The head of America's Roman Catholic bishops declared, ``We are in a most serene time,'' even though they had just ended a week that included open dispute with the Vatican and revival of their sniping at the government. Archbishop John L. May of St. Louis was referring in particular on Thursday to the U.S. church's relations with Pope John Paul II and the Vatican. He pronounced the pope ``bullish on the church in the United States'' and dismissed public spats with Rome as merely ``signs of a church that is essentially open.'' In fact, he and fellow members of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops seemed little troubled by any of the controversy that swirled about them during their annual meeting that concluded Thursday. During the week, the bishops: _Took on the Soviet Union, decrying ``sustained and comprehensive'' religious persecution in Eastern Europe and encouraging the U.S. government to hold out prospects of better overall relations as an incentive to win greater religious freedom. _Blasted a U.S. immigration law they say leads employers to discriminate in hiring and firing Hispanics out of ignorance concerning potential penalties. _Criticized the Reagan administration for sending out thousands of foreclosure warnings to family farmers a week after the presidential election and just before the holiday season. _On their own turf, accepted but only grudgingly a Vatican intervention that kept them from voting on guidelines they had prepared for resolving disputes with theologians. _Approved rules for lay preachers that either, according to which bishop you asked, made it easier for lay men and women to preach during masses or took one more slap at Catholic women by reiterating that they may not give the main sermon interpreting the gospel. _Finally, sent back a Vatican draft document as ``unsuitable as a basis for discussion,'' thus rejecting both the scholarship of the draft and its contention that national bishops conferences have no real authority in the church. May had started the week by congratulating President-elect George Bush but then in the next breath assuring him the bishops would continue to speak out on public issues and not ``only in praise and appreciation.'' ``We are sometimes criticized for being too concerned about the world, of pursuing an agenda that in the minds of some critics is secular, leftist or in some way `ideological,''' May said. But he added that the pope's own example showed it is not possible to have ``too much social consciousness.'' On Wednesday, former conference president John Roach, bishop of St. Paul-Minneapolis, was asked about the arguing that preceded passage of the bishops' response to the Vatican document on conference authority, and about the relatively high number of ``no'' votes _ 59 among the 264 voting. He acknowledged differences of opinion within the organization, and suggested some of the negative votes might have included bishops getting a secret-vote chance to ``take a shot'' at the recent past presidents who prepared the response. But in proclaiming the bishops' serenity on Thursday, May said there was no big dispute with the Vatican. And he quoted the pope to support his own contention. ``The pope is bullish on the church in the United States _ that's what he says,'' May declared. In recent meetings with U.S. bishops, the pope had said, ``You are a superpower,'' May told reporters. He said the pope merely asked the Americans to weigh their words with the knowledge that ``the church in the United States has tremendous international influence, and the people of the world watch what is said there.'' ``There are disagreements from time to time'' with the Vatican, May said, but he added that he didn't see them ``as a tug-of-war or an ongoing fight or crisis or any of these words that are used.'' He said the pope often uses the term ``solidarity'' in regard to the church helping build bridges with the people of the world, including the most vulnerable as well as the powerful. This year's bishops' meeting was significant, May said, partly because ``we tried to demonstrate solidarity across an amazingly broad spectrum.'' Such efforts, he suggested, indicated the conference was alive and well, whatever the final draft of the Vatican document might say as to its theological authority.
