Several thousand Catholics are planning to assemble in Boston next Saturday to talk about making the Catholic Church more democratic. Using the motto, "Keep the Faith, Change the Church," Voice of the Faithful, a group that says it has some 16,000 members in 40 states and 21 countries, wants to shift power downward from the top of their hierarchical church. Formed in January and now riding a wave of outrage over the clergy sexual-abuse crisis, this lay group is demanding more governing rights for the laity.

Welcome to my world. As a pastor in the Presbyterian Church (USA), I spend every day serving an institution that puts power in the hands of laypeople -- and I'm well aware of the assets and liabilities of such an approach. While having a voice and a vote certainly gives people more opportunities for institutional involvement and may even inspire greater commitment to the church's benevolent works, the process of democratization dilutes the purity of the church's moral message, and can undermine its influence in larger political and social spheres. Furthermore, there is no hard evidence that lay leadership provides protection against church scandals -- which is what many Voice of the Faithful members seem to be hoping.

Until now, one of the great strengths of the Catholic Church has been the influence it derives from the unity of its message. From the solid support for its parochial school system to the commitment to Third World debt relief exemplified by Pope John Paul II's underwriting of the Jubilee 2000 debt-relief campaign, Catholicism has a social and political impact few other religions can imagine.

The contrast between the governance of the Catholic Church and the Presbyterian Church lies, of course, in our very different histories and philosophies. Fairfax Presbyterian, like any other Presbyterian church, is a representative democracy. As I explain to new members of my congregation, Presbyterians are ruled by "presbyters" -- the Greek word for "elders" -- and decisions about the life and ministry of the church are made primarily by laypeople elected and ordained to serve as those elders. The result is that on some issues -- and particularly politically charged ones such as abortion or the ordination of gays and lesbians -- the Presbyterian church speaks with many voices, revising its policies over time and sometimes changing direction altogether.

That is contrary to traditional Catholic practice. "The idea that any board in a diocese could have independence from the authority of the bishop of the diocese is utterly non-Catholic," observes my friend Bill Parent, a priest in the Archdiocese of Washington, "something akin to disgruntled Presbyterians clamoring for a pope." While he's all in favor of laypeople serving on church boards, he reminds me that all such participation must relate to the role of the Catholic bishop as "chief shepherd" of the diocese.

But Voice of the Faithful -- and about a dozen other reform groups -- seems to be at the forefront of a more general change. Dean Hoge, a sociologist at Catholic University, tells me that young Catholics see the teaching authority of the Vatican as much less important than do the older members of the church; in a 1999 survey, 30 percent of those born after Vatican II was introduced in the early '60s said it is important, compared with 64 percent of the pre-Vatican II generation.

While reform may lead to more active involvement from people in the pews, it could come at the cost of church unity. While it is said that Baptists (an even more diverse and democratic Protestant denomination than Presbyterians) "multiply by division," forming new congregations every time a church splits, Catholics understand that the Pope speaks for the Catholics of the world. "The Bishop of Rome does offer an important sign for the unity of the church," Methodist minister and theologian L. Gregory Jones told me when the Pope visited Baltimore in 1995. Jones, now dean of Duke Divinity School, said, "He reminds Protestants of the scandal of disunity."

Along with institutional unity comes remarkable moral clarity, which has important political impact and often shapes civic life. Whether or not you agree with him, John Paul II is clear about where he stands: He is pro-life; pro-celibate priesthood; anti-contraception; anti-ordination of women. Oddly enough, this does not mean that there is necessarily more of a unified "Catholic vote" than a "Protestant vote" in this country. (In the 2000 presidential election, more Catholics voted for pro-choice Al Gore than for pro-life George Bush, according to exit polls.) But it does mean that Catholics have a clear sense of which direction their moral guidepost points. And Christians and non-Christians alike often look with admiration on such clarity in today's relativistic world. Just consider the way Catholic teaching about the sanctity of life has affected health care delivery, especially at the end of life. Catholic hospitals have led the way in providing palliative care for dying patients.

We Presbyterians, by contrast, have trouble coming to a clear national consensus about some controversial issues because there are 3 million of us holding 3 million beliefs. With regard to abortion, for example, the church has been basically pro-choice, although pro-life Presbyterians have pushed to modify the policy over the years. We now oppose abortion as a means of birth control and gender selection, affirm adoption as preferable to the abortion of unwanted children, and consider the "intact dilation and extraction" procedure (also called "partial birth abortion") a "matter of grave moral concern."

Whether you consider that a weak, mixed message or a realistic one that parishioners will actually follow, it serves as an excellent illustration of our democratic church government in action. Sometimes politically charged issues split us down the middle, which is what has happened over the issue of ordaining gays and lesbians. Several years ago a desire for clarity led to the introduction of a "fidelity and chastity" clause which excludes sexually active gays and lesbians from ordination. Our national General Assembly voted to remove the requirement in 2001; and our regional Presbyteries voted to preserve it in 2002.

That's just the kind of division -- healthy in some lights, destructive in others -- that could come to characterize a more democratic Catholic church, because I doubt that 63 million American Catholics are going to behave very differently from 3 million American Presbyterians. And while the leaders of Voice of the Faithful have announced the ambitious goal of getting half of the nation's Catholics involved, and are actively courting the broad middle of the laity, I don't know how they'll avoid the hot-button issues that tend to divide church groups. One of the founders of Voice of the Faithful, Svea Fraser, tells me that they're not taking on those issues now, although they know that they'll eventually come up. "All we want now," she says, "is to find a place at the table, where all voices can be heard." But all those voices are sure to express a huge variety of opinions.

While I have concerns about democratic forms of church government, I'm not opposed to them -- I wouldn't be a Presbyterian pastor if I were. In my experience, there is nothing more powerful than a group of people who feel called by God to perform a particular mission, whether it be serving on a church board, teaching a class, repairing the home of a low-income neighbor or starting a new church. In terms of Sunday offerings, which are a measure of devotion, studies have shown that Protestants give higher portions of their income to the work of the church -- often two or three times greater -- than Catholics.

When my associate pastor and I meet with our elders for our monthly board meetings, I am often amazed by the skills and insights that these 16 laypeople bring to the work of Fairfax Presbyterian Church. As a group of men and women, young and old, liberal and conservative, married and single, with careers ranging from academics to engineering to national security, we represent the broader congregation -- and whenever we face a challenging issue together, I have been consistently grateful for the clear guidance of these elders.

There are fewer places to hide in a church that depends on such lay leadership, and fewer ways to remain passive. In theory, if not always in practice, the unique set of insights, talents, and energy of every church member is needed to make a democratic congregation work.

Some Catholics seem ready for this sort of decision making. Lena Woltering, the coordinator of a lay group called FOSIL -- Fellowship of Southern Illinois Laity -- tells me that in their vision of church reform, "the model of shared authority and ownership is certainly something we are working toward." If this goal is achieved, it will transform the church no less profoundly than did the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century. Others resist the notion of change. Susan Gibbs, spokeswoman for the Catholic Archdiocese of Washington, observes that most reform groups are small, recalling that in the late "90s, a group called "We Are Church" announced they would gather 1 million signatures from American Catholics in one year to support a number of reforms. "After extending their deadline an extra six months, they barely hit 30,000, if that," Gibbs reports.

Whatever the fate of the new reform movements, there will always be some who feel drawn to the clarity of Catholicism, and other Christians who seek the Protestant process of continual consensus-building. Both can be beneficial to society, but in widely divergent ways, with Catholic unity providing spiritual and social stability and Protestant diversity offering ever-changing religious and communal opportunities. It takes all sorts, I know, but I do wonder whether Voice of the Faithful might not have a clearer idea of the many directions it was heading if it were to rename itself Voices of the Faithful.

© 2002 The Washington Post Company

Henry Brinton is pastor of Fairfax Presbyterian Church.

Author's e-mail: hgbrinton@aol.com

Link to Henry Brinton's Washington Post Articles Index Page

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