Rite and Reason: Should the Irish Episcopal Conference worry about what Pope Benedict might do where they are concerned? asks Jim Cantwell
It will be interesting to observe what policy Pope Benedict XVI adopts towards national bishops' conferences, often referred to in Ireland as the hierarchy. Just possibly, they could be in for a bumpy ride.
It was noticeable during the first decade of John Paul II's pontificate that Rome began to adopt a much more hands-on approach towards conferences than in Paul VI's time. It is no coincidence that this followed the appointment of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger as head of the Vatican's doctrinal congregation in 1981.
In 1984 he gave a book-length interview on a variety of church issues - published as The Ratzinger Report - to Italian writer Vittorio Massori. The cardinal approved the text of the interview, so his remarks were obviously carefully considered.
His essential message about bishops' conferences was that they tend to dilute the integrity of the episcopal office.
The role of individual bishops "is restrained, or actually risks being smothered" by their insertion into conferences, he said. "It happens that with some bishops there is a certain lack of individual responsibility, and the delegation of a bishop's inalienable powers as shepherd and teacher to the structures of local conferences leads to letting what should remain very personal lapse into anonymity."
He believed that in many conferences "the group spirit, and even the wish for a quiet, peaceful life or conformism lead the majority to accept the position of active minorities bent upon pursuing clear goals".
The search for agreement between different tendencies within conferences and the effort at mediation "often leads to flattened documents in which decisive positions (where they might be necessary) are weakened".
Ratzinger said he had known bishops who admitted privately that they would have decided differently if they had to decide by themselves. "Accepting the group spirit they shied away from the odium of being viewed as 'spoil sport', as 'backward'."
In Germany during the Nazi era conference documents were often "rather wan and too weak with respect to what the tragedy called for". The really powerful documents "were those that came from individual courageous bishops".
The case Ratzinger presented was a prosecutorial classic. No mention, for example, of the other German bishops who went solo in terms that must have confused Catholics and given comfort to the Nazi regime. He also omitted to say that individual bishops are perfectly free to speak and act independently of the collective and frequently do so. The authority of bishops' conferences is strictly limited.
Typically, conferences have a large membership, so they can be cumbersome and difficult decision-making instruments, frustrating for individual participants. But many bishops have told me they find the sharing of information, experiences, insights and resources within their national episcopates of immense benefit when it comes to exercising their own responsibilities.
When he gave this interview Ratzinger had served just three of his 24 years at the Vatican. His attitude may have changed since then. Indeed, in 1998 John Paul II articulated an essentially affirming message in the document Apostolos Suos.
Presumably, Ratzinger was involved in its drafting.
It declared that the concerted voice of the bishops of a determined territory "can reach people more effectively" when they jointly proclaim the Catholic faith on matters of faith and morals. It said the responsibility of conferences also included, inter alia, the translation of liturgical books, safeguarding Catholic universities and educational centres, ecumenism, church-state relations, the defence of human life, of peace, and of human rights and their protection in civil legislation, and the promotion of social justice.
The new Pope's policy will be of particular interest here because the Irish conference is the world's oldest national assembly of Catholic bishops, dating from about 1795. Sometimes the quality of its leadership has been hesitant and uncertain, at other times bold and farsighted. More than most conferences it has a tradition of issuing joint documents articulating the church's doctrinal and social teaching.
Agencies established by the conference have provided effective service to marriage (Accord), liturgy, justice and peace, emigrants, social justice, crisis pregnancies (Cura), catechetics, world development (Trócaire), and refugees.
Bishops' conferences were not established universally until the late 1960s, following Vatican II's decree on the pastoral office of bishops, which declared: "It is often impossible, nowadays, especially for bishops, to exercise their office suitably and fruitfully unless they establish closer understanding and co-operation with other bishops."
In fact, the Irish hierarchy had reached the same conclusion a long time before. Fr Seán Cannon, in his study of its first century, wrote that the bishops "had come to a recognition that in order to exercise their responsibility as pastors of the individual dioceses, they could and should take collective decisions affecting the whole Irish church".
Jim Cantwell was press secretary to the Irish Bishops' Conference from 1975 to 2000. He has contributed a chapter on the conference to Church With a Future: Challenges to Irish Catholicism Today (Columba Press). It will be launched in Dublin next week by the North's Police Ombudsman, Nuala O'Loan