Both ends against the middle: authors George Weigel and Peter Steinfels may share little common ground on the issues, but perhaps together they can offer hope for the future of the church.

Last summer two high-level meetings were held between groups of prominent lay Catholics and a small number of bishops to discuss the future of the church in the aftermath of the clerical sexual-abuse scandal. Why two? After the first meeting, held in July, a group of self-described "orthodox" Catholics charged--with some justification--that they had been underrepresented and asked for a meeting of their own, which was held in September.

Is this what we've come to? Catholics may come together on Sunday to celebrate the Eucharist, but increasingly it seems that we can't even be in the same room with each other to discuss the issues facing the church. When the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin unveiled his Catholic Common Ground Initiative in 1996, he had hoped to diffuse these tensions. That initiative has had some modest success, but the sexual-abuse crisis seems to have driven many Catholics even further apart.

While various constituencies within the church have been united in their anger at the scandal, they often have radically different analyses of its causes. Although labels can mislead, it is fair to say that "liberals" are more likely to link the crisis to celibacy, a male-only priesthood, and the lack of democratic structures in the church. "Conservatives" tend to place the blame on a "culture of dissent," timorous bishops, and what they see as an excessively tolerant attitude toward homosexuality in the priesthood.

Papal biographer and columnist George Weigel is a proponent of this second perspective. In his weekly syndicated column and his 2002 book, The Courage to Be Catholic (Basic Books), he has argued that the scandal has its roots in the tumultuous changes within the church in the wake of the Second Vatican Council. "The Catholic Church opened its windows just as the modern, Western world was barreling into a dark tunnel full of poisonous fumes," writes Weigel.

In Weigel's account, changes in seminary formation and parish practice led to a serious crisis of priestly identity and eroded the structures that supported priests in living lives of celibate chastity. Bishops, by failing to act effectively against widespread public dissent in the early 1970s, sent a message that unorthodox ideas--and perhaps unorthodox behavior--would be tolerated. Bishops were further hampered by a growing bureaucratization of chancery offices that made taking decisive action more difficult. The result was an ecclesial culture where sexually unhealthy priests were more likely to act on their impulses, and bishops were less likely to act decisively to stop them.

The solution, for Weigel, is to return to a theology of priesthood where priests understand themselves as "living icons" of Jesus Christ, with the differences between priests and laypeople more clearly delineated. "Priests who believe themselves to be what the Catholic Church teaches they are--living icons of the eternal priesthood of Jesus Christ--simply do not behave the way sexual predators behave," says Weigel. Bishops, for their part, need to see themselves as defenders of orthodox teaching and practice, rather than facilitators of dialogue.

A very different view of the crisis can be found in the writings of Peter Steinfels, senior religion correspondent for The New York Times and former editor of Commonweal magazine. Steinfels has followed the issue of clerical sexual abuse in the church for many years, and this historical perspective informs his analysis of what went wrong.

In his recent book, A People Adrift: The Crisis of the Roman Catholic Church in America (Simon and Schuster, 2003), Steinfels notes that this was not the first time allegations of sexual abuse had been aired, nor was it the first time bishops had been called upon to take stronger measures. The last wave of cases in the mid-1980s led to a strengthening of policies in most--but not all--dioceses. Most of the newer allegations dealt with events two to three decades old. While anger at the events of 2002 was certainly justified, the depth of that anger and the speed with which it spread still requires explanation.

Steinfels suggests that the deep anger among Catholic laypeople in response to the scandal revealed the extent to which the bonds of trust between laypeople and Catholic leaders had been gradually eroded over the past two decades. On the issues that touch directly on their own lives--contraception, divorce, the role of women in the church--the majority of Catholic laity have long since gone their own way and become increasingly cynical about episcopal and papal directives. Steinfels fears that this cynicism, coupled with a weakening of institutions that sustain Catholic identity, could well lead to a future catastrophic collapse of Catholic practice in the United States similar to what has taken place in Europe.

Given his diagnosis, it is not surprising that Steinfels' solutions are different from Weigel's. Steinfels seems hopeful that the structural reforms adopted by dioceses over the last decade (and made mandatory in 2002) will be able to deal effectively with new allegations of abuse. Repairing the bonds of trust between Catholics and their leaders, however, is a longer-term project. Steinfels argues that bishops will have to develop a more collaborative style of leadership and holds up Cardinal Bernardin as a model. He also suggests that the church needs to come to terms with the contemporary revolution in gender roles the same way that it once had to come to terms with the revolutionary impact of democracy in the West.

It is easy to look at the vast gulf that divides two of the most prominent lay Catholic intellectuals in the United States and despair of finding common ground between them. But that may be because we have misconceived what the search for common ground is all about. Part of the genius of the Catholic tradition has been its ability to live with tension and to make it a source of strength rather than weakness. Instead of asking how we can find a vague middle ground where both men can stand, perhaps we should ask what each brings that the church needs.

Weigel's strength is his stress on the importance of personal conversion and discipleship. Stricter policies dealing with sexual abuse may staunch the bleeding, but they will not return the patient to health. We don't just need priests who will not abuse children, we need priests, bishops, and laypeople who are on fire with the gospel. It has often been times of great crisis where the church's greatest saints have emerged.

But while we must hope and pray for holiness, history suggests that we would be unwise to rely on it, particularly with regard to sexual abuse. To suggest that "fidelity, fidelity, fidelity" is the solution to the sexual-abuse crisis is to avoid confronting the hard truth that it was some of the church's most doctrinally orthodox bishops who failed so catastrophically. In the wake of the scandal, laypeople are demanding greater transparency and accountability at the parish and diocesan level. They are likely to be increasingly frustrated if it is not forthcoming.

Steinfels' strength is his pragmatism and his avoidance of sweeping generalizations. While Weigel often tires rhetorical salvos at vaguely defined enemies like "Catholic lite" and a "culture of dissent," Steinfels' writings provide a careful analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the church's approach to everything from handling sexual-abuse cases to the management of its vast array of hospitals, universities, and charitable institutions. He has offered a number of specific and realistic proposals for strengthening the ability of the church to preserve its identity and transmit the faith to future generations.

But Steinfels' pragmatism sometimes seems inadequate to the task. In his discussion of liturgy in A People Adrift, for example, he suggests that improving the quality of Catholic worship could help redress the relatively low rate of Catholic Mass attendance. While many of his suggestions make sense, it seems unlikely that they will make much of a dent in the attendance problem.

Despite their serious differences, a reader can find--here and there--areas of genuine agreement. Both men agree that the process of selecting bishops has become too secretive and would benefit from the greater involvement of laypeople. Weigel argues that bishops should be drawn from the ranks of priests who have been successful pastors, a sentiment with which Steinfels would certainly concur.

There is no question that in times like these, the church needs its pragmatists and its prophets, those committed to preserving the old wine and those interested in crafting new bottles. The church is big enough to hold the likes of Weigel, Steinfels, and the many Catholics who find something of value in both writers. Let's hope that anyone planning meetings this year on the future of the church will find a way to get them all in the same room.

J. PETER NIXON, a freelance writer and student in the Pastoral Ministry School of the Diocese of Oakland. His weblog, Sursum Corda, can be found at http://sursumcorda.blogspot.com.