Listen up: bishops need to hear theologians debate.

Critics of Pope John Paul II claim that although he often refers to certain themes from Vatican II, he has failed to heed the "spirit" of the council. Quarrels about the "spirit" of Vatican II are often nothing more than partisan positioning, but an exchange in the February 24, 2003, issue of America between Cardinal Avery Dulles, SJ, and John W. O'Malley, SJ, illuminates the meaning of "spirit." Dulles, who tends to side with "conservatives" on various church issues, carefully extracted the doctrinal conclusions of Vatican II and noted that they do not in any way stray from traditional teaching. O'Malley, who is a church historian, countered by comparing the "style" of the Council of Trent with that of Vatican II. Traditional councils like Trent formulated their documents in doctrinal proclamation and condemnation. Vatican II's "style" of presentation differs sharply. Vatican II's style is discursive, not doctrinal; persuasive, not proclamatory. Paul VI spoke from the spirit of Vatican II when he said that the church's aim was pas vaincu, mais convaincu: not to conquer, but to convince.

Vatican II displayed a different way to be church; it changed the way in which the message was to be communicated. Changing the mode of communication may not change the verbal content of faith (Dulles can well extract traditional statements of "faith"), but it changes what it means to speak the faith. And the how of faith may be essential to the what: does a sentimental holy card tell the same religious truth as a Rembrandt etching of the Crucifixion? Does a colored plaster statue of Mary carry the same religious sense as Michelangelo's Pieta?

It did appear for a short time during the heady days of Vatican II that a deeper theology of church as the faith's medium and expression would emerge. Theologians such as Yves Congar, Karl Rahner, John Courtney Murray, and Henri de Lubac, who had been under official suspicion or outright ban, were recruited as periti to the assembled bishops. The council became an exercise in intense theological instruction in the dialogue between assembled bishops and recruited theologians. The documents of the council reflect the spirit of theological dialogue, not the proclamation of dogmatic conclusions. Unfortunately, this sense of theological interchange seemed to end with Paul VI's encyclical Humanae vitae, which upheld the traditional teaching against artificial contraception. The shock of Humanae vitae was not simply the prohibition of contraception, it was the fact that the pope unilaterally reversed the recommendation for change of two special commissions, the second of which was his own hand-picked group.

Vatican II's spirit was that of a learning church, open to debate and discussion, hearing from the many voices assembled, from bishops to theologians to (even) the Protestant and Orthodox "observers." The papacy of John Paul II has been a teaching papacy, obsessed with the assertion and reassertion of traditional doctrine. That teaching has been from above: didacticism without dialogue. Carl Bernstein and Marco Politi's His Holiness (Doubleday) says about John Paul II: "he seems to listen and ask questions of other people, but at bottom he does not really dialogue." In short, this has not been a learning papacy in the spirit of Vatican II.

Evidence of monologue abounds. At a Common Ground conference I attended in 2002, a monsignor who had spent ten years at the North American College in Rome commented on claims about "what Rome thinks": "You have to realize that there are three Romes: the Rome of the universities (the Gregorian, the Angelicum), the Rome of the generalates of the great religious orders (Dominicans, Franciscans, Jesuits), and the Rome of the Vatican. And they do not talk to one another." In an interview published in the National Catholic Reporter (November 21, 2003), Fr. Camilo Maccisse, the former president of the Union of Superiors General, which represents 240 male religious orders, criticized the lack of contact between his group and the pope. Neither his Union nor the counterpart union of women's religious orders has been able to establish direct dialogue. The most recent meeting was held in 1990.

Distinguished theologian Nicholas Lash summed up the abysmal failure of bishop-theologian dialogue in Great Britain after Vatican II. In a brief article with the provocative title "We Need More Than Mitres" (the Tablet of London, December 13, 2003), he recounted the efforts shortly after the council to establish a commission to maintain dialogue between bishops and theologians. The theologians were to act as a "consultative body" to the bishops. In the first five years of the commission's work, the theologians were asked to comment on only two issues: the appropriate age for confirmation and whether people could receive Communion more than once a day. Lash concludes:

  What continues to be quite lacking ... is any sense from the bishops'
  conference of its recognition that the grave cultural and pastoral
  crisis in which we find ourselves has, ineluctably, profound and
  far-reaching theological implications for every aspect of the church's
  structures, life, and mission.

Given my "liberal" leanings, it would be all too easy to imagine that the demand for dialogue is a special concern of "liberals" and the "democratic left" in the Catholic community. Not so. Germain Grisez, an influential, learned, and deeply conservative moral theologian is as much exercised by the lack of dialogue between theologians and bishops as radicals from Call to Action. He laments not just the fact of deep disagreement and dissent among Catholic theologians, but even more the failure of the hierarchy to admit that there is dissent and to address the crisis entailed in conflicting views. His remedy (speaking to a bishop at the Ninth Bishops' Workshop):

  First you [the bishops] must face up to the disagreement. Then give me
  and those who disagree a chance to come before you and the Holy Father
  ... and present our views and argue with each other. Sit still and
  listen until you learn what the issues are, and what you think about
  them. Ask us questions, and make us answer until you've heard all you
  want to hear. When that's done, both sides will have had a very fair
  opportunity to tell you what they're thinking. Then throw us out. Send
  us home.
  Then sit down with the Holy Father. And ask yourself this very
  important question: What is the Catholic faith here?

Grisez is suggesting a learning session like Vatican II where bishops and theologians dialogue. "Sit still and listen," then you send the theologians home. It often seems that the Vatican prefers to throw out the theologians straight off. Rome bars the door to dialogue so that there is not even the mere appearance of disagreement or dissent. The garment of the church is not only spotless; it isn't even fraying at the edges.

The Vatican's desire to avoid controversy and even the appearance of controversy seems to govern the present appointment of bishops. Doctrinal orthodoxy--often on the controverted issue of artificial contraception--has become a litmus tests for episcopal appointment. Grisez rejects such a strategy:

  I have heard the line, "The Holy See seems to be following a policy of
  trying to appoint 'better bishops.'" That strategy isn't going to work
  ... [B]ishop appointments don't answer [dissenting theologian] Charlie
  Curran's questions. They don't answer my arguments. They don't answer
  anything. And the questions have to be answered. The modernist
  controversy should have taught the church one thing: Questions must be
  faced up to and answered. They won't go away.

Given the lack of conversation between theologians and bishops (up to the bishop of Rome himself), it is worth offering a biblical comment on the role of bishops and theologians. The late Raymond E. Brown, SS, perhaps the most respected Catholic Scripture scholar of his day, described the sharp distinction between Apostles and bishops (Priest and Bishop, Paulist). There were two senses of "apostle" in the earliest church: the twelve who, as those who witnessed Jesus in the flesh, were the guardians of "orthodoxy." Then there was the missionary apostle represented by Paul. What is crucial in assessing the present circumstance of the church is that none of the apostles were bishops--even Peter who, though he may have gone to Rome, was certainly not in any manner "bishop of Rome." In the early church, bishops were the leaders left behind. Thus, after one of Paul's missionary forays, he would move on and sometimes leave behind someone to guard the teaching. Over a period of time, the two apostolic functions (orthodoxy and missionary preaching) devolved onto the "bishops," though that was clearly not their original function. Brown's assessment of the coalescence of apostolicity on the office of bishop is telling:

  The unexamined claim of apostolic succession [in the office of bishop]
  can cause confusion about the theological role of the episcopate in
  several ways. Excellent bishops have put themselves in a vulnerable
  and even ludicrous position by making dubious theological
  pronouncements, not because they were proud men, but because they felt
  that as part of their apostolic office they must supply the answers to
  the dogmatic and moral problems of the time.

He goes on to offer a possible solution to the "overload" of function on the contemporary office of "resident" bishop:

  Perhaps then it would be wise for Catholics to affirm explicitly, and
  not merely implicitly, that in the modern church some of the principal
  activities of the Pauline apostolate, especially as regards offering
  leadership to face new religious problems, have been taken over by men
  and women who are not bishops--by theologians, by enterprising priests
  and religious who by circumstances are thrust into new situations, and
  by perceptive laity with their manifold competencies.

The ultraconservative construction of church collapses all the apostolic functions into the hierarchic office of bishop, centered ultimately in the magisterium and the bishop of Rome. Brown's modest proposal changes the sense of church by locating missionary-apostolicity in the work of theologians and even the competencies of perceptive laypeople--maybe even women! This is a change in the church which is much more than laity auditing the books and checking on errant clergy; it transfers direct apostolic function outside the vested episcopal hierarchy. Brown sees a continuing dialogue of theologians and resident bishops, but he concludes that only through such dialogue--drawing on the larger resources of the church--can apostolic succession be realistic.

I recently attended an earnest conference on the role of the laity in the life and governance of the church. Dialogue between laity and bishops was the demand of the day. The moderator challenged the audience: "What are you--bishops, priests, laity--afraid of about dialogue?" As a layman, I fear that no one's listening at the top.

Dennis O'Brien is the author of, most recently, The Idea of a Catholic University (University of Chicago Press).