Dear Joe: 
The bishops don't care about anything except preserving their
own power and remaining
unaccountable to anybody. That's why they hated the abuse scandal,
because it forced them to some degree
of accountability to the people in the pews.

I really don't understand why more Catholics don't just vote with their
feet and walk on out. My non-Catholic
friends are always amazed at how Catholics have NO say in anything in
the church, whereas their churches give
laypeople strong roles from the parish on up to the national conference
level.

The Catholic bishops' attitude is just "pay and pray, Joe -- that's your
job, and leave the rest to us, because we
know what's best for you."

Of course, what's interesting in all this is that the Vatican and the
bishops have taken all this power to
themselves, without any assent from the laity. Sure, canon law allows
appeals, but who knows about them?
Besides, those appeals are mostly to the very people who are the
offenders.

Claims that the laity are consulted are, as we all know, just so much
crap. When the pastor of my church in the
1950s wanted to build himself a $200,000 mansion [probably the
equivalent of half a million dollars or more in
today's money] in a working-class parish that certainly would have
opposed it, he got together his cronies that
he had appointed [not elected by the people, oh, no!] as his finance
committee, got them tipsy and convivial by
plying them with liquor, and then got them to sign their approval.
That's what passes for lay consultation!

The basic needed reform is for Catholics to reclaim their right to elect
their bishops and hold them
accountable. A lot of people think that Vatican appointment of bishops
is of divine institution, but that is totally
false.

The Catholic Church has no real democratic elements in it now, but the
priests and people of a diocese elected
their bishops in the early days of the church. Such great saints and
doctors of the church as Ambrose and
Augustine got their dioceses that way.

As the church got richer and more powerful, kings and nobles began
taking over the right to choose bishops
and abbots by forcing their choices of the younger sons of the nobility
[who wouldn't inherit] on dioceses and
abbeys. These church officials in turn were loyal to the king who
appointed them.

As recently as the early 20th century -- a mere hundred years ago! --
the Vatican controlled the appointment of
only about 25 bishops! Then, by concordat, the Vatican got back from
secular rulers the right of the church to
appoint its own bishops but never gave that right back to the people to
whom it belonged but instead kept it.
As a result, we now have nearly every bishop in the world appointed by
Rome and accountable only to the
Vatican. This is of very recent origin and not in conformity with how
the church was originally structured, not as
a from-the-top corporation, but as a confederation of
democratically-elected bishops with the bishop of Rome
as the "first among equals."

A good example of how awful things have gotten is the diocese of
Cologne/Koln. Under canon law, the
cathedral chapter ["order" priests attached to the cathedral] has the
right to elect the bishop with the Vatican
having only the right of veto. When the episcopal seat last became
vacant, the chapter three (3!) times elected
different priests to be bishop, and each time the Pope personally let
them know that he would approve only one
man -- his candidate. Finally, to allow the diocese to have a bishop,
with the greatest reluctance, the chapter
"elected" the Pope's choice, a man whom they despised and wanted nothing
to do with.

I repeat, the only thing the Vatican and the hierarchy want are power
and complete lack of accountability to
priests and people. And they have grasped all the power so successfully
that disaffected laity really only have
two choices -- vote with your purse and/or your feet OR stay and suffer
in silence.


Henry Dudek

902 Spaight St

Madison, WI 53703