Bishops’ Senate To Help Pope

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30858, 17 September 1965, Page 14

Bishops’ Senate To Help Pope

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright)

VATICAN CITY, Sept. 15

The creation of a senate of bishops to help govern the Roman Catholic Church was one of the most important actions which Pope Paul had taken since he ascended the Papal Throne, United Press International reported.

It should reassure Catholic progressives, and ecumenicalminded Protestants, who have been concerned about Pope Paul’s commitment to the programme of “renewal and reform” initiated by Pope John XXIII.

Opening the fourth and final session of the Vatican Council in Rome today, Pope Paul announced that the new “episcopal synod” would be composed of bishops from all parts of the world. In most cases, they would be elected by their fellowbishops on a nation-by-nation basis, thus giving the synod the character of a representative international assembly. It would meet at the call of the Pope “for consultations and collaboration” on decisions involving the whole church. Outrank Bureaucracy

Thus, for the first time in modern history, bishops will have representatives in Rome who outrank the Vatican bureaucracy, and .who are in a position to advise the Pope directly, without going through the Roman Curia.

Thus the new body is a very significant practical implementation of the famous “doctrine of collegiality” adopted by the

Vatican Council at its last session.

This doctrine asserts that the bishops of the world constitute an episcopal “college” which shares with the Pope in supreme authority over the universal church. Leaders of the council’s progressive wing have urged the creation of such a top-level body as the surest safeguard against a post-conciliar reaction in which the Conservatives entrenched in the curia would undo most of the council’s reforms. Little Council

The synod will be, in effect, a continuing “little council” —bringing to Rome the insights and aspirations of the hundreds of millions of Roman Catholics all over the world who do not necessarily share all of the attitudes of the heavily-Italianised Vatican bureaucracy.