A Church Divided

"I hope I die soon so that l can die a Catholic."

--Elderly woman parishioner of St. Thomas Aquinas Church, Ames, Iowa

Roman Catholic. The words are redolent of rich and solemn rituals chanted amid clouds of incense in an ancient tongue. Many American Catholics over 30 remember living in that history-heavy church as if living in a spiritual fortress--comforting at times, inhibiting and even terrifying at others. But it was a safe and ordered universe, with eternal guarantees for those who lived by its rules.

That fortress has crumbled. Before the Second Vatican Council in 1962, the U.S. Catholic Church had seemed, at least to outsiders, to be a monolith of faith, not only the church's richest province but, arguably, its most pious. When the council ended in 1965, American Catholicism had been swept by a turbulent new mood, a mood of opened windows, tumbled walls, broken chains. It became a painful experience for many, and over the next decade the casualties were heavy: nuns leaving their convents, priests their ministries, lay Catholics simply walking away from worship and belief.

The American Catholic Church in 1976--by far the largest U.S. denomination, with nearly 49 million members--is a less tumultuous church, its attrition slowed. But it is still a questing and divided church, troubled by colliding purposes and visions. An increasing number of lay people (themselves split on such issues as social action and piety, tradition and change) call themselves Catholic but are resentful of the church's authority over their private lives. Bishops differ markedly on the nature of their role and in the exercise of their power. Priests, nuns and brothers are now on one side, now the other.

The great gap between church teaching and practice troubles Cincinnati's Archbishop Joseph L. Bernardin, president of the U.S. Bishops' Conference. Said Bernardin in an interview in U.S. Catholic: "So many consider themselves good Catholics, even though their beliefs and practices seem to conflict with the official teaching in the church. This is almost a new concept of what it means to be a Catholic today."

Nowhere is the division more spectacular than on the issue of birth control. In 1968 Pope Paul VI issued his encyclical Humanae vitae, explicitly telling Catholics they were forbidden to use artificial methods of contraception. In 1974 a study of American Catholics showed that fully 83% did not accept such teaching. Moreover, attendance at weekly Mass dropped from 71% in 1963 to 50% in 1974; monthly confession, from 38% to 17%.

Those figures--and a theory to explain them--appeared this spring in a new book called Catholic Schools in a Declining Church (TIME, April 5) by Priest-Sociologist Andrew Greeley and his colleagues at Chicago's National Opinion Research Center, William C. McCready and Kathleen McCourt. Their conclusion: Humanae vitae created a massive crisis of authority in the church. An ethical mandate from the Pope, promulgated by his bishops, was quietly--if not without some qualms of conscience--rejected by Catholic families. In turn, there were empty pews in church, no more lines at the confessional.

The Greeley theory has been sharply questioned by some other scholars, by churchmen, and by people who cannot forget that Greeley is also a sharp-penned journalist. But many Catholics agree that Humanae vitae was, at the very least, a blow that shattered rising expectations for change. The Second Vatican Council had signaled to Catholics that they might have more freedom than they once thought. The crucial Declaration on Religious Freedom (largely the work of American Jesuit John Courtney Murray) stated that religious liberty was a human right--an admission the church had never before made. It was by no means intended to give Catholics carte blanche to disagree with their church, but with Humanae vitae, they did.

There is of course plenty of other evidence--and there are other theories--about decline and division in the church. The annual Official Catholic Directories have been carrying the statistics of decline throughout the decade. The figures show that about 3,100 Catholic elementary and high schools, out of 13,340, have closed in the past ten years, and enrollment has dropped from 5.6 million in 1965 to 3.5 million in 1975.

Some 35,000 American nuns and 10,000 priests--even a brilliant bishop--left their ministries, and sometimes even the church, in a great exodus. Some of them left explicitly to marry, others out of disillusionment or loss of faith, still others because they believed they could serve God or humanity more effectively in the then celebrated "secular city." There are fewer new priests to replace those who left. Seminary enrollment, at a high of nearly 49,000 in 1964, fell to a low of 17,200 in 1975. Only this year has there been a modest upturn--an increase of some 800--indicating that the trend may have bottomed out.

The departures of lay Catholics are less frequent now, but there were many. Some succumbed to what Greeley calls the "meat on Friday"* syndrome: "Once it became legitimate [in 1966] to eat meat on Friday, one could doubt the authority of the Pope, practice birth control, leave the priesthood and get married or indeed do anything else one wanted to," he writes. Although he rejects this factor as a major explanation of the religious falloff, certain Catholics found it painfully real. "Vatican II amazed me," wrote Author Doris Grumbach in the Critic, "because it raised the possibility of more answers than one, of gray areas, of a private world of conscience and behavior ... But like all places in human experience of rigor and rule ... once the window was opened, everything came under question. No constants remained, no absolutes, and the church became for me a debatable question ... I still cling to the Gospels, to Christ and some of his followers as central to my life, but the institution no longer seems important to me. I no longer live in it."

Many American Catholics had less trouble adjusting to the changes than to the dismaying failure to change in Humanae vitae. The reason: their Anglo-Saxon respect for law. That respect goes back to English common law, an evolutionary system that grew largely out of court decisions. Yet church law--or canon law--is basically Roman law, adapted by the Vatican from the Empire and pronounced by edict, popular opinion notwithstanding. Mediterraneans have long known how to live with Roman law--and church rules: they ignore them when they seem irrational or impractical.

Until the birth control encyclical ended the innocence of the American church, only a few U.S. Catholics had felt easy with such blithe disregard. Now their numbers are rapidly growing. Wearing his polemicist's hat, Father Greeley describes this new independent-minded Catholic in a forthcoming book simply called The Communal Catholic (Seabury; $8.95). American Catholicism's best hope lies, he declares, with such Catholics. As he defines them, they are people who "do not expect any important instruction from [the ecclesiastical] structure on any issue, ranging from sexuality to international economics." The communal Catholic, however, does seek "sacramental ministry from the church at such times in his life when such ministry seems appropriate and necessary--for some, every day; for others, only at rites of passage like baptism, marriage and death."

One influence in shaping this new breed of communal Catholic was, ironically, the teachings of the Second Vatican Council. The council's document on the nature of the church, Lumen gentium (Light of Nations), stressed that the church was not merely the Pope and his bishops but the entire "people of God," whose common convictions carry a natural truth of their own.

TIME correspondents found, in fact, a wide variety of convictions among the Catholics they interviewed about important issues of their faith, ranging from sex, marriage and divorce to the question of authority.

Questions That Won't Go Away

Most parishioners and pastors agreed that the birth control ban imposed by Humanae vitae is almost totally ignored. Indeed, says Father Joseph Murray, the pastor of St. Anthony's Church in Harlingen, Texas, "most priests are embarrassed by it." Yet many Catholics have done a good deal of soul searching before deciding to defy Rome. Says Kitty Parker, 41, of Our Lady of Malibu parish in California: "My husband and I decided to opt for birth control after a long time talking, reading and praying. It was our first major break with the church."

The Jesuits' Georgetown University and other Catholic colleges offer sexual-awareness sessions at which methods of contraception are discussed. Sue Peot, a freshman at Georgetown, reports that "a lot of girls here are on birth control pills." Ruth Fitzpatrick, a Catholic mother of three who lives in Fairfax, Va., says that "if my daughter wants to lead an active sex life, I consider it a moral obligation to give her all the information I can on birth control."

Last January the Vatican issued a new declaration on sexual ethics, deploring the "unbridled exaltation of sex" and specifically condemning premarital sex, masturbation and homosexuality. The statement exasperated many U.S. Catholics. Asks Theologian Daniel Maguire of Marquette University: "Is it not past time to declare a moratorium on the discussion of masturbation in church ethics?" Tom Cordera, a 21-year-old biology student in Ames, Iowa, recalls his reaction on hearing of the document: "I got the feeling I wanted to call Pope Paul up on the phone and say, 'Paul, where are you?' " Irene Prendergast, 36, a mother of five in Alexandria, Va., had " a similar feeling. "Paul has blown it. He keeps throwing us back into the Middle Ages."

Another sign of disaffection: the divorce rate among American Catholics is approaching that of non-Catholics. As one result, diocesan marriage tribunals have been examining an increasing number of broken marriages, and last year granted almost 10,000 annulments -- declarations that a sacramental marriage never existed. Says Monsignor Marion Justin Reinhardt, judge of the Brooklyn tribunal: "If two people really cannot live together, there must be some reason why not, and it should be up to us to find that reason. If we find it existed at the time of the marriage, then that marriage must be null and void. No body must oblige himself to do what he cannot do."

A number of Catholics feel there should be less circuitous ways out of a bad marriage. Walter Braun, a retired Army officer living in Lawrence, Kans., believes the church is in effect granting divorces without admitting it. "They give a lot of annulments now. It's a cop-out." Asks Washington Attorney Lee Murphy, who is no longer a practicing Catholic because he is divorced and remarried: "Why can a man kill a guy and be forgiven by the church, yet I cannot say, 'Father, I made a terrible mistake. I picked the wrong woman, and it was a disaster'?"

But even Catholics who are liberal on marital and sexual issues can be adamant about abortion -- at least for themselves and their families. "Abortion is murder to me," says Mary Ann Murphy, 54, of Alexandria, Va. "But I cannot jam my religious beliefs down someone else's throat." Jan Slevin, a nurse, refused to work in the obstetrics unit of Washington General Hospital because of the many abortions performed there. "In a case of incest, rape or some psychological trauma," she concedes, "I can see a morning-after pill or a shot to prevent pregnancy. But I think abortion is morally evil. It is a taking of life."

Matters of Rite and Wrong

The furor stirred up by the most visible reform inspired by Vatican II -- the modernizing of the rites of worship, most notably the Mass -- seems to have largely died down. In the years following the council, the language of the liturgy became English, not Latin; baroque high altars gave way to simple tables; members of what had once jokingly been called "the church of silence" were urged to sing hymns -- and often Protestant ones at that (a familiar favorite these days: Luther's A Mighty Fortress Is Our God). Instead of incense and plain chant, parish churches now offered folk Masses, Masses with "sacred dancing," mixed-media Masses. Comedian Bob Newhart, a practicing Catholic usually comfortable with change, ruefully recalls the "wakko wakko wakko " sound of a Moog Mass he once attended. "The priest said, 'Now let us all join together in the prayer we've know from childhood: wakko wakko wakko Our Father.' "

Thousands of Catholics still mourn the disappearance of the old Latin Tridentine Mass. (In fact, it is still celebrated -- illicitly -- by a few rebel priests, like Father Gommar De Pauw of Westbury, N.Y.) Some Catholics find the new rite too cluttered with movement, hymns and communal prayers. "I feel a little bit lost," says Mrs. Theodora Nardi, 53, of Manchester, N.H. "I miss the time for silent prayer. Now you jump and sing, 'Joy, joy!' "

Still, the majority of U.S. Catholics are comfortable with the new liturgies. Greeley's study found that more than 80% approved or even preferred the new rites. "When I was a kid, you didn't understand what was happening in Mass," remembers Janet Tambascio, a young mother who grew up in St. Columbkille's parish in Brighton, Mass. "You played with your rosary beads, which had nothing to do with anything. Now we aren't just sitting in Mass; we're participating."

One virtue of the new rite of worship is its flexibility. Priests now celebrate the Eucharist in homes, offices and hotels for small groups, as well as in churches. This freedom has allowed innovative clergymen to extend their ministry in intriguing new ways. St. Louis parish in Miami offers a Mass that uses young people in adult capacities--reading the Epistle and Gospel, acting as ushers, leading the music. In East Los Angeles, priests from Our Lady of Solitude parish celebrate Mass in the area's housing projects for members of barrio gangs who are fearful of crossing another gang's turf to get to church. And not very far away, in Orange County, Father Don Duplessis conducts home Masses once a month for a group of singles who call themselves the Orange County Catholic Alumni Club. "Here you don't feel out of place," said a participant at one of the singles' Masses last month. "When you go to Mass in church, everything is so family-oriented. You are always the one to walk in alone, stand alone and keep very much alone."

Catholics are still adjusting to another reform, the "new" rite of penance, renamed the sacrament of reconciliation, which was put into effect in most U.S. parishes this past Lenten season. It is now a longer process often involving face-to-face easy-chair conversation between penitent and priest (TIME, March 15), although those who prefer it can retain the anonymity of the old screened confessional. Says Lee Roach, 41, a Delta Air Lines pilot and usher at St. Jude's parish in Sandy Springs, Ga.: "We're encouraged to examine our motives. Now, when you go to confession, the priest may ask you, 'Do you believe you were sinning? Was it a turning away from God?' "

There are no round-the-corner lines yet for the new penitential rite. But the failure to confess does not keep people away from Communion, as it once did. Churches across the U.S. report an increase in the proportion of their worshipers who receive weekly Communion--from about one-fifth of them a decade ago to more than half today. One possible reason: the newer Catholic teaching suggests that it is hard--not easy--for a reasonably religious person to commit mortal sins, the principal impediment that would keep someone from Communion.

Communion with Protestants is becoming more common, although the Vatican allows it only under special circumstances, and bishops frown on casual intercommunion. At St. Thomas Aquinas parish in Ames, some of the town's many Protestants show up occasionally at Communion and are not turned away ("So many of them believe as we do," explains Pastor James Supple). Last Easter the Catholic and Episcopal chaplains at an Eastern university assisted a Lutheran minister in celebrating the midnight Eucharist--in a Dutch Reformed church. Catholics are generally enjoying a new freedom to attend Protestant and Jewish services. "In Oklahoma, we got into the habit of going down to a black revival church," says Jim Scott of Our Lady of Malibu parish. "At first we went down for the fantastic choir, but we really began to appreciate all those people praying together. In that group they were really one." Conservative Catholics are ecumenical for quite another reason. They sometimes go to "high Episcopal" Masses in order to enjoy Anglican rites that are now more traditional than their own.

Despite the slight rebound in the numbers of new seminarians this year, the church still faces a serious vocation crisis; already in some dioceses there are not enough priests to go around. That prospect may be partly responsible for a growing and yet unresolved debate over two alternatives that for the moment are unacceptable to the hierarchy: women priests and married priests.

Heads of women's religious orders, other nuns, laywomen--some 1,200 in all--met in Detroit last November to discuss and coordinate their cause. Says Elizabeth Carroll, a Sister of Mercy working at Washington's Center of Concern: "The arguments for women in the priesthood are unassailable." The bishops do not agree. Archbishop Bernardin argues that "serious theological objections" still stand in the way of women priests. Many Catholics are open to the idea, however, including an elderly woman at St. Columbkille's. "If a woman wants to be a priest, that's fine with me. The important thing is not who gives you Communion, but whether you believe that it is sacrosanct."

What may come sooner than the ordination of women is the option for priests to marry--or at least for some married men to become priests. But Pope Paul has no intention of easing the rule of clerical celibacy, and some lay Catholics have misgivings too. Says Nurse Slevin: "I cannot see how one could have children and be a full-time priest. He would have to spend more time on his children's development and less on parish problems." But Margaret Howells, of Fairfax, Va., finds that her experience of going through a marital separation "makes me call for a married priesthood." Says she: "The priests need to experience as well as study the problems and joys of marriage."

Monsignor William Stapleton, pastor of St. Columbkille's, believes the wholesale defections of priests were a signal from on high: "I think it's God's way of saying 'Hey, the priests are not the only ones in my church, and I can make use of the laity as well.' Lay people are the church as much as I am." Indeed, laymen--and women--are increasingly distributing the Communion bread, an innovation that is not always popular. Says Robert Drummond, 47, a lay minister of Communion at St. Ambrose's parish in Dorchester, Mass.: "I can see them crossing over the aisles to avoid getting Communion from me. I can understand that. To have a priest drum into you for 40 years that only he can give the Communion Host and then to see stupid Drummond up there--it cuts to the very core of people's faith."

A Dilemma for Pope and Bishop

Theoretically, authority in the church is exercised by the Pope in conjunction with his bishops. Time was when decrees of the Pontiff or the hierarchy on any issue were obediently accepted by Catholic Americans, as if they were the laws of God. No longer. In matters of faith as well as morals, Catholics seem to be making up their own minds. The Greeley study, for example, shows that only 37% of U.S. Catholics fully accept the doctrine of the infallibility of the Pope--a dogma solemnly defined by the First Vatican Council in 1870.

Many Catholics have come to like their new independence and even many priests agree that on balance, it may be a good thing. "Too long we had this parent-child relationship between the church and its people," says Monsignor John Sheridan of Our Lady of Malibu parish. "That had to go."

But to others, the new freedom is a problem. Says Fred Hess of St. Ignatius Loyola in Hicksville, N.Y.: "I think we need some hard and fast rules to go by." Even the progressive faithful feel that the church must maintain some kind of identity. Asks Mary Charlotte Chandler, a graduate student at U.C.L.A.: "What is the point of a church if it's always up to my own conscience?"

For the American bishops--and perhaps much more acutely for Pope Paul--it is a dilemma: how to guide those who seem to need authority without alienating those who cherish their freedom. Catholic Americans who have met the Pope in audiences in Rome are almost invariably touched by the Pope's personal warmth, but that does not necessarily enhance his credibility. Georgetown's Sue Peot expresses the feeling of many when she says, "The Pope seems far away, and not just physically." Suggests Frank Innis Jr. of Mt. Vernon, Va.: "Pope Paul has become a titular head, like the Queen of England."

A number of bishops are acutely aware of the problem, and have adopted a more pastoral, less authoritarian style. During an annual "walk for vocations" Archbishop Robert Sanchez of Santa Fe, the first Hispanic-American archbishop in the U.S., strolls along the street in jeans and a sweater with the teenagers of his diocese. Bishop Charles Buswell of Pueblo, Colo., a feisty innovator who parish-hops his diocese on Sundays, introduced himself to a five-year-old girl at a recent Mass as "Charlie." When he came down the church aisle at the end of Mass, the little girl shouted, "Nice show, Charlie!"

Individually and collectively, the bishops of the U.S. have been taking positions on social issues more progressive than those of many U.S. Catholics. The U.S. Catholic Conference issued an election-year statement in February on "political responsibility," advocating, among other things, unconditional food aid to poor nations, arms limitation, full-employment policies, and stronger housing programs. The bishops' administrative board recently called for full self-determination for Panamanians in any new Panama Canal treaty.

Yet some individual bishops have been less than liberal in situations closer to home. The archdioceses of Philadelphia and Los Angeles and the diocese of Gary, Ind., are all currently engaged in efforts to stop the unionization of Catholic-school teachers. Boston's Humberto Cardinal Medeiros railed against the racism in South Boston in an interview three weeks ago, then meekly apologized to the South Bostonians the next week.

Seeking a Delicate Balance

What is the future of the U.S. church? Jesuit Sociologist John Thomas is pessimistic about an end to the drift from the church. "Some like to call the present transition a 'second spring,' " he observes. "I see it as an Indian summer, which comes just before winter." Biblical Scholar John A. Miles, writing in Theology Today, sees Catholics caught in a no-win situation. If the church does try to exert some kind of authority, chances are it will only cause further turmoil and shrinkage. If it does not, it may remain officially large but "steadily weaker and more diffuse."

Others, however, believe that those who wanted to leave the church have left, and that those who remain are more dedicated. Author Sidney Callahan, who stayed in the church while her husband left it, sees a new spirit of voluntarism among Catholics who "want to make the church work." Bishop James Rausch, General Secretary of the U.S. Catholic Conference, feels that the church is entering "a time of healing."

That may be. While the church as an institution still faces formidable problems, Catholics as a people are displaying a remarkable tenacity these days, a kind of spiritual second wind that suggests that U.S. Catholicism might even be on the verge of a new period of vigor.

The most unusual of these vital signs is the Catholic Charismatic movement, which has grown from a handful of people nine years ago to a huge following now of more than 600,000 adherents across the country. The "gifts of the spirit" that these Charismatics cherish, such as speaking in tongues and healing, together with a heavy authoritarianism in some of their communities, alienate some fellow Catholics. But the Charismatics have some warm advocates among U.S. bishops.

Other prayer and Bible-study groups are springing up by the thousands across the country, and there are signs of a religious revival on campus. Notre Dame's provost, Father James Burtchaell, reports a strong resurgence in student piety there: Mass attendance is up and no fewer than 1,700 undergraduates are involved in voluntary charitable works (visiting the sick and the aged, teaching minority children in South Bend schools).

Though parochial schools have suffered an enormous decline, Greeley's study finds that 80% of U.S. Catholics are willing to spend more money to ensure their schools' survival. In a number of instances, parents have banded together to save threatened schools.

Catholic schools were recently praised as an essential force in the U.S.--by Lutheran Sociologist Peter Berger, who addressed Catholic educators in Chicago last month. Indeed, argued Berger, the Catholic Church is a bulwark of American freedom. In too many societies, the state has become the only moral power. If the U.S. is to avoid totalitarianism, he declared, "we must strengthen every institution that offers an alternative to the moral authority of the state." For that reason, "a strong presence of Catholicism--and that means an institutional presence--is in the public interest of society as a whole."

Is it a mission of the Catholic Church to serve the purposes of liberty? Perhaps it is. If man can only choose God freely--as Catholic theologians teach--freedom is a virtue both in the church and in society. American Catholics, heirs of a democratic tradition, might be able to achieve the necessary, delicate balance between the strength of authority and the risk of freedom. The Roman Catholic Church has been adaptable in the past, evolving, replenishing and renewing itself through the centuries. In the U.S. it may prove able once again to listen to the needs of the times and to apply the remedies of eternity.

* The practice of abstaining from meat on Friday, meant to emulate Jesus' fasting and to commemorate the day he was crucified, eventually became a church commandment and for centuries served as a kind of Roman Catholic badge.

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