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Friday, June 3, 2016

GREAT ARTICLE BY CRUX ON REAL CLERICALISM. HINT: IT AIN'T ABOUT PRIESTS WEARING CASSOCKS LIKE THE SILLY NATIONAL CHISMATIC REPORTER WOULD HAVE YOU BELIEVE BASED ON THEIR SILLY IDEOLOGIES!

My comments in red within Crux text:

It’s time to consign clericalism to the past, where it belongs

By Jack Valero  [Jack Valero is co-founder of Catholic Voices and Press Officer for Opus Dei in the UK.]

Special to Crux June 3, 2016

A new front Pope Francis has opened in his bid to reform the Catholic Church may prove one of his toughest challenges yet. But it is also, unquestionably, one of the most important.

“I remember now the famous expression, ‘It is the hour of the laity’,” he said in a recent letter to the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, “but it seems that the clock has stopped.”

A resurgence of clericalism, he warned, is stifling the possibility of lay people taking up their proper role in the Church – one of the key insights of the Second Vatican Council. (Which is in the world, the public square, politics and lobbying efforts on behalf of the Church's worldview--something that Catholic politicians have relinquished altogether but want to be seen receiving and distributing Holy Communion and lectoring at Mass and lecturing the hierarchy and laity).

This isn’t a side issue for Francis; unless lay people assume responsibility for mission and evangelization, he says in the letter, “the prophetic fire that the Church is called to light in the hearts of her peoples will be extinguished.”

In other words, the very purpose of the Church will be undermined unless it allows lay people to fulfill their vocation.

“Clericalism” is a term originally used in political circles in the nineteenth century to refer to what liberals saw as the overweening and interfering power of the Church in political life. But in more recent times, it has been used to describe an attitude that identifies the Church with the hierarchy.
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Clericalism is a mindset that leads both to an undue widening of the role of the clergy to the detriment of the legitimate rights of lay people, and to lay people aping the customs and actions of priests. The first denies the majority of Christians their responsibility for evangelization; the second colludes in that disempowerment. (This one paragraph hits the ball out of the park and says it all!!!!! It's not about priests wearing cassocks, chomping on cigars and enjoying a steak and Scotch!)


Back in 2011, as Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio said in an interview to the Argentinian agency AICA that “we priests tend to clericalise lay people. And the lay people – not all of them, but many – ask us on their knees to clericalise them, because it’s easier to be an altar server than a protagonist in a lay vocation.” (Thank God for Pope Francis at this particular juncture of salvation history!)

In his letter to Cardinal Marc Ouellet, president of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, Francis warned that “clericalism does not just negate the personality of Christians, but has a tendency to diminish and devalue the baptismal grace that the Holy Spirit put in the hearts of our people.”

The pope added: “Clericalism leads to seeing lay people in a functional way, treating them as servants, and cutting out their initiative, efforts, and even the necessary boldness to take the Good News of the Gospel to all environments of social and especially political life.” (Think of the great lay movements that avoid instutional churchyness and go to the public square and make a difference, the Catholic Worker's Movement, Opus Dei, The NeoCathecumenal Way, and a whole host of others.)

He came back to the theme during an audience on May 12 with women religious. His speech was eclipsed by reports of his decision to study the role of women deacons in the early Church, but some of the most interesting parts of that speech were against clericalism. He told the nuns it was “a danger, a very strong temptation,” and added: “Lay people don’t know what to do without asking a priest, and for this reason an awareness of the role of the laity has been very delayed.”

Then, in an interview with La Croix on May 9, he reflected on how lay people can and should be at the center of the Church’s work of evangelisation, citing the example of Korea.

“That country was evangelized by missionaries from China who later left,” said Francis. “Then, for two hundred years, Korea was evangelized by lay people … So there is not necessarily a need for priests in order to evangelize. Baptism provides the strength to evangelize.” (Amen to that--think of home schoolers in the Catholic Church!!!!)


Before the Second Vatican Council, it was common to think of the Church as made up of bishops (successors to the apostles), priests (ordained ministers), consecrated religious (who took public vows) and laity, who were seen as non-ordained and non-consecrated — in other words, as “none of the above.”

Vatican II turned this around. Its key document on the Church, Lumen Gentium, describes the Church as made up of Christ’s Faithful. This includes the laity, whose specific mission consists in bringing the secular world to God, and the clergy, who are to help the lay people achieve their mission.

In other words, lay people evangelize with a direct mission from God, which is theirs by right, not as a mandate from the hierarchy.

Last November, on the 50th anniversary of the document on lay people, Apostolicam Actuositatem, promulgated in 1965 at the end of the Council, the pope observed how Vatican II did not see the laity as members of a ‘second order’ at the service of the hierarchy but as disciples of Christ. (This is what is so important about Vatican II, but one must keep in mind that prior to Vatican II lay Catholics witnessed to their faith in many discreet ways, but in the USA we were in a religious culture, Protestant one, but religious nonetheless and Catholics defended their faith in the world and did not throw the towel in.)

Laity are called, Francis said, “to animate every environment, every activity, every human relation according to the spirit of the Gospel, bringing light, hope, and the charity received from Christ to those places that otherwise would remain foreign to God’s action and abandoned to the misery of the human condition.”

He added: “No one better than they can carry out the essential task of inscribing the divine law in the life of the earthly city.” (BINGO!)

What might it look like, this vision of the laity taking their proper place?

Some think it’s about lay people – both men, and even more importantly, women – having power in the Church, and taking on more ministries. Yet it is precisely this that Pope Francis calls clericalism. (Yes, yes, yes, this is the kool aide that was poured down our throats for the past 50 years, this mentality, this power grabbing, this making the laity into priests and priests into the laity!)

“In Buenos Aires,” he said at the recent meeting of women religious, “I had this experience: a good priest came to me and said, ‘I have a very good layperson in my parish: he does this and that, he knows how to organise things, he gets things done. … Shall we make him a deacon?’ Or rather: shall we ‘clericalise’ him?”

Francis said he emphatically rejected that idea.

‘No! Let him remain a layperson. Don’t make him a deacon.’ This is important. It often happens to you that clericalism obstructs the correct development of something.”

For Pope Francis, the “hour of the laity” is all about the public activity of lay people, not the internal functioning of the Church. (Yes, Yes, Yes!!!!! It is about the public, secular square and the difference Catholic laity make there!!!!!!! in the work place, in politics, in social movements and the like. Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden could have made a huge difference, but didn't. They don't follow Vatican II one IOTA!)


He warns in the letter to the Latin American bishops against “the temptation of thinking that the committed layman is one who works in the tasks of the Church and/or in the things of the parish or of the diocese, and we have reflected little on how to accompany a baptized person in his public and daily life.”

As result, “we have generated a lay elite, believing that only they are committed laymen who work in the things ‘of the priests,’ and we have forgotten, neglected the believer who often burns his hope in the daily struggle to live the faith. These are the situations that clericalism cannot see, as it is more concerned to dominate areas more than to generate processes.” (Tell it like it is! MORE, please!)


Public life is not just about politics but all the areas of human activity — the family, the workplace, shops and restaurants, leisure and the arts. It is the specific role of lay people to sanctify each and every environment of the world. (YES, YES, YES! WOW! WOW! WOW!)

It means lay people getting together and starting projects for the good of both Church and society, projects distinguished by their liberty yet their loyalty, blessed by the bishops as fruits of apostolic activity, but not controlled by them.

One such initiative is Catholic Voices, a project I co-founded in 2010 that trains lay people of all ages and occupations to tell the Church’s story in the news as well as in talks and in our everyday conversations in ordinary life.

This is what the “hour of the laity” will really look like when it finally comes: lay people who are so well prepared, both in their chosen profession or job and in their knowledge of the doctrines and history of the Church, that they can build the new earthly city placing Christ at the centre of all human activities.

It means politicians working for the common good, not for particular interests, doctors who nurture life from conception to natural death, lawyers who are at the service of justice and human rights, journalists who tell truth to power using ethical means, financiers who are motivated by human flourishing in the workplace.

It means ordinary Catholics who offer up their work to God, whatever it is, and who give their lives in love to those around them.

We need more priests. But we need many more committed, awakened laypeople, not as a remedy for a lack of priestly vocations, but so that lay people at last take their proper role.

When that comes – when the ‘Hour of the Laity’ finally strikes – it will mean the prophetic fire has been lit, consigning clericalism to the past where it should belong.

My final comments: Thank you Jack Valero! You interpret Pope Francis correctly. You interpret Vatican II correctly and you along with Pope Francis make the right diagnosis about what is wrong with the Post Vatican II Church which has not implemented Vatican II properly in anything, from priestly and religious life to the laity's daily life to the liturgy and all things Catholic!


6 comments:

Anonymous said...

All well and good, but these super lay persons will need to be nourished by a liturgy that is prayed with due reverence and splendor. It is the source and summit, font and apex of ALL for the Church.
Saint Michael the Archangel defend us in battle....

Mark Thomas said...

Father McDonald said..."the Post Vatican II Church which has not implemented Vatican II properly in anything, from priestly and religious life to the laity's daily life to the liturgy and all things Catholic!"

Father, the Council ended in 1965 A.D. From that time to date, time and again, I have heard our Popes and bishops insist that they, in one manner after another, have implemented Vatican II properly.

They have insisted that in every manner of Church life, from liturgy to ecumenism, from church "renovations" to the reform of religious life, that they have implemented Vatican II properly. That is true in particular in regard to liturgy

Example: From the Pope Saint John Paul II's 1987 A.D. APOSTOLIC LETTER VICESIMUS QUINTUS ANNUS ON THE 25TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE PROMULGATION OF THE CONCILIAR CONSTITUTION “SACROSANCTUM CONCILIUM” ON THE SACRED LITURGY:

"The reform of the rites and the liturgical books was undertaken immediately after the promulgation of the Constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium and was brought to an effective conclusion in a few years thanks to the considerable and selfless work of a large number of experts and bishops from all parts of the world.

"This work was undertaken in accordance with the conciliar principles of fidelity to tradition and openness to legitimate development; and so it is possible to say that the reform of the Liturgy is strictly traditional and in accordance with “the ancient usage of the holy Fathers".

"This should not lead anyone to forget that the vast majority of the pastors and the Christian people have accepted the liturgical reform in a spirit of obedience and indeed joyful fervor.

"These are all reasons for holding fast to the teaching of the Constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium and to the reforms which it has made possible: “the liturgical renewal is the most visible fruit of the whole work of the Council”.

"For many people the message of the Second Vatican Council has been experienced principally through the liturgical reform."
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Perhaps the problem is that Vatican II has been implemented properly and..well...we know the condition of the Church.

Pax.

Mark Thomas

Rood Screen said...

How does one implement an inherent contradiction? The only way SC (and other VCII documents) make any sense to me is if such documents are read in careful continuity with Trent. Standing alone, however, VCII documents are a violation of the Principal of Non-Contradiction.

Tony V said...


Before the Second Vatican Council, it was common to think of the Church as made up of bishops,...priests,...consecrated religious,... and laity, who were seen as non-ordained and non-consecrated — in other words, as “none of the above.” Vatican II turned this around. Its key document on the Church, Lumen Gentium, describes the Church as made up of Christ’s Faithful.

Personally, I'm sick and tired of 50 years of unadulterated praise for Vatican II. This, in fact, is what Lumen Gentium actually says about the laity:

"The laity should, as all Christians, promptly accept in Christian obedience decisions of their spiritual shepherds, since they are representatives of Christ as well as teachers and rulers in the Church."

That's it, folks. Prompt obedience.

As for JPII and the liturgy: it's clear he never really "got it" when it came to the liturgy. In Quattuor Abhinc Annos, he wrote that "the problem of priests and faithful holding to the so-called 'Tridentine' rite was almost completely solved"--a "problem", he called it, and one that was nearly disposed of. But to be fair, I suppose when you have to deal with Communist persecution, debating liturgical minutiae is a luxury you can't afford.

Rood Screen said...

Tony V,

Like Pope Francis, JPII did not grow up attending Mass celebrated in the usual manner of today. Both were ordained before the reformed missal was issued, and rarely experienced its near universal abuse. As the pervert priest crisis showed us, if the shepherds do not listen carefully to the experience of the victims, then these shepherds will not understand the true nature of the problem.

It will take a new generation, having no familiarity with--but deeply desiring--liturgical reverence, to restore the piety of the Roman liturgical tradition, and put an end to liturgical abuse.

TJM said...

Vatican II = Vatican Disaster II, nuff said.