The Laity – A Good Idea at the Time?

One of the greatest treasures of Vatican II is its rather breathtaking vision and re-discovery of the Church as the People of God and of how it presents itself to the modern world. Its documents illustrate graphically the richness of an ancient Tradition struggling, sometimes awkwardly, to re-examine, re-assess, articulate and express itself in terms better understood to people of the 20^th Century. 

The tensions between at least two major theologies of Christ and the Church came to the surface in the often heated debates between the twitchy self-interests of the Roman Curia and the vast majority of pastoral Bishops who had real people on their minds. The conflict began from the very start of the Council and it has not ceased even to this day. An important reason for this is that the Documents of Vat II represent compromises and will therefore always invite further clarification and discussion. Precisely because the Church is a living Person, there will probably never be an end to interpretation, discovery and surprise (See, The New Evangelization, v2 blog 08/12/11).

A crucial and pertinent example of conflicting ecclesiologies, their interpretations and applications then and now, is the role of the Laity in the Catholic Church. Central to this tension was the struggle the Council had with the contending philosophical and theological categories available at the time. On the one hand, a dominant pre-Vat II ecclesiology was essentially Augustinian, depicting the Church as the spotless City of God standing over against the antithetical City of Sin and Godlessness.

Alternatively, another theology was emerging from a renewed understanding of the Incarnation, God’s reckless self-investment in humanity; that God so loved the World that he gave his only Son… This represents the fuller and more hopeful account of a world cherished, redeemed, made holy and a Church founded on Gospel values of discipleship and service common to all in the Kingdom without prejudice.

In the first view, the call of the Laity is to immerse themselves in the secular and sanctify it from the inside out while maintaining their state of baptismal sinlessness alongside a clerical caste set apart by hieratic order and ecclesiastical privilege. For the laity this often meant an elevated sense of distance and baptismal schizophrenia.

But by reason of their special vocation it belongs to the laity to seek the Kingdom of God by engaging in temporal affairs and directing them according to God’s will. They live in the world, that is, they are engaged in each and every work and business of the earth and in the ordinary circumstances of social and family life which, as it were, constitute their very existence. They are called by God that, being led by the spirit to the Gospel they may contribute to the sanctification of the world, as from within like leaven, by fulfilling their own particular duties. …  - Lumen Gentium, 31.

In Christifideles Laici (CL), JP II provides his own commentary on this by reaffirming a more traditional and predictable pre-Council teaching which is reflected in the above citation (CL, 15). He makes it perfectly clear that within this ecclesiastical vision, there is a formally revealed and foundational difference between the anointed and vowed and the common laity,

In turn, the ministerial priesthood represents in different times and places, the permanent guarantee of the sacramental presence of Christ, the Redeemer. The religious state bears witness to the eschatological character of the Church, that is, the straining towards the Kingdom of God that is prefigured and in some way anticipated and experienced even now through the vows of chastity, poverty and obedience. – CL, 55.

Plainly, the distinction between the clerical and consecrated domain and the secular world of the laity has been vigorously promoted in the post JP II era and it is undoubtedly regressive. A common dismissive mantra of the Restorationists is that the dissenters and Gaudium et Spes generation Catholics invoke an invention, namely, the ‘Spirit of Vatican II,’ to laicize the clergy and clericalize the laity. A few very conservative, self-loathing laypeople are clearly doing their masters’ bidding in giving the propaganda a free run. Curial managers are often by proxy sending a strong signal that the ‘softening up’ has begun and that strategies are in place to severely restrict, control, monitor the laity and to keep them in their place. 
http://www.ignatiusinsight.com/features2006/colson_rolelaity1_oct06.asp

It is clear that Benedict’s programme of interpreting Vat II through the lens of The Hermeneutic of Continuity is leading to an accelerated roll back of lay involvement in liturgy and in higher offices of Church life. The gates of the sanctuary are slowly but surely closing to non-clerics especially women. The ‘gated sanctuary’ is a powerful metaphor for something even more ominous:  the likelihood of any substantive lay voice at the top echelons of Church council being silenced and leadership being increasingly denied.

 We are seeing, after fifty years, a terrible retreat from the great vision and legacy of the Council which mightily affirmed and encouraged the mission of the Laity, that 99% of the People of God.  We are witnessing, on an increasing scale, the rapid marginalisation of the Laity along with a regressive and comfortably nostalgic re-establishment of idolatry, the clericalist sub-culture. This does not build up the Church nor does it honour or recognise the countless thousands of bishops, priests and religious who have welcomed their lay sisters and brothers and embraced them as essential co-workers in the Gospel.

 At a dreadful cost, would a privileged and sheltered elite promote this narrow ecclesiology as an end in itself and not as a servant in building up the Kingdom of God.

David Timbs blogs from Melbourne, Australia