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Authority in the Church —The Interpretation of Lay Members of the Bishops' Commission in the Mid 1970s
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 April 2024
Extract
The study of the question of authority within religious institutions has been inadequate, from both theological and sociological perspectives. McKenzie has explained the inadequacy of theological studies as being due to ‘the emphasis placed on authority and the fervour in defending it’ and, according to Kokosalakis
‘the reluctance of many sociologists to deal with the question of values and the structures of authority and meaning in religious institutions derives mainly from the lack of a profounder theoretical foundation and/or adequate methodology to cope with the difficulties which these questions imply.’
Clearly, the Church like any other social institution, is in dialectical relation with the society in which it exists. If we are to establish the causes of a change in the attitudes towards religious authority we must begin by considering firstly the social changes which have taken place not only in the global society but also within the Roman Catholic community itself, and secondly, those changes which are the direct result of some immanent force within the institution itself.
Advances in science and technology have vastly expanded man’s knowledge and thereby his mastery over his physical and social environment. Additionally, developments in communications have provided him with an amount of information which greatly exceeds his own personal experience; in particular, the introduction of the television interview has exposed many authority figures to public scrutiny for the first time. Both factors have contributed to a de-sacralisation of authority whereby its origin has become de-mystified and its power is no longer considered to be-taboo. In addition there has been a process of democratisation in many institutions in society.
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- Research Article
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- Copyright © 1982 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers
Footnotes
1
This article was based on interviews carried out with lay membas of the bishops' commissions m England and Wales in the mid 1970s.
References
2 J. McKenzie. Authority in the Church, Sheed & Ward, 1966, p 4. Quoted in F. Houtart 'Conflicts of Authority in the Roman Catholic Church' Social Compass, 3, XVI, 1969, 309-25.
3 N. Kokosalakis, 'Aspects of Conflict Between the Structure of Authority and the Beliefs of the Laity in the Roman Catholic Church', Ch. 2 in M. Hill (ed) A Sociological Yearbook of Religion in Britain 4. SCM, 1971, 21-35.
4 F. Houtart, op. cit. p 312.
5 M. P. Hornsby-Smith and M. C. Mansfield, 'English Catholicism in Change', The Newman, 7 (3) Sept 1974, 62-70.
6 F. Houtart, op. cit. p 315.
7 M. Weber, Basic Concepts in Sociology, Peter Owen, 1969. See also F. Houtart, op. cit. pp 315-6; M. Hill, A Sociology of Religion, Heinemann, 1973, Chs. 7 & 8.
8 D. Martin, Church, Denomination and Society, Ch 12 in M. Hill (ed) A Sociology Yearbook of Religion in Britain, 5, SCM, 1972, 184-191.
9 N. Kokosalakis, op. cit. p 34.
10 F. Houtart, op. cit. pp 319-22.
11 N. Kokosalakis, op. cit. p 27.
12 F. Houtart, op. cit. note 30, p 325.
13 This suggests that in this country the reaction of the religious authorities has taken Houtart's second form by giving the contestation a certain legitimation and by promoting the ideology of participation at the national level. However, as Houtart shrewdly notes, this can 'be a means of avoiding the duty of discussing fundamental questions', F. Houtart, op. cit. p 320.
14 Ibid, p 323.
15 D. Martin, op.cit. pp 187-8. What Martin suggests might have seemed likely in the years immediately after the publication of the encyclical Humanae Vitae. However, this issue appears to be no longer a matter for feverish debate among Roman Catholics. A change in the dominant topic of conversation among Catholics attending national and international conferences over the past few years was specifically noted by some of our informants. It seems that Catholics have in large measure transferred the judgment of contraception from the religious authorities to their personal conscience. By doing this the eruption against authority which Martin predicted has been avoided but in the process religion has become more privatised. Martin concluded his article by arguing that such a privatised religion is vulnerable to secular pressures and to the emptying of theological concepts of their power (op. cit. pp 188-91).
16 When considering the clergy, F. Houtart comments that 'their basic financial dependency upon the institutional Chuch can render certain situations extremely painful', op. cit. p 320.
17 A number of commission members thought that this was the case. More recent studies in four English parishes and a survey of the delegates to the National Pastoral Congress have confiimed that there is no deep split between clergy and laity in England and Wales.