A Democratic Church?

Democracy is about governance by many; democratization is a process by which democratic norms, institutions and practices are evolving and being disseminated both intra and extra (national) boundaries.  While very often, these terminologies -- democracy and democratization -- are linked to national and even regional, if not, international politics, these are also being applied now to (business) corporations where the usual structure is top-down and the culture is boss-knows-best.

Are democracy and democratization applicable to the Catholic Church, too?

This article argues to the negative.  And to support this stand, one can appeal to at least three reasons.

Firstly, the structure of the Catholic Church as it is being legally defined in the Codex Iuris Canonici (CIC) does not have a room for democratization.  It is significant to indicate that it is the legal definition that cannot accomodate democracy, since in the local level of a good number of national Churches (of course, it is tautology to say "local Church" since Church is precisely local) there are efforts to institute base ecclesial communities.  And these base ecclesial communities are precisely appropriating structure that is more inclusive than what is stipulated in the CIC.

In any event, since CIC is the existing law of the Church, it still takes precedence -- at least in theory -- over one or the other pastorally-arranged structures in dioceses, parishes or basic ecclesial communities.

Accordingly, the structure of the Church is very hierarchical.  And this is true in almost all of its levels -- from the universal Church (referring to the leadership of the Pontiff and the organizational primacy of Rome), to the dioceses (with the bishops literally the sovereigns), to the parishes (which, practically, is the priests' turf), down to the base communities (majority of which are led by lay leaders who are often more "priestly" than priests -- pun intended).

Of course, the CIC mentions adequately about pastoral councils and finance councils.  But, it has to be mentioned that these councils are formed depending on the discretion of the parish priests and the standing culture in diocese.  Furthermore, these councils are explicitly defined as merely consultative.  These councils do not even qualify to come up with decisions, but only with proposals -- that the pastor may or may not accept.

One may say: but this is not the way these councils function in our place, and our pastors are not deaf to the clarion call of the time to practice participatory leadership.  Well, this observation is valid; for indeed there are a good number of Church leaders who would like to involve as many faithful as possible.  But, of equal importance is the observation, too, that beneath the veneer of participatory leadership, the last word is still reserved to the men-of-cloth.  The final word on faith and morals belongs to the Pope who is sitting ex cathedra; the final decision on matters of diocesan management is made by the bishop; the last word on what's going to be the pastoral program in the parish is for the parish priest.

Our second point flows from the first.  One may ask: why such a structure?  Is this structure ordained or willed by God?  Is this in accordance with the blueprint, if there is any, left by Jesus Christ for the eventual operations of the Church?

Definitely, it is not really divine although theologians of the Church make it appear so.  For there is a very manifest similarity between the leadership structure of the Church and Plato's ideal of political (read: governance) leadership.  For the latter, the society is better served by an Enlightened Philosopher.  If one reads Plato for today's audience, one grasps that he is actually promoting governance by one, provided that the leader is an enlightened one.  For the word "enlightened" to come from a philosopher, it definitely means anyone who is ahead in gnosis (which literally means light, but for intellectuals it means mental acuity or moral ascendancy and primacy in faith-witness for the "spiritual").

That the Church is Platonic in its philosophy in this regard is not surprising.  For even in some other doctrines of the Church, one sees the traces of Plato's influence.  To name just one, Platonic dualism is the basis of the body and soul dichotomy of human existence.  This is notwithstanding that Gaudium et Spes, for instance, already made allusions to "embodied soul" or "spirit-ual body" following Vatican II's attempt to take in the thoughts of modern and contemporary philosophies dismissing the dichotomization of human existential as the unity of elements of human beings is very well emphasized.

Unless, then, the Church changes its overriding philosophy concerning governance of itself, its pyramidal hierarchical set up would not budge and could even endure the pestering onslaught from many sectors to make room for democratic ideals.

Finally, democracy is appreciated and democratization happens when information is equitably shared to all.  In the Church, by information, what is meant is education in faith insofar as this has reference too to over-all life and mission of the Church.  Catholic Church is by and large one of institutional churches that have the most number of faithful in the entire globe.  Catholics are much more than Islamic faithful.  And this gigantic population of Catholics has also its downside.  In the years before the 4th century AD, or more precisely before Emperor Constantine made Christianity the official religion of his empire, the Christians were more obviously intact and were more capable of authentic witnessing.  What accounts for this is the quality and quantity of education in faith that they were able to receive.

More directly said, the Church nowadays fails miserably in its catechetical functions.  All over the globe, there are educational institutions that are being owned and run by religious congregations.  However, although these institutions of learning are of high quality, they are beyond the reach of those who are not belonging to middle and upper classes.  To aggravate the issue further, not all dioceses are in the position to offer quality catechetical instruction.

And the end product of this is wasting of the great leadership potential that is in the laity.

Democratic Catholic Church?  Definitely, not in our lifetime...