Speaking and Listening

The Question: What can Pope Benedict XVI say and do to repair the growing rifts between the Vatican, the clergy and the laity in America?

There is the well-demonstrated truth about communication: we usually hear better when we are overhearing than when directly addressed.

Every faith community I know of, including my own, has painful, internal disagreements, so I can hardly presume to advise the leader of another community. But the Pope himself has observed this week that his U.S. visit comes at a time that is “a crossroads for the church and for humanity as a whole.”

I think he’s right, and in that spirit a few comments about religious leadership might be in order.

Given the size and influence of the Roman Catholic community in this country, the Pope’s every word makes news. And that’s the potential trap. He has emphasized, as did his traveling predecessors, that this is a “pastoral visit.” A pastor wants to be able to speak to his flock, in words they can understand, based on shared traditions and assumptions. A leader leads first by self-definition.

When words meant for an internal audience are scrutinized in very different contexts, the leader is likely to be misunderstood. Just as likely, he will be thought by those in other communities—or the non-religious—as being presumptuous.

Then there is the well-demonstrated truth about communications: we usually hear better when we are overhearing than when directly addressed.

America will overhear the Pope and perhaps will hear some things very clearly. But as a pastor and leader, his words and actions need to be unashamedly for his own people. Many of them have experiences and views different from his own and from official Catholic teaching. We will all be listening to see how he himself listens and how his community hears. In spite of their internal rifts, their faith and work in our society is important to us all.

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Worth repeating for the new guest:

The Crises (pl) in the contemporary Catholic Church:

The inappropriate conduct of many priests, the emotional stress on the victims and the resultant billion dollars in lawsuits.

The lack of talent in the priesthood.

The lack of Vatican response to the historic Jesus movement.

The Church's continuing cling to original sin and the resulting subsets of crazy ideas like limbo.

The denial of priesthood to women.

The restriction of priesthood to single men (unless you are former Episcopalian priests),

And the continued chain of Vatican "leadership" by old European white men.

Posted by: Concerned The Christian Now Liberated | April 19, 2008 11:35 AM
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William Tully

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