Fears about lay ministry 'just gab' expert says

National Catholic Reporter, Jan 23, 1998 by John L. Allen, Jr.

It's the ultimate fear about lay ministry, lurking in the background of debates over giving lay ministers official titles, creating public ceremonies for them, even paying them more.

The fear is this: If the church stresses lay ministry, will it hurt vocations to the priesthood? Will men be less inclined to seek ordination because they can have a career in the church as lay ministers? Will people in parishes be less inclined to push for vocations, since many of their pastoral needs are being met in other ways? Will the priesthood seem less appealing because it's less separate, less prestigious, less special?

This fear found expression in the recent instruction from Rome on lay ministry, which said in its preface: "Amongst other things, it [`abuses' in lay ministry I can encourage a reduction in vocations..." Though the document didn't explain how this might happen, its thrust was unmistakable -- there's an inverse relationship between formalizing lay ministry and attracting new priests. The more you do the former, the argument goes, the less you get of the latter.

Such theoretical worries take on special urgency in light of trends on the ground. In 1986, there were 8,090 men studying for the priesthood in the United States and Canada; in 1996, that number was 5,464. Given this reality, many believe anything that diminishes the special character of the priesthood -- which makes it seem like merely one ministry among others -- could make things even worse.

So that's the fear. Is it justified?

"Right now, it's just gab," said Msgr. Philip Murnion, head of the National Pastoral Life Center and a consultant to the U.S. bishops' ecclesial lay ministry subcommittee.

"Nobody has any hard data," Murnion said. "I'm not even aware of anybody who has compared the two sets of numbers [lay ministers and candidates for the priesthood] to see if there's any kind of correlation. We just don't know -- all we have are anecdotal accounts.

Anecdotes may be all that's available, but they can be powerful in forming impressions. Probably the most widely talked about in recent months was Charles Morris' comparison of the dioceses of Lincoln, Neb., and Saginaw, Mich., published in June in Commonweal and also as part of his 1997 book, American Catholic. Morris contrasted Lincoln -- a conservative diocese with an exalted view of the priesthood, where vocations are flourishing -- with Saginaw, which has a dynamic approach to lay ministry but struggles to fill seminary spots.

Though Morris stressed that unique local factors account for much of the vocations boom in Lincoln, many readers nevertheless took him to mean that when a diocese emphasizes lay collaboration, it may do so at the expense of recruiting new priests. Morris' article, according to one church official, underscored the reservations that some bishops and priests were already feeling about the present surge in lay ministry.

But fears are different from facts, and in the latter category, not much is known. There is one potentially relevant comparison: the diaconate.

Paul VI restored the permanent diaconate -- allowing men to become deacons permanently, without going on to the priesthood -- in 1967. At the time, some inside the church voiced worries that with the diaconate as an option, some men would be deterred from becoming priests.

"I'm not aware of any impact the diaconate has had on the priesthood " Murnion said. "One might suppose thai it would lead a certain percentage of men to think, `I can be both ordained and married,'" Murnion said. "But no study that I know of supports the notion that it's reduced the number of priests."

Tom Welch, executive director of the National Association of Permanent Diaconate Directors in Chicago, said, "I've heard of guys who had looked at the priesthood earlier in life, maybe who had entered the seminary at some point, and then five or 10 years later opted to become a deacon. But it's not a direct relationship."

Welch acknowledged that "when one ministry grows, it affects the others." But "there's nothing out there to suggest it's hurt priestly vocations," he said. At present, more than 11,000 deacons serve the church in the United States.

Even in the absence of empirical data on the impact of lay ministry, some observers contend that Vatican reluctance to expand the boundaries of eligibility for the priesthood goes much farther toward explaining the difficulty in attracting new priests.

"The main barriers to increasing the ordained are the constraints of celibacy and male exclusivity," said Barbara Fleischer, head of the Institute for Ministry at Loyola University in New Orleans, the country's largest training program for lay ministers. "In comparison, nourishing lay ministry is a non-factor," she said.

Holy Names Sr. Louise Bond, head of the National Association for Lay Ministry, argued that international experience suggests one can have lots of lay ministry and still pack seminaries. "Where I worked in Africa, we had missions that had Mass twice a year and the rest of the time they were served,by laity," she said. "But vocations there are still flourishing."