c. 1996 Religion News Service

(Andrew M. Greeley is a Roman Catholic priest, best-selling novelist and sociologist at the University of Chicago National Opinion Research Center. Check out his home page at http://www.agreeley.com or contact him via e-mail at agreel(at)aol.com.)

COLOGNE, Germany _ As tourists and pilgrims wander through this city’s great cathedral, I sit in the plaza and reflect on the Catholic Church and its contemporary problems.

The plaza is called the Roncalliplatz, in honor of Angelo Roncalli, who became Pope John XXIII. He was one of the greatest popes in history, even if the present crowd in the Vatican regard him as an old fool who almost destroyed the church.

I ponder the enthusiasm, the hope, the bright promise of the Second Vatican Council, which Pope John XXIII convened in 1962. Then I think of gloom, depression, conflict and downright nastiness that besets the church today. It is a church in which Ralph McInerny, writing in the conservative Catholic magazine Crisis, can essentially demand the resignation of Chicago Cardinal Joseph Bernardin for establishing the Common Ground project that would explore ways to heal doctrinal divisions in the church.”There is nothing to discuss on the matter of women’s ordination,”McInerny writes.”If any bishop thinks there is, for God’s sake let him resign.” What went wrong?

My conclusion is that two of Roncalli’s successors, Pope Paul VI and the present Pope John Paul II, profoundly misunderstood what were, for the most part, positive and constructive energies unleashed by the Vatican II. Instead of trying to direct and focus these energies, they tried to pen them up, restrain them, turn them off.

It was a tragically inaccurate reading of the situation in virtually every country where there are Catholics, including Poland. The Vatican and the papacy lost credibility. The church drifted. What might have been a golden age of Catholicism has been crushed.

Speaking of gold, I ponder the fact that inside this cathedral is a golden sarcophagus, which purports to contain the bones of the Three Magi. It is a highly unlikely claim. But much of Cologne’s success in the Middle Ages was based on the vast throngs of pilgrims who came to honor the alleged Magi bones.

Cologne obtained the bones from the Emperor Frederick Barbarsosa, who stole them from Milan. The Greeks and the Russians claim that there had to be 12 kings from the Orient because there are 12 apostles, 12 tribes of Israel, and 12 legions of angels. We say there are only three because there were only three gifts: gold, frankincense, and myrrh. One gift, one king.

In the long history of this city, the church has known corruption and courage, dishonesty and sanctity, incompetence and brilliance, greed and generosity.

The pope named Roncalli will be remembered long after Paul VI and John Paul II, who tried to reverse his work, are forgotten. In the long run, I tell myself, the Vatican Council will win. But as John Maynard Keynes once remarked, in the long run, we will all be dead.

In the short run, we must continue to listen to those who insist that the church’s only role as a teacher is to lay down the law; that persuasion is beneath the dignity of Catholic leaders; and that the laity have nothing important to say because the Holy Spirit never speaks to and through them.

We survived those who stole relics, albeit phony ones. We can survive the grim times the church now endures.

Why does it have to be so hard?

MJP END GREELEY