Cardinal Faults Vatican for Lack of Free Speech

A leading cardinal hurled a stinging criticism at the Roman Catholic hierarchy Wednesday, saying that the Vatican “does not allow a real culture of debate” among bishops and that many are “scared” to challenge official policies because of careerism or pressure from above.

The protest by Cardinal Godfried Danneels, archbishop of Brussels, is believed to be one of the strongest Pope John Paul II has ever heard directly from a member of his clergy. It echoed several appeals here at a gathering of 155 cardinals for a more decentralized leadership during the rest of his papacy and beyond.

“We have to have cardinals and bishops who are really free and not pressured by others,” Danneels told reporters, repeating much of the speech he gave Tuesday behind closed doors. “The freedom of speaking is an absolute condition for good management of the church.”

Such a public airing of criticism within Catholicism’s senior ranks is unusual. It was viewed as a symptom of the 81-year-old pontiff’s failing health, his weakening grip over a powerful Vatican bureaucracy and the inability of his handlers to muffle dissent.

The cardinals, who end their four-day gathering today with a papal Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica, were summoned by John Paul to advise him on ways to revive the billion-member church’s missionary drive in the new millennium.

But while such slogans as “a globalization of holiness” dominated the Vatican’s official, filtered accounts of the speeches, two Vatican officials and at least six other cardinals rose in the Synod Hall to criticize the way the church is run. Some of them circumvented Vatican secrecy by e-mailing their speeches to reporters.

Danneels went a step further and gave a formal briefing at Rome’s Belgian seminary several miles from the Vatican. His remarks are significant because the 67-year-old archbishop is widely respected and often mentioned as a candidate for the papacy.

The Belgian was scathing as regards peers who, he said, hold their tongue so they can get promoted. “Bishops and cardinals who have career concerns are not good bishops and cardinals, and that is the problem,” he said. “Perhaps I’m too idealistic.”

As did others appealing for change, Danneels underlined a need for collegiality, or shared policymaking between bishops and the pope. The Second Vatican Council set that goal in the early 1960s and created bishops synods. But those regional bodies soon lost their legislative power, and today the church is run, as it has been for much of its history, as an absolute monarchy.

“Collegiality, whether we like it or not, is on top of the agenda in ecclesiastical public opinion,” Danneels told fellow cardinals. “The church will never be free from tensions” between the pope and bishops, he warned, but “the solution cannot be dancing on one foot,” weakening one at the expense of the other.

Cardinal Bernard Law, archbishop of Boston, suggested that bishops meet with the pope once a year, instead of every three years as they do now.

However, participants said it would be misleading to conclude that reformers came in a confrontational mood or dominated the meeting.

“The universal call to holiness--that’s the No. 1 issue,” said Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, archbishop of Los Angeles. “We focused on the mission of the church--who we are as Christians--not so much on the structures. . . . There was no throwing down the gauntlet” on reforming the Vatican.

Other cardinals suggested that any radical change is unlikely in the twilight of John Paul’s 22 1/2-year-old reign.

“I don’t expect any great structural changes until the end of the pontificate,” Cardinal Walter Kasper of Germany told CNN. “It’s impossible to change too much. For now, the spiritual dimension is more important.”

The emergence of a reform agenda was nevertheless remarkable, if only because the Vatican press office tried to conceal it. Papal spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls issued texts of only four cardinals’ speeches and reported a smattering of phrases from others--none of them critical.

None of the reformers’ criticism was aimed at the pontiff--who opened the consistory Monday and listened to the speeches--but rather at the Curia, or Vatican bureaucracy. One cardinal proposed a seven-year moratorium on Curia instructions and other paperwork flowing to bishops around the world.

Two Curia officials surprised their peers by joining the calls for reform.

Cardinal Mario Francesco Pompedda of Italy, the Vatican’s top judicial official, said local churches should have a say in nominating bishops, who are now chosen by the pope from lists of candidates shaped by the Vatican’s ambassadors.

Kasper, who heads the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, complained that even within the Vatican some officials issue doctrines without consulting their peers in the Curia. His council was blindsided last autumn by a Vatican document that asserted Catholicism’s superiority over other religions and Christian churches.

Advocates of greater local control seized on a more recent Vatican ruling, which clamped down on the use of gender-neutral terms in Mass and scripture that has flourished in parts of the English-speaking world. The ruling in effect barred a commonly used English-language model and required bishops around the world to translate liturgies from Vatican-approved Latin texts.

Cardinal Wilfred Fox Napier of South Africa complained that no one in his nation is capable of translating Latin into the country’s tribal languages.

“What happens when a Vatican ruling cannot be implemented?” Napier asked.

John Paul did not take part in the discussions. Because of his health, the meeting was viewed as a trial run for the conclave the cardinals will someday hold to elect John Paul’s successor from among their ranks. Cardinals younger than 80--there are 134 such now--will be eligible to vote.

Danneels said the consistory was helpful in introducing senior members to 44 cardinals installed in February.

“Some say it’s a preparation for the conclave, and it is a preparation in the sense that we’re getting to know each other,” Danneels told reporters. “But we didn’t do any headhunting for a new pope.”