Summer Medley, Volume 14 #3

The Next Millennium Belongs to the Laity

When I worked as a chaplain in a prison, I was one of a long line of Jesuit priests who had served in that institution since its opening. When I left the chaplaincy, the bishop appointed a laywoman to replace me. Although she cannot say Mass or hear confessions, she does bring Eucharist to that community and can effect reconciliation within it. She is the pastor of that prison congregation and to them she is priest. Not a priest sanctioned by the church, with all the clerical trappings that go with that, but in the day-to-day lives of those prisoners she fulfils the role of priest that I had.

This chaplain is not unique. Across the country, in a variety of pastoral situations, laypeople are doing work that was once the sole domain of priests. We are discovering a more theologically astute laity. In their pastoral service to the church, they are bringing new life, and they will perhaps forge a different image of Church.

When someone died in a Native village in the far north and no priest was available for the funeral, the people hesitatingly did the service themselves. They were pleasantly surprised by the beautiful service they created by drawing on both their Native and Christian traditions. Now when a person dies in the village, little effort is made to fly in a priest.

Cardinal Emmett Carter once said in a speech that the first millennium in the church belonged to the bishops and the clergy, the second millennium belonged to the religious orders, and the third millennium belongs to the laity. The shortage of priests in the North American Catholic Church will reach a critical point in the next decade. This shortage does not equate with a shortage of vocations. Our theological schools, which once only trained seminarians, are now filled with laypeople who want to do ministry in the church. Without the shortage, it is unlikely that the clergy and religious orders would have willingly relinquished a millennium to the laity. However, it seems that the Holy Spirit, who is supplying plenty of candidates for ordained ministry to the Protestant churches, is forcing the hand of the Catholic Church by holding back the number of vocations to the ordained priesthood.

While the clergy may still be ambivalent, the laity is clearer on this issue. One urban bishop announced that soon five of his parishes would have no priest. To prepare his people for this change, one pastor hired a religious Sister as his pastoral assistant. They shared the preaching and when the bishop got wind of this he prohibited the Sister from preaching. It was the congregation that protested, telling the bishop that they wanted their daughters to hear a woman preach. The bishop reluctantly relented.

It is fairly clear that the hierarchy of the Catholic Church is not going to ordain women or married men. Even though the denial of ordination to some members of the church has caused a lot of dissatisfaction and much pain for many people, there are hidden blessings in this denial.

First of all, laypeople will be able to claim the next millennium. Then with significant participation by the laity in the ministry of the church, the way of doing ministry will change. Likely this will also bring about a new articulation of priesthood. In time, when the priesthood becomes more inclusive, the number of priests will increase again. By then the clerical establishment will have been dismantled by attrition and will not have the prominence it once had. Lay ministry will have given the church a new face. Hopefully it will be one distinguished by collegiality and collaboration.

Maybe the frustration and distress of those who feel excluded from the priesthood presages a rebirth for the church. The aggiornamento ushered in by the Second Vatican Council might in the millennium of the laity come to some completion.