My Five-Year Report to Rome:

This year the bishops of the United States make their ad limina visit to the Holy See. Such a visit occurs every five years. In preparation for that trip each diocesan bishop sends ahead to the Congregation of Bishops a voluminous and thorough report that covers every aspect of church life in his diocese. In addition to general information, statistics, and observations about the diocese, the report, comprising twenty-two chapters, must answer questions proposed by the various Roman offices. These inquiries center on the clergy, the religious, the laity, on ecumenism, interfaith relationships, social communications, education on all levels, health affairs, and so on.

Having just written and sent in my answers, I realized that this was the fifth such report that I had written and, since I will be 71 this year, in all probability the last. The advantage of such a report is that it forces one to analyze what is happening in the church of one's diocese, which is, in most cases, a microcosm of the whole of the United States. A useful report cannot be just a presentation of statistics but must also elicit some reflections on what lay behind them. Who are these Catholics we are trying to pastor? What is the strength of their adherence to their church? What are their joys and also their fears? How divided are they on major issues confronting church and world? What are they really thinking?

I have always hesitated to place people in categories and attach labels to them--I suffer too much from that tendency myself--because no one can be totally absorbed in any such description. Yet, although it is always inadequate, it can still be helpful. Given that caution, I felt that, having answered the entire questionnaire, I would try to summarize what people in my own diocese are thinking by describing different categories of ideas and positions that I have found here. Since the first such report I ever wrote was submitted in 1978, twenty years ago, these categories of thinking have become progressively clearer to me. The following are the different positions that I believe I now find in my archdiocese.
Social diversity

When I was a boy back in Pennsylvania in the 1930's and 1940's, Catholics were predominantly a working-class group. Although ethnically diverse, they formed socially a homogeneous community. Milwaukee was not much different. Here almost all the immigrants, particularly the Germans and the Poles--but not only these--were found among the blue-collar workers. From a pastoral point of view there was little difference among them, in spite of their diverse ethnic origins, as they all were members of the same working class, struggling to make their way in an American society that was not always welcoming, with capable priestly leadership from among their own ethnic ranks.

When I arrived in Milwaukee in 1977, the social position of Catholics had changed dramatically. Many of the children or grandchildren of the immigrants had gone to college, had done well for themselves, and had moved to the suburbs. They had begun to take their places among the lawyers, doctors, politicians, professors, teachers, and managerial leaders in the major industries. They generously supported the large parish plants in those suburbs with excellent schools and fine church edifices. The places they left in the central city were taken by the African American population that came north at that time, by the new Latin American immigrants, especially from Mexico and Puerto Rico, and now by the new Asian Pacific arrivals--the Vietnamese, the Laotians, and the Hmongs in particular. These newcomers were not accompanied by the large number of priests nor the many groups of religious men and women who came with the first European immigrants.

These newcomers remain among the poorest of the poor in Milwaukee, trying desperately to move ahead in an economy where unskilled workers are seldom in demand. As a result, the church for the first time in Milwaukee must minister to a highly diverse sociological Catholic population. It is no longer a homogenous church. I say it is richer for this fact, but it poses more challenges and demands for clergy and for all pastoral ministers in the diocese.

In addition, society in general still does not welcome these groups. The blue-collar workers that remained in the central city see the newcomers as competition for fewer jobs. The competition for converts on the part of diverse denominations is also more in evidence now among these groups, with store-front churches labeled with Spanish or Asian titles turning up on every block. Pastoring is difficult because it may be generations before these new Catholic groups will be able to have a native clergy. The other churches are able to raise up native leadership at once.

Our own clergy for several decades now has been coming from a stratum of society that is no longer blue collar but upper-middle class. They are not endowed with a special sensitivity to the needs of this new class. Here also the church must do more than just be sensitive to spiritual needs; it must also be the center for the social needs of the people. Good will does not seem to be enough. We do our best in ordaining deacons and in promoting lay ministries among them but so much of our pastoring still seems extraneous and, at times, very frustrating, because we seem to be at a disadvantage in competing against the rapidly growing evangelical groups. Retaining our Hispanic and Asian Catholics will be a struggle. I have special admiration for our younger priests who, after spending several years in the mission we staff in the Dominican Republic, return home to take care of the Spanish-speaking population here. Nevertheless, we cannot expect to retain all the Latin American immigrants in the light of the competition that now exists.

I would not want to omit expressing a concern also about our working-class Catholics of European origin who did not move to the suburbs but remain closer to the central city or on the south side of the city and who struggle to make ends meet. They are among the working poor and can so easily be forgotten. They feel the church has abandoned labor and now sides with management and the wealthy class. They observe that the members of the boards of the colleges, universities, hospitals, and even the members of the parish councils of the large churches in the suburbs are anti-labor, anti-unions, and, thus, anti-working poor. The church now must minister to both groups and in a new way. Catholic social teaching becomes more relevant than ever in this context, but, pro dolor, it is not always a point of unity and mutual understanding among such diverse social groups. The bishop and clergy find themselves caught between such conflicting forces and values.
Peripheral groups

Before talking about those who retain membership in the church and are still church-going Catholics, I feel a need to say something about those who have left the church or are leaving the church. They are so seldom mentioned in studies of the church in the United States, but they must not fall outside our pastoral concern. I see three such groups, one small, two larger.

The smallest group are the Lefebvrists, those who did not accept Vatican Council II. They feel deceived and deserted by their church. Much of the problem stems from the formation we, as church, gave them before Vatican Council II. They expected that the whole world around them would change, but believed--were promised, they felt--that the church would not change. It would remain as the rock, the bastion against all the social changes in the world. Since they received no training in church history, they believed that the church they or their ancestors brought from Europe to the United States had been the same since the time of Christ. Any change of any detail would mean the whole edifice would collapse. They have no connection to or understanding of Lefebvre's royalist leanings nor of the "Action Française" to which he belonged. He became to them the symbol of resistance to change and the vehicle for their desire to hand on to their children the kind of church they grew up in. They will die out slowly, but not without much suffering. Attempts to reconcile them are almost impossible since even the solutions permitted by Rome they find unacceptable. There can be no both/and for them, only a mission to preserve the old.

A larger group that must be of pastoral concern to us are those who left or now leave the church, not so much as a group, but as individuals. They do so for many reasons and are bolstered by all kinds of arguments. There is a small insignificant group of relativists who say one church is as good as another or one religion is as good as another, and so it does not matter what church one belongs to as long as one leads a good life. Religion for most of them means only how they relate to God. It becomes privatized, with little relationship to society and no structural or institutional manifestations. They have soured on institutional religion, they say, and cite everything from Galileo to the Inquisition, from pedophilia scandals to annulments. They leave during the high school or college years, stating that the church is simply irrelevant to their needs. Often their experience of church had not been good--weak religious instruction, unchallenging classes, boring sermons, and so on. Many of them are not angry; they simply do not care. They are indifferent. Faith means nothing to them. Some return later in life; most, I fear, do not. Parents and grandparents worry about them and pray for them. Church ministers have little contact with them.

A third group find themselves in second marriages considered invalid and have drifted away, hoping that the church someday will look more kindly on them. Some are gay and carry many wounds about the church they feel rejects them. To these disaffiliated groups, that are constantly growing, must be added the angry women who also feel alienated from the church and have moved over to other denominations where they feel they will be recognized as full members and where their talents will be accepted. The number of these disaffiliated grows constantly larger and larger, certainly more so than when I wrote my first ad limina report in 1978. They have given up fighting within and have left the church in anger and sadness.
Practicing Catholics

Tridentine usage. The smallest group in my diocese is the Tridentine usage group. They are not growing rapidly, but they remain strong, especially encouraged by what they see as signs that Vatican Council II will eventually be reversed. Permission to use the Tridentine missal at Mass, the expanded privileges of the Society of St. Peter, the publication of pre-Vatican Council II catechetical and other materials--they see all of these as signs of hope. Those who worship together on Sundays with my blessing are not just oldsters who knew the church before Vatican Council II but younger parents seeking to bring up their children in the old way, sheltered from much of the current secular American culture. They see solid values found in the pre-Vatican II church that have been lost and that they feel should be preserved.

Ultramontane or papal maximalist Catholics. This group is the most vociferous in the United States, spurred on by EWTN, with Mother Angelica and Father Fessio, S.J., as their spokesmen. Their theology can be summed up as loyalty to the Pope (hence they like to call themselves orthodox Catholics over against the others). That loyalty, however, is selective because they do not express the same loyalty to Pope John XXIII or Paul VI. They are selectively anti-clerical in following the principle that they should be obedient to only those priests and bishops whom they judge represent the fullness of the papal teaching as they interpret it. The Conference of Bishops they easily dismiss. But even in Catholic teaching they can be selective, showing no interest or concern for the Catholic social teaching of the present Holy Father.

They are aggressively combative, and now, smelling victory, ever more judgmental and vicious. They seem to observe no boundaries between truth and hearsay, fact and rumor. Some of these groups are not always clearly religious in scope but seem to have at the same time a political agenda, mostly support for conservative political candidates such as Pat Buchanan. It is not easy to love them. Every parish has a few who, with little if any theology, try to hold the whole parish and its school hostage to their views. Their numbers are exaggerated, however, as they comprise a decided--but vocal--minority.

Their fear is that the left will turn the church into a congregational, democratic, Americanist model where truth will constantly be determined by a plebiscite. They fear a lack of a clear authority in the church, a new protestantizing of the church. They also fear a growing lack of respect for sacred things, an excessive familiarity with the holy that can lead to a cheap domestication of religion. These fears are valid and should be taken seriously.

Unfortunately, this group presents a form of Christian spirituality that is more inspired by Bible-belt fundamentalism than by the great and well-tested Catholic spiritualities of the ages. They become the exponents of a Catholic fundamentalism. This trend has been accentuated in the last decade as several leading Evangelical Protestant leaders have become Catholic and are given a constant and ready pulpit by this group.

One should also mention those who seem to find their spiritual sustenance in the excesses and almost magic revelations of Fatima or Medjugorje. These peripheral groups have rightly reclaimed the Marian dimension of Catholic spirituality but often fall into those abuses that Pope Paul VI warned us about in Marialis cultus. For this reason they have not had the beneficial influence on the whole local church that they could have.

The same could be said of those groups now trying to balance the excessive familiarity with the sacred, the domestication spoken of, through perpetual adoration, coming often very close to the Jansenist error that the purpose of the Eucharist is adoration, not sacrifice and communion. The intimate relationship between Mass, adoration, and social outreach gets lost and the spirituality becomes one-dimensional, if not magical.

From a pastoral point of view these groups all have valid points to make, as unbalanced as, at times, they seem to be, and should be listened to. Pastors, I know, tire of their judgmental attitudes and excessive negativism. It is unfortunate that they do not have a more compassionate and enlightened leadership.

Restless innovators. Some, not as large a group as one might suspect if my archdiocese is any indication, are poised for Vatican Council III, seeing Vatican II as but a cautious beginning to the reforms needed in the church. They do not totally and openly reject the teaching authority of the hierarchy but want to see that authority more sharply circumscribed and held more responsible to the church-at-large. It is never clear to me how far they wish to go in such a more democratization of the church, sometimes limiting their scope to sexual issues or several others in which they have a stronger interest. The lack of definite boundaries in their thinking makes it difficult to give to such groups any precise definition. They seem to want to give a forum for every kind of change, regardless of the intrinsic contradictions in the many positions advocated. Their membership remains predominantly upper-middle-class whites, those often disillusioned with the slow implementation of Vatican Council II and an uncreative church leadership. Their agenda--the full acceptance of gay sexual relationships, the ordination of women, the restoration to active ministry of priests who have resigned to marry--can at times cross over between dogma and discipline without many distinctions and qualifications. Theological depth and insight often gives way to sloganeering. They see the church as lagging behind in adjusting to positive secular values and thus offer mutual support to those with similar views, regardless of what they may be. The lack of definite boundaries, the imprecision concerning the ultimate goals of the group, and the hazy ecclesiology has left these groups ineffective in dialoguing with the larger church. Some see them as basically anti-clerical and pushing toward a total lay church. This is never stated as such, but the blurring of roles can easily lead to such a conclusion.

On the other hand, some, such as Call to Action, have kept alive a strong commitment to social justice that is very inspiring and genuine.

Their fear, to be taken seriously, is that the church can so easily become callous and ingrown, more concerned about retaining authority and institutional structures than pastoring people in need. Their theology is more from the heart than from the mind; but it is a good and needed balance in a church that is now so large and, at times, so impersonal.
The Middle Ground

The largest group of Catholics in my archdiocese can be found in a kind of middle ground. They tell me they find Mother Angelica arrogant and obnoxious, have never heard of The Wanderer, do not read Our Sunday Visitor, The Register, or The National Catholic Reporter, have never heard of Commonweal, care nothing about the Jesus Seminar people, the Catholic Theological Society and the disputes within it. The word magisterium is not in their vocabulary and seems new to them, not having been a part of the pre-Vatican II or even post-Vatican II religious education instruction our people received. They are proud of the present Pope, but read nothing he has written. They loved the sisters and regret the loss of their presence in today's church life. They like priests and are understanding of their humanity. They want their church to be an enlightened community, but they do not expect perfection. They have accepted Vatican Council II and are happy with the results. They seem to ignore much of the church's teaching on sexuality and just do not talk about it, especially about birth control. They use common sense, they say, in dealing with so many of these problems, having long ago ceased believing that all acts of masturbation were mortal sins, having accepted gays as human beings to be respected and loved but having many doubts about so many aspects of the gay lifestyle, being secretly sad that their children are living with partners before marriage but not wanting to break bonding with them. They are pro-life, but stay clear of the organized pro-life movements through a stance that is much more related to the consistent life ethic.

Their prime concern is that their local parish be a vital one. They want good liturgies with solid, tasteful music, good homilies on the scripture texts that are relevant to them and their children, especially to their teens, good schools that are academically solid and that introduce the youngsters to the best of the Catholic tradition. They do not care who the bishop is as long as he does not squelch the vitality of their parish by the appointment of a priest who cannot work with lay staffs, lay parish councils, and lay committees. They want a solid youth ministry program that will help them show their offspring that their Catholic heritage must be significant in their lives and that practicing their faith is important as they grow up and take their place in society and church. They want to be able to associate with and be mutually supported by others facing the same life problems they do. They volunteer for church projects when asked, like to be readers or Communion distributors, will serve on a committee if they feel they have the talents needed. They are not ashamed to be seen as Catholic in society but do not go out of their way to publicize it. They are not anti-clerical but want a church that listens better to them and that treats them as adults, not children, and that respects their intelligence, knowledge, and role.

One finds among them many who talk about the need in their lives for a deeper spirituality. They read Scott Peck, Thomas Moore, and similar literature, perhaps even dabble a bit in some New Age thinking, because they do not receive much in their parishes about the classic spiritual writers of the church. They seek a spirituality that is, however, lay-oriented and not one that puts guilt trips on them because they are not in monasteries.

This group also has its fears. Their first fear is a shortage of priests and a consequent diminution of the availability of Eucharist and the other sacraments, as well as a possible loss of the vitality of their parish life. They try to understand and, for the most part, accept the prohibition of the ordination of women--at least for now--but fail totally to understand why the church is not seriously discussing on a worldwide scale the ordination of married men. In this, as in so many other areas, they bring a sense of pragmatism. They also feel that by ordaining married men the church would greatly increase the pool from which to take its priestly ministers and could thus continue to assure the quality thereof. They bring the same pragmatism to the area of annulments and simply do not understand the theology behind them, even after lengthy explanations of the church's practice and reasoning in this regard. They find it borders on dishonesty and casuistry of the worst kind. I am sure they would prefer some kind of more humane and helpful solution and are surprised that other alternatives are not openly discussed.

Although they are not interested in inner-church politics, they fear the church might be retreating from its positive thrust toward the world that had been so strong in the post-Vatican II period. They do not share the constant emphasis on the culture of death and prefer the more hopeful and humble thrusts of Gaudium et spes.

As I listen to them, I sense there is another area of malaise with regard to the present church culture that they find more difficult to express. Perhaps I could, after much reflection, sum it up as a desire for a church that is more flexible. They see the need for boundaries and do not reject them, but they know that in raising their own children there is need for flexibility. Putting this thought in more sophisticated terms, I have come to see that they want a church that is not stagnant and inert, but one that has inner-growth possibilities and that is open to such growth. They do not want a church that is frozen in time, whether it be pre- or post-Vatican II. They have not read Newman's An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, but I am sure would say yes to it if it were explained to them. They know they cannot enter a new century in a church that simply says no to all modern developments and thinking. Such rigidity is not where they are coming from in their business, in their social life, in the hopes and dreams for their children. They fear their children will not feel at home nor tolerate a church that simply says no to everything modern. They feel the faithful in the church need strong challenges, but also hope and love, and not just fears, criticism, and scolding. They have not given up yet, and will not, as long as they still see their parishes as providing the kind of healthy and positive religious atmosphere that now nourishes them. Often, they will tell me, they see the priests more flexible and positive than some of the lay pastoral ministers who can tend to be professionals and more unbending in the use of their own new guidelines.

Much to my surprise I have found that these categories just described can be found in all sociological levels in the local church with only minor differences. The working poor want the same vitality in their parishes as the middle-class suburbanites. They also raise the same issues, such as the ordination of married men, to keep their parishes strong. They volunteer for all the new post-conciliar lay roles, but also keep the bingo and the parish festivals alive. They accept lay ministry, but still esteem highly their priests.

The middle ground is holding; it is still a strong Catholicism. Indifferentism on a large scale, as in the church in Holland, has not set in. It is still a vital force in the archdiocese. I know that my prayer and my pastoral efforts as a bishop must be directed toward keeping that vitality alive, while at the same time challenging it. How much is deep religious conviction based on the gospel, how much is more adaptation to American culture?