Accountability in State and Church

by Dr Raymond Perrier · Published May 6, 2024 · Updated May 6, 2024

Accountability is important in all walks of life. When people know there will be consequences, then they are much more likely to do what they are supposed to do. And if I know I can hold someone accountable, I don’t feel quite so helpless when things go wrong.

This is why businesses that operate in competitive environments have increasingly been using technology to create better models of accountability. The fear of bad online reviews (or the rewards that come with good ones) have been a great way of improving the quality of restaurants and cab drivers, for example.

To be fair, customer feedback mechanisms do not always work, and sometimes they are just a plaster on an open wound, but at least businesses do recognise that they should be held accountable in some form. Even with this magazine you can express your views, positive or otherwise, in a number of ways: by writing to the editor; by posting a comment on Facebook, even by ending your subscription or, we hope, by encouraging others to subscribe to The Southern Cross.

South African politicians should also be held accountable. We can keep our elected representatives more honest through party meetings, the press, social media, or direct contact. And on May 29 we will have elections — the ultimate form of political accountability.

Votes make a difference

They say that we get the politicians we deserve. Looking at the current crop on offer, that feels rather unfair. But even if we can’t get the best, voting should be a way of making sure we get the least worst. In the pure proportional representation system of South Africa, we have a structure where every single vote counts. The difference between 47,5% of the vote and 47,6% does translate directly into the number of parliamentarians elected from that party.

So let me add my voice to that of the bishops’ conference and urge you to vote on May 29. When people say that voting makes no difference, I point them to the experience in Britain, where Brexit happened because a sizeable group of people who had wanted to stay in Europe couldn’t be bothered to vote to remain (and now have decades to regret their laziness).

Democracy is far from being a perfect system. As Winston Churchill put it, it’s the worst system — apart from all the others. But it is at least a way in which we can try to express our discontent and hold politicians accountable.

We can use it to get rid of the corrupt and greedy and incompetent. And we can also use it to send a warning to those who are just lazy or indifferent or lack the required skills. We can remind them that they are there to do a job: and if they don’t do it, or can’t do it, they should go.

Church and democracy

After some initial hesitation, tied to her historic closeness to unelected kings and queens, the Church in modern times finally became a keen supporter of democracy. But despite her support for democracy in the secular realm, the promotion of democracy within the Church has been a bit mixed. This is often dismissed with the lame explanation: “Oh, the Church isn’t a democracy”. But that’s not entirely true.

Almost every religious order elects its most senior leaders, and many elect local leaders as well. Most parishes and some dioceses have elections for a pastoral council. And at the top of the pyramid, the pope himself is elected (even if that is by a rather select group of unelected voters).

So there are some traditions of voter participation in the Church. However, there is no sign of it in selecting the people who most impact on our lives as Catholics: parish priests and bishops. Interestingly, a range of other denominations do use some kind of electoral process to shortlist or even select local and regional leaders. Some might respond that the Catholic approach leaves it to the Holy Spirit to decide. Maybe. But presumption — assuming that the Holy Spirit is backing you — is a mortal sin, so we need to be wary of falling into that trap.

I am reminded of the answer of then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger when asked before the 2005 conclave (which would elect him) whether the Holy Spirit would be choosing the next pope. He told the journalist: “No, the College of Cardinals will be choosing the next pope. But we hope the Holy Spirit is not absent from the process.”

Whether the Holy Spirit is or is not actively involved in the appointment of each parish priest and each bishop, the results aren’t always necessarily what the Holy Spirit would desire.

No shape-up or ship-out

Sadly, occasionally men have been appointed who, like our politicians, are corrupt and greedy and incompetent. More frequently than in the past, action is taken by a bishop towards a priest, or by the pope against a bishop. Pope Francis has been more active than others in calling bishops to account when they have clearly stepped out of line. And he has generally resisted the temptation of his predecessors to remove a bad bishop by giving him a fancy title in Rome (when everyone knows what’s really going on). But this is still only in the rare cases of extreme failure.

What about the more ordinary cases where someone is just lazy or indifferent or lacks the required skills? Occasionally they might identify this for themselves and step aside, but that requires great personal courage. More useful would be a process of assessing the individual, helping them see their weaknesses and coaching them to “shape up or ship out”.

But the only mechanisms we have in the Catholic Church are usually dependent on the bishop who appointed the priest, or the nuncio who recommended the bishop. So it is hardly surprising that it is easier to just carry on as if there is no problem.

In the past, it seemed that our leaders expected everyone to simply accept this as the inscrutable will of the Holy Spirit — much like political leaders expected us to ignore their bad appointments “for the good of the party”. But I suspect that does not convince most people any longer. They probably don’t say anything because they don’t expect there to be accountability in the Church. They do see it, however, when sub-standard leaders are left in their positions, and eventually they do vote — with their feet and with their wallets.

It is only in the last 30 years that the majority of South Africans have had the chance to try and hold accountable our political leaders when they do not deliver. Can we ever imagine a time when we can also hold accountable our religious leaders?

Published in the May 2024 issue of The Southern Cross magazine