Washington (CNS) — Barely had one proposal for a new plenary council of the U.S. church become public when another independent proposal, already in the works, was released.

The second was issued by the New York-based National Pastoral Life Center as an editorial in its magazine, Church.

Reflecting on the issues of bishops’ accountability and lay participation raised at the bishops’ Dallas meeting on clergy sexual abuse, it said, “The current challenges to the church in the United States cannot be addressed within ordinary structures. It is time to convene a plenary council provided for in canon law.”

A week earlier, eight U.S. bishops asked their fellow prelates to consider convoking a landmark national plenary council to promote holiness, priestly celibacy and sound sexual morality in the U.S. Catholic Church.

Cardinal George, acknowledging the calls for a plenary council said, “I fully support the goals. I’m still studying the means. I am sympathetic to (the) proposal.”

Such a council would be the first in the United States since the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore in 1884, which lasted nearly a month and led to the development of the Baltimore Catechism and strong efforts for Catholic schools throughout the country.

In a letter sent to the bishops in mid-July and obtained by Catholic News Service, the group said the bishops “took a first step in dealing with the crisis of sexual abuse of minors” at their June meeting in Dallas.

The letter added, however, that the bishops still need to address “the root causes of this crisis” and the challenge posed by Pope John Paul II April 23 when he called on the American hierarchy to “bring a purification of the entire Catholic community ... a holier priesthood, a holier episcopate and a holier church.”

The first proposal calls for the plenary council to have the aims of:

u “Solemnly receiving the authentic teaching” of the Second Vatican Council and postconciliar teachings on the identity, life and ministry of priests and bishops, on sexual morality in general and on celibate chastity as an authentic form of human sexuality.

u “Giving unequivocal endorsement and normative force to the means” set out in church teaching “to foster the acts of virtue required of pastors and the means needed to achieve those virtues, especially celibate chastity.”

u “Confirming the bishops in the authoritative exercise of our ministry” and strengthening priests in teaching the Gospel “especially in regard to sexual morality, so that we can give support to the lay faithful in responding to their call to holiness.”

It asks the bishops to bring the question of a plenary council to a debate and vote when they gather in Washington this November for the fall general assembly of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

It calls for the bishops to designate the metropolitan archbishops of the country as the members of a general preparatory commission that would have chief responsibility to work out the preparations for a council.

Auxiliary Bishop Allen H. Vigneron of Detroit, one of the main initiators of the first proposal, told Catholic News Service Aug. 8 that more than 50 bishops have supported the idea of holding a plenary council. “And more (signatures) are coming in,” he said.

Bishop Vigneron said that in the petition’s call for a council to lend “unequivocal endorsement and normative force” to aids to priestly virtue, he was not thinking of establishing new norms for priests in the country.

The idea, rather, is for the bishops to reaffirm in a solemn council setting the importance of those things already required of priests or strongly commended to them in general church teaching and practice, he said. He cited as some of the main examples daily Mass, frequent confession, eucharistic devotion, meditation, regular retreats, the Liturgy of the Hours and ascetic practices such as fast and abstinence.

Bishop Robert C. Morlino of Helena, Mont., who worked closely with Bishop Vigneron and Bishop Raymond L. Burke of La Crosse, Wis., in developing the proposal, told CNS the Dallas meeting dealt with the most immediate issues concerning sexual abuse by priests.

He said informal discussion of a plenary council started among a few bishops even before Dallas, however, because “we’ve always seen the Dallas issue situated in a larger context. ... There are underlying issues that surround the difficulty that we find ourselves in. There is a widespread confusion about Catholic moral teaching, about the meaning of conscience, about the place of dissent. There is a need for clarification with regard to the demands for priestly holiness.

“I think that proportionate to the problematic situation in which we find ourselves, we need a proportionate response,” he added. “And I think that the plenary council would be the more full sign of the fact that if there is sin and weakness in the church, the bishops are still successors of the apostles, still authentic teachers, and I think the sign of a plenary council would invite people more powerfully and more clearly to affirm that.”

Archbishop Thomas C. Kelly of Louisville, Ky., a former general secretary of the bishops’ conference, expressed reservations about convoking a plenary council when he was contacted by CNS, but he said he was open to hearing the arguments for one.

He said one of his concerns was whether calling such a meeting, which he described as more authoritative but less democratic in style than the bishops’ conference, might weaken the place of the conference, which “has been amazingly strong almost all of the 20th century and has had a tremendous impact” on the life of the U.S. church.

The two calls for a plenary council were developed independently.

Msgr. Philip Murnion, head of the National Pastoral Life Center, said the editorial for the fall issue of Church was “written a month ago” when he and the center’s staff were unaware of the other proposal. He said that issue of Church was due out Aug. 23, but he released the editorial when he learned of the other proposal in order to contribute to the discussion.

He said he saw two main differences between the two proposals. “First, theirs is a much more extensive proposal” with a more detailed agenda spelled out, he said.

The second difference, he said, was that the two proposals were based on “different assumptions.”

The proposal circulating among the bishops focuses on “celibacy, chastity and virtue” as the key issue, he said, and “that’s an important part of the question.”

But he said the Church editorial sees the issues behind the clergy sex abuse crisis as “broader” and involving institutional questions of lay participation, accountability, trust, dialogue and the relationships of laity with priests and bishops.

Msgr. Murnion described a plenary council as “both a danger and an opportunity.” He said in his dealings with church groups around the country, he regularly sees a “tendency for conservatives to focus on individual virtues and holiness and ignore questions of structural change, while the liberals focus on the structural issues and not on (the need for) virtue.”

Both aspects have to be addressed, he said, “and it would be a shame not to bring them together” by addressing both at a plenary council.

Under church law, at a plenary council only bishops would have a deliberative, or decision-making, vote, but other participants would have the right to speak.

All active bishops have a right to attend. If the bishops’ conference invites retired bishops to attend as well, they also have a right to vote.

Also automatically invited are all diocesan vicars general and episcopal vicars, all heads of Catholic colleges and universities and deans of their theology and canon law faculties, and a representative number of religious order superiors and seminary rectors. Other priests and laity can be invited by the bishops’ conference, up to half the number of all those in the other categories together.