Bishops, communion, politicians, part II - bishops

In my diocese, a very decent and friendly man is our bishop, archbishop actually. I've met him; he is jovial, friendly, and his homilies are gentle, funny, and insightful. There is a true sense of holiness about the man. He hails from Manitoba, one of the other spots in Canada where french-speakers who speak perfect English are common, and so is ideally suited to the dual language character of my city. I've seen him on the community TV channel speaking about his childhood there, and it is nice to see your bishop so full of life and humanity.

We are very lucky here in Ottawa to have him. Not everyone is as fortunate. I read in the news from time to time about bishops who have been involved in hit and run car crashes, who have covered up the child abuse scandals in their dioceses, and in at least one instance I've heard of, been accused of not just covering up child abuse but participating in it! I'm sure such bishops are a small minority, but it tests your faith to hear about it at times.

Since the time of the apostles, there have been bishops - the Greek word for bishop is actually in the Bible - episkopos, also translated as elder or overseer at times. In the earliest days of the church, when Christians gathered in houses in small communities, the bishop would be simply the senior clergyman or head pastor of a house church, and was often selected for this role by the Christian community, in loose elections. A bishop was consecrated, then as now, by having someone who already had episcopal status lay hands on them - in Paul's second letter to Timothy we see a hint at this practice. In 1 Peter 5, we see St. Peter already giving congregations a guideline for how elders and laity of the day should behave with one another. By the time the second century arrived, the ranks of clergy that we have today were essentially fully formed in the same roles that are there today - deacons (diakonos, also mentioned in the Bible), priests (presbyteros), and bishops (episkopos.)

As Christian communities grew from small tight-knit families of faith into larger communities, more and more bishops were not associated with running individual church gatherings, but the local "church" in the sense of a city or region's Christian community. It began to fall to the priests to actually preside over individual house churches' celebrations. But the model remained the same, with the bishop being shepherd to the flock. I remember reading of St. Ambrose (the bishop of Milan) telling St. Monica that he did not want her indulging in certain kinds of North African piety such as picnicking at the graves of saints. St. Augustine recalls her as humbly submitting.

She's my model for approaching the bishops. Bishops may be confered a grace by ordination, but that grace is for my benefit. It continues apostolic succession, the line of laying on of hands back to the apostles that gives us a priesthood that can perform the sacraments. It does not make the bishop who is ordained a more moral man, or even necessarily a decent man. There have been bad bishops, there have been bad popes - men of no apparent holiness whatsoever.

But St. Monica's submission to St. Ambrose was not a submission to a man - it was a submission to humility. And that is why I believe in it. In the modern world, we are trained in a rugged individuality. "I am my own man," men like me are taught to say. "She's a self made woman," I've often said of my trail blazing mother, who went further in her public service career than any woman before her. There really is a lot to be said for individuality, but at the same time, there's a lot to be said for acquiescence, if you offer that acquiescence up to God. Submitting to a bishop is an act of piety - not one that recognizes the bishop as a better man, but one that says to God that I will play whatever role he gives me. If God has given me the path of laity as my walk in life, then I will try and be the best church layman I can be.

That's not to say that submission to a bishop is an act of blind faith. Both the Catechism of the Catholic Church and the Second Vatican Council assert "the primacy of conscience." We owe our first sense of duty to our conscience, to do what it tells us, before anything and anyone else. We may have an obligation to form our conscience well, but once we do that, we should listen to it. I would not obey a bishop's directive to the faithful to go and shoot someone, for example, since my conscience can clearly tell me that shooting someone is wrong (not that I can imagine a bishop ever asking such a thing. :-)

Next post - Laity...