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American archbishop advocates new power-sharing structures in the Catholic Church [vaticaninsider.lastampa.it]

Excellent article.

I have to note that the elephant in the room isn't even tangentially referenced... That would be of course ...... the "O" word...

Thanks for sharing this article.

It is hard to know what form exactly these structures would take--and the precise form would naturally be very important--but it is very encouraging.

Yes, what we need in the Roman Church is more Bishops (and more powerful ones to boot).

This is all fine and dandy but whereas an Orthodox Bishop would not dream of disturbing the Sacred patrimony which he has been handed, a Roman Bishop wouldn't give it a second thought.

Let us work on bringing unity to the full Catholic and Orthodox Faith before we can talk about expanding authority in the broader Roman church.

Physiologically they are not prepared for it (would that they were).

Vatican II was supposed to establish national and regional bishop's conferences as the first step towards a real synodal structure. Unfortunately, those conferences were almost immediately stripped of all authority, and, if anything, the Latin Church today is more, not less, centralized than it was in the days of Pius XII. This is what happens when people take counsel of their fears. Even Pope John Paul II, who used to begin so many homilies with "Be not afraid", was too timid to enact the vision of the Council.

I have to say that the time is not right for decentralization. The RC bishops need to learn not to tamper with Tradition (big T and small t) before we can do some decentralization. If we do it now, I'm afraid we'll get something more akin to anglicanism than orthodoxy.

Like it or not it is coming!

The time is NEVER right, it would seem. And the only way in which bishops can learn to exercise proper authority with responsibility is to allow them to exercise both authority and responsibility. The training wheels have to come off, and if the rider falls a few times, that's part of learning to ride. But if you never take off the training wheels, he'll never master that bike.

We would likely get some of both. But that doesn't really serve to vindicate the status quo.

I don't mean to dismiss your concern--I understand it--but I have to say I think it's finally a temptation (in the fullest sense) to think that we can control all the outcomes. We should recover a less centralized pattern of church life because it is the authentic Tradition of the Church. We really cannot allow ourselves to worry that the Church might somehow fail as a result. It's the Spirit's Temple, and the Spirit will guide it (and us) into all truth.

defreitas,

Is this archbishop not basically suggesting a return to true collegiality?

The Orthodox seem to deal with de-centralization just fine. They are guided by the same Holy Spirit as is Rome. We all share the same faith, despite being spread along vast territories. It's not the same with post-Christian denominations, such as Anglicanism, where one Church (say the TEC and CofE) preach heresy, where as the African bishops hold to orthodoxy.

Christ is Risen!!

I agree; excellent article.

From where I sit the problem is that the Christian East sees the preservation and living out of Tradition as a sacred duty; something to be diligently done. Tradition is the living out of the Faith guided by the Holy Spirit--the actual life of the Church. The West IMHO is currently divided into two camps: those who think they are in the same mindset--but see it as the either the Council or Trent or 19th century up to 1958--and those who think that Tradition before 1965 ought to be jettisoned and a new one formed since that date with people making it up as they go along (or even more radical in that everything should have no further reference point than the current date with even the Vatican Council being too dated). Neither is anything close to what the Christian East understands or lives IMHO. I think of liturgical committee members who think they need to make up how parishes do the great feasts each year as if they'd never been done before and who think things like rubrics and instructions from higher authorities are things to be ignored.

If I'm not mistaken, the thrust of Vatican I was to centralize the Catholic Church so that it would not spin off into national churches at odds with each other and having no point of common focus or unity.

I don't really know how to rectify this situation. Current catechesis is abysmal, to be charitable. It seems that once a person is confirmed each thinks he now has license to make it up as he goes along and all sorts of "faiths" seem to pass as Catholic, from those that would pass as fundamentalist and those that would pass as SSPX.

Bob

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Excellent point. You are correct. However, if the RC adopted a decentralised structure, it would pave the way for the Orthodox to unite with you. It would probably bring "T"radition back into the RC.

I think this is desperately needed in the RC.