November (Web-only) 2004

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"Bishops, in attempt to cut expenses, do not encourage people to read the Bible"
That's the headline feared by Roman Catholic Bishop Joseph M. Sullivan of Brooklyn, New York, after the Conference of Catholic Bishops voted 137-102 to table plans for a statement urging Catholics to read their Bibles. Actually, the story may be worse than that.

The Boston Globe explains that the pastoral statement was "shelved" to "restrain spending and cut down on a crush of publications [the bishops] fear have little impact."

The Washington Times likewise summarizes bishops complaints that they are "burdened with multiple documents and expensive projects and … agreed Monday to reduce their workload."

Catholic News Service says the finance reason doesn't quite make sense on its own: "Task force chairman Bishop William B. Friend of Shreveport, Louisiana, noted in introducing the proposal that funding would be sought from outside sources to pay the costs of developing the pastoral statement. Sales of the publication would be expected to cover the costs of printing it."

Instead the cost factor is secondary. The bishops on Monday adopted new rules for considering such projects, and it's the financial and managerial cost of new projects in general that the bishops were concerned about.

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Archbishop Oscar H. Lipscomb of Mobile, Alabama, echoed the fear. "From my position, where the Bible is so much a part of any effort at evangelization, this would be a disaster public-relationswise."

Cincinnati Archbishop Daniel E. Pilarczyk retorted that the conference of bishops doesn't exist "for good public relations, but to do the work of the church."

But encouraging the reading ...