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by Brandon Nappi
  For
the past three years, I've been a full-time member of the retreat team
at Holy Family Retreat Center in West Hartford, Connecticut. Regularly,
I give retreat conferences, do religious counseling and help plan the
programs that attract over five thousand people yearly to our retreat
center. No, I'm not a priest; I'm a twenty-eight-year-old married man
with a wife and my first child on the way. How did I ever get into this?
You could say it's because of a dramatic new involvement of the laity
in the Catholic Church.
The Second Vatican Council and the Laity
In the fall
of 1962, Pope John XXIII called to Rome some 2600 bishops, heads of
religious orders and theologians from across the globe to participate
in the Second Vatican Council. The historic gathering, the largest of
its kind in the Church's two thousand year existence, addressed a wide
array of modern issues including ecumenism, inter-religious dialogue,
scripture, episcopal authority, and church-state relations.
One of the
Council's greatest contributions was its theology of the laity. The
introduction to its Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity declared:
"Éthe action of the Holy Spirit [is] moving laypeople today to a deeper
and deeper awareness of their responsibility and urging them on everywhere
to the service of Christ and his Church."
The Holy
Spirit's action appears in myriad ways as today's laity spreads the
Gospel both inside and outside the Church. According to the Council,
all the baptized, not just priests and religious, participate in Christ's
ministry as priest, prophet, and king. All are called by God, not only
to announce "the message and grace of Christ, but also to permeate and
improve the whole range of the temporal." (II.5) All of us must work
to create a world that reflects the peace, justice, and love that marked
Christ's earthly ministry.
Growing Lay Involvement Within the Church
Primarily,
laypeople live and work in the secular world, but today they are dramatically
evident within the Church too. The Vatican Council offered opportunities
to laypeople that would have been unimaginable fifty years ago. Now,
as the numbers of priests and religious decline, laypeople across the
country offer reflections and preside at communion services in the absence
of a priest at Sunday Mass; they function as lay ecclesial ministers
and pastoral administrators in churches, and they assume the practical
and pastoral duties in the day to day management of priest-less parishes.
Additionally, they minister in pastoral care departments in hospitals,
teach theology in universities and seminaries, and work collaboratively
with religious communities to continue their ministry in an age of declining
vowed members.
Recent studies
by Lawrence Young state that 27% of our Catholic parishes in the United
States do not have a resident priest and project that by 2015 there
will be 16,000 fewer priests serving in them. At the same time, a study
by the National Pastoral Life Center in 1999 indicates that 30,000 lay
ecclesial ministers are working in two-thirds of the parishes across
the nation. According to Catholic commentator David Gibson, there are
currently 30,000 lay ministers in training; soon lay ministers will
outnumber this country's 47,000 priests.
As the laity
assumes more responsibility in local parish ministries, diocesan offices
and religious sponsored institutions, disagreements about their role
the Church have arisen. Lay ministry has become part of a complex debate
raging in the American Church regarding such issues as sexual abuse,
decentralization, optional celibacy, and the role of women. These issues
cannot be solved by facile solutions. Many changes have taken place
since the Council and many more will occur as vocations to the priesthood
and religious life continue to decline. The over-riding question is:
how will our Church continue its mission and ministry?
The Need for Dialogue and Adult Conversation
Currently,
Catholic lay people must find their vocations and their voices in the
midst of a ferocious on-going debate pitting theological "liberals"
against "conservatives," a debate that often obscures more than clarifies
issues. At present, we expend more energy labeling each other than communicating.
In a climate of continual disagreement, Catholics must find a way to
discern the work of the Spirit. The way forward is through dialogue.
Opposing sides on the theological spectrum need to talk and pray together.
Fr. Brian
Hehir, formerly president of Catholic Charities and dean of Harvard
Divinity School, spoke recently about the need for "adult conversation,"
which is really conversation, not rebellion or infidelity. We need an
"adult conversation" that springs from deep commitment and concern for
the Church's future. As an educated people, American Catholics are seeking
just such a conversation as the Church looks ahead.
"Change": A Dirty Word for Catholics?
Any dialogue
or adult conversation about the role of the laity must take place with
courage and openness to change. For a significant part of Catholic history,
"change" has been somewhat of a dirty word. "The Church could not, has
not, and never could change," or so the faithful were taught. Certainly,
reluctance to change has helped the Church in times of poor leadership
within and heresy from without. But the Holy Spirit calls the Church
to change when change is necessary. As the famous nineteenth century
convert Cardinal Newman pointed out, changes have occurred constantly
in Church practice and doctrine over its 2000-year history. The Church
has changed more since the Second Vatican Council, than in the previous
four hundred years. Indeed, from its earliest days the Catholic Church
has been growing and changing according to the prompting of the Holy
Spirit.
To understand
the Church's evolution we must first understand this: the Church does
not possess Christ, but rather Christ possesses his Church. This statement
has profound theological implications for the shape of the Church over
time. The Church exists to serve Christ, not the other way around. Therefore,
the Church can change and indeed must change to serve Christ and the
mission of the Gospel at a particular moment in history. The Church
of the twenty-first century will be different from the Church of the
thirteenth century, because the needs of our world today are different
than they were 800 years ago.
Change within
the Church, therefore, need not be feared. The Holy Spirit inspires
it.
Hope for the Church
The Second
Vatican Council called for a laity to be more educated, aware, and consciously
committed to the mission of Christ than ever before. In a rapidly changing
world it would be a mistake to resist lay involvement. Our greatest
hope is to find new ways of supporting lay participation and collaboration
within the Church.
What the
Spirit requires of us all is radical fidelity --- fidelity, not to changelessness,
but to Christ and his mission as revealed to the People of God through
the Holy Spirit. Such fidelity demands courage as we change, and openness
to the Spirit amid disagreement. As the document on the laity stated
forty years ago, "In the Church there is diversity of ministry
but unity of mission." (I.2) Clearly, lay ministry in the Church
is not an issue to be argued but a reality to be accepted so that the
Church can continue Christ's mission in the world.
Without the
Second Vatican Council and its theology of the laity, my ministry at
the retreat center would not be possible. Thankfully, the work of Vatican
II has enabled me and thousands of dedicated laypeople to follow God's
call to share our gifts and help shape the Church of tomorrow. May the
Holy Spirit guide the work of the many faithful laypeople so that our
Church will continue its mission of spreading the good news to all people.
also in this issue:
When the towers fell | Gemma Galgani
Calling on the Laity | The Cross at the U.N.
Passionist Television Mass
Act
with Compassion
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2004 - all rights reserved - Passionist Missionaries of Union City,
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