Domus Dei: a House Built on a Weak Foundation
Canon 447 — A conference of bishops, a permanent institution, is a group of bishops of some nation or certain territory who jointly exercise certain pastoral functions for the Christian faithful of their territory in order to promote the greater good which the Church offers to humanity, especially through forms and programs of the apostolate fittingly adapted to the circumstances of time and place, according to the norm of law.
— Code of Canon Law: Latin English Edition
New English Translation
(Canon Law Society of America. Washington DC, 1999), 146-147
I have come to the conclusion, if I am to write truly, that I shun every assembly of bishops, for I have never seen a good end come of any Council, because, so far from bringing about a diminution of evil, they have rather augmented it.
— St. Gregory of Nazianzus, quoted in Mehodios Fouyas,
Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism and Anglicanism
(London: Oxford University Press, 1972), 133
Domus Dei (The House of God), hereafter also referred to as DD, is the name of a draft document on church art and architecture, which was presented for discussion at the plenary session of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops last November. When and if it is approved, it will serve as the successor to Environment and Art in Catholic Worship (EACW), published by the Bishops’ Committee on the Liturgy (BCL) in 1978. EACW is known to most faithful Catholics as the driving force behind the needless and devastating renovation of countless old parish churches and the hideous design of thousands of new ones. Leo the Isaurian and the Puritans of all the ages must be rejoicing!
The purpose of this article is to summarize and comment upon Domus Dei. To do this in proper perspective some preliminary observations on bishops’ conferences in general and on the National Conference of Catholic Bishops in particular are in order.
COUNCILS AND CONFERENCES IN GENERAL
In his remark quoted above, Saint Gregory of Nazianzus was no doubt referring to the Council of Constantinople, which was held in 381. The turmoil surrounding the election of Flavian to the vacant see of Antioch so disquieted him that he withdrew from the Council and resigned as the bishop of Constantinople. Whatever circumstances prompted their utterance, his words are perhaps even more applicable to North America in our own day and age than they were to Constantinople in the late fourth century. In fact, more than one American bishop has been heard expressing similar sentiments.
But we must always keep in mind the obvious: Our Lord instituted His Apostles as the first college of bishops, with St. Peter as its head, and the Catholics bishops throughout the world today, with Pope John Paul II at their head, are their successors. (See the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Nos. 857-896.) Members of the episcopal college have cooperated with one another and with the Successor of Peter in various ways in the course of history, especially in the twenty-one ecumenical councils from Nicea I in 325 to Vatican II in 1962-1965. National conferences of bishops, however, are a relatively recent development.
Just as our Church got along reasonably well until 1917 without a code of canon law, she managed to muddle through most of her history without national conferences of bishops.
To be sure, from the earliest days of the Church, bishops of particular areas gathered to address matters of mutual interest. Provincial councils, which included the bishops of a province gathered around their archbishop, or metropolitan, proved so useful that the first ecumenical council held at Nicea in 325 decreed that they be held twice a year. Over time, universal law mandated various intervals. The 1917 Code required that they be held only once every twenty years and canon 440, §1 of the present Code says only that provincial councils be held "as often as it seems opportune in the judgement of the majority of the diocesan bishops of the province."
Plenary councils consist of the bishops and archbishops of a given nation and work in much the same way as provincial councils. The main difference is in their wider geographical jurisdiction. They are a later development because, for much of the Church’s history, the secular political structure of nation-states, at least as we know them today, simply did not exist. In the United States, during the period when there was only one province (Baltimore) for the whole country, our bishops assembled seven times for provincial councils between 1829 and 1849. After additional provinces were established in the mid-nineteenth century, there were three plenary councils. They were held in Baltimore in 1852, 1866 and 1884.
Conferences or meetings of bishops of a given nation, unlike councils, date from the nineteenth century and, until recently, had no legislative authority. Today, a national conference "can issue general decrees only in those cases in which the common law prescribes it, or a special mandate of the Apostolic See…determines it (c. 455, §1)." An affirmative vote of two-thirds of the conference members is then required, followed by the review of the Apostolic See, before a decree of the conference can be promulgated. A particular council, either provincial or plenary, does not need a legislative mandate and a simple majority can approve its decrees. However, review by the Apostolic See must take place before the decrees can be promulgated.
(For more information on the subject of councils and conferences, interested readers can refer to "Each State A Province?" by Duane L.C.M. Galles in CHRISTIFIDELIS, April 7, 1996. The article is available on our web site or can be ordered from the Foundation.)
THE U.S. CONFERENCE
The forerunner of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB) was the National Catholic War Council, formed in 1917 to deal with the special pastoral needs arising from the entry of the United States into World War I and later renamed the National Catholic Welfare Conference. It lasted until after the Second Vatican Council, when the NCCB was formed in 1966.
A detailed history of the NCCB is outside the scope of this article, but a mention of just a few of the Conference’s efforts over the past thirty years might provide a hint as to what we might expect to emerge from the Domus Dei deliberations.
We can begin with the infamous "Call to Action" conference held in Detroit in 1976 under NCCB auspices. The majority of delegates to the conference were clergy, religious and lay employees of the Church. Their resolutions were so embarrassing that the Conference had to disavow some of them the following year.
Two years later came Environment and Art in Catholic Worship. Like the statements, "The Many Faces of Aids: A Gospel Response" (1987) and "Always Our Children" (1997), EACW
was never brought before the plenary session of the NCCB. Yet, all are held out to the trusting and uninformed faithful as legally binding pronouncements of our bishops. Unfortunately, the Conference as a whole has never repudiated these illusory practices.
The NCCB and its staff have inundated us with what might be called teaching statements on every conceivable subject. Three major declarations were the pastoral letters on War and Peace (1983), the Economy (1986) and Women (1994). Each, especially the last, was preceded by lengthy and expensive "listening sessions" held throughout the country. Despite their strong points, the first two were so tedious that it is likely that not one Catholic in ten thousand could muster the enormous mental energy required just to plow through them. The last process ended in such disarray that the final version could not even attract a majority on the Conference floor and the text was issued simply as a committee report.
Some acts of the NCCB that required review by the Apostolic See have not fared very well in Rome. The Congregation for Divine Worship rejected the translation of the Lectionary in 1994 as well as the Rite of Ordination (in scathing terms) in 1997. The national norms on Catholic colleges and universities, as called for in 1990 by the Apostolic Constitution, Ex Corde Ecclesiae, were returned unapproved at least once by the Congregation for Catholic Education and it remains to be seen if the final version, passed last November, will resolve the crisis of Catholic higher education in the U.S.
Finally, let us not forget the Catholic Television Network of America, which was launched with great ballyhoo in the 1980s and consumed millions of dollars. It has disappeared, leaving nothing to show for the money spent, which some reports claim may have been as much as $35,000,000.
The obvious question that arises when one reviews this dismal record is this: Who is in charge here? Is it the entire American episcopal college? Is it a determined group of bishops with an agenda? Is it the NCCB bureaucracy? Is it agenda-driven pressure groups composed largely of religious, clergy or lay bureaucrats? It appears that the best answer may be some combination of the latter three but, in any event, the prospects of the Conference producing a coherent and useful document on church art and architecture seem bleak indeed.
THE DOCUMENT ITSELF
A draft of DD was presented for discussion before the November 1999 plenary session of the NCCB. The BCL announced its intention to continue discussions and to seek comments from other interested parties during the next few months, including an on-line discussion over the Internet in January. Upon completion of this process a final draft will be presented to the bishops for their decision.
The November draft is lengthy (2155 lines of text) and, if complemented as planned with illustrations, it will be a hefty piece of work. It is proposed to divide the work into four chapters. The first chapter presents theological reflections on liturgical art and architecture in general and establishes the premises for the subsequent chapters. The second chapter discusses the design of a church for celebrations of the Liturgy of the Hours, the Eucharist and the other Sacraments as well as other devotional practices. The third chapter outlines possible methods that can be employed by a parish that is entering into a construction, restoration or renovation program. The final chapter addresses notions of art and artists.
An overriding question one must first ask is if Domus Dei is necessary or even useful. In one sense it could be regarded as superfluous in light of the number of papal and curial documents already published. It should be noted that the framers of the draft foresee its eventual publication not as a general decree of the NCCB, but rather as a non-binding statement. Such statements do not require a consensus of the bishops to achieve passage since a simple majority suffices rather than the two-thirds majority necessary for general decrees of this nature. Nor will it require the prior recognitio or review of the Holy See, which is required for general decrees. Nevertheless, and despite the express declaration that DD "offers pastoral suggestions" and "is not particular law for the United States" it is likely that DD will be promoted as a body of norms similar to its much heralded, though misleading and often erroneous predecessor, Art and Environment in Catholic Worship.
One must also ask if the draft is timely in view of the movement which has taken place around a third revision of the Missale Romanum and the promulgation of a probable revision of the Institutio generalis Missalis Romani. Prudence suggests that Domus Dei be delayed until stability in the typical editions is realized.
The draft is presented as an entirely new document rather than a rewrite of EACW. However, the numerous references to EACW in the footnotes betray a desire to "canonize" this seriously flawed statement, which, as noted above, never received the required support of the full body of bishops. In fairness, it must be pointed out that the 1983 code, which clarified the procedural acts within conferences of bishops, had not yet been promulgated. In the era out of which came EACW, a fair amount of confusion existed among people of good faith as to the ways in which the conferences functioned. EACW was a big mistake that led to terrible consequences for parochial and other churches and chapels. We honestly should admit that. Implying that EACW was a meritorious document by referencing it so generously in Domus Dei is a mere perpetuation of the worst mistakes and bad taste of the 1970s. Similarly, references to other statements issued by the Bishops’ Committee on the Liturgy such as Music in Catholic Worship and Liturgical Music Today are equally inappropriate due to the defects in the original statements. Music in Catholic Worship and Liturgical Music Today also contained serious distortions of Papal and curial documents on matters of music.
The draft cries for more work, if not wholesale re-writing, and needs to exhibit a greater objectivity in the application of universal norms. The treatise reeks of a bias toward certain American fads that were launched without sufficient study and sensitivity to the needs of the Christian faithful at worship. Its over-reliance on EACW, Music in Catholic Worship and Liturgical Music Today, which themselves distorted the documents of the reform, does not serve the Church well. Its intellectually dishonest interpretation and application of universal norms are not hopeful signs for a statement intended to guide Catholic Americans rather than misguide them.
While the liturgical establishment might be disappointed it would be more prudent for the NCCB to issue no statement at all rather than another one filled with such distortion.
Saint Gregory of Nazianzus, pray for us.
© Christifidelis, St. Joseph Foundation
This item 2726 digitally provided courtesy of CatholicCulture.org
