A promising roadmap for ecclesial reform

In response to the Royal Commission Report, the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference (ACBC) instituted the Governance Review Project Team (GRPT). This team was tasked with crafting, “in light of Catholic ecclesiology,” a comprehensive response to the Royal Commission's critique of church governance.

Jun 07, 2020

By Richard R. Gaillardetz
In response to the Royal Commission Report, the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference (ACBC) instituted the Governance Review Project Team (GRPT). This team was tasked with crafting, “in light of Catholic ecclesiology,” a comprehensive response to the Royal Commission's critique of church governance.

After a year of study and reflection, that team delivered to the ACBC a potentially ground-breaking document, The Light from the Southern Cross: Promoting Co-Responsible Governance in the Catholic Church in Australia.

The Light from the Southern Cross is perhaps surprising in that it has received so much attention although it is a committee report.

In different times, and in a healthier Church, such a report would have received little attention, mainly because it would have been unnecessary to begin with. But today we have a Church wracked by scandal, yet led by a Pope with a bold vision for ecclesial conversion.

In this time of ecclesial crisis, The Light from the Southern Cross report may offer a road map for key elements of what such a conversion would require.

This report holds considerable promise. It is grounded in sound ecclesiology. It offers a frank admission of the failings of Church governance at every level, and it dares to offer very specific recommendations for moving forward with substantive ecclesial reform.

The drafting team included persons experienced in corporate and ecclesial governance – clergy, lay pastoral ministers, Church and school administrators, and leaders of Church reform groups. It also included several respected theologians and experts in canon law.

This breadth of perspective and range of expertise paid dividends in the overall quality of the text.

The path to decentralisation and synodality
The document builds on important themes central to this pontificate. Indeed, it represents the most thoroughgoing consideration to date of what healthy Church governance ought to look like in the light of Pope Francis’ dream for a synodal Church.

Its frequent ecclesial application of the principle of subsidiarity is particularly significant since both St John Paul II and Benedict XVI had questioned whether it was appropriate to apply this principle – first articulated in Catholic social teaching – to matters of Church governance.

Yet Pope Francis’ repeated calls for the decentralization of Church authority suggest that he has fully embraced the principle.

The Argentinian Pope has also insisted that synodality be enacted at every level of Church life. This document offers a raft of concrete reforms that would go a long way toward making that a reality.

It would be difficult to exaggerate the consequences for the pastoral life of the Church if the baptised members of a local Church were given genuine input into the appointment of bishops and the assignment of parish priests, as the report proposes.

How different would the pastoral life of a diocese look if diocesan pastoral councils reflected the diversity of the local Church and were regularly called upon for input before important pastoral decisions were made?

This would represent not only a check on unfettered episcopal power, but it would also move the Church well along the path toward becoming a genuine community of ecclesial discernment. --LCI (https://international.la-croix.com/ 

--Richard R. Gaillardetz the Joseph Professor of Catholic Systematic Theology at Boston College and the current staff of the BC Theology Department.

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