c. 1999 Religion News Service

(Andrew M. Greeley is a Roman Catholic priest, best-selling novelist and a 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.)

ROME _ The plane lands at Leonardo DaVinci airport at Fumicino and my heart begins to beat faster. Then the train carries me toward the Eternal City and I see the pine trees outlined against the sky on the hillsides and I become excited. No matter how many times I have visited Rome since 1964 I have the same reaction.

Then several days, or a week or two weeks, later I leave the city to return to the airport with a sigh of relief. I have not exactly thrown a coin into the Trevi Fountain in hopes of returning.

The latter reaction is a result of the noise and the dirt and incompetence of the city. It is also the result of my frustration with the Vatican and its abysmal ignorance of the Catholic Church and its people beyond the walls.

Thus, Cardinal Josef Ratzinger, the second most powerful man in the Catholic Church, celebrates the old Latin Mass and announces that the liturgical reform of Paul VI is a failure and has done tremendous harm.

How does he know, I wonder.

Like most European theologians, he makes up his mind about something and then fits the little evidence available to him into his model. What he says based on the model takes on the aura of absolute truth. It is, therefore, utterly irrelevant to him that the reform of Paul VI is enormously successful in parishes where the time and the money are expended on doing it right, that most Catholics love it, and that the only real opposition comes from those who reject the Second Vatican Council and from some young people with precious taste who never had to sit through the old Latin Mass.

Ratzinger has made up his mind and that is that.

The cardinal is entitled to his personal opinion. Alas, neither German theologians nor most cardinals have personal opinions. Rather, they have certain knowledge that has been handed down, as they see it, by the Holy Spirit.

If only Cardinal Ratzinger had said something like,”I am not sure that the reform of Paul VI has been as effective as it might have been, but I may be wrong and we’ll have to wait and see.” And whales will start flying.

More serious is the attitude here toward American Catholics _ and most other Western Catholics. They are perceived as a secularized, consumerist, sex-crazy crowd whose faith is in serious jeopardy. Joaquin Navarro-Valls, the Vatican press officer who recently insisted the Holy See is not anti-American, said during the time of the pedophilia crisis in this country that one could expect it in a sex-crazy country like the United States. When it turned out that the problem was universal, he never did apologize.

The current attempt by the Vatican to get a tighter hold on Catholic colleges and universities is based on the assumption that young American Catholics are losing their faith, an assumption for which there is no evidence.

In fact, what really makes the Catholic colleges Catholic is not the presence of crucifixes in the classrooms or the religious affiliation of professors or even the orthodoxy of theologians, but the faith of the Catholic students who are as Catholic as their parents and their grandparents, albeit in their own fashion.

I am not suggesting atheists ought to be teaching theology at Catholic universities, only that their presence is irrelevant to the faith of the students. I once interviewed a group of students whose freshman theology professor had believed in neither God nor life after death. Their reaction:”He was really weird, Father. Can you imagine someone that dumb teaching theology?” Folks around Rome are terribly worried about protecting the faith of the Catholic people, as if they were still capable of doing that. Hence, there are investigations and warnings, suspensions and even an occasional excommunication. They don’t seem to understand that their behavior is more of a threat to the faith of the Catholic people than the mutterings of some obscure and unimportant theologians.

When, I wonder, will they begin to understand that the faith of the ordinary folk is just about the only human resource the church has left? When will they comprehend that it is time they ask themselves what kind of style and behavior will reinforce and strengthen that faith instead of embarrassing it?

The Lord never promised perfect leadership, only human leadership. The leadership here is much better than it was in many other times in church history. Alas, if it were more ready to listen and was less afraid, it could do so much better a job.

DEA END GREELEY