The New Catholic Church, a Fantasy

In the Year of Our Lord two thousand fifty, on the feast of the Immaculate Conception, good Pope Joan II announced the Year of Women, a full twelve months of celebration of the remarkable achievements of women in the Church. The Third Vatican Council, called in 2015, had already corrected many of the theological errors toward women. By 2050, Catholic women and men transformed the church through local decision-making in the selection of bishops, a substantial increase in church attendance around the world (primarily due to this new status recognition of more than 50% of Catholics), the ending of the mandatory celibacy requirement and the development of a new model for the institutional Church.

This innovative structural change ended the medieval hierarchical method, with the Roman Curia being disbanded. Thus began a concept of a circle of bishops where each had a single vote with the Servant of the Servants of God (Her Holiness) simply acting as tie-breaker.  Soon, local churches adopted this more equitable method so that the people of God, including the laity, had a direct say in the operation of the church.  Not surprisingly, this new transparency eliminated local disputes between bishop and his (her) priests, financial machinations were reduced, and the laity felt as one with their pastor, bishop and the Pope in Rome.

During her homily, Pope Joan recalled the clerical culture that existed for centuries, despite the heroic efforts of good St. John XXIII almost a hundred years earlier. Unfortunately, the clericalist and triumphalist attitude of many bishops around the world caused a backlash after the Second Council and nearly destroyed the church as a result of the secrecy and obfuscations of bishops after the sex abuse scandal became widely known in 2002. She recalled how this cultural divide between the institutional Church and the people of God came to a head during the pontificate of Pope Benedict XVI in the early part of this century.

At that time, most practicing Catholics around the world, both progressive and traditional, became increasingly disaffected with the inability of the hierarchy to admit its wrongdoing during the sex abuse scandals of 2002 through 2015. Mass attendance was down 70%, charitable giving decreased significantly, and young Catholic men and women simply looked upon the church as irrelevant. The bishops at that time, after worldwide public disclosures of priests abusing children, finally put programs into place to reduce sex abuse of innocents.  However, they were unable to recognize their own institutional failures to protect children when they freely moved abusive priests from parish to parish. Through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Pope Joan noted the dramatic closure of the long-endured crisis when the Third Vatican Council revamped the hierarchical structure and instituted the innovative Circle of Bishops with the Pope as Chair (only in cases of ties) during its first assembly in 2015.

Her Holiness said the most important matter Vatican III agreed upon was the admission that women in general had been treated as second class Catholics for centuries. The official opening of priestly ordination to women was finally promulgated in 2017. Since then, tens of thousands of capable women worldwide have been ordained.  Secrecy and obfuscations in Rome became only historical footnotes.  While Her Holiness admitted that the role of women in the Church has always been crucial in preaching the Gospel, women priests all across the world have given life-giving hope to the millions of impoverished people especially in third world Africa and Asia.  Pope Joan, the first African woman prelate to occupy the Chair of Peter, ended her homily noting that St. Mary Magdalene had been the first apostle to see the Risen Lord.  She said St. Mary was the apostle to the apostles in the beginnings of the church and she prayed that Almighty God would continue to inspire both women and men to seek first the Kingdom of God in their busy lives.

Ed Thompson, Sr.
May 9, 2010
Mother's Day