Laity in chains: a book review

Catholic New Times, Nov 16, 2003 by Wayne A. Holst

The Liberation of the Laity.. In Search of an Accountable Church, by Paul Lakeland. Continuum Press.. New York, NY. 2003.

Paul Lakeland, lay theologian, professor and chair of religious studies at Jesuit Fairfield University in Connecticut, is convinced that what the church teaches and what the laity are forced to live today are a contradiction in terms.

While the church proclaims that the vocation of lay people is human freedom in the gospel, their lived predicament is that they are in chains. Lakeland declares that, for the most part, Catholic laity do not recognize their oppressed condition and would deny that it is so. Centuries of theological and structural brainwashing have conditioned them to actually embrace this degraded state.

Because the laity are oppressed, he continues, the whole church is itself oppressed. The limits placed on the laity by a confining ecclesiastic ideology, exercised by those in positions of authority, restrict the freedom of the entire faith community.

Leaders are perhaps the most oppressed of all. It is hardest for those at the highest levels to "think outside the box" because they-are too much invested in the status quo.

The priest scandal that has rocked the American church and created a leadership crisis there may prove to be a blessing in disguise.

If the true oppression that confines everyone is to be overcome, says Lakeland, the voice of the laity is essential and it cannot always be polite. Lay people must rise up to rescue the church.

At stake is its future, and not just lay freedom.

"We all live together in a faith community that is dysfunctional in some important respects and needs significant structural change. These changes come best from below. But this can happen only when the laity find it possible to name their own oppression."

Large numbers consider the time is right for the ordination of married men and women to the priesthood, he says. Many believe that homosexual Christians should not be expected to lead celibate lives.

The church's teaching on "artificial" contraception has become a non-issue.

What the people want is sound biblical preaching, help in living holy lives in the midst of the world's challenges, and leadership that recognizes the practical priorities of Christians today.

"What we have is an episcopate of men selected more for their commitment to the party line about contraception, ordination and homosexuality; more for their administrative capabilities than for their stature as spiritual leaders."

Often, bright, frequently personally holy, usually extremely hard-working, heads of major sees exist to block change and to shore up the present system.

There has been no clearer evidence of a leadership crisis than the appallingly poor response from Rome and the American bishops to the problem of priestly pedophilia. It highlights an ecclesial structural weakness, with ramifications going far beyond this single issue.

For remedial change to occur, cooperation by the laity, priests, bishops, and the Vatican itself is needed.

Lakeland writes as a prophetic messenger. He writes of how we have arrived at our current predicament and where we can go from here. The laity fared better during early church times and he traces the subsequent deterioration.

Yves Congar, the great French theologian resurrected by John XXIII during Vatican II, is presented as a pivotal advocate for lay-recovery. That council's focus on the church as the People of God, with rights to collegiality and co-responsibility with their bishops, is creatively probed. The current pope's restorationist efforts are candidly described.

The secular world is portrayed as the place where a lay-led mission is needed. The ordained exist to equip and support those not ordained.

He also envisions what a new, accountable church could be like. Neither the gender or the married status of the bishop would be significant. There would be bishops, but cardinals and the entire Roman Curia and the Vatican city-state and the Vatican diplomatic service are expendable.

Celibacy must not be mandatory. There may be a qualitative difference, but a greater closeness exists between "lay" and "clerical" ministry than might formerly have been recognized.

The needed twenty-first century reformation of the Catholic church must differ considerably from that of the sixteenth.

It will likely be initiated from within. It portends the possibility of being significantly lay-led. Now is the time to revisit the wisdom of first-century Christians, imbued with the Spirit, and too young in the faith to be hidebound by custom.

Wayne A. Holst, a former Lutheran pastor, has taught religion and culture at the University of Calgary.