Speaking to Sonntag, the Viennese pastoral theologian said the Church must adapt to remain relevant and inclusive.

Zulehner envisions a Church that encourages active participation by all baptised members and empowers them to embrace their vocations.

"Experienced people from faithful communities of the Gospel can be proposed to a bishop to be ordained priests so that the main source of the Church, the celebration of the Eucharist, does not fall by the wayside" suggested Zulehner.

This new form of the Church "is already appearing before our eyes" the 84-year-old theologian said.

Comfortable but unsustainable Church

Professor Zulehner criticised "expectation clericalism", a long-standing reliance on ordained ministers and full-time Church staff to handle all responsibilities. This model, he said, has created a "comfortable but unsustainable" Church.

According to Zulehner, we should pray not only for "priestly vocations" but for "vocations to the Church", asking people whether they feel called to participate in various projects of the church communities.

He proposed returning to a biblical ideal of shared leadership, likening the future Church to "orchestrated choral singing" rather than a "priestly solo".

Encouraging parishes to broaden their focus, he urged prayers for all vocations, particularly in areas like peace-building, environmental care and service to the poor.

"Let's encourage young people to check whether God needs them." He believes that they join in when they are challenged and given responsibility.

The renowned theologian is firmly convinced that God is not a cynic, but that "He gives us just as many of those vocations that we need now and today as a church in our reeling world. We should be like pastoral truffle pigs who find these wonderfully fragrant mushrooms - they exist".

Sources

English Katholisch

Polonia Christiana

CathNews New Zealand

Vatican II affirmed that every Christian shared Christ's role as priest, king, and prophet by virtue of baptism and dismissed the erroneous notion that the clergy is one step above the laity in terms of power, rank, and decision-making.

The spirit of the Council did not fully materialise, so the clericalist culture continued to sway churches across the world, such as in Bangladesh, where Catholics number just 400,000 among a 170 million predominantly Muslim population.

Clericalism, which Pope Francis despises as "a cancer" is a major obstacle in the Church's progress to synodality in Bangladesh, as it is across Asia.

While Catholics are enthusiastic about becoming part of a synodal Church, eager to occupy their rightful place in the Church's mission, most clerics find no urgency to mend their old ways that assert clerical superiority.

Bangladesh's eight dioceses held synodal consultations at parish, diocese, and national levels.

Apparently, representatives from different sections and diverse groups of people participated and presented a host of proposals and observations. However, the final national document sent to the Vatican has not been made public.

The Church leadership circulated the Asian Continental and Vatican Synod documents across dioceses, but not their own document. Catholic bishops' responses to the Vatican Synthesis Report has been the only accessible document.

The response praises the local Church's growth, good clergy and religious vocations, efforts in evangelisation, social welfare and inculturation, and calls for "shared responsibility" for all to ensure a synodal Church.

Interestingly, it mentions nothing about a clericalist culture that is still predominant.

Secrecy

A sense of secrecy shrouded synodal consultations and findings in Bangladesh.

This secrecy is the best example of continuing clericalism, which forces the hierarchy to believe ordinary Catholics have no right to know the decisions the hierarchy makes for the Church.

So, there is no clue to determine whether the participants spoke against clericalism in Bangladesh and sought ways to get rid of it.

In most probabilities, the answer is no. Because tolerating the "cancer of clericalism" is deeply rooted in the psyche of most Catholics in Bangladesh.

Most Catholics do not find any problem with priests making final decisions on administrative matters at parish, diocesan, and national levels.

Lay people consider it their honorable duty to agree with a priest's decisions. On the contrary, any disagreement will almost always be frowned upon as anti-Church.

For a major part, the laity should be blamed for clericalism in Bangladesh.

Most would assert that "all good Catholics" should obey their priests always and everywhere. Such a highly clericalized laity allow clericalism to flourish in the Church.

Primacy of the priest

The "primacy of the priest" in the psyche of Bangladesh's Catholics is not just something leftover from the Church's centuries-old link with the Roman Empire but also a legacy of European colonialism in Asia.

At a time when the hierarchy's leaders were kingmakers and anointers who bestowed divine authority on kings, the masses saw priests not only as dispensers of spiritual power but also as those close to secular power.

During the colonial era, the public looked at missionaries as collaborators of the colonial powers and a majority of Christians — mostly from socially and economically poor social sections — took them as benefactors who doled out material assistance for their welfare.

In the benefactor-beneficiary relationship, lay Catholics willingly became subservient, and clerics appropriated powers to control the lives of parishioners.

Although colonialism ended more than seven decades ago, the new generations of priests in Bangladesh and South Asia have continued cultivating the benefactor-beneficiary system.

With many Christians coming from poor, low-income groups, the clergy has continued to dominate decisions as they have played vital roles in dispensing the Church's social welfare benefits.

In Bangladesh and most of South Asia, most priests are now natives, and only a very few Europeans are active in missions.

Yet, the native clergy do not see the laity in their communities as equals, even in the Church, and even if the laity are more educated and skilled. What a tragic irony!

Social inequality and discrimination

Added to this is the continuing social inequality and discrimination within the Church.

The rich and powerful receive better treatment from the clergy, and the poor and powerless are ignored or looked down upon.

The clergy also continue attempts to be connected to the secular power and love to hobnob with the elites and politically connected.

At least half of Bangladesh's Christians are tribal people who struggle for social equality and to assert their rights as humans.

Tribal Catholics dominate in five of the eight dioceses, and they happily accept a priest's dominance in all their affairs rather than fight clericalism. A synodal Church will not be their priority until priests make it so for them.

Another issue is a lack of proper adult catechism. Catholics in Bangladesh have not yet internalised the notion of the Second Vatican Council, that the Church is the People of God.

They would love to see the hierarchy as the Church. In this part of the world, considering the hierarchy as the government of the Church and communities of Catholics as the Church's core is a thought frowned upon.

The dominating hierarchy smothers any criticism, however legitimate it may be, against its members and their policies. Critics are branded as anti-clerics and, therefore, anti-Church.

This fear of vilification stops many good Catholics from speaking the truth and defending the rights of the poor in the Church. It allows the Church to become unchristian.

Reform needed

The Church in Bangladesh needs major reform and a shake-up to remain relevant in these times, which demand equality, justice, and fairness.

The old-fashioned priesthood and elitist clericalism must be dismantled with calibrated action to build a truly synodal Church.

If the issue of clericalism is not addressed, the two-year-long process of the Synod on Synodality will end up being a waste of time, energy and money.

• First published in UCA News
• Rock Ronald Rozario is a journalist for UCA News. Based in Bangladesh capital Dhaka, he covers social, religious, political, and human rights issues in Bangladesh and Asia.

Francis sounded warnings against the dangers of arrogance and power in religious leadership.

The meeting at Dili Cathedral came during the Pope's September 9-11 visit to East Timor.

"The priest is an instrument of blessing. He must never take advantage of his role. He must always bless, comfort, be a servant of compassion and a sign of God's mercy" said the pope.

He reminded clergy that their elevated status should not distance them from the people.

"You come from the people! You were born of mothers of the people! You grew up among the people!" Francis said.

"Don't forget the culture of the people you have received."

Continuing the conversation, Francis also addressed the temptations that come with power, sharing a personal anecdote.

"My grandmother always told me that the devil gets in through your pockets" he said.

He called on them to be vigilant against corruption which can infiltrate even Catholic communities.

"The tasks of the clergy are to proclaim the Gospel, to serve the poor and to work for justice and against corruption" Francis emphasised, encouraging church leaders to be "passionate, prepared and creative" in their mission of evangelisation.

Francis recalled the Gospel passage where Mary poured expensive perfume over Jesus's feet at the house of Lazarus, Martha and Mary.

"You are the fragrance of the Gospel in this country" he said, calling on the clergy to spread the "perfume" of the Gospel to those in need, especially the poor.

"It means being vigilant about ourselves because a lukewarm spiritual mediocrity is always lurking" he said.

Sources

• Crux
• Katholisch.de

The image made me sad, because it seemed to reflect what is going on in the Catholic Church and in other American Christian churches.

Many people are no longer coming to church or identifying as Christian, especially young people, and more especially women, who have long been the backbone of the church.

Politics, anticlericalism

In the 19th century in Europe, the Catholic Church lost men because of the church's opposition to liberal reforms: free press, free speech, freedom of religion, labor unions and democracy.

The Church's involvement in politics fed the flames of anticlericalism and drove men out of the Church.

Anyone familiar with this history should not be surprised that both the Catholic Church and evangelical Christian churches are losing members because of their Churches' political stances.

Sadly, I predicted this at the end of the 20th century in an article that appeared in the Jesuit magazine America in June of 1997, "2001 and Beyond: Preparing the Church for the Next Millennium."

Women are angry at the Church's opposition to abortion, in vitro fertilisation and birth control.

For decades, Catholic and evangelical leaders have made abortion the issue that trumped all others, which meant allying with Republicans, who otherwise voted against programs that would help women raise their children.

Women are also angry at not being treated as equals, not only in their being excluded from ministry, but in frequent encounters with male ministers who reeked of a patriarchal culture.

Women have advanced in education, politics, business and professions but are still treated as second-class citizens in the Church.

Add to this the sexual abuse of children and women by Catholic priests and evangelical ministers, and you have a perfect storm that pushed women to abandon their churches.

This is a disaster for the Churches because women have always done the heavy lifting in passing on the faith to the next generation as mothers and religious educators.

If women in the Catholic Church become anticlerical, don't expect their sons to become priests.

Fewer priests and religious

But for Catholics, the crisis is not only about women; it is also about the declining numbers of priests and religious.

In 1965, there were almost 60,000 priests and 178,740 religious sisters in the United States. In 2023 there were 34,092 priests and 35,680 sisters. Even many of these are elderly.

All over the country, seminaries and religious houses are closing or are half empty.

For priesthood, celibacy is obviously the problem. Protestant churches have comparatively little problem finding clergy. If you screen out women, gays and married people, you severely deplete the pool of candidates.

Maybe this is the only way to end clericalism in the Catholic Church: by eliminating the clergy. Maybe God knows what she is doing.

For a while, conservatives blamed the decline of Christianity on liberal reforms in the mainline Protestant churches. But the recent decline of the Southern Baptists has put this theory in the trash bin.

Nor did the conservative era in the Catholic Church under Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI stanch the bleeding:

Those trained and ordained in seminaries filled with conservative faculties promoted under John Paul and Benedict show retention rates no better than those produced by earlier, more progressive faculties.

And little wonder. The conservative bishops appointed by these popes suppressed any creative thinking not in line with orthodoxy as they interpreted it.

Though they kept some of the external reforms of the Second Vatican Council, such as the vernacular liturgy, they extinguished the spirit of collegiality and free discussion released by the council.

Reviving the spirit

Pope Francis is trying to revive that spirit by allowing free discussion in the church and by encouraging synodality, reopening a window that was created by Pope John XXIII but closed by John Paul II.

I fear that, despite Francis' efforts, it may be too late. The damage has been done.

Francis has warned bishops and priests away from clericalism and invited them to synodality, but there is great resistance.

It will take decades to recruit new bishops who will appoint new seminary faculty who will educate a new generation of priests. Remember, John Paul and Benedict had almost 30 years to reform the reform. Francis has only had 11.

Hope

There is always hope.

In last Friday's reading from Ezekiel, the Israelite priest and prophet of the biblical book bearing his name, walked through a field filled with dry bones. He is told to prophesy, "Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord!"

The Lord God then says to these bones: "See! I will bring spirit into you, that you may come to life.

"I will put sinews upon you, make flesh grow over you, cover you with skin, and put spirit in you so that you may come to life and know that I am the Lord."

The Lord GOD continues: "From the four winds come, O spirit, and breathe into these slain that they may come to life." Ezekiel reports that "the spirit came into them; they came alive and stood upright, a vast army."

This prophecy was given to Israel because the whole house of Israel had been saying, "Our bones are dried up, our hope is lost, and we are cut off."

With a compassionate and loving God, hope is never dead. He breathed the Spirit into the church's dry bones at Vatican II.

He will do so again.

• First published by RNS
• The Rev. Thomas J. Reese, a Jesuit priest, is a Senior Analyst at RNS.

Bishops, priests, and laypeople will vote on new consultation and decision-making processes in the Catholic Church.

The working paper, Instrumentum Laboris, is the crucial guideline for this process and is expected to be available soon.

The Synod Secretariat announced at the end of June that the working paper should be available from the beginning of July.

It will serve as the basis for the reform debates needed across the Universal Church, and the decisions made then will serve as a foundation for the Pope's decisions that follow.

Once the Working Document is available, it will have undergone several consultation stages with bishops' conferences across the globe.

Hopefully, the bishop's consultation reflects their local consultations with parishioners and clergy.

From June 4 to 16, twenty theologians from four continents gathered in Rome to compile the Working Document, based on feedback from more than 100 bishops' conferences, so it is clear that not every bishop's conference has taken the opportunity to participate.

In addition, the consultation material was sent to around seventy people worldwide who represent the diversity of the positions.

This group included priests, religious, laypeople, and theologians.

The last part of the preparation is reviewing the current draft document by the Council of Cardinals. After the Synod Council reviews the Cardinal's feedback, the final draft version of the document will be submitted to the Pope for approval.

Consultation and feedback

Consultation with parishioners, religious and a wide range of church groups was crucial in the first round of the synodal process.

Various methods were used, and specific vital sometimes challenging ideas emerged internationally, such as

• Gay rights and participation in the Church,
• priestly celibacy and lifestyles, and
• the admission of women to the ordained priesthood.

In many countries, these issues were backgrounded by the clergy abuse scandal and the episcopal avoidance of responsibility over many decades.

The lack of clergy feedback prompted this year's meeting with parish priests from April 28 28 to May 2 near Rome.

This meeting's focus was parish life, with particular attention on mission, participation and discernment as aspects of parish life and renewal.

The feedback from the English-speaking participants (Parish Priests for the Synod - Group 7 Report, April 30 2024) reported the participants "renewed understanding that the Synodal Church is the community of all believers open to transformation and change, which happens through the reciprocal accompaniment and confident acceptance of the journey we are already walking with the Risen Christ and each other."

Where this is true, the practice of synodality, as the shared participation and collaborative voice of all the baptised in the life of the Church, will go a long way toward fulfilling Vatican II's liturgical precept of Active Participation, which was affirmed in the Novus Ordo but missing in the performance of the 1962 Rite.

The parish priests wrote of their "excitement" in participating "in Christ's saving mission present and fulfilled in a renewed culture/mindset, attentive and inclusive of all people, their diverse gifts, needs, cultural backgrounds and life situations."

Here is an apparent reference to the purpose of the synodal process and an antidote to a harking back to a past ideological or idealised age that is counterproductive to the spread of the Gospel today.

Synodal consultation

The synodal process's use of consultation as a critical platform for ecclesial change is only sometimes well-defined.

Synodal consultation has four characteristics:

• dialogue
• discernment
• decision-making, and
• communication, which are elements in the more extensive process of ecclesial change.

In his work, 'I and Thou,' Martin Buber describes dialogue as the prerequisite of an authentic relationship between people, humanity, and God.

Buber characterises "true dialogue" as open, honest and mutual. Vatican II also emphasised dialogue with the world, other Christians and political authorities.

In the English translations, the Latin words colloquium, meaning discussion and dialogus, meaning dialogue these terms became fused.

Physicist David Bohm wrote of dialogue as a conversation between people that explores their assumptions on meaning, values, society and communication.

In this process, the participants do not debate but seek to listen and consider what they hear.

An authentic dialogue starts with a question and the intention of discovering the answer.

Dialogue is inclusive and, at times, time-consuming.

Finding the answer to the question in dialogue also means that the answer is not a single given but a response to various influences.

Dialogical answers are not set in stone but will be further discussed as situations and needs change.

Discernment, as in the Ignatian concept, is a process of contemplation, meditation and prayer, individually and in groups, to consider if the one calling to change is the Holy Spirit.

Discernment is judging between right and wrong, truth and error.

It involves making careful distinctions, not only in significant matters but also in seemingly insignificant areas. It concerns paying attention to the small things, inner peace or disquiet, and external realities as positive or negative influences.

Discernment enables an individual or a group to evaluate information, test it against God's Word, and make wise choices that honour God and, in doing so, guide us in the journey of holiness.

The first phase of the synodal process firmly focused on discernment, which surprised many participants.

Still, in preparing for October's Working Document, there has been very little communal discernment at the parish and diocesan levels.

Synodal decision-making is about power-sharing, but unfortunately, these are not always free from power games!

Consultative decision-making models in the Church tend to drift between being

• a consultative conversation with the laity and priests, where the bishop listens to the opinions of others and then makes his decision, and
• a consultative decision-making process, where the bishop and others jointly discern, decide and share the responsibility for the decision's outcomes.

The tension is between a pastoral view of the world and a clericalist one.

Parishioners and clergy get caught in the middle of this process, as the common-sense world says the clergy are not skilled to make all parish decisions, and the clericalist view says that clergy are ordained to make decisions.

In New Zealand, this is further confused by the discrepancy between the parliamentary establishment of the dioceses, where all the goods and wealth of a diocese and its parishes are invested in the person of the bishop and the Church's Canon Law that separates the rights, ownership and decision-making between a bishop, a parish priest, a diocese and a parish.

Consequently, decision-making through power-sharing is complex in highly clericalised, hierarchical institutions such as the Latin Rite and Catholic Church, where so much of the historical lived Tradition.

The dogmatic formulations support a particular worldview where decision-making is a function of the ordained clergy.

It is not easy when partners are not seen as equal, and in this context, shared decision-making based on shared power almost always fails.

Consultation is a form of communication.

Communication is about sharing information and providing opportunities to include voices.

It is more than just giving information about events; it is about engagement.

Communication is the first job of any management group in the Church; indeed, the sacraments themselves are forms of communication that we revere, but they are, as the Second Vatican Council teaches authoritatively, not the only form of communication.

Synodal communication processes seek to communicate and engage the baptised through dialogue, discernment and decision-making in difficult conversations about how we live our Christianity in our current, unique contexts.

Communication opens up conversations on complex issues but does not resolve them or shut down irritating conversations.

Communication is about giving people a voice and allowing different opinions to be heard, except those opinions framed in hate language or ideological rhetoric.

According to Cardinal Grech, Secretary General of the Synod, the purpose of the synodal process is "not about solving individual problems" in each country or every instance.

Instead, it is about achieving synodality as a form of being Church.

The object of the exercise is to move away from being a clericalist or clericalising church to a church that talks and decides together.

Thus, a Synodal Church doesn't want to be a clericalist church.

As a result, its management functions (parish, diocese, bishops' conference) also want to be consultative at their core.

This means reshaping decision-making, management, communication, and pastoral dialogue processes to reflect this change.

Where this is possible (where it is wanted), it will provide what Cardinal Grech describes as "a dynamic of pastoral conversion."

Consultation frees us from the bind of "knowledge is power", and that power belongs to some and not others because they have the power to know and decide.

• Dr Joe Grayland is a Liturgical Theologian and is currently a visiting professor at the University of Tübingen (Germany). He has been a priest of the Diocese of Palmerston North for nearly thirty years. His latest book is: Catholics. Prayer, Belief and Diversity in a Secular Context (Te Hepara Pai, 2021).

There are undoubtedly many reasons for this authoritative decision, and it can be legitimately reduced to the pope's personal conviction formed in prayer, which suffices.

However, at least three reasons can still be considered.

Church unity

The first reason is the pope's responsibility as the ultimate guardian of the Church's unity.

It is his role to assess the Church's "elasticity" in its vast geographic, historical, cultural, and ideological diversity.

The reception of the document Fiducia supplicans on blessings showed the extreme difficulty of now having a single audible word across all continents, given the diversity of societies and the church's relationships with each of these societies.

The specificity of the synodal dynamic in our Catholic Church is to be "with Peter under Peter."

The pope is both a member of the Synodal Assembly and in a position of authority relative to it.

It is an advantage to feel, in each Synod, the Holy Father's will to steer the church in a given direction.

But on this path, we must walk together, often at the pace of the slowest. The appreciation of this pace falls under the pope's own responsibility.

Regarding the burning issue of women's place in the life of the church and the gap with their place in society worldwide, Pope Francis's pontificate has shifted lines that were difficult to imagine being moved.

The horizon unfolds as we walk, and what seemed unimaginable yesterday, like the appointment of women to the highest responsibilities in the Roman Curia, has become natural today.

Likewise, what seems unimaginable today will become natural tomorrow.

The Sacrament of Holy Orders

The second reason concerns the central question of the Sacrament of Holy Orders.

It is the backbone of the ecclesial body we form.

Does this backbone limit the body's growth, or does it hold it upright in its uniqueness?

Deep divisions over the answer to this question are not hard to foresee.

We all aim to change our bodies, to slim them down, to strengthen them, but we know that we cannot change bodies without changing our identity.

In opening the Sacrament of Holy Orders to women through diaconal ordination, does it represent a healthy work on our ecclesial body, or does it amount to an impossible body change?

The Holy Father seems to have opted for the latter.

One thing is certain: no substantial evolution on this issue, as on others, can dispense with in-depth reflection on the Sacrament of Holy Orders.

Is everything in it intangible and set for eternity? A backbone accompanies the growth of the human body. If it blocks growth, it renders the whole body disabled.

The risk of clericalism

The third reason may be the Holy Father's intention to combat the risks of deviations inherent to what he calls clericalism, to which male exclusivity is not unrelated.

The composition of the synod and its way of working, as well as its expression, invalidate any idea of a third Vatican Council modeled after Vatican II.

With Vatican II, the major directions for our church for the coming decades would be developed among bishops alone.

This (r)evolution has profound implications for the role of the laity, and thus also of women, in the Catholic Church.

Moreover, while women are currently barred from accessing Holy Orders, the distribution of missions between clerics and non-clerics is not immutable.

In his response to the American journalist who questioned him, the Holy Father reminded us that "women have always had the function of deaconesses without being deacons!"

Indeed, women have not waited for the sacrament of the diakonos, the servant, to assume the bulk of the minor and major services in the Church!

Opening the service of the Word

However, one service is still denied to them — preaching the Word in its most precious and most common setting, the Eucharist (Mass).

Many women have an education equal to or superior to that of clerics.

We know perfectly well how to maintain the symbolic link between the altar of the Word and that of the Eucharist when the main celebrant does not preach.

How can we then justify expressing only male sensibility in the commentary on the word of God during the Mass?

How can we justify denying women the opportunity to hear this Word resonate in their hearts?

I hope the time has finally come to open this service of the Word to trained laypeople and, thus, also to women.

• First published in La Croix
• Jean-Paul Vesco OP  is the Archbishop of Algiers (Algeria).

Halík recently participated in a synodal gathering convened by the Vatican, highlighting concerns over parish priests' exclusion from previous synodal sessions and stressing the importance of their involvement in decision-making processes.

"We see ourselves as a societes perfecta", a perfect society that is too self-sufficient, said Halík.

Addressing the prevalent culture of clericalism, Halík commends Pope Francis' efforts. But he also drew attention to what he sees as "ecclesial triumphalism".

"Ecclesial triumphalism" he said, is a prideful, widespread attitude defined by a Catholicism that is closed off from the world around it.

In an address to the parish priests attending the synodal gathering, Halík lamented that "some Christians, alarmed by the rapid changes of the world, want to make the church an island of unchanging certainties".

"There are still places where the parish priest sees himself as the pope of his parish.

"The church confers the gift of infallibility on only one of its members, and then only under strictly limited conditions" he continued.

"And if even a pope relies on several consultative councils to help him make his decisions, how much more should a parish priest listen to those he has been sent to serve?"

Self-castration of the Catholic Church

Underscoring the diverse perspectives within the Church, Halík encouraged candid discussions on various contentious issues including LGBTQ inclusion and married priests.

Halík stressed the importance of embracing diversity and engaging with secular society. He criticised calls for withdrawal from the world as anti-Catholic, advocating for openness and universality.

"No wonder these people have an affinity for [Vladimir] Putin, [Viktor] Orban etc." he added.

"This type of closed Catholicism always has an affinity with totalitarian and authoritarian systems. To choose this way is the self-castration of the Catholic Church."

The synod process initiated by Francis, Halík said, takes incredible courage.

"He is not a progressive theologian, but he is a very wise pastor. He has empathy and humour, and an open heart, combined with the Jesuit strategy to go step by step."

Halík said there are those throughout the church, including in his home country, who are simply waiting for another pope to succeed Francis in hopes of a course correction.

"I think it is not possible" he said. "They are changes that are unchangeable, and he has opened the way."

Sources

National Catholic Reporter

CathNews New Zealand

At their plenary assembly on September 25, 2018, the German Catholic bishops published a study documenting cases of abuse between 1946 and 2014.

At the end of 2020, the Protestant Church of Germany began research on sexual abuse in their Churches.

On January 25, 2024, this study was made public.

Similarities

What these two studies have in common is the role that clericalism plays in sexual abuse in Christian communities, local churches, religious congregations, and organisations.

In the area of sexual abuse, it is clear that listening to the testimony of those whom clergy have abused, religious and lay leaders, is central because their testimonies reveal general patterns of abuse related to psycho-sexual and psycho-social dysfunctions, most of which are related to a clericalist mindset.

Although these studies show a difference between the denominations regarding celibacy's impact on abuse, they show a substantial similarity regarding clericalism.

Abuse patterns in Protestant congregations generally include enforced discussions about sexuality and the unfulfilled sexual desires of pastors in their own families.

Hence, there are many references to the influence of the social demands for sexual freedom and sexualised living as contexts of abuse.

The presence of the pastor's family, while not completely removing the risk factor of abuse, does make the concealment of abuse more complex.

By contrast, in Catholic contexts, where for celibates, there is an absolute prohibition against sexual activity, the experience of sexualised abuse cannot be related to social phenomena like social promiscuity or social change in the 1960s or 1970s.

Consequently, where one can "blame" the outside world for the Protestant experience of abuse, the "blame" for the catholic experience must be sought within the Church itself.

The correlation of clericalism between both denominations could be summed up as follows:

"The institution comes first before everyone and everything else!"

For both denominations, those who administer the institution (diocese, local Church, parish, religious order/congregation, church business, and schools) of church work primarily to protect the institution's reputation.

Evidence shows that the "geographical solution" of moving an offender from one parish to another, one diocese to another, and one school to another has been used to protect the institution's reputation, not to heal the abused or address the offending.

The various reports expose the folly of this strategy; unfortunately, what the institutional leaders seek to protect—because it is sacred to them—becomes the thing most at risk of scandal.

Spiritual abuse, particularly prevalent in Catholic contexts, further complicates the issue, serving as a precursor to sexual misconduct.

This insidious form of manipulation highlights the power dynamics within the clergy and underscores the urgent need for reform.

However, this factor is almost irrelevant in cases within the Protestant context.

Consequently, although Catholic perpetrators often emphasise the intellectual and spiritual distance from their victims, Protestant perpetrators draw the affected into an overwhelming adult world of marital problems and sexuality and ask the victim to become the solution to these issues.

Catholic risk factors

​Clericalism and celibacy are Catholic risk factors because:

• they partly explain the phenomena of physical, sexual, and spiritual abuse,
• they play a significant role in the formation of clergy and seminarians, and
• they influence the structure and experience of clerical and religious life and parishes.

Because clericalism and celibacy ground the clerical and religious life, those who participate in these lifestyles become immersed in a "functional clericalism" that impacts how they live celibacy.

This functional clericalism is minimised by the cliché "Father knows best."

Functional clericalism is evident, too, when Father absents himself from the reality of the contemporary world by retreating into a private world of piety and liturgical practices that face the past and not the present.

Another example of functional clericalism is the unwillingness of priests to consecrate enough hosts for the people at Mass so that all can be fed from the Eucharistic Table at the Eucharist they attend.

Instead, just before communion distribution, he trots off to the Tabernacle to bring pre-consecrated hosts from a week ago for the people. At the same time, he eats and drinks from the Eucharistic meal at which he is presiding.

This functional clericalism declares: "Father matters most: the people can have what's left over."

This functional approach to the liturgy then clericalises the laity, who also see no need to receive from the Eucharistic Table on a Sunday.

Generally, because the laity has seen the functional clericalism of their priests, they, too, become functional in their approach to Sunday Liturgy and do not bother with the Sunday Mass because communion from the Tabernacle is just as good and more practical.

This functionalism lay at the heart of the online masses streamed during COVID-19.

What is evident from research and various inquiries is that the Church sees both clericalism and celibacy as part of the sacred structure of Catholic priesthood and religious life.

Because these are sacred elements, those who administer them work to protect them.

Often, this approach plays badly into the hands of institutional thinking, which determines how clerics are formed and how, in turn, they and the laity respond to specific pastoral needs.

In short, clericalism and celibacy are two critical influences on how the Catholic Church is administered and two guiding principles for deciding for whom the Church exists.

These various reports make it clear that we must listen to the voices of survivors, whose testimonies shed light on the deep-rooted issues within clerical culture.

Study findings

All the studies underscore the disturbing impact of a clerical mindset, which prioritises the institution over individuals' well-being.

This prioritisation manifests itself in protecting the Church's reputation at the expense of justice and accountability.

While celibacy has been implicated differently in each denomination, with Protestant congregations citing the influence of societal shifts in the 1960s and Catholicism facing internal challenges, the common thread remains clericalism.

In both cases, the hierarchical structure of the Church perpetuates a culture where abuse can be swept under the rug, shielded by a facade of righteousness.

Clericalism and celibacy are not immutable aspects of the priesthood; they are human constructs that have contributed to our systemic successes and failures.

The Church must reckon with these realities and prioritise its members' safety and well-being over preserving human traditions.

Functional clericalism perpetuates a harmful hierarchy that alienates both clergy and laity from the true spirit of the Christian community.

As we confront the sobering truths revealed by these studies, we must see reform as a continual and necessary imperative if the Church is to fulfil its sacred duty of ministering to the faithful.

It is time to dismantle the structures of clericalism that have allowed abuse to fester and embrace a vision of Christianity rooted in justice, compassion, and humility.

• Dr Joe Grayland is a visiting professor at the University of Tübingen (Germany). He has been a priest of the Diocese of Palmerston North for nearly thirty years.

In a recent article in the German website Herder Korrespondenz, Thomas Großbölting (pictured) highlights the clergy's authority within the religious framework as facilitating the exploitation of children and young people.

"It is the position of the clergyman in the religious system of meaning that enables the pedosexual perpetrator to gain power over children and young people and then abuse them" writes Großbölting.

Central to Großbölting's argument is the need to address the inflated status and self-importance often attributed to clergy members and the overarching power structures within church institutions.

Großbölting emphasises that breaking these patterns is crucial in effectively addressing the ongoing abuse scandal. Moreover, he suggests that similar power imbalances may exist within other religious traditions, highlighting the universality of this issue.

"In this way, they are strongly connected to the spiritual perpetrator as a religiously distinguished man - and in the worst case, at the mercy of him."

This manipulation represents a distortion of the clergy's intended role, regardless of denominational differences.

Denomination specific challenges

Furthermore, Großbölting identifies specific challenges within each denomination.

In Protestant churches, where power structures may be less overt, he warns of the danger of overlooking or denying existing imbalances, creating a culture of silence and hindering accountability.

On the other hand, within the Catholic Church, issues such as celibacy and doctrinal attitudes towards homosexuality present additional complexities.

A critical aspect of Großbölting's analysis is the disparity in transparency surrounding sexual abuse cases. He criticises the Protestant Church for its lack of comprehensive investigations, contrasting this with efforts made within Catholicism.

"While the work in the Catholic Church created a basis on which studies and practical measures can build, this has been neglected in the Protestant Church" said Großbölting.

Großbölting urges leaders within the Protestant Church to take decisive action to address these shortcomings and learn from the progress made by their Catholic counterparts.

Sources

Katholisch

Herder Korrespondenz

CathNews New Zealand

He's scolded the Church's presbyters for wearing ornate liturgical vestments that stem from a bygone era, telling them to stop dressing up in "granny's lace".

And he's called it a "scandal" to see young priests and seminarians going into the ecclesiastical tailor shops of Rome and "trying on cassocks and hats, or lacey albs".

This is all part of Pope Francis venting his aversion to clericalism. He has denounced it over and over again in his eleven years as Bishop of Rome, identifying it as a "scourge" and "plague" that wounds the Church and its members.

Railing against clericalism has been a mantra throughout his entire pontificate.

"The holy, faithful People of God go forward patiently and humbly, enduring the scorn, mistreatment and marginalisation of institutionalised clericalism," he said last October during the Synod assembly on synodality.

"How naturally we speak of the princes of the Church, or of episcopal promotions as getting ahead career-wise!" Indeed.

Institutionalised clericalism

The pope is right to point out that clericalism is ingrained in the very institution of the Church.

It is a deeply-rooted mentality and ethos that is, without a doubt, most often identified in ecclesiastical ambition, certain forms of dress, and the language clerics and even many lay people tend to use.

But these are only symptoms, perhaps, of a much deeper and more fundamental problem.

It is this: the idea, drilled into the heads of seminarians and priests over the centuries, that they are special.

They are chosen ones. They are men "set apart", as some of the classic Catholic literature and manuals define those men who feel they have a vocation to the "holy priesthood".

That is a problem. And Francis puts his finger on it, showing that it all begins in the formation (training) period before a man is even ordained.

"Priestly formation should not be conceived as somehow 'set apart'," he said recently while addressing participants of the Vatican-sponsored International Conference for Ongoing Formation of Priests.

"Rather, it should draw upon the contribution of the people of God: priests and lay faithful, men and women, celibates and married couples, the elderly and the young, without neglecting the poor and suffering who have so much to teach us."

The audience included about a thousand priests from 60 countries that, according to Vatican News, attended the February 6-10 gathering.

This is not the sort of thing today's seminarians and younger clergy, who are told by so many people that they are "set apart", like to hear.

Scientific surveys (at least in the United States) and anecdotal evidence (from there and other parts of the world) suggest that these younger clerics and future clerics are more traditional in their views of Church and society than men who were ordained before 1980 and even those before as recently as twenty-five years ago, fully in the John Paul II era.

Tender, forgiving, and "generative"

Pope Francis has been trying to find a way to rid the Church of clericalism. And he believes the recipe is synodality, the notion that all we are all walking together, priests and people.

"We can carry out our priestly ministry well only if we are fully part of the priestly people, from which we ourselves have come," he told the priests at the recent conference on ongoing formation.

"Realising that we are part of a people - never feeling separated from the journey of the holy, faithful People of God - preserves us, sustains us in our efforts, accompanies us in our pastoral concerns and keeps us safe from the risk of growing detached from reality and feeling all-powerful."

He warned that such detachment is "the root of every form of abuse".

The 87-year-old pope said a priest who sees himself as a man set apart from the rest of the People of God is "an aristocrat who ends up becoming neurotic".

The real "identity card" of a priest, he said, is to offer "generative" service.

"When we put ourselves at the service of others, when we become fathers and mothers for those entrusted to our care, bring God's life to birth.

This is the secret of a 'generative' pastoral activity," he told the priests. And he had that this means being merciful and tender, especially when hearing people's confessions.

"They come to ask for forgiveness and not to hear a lecture on theology. Please be merciful. Always forgive," he insisted.

"Tenderness is strength," the pope added.

Stop judging

Pope Francis' insistence on not judging others and being welcoming of "everyone" is another aspect of his pontificate that greatly disturbs many of those priests who are more traditional and tend to be unwavering enforcers of Church doctrine without nuance.

The younger clergy and seminarians, by and large, tend to be in this category (which also included many bishops appointed in the previous two pontificates).

Rather than apologists or proselytisers, Francis says Catholics - all the baptised, whether ordained ministers or not - are called to be "missionary disciples" of Jesus.

"Christ's missionary disciples have always had a heartfelt concern for all persons, whatever their social or even moral status."

The pope made the comment in his message for next October's "World Mission Day", which was published on February 2.

"The parable of the banquet tells us that, at the king's orders, the servants gathered 'all whom they found, both good and bad' (Mt 22:10)....

"The wedding feast of his Son that God has prepared remains always open to all, since his love for each of us is immense and unconditional," he added.

Not even one's "moral status" can keep a person from entering the heavenly banquet, much less so doors of a Catholic Church!

This is, in fact, the logic behind the controversial document the pope approved for offering blessings to couples in "irregular situations" including individuals who are divorced and civilly remarried and those who form a same-sex couple.

The reactions against this, especially among the seminarians and young clergy, was to be expected.

The next couple of generations of Catholics

The pope's clericalist critics have called him "demoralising and bullying".

They are incensed that he - the Church's supreme lawgiver - would even dare to say, "Who am I to judge?"

It is, in their minds, a gross dereliction of his duty at Vicar of Jesus Christ on Earth.

Judging is actually the Supreme Pontiff's job, they say! But, to them, Francis is too "progressive", aligned with the agenda of the political "left".

Those who actually restrain themselves from going off the ecclesial reservation and stop short of calling him a heretic, clearly see his views and teachings as "heterodox" and undermining the Catholic faith.

They, on the other hand, pride themselves for their own "orthodoxy, their ars celebrandi, their preaching, and their pastoral zeal," to quote a traditionalist priest from the United States.

It's not clear where the People of God - "the merely baptised" - stand on all of this.

Even lay people can harbour clericalist attitudes.

Part of that is institutionalised, as the pope has pointed out.

But it is a problem that the younger ranks of the ministerial workforce and those who are currently preparing to join it are not very fond of this pope.

They are the ones who will be "the servants" or "the aristocrats" of the next couple of generations of Catholics.

And that means, if the man who succeeds the current pope one day is more tolerant of and sympathetic to their traditionalist mentality and proclivities, the reforming vision of Francis will end up...

You fill in the blank.

• First published in La Croix International. Republished with permission.
• Robert Mickens is editor-in-chief of La Croix International.

It seemed hardly newsworthy.

The Pontifical Institute of Theology was founded in 1718 for the theological formation of priests, and later for bringing theologians together to discuss theological topics.

More recently it has held an occasional conference, mainly with Italian contributors, and has issued occasional publications.

The document is of interest, however, because it clarifies the place within the Catholic Church which the Pope ascribes to theology and consequently to theologians and theological colleges.

In doing so, it summarises his more detailed treatments of the subject and also illuminates the different ways of viewing the Catholic Church which separate him from many of his critics.

In describing the place of theology in the Catholic Church, the Pope appeals to the same metaphors that he applies to the Church. It is to be outgoing, to work at the frontiers of church, and to be open to the world it enters.

He contrasts this with a church and theology that are self-referential, inward-turned, and stand over and against the world.

This openness implies that theology will be attentive to its context and not self-contained. Theologians should reflect on faith from inside their engagement with the world and not from above it.

It follows that theology will take the natural form of dialogue in which it engages with in the language of the cultural frameworks it enters. In the Pope's vision it is not interdisciplinary but transdisciplinary.

The emphasis on dialogue in theology corresponds to Pope Francis' understanding of synodality within the Church.

It naturally flows into communal practices of listening and discernment among theologians, which will also be reflected in their teaching and formation of ministers.

The centrifugal mission of theology to proclaim and articulate faith in dialogue with the non-Christian world also demands also a corresponding centripetal movement. Pope Francis defines this as the search for wisdom. Theology must begin on bended knees in adoration, turning naturally to love for people in need and in reaching out to them.

Finally, he describes Catholic theology as inductive, in that it begins with the concrete situations of people and there finds and discerns the proclamation of the Gospel.

This outline echoes other reflections by Pope Francis on the place of theology in the Catholic Church.

It raises five questions. Why does he see it as important? Why is it controversial in the Catholic Church? What are its limits? What does it take for granted? How does it hang together?

First, the Pope sees Catholic Theology as part of a larger reform of the Catholic Church guided by Vatican II.

The mission of the Church at all levels is to proclaim the Good News to people at its margins and allow the Gospel to speak to them. This means engaging with different cultures on their own terms.

For this to happen Catholics at all levels need to listen and to discern where God is leading them. Pope Francis embodies this way of being Church in the idea and practices of synodality.

Within the Catholic Church, theologians and theological institutions in which priests are educated are central in this process of listening to the Word of God through the lives of other Catholics and through the world views of those to whom they reach out, especially the poor.

Second, this understanding of theology and its place in the Catholic Church is not shared by all Catholics or theologians.

It is inductive, in beginning with the world to which we go out and allowing the Gospel to illuminate and be illuminated by it.

Many theologians begin with the understanding of faith and ask about its ramifications for the world.

Their approach is more deductive.

Such disputes about theological method and conclusions are common in Catholic as in other theology. The parties usually coexist more or less amicably, allowing the non-committed or less rigorous to borrow from each of them.

In the Catholic Church today, however, a relatively small number of theologians, high Church officials and lay Catholics regard Pope Francis' theology and the practices he is introducing as a betrayal of the faith that has been handed down to him.

Pope Francis, in turn, has accused them of rejecting the authority of the Spirit in Vatican II, of being narrowly concerned with the internal life of the Church, and of separating themselves from the Church.

In many Catholic communities around the world, however, Pope Francis' vision of the Church also faces immobility in which many bishops and priests, including younger ones, do privilege the inner life of the Church and its hierarchies and boundaries over engagement.

Pope Francis describes this attitude as clericalism.

This resistance is often less theologically than personally based.

For that reason, the Pope sees the importance of the formation of priests and of local congregations in a synodal rather than hierarchical vision of their ministry.

Third, the mission the Pope gives to theologians and institutions within the Catholic Church is necessarily limited in its expression and scope. It takes for granted that Catholic theology will work within the developing tradition of the Church and not above it.

Many fine theologians, too, are not Catholic, and many theologians who are Catholic define their role by the canons of secular universities and not by the needs of the Catholic Church.

The mission given to theology, too, is also limited by the very argument made for it.

Pope Francis addresses the needs of a Church that he sees as tempted to be introverted, to be self-referential and not to communicate the joy of the Gospel. He also addresses a world on the edge of self-destruction.

In such a Church and in such a world, the task of theology is to model a way of engaging with faith and the wider world. In the future, other situations may demand other priorities.

Fourth, the account of the mission of theology is necessarily broad.

It understandably fails to mention the human factors involved in any large reorientation. Theologians must bring scholarship and specialisation to their understanding of the Gospel throughout the Christian tradition.

These qualities and the laborious development of them do not always lend themselves to going out to the boundaries of the Catholic Church and engaging in dialogue.

Nor do theological degrees always provide wisdom. Pope Francis' desired reform, then, will demand a diversity of personal gifts, knowledge, experience and enthusiasms that cannot be regimented.

Finally, the central point and the test of success of Pope Francis' hope for theology lie less in its method than in its sapiential character.

Discernment through prayer nurtured by the Gospel and by life within the Church is the centripetal force that holds together the going out to and entering of other worlds.

• Andrew Hamilton is consulting editor of Eureka Street, and writer at Jesuit Social Services.
• First published in Eureka Street. Published with the writer's permission.

The once powerful Brazilian basic church communities have declined since the 1990s.

Last week, 1,000 Brazilian basic church community leaders gathered to discuss Brazil's most pressing issues, from Amazon deforestation to unemployment. They also set up a future-focused strategy.

A central discussion point was ways to encourage more young Catholics to join them.

CEBs and Liberation Theology

Brazil's Basic Church Community movement grew strong in the 1970s during a military junta rule when people's basic rights were suppressed.

Priests and religious often accompanied basic church communities which played a central community role.

The basic church community movement inspired Catholics to participate directly in church life. It encouraged them to organise and act to improve their living conditions.

Liberation theology was the basic church community's theoretical counterpart. Many liberation theologians were persecuted in the 1980s.

"Attacks on Liberation theology were attacks on the basic church communities. That process was very strong during the papacies of John Paul II and Benedict XVI," professor of theology and long-time basic church community leader Celso Carias says.

Basic church community membership dropped from 50,000 to today's 20,000.

Clericalism and democracy

While the Church in Brazil became more centralised, clergy took over most parish life, Carias says.

"The community ... was gradually driven away from the decision-making spaces of the parishes."

What was challenged was the kind of spirituality directly connected to social causes which the basic church community stimulated.

Carias says resurrecting the relevance of basic church communities in Brazil will take daily effort - effort that ignores resistance.

An outgoing church

Pope Francis is an important CEB supporter. Last week, he sent a video to motivate basic church community members at a national gathering, urging them to keep working for an outgoing Church.

One of the 50 Brazilian episcopate members at the gathering is delighted that many clergy participated. But "there is a huge resistance among many in the Church to accept the basic church community model," he says.

"Many people continue to prefer a closed Church ... that looks only to itself. We have many barriers to overcome."

He suggests working with popular movements and community organisations as Francis does.

Beginning again

Members of Brazilian Indigenous groups were also at the gathering. Some led the liturgy.

Bishop Luiz Fernando Lisboa says "A person who was not an enthusiast of the basic church community told me that 'only in a Church like that did the Indigenous and other traditional peoples have a place'."

"It was a moment of conversion."

Many Youth Pastoral Ministry leaders at the gathering were invited to work with veteran leaders to reorganise basic church communities throughout Brazil.

Bible circles are reviving, and young people are joining them.

"We have to educate and form new leaders. That is how we will change things," basic church community leader Edson Canchilheri says.

In rural areas, basic church communities can help communities as they have formerly - promoting solidarity and practical support and supporting rural associations striving for better conditions for farmers, Canchilheri says.

Source

• La Croix

Francis stressed the significance of lay ministers serving others rather than inflating their egos.

"I get angry when I see lay ministers who — pardon the expression — are ‘puffed up' by this ministry. This is ministry, but it is not Christian."

Ministers must never become self-referential, said Francis.

Service is one-directional, it is not a round trip.

In the speech, he stated that regardless of whether they hold a formal ministry, all baptised individuals are called to participate in the Church's mission.

He stated that the ministry of the faithful stems from the charism that the Holy Spirit distributes within the People of God for its edification.

First, a charism appears, inspired by the Spirit; then, the Church acknowledges this charism as a useful service to the community; finally, in a third moment, it is introduced, and a specific ministry spreads.

The Pope made these remarks in an April 22 address to the second plenary assembly of the Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life.

"Those who command should make themselves the smallest"

Concluding his address, Pope Francis stated that ministry has two key features: mission and service.

He emphasised that at the root of the term ministry is the word minus, which means 'minor'.

And Jesus said so: Those who command should make themselves the smallest. Otherwise, they do not know how to command. It is a small detail but of great importance. Those who follow Jesus are not afraid to make themselves ‘inferior,' ‘minor,' to place themselves at the service of others," the Pope said.

"Here lies the true motivation that must inspire any of faithful who assume an ecclesial task, any commitment to Christian witness in the reality where he or she lives: the willingness to serve the brethren, and in them, to serve Christ.

"Only in this way may all the baptised be able to discover the meaning of their own life, joyfully experiencing being ‘a mission on this earth,' that is, being called, in different ways and forms, to ‘bringing light, blessing, enlivening, raising up, healing, and freeing' ... and letting themselves be accompanied," he said.

Pope Francis established the Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life in 2016. The Dicastery held its first plenary assembly in 2019, devoted to "the identity and mission of the lay faithful in the world."

Sources

Catholic Culture

Catholic News Agency

The proposal was made in a booklet titled "Let's return the Church to the People of God! Putting an end to clericalism," authored by nine Catholics working in healthcare for the Diocese of Liège.

The group argued that Christianity had eliminated the distinction between the sacred and the profane, and that priesthood should be abandoned to create more fraternal relationships between priests and lay people.

"In order to suppress clericalism, the clergy must be suppressed," they said bluntly.

The authors, who include two priests, wrote: "From our point of view, it is a false idea to think of ordaining women and/or married men.

"This idea is based on the need to have a clergy at all costs, even if it means changing the rules of access to the sacred. But this idea will in no way bring new life to the communities and to the Church. We are still in blind clericalism."

"It is necessary to overturn this organisation and these centuries-old practices to recover a community dynamic closer to the spirit of Jesus Christ."

The booklet, seen as emblematic of the unease many Belgian Catholics feel towards the priesthood, decried the clergy sex abuse crisis.

However, the publication was met with backlash from another group of laity in the country.

The lay people argue that priesthood is an essential dimension of the Church, and that eliminating priests would lead only to other problems.

"They want to kill the priesthood"

They also pointed out that, assuming it is possible to behave as a child of God and a brother or sister of human beings without a priest, it could lead to a thirst for power among the laity.

The controversy has also led to a petition called "They want to kill the priesthood," which has been signed by more than 1,700 people.

"Pointing out the clericalism of some priests (described as a generality), the avowed desire of these nine authors is to give the laity the equal mission of dispensing the sacraments," the petition's authors wrote.

Jean de Codt, a Belgian magistrate, said he signed the petition to "point out that priesthood is an essential dimension of the Church and that the priest is indispensable for celebrating the Mass, offering the sacrament of reconciliation and blessing marriages".

Liège bishop Jean-Pierre Delville spoke out against the booklet and its proposal to abolish the clergy in Belgium, "These words are felt to be unjust and unfair by many priests, deacons and lay Christians," he wrote.

"I perceive them as totally false when I think of the amount of dedication that I have seen in the priests and other pastoral actors of our diocese during the almost 10 years of my episcopate," Delville added.

"Without denying the scandal of the abuses committed by some, the pastoral shortcomings of others, and the limits of human nature, I am happy to see how much priests and deacons, religious men and women, lay Christians, women and men, are committed to the service of the Church. I thank them for supporting each other in the mission."

Sources

La Croix International

The Pillar

Cardinal Kevin Farrell, head of the Vatican's Dicastery for Laity, Family, and Life, spoke of "co-responsibility" between clergy and laity, saying, "It does not mean that the laity in the church have to become clerics, and clerics in the church have to become laity."

Farrell's comments came before a Vatican conference on collaboration between laypeople and clergy. The conference is titled "Pastors and lay faithful called to walk together," and will take place in the Vatican's New Synod Hall.

Farrell appeared to brush off the idea of women clergy: "The Holy Spirit gives us all a calling, and all our different gifts," he said. "To some, he gives the gift of ordained priesthood, and to others, he gives many other gifts.

"There are many apostolates that priests are not qualified to undertake that the laity are," he said, and cautioned against "reducing the work among the laity and the great gift that laity bring to the church, to just some ministerial role within the church."

Linda Ghisoni, an Italian laywoman and undersecretary of the dicastery's section for laity, cautioned against trying to stake "a claim" on certain roles or functions in the church. She said that the real discussion should focus on understanding "the nature of our vocation, our baptismal identity, which opens to us immense paths" within the church.

The conference is expected to draw delegates from all over the world, who will discuss the "co-responsibility of laypeople in the synodal church," as well as the formation of laypeople.

Farrell said that the aim is to make both pastors and laypeople aware of the sense of responsibility that comes from baptism and that "unites us all".

The cardinal stressed that as pastors, "we do not reduce [the] role of laity in the church to a mere functional position or involvement, but rather they are truly part of the mission of the church".

"Laity have a lot more to offer than a mere function they can perform, such as being the accountant of the diocese," he said, saying there is still a need to arrive at "a much deeper meaning of what it means to be co-responsible in the church".

To do this, he said, "implies a change of heart, a change of attitude".

Sources

Crux Now

CathNews New Zealand

The U.S. Catholics have been mostly silent about this effort, but in several countries, including Australia, France, England and Wales, and Germany, things are moving full steam ahead.

Two major problems have come up time and time again: clericalism and the place of women in the Church.

If you haven't heard much about this effort, which completes its first phase this summer, you are not alone.

In May 2021, six months prior to the synod's October 2021 opening, the Vatican asked the world's bishops to name synod coordinators in their dioceses, who were expected to organise a program of public meetings for Catholics, ex-Catholics and non-Catholics alike to talk about the Church.

Some did. Some did not.

Yet, somehow most U.S. dioceses — 95%, according to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops — wrote reports, though relatively few are published.

Participating dioceses melded parish reports into diocesan reports, which were combined into regional reports.

From the regional reports, as well as reports from some 110 independent Catholic organisations, the USCCB will create a 10-page report, due in Rome by mid-August.

Some diocesan reports, such as those from Buffalo, Louisville, Salt Lake City and Trenton, point to clericalism and the lack of women in leadership as problematic.

Louisville, Trenton and Salt Lake City noted calls for women deacons. The Buffalo report found "the abuse scandal (and) the lack of respect for women as manifested in an all-male clergy" caused declining church attendance and membership.

Even San Francisco, led by conservative Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone, admitted to clericalism, and Washington, D.C.'s rosy report notes one core fact: People do not trust the bishops.

The synod is a worldwide event, and early reports from bishops' conferences outside the U.S. repeat the same story: Clericalism is a scourge on the Church, and women are not respected or included in leadership.

Australia recently survived a rocky Plenary Council meeting, during which the country's bishops voted down a statement "witnessing the equal dignity of women and men," apparently because it included a request to restore women to the ordained diaconate.

After nearly a quarter of council members protested, refusing to take their seats following a tea break, emergency meetings softened the statement to say the bishops would accept Rome's decision on women deacons.

France reported deep dissatisfaction with the place of women in the Church and the need to recognise their suffering and expectations.

England and Wales recognised that women were a "silenced, unrecognised majority … excluded from leadership and ministry."

Germany went so far on these and other topics that it earned a published reminder from the Vatican: While they might discern, Rome would decide.

Once all the national reports get to Rome, the plan is to create a general document for another round of discussion next year, in preparation for the October 2023 synod meeting of some 300 representatives in Rome.

Historically, synods are synods of bishops, but so far at least one woman, Xaverian Sister Nathalie Becquart, one of two undersecretaries (second in command) in the Rome synod office, will have a vote.

The list of synod members, observers and experts should appear by the end of the year.

Whether anything will come of all this effort is anyone's guess, but strong words — in several languages — are calling out supercilious clerics who, convinced they control access to heaven, are ruining the Church and chasing away members, especially women and girls.

Overall, the people agree with Francis. These clerics do not. Whether clericalism can block calls for reform coming from the synod is uncertain.

How can this be?

For starters, the so-called "biological solution" touted by conservative Catholics is taking hold.

As priest and bishop supporters of the Second Vatican Council and of Francis age out or die in place, they are replaced by a cadre of bishops ordained as priests during the reign of Pope John Paul II, who in turn appoint conservative pastors ordained during the reign of Pope Benedict XVI. Francis, as strong and alert as he is today, is not getting any younger.

Positive takes on the situation say the voice of the Holy Spirit is heard through the people, and God will steady the barque of Peter.

But meanwhile, the Catholic Church as a force for good continues to lose influence inside and outside its walls, in large part because of how too many of its clerics treat women.

• Phyllis Zagano is a senior research associate-in-residence and adjunct professor of religion at Hofstra University, in Hempstead, New York. Her most recent book is Women: Icons of Christ.
• First published in RNS. Republished with permission.
• The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.

By 'clericalism' I mean the tendency to place priests on a pedestal, to accept their pronouncements as gospel, encouraging them to feel, as Pope Francis says, 'superior to lay people.'

It begins in seminary training when candidates start to see themselves as joining a unique male, celibate, secretive caste enjoying privilege and power, set apart from ordinary humanity by ordination.

Clericalism is at the root of sexual abuse when inadequate, immature men feel they can use children to satisfy their warped sexual impulses.

It is a way of life far removed from Jesus, 'the man who had nowhere to lay his head' (Matthew 8:20). It's also very different to Pope Francis' call to priests to experience 'the smell of the sheep.'

But in his recent (March 19, 2022) Apostolic Constitution entitled Praedicate Evangelium, 'Preach the Gospel', Pope Francis dealt clericalism a major blow.

This is the final document in a long-planned reform of the Roman Curia, the Vatican bureaucracy.

The cardinals who elected him in 2013 asked Francis to restructure the curia following several scandals under Benedict XVI and John Paul II.

Praedicate Evangelium is the result. The practical detail is not important; my personal view is that no matter what the structure, the curia is a creature of the 16th century and is irreformable.

But there was a basic principle laid down in Praedicate Evangelium that is profoundly important with far-reaching consequences for the whole church. This principle states that any baptised Catholic 'can preside over a dicastery,' that is run a Vatican department.

Previously only ordained clerics could do this because ordination was the absolute precondition for exercising 'ordinary jurisdiction' or church governance.

Explaining the change canon lawyer, Father (now Cardinal) Gianfranco Ghirlando, SJ said unequivocally 'that the power of governance in the church does not come from ordination, but from one's mission' (my emphasis).

The absolute centrality of baptism

Yes, but so what? Well, as sometimes happens, profound, long-term change follows a seemingly minor shift of emphasis.

Essentially, Ghirlando is saying, reflecting Francis, that you don't have to be ordained a priest to exercise the power of governance in the church.

And by 'governance' Ghirlando means the administrative authority that comes with a call from the church to carry out a specific 'mission'.

Now that's a profound transposition for a church that has been fixated on clerical power for centuries. What PE does is shift the focus away from ordination to restore the absolute centrality of baptism.

All Catholics can now share in church governance by the very fact of their baptism.

The people of God already share in the common priesthood of those baptized into Christ's death and resurrection. The distinction between the ordained and the baptised is one of function, not of the essence.

The 20th-century theologian who restored the role of laypeople was Yves Congar, OP (1904-1995). His theology broke down the separation between the spiritual and secular world, a separation that long bedevilled Catholicism.

Reflecting Congar, the Vatican II Decree on the Laity is clear that the church lives in the world to bring it to Christ, not into some separate spiritual sphere. Congar wrote that the church is challenged 'by the world to re-join it, in order to speak validly of Jesus Christ.'

This is literally the Catholic 'mission statement', the reason for the church's existence.

Historian Edmund Campion says that Catholics were persuaded by Congar that 'all of us were responsible for what the church did … that waiting to be told what to do was foolish …that there was work for us … as servants of the world which had its own destiny in God's plan' (Then and Now, 2021).

However, Praedicate Evangelium takes a step beyond the mission of all the baptised. While still using the word, Praedicate Evangelium is actually talking about a specific kind of mission.

It's saying that any baptised person can be called to governance in the church. This is a call to a more focused mission, that of leadership

Distinguished Australian theologian, John N. Collins, is helpful here.

He has conclusively shown that in the New Testament the Greek word Diakonia, which we translate as 'ministry', refers explicitly to a public role of leadership in the church's mission, which is recognised by the community (Diakonia. Re-interpreting the Ancient Sources, 1990).

So, leaders in Catholic schools, hospitals, aged care, social services or, in the terms of Praedicate Evangelium, a Vatican dicastery, are called to ministerial leadership.

Other staff are invited to share in the mission of proclaiming Christ in the world, or participating in and supporting the ethos of the organisation.

While Praedicate Evangelium is right when it re-situates mission in baptism, it would have been much clearer if it had picked up John Collins' re-interpretation of Diakonia, ministry, because that is what it is really referring to when it talks about 'presiding over a dicastery.'

In the Australian context, I would argue that the women and men exercising leadership in a specific work of the church are truly ministers.

In a Catholic school, for example, the principal and the RE co-ordinator are the ministerial leaders of the school community, modelling and engendering the mission of proclaiming Christ and the Catholic tradition.

In hospitals and aged care facilities, the leadership ministry is more complex with their disparate medical, nursing and domestic staff, visiting doctors and specialists, and volunteers.

Most Catholic hospitals are now part of larger organisations such as Mercy Health, St Vincent's Health Australia, or Calvary Health Care, with an overall coordinating body, Canberra-based Catholic Health Australia (CHA).

CHA focuses its ministerial emphasis on the 'wholistic healing ministry' of Jesus, meaning that he cured and integrated the whole person, not just the physical illness or disease.

In conclusion, there's no doubt that Praedicate Evangelium is a revolutionary if understated document. It would have been clearer if it had picked up Collins' re-interpretation of ministry as leadership because that's what it's talking about.

But it is a decisive, even revolutionary theological shift because it re-roots ministry in the mission to which all are called by baptism.

• Paul Collins is the author of 15 books, several of which focus on church governance and Australian Catholicism.
• First published in La-Croix International. Republished with permission.

There are two faces of clericalism. One is the authoritarian priest who decides and does everything on his own.

The other is the clericalised laity.

These two major errors prevent the laity from developing the charisms that are called to be recognized as ministries by the Church. When the focus is on the priestly life as a problem to be solved, we fall into the trap.

Unfortunately for the Church in France, it is still possible to see some people railing against any mention of priests and the priesthood as if it is an attack on the dignity of the laity.

The last few years have created an ideological struggle around the priesthood.

Avoiding the issue, the pope recognizes a ministry for catechists in the "motu proprio" Antiquum ministerium. Last year it was the ministries of readers and acolytes.

Ministry for the laity rooted in their charism

Ministry does not come from the function that one practices, but must be the Church's recognition of a particular gift ("charism") that the Holy Spirit bestows on a person for the good of all.

Among the talented catechists in my parish, one of them enjoys a special grace from the Holy Spirit for her mission with adults, which the community has witnessed.

Since she took charge of the catechumens, not only do their numbers increase every year, but the catechumens remain in the parish in edifying commitments to the service of their brothers and sisters and of the Church.

In other places, some 80% of the neophytes leave the Church within two years!

In order to involve them more in the life of the Church, lay people have been pushed into positions of "lay people in ecclesial mission". Often this is done to make up for the lack of priests, rather to recognize and utilize a person's special charism.

These Catholics are generous, and often combine competence with evangelical passion. But many have been defeated, pushed to being almost lay "ministers", without having discerned their true charism.

They have been chosen only to fill a position, an error of discernment that has created many difficult human situations.

Some dioceses or movements have masked the absence of priestly vocations by hiring lay people to replace priests, justified by a certain laicist reading of the Second Vatican Council: laypeople must from now on replace priests who, until now, took up too much space.

Isn't this reading reductive? Pope Francis is finally making up for a considerable delay in the Church, which has done a lot of harm.

The female priesthood

If some have fought to have married priests or women priests as the sign of the Church's openness to the laity, it is because the laity, in their respective charisms, have not received the importance they should have from the Church.

We have been rushing to clericalize the laity and secularize the clergy.

Priests must be priests, with their own gifts and recognized limitations. Likewise, the laity must have their charism recognized and emphasized by their own ministries.

In the fourth chapter of the Letter to the Ephesians, Paul speaks of the Holy Spirit who gave some people the charism to be apostles, others prophets, others evangelists, others pastors and doctors.

The Church has largely favoured the priesthood and the sacraments to the detriment of the ministries of the baptized.

Not only have they been neglected, but they have been set in opposition to each other, forgetting the complementarity of the members of the body and the diversification of our actions.

The goodwill of priests

Many people close to us carry within them an evangelizing fire, one with zeal and competence for preaching, another a gift for praying for the sick, etc.

They take these missions as a calling from God but are dependent upon the goodwill of some priests, who do not invite them to exercise their charism.

Ecclesial practice has limited Christian life to the celebration of the sacraments, instead of manifesting the greatness of God's grace by giving the laity the opportunity to exercise their charism in recollections, prayer evenings, etc.

Recognized through a ministry and sent by the Church, they would nevertheless bring the long-awaited new breath. This is the door that Pope Francis has just opened.

If we clericalize the laity, or if we secularize the clergy, we prevent the Spirit from manifesting the ministries upon which the Church must rely to bring the Good News.

On the contrary, we must discern in our local Churches the charisms given to us by the Holy Spirit, recognize them and validate them, if need be, through lay ministries that are sent on mission for the growth of the Kingdom.

We will then see as a matter of course the complementarity of priests who lead, sanctify and teach the flock and, on the other hand, lay people hired for positions, as well as laypeople, exercising a ministry in the world.

• Baudouin Ardillier is a member of the Congregation Saint Jean. He serves as parish priest and area dean in the Archdiocese of Avignon, France.
• First published in La-Croix International. Republished with permission.

Pope Francis launched the project at the Vatican on October 10 with a Mass in St. Peter's Basilica and bishops around the globe (though not all of them) inaugurated the process at the diocesan level the following Sunday with celebrations in their local cathedrals.

The Synod of Bishops' secretariat in Rome has put extensive emphasis on listening — to God in the Holy Spirit and to one another.

But in the Christian tradition, the act of listening is always connected to reading: not just Scripture, but also whatever is conducive to listening to the revelation of God in history and our lives in order to discern the ways God speaks to us today.

The problem is that there are new forms of illiteracy and ignorance today that affect the Church, and this is a key element in understanding why a number of Catholics seem indifferent to or uninterested in the "synodal process".

Some of the reticence is rooted in an opposition to Pope Francis or the Second Vatican Council. But the problem is actually much deeper.

From the printing press to social media

The Reformation and the Council of Trent (1545-63) took place in the 16th century during the age of the printing press, and books made an important impact on the religious culture and theological debates of that time.

The First Vatican Council (1869-70) was held in the 19th century during the age of newspapers, magazines, and the emergence of public intellectuals.

When Vatican II (1962-65) rolled around, we were already in the age of television and mass media.

And now we have the synodal process 2021-2023, the biggest consultation of the People of God in Church history. It is taking place in the age of digital and social media, a phenomenon that has shown the Church to be deeply divided along generational and cultural lines.

Many who belong to the Catholic gerontocracy are digitally illiterate, while people in other sections of the Church are illiterate in a more traditional sense of the word.

Even in Catholic institutions of higher education, we have many people who are "graduated but not literate".

There are disturbing signs of a plummeting cultural level among today's Catholics. In Europe and the Western world, many Catholic newspapers, magazines and publishing houses have shut down over the past few years.

The end of an era

After nourishing the intellect of Catholics for generations, especially during Vatican II and the first decades following the Council, there are now fewer avenues for the cultural production and consumption of writing that can help believers make sense of the signs of the times.

One of the latest examples is the shocking news of the bankruptcy and closure of one of Italy's most important Catholic publishers, Edizioni Dehoniane.

Based in Bologna, it has produced many essential volumes over the years, including the Italian edition of the much-acclaimed Jerusalem Bible.

The closing of this publishing house marks the end of an era for Catholic culture in Italy and raises serious concerns about how believers will continue to be intellectually engaged in the future.

The Roman Curia, the Vatican and the pontifical universities and academies in Rome were once centres of cultural production and consumption, but today this is no longer the case or at least not to the same extent it once was.

I have lost count of how many religious bookshops in the Eternal City have closed over the past few years and I wonder how many more will be shuttered. The problem is not just the emergence of e-commerce, digital libraries, nor the pandemic.

What we are witnessing is a substantial change in the culture of Catholics compared to the expectations raised by the reforms of Vatican II.

Devotionalism is overtaking intellectual rigour

The question is whether Catholics still read about religion and the Church; and, if so, what they are reading.

High school and college professors are used to dealing with the declining level of literacy among their students — the ability to read critically, write intelligibly, and orient oneself in the cultural canon required not only of a professional but also of a citizen.

Theology is not exempt from this trend.

In the last few years, a return of devotionalism (something different from devotions) has taken the place of intellectual rigour.

In seminaries, there is a new emphasis on the basic human formation and psychological screenings, which has been made necessary by the sex abuse scandal, as well as by the difficult family and personal backgrounds from which many priesthood candidates come.

But, unfortunately, human formation — as essential as it is — has often come at the expense of historical, philosophical and theological formation.

This is not only a problem that affects seminarians and the young clergy. It is also a problem of ideology in the Catholic Church at large.

Books are not just objects, but also companions

The consumption of content provided by religious blogs and websites has further pushed pre-existing currents of devout anti-intellectualism. The so-called "proud ignorance" is not unknown in militant Catholic circles, where Vatican II theology is bashed as a sellout to secularism.

If one looks at the militant Catholic websites favoured by many seminarians, young priests and various ecclesial activists, it is easy to understand why Catholic publishing is in crisis - especially for the kind of books and magazines that one could loosely call "Vatican II Catholicism".

However, on the neo-traditionalist and anti-Vatican II side of the spectrum, there seems to be an energy that liberals are ignoring at their own peril.

The crisis of Catholic publishing is not just a problem for those who directly or even indirectly work in this industry.

Books are not just objects: they are an emanation of a personality and can be good companions and friends that chase away moments of solitude and sorrow. They provide a kind of companionship that persons of faith cannot find in digital or social media.

There is a kind of militant anti-intellectualism that is truly a disaster, and it is truly anti-Catholic without knowing it.

The most important Church document on listening and reading is Dei Verbum, the Vatican II Constitution on Divine Revelation. It offers an understanding of the faith that is not intellectualistic, while also rejecting anti-intellectualism.

Intellectual disarmament before huge cultural challenges

Self-abandonment in faith is not without direction. It necessarily includes a commitment to the Word, which must be listened to and read.

Reading the Scriptures is not just a Protestant thing. And Christianity is not a "religion of the book", in the sense that it is not bound to a literalist reading of the Holy Writ.

We believe the Scriptures have emerged under the influence of the Holy Spirit. And reading and interpreting them includes an intellectual process, without which there is no tradition of the Church.

But there seems to be intellectual disarmament before the huge cultural challenges facing the Church in the global world of today.

It's a disarmament that affects different ideological corners of Catholicism in different ways.

Some of the Church's "cultural warriors" understood before and in a better way than most progressives that this is not the time to divest from theological culture.

The crisis of Catholic culture has an impact on the synodal process 2021-2023 and on Pope Francis' pontificate.

A Church that invites people to listen must invest in culture

Catholics who have kept alive the theology of Vatican II over the last few decades have been better equipped to understand the link between the pope's synodality and the tradition of the Church.

That's because they are part of a generation of avid readers. Unfortunately, it is an ageing generation and most of those who belong to it are already retired.

Church leaders are eager to emphasize that synodality is not a political mechanism, but a spiritual process. This is true, but that spiritual process relies on basic skills that we learn from the humanities and liberal arts.

There is a contradiction between a Church that invites Catholics to listen and at the same time does not understand the necessity to invest in culture.

The need to address ignorance among Church leaders

In ancient culture, during a time when the biblical canon was formed and for many centuries afterwards, learning happened largely by listening. In an oral culture, the act of reading was not essential.

Then in the Middle Ages and the early modern period, we moved to a visual culture where religious content was dominant.

In this age of digital and social media, we are bombarded with ubiquitous images freed from the monopoly of art (especially religious art).

In previous centuries when the religious message reached Christians through different channels, illiteracy was not such an impediment to growth in faith.

But today the inability to read critically has more serious consequences for the life of the faith.

Not all Catholics are expected or required to be bookworms or to own a library - literally or figuratively. But the expectations must be higher for the Church's ordained and lay leaders.

Being a "listening Church" does not mean just listening to one another or listening to the Holy Spirit. It also means listening to what culture - religious and secular - has to say to the Church.

The Council of Trent tackled the problem of ignorance among the clergy.

Today, some 450 years later, there are signs that the Catholic Church is once again facing that same problem again, at a moment when its leadership is or should no longer be identified only with the clergy.

The assumption that Church leaders can afford to be ignorant is just another form of clericalism.

• Massimo Faggioli is a Church historian, Professor of Theology and Religious Studies at Villanova University (Philadelphia) and a much-published author and commentator. He is a visiting professor in Europe and Australia.
• First published in La-Croix International. Republished with permission.

The Catholic Church is at a critical crossroads in its history. If it fails to choose the right path "it risks an enduring permafrost", she says.

"Many of us are in growing despair of our Church's inability to turn a critical spotlight on itself while shining a critical spotlight on the world at large."

Explaining her concerns about lay Catholics' exclusion, McAleese references the Church's "controlling clericalism, its cavalier misogyny, its evil homophobia, its institutional and clerical child sexual and physical abuse, its episcopal cover-ups that protected criminals and ignored victims, its lack of financial transparency and accountability".

Besides these, she pointed to the Church's "relentless external advocacy of the right to life of the unborn while hypocritically ignoring the fact that the Church, whose primary mission is salvation, itself teaches that it cannot guarantee a right to eternal life for the 80 million babies annually who die unbaptised through natural miscarriage, abortion and still-birth".

Added to which was "the social and financial waste caused by the enormous stockpiled portfolio of unsustainable, underused and unused property owned by the Church, the biggest non-governmental owner of private property in the world", she said.

McAleese says lay Catholics "would like to freely discuss these things and contribute to their resolution in an official standing inclusive forum within the Church for the good of the Church. No such forum exists."

In her view, Pope Francis' notion of such a forum or synod which one seemed to favour an "all-inclusive Church debating structure now seems bent on preventing it at worst, micro-managing it into irrelevance at best".

McAleese's comments were made in her keynote address to last Friday's Catholic lay-led Root and Branch Synod in Bristol.

She said it is a "shocking reality" that lay participation in the Church had been "consistently frozen out and episcopal power even more strongly consolidated during the 20th and 21st centuries, the very centuries that have seen the emergence of a massified educated laity and which were supposed to see a wide conciliar embrace of the lay charisms".

Despite the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, McAleese says the Church continues to teach "that the magisterium [Church teaching authority] has the unchallengeable right to restrict your rights and mine as Church members".

She says the Church can legitimately do so because personal promises we made at Baptism impose compulsory life-long obligations of Church membership.

McAleese is advocating "to make the case that fictitious baptismal promises made by non-sentient babies ... and even actual promises made by adult catechumens can no longer be relied on to justify depriving Church members of their inalienable human rights."

She told the Root and Branch conference that the man-made consequences of baptism found in canon law were "bolted onto" the sacrament.

This is "to compel enrolment as life members of the Catholic Church and to impose a once-and-for-all acceptance of the extensive obligations of membership, which the vast majority of us lack the capacity to evaluate until it is too late," she explained.

Source

• Irish Times
• Image: Irish Times