Archbishop Seeks to Curb Vatican Power

In a rare and dramatic appeal for curbing the power of the Vatican, retired Archbishop John R. Quinn of San Francisco will call today for restoring to bishops their historic role in appointing new bishops and fully participating with the pope in defining church doctrine.

At the same time, Quinn will urge the Vatican to convene a meeting of the world’s 3,000 Catholic bishops to begin a dialogue on issues that have deeply divided the church in a “turbulent age,” among them birth control, priestly celibacy, the ordination of women and problems of the divorced and remarried.

Not since the 1960s has a Roman Catholic archbishop taken so public and independent a stand in calling for widespread reforms in the church.

Quinn’s proposals, to be delivered in an address at Oxford University in England, comes a year after Pope John Paul II opened the door for discussion on how he or any future pope should exercise authority as supreme pontiff.

In his encyclical on Christian unity, the pontiff said he was willing to “find a way of exercising the [pope’s] primacy which, while in no way renouncing what is essential to its mission, is nonetheless open to a new situation.”

The proposals by Quinn--who retired in December after 18 years as archbishop of San Francisco and three years as president of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops--come at a time of increasingly vocal requests by American bishops for a greater voice in the affairs of the church.

A year ago, 40 of the country’s nearly 400 active or retired bishops endorsed a 12-page document challenging bishops to take a less subservient and more proactive stance in their relationship with the Vatican.

Quinn’s proposals are expected to draw widespread comment from throughout the worldwide church. They have already been translated into Italian and are expected to be widely distributed in the United States and Europe, where agitation for reform has been building for years.

Over the years, Quinn said, the authority of bishops has eroded, in part because political conflicts, such as the French Revolution during the 18th century, immobilized the local religious hierarchy and required the Vatican to step in and appoint bishops.

Since then, the bishops’ power has continued to flow to the Vatican bureaucracy, known as the Curia, despite church doctrine that invests bishops with the teaching authority of the church, in concert with the pope.

This fact alone, Quinn said, constitutes a barrier to unity with other Christian churches, particularly those with bishops. Orthodox and Anglican churches still vest great authority in local bishops and archbishops.

Quinn also called for full participation by local bishops in the appointment of new bishops. He said members of the laity and priests should also be consulted more seriously.

Currently, Quinn said, local bishops make recommendations to Rome, but they are sometimes ignored. “It is not uncommon for bishops of a province to discover that no candidate they proposed has been accepted for approval,” he said. Often, the recommendation of a papal nuncio--the pope’s representative in a particular country--carries more weight than the nation’s bishops.

Allowing local bishops a greater voice would in no way detract from the pope’s primacy, Quinn said. Until about 1800, Rome rarely intervened in the appointment of bishops in dioceses outside the papal states, he said. Of the 646 diocesan bishops in 1829, only 24 were directly appointed by Rome. Today, the pope makes all diocesan appointments.

Too often, Quinn said, bishops also play a subsidiary role in the development of church teaching, even though a bishop’s role as pastor and teacher is a primary function and, according to church doctrine, a God-given authority.

Instead, Quinn said, bishops have been reduced to the role of “managers.” Often, he said, the Vatican consults with bishops only after it has reached a decision.

Quinn noted that the Vatican several years ago halted publication of a new English-language catechism that was backed by most English-speaking cardinals. “This suggests that the English-speaking cardinals and the bishops of English-speaking countries were not competent as teachers of the faith to judge the appropriateness or accuracy of an ecclesiastical document in their own language,” Quinn said.

“A collegiality which consists largely of embracing decisions which have been made by higher authority is a very attenuated collegiality, and the question must be asked how such limited collegiality truly responds to the will of Christ and how it response to ‘the new situation’ ” mentioned by John Paul in his encyclical on Christian unity.”

As a retired archbishop--he is now a scholar-in-residence at Oxford’s Campion Hall, a Jesuit institution--Quinn’s remarks may not be as influential as they might have been if he were a sitting archbishop.

But some theologians and church scholars said Friday that Quinn’s remarks may be viewed as more credible because he is now free to speak his mind.

Initial reaction from several church watchers was favorable.

“I have not been so excited by the remarks of a bishop since I read the reports of the debates that took place on the floor at Vatican II,” said Father Thomas P. Rausch, chairman of theological studies at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. The Second Vatican Council, which began in 1962, ushered in major church reforms.

Father Thomas J. Reese, senior fellow at Georgetown University and an authority on the Vatican and the U.S. Catholic hierarchy, said Quinn will probably provoke both praise and criticism.

“If all he wanted was a peaceful retirement, all he’d have to do is keep quiet,” Reese said.

“I think he’s trying to propose a model for the church that will help it flourish in the next millennium. I think he’s doing this out of great love of the church and that’s why he’s willing to say this even if it gets him in a little bit of trouble.”

Quinn made it clear that he is not promoting a change in the church’s position and that he remains loyal to Pope John Paul II and the church.

“I am not here taking a personal position on any of these issues,” he said in his prepared remarks. “My point is simply to underline that issues of major concern in the church are not really open to a free and collegial evaluation and discussion by bishops, whose office includes being judges in matters of faith.”

“I speak completely in fidelity to the church,” Quinn wrote. “My reflections are offered as . . . the response of one who reverences the papal office and the person of the pope, who loves the church, who was born of her womb in baptism, who received the name of Christ from her lips.”