Governance, Accountability, and the Future of the Catholic Church

by Francis Oakley (Editor), Bruce Russett (Editor)

Overview

In March 2003 leading historians, theologians, jourbanalists, social scientists, and foundation executives met together at the St. Thomas More Catholic Center at Yale University to examine the current crisis facing the Catholic Church. The conference was a first in the Center's history and indicative of the size and scope of a crisis unprecedented in the American Catholic Church, namely, the revelations of sexual abuse by priests and the hierarchy's complicity. The aim of the conference was to heal and strengthen the church through a deeper understanding of governance, leadership, and the roles of the laity and clergy. The findings and recommendations of this important conference are published here for the first time.

Contributors include: John Beal, Francis Butler, Francine Cardman, Marcia Colish, Donald Cozzens, Gerald Fogarty, James Heft, Gerard Mannion, John McGreevy, Francis Oakley, Peter Phan, Thomas Reese, Bruce Russett, Peter Steinfels, Brian Tierney, and Donald W. Wuerl.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780826415776
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	11/01/2003
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Francis Oakely is Edward Dorr Griffin Professor of the History of Ideas Emeritus at Williams College and President Emeritus of the College. He is also President Emeritus of the American Council of Learned Societies. He has held appointments at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, at the National Humanities Center, and at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. During the 1900-2000 academic year, he was the Sir Isaiah Berlin Visiting Professor in the History of Ideas at Oxford University. In 200l he gave the Merle Curti Lectures in intellectual history at the University of Wisconsin/Madison, and in 2002 the Gilson Lecture at the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, Toronto. His most recent book, The Conciliarist Tradition: Constitutionalism in the Catholic Church, 1300-1870 (Oxford UP, 2003) won the Roland H. Bainton History Prize of the Sixteenth-Century Society. Among his other books are Omnipotence, Covenant, and Order, Politics and Eternity, and The Western Church in the Later Middle Ages

In March 2003 leading historians, theologians, journalists, social scientists, and foundation executives met together at the St. Thomas More Catholic Center at Yale University to examine the current crisis facing the Catholic Church. The conference was a first in the Center's history and indicative of the size and scope of a crisis unprecedented in the American Catholic Church, namely, the revelations of sexual abuse by priests and the hierarchy's complicity. The aim of the conference was to heal and strengthen the church through a deeper understanding of governance, leadership, and the roles of the laity and clergy. The findings and recommendations of this important conference are published here for the first time. Contributors include: John Beal, Francis Butler, Francine Cardman, Marcia Colish, Donald Cozzens, Gerald Fogarty, James Heft, Gerard Mannion, John McGreevy, Francis Oakley, Peter Phan, Thomas Reese, Bruce Russett, Peter Steinfels, Brian Tierney, and Donald W. Wuerl.Francis Oakley is Edward Dorr Griffin Professor of the History of Ideas and President Emeritus of Williams College and interim president of the American Council of Learned Societies. He is the author of numerous books including Politics and Eternity: Studies in the History of Medieval and Early Modern Political Thought.Bruce Russett is Dean Acheson Professor of International Relations and Political Science at Yale, Director of United Nations Studies at Yale, and past president of the International Studies Association and of the Peace Studies Society (International). He was principal advisor to the U.S. bishops in writing their 1983 "peace pastoral, " The Challenge of Peace.

Table of Contents

	Introduction: How did we get here and where do we go?	7
1.	Reflections on governance and accountability in the church	13
2.	Necessary but not sufficient: A response to bishop wuerl's reflections	25
Part 1	Historical Perspectives on a Changing Church
3.	Myth, history, and the beginnings of the church	33
4.	Church law and alternative structures: A medieval perspective	49
5.	Reclaiming our history: Belief and practice in the church	62
6.	Constitutionalism in the church?	76
7.	It shall not be so among you! Crisis in the church, crisis in church law	88
8.	Episcopal governance in the american church	103
Part 2	The Church Today
9.	Accountability and governance in the church: Theological considerations	121
10.	The sex abuse crisis: The view from recent history	136
11.	The impact of the sexual abuse crisis	143
12.	Financial accountability: Reflections on giving and church leadership	153
13.	"A haze of fiction": Legitimation, accountability, and truthfulness	161
14.	A new way of being church: Perspectives from asia	178
15.	Standing in the fire	191
	Conclusion: Monarchy, democracy, or "decent consultation hierarchy"?	196
	Notes	203
	Contributors	229
	Index	233