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Catholic dissent, however, is not basically a question of objecting to specific strictures. Far more often it involves unhappiness with an unwieldy, outdated organization that demands obedience to dogmas that no longer make sense or to rules that restrict Christian liberty. Moreover, obedience is compelled frequently not by scriptural testimony but by threats of punishment in hell—an eschatological scare increasingly rejected by Catholic theologians. Despite their commitment by solemn vow to this ecclesiastical machinery, priests have been among the most vociferous rebels. This year alone, at least 463 Catholic clerics in the U.S. have left the priesthood, many of them to marry. Rome's Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has on file more than 3,000 requests for laicization, or approval of a priest's return to lay life. (Church officials customarily sit on these applications for months without taking action; many priests have discovered that when they marry illegally, their petitions are more quickly acted upon.)
Traditionally, docility has been considered the supreme virtue of the Catholic laity; today, laymen are less and less docile. Cardinal O'Boyle's stern treatment of his dissident priests has moved thousands of laymen to anger. Eugene McCarthy and Mrs. Philip Hart, wife of the Michigan Senator, are among several prominent Catholics in the capital who have lent their support to a new church center where several of the censured priests live. The five resident priests have set up a kind of campaign headquarters for local Catholic protesters in a three-story row house. In San Antonio, 4,700 laymen have signed a petition in support of the 68 priests who had publicly requested the Pope to retire Archbishop Robert E. Lucey.
Liberated Cathedral. Catholic rebellion also involves a new critical attitude toward secular society that frequently puts bishops and their flocks at odds—despite the generally progressive attitude of the church toward social problems in recent years. In Santiago, Chile, 214 priests, nuns and laymen "liberated" the National Cathedral for 15 hours in a demonstration against the Pope's visit to Bogotá, which they said would only reaffirm "the alliance of the church with military and economic power." Milwaukee's Father James E. Groppi, a civil-righteous advocate of Black Power, is a symbol of courage to many U.S. Catholics. So is the pacifist Jesuit poet Daniel Berrigan, who, with his brother Philip and seven others, was sentenced to a federal prison term two weeks ago for burning draft files at a Selective Service office in Maryland. Says Berrigan of many of today's Christians: