Let's talk: the search for the common ground.

Welcome, welcome, all hail to the new Catholic Common Ground Project. This initiative, introduced in the statement "Called to Be Catholic? Church in a Time of Peril," aims to further civil and charitable dialogue within our beloved but fractious American church (see, editorial, Commonweal, September 13). The larger goal is nothing less than a revitalized, renewed church ready to move into the next millennium.

Clearly, to start such a process of internal peacemaking is a bold and brave action. It takes courage to speak out and honestly confront the family's problems - while still living at home. Thank God the great and good Cardinal Joseph Benardin is heading this project; he has proven himself a trustworthy bridge over troubled waters. He is also a holy man who has borne many trials and has just announced that he has only a year to live. This project will be one of his last gifts to the church.

But if it is true that no good deed goes unpunished (at least in this life), Cardinal Bernardin will experience more pain and aggravation for his efforts to further dialogue and foster church unity. Already, the Catholic Common Ground Project has been attacked - appropriately enough from both ends of the polarized spectrum of American church opinion. Certain left of-liberal leaders of church reform movements cry foul because they have not (yet)? been invited to participate. Admittedly most of the twenty-four individuals announced as members of the advisory committee for the Catholic Common Ground Project - one cardinal, seven bishops, and sixteen priests, nuns, and laypersons - are irreproachable mainstream Catholics. They inhabit what I like to call "the Catholic center," or the radical middle."

The outstanding leadership qualities of Cardinal Bernardin and his committee members make it all the more surprising and troubling that sharp critiques come from some of Benardin's more conservative fellow prelates who fault this call for a common ground. They see the crisis in the church as requiring not dialogue but "a clarion call to conversion." Of course all Christians are always in need of conversion, but the suspicion lingers that "conversion" in this usage appears to be equated with double-quick submissions to the magisterium. Perhaps these critics of dialogue would like to see more of those "retract and submit" missives come from over the water.

At times, if rumor can be believed, such directions and loyalty oaths from Rome arrive by fax! Technological progress like this is almost enough to make one long for a primitive past when subsidiarity was ensured by the fact that it could take a papal legate months to toil over the Alps.

But those were also the bad old days when many Christian thinkers could champion the divine right of kings, a doctrine which must have helped skew the theory and function of the magisterium in the church. Slowly, however, Christian thinking on the liberty of conscience, human rights, subsidiarity, and social justice evolved and was proclaim by popes and councils. And just as surely, demands increase for more collegial governance within the church.

Intrachurch conflicts of conscience over difficult issues can no longer be quelled by some church authority unilaterally issuing a directive. It no longer works to demand that those who have questions must prove their commitment to Christ by silent submission. If there ever existed a time when a command structure could order "one, two, button your shoe, three, four, shut the door" - problem solved, case dismissed - those days are long gone.

A theology in which faithfulness to God in Christ is identified with unquestioning obedience no longer convinces the majority of loyal and devout Catholics. Indeed, theological distortions, misunderstandings, and abuses of authority are seen by many as the major problems afflicting the current church. An impasse has been reached when one version of Christian fidelity mandates silent, prompt submission to any decrees from a legitimate authority, while an other model of faithfulness to the church demands dialogue, respect for conscientious dissent, consultation, and collegiality.

And it is important to recognize that in these current debates the various participants who disagree may be prayerful individuals trying their best to be faithful to Christ. What is at stake here is not individual morality and good will, however, but what institutional structures and operational procedures are appropriate in our post-vatican II church. Consequently we cannot avoid engaging in fundamental dialogues about the nature of the church and the exercise of Christian authority.

In my opinion, intrachurch debates surrounding sexuality, reproduction, women in the church, Catholic institutional identity, religious education, liturgical practice, and how to pass on the faith to the next generation can only be resolved if we can settle our deeper differences over how loyal Catholics should proceed when in good conscience they disagree.

This problem is by no means new!

The New Testament reveals that from the very beginning there have been conflicts, dissent, disagreement, and differences of opinion over what the Holy Spirit asks of the church. How much unity and conformity must exist along with how much freedom, liberty, and diversity? Yes, surely we must have boundaries, limits, and a common authority in order to exist as a distinct community. The "Called to Be Catholic" statement certainly affirms the necessity of coherent definitions and boundaries. But to recognize the need for boundaries does not solve the problem of how we determine where such lines should be drawn.

While trying to wend my way through these dilemmas, I have been inspired by Saint Paul's words to the contentious church in Corinth. "Indeed," he says, "there have to be factions among you, for only so will it become clear who among you are genuine" (1 Cor. 11:19). Only debate, disagreement, and a certain amount of divisiveness can clarify and test what will build up the church. Differences and dialogue can be constructive. But then Paul goes on to set forth the basic Christian groundrule for all interactions among individual members of the body - that is, love and charity. "Love is patient, love is kind, love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way, it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends" (1 Cor 13:4-7).

The Catholic Common Ground Project proposes to put this counsel into practice with civil, charitable, and honest dialogue in its future conferences, consultations, and deliberations. It invites us to enter into another round of the eternal conversation. On to the next millennium.