Roman Catholics: The Prelates Speak Out

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In St. Peter's Square, underneath the shuttered windows of Pope Paul's apartments in the Vatican, progressive and conservative Roman Catholics came to blows last week. When a group of Italian faithful held a vigil to dramatize their demand for "a church of the poor," they were denounced by irate conservatives. "Communists!" they yelled. "Get out of Rome! Long live the Pope!" The scuffle in the streets was symptomatic of the conflict within the Vatican, where 144 prelates assembled this week for the second Bishops' Synod. In the Hall of Broken Heads, once the storage place for discarded statues, they began discussions about the troubled relationship between the Pope and his bishops.

Not since Vatican I in 1870 had there been such a direct challenge to papal absolutism within the church hierarchy. As expected, that challenge was epitomized by Leo-Jozef Cardinal Suenens of Belgium (TIME, Aug. 1). Although a personal friend of Pope Paul's, Suenens became the de facto leader of the progressive wing of the Catholic hierarchy earlier this year with a widely publicized attack on extreme papalism. He continued his campaign last week. In a bold speech, Suenens criticized those conservatives who cling to the concept of an absolute papacy, resembling the French monarchy before the 1789 revolution. He agreed that bishops share church authority both "with" and "under" the Pope, but insisted that modern times require decision-making in a spirit of cooperation and co-responsibility. The Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano and legalistic defenders of the status quo who see the bishops' authority as only "under" the Pope, Suenens said, in effect equate absolutism with orthodoxy.

Thirty-six of the prelates had been hand-picked by the Pope or were Curia members, and a majority of the others had been considered supporters of a conservative viewpoint. Yet speaker after speaker amplified Cardinal Suenens' concern. A surprisingly large number of those who spoke urged a quick and broad implementation of collegiality, or shared authority—a principle that had been enunciated by Vatican II, but never clearly spelled out. Yet Pope Paul ignored it altogether last year when he failed to consult his bishops throughout the world before issuing his controversial Humanae Vitae encyclical opposing artificial birth control. Perhaps more than anything else, the resulting uproar precipitated a crisis of authority and led to the calling of the synod.

Considerable Confusion. During one synod session, Justin Cardinal Darmo-juwono of Indonesia openly told Pope Paul that many bishops privately opposed his birth-control ruling. He recognized that the Pontiff was free to use his supreme power as he saw fit, but in "grave and major matters" affecting the entire church, the cardinal said, it was only fitting to use the advice of bishops. Otherwise, there might well be a repetition of the birth-control crisis.