c. 1996 Religion News Service

WASHINGTON _ From an opening prayer as he lay dying, to the meeting’s final debate on a restructuring plan he had overseen, the spirit of the late Cardinal Joseph L. Bernardin hovered over this week’s sessions of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB).

More than any other of the nation’s 300 prelates, Bernardin had been closely linked with the NCCB, as a general secretary shaping its day-to-day operations, as its president and as a chairman of key committees at critical moments.

But his absence, and then his death Thursday (Nov. 14) less than a dozen hours before the four-day meeting ended, was a poignant but pointed reminder that the Catholic Church in the United States _ and the bishops’ conference _ is in a holding pattern, concerned with internal matters as it prepares for a major transition of leadership.

Change is coming not only because of Bernardin’s death, which leaves the Archdiocese of Chicago open for a new appointment, but also because three other archdioceses headed by cardinals could soon see changes at the top: Washington, D.C., where 75-year-old Cardinal William Hickey has submitted his resignation as Vatican rules require; and New York City, where Cardinal John J. O’Connor, also 75, has submitted his resignation. In Philadelphia, Cardinal Anthony Bevilaqua turns 75 in less than two years.

The changes involve more than simply the naming of new prelates. Some observers believe the nation’s Roman Catholic bishops, once in the forefront of articulating the moral dimension of public policy, are searching for a renewed focus and a way to attract the attention of Catholics and others who have turned away from the hierarchy as a voice of moral authority.”The bishops haven’t retreated on anything,”said the Rev. Thomas Reese, an expert on the U.S. hierarchy and a fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University.”But they aren’t providing the kind of leadership on the issues that they once did. There is nothing major in the pipeline. They have lost the attention of the American people.” The lack of a sense of urgency, of a clear-cut agenda, was underscored during the meeting’s final session Thursday morning when the conference could not muster a quorum of votes on a major restructuring plan. The plan, the work of a committee headed by Bernardin, would merge the NCCB and the U.S. Catholic Conference, its social policy arm, into one entity and increase the number of bishops active in the NCCB’s work.

Because of the lack of a quorum, votes on the plan were delayed until at least the spring and possibly until next fall.

Still, the bishops worked their way through a full agenda: approving a major pastoral plan they hope local bishops will use to attract and keep young adults in the church; finishing the long, tedious but important work on approving translations of liturgical texts; accepting, after six years of talks with college and university administrators, a set of rules aimed at protecting the Catholic identity of schools and setting out a procedure for dealing with theological dissent by academics.

The pastoral plan on young adults urges bishops to adopt a variety of strategies, including the use of the Internet, to get the church’s message of welcome out.

But despite their lack of a major focus, the bishops did take up a number of public policy issues.

In separate actions they expressed their concern with efforts by Congress and the Clinton administration to sharply reduce the amount of foreign aid that goes to the world’s poor and issued a succinct summary of the church’s moral teaching on economic issues.”At a time of political posturing and ideological positioning, this moral framework offers an alternative approach to national economic choices,”said Bishop William Skylstad of Spokane, Wash.”Sometimes people wonder why we spend so much time on these (social) questions. Some ask what’s all this focus on the poor and economic justice, why can’t you just stick to what they call religious issues?”We need to be very clear. Our defense of the poor, our pursuit of economic justice is fundamentally a work of faith.” The bishops also blasted efforts to permit euthanasia and doctor-assisted suicide, voicing unanimous support for statement issued by Bishop Anthony M. Pilla of Cleveland, president of the NCCB, urging the Supreme Court to overturn rulings by two lower courts permitting some doctor-assisted suicides.”Remarkably, few have noticed that frail, elderly and terminally ill people oppose assisted suicide more than other Americans,”Pilla said.”The assisted suicide agenda is moving forward with vocal support from the young, able-bodied and the affluent, who may even think that their parents and grandparents share their enthusiasm. They are wrong.” The most intense debate during the four-day meeting came over an ecumenical issue _ a five-paragraph guideline on who may and may not receive Holy Communion in Catholic churches. The guideline is to be published in the missal, the Catholic prayer book used at Mass.

The guideline puts in print what has been, since the Second Vatican Council, the church’s policy regarding Communion:”Because of the close relationship of the Catholic Church with the Orthodox Churches, the Assyrian Church of the East, and the Polish National Catholic Church, members of these Churches may receive the Eucharist (Communion), if they ask for it and are properly disposed.” But a number of bishops, led by Cardinals Bernard Law of Boston and Hickey of Washington, objected, saying it would be”ecumenically insensitive.” Since the end of the Second Vatican Council, Roman Catholic teaching has allowed the Orthodox to receive Holy Communion in Catholic churches. But Orthodox teaching does not permit its members to do so.

Law said that Catholic leaders should discuss the matter with Orthodox officials before committing anything to print.

But Bishop Oscar Lipscomb of Mobile, Ala., chairman of the bishops’ committee on ecumenical and interreligious affairs, while agreeing to add a sentence expressing respect for Orthodox doctrine, argued that it was Catholic teaching that was being printed and the Orthodox”are not likely to change their discipline in the near future.”

MJP END ANDERSON