Tag Archives: holiness

evangelii gaudium

1385914493-evangelii_gaudiumThe first apostolic exhortation from Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium, “The Joy of the Gospel”, was published late last month. It received an overwhelmingly positive reception in the Church and beyond (with the notable exception of some U.S. Republicans and Fox News commentators for its commentary on market economics). In my view, Evangelii Gaudium could emerge as a document more ‘programmatic’ for Church renewal than Novo Millennio Ineunte (2001) which has been a foundational document for those involved in Church planning and adult education. Summaries and analysis of Francis’ exhortation are available through various websites and blogs, including America, the National Catholic Reporter, and the ABC (Austin Ivereigh).

Rather than rehearse the content of Evangelii Gaudium, which others have done superbly, I will simply make a few comments on the document through the lens of pastoral planning for Catholic dioceses and parishes.

In providing a compelling vision for the contemporary Church Francis’ document is not intended to serve as a simple instruction manual or a blunt recipe for success but remains a work of theology proper, mediating the tradition in the present with a view to the future of the Church’s mission. Nevertheless, the implications for planning are striking.

Cardinals 5As background, the document represents Francis’ distillation and extension of themes surfaced at the October 2012 Synod of Bishops on the New Evangelisation for the Transmission of Christian Faith. It remains of note how much currency the word ‘evangelisation’ now holds in the Catholic Church in light of a historical reluctance to engage the term at all. While finding its origins in Scripture itself, Archbishop Rino Fisichella notes:

In all probability, it was Erasmus (a Catholic Dutch theologian) who first inserted into our language the derived term ‘to evangelise,’ to designate what he considered to be a form of Lutheran fanaticism (Fisichella, The New Evangelisation: Responding to the Challenge of Indifference, 17).

In other words, ‘evangelise’ was understood by Catholic minds in the wake of the Reformation in a largely pejorative sense, attracting disapproval for its Protestant overtones that included Luther’s exhortation to ‘preach the Gospel alone’. In contrast to ‘evangelise’ Catholics preferred to speak of ‘mission.’ It is only from the middle of the twentieth century, say the 1950s and onwards, that we see the word ‘evangelisation’ reemerge in Catholic idiom with any vigour.

If the ‘new evangelisation’ was a child of the pontificate of John Paul II, and gathered strength and stature as a concept or idea under Pope Benedict XVI, it has reached perhaps not yet maturity but certainly a living presence and tangible dynamism under the leadership of Pope Francis.

jp11 version 2On his part, John Paul II identified a ‘spirituality of communion’ as the basis of ecclesial renewal in Novo Millennio Ineunte as he shared his vision of the Church on the cusp of the third millennium. This letter was and remains exceptional for grounding reform in both the eternal life and relations of the Trinity as well as the temporal conditions in which the Church lives its mission:

. . . it is not a matter of inventing a ‘new programme’. The programme already exists: it is the plan found in the Gospel and in the living Tradition, it is the same as ever. Ultimately, it has its centre in Christ himself, who is to be known, loved and imitated, so that in him we may live the life of the Trinity, and with him transform history until its fulfilment in the heavenly Jerusalem . . . But it must be translated into pastoral initiatives adapted to the circumstances of each community (Novo Millennio Ineunte 29)

The Church is called to manifest its permanent identity and mission as a sacrament of communion in the concrete and changeable conditions of human history. Novo Millennio Ineunte then went on to identify holiness as the abiding measure and goal of all of the Church’s planning and activity, asserting plainly but evocatively,

. . . to place pastoral planning under the heading of holiness is a choice filled with consequences. It implies the conviction that, since Baptism is a true entry into the holiness of God through incorporation into Christ and the indwelling of his Spirit, it would be a contradiction to settle for a life of mediocrity, marked by a minimalist ethic and a shallow religiosity (Novo Millennio Ineunte 31)

Pope FrancisTwelve years on, Evangelii Gaudium contains no such reference to pastoral planning per se though it does, in fact, express much of Pope Francis’ thought on the subject. This becomes clear when we take note of the pontiff’s address to CELAM (the Latin American Episcopal Council) earlier this year in Rio de Janeiro, at the tail end of World Youth Day. In that address he observed:

In Latin America and the Caribbean there are pastoral plans which are ‘distant’, disciplinary pastoral plans which give priority to principles, forms of conduct, organisational procedures… and clearly lack nearness, tenderness, a warm touch. They do not take into account the ‘revolution of tenderness’ brought by the incarnation of the Word. There are pastoral plans designed with such a dose of distance that they are incapable of sparking an encounter: an encounter with Jesus Christ, an encounter with our brothers and sisters.

Such pastoral plans can at best provide a dimension of proselytism, but they can never inspire people to feel part of or belong to the Church. Nearness creates communion and belonging; it makes room for encounter. Nearness takes the form of dialogue and creates a culture of encounter. One touchstone for measuring whether a pastoral plan embodies nearness and a capacity for encounter is the homily. What are our homilies like? Do we imitate the example of our Lord, who spoke ‘as one with authority’, or are they simply moralising, detached, abstract?        (You can read the full text here)

It is apparent that the same ‘revolution of tenderness’ commended to the Latin American bishops in planning for the Church is recapitulated with vigour in the style and letter of Francis’ first exhortation.

StonesApart from the continuing focus on the homily as a key vehicle of pastoral renewal, Evangelii Gaudium includes the same warning of a ‘distant’ and bureaucratic approach to Church reform and planning, ‘a spiritual worldliness’ which can ‘lead to a business mentality, caught up with management, statistics, plans and evaluations whose principal beneficiary is not God’s people but the Church as an institution’ (EG 95). As I read it, Francis intimates that an introverted, managerial and administrative approach to the Church’s life can bring about a neglect for the people of God as church processes end up replacing or even compromising the larger goal of holiness and mission. To draw from the language of Thomas Merton, without due care the ‘cause’ – even a ‘religious’ one – comes to replace concrete persons in their dignity and need of healing, interpersonal bonds and helps to holiness.

Further on in the exhortation, Francis guides the Church and pastoral workers between the Scylla of good intent without action and the Charybdis of practical proposals devoid of genuine spirituality. He writes,

Mystical notions without a solid social and missionary outreach are of no help to evangelisation, nor are dissertations or social or pastoral practices which lack a spirituality which can change hearts. These unilateral and incomplete proposals only reach a few groups and prove incapable of radiating beyond them because they curtail the Gospel
(EG 262).

Those planning for evangelisation and church renewal must, therefore, avoid a sociological reduction of the Church to the status of a commercial enterprise – one in which spiritual fruitfulness is replaced by a concern for ‘efficiency’ and missionary discipleship is reduced to the mere matter of the right ‘technique’. Also to be eschewed is that false elevation of the Church out of history, an abstract ecclesiology that is expressed in the fideistic hope that all will simply fall together and that the Church’s mission will be compelling without our best efforts.

candlesFrancis makes clear that the Gospel calls forth our human engagement and creativity in the work of God. It is a call to a renewed intent, zeal and commitment to mission that resists all self-satisfaction and smugness among dioceses and parishes. He can say, therefore, ‘pastoral ministry in a missionary key seeks to abandon the complacent attitude that says: “We have always done it this way”. I invite everyone to be bold and creative in this task of rethinking the goals, structures, style and methods of evangelisation in their respective communities’ (EG 33).

Finally, in Evangelii Gaudium there is a call for prudence among pastoral workers who are prone to what Francis describes as ‘pastoral acedia’, a dimming of expectation and resolve on account of a variety of factors. These include the pursuit of ‘unrealistic projects’ where pride or ambition overtakes reason, a lack of patience for processes to mature in time, and the aforementioned depersonalisation of the work of the Church in a narrow focus on ‘the road map’ without a consciousness of the journey – those evolving landscapes and human situations to which we are being called to respond in faith.

While never speaking of pastoral planning as such, Francis’ exhortation, clearly informed by his experience of the local Church and the ecclesiology of the Aparecida Document (PDF), seeks to guide the Church toward a more intentional, explicitly missionary mode of existence. Evangelii Gaudium represents a significant addition to the developing tradition of planning within the Church, supporting as it does a ‘new chapter of evangelisation marked by joy’ (EG 1).

As the calendar year comes to a close, thank you to all those who have read my blog over the past first year of its life. I’ve deeply appreciated your comments, critiques and responses and wish you, your families and communities a peaceful and holy Advent and Christmas. Until the New Year, best wishes and every blessing, Daniel A.

the communion of saints

Fra Angelico SaintsThe Feast of All Saints may seem some distance from the practical realities of parish life – and light years from the task of pastoral planning – and yet it remains central to what the Church is in its deepest reality and what she seeks to become: a communion of holy men and women who give historical witness to the power of Christ in their lives.

In these saints the Church sees her own vocation and mission realised in flesh and, more often, blood, and it sees that the gift of eternal life is not merely a promise but has been brought to fulfilment in the lives of men and women throughout history.

It is clear in parish life that the past fifty years or so have seen a decline in the veneration of the saints along with other practices of piety. There are many reasons for this ongoing alienation from the saints, too many to rehearse here, but they include their trivialisation as well as their romanticisation. While their names adorn our churches and schools, are plucked out as confirmation names (with the notable exception of St Adolf of Osnabrück) and appear in our liturgies from time to time, the sense of connection between this ‘cloud of witnesses’ (Heb. 12:1) and our Christian life in the here and now can be pretty thin to say the least. The reality of real and constructed saints (for instance, the case of St Philomena who as far as I can tell never existed) and their eccentric hagiographies only complicates the matter.

Saint Francis of AssisiThe neglect and trivialisation of the saints has led theologians to write of the ‘disappearance of a doctrine’ and while it is true that the Second Vatican Council neatly addressed them as “examples of holiness”, as offering “fellowship in communion” and “aid in their intercession” (Lumen Gentium 51), ever since the saints have gone marching out. Their relevance to the lives of ordinary Catholics is rarely preached, they are not often discussed by theologians and their significance is frequently passed over in programs of adult faith formation. The upshot is that the cult of the saints remains largely confined to the arena of personal piety or devotion and holds little intellectual credibility, currency or appeal for the ordinary Mass-goer.

As well, the pastoral reality for many Catholics is that the dead simply disappear. Karl Rahner recognised as much when he wrote:

. . . if people think of their own nearest and dearest as disappearing at death into that darkness which surrounds the meagre light of our existence with its silent infinitude, how can they then find it in themselves to take up an attitude of veneration towards other dead persons merely on the ground that they were holier? (Rahner, “Why and How Can We Venerate the Saints”, Theological Investigations VIII, 7).

What we can draw from this is that the alienation from the saints reflects an alienation from the sacred in general, a disenchantment that closes the door between this world and the next, that no longer sees the bond between heaven and earth, that holds no vision of the thoroughfare between the two that remained upmost in the minds of our ancestors in faith.

As a word to this ancient tradition, the sanctorum communio first entered into the Apostle’s Creed in the fourth century, with testimony of its inclusion given by Nicetus, a bishop of Remesiana (present-day Serbia). The communion of saints also appears in St Jerome’s Credo, a contemporaneous Latin translation of a creed that was used in Antioch.

SB010As noted by de Lubac, the reference to the sanctorum communio that appears in our creed today contains a double meaning present from the very earliest versions of the profession of faith – referring both to the holy ones of the Church, the persons of the saints, as well as to our participation in ‘holy realities’, notable the Eucharist. The communion of sancta, then, describes both the mysteries of Christian worship as the source of holiness (sacramental communion) and the effect of those divine gifts (a communion of holy persons). This provides an explanation for those who have ever wondered why the creed seems to make no mention of the Eucharist, the source and summit of our faith.

The subsequent tradition of the Church also upheld the import of saints as examples and pointers to the way of holiness in Christ. In the sixth century Dorotheus of Gaza exhorts:

Imagine a circle marked out on the ground. Suppose that this circle is the world and that the centre of the circle is God. Leading from the edge to the centre are a number of lines, representing ways of life. In their desire to draw near to God, the saints advance along these lines to the middle of the circle, so that the further they go, the nearer they approach to one another as well as to God. The closer they come to God, the closer they come to one another . . . Such is the nature of love: the nearer we draw to God in love, the more we are united together by love for our neighbour.

As imitable models of holiness in its spiritual and social dimensions, the saints draw us into intimacy with God, their sanctity challenging us to conversion in the present and renewing our basic awareness of our capacity for grace. Gregory of Nyssa remarks that the saints cast light, like lamps, upon the path for those who are walking with God, having done God’s will throughout the ages. In their suffering as well the saints emerge as models of Christian life, following as they do the way of self-emptying and self-giving of the crucified Christ and personalising the future which all faithful disciples will receive as their reward, a redeemed humanity in the eternal glory of God.

prayer-25It can be seen even in this brief overview that in their great variety, common witness to holiness and testimony to the fulfilment of God’s promises, the saints are a source of hope, challenge and companionship for ourselves personally and our life as a Church, including our parishes. The saints capture or embody the purpose for which communities of faith exist, for the making of holy disciples within the Church for the sake of the world. By the practice of invocation, the remembering and retelling of holy lives, the celebration of feast days and in praying the litany of saints, the promise of eternal life in Christ remain not only within our line of sight but surrounds us in the very company of holy men and women who already, even now, live in that light which knows no setting.

coresponsibility in communion

jvaleroThis week I was privileged to attend and present at the Great Grace Conference, an event hosted by the Archdiocese of Sydney to commemorate 50 years since the opening of the Second Vatican Council. The keynote address and workshops proved dynamic and engaged head on with the issues that confront the Church and its mission, including the challenge of modernity, the need to address the education of the laity, and issues of authority and power, among others. Thank you to the 100 or so participants who attended my own workshop over the past two days which focused on the theme of ‘co-responsibility’ and lay leadership in the Church.

The conference dinner, held last night, brought together a remarkable mix of delegates, bishops, theologians and lay leaders in the Church. It was good to catch up with new and old friends, including Robert Tilley of the Catholic Institute of Sydney and the University of Notre Dame, Matthew Tan of Campion College, Byron and Francine Pirola of the Marriage Resource Centre in Zetland, an inspiring couple of the Neocatechumenal Way, and the UK’s Jack Valero of CatholicVoices (pictured), a bold and pioneering lay-led media initiative that began in 2010 and that has just established itself in Melbourne (I’ll be blogging more about this initiative in weeks to come). The conference concludes today with addresses from Tracey Rowland and Bishop Mark Coleridge. Next week takes me north to the Gold Coast for the National Pastoral Planners Network Conference where I’ll be presenting on strategic planning within church communities.

For now, here is a summary of my ‘Great Grace’ presentation on co-responsibility which may be of interest to laypersons, religious or clergy in service of the Church (for those who prefer to listen, an audio file of the live workshop is now available here):

Since the Second Vatican Council the concept of ‘collaboration’ has been the dominant framework through which the relationship of laity to the ministry of the clergy has been read. However, that began to change on 26 May, 2009, when Pope Benedict XVI, in an address to the Diocese of Rome, raised the term ‘co-responsibility’ as an appropriate hermeneutic through which to interpret the role of laypersons in the Church.

This concept of ‘co-responsibility’ has surfaced as an explicit theme of the Church’s self-understanding only in recent decades. Even then, the idea appears in outline, and occasionally, rather than in a fully elaborated or systematic manner. When it does appear, the primary contexts in which the term ‘co-responsibility’ is employed in the official documents of the Church include the relationship between local churches, the workings of the college of bishops, the bond between nations, and the relationship of the Church and Christians to civil society. The term appears in the Catechism of the Catholic Church only once, again in the context of the duties of Christians toward the common good (cf. CCC n.2240).

To my knowledge, the first magisterial application of the term ‘co-responsibility’ to the laity appears in John Paul II’s 1988 Apostolic Exhortation Christifideles Laici, Article 21:

The Church is directed and guided by the Holy Spirit, who lavishes diverse hierarchical and charismatic gifts on all the baptised, calling them to be, each in an individual way, active and coresponsible.

The third chapter of the exhortation makes clear the context of this common responsibility – it is for the Church’s mission in the world which includes witness and proclamation of their communion with Christ. The document gives sparse attention to the responsibilities of laity within the Church, more concerned as John Paul II was at the time with a perceived “‘clericalisation’ of the lay faithful” and associated violations of church law.

jp11 version 2The term is repeated ten years later in John Paul II’s comments at General Audience on the Holy Spirit. Here he remarked, “[the laity’s] participation and co-responsibility in the life of the Christian community and the many forms of their apostolate and service in society give us reason, at the dawn of the third millennium, to await with hope a mature and fruitful ‘epiphany’ of the laity.” In this instance ‘co-responsibility’ is understood to embrace both the active contribution of laity within the Church’s life as well as their social mission beyond it.

Taken together, these early references do not supply us with a fully elaborated theology of co-responsibility. However, they do express an increasing consciousness of the agency of laypersons in the world as well as some recognition of their involvement in the Church. Laypersons contribute in both spheres, ad intra and ad extra, through their Spirit-led witness and baptismal discipleship.

Benedict XVI’s interventions

It was on the 26 May, 2009, that the term ‘co-responsibility’ first appeared in the thought of Pope Benedict, in continuity with the outline offered by John Paul II but with an added, distinguishing element that raises the profile of the concept for the Church’s self-understanding. The occasion was the opening of the annual Ecclesial Convention of the Diocese of Rome. Expressing the need for renewed efforts for the formation of the whole Church, Benedict insisted on the need to improve pastoral structures,

. . . in such a way that the co-responsibility of all the members of the People of God in their entirety is gradually promoted, with respect for vocations and for the respective roles of the consecrated and of lay people. This demands a change in mindset, particularly concerning lay people. They must no longer be viewed as ‘collaborators’ of the clergy but truly recognised as ‘co-responsible’ for the Church’s being and action, thereby fostering the consolidation of a mature and committed laity.

popebxviIt’s important to affirm that Benedict’s appeal for a new mentality and recognition of co-responsibility falls within the specific context of lay ministry in the Church, and not simply their involvement in worldly mission. In this statement, Benedict has in mind those “working hard in the parishes” who “form the core of the community that will act as a leaven for the others.” These ideas recur, almost verbatim, three years later in Benedict’s message to the International Forum of Catholic Action.

While, again, no systematic theology of co-responsibility appears in Benedict’s thought, he has introduced a degree of specificity to the term by way of a significant negation. The co-responsibility of the laity is not to be interpreted as a ‘collaboration’ in church ministry fitting to clergy alone, and therefore not as derivative in nature, but as an integral and authentic participation, an ecclesial responsibility, that is proper to laypersons themselves. It is because this contribution of laypersons is real, legitimate and essential to the Church’s life that it is to be given practical support in the form of appropriate structures.  The significance of this statement by Benedict is best appreciated in the light of previous statements of the magisterium on the role of the laity vis-à-vis the Church and ordained ministry.

The 1997 Instruction

Pope Benedict’s application of the term ‘co-responsibility’ to laypersons is particularly striking when read beside the 1997 instruction, issued by the Holy See some 15 years earlier, entitled “On Certain Questions Regarding Collaboration of the Lay Faithful in the Ministry of Priests.”

I singled out this document for it well represents the predominant thinking of the magisterium on the relation of the laity and ordained within the Church’s unity. The instruction sought to reinforce the essential difference between the clergy and laity in the light of a perceived blurring of the boundaries in ministry that risked “serious negative consequences” including damage to a “correct understanding of true ecclesial communion.” While the document affirms the common priesthood of all the baptised and sets the ministerial priesthood within that context, the Instruction nevertheless promotes what Richard Gaillerdetz describes as a “contrastive” or categorical theology of the laity.

Specifically, the Instruction defines laypersons from a hierarchiological perspective with their theological status determined by two points of contrast with the ordained – the first, the ultimately secular character of the lay vocation in contradistinction to the ‘spiritual’ concerns of the ordained, and, secondly, the ministry of the baptised is differentiated from the ministry of the ordained by “the sacred power” (sacra potestas) uniquely possessed by the latter. Indeed, as Gaillerdetz observes, the Vatican instruction suggests that the fullness of ministry resides, by virtue of this sacral power, with the ordained alone.

On the basis of these two theological presuppositions – the ascription of laity to the secular realm and the ‘fullness of ministry’ to the ordained – the activity of the laypersons within the Church is cast as a ‘collaboration’ in the ministry of the ordained without a positive or integrated theological basis of its own. It must be said that the absence of such a theology can be explained, in part, by the purpose of the Instruction – it is a corrective, disciplinary document that seeks to uphold, quite rightly, the unique charism of the ordained. Still, as the Australian theologian Richard Lennan observes,

While that concern is proper, [such] documents tend to provide little encouragement to further reflection on the meaning of baptism, the possibility of ‘ministry’ for the non-ordained as other than a response to an emergency or an exception, or the implications of church membership for witnessing to the gospel in the communion of the church, rather than simply ‘in the world.’

The apprehension or hesitancy of this early Vatican instruction toward the status of lay involvement in Church ministry makes the “change in mindset” advocated by Benedict all the more significant. If laypersons are to be viewed not simply as collaborators in a ministry that belongs to another, but genuinely co-responsible in ecclesial life, as Benedict avers, then renewed reflection is called for regarding the positive theological status of laypersons and of their service in the Church, one that stretches beyond the paradigm of ‘collaboration’ that has dominated the lay-clergy relation to date.

I find possibilities for this positive, more constructive, and less contrastive, approach of the laity in the documents of the Second Vatican Council itself. Here we identify sound ecclesiological bases for the form of co-responsibility endorsed by Pope Benedict, flowing from the idea of communion that underpins the Council’s thought.

The Church as Communion

Andrej Rublev TrinityReturning to deeper biblical, patristic and liturgical sources clear of the juridical, extrinsicist tendencies of neoscholasticism, the communio ecclesiology of Vatican II expresses two primary insights. The first, a recovery of baptism as the primal sacrament of Christian life – prior to subsequent distinctions in charism, vocation or office; the second, a renewed appreciation of the Church as an icon of the Trinity, a relationship that promotes a mutuality of exchange between believers as an expression of the unity-in-diversity, the communion, that God is.

Lumen Gentium sought to ground all Christian vocations in what Kenan Osborne describes as a “common matrix” of baptismal faith for it is the entire people of God that are “by regeneration and anointing of the Holy Spirit… consecrated into a spiritual house and a holy priesthood,” “made one body with Christ, sharers in the priestly, prophetic and kingly functions of Christ” and so “share a common dignity from their rebirth in Christ, a true equality.” As Chapter 5 of Lumen Gentium avers, each member of the ecclesial body, baptised and confirmed in the Holy Spirit, shares “the same vocation to perfection” and all people are commissioned to the mission of the Church, not in a derivative way, but as Lumen Gentium 33 emphasises, they are called to this mission “by the Lord Himself”.

However, it is important to note that these gifts – baptismal regeneration, the tria munera of Christ, an equality in dignity and in the call to the heights of holiness – are ascribed to the entire christifideles, to all the faithful or People of God in their Christian vocation, and are not particular or distinguishing of the laity per se.

A Theology of the Laity

In seeking to identify a unique or distinctive element apropos the laity, scholars have pointed elsewhere in the conciliar documents, especially Lumen Gentium 31. This text directs attention to the distinct ‘secular character’ of the lay vocation in contrast to the ‘sacred’ ministry of the ordained: “to be secular is the special characteristic of the laity . . . 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.”

The overall thrust of this and other documents leads the theologian Aurelie Hagstrom to conclude, “this secular character must be an essential part of any theology of the laity since it gives the specific element in any description of the laity’s identity and function. The peculiar character of the laity is not only a sociological fact about the laity, but also a theological datum.” In short, Hagstrom interprets these documents as raising the ‘secular character’ of the laity to the level of metaphysics, as belonging to the ontological status of the lay vocation as such. To be lay is to be immersed in the secular, or so it is proposed.

laityHowever, questions can be raised about the theological adequacy of such a presentation and its support in the breadth of the conciliar documents. For one, the subcommittee responsible for Lumen Gentium 31 – that section of the constitution that refers to the laity’s ‘secular character’ – did not intend this to stand as a reference to their ontology, as pertaining to the core of their being, but rather a ‘typological description’ of the situation of the laity, that is, a description of how lay men and women typically live, but not exclusively so (cf. the relatio of John Cardinal Wright). This original intent of the Council Fathers challenges a view that would limit the proper responsibility of laypersons to the external life of the Church, that is, ‘in the world’ alone.

What is more, as Archbishop Bruno Forte points out, it is in fact the whole Church that the Council situates within the world as a leaven, in both Lumen Gentium and Gaudium et Spes. Forte goes as far as to predicate ‘laicity’ not of a specific subset of the Church – that is, of its non-ordained members – but of the entire Church that serves the world as the “universal sacrament of salvation.” These conciliar perspectives challenge a conception of the Church in dichotomous terms, of clergy as the apolitical men of the Church; the laity as the less ecclesially committed, politically involved, ‘men of the world.’

The heart of the issue is that to define laypersons by an exclusively ‘secular character’ in contradistinction to the ‘sacred’, ecclesial ministry of clergy renders genuine co-responsibility within the life of the Church difficult if not problematic. As intimated, as long as laypersons are defined exclusively by an identity and function in ‘the world’ without taking into adequate account the reality of their witness within the Church, then their involvement in Church ministry can appear only a concession, an anomaly or even a usurpation of Church service that belongs properly and fully to the ordained alone. What is more, the definition of laity by a secular vocation stands in contrast to the pastoral reality of many thousands of laypeople engaged in church ministries which are obviously not secular. As Lennan concludes, the practice of Church ministry by lay men and women, the very reality of their co-responsibility within the contemporary Church, presently outstrips the theology and church policy regarding such matters. Lay ecclesial ministers such as ourselves are doing something in the Church that, ontologically speaking, appears incongruous for their ‘proper’ place has been read as being ‘in the world.’

Co-responsibility of Order and Charism

19238374In moving beyond  a “dividing-line model”, a hardened distinction of laity and clergy in isolated realms, it is helpful to consider the place given by the Council to the exercise of charisms within the Church’s mystery. Prior to the Council, the charismatic gifts of the Spirit were treated by theology primarily within the context of spirituality, as the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the human soul of the individual believer. Considered extraordinary, transient and isolated in experience, the charisms of the Spirit were not integrated into a broader ecclesiological framework and so their relation to the sacraments, the life and mission of the Church remained largely overlooked.

CongarBuilding on the insights of Congar and other proponents of the ressourcement movement, Vatican II witnessed a recovery of the pneumatological foundations of the Church as presented in the writings of St Paul. A strong integration of the activity of the Spirit within the Church can be found in Lumen Gentium 12 with consequence for our theme of co-responsibility:

It is not only through the sacraments and the ministries of the Church that the Holy Spirit sanctifies and leads the people of God and enriches it with virtues, but, “allotting his gifts to everyone according as He wills,” He distributes special graces among the faithful of every rank. By these gifts, He makes them fit and ready to undertake the various tasks and offices which contribute toward the renewal and building up of the Church . . . Those who have charge over the Church should judge the genuineness and orderly use of these gifts and it is especially their office not indeed to extinguish the Spirit but to test all things and hold fast to that which is good.

While it is true that the Council is not here making an explicit link between charism and lay ministry per se, it does provide a foundation for understanding leadership by laypersons as something other than an exception, usurpation or offshoot of ordained ministry. In grounding the life of the Church in the work of the Spirit, the Spirit of Christ who ‘co-institutes’ the Church by the giving of gifts, the Council grounds all ecclesial activity, all “tasks and offices,” in the inseparable divine missions of both the Word and Spirit.

In the post-conciliar era it was Congar especially who would bring out the consequence of this unity of Christ and Spirit in the Church’s being for our understanding of ministry, including on the part of laity. In a 1972 article Congar takes issue with the largely ‘christomonist’ approach of the Church and ministry that had dominated Catholic ecclesiology since the age of high scholasticism. Congar critiques this linear and predominantly vertical perspective with acuity:

“Christ makes the hierarchy and the hierarchy makes the Church as a community of the faithful.” Such a scheme, even if it contains a part of the truth, presents inconveniences. At least in temporal priority it places the ministerial priest before and outside the community. Put into actuality, it would in fact reduce the building of the community to the action of the hierarchical ministry. Pastoral reality as well as the New Testament presses on us a much richer view. It is God, it is Christ who by his Holy Spirit does not cease building up his Church.

This richer view of the ‘building up’ of the Church’s life is indeed offered by Lumen Gentium 12 in its recognition of the Spirit’s bestowal of gifts on “the faithful of every rank,” on the entire christifideles. In renewing and building up the Church’s life, the Spirit is understood to operate throughout the entire community of God’s people, disclosing the Church as other than a pyramid whose passive base receives everything from the apex. The laity are indeed subjects of the Spirit’s action as persons of baptismal faith.

NTChurchThis appreciation of the entire Church as anointed by the Holy Spirit (LG 4), as entrusted with Scripture and tradition as Dei Verbum 10 insists, and with charisms of the Spirit that bear structural value for the Church, opens the way for recognition of lay ministry qua ministry for the life of the Church and its mission. In the light of a pneumatological ecclesiology, the activity of laity surfaces not as derivative, a mere collaboration in the ministry of another, but, as Benedict intimates, a genuine co-responsibility for the sake of communion with God in Christ by the Holy Spirit.

While affirming the Spirit’s guidance by “hierarchical and charismatic gifts”, the Council never successfully integrated these christological and pneumatological aspects of ecclesial life. They were simply placed side by side (cf. LG 4). As long as this integration of hierarchical order and charism remains lacking, the co-responsibility of laypersons within the Church risks being read by Catholics against, or even as a threat, to the unique charism of the ordained who act uniquely “in the person of Christ the Head.” In other words, there is a risk of distinguishing ordained ministries from lay ministries by associating Christ with the former and the Holy Spirit with the latter, a solution that is clearly inadequate. If the co-responsibility of the laity is to be fruitfully realised in the life of the Church, its future theology must hold charism and order, the missions of the Spirit and Christ, in unity without confusion or separation.

It has been suggested by Gaillardetz that the ordained priest, in that “discovery of gifts” described by the Council, directs and oversees the entire local community while, for the most part, the lay minister serves only within a particular area of ministry and does not exercise leadership of the community as a whole. To locate the charism of the ordained in the particular gift of leadership of the entire community upholds the principle that no matter how much pastoral work one does or how competent one becomes, the non-ordained person never ‘forms’ or ‘rules’ a community as a leader in the sense in which a cleric does. However, such an understanding of the unique charism of the ordained still permits recognition of other forms of Spirit-led leadership within the communion, under the oversight and with the encouragement of the ordained.

Though the integration of charism and order within the Council’s document was never achieved, there are within its letter foundations for an appreciation of ordained ministry not in opposition or above the Spirit-filled reality of the body but firmly within it as the apostolic principle of order and oversight of the local community. It is in recognising the Church’s constitution by both the missions of the Word and Spirit, in the ministry of the apostles and the Spirit given at Pentecost, that we can move toward a theology of co-responsibility that supports and extends the reality of both lay and ordained ministry vivifying the life of the contemporary Church.

14546210As a final observation, it may well be the unfolding momentum of ‘the new evangelisation’ that offers the zeal and occasion for co-responsibility to be practiced with greater intensity in the mission and ministries of the Church. The new ecclesial movements, for one, have manifest the way in which the historical shape of the Church can be shaped by a renewed appreciation of the work of Christ and the Spirit, order and charism, clergy and the laity within a communion of faith, as endorsed by my conference paper.

Conclusion

‘Co-responsibility’ remains a developing concept that is to be understood in the context of the Church’s life as a communion. Tracing the appearance of the term within magisterial thought, I see the interventions of Pope Benedict XVI on the subject as particularly significant for the Church’s self-understanding. In differentiating ‘co-responsibility’ from mere ‘collaboration’, Benedict has prompted renewed thinking about the theological integrity of ministry by laypersons and the relationship of this growing service within the Church to divinely-given hierarchical order. It is through ongoing reflection on both the christological and Spirit-filled foundations of the Church, the missions of Christ and the Spirit in the ecclesial body, that the practice of co-responsibility, already growing at the level of pastoral practice, may be matched by a coherent theology that strengthens the contribution of laypersons in the decades to come.

the Spirit of the conclave

With the collegeofcardinalsconclave set to begin tomorrow (12 March), it is worth reflecting on one of the underlying themes of these past weeks, or one of the ‘issues under the issues’ as the historian John W. O’Malley would put it.

The  issue is the role of the Holy Spirit in the life and renewal of the Church. Of course, following Pope Benedict XVI’s abdication, it is the Spirit’s guidance of the Church in the election of a new pontiff that is at the heart of our prayer at present and for good reason.

As a religious and political institution, the papacy has shaped and re-shaped human history in innumerable ways both positive and notorious (compare the papacy of Gregory the Great in the sixth century and his historic mission to the people of Anglo-Saxon England, worshipping as they were ‘stocks and stones at the edge of the world’ to that of Benedict IX in the eleventh century whose election, the result of systematic bribery on the part of his father, brought only violence, debauchery and shame to the See of Peter).

This uneven history of the papacy and its influence on both the Church and world underlines the importance of the upcoming conclave and the Spirit-led discernment that calls to be exercised by the cardinalate.

The new pontiff will not only need to meet the challenge of the sexual abuse crisis, a scandal that continues to raze the credibility and mission of the Church globally, but also the plight of persecuted Christians in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, the yet-incomplete articulation and direction of ‘the new evangelisation’ aimed principally at the West, and the abiding issues of internal reform, including that of the Roman Curia, that call for address.

While it would be comforting and reassuring to assume that the Spirit’s direction will, and has been, a full triumph in the Church, history has told us otherwise. Indeed, on the subject of papal elections, the then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger made the following, now widely-publicised, remarks on the influence of the Spirit on such an occasion:

I would say that the Spirit does not exactly take control of the affair, but rather like a good educator, as it were, leaves us much space, much freedom, without entirely abandoning us. Thus the Spirit’s role should be understood in a much more elastic sense, not that he dictates the candidate for whom one must vote. Probably the only assurance he offers is that the thing cannot be totally ruined . . .

The Cardinal went on to conclude with stark realism,

There are too many contrary instances of popes the Holy Spirit obviously would not have picked!

Erroneous decisions on the part of the Church, certainly not restricted to the realm of candidates for the Petrine Office, raise the question of the precise nature of the Spirit’s role in ecclesial discernment and decision-making for while Scripture affirms that the Spirit will indeed ‘guide us into all the truth’ (Jn 16:13) it ostensibly does not offer the community of disciples immunity from mediocrity or even calamity.

NTChurchCertainly, in the Acts of the Apostles the Spirit does appear to intervene at chosen moments in an immediate and decisive manner, leading the nascent Church towards what it should be and what it should do. For instance, we witness the power of the Spirit at Pentecost to bring about a reconciled diversity among Jesus’ disciples and later it is the Spirit who guides the Church into an embrace of the Gentiles, a decision which the apostles and elders attest as having ‘seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us’ (Acts 15:28). For Luke, the author of Acts, the power of the Spirit is at work, guiding and directing the early Church to its destination.

However, other New Testament texts, the dramatic history of the Church and our own personal experience suggest that the voice of the Spirit is not always so clear. The diverse manifestations of the Spirit as expressed in the New Testament communities (1 Cor. 12:28-31, Eph. 4:11-13, Rom. 12:6-8), while a profound gift to the Church, indubitably shape the later Johannine emphasis on the need of discernment to ensure that what has been received, experienced or testified is indeed truly of God. The First Letter of John, clearly acquainted with the experience of community discord, warns, ‘Beloved, do not believe every spirit but test the spirits . . . from this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error’ (1 John 4:1,6).

rubleviconIndeed, it is ironic that the subject of the Spirit, which ecumenical theology affirms as the principal of unity within the Church, has been at the root of some of the most significant divisions in the history of Christianity – the split of the East and West over the Spirit’s procession from the Father and/or the Son, and the Spirit’s relation to Scripture, tradition, and the sacraments including hierarchical ministry so bitterly contested at the Reformation.

What we can draw from this mixed history and the necessity of the Spirit’s discernment is that the gift of the Spirit – in all of its ‘elasticity’ as Cardinal Ratzinger puts it – does not so overwhelm the Christian that it alleviates or excuses them of the responsibility to evaluate, reflect and decide in faith but rather invites and even necessitates their active participation in that process of decision. This much is clear from the story of the primitive Church as described above (to open the Gospel of Christ to the Gentiles or to restrict proclamation of the Messiah to the House of Israel?)

In other words, the gift of the Spirit needs to be actively and constantly received by the community of the Church as it pilgrims through history, a ‘reception’ that involves the activities of listening, understanding, applying, and so truly ‘making one’s own’ the Spirit of faith and grace so that the community can be faithful to the person and message of Jesus.

The necessity of active human involvement in the Spirit-led decisions of the Church explains not only the emphasis of our tradition on being ‘docile’ to the Spirit (a spiritual tenet emphasised by Benedict XVI himself in his farewell address to the College of Cardinals) but also opens the real possibility for the non-reception of the Spirit by the Church community. This failure to heed the Spirit is evidenced not only in the grand crises and scandals of the past and recent history of the Church but also in the more ‘ordinary’, everyday failing of Christians to live the full meaning of their God-given discipleship.

The Australian theologian Ormond Rush concludes of the Church and the Spirit, ‘the human receivers of revelation are to be portrayed as active participants in discerning the way forward, co-deciders with God’s Spirit’ (cf. Rush, Still Interpreting Vatican II, 87). This ‘co-decision’ with God’s Spirit is a capacity and responsibility not simply of those who exercise authority in the Church but for the whole ecclesial body which shares the task of receiving the one Spirit, the ‘Spirit of Christ’ himself (Rom. 8:9), into its life, structures and decision-making.

CardinalsReturning to the impending conclave, though the abiding presence of the Spirit in the Church is that which ensures the Church a future as the ‘pillar and bulwark of the truth’ (1 Tim. 3:15), it remains the task of the cardinal-electors, as individuals and as a college, to be open and receptive of the Spirit’s promptings in selecting ‘the first among the successors of the apostles’ to guide the Church into this future.

As for each and every Christian, what is essential to the cardinal’s reception of the Spirit is their own conversion for it is only in holiness that one can recognise the Spirit who is holy. There can be, then, no naïve self-complacency about those Spirit-led decisions which shape our life of faith, whether they are made in the splendour of the Sistine Chapel or the more familiar surrounds of our own dioceses and parishes with their own intimate concerns and hopes for the future. It is only our conversion that enables authentic discernment, a faithful recognition, of the Spirit of Truth as it calls us to respond. As the 14th century theologian Gregory of Sinai concludes, ‘the understanding of truth is given to those who have become participants in the truth – who have tasted it through living.’ We pray that the cardinal-electors will choose well and in good faith.

religious life as narratives of holiness

waterOn the 6th March, 2013, around 150 leaders of Religious Institutes gathered at the Novotel, Parramatta, for the Conference of Leaders of Religious Institutes (NSW) Conference 2013.

The theme of the conference was ‘religious life in the post-modern world’ and I was privileged to address leaders and leadership teams on the purpose and contribution of religious life today.

The conference took in a variety of themes centred on religious life: the Church as sacrament of God’s mission, the multidimensions of evangelisation and the living symbol that religious life remains today in a culture that, while often very secularised, remains sensitive to signs.

Prominent documents to consult on the varieties and purpose of religious life include the 1965 conciliar decree, Perfectae Caritatis, and John Paul II’s 1996 Apostolic Exhortation, Vita Consecrata.

These were my remarks at the gathering:

‘Narratives of Holiness’ for the Church and world

candleIn the first instance, religious communities, both apostolic and contemplative, tell a particular story about the way in which God’s Spirit has been manifest in history. Secondly, religious life tells as well a story about the human response to such divine irruption. The many varieties of religious life reveal that Christian discipleship is possible even in this way and recalls for the Church that diversity can be an expression of God’s life too.

By the narratives of holiness it provides, religious life nourishes not only the vocation of those called to live radically the evangelical counsels but nourishes the hope and imagination of the wider Church as to how holiness might be exercised. As bearers of charism and grounded in the original spirit of their founder(s), religious congregations show forth the accessibility and concrete shape of a life centred in God’s gifts; in turn, they invite all members of the Church to envisage what God is asking to be realised and hence what they might live for.

I consider religious life essential to the Church also in the way in which such life stretches beyond but is nevertheless active within the local church, that is, the diocese. Of course, my role as a pastoral planner for a local church has brought into focus the centrality of parishes as the ordinary experience of communion for the vast majority of Catholic people.

However, religious life complements this particular experience of communion with witness to the universal dimension of the church’s life. Religious life, as we know, as a response to the Spirit, cannot be completely merged or contained within traditional diocesan structures. Marked by an intense desire to live the Gospel fully and radically in genuine service to the world, religious life possesses the ability to keep individuals and communities open to the essential universality of the Church and its truly global concerns.

The presence of religious within a diocese, for one, can assist to ensure that local communities do not become inward or self-absorbed, focused on their parish facilities rather than their engagement in God’s mission. In their universal character and tensive ecclesial location in the midst of the local church, religious institutes work against the absolutisation of the parochial and so support the genuine ‘catholicity’ of the Church’s identity and mission.

Religious Life and the New Evangelisation

marymackillopI would further suggest that the apostolic character of many religious congregations will play an important role in maintaining the integrity of the ‘new evangelisation’ which continues to unfold on both a magisterial and local level.

I approach the contemporary situation in this way: since the Second Vatican Council, we are well aware how close to the surface questions of Catholic identity lie. The danger of course is that ‘the new evangelisation’ and its more apologetic tendencies foster a narrow focus on Catholic identity couched primarily in terms of opposition to the world.

This way of being Church – permeated as it is by a certain apocalyptic, dualistic sensibility – can result, unhelpfully, in self-affirming Catholic subcultures which are unable to engage or dialogue with the surrounding culture.

(Note that this danger was on show in the wake of Pope Benedict XVI’s abdication – while the pope’s resignation unleashed wide ignorance and some anti-Catholic bigotry in the secular media it also produced an ample supply of Catholic triumphalism with little genuine conversation between the two opposed tendencies.)

As an alternative to this narrow politics of identity, religious life is well placed to offer the ‘new evangelisation’ a model of outreach characterised by genuine service to the world without the reactionary and oppositional spirit to which other emerging groups may be vulnerable. In other words, religious life can model a mature evangelism, a truly contextualised faith which engages the surrounding culture while losing nothing of its distinctive Christian identity.

Religious Life and Lay Discipleship

SB054Finally, religious life continues to nourish the discipleship of lay men and women in a variety of ways. In addition to the ‘narratives of holiness’ which religious life offers to the whole Body of Christ, we have also seen the emergence of formal collaborations including the creation of new juridic persons among religious institutes in which laity have assumed governance responsibilities while allowing religious to re-engage more immediate and original expressions of service.

Of course, laity and religious collaborate in many other ways, including through ‘associations’ that give expression to a more inclusive imagination of holiness, and therefore a more inclusive notion of Christian community, recovered by the Second Vatican Council.

Beyond structured initiatives, however, religious life can foster lay discipleship through its work at the margins with those who may never feel comfortable within the structures of the Church. As noted by Australian theologian David Ranson, religious life has shown a profound ability to mediate between a given social context and the wider Catholic community – in the case of schools, hospitals or works of justice, between the lives of students, parents, and families who may not be connected to parish or regular practice and the normal life of the Church which is the bearer of the Word and sacramental encounter. This mediating role of religious life, its carriage of the meaning and experience of Christian faith to contemporary culture, is precisely that work of evangelisation to which the entire Church is called.

Conclusion

By a life that animates the local church but stretches beyond it, religious life bears witness to the essential universality of the Church’s identity and mission. In its proven ability to engage the culture with a mature and discerning spirit, in its continued work with and support of lay men and women through its apostolates and associations, and in its variety of charismatic life, religious life is positioned well to awaken and support the Church in its mission of evangelisation which cannot be exhausted by any single historical form.