Response to Cardinal Bernardin’s "Catholic Common Ground Project"
Oct 24, 2004
(First Things, November 1996) A very public conflict between cardinals was triggered by an August 12, 1996 press conference at which Joseph Cardinal Bernardin of Chicago announced that he was launching a "Catholic Common Ground Project" aimed at reconciling differences among Catholic Americans.
The rationale of the project was set out in a three-thousand-word statement, "Called to be Catholic: Church in a Time of Peril," which Monsignor Philip J. Murnion said had been in preparation for several years.
Murnion, who heads the staff of the project, directs the National Pastoral Life Center in New York and has a long association with Cardinal Bernardin. Through dialogues, conferences, and publications, the project hopes to establish the common ground that will help mediate what its sponsors view as the "extremes" dividing the Church. The project will draw on the suggestions of an advisory committee of twenty- five persons, clergy and lay.
The response to the Bernardin initiative was swift and, in many cases, sharply critical. Although he had included Roger Cardinal Mahony of Los Angeles on the advisory group and had notified some bishops and the Holy See of his intentions, there was no advance consultation with, among others, the cardinal archbishops of New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Washington, and Detroit.
The day following Bernardin's press conference, James Cardinal Hickey of Washington issued a statement affirming the need to seek fuller unity but asserting that the project's declared purpose "obscures the true 'common ground' for any effort to bring about unity within the Church. That true 'common ground' is found in Scripture and Tradition as handed on through the teaching office of the Holy Father and the bishops. Indeed, we are fortunate to have a reliable and complete expression of our 'common ground' in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. We cannot achieve Church unity by accommodating those who dissent from Church teaching-whether on the left or on the right. To compromise the faith of the Church is to forfeit our 'common ground' and to risk deeper polarization."
"To be sure," said Hickey, [the project's statement of purpose] "recognizes the Magisterium as authoritative and deserving of respect. But it also seems to regard magisterial teaching as only one element of a consensus that is to be forged out of contrasting opinions." " In fact, says Hickey, ""the Magisterium guarantees that the Lord's message will not be corrupted or manipulated by those who have a message of their own to offer. . . . Church doctrine on faith and morals is deeply rooted in what the Lord has said and done to save us. It is His message we must preach, even when it is distinctly unpopular." "
Response to Cardinal Bernardin’s "Catholic Common Ground Project"