Posted on 08/31/2007 7:48:55 AM PDT by NYer
The Second Vatican Council is said to have ushered in the age of the laity, and the post-conciliar period has certainly seen an increase in lay ministry in the Church. However, critics have suggested that so far the age of the laity has resulted mainly in the clericalization of the laity, and even the feminization of the laity. How are we to sort this out?
Lay Ecclesial Ministry
Earlier this month, the USCCB’s Secretariat for Family, Laity, Women and Youth co-sponsored a national symposium on lay ecclesial ministry at St. John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota. There were eighteen co-sponsoring organizations in all. One of the key speeches was given by Xavier University (Cincinnati) theologian Edward Hahnenberg, who argued that “the emergence of lay ecclesial ministry over the past 40 years stands out as one of the top three or four most important ministerial shifts of the past 2,000 years.”
The context for Hahnenberg’s remarks was the USCCB’s 2005 document Co-Workers in the Vineyard of the Lord: A Resource For Guiding the Development of Lay Ecclesial Ministry. This document, which recognized the increase in lay ministry and wanted to make sure it developed in a way compatible with the Church’s mission, identified three kinds of lay ecclesial ministers:
It is the second group, including its subset, that is the focus of Co-Workers in the Vineyard and the subject of Hahnenberg’s speech. This is the group which Hahnenberg believes represents one of the key paradigm shifts in all of Church history.
Quantitative and Qualitative Shifts
Few would argue that there has been a shift, and that lay people are more heavily involved in direct parish and diocesan work than ever before. Given the enormous size of many parishes around the world, and the relative dearth of priests, sheer necessity would bring this about even if there were not a growing awareness of the potential spiritual contribution of lay people to the Church community. I would argue that most of this increased involvement represents a quantitative rather than a qualitative change. For example, surely lay people have been heavily involved in Church music, Catholic education, formal catechesis, and youth ministry in many ways and at many times in the history of the Church, both in established Christian cultures and in mission territory.
This does not make the change insignificant, and it can certainly create conflicts, but a quantitative change creates merely practical problems, not theoretical ones, and I seriously doubt that most people are concerned about it one way or the other. In Co-Workers, the bishops have set forth the conditions for suitability for lay people to be authorized for ecclesial ministry. They identify a deep prayer life, adherence to Church doctrine, respect for Tradition, regular participation in the sacraments (including Penance), chastity (whether single or married), the ability to form productive friendships, emotional balance, willingness to take on disciplined study, skill in the direction of others, and critical thinking. The major concerns here are quite simply the same as they are for the ordained. Where these conditions are not fulfilled (as has often been the case), we end up with precisely the trouble we would expect. Otherwise, there is no fundamental problem.
In other words, the so-called paradigm shift becomes significant only at a deeper level, only when something qualitative begins to happen—that is, when it seems like the distinction between priest and layman is eroding. For example, when the sacraments are undervalued and priests tend to be viewed as super-laity, or when lay people seem to take their identity from their role in the liturgy or their ability to direct souls, then we have a paradigm shift indeed, and one which needs to be questioned. In fact, Co-Workers itself questions it: “The application of ‘ministry’ to the laity is not something to be confused with ordained ministry nor in any way construed to compromise the specific nature of ordained ministry.”
The Influence of Vatican II?
Edward Hahnenberg does not address this deeper qualitative shift. His only allusion to it is his dismissal of the so-called Chicago Declaration of Christian Concern of 1977 in which a number of priests, religious and laity suggested that the emphasis on lay involvement in ecclesial ministry might be preventing the laity from focusing on its primary role in transforming the world outside church walls. This does not concern Hahnenberg, for whom ecclesial ministry is a direct product of Vatican II:
The reality of lay ecclesial ministry was shaped and is still sustained by the Vatican II generation, who have brought into their ministry a real enthusiasm for the council and the renewal it sought…. [O]ur story is one of liberation, of windows opening, of breaking out from the closed Catholicism of the past…. We need to find a way to pass on our story….
Here one begins to detect evidence of that deeper qualitative and problematic shift. Lay ecclesial ministry may be the product of the Vatican II generation, but it is not a product of Vatican II itself, as a reading of the documents makes abundantly clear. It is true that in two places the Council acknowledges the existence of lay ecclesial ministry. In the Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity (Apostolicam Actuositatem), where it sets forth the hierarchy’s support for the lay apostolate, the Council states:
Finally, the hierarchy entrusts to the laity certain functions which are more closely connected with pastoral duties, such as the teaching of Christian doctrine, certain liturgical actions, and the care of souls. By virtue of this mission, the laity are fully subject to higher ecclesiastical control in the performance of this work. (24)
And again in the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church (Lumen Gentium):
Besides this apostolate which certainly pertains to all Christians, the laity can also be called in various ways to a more direct form of cooperation in the apostolate of the Hierarchy. This was the way certain men and women assisted Paul the Apostle in the Gospel, laboring much in the Lord. Further, they have the capacity to assume from the Hierarchy certain ecclesiastical functions, which are to be performed for a spiritual purpose. (33)
But these brief statements come in both instances only in the context of extremely long passages—indeed, the entire thrust of the relevant portions of both documents—which explain in great depth that the special role of the laity consists precisely in transforming the secular order. Consider, for example, the definitive passage on the laity in Lumen Gentium 31:
What specifically characterizes the laity is their secular nature. It is true that those in holy orders can at times be engaged in secular activities, and even have a secular profession. But they are by reason of their particular vocation especially and professedly ordained to the sacred ministry. Similarly, by their state in life, religious give splendid and striking testimony that the world cannot be transformed and offered to God without the spirit of the beatitudes. But the laity, by their very vocation, seek the kingdom of God by engaging in temporal affairs and by ordering them according to the plan of God. They live in the world, that is, in each and in all of the secular professions and occupations. They live in the ordinary circumstances of family and social life, from which the very web of their existence is woven. They are called there by God that by exercising their proper function and led by the spirit of the Gospel they may work for the sanctification of the world from within as a leaven. In this way they may make Christ known to others, especially by the testimony of a life resplendent in faith, hope and charity. Therefore, since they are tightly bound up in all types of temporal affairs it is their special task to order and to throw light upon these affairs in such a way that they may come into being and then continually increase according to Christ to the praise of the Creator and the Redeemer.
Or consider the parallel pivotal passage in Apostolicam Actuositatem 7:
The laity must take up the renewal of the temporal order as their own special obligation. Led by the light of the Gospel and the mind of the Church and motivated by Christian charity, they must act directly and in a definite way in the temporal sphere. As citizens they must cooperate with other citizens with their own particular skill and on their own responsibility. Everywhere and in all things they must seek the justice of God's kingdom. The temporal order must be renewed in such a way that, without detriment to its own proper laws, it may be brought into conformity with the higher principles of the Christian life and adapted to the shifting circumstances of time, place, and peoples. Preeminent among the works of this type of apostolate is that of Christian social action which the sacred synod desires to see extended to the whole temporal sphere, including culture.
I beg the reader’s pardon for these lengthy quotations, but they carry a critical message: According to Vatican II, if we are identifying as a great paradigm shift the increase of lay ministry within the Church, then we are certainly not identifying the shift envisioned and called for by the Council itself.
Final Thoughts
Edward Hahnenberg’s liberating enthusiasms notwithstanding, it is difficult and probably dangerous to dismiss those who suggest that this deeper, qualitative paradigm shift has confused many priests and even more lay people by eroding the distinctions between them. Nor can we ignore the very common assertion that the emergence of an underpaid and largely part-time lay ministerial corps has contributed to the feminization of the Church. After all, the reason is as simple as it is inevitable: Unless they are ordained, men in most cases simply cannot afford to serve. This visible feminization has also affected the volunteer ministers, because men are generally more preoccupied ad extra and also perhaps less prone to serve as volunteers in liturgical and nurturing roles.
Just before his insistence that “we need to find a way to pass on our story”, Hahnenberg reported that the median age for laypersons in parish ministry had risen from 45 to 52 between 1990 and 2005. This caused him concern. Despite the good accomplished by lay ecclesial ministers, and emphasizing that I do not wish to discourage lay people who are called to such roles, this statistic does not concern me at all. What concerns me is the deeper paradigm shift that Hahnenberg and so many others prefer to dismiss and ignore. In this context, the advancing age of the “Vatican II generation” may well be a most encouraging sign.
Paradigm shift my foot. It’s just one more opportunity to diminish the role of parish priest.
This is from the American bishops???? The same ones who are trashing and undermining the motu proprio with every tool they can lay hand to? Those bishops???
Thanks for posting this. If you hadn’t posted it, I was going to do it this afternoon.
LOL! I agree with you.
This stupid "ministry" thing is, oddly enough, why things that really need getting done by the laity around the church get neglected. For example, we have scads of EEMs, mostly elderly ladies, hovering around the altar and the front of the church with their chalices, little bowls, etc. But we can't find enough people to do the unglamorous task of standing by the coffee pot and serving coffee and donuts after the Sunday mass, which is one of the few "hospitality" things that actually is nice and gives parishioners a chance to meet.
Naturally, it is this crowd that is the most upset by the MP. One thing we haven't taken into consideration is how much of the pressure against the MP (that is, hysterical phone calls to the bishop, or tearful sighs to the pastor) is coming from the EEMs and other "liturgical ministry" folks who are afraid the TLM is going to kick them out of their positions. Aside from the fact that nobody is going to be FORCED to say or attend the Tridentine Rite, and their panic is thus unncessary, they obviously are completely confused about why they are at Mass in the first place.
This ministry nonsense and the attendant clericalization of the laity has moved beyond a nuisance and is, IMHO, having a negative impact on the entire Church.
Exactly. I read yesterday that the German bishops are going to emulate ours in Florida and take a "unified" approach (almost identical to the Florida restrictions) in opposing the Pope. Lovely to see their "respect for Tradition," coupled with their exemplary respect for the Pope...
One of the things I like about the extraordinary form is the absence of lay ministers, and the clarity of the role of the priest.
I say this as someone who normally assists at the ordinary form, and as someone who serves as a reader (not a “lector”, which is a minor order) and an usher. I serve in the roles only as a service, because I was asked to do so. I would prefer to fully “participate” in the pew, frankly. I find that I can participate much more fully when I’m not “doing” things.
The lay ministry movement, as everyone here knows well, is about much more than “participation.” It is about the clericalization of the laity, and the laicization of the clergy. That was the real reason for ripping out the altar rails, IMO.
I saw that about the German bishops. Any word on how the French bishops were reacting? I haven’t heard anything since before it came out, when I swear I read that the French bishops were against it because too many people in France would want the TLM. Which is just the kind of Alice-in-Wonderland reasoning that makes our bishops such a continuing source of amazement . . .
I totally agree with you!
Last weekend my husband and I read the English version of the Latin mass and it is beautiful. I had remarked to a friend it actually seemed like a completely different church. It expressed love for the divine and the glory of our Lord. We can attend the TLM where the Bishop has mass at the Cathedral. I pray that it will make a BIG comeback,TLM.
It’s good of you to do these things. I don’t see why lay readers are necessary anyway - can’t Father handle the two or even three readings himself??? But aside from that, you’re doing it because you were asked to do so, and not because you want to claw your way onto the altar, like many in the “lay ministry” crowd.
Besides, ushering is genuinely useful, and aside from seating people, the ushers in our church watch out for things like people going back to their seats without consuming the Host, people sitting in the pews talking on their cellphones or eating and drinking, etc.
That said, I’d feel much better about all this stuff if they just stopped using the word “ministry” and went back to calling it “volunteering,” which is what it is. “Ministry” gives the whole business a completely different slant; furthermore, you really can’t compare somebody serving donuts with the priest celebrating Mass, but the implication is that all these jobs are equal and basically on the same level.
“...conditions for suitability for lay people to be authorized for ecclesial ministry: a deep prayer life, adherence to Church doctrine, respect for Tradition, regular participation in the sacraments (including Penance), chastity (whether single or married), the ability to form productive friendships, emotional balance, willingness to take on disciplined study, skill in the direction of others, and critical thinking.”
Oh dear, if we adhere to this, out goes every single person in the “music ministry,” and good number of the lectors and ushers, a few of the EMOE’s, and definitely the Director of Liturgy, and the Peace and Justice Minister. Oh, and that volunteer religious ed teacher who is a Protestant!
He's wrong. The "Vatican II generation" is not the one that pushed for the most liberal interpretation of the Councils and whose members actually saw the Council take place. The "Vatican II generation" is made up by those of us who were born AFTER the Council.
We are the John Paul II / Benedict XVI generation who are bringing the right view of the Council to fruition.
And I certainly have no plans of "fading away," God's will be done, of course.
-Theo
And in some areas, the parish priests are willing proponents. If I had a dollar for every time I've heard that locally, I'd be on vacation about now, if just for a weekend. Or supplementing a seminary student's tuition.
Lovely to see their "respect for Tradition," coupled with their exemplary respect for the Pope...
Shhh! They're just starting new traditions, and in time, even just one generation, they will be hard pressed to remember 'how it used to be done'. After all, we owe them our obedience, (just not when they are disobedient). And the Pope is just a nice Bishop in Rome. End sarcasm. These are comments I've heard when we are out of sync with Rome.
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