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BOOK Review
The Democracy of God: An American Democracy
Robert J. Willis
In his classic work Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville favorably contrasted
the democracy he observed in America with the monarchies he had experienced
in Europe. Robert Willis quotes extensively from Tocqueville in making a
case for democracy in the American Catholic Church. Willis draws on four
themes in Tocqueville’s work in making his case: separation of church
and state, sovereignty of the people, administrative decentralization, and
equality of citizens. In fact, he divides the chapters in the book into these
four topics, with an opening chapter on the seeds of democracy in the early
American Catholic Church.
The efforts of Bishop John Carroll and Bishop John England to adapt the Church
in America to the democratic culture of this new country occupy much of the
first chapter. Although many of us know something of these two men, Willis
provides us with a more comprehensive picture of their efforts to stave off
control from Rome by quoting extensively from their writings. We hear of Carroll’s
extended (and minimally successful) battle with Rome to allow priests in America
to elect their own bishops. And we read of England’s crafting of a Diocesan
Constitution including a call for an annual Convention of all priests and elected
lay delegates. There is also an interesting treatment of Trusteeism and the
Schism in the early American Church.
But the bulk of the book focuses on the four themes mentioned above. Willis
leaves no doubt about his position as he criticizes the monarchical form of
government exercised in the Church. Since the book was published in 2006, Willis
points to all of the current issues facing the Church in the U.S. that are
familiar to all members of Voice of the Faithful, including, but not confined
to, the sexual abuse crisis. He points to the encroachment of the Church into
politics as a violation of the separation of Church and State. He rails against
the centralization that has occurred, especially under Pope John Paul II, which
violates the autonomy that rightly belongs to the bishops and to the collegiality
of bishops’ conferences. And he calls for a greater concern for unity
in the Church as opposed to the current emphasis on uniformity.
Based on Lumen Gentium, the Second Vatican Council’s Dogmatic Constitution
on the Church, he argues that the sovereignty of the people is upheld in the
concept that the Church is the People of God. Bishops and priests are first
of all, by their baptism, members of the People of God, and their roles of
service to the people should be determined by the people. Related to this is
the concept of equality of the people that Tocqueville saw as the bedrock of
American democracy. Interestingly enough, Tocqueville observed that, in spite
of the role of the Pope, Catholics in the new country had a far greater sense
of equality than most of their Protestant brothers (and sisters).
As a psychotherapist for many years, Willis calls on this experience to speak
to the stages of development to human maturity to describe the maturing of
the American Catholic. The Church in the U.S. today is blessed with thousands
of well educated and faithful Catholics who are eager for, and have a right
to, a greater voice in the governance of the Church in America. Willis also
draws on this same psychotherapist experience to describe the pathologies of
a Church locked into a hierarchical structure, with a closed clerical culture,
and one that has little to do with the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Willis speaks for many of us in calling for a transformation in the American
Church. He ends with a call for a Bill of Rights for the American Church.
Drawing on the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights, he identifies ten rights that would transform the American Church into a
Democracy of God. The affirmation of these rights would call for Church leadership
that, rather than seeking to control people, focuses on bringing people to
a deeper love of God. He seeks “Christian leadership that concerns
itself primarily and essentially with helping others, Christians and non-Christians
alike, to discover in their own experience the saving presence of a loving
God.” Ron DuBois, VOTF Boston, MA and NRC representative from Region
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