Remi De Roo (born February 24, 1924, in Swan Lake) is a retired Canadian Roman Catholic bishop. Ordained a priest on June 8, 1950, and a bishop on December 14, 1962, he was the Bishop of Victoria until he retired on March 18, 1999.This makes him Canada’s longest-serving Catholic bishop.
De Roo has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Latin philosophy from the Collège de Saint-Boniface and a doctorate in sacred theology from the Angelicum University in Rome. He also has several honourary degrees and is an Enneagram of Personality teacher.
De Roo attended all four sessions of Vatican II. This experience deeply affected him and he still refers to himself as "a pilgrim of the Second Vatican Council". He describes attending the sessions as "a voyage of discovery that would radically alter my whole outlook on reality" and "it was indeed a time of euphoria". (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remi_De_Roo)
Q: What was it like being at Vatican II?
A: I don’t want to sound preachy but a Vatican council is first and foremost a religious event. Every day began with the celebration of the Eucharist and then the solemn enthroning, with incense and candles and the whole bit, of the sacred scriptures. There was also an academic dimension to it and those debates could get quite stern at times because there were major issues to be looked at, for instance, the over-centralization of the church and the need to let local parishes develop themselves according to the diversity of cultures, with their own languages. . . The sessions were in St. Peter’s Basilica. They set up the equivalent of bleachers. We were over 3,000 people packed in there so you can imagine what that did to St. Peter’s. It was a very impressive site.
Q: It seems there was quite a lot of unanimity.
A: Practically over 90 per cent for all the votes. Pope Paul VI had the gift of reconciling divergent viewpoints and bringing harmony. There was a lot of compromise, and as a result it’s possible for people to interpret Vatican II according to their own schools of thought.
Q: It led to the birth of liberation theology in Latin America, where priests organized and empowered the poor. Did you see that as part of Vatican II?
A: Yes. Liberation theology is really a reclaiming of the Bible by poor people living in very difficult situations.
Q: How can the Roman Catholic Church reinvigorate itself?
A: Vatican II requires very much more exercise of authority by the local churches. It very much wanted to decentralize the church. . . It didn’t happen as far as one would like. But there is an awakening. Never forget that the ordained members in the church are a tiny percentage — I don’t think they’re more than 5 per cent. Ninety-five per cent of the church before Vatican II was largely asleep, taking all its instructions from the parish priest. . . There are an awful lot of laypeople now who are just as educated as their pastors are, sometimes better. So many laypeople are reading good theology books and they’re really discussing basic issues and they’re no longer taking for granted that Father knows best. . . There is a maturing going on and this may be the healthy side of the unrest happening in many countries. Leave aside for the moment the (sex) scandal aspect, which we all deplore and which involves a tiny minority. As I see it now, after 50 years of lecturing on Vatican II, there’s an awakening going on around the world with a lot of laypeople.
Q: Is the church willing to give laypeople the space needed to make a difference?
A: We have a lot of work to do there. . . If you look at the ranks of the established hierarchy, most of them do not seem to be very open. But that is not tomorrow’s world. Tomorrow’s world is the younger generation and the laypeople, particularly the women religious — they are the ones who are most effectively carrying the vision of Vatican II into the world. When I was a kid no woman could study theology. Today we have more women theologians than men theologians. And they’re also in many ways more creative because they’re able to think out of the box.
Q: If the laity gets more say, will it affect the church’s position on issues such as allowing women priests or the use of contraceptives?
A: Time will tell. Those are the moral issues that get the headlines in the newspapers. But they’re not the major issues. The much deeper ones are the questions of modern science: What constitutes a human being? To what extent are we entitled to modify the human race? What is the meaning of life? Where does it all come from?
Q: What do the empty pews in Europe say about the state of the church?
A: The empty pews are in the richer countries, where I think we’ve become too smug and self-satisfied because we’ve been too comfortable. But look at what is happening in the poorer countries in the southern part of the world. The churches are jammed and all kinds of people are struggling to make the world a better place. . . So the problem runs deeper. It’s a question of whether we perceive life as a race for money or whether we see it as a challenge to help one another and make a better world.
Q: In the 1980s the church silenced liberation theologists and nuns in the U.S. were recently slapped down by the Vatican for spending too much time working on social issues. Is the church willing to allow the work you’re talking about?
A: Well, they’re trying to slap them down. I admire these women because they’re holding the higher ground. They’re standing up at the level of principles, they’re not allowing themselves to get panicked, and they have won the hearts of the people. . . There are many schools of thought even inside the Vatican. At the moment the centralists have control, but governments come and go in political parties, also.
Q: Those pushing for progressive reforms argue that a lot of conservative bishops were appointed during the past 30 years.
A: I wouldn’t generalize but it is an issue.
Q: Does that make it harder to have the kind of grassroots, activist church you’re talking about?
A: No question about it. My point is that an ecumenical council is the highest authority in the church and Vatican II has laid down guidelines for the future and eventually those guidelines will bear fruit. It takes a long time before the impact of a council is fully felt. The important thing is we’ve had a Pope John XXIII and we’ve had a new vision and people have seen the possibility of better things and there’s no turning back. There’s new life coming because the old stuff simply won’t hold.