The work of a good shepherd

The work of a good shepherd 

The Tablet

01 September 2016 When the new head of the new Vatican department for the laity, marriage and the family says “I think bishops need to pay attention to their pastoral councils,” many Catholics might ask “What pastoral councils?” or indeed “What are pastoral councils?” Outside the United States, where Irish-born Kevin Farrell served as a bishop for 16 years, they are quite rare birds. That may say something about the need for the Prefect of the Congregation for Laity, the Family and Life to learn more about the rest of the world. But it also draws attention to a scandalous failure by many bishops in the rest of the world to implement a key reform of the Second Vatican Council.

Not only Vatican II but also the Code of Canon Law provides for each diocese to have an advisory body composed of bishops, clergy and laity, mostly the latter. Under Canon Law its job is to investigate, consider and propose practical conclusions to “things which pertain to pastoral works in the diocese”. But they only come into existence when their bishop wants them to. What absolute monarch willingly shares the government of his sovereign territory with people who may have strong opinions different to his own? The evidence suggests not many, and only the best of them.

Judging by Bishop Farrell’s words, even where they exist they are often not listened to. Such bodies can quickly become a cosy elite, cut off from ordinary people, part of a “them” rather than an “us”. Hand-picked by the bishop, if they are chosen for their fidelity to a party line rather than their ability to ask awkward questions, their advice may not be worth much anyway.
What Bishop Farrell was undoubtedly alluding to, given his new title, is the wide gap between Catholic theory and practice regarding marriage and family life that was highlighted by the consultations which preceded the recent international synods on family life. It seems American bishops either did not know about the gap or chose to ignore it, and he is suggesting that had they listened to their diocesan pastoral councils they might have been better informed. That is as may be. Before the disconnection between laity and hierarchy, which is a feature of the modern Catholic Church, starts to close, many things need to happen including a much greater climate of freedom of speech. Most Catholics know how to self-censor in the presence of bishops.

But Bishop Farrell is starting in the right place. Chapter five of the Code of Canon Law, headed Pastoral Councils, may be timid to a degree but it is there. It needs to be applied universally – nowhere more so than in England and Wales. It needs bolstering, so that ignoring a diocesan pastoral council becomes unthinkable. New bishops need to be advised that knowing and heeding what their people are really feeling, thinking and doing – what Pope Francis calls “the smell of the sheep” – is the essential key to their work as shepherds.