When I think of the universal Catholic Church, I tend to do so from the perspective of the American church. This inevitably means that the experience of American culture will influence the ideals that I project on the whole church. While this does not always work, sometimes a particular cultural perspective can offer values with universal relevance. The American experience of the church prompts me to imagine four key ideas and values that I hope will bring out the latent spiritual power of the whole Catholic Church.

            The first is the idea of religious freedom. The framers of the American constitution had internalized this value when they wrote, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof....” This protection of religious faith from government authority and of government from religious influence provided a framework in which the Catholic Church flourished in the United States. The value beneath the separation of church and state fed John Courtney Murray’s advocacy of religious freedom at Vatican II. Both the individual person and groups of people have an inherent freedom relative to their religious beliefs. “The Vatican Council declares that the human person has a right to religious freedom” (DH, 2). “The reason is because the practice of religion of its very nature consists primarily of those voluntary and free internal acts by which human beings direct themselves to God” (DH, 3). External authority cannot control this relationship. Thus the American experience helped shape Vatican II’s teaching that contact and union with ultimate reality transpires so deeply within the free human spirit that external pressure cannot influence it. Religious commitment is intrinsically free.

There are other American experiences that could help the universal Catholic Church adjust to the new world that is emerging across cultures. The second of these regards the position of women in the church. The American experience bears a lesson on this issue. The Declaration of Independence affirmed, “We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.” Historically the meaning of the term “men” was severely limited to male property owners. But syntactically it meant all people. Like a subversive worm in a computer’s main drive, this religious and anthropological principle worked its way into androcentric consciousness and is still doing so, for it has not run its course of completely destroying sexist and racist dimensions of the American program. There is a fairly close analogy here with the institutional Catholic Church. Measured by common American experience the Catholic Church is a sexist institution even though it seeks to promote the message of Jesus about human equality in the face of a God of universal love. This contradiction does not go unnoticed. Rather than being dragged unwillingly into a new common human consciousness, the Catholic Church should be a leader of the women’s rights movement.

The third area in which an American experience encourages development of Catholic spirituality revolves around the role of the laity in the church. The American constitution works on the premise that institutions are grounded in the corporate will of the people who make them up. “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, [and] whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government....” It is certainly true that the Spirit of God is the ultimate ground of the church, but the Spirit works within human freedom and not against it. Vatican II went a long way to meet American experience when it affirmed the church is the people of God. With a theology of baptism in the background (LG, #31), it affirmed the active participation of all in the church’s mission. It said, "by its very nature the Christian vocation is also a vocation to the apostolate. No part of the structure of a living body is merely passive but each has a share in the functions as well as in the life of the body. ... [T]he member who fails to make his or her proper contribution to the development of the Church must be said to be useful neither to the church nor to himself or herself" (AA, #2). But in the end Vatican II provided few institutional ways for the laity to exercise its responsibility, and the provisions meant to draw laity into Church decision-making were neglected. The American government was largely responsible for the broad education of American Catholics immediately after WWII that drew them en masse into the middle class. They now have little patience with a purely passive membership in the church let alone clericalism. The Church has to trust the laity and provide ways for their participation in decision-making with institutional authority.

The fourth area in which an American experience encourages spiritual development revolves around religious pluralism. How does the Catholic Church relate to the non-Christian religions that now find a home in North America? Constitutionally the United States is not a Christian nation or even a religious nation. Presently the United States is passing from being predominantly Christian in terms of numbers and rhetoric to being more multi-religious. This is visible in people’s dress, architecture, patterns of behavior, and demands for new religious exceptions to rules. It is reaching into all phases of public life and, through friendship and intermarriage, into private family life. Vatican II made an extraordinary leap forward in Catholic thinking about other religions when it said, “All [people] stem from the one stock which God created, [and] all share a common destiny” (NA, 1).  It affirmed, “The Catholic Church rejects nothing of what is true and holy in these religions” (NA, 2). It urged promotion of other religions when it said, “Let Christians …acknowledge, preserve and encourage the spiritual and moral truths found among non-Christians” (NA, 2). Yet the faithful have little practical guidance on how to relate to other religions. This conciliar language of fifty years ago needs to be converted into programs. Pluralism means rejection of aggressive competition. Congregations of different faiths can cooperate on civic programs of social assistance. Pastors in particular regions, towns, or urban sectors might initiate regular meetings in which other religions can introduce their spiritualities to Christians. This may best be done in ecumenical programs so that Christians across denominations can appreciate how much they have in common and how together they can learn from other spiritualities. Local associations of pastors can organize public programs that ask Buddhists, for example, to explain their forms of meditation, centering prayer, other forms of spiritual practice. This is already being done on the campuses of Catholic universities. If this openness is not found in parishes, after their graduation young Catholics may be disappointed at the lack of openness and grow disaffected.

The pluralist character of American life, law, population, and culture provides a microcosm for our global existence. Thus the premises of American Catholic spirituality might be a source for seeing the direction of universal Catholic development.