A Dialogical Analysis Of Pope Benedict’s Visit To The U.S.
By Frances Forde Plude
[This paper was presented at a conference at St. John’s University, 2008.]
Recently several personal experiences have dramatically reinforced my commitment to communication dialogue – in ecclesiology (theology of church), in culture, and in the on-going life of the Catholic Church.
The first experience was a trip to Eisenach – a town in Germany with its nearby Wartburg fortress. I visited there the small room in which Martin Luther translated the New Testament, in 1521, from the Greek original into a poetic easy-to-read German. This new medium, soon in print, was to make the Scriptures more accessible to God’s people. Thus, I was reminded that the Catholic Church paid a huge price at that time because it did not really listen to the culture or read ‘the signs of the times.”
My second experience involves a Ukrainian dissident. I do not know how many of you have ever personally known someone who was imprisoned for their support of human rights. As I have come to know such a person myself it has re-focused my own commitment to the vital importance of dialogue, of listening, of feedback. My Ukrainian colleague, Myroslav Marynovych, was a young man in the Soviet Union when he was imprisoned and then exiled to the Gulag; he endured ten years of involuntary separation from his family, his friends, and what would be considered a normal life in Ukraine. What a price to pay for the opportunity to dialogue freely!
In a recent book of his writings he and I have collaborated on, Professor Marynovych speaks of a spiritual experience, while a prisoner, that continues to influence his current work in ecumenism. He recalls that he understood at that moment that everything starts from the vision of unification – “in the sense of uniting, not bringing multiplicity to uniformity”. In an age of blogs and uninterrupted voices in our media, including the Internet, it may seem there is too much dialogue today. However, many voices are still not really heard.
Many years ago, teaching in London, I wrote a book chapter[1] reflecting upon the importance of a listening church – a communion ecclesiology. I remember being aware back then that two-way communication technologies are a metaphor for a more dialogic church. I reflected upon all this in the light of the communio theology that emerged from the Second Vatican Council – a view that sees the Church as a universal fellowship animated by the Spirit.
In that text I spoke of:
The roles of participatory communication and authority
Shared responsibility among laypersons
Bernard Häring’s concept of “a listening Church”[2] and
How interactivity helps to remove passivity.
In organizing my current reflections on the Pope’s visit, I reflected upon that earlier text of fifteen years ago, in addition to a recent book chapter of mine[3] on the need for dialogue in religion and mediated popular culture.
Three principles articulated in these earlier works provide a methodological framework for these current reflections.
First, interactive communication tools play a key role in encouraging freedom of expression and the processes of negotiation throughout the world. Secondly, as Häring wrote in the 1970s, “A teaching Church that is not, above all, a learning, listening Church, is not on the wavelength of divine communication.[4] And, thirdly, there exists, as theologian Bradford Hinze has noted, “an unfinished theological agenda for a dialogical church.” (Practices of Dialogue in the Roman Catholic Church: Aims and Obstacles, Lessons and Laments, NY: Continuum, 2006, p 102).
Meanwhile our Church and our global culture have been rocked by the explosive growth of the Internet, cell phone usage, social networks, digital assistants, blogs and wireless technology – not to mention a sexual abuse scandal and a significant increase in lay ministries in the Church. The visit of Pope Benedict to the U.S. seemed like a good opportunity to reflect upon how all this interactivity played out – or did not – as the Pope spoke with U.S. Catholics during his visit. Interesting too would be how the media reported the visit both in one-way and two-way formats.
My recent personal experiences and reflections cited above also reminded me of a conversation I had with three international theologians fifteen years ago. Over lunch I asked: “What is the single most important theology issue today?” They all agreed: the local church. They said the unfinished agenda of Vatican II is the issue of the relationship of local churches to the centralized authority in Rome. For many this is described as “collegiality” and “communion of churches” – to what extent (and how) does the Church leadership in Rome share responsibility for reading ‘the signs of the times’ with bishops and clergy and laity around the world? This has, today, become a major issue with the Church in Asia and Africa as issues of inculturation continually arise. This was debated widely in Latin America by proponents of liberation theology.
All of this prompted me to review the reflections of several key theologians on the topic. A valuable text is supplied by the eminent German theologian Hermann Pottmeyer.[5] His work Towards a Papacy in Communion: Perspectives From Vatican Councils I and II was commissioned by Crossroad as a response to Pope John Paul II’s encyclical letter Ut unum sint. Pottmeyer says “this encyclical could begin a development in the course of which the papacy in its Latin form might become an ecumenical Petrine ministry” (p 13).
Pottmeyer adds: “Pope John Paul II’s admission of the possibility that the present way of exercising the primacy is no longer in keeping with today’s ecumenical situation has caused many Christians to sit up and take notice. For by this admission he opens the way for an ecumenical Petrine ministry” (p 14).
While I had earlier carefully studied Pottmeyer’s book, it was instructional to review it again in the light of Pope Benedict’s visit to the U.S. For in analyzing this visit I was forced to think about the possibilities of dialogical interaction between the papacy and the Church in the U.S and with the context of this local church which exists in a culture of many non-Catholic and other religious groups in the United States. I may add that, in recent years, my own work has introduced me to the Syro-Malabar rite of the Catholic Church in India and the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, both in union with Rome but exhibiting unique and valuable historical, cultural, even liturgical differences. How does the Catholic Church attain the unification (rather than uniformity)? My Ukrainian colleague envisioned in his prison cell.
Pottmeyer uses a rich metaphor. He says the Second Vatican Council is like the building site of St. Peter’s Basilica in the sixteenth century – with four monumental supporting columns that would later hold up the dome of St. Peter’s.
The work of Vatican II has remained a building site. Alongside the old edifice of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Vatican centralization arise the four mighty supporting columns of a renewed church and a renewed ecclesiology: the church as people of God; the church as sacrament of the kingdom of God in the world; the college of bishops; and ecumenism…the building erected by centralization awaits demolition … and a renewed ecclesiology waits to be crowned by the dome that draws them into unity (p 110).
Pottmeyer adds:
In the twentieth century the social form of the Catholic Church has greatly changed. It has become a global church… That was already clear at Vatican II, which therefore expressly gave thought to the task of a new inculturation and to diversity as a mark of Catholicity (p. 18).
Pottmeyer notes the second millennium brought a new paradigm in the church’s self-understanding:
A schism occurred between the Church of the East and the Church of the West.
The Western Church became increasingly a papal monarchy.
The Western Church was struggling for independence from secular princes.
Canonists increasingly adopted Roman law and canonists now defined what was Church; the Church became increasingly juridicized.
Within this paradigm a new conception of the papal primacy of jurisdiction developed. Vatican II struggled to deal with this, but a minority opinion forced a compromise in its ecclesiology.
According to Pottmeyer, Joseph Ratzinger, a young Council theologian, noted that “… the special position of the pope… is in no way challenged by the synod of bishops, such as was suggested by the council, or by other forms of Episcopal participation in the government of the universal church. For there has always been some form of shared governance in practice… Pottmeyer also reminds us of the original three-membered or triadic form of church structure.
…the particular church with its bishop; the regional ecclesiastical units, especially the patriarchal churches with their patriarchs; and for the universal church, the Pope. … the regional structures made it possible for these churches to acquire a distinctive form that was independent, yet rooted in the surrounding cultural world… they could develop (a) distinctive form. In other words, they made inculturation possible. … The patriarchal churches were governed by the patriarchs, together with the synod of bishops. … Only when the patriarchal structure of the West came to be understood as the structure for the universal church did the two-membered, or dual, structural form replace the triadic. Only then did the church of the West lose its character as a communion of churches and replace this with uniformity and centralization. On the other hand, the Eastern church, now lacking the center of unity and the ministry of communion, saw its unity disintegrate into a multiplicity of autocephalous or autonomous churches, which have not found their way to a workable communion among themselves (pp 133-134).
My Ukrainian colleague struggles with this latter situation in modern Ukraine and longs for a Patriarch who will bring the unification (rather than uniformity) he envisioned in his prison cell. My own passion for dialogue in communication and ecclesiology leads me to hope for such a papacy in communion and to look for traces of it in this papal visit to the U.S. Before we get to the papal visit, however, we must make one more theological stop – to the reflections of U.S. theologian Bradford Hinze. He has published (mentioned above) a grass-roots American analysis in Practices of Dialogue in the Roman Catholic Church: Aims and Obstacles, Lessons and Laments, in which he asserts “an unfinished theological agenda for a dialogical church.”
Hinze, a theology professor at Fordham University, has undertaken there an analysis of various dialogic arenas in the United States Catholic Church. His case studies involve a review of dialogue at work – or not – in: the life of the parish and the pastoral council; the bishop and the diocesan synod; the Call to Action national assembly held in 1976; America’s bicentennial; several pastoral letters of the U.S. Bishops’ Conference; the Catholic Common Ground Initiative established by the late Cardinal Bernardin; the Chapters held by women Religious; the Synod of Bishops; and in ecumenical and interreligious dialogue.
Hinze notes he planned to explore key examples of dialogical practices in the post-Vatican II Church. He adds: “My larger aim was to construct a theological argument about the dialogical and communicative character of the church that would engage diverse and at times contentious philosophical, social-theoretical, and theological resources.” However he notes: “… I became convinced that the voices of the actual practitioners of dialogue in the church were at least as important to heed as those of philosophers, social theorists, and theologians who have addressed the topic of dialogue and communication”.
Many aspects of communication and dialogue are explored in this Hinze volume. A partial list would include:
the connection between ecclesial dialogue and Trinitarian theology (pp 7, 266)
the various genres of dialogue such as small groups, hearings, consultations, interacting with a text; inner dialogues with the self; the reception of one-way speeches; liturgical rituals; and the individual’s and community’s dialogue with God
Vatican II’s groundwork for a dialogical approach, but “such participation is understood to be consultative, not deliberative. This distinction … is intelligible and perhaps even practical, yet it implies a restriction of the roles of theologians and the entire people of God in matters of teaching and governance…” (p 268)
A comparison of “a muscular hierarchical vision of the church” compared to “a different kind of story unfolding here about communal conversion to a dialogical vision of the church, about diverse forms of resistance to implementing these reforms and about the difficulties in learning new ways of being in relationship and collaboration” (p 239)
“Dialogical discernment and decision making are arguably the most important lessons learned over the last forty years” and “some would limit this lesson … only to the extent that it is consistent with the consultative-only clause in the Code of Canon Law” (p 255). Hinze notes: “A procedural democracy, where everyone has a voice and the voice of the majority rules, is not the same as a discerning, deliberating, decision-making community of the wise”. Hinze acknowledges barriers. Critics’ concerns “are not simply in the interest of defending ecclesiastical authority. Their deeper suspicions and fears are that these practices are pulling people away from the most basic perduring convictions and practices of faith by the attraction and influence of popular modern Western culture.”
He notes that some critics (Avery Dulles among them) contrast the traditional approach to dialogue (that of Plato, Augustine, and personalist philosophies) with prevailing conceptions of dialogue and democratic political theory like liberalism which may be relativist. Hinze urges more complete study in this area; he thinks this oversimplifies the options available. Hinze speaks of another problem. “Sometimes, to attain a wider consensus, councils or synods omit difficult and controversial topics rather than attempt to address them at different, sometimes deeper levels. … If conflict avoidance is the operative motive, the community is not being well served in the dialogical process.”
Another significant problem is noted by Hinze:
It is remarkable that of all the groups in the church described in the documents of Vatican II, not one word was written about the role of theologians in the life of the church, about their constructive collaborative relationships with bishops, or about the importance of the relationship of theologians with wider circles of the faithful…Moreover, and equally telling, the synod of bishops has addressed every group in the church except theologians (p 247).
However, he adds: “Theologians, on the other hand, must be held accountable for the ways they have excluded bishops and various sectors of the people of God from the circles of relationships that habitually affect their theology” (p 247).
Hinze notes three additional considerations, in the light of his case study analysis. First, people need to be taught the habits of dialogue – developing the abilities to speak well and listen well. Secondly, “the authority of the church, and the personal authority of individual leaders in the church, is increased and enhanced to the degree that a dialogical process of collective discernment and deliberation has been involved in developing teachings and designing strategic pastoral plans” (p 257). Finally, Hinze asks: “Can dialogue not only affirm the truth that has already been articulated by the magisterium and received by all the faithful but also draw the church, often through conflict, into new insights into the tradition” (p 261)?
We have seen that, although Pope John Paul II opened the door to decentralization (therefore, shared responsibility) in Ut unum sint, the Church still struggles with implementing a dialogic culture. Many church leaders use the word in speeches, but, as Hinze has shown, the reality on the ground does not reflect this talk about dialogue.
There is no doubt, however, about dialogic communications in our digital culture globally. Multimedia and multi-sensorial communication challenge print- and text-based transmission and the producer-centered construction of meaning. There are many new ways of communicating today. Media are no longer instruments of transmission; rather they are integral to the meaning and construction of culture. Computer and communication technologies have merged into huge but highly personalized networks. These webs of relationships and interactivity are new challenges for churches. And those interactive webs were a factor, as the Pope landed on U.S. soil.
The global media were perhaps surprised by the world-wide appetite for media coverage of the death of Pope John Paul II and the selection of a new Pope. With the iconic pageantry associated with both, and with the global affection for our previous Pope, it should not have been a surprise. CNN and other media outlets followed the above stories extensively, offering viewers many, many hours of live complete coverage. Pope Benedict was called a “shy scholar and teacher” in contrast to the rock star presence of his predecessor. However, apparently this pontiff had his own appeal to audiences and media gave extensive, almost constant, coverage of his U.S. visit. The media environment that covered the Pope’s visit was thorough, but it also allowed communication feedback.
All the media – newspapers, magazines, TV and radio, and, especially, the Internet – now have talk-back forums – a dramatic extension of the earlier print “Letters to the Editor” feature. All these media have an Internet presence, and all feature their own staff blogs – an Internet extension of the columnist’s role. All blogs are designed for feedback and these responses flow continually. Thus, Americans had access to news, but also to dialogue in response to the papal news. And anyone could speak up.
John Allen, a noted columnist for the National Catholic Reporter, had a regular column delivered to Email boxes. He flew with the Pope on all his trips. During the U.S. visit one could download daily audio conversations between Allen and his editor about the events. The Sisters of Mercy (and many other religious groups) blogged regularly. A well-known blogger, Rocco Palma, author of the “Whispers in the Loggia” blog, posted the complete text of all Papal addresses on his site, in addition to behind-the-scenes events and his own personal emotional responses. On the Internet, of course, individuals and media forums are released from the time and space constraints, so the full texts were shown and are still archived on many of these sites.
Most people who attended papal events had their cell phones and digital cameras; they were making their own text- and visual-records.
Apart from this media environment, what were the chief characteristics of the U.S. Catholic Church at the time of the Pope’s visit?
Catholics number 70 million, roughly ¼ of the U.S. total population.
U.S. bishops estimate 39% of U.S. Catholics are Hispanic.
For all religions, the situation is fluid; many join, and leave their churches.
62% of U.S. Catholics report the Church is not reflective of their views.
The Church in the U.S. has paid more than 2 billion dollars to victims (and their lawyers) to settle sexual abuse claims. According to a Washington Post – ABC news poll, as the Pope arrived in the U.S., about three-quarters of U.S. Catholics disapprove of how the Church is dealing with this issue.
However, John Allen noted that in 2002, the year the sexual abuse crisis erupted in the Catholic Church, 2.7 million children were educated in Catholic schools in the U.S. In addition, ten million Americans were given assistance by Catholic Charities, and Catholic hospitals provided $2.8 billion in uncompensated charitable care (May 9, 2008).
Aware of this U.S. Catholic energy, the Pope’s official schedule included: visits to Washington DC and New York City; two outdoor stadium Masses; a White House visit; a prayer service and meeting with U.S. bishops; an address to leaders of more than 200 Catholic colleges and school-superintendents from the 195 U.S. dioceses; several addresses to the United Nations, including a talk with the staff; a meeting with Jewish leaders at a NY Synagogue; a meeting with Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus, and other religions; a Prayer Service with leaders from other Christian denominations; a Mass in St. Patrick’s Cathedral for priests, deacons and members of religious orders; and a meeting with young Catholics, including 50 with disabilities.
Surveys by the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion and the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life recorded a ten-point bump in the Pope’s favorability ratings after his visit. Among Catholics it went from 74 to 83 percent. What did he do to make Americans respond so favorably?
One analyst noted that our previous Pope was a TV Pope, but Benedict XVI was an Internet Pope – one needs to print out and study his carefully-crafted texts. This interaction with the Pope’s texts is, as Hinze noted, one form of dialogue. However, I will not focus on these texts in this paper since most Americans would not have printed out the texts and studied them. However, they did listen closely as he spoke to them in large stadium Masses, in ecumenical settings, in meetings of Church leaders, and in the United Nations.
Here I will discuss three aspects of the visit that could be considered communicative dialogue:
the warm rapport that existed between the Pope and his audiences
his prayerful presence at Ground Zero, the World Trade Center disaster site
and, most importantly, his decision to meet with some sexual abuse victims.
Our previous Pope dramatically kissed the ground as he left the plane to visit other countries. The personal gesture of Pope Benedict is to hold out his arms as if to embrace the people he greets. The New York Post newspaper filled its front page with such a photo of the Pope with an accompanying headline: “Come to Papa.”
There was certainly a celebrity factor at work during the Pope’s visit. Yet the shy smile of the Pope (especially when carried on huge stadium TV screens) captivated Americans. And when he decided not to scold Americans but, rather, to affirm their energetic faith, he won most of their hearts. He urged his U.S. flock to be ‘counter-cultural’ and he urged United Nations leaders to intervene, when necessary, to protect human rights. But he appeared to be a pastoral leader rather than a rigid absolutist.
This “Papa” factor appeared as he spoke to Catholic educational leaders. He applauded their efforts and affirmed their work, while some had expected to be “taken to the woodshed” because so many institutions do not seem as “Catholic” as they used to be. I will speak below about the Pope’s interaction with leaders of other religions.
As I am writing this, it is September 11th. This date is seared in American memories and it meant a lot to Americans that the Pope visited Ground Zero, the site of the World Trade Center disaster. During this visit the Pope did not give a speech. Instead he offered a prayer and met personally with a small group of individuals affected by the disaster – those who had lost family members and individuals who worked to save lives there. As a communication specialist I would rank this as a key dialogic moment during the Pope’s stay in America. For here he listened, along with consoling the victims. And Americans could feel the Pope was learning something on this sacred spot; he was not just an official teacher.
The major dialogical moment of the Pope’s visit was his personal decision to meet with some sexual abuse victims from the Archdiocese of Boston. He was advised not to do this by Vatican officials who feared the American legal system might allow the Holy See to be named a defendant or “co-conspirator” in sexual abuse cases. However, the Pope had long ‘listened’ to victims; as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, since 2001 he had read all the case files of alleged acts of abuse, including transcripts of the survivors’ testimony. He was, thus, more knowledgeable on this issue than most individual U.S. bishops.
The Pope asked that a small group of victims meet with him so he could interact with them in a personal way. Two Boston archdiocesan officials (a priest and a woman who had worked extensively with victims there), coordinated arrangements. They invited individuals whom they felt could be helped by the visit. They were not chosen, however, because they were docile or non-critical. One of the individuals told the pope “there’s a cancer growing on your ministry”. As John Allen reported: “Benedict opened the session with the magic words, ‘I’m sorry’”. Allen cites two consequences of the visit. The Pope referred to the “continuing challenges this situation presents” so it cannot be considered a closed chapter in the American Church. Allen said: “Benedict has set a new standard for candor”.
There was another aspect of the 25-minute meeting. Cardinal O’Malley, the Archbishop of Boston handed the Pope a handmade book of calligraphy listing the names of over 1000 alleged victims of clergy sexual abuse from the Archdiocese of Boston. As the Pope slowly turned the pages, the Cardinal mentioned that some of the victims died from suicide or drug abuse. A person present said there was “an audible intake of breath” as the Pope looked through the pages.
Each of the victims spoke individually with the Pope. There were many tears and one victim noticed, as the meeting ended, that there were tears in the Pope’s eyes.
Some were critical of this meeting because they were suspicious of the way the selection was made or they feel it was not representative of the larger group of individuals abused. Many U.S. Catholics are unhappy that bishops have not been held accountable for their role in covering up the abuse or re-assigning priest-abusers to another parish without any warning to people. Most American Catholics (and non-Catholics) were grateful for the fact that in speeches on numerous occasions the Pope brought up the sexual abuse scandal. And the personal interaction with victims was, for many, the most important dialogic moment of the Pope’s visit. On four occasions the Pope attended Mass with Catholics, many having traveled from across the country to attend. Here, and in most of his appearances he talked to the audiences instead of listening. However, there was feedback, of a sort.
The May 12th issue of the Jesuit journal America reported that during his general audience in Rome on April 30th, the Pope reported that he returned to Rome strengthened by his U.S. visit. Speaking in German without a prepared text, the Pope said that everywhere he went in the U.S. “I was able to experience the fact that the faith is alive, that Christ is there today among the people, that he shows them the way and helps them to build the present as well as the future”. It is no accident that, contrary to previous history, three important Vatican offices are now headed by Americans. There appears to be a new appreciation at the Vatican for the American Catholic Church.
Although the shortage of time is a factor, the fact is that apparently in most of the papal appearances there was no verbal interaction. There were personal handshakes, but no extensive dialogue as the Pope met with Jewish leaders, other non-Christians and with Christian denominational leadership. Perhaps such dialogue more properly takes place in formal meetings (such as the Muslim-Catholic dialogue that will begin seriously this Fall.) However, the way these papal meetings are choreographed it appears the Pope plays the commanding role, with all others delegated to paying homage. Not very dialogical.
There is no doubt that the Catholic Church in the US has entered the era of the laity. There are more individuals in training today for lay ministry roles in the Church than there are seminarians in training for the priesthood. Not only is there a shortage of priests, but there appears to be an abundance of lay ministerial candidates. These Church leaders expect to be heard in the 21st century Catholic Church. There are at least two outstanding leadership-training projects underway in the U.S. Catholic Church. One, entitled the “National Leadership Roundtable on Church Management”, will focus on excellence and best practices in church finances, management practices and human resources. As participants note, with one million employees nation-wide and combined budgets of $100 billion, the Catholic Church needs to learn from business leaders about financial disclosure, budgets, and personnel development.
Another major development project is called the “Emerging Models of Pastoral Leadership” project. This is a joint effort of six national Catholic associations and is funded by the Lilly Endowment. It is designed, among other things, to find ways to encourage young people to consider a life of ministry in the Church.
It is perhaps my prejudice as one interested in Communication Theology to theorize that a dialogical culture must be implemented in the Church, not simply talked about. Thus, I was deeply inspired by the words written to U.S. Catholic bishops by Monsignor Philip J. Murnion as he was dying of Cancer. Murnion worked with the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin as they founded the Common Ground initiative – one of the dialogue studies in Bradford Hinze’s book.
Murnion’s writes: “In his splendid Apostolic Letter, Novo Millenno Ineunte, the Holy Father (Pope John Paul II) charts a pastoral vision for the Church in the new millennium. The Pope strongly urges practice of ‘the ancient pastoral wisdom which, without prejudice of their authority, encouraged pastors to listen more widely to the entire People of God’ (NMI, #45.)”
Murnion adds: If I were to sum up my final plea to you, it would be: “dialogue, dialogue, dialogue.”
[1] Frances Forde Plude, “Interactive Communications in the Church”, in The Church and Communication, Patrick Granfield, ed., Kansas City: Sheed and Ward,1994
23 Bernard Häring, Free and Faithful in Christ, NY: Seabury Press, 1979
24 Frances Forde Plude, “Religion and Mediated Popular Culture” in Communicatio Socialis: Challenge of Theology and Ministry in the Church, Helmuth Rolfes and Angela Ann Zukowski, eds., Kassel: Kassel University Press, 2007
[4] Häring, Free and Faithful in Christ, II, 155
[5] Hermann J. Pottmeyer, Towards a Papacy in Communion: Perspectives from Vatican Councils I and II, NY: Crossroad Publishing Company, 1998