Democracy for Bishops

Meeting last week for the first time as a regional legislature of their church, 210 U.S. Roman Catholic bishops cut loose with a thoroughly traditional attack on birth control, and then moved on to put an end to one of the most anachronistic of Catholic spiritual customs: compulsory abstinence from meat on Friday.

The point of the hierarchy's statement on contraception was its charge that "Government activities increasingly seek aggressively to persuade and even coerce the underprivileged to practice birth control" as a condition of gaining relief benefits. This, the bishops charged, was an infringement upon "the freedom of spouses to determine the size of their families"--an argument, ironically, that the Planned Parenthood association has always used to defend contraception. The accusation of coercion astounded and outraged officers of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, who insisted that U.S. poverty programs give birth-control advice and assistance only to those who ask for it.

More Meaningful Penance. In doing away with fish-on-Friday, the American bishops followed the example of 17 other national conferences that have decided that eating lobster Newburg instead of hamburger is not precisely a genuine act of mortification. Dispensations to soldiers, travelers and the sick have been freely given by the church, and in much of Europe the practice has been observed by hardly anyone but the clergy. While declaring that abstinence was no longer binding under pain of sin, the bishops urged the faithful to preserve the custom, particularly during the Lenten season, as "an outward sign of inward spiritual values."

The deeper meaning of the Washington meeting was the democratization of the hierarchy. In the past, the annual meetings of the hierarchy were largely dominated by the senior U.S. prelates and automatically chaired by New York's Francis Cardinal Spellman. In setting up a formal hierarchical synod under the title of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, the prelates also made provisions for electing its officers. Chosen on the third ballot as first president of the conference was the Most Rev. John Francis Dearden, 59, the progressive Archbishop of Detroit.

Lutheran Greetings. The bishops also appeared to be looking ahead to more fruitful ecumenical encounters with other churches. One of the major acts of the session was the creation of a new general secretariat for ecumenical and interreligious affairs. As evidence that the spirit of unity is reciprocal, the brand-new Lutheran Council in the U.S. --a service agency that is supported by churches that represent 95% of the nation's Lutherans--sent "cordial greetings in the name of Our Saviour" to the Washington meeting.

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