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What's Wrong With An Agenda?
/ 12 / 02 / 2002 /
All columns prior to September 30, 1996, © The Catholic Transcript
All columns from September 30, 1996 to present, © Richard P. McBrien
The English word “agenda” is identical with the Latin, agenda. It is a list of things that “need to be done.” As such, it is neutral in meaning. Taken positively, however, it refers to an individual or a group who are well-organized–people who know what “needs to be done” and have made the effort to list the steps that need to be taken if goals are to be achieved.
“Agenda” is sometimes given a negative meaning, as in the dismissive remark, “Well, what would you expect them to say? They have an agenda.” This negative connotation has come into play during the current sexual-abuse crisis in the Roman Catholic Church.
A few commentators, who probably regard themselves as perfect centrists beholden to no group or movement within the Church, have suggested that it is counter-productive for Catholics of the left and the right to “exploit” this crisis by pressing their own “agendas”.
They scold “the left” for making the case for a married clergy, women priests, and the popular election of bishops, and “the right” for its campaign to keep gays out of seminaries and the priesthood, and to enforce fidelity to church teachings about human sexuality and reproduction.
They say that the Church cannot effectively address this crisis if it gets side-tracked by disputes over these various “agenda” items. The task before us is to resolve the present crisis, to see to it that children and young people are protected from harm, and to re-establish healthy relationships between bishops and their priests, and between the hierarchy and the laity. This is the time to put aside selfish interests (read: “agendas”).
In his presidential address at the recent bishops’ meeting in Washington, D.C., Wilton Gregory, bishop of Belleville, Illinois, and president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, mounted a similar warning, but in a sharper, more confrontational manner, even lumping so-called “agenda-Catholics” with anti-Catholic elements in society.
“As bishops,” he declared, “we should have no illusions about the intent of some people who have shown more than a casual interest in the discord we have experienced within the Church this year. There are those outside the Church who are hostile to the very principles and teaching that the Church espouses, and have chosen this moment to advance the acceptance of practices and ways of life that the Church cannot and will never condone.” Bishop Gregory gave no examples.
His more ominous comments came in the second half of the paragraph: “Sadly, even among the baptized, there are those at extremes within the Church who have chosen to exploit the vulnerability of the bishops in this moment to advance *their own agendas*. One cannot fail to hear in the distance -- and sometimes very nearby -- he call of the false prophet, ‘let us strike the shepherd and scatter the flock’. We bishops need to recognize this call and to name it clearly for what it is” (my emphasis).
The problem is that Bishop Gregory did not “name it clearly for what it is.” He did not tell his fellow bishops who the “extremists” are nor the content of their “agendas”.
Was he warning the bishops against conservative Catholics who have been blaming the crisis on homosexuals and urging that gays not be admitted to seminaries nor ordained to the priesthood? If so, not a few of those extremists were sitting in the audience, right in front of him.
Are the “false prophets” those who favor optional celibacy for priests, a greater role for women in the Church, and a change in the process by which bishops are appointed? Again, some of his fellow bishops favor these reforms.
But in the end, what’s wrong with having an agenda? An agenda, after all, is nothing more than a list of things that a group of people thinks “need to be done”–whether in politics, business, academia, the professions, or even the Church.
One may disagree with the content of a particular agenda, but why should its very existence be dismissed so summarily -- as “extremist,” in fact?
Does anyone seriously believe that the Church can extricate itself from the present crisis and avoid similar crises in the future without making any systemic or structural changes at all? Is it only a matter of fidelity and obedience, and nothing more?
If a fire department were having difficulty putting out fires in a timely fashion, would it be “extremist” for citizens to demand a review of operations, including the training of firefighters, the system of promotions within the department, and the state of its fire-fighting equipment?
Or would such concerns be manifestations of “false prophecy”?