The first order of business is Bishop Murphy’s continued cold shoulder to Voice of The Faithful, then the re-organization of the diocesan pastoral ministry training program:
Morale across the diocese also has been tested by the recent heavy-handed edict reconfiguring the diocesan Pastoral Formation Institute, a respected training program for lay people most of whose 1,600 alumni went on to serve in parish ministries.
The administrative staffing has been drastically reduced from 33 to five, and the program dispersed among several parishes where clergy can be expected to exercise more control. It’s possible that the shakeup aims to eventually eliminate the Institute, which has produced the kind of empowered, theologically aware believers who also happen to gravitate toward Voice of the Faithful.
Finnerty then asks us to consider the terrible things happening points west of Long Island:
Collectively such events seem to be local implementations of a broader agenda at work in a number of dioceses, efforts to rein in some perceived excesses of the Second Vatican Council by promoting a 1950s "Father Knows Best" style of lay-clergy relationships.
The National Catholic Reporter, an independent weekly newspaper, recently chronicled a dramatic example of this trend, describing how the new prelate of Kansas City-St. Joseph, Mo., a member of Opus Dei, has with warp speed dismantled or severely slashed progressive educational and social justice programs nurtured by his three predecessors. Chief among his targets was the diocese’s renowned adult education program, New Wine, strikingly similar to Rockville Centre’s Pastoral Formation Institute.
The authoritarian aspects of such evangelization efforts here and elsewhere ultimately could miss the mark with most Catholics, both practicing and inactive. Despite the church’s confidence that it possesses definitive, revealed truth, it must still market its message in a culture that expects free and open discussion and in a religious marketplace where adults increasingly rethink their denominational ties.
The stout self-confidence of this neo-orthodoxy could yield a band of staunch believers who sadly become increasingly fewer in number and less engaged in the society in which they are supposed to be a leaven.
For perspective, take a look at another op-ed on the forthcoming Eucharistic Congress in the diocese, with the introductory stat:
With only 25 percent to 30 percent of Roman Catholics on Long Island participating in the Eucharist on any given Sunday, it makes good sense for Bishop William Murphy to convene a Eucharistic Congress – two weeks of study, reflection and prayer centered on the sacrament that is at the heart of the Christian life.
So if this is he fruit of the catechesis and leadership produced in the era of the graduates of all of those "empowered, theologically aware" pastoral ministers…perhaps it did need an overhaul?
(What’s interesting, too is that one of Ginnetty’s examples was the kerfuffle over the replacement of three religious sisters in campus ministry…replaced by laity – as in non-religious – , he fails to mention.)
I wouldn’t doubt that the changes in Rockville Centre have been handled ham-handedly. I don’t know, but I wouldn’t doubt it. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of such a transistion that wasn’t problematic and the source of pain. It’s too bad. But who knows what the stories have been? Who knows what discussions took place, what requests have been made of personnel and programs, requests that were perhaps publicly ignored and privately derided?
Who knows. This, however, is what I do know. Ginnetty and others currently ranting, raving and fussing about decisions like this might want to re-examing their paradigm, as we say. Lay ministry isn’t going anywhere. There aren’t enough priests around to do all the work, and most priests have a healthy understanding of the sense of lay ministry in the church and the need. But, forty years on, there’s another need:
1) To re-evaluate these lay ministry formation programs to see if what they are teaching is consistent with the Church’s teaching.
I heard a story about one diocesan training program in which it was reported to the bishop the day after Ratzinger’s election as pope, every one of the instructors in that program expressed distress and worse at his election. And I’m funding this…why? that bishop wondered. And took care of it.
2) A rethinking of lay ministry – appreciating and justly compensating those who sacrifice much to engage in it (been there), but continually re-affirming the central lay apostolate – in the world. Ginnerty frets about this:
There’s also a danger that the diocese is subtly reframing the lay apostolate as something largely confined to service within one’s family and secular profession and non-leadership church roles, with more substantive policy matters left to the professional clergy who jealously guard their distinctive role from being somehow watered down by collaboration in ministry with the non-ordained.
What a negative vision of what 99.9% of the non-ordained are about! As something "confined" and lesser. Every single lay person has just as many, if not more opportunities for evangelization and faith-sharing during the course of our day than any priest. This is something evangelicals get, and Catholics, I think, used to get. The great irony of the post-Vatican II era, the era which was supposed to unleash the power of the laity in the world, was that somehow the word got spread that the height of the Christian life was to either stand in a sanctuary or sit in a meeting room. A great irony – a tragic irony.
I’m not denying that clericalism exists. It does. I’ve worked in the church. My impression though, is that the most virulent and damaging clericalism has similar to toxic leadership in other organizations – position + stupid people. In other words, the smart clerics aren’t infected with paralyzing levels of arrogant clericalism. The stupid ones are. And they’d be a pill no matter where they ended up in life. Nor is clericalism the only disease to infect church leadership. Since they’re not ordained, I suppose we can’t call it clericalism – we’ll call it ecclesialism. Or something. Anyone who has worked in the Church can tell you about the non-ordained – religious women, religious men and the non-vowed, non-ordained like most of us – can tell you stories. Oh, we can tell you stories about viciousness, abrupt dismissals, backbiting, closed-mindedness and, ahem, the most dreadful sin of all – a "narrow vision" – all emanating from offices where an cleric hasn’t been seen in months.
Here’s what I challenge writers like Ginnetty and Gallardetz to do: show me the money. Give me evidence. Do you think that in the JP2/Benedict/Bishop Finn/Chaput Church that the laity are being oppressed and demeaned, marginalized to pay, pray and obey once again? Prove it. Look at those dioceses and crunch some numbers and tell me if the ordained are in charge of everything, if laity are silenced. Survey the most active Catholic apostolates, movements and ministries – do web site statistics. Survey who’s out there speaking to Catholic audiences, who’s writing Catholic books and articles. Look at the biggest, most active Catholic groups out there, who they’re ministering to, and who’s doing the ministering.
I thought so.
No, the unspoken "problem" is not the laity are fading into the sunset.
It’s the right kind of laity are losing their grip.
Sniff.
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