#318 The Burden of Proof

EXCERPT:
The unrest now spreading across the Middle East reminds us that the democratic idea--the desire for self-determination--is contagious. Just as each Egypt caught it from Tunisia, others may be catching it from Egypt. This contagion has been spreading for some 500 years, and is by now nothing less than a global epidemic--but bringing life, not death.

It would be sad if history finally judges that this great human achievement--the global triumph of self determination --began with a revolt against the Catholic Church. But it would be even sadder if the Church had actually incubated that idea, even given birth to it, only to resist it, reject it, and ultimately disown it.

It may seem odd to link the rebellion in Egypt with the sex abuse scandal, but they share a common cause: the abuse of autocratic power; and they both made global headlines when a few courageous individuals stepped forward to speak truth to power. Odd as the linkage may seem, the lesson is clear: the Church’s crisis is a struggle not just within the Church itself, but also in the Church's relationship with the outside world. For its autocratic culture clashes with the phenomenon of autocracy trending toward extinction.

Alfred North Whitehead once argued, nearly a century ago, that the democratic idea was the great achievement of the modern age. As such, it erects one of the great tollgates of history: one cannot pass into the future without first honoring self-determination. To resist this idea is a death-wish, leading to obsolescence rather than survival.

The ultimate question here is just as blunt and simple for the Church as it was for Egypt (and the other 83 fallen autocracies): will this be a place of freedom?
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The Catholic Church has often cast itself as a "perfect society" -- but that cannot mean one that has outgrown the need for freedom. To survive its current crisis and embrace a brighter future, it will need to convince us -- not just Catholics but all people -- that it, too, can be a place of freedom. One cannot claim to speak for the God of history if one is on the wrong side of that history.

This does not mean the Church must install democratic structures. True, it has been more democratic in the past, but even a hierarchy can avoid autocracy if it makes itself accountable to its people. The absence of such accountability is the real scandal of recent Catholic history.

But whether its structures remain hierarchical or become more democratic, the institutional church faces a profound challenge. Can it drop the pretense that ecclesiastical autocracy is a divine mandate? Can it acknowledge that self-determination is the mandate of modern history? Can it invest Catholic concepts like the “Sensus Fidelium” (a consensus of the faithful members) and "Subsidiarity" (the need for local decision-making) with real and practical value? Can it retrieve a Church culture where ordinary Catholics have a voice commensurate with their maturity, education, life experience, and collective wisdom?

This may not require congregational autonomy or the denominational splintering typical of Protestant history, but it will require a radical change in Catholic culture. If our Church can do this, it can pass yet another of history's tollgates and renew itself as the global force it still aspires to be.

But for now, at least, the heavy burden of proof rests on the institution and its hierarchy.