[Dr. John Swomley is professor emeritus of social ethics at St. Paul School of Theology in Kansas City, Missouri. He is a frequent contributor to Christian Ethics Today.]

Is it ethical to criticize the doctrines of a church or denomination to which we do not belong? Fear of being anti-Catholic or guilty of bigotry has silenced some Protestant theologians who otherwise would have given vocal support to Catholic theologians who openly seek changes in Vatican doctrines or discipline.

Stated another way, is it ethical to remain silent when one church uses political pressure or legislative action to impose its doctrine on others who do not recognize its authority? Or is there a virtue of silence when a dominant church asks smaller denominations to accept its doctrines, bureaucracy and "infallible" leadership as the price of ecumenical unity?

It is important to wrestle with such questions from a secular as well as a religious perspective. From a secular political perspective it is both unwise and unjust for a church hierarchy to insist on theocratic rule over both believers and non-believers as if they are too immature or unable to think for themselves and to determine their own political destiny.

The defensive reaction of some religious adherents is to label critics as bigots or anti-Catholic. The word bigot is defined in the American Heritage Dictionary as "a person of strong convictions or prejudice, especially in matters of religion, race, or politics, who is intolerant of those who differ with him." Is one necessarily intolerant of Catholics because one opposes papal politics or doctrines? Certainly there are numerous progressive Catholics that are more outspoken critics than are Protestants.

Recently I had an occasion to examine my own reaction to an accusation of being anti-Catholic, and to assess whether my opposition to doctrines implied lack of respect for those who espouse them.

A Benedictine nun accused me of being anti-Catholic because I opposed an effort to persuade an interfaith organization to which we both belong to take the papal position against abortion. Her comment led me to examine what I oppose in the Roman Catholic Church that differs from the position of those currently in that church who seek its reformation. It also led me to list my actions and responses toward Catholics that may speak louder than words.

I am opposed to any system of absolute monarchy where the monarch is elected by people appointed by the previous monarch. Democratic selection is always preferable to election by an appointed elite. I am also opposed to the assumption that any monarch by virtue of his office is the exclusive spokesperson for God or Christ. This is an arrogance which history has proven in error with respect to numerous pronouncements of the Vatican.

I am also opposed to the doctrine of papal infallibility if only because all humans make mistakes, but also because serious efforts by a powerful monarch involve injury to millions of his followers or subjects.

The papacy as it has continued throughout history has developed into a theocracy wherein the Pope rules or attempts to dominate secular governments with his decisions. A recent case in point is Pope John Paul II's March 25, 1995 encyclical, "Evangelium Vitae" in which he forbade Catholics in the United States to obey a U.S. law permitting abortion or euthanasia or "to take part in a propaganda campaign in favor of such a law, or vote for it." This, he wrote, "is contrary to the Law of God which is written in every heart, knowable by reason itself, and proclaimed by the Church." Since there is no statement against abortion in the Bible, the Pope is the author of the "Law of God" and his morality, which is not "written in every heart" or no one would need the Pope's instruction. Then the same encyclical said, "Democracy cannot be idolized to the point of making it a substitute for [the Pope's] morality." The Pope also acknowledged the conflict between democracy and theocracy with his statement, "As a result we have what appear to be dramatically opposed tendencies."

I am firmly in favor of democracy, human rights and separation of church and state, and cannot forget that the Vatican has never encouraged democracy, but moved swiftly in Europe to collaborate with fascism in Croatia, with Nazism through a concordat with Hitler Germany, with fascism via a concordat with Mussolini in Italy, a concordat with Salazar's Portugal, support of Vichy, France and Franco's Spain in return for special favors to Roman Catholicism.

I also oppose a secret bureaucracy, the Curia, which administers the church's finances and investments in secrecy, and makes decisions about the authority of bishops, theologians, professors and priests, including whether they may continue in their vocation or be arbitrarily dismissed. Even murder can take place within the Vatican without an autopsy or customary investigation by objective police authority.

Are the above the essence of the Roman Catholic Church, or could that church flourish without the aspects which I oppose? In other words, is there a possibility of a constructive ecumenism that could include mutual criticism of one another's denomination?

This led me to examine the theology of Catholicism. I realized that the differences about sacraments did not disturb me as much as the administrative and political aspects. Yet there are some serious major theological differences and inconsistencies. One is the fact that priests are barred from the sacrament of marriage. The idea that they are deprived of family life and theoretically of any enjoyment of sexuality is a serious criticism.

The idea that women are theoretically equal to men but barred from certain functions of the church and viewed as not having the same reproductive freedom or freedom of conscience as men is also a serious problem. Although the condemnation of homosexuality and the primacy of sexual sin is shared by numerous other denominations, it is also a major criticism.

I am also troubled by the built-in superstition or perhaps antiscientific aspect of Catholic theology. The idea of the bodily assumption of Mary to some place above the global earth, prayers to her and the belief that her images shed tears or exude blood, or that she can cure disease troubles me. This of course is not the only superstition but it is illustrative.

It is not surprising that all of the above criticisms are also those of an extensive reform movement of Roman Catholics.

The statement of these criticisms by a Protestant does not necessarily result in personal hostility or anti-Catholicism. In my own long life I have had many fruitful associations and taken many of the following actions because I saw them as the right thing to do, and certainly not done to disprove bias or bigotry:

• I served as African correspondent for the National Catholic Reporter while on sabbatical leave in Africa in 1977. Much earlier when the Catholic bishop of Kansas City had condemned and questioned the continued existence of that independent paper published in Kansas City, I wrote a statement and secured the signatures of fifty leading clergy in Kansas City in the euphoric days following Vatican II, appealing to the Bishop to change his mind. He did.
  
• When the same bishop dismissed certain faculty at Conception Theological Seminary, I helped three of them to find creative positions elsewhere. Earlier, I had been the first non-Catholic theologian to lecture there, and was invited back on two other occasions. I persuaded the President and faculty of the school of theology where I taught to invite a Netherlands priest to teach on our faculty. As chair of the lecture and assembly committee I invited Catholic priests and bishops to speak to our student body. I was on the executive committee of the American Society of Christian Ethics when we unanimously invited the first Catholic professor to join the Society. 
  
•  When on sabbatical leave to teach in Argentina, I met numerous times with priests en route to discuss nonviolence and liberation theology, lectured at the largest Catholic seminary in Argentina, and organized a 24-hour vigil at her church as part of an effort to free a Catholic woman arrested under martial law. I wrote the letter to the Cardinal, signed by more than a hundred participants in the vigil, which resulted in her freedom.
  
•  In Kansas City I organized and participated in a regularly scheduled ecumenical dialogue of five Catholic priests, five Jews and five Protestants. On a number of occasions I lectured at Incarnate Word College in San Antonio and in 1976 1 accepted an invitation to give the summer Commencement address.
  
• While on sabbatical in 1977 in Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, I learned that the most creative group there was the Catholic Peace and Justice Commission, a mixed-race group. At their request I met with the full Commission for their first full discussion of the philosophy of nonviolent action. The meeting lasted three hours and led to subsequent discussions with their officials.
  
• After a visit to Nicaragua in 1981 I joined with Tom Fox, then the editor of the National Catholic Reporter, to form a Kansas City regional committee on Central America. And in 1993 when the U.S. was threatening a military strike and there was fear of nuclear action against North Korea, I formed the American Committee on Korea, which included six well-known Roman Catholics among thirty-six members. On my first visit to North Korea in 1994, well before the U.S. and North Korea had begun to resolve the conflict, I visited the small Catholic church in Pyongyang as well as the Presbyterian church, accompanied by North Korean government officials so as to make visible our concern for religious liberty.

These by no means exhaust ecumenical activity with Roman Catholic leaders. The longest and most beneficial cooperative relationship which continues to this day is with the Sisters of Loretto, a genuinely progressive and non-violent group.

I have also had a long though less frequent relationship with the Catholic Workers movement beginning in Boston in 1938 and including their houses in Kansas City and St. Louis.

The most contentious of my experiences with Catholics occurred in 1979 when I was scheduled to be a speaker at the national Pax Christi conference. My topic was to be nuclear power and war. Pax Christi is an international Catholic peace organization. Although I had been asked months in advance of the October conference, I did not learn until September that Father Gerald Senecal, the President of Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas where the conference was to held, had told Pax Christi authorities that I could not be permitted on campus.

Angie O'Gorman, a friend of mine who was the local Pax Christi coordinator, said, according to the September 14 National Catholic Reporter, that Senecal told her that "Swomley was 'anti-church and a 'bigot'. O'Gorman said Senecal told her Swomley could not appear on campus because of Swomley's views on separation of church and state and abortion. O'Gorman asked for specific examples of writing or speeches by Swomley proving the allegations of bigotry, but none was provided."

Gordon Zahn, a friend of many years and a prominent Catholic sociologist who was also scheduled to lead a workshop told NCR, "If they are characterizing him as a bigot they are mistaken. I do not consider him anti-Catholic, though we differ on certain topics."

The first intimation that I had been banned came not from any Pax Christi leader but from a staff member of the National Catholic Reporter, who asked me for a statement for their next issue. I decided not to make an "off the cuff" statement, but to give the NCR a written one.

I said in part:

"The withdrawal of the invitation comes as a surprise but not as an affront. My surprise is because I had assumed the term 'Catholic' describes an inclusiveness that tolerates difference.

I have the greatest respect for Pax Christi and its leadership, so I don't want to do or say anything to harm it. The world needs all the peace activity it can muster. Pax Christi is making a very significant contribution and will do so whether I attend the conference in Atchison or not.

There are, without doubt, people in Pax Christi who are concerned about free speech and the desirability of differing points of view on some questions. If they have been unable to persuade the college president, Father Senecal, that Pax Christi should be able to determine whom they will invite to speak, nothing that I say will be persuasive."

I went on to indicate my belief that "conscience as well as medical judgment should determine whether abortion is to be chosen, just as I believe conscience should determine whether anyone prepares for war or participates in nuclear or other war." I also indicated that I would not have raised either the abortion or separation of church and state issues at the conference "if only because I respect religious convictions that differ from mine."

The November 2 National Catholic Reporter in a report from the conference said: "The Benedictine College ban of the respected nuclear disarmament expert was an issue that popped up constantly at the Pax Christi U.S.A. national assembly here last month. It was the item of discussion for participants and organizers whose meetings were almost entirely tied up with how to deal with it. Even students protested the ban."

Pax Christits executive council…issued a statement censuring Father Senecal in which they said the Council 'profoundly regrets the decision taken by the president of the host college.' The statement also said the problem showed "a failure in the Council to handle the situation in a concerted fashion."

According to the NCR, Joseph Fahey, the new Pax Christi executive council chairman, said he was going to drop out of the conference altogether in protest, but decided to attend "to keep negotiations with Senecal going and to keep Pax Christi together." The NCR also said, "Swomley, a Methodist who is called by Fahey "more Catholic than many of us," said, "unless there was a recognition of differences in faith, there is no real ecumenism possible."

A Protestant periodical, The Christian Century, reported only briefly the ban on my speaking but did report Father Senecal's charges. As a result there were a number of letters from Roman Catholic nuns in the November 7, 1979 Century. Four Kansas City nuns, Sisters Marie Frances Kenoyer, Mary McNellis, Barbara Doak, and Shirley Koritnik, objected to the characterization of me as a 'bigot.' Sister Margaret Ellen Traxler of Chicago wrote, "I am indignant over his rejection by the President of Benedictine College…. The very stones of Benedictine College must cry out protesting the slander against John Swomley."

Is my critique of the Roman Catholic church unique? Not at all. I have important criticisms of the Southern Baptist Convention, fundamentalist Protestant groups, the Mormons, Christian Science, and the Methodist Church in which I was reared, but I have never been accused of being anti-Baptist or anti other Protestant groups. It is the heritage of Protestant attacks on Catholics and the memory of such discrimination that makes certain Catholics view any sustained verbal or written critiques of any major Catholic sins such as abortion, or any public criticism of the papacy or the Pope's pronouncements or his politics, as anti-Catholic. For this reason many Protestants are silent when they should feel able to express at least what many progressive Catholics already espouse in terms of doctrinal and organizational change.

The problem for real ecumenism is silence to avoid being called anti-Catholic, when it should involve criticism as well as healthy cooperation on areas of mutual interest.

Moreover, if I were redefining bigotry it would be the expression by the adherents of any faith that non-believers or dissenters must conform or yield to their political or religious demand in order to be respected or accepted.

Why should people of diverse religious groups or none cooperate in spite of their differences? One answer is our common humanity. We learn to respect and value those with whom we work on common problems. Another answer is that few if any religious organizations are so monolithic that their members agree on all issues. People differ from their religious colleagues on numerous issues such as the rights of women, treatment of workers, sexual orientation, poverty, war and peace, environmental protection, and others. Such issues cannot be resolved by any one denomination because the vested interests of males, or capitalists, or militarists, or others, are so powerful.

Religious dogma, habit, or socially conditioned beliefs and prejudices are not adequate for our increasingly complex and power-driven society. For example, Catholics, Protestants, and Jews who at one time had large families or did not practice birth control or family planning, are doing so today, driven by many reasons-poverty, desire to send children to college, both parents working outside the home, divorce, and single-parent households, among others.

Few if any of us like to have the major decisions of our lives made for us. We want to have a voice with respect to our future as well as the immediate decisions of life. We want all the rights accorded to free persons, without subordination to any special interests, economic, political, or religious.

Updated Thursday, December 28, 2000