Some thinking
about the role of the laity
4 October
2003
Some
wonderfully thoughtful posts and comments have been appearing lately on
A Religion of Sanity. The crux of the discussion is the question of
authority and dissent: what is the proper way for Catholics to relate to their
priests and bishops when they believe that these priests and bishops are not
following the historic teaching of the Church? Is there something wrong with
those who criticize their own (or other) bishops in the name of orthodoxy, while
at the same time condemning “dissenters”? The author, Maureen McHugh, seems to
think so: I am truly sorry. I had such hope…
I am no
expert on the state of the Church. My training is in history, so that I feel I
can offer, if anything at all, a historical perspective on the question. From my
reading and my own research, I have gained some perspective on what the position
of the laity has been in the history of the Catholic Church in the West.
but the conservatives’ meeting with the bishops is the straw that broke this
camel’s back. Try as I might, I just can’t wrap my mind around it. It’s gotten
to the point now where I would need a scorecard to tell the ‘restorers’ from the
‘reformers’. Both sides seem intend on having the Church on their terms or else!
When Scripture speaks of the Church as the Body of Christ, the term does not
refer only to the ordained ministry, but to all the faithful as a whole. The
purpose of the ordained ministry is to give shape and structure to that body,
but not to constitute it. The work of the Church in the world, in
evangelization, in service, in bringing glory to God through human endeavor, is
the work of the faithful, not as carrying out the orders of priests and bishops,
but acting under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, given to each of the
faithful through Baptism, and guided by a well-formed conscience. The
well-formed Catholic conscience could be, and at times has been, a powerful
force for bringing more of the world into the Kingdom of God. The formation of
that conscience is part of the task of the ordained ministry, not their only
task, and not exclusively their task—but the bishops are called to be guardians
of the deposit of faith and moral formation that must undergird the conscience
of the Christian in order that he may be effective in the service of God in the
world.
Maureen McHugh cites a very moving essay by Mary Ann Glendon from First
Things (October 2002) to this effect called
The Hour of the Laity. Professor Glendon’s point, in part, is that
the real role of the laity is not service in ecclesiastical matters, but in
extending the reign of God in the world, an apostolate that has been largely
forgotten in a focus on “lay ministry.” When I worked at Servant Books, I helped
edit a work (now unfortunately out of print), a collection of essays by
Representative
Henry Hyde called For Every Idle Silence that is one of the
few expressions of this notion I have seen by a politician.
That being said, it is still the case that the Holy Spirit may also lead lay
people to act for the renewal of the Church. I once stated (overstated, but not
by much) that all movements of spiritual renewal were started by lay people, and
all heresies were started by clerics. I can only think of one or two major
heretical movements of substantially lay inspiration (Waldensianism and
Modernism); while Arius, Nestorius, Eutyches, Pelagius, Wyclif, and Luther—to
name a few—were all clerics. On the other hand, St. Anthony of Egypt was a
layman when he became the first great leader of the ascetic movement, and was
never ordained; St. Francis was a layman when he began his brotherhood of Friars
Minor, and was never a priest, although he was ordained a deacon; St. Ignatius
Loyola, while technically a cleric, was living as a layman when he was called to
found the Society of Jesus. At other times, groups of lay people have aided in
the renewal of the Church: such was the case in the Catholic Reformation (see
O’Malley, The First Jesuits;
Chatellier, L’Europe des Dévôts).
At the time of the Gregorian reform, lay confraternities in Italian cities aided
the efforts of the Popes to reform the corrupt lives of the clergy, often
opposing their own bishops (who were also often their secular overlords).
My own
research (back in the days when I was a scholar) dealt with lay
religious life in the parish in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth century.
What I found by analyzing the records of one parish was that lay people had a
substantial role in the administration of the parish, and even in determining
much of its devotional life. My studies concerned Liège in present-day Belgium,
but institutions and patterns similar to those I studied existed elsewhere.
Laymen did not attempt to take over the role of the clergy, but what priests and
religious were doing was very often a response to the desires of the laity.
During the Middle Ages, up to the full implementation of the Catholic
Reformation, the roles of various groups within the institutional Church were
rather different from what we imagine today. While there were always some
learned and holy bishops who interested themselves in the spiritual life of
their dioceses, they were not typical of the medieval hierarchy. Even fewer,
relative to their total number, appear to have been parish priests who engaged
in actual preaching. Sermons were few, and were usually given by monks or friars
hired especially for the purpose. It was in the convents and monasteries that
the devout found most of their spiritual sustenance. Even the parish leaders I
studied, while they had an active devotional life in their parish centering
around Masses celebrated by the parish clergy, when they wanted preaching,
brought in the Dominicans and the Carmelites from the neighborhood convents, and
when they wanted a special Salve Regina
service sung every week, hired the choir from the Collegiate Church of St. Paul.
After the early heroes St. Lambert and St. Hubert, bishops of Liège (who were also secular princes after the
millennium) were not known for their spirituality. The best of them were great
builders and administrators; the worst—well, there’s a reason the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries were a period of almost continuous revolt and civil war in
Liège. But when the citizens of Liège marched to war against their bishops, it
was under the banner of the Virgin Mary and St. Lambert. Many of these bishops, like John “the Pitiless” were
more familiar with sex and violence than with the sacraments; some never
bothered to get ordained. And the valley of the Meuse was not untypical of
medieval Europe. Do we sometimes think we have it bad now? That was supposed to
be the Golden Age of Western Christendom.
Some argue think that examples like these, or the 10th-century Popes, or
egregious examples like Alexander VI,
paterfamilias of the Borgias, place in doubt the supernatural
character of the Church. On the contrary, I believe, they demonstrate it. What
institution of purely human character could survive such leaders? The Church has
renewed herself and flourished because the Holy Spirit is not the exclusive
possession of the hierarchy. The Church has been there to be renewed because the
charism of the ordained is greater than their personal character. Bishops can be
wrong; indeed lots of them have been; but though they drag the precious jewel of
the grace of orders through the mud, it is still a jewel, and rinsed clean, will
shine once again.
The Church is not a democracy. It is a monarchy, an absolute monarchy, but the
monarch is not the Pope. The monarch is the Lord Jesus Christ, the
Consubstantial Son of God, Who died to redeem her, rose for her sanctification,
and is now enthroned at the right hand of the Father, uniting her to Himself by
the gift of the Holy Spirit. At one and the same time, He has set some in
positions of authority—but not with their own authority, only His—and has given
the grace of that same Holy Spirit to all who are baptized. Those who are the
lay faithful should respect the ordained not because they themselves are
inferior to them, but because all, clergy and laity alike, serve the same Lord.
Any disagreement with priests or bishops should be approached in this spirit.
It’s not my Church; it’s not my pastor’s Church; it’s not even the bishop’s
Church or the Pope’s Church: it’s His Church, the Church of Jesus Christ. We may
need to disagree with a priest or a bishop; but our primary duty is to Christ:
to form our hearts and minds with His Word, to nourish our souls with His
Sacraments. Imagine a whole parish, each member of which puts Christ first in
his life, and is actively striving to form his life according to the will of
God. Could error or impiety get very far in such a setting, even dressed in a
Roman collar? I think not. That is one reason the Holy Father has commended the
many ecclesial movements. They exist for the sanctification of the faithful, and
a sanctified Church will produce holy leaders. It might be necessary, and likely
would be desirable, to seek out these movements if your parish does not afford
the opportunities for formation in faith and holiness, as our forebears sought
out the monks and friars (not that there aren’t many holy monks and friars
around today, too; each age adds richness to the Church and does not remove that
which was there before). If the leaders of the Church seem too willing to bend
to the secular culture, is that not perhaps because those they lead are
indifferent to their Christian commitment 167 hours out of 168 each week? One
family, two families, a growing circle of families of full-time Catholics could
begin a movement of their own.
I have an easy time of it, I must admit, because I am already in a parish rather
like that, which is itself the outgrowth of a movement (Charismatic Renewal).
But I pray that it may happen elsewhere.