The 1976 U.S. Catholic Bishops' Call To Action Conference in DetroitThe Second Vatican Council, held between 1962 and 1965, issued the challenge for all members of the church to "scrutinize the signs of the times" and respond in the light of the gospel. The council provided a wake-up call for lay Catholics who had tended to defer initiatives entirely to the clergy.
Then in 1971 Pope Paul VI emphasized that it is the laity who have received the primary "call to action" to create a more just world. That same year the international synod of the bishops issued an unusually brief and clear document. It declared that "action on behalf of justice and participation in the transformation of the world appears to us as a constitutive dimension of the preaching of the gospel." And, cautioned the synod, "The church recognizes that anyone who ventures to speak to people about justice must first be just in their eyes; hence, we must undertake an examination of the modes of action, of the possessions, and of the lifestyle found within the church itself."
Following up on this mandate, the U.S. bishops on their return home from the synod launched a creative consultation process . Over 800,000 Catholics testified during two years of hearings, which culminated in the U.S. bishops' Call to Action Conference in Detroit in 1976, held in conjunction with the American Bicentennial. More than 100 bishops were among the 1,340 voting delegates and the 1,500 observers. At the end of three momentous days of discussion and debate, the assembly declared the church must stand up to the chronic racism, sexism, militarism and poverty in modern society. And to do so in a credible way the church must reevaluate its positions on issues like celibacy for priests, the male-only clergy, homosexuality, birth control, and the involvement of every level of the church in important decisions. The Detroit conference recommended that each diocese take the recommendations home and act upon them.
A.D. 1977: Reflections and full list of recommendations
John Cardinal Dearden's Opening Address
The U.S. Bishops Plan of Action following the Detroit Conference