive 'stuff' which is truly subjective relativism only diminishes the Church and potentially turns some away that may be weak in faith or that may be contemplating coming home... I feel that the best way of avoiding the trap of relativism is to stick with what the Church teaches (even going so far as using the same terminology) further, one should attempt to document or reference what they convey when it is point of contention (this forces one to verify the absolute and objective and assure they are not simply practicing relativism)...

/I put my soapbox away

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