Bishops at Bay

Like most other establishments, the Roman Catholic hierarchy of the U.S. has had some hard times lately. Just three weeks ago, a $500,000 study of the priesthood commissioned by the bishops themselves concluded that a "serious and potentially dangerous gap" existed between them and their clergy. Last week, as if to confirm the findings, the National Conference of Catholic Bishops met in Detroit and drew its wagons in a circle.

The bishops' reaction to the report was swift and often angry. Most grudgingly accepted the sociological findings, which showed a majority of priests in favor of optional celibacy, but several conservatives pointedly noted that opinion polls do not determine church rules. But scathing attacks greeted a theological report on the priesthood prepared by a committee headed by Jesuit Carl Armbruster, of Illinois' Bellarmine School of Theology.

Shift Right. The Armbruster report earned the conservatives' wrath by concluding that there were no Scriptural or dogmatic grounds for forbidding either a married priesthood or the ordination of women. It described the "charism" of celibacy and the "charism" of the ministry as two separate spiritual gifts not always granted to the same person. In reply, Hartford Archbishop John Whealon recommended at a press conference that bishops "abort the present approach" in favor of "scholarly, disciplined theological research."

The most visible index of the conference's shift to the right was its selection of delegates to the worldwide synod of bishops in Rome this autumn, which will discuss problems of the priesthood. The only progressive in the delegation is Detroit's John Cardinal Dearden, a natural choice since he heads the U.S. conference. The others are clearly conservatives: Philadelphia's John Cardinal Krol, St. Louis' John Cardinal Carberry and Co-Adjutor Archbishop Leo C. Byrne of St. Paul and Minneapolis, one of the principal critics of the Armbruster report and a major figure in the 1969 resignation of his liberal auxiliary. Bishop James P. Shannon (TIME, Feb. 23, 1970). The alternates--San Francisco's Archbishop James T. McGucken and Hartford's Whealon--are scarcely more moderate. Since seven of the church's eleven U.S. episcopal regions voted that celibacy be discussed at the synod, the delegates will at least go to Rome with a mandate to talk about the issue, and they will also report on the ferment among U.S. priests. They will carry with them the consensus of the conference that men already married might be admitted to the priesthood under special conditions. But the delegates--and a majority of U.S. bishops--are opposed to optional celibacy, and that is the message they will take to Rome.

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