Pastoral planning effort showcases role of laity

Last month, I received the reports from the 39 Local Planning Groups (LPGs) regarding the reconfiguration of parishes in our Diocese and strategies for pastoral ministry in our 21st century.

This "Called to be Church" process involved an incredible amount of time, effort and energy on the part of our pastors, parish life directors, parish representatives, facilitators and parishioners.

Thousands of people attended town meetings to offer input and review options being considered. And during the past 18 months more than 2,000 parishioners met to assess finances, buildings, Mass schedules and sacramental celebrations; to review faith formation and human service programs; and to look at how our human and material resources might best serve the needs of God's people in our time and place.

A thank-you

I want to express my profound gratitude and appreciation to all who participated in this pastoral planning process. I realize that it was not an easy test to sift through the complex issues involved and to make recommendations that at times were painful.

The fact that individuals and groups did so with such vision, integrity and civility attests to their love for God, the Church and one another.

This grassroots involvement on the part of so many, especially laity, indicates how far we have come as a Church in empowering the laity to exercise their roles as full members of the Body of Christ.

Laity rising

This emergence of this "Age of the Laity," if you will, is based upon two basic assumptions enshrined in the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s.

First, all believers, through baptism and faith, are called to the mission and ministry of the Church. The Second Vatican Council's decree on the Church, "Lumen Gentium," puts it this way: "By baptism the faithful are made one body with Christ and are established among the People of God. They are in their own way made sharers in the priestly, prophetic and kingly functions of Christ. They carry out their own part in the mission of the whole Christian people with respect to the Church and the world." 

God calls all

Second, all believers are called to this mission and ministry by God. The call to ministry is not issued by a bishop or priest, but by God. Once again, "Lumen Gentium" underscores this point.

"The lay apostolate is a participation in the saving mission of the Church itself," it states. "Through their baptism and confirmation, all are commissioned to the apostolate by the Lord Himself." 

It should be noted, however, that these basic premises about the role of the laity in the Church which the Second Vatican Council articulated, and as it has evolved subsequently, are the result of a century-long process of development.

For example, in his 1906 encyclical, "Pascendi," Pope Pius X wrote: "The Church is essentially an unequal society. That is, it is a society formed by pastors and flock -- as far as the multitude is concerned, they have no other duty than to let themselves be led."

We know that Pius X was canonized by the Church, but I suspect it was not for this particular statement. The image of a flock is a biblical one, and an important one. However, it seems misplaced in this context and interpretation.

Whatever the intent of Pius X in "Pascendi," the official statements of the Church concerning the role in the ministry of the laity have changed dramatically over the past century.

Role emerges

Pope Pius XI, for example, encouraged the movement called Catholic Action, which was defined as "the participation of the laity in the apostolate of the hierarchy." This had a very positive side and was a huge step forward in that it encouraged the role of the laity and stressed their activity rather than their passivity.

On the minus side, however, this definition seemed to imply that the laity were not involved in their own mission, but rather were permitted to share in the mission of someone else.

The laity were portrayed as a tool or instrument to be used by bishops and pastors in those spheres of society which the hierarchy could not enter themselves. As a matter of historical fact, this was primarily in the realm of European politics.

In addition, the Catholic Action model seemed to suggest that while the faithful are allowed to share in the mission and ministry of the Church, they are called to such by delegation, neither by God nor by virtue of their membership in the Church.

Not subordinate

Pius XII, in his encyclical "Mystici Corporis Christi," began, at least tentatively, to recognize the weakness of the Catholic Action model and definition, which held that any formal sharing of ministry by the laity was at the hierarchy's initiative and was a sharing in the hierarchy's apostolate.

He pointed out that while the hierarchy was called to service, the laity had a calling and mission properly their own. Pius XII, however, still saw the calling and mission of the laity to be a "collaboration in the apostolate of the hierarchy."

Before the Second Vatican Council, in other words, "laity" was defined in a negative way. Put most succinctly, laity was defined as those not ordained.

This negative definition carried a further connotation that non-ordained meant inferior, or at least subordinate. This was applied not only to the exercise of authority in the Church, but to the state of holiness, as well.

Inferiority in these areas suggested that the laity were dependent upon the clergy for the sacraments, correct doctrine, and other pastoral services. The clerical state was considered the normative model for Christian living to which the laity aspired as best they could, but were in no way to compete with the clergy in holiness, prayerfulness, spirituality and Church leadership.

The Second Vatican Council dramatically shifted the ecclesiological ground for our understanding of the laity.

We are Church

The laity are described by the council not just as instruments of the Church, but they themselves are the Church, the people of God. Furthermore, as result of the Council's shift, the Catholic Action and lay apostolate model began to wane and the notion of lay ministry began to emerge.

Thus, the Second Vatican Council was opening doors without knowing exactly where it would lead. Since the end of the council, it has become clear where it has all led.

These doors opened onto a plethora of lay ministries in areas of liturgy; faith formation; human services; music; administration; renewal movements (e.g. the Charismatic movement, Cursillo, Marriage Encounter, Residents Encounter Christ); outreach to the separated and divorced, widows and widowers; evangelization efforts; ecumenical and interfaith activities; and participation on parish and diocesan pastoral councils, school boards and finance committees -- just to mention some.

Common Priesthood

This evolution has been developed and enhanced further by a rich and coherent body of post-conciliar documents such as the "Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults" in 1973, Pope Paul VI's 1976 Apostolic Exhortation on "Evangelization in the Modern World" as well as the remarkable "General Directory for Catechesis" published in 1997 by the Congregation for the Clergy.

Also the documents of the American bishops such as "Called and Gifted," "Called and Gifted for the Third Millennium," and

"Co-Workers in the Vineyard" have reinforced the teaching that all the baptized are given a share in the priestly ministry of Jesus and that one and all are necessary for the fulfillment of the Church's mission.

While carefully drawing the essential distinction between the common priesthood of the faithful, and the ministerial or hierarchical priesthood, which is rooted in apostolic succession and vested in the power and responsibility of the ordained to act in the person of Christ, these documents contribute to the developing of communion, which makes clear that these modes of participation in the priesthood of Christ are ordered to one another.

The ministerial priesthood is at the service of the common priesthood and directed to the unfolding of the baptismal grace of all Christians.

Lay ministry, then, is neither a luxury nor concession brought about by some American desire to democratize the Church or by the current shortage in vocations to the ordained and vowed life.

Rather, it is the inevitable result of the Second Vatican Council's renewed appreciation of the laity not as mere instruments of the hierarchy, but as the People of God who possess personal gifts and charisms that empower them to contribute their part to the mission of the Church and the transformation of society.

The laity's ministry is a necessary and perennial dimension of the life of the Church, exercised by those who are rooted in a living and loving relationship with Christ Jesus. It demands interdependence and partnership between bishop and priest, between clergy, religious and laity and between parishes and diocese.

The Called to be Church pastoral planning effort has been, I believe, a fine example of this interdependence and partnership. For this, I will be forever grateful.

(07/31/08)