The Exercise of the Primacy: Continuing the Dialogue ed. by Phyllis Zagano, Terrence W. Tilley, and: Papal Primacy and the Episcopate: Toward a Relational Understanding by Michael J. Buckley, and: Towards a Papacy in Communion: Perspectives from Vatican Councils I &II by Hermann J. Pottmeyer (review)

BOOK REVIEWS The Exercise of the Primacy: Continuing the Dialogue. Edited by PHYLLIS ZAGANO andTERRENCEW. TILLEY. NewYork: Crossroad, 1998. Pp. 192. $14.95 (paper). ISBN 0-8245-1744-X. Papal Primacy and the Episcopate: Toward a Relational Understanding. By MICHAEL J. BUCKLEY. New York: Crossroad, 1998. Pp. 96. $12.95 (paper). ISBN 0-8245-1745-8. Towards a Papacy in Communion: Perspectives from Vatican CouncilsI & 11. By HERMANNJ.POTIMEYER. New York: Crossroad, 1998. Pp. 140. $14.95 (paper). ISBN 0-8245-1776-8. Pope John Paul II in his encyclical Ut unum sint asked for suggestions regarding ways of exercising papal primacy that are open to the new situation and yet renounce nothing essential to the mission of the papacy. The pope's request was directed in the first place to leaders and theologians of non-Roman Catholic churches, but it has provoked no small amount of discussion within the Church itself, as attested by the three books here under review. Among the early Catholic responses was a lecture on "The Exercise of the Primacy and the Costly Call to Unity," given on June 29; 1996, at Campion Hall, Oxford, by John R. Quinn, retired archbishop of San Francisco, which is the focal essay in The Exercise ofthe Primacy. In essence, this lecture is a plea for a more collegial exercise of the primacy. Quinn finds a lack of collegiality in a number of recent decisions and current policies including the appointment of bishops, the approval of documents such as the Catechism ofthe Catholic Church, the celibacy of the clergy, the ordination ofwomen, the role of women in the Church, the permissibility of contraception, the conditions for general absolution, the treatment of divorced and remarried Catholics, the inculturation of the liturgy, and the procedures of the Synod of Bishops. The real questions, Quinn asserts, are not simply about the manner in which the primacy is exercised but rather, he suggests, about substantive claims. On the whole, Quinn refrains from direct criticism of the Pope and puts the blame on the Roman Curia and the papal diplomatic corps. Both these agencies, he holds, tend to wield authority over residential bishops, thus violating the principle of collegiality. Among his positive proposals are a reorganization of the Curia under the direction of a committee with three presidents-a representative ofan episcopal conference, a representative of the Curia, and a lay person. Quinn favors an ecumenical council to mark the beginning of the new millennium and regular councils thereafter-perhaps 308 BOOK REVIEWS every ten years, according to the decree of the Council of Constance. He proposes that the Synod of Bishops should be given a deliberative rather than a merely consultative vote. He calls for serious consultation of bishops and episcopal conferences before major doctrinal pronouncements are issued. He maintains that the principle of subsidiarity can and should be applied in the Church. His proposals, he contends, reflect an "ecclesial" rather than a "political" model of ecclesiology. The Exercise of the Primacy, after reprinting the lecture of Archbishop Quinn, adds five responses delivered at the November 22, 1997, meeting of the Roman Catholic Studies Group of the American Academy of Religion. The responses focus on two main questions-the "new situation" and structural reform-but they have more to say about the former than the latter. Unfortunately, also, the respondents are more intent on promoting the particular concernsand agendas oftheirwriters than on discussing the concrete reforms proposed by the archbishop. In the first response, R. Scott Appleby compares the present situation with the integralism that "pervaded the Roman curia during the AmericanistModernist crisis." He portrays Archbishop Quinn as a newJoho Ireland standing up against the Romanization of the American hierarchy. But he also points out that younger Catholics of his generation are uninterested in debates about primacyand collegiality. They are asking whether it is possible to believe in the existence of any objective moral order. The second respondent, Elizabeth A Johnson, offers a feminist reaction to Archbishop Quinn's proposals. Pressing for an egalitarian model of the Church based on baptism, she rejects structures that are clerical, hierarchical, and patriarchal . God's will for Peter, in her view, is that he listen to Mary...