DEMOCRACY AND THE SYNOD

I AM in touch with numerous
U. priests throughout the country, and I feel that it is necessary to draw attention to the widespread dismay and disillusion which exists among priests since the Synod.
Many priests are asking: what is the use of a National Conference of Priests, and what point is there in going through the processes of consultation and dialogue with clergy and laity, if, after all is said and done, our Bishops still go to Rome and completely ignore the views of so many back at home? Then. when they come back, write pastoral letters which give the impression of far greater unanimity at the Synod than in fact existed? Many priests feel that there is a lack of integrity and truthfulness in such tactics.
Similar feelings were aroused when the Pope went against his commission on birth-control. It is the same, on a smaller scale, when a parish priests sets up all the trappings of a parish committee, only to dominate it and veto its decisions.
Clearly we have yet to learn the place of dialogue in the life of the Church. We are passing from a Church run on authoritarian, almost paramilitary, lines, to a Church which will respect the rightful liberty of the children of God. Everybody is surely full of goodwill, and rather than imagine wickedness in high places, I prefer to ascribe any lack of truth to a certain subconscious defence mechanism which afflicts those who have the good of any institution at heart. (I have been guilty of it myself on a parish level.) 1 repeat, everyone is surely full of goodwill, but the old mentality dies hard. Those in authority should not consult unless they are normally ready to endorse the results of consultation. In my opinion, the papal commission on birthcontrol should never have been set up. In matters of faith and morals, the Pope and Bishops have the authority to teach the rest of the Church. Democratic processes are out of place here.
But in every other sphere of Church life. I believe that any member of the Church is just as likely to be right as a Bishop. In the matter of clerical celibacy, it seems that priests are in fact more likely to he right. And wherever their views have been systematically canvassed, they gave answers very different from those arrived at by the Bishops.
And when it comes to parish finance, the laity are more likely to be right than many a parish priest who at present decides how every penny of their money is to be spent. (Even if this is not true, and the laity might make mistakes, they are entitled to do so, since it is their money which is at stake.)
What is needed on the part of those in authority is the magnanimity to abdicate much of the power which they have inherited, not from the will of the Lord, but simply from human history, Only thus will Pope and Bishop avoid becoming more and more out of touch with the mind of the Church in many aspects of Church life. Only thus will they regain credibility in that sphere which is their divinelygiven prerogative: the proclamation of the Gospel.
(Fr.) B. T. Godden Secretary, Priests' Forum. Luton, Beds.
IN reply to Fr. M. F. Brown (December 17) I was certainly not implying in my letter that the recent Synod was democratic—at least not in the sense that he and the likeminded wish that body to be democratic. For by this they mean that the bishops, as representatives of national episcopal conferences, should have taken note of alleged majority votes in favour of optional celibacy by the clergy in various countries, and that therefore the final synodal decision should have reflected this reality.
But the Synod is not a kind of mini-Council set up as a deliberating or defining body; it is a consultative assembly, subject to the authority of the Pope, bringing various opinions on matters of import within the Church to the notice of the magisterium — which is in no way bound by them. In so far as this reflects (following Vatican II) a greater degree of "democratisation" or consultation within the Church, my point was that •those Catholics who pressed most strongly for such a consultative assembly should now shout "Undemocratic!" when its conclusions do not meet their own preconceived opinions.
Fr. Brown makes much of the surveys among the clergy in some countries that purport to show either a majority or a strong element in favour of optional celibacy. It may be asked how far these surveys or priests' conferences — represent the true feelings of every single priest in each country? While some of the priests who wish to relax the celibacy rule are no doubt motivated by sincere theological or pastoral considerations — how many in fact have had their attitudes shaped by the values of their secular milieux or by an inner loss of the spirit of dedication and sacrifice?
The Church, while mindful of genuine feelings about the whole question, cannot as a supernatural and hierarchical institution be expected to surrender such a grave matter as compulsory celibacy to a kind of TUC assembly where the bishops are envisaged as no longer having minds of their own but as card-carrying delegates representing their episcopal conferences — in turn influenced by a plethora of lesser national councils — and all hedged about by pressure groups wanting to change the celibacy rule.
It is to the credit of the vast majority of the Synod bishops that on the major proposition for maintaining the compulsory celibacy rule that they freed themselves from such a syndicalist strait-jacket. As true shepherds in Christ they took the longer and larger view on celibacy as it affects the good of the whole Church in the knowledge that to tamper now with the unique and dedicated role of the Catholic priesthood would be a grievous error at a time when instability and dissension in the Church have already weakened the convictions of many of the faithful.
D. G. Galvin Guildford.