OSV STORY FOR DEC. 1

The legacy of Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, 1928-1996

With his passing, an era of the American Church that he symbolized will come to a close as well

By Russell Shaw

WASHINGTON

The death of Cardinal Joseph L. Bernardin of Chicago symbolically closes an era in U.S. Catholic history -- the "postconciliar" era following the Second Vatican Council.

Cardinal Bernardin, who died of cancer Nov. 14 at the age of 68, was a major figure among American Church leaders involved in carrying out the decisions of Vatican II over the last 30 years.

Most members of the original leadership group now either have left the scene -- men such as Cardinal John Dearden of Detroit, who died in 1988, and Cardinal John Krol of Philadelphia, who died earlier this year -- or have retired.

Cardinal Bernardin's death thus seals the passing of the period in which such men worked -- sometimes together and sometimes at cross-purposes -- to implement their vision of Vatican II and what it meant.

That points to an obvious question: What comes next? With the Bernardins, Deardens and Krols gone and the postconciliar period closed, what new measures should the Church in the United States adopt to deal with pressing problems as it approaches the 21st century?

A life of service

Extending from 1962 to 1965, Vatican II brought together the world's bishops under the leadership of Pope John XXIII, who convoked it and presided over its first session, and Pope Paul VI, who succeeded Pope John after his death in 1963 and saw the council through to its conclusion.

Vatican II adopted a program of Church renewal summed up as part aggiornamento ("updating") and part "resourcement" (a return to sources). It caused major changes in areas of Catholic life as diverse as liturgy, relations with other churches, and ecclesiology -- the understanding of the Church itself.

One of the council's major innovations was to call for the establishment of national conferences of bishops, in which the members of the hierarchy in particular countries would collaborate in performing pastoral tasks.

In the United States, the bishops set up a dual entity with headquarters in Washington -- the National Conference of Catholic Bishops and the U.S. Catholic Conference. Archbishop (later Cardinal) Dearden was its first president. Named general secretary in 1968 was the auxiliary bishop of Atlanta, the 40-year-old Joseph Bernardin.

As general secretary of the bishops' conferences during the next four years, he had a key role in shaping the new organization. Pope Paul named him archbishop of Cincinnati in 1972, but in 1974 his brother bishops elected him president of their conferences, a post he held for three more crucial years in the organization's history.

Ironically, Cardinal Bernardin's final service to the organization he did so much to create was to chair a committee responsible for its reorganization. Lacking a quorum on the final day of their Nov. 11-14 general meeting, the bishops failed to approve the plan -- which calls for a new, single entity, the "United States Conference of Catholic Bishops" -- but they are likely to adopt it next year.

Like other important Church leaders of the post-conciliar period, however, Cardinal Bernardin was not simply a nuts-and-bolts organization man. Large issues of substance often engaged his energies, as did a variety of secular and religious controversies.

In the last 30 years, the "life issues" -- abortion and others -- became matters of central concern in the Church and society. Cardinal Bernardin served at various times as chairman of NCCB/USCC committees responsible for drafting the bishops' famous collective pastoral letter on war and peace and for carrying on the bishops' pro-life program.

A decade ago, these experiences came together in his proposal for a "consistent ethic" linking the life issues in what sometimes is called a "seamless garment." Cardinal Bernardin contended that the consistent ethic heightened respect for life across the board.

But critics complained that it downplayed the special evil of abortion.

Whatever the truth of that, the United States is no closer to agreement on life issues now than it was when the Supreme Court legalized abortion in 1973 or when Cardinal Bernardin took up the consistent ethic theme.

The abortion issue is at a legislative stalemate between the generally pro-abortion Clinton administration and a weakly pro-life Congress, while the Supreme Court is adamant in its support of legalized abortion.

Now, too, the court is weighing two critically important cases on assisted suicide. One of Cardinal Bernardin's last acts was to write a letter, incorporated into a friend-of-the-court brief of the Catholic Health Association, telling the court: "As one who is dying, I have especially come to appreciate the gift of life."

Perhaps more than any other member of the Church's postconciliar leadership, Cardinal Bernardin had a talent for bringing people together in consensus. But for all his great skills, the post-Vatican II years were scarred by frequent conflict, and American Catholicism today suffers from deep and apparently growing ideological divisions.

In recognition of that fact, the cardinal and a group of associates in recent months launched an effort they called the Common Ground Project, intended to reconcile divided Catholics with one another.

In another painful irony, however, this would-be exercise in consensus building itself became a focal point of controversy and division when other churchmen, including several cardinals, contended that it conceded too much to dissent.

Among other things, it was said, the idea of dialogue about Church disputes suggests to many people a kind of bargaining process that is out of the question where doctrine is concerned. Card-inal Bernardin insisted that was not his intent, and obviously he meant it.

Just as obviously, in a period often marked by strains between the "American Church" and "Rome," the cardinal was a papal loyalist who managed simultaneously to stay in touch with Catholics critical of the Vatican.

Whether the balancing act that involves has a future is an open question following his death and the close of the postconciliar era he symbolized. Tensions between elements of the American Church and Rome now appear to be on the rise.

One notable sign was a bluntly worded speech last June by Archbishop John R. Quinn, the retired archbishop of San Francisco. It seemed a direct challenge to Pope John Paul II and his policies.

Speaking at the Jesuit house at Oxford University, Archbishop Quinn assailed the Roman Curia -- the central administrative offices of the Church -- suggested reopening questions such as women priests and birth control in a new ecumenical council, and called for a "reform" of the papacy. The reform, it seems, would consist largely of taking authority away from the papacy and giving it to bishops.

That same agenda is being pushed by many Catholic progressives these days. It is another reason for seeing in Cardinal Bernardin's death the end of an era. Unlike the postconciliar years in which he was such a dominant figure, the issue in the new era now emerging may not be how to carry out Vatican II, but whether it would help or hurt the Church to have Vatican III.

Shaw is Our Sunday Visitor's Washington correspondent and director of public information for the Knights of Columbus

Copyright Our Sunday Visitor, 1996; from the 12-1-96 edition

HEADLINES FOR DEC. 1

Can the Church teach with authority? (editorial)

Better dead than disabled?

Of biochemistry and belief

Missing in action in Bethlehem

Dark-light of the soul

Bishops meet in the shadow of a dying leader