And that’s not a loaded headline?

In this week’s edition, NCR(eporter) (based in KC, of course) devotes several articles to Bishop Robert Finn, bishop now for two years (one as co-adjutor). The first two paragraphs:

Perhaps nowhere in America has the transition from a church focused on social engagement and lay empowerment to one more concerned with Catholic identity and evangelization been more dramatic, or in some ways more wrenching, than in the Kansas City-St. Joseph, Mo., diocese since the appointment of Bishop Robert Finn.

Finn has brought the diocese, for decades a model of the former category of church practice, to a screeching halt and sent it veering off in a new direction, leaving nationally heralded education programs and high-profile lay leaders and women religious with long experience abandoned and dismayed.

There have, indeed, been dramatic changes, the most embelmatic being Bishop Finn’s reworking of the diocesan lay ministry formation program, which was a model for several other dioceses. He’s gutted it, with the stated rationale being that a lot of money has gone into training 700 lay ministers over the past few years, and that perhaps a shift in resources to doing more adult education of all Catholics is in order.

This, along with several other moves, has annoyed and hurt many. Just as important, the article lets us know repeatedly, is the purported lack of "consultation" on Bishop Finn’s part in making these changes. He has his own version – he sat down for an interview with NCR – and some around him disagree that he hasn’t consulted with others in making his decisions.

I’m not on the ground in KC, so I’m not going to presume to evaluate, although I’m interested in the BIshop’s critique of the lay ministry formation program:

It is clear that Finn was dissatisfied with the diocese’s primary lay formation programs, New Wine, in particular. Finn told NCR, “The particular approach and the content and so forth of the flagship programs … did not reflect some of the magisterial teachings particularly of the time since the program was written.”

The program had not been updated with the latest “encyclicals, different apostolic letters and things like that,” Finn said. The bibliography cited texts that were prominent 15 or 20 years ago “among some theologians, mostly American theologians, and they were not necessarily renowned for their defense of church teaching,” Finn told NCR.

Finn also told NCR that he had a problem with “the style of the course, and I talked about this with some of the members of the center too.”

Center programs, he said, “had been given birth during that period of time when there was a lot of emphasis on process and sharing and a little less on content and so forth.”

People today, he said, “want to be able to discuss and explain and even defend their faith intelligently with other people they encounter. ”

Simeone told NCR that Finn never shared these concerns with her or her staff and he never asked them to update material or refocus the content of courses. “If he would have asked, we would have tried to meet his concerns,” she said. “But he never asked.”

She added that the center updated texts when they could and when they couldn’t they offered supplemental reading from magazine and journal articles. “Just because some of the texts weren’t written in the last five years, doesn’t mean that their theology wasn’t sound,” she said. “It’s still Catholic theology.”

She concedes that New Wine participants weren’t required to read the texts of encyclicals or other Vatican documents, but the instructors read them and referenced them in their course work.

“We did not teach from the catechism,” Simeone said, “but we used it as a reference guide, which is what it is meant to be.”

There’s a lot more to the piece, and there are three other articles as well – two of which are subscribers-only, so I’ve not read them.  That said, I’m a Finn fan – I met him once (he invited me to speak at a Eucharistic Congress in St. Louis a few years ago, when Joseph was just a few weeks old. I have never met a lay ministry formation program born from 1967-1995 that impressed me.

Here’s an article from the diocesan paper on the new program

Sasso said many of the final details will be left to the new director to implement.

But the Adult Faith Formation Planning Commission did outline a six-semester, three-year curriculum for certification that includes such course work as prayer and spiritual growth, Biblical foundations, marriage and family, the Old Testament, the Gospels, tools for evangelization and catechesis, leadership development, church history, and social justice.

In addition, the Bishop Helmsing Institute will also offer electives in parish life, and in the late Pope John Paul II’s Theology of the Body.

In accord with the National Directory for Catechesis and Vatican instructions, the institute’s course work will be rooted in both Scripture and the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which incorporates church teachings and, in particular, the documents of the Second Vatican Council.

Students will be allowed to take the entire three-year course, or to take individual courses for their own enrichment without being required to take the entire curriculum.

"A very big thrust was to insure that people not necessarily interested in certification for professional lay ecclesial ministry but who are interested in faith enhancement" have access to individual courses offered by the Bishop Helmsing Institute, Sasso said.

In addition, all courses will also be offered on-line, although all participants will be required to attend a certain number of classes in person, Sasso said.

"This will be an interactive, Web-based curriculum that could be taken by anyone at any time," he said.

What a shame this is so anti-laity.

The bishop’s letter on the new program:

We are in an era of Catholic education and formation that is clearly dominated by the Catechism of the Catholic Church. The Catechism, first promulgated in 1992, must be the primary reference point for all catechetical endeavors.

At the same time, today’s disciples of our Lord, like those of every age, desire with all their heart, soul, mind and strength, to know the Lord Jesus, and not just "about Him." Our efforts must promote a dynamic blend of catechesis and evangelization.

The Gospel experience of Jesus Christ, what we call "evangelization," will be shallow if it is not fortified by the content of the truth of his teaching entrusted to the church. The knowledge of the deposit of the faith, what we call "catechesis," will become sterile if it is not awakened in the living light of the encounter with the Incarnate Lord and Savior. This dynamic interchange must define the primary methodology of Catholic education and formation.

Last August the "First Commission" began its task of assessing the needs of adults in the diocese concerning faith education and formation. Those members consulted widely, utilizing a variety of open meetings and listening sessions, discussions at deanery meetings, interviews with pastors and staff, surveys both written and Web-based, tracking of letters and phone responses. Some similar opportunities to respond were offered to the Spanish speaking Catholics of the diocese.

In January the "Second Commission" started studying ways to implement the findings of the Needs Assessment Commission, and has now proposed a model for meeting these needs. An article in today’s Catholic Key begins to introduce the outline of the program proposed by the members of the Second Commission. I believe their recommendations provide a very significant and workable plan to help us move forward with this vital apostolate.

"Consultation" is always such a tricky thing. That can be used and misused and even be a mask for authoritarians. It does seem that dramatic changes are happening in KC. Hurt is hard to avoid in the process. But again, the whole story is hardly ever known. But perhaps we can all agree on one thing – KC is certainly a diocese to watch. Because, you know, everything’s up to date there. They’ve gone about as far as they can go, I believe.