The exaggerated emphasis on the distinction between priests and people is well past its time. A new scenario is necessary and it demands a change of mentality both on the part of priests and on the part of people. It is time we stop equating the Church with priests.
The arrangement of the chapters of the Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, (Vatican II) spells this out clearly. The chapter on the People of God is separate from that on the laity and precedes the chapters on the hierarchy, the laity and the religious. The message is clear: the Church is the People of God, some of whom are hierarchy, some are religious and some are laity.
This has implications. The sin of priests makes the Church less holy but so does the sin of the laity. The faithful expect priests to be holy but all have the very same duty: “Be perfect like your heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt 5,48). Paedophile priests harm the Church but so do paedophile laity. Any less holy Christian makes the whole Church less holy.
Priests remain ‘pilgrims’ on the way to salvation like everybody else. Like everybody else, priests are human and sinful and in need of God’s salvation. Ordination makes one a priest, not a saint. All – priests and people – are expected to grow by God’s grace. Of course, priests have to remember that they are the consecrated messengers of God’s grace and they can hardly fulfil their mission if they don’t live it.
This truth reaches also to the Church’s different tasks and ministries. Through the synod questionnaire, Pope Francis has shown that he wants to listen also to the laity, surely believing that the Holy Spirit enlightens all the faithful, irrespective of their state within the Church.
Happily, many different commissions and secretariats of the local Church have many lay people among their members. This is certainly a step in the right direction. But unless one consults the Ecclesiastical directory, one would not be aware of this fact. Most of the time, they are not the ones who speak in the name of these commissions.
Lay people should be assigned to leadership positions in the Church
Pope Francis is showing us the way. The commissions he is setting up are full of lay people; they often head the commissions and everybody knows it. Joseph F. X. Zahra is a case in point. The fruit of the Pope’s way of proceeding is showing.
Another area where lay people can contribute is Christian formation. The fact that we have lay people giving theological training to future priests at University is of great satisfaction. The Society of Christian Doctrine (MUSEUM) has been the leader in catechism teaching in Malta for many years.
Nor is supervision by priests always necessary. We now have lay people who are more theologically qualified than many priests. New ways in which lay people can contribute to Christian formation need to be explored.
Baptism endows the priesthood of the faithful. Vatican II recognised this and we now have lay lectors and lay eucharistic ministers. It is also recognised that spiritual directors can be lay people – as they were originally, after all – and that priestly ordination does not make a priest ipso facto a good spiritual director.
With more audacity, lay people should be assigned to leadership positions in the Church, both on the diocesan and on the parish levels. The chairperson of parish councils, for instance, need not be the parish priest, who may or may not know how to facilitate a group.
Administration is best done by trained people; most times these are not priests. There is reluctance in entrusting responsible positions in the Church to the laity, who, on their part, may, sometimes feel restrained before an ordained person.
The less we entrust lay people with roles for which they are more than fit, the more we are the losers. The more we show lack of trust in them by insisting that they be supervised by a priest, the more we are giving the message that the Church is the hierarchy.
ajsmicallef@gmail.com
Fr Alfred Micallef is a member of the Society of Jesus.