Group after group has come together this Holy Year in order to bring to their particular state of life the graces of the Jubilee. This week, it’s the bishops’ turn. Almost all the auxiliary bishops of Chicago joined me in Rome Oct. 6-8 to ask God for the grace we need to be good shepherds at the beginning of a new millennium.

Four moments mark the Jubilee for Bishops. The first reflection in Rome was on authority and service, followed by a penitential rite and a collection for the poor Churches. The second time the bishops came together they considered missionary proclamation and the new evangelization. The third session had them reciting the rosary together during this month of the holy rosary and reflecting on Mary’s role in the world’s salvation. The Pope had brought the statue of Our Lady of Fatima to Rome for the Bishops’ Jubilee. At the closing Mass he entrusted the world to Mary once again. A great number of the bishops of the world were together with him in Rome for this.

The previous week, the priests of the Archdiocese of Chicago came together for a day of convocation. Among the many pastoral topics we could have reflected upon, I thought it necessary to fill everyone in on the state of the finances of the Archdiocese. The financial situation has been precarious for some years, and as we move ahead to adjust expenses and increase revenue, it’s important for all the priests to see the total picture. Without real information, people imagine all kinds of things and some even panic. On the other hand, once they know the situation as it is, some might be tempted to panic. The Church’s “situation”, however, is never simply financial. If the Church should ever come to think of herself as just a business, she would forget that she is the Body of Christ, the People of God, the Temple of the Holy Spirit. But budgets and financial planning are as much a part of Church life as they are part of the life of every one of her members. Not all of our life, but a necessary and important part, for budgets tell us what our priorities are.

When the Church is approached only as a business, the bishop is seen only as a Chief Executive Officer. Since there are more CEOs than there are bishops, many tend to look at the bishop in this light. We are a commercial republic, and business metaphors are the prism through which we see much of reality, including the Church and her bishops. When we think of the Church using only a business corporation as model, we forget that our ties to Christ and to one another in His body are closer than our ties to our blood family or to any corporate or civil association. Those who hear the Word of God and keep it are Jesus’ mother and brothers and sisters. Through baptism and Eucharist, the life of the Blessed Trinity courses through our veins.

Christ is the head of His body the Church. The bishop in each diocese is ordained to visible headship, acting not just in Christ’s name but in His person. The members of each local Church (diocese) gather around him because he is their shepherd, intrinsic to their life in and with the Lord. A bishop always bears a title, like Archbishop of Chicago. He is bishop of some Church, for a head without members is as meaningless as members without a head. The links between head and members are not adequately understood by thinking of a business corporation. Being bishop is not a personal honor but a social vocation. Like being married can’t be understood without thinking of a marriage partner, being bishop is not something one can fathom without seeing the bishop in and of the Church.

The sacrament of Holy Orders and the office of bishop are gifts from Christ to the Church, but not all of Christ’s disciples consider them to be gifts. Some Protestant Christians consider them a betrayal of the Gospel at worst and a human invention at best. Catholics believe that such brothers and sisters in Christ do not have all the gifts Christ wants them to enjoy. These principled differences are the reason for ecumenical and interfaith dialogue. No one can enter into dialogue demanding that the partner put his or her faith aside. I cannot demand that Jews accept Jesus as messiah and savior before I talk to them, nor can they demand that I give up my belief that Jesus died for all, including those who do not accept him as messiah and savior. I cannot demand that Muslims stop denying that Jesus died on the cross before I will talk to them: nor can they demand that I stop believing that He is the eternal Son of God, equal to the Father, before they will talk to me. I cannot place as a condition for talking to Protestants that they recognize seven sacraments rather than two and come into visible communion with the Bishop of Rome, nor can they demand that I give up the Catholic understanding of the role of Mary in the economy of salvation before we begin to dialogue.

I make these points because of the consternation set off recently by a Roman document called “The Lord Jesus”. The Declaration reviews the Church’s understanding of who Christ is and of his relation to the Catholic Church. What it says is directly from the documents of the Second Vatican Council; but some, both Catholics and others, fear that its tone, at least, takes us away from the Council. These concerns must be taken seriously. The Holy Father, talking recently to representatives of the Reformed Churches (Calvinist in their theology), made two points: 1) the Catholic Church is irrevocably committed to ecumenical dialogue and the search for visible unity among all those who call Jesus Lord, and 2) we should all do penance and pray for conversion. The last point is of the most absolute importance.

The Second Vatican Council did not call for Catholics to become Protestants. If I really believed Protestantism to be a totally adequate expression of Christianity, I would become a Protestant. The Council, however, called Catholics directly and other Christians indirectly to look at themselves as true brothers and sisters because of their common baptism. We are truly, intrinsically, of the same family. Then the Council asked us to change whatever we could change in ourselves in order to come to greater visible unity in Christ. The Council’s goal was to come, in God’s own time, to that point where all the disciples of Christ would share all Christ’s gifts in common. Dialogue is necessary to see more clearly together what is of Christ and what is something we’ve made up ourselves.

Commenting on the Declaration “The Lord Jesus” recently, Pope John Paul II said that it was intended to clarify the foundations of Catholic faith for the sake of dialogue, because “a dialogue without foundations would be destined to degenerate into empty verbosity. …It is my hope,” the Holy Father explained, “that this Declaration which means so much to me, after so many wrong interpretations, can finally assume its function of clarifying and, at the same time, of openness.”

Openness, however, is a two-way street. In some moral issues, many Protestants seem farther from Catholics and Orthodox Christians and, I would argue, from the discipline of the Gospel itself, than they were 40 years ago, when no Christian believed it moral to abort a baby. Reasons for this and other changes that have occurred even since the modern ecumenical dialogue began are discussed in dialogues that are both clear and charitable. Finally, it is the growth in charity that will force us to change whatever we can in order to be one in Christ for, as the Pope insists, “the Catholic Church suffers … for the fact that true particular Churches and ecclesial communities with precious elements of salvation are separated from her.” This suffering is as intrinsic and personal as our relationship to Christ Himself.

Many of the bishops of the Catholic Church came to Rome to celebrate the Jubilee. We are praying to Mary, Mother of the Church, to protect and guide us as we serve her Son’s people. We are praying that the desire to evangelize will take deeper root in the hearts of all Catholics at this moment of grace. The national mission congress held in Chicago just a few weeks ago was a cause for encouragement, but we still, in our local Church, have much to think over and pray about if the new millennium is to be truly “a springtime for the Gospel.” During this Jubilee for Bishops I think of and pray for all the members of Christ’s body who make up the Archdiocese of Chicago. Please pray for me, a fellow disciple of Christ who is your bishop.

God bless you.
Sincerely yours in Christ,

Francis Cardinal George, OMI
Archbishop of Chicago