Leveling hierarchical distinctions in the Church without removing them entirely has emerged as a principal objective of Pope Francis’ Synod on Synodality.
That is perhaps the chief conclusion to be drawn from the first session of the Synod, which took place October 4-29 at the Vatican. The second, and presumably last, session will be held in October next year.
Advance speculation had focused on whether the Synod would address hot-button issues like ordaining women and giving blessings to same-sex couples. But although these topics were discussed—though no consensus was reached—the Synod’s more immediate goal was the less dramatic, but in the long run arguably more significant, objective of cutting back on clergy-only hierarchy.
Several things that happened at the session suggest as much.
One was the seating arrangement. In a dispatch from the Synod, Christopher Lamb, Rome correspondent of the London Tablet and a Synod booster, wrote enthusiastically of what he called “a new moment”—cardinals, bishops, and lay people all sitting together at round tables. Even the Pope sat there while addressing the Synod, Lamb noted.
The symbolism was clear—rank doesn’t count at a synod.
Father Dario Vitali, an Italian theologian serving as coordinator of theological consultants at the Synod, carried things beyond symbolism when he told the participants that in the synodal Church of the future, “we will have to rethink the whole Church, all the institutions, the whole life of the Church in a synodal sense.”
And Cardinal Michael Czerny, S.J., prefect of the Holy See’s Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, provided the clincher when he told a news conference, “I think that the identification between [holy] orders and offices is something that is being overcome.”
What does that mean? Cardinal Czerny gave this explanation:
In other words, we’re understanding orders not to be necessary for every office which until now has been headed by a cleric and in fact a hierarch and in some cases even a cardinal.
There’s no danger to the nature of the Church because there are responsibilities which are already being, and which perhaps will increasingly be, entrusted to non-cardinals, non-bishops, non-priests.
The trajectory of events being described here did not begin with the Synod on Synodality. In fact, it goes back a half-century and involves the progressive clericalization of the Catholic laity. A little history sheds light on that.
The Second Vatican Council (1962-65), speaking of the apostolate of the laity, said lay people have “this special vocation: to make the Church present and fruitful in those places where it is only through them that she can become the salt of the earth” (Lumen Gentium, 33).
That formal recognition of lay apostolate directed to evangelizing the secular order was real progress. But within a few years, the word “apostolate” had disappeared from the Catholic vocabulary as a description of the laity’s special role and been replaced by “ministry.” Originally, lay ministries were limited to liturgical offices, but over time, “ministry” came to be used for just about anything lay people do in a church setting. That is approximately where the clericalization of the laity stands now.
If the change that Cardinal Czerny outlined—letting lay people hold some offices in the Church now reserved to people in holy orders—becomes reality, that will be the next step in clericalizing the laity. Meantime, apostolate carried on by lay people and directed to evangelizing an increasingly de-Christianized world will be even more out in the cold. Score one for synodality, I guess.
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So the laity should have no voice? Just pray, pay and obey? The medieval model of the clergy as aristocratic and the laity as serfs no longer resonates with most of the laity, including myself.
Of course not. The problem is the blurring of lines. In many ways, we have clerics who seem intent on being laity and far too many laity bound and determined to be clerics. All of this, maddeningly enough, was addressed in detail in Vatican II documents, as well as in great detail by John Paul II (“Christifideles Laici” anyone?) But, of course, it’s easier to have month-long meetings that apparently ignore all of that. Anyhow, I recommend my essay (first written back in the late 1990s) “The Role of the Laity: An Examination of Vatican II and Christifideles Laici”, as well as the “Priest Prophet King” series by Bishop Robert Barron (I wrote the Study Guide).
Of course, William. Let us Laick show the clergy how to think, act, love and pray, eh? We, as Laick and Laick alone have really all the answers – don’t we? It should be the consecrated in the church that bend their knee to us. Finally, enlightenment has come to the Church and we’re the rightful object of all worthy worship. RME/SMH.
An incoherent rant.
My sentiments exactly, and I appreciate your admission.
You’re getting it wrong. On the contrary, more laity will be performing church-related activities (ministries).
Congregationalism anyone? Or we could opt for Unitarian/Universalism. Let’s remember that Christ missioned all of us to evangelize – not only including the laity but the laity especially. There is no greater vocation in the Church than that of evangelizer.
A Church of egalitarian round table discussion is not what Christ instituted, nor will it survive. What is likely to survive is a consortium of traditional bishops with centralized leadership.
It was a consortium of bishops with centralised leadership which presided over the world wide clerical abuse of innocent and vulnerable victims . Time for systemic change. Peace and Love. thelaypope.com
All I know, Father, is that the Latin Mass is structured and ordered from the Tabernacle at the main/central axis, to Whom is given ALL the glory, then the offering Priest, the Deacon, the Sub-Deacon, the Seminarian/s, etc. all have the place, position and purpose. Everything there is ORDERED, based on a hierarchy and all I have to do is experience the resultant residue of this tranquility, which is PEACE. In fact, there are few places in the world anymore that rival the peace I receive while assisting at the Latin Mass. The church has been overtaken by Modernists with their heads in their own navel, who refuse to bend the knee. They spend time looking in the mirror; not gazing into eternity. I won’t follow them. I’ll remain faithful, humble and charitable. I pray they find their way back to Catholicism.
I feel the same but have been told Mass is Mass. Then why did I fell peace, hope and awe during the Latin Mass? M
Because you are a Catholic and are called to deeper Truths exemplified most gracefully and completely in the Mass of the Catholic Church. The NO Missae is an outreach Mass to protestants and is devoid of the overt theological Truths that the Latin Mass more completely expresses. The Latin Mass edifies! 🙂
Because the TLM tends to solemnly celebrate the sacrifice of Jesus the Christ? Because the Novus Ordo tends to celebrate man as he jubilates salvation given to, with, through, and in man?
I do see one reason for putting lay people into curial offices as opposed to bishops, archbishops, and cardinals. When the time came for some of these office holders/ administrators to be dismissed, a fig leaf appointment needed to be made, and they would keep their ecclesiastical titles and ordination. It usually looked awkward to those in the know, but that’s the way it was done. Lay people will be easier to fire outright– and that is probably what is on Pope Francis’ mind of a centralized bureaucracy. He doesn’t want any more Cardinal Burkes roaming around without portfolio making messes after they’ve been sacked. If the Pope fires a lay person, Mr. No-Title Jones will be more likely to shrink back into the woodwork instead of being able to make the rounds of lecture circuits, TV and radio shows, and book signings. Of course, the other side of that is that fired lay people are even harder to control than fired clerics, unless the plan is to excommunicate them if they start making trouble. Like most ideas, this will be a two-edged sword if it actually happens. I see the value of being able to rid ourselves of the truly incompetent and sinful, but I also suspect that this is not the motivation behind such reformist ideas.
Lumen Gentium (the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church) develops these points (among others): (a) The “hierarchical communion”: The bishops are not simply delegates of the pope, but trace their own authority back to the apostles (as he traces back to St. Peter); (b)The Church is both an evangelical (spiritual) mystery and a an institution (the hierarchical communion); (c) The roles of the ordained and laity “DIFFER IN KIND AS WELL AS DEGREE” (CAPS added) and yet, there is…(d) The “universal call to holiness”. “By virtue of their prophetic mission,” states the Catechism, “lay people ‘are called . . . to be witnesses to Christ in all circumstances and at the very heart of the community of mankind” (CCC 942; cf CCC 871).
A legitimate challenge for institutional architecture…But why should the ordained priest ambiguously become the “presider” or “minister” of the liturgy, while the laity ambiguously become the “ministers” of the doughnut hour? And, then, the ordained accountable to, what, lay administrators?
Equality! BOTH the clericalization of the laity AND the laicization of the clergy! Synodal example: “facilitator” bishops–functionally relieved of institutional and personal accountability to the apostolic succession.
As with some options of the uncontested sexual revolution, leadership from behind.
Interesting comments bit not one included prayer what does Jesus expect of the Church. He is the ultimate model yet the most excluded from these discussions.
Thank you. Maybe that is all that is needed. I grew up with the Latin Mass and sorely miss it. I miss the spiritually of it, the mystery, the focus on the Tabernacle, the music. That now seems missing.
The Church, Peter, is clearly no longer upstream from the culture. The Church is now downstream from a very broken, misguided culture full of rot and self-centrism. It no longer condemns the world, the flesh and the devil. It accommodates and accompanies these egregious enemies – to the detriment of all Catholics of good will.
I have no idea what you mean.
I am a woman and have been a lector in my church for a number of years. I am happy to be of service and do not EVER see myself or any other woman in the role of a priest or deacon. Clearly however, many people DO seek to elevate themselves above the priests, or at least equal to them, even while unqualified. When I took my training to be a lector, a man in the class raised his hand and suggested to the teacher that what he REALLY wanted, was to be up in front of the church TELLING the people what the passages mean, and would being a lector give him that opportunity??. The teacher shook their head and said THAT is the role of the priest. Clearly the man was not happy with that answer. I found myself thinking the guy was in the wrong denomination. And secondly that he must have been totally oblivious about the REAL role of a lector, or that he had ambition which had nothing to do with the Catholic Church, and he might well be more at home in a Protestant denomination.
Similarly, I met someone recently who indicated he was taking the training to be a deacon but that ” there were things about the church he didnt agree with at all”. He elaborated this to be on the topic of abortion and divorce and the role of women. Why go into a role which is the total opposite of what you believe? Plus why betray the institution you plan to join? Again I thought, this guy is in the wrong denomination, and how much damage will he do if indeed he becomes a deacon and people come to him for help.
We are past the point where we need to start insisting that our ordained toe the party line on matters theological. And we certainly dont need uneducated lay people attempting to “drive” when they have no credentials or license. Immense damage has been done to the church in recent years by priests who think they can sub their own personal feelings for the beliefs of the church when they dont agree with the church position. That needs to be rectified. And by no means will it help to allow uneducated lay people into positions of authority when they dont have a clue which end is up and will rely on their “feelings” or need to be “nice” in order to make decisions. I will not financially support a church which goes down this road. I suspect many others will not do so either.