Reflections on a Crisis
 

The financial difficulty that the Diocese of Victoria finds itself in has brought out the best and the worst in the diocese. The Journal has made no comment about the difficulty because it is a local church matter that has little impact on Corpus Canada and The Great Church. The worst kind of comments come from those who have long made known their opinions and withheld support for diocesan initiatives. I believe that they have done this in all good faith for what they view as the good of the church. The best comments come from those who have risen above the difficulty to express a Gospel view of the church community. As such, the latter are of interest to us all.

For example, Monsignor Mike O'Connell writes in the Times Colonist: "Our efforts to meet this emergency must not prevent us from continuing our efforts to assist the poor, the refugees and victims of injustice here and around the world... As Easter people, we will be enabled to be people of hope." Mike then goes on to call for prayer and forgiveness: "If we are people of prayer and forgive one another, we will be given the grace to meet this unexpected challenge and will experience peace and hope."

Dr. Peter Montgomery in the Island Catholic News (ICN) begins his comment by quoting a favourite mentor, Marshall McLuhan who once when asked about the Church as Institution replied: "In its merely bureaucratic, administrative, and institutional side, it is going to undergo the same patterns of change as the rest of our institutions... in a centralized, administrative, bureaucratic form, it is certainly irrelevant." Peter then uses another McLuhan maxim: Every breakdown is a breakthrough. "Because we all now understand how the church works, we can take ownership and participate in it on a personal individual level." Peter goes on to say, "While Bishop Remi tried throughout his mandate to open the Church, and to give the laity a controlling role in its operation, he experienced much resistance from the more traditionally oriented members, especially the clergy. In one fell swoop, that openness and involvement have not just been offered but forced." "While the bureaucrats continue to stew in their mess, the rest of us have the opportunity to create a new Church, not based on money and organization and petty bits of power which silly people are insistent on quarreling about. Let them foment their irrevelence. The rest of us can follow the promptings of the Spirit and look to our spiritual destiny." He concludes with another quote from McLuhan: "As long as there is the means of communion, social and divine, there is an indefinite number of forms in which it can be achieved... The Church's massive centralized bureaucracy is certainly passe."

Fr. Jack Sproule sees the crisis as a challenge to cooperate with the Reign of God. Writing in the ICN he says that placing blame is a faithless way of avoiding a critique of the male, hierarchical, clerical system. He says, "My own faith in the Reign of God tells me that the problem demands an unmasking , a dismantling of the clerical system with all its underlying assumptions. To attempt a fresh more responsible participative style means having faith." According to Jack, one of the underlying assumptions is that religion- as distinct from spirituality- is not on the decline. However, statistics, the shortage of clergy, the absence of the young, the findings of contemporary theology wherein the distinction is made between the Reign of God and the inability of today's organized religion to respond to it, all point to an evolutionary shift. Another is the present canonical requirement for consultors- ie. clerical consultors- as the zone of final decision. That is not good enough to launch a new sense of lay participation. "I have no difficulty believing that God wants us to explore totally new directions. If I have a problem with lay members on committees, such as a personnel board, then I have a problem of faith. We continue to support a legislation (male, celibate, clerical) that deprives us of alternative forms of priesthood. In the present legislation, sacraments are gradually being withdrawn from the people." "I believe that if we face these challenges, we will call ourselves out of the familiar power and control games, call ourselves to be open to a radical conversion in how we understand ourselves as a priestly people... We can choose not to respond to the challenge. The Reign of God will continue. We will simply be left behind."

Mike O'Connell, Peter Montgomery, and Jack  Sproule have reflected on a crisis and have seen in it the opportunity for a deeper sense of who we are. In the Celtic view, creation is not only a place of harmony but of challenge for growth. Witness the hymns to wind, storm, and rushing water. There is in it the stories of the journey in which disciples launch out on a boat or by foot to seek the place of their resurrection, not knowing where the elements or chance might take them. There was a willingness to let go of the familiar and the comfortable. There was no need for a centre or a building other than the presence of God whose mystery no one can contain and whose law is planted deep in each one's heart. This is the Reign of God that Jesus left us in the Gospel.

Chris Diamond