A Millennium Letter to John Paul II
April 2000
by Most Rev. Dr. Robert M. Bowman
Presiding Archbishop, United Catholic Church
Your Holiness, greetings to the most distinguished and revered of our brothers. In this millennial year, as you contemplate the crowning conclusion of your long and illustrious reign over the world’s largest Christian body, you can take pride in having set records that may never be equalled. In the longest pontificate in recent memory, you have visited more countries, travelled more miles, spoken more languages, and been seen by more people than any pope in history. You have given eloquent sermons and written brilliant documents on a staggering array of subjects. Some of your pronouncements on peace, social justice, and the death penalty (for example) are treasured by many of us, will be quoted for centuries, and may be considered truly prophetic.
Yet, for all these accomplishments, as things now stand, you are destined to go down in history as a placekeeping pontiff, one of a handful of mostly-forgotten transition popes between John XXIII and a successor yet to be named who will again throw the windows of the Church open to the unpredictable winds of the Holy Spirit, bring about changes long yearned for, and achieve the greatness accorded only a very few. For all your personal piety and long-suffering efforts on behalf of the church, in all your years of devoted service you have never attained the recognition, love, and devotion given to the soon-to-be-canonized John XXIII in his all-too-brief papacy.
Yet things are not yet cast in stone. You are still the Bishop of Rome, ruler of the Vatican, and successor of St. Peter. Yes, you are ill. That is obvious to all, and our prayers are with you. But you are not dead! Your mind still works, though your extremities may at times fail you. There is yet time! You can still attain the greatness you deserve. You can still do the work God placed you in Rome to do. I implore you to throw off the yoke of the status-quo advisors who sometimes seem to imprison you. In your final months (perhaps years) in St. Peters, shake things up!
It is with a trembling understanding of my unworthiness to advise you that I nevertheless offer the following suggestions:
(1) Dissolve the Roman Curia. Gather instead a small personal staff to assist you, and exile the rest to a Vatican Secretariat whose charter clearly stipulates that they are to assist the world’s bishops and never (regardless of the color of their hats) to exercise any authority over them.
(2) Abolish the Vatican Bank. I’m sure there is a commercial bank in Italy that would be happy to purchase the Bank’s assets and manage its portfolio subject to the laws of Italy. Use the proceeds to benefit the poor whom God loves, and for whom you have spoken so eloquently.
(3) Make bold moves toward Christian unity.
(a) In the spirit of your tireless efforts to build bridges to other Christians, remove all "anathemas" hurled at both people and other churches by past popes and councils.
(b) To cement unity with our Orthodox sisters and brothers, compromise on the issues which caused the dreaded division a thousand years ago. Recognize that the Creed without the "Filioque" is authentic. Accept the status of "First Among Equals" with which Bishops of Rome were satisfied for the first millennium, and drop all demands for absolute primacy.
(c) To heal the divisions of the Reformation and Trent’s overreaction to it, acknowledge that Martin Luther was right in most of what he asked and that he was God’s instrument to call the Church back from error and abuse.
(d) To bring the Anglican Communion into the fold, recognize the validity of their Apostolic Succession and acknowledge their power to confer valid priesthood on whom they wish, including women.
(e) To restore unity with the Old Catholic churches (including mine), declare that infallibility belongs to the Church as a whole and cannot be unilaterally exercised by the pope or anyone else. Declare that belief in the Marian doctrines (and indeed all doctrines of the divided churches of the last thousand years) is optional and not essential to salvation.
(f) To reach out to the alienated and rejected sheep of your own fold, withdraw all excommunications (both automatic and specific). In recognition of the fact that the Eucharist is not a reward for sanctity, but God’s help to achieve it, embrace the divorced and remarried, the homosexuals living in committed union, the members of organizations like Call To Action, and all those who have been told that they are unworthy ... and call them to the Lord’s table just as Christ himself did.
(g) To make Christ’s wish "that they may be One just as You and I are One" come true, open the Communion table to all Christians who believe in the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist (even if they reject Trent’s legalistic and mechanistic definition of transsubstantiation).
(4) Relax or abolish the man-made rules which cause so much pain and division within the Church (and drive so many people into mine):
(a) Ordain women. Jesus was a male. (He had to be one or the other.) But the Second Person of the Trinity (like the other two) is beyond gender. The fiction that only a male can represent Christ at the altar is destroying belief in the ordained priesthood altogether. Very soon, some pope will break the bonds of patriarchy and change the rules. Why not you? You might start by naming some distinguished female theologian to the College of Cardinals (a step which does not require ordination).
(b) Officially drop the totally discredited ban on birth control.
(c) Do away with the requirement for mandatory celibacy for priests. Recall married priests to active ministry, at their option. Some, having moved on and built new lives for themselves, will choose not to return. Others will have already returned to active ministry in another church. (We are blessed with many of them.) But a great many will return to help solve the shortage of priests and to reinvigorate parish life.
(5) Democratize the Church. Give the people and clergy of a diocese a say in the selection of their bishop (as was the practice in centuries long past). Give bishops more authority and flexibility within their diocese. In dealing with complaints about a bishop from within his diocese, be concerned about those accused of being too autocratic and heavy-handed, not just those accused of being too lenient.
(6) Dismantle the world’s largest multinational corporation (the Roman Catholic Church) by divesting the Church of much of its property. Let the people of the parish hold title to the church building, not the bishop. This will prevent parishes from being closed by bishops for financial reasons.
(7) Model the Church after Christ’s ministry — a homeless band ministering to the poor, the dispossessed, the outcast, the alienated, and calling the wealthy to join in their poverty. The Church should never be allied with the wealthy and powerful against the common people, as it was in Czarist Russia and has been in most of Latin America. The Oscar Romeros should be the norm rather than the exception. That this is not the case is a scandal for the Church.
Do these things, and you will go down in history as the greatest pope of all time. What’s more important, you will be loved by the people as long as earth survives ... and by your fellow saints in heaven for all eternity. May God guide you, inspire you, and embolden you in your final years. And may He bless us all through your actions as He has through your example.
Your brother in Christ,
a schismatic bishop
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